by Wayne Hill
It was developed over a ten-thousand-year timescale and, for the more faith-driven of humanity, New Hampshire One became a symbol — emblematic of society’s grace, it led the Believers towards a higher awareness of God’s will. More pragmatic, sober-minded people considered New Hampshire One as an important step towards further, more sustained, space exploration and an apotheosis of human intelligence. Psychedelically inclined people believed that New Hampshire One was merely an escape plan for a species whose home world is in a cleansing process — a process that Earth had activated many times during its progression towards becoming a self-aware superorganism. All three thought processes were imperative for progressing our species because the unbounded realms of philosophy and imagination hold the key to invention and, through fusion of concepts never fused before, originality ensues.
People marvelled at being there, the pinnacle of humanity’s greatest architectural accomplishment. Critics everywhere united in an unbounded outpouring of love for the space-station: a space-station which took a staggering one hundred lifetimes to complete. New Hampshire One was named ‘The first man-made space-wonder of the age’ by President Emmanuel Rico in 10,002 AD. Further gushing plaudits ensued. Darshali Marsi — Head Curator of the Louvre, in France — considered it ‘Perfect art and the majesty of Nature fused in functionality and form.’ Professor Wong — from the Krauss Institute of Physics, in California, America — said that New Hampshire One was ‘...the next stage of our evolution as a species is space habitation....[it] is our stepping-stone to the stars, a beacon of hope and a reminder of all that we leave behind.’ J. L Archer — the last President of America — said: ‘The New Hampshire One story started as a collaborative project. It kept humanity talking about something bigger than our individual selves. New Hampshire One kept us focused on the heavens. Many lifetimes have been given in service to this remarkable day, this day of culmination. On this fine day, stood on the shoulders of our forefathers, we truly know the power of humanity’s collective will. We, as one — as humans — came together and created New Hampshire One. Together, we have saved our species.’
Hexagonal in overall shape, the space station’s aesthetics mirror the natural geometry of a snowflake. Its complex shadow does not reach the crystalline rings of Saturn, nor the tumultuous surface of the swirling gas giant. Instead, New Hampshire One finds itself hanging in the mystery of space, the deep darkness where eternity and nothingness despairingly marry.
The Great Dome is located aloft New Hampshire One’s Plateau and is a meeting point for the USA’s finest to debate critical matters. In this instance, the grand stage will be used to broadcast an historic announcement.
Tiny figures file into the vast dome. Hundreds of uniformed personnel representing the many diverse colonies throughout the galaxy now wait, standing before their seats. Commander Nathaniel Harrison — a time-served USA veteran — marches past the masses with a pace incompatible with his advanced years. Harrison is a tall, steel-haired man of athletic build, the type of life-long military man familiar in all universes and realities.
Commander Harrison hurries along the wide, and sparsely lit, centre aisle towards an illuminated rectangular platform that is hovering a foot above the ground. The atmosphere in the dome changes as the lights are raised, along with Harrison’s speaking platform.
The floating platform halts thirty feet in the air and a flash of white light briefly illuminates the crowd. The audience take their seats and a three-dimensional USA emblem — a blue planetary orb diagonally encircled by a red strip with a white star in its centre — appears above Harrison and begins to spin as he starts to talk.
“Greetings, Associates. We are here to witness the unprecedented findings of The Rising Sun expedition. As you all know, this is the first successful mission back to our ancestral home-world since the so-called Dionysus virus.” The dome erupts with cheers and whistles. Harrison scans the audience for his partner. He locates him in the front row, looking onward, smiling that warm, loving smile that he finds so calming. Harrison waits for the praise to subside, holding his lover’s stare. Daryl nods encouragingly, knowing that Nate is worried.
Harrison coughs, clearing his throat before continuing. “The first recorded cases of the Dionysus virus appeared in 11,985 AD. It decimated the prison population of Earth and wiped-out dome communities on countless planets, asteroids and moons in the Milky Way galaxy. The Dionysus vaccine was created around 12,029 AD by persons or person unknown. Our only clues as to whom created this life-saving elixir are the strange compounds identified in the vaccine — such as Bucky adrenal gland extract.
