The Light at Lindisfarne

By Hugh Malafry

A year before he kindled the light at Lindisfarne Albert Weiland demonstrated the transmutation of simple into complex elements, with a controlled release of power, in a device no larger than a desktop computer. He called it his Graalreaktor. The world had its holy grail of energy and a problem: It worked only in Weilands presence, and he would not say how.

The revelation by so eminent a physicist of what appeared to be cold fusion set markets reeling. The authorities occupied Weiland Labs, confiscated the old mans cryptic notes, and assigned teams to evaluate his work, but to no avail.

Still his device worked, and his peers demanded answers. You do not smash a river but harvest it, Weiland said. So, my Graalreaktor is a lens focusing influences already present. Unable to reproduce Weilands work, his peers shunned and the press mocked his grail reactor.

I have given you a vessel like the sun, rooted in the firmament, but you shall not have it until you solve an enigma, he countered. In cold stone I shall kindle a light that will never fail; who solves the mystery will have my Graalreaktor.
And so Weiland withdrew to Lindisfarne to work his magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468575460

Hugh Malafry

Hugh Malafry is Fulbright and emeritus  professor of mythology and world literature.  He  lives in Victoria, Canada

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© 2012 Hugh Malafry. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 6/8/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7546-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7547-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7548-4 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906321

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Contents

Fire and Ice

1 Trinity

2 Holy Isle

3 Magna Mater

4 Northern Lights

5 Knights Errant

6 May Day

7 Desert Places

8 Dark Seed

9 Hungry Ghosts

10 Crucible

11 The Shapers

12 Revelation

13 Mirage World

14 Blood and Honour

15 Interlaken

16 Fearful Symmetry

17 Siege Perilous

18 Sun Storm

19 Vail

20 A Terrible Beauty

21 Light at Lindisfarne

22 Death and Dawn

Sea of Glass

for

…those who labor in the light.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

William Blake

The Light

at

Lindisfarne

Fire and Ice

May 1945

GRAND ADMIRAL DOENITZ.

Most secret -- urgent -- officer only.

The Führer died yesterday at 15:30 hours.

Testament of April 29th appoints you as Reich President, Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels as Reich Chancellor, Reichsleiter Bormann as Party Minister, Reich Minister Seyss-Inquart as Foreign Minister.

By order of the Führer, the Testament has been sent out of Berlin to you, to Field-Marshal Schoerner, and for preservation and publication.

Reichsleiter Bormann intends to go to you today and to inform you of the situation. Time and form of announcement to the press and to the troops is left to you.

Confirm receipt…

U-798 lay still in the channel a half mile off island, three hours before dawn under an incandescent Arctic sky. On the con, bundled in his great coat, Kapitän zur See Adalwulf Lotharing watched the ebb and flow of the sun wind in the heavens. He shrugged off his foreboding and turned his attention again to the land. The war was virtually over and this was neutral Sweden. He wanted to berth and surrender his vessel, but overruled by his passenger, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, must stay the course.

Bormann was Hitler’s handler and heir. Like Hitler he was neurotically cautious where his own life was concerned, but unlike the Führer methodical to a fault. Long ago he’d made preparations, shaping the plan that brought him this night into the northern reaches of the Gulf of Bothnia.

On the deck Lotharing’s first, Korvettenkapitän Maximilian Sayer, oversaw the raft launch of four of Bormann’s Waffen SS commandos into the frigid gulf water. "Fick dich selbst," Sayer whispered, with a glance to the con and his captain, as the SS disappeared on the dark water. Wulf Lotharing hunched up under his coat and turned his night glasses in a sweep of the island shore. The land was still in the last grip of winter; little snow but stands of white birch, stark against rock and stars. Arctic springs come slow, and this year the cruelest month was May.

Lotharing took a deep breath of frigid air. What began with fire, he whispered, ends with ice. His hand went to the Knight’s Cross, with oak leaves and swords, at his throat; all he had to show for the war, a testament to his courage. A distinguished career begun on U-23 under Otto Kretschmer commended him to Admiral Canaris, head of military intelligence. Lotharing was youthful, resourceful, and his seamanship not inferior to Kretschmer’s own. Canaris determined he was more useful to him dead than alive and saw to it. For the record Wulf Lotharing and Max Sayer were lost at sea, but in fact given command of a succession of advanced U-boats in Canaris’ secret service.

And after four years it came to this, a desperate drag on the cigarette butt end of a war that should not have been. In disgust Lotharing tossed the foul tasting stub. It was over. Come dawn Operation Regenbogen would commence; at Dönitz command all Kriegsmarine captains were ordered to scuttle their boats. The admiral would have an end with honour, but also cover for renegades, and those who yet had missions to fulfill.

U-798 should not but did exist. The prototype slated for destruction was instead modified and became first among true submersibles, capable of thirty knots underwater. Hitler was dead, Goebbels and Goering in custody, but not Reichsleiter Bormann. By night they came to Greifswald, Bormann with six Waffen-SS and a truckload of treasure. Lotharing was ordered to Montevideo, but once at sea the destination changed to this remote island in the Gulf of Bothnia. Like a good soldier he obeyed and sailed north. And now, through his night glasses, he watched Bormann’s SS commandos beach their raft and disappear up the embankment into the woods.

What is this place Captain? Sayer asked.

Home of Swedish industrialist, Per Nordhausen.

He owns the whole island?

Here he is roughing it, Lotharing said.

It will be luck to survive this, Captain; a boatload of gold, documents, and Waffen-SS: Bormann will not leave loose ends.

Ja, Max, Lotharing said, but they do not know submarines.

And die Spinne, what is that? Sayer asked. I overheard a SS officer.

Lotharing raised a finger to his lips: The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship, he said: Our part is duty. But we must be careful, Max; Reichsleiter Bormann plans to carry on.

"Scheisse!"

Lotharing took up the glasses again. Sayer saw he was on his guard and said no more. Half an hour passed. A light blinked from the shore. Tell our passenger the situation is secure.

Shall I break out another raft, Captain?

There is a deep cove with mooring.

Two Schutzstaffel officers accompanied Bormann into the comfortable living room of Nordhausen’s retreat; two stood guard at opposite corners facing the entrance, and two kept watch without. A great fire blazed on the hearth where Nordhausen sat comfortably awaiting his guests. In his late sixties, he was a tall, gaunt man with a shock of white-blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and an air of command.

