Chapter 5: The A-Theory
Chemistry Lab, Derleth Hall of Science.
When Peter and El arrived at the lab, Cyrus was already running tests. He looked up from his spectrometer and waved. "Help yourself to coffee and rolls. I'll join you shortly."
Food and drinks were already spread out on a lab table in a corner away from Cyrus's equipment. Neal had called Peter early that morning with the news that once Mozzie found out they were coming too, he wanted to make a party out of it. So it was Sunday brunch in the chem lab. Mozzie provided thermoses of coffee and bagels. El brought along fruit juice and scones.
"The donuts are my contribution," Neal said. "After Jones accused the shop of using LSD, I wanted to express my solidarity with the donut workers." He was smiling and looked relaxed. He'd evidently come to terms with El's report.
Mozzie beckoned for El to sit beside him. "I have you to thank for proving what I've known for years. Did Neal tell you I used to call him Perseus, the Star Child?"
Neal sighed. "Help me out, El. Please tell him I'm not necessarily a space alien."
"Neal's right," she said. "I haven't tested you, Mozzie. You may have algolnium or something even more exotic in your spinal fluid."
His eyes widened with excitement. "How early can you schedule a test? I'm yours at whatever time you desire."
Neal turned to Mozzie and assumed a stern expression. "For the sake of confidentiality, we should restrain from any more talk of space aliens. Do you want the campus to be invaded by the U.S. Army? As you've so often told me, they're constantly on the lookout for UFO sightings and any evidence of invaders from space. They could lock me up in Area 51."
Cyrus came over and joined them. "The tests are proving my theory. Ever since I first detected algolnium in Peter's artifact, I've been studying its molecular structure. The breakthrough came when El provided me with a sample of Neal's spinal fluid. Fascinating substance, algolnium. It has many of the bonding characteristics of carbon. In Neal's case, it's combined with hydrogen and oxygen into a molecule I've tentatively named algoline."
"I'm apparently not sensitive to the element when it forms a compound molecule," Neal added. "Cyrus tested me before you arrived and I was unable to detect the presence of algolnium in the fluid. So my usefulness as an algolnium sniffer is restricted only to the element in its pure form."
Mozzie patted him on the shoulder. "Don't be discouraged. Your status as the first example of an algolnium-based life form is secure."
El choked on the scone she'd been nibbling and took a hasty sip of orange juice. "Cyrus and I are by no means ready to admit to even the possibility of algolnium-based life forms. Neal is carbon-based just like the rest of us."
Mozzie shook his head as a father would to a confused child. "You'll understand in time."
El's face reddened. She seldom lost her temper, but she was on the verge of an eruption now. Peter could have warned Mozzie. Never ever speak condescendingly to Elizabeth Wayland Gilman.
Electing to salvage the situation—and Mozzie so owed him for his action—Peter turned to Cyrus. "Have you been able to determine the type of metal Neal's amulet is made of?"
Cyrus nodded.
"Some bronze-based alloy I presume?"
"Not exactly." With those cryptic words, Cyrus excused himself. "I refuse to say anything more till my tests are complete. There are four of you—play bridge, Scrabble, or charades if you like but no more questions till I'm done."
They weren't reduced to Scrabble but it was a long hour of waiting. Not that it was without a side benefit. Mozzie took advantage of the opportunity to explain his theory of multiple universes coexisting in space. Peter had to give him credit for being able to explain extreme mathematics in layman's terms.
When Cyrus finally took center stage, his curly hair seemed frizzier than normal, almost as it had been electrified. Perhaps it was simply the excitement on his face that caused the effect. "I believe you will all agree it was worth the wait," he said, holding up Neal's amulet. "To algoline, I add a new term—algonite. The metal in the amulet is a bronze alloy as we suspected, but a highly unusual one. It's composed of copper, trace amounts of gold and zinc, and eighteen percent algolnium. The diamond-like gem in the center? It's an algolnium oxide similar to sapphire and of equivalent hardness."
No one said anything for a moment. All eyes turned to Neal to see how he was handling it. Peter was glad El had gone ahead and told Neal about the algolnium last night. It was better to discuss this in the open when he was surrounded by friends. Neal swallowed and cleared his throat. Surveying them, he raised an eyebrow. "Thoughts?"
Perhaps not the best idea to give Mozzie the floor, but the others weighed in too.
El was visibly shaken. "I've given credence to the idea that at an early stage in earth's history algolnium existed in a higher percentage and that perhaps other people have algolnium within their systems, but to create an ornament such as this requires a fairly advanced manufacturing technique." She looked to Peter for confirmation.
