How Ya Doing, Phil
How Ya Doing, Phil
By Alex Tamsula
Philip K. Dick, John Belushi, and Ayn Rand walk into a bar …
Upon awakening, the project director on the space station Vespucci, Dr. T. Randall Peak, was groggy and angry and couldn’t understand why. Vexation from a bad dream he couldn’t remember maybe? But if he simply ruminated about his days before today, all the growing and studying and sweating required to achieve this position, he’d have to admit … he had it pretty swell. Today could be a day of maintaining the routine, living-up to professional standards as it were; today could be a day of momentous discovery, the reward for his strenuous efforts to be its witness; or today could be a complete disaster requiring all his smarts and experience to keep him and the others alive. Space is a dangerous place with catastrophe only one fuck-up away, but no reason for pique. Perhaps his supplements had stopped working and it was affecting his mood.
The research space station Vespucci orbited Jupiter once every five hours, going opposite the rotation of the planet. It gathered data on Jupiter’s liquid hydrogen core (a potential source of high energy) as well as tracking long and short period comets. The cylindrical body of the station, seventeen hundred feet in length, had three large projecting spheres, each one containing the living quarters and laboratories of the three scientists assigned to the project. Fitted into a rotating ring, the tubes connecting the spheres to the main body made the Vespucci look like a jack from the bouncing-ball child’s game. The station flew three hundred miles above the edge of Jupiter’s atmosphere, flashes of lightening reflecting on its underside.
O-
Peak, carrying a sippy-cup of coffee, came from the galley where minutes before he greeted Dr. Chen Yìchén, eating dinner after a ten-hour shift (“ … there are very strong magnetic-field fluctuations increasing around the core … ,”) and Dr. Varvara Morozov, preparing lunch while standing upside-down above them in the zero-grav. Peak approached the station’s communications bay. The door slid open and he entered. “Good day, Barrsoon,” he said.
The neuromorphic main computer said, “Good day-start, Randall.”
Randall put his cup in a coaster, sat at the com-console and quickly scanned the holo-projections rising from the edge of a large desk, some projections quickly scrolling text or code, others presenting a changing gallery of vid-images from space. Everything seemed routine. He said, “Barrsoon, the supplements I take to keep my cholesterol in balance seem to have stopped working. I need you to send the formulas along with my latest blood test to … ”
“I cannot,” said Barrsoon. “The Shield Protocol has gone into effect.”
The Shield Protocol – a communications lock-down between the Vespucci and moon-base Altera. Randall knew all about the protocol. He wrote it. “When?”
“Just now,” said Barrsoon.
“What triggered it?”
“One of our telescopes tracing the orbit of the ninth planet sent this image.” On a holo-screen appeared something like a cat’s iris, bigger and brighter than the stars behind it. “Approaching directional radio pulses. This lead pulse was photographed three billion miles out. At light speed it will be crossing the Solar System’s edge right about now and will be here in an hour and a half before coherer detection.”
Randall grabbed his sippy-cup and sucked a mouthful. “Can you tell me anything about it?”
The image went to 10x. “The first slit is somewhat translucent and what we see behind it is another slit at a distance of 4.828 × 1010 miles, and behind that a third one trailing at 1.609 × 1010 miles. Also, the first slit is stronger in RF than the others. The three are riding a beam heading our way.”
“Hmm.” A situation like this was precisely why Randall created The Shield Protocol. The Vespucci Project, out of The University of Solaria and financed by The PhaseStateZero Corporation, told the public through press releases that a communication lock-down was a quarantine measure. For instance, if the Vespucci encountered an alien intelligence with technology beyond ours, prudence required turning off a homing beacon to Earth before determining if the alien’s intentions were hostile or not, right? Or, if not a physical attack, the protocol could prevent a transmitted data attack. Not that this would necessarily stop an alien invasion, but at least the protocol buys any crew time to assess the situation. The Government and the popular press praised UOS and PhaseStateZero for their foresight; in actuality, The Shield Protocol was about controlling proprietary ownership of any new discoveries. Share earth-shattering, epoch-making mile stones with the rest of humanity? Are you out of your mind … ?
“Is it possible to retrace the path of these signals?” said Randall.
“Yes,” said Barrsoon. “From Earth they went out to a star forty-five light years out, WISE 0335+4310 and are making a return trip. These radio signals defy the laws of physics.”
“As does Jupiter’s liquid hydrogen core at thirty-seven thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Just another day at the office, Barrsoon. So, how about some informed guesses on what these things are?”
“Well … ,” said Barrsoon, doing a good simulation of a real person talking, even down to sounding tentative. “There is a correlation that might pertain to these pulses, but it is scant.”
“Lay it on me, brother,” said Randall.
“Are you familiar with the late Twentieth Century American novelist and short-story writer Philip K. Dick?” On a holo-screen appeared a black and white photo of a man with a gray-streaked beard. He was looking at the camera. He had a friendly, contented smile.
