Open Writing

PART FIVE

FOOTPRINTS

The Hermes II
Earth orbit
February, 2516

Working together at the controls of the Hermes II, Cal and ’tau brought the great ship into orbit approximately 1000 kilometers above the eastern seaboard of the United States. While ’tau made the final adjustments and shut down the engines, Cal turned to the other travelers standing behind him.

“Home.”

Humans and ’tau’s people together gazed at the planet below. Despite the fact that they were going home, it had not been a happy trip; their missing friends were an almost unthinkable distance away, they didn’t know how to find them, or if they’d ever see them again.

Sitting beside her husband, Karen rose and walked to the portal to gaze down at the Earth. Cal joined her and they stood remembering the friends they’d left behind, and the one they missed above all.

“This is the second time we’ve left Jonathan behind somewhere. When are we going to mount a search? We should get the Federation people started right away,” Karen said.

“Right. As soon as we finishing docking…”

He was interrupted by ’tau, who appeared at their side. [Please excuse me, Cal and Karen, but we have received a message from a Federation ship that is about to enter orbit. It seems to be of some urgency, and I suspect you will want to hear what it has to say immediately.]

He smiled, looking happier than they had ever seen him. Whatever had animated him to this degree was probably worth hearing.

* * * *

Bethesda Naval Hospital
Bethesda, Maryland

Jonathan looked up from his laptop computer and smiled to see Cal and Karen walk in the door of his private room.

Karen walked to his bed and took his hand. “Jonathan Edge, you gave me such a fright! What are we going to do with you?”

Jonathan smiled sheepishly, as Cal drew up two chairs. The shuttle survivors had been hospitalized for observation for five days, and were due for release later that day. Cal looked at Jonathan curiously. “I’m sure there’s a doozy of an explanation behind this, and I can’t wait to hear it.”

Jonathan smiled, “Well, it’s certainly that, Cal. Have none of the others said anything?”

Karen shook her head. “No, not a word. They all said they wanted you to tell it. And anyway, they weren’t in such good shape as you. Julia was hurt the worst, though she’s mending nicely, and Arnold hasn’t left her side. They’re both asleep now.”

“What about Dennis? And Steve?” asked Jonathan.

“Well, that’s a curious thing,” Cal answered. “They’re both fine. Dennis has a few cuts and bruises, like all of us who fought our way out of that cavern, but it’s Steve who’s giving the doctors headaches.”

“How so?”

“Well, so far, the docs can’t find anything wrong with him. No wounds at all, not even superficial. But here’s the amazing thing.” He pulled his chair closer to Jonathan’s bed, and Karen did the same.

“They, the medicos, say that it’s as though Steve has been rebuilt, from the inside out. They say that every organ in his body is in absolutely pristine condition, and it’s not the result of the longevity effect we all went through. It’s more than that; Steve is a new person, literally. Totally new.”

Cal grinned at Jonathan. “I don’t think I have to tell you, it’s freaking the poor guy out. Not to mention the fact that he’s about five hundred years into his future.”
Jonathan nodded. “Yes, we’re going to have to do something about that.”

Karen looked at him. “Don’t worry, arrangements are being made to take him back to his time. And Dennis has said he wants to re-visit the reality he and Arnold and Julia visited. He says he has something to give to John F. Kennedy, for goodness’ sake.” She glanced at Cal. “Do you know anything about that, Cal?”

Cal shook his head. “Not a thing. He mentioned it to me, too. Just said that it would solve a lot of problems. Arnold was laughing so much, I thought he’d bust, but he wouldn’t say, either. Just said they’d tell us later.”

Jonathan smiled. “Well, I’m sure we’ll get to hear about it eventually.” He looked at them both, and his mood turned serious.

“There is something I have to tell you, and it concerns us all. It also concerns what has happened to Steve, and how we got back to earth.”

The two listened intently as he explained about the beings from beyond lightspeed. When he was finished, Karen sat back in her chair.

“Wow,” she said. “I wish I’d known that when they contacted me on our original voyage. Masters of time and space, huh?”

Jonathan nodded. “So it would seem. And there’s more. Something they communicated to me after I was in cryosleep. How they did that, I have no idea, but if they can bring a man back to life, then transport a ship across 900 light-years of space, then I suppose that was child’s play.

“Anyway, they told me about the portals, the devices on Earth as well as the one on Rigel IX. And something else; there is another.” The two looked at him in surprise.

“What?” said Cal. “Where?” asked Karen.

