The 2084 Precept

by Anthony D. Thompson

  I had my favorite breakfast of poached eggs on toast, more toast with butter and Chivers orange marmalade, and a cup of coffee, great stuff at this hotel, Lavazza. I finished at around eleven o'clock and went back to my room to collect the umbrella and fish out one of the copies of my résumé, always have a couple of pre-printed copies with me when travelling, you never know. I took the elevator back down, lit up a cigarette and set off in the direction of St. James's Street.

  Now that I had my umbrella, the rain had stopped. So much the better, I would walk the whole way. I turned into Pall Mall, walked along past the clubs to the end, past Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Column, bought the IHT at the Charing Cross kiosk and found a nearby café in which to read it. Only two major bombings today, thirty dead, add to that the deaths in seven other minor wars which continue to pursue their diversified and mysterious goals, more vehement anti-Jewish threats from Iran and so on and so forth, and it's still boring. Boring because such is our planet and it certainly doesn't bother me, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

  The coffee in this place was American-style revolting, colored dishwater, so I finished the sports section without ordering a second cup, paid the waitress who had mistakenly sauntered into my area en route to the toilet, and—unhindered today by any additional survey-takers—I lit up another cigarette and set off along the Strand, so named, by the way, because it used to border on the river Thames until, as with many other things, we cemented everything up.

  I arrived at the Towers with fifteen minutes to spare and wandered around for a while before entering the building, it being just as bad to be more than a couple of minutes early as it is to arrive late. The ground floor reception area was unmanned today, and so I just took the elevator up to the Obrix Consultants' suite on the first floor (second floor if you prefer), and pressed the buzzer.

  Jeremy Parker himself opened the door.

  "No staff today, I'm afraid," he said, same pleasant round face, same pleasant smile, "come in, come in. I'm glad you could make it. Let's go through to the meeting room."

  He was dressed as formally as he was yesterday, suit and tie, blue tie today. He was obviously taking this thing seriously. He led me past an expensive looking reception desk and down a corridor, pristine white walls, office doors opening off it, also white walls, white furniture too, laptops and papers on the desks, lots of files, it certainly looked as if there was plenty of activity during the week.

  He showed me through a double door into what was a relatively large meeting room with a boardroom table, eight well-spaced leather chairs on each side of it plus one at each end, a presentation screen and the other paraphernalia you expect to find in a meeting room. The walls and the furniture in this room were also white. It looked good, Jeremy certainly had a taste for style. Or maybe he had merely retained a liking for the white walls of his room at some psychiatric institution or other. Whatever. Water, soft drinks and glasses stood on a table in one corner. The view was not great, it was the building opposite, but there was plenty of light.

  All in all a pleasant room, a room generating confidence and seriousness for the sacrificial victims of whatever frauds were put into motion here. And if he wasn't insane, then frauds it must be. Surroundings such as these precluded the option of it being a bad joke.

  Jeremy motioned me to take a chair at the head of the table, and himself took a chair at the side, leaving one chair empty between us. Good practice, I thought to myself, we are not directly facing each other, which can be viewed by some as being somewhat confrontational, nor are we sitting side by side, which I don't like anyway, need my space.

  "Drink?" he asked, "I can make some coffee if you prefer."

  "No thanks, Mr. Parker, water will be fine."

  He fetched a large bottle and two glasses and I handed him my résumé, which, in my view, he read pretty quickly. Maybe he was a speed reader, why not?

  "So, Mr. O'Donoghue…first of all, thank you for coming. You will, I believe, be more than happy when I explain to you how easily you are going to be able to earn your fee, the fee I mentioned to you yesterday. But there is one major problem I have to deal with. It's my problem, not yours, you don't have anything to worry about from your end. The problem, to put it frankly, is that I haven't the faintest idea as to whether or not I will be able to convince you to take on the assignment, no matter how easy it is.. You will see what I mean when I start to explain things, and I may as well start by trying to do that right now."

  "Please do," I smiled, "I have a reasonably open mind, I can assure you."

