by Alan Seeger
Looking Inside Myself (1989)
Outside The Atmosphere (1990)
Living Legacy (1991, published posthumously)
“Wow,” said Terry, sitting on his side of the bed. “This guy wrote a lot of stuff. I’ll have to check him out and see what his books are like.”
“I thought you might be interested,” said Sarah. “But why is his name so familiar?”
“I have no idea,” said Terry.
The two looked at each other and shrugged. There had been a lot of that going on lately — things that seemed familiar, but they couldn’t quite place just why, like ghosts from the past that had come to visit. They’d learned to just accept it and move on. It was getting late and tomorrow was another busy day.
Terry turned off the table lamp on his side of the bed, and Sarah did the same. Terry handed her the iPad and she closed its cover and placed it on her bedside table.
They lay there in the darkness for a few minutes, silent, just enjoying each other’s presence. Then Terry remembered something he’d meant to tell Sarah.
“I got a call from Randall today,” he said. “He’s thinking of doing another startup company and wanted to know if either of us were interested.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Are you?” Sarah asked him.
“I don’t know,” Terry replied.
“What’s he looking into?”
“Faster than light travel.”
“Ooh. Sexy. But isn’t NASA already looking into that?”
“Yup,” Terry said. “So what do you think?”
“I think we should think about it.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
Sarah lay smiling in the darkness until sleep carried them both away.
CHAPTER 93
Lost in the Green
Five TBM Avenger Torpedo bombers were sent out on a United States Navy over-water navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida on December 5, 1945. All fourteen airmen on the flight were lost, as were thirteen crew members of a PBM “flying boat” that was dispatched on a search and rescue mission looking for the torpedo bombers.
TBM FT-3
Ensign Joseph Tipton Bossi, USNR
Pilot - Age 20.
S1c Burt Edward Baluk, Jr., USNR
Radioman on FT-3. Age 19.
S1c Herman Arthur Thelander, USNR.
Gunner on FT-3. Age 19.
TBM FT-28
Lt. Charles C. Taylor, USNR
Pilot, FT-28.
ARM3c Walter Reed Parpart, Jr., USNR
Radioman on FT-28. Age 18.
George Francis Devlin, Jr., AOM3c, USNR
(Originally enlisted as “Robert F. Harmon” because he had enlisted at the age of 15).
Gunner on FT-28. Age 17.
TBM FT-36
Capt. Edward Joseph Powers, USMC
Pilot of FT-36. Age 26.
Sgt. Howell Orrin Thompson, USMCR
Gunner on FT-36.
Sgt. George R. Paonessa, USMCR
Radioman on FT-36. Age 27.
TBM FT-81
2nd Lt. Forrest James Gerber, USMCR
Pilot of FT-81. Age 24.
Pfc. William Earl Lightfoot, USMCR
He was the only crewman besides the pilot on FT-81. Age 19.
TBM FT-117
Capt. George William Stivers, Jr., USMC
Pilot of FT-117. Age 25.
Sgt. Robert Francis Gallivan, USMCR
Gunner on FT-117.
Pvt. Robert P. Gruebel, USMCR
Radioman on FT-117.
PBM-5 BuNo 59225
Walter G. Jeffery, Ltjg, USN, Pilot
Harrie G. Cone, Ltjg, USN
Roger M. Allen, Ensign, USN
Lloyd A. Eliason, Ensign, USN
Charles D. Arceneaux, Ensign, USN
Robert C. Cameron, RM3, USN
Wiley D. Cargill, Sr., Seaman 1st, USN
James F. Jordan, ARM3, USN
John T. Menendez, AOM3, USN
Philip B. Neeman, Seaman 1st, USN
James F. Osterheld, AOM3, USN
Donald E. Peterson, AMM1, USN
Alfred J. Zywicki, Seaman 1st, USN
CHAPTER 94
Lost in the Green II
Marcus Valens, member of the Legio III Brittania of the Roman Army, continued to float in the green un-space and wondered if he would ever find peace. If he had a way to measure time, he would have been astonished to know that 5.59 million years had gone by since his unfortunate encounter with a swirling green Gate within a cave in the British Isles.
The eons of meaningless existence had actually driven him quite mad, but even if not for that, he would have had no way to comprehend what was happening when, long after the race that bore him had gone extinct, he witnessed the birth of a new universe, budded like a yeast cell from our own, when the more massive partner of the binary star system known as Eta Carinae exploded as a hypernova, and then collapsed into a black hole, the mass of which burst out into a new child universe.
As Valens wasn’t going anywhere, he might have the opportunity to see that sight many more times. It wouldn’t really matter to him.
CHAPTER 95
From the Files of the Dup Shimati
Possible Gatespace-related disappearances 1809-2014
1. Benjamin Bathurst
Benjamin Bathurst (b.1784) disappeared from the White Swan Inn in Perleberg, Germany, during the Napoleonic Wars on November 25, 1809. As Bathurst was a British diplomatic envoy, a reward of £1,000 was offered by the British government (equivalent to more than £1.2 million in 2014) for any information which might lead to his return. This reward was matched by Bathurst's family and even added to by Prince Frederick of Prussia, to no avail. It was theorized that Bathurst might have been murdered by French spies who were watching him. Finally, in 1852, forty-one years after Bathurst's disappearance, a the skeleton of an adult male with a fractured skull was discovered when a house near the White Swan Inn was torn down. However, the remains were never positively identified. GATESPACE? No.