You may relax, Herr Bormann. Nobody ever comes here unless I invite them. Is this necessary? He gestured broadly to the Waffen-SS.

Bormann gave the nod and they lowered their weapons. You understand I am a hunted man, he said.

Please sit down. Nordhausen gestured to Capt. Lotharing and his first, Max Sayer: You, too, gentlemen.

Lotharing did not sit. We must secure the boat by dawn.

What marriage can compare with the captain, his boat, and the sea? Nordhausen said. But half an hour will serve as well. There’s a deep water cavern in the skerries. Nobody ever goes there.

Herr Nordhausen we will need fuel to go on.

I have plenty of diesel.

I need Perhydrel. My engines are turbines.

Nordhausen half rose then settled back, eye on the SS. An operational MK 18 Walter? 240 ft., 2500 mile range; 17 knots submerged. How did you solve the peroxide flow problem? You must show me, he said, real excitement in his voice.

It is a modified MK 21, and 30 knots submerged, Lotharing said.

Astounding.

But for the bureaucrats, Bormann said, had we fifty of these two years ago we could have won the war.

Lotharing bit and tasted blood. It was Bormann persuaded Hitler to scrap the program.

I’ll see what I can do, Nordhausen said. It may take a few days.

In any case we go nowhere, Herr Nordhausen, until I have some answers, Bormann said. The stout little man reached into his inside pocket, produced a worried wad of papers, and out of his great coat a little bound book. When the Führer wrote his will, Bormann said significantly, he personally gave these to me.

Nordhausen settled back in his chair, still on edge Lotharing judged, but also amused by the gray eminence before him. He studied the little man as he untied the bundle of papers and meticulously laid them out on the coffee table, every gesture a testament to his nature. Bormann, the consummate bureaucrat, had methodically wheedled his way to the top; step by step making himself indispensable, first as personal secretary to Rudolf Hess, and with Hess’ defection controller of Hitler’s finances. And as Hitler declined and depended more and more on the world seen through Bormann’s eyes, he became the power behind the throne. At the end they contrived together a future, all laid out in a clutch of papers in Bormann’s hands.

Given the failure of others to rise to the occasion; as executor of his will, the Führer entrusted the Party and future disposition of the Reich to me. Bormann thumbed carefully through the papers. "Ordnung muss sein!" he hissed irritably. "Of course, we must now understand that as the Fourth Reich.

And the first order of business, Herr Nordhausen, he said, finding a slip of paper his hand shook to touch; because I have no desire to live out my life in the jungles of Uruguay, I want to know how to contact the Blood Royal.

Nordhausen was deadpan but Lotharing saw him tremble as he set his brandy glass on a side table. Bormann pressed on. I have papers Himmler compiled for the Führer on an ancient order called the Sangreal, the Blood Royal; and, Herr Nordhausen, your name figures prominently.

I can’t imagine why, Nordhausen said. And yet even in firelight Nordhausen’s face drained the color of his pale hair. Bormann flushed red as he fixed him with his eyes demanding an answer. Fire and ice: The silence of the arctic night penetrated the room. The fire hissed and crackled on the hearth. The aurora whispered and flashed at the windows. But Nordhausen said nothing. Bormann gestured to his SS guard who closed, weapons lowered but by their presence threatening.

Hitler was not a great man, Bormann said. He was in fact rather stupid; we all knew that. But he had charisma, a demonic self-obsession that drew like a whirlpool into him. True, there were moments of genius, but he was incapable of intellectual or emotional growth.

I met him but once and long before the war, as early as 1930 it may have been, Nordhausen agreed. I thought him then shrewd in his own interests; not a wise man.

He was a man of unstable work habits; a lazy, artistically ill-tempered bohemian who worked in frenetic spurts followed by melancholy brooding, Bormann said.

You were in position to know, Nordhausen said.

I did my best to bring some order to his life, but he had little sense of the complexities of the things he undertook. With him it was all the big idea; never a master of detail, he shifted from one role to another, assuming genius where there was none; little more than a narcissistic amateur.

Nordhausen watched as wave after wave of frustration weathered Bormann’s features, as if the man was seeking some kind of absolution by confessing not his own but Hitler’s shortcomings.

It could have ended very differently, Bormann said. "He became the shadow of the German people, you know. All the things they reject and will not face, he uncovered and embodied in will and shaped with wicked intuition.

"And yet he knew he was made a puppet, and never stopped seeking the puppet master. He knew the powerful supported him because he was what the hidden hand would have.

He thought he could outsmart them, but knew he needed their seal on his power; that sovereignty must root in something absolute or be swept away.

Why come to me? Nordhausen asked, interrupting Bormann’s litany of regret.

"The Führer once said to me that there is new wealth and old. And yet more powerful than both is hidden, ancient wealth. He cared nothing for new or old money, but ancient wealth troubled him, for it had ages to position itself.

This was the core he must discover. He imagined himself a Theseus caught up in the labyrinth of the world, threatened by the beast that would destroy his dreams; wondering who shaped the maze and to what end. He called the architect, Daedalus, and sought evidence of his existence.

"Hitler’s bête noir," Nordhausen said.

Bormann held out the little book. "Im Schatten: It is the Führer’s account of his search for the shapers in the shadows. He gave it me at the last."

Nordhausen took the little book. It was in Hitler’s hand. You had the Führer’s confidence; you organized his world around him, but he did not confide this in you, Herr Bormann?

The Führer was distracted; in the bunker like a distraught woman who had lost her lover, like a suffering priest.

"Wie ein verdammt gefallener Engel," Sayer whispered. Lotharing caught his eyes in warning.

In this book he speaks of you as a dubious asset to the Reich, Bormann said. Others, too, are on his list for future interrogation: Men prominently placed in business, even in America. He believed you a scion of the Sangreal. He writes of the occasion you came as emissary of the Blood Royal specifying terms for ratifying his rise to power. For a time he thought you key to our future.

And you are here now, why?

Because at the last the Führer instructed me to come to you to purpose a future, or failing deliver a final message, he said, nodding to his Waffen-SS.