“In Iowa,” Jonathan . “A small farming community called Middlesboro. It’s on a farm, buried at a depth of 30 feet.” Jonathan reached out and gripped Cal’s wrist.

“But that’s just details. The important thing is that we have to close them all, and we have to do it as soon as possible.”

“Why?” said Cal.

“Because, if we don’t, then the Earth could be destroyed.” Jonathan said.

“Destroyed? Why? How? What is…?”

Jonathan held up his hands. “Slow down, Karen. It’s all to do with what we talked about, when we were on that planet and discovered the device there. Remember the bouillabaisse?” he asked with a smile.

Cal nodded. “Quantum physics.”

Jonathan smiled. “That’s right. Remember the room full of bubbles? How I said they might occasionally touch? Well, that’s what it’s all about. If you recall, I spoke about universes overlapping, and leaving footprints behind. And also, about Einstein’s Theory of Everything, the one he sought for most of his life and never found. I’ve had a chance to catch up on the news, and what I’ve seen begins to make some sense of what the alien beings told me. Events are occurring in different parts of the world that tell of a coming together, of things approaching a crisis point.” He looked at them, his intense gaze holding them spellbound.

“And I finally understand the significance of crop circles.”

* * * *

Cal and Karen sat side by side in the functional but hardly comfortable seats of the Air Force jet. Their fellow travelers from the Hermes and the alien planet were spread between San Francisco and Berlin. They had all recovered from their injuries; Julia, the most seriously wounded was still mending.

Their jet had taken off from Andrews AFB two hours earlier, and now they were approaching Des Moines, where they would be landing at Offutt AFB, south of Omaha, Nebraska. From there, it was another chopper ride to the farm of Henry McKluskey in southern Iowa where the portal had been discovered.

Professor Julius Seartell and Steve Chappel were on their way to Stanford University, south of San Francisco. Apparently, they had both decided to stay in this time for a while, and Arnold, Julia, and Dennis were accompanying Trotter to the portal in Germany. On board the jet with Cal and Karen were Jonathan and Joe McCulloch. As always, Dennis and Joe, in their separate parties, were being, in Dennis’s terminology, minders, and guarded their charges zealously, even to keeping military personnel away from them. As both men had said, you never knew who to trust, so you trusted no one.

So Dennis had gone to Germany with Arnold, Julia and Trotter, bristling with weapons secreted all over his body, much to the disapproval of the U.S. military people who accompanied them, as well as the German officials, who tried to keep him out of their country. Arnold responded by telling them that they’d just get back on the plane and the Germans could take care of their “little problem” themselves. After that, there was no further argument, and Dennis Crafter walked through all their airport security with alarms being hastily switched off and leaving electronic carnage in his amused wake.

Joe, of course, was still a member of the American armed forces, and encountered no such restrictions. However, some Federation brass did try to replace him; then, when that didn’t work, to add security personnel to the entourage, with the proviso that they would have seniority over him. That was thwarted when the American President, at the request of Cal Ferguson, temporarily commissioned Joe as a five-star General in the U.S. Army. Generals who had previously thought themselves equal or even senior to the Admiral suddenly found themselves saluting him. And like Dennis, he carried what he pleased, (such as his trusty Colt .44), and let security personnel deal with it.

Meanwhile, Seartell and Steve were escorted by a combined detail of U.S. Army Rangers and British Army SAS, these arranged by Dennis with just one call to his old colonel at 22 Regiment.

Now, as the picturesque Des Moines River slipped beneath their wings, and their jet made its approach to Bellevue Offutt Field, Jonathan, Joe, Cal and Karen tensed and prepared mentally for the coming task. They knew its importance, and that the future of the whole world was at stake. They were comforted in that they had Jonathan on their side, but their apprehension was still great. What lay ahead, no one could guess.

* * * *

Jonathan, Cal and Karen stepped out of the U. S. government groundcar as the man in trim Oshkosh overalls approached them. Joe McCulloch positioned himself between them and the man, and Cal said, quietly, “It’s all right, Joe. This, I believe, is Mr. Henry McKluskey.”

The man, a sun-browned individual in his early 40s, smiled and held out a hand. “Call me Hank. You must be General Ferguson. I recognize you from the vid.” Hank snapped a salute. “Tech Sergeant McKluskey, 43rd Infantry Reserve, sir.”
Cal smiled and returned the salute, then shook Hank’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Hank. I’m Cal, this is my wife, Karen, and behind her is Professor Jonathan Edge.”

Hank took off his John Deere cap and shook hands all round. “I’m sure meeting history today,” he said. “May I offer you anything? Coffee? Cold drink?”