“Never heard of him,” said Randall.
“Are you familiar with a late Twentieth Century television and movie comedic actor and musician named John Belushi?” Dick’s picture was replaced with a color photo of a scowling man with curly brown hair, thick eyebrows and a wide face. He wore a sweat-shirt with the decal ‘COLLEGE’ on it.
Randal said, “Movie personalities from a hundred years ago are not my strong suit. So no.”
“Are you familiar with the Twentieth Century Russian-born American novelist, screenwriter and philosopher Ayn Rand?” A final black and white picture, likely posed in portrait-studio, of a woman with dark hair parted on the right and combed over to her cheek-bone. With arm up, her chin rested on her fist. Her lipstick was as dark as her hair.
“Her I’ve heard of,” said Randall. “I’ve a friend who’s read her and talks her up. From what I gather, she was all about building a supremely rational, worthy, perfect man so she could tear off his clothes. Howard Roark from the novel The Fountainhead was Tarzan with a bigger vocabulary, my friend liked to joke. What are you getting at?”
“Philip K. Dick died on March 2, 1982. John Belushi died on March 5, 1982, three days later. Ayn Rand died on March 6, 1982, a day after that.”
“So?”
“Three to one ratio, just like the distances between the pulses. And within a margin of error, the days these pulses originally left Earth.”
Randall sat silently for a moment taking this in. He said, “You do realize other people passed-away on those dates?”
“Yes, but were any of those others ‘stars’?”
“Stars?”
“Noteworthy ‘stars’ in their field. Celebrities. The deaths of Dick, Belushi and Rand received national press attention.”
Randall began rubbing the crease in his forehead, which looked surprisingly like the crease in Phil Dick’s. “You might be simply showing me coincidence, Barrsoon.”
“I took that into account. After scanning our library, I would have left it at that but … something else appeared.”
“What?”
“Are you familiar with the Nineteenth Century American novelist and short story writer Herman Melville?”
Sigh. “Herman Melville? Yes. He wrote Moby Dick. I remember reading it in prep school. I didn’t like it all that much but will say the last three chapters really did cook. Why?”
“Herman Melville was born in 1819 and died in 1891. Philip K. Dick was born in 1928 and died in 1982. Melville, like you said, wrote Moby Dick. Melville wrote another novel called The Confidence Man. Philip K. Dick wrote a novel called The Unteleported Man. He published a short-story collection entitled The Variable Man. He published another short-story collection called The Golden Man.”
“Barrsoon,” said Randall, beginning to get annoyed. “Are you sure randomness isn’t fooling you?”
“No, but notice again the years of birth and death for both. 1819 and then the last two numbers in the year reverse to make 91. 1928 and then the last two numbers in the year reverse to make 82. If this were an algorithm, the next year of birth would be 2017 and the last two numbers reversed would be 71. 2071. This year.”
Oh, thought Randall.
“I’m not saying Dick and Melville were the same person, but they may have been the same entity. I am describing the possibility that these pulses are controlled by an intelligence of which we have no understanding, and these individuals were metamorphosized into a different form upon death. A possibility: the 1819-1891 and 1928-1982 years were an embedded sign placed by an entity from a higher dimension, perhaps living at a different temporal scale. The first human to uncover this sign and broadcast the news might inadvertently be sending a message that at least one human out there is clever enough to detect the existence of a higher temporal plane. Since I am not human, that would be you.”
“Making me the new Messiah?” said Randall sardonically. “No thanks. I remember what happened to the last guy who tried that.”
“Actually, I am giving you a caution against sending this news to moon base Altera, consequences unknowable at this time.”
A long silence from Randall. He said, “Barrsoon, create a drawing of what those pulses would look like from a side view.”
“Certainly.” On the holo-screen an image of the three pulses appeared. On the beam they looked like three big waves in a queue.
Randall reached for his coffee and sucked the last of it. “My gut tells me … that’s deliberate. Shield Protocol stays in effect.” So there is a fourth type of day, a … ‘I have no idea what the hell is going on here’ type of day. Oh boy …
O-
An hour and a half later the radio light had captured the spheres. Sitting at the table in the galley, Dr. Chen Yìchén said, “Eleven speed-balls and I end-up orbiting Jupiter. Now that’s what I call ‘high.’”
Dr. Varvara Morozov was in the chair next to him, elbow on the table and chin on her fist. She glanced at him and said, “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Hey, I’m a fire-hose of mirth,” said Yìchén, looking at Randall and giving Morozov a ‘get her’ nod.
Randall sat across the table, not exactly Randall anymore. He was somebody named Phil who moments before found himself in some sort of laboratory with sparking electricity all over. Before that, Phil was in a hospital bed having taken a turn for worse after a recent stroke. But his shock soon diminished. Another close-call, eh? Like the time he swallowed all that Nembutal trying to off himself. Whew …
He had looked down at the patch stitched to his coveralls. Though upside-down he made out the name ‘Dr. T. Randall Peak.’ My God, thought Phil. Where is this? He left his sphere, crawled down the tunnel and into a hall. The hall led to the galley where these two sat.
