“And what can be done for you and Daniel?” Professor Kitteridge replied to Joe. “Have you read my latest book on the origins of the Universe? Doctor McGregor was a huge advisor and helped with developing our theories of the nature of the Universe. As a zoologist he kept me thinking about life on other worlds, which often gets neglected as it’s more pop culture than serious astrophysics. He was responsible for driving our theories on what the issues would be if we were to make alien contact. Have either of you considered the possibility?” Professor Kitteridge deliberately had let the cat out of the bag with his question now; this was the wording he wanted to confront them with and he let the comment sit there wondering whether these people in his office taking tea so mundanely could actually provide the next great revelations into his life’s work and whether they were even human at all.
Christopher jumped into the ensuing silence, “I don’t think it makes sense for us to mix serious cosmology with science fiction, Professor. People may not take us seriously!”
Professor Kitteridge was mildly irritated with Christopher’s unhelpful intervention. “That is accepted thinking, Christopher, which is why I worked on getting some balance in to the question with Doctor McGregor’s help. He made me see you can’t conceive of discovering millions of planets and totally ignore whether there is also life on those planets. Then you have to consider whether there is intelligent life like us out there too?”
Christopher subsided as the conversation was moving in a strange direction. It was Joe who chose to answer as Daniel sat back deferring to him. “We did talk this through with Doctor McGregor who told us about his work with you and showed us your latest work together. We agreed that statistically there must be life on many worlds and that could mean many advanced civilisations across the galaxy. They would want to communicate with each other, otherwise what would be the point of it all? Just because we haven’t developed the ability here on Earth does not mean it hasn’t been found. We also thought it reasonable that there could be good and bad aliens. The bad ones could be really dangerous as, by definition, they must have more advanced technology than we do. But we thought that at least the good ones would be helping us and there should be plenty of historical evidence to prove it.”
“I was rather hoping that would be the case too,” mused Professor Kitteridge. Christopher was staring at Joe as he had no inkling that Joe had pondered on the meaning of life in the Universe. Maybe it was his recent introduction to Doctor McGregor that had developed this interest.
Professor Kitteridge continued, “When you look into how the Universe works then it can be a forbidding and violent place, created by monstrous explosions and collisions, but leading eventually to extraordinary beauty when you look around planets like the one we are on. It is good to see that Doctor McGregor was showing you our work. If there were such benign alien influences at work here and now then how do you think it would help?”
Joe replied, “Doctor McGregor thought that helpful aliens would want to promote understanding of the Universe by feeding knowledge in as fast as our culture could take it. You could think of it as a process of enlightenment, drip feeding in to the brightest thought leaders here on Earth. People just like you in fact, Professor,” Joe proclaimed and they all laughed, three of them appreciating the covert message, one of them just going along with the flow without quite knowing why.
The remainder of the conversation turned to small talk, while Professor Kitteridge digested the conversation and continued to spar on the alien question with Joe and Daniel. When it was time to leave, Professor Kitteridge organised to introduce Christopher to his research team and the four agreed it would be good to do tea again sometime soon. After they left Professor Kitteridge found a folded sheet of paper from Daniel. When he unfolded it there was a molecular formula of an organic compound plus a list of natural ingredients from which it could be extracted. Later when Professor Kitteridge had prepared this drug it would be effective in helping him slow the effects of his previously unknown wasting condition.
Daniel and Joe discussed it when they were alone afterwards. “You can tell me now what’s likely to happen with Professor Kitteridge’s health,” said Joe. “You can tell from his spirit aura that his body is afflicted. What’s the prognosis?”
“It’s a tricky one, Joe. It’s a nonspecific wasting disease of some kind so if he remains untreated he would likely go into decline very quickly. It’s good that we are on the case now as we may be able to provide him with the time he needs to complete his good work with us.”
Joe and Daniel called Charlotte soon after they left Christopher and reconvened in their pub they used for their private meetings in Whittlesford village. Joe and Daniel explained what had happened at their Professor Kitteridge meeting and Joe also said that Doctor McGregor had explained that the task remained to lay the foundations for the discovery of Dark Matter Fusion drives to enable space travel without trying to send huge spaceships across enormous distances by rocket power alone. As always when Gayans passed such information to local people it could not just be handed over completely and fully without inviting wider attention. Even if that had been desirable it would be such a quantum leap as to be unbelievable. The seed needed to be sown in fertile ground and allowed to grow naturally. The essential elements of a specific discovery needed to be transferred so that it could be developed and published by the local genius in a way that would be believed and acceptable to the broader community.
Charlotte was the most familiar of the three with handling such Guide of Gaya tasks. “It seems to me that we need to complete the task of bringing Professor Kitteridge completely into understanding of Gaya in addition to our own mission. It’s what Doctor McGregor would have wanted, and we can’t let what happened spoil his work,” she said. “After all it’s very much part of what we are here for anyway and the location, timing and people involved are the same. We should just make it a part of our own mission now.”