Cal shook his head. “No thank you, Hank. We’d like to see the site, if we may.”

Hank nodded. “Sure can, General. If you’ll follow my off-road, I’ll take you right to it.”

He climbed back onto his ATV, as everyone else got back into the government car, and they all took off toward the endless cornfields in a cloud of dust, with the sun just rising over their left shoulders. They traveled along the narrow access track between fields of corn until the track ended abruptly. Hank hopped off his ATV and walked back to the car.

“This is as far as we can drive,” he said into the driver’s side window. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

“Is it far?” Cal asked, as they got out of the car.

“Nooo, only a few hundred yards.” He pointed to a small depression in the corn. “That way.”

They all helped Jonathan with his equipment; then, with everyone carrying something, they set off after Hank. They walked between towering rows of corn, heavy with large ears ready for harvest.

Cal, walking immediately behind Hank, eyed the crop appreciatively. “Corn looks good enough to eat,” he remarked.

Hank grinned over his shoulder. “You’re a country-born man, General? Ohio?”

“Illinois,” Cal smiled. “Takes one to know one, huh?”

“Guess so,” Hank said. Then he stopped. “Okay, here we are. Just through here….” He led the way through the rattling curtain of corn stalks into a large clearing.

They looked around in confusion, and Cal said, “I thought this happened last year. Has there been another incident?”

Hank shook his head. He reached up and peeled back the husk on one of the ears of corn, then shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. But nothing grows since that last time. Just stays bare, and the stalks stay flat.”

Karen had walked a short way out into the circle, turned, “But they don’t show any sign of decay. No rot, or anything.”

Hank nodded. “That’s true. Darndest thing….”

Cal looked at Jonathan, who carried a small metal box. “You said you understood what these were, Jonathan. Care to enlighten us?”

Jonathan smiled. “Remember the room full of bubbles, Cal? About them touching and overlapping? Remember how we moved from one dimension to another, through the overlapping part?” He gestured at the flattened corn. “This is the result of that overlapping, of another universe touching ours. Each time it happens, it leaves behind one of these…” he waved his arm at the circle… “and the appearance of more of these circles is evidence that it’s happening more and more often. And that means something is out of kilter, and is trying to right itself.” He looked around the field again. “So far, it doesn’t seem to be having much success.” Jonathan smiled at the others. “So we’re just going to have to give it a little help; a little nudge, you might say.”

Karen, who had been looking at the flattened corn, looked back at Jonathan. “But Jonathan, if that’s the case, why are the circles only appearing in farmland? Why don’t we have them popping up in all kinds of places, like cities, and suburbs, and whatever. Surely, the overlapping must be random. Surely this would result in these circles turning up anywhere and everywhere.”

“Yes, under normal circumstances you would be correct, but what if their occurrence is not random?”

“You mean someone or…something is deliberately directing them here?” Cal frowned.

Jonathan smiled. “No, Cal, something that is already here is attracting them.”

Karen gasped. “The transport devices!”

Jonathan nodded. “Precisely. Remember, they are essentially a black hole. The power contained within them is enormous, almost incalculable. They must have been here for millions of years, lying dormant.”

“And they’re only just now waking up?” Cal’s expression was skeptical.

Jonathan nodded. “I believe this one was ‘awakened’, as you put it, by the activation of the other two in Germany and Stanford. I think if we looked, we’d find more of these devices in Britain, and other parts of America. In fact, anywhere these circles have turned up.”

“What can we do?” Karen’s voice was hushed.

“Don’t worry. I think we’ve caught them in time. With any luck, we’ll be able to arrest their progress and shut them down, as it were.”

“How?” asked Cal.

“Well, I think this one is a master portal that somehow controls the others. I think its deactivation will result in all of them being returned to their dormant state.”

“But how do we deactivate even one? What can we do with something as
powerful as a black hole?” Cal asked.

“What counters gravity?” Jonathan smiled.

Cal and Karen looked a teach other. Joe, who had been silent, said, “Anti-gravity.”

“Exactly,” said Jonathan. A moment later, Karen and Cal both saw it.

“The anti-grav sleds!” they exclaimed. “The ones we brought back from the first mission! Do you know where they are?”

Jonathan held up the metal box he was carrying. “We don’t need the whole sled, just its power source. And here it is.”

Jonathan carried the box to the center of the circle and placed it on the ground.
Then he knelt next to it and activated the power, eliciting a faint hum from the device. Then he stood and stepped back, turning to the others.

“I would suggest we all maintain a safe distance. After all, we don’t really know what’s going to happen.”