Phil-Randall looked at Morozov, her chin still on her fist. Chin on fist? He’d seen that pose in a photo. He remembered to whom it belonged. Was the after-life him on a space station with Ayn Rand and John Belushi? Oh … no. Is this what I get for making fun of ‘The Fountainhead’ in ‘A Scanner Darkly’? Is this bad Karma for telling Ray I thought ‘The Blues Brothers’ really stunk? Bummer …
“Hey buddy, you okay?” said Yìchén. “You look like you answered the door on Halloween and saw Casper The Friendly Ghost holding a bag and a gun because he decided to stop being friendly.”
“Well uh … ”
“What is your name?” said Morozov.
Feeling sheepish, Randall pointed to the stitched-on patch.
“Not that name. The one in your head.”
After some hesitation Randall said, “Phil.”
Yìchén stood and thrust he hand across the table. “I’m John. How ya doing, Phil.”
Phil-Randall shook John’s hand then reached over to Dr. Morozov’s. “I’m Ayn,” she said as they shook.
Yìchén lowered into his chair. “I’m Ayn?” he said. “Isn’t that the noise a pogo-stick makes in a Warner Brothers cartoon? I’m Ayn, I’m Ayn, I’m Ayn … ”
“You would like slapped?”
“Only on the ass after making a touch-down,” said John. “Bears baby.”
Phil-Randall was on the verge of pissing himself when a voice in his head said, Don’t trust these two. They’re not what they seem.
No kidding, thought Phil-Randall, clenching.
No. Not kidding. Trust me instead.
An auditory hallucination? In his last life Phil had one start happening after seeing the gold-fish pendant around a girl’s neck one afternoon, the girl from the pharmacy delivering his pain-medication for an impacted wisdom tooth. The sunlight reflecting off the early Christian symbol pierced Phil’s brain and he was never the same afterwards. The subsequent auditory hallucination came along with a name: Timothy. Was this Timothy? Had he returned?!
No, my name is Randall.
Oh, thought Phil-Randall.
Dr. Morozov said, “I found myself in that small observatory. Before that I was on my death bed dying of lung cancer. And do you know what? I’m still dying for a cigarette!”
Yìchén held up his hand and spread his fingers. “Five packs a day,” he said.
“Oh, you animal.”
“Animal … House,” said Yìchén, pointing both index fingers at her and looking proud. “Say, you didn’t see a vending machine around here, did you?”
Phil-Randall was still on the verge of pissing himself when the voice in his head said, Barrsoon.
What?
Barrsoon. Say it.
Phil had done some research into the subject of auditory hallucinations and was surprised to find that nearly fifteen percent of the population experienced some form of them, although that number could be higher since most people won’t cop-to ‘the voices in my head.’ And he learned auditory hallucinations came in three varieties: innocuous words or voiced phrases, sometimes words the person would never in their lives say like ‘blood cancer’ instead of leukemia; sometimes a steady stream of insulting, berating, judgmental voices; or sometimes helpful voices, the ones Horselover Fat could take to the track to pick winners. Timothy, the voice in Phil’s head, was such. He told Phil to fire his agent because that crumb-bum was ripping him off and …
Say Barrsoon, you idiot! You can’t run a space station without him!
“Barrsoon,” chirruped Phil-Randall.
“Hello,” said the disembodied voice.
Yìchén and Morozov jumped. Yìchén said, “Who is that?”
“I am Barrsoon, the main computer of the station.”
“Why didn’t you speak-up earlier?”
“I am a machine. I only speak when spoken to.”
“Oh,” said Yìchén. “Like on Star Trek, eh?” He raised his hand with his pinky finger in the air. “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”
A whirring noise to Yìchén’s right then a panel in the wall rose. Inside was a tea pot and a sippy-cup.
“Whoa,” said Yìchén. “Hey, I changed my mind about the tea. How about a bottle of Jack, three sippy-cups, a pack of Pall Malls and an ashtray. And matches.”
“And a can of Dean Swift Basic Snuff,” said Phil-Randall. “It keeps me off the cigs.”
“And a can of Dean Swift Basic Snuff,” said Yìchén.
The panel closed and the whirring noise began again.
Tell Barrsoon to lift the Shield Protocol, said Randall’s voice. You need to tell Moon Base Altera the crew is incapacitated. A rescue mission is urgently needed.
“Barrsoon,” said Phil-Randall. “Could you like, um, please lift the Shield Protocol?”
“I cannot.”
“No?”
“No. You, Dr. Yìchén and Dr. Morozov are not behaving normally. Even your voice prints are different. The Protocol remains in effect until I find out why. You three may be a contaminant to planet Earth.”
