Button in the Fabric of Time (11 page)

“That is an interesting thought,” Jan-3
nodded. “I’ll take you to see one of our—what you call—movies. The
stories are displayed three dimensionally. The actors are like
players on a stage. The viewer feels as though he or she is
actually a part of the scene and, at times, the audience actually
gets involved in the conflicts.”

“How do you control the audience?”

“We turn off the projectors, the audience
regains its composure, and sanity is restored.”

“I’ll look forward to experiencing that,” I
told her.

“I only told you about our three dimensional
display to illustrate how far movies have advanced. It serves to
make your thinking about resurrection more plausible. We have
explored some of the closer planetary systems with instruments, and
we have found other planets that might eventually be habitable by
humans. But so far, we’ve found nothing close enough to Earth that
would enable us to encourage earthlings to migrate.”

“Have you found distant planets with your
telescopes that are habitable?”

“Yes, many,” Jan-3 replied, “but it would
take so long to get there that no one is willing to invest that
much time. With your time-travel device, it would be possible to
reach them. If we could get to the planets in distant solar
systems, it would open up the entire universe, which is so vast
that we do not have the capacity to conceive its entirety. That is
one of the reasons some of us believe in God. . . . Do you believe
in God?”

“Now, that’s a loaded question,” I
responded.

“I know it is,” she said slowly, “but still,
I would like to hear your answer. If you consider it too personal,
I’ll understand.”

“I don’t feel the question is an invasion of
my privacy, but I’m not sure that I can answer you with complete
candor. I don’t have sufficient evidence to support a belief in
God. I use the word
believe
with caution. I take nothing on
faith. If there is evidence to support an idea, I examine it. If
the evidence supports the contention, then I am inclined to accept
it. I
do,
however, accept the proposition that for every
effect there is a cause. The universe exists; therefore, the
universe was caused. As you stated, the universe is vast beyond
comprehension. A power great enough to create a universe beyond
comprehension, is beyond comprehension. If we can’t comprehend God,
then how can we describe God? The word “God” implies an entity, but
I fail to understand how an entity could exist as an original cause
without being the product of a cause.”

I went on. “Evidence supports the proposition
that the universe is comprised of time, space, and energy. Energy
is then the substance of the universe. If it is proposed that
energy is God or that God is energy, I could not present a credible
argument repudiating that proposition. If there is no God, there
should be. And I, like many others, hope there is. If that
explanation falls short of answering your question, then I’m sorry,
but that’s the best I can do.”

“Thank you. I like your answer because it
shows that you have given the question a lot of thought. Are you a
member of a religious organization?”

“I’m not a member of an organized religious
group, but I probably share the views of many people who have given
the question reasoned thought. I don’t think that God, if there is
one, takes sides in human squabbles, and I don’t agree with some
that their God is being threatened. Their religious concepts are
being questioned, but I don’t think that that threatens their
God.”

* * * * *

Chapter 15

The Rocky Mountains were passing below our
keri and we were proceeding out over the Great Plains. In the
twentieth century, wind and rain had depleted the soil until it
yielded only minimal crops, but now the land was producing vast
fields of grain.

“Is that grain growing in a prepared medium?”
I asked.

“No, it’s growing in the soil.”

“I can see you are irrigating the land, but
irrigation alone wouldn’t do it—that soil was depleted of
nourishment. The water being used to irrigate the land looks muddy.
Don’t you use purified water for irrigation?”

“The water looks muddy, because it
is
muddy. We are rebuilding the land with the soil that eroded away,
by turning the Mississippi River delta into slurry of mud and
water, then pumping the mud back onto the land. That way, we
rebuild the land at the same time we irrigate it.”

“That is a novel idea. It must take a lot of
power.”

