by Ken Webster
In Castle Park we just watched the kids tumble and cartwheel. Hoping aloud, I told Dave that it was all going to be OK. The dog wasn’t so bad and as for Lukas and 2109? Sure, SPR will do it, they’d get an answer to their ten questions. I was convinced, there in the sunshine as I gazed down from the wooden bridge into a blue-green stream, that the future was good.
Dave was not sure and played devil’s advocate. ‘But … but … if … if …’ He was wrong. I was comfortable. Positive we would get our proof, or as near as ever one could. Back on the playing field Julie and Clare did more cartwheels and I hung by my legs from the climbing frame. The sun began to move towards the horizon.
In the café bikers stoked up the jukebox and the kids had pop and cake.
There had been some stacking at the cottage, cutlery arranged in a row and a one-liner from 2109 in reply to my announcement that SPR were coming.
BE THER BEFORE YOU!!
Later that evening Dave Psychobilly positioned himself by the fireplace and swivelled towards us. He had brought ten questions to put on the computer to 2109 which, from his demeanour, he obviously thought both provoking and subtle. At my suggestion this was to be a test to eliminate four of us (Peter, Val, Debbie and myself) from the suspects list. Only Dave knew the questions and three quarters of an hour after he put the questions he was going to delete the file.
However, Peter, smartly dressed from church, was losing patience with Dave Welch. He tackled him about authenticating this before it was too late. His agitation had been on the surface all week. ‘We’ll have missed it,’ he said. This rise in temper came about because Dave had suggested that the messages may have been sent along the mains earth to the computer. It could, he said, have been rigged by a neighbour. Peter almost choked. ‘Are you still suspecting the neighbours? Impossible! Impossible!’ Debbie and I looked at each other and exchanged the same thought. The earth cable?
Everyone and their camel knew that the BBC B is too simple a machine for such trickery. We had asked the camel. I asked Dave how it would work. No answer of course.
The experiment began. The computer was switched off to clear out any ‘secreted’ information and then switched on to allow the test to begin. We gave Dave Welch simple instructions on how to get EDWORD and how to create a document, then we shut him in the kitchen and left him to type in his questions. Conversation in the living room centred on the puppy, which was curled up in my black greatcoat.
Dave joined us after ensuring that the screen had been made invisible from outside the house or the skylight by the use of cardboard surrounds and that the kitchen was locked up in the usual way. For the bulk of the period we all stayed together, going through the usual speculation. A lot of it now included bowdlerized quantum physics, which was crazy enough in itself, so much so that I began to think that what was going on at the cottage was, on the face of it, not as nutty as it at first might seem.
Dave Welch was seated near the fireplace with an eye on the door. After the allotted time he let himself back in the kitchen and deleted the message from the screen. Because it had never been saved to disc it could not be recovered once deleted. The kitchen was once again left alone.
It was now 10 P.M. Dave still had to check the files for a reply. I guessed that there would not be one as 2109 never played it easy. There wasn’t.
I was asked to report if any reply was received. Someone said that we’d not recognize a reply, as such, as we didn’t see the questions.
The dog passed the night reasonably well but Debs had to stay downstairs with him and she got little sleep. Throughout Monday he became weaker. Deb was now nursing him at her mother’s. He had to be carried, still silent, in a cardboard box to the car; I just wanted him to look eagerly out of the window. The vet gave him a fifty/fifty chance of lasting another day and injected him with some more nutrients. Lukas was so very sick and was dehydrating badly. Deb was to give him a syringeful to drink every ten minutes or so. I began to feel his pain and his courage all at once. By six o’clock he was looking bright. Deb brought him to the cottage and I would lift the old jumpers from over him and watch for a wagging tail.
I rang the cottage next day at lunchtime for news. Debs said he looked up because he could hear my voice. I loved him. He was doing OK but needed Deb’s continual attention. After school I walked towards Ewloe Green and my mother’s house, but had got no further than the caravan sales office when I glanced round to see the Jaguar coming over the rise by the junction of Wood Lane. Deb pulled the car up beside me and told me to get in.
Lukas had died that afternoon. He was in the boot of the car in a plastic bag. She was taking him to the vet to dispose of. Did I want to see him? I said no.
As we drove slowly home Deb told me how Lukas had suddenly risen from his bed and staggered a few paces to her side. His eyes had tears and they pleaded with her for help. She could not help him and the puppy had died stricken with pain in her arms.
