Chapter Thirty-Seven
ADAM
1
It was April 20, 2005, on a tiny beach hidden deep amongst the boulders, located about half way out along the point of Granite Bay. Adam stood face to face with a handsome young man he thought he would never ever see again. The young man spoke first. The tone of his voice was soft and affectionate.
‘Hi, dad.’
Adam’s heart filled with emotion and his vision blurred as a tear streamed down his left cheek. He barely composed himself enough to utter the question, ‘Ben, is that you?’
2
The sixty-foot diameter, polished-silver space ship hovered silently about two feet above the broken waves rolling into the beach. On the beach side, a panel was open on the underside of the ship. A thin, sloping ramp almost, but not quite, touched the sand. There were barefoot footprints running from the ramp to Adam, who was standing there, frozen like a statue.
‘It’s me, dad. You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of this moment. I’ve missed you so.’ Ben moved forward and embraced his father with a bear hug. ‘I love you so much, dad.’
Adam’s emotions overwhelmed him and he began to cry.
‘Don’t cry, dad,’ whispered Ben, kissing the side of his father’s cheek, ‘the days of us being apart are over.’
‘Over?’ Adam whimpered.
‘Yes, over!’
‘And mum?’
‘Mum too. She’s waiting for us at home.’
‘Home?’
‘Oh dad, there’s so much I’ve got to tell you, and to show you.’
‘For the moment, Benny … just don’t stop hugging me.’
‘OK, dad, that’s easy. Mum told me to tell you that she loves you very much and that she can’t wait to see you.’
After a couple more minutes, giving his father time to compose himself, Ben released Adam from his bear hug and stepped back to look at him. He made an instant observation.
‘You’re looking in pretty good nick, dad.’
‘You don’t look like you’re struggling either, son.’
After a brief period of catch-up conversation, Ben felt it important to reveal to his father the truth about his old friend, Zeke, who his father thought got killed in a gravityflight experiment.
‘Dad …’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you about Zeke.’
‘Zeke? I was there when he shot through the roof of his shed. I suppose that you found him floating somewhere between here and God knows where in space, frozen like a block of ice.’
Ben chuckled at the image Adam created, then revealed,
‘He’s not dead. He’s alive.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, mum and I, we picked him up that night. Actually, it was the night after.’
‘Zeke is alive?’
‘As strong as a bull. He’s been living with us on Rama.’
‘Where?’
‘Rama, dad. It’s our other home.’
‘Home?’
‘Yeah, dad. It’s our planet … in the Andromeda Galaxy.’
‘The Andromeda Galaxy?’
‘Oh dad, there’s so much … but listen, let’s not hang around here too much longer, unless you want to. What’s say we go back to your house.’
‘I drove the Kombi.’
‘Come with me. Let me take us home. We can get the van later.’
Adam looked up at the space ship that was hovering silently next to them.
‘What, in that?’
‘Yeah. I’ve got room for two, even your board.’
Adam instantly lost his melancholy and suddenly lit up with the excitement of a new adventure. He said,
‘Ooooh, Benny, this has got to be fun.’
Ben walked up the ramp into the ship followed by Adam carrying his board and water bottle.
The inside of the ship was all lit up in a warm, easy on the eyes, light, although there were no light sources visible. The light was just there, in the air. The space inside was circular. There were no partitions. In the centre of the ship were two, very comfortablelooking, semi-supine, tan-coloured, bucket seats. They did not appear unlike sports seats out of an expensive car, except that they extended all the way out to support the feet, like a dental chair. On closer inspection, Adam noticed later that the seats were covered in a material made of intricately-woven, fine strands of what looked like leather. He could see no stitching however. Later still, Ben explained to Adam that the seat material was synthetic and was carbon based.
Ben pointed Adam to a few duffel bags and a surfboard, which was strapped to the inner hull in the port side of the ship.
‘You can strap your board above mine over there, dad.’
Adam placed his surfboard into a specialised rack above Ben’s and strapped it down with what held like Velcro straps, although Adam could not see any Velcro on them. As he turned to face Ben, he noticed the ramp silently rise up and seal the ship.
