Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Joe’S Trip Around the Sun
Joe’S Trip Around the Sun
Joe’S Trip Around the Sun
Ebook1,040 pages17 hours

Joe’S Trip Around the Sun

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Joes Trip Around the Sun is a novel for anyone who has ever felt the apparent conflict between religion and the discoveries of modern science. It tells the story of everyman Joe Gray, a humble trucker desperate to find evidence for the spiritual world and his own place within it. Lonely in his reluctant agnosticism, yet inspired by a persistent sense of the metaphysical, Joe must endure a harrowing journey beset with mind-bending technological obstacles, heartbreaking setbacks, and near-death experiences, before he has any chance of uncovering the truth. But will it be in time to be reunited with the love of his life? Will this newfound understanding enable him to overcome a dark evil that has grown to threaten the world? Joes Trip Around the Sun blurs the line between the physical and spiritual worlds to the point where the reader may question the existence of that demarcation altogether.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherXlibris US
Release dateJan 23, 2017
ISBN9781524568740
Joe’S Trip Around the Sun
Author

Mark D. Wecks

Mark Wecks received his engineering degree at Oregon State in 1989. Since then he has worked with commercial aircraft at Boeing, submarines at Pearl Harbor, and for the majority of his career in the destruction of chemical weapons. He has authored a wide variety of technical papers, proposals and reports. This background, coupled with a life-long interest in the areas of science, philosophy, and religion, led him on an ambitious project to write a novel that combined these three subjects. Joe’s Trip Around the Sun is the result of this effort. He currently lives with his family in Portland, Oregon.

Related to Joe’S Trip Around the Sun

Related ebooks

General Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Joe’S Trip Around the Sun

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    Joe’S Trip Around the Sun - Mark D. Wecks

    Copyright © 2017 by Mark D. Wecks.

    Library of Congress Control Number:   2016920658

    ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5245-6875-7

    Softcover   978-1-5245-6873-3

    eBook   978-1-5245-6874-0

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

    in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

    without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

    product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

    to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

    Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

    and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

    Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

    Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by the Zondervan Corporation.

    Rev. date: 01/23/2017

    Xlibris

    1-888-795-4274

    www.Xlibris.com

    531939

    CONTENTS

    PART I: FALL

    Chapter 1 The Avatar of the Average

    Chapter 2 The Deposition of the Dreamer

    Chapter 3 The Bond of the Brothers

    Chapter 4 The Deliverance of the Despondent

    Chapter 5 The Pragmatism of the Pornographer

    Chapter 6 The Compassion of the Consistent

    Chapter 7 The Obfuscation of the Octopus

    Chapter 8 The Bonus of the Ben Franklins

    Chapter 9 The Humility of the Hu-Person

    Chapter 10 The Proximity of the Pavement

    PART II: WINTER

    Chapter 11 The Shadow of the Son

    Chapter 12 The Sanctuary of the Stockbroker

    Chapter 13 The Desecration of the Diplomats

    Chapter 14 The Heterogeneity of the Humans

    Chapter 15 The Completion of the Convalescence

    Chapter 16 The Crisis of the Crossroads

    Chapter 17 The Incompetence of the Investigator

    Chapter 18 The Courtship of the Christian

    Chapter 19 The Supplanting of the Supervisor

    Chapter 20 The Beguiling of the Biochemist

    PART III: SPRING

    Chapter 21 The Continuum of the Consciousness

    Chapter 22 The Collection of the Contagion

    Chapter 23 The Arrival of the Antarian

    Chapter 24 The Divergence of the Dispositions

    Chapter 25 The Animation of the Automatons

    Chapter 26 The Prototype of the Pandemic

    Chapter 27 The Difficulty of the Deadline

    Chapter 28 The Problem of the Pain

    Chapter 29 The Tragedy of the Trailer Park

    Chapter 30 The Dispatch of the Dreamer

    PART IV: SUMMER

    Chapter 31 The Frustrations of the Fishermen

    Chapter 32 The Abduction of the Angel

    Chapter 33 The Incarceration of the Insentient

    Chapter 34 The Repentance of the Repulsive

    Chapter 35 The Admonition of the Anachronism

    Chapter 36 The Anticipation of the Apocalypse

    Chapter 37 The Salvation of the Skeptic

    Chapter 38 The Struggle of the Spiritual

    Chapter 39 The Reunions of the Redeemed

    Chapter 40 The Obituary of the Orbit

    For Christy

    To everything,

    Turn, turn, turn,

    There is a season,

    Turn, turn, turn,

    And a time to every purpose under heaven.

    —The Byrds—

    Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV

    PART I

    FALL

    66127.png

    CHAPTER 1

    The Avatar of the Average

    Leaves are falling all around, It’s time I was on my way …

    For now I smell the rain, and with it pain, and it’s headed my way.

    —Led Zeppelin—

    What on earth is going on?

    Joe was beginning to wonder. He knew a lot of the details, sure. No one was arguing there was any lack of information. Heck, this was the information age. There were endless quantities of information on any given subject—information available to anybody, anywhere, anytime; unlimited quantities, yes, but for the most part, of extremely limited quality.

    The facts ran the entire gamut of the information spectrum. At the far left resided mere data—numbers, stats, and other factoids stored in the books, files, computer memories, and squandered minds of hapless idiot savants. Moving to the right on this vast spectrum, one eventually arrived at some useful data or started seeing patterns in the data that could be used to predict other data. This was called knowledge. The knowledge portion of the information spectrum was exceedingly wide. So wide, in fact, that no one could hope to transcend it in the modern world.

    To the right of knowledge came the most cherished and beloved of all information—wisdom. Wisdom could be thought of as useful knowledge, but this type of information would always remain elusive because it took wisdom itself to determine what knowledge was useful and what wasn’t in the first place. The Bible tells Joe and us in the book of Proverbs that wisdom is more precious than pure gold. The Bible also tells us of heaven, hell, and earth, and for the time being, Joe would’ve been happy just to know what on earth was going on.