Out across time Tomas had sensed this small dog’s fight and our reactions to it and next day into our private world of grief arrived a beautiful and sensitive message of support.
Maid,
I could feel your sorrow and was griefstricken myself that you lost the dog. It was an unfortunate thing and although I am wise to the world I know that a dog is the truest friend of all, big and small. But if our God demands our company then neither love nor hope will sustain us here. Death can be life, you must not cry, my maid, for most of the time we are but shadows for we are with people’s thoughts more than we are in their sight.
I shall tell you of the Lukas from whom I took my name. He was the greatest man that ever lived. He was a man of true dignity, worthy to his fellows. In Bristol when I was but a child he took me into his house and offered to let me stay for ever. He told me things I would never reveal, not at any price. Of his quality, for he always spoke wisely, I could not place my father his equal, he was the nearest man to God. He was sent to prison for taking a book for me to read, he often did this but always returned them, and as he told the court to do this is not a crime. He died in prison and I took his name in the hope that I could be as much like him as possible, but in some ways your dog was very like him for he also stood and fought. And because of your small dog I am ashamed that I used the name of Lukas for I am not worthy of it.
Tomas
I have found this better pen, more paper, fellow Ken, for I have some words for you.
I have never had so unhappy an evening and poor Debbie broke her heart. We went to the theatre where there were crowds of people so it was too embarrassing for us to start the tears again.
Next day.
‘What does this mean?’ asked Debbie. ‘“… He welcom myne steye for eren an tolde mynself manie a thynge that for nagolde waldst leeve me.”’
‘Tomas has a few secrets.’
‘What secrets?’
‘Honestly, Deb …’
‘Must be vital information if he won’t even tell us.’
‘He’s a man of honour. He may have been told to tell no one. Tomas would stick to his word.’
In the sadness surrounding the arrival of the message this conversation was all the discussion that took place on Tomas’s ‘secrets’. But some days later this section prompted rather more thought. Debbie said it might be a secret about communicating through time, some form of training or initiation. ‘The Tibetans and all sorts say it can be done,’ she said. ‘Such a power had to be kept amongst the few.’ I laughed and replied that I thought Tomas was as surprised to be in touch with us as we were to be in touch with him. It was hardly the attitude of an initiate into a secret society. I was more interested in his philosophy or his attitude to life, which were also hinted at in the message.
… deeth can beest a liffe yow muste nawoe myne mayde for mooste tyme us beest al shadowes forwy we art wyth pepels thoughtes moore than we beeth in thir syghtes
Tomas as philosopher and Tomas as a man of secrets. There was further speculation: how about a
secret society whose secrets were quasi-religious? Talk drifted around this possibility. I remembered what Peter had said recently about alchemy, alchemists and Bristol. He had been chasing words again and had detected alchemical terms such as ‘quintessence’ in Tomas’s writing. A spot of research uncovered Bristol and the surrounding area as containing practitioners of alchemy at about the time Lukas Wainman would have lived in the city. One Tomas Norton was mentioned in particular. Tomas Harden might have had access to that group of alchemists. If so it would give some structure in which to place his love of learning, his initiation into various ‘secrets’ and his deeply philosophical but not quite mainstream commentary on events.
True alchemists were very learned ‘clerks’, for alchemy has at its root a philosophical tradition, a society of initiates in search of a transformation of the human soul from the base – the leaden – to the pure – gold. And with this our thinking creaked on like an old water-mill in a dry season: the wheel turned but precious little grain was being milled. It was another item to add to our list of avenues for exploration.
In memory of little Lukas, Deb hung his small collar and lead from a hook under the stairs and put his favourite toy, a blue, plastic, squeaky frog, on top of the kitchen cupboard. An hour or two later the ‘poltergeist’ threw it off the cupboard and we heard the squeak as it hit the floor. Deb came near to tears as she imagined for a second that the dog was playing with it. I comforted her but became a little choked myself.
I replaced the squeaky toy carefully and threw out a half-empty packet of chocolate sweets I had seen on the cupboard. The puppy had never finished them. To keep and to discard; to live and die. Some memories must stay, some go. As Tomas said, ‘We are but shadows.’
I asked Tomas to write of ‘one’ and 2109. He wrote the next day, on paper. And as tears and laughter oppose and yet complement each other he told such a tale of innocence and confusion that I had to laugh.
