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SPACEFLIGHT onnrui

EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT; KATHY KEETON EDITOR: GURNEY WILLIAMS III EXECUT VE ED.IOR -ATRICE ADCROFT EDITOR AT LARGE: DICK TERESI 3 OR A, - ilCS D RECTOR. -RANK DEVINO MANAGING' EDITOR: PAUL HILTS ART DIRECTOR: AMY SEISSLER

CONTENTS PAGE OMNIBUS Contributors 10 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 12 EARTH Environment Owen Davies 18

LIFE Anthropology Jim Naughton 24 MIND Behavior Judith Hooper 26 BODY Health James Kittield 28

MUSIC The Arts Matthew Kiell 32 CONTINUUM Data Bank 37 SPACEFLIGHT; THE QUEST CONTINUES FIRST WORD Opinion Alan B. Shepard, Jr. 6 FORUM Dialogue T4 SPACE Comment Freeman Dyson 22 STARS Astronomy Ron Schultz 34

MISSIONARY POWER Article Richard Wolkomir 46

GEOSTAR Article Gerard K. O'Neill 62

HEROES IN SPACE Poster 69

MOONS OF URANUS Pictorial Ron Schultz 92

DANIEL J. BOORSTIN Interview Anthony Liversidge 102 ALIEN LANDING Contest Results Owen Davies 114

THE BOOK OF BLOOD Fiction Olive Barker 54

AGAINST BABYLON Fiction Robert Silverberg 86

ANTIMATTER. UFOs. etc. 109 EXPLORATIONS Commemoration Jane Goodall 132 BAHAMA BANK Phenomena 140 GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 148 Joseph E Conroy

Our cover commemorates NASA's 25 years oi spaceflight. Eugene Ceman photographed Harrison "Jack" Schrnitt during the December 1972 flight o! Apollo 17. The crewmen spent a record 76 hours on the lunar surface. The photo is courtesy of NASA/Visions.

4 OMNI . "

This month marks the twenty- fifth artovor- shfiken'NAS.Aina way-that not even the . sary Of : budget cuts of the Seventies could, .it

' ' America's first- manned space .'mission; For hardlyseems thai, any good could come of

anyone who such a tragedy particularly with both . in those noi-so-ciistant days, it is astonishing Congress and the administration scurrying how jar we have come m so short a time. to pin the blame on NASA executives.

. in many respects we have made enormous But- there is something more basic at work.- progress. Other events, however, hays t now seems that toe Challenger none accident has revived the broad interest that

'

; of us could have foreseen. the. space- program has lacked '.for more : Thai first 15-minute 'light novo; aver' than a decade. This is good news because

reached orbit: I had only a -minute or so to decisions must now bo made'that will-set enjoy the View, in retrospect. :whaf still the course of space development for the

seems moo asicient rest q'i this cento: y. Two have beerrmadeC

Kennedys response- to- thai srnai? success already NASA has announced ;hat ii One month prior !o the launch, his scientific ten.

advisers had stili doubted tnai men couid '.i.^e shuttle is took in service. And the endure a trip into space. Gus G.nssom,' President has reaffirmed his commitment.'. Glenn, '.; John and i had to repeat centrifuge' to build a permanent space storionto-y. iests done many times before ;ust to prove flyinfhe early Nineties. This must be ''.

tii at 'welcome to all---' ; . .... !:,. r . First.- however, we musi'decidewhaf lo .'

' speaking before a lull Congress, promised do about the 'shut tie. Many planners would

1 ' mi ! r . ::ii ..! ;- i simply change its solid rocket boosters decade. Even at NASA they were nervous m the nope of preventing another mishap! about that schedule. Others have suggested that we build a

:

None of us could have guessed what a Wt,-.| r :: ' ,: UUDRD powerful fool the space shuttle woulc shuttle the shuttle's design was frozen be only ?5 years late; The Mercury astro- scnto 15 years ape they point out. why not .: By 'Alan B. Shepard. Jr. '..'! 1. 'f '-a; 1 quite Spai in a oar i take advantage of todays tec.nnolo.gy:? the jokers claimed, but even 'he AdoIIo This Is an attractive argument for someday '.'•The Challenger capsule remained cramped -and onmlive. we -'to! need : accident has revived the No d ietr-y technicians to orbi taiGi pa enge-: have Hy -' to I -it I II hoped passengers who could d I interest that the ;'.' perform useful wo no; related to the carry 500.000 pound =.: rR g maiem; space program has tacked intotorbit in a single lean If we adopt the-: -to The i: -re-esi in rheso early missions was Strategic Deiense Initiative, we wlli need-all . for more than a . intense A-te< !.. . , i each Mercury Might, we Hie for; the. on .. : .

decade. Disaster won - ! ,i .. tic!' .!. . \ce< ;. an i We cannot, however, gliord to wait.

• • "'>"'. Ihe.attention endless interviews. tonally we signed I tlied for toe shuttles!

'.-"' an exclusive --e not iou i ,'.". ive m old have b; :n har I- that skill could notS \ lor cur stones not to- the m-oney or -because pressed to meet the neeo tor launch service;

; publisher Henry Luce much 'toss today's three. Challenger must

., . : .. r cai 1'ii'A" i . :: v be rep icec as ; .en as toe cause of Its exc accident is found and cured: two new . = -iii-il- i: I . f; i n. idi (he shuttles would be far better.

hoc ma economic Ailhdugn the shuttle is the DC -3 or the

-..; i.. ,vii suppob.we needec. SpaCi : , .; p'i iigui ag ii'MI .. Contrast renziod the otohusiasm of 25 building even one mere shuttle, since :

1

years with of ::.' |i r.i ', i ago the apathy leoeni years . I:.

' : ':' "I ho hours of TV news thai once carried every tom. Gut most :koiy they wili fail. The- iaunoi towers and moon rovers into our credit goes to Challenger's last crew Ron

' iiving : looms dwindled sieaai y. Shuile fights he Challenger accident has awakened the nave rated onfy a fev, > American people, in polls fooay fully 85 tope on toe evening news. When Chai'ungiif percent support NASAs work. A majority"-.', rso.y a TV says the agency deserves '-ore tonoing slat loan If receives. Congress and the. admto, operas and game shows— until the.shui.ito istra-ion.m.ust hear them. exploded .Ironically, m midair disaster it is tragic thai i took too ceafhs of seven

won i he' at ton ton that skill and reliability dedicated poop:e to rally us. And their .could not. sacrifice could sriH be wast em Unless this, NASAs budget has mi. roreo the public's revn : . interest. In i : ,;.'',< :: . space As tone as the nation TOW ..!!, >l : idet i It.v beli i-.. . . ', iii'i ;., i. , .ii i! :! Russians, NASA received a-.mos! ail the I d the' lasting money it needed. As soon as wo (Cached support we have needed for so tone,

the moon, the race was over. The public they.wii.i have not died ;n va ; n.OO found oilier interests, and Congress found other uses tor government funds. The space program slowed down and has never in fact; tolly recovered; ' The recent Challenge: accident has CONTRIBUTOR! annruii

ardent supporter.: a'id a, member of the thinking about man's ceaseless quest for National Commission on Space is Gerard new worlds to conquer. Boorstin is the eminent Librarian of Congress and author ^^a menial to man as his ability to K. O'Neill, professor emeritus of physics at comprehend his own mortality. These two Princeton University. In "Geostar" (page 62) of The Discoverers, a book that celebrates seem inextricably bound; indeed, one he reports on detailed plans for the ultimate "the imaginative thrusts of the great the poly- is often purchased at the price of the other. satellite communications network. discoverers" throughout ages. A such diverse In this issue we celebrate America's 25 O'Neill explains how transceivers— math, Boorstin has pursued inexpensive will receive interests as bird-watching (with James years of manned spaceflight and pay . radios— send and homage to the spirit of exploration, which digital messages. Hikers will be able to Watson, of DNA fame), studying biochem- has recently been put to the test by the check in with their offices; private planes istry, teaching at the Sorbonne, and explor- tragic loss of the seven crew members of will be guided to emergency landings. ing the mysteries of the pyramids. the space shuttle Challenger. To honor Chair of the Geostar Corporation, O'Neill Horror stories allow us to explore the these heroes, Omni has designed a special has recently written the book The Technol- shadowy part of our own natures—and commemorative poster (page 69), We've ogy Edge: Opportunities lor America in from a relatively sale place: a comfortable included a space timeline that spans half a World Competition. couch or that worn but cozy wingback century: This trajectory nol only marks O'Neill's telescopic vision can be matched chair. According to Olive Barker, the our past but also presages events sure to only by that of our readers, whose powers powerful new writer whose story "The Book take place in the next 25 years, such as the of prophecy were enlisted for the "Great of Blood" starts on page 54: "If you hold really. day pilgrims will arrive on the first moon- UFO Contest." We received an overwhelm- the nasty things at bay, you can't see, based colony. ing response (some 4,000 entries) to our And horror fiction is all about seeing clearly. Among those first colonists will certainly question, "posed in the October 1985 issue: A lot of my characters live dull lives. They in be members ot the more than 50 pro- II aliens decided to visit us, where would live in a dimensionless reality, trapped a space organizations. In "Missionary Power" they be most likely to land? One entrant singularity of vision. The supernatural (page 46) freelance writer Richard Wolkomir claims aliens will drop by Albany County, events that interrupt their lives may kill chronicles the rise oi this movement, which Wyoming, home of the endangered them, but their lives are transformed has become the country's fastest-growing Wyoming toad. His reasoning: The extra- because they see the possibility of the public-interest concern. The activists' terrestrials' .survival depends on a chemical wonderful, the awful, the terrible. I often agenda is considerable: While-members of compound excreted by that critter. Our think of that line, 'We are not hypocrites in

, if we're writing the Planetary Society search (he skies for panel of experts settled on , . Well, you our sleep,' And when good signs of extraterrestrial life, those in the turn to "Alien Landing" (page 114), a report horror fiction, we're dreaming." L-5 Society plan to build man-made cities by Owen Davies, you'll find out who won. Barker's first book. Books of Blood,

in spheres.floating above the earth. And the The ongoing search for extraterrestrial life Volume One, will be released by the Berkley Young Astronaut Council has already is just one manifestation of our need to Publishing Group in June. Our story is enrolled 250,000 elementary-school children explore. Pulitzer prize-winner Daniel J. the introductory one in the volume and the with enthusiasm for the stars. Boorstin, the subject of this month's Interview first magazine publication of any of One of the space movement's most (page 102), has spent most of his life Barker's work in the United States. DO 10 OMNI onnrui LETTERS THE CORPORATION conjinnunjicMTiaru5

Buffaloed Again with a tie to his African heritage. Various secret societies are responsible It seems- that every living creature on this potion. This is done magical planet swings to its own rhythm, for administering the implied in and as writer Jim Nollman showed when he to punish someone, as was the played music for a herd of buffalo [Earth, Davis's article. The manufacture of February 1986], the American bison potion, however, has little to do with the faith. certainly has an ear for good music. I have voodoo spent hundreds of hours watching the Charles N.Wirstrom Teton and Yellowstone herds— magnificent Chicago animals in danger of extinction. The Fish and Game Department of Oil Trashers

I only describe Montana, along with the big ranchers, has I have witnessed what can the of the once again begun to slaughter the bison. as oil in formation at bottom Fe trash dump in Mexico City If an animal wanders out of Yellowstone Santa Oil," Continuum, February Park, it's fair game. This practice, called ["Meteorite the bottom layers of herd management, is absolutely disgusting. 1986], Oozing from Our parks and refuges are a place for this gargantuan city dump is a black, The ADVERTISING AND HARRETING animals to live out their lives safely and in highly combustible, oily substance. of honor. Long live the buffalo. locals use the ooze as fuel. The advance Dennis Miller the dump assures the "trash mongers" of Bishop, CA a constant fuel supply that they can collect in buckets. This might be something for Cellular Visions the geologists lo explore. Charles N. Dr. Jorge Yunis has developed a wonderful Mazal scientific tool that can help us better Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico prepare for or prevent certain physical conditions ["The Cell Seer," February 1986]. Resnik Remembered Omni The future of humankind depends on the Please accept our appreciation for work of such brilliant scientists as Dr. Yunis. Publications' contribution to the Judith The fact that chromosomal analysis A. Resnik Memorial Fund. Omni Publications' can be used for such unethical practices interest in helping us remember this is commendable. as child selection is a problem that manifests extraordinary woman itself with almost every new scientific All of us are proud of Judy Resnik's In life development. It's the responsibility of each accomplishments. her brief she scholarship, dedication, of us to see that these developments are . exemplified the that we hope today's students ethically applied. Somehow I sense more and heroism good than evil can come from knowledge. will emulate. Through the Judith A. Resnik Sandra Fox Memorial Fund, we are attempting to Moraga, CA perpetuate her tradition of excellence. Conrad C. Ott

Faithful Zombies Superintendent of Schools Wade Davis's story ["Inside Zombie Magic." Akron February 1986] was informative, but in Contributions can be sent to: my opinion it failed to make a crucial point. Editors' Note: Fund, North In all of the recent reports, a careless Judith A. Resnik Memorial 70 link has been drawn between the adminis- Broadway, Akron, OH 44308 tration of zombie potion and the religion of voodoo. Potions, dolls, and spells Clarification automatically come to mind when an The photo caption for the October 1985 American thinks of voodoo. Actually, voodoo Explorations column on vampires referred Lugosi's association is a down-to-earth belief that provides the to the late Bela close oppressed Haitian peasant with the type with this topic. Any other connotation was not intended. . of strength that any faith brings, as well as DO ' . —

DIALOGUE FDRUfUl

on flexible than unmanned missions. Their Exploration has always been central to the Now is. an appropriate time lo reflect can reprogram and interact with human experience. Once we crossed how far our space program has come participants onboard systems, and they can experiment mountain ranges and oceans in search of since its inception —and how far it can go. new types of sensors. Participants knowledge; today we journey into space We must use space to enhance scientific with throughout the also have the advantage ot seeing and study the. distant stars. Omni asked the research, to communicate of firsthand— a panorama of the earth, and following experts to comment on the state world, and to pursue commercial aspects maintained they are able to react to this in a selective of exploration as we mark the anniversary flight. These goals can be substantia! support for and interpretive manner. of a quarter century of manned spaceflight. only by continuing basic research and development, building Unmanned satellites, on the other hand, carry proved, reliable sensors and conduct Twenty-five years ago this month, Alan B, up math and science education for our missions. are'- prepared for a longer-duration, fixed-purpose Shepard. Jr., became the first American in young people so they r ro! is comouter. with only so many that this country technological future, and developing an Con by space. I am still. awed infrastructure. possibilities for reprogramming from Earth. committed itself to a manned lunar landing appropriate space for These craft relay back a limited view of within a decade, based on a 15-m'inute Space represents the modern frontier research into the our planet, and their sensors cannot suborbital flight. Even more awesome is that extending humanity's to manned discriminate as well as an astronaut can. we reached this goal on schedule. unknown. Our commitment Exploring space by means of both Many people concluded that everything programs must rcrain strong even in the and tragedy. This is our manned and unmanned systems provides worth doing in space was accomplished lace of adversity

' the of all fly. a synergistic effect that iranscends during that first ten years. After such a history and the legacy who Glenn results obtainable -rom ether system alone. phenomenal start withdrawing to neanEarlh Senator John Washington, Man is unique in his ability to recognize orbit for the next 15 years had the appear- DC patterns in a vast quantity of data and then ance of. a major retreat, and near-Earth' ,: which is new and previously . did to exlracl that orbit lacked the charm and imagination of 'And the rocket's red glare. Little unknown. Machines can then be used continued exploration into the universe. Francis Scott Key realize thai his words exploit these discoveries. Unfortunately, the primary motivation in those would be pertinent today. The Space Age. to

' The recent /age foss of the Challenger early years was competition with the which sometimes seems to have been quarter of a and its crew of seven modern-day discov- Soviets, and as in any race, the audience with us lorever, began just a Yuri erers in no way changes the fundamental leftjust as the winner lapped the field. century ago, on April 12, 1961, when role of man in space. Just as the pygmy can Despite the comparatively limited Gagarin made his historic voyage in a measure See farther than anyone when standing resources available, NASA has done a. Voslok space capsule. Yet the Irue shoulders ot a giant, so will future commendable job of retrenching: building of Ihe accomplishments of this age can on the that space explorers see beyond today's limited a solid space infrastructure with shuttles perhaps be best appreciated by noting horizons by building upon the knowledge and a space station and promoting the just 20 years laier to the day. John Young painstakingly won. Now is not the commercial applications of space. and Robert Crippen flew the first reusable we have spacecraft, Columbia, into Earth orbit. time to dismantle the giant and let all lhat It is time, however, to look at where we effort go lor naught. want to be at the end of the next 25 years. Columbia was soon followed by investigate evo-y aspect of the Instead of contemplating our navels in Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis, all As we Challenge! disaster so lhat ?. may never near-Earth orbit, we should be reaching lor named after famous sailing ships lhat made happen again, we should reflect on (he other planets. The biggesl tragedy ol the historic voyages oi oxp oration. Man has of Theodore Roosevelt; "It is not the Challenger accident would be the failure lo a unigue abi-ily to design and use machines words

crilic counts. . . . The credit belongs accepl that challenge. to increase his reach and discover the who who'is actually in the arena The world's statesmen could ralionatize underlying secrets of nature. This is to the man if leas: tails while doing . . . who ... he fai's a. the cost of going to planet Mars, for example. especially true in the space program. always had, greatly, so thai his place shall never be as a small inveslment in the future of planet The-space program has and cold timid souls who know implementing an will continue lo have, two concomitant with those and Earth. Planning and . nor defeat." international mission such as this would do elements: manned spacecraft and neither victory Paul Scully- Power all satellites. Unfortunately, the more for world peace than Ihe defense . unmanned oflen Mystic, CT budgets combined— at a very small differences between these Iwo have percenlage of the cosl. become blurred. 1984 Paul Scully- World peace would be the ultimate Manned spacecraft are more than just Editors' note: In October crew member on shuttle spinofi from space exploration. people riding in a machine. There is a Power was a and became the first ocean- Donald .K. Slayton symbiosis that underlies -his type ol explo- mission 41-G Houston ration.' Manned spaceflights are more ographer to fly in space. DO KILLER LAKE EARTH ' By Owen Davies

months. says. "There have been cases in Iceland | edged between the Central There the matter stood tor several for instance, f% find evidence of poison in and Papua New Guinea, i'jj Bight No one could 1} J I African Republic and the neither they come of volcanic carbon dioxide becoming of Biafta, Cameroon is a the area, bu! could U U and suffocating explanation for the deaths. trapped in a depression nervous place where 9 million Moslems, up with a natural focused on the former people. We couldn't find any evidence and ammists vie for power. It is Suspicion soon Christians, case, though; secret police, who owned the to support that notion in this usually peaceful, but in the summer of 1984 head of the search there were no hot areas usually associated a Moslem faction attempted a coup. So plantation closest to the lake. A with volcanic activity, and there was very people died mysteriously a few of his plantation turned up a few pesticides when 37 halogens." abandoned years earlier by French little of the expected sulfur or weeks later, it was a good bet they'd been find, Devine asserts, colonists. But officials dropped the investi- What the learn did done in. Yet when American scientists that the Cameroon was carbon dioxide gas dissolved in the investigated, they found no sign of foul play. gation after realizing of it, in fact, that did all the spraying in the water. There was so much Instead, the researchers declared, they government itself lake bottom suggestion that pesticides were water samples from the had uncovered one of the strangest natural area; the cola. Subsequent chemi- iault would implicate them. foamed like warm disasters of all time. at cal studies showed that the gas was liter- of August Finally the Cameroon government went It began early on the morning lake floor. University of Rhode Island volcanologist ally seeping out from the 16. Priest Kwayeb Abee and several of to it been Haraldur Sigurdsson, and some six months According to Devine, has long his parishioners drove past Lake Monoun. Sigurdsson and geolo- thought that carbon dioxide produced Glancing through the fog, which was after the accidenl at the in Cameroon. by volcanic lakes stays trapped unusually thick, the group saw gist Joseph Devine arrived brown and the according to Devine, bottom. But in Monoun, he suggests, what seemed to be a young man asleep on What they found, mile-long lake shaped like a water was violating this tenet of nature, his motorcycle. When Kwayeb and one of was a calm, literally turning over and rushing the carbon tie. of it was shallow, but on the parishioners went to investigate, they bow Most the cloud had appeared, dioxide to the top. "When the water turned that the man was dead. Buf before the east end. where found escaped," abruptly to a flat-bottomed over, the carbon dioxide suddenly they could return to the van, they had the floor sank about 300 feet deep. Devine suggests. "Those who crossed its succumbed as well. volcanic crater ihoLGh: them -night have path simply suffocated to death." By 6:30 a.m., Dr. Emmanuel M. Njock 'At first we Devine, now a professor at Brown Bata had arrived on the scene. He waited University, concedes that his explanation is until-after the fog dissipated, around 10:30 flawed. "If it were just carbon dioxide a.m., and then made his way to the lake. released by a turnover, you wouldn't expect Standing near the shore, he saw a ring of it to throw up a five-meter tidal wave," he death. The plants, which had the chlorophyll says. 'And we don't know what triggered it. bleached from their leaves, were destroyed Tourists reported feeling a slight earth- up to 20 feet above the waterline, suggest- quake the day before, but the only seismo- ing a tidal wave. And still more shocking, graph in the area was out of order, so we 37 people lay dead along the shore. " could never confirm that." "The first of the people died at about half Devine's explanation is also being past midnight, and people continued to questioned by Duke University zoologist die until about seven," Njock, now a Daniel Livingston, an expert on the lakes of postdoctoral student at the Tulane School Cameroon. "The gases that might have of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, killed these people— carbon dioxide, reports. "There were reddish blisters on their methane, or hydrogen sulfide—would not exposed skin, and on all the bodies there have caused blistering," he says. 'And was much foamy mucus mixed with blood nothing else found in the lake would cause around the mouth and nose, that reaction. It's too bad there were no "What struck me most," he adds, "was autopsies. A few pictures of those burns . how quickly the bodies began to putrefy. would answer a lot of questions. The temperature that day had no! "Unique events are hard to deal with," exceeded seventy-seven degrees Fahren- Livingston concludes. "No one is going to heit, yet the bodies all began to putrefy sit next to the lake until it happens again, by three-thirty in the afternoon. Unless it occurs somewhere else and "Many of my colleagues came to the we can get there quickly, we may never area soon after that," Npck adds, "but there Lake Mr. know what happened at Monoun."DO were no autopsies. They were all afraid." v.'riai rea/.'y happened al

18 OMNI ASTEROID CROP*

By Freeman Dyson

Suppose we go out and settle on a the most convenient cash coo that they asteroid colonies will often be products of convenient asteroid with our little could produce lor exporl? They had to find specialized plant and animal breeding. spaceship. What do we do when something [hat could be easily grown on Every asteroid colony must begin with a we get (here? How do we make a living? Iheir island, was oas y ".ransported in their unique plant- and animal-breeding program What can we expect to export in order boat, and easily sold for a high price in aimed at estaol shing an ecology adapted to pay for necessary imports? II space Vancouver. Being law-abiding citizens, they to local conditions. As a result most colonies colonization makes any sense at all. these had no wish to become smugglers. Whal, will possess varieties of plants and animals questions must have sensible answers. then, would be the most convenient, legal, that are rare or nonexistent elsewhere. Unfortunately, we cannot hope to answer high-value cash crop for a small North Just as with the North Pacific island, the questions of economics until the asteroids Pacific island to export? isolation of an asteroid provides an ideal have been explored. At present we know The answer to this question was not environment for maintaining pure-bred almost nothing aboul the chemical resources obvious. Only after a number ol false starts pedigrees. Every colony is likely to need of asteroids and the physical conditions did my friends 'inci the answer- pedigree nol only a competent blacksmith but also an we shall find on them. No human instrumenl Rhodesian Ridgeback pups. The dogs expert in genetic engineering. has ever touched an asteroid were easy to breed on the island. They did The next 100 years will be a period of

In this connection i! is interesting to not heed to be fenced since there was transition between the metal -and -si I icon compare the economics of asteroid settle- no danger of miscegenation, or cross- technology of today and the enzyme-and- menl with the economics of early colonies breeding. They fed mostly on leftovers from nerve technology of tomorrow. The in North America. The early American the farm. And the pups could be sold to enzyme-and-nerve technology will be the colonists knew almost as little about America dog fanciers in Vancouver lor a couple of result of combining Ihe :ools of genetic as we know about asteroids; and their hundred dollars each. engineering and artificial intelligence. We economic expectations almost always Rhodesian Ridgeback pups will not cannot hope to predict the forms in which a proved to be wrong. The first settlers in always be the answer, but the economic mature enzyme-and-nerve technology-

Virginia intended to mine gold and instead problems of ss:e'0:d colon sts will be solved would express itself, but when I think of the grew rich by exporting tobacco. The in a similar fashion by finding cash crops space technology oi tomorrow I think of Pilgrims in Massachusetts intended to live that conveniently expo', oca! opportunities. three concrete images. First is the Martian

' mainly by fishing and instead became It seems likely that the cash crops for potato, a succulent plant lhat lives deep farmers and fur traders. It seems that the underground. Its roots penetrate layers of most important orereau sle !or economic subterranean ice, while its shoots gather survival is flexibility Cc-lon'sts should never carbon dioxide and sunlight on the surface believe economic forecasts and should under the protection of a self-generated be ready to switch to other means of liveli- greenhouse. Second is the comet creeper, hood when the forecasts are wrong. a warm-blooded vine thai spreads like a of In the circle of my own friends I have weed over the surfaces comets and seen an example of colonization that may keeps itself warm with superinsulating iur throw some light on Ihe economic problems as soft as sable. Third is Ihe intelligent of asteroid settles. Two friends, a young space butterfly, with solar sails for wings, a man and his wife, ostah ished themselves on creature truly at home in space, acting an uninhabited island in the North Pacific. as our agent n c-xo o-'a:ion and reconnais-

They built a comfortable house and had sance. It could carry both pollen and no ditficulty in growing enough food for the information from world to world just as table. The husbarc a sk; led blacksmith, terrestrial insects carry pollen from flower built a sawmill and other useful pieces to flower. It is easy to dream of other inhab- of machinery. itants of the celestial zoo with which the In most respecls their colony was universe could be peopled. The Martian economically self-sufficient. Bui there were potato, the comet creeper, and the space a few essential items that they could not butterfly are merely symbols intended, produce tor themselves and needed to like the pictures in a medieval bestiary, lo import. Diesel luel was the most essential. edify rather than to enlighten.DO They needecfto sail down to Vancouver,

Canada, once or twice a year with a large Freeman Dyson ?s p-'oicssc: ci physics at the tank and fill it up with diesel fuel for.their Institute ior Advanced S'uc'os and the author

=.<,' a.' engines. The question then arose: What was C:>rrwi crimper, an ?x !ia, £,•;.'.' export? ci Weapons and Hope (Harper & Row). 22 OMNI —

ENDANGERED BUSHMEN

• By Jim Naughton

^^^Coke bottle carelessly tossed he says. "Depriving the Bushmen of this forced to work for whites," #«^% Irom the cockpit of an airplane land will mean [the end of] their lives." Over the years all the Bushmen have a \ lands amidst a settlement of Ironically, proponents of the nature reserve seen their traditional territories shrink in size,

Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert. Fascinated see it as a way to protect the roughly 2,000 forcing them onto smaller and smaller by the object, which is unlike anything Ju/wasi living in Bushmanland, arguing reserves. Many of them have crowded into they have ever known, the Bushmen use that the reserve will allow the tribe to practice rural slums around various governmental

the bottle first as a tool, later as a musical hunting and gathering. t.ne:r traditional outposts and army bases. There the South

instrument. Everyone covets the bottle, way of life. But Claire Ritchie, coordinator of African army began recruiting ihe unedu-

and before long it breeds jealousy and the IKung San Foundation, which is cated and politically naive Bushmen to violence. The leader of the tribe vows that devoted to helping the Bushmen, contends fight against SWAPO (the South West African

his people must be rid of this disruptive that it is a "myth lo think that had we not People's Organization). Today Bushmen "gift" from the gods and begins a trek come along they'd be happily hunting and have Ihe highest percentage of military to the edge of the earth, where he will hurl gathering right now. No people want to service ot any ethnic group in the world. the bottle into the abyss. stay hunter/gatherers. When the opportunity Their comparatively huge army salaries That's how modern civilization was shown comes lor Bushmen lo have cattle, they 20 times the average per capita income to intrude on the lives of a primal people want them." provide the extra income to keep entire in the surprise hit film The Gods Must Be Land-hungry politicians, however, are villages alive. Crazy. In reality, though, the Bushmen not the only ones who have encouraged the By 1980, when Ritchie visited the peoples ot Africa face a plight far more notion that Bushmen are "genetically Ju/wasi, the situation had done its damage. serious than the turbulence caused by a incapable" ot doing anything but hunting "Most Bushmen had stopped hunting Coke bottle. They are, quite literally, being and gathering. Anthropologists are also and gathering and were just hanging around threatened with extinction. responsible. "We were so fascinated with Ihe settlement getting drunk and living on The most endangered group of Bushmen them as hunter/gatherers," says Marshall, welfare," she says. are the Ju/wasi, who call themselves the "that we turned our backs on Ihe vast The proposed nature park would make well-mannered people. Like other Bushmen, majority of Bushmen who practiced a mixed life even more difficult for the tribe. "No the Ju/wasi roamed Ihe Kalahari Basin in subs stence— the ones who raised single person in southern Africa can survive Namibia and Botswana, where they livestock, grew some crops, and were. by subsistence alone," explains Marshall. supported themselves by hunting and "You have to have some family member gathering, raising cattle, and cultivating working for money. Bui it's also true that no some crops, Then in 1970 Ihe Ju/wasi one can survive on a cash income alone."

in Namibia were placed on a government In this way the Bushmen are still dependent reservation called Bushmanland. on the land. Today the Namibian government wants At this writing, the nature park is being to turn the most fertile portion of Bushman- opposed by Andreas Shipanga, the new land into, a nature reserve, in part to cash Namibian minister of nature conservation.

in on the growing African tourist market. But even if the proposal is abandoned, Under the new designation, the Ju/wasi will the Ju/wasi may find themselves in a tenuous

be allowed only to live on the land, not to position. If majority rule comes to Namibia,

farm it or graze the small herds of livestock the Bushmen may be punished for having on which they depend for food. They will fought SWAPO. Some anthropologists also be encouraged to dress in skins believe that the new government would and wander around with bows and arrows, understand the economic necessity and presumably for the entertainment of tourists political ignorance that led young Bushmen hungry for an authentic encounter with to fight. But under eilher apartheid or "real" natives. majorily rule, the once-independent people "To call the nature park a deathblow is appear destined to be pawns in someone not just a figure of speech," explains else's game.DO ethnographic filmmaker John Marshall, Editors' iJosc. "no 'Xu.'x: Sn" foundation whose film N'.ai, The Story of a IKung welcomes conthixjlicms :<:. aid in Ihe Bushmen's the Bushmen's gradual Woman details struggle tor sell-determination. The toundation descent from self-sufficiency to economic can be contacted Oy v/ritjr.g ;o the IKung helplessness. "It is not a metaphor for San Foundation. O.illtinn SurviVa.', 11 Divinity social disintegration or collapsing values," Avenue, Cambridge. MA 02138. 24 OMNI BEEPER PSYCH nniruD By Judith Hooper