    He was starting to figure it out, though. It was really more of an underlying feeling than anything out of the old info spectrum—a hunch if you will. Yep, you see, he’d figured out that things were fallin’ apart at a rapid rate. Moreover, he’d noted that the evidence for this little fact was increasing. This last bit of information had been very hard for Joe to obtain, but he’d obtained it nonetheless. This was because the quantity of this incoming evidence was increasing at a very slow rate, almost imperceptibly slow. The alarming thing was that the increase had been going on for some time now so that there really did exist a copious crop of evidence arriving every day. The result was that because of the nearly imperceptible change from day to day of the quantity of incoming evidence, most people remained incognizant of the fact that things were indeed fallin’ apart at a rapid rate—albeit most harbored a general feeling of uneasiness.

    Interestingly, this important general trend had thus far left Joe largely unaffected. In fact, Joe really had a pretty good life. First of all, he lived in the United States of America. And up until recently anyway, the United States had been far and away the most prosperous nation on the planet. Now, however, it was just one of the most prosperous nations.

    But the main reason Joe’s life was still pretty good was because, through efforts that would perhaps be considered valiant and heroic to an outside and impartial observer, he had thus far managed to stave off the encroaching environmental entropy represented by the fact that things were falling apart. Granted, Joe’s life certainly wasn’t getting any better; but against this bleak background of a potentially approaching apocalypse, as well as the unhurried holocaust that would no doubt ensue, it was indeed significant that he had managed to keep his life even pretty good.

    Despite all this, Joe considered himself average. He wondered if it was mere coincidence that there existed the phrase and concept of the Average Joe. He pictured himself at the exact mean and median of almost every human quality, including but certainly not limited to happiness, wealth, attractiveness, intelligence, et cetera. As far as he was concerned, he was the Avatar of Averageness, the original of the ordinary, the model of the median, and the exemplar of the everyman. And although he could not possibly have known it at the time, his next trip around the sun would straddle the exact chronological average of his life. Thus, his life wasn’t only smack-dab in the middle of other lives, but at least time-wise, he was smack-dab in the middle of it. Six months from this day, he would be exactly halfway between the day he was born and the day he would die.

    Joseph Thomas Gray lived in the state of Oregon, in the county of Chinook, in the city of Riverport, on a street called Pine, in a house with the number 650 written on its mailbox. That’s getting pretty darn specific. To get pretty darn general, Joe lived in the country of the United States, on the continent of North America, on the planet Earth, which orbits a star the locals like to call the Sun, which is in a spiral arm of a galaxy the locals like to call the Milky Way, which drifts through a universe the locals like to call the Known. That’s where Joe lived.

    Joe lived in the year 1999 anno Domini, or in the year of our Lord. What this meant was that he lived when the planet called the Earth had orbited a star called the Sun 1,999 times since a person many people considered to be our Lord was born. Joe noted that even though his fellow humanoids kept track of time in this fashion, many of them no longer considered this person to be the Lord and even questioned His existence altogether. Could this be yet another indication, however subtle, that things were fallin’ apart at a rapid rate? Joe sometimes amused himself with this and other unanswerable questions. That’s when Joe lived.

    Joe lived by ingesting food: plants, animals, and basically other carbon-based life forms. Joe imbibed water and other water-based solutions. And Joe breathed air—a gaseous solution consisting of nitrogen, oxygen, and other trace elements. Joe’s body automatically used the oxygen in the air and chemically combined it with some parts of the food to produce energy. That’s how Joe lived.

    Joe lived because… well—and here’s where it gets a little tricky. You see, Joe really didn’t have any idea why he lived. Science did pretty well at positioning him in time and space, thus taking care of the when and where he lived. Science even did pretty well at describing the physical processes required whereby his life was sustained, which partially answered the how question. But in addressing the nagging why question, science had completely failed. In fact, science never really even tried to answer that one. So of all the questions that could in fact be asked of Joe’s existence, perhaps the most important one—why did he exist?—remained a complete mystery. To answer this, Joe recognized that he would undoubtedly have to look beyond science, or at least beyond the type of science espoused by his fellow humanoids.

    Joe was a truck driver. He had not always been so. In his previous career, he had been an engineer. But for now, he drove large fossil fuel–powered vehicles all over the midlatitudes of the continent of North America. In his opinion, this was the best possible occupation he could have. He had discovered this fact some four trips around the sun previously, when he was already thirty-one years old, and Mrs. Gray had suddenly and unceremoniously told him, in the memorable words of the good Terminator, "Hasta la vista, baby."

    Anyway, Joe was on the road today. He had left Portland at about nine thirty that morning and was bound for St. Louis. It was a fine September morning, September 21 to be exact—the autumnal equinox. The sun was out and finally high enough to be completely out of his eyes as he roared eastward up I-84 at exactly sixty-five miles per hour, or ninety-five and a third feet per second, or a whopping 174,720 furlongs per fortnight. The Columbia River stretched out to his left almost a mile across. After he had passed through the Columbia Gorge, the landscape rather abruptly became arid and desertlike. Joe mused for the hundredth time that most people considered Oregon to be a wet and rainy place. And to be fair, it actually was fairly wet and rainy west of the Cascade Mountain Range, but most of the state lies to the east of these mountains. And this area is quite dry—basically high desert.

    In fact, and of no great coincidence, it had been getting ready to rain as Joe left Portland that very morning. The sky there had been overcast and gray, and the air held that peculiar scent that tended to keep a person ready at any moment to feel the first drop of precipitation. But Joe didn’t much care to see the rain. The pain in his side was bothering him again, and he felt like the rain would only make it worse. Although relegated largely to his subconscious, these accurate meteorological predictions had caused him to move a little faster that morning as he prepared for his long haul.

    But now he was in the desert, and he loved it there. Hardly anybody lived out there, and it always seemed like there was very little to do except think. And that’s exactly what Joe did most of the time with the relatively large portion of his mind that wasn’t engaged in the mundane task of driving.

    Sitting high up in the cab of his truck, Joe watched mindlessly as the mile markers clicked past just under a minute apart. Soon, his thoughts began to wander. Perhaps not surprisingly, he began thinking about how things were falling apart. More specifically, he was thinking about entropy; what it was and why it was so important. Entropy was really nothing more than disorder. He’d learned of it many years before in a thermodynamics class he had to take to get into engineering school. What had amazed him then and still amazed him now was that entropy, or disorder, could actually be quantified. He’d forgotten the exact units—something along the lines of energy per unit temperature—but that wasn’t important to him anymore. What fascinated him was that an actual number, a given amount, could be applied to something as seemingly nebulous and intangible as disorder. A quantity could be used to describe something that otherwise seemed purely qualitative. For example, when an irreversible chemical reaction or process took place, one could actually calculate exactly how much the entropy, or disorder, had increased.