“The key findings from The Rising Sun expedition? Video messages from Dr Caroline Brogan to her sister Emma Brogan. These have been viewed for the very first time, as the late Emma failed to receive them. The discovery of these ancient message pods was pure good fortune. During The Rising Sun’s return journey, Associate Graham Gee — Head of the Mechanics Division — discovered the digital artefacts lodged in an old satellite orbiting the Earth. Associate Gee was analysing space debris, just passing time whilst routine maintenance was being carried out.”
With a curt nod, the Commander stops the script from running across his vision. He feels calm enough now to continue the talk without prompts. “The messages you are about to view —” Commander Harrison takes a breath and looks over the rapt faces of the assembly — “let me forewarn you, they are unique. They challenge modern historical knowledge regarding our ancestors on Earth. If we had this knowledge before starting The Rising Sun exploration ... well, we’re fortunate not to have lost any expedition members. I apologise if I seem a little unsettled, but I’ve only just myself managed to digest the magnitude of these findings.”
He notes a few concerned looks from Associates but presses on.
“They change everything we know about operations on Earth before the Dionysus virus.
There will be a chance for questions after we have all viewed these files, which are now the oldest known recordings in existence. These artefacts link us to a challenging era in our long-vanished past and they offer us a fascinating glimpse at our ancestors.”
Harrison pauses again as he recognises a few faces in the crowd. Many of them he had been on complex missions with, and a few had shared life-or-death situations with him. Lost in nostalgia, thinking of the crew that he had failed, Harrison’s hiatus stretches out uncomfortably. A meaningful cough from Daryl in the front row — he knows that cough all too well! — drags him back to the present.
“Ah, well, yes, anyway ...I will let the recording speak for itself. It is now time to let Dr Caroline Brogan take you back in time and, through her story, you will see the vastness of this matter. Associates.”
He makes a small bow, his right hand in a clenched fist held over his heart. The Association members stand and mirror the bow as the stage lowers and the lights dim.
The huge Clear View screen behind the stage flickers and a title page appears as the old recording begins.
United Space Association archive / log number: 42c-581d
Sender: Dr Caroline Brogan
SCID: Poseidon 210 (Transport Shuttle Class, Gliese 581d)
Destination: Prison Planet Earth
ETA: Three Earth years
Recipient: Emma Brogan (Gliese 581d), Class 3, Dome 89.3c, Dark Side
Log Number 1 (10,805 AD)
A wall of black-grey metal, with silver pipework down one side, appears on the screen. There is some dancing of shadows, and rustlings out of shot, and then the camera is turned away from the craft’s interior and onto the tired, pale face of Dr Caroline Brogan. She is a plain woman with unkempt mousy blonde hair; but her large eyes sparkle in her face with the peculiar intensity that is rarely encountered outside of academia.
She looks off-screen and nods to someone, as if to give them permission. She speaks her first words through visibly shaking hands that she cups over her nose and mouth, before running her hands over her head, binding back he
r wayward hair with the bobble that was on her wrist. Faint worry lines crease her brow.
“I feel devastated about not seeing you in person before they bustled me off into this damnable contraption. I was planning to visit you and little Ana later in the year, on Newfoundland Day. I’m afraid to report that I will miss a lot more Newfoundland days with you both before my return. There is no simple way to convey this, this ... bizarre situation.”
Caroline pauses as someone passes her a steaming mug of something. She thanks them inaudibly and takes a couple of thoughtful sips before continuing with a sigh.
“Captain McCullough, the captain of this ship (The Poseidon), has advised me to make full use of the message pods before we leave Newfoundland’s solar system. I have spoken to him — to everyone — about the two of you. All that I’m leaving behind. Isaac, one of the pilots, has informed me that being mentally strained before going into cryogenic freeze is a terrible idea. He said that ‘You wake up millions of miles away from your loved ones to an icy blackness.’” Despite her wide-eyed attempts to suck the liquid back into her, a solitary tear escapes from her welling eyes and traces its way down her stoic face.