‘Come, dad, come sit in your chair.’
Adam sat next to Ben in the passenger seat. Ben smiled as he watched Adam take in the detail of the inside of the ship. He noticed that on the opposite side of the surfboards, the starboard side, were two bench seats with a small table cantilevered out of the wall between them. Next to them, in a separately defined area, was what looked like a small galley. There were also some shelves with a variety of containers of various things, Adam figured food, and there were some enclosures of various dimensions within which Adam imagined might be things like a garbage receptacle and maybe a head. As he scanned the ship’s interior, Adam asked,
‘How do you control this thing? I don’t see any controls.’
‘That’s because there are no controls, dad. I control it with mind control.’
‘Mind control?’
‘Yes, but it doesn’t involve thinking. You do it too, dad, every time you move some part of your body. It’s kind of the same. This is really, really ancient technology. To me the ship feels like an extension of my body. I just will it without even thinking.’
‘Wow, Ben, that is amazing, but how can you see where you are going?’
‘Aha, check this out.’
In an instant, the two men became surrounded by, what appeared to be, a translucent, spherical, television screen. Suddenly, Adam could see everything outside the ship in whichever direction he looked. He could also partially see the inside of the ship through the screen.
‘Ohh, you’ve got to be kidding me, Ben, this is the most insane thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘I’ll just dim the inside light, dad.’
As the ambient light of the interior of the ship dimmed to darkness, the screen lost its translucency. It appeared to Adam like there was now no ship surrounding them anymore. There was just the exterior, which was perfectly rendered on the most amazing spherical TV screen he’d ever seen, and them lounging on the comfortable chairs in the centre of it. It was as if they were levitating in their chairs. Adam got a brief flash of a feeling like he just needed to look at something and will himself towards it.
‘It’s called a spherical hologram display, dad. It’s supported by the air in the ship. There are cameras in the hull and there is, what would be called on Earth, a central data processor for the image. The whole deal is mind controlled. This is pretty ancient stuff as well, dad.’
‘So, when you fly places, you can see everything?’
‘Yeah, in perfect colour and definition. Also, we could see in X-ray, infra-red, or ultraviolet if we wanted to, all in full colour.’
‘This is seriously a trip, Ben.’
‘Are you ready to go?’
‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘Would you like to take a bit of a detour on the way home, dad?’
‘A detour? Where to?’
‘What’s say we do a quick fly-past of the Moon.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘No, dad, for real.’
Adam hammed it up, ‘Oh yes, the Moon sounds fine I think, Ben. Mars is such a bore this time of year.’
‘Funny, dad. OK, here we go.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘How long would you like it to take?’
‘Are there any limits?’
‘None.’
‘All right, how about five minutes.’
Ben smiled. ‘I wasn’t thinking about crawling to the Moon, dad, but OK, five minutes, give or take.’
‘Will we feel anything?’
‘Just one thing. We will feel massless. Neutralization of the mass of the ship and its contents is part of gravity flight. So, we will feel ourselves become weightless and massless.’
‘Yes, I can feel it now, Ben. What a strange feeling.’
They did not see the inside of the ship because it was completely dark. They only saw the outside view, perfectly rendered on the spherical, holographic display all around them. Adam saw how they rose silently and rapidly, reaching the edge of the atmosphere in less than thirty seconds. He saw how the screen rotated, or the image on the screen, he wasn’t sure, so that now they were facing directly at the Moon. He suddenly realised that he couldn’t feel any of the motion. There was no inertia or momentum. There was no feeling of acceleration. It felt like it wasn’t real, like it was all happening on a very fancy TV inside a darkened room.
‘I can’t feel a thing,’ he said to Ben.
‘That’s right, dad. This is massless flight. No sensation of acceleration or deceleration. That’s why we don’t have to wear seat belts and stuff doesn’t fly around the inside of the ship.’
Adam watched the Moon increase in size at a rapid rate. ‘Are we in outer space?’ he asked.
‘Semi-outer. Technically we are in Earth-Moon space. That is the space within the orbit-sphere of the Moon. It’s like a cell, kind of. True outer space, or extracellular space, is what you would understand as intergalactic space.’