  "Ah," replied Jeremy, "and precisely that is what worries me. You are going to find that reasonableness and rationality are in extremely short supply here. However, there is no doubt that I need your services, no doubt about that at all. And as we briefly mentioned yesterday, we are both reasonably intelligent people, and it is therefore perfectly clear to me that you consider me to be either insane or to be attempting some kind of fraud here. If you thought any differently you would either be stupid yourself or at best only mildly intelligent, and either of those categories would preclude a business relationship."

  He paused and looked me straight in the eye. I looked straight back. Let him waffle further. I am not one of those people who feel they have either a need or an obligation to fill in conversation gaps.

  "You are therefore here for the money," he continued. "So what I have decided to do, I have decided to transfer the €100,000 I mentioned yesterday to your bank right now. As I mentioned, you get to keep it, no matter what. This is a risk for me, a gamble, but one I can afford to take. There are no conditions attached, but I hope it will keep you here for what to you, no doubt whatsoever, will seem to be a meeting with a fraudulent or, alternatively, totally deranged person. Initially, that is, as I shall at least be making the attempt to convince you otherwise before you leave here today. Now if you would kindly let me have your international bank account number, I'll fix the payment now."

  Oh man, is he weird. Demented. Fully deranged. Maybe dangerously insane, you never know with these people.

  But he doesn't look it and he doesn't sound it, he might be one of those easy-going kinds of lunatic. But, like many lunatics, he is not stupid. He realizes I think it's a fraud and he is preempting my reaction to whatever weird argumentations he has up his sleeve by telling me that I might also think he's deranged. So, he's not stupid, but he's not particularly intelligent either. He should know that it is unlikely that any of this is going to wash with a person of normal intelligence. But…now this is real fun, and sure I'm going to stay and hear what his crazy or dishonest scheme is, and then I'm going to check my bank account in a couple of days' time. The money won't be there of course but…I am a member of the human species, and so I will be checking the account.

  I gave him the information and he took a laptop from one of the cupboards and tapped away on it. When he was finished, he looked up and said, "I would appreciate your sending me an invoice in due course, Mr. O’Donoghue. Please bill Obrix Consultancy Partners at this address. Simply describe the charge as 'consultancy services provided' for whatever period of time you deem to be proper and acceptable. In view of the remainder still to be paid, should you decide to continue that is, you may perhaps wish to have this first invoice cover a prior year period. For tax purposes. Instead of having it all in one year, you understand. Up to you, of course."

  "Sure…fine…, Mr. Parker," I said, "Good idea. Judicious." Play the game, enjoy it. There won't be any money and there won't be any invoice, so no problem.

  "O.K…I'm hoping for your patience now," he said. "You really aren't going to believe a word of what I say…impossible I would think…although, as I've said, I hope that you will by the time we part company today. First of all, let me tell you that I own this company and all of its subsidiaries. What they do is unimportant, but I would be happy to explain them to you on another occasion, should you be interested. At the same time, I am a student. I am performing research
for my doctorate. I have to write a dissertation. And part of the research for the dissertation is required to be supported by interviewee input. And this, hopefully, is where you will be able to be of some considerable assistance to me."

  "Exactly what will I be doing? That is a large amount of money you're offering, Mr. Parker, you know." Play the game, play the game.

  "Yes, I do know. And as I obliquely indicated to you yesterday, you don't have to do that much to earn it. In fact, all you have to do is to answer certain questions I will be putting to you in a series of meetings over the next three months—perhaps even less than three months depending on how we progress. A maximum of twelve meetings, perhaps fewer. That is all. Nothing else."

  "So why pay such a large amount? You could get someone else for a fraction of that kind of money, no problem."

  "Yes, I know I could. Obviously. But only if the subject of the thesis were a normal one. Which it isn't. And I also have a need for a person of a certain level of intelligence, a requirement you so far appear to fulfill by the way. At the same time, the problem with a person of a certain level of intelligence is that he will be convinced there is something fraudulent about this whole scenario. Not that he would be able to determine what, or how, or in which way, but he would definitely be of that opinion. And, in addition, he could also classify me as being a person in dire need of psychiatric assistance."

