Bryn Symonds, writer, editor

It didn't really start with the Enigma. The errant asteroid came before it. There were also those sporadic meteor showers that started a minor panic at the Moon Base that our friends from NASA had been attempting to build ­ but that came even later. There were also those earthquakes that didn't quake, inundations that submerged some lands only to expose others, and a number of other events that didn't make much sense. Scientific sense, that is. They were things that defied logic. That belonged in Hollywood tabloids.

Then came the viral diseases ­ more like plagues really. It was as though Nature had taken over and decided to run things her own way, relegating man to the role of a dumbfounded spectator, powerless and basically unprepared. But what really upset John Hydon was that I, his own little Hey, wasn't disturbed by any of this. Ever. Or so it seemed to him. Even JJ found his own escape from the mounting dilemmas. Only John Hydon, Ph.D., the man others referred to as The Brain, seemed progressively more lost with each day.

"Even now I just don't understand it," my father muttered to himself. I remember: he was looking out through the triangular latticework of aluminium tubes that kept us alive. The view was breathtaking. But all that came later. Many years later.

That's as close as I remember it from my dreams. The rest is conjecture. Mostly derived from talking to about two thousand people. Sometimes I can't be sure. Lately I seem to be losing the distinction between what is real and what isn't. Did it all really happen? I strongly suspect that all things are real. All events, all feelings, ideas Whatever we perceive as such. Even dreams. Isn't the Universe infinite? Maybe there's no limit to the versions of reality.

Occasionally, my perception of reality takes off on a tangent. I don't seem to have too much control over it. Never did. You'll just have to bear with me.

And by the way. If you were expecting a fast-paced sci-fi story, you would better think again. This is the story of my life. It really happened. And if some parts sound as if they were figments of my imagination, then let me tell you: they may have taken place just in my mind, but to me they are as real as the hand in front of my face. Trust me.

But now we really are well ahead of the story. We would better take a deep, a really deep, breath and start at the beginning. Some thirty years ago. About the time I was born.

For three days, the atmosphere in the lab had been electrifying. In spite of numerous red-rimmed eyes, stifled yawns and innumerable cups of black coffee, all fourteen scientists had remained glued to their computer screens, tracking the motion of an object that measured the length of two football fields, and with the mass of the Empire State Building. That's minute by cosmological standards. Simultaneously, the laser printouts hummed with an ever-growing flood of data. In days to come, tens of thousands of numerical data would be dissected with surgical precision. In astronomy, not to mention in astrophysics, the smallest items often open the gates of the unknown. And out there, there was the infinite field of the unknown still waiting to be discovered. A truly infinite field. A field of dreams.

Now and then John Hydon looked up from his desk, gave terse instructions to one of his assistants and then froze, again, in rapt attention. Apart from those brief moments, his eyes did not waver from the computer screen. Now and then his fingers would stab the keyboard, staccato, like a fragment of a brief rondo cappricioso, automatically, then revert to their previous rigid immobility on the desk. His face remained a mask of concentration. His hazel eyes that turned brown in the dimmed light of the Observatory shone unblinking, narrowing behind the outsized spectacles, determined to catch information before it was even recorded by the electronic memory. Billions of megabytes a minute. He seemed lost in his private world of astrophysics. Astro-speculation, he called it in his lighter moments. But this wasn't one of them. For Dr. Hydon this was work, glorious, absorbing work. No one knows how a genius mind works. There were those who thought that John Hydon could think faster than a computer. Than a whole army of them. He had a reputation of using machines only for confirmation of what he'd already decided. Or suspected. He'd proven this capacity in the past. His assistants imagined that, right then, he might be attempting to predict the orbit and ultimate destiny of the tiny satellite.

It was already the third day.

The Monster Eye, as the staff affectionately called the largest optical telescope in the world, moved with the precision of an atomic clock, following the course of the chunk of rock, metal and ice as it glided silently from beyond the asteroid belt, past us and on to nowhere. At least to nowhere until the computers calculated its precise mass and exact velocity as expressed by its angular motion. They also had to allow for the Earth's gravitational pull, the motion of the Earth itself, and half a dozen other factors that influenced this chunk of rock. For three days Dr. Hydon, his dedicated assistants, and the array of computers linked into a single giant electronic brain worked to answer as least some of these question. Finally the contours of the object lost their definition and, moments later, melted into the darkness of the great beyond. For now, their work was done.

"You may go now," Dr. Hydon muttered stretching his back. "Get some sleep."