‘Ohhh, Ben, what is happening to me?’
‘You’re fine, dad. I’m here to take care of you and I’ll never leave you again. And that’s a promise.’
Within a few minutes they were fifty-thousand feet above the Moon’s surface. Adam surmised,
‘I suppose that we don’t have to worry about going into any kind of orbit?’
‘Correct, dad. In gravity flight, things like orbital dynamics don’t exist. You just go where you want.’
Adam marvelled at the desolation of the Moon. ‘It’s so dead,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Ben agreed.
Adam turned his head, ‘And look at the Earth, wow, it looks bigger than I thought it would. And the stars, wow Ben, look at all the stars.’
Ben nodded, delighted at his father’s obvious pleasure. ‘Yeah, the cosmos is a most beautiful place.’
‘Yeah.’ Adam sighed, then he remembered, ‘Hey, Ben …’
‘Yeah, dad?’
‘Can we go see Apollo 11?’
Ben looked at Adam. He paused for a moment before replying. Adam asked again,
‘Well, can we?’
‘Ahm, we could, dad … if it was there … but it isn’t.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘Er, how shall I put this nicely, er, the whole Apollo program was a huge, er, military misdirection.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, it’s one of our favourite study subjects back on Rama. The Moon landings never happened. They never went out of Earth orbit.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘No, I’m not. To try to do it the way they pretended to do it was, and is, an impossibility. What they really did was put nukes into orbit after they found out about their electromagnetic-pulse properties, EMP for short, and as a cover for the covert, military missions, they made up the Moon landings. It was the only way they could justify sending up the huge, Saturn-5 rocket so many times, which they needed to place the heavy, multiple-nuke payloads into Earth orbit with. It also padded out NASA’s budget very nicely and bought a lot of silence. After Apollo 17, they figured that they had enough nukes up there so they stopped the program. Not long after that, panic started to set in because they realised that they would have to bring those nukes back down some day. That’s why they designed the shuttle. I don’t think they can ever reveal the truth about the cover story because of the huge amount of embarrassment that would go with it. They still, to this day, justify the lie by classifying it as a military, ultra-top secret.’
‘Are you sure about this, Ben?’
‘Do you want to fly down to the Sea of Tranquillity and check it out?’
‘Absolutely.’
Adam noticed two lines, that looked like they were made of light, appear on the surface of the Moon. He could see that they intersected somewhere over the horizon. Ben flew the ship towards the area where the lines intersected. When they were directly above the cross, he flew down to the surface. Adam noticed two, co-ordinate numbers appear next to the cross. They were 0.8N and 23.5E. Above the numbers were the words Eagle Landing. They hovered about one-hundred feet above the exact spot where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were supposed to have walked on the Moon. The crossed lines, numbers and words gradually faded away.
‘This is the exact spot, dad. See … nothing.’
Adam shook his head, bewildered by this shocking revelation.
‘You know, Ben, I can still remember where I was when they landed here. I remember I was in first-year uni and I skipped a physics lecture to watch the landing on TV. It changed my whole life.’
‘Do you want to go home now, dad?’
‘Yeah,’ Adam replied sounding somewhat confused and distant. He shook his head from side to side, then said, ‘Yeah, let’s do that, Benny.’ After a short pause he commented, ‘Wow, I can’t believe what an exciting life you lead.’
‘As will you, dad, as will you. Now watch this, and this is just a tiny fraction of the potential performance of this ship.’
Adam watched in awe as they returned to the top of the Earth’s atmosphere in one second flat.
‘Whoooooah, Ben, I … am … speechless. I am totally without speech.’
‘Ha ha ha,’ Ben laughed, ‘that line’s out of Seinfeld. You won’t believe it, but it’s one of our favourite shows on Rama. We love it. It’s so funny. We even have Seinfeld gettogethers and laugh ourselves stupid.’
Adam was trying his best to assimilate the new reality and stay calm at the same time. He thought, ‘There’s absolutely no difference between all of this and the Nitrous trips I used to do, except that you got to come out of a gas trip.’
Ben heard his father’s thought as if he had spoken it to him.
