Light: First Book in the Senses series

By Tony Pitman

In the late twenty-first century the western world bathes in privilege, while the desert fringes of Western Africa drown in poverty and disease. From the oceans rise the immortals, turritopsis nutricula, after four billion years of waiting. Physicist Jeph Wallace discovers particles which alleviate all illness and ageing. He rejuvenates thousands of Mali's poorest, but the particles are tainted. Those treated fall blind, then comatose. Storyteller Yaye loses her entire community to the disaster. Driven by grief, she pursues Jeph as he flees from his guilt. Their flight drags immortals and humans through the depths of memory, beyond the edge of the universe and into the light of revelation. Light is the first in the Senses series, and the debut novel from author Tony Pitman. Light draws on the unique style of Pitman's CRAB playwriting methodology to create a boldly original story in pure dialogue. Join the fanpage at www.facebook.com/groups/thesenses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadOnTime BV
• Release date: Aug 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781742845579

Tony Pitman

Tony Pitman's 25-year working life has bounced around like a photon in a hall of mirrors; but the constant force has been his writing. In high school Tony was drawn to words, and penned dozens of radio comedy episodes for Brisbane's 4EB. Since then he has written songs for band New Voice, screenplays for his own video production company, stageplays and musicals for community groups (including Work For The Dole) and developed an original drama methodology, the CRAB Method. This latter produced two works which were shortlisted for Queensland's George Landen Dann award, plus a full-length musical. Now he is striding into the field of novel writing with Light, the first of a planned series of six books based on the senses. When not writing - or supporting his family as a public servant - Tony is co-founding a new business which will launch a creative and historical time capsule into deep space. As such, the stars are the pages on which Tony's fiction and real life story are being written.

Book preview

Part One

TRUTH and LIGHT

One

Mali time 10 Jan 2088/1312hrs

Eastern edge of Niné village, Central Mali, Africa

Mama Yaye, Namory says I was made from mud. Is it true?

"Abada!³

Your brother wishes he were made of such fine stuff as you are. Ai, is the sand hot on your feet? Sit, sit. There is room on the mat."

Thank you, Mama. What am I made from, then?

"From kɛnɛ, Oumou; from light. It is where we all begin. Before you, your ancestors; before them, the immortals; and before them, light. And all still with us."

You mean their spirits?

I mean their light. Your grandparents don’t creep about in the dark, like the westerners think; they shine on you in sun, moon and starlight. Mangala meant it to be that way, so that we would always be joined.

I know Mangala made everything. But what made Mangala?

"Mangala came out of the great light that was Creation. Those clever scientists down the road will tell you this was called the Big Bang, but then they say you can’t hear anything in space. So I think it was Mangala’s Big Flash, instead. Yes?"

Hee hee! Yes, Mama Yaye.

"You know our Beginnings, don’t you? Hasn’t your mother Rosalie told the Daminɛ to you many times?"

Yes, Mama Yaye. But I like it when you tell it. Mother only says the words, but you tell the story like you were there.

Oh! I’m sure Rosa does better than you say. But I will tell it anyway, Oumou, and you can keep saying nice things about my storytelling. It was Mangala who formed this world, and placed in it two sets of twins. There was Mousso Koroni Koundyé, or Moussa, and her sister Pemba. That was one pair.

That’s your other name: Yaye Pemba.

It is one of them. Then Mangala made Farro and Ogechuckwukama.

Ogechi! He’s my favourite.

Why that one?

Because he plays tricks, and he’s funny.

Why not Pemba? She is very powerful.

Yes Mama, I suppose.

It’s all right, Oumou; you don’t have to share my favourite. I like her because I was given her name. It means ‘the force of present existence’. The name gives me the strength I need - to deal with your brother’s tricks.

Maybe Namory is really a child of Ogechi, and not my real brother.