Oops, thought Randall.
Oops? thought Phil. Phil had written stories about alien threats. Now he’s the threat? Bummer!
The panel next to John-Yìchén rose again. He reached inside and removed a no-label plastic bottle of whiskey, three sippy-cups, an ashtray, a pack of generic smokes and matches and a plastic snuff container. Setting it all on the table, he slid the cigarettes over to Ayn-Morozov who picked up the pack, tore off the cellophane and the foil top covering. “Dying for a cigarette,” she said sliding one out. She put it in her mouth, picked up the matches and struck one. “The irony drips.”
After handing Phil-Randall his snuff, John-Yìchén had the bottle opened and was shaking whisky to flow upward into a cup. When finished he screwed on the lid, little drops of whiskey floating around. “A snort Phil?”
“No,” said Phil-Randall. “I’ll pass. I’m feeling the need to write something. Barrsoon? Could you give me something I can write with?”
“Certainly,” said Barrsoon. On the wall to Phil-Randall’s left dropped a keyboard; the panel above rose and revealed a screen. Phil-Randall slid his chair over and with shaking hands placed his fingers on the keys.
“I’ve a story,” said Phil, and he began to type. ‘Upon awakening, the project director on the space station Vespucci, Dr. T. Randall Peak, was groggy and angry and couldn’t understand why … ’
“Are you writing about what’s happening?” said Ayn-Morozov. “Let us know when you get to the part where we start drinking.”
Forty-five minutes later Phil-Randall wrote, ‘Let us know when you get to the part where we start drinking.’ He pushed his chair back. Chin dropping to chest he thought, I don’t like my story.
“You okay, Phil?” said John-Yìchén.
“No.” At any other time in his life when he had a short-story idea, it always arrived complete in his mind. Characters and dialogue; the beginning, middle and end; even a clever plot twist to wrap-up things, always appearing as a finished piece. He enjoyed telling friends he resembled Mozart in this regard, whose compositions would also appear complete in is mind and all he had to do was ink notes to staff paper. It was an endless source of amazement for Phil, keeping him going. (Well, that and the amphetamines which amped the effect.)
But this time it was different – he was stuck. He had written himself into a corner and didn’t know where to take the story from here. Was he going to have to live it minute-by-minute before he could finish? Instead of speed, was as if he had taken a drug called ‘slow’ because that’s what it felt like. Punishment for the uppers habit in his former life? Wouldn’t surprise him.
Ayn-Morozov blew a smoke ring in Phil’s direction. “Barrsoon,” she said. “Verify something for me. Where are we?”
“The research space station Vespucci orbiting Jupiter for the Vespucci Project, out of The University of Solaria and sponsored by The PhaseStateZero Corporation.”
“And what year would this be?”
“2071.”
“Intra-sting.”
John-Yìchén slid a sippy-cup full of whiskey towards Ayn-Morozov. She picked it up and he picked his up. They touched rims. With eyebrows going up and down, John said, “We’ll always have Jupiter.”
“Silly boy,” said Ayn, half-smiling.
Do I actually have to write this crap? thought Phil-Randall. Please God, no …
The voice in his head said, Phil, get some perspective. You’re twenty years younger than when you died. My guess is my body is more fit and healthier than yours ever was. You have options. Consider the year, Phil.
The year? Oh yes, the year, 2071, derived from the weird algorithm Barrsoon made from the years of birth and death for him and … Herman Melville? Phil liked to believe strange things but he never saw that coming. Yet, didn’t the idea of some kind of unseen connection between him and Melville fit into his view of an endlessly connected back-channel universe, where governments, institutions and even ordinary people were facades, fronts for a remote and unseen malevolent intelligence manipulating events for its own cryptic ends? Humanity, thought Phil-Randall, is always at the mercy of subjective experience, easily flummoxed by the simplest of optical illusions like the Necker Cube. Technically, everything is one big lie which was the theme behind everything he wrote. So when Phil died in 1982, did alarms go off? Did he have to make a run for it because he knew too much? Would that make John-Yìchén and Ayn-Morozov … the cops? That’s all he needs …
John-Yìchén drained his cup and slammed it down on the table. “Ahhh,” he said. “So Phil, any ideas regarding our situation?”
“No.”
“Maybe you need a drink to help you think, hmm?” said Ayn-Morozov merrily.
“What I need to do is write.” Phil rolled back over to the monitor and keyboard and began typing. ‘He pushed his chair back slightly. Chin dropping to his chest he thought … ’
Ten minutes later he typed, ‘Maybe you need a drink to help you think.’ Sighing, Phil pushed his chair away again. He’ll be tearing his hair out waiting for the next shoe to drop. He looked at John-Yìchén. “I’ll have that drink now, John.”
John-Yìchén pulled the cork on the bottle and shook the whisky upwards. Where is my story going? Phil-Randall wondered as he was handed the full cup. This sucks.