“It sounds horrible. But I have accepted a position many light-years away. It’s a seven-year round-trip, so I will be a stranger to Ana when I come back. I just feel like I have failed Ana as an Auntie; just like I have neglected you as a sister. This isolation — being away from you two — will drive me mad. I don’t want to use my work as an excuse. I’m not expecting you to forgive me for this. I only hope that you will find in your heart some ... understanding. It will be a long time before I come home — but when I do, I want to be around for you both. I will never leave you again. I promise. Please have no misconceptions about the ethics of my behaviour, little sister; everything I do has one goal: to make the lives of my family — that’s you and Ana —secure. Everything will get better when I come home, you’ll see. I guarantee that Ana will have everything her tiny heart desires.
“I have heard many people say that their ‘heart is heavy,’ and I always thought it a rather quaint, if overstated, figure of speech. But, as this vessel —” here Caroline looks around her, gesturing with one hand — “hurtles me at one hundred thousand miles a second away from Gliese, far from home, far away from everything and everyone I hold close to my heart; I swear I can feel it growing in my chest. My heart feels larger, heavier. Burdened. Is it sadness, responsibility — guilt? I wish I knew.
“I have spent years questioning myself, seeking advice from peers, friends ... from you. Years of heavy reflection. Eventually, I had an epiphany; I reached a place of mental calm. A place in my troubled mind where I could objectively rationalise my behaviour and actions. I have inferred reasons that can justify the way I acted after our ... our family....” Caroline trails off and averts her gaze to the floor. She cannot bring herself to finish that sentence.
Sniffing loudly, she continues, “It should have made us closer. I’m sorry, Em. I’m so sorry... All I felt for the longest time was rage. Rage and bitter regret. A little later I felt this overwhelming sense of failure — because I was not there when you needed me. Instead of clinging on to you and Ana, as perhaps I should, I distanced myself from the only family I have left. I will always feel remorse for this, but at the time I justified it by thinking that, had I not distanced myself, I would have smothered you with all my neurotic thoughts, only causing more misery. Perhaps, I was over-thinking the matter. Just like me, right?
“Remember the nickname you had for me as a child? Was it the Ice Queen? The Ice Maiden? Yes, the Ice Maiden, I think. This message must put me in a whole different realm of frostiness. Very Ice Maidenly. In my defence, Em — not that I’m making excuses (...or am I?) — this has all happened very quickly. Professor Matheson was adamant that time was of the essence. His message said that every second I delayed my decision would lessen his chances of success, and, along with it, my chances of ever getting another research post anywhere, so long as he lived.
“This was no idle threat. Although he is renowned for his eccentric genius, the Professor is also notorious for ‘making-or-breaking’ scientists, even those working in different fields. Professor Matheson revolutionised the way we use memory plates, and that’s not even his primary field of work — it’s mine. I’ve no idea what he wants with me, but I’d have to be insane not to be piqued. Most of his work focusses on biochemistry and genetics, although he dabbles in other arenas of research from time to time.
“Even Captain McCullough is familiar with Professor Matheson’s work (it seems everyone is). Apparently, Professor Matheson designed the Poseidon’s ram-scoop — the device on the front of the ship used to collect the dark matter that now powers this and many other of the USA spacecrafts. And, again, that is not even his field!
“It’s frustrating trying to second-guess what professor Matheson is planning, but I'm sure it will be remarkable, if not exasperating. I must go, sis, the Captain has called us to an induction meeting about The Poseidon’s CryoPods. I will speak to you again as soon as I get a moment. You will pick up these long before I receive a word from you but, if I’m honest, I feel a little grateful for that. You must be furious with me. You and your famous temper tantrums. Remember the nickname I gave you when we were kids? ... SUPERNOVA! Hahaha. But seriously, just know that I’m acting with the best of intentions. Love to both of you ... and ... I’m sorry.”
