by Peter Riva
Cramer smacked his hands on his knees, stood, and said, “Sometimes you miss the obvious. First, we get Aten and repeat everything you know, said, did,” he nodded his head at the recorder, “and second we go see Doc Todd. He’s a neurosurgeon and neurobiologist. He should be able to help.” He said all this while typing up a message to Aten on his sleeve. He called out “Hey Zip, can you come in here, please?”
Zip appeared, clearly he had been waiting in the corridor and looked up at Cramer. After a few seconds, he trotted off. Amazing, Cramer didn’t even have to vocalize to Zip now.
Within five minutes, Zip returned with Aten, who sat, clearly wondering why we were meeting in my room. Cramer explained he wanted this to be private, off vid. Bedrooms didn’t have open-access vids. Cramer looked at Zip, who plodded out into the corridor again.
The conversation went fine after Cramer finished angrily telling me off again to make sure Aten knew whose side he was really on. Being chastised actually helped Aten feel some sympathy for me since she knew Cramer was a foe to be reckoned with if and when he got angry. Seven years old or not, Cramer was still Cramer. I did note, however, that he neglected to tell Aten he pulled a weapon on me. I’d save that ammunition for later if he needed taking down a peg or two.
Aten agreed that Doc Todd was the logical next step. Zip was called in and Cramer scratched Zip’s ears. Zip left following the orange path.
So we left my quarters, walking along the green path toward the medical area. Doc Todd wasn’t in. His assistant, the lovely nurse Maryann, assured me that the other two experts under Doc Todd should be able to help, “with anything you need.” I looked at Cramer and he nodded, sharing my thought. I knew then where Zip was.
Todd came running, “Zip said I had to come here fast.”
“No real rush Doc,” I said, “but is there any way to turn off the vids in here?”
He told Maryann to do so, citing medical priority. I continued, “We need tons of information and Cramer and I need to help Aten make a decision, well a set of decisions really, based on your knowledge of neurobiology.”
He looked anxiously at each of our faces, “Who’s ill?”
It took a few moments to get him settled down. Once Maryann fetched the other two doctors who were in the hospital somewhere, Doctors Rajman and Sing, we started in, again.
When I had finished explaining Dr. Tully’s dark energy pathways, Apollo’s Vast Pattern theory, and how the Vast Pattern mimicked the brain, it was actually Dr. Sing who felt we were onto something. Todd explained that Dr. Sing’s specialty was neuro-microbiology, and she was studying the pathways of the brain and probably had better insight than either himself or Rajman. “And besides, Dr. Rajman is the expert of brain function and spinal nerve repair here. I’m the general neurosurgeon, and while each of our specialties overlaps, when it comes to this discussion, you want the specialist on the brain’s pathways, I suspect.” Todd was right.
I did need more brainpower on this problem, so I put a hand on Todd’s arm and said, “Doc, I need your whole team, everyone in the know, no matter who is the best expert, I need thinking, imagination, exploration, if we’re going to get through this.”
“Why, what’s at stake?”
“The life of everyone on board and, I suspect, life on Earth.” The medical staff seemed shocked. I understood, they had been peacefully traveling for over 100 years and here I was, recently awake, and I was rocking their very peaceful existence.
Aten spoke up, addressing the four of them, Maryann included, “You save lives by evaluating trauma and remedy, offsetting one against the other, planning your response. What Apollo has told us in a transmission has caused Simon here to leap to a possible situation that could develop,” I started to interrupt, “No, sorry, may have already started developing?” I nodded. “Okay, well, if he’s right and we do not find out how the so-called brain design that we’re dealing with operates or functions, we may never know what is in store for us and if we’re simply seen as a virus or intruder into a finite system.”
Todd spoke up, “Finite? You mean infinite don’t you?”
So I broke it all down for them—consider the parallel universes, disregard the infinite, and think of the Vast Pattern as a brain matrix with neural pathways, ganglia, impulses, plexuses and purpose, design. They looked shocked. Sing jumped up and walked around the room. Maryann started to say something about it being impossible and Sing waved her to silence. Sing was deep in thought and she needed silence.
