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"Absolutely nothing will go wrong."

Kien also liked to push buttons. To Kien, a button was there to be pushed. As long as someone was going to push it, it might as well be him. Kien had discovered this particular button of Jorge’s only as they were prepping for the trek to Bradbury.

"Kien... please," Jan said. Besides being Kien's wife, she was a licensed psychologist. She had supervised the dissemination of the false information. She sat in the front beside Jorge because she would get motion sickness sitting in the back, despite the wrist bands she constantly wore to alleviate that problem. She was one of a few individuals who was constantly in a state of nausea on the new world, as if her own internal equilibrium simply could not adjust.

"What?" Kien asked in mock innocence. He leaned forward from the back seat so he stuck out between Jorge and Jan in the front.

"I asked you to please not say anything like that," Jorge said, coming to his own defense.

"Like what?"

Jorge let out a snort. "You know what."

Jorge was taller than Kien by almost half a meter, and out-massed him significantly. Yet Kien never seemed intimidated in the least, as if unaware he was supposed to be.

"That everything will be okay and nothing bad will happen just because I say nothing bad will happen?" he asked with a big grin.

Jorge worked his jaw and after several seconds he said, as calmly as possible, "Is there any wood in here at all?"

Jan sighed. "We looked already, Jorge. We looked under the seats, in the dash, in the doors... everywhere, and there is no wood. I'm sorry."

"Come on, Jorge," Kien said. "The universe doesn’t care what I say. It won’t conspire against me just because I happen to be confident that the outcome of our little experiment will be positive. Don't get all bent out of shape."

Kien was not a bit superstitious. On the contrary, he was downright anti-superstitious. His big hope for the colony was that it might shed the traditional values of Earth and adopt new ones more suitable for a brand new city on a new world. He planned to publish the truth about their scheme as soon as things settled down, to prove once and for all what a load of bull it was to believe in “luck,” whether good or bad.

Kien liked to point out that in all his life he had never knocked on wood, rubbed the belly of a Buddha, tossed salt over his shoulder, avoided stepping on cracks, or done anything that had an effect on luck, whether to bring good or avoid bad. Plus, he had broken at least three mirrors in his life, crossed the paths of innumerable black cats, and said whatever he felt whether it would supposedly jinx him or not. This, it turned out, was Jorge's big superstition. Say with certainty that something will go right, and it will inevitably, invariably go wrong.

"Would it really be that difficult just not to say anything? Just for the rest of the trip?" Jan asked Kien. Jan was what Kien called a Euromutt, a blend of European blood that gave her wide cheek bones, a medium sized nose, blue eyes, and brown hair. She was taller than him, by a few centimeters. He wasn't sensitive about it, and in fact it kind of turned him on.

He shrugged. "Whatever."

Jan turned back around to watch the alien desert ahead and on either side of the road.

"But I’m right," Kien muttered under his breath, just loud enough to be overheard.

Jorge's grip tightened on the Rover's steering yoke. Jan shook her head slowly. Kien was crossing the line between asserting an opinion and being out-and-out obnoxious. To him even having a superstition was obnoxious. Best to keep up the offensive until the other party gave in just to get a break from Kien's nonstop barrage of cold logic. He'd once talked someone out of believing in God his freshman year at Emory University in Atlanta, although his friends at the time tried to convince him the other person had given in just to get Kien off his back.

Now Kien started singing, "Don't worry, be happy, everything's gonna be all right...", a reggae tune he had always liked. He sang the same verse over and over, barely audible, as if trying to not be overheard. Finally, after the sixth or seventh repetition, the Rover slowed to a stop on the Yellow Brick Road, and Jorge turned around.

"Get out," he said.

Kien blinked, not sure what Jorge was saying. "Get out of what?"

"Get out of here!"

"Jorge!" Jan said. "Come on--" But Jorge held up a hand to silence her. It worked. She closed her mouth, but her eyes were wide open with uncertain fear. Kien had never seen her react in such a docile manner to any man before.

Jorge was a very muscular, dark-skinned Hispanic, and despite his education he was very much a product of his culture. Machismo played a major role in his bearing, especially in association with other men, and most especially with other men who were somehow threatening. Right now, even though Jorge knew Kien’s motive and methods all too well, Kien was a threat.

