Earth Cult Read online

  It was a normal everyday scene, no different to what was happening in a thousand small towns all over America, and yet in a curious way it seemed unreal, almost dreamlike, for he couldn’t rid his mind of the images of musty sub-terreanan passages and the detection chamber with its stainless steel tanks and the four bloated bodies huddled on the gantry. He thought: This is another world, this bright sunny outdoors, so friendly and reassuringly familiar. These people are living on the skin of the planet, unaware of what lurks beneath them, like insects skating on the surface of a pond. The vast bulk of the Earth is hidden away, directly beneath their feet, extending downwards for thousands of miles, but for them it doesn’t exist because they never give it a moment’s thought. This is their ‘real world’ and they never suspect it’s mere surface show, literally skin-deep, and that the actual living core of the planet is shut away from their sight, trillions of tons of it upon which a humanoid form of life is permitted to crawl.

  And what would they say if he told them that thousands of neutrinos and antineutrinos were passing through their bodies at this instant of time? Equally unreal, of course, because they couldn’t see or feel them. This was the real world (they could see it and feel it) and anything that didn’t affect them might just as well not exist. But the interesting question – which Frank Kersh would have liked to have put to them – was on what basis does one judge reality? The thin envelope of the biosphere was one limited and severely restricted slice of reality; the inner hidden core of the planet was another, much greater one; and the invisible neutrinos and antineutrinos moving at the speed of light were a form of reality which pervaded all space – every single cubic centimetre of space throughout the Universe. So what, in reality, constituted the real?

  These people living out their tiny lives inhabited a stratum of spacetime which was so incredibly insignificant as to be almost ethereal. Had they been granted an extension to their feeble range of sensory perceptions they might have gained an inkling of what lay beyond this narrow plane of existence which they called reality. And not only beyond them in the sense of being ‘out there’, but all around them, occupying the same space and time … the waves of cosmic radiation washing over them from space, the subnuclear particles passing through their ‘real world’ as if it were a patch of mist, the entire array of microwaves, infra-red rays, X-rays, ultra-violet rays, gamma rays, particles and antiparticles for which this sunny street with its people, stores, cars and copulating dogs had less basis in reality than a momentary passing dream and no more substance than images projected on to a blank wall.

  It was a truism that people couldn’t stand too much reality, but in truth they experienced hardly any reality at all. They possessed a smaller range of perception of the Universe around them than did a blind burrowing mole of its dark earthy environment. They looked out at the world with blind eyes, listened to its whisperings with deaf ears, and all along believed themselves to be the focal point of consciousness, the arbiter of intelligence, the only true and valid constant against which to measure objective reality.

  And what of himself? Frank thought wryly. Perhaps he was blind too, in a different sense. He glanced around him, suddenly apprehensive, feeling he was being observed. There was no one watching, his instincts had deceived him. Then it hit him: he raised his eyes above the rooftops and there was the presence of the mountain, remarkably near in the clear morning light, the flimsiest wisp of cloud, like a brushstroke, obscuring the peak. The Tellurians believed the Mount of the Holy Cross to possess some kind of dynamic force. He had scoffed at their beliefs but now he understood how continually living in its shadow could evoke such strange and powerful emotions. The rational man of science, he mocked himself. He was no better than the people in the street; at least their ignorance excused them, but being aware of his own ignorance should have made him a wiser person. He doubted that it did.

  The office of the Roaring Fork Bulletin was farther along the main street, indistinguishable from the store-fronts either side – a gunsmith’s and a dry-cleaner’s – except for the absence of a window display and instead the front page of last week’s issue taped inside a glass-fronted frame: Recreation Resort for Great Eagle Dam? Lightning Kills Dot-sero Farmworker. Rifle Wins Rio Blanco County League.

  Still wearing the creased white cotton suit, which Frank reckoned must be the newspaper editor’s badge of office in these parts, Cal Renfield was seated at a large oval desk contemplating a rough page layout, some of which was already blocked in with half-tones and criss-crossed areas indicating copy. A mug of black coffee cooled at his elbow.

