Terminal Event

by Robert Vaughan

  Worley smiled.

  “What’s the first thing you’ll need? Besides money, I mean.”

  “We will need a secure laboratory, with a capacity for very high voltage electricity. And we will need some dedicated satellite space.”

  “That won’t be hard, we’ve got a lot of that for our TV broadcasts,” Worley replied. “But what do you need the satellite for?”

  “We will need it to transfer the holographic images to the Before Time satellite,” Michael explained.

  “What? You mean there’s a satellite that’s been up there all these years?”

  “No. Once the people of the Before Time had scores of satellites up, but the orbit of the last one deteriorated more than a hundred million years ago. But remember, we’ll be sending the signal back in time, so it will find one of those ancient satellites.”

  “All right, sonny, you’ve got yourself a deal,” he said. “Whatever it costs, build your machine.”

  The Before Time

  Although building the time transceiver required a discipline that was outside of Zorlok’s scientific expertise, he had worked with Mitron and Joral, telling them he would assume the role of graduate student if need be. Vilna, too, volunteered for the project, and Zorlok and Vilna were in the lab with the machine, keeping watch over it while Mitron and Joral had gone out to have their lunch.

  “Zorlok, do you think this thing has any chance of actually working?”

  “I don’t know. I do know that Dr. Joral is the most brilliant physicist in history, so I have every confidence that this device will work. But remember, in order for it to work, a mirror image of it will have to be built sometime in the future. And it’s there, where I have my doubts.”

  Zorlok began enumerating his doubts by counting them off on his fingers. “First, the world will have to be repopulated, second, the embryos will have to survive for from a million, to perhaps as much as a billion years of embryotic suspension, third, they will have to be found, fourth, they will have to be found during a time of technology so that whoever finds them will not only recognize them for what they are, but also will be able to arrange for them to be born, and fifth, the information that has been planted in the processors will have to be sufficient to allow them to build the device, and finally, they will have to have access to the funds necessary to build it.”

  “Oh, my,” Vilna said. “There are a lot of obstacles in the way, aren’t there?”

  “Yes, there are, and there is one now!” Zorlok said angrily, pointing to the device where he saw someone standing there, looking around. “You!” he called. “How did you get in here?”

  The intruder looked around, and seeing Zorlock and Vilna, smiled. “It did work,” the intruder said.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “From the images that have been embedded, I know that you are Zorlok Cyr and you are Vilna Lashi.”

  “Who are you?” Zorlok demanded.

  “Oh, sweet Omo!” Vilna said with a gasp and reaching over to grab Zorlok’s hand. “Zorlok, don’t you know? Don’t you recognize him? This is our son!”

  Now, as Zorlok observed the figure more closely he saw that he was looking, not at a real person, but at a holographic image.

  “Hello, Mother and Father,” the smiling young figure said. “I thought I would call home to let you know that we made it.”

  THE END

  A LOOK AT THE OTHER SIDE OF MEMORY

  BY ROBERT VAUGHAN

  THE OTHER SIDE OF MEMORY

  CHAPTER 1

  June, 1996:

  Heavy morning fog blanketed Memphis, rising from the Mississippi River to wrap the Pyramid in its shroud and make ethereal tracings of the cables and girders of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge. From his seventh-floor hospital room, Jake Elliot looked down onto the parking lot below. He could see arriving patients and visitors materializing and dematerializing as they moved through the mist, toward the light.

  Jake returned to the chair beside his bed. " stack of paperback books lay on the tray-table beside his chair. The book covers were dark metallic-blue, with the title in silver foil. All six books had the same title: The Crystal Flame, by Jake Elliot. He was reaching for one as a nurse came in, carrying a clipboard.

  "Mr. Elliot. There are a couple of questions on the release form that I need you to answer," the nurse said.

  "All right, ask away."

  The nurse pushed the button on top of a ball-point pen, to pop the point out. "How old are you?" she asked, as she held the pen poised over the form.

  "How old are you, Mrs. Watkins?"