October 1944, when he was len years How do people feel when they are watching these pathological behaviors: o.ngeealing, Inold, Mihaly Czikszenlmihalyi, his mother, TV with their families, as opposed to purging, and so on. So it looks as if the and the rest of his family look the very watching TV alone? Is eating in the morning ability to tolerate solitude is a very good last train out of Budapest before the cily was the same as eating in the afternoon?" index of menial health." cut ofi from food supplies and bombed to As a result anyone with questions about As James recognized, motion is also the smithereens. "What amazed me was that Italian teenage's. DUcn schisophrenics, essence of the stream of consciousness, all our relatives denied the obvious," he people with multiple oersonaliiies, children and unlike a rnulliple-choice test or a recalls. "They kept thinking that everything with learning disabilities, the elderly, psychiatric inlcvicw that :akes half an hour, would turn out for the best. Within a few anorexics, bulimics, or TV addicts can find beeper psychology can plot the ebb and tides. months they were all dead, either from answers in Cz:kszontmina y's computer. flow of these mental starvation or from the bombing." "The method is not quick and easy." "We found that the mood swings of Now a psychologist at the University of he. notes. "It's not two hundred people taking adolescents are at least twice as rapid as Chicago, Czikszenlmihalyi has ever since the same test in the same room all at the those of adults," Czikszentmihalyi says. been studying the irrational underside' same time." But it has yielded some 'Adolescents go from a high or low poinl to ol behavior. He has been particularly fasci- intriguing insights, a middle point every twenty minutes, while people's day-to-day thoughts, So what ;s going on in people's heads the adult takes over an hour." nated with . the stream of voraciousness that William most of the time? Equally surprising were the results when

it disor- James described as "a river, forever (lowing "One of the most surprising things we was tried on people with mental through a man's conscious waking hours." found is the importance of unstructured ders. When a protege of Czikszentmihalyi's lives," person with 21 personalities, five And ii that great turn-of-the-century solitude in people's says Czikszent- tested a psychologist had possessed a computer, mihalyi. "If you look at anorexics, bulimics, of the most dominant ones obligingly "came some electronic beepers, and several heavy TV viewers, children who are under- out" during one week's beeper exercise, thousand willing research subjects, he might achieving in school, anyone with any sort and the person wrote his notes under their have been able to tell us more about what of problem, they're fine as long as they're various aliases. "It was as if five different filled those waking hours. with other people. But when they're alone people filled out the notebook," says For the past several years Czikszentmi- with nothing to do, they feel terrible. Their Czikszentmihalyi. "And the personality the halyi has been doing just that. He wants moods plummet. That's when they gel into clinician though: was the strongest turned toknow: What do people really think about out to be weakest n describing himself." during the day? What is flowing through Using the same technique, a Dutch their stream of consciousness as they are psychiatrist discovered something curious sitting down in front of Three's Company about schizophrenics. "They're called and eating a TV dinner? chronic schizophrenics, but they show their To find out he has been recruiting people, emotional disorders only at very specific giving them notebooks and beepers, and times," report Czikszentmihalyi. "Each having a computer signal Ihem at random person seems to have a period in times during the day—whereupon they midmorning or early afternoon when he jot down what they were doing and how they really begins to space out. Most psychiatrists felt when they were doing it. The result is assume that if you're schizophrenic, you're whatCzikszentmihalyi calls a "random schizophrenic all the time. But four times out sampling of everyday lile," a week's worth of five you can't tell a schizophrenic's of snapshots, or samplings, of quotidian entries from a normal person's." consciousness. Although this might seem the most Czikszentrrihalyi's "systematic phe- obvious subject for psychology, the "science nomenology," as he dubs his method, has of the soul," to contemplate, in fact it is caught on with a number of psychologists the last thing the psychologist seems to care " in the United States and abroad who have about. "Psychologists, with their rating contributed to the world's first introspective scales, look at 'nurturance,' 'aggressive- data bank—which now includes several ness,' and so on. But they are not concerned thousand subjects and hundreds of with what goes on in consciousness," thousands of diary entries. "Once the Czikszentmihalyi notes with some amaze- numbers are in the computer, you can come ment. "I think psychology should study back and ask any question you like," the subjective inner lile of a person. After Czikszentmihalyi explains. "You can ask: minds? The beeper knows. all, that is the essence of existence. "DO 26 OMNI — '

PAINKILLER OR PARALYZER? BDDM By James Kitfield

play began like dozens ol the spinal cord injury is not usually respon- even the researchers term "an unbelievably The sible for most of the damage," says Faden, dramatic recovery." During shock their others for tailback Kent Waldrep. Uncoiling from the backfield, who is currently head of neurology at the blood pressures had dropped to less than the young Texas Christian football player San Francisco Veterans Administration half of normal, and the rats were nearly sprinted right for a power sweep. In Hospital. "One result of injury is the loss of dead. Five seconds after a naloxone injec- that last turn up the field, Waldrep's life was blood flow to the cord. The loss leads to tion they began to walk and eat. At least forever altered. A neck-snapping tackle the death of cells but also triggers the 40 subseguent studies—using animals left the young athlete paralyzed. release of other substances that kill cells," ranging from rats to primates—identified Until recently surgeons and medical he explains. "We theorized that these the same phenomenon: Opiate blockers researchers offered little hope ot stemming secondary substances caused much of rapidly and dramatically improve blood flow the numbing iide of paralysis that will the irreversibility of the damage. So blood and thus prevent the effects of shock. engulf 20,000 young Americans in 1986. flow is a critical factor in spinal injury." Alter the initial tests the doctors knew Damage to the spinal cord or central Faden and Haladay knew that morphine they had discovered the first drug capable nervous system has been considered the causes a drop in a patient's blood of reversing the drop in blood pressure ultimate medical dead end. pressure. It made sense that endorphins, thai inevitably follows injury to an animal's Studies that began last year, however, the body's morphinelike substances that act spinal cord. Even more exciting to the should yield the definitive answer on a as natural painkillers, would produce a research team, however, was the realization revolutionary new drug treatment. It the tests similar effect and might be responsible for that they were one step closer to linking are successful, many future victims of stemming the blood flow. To test their endorphins—substances generally spinal cord injury will never have to sit in a theory the researchers began a series of accepted as benevolent painkillers—to a wheelchair or face lives changed by an experiments with rats that were suffering direct role in spinal cord damage and ill-fated football play or high dive. from shock, which also impedes blood flow. subsequent paralysis. Dr. Alan Faden and Dr. John Haladay— By neutralizing the endorphins with injec- Next came an exhaustive series of spinal- two researchers for the Walter Reed Army tions of the opiate-blocking drug naloxone, injury tests on different species of animals. Institute of Research—used deductive rea- the two hoped to better understand the The endorphin biography that emerged soning to come up with the treatment. role of endorphins in trauma and shock. from the various laboratories formed an "We suspected that the accideni that causes After a dose of naloxone, rats made what altogether different medical composite than that of a simple pain reliever.

"We found that if you injured the spinal cord and then administered naloxone, blood pressure returned to normal, as we

knew it would. Then we followed the recovery of the animals. Those that got naloxone were walking nearly normally. The animals that did not get naloxone had severe spastic reaction and could barely take a step. They were paralyzed," Faden

says. "It was the first successful demon- stration that naloxone directly improved

recovery in animals' spinal cord injuries by blocking the endorphins." Unfortunately, naloxone also neutralized the pain-relieving effects of the endorphins, which led Faden and Haladay to search for a second opiate blocker. What they found was another body substance thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH)—that acted in most respects as a natural antag- onist to the endorphins but had no effect on the endorphins' pain-relieving properties. Theoretically, TRH seemed the perfect antidote to the endorphins. Not only did The downside ol the body's uppers: Endorphins may conlnbut? lo paralysis subsequent tests show an even higher

28 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 137 — —

u THE By Matthew Kiell

age fifteen, Easley Blackwood, that have existed have been difficult to play change when a composer switches from

for tuning to it Jr, , wrote a cello piece based and designed specific tunings or even one microtonal another, takes a on an eerie scale unfamiliar to specific works. So microtonality remained an pianist with exceptional mental and digital A dexterity play microtonal piece this most Western ears. Instead of using the 12 obscure curiosity— until recently. to a on "half tones" in the traditional Western In 1953 Karlheinz Stockhausen composed pianolike device. scale, young Blackwood called on a 24- a microtonal study using primitive With one of the 15 existing Scalatrons in note scale of "quarter tones." His inspiration electronic equipment. But two decades his office, Blackwood studied the theoreti- was an article on music in the Encyclo- would pass before the technology needed cal relationships and musical possibilities of paedia Britannica. The exercise was mostly for a serious microtonal investigation was every microtonal tuning from the 13- to "playing around," he now acknowledges. introduced: the logarithmic calculator the 24-note scale. His aim: to create playable But since 1977 Blackwood— composer, and a musical instrument called the Scala- compositions in each tuning to illustrate professional pianist, and professor of tron. This Hewlett-Packard calculator structures and musical possibilities music at the University of Chicago— has made possible the swift numerical analysis the traditional purpose of etudes. He immersed himself in the alien microtonal involved in a microtonal study. Concur- intended to establish and broaden the world, systematica' y investigating a whole rently, Motorola's dual-keyboard music theoretical mapping of each tuning from series of scales in theory and practice. synthesizer achieved accurate tunings in 13- to 24-tone and to devise comprehensible The results include his Twelve Etudes for any designated range of intervals. Suddenly notation systems. He realized that a Electronic Music Media, a unique microtonal tools were available both to examine thorough study of chord progressions and sampler ranging from a 13-tone piece to microtonal theory and to play the music. harmony would provide future composers a new and eerie 24-note work. The etudes Motorola, interested in exploring the with a charted path. Each composer would and the 525 pages of notes he has capabilities of its new instrument, found in no longer have to dive headlong into an compiled for a book go far in establishing Easley Blackwood the person to use those unknown jungle of notes. Blackwood as a pioneer in this hitherto tools: a composer with an analytical mind, Half of the tunings—13, 14, 15, 16, 18, little-explored territory of music. highly developed mathematical skills, deep and 23—were virtually virgin territory Microtonality— dividing the octave into understanding of musical harmony, and "In fact," Blackwood says, "reviewers of my more than the traditional 12 intervals prodigious talent ai the Keyboard. Since the grant proposal said. 'This is off the mark. is nothing new. The ancient Greeks used Scalatron's keyboard arrangement doesn't There's a consensus among theorists that microtones, and Asian music has used the thirteen-, sixteen-, and twenty-three- them' for centuries. But in Western music note tunings are of no musical use.' Well, microtonality has always been at the fringes. there was a consensus to that effect.

It has been considered ditfuse. disorga- The only trouble was, they were all wrong." nized, a dead end: primarily a playground What do the microtonal etudes sound for left-field composers. And before recent like? Few people know what to expect. Even advances in electronic technology, in- musically literate listeners anticipate depth systematic study of microtonal music hearing nothing more than random disso- was not really possible. nance. But one listener who heard Black-

Renaissance and early baroque theorists wood's compositions wrote to him, "I was discussed 19-, 31-, and 55-note tunings, astonished at the melodic quality and as well as a 53-noie tuning relating to emotional range of the pieces, which quite ancient Pythagorean proportions. Around overcame the unnaturalness of the scales."

1900 theorists developed 96-tone and A primary element of the etudes is even 6J2-tone scales! In practice, composer unexpectedness. Blackwood works with

Ben Johnston has created 53-tone works, notes and chords not normally found in and Harry Partch worked extensively with a Western music. Each new phrase challenges 43-note system. But work with quarter the mind to recalibrate ts sensitivities and tones has been most popular. Such adjust to music that at first sounds out of twentieth-century composers as George kilter. Yet it isn't merely an "interesting" Enescu, Charles Ives, Alois Haba, Ernest intellectual exercise to be tolerated once, Bloch, Bela Bartok, and Pierre Boulez have then avoided. The etudes are a delightful, all used 24-1one scales. rewarding surprise. Much of thismusic has required specially Public reaction has been favorable. retuned, redesigned, and newly invented Ironically, the most negative reaction io the instruments. The few microtonal instruments released I mm obscurity? etudes came from certain segments of

32 OMNI CC.'NTINUtJON PAGE 144 —

NEW MOONS

By Ron Schultz

most people, discovering a new he could about the motion of the spacecraft constantly corrected the view of the space-

For is the objects it going to approach. craft as it moved, always presenting a celestial object a once-in-a- and was lifetime feat, but for Stephen Synnott "It's like leading the pass receiver in a consistent angle of view. explains. Synnott made his discoveries while it has become something of a habit. football game," Synnott "We Synnott, a spacecraft navigator at NASA's basically have to track the motion of our guiding Voyager to perform this feat, To Optical Navigation Facility at the Jet receiver and know not only how he's moving navigate the spacecraft. Synnott had to refer

Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). still recalls his now but how he's going to move when to fixed objects as reference points. He first find. Three years ago, as he was we can't see him," With the Voyager space- used stars of the ninth or tenth magnitude, flashing Ihrough various images beamed craft it was not an easy task since his just a little fainter than can be seen by also the human eye. located them by using back from Jupiter by Voyager I, he stared at receiver was 2 billion miles away. He He his video screen and realized that he had had to be able to tell the spacecraft to fly at very sophisticated computer programs found a new moon. "I thought, My God, I'm specific angles and then open the shutter to sift through reams of optical and radio the only person in the world who knows so that the target moon would be in view measurements sent back to Earth, The there's another satellite out there," he recalls. when the camera stance tak-ig pictures. (To process subtracts the noise of interference "Nobody else knows." His discovery see how well Synnott did his job, look at and shows him where his guiding lights recently received the name Thebe. Now he the pictorial "Moons of Uranus" on page 92.) are. In the process of filtering out this "noise" is in a similar situation, only this time there But there was more io the photo session it can also turn up previously unknown are seven moons to name. than locating the subject. The lighting objects, like moons, in the planetary system spacecraft is When Voyager // swung by Uranus this was abysmal, requiring exposures of up to the approaching. this information, discovered past winter, it discovered ten new moons, 15 seconds. And the camera was moving Using Synnott Because Synnott discovered most of them, at 49,000 miles an hour. The challenge was the new moons—seven of them in a period his colleagues at JPL now refer to him a little like trying to get a sharp picture of 20 days. He was able io fix their locations as the Voyager project's "Rock Hunter." without a flash— of a car racing by on and then predict where they should be Trained in orbital mechanics, Synnott had a starlit night. What helped JPL accomplish when Voyager aimed its lens and began to make sure Voyager got to where it was this technical feat is a process called taking photographs. first temporarily supposed to be when it was supposed target motion compensation. Once Voyager His lunar discovery, to be there. The first step was finding out all was within range of its target, the process called 1985 U1, has also been his largest. It measures about 160 kilometers in diameter and orbits about 53.000 miles from Uranus.

It is an extremely dark object, with an albed, or level of light reflection, of about 5 percent: a reflectivity less than that of a lump of coal. The smallest of his new

discoveries is a tiny satellite measuring about 30 miles across. The next task is to give these satellites permanent names. Officially that is done by the Internaiional Astronomical Union (IAU), an organization of the world's leading

astronomers. Among its other duties, the IAU sets the world standards for astronomi- cal measurements and is in charge of naming newfound sky objects.

There is a well-prescribed protocol for naming astronomical objects, but the nature of the Voyager discoveries was to change that somewhat. At one time a moon had to

have a determined orbit in order to qualify

for a name. Because the f lyby of Voyager was so swift, the objects could be photo- graphed, but their orbits could not always be plotted. This was the topic of much

: .-..ngs or Uranus. What shall we can their*? controversy at the last IAU General Assem- con™ueoonpagei39 coruTinjuunn

:hallenger and the Soviets

here is a kinship, perhaps stronger than blood, that the hardware." During the Apollo/Soyuz lest program, the United links men and women who share the same dangers. States and the Soviet Union developed a docking adapter that

This kinship cuts cleanly across the barriers of politics would link the countries' spacecraft. If that adapter is now obso- and nationality, as evidenced by the Seventh Interna- lete, space travelers can be transferred from the shuttle to Salyut tional Man in Space Symposium, in Houston, Texas. (or from Salyut to the shuttle) EVA—through open space using The Soviets sent a delegation to this conference—the first So- space suits. Yet space missions are extensively rehearsed in ad- viet space scientists to visit the United States since the space- vance. A lack of training might doom a complex rescue effort. shuttle tragedy in January. Among the delegates was Dr. Oleg Should the United States and the Soviet Union train together for Atkov, the cosmonaut/physician who currently shares the duration such a contingency? record for a single spaceflight—237 days aboard the Soviet space It was a hard question for Atkov. There were political ramifica- station Salyut 7. After the opening remarks Dr. Atkov asked the tions if he answered simply yes or no. The American press was moderator if he might briefly address the gathering. listening, and not far away stood a chain-smoking Russian dele- "Sharon Christa McAuliffe," began the Russian cosmonaut, gate whom many of the Western attendees guessed was the "po- looking out over an audience that included many American astro- litical officer" sent to shepherd the Soviet scientists. nauts, "after being chosen for the crew of Challenger, said: 'My After pacing back and forth for a few tense moments, Atkov head is still in the clouds.' She never returned to Earth. No one found the diplomatically correct phrasing for what he wanted to from the Challenger crew will ever return to Earth, ever again. say. "The more we do in space together," he told the group, "the "This tragedy has caused us great anguish, both in our souls more both sides will benefit." and in our hearts. It is impossible to accept these losses; we sim- Back inside the conference room, Atkov found himself on an ply have no right. Allow me, in the name of the Soviet delegation, international panel of astronauts and cosmonauts, shoulder to from my cosmonaut colleagues and my crew, to express deep shoulder with U.S. Senator Harrison Schmidt. The panel optimisti- sympathy to the families and friends of my departed colleagues. cally discussed the details of a joint American/Soviet manned mis-

Let our joint work serve as a memorial to them. This work shall sion to Mars, as if the spaceship had already been built and there bring the peoples of the earth peace and happiness." remained nothing left to do but pick the crew. They were simple words but heartfelt. Atkov had briefly drawn Crew selection, they all agreed, is critical to the success of the aside the iron curtain of professionalism and politics to let us mission. How do you ensure that a small group of people —eight glimpse the sorrow of Russian cosmonauts at the loss of seven to ten men and women—work together effectively in close quar- American space travelers. After a few moments of silence, the ters for the 18 months required to visit the red planet and return? audience exploded in emotional applause. Most of the panel commented that besides being qualified, the Later Atkov stood outside the conference room, surrounded by crew members must already be good friends. a tight knot of people discussing the feasibility of a space rescue. Atkov disagreed. Friendship is not necessary for success. "We If a shuttle were crippled in orbit, it's doubtful whether NASA could have a saying in Russia," he explained, "that these people must ready another shuttle in time to save the crew. The Soviet Soyuz eat a pound of salt together." The Mars crew, should we ever clear spacecraft also takes time to prepare for flight. In an emergency the political barriers that prevent it from leaving, will share many our only hope might be each other. The United States and the meals, many experiences, many dangers.

Soviet Union signed an agreement in 1972 to lend such assist- "But it is not essential that they be good friends," Atkov contin- ance, but it has long since lapsed. The group agreed that today ued. "What is essential is that they respect one another as men an international rescue might depend on the prevailing politics at and women, as professional space scientists, without regard to the time of the emergency. politics or religion or who is the capitalist and who is the commu- Could one side rescue the other? "Yes," said Dr. Atkov. "We have nist."—DONNA CHESHIRE AND NICK ENGLER — —

CDRJTinjuurui

MORE THRILLING 96 percent of the survey's Goldstein's re- THAN SEX respondents. search suggests, that music A specialist in brain chem- Is one of the things that istry, brings those peptides into If a night of passionate Goldstein conducted lovemaking is for you life's the study to iearn more about play."—Sherry Baker greatest thrill, you're in the the interplay between music minority. According to Stan- and psychological responses. HEART PATCH ford University pharmacolo- In a now- classic experiment, gist Avram Goldstein, sex he found that some people Even before they're per- produces physical sensatbns who are stirred by music fected, artificial hearts may described as "thrilling" for frequently report thrills each be obsolete. In two years only about 70 percent of the time they hear a particular doctors at the University of 250 people he surveyed, passage played. But when Pennsylvania will be able white other thrills ranked Goldstein gave some volun- to build a spare heart from much higher. teers naloxone, a drug that the patient's own flesh. For the purposes of his blocks endogenous opioid Already they can patch a research, Goldstein defined peptides — certain opiate like damaged heart like a tire. a thrill as a special feeling substances in the brain Surgeon Larry Stevenson like a tingling sensation or it seemed to take the tingles got the idea seven years a chill—that accompanies a and chills out of music for ago: When the heart goes sudden change in mood some listeners. bad, why not use another and its fatigue resistance or emotion. Some of the big- "On the basis of what we muscle to repair it? He chose goes way up." gest thrillers, his research know about morphine and the lattissimus dorsi, a back It seems to work. Already subjects claimed, are great related drugs, which probably muscle the same size and the patch has helped save a beauty in art or nature and act on the same receptors shapB as the one that forms woman with a heart tumor stirring scenes in movies, in the brain as the endoge- the heart's main pumping and a man whose heart was plays, ballets, or books. Rated nous opioid peptides, it's chamber. A small piece can badly scarred. ventricle even lower than sex as thrill reasonable to believe that replace damaged tissue. So far the artificial producers are perfumes, opioid peptides are in part Wrap the whole "tat" on has been tested only in dogs, sports events, and (last responsible for what we a conical form and you have working reliably for up to a on the list) watching parades. subjectively call thrills," notes a biopump that can take year. It won't ever replace the The biggest thrill of all? Emory University pharmacol- over for a failing heart. A human heart completely, Musical passages, which ogy professor Stephen pacemaker keyed to the pa- Stevenson says. The heart reportedly produce thrills in Holtzman. "And it is very tient's own rhythm makes pumps five to seven liters of sure the patch or pump blood per minute, while a beats when the heart does. human-size biopump will

Making it work was not move only about two liters. easy. The heart pumps But that alone could save 70 times a minute as long as 50,000 lives per year.

you live. Other muscles "Half the people with collapse after a few minutes congestive heart failure die at that pace, as would-be within a year of diagnosis," heart builders had already according to Dr. Ray Chiu, found out, In the end Steven- who devised the pacer son tried an old idea. "Phys- Stevenson uses. "The rest

iologists found it twenty are in the emergency room

years ago but never put it to every few weeks because practical use." the surgeon their hearts are pumping only says, "Before implanting three or four liters per minute.

skeletal stimulate If give them an extra muscle : we we can

it with electrical pulses like two liters, we will be doing those of the cardiac nerve. them a great service." The muscle itself changes, —Owen Davies — —

ORGASMIC CAREER satisfaction in her life. place—while only 11 percent fires a beam of infrared light, WOMEN Avery-Clark found that, of the job and nonworking is said to have arrived on indeed, the wife's employ- women complained of this the scene. Does a woman's career ment sfalus did correlate with problem. "This should become the wither her husband's sexual- significant differences in Dual-career couples, this first-line method for treatment

ity? It was a question people sexual problems. Husbands preliminary analysis suggests, of hemorrhoids," says rectal kept asking psychologist married to women who have more fun less often. surgeon John O'Connor

Avery-Clark, worked lower, not Avery-Clark is still analyzing ot Constance so had a j George Washington Uni- she undertook the first- higher, rate of impotence than the data for other factors versity in Washington, DC, a ] ever study of the sexuality of the husbands of housewives. that may be relevant: the pioneer in use of the infrared

dual -career couples. Thirty-six percent of the husband's work status, for technique, "because it is

The results? Men married men married to housewives example, and whether the effective and inexpensive, it to career women do just had trouble getting or sus- couple has children. is done on an outpatient fine—and their wives reach taining an erection, as com- "The reaction I've gotten basis, and in comparison with orgasm easily. pared with 22 percent of so far is fascinating," Avery- other procedures the treat-

Avery-Clark analyzed the the men married to career Clark says. "People don't ment is painless." files on 218 couples (not women and 16 percent pay attention to the data on To use the device, O'Con-

necessarily typical of the of those married to job orgasms. They don't pay nor explains, its narrow, general population) who women. attention to fhe data on impo- foot-long barrel (or light

underwent therapy at the What's more, career tence. They only pay atten- guide) is gently pressed Masters and Johnson Institute women had orgasms more tion to the information on against the hemorrhoid and in St. Louis between 1979 easily than either the job inhibited sexual desire, which the trigger is squeezed, and 1985. women or the housewives. gets interpreted as, 'Career causing a quick burst of in-

She looked for differences Only 1 7 percent of the career women are less interested in tense infrared light that in the frequency of various women complained of or- sex.' "—Leah Wallach shrinks the hemorrhoid, leav-

types of sexual problems in gasmic dysfunction, com- ing a small scar in its place three different types of pared with 29 percent of the HEMORRHOID PISTOL The entire procedure occurs couples: those in which the job women and 25 percent in the doctor's office, lasts wife was not employed; of the housewives. Twenty- Hemorrhoids are one of a maximum of 15 minutes, worked at a job primarily to two percent of the career the most embarrassing of the and permits the patient bring in money; or had a women, however, complained medical afflictions that plague to return to work the same career, an evolving form of of inhibited sexual desire man, But quick relief for this day, Cost starts at $150 and

employment that she re- ihey had trouble getting painful condition, in the guise ranges up to $450 if several garded as a major source of in the mood in the first of a pistollike device that visits are needed. The new technique, known as infrared coagulation, helps patients avoid £2.000 surgery, O'Connor says,

and it does away with the discomfort of widely used rubber-band ligation constriction of the hemorrhoid

to dry it up. Already several hundred doctors in the United States are treating patients with the new device. 'Anyone familiar with rectal surgery and the other non- surgical procedures for treatment of hemorrhoids," O'Connor says, "can learn to

What passion lurks in the attache cases ot career women? A new study indicates that despite popular use it right away." belief, dual-career couples have a very good time together—provided they can get in the mood. — Eric Mishara 39 CORJTinJUURJl

ing to the environment. The paint's already being used on barges and will visit its hospitalized master. soon be applied to docks in A visit by a pel, Euhus

Perth. But how about using it says, boosts the morale of its for the Australian yacht owner-patient, possibly defending the America's Cup enhancing medical recovery. off Perth next year? No "All some patients have," good, says Rogers. Racing she says, "is their animal. Just yachts need a roughened seeing that the animal is surface like a sharkskin okay and being taken care of to produce the air bubbles has a positive effect." on which they slip through the As of this writing about ten

water at high speeds. But it pets, all of them dogs, have would be "beaut" for family successfully visited in the pet yachts, he says, and on room, according to hospital

bigger ships it will dramati- spokesperson Jan Hagen- cally increase fuel efficiency. locher. And in the future the —Anthony Liversidge hospital will entertain the WET PAINT year that a suitable, comput- possibility of visits from exotic

erized way of applying it "One humiliating thing about pets. "If we get an elephant," "of If you want to paint your was developed, mixing and science is thai it is gradually she cautions, course boat, don't bother to haul it delivering the ingredients filling our homes with we'll have a problem because out of the water and put at the right temperature. appliances smarter than the room isn't large enough. it in dry dock. An Australian Underwater paints had we are." We might have to use the inventor has come up with a been developed before, but —Anonymous back parking lot." Eric way to paint it while the hull they didn't set very hard — Mishara is still in the water. and "had to be applied in big "No atoms casually together

"People just don't believe it dollops with a furry mitt," hurled/Could ere produce "The primary obligation ot is distrust till they see it," says Bill Rogers says. The secret is in so beautiful a world." intelligence to Henderson, chairman of Un- the chemical structure of —John Dryden itself." derwater Technology, the the paint, called Hycote, —Stanislaw Lem Perth company that recently which produces a reaction HOSPITAL PETS showed off the system at thai eliminates all air and a conference in Houston. A moisture between the surface When an eighty-five -year- can of paint, a power brush, to be treated and the paint. old surgery patient was and a few sheets of metal "It's the first that is durable, recently visited in the hospital were submerged in a fish inhibits rust, and resists by her rather large Dober- tank. People tried it out and fouling," he claims. man, the old woman perked were "amazed," he says, Best of all, the resulting right up, and so did her dog. when the paint stuck firmly to coat is so hard and polished The touching reunion the metal in a hard gloss that barnacles can't pene- took place in the so-called and the unused paint stayed trate it, and even big ones pet room, an innovation in the pot all day without i can be brushed off with in hospital visitation recently dispersing. 'After six hours the palm of the hand. "A ship instituted at the Swedish- ] the water was still clean." traveling fifteen knots will American Hospital in The two-part epoxy resin clean itself," Rogers says. Rockford, Illinois. , paint was developed by I This is a leap forward in The pet room, actually a

1 a Perth chemist, Barry Rog- its own right because the converted bathroom now ers, 14'years ago to paint toxins in self-polishing paints sporting animal decorations j concrete swimming pools now used to keep hulls and a dog bowl, was opened | without having to empty ' clear are being banned at the suggestion of nurse them. But it wasn't until last 1 around the. world as threaten- Vickie Euhus, who had — — "