‘Mum told me about your involvement with Nitrous Oxide.’
‘What? Did you read my thoughts?’
‘I am a full telepath, dad.’
The ship descended through the atmosphere at many times free-fall speed.
‘I never told your mother about the gas.’
‘Well, she knows all about it. She told me that it’s what really got her interested in you. She said that you, a non-telepath, found a way into the mind plane and that she helped you along while you were in there. She said that she actually fell in love with you from two-million light years away. She said that she came to Earth to marry you and have me. She said that I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for your adventurous spirit.’
Noosa was shrouded in total darkness by now. Ben brought the ship down vertically above Adam’s house, slowing down as he approached closer. The exterior of the ship was almost invisible as it was the colour of pitch black. This was due to the chameleon-effect function of the hull. The ship could mimic whatever environment it happened to be in and perfectly blend with the background, like a chameleon or octopus. This function was controlled by non-thought mind control as well, exactly like a chameleon or octopus does it.
3
Adam’s house was located in Noosa Waters. It was said by many that Noosa Waters was the best waterfront development in the southern hemisphere. One of the reasons was that the expansive canal network was non-tidal. This was facilitated by a brilliantlydesigned lock system through which one had to pass in order to enter or exit Noosa Waters in a boat.
The house was an architectural tour de force. The two-storey structure was custom designed for its location, the design taking into account sun angles in all seasons, prevailing winds and breezes, and seasonal variations in temperature. As a result, the house could be kept open all year round without there ever being a need for heating or cooling. Also, because of the council’s mosquito control program, the house had no insect screens.
The house was one of three structures on the property. The other two were a twocar garage, incorporating a workshop area in the rear, and a two-bedroom, self-contained granny flat. The whole property was surrounded on three sides by a high wall.
The back of the house faced the water. There was a large, L-shaped jetty there, as well as a beautifully-engineered slipway for Adam’s boat.
‘Someone might see us, Ben. I’m not sure how I would explain to my neighbours that I just arrived home in a UFO.’
Ben laughed, ‘You crack me up, dad. Mum was right, you are a funny guy. OK, firstly, we’re in camo mode …’
‘Camo?’
‘Camouflage. The outside of the ship is matt-black. Actually, it’s darker than the blackest black. It absorbs every photon that hits it, so it’s pretty much invisible. Secondly, I’m telepathically tuned into every human that could possibly see us. I’m making sure that no one is watching. See, you’ve got nothing to worry about, dad, and if someone did happen to get a glimpse of something, well, I’d just expunge the memory from their poor little brains.’ Ben smiled as he said that.
‘Jees, Ben, how am I supposed to handle all this?’
‘Well, dad, mum told me that you handled some pretty wild stuff in the past, and she told me not to worry about you and to give it to you straight-up, completely undiluted.
She reckoned you’d be up to it, no problem.’
‘Well, that was easy for her to say. I’m not as smart as you guys think, I don’t think.’
‘God love you, dad. I’ll never let anything happen to you, ever, and you are plenty smart enough, don’t you worry about that.’
The ship settled just above the water, snugly fitting within the confines of the L shape of the jetty. Adam commented,
‘It fits inside the jetty perfect.’
‘Yeah, we made sure of that when the jetty was being built.’
‘What, you got into the architect’s head?’
‘Well, yeah, naturally.’
‘Hey, I’m starting to feel heavy.’
‘That’s right, dad, we’re getting our mass back.’
‘Let me take a shot at this and then tell me how I went.’
‘OK.’
‘We are experiencing the effect of mass in our bodies because we are coming back under the influence of the ubiquitous, graviton field all around us. Zeke taught me that. I’ll never forget it.’
‘That’s pretty good, dad.’
Adam noticed, through the spherical holographic display, that the interior of the ship gradually illuminated with a soft light. Sitting in their seats, they faced the house. The display faded away and only the interior of the ship was now visible. A panel opened directly in front of them. It appeared to Adam that it was a section of the upper surface of the hull. The panel flipped up through nearly 180 degrees and fixed itself into position nearly, but not quite, touching the paving of Adam’s terrace.
