The 2084 Precept (56 page)

It was exactly 2 p.m. when I switched on the
news channel. This was the time Jeremy had said we would be able to
observe the asteroid collision. But I dozed off after about twenty
minutes. I woke up again just after three o'clock but there was no
asteroid news that I could see, the main item being another huge
debate about the refinancing of yet more Greek and Spanish and
Italian bonds. It was while I was watching the sports news that the
sub-heading BREAKING NEWS started to flash across the bottom of the
screen, followed by MASSIVE ASTEROID HITS JUPITER in non-stop
repetition.

My brain stopped. My neurons went on strike.
They were not accustomed to improbable and irrational occurrences
of this magnitude. The synapses, which are the coordinates of the
nervous impulses passing from the axon of one neuron to the
dendrites of another, were in disarray. Synapses, after all, were
designed and created to function exclusively under pre-determined
and mathematically defined conditions. Nevertheless, interruptions
to the ordered activities of the central nervous system do
not—except in situations of, for example, extreme torture—last for
any protracted length of time. The recovery occurs within seconds,
even micro-seconds, as the metaphysical need to reassert itself
takes over again and the frantic search for an explanation
complying with the imperatives of unconditional logic is
launched.

And of course the logic was found. In this
case it was already embedded in the appropriate compartment of the
brain. This was a natural event, said the logic. There was nothing
unnatural or supernatural about it in any shape or form. Such
events had occurred before and they would inexorably continue to
occur in the future. Among others, the renowned Shoemaker-Levy
comet had died its appointed death on Jupiter less than ten years
ago. And Jeremy Parker had merely had prior knowledge of the timing
of this particular object's demise, even if our scientists on this
occasion hadn't. And that was all there was to it, that was the
logic.

I continued to watch for a while and before
long the news commentator began to relay to us the few snippets of
the information he had been fed, the size of the asteroid was
unusually big, the causes and the peculiarities of its orbital exit
were still being researched, and so on and so forth.

I switched off the television. Sometimes
life's ocean waves lift you up high on a gentle swell and deposit
you tenderly onto a soft and sandy shore with, for example, a beach
bar not far away. There would be no embarrassment for me, there
would be no hassle—at least not of the unpleasant kind—and I would
not have to catch a flight tonight or make an appearance at New
Scotland Yard tomorrow morning. And—the beach bar was also stocked
with diverse bottles of very old single malt whiskey—my chances of
earning the extra outstanding €300,000 had multiplied
exponentially.

Back to earth. My mobile rang. It was Sr.
Pujol from Barcelona. He was just calling me on the off-chance in
order to enquire whether there was any possibility of our meeting
at his group's offices in Barcelona at the end of this week; that
would then allow me to start at the shipping company in Palma first
thing on Monday morning. Cheeky to say the least, putting pressure
on your new consultant before he has even started.

But my mood was a good one and after some
quick thinking, I said that I could agree provisionally. A great
sacrifice, a major reorganization of my work and travel schedule,
issues with my current project, but O.K., provided he appreciated
this might result in my having to fly a couple of times to the U.K.
for a day or two during the next few weeks. He was happy to agree
to that, plus he owes me one. Or he thinks he does. My thinking
told me to tell him that I could make it for Friday around 1 p.m.
That way I could drive overnight on Thursday from Okriftel to
Barcelona, meet Pujol, and then take the night ferry to Palma on
the Friday. No need for a hotel in Barcelona, I still preferred to
keep Delsey and his crew off my back for as long as possible.

I knew I could probably arrange the pending
interviews with Jeremy for a Saturday or a Sunday, but it was good
to have agreed alternatives with Sr. Pujol just in case Jeremy were
to require some unforeseen and sudden assistance.

"Brownie," I called. There were the usual
thumps and skidding noises as he got to his feet, his mat went
sliding across the floor, and downstairs we went to see Monika. She
had already been out for a walk, cleared last night's cobwebs. But
the day was still warm and she was happy to take another one. We
walked down to the river and along it for a while and then we
decided that an early meal would be a good idea.