Together, they moved back to the edge of the circle and watched the object at its center. A gust of wind ruffled Jonathan’s hair, and Hank McKluskey looked at the sky. “The wind is kicking up a little.”

The others glanced at him. “Get many tornadoes here, Hank?” Cal asked.

Hank picked a piece of dried corn stalk and chewed on it. “Oh, yeah. But it’s a little late in the season for that.”

A sudden blast of wind made them turn their backs on the dirt it kicked up. Jonathan was looking up at the sky and raised an arm and pointed. “Look!” he yelled over the roaring. “Look at the sky!”

Looking where he pointed, they say that the clear Iowa sky had gone from a bright blue to deep purple dusk that held lightning.

“We’d better move back into the corn!” Cal shouted, taking Karen’s arm and moving out of the circle. Joe and Jonathan began to follow.

McKluskey stood his ground, assessing the strange sky. “Won’t do any good if it’s a twister!” he yelled over the wind. “It’ll take the whole field, and us with it!”

Jonathan, had stopped his retreat also. “He’s right, Cal. But I don’t think this is a tornado.”

“What is it, then?”

Before he could answer, Joe pointed at the device in the middle of the circle.
“Look!”

They all turned to see the air around the metal box was shimmering, like heat waves, and forming a growing funnel that was reaching into the purple sky.

“I think we’d better get outa here!” Hank yelled.

“No! Stay where you are! It won’t touch us if we stay back!” Jonathan said.

Hank looked at Cal. “General…?”

“Trust him, Hank. He’s never put us wrong yet.”

“He’s an expert?” Hank asked, watching the center of the circle.

“None better.” Cal nodded, one arm around Karen.

Jonathan and Joe stood together, watching the funnel grow from the box,
widening and spinning faster and faster. The flattened corn stalks around the box began to stand up like a film run in reverse. The wind howled, tearing at their clothes and hair. Jonathan and Joe moved closer to the others, and the five clung to each other as the maelstrom grew.

The ground at the center of the clearing began to ripple and heave, then the whole circle was undulating. The five watchers stepped back, noticing that the ripples came to the edge of the circle but no farther. They were safe for the moment, at least.

The wind increased as forces from another universe rose from the crop circle. The funnel widened, tugging at them. The F-3 tornado grew to an F-4, reaching for an F-5. “Hang on!” Cal screamed, but no one heard him as the ground was scoured clean, and the sound was so great it became a no-sound. Then, like insanity switched off, decreased, someone began to breathe, another heart beat resumed its rhythm, the sky began to remember it was blue. And then there was a gentle breeze. The five people stood in the silent corn, Iowa soil coated their faces, in their ears and noses, and crunched between their teeth. A cricket scraped a tentative sound.

Hank walked cautiously out onto the naked circle that bore no memory of a past. The others left the illusory shelter of the corn, which was untouched, and walked onto the circle.

“What just happened here?” Hank asked, pointing at the circle. “I gotta tell ya, that’s the neatest plowing job I’ve ever seen.”

“I believe we just had a lesson from the greatest farmer of all,” Jonathan said, and the others laughed.

* * * *

The kitchen of the McKluskey farmhouse was redolent with the aromas of a farm-cooked breakfast. Joe passed his plate to Carol McKluskey, who slid a second helping of bacon and eggs onto it, then passed it back. “Thank you, ma’am. There’s nothing like farm-cured bacon and fresh-gathered eggs.” Joe smiled as he added salt and pepper, sprinkled a little chili sauce on his eggs, and dug in.

“Thank you. I’m glad you enjoy it,” Carol said, thinking she had to add bacon and eggs to her grocery list.

Before eating, Cal telephoned Trotter in Berlin and Steve at Stanford. Both had reported that their respective portals had been closed down, but they hadn’t experienced the violence of the device at the McKluskey farm, as Jonathan had predicted they wouldn’t, and both men were confident that their devices could be re-opened if required. The Iowa device was the master on this planet, and controlled the others. With its demise, the other two had been reduced to blank doorways—no black holes, no portal.

When pressed, Jonathan admitted he had a theory about the portals. Cal and Karen smiled, accustomed to him having, if not an answer, then at least an idea about most things. Over breakfast, he told them what he thought had happened.

“Well, the portal buried here was obviously the control for all the others, of which I suspect there were several, many in Britain and perhaps in more remote parts of the world. Who buried them here, no one can say, although I suspect it happened a very long time ago, and they have been lying dormant all that time. The destruction of the device on Rigel IX also weakened those here on Earth, otherwise we might have found ourselves in a great deal of trouble.”

