Earth Cult Page 17

  Their progress was slow and tentative. The ledge was strewn with small boulders and in places had crumbled away to a thin uneven strip less than a foot wide, so that every step had to be taken with care and due deliberation. It was hard to tell if they were keeping roughly to the same level or gradually descending – with no external point of reference their senses were confined to the ledge in front of them, the rock face to their left, and the empty black nothingness on their right.

  In a curious way that surprised even him, Frank had become fatalistic about the situation in which they found themselves. He reasoned that if the mountain had gone to all the trouble of getting them this far (with presumably some ultimate objective in view) it wasn’t going to leave them fumbling about in the dark forever; nor did it seem likely that the mountain was planning to dispose of them when it could have done so already, quite easily, in any number of ways.

  They went on, feeling their way cautiously, using whatever handholds the rock face afforded them. Once a small boulder was dislodged and rolled over the edge out of sight; they paused and listened and waited for minutes without hearing it strike bottom.

  Jerry murmured, ‘Jee-zuz!’

  It was the last thing he heard Jerry – or any of them say.

  Frank stepped forward, testing the ledge to see if it would bear his weight, and after committing himself the rock disintegrated and gave way under his foot and he fell headlong into the void. He was still clutching the lamp, as if it might save him, and by its light he saw the walls of the shaft begin to gather speed and then blur, rushing past in the spinning beam of light. It was as though he was stationary and they were moving – he felt no sensation of falling, only his body tumbling over and over in a slow-motion dream.

  What at first he had taken to be the rush of air in his ears slowly resolved itself into a low moaning sound that reached him from the depths: it was the voice of the mountain and the chant of the Telluric Faith rolled into one long mournful funereal drone.

  FOUR

  He was falling to the centre of the Earth.

  Time and space became abstractions of a greater infinity. He knew that he was inside the body of the living planet. He thought: Is this the place that Cabel calls the Ultimate Void? Will I continue to fall to the inner core of the planet where the molten rock surges like a sea of fire? And then he began to listen – because from somewhere beyond his comprehension a quiet yet insistent voice was speaking directly into his mind …

  The human brain contains one hundred thousand million cells.

  All was darkness. There was no sensation. His body was suspended in the void. He might have been inside the living Earth or outside the biosphere in the farthest reaches of space. From nowhere, it seemed, knowledge was being imparted to him, transmitted from an unknown source…

  The Galaxy contains one hundred thousand million stars.

  Had this knowledge come from the Earth, or from the Sun, or somewhere deeper in space, towards the centre of the Galaxy? The voice went gently on …

  Each star is a cell in a Hyper-Brain of galactic dimensions.

  There are thousands of millions of galaxies in the Universe.

  Each and every galaxy is a Hyper-Brain and together they form the Conscious Universe.

  The knowledge had entered his mind without his being aware of who had placed it there, or how, or why. He simply knew. How could he have acquired such knowledge? And why had he been chosen to receive it?

  More secrets awaited him.

  The cells in the human brain conduct electrochemical impulses.

  The stars in the Hyper-Brain conduct particles of pure energy.

  Electrochemical impulses are the communicating links which constitute thought, reasoning, memory, and conscious self-awareness in the human organism.

  Particles of pure energy are the communicating links which constitute thought, reasoning, memory, and conscious self-awareness in the galactic organism.

  Was this, then, the function of neutrinos – to transmit messages at the speed of light from star-cell to star-cell? Did they form the neurological pathways of the galactic Hyper-Brain? Stellar fusion emitted neutrinos just as brain cells transmitted electrochemical impulses. The pattern was maintained from the human level to the cosmic. The Galaxy was a brain and the Sun a single nerve cell amongst one hundred thousand million.

  As below, so above.

  The human brain perceives the Hyper-Brain.

  The Hyper-Brain perceives the Conscious Universe.

  Now he could see clearly the Galaxy moving through time and space. It was a conscious being which knows itself to be an individual life-form in the Universe. There were thousands of millions of other galaxies, each one possessing intelligence, each one aware of itself as an individual consciousness.

  They were able to communicate. Just as the human brain had the ability to exchange thoughts and ideas, so it was possible for Hyper-Brain to converse with Hyper-Brain: the Universe was filled with the whispering of a thousand million conscious beings. And the Universe itself was the supreme conscious being for which there was only – could only be – One Name.

  But the mystery of how he knew these things amazed him; he seemed to have become aware of them instinctively, as if the knowledge had materialized out of nowhere and unfolded within his mind.

  But there were still questions. If neutrinos formed the neurological pathways between star-cells, what function did antineutrinos have? Was it part of the overall design that they should decay into antitrimuons, producing vast quantities of lethal radiation? What would be the equivalent in the human brain? Possibly a condition similar to a sudden discharge of electrical energy leading to a brainstorm—

  A galactic brainstorm?

  Was this what had awakened the Earth from primordial slumber? Were antineutrinos a type of renegade particle which were the cause on the galactic level of something resembling a brain seizure? In human beings such a condition would give rise to convulsions and brief surges of violence and uncontrollable rage. And wasn’t this precisely what had been happening to the Earth?

