Seeking the Mythical Future Read online

  ‘Did it ever occur to you that the reverse might be true?’ Queghan said. ‘Perhaps he transposed Psy-Con into PSYCON.’

  ‘Yes,’ Milton Blake said slowly, looking at Queghan.

  *

  The theory positing the existence of Temporal Flux Centres was by no means new or revolutionary: it had a long and involved scientific history stretching back to Pre-Colonization times. It had been in the year 1798 (Gregorian calendar) that the French mathematician Pierre Laplace, using Newton’s theory of gravitation as the basis for his calculations, had forecast that a body above a certain critical mass and density would prevent light escaping from its surface and would therefore be invisible to any outside observer. With his equations in the early part of the twentieth century, Einstein came forward with conclusive proof that a body of such mass and density was not only possible but mathematically inevitable.

  Then in 1916 (Gc), Karl Schwarzschild, working on the relativistic principle of spacetime distortion, calculated the critical radius of an extremely small, extremely massive spherical object – such as a White Dwarf – and arrived at a set of equations which could be used to define this radius for any object, no matter how large or small. This became known as the Schwarzschild Radius*, and, once having achieved it, an object would distort spacetime so severely that nothing could ever escape from it. The sun of Old Earth, for example, with a radius of 700,000 kilometres, would have to be compressed to a radius of three kilometres before it achieved Temporal Flux – or as it was known in the early days of discovery – a ‘Black Hole’.

  For many years Pre-Colonization, the existence of Blade Holes was a matter for speculation and controversy. The main problem was how to locate a body which emitted no radiation of any kind and was totally invisible to observers using visual and electromagnetic sensing equipment. Two methods were postulated as a means of detecting these elusive creatures: the measurement of gravitational radiation and the single-line spectroscopic binary system. Joseph Weber of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was the first, with his Paper Gravitational Radiation Experiments published in 1970 (Gc), to claim an experimental result which might confirm the existence of Temporal Flux Centres in the denser parts of the Milky Way galaxy. Synchronized instruments placed 600 miles apart had detected short violent bursts of gravitational energy – so violent that the only explanation was that entire stars were being sucked into and swallowed by Temporal Flux Centres, their abrupt extinction being accompanied by a burst of radiation many millions of times more powerful than could be accounted for by any other known phenomenon in the universe.

  The evidence provided by a study of single-line spectroscopic binary systems was even more conclusive. In the latter part of the twentieth century detailed and systematic observation showed that of the binary (double star) systems, a number possessed invisible companions, which were detectable by the influence they exerted on the visible star. Some of these companions, on further investigation, turned out to be old dead Stars or, as in the case of Sirius B in Alpha Canis Maj oris, White Dwarfs. But a significant proportion were found to possess invisible companions of sufficient mass and density to fit the category of Temporal Flux Centre, notably HD226868, Theta2 Orionis in M.42, Epsilon Aurigae lying close to Capidla, and the eclipsing binary Beta Lyrae near the brilliant blue Star Vega.

  This was the foundation upon which the subsequent study of [Temporal Flux Centres was based. It progressed theoretically but languished in practice in Pre-Colonization times because of man’s inability to escape the Solar System. It required – it depended upon – the development of interstellar travel, which took four centuries to achieve. The breakthrough was prosaic, almost archaic, for it was the rediscovery of the work done by an obscure English electrical engineer in the nineteenth century, Oliver Heavyside, which finally led, almost by accident, to a modification of Einsteinian physics.

  It was a basic tenet of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity that nothing possessing mass can exceed lightspeed; by employing the Heavyside formulae, which dealt with the interaction of electromagnetic waves and gravitational energy, it was shown that this rule didn’t apply when the force of gravitation was balanced out, or negated, by the action of electromagnetic pulses of energy. In a real sense, it made precise use of the Einsteinian concept of relativity – ironically turning it against itself – for if nothing could exceed lightspeed and yet lightspeed itself was relative (depending on the point of reference from which it was being observed) then it followed that while lightspeed could not be exceeded in a local frame of reference, in cosmic terms the absolute velocity of lightspeed had no meaning: it was a variable factor*. The Galaxy, relative to other galaxies, was moving beyond lightspeed, and, once a method could be found to ‘break out’ of the local frame of reference, then interstellar travel would evolve to a problem of technology.

