THE SASSAPHRON MESSENGER A SPACETIME ADVENTURE by Gordon E. Legge May 1996 Copyright 1995 This book may be copied or printed for private, noncommercial use. The text may not be used for commercial purposes without the written consent of Gordon E. Legge. Portions of this book should not be reproduced electronically or in print without this notice or without the authorÕs name. Gordon E. Legge 75 East River Rd. Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612) 625-0846 [email protected] 2 DEDICATION With love and gratitude to Alex, who inspired this book, and to Wend, who made this book possible. 3 Table of Contents Chapter 1. Arrival 4 Chapter 2. The Theft 8 Chapter 3. Searching for Meaning 17 Chapter 4. A Meeting at the Pentagon 24 Chapter 5. The Catacombs 32 Chapter 6. Return of the Sassaphron Messenger 43 Chapter 7. Michelle's Revelation 54 Chapter 8. Exchanging Messages with Professor Tom 61 Chapter 9. The Messenger's Message: Part One 71 Chapter 10. An Unexpected Visitor 75 Chapter 11. Heeding the Warning 88 Chapter 12. Twists and Turns 97 Chapter 13. Visiting the Big House 103 Chapter 14. The Messenger's Message: Part Two 112 Chapter 15. Unseen Danger 120 Chapter 16. Confrontation or Cooperation 130 Chapter 17. Run Far Away or Hide in Deep Caves 139 Chapter 18. Minnephron 148 4 Chapter 1. Arrival Alex McIntosh and Jeffrey Wong were best friends. They had been classmates since kindergarten. Now they were in Sky Lake Junior High School, which everyone called "Sky High." Perhaps the two boys got along so well because they both came from single- child families. Or perhaps it was because opposites attract. Alex was a stocky, redheaded thirteen-year-old with chubby cheeks and a friendly smile. He had a calm and mellow disposition. He studied hard at school, listened to rock music at home, and loved slamming a baseball with an aluminum bat. Jeffrey was a wiry, excitable kid with black hair. His arms and legs were usually in motion. His eyes were always alight with a new fantasy. He loved mathematical puzzles, science fiction, and adventure stories. Both boys were computer whizzes, part of a new generation of kids who were more familiar with cyberspace than with their own back yards. The McIntosh house was located in a secluded neighborhood of Sky Lake, Minnesota, an outlying suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The yard behind the house bordered a grassy meadow, and was separated from it by a white picket fence. A row of spruce trees stood on the far side of the meadow. Beyond the trees was the picturesque little lake that gave the suburb its name. A bike trail ran around the lake. Jeffrey and his family lived a few miles closer to Minneapolis. The Wongs had moved to Minnesota from Hong Kong shortly before Jeffrey was born. They had prospered in the electronics business after coming to America. The Wongs spent summers in their cabin on a high wooded hill overlooking Lake Superior. Despite their summertime separation, the boys kept in close touch--by e-mail, paper-mail, homing pigeon, or whatever else came to hand. It was a sweltering Friday evening in July. The thermometer had topped out for the day at 95 degrees. Everybody was sweaty and tired. Jeffrey had just arrived by bus from cabin country for a weekend in the city with the McIntosh family. The boys and Alex's parents, Gordon and Wendy, sat around the table in the kitchen. Gordon had thrown together grilled chicken and a green salad for dinner. For dessert, they nibbled fresh strawberries dipped in powdered sugar. Everyone had a tall glass of milk. The mealtime conversation had been dominated by the startling revelations from California. That afternoon, tv and radio news had carried the remarkable announcement from the University of California at Berkeley. Scientists belonging to the SETI team-- Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence--reported detecting intelligent radio signals from 5 space. Gordon switched on the tv and clicked through the channels. He stopped when he spotted a well-known news anchor interviewing an astronomer from the SETI team, a Dr. Kugelbahn. Kugelbahn spoke quickly and authoritatively, "...and the signals are growing stronger fast, as if the transmitter is approaching the Earth at high speed." The anchor asked "How soon will the source of these signals reach the Earth?" "Our calculation indicates it will be a few hours or, at most, a few days," replied Kugelbahn. "How sure can you be that the signals are of intelligent origin? Could it be a false alarm, something of natural origins, or even a hoax?" Alex chimed in, "I bet I know what it is. It's one of those stunts pulled off by college students, like