  He levered himself into a semi-standing position, and when they had shaken hands flopped down again, his belly reverberating with the shock-wave.

  ‘My staff have taken the day off,’ Cal Renfield said, gesturing at the empty office with a hand that reminded Frank of a small pink pin-cushion.

  ‘You have staff?’ Frank said good-naturedly.

  ‘Sure I have staff. All one of them. Do you want some coffee?’

  ‘No thanks,’ Frank said, and then changed his mind.

  Cal Renfield nodded towards the electric coffee pot and invited him to help himself. As Frank was doing this the small balding man said, ‘Don’t you slick city reporters ever wear suits? All I’ve ever seen you in is denims, polo-neck sweaters and wind-cheaters. Is that the new hip style for Chicago newspapermen?’

  Frank did a mannequin’s twirl. ‘Today’s ensemble is leather,’ he intoned in the arch portentous tones of the fashion commentator. ‘Note the neat little coloured leather side-panels sewn into the body of the garment, so useful for carrying all the essentials of the writer’s trade: pens, pencils, notebooks, erasers, portable typewriters.’

  ‘From what I heard, a safety-helmet, a pick-axe and a pair of miner’s boots would be a darn sight more useful.’ Cal Renfield offered a pack of cigarettes, his grey eyes shrewd and watchful.

  ‘So you heard about that?’ Frank said. He took a cigarette and lit them both. His hand was perfectly steady.

  ‘I’m the local newshound,’ Cal Renfield reminded him. ‘They wouldn’t allow me to visit the Project but I spoke with Lee Merriam, who’s a regular guy, and he gave me the salient facts. As we newshounds say.’ His soft round features sobered and his eyes became flat, without expression. ‘It didn’t help the men trapped below ground much.’

  Frank drank his coffee.

  ‘What happened exactly?’

  ‘I thought you said Lee Merriam told you.’

  ‘He did. Some of it.’

  ‘The salient facts.’

  ‘Lee wasn’t underground when the tremor started. You were.’

  ‘We were underground,’ Frank said. ‘There was an earth tremor. End of story.’

  Cal Renfield nodded his head slowly. He sniffed. ‘For a reporter your power of recall isn’t what I’d call shit-hot.’

  ‘I keep telling you, Cal, I’m not a reporter – I’m a feature writer with a science magazine. What happened is probably what Lee Merriam told you. I don’t want to bore the ass off of you by repeating it.’

  ‘But you found the bodies?’

  ‘Yes. They were on the gantry.’

  ‘What gantry is that?’

  ‘You’ve never been down to the detection chamber?’

  Cal Renfield smiled. ‘Do you think they’d allow the editor of the local newspaper to look at that vital top secret installation of theirs? No way, brother. No chance.’

  ‘Who told you it was top secret?’

  ‘Friedmann. When they moved in I went up to interview him and he gave me a long rigmarole about top secret this and classified that. I got the impression they were engaged on some kind of advanced research for the government. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘In a way it is,’ Frank said, reminding himself that caution was the watchword of the day. ‘They’re funded by a government agency, the Institute of Astrophysics. But I’d hardly describe the work they do as top secret.’

  ‘Okay,’
said Cal Renfield, blowing a plume of smoke at the ceiling. ‘You found the bodies on the gantry. Which is in the detection chamber.’

  ‘There isn’t a lot to say about dead bodies.’

  ‘Presumably they were drowned.’

  ‘They were found at the bottom of a flooded mine,’ Frank said, sticking to the literal truth.

  ‘Did the tremor have anything to do with it?’

  ‘In what way?’ Frank asked, sipping his coffee and squinting at a large blow-up photograph of what looked like a steel smelting plant. He turned it over and read the typed caption: US Bureau of Mines Shale Oil Plant, Grand Valley, Col

  Cal Renfield sighed. ‘You’re not the easiest of people to extract information from, you know that? I want the background stuff, not the official version. Was there anything at all that struck you as being out of the ordinary? Hell, Frank, you were first on the scene, practically an eye-witness.’