  Smiling at him, Mrs. Watkins waved the pen back and forth. "Huh, uh, that's not the way it works. You are the one getting a gallbladder operation, remember? Now, don't give me any trouble. How old are you?"

  "I'm fifty-six," Jake answered. He held his own pen above the fly-leaf of the book. "What is the night-nurse's name?" he asked. "You know, the pretty little brunette?"

  "Jill. Jill Simmons," Mrs. Watkins answered. "No, wait a minute, it's Montgomery now. She just got married."

  Jake began autographing the book. "Hmm, she just got married, you say?"

  "Two weeks ago."

  Jake chuckled. "Let her explain this to her new husband." He read his inscription aloud. "'To Jill, one of the loveliest ladies I ever spent the night with, regards from Jake Elliot.'"

  Mrs. Watkins laughed. "With you doing things like that, it's a wonder you lived long enough to be fifty-five. Now, who is your next of kin? You don't have anyone listed."

  Jake thought of his ex-wife. He and Karen still managed to maintain a friendly relationship, but would he go so far as to say that she was his next-of-kin? No, under the circumstances, he would rather not.

  "I don't have a next of kin," he said.

  "Who do you want notified if anything goes wrong?"

  "What's going to go wrong?"

  "Well, ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the time, nothing," Mrs. Watkins assured him. "This is just a precaution."

  "You ever think about the people who are the one-tenth of one percent that it goes wrong to?" Jake asked. "When something goes wrong for them it's one-hundred percent, isn't it?"

  "What?"

  "Nothing," Jake said.

  "You haven't given me a name yet."

  "I suppose you could inform my agent. He might be sorry to see me go, for the loss in income if nothing else. It's Ray Bently, 1428 Broadway, New York, 10018. The telephone number is 212-Union5-3654."

  The nurse looked up in surprise. "Union?"Well, whatever the numbers for Union are. That’s how I learned it, and I’ve never converted."

  Mrs. Watkins laughed as she made the entry. "You must’ve been with him a long time." She closed the little aluminum cover over the clipboard. "Okay, we have all the paperwork done. You just relax, Mr. Elliot. I'll be back in a few minutes to give you your shot. After that, they'll take you down to the operating room. Do you need anything else?"

  Jake slid the pile of books to the corner of the table. "I've signed all these, would you see that they get distributed?"

  "I'll be glad to," the nurse replied. "It's been a real thrill having you here, Mr. Elliot. It's not every day that you get to meet a famous author."

  "I'm not famous. Herman Wouk is famous. John Grisham is famous. Danielle Steele is famous. All I am is published."

  "Nevertheless, it isn't every day you meet a published author," Mrs. Watkins said. She picked up the books then started out of the room. "I'll be back for you in a few minutes."

  After the nurse left, Jake returned to the window. Staring into the fog-bank near the entrance to the parking lot off Danny Thomas Boulevard, he saw that it was glowing in pulses of muted red and blue. Then the source of the light, a Shelby County emergency-vehicle, materialized in the mist. Backing up to the ER entrance, the ambulance was met by a couple of paramedics, who, in a scurry of urgent activity, removed the Gurney from the back.

  Jake couldn't see the Gurney, so he had no
idea who was on it, but almost immediately after the ambulance arrived, a white Mercury slid to a stop just behind it. "A man and woman got out of the car so quickly that the driver's door was left open. They hurried toward the emergency entrance with the woman crying and the man holding his arm around her shoulders, while behind them the key-in-the-ignition-bell dinged incessantly. Jake had no idea who they were, or what their personal tragedy was, but he felt a sudden, and unexpectedly intense, outpouring of sympathy for them.

  "Nice tush, but don't you feel a little draft?"

  Startled, Jake turned toward the voice. Mrs. Watkins had returned, and she was smiling at the sight of Jake, standing at the window with his backside exposed.

  "I forgot about this damn thing," Jake said, reaching around to pull the hospital gown together as best he could.

  "Your taxi is here," Mrs. Watkins said, pointing to the Gurney. "I've come to give you your pre-op shot."

  "Is this the one that puts me to sleep?"