  Repeating himself. Boring. And no way is it going to increase his chances of reeling me in to whatever this peculiar scheme turns out to be.

  "And," he continued, "even if he started—after all, the chance of another €400,000 without a risk is not to be sniffed at—it is less than likely that he would continue for the whole program unless…unless, that is…the sum of money waiting for him at the end were large enough to constitute an adequate enticement."

  "Well Mr. Parker, that obviously provokes my next question. May I know the subject of your thesis, and could you please elaborate as to why it is apparently so crazy that you are prepared to pay a small fortune for what sounds like some relatively simple assistance?"

  He took a sip of water, and paused for a moment. And then he said "The subject of my thesis is the Earth. The planet. This planet."

  "Well…O.K…but I still don't understand. I mean, exactly what is the overall subject involved, and what academic area are you working in? Which university are you attending, what is the big mystery in all of this? And why for that matter are you a student anyway—at your age and owning what seems to be a reasonably well-established group of companies?"

  "Ah," he said with that agreeable smile of his, "a lot of questions, only to be expected of course from a person such as yourself, and presumably you will have several more in that vein. So…allow me to get straight to the point." He coughed. "I am an alien."

  "You are an alien? Immigrant or just visiting? Which country? Legal or illegal?"

  "I note that you are thinking in U.S. terms regarding the common usage of that word. Indeed, the dictionary itself describes the word alien as 'foreigner' or 'foreign'. Which indeed, I am, but not quite as you think. I am, to be more precise, an extraterrestrial."

  Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. So it's not a fraud after all, he's just insane, nutty as a fruitcake, totally bonkers, off his rocker. That is not to say that I have any major complaints, after all I was after a bit of fun and now I'm certainly getting it. What a story for the Green Tree pub. And my chances for the €100,000 have definitely risen a notch. This guy might be as crazy as the best of them, but he also appears to have money and he might really be mad enough to have transferred that cash already, who knows? Well, I don't know, and maybe he hasn't, maybe he just tapped away on his laptop to give me that impression.

  On the other hand…I am happy to take the chance. It's worth finding out. I have to be careful though. Lunatics, even apparently harmless ones, can be dangerous, turn violent in a second, you're dead before you know it, stay wary and on your toes, all of the time, oh yes.

  Meantime, it would be appropriate for me to switch into full actor mode, humor the guy, put my psychological talents to work, another of the skills which serve me well as a consultant. Well, well, well, who would have thought? What a Saturday!

  "An extraterrestrial?" I asked, as innocently as a whore telling you she's in love with you. "Now that's interesting. Interesting indeed, but…as I am sure you agree Mr. Parker…quite unbelievable. Surely you can't expect me to believe something like that?"

  "Oh no, I can’t and I don't," he replied with that smile of his, "not at all. I mean, who would? No indeed, but hopefully you will bear with me while I try to explain and, again, I hope to have convinced you in the end anyway. And by then, you will hopefully have been able to discard the thoughts you are harboring about whether or not I am a lunatic, or dangerous, or both." He smiled again, leaned forward a little, both elbows on the table, and said, "Now that is a reasonable goal for our meeting, wouldn't you agree?"

  Well, Mr. Jeremy Parker, I thought to myself, you are right about the dangerous bit, and I've already decided about the lunatic part all by myself, right up-front, sorry about that. And I took a drink of water to fortify myself for the effluence I was about to hear, a shot of whiskey would have been more appropriate.

  * * * * *

  "I should," he continued, "perhaps begin with where I come from, how I got here, and why I look and sound like a human being, albeit an insane one as far as you are concerned; at the moment anyway."

  Feel free, old chap. And I can help you here. The reason you look like a human being is because you are a human being. And the repetitions, including the insanity one again, clearly indicate you are a neurotic one.