So, I was a messenger, Nordhausen said. And, yes, I met with Hitler on one occasion in the early thirties.

Then you admit to the knowledge.

If there were other contacts I know nothing of them, but I can tell you certainly by 1936 it was already too late; the Blood Royal had washed their hands of him.

Hitler records other contacts, Bormann continued, "but he was most impressed by that first meeting; in you he felt high office, one of their Masters of Hallows, he wrote.

He says you set him a curious task, given his stature and the demands of the age. You told him the price of power was to restore the stone of sovereignty to the Blood Royal.

To loose the power of the Sangreal; yes, that was the gist of our conversation, Nordhausen said, flatly. "Von Eschenbach wrote of it in his Parzival. And given Hitler’s fascination with Wagner, it was supposed he would understand what was being asked."

And to that end Himmler rummaged Europe in vain, for the tale of a cup and stone.

I read Otto Rahn’s book, Nordhausen said. "He came very close. A pity you murdered him. You should have listened.

Hitler was offered a trial of faith. He was expected to understand honour and obligation to the Order. It was the price demanded of him to win support for his rule, but he failed to realize the meaning of the quest; his responsibility to something greater than himself.

So you are saying Himmler gave a mystical dimension to what was a pragmatic offer of support once loyalty was proven; the grail and stone symbols only?

Something like that, Nordhausen said, but for Hitler these proved symbols of an elusive reality. What he expected of others; he was himself incapable.

So, they were mocking him.

The question, Herr Bormann, is why he did not understand what was asked of him. But you are mistaken in me. I was convenient messenger only and that was long ago.

I always knew there was more to the Reich, Bormann said. "I thought, perhaps, those who wanted a foil to America made Lenin, and in Stalin lost control. The same in turn made Hitler to counter their mistakes. A man, whose beginning was even more modest than mine, could not by chance, even in the turmoil of Germany, have come to power without powerful patrons.

I knew he had something behind him. I thought vast wealth. Goering collected art, Himmler souls; I became a collector of information and insights. So Goering loses his art and Himmler his soul, but I glimpse something in the shadows, a power that troubled the Führer, a power he knew could make or break him, and that is Daedalus. Tell me about Daedalus.

Captain Lotharing, Nordhausen said, rising wearily to his feet. Operation Regenbogen is suspended. Today, Reich’s President Admiral Doenitz offered Germany’s unconditional surrender. No submarines are to be scuttled. You need have no further involvement with any of this. The war is over, Captain.

Sit down Herr Nordhausen. The SS raised their weapons. The Führer willed the Party to me, Bormann said. "Nothing is over until I say it is over.

I have documents the world need never see; only I must know how to come to this order so powerful it makes and breaks nations at will.

Admiral Doenitz ordered me to take you to Uruguay, Herr Bormann, Lotharing said. You changed his orders at sea. Yesterday, out of duty, I would have taken you. Today, I no longer have fuel or fire to the task. My obligation to my crew is to end their war.

Your obligation is to me, Bormann said fiercely. His SS turned their weapons on Lotharing. Sayer came between them and his captain. His message was clear. Without them Bormann was stranded. But let us not quarrel, Bormann said, cautiously, and remember for us nothing changes.

Nordhausen intervened. Of Daedalus I know nothing, he said. The Blood Royal is another matter. Civilization is too fragile a process to be left to chance, don’t you agree, Herr Bormann?

Are you admitting to a master plan?

The deeper levels of this are far beyond me, Nordhausen said, but the depression was fertile ground for Communists poised to undermine the whole of Europe. A consortium was contrived to resist its spread. I was approached; many gathered in common cause.

Approached by the Blood Royal?

"It comes from those you trust: Allies, business associates, old families of influence. I saw danger in Hitler but agreed. After all, America insisted on isolation; England and France were tired, pacifist. We thought Germany alone was adequately disciplined to deal with the threat, and hungered for redress of old grievances.

At a distance I watched Hitler’s rise to power and found I was right about him: Getting a taste of power the creature strove to become creator, and they lost control of him.

If Herr Bormann is prepared to make accommodations, we will surrender the boat and seek asylum in Sweden, Lotharing said, not backing down.

Bormann’s eyes beaded black; he raised a glove to strike, but Lotharing caught his arm, and thrust his Luger in Bormann’s side. That is your life, Bormann said.

You’re overwrought, Herr Bormann; given your burden, understandable. But enough is enough. It ends here. Will your SS sail our submarine?

Events have made us all overwrought, Bormann said cautiously. "So, we shall see this through together, shall we not, Captain?

Herr Nordhausen, Hitler directed me here to punish, Bormann continued. Instead, I have brought the Reich’s most sensitive papers, some implicating you. In return I want safe passage and an introduction to the Blood Royal.

"Very well, Herr Bormann, we shall have a quid pro quo. I will help you in return for any papers that implicate me in Hitler’s schemes."

Curiously, as quickly as Nordhausen gave in, Bormann caved with relief. It was wrong to abandon the Führer, he lamented; now Russia will emerge powerful.

Hitler’s atrocities complicated things, Nordhausen said.

I had nothing to do with atrocities, Bormann said. It was Hess, Himmler, the others.

And yet atrocities there were, and now a generation of guilt to follow. Some the Fatherland will repatriate. You, Herr Bormann, they will hunt.

Nordhausen studied Bormann and his SS carefully; looked to Lotharing and Sayer. Any one of them could lead the world back to his doorstep. He could deny it; say he was held at gunpoint, his services extorted, but it would still be damaging. And the papers were troubling.

"Among your outlandish peers, Herr Bormann, you were known for your discretion. Your future lies, I think, in Franco’s Spain.

I’ve a contact in the Canaries, Nordhausen continued. In exchange for Hitler’s little book and any papers implicating me, I will arrange your introduction to the Blood Royal.

When we’re safely in the Canaries and connection made, Bormann agreed.

Very well, Nordhausen said. And you, Kapitän Lotharing, if we can get you some Perhydrel, what say you to one more mission? I will make it worth your while.

"Meine Ehre heisst Treue," Lotharing said coming to attention. And if there was a hint of irony in his voice, only Korvettenkapitän Maximilian Sayer heard it, for Reichsleiter Bormann was well pleased.

