“Who is it?”
Opening the door Maggie responded,
“Professor Quagmire, it’s me and I’ve brought you a guest. A woman.”
Lynda noted the emphasis on ‘a woman’. It made her feel like she might be offered up as a sacrificial lamb.
As they entered the room, Lynda gasped. A pack rat would have been proud of the clutter. Reams of papers were stacked from floor to ceiling. Numerous piles were in danger of falling over, doing their best impression of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. A Laptop was precariously balanced on a stack of books that almost entirely filled the small desk.
She was also surprised to see that the Professor was not of the stereotype vintage. He was a young man perhaps thirty. Like so many others in this institution, his hair was disheveled and in bad need of a pair of scissors. However, unlike the others he was clad in slacks and albeit rumpled, a clean white shirt. Upon seeing Lynda, he instinctively reached up and straightened his tie except he was not wearing one.
He was awkwardly hiding some secret papers behind his back. Nurse Maggie stayed at the door and Lynda boldly marched up to him with a greeting outstretched hand. To the Professor this was not a friendly greeting at all. He cowered and hid his right hand under his left armpit. The Nurse smiled and explained,
“The Professor does not shake hands.”
Then, looking to the Professor, Maggie said,
“She is here to ask you some questions. You be a good lad and respond in ways we can all understand.”
Lynda was suddenly afraid that Maggie was going to leave her alone with the nutty professor. She sighed aloud when Maggie stepped forward and gently but firmly took the man by the arm. Looking straight into crazed eyes, she used a patronizing tone,
“There, there Professor, you don’t have to hide anything from her. She does not understand a thing about your secret notes. Now you just put your work away and talk to her like a nice lad.”
In an attempt to hide the notes he was holding, he immediately shuffled them under some others on the desk. Pleased that Lynda was not a spy, and to prove that he was hospitable, he took other papers from another pile and offered them to her. She was wise enough to take them and say thank you. She also noticed that the pages were blank.
Nurse Maggie stayed with her soft tone,
“Why don’t you tell the nice lady a little bit about yourself so she’ll have an idea who she is talking to?”
After brushing back his Einstein mop of hair, he placed both hands at his side. As he spoke, Lynda imagined a small shy boy standing in front of his class reciting what he had done during the summer holidays.
“My name is Theodore Quagmire. I’m a Professor you know.”
Although he seemed young of body, his voice was from the throat of a very old man.
“I was the youngest Head of the Astrophysical and Cosmology Department at the University of New England and once held a Chair as a Theoretical Physics Professor at the Michigan Institute of Technology, that’s MIT, you know.”
Lynda almost whistled in astonishment. She said,
“Well, I’m certainly impressed. That’s a real mouthful there isn’t it.”
Struggling to regain an air of dignity long lost to a fragmented mind, he looked quizzically at Maggie. He then opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. Maggie understood his conundrum and said,
“No Professor, there is nothing in your mouth. The nice lady meant that you must be very smart to have that many titles.”
The compliment encouraged the proud Professor to continue with his biography.
“Did you know that the study of the universe is divided into two basic theories? There is the theory of Relativity proposed some time ago by somebody. Then there are Quantum theories. They are the study of things very small but still relative to the vastness of the universe. I am convinced that the Grand Unified theory, the one incorporating both aspects of big and small as well as the theory of gravity is correlative to the theories of time relativity, or absolute time.”
He suddenly went from standing tall and boasting to a collapsed figure, slouching and turning his head to the floor. He sadly added,
“Everybody thinks I’m crazy though.”
Lynda was either too lost in trying to understand him or simply stunned at the futility of it all. Agape she turned to Maggie and asked,
“What the hell is he talking about?”
“Well that’s why he’s here isn’t it. Nobody knows what the hell he is talking about. That is why all these brilliant people are here isn’t it, for their own protection. This is where we look after them.”
Looking to the Professor, Maggie said,
“He likes to cloud the issues now and then with answers that I’m sure not even he understands.”
She then looked to the Professor and said,
“Just keep things simple for the nice lady. If you are a good boy, I will make sure you get two jelly-filled donuts for desert. You would like that now wouldn’t you?”
He wildly nodded his approval.
Turning back to Lynda, she said,
“He so likes his jelly donuts.”