"You know something, Kien?" Jorge asked.

"What?"

"Now I understand why Jan needs someone else to give her pleasure in bed. You're a little man in more ways than one."

Kien swallowed. Jan gasped. Jorge glowered at Kien as he watched the effect his statement had. Outwardly, very little happened. Kien's eyes shifted their gaze from Jorge to Jan, then from Jan to Jorge, and back again.

To Jan he said, "I can see it's true."

Jan nodded, her eyes beginning to water. "Yes. Kien--"

"Now get out," Jorge demanded. "There's a surface suit in the back, six hours of oxygen. By Rover we're only about fifteen minutes out of Bradbury... you should just make it." He smiled wickedly. "I'm sure nothing will go wrong and you’ll make it safe and sound."

Without another word Kien crawled back to the mini-airlock, where the Rover was equipped with an emergency surface suit. It was cramped even for his small frame as he wiggled into the suit and put the helmet on. A moment later he went through the airlock and soon stood all but exposed on the surface of Tyche.

The Rover slowly pulled away from him. Down the road it topped a hill, then seemed to sink into the yellow sand. Kien stood alone on the Yellow Brick Road while his wife went off with another man. The universe didn’t care.
###
Kien had lived on Tyche now for six years, and rarely actually walked out of doors. There were people who did so ever day, like the field techs back at the research station at which he, Jan, and Jorge were based. All in all, there were thirty people at that station. He was amazed something could have been going on between Jan and Jorge and no one knew about it. Obviously, someone had to have known. Maybe they all knew and Kien was the only one in the dark. The thought of Jan cheating had never even entered his head. There was probably no room, it was usually crammed full of numbers and data anyway.

"You think too much," was a favorite line of Jan's when Kien would pontificate on such-and-such a theory after making love as they lay in bed in afterglow. Kien had assumed it was afterglow. Perhaps he'd assumed too much.

He spent his days in a lab theorizing about some unusual field properties measured on Tyche after the colonization process had begun. He'd been checking some readings on magnetic flux at the poles when he got the idea for the Tyche Field. Earlier that day someone else had expressed hope that a soil experiment would turn out all right, crossing their fingers as they did so... Kien could barely contain his annoyance.

When he talked it over with Jan, they decided it would have to be something that would appear as a real scientific theory. Let it leak out through the usual channels, and it would probably have the desired effect. A few weeks earlier a lander had crashed at the tiny Tyche space port and killed twenty-seven people. Two days later a micrometeor pierced the private dome of colonial financier, Hershel Cole. Equipment was constantly malfunctioning, crop yields were low, experiments went awry... People started to believe the planet was cursed, and there was talk of a general strike and civil disobedience to put the brakes on the colony and send everyone back to Earth, "where we belong" as one union spokesperson put it.

With Jorge's help, Jan and Kien's Tyche Field Theory could change all that. As Kien wrote in his Journal of Planetary Sciences paper:

"A quantum field supported by the conscious mind, wherein if a mind is bent towards ill fortune, the Tyche Field responds and ill fortune befalls one. However, if a mind attributes good fortune, or good luck, to rituals or charms, and those things are present, then good fortune results and a balance is achieved. On Earth this balance is rooted in millennia of tradition and culture, and we take it for granted. On Tyche however, there is no tradition as of yet, and the culture is what we bring with us. Here, our collective consciousness has affected the Tyche Field, but it only allows for ill fortune. We need to create the balance, and things will follow suit and seem to occur as random events of chance, just the way we're used to experiencing them on Earth."

It was all utter nonsense, and Kien suffered severely in rebuttals, but he weathered the storm knowing that he would get his chance to respond with the truth, and more importantly, the reason for the lie.

If he ever made it to Bradbury alive, of course.

It was still early in the day. He knew he’d make it before nightfall when it would get too cold to survive in just a surface suit.

Ahead he saw a column of smoke rise lazily into the air. He couldn't tell if it came from the road, or the great geodesic dome of Bradbury.

