"And that was cryptic!" muttered Boozie.
"Shut up!" said Danny.
Poyntner seemed to stare at Freddie as though with a wary presentiment of what was to come.
"In your own case," she continued, "when you persisted in challenging the Laha, you yourself were struck by such a thunderbolt – obviously, because it silenced you and, I believe, has changed you forever." When Poyntner appeared to tense up, she knew she had touched on his problem. "Alfred!" she ordered. "I am going to ask you one straight question, a I want you to answer it spontaneously – without rationalization. Can you do that?"
Raising his head in stiffening tension, Poyntner seemed ready to resist her, but the fact that he had begun to perspire was a sure sign to her that she was ready to "pull the plug."
"Alfred Poyntner," she said swiftly, "what was that thunderbolt?"
Everyone held their breaths, with all eyes focused on the astrophysicist's drawn, tense face. Then Freddie's brilliant strategy seemed to collapse like a house of cards when he glared straight at her and said, "No!"
As the other three men met Freddie's startled gaze with a sympathetic smile or a shrug, Danny suggestively offered her a compensating shot of "Twang." But she suddenly waved it off as Poyntner started to speak again.
The astrophysicist appeared to be addressing his thoughts to the Cosmic void itself when he said, "Such an answer cannot be spontaneous or without rationalization... The 'thunderbolt' had three parts to it. The first part came like a pulse-burst transmission – a virtual explosion of knowledge. Then came the real bolt – a one-thought, one-word command..."
"Which was..." coaxed Freddie.
He stared at her as if startled that he had listeners. Then he almost shouted, "Extrapolate!"
"Extrapolate what?" challenged Boozie in unsmirking intensity.
"Yes, what's the third part, Al?" asked Danny.
Poyntner suddenly snatched up the electro-marker that Danny had left on the computer console, and with it he rushed to the white board. Manipulating a side panel, he caused the board to clear automatically. The others could only watch as he made a sweeping sinusoidal diagram and then entered two simple-looking mathematical statements: N 1" above the diagram, and "N 1" below it. Then he turned to face them, his eyes blazing.
"Extrapolate that!" he challenged. When met with only a staring silence, he mellowed slightly. "It was that vision, shot into my brain, which shut me up that day in the temple. You're right, Frederica, I've never been the same since!" He nodded toward the board behind him. "This changes the universe, and I've been struggling ever since to know how to present it."
Danny set his glass down. He could see that Freddie's diagnosis was valid. Obviously, she had "pulled the plug" on a very weighty suppression. Poyntner was ready to spill his cosmological soul. But he knew that he and Freddie might have to throw in some supporting information.
"For you boys who weren't in the temple," he said, "that sine wave series represents what the Laha was trying to tell us."
Poyntner seemed to be staring beyond all of them as he virtually quoted what he had learned. "The cyclic creation of universes alternates in cosmic pulsation between involution and evolution, first densifying, and then attenuating–"
"I love the part best," said Freddie, "where he likened density oscillation to a diastole and systole cycle – like the heartbeat of the Cosmos..."
Fitz drew Happy aside confidentially. "It seems to me now, lad, that these people would like to be left alone."
Whether it was "Twang" or a more elevated spirit working within him, Hapgood appeared to be having new visions of his own. "Get off it, Fitz!" he retorted. "Something's happening here, don't you see it? My God, we've always prayed for the New Millennium, and maybe this is it!"
"There's one step missing here," said Boozie, indicating the white board. "What's the extrapolation? What is this saying?"
Freddie was gratified to see Poyntner's tensions easing up, which she knew was due to something that ran deeper than what was in his glass.
The cosmologist smiled at Boozie and gently challenged him.
"Frans Mabuse, I've always suspected there was a frustrated Einstein in you that wanted to get out. Why don't you relieve your own suppressions now, and do the extrapolation for us?" As Boozie appeared to have been hoping for the invitation, he added, "So I'll repeat your question, young man – what is this saying?"