    Another equally fascinating thing about entropy was that it always either stayed the same or increased. In other words, for a given closed physical system, as time went by, the best you could hope for would be that the disorder would stay the same. The reality was that the disorder would more often than not increase. But what entropy would never do was to decrease. Any given closed system would never spontaneously become more ordered.

    A person might argue that they had many times seen order increase—for example, in an acorn growing into an oak tree or a skyscraper being built from a jumble of steel beams, bricks, and mortar. But in both cases, they would be making the common error of mistaking the process for a closed system. In both cases, the process is actually part of a much bigger closed system extending all the way back to the sun. Granted, order was increasing as the oak tree grew or the skyscraper went up, but only at the cost of vastly more disorder being generated elsewhere in the larger system.

    The philosophical implications were profound, and Joe found himself contemplating them as he so often did. In short, the entropy of the universe was always increasing. It never decreased. Like time, it only went in one direction.

    But was entropy limited to this strictly quantitative physical role? To Joe, it seemed like it extended well beyond this, like some sort of malevolent metaphysical entity hell-bent on impeding all positive human endeavor. He thought briefly about Murphy’s Law. Didn’t the very existence of such an aphorism indicate that others felt the same way?

    He could see it in virtually any area of human effort. Take medicine, for example. Obviously an extremely important area and one in which great progress had no doubt been made. But there were signs of disorder all over the place. For one thing, at least in the United States, it was becoming prohibitively expensive. You could have the best medical care in the world, but it hardly mattered if nobody could afford it. Then there were the superbugs—strains of bacteria that had evolved to become extremely resistant to antibiotics. Joe had recently read a magazine article that said these nasty little critters could set medicine back a hundred years if they didn’t get control of the situation soon. Surely that was some type of disorder but one hardly amenable to quantification.

    Joe was just then passing a large irrigated crop circle to his right, the long line of sprinklers slowly sweeping around it like the minute hand of a clock. He thought of the many thousands of these crop circles he’d passed by in the few years he’d been driving. They were quite common in this area because the water could just be pumped up from the river below and then used to transform a nearby section of the desert into fertile cropland.

    Was there entropy here? Joe immediately identified a number of examples. In the original quantifiable sense, there were the energy, inefficiencies, and entropy increases involved in pumping the water up to the crop circles and moving the sprinkler lines. But then, moving on to the less quantifiable disorders that plagued modern agriculture, there were numerous examples as well. First, to compete economically, the crops had to have a much higher yield than they would naturally. Therefore, large amounts of fertilizer were required, with all the associated disorder involved in its production, transport, and distribution. Also, large amounts of pesticides were required. There were, of course, increases in entropy in the production of these chemicals as well. However, more insidiously, pesticide residue on the crop produce had been linked to any number of human health issues. In addition, the toxic chemicals affected the environment, adversely impacting beneficial insect species and microorganisms in the soil below.

    Joe thought about these problems as the miles rolled by. Things were fallin’ apart all right—at a rapid rate, no less. The chronic pain in his side had been bugging him earlier that morning when he was trying to get his paperwork done and get on his way, but now that he was rolling along, it had significantly subsided, and he’d not even thought about it for almost an hour.

    His truck was running great. He could feel the powerful engine strain ever so slightly to pull his heavier-than-usual load of automotive parts. It was just another day driving truck. If all went well, he could hopefully make Salt Lake City by that evening.

    * * *

    About two o’clock that afternoon, Joe began to feel hungry and decided to pull into a truck stop a few miles from the Eastern Oregon town of Henderson. He parked the big truck in one of the empty stalls and made his way toward the VIP’s Diner.

    Nearing the entrance, Joe couldn’t help but notice a particularly striking car sitting in the parking lot. It was a black Ferrari Testarossa. A nice sports car to be sure, but what caught his attention was how clean it was. Out there in the desert and dust, most of the vehicles in the lot, even the nice ones, had taken on a somewhat shoddy appearance. But this car looked like it had just been thoroughly polished. It was completely black and its windows were tinted to the point of dubious legality. In fact, Joe had the impression that it was almost immaculately black, if indeed such a near-oxymoronic pair of adjectives made any sense. Glancing inside, all he could make out was a blinking red LED, indicating a car alarm was ready to scream should someone like himself lean a little too close. He also noticed the strange personalized California license plate: SHWOLFEP. What the heck does that mean? For him, the strange set of letters evoked just that intermediate measure of enigma where interest is piqued, yet analysis is too great an effort.

    As Joe walked in the busy restaurant, he chuckled a bit to himself. Yep, these were VIPs all right. The place was positively loaded with ’em. While Joe certainly didn’t consider himself a VIP, he figured he could eat with them at least for the time being. Fortunately, there was one empty booth toward the back. Without waiting for the hostess, he proceeded there and sat down.

    The food on the menu looked delicious: hamburgers with all kinds of tempting toppings, a large variety of sandwiches, breakfast combos, salads, and other types of food. He loved looking through the menu. Everything looked so good, and he could have anything he wanted. In fact, he preferred the time when he was still looking at the menu to the time after he had already ordered his meal and locked himself into a single selection.

    As he tried to narrow down his lunch options, he caught himself thinking that people in many places in the world didn’t have the luxury of choosing what they were going to eat. In fact, in a large number of places, people were lucky to have anything to eat at all. When these people came by some food, they ate as much as they could no matter what it was. By simple extrapolation—which Joe’s mind reverted to almost passively—he realized that he and even the surrounding VIPs could one day possibly be forced to join the ill-fated ranks of these hungry masses because things were fallin’ apart at a rapid rate. Menus would then not only be unnecessary but also be transformed into cruel mockeries of the bounty the VIPs and Joe had once failed to appreciate.

    After some deliberation, he eventually opted for a BLT, but as soon as the waitress came, he changed his mind to a chicken pot pie and a Coke. It seemed like he always changed his mind just before he actually ordered anything. After the attractive but slightly overweight waitress had walked away, a little wisp of secondhand cigarette smoke came wafting over from another booth. Joe savored the smell of the burning tobacco. He wished that smoking had no consequences to one’s health, but it did, and once again, he was aware of his reluctant and recent renunciation of that pleasurable vice.