He kept walking in measured steps, keeping an even pace to conserve air. As he walked he speculated on the future of Tyche’s colony. Kien hoped he might have a hand in building a test society different from anything on Earth, free of Earth's various trappings of superstition, racism, sexism, religion. A new world in the truest sense, starting over, a blank screen. When the truth about the Tyche Field came out, he knew it would begin. No one, not even the most hardheaded fanatic, as long as he had an intellect, could deny the truth when it was thrown in his face like a bucket of cold water. Kien had faith in that, at least.

He walked in surprisingly good spirits. For some reason Jan's infidelity with Jorge had little effect on him. Kien always looked at personal situations with the mind of a scientist, or a mathematician. A new variable had been added to the equation of his life, a y had been dropped and his outcome was less clear. It wasn’t good or bad, just different. The universe didn’t know the difference between good and bad.

When he topped a hill, he saw the Rover. Behind it rose the dome of Bradbury, still several kilometers off. The Rover was on its side, off the road, and the column of smoke rose from the engine compartment. Kien quickened his pace, but didn’t run. Running would use up too much oxygen, and he might need it if he had to help Jorge and Jan. When he got to the Rover, he saw they were beyond help.

Jan's face was pressed up against the windshield, blood trickling down the plexiglass from her mouth and nose, her blue eyes staring blankly out. Kien could see the back of Jorge's head, or what was left of it, also pressed up against the windshield. It was apparent from the way the road was churned up that the Rover had rolled a good twenty meters. Jorge's patience must have worn thin, Kien surmised, and he’d sped up and lost control. The Yellow Brick Road made a curve around an outcropping of rock, then went straightaway into the Bradbury Rover port. The finely packed sand that made up most of the Yellow Brick Road was notoriously difficult to maneuver on, especially in a Rover doing more than 50 kph, which was technically against one of Tyche’s few laws. Kien figured Jorge had to have been doing that or more when he lost it.

Kien stood there for a little while, staring at his wife's cold face. It looked cold, had that distinct lifelessness about it Kien had only seen once, on his Grandfather at the old man's wake. This bothered him, because it was exactly the kind of thing the three of them had been working, as a team, to avoid. Superstition resulted in this. Kien turned away from the Rover to face the Bradbury dome. The dome reflected the midday sun brightly, spreading light across the yellow desert in a way the planet had never witnessed until the coming of Humanity. Each face of each tetrahedron seemed to reflect a different color, a rainbow arched in all directions over the surrounding landscape.

Had Jorge not been so superstitious and full of machismo they would have been there by now. The shipment they were going for had already arrived. It was probably in the midst of being distributed to relieved colonists.

When Kien finally reached the Rover Port, and climbed the exterior stairs up to one of the rarely used secondary airlocks, he noticed something unusual. No one was around. Under normal circumstances there would have been very few people around, true, but there would at least be somebody. Now there was nobody. When Kien went through the airlock, he struggled out of the surface suit and hung it in the REFILL section, then decided to go into the dome proper and see what was going on. The halls were antiseptic and white, and just as empty as the Port. As he neared the exit of the hall into the dome, he could hear voices, shouts and screams, a cacophony of human sound. He smiled. They were celebrating the arrival of the shipment.

He stepped from the hall to the false outdoors of Bradbury. He was in Jubal Plaza, one of the many parks spread around the perimeter of the dome to disguise it, to make it seem less enclosed. Towards the center, at the highest point, there were actual buildings like in any city, the tallest being the Wells Marriott, a full fifteen floors. The population of Bradbury was over five thousand.

A woman ran towards Kien, clutching a bag in her arms. Her face radiated joy, happiness... until she got closer, then Kien could see the joy was twisted, her happiness manic. She tripped and fell toward him, the bag flying from her arms, landing on the walkway, breaking open. Dozens of small, colored objects scattered across the floor, some sliding right up to Kien's feet. He bent down and picked one up.

A rabbit's foot, dyed sky blue, attached to a gilt plastic chain.

The woman frantically gathered up as many of them as she could and ran up to Kien, babbling something he couldn't understand.

"What’s happening?" he asked. She looked confused for a moment, then turned and ran with whatever rabbit's feet she could grab in two handfuls.