Karen poured herself another cup of coffee. “But what were the circles, Jonathan? You said you knew, but you never did say anything more about them.”

Jonathan smiled. “Ah, there is a most elegant explanation. It all goes back, as I hinted at once before, to the room full of bubbles. Remember? The infinite number of universes, all separated by incredibly small distances.”

“I remember. Something like a trillionth of a millimeter, wasn’t it?” Cal said.

“Exactly, Cal,” Jonathan smiled. “And when you’ve got things as large as these universes co-existing so close together, eventually they are going to touch, and in some cases, overlap. When that happens, some trace is going to be left behind.”

“And that’s what the circles are?” asked Karen.

Jonathan nodded, adding a dash of fresh cream to his coffee. “I believe so. Remember I mentioned footprints? With people, they are signs we leave behind us as walk. With universes, it is much the same. We’ve closed the master portal on Rigel IX, and the one on this farm controlled the others on Earth. Our world, not to mention our universe, is safe.

“And there is one other thing, something that may be even more momentous. Back at the end of the 19th century, and well into the 20th, Albert Einstein searched, when he wasn’t fine-tuning his work on relativity for his Theory of Everything. He didn’t ever find it, although he searched right up until he died.”

“What was it called, Jonathan?” asked Cal. “Theory of Everything? I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a theory to explain, literally, everything in the universe.”

Karen stared at the Jonathan. “Jonathan, have you found it?”

Jonathan smiled, and smoothed his hand over the place where the sun lay on the red-and-white checked tablecloth. “Oh, goodness, no. I don’t believe any one person is capable of understanding such a thing. It is far too complex for that. In fact, I don’t believe anyone but God could. However,” he continued, idly drawing patterns with his fork in the yolk of an unfinished egg on his plate, “I do believe we can, from time to time, comprehend tiny parts of it. Sort of as though they were being drip-fed to us.

“I believe that a corner of the veil has been lifted, so to speak, and I have been given a glimpse of what lies beneath.” He looked at the others around the table; as always, he had their attention.

“It has to do with quantum physics. Remember, I spoke of parallel universes, of all these universes occupying the same space, but in different dimensions. I now believe I may have been in error, that the multiple universes do not exist in that way at all.

“Think of our solar system. Of what does it consist?”

The others looked at each other, and Karen said, “Well, there’s the sun, with all these planets revolving around it.”

“Correct,” Jonathan nodded. “And most of those planets have at least one moon circling it; many of them have more than one. Some as many as 12 or more. Now, think of this table.” He rapped the table-top with his knuckles; it made a solid, thunking sound. “Of what does it consist?”

“Atoms,” Cal said.

Jonathan smiled. “Bravo! Atoms. And what do atoms look like?” He looked at them expectantly. “Come on, Karen,” he smiled. “Chemistry 101.”

Karen frowned. “Um, they have a nucleus, with electrons revolving around…” With a look of dawning comprehension, she stared at Jonathan.
“You cannot be serious!”

The others looked puzzled, while Jonathan sat looking like the cat that got the cream.

A small smile began to creep over Karen’s face. “Atoms?” she said, incredulously. “Life on atoms?”

Jonathan smiled and nodded, as Cal and Joe saw it at the same time.

“Oh, wow.”

“Holy shit!” Cal exclaimed. “Sorry, Jonathan.”

They all just sat there staring at him. Finally, Karen broke the silence.

“But what does it mean? What are the universes? I mean, if we’re just a part of a chair leg, or something, then what’s the point of it all?”

Jonathan shrugged, a gesture so out of character, that they all smiled. “Beats me,” he declared happily. “But if it’s true, and the atoms in our universe are really tiny systems themselves, and we are just, as Karen said, a part of a chair leg, then…”

“Then maybe we are someone else’s atoms!” burst in Cal. “My God!”

Silence, until Joe said, quietly, “And so on, and so on, and so on. In both directions, up and down, from us. Ad infinitum.”

Cal nodded. “Kind of gives you a glimpse of what is really meant by infinity, doesn’t it?” They remained quiet; each lost in their own reaction to Jonathan’s revelation.

Shortly afterward, they left the McKluskeys’, amid much praise and thanks for the memorable breakfast, and climbed into the government limousine. With a final wave to Hank and Carol, standing outside back door, they drove off in the direction of the Nebraska border, and Bellevue. From there, they would go back to Washington, and a debriefing session with the President. Wearily, they sank into the soft seats and slept most of the way to the airport.