    He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the smoke originated from a man sitting a few booths away. But Joe didn’t look away immediately; this guy was somewhat interesting. First, he was very tall, probably six four, but by no means skinny. In fact, the man looked like one tough hombre. He wore an expensive-looking leather jacket, dark aviator sunglasses, and a few pieces of gold jewelry including a couple of rings, a necklace, and what appeared to be a Rolex watch. Aside from the occasional drag from his cigarette, he sat perfectly motionless, gazing straight ahead through his sunglasses. Joe caught himself staring and turned away almost too quickly. There was something about the man that gave Joe a real sense of uneasiness. It was neither the sight of him nor the smell of his Marlboro that made him so noticeable. Rather, it was almost as if he emitted a tangible aura—a presence—that Joe felt sure he would’ve noticed even had he not already perceived of the figure with the two aforementioned senses.

    Joe shrugged these thoughts off and decided to resume his enjoyment of the day. He got up and walked back to the entrance of the restaurant to purchase a newspaper from the machine there. As he was returning with his copy of the Oregonian, he noticed another striking figure among the VIPs, yet it would’ve been hard for him to imagine a greater contrast in the resultant impression.

    For one thing, it was a woman. He guessed that she was probably in her midtwenties. Approaching from the back, all he could see was her lush blond hair, which was draped softly over her shoulders and a few inches down her back. But as he walked by, he caught sight of the side of her face and was instantly struck by her beauty. Her eyes were large and blue with sweeping eyelashes. Her nose and lips were perfectly proportioned, and her skin was unblemished and almost glowing. Her hands were folded on the table in front of her, and, quite uncharacteristically, Joe noted she was not wearing a ring.

    She was seated alone a couple of booths from the man with the dark sunglasses and positioned such that she was facing directly away from him. This made it appear that the Sunglass Man was staring at the back of her long blond hair. She, too, was somewhat motionless and looking straight ahead.

    Joe sensed a strong tension between these two that seemed to rise to a palpable peak as he passed by and then quickly decreased as he moved away from them and back to his table. Always the quintessential engineer, Joe imagined that it wasn’t a linear decrease but more closely followed the inverse square law of gravitational and electromagnetic fields. Thus, he mused that the tension would be only a sixty-fourth as much at his booth, at a distance of approximately sixteen feet from the two figures, as it was when he passed by them at a distance of two feet.

    A slight smile came to his face as he sat down, thinking how much of a nerd he was to pretend he could quantify something as vague and intangible as the tension between two strangers. Emotions couldn’t be quantified. There were no units for love or hate, good or evil. There was no instrument to measure the tension between those interesting figures there at the restaurant. Yet Joe felt sure he had felt something. Still, how could he possibly sense something that had no physical-world footprint?

    Joe tore himself from these thoughts and began reading various articles in his newspaper. Of course, in no time at all, he’d happened upon half a dozen more anecdotes in support of his underlying hypothesis that things were fallin’ apart at a rapid rate. Finally, the portly waitress came back. He quickly folded the paper and placed it aside. She set the pleasant-smelling food in front of him and asked him if there was anything else he needed.

    No, thanks, I’m fine, he replied. The fate of the world could wait for now; yummy food was at hand.

    He was about to take his first bite when he noticed with slight alarm that the pretty blonde woman, toting a suitcase, had walked over and was now standing nervously next to his booth. He looked up at her. Uh… hi, he said, unable to suppress the awkwardness of the encounter.

    Hi… Hey, would you mind if I sat here? she asked simply.

    Joe saw that she kept nervously glancing back in the general direction of the Sunglass Man. Sure, no problem, he said with carefully veiled enthusiasm.

    She sat down in the seat across from him and smiled shyly and prettily. Joe was well aware that his day was now getting more interesting by the millisecond, yet he still knew he had very little understanding of what on earth was going on.

    CHAPTER 2

    The Deposition of the Dreamer

    Dreamer, you know you are a dreamer

    Well, can you put your hands in your head, oh no!

    —Supertramp—

    Unfortunately, the time has come to curtail your relapses into alter-reality modes, Twenty-One.

    Yes, I suppose so. What, then, is to be my new allotted time ratio?

    The collective has taken a weighted vote, and you are to spend no more than 36.2 percent of your time away from your fully conscious state.

    Very well, I’ll make a note of it, thought Denjar in a mild sulk.

    * * *

    J256-7298-WWQ775-435-21-Denjar, or simply Denjar for short, was a very average citizen of a large population of beings inhabiting two of the planets of the distant binary star system Antarius. This species referred to themselves as Antarians, thus naming themselves after their mother star. Denjar had long ago entered into a collective, or grouping of minds who had mutually agreed to share portions of their respective psyches. Collective number 435 was rather small as collectives go, numbering a mere 610 members.

    Over the last several centuries, Denjar had worked his way up through the ranks of this group and was now positioned at number twenty-one, which was how he was formally addressed. He was currently holding a conversation with Number Four, who was even more senior within this small collective. Their leader, commonly referred to as Number One, was in turn a member of a much larger and more elite collective known as WWQ775, composed of upward of forty-one thousand¹ members. This hierarchy of consciousness continued up another two levels. At its apex loomed the prime collective, a ruling body with its own complex internal hierarchy and composed of nearly a million highly integrated yet still individually distinguishable minds.

    * * *

    Number Four continued. In the discussions leading up to the said vote, the collective had some interesting questions concerning the nature of your alter-reality excursions. With your permission then, Twenty-One, I would like at this time to make some inquiries on their behalf. Perhaps with this new information, we—being the collective, excluding yourself, of course—will be able to come to a more appropriate arrangement as to your allotment of ‘dream time’ if you will.

    I don’t have any serious problems with that, said Denjar. Surely you have already gained some understanding of my dreams due to the passively shared portions of our minds.

    Quite, but we would appreciate a more detailed rendering. Subconscious alter-reality modes are a subject we’ve usually just touched upon in our cerebral wanderings. We’ve had inklings—as you say, through the ‘passively shared portions of our minds’—that you are much more detailed and vivid than average in your conscious memories of your subconscious virtual experiences.