BLUE LOBSTERS develop a hardy, fast-growing species of the animal that For 12 years. Anthony would be of immense value D'Agoslino has pursued the to the lobster farmers of wily blue lobster—with vary- the future. If he can, it would ing degrees ot success be a tremendous shot in up and down the Atlantic the arm for the nation's infant seaboard. Finding one is a aquaculture industry. 1-in-30 million proposition, Blue lobsters may be hard which is why he relies upon to come by, but the D'Agos- the generosity of donors. tino project is now so well D'Agostino needs these known among North Atlantic mutant decopods because lobstermen that he was he runs a genetic study recently given one rare blue, called the Blue Lobster Proj- a yellow, and three reds ect at the Osburn Laborato- bagged by a pair of Nova ries of Marine Sciences at Scotia fishermen. the New York Aquarium "No. we don't pay for them," in Brooklyn. He launched the explains D'Agostino. "Most project in the early Seventies lobstermen know how impor- Less celebrated people's creases tn the nations suicide in the hope that somehow tant the research is and suicides, though, had no rate, the suicides of everyday he could introduce new what it means to them. All of such impact, says the re- people (such as distraught genes to a genetic pool of the lobsters we get [the searcher, sociologist Ira Was- Vietnam veterans whose lobsters, which generally rare colors] are of genetic serman of Eastern Michigan deaths received TV play) come in an unaesthetic shade value. . . . Selective breeding University, who has statisti- prompted even greater of mottled brown. could provide a storehouse cally analyzed how the increases. The implication of Ever since, he's sought of information about their suicides of Monroe, Prinze, this being that national media animals that come in orange, heredity, brood stocks, and and 45 others {all of which exposure of a suicide, rather red, yellow, and especially disease control." made the front page of The than Ihe victim's celebrity blue, acting on the theory that Most of D'Agostino's New York Times) affected status itself, has the most ad- by cross-breeding mutant lobsters, some 300 now, live the national suicide rate. verse impact. strains, he could eventually in an integrated hatchery "When celebrities hill them- 'The copycat behavior." at Montauk, New York. How selves," Wasserman says, Stack says, "is seen essen- blue are the scientist's ten- "the number of suicides tially among people who legged prizes? "Royal blue," during the next month in- are already suicidal. Some of he says. "True blue." creases. On the average, one them identify with celebrities, —George Nobbe hundred sixteen more peo- others with plain folks." ple than expected kill them- And, he says, most of the "Dreams are real while they selves." copycats are male. last. Can we say more of Thus, in the month following "It may be that males are life?" Prinze's death there were more impulsive than females," —Havelock Ellis 2,315 suicides nationwide he speculates, "or much 116 more than would have more lethal in their suicidal COPYCAT SUICIDES otherwise occurred. behavior."— Eric Mishara But sociologist Steven Marilyn Monroe committed Stack, of Alabama's Auburn "Nobody ever forgets where suicide on August 6, 1962; University, who has analyzed he buried the hatchet. Freddie Prinze, on January the impact of more than —Kin Hubbard 29, 1977. Their deaths and 100 suicides that were cov- fhose of other celebrities, a ered on TV network news, "The artist is a member of the researcher says, have been found that while the suicides leisured classes who cannot followed by significant na- of famous people did indeed pay for his leisure." tionwide jumps.in suicides. give rise to significant in- —Cyril Connolly caruTiruuuRji

neurological literature strengthened the hypothesis. There are numerous clinical reports of lowered Immune response in head-injured patients who have lost func- tion in the neocortex, the part of the brain responsible for complex perceptual and motor skills, thought, and imagination, Renoux brought out the sacrificial mice. Chunks of either the left or the right side of the rodents' cortices were removed. Happily for the mice, their gross behav- ior—eating, drinking, mating, and moving—was BUCKMINSTER- flakes that looked like the THE BRAIN unchanged, but the surgery FULLERENE hexagonal links of a chicken- AND IMMUNITY did affect a group of immune wire fence—appear to have cells called T cells, Buckminster Fuller was been converted to penta- Forget hypnosis, imaging, The total number of T cells always convinced that the gonal figurations, which then deep relaxation, and the in the spleen and lymph shape of his domes- joined and curled up on power ot positive thinking. nodes, where foreign matter spheres made up of linked themselves to form a beauti- Soon you may be able to get collects, diminished in the hexagons or pentagons—re- fully stable Fulleresque your mind to rev up your mice that were missing a flected a sort of universal sphere composed of 60 car- immune system the easy way. piece of their left hemisphere. formula for structural integrity bon atoms. with drugs that act directly Removal of right cortical and strength. Now a cooper- The new molecule, says on the brain. material had the opposite ative effort by British and Kroto, should have some Dr. Qerard Renouxof the effect: T ceil activity was

American chemists has pro- interesting properties. It Medical School of Tours, actually stimulated. Imuthiol duced an elegantly beautiful should conduct electricity at France, has lound that at least restored normal immunity

molecule that is shaped low temperatures and, if one major component of to the mice who had left exactly like one of Fuller's linked synthetically with fluo- the immune system is regu- brain surgery and made them famous domes, rine, could be a superlubri- lated by the brains neocor- more mellow as well. Called Buckminsterfulier- cant. Since soot particles tex and that each of the "The left cortex increases ene ("Fuller," explains Univer- appear to be shaped very brain's hemispheres plays a cellular immune response," sity of Sussex chemist Harry much like Buckminsterfuller- different, specialized role Renoux concludes. "The Kroto, "was a hero of mine"), ene, Kroto thinks that a in the process. right cortex controls what the the molecule was produced thorough understanding of Renoux stumbled on the left is doing, repressing by vaporizing solid graphite the new molecule could lead brain-immunity link while excessive or undue immune with a high-pulse laser, to a solution of the problem experimenting with imuthiol, activity." To Renoux this then cooling the vapor by of soot formation in diesel a sulfur compound that makes philosophical sense. expansion—a process engines.—Bill Lawren stimulates the Immune sys- 'The central part of the brain developed by Rick Smalley tem. The drug had a curious is the place that controls of Houston's Rice University. "Nothing in physics seems side effect. "It acts as a our knowledge of the external

When Kroto, Smalley, and as hopeful to me as the idea mood relaxant in animals world," he says. "I always their colleagues analyzed the that it is possible for a theory and humans," he explains. believed the immune system resulting fragments, they to have a degree of symmetry "The only possible explana- is also a way to know the

found that some of the flat which is hidden from us in tion was that it was working world, to discard what is flakes of carbon atoms ordinary life." through the central nervous dangerous and to keep what produced by the laser blast— - —Sfeven Weinberg system," A search through is useful."—Leah Wallach 42 OMNI . " "

FISH AND CHIPS when it's threatened by the noise of a trawler overhead. British scientists have And they've finally solved come up with a high-tech a centuries-old mystery of twist lo their national dish, fish the sea. Where does the and chips. Instead of cook- plaice, a flatfish, disappear ing their catch, they now toss to every day? it back into the ocean . . "Fishermen have always along with a microchip. believed the plaice was

It's a new way of monitoring a bottom-living fish," ex- the movements and habits plained one British govern- of cod and plaice in the fish- ment expert. "They could rich North Sea. Individual never understand why their fish are fitted with acoustic bottom trawlers came up tags, no bigger than the empty so often. eraser on a pencil, which "But thanks to the sonar transmit sonar signals to a tags, we've discovered that Burns are routinely treated with creams and ointments, but doctors tracking vessel. Powered by migrating plaice spend in Russia are using alternating currents of hot and cold air. tiny mercury cells, they fifty percent of their time half- have a range of only 400 way between the surface AIR FOR BURNS later developed an apparatus yards and a life span of less and the seabed. They hitch a in which a burn patient than a week. ride on a favorable tide, Using himself as a test could be enclosed in a pres- But they're providing then dive to the bottom case, a Soviet engineer has sure chamber white tiny information about the humble again."—John Cooke devised a way to heal severe blowers caressed his wounds cod and plaice that no one burns without the dangerous with hot and cold air cur- knew before. Scientists "The wise man looks into aid of creams or ointments, rents. Once perfected, the can establish their migratory space and does not regard instead, Grigori Antonenko of device was used successfully patterns and work out their the small as too little, nor Odessa dry- cures even the to cure a Russian worker growth rate and need for the great as too big; for he worst third -degree burns who had suffered third-de- food; researchers even knows that there is no limit to simply by applying alternating gree burns over 70 percent of discovered that the fish's dimensions." currents of hot and cold air. his body. Because the dry- heart stops beating for a while —Lao-tzu Antonenko had fallen cure is painless and greatly victim to an industrial acci- reduces the risk of infection,

dent, which teft him badly Soviet physicians are pre- burned over SO percent of dicting that in severe burn

his body. cases it may become the Because the use of creams treatment of choice. greatly increases the risk of —Bill Lawren serious infection in cases of extensive burns the "The tragic comes from the — |

warm, moist environment ! accumulation of the created by the creams is like insignificant. a living nursery for opportun- —Max Apple istic bacteria— doctors decided to leave Antonenko "Reality is often inaccurate. Vaseline-free. By chance, —Douglas Adams his bed was in the direct path of a draft from the room's "Starting at Gilgamesh and

temperature -control system. reading forward, I find no Somehow, the engineer evidence that consciousness noticed, the air current was has ever been a comfortable " Where do North Sea cod hang out when they're not being hooked making his burns feel better, experience. by fishermen? Acoustic tags are now revealing their secrets. Intrigued, Antonenko —Marilyn Robinson 43 ". . "

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SCIENCE-FICTION QUIZ or destroy the universe, as NO. 12 his whim dictated. —Ben Bova While everyone cheers for ANSWERS the hero and heroine, no rousing science-fiction tale is 'S3U3S UO!S!A3|31 OU.M complete without a villain. 70 am ujojj 'jojsbw am -g Described below are five of SSU8S SJE?M the nastiest. Can you identify .ibis 341 jo iapeA iflJBa p them and the stories in puoaiAeu which they appeared? xaiv Aq 'uopjoq i/se/j ujojj

1 For more than 50 years he 'SSS|l0i5W 9U.J 6U!|A( SB UMOUli schemed against the "Sky- 'o&jofli io 6ui|/\| J0jeduJ3 e lark," but in the end he was i|6u!S ueuoon ueu^ z on the right side. 'seijes >ue|A>ts s.miws

2. The only Star Trek villain to (,P°a..) 3 3 w -1 ! 'ausonpna Satisfied customer yelling into his Scream Muffler: The device be in both the TV series (,.9!>pei8„) ojbvm i saved a family of screamers from being evicted from their apartment. and one of the movies. 3. He ruled a great planet, "Deep within the psyche,

all scientists want SCREAM MUFFLER work. I tested the different but his schemes for conquer- most do acoustic foams available ing the universe were eventu- to believe the first page of

Although the stress- re leas- before I found one that muf- ally thwarted by an ex- Genesis." ing benefit of letting loose fles screams effectively." football player, his girlfriend, —Sir Fred Hoyle with a loud scream is widely So far, Berkowitz claims, and a clever scientist. recognized, polite society she has sold 10.000 of her in- 4. Mix the Oedipus myth with "Every man with a belly full of still frowns upon such behav- vention to customers who Sabatini's Scaramouche the classics is an enemy of ior—at least when exhibited include therapists, executive and you have a forceful villain the human race." outside of sports arenas boards of major corpora- who manages to be forgiven —Henry Miller or the therapist's office. tions, and a family of scream- at the very end.

Now, though, a new inven- ers that was afraid of being 5. He arose from the same "To be able to fill leisure tion permits the frothing thrown out of its apartment. culture as the Doctor but intelligently is the last product individual to scream at the The device costs $10, from used his training and great of civilization. top of his lungs yet escape Screamer Incorporated knowledge either to conquer —Arnold Toynbee detection by nearby people in in Watertown, Massachusetts. the office, home, train, or on "The price," Berkowitz the street. says, "is quite a bargain Scream Muffler, a grape- compared with the cost of fruit-size, silver-colored tranquilizers or alcohol." sphere, opens up to an inside — Eric Mishara of contoured acoustical foam that fits over one's "I am tired of this thing called screaming mouth. The sound- science. . . We have spent absorbing sphere is guaran- millions in that sort of thing teed to muffle even the for the last few years, and it is most rabid and piercing time it should be stopped." screams, lowering voiume to —Senator Simon the unobtrusive level of Cameron, 1901 polite conversation.

"While this is a noveity item "My friend, all theory is gray, and the concept is funny," and the golden tree of life thirty-five-year-old Diane is green. Berkowitz, Scream Muffler's —Johann Wolfgang inventor, says, "it does really von Goethe 44 OMNI The antenna searches the

heavens for alien life, thanks to a new breed of activist MISSIONARY Hsm- POWER BY RICHARD WOLKOMIR

Shining like angels, two white-suited astronauts float above the shuttle's gaping cargo bay. Tethered to the spaceship by spiderweb strands, they assemble a pyramid of glittering aluminum tubes in a slow-motion ballet, all the while gliding across the earth's titanic face. The scene unfolds on a huge video screen

in a darkened room in Cambridge. Massa- chusetts, as 17 space enthusiasts watch intently. MIT aeronautical engineer Robert Wolf, who helped design this experiment in space construction, explains what is happening on the screen. "The Btu output of that guy on the bottom corresponds > to fast jogging, according to our instru- ments," he says. 'And the output of the guy on the top is equivalent to a slow jog"

If Wolf seems oblivious to the eerie poetry of humans in space, those in the audience seem even more blase. "How heavy is the structure?" asks one intense young man with neatly brushed brown hair and a 7" yuppie designer sweater. "What's its mass asks a man with leans, a plaid lumberjack shirt, and a beard, "Does the c..

- cargo bay have his foot in a res: :-. he floating free''" These viewers, members of a prc-space PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN McCOY

S\ group called the L-5 Society, appreciate the Foundation, for example, is developing the splice took: Space, after all, is a frontier, and glowing spacemen, the blue -and -white Earth sofar-sail propulsion system. The Independ- frontiers have always galvanized our na- as seen by God. But with technical back- ent Space Research Group is building the tional will. grounds in fields from computers and astro- orbiting amateur space telescope. The It was Von Braun's rocketry genius that nautics to aircraft jet design, ihey are loo se- American Space Foundation is lobbying for opened the new wild west, located straight rious about extraterrestrial development to a manned U.S. space station. To encourage up, In the late Forties he created this coun- concentrate merely on aesthetics. female involvement in space, there's a group try's big booster rockets. During the Fifties, This meeting of the Boston chapter of the known as the Hypatia Cluster. And the Inter- serving as a tireless promoter of spaceflight, L-5 Society illustrates trends taking hold national Association of Astronomical Artists he wrote popular articles and lectured na- across the United States. Back in the flaky was formed especially for artists interested tionwide. Some scientists dismissed his no- Sergeant Pepper-days of the Seventies, of- in depicting outer space. tion of humans traveling in space as fantasy. ficers of the national L-5 Society testified be- With a collective membership of 300,000, But on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union fore Congress wearing Star Trek uniforms the groups reflect a growing public bullish- launched Sputnik I. Spurred to action, the and waving plastic ray guns. But today the ness on space development. As Alan Was- U.S. government unleashed Von Braun. On Boston group meets in MIT's Artificial Intel- ser, a board member of the L-5 Society, puts January 31, 1958, he and his group sent up ligence Laboratory, courtesy of the lab's it, "Most of us believe that our species must Explorer 1, the first U.S. space satellite. In the head, Marvin Minsky, a member of L-5's experience the habitat of space." Sixties they developed the huge Saturn board of governors. And there are nearly 50 If the pro-space groups have an ancestor, boosters, the first-stage rockets that carried pro-space organizations boasting similar re- it is the German Society for Space Travel of spacecraft heavenward for years. Boosters spectability, With an aggregate budget of the Twenties and Thirties. A magnet for Ger- in place, it was only a matter of time before $30.5 million, these groups sponsor real re- man scientists, engineers, and ordinary cit- the advent of the manned "right stuff" mis- search, including the search for extraterres- izens smitten with rockets and the notion of sions—Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo —cul- trial intelligence and the development of new flying through space, the society accom- minating when Neil Armstrong stepped onto spacecraft and orbiting colonies. And they modated the young and zealous Wernher the moon in July 1969. have significant political clout, with the abil- von Braun. Years later, after Von Braun had We had become a spacefaring species. ity to influence a congressional vote or fun- masterminded Germany's V-2 rocket pro- But for the average civilian, space was still nel large sums of money to various NASA gram, the gestapo arrested him and charged the preserve of military men, test pilots, and programs. Now, for instance, some groups him with using his military work as a front for heroes. Then, in 1974, harking back to his are spearheading a fund-raising drive to re- his real interest—space travel. own youthful romance with the German So- place the shuttle Challenger. Following the war, the U.S. government ciety for Space Travel, Von Braun founded Today, according to writer Trudy Bell, the imported Von Braun to aid the American race the National Space Institute to encourage movement's unofficial sociologist, space for space. His very presence in this country public support of the U.S. space program. enthusiasts have formed all sorts of groups acted like a "spacophile" gene spliced onto Von Braun's group was too closely tied to for all sorts of reasons, The World Space the nation's collective chromosomes, The NASA and the aerospace companies to give '

According to Maryniak, lunar materials members the sense that they themselves gineers are refining a huge, shimmery, kite- ini- might even be used to supply Earth with en- could leave for the stars anytime soon. But like structure called the solar sail. NASA ergy. SSI has determined, he says, that en- his group was a start, and before long new tiated the sail, which is pushed through the gineers convert moon dirt into virtually organizations sprang up. sofar systems by photons from the sun, like can all components of the solar-power satellite, In 1975, for instance, enthusiasts started a sailboat catching the wind. When NASA still which changes sunlight into microwaves; the the L-5 Society, named for the point where later abandoned the project, engineers microwaves can then be beamed to Earth the earth's and moon's gravities cancel, enthusiastic over Juelless solar sailing set up World Space Foundation to develop the and converted cheaply to electricity. making it ideal for a space-colony site. And the hope to Space groups today often think in such in 1976 the American Society of Aerospace new technology privately. They terms. And compared to such groups Education, later to mutate into the Aero- shuttle their prototype into orbit .for a trial grand five years ago, they have the clout to make space Education Association of America, cruise shortly. Jersey, the their dreams come true. For example, the emerged as a forum for aerospace teach- Meanwhile, in Princeton, New (SSI) is developing largest group, the 100,000-member Plane- ers. That group was followed, in 1979, by the Space Studies Institute founded by Carl Sagan and Planetary Society and the Progressive Space technologies needed to realize Gerard tary Society, Murray, recently began op- .Forum, which worked for international co- O'Neill's vision of orbiting space habitats. NASA's Bruce that large- erating the world's most powerful receiver operation in space. Write Now! was created Because it is O'Neill's argument will eco- for detecting signals from alien civilizations, in 1980 to prod citizens into writing space- scale construction in space be in it- On September 29, 1985, at Harvard Uni- advocacy letters to congressional represen- nomic only with materials found space exploiting versity's Oak Ridge Observatory in subur- tatives. And in 1984 aerospace profession- self, SSI focuses on the moon and Pilgrims Harvard, Massachusetts, movie pro- als formed the American Interstellar Society asteroids. "Don't forget, when the ban didn't bring ducer Steven Spielberg, with his infant son to encourage space entrepreneurs. came to the New World they cradled in one arm, threw the switch that One activist reaching for the stars today lumber and bricks; they just brought axes shovels," says Maryniak, SSI's turned on META: the Megachannel Extrater- is Todd Hawley. Five years ago, as an eco- and Gregg restrial Assay computer. Spielberg had do- nomics major at George Washington Uni- executive vice president, nated $100,000 to the Planetary Society versity, he picked up a copy of The High project, which uses a specially pro- Frontier, the landmark book by Princeton computer to monitor an 8.4-mil- University physicist Gerard K. O'Neill. Pub- grammed lion-channel radio receiver. (For more on the lished in the early Seventies, the book of- Stars, March 1986.) Previously, fered a heady vision of huge, self-support- project, see '•Back in the the world's most powerful SETI (Search for ing colonies floating in space, complete with Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, also farms, forests, and soft recycled rains that flaky Sergeant Pepper operated by the Planetary Society, used only fall only late in the artificial night, of the days 131,000-channel receiver. But even that Not long after Hawley learned that the a Seventies, members testified equipment could accomplish in one minute Princeton physicist said we could live in" L-5 a search that would have taken 1,000 years space, he read an article in Omni by Trudy before Congress equipment of Project Ozma the ("Space Activism," February 1981) list- using the — Bell Trek wearing their Star first SETI receiver, operated by Cornell as- ing some of the new pro-space groups tronomer Frank Drake in 1960. springing up, "I began dialing groups, joined uniforms and While its META receiver mulls the millions one, and went down to watch the shuttle waving plastic ray guns3 of radio signals raining in from the cosmos, launch," says Hawley, "Then I started my own for one that is clearly artificial, the group at George Washington University." searching Planetary Society is busily frying some po- It didn't take Hawley long to merge his own major thrust is pro- group with other student-founded space litical fish, too. "Our now moting international cooperation in inter- groups at Princeton and MIT, creating a new science," says executive director national campus organization, Students for In its Princeton workshop, SSI has a high- planetary scientist him- the Exploration and Development of Space tech peashooter; Press a switch and pellets Louis Friedman, a planetary (SEDS). "SEDS began as a protest for space shoot out of a tube, accelerate down a track, self, As an example, he cites a society- -Soviet conference on funding," Hawley now says. "We were raised then whiz toward a hanging target. A full- sponsored U.S. Mars, held last year in Aus- since birth as part of a spacefaring race, and scale version of this electromagnetic "mass manned flight to tria. The society also recently helped U.S. it's in our vested interest to see that space driver," mounted on the moon, would launch conference in the develops." SEDS films and lectures give lunar rocks and soil into space, shooting scientists attend a SETI members on campuses throughout the them into what amounts to an orbiting catch- Soviet Union. organizations are also United States and in five other countries, in- er's mitt. Crews would use the soil to con- Other pro-space cluding the People's Republic of China, a struct colonies housing as many as about dabbling in politics. "Not long ago a New Weiss, vot- sense of opportunities in space. "We talk 10,000 settlers. York City congressman, Ted was about space law as well as rocket design," Working in space with lunar soil requires ing against every NASA budget," says L-5's says Hawley. "Our members are not just en- other technologies as well. Rockwell Inter- Alan Wasser, who lives in Manhattan. "Every our gineers and techies." national, an SSI subcontractor, has already time he held a town meeting, though, SEDS has rerouted the career of Hawley developed techniques for extracting oxy- members stood up and argued that his votes of himself. Today, instead of being an econo- gen from lunar soil. Moon dirt is about 40 against U.S. exploration and development nation's hu- mist, he is director of special projects for the percent oxygen, a key component of rocket space were counter to the and Young Astronaut Council, a new organiza- fuel, says Maryniak. 'And oxygen is the gas- manity's best interests." his tion that teaches elementary-school chil- oline of space." Astonished, Weiss began to explain dren about off-Earth voyaging. Already, says' SSI is also trying to transform the moon's vote: He had thought nobody in his district Hawley, their roster is 250,000 strong.- rock and dirt into construction materials. cared about space, but he knew there was But educational organizations are just the Working under NASA contracts, corpora- decided opposition to a supersonic trans- tip of the space-activist iceberg. Other tions like Grumman have already produced .port (SST) project. And, although the SST groups, comprising mostly professional en- "beam builders" that turn spools of alumi- project had been scrapped years ago, the gineers and- scientists, are developing new num ribbon into construction beams. Since NASA budget still retained a pittance of SST technologies for the human future in space. aluminum's thermal properties are not really funding. Weiss said he had voted against At the Pasadena headquarters of the ideal for space, SSI has begun modifying NASA to cut out that remnant SST funding. World Space Foundation, for instance, en- beam builders to process lunar soii instead. Finally, he began to vote yes for NASA. "That 50 OMNI the Stop Star Wars ists explain, is asingle urge: moving human- was our finest hour," says space weaponry, others— ity into space. Even High Frontier, with its Nationally, L-5's finest political hour came Initiative, for instance—oppose it. in mind for space led the For most space activists, though, the is- military roots, has more in 1979-1981 , when the organization lightning thunder. That than a zero-g arsenal. "We'll be pushing for opposition to a UN. treaty on space devel- sue has lost its and because most citizens debate SDI a Free World Space Academy," says Dan opment. "It had one phrase, the common may be the for nu- Graham, where students can earn degrees heritage of mankind, which sounded won- in terms of its effect on chances workability. But in such subjects as space engineering, derful but would have put severe limits on clear war, its price tag, its law. from a perspective all space mathematics", and space The the use of space resources, particularly by activists regard SDI the develop- academy would be for the entire free world, private businesses," says Eiisa Sisti Wynn, their own: Will it slow or speed he adds. "It would tap all the great enthusi- founder of L-5's Buffalo, New York, chapter. ment of space? perfectly willing to share the void asm for space I've found among young peo- In effect, the innocuous-sounding language Most are ple in America, Europe, and Japan." would have socialized outer space, setting with a floating arsenal, if only they can get soon. "It's chang- Indeed, it's that unbridled enthusiasm, up an international bureaucracy and making up there themselves, and to program, in some ways for the paired with an almost mystical yearning joint, intergovernmental undertakings by all ing the space necessarily for or leave the earth, that seems to be the key the treaty's signatories virtually the only way better, and we're not SSI's Maryniak. "We're in fa- "Nobody joins without having a personal vi- to exploit extraterrestrial resources. In ac- against it," says not militarily sion of what he'd like to see happen in cordance with L-5's objections, the U.S. vor of any space R&D, but we're Wilson, executive di- space," says Gary Oleson of L-5. "Now, by voted against the treaty. oriented," says Glen P Institute in NASAs time schedule, I'll be eighty by the The single space organization that has rector of the National Space time they set up their first moon base; that thus far wielded heavyweight political clout Washington, DC. factionalism is waning in the pro- doesn't please me." is High Frontier, founded by U.S. Army Lieu- Today at large. In the works right Jim Bowery, a San Diego specialist in tenant General Daniel Graham. It was Gra- space movement computer-based communications and an ham, former director of the Defense Intelli- now, for instance, is a merger between the pro-space organizations, gence Agency and a former adviser to National Space Institute (NSI), the move- activist in several the L-5 Society, once believes the space groups express a pent- Ronald Reagan, who first interested the ment's graybeard, and Yippies. "Our in- up urge. "I think humanity is in its late ado- President in the orbiting antimissile system. the pro-space movement's Wilson. lescence, exploiting our home's resources in Partly as a result of High Frontier's continual terests have converged," says than colo- preparation to going out to earn our own lobbying, the country is now committed to "There's lots more to do in space come to way," he says. "Earth created humans to ex- spending billions on the Strategic Defense nies and settlements, and they've station is the next logical tend life off the earth." Initiative (SDI), nicknamed star wars. see that. A space the rocket wagons they started out it The desire to hitch up Over the last few years, disputes over SDI step, for instance. When now!' They cer- and begin the trek to a new frontier seems gave the pro-space movement its own inter- was, 'Build a colony right to infecting the general public as well. . be necine star wars. While space groups like tainly have matured." activ- When the shuttle Chaiienger exploded in High Frontier are passionate advocates of Cutting across the categories, the CONTINUED ON PAGE 100

^^J (r% O O

" to it. "Once, just once, I would like to see you make a decision and stick THE BOOK OF

grandeur it had once laid claim to, it wSmWhi **H

ken places ol the world, through cracks depravity. Their freight, the wandering the upper story the din of that traffic dead, can be glimpsed when the heart is close to bursting and sights that should Wmmmmmm rattled the windows. II rattled the mind, Sixty-five, Tollinqton Place,

;t for long without insanity set-

one knew when or what. But even to

atmosohere of the house.

strongest stomach. ""• building and its

PAINTING BY ETIENNE SANDOR . —

hard work: looking forward to get- a knife slits a fish's belly: and through that "Please," she murmured, distracted by He was ting out of the room, sluicing himself down, cut that wound in the world, the dead peered expectation. in awhile. go- out and had their say. "Wonder what we'll get today?" and basking admiration The "We'll leave fen minutes." between put his hand down his briefs and . . him That was the rumor anyway. . "Sure." played with himself idly. Upstairs, in the corner Somewhere in the room a fly, or flies It was the third week of the investigation McNeal slumped It was late in the sea- at Sixty-five,. Tollington Place. Three weeks of the room and watched the October sun maybe, were trapped. for flies, he could hear them some- of unprecedented success in the realm of through the tiny window. He felt a little shut son but and fretted the paranormal. in, all alone in that damn place, but he still where close." They buzzed or around the light bulb. Using a newcomer to the business, a smiled to himself, that wan, beatific smile that against the window twenty-year-old called Simon McNeal, as a melted even the most academic heart. Es- He heard their tiny fly voices, but he didn't engrossed in his medium, the Essex University Parapsychol- pecially Doctor Florescu's: Oh yes, the question them. He was too smile, his of the game and in the simple de- ogy Unit had recorded all but incontroverti- woman was infatuated with his thoughts

her, . . light of stroking himself ble evidence of life after death. eyes, the lost look he put on for

It fine game. How they buzzed, these harmless insect • In the top room of the house, a claustro- was a voices, sang and complained, phobic corridor of a room, the McNeal boy Indeed, at first that was all it had been buzzed and had apparently summoned the dead, and at a game. Now Simon knew they were playing How they complained. Florescu Ihe table with her his request they had left copious evidence for bigger stakes; what had begun as a sort Mary drummed fingers. ring was loose today; of their visits, writing in a hundred different of lie-detection lest had turned into a very Her wedding of her hands on the pale ocher walls. They wrote, serious contest: McNeal versus the Truih. The she felt it moving with the rhythm tap- cheat. He penned ping. Sometimes il was tight and sometimes it seemed, whatever came into their heads. truth was simple: He was a small mysteries that she'd Their names, of course, and their birth and all his "ghostwritings" on the wall with liny loose: one of those simply ac- death dates. Fragments of memories and shards of lead he secreted under his tongue: never analyzed properly but well-wishes to their living descendants, He banged and thrashed and shouted with- cepted. In fact today it was very loose: al- strange elliptical phrases that hinted at their most ready to fall off. Alan's dear present torments and mourned their lost joys. She thought of Alan's face.

