There was also something else in his tone – a protective defensiveness perhaps.
“Yes. True. But I so respect the range of his thinking. He is a Renaissance Man, a great man,” she almost apologetically responded. “He provided the support and encouragement for me to finish my doctorate, and he has been very kind to Robert, even though he has been maniacally busy with his research.”
“Kruger is one of the best research institutions anywhere. What prompted you two to leave it?” Martin asked.
“Perhaps you should discuss that with Lothar,” she demurred. “Let’s just say he holds strong views about research and its ultimate utility.”
“Back to pre-ordainment: Do you know the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well?” Martin quizzed.
“I’ve heard it,” she responded “at some point.” She smiled disarmingly.
“Well, Jesus used the encounter to candidly explore with the woman what she thought about her own life. On one level it focused on a string of immoral liaisons she had, but on another level the story speaks to the woman’s passive reliance on the familiar: she chooses to live with this man who is not her husband at least partly because she has lived with many other men. The practice was apparently at least initially and superficially ‘comfortable’ for her, yet the effect of all this was predictably unsatisfying, negative, and self-destructive. Jesus told her to go and sin no more -- but that of course also meant to form an entirely new way of looking at life and living it, the way Jesus revealed.”
“Translation: My ‘pre-ordainment’ may be a passive reliance on familiar events, types of people, and inherited and acquired talents?” Jennah questioned him with some peevishness.
“I don’t know, and I’m not being formulaic. That’s ultimately up to you to decide. But I do know the Scriptures have a unique power to reach us truly, personally and where we yearn.”
Jennah looked at him steadily. Even beyond the campfire, Martin could see her green eyes studying his face, perhaps searching for a doubt, an apology or a reservation. Finding none, she gazed into the fire once more.
“I have worked hard in my field all my life and have achieved. Is there such a thing as active passivity? I don’t think I’ve ever considered my life in that way before,” she mused aloud. “And I don’t know that I like that idea very much.”
Martin stared at her, imagining the thoughts with which she grappled for several minutes. He admired her power of concentration.
Then she rose, with the crack of the fire muffling the rustle of her slacks . “I must corral Robert. It’s past his bedtime. I’ll send Jonathan back when I find them.”
Martin stood up also, reaching into his pants pocket to retrieve a small case of micro-dots. “Here,” he said as he produced one of his choosing, handing it to Jennah, “you may find this of some use.”
She quizzically stared at the encased micro-dot and then up at Martin.
“Just some Bible passages with a few things I’ve written that pertain to our conversation. Take this as a down payment for another discussion – if you are interested,” he explained.
She slightly shook her head up-and-down several times, her hair wisping into her face; she brushed it back, fixing her eyes on him for a moment. “Good night, Martin,” Jennah softly replied, stepping out of the light-cone of the campfire into the ebony blackness of Ritman.
Martin gazed in her direction, listening for several minutes to the whisper of her swish through the tall grass.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
He tripped again, catching himself with his right hand before he sank to the boulder-strewn ground. The very small night goggles, only intended for emergency use, were proving to be inefficient. But he dare not risk using his flashlight for fear of being detected.
Martin had proceeded at a good pace in covering the 9.6 miles since he left the settlement around 11 p.m. But unless he spotted Kleider’s laboratory soon, he would have to begin his return to ensure he arrived back unobserved at the settlement before dawn.
Steadying himself on the graveled upslope with his left hand, Martin cleared the rise. Before him were several small towers and a 50-meter flared tube rising from the ground pointing toward the boulder near the mountain peak. He had found his objective.
“Stop right there, McMichaels,” Kleider ordered calmly yet authoritatively. “Put your hands above your head and turn slowly to face me.”
Martin did as he was commanded. He immediately noticed the Glock plasma pistol trained on him.
“I’ve been tracking you for the last two miles. Did you really think I would be so absent-minded not to have security at this place?” Kleider gloated.
