The Gods Look Down (19 page)

‘So you actually believe that Dr Dagon – or should I say his heteromorphic manifestation – has the power to influence past events.'

‘He used Professor Blake and he used me to discover the purpose of the machine. It was for a very specific reason: he needed the information to communicate it to another time and place. He now has that information. Do you suppose he's going to leave it at that?'

Karla Ritblat said, ‘But as I understand it doesn't Dr Dagon believe that the blueprint and specification were produced by the cyberthetic system from the ancient texts?'

‘Yes.' Queghan nodded. ‘And it was from the blueprint and specification that the protein plant was manufactured.'

‘But the blueprint didn't exist until Dr Dagon came along with the description of the machine. How could he find the description of the machine before the blueprint was produced?'

Queghan sighed. It was so tedious to explain. ‘The blueprint was produced cyberthetically from the texts: the texts contain a description of the machine: the machine existed in Biblical times on Old Earth and was manufactured according to the blueprint.'

Karla Ritblat looked at him, shaking her head, trying to grasp the paradox. She said, ‘Where did the machine come from – I mean originally?'

‘From the future. Don't ask me which future or whose future because that's one thing we haven't puzzled out.'

‘You say that Dr Dagon wanted to know the purpose of the machine.'

‘Yes.'

‘For what reason?'

‘I've already said: to communicate the information into the past.'

‘But if Dr Dagon hadn't approached you and you hadn't processed the text through the cyberthetic system …' she
faltered, having lost the thread‘… the blueprint wouldn't have been produced and without the blueprint – no machine.'

‘Except that we know that to be false,' Queghan said. ‘The ancient texts tell us of a machine which existed in Biblical times – therefore it must have come from a blueprint and specification which exists somewhere in the future. All the elements are mythologically self-consistent – Dagon did approach me and he did discover the purpose of the machine.'

Karla Ritblat came away from the window and walked slowly, arms folded, to the curved instrument panel with its flexible microphone like a slender silver snake. This central console was faced by a bank of screens which monitored the injectee whilst he was held in a state of hyper-suspension. The mythographer waited, controlling his impatience, biding his time. He needed her official blessing.

She said finally, ‘What happens if Dr Dagon succeeds and you fail?'

‘There's always that possibility, in which case history would follow a different path: there could be one or two nasty little surprises in store for us.'

Karla Ritblat was fully aware of the theoretical backcloth to all this. She quoted from Johann Karve's
The Hidden Universe:
 … ‘“There are any number of alternative pasts, any one of which might or might not exist in space and time. Because we can only recall a single past doesn't necessarily deny the probability of an infinity of others”.' She smiled at him. ‘I've always liked that phrase, “an infinity of others”. I can see all those mytho-logical pasts and futures stretching away into the distance, millions of them side by side.'

‘As far as we know the structure isn't like that. We see it as obeying a law similar to the one Einstein proposed to deal with the curvature of spacetime. Alternative pasts and futures exist in a state of probability, which is an impossible concept to visualise.'

‘Unless your Minkowskian geometries are up to scratch, which mine aren't,' Karla Ritblat said. She leaned against the control console, letting her blunt chin sink down on to her chest. It was a ‘thinking' pose that Queghan had seen many academics employ to good effect.

He said, ‘Psycho-medically you have no objection.'

‘No I haven't,' she admitted. ‘But you should know that I still have doubts about the wisdom of undertaking such an experiment. You might come back and find us not here.'

‘That's a risk I'll have to take.'

‘So will we, it seems,' Karla Ritblat said.

*

He thought he was dying. He had never died before and it was a novel experience. It surprised him to learn that dying was quite painless. He thought, All this fuss over dying and it's so easy, why didn't I think of it before? His wife was there (somewhere or other) and she said, When you see the bright light you know you're there. I'll be with you later. He wanted to ask her something but couldn't remember what it was. I'm losing the bit of me that contains my memory, he thought. But if I can remember that I once had a memory perhaps I haven't lost it all after all. All after all. All after all. The phrase reminded him of something. It reminded him of An infinity of others. Now, he thought carefully, an infinity of other what? Worlds? Stars? Atoms? An infinity of infinities? He had been there once before to that place they called An infinity of infinities. It was somewhere over the rainbow, down a deep black hole, through the eye of time, on the edge of the universe. Everything stopped in that place. Everything. Stopped. In. That. Place. Everything. Sto—

Tighten the straps. Gently does it
.

They had tried to fool him once before and he wouldn't buy it. I can see through solid black rock, he told himself, so I can certainly see through you. I can certainly see through you. He liked the sound it made, the cadence of it, and repeated, I can certainly see through you. There is, he thought, or should be, a song entitled I Can Certainly See Through You. If there wasn't he would write one. (Something pricked his arm.)
Ouch
he wanted to say but couldn't locate his mouth. He thought, My memory has gone and now my mouth. They're taking everything away, bit by bit. Soon there won't be anything left except the bright light. It was very bright, blood-red, full in his face. She had told him to watch out for the bright light but he guessed (he knew!) this wasn't the one. This isn't the one, he told himself, and liked the sound of that too. He repeated it and thought, If there isn't a song called This Isn't The One I'll sit
down and write it. But he couldn't find any part of his anatomy on which to sit. They've taken that as well, he thought morosely. The rotten bastards. They've stolen my arse.