We returned to Marie-Anne's and ordered fish
and white wine again ('you two again’, smiled Marie-Anne), and Mr.
Brown joined in a football game with some kids who were playing on
the grass nearby. I broached the subject of the car. I told her
that I would not be taking my Audi to Spain, that all of the cars
get scraped and scratched in that country—an exaggeration but not
much of one—and that I would be hiring one for the trip and would
be leaving on Thursday evening. I didn't get the chance to ask her
if she would agree to the hire in her name because her eyes
gleamed, she said why hire one, let me use yours and you can take
mine, it's scratched enough already. And that was the deal. Her car
was a white Golf with one of the bigger engines, probably four or
five years old, and it would serve its purpose well in getting me
to Barcelona. There are speed limits anyway on the French
autoroutes
and the Spanish
autopistas
. And following
that it would remain permanently parked for a while, not that
Monika needed to know that.

After the meal we had a coffee and she told
me that I shouldn't have invited her to such an expensive dinner
and that I shouldn't have given her such an outrageously expensive
gift and that she had had a wonderful birthday. She also thanked me
for putting her to bed but told me I should have undressed her,
women prefer that and so do their clothes. And she looked at me
with her big brown eyes and a wistful smile on her lips. She said
that it was a very sad thing that my work took me away from home
all the time.

And as we got up to leave, she didn't take
my hand, but she put her arm through mine, and Mr. Brown sniffed
his way along in front of us and led us both back home.

Today I decided to do nothing except play
chess on the computer and read my book. According to one of the
Bible's authors, God also took a day of rest. Although opinions to
be found here and there allege that it might have been better had
he decided not to.

I also decided to call Jeremy, pressed the
green button on his phone.

"Good morning, Peter," he said and I could
imagine him sitting in his office in his expensive business suit
and wearing one of his expensive collection of ties.

"Good morning, Jeremy. I just thought that I
would check to see if everything is O.K. for tomorrow's
meeting."

"No problems from my end, Peter. After all,
all I have to do is appear at the appointed time and that I shall
do."

"Fine. Then I assume you have no objections
to my starting my Spain project? I intend to travel there on the
day after tomorrow for a kick-off meeting the next day."

"Objections? None at all, Peter. And if I
understood you correctly, you will be able to fly over on mutually
agreed dates for the remaining interviews. That is still the
case?"

"Absolutely, Jeremy. An agreement is an
agreement, at least between one honorable person and another. I
wouldn't apply that to most of the elected birdbrains or to the
likes of Hitler, of course."

He laughed. "Oh, you have no need to
convince me of your non-birdbrain status, Peter, and you are not
the Hitler type. And in any case I assume that the small matter of
a monetary nature continues to play its minor role."

"I don't mind telling you that that is not
very polite of you, Jeremy. For your information, that small
matter, as you put it, is smaller for you than it is for me and the
role it plays is a major one. But that is not the reason for my
keeping to our agreement; I am complying with our agreement because
I always comply with my agreements."

"Indeed. I apologize. That was very impolite
of me, Peter. And I am benefitting at least as much from our
relationship as you are. Please accept my apologies. My sincere
apologies."

"Apologies accepted, Jeremy, thank you. Now
tell me, how did you know about the asteroid?"

"Know about the asteroid?"

"Yes, how did you know it was due to hit
Jupiter yesterday?"

"Peter," he said, "It was not due to hit
Jupiter yesterday. That is why your astronomers didn't know
anything about it. I actually made it happen, or rather I asked my
colleagues to agree to do it for me. They are more conversant with
the technical requirements and the mathematical calculations than I
am."

"You and your people caused it to happen? I
thought you said that you can't influence physical objects, you
can't make
things
move. You said that you can only influence
people's minds by hacking into their cerebral function, by
manipulating electrical impulses and neuron activity and the
like."

