The Gods Look Down (24 page)

‘I haven't a practical application in mind. It's more in the nature of a research project.'

‘Highly sophisticated technology, I suppose you know that. Heat-resistant superalloys throughout, refrigerated water condenser, culture irradiation unit, high-intensification light source. It won't be peanuts. How old is the manuscript?' he asked suddenly.

‘Old.'

‘Is it secret? You're very cagey.'

‘No, it isn't secret. And it isn't stolen. In any case the patent will have run out by now.'

‘I haven't seen anything quite like this before,' the Professor confessed. ‘There's a closed-environment system which we developed for the
Tempus
satellite Control Lab which does a similar job but it operates on a different principle. Our device
purifies the air and provides cultures which are fertilized by human excreta. But this, as you might say, is a different kettle of fish. The high-intensification light source could present problems, though I suppose we could get round it somehow.'

‘Laser optics,' Queghan suggested.

Professor Mulder was frowning again. ‘Yes, probably,' he murmured, thinking of something else, and then said, ‘Do you have any idea why it should include the facility to act at a distance?'

‘I'm not with you.'

‘Here,' Professor Mulder indicated a paragraph on one of the sheets, ‘it specifies an omni-directional cone for emission of radiation.' He went to fetch the blueprint. ‘This spherical unit on top houses it in addition to the water condenser. So the equipment could produce single-cell protein and when operational it would also irradiate an area of …' he gestured vaguely ‘… several square metres at least.'

Queghan watched him carefully. ‘With what effect?'

‘That largely depends on the strength and frequency of radiation and on who or what was within range. It could produce some very nasty radiation burns if anyone was silly enough to go near it. Though why it isn't adequately shielded I don't know. Sloppy design.'

‘Perhaps whoever made it had that purpose in mind.'

‘Has it been made?' Professor Mulder asked, jotting something down as it occurred to him.

‘I meant whoever designed it.'

‘Can't understand why.' Professor Mulder chanted some figures silently to himself.

‘Would it always have that effect – spreading, dangerous radiation around during operation?'

‘No, not necessarily. As I've said it would depend on the strength and frequency of emission.'

‘This could be pre-selected?'

‘Yes.'

‘And variable?'

‘Oh yes. All you'd need is a program of operation.'

‘Would it affect cell structure?'

‘You mean of a living organism within range of the equipment? I should think most definitely: radiation can cause
cancer and it can also heal cancer. It can alter the structure of cells in any number of ways, depending on how it's used.'

‘Could it produce mutations?'

‘Of course. This is precisely the way in which geneticists do their little fiddly tricks with chromosomes, enzymes and plasmids. Cells are delicately-balanced mechanisms and radiation in all its forms is their greatest enemy. It's quite easy – almost too easy – to cause distortion of cell structure, though the end result may not be to your liking. It would almost certainly produce a mutation.'

Queghan looked at the specification spread across the bench. The principle he understood, even if the calculations, equations and detailed engineering mathematics were beyond his grasp. The answer was here somewhere, his instinct had never been stronger, and the knowledge of this warmed him like an old pleasant memory. He said, ‘Could the equipment be used to artificially stimulate cell replication? In terms of it affecting the reproductive cycle of a living organism?'

Professor Mulder's network of intersecting frown lines grew deeper and more permanent. He cleared his throat. ‘Do you mean could it interfere with the process of fertilization?' He stared blankly at the specification and said finally. ‘Theoretically yes. But again there would be the very real danger of creating a protoplasmic mutation. It would require a great deal of trial and error to find the correct wavelength and strength of emission compatible with the organism you were treating. What had you in mind – bacteria, vegetable?'

‘Human.'

Professor Mulder said severely, ‘You gave me to understand that the purpose of the equipment had nothing whatsoever to do with genetic engineering.'

‘Of which you evidently disapprove.'

‘Yes I do. Fervently.'

‘Isn't that rather a strange point of view for a cytologist?'

‘My interest is in bacterial cells and how they can be used to aid medical research. I'm not in the business of cloning DNA to produce millions of identical human beings. I find the concept distasteful to say the least.'

He was a man, Queghan observed, who believed in and adhered to rigorous moral strictures. There would be no compromises
with Professor Mulder. He said, ‘I haven't misled you. Until you mentioned that the device was capable of emitting radiation it hadn't even occurred to me that it could affect the structure of cells. Though now you've pointed it out I find it a very interesting phenomenon.'

‘So it appears,' Professor Mulder said dryly.

‘Tell me something else.'

The Professor looked at him warily.

Queghan thought for a moment. ‘Supposing the device was calibrated in such a way as to produce a protoplasmic mutation at the point of conception. Do I express myself clearly?'

‘You mean could it instigate the reproductive process and, if so, what would be the result?'

Queghan smiled gratefully. ‘That's what I meant to say.'

Professor Mulder placed his pale freckled hands on his hips, craned his head backwards and gazed up at the ceiling. He rocked to and fro on the balls of his feet. ‘It would be possible – theoretically – but it would very much depend on one vital factor: that the specimen culture, held in a sealed environment, was heterozygous.' He noted the mythographer's quizzical look and went on, ‘That's to say, carrying two distinct types of genes, the donor and the recipient, the one to interact with the other. Do you follow? The culture would remain sterile and non-reproductive until triggered by the emission of radiation at the right strength and frequency. Once the process had been started and the culture fertilized, cell replication would proceed in the normal manner—'

He stopped abruptly as if the meaning of his own words had just become apparent to him. He seemed somewhat bemused.

‘Has the experiment ever been tried?'

‘Not to my knowledge.'

‘What would be the outcome?'

Professor Mulder was scribbling again. ‘Difficult to predict. If the process didn't abort – which is more than likely – it would eventually, after a period of gestation, create a protoplast: the single specimen of an original archetype.'