We sat, she paced, we waited. After a few minutes, she reached a wall and spoke to the plastic shell wall without turning around, “You people really have no idea what you have started. I have a headache.” Looking pale, she turned to Maryann, “May I have some oxygen, please?” Maryann connected a nose mask to a wall outlet and turned it on as Sing took deep breaths. We waited.
When she was ready, she addressed us all, the nose mask making her sound as if she had a cold. “I need full schematics, this Dr. Tully’s charts, hologram. Can do?” I nodded, as did Aten. “Good, then I need both of you to work with me,” she was looking at her colleagues, and she then focused her attention on Aten, “and I will need full access to the memory banks and the computing power on board.” Aten nodded, smiled. “Oh, no, it’s not that simple, do you have any idea how complicated this is? We’re talking about my knowledge of about only ten to the tenth neurons and you are talking about many exponential magnitudes of that. You want my evaluation? This could take many lifetimes of study.”
It was my turn to be the party-pooper again, “I don’t think we have that long. I think we need to hide, as soon as possible before we are terminated.”
Everyone in the room started speaking at once, but it was Cramer who cut to the chase, “Keeping something from us again Bank?”
“No, Cramer, not really, I’m not sure, but it is logical. If we, traveling here in the Vast Pattern, are in a brain, if that brain’s protective systems …”
Rajman cut in, “That’s my area, I can study that!” Todd and Sing nodded away.
“Okay,” I continued, “If we’re traveling with all this energy in a brain, we’re leaving a signature that may trigger some sort of response because of the damage we may be doing …”
Rajman cut in again, “Yes, a counter impulse, or destruction of ganglia ahead of us or even destruction of target neurons to prevent infection—Yes, yes, infection, I understand …” he was getting excited.
“Doc Rajman, let’s slow down a little here,” I said asking for calm. “Okay, if, and I say if, we are visible to the Vast Pattern, if the Vast Pattern sees us as a threat, there should be, probably are, defensive systems in place. We need to evaluate as soon as possible how fast those systems can come into play. How large is the system we’re traveling in as it relates to our visibility. After all, we are so insignificant that I doubt we’re proportionately significant as even dark matter.”
Aten weighed in, “Oh yes we are at this speed, the radiation energy signature would be visible, even from Earth by radio telescope arrays.”
Doc Todd agreed, so did Cramer. I continued, “So let’s assume we’re visible; let’s assume we’re seen as an infection, to use Doc Rajman’s terminology. Let’s say that the Vast Pattern has a defense system, somewhere, somehow. Can it react in time and, even if we make planet fall, will a Gaia there get the message from Regus or Regus’ boss that we’re an infection and that it should terminate us there? Is the whole voyage for nothing?”
Cramer, standing now, abruptly pulled me to my feet, “So, genius, what do you propose we do?”
“Talk to the Vast Pattern and ask them, it, whomever, to leave us alone. And in the meantime, hide before they catch us.”
Zip started whining.
17
WHERE OH WHERE HAS MY LITTLE DOG GONE?
Zip wasn’t happy. He stopped communicating. Cramer was worried, perhaps more worried about the dog than our predicament. “What did you say that upset him so?”
> Of course, he felt it had to be my fault. Even so, I explained, “Not me. Zip’s part of the crew, and he listened in, must have understood something, which worried him.”
Cramer dismissed my hypothesis. He got on the floor, stuck his forehead on Zip’s and, I guess, communicated. After a few moments, “Come on Zip ol’ buddy, tell me, please.”
“Not happy. Big danger. World in danger. Everyone killed.” And there it was, his evaluation of our situation summed up neatly. This spaceship was his whole world, which was easy to understand. Zip was born aboard, he wouldn’t have any understanding of Earth or the resilience of humankind to overcome wars, famine, catastrophes. Zip also was already pining for the demise of his people, everyone on board. It made him sad.