He nodded. "And there is no other known example of such an alloy on earth. The earliest known examples of faceting date back to around the fourteenth century." Peter turned to Cyrus. "Have you been able to date the amulet?"
He shook his head. "There's no carbon. To date it, I would have to destroy it, something none of us wants to do."
Mozzie was starting to speak, but Peter cut him off. "None of this proves the amulet wasn't made on earth, but the composition is certainly unlike anything we've found."
Mozzie glared at him. "If it quacks like a duck, it's not an owl. We have an object that reacts to a creature who no one is attempting to claim is from our planet. Why do you have such a difficult time in accepting the amulet is also extraterrestrial? I concede Neal may be a hybrid. Perhaps only one parent is alien. No one can deny the reasonableness of my hypothesis."
Peter glanced over at Neal to assess his reaction. He wasn't quite easy to read as he used to be. He followed the debate with intense interest but refrained from participating. Was this another instance of him putting up walls, a self-defense mechanism, or something else?
Peter, on the other hand, saw no reason to hold back. "We haven't considered a third option—the existence of an earlier advanced civilization on earth that disappeared before the earliest known civilizations. Everything we've discovered could be attributable to—"
"Atlantis or some other civilization?" Mozzie interrupted. "Possibly. Especially if you'll accept the likelihood of it having been seeded by extraterrestrials."
Cyrus helped himself to another bagel, spreading a lavish amount of cream cheese on it. "Why not mash together all of our theories?" He took his bagel and pressed the two halves together till the cream cheese squirted out the sides.
"What do you suggest?" Neal asked.
Cyrus scanned the group. "Here's my takeaway from the discussion. El, you believe that algolnium could have previously existed in greater quantities on earth. A worthwhile launching point. It could be similar to moissanite."
"What's moissanite?" she asked.
"An exceedingly rare mineral that is believed to have been deposited on earth by a meteorite. Only a few veins are known to exist. For algolnium, perhaps only one vein existed. If it were mined in early times, it could have been quickly depleted. We now take Peter's theory of an earlier civilization that existed sometime before 5,000 BC. They could have made Neal's pendant."
"Yes!" Mozzie exclaimed, yet again jumping in. "Algolnium may be rare on earth but not on another world or universe. Ghasts arrive on earth through a wormhole from a world where algolnium is more abundant. Peter's starfish artifact is stable because it was carved from soapstone found on earth by this earlier civilization. The starfish found on crime scenes, on the other hand, came from a different universe which makes them unstable like the ghasts who bring them."
Was that the solution? It answered many of the questions and was the most reasonable hypothesis to date. They agreed to call it the A-Theory.
"No one else should know about the amulet," Mozzie said. "Agreed?" They all nodded. "If the government finds out about it, they'll confiscate it." Mozzie didn't mention what the government might do to Neal if they found out. For once Peter was in complete agreement on the need for secrecy.
"I'd make one exception," Neal pointed out. "Lavinia. Although she probably already knows, not that she'd discuss it with me."
"Are you certain?" El asked. "She seemed relatively friendly with you at our house and appears to have your welfare at heart."
"That may be, but all my attempts to learn more about the amulet or ghasts or algolnium have been rebuffed so far. The last time I knocked at her office door, she ordered me to leave and stop pestering her. The only thing she said was that everything I needed to know was in the vault"—Neal brushed a hand through his hair in obvious frustration—"no doubt written in one of the many languages I've yet to decipher. And you urge me not to spend much time there? How can I avoid it? If I'm ever going to discover the truth, don't I need to?"
#
Am I human?
If anyone knew, Lavinia would. On his way to the library vault, Neal hesitated by the spiral staircase which led to her office in the turret. As he'd told the group at the chemistry lab, Lavinia had banished him and his questions from her office. Mozzie had once told him that Lavinia was the one person he never crossed and that Neal would be well-advised to do the same.
Deciding he didn't need her door slammed in his face yet again, Neal continued on his way to the vault.
By now he'd become well acquainted with all the guards who protected the library's treasures. In the weeks since he'd first gained admittance, he'd become a daily visitor. On numerous occasions, he'd spent several hours at one stretch. Despite Peter's lectures and Cyrus's tales of vault madness, Neal was a skeptic of the need to restrict his hours. Since the materials couldn't be removed, he had no choice.
Neal was the only person in the library's inner sanctum that day. The target for his research was the Necronomicon. It was the only book that contained any information about ghasts, but all it had was an illustration with a short physical description. The appendices possibly provided further details, but to read them Neal would first have to translate the language. The fifty-odd pages of text were written in an obscure variant of classical Arabic that so far had resisted his efforts to comprehend.
