Page 52 - Vol. VII #1

Denatural Selection (continued from preceding page) ing them. But neither action felt possible, which was
the most remarkable aspect of the situation.
“I’ve had many students with questionable aspect, but you—” he felt himself imitating the pause— “you’re not even rude. You’re—”
“Questionable.”
“I see no point in questions whose answers cannot be tested. ‘If you could...’ then it becomes a moral ques- tion for me? Is that what you want to know? What
is your motive in all this? What is your basis in evi- dence?”
“Motive is two-dimensional. For evidence, we could repeat Mohammed’s flight to and from Mecca in six hours. In less...time than that.”
“We could? Evidence of your miraculous powers?” Vijay laughed, but it coughed up fishy stomach acid. “Convince me with a burning bush? You’re wrong on both religions where I’m concerned, and all religion.” Dizzy, he added, “Do I get three wishes in this delu- sion? What might work with me is a trip inside DNA to see David’s FOXG1 mutation site. Or better, on an axion of dark matter. I know, while we’re dreaming, how about unlimited time with the LRIS at Keck to observe reionization of galaxies?”
“If you become convinced, then you may change the grade.”
“Is that my motive? Curiouser and curioser,” Vijay said. “What are you? What is this?”
Foster, Lee made no reply. There was a sudden total alteration of location. In the same clothes, with the same stomach upset, Vijay stood beside them at an archeological site. They both squinted in hard sun- light. The air was desert dry and hot.
Vijay breathed, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
“You’re curious about Gobekli Tepi,” they said.
It was true that Vijay had seen a PBS episode about the pre-pottery/agriculture Neolithic site in south- eastern Turkey where circular stone structures and giant stone pillars stood older than Stonehenge by 6000 years and the oldest pyramids by 7000. Built not by a settled community but by hunter gatherers. Feeding the numbers necessary to the monumental architecture was evidence that up-ended the order of what came first, the chicken or the egg, agricul- ture/ settlement or religion. Vijay looked down at his brown leather docksiders. The sky was cloud-
less blue. The air smelled strange and blew in hot gusts. Foster, Lee stood beside him. They now wore a visored sunhat. Vijay touched his head. So did he. The pronouns or heat gave him a headache.
Apparently unseen by the workers below them at a distance of several hundred yards, Vijay watched
a scene similar to what he’d streamed on TV. As he watched, trying to make sense of his senses, a clear scrim-like, what, curtain?, appeared, and through
it he could also see—and smell—incredibly!—New Stone Age people working in the same space below on what was apparently the site at its building. The title of the topic of his most recent paper—he’d flown to England to present it, between semesters in Janu- ary—came to mind: Understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. The scrim translated that in his mind—how?—so he heard Understanding the forma- tion and evolution of Gobekli Tepi.
He couldn’t believe he was seeing what was before him, two time periods superimposed on one another, echoed by a kind of voiceover related to his work. He concentrated on breathing calmly as the best way to regain sanity.
But he gasped at the sight of one of two huge carved stone T pillars, presumably idols, being raised by five teams of—he counted—twenty sweating men each, hauling thick ropes. The stench of them reached him on greasy smoke. He gagged. Moments before the scrim had appeared, Vijay had seen both those mono- liths in place being laboriously unearthed. Dug up. Brushes and sieves and other tools he couldn’t name.
Vijay’s eyes shut, and he turned away from Foster, Lee. He bent over and vomited. His hand was at his mouth, wiping foul wetness away. He resisted inhal- ing the several odors as he slowly unbent himself, but involuntarily, when he breathed and stood upright, before he opened his eyes, he registered a new shock: familiar scent, academic office air. California, NOW. He blinked and collapsed into his desk chair. Foster, Lee stood facing him at an angle that imitated the narrow side of one stone monolith—their hands positioned to meet above its belted waist.
Vijay’s eyes focused on the textbook still on the win- dowsill. The sky was still gray outside. He touched the top of his head. No hat.
“Are there limits to what you can do?”
Their expression looked the way he’d felt when play- ing chess with his younger brother. When it got too boring, Vijay had turned the board around to im- prove his brother’s position and then when Susheel
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