‘In other words a new species of life?'

‘A different species, certainly. One that hadn't been seen on this or any other planet before.'

The mythographer leaned against the bench and gazed unseeingly into the middle distance. He said abstractedly, ‘So it isn't just a plant for making protein after all …'

‘Where did all this
come
from?' Professor Mulder demanded suddenly, indicating the blueprint and specification. ‘The technology is within our reach but the concept of creating a protoplast by means of radiation acting on cell structure is unheard of. Who thought of it?'

Queghan didn't say anything.

‘You won't tell me?'

‘I can't tell you, Professor, because the truth is I don't know myself. The blueprint and specification were cyberthetically processed from texts many thousands of years old which are themselves a record of a machine which existed in Biblical times on Old Earth; make of that what you can.'

‘Do you actually propose to build this fermentation and fertilization equipment?'

Queghan slowly nodded.

‘Why? For what reason?'

‘It might help to solve a mythological riddle.'

‘An expensive way of solving riddles. You think it's that important?'

‘I think it is.'

Professor Mulder turned away dismissively. ‘You know my attitude towards any kind of genetic engineering.' He turned back and his face was a pale bleak mask, heavily lined and impassive. ‘My advice would be not to proceed any further with this. It could have disastrous consequences, apart from which the ethics of the project are extremely dubious. You would be creating a new life form, something totally alien with no natural birthright. It would have no ancestry except for a laboratory culture fertilized by high-energy radiation. Imagine if it turned out to possess intelligence – to be an intelligent creature that could think and reason and observe its environment. Have you considered what its feelings might be knowing itself to be unique, the only one of its kind in the entire universe? It would have no past and very little future.' He had become quite passionate, his eyes bright and hard.

Queghan said, ‘You're assuming that the creature – the protoplast – will be both alien and intelligent. It could turn out to
be one or the other or neither.' He started collecting the specification together.

Professor Mulder didn't respond to this: his expression remained static and composed. He had said what he had to say.

‘I'm not particularly keen on genetic engineering myself,' Queghan said, trying not to sound apologetic. ‘The reason for building the device isn't to create a protoplast.'

‘Then why build it? Is Earth IVn in desperate need of single-cell protein?'

‘I have to know if it's practicable. You might think that mytho-logical interpretation of past events is without scientific relevance but it happens to be my field of study and I think it's important. Your contribution has been invaluable and I'm sorry you don't wish to continue any further.'

He was automatically, without thinking, gathering the sheets together and putting them in order. Something scribbled in one corner caught his eye and Queghan read it uncomprehendingly; he read it again and read it a third time. It was one of Professor Mulder's random notations:

L. I. F. F. E. (∑)

‘Psi phenomena are examples of meaningful coincidences which are linked in terms of meaning but have no casual relationship such that one event gives rise to another' – the Theory of Synchronicity proposed by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli.

Everything now assumed a kind of paradoxical logic like that of a mathematical equation which balances out beautifully and at the same time gives an impossible result. The apparent ‘coincidence' of approaching Professor Mulder had been predestined all along: the Professor had given the clue when he'd written down the acronym for the unit he envisaged in the blueprint and specification: Laser-Intensified Fermentation and Fertilization Equipment, with the symbol ∑ standing for high-intensity light source – the standard warning on all units incorporating laser optics.

The Biblical machine had indeed come from the future –
this
future – and the advanced civilization that had been responsible for its construction was the civilization of Earth IVn.
Queghan had been seeking the mysterious agency which had transmitted the machine into the past and all along the answer had been, quite literally, under his nose. It was him. He was the one responsible.

The paradox had come full circle. The blueprint and specification had been derived from texts which gave a description of a machine existing in Biblical times – and it was from that same blueprint and specification that the machine had been built (speaking strictly sequentially had
yet
to be built) and transmitted back into the past. It was a closed circle of events, each one leading logically and irrefutably to the next, but it gave rise to a whole series of complex speculations.

The most baffling was how the machine could have preceded its own design. That it had really existed in the past there could be no doubt – it was mentioned innumerable times in the Kabbalah and in the Judaeo-Christian Bible – but how to explain the illogicality of the blueprint and specification being taken from a record of the machine's own existence at an earlier period of history? Queghan didn't know the answer but he did know that sometime in the future, in his lifetime, the machine would be built and transmitted back into the past.

There was one final mystery.

Why was the machine necessary in the first place? Why had its specification included a fermentation
and
fertilization capability? What on earth was its ultimate purpose?

And who – or Who – had willed its creation?

She had been branded an evil woman and the people threw stones at her as they would to drive away the scavenging pariah dogs, and even the children – educated in these matters by their parents – sniggered as she went by and called out ‘Harlot!' and made obscene gestures with their scrawny fists. She had come to accept it (there was no choice) and withdrawn into a self-protective shell of icy aloofness, not answering their taunts or acknowledging their presence, though she burned inside with a deadly white flame, so pure and hot that it scorched every fibre of her being. She was not so readily cast down; a lust for revenge shook her like palsy; the day would come, she told herself, and the day would be sufficient unto itself. They scorned her now but somehow Maria would have the retribution she craved.

Her father had warned her of this. Ever since she was a child he had told her that those descended of Dagon had a heavy burden to bear, for they were set apart from their neighbours by virtue of their birthright. The story was well known, even among those who were not of their tribe, how an Angel of the Lord had descended from heaven and been tempted by the evil daughter of Dagon in the temple at Ashdod, and from this sacrilegious act had come a tainted people who would carry the sins of their forefathers for all time. The story had become the central legend of their tribe and even after twenty-eight generations it both sustained them and set them apart so that they lived in the community as outcasts.