    ‘Joe’ would just say, ‘I can remember my dreams,’ replied Denjar under his virtual breath.

    Who in fact is ‘Joe,’ if I may be so bold?

    I am ‘Joe,’ stated Denjar, at least in my subconscious realm.

    And what, may I ask, do you recall of this Joe’s experiences?

    Denjar paused for a brief moment to collect his thoughts. "Well, Joe is a very average citizen of an intelligent yet still primitive society. They refer to themselves as ‘humans,’ at least in Joe’s language, for their species has not yet even managed to develop a universal communication standard. However, they have managed to multiply into the billions, and this uncontrolled exponential population growth coupled with their linear increases in available resources may soon lead to major upheavals. My best estimate would be a population reduction of at least 90 percent—slightly less than our own civilization’s 93.3995 percent reduction as we encountered the same, now familiar entropy watershed. Of course, this estimate is based on several thousand reasonable assumptions. My time estimate for these inevitable dislocations is on the order of fifty of their years, which would equate to approximately twenty-five of our own."

    Interesting, interrupted Number Four. How do you predict these dislocations will occur?

    Although entropy is increasing exponentially in Joe’s world and efforts to curtail this trend are hopelessly inadequate, I believe there are other more-dangerous mechanisms in place likely to precipitate this watershed in the near term. Specifically, they have developed nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction. Of these, nuclear weapons are the most dreaded and thus the most rigorously controlled. Chemical and biological weapons, on the other hand, aren’t as widely feared, yet they are much easier to create and much less strictly regulated. I believe it will be one of these mechanisms responsible for the large step increase in entropy I see looming on the ‘humans’’ horizon.

    Number Four appeared puzzled. You say that chemical and biological weapons are ‘much less strictly regulated.’ Why in fact are all such weapons not rigorously controlled and indeed created, maintained, and disposed of only under the closest scrutiny?

    Denjar could see how this could be confusing. He decided to step back a bit to explain. "Unlike us, the humans still retain a condition known as ‘privacy,’ wherein the thoughts and even physical actions of an individual or a group of individuals can occur unbeknownst to any other individual. As their communication systems increase in capacity, this concept of strict privacy will, of course, eventually be greatly curtailed.

    Their next few decades, however, will compose a uniquely dangerous period in their history. During this short chronological interval, the availability of privacy will coexist with the ability to create weapons of mass destruction. I believe this dangerous overlap will wind up being the cause of this large step increase in the entropy of their world and the resulting dislocations you were asking about earlier. If indeed the humans manage to get through this dangerous phase without incurring such disaster, I would predict they have perhaps two or three of their centuries left before they are overwhelmed by entropy in the conventional sense.

    That is most interesting, commented Number Four. What, then, are this Joe’s functions within this society?

    Joe transports materials across the midlatitudes of one of the six large landmasses on his planet. Again, this civilization is still very primitive, and Joe actually has to be physically located within the moving transportation vehicle to operate it. To make matters worse, this transportation vehicle, referred to as a ‘truck,’ is powered by a relatively nonrenewable chemical energy resource composed of the residue of long extinct plant and animal life forms.

    Fascinating, but does Joe have any functions not directly related to survival?

    "Not formally, however he does read ‘books’ on subjects ranging from their primitive philosophy, incredibly brief history, and rudimentary astronomy. Currently, he is becoming increasingly interested in their new, embryonic, and nearly species-wide communication system, which they refer to as the ‘Internet.’

    "Although the society has begun to develop electronics, and analytical machines they call ‘computers’ have started their long development cycle, no noteworthy progress in artificial intelligence has yet been achieved.

    "Also, no significant work with genetic engineering has yet been accomplished, albeit they appear to be close to some initial breakthroughs. I say this based on the fact that our history shows advancements in this area exploded shortly after we had successfully mapped and, perhaps more importantly, learned to interpret our genetic structure. Joe’s species is on the verge of achieving this initial milestone, something they refer to as the ‘Genome Project.’ However, from what I can recall, these humans appear to be largely underestimating the ensuing difficulty associated with the successful interpretation of this vast volume of genetic information. Indeed, the assumption that the expected explosion in genetic engineering technology would in fact not happen in the extreme near future was one of the thousands made to calculate the above-stated estimates.

    They are nearing the end of the age where the vast majority of their artifacts remain extracorporeal let alone extracerebral. They still depend on their five—as compared to our original six—natural senses for all input into their brains, and they are probably one or two of their centuries from the beginning of the inevitable neurotransducer revolution. It is difficult to predict whether this revolution will proceed or follow the aforementioned and probably inescapable entropy watershed.

    * * *

    The neurotransducer revolution to which Denjar referred was a period of technological innovation that had occurred in his civilization approximately three hundred millennia² before this conversation. Microsurgical techniques, neurobiology, genetic engineering, and numerous other disciplines had advanced to the point where it was possible to interface the brain directly with electronics. Specifically, this had been facilitated by the development of the neurotransducer, or NT. These microscopic components were implanted directly into millions of critical neurons while the individual was still in the fetal stage of development. Powered only by the host organism’s biochemical energy, the NTs communicated via electromagnetic signals with the nearest receivers in a ubiquitous network transceiver array. The individual’s subsequent brain development then passively conformed to these unobtrusive artifacts, thereby inadvertently learning to use them just as it would its own neurons.

    The new technology transformed the Antarian species as each one’s mind was then essentially wired into the vast network of computers that already covered two of the seven planets of the Antarian solar system. Within a few short decades, oral and written communication was completely replaced with neurocommunication. Everyone had instant access to all of the books ever written, films ever made, and music ever composed. Far more important was the fact that an individual could instantly communicate with any other individual or group of individuals on either of the two planets—merely by thinking.

    This revolution spurred a protracted period of exponential technological advances. It was soon discovered that without external encumbrances to limit the mind, great achievements could be made in almost every discipline. For instance, many individuals found that they were great writers. No longer encumbered with a keyboard or even advanced speech recognition units, they were able to create incredible works of fiction and nonfiction simply by having a computer record their thoughts whenever they were so inclined. Some neuro-authors were so prolific that conventional readers would’ve had difficulty keeping up with a single one. Many more individuals discovered that they were great musicians. Again, unencumbered by external instruments and voice limitations, they were now able to create music of a quality that simply cannot be described without hearing it. Any sound that can be imagined, any set of notes that could be heard, at any tempo; a thousand overlaid tracks interleaved in an audible tapestry of nearly infinite complexity and resulting in astounding beauty and diversity. In the same way, still other erstwhile average citizens became great artists, architects, engineers, and scientists.