So I spoke up, putting my head closer, “Zip, look, we have a serious danger out there in space, the place that surrounds the home you know. But we’re smart, we’re never going to give up, and we will overcome.” I sounded confident. And I was, I wasn’t lying, well, maybe pushing it a bit, but Zip’s spirits had to be lifted. I had seen how the dogs communicated all the time and how the children relied on them for affection. If Zip became morose, it could ripple through the ship. “But, Zip, I need your help. We cannot manage this alone, the humans without the dogs. Do you understand needing your help?”
I heard, “Yes help understand.”
“Okay then, we will do the science and the handling of what needs to be done, but I need you, please, to take charge of keeping everybody happy, everybody calm while we try and solve this. Can you do that?”
“Yes people. Not worry.”
“Exactly Zip, I do not want them—or you—to worry. We have a problem, but we can solve it. But to make the problem go away, we all need calm, normal living as if nothing is wrong.”
“Explain all to all?”
“Okay, Zip; Aten, Cramer, and I will explain everything to the crew as soon as we know exactly what needs to be done, and then they will all have chores to do, things to help, study, plan. But it can be done in a happy way, on the Path, in harmony. That okay with you?
“You ask?”
“I am asking for your help, yes.”
Zip stretched, first one back leg then the other, gave a shake that started at his rump and moved up his spine until his ears were flopping. “Zip help. Zip work too.” I thanked him and turned to the doctors, Nurse Maryann, and the married couple—Cramer, the little boy, holding Aten’s hand, comforting her. I asked if they had heard Zip as I had and they all nodded, Doc Todd explained that he had never heard a dog project so clearly and so far. He looked somewhat amazed.
Heck, actually I was too. A dog had just agreed to handle the morale on board. And I knew he and his pals would do just fine. Of course, Zip had to have the last word, “I go fix. You work. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” and I saluted as Zip trotted off. I turned to Maryann, “Will you be the liaison between the docs here and me, Aten, and Cramer? I want to make sure we get their findings as they become available.” She agreed. “So then, Docs, please start your research as soon as possible. Here are the three things I need to know, again as soon as possible. The rest of the research on the Vast Pattern can be done over the coming decades if we can survive the immediacy here and now. So don’t go for the really big picture. What I need now are these: One, confirmation that the planets supporting bioforms, the ones downloading data, either at death or constantly, we’re not sure which … confirmation that planets are like super neurons, then galaxies are like plexuses and the path of those galaxies, maybe even the solar systems, are like large and small ganglia. Would that make supergalaxy regions of the brain or merely larger plexuses?”
All three of them had started recorders to make sure they had accurate instructions. I put up a hand, “No playing those recordings for anyone until Aten says it’s okay, right?” They nodded, “Good, okay, then two. I need a measurement of the strength of the transmission from human brain neurology data, one neuron to another, through ganglia, and then comparing the signal strength of the dark energy.”
All three started to interrupt, with Sing stating, “That’s the wrong question. Assuming there is a transmission within the Vast Pattern, we have data on the strength of dark energy, especially when it is focused. That was done if I remember …” she looked at Aten, “By Pope in eighty-three wasn’t it?” Aten nodded. “So, if we determine the focused dark energy wavelength and couple that calculation with the known strength of focused radiation—assuming dark energy radiation levels are constant, again Pope I think—I’ll assume you want to liken that to a neuron-to-neuron transmission, but I do not think that would be right. You explained, I assume from Apollo’s study over the past years, that dark energy, when focused, never aims or passes near a planet or solar system. Right?” She nodded. “Good, then if those planets are your neurons—the transmission goes randomly toward Regus, which I think could be said to be your plexus. That would mean that planets are a primary nerve transmitter center and that Regus is a primary nerve-receiving center. If there are no physical pathways, I am beginning …”
Her voice faded and she faced a wall again and spoke softly, almost to herself, “Just a minute …” She turned to her colleagues, “Could we be talking about a nervous system, a primitive brain such as jellyfish? Effective, amorphous, fluid, just one large nerve network without boundaries?”