‘Ta daaa,’ exclaimed Ben cheerfully, ‘after you, dad.’
‘Oh no, Benny, you are my guest. After you.’
‘Thanks, dad.’
Adam walked out of the ship behind Ben and then led him into the house. He switched on some lights and his iPod player. Boz Scaggs began to sing Harbor Lights at a low volume.
‘The first thing I want to do is get out of my board shorts and have a shower. Why don’t you look around and make yourself comfortable while I do that.’ ‘OK, dad. I might bring your surfboard in while I wait for you.’
4
After Adam showered and dressed, he poured them a cold drink and sat down with Ben on the outside veranda overlooking the water. He began the conversation.
‘That was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done, Ben.’
‘Yeah, I never get tired of flying the ship either.’
‘You know, I was thinking about something while I was having my shower. Those nukes you mentioned, the ones you reckon they put into orbit, what’s all that about?’
‘You know, dad, the most bizarre thing about that is that we Rama know more about the orbiting nukes that you poor Earthlings do.’ Ben chuckled, ‘It all started back in the mid-forties, but the test that really woke them up was a high-altitude test called Starfish Prime. In July 1962, they set off a 1.44-megaton, nuclear device in space, 250 miles above the mid-Pacific Ocean. The resulting electromagnetic pulse knocked out a whole bunch of electronic equipment in Hawaii, nearly 900 miles away.
‘Starfish Prime was the first definitive test in a series of US, high-altitude, nuclear tests in 1962, known as Operation Fishbowl. Further tests gathered more data, which was definitive enough to enable the maniacs to accurately identify the physical mechanisms that were producing the EMPs.
‘That same year, 1962, the Soviets also performed a series of EMP tests, in space over Kazakhstan, and found out, to their shock and surprise, about the space bomb’s incredible destructive power to all electronic systems.
‘If a bomb was set off in orbit above the US, say, the resulting EMP would fry all the electronics right across the whole continent. There would be no physical damage, no one would be hurt, but all communications, all energy supplies, and thus all food distribution, would cease. A horror scenario would unfold where the population, unable to access fuel, food or water, would begin to die off in the most hellish way. An EMP attack is the worstcase scenario for any nation. It means the death of the population but not the destruction of the non-electronic infrastructure. A couple of months after the EMP, the attacking army would just roll in and take over without resistance. They would repair the electronic networks and continue to thrive in the new land.’
‘Jees, Ben!’
‘Back in the sixties, there was a pretty frightening cold war going on between the Americans and the Soviets. There was a total lack of trust. They made each other believe that they could be blown up by nukes at any second. Remember the duck and cover routine they taught the kids in school? In the middle of this extreme distrust they both discovered the EMP. As it turned out, it was the Americans that took the big, bold step of putting nukes into orbit. This gave them a tactical advantage. A nuke flew over the USSR roughly every hour and a half. All it took was the push of a button and it would have been bye bye Russkies. It was serious stuff. That’s why they needed a convincing deception. The American people would have never accepted the truth about the space bombs, so they fed them a lie, the kind of lie they would never ever want to let go of, even if all evidence against it stared them right in their collective faces.’
‘God, Ben, what a frightening story. So, are there nukes up there now?’
‘Yeah. It’s like a Mexican standoff up there. Don’t let all the lovey-dovey behaviour in the space station fool you. In truth, the idiots have got their guns pointed at each other’s heads, with the triggers cocked. The main thing that you need to know, dad, is that this planet has been taken over by certifiably mad people.’
‘So, the first thing most people will know about this is when their power goes out and their phones don’t work? Jees, Ben, their refrigerators will go off.’
‘Nothing will work. The cars won’t start, petrol stations won’t pump, supermarkets won’t open and water won’t come out of the taps. People will die of thirst and starve. After about a month, ninety-plus percent of the population will be dead. It could be as high as ninety-nine-point-nine.’
There was a pause while both men contemplated the horrendous scenario. Then Ben remembered, ‘I brought you a gift. It’s something Zeke and I made for you.’
Adam’s eyes lit up,
‘A gift? For me? You and Zeke?’