  ‘I’ve told you, they were already dead when I got there. The chamber had been flooded by the storm and there was no way of reaching them until the water subsided. Didn’t Lee Merriam tell you all this?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Cal Renfield drank the last of his coffee and studied the half-completed layout in front of him. ‘I just got the feeling there was more to it than that.’ He glanced up at Frank with his shrewd grey eyes. ‘You know, my news-hound’s sixth sense?’

  Frank moved round the office looking at the files of cuttings and news agency reports. He was on Cal Renfield’s side: he was sympathetic to the man and wanted to help him but at the same time it would have been a mistake – and a betrayal of confidence – to have revealed anything of what he had learned about the Project’s research programme. And it was unlikely that the editor would have grasped the significance of a concentrated emission of antineutrinos reaching them from the centre of the Galaxy. For the moment Frank had to play it cool, giving the appearance of an interested if slightly bemused bystander.

  He approached the desk where Cal Renfield was working, saying casually, ‘You mentioned the other evening that some kids had been born round here who exhibited strange behaviour patterns. Where are they, local hospital?’

  ‘We don’t have a hospital in Gypsum. They’re over in Radium receiving intensive care. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’d like to see them if possible. How far is Radium?’

  ‘About fifteen miles north of here, the other side of Mount Powell.’ Cal Renfield pursed his lips together, like a small pink button. ‘What’s your interest in them, Frank? Changing your views?’

  ‘I’m interested in anything that bears investigation. How do I go about arranging a visit?’

  ‘I could do that for you,’ Cal Renfield said after a moment’s thought. ‘I know one of the doctors in the hospital, Bob Bragg. Used to have a practice in Gypsum for a couple of years, then got taken on as a staff medico. Do you want me to fix it for you?’

  ‘If possible, Cal. I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘See what I can do,’ Cal Renfield said, reaching for the phone. He was about to dial when Helen Renfield came in from the street, struggling with a large bulky photographer’s case and a tripod. She dumped the equipment in a corner and straightened up, pressing her hands into the small of her back.

  ‘You know my staff,’ Cal Renfield said to Frank, and then to Helen, ‘Did you get it?’

  ‘I got it,’ she said briefly, looking at Frank’s left shoulder but not his face. ‘I hate to tell you this, but taking pictures of a calf with five legs is not my idea of investigative journalism. It’s hardly going to make the front cover of Time.’

  ‘Might make the front cover of Stockbreeders Gazette,’ Frank said jocularly.

  Helen Renfield didn’t think the witticism merited a response. She went to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. Her red hair was drawn back from her face and tied in a schoolgirl bunch at the back. She wore very little make-up, just a touch of mascara to highlight her eyes, and with her check shirt and cowgirl jeans she might have been a college kid helping out with the Saturday morning chores. The paleness – almost austere tautness – in her face that Frank had noticed previously hadn’t been a symptom of anger, apparently, for it was here now, complementing her large widely-spaced grey eyes which were ever alert for wooden nickels.

  Frank wondered about her; she intrigued him; there was an inner cold calm and unequivocal certainty about her that he had seen in many young people, their principles uncompromised, their scruples still intact. They had seen the world, summed it up, sorted out the genuine from the fake – all without having achieved or accomplished anything. They had read the rule book but hadn’t yet begun to play the game.

  ‘I’m fixing it for Frank to visit the hospital in Radium,’ Cal Renfield said. He hadn’t yet dialled the number.

  His daughter looked up sharply. She looked at her father, not at Frank.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I guess because he wants to see the babies,’ Cal Renfield said placidly.

  ‘Is he a doctor?’

  ‘Why not ask the man? That’s him standing there.’

  ‘I’m not a doctor but I was trained in biochemistry. I do know something about human physiology.’

  ‘So you’re going to astound the world of medical science and tell the doctors where they went wrong, is that it?’

  Cal Renfield raised his eyebrows as if apologizing for a relative with bad table manners. He put the receiver down and propped his chin on his roly-poly fist.