Ihought of it through a hole made Some of the hands were square and ugly, face. She some delicate and feminine. There were ob- of her wedding ring, as if down a tunnel. Was scene drawings and half-finished jokes that what his death had been like: being car- bThe sky farther tun- alongside lines of romantic poetry. A badly ried away and yet away down a thrust the ring deeper drawn rose. A game of noughts and crosses. was Prussian blue, the highway nel to the dark? She onto her hand. Through the tips of her index A shopping list. wide and windy, come to this wailing finger and thumb she could almosi taste the The famous had . every side. metal as she touched it. It was a curi- wall—Mussolini was there, Lennon and Janis the dead pressed on sour illusion of some kind. Joplin—and nobodies, forgotten people who She fought through ous sensation, an had signed their names beside the greats. To wash the bitterness away she thought them, while their gauping, idiot of the boy. His face came easily, so very eas- It was a roll call of the dead, and it was grow- with his ing day by day, as though word of mouth faces looked ily, splashing into her consciousness physique, still was spreading amongst the lost tribes and smile and his unremarkable at her and hated her invasion?1 seducing them out of silence to sign this unmanly. He was like a girl really— the barren room with their sacred presence, roundness of him, the sweet clarity of his.skin, the innocence. the After a lifetime's work in the field of psychic Her fingers were still on the ring, and research, Doctor Florescu was well accus- sourness she had tasted grew. She looked Fuller organizing the equipment. tomed to the hard facts of failure. It had been out any provocation other than the sheer up. was balding head a nimbus of pale almost comfortable, settling back into a cer- mischief of it. And the unknown names he Around his light tainty that the evidence would never mani- wrote— ha, he laughed to think of it—the green shimmered and wove— fest itself. Now she was faced with a sud- names he found in telephone directories. She suddenly felt giddy. nothing. His den, speciacular success, and she felt both Yes, it was indeed a fine game. Fuller saw nothing and heard elated and confused. She promised him so much, she tempted head was bowed to his business, en- She sat, as she had sat for three incredi- him wifh fame, encouraging every lie that he grossed. Mary stared at him still, seeing the ble weeks, in the main room on the middle invented. Promises of wealth, of applauded halo on him, feeling new sensations waking floor, one flight of stairs down from the writ- appearances on the television, of an adula- in her. coursing through her. ing room, and listened to the clamor of noises tion he'd never known before. As long as he The air seemed suddenly alive: The very from upstairs with a sort of awe, scarcely produced the ghosts. molecules of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen daring to believe that she was allowed to be He smiled the smile again. She called him jostled against her in an intimate embrace. present at this miracle. her go-between: an innocent carrier of mes- The nimbus around Fuller's head was There had been nibbles before, tantaliz- sages. She'd be up the stairs soon— her eyes spreading, finding fellow radiance in every ing hints of voices from another world, but on his body, his voice close to tears with her object in the room. The unnatural sense in this was the first time that province had in- pathetic excitement at another series of her fingertips was spreading too. She could sisted on being heard. scrawled names and nonsense. see the color of her breath as she exhaled

Upstairs the noises stopped. He liked it when she looked at his naked- it: a pinky orange glamour in the bubbling

Mary looked at her watch: It was exactly ness, or all but nakedness. All his sessions air. She could hear, quite clearly, the voice six-seventeen rm. were carried out with him dressed only in a of the desk she sat at: the low whine of its For some 'reason best known to the" visi- pair of briefs, to preclude any hidden aids. solid presence. tors, the contact never lasted much after six.. A ridiculous precaution. All he needed were The world was opening up: throwing her

She would wait till half-past and then go up. the leads under his tongue and enough en- senses into an ecstasy, coaxing them into a 7 What would it have been today Who would ergy to fling himself around for half an hour, wild contusion of functions. She was capa- have cometo that sordid little room and Jeff bellowing his head off. ble, suddenly, of knowing the world as a sys- their mark? He was sweating, The groove of his tem, not of politics or religions but as a sys-

slick it, his hair tem of senses, a system ihat spread out from "Shall I set up the cameras?" Reg Fuller, breaslbone was with plas- her assistant, asked. tered to his pale forehead. Today had been the living flesh to the inert wood of her desk, 56 OMNI — " —

plainly that the highways that to the siale gold of her wedding ring. ing it by slow degrees. Her desire forthe boy She saw Tollington Place were not And further. Beyond wood, beyond gold. had done that: Her endless thoughts of him. crossed ai com- staring at The crack that led to the highway opened, her frustration, her heat, and her disgust at mon thoroughfares. She was not idling traffic of the ordinary dead. in her head she heard voices that came from her heat had pulled the crack wider. Of all the happy, route walked no living mouth. the powers that made the system manifest, No, that house opened onto a perpetrators She looked up, or rather some force thrust love, and its companion, passion, and their only by the victims and the of the the children her head back violently, and she found her- companion, loss, were the most potent. Here violence. The men, women, all Loving died enduring all the pains nerves self staring up at the ceiling. It was covered she was, an embodiment of three. who had acutely the impos- had wit to muster, with their minds branded with worms. No, that was absurd I It seemed and wanting and sensing the of their deaths. Elo- to be alive, though, maggoty with life—puls- sibility of the former two. Wrapped up in an by circumstances words, their spoke their ing, dancing. agony of feeling (hat she had denied herself, quent beyond eyes bodies still bearing the She could see the boy through the ceiling. believing she loved the boy simply as her agonies, their ghost She could also He was sitting on the floor, with his jutting go-between. wounds that had killed them. mingling freely with the innocents, their member in his hand. His head was thrown It wasn't true! It wasn't true! She wanted see, slaughterers tormentors. These mon- back, like hers. He was as lost in his ecstasy him, wanted him now, deep inside her. Ex- and sters, frenzied, mush-minded bioodletters, as she was. Her new sight saw the throbbing cept that now it was too late. The traffic could

it through into the world: nonesuch light in and around his body— traced the be denied no longer: It demanded, yes, peeked forbidden miracles of passion that was seated in his gut and his demanded access to the little trickster. creatures, unspoken, chattering and howling their head molten with pleasure. She was helpless to prevent it. All she our species, utter tiny of horror as Jabberwocky. It saw another sight, the lie in him, the ab- could do was a gasp them. She sence oi power where she'd thought there she saw the highway open out before her Now the boy above her sensed had been something wonderful. He had no and understood that this was no common saw him turn a little in the silent room, know- voices heard no fly talent to commune with ghosts nor had ever intersection they stood at. ing that the he were were not insect com- had; she saw this plainly He was a little liar, Fuller heard the sound. voices, the complaints from his tinker- plaints. He was aware, suddenly, that he had a boy liar, a sweet, white boy liar without the "Doctor?" He looked up that compassion or the wisdom to understand ing, and his face—washed with a blue light lived in a tiny corner of the world, and Fifth what he had dared !o do. she could see Irom the corner of her eye the rest of it, the Third, Fourth, and of inquiry. worlds, were pressing at his lying back, hun- Now it was done. The lies were told, the bore an expression tricks played, and the people on the high- "Did you say something?" he asked. gry and irrevocable. panic was also a smell way were sick beyond death of being mis- She thought, with a fillip of her stomach, The sight of his represented and mocked. And now they of how this was bound to end. and a taste to her. Yes, she tasted him as

it not a were buzzing at the crack in the wall, de- The ether faces of the dead were quite she had always longed to, but was manding satisfaction. clear in front of her. She could see the pro- kiss lhat married their senses— it was his That crack she had opened: she had un- fundity of their suffering, and she could sym- growing panic. It filled her up: Her empathy knowingly fingered and fumbled at, unlock- pathize with their ache to be heard. was total, The fearful glance was hers as much as his—their dry throats rasped the same small—word: "Please That the child learns. "Please—" That wins—care and gifts. "Please That even the dead, surely, even the dead must know and obey. "Please—" Today there would be no such mercy given, she knew for certain. These ghosts had despaired on the highway a grieving age, bearing the wounds they had died with and the insanities they had slaughtered with. They had endured his levity and insolence, his idiocies, the fabrications that had made a game of their ordeals. They wanted lo speak the truth. Fuller was peering at her more closely, his face now swimming in a sea of pulsing, or- ange light. She felt his hands on her skin. They tasted of vinegar. 'Are you all right, Doctor Florescu?" he said, his breath like iron. She shookher head.

No, she was not all right, nothing was right The crack was gaping wider every sec-

ond: Through it she could see another sky, =t><^M^-AT^' the slate heavens that loured over the high-

way. And it overwhelmed the mere reality of the house. "Please," she said, her eyes rolling up to She fading substance of the ceiling. '"Frankly, I'm led up with brilliant, independent thinkers. Wider. Wider I'm looking for a good, old-fashioned yes-man." The brittle world she inhabited was stretched to breaking poinl. so OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 1 34 "They're back' POLTERGEIST E

OPENS NATIONWIDE MAY 23rd Coming soon: a small space-relay device that may

someday save your life

BY GERARD K. O'NEILL

iff the coast of Maine waves lash the deck of a racing sailboat. The skipper strains to see through wind-driven spray. A bell sounds: he glances down at a water- proof display and reads: "Submerged rocks 200 yards ahead. Safe pas- sage 20 degrees starboard or 30 de- grees to port." He glances at the mainsail. Ihen spins the wheel to the right. A half-minute later he spots tell- tale waves breaking, indicating the rocks that he has now safely passed. A iractor Irailer rolls along a main highway. A tone sounds, and the driver looks at a terminal above his dash-

. board. It says, "Please key F if running

a lull load. N if not." He keys N, and seconds later another message ap- pears: "Load available 20 miles ahead, 10 miles north of interstate. Please key OK for pickup directions."

PHOTOGRAPH BY PETE TURNER These messages, one warning a sailor of dollars. The transceiver user never has to officers en route the description and ti- hidden danger, the other alerting a trucker switch radio-frequency channels —all trans- cense-plate number of the stolen vehicle, as to a commercial opportunity, are actually ceivers 'listen lo broadcast signals from the well as its owner's name. alike in several ways. The messages com- Geostar satellites on the same channel, Just Although the Geostar system uses only bine the services of precise positioning, di- one return channel is used for the transmis- two channels, one for incoming messages rectional guidance, and communications. sions from the transceivers to the satellites. and the other for outgoing ones, neither Within two years such messages may be (We plan to launch the satellites through channel is a party line. The reason is that commonplace, relayed Ihrough devices Arianespace, a privately owned company.) each transceiver, and ihe equipment at barely larger than a pocket calculator. They The Geostar satellites, 22,000 miles above Geostar Central, can select specific mes- will be generated by a newly emerging tech- the earth, are no more than relays, routing sages to or from that transceiver. Every nology, the Geostar Satellite System, which Geostar Central's outbound signals to the transceiver has its own unique digital code, "fingerprint" I patented in 1982. transceivers. The reply signals, inbound, are a as individual as a phone num- Geostar transfers data between portable, sent on to the central station. Computers, ber, Every message sent or received in-

"go anywhere" terminals. It is not intended programs, and databases— all the "smarts" cludes that fingerprint, and only the trans- lo compete with conventional voice or data of the system—are at Geostar Central, where ceiver addressed by the code will display systems, which transmit information contin- they can be maintained and updated easily. the signal. For situations in which false alarms

uously. Instead it concentrates on what it The system can perform seven distinct must be eliminated — reports of crimes or does best: sending short bursts of informa- functions. It can relay information on the other emergencies— the system is pro- tion, with accurate positioning and data- user's location, to an accuracy of one to grammed to demand a backup: Geostar base services added by computers at seven meters, and provide directional guid- Central interrogates the user for a personal

Geostar Central, in Princeton, New Jersey. ance for aircraft, boais, and cars. It can warn code number, like the number required to The combination of two-way communication sailors and pilots of collision hazards and draw money from a bank's automated teller. and precise positioning makes Geostar par- can report positions of police cars, taxis, Most people are startled to hear that a ticularly useful to the transportation industry ambulances, and other vehicles to their dis- hand-held device powered by penlight cells and to emergency services, like police and patch headquarters. Geostar also sends and can send messages c-rccily to a satellite fire departmenls, ambulances, and tow-truck stores messages, including calls for help, more than 20,000 miles high. The trick lies operations. It can guide cars and trucks to with the exact location of the emergency in a combination of short-burst, high-power a street address, instructing them to "turn calculated automatically. Finally, it can ac- digital signals from the transceivers and a right 1.4 miles ahead at Washington Sfreet cess other database services. technique called "spread spectrum," devel- traffic light, " for example. The system will also help to solve crimes, oped originally tor military communications. Inexpensive lightweight radios, called including car theft. When a Geostar- With "spread spectrum" a message can be

"transceivers," send and receive digital equipped car is broken into, the central sent, received, and decoded with high fi- messages through special satellites to computer will locate the nearest police car, delity, even though the message signal is far Geostar Central. Once in mass production, guide the police to the scene of the theft, weaker than electrical static or any jamming transceivers will cost only a tew hundred and call upon its data bank to display tor the signals that may be broadcast lo block it.

Geostar Cental i nds the position of each transceiver by measuring the times required lor signal transmission, adding information from its computer memory, and carrying out a computation. The process begins with a timing marker signal that's sent out many times per second. Relayed through a satel-

lite, the signal reaches Ihe user transceivers. Then a transceiver replies with a message or a request for positioning. Geostar's posi- tioning capability depends on two satellites in orbit at different locations, each of which

is equipped to receive the transceiver sig- nals and pass them on to Geostar Central. At the ground station, the computer re- ceives two identical reply sgnals relayed through the two different satellites. The com- puter then has two arrival times and the time the original marker signal was transmitted. Using those three pieces of information, and referring to a stored digital map of terrain heights, the computer calculates the posi- tion of the transceiver. For aircraft Geostar receives an altimeter reading with each re- sponse, in place of a terrain height. The computer stores any message sent, then transmits a brie" acknowledgment coded with the transceiver's "fingerprint." The process takes about six tenths of a second. Once the message is safely stored, Geostar

Central transmits it to the addressee. There are, of course, potential Geostar customers whose locations would be previ- ously recorded. To satisfy insurance rules, banks and jewelry stores, tor example, must all get opinion. I that are mortal." "By means a second But assure you you use burglar-alarm systems that respond to interrogations every 90 seconds, Geostar "

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The letters H Geostar has many applications to avia- achieves its accuracy by comparing the re- member the individual codes. home tion; the system originally was designed to sponse limes of each transceiver with those and O are enough to direct a message friends ad- improve the safety of flying. Its invention fol- of transceivers in known locations. Using or to the office, and can be in 1978 in the skies over those reference "benchmarks," the Geostar dressed by theirfirst names or a single lefter. lowed a tragedy when an airliner overtook and computer can give accurate positions for High on a mountain a young hiker eases San Diego, a small aircraft. Both plunged transceivers without knowing the exact lo- her pack down. She glances at a small de- collided with to the ground, and more than 150 people cation of the satellites or the changing de- vice clipped to her pack, touches a key, and were killed. The midair collision occurred in lays of radio signals through the ionosphere. the message, "You OK?—Home" appears on control" airspace, under the direct Eventually there may be millions of trans- the display, along with the time when the "positive in, "Fine. supervision of the federal air traffic control ceivers. They can all share the same radio message was sent She keys " planes had complete instru- channel because after responding to inter- Weather great. Staying extra day. Less than system. Both a equipment, and pilots in both had rogation each transceiver will turn its trans- a second later her message appears on ment

logged thousands of flight hours. I was ap- mitter off. For an aircraft finding its way to a home computer. palled by the circumstances of the accident safe landing in fog, the time lapse between To prevent criminals or a company's com- locate responses may be less than a second. For petitors from learning anything useful by and resolved to find a better way to warn them of a long-haul truck on the highway, the normal picking up the Geostar signals, privacy is aircraft, predict Iheir paths, and probable collisions. result was Geosiar. interval can be several hours, though the essential, and the Geostar Corporation plans The solve, simply trucking company's dispatch office can re- to guard its customers' privacy. No one will Geostar was designed to and prob- quest an unscheduled update at any time. have his position reported to another with- economically, what I saw as a national solution carried with it a curious An efficient use of time, coupled with the out his making the request by a combination lem. But the system could pay for itself without system's ability to send a message in a frac- of keystrokes. And messages will be extra: The in transmissions requiring federal support. Because every tion of a second, will make it possible'to "scrambled" the outbound its and every transmit a large number of messages or po- so that only the transceiver addressed will transceiver had own code, that sitionings every hour. As a result, the charges receive an intelligible signal. transaction required passing code

central computer, it would be for each individual message can be quite A single-engine plane with a family aboard through the solid cloud at night, possible to associate each message with a low: It will be possible to send a message cruises above a deck specific to bill customers anywhere in the country for about 25 cents, heading home. The engine misses a beat, user and therefore

This it prac- the cost of a local telephone call. picks up, then misses again. The pilot and generate revenues. made commercial For the user Geostar acts like a private presses two red keys on the instrument tical to develop Geostar as a possibly many line to the addressee. Because. Geostar panel. Within seconds a display spells out: venture, without waiting— adopt it Central's memory stores digital codes of the "Unlighted grem airstrip. 2.000 feet long, in years—for a federal agency to addressees who are called frequently (the glide range for next 4 minutes. Nearest The Geostar Corporation was formed early learned way modern telephones store frequently weather 500 foot, overcast. Press emer- in 1983. As it grew potential users manufacturers of called numbers), the sender need not re- gency keys lor approach guidance." of it: trucking companies, 66 OMNI cars, boats, and security alarm systems, aviation assoaalions. rai lr oad companies. We made contact with government agen- cies and found that they, too, needed these services. As the design became simpler, the investment required for Geostar dropped, easing the challenge of financing. Even so, challenges remained. One of the greatest hurdles was that of federal regula- tions. The frequencies needed were in a re- gion that had been in heavy use for many years. A whole new service, the "radio de- termination satellite service," had to win ac- ceptance and be approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) before Geostar could begin operating. Fortunately, the support for the Geostar concept was so strong from the aviation community, poten- tial commercial users, and agencies of the government that the commission acted rel- atively quickly. The FCC has allotted the necessary frequencies and has granted ex- perimental licenses to allow early testing. No matter how many technical reviews confirm that Geostar will work, seeing is be- lieving. By September of 1983, a test system was working in the south Lake Tahoe region. During the tests electronic radio relays on mountain peaks carried out the functions of

the Geostar satellites. At Geostar Central all the calculations were done by a desktop computer. And the system worked. Pedes- trians were guided to within a single step of hidden markers in a field. Cars were di-

rected to exact street addresses. In the most demanding exercise of all, an airplane was

guided to a precis:on landing . In every case- the transceiver was the same. Only the pro- grams at Geostar Central were different.

Progress has been rapid. The first satellite relay, designed to receive signals from mo- An Outpouring bile terminals and send them to Geostar Central, has been built, and a backup is Of Excellence. being constructed. Either one will enable limited services to begin over the continen- Join the world's finest rum tal United States in 1986. Services will in- in the quest to regain clude relaying messages and approximate positions from mobile terminals through the America's Cup. Geostar's satellites to the central ground Send your tax-deductible donation station and from there to transportation to the U.S. Yacht Racing Union, P.O. Box companies' dispatch headquarters, A third 803921, Houston, Texas 77280-3821. Geostar relay, with two-way capability, will For take about 24 months to build. That relay, major credit card donations, call

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> 1

AGAINST BABYLON c nichael flew in (ram New Mexico thai morning, and the first thing they told him when he put his little plane down at Burbank was that tires were burning out of control all-around the Los Angeles basin. He was needed bad, Ihey tf //fe were /i/ce f/?e movies, these told him. II was late October, the height of the brushfire season characters, and everything giant aliens would be film in Southern California, and a hot, hard, dry wind was blowing out of would be okay by the final reel the desert, and the last lime it had rained was the fifth of April. PAINTING BY MAX ERNST BY ROBERT SILVERBERG the trashi- at Van Nuys he fell the blast of sudden heat. He phoned the district supervisor right away, movie sets. He sometimes felt that than the out-and- The temperature had been in the mid- and the district supervisor told him, "Gel your ness bothered him more values eighties at Burbank, damned well hot enough ass out here on the line double fast, Mike." out evit. If you kept sight of your own it was over "Where do you want me?" you could do battle with evil, but trashiness for nine in the morning, but here hundred. He heard the distant roar of "The worst one's just above Chatsworth. slipped up around you and infiltrated your a flames, the popping and crackling of burn- We've got planes loaded and ready to go soul without your even knowing it. He hoped ing underbrush, the peculiar whistling sound out of Van Nuys Airport." that his sojourn in Los Angeles was not doing that to him. He came from the Valley, and of dry grass catching fire. "I need time to pee and to phone my wife. what he meant by the Valley was the great The airport looked like a combat center. I'll be in Van Nuys in fifteen, okay?" behind Bakersfield, and not Planes were coming and going with lunatic He was so tired that -he could feel it in his San Joaquin, out lunatic planes, too, an- the little, cluttered San Fernando Valley they frenzy, and they were teeth. It was nine in the morning, and he'd L.A. Cindy's city, and tiques of every sort, forty and fifty years old been flying since half past four, and it had had here. But was L.A. he loved Cindy, and and even older, converted B-17 Flying For- been rough all the way, getting pushed Cindy loved and tresses and DC-3's and a Douglas Invader around by that same fierce wind out of the for Cindy's sake he had lived here seven the lush, and, to Carmichael's astonishment, a Ford heart of the continent that was now threat- years, up in Laurel Canyon amidst Trimotor from the 1930's that had been ening to fan the flames in L.A. At this mo- green shrubbery, and for seven Octobers in out to dump chemical hauled, maybe, out of some movie studio's ment all he wanted was home and shower a row he had gone were equipped with tanks and Cindy and bed. But Carmichael didn't retardants on the annual brushfires, to save collection. Some that held fire-retardant chemicals, some were regard fire-fighting work as optional. This the Angelenos from their own idiotic care- water pumpers, some were mappers with time of year, the whole crazy city could go lessness. You had to accept your responsi- Carmichael believed. infrared and electronic scanning eguipment in one big fire storm. There were times he bilities, phone rang seven times at the home glistening on their snouls. Harried- looking almost wished that it would. He hated this The tried men and women ran back and forth, shout- smoggy, tawdry Babylon of a city, its end- number before he hung up. Then he ing into handsets, supervising the load- less tangle of freeways, the strange-looking the little studio where Cindy made her jew- CB there either, and ing process; Carmichael found his way to houses, the filthy air, the thick, choking, elry, but she didn't answer gallery. That Operations HQ, which was full of haggard glossy foliage everywhere, the drugs, the it was too early to call her at the staring into computer screens. He booze, the divorces, the laziness, the slea- bothered him, not being able to say hello to people most of them from other years. ziness, the porno shops and the naked en- her right away after his three-day absence knew of the dispatchers said, "We've got a counter parlors and the massage joints, the and no likely chance for it now for another One waiting for you. You'll dump retardants weird people wearing their weird clothes and eight or ten hours. But there was nothing he DC-3 along this arc, from Ybarra Canyon east- driving their weird cars and cutting their hair could do about that. aloft ward to Horse Flats. The fire's in the Santa in weird ways. There was a cheapness, a As soon as he was again he could far the wind's from trashiness, about everything here, he see the fire not far to the northwest, a greasy Susana foothills, and so the east, but if it shifts to northerly it's going thought. Even the mansions and the lancy black column against Ihe pale sky. And when take out everything from Chatsworth to restaurants were that way: hollow, like slick he stepped from his plane a few minutes later to Granada Hills and right on down to Ventura Boulevard. And that's only this fire." "How many are there?" The dispatcher tapped his keyboard. The map of the San Fernando Valley that had been showing disappeared and was re- placed by one of the entire Los Angeles basin. Carmichael stared. Three great scar-

let streaks indicated fire zones: this one along the Santa Susanas. another nearly as big way off to the east in the grasslands north of the 210 Freeway around Glendora or San Di- mas, and a third down in eastern Orange County, back of Anaheim Hills. "Ours is the big one so tar," the dispatcher said, "But these other iwo are only about forty miles

apart, and if they should join up somehow—" "Yeah," Carmichael said. A single wall of

fire running along the whole eastern rim of the basin, maybe—with Santa Ana winds blowing, carrying sparks westward across Pasadena, across downtown L.A., across Hollywood, Beverly Hills, all the way to the coast, to Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu. He shivered. Laurel Canyon would go. Every- thing would go. Worse than Sodom and Go- morrah, worse than the fall of Nineveh. Noth- ing but ashes for hundreds of miles. "Everybody scared silly of Russian nukes, and a carload of dumb kids tossing ciga- rettes can do the job just as easily," he said. "But this wasn't cigarettes, Mike," the dis- patcher said. "No? What then, arson?" "You haven't heard."

Copyright © 7986 by Agherg, LirJ. walking around on the felt r in =ind man- Invaders from space "I've been in New Mexico for the last three He the pk-me i freeways even. Jesus. Jesus. Carmichael days." aged a grin. DC-3's were tough old birds. hardly knew how to begin thinking about that. "You're the only one in the world who hasn't He loved Hying them,, though the youngest before wondered where Cindy was, what she heard, then." of them had been manufactured he He " thinking about it. Most likely she found "For Christ's sake, heard what 9 was born. He loved flying anything. Flying was ability it very funny. Cindy had a wonderful "About the E.T.'s," said the dispatcher wasn't what Carmichael did for a living — he to by things. There was a line of wearily. "Th'ey started the fires. Three didn't actually do anything for a living, not be amused poetry she liked to quote, from that Roman, spaceships landing at six this morning in anymore— but flying was what he did. There in the Virgil: A storm is rising, the ship has sprung ihree different corners of the LA. basin. The were months when he spent more time it seemed to a leak, there's a whirlpool to one side and heat of Iheir engines ignited the dry grass." air than on the ground, or so monsters on the other, and the captain Carmichael did not smile. "You've got one him, because the hours he spent on the sea while time in turns to his men and says, "One day per- weird sense of humor, man." ground often slid by unnoticed, haps we'll look back and laugh even at all The dispatcher said, "I'm not joking." the air was intensified, magnified. Cindy's way, Carmichael /Spaceships? From another world?" He swung south over Encino and Tarzana this." That was Park and thought. The Santa Anas are blowing and '"With critters fifteen feet high onboard," before heading up across Canoga haze of three big brushtires are burning and invad- the dispatcher at the next computer said. Chatsworth into the fire zone. A fine down, he could ers from space have arrived at the same time, ."They're walking around on the freeways right ash masked the sun. Looking houses, sw : mming pools, and one day perhaps we'll look back and this minute. Fifteen feet high, Mike." see the tiny he try laugh even at all this. His heart overflowed "Men from Mars?" the liny people scurrying about, desperately before the with love for her, and longing. He had never "Nobody knows where the hell they came trying to hose down their roofs known anything about poetry before he had from." flames arrived. So many houses, so many between met her. He closed his eyes a moment and 'Jesus Christ, God." Carmichael said. people, filling every inch of space brought her onto the screen of his mind, Thick Wild updrafts from the blaze buffeted the the sea and the desert, and now it was all in jeopardy. The southbound lanes of Topanga cascades of jet-black hair; quick, dazzling plane as he took it aloft and gave him a few slender, tanned body all aglitter bad moments. But he moved easily and au- Canyon Boulevard were as jammed with smile; long, Hollywood with those amazing rings and necklaces and tomatically to gain control, pulling the moves cars, here in midmorning, as the they all pendants she designed and fashioned. And out of the underground territories of his ner- Freeway at rush hour. Where were had eyes like going? Away from the fire, yes. Toward the her eyes. No one else he knew vous system. It was essential, he believed, some television hers, bright with strange mischief, with that to have the moves in your fingers, your coast, it seemed. Maybe altogether original way of seeing that was shoulders, your thighs, rather than in the preacher had told them there was an ark sit- carry the thing he most loved about her. Damn this conscious realms of your brain. Conscious- ting out there in the Pacific, waiting to fire, when he'd been away three days! ness could gef you a long way, but ultimately them to safety while God rained brimstone just Angeles. there really Damn the stupid men from Mars! you had to work out of the underground ter- "down on Los Maybe was possible. Where the neat rows and circles of sub- ritories or you were dead. was. -In Los Angeles anything

The Promise. Renault Alliance's European technology will give you superior room, riding comfort and driving ease. urban streets ended there was a great open it, running like a bloody gash Irom west to the bastards needed to pick the height of stretch of grassy land, parched by the long east, wider al its western end. Just east of the fire season to put their ships down here? summer to the color of a lion's hide, and be- the fire's far tip -fie saw a circular zone of He thought of Cindy again, how fasci- thai yond were the mountains, and between grassland perhaps a hundred acres in di- nated she was by all this UFO and E,T. stuff, the grassland and the mountains lay the lire, ameter that had already burned out, and those books she read, the ideas she had, an enormous, lateral red crest topped by a precisely at the center of that zone stood the way she had looked toward the stars one plume of foul, black smoke. II seemed to al- something that looked like an aluminum silo, night when they were camping in Kings ready cover hundreds of acres, maybe the size of a ten-story building, surrounded Canyon and talked of the beings that must thousands. A hundred acres of burning at a considerable distance by. a cordon of live up there. "I'd love to see them," she said. brush, Carmicfiael had heard once, creates military vehicles. He felt a wave of dizziness "I'd love to get to know them and find out as much heat energy as the atomic bomb rock through his mind. That thing, he real- what their heads are like." Los Angeles was they dropped on Hiroshima. ized, had to be the E.T. spaceship. full of nut cases who wanted to ride in flying

Through the crackle of radio static It came had come out of the west in the night, saucers, or claimed they already had, but it the voice of the line boss, directing opera- Carmichael thought, floating like a tremen- didnt sound nutty to Carmichael when Cindy tions from a helicopter hovering at about four dous meteor over Oxnard and Camarillo, talked that way. She had the Angeleno love o'clock. "DC-3, who are you?" sliding toward the western end of the San of the exotic and the bizarre, yes, but he knew "Carmichael." Fernando Valley, kissing the grass with its lhat her soul had never been touched by the "We're trying to contain it on three sides, exhaust, and leaving a trail of flame behind crazy corruption here, that she was un- Carmichael. You work on the east, Limekiln it. And then it had gently se! ise.'f down over tainted by Ihe p'eva Inc craving for the weird Canyon, down the flank of Porter Ranch Park. there and extinguished its own brushfire in and irrational that made him loathe the place it?" Got a neat little circle about itself, not caring al so much. If she turned her imagination to- "Got it," Carmichael said. all about the blaze it had kindled farther ward the stars, it was out of wonder, not out He flew low, less than feet. a thousand That back, and God knows what kind of crea- ol madness: It was simply part of her nature, gave him of action: a good view the sawyers tures had come forth from it to inspect Los that curiosity, that hunger for what lay out- in hard hats and orange shirts chopping Angeles. It figured that when the UFO's fi- side her experience, to embrace the un- burning trees to make them fall toward the nally did make a landing out in the open, it knowable. He had had no more belief in fire, bulldozer crews clearing brush ahead would be in L.A. Probably they had chosen E.T. Is than he did in the tooth fairy, but for her

of the blaze, shovelers carving firebreaks, it because they had seen it so often on tele- sake he had told her that he hoped she'd get helicopters pumping water into isolated vision — didn't all the stories say that UFO her wish. And now the UFO people were tongues of flame: He climbed five hundred people always monitored our TV transmis- really here. He could imagine her, eyes shin- feet to avoid a single-engine observer plane, sions? So they saw L.A. on every other show, ing, standing at Ihe edge of that cordon star- then to five went up hundred more to avoid and they probably figured it was the capital ing at the spaceship. Pity he couldn't be wilh the smoke and air turbulence of the fire itself of the world, the perfect place for the first her now, feeling all that excitement surging From that altitude he had a clear picture ol landing. But why, Carmichael, wondered, had through her, the joy, ihe wonder, the magic. H COVTiVJEDON PAGE 116 The Proof. Mm% 100 new car shoppers' compared Renault Alliance to Toyota Corolla, 76 chose Renault superior overall.

