Gravity Zero

By Mark Keay

By the close of our century, the Lagrange Archipelago is clinically free of mental illness. When three notable colonists succumb to madness and death, the established order is threatened. The International Space Agency sends Inspector Charles Franklin Price and Dr Sybil McCreery to determine the precise origin and meaning of these events. At every turn, they are hindered by the enigmatic leader of the Lagrange Platform, Ching-shan, and his Court. Why? They cannot fathom. Only when they explore the dark worlds of physics and psyche do they find the ultimate truth of the Lagrange system's existence--where experiments into matter-antimatter conversion are not just the launching place for mankind into interstellar space, but the terminus for his terrifying encounter with something thoroughly alien to his spirit and species.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jan 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781528944977

Mark Keay

The author has led a varied career, working by turns as a school teacher and university tutor in English history; a heavy truck driver, manual labourer; landscaper and gardener; and, presently, as a small business owner. He has a PhD in Modern English History and Literature and has published on the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the landed society, 1688-1832. His interest in science fiction, fantasy and horror has been crucial to his development as a writer of fiction and nonfiction. When not reading and writing, he enjoys exercising, country walks and sightseeing. He is encouraged to try new things by his less-conservative companion, Debra, and their extended family.

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About the Author

The author has led a varied career, working by turns as a school teacher and university tutor in English history; a heavy truck driver, manual labourer; landscaper and gardener; and, presently, as a small business owner. He has a PhD in Modern English History and Literature and has published on the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the landed society, 1688–1832. His interest in science fiction, fantasy and horror has been crucial to his development as a writer of fiction and nonfiction. When not reading and writing, he enjoys exercising, country walks and sightseeing. He is encouraged to try new things by his less-conservative companion, Debra, and their extended family.

Dedication

To Debra

Mark Keay

Gravity Zero

Copyright Information

Copyright © Mark Keay (2019)

The right of Mark Keay to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788487825 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788487832 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781528944977 (E-Book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2019)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the staff at Austin Macauley, London, for the pains that they have taken in preparing my manuscript for publication and thank them wholeheartedly for their encouragement and guidance at every turn.

I also acknowledge a profound intellectual debt to the writers and publishers listed in the pages of this book, especially those who have permitted the quoting of copyrighted material. I hope the original use to which I have put their ideas and conclusions will justify their inclusion here as sources of inspiration and controversy.

The Argument:

Of distant watchers in the sky,

The pebble and the seashell cry;

But since they cannot speak,

They must embody what you seek.

The Sources:

To be mad with lucidity and in complete possession of one’s intellectual faculties – this, surely, must be one of the most terrible of experiences.

Aldous Huxley

I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.

Edgar Allan Poe

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.

William Shakespeare

The Narrative:

Sybil McCreery opened her eyes and rubbed her smooth brow. Suddenly, she smiled; her fine lips pursing together endearingly. Sitting opposite her, in the transit shuttle, was a non-descript man in a white suit.

He had been watching her for some time but was now caught-out. Instead of shuffling his feet, or turning away, he too, smiled and introduced himself.

‘E. Leonard Euler, ma’am, at your service!’

‘Sybil McCreery. I’m pleased to meet you, Leonard.’

Inwardly, she rebuked herself. Only his clothes were non-descript; and his overall appearance was as free from cosmedic treatments and modifications as his voice, manner, and greeting were untrammelled by rules of clerical conformity and sameness. Perhaps, he was a true son of Adam and not the handiwork of Future Now Laboratories. But she could not be sure. Eugenically chosen individuals were indistinguishable from randomly begotten ones; and physical attributes, like words, were slippery things and apt to mislead. Then, musing a moment, she added:

‘Leonard: a Norman French name of Germanic origin, meaning lion and brave. What does the E stand for?’

Feigning terror, Leonard arched his eyebrows and said, aghast:

‘You really don’t want to know. And after that tour de force of learning, neither do I!’

She laughed aloud, very much relieved that Leonard was endowed with wit and good humour.

‘Well, if you won’t tell me your full name, what about your occupation?’