"It would explain much. So, two sets of dual-gendered twins: the four immortal children of Mangala, for the four days of the week our old ones used to count time, the four elements, and the four directions one may travel through the universe. All of them were filled with kɛnɛ, the light of Mangala. But from the moment they were made, as siblings will, they fought. Pemba, my namesake, was bold and passionate, but was annoyed by Moussa’s quiet sadness. Pemba would say ‘See how big Mangala’s universe is, how bright with stars?’ and Moussa would sigh, ‘See all the darkness in between?’ Farro wanted to continue Mangala’s work: he built mountains, filled the oceans and rivers, grew young plants, and formed animals to eat of them. This was the age of the giant lizards and great birds. But Farro’s brother was devious. Ogechi encouraged the animals to eat each other instead, and brought diseases which made everything age, wither and die."

Namory killed my beetle, Yaye.

And your mother Rosa whipped him, as I recall.

"Mm, until he couldn’t sit down for a day. A kɛra ɲagali ko ye⁴

."

"Oumou. Learn from the punishment of others, but do not take too much pleasure in it. Just a little. So Mangala came back from placing other twins on other worlds, but saw our world in chaos. Pemba was chasing Moussa around and around the world, fed up with her moaning, making huge dust storms that tore up the trees. Farro shook the ground with earthquakes and geysers, trying to shake out elusive Ogechi, furious at the corruption of his creatures. Mangala saw that his world had been ruined by their fighting, so he took a big ball of rock and threw it at the earth. It smashed into the sea, and giant waves washed over everything Farro had made. Then the rock broke away from the earth and became kalo, our moon."

Did the immortals survive, Yaye?

"In different forms, and divided. Moussa and Ogechi panicked when they saw the water coming, and turned themselves into méduses: the jellyfish. This way they were not drowned, like so many of the animals. Pemba was nearly destroyed, but clung to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro as the waves pounded just below the peak. But when the waters receded, Farro was gone. He had been struck by Mangala’s rock. His kɛnɛ was extinguished, and his body was carried away into space on the new moon."

But he was immortal!

"Immortal only means you don’t grow old, Oumou; you can still be hurt, or killed - especially if kalo falls on you."

So what happened next?

"Mangala scolded the others for their behaviour. He said Moussa and Ogechi would have to keep their jellyfish forms, and told them to populate the oceans. Then he came to Pemba, and commanded her to spread life upon the land: people. Pemba protested – which was foolhardy, as no one had ever challenged Mangala before. But she stood firm, saying that without a companion she would not produce children. Mangala, still angry about the mess the world was in, thought about destroying her. But her determination swayed him, and he knew her children would be brave and resilient. So he plucked the body of Farro from the moon, and reignited his kɛnɛ, giving him to Pemba as a companion."

Did they ever get to see their brother or sister again?

Never again. Moussa and Ogechi could not agree on anything, and soon went to opposite sides of the world to fulfil Mangala’s command. Pemba and Farro were a good match, however, and while Farro created new animals to replace those lost, Pemba became pregnant and gave birth to the first humans.

Mama Yaye, is that story true?

Ai, Oumou, this question never came from you before. Why do you ask?

I’m sorry, Mama – if you say it is true, I will believe you. But it is not the same story they tell in other villages. In Azawad, my uncle says they call the Creator Pemba, not Mangala. Even mother tells it a little differently: she says Mangala started the Big … Flash, rather than being made in it. How will I know if one story is true, and not another?

…

Mama, is something funny?

"No, but you make me think, and that is a rare joy. Here is my answer: N m′a dɔn fɔlɔ - I don’t know yet. Ut tut, let me finish. Do you like the story I told?"

Yes, but -

"Do you understand that if I kept telling our Daminɛ, after a long time, I would tell the story of your grandparents, your parents, and you, and me?"

Of course.

And when I get all the way to this part of the story – sitting on this mat on the sand, looking over Niné’s thirty four huts, talking about what is real - would you be in it? Or would you disappear in a whirlwind, and I, soak into the sand like a handful of water? Are you in my story, and are you real in it?

Yes, Mama.

Then this is how you know a story of long ago to be true: when you listen to the end, and you realise you are truly a part of it.

Two

East Australia time 12 Jan 2088/0905hrs

Sydney Capital University, New South Wales,

Republic of Australia

… How much time before your flight, Art? Walk left here, by the way.

Thanks Bryn, it’s been awhile. The ‘kite flies at twelve; I’ve got a good hour after this lecture before I need to jump on a shuttle. Should be back in Jo-burg by three, your time. Remind me again why this needs to be done in person? I thought your students were all external by now, and lectures all Direct-To-Eye.

