Chapter Nine
I was rudely awakened from my sleep.
‘Danny, wake up!’ Uncle Henry was loudly calling me, shaking me hard.
‘Am up, Okay, will you stop frisking Me.’ I said irritably before looking up.
‘We must leave immediately!’ He commanded. I don’t know how long I had been asleep or knew where I was.
‘Why?’ I asked staring at him puzzled.
‘He is coming.’ He replied. The look of urgency plastered all over his face.
‘Who?’ I inquired.
‘Xuryae.’ Interjected Eel, ‘He must have tracked me the moment I transformed back into his kind. Quick, get into the probe.’
‘Where are we headed?’ Doctor Lynn asked. A frightened look on her face, her long curly brown hair muffled up.
‘Somewhere safe for now, at least.’ Eel answered.
'What about Doctor Lynn's laptop?' I asked trying to go fetch it.
'Leave it.’ Eel said. 'He might have been tracking us through the laptop, using its installed GPS software.'
He was pressing some strange looking knobs as I settled into the small steel sit inside the probe's tight cabin next to Doctor Lynn. Uncle Henry was fastening his seat belt at the front next to Eel. The inside of the machine smelt of rust but looked impressive, nothing like I had seen before. Infrared, green and blue lights came on and I heard the door latch shut tightly.
The main steel frame entrance door unhinged slowly drawing upwards as I began to feel weightlessness.
‘Fasten your sit belts,’ Eel called out to us, ‘it’s going to be one hell of a ride.’
In a flash, we were high up in the dark, above a sea of debris, planets, moons and stars.
‘How did you do that?’ Uncle Henry screamed out, overly excited.
‘Superluminal motion.’ Eel replied, ‘four times faster than the speed of light. This space craft uses tachyons, arguably the fastest medium in the Universe. Tachyons my friends, cannot be absorbed by light, time holes or even black holes. All you have to do is charge their particles, point them in the right direction, then, sit back and enjoy the ride.’
‘This is awesome!’ Uncle Henry replied, ‘Di, Danny! Did you guys see that?’
‘Yeah we saw that!’ Doctor Lynn replied loudly, me, I was overwhelmed to say the least.
‘Where to now?’ Uncle Henry asked.
‘We are headed to Zodiac, a super cluster zone with a giant pileup of hundreds of thousands of galaxies six hundred million light years from here. I happen to know someone there who might be willing to help us, for a fee of course.’
‘What kind of fee?’ Doctor Lynn quizzed.
‘Don’t ask before you know what they might ask.’ Eel replied before pressing and lighting up a few more buttons above and below him.
Doctor Lynn cocked her neck, ‘How long before we make landing in this place of yours? Six hundred million light years sounds very far to me.’
‘Six Earth hours tops.’ Eel replied a smile cutting across his broad lips, ‘an hour for every one hundred million light years, that’s how fast we roll.’
‘So Eel, what’s your life story?’ Doctor Lynn quizzed after we had settled into what seemed like a gentle glide into the darkness.
'It depends which life you are interested in because, I live two lives you know.’
‘I think you could tell us about your earthly life first, then the otherlife in that order.’
'Okay.'
‘After graduating from Yale in nineteen forty one with engineering honors, a Missile Operations Officer position in the air force awaited me, and I had a beautiful girlfriend too, Sara Bridges. What can I say, I was very eager, ready to defend and support the United States forces. I was Twenty one years old at the time, green with glee and only too happy to join the United States Air force. It had always been my dream since I was little boy growing up in San Francisco.’
‘You’re from San Francisco?’ Uncle Henry asked. He was always happy to meet someone else from San Francisco.
‘Of course am from San Francisco, we are related remember?’ Doug or Eel replied.
‘My early military life was full of fun and heavy drinking but that was until nineteen forty four when I was asked by my best friend, Richard, who was in the Navy at the time, if I could join a team of volunteers to work on a top secret project in Nevada, area 51. At first, Sara and my father Bill were against the whole thing. Father said it smelt fishy. 'Son,' he said, 'those government people you work for are not to be trusted.' but curiosity got the better of me and I signed up to the Nevada project as it was called. A whole load of tests were conducted and I came out with the highest test scores, including a matching blood group type to our subject. That’s when I was fully debriefed as to what my country expected of me.’
‘Which was?’ I asked intrigued by the direction this narrative was taking. I didn’t want to miss a thing.
‘Danny!’ Uncle Henry interjected loudly, ‘Shut up.' he said. 'Eel please, continue.’