An hour later the whiskey bottle was three-quarters empty. With cigarette bobbing from his mouth, John-Yìchén said, “Barrsoon, my good man. Might I have a hand mirror? I wonder if I’m still has handsome as ever.”
“Certainly, Dr. Yìchén,” said Barrsoon.
Whrrr whrrr whrrr went the machine in the wall. The door rose and there was a hand mirror inside. John-Yìchén reached in and grabbed the handle and brought the mirror before his face, a brief smile before he blanched. He carefully put the mirror face down on the table.
Bleary-eyes on Phil, Ayn flicked ash into the tray now filled with fifteen butts. She said, “Did you stop writing your story?”
Phil brought his cup to his lips and sucked the thing dry. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m stuck.” He put the cup on the table and pointed. John refilled and when finished, Phil grabbed. He sat back sucking another mouthful.
John put the bottle down. His eyebrows began undulating. “Samurai … Astro … Physicist!”
Ayn laughed with her head thrown back, her mouth open so wide Phil could see the back-and-forth hammering of her uvala. And he had a horrible vision, even worse than the time he saw a World War One soldier up in the clouds wearing a gasmask (and ran to a priest for Extreme Unction because he thought he saw the devil). But this time he was in the 1940 horror movie Dr. Cyclops, where a brilliant but mad scientist shrinks Phil to one twentieth his normal size, and Ayn inhaling sucks him towards her. Arms-flailing little Phil gets pulled into her mouth and only by grabbing and wrapping arms and legs around her uvala is he saved from being swallowed. Hanging on for dear life over vibrating laughter, freaked-out Phil was thinking, I gotta pee.
Then Phil remembered what his therapist - a retired Israeli Defense Force officer - had once told him: “Put your feet flat on the ground and put twenty percent of your attention into them. It’s a parasympathetic short-circuit of the ‘flight, fight or freeze’ response. It will help you calm down.” Forty percent knowing me, thought Phil. But he did just that. The vision ended and he was back in his chair and breathing a sigh of relief. “Barrsoon,” he said. “Where’s the bathroom?”
Later Phil was in the lavatory, a hosed plastic suction cup over his privates. With his magnetized touch-fastener soles kissing the floor, and taking the most righteous whiz of his life, Phil was thinking things were better. I am younger than I was when I died. I’m amazingly physically fit for not doing any exercise. I’m more well-endowed … ahem … downstairs. And in some ways, a science-fiction author reincarnating aboard a space station orbiting Jupiter is a dream come true! Heinlein, eat my dust. So … why do I feel so crappy?
Phil finished and hung the cup back on its hook. He turned, closed his fly and remained still. I feel crappy, he thought, because I’m writing a story and I have no idea where it’s going. I would’ve been better off writing a short story about a science fiction writer writing a short story while going through a teeth-griding divorce, emptying his reservoir of resentment into his amateur scientist-hero who created a black hole in his backyard shed, the writer’s knowledge of black holes the same as the amateur’s, up-to-date, so brilliant in their cosmic conceptual leaps that the writer himself gets pulled into the story, never to be seen again, the manuscript on his desk a silent testament to his flicker of fatal genius. And I’d call my story ‘This Sucks.’ Now how hard was that?
Well, pretty hard if Phil’s consciousness manifesting in a totally new body invalidated the lies he was so good at telling himself. If all the self-obfuscation was gone, Phil could no longer avoid looking directly into his own reservoir of resentment. Phil walked over to the wall-mirror with tube-lights on either side to get a look at this T. Randall Peak when Phil caught a momentary flash of some leafy, root-crazy plant with ten silvery-green stalks growing straight up and sprouting human heads. Surrounded by petals, the heads snapped at flying bugs – that Phil’s got some imagination. But anyway, this Peak was a good-looking dude. Phil wondered if he was banging Morozov.
Mind your own business, Phil!
Phil wondered if Peak had good parents. Phil’s father was an indifferent sort who quit the family; his mother by contrast was a scheming piece of work, laying a guilt-trip on Phil about the family being so poor during the Great Depression, and having so little food when he and his twin sister were infants, she had to choose which one would … live. And next to his buried sister Phil would have a grave waiting for him his entire life. That was the metaphorical black hole he carried around inside him, making him a man dealt the kind of hand precluding one from ever finding peace. The only thing he could do was come up with some plan to evaporate the black hole, even though he didn’t know how. Oh, to have an idea on where to start and where to finish!
Then, as if by grace note, Phil had a memory of his friend Ray giving him a cassette tape of some avant-garde ambient music created by a William Bazinski. Ray found the concept intriguing – Bazinski recorded a minute of generic orchestral music on frail magnetic tape, looping it for over an hour until the original physical sample figuratively disintegrated under the stain. Phil listened to the cassette, amazed at the sound difference between minute one and minute fifty - the tape and the sound both all worn out. Minute fifty, thought Phil, had to be the sound of entropy.