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This year Uranus, the veiled blue- green gianl of the solar system,

welcomed ils first visitor from Earth.

the Voyager II spacecraft. Beam- ing its pictures over 2 billion miles of space, the robot explorer showed us a portrait of a baffling planet, one completely covered with an ocean 5,000 miles deep, shrouded in a smoglike atmos- phere, and tilted so far on its axis

that it almost appears to be whirl-

ing on its side. But the biggest surprise of all of- OPENING PAGES: fered up by the ringed planet was THE RINGS OF THE GIANT its five moons: Oberon, Titania PLANET URANUS (named after the fairy king and (LARGE PHOTO) AND THE queen in A Midsummer Night's HEAVILY SCARRED Dream), Umbriel. Ariel, and Mi- TITANIA (SMALL PHOTO). randa, While from a distance these THESE PAGESt TWO satellites appear to be drab, VIEWS OF URANUS (ABOVE icy AND TOP); ARIEL uninteresting objects, up close they (ABOVE CENTER); AND turned out to have dramatically MIRANDA WITH ITS distinctive geoJogical characters. STRANGE RECTANGULAR The surface of Titania, the larg- PATCH (AT RIGHT). est and outermost moon, is pitted URANUS (THE TWO PHOTOS BELOW) AND ITS rrvE LARGEST MOONS. NEAR LEFT (LEFT TO RIGHT); MIRANDA, ARIEL, UMBRIEL, TITANIA, AND OBERON. CLOSE-UPS OF MIRANDA (FAR LEFT, LOWER LEFT).

with craters and etched with long fault valleys. These surface scars sparkle with an unknown sub- stance, most likely frost from ma- terial that leaked out of its interior. Oberon is pocked with large im- pact craters similar to those seen on Jupiter's moon Callisto And some of its craters appear to be filled with darker material that has been the source of much specu- lation. Did the remnants of a dust ring settle there, or is it some icy, carbon -rich material that erupted onto the crater floor? No one is sure. Umbriel, the darkest and oldest of the Uranian moons — named after the "dusky, melancholy sprite" in Alexander Pope's The Rape o! the Lock— is a mostly bland, gray hufk. But its polar region has a dis- tinctive doughnut-shaped crater at least 90 miles across. It catches the sun's rays and. like a beacon, re- fleets, back 30 percent more light THE TORMENTED than [he rest of the moon's surface. OEOSCAPE OF ARIEL By contrast there is Ariel, named (OPPOSITE) IS for the fairy prankster in The Tem- NOT NEARLY AS BIZARRE AS. pest. Its fractured topography and MIRANDA'S jumbled crust (BELOW AND are evidence of a BELOW MIDDLE) huge fault system. BUT IS MORE SCARRED But most enigmatic of all is Mi- BY FAULTS THAN randa, the innermost of the Uran- UMBRIEL (AT BOTTOM ian moons. It is a microcosm of the LEFT) AND OBERON

solar system's geology. It has the (AT BOTTOM RIGHT). gargantuan valleys of Mars, the grooved terrain of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and faults like those seen on Mercury.

"It's all the strange places rolled into one," marvels Larry Soder- blom, deputy imaging team leader at NASAs Jet Propulsion Labora- tory. "If you took all the bizarre geo- logical features and put them on one object, you'd get Miranda."

As Voyager II moved on toward

Neptune, it left behind a mass of data that will take years to digest. As a result of its visit, our vision of the solar system's third-largest planet has been changed forever.

These views of Uranus and its sat- ellites will leave planetologists, as

one expert put it, "happily bewil- dered" for some time to come.DQ

***" **** |,< s w* --4te-a*« a 1 ,,#>* —

Develop- want a space colony. And then a colony Students for the Exploration and around another sun." ment of Space (SEDS). 800 Twenty-first Washington, DC 20052 (202-676- POWER This generation, says Pournelle, has a Street NW, CONTINUED FROM P^ chance to become the first true spacefarers. 7102) Fifteenth Street With colonies in space, he points out, even National Space Club. 655 January, some thought it meant the end of would not end human NW, Washington. DC 20005 (202-639-4210) public support for space development. But the end of the world in Aerospace. 6212B Old Keene Mill life. most important," he says, "is that Women telephones in the space group headquar- "What's 22152 (703-866-0020) ahead of it a one-hundred- Court, Springfield, VA ters began to ring immediately with an influx humankind has Aeronautics Astro- billion-year futu re. That future is in space." American Institute of and of new members and volunteers offering their nautics. 1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 services, says L-5's Gary Oleson. DIRECTORY OMNi'S PRO-SPACE (212-581-4300) "The tragedy burned out a lot of apathy," note; 105-page report called "Up- International Association of Astronomical says Oleson. "Somewhere in the last twenty Editors' A Report Directory of the Artists. 209 West Yale Loop, Irvine, CA 92714 years, the shuttle became a symbol of our ward: Status and Space Interest Movement, 1984- (714-551-6815) move into space, but nobody seems to have American Aerospace Pilots. 980 85," is available tor $20 from science writer American Society of realised it until now." 24, Pass, editor Trudy E. Bell, 11 Riverside Drive, SW Sixth Street, Suite Grants OR In fact, immediately after the Challenger and 97526 (503-476-8210) disaster, an ABC/Washington Post poll 15GW, New York, NY 10023. Society. North Catalina Hypatia Cluster. 164 Dolores Street, San showed that 79 percent of the public said The Planetary 65 Pasadena, 91106 (818-793-5100) Francisco, CA 94103 (415-552-0141) the United States should continue its shuttle Avenue, CA Tucson, Congressional Space Caucus. 1518 Long- program, and 72 percent believed NASA L-5 Society. 1060 East Elm Street, worth HOB, U.S. House of Representatives. should continue including civilians. After the AZ 85719 (602-622-6351) Wing Suite Washington, DC 20515 (202-225-4261) explosion, support for making the space National Space Institute. West Washing- United States Space Foundation. 1525 Va- program a federal spending priority actually 203, 600 Maryland Avenue SW, (202-484-1111) por Trail, Colorado Springs, CO 80916 (303- went up. ton, DC 20024 High Frontier. 1010 Vermont Avenue NW, 550-1000) "I grew up in Tennessee, hooking mules Washington, 20005 (202-737- Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. Box 27, to wagons to haul cotton to the old cotton Suite 1000, DC Washington, DC 20044 (301-589-6062) gin, and we were progressive because we 4979) Rosedale Road, Independent Space Research Group. Box had pneumatic tires on our wagon." says Space Studies Institute. 285 (609-921-0377) 23083, Rochester, NY 14692 best-selling science-fiction author Jerry Box 82, Princeton, NJ 08540 Fifteenth American Space Foundation, Suite 200, 111 Pournelle, a longtime pro-space organiza- Young Astronaut Council. 1015 Suite 905, Washington, DC 20005 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC tion leader and activist. "Now I'm seriously Street NW, 20001 (202-289-2293) talking about holding our last L-5 meeting in (202-682-1984) Bainbridge, Box Y, South Pas- Campaign for Space. Box 1526, a colony on the moon, but that's not good World Space Foundation. (818-799-5135) GA 31717 (912-246-6765)OQ enough anyone can develop the moon. I adena, CA 91030 Despite unpredictable risks and unimaginable consequences, manned space exploration will continue, says the

author of The Discoverers, because it is the irresistible fate of adventuring humanity IRJTERV/IEUU

J .

of a shocked never define. To fail to do all we can do is to fail to be human." | | hen Challenger exploded in the face f* should know, for he has spent a large chunk of his life II world, the tragedy destroyed more than seven pre- Boorstin thinking about humanity's ceaseless quest for new worlds to con- U U cious lives and $2.5 billion worth of high technology. Congress' is the historian and author The catastrophe also shattered the illusion that space travel had quer. The eminent Librarian of the popular "history of man's search to know become routine—that space was now hospitable to the mothers of The Discoverers, himself." The book embodies Boorstin's belief that of small children and not the most hostile and alien environment the world and played a decisive role in shaping human humans have ever explored. As NASAs image cracked and fell the exploring spirit has and energetically celebrates "the courage, the rashness, apart, people pondered the hubris that brought down the ven- affairs the heroic and imaginative thrusfs of the. great discoverers" geance of the gods and even wondered if our hopes of voyaging the to the distant stars might not be jusf dreams, throughout ages. Its pages are crowded with the colorful true tales of the discov- Daniel J. Boorstin, for one, dismisses such doubts. In his view that erers and inventors, the countless Columbuses who have ven- there is a streak in human nature that cannot be denied, one incognita to the unknown known. forever urges us to explore to the limit and beyond." "We should tured into terra make A sturdy, sanguine sixty-nine, Boorstin himself is an avid ex- and will try to go as far as we can," he .says, "People's humanity outer plorer of life, with an insatiable appetite for traveling the lies in discovering the boundlessness of our powers, which we can PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKE MITCHELL hearings complicated by concern that he the new sea and we must sail upon it," as reaches of knowledge. He is, says friend and President Kennedy said? Ronald Reagan biographer Edmund Morris, might spend government time writing his since taking office he has kepi Boorstin: We are not free not io. As the old "an information machine, obsessively hun- books, and free to typewriter in his study at home. Talmudic saying has it, we're not gry for facts of any kind. He mines every his Boorstin clearly enjoys being leader of the complete the task or to desist from it. That's vein of knowledge he comes across, mixing 20-million-volume institution, probably the the human imperative, the Promethean im- them into strange new alloys of always-sur- (the exact size of perative, if you like. If the fire is there, we prising conclusions." Jim Lehrer, of Channel biggest library in the world it, well, Lenin Library in Moscow is must capture it. If we get burned by 13's nightly newscast The MacNeil/Lehrer the comparable which subscribes to that is our misfortune and opportunity. NewsHour, says Boorstin is "as interested in unknown). The library,

it way, but I has its mailbags stuffed Sounds rather corny to put that new ideas as any man half his age. That's 117,000 periodicals, of 7,000 books. The cul- really think so. We are not free to desist from how he stays young. He cares about things with a daily average Boorstin an in- genetic research, space exploration, or ar- he doesn't know about. His educational tural post has helped make Washington so- chaeological research —which could have process goes on and on." sider par excellence on the Typically, was seated close to been possible, if we had accepted [seven- Whether his enthusiasm is cause or ef- cial scene. he Irish prelate] Archbishop at the White House dinner for Prince teenth-century fect, Boorstin has excelled at every stage Reagan and Lady Diana His sociability ex- James Ussher's biblical chronology of the throughout his life. His only retreat, by his Charles both- beyond serving the library's interests, creation of Earth, we wouldn't have own account, is that he had to give up when tends dating. Boorstin loves to catalyze other minds in- ered with archaeology or carbon he tried to write a novel; and, his principal for "He's really the Omni: But juxtaposing the unprecedented editor and wife, Ruth, adds, he can't dance. terested in books and ideas. with Chal- minister of culture," says a writer Voyager pictures of Uranus the A short, pipe-chomping man, Boorstin was unofficial multimillion-dollar contract to lenger catastrophe, some feel there may be born of immigrant Russian Jewish stock in who owes a introductions. Good friends in- a limit to the distance people should travel Atlanta, As a young attorney, his father Sam- Boorstin's Boothe Luce, New York Times physically from Earth. uel helped defend Leo Frank, the factory su- clude Clare believe there is. That's what columnist William Boorstin; I don't perintendent wrongly convicted of the mur- publisher John Oakes, people told Columbus! They said you could der of a young girl and then lynched. Daniel fruit- prove by all existing maps it would be a grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the fam- less expedition. The experts were more right ily fled to avoid the wave of anti-Semitism than Columbus about the extent of Earth, as that followed the notorious case. From this it turned out. But you have to see. The Chal- relatively modest launch site, the Boorstin ^The triumphs lenger's critics put it in the negative: Should career took off on the same trajectory as an we risk loss of life in space exploration? I'd Apollo moon shot, At Harvard by age fifteen, of American civilization affirmative and say that human- Crimson and won put it in the he was an editor of the have all been ity's greatest need is the need for the un- the Bowdoin prize for an essay on Gibbons's triumphs of community as necessary. Civilization's progress is the mul- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, still tiplication of items, opportunities, and the book he values most. He studied bio- well as of technologies that are unnecessary. Who can chemistry for a while, graduating summa individuals. Columbus could tell what their consequences might be? cum laude in English history and literature. Omni: Isn't there a mythology of space like A prized double first (two first-class de- not have gotten the mythology of the West in the eighteen grees) in law at Oxford, where he went as a without his crew.? anywhere hundreds, which was promoted by the ads Rhodes scholar, was followed by qualifying of land speculators that painted it as a Gar- as a barrister at law in the English courts. den of Eden? Coming home to get his doctorate in juris- Boorstin: Actually, at that time maps placed prudence at Yale, he briefly taught at Har- the Great American Desert in what is now vard and became a government lawyer in the most fertile part of the country, I don't Washington. But he found that he didn't like Satire, and Supreme Court Justice Byron reads the see any reason to treat space as unique. It's practicing law and boldly switched to his- White, who, in an annual ritual, di- of Independence after lunch an opportunity for exploration in another tory. He spent the next 25 years as a distin- Declaration country mension, that's all, and it is not the kind of guished professor of history at the Univer- every Fourth of July at the Boorstins' of the Potomac, across thing we are free to desist from. An unfree sity of Chicago, with trips abroad to teach at retreat on the banks society curtails people's freedom to be fully the Sorbonne and in Kyoto, Cambridge, and from Mount Vernon. called on human, whether in speech, writing, painting, Rome. At Chicago, where he joined James Interviewer Anthony Liversidge Washington, or space exploration. Those extravagances, Watson (of DNA fame) bird-watching, he built him at 8:30 in the morning in perhaps especially exploration, are the sign up an enviable record as a historian by writ- DC. Snow was falling, and it was not a day bounding out of bed. of our humanity and its fulfillment. ing many books, ending with a three-volume when most people were door sport Omni: What was the immediate effect of the social history of America, The Americans. But Boorstin, who answered his in tie, had begun work shuttle explosion? The third volume won a Pulitzer prize in 1973. coat and red bow his study Boorstin: The shuttle disaster catapulted Another Boorstin classic is The Image: A hours before^. He'd crept down to with pipe, an people from anonymity to celebrity over- Guide to Pseudo Events in America. The at five o'clock and, equipped night. In my book The image I defined ce- book showed how the media created a new old black Olympia, and a wall of reference of the lebrity as a person who is known for his "well- kind of unreality and created celebrities, works, was exploring the mysteries his current knownness." Now heroism is something else. whom Boorstin wittily defined as "people who pyramids and Stonehenge for The Challenger explosion also had the inci- are well-known for their well-knownness." book in progress, The Creators. Only a fort- tragedy, with the dental effect of creating a sense of heroism In 1969 he left Chicago for Washington to night after the Challenger still only slightly about these people's efforts. With so many become director of the Smithsonian's Na- pain still felt and NASA then him delays and the twenty-four times the shuttle tional Museum of History and Technology. tarnished, it seemed appropriate to ask disastrous setback had gone up. public sensitivity was dulled. Fond of technology, he reveled in the plows, . first to put the seemingly People were no longer fascinated by it, The sewing machines, and other artifacts dis- in broader perspective. disaster dramatized the risk and the cost in played there. In 1975 Boorstin, who calls the human life. That may have helped to make invention of trie book "the greatest techno- Omni: The Challenger tragedy gave pause explo- the space program a heroic effort, not just a logical advance man has ever made," was to many who advocated that human technological feat with dozens of people sit- tapped by President Ford for the post of Li- ration of space should proceed at full throt- ting at the controls. brarian of Congress. He was confirmed after tle. But you believe, don't you, that "space is

104 OMNI territories paradoxically, in the process of accomplish- Omni: Because they rely more on the deci- discovery, exploration adds new that is is first more im- ing them. That's quite unlike a society sions of others, are the astronauts less he- of ignorance. But man he's newly discovered based on dogma or apriorism. roic than the great figures of the past? pressed with what new view of the planet as individ- than with the new areas of ignorance. That Omni: Won't the Boorstin: ! bridle at this emphasis on of America. seen from space inspire social harmony and ualism that has dominated American his- certainly was true in the case because it looks so vulnerable first efforts were to make all the newly world peace tory; it is simplistic. The great triumphs of The in the universe? things' fit with the previous pat- and beautiful alone American civilization have all been triumphs encountered the nineteenth- Boorstin: It's not at all clear that knowing more I said before, even of community as well as individuals. Colum- terns. As words Great about each other makes people love each bus couldn't have got anywhere without his century maps still had the an- written across the body of other more. I haven't got any simple crew. The pioneers generally moved west in American Desert putting the I don't like this way of Now, it took quite some time swers. pretty well-organized groups, each with its North America. I inaccuracy of that question because I believe in openness. own constitution. The space program is a for people to discover the greatest significance of the believe the one certainty in history is the un- communal effort. Yet without the insistence description. The of inability to of for Western civilization expected. To be reminded our of leaders, who dare to pursue the unknown discovery America is itself a wholesome influence. We realization that if there could be more predict I the and to take risks, it would be impossible. was instruments continents than been imagined or found risk imprisoning ourselves in the am just beginning to learn about this inter- had maps, there might of our prophecy. Our tendency to apply the action between the community and the cre- on any of the respectable prediction, of of anything and everything techniques of mathematical ator. Would Gauguin have painted as he did also be more theological a extrapolation in science, to mankind's ex- without the conventions ot his time to rebel elsel But humility is a little too perience is dangerous. Science insists on against? The community provides a resist- word to speak of, word hubris in mind after the importance of quantitative techniques. ant medium that gives the creator some- Omni: One had the shuttle disaster. Most historians of science define science's thing to rebel against. The community is part the application of In his autobiography Benjamin progress as the increasing of the resource and the opportunity. Boorstin: quantitative end, listed twelve virtues, each one of quantitative methods to a Omni: What will be the historical impact of Franklin data from going to perfect in himself for and the deriving of quantitative the space adventure on society? which he was bor- The thirteenth virtue was going experience. That view has also been Boorstin: We will discover great oceans of one month. would imitate Jesus and rowed by social scientists. But mine is that ignorance. We know much less than we think to be humility; he with if he human experience is incommensurable we know about the solar system and the uni- Socrates. But his afterthought was that categories. it proud of his quantitative verse beyond. did accomplish he'd then be "self- Omni: Doesn't the space adventure enlarge humility, so it was self-defeating. Such Omni: So it will encourage humility? character- horizons and encourage creativity? I believe, Boorstin: Paradoxically, every discovery of liquidating" ideals are, Our coun- Boorstin: The creative consequences of the a new dark continent increases human ar- istic of the American experience. opportunities in space enterprise, just like the conse- rogance and man's belief in his own powers try seeks its objectives and are unima- experience and thereby dissolves its ideals, quences of Columbus's voyage, to know. Yet, as it provides new territories of CONTINUED ON PAGE 1Z9 ^Living on the road, he began to hunt for rockets and saucers built by those plying salvation from the sfare.9

In Ihe fall of 1977 pho- seemed to strain tographer Douglas against its meial py- Curran bought sec- a lons, a toiem attempt- ondhand yellow Re- ing to leap away from nault. He christened il the gravity i Giselle, pulled out the Curran was so rear seat, and fitted a awestruck by the ap- small desk in the parition thai space behind the ally tell oil I driver's seat. Then he This peel' set out from British sculpture - Columbia, following embodied U - secondary highways nal murmur through the towns and dream. Built by two lo- cities of Canada and cal carpe' the United Slates. His side a general store, goal: to document the it was Ihe roar of twentieth-century fas- the collective uncon- cination with flying scious, "l saw saucers and godlike symbol o' li aliens from space. dence." C. This mythical quest, says, "an - Curran now says, Image o( qi emerged from his This discovery re- Ideas about photog- directed C raphy Itself. "The more tistic ambitions. Liv-

I thought about it," he ing out of Giselle, he explains, "the more I realized that photography was anach- began to hunt for rockets and saucers built by those plying ronistic, that Ihe very act of photographing something thrust salvation from the stars These alien altars, it lurned out, it into the past. The popular poin! of view is that artists are were everywhere. In Port Costa, California, he found an 'Alien of ahead their time. But I began to realize that artists are Rocket" (page 113, tett) built by inventor Clayton Bailey, who actually behind the times. are They the garbagemen of so- also maintains a fleet of 1947 and 1948 Studebaker "rocket ciety, cultural Luddites hoarding " the past while Ihe rest of cars Behind thegrounds of Governor Stats Colle- 1- humanity moves forward in subtle, but powerful, ways." Forest. Illinois, he discovered a concrete flying saucer Hoping to render images of man's latest yearnings and (above) created by the New York sculptor Jene Highsteln. fears, Curran began to seeka symbol for the new age. Then And he photographed another concrete saucer (page 112, one night, if in his as answer to prayers, he was jolted out of left) in the San Bernardino hills a dream. The dream itself to fade in seemed a mist. But, he Continuing on his trip, Curran also found an America dot- says, the words In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts ted with flying-saucer homes The house shown on the bot- of Outer Space remained, tom of page 110, for Instance is located in Pensacola, Flor- "I didn't pay much attention at the time," Curran now says ida But according to Curran, a whole series of identical of the phrase that would become the title of his first book homes were manufactured and shipped throughout Can- (Abbeville. 1986). "But about two years later I was rounding ada and the United States. "In almost every instance these the curve of a highway in Quebec when I saw my first folk houses are raised above the ground and can be reached rocket, Thrust out over the trees, held In simulated flight, it only by long ascending roadways or ramps." Curran says. " " —

1954, saucers underscored in started in December sixteen, he yellow marker." when at the age of Toroni, Curran learned, says he received his first was an unemployed bulldozer "very distinct telepathic operator who traveled up message tram the space , people " A few years later he the slopes of nearby Red ! Mountain to commune with and brother Rex hitchhiked the alien gods And in December to California to meet most 1977" he took Curran along famous ot all UFO contact-

Adamski . They First, Curran relates, Toroni ees—George strapped an aircraft traffic became disciples, and to light to his car battery Then perhaps in response he scanned the sky with Adamski's scientific claims, binoculars When he spotted Ray grew interested in an a satellite—the shield, he instrumented approach claimed, for hiding UFOs to UFOs. As early as 1964, in he signaled upward with fact. PSI members ring of lights the light, using Morse code. constructed a In 19BG Curran found Toroni again, this time living Eureka, California, with "You approach the house in explains, "I started talking to in newspa- a group of born-again Chris- supplication, as you would people One man a Hans. What about UFOs? approach the altar of a god." pei editor in northern Califor- "They are part of Satan's work, Passing through the rural nia, told me, There's no building part of his deceptions." community of St. Paul, one around here Toroni now said. "They are Alberta, Curran even found a Hying saucers, but there's this not of Christ" UFO landing pad. buiii in guy down in Oriand who tor Maybe Though Toroni has 1967 to commemorate the goes looking them disavowed UFOs, he was the Canadian centennial In fact, you should talk to him,' the what Curran did. "I one to tell Curran about in 1982. the International That's Toroni mercurial Ray Stanford and Year of the Child, St. Paul used found Orlando [page Oriand, Califor- his Project Starlight Interna- the pad to welcome Mother 111, right] in billed as the I tional (PSI), Teresa (page 111, bottom). nia," he says, "and when the only full-time group for "hard- 'The tin/ nun," Curran dropped by ne pulled out with references data" monitoring of UFOs. recalls, "was driven down family Bible, referred to Hying Stanford's career in ufology Main Street in a cavalcade ot he believed |eeps A high-school band to signal UFOs. (A modern played as two sergeants version of the ring, formed at arms in white plumed hats around PSI headquarters in greeted her on top of the Austin, Texas, is shown on pad. When Mother Teresa page 112, bottom right.) spoke, she said simply, By 1975 serious money for 'II there is sickness in space,

' PSI began to flow. And we would go there too according to Stanford, one of But as Curran continued the most Important results his journey, he realized that was a new device dubbed the saucers and landing pads UFO/VECTOR. Part were ]ust the beginning. telescope, part video camera, White some people used UFO and pari ruby laser, the imagery to symbolize the machine supposedly sent future, others were convinced pulsed messages to UFOs. the aliens were real. The operator, who used a "On the road," Curran 110 OMNI the UFO thing aslcan."

If Stanford's effort has stopped, though, Curran has found another project going full-speed ahead. The master of ceremonies: young lohn Shepherd (page 110, ip), who has turned his 'andparents' Bellaire. Michi- m, house, into the most He UFO-detecting Station in town Shepherd's interest tn UFOs took hold at the age of thirteen He was fixing a radio when he glanced up to see unexplained lights overhead- Not long al family spill up. and he came

joystick to the aim VECTOR to live with his grandparents at starships, was provided in Bellaire. Dissalisfied with high school, he dropped out aliens responded with to soup up sound equipment dangerous blast of for local bands. And it didn't Despite the wonders of the take him long to point his UFO/VECTOR, Curran says. equipment toward the stars. Stanford never published Today, each morning af his work, never publicly ten. Shepherd begins by demonstrated his technology, broadcasting music and and never documented [he radio signals from a 20-foot existence of a UFO. Today, transmitter. He also uses wifh his staff and funding instruments called gravime- gone and his projects in ruin. ters to monitor any violent Stanford says he's "going changes in the earth's to become an artist magnetic field. "The assump- —

tlon," Curran explains, "is lhal Ihoee changes have been caused by UFOs" Radio gear wired lo the gravimeters ihen pinpoints Ihe distur- bance, sending oft a message of peace. Shepherd, who finances his project by selling slock futures, views his life as portentous from the lime he saw a UFO While fixing a radio to Curran s arrival at his door. "There's definitely a purpose, a plan of some kind," Shepherd says. "People prepared," Indeed. Curran found that preparing for the alien

landing has become a favorite temple in anticipation of pastime for saucer buffs extraterrestrial gods And worldwide. Each year, for Nodrpg (page 111. top). Earth instance, members of the New contact for the Outer Dimen- Age Foundation meet at Mt. sional Forces (ODF) In Rainier, Washington, where Weslaoo, Texas, is preparing they join hands to create for the arrival of sfarships. a "cosmic brain battery" These will set off a sort of (page 113, bottom right) The Armageddon, he contends energy, they say, will and only those trained by summon the UFOs. Constant ODF will survive. Bilodeau (page 113, top), The most spirited group of for head of the Center of Cosmic saucer buffs preparing Consciousness in St Jovite, the aliens, though, could be Quebec, has converted a the Unarius Foundation, wood-frame church to a located in El Cajon. California,

112 OMNI "The Unanus Foundation," "One of the things people Curran explains, "presents ask me," Curran responds, "is with members a complete ana how do I listen to this stuff ordered cosmography and not die laughing. But in Earth, they believe, is 'the fact, the people in this garbage dump of the movement are so sincere, so

universe, ' the place where committed to their ideas, unfulfilled souls end up until that receiving information from

they achieve enough of a them is exciting. When you Karmic bank balance to bail talk to them, you can't help themselves out. The Unarluns being Impressed by their contend that Earth operates skills. Most people would at a low level of conscious- consider Ruth Norman, for

ness, and raising that instance, beyond the pale in consciousness is the terms of flakiness. Bui she's goal. Such a move, they a wonderful psychologist. She believe, would sent: .- has an awesome ability to 'yes' to the Intergalactic command people and influ- Confederation, Thirty-two ence their behavior. John Shepherd and Orlando Toronl visited Earth many times wore in previous lives on a had to master striking techni- Uriel has distant planet,) supposedly cal skills. I was so busy lived as Confucius, Socrates. Have groups like Unarius listening so immersed, that VIII, Henry and even Benja- convinced Curran that extra- I had no time to laugh or Franklin. is terrestrials min She also are on fhe way? even to pass judgment. It was said to have lived '"ibu among can't do this work without as if I were an empty vessel higher-consciousness coming face to face with getting filled." peoples on the planets Vidis, that question," he says, "which —PAMELA WEINTRAUB

Janus, and Vulna. is not to say that I came Photographs The first time Curran met face to face with extraterres- trom In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts of Norman, he awaited her. with trials. I'm open to the possi- Outer Space, by Douglas Unarius members lining the bility, but I'm not encouraged Curran, published in 1985 by street. Suddenly an electric- by the likelihood," Abbeville Press Reprinted with blue Cadillac with a glowing How has Curran managed permission ol the publisher. its roof saucer on wheeled fo maintain both skepticism All photographs ® Douglas into view. "Out stepped and respect for his subjects? Curran 1985. Uriel," Curran says, "with spaceships—one Ironi each rhinestone flecks'on her planet of the Intergalactic eyelids, hair the color of Confederation—would then orange sherbert, and a " 'land on Planet Earlh [the flowing purple chiffon gown Unarius landing site, near Norman's hold Over her

Jamul, California, is shewn on flock, Curran adds, is page 112, lop] to teach man- complete. "After one meeting, kind a higher way of life I watched strong men break "The power for such an Into fears as fhey realized ambitious endeavor, " Curran what they had done to Uriel adds, "comes from an In past lives and how kind eighty- four- year- old widow she was to let them appear in named Ruth Norman, known -her presence now." to Unanuns as Archangel (Unariurts Brian and Mike Uriel. The incarnation of Warfield, page 110, right, a supreme being who has dress in the costumes they bwer or Disneyland. An eartt

would prefer the city life ALIEN LANDING

graphic center of the conti- nent, or Devil's Tower. Wyo- ming, for a close encounter if the indisputable kind.

; of them) _nd read the entries. Our judges have rendered their r, Hanford, Washir a ton; and Three Mile Island.