  He recalled that it was possible to artificially stimulate the brain with electrodes placed at certain points so as to produce the effect of a seizure. How could this be achieved on the galactic level? How else but by building up a concentrated source of radiation which would then trigger the antitrimuon events to produce a sudden discharge of radioactive energy – leading to brain seizure. This source of radiation, as he now knew, was in the detection chamber: the tanks contained an accumulation of argon-37 which when released would trigger the antitrimuon events. An electrode had been placed deep in the Hyper-Brain and one brief sharp shock to the cerebrum would be the signal for a violent seizure – clusters of star-cells discharging energy to produce a galactic brainstorm.

  It was as though the Earth was an infinitesimally small yet malignant nerve cell in the Hyper-Brain of the Galaxy. It was at the point of the electrode, waiting for the signal to erupt into life. And when it did – when the detection tanks released the radioactive trigger – what then?

  His mind reached out in the blackness, seeking the answer.

  And the answer came, delivered in a voice that was vibrant and charged with feeling, saying:

  ‘For too long they have ignored the warning of the Ultimate Void. And now the Earth speaks for us … now is come the day of reckoning when the floodwaters will rise up and the breath of life will be taken from them and they will be destroyed from the living Earth for evermore!’

  It was a voice he remembered – the voice of Cabel – issuing from the mouth of Professor Edmund Friedmann.

  FIVE

  The gantry had become his pulpit. He stood with arms extended, tall and spare in the one-piece black suit, his face hidden in the shadow cast by the wide brim of his hat. His voice was high and tremulous as he preached to the assembled congregation: the four stainless steel detection tanks which gleamed like huge silver tombs in the harsh glare of the overhead arc-lights.
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br />   Leach had said that Professor Friedmann had come below to prepare the way. Did Friedmann believe he had a mission to make straight the path for the cosmic intelligence reaching the Earth from the centre of the Galaxy? He had known all along that the antineutrinos were a form of galactic communication, but what he hadn’t realized was the effect they would have on the geophysical structure of the Earth – and the radiation that would result from antineutrino-antitrimuon interaction.

  Professor Friedmann was unaware that in addition to the detection tanks he had a human congregation of one. His gaze was not outwardly-directed but focused on the inner secrets which the cosmos had yielded up to him. They swam before his eyes like the exploding birth of stars, like the busy humming world of nuclear particles. Nothing on the human scale had relevance; only the mysteries of the Omniverse and the Ultimate Void, the Greater and Lesser Bodies extending above and below, the twelve sacred levels which constituted the religious doctrine of the Telluric Faith.

  Frank Kersh also had a mission to fulfil. Twice now the mountain had come to his aid and brought him to the detection chamber – yet he still didn’t understand what was expected of him. Another intelligence (the Hyper-Brain?) had communicated something of the underlying truth; it had made manifest its intentions by bringing him here, but for what purpose?

  He slowly began to ascend the metal stairway, keeping his eyes on the tall straight figure in black. Professor Friedmann was intent on his sermon, oblivious to anything that might be taking place in the real physical world; his voice had acquired the peculiarly hypnotic fervour that Frank remembered from the torchlight gathering in the square.

  It was now clear how Cabel had been able to predict the severe climatic changes: his prophecy had been based on the scientific data obtained by the Project. The high incidence of antineutrino detection had pointed to a disruption of the biosphere, which Friedmann had reinterpreted in religious terms for the benefit of his followers. And when the freak thunderstorms and violent tremors swept along the Roaring Fork Valley they had proved conclusively the extent of his predictive powers and the truth of what he preached.

  His message was Destruction – and the elements had dutifully played their part in bringing it about.

  ‘And now the time is come when the forces within the living Earth shall be awakened. They have slept throughout all the ages of mankind, since that first instant when their conscious being was transformed from whirling gas into the body of this planet. They have waited patiently for release, these elemental forces of nature, for the moment when the message from beyond would arouse them from their slumber.’

  He suddenly raised the black rods of his arms high above his head, fingers splayed like pale stars.

  ‘Within these holy vessels resides the power of the Cosmic World! It has come to us from the infinite depths of space, from the centre of our Galaxy. This power shall descend to the Ultimate Void within the body of the sleeping Earth. The waters shall rise up and the rocks shall be split asunder and the heavens shall clash as they receive the breath of life. Man will be destroyed from the face of the Earth – both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air. Behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the Earth, to destroy all flesh, and everything that is in the Earth shall die!’

  It was evident that Professor Friedmann believed himself to be invested with divine power: he was the human instrument of the consciousness which permeated the Galaxy. Through his ministry the Earth would reawaken.

  Frank stepped on to the gantry. Below him the tanks seemed to rise from the floor of the chamber like monstrous rectangular icebergs. There was no outward sign of the activity within them as the radioactive atoms of argon-37 built up to the level when they would become unstable – and what happened thereafter would be ample confirmation of Professor Friedmann’s prophecy of cataclysmic destruction.

  He glanced towards the row of consoles which housed the recording equipment and was surprised to see that it was still working. The needles hovered in the dials, registering the particle interactions, and a moving ribbon of graph-paper charted the rise in nuclear activity. How soon before the condition inside the detection tanks reached optimum? Was the process even at this moment too far advanced to bring into operation the usual fail-safe procedure?