“We are very much in agreement with you on that one,” replied Daniel. “The only problem is that Professor Kitteridge has clearly worked out some of what is going on. In that regard Doctor McGregor was probably leaving it late to reveal to him the precise nature of our involvement. When it comes to his view of who is part of our plans then he was expecting three of us and he thought the third member was Christopher. He must have thought he was one of us though he has probably changed his mind on that one now. We did include the message though that Christopher is important to us and therefore to him.”
Charlotte replied, “I think it’s pretty straightforward actually. Doctor McGregor had already taken Professor Kitteridge through the early phases of awareness of our presence so there is no danger of his being too shocked when we apprise him. I have more experience with the Revelation phase than either of you so he will probably take it better from me than one of you. The only problem is that he hasn’t met me yet but we know that he expects a third person. I think it’s just a case of me introducing myself with all my usual charm and getting it done as quickly as possible. There is a downside here in that if we leave it too long Professor Kitteridge will get suspicious of us and may lose the goodwill we had built up with Doctor McGregor’s work”.
Joe was as relieved as Daniel that Charlotte was volunteering to resume the guiding process. The process of Enlightenment in the context of a Guide of Dawn apprising a local human on an emerging world was notoriously fraught and Guides were very careful to gain trust over a prolonged period and then gradually allow their local subject to almost drive the process of Revelation themselves, despite the fact the subjects themselves by definition were very advanced thinkers of their own human race. “So we are agreed then,” Joe said. “You will make the right opportunity to meet with Professor Kitteridge and complete his full Enlightenment transition as quickly as you can.”
As quickly as possible turned out to be late Saturday morning that week. Charlotte was talking to Christopher who wa
s most excited that he would be introduced to a small group of postgraduate students working with Professor Kitteridge on his cosmology theories and this would be at the Cavendish laboratories on the Madingley road across the River Cam and to the west of St John’s College. This would mean that Professor Kitteridge would be walking there and that Charlotte planned to bump into him on his return journey.
The morning meeting went well. The group were accepting of Professor Kitteridge introducing a new face even though Christopher was an undergraduate. Christopher would be no immediate threat to the career of anybody already in the group and academic teams needed labourers just like industrial projects to handle the dog work. Professor Kitteridge was the thought leader for the whole group and they all benefitted from owning the projects spinning off from his theories like ripe fruit. This led to projects and papers for them all that were both interesting and high profile. Working with Professor Kitteridge was a fast track to being a significant player in the academic hotspot of cosmology. Professor Kitteridge introduced Christopher as someone to work on the unfashionable and largely dormant field of alien anthropology. How did alien life fit into their theoretical view of the universe and how would they interact with humans here on Earth? This was a subject area too close to populist fiction for the serious-minded cosmologist PhD scholars and they knew it would also involve working with the Anthropology department, which was about as far from advanced physics as you could get. So Christopher was pleased to join the group and they in turn were pleased to have him.
Professor Kitteridge was watching the personal dynamics of the group he knew so well and Christopher in particular. He was feeling blown about by the winds of fate interfering with his academic management but he also had the feeling that he was on the verge of a great breakthrough. He didn’t feel the same engagement with Christopher that he had with Doctor McGregor and he was afraid that he may have lost something of great significance with his passing. He had hope that the intriguing meeting with Joe and Daniel could reconnect to the guidance he previously had with Doctor McGregor. If indeed his suspicions were correct and that he had found a means to access off-world wisdom then this was overwhelmingly exciting even though that was still hanging and unsure at this very moment. Joe and Daniel were very different people to Doctor McGregor and implausibly young but he felt they were of the same kin as Doctor McGregor. He was hopeful that would lead to the reconnection that he had felt was Doctor McGregor’s message of hope to him when his spirit visited him the night of his passing. Maybe Christopher also was some kind of messenger, though if that were the case he was a pretty unwitting one.
It was natural to invite Christopher into the quiet of his office at a point when the rest of the cosmology group went its separate ways to carry out their various tasks, empowered by giving up part of their Saturday in their enthusiasm for their particular projects. “I am pleased you could join our little group, Christopher,” Professor Kitteridge was formally welcoming, head cocked to one side, smiling eyes directed at Christopher through glasses with thick lenses such that the edges of his lenses framed several echoing meniscus lines that amplified his bright eyes and crow’s feet.
Christopher predictably rose to the welcome from the famous scientist. “I am very pleased to help where I can, Professor.” And he was.
Professor Kitteridge took the opportunity to probe on their recent meeting at St Johns’ College, “I enjoyed our tea with Joe and Daniel the other day. It gave me some comfort as I have realised that Doctor McGregor’s passing on affected me more greatly than I would have thought. He had mentioned that he was pleased to have three new friends at Queens’ he had great hopes for?” Professor Kitteridge posed this as a mild question-cum-statement with slightly raised tone of ‘hopes for’ and then lapsed into contemplative silence as he waited for Christopher’s reaction.