Much to Lynda’s chagrin, Maggie then turned and left the room but did not close the door. At first, Lynda saw it as a mistake. He might bolt out the door. However, it quickly came to her that the open door might be for her benefit in case she wanted to make a run for it. After a rather uneasy gulp, she turned back to the preposterous Professor. She was at a loss where to start. So far, every plan she made and every contingency she had prepared for now belonged in this institution. Nothing was as she thought it was going to be.
There was one thing she did want and that was control of this situation. She wanted the upper hand and for that reason said in a polite as possible tone,
“Please Professor, sit down.”
With eyes still glued to his visitor, he bent over and sat in a chair that was not there. As he tumbled backwards his hand swept across the desk and reams of papers shot through the air. Because he was embarrassed, he was quickly to his feet and standing as nonchalantly as possible, like nothing had happened. A sheepish grin was plastered across his face. Understanding her poor choice of words she pointed to the chair and said,
“No, I meant sit in that chair there.”
He looked and saw where she was pointing. Suddenly grasping the correct situation, he nodded and awkwardly sat. Defensively he said,
“You should have mentioned that first.”
Thanks to his errant hand scattering notes and files off the desk, a spot was unintentionally cleared. She took advantage of it and sat on the clearing. While getting as comfortable as possible, she studied this curious Professor Quagmire. She knows men well enough not to come across as intimidating or powerful in the personality department. It was a painful realization learned the hard way during her tenure as a Medical Officer in the Air Force of a country that now seemed far removed in a lost land of mythology. She understood that men needed to feel comfortable speaking to women.
Clearly, the Professor was not comfortable around strangers. He could not look at her for more than a fleeting glance. When there was accidental eye contact, he quickly turned away. There was constant fingering of the files and papers on his desk and more than once he found something of interest on the sheets and started reading it, forgetting that he had company.
Finally, after watching him fidget and fumble with his hair and the papers she asked,
“Do you mind if I get right to the point Professor, the reason I am here?”
Rather than answer he looked at his shoes and nodded. She said,
“I think it is going to be a story that might interest you. I have been given a list of questions to ask pertaining to a mystery concerning anti-matter. I understand that you are the leading authority on such things, is that not so?”
Because he did not answer right away, she got the impression that some other question or profound enigma had distracted him.
He suddenly sta
bbed a finger at her and bright eyes indicated that a revelation was about to be revealed.
“Yes,” he said, “I am also a Theoretical Astrophysicist. I was employed by somebody once to consider things pertaining to Dimensional Time hypothesis and theorems. Yes, I remember that. Some of those theorems are relative to matter anti-matter.”
Then, as if it were an afterthought, he dropped his smile and continued his nostalgia.
“I also remember many sessions concerning hypodermic needles. That’s strange isn’t it? I mean those two are definitely not related are they.”
In a sad state she whispered,
“No, they most certainly are not.”
Another concern slammed into her. He claimed to be an authority on just about all the sciences. As far as she was concerned, he was an authority on too many disciplines. She wondered how much of what he was claiming was true and how much belonged to a lost mind.
Again, a blank look sailed across his eyes. Perhaps he was trying to figure out what the correlation between needles and anti-matter might be. She got the impression perhaps he was digging even deeper, trying to bring forward memories of a family, wife and child. Whatever the reason for his stumbling, she definitely got the impression there was once a family in this young man’s life. Certainly not now. She did not want to lose him and so in an effort to bring him back to reality she snapped,
“Good! Then at least we are getting somewhere.”
She proceeded to tell him what happened at Deep Lab 6, flying saucer and all.
When it was all said and done, he sat silent. She thought he was pondering what she had said. It was hard to tell because he simply sat there staring across the room at nothing. The only hint that something might be happening in his mind was the frown lines across his forehead. Then the furls calmed and made way for yet another blank expression. Twice she thought he was going to snap out of it and actually ask her something but something else must have come to mind and he went blank again.
A minute later, there was a response. He seemed proud to ask,
“What is your clearance level at Deep Lab 6?”
At least something was smoking under that mop of hair to make him want to ask questions however unrelated. She was at least glad of that. She pointed to the security pass dangling on her chain and said,
“At Deep Lab 6 I have been raised to Applejack One.”
She saw that he was unimpressed. He said,
“Impressive level of clearance for a mere Doctor.”
Deciding that this was not the place to have a pissing contest, she ignored the slight. Besides, who was the crazy one here? If it was his intention to divert the questions to a confrontational front, it did not work.