"Ah, and that is so," said Jeremy. "We would
not be able to physically
move
an asteroid or any other
solid object, or semi-solid come to that. But what we
are
able to do, we are able to influence the six fundamental
interactions of nature. At this point in time your species is only
aware of four of them, namely: gravity, electromagnetism and the
two nuclear forces. The first two are the ones which are of
interest to us here. Gravity is a natural phenomenon in which most
physical bodies are attracted to each other by a force proportional
to their masses. Note that I say masses, not size. And gravity is
responsible for many things. It causes dispersed matter to coalesce
and to remain coalesced and it is responsible for most of the
macroscopic objects in the universe—including your own planet and
your sun. Gravity is also responsible for the intensely high
temperatures in the interiors of forming planets and stars. Gravity
is also the cause of 'weight'. Without gravity, weight would simply
not exist."

"And you can influence gravity?" I
asked.

"No, no, we can't do that, but we can
influence the gravitational forces affecting an object."

"How?"

"Well, first of all, you would need to
understand that gravity itself is not, precisely defined,
a
force
."

"It isn't?"

"No, and your modern physicists already know
that. They accept the findings of Einstein's theory of general
relativity, which states that gravitation is a consequence of the
curvature of space-time, which causes and governs the motion of
inertial objects. In other words, it is not a force. And it is
something that we can influence."

"I still have my question. How?"

"Well, there is also a second ingredient
involved. Electromagnetism."

"What is electromagnetism?"

"Well, Peter, let me see…you presumably know
what a magnet is?"

"I think so."

"It is a metal producing an invisible
magnetic field which strongly attracts other ferromagnetic
materials. Actually, it attracts all substances, but its pull on
non-ferromagnetic objects is very weak, hardly noticeable. And its
'unlike' poles are the ones which attract, while its 'like' poles
do the opposite, they repel. Now… an electromagnet is like a
magnet, except that its magnetic force is generated by electricity.
In other words, if the electric current stops, it stops being a
magnet."

"And?"

"And so magnetic fields are produced by the
motion of electrically charged particles and we are able to
directly influence the forces which result from that motion. We can
influence the activity of those electrically charged
particles."

"So you can use your hacking skills to mess
around with non-solid forces and/or space-time, and in that way you
can affect any solid objects which happen to find themselves under
the control of such forces?"

"Yes, and I can't explain it any further
than that because not even your physicists would comprehend it.
Even their decades-long research into
anti
-gravitational
forces hasn't increased their understanding very much."

"But you still haven't answered my question,
Jeremy, so let me put it to you in a different way.
Why
do
the four—or six—natural phenomena of nature exist in the first
place?"

"Ah, now that is a good question, Peter. And
the answer is…we don't know. Like you, we merely happen to know
that they exist."

"Now
that
is interesting, so there
are
some matters you don't know about. And if you don't mind
my saying so, Jeremy, that is a good and calming thing for me to
hear."

And it
was
a good and calming thing
for me to hear. It was somehow of comfort to me to know that he
hadn't taken care of every single detail in that intricate fantasy
world of his. And his attempt to explain how that asteroid was
moved was therefore vague and incomplete and therefore not to be
trusted. Although…the matter of the asteroid still had me puzzled.
How could he possibly have known about it?

"In that case," I continued, "I obviously
won't be getting an answer to my question. So please tell me about
the asteroid itself."

"There's not much to tell, Peter. There are
millions of asteroids in your solar system and most of them exist
within two areas. One of these areas is between Mars and Jupiter,
and the other one stretches beyond the orbit of Neptune in what you
call the Kuiper belt. The asteroids come in all sizes. The largest
one, which you call
Ceres
, has a diameter of about 1,000
kilometers. Actually, you reclassified that object as a dwarf
planet some eight years ago. Next you have
2 Pallas
at 544
kilometers diameter and
4 Vesta
at 525 kilometers, although
the latter has more mass than
2 Pallas
. And the minor ones
can be as small as a couple of millimeters. In fact, an average 90
tons of these objects descends upon your planet every day."