1

Trinity

Today Christ is crucified: Not Roman soldiers, but New Mexico State Troopers muster the penitent on the road of tears, carrying the cross to some Golgotha of the soul. This is America and this is now.

Sophisticates, detached from the ancient ways, stay safe at home in their fantasyland sets, talking fashion and politics. Others, longing to feel authentic, observe the procession from roadside and rooftop in the light of a desert morn; the ancient mystery play of death and resurrection incarnate in the flesh of the true believers.

Not even the black limousine flying the pennant of the Joint Chiefs distracts the faithful from the grave mission of the pageant. Strangers from the mind made world are nothing to the mystery of life; impatient traffic nothing to those caught up in the timelessness of time.

This is why we came this way. Admiral Mickeljohn’s eyes locked on the procession as they closed on the cross bearers, and looked back as they passed. I was born in New Mexico, Sean; I wanted to see it this way once more.

Commander Casey watched through the car’s tinted windows. Catholic he was and felt it, too; the aptness of the undying moment, the two thousand year cycle of grace and retribution, charged with his sense of urgency and impending doom. Naval intelligence had learned a nuclear device would be transshipped through Karachi en route to Zanzibar, and into the civil war in Africa. That was his assignment; this, a last minute detour. Half a world away was the path he must walk, but here on the road to Los Alamos the apocalyptic age began.

Commander Casey was in his early forties: MIT and Navy Seal trained, with ten years’ experience in Naval Intelligence and deep water under the keel. A fine-featured man of dark Irish heritage, he radiated an irresistible charm. Being near him kindled some curious alchemy of heart that made you feel worthwhile. Add to that the gifted actor’s art of self-effacement; that rare ability to completely submerge ones own personality and disappear into a part; had made him successful in deep cover, and indispensable to his superior officers.

Admiral Mickeljohn, a dapper man in his mid-sixties, wore his uniform like an aristocrat. He’d grayed into silver in his early thirties, so long ago no one remembered him any other way, and had aged so well the myth of Mickeljohn’s immortality matured with him. But after an evening with the Joint Chiefs discussing the superpower standoff over the civil war in Mutapa, followed by a night flight across the country, and a morning drive through a desert world of sorrows thousands of years in the making, Mickeljohn was feeling anything but immortal.

So when they finally found their way up the mesa into the enclave of Los Alamos, with all the remaining politeness Mickeljohn could muster he instructed his aide Lt. Waters, took leave of Commander Casey, and with many cares retired to rest before the afternoon demonstration of the Bach-Chladni Hedge. At loose ends Casey found the hotel bar that never closes, struck up a conversation with visiting academics from Stanford, and began his evaluation of the world of the brain trust, wondering what it had to do with him.

You’ll find this interesting, Commander.

Casey followed Admiral Mickeljohn past the threshold guardians through a retinal scan into the underground complex of the National Labs. Birthed in the Second World War and matured during the Cold War, LANL existed to win the science wars. The struggle to produce the atomic bomb before Hitler instilled a chilling conviction the future belonged to that nation whose scientists first wrested from nature her innermost secrets. Those who had the most persuasive gifts eventually came here.

Over the years the complex at Los Alamos grew and drew a civilian support community about it, until the surface world became an open town in ’68; its utilitarian buildings a cross between a military base and a sprawling college campus that had seen better days. On the surface the labs were come and go; security issues minimized to the extent that summer programs and jobs were available to talented grads. The real core of the complex was underground, and there Los Alamos remained a closed town; its denizens indentured to the state, watched over by acronyms, and bound by the Official Secrets Act to diligently create and reveal nothing.

DNI Len Bradley was waiting below for his peer on the National Security Council. Thinning on top and thickening at the waist, Bradley had yet to come to terms with the knowledge that his mind, otherwise efficient and imposing, was not going to be able to dictate forever the course of nature. Mickeljohn was ten years Bradley’s senior in years, but ten years his junior in fitness. From time to time they played squash and drank rather too much together, and appeared the best of friends, but like all intelligence bureaucrats territorial and circumspect even with each other.

Casey counted two more uniforms, Air Force and junior to Mickeljohn, and three civilians in white lab coats in quiet but animated conversation with Dr. Axel Volker, who still wore the rumpled suit and loosened tie of a night before, evidently spent in shedding the burdens of the day.

On the sideline was a self-absorbed young man in loose twill jacket and fedora, looking for all the world like an apathetic undergrad arrived late for a course beyond him. He slouched aimlessly in a chair, made elbow room about himself, and appearing entirely bored by the gathering, doodled. The lanky youth, reddish blonde hair mussed under the hat, was some fifteen years Casey’s junior. Handsome in a careless way, he was not the kind of man from whom women take strength; rather the type in whom self-assured women contrive to shape their image.

When Casey came in the youth glanced up, flashed a faint smile and looked right on through him into the distance, as if the naval officer had suddenly become nonexistent.

You should know Dr. Volker. Mickeljohn directed Casey’s attention to the late middle aged man in the creased beige silk suit and rumpled maroon Harvard tie. Volker’s the reason we’re here today. This is his project.

Nein, nein, I am project engineer only, Volker said, nodding toward the slack youth. Bach is why we are here today; without him, nothing.

The college kid? Casey looked back at the young man, hunched up under his coat and fedora, trying to make a hedge between him and a world he wanted nothing of.

How much time, Brad? Mickeljohn asked.

Ten, fifteen minutes; use the office, I‘ll call you.

Follow me. Mickeljohn took Casey aside to the ready room. It was curiously cool and silent apart from the heat of traffic in operations. Your college kid is John Bach, he began, protégé of the late, great Albert Weiland. Mickeljohn tapped on the glass emphatically. He comes across naïve, but don’t you believe it.

And this has what to do with me? Casey asked.

At eighteen, Bach shared a Nobel for work in field theory, they say largely on the strength of Weiland’s contribution. Mickeljohn paused, following his thought.

You’re not so sure, Casey said.

Bach and Weiland had a falling out, and Bach turned down the Nobel. For some reason or other he didn’t want acknowledgement, and without him Weiland wouldn’t accept the award. Once inseparable, they never spoke again. John sought relative obscurity to pursue his work and came here. Weiland, always the showman, announced a year later he will demonstrate a cold fusion process for the transmutation of elements.