  "No, this is the one that relaxes you. It makes you not care whether you go to sleep or not," Mrs. Watkins teased.

  "In that case I'll have a double...with an olive," Jake joked.

  The shot took effect very quickly and Jake soon found himself lying on the Gurney looking straight up. The only way he had of measuring his forward progress was by watching the overhead lights pass over him, as he was wheeled down the hall. The surgical team was already in place when he was pushed into the operating room.

  Jake was transferred to the operating table, and from his perspective, saw half-a-dozen robed and masked figures looming over him, silhouetted against an array of bright lights. The operating room was cold and he was grateful for the pair of warm leggings someone put on him.

  "Mr. Elliot, I'm Dr. Thorndike. How do you feel?" a man's voice asked. As everyone was masked, Jake wasn't sure which one had spoken to him.

  "I feel all right," Jake said.

  "Well, you're going to be feeling a lot better once we get that gall-bladder out."

  "I hope so." Jake was very drowsy now.

  "Mr. Elliot is a writer," one of the nurses said.

  "Is that so?" Dr. Thorndike replied. He was busy with something, but Jake couldn't tell what it was. "What sort of books do you write, Mr. Elliot?"

  "I...I don't know," Jake replied. By now he was too groggy to think clearly.

  "I'd like to read one of them some...." that was as much as Jake heard. "He's under," the anesthesiologist said.

  "All right. We're all prepped and ready to go," Dr Thorndike said.

  "Hold it!" the anesthesiologist warned. "Dr. Thorndike, he's having a reaction. Anesthetic hypothermia!"

  "Damn! Take him off the gas. Increase the oxygen flow!"

  "He's going into tachycardia," the surgical assistant called out.

  "Increase the adrenalin."

  "Doctor, we're losing him!" the head nurse said. "He has complete heart blockage."

  "I'm going to defibrillate. Get the machine over here!"

  Working quickly, the equipment nurse and the surgical assistant moved the defibrillation machine into position.

  "Give me the paddles!"

  Eyes glued to the flickering monitor screens, the surgical team worked frantically. Dr. Thorndike held a pair of electrical paddles over Jake's chest.

  "Stand clear," he said. "Okay, hit him!"

  There was a buzz and a snap, and Jake's body convulsed on the table.

  "No good," the head nurse said.

  "Again!" Dr. Thorndike called.

  There was another buzz of energy, and again, Jake's body convulsed.

  "He's completely flat line! We've lost him!" the assistant surgeon said.

  "The hell we have! I'm not giving up! Let's hit him again!" Dr. Thorndike called. Jake felt himself leaving his body, slipping out with the last breath of life. Floating upward as effortlessly as a soap bubble, he turned to look back down at the operating table and watched, with almost detached interest, as the surgical team attempted to revive him. Despite the frenetic activity of Dr. Thorndike and his assistants, Jake felt an absolute calm. He was neither apprehensive over his condition, nor puzzled by the fact that he had somehow, separated from his body.

  "They are doing what they can for you."

  Jake saw a young man, dressed in a dazzling white shirt and trousers, floating beside him. He wasn't at all startled by the young man's sudden appearance, for it was as if he had always been there. Jake examined him closely, realizing that he wasn't actually seeing the visitor with his eyes, as much as he was perceiving him through all of his senses, just as he hadn't actually heard the man's voice but had understood his thoughts.

  Because of his enhanced sensory perception, Jake had a much clearer concept of the young man than he would have from a visual observation only. The man appeared young, but Jake knew that he was, in fact, ageless. And without being told, Jake knew that the young man's name was Tony.

  "I'm dead, aren't I?" It was a question that needed no answer and Jake asked it as if his only interest was in the novelty of the situation.

  "It would be more accurate to say that you are in transition," Tony replied. "Are you ready to go?"

  "What about them?" Jake was referring to the struggling surgical team. "Shouldn't someone tell them it is too late?"

  "They are doing what they must do," Tony said. "Come, Jake, there are things I must show you."