It was easy to lose track of the time. When Neal paused to take a break, he was surprised to see it was already past four o'clock. He stood up to pace around the room but the graceful arabesques of the appendix script continued to dance in front of his eyes. Not his intention.
He sat back down, but rather than resuming his work on the appendices, he decided to peruse the gallery of creatures the author had drawn. Neal used to consider them mythological beings but no longer. If ghasts were real, these other creatures could be too. Some resembled animals. Others—the Outer Gods or Great Old Ones Alhazred as called them—bore no similarity to anything on earth. Swirling balls of tentacles, multiple mouths and eyes, glowing spheres, amorphous blights. What universe could contain such monsters?
As Neal leafed through the pages, one face leaped out at him from a page covered with small illustrations of lesser creatures. Was this the animal he'd seen on the night of the attempted burglary and again outside Peter's patio? It was impossible to tell the size. It had a long hairless tail, a snout covered with tentacles, and small bright eyes. The body was heavier than a rat—more like a muskrat. The forepaws ended in long clawed fingers. Neal eagerly scanned the text. Alhazred must have described it somewhere. There was no commentary with the illustrations, but he hoped to find a reference somewhere else in the text.
In an obscure passage where the author recounted dream experiences, Neal found what he was looking for. Zoog. There was a second smaller sketch drawn in the margin which showed it standing upright on its hind legs like a wizened-faced monkey. Alhazred described zoogs as being furtive and cunning inhabitants of dark woods, but he'd also encountered them in the dark alleys of Damascus. The size varied from that of a rat to as large as a cat. Could a zoog exist in Arkham? Was that what he'd seen?
The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted his musings. The library vault was at the end of a narrow passageway that led from the rare book room. Usually the only sound that could be heard was the rustling of paper or the occasional cough of the guard. The sharp taps of quick strides echoed in the stillness of the library. When Neal lifted his head he was startled to see Lavinia. She'd never visited the vault before when he was there. She appeared to have coiled her long hair even higher on her head. The resemblance to a witch's hat was striking.
She thrust open the wrought-iron gate and strode into the vault. "Put your books away."
Lavinia had a deep, commanding voice that was difficult to disobey but Neal was determined to try. "I can't." His voice came out sounding more desperate than he'd intended. "I've only just begun."
Lavinia froze his protest and pulverized it into tiny chips of ice. "You arrived here at eleven o'clock. You've eaten no lunch. You're joining me for tea. Follow me."
Did that mean she planned to talk to him? Answer his questions? Neal hastily gathered up his books and returned them to their shelves. Lavinia stood watching him with her arms crossed, her frown deepening with every minute that passed.
Once the Shrewsbury cabinet was again locked and his notes safely stowed in his briefcase, Lavinia whirled around and marched out of the vault. Neal followed her down the long corridor and up the narrow spiral staircase. He'd only entered her office on two occasions. The first was two years ago when she denied him access to the vault and the second was a couple of weeks ago. Peter had accompanied him then and she'd granted Neal vault privileges. Since then, Lavinia had refused him admittance. Why had she changed her mind?
She zipped up the staircase with astonishing rapidity. Neal scrambled to keep up with those lace-up Oxford heels clicking noisily on the stone stairs. When they reached the heavy oak door of her office, she turned briefly to look at him, she fished in the pocket of her tweed skirt and pulled out a heavy iron key which she inserted into the lock.
Ordering him to take a seat at the table, she disappeared into the kitchen. Lavinia had no ordinary office. From the glimpses he'd seen through briefly opened doors, he knew she also had a small kitchen and sleeping quarters. It was in effect an apartment. Mozzie had a similar arrangement in the science building. It was a privilege the university granted to a few of its most valued faculty members.
Neal perched uneasily on the edge of one of the carved oak chairs. Surely she wasn't going to give him another test? He could hear the sharp clatter of plates in the kitchen and something else—a soft chittering coming from overhead. Neal gazed up to the ceiling. Peeking from behind the exposed beams of the turret were the same eyes he'd seen before. Large and golden, they blinked sleepily at him. Neal twisted his neck to get a better view.
"Do you like my friends?" Lavinia entered the room with a large tray containing a teapot, platter of sandwiches, and cups and plates. She placed the tray in the center of the tapestry-covered table.
"Yes, I do." He couldn't understand why, but somehow he knew they were friendly.
"Good," she said, nodding her approval. "They like you. That's fortunate. You don't need to be concerned."
"What would happen if they didn't like me?"