    Also, other more quantifiable advances were made. The natural senses, of which Denjar’s species had six, could now be amplified and their ranges extended. For instance, sensitive cameras shunted the natural visual sense. A light source as dim as a single candle could be seen at ten thousand miles. Conversely, their binary sun, which emitted a maximum combined luminosity of six times that of our own, could be observed indefinitely without incurring the slightest physiological damage.

    But even more important than these perceptual amplifications of the visual portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, was the vast expansion in the range of that spectrum which was now directly observable. Individuals could now essentially see radio waves, X-rays, and microwaves. The mind was so overwhelmed with previously invisible colors and images it often took several months to make the adjustment. Of course, when the individual was born with these capacities in place, this was no longer a problem. When these phenomena were directly observable, profound advances in their classification, interpretation, and manipulation were achieved in a relatively short time. Indeed, it could be said that all previous progress in the field of electromagnetic wave theory and application was doubled within four or five decades of these artificial enhancements of the visual sense.

    Sensitive microphones, capable of detecting a pin drop at ten miles, shunted the hearing sense. The frequency range of sound perception now spanned from microhertz to megahertz. Part of the previously discussed advancement in music quality was due to these increased capacities in audio perception.

    Their olfactory, tactile, taste, and additional sense akin to an earthly dolphin’s echolocation, or sonar sense, were all thus correspondingly enhanced.

    Seventy millennia after the beginning of this technological revolution, the first entirely artificial sense was developed. Gravitational waves (one of only two phenomena known to exceed the speed of light) had been discovered and measured with great accuracy. It was desired to add this ability to the individual’s physiological capacity—supplementing the things they could sense with these newly discovered phenomena. Twenty millennia were required to miniaturize the gravitational wave detectors to the point where they could be unobtrusively implanted into the Antarian body. Another millennium was required to integrate these sensors into the NTs and to develop methods to train the individuals in the interpretation of these new sensory data.

    After meeting these initial challenges, more and more exotic artificial senses began to follow. At the time of this conversation, the Antarians had developed some twenty-eight artificial senses. When added to their original six, the Antarian species now possessed an impressive array of thirty-four qualitatively distinct sensory input channels.

    * * *

    Number Four continued with her barrage of questions. Tell me more of these humans. What about their biology? Is it at all similar to our own?

    Well, yes, there do appear to be a number of similarities. The humans belong to a large class of primarily macroscopic organisms known as ‘mammals.’ In fact, most of the animal life with more than a modicum of intelligence falls within this category. Like our species, these mammalian species have two sexes and reproduce much the same as we did pre-NT. Also just as with our species, the humans have developed a wide array of artificial ethical and sociological standards around this natural reproductive function, as always seems to occur within newly intelligent species.

    Yes, I do recall learning a bit about that during my studies of history, interjected Number Four. "What I cannot believe, Denjar, is how detailed the recollections of your subconscious experiences are. The majority of related studies indicate that most unconscious brain activity consists of first-person life experiences. It is only rarely—less than approximately 10 percent of the time according to most psychoanalysts—that an individual dreams they are someone else. And it is exceedingly rare, less than perhaps a hundredth of a percent of the time, that the individual dreams they are not an Antarian.

    Your case, where you are dreaming that you are a being within some primitive yet intelligent society is almost completely unique. While you were describing this ‘Joe’s’ livelihood and other details, I took the liberty of accessing various databases concerning similarly recorded dream recollections. It seems that out of many thousands of recorded dreams, there are only seventeen cases of similar highly detailed recollected dream states where the subjects imagined themselves as another non-Antarian being.

    Number Four thought for a couple of milliseconds. Let me ask you something, Denjar, and please try to be as candid as possible. Why do you enjoy going into these dream states so much? In other words, why do you enjoy being Joe?

    Denjar considered how best to answer his friend’s question. This is hard for me to explain, Number Four. While our world is primarily virtual, Joe’s world is primarily visceral. Nearly everything I see, hear, touch, or otherwise sense during my fully conscious state is filtered through my artificial senses. Although one may argue that this is vastly superior to receiving sensory data through my original natural senses, there is something qualitatively different in the resulting perceptions.

    How so?

    From what I can apprehend, it appears related to the simple fact that the sensory data ‘Joe’ perceives may have direct and immediate effects on his well-being or even the very survival of his physical organism. Perhaps an example or two would help explain.

    Please continue, Twenty-One.

    "Well, for example, when Joe is driving his truck, he occasionally senses a dangerous situation on the road ahead presented by other vehicles or road conditions. Sometimes, unless he takes immediate action to avoid the hazard in some way, physical harm, up to and including death, could result for himself and others. In fact, there is no guarantee that he can always successfully avoid these hazards even if he responds to the full extent of his abilities.

    "Thus, Joe’s livelihood is dependent on performance of this dangerous activity. He must maintain a heightened awareness of the road ahead for long periods of time. This disciplined use of his visual sense is something I’ve never before experienced. It provides Joe with a greater appreciation of the world around him, not to mention a heightened appreciation of life and health itself considering the not-unappreciable danger to which they are subjected every time he drives. Now, living with this sense of danger is a very foreign concept to me, but so are these heightened appreciations. The overall result is quite positive, especially since Joe has yet to realize any of these admittedly calamitous possibilities.

    "On a less serious note, when Joe—who is a male—sees an attractive human female, he may choose to change the way he acts to make himself more appealing. Also, he may, in fact, take actions that he perceives would increase the likelihood of possibly meeting or otherwise communicating with this female. Interestingly enough, when human males see an especially attractive female, they sometimes exclaim that this female is a ‘ten,’ which just happens to be the same as the number of fingers on their two armlike appendages—even as we used to remark that such an entity was a ‘twenty-three.’ Conversely, when I happen to perceive a virtual image of an attractive member of the opposite sex, I simply make a note of it so that I might revisit this image or, more likely, the entire virtual entity, during my allotted pleasure inducement periods.