2. Mary Celeste
The Mary Celeste was an oceangoing ship which was found abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872. None of the crew was ever heard from again, and their fate has been the topic of much speculation for well over a hundred years. GATESPACE? Unlikely.
3. Flannan Isles
The Flannan Isles disappearance involved three lighthouse keepers who vanished from their duty stations the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 1900, leaving behind equipment crucial for surviving the weather conditions in the area at that time of year. The official explanation for the disappearances was that the three men were swept out to sea by a freak wave. GATESPACE? No.
4. Louis le Prince
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (born in Metz, France on August 28, 1841) was an inventor who shot the first moving pictures using a single-lens camera. He has been considered the “Father of Cinematography” since 1930. Before performing a public demonstration of his invention, he mysteriously vanished from a train on September 16, 1890. Neither his body nor luggage were ever found. Over a century later, however, a police archive was found to contain a photograph of a drowned man who strongly resembled him. GATESPACE? No.
5. Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce (born in Horse Cave Creek, Ohio in 1842) was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist. He is best remembered for his short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and his satirical The Devil's Dictionary. In October 1913, he departed from Washington, D.C., for a planned tour of Civil War battlefields. By December he had made it as far as Texas, and planned to cross into Mexico at El Paso. Mexico, however, was undergoing a revolution. The last that was ever heard from Bierce was a letter to friend, dispatched on December 26, 1913; he was never seen or heard from again. GATESPACE? No.
6. Wallace Fard Muhammad
Wallace Fard Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam in the 1930s, di
sappeared in 1934. Sightings as late as 1976 in Chicago were reported. GATESPACE? No.
7. Amelia Earhart
During an attempt to fly around the world in 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared without a trace over the central Pacific Ocean. No confirmed remains or debris have ever been found, but some believe the Japanese were involved. GATESPACE? No.
8. Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who is believed to have saved the lives of at least 30,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, was arrested in Budapest following the arrival of the Soviet Army in 1945 and charged with being a spy. His fate remains a uncertain despite hundreds of reported sightings in Soviet prisons, some as recently as the 1980s. A study completed in 2001 concluded that he most likely died in Soviet custody on July 17, 1947. GATESPACE? No.
9. B-47 disappearance
On March 10, 1956, a flight of four B-47 Stratojets left Florida for a non-stop flight to Morocco. Their first aerial refueling was completed without incident. After descending through the cloud layer to begin their second refueling over the Mediterranean Sea at 14,000 ft., one of the aircraft, manned by Capt. Robert H. Hodgin, 31; Capt. Gordon M. Insley, 32; and 2nd Lt. Ronald L. Kurtz, 22, failed to make contact with the tanker. Neither the aircraft nor any wreckage was ever found. Gatespace? Possible.
10. The Beaumont children
On Australia Day, 26 January 1966, the three Beaumont siblings: Jane, age 9, Arnna, age 7 and Grand, age 4, disappeared while on an outing at Glenelg Beach, a suburb of Adelaide in South Australia. Despite massive media exposure both at that time and since as well as one of the most extensive searches ever undertaken, there has been no sign of any of the three since the day of their disappearance. Gatespace? Possible.
11. Lord Lucan
Richard John Bingham, commonly known as Lord Lucan, disappeared in the early hours of November 8, 1974, following the killing of Sandra Rivett, his children's nanny, the previous evening. He was named as a suspect in Rivett's murder the following year. However, despite a world-wide hunt, he has never been found. Gatespace? Unlikely.
12. Bas Jan Ader
In 1975, Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean while sailing from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Ireland. Some months later, the boat he was traveling on was found off the coast of Ireland. Gatespace? No.
13. Frederick Valentich
Frederick Valentich disappeared in 1978 while piloting a Cessna 182L light aircraft over Bass Strait to King Island, Australia. In his last radio contact, Valentich reported an unusual aircraft was following his. No trace of Valentich or his aircraft was ever found, and an Australian Department of Transport investigation concluded that the reason for the disappearance could not be determined. Gatespace? Unlikely
14. The Springfield Three
Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzie Streeter, and Suzie's friend Stacy McCall vanished on June 7, 1992, in Springfield, Missouri. On June 6, 1992, Stacy and Suzie graduated from Kickapoo High School. They had planned a trip to the White Water water park in Branson, Missouri, the next day. The two girls had made plans to stay at another friend's house but changed their minds when that house became too crowded with out-of-town guests. At around 11:30 PM, Sherill had called a friend and mentioned that she was painting a chest of drawers. After a graduation party, the two girls arrived at Sherrill’s house at around 2 AM. That was the last time any of the three women were heard from. At around 9 AM, a friend of the girls came to pick them up for the White Water trip but found none of the women. The friends thought that they had already left the house, but they never showed up at the water park. Nothing in the house seemed to have been disturbed; the women's purses, makeup, cars, jewelry, and clothing were still there. Police have received more than 5,000 tips and scoured the area, to no avail. People from the area call this case the "three missing women." GATESPACE? No.
15. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia to Beijing, China that lost contact with air traffic control on March 8, 2014, less than one hour after taking off. The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 nations. There has been no confirmation of any flight debris and no crash site has been found. GATESPACE? Possible.
CHAPTER 96
2020
Kyle Short Bull received an honorable discharge from the United States Air Force on January 21, 2021, the day after President Roger Winter was inaugurated. He, his wife Cynthia, and their children Wicapi and Tatanka moved back to the Pine Ridge Reservation the following week, sharing a trailer house with Kyle’s mother and sister.
CHAPTER 97
2025
Samuel Denver eventually returned to Three Forks, Montana, but due to the changes in history — the fact that he had never attained the Ph.D that he had obtained in the original timeline where his father had disappeared into the Gatespace for fifteen years — things were very different for him. Since his wife Erica had never met SSgt. Wilkerson, Samuel and Erica’s marriage survived intact. Samuel still had the knowledge he’d gained while obtaining his doctorate, just not the sheepskin, so after a time he wound up working at a research laboratory in Lead, South Dakota, where researchers were looking into the nature of strange things in the universe such as dark matter and neutrinos, at a facility built in the abandoned, century-old Homestake Gold Mine, a mile beneath the surface.
CHAPTER 98
2102
Nigel Cummins stood in front of his classroom at the University of Bristol, preparing for the first day of a new semester teaching V110 Ancient History.
He’d imagined being a historian would be far more interesting than what it had proven to be. Much like Donald Sutherland’s Professor Jennings in Animal House, Nigel found history just as boring as his students found history. To be honest, he wanted to be out on some ancient digsite somewhere, perhaps in Egypt or Babylon, finding artifacts, perhaps, of a bygone civilization.
As it was, however, it paid the bills. In his spare time, Nigel enjoyed acting in stage plays, and was well known in the area for the excellent job he did as Mercutio in UB’s recent production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
CHAPTER 99
2020
Brad woke up one morning well into the tour and realized it was a free day, that is, one on which they had no show scheduled that evening, so things could move at a much more leisurely pace.
He went downstairs and got a large plate of food at the complimentary breakfast bar and took it back up to his room; Belgian waffles, blueberry muffins, and a couple of chocolate donuts, along with a very large cup of coffee.
As he passed the television in the dining area, he suddenly had the impulse that the power was going to fail, from some sort of catastrophic occurrence. He stopped for a moment, watching the screen, but nothing happened. The word “Eugene” passed through his mind, but he had no idea why. He shook off the feeling and went on upstairs.
Sitting down at the table in his hotel room, He opened the netbook computer that was his link to what he referred to as “real life” and logged into Facebook. He hadn’t gotten far reading his newsfeed when he noticed the red numeral that indicated that he had a private message waiting.
Much to his surprise, he discovered that it was from none other than Aaron Smith, the friend from his early teenage years with whom he had attended church so many times.
Brad found himself suppressing laughter when he read that Aaron had seen a number of news stories about Gemini Genius and had come to realize that the vocalist that everyone called Brad Lord was his old friend Bradley Lawrence. Even more surprising was the fact that Aaron was himself on staff at GLAAD, the Gay And Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, in New York City. Brad had lost touch with Aaron several years before and was glad to hear that he had found stability and happiness in his life.
CHAPTER 100
2802
Call
iope Sullivan sat in front of her computer screen, randomly exploring the massive source of information that was UniversalNet. As much as she enjoyed her computer, today she found that she was bored with it. I need to do something else for once, she thought.
She got up and went into the front room of her house, where she gazed out of the front window at the massive statue of The Greatfather. Well, that’s what the rest of the world called him, but to her he was her Many-Times-Great-Grandfather Steven, or just Grandpa Steve. The huge bronze statue, nearly 150 feet tall, stood, arms raised, in the center of the city and was the focus of the entire architecture of the Greater Granite downtown area. In fact, statues of the Greatfather were a common fixture in cities all over the globe.
Callie took a great deal of pride in the fact that she was a descendant of Steven Denver, the man who had not only written a massive library of fiction during his writing career, but had turned his thoughts to writing philosophical essays on political and social science and the nature of human relationships starting when he was about sixty years of age. When he died at the age of 93, he was eulogized as “the Thomas Paine of the 21st century,” and his philosophy was called by some “a human revolution.”
The Global Initiative for Mankind was established in 2452; in
2476, the major world powers agreed to the Declaration of Human Brotherhood, a treaty that established the Human Federation, which most of the world’s nations joined over the next decade.
The very first legislation passed by the United Parliament was a declaration bestowing the title of Greatfather to the late Steven Clark Denver for all that he had done to foster oneness among the human race.
Callie smiled as she watched the crowd of people who were gathered around the massive feet of the great statue. It stood smiling, its arms outstretched as if welcoming everyone. She remembered the ancient poem associated with New York City’s Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor.” Forget that. Under the Human Federation, hunger and poverty had virtually been wiped out, and it was largely due to her Grandpa Steve.