Christopher drooped his head slightly as he thought then raised it again with realisation, “Oh, I think there could be some mistake, Professor. If Doctor McGregor mentioned three students then he was probably thinking of the three of us from school that came up together to Queens’. Daniel is a new friend of Joe’s he met through football and lectures. Doctor McGregor is probably talking about me, Joe and Charlotte, not me, Joe and Daniel!”
Aha, thought Professor Kitteridge feeling that jigsaw piece slot into place and continued levelly, “That must have been my mistake. I don’t know how I got confused with Daniel.”
“Well, that could be because Charlotte is not a scientist, she studies Economics.”
“That would be it, of course. I would be less likely to hear about an Economics student, no matter how much they pretend it’s a financial science!” The astrophysics professor and undergraduate shared a private humorous moment at the expense of the Faculty of Economics believing itself a science. Tempered of course by the fact that the economists tended to earn a lot more in the long run than the scientists, but who cared about that?
It would later dawn on Christopher to question how Professor Kitteridge had invited Daniel for coffee in the first place, but he would figuratively shake his head. He was so full of excitement about his research future that this unknown connection to Daniel was a trivial thought.
Professor Kitteridge believed he was now seeing the whole puzzle coming together. It was satisfying that all his effort that had seemed so confusing for so long was now producing light rather than heat. The three natural peers emerging from the Doctor McGregor situation were Joe, Daniel and now this new person, Charlotte. Christopher was there too but as an unwitting additional member of the group. A fourth side to a triangle. An unlikely and unstable square. He knew that nature degraded unwieldy structures to more stable groupings. So what he was looking at here was a core group of three; the three musketeers. The gang of three. More like the crew of Apollo 11, a commander Neil Armstrong, a lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and a command spacecraft pilot Michael Collins. In this particular case there was a commander Joe, a medical scientist Daniel, an economic scientist Charlotte. A singleton, as he had thought Doctor McGregor to be, would be too alone. A pair would have limited capability and would have no resilience in case of an accident befalling. A group of three would be a powerful team especially owning the accumulated wisdom and technology of a superior race from afar.
Professor Kitteridge turned these ideas over in his mind seeking accurate conclusions as he would normally in his academic life when he contemplated his theories and their associated outcomes. It was a grey day and threatened rain for the walk back from the astrophysics laboratory to St John’s College. He donned his familiar old raincoat and stuffed a folding umbrella in the large hip pocket of the coat. He set off down the Madingley road for the short walk home turning over these tantalising thoughts in his mind seeking some kind of resolution. The rain held off so he decided to walk around St John’s College to the east to get a coffee and enter the college by the main entrance on St John’s Street. Charlotte was waiting by the back entrance to St John’s College amongst the tourists when she saw the familiar bent and flapping shape of the famous professor walking slowly towards the main thoroughfare over Magdalene Bridge.
It was then she became aware of a middle-aged man and woman some ten paces apart watching a young couple pushing a toddler in a stroller and pulling a second young child along through the crowded people. Charlotte’s heightened awareness told her there was something amiss so when the man pretended to trip over the stroller tipping it into the gutter she became fully alert. The older woman stepped between the parents and the child as the man made a fuss over how they had pushed the stroller into him. While the parents were distracted, Charlotte saw the woman turn to the child with a big appealing smile. The child momentarily alone was drawn to the nice-looking woman helping him amongst the bustle of the crowd. She led the child swiftly away from the preoccupied parents and up a small alley away from the mass of people by the bridge.
Charlotte had taken in the whole scene a
nd was torn about what she must do next. The professor was heading over towards the bridge but she could not tolerate this developing abduction situation and quickly decided fixing this was her immediate priority. She knew that child abduction was very common in western society and that the United Kingdom suffered as much as most. Hundreds of children disappeared every year but not right under the nose of a Pointer of Dawn. She felt her body prepare itself for action. Part deliberately, part autonomously, she thrilled to the release of the action hormones that powered up her joints and muscle groups. The Gayan home anthem suddenly rang out from her auditory lobes and joined with the natural stimulants flooding her system elevating all her physical senses. A split second later she was fully primed and became a truly formidable human being at the peak of her physical capabilities.
Fifty yards or so up the alley the boy child was realising something was wrong and wanted to go back to his parents. The older woman was bending over him now, friendliness forgotten, seeking to exploit her prevailing strength to force the child further up the alley. Her partner had seen the woman disappear into the alley with the child and was now quietly leaving the area of the stroller and the confused parents. The parents started stretching up in confusion and craning to see where their other child was in the crowd.
As the woman kidnapper bent over the child to enforce her control her partner followed up the street. Then she became aware of a third presence. Charlotte had come up from behind saying, “I will take over from here thank you very much,” she stated forcefully. The woman started to protest and intended to push her away when Charlotte slid her foot down the woman’s shin then pushed at the ankle so it bent over ninety degrees and then snapped leaving the foot flopping, attached by its soft tissues only. The woman went down struggling to contain her cries as the man hurried up to Charlotte. This abduction was going very wrong but all he could see was a young girl trying to get in the way.
Star Matters Page 28