Gridlock and Other Stories Part 12

Author's note forGift :

As I noted in the note that followsScoop , science fiction stories have a very short shelf life. Even if you are writing about a time four centuries hence, modern technology moves so fast that the fa.r.s.eeing SF author's deathless prose seems hopelessly out of date only one or two decades after it was written. Think back to all of the novels you have read where the stars.h.i.+p pilots keep their slide rules next to their consoles for calculations. Another prime example of technological obsolescence is Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones. Written in 1954, it is still one of my favorite Heinlein juveniles, but you cannot help noticing that the computer that flies the stars.h.i.+p has to be coded in binary. In fact, the function of the astrogators on the s.h.i.+p is to look up the binary codes in a book!

Giftdid not suffer from technological obsolescence the way some other stories have. In fact, the original text of the story can stand on its own a decade and a half after it was written. No,Gift 's obsolescence is more sociological than technological. It was written in 1979 and is firmly rooted in the events of that time.

As noted in the story, the protagonist is a Vietnam War protester who drifts into the anti-nuclear movement because he is hooked on the camaraderie of protest. In so doing, he is tricked into accepting the sunscreen from Thing, the alien agent provocateur. Since this particular combination of events has not repeated itself (nor will it),Gift must remain a story rooted in 1979, the history of an event that never came to pa.s.s.

The message of the story is a serious one. For those who are hoping that solar energy will save us, I have bad news for you. It has its uses and for some things - small amounts of remote power, for instance - there is no subst.i.tute! However, the fact that you do not instantly burst into flames the moment you step into sunlight means that the energy density is too low for solar energy ever to take over the task of prime energy generation. A solar power plant must, of necessity, be at least 10 times larger (in terms of steel, concrete, gla.s.s, etc.) than a comparable-size nuclear or coal fired plant. Since ma.s.s costs money, it just is not going to happen. As the Russians found out the hard way, the laws of economics are every bit as unforgiving as the law of gravity.

The most successful form of solar energy yet developed is hydroelectric power. The sun warms the oceans and evaporates the water, which then form clouds that are blown over the land. The clouds get heavier and begin releasing their load of moisture in the form of rain. The rain falls on the mountains and runs downhill, collecting into small streams. The streams combine into rivers, the rivers flow into manmade lakes, and the water eventually pa.s.ses through the hydroelectric dam to produce electricity before being returned to the ocean. Just your basic thermodynamic cycle, with scenery. For pure solar power to be successful, you not only have to build the dam, you have to build the mountains! For those of you interested in writing,Gift is a sample of what I often refer to as the "obtain trust before inserting knife" school of writing. I set up a garden-variety pro-solar energy story. I take you along a well-traveled path and get you comfortable with the idea that you know precisely where I am going. Then when you have been lulled into a sense of security, I spring my trap. When you are expecting the story to end after Thing helps invent the sunscreen, it does not. It continues for another 4000 words in which I tear down the edifice that I so carefully built up in the first half of the story. Those who are fans of the television show The X-Files will recognize the technique. My wife and have two favorite X-Files episodes: the one about the retirement home for circus freaks, and the c.o.c.kroach episode. In both cases, we (the viewers) were set up, lulled into a false sense of security, and then mugged as the story took a sharp left turn when we expected it to go straight ahead. Not just once, but several times! It is the surprise that human beings feel when events do not go as expected that makes the technique so effective. If you appreciate such things, you may just have what it takes to be a science fiction writer.

Giftwas published in the December 1980, issue ofa.n.a.log Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine.

THE SHROUD.

The Shroud of Turin is thought by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. As such, it could represent the greatest danger Christianity has yet faced ...

John Frakes was jolted awake by the screech of tires on wet asphalt as the twenty-year-old airplane touched down atAeroporto di Torino . He groaned and straightened up in his seat. The catnap on the forty-minute flight from Rome had been his first rest in thirty hours. Ever since the final lab results had been verified, his sleep had been marred by the same recurring nightmare. He would barely doze off when the stern face of his father scowled forth from his deep subconscious, tugging him forcefully back to reality.

The Reverend Lester Frakes had been a fire breathing Episcopalian minister while he lived. Even five years after the old man's death, Frakes still occasionally woke in the middle of the night covered with nervous sweat, his hands shaking in a fit of filial guilt. His father had never really forgiven him for changing his major from Religious Studies to Chemistry during his junior year of college.