‘Yes. Let me go and get it.’
Ben zipped out of the house and returned a minute later carrying an oddly-shaped, drawstring bag about the size of a small suitcase. He placed it on Adam’s dining-room table and proceeded to extricate the contents.
‘What is it?’ Adam queried all excited.
‘Nobody, dad, I mean absolutely nobody on Earth has one of these.’
Ben pulled the contraption out of the bag. The whole thing was coloured a deep, matt-black.
‘It looks like something you put on your back,’ observed Adam.
‘This, oh father of mine,’ said Ben proudly as he held up the strange object, ‘is a levpack. Lev is short for levitation.’
Adam’s eyes popped clear out of their sockets, his jaw hit the floor and his eyebrows hit the ceiling as he excitedly asked,
‘For me?’
‘Absolutely. It was all Zeke’s idea. He’s been working on it for years. First, he made one for himself, then he made this one. It’s especially designed for non-telepathic people.’ Ben passed the lev-pack to Adam who proceeded to closely examine its design.
‘It’s pretty neat for a Zeke design. He was usually a bit untidy with his constructions.’
‘Zeke has come a long way since you last saw him. You won’t believe how much he has progressed, although fundamentally he’s still the same Zeke.’
‘So how does this thing work?’ Adam pointed at two multi-triangular metal frames that were attached to what appeared like an anatomically-shaped back plate from which hung six belts and two control cables. On the end of the cables were handgrips with braketype levers.
‘OK, dad, it goes on your back just like the jetpack I made for you. These triangular frames are gravity sails. The reason they have no apparent effect now is because they are neutralizing each other. You see, each sail has a natural component of gravity lift of, I believe Zeke said, 412 kilograms. If both triangles are pointed at the ground, in parallel, they will generate 824 kilograms of lift. The reason they aren’t doing anything right now is because they are in a neutralizing position, 180 degrees relative to each other, pointed out, pushing against each other, horizontal to the ground when the lev-pack is being worn. Am I confusing you, dad? It’s pretty simple really.’
‘I can’t believe it, but I got it. God, Ben, I am getting pretty excited here. So, I assume that the hand control adjusts the angle of the triangle sails away from the neutral position, towards the ground. And the more towards the ground the sails point, the greater the lift, with a maximum lift component of, what was it again?’
‘824 kilograms. You’re pretty smart, dad.’
‘Not really, Ben, I’ve just already been through this trip with Zeke, all those years ago, with the gravity sail you left behind. This is amazing. And you reckon that I can fly this thing?’
‘Oh yeah, dad. This pack is yours … and nobody else’s. Flying it will be a piece of cake. There’s a suit I brought that goes with it. It’s in the bag.’
Ben rummaged in the bag and retrieved a garment, which looked like it was made of a material similar to Neoprene. It was a deep, matt-black colour. He gave it to Adam who held it up in front of himself.
‘Wow, Ben, but isn’t it a bit small?’
‘It stretches, and there’s a balaclava, a pair of booties, gloves and a pair of special goggles to go with it. It’s designed to provide 100 percent body cover with no leaks. We couldn’t give you chameleon effect, but the suit does have a thermo-control function. Basically, if you’re too cold, it will warm you, and if you’re too hot, it will cool you. It’s the cold that is usually the problem.’
‘Ben, you don’t know how bizarre all this is to me.’
‘Yeah, I figured that it might be, but mum assured me that you would adjust without any adverse effects. Get used to it, dad, this is the new reality and we’re never going back to the old one again.’
‘So, my guess is that the suit is matt-black in order to make it difficult to see in the dark.’
‘That is correct, dad. I think that you will prefer to fly it at night in order to keep it a secret. The suit will keep you comfortable no matter how cold it gets outside, and the goggles will enhance your night vision.’
Zeke spent three years designing and building the lev-pack. Ben assisted, but only when asked to.
The lev-pack design was brilliant in its simplicity. It was worn on the back and held in place by a six-point harness. Two straps passed over the shoulders, two around the waist and two, wider, more anatomically shaped and padded ones, between the legs. It was extremely light, weighing in at just two and a hal