  Jake willed himself to go with Tony and he passed effortlessly through the wall of the operating room and out into the hospital itself. Images flashed by him as if he were in a video-game parlor, wearing a virtual-reality helmet. He had the freedom to go anywhere he wanted, just by the power of thought.

  Jake was cognizant of other entities in his same state, one of whom was a young boy, wearing blue jeans and a St. Louis Cardinal baseball cap and shirt. The boy's name was Bobby, and he was the one Jake had seen arriving in the ambulance.

  "Hello, Bobby. Are you frightened?" Jake asked.

  "No," Bobby answered. "I'm not afraid, but I am worried about Dad. I was messing around with the computer last night, trying to send an e-mail attachment. Somehow the file he was working on got moved to the download file. I was afraid to try and get it out of there because I was afraid I would lose it entirely. Now, he won't know where to look for it."

  "Maybe he'll find it."

  "I hope so. It's very important for him."

  Jake watched Bobby move on, then he thought of Ray Bently, his agent, and he decided he wanted to see him. Instantly, he found himself in Ray's office, moving down the long, narrow, book-lined hallway from the receptionist's desk. Ray was sitting at his desk looking at a contract and, as Jake moved in, he could see that the contract was for his next book. He saw, also, that there was an increase in the advance over his last book.

  "I'm getting a raise," he said to Tony.

  "Yes," Tony replied. Tony made no effort to rush Jake. Instead he just stayed near by, letting Jake know that he was here if, and when he needed him.

  "Shouldn't we go now?" Jake asked.

  "Do you want to?"

  "Yes," Jake answered. "Yes, I think so."

  "All right."

  Ray's office dimmed, then Jake felt himself moving through an almost palpable darkness, faster and faster. Even though he had been without a body since the moment he had taken his last breath, he had maintained a conceptual manifestation of his body so that he was projecting himself as a man who was 5 feet, 11 inches tall, with a slight paunch, silver-gray hair, and a beard of the same color. He understood that this was the way he would continue to project himself to others as long as he wanted to maintain continuity between the spirit, and the body it had once occupied.

  "Very soon we learn that the bodies...even these projected body-images, are totally unnecessary trappings," Tony explained, knowing Jake had been thinking about this same thing.

  "But I can see your body," Jake said. "You are about six feet-one, wide shoulders, narrow hips."

  "You
see my body because you wish to see it. You are still connected to your mortality and require a comfortable way of identification."

  Without being specifically instructed, Jake realized that he could move faster by shedding the image of his body and becoming sentient energy. He did so, then was conscious of movement which was much faster than light or even thought.

  The void through which he was passing began to take on shape and dimension until it became a tunnel. Jake could hear music: Bach, or Vivaldi perhaps, though as he often played their music while he was writing, he was familiar with all their work and this was nothing he had ever heard before. The music was beautiful beyond description, and his very being resonated with the richness of the cello and the vibrancy of the violins.

  He was moving toward a light. "A great energy emanated from the light, drawing him faster and faster to it. The light was the source of the music as well, and of a radiated warmth and a peace which was beyond understanding.

  When Jake was free of the tunnel, he stood in the glow, realizing at that moment that the light was actually coming from the aura of all the entities there, including himself, for he, too, was lustrous with a golden halo. The light was a thousand times more brilliant than the brightest sun, yet it wasn't at all painful to look upon, nor did its radiance render him blind to anything else. Overhead, the sky was more crystalline blue than anything he had ever seen or imagined. There were trees, and grass, and blooming flowers of every hue and description. He was beside a river. The rushing blue water broke white over polished stones.

  Jake had once spent some time on the McKenzie River in Oregon, and throughout his life had considered that the most beautiful spot on earth. This was the McKenzie, though he did not have to have it explained to him that the river, and everything else he was seeing, had been recreated just for him.

  "Oh, how beautiful," Jake said.

  "Forgive me."

  Jake was surprised by Tony’s comment. "Forgive you? Forgive you for what? This is the most...."

  Tony stepped toward Jake, and, in a flash of energy, Jake felt their souls commingling, merging into one entity.