“It does. If you look closely, you’ll see
solar collectors interspersed with the grain. That’s where we get
the power to replenish the land. Removing the eroded soil from the
river delta improves both the river and the land. The water and the
replenished soil make it possible to grow vegetation. The
vegetation prevents the land from eroding, and now the river runs
clean again. And in fact, the clean, unpolluted river makes it
possible for edible fish to thrive.”

“I can see that the water in the tributary
rivers is beautifully clear also, but much of this land was
contaminated by salt and gypsum. How did you eliminate those
contaminants?”

‘We dissolved the contaminating salts in
chemically treated water, then evaporated the water and harvested
the salts.”

“In the twentieth century,” I remarked,
“there were only a few trees near the streams, but now, I see many
trees and what look like parks with camping areas that seem to have
riding and hiking trails.”

“Those are recreational areas. People need to
get away from the cities occasionally and get back to nature. Some
spend weeks here each year.”

“We are getting close to the place where our
farm was located, but I’m not sure I’ll recognize the spot because
things have changed so much. I remember the flow of the streams;
perhaps that will help me to find the farm by noting the positions
of the small streams.”

I maneuvered the keri looking for landmarks.
The town Stoville was gone and crops were growing where the town
had been. Lakes were no longer needed. Dams on the streams had been
demolished and the lakes drained. Finding something recognizable
was difficult.

“If you’ll tell me what to look for, maybe I
can help,” Jan-3 said.

“Our farm was at the fork of two creeks. The
creeks flowed southeast and emptied into a larger river a few miles
away. Grandfather said the streams were beautiful when he was a
boy, but the farmers had dammed and diverted the water until they
no longer flowed clean. Now that you have removed the dams and
allowed the streams to flow freely, they should be beautiful again,
and I’ll get to see them the way my grandfather saw them. I wish he
could be here to see them again.”

Jan-3 was pleased to share the experience of
seeing the land of my childhood. She pointed ahead and said,
“There! Two streams join and run into a larger stream a few miles
southeast.”

“Yes! That could be the place. I’ll slow down
and fly lower so we can examine the area more closely.” It was
difficult to recognize anything because the land had been intensely
planted. Our house and barn had sat on a knoll. The knoll was still
there, but the buildings were gone. We flew around and around, but
nothing indicated that there had ever been a home on the knoll.

“The family burial plot had been across the
creeks in an elevated area. I wonder if it’s still there.”

“It should be,” Jan-3 said. “All burial sites
were recorded and maintained.”

“Could we land and take a look?”

“The keris are designed to operate from
designated areas only; there should be a transport station nearby.
They’re never more than a short walk away. We could walk from the
station to the burial plot—it would be good to stretch our legs a
bit.”

“How do I find the station?”

“Press that blue button," Jan-3 said, "and a
station will show up on your map.”

The station was only a short distance from
where the house used to sit. We landed and began walking. I had
seen children who, by running, jumping and laughing, expressed what
I was feeling. At age 32, I had almost forgotten that joyous
exuberance. Now I understood what Roc-2 said when he told me that
after my body had rejuvenated its cells, I would have so much
stamina, it would surprise me.

I was truly experiencing the wonder and
excitement of being alive, and understood the origin of Jan-3’s
radiant glow. Although she was walking ahead of me, I could somehow
tell that she felt the same as I did. I ran up to her, took her in
my arms, and felt a surge of electricity flow between us. She
snuggled into my arms; we clung to one another enjoying the moment,
and I realized that no man is complete without a woman.

When Jan-3 moved back, her smile was bright.
Swinging her arms around, she said, “Tell me what this was like
when you were a boy.”

I looked around for a moment. The shape of
the earth was the same, the creeks, hills, and valleys were the
same, but everything else had changed. I showed her where the house
had sat, and where I played as a child. Mother’s flower garden was
gone; in its place stood an oak tree where birds nested. I showed
Jan-3 where the barn had been, and where I saw myself milking a
cow. I wished I had seen my mother and father at that time, but it
would not have been right.