I remember the headline, Casey said: Nobel Prize for Alchemy.

Well, that’s the popular press for you. What he actually said was alchemy brings us closer to the truth of transmutation than modern industrial science.

Hits a nerve, doesn’t it, Casey said.

We believe that’s what put Bach off. He was young, orthodox, saw where Weiland was going and wanted no part of it.

Hardly reason to sunder ties.

These folk are different; they’ll strain at a gnat.

And swallow a camel? Casey said.

Exactly, Mickeljohn said. "Weiland argued we should not impose our minds on creation, but learn to let life work as it was intended. ‘You do not smash a river for power,’ he said, ‘nor should you smash an atom, but learn to let a river flow through it.’

Weiland was brilliant but eccentric; a devious trickster devoted to making us rethink everything, Mickeljohn said. He believed the self-centered mind usurped a deeper intelligence, and we had become superficial.

You followed this closely.

Weiland was the genius of his age; it’s not every day someone demonstrates cold fusion.

You saw it?

At Weiland labs, Mickeljohn said: "the whole affair couched in ritual solemnity: Crucible, catalyst, initiator - his philosopher’s stone –all alchemical jargon – creative process and metamorphosis – quoted Heraclitus, Sendevogius, Boethius, and a host of others; coming from Weiland you couldn’t just discount it.

"Insisted man once mastered esoteric technologies – cited our memories of magic: To recover them, he said, we must look within rather than without for keys to the material universe.

Explain they said, so he spoke of the subtle radiation of earth influences rising in response to specifically differentiated solar rays, meeting in the atmosphere of consciousness to engender the light of real intelligence, and inform creation. Of course they understood not a word.

And it worked?

"Yes, but only in his presence, and he wouldn’t show them how to do it. That was too much for them. They wanted Weiland’s genius on their terms and he wouldn’t budge, so the high priests of science excoriated him.

"In turn he mocked them; said the day was coming all their works would be rooted up. Told them they could receive nothing of enduring value until they were willing to shed their mental burdens, and learn to unlearn. Weiland bruised a lot of egos and was savaged in return. Ultimately, they deemed him distracted and lamented the loss of a great mind.

And that should have been the end of it except for his challenge: Just days before he died he kindled the light on Lindisfarne, an inexplicable glorious radiance that never fails; the key he said to esoteric technology, hedged from human prying. And then he was gone, leaving an enigma in the ruin of an old abbey. He’d won. He confounded his critics with proof, and to this day no one has any idea what he did or how even to approach finding out.

Except John Bach, Casey said. Sure, and I see where you’re going. You’re hoping John understands his mentor’s ways.

Bach insists his part was trivial.

You don’t believe him, Casey said.

"Bach is infans solaris, Weiland’s sun child and ultimate work. He is key to the enigma, and out of our hands that makes John the most dangerous man in the world."

Casey let the thought sink in. Are you concerned for his loyalty?

He’s cousin to the National Security Advisor, and still won’t say anything. Ignoring us means no more to him than overlooking a parking ticket.

And yet he’s working with you.

Entirely on his own terms, Mickeljohn said.

"So, I see where you’re going with this. He’s related to the Lorings which makes him cousin to David Loring.

That’s right, Commander, the man whose life you saved; with whom you share a Medal of Honour.

If he won’t open to his family, what makes you think he might open up to me?

Let’s just say I’d like you to take a little time to see if you can get close to him.

Bradley’s tap on the door interrupted their conversation. Five minutes to launch.

We’re going to see an application of the Bach-Chladni Hedge to a missile defense issue, Mickeljohn said. If this works Bach becomes even more of a headache. We don’t know how much more he’ll give us, or what the price. They followed Bradley back to Ops.

This is encoded satellite feed in real time. Bradley pointed to a spider map grid of the Pacific superimposed over the images. The technicians moved quietly about their business, half shadowed in the comfortable gloom of the room, hidden behind the purposes of their machines; alert but barely aware of the cluster of officials.

The Peoples’ Liberation Army continues to insist on identifying us as the principal obstacle to the glory of Chinese civilization, Mickeljohn said: Their words; not mine.

"They’ve warned off shipping and announced this schedule of long range missile tests – trials of the new generation Lóng hu 45676.jpg , dragon fire missile. They’re much improved but their sole purpose remains to deliver multiple nuclear warheads."

I gather they’re preparing to confront us in regions they claim under their natural protection.

As of last week that would include Japan, Mickeljohn said. They’ve threatened Tokyo if they don’t line up.

And Africa, Casey said.

And Africa, Mickeljohn agreed. It’s their old spiritual purification mantra; lecturing the rest of the world on the price of bad behavior to cover their own."

The Russians haven’t exactly discouraged their expansion, Bradley said, and the Japanese are beginning to wonder if we’ll stand up.

We’ve a little surprise for them, Mickeljohn said. Despite claims of success in the last two tests, their payloads missed their mark by hundreds of miles and they’re unable to identify the problem. They’re getting just a little frustrated about now, and this third test is crucial to their program.

They tell us this son of a bitch is going to land here, Bradley pointed to the open ocean south of French Polynesia. What they really mean, he said pivoting his arm across the American continent until his fingers touched Washington, is that it can land here, or anywhere they want on the East Coast. This is China being bellicose. They don’t want anyone to think they keep the largest army in the world to no purpose.

Nobody ever wins that game. Casey said.

Not if you use it, Mickeljohn said, but you get to move your assets around, see what you can accomplish in the process.

There’s one of their assets, Bradley said, pointing to a spot in the mid Pacific, "the super carrier Sun Yat Sen positioned to retrieve the payload. Over here is the Mao Tse Tung. It makes a statement of presence in the deep Pacific well beyond their territorial waters. They’ve had submarines out there for years, of course, but never two carrier groups. That’s transportable power, an intended challenge to the stability we’ve maintained since World War Two."

So, we react like the kids down the block are playing in our pond, Casey said.

Geopolitically, they hope we will react, Bradley said; hover around their operations, make angry noises, the bully with too much testosterone; they with their good behavior and power for peace face on. They’d like to leave us looking aggressive, confirming their accusations to the world, while proving themselves misunderstood and about their honest business.

Heat bloom at Lop Nor, Volker said.