    In short, Joe undergoes a nearly continual barrage of visceral sensations during a typical day. They are integral to his very existence. I enjoy living through these sensations. Joe’s body is a highly developed and versatile organism. Physically, the humans are probably at the zenith of their evolutionary development. Their newly sparked intelligence will soon bring forth physiological devolution, but for the time being, they are—as one of their foremost writers recently described—the ‘paragon of animals.’ Joe’s life is filled with danger and risk. I sense this every moment that I am convinced I am he. He experiences pain. I myself have had only fleeting encounters with this sensation during my lifetime, and although very disagreeable, it somehow seems to make any subsequent pleasure—indeed, even the mere absence of pain—infinitely more poignant and enjoyable.

    * * *

    Of course, NTs had many more uses than simply improvements of, or even additions to, sensory input channels. They were also put in series with the Antarian equivalent of the human spinal cord. This innovation afforded the species complete conscious control over their autonomic nervous system as well as control over signals originating from their afferent (or sensory) nervous systems. Surgeries required no anesthesia because pain signals could simply be consciously turned off by the patient.

    Within carefully set limits, physiological parameters that were usually under the control of the autonomic nervous system could be put under the direct control of the central nervous system. Pulse rate, blood pressure, body temperature, respiration, and many others could be essentially placed under manual control. Soon, planned regimens in the control of these parameters were developed to maximize life span and shorten recovery times for any perturbations to physiological homeostasis because of injury, disease, or other disorders.

    Still, other NTs were put directly into the central nervous system itself. Pleasure centers of the Antarian brain could be stimulated at will. Use of this particular class of NT had to be quickly put under the strict regulation of a special branch of the prime collective to curtail their inevitable abuse. The first few individuals in whom these were implanted without tight external controls quickly destroyed themselves. In retrospect, this seems logical enough when one realizes that direct stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain would be far more addictive than unlimited sexual pleasure or any sort of drug. This rather embarrassing chapter in Antarian history was for many years the source of a great number of jokes to the point where it almost became its own branch of humor. Denjar’s allusion to an allotted pleasure inducement period was a reference to the heavily regulated usage of this particular class of NT.

    Central nervous system NTs were also used to give more immediate access to external analytical machines. Cognitive, analytical, and mnemonic functions once handled by the natural neurons of the brain were increasingly handled instead by the electronics with which it was directly interfaced. An individual’s intelligence was no longer a measure of their abilities in cognition, analysis, or memorization, but more of a measure of their skills in the use these interfacing artificial automata.

    Antarians lived in a virtual world. As the millennia passed, they had increasingly used their artificial senses at the expense of their natural ones. These original senses almost immediately began to atrophy. So too did the rest of their bodies. Neurocommunication eventually made any form of travel entirely unnecessary, and so their leglike appendages began to atrophy as well. Wholesale devolution of the Antarian body began within a few millennia following the NT revolution. It was no longer necessary to change one’s physical position because virtual environments could be summoned at will. Seventy-eight millennia after this revolution, not a single being within their species remained naturally ambulatory.

    Individuals quickly adopted virtual self-images—wholly artificial personas representing how they wished to be perceived—for use in all social interactions. These sophisticated avatars were soon indistinguishable from reality, even with their newly enhanced and wholly artificial senses. Antiquated physical pleasures such as eating or sex were thoroughly eclipsed by artificial stimulation of the brain’s pleasure centers. Soon, all feeding was done intravenously, and all reproduction was done artificially. It eventually became apparent that the body’s sole function was to support the mind. Indeed, the question as to whether it hadn’t perhaps always been such was an ever-popular philosophical topic often bantered about in virtual conversation. To this end, the Antarians had developed massive life-support systems that efficiently sustained their profoundly atrophied bodies.

    Thus, though Denjar and Number Four were indeed conversing, the physical aspects of carrying on a conversation were quite different than what a human might at first imagine. First, they were not in physical proximity to each other. In fact, while Number Four was physically located on Antarius-Four, which was the species’ native planet, Denjar lived millions of miles away on Antarius-Five. And so, while both individuals were located not ten feet from where they had each been born centuries earlier, at the time of this conversation, some forty-five million miles physically separated the highly devolved bodies of these two beings.

    Their bodies were each approximately three feet in length. Denjar weighed about sixty-two pounds, while Number Four weighed just over fifty. Their brains each composed approximately 46 percent of their body weight. They were both lying in life-support pods filled with a liquid akin to amniotic fluid. These life-support pods were in turn located several miles below the surface of their respective planets. Their incredibly delicate and atrophied bodies had never seen the light of day. An army of artificial intelligence-controlled robots maintained the vast life-support structures, which covered most of the respective planets to an average depth of approximately fourteen miles.

    The two beings were friends and had been for some six hundred years. They had met shortly after Denjar had joined collective J256-7298-WWQ775-435 and had instantly taken a liking to each other. Denjar’s physical body still retained some male characteristics, while Number Four’s was still barely recognizable as a female. However, in the virtual world in which they lived, they were both perceived as very attractive sexually. Both beings were also quite outgoing and well liked by the other 608 members of their immediate and relatively small collective.

    During most of their conversations, the two friends didn’t make their virtual characters available. They did this so they could concentrate more on the subject matter of the communication itself. They had agreed upon this arrangement decades earlier, primarily because they found their mutual sexual attraction to be a frequent distraction. It could be viewed to be somewhat like carrying on a human telephone conversation, with the lights turned out, only on a very high-quality phone connection.

    * * *

    The conversation continued with Number Four still trying to understand Denjar’s affinity for being ‘Joe.’ But surely you must agree being fully conscious is far superior to being locked into perceiving yourself as this primitive intelligent life form. Why do you find these dreams so fascinating? I think we can both agree you were making excellent progress in your studies and activities here until approximately thirty-four years ago when you started having these most unique dreams. Denjar, I’m asking you as a friend, why don’t you put this diversion behind you and resume the work we have enjoyed so much in decades past?

    Denjar heard the frustration start to well up in his virtual voice. "Number Four, please realize I’m in no way trying to shun the work in which we were involved. You yourself stated that my dream states were ‘quite unique.’ Indeed they are unique. I don’t know how to explain this, but they are somehow real. They do not just seem real—they are real. I truly live the life of ‘Joe’ when I am in these altered states.

