Free The Lucifer Sanction by Jason Denaro Page B

abrupt, demanding. “Please, come
this way.”
Blake thought it was more of an order than a request.
“Are we off for coffee?” he asked, then turned and shuddered at Dal.
The woman ignored his gesture.
They snaked their way along a wide metallic
passageway to adjoining guest rooms, to the accompaniment
of elevator music. Blake and Dal entered the first of the two
rooms. It was windowless yet had curtains made of a silver
colored organza.
Bell slid a curtain back revealing a solid white
wall, a fake feel, cold, uninviting. Blake stepped into a
suite, tested one of the beds, attempted bouncing, stopped
on the third bounce and grimaced. Accepting his resolve,
he stretched out, kicked off his loafers, and with a note of
disbelief nodded to a ceiling mounted dome and groaned,
“Elevator music.”
“Kenny fuckin’ G,” Dal sniggered from the other
bed.
“Yeah,” Blake said, “even worse.”
A gruff voice came from a large chair opposite their
beds. The chair turned until the seated man faced them.
“Forgive me for intruding on the privacy of your sleeping
quarters. I am Doctor Gerhardt Beckman. No doubt you
have questions.” He stood and reached a welcoming hand
to Blake. “Allow me to familiarize you with our work
here.”
Gerhardt Beckman was a handsome silver haired
Germanic attestation to Arian supremacy. He walked with
pride, with meaning – a candor one might expect from the
master race had they not been the losers. He walked to the
blank windowless wall, paused and stared at the organza
curtain as his hand fingered a remote. The curtain opened,
revealing a movie screen.
Dal shrugged and waved a slow hand at the
screen. “We’re gonna want popcorn and Pepsi if this is a
main feature, but I ain’t gonna complain if you only have
Schnapps.”
Beckman was nonplussed. “There was a period not
so long ago when it was believed time machines would
never come to fruition. To this day many scientists are
impaired by tunnel vision and are in a sense missing their
- hmm, what can I call it?” Beckman paused, rubbed his
chin. “Yes of course, they are not finding their ‘missing
link.’ Tunnel vision results from their Neolithic-like belief
in today’s basic physical laws. With all of their postulating
and with all of their brilliant physicists they become so
entrenched in dogmatic belief that they have allowed their
mathematical theorems to establish the impossibility of
travel to parallel universes.”
He pressed another button on his remote and a
section of the wall opened revealing a panoramic snow
scene. Dal moved to the window and followed a skier
making zigzag patterns down a distant slope. He glanced
at an air duct ten feet above and thanked God for efficient
heating, the outside air being frigid and cold enough to keep
a Santa Monica boy indoors. Blake recognized the ‘off with
the pixies’ oblivious stare on Dal’s face. He knew full well
his partner would be asking for a layman’s translation of
Beckman’s discussion.
“Agent Blake - not only can time machines be
constructed but we at Libra have fragmented central
problems in the foundations of physics. Those who are
aware of our research – but not of our progress – still hunt
for time machines in general relativity theory. Of course,
as you Americans say, they are barking up the wrong tree.
They believe that mathematical theorems related to various
aspects of time machines are associated with the search of
a quantum theory of gravity.
“Theories amount to little less than a ‘follow the
leader’ row of ducks waddling along the peripheries of a
H.G. Wells’ imaginary tale of time travel. These people
are existentialists. What we need are more transcendental
physicists, which I’m proud to say - we have here at Libra.
More people who realize it is not a matter of ‘if’’ super
terrestrial civilizations exist but how we can interact with
those alien life forms, those ‘little