Lowest common denominator, I’m afraid – we’re still required to deliver live lectures for the underprivileged few who lack the optical implants for DTE. It’s a pain, I know, but you get to see a bit more of the world, right?

This bit I saw more than enough of as a student, thanks very much, Bryn.

And what can you tell me about these jellyfish? It’s not true what they’re saying, that it’s linked to your research, is it?

Not the way they’re putting it. The jellies were a problem before we even started. It’s just they’ve become a newsworthy crisis at the same time as our program became public knowledge – the worst possible timing, that’s all. But listen: last year’s discovery does have some large scale repercussions, and none of them very science-community friendly.

You’re going to have to fill me in on the background, Art – I never took much notice of the articles. Seemed like there was more in the o-bloids than the mainstreamers on that whole event, so I filtered it from my DTE.

I know what you mean; they’re doing blanket bans on DTE for hospital staff these days – can be distracting mid-surgery when you have celebrity scandals and nano-cure ads popping up in front of you.

So this started with the Navy woman, right? Fell off an aircraft carrier?

"Ja. Picture Aussie Navy carrier Noble heading north off the Queensland coast during that flare-up with North Korea in 2083. Heavy seas at the time, because Cyclone Georgia’s about to destroy the last communities on Samoa. Able Seaman Brenda Gilanovich is drinking heavily in the canteen, and trying to ignore the advances of an equally tipsy Petty Officer."

Oh. I missed those details.

In the scheme of things, it’s irrelevant. But her intoxication and the waves rocking the ship make it unlikely she’s ever going to safely negotiate the outer deck between the canteen and her cabin. She’s got no company when she flips over the rails, but luckily for her, she’s seen by the aforementioned Petty Officer. He’s since admitted he was following her in the hope of taking advantage of her drunkenness.

To beat her at chess, of course.

Ha. Perhaps that would have been your agenda, Bryn. But when Ingliss saw the target of his tented trousers slip limply overboard, I don’t think he had that kind of game in mind.

Up these stairs, now.

Oh, stairs? Really?

Last I heard, Art, you were fighting fit. You know, after … I mean, you, you did -

You can say it, Bryn: after I quit.

You’re still … off it, then?

Five years DAM-free, and counting. Let it go. I have.

Still, you could use the exercise.

"Bliksem⁵

. I suppose I should thank you for reminding me I’m overweight as well as sober – was starting to wonder why I had several kilos of custard strapped around my waist. Why isn’t everything closer together? It’s not as if you have thousands of students attending in person that you have to accommodate. Where was I?"

Girl overboard.

Oh ja - Gilanovich falls over sixty metres before she hits the water, and everything breaks: both left and right forearms, several ribs, pelvis, and the clincher, C3 vertebra, severing the spine. Even if she wasn’t drunk, there’s no way she could swim a stroke.

Ouch.

"But that’s where it gets interesting, Bryn: the core of the experience that got lost in the hype. She stays conscious, even while she’s sinking and drowning. She’s numbed by both paralysis and alcohol, lungs calmly filling with sea water; there’s no more than moonlight filtering down, and at first she just quietly descends into darkness. But the brain doesn’t go quietly, does it? Rapidly losing oxygen, her synapses start firing like crazy, and she goes into AFR."

Accelerated Frame Rate, yeah?

Right. Phew – glasses are steaming up. You see, Bryn, up to that moment there was only anecdotal evidence for AFR – stories of bright light during near-death experiences, that sort of thing. And of course, you can’t ask test subjects to undergo brain death.

Not legally, I suppose. But there are students enrolled here who’d donate their genitals if it helped pay their fees. I have to admit, I’m a little sceptical on the Frame Rate idea. Isn’t it a construct, drawing on frame-based technology like old movie cameras?

This part is well documented, and it’s not hard to demonstrate: stop for a moment. Hold up your hand against the sun -

Like this?

Ja. Now waggle your fingers, fast as you can. Look! See how it’s not purely a blur of motion, as you’d expect if we had a continuous stream of vision, but you can distinguish frames: captured moments of your hand’s movement.