"I've raised me a d.a.m.ned atheist, have I?" the Reverend Frakes had screamed at him that fateful Christmas Eve when he had broken the news.

"No, sir, an agnostic."

"I will pray for you, lad," Lester Frakes had said, casting his eyes heavenward. "Perhaps the Lord will someday tear this veil of foolishness from your eyes so that you may see the path of righteousness once more."

Even then, Frakes had had to smile inwardly as his father slipped easily into the old fire-and-brimstone sermon mode. As they had done so many times before, the words washed over him as though from a scalding sea, their sting intended to bend his will to that of the old man.Only that time he had refused to bend, and in the end, it had killed the Reverend Frakes as surely as a knife.

"What would say now, Father, if you knew what I know?"

He knew the answer even as he asked the question. Lester Frakes had always chosen a single sermon on those infrequent occasions afterward when his son had come to hear him preach.

"Never let your mind overpower your faith, my flock! Without faith we are little better than the poor guinea pigs these would-be-prophets slice open in furtherance of their evil experiments..."

"You may unbuckle your seat belt,Signore ."

Frakes looked up with a start. The pretty, black haired, black-eyed stewardess who had welcomed him aboard in Rome was standing over him. He looked around, surprised to see the last of the pa.s.sengers crowding towards the exit at the front of the plane.

"Sorry," he said, reaching for the buckle. "I guess I was daydreaming."

"Are you well?"

"Uh,Mi sento molto bene, grazie . Just a little tired is all."

"You speakItaliano well for an American,Signore . Perhaps this is not your first visit?"

"I was here last summer for two months. I picked up a few useful phrases then."

"Well, have a nice stay this time."

Frakes levered himself out of his seat, pulling his briefcase with its precious cargo from under the seat in front of him, thankful for the chance to stretch his legs after so many hours in the air.

Sardinian Customs was almost peaceful after the organized chaos he had encountered at Rome City State. There were none of the hundreds of soldiers andCarabiniere that the Rome city fathers seemed to think necessary. Of course, the Sardinians had no need to guard against agents of the Peoples'

Republic of Naples, either.

Within half an hour, he was out of the airport and headed north in a cab towards the gray smudge on the horizon that was Torino.

"You are in Sardinia on business, yes?" the taxi driver asked over his shoulder as he weaved nonchalantly between an oncoming Fiat and a cryogen tanker stopped half on/half off the road.

"Yes," Frakes said, staring blankly at the glistening wetness of the highway. The static crackle of the winds.h.i.+eld rain repulsors and the low-throated hum of the turbine made him want to go back to sleep.

"Ingegnere... engineer?"

Frakes shook his head. "Scienziato."

"Ah. Here to visit our mills for making of the plastics?"

"No, to visit the Cathedral."

"You come to see the Sacred Shroud?"Frakes nodded.

"Signore, this is your lucky day! Mi brother, he is tourist guide. He would be most content to guide you personally. Perhaps, if you wish, he will arrange a most private tour for you, Signore. The cost will be not great. No more than a million New Lira. He will speak with the Guardians and perhaps you will even be allowed to touch the Relic."

In spite of the sandpaper on the insides of his eyelids, John Frakes had to smile. "The payment will be in advances of course; and to you, not your brother."

The driver's brown eyes looked expressively at him in the rearview mirror as his whole body underwent a huge shrug. "It is the way things are done in Sardinia these days, Signore."

"You wouldn't disappear with the money the moment I handed it over, would you?"

"Signore, you wound me!"

"What would you say if I told you the Shroud hasn't been on public display more than fifty times in the last eight hundred years?"

The taxi driver grinned, seemingly unbothered for having been caught red handed. "I see I am in the presence of one knowledgeable about such things."

Frakes laughed. "You might say that. I have spent the better part of the last two years studying the Shroud. I know far more than I ever wanted to." Frakes felt a pang of guilt as he realized the statement held far more truth than he had intended.

The Shroud of Turin is a piece of linen dating back to the First Century, AD. Physically, it is quite large, measuring 4.3 meters long by 1.4 meters wide. However, it is not the mere fact of the age of the material that causes the Shroud to be venerated so.