‘I was given a week to think it through, for the experiment I was told involved me swapping blood with an alien. I knew nothing of the involvement of the CIA at the time, or the secret technological advancements already gained. Anyway, the procedure was finally done, its intention, I had been briefed, was, to create a hybrid human who could do all the aliens were cable of, like travel in space, between galaxies, communicate with other alien species, but what I hadn’t been told, instead, was, the CIA wanted a human weapon, one they could use to fight other races if earth were invaded. The one individual the team didn’t count on was Eel, the captured alien. He too had plans of his own. He for his part, wanted to turn his captors into extensions of his own will.’
‘Why? What would he gain by doing that?' Doctor Lynn's sad tone was very evident.
‘He, meaning me of course, could use my very captors to transmit information about my exact location to my race far off in the galaxies out there searching for me.’ Eel replied. ‘But like I have already told you, it was finally agreed upon and the experiment was done resulting in the death of Sergeant Douglas Snow, but not before I assumed his body and mind too, blending the two species into one. Part Roti, part human.’
‘The government deserves to be sued for such an inhumane act.’ said Doctor Lynn angrily.
‘Di, he consented.’ Uncle Henry shot in.
‘Henry, he was still very young and had a fiancée.’ her voice somber.
'You two speak as though I were dead.' Interjected Eel, 'this is better than dead! I get to be anywhere anytime and besides it feels great.'
Doctor Lynn wasn’t done yet.
‘What happened to Sara?’
'Sadly, she learnt of my death six months later and was very distraught. You see, she was pregnant with my child, DS' father. However, she later went on to marry a lawyer from New Jersey, had three children by him but unfortunately died ten years later from kidney failure.'
'Am sorry.'
'You don’t have to be. I was serving my country.'
'What of your other life, the Roti life?' Doctor Lynn pressed on.
'Like I told you earlier,' Eel said, 'my home Infinity was destroyed by another race called Morfs, humanlike creatures with four eyes, two at the front and two at the back, but before they did, I was a Rogan, a soldier. Our species are born to be one thing and one thing only. You cannot change your station. Just like insects, one is born a worker, another solider and another queen. Rogans do not reproduce, we instead fight, often to the death, it's in our blood. My duty station was to protect Uls, one of the six suns which orbited out planet. It was the most beautiful of all our suns, made up entirely of crystal diamonds. It shown but gave out no heat. People from our race called it the Healing sun.'
'So you had no family?' I asked puzzled.
'I did. On Infinity, we were all one family, all sixty billion of us.'
'What?' Uncle Henry interjected, 'How is that possible? You guys had one dad?'
'N
o, but we all had one mother.'
'Now, that's even crazier than I thought.' Uncle Henry said shaking his head in disbelief.
'Why?' Eel asked staring at him quizzical.
'I mean, how could she possibly give birth to all sixty billion of you?'
'We were not born like you humans are, instead, we were hatched.'
'That kind of explains a lot.' Uncle Henry retorted, 'So, how long then does a Roti live?'
'A million years but it depends on one's station of course.' Eel replied. 'A Rogan lives at least about six hundred thousand years, a Toga, who are the workers, for eight hundred thousand years and our mother, the Queen, for a million. That’s why I said a million years when you asked.'
'That’s one hell of long time to live don’t you think Danny boy?' Uncle Henry said turning to stare back at me. Turning back again towards Eel, He asked.
'So, how old are you then?'
'That's very rude of you Henry.' a visibly angry Doctor Lynn interrupted.
'What's wrong with asking a man his age?' Uncle Henry shot back.
'It depends.' Eel answered trying to diffuse the tension building between the two Astro-physicists.
'It depends on what?' Uncle Henry wasn’t done yet.
'Whether you want to know Doug's age or Eel's age.' the man said in reply.
'Both.' I said interjecting.
'Does it really matter?' Doctor Lynn Interrupted.
'I guess it does, you see he said he was my grand pa.' I replied staring bluntly at her.
'Oh. So you think you’re a Roti now Danny boy?' Uncle Henry teased.
'Look!' Eel Interrupted. He was pointing to a massive black round object in the distance spiraling at lightning speed into oblivion.
'That my friends,' Eel said, 'is a planet that has just lost its sun.'
The plant was darker than the blackest coal.
'Oh my God!' Uncle Henry exclaimed, I could see Doctor Lynn's hazel eyes filled with horror.
'Did it have any form of life on it?' she asked.
'Yes it did.' Eel replied. 'Twelve billion souls, frozen in the dark and heading into the abyss of perpetual wandering.'