Oh, yes.

You get the same effect looking at fan blades. There are still different opinions on the actual number of images the brain registers per second, sure. But I’ve seen enough evidence to show it’s around the two hundred mark; less when you’re tired, and as Able Seaman Gilanovich discovered, a lot more when you’re dying.

Okay. Let’s go inside – down this hall. What did she see?

What anyone would see masses of now, in around 79% of the ocean between the tropics.

Jellyfish.

"Specifically, turritopsis nutricula. Hydrozoans. The little immortals."

"Theoretically immortal."

"Until proven, and that’s literally a matter of time. Gilanovich, as you know, was dragged out of the water after Ingliss raised the alarm, and was resuscitated and restored, after twelve operations. I did the spinal implant myself. A few days later, she was able to describe the jellyfish in detail, and they were undoubtedly turritopsis. Except when she was drowning, she saw these moving at impossible speed - her frame rate was cycling up into the tens of thousands, allowing more light in, and she saw these things going equivalent numbers of pulses and more each second. Spinning, too, and giving off colours she’d never seen before, but always cycling back every two hundredth of a second to approximately the same position."

… Which means?

"Bryn, the motion we’re used to seeing in these jellyfish – that gentle swimming pulsation – is an illusion. For some reason, they match a pretence of this motion to our standard frame rate, and in between the frames they do everything else."

And this is verified?

I’ve seen the hi-frame records. It’s indescribable. It’s also under wraps, but won’t be for long. Is this the lecture room?

Yes.

Thank God.

Catch your breath a moment, Art – Clare’s still doing the Q and A for the exam next week. Last question then: if these hydrozoans are so secretly busy, what is it they’re doing?

That’s the billion-dollar question, and one reason Jeph’s not had time for these lectures in the last five years. Let me ask you – when was the last time you heard about something supernatural happening?

Like what?

Say, a faith healing, a Wicca revival, voodoo curses, ghost sightings?

I couldn’t say. But people have long since realised all that was either a misunderstanding of natural phenomena, or deliberate frauds.

"Okay. But everyone, globally? Have we really explained everything that was ever a mystery? And even if the ‘misunderstandings’ have stopped, why wouldn’t anyone be even trying to invent new stories? I remember as a student back in the 2040s, I heard - and imagined - numerous tales of the unexplained, and it’s been that way since we had the capacity as humans to tell stories."

People still go to church, don’t they?

"They still attend. But if asked, the honest churchgoer will say it’s for the social connection, the comfort of ritual, and the discipline of obedience to moral guidelines. God is an afterthought in today’s church, Bryn. If I were a Christian of even fifty years ago, I’d be horrified at the absence of anything remotely spiritual now."

Clare’s winding up - we’ll need to go in soon. What have jellyfish got to do with all that?

"Let me flick you the o-data … there, some light reading for your spare time. A colleague of Jeph’s, Brian de Forge, crunched some numbers and got some sobering results: the observed growth in the numbers of hydrozoans is directly proportionate to the spread of western ‘Reason’ and the decline of spirituality and magic. There is also a corresponding rise in the dependence on more accurate timepieces and detailed schedules associated with industrialised societies. In 1543, when the reason of Vesalius and Copernicus started truly challenging religious dogma, overfishing was already unbalancing the natural ecosystem, allowing species that we don’t eat to flourish. Since that time, we have consumed the jellies’ predators to extinction, turritopsis has clogged our oceans, they are biological immortals … and the entire world population seems uncommonly sensible. Bryn, if our science truly has fixed laws, we think these jellies are – for want of a better term - physics police, enforcing our experience of normality."

Okay, but Art … you and I are both disciples of science and reason. Even if this fantastic theory is true, why shouldn’t this be our idea of heaven?

"Two reasons, Bryn: one, the jellyfish are on the brink of exhausting their own food sources. They will suffer a sudden, massive drop in population, if not extermination, within a few years. They are, I believe, inextricably linked to the order and stability of the natural world, and that includes us. We have no idea what it will mean for our existence if they suddenly vanish."

You’re serious. What’s the second reason?