the ones at MIT." Alex had heard about many of the pranks at MIT because his father had been a student there. "We've considered the possibilities of natural causes and hoaxes" replied Kugelbahn, "but the evidence is against those explanations." The anchor pressed "Haven't there been false alarms before?" "Oh yes," said Kugelbahn, "For example, around 1900, the astronomer Percival Lowell was obsessed with the idea that there were canals on Mars built by intelligent beings. And in the 1960's, astronomers thought that the regular signals from pulsating stars were from intelligent aliens. This time, the complex mathematical structure of the signals is a much more definite indicator of intelligence. We are tracking the source of the signals continuously as it approaches the Earth." "Dr. Kugelbahn, is there a military threat connected with the intelligent signals?" "We have no evidence of any threat." The interview ended. The regular program resumed, featuring a bunch of kids throwing banana-cream pies at each other. Jeffrey did a dance, clapping his hands and shouting gleefully "The Martians are coming! The Martians are coming!" Alex poked him in the ribs and said "Don't be a dork." They all laughed. 6 The last feeble rays of the setting sun struggled into the McIntosh kitchen. "Come on Jeffrey," Alex said, "Let's have a quick game of badminton before it's totally dark." Jeffrey reluctantly agreed and followed his redheaded friend outside, chattering excitedly about little green dudes in space suits. "And what if they bring a killer disease like AIDS or the Andromeda Strain?" said Jeffrey. "Cool" said Alex. He was used to Jeffrey's creative fantasies and medical paranoia. The sun dropped out of sight, giving way to lingering pinks and purples in the darkening sky. The heat of the day had subsided, but the air was still thick with humidity. Dew had already formed on the grass. The boys lobbed the badminton bird back and forth across the net, in and out of the beam of the backyard spotlight. The bird's shadow traveled to and fro across the grass, chased by the shadowy silhouettes of the two boys. Jeffrey paused with his back to the net. Alex waited impatiently. "Come on! Serve!" he shouted. Jeffrey was peering into the velvety sky. "What are you looking at?" called Alex. Then he saw it too: a faint, glowing red spot, with a long, thin tail that faded into nothing. As the boys watched, the spot grew larger. "It could be an airplane burning up," suggested Jeffrey. "No way!" said Alex, "but it could be a satellite." With increasing rapidity, the spot grew brighter and brighter. The two boys stood side by side, motionless, watching the streaking red spot. Suddenly, they realized that it was coming directly at them. They could hear a deep rumbling sound, building toward a crescendo. The glowing red light expanded in the sky like an exploding ball of fire as it plummeted toward them. In terror, they dashed for cover, diving under the junipers at the edge of the house. There was a blinding flash, followed by a loud explosion, and a shock wave that caused the ground to pulsate and the windows of the house to rattle. An intense blast of hot air pelted the boys with a shower of dirt and singed grass. The blast knocked out the spot light. The deep rumbling sound was replaced by sizzling and crackling like a thousand pieces of bacon in a huge skillet. In the deepening darkness, the boys could see something long and tapered, shaped like a cone with its point down, lodged in the grassy meadow, only a hundred yards or so from the back of the house. It glowed with an eerie blue light. In panic, Gordon and Wendy rushed outside, wondering what had happened. Had a gas main exploded or a plane crashed? Where were the boys? "Alex, Jeffrey!" they shouted. 7 "We're okay," called Alex from beneath the junipers. Then he felt something squirm beside his leg. Startled, he reached down and felt a furry body. It was the McIntosh family's seal-pointed Siamese cat named Pericles. (The cat, who possessed a loud Siamese voice, had been named after a famous public speaker from ancient Athens.) Pericles was probably in the bushes when we dived for cover, thought Alex, and I'm sure he's okay. The two boys crawled out and entered the dim circle of light from the windows. They were plastered with dirt and grass. The boys joined Alex's parents on the back steps. Wendy who was a doctor checked them over quickly and determined that they were unscathed. For a moment, they all stood gazing at the faintly glowing object. It appeared to be about ten or 12 feet high, five or six feet across at the top, but tapered almost to a point where it stuck into the ground.