‘It’s a beacon.’ Barth was smiling for perhaps the first time in their encounter. ‘Your friends show both intelligence and skill. They have planted a beacon, consisting of Tao’s DNA signature, at the edge of sub-quantal space. If you follow it, you’ll be well-placed to make your exit.’
‘I still don’t know what to do, though.’ Tao said. ‘Do I go to this beacon, make myself known to them, and wait for them to give me an energy charge and free me? Just like last time?’
‘That would work, of course. However, if the way is truly open to you in the reverse direction, you shouldn’t need the energy charge. Perhaps you should first try feeing yourself.’
Tao remained highly sceptical about all this. She knew how energy-sapping sub-quantal space was and she didn’t think she had a hope in hell of doing what this alien suggested. On the other hand, if she could, she’d be able to come and go as she pleased – and that meant she could stay in touch with Josh. It was a no-brainer. It was certainly a motivator.
‘Okay.’ She pulled Josh to her and kissed him hungrily, not caring what the aliens thought. ‘Hold that in your memory,’ she said, giving him a look that made him want to pull her down on the spot and ravish her. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Josh gulped. ‘Go for it,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you can do this.’
‘I’m not, but I’ll give it a damned good try.’ She pulled away from him and looked at the two aliens. ‘Are you two coming with me as far as the beacon?’
‘We’ll be available if you need us, but we think you should try this on your own.’ Barth said. ‘It’s important you get as much experience as possible in manipulating this environment.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Josh said. He was still reeling from that last kiss.
‘I should think so!’ Tao grinned at him. ‘And if I get out – no, when I get out I’ll see what I can do about finding you a body. I’m not particularly keen on long-distance relationships.’
Josh grinned too. She appeared to have come to terms with this, probably rationalising it in her mind as a mission. And a mission it surely was – a mission to save the universe, no less. They couldn’t be accused of doing things by halves.
They stood together and focused on the beacon. It was clearly there, in their minds, but they had no idea how to move themselves towards it. Barth came to their rescue.
‘I’ll show you this much at least,’ he said. ‘This is how to move around down here.’
Like most mentalics, it was easy when you knew how, and they were soon off, skittering over the photon wave fronts as if they were on surf boards. It was quite exhilarating, and they were almost sorry when they came to the end of the journey and recognised the beacon floating languidly in the light stream. It felt very different here. They were effectively in the sub-quantal shallows, and it felt warmer, presumably a reflection of their increased energy potential.
How could we have increased our energy potential?’ Tao murmured.
‘Don’t know, but I’ll give it some thought while you’re away,’ Josh said. ‘Don’t think about it now. Concentrate on going home. Come on Tao – the way is open.’
Tao embraced him one last time then turned her attention to getting home. Mentalic development was all about being positive, and in this case, everything was working in her favour. Her name meant “the way”. The sub-quantal entities had confidence in her. Josh had confidence in her. The way was open. She focused. She saw what she was supposed to do and did it.
Josh was left on his own, contemplating his future.
If he had one.
Chapter 17
If Sol was expecting a relaxing chat with Chard, he was to be sorely disappointed. The AI had picked up the El language during his short time with Micha and had been doing some thinking of his own. Now he wanted to share.
He began by detailing the obvious. They now had first-hand knowledge of two distinct types of alien (three, if you included the Phthask, though that didn’t suit Chard’s purpose for now), and it couldn’t be coincidence that the appearance of these two types mirrored the protagonists in the so-called “War in Heaven” that was part of many belief systems on Earth. Something must have happened many thousands of years ago – something so traumatic that it had become imprinted on human racial memory. Chard felt that whatever that event had been, it must have involved what the Cthon called “the gateway”, and its effects were still being felt in the present day
‘You’re suggesting the El and the Cthon went to war over this gateway?’ Sol said.
He got up, stretched, and wondered round the cabin for a while, before sitting rather uncomfortably again on the chair that reminded him of the one that belonged to Daddy Bear in the goldilocks story.
‘Remember I’ve been eavesdropping on Micha. It’s very clear that the El are on the same side as the Cthon. The Cthon were supposed to monitor humanity and take simple steps to ensure “the gateway” remained closed. It was never intended they should take the aggressive action that has been their hallmark for the past twenty years.’
‘So, where does that put the Eich?’
‘I can’t say for sure, but I think there are two possibilities. Either they represent a Cthon faction that recognises the main body of Cthon have exceeded their remit and are attempting to keep them in check, or they are actively opposed to the whole Cthon project and are trying to open “the gateway”.
‘And we’re no closer to working out what this “gateway” is?
‘We have snippets of information only. The Cthon told Josh that the gateway had to remain closed. The term “gateway” was often used synonymously with “way” in the ancient languages, such as the one spoken by the El, and this term appears to be of importance to almost all the established religions of Earth. For instance, in John 14:6 of the Bible, Jesus is supposed to have said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Clearly, the word “father” is also open to interpretation, though it seems to be referring to the Godhead in this context.’