Two people closely linked to the jellyfish research went missing last month: Dr Brian de Forge, the number cruncher, walked out of the Mali office on December 15 with all his notes, and has not been seen or heard from since. The other simply didn’t show up for Christmas lunch with her family, nor has she contacted them since - the honourably discharged Able Seaman Brenda Gilanovich.

"Good afternoon, students. I had a particle-related joke prepared about ‘not sweating the small stuff’, but thanks to the epic journey I’ve just undertaken with your Dean, Bryn Esther, I’m sweating more than you ever will. I notice that out of the fourteen hundred or so enrolled in this course, all but fifteen of you are external log-ins anyway. Apart from those excused for medical or personal reasons, my o-stats suggest you’re all linked, so I’ll begin. RL students, I apologise for lapses in eye contact – to be honest, I’m forgetting how to do it after eight years with an optical. Every now and then, it’s nice to know flesh and blood exists outside my o-phone. At my age, it’s a necessary reminder.

"As you would know, I’m Art Johnsson, Group Leader of Surgical and Biomedical Research in Africa’s WAPEC facility. In my native Afrikaans, veels geluk: congratulations on surviving your first year of Applied Nanomedicine. I can guarantee that although your workload from here does not get smaller, the subject matter does. This year, you’ll be building from the foundations of cellular and genetic engineering to explore medicine at the atomic and quantum levels. My job today is to tease you with some of the likely applications of your knowledge after study, so you won’t take off to Belt Base for the holidays and forget to come back. The Mars-Jupiter Belt is a fine diversion, but we need you back for more than your financial contribution to this fine university.

"As you know by now, nano is a universe we’ve explored for nearly two centuries. Since the early 1900s, nanoparticle physics has supported the growth of technology, from sun-reflecting paint to military armour to transport. Fifty years ago, nano got us out of the fossil fuel trap and into LENcars. And communications - one could not always bring up direct-to-eye connections to virtually everything and everyone - present company excepted, forgive me - not to mention immersive entertainment, blockbuster o-vies, and so on. I have a relic in my Johannesburg home office: an old computer screen, to remind me there was a time we could switch off these things. It’s usually covered, as guests tend to think I’m running some sort of dust particle experiment, and gathering evidence.

"Right now, in the south-west region of the Sahara Desert in Mali, nano-techs are perfecting NLS travel for humans, using nanites that have near-perfect capacity for ‘bouncing’ photons. I know what you’re thinking: ‘They’ve reinvented the mirror?’ Believe me when I say the WAPEC techs have engineered quark clusters so precisely, the bounce of one photon recoils with a force equivalent to me punching you as hard as I can. If you were ever punched by me, you’d think ‘That’s no force to apply to space travel,’ and you’d show me how a person with actual muscle mass punches. But here’s a diagram of the ship: this is a space vessel with a surface area of fifteen hundred square metres, and each square centimetre impregnated with four hundred trillion light-bouncing particles. Be assured this is not a mirror before which you would want to check your hair – the return force would disintegrate you. And when I say this project is being kept in the dark, I’m not speaking figuratively. Even in interstellar space, the relatively few photons that come into contact with a vessel like this should sustain it at around ninety-eight percent of light speed, a huge increase on last year’s record of eighty-one percent. As such, both Lightning and Thunder are docked in a strictly photon-free environment – absolute darkness - as the merest stray glimmer reaching their hypersensitive surface could initiate a premature launch.

"Okay, I’m seeing prompts from a dozen of you, and with fair questions: why am I, a surgeon, going on about space travel? Well, the truth is, I’m not the first person they ask to deliver this lecture. The obvious choice, as it has been for the last five years, is the person who discovered the potential of these bouncing particles, Professor Jephry Wallace. I’ve had the good fortune of being Jeph’s colleague since the ‘60s, and the even better fortune of being his friend. I’ve been present for many of his breakthroughs, and share his passion for the advancement of humanity – and more than that, its liberation – through the fundamental building blocks of our universe.

"Jeph Wallace, WAPEC’s Director of Nanophysics Research, is changing the course of human evolution. Not only by helping us to reach further beyond our solar system, but by also changing the face of medicine. Jeph seeks to make us vastly more able to fulfil our potential, so that health or physical challenge will never be a barrier to ambition.

