Through the Eye of Time (19 page)

The syringe in the vinyl pouch was ready-charged. She extracted
it carefully from the sheath, rolled up his sleeve and injected the full amount directly into the vein. His face was the colour of chalk and running with perspiration.

What next, what next, what next? She couldn't think. He had told her, very exactly, what had to be done. Now she remembered, and reaching into his mouth uncurled his tongue, with the other hand tearing the hem off her dress and folding it into a pad and, still holding his mouth apart, pushed the wad of material between his teeth.

What if he dies? Oria thought, kneeling helplessly by the side of the chair.
What if he dies?

The CENTiNEL findings came through sooner than anyone expected, and Johann Karve was no exception. He had allowed Professor Herff and his team several weeks at the least, possibly months, before any results were obtained which could be construed as significant. Herein lay another moot point: on whose interpretation did this significance depend? Herff was in charge of the Particle Accelerator and had an established reputation as an astrophysicist but he was not familiar with the finer points of Myth Technology. It was actually up to Karve to study them, ponder their significance, and extrapolate from them meaningful conclusions.

The sheer volume of statistical data was daunting. The profusion of sub-atomic interactions at temperatures in the region of one thousand billion degrees was, to the theoreticians, somewhat embarrassing. There were charmed quarks, red quarks, black quarks, heavy leptons, neutrinos, mu-mesons, and in most instances their anti-matter companions whose life-spans were longer than the rule-book allowed by several millionths of a second.

Most disturbing of all – and yet equally intriguing – was the unmistakable presence of Hadrons, the genus of matter associated with the creation of the universe in the first micro-second after its birth. In an appendix to the report Herff had stressed that the preponderance of Hadrons in that particular spatio-temporal co-ordinate might be due to the proximity of
2U0525-06
whose time dilation interference would have an effect on the structure and behaviour of sub-atomic particles. In other words the Black Hole, in slowing time and light to a dead stop, made a mockery of earthbound physics and the premises on which scientists based their hypotheses.

Herff had written: ‘There is no disputing that Hadrons are here in force. I draw no conclusions from this fact, I simply state it. Perhaps you and mythographer Queghan might care to speculate on the whys and wherefores and the probable consequences.'

Was there a flippant irony between the lines? In his lonely outpost on the
Tempus
satellite it would be understandable if Max had a jaundiced view of the
prima donnas
back on Earth IVn who whiled away the hours chasing exotic multi-coloured butterflies in cloud-cuckoo-land. And yet, and yet … the explanation was here if only he had the wit to find it; with Queghan out of the running it looked as though the task had settled squarely on his ageing shoulders.

Karve pressed the intercom tab and asked for a pot of tea. A feeling of bleak desolation descended upon him: I have to begin all over again, he thought, and there is no one to help me. Does it never end? Do we just go on and on, solving one problem only to be faced by ten more? Yet why should this depress me when my entire life has been dedicated to this singular purpose? We shall never answer all the questions because the ultimate question will always remain: What Next?

As a young man Johann Karve had sought to reconcile the four prime energy sources with the psychic processes which manifested themselves through the human mind. A complementary sphere of scientific inquiry – MetaPsychical Research – had to a large extent taken over this work, its objective being to integrate all psi phenomena and neurochemical data into the one cohesive structure. Thereafter Karve had concerned himself more with symbolism and mythology as concentrated expressions of the roots of human psyche. His inspiration in those early days had been Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who in the early-Twentieth Pre-Colonization had laid the foundation for what was to become, many centuries later, the metaphysical science known as Myth Technology. Jung, in fact, had been the first ‘Myth Technologist', seeking to interpret signs and omens in terms relevant to the wellsprings of psychic energy (the ‘libido' to use the Jungian term).

The very real basis of the science was contained in Jung's
writings: ‘Symbols are never devised consciously but are always produced out of the unconscious by way of revelation or intuition.' In the same way dream-images, visions, extrasensory perception and myths were the concentrated manifestations of subjective experience. As he wrote elsewhere: ‘We are forced to view the world as a psychic phenomenon. Certainly it is necessary for science to know how things are “in themselves”, but even science cannot escape the psychological conditions of knowledge.'

Distant as it may have seemed at first glance it was only a short step from this study of the dynamics of the psyche to the theories advanced by the relativitists and quantum physicists – for they too were dealing in the statistical probabilities of reality as opposed to hard-and-fast criteria in a mechanistic universe.

‘The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is
causality
,' Jung wrote. ‘But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and only relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes and therefore presupposes the existence of one or more other factors which would be necessary for an explanation. This is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and requires another principle of explanation …'

So there, thought Karve, was a possible solution if one was prepared to accept it. Not that the acausal nature of spacetime was a new or original concept: mathematical evidence supported by laboratory experiment had provided the phenomenon with a respectable pedigree – notably the Ernst–Ryan–Gathorne Experiment
*
 – and it was now taught as a supplementary subject to students of high-energy particle physics.

But was he going to be so intellectually outlandish as to suggest that Hadrons from 14 billion years ago were meddling with causality and creating ‘psi worlds' – mythical planes of existence on which alternative scenarios were taking place? The two questions which immediately presented themselves were How and Why?

How could a species of ultra-sub-atomic particles interfere in a squalid and rather obscure war which had taken place hundreds of years Pre-Colonization? Was it perhaps a simulation exercise in which anti-Hadrons assumed the infrastructure of a period and followed the events through to their logical (or in this instance, illogical) conclusion? A kind of historical reconstruction on a cosmic scale?