‘Interesting. In that case, I wonder if Jesus had access to this “way”. You say there are mentions in other religions too?’
‘’Well, although a little vague, the Quran, 7:157 states that Muhammed was the last messenger, and a prophet sent by God to guide humanity to the right way. Although Hinduism is an extremely variable religion that has changed through time and has no true founder, the Upanishads emphasized the knowledge of ultimate reality as the supreme way. Then there is Taoism. That was founded by Lao Tzu, and the word Tao literally means “the way”. I could go on.’
‘No, that’s fine. I get the picture. The concept of a “way” or “gateway” seems to be central to many human belief systems. That might mean humanity is the key to opening “the way”, the Eich encouraging us and the El and the Cthon trying to stop us. If that scenario is correct, the War in Heaven would probably have been between the El and the Eich. Angels against demons.’ He looked worried. ‘I wonder if we’ve somehow got ourselves allied to the wrong side.’
‘It’s entirely possible. I suggest we get more information from Micha as soon as possible.’
‘I don’t think there’s any hurry, buddy. It’s not as though we’ve got anywhere to go.’
‘Unfortunately, that’s correct. Do you wish to impart your news to me now?’
‘Uh, sure.’ Sol explained to the AI about what he’d come to think of as his “upgrade”. He detailed the mentalic abilities he’d discovered so far and told him about his escape from the infra-low. Chard stopped him at that point.
‘You escaped from the infra-low on your own?’
‘Sure did. It took me a while to figure it out, but it turned out to be a relatively simple case of reversing time by a few minutes.’
‘Sol, that was highly innovative. The Eich told Josh and Tao that they’d always need an external stimulus to escape from that level. To my knowledge they’ve never used the mechanism you found.’
&nbs
p; ‘Well, it’s not quite as straightforward as I’ve made out, perhaps. There are consequences to everything you do in the infra-low – consequences to the rest of reality, I mean, because you’re fundamentally altering reality when you mess with the sub-quantal functions. My time-shift was only a few minutes and I made sure the consequences were minimal.’
‘I understand.’ Chard sounded grave, making Sol feel like a naughty schoolboy who’d been hauled up in front of the headmaster. ‘This is obviously why the Eich told the young agents what they did. The safest way to escape the infra-low is clearly to be assisted by an external stimulus. While I understand why you took the alternative route, can I suggest you never to do it again?’
Sol felt suitably chastised. He was convinced he’d had no option but to take the action he had on this occasion, and he’d been proud of the way he’d recognised the potential for catastrophe and taken steps to minimise it. Nevertheless, he took Chard’s point. This was clearly an emergency escape route only, for use when there was no other way out and when the consequences had been properly risk-assessed. However, you could never say never.
‘I can’t make any promises,’ he said. ‘I’ll make every effort not to use it, but I reserve the right to if the need to escape is greater than the consequences of employing it. Obviously, if you’re around I’ll use the external stimulus trick.’
‘Fair enough.’
Chard sounded mollified, and Sol was left wondering why he felt the need to justify himself to an AI stuck in a baton. Probably because he tended to talk a lot of sense.
‘So, I’ve got all these new mentalic abilities on tap, but still can’t find a way through this damned folded-space barrier,’ he said. ‘Kind of brings you down to earth.’
‘I don’t think there is a way through such a barrier,’ Chard said. ‘Josh was forced to go around it on the Cthon planet by employing temporal folding.’ He paused. ‘If you can wind time back, is temporal-folding within your new repertoire as well?’
‘Damn! I hadn’t thought of that.’
Sol suddenly felt energised again. If he could fiddle with time, then perhaps he could fold it too. And if he could do that, he could escape the barrier. He prepared to immerse.
‘Stop!’ Chard’s sudden shout halted him in his tracks. ‘I can guess what you’re planning. Please think this through before you embark on something foolish.’
‘Huh? You were the one who suggested it.’
‘I merely asked if you could do it. Finding the answer to that is acceptable, but please don’t try to initiate a temporal fold.’
‘Why the hell not? It might get us out of here.’
‘I’m sure it would. However, you need to consider where we’d end up.’
Sol was getting fed up with figuratively having his hands slapped all the time and being told he was impulsive. He was quite sure a time fold would be the way out of this alien prison-ship and he was intent on learning how to do it. Alright, he wouldn’t act on any discoveries until he’d had a chance to confer with Card again, but he was going to damned-well find out if he could do it. Without a word to Chard, he immersed.
From what Josh had said, time-folding was an almost inevitable consequence of space-folding, the two abilities sitting side-by-side in alpha-normal. And alpha-normal wasn’t exactly challenging. Sol had a good look round and spotted the space-folding function straight away. Unfortunately, there was no sign of anything that looked remotely like a time-folding function. He supposed it might be on a lower level, but that wasn’t how Josh had described it. So, perhaps this simply wasn’t one of his new abilities. Feeling frustrated, he emerged again.