‘I’m a trouble shooter for the Space Colonies Review Board.’

She looked at him vaguely.

‘I roam the colonies of the Earth-Moon system checking that government funded engineering works and surveys are progressing on time, according to budget, and not infringing any laws and regulations (to quote my employer).’

She nodded and inquired further:

‘So you’re bypassing the giant orbital platform?’

‘Basically. I missed my direct flight to the Lunar Colony and had to settle for a shuttle bus to the Space Platform. From there, I’ll ferry to the Dandelion Wine crater. What about you, Sybil?’

‘I suppose my name – like my occupation – is somewhat out of date: I’m a social anthropologist…’

Unsure if she should proceed, she looked past Leonard’s head and down the long aisle of the ship. Near the galley, a man in black was sitting down after a brief chat with a steward. His demeanour was striking: a fine Roman nose and high forehead offset a clearly defined chin, and pale complexion, giving him altogether a patrician air. Even his receding hairline showed his shapely skull to advantage. (What would a 19th century phrenologist have made of that assemblage? She wondered.) Beyond all expectation, he pulled out a slim volume from his carry bag and began reading. Other travellers, of course, waited patiently for a verbal exposition of their favourite texts from their digital scroll books but this man turned the yellow pages with care and conned the words for himself, and in silence. Sybil was moonstruck with admiration and watched him as Saint Augustine had once watched his mentor, Ambrose, reading to himself and not enunciating aloud as classical grammar and orthography demanded… No, this man kept his electronic help-mate by his side, and delved mutely into the old book for wisdom and knowledge. Only his greenish eyes moved with cat-like vividness over and beyond each line; stopping here or there to ponder or delight in its varied contents…

‘A social anthropologist?’

Recalled from her reverie by the feeling that she had been rude to her companion, Sybil threw away any lasting reserve and declared:

‘Yes. I was trained in social theory and worked for some years in South America, collecting data on the Great Religious Revival of 2045 and looking for clues to its future course…’

Leonard unwittingly stopped her short:

‘Is that why you’re going to the Space Platform, to observe the spread of the religious controversy in the colonies?’

‘Not exactly. I’ve been employed by the Department of Justice to act as a consultant on some important matters.’

‘Important matters?’ he quizzed.

‘I know that sounds vague but my objective is unclear. I’m supposed to help the Coronial Inquiry into the deaths of three colonists in space.’

‘Oh! You mean the inquiry into the Chandrasekhara case – the eminent mathematician and engineer?’

‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘No mystery, I read the obituary notices in the in-house journals and gazettes. But I thought that the old man was dotty, not murdered…’

Sybil interrupted him:

‘I didn’t say that he was murdered, Leonard. The cause of death is still undetermined. That’s the purpose of holding a coronial inquiry.’

‘Ah. Yes, of course… but you mentioned three suspicious deaths?’

‘You’re putting words into my mouth. Three people perished in space, whose deaths have been deemed worthy of official investigation. Whether or not they are suspicious is for the police inspector and his medical assistant to decide. As for me, I’ve been asked to provide a social perspective on the colonists and their environments, just in case they were related to your recent… what shall we call them… Colonial troubles.’

‘Ha! Platform plagues, I should say… Look, I don’t mean to exaggerate. It’s just that coronial inquiry is so rare these days and seems to involve evidence of foul play.’

Leonard smiled perversely.

Happily, Sybil rolled her eyes and shook her head at his incorrigible behaviour. Inwardly though, she brooded on the truth of his belief that coroners were seldom appointed by the Space Agency, except when they had a strong suspicion of malicious intent or conspiracy to commit murder. Still, she couldn’t be sure – exceptions to the rule existed, and the whole space scene was conducive to factitious events and deaths by misadventure.

Leonard felt a change in her mood as clearly as if a galvanometer had recorded a change in the surface tension of her skin. Not wanting to become a bore, he turned away and gazed at the fake horizon of the window frame.