If the How was baffling, the Why was doubly so. Assuming that the Hadrons were a form of subnuclear intelligence roaming at will through the universe, what possible motive could they have for creating a mythical landscape? Perhaps they were unaware of the havoc they were causing in this stratum of spacetime, knew nothing and cared even less about disrupting the decay rates of particles which comprised Karve's universe. There was no reason to regard them as possessing evil intent. They were intelligent, and being intelligent presumably had moral and ethical codes of behaviour; but just as a man will crush minute organisms by walking on them, totally blameless, not wishing them harm, so the Hadrons could trample unthinkingly on an organism they only dimly perceived, if at all.

‘They could be here now, in this room,' Karve murmured. ‘And neither of us is aware of the presence of the other.'

Two alien life-forms moving through each other, one in time, the other in minus time, just occasionally the two indistinct edges of their spacetime continuums meeting at the matter/anti-matter interface.

The tea in the pot, when he remembered to pour it, was lukewarm. He drank it unsweetened, with a slice of lemon, and contemplated the material piled on the desk in front of him.

The First Assistant apologized for disturbing him but said that Queghan's wife was in the outer office; could he spare the time to see her? She was pale, composed, and sat down immediately in the chair, frowning at the carpet. He offered her some tea but she didn't respond.

‘Have you seen him, Johann?'

Karve saw that she wore no make-up and that her blond hair was brushed severely back from the face, catching a reflected sheen of light from the window. He put the cup and
saucer on the tray. ‘No, I haven't. They're keeping me informed of his progress. There's no need to worry.'

‘It was my fault.'

‘Nonsense.'

‘This time it was my fault,' she said more firmly.

Karve made a small helpless gesture and said, ‘You've been married to him, long enough now to know that these attacks are unavoidable. Sometimes they can be controlled and sometimes we have to let them run their course. We have all the facilities in Psycho-Med to ensure he receives the best possible attention. Karla Ritblat is expert in this field; Chris couldn't be in better hands.'

‘I don't doubt her ability,' Oria said, gazing at the floor. ‘But I nearly let him die. He was having an attack and I just used it as part of my fantasy. He could have been lying dead in the chair and I'd have gone on acting out my silly dreamscapes.'

‘That didn't happen.'

‘It could have.'

‘But it didn't.' Karve looked at her steadily. ‘We can't concern ourselves with what might have been, only with what is,' yet even as he said this he realized with mocking self-deprecation that he spent his entire professional life concerning himself with statistical probabilities – the might-have-been as distinct from actual everyday reality. In some probable alternative scenario Queghan could have died, would have done, and had.

He said, ‘Have you been to see him?'

‘Yes, just now. He's still in coma.' She made an attempt to smile. ‘At least I did the right thing in giving him the Dilantin. I nearly didn't find that until it was too late. What a bloody hopeless stupid broad I am. Jeez.'

It seemed to Karve that she felt an obligation to break down. The real emotion was lacking, although unshed tears weren't enough to expiate her remorse. He tried to comfort her.

‘Chris is going to be all right. Within a week, ten days, he'll be back on his feet. Karla told me herself that there's no cause for alarm. Oria, I promise you that he'll pull through. Chris is a tough customer to get rid of.'

‘But with my help he'll manage it.'

‘Don't be stupid, you love him, you don't wish him harm—'

‘Why don't you tell me that I'm just upset and I'll get over it? I'm good at that scene, word perfect. I'll even cry if you want. Tears to order, on request.'

‘If you want me to absolve you from guilt I can't do it,' Karve said gently. ‘And if you want to take the entire blame for a physiological condition he was born with, go ahead. But we both know that whatever you do he'll still have these attacks from time to time. Chris is a mythographer; he is not as other men are.'

Oria was silent for a while. She looked into his eyes. ‘Is it true that you spoke to Karla and that she said—?'

‘
Yes
.' Karve smiled at her. ‘Do you think I'd be sitting here drinking cold tea if I didn't know he was going to be all right?'

Oria shook her head quickly, an abrupt giddy movement like that of a little girl. ‘I have to dramatize everything. I can't live life without creating scenes.' She faltered. ‘If Chris died I wouldn't have anything to live for. You see, Johann, I don't believe in anything, least of all myself. Chris is my hold on reality and if he wasn't here I'd go mad.'

Karve was left with nothing to say, this time lost for facile words.

*

Pouline deGrenier sat alone in the darkened office. Through the curved panel to her left she could see the flickering display of lights in the laboratory: symmetrical patterns of red, green, orange and magenta glowing momentarily in sequence and then going out, glowing, going out as in some mysterious and inexplicable ritual. Now and then came the faint whirr of a timing device followed by the subdued
click
of a circuit-breaker disconnecting itself according to predetermined plan.

The laboratory ticked and hummed to itself with an oleaginous self-satisfied smugness that of late had begun to unnerve her. She thought, I created all this and yet it frightens me. Is there something here, something unknown which I sense yet cannot comprehend? Or is the fear inside me, a projection of my own doubts and neuroses? I'm actually here inside the brain of someone long dead, she thought. All around me a billion
neurological impulses are scurrying back and forth with bits of information, like mice carrying tiny pieces of cheese.

And as always, when alone in the laboratory late at night, she experienced the slow rising surge of sexual heat attempting to overpower her senses.

It was an actual taste in her mouth, a thick glutinous taste and a heavy dense odour which made her knees tremble and turned her backbone to water. Did the brain wish to make love to her? Did it want to enter into her as she, at this moment, was inside it, aware of its cerebral processes scampering all around?

Suddenly she giggled. The sound was abruptly loud and shocked her by its high-pitched edge of hysteria. She thought that she was about to lose control and break out in maniacal shrieks of laughter. What was happening to her? It was as if she was on a mountain-top and the handrails which kept her securely in place had been removed and the drop loomed before her, slippery-steep, with nothing to clutch at and stop her sliding over except thin rarefied air.