It is the home of the

i Language Research Center, where scientists are

Control, where

either study o^

Hampshire, where Betty and Barney Hill claimed to h • mm mam they would follow it home to """"" ar home of the Nobel sperm

d backed it with the tow, Arizona. W. BBiBl best reasoning. DC, i m**>**• More than 4.000 readers SeveralTjiw'ffirawii otner answers swers won applause, if not accepted this challenge— appeared repeatedly. Many the contest, one of the largest responses thouaht that hostile— or hist .inhn ^nr..™ nf Car, midland Pedro. California, suggested outnumbered women by at the North American Air thataliens willmaketheir about five to one (yet two of Defense Command, near pearance in New O our three prizewinners are Leadville. Colorado, to neu- hear more of the I Eighteen teachers fralize any possible threat to jazz now arriving by radio m bf;i;- ~; v.ar and hioh them. Others chose Rugby, their home planet. He ce ikota, the geo- this the Big Band theory. • Stanlon Friedman has world meet the outcasts of Nuclear physicist Lake, California, outcasts of one Nicholas Faust of June that even ardent UFO skeptics time." credentials visit Oshkosh, Wis- American holds that ihe aliens will respect: degrees from the University of • Drake, dean of the natural-science can ~ - Frank. - or early August, entering «« - - consin, in late July ™ Q w s of workon nu clear-power theircraftin.heannualExpenmentalA.roraft ^^^^S^Icti, plants for both ground and space applica- Association fly-in. tions; jobs with TRW, Aerojet General, and ^p^arrhfnr Fxtraterrestrialr Intelliqence In skepticism of Missounans h Searc ifc The proverbial 2J™^7S NaStS other igh-tech firms; and memberships in vote; if they can be made won their state a Ihe American Physical Society, American world ^^SS^^^^SiRadio Jronomy urge^a^ rest of the to believe in aliens, the A Socj ^ Bnfeh [n)erp|anetary Extraterrestrials would land should be easy. ^V^ Society. Yet he believes so strongly in UFOs Jeti and^nd IpSonbps.lon tnaaEndani in hopes y of St. Johns- ^auCe t p in Lamar, Elizabeth, Bibbrowka ^ aboutthem. added, because of their ad- e ville, New York, Today he divides his time between ufology heard Fifteen^nSatefheyearsMate neiuturnedieu uvihe« giantyi Harry Truman. « , miration for hometown hero ^ __^ __,._ qp Q f Anci lltjnn ofwBiRiRtphysicist. ^ consulting Puerto Rico to and his practice as a Ranch, north radio telescope at Arecibo, Georqe Lucas's Skywalker in New Mexico, the same result. He cites coordinates J-.10, land- '—the same»ta,ktask buthut achieved of San Francisco, would be a perfect aliens. 1974 he reversed the process, using as most likely to attract of Wales, Penn- And in ing site, Sondra Sykes North starfaring civilization would keep antenna to send his own mes- "Any local suggests, because onlookers the Arecibo sylvania, on all nearby primitives and very close to the stars. tabs off the apparition as just an- sage would shrug on those about to venture forth into deep Drake focused on a site chosen by two tabs other film shot. space. Automatic monitors would have de- other panelists-the experts' single most our 12 panelists? Most ol their en- ""'»H™» What ot ^m^dTthe'firsUwo'go tected atom-bomb and rocket tests, as well -m, sprs$ra ESS^rSS rMSsssffisssE Agassis: sSsasagssss entries. SSSiE-irs perts and their plorers„i„m„. would,.™ ,w beh= NewMan Mexico,naewinm whereivhi=rp the firstfirs- « refuses to travel by air, lei Our first panelist atom-bomb tests occurred." spacecraft. Yet few are better quali- alone • Bruce Maccabee is also a physicist— he speculate about where UFOs would fied to specializes in laser opiics—and a firm be- than Isaac Asimov, author of more than land liever in the existence of UFOs. "It wasn't any books and countless articles on topics 300 single thing that led me into the study of ranging from space to Shakespeare. An in- UFOs," he says. "It just became increasingly Yorker, he selected map co- veterate New clear that many of the explanations given for ordinates F-27 (New York City): UFO sightings didn't hold water. I have seen aliens are land-dwelling carnivores mis- "The nothing since then to indicate that I was are looking for other forms of high intel- who taken," He selected map coordinates J-9. to learn from and to teach," Asimov ligence "First contact would occur in the South- "They study the night sky for arti- explains, west, where alien craft are likely to concen- illumination, betokening high technol- ficial trate their activities to observe our most ad- brightest." ogy, and land where it is vanced weapons technologies," he says. • Omni editorial director Ben Bova is Former Forced to pick a specific location, he the National Space Institute, now director of chose the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Washington-based space -activist foun- the Mexico, one of the largest cities in the region spent the last 25 years think- dation. He has and near several weapons testing sites. El space exploration and—as a sci- ing about Paso, Texas, would be his second choice, ence-fiction writer— the possible nature of White coordinates J-2— he notes, because of its proximity to Asimov, also chose F-27: aliens. He selected map alien life. Like he Ground, His explanaiion: Sands Proving thinkof three possible reasons for Disneyland. - In considering alien intelligence, it seemed "Where to land to learn most about on.

at _. of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory everything that 13 special about us. An im- ot entertainment; or thev are seeking to con- ss^ssss SE=E=5» the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SEi^aSSln ffJKlSffiKSSS =r»== ^gsszjssssz ~ri?— s=ES powerful radio and televi- to ™Sfe=learn from our phenomenon in civilizations. . Famed science-fiction writer Ray Brad- Regis strayed sion broadcasts. Naturally, they long ago the American • Philosophy professor Edward bury foresees a landing in to decided that it would be too dangerous between coordi- faroutsidethenormalboundsof his field last Southwest somewhere fearsome civilization " Extraterrestrials—Sci- approach such a 1 not able to pin year when he edited nates K-4and H-11. He s launched a dis- Intelligence, a collection of openly. Nevertheless, they that. He writes: ence and Alien it down more closely than leave of creet expedition to New Brunswick, New re- scholarly articles. Now on a year's there is any truth in our perceptions "If purpose of rescuing any sur- absence from Howard University, he imag- Jersey, for the garding the American Indian, ihen it might vivors of the ill-fated Martian expedition to mes aliens will land at coordinates H-4, be wise for any UFO crew to consider land- the one they heard described in the Mexico. "Since aliens create their necessities from Earth, inq in the middle of Arizona or New plunder. Orson Welles broadcast," Mmsky explains. amazing Arizona Castle might stars, they'll arrive to explore, not Montezuma's back in fear escape detection wh^e maintam- "They are considering turning make a serene residence for the friendly in- Wanting to of being vaporized by SDl," the Strategic ing proximity to a city, they II land m the des- vaders until they contacted your local phil- Defense Initiative envisioned by President ert near Las Vegas, the area of lowest elec- osophical chief or resident witch doctor. What strike down incoming missiles. tromagnetic emissions adjoining the spot of Reagan to next occur might be the stuff for a would • engineer James E. Oberg, greatest brightness. Former NASA pleasant— or perhaps jarring— novel, as the CONTINUED ON PAGE 142 116 OMNI . TH* MYSTERY CLOUDS ARE COMING!

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into air and popped like a Across the way in the main hall he saw a being hoisted the green crowd gathered around someone carrying collected specimen into a narrow creatures roamed AGAINST BABYLON a portable television set. Carmichael shoul- sack, "Teams of the giant nearly hour," the announcer : for an C M . N O^OMPAGEm dered his way in just as the announcer was the town confirmed that been no sign yet of the intoned. "It has definitely been Bui he had work to do. Swinging the DC- saying, "There has Orange between twenty and thirty human hostages back around toward the west, he swooped occupants of the San Gabriel or 3 their spaceships. But this was the horri- were captured before they returned to down as close as he dared to the edge of County Meanwhile, fire-fighting activi- fying sight that astounded residents of the spacecraft. the fire and hit' the release button on his dump under Santa Ana Porter area beheld this morning be- ties desperately continue lines. Behind him a great crimson cloud Ranch vicinity of all three landing tween nine and ten o'clock." The_screen conditions in the spread out: a slurry of ammonium sulfate and — two upright tubular figures that sites, and water, thick as paint, with a red dye mixed showed Carmichael shook his head. Los Angeles, been looked like squid walking on the tips of their into it so they could tell which areas had cautiously through the he thought. The kind of people that live here, sprayed. The retardant clung in globs to tentacles, moving walk right up and let the EXs gobble parking lot of a shopping center, peering this they anything and would keep it damp for hours. oi enormous yellow, platter- them like flies. Emptying his four five-hundred-gallon way and that out it's a movie and eyes. At least a thousand onlookers Maybe they think just tanks quickly, he headed back to Van Nuys shaped the last reel. And them at a wary distance, ap- everything will be okay by reload. His eyes were throbbing with fa- were watching to was the kind repelled and at the same time then he remembered that Cindy tigue, the stink of the wet charred earth pearing both and one of drawn. Now and then the crea- of people who would walk right up to below was iiltering through every plate ot the irresistibly was the kind of people been tures paused to touch their foreheads to- these E.T.'s. Cindy old plane. It was not quite noon. He had lived in Los Angeles, he told himself, coffee gether in some sort of communion. They who up all night. At the airport they had different. Somehow. very daintily, but Carmichael saw that except that Cindy was ready, sandwiches, tacos, burritos. While he moved outside. The DC-3 was loaded were taller than the lampposts—twelve He went was waiting for the ground crew to fill his they Their skins were and ready, tanks he went inside to call Cindy again, and feet high, maybe fifteen. with rows of In the forty-five minutes since he had left no answer at home, none at purplish and leathery looking, again there was have spread luminescent orange spotsglowing along the the fire line, the blaze seemed to the studio. He phoned the gallery, and the the south. This time the The camera zoomed in for a close- noticeably toward kid who worked there said she hadn't been sides. down the retardant from then jiggled and swerved wildly just as line boss had him lay touch all morning. up, in freeway interchange to an enormously long elastic tongue sprang the De Soto Avenue "li you hear from her," Carmichael said, corner of Porter Ranch. When the chest of one of the alien beings and the northeast "tell her I'm flying fire control out of Van Nuys from the airport, intending to call whipped out into the crowd. For an instant he returned to on the Chatsworth fire, and I'll be home as in military uniform only thing visible on the screen was a Cindy again, a man soon as things calm down a little. Tell her I the crossed the field and said, of the sky; then Carmichael saw a shot stopped him as he I view miss her, too. And tell her that if run into an fourteen, "You Mike Carmichael, Laurel Canyon?" her. got that? of a stunned-looking girl of about E.T. I'll give it a big hug for You caught around the waist by that long tongue. "That's right." Tell her just that." "I've got some troublesome news for you. Let's go inside." "Suppose you tell me here, okay?" The officer looked at him strangely. "It's about your wife," he said, "Cynthia Carmi- chael? That's your wife's name?" "Come on," Carmichael said. "She's one of the hostages, sir." His breath went from him as though he had been kicked.

"Where did it happen?" he demanded. "How did they get her?" The officer gave him a strange, strained

smile. "It was the shopping-center lot, Porter Ranch, Maybe you saw some of it on TV." Carmichael nodded. That girl jerked off her feet by that immense elastic tongue, swept through the air, popped into that green pouch. And Cindy— "You saw the part where the creatures were moving around? And then suddenly they were grabbing people, and everyone was running from them? That was when they got her. She was up front when they began grabbing, and maybe she had a chance to get away, but she waited just a little too long. understand, but then She started to run, I she stopped— she looked back at them— she may have called something out to them—and then—well, and then—" "Then they scooped her up?"

"I have to tell you that they did."

' "I see," Carmichael said stonily. "One thing all the witnesses agreed, she didn't panic, she didn't scream. She was very

every morning I forget if when those monsters grabbed her. 'Every night I have the American dream. And brave How in God's name you can be brave when " " " "

something that size is holding you in midair still on the upcurve, that whole neighbor-

is I something don't understand, but I have hoods were going to be ashes by nightfall. to — assure you that those who saw it He held on tight as the DC-3 entered the "It makes sense to me," Carmichael said. fire zone. The fire was sucking air like crazy He turned away. shut He his eyes for a now, and the turbulence was astounding: It

moment and took deep, heavy pulls of the felt as if a giant's hand had grabbed the ship hot, smoky air. by the nose. The line boss's helicopter was Of course she had gone right out to the tossing around like a balloon on a string.

landing If site. Of course. there was anyone Carmichael called in for orders and was in Los Angeles who would have wanted to sent over to the southwest side, close by the get to them and see them with her own eyes outermost street of houses. Fire fighters with and talk perhaps try to to them and establish shovels were beating on wisps of flame ris- some of sort rapport with them, it was Cindy. ing out of people's gardens down there. The She wouldn't have been afraid of them. She skirts of dead leaves that dangled down the had never seemed to be afraid of anything. trunks of a row of towering palm trees were It wasn't hard for Carmichael to imagine her blazing. The neighborhood dogs had formed in that panicky mob in the parking lot, cool a crazed pack, running desperately back and radiant, staring at the giant aliens, smil- and forth.

ing at them right up to the moment they Swooping down to treetop level, Carmi- seized her. In a way he felt very proud of her. chael let go with a red gush of chemicals, But it terrified him to think that she was in swathing everything that looked combusti- their grasp. ble with the stuff. The shovelers looked up "She's on the ship?" he asked. 'The one and waved at him, and he dipped his wings that we have right up back here?" to them and headed off to the north, around "Yes." the western edge of the blaze— it was edg- "Have there been any messages from the ing farther to the west too, he saw, leaping hostages? Or from the aliens?" up into the high canyons out by the Ventura "I can't divulge that information." County line—and then he flew eastward "is there any information?" — along the Santa Susana foothills until he "I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to could see the spaceship once more, stand- "I refuse to believe," Carmichael said, "that ing isolated in its circle of blackened earth. that ship is just sitting there, that nothing at The cordon of vehicles seemed to be even all is being done to make contact with—" larger, what looked like a whole armored di- "A command center has been estab- vision deployed in concentric rings begin- Create a niche lished, Mr. Carmichael, and certain efforts ning half a mile or so from the ship. are under way. I That much tell I can you. He stared intently at the alien vessel as in your life for one can tell you that Washington is involved. But though he might be able to see through its beyond that, at the present point in time—" "shining walls to Cindy within. perfect thing. A kid who like looked an Eagle Scout came He imagined her sitting at a table, or what- running up. "Your plane's all loaded and ever the aliens used instead of tables, sitting ready to go, Mike!" at a table with seven or eight of the huge "Yeah," Carmichael said, The fire, the beings, calmly explaining Earth to them and fucking firel He had almost managed to for- then asking them to explain their world to

get about it. Almost. He hesitated a moment, her. He was altogether certain that she was torn between conflicting responsibilities. safe, that no harm would come to her, that Then he said to the officer, "Look, I've got to they were not torturing her or dissecting her get back out on the fire line. Can you stay or sending electric currents through her sim- here a little while?" ply to see how she reacted. Things like that "Well—" would never happen to Cindy, he knew. "Maybe half an hour. I have to do a retar- The only thing he feared was that they

dant dump. Then I want you to take me over would depart for their home star without re- to that spaceship and get me through the leasing her. The terror that that thought gen-

cordon, so I can talk to those critters myself. erated in him was as powerful as any kind If she's on thai ship, I mean together off it." — of fear he had ever felt. "I don't it see how would be possible As Carmichael approached the aliens' "Well, try to see," Carmichael said. "HI meet landing site he saw the guns of some of the you right here in half an hour." tanks below .swivel ing around to point at him, When he was aloft noticed he right away and he picked up a radio voice telling him that the fire was spreading. The wind was brusquely. "You're otf limits, DC-3. Get back even rougher and wilder than before, and to the fire zone. This is prohibited air space. now it was blowing hard from the northeast, "Sorry," he said. "No entry intended." pushing the flames down toward the edge Bui as he started to make his turn he of Chatsworth. Already some glowing cin- dropped, down even lower so that he could ders had blown across the city limits, and have a good look at the spaceship. If it had Carmichael saw houses afire to his left, portholes and Cindy was looking out one of maybe half a of them. dozen There would those portholes, he wanted her to know that be more, he knew. ' In fire fighting you come he was nearby, That he was watching, that to develop an odd sense of which way the he was waiting for her to come back. But the struggle is going, whether you're gaining on ship's hull was blind-faced, entirely blank. the blaze or it's gaining on you, and that Cindy? Cindy? sense told him now that the vast effort that She was always looking for the strange, was under way failing, was that the tire was the mysterious, the' unfamiliar, he thought. The people she brought to the house; a Na- You may have lived vaho once, a bewildered Turkish tourist, a kid from New York. The music she played, The Rio Grande on earth before! the way she chanted along with it. The in- cense, the lights, the meditation. "I'm Cutthroat Trout searching," she liked to say. Trying always to find a route that would take her into some- thing that was wholly outside herself. Trying was. are biting to become something more than she That was how they had fallen in love in the

first place, an unlikely couple, she with her at Forbes beads and sandals, he with his steady no- nonsense view of the world: She had come was in Magazine's up to him that day long ago when he the record shop in Studio City, and God only knew what he was doing in that part of the 400-square-mile world in the first place, and she had asked him something and they had started to talk, Trinchera Ranch and they had talked and talked, talked all night, she wanting to know everything there was to know about him, and when dawn ihey in the Colorado came up they were still together, and had rarely been parted since. He never had

what it was Rockies-and New places, or people youpass really been able to understand street, may seem oddly familiar to that she had wanted him for—the Valley red- you. Have you known them in apre- neck, the aging flyboy—although he felt you're invited to uious life? certain that she wanted him for something filled some need for her, as she You wonder why you are living on real, that he did for him, which could for lack of a more luck. earth today and for what purpose try your specific term be called love. She had always you are here. Certain secrets of life been searching for that too. Who wasn'l? And and mental development cannot be knew that she loved him truly and well, divulged indiscriminately. If you he though he couldn't quite see why "Love is sincerely feel the need for instruc- understanding," she liked to say. "Under- tion in the use of your higher crea- standing is loving." Was she trying to tell the tive endowment, you have reached spaceship people about love right this min- the stage where the Rosicrucian ute? Cindy, Cindy, Cindy. teachings will be of practical value Back in Van IMuys a few minutes later, he to you in your everyday life. found that everyone at the airport seemed endowed Use your own naturally to know by this time that his wife was one of now powers to achieve results you the hostages. The officer whom Carmichael present think unattainable in your had asked to wait for him was gone. He was undirected state of untrained and not very surprised by that. He thought for a endeavor. Simple Rosicrucian moment of trying to go over to the ship by and teachings enable intelligent men himself, to get through the cordon and do women to soar to new heights of something about getting Cindy free, but he achievement, new freedom, new realized that that was a dumb idea: The mil- contentment. itary was in charge and they wouldn't let him oranybodyelsegetwithinamileofthatship, Devoted to the attainment of the true stuff with the Brotherhood of Mankind, the Host- and he'd only get snarled up in looking for poignant crucians are a nonreligious, non- television interviewers families of those who had political, nonprofit organization. crap about the ne of the rarest sporting been captured. fish in the U.S., the Rio FREE BOOK Then the head dispatcher came down to Grande Cutthroat Trout, meet him on the field, looking almost about You are invited, though not urged, to as well as the Yellowstone ready to burst with compassion, and in fu- send for the free 32-page book—The Rainbow and Brook told Carmichael that it would be Cutthroat, has been nereal tones Mastery, of Life, which and Trouts are all native to our all right if he called it quits tor the day written to give readers an outline of streams and waiting for dedi- went home to await whatever might happen. the worldwide scope and history of cated and amateur anglers to But Carmichael shook him off. "I won't get this noncommercial fraternity. hook-up with 'em at the Forbes her back by sitting in the living room," he Trinchera in Southern Colorado. This invitation is not to be taken said. "And this fire isn't going to go out by applicant an assurance that every itself, For full details on how you can either," receiving THE MASTERY OF LIFE minutes for the ground crew spend a few spectacular days Ittooktwenty for membership. slurry into the DC-3's . favorite client? will be approved to pump the retardant (maybe bring a ] Please write to: SCRIBE KCM Carmichael stood to one side, drink- in this magnificent setting, call: tanks. ing Cokes and watching the planes come Fishing Manager The ROSICRUCIANS and go. People stared at him, and those who FnrbBS Trinchera (AMORC) knew him waved from a distance, and three San Jose, California 95191 or four pilots came over and silently Fort Garland. CO B1133 H^nrh squeezed his arm or rested a hand consol- Kill ILl I 303/379-3263 ingly on his shoulder. The northern sky was "

understand." Somewhere along the ment and pressed his fingertips lightly black with soot, shading to gray to east and bad, we Diego Freeway between Mission Hills against his eyes. west. The air was sauna-hot and fnghten- San "Let talk to her." Sylmar, Carmichael fell asleep, and the 'All right," he said. me ingly dry: You could set fire to it, Carmichael and her to he knew they were waking him "Do you think you can persuade thought, with a snap oi your fingers. Some- next thing him into a vast, bleak, leave that ship?" body running by said that a new fire had gently and leading hangarlike building near the reservoir. The "I'm sure as hell going to try." broken out in Pasadena, near the Jet Pro- cables and screens, "You are not yoursell sympathetic to what pulsion Lab, and there was another in Grif- place was a maze of looked she's doing, are you?: the colonel asked. fire- with military personnel operating what fith Park. The wind was starting to carry

I sym- thousand computers and ten thou- Carmichael looked up. "Yes, am brands, (hen. Dodger Stadium was burning, like a pathetic. She's an intelligent woman doing Anita Racetrack, sand telephones. He let himself be shuffled someone said. So is Santa and moving mechanically and barely able something that she thinks is important said someone else. The whole damned place along, free will. Why the hell eyes, to an inner office where a doing it of her own going to go, Carmichael thought. And my to focus his is sympathetic? But I'm going to gray-haired colonel greeted him in his best shouldn't I be wife is sitting inside a spaceship from an- her. I I love style and try to talk her out of it, you bet. other planet. this-is-the-tense-part-of-the-movie her, Somebody else can be the god- said, "This may be the most difficult job want his plane was ready he took it up When Betelgeuse. Let me ever had to handle, Mr. Carmichael." damned ambassador to and laid down a new line of retardant prac- you've Carmichael scowled. Everybody was talk to her, will you?" tically in the faces of the fire fighters working gestured, and the big televi- in this damned town, he thought. The colonel on the outskirts of Chatsworth. They were Hollywood to life. For a moment mys- told the hostages were being sion screen came too busy to wave. In order to get back to the "They me "Where's my wife?" terious colored patterns flashed across it in airport he had to make a big loop behind freed," he said. way; then Carmichael The colonel pointed to a television screen. a disturbing, random the fire, over the Sanla Susanas and down glimpses of shadowy catwalks, intri- "We're going to let you talk to her right now." caught the flank of the Golden State Freeway, and her?" cate metal strutworks crossing and recross- saying I don't get to see thistime he saw the fires burning to the east, "Are you ing at peculiar angles; and then for an in- two huge conflagrations marking the places "Not immediately." stant one of the aliens appeared on the where the exhaust streams of the other two screen. Yellow platter-eyes looked compla- spaceships had grazed the dry grass and cently back at him. Carmichael felt alto'- a bunch of smaller blazes strung out on a aeihcr w'.de awake now. line from Burbank or Glendale deep into Or- The alien's face vanished and Cindy came ange County. His hands were shaking as he imHer face into view. The moment he saw her, Carmi- touched down at Van Nuys. He had gone chael knew that he had lost her. without sleep now for thirty-two hours, and was glowing. There was a cairn Her face was glowing. There was a calm he could feel himself starting to pass into in her eyes joy joy in her eyes verging on ecstasy. He had that blank, white fatigue that lies somewhere verging on ecstasy. He had seen seen her look something like that on many beyond ordinary latigue. occasions, but this was different: This was The head dispatcher was waiting for him her look like that beyond anything she had attained before. again as he left his plane. 'All right," Carmi- before, but this was different. seen the beatific vision, this time. off She had chael said at once. "I give in. I'll knock for "Cindy?" five or six hours and grab some sleep, and She had seen the — "Hello, Mike." then you can call me back to beatific vision, this time3 "Can you tell me what's been happening "No. That isn't it." in there, Cindy?" "That isn't what?" "It's incredible. The contact, the commu- out here to tell you. Mike. "What I came nication." They've released some of the hostages." Sure, he thought. If anyone could make "Cindy?" people it would be not? Is she all right?" contact with the space "I think so. There's an Air Force car here "Why know, yes." Cindy. She had a certain kind of magic about to take you to Sylmar. That's where they've 'As far as we hasn't been released? her: the gift of being able to open any door. got the command center set up. They said "You mean she to mind, you told the hostages were being freed." She said, "They speak mind to find you as soon as you came off your last They me in been let go," said the know, no barriers at all. They've come dump mission and send you over there so 'All but three have people, according to the aliens, peace, to get to know us, to join in harmony can talk with your wife." colonel. "Two you confedera- as they were captured and are with us, to welcome us into the "So she's free," Carmichael said. "Oh, Je- were injured medical treatment aboard the tion of worlds." sus, she's free!" undergoing is He moistened his lips. "What have they on along, Mike. We'll look after the ship. They'll be released shortly. The third "You go brainwashed wife, Mr. Carmichael. She is unwilling to done to you, Cindy? Have they fire without you for a while, okay?" your you'or something?" The Air Force car looked like a general's leave the ship." that! haven't hitting air pocket. "No! No, nothing like They limo, long and low and sleek, with a square- It was like an ?" done a thing to me, Mikel We've just talked." jawed driver in front and a couple of very "Unwilling— volunteered to make "talked? tough-looking young officers to sit with him "She claim's to have to touch my journey to the home world of the aliens. "They've showed me how in back. They said hardly anything, and they the serve as our am- mind to theirs. That isn't brainwashing. I'm looked as weary as Carmichael felt. "How's She says she's going to

I'm okay, I look as our special emissary. Mr. Carmi- still me, I, me, Cindy. Do my wife?" he asked, and one of them said, bassador, though I'm being harmed? They aren't dan- "We understand that she hasn't been chael, does your wife have any history of imbalance?" gerous. Believe me." harmed." The way he said it was stiff and mental "She's very "They've set fire to half the city with their strange. Carmichael shrugged. The kid has Glaring, Carmichael said, exhaust trails, you know." seen too many old movies, he told himself. sane. Believe me." showed no dis- "That grieves them. It was an accident. The whole city seemed to be on" fire now. "You are aware that she 1 her in the They didn't understand how dry the hills Within the air-conditioned limo there was only play of fear when the aliens seized incident this morning?" were. If they had some way of extinguishing the faintest whiff of smoke, but the sky to the shopping-center doesn't mean she's the flames, they would, but the fires are too east was terrifying, with streaks of red burst- "I know, yes. That forgive She's unusual. She has unusual ideas. big even for them. They ask us to ing like meteors through the blackness. Car- crazy. everyone to know how sorry Neither I, inciden- them. They want michael asked the Air Force men about that, But she's not crazy. am a moment. Then she tally." put his hands' to his face for a mo- they are." She paused but all he got was a clipped, "It looks pretty He 122 OMNI "

she first began to de- in your Valley, in your own real she had made when said, very gently, "Mike, will you come on- need to be jewelry. searched his mind for some I sign He them as I'm world, not running off to some far star. won't board? I want you to experience new way to reason with her. some line of ar- experiencing them." try to coax you." work, and could find none. "But you're going .to go anyway?" he gument that would "I do that, Cindy." can't ex- question. He felt a vast emptiness beginning to can! Anyone can! You just asked, and it was not really a "Of course you being know what I'm going to do." pand within him, as though he were open your mind, they touch you, and—" "You already made hollow by some whirling blade. Her don't to. Come out of there "Yes." "I Know. I want like a stranger But not really." face was shining. She seemed and come home, Cindy. Please. Please. It's "I'm sorry. to him suddenly. She seemed like a Los An- to "Do you love me?" he said, and regretted been three days— four, now— I want hug — geles person, one of those, lost in fantasies saying it at once. you, I want to hold you dreams, and it was as though he had know I do. And you and hold as tight as you like. She smiled sadly. "You "You can me pre- you. But once they never known her, or as though he had I don'twant to leave They'll let you onboard. We can go to Iheir know she was something other than she theirs, once I saw what tended world together. You know that I'm going to touched my mind with one of they are—do you know what was. No. No, that isn't right. She's not with them to their world, donl you?" kind of beings go star, explain, I? You fftose, she's Cindy. Following her own I don't have to do ,"You aren't. Not really." I mean? as always. Suddenly he was unable to look I mean." She nodded gravely. She seemed terribly always know what at the screen any longer, and he turned away, "They'll be leaving in a few weeks, "Cindy—" serious. with much." biting his lip. making a shoving gesture I love you so as soon as they've had a chance to ex- "Oh, Mike, do left hand. The Air Force men in the room I wish you'd his I love you, babe. And change gifts with Earth. I've seen images of 'And expressions of people out of that goddamned ship." wore the awkward their planet—like movies, only they do it with come inadvertently eavesdropped on imagine how "You won't ask that. Because you love me, who had their minds— Mike, you can't were to come someone's most intimate moments and right? Just as I won't ask you again beautiful it is! How eager they are to have trying to pretend they had heard nothing. I love you. me come!" onboard with me, because really "She isn't crazy, Colonel," Carmichael said out of his hair into his eyes, Do you understand that, Mike?" Sweat rolled believing reach into the screen and vehemently. "I don't want anyone making him blink, but he did not dare wipe He wanted to she's kind of nut." was crying. grab her. some it away for fear she would think he "Of course not, Mr. Carmichael." "I understand, yes," he made himself say. "I don't want to go to their planet, Cindy. "But she's not going to leave that space- to either." "I love you, Mike." I you go And don't want aboard, Cindy." ship. You heard her. She's staying She was silent for a time. "I love you, round-trip takes forty- going back with them to wherever the hell she smiled delicately and said, "I "They tell me the Then anything from. I can't do about but it will only seem like a they came know, Mike." eight of our years, don't Nothing I could to Oh, Mike! Good-bye, Mike! that. You see that, you? He clenched his fists and let go and f ew weeks me. that ship and bless, Mike!" She blew kisses to him. do, short of going aboard clenched them again. "I can'r go there." God ' physically, would get her Los An- He saw his favorite rings on her fingers, the dragging her off "No. You can't. I understand that. that." of there. I wouldn't ever do little strange star sapphire ones that out And geles is alien enough for you, I think. You three "Naturally not. In any case, you under-

stand thai it would be impossible for us to permit you to go onboard, even for the sake of attempting to remove her." "That's all right," Carmichael said. "I

wouldn't dream of it. To remove her or even

just to join her for the trip. I don't want to go to that place. Let her go: That's what she was meant to do in this world. Not me. Not me, Colonel. That's simply not my thing." He took a deep breath. He thought he might be

trembling. "Colonel, do you mind if I got the

better if hell out of here? Maybe I would feel dumped some 1 went back out there and help. more gunk on that fire. I think that might Colonel. All right? Would Thai's what I think, you send me back to Van Nuys, Colonel?" He went up one last time in the DC-3. They wanted him to dump the retardants along the western face of the fire, but instead he went to the east, where the spaceship was, and flew in a wide circle around it. A radio voice warned him to move out of the area, and he said that he would. As he circled a hatch opened in the spaceship's- side and one of the aliens ap- peared, looking gigantic even from Carmi- chael's altitude. The huge, purplish thing stepped from the ship, extended its tenta- cles, seemed to be sniffing the smoky air. Carmichael thought vaguely of flying down low and dropping his whole load of retar- dants on the creature, drowning it in gunk, getting even with the aliens for having taken Cindy from him. He shook his head. That's crazy, he told himself. Cindy would feel sick such if she knew he had ever considered any — . - "

thing. But that's whal I'm like, he thought. Just Earthman. And An outstanding watch value: on land, at sea, and underwater .. . an ordinary, ugly, vengeful that's why I'm not going to go to that other Navigator™ Watch planet, and that's why she is. He swung around past the spaceship and with new ratcheted safety Now, $AQ95* headed straight across Granada Hills and bezel, and still only ^**cl Northridge into Van Nuys Airport. When he 'But read the ad for an even better deal! ground hS sat at the controls of Navi- was on the ar this watch to work, to play, to swim and dive. The while, moving al all. Fi- sophisticated, ultra-.ioturak' his plane a long not vii." [\;: ici: is poiv™.'d by a of dispatchers came out and lapancse quart/, nuivt-nicni. it h.i.s tvrh a luminous analog nally one the is espeeJaDj helpful when "Mike, are you okay?" &] and an 1 CD display. called up to him, time in /ou are far away from home and want to have •'--' "Yeah. I'm tine." Irv.UJ "How come you came back without drop- — in 12-hr. or 24-hr. mode. Push the button and you : load?" is subtle yet insistent alarm ping your display day and data. J heiv: j stopwatch/ at his gauges. "Did I and a swltchable hourly time signal. The Carmichael peered has "interrupt" and didn't I?" 1/100 sees, and I did that, chronograph reads to do that? I guess illuminates the display. "lap" modes. A light switch "You're not okay, are you?" The Navigator"' Vvuldi is toiallv executed in black "1 I didn't for- forgot to dump, I guess. No, metal, indudingthe linked like it." get. I just didn't feel doing proof to !50fi.!hc now., exclusive rardirted plane." ...... : .|. ..: . '..,..;.,.! come on out of that .,,.! I! "Mike,

planned The 1 "I didn't feel like doing it," Carmichael said ' again. "Why the hell bother? This crazy city— - : ?V.:<-c. n quantities and are able to o;U'. ;..: r<..- v.. there's nothing left in it that I would want to for S12U . -v riiofv a) catalog houses offer the identical watch control deserted him at - save anyway." His =