  This ‘breaking out’ was achieved by a rupturing of four-dimensional spacetime – a concept impossible to visualize which could only be expressed mathematically. To students it was explained as being analogous to a race of people living on a videovision screen. Imagine, they were told, that these people had only two dimensions – length and breadth, but no depth – and whose world is totally confined to this flat two-dimensional plane. They have no knowledge of ‘roundness’, they are thin, flat creatures who have no idea that a third dimension exists. But we, as outside observers, can see clearly that a third dimension does exist in which it is possible to move around. Further imagine, they were asked, these flatlanders to be living on a sphere: they can move forwards or backwards, to left or right, but not up or down. If they decide to travel along the surface of their sphere (to them it will appear completely flat) they will travel on for ever, believing themselves to be in an endless universe. Now if we transfer this concept of a two-dimensional world to our three-dimensional one, we can understand, if not visualize, a fourth dimension which our senses are incapable of detecting. We are in a sense three-dimensional ‘flatlanders’ existing in a four-dimensional universe. And just as the two-dimensional people travelling round their sphere will eventually arrive back where they started from, so we, heading deeper into the Metagalaxy, will eventually arrive back at our starting point.

  This schoolboy analogy was complicated by the dynamics of spacetime curvature. As predicted by Einstein’s gravitational field equations, spacetime was not an absolute uniform medium permeating all of Creation, but was affected – ‘wrinkled’ or ‘curved’ – by the presence of bodies embedded in it. Planets moved in orbit round the sun not because the sun attracted them (as in the Newtonian model of gravitation) but because the spacetime curvature exerted by the sun’s presence confined the motion of planets to a circular world-line. In spacetime curvature, these circular motions were represented by geodesics which, paradoxically, showed that the shortest distance between two points was not a straight line but a curved one.

  This same work, almost incidentally, provided the theoretical evidence for the existence of Temporal Flux Centres, for when a body of immense mass and density collapsed beyond the Schwarzschild Radius it distorted surrounding spacetime to such an extent that the curvature was total; spacetime folded in upon itself and formed a ‘singularity’ – the structure of matter was annihilated in a region of infinite spacetime curvature. And just as planets followed their world-lines round the sun (a relatively gentle effect of spacetime curvature), so the particles of energy and matter in a Temporal Flux Centre were subject to the curvature of spacetime in its most devastating and obliterating form.

  The work of Heavyside, which had lain dormant for centuries, was amazingly apposite when applied to the problem of how to overcome the limiting factor of lightspeed. His particular passion had been for electromagnetism – a new and unexplored field in his day – which seemed only remotely linked to relativistic physics, the great crowning glory of scientific achievement in the twentieth century. Yet it was Heavyside who laid down the principle of ‘electromagnetic interference’ (EMI), where
by gravitational energy could be diverted or controlled, creating not so much an anti-gravity field as a change in its astro-physical properties. This in itself was exciting but not significant – until one brought in the concept of spacetime curvature and the varying speed of light in a gravitational field. If one could control gravity by means of an electromagnetic force, then it must follow that lightspeed was also capable of manipulation. Interstellar distances, which were indeed vast, could be conquered, not by travelling across them in the conventional sense, but by relativistically reducing the distance to be travelled. It was the classic case of bringing the mountain to Mohammed: moving the destination closer (ie varying the factor of lightspeed) so that the time it took to travel there was shorter.