Myne goodlie felawe Ken
yow dide axe a won afrom 2109 him seyn manye thyng o non sense to myne erre an wert a avauntyng his powre somdele an biforn me wert toffire sete hym forepast goon soe him tale than him wilt wrytes myne boke an us naspake to 2109 for thye art gekalles that beest oonlie to force thir wynn synge thoughtes to us bot las me canst ne rekone for syche talke fro a wyght that beest gene tha be a tyme viagire wot thynke yow preye me art confus me dost axe wy yow doe speke wyth thise wyghtes fore thir beest non cause preye you onlie speke wyth yowr felawe wretchyd Tomas an nat wyth thise gauberynge 2109 for fere yow mayhapp be taken by jack for woode
Tomas
My good fellow Ken,
You asked of ‘one’ from 2109. He said many nonsensical things to me and was boasting of his power somewhat but before I could offer him a seat he had already gone. He said that he will write my book and we were not to speak to 2109 for they are taunters that only want to force their thoughts on to us. But I can’t square with talk from a man that looks green and is a time voyager. What do you think? I am confused and ask you why you speak with these persons because there is no need. Please speak only with your fellow, poor wretched Tomas, and not with these gabbering 2109 in case you may be taken to be insane.
Tomas
It is a mirror of our confusion, Tomas.
I hung the script in a ‘klip’ frame on the bedroom wall as a constant reminder to keep things in perspective.
Debbie asked me if I thought that 2109 and ‘one’ were part of our dreams or Tomas’s dreams. I could see that she wanted to marginalize them by this arrangement. If they did people Tomas’s dreams or ours when were we going to wake? It was possible rather that we were all half-awake to something rather more profound. There were moments when it seemed we were at the edge of a drama, but unsure whether we were actors or acted upon.
Some more days passed, a whole week without a computer in the kitchen. Deb tried to stay busy, and went to her mum’s or for drives. On the Thursday I went down to the Royal Oak in Kinnerton with an old friend and in a small way cheered up – normal life, just a taste of it, in very strange and difficult circumstances.
The computer was either with Deb’s mum or in its box. I think I neither knew nor cared. But 2109 had not disappeared or chickened out. To their credit they responded to the ten questions at the next opportunity we gave them, 27 September.
DAVID, JOHN.
DAVID. YOU INTERFERE WITH COMUNICATION. NEXT TIME YOU DECIDE TO PERFORM YOUR LITTLE EXPERIMENT YOU MUST BE CLEAR FROM HERE. WE SUGGEST YOU TRY SOMEONE ELES TO SIT WITH DEBBIE.
YES WE ARE WHAT YOU WOULD CALL A TACHYON UNIVERSE BUT YOUR UNDERSTANDING IS INCORRECT. WE ASK NOTHING MORE OF YOU THAN TO CARRY ON AS YOU WOULD PREFER. WE WILL HAVE JOHN PRESENT IF GIVEN CHOISE OR YOU MAY BRING ANOTHER AS MENCIONED. NO, IT IS NO CONCERN TO US THAT THIS IS NOT PROVED. WE WILL GIVE YOU A PLOTTING OF A STAR NEXT TIME. WE MOVE AT A SPEED SO THAT WE COVER EVERY POINT IN YOUR TIME AND UNIVERSE. WE HAVE NO FORM WE FEED OF A NEET ENERGY THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE HERD OF 2109
I read this down the phone to Dave Welch. He said 2109 had not answered the questions but it seemed that they had picked up all of the questions left for them and in the same order – down to the acknowledgement of a repeated item. I was passively listening to this on the telephone. Then it struck me, 2109 had seen the questions that none of us in the cottage had seen. I put the telephone down and began hopping and dancing around the room in exultation. ‘We’ve done it, we’ve done it, we’ve done it! It’s OK. We’re not hoaxing. We’re not being hoaxed. It’s proved. This is real!!’
For once I loved every crummy spelling 2109 made. We knew that this was excellent progress. When we had a chance we looked again at the reply. Very strange, they appeared to be suggesting that they were coming in to this universe from another ‘dimension’ or perhaps that their universe was passing through ours. Not ‘angels’ then, unless in transit. Pretty wacky stuff. They were capable of following every path and every turn of our history as well. They were not the ‘future’, that word was dissolved of its meaning, time seemed to be of little importance. This suggested some sort of ‘alien’ intelligence, though none of us was comfortable with the word ‘alien’, let alone the conclusion. And I for one did not care a twopenny fig – they saw the questions, we didn’t, and they replied!