For on the surface of the Shroud, clearly visible to the naked eye, there is miraculously imprinted the image of a man. Actually there are two images, one frontal, and one dorsal; each nearly joined to the other at the head, as though the cloth had been folded lengthwise over a corpse and then removed before the process of decay set in.

The two images are so detailed that it is possible to know a great deal about the man who once lay in the shroud. He stood 172 centimeters tall in life, was possessed of a handsome face, a beard, and long flowing locks. He lies naked in death with his legs extended to their full length beneath him. His arms are crossed left over right, obviously tied together to combat the effects ofrigor mortis .

More intriguing than his physical appearance is the manner of his death.

On the surface of the Shroud, there are a number of bloodstains arranged in a meaningful pattern.

Near the hands are marks of wounds that could only have come from having spikes driven through each wrist. Similar marks show up on the feet, as though they were pinioned together with a single large nail.

Clearly, the original owner of the shroud was a victim of the cross.

A series of marks on the dorsal image indicate that He of the Shroud had been severely flogged by two men before being nailed to the cross. A large bloodstain at the abdomen shows that he was pierced through the right side by a short spear, probably as acoup de grace administered after death. Most suggestive of all are the small spots of blood in the region of the head, the pattern of which suggests aCrown of Thorns worn like a cap and tied under the chin for maximum torment, Tradition has it that the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, given to Simon Peter for safe keeping following the Resurrection. As to the subject of what became of the burial garment in the years that followed, the Gospels are unfortunately silent.

The first independent historical reference to Christ's burial shroud comes from Saint Nino in the Third Century. Then, in the year 570, an anonymous pilgrim from Piancenza reported that it was being kept in a convent in a cave by the River Jordan. Again, during the Seventh Century, a French bishop named Arculf told a tale of having seen the Shroud in Jerusalem.

For six hundred years, there were no further reliable reports of the sacred cloth until 1204, when Robert de Clari, a chronicler of the Fourth Crusade, reported its presence in Constantinople. After the Crusaders plundered that great city, however, "no one, neither Greek or Frenchman, ever knew what became of it..."

The Shroud surfaced again in 1356 in Lirey, France. Then on December 4, 1532, the Shroud was involved in a fire in the sacristy of the Sainte Chapelle of Chambery. Its silver casket overheated and drops of molten metal fell on the folded linen, burning a series of deep black scars into its surface, luckily leaving most of the image unharmed.

In 1578, it was moved from Chambery to Turin on orders of the Duke of Savoy. In Turin, it rested for the next five hundred years.

For most of its history after 1356, the Shroud was believed to be a fake or a clever painting done by some unknown Michelangelo for the greater glory of G.o.d. Only in the nineteenth -- and later the twentieth -- centuries, with the invention of ever better photographic methods, did the true nature of the Shroud become clear. Quite simply, the Shroud was exactly what it appeared to be, the burial cloth of a First Century martyr. Even a cursory study of the image's anatomical detail showed that no medieval artist, no matter how much a genius, could possibly have been so precise.

As ever more powerful scientific tools were brought to bear on the Shroud's "authenticity", the question of whether or not it was truly Christ's image on the linen became ever more important. As in the case of most questions of religion, opinions were varied ... and heated!

The Cathedral of Saint John, the Baptist, showed few indications that it had witnessed nearly a thousand years of turbulent history. Its great double doors stood agape, as if welcoming everyone to enter and take refuge within the dimly lit interior. Here and there across the stately face of the Cathedral were the pockmarks of machine gun fire, some dating back to the Second World War. Other, smaller caliber pockmarks were less than thirty years old, stark evidence of the Breakup that accompanied the Second Reformation.

John Frakes wearily climbed the flight of steps to the cathedral's entrance, and crossed the threshold into the stately interior, glad to be out of the wet drizzle that fell from a gray sky. As he did so, he was acutely conscious of the warm glow that washed over him both inside and out. The outer warmth came from the cathedral's efficient central heating system, installed by the Guardians when they carved the Shroud's resting place from solid rock beneath the foundation during the Time of Troubles. The inner warmth came from the knowledge that untold generations of men had trod this floor before him.