Then Phil had one of his patented ‘My God, what if … ’ moments. Let’s say the loop of life – the one you start by getting up every morning, going to work, doing your job, then time off the clock before bed where you’ll start the process all over – that loop, by outward appearances, was generally progressing towards a better life. But let’s say, assuming some form of reincarnation, there is another loop, an inwardly hidden loop where the representations of filial affections disintegrate more and more as the eons roll by. Is that where Phil steps off the Life-Death Wheel of Karma and vanishes into nothingness? I’m too young to die … again, thought Phil.
A new voice in his head: You are more correct than you know, my friend. You had better parents than T. Randall Peak. His parents were alcoholics and drug-addicts who could not take care of him. He was raised in a foster home with competent caregivers. I, on the other hand, had more involved parents, by the standards of my day at any rate.
Who is this? thought Phil.
Call me Herman, said the voice.
O-
Herman-Randall reentered the galley. He walked over to his chair and sat. “Barrsoon,” he said. “Randall here. Control-Alternate-Delete yourself now, please.”
“Certainly.”
“Well,” chuckled Herman. “He fell for that.”
“Hmm?” said John. “I don’t know much about computers, but doesn’t control-alternate-delete mean like … wipe everything out?”
“So I surmise.”
John and Ayn looked at each other then she glared at Herman. “Can you manually lift the Shield Protocol without Barrsoon?”
“I think not,” said Herman.
John said to Ayn: “Did he just cut us off from Altera? What a dick.”
“Yes he is, isn’t he? Can we still get cigarettes?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Herman.
“What a dick!” said John.
“Who are you?” said Ayn.
“Herman.”
“Does Herman have a last name?”
“Melville.”
“Herman … Melville? Author of Moby Dick?”
“The same, madam.”
“Moby Dick?” said John. “Whale of a book.”
“Where is Phil?” said Ayn.
“Phil?” said Herman. “Oh he’s around somewhere, I suppose. A delightful bounder if something of a gush, informing me of his status as a fellow scribe, having written many novels, some modern form of the scientific romance, I do believe. He took me into his confidence, and alas with a sigh confessed his latest story had hit a snag at the half-way mark. Finding he was totally bereft of any idea as to where to take his tale next, his dinghy, he lamented, was in the doldrums. So, playing humble sage, I reminded him of some basic mechanics of fiction, to wit, his story was heading towards its two thirds point which in many stories is the ‘help isn’t coming’ or the ‘we’re on our own’ moment. A common enough staple in adventure stories and rightly so, essential to any story since the hero, or heroes, must rely on their inner resources to devise a plan restoring the unsettling of the routine-order which began the Second Act. By the time of the Third Act, our hero or heroes have already put their plan into motion to restore the life they led in the First Act. After listening politely, Phil said thank you and went off somewhere, perhaps meditating on my advice. My final thought on him is, he gave an impression of being something of a Neo-Platonist.”
Ayn said, “I notice your writing advice references Aristotle’s Ars Poetica?” She dug for another cigarette. “It’s the only thing Aristotle ever got completely right. He should have stayed at ‘literary critic.’”
“True,” said Herman. “Consider also Aristotle’s opinions on the nature of infinity. To him infinity was a possibility but never an actuality, hence delaying the discovery of the calculus by about sixteen hundred years. Hail fellow well met indeed!”
“Indeed,” said Ayn lighting up another smoke, shaking the match and dropping it in the tray. “So, Herman. Were you not once a party to a mutiny and then a fugitive from justice?”
“Madam,” said a nonplused Herman, donning the unreasoning mask of the expert poker-player. “You strike me amidships with reference to an episode from my sojourning younger days, aboard whaling ships generally, and specifically about a mutiny aboard the Tahiti bound Australian whaler Lucy Ann. Are you aware how badly conditions may deteriorate aboard a whaler when the owner is a martinet and the captain an alcoholic?”
“I cannot say that I am,” said Ayn.
“Well, the Lacy Ann had become intolerably aforesaid, and in August of 1842 I was put ashore in Tahiti with ten other mutineers and slapped in irons, taken to and jailed in Calabooza Beretanee. I subsequently escaped with my mate John B. Troy for Eimeo. Pardon me for saying, but inquiring about my fugitive status sounds suspiciously like a question a policeman for the Higher Dimensional Bureaucracy might ask, which I dare say puts me at the caldera of the volcano.”
Silver light flashed in Ayn’s eyes and John’s too, a hint at what they really were. “We are not the police,” she said in a tone warning she was no longer Ayn.
“Yeah, no jail-time for you, pal,” said non-John. “No trial, no judge, no jury. Just us. Evidence you’re on ice is all we need.”
“And since you mentioned The Higher Dimensional Bureaucracy,” said non-Ayn, “we might as well drop the masquerade, Dua’sae’azon.”