  This introduced a new branch of astro-technology, because it soon became evident that interstellar vehicles didn’t require propulsion units, nuclear, chemical or any other type. In fact they didn’t require anything. It was only necessary to place the vehicle in a field of electromagnetic interference, set the spatiotemporal coordinates, and press the button. For practical purposes, the field was created in deep space in a quiet and uncluttered part of the Solar System. This was to reduce the radiation hazard and also to prevent accidents: anything inside the field would be transported to the destination, and, if set up on earth, would have meant the staff and laboratory going along for the ride too, whatever their personal feelings or preferences.

  The beauty and utter simplicity of the EMI Field, from the astro-technologists’ point of view, was that lightspeed, far from limiting their technical capability as had once been feared, actually became the key which opened the door to interstellar travel. Without this ‘golden mean’ they would have had to resort to such tedious methods as those of suspended animation or ‘generation’ space vessels as huge as several ocean liners, or some fanciful invention like ‘hyperdrive’, beloved of SF writers of the era Pre-Colonization. In fact it was amusing to look back to those times and read of the devious, almost perverse ways in which both scientists and fiction writers sought to overcome the ‘insurmountable’ problem of faster-than-light travel. Their mistake was in treating it as a barrier, an impasse somehow to be avoided, when all along it was an ally: lightspeed itself was the answer staring them in the face.

  And now a new step in cosmic exploration was about to be taken. Man was preparing to enter that region of the Metagalaxy existing alongside, or even within, the observable universe. It was there, it existed, of that there could be no doubt: the Hidden Universe where the laws of space and time, energy and matter, were changed beyond recognition. The way in – the only way – was via the one-way membrane of a Temporal Flux Centre; and man was about to take the first step.

  *

  The image transmitted by Stahl had profoundly disturbed him. It contained all the elements of a genuine mythoplasm: a composite of myth, legend and psychic projection. To Stahl, the universe he had created was more real than Room Three of the Psychic Conservation Unit where his physical presence was located; subjective reality was a world of red oceans, airships and concentration camps where millions of people were held in captivity. Supposing they were to inject Stahl into Temporal Flux – would he find himself inhabiting his private fantasy, trapped in a world of his own nightmarish imaginings? Queghan recalled a line from Karve’s The Hidden Universe: ‘The universe is nothing until we think of it in a certain way; it is an expression of how we ourselves perceive it.’ What would his perceptions be, having once passed beyond the event horizon into the maelstrom of Temporal Flux? Did hell, complete with all its demons, await him there?

  Oria was sitting in the garden, her body bathed golden by the rays of the sun. There was another chair near by, and Queghan noticed that it still retained the shape of a recent sitter in the contoured vinyl. (The stranger of his dreams, perhaps, having dematerialized on Queghan’s arrival?)

  He kissed her and said, ‘Pregnancy agrees with you.’

  ‘Was PSYCON worth the trip?’ There were faint vertical marks of tension on her forehead, as if she had acquired a slight though permanent frown.

  ‘It was … interesting.’

  ‘Will it help the Project?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You’re being evasive,’ Oria said, laying her book down. Queghan read the title upside down: The First Year of Motherhood.

  ‘No, it’s really too soon to say. The equipment is in prototype. The results so far are certainly interesting, but I shall have to discuss it with Johann before making any kind of recommendation’.

  He sat down, re-shaping the chair to his form, and closed his eyes; the sun glimmered redly behind his eyelids and he was reminded of the ocean.

  ‘What’s the temperature of the fluid at the moment of transfusion?’ Oria asked.

  Queghan opened one eye. ‘The temperature …’

  ‘Of the fluid. The injectee receives a complete transfusion of fluid to preserve the molecular structure.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘I was in Archives for three years,’ Oria reminded him. ‘I read up on the Psycho-Med preparations prior to injection.’

  ‘Was that before or after you revised the general theory of relativity?’ Queghan closed his eye again. ‘So why do you want to know the transfusion temperature?’

  ‘Do you think it might be similar to giving birth?’