  "It happens," he said, "that your scientists are now beginning to notice things which are very far away. They have recently discovered a quasar which they have named APM02879+5255. A quasi-stellar radio source, or quasar in its abbreviated form, is an unimaginably—for you—hot and bright object in the center of a galaxy, fueled by a vast input of matter being dragged into a supermassive black hole, as you call it, supermassive being a term you use to denote anything of around 1 billion solar masses or more. It is very hot, tens of millions of degrees, and very, very bright, thousands of trillions of megawatts."

  He paused and looked at me for a moment, presumably in case I was going to accuse him of exaggerating his numbers. Which I wasn't. Maybe he was right, maybe he wasn't, I hadn't a clue.

  "Now this particular quasar," he continued, "is about 12 billion light years distant from you, using your U.S. term for a billion by the way. And your light year is a measure of distance, not time. You calculate it by multiplying the speed of light, which in your terms is over 1 billion kilometers per hour, by 365.25. In other words, your light year represents slightly less than 9 trillion kilometers, give or take a bit. And I'll leave you to calculate the rest, the impossible number of lifetimes you would need to be able to even come close."

  Well…at least we both understand a billion to be a thousand million. This is no longer exclusive to the Americans, by the way. The Brits, as in so many things, have copied them and it is nowadays more or less common usage in the U.K. as well. Not so, however, in Germany, for example. Their billion remains the English Long Scale version, a million millions, just as it always was. And a trillion is a million billions as opposed to a thousand billions, just as it always was. And yes, the Germans have created a different word - Milliarde - to denote a thousand million. Useful to know if you are a translator. Or even if you're not.

  "Whatever…" he continued, "you are not seeing things as they are at present, you are seeing what was there long before your solar system even existed, let alone, of course, yourselves. And what you are looking at is approximately 35,000 times the mass of your sun—mass not to be confused with size—and it emits about 1 trillion times as much energy; yes, that's one trillion, if you can imagine that, which you can't.”

  He looked at me, presumably to see if I was interested in this particular mo
nologue of his. Which I wasn’t. But I was pretending to be. Well enough for him to persevere.

  “To enable you to put this into perspective”, he continued, “your sun has a maximum temperature of around 15 million degrees centigrade at its core, and its nuclear fusion converts roughly 700 million tons of hydrogen into helium and energy in the form of gamma rays every second, thereby emitting some 400 trillion megawatts of power. So just try imagining a quasar like this one."

  "What exactly is a megawatt?" I asked. Keep him humored, let him think I find all of this interesting. But don't overdo it, don't give the game away, keep it simple.

  "A megawatt? A megawatt is a million watts."

  "Uh huh…difficult for me to grasp the magnitude of the numbers you're talking about here, Mr. Parker." Small talk, keep up the interest.

  "I know," he said, "I am aware of that if you don't mind my saying so. Just imagine yourself trying to explain your planet to a group of ants in your garden, assuming you could converse with them. They would hear you, but you would know in advance that they could not possibly understand the immensity and complexity of what you were explaining. And that is the position I find myself in with your good self, no offence intended at all, it's just the way things are."

  I didn't say anything, no point. Lunatics live in a world of their own creation, there's nothing you can do about it. And be thankful for small mercies, I told myself, at least he's not pretending to be Napoleon, with his cavalry waiting for him around the corner at Waterloo. Waterloo Station, I mean, just over the river from here.

  "To continue," he said, "I and my brothers currently live in that region. We have a planet, which circles a star, which is close to 500 times larger than yours. Not as large, for example, as Eta Carinae, a star of which your scientists are aware and which is 800 times larger than your sun and which, as they also know, will soon explode, a supernova you call it. In fact, the biggest star you are aware of is the one you call Canis Majoris, which is a red giant and on its way to being two thousand times larger than your sun. Your scientists also believe they have detected a few stars which are even larger, but their measurement accuracy is too uncertain due to either cosmic dust clouds or to other phenomena. And your scientists are guessing that there are even larger stars than those out there which they can't see. And it just so happens that they are right."