Feeling that the conversation was digressing she brought it back to purpose.
“I’m sure you’re aware Professor that this clearance means you and I are free to discuss any and all matters pertaining to the work at Deep Lab 6. Please do not let my lowly Medical Degree deter you from answering my questions.”
Like a little boy reprimanded by an irate parent, he pouted, lowered his head and muttered something she had difficulty understanding. In a low apologetic voice he eventually said
“I just wanted to ask questions, that’s all. I wanted to get a better idea of who you are.”
She slipped off the desk, pulled up a chair and sat across from him. She could not help but notice their knees almost touched. Gently taking his clenched hands into hers, she prepared to ask him what he wanted to know about the lab. Before she could get the words out however he violently snapped his hands out of hers and hid them under his armpits.
She also put her hands under her armpits and softly said,
“What was it you wanted to know about Deep Lab 6?”
There was a pause. He seemed to be searching empty memory banks. Slowly the printer scrolled out the words,
“I just want to know who built the flying saucer, us or them.”
This greatly surprised her. She asked the same question when first seeing it. She wanted to say, ‘theirs,’ but suddenly saw this as a chance to get information out of him. She asked,
“How on earth do you suppose we could build something like that?”
He beamed a knowing grin and with a proud boyish tone said,
“There are some labs that retro-engineer alien technology. Some years ago, they found one half embedded in the ocean floor. They spent years attempting to take it apart piece by piece and study each component. It is not out of line to assume that they might have repaired it or at least duplicated it as best they could.”
He then locked eyes with hers and with a touch of surprising authority asked,
“So, I repeat my question, is it something they built or are they fiddling with a real one?”
There was only one answer and she voiced it.
“I’ve been told that it is an alien spaceship captured a couple of months ago. Why is it important to know where it is from?”
“Because if they retro-engineered it, it means they do not know what they are doing, that’s why. It means they are copying a technology, not creating it and that means they are not in control of that science.”
She conceded the point and admitted,
“I guess that might be one of the problems then.”
Wanting to keep him talking, she said,
“Well, just for now let’s assume that it is alien and something bad has happened. Why don’t you tell me what you think is making that hole in the floor and killing people.”
He asked,
“Did you at any time see them trying to make the ship disappear and appear again?”
That was the first thing she saw when standing on the elevator ramp with Whelan. When she nodded, he said,
“I think it’s an inter-dimensional ship that doesn’t belong in this world. I think your scientists are fiddling with a science they have no comprehension of.”
As she pondered the unbelievable, he wondered why she had tucked her hands under her armpits like that. He said,
“The answer to what is happening in your lab is outside the boundaries of what you think can be and cannot be. Something from another world has come here and is reacting conversely to our laws of physics. To understand what is happening in your lab, you have to reach over to the dimension it came from and get the answers there. There lies the paradox. How can you possibly reach across a barrier you do not even know exists?”
Seeing that she did not understand, he took pity and attempted to simplify it. He said,
“There was once a very religious man who asked something about how many angles can dance on the head of a pin. Do you understand the puzzling significance of the question?”
She hesitantly asked,
“It’s a puzzle?”
She just thought it was some theological question. Slowly she said,
“Well yea, I’ve heard it. I guess it is just a reference to how big or small one thinks the angels are. Or perhaps, do angels have human traits and indeed can they dance at all.”
He was quick to correct her.
“No, not at all. Such rudimentary reasoning proves my point. You are still trying to extrapolate a solution based on the current knowledge of sciences on this world. It means that angels are not of this world, that they are ethereal beings belonging to heaven and therefore not like us. That is to say, they are indistinct, having no physical substance. It is a trick question, a crossover question. You might as well ask how many pins it takes to poke an angel in the eye or can we in our present form dance in heaven. Heaven and earth are two different places and one cannot cross from one to the other without taking on the form of that world. We cannot dance in their dimension and they cannot dance in ours be it on a pin or a dance floor.”
Her nodding seemed to indicate a glimmer of comprehension. ‘Okay. That’s fine’ she thinks, ‘he is saying that intangibles cannot eternalize or become a solid. We are solid and therefore cannot live in the spiritual world of, well,
of heaven and conversely the spirits of heaven cannot live in our world. Moreover, somehow all this has something to do with a flying saucer. He seemed proud to add,
“What can cross the barriers you ask?”
Quagmire's Gate Page 17