  Frank shook his head and smiled, pacing himself, not going to allow this young girl to rattle him or bamboozle him into an argument. He watched her for a moment and for the first time became aware of a tension between them that wasn’t based on antagonism or positive dislike.

  He said, ‘Any phenomena outside the norm interests me. There has to be a reason why these babies are behaving strangely—’

  ‘Phenomena!’ Helen said, glaring at him. ‘That’s a swell two-dollar word to describe new-born babies that just lie there like vegetables. Wish I was a scientist, it must be great to wander through life looking for “phenomena”. What do you call a car smash – a terminal automotive situation?’

  ‘Whatever you might think, Miss Renfield, I’m in no way responsible for their condition. You seem to think the Project is in some way to blame, and you also believe that I have some connection with the Project. Both hypotheses, as we scientists say, are false. Not only that, they’re founded on a total lack of evidence. As an investigative reporter you should know better than to make accusations which aren’t substantiated by the facts. And what facts do you have? None.’

  ‘A good reporter relies on instinct too,’ Helen reminded him. ‘There’s something going on up at the Telluride Mine, something that’s not right. I don’t know what it is, I don’t have any “facts”, but when people are tight-mouthed about something you can bet they’ve got a big fat juicy secret sitting there waiting to be found out.’

  ‘And what has that got to do with my wanting to visit the hospital in Radium?’ Frank asked, not unreasonably he felt.

  ‘You’re on their side.’

  ‘Whose side?’

  ‘The scientists on the Deep Hole Project.’

  Frank shrugged and appealed to Cal Renfield. ‘What do I have to do to convince your daughter that I’m not Baron Frankenstein? Next time I’ll bring my evil green potion and turn you all into toads. What do you want me to say?’ he asked the girl. He threw up his hands and turned away. ‘Not that it really matters.’

  ‘All right,’ Helen said abruptly. ‘Say that we believe you.’

  ‘Your father believes me already.’

  Cal Renfield, in the act of lighting another cigarette, glanced keenly through the rising blue smoke, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Say that we do,’ the girl continued. She folded her arms and faced him. ‘We’re not scientists, we don’t understand what the Project is for or what it’s supposed to be doing—’

  ‘It’s quite simple,’ Fran
k interjected. ‘I’ve explained it to your father.’

  ‘He’s explained it to me and it’s not quite simple,’ Cal Renfield said, blowing volumes of smoke into the air. He propped his chin on his hand, watching them both.

  ‘That’s it exactly,’ Helen said. She looked at him intently. ‘We don’t know the kind of questions to ask because we’re not scientists. All right now, you’ve got a scientific background, you can ask the questions and spot if anything is wrong or doesn’t seem to fit. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’ Frank looked from daughter to father. ‘You want me to spy on them for you.’

  ‘It isn’t spying, it’s finding out the truth about what’s happening in this valley,’ Helen said with some fervour. Her face was more animated now, her grey eyes sparkling with an intensity that surprised him. ‘That’s if you’re genuinely interested in finding out.’

  ‘Why not come with me to Radium and see how genuinely interested I am,’ Frank said. He was looking directly at her and her gaze faltered and dropped away. ‘What about it, Cal? Can you spare the time?’

  ‘You mean you’re offering me an excuse to get out of this goddam office for a couple of hours?’ Cal Renfield threw down the felt-tip marker and struggled to his feet, attempting to fasten his cotton jacket across the ponderous swell of his stomach. ‘Your car or mine?’

  TWO

  The town of Radium, as Cal Renfield had said, was only fifteen miles to the north, but it took them all of forty minutes to get there because the route was via Rabbit Ears Pass, which skirted the western slope of Mount Powell. On the way they passed through McCoy and Toponas – small townships along Blue River – and then took the right-hand fork to Radium, which lay between Kremmling and Troublesome. This area bordered on the White River Plateau, which was less a plateau than a series of foothills, like wrinkles in a blanket, riddled with small towns and villages: Steamboat Springs, Skull Creek, Maybell and Dinosaur to the west, and farther north Hot Sulphur Springs, Coalmont and Lulu City.