Mickeljohn pointed to the screen. There’s the launch, Commander. The computer ran heads up telemetry as the missile arced upward. The boys in the bunker are not going to get their Dim Sum today, Mickeljohn said.

The missile’s trajectory would take it here. Mickeljohn traced the path with a laser pen. It seems to be right on course. They watched silently as it accelerated into the ionosphere. We’re going to intercept the course here, Mickeljohn said, pointing to the top of the projected ark.

You’re not going to shoot it down, Casey said.

No, no, Mickeljohn said, but we are going to influence the outcome.

John Bach drummed his fingers on the table but said nothing. No longer doodling, he watched intently.

This is a whole new concept in the Strategic Defense Initiative, Mickeljohn said, a vibratory hedge that can influence missile flight through the ionosphere.

A primitive application of Bach-Chladni, Volker said.

In time we will be able to generate an impenetrable vibratory hedge around the country, Mickeljohn said, sooner still our fleets at sea. For the moment we’re learning how to modulate ionized zones up to the magnetosphere; predictable to us, unpredictable to them, like tidal cross currents. Am I more or less correct in that Dr. Volker?

Something like that, Volker agreed. We set specific zones of the earth’s electromagnetic fields vibrating, establishing energy fields rather like the solar wind does the aurora.

Bach came up behind like a cold front moving in. They all turned to look at him. Every act has its consequence, he said.

We won’t stop the missile’s flight, Volker said, only alter where it comes down.

They can only suspect and we don’t mind that, Bradley said, not if we can win a war without firing a shot.

Mickeljohn pointed to the South Pacific grid. Here, he said, near the Cook Islands.

You can see the trajectory changed. There’s the course deviation opening up. They’ll be frantic about now, but its systems are overwhelmed, and there’s no way to communicate with it.

And what if they think we’ve done this? Casey asked.

We’re counting on it, Bradley said. We’ll say nothing but let them enjoy their frustration. Realizing we can do this gives opportunity without loss of face to alter their course toward confrontation.

It’s going to be embarrassment enough dropping their payload close to the Nimitz Carrier group, a two day sail from their target, Mickeljohn said. We’ll be a good neighbor and fish it out for them.

Casey watched the missile begin its descent. In war it would deploy multiple warheads and the world would be on fire. Here it fell harmlessly into the Pacific five hundred miles from its intended target, testament to what less than a century had wrought from the desert of Alamogordo to the plains of Armageddon.

The room emptied slowly. Bach cast a sidelong glance at Casey as he left. Bradley joined them in conversation outside and the two naval officers were left alone. The Renaissance had Michelangelo and Da Vinci, Mickeljohn said. Our genius is to create with technology. That’s modern art; ultimately we hope the art of making war impossible, or at least repudiate the politics of resentment and thwarted glory.

And our Renaissance man is Bach?

I’d say, Mickeljohn replied. "Next stage we’ve scheduled a sea launch of cruise missiles simulating an attack by Chinese Dong Feng missiles on a carrier group in the South Pacific. I want you to observe it; more to the point observe those involved. Volker’s good, but he works with what Bach gives him. It would be disaster if we lost Bach.

The whole breed is strung too tight, Mickeljohn continued. You heard Volker defer. To hear the others Bach’s the genius of his age and I’m sure Weiland knew it.

And you think John’s threatened?

A disproportionate number who worked with Weiland have disappeared. Bach’s our asset; we must be sure of him. He turned on Weiland over something so abstruse we can’t even find words to talk about it.

You want to know how to break him to harness, Casey said.

Emotionally they’re children Commander; brilliant children but children, nonetheless. Normally, it’s no issue. Children respond to pleasure and pain: Whet the appetite, create opportunity, build obligation, reward and when necessary punish.

How punish?

Take away their toys. Isolate them from the things they most love: opportunity, approval, acknowledgment. Despite appearances their need to belong is profound. Most of them have huge, fragile egos; they want to be admired. Their gifts can’t be given if they don’t belong, and there’s no one to worship their accomplishments.

And John isn’t like that?

No. That’s the problem; we can’t find his price.

Lt. Waters did a quick reconnaissance of the spartan town that gave birth to an ambiguous age; but for a couple of convenience stores and a fried chicken joint he found it shut down as tight as a government office when most you need it. And the lounge at the Lodge at Los Alamos was a generic disappointment; tired road warriors, canned music, and watered drinks. The new cold war had brought a new austerity and siege mentality; everyone was cautious, everyone suspicious.

Where do they go? Casey asked.

The eggheads?

They’re too smart to come here; must be a watering hole, where the brain trust goes to get it off.

Admiral said try the Tank, a few miles out of town; said to tell you they grill a great steak, dozens of microbrews.

I hate being predictable.

Casey gave him his head and Waters followed a road passed the chain mail fences of restricted labs, through the back of town and in a series of switchbacks into the high desert above the mesa. After half an hour drive the terrain opened up into a savage moonlit landscape of broken rim rock and sparse snow patched meadows, frozen shapes of the cataclysmic force that created them.

At Cebolita Mesa the roads split, Hwy 4 turning south in search of the interstate, 126 persevering on through the Valles Calderea wilderness to Fenton lake. Near the junction was the Tank, a roadhouse lodge reverberating with the longings of a maudlin country ballad, distilling sentimental illusions of desire, pain, and release. In the drive a vintage Sherman tank and upwards of thirty cars and trucks pulled up around it. The night air smelled of pine and distant rain to come, and still the sky was ecstatic with stars.

The mood changed and the strains of A Banjo Pickin’ Fool seeped out of the lodge. The oiled wood floor creaked announcing their arrival, a hush in the din when Navy walked in, but the canned music didn’t flag. From the days of Groves and Oppenheimer coexistence with the military was a long suffering tradition at Los Alamos, and after a quick appraisal the intruders were absorbed in the soft gloom and the tide of conversation swelled.

My kind of place; no Washington plush, Casey said. The oak bar was a hundred years old, polished smooth with loving care, its brass gleaming in the imitation gaslight pub atmosphere.

There were a couple of flannel fishermen in after a day on the lake, looking for food and a drink; they might well belong but their clothes were new and they felt out of place. They took in Casey, and cast anxious glances about the room looking as if they were trying to figure what they’d stumbled into. What’s the collective noun for nerds, one asked. Whispers have a way of traveling.