No longer imbibing, Boozie figuratively "took the stage" with alacrity. "On the condition," he said, "that you tap into that pulse-burst of knowledge they shot you with, and pull out a missing fact or two, I might give this a try–"
"Words! Words!" Poyntner chided, imitating his own tirade in the temple.
Like a professor at a college lectern, Boozie pointed to the diagram on the white board. "I take it that these waves are successive universes – that is, the lower loop of each cycle. As to the upper loops above the zero line–" He shrugged. "Data, please?"
Danny interrupted. "Holy Sam once called those the 'twilight of the gods,' according to the ancients. The Hindus called them pralayas..."
Poyntner squinted a critical eye at Boozie. "You know the prime directive of science, Frans. No theory is viable unless susceptible of scientific verification. Do you know of any approach to a verification here?"
"Yes, it fills in some of the puzzle I've always wondered about. These days when your large telescope arrays and computer spreads can give you a super wide view of the Cosmos, an obvious mosaic shows up. I'd say those 'pralaya' loops are all those voids that make up the pattern."
"Ten points for you!" answered Poyntner, enjoying himself. "Now what about the n and the l?"
"Looks like you're diddling with one of your sacred constants. 'N = 1' represents the refractive index of light in a vacuum, but–"
"But I am now told that there is no vacuum!" said Poyntner.
Somewhat startled, Boozie nevertheless returned a confident smirk. "You mean Michelson and Morley got rid of the 'ether' too soon? I always suspected–"
"You suspected right, but would it surprise you to know that there can be no so-called 'ether' or vacuum, because even those voids you mention are filled with finer matter?"
"Not particularly. After all, your quantum boys have already detected an extension of the gravitational field into other dimensions. In fact, there you have the solution to the great mystery of 'dark matter' – the 90 percent of the Cosmos that's been hidden from us."
Poyntner shook his head in appreciation. "Boy, you're doing it! Your grade curve is going into orbit! Now extrapolate those deviations of the n and l statement."
Boozie pointed to the upper notation showing n 1. "If we're talking about density oscillations," he said, "then in any pralaya or 'night of the gods,' so called, the refractive index of light would be less than 1. As to the lower notation –" He indicated the "N 1" statement below the sine wave loops. "If each evolving universe cycles into its densities and then evolves on a rising arc of attenuation, it follows that in the density areas the refractive index of light would be greater than–"
Poyntner leapt to his feet and confronted Boozie at the board, glaring a challenge at him. "And what in hell do you think THAT would do to our red shift interpretations!" he almost shouted.
The speechless onlookers in the astro lab seemed to hold their breaths, wondering if their new champion could possibly answer such a challenge. Boozie, however, was more startled by Poyntner's explosive reaction than he was by the question.
There was no smirk when he answered. "I'd say THAT would throw Hubble's constant out of the ballgame, and it would give you an attenuating universe – not an expanding one. And another thing – that might be the best way to explain away the misinterpretation of your so-called 'dark energy.'"
Poyntner appeared to slump in happy relief. He stared at the others who had witnessed the incredible "head-bash" session.
"Fitzgerald Gogarty," he said, while taking his seat again, "in your good Irish soul y
ou always seem to find one of those comforting old homilies that serve to simplify our perplexing human state." He waved a hand at the white board. "Can you help us now, please? I'm not only going to be addressing geniuses when I publish my paper, but there are all those 'slab-brains' Noley was always talking about. They count, too, you know. So how would you make simple sense out of this whole explosive revelation?"
Danny wondered if Poyntner was throwing the powerful impact of the moment away on a facetious request. Whereas the others had been noticeably sobered by the stormy dialogue, Fitz had taken possession of the TNT gourd itself.