  ‘There’s no way I’m ever going to be able to answer that,’ Queghan said, grinning into the sun. He was trying to register her but there was too much emotional static, too many impulses scurrying about like blind mice chasing their own tails. He would like to have slept for a long time, the sun held in suspension above the trees, the sun chosen as beneficent provider by a technocratic race. God had created man in His own image and man had created worlds in his own image. God the Creator of the Metagalaxy, man its shaper. How far did they have to go before the mystery revealed itself? And what would they find at the end of it – a tired old man sitting in a shabby cobwebbed room watching the endless sinking of the sun?

  Oria was crying. She said, ‘I don’t want to lose you.’

  He said, almost with relief, ‘I thought it was the child; I thought something had happened to the child.’

  ‘The child is all right.’ The tears fell on to her distended breasts, rolled and evaporated into thin, dried trails.

  Queghan went to her, holding both her hands. ‘Nothing will be left to chance, you know how careful they are. Johann won’t give the word until he’s one hundred per cent certain that every system is at optimum.’

  ‘A hundred per cent certain of a fifty per cent probability,’ Oria said. Her pale-blue eyes shimmered through the refraction of her tears. ‘You didn’t have to accept, Chris. Brenton wanted to go, he’d risk anything, he’s not married, it didn’t matter to him.’

  There should have been something he could have said, some magical phrase that would make everything all right, but the magical phrase eluded him. He said emptily, like a child making excuses, ‘You said I had no alternative.’

  ‘It didn’t matter then, it was unreal, it wasn’t you, it was some other person we were discussing. The real you would still be here: this make-believe person would be going, not you.’

  ‘There may be a million mythical futures but there’s only one me, I’m afraid,’ he said, attempting to smile.

  ‘Chris,’ Oria said softly, ‘Chris, there’s no way back. They can inject you into that place, wherever it is, but they can never bring you back. You know it, that’s why you didn’t tell me, you know that you’ll never return … ’

  Queghan saw her for a split second, absolutely cold-bloodedly, as a neurochemical organism responding to electrical stimuli, as a body secreting warm salty fluid, as a mammalian receptacle for the furtherance of the species. He thought: we have come so far and still a woman’s tears defeat us; defeat our science, our logic, our knowledge. What is the point of anything when a commonplace emotion can reduce us to helplessness? If we don’t unde
rstand this, what do we understand? And what is the point of understanding anything?

  ‘Who told you? Johann was going to withhold the announcement until after the baby was born.’

  ‘The baby,’ Oria said. ‘The fucking baby!’ She raised her fists as if to strike him and hit herself in the stomach very hard. Queghan caught her wrists and held them, like brittle sparrow’s bones in his large hands. She had amazing strength and he had to hold her in a tight grip, afraid that in wanting to harm the child she would kill them both.

  Anger rose up suddenly within him and he said roughly, ‘Who was it? Who told you? Who told you?’

  ‘Brenton,’ she said, the fight and strength gone out of her. He released her wrists. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Chris? You should have told me.’

  ‘I would have told you, after the baby came.’ A fleck of foam had appeared at the comer of his mouth. ‘We agreed, Johann and I agreed, to wait just a few weeks. It wouldn’t have made any difference, to the Project, to me, to Brenton—’

  ‘Let him go, Chris,’ Oria said. ‘Let him go. He wants to go. He’d do anything.’ She was pale and dry eyed, trying to do by reason what could not be done by emotion. ‘They need you here, Brenton said so. He said the Vehicle would reject you—’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Only because you want to go,’ she said harshly.

  ‘I have to.’ His eyelids fluttered. He felt the world recede, and experienced the glare of white light in his brain, like the flash of a prolonged explosion going on for ever. He tried to say something, but his tongue was coiled thickly in his mouth. The foam bubbled on his lips.

  ‘Chris,’ Oria said, ‘Chris!’ and failed to hold him as he fell on to the grass, his blank eyeballs staring at the sky, and in the infinitesimal fraction of time before blackness came he heard her voice calling to him, loud and then soft, loud and soft, as he sank into the warm bowels of the planet.