"That's unimportant." She poured out tea for them. The aromatic blend brought back the smells of an Indonesian spice shop he'd visited in Oxford. He could identify ginger and cardamom, but there was something else, an elusive whiff he couldn't identify.
"Are they zoogs?" The chittering abruptly stopped at his words. When he glanced up, the eyes had receded into the highest part of the ceiling and were now barely visible.
Lavinia said nothing as she placed the sandwiches and plates on the table, but her face hardened into a frown. She sat down opposite him and crossed her arms on the table. "What do you know about zoogs?"
Neal told her of his encounters and his research. "Could I have seen zoogs?"
She didn't answer his question but gestured to the platter of small triangles. "Have a sandwich." Neal sighed. History was repeating itself. Lavinia only answered the questions she wished to and clearly she intended to once more leave him in the dark.
Lavinia had used a dark multigrain bread for the sandwiches. They were filled with a toffee-colored paste and thinly sliced cucumbers. He picked one up and nibbled it gingerly. The taste was not bad. Rather nutty.
"I made the pâté myself," she said rather proudly.
"Does it have walnuts in it?"
Lavinia took a sip of tea rather than answer his question. After a moment she said, "You have no reason to fear being in this chamber. Your friends in the rafters are not zoogs." She glanced up at them and gave a soft chittering call that sounded identical to theirs. Neal heard faint scratching sounds and the eyes grew larger as they once more descended to a lower beam, but the dim recesses of the turret were too dark to distinguish what kind of bodies they had. "I doubt you saw a zoog. Your imagination was playing tricks on you. But if you see one, avoid it."
"Do they come from the same world as ghasts? How dangerous are they?"
She snorted. "Anything can be dangerous. Books are the most dangerous of all." She considered him a moment. "Zoogs live in the shadows—dense woods and undergrowth. They have not been seen in our world for many centuries. If you see one, let me know. From your report, I'm inclined to agree with Peter. You were still suffering the effects of your concussion."
Neal couldn't believe she was divulging something useful. His brain exploded with questions he wanted to ask her before she once more shut him out. "My amulet may have caused a ghast to disappear in a column of smoke. Is that what happened?"
She nodded. "He was disintegrated."
"Do you know where the amulet was made and how I obtained it?"
She frowned. "So many questions you have." Pursing her lips, she added, "Why do you ask?"
Neal told her about the algolnium within him and the amulet. "Mozzie thinks at least one of my parents was an extraterrestrial. Is he right?"
"The element inside you will not harm you. Be satisfied with that." She pointed to his plate. "You need to eat."
Neal took another bite. The pâté adhered to his throat like a spider web. It didn't exactly choke him, but it had an odd clinging presence that was rather creepy.
Lavinia studied him while he ate. "The answers to your questions are in the vault, not with me." She showed no inclination to give any further explanation. As if to echo Neal's frustration, the chittering of the animals in the rafters became louder.
Lavinia glanced upwards and gave a sharp bark of a laugh. "Oh, very well. If you insist." She switched her steely gaze onto Neal. "Mozzie speaks of wormholes. There is much wisdom in that man."
"I found a passage in Laban Shrewsbury's journal. He says his dreams are haunted by Celaeno. What does that mean?"
"Aren't your dreams haunted?"
"Am I dreaming of Celaeno?"
"You'll know when you're ready." Neal had grown to hate those words. How often had she used them with him?
"When will I be ready?" he demanded.
"When you can read the crystal manuscript." Neal was dismayed at her answer. That slab of crystal had embedded within it a bronze-colored three-dimensional script of staggering complexity. With nothing to go on, he hadn't a clue on how to attempt a translation. If he needed to wait till he could read the manuscript, he would never learn the answers to his questions.
"Until then don't pester me," she continued. "But don't think you can spend your life in the vault. Effective immediately, all visits to the vault will be limited to four hours maximum. The guards will be informed. There will be no exceptions."
"Is vault madness real?"
"You place yourself in grave danger by staying there too long. You're not—"
"—ready?" he mocked.
Her lips twisted into a half-smile as she nodded. The chittering in the rafters had stopped. Lavinia dismissed him a few minutes later and instructed him to go home. When Neal looked at his watch, he was astonished to see that it was already eight o'clock. He'd spent over three hours with her, but it only seemed like a thirty-minute break. He'd eaten three of her sandwiches and felt no need for anything else. He would feel more comfortable if he'd known what it was he'd eaten.