It was peculiar being disembodied but not unpleasant. It was similar to what he imagined lying in a bath of warm syrup would be like, a complete absence of tactile sensation. He couldn't feel or control the various parts of his body and yet this didn't alarm him; no doubt they had their reasons. Just as long as they didn't take his identity. He had put it away safely somewhere, though he couldn't remember where, saving it for a rainy day. Button up your overcoat, he thought, when a storm is due, take good care of yourself I belong to you. He needed his identity in case someone asked him who he was. Then he could answer proudly, I am Queghan ben Shem Tov. I have lived throughout all the ages of mankind and I will create a Saviour in my own likeness. He will walk upon the earth, a god among men, and they will worship Him and build temples to His glory. They will button up His overcoat when a storm is due, He will belong to them. Just as long as they don't steal my identity, he thought, because without it I am lost. Without it I could be anybody, and probably am. This problem of being practically anybody disturbed him, for if he was anybody it meant he was nobody: neither the Son, the Father, nor the Holy Ghost. In any case, he told himself, I can't be all three. It isn't feasible to be in three different places at once. If it was I could meet myself coming back from where I was going. The Eternal Paradox. How would Karve reconcile that? He would have an answer for it, as sure as boots is boots.

What did he say?

The Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost
.

How's the metabolic rate?

Steady and holding
.

Fluid temperature?

Thirty-nine degrees
.

He had found a better analogy than being dead: he was in the womb.

His nose and mouth were enclosed by something hot and tasteless, he couldn't breathe, even his lungs were filled with fluid, and yet he was alive. They are keeping me alive for a purpose, he thought. Probably in order to preserve my identity.
They know very well that if I lose my identity I will be adrift for all time. Dr Francis Queghan drifting hopelessly between the stars with his overcoat buttoned up to the neck. He was happy that his identity was intact but felt vaguely uneasy that he didn't know the purpose they had in mind for him. Everything exists for a reason, he told himself, and I have been placed in the womb with some ultimate objective in view. There is a Purpose in all this which I have yet to discover. It was on the tip of his tongue, on the edge of his mind, but he couldn't for the life of him bring it into focus. To argue it through logically the ultimate purpose of being in the womb was eventually to be born, and he thought with a small shock of excitement: I haven't been born yet! I'm still a foetus waiting to see the light of day. (Wait for the light, his wife Karla had said, and then you'll know you're there.) But as yet there was only the blood-red glimmer in front of his unformed eyes. He hadn't reached his destination. And when he did reach it, what then? What was expected of him? Had he been genetically processed to perform a special function? It was really most annoying that he wasn't able to feel his own body because he had no idea what they had done to him or what form he might take. Suppose he was deformed? They might wilfully, gleefully, have tampered with his genetic structure, a cruel practical joke that would make him the laughing stock of infinite spacetime curvature. What do I care, though, if a storm is due—

That was strange. That was most odd. He had liquid gold in his veins. He thought, I am being calcified into a golden idol. They will bow down and worship me, the god Dagon with emerods of gold, sitting in the temple at Ashdod, wearing my golden overcoat buttoned up to my identity. And then the liquid gold started seeping into his head.

He's reacting. We registered the first spasm
.

His flesh is transparent. I can see the bones inside
.

Normal psycho-motor activity
.
He's into Phase One
.

Can we communicate?

You can but he won't understand
.
He's in stasis. Metabolic
rate?

Down and fluctuating
.

Watch it very closely
.

Yes Dr Ritblat
.

How much longer?

For the tiniest fraction of time he thought he had seen the light. It was as though something gold had glinted in the far distance and sent a speck of light into his eyes. But he was mistaken. The glint of gold had been inside his head. My brain is solid gold, he thought. They have filled my head to the brim with molten gold. I have the richest head in the universe. But for all his riches he still didn't know where he was going or what purpose they had planned for him. He felt like crying but he knew the tears would be golden and they would solidify on his cheeks: a golden idol weeping golden tears.

He thought in anguish, What have they done to me?
Why won't they let me be born?
I was promised the light and there is no light. I am encased in a cocoon of liquid gold, swaying gently, lost to the universe, with only my overcoat for company. What would I do without my golden overcoat? It protects me from the galactic darkness and the interstellar cold, the black dead spaces between the stars which is my dwelling-place. They have cast me out, set me adrift without an identity. They are heartless and cruel, stealing my identity and filling me up with gold. And there is no light in all the heavens.

Not long
.

Spasms timed at nine per minute
.

Give me the temporal lobe calibration
.

Hyper-erratic. He's about one minute away from injection
.

When the fit begins increase the voltage to the sensory cortex
.

Are we monitoring?

Never mind that, watch the metabolic rate
.

It's almost down to zero. Minor fluctuations
.

Less than forty seconds from epileptic onset. Does anyone have a problem?

He was surrounded by a golden twilight which bathed his eyes. It was inexpressibly soothing. He felt like going to sleep. But the difficulty was that he couldn't go to sleep because he hadn't been born. But as soon as he saw the light he would go to sleep. He was very, very weary. The womb of gold shimmered around him sending sluggish waves in slow-motion which rippled against his skin. He thought sleepily, If this is dying
I'm all for it. And then thought, I'm not dying, I'm being born. That's the point of the exercise. That's why I've been given a golden overcoat. Then he saw – it. Distantly. A flash of light. It came quickly, blinding him, and went away. This is going to be awful, he thought, and started screaming with his eyes.

What is it?

First psycho-motor shock
.
Medium intensity
.

Wait while the big one hits him
.
Stand by with the voltage
.

He didn't want to be born. It was too painful. His wife had said, Watch for the light, then you'll know you're there, but he wanted to stay here in the kindly golden warmth for ever and ever. He didn't like the light, it was too bright, too shocking, and extremely painful, like a pair of open scissors entering the eyes, probing the soft tissue of the brain. I'm only a little angel, he wanted to say meekly, not a big important one. Why pick on me? There are lots of other angels, far bigger, gigantic, with huge golden wings. Why pick on … me?

Ten seconds
.