Sybil recovered her composure instantly. Grateful that Leonard didn’t want to dissect her private views on the matter, she gently nudged him into conversation again. Responding eagerly, like some feudal lord, he pointed to the giant orbital platform and substations that occupied the verge of his domain – the long term tenants of gravity zero. When she feigned ignorance of the origin and significance of this arrangement, he gladly proffered a scientific and political explanation. The gist of which was as follows: The need for massive space stations arose, in part, from the Third War on Terror. Moslem clerics had long denounced secular colonists on the Moon as mere infidels who were defiling the celestial body that formed the basis of their lunar calendar. In consequence, they sanctioned wholesale war between the modernist forces of the West and FATIMA – the Federation of Arab Terrorists and International Moslem Armies. Campaigns were long and confused affairs reaching all parts of the Earth – Moon system. (And if few Catholic countries became involved for purely sectarian reasons, some former brigand nations in Central and South America waged a bloody crusade against the enemy in keeping with their newly won Church-State constitutions.) The Western Allies, however, were unexpectedly gracious in victory. All religious and political creeds could be practised without fear or favour within the context of democratic dissent, and the colonists themselves insisted on the long term removal of all weapons and chemical hazards from their midst. The Satellite Treaty of 2069, eventually, banned all atomic weapons, radioactive waste and biological middens – by which the signatories meant the cast off products of gene research on Earth. (Fusion powered vessels could still visit the Moon’s surface but only under strict environmental protocols.) The document neatly stymied the making of nuclear thumbtack bombs, nanotech killing clouds and minuteman implosion devices. In a quandary, the defence contractors of several leading nations were forced to look elsewhere for alternative factory sites and proving grounds.

‘So they looked for sites outside the Moon?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘At Lagrange Points to be precise. Here, the gravitational forces of the Earth, Moon and Sun balance each other out like some celestial trapeze to produce remarkably stable orbits.’

‘It’s fascinating stuff, Leonard. I guess the government contractors were just itching to use these locations for their research into space travel?’

‘Absolutely, Sybil. They couldn’t be silent spectators at the Cirque Du Soleil of gravity zero; instead, they invested billions of assignats in European platform design and trillions of Yankee dollars in the hardware needed for artificial gravity and fusion generation… The result being the kingdom in the sky you see here.’

Leonard pointed at the space platform towering above them and felt vicarious pleasure in Sybil’s first meeting with the gigantic structure, and not a little individual pride in the engineering profession’s collective achievement. Looking intently at his interlocutor, he nodded slowly:

‘You know, I’ve never quite thought of the Platform as a means to an end but you’re right on the button, Sybil. All the orbital space stations must serve one ultimate purpose: to develop matter-antimatter converters for powering interstellar flights…’

He broke off unwillingly, wanting to say something about the future colonisation of the Milky Way by Mankind but somehow lacking the words.

Besides, Sybil was already reaching for her digital scroll book which received information anywhere in the Solar System within one Astronomical Unit. For the Lagrange Platform loomed as large in folklore and the annals of engineering history as it did in physical reality. Its curious shape and size had often led writers into the dangerous worlds of eulogy and purple passages of prose. Instead of flights of fantasy, she recalled the balanced description in Henry Robert Goddard’s book The Space Adventure: The Early Years, Vol. 1 (2087), p.69. Thereupon, she told the scroll book to whisper its secrets to her alone:

Beginning in 2076, the Lagrange Platform was the material basis for Man’s adventure into zero gravity. It was, however, no mere launching pad for military ships or a safe haven for the fusion vessels that plied the wine dark sea of the Moon’s penumbra. Within its massive walls and bulkheads were seven zones – widely regarded as the seven wonders of the fusion age. The first of these was the Furnace; a network of colossal reactors that produced waves of electrical energy for domestic, military and government use. Next door was the Digital Foundry where tireless machines and robotic devices laboured in the service of civil and military engineers who built every kind of computerised and capital good imaginable. Adjoining its sides (north and south) were two warehouses called the Granaries which received, stored and distributed vast sums of goods and materials; moving the equivalent tonnage of the old London Docks in their heyday. Centrally located was the Village, which provided living quarters and amenities for seventy five thousand residents in comparative ease and comfort. Toward