Neal stayed close to the street lamps on the way home. He'd never been afraid of the dark, but he found himself listening intently for any sounds in the bushes. Lavinia believed he was mistaken about zoogs. He hoped she was right. When he got home, he called Peter and told him what he'd learned. Peter said Satchmo had barked several times that evening and scratched the door to go outside, but Peter never saw anything. He promised to visit the vault with Neal the next day and look at the illustration. Neal had done all he could. Would that be enough?
#
Lavinia stood at the doorway and watched the boy descend the staircase. She'd lectured him to go home and rest, but she doubted it would do him much good. Should she go ahead and tell him what had happened to his advisor in the vault? But how could she when she was uncertain about the role it had played? Neal would only have more questions.
As it was, he suspected far more than she'd anticipated. The assistance Neal was receiving was undoubtedly the cause.
A curious phenomenon. Peter, yes, he was performing as expected. But his wife? Cyrus? How much credence would they give to Mozzie's theories and what would the repercussions be?
She withdrew into the kitchen and rummaged through her cupboard. She finally found the jar behind a tea canister. She unscrewed the lid and sniffed the jade-green powder. Collected last summer and still fragrant with the night-blossoms of Merope. She'd been away for too long. For a moment, her thoughts returned to the planet's lush forests.
She prepared the infusion and poured it into the porcelain basin. Carrying it into the office, she placed it on the table and sat down before it. Lowering her head, she breathed in the fragrance . . .
"Yes, what is it?" Phineas demanded petulantly. "Your timing is, as usual, abysmal. Now, where did that Purple Honeycreeper go?"
Phineas's shape slowly emerged in the steaming liquid. What was that absurd outfit he was wearing? A safari suit? Where had he acquired such an immense hat? He looked even more ridiculous than normal. She heard the high-pitched shrieks of tamarins in the background. "You're still in the rainforest?" she asked.
"I told you I'd be spending September in the Amazon. What's so vital that you must interrupt my studies?"
"Your interference is what forces me to. Need I spell it out for you? When you planted those visions of Abydos, the bookstore, and the Nautical Shop into Neal's head, you set events in motion much faster than we'd agreed to. The boy isn't ready. He's too young to be tested."
"I had no choice. Once Azathoth discovered the wormhole in Arkham, we had to move. If I hadn't acted, Neal wouldn't have sought out Peter, he wouldn't have been exposed to the artifact, and Azathoth would now have the armillary sphere. At least now we have a fighting chance."
"But a slim one. Neal's being assisted by his colleagues as we expected, but at a much faster rate. Already they know about the element. They call it algolnium."
"What a curious name! Not a bad choice, though. Who named it?"
"Neal. Now that he's being exposed to the artifact, the algolnium is strengthening as we knew it would. But will his body be able to tolerate it? That's a big unknown. He's also begun questioning his origin. I don't know how long I can hold him off."
"This presents a new wrinkle I admit, but we can adjust. A little faith in me, please. You were the one who nearly ruined everything with that foster home."
"That wasn't my fault," she protested sharply. "No one could expect me to learn about the bizarre practices of humans so quickly. You were the one who abandoned him."
"Let's not fight over old mistakes. In the end, it's worked out. The companions we've chosen are performing up to expectations. We knew we could only set the stage. Soon it will be up to them. The boy wears the amulet I assume?"
"He wasn't before, but he is now. The amulet may protect him against ghasts, but it could also lead to his destruction. Now that he's killed one, Azathoth's bound to hear of it."
"Unlikely," Phineas scoffed, dismissing her concerns. "Who would carry the message?"
"Neal believes he saw a zoog on Friday night." She related the circumstances. "He may have remembered the drawing of the zoog from the Necronomicon and simply imagined it, but I doubt it."
"Go away!" He swatted at something on his nose. "Not you, Lavinia. Have the zoogs entered into an alliance with Azathoth? If the boy's right, the situation is more urgent than we realized. Ghasts can't communicate. But zoogs . . . If they're acting as spies for Azathoth, we stand at the precipice. Even though Azathoth can't enter this world, he may not need to. With zoogs helping him, he could acquire everything he requires. Couldn't you see into Neal's mind to see if his memory was accurate?"
She shook her head. It was galling to have to admit her limitations. "Although your ability is much greater than mine, you may also find yourself frustrated. You know what this could lead to."
"We assumed that Azathoth would eventually call him again. But without the armillary sphere, he is unlikely to make a move. I assume it's safe?"
"For the moment. Mozzie has it."
"The vault is a more secure location. Try to convince him to let you store it at least for the time being. Meanwhile, I'll request additional assistance."
Was the vault more secure? After what happened to Thaddeus, she had strong doubts.