  Professor Friedmann paused in his oratory and turned abruptly. Without the blue-tinted spectacles his eyes seemed naked, almost vulnerable, a vague myopic dullness about them like those of a man lost in a fog.

  ‘Karl…?’

  ‘No, it isn’t Karl. Frank Kersh.’

  The name meant nothing. Friedmann moved away from the rail, holding his head to one side, inquisitively, like an old man straining to hear. There was something disjointed about his stance. He said:

  ‘We have received the message from the Cosmic World. It has come from the galactic centre, passed through the twelve levels of Telluric consciousness, and is about to enter the Ultimate Void.’

  ‘You’ve actually heard the message?’ Frank said carefully.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Professor Friedmann pointed to the tanks. ‘The message is there. Can’t you hear it?’ He smiled rapturously. ‘The Earth hears and will soon awaken. Listen!’

  From deep within the core, as if obeying him, a shockwave reverberated through thousands of miles of iron-magnesium mantle to the granitic crust. It grew in intensity, like a gathering roll of thunder, and the chamber trembled. Frank felt the gantry shift under his feet. He thought: Either that was a damn lucky guess or he really does have control over the Ultimate Void – wherever and whatever that is.

  Frank edged slowly towards the row of consoles. It was essential that he check the level of interaction in the tanks.

  Friedmann said, ‘Are you a member of the Faith? Do you believe in Earth Power?’

  Frank nodded, wondering just how much sanity Professor Friedmann retained. Had he been affected by the radiation to the same degree as the four men who had died, so that even now the tumour was eating away at the soft tissue of his brain? Leach had slipped over the edge into babbling lunacy and it might be that Friedmann wouldn’t be too long in following him.

  ‘I have prepared the way,’ Friedmann said. He took a step forward. He looked at Frank as if he were gazing into the distance. ‘Do you realize that after five billion years the Earth is about to regain its consciousness? It was formed from plasma from out of the living Sun and became the Tellus, the sentient planet. And all this time it has awaited the signal from the Cosmic World…the signal to reawaken!’

  He moved a further step forward, partly blocking the way to the measuring equipment. Was this deliberate – did he know very well who Frank was and what he was trying to do – or was he genuinely lost in visions, his head filled with the plasma of madness?

  Frank said, ‘But if your prophecy comes true, won’t the members of the Faith also lose their lives? If the mountain splits open and the waters rise up, then surely everyone will perish. Isn’t this so?’

  ‘Everyone will perish,’ Friedmann agreed, almost dreamily. He seemed to relish the notion. ‘Everyone except the Tellurians.’

  ‘You mean the members of the Faith?’

  ‘No, no. You do not understand. The Tellurians awaiting the signal.’

  He meant the babies. The babies were the Tellurians.

  Friedmann went on, his voice quite gentle now:

  ‘They have been endowed with the intelligence of the Cosmic World. They are to become the true inhabitants of the planet Earth. From them will spring a new species of human being that will live in harmony with Tellus.’

  It seemed that Professor Friedmann, even in his madness (or perhaps because of it) had perceived the significance and purpose of the galactic intelligence which had directed the stream of antineutrinos towards the Earth. There was to be an awakening not only of the planet but also of a species which would inherit the Earth.

  From deep underground another tremor shook the chamber and the gantry creaked, like the sou
nd of metal in pain. Frank looked past Friedmann’s shoulder to the recording consoles and saw the needles swinging wildly, registering the high rate of particle interaction. He knew it was too late: the concentration of argon-37 in the tanks had reached the critical level. There was nothing anyone could do to prevent a massive leakage of radiation that would act as a device to trigger the antitrimuon events – which would in turn contaminate the interior of the mountain and everything trapped there.

  Friedmann came a sudden step nearer. His manner was intimidating. As if reading Frank’s mind he said:

  ‘You can do nothing to alter the destiny of the Cosmic World. Very soon the signal will be released and the Tellurians will become the true and rightful inhabitants of Tellus. The time of awakening is with us at last…’

  His head was bent to one side, as if he were listening for the signal, and the light fell on his neck. There was something there, attached to him, and it took Frank a moment to realize that it was a growth, of some kind, a scaly eruption of scabrous tissue. Friedmann was physically decomposing, giving off the evil smell that permeated the entire mountain. He was decaying as the needles of radiation penetrated his flesh and infected the cells with a creeping malignant tumour.

  And Frank thought: It must be happening to me too. The radiation from the tanks is filling the chamber, an invisible yet deadly stream of particles infiltrating brain and body and infecting them with a cancerous growth.

  There was the feverish light of pure madness in Friedmann’s eyes. He raised his arms high in a gesture that was half worship, half supplication, and Frank saw that his hands were flaking away to reveal the raw musculature and skeletal structure beneath. His skin had the dead white powdery texture of chalk.

  ‘The way is open, the path has been made straight, the Earth awaits you! Cabel hears and obeys the message from the Cosmic World – let the waters rise up and the mountain split asunder and let Tellus return to its former consciousness and the full glory of cosmic life!’