The recording winks off.
———-End of message———-
Log Number 2 (10,805 AD)
The recording clicks back on. Dr Grogan looks less tired, but just as pale.
“I’m still in shock that I've accepted this post, although I didn't see any other option. The chance to create with Professor Matheson is a real honour, despite his initial threats to ruin my career. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to work with the USA’s greatest scientist.” Caroline looks up and to the right and smiles with nostalgia. “Whenever I used to talk to you about my work, I always noticed your eyes glazing over with disinterest, so I’ll try to keep the work-stuff to a minimum. I care about you and Ana, little sis, so I want you to be with me on this adventure. I’m sorry Em, I want to tell you of everything I’ve been working on. Please listen, though, because this could change our lives.
“Breaking it down into layman’s terms, as much as possible, I had an accidental breakthrough while doing experiments on dream extraction. I was trying to capture dreams using the same extraction process the Professor had pioneered a decade ago when he created memory plates.
“Dream extraction can be simplified to a tripartite process: extracting the dream as raw data, transcribing the organic signature into code, then feeding that code into our bespoke AI computer. A synthetic brain then processes the data a second time and dreams the dream. It’s the first time that AI has ever experienced the dream process.
“The Professor’s idea is to extract dreams from volunteers encompassing a wide-ranging IQ scale to see whether there is a correlation between intellect and dream condition. The more intelligent subjects will come from the Earth’s version of my alma mater, the USA’s Diamond-lights School of Advanced Cognition, and lower-level IQ subjects are going to be collected from the prison population of planet Earth. If the study shows that more intelligence subjects have more exciting and complex dreams, then this would suggest that a dream is, in fact, merely a product of the brain processing its diurnal experiential data — assessing, assimilating, and filing them away. However, another further scenario is the obvious corollary. If, after extracting data from multiple subjects, over a range of IQs, the same quality of dream recurs then it would be suggestive of a shared source for all dreams — a place from which all dreams originate.
“The strangest of thoughts occurs to me: maybe everything in this universe is fractal — as the leaf of a tree mirrors the image of the whole tree and as a tiny fragment of a coastline is like a larger part of the same coast. What if we are passing down dreams to m
achines just as they are passed down to us? What if dreams are a microcosm of something greater? Perhaps passed down to us by a higher form of intelligence? Perhaps dreams are intrinsic, genetic, placed deep inside our heritable material, passed on to us via our ancestors — a biological akashic file that lives inside all of us and is replayed over and over, added to, and transferred down our germlines to our children and our children’s children.
“Thanks to Professor Matheson’s remarkable, pioneering work with memory plates, I could tap into the most ancient and secret parts of the brain, the limbic system. This part of our brain deals with memories and is relatively quiet when people are going about their day-to-day activities, but when people sleep these ancient neural pathways light up and show me hints ... glimmers.”
Caroline pauses, pushing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “I daren’t question too much, or I feel I shall fall foul of Occam’s razor. Ha! I’ve mistakenly sliced myself on that famous shaving accoutrement once or twice before. I’m only human, after all. Anyway, with the system I have put in place to access the most ancient part of the brain, I’m pleased to say that my endeavours have garnered great success.
“The German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays accidentally — a piece of luminous cardboard lit up at the other end of his lab during a routine experiment with a cathode ray tube. I can relate to that. I have stumbled on something I can scarcely comprehend without further investigation. I need time with this discovery, and other eyes on it. What I see ... well, it doesn’t make much sense, yet. It’s as if I’ve found a missing chapter from Darwin’s On The Origin of the Species and the title is something like ... Alien Brain Portals. That would be rather modest compared with the results I’m actually getting. (If the data are reliable.) But why shouldn't dreams be anything less than spectacular, otherworldly visions of unreal realms with masses of pixies, orcs, wizards, and elves thrown into the mix? It’s just, these ... things. (If they even can be called things ...?) They bear no relation to anything that has been seen before in the scientific journals.