"I see a few threads have popped up in protest. Ja, much has been done to address gaps in medical technology; we can transplant everything bar a whole cerebrum, manufactured organs and limbs are indistinguishable from the originals, and every student in this class can expect to live to two hundred years, excluding accident or stupidity. But what I admire most about my friend – and I hope you will see past my bluntness to the point - is that Jeph would look at the enrolment of this high-profile class, and he would not see the target of his work in it. You have access to what you need; Jeph’s current work is for those who do not.

"This is why we both spend most of our time in Mali, at the southern edge of the Sahara. To speak of expensive transplants and custom organ industries is absurd in a region where half a family, even children, will dig salt out of the baking earth in fifty degrees Celsius to scrape a meagre living for themselves. These poor regions contain a culture which has not changed, except to degenerate, for centuries. They have nothing to eat most of the time, no disease resistance, no useful aid imports and an unforgiving agricultural environment. The current drought there has lasted twenty years, and shows no signs of easing. Add institutional and serial corruption in government, and what little hope there is vanishes for those governed.

"I’m deliberately ignoring your many justifications for western buck-passing popping up in my o-stats, and the fact that forty or so students have now logged out. My hope is that those of you remaining are willing to swallow a little pride, and learn how to actually help – for their sake, not just that of your careers."

"Jeph has managed an amazing balancing act. On the one hand, he leads the development of a local space exploration industry, which brings trillions of foreign investment francs into Mali. It has produced the West Africa Physics and Exploration Centre, WAPEC, which once operated the fastest particle accelerator in the world. WAPEC currently employs hundreds of scientists and technicians, and houses the two test space vessels, Lightning and Thunder. The investment profit goes straight into the government treasury, and is never seen by the native citizens of Mali. But quietly, this work is taking up less and less of our time.

"Off the record, Jeph is closing in on the holy grail of third world medicine. He has isolated a previously undiscovered form of massive lepton – particles Jeph has named leons – which he has been able to stabilise, and continues to engineer. In lab tests, the leons have an extraordinary tendency to interact with adjoining particles, and adjust them to what can be best described as perfect purpose.

"What is perfect purpose? I think some examples, illustrated with o-holo images from our findings, will tell the story. Here’s a cancer cell. It’s taken from the pancreas of a young woman who died two months ago, in a village called Madinel. Presently, we have vaccinations against most known cancers, but again, only available in developed countries, and not one of them will prevent any growth other than the targeted kind. So - here’s the same cell one minute after being placed alongside a single leon particle. Note that at the subatomic level – rotate your image manually to see around the core structure – the corrupted matter has not been killed off or even separated, but converted to useful purpose. This cell could be implanted in any compatible body, and it would do its job.

"Here’s another interesting one, and close to my heart - though it’s actually a part of a brain. This is a damaged section of the limbic system, which you’ll know from anatomy is central to our sense of desire, reward and pleasure, and has long been a key target for clinical attempts to cure drug addiction. Again, leons were introduced, and they made quantum adjustments in the brain matter. Look for the indicators which show the balance of neutral and positive charge – see the difference? We compared this adjusted matter to a sample from a Tibetan monk, who had displayed no cyclic or destructive addictions at all in his lifetime. They were almost identical. Before the leons, the damaged matter came from the brain of a deceased overdose victim: a DAM addict.

"I said this was close to my heart, and that’s because until five years ago, I was also a regular DAM user. I still struggle with the cravings of addiction, but before this year is over I believe I won’t need to fight it, because leons will have cured it.

"I can see the questions banking up, so I’ll address a few before I wind up. I do have to get back to this work – I hope you now appreciate my eagerness to return to it.

"First, I see you’d like to know how the massive lepton remains stable, when all others observed degenerate into smaller leptons and their neutrinos. In 2083, we discovered a massive lepton in a natural source which was stable, but we were unable to sustain it outside the organism. Ironically, I and my addiction can take some credit – early on, I suggested we look at aspects of particles in the limbic system of an addict, and use that to influence the engineering of massive leptons. To put it crudely, we were able to build in the desire for self-preservation in the leons - though obviously at the particle level, it’s not