Kien went further into the dome. People ran past him, all towards the perimeter, all clutching good luck charms, all with that same crazed look.

Two men were ahead, fighting. One held a wooden Buddha; the other was trying to take it away. Kien grimaced because the wooden Buddha's were his idea, trying to get two charms for the price of one. The man with the Buddha spun away from the other man, then suddenly spun back and brought the Buddha down on the other man's head. The injured man fell, screaming in pain, cursing. The man with the Buddha practically skipped merrily away, until tackled by someone else. The Buddha fell and the two men were trampled by a mob chasing another man who was trying to make off with a heavy box of horse shoes

Trinkets that were supposed to bring good luck ward off evil spirits... but still trinkets.

Kien realized then that he wasn't helping to build a new world. He was helping to build the same one all over again.

And the universe didn’t care.
END

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From The Daze After Tomorrow to Painting With Glass

I’m afraid it is increasingly clear that science fiction, at least in the popular mind, means movies these days rather than novels or short stories. Furthermore, science fiction is taking an increasingly distant second place to fantasy. The Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series are leading cases in point.

However, science fiction films do continue to appear. And when I say “science fiction films,” I refer to movies that knowledgeable fans would consider worthy of that title. I believe that, for those of us who care about SF, the quality of science fiction films is important. Good SF films should (though not necessarily will) increase interest in the field.

One relatively recent science fiction film worthy of consideration is “The Day After Tomorrow.” Please note that I said worthy of consideration, not necessarily worthy of praise. In fact, on a scale of one to four, I could not give the film more than a two. For a big budget movie featuring outstanding visual effects and a solid acting team, that is not a very high rating. Note also that this rating is as a movie, not in terms of its effect, if any, on the public perception of science fiction.

I made a point of seeing the movie in a theater, since I wanted to experience the flooding of New York on the big screen. Fortunately, I was able to see it at a second run theater for about $3.50. I enjoyed the flood and other natural disasters, as well as the acting. Unfortunately, the whole thing is based on so ridiculous a premise that it cannot be taken seriously. Based on what I heard and read last year, no expert in the field of climatology took the idea seriously, either. And that includes radical environmentalists.

In case this whole controversy passed you by, the idea to which I allude is the concept of so radical a climate change as to cause massive tidal waves and a new ice age….all in a couple of weeks! Okay, such a concept is a joke. But somebody with a lot of money thought it was plausible enough to give the go-ahead to film the darned thing.

What effect does such a well mounted but logically brain-dead movie have on the science fiction genre? One hopes not much, since the only effect it could possibly have is a negative one. It’s not that this is the only SF film based on a shaky premise. It’s just that this one is so obviously stupid that even scientifically challenged viewers can figure out that they are watching high class garbage. Furthermore, this movie suffers from a fairly obvious political motivation (who knew that Dick Cheney was moonlighting as a movie actor?)

One might say that any film using faster-than-light-speed travel also is nonsense. That would cover a lot of ground, in printed fiction as well as on the screen. Personally, I hold out hope that someday we will discover some loophole in Einstein’s theory. But in any case such stories are so speculative that, if they are well done, willing suspension of disbelief can take place. But “The Day After Tomorrow” is so obviously contrary to what we know that is just can’t be taken seriously. Let’s hope that not too many folks take it for a good example of science fiction.

Recent SF films that are much worthier examples of the genre include “Minority Report,” “I, Robot,” and “Signs.” I liked “Minority Report” fairly well. Its premise is somewhat shaky, too, but not downright ridiculous. The production values and visual effects were quite good, and the acting was more than adequate. One might say that “Minority Report” was a mystery/suspense story in science fictional clothing. That is clearly true, but not a negative criticism of the work. Science fiction can deal with any theme; love, revenge, retribution, etc., etc. The question is always, “Was it done well?” “Minority Report” was indeed done well. It’s also nice to see the work of one of the field’s all-time greats, in this case Phil Dick, given a solid screen treatment.

“I, Robot” seems to me to be one of the best science fiction movies to come out in some time. Maybe one of the better SF films ever. This one really holds one’s interest throughout. For one thing, I am a big fan of Will Smith (I still want to see a sequel to “The Wild, Wild West” despite what some people think