“But now that you have seen much too much, you have complicated my life considerably,” he feigned protest. “How is it that I can arrange a fatal ‘accident’ for you? Do you have any last thoughts for me to pass on to your family?” Kleider smiled with smug satisfaction that seemed self-satisfyingly puerile.
“Only that they – and DS Limited – should be reading my warnings about you in the recording capsule I left with the crew that departed two days ago – to be opened only upon my death, of course.”
“That’s a weak bluff, McMichaels,” Kleider replied evenly, nonetheless fidgeting with his pistol.
“It’s ergokinesis, not seeds,” Martin paused. “Right, Dr. Hammonds?”
Kleider lowered his pistol and his countenance faded swiftly from stony determination to curious bewilderment. “Hammonds?”
“Dr. John Hammonds. You lectured at Cambridge 14 years ago on the theory of interpolated mass mechanics – IMM,” Martin recalled, lowering his arms to his side. “There’s no use denying it.”
“It was a brilliant theory and encouraged many debates among us students. Analogous to some invisibility experiments in quantum mechanics at the time, you theorized that a power influx at precisely the right picosecond of a mass phase event could reposition – or ‘move’ – an object from its ‘expected’ location to a very unlikely – but remotely statistically possible – other location. You owed a lot to Feynman’s ‘sum over histories’ approach to wave/particle duality, but the application to more massive objects was all yours. At that time, of course, the instantaneous power requirements to even lab-test your theory were prohibitive…”
“But not anymore,” Kleider finished Martin’s sentence for him. “How did you know? You are obviously not a mere Reverend. Have you followed me from Cambridge? Or maybe you were sent from DS Limited to wring the secrets from me?”
“Neither. It was entirely serendipitous – or should I say providential. I recognized you soon after you spoke to the crew that first night we were here. Your faux German accent confused me a bit at first, but I knew the Kleider intensity and the Hammonds drive were one and the same,” Martin concluded.
“I am this close,” Kleider held his index finger and thumb of his right hand an inch apart, “to perfecting this technique. And do you understand the implications? Moving mountains of materials instantaneously; repairing roads, bridges remotely with no human involvement; mining without the need for people risking their lives; perhaps moving whole asteroids closer to a home planet so their minerals can be more easily accessed; manipulating infinitesimally small particles to do our bidding. Think of all the deconcentration of power, the power to the individual that will result. It will be a revolution of Ego and Super-Ego over banal communtarianism. And the Organization will be fatally wounded!”
“You are directly tapping this planet’s core for energy, aren’t you? And there was an accident two weeks ago – a ‘squall’ as you said,” Martin challenged.
“That’s why my experiments are here on the escarpment, so remote.”
“But not remote enough, correct? The energy infusion from the core leaked a bit from your encapsulation chamber and formed an atmospheric super-eddy – a tornado if you will – that almost destroyed your family. The damage to your
settlement clearly wasn’t a natural, week-long weather event. Your experiment could have destroyed the planet.”
“Again, the Organization talking!” he yelled at Martin. “The price of generational progress is sometimes high. But no one was hurt.”
“And you really think your research will remain a total secret now that you are core-blasting to feed your machine? The gravitational waves will soon be picked up by listening devices – and by organizations that may not want you to succeed, Hammonds,” Martin raised his voice.
“I’ll take that chance,” Kleider defiantly retorted.
“You disappeared five years after the Cambridge lecture, changed your name, came here. Why?”
“Because of them. You. And others like them and you,” he roared. “Universities, organizations, graduate students. They are all interested in the same thing – instantaneous, incremental gain for themselves, not unimaginable technological leaps. Those true leaps take time, they must be nurtured, given space to bloom. But above all, those inventors must be given their…” he paused, “privacy.” Kleider, wide-eyed, gazed past Martin.
“IMM is like the magic chain of the Norse gods, constructed to bind an horrendous and terribly powerful wolf,” Kleider smiled, transfixed. “The Organization, Civilization, is that mighty wolf. It must be curtailed, muzzled, bound so that the people can prosper,