    May I suggest rather than lamenting the time lost on our other work, let us instead go forward with an objective study of these dreams. Let us embrace this unique opportunity to learn more about the unconscious mind and the nature of dream states. Unlike most of the other recorded instances of these phenomena, let us carefully study them. Who can know where these inquiries may lead?

    For a full second, Number Four silently considered this proposal. At last, she continued with an air of acquiescence. I must admit I find your curiosity strongly persuasive and your enthusiasm highly contagious. The uniqueness of your recollections may indeed be reason enough to argue that we more thoroughly study these dream states. However, let me ask you one further question.

    Go ahead, Number Four.

    Are you saying that you would be entirely receptive to the idea of being a test subject in our proposed experimentation if, in return, the collective were to grant you a larger subconscious time ratio?

    Exactly what do you mean by ‘test subject’? Denjar asked warily.

    I am thinking primarily along the lines of extensive interviews when you awaken from these modes, coupled with a detailed analysis of your corresponding NT data.

    Now it was Denjar who silently considered a proposal. Why, yes, he said at last, I think that is a most reasonable proposition.

    OK then, Denjar. I’ll see if I can persuade the remainder of the collective… Number Four produced a virtual grin . . . at least to the point of the required weighted plurality. Thank you for this most interesting conversation.

    Thank you, Number Four.

    CHAPTER 3

    The Bond of the Brothers

    But I’m strong, Strong enough to carry him

    He ain’t heavy, He’s my brother.

    —The Hollies—

    Darn it! complained Clyde with his favorite mild expletive.

    Clyde Dunford was working to unravel a large knot that had somehow accumulated around his reel while trying to let out his fishing line. He was standing in his brother’s boat, which was slowly trolling along on the Willamette River just north of where it flowed through the downtown section of Portland, Oregon. It was a little past ten on a rainy September morning, and although he and his brother had been out there hoping to hook a salmon since before seven, they hadn’t had so much as a nibble.

    It’s gettin’ cold out here, Clyde complained.

    Ah, it isn’t that cold, replied his brother, Sam. You’re just miserable because you didn’t bring any rain jacket or anything. Why don’t you ever try and come a little more prepared anyway?

    I thought maybe you had a raincoat I could borrow, Clyde said with a slightly exaggerated shiver.

    Dude! You borrow everything—fishing pole, tackle, lunch, beer—and now you want to borrow a rain jacket? Don’t you ever supply anything yourself?

    Hey, what’re you gettin’ on my case for? I just came to have some fun, and now I’m cold, wet, and you’re givin’ me a hard time ’cause I don’t have my own damn fishin’ pole? Give me a break. And speakin’ of beer, toss me one of those Henry’s.

    Sam reached into the ice chest at his feet and tossed a bottle of beer to his older brother. But as Clyde reached out to catch it, he clumsily batted the bottle away with the back of his hand. It plopped into the water a few feet from the boat and then sank to the bottom of the river.

    Sam let go a groan of disgust as he slowly bent down to the ice chest, retrieved another beer, and stood up to place it in his portly brother’s hand with an exaggerated caution. You know, Clyde, if you weren’t my brother, I’d almost have to conclude that there was somethin’ wrong with you or somethin’. Sam gave Clyde a weak single pat on the back. "But you are my brother, so put down your pole, drink your beer, and I’m going to start gettin’ our stuff ready to go back."

    This blows, Clyde lamented as he reclined into one of the rear-facing seats in the sixteen-foot Starcraft aluminum boat.

    Sam thought for a second. "I know, right? Usually we at least get a bite. In fact, Clyde, usually—when I’m out here anyway—I catch a salmon. Then I go home, I clean it, I fry it, and I eat it with my wife and kids, and it doesn’t ‘blow.’"

    Well, I guess I’m just no good at nothin’, sulked the older brother.

    Ah, come on, dude. I’m just kiddin’. You’re sure one heck of a good guitar player. I couldn’t believe that stuff you were doin’ last night. It sounded awesome.

    Clyde brightened up noticeably. You guys sure seemed to like it—’specially little Jack and Steph.

    Who was that anyway? asked Sam. I thought I recognized a few of those tunes.

    Oh, I was playin’ just good ol’ rock and roll. The stuff from the ’70s when there was still some decent music. You know, Jackson Browne, Steve Miller Band, the Eagles, Led Zep.

    How’d you get so good at the gitter anyway? I don’t remember you playin’ like that when we were kids.

    Well, there’s this guy I work with down at the garage—actually, he’s the son of the owner—and he’s absolutely incredible. I mean, I don’t know how he learned to play like that. He can play rhythm, lead, the blues, jazz, classical—basically anything you can think of, and he’s damn good at it too. Anyway, me ’n’ him practice all the time. He’s taught me so much stuff. Sometimes we’ll jam till three or four in the morning if there’s no work the next day—and that happens more often than not. Clyde looked out over the river and broke off into a wistful soliloquy. No wonder I’m always so broke.

    Well, anyway, we sure did enjoy that last night. Darlene kept talking about it when we went to bed. She wouldn’t let me go to sleep.

    Clyde’s face saddened still further. Least you got somebody to sleep with.

    Sam looked over at his brother with concern. Hey, I’m sorry, man.

    Nah, don’t worry about it. Thanks again for gettin’ me that guitar. How much ya pay for it anyway? The thing’s worth maybe 1,200 bucks.

    Well, I didn’t pay near that, Clyde. Don’t worry about it. And you’re welcome. It’s the least I can do.

    Well thanks, bro’.

    Hey, I got an idea, Sam said, snapping his fingers. Let’s call it a day and go do some drinkin’. Why don’t you drive us back while I get this crap put away?

    All right.

    Clyde got up and moved over to the driver’s seat. He started the large outboard engine and then slowly turned the boat back toward the landing, while Sam stowed away their fishing gear. The echo of the sixty-five-horse Evinrude resounded under the cavernous expanse of the St. Johns Bridge looming overhead. They had launched at about six thirty that morning next to the downstream dock of the boat landing. Clyde navigated the boat at a pretty good clip right toward the center of the landing, figuring he’d let the current bring it gently into the downstream dock. He throttled way back as they neared the landing ramp.

    About twenty-five feet out, however, the boat suddenly and rather sharply struck some large underwater object. Clyde was just

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1