: ^^-'----^ like fire evenbetterdeal:BHytoo/DrS9?.9a I :^^-i. last, and rage swept through him

:""/ :'. '"> 0!l:}>'r.i::<.i:i'.-. rha.i ::: ;;!':-' racing up the slopes of a dry canyon. He advantage of this outstanding offer while it is i agaj It understood what she was doing, and he re- orders (100+) with your compa- Note: Ebr quantity to like it. He FOE BSSTEST SERVICE, ORDER spected it, but he didn't have ny logo on the dial, call Mr. Gerard at (415) 543-6570 FREE (800) 431-9003 didn't like it at all. He had lost Cindy, and he TOLL or write him at the address below. days a week 24 hours a day, 7 felt somehow that he had lost his war with (10150197. If you prefer, maH Please give order Los Angeles as well. "Fuck it," he said. "Let ,.i'rtkoi';.;ni nuilii-ii^i-ior. mid expiration date. We it. It it burn. This crazy city. I always hated rirf'C d.T.hnii- :3hon(.' fiir al! orders- and iss':,r,i; wnk

reason I IV.- .-n.-uvi- o-di-i-i. V\-l-rn:inL-.r'iiiio-.'.-ithi.iuf.iii!'Ln deserves what it gets. The only "' haverhills Icbh*.! UFi/m^irajKe; SS.95 for — stayed here was for her. She was all that Woldi, b6.9? for three. Add sales ta; the 131 Townsend Street, San Francis mattered. But she's going away now. Let ere Voir have 30-day return and one fucking place burn." The dispatcher— gaped at him in amaze- ment. "Mike BRAIN? Carmichael moved his head slowly from WHOLE or Vz side to side as though trying to shake a Experience using your full brain and mind for increased monstrous headache from it. Then he career memory, concentration, passing examinations, frowned. "No, that's wrong," he said. "You've learning faster, accelerated reading (90% re- directions, got to do the job anyway, right? No matter retention). Tapes and seminars. call, how you feel. You have to pul the fires out. John-David, Ph.D., founder of Whole-Brain Learn- Tim, in sublim- You have to save what you can. Listen, ing'", has discovered a major breakthrough to fly one last load today, you hear? inal tapes — how to make them work. I'm going mere motivation sleep. They are mega-subliminal, whereas And then I'll go home and get some leveled or tapes are only two levels. These tapes are 7 Okay? Okay?" He had the plane in motion, - left brain and 4 unbearable by tracked 3 hearable by going down the short runway. Dimly he re- your resistance to change. Play- right brain — bypassing clearance. pre- alized that he had not requested able on any stereo, these tapes 'speak' directly to spotter plane moved des- designated areas of your brain/mind. A little Cessna perately out of his way. and then he was aloft. TAPES MEGA-SUBLIMINAL was black and red. The fire was SELF-SABOTAGE The sky BRAIN-MIND EXPANSION ELIMINATE now, and maybe Self completely uncontained org t * Relatto aWps to keep trying, Eliminating Self Sa otage • SelfEs uncontainable. But you had Comp'e eSet$195.00 Anlnlensli. he thought. You had to save what you could. iptete Set $295.00 He gunned and went forward, flying calmly CAL 1-800-624-9779 unlil wild MATL 1-800-4-DR-JOHN FREE CATALOGUE into the inferno in the foothills, the PLACE ORDER MOW OR SAVE TIME. CISE TOLL-FREE TO YOUR thermals caught his wings from below and 1 5-DAYTOTAL IMMERSION INTENSIVE !. lifted him and tossed him likea toy skimming toward the :>< 24 hoi ay (eve e sleeping). overthe top and sent him hurtling INTENTION; To-.il msslery of :he n/mind.5days, log* In effortless delim li,vil;i:d 10 28 students. State of the ar techno waiting hills to the north. si.400. Visa/MC/Am. Exp. sabotage. First class residential inch led. 1981 SanDlego:July3-7,1986 San Francisco: Sept. 18-22, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will raise up Mlchigan:June 12-16. 1986 Boston: April 24-28, 1986 against Babylon, and against them that dwell ! North Carolina: November 6-10, 1986 Santa re, NM: May 22->-I>, : J3S in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind; California will send unto Babylon fanners, that « Certification: 12 day residential. Aug. 6-17, 1986. 53,200 And Learning Institute _ shall fan her, and shall empty her iand: For ? Checks payable to and mail to: John-David 434-3572 «J in the day of trouble they shali be against & 2740 Roosevelt St. (Main Campus), Carlsbad, CA 92008 (619) her round about Jeremiah 51:1-2DO Creators to the mystery of what's out there IRJTEEVIEUU for the discoverer is the mystery of what one has created. And the creator never really knows what he or she has created. ginable now. Every advance in knowledge Omni: Have you had any surprises so far? has its self-correcting or self-liquidating Boorstin: One unexpected thing I found was consequence. Every advance should ex- that the very idea of creation is novel and pose new areas of ignorance. Sometimes a does not exist everywhere in the world. The new formula or scientific dogma appears as great Greek philosophers didn't believe there the most prominent thing in the foreground. could be anything new. Plato and Aristotle But behind it looms vast new areas of dark- both believed that whatever you were mak- ness. Those are the most promising areas. ing was only a reaching for some ideal ex- Omni: Would you personally accept a ride isting from eternity. Yet they were wonder- on the shuttle? fully creative. Boorstin: Is this invitation? I an don't know. It The history of creation is in part the history takes different kinds of courage to do differ- of humans' increasing awareness of our cre-

ent kinds of things. I don't know whether I ative powers. But we can be aware of our

have that kind of courage. I have never con- powers without ever being aware of the con-

fronted it. I don't like to look down from a sequences. The epigraph of my book The precipice. I'd probably take it. I don't think Genius of American Politics is the empti- that is likely to happen! But why not? Why ness of fhe Holy of Holies in the ancient tem- not? of favorite One my mottoes comes from ple of Solomon. That is in some ways the a wonderful passage in one of Shaw's plays. symbol of my view of history. You're not trying The serpent in says to Eve the Garden of to assemble a jigsaw puzzle, as some his- Eden, "When you and Adam talk I hear you torians and professionals seem to think.

say 'why?' But I dream things that never were. Rather you're searching for the boundaries

I and say 'why not?' " I think that's a better of your ignorance, trying to discover what if question: "Why not?" is you really don't know.

I don't think there is a certain type of per- Omni: What is the last sentence in your type- son who is a discoverer or a creator. The writer this morning? Discoverers dramatizes the miscellaneous- Boorstin: 'And the first signs of man's aware- ness and unpredictableness of the types of ness of himself remain the most enduring." people who would be discoverers. You- In this chapter, called "The Cities of the

couldn't if tell it would be a respectable Wil- Dead," I'm dealing with the beginnings of liam Harvey [English physician who dem- architecture and with mankind's struggle onstrated the function of the heart and cir- against his own reluctance to try, or even culation of the blood] or a half-maniacal accept, the new. Paracelsus [Swiss physician and alchemist] Man's first creations started with his ef- who would add something. forts to overcome or deny the transience of Omni: Many scientists tail off after accom- his life, to reassure himself that he and his plishing great things, but you are still going works are permanent. The pyramids, the strong after five decades of hard work. How Mayan temples, or Stonehenge would be a do you explain it? very good example of that. Boorstin: Well, trying to match an accom- These very lirsf efforts are those to which plishment is a problem of success for every- we now turn for understanding, whether body. As Goethe observed, "Why is it that about the Egyptians, the early Central Amer- when a man accomplishes one remarkable icans, or Paleolithic people. Ritual, dance, thing, the world conspires to prevent him from and music are man's attempts to reassure accomplishing another?" People are hungry himself of the regularity of experience, that for what the discoverer or creator provides the cycles are going to continue to come. them but they are also envious. — The arts originate in man's efforts to over- But one doesn't deserve praise, nor is one come his uneasiness about the transience entitled to feel virtuous, for working at what of his life and the unreliability of nature. wants one to do, any more than for falling in Omni: Do you believe that there are cycles love. If you're lucky enough to love your work, of invention, so en!. fie discovery, and crea- why should you be praised for doing what tivity in human history? you can't help doing? Boorstin: I don't believe in the decline of hu- The problem in writing is having some- man nature—no more heroes, no more cre- thing to say. Writer's block is basically think- ators, no more great people. Opportunities er's block. If you haven't anything to say, of change, but I see no reason to believe that course it's going to be harder to write it. all of a sudden after thousands of years on Omni: What's the difference between a dis- Earth human restlessness and fidgetiness coverer and creator'' a will disappear. Invention isn't always heroic, Boorstin: The Discoverers was about, the by the way Sometimes it is just fidgety. The search for what is out there: everything out- great inventions of modern times were not side of - humanity's consciousness— the necessary, were no more useful than what world, society, the continents, and so on. The preceded them. There was no need for tele- Creators is what we make of what's out there. vision, no clamor from the public saying, "We It's all about the arts. The Discoverers need television!" When the automobile was stressed that one of the great obstacles to devised it was a much less efficient mode human progress was not ignorance but the of transportation than the horse, because illusion of knowledge. The counterpart in The there were no roads. not at all free to ask manuscript. Authorities could withhold either suggested. Bui we're So there is a kind of reciprocal relation be- or parts needed for re- that question. tween what humans try and what they need the machine itself broadcasting and other Omni: But don't we have to advance in line and what they think they need and so on. It's pairs. Certainly have caused an important with what we find out about nature so that simple linear movement along the path electronic media not a destroy doesn't outrun promoting Ihe rise of the undefined the power we gain to of biological or even spiritual needs. shift by might audience. With printed books you have a our wisdom? Omni: Is it sacrilege to suggest lhat we civilize humans have certain number of copies thai can be traced Boorstin: Most efforts to have a pill to make people more eventually an assump- But with radio and television you been based on an arrogance, creative? or received. than he really does who's listening or watching. tion that man knows more Boorstin: The Creators will emphasize that never know Skepti- know about his future and his powers. That "fertile verge," Omni: We shouldn't, you say, be too creativity is on what I call the true people tried to suggest the unfamil- cal of the advantages of a new invention, was when that is, its resources stem from the what these techniques of immunization, which many Anything increasing human sensitivity since we can't immediately know iar. deaths in the are. opposed and which produced and receptivity to the unfamiliar should pro- inventions uses case of smallpox vaccination. Many who I never know the chances of creation. Since creativ- Boorstin; agree. We mote the interfere were against it said: "Who are we to oi it or the consequences of it. When some ity by its nature is unpredictable, a society the of Providence?" The same first said that Henry Ford was going with works that encourages creativity must be hospita- people is often repeated. It's a parable of peo- frighten all the horses, he replied that if story ble to the unpredictable. That, indeed, is to had an automobile there wouldn't ple refusing to accept the consequences of quite conundrum! everyone a can't re- problems. knowledge and ingenuity. And we Much of great literature has been pro- be any continue to play with and to That's true for great works of art, too. How fuse. We must duced in oppressed societies. The novels Shakespeare have imagined Kiss Me try to test these consequences, and within of Tolstoy, Dostoyevski, and Turgenev are all could decency to ren- creators of Kiss Me Kate also the limits of prudence and products of the czarist regime. That oppres- Kate? And the have known what they had cre- der them as undamaging and as fruitful as sive society granted Count Tolstoy the lei- could not ated, because there'll be another symbiotic possible. sure to work as he did. But a free society, like National Museum of I was at the of it. When that of America, increases the probability by-product led us History and Technology one of our first ex- unpredictable. Efforts to keep people's Omni: Our quest tor knowledge has of the from difficulties with the unfortu- hibits was entitled "Do It the Hard Way," thoughts channeled, as in the Soviet Union into enormous This motto is atomic bomb. Is there an essay -by Rube Goldberg. other totalitarian societies, will ultimately nate discovery of the and civilization— finding any solution to that dilemma? perhaps a name for fail. The mind cannot be imprisoned. simpler tasks to imagine any of more complicated ways to do : Omni: By allowing communication to es- Boorstin: II would be hard that could not have "unfor- to satisfy simple needs. The point is, man is cape control and censorship, do you think man's inventions technology. He by-products. What about fire? Few not free not to elaborate his that personal computers will hejp disperse tunate" that he sees but has more destructive than fire. Maybe must pursue the path oppression in Russia? things are civilization never followed. Boorstin: Computers make you energy-de- that was unfortunate. Maybe all philosophers have Omni: You've written that technology's su- pendent, unlike when you write a letter or a was a mistake, as some preme law is convergence, the tendency for everything to become more like everything else. Do you think the culture of the future will be more and more homogeneous, the same everywhere? Boorstin: New technologies lend to erase distinctions of place and time. When you see something broadcast on television, you can't

know whether it is taped or live: someone has to tell you. The Creators points out that culture and knowledge grow on the bound- ary between something and something else. When you reduce this elseness to same- ness, you disintegrate the opportunities for art and new knowledge. Omni: You feel the amateur historian has an advantage, don't you? written Boorstin: I probably wouldn't have properly most of my books if I had been

trained as a historian. But I didn't know what the the ruts were, and I didn't know where highway was. And the highway usually be-

comes a rut for any profession. So I had to do what interested me. in Omni: Isn't it rather forbidding to come from the outside? Boorstin: Ah, but my notion is that there is no outside. There is only an inside, and it's for everybody. You're speaking like a profes- sional when you say "coming from the out-

felt I trespassing on side." I have never was anybody's territory by writing history. A profession usually aims at preserving a mo- nopoly and a jargon, and is concerned with keeping out competitors, whether lawyers, doctors, historians, sociologists, you name 'em— not librarians, of courselDO MOUNTAIN WARRIOR EXPLORATOnJS By Jane Goodall

fighting her paralyzing fear so she could impatient to start work with her own chosen in the damp forest gorillas. Half-hidden initial two-week stay with the stands near a huge ape, the gorilla. After this vegetation, she persistence, this determination to meet infrequently It was this gorilla, who encounter, we were silverback male all difficulties, brief periods in to stay in the field despite even welcomes, her proximity. over the years, usually for accepts, that led. I believe, few ideas, then discomforts, and dangers animal, just one which we exchanged a Her face exudes love for this contribution to she to to her most significant her heart hastened off in different directions: of a group of gorillas for whom careful histories return to science. She compiled case lecture in the States and I to knows no bounds. This is how 1 and of individual gorillas that in some instances Dian Africa, or the other way around. thousands of others will remember years. Such meticulous to know Dian spanned nearly 20 say I ever came to be I cannot Fossey. It is also how she wanted is needed in order to understand lhat many people did. She research fascination for the well; I doubt remembered, for it was a and idiosyncrasies of complex person with startling the unique personality and a desire to learn about them was a gorillas one mood individual gorillas. Because of her research forbidding, mist- abruptness as she swung from that first lured her into the understanding of distinguished her, we have a much better volcanoes of the African to another. What most swirled Virunga events in gorilla Her refusal rarely observed but critical love and respect though, was her courage. country of Rwanda. It was of how goril- poachers life. We have a clearer sense of her to give way to threats by native for them that kept her there most neighboring social groups, protection of the gorillas las interact with months of rain, the who resented her life, battling the cold, the why and when occasional brutal infanti- her in facing the charge of and all the very and stamina virulent stinging nettles, and what precipitates conflicts an angry silverback have become legend- cides occur, real dangers of that wild place. And it was Her courage went beyond this. Robert among adult gorillas. her dedication to the well-being of the ary. both Dian and Dian also shared her work with many those who harmed Hinde. a professor with whom gorillas and hatred of field research University, told students. But her standards for I at Cambridge that led to her untimely death. studied them high; high, in fact, that most of that Dian had a terror of heights. were so in 1966, when she came me recently I first met Dian soured when hotel room her relationships with students Tanzania to discuss Once when he visited her in a to see me at my camp in her expectations. She most of the time glued to a they failed to meet methods. She was interested, of she spent field once limped around with an unireated studying, wall away from the window. Yet she lived course, in the chimpanzees I was leg because it was not convenient in the mountains, crossing steep broken clear that the visit was no more and worked but it was research. "This is gorges and clambering precipitous cliffs, for her to leave her interlude. She was 1 than a necessary ' what fieldwork is all about, she wrote to David Minard, the illustrator who worked with her on Gorillas in the Mist. "You simply drive yourself to exhaustion and drive others

in the same manner. The gorillas deserve as much— oh, so much more."

During our last visit, Dian and I discussed problems that arise with students in the field. At that time she was at Cornell University in New York, putting the finishing touches on her book. As we walked through Cornell's Sapsucker Woods on a cold but sunny spring morning, we stopped to watch a woodpecker, then a squirrel. Although a far cry from the wild mountains

ot Rwanda, it was a link to nature Dian said. craved. "It helps to keep me sane," she She was very depressed then. Her funds had almost run out. Unless her book was a success she was not sure how she would get back to Rwanda. Yet she had to return. "There is no future for me in desperate this country," she said. I sensed a passion in her voice. "I have to get back to the gorillas." Added to that feeling of desperation was with, the gorillas she studied and protected. To serve them all her days: the late Dian Fossey 132 OMNI .

no notice. They swarmed around him, deaf return to the knowledge ihat even if she did to any plea or prayer, and worked on him by ill Rwanda she would be handicapped creatures forced BLOOD with all the enthusiasm of camp. She health in the high altitude of her his CONTINUED FROM PA into silence for too long. Mary listened as suffering from emphysema. Moreover, was wearied with its complaints, and she like a and the black voice recently died. Back Suddenly if broke dam, her old dog Cindie had fear in her limbs. the room. fought against the weight of her gazing— her waters poured through, inundating apartment I caught at her felt, she must get up to the amiss (it was Somehow, she the spot on a rug Fuller knew something was eyes wet with" tears—at matter what was beyond the sudden fear), but room. It didn't found. Later in the color oi his aura, the where Cindie could always be her, and happening. door or on the stairs— he needed on acquisition of he didn't understand what was she wrote, commenting my enough. spine ripple: She could see his that was dog, "No one should live without an She felt his a new She stood up anl lol! her nair swirl up from brain whirl. there are times when I won- animal, though like the snake hair of the going on?" he said. The pathos of her head, flailing hurt one gets from losing them is "What's der if the Gorgon Medusa. Reality swam—there was the inquiry made her want to laugh. worth it all." scarcely a floor to be seen beneath her. The water jug in the writing room were more than just companions Upstairs, the Animals boards of the house were ghost wood, and her most shaltered. to Dian. They were what touched dark raged and the door. beyond them a seething returned to Fuller let her go and ran toward deeply. Years ago, when she door, feel- shake even as he ap- yawned at her. She looked to the Robert Hinde at It began to rattle and England for a visit, she met that was so hard inhabitants of ing all the time a lethargy could proached it, as though all the the airport. She was exhilarated and The han- to fight off. She had, she hell were beating on the other side. hardly contain her excitement. want her up there. turned. The paint Clearly they didn't for the iirst time. dle turned and turned and told him. touched a gorilla they even fear me a glowed red-hot. Maybe, she thought, that she hated the poachers blistered The key Is it any wonder her resolution; why else ihe doctor, who was little. The idea gave or unintentionally, so often Fuller looked back al who, intentionally bothering to intimidate her unless that grotesque position, head were they her gorillas to suffer horrible deaths? still fixed in caused her very presence, having once opened this again her study animals were Time and ihe world, was now a threat to them? for the handle, but the door hole in cruel wire snares. Some had been He reached caught in The blistered door was open. Beyond it gorillas had been opened before he could touch it. The hall- set for other animals; (he had succumbed disappeared altogether. the reality of the house captured by accident. Other times the way beyond had completety to the howling chaos of the high- themselves for Where the familiar interior had stood the vista poachers were after the apes concentrating on horizon. The way. She stepped through, thought to be in- of the highway stretched lo the the magical properties floor even the way her feel still touched solid bodies, or for sight killed Fuller in a moment. His mind had vested in certain parts of their though her eyes could no longer see it. The take the panorama in— it could tourists. Gorilla-hand ashtrays are no strength to selling to above her was Prussian blue, the high- control the overload that ran through his sky very popular. not pressed revolution way was wide and windy, the dead Dian attacked the poach- -every nerve. His heart stopped; a Right or wrong, She fought through them as overturned the order of his system; his blad- on ever y side. in her own, often highly unor- ing problem of living people, while their his limbs shook through a crowd she terrorized poachers der failed, his bowels failed, thodox, way. At first faces looked at her and hated he sank to the floor his gauping, idiot springing out at them, her face gro- and collapsed. As by invasion. blister like the door and his her tesquely disguised by a Halloween mask, face began to The "Please" was gone. Now she said corpse rattle like the handle. He was inert later she enlisted dedicated Rwandan game nothing; just gritted her teeth and narrowed the stuff already: as fit for this indignity as wood guards to patrol the mountains. During her eyes agamsl the highway, kicking her feet or steel. last few months of her life, when she was forward to find the reality of the stairs that of her to the east his soul joined ihe unable to follow the gorillas because Somewhere knew were there. She tripped as she highway, on ils route to the inter- she she wrote to tell me that she spent wounded health, touched them, and a howl went up from the patrols, which section where just a moment previously he almost all of her time "running laughing crowd. She couldn't tell if they were of died. good at, and is my main source had I'm really clumsiness or sounding a warning at Florescu knew she was alone. Above at her satisfaction now." Mary her beautiful, cheat- how far she had got. been able to return to Rwanda her the marvelous boy, She had step. Third step. writhing and screeching as First step. Second Gorillas in the Mist had been a huge ing child, was because torn at from every side, vengeful hands on his fresh Though she was success and the fund she had set up in honor the dead set their Ahead could see she was winning against the crowd. her most beloved apes, who skin. She knew their intention: She of Digit, one of through Ihe door of the room eyes there was nothing new about she could see had been murdered by poachers, was it in their — little liar was sprawled, sur- this particular torment to where her substantial support. If either of it. Every history had bringing in attackers. to be used to record rounded by his efforts had been less successful, she in its tradition. He was these briefs were around his ankles: to be their page, The boy's been able to return to Africa, their testaments. He was might nol have resembled a rape. He screamed vessel for their autobiogra- The scene and she would not have died in lhat horrify- their book, the longer, but his eyes were wild with terror book of blood. A book made of no ing way, hacked to dealh with a machete as phies. A and pain. At least he was still alive. The nat- so, A book written in blood. She thought lay alone in her cabin at night. Even blood. she resilience of his young mind half ac- that had been made of dead ural had spent her last months where she of the grimoifes she cepted the spectacle that had opened in skin: She'd seen them, touched them. most wanted to be, near the magniticent an- human she'd seen: freak- front of him. her life. She thought of the tattoos imals to whom she had devoted around, and he others just Suddenly his head jerked Dian's greatest contribution? show exhibits, some of them, What was the door at her. In street with a mes- looked straight through scientific mapping of gorilla lives shirtless laborers in the Was it her up a true tal- pricked across their this extremity he had dredged their mountain home? Or was sage lo their mothers in the midst of fraction of Mary's but write a book ent, a skill that was a their lives and backs. It was. not unknown, to it her "active" conservation of enough to make contact with her. Their eyes to work in of blood, habitat? If Dian had never gone of blue darkness, surrounded skin, on such gleaming skin — met. In a sea there would be far fewer mountain But on such Rwanda with a civilization they neither that the crime. He screamed on every side gorillas than there are today. Without her oh God, was knew nor understood, their living hearts met last of as the torturing needles of broken jug glass protection it is quite possible that the plowing it up. She and married. killed long ago. Her skipped against his flesh, them would-hiave been infinitely hers, and "I'm sorry," he said silently. It was many of them, fell his agonies as if they had been grave, among the graves of so away, pitiful. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He looked terrible. . . to the power of dedication, they were not so gives testament from hers. screamed. And fought, and poured his gaze wrenched and courage. Let us hope that it also Yet he love, certain she must be almost atthe obscenities out at his attackers. They took She was serves to make her cause our own.DO air sepa- ismans in the concrete world. treading air as two or three yards of possessed top of the- stairs, her feel still Number Sixty- again, and an On the middle landing of faces of the rated them. Their eyes met (ar as her eyes could tell, the of Reg Fuller living the five the smoking, blistered body of eloquent look, common to the and travelers above, below, and on every side travelers' feet passed between them. There was casually trodden by the could see, very faintly, the out- dead worlds, her. But she they passed over the intersection. At compassion in that look, and love. The as the door, and the boards and beams was line of Fuller's own soul came by in the throng the lies were dust. In place length lay. He was one fictions fell away, of the room where Simon the flesh he had once manipulative smiles was a.true and glanced down at from to foot. She of the boy's mass of blood now, head before the crowd pressed him on answered in her face. occupied, marks, the hieroglyphics of sweetness— could see the his judgment. dead, fearful of this look, turned toward agony on every inch of his torso, his face, And the Mary as Upstairs, in the darkening room, their heads away. Their faces tightened, and his limbs. McNeal boy and being stretched over Florescu knelt beside the flash into fo- though the skin were One moment he seemed to -plastered head. She didn't flesh darkening to a bruise, stroked his blood in the empty the bone, their cus, and she could see him for assistance until wistful with the antic- want to leave the house through the window and their voices becoming room, with the sun certain his tormentors would not of defeat. She reached to touch him, she was at his side. Then her con- ipation the shattered jug back. no longer having to fight against the hordes come centration would (alter, and instead she'd see whine of from their There was no sound now but the be of the dead; they were falling away the invisible world made visible, and he'd stratosphere a jet finding its way through the him quarry on every side, like dying flies drop- hanging in the air while they wrote on breathing was to morning. Even the boy's plucking out the hair on his ping from a window. from every side, regular. No nimbus of light sur- him, lightly, on the tace. The hushed and clear the page, writing in She touched head and body to Every sense was in place. Tears filled his eyes rounded him. eyelids, writing on touch was a benediction. his armpits, writing on his Touch. his scarified cheek, mingling Sight. Sound. crease of his buttocks, on and ran down his genitals, in the Touch. with the blood. the soles of his feet. she had never had no voices now, nor even She touched him now as wounds were in common be- The dead Only the previously dared, brushing her fingertips, oh were lost along the highway, sights. Whether she saw him mouths. They tween the two his body, running her lingers malice damned. so lightly, over authors or alone in the room, he their beset with the raised skin like a blind woman Plane by plane the room began to rees- across was bleeding and bleeding. minute words on became visi- reading Braille. There were door now. Her trem- tablish itself. The floorboards She had reached the written in a mul- every nail, every every millimeter of his body, the solid real- ble under his sobbing body, bling hand stretched to touch through the blood she The windows came clearly into titude of hands. Even handle, but even with all the con- stained plank. ity of the could discern the meticulous way that the not view—and outside the twilight street was centration she could muster it would She could children. The words had harrowed into him. barely a ghost image echoing with the clamor of come clear. There was light, an occa- living hu- even read, by the dimming sufficient. highway had disappeared from (or her to locus on, though it was travelers had turned sional phrase. . man sight entirely. Its the handle, turned it, and flung She grasped proof beyond any doubt, but oh dark and gone away into It was writing room open. their faces to the the door of the how she wished that she had not come oblivion, leaving only their signs and their tal- God, there, in front of her. No more than He was lifetime of waiting, here by it. And yet, after a life beyond flesh, it was: the revelation of

written in flesh itself. The boy would survive, that was clear. Al- ready the blood was drying and the myriad wounds healing. He was healthy and strong,

after all: There would be no fundamental physical damage. His beauty was gone for- ever, of course. From now on he would be an object of curiosity at best, and at worst of repugnance and horror. But she would pro- tect him, and he would learn, in time, how to know and trust her. Their hearts were inex- tricably tied together. And after a time, when the words on his body were scabs and scars, she would read him. She would trace, with infinite love and patience, the stories the dead had told on the boy. 'The tale on his abdomen, written in a fine, cursive style. The testimony in exquisite, el- egant print that covered his face and scalp. The story on his back, and on his shin, on his hands. She would read them all, report them all, every last syllable that glistened and seeped beneath her adoring fingers, so that the world would know the stories that the dead tell. He was a Book of Blood, and she his sole translator. As darkness fell, she left off her vigil and led him, naked, into the balmy night.DQ DRJNKroRTASTE,NOTTREND6. DOSEQUJS From Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volume t. Copyright © 1934 by O.-e Barker Published by the Berkley Publishing Group in arrangement with Sphere Books, Ltd. All rights reserved..- BDDV CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28

recovery rale for animals treated with TRH than those given naloxone, but io the great surprise of the researchers, TRH was also effective in preventing paralysis even when

administered 24 hours after the initial injury. "The gospel at that time was that you had

four hours maximum to block secondary in- jury effects," Faden says. "When the ani- mals were treated much later, recovery was so dramatic that the lab technicians told us jt was useless even to use a control group. There's no way to 'blind' a TRH study." Faden believes that his research into a TRH-like . drug now being tested in Europe may bring him a step closer to the ideal en- dorphin antidote: one that an ambulance driver can administer at the scene of an ac- cident before any of the secondary damage leading to paralysis occurs. If the naloxone tests just begun show pos- itive results in two to three years—and Fa- den cautions that there are no guarantees that human reaction to the opiate blocker will duplicate animal studies— then he hopes Io eres no P enalt f°r buying an inexpensive begin a similar * i_.,P) y CD player If it's trial on TRH. "This is an in- Toshiba* XR-J9. Because it not only offers concert quality sound credibly promising time in neurology," Fa- but high quality features, as well. Like 16 program random memory den says. "The study of endorphins may three beam laser pickvup and full suggest treatments for spinal and head in- LCD display. Any way you look at it, jury, stroke, and possibly even certain can- it's a sound investment TOSHIBA cerous tumor growth. A numberof so-called unbeatable diseases have already been im- plicated." He adds: "That's dramatic when you remember that the entire field didn't even HE STOMACH ELIMINATOR™ exist ten years ago." y According to the American Paralysis As- For Travelers, Business Men and Women and sociation (APA), spinal cord injuries cost this Anyone Concerned their country with Health and Good Looks more than $8 billion a year in medi-

cal treatment, workmen's compensation, I don't know and about you, but I travel 10 Minutes a Day and lost wages. Lifetime care for the average lot and often it's simply not practical to Your Pel Bally Will Be Gone! victim will top $1 million. That's Even so, combined go jogging or do exercise on the road. our guarantee. If you're n. federal iuliblieG and private-sector research funding with how it works for vo Worse, it often happens that you eat amounts to less than $20 million. and drink too much while traveling/The "It doesn't make economic sense," says result is stomach flab. Kent Waldrep, who is now the president of the APA. "There's hope now where there wasn'! any before. Remember that in terms of numbers and cost to society, spinal injury is a much greater epidemic in this country than polio ever was. "DO