Rajman was suddenly animated, “Yes, yes, that fits. The nervous systems, the symmetric organisms of the oceans, among the longest surviving species. All radically symmetric, all with diffuse nerve networks. But I think more like the hydra, not a simple jellyfish, don’t you think Sing?”
Sing agreed, nodding vigorously.
“Okay then, assume we’re talking about a primitive, radically symmetric structure here. That would allow for small signals to travel from neuron to neuron or be routed with ganglia, arranged in a fluid net, using the very internal space of the jellyfish, the very make-up of the jellyfish’s substance as a fluid dynamic pathway. In short, infinite ganglia, nothing mapped out.”
Todd cut in, “That makes your planet theory wrong. The computing power of a neuron, inside a neuron, has not been sufficiently mapped, there has been no need. But assume all the bioforms are that internal neuron process. That makes Gaia a neuron host, a super-neuron if you will, transmitting—for no known reason—data to or via Regus, who acts as …”
Sing cut in, “Simply a neuronal fluid dynamic pathway. Dark energy is not a thing, a sentient being that Gaia is talking to. Gaia is talking to or through something called Regus through dark energy, the jelly inside a jellyfish. Regus is not dark energy, yes, it all fits.”
As we all looked back and forth at each other, Todd summed it up, “Regus is, simply, beyond dark energy, controlling the whole transmission process. Regus is the hydra cortex.”
Well, bang goes my theory asked of the nav team to determine when we would be near a dark energy transmission, we were sitting in a jellyfish of dark energy. I was about to start repeating my second request when it hit me, “Of course! That’s why I heard something, space was all around me, dark energy was all around me, I don’t need a pathway to hear inside a jellyfish, all space is dynamic for dark energy transmissions, all of space reverberates with transmissions.” I grabbed Sing’s lab coat as she walked past, “Would you say that a jellyfish’s dynamic ganglia is no pattern at all, that any message transfer goes everywhere at once?”
She answered, “We may have the study data in the records, but I think so, yes. The neuron message is encoded—like it has an address label—for another specific neuron or the plexus and only that neuron or plexus will open the message. But, yes, the message would be bounced everywhere without effect until it reached its intended destination. Perhaps that is why a jellyfish seems aimless in the ocean because its momentary reaction is delayed, but we do know they navigate by the stars and magnetic headings, making tiny constant adjustments in currents, for example. They are complex, but seemingly simple, crea
tures.”
Aten stopped the conversation with a command, “Hold! Simon, what did you hear?”
I felt like I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar and hung my head in shame. “During the EVA, when I was drifting back in, I thought I heard a presence, an intelligence, maybe a voice. I didn’t understand it, but it reminded me, sorry Aten, it reminded me of our first conversations deep inside the System.”
“And you didn’t think to share that? Just when were you going to return to the Path Simon?” Aten was furious. I needed to placate her.
“Honestly, Aten, until these last few hours, I thought I had imagined it in my hypoxia state. Now it began to fit, first Apollo’s transmission …” The doctors looked at each other and Aten questioningly, “and then some hypothesis I was formulating. That’s why we’re here, to try to piece all this together. I’m on the Path, I assure you, but things are moving so damn fast I don’t know what’s been said and to whom.”
Aten shook her head, “Okay, let’s finish your list for these doctors and then we can begin to prepare a full disclosure for the whole crew. We live together and we need to be on the Path to survive together. The only way to do that is to remain on the Path at all times.”
Here was the apprentice telling the master, reversing the roles. Aten was in charge and she was right. In my defense, as I explained later to Cramer and Aten over dinner, I really was working toward that goal, telling everyone. Cramer backed me up, but I could see not having told him of the little voices, as Cramer referred to them, had lost me some respect and trust.
So, before we left to go to Aten’s office to have her tell me off again and also prepare a tell-all vid transmission to all the crew, I finished explaining the last of my three requests to the doctors. The final one could be a simple matter for neurobiologists: Could they adapt a data helmet, like the one that was stored aboard in case they needed to record my identity again, could they adapt that one to the frequency of dark energy?