A google of nerds, the other said. He laughed nervously, glanced again at the men in uniform, shrugged them off and settled into his drink.

Down the bar a handsome early middle-aged woman with a fair, frank face tended to a customer in worn jeans jacket, with mussed hair, slouched over his drink as if in pain. Excessively preoccupied with himself, in a passive aggressive way he was trying to make it with the woman, but she broke it off to include her new guests.

Agent on duty, Waters said.

Do you think? Can we still get something to eat, Ma’am?

24/7 Commander: Most of my customers don’t know the difference between day and night.

Most civilians don’t know the difference between an ensign and an admiral.

Navy brat, Hilde Doolittle, or at least as little as I can, she said. Naval intelligence aren’t you. My father was NCIS; I can always tell.

Casey looked around through the subdued lighting, mostly men, but a handful of women - dresses and sweaters. And the rest were white shirtsleeves, loosened ties, and the occasional suit coat or suede jacket.

Everything’s remote record, Commander, she said. Nothing goes on here off the record.

You’re here for the brain trust.

You heard them, she said, nodding toward the fishermen. We get that sort in and out, mostly off 126 or in from Fenton Lake. They come for beer, a break from the campsite; harmless enough, and there are always agents on duty.

And you?

Hilde smiled. I’m host: They’re all Oedipal, Commander: moody, emotional when they let their guard down. I’ve watched them crack up here in the middle of the night over an equation. Think of me as a den mother with tits, she said, hands on bosom.

So they pretty much come and go as they please.

Can’t legislate genius, can you. They’re on their own time; work on and off, sometimes for days at a stretch; sometimes they sleep all day and work through the night. Sometimes I don’t see them for a week, and sometimes I can’t get rid of them for a week. I run this place as a safety valve, she said, as if he should understand. I even keep rooms up stairs; not for the public mind you.

On the government’s dime, Casey said.

That’s right. Whatever they want, I go with it. Tonight it’s country, tomorrow: Beethoven or Beatles, Heavy Metal, Vera Lynn, Gregorian Chant, you name it.

Who’s Vera Lynn? Waters asked.

We’ll meet again, don’t know where don’t know when, Hilde said, you know, Dr. Strangelove; Slim Pickens rides the bomb with a holler and whoop.

Got it, Waters replied, admiring her breasts.

You’d think they were all mind, but mostly mood. Depends what they’re feeling like. Tonight they’re maudlin; I’d say some soul searching going on. You never know with them. All intellect and repressed feelings, she said, I get propositioned a couple times a week.

I can well imagine that.

Give ‘em a hug and send them off to bed alone, Commander, she said. Get you a table if you want? Or hang out here at the bar?

Over there by Dr. Volker: Couple of steaks, a pitcher of beer - all right with you lieutenant?

I’m stocked with fifty microbrews and a hundred imports, half a dozen on tap.

A wee heavy, Casey said.

Good choice Commander. You’ll fit right in here; Lieutenant?

Same. Waters was grinning from ear to ear. Where the brain trust goes to get it off, he said. I get it now.

Dionysus is a god and will not be denied, Casey said.

The fishermen turned to watch Hilde lead Casey and Waters to a table. Great tits, one said a tad too loud. What does it take to get your hands around those?

An IQ, Hilde shot back. She tugged at Casey’s sleeve and drew him aside. The flannels are trolling, she said, nodding to the fishermen. And the wolf, the lean and hungry look, she said, nodding toward the man hunched over the bar in the corner, he’s stalking the flock. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here.

Casey took a long hard look. She was right, the wolf was good, weather beaten, life weary and gritty; hardly worth a second look, but not entirely what he seemed. Casey reached in his breast pocket. Phone that number, Hilde. Use your clearance.

Am I that obvious?

Not at all, but phone. Director Bradley will answer. Tell him I want facial recognition on the denim spook. Run the fishermen as well.

He’s very good, isn’t he; clothes well worn, not quite to his frame. Closest thing to a blind spot that corner, Hilde said. He went right there. Hint of tension when you came in, covered in conversation with me."

Phone it in, Hilde.

A God send my friends, a straight thinking military man to keep us honest. Dr. Volker was tribal elder; a hint of German remained in his accent. You were with us this afternoon, Commander.

It was impressive, Casey said.

We don’t talk about such things here, Volker said. Here we play. And we do need a Theseus to guide us through our labyrinth. Forgive me, he said, making introductions.

On his left was Dan Wright, a dark sweatered, code bound Ichabod Crane, one eye always on Bach. Jealous, willful, Casey thought, even fierce on his own ground. On his right was Tan Gensheng, an American Chinese, watching from behind steel rimmed glasses like an inquisitive owl. He was shy and curiously detached but territorial; the kind who conceding gave nothing. Of course there was time only for first impressions and it was a sense of John Bach he was after. John sat next to an attractive, understated Icelandic ginger, Ilse Jónsdóttir, whose name Casey committed to memory. A woman capable of sacrifice, she saw herself a hedge for John from jealous wiles, and unwittingly heightened envy.

Join us Commander Casey, lieutenant. Our literary circle, or at least some of it, Volker said glancing around, "most working tonight. We’re discussing The Deserted Village, Goldsmith’s 18th century work. Do you know it, Commander?"

They’d shifted ground when he came in; you could still taste it in the air, like smoke left over from a fire. They’d been in heated debate. Literary circle, Casey said.

Every Friday night, Volker replied.

Deserted Village, Casey said, reaching. "Let not ambition mock their useful toil, their homely joys nor destiny obscure, nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, the short and simple annals of the poor."

Ilse laughed: Right century, wrong poet.

Brit lit is way in my past, Casey said, but you surprise me. My impression of the brain trust was a coterie of obsessive compulsives who think arts airy fairy.

Many of us are artists, poets, musicians, Volker said. John there is a brilliant cellist; Ilse plays a mean fiddle. It’s all language of the imagination isn’t it; can’t do science without imagination.

"So, why Goldsmith: Under a spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands; the ambition bit was Gray’s Elegy wasn’t it?"

And the village smithy, Longfellow’s, John said.