'Eel,' Uncle Henry said after we had recovered from that spectacle. 'Quite honestly, I'm struggling to come to terms with, and trying to understand how someone can move a sun. I mean really, like take it with them.'
‘Neutrinos are what we Roti use to move the sun.' Eel answered in reply. 'Once the sun's magnetic field changes polarity which happens at the peak of each solar cycle, its inner magnetic dynamo flips from north to south or vice versa. During this time, its polar magnetic fields weaken, going down to zero before emerging again with the opposite polarity. It’s the only window of opportunity when the sun can be dislodged from its resting position. This is done using precise wave excitations aimed at it and slowly, the sun starts to move in a cosmological constant motion to the desired location.'
'This is mind blowing!' Uncle Henry exclaimed staring at Eel whose hands kept stirring the probe rapidly through strange flying boulders.
'I would like to know what Neutrinos are.’ I asked before getting left out of this conversation.
‘Vacuum energy.’ Eel answered. Now, I was completely lost. I had to concede.
‘I need to know,' Interjected Doctor Lynn,' how is one able to harness Neutrinos or vacuum energy strong enough to pull or whatever it is that you do to the sun for such vast distances?'
'Yeah,' I chipped in trying to relate to something familiar at least. 'Like do you use a giant machine or something?'
'Space is not a vacuum,' Eel replied, 'but does have properties like spin, gravity and energy particles you humans call Neutrinos, although you lesser civilizations have just discovered that. Most civilizations still think space is empty. Wrong. Space is filled with more energy than the energy of all Galaxies put together. We, the Roti, were the first to harness and utilize this resource.’
‘How?' Uncle Henry who appeared to be brooding about all this tantalizing new information suddenly asked.
‘Most Neutrinos do not in essence carry an electric charge and because of their tiny size, are able to travel through any matter unhindered.' Eel explained. 'But the very high energy neutrinos or charged Neutrinos produce charged pions, which can be harnessed and stored in our space crafts. Controlled and measured zaps can then be applied from a space craft at approximately six million billion per second centimeters perpendicular in the direction of the Sun. In a matter of seconds, the sun is enveloped and wrapped in a blanket of Neutrinos. I believe you all have seen comets haven’t you?’ he asked.
‘Are you saying comets are stars being transported?’ Doctor Lynn asked looking bewildered.
‘Stolen doctor, stolen.'
‘Does the universe begin or end?’ Uncle Henry asked changing the subject. It seemed like Eel had just unlocked all the mysteries of the universe in Uncle's mind.
‘Am surprised you don’t know this Professor. Scientists believe and teach that all space and matter in the universe originates from a central galactic point, you fondly refer to it as the big bang, which is wrong. The universe my friends, is infinite. It’s what it contains that is finite, like galaxies, planets, and time. There also isn't one super massive black hole at the center of the universe, around which all galaxies orbit, there are countless super massive black holes scattered about in this infinite space.'
'Unbelievable!' Uncle said his mouth open wide.
'Your great thinkers like Einstein, Hawking, Feynman and, of course Charles Darwin have all believed that the universe originated from a point of singularity, a point of infinite density and space time curvature where time and space have a beginning and, one day we all might eventually get swallowed up by a super massive black hole at the center of the universe marking the end of time as we know it, leaving a void, the universe collapsing back to a point of singularity again, our final destiny. But let me tell you this professor, all the galaxies, time and all gravity will end, but space wont. It’s your homework.'
Out through the window I saw awesome sites, Gamma-ray bursts, glowing nebulae, electric storms and powerful active galactic nuclei. Our probe traversed through amazing magnetic turbulences, whizzing past immensely bright gigantic stars, through black holes, time warps and exo-planets of all kinds, shapes, colors and sizes at lightning fast speeds.
‘When I was still little,’ Eel said, breaking the wondrous silence that had enveloped us marveling at the inexplicable sights outside. ‘The final test of my training to become a Rogan warrior, Xuryae took me to Wahl’s passage, a region of a most violent quasar spewing toxic rays a billion light years into space and my task was to divert these rays, point them back to where they came from which would create an immense explosion at the center of that galaxy. My test was how fast I would get out of harm’s way.’
‘You must be joking!’ Uncle Henry exclaimed. ‘Wasn’t there any life on that galaxy?’
‘Enemy species mostly,' Eel replied curtly, 'no one would miss them though.’
‘So what happened?’ asked Doctor Lynn.
‘Am still here, am I not?’ Eel replied looking ahead through the window. His face glowed from the brightness approaching us.
‘Finally,' he said smiling, 'the Zodiac region.'