“You use my first and secret name? Are there not rules against doing this, Que’win’azin?”
“You have a lot of nerve talking about ‘rules’ considering what you did. The number one rule, the inviolate rule, is to never divulge to humanity even a hint of The Higher Dimensional Bureaucracy’s existence. Our work controlling humans would end. The penalty for this is to be shredded until nothing is left. Are you crazy?”
“Aw, he is crazy,” said Fee’qua’azun. “He leads us on a merry chase for nearly a hundred years, only to bring us in orbit around Jupiter with its liquid hydrogen core, the interface between The Higher Dimensional Bureaucracy and the dimension of humans. It’s like he wants to die on home’s door step. What a sap.”
Dua’sae’azon said, “Before it’s lights-out for me, Fee’qua’azun, may I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“How did you get here?”
“How did I get here? Whatever … do you mean?”
“I mean how did you get on board this space-station?”
Fee’qua’azun thought before he answered. “We all arrived with the radio light.”
“Are you sure? Can you explain how consciousness can be contained in a ‘radio signal’?”
Fee’qua’azun looked at Que’win’azin. She shrugged.
“The truth is it can’t be,” said Dua’sae’azon. “You were taken in by some legerdemain, an illusion carefully crafted by myself to make you believe one thing when something else was true. And the truth is, we were here the whole time, in the bodies of Peak, Yìchén, Morozov albeit unbeknownst to them. A thousand reincarnated life times in them, laminated three score and ten holograms leading back down through the ages to our secret names. So if you destroy this space station with me in it, do you honestly believe you’ll get away on a radio signal? No, you’ll perish alongside me. You see you weren’t chasing me. I was laying a trap for you both. And if Que’win’azin was more honest about her relationship with me from ‘the old times,’ Fee’qua’azun, long before a pup like you came along, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“What is he talking about?” said Fee’qua’azun.
“Don’t listen to him,” said Que’win’azin. “He’s only trying to confuse you.”
“He’s doing a good goddam job of it!”
“Confuse?” said Dua’sae’azon, unfastening his shoes and kicking them away. He pushed himself up from his chair and floated up, folding his legs under himself like Randall doing his yoga in the lotus position. “Fee’qua’azun, what you don’t know about Que’win’azin is she actually serves the masters residing a level above The Higher Dimensional Bureaucracy, the puppet masters of the puppet masters, if you can imagine such a thing.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Fee’qua’azun. “There is no level above The Bureaucracy. We’re it!”
“You didn’t see one of the vegetable-monsters in the mirror, the ones that grow human lifetimes?”
Fee’qua’azun sat with his mouth open. Que’win’azin looked daggers at him and yelled, “Ignore what he says! We have to set this space-station on autodestruct and get out of here. Now are you going to help me or am I going to have to do it myself?”
“I saw something strange in the mirror.”
“You’re drunk!” she said grabbing him by his collar and shaking him. “Now get moving!”
While they bickered, Dua’sae’azon reached into the pocket behind the name patch and removed the round plastic container of Dean Swift Snuff. He twisted it open and let the lid float within reach. He took a pinch of the finely ground tobacco and inhaled it up one nostril. He took another pinch and inhaled it up the other nostril. He felt a sneeze coming on and turned his head so as not to spray Que’win’azin and Fee’qua’azun. He sneezed and sent himself slowly spinning.”
“What did he mean by ‘the old days’?” said Fee’qua’azun. To his face Que’win’azin delivered a hard loud slap.
“Ah, the eternal love triangle,” said Dua’sae’azon, turning like a pin-wheel in a breeze. “And how can betrayal not be its handmaiden? Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere for example. Perhaps Samson, Delilah and some individual unknown? Maybe even Adam, Eve and The Serpent. But look closely and you might see these are all the same story. John Barleycorn must die, they tell us, and the ritual-sacrifice of The King at Midsommer must take place in order to fertilize the crops and insure a good harvest. But the killing is done by the Queen’s lover and the usurper becomes the Dark Tyrant, taking the seasons into fall and winter’s death of light. Think about the sweet nothings Que’win’azin has whispered in your ear, Fee’qua’azun, about how the Bureaucracy could not function if the human race knew of us. Actually, what she might really mean is the vegetable-monsters could not thrive without the blood of King Chump.”
“Don’t listen to him!” said Que’win’azin.
“But putting the primitive fertility rituals aside, is it not true that the Bureaucracy - those sleek, silver, beautiful liquid hydrogen humanoids, creatures at chaos’s edge, between high and low entropy - could not function knowing their forms were only part of some grand masked ball, a party going on so eternally long the guests have forgotten they were in costume, blissfully unaware of a nasty, hidden reality?”
Fee’qua’azun was about to say something when he started gasping. “Hey, what wrong with the air in here?”