Of course it is, Casey said. "Let’s see, under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me. There lie they, and here lie we under the spreading chestnut tree."

John turned sharply to Ilse who began to thumb through the anthology looking for the verse. Volker flashed a smile. "We were discussing what it must have been like to live your whole life in a village knowing everyone; dependent on those around you.

"Think what it must have been like to never journey more than twenty, thirty miles distance from home; to have no communication outside your community. And, if you could read, books so rare as to be limited to exchange of ideas with those immediate to you.

The majority of mankind lived that way for thousands of years. Goldsmith tells us what it was like, before it was taken from us by the Industrial Revolution: Farms enclosed, commons destroyed, communities uprooted, and families forced into cities to make a labor pool for factories. Question is did we lose more than we gained?

Looking back is always in half light.

Any light is better than none, Commander, Volker said.

Sounds Gaean, neo-Luddite, Casey said.

Afraid to step out of line, Tan had let Volker speak for the group, but this triggered him. Mind Trick: Gaeans are too self-conscious about themselves. If we could go back, it would take generations to recover what was lost.

It’s where we came from, though, isn’t it Tan; something of it’s still in us? Volker said. And, yes, we are curious what sentiment motivates the Gaeans to try to go back.

Distance adds an air of romance, Casey said.

Yes, but even so they seem to believe there’s another way; something our humanity lost to be recovered.

It’s you folks who brought us here, Casey said. Perhaps it’s a reaction to your Faustian wager.

Faustian wager? John said.

"Es irrt der Mensch, so lang ‘er strebt," Casey said.

"Man must err, as long as he strives. Goethe. Very good, Commander, Volker said, you’re well read. Yet doesn’t Faust tell us in the end to be truly human we must strive?"

That’s your wager. You believe there’s no end to the aspirations of the mind that more power, more knowledge won’t fulfill, Casey said. What’s more, you’ve sold that to the public. You had a choice and wagered your soul on the boundlessness of the mind. Now it comes home to you painfully there are limits.

Our exploiters brought us here, Tan said.

Anyway, how could we do science in Goldsmith’s village? Wright said.

What you may not fully appreciate Commander is how few they are, Ilse said, gesturing to the others. I do not include myself. Graduate schools turn out thousands like me. At their level they number a few hundred in the entire world. They feel each other; they sense each other, they need and thrive by reason of each other.

A mystical bond of wizards in a world we mere dwarves can never understand, Casey said, It has the making of a priesthood.

There is a mystery of communion to it, Ilse said.

You need the resources of a world of lesser mortals to work your magic. Or am I wrong about that? Casey asked.

I need equipment, opportunity and patronage, Volker agreed, but, he nodded to John who was vying again for Ilse’s attention, "John needs pen and paper, and if you took that away a stick on the ground would do.

Ilse’s right about our community but that one, he confided in a half whisper, "is one of a dozen or so taken together in all fields of human endeavor whose insights will define a generation.

"You realize what I’m saying Commander? That young man: What he writes on a piece of paper tomorrow will change the world. What’s more, whatever it is we’re all just going to have to go along with it."

Sure enough we’re at the end of an era, Casey said, and unless one of you comes up with something substantial soon to power an age, like it or not we’re back in that village of yours; the end of civilization set before us.

By civilization, I presume you mean the tawdry world that men have made, Wright said looking over the rim of his glasses.

Casey sat back and took in Volker’s literary circle. He knew the game the intelligentsia play: He was being set up for one of their intellectual muggings. Waters was bewildered, and when the steaks came busied tackling the Porterhouse that covered his plate. But Casey enjoyed the game and hardly noticed the food.

You’re not alone in being unhappy about it, Casey replied, but you’re ultimately responsible for a whole lot of what’s out there.

You’re saying we’re our own victims, Volker said.

The spider is prisoner of the web it weaves.

You don’t think science is truth, Commander?

No, and neither do you, Casey said. "Only small minds think that. Science is epistemology, Herr Volker, a knowledge system that yields certain kinds of results. The public thinks its truth, of course, but they’re too distracted with the toys you give them to realize you come up against the rational limits of the mind and your scientific paradigms every day.

And rather than face up and have the public lose faith in science, in the ignorance of experts, you trash religion but ask for faith in you, promising one day science will conquer all. Fact is you don’t believe it for a moment.

Waters lay off eating and stared. Volker took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. You’ve thought a lot about us, Commander, he said, but every day we press back the limits of consciousness.

You don’t; you just tweak the paradigm. In truth you don’t even know what consciousness is, Casey said. No rational person could deny there are limits to the mind or even assume it’s capable of understanding the universe. You ignore it, but you’re too intelligent not to realize all you’re seeing is your own nature reflected back to you.

You repudiate us, Volker said, and yet you expect us to solve your problems for you: pollution, energy for the industrial machine, how to defend against nuclear war, etc.

Problems you created, Casey said. No, I don’t expect anything of you; you’re all the same. When it comes to ultimate questions you beg the question, shift away from the zone of discomfort and pretend it doesn’t exist. You’ve locked yourselves in. You’ve come to the end of your own suffocating paradigm and you don’t have the honour to admit it.

Weiland did, John said, abruptly.

Casey took him in quickly. This is what he’d wanted; to anger and draw him out. And your type crucified him for it, Casey said.

Volker raised a warning hand. You’re very hard on us, Commander. You sound like a man rejected. Do you have thwarted ambitions?

Casey let go and laughed pleasantly. Fair enough, he said, but I’m grateful I wasn’t as good at it as I’d have liked. It’s opened doors I would have missed and I found other ways.

You think we crucified Weiland for his mysticism? John wasn’t letting go. For the first time Casey felt in him, back of the diffident charm, a formidable authority, a quiet power to which the others deferred. And he didn’t anger, but agreed. You may be right, Commander, John said, thoughtfully. A good question: What have we missed by doing science? Albert would have understood that.

Weiland was a man who transcended his craft, Casey said. Had he lived he would have kindled a new age, a new way of looking at the universe.

Do you think so? John said. Maybe that’s what he meant.

John? Casey said.

He used to say the day was not far off when we’d view science as mental drudgery. He said what he’d found would transform our understanding of how the world works. Mazarroth is returned, he’d say, the vibratory arts of the Ancients.

Enough, John, Volker said