Slightly red-nosed and bearing a striking resemblance to an inebriated leprechaun, he raised a final glass, while linking his free arm in Hapgood's arm. "Happy here, my good companion," he drawled, "has placed the pot at the end of the rainbow, and the searchin's done, I say!" While Happy could only stare at him in consternation, he took another sip. "In his good heart he's reminded me that we've always prayed for the New Millennium, or at least a New Age." He frowned and swayed back and forth as if in rejection. "There's always been a wicked fly in that old ointment, you see. Each time we crossed the doorstep of a new millennium, it seems we've always dragged a load of old rubbish right across it with us..." Suddenly he smiled and lifted his glass to all. "But I'm toastin' our chances at this one as we bring our new baggage back to old Mother Earth. This time, by God, we're cleanin' out the attic!"
It was later determined that Alfred Poyntner finally slept for two days...
* * * *
Before the star ship's velocity brought it into the trans-C effect of the Barrier Wall, two final revelations occurred. Another UFO was sighted. This time it was a gigantic silvery ship which was clearly discernible on the observatory video.
"I've got it!" Poyntner announced jubilantly over the P.A. system.
He told everyone to watch their nearest monitor screens as he reran the videos he had taken. Everyone was puzzled at first. The gleaming saucer-shaped vessel appeared to rush toward them and disappear.
"Noley was right all along," said Poyntner. "We've been asleep on our slabs, or at least I have! Like the Laha said in the temple, men mold their gods and heavens to fit their egos, and science does no less."
Danny anxiously offered a rebuttal over the voice-video channel. "But those intelligences also said that no mechanical vehicles–"
"Nothing out of the deeper densities, Danny! Don't you get it? Good God, have we been blind! That ship wasn't rushing toward us, it was going away!"
"But it got larger."
"In an optical sense, yes, but it was attenuating into a different energy plane. It went back through the Gate! All these years, we said it was an illusion. We were flatlanders, all right, completely ignorant of the multiplex nature of the universe!"
Boozie was heard from, sounding anything but cynical. "What do you think that thing was trying to do, Al, pass us a signal? The cosmoscope is on constant reception, you know. Nothing came in on the indicators."
"It was an inspection, maybe. I think it's getting ready to take us across the Barrier. It'll be back, but be prepared to blank out again, as we did when we came through the first time.
"Except," said Fitz, "that on this trip there'll be no panic, now that we know what we didn't know."
Before the Barrier transition came, the cosmoscope sounded an alarm. Something was coming in, a message sent instantaneously across the light years. When Boozie played back the reception tape, the incredible happened. The voice spoke English, with a hauntingly familiar accent. The first words were: "Star ship Sirius III, I give you a final message." Before they could recover from this first shock, the surprise that followed left them speechless. It was Holy Sam.
"When the earthquake struck the temple," he explained, "I knew my pudgy old legs were not as fleet as yours. I had no choice but to escape through the Gate."
After that preamble they could only listen in wondering silence for fear of missing a word. Since the cosmoscope was only in reception mode, there was no way of making a response transmission. They had no way of knowing where he was, and as Danny commented to the listeners it was probably just as well. Fitz topped this with, "Our cup runneth over already. Leave well enough alone!"
Sam told them they would soon be coming back across the Barrier and into "new life," that they had become a new species, born through experience to the "next phase of causal activity." This, he said, was the true purpose behind the great compulsion of the race, the world cult of the Star Quest, a crucial time of human transition.
Before they blanked out to be gated beyond the Barrier, they heard his careful conclusion:
"I know that Alfred Poyntner must be preparing a vitally significant scientific report on what you have seen and experienced, yet he is no doubt troubled by it. He wonders how he may be able to get his peers to understand. The answer is that many will not. But there are many who will, more than any time in history. Why? The race is attenuating. On the sinusol curve of contraction and expansion, you are emerging from your densities. There are new and restless awakenings. The response groups will grow. The knowledge gained by the Star Quest will be like a single star, a bursting nova in the void of darkness. The lost faculties are returning, as seen in your increasing psi phenomena. Man will expand as he attenuates. He will continue to build his cyclopean structures in a new Golden Age, for this time his pyramid will be completed."