Agnostic or not, Frakes couldn't help feeling a certain reverence whenever he thought of the lives so intimately entwined with this building and its Sacred Treasure.There had been Secondo Pia, the first man to photograph the Shroud. It had been he in 1898 that had first clearly seen The Face in the Shroud as it appeared so starkly in one of his old-fas.h.i.+oned gla.s.s negatives. Later the photographer had described that instant as an intensely personal religious experience.

Then there had been Filippo Lambert and Guglielmo Pussod, who risked their lives rescuing the Shroud's silver casket from the flames at Chambery. And later, Princess Clotilde of Italy, who knelt on rough stone floors and laboriously attached the backing cloth that protects the Shroud st.i.tch by st.i.tch, refusing all help until the job was finished.

Frakes was suddenly conscious of standing inside the Cathedral with chills running up his spine. He flinched visibly as he remembered where he was and what he must do in the next few minutes.

His reverie was further interrupted by the hollow clatter of leather soles on the stone floor. A man dressed in a business tunic and neck collar came into view from between two of the giant pillars and made straight for him. Frakes s.h.i.+vered a little and waited for the other to reach him.

"Doctor Frakes?" the Reverend asked as he reached the waiting scientist and extended his hand.

"Yes," Frakes said, taking the hand. The other's grip was firm, but not bone crus.h.i.+ng.

"The First Primate regrets he will be delayed a few minutes. I am his a.s.sistant, Giusseppe Calle. He has asked me to entertain you until he can arrive."

"You speak English very well, Signore Calle. No trace of an accent at all."

Calle smiled. "Don't let my name fool you, Doctor. I'm from Cleveland."

"What happened to Bartol?"

The Guardian lifted his hands. "He is on a religious retreat in the mountains."

"Sorry to have missed him. He was indispensable to me last summer."

"Ah, yes. The Great Inquiry. I have been meaning to ask you. What were all those immense tanks the news people kept taking photographs of?"

"Helium. Your Primate refused to break the seal on the casket of the Shroud until we had flooded the whole underground vault with helium. I worked for nearly a week in breathing gear. You may have seen me in the newsfaxes. I was the one who looked like a drunken s.p.a.ceman home on leave."

"Ah yes, I remember," Calle said, nodding. "Have you been shown around our Great Cathedral?"

"I was given a very extensive tour while I was here earlier this year."

"Then you are familiar with our Order's history and works?'

"Only what I read in the fax, I'm afraid. My work, you know."

"Yes, we all have our work. You explore the natural universe while I do the same for the spiritual.

Perhaps we two are more alike than you know. May I give you the nickel lecture while we wait?"

"By all means."

"A bit of background first, then. You know, of course, that our Order is not a.s.sociated with anyformally established religion. We make no claims of new insights into the nature of G.o.d, or of a private channel direct to His ears. We were founded in 2009 by a man named Bartolo Vasquez, a simple layman whose sole purpose was to protect the Holy Shroud from the exploitation so common in those days. We are an ec.u.menical organization. We care not if one of our members is Methodist, or Catholic, or Anglican, or Coptic. We ask only that he be a good Christian and to believe in the Shroud as the burial cloth of the Savior.

"Beyond that, we ask him to go forth and do good works."

Frakes nodded. "'I'm familiar with your medical center in Denver. A really marvelous place."

"And then there are our missions to feed the poor and starving of the world," Calle continued. "Last year we spent over ten billion decadollars on our public charities. But then what is money for if we can't help others with it?"

"Your order has grown mightily in the last couple of decades," Frakes agreed.

"Do you know why?" Calle asked.

"Because of the Shroud."

"Yes, of course. Unlike the various established Christian religions, our order has absolute physical proof that our Savior died for our sins. The others have their faith, a faith that we share I might add. But we have absolute proof! Is it any wonder that we attract so many supplicants each year?"

"Only the good Doctor doesn't think our proof is genuine, Calle. Do you, Doctor?" The new voice echoed through the sitting room that Calle had directed Frakes to as they talked. Frakes turned to face the source of the sound.

Standing behind them was the First Primate of the Guardians of the Shroud of Turin -- next to the Pope, the most powerful man in all of Christendom.

The First Primate was a tall, wizened man whose strongly lined face still managed to convey the feeling of complete inner peace. At the moment, his features were contorted by a wry grin.