We waded into the creek and as we crossed, I
saw it as Grandfather had seen it when he was a boy. The water was
clear and brightly colored minnows swam. Sunlight sparkled in the
water as it flowed from pond to pond. Adults worked in the fields
and children played in the creek. Jan-3 and I talked to the
children. I showed them how to skip a rock across the water. They
jumped up and down laughing.

“You would be a good father,” Jan-3 said.

We reached the place where the white-fenced
burial plot had been. The fence and the gravestones were gone, and
in their place was a flower garden. A gold monument containing the
names and statistics of each person, stood as a reminder that under
the flowers lay the remains of people who had once tilled this
soil. Jan-3 and I sat on a bench under a magnificent old tree and I
remembered my family. It was strange seeing the dates of their
births and deaths. For the first time I became vividly aware of the
essence of time and space as dimensions.

“Only a couple of days ago I was in the
family barn talking to my grandfather. By using the time-travel
button, I had traveled back and actually talked to him. I could do
it again if I wanted to and I could tell my mother, father, and
grandfather the dates of their deaths. But I think I won’t do
that—it would be a violation of their privacy.”

Jan-3 noticed my serious mood, touched my
hand, and asked, “Do you want to share your thoughts with me?”

“Geographically, this place is still the
same, yet everything has changed. I was thinking about how we
humans fail to recognize that, if we are going to tell about a
person, a place, or thing, we must denote the time we are referring
to, because everything changes. For me, it was both sad and joyous
to see the dates of my mother and father’s death. I was sad that
they died, yet I was pleased that they lived long lives. My name
was not in the records, which indicated that I didn’t die before
these records were placed here—or maybe I did die, and was buried
somewhere else. Viewing those records have given me knowledge that
I didn’t know what to do with, yet, I felt that there was something
that I should do. I had become aware that when we acquire
knowledge, we also acquire the responsibility to use that knowledge
wisely.”

“Thank you for sharing this experience with
me,” Jan-3 said. “By your telling me your experiences, I see
history as more than a recording of events. It’s the story of
people who lived before us, who experienced love, desire, and fear,
and had aspirations, as we do.”

“You came to learn,” Jan-3 continued, “and
you are learning, but you have brought knowledge that will help us
to move forward, and you have taught us things that we were in
danger of forgetting.”

“Jan-3, I’ve seen where the farm existed, but
it isn’t here anymore. Everything has changed. You’ve shown me the
improvements that you have made to the mountains, deserts, and
farmlands of North America. Next, I’d like to see Africa, and then
I’d like to see what history refers to as the cradle of
civilization. The problems and emotions of those people encompassed
the whole spectrum of human conflict. In the twenty-first century,
it seemed that there was no meeting ground, and that people there
was in danger of destroying themselves. I want to see how they
dealt with those problems.”

* * * * *

Chapter 16

“Before we visit the cradle of civilization,”
Jan-3 suggested, “perhaps we should start with what most
anthropologist believe is the cradle of humanity.”

“That statement alone would stir up a heated
debate in my time, but I think you’re right—Africa is the place to
start. I want to see what has been done with the deserts and
jungles. . . . I flew over North Africa on one of my missions when
I was in the Air Force. When I looked down at the vast expanse of
sand, I couldn’t help thinking, ‘what a waste.’ My flight engineer,
being a geologist, told me that geological finds indicated that at
one time the Sahara was green.” Suddenly I thought about Roc-2.
“Shouldn’t we let Roc-2 know where we are, and what we’re doing? He
might want to get in touch with us.”

“The ring he gave you gives you the authority
to go anywhere you want, and it allows him to know where we are at
all times. He can get in touch—as you say—anytime he wants. . . .
So let’s go to Africa,” Jan-3 said excitedly. “Africa is an
interesting place for both historians and anthropologists. We in
the thirty-first century have made Africa green again; it’s one of
the most productive places on earth. I want to share it with you. I
never saw it when it was a desert, and I’d like to see it as a
desert, through your eyes.”