Tagged on about a page lower down the screen was another strange and extremely unlikely communication.
2109.
213,978,8]: IRRECOVERABLE
STATE: REASON FOR YOUR PRETEXT
STATE: WHAT ‘PREREQUISITE’ YOU INTEND
STATE: LOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR INTRUSIVE BEHAVIOUR UPON 1985:THIS IS NOT YOUR CONCERN
REQUEST: COM. LINK 62]:PLOT. CHAN.[452.95]
REQUEST: ANSWER IMMEDIATELY:FED. AWAITING REASONS FOR DELAY
Captain Kirk to starfleet command? A cipher for added ‘interest’. We were never allowed to become settled with a view of the experience. New snippets of information arrived to challenge our models, our conceptions. Perhaps no ‘conception’ was any longer possible: there were too many inconsistencies for me, for any of us, to construct a framework for the experience in which all the ‘facts’ were accommodated. This was in itself suspicious. More than one person said to me, ‘You’re being manipulated.’ But few now said, ‘You’re having us on.’
Dave Welch came through on the telephone that following Sunday, 29 September. He’d be very happy to ask some more questions. Everyone, including 2109, appeared to have forgotten that the original parameters had been that one discreet set of questions would be answered. I put the questions on the screen for Dave. No need for elaborate screening of the computer now, I noticed.
2109 COULD YOU SOLVE THESE FOR DAVID PLEASE ……………………… KEN
I THINK THAT THE LARGEST PRIME NUMBER WE KNOW IS 2 TO THE POWER OF 216091–1 CAN YOU GIVE A LARGER PRIME NUMBER OF THE SAME TYPE AND A LARGER PRIME NUMBER OF A DIFFERENT COMPOSITION?
FERMAT THOUGHT THAT THE EQUATION X TO THE n = y TO THE n + 2 TO THE n COULD NOT BE WRITTEN I
F x,y,z AND n ARE ALL WHOLE NUMBERS AND n IS AT LEAST 3.*
CAN YOU GIVE A SOLUTION OR WHEN WE WILL PROVE THAT THE ANSWER IS POSSIBLE?? KEN
DAVE
YES, BOTH QUSTIONS CAN BE AN SEWED, ONE DIRECTLY, THE OTHER REQUIRES AN UNDERSTANDING OF A NEW CONVERSION FORMULA. BEFOUR WE TELL YOU, DO YOU SWEAR TO GRANT US OUR WISH?
‘The cunning bastards! Deb, look at this.’
‘I bet Dave says yes. Go an’ ring him. He said to,’ urged Deb.
So I did and Dave, greatly to my surprise, sounded unsure, even reticent. I dutifully put down his words.
IF IT BE IN OUR POWER SO TO DO AND THAT WE DO NOT LOSE OUR MINDS OR SOULS OR BODIES TO YOU
Another walk around the village. I could hardly bear to be away.
They wrote:
THEN LET THE MAN WHO IS WILLING TO LOSE THESE STEP FORWARD!
I asked them to be reasonable about all this, but they continued:
TO LOSE YOUR SOUL IS TO LOSE ALL. BUT SURELY THIS WOULD NOT BOTHER DAVID – CALL OUR BLUFF!
I rang Dave again, feeling a bit unsure of myself but confident that a scientist would call that bluff. Perhaps this is expecting too much of scientists who are, after all, quite human. The answer, surely, was not to go on hedging around the problem. But Dave kept hedging.
I did consider whether to cheat and just put in ‘YES’ but decided against it and for my pains still got no further with 2109. No compromise.
ANSWER EITHER YES OR NO. YOU ASKED A QUESTION WE ANSWERED IT, YOUR TURN IF WE ARE TO ANSEWER [sic] QUESTIONS AGAIN. DO YOU WANT THE ANSWER?
But ‘no’ it was and ‘no’ it remained. Debbie was still all for volunteering Dave’s soul for him but to this day I don’t think it would have been wise. 2109 might have been bluffing and quite probably holding no cards whatsoever but it was an extraordinarily difficult moment which, to an onlooker, must have had a farcical air about it.