‘No good. It doesn’t look like I can do it’
‘I suspect you will one day. Remember, even the young agents can’t do this at present. There appears to be some further mentalic hurdle to jump before it becomes second nature. In fact, it wouldn’t be much use to us in our present predicament anyway,’
‘I disagree. We could use it to get around the barrier. No doubt about it.’
‘Yes, but what would we find? Remember, we’re on a ship orbiting Mars. It’s location continually changes, but time-folding wouldn’t change our position in space. That means, if we time-folded back ten weeks, for instance, we’d find ourselves unprotected in the Martian atmosphere, falling towards the surface of Mars.’
Sol spent a little time thinking that one through. While he could see what the AI was getting at, if time-folding produced no change in spatial location, then it would tend to lead to a terminus in empty space whenever it was employed, because nothing in the universe was static. Planets orbited stars and those stars travelled round the galactic centre. Even the galaxies were on the move. So why hadn’t Josh ended up in space when he’d time-shifted on the Cthon planet? He put the problem to Chard.
‘It would seem to be a bit of a conundrum, wouldn’t it?’ Chard sounded quite disturbed. ‘I know my AI colleagues would hate me for saying so, but I fear I must speculate.’ Okay, so that would disturb any AI. ‘The fact that Josh could accomplish time-folding and remain in the same position on the Cthon planet implies one of two things. Either time folding is influenced by the action of gravity, which seems a little unlikely, or the act of time-folding calls into play an automatic spatial compensation. I suspect this is the more likely because, as Josh said, all time-folding is also space folding due to the one-ness of spacetime.’
So, what you’re saying is I couldn’t find a time-folding function in my alpha-normal because there isn’t one. The space-folding and time-folding sections are all one and I just need to become more adept at using them. The difference between being able to trot out a simple tune on a piano and being able to play a concerto.’
‘I think that’s a good analogy.’
‘Okay. Then I need to practice.’
‘Micha has already said that overt mentalics is forbidden within the ship, and I don’t think any amount of introspection will achieve what you want. I think you need to accept you won’t be going anywhere for a few more days. Micha hasn’t said he wishes to restrict you after that time.’
Sol sighed. He’d been getting all fired up with the thought of seeing Deira again and now his big ideas were lying in ruins. He appeared not to be able to do anything to materially affect their situation, and there was only so much mentalic fiddling he could cope with in a day. From what Micha had said, they were going to be stuck here for several days yet – and that was if things went well. He couldn’t simply sit in this cabin the whole time – he’d go mad.
‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘all this thinking’s making my brain ache as well as my stomach rumble. To be honest, I’m absolutely famished, so let’s go and see if we can find the galley, refectory, or whatever place they have on board that produces food.’
‘That sounds more like the Sol I know,’ Chard said. ‘You were beginning to worry me there with all your academic musings.’
Sol grinned. ‘Pity we can’t have private conversations when the El are around. I’m pretty sure they’d be able to decipher my sub-vocalisations.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘Hey, give me a minute or two.’
He re-immersed and soon found what he was looking for. Then, he just needed to manipulate it a little and … voila! He emerged feeling better than he had since he’d got out of the stasis chamber.
‘I’m back, buddy,’ he said, using structured thinking like a pro. ‘How does this sound to you?’
‘I’m suitably impressed.’ Chard’s voice appeared in his head. ‘We appear to have a viable form of secure communication – at last! It will be a relief not to have any further embarrassing situations.’
‘Yeah. Great or not? Okay, let’s go look for something to eat.’
‘You don’t need to leave your cabin for that. The console on the wall to your left is an automat. It should provide you with all the food and drink you require. I have a functioning map of the ship in my memory and there’s no sign of a communal eating space.’
‘Well th
at’s just damned unsociable! Never mind. Needs must.’
Sol wondered over to the automat and was soon involved in a very different voyage of discovery. He managed to conjure up what was clearly a menu of some kind, though he couldn’t read the ancient-looking script. Even Chard found it next to impossible to decipher some of the options. There was nothing to do but try them – and Sol was soon very satisfactorily immersed in what he described as “the finest dining experience this side of the Horsehead Nebula”.
Chard said nothing and let him get on with it.
Chapter 18
Having successfully planted the mentalic beacon in sub-quantal space, Deira folded back home for a few hours much-needed sleep. She soon discovered that the word “few” didn’t figure much when it came to rest periods after immersions in the infra-low, and she was shocked when she finally woke and found it was early the next morning. She hurried through her morning routine and snatched a bite to eat before folding back to England. She badly wanted to be on hand if the beacon proved to be successful and hoped she hadn’t already missed the event.
Folding into the lab, she found Juliette hard at work on her sub-quantal analysis. She confirmed there’d been no attempt at communication by Tao yet, no sub-quantal anomaly, so perhaps she was too deep in sub-quantal space to detect the beacon. Deira refused to believe that. She was going to get Tao back somehow. It was just a matter of waiting, like everything else in her life. Damned waiting.
She began to pace up and down, becoming increasingly tetchy, and Juliette found it impossible to get on with any work. Truth to tell, she was also thoroughly tired of waiting for a sign from Tao and was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate.
Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Page 13