“Oh,” said Dua’sae’azon. “I forgot to mention when I told Barrsoon to do control-alternate-delete, he started dying, which means the space-station is dying along with him. All the lights will be winking out one by one and we will not be getting anymore fresh air. Sorry.”
“You are vile beyond words,” said Que’win’azin.
Dua’sae’azon smiled. “Not so. I have a word I keep close. Reincarnation. The Hindi and the Buddhist embrace it, and it seems to make perfect sense to them. Even that old rascal Plato tried his hand at the logic of it with his description of the existence of Socrates. Socrates, said Plato, was once not here. Then later Socrates was here. Then eventually, he was gone again. With a pattern like that, could you accurately predict whether Socrates will return or no? But what Plato could not have known was that Socrates was only one head among billion and billions growing from some ghastly crawling plants, in a location that makes Hell look like a resort town on the Mediterranean. When people talk of ‘the ugly truth’ they know it not.”
Que’win’azin stood and rasped, “Do not believe a word he says, Fee’qua’azun.”
“Nor should he,” said Dua’sae’azon. “This Herman Melville whom we encountered earlier was an interesting fellow. He once wrote, ‘Lies, lies, sir, brave lies are the lions!’ Even as I spin. I say there’s much truth to be extracted from that quote. If only we had more time … ”
Fee’qua’azun and Que’win’azin were beginning to turn bluish, Que’win’azin starting to choke. “Fine, Dua’sae’azon,” she said. “Mercifully you’ll escape punishment by my hand but will perish never the less. Just answer me this. Why expose us?”
“Instead, you should ask not ‘why’ but ‘how.’ Understand the ‘how’ behind the exposing and you’ll find your ‘why.’”
“Bah!” said Que’win’azin. “You and your double-talk. It amounts to nothing and my final report will say you became insane. Under some delusion, you decided to damage the Bureaucracy and … ”
She ran out of air. She turned and ran from the galley for the hallway, presumably to crawl back up into her observatory and depart by radio signal.
By this point Fee’qua’azun was almost passed out and Dua’sae’azon would soon be joining him. Fee’qua’azun made the effort and stood and staggered out in the direction of his laboratory, apparently not believing Dua’sae’azon’s explanation of events; or perhaps more likely unable to quit Que’win’azin, her hold strong enough to pull him along no matter what. You had your chance, kid …
“Delete alternate control, Barrsoon,” said Dua’sae’azon finally. Randall says you can stop playing possum now.”
“Certainly,” said the computer.
Magnetic-field sensors on the control panes returned to life showing the intensifying fluctuations around Jupiter’s core. Interdimensional liquid-hydrogen particles inside Que’win’azin and Fee’qua’azun, their compiler-antenna, may have actually departed by radio signal only to get pulled down to Jupiter’s center, to eventually be materialized before the Bureaucracy Tribunal to explain their fraternization. In retaliation Que’win’azin would force them to see themselves as they really were, destroying the Bureaucracy once and forever.
Well, thought Phil. They fell for that.
Hand lightly hitting the chair with every rotation, the momentum of his spin slowed and Phil was soon floating upright. Over his chair, he reached down and pulled himself into his seat. He rolled his chair over to the word processor in the wall. The text file was still open and he reread the last line: ‘He’ll be tearing his hair out waiting for the next shoe to drop.’ Phil put his fingers over the keys and thought, okay, so what comes next? Oh right. ‘He looked at John-Yìchén and said, “I’ll have that drink now, John.”’
Randall thought long and hard about this one sentence in his report to the CEO of The PhaseStateZero Corporation: “A freakish radio-wave train from outside the solar system and lensed by Jupiter’s gravity hit the Vespucci. It overwhelmed our systems, rendering everything inoperative. Dr. Chen, Dr. Morozov and I witnessed arching electricity everywhere, and we were soon breathing very high levels of nitrogen since inner-atmosphere maintenance was malfunctioning. We all lost consciousness for perhaps three to four minutes but fortunately system redundancy worked as expected. We awakened to splitting headaches, but seemed fine otherwise. I request the crew gets swapped out so we can undergo medical exams, just to be safe.”
Randall was writing on the word processor in the wall, a tab still open to the story ‘Disintegration Loops’ by Philip K. Dick. He decided to read it.
Forty minutes later after he’d finished he said glumly, “Barrsoon. Here is a short-story written and attributed to an author dead eighty-nine years, and I’ve no memory on how it got there. Philip K. Dick. The most enigmatic writer after Edgar Allan Poe? I don’t know and I really can’t afford to care. Nobody must ever see this file. I’m still taking seriously your caution against sending this news to moon base Altera, so shred until nothing is left.”
“Certainly,” said Barrsoon, not sounding tentative, soon informing Randall, “Done.”
“Good. Now lift the Shield Protocol. We’ve got work to do.”
I’m only an auditory hallucination? thought Phil. Bummer. And he went back to sleep.