With that Dr. John Hydon rose to his feet and left the observatory. The computers would continue to churn out detailed calculations of the data they'd gathered over the last three days. They needed neither sleep nor food. Just power. Men needed rest. They'd earned it.
As Dr. Hydon left the dome the diffused lights came on. They signified that no more observations would be carried out that night. As he entered the lush garden, his face assumed its usual mask of studied indifference. He had worn it now for almost three years. Since his wife, my mother, had died. A mask that hid both, that which was and that which wasn't there. In those days I found it hard to think of him as my father. It hurt too much. Not that I did much thinking at that age. But I did feel. Mostly loneliness. And absence.

(cont. in the book)

The jungle drums beat everywhere. In shopping centres, in local malls, in the pretentious atria of office buildings, in the elevators, on busses, trains, airplanes, street corners and in-between corners, in parks, skating rinks, and yes, in a number of churches. Apparently all of God's children had gone deaf.

Radio and television interviews, discussions, sport reports, business data, even dramatic performances were aired against a background, often drowned by, illiterate morons smashing a metal pan against a kitchen wall. Films, comedies, tragedies, were set against overpowering sound-tracks which seemed bent on making any, if rare, intelligent dialogues between the actors all but impossible to follow. To the masses of teenagers, at whose lugubrious taste the market was principally directed, this was of no consequence. They didn't listen anyway ­ lest it accidentally force them to think. No. Explosions, the rattle of machine guns, wailing of police sirens with the accompanying screech of tires sufficed to sate their vitiated brains. Their proud possessors were busy chewing their gum, stomping their feet in stupefying rhythm, echoing the jungle strains.

"I am glad I'm not part of the world at large any more," JJ told us having just returned one final whirlwind tour of the 'outside' world. We were discussing what we were purportedly missing by remaining, for the most part, within the confines of the CSC. We were at the Mendels, with David presiding over our little gathering of scientists.

This was the first time that JJ had joined father and me on the first Sunday of the month. During his brief description of the various aspects of life 'outside', his listeners had remained speechless. Finally he sat down.

"Surely, you're joking. How on earth could people live in such conditions?" an elderly research chemist asked, disbelief in his eyes. He hadn't been outside the Centre for three years. Then, shaking his head he added, "How quickly we forget. Our mind has an amazing capacity to erase the unpleasant memories as soon as possible."

"That's what living in the present is all about," I whispered to my father. I wouldn't dream of taking part in the discussion. I was just glad I'd been invited. To listen.

"You all forget, I dare say, that for the first few months, after we'd moved here, we thought of ourselves as refugees from an ocean of madness," David nodded looking at his two sons. Both of them now held jobs at the Centre. Aaron the younger as teacher, his brother, Matt, as a gardener. Matthew had completed his studies of botany, but felt the need to savour the earth in his hands. There was no shame at the Centre in doing what one loved most. Providing one did it well. Both young men regarded themselves as refugees. Paradoxically, within less than two years of that supper, they'd both moved out. Their desire to dip their feet in the ocean was just too overwhelming. To each his own, I think. To each his own. But I missed them.

After a few more incredulous comments from the older members of tonight's guests, JJ resumed his narrative. He didn't paint a pleasant picture.

"The days when a beautiful melody was the prerequisite for success in the marketing of an LP, a tape, or now a CD, are long gone. All that belongs to the past. The only instruments revered nowadays by the senseless throngs are those of the percussion family. Drums ­ snare or bongo, tambours or timpani, a pair of metal plates or any other noise making device are greatly and grossly amplified by electronic paraphernalia, which aid their operators in multiplying the decibels to unprecedented levels. Parents give their three-year-olds drums for Christmas, and encourage them to raise din, so that their misbegotten litter might become inure to constant clamour and thus fit into the world to come." JJ paused for breath.

"But why?" someone put in.

"Well," Dave answered for JJ, misunderstanding the crux of the question, "the major advantage of such a course is that the little ones much prefer striking the drum with their sticks, than to derive innocent joy from their previous practice of striking everything with whatever was within reach of their tiny hands. Once committed to percussion, their parents, I'll have you know, smile in gratitude! There are savings in furniture. As for the noise, they've already achieved a condition of being half-deaf, of course, and their children are joyfully taking care of the other half."

"Thank you, Doctor Mendel. I couldn't have put it better myself," JJ said with a broad smile.
But Uncle David was just warming up. He raised his hands to his ears. "About sixty years ago," he continued, "there was a musical called 'Stop the world I wanna get off!' I thought it was a comedy. Now it seems that the disease was already spreading, even then. The mad carrousel had already begun its gyrations."

(cont. in the book)