Long after the tape had become silent, Poyntner finally spoke. "He's certainly right about the report that I'm trying to make palatable to top minds and slab-heads alike, back on Earth. I don't even know what the hell to call it!"
Boozie had a suggestion: "How about God in a Plain Brown Wrapper?"
* * * *
The blackness came, yet there were visions and cosmic dreams as they crossed the Barrier, of condensing galaxies and expanding universes, worlds without end.
CODA
"There were Raks in the world in those days, and also after that when the Star Sons came in unto the Daughters of Lankara, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, where of old, men of renown..."
–Chapter 6, Stanza 4. – The Later Commentaries
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
B.A., M.A., UCLA, plus college teaching credentials. Ten years trade school and college extension courses covering the gamut from computerology to electronics, astronomy, and management. Ten years in Show Biz including two years' association with Robert Cohen of Columbia. Former member of SFWA, WGAW, and formerly National Executive VP of Science-Fantasy Writers of America (Ray Bradbury, President).
Over 3 million words published plus half a dozen pocketbooks, and some screen and TV credits (ZIV/TV – Men Into Space, starring Bill Lundigan; story line and research package for The Deserter, DeLaurentis release starring Ricardo Montalban, John Huston, Chuck Connors, etc.)
In international management, specialized in systems analysis, multi-country system installation, large-scale procurement and inventory control management (operations exceeding $100 million annual volume). Multilingual (Spanish, German). Lived abroad, So. America and Guam, traveled for Litton Data Systems to NATO bases in Europe (as Principal Engineering Writer and proposal survey rep).
So much for the resume! What about the nitty-gritty? (All those years to account for!) Inasmuch as all of this was laid out in the Appendix of my gothic novel, Hoaxbreaker, available in electronic form from Renaissance E Books and in print from Trafford publishing, it is only expedient (as well as bare-faced honest) to simply repeat it here:
What may help to explain some of this is the fact that at the age of three I was struck on the head by a falling brass flower pot. Maybe you can figure out the rest of it (I'm not sure I can!)
As a Scotch-Irish French Norwegian, I was born before World War I in the neutral German-Swede country of Minnesota (St. Paul), which branded me as a WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) – although I turned out to be a maverick. Knowing nothing about triskaidekaph
obia, I was incautious enough to be born in 1913, thus bringing upon the world the witches' brew of war politics in the Balkans, and the back room machinations of certain gentlemen in midnight session in Washington who thrust the 16th amendment upon an unsuspecting populace.
Whether I deserved it or not, I enjoyed a blissful childhood among Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. I was a tanned waterbug under the enchantment of those boyhood forever days of summer. My only recollection of the first war was the shattering discovery at the horse-drawn popcorn wagon that a big slab of apple pie, a la mode, was no longer a nickel! (War inflation had upped it to 7 cents.) What I'm pointing out here is that I did come in at the beginning of things, because over these 89 years I was privileged to embrace the gamut of changes and discoveries which transformed the world of Yesterday into Tomorrow. I was in there early enough to see magic lantern slides instead of movies, to watch the little man in the black suit climb his ladder to light our gas lamp out front, and in the early twenties I was excited by awed whisperings about a thing called radio! Then came the talkies, radar, television, computers, nuclear power, satellites, moon walks, ice cubes, hula hoops, Saran wrap, and the Internet. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Dreams and imagination. My father read me Grimm's Fairytales, and I graduated solo into Alice in Wonderland, and to L. Frank Baum's marvelous tales of Oz. Which led to the Rover Boys and the Boy Allies and finally to a schism – between Gernsback science fiction and the life-changing impact of the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. By the time I moved to California at the impressionable age of twelve, my eyes felt as big as the Rockies. I was Tarzan and John Carter (if not also Doc Savage, Hairsbreadth Harry, and the Green Hornet) all rolled into one, ready to take on the world. (The Gray Lensman and Prince Valiant also came to claim a piece of my psyche.) I was victim and product of the impossible (?) idealism of those never-to-be-forgotten halcyon days. (I came to call them the sunlit yesteryears.)
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