CREDITS

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Please send me Stomach Eliminatorls) at $24 postpaid each. =a (JPL) page 93, is I re 1-dRcamen'U Hr\ Enclosed a check/M.O. for $ ° 94 center, phoic Charge my credit cord: by J! !!".-. p .IP. :i.iah Amex D Diners Visa CMC Card No.. Exp. Pote_ HARRISON-HOGE INDUSTRIES, .:-_ INC. . -;- JK'.e- page 95. paqe 132, I" - Signature Depl.OMKX, - r,-»\ .j- RO. Box 944, Smithtawn, 1: SS&&2 .. : pages 143-149, Rdrdv-r.'o.or NY Phone: (516] 724-8900 B:30 am-4:30 pm M-F ES 1 © ART CUMINGS

Art has got r -bo be man's qreate-s'b pleasure <^

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of it STARS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 34

bly meeting, which took place tn Greece What they eventually decided was who would select Ihe temporary and the perma- nent names tor these planetary objects Once this was settled, the IAU then moved to decide on the names. First a group ot astronomers, the IAU 'a Commission 6, se- lects a temporary name. Whether an object Is to be assigned a permanent name is de- cided by a second committee, the Commis- sion 20, which monitors the positions and movement of comets, satellites, and minor planets, finally, selecting the permanent name is done by a third committee, the Working Group on Planetary System No- menclature (WGPSN). In the case of the new moons of Uranus, various names have already been pro- posed. Since the discovery of the moons coincided with the tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger, one of the more frequent suggestions was to name seven of the moons after the seven astronauts. The idea was forwarded to the IAU, but it is not likely to be realized. In the past the IAU has named only planetary features after people. For example, some craters on the moon bear the names of deceased Soviet cosmonauts and of the three American as- tronauts who died in the Apollo I fire. Also, Soviet cartographers announced that two craters on Venus would be named after Challenger crew members Judith Resnik and Chnsta McAuliffe. But ihe IAU has tradition- ally preferred to name planetary satellites after mythological or poetic figures. As part of the naming process, the WGPSN consults with the discoverer of the object to ask for his name candidates. One THERE ARE THOUSANDS of buildings in factor will that influence Synnolt's choice is tradition. While Uranus is Ihe name of an an- Tennessee. But only one with such an cient Greek god, ihe god of the sky, Ihe names of its moons have their unusual name. origins in lit- erature. Oberon and Titania are from Shake- speare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Um- At Jack Daniel's we call it the "Charcoal briel is from Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock. Ariel and Miranda are from Shake- Mellowing" building. Because here's where speare's The Tempest. our The tradition of rickers Shakespearean names bring hard maple charcoal, tamp it tight was started by astronomer William Her- schel, the discoverer of Uranus, Oberon. and in room-high vats, and use it to smooth out our Titania. While Synnot! admits he personally finds it a "strange thing" that Herschel opted whiskey. No other distiller for literary rather than mythic characters, he has deferred to tradition and has been mellows their whiskey in K^iis brushing up on his Bardsmanship in search such an unusual of new names. 'After all, manner. Herschel started il all two hundred years ago. It's got tremen- dous Which explains why no historical momentum, and I'm not likely r 3cnnc*scc \ to change it," Synnott explains. other distiller has a building f WHISKEY \ Once he has made his choice, the ques- tion will be up to the IAU to decide. Whatever so named. Or, believe, they we a choose, it should be remembered what the Bard himself said about that proverbial whiskey so smooth. rose. And Synnott no doubt echoes the sen- timent that no matter what they call his moons, the success of finding them would smell as sweei.DO CHARCOAL MELLOWED FOR SMOOTHNESS PHErUDn/lEfUM

recorded II ,

id islands o( the Bahamas gleams ...... qht Caribbean

knowledge of Ihe subtle dynamics at work "" ™ Ir "*=™*; they have lorever altered

n of our place in tl As the first generation in history the earth from the perspective of space, we

inhabit a delicate and beauliful world wh< survival depends on us. This photogi was taken aboard the shuttle Challenger in February 1984 and was made using a a and Kodak film.DO

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com- CONCLUSIONS traterrestrial technology. Some saw munications as the key: Radio and television editions, we called on Science, In previous LANDING networks would help the aliens get their Religion, Atheism and Philosophy to relate CONTINUED FROM PAGE 116 ' message across. Others Eelt that the aliens to questions on the adequacy, or inade- would come simply to learn, and where bet- quacy, of physical being and the true a frequent contributor to Omni, has written ter than in a city with so many universities, essential nature and rationale of all four books about the future of human space museums, and subcultures? existence. development but none touching on space- of sifting reduced the finalists to in takingthat which exists In the debate over the A week Man'sfallacy lies faring extraterrestrials. special— of all that is and eight. Each offered something for granted, as the omnibus reality ot UFOs, he is a prominent debunker everwillbe-whenthatissurelynotso.We unique insight, an unusually well-knit argu- of sightings. Putting aside his natural skep- explore and analyze things in and of the ment, or simply a good summary of the rea- ticism, he chose coordinates M-25/N-26 as it down, even physical universe, we break sons aliens would land in New York City. put ourselves their most likely port of call. its atoms - but we never charged split primarily Bova, Friedman, and Oberg were appear- "Extraterrestrial visitors will be outside or" the physical domain and choosing a final desire to with the responsibility of looking in on the from a spacefaring civilization. The ance of things, sort of like the winners experience with winner. So, at last, here they are, materia/ world with eyes from outside. This identify a core of common of Omni's Great UFO Contest: acceptance of the physical makes it those humans chosen for first contact, and causes and First prize, a seven-day Caribbean cruise supreme on us — its laws and thus to enhance the chances of establishing show, weare in two, to Betty L. Riddle of Kansas effects reign over our whole successful communications, will lead to for goes Kansas, for the following analysis: bondage. choosing a landing site where embryonic City, writes, -'explo- make is between "Throughout history," she The real choice we have to spacefaring is already being conducted by soldiers or - is it our ultimate goal? - and ration has been advanced not by the physical Earthlings." Oberg says. "The most obvious and if so, what? Polo and something beyond that, in scholars but by merchants: Marco site is NASAs Kennedy Space Center us to our various disciplines Columbus were seeking to expand Euro- This brings Florida, which also offers excellent facilities under consideration. Does religion answer pean markets, not just nosing around. The for general security and for parking." true to itself, carry us? It could, if itwould be aliens to this planet will probably be • Sociologist Marcello Truzzi is the founder first such foolish things as through, and not do the equivalent. Their technology will of The Zetetic Scholar, a monthly doing dogmatically look to precisely the wrong and editor enable them to verify the New York area as flesh journal of UFOs, parapsychology, and re- thing — physical phenomenon like and essentially a center ot worldwide communication and blood - for salvation and deliverance. lated matters. He claims to be trade for everything from high-tech items to ultimate fate? Not neutral about the existence of UFOs but dis- Can science fulfill our York City of toys. As a result, I see the New ever — because by nature it has the trusts professional debunkers, many their likely landing site." phenomenon of the material universe as its whom he feels are more authoritarian than area as it prize. $350 in cash, goes to Rus- very foundation and domain. While objective. His suggested landing sight Second proven to disperse sell Bullman of East Alton, Illinois, who man- explains and has much yielded no firm map coordinates: deal superstition on many fronts, it cannot moni- aged to reconcile the disagreement be- "I assume that: 1) The aliens have with the out question of what's beyond the our weapons-fearing and pacifist tored and understood our culture, 2) Their tween It lacks ulti- material universe and its laws? panel members. He writes: landing is to be yiewed as friendly: 3) They mate ness, deliverance. landing site "I chose New York City as my — want their contact to be clear and incontro- atheist hardly deserves mention at all center of the The conditions for three reasons: 1) It is the ever know vertible. A site meeting these without wonder, how could he worldwide organiza- ballpark on the opening day of world's most effective answers? would be the any contact with all world Truzzi, "It will tion, the U.N. . allowing and unbiased, the 1986 World Series," says That leaves philosophy, free once; Many large news large landing field before thou- governments at 2) sort things out for us. It can freely provide a to centers are based there, giving maximum within or without the sands of spectators; full international radio, deliberate from they coverage; 3) It the natives are hostile, physical realm. Itcould even crown religion television, and press coverage; and the likely itfinds — probably won't use nuclear weapons near a astheultimate ruler, if that is what presence of important political figures. The prac- population center." but then only when reconciled and aliens might even demonstrate goodwill by large with ultimate truths. Finally, our $100 third prize goes to Patty ticed anew, conform joining in our national anthem," and find Brown of Monroe. Louisiana, tor this entry: So let's go to work, Philosophy, Once these answers were in, a second facts and truths that York City will be the landing site. those incontrovertible round of polling reduced the experts' opin- "New the spirit free. Let the Dark Ages in Monitoring broadcasts while traveling to will set ions to two possible answers. And there our Let not fundamental (fraught be behind us. aliens will find New York is a cen- panelists stood their ground. Two— Stanton Earth, the ever again error and distortion and supersti- communication, Friedman and Bruce Maccabee— hold that ter of population, culture, our vision of the true, cognitive tion bend the United Nations. Landing there would aliens will head for the Southwest to survey and insight into the real nature of all things. aliens a forum to present their our weapons, either to safeguard their ex- guarantee the The Logos Foundation and to communicate with other pedition or to learn whether we will threaten greetings the furtherance of fundamental philo- for space. The rest are sentient species." intended to them as we proceed into sophical thought and inquiry, only too civ- To those who did not win, we can hope cosmic reason, the rational equally convinced that aliens will be seek and define your entries as powerful, to fear hu- that you enjoyed working on principle and ultimate perspective in the ilized, and perhaps too reading them. We've man aggression. Thus the Southwest will much as we enjoyed universe. . . . always know that Omni readers own some have little to offer them. . minds. You've surely The antiwar faction won out. And with that of the world'ssharpest City, NV 89702 P.O. Box 758, Carson it. be holding other contests, the answer was clear. Former Omni editor proved We'll issues of being and [Fifth in a series to define the reading your entries. Bova had produced the majority's verdict: and we look forward to all, please remember what we said aliens will. land first in New York, at map And to mailing list: The Please include in the Logos announcement. We don't claim coordinates F-27. in the contest Return Coupon will ever land in New York, justthat Fully 129 readers agreed. Many cited the that aliens that good reason- United Nations as the aliens' destination. this was the best answer dose of imagination could There the visitors might simply greet the ing and a liberal we're not saying that extra- peoples of the world and announce their produce. In fact, will ever visit Earth at all. friendship: they might ask us to put aside terrestrials Omni editors spending our nuclear weapons and save the world Just the same, are out the office windows possible annihilation; or they might more time peering : r,h::..:i;-p-'k-- : int'URri!. from ex- these days? Or is it just our imagination^DO make it an order, enforced by advanced plans a second recording with goes against ihe way the brain is hooked tron. He longer compositions in 1.5-, 16-, 21-, 22-. 23-, up," Blackwood says. work \USIC Commenting on Blackwood's opinion, 28-, and 31-note tunings. The 31-note will Blackwood with Don Carlo Ges- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 32 University ot South Dakota professor of psy- link ualdo and Girolamo Frescobaldi, sixteenth- Coast choacoustics Jan Berkhout says, "Experi- the academic communiiy. "Some Easl composers who suggest that the coding of pifch and seventeenth-century academicians, were disturbed by the twenty- menfal data fascinated with that tuning. Blackwood information in the central nervous system in- were one-nole piece sounding rather like ba- would defectors that are theorizes that some 12-tone tunings remarks. Blackwood. "They volves pattern and feature roque music," discovered by early twentieth- sensitive to the presence of small-integer [or have been thought that didn't express the spirit ot our had World War I not de- simple-fraction] rafios of pitch. This amounts century composers times properly: 'Our times are ugly and ter- flected their development. He has investi- ugly to postulating the existence of special cir- rible, and therefore our music should be fourths." gated this idea in a set of etudes reminiscent looking back? cuits lor the detection of fifihs and and horrible, and what's this Rachmaninoff, and other statement casts doubt on the view of Ravel, Debussy, progressive.' they said." Berkhout's This isn't turn-of-the-century composers. sound conservative expressed in music training and behavionst The pieces at times study began. Black- mind is a blank Since his microtona! illustrations. But condifionmg programs that a because they are primarily most theo- which anything can be recorded with wood has seen little change in Blackwood says. 'These etudes stand on tape on rists' inclinations. "They work with quarter pur- equal ease. Yet on the other hand, various • their own merit as compositions. My tones, third tones, and whatever tones, but listeners have singled out 11 of the 12 etudes pose was to express what is inherent in the no no one seems to think about dividing the oc- discover the as personal favorites— suggesting that different tunings. I've tried to multiple more pleasing to tave equally into notes other than a musically appealing arrangements one tuning is intrinsically most microtonal music has a future. ears than any other. The exception is 24- of twelve. But Within each tuning—those chord progres- all new generation of keyboards with com- note, the quarter-tone tuning. The composer The sions that will eventually become standard mathematical Black- puters have the capability to play in any equal tunings come into more isn't surprised. To the formulas as the whatsoever. The subject tuning the only theoretically tuning, any tuning In this way he sees his wood, that was widespread use." proper electronic the 12. "The best is difficult, even with the ot sorts to Bach's Well- uninteresting scale among etudes as a sequel sur- hardware at hand. But I wouldn't be use for twenty-four is just to leave out every Tempered Clavier. soon evap- prised if the peculiar resistance easy to other note." Yet even that etude is haunting, Blackwood found some tunings the Phantom of orates because people now-have accessible to our 12- a passacaglia that evokes The work with and relatively hear it."DO Opera (Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D wherewithal actually to tone, Western ears; 19-tone was the easiest. the Others, such as 13- and 23-note. were ex- minor). plans to continue his re- Twelve Etudes for Electronic Mu- tremely foreign. Thirteen-tone, in particular, Blackwood Blackwood's for trom building on his earlier work and tak- sic Media is available on rcco'O $9.95 with no tonal relationships even remotely search, ' South Shore Drive, Chi- ing advantage of state-of-the-art electronic the composer at 5300 similar to the 12-tone scale, was very trou- improved Scala- cago. IL 60615. ot all: it equipment, including an blesome. "It is the most alien tuning

"What's happening to us, Harold?" —

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By Scot Morris

"It's a gift from God. Never mind what's going on, just use it." —nitinol expert at MIT seminar

nitinol When you first play with a piece of you begin to believe its advance billing as the "wonder wire" and "miracle metal." It

is also called memory wire because it "remembers" the shape in which it was forged or annealed. Take a straight length of the wire and coil it around a pencil. Slip it off the pencil and it stays coiled, but drop stand back. it into a cup of hot water and

Immediately it springs back to a straight of wire—perhaps so fast that it flies out the cup and across the table. At the transition point a wire coil may move at thousands of feet per second and generate instanta- neous forces of over 100,000 pounds per square inch. Nitinol (pronounced ny-tin-all) was

discovered in 1962 by William Buehler at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in White

Oak, Maryland. It's made of nickel and titanium and gets its name from ra'ckel, in, although a lot of heat energy is absorbed titanium, and Waval Ordnance Laboratory. process." An early prediction was that nitinol in the Banks is now banking on an irrigator would be used in space, You could make a that would be powered by the dish antenna of any size —even a half- pump between solar to fit temperature differences mile across—then fold it small enough heat and the underground water, in a shuttle payload bay. In space the wire mechanical engineer in could be reheated and—poof.'—there Jack Cory, a California, has studied the would be your antenna. A decade after the Escondido, feasibility of powering nitinol engines by prediction, there is very little nitinol in temperature difference between surface space. The proposed antenna would be so the power dams. heavy and so expensive that you could water and deep water at idea is the same: Attach the nitinol in a bolts. He estimates that in the body of water behind build it more efficiently with nuts and 100 times more supercool state, then let body temperature Ridgway Banks of San Rafael, California, a power dam, about bring its desired shape. thermal energy is stored than the potential out produced the first patented nitinol heat • heart surgeon can insert a nitinol sheath of the gravitational head. He estimates A engine in 1973, A replica of the Banks site of an aneurysm. power output of these hydroelectric by catheter to the 1977 is still running at the that the engine started in form a permanent more than doubled by There it expands to Hanford Science Center in Richland, plants could be engines. reinforcement to the artery wall. Washington. "Under the right conditions," the addition of nitinol • temperature-activated switches "On large scale," Ridgway Banks told There are Banks told us, "nitinol not only doesn't wear a automatic fire-alarm and sprinkler performance improves. After us recently, "nitinol engines look very in out but its protection probably cheaper than systems and safety nozzles for hundreds of millions of revolutions there is cost-effective— against scalding water. nuclear, coal, oil, or anything other than still no discernible metal fatigue." • Nitinol hinges on greenhouse windows Then there was the free-energy promise. hydroelectric." notable successes. automatically close them in cool weather and contracts at a high Nitinol has had some "When a nitifio! coil _ open them up when it is warm. more force • Bone plates for compression-setting of temperature, it produces much • brassiere will have nitinol support, fractures; surgical correction of scoliosis, or A new than is needed to stretch it out again at instead of steel, to continually restore the Banks. "More abnormal growth of the spine; artificial a lower temperature." says when worn. tight In every case the bra to its original shape mechanical energy comes out than was put limb joints that lock 148 OMNI "

wheel in hot water and the engine comes to life. It turns as long as the temperature difference between the brass and plastic wheels is maintained. ITI also sells a $23 ice-powered boat (bottom left, this page). It runs on the temperature difference between an ice cube on top and the pool water underneath. The company also offers a one-foot length of 12-mil wire for $3. TiNi Sales, Box 1431, Latayette, CA 94549. David Johnson, a physicist in

Berkeley, constructed the first nitinol turbine

engine in 1977 The one shown at far left ($50 postpaid) is a demonstration model,

but oh, what a demonstration, it produces

the spectacular burst of energy captured in the photo by Omni's Randy Mayor. TiNi will also send a one-inch wire (50-mil thick) plus a detailed instruction booklet ($3) on using the sample in a tiny nitinol engine. Memory Metals, 84 West Park Place, Stamford, CT 06901. Memrytec Starter Kit (facing page, $95): The company's specialty is alloys with even more refined memories than nitinol. They have two-way memory Bushnell's company, Axlon, will soon be . and spring back and forth between one putting out a teddy bear with ears that shape at one temperature and a second wiggle by nitinol power. The joints of a robot shape at another. hand can be made to expand and contract COMPETITION #40: NITINOL instantaneously and realistically as electri- cal current from a battery is switched Invent a nitinol product that lives up to its on and off. A real (dead) butterfly, fitted "miracle metal" billing. The winner will with a nitinol harness and a tiny battery, can receive an Apple lie personal computer; appear to come to life again. first runner-up will get a TiNi nitinol engine FINALLY NITINOL FOR SALE and a sampling of nitinol products. Three runners-up will each receive $100, and all We havenj written A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR PROBLEMS about nitinol until now five will get one-year Omni subscriptions. because there was no place readers Entries must be received by August 15, It has been several years now since the could write to get some. For years theonly 1986. We're extending our usual deadline by early excitement, and the "miracle metal" samples had we were from the Naval two months to allow for maximum inven- still doesn't have a miraculous application. Surface Weapons Center in Silver Spring, tiveness. Working models are preferred. None of the earlier promises have panned Maryland, or from novelty items available Omni may use entries for any purpose out big. The company that makes the most only in Japan. (Examples are shown atop without further compensation or permission. money with nitinol is Raychem in Palo this page, with the deformed wires at left Employees of Omni, its affiliates, and Alto, California, and its biggest product is a and the heated "natural" shapes at right.) agents, are not eligible. Entries will be weldless, boltless connector that forms Now, however, several nitinol products judged on originality; our guest judge will supertight seals in the ' fluid lines' of the F-14 are available to the public. be David Johnson. jet fighter. Useful, but not headline stuff. Innovative Technology International Inc.,

Strangely enough, it appears SAM LOYD'S DONKEYS now that the 10747-3 Tucker Street, Beltsville, MD most profitable nitinol products in the near 20705. Thermobile ($19 postpaid): This is a Above left is the answer to last month's future may spring from nitinol's essential continuous loop of wire on an L-shaped problem of the mules and the riders. Did appeal as a curiosity— something to piay plastic frame with plastic and brass wheels you have the "aha!" experience that solves with, something to show someone. Nolan (left middle, this page). Dipthe brass the pu2zle?DO . . .

In my work as a transistor oi science,

. . , periodicals , ...... "l deal ms with documents, : is Irs nomadic cabbage . dromihe United Sfaies.and ;he USSR. feature or this the to head: soul - t i- !n she iiade we refer io these nations as speak. Most, border. voi;ng with lis roots, so to A. as. in lop of the heap; . A coumnes, '. Specis; -Police -.scientific Just last week-the Bulgarian oi the other counties with a entered the case aii.er GreeK phrase literature .we consider the BcounUies/S as oookswerefeundan-ppgagrouppf y . ';. movie. .- iFiB U'\ afield iransiaiions into cabbages as they iay.resiing i o- my . Since do most farm in at some six Kilometers from their home and out oi English.. Russian, and French . criticism, myself to Ustovo. Responding to. 8 Li igai an least oncea month I treat ., Kg. lenied any. something dit'erent. I spend ore day migrating. PteniS.'and published in 'he connection wilh ihe reviewing scientific -J terns in;eni:on oi oialmed it had no encoun- ir. : :" w ' has ml : ;.. i language. ' :/.:. i. :ons - i '.' ' :: i rum 8 thai the border major : angeage. Kalchevahas suggesied vvil: never appear in any police check allidenlilypaperscaretuiiy My favorite Esperanto periodical is La .:..i.: li rviscd P- ',':, ei.a I.' io; cabbages «lip across. oiif Irontier." she said- Scieniiiic Review from Pissaot Countries'). ..-,; !: ..: " Workei

; pdo'isried. This small monthly maga/me s . CRABS.-' When i.l's 'spring in ; HYDPOGEN I . !!. ,:,.. J- I,!:.' / . lorr;. Miitta. a:ias;onishingsighif!waKsii!u Espfi'snrist 'primed in- Belgium 0y *

1

i ' . il M speo.ali/os in ihe ,!. isid: vii li. i iii'' and maiiod trcm'Soa:;-,. It slrrrgs 1 happsiV along Ih.e patris grasping 'I I . !,!. '. i:l ' i. i • .

: a1!acriodio crab-shaped balloons iioatng'- . I ie-r-ielherian (s Yugc -.overhead-. Closer exarnii iation reveals Malta, ancsoon. !„.: illoi '"if rei e ii ; To Share some ni cs scion!, he bounty ihe i ... f;nd out' :-, these witHyou;i;have chosen these interesting, y i cabs k>a; or wnereihoy-come from. natural, ohenomena;

. . - By Joseph F Conroy MOLLUSCA BIVAbVA ALPiNAMINKOFFh. i of.fVlalta has ustTeiea3ed his preliminary inter v. ev, ; re : . During a tindings-orii ';;',- ea ' soi'S P Vii-ikoi-of Zurich's iJcdo'e'Der- •For the Bulgarian :: .- ... vydro :,. ... .

, ' the worst feaii < " ' :aof-:an weti-known government A,\S3 Troubled cor; crab. This

dominioiy-isono of several comnion . of this nomadic unexplained disappearances -d nine in .the by coast - ^Aaltesr found along ;ha ; aiens oi ;he Tyrolean Alps. iviiirkoif land crabs its tendency ,n remole cabbage is Dickson points oui that the crab scurries :U .!,! I' - ':'' in . unnoticed on the shore and to head south' he scsoected was a paoK o! piceat-r, about VVher' Ihe-mpltingseasQii comes, border or wolves Wnat he found was trie giant 'esiuanes. docs -' toward,the Greek Dickscnh. however.-the pecuiia' nature of . snow cam. This- huge member o{ ihe .voting with' its- adaptation e-craoiveson partially olijs'-. inmliv is; apparently an rich in 1 li decayed seaweed, a load source : , wl il . !, ...:...! oer.ii . roots, as it were.* .! pr.rr-;ion . r a the Alps/were raised up from prehistoric n its Ima'the snow and rogei- seas. ' {'he-cram ounows

; the nnsuspect- Appaienliv. th o heips lire cub Heat on- !:, .)-, iter; the Ciam opens- and-- oavoidsho \ For of the veffi tne weightof the .-,' ;-y-vS downslope most i en. ecaDscarapaceis'sulficienttoprevenhan ;' to mvslity the townspeople imbaiance from the hydrogen s:orod within,. THE GYPSY CABBAGES in an ellempi \o IhGCfab molts.- however, and the sheM -.' '" ' As >: i ' ' ! wi : ' in tne- is left beliif.a, the hyaronen stored ; ! : , 11! .. Into rhe ; id' ;:,, nses Kaicnevvi oi :he People's Agricultural- :,, ; -.!' . : I" Is lien lai Research Cenicr ano 'vVorkfrou.se in Plovdiv, the beach-, mat the crabs mate, i II anst above j i clinoing desperately to branches. arid leaves.- n ! ....' :abbac; : in must have - romances- .'! '"ita (fvlanv vvoiiid- be i -.-,,,: ! .,,, ; .,.'.: reeve UrS released seeds oi a new hybrid cabbage 0*1 the suitor.) Campers along h'-iothe-areas peasants last spring. The; carried report hearing the coast a! Ihis fme of voar hybn I m. :..'

.flight .as .the crabs . d rested. '.;;dud^ops;du:ingi the . had not yet boon iuiiy and burst "We were all del

- ..... i .! , ,,:,. , characteristics of tnis cmssica." Kalchev.a ; to flotillas of the crabs wafl.ng -,-. » ore Accustomed Oe . d : irino a villages, li"; :ne .' thrcrxib seaside ; ;i <\ IheS : -oi ; A nil :' this. cent ur-v crab sinoois were crganizeo ''The plants are disease resistant, grow oi ordinary by locai sporting clubs. The hunters used .quiCkiy to about tendmes. the si.ro oi smaii-bore iirearm,s. and ti-e- taint pop: ,i. care I ey were ..I : .I—, foMheirehallcw- '" specifically selected : :: on, i,.. -•' roolina quatt.lesd t BuM^iotesso'- -aicheva added ihdir the. eaooages nave one unicoseen negative

their roots . "THE CHALLENGER CREW WAS PULLING US INTO THE FUTURE/ SAID PRESIDENT REAGAN ON JANUARY 28, 1986, AND rosKSHW WBBIZm

1981 Th|E 50 YEARS IN SPACE SHUTTLE 1996 GALILEO It On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy .John Young and Robert Columbus launches the robot explc this historic and prophetic decla- made Galileo II on its three-year journey L ". should . . this nation commit ration: Saturn. Upon arrival GaWeo will shoot a probe into Saturn's gaseous rings this decade is out, of landing a m u

'

' safely to l iias, a primitive Earthtike atmosphere. Earth. No single space project ir 1983 SALLy RIDES is period will be more exciting < .rs afu r valentina Teresh- 2000 TOURISTS essive to mankind, or more impor- "" ,h Twenty-five *jht, NASA sends years ago prescient Earth- tant for the long-range exploration lings '< P'Vsicisf Sally Ride, began booking pleasure flights none will be so difficult of space; and into space. Now the first tourists begin taking multiorbit space safaris com- years, have Over the ensuing we plete with a visit to Columbus. and more. To 1983 OFF TO. '"'filled that promise T Initially restricted to the rich and of past mmemorate the 25 years famous, the flight becomes ment and celebrate those come in the next Quarter century. M kV i'l '^Hnl ^iM these flights are breathtaking. 1961 FIRST SPACEMAN EfffffffftM EflflflflflflflflflflflflflflflflflflflflBj

wte flight around the earth

in his Vostok 1 1

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i of space travel.

1961 SHEPARD FLIES

i the Soviet challenge by sending astronaut Alan B. Shepard aloft in~Freedom 7 for a 15-minute mmKIHmKm I space race is on. 1962 GLENN ORBITS 1969 MOON LANDING John Glenn matches the Soviets by Fulfilling President Kennedy's promise becoming the first American in orbit. In Neil Armstrong steps onto the moon. H his craft, Friendship 7, he circumnavi- Buzz Aldrin follows. Apollo photos gates Earth three times. ' KfisaBSBSi 1963 FIRST IBMi SPACEWOMAN 1970 UNLUCKY 13

i aborts the Apollo

ound Earth 48 times. Two FijlR i iin

decades later, an American i lilllili finally follow I 1973 SKYLAB 2005 ROBOTS ON MARS mm The U.S. launches Skylab (right and The first of a SBB ' 1 lower right). The first crew fixes a m l'*t i Wpy i a protectiv m vehicle spends months collecting la. and moves in. They geological samples from the planet's J — ~ valleys, and voir"

1986 TRAGEDY i ne n 1975 APOLLO~SOYUZ Shortly after liftoff the shuttle Chal- small A truce is lenger explodes, killing all seven to wai •r** the Soyuz and Apollo crafts dock in astronauts aboard—among them the may help answer y

' t (see photo, far right, top). The first citizei' passenger, high-school the planet s geohistory and habitabilit 1- '" _ """ _ crews visit each other for two c r Cryista McAultffe. It is the worst Plans are being made to discu exchanging gifts and sharing rr it m the history of space travel. establishing a c

1965 FIRST SPACEWALK 1 1992 COLUMBUS 2010 MOON COLONY ' tion Columbus is — orbit. With it begins a mm new eooch of space exploration: o BKi ilization of space, civilians to the mc... _ Columbus is to be the staging point - aerations; expe- 2012 SPACE BABY

1965 RENDEZVOUS itellite repairs, One year after tl Apollo astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford guide Gemini 6 to within

1967 APOLLO 1 FIRE 1993 SPACE BIZ of Gus Gri Chaffee, and Ed White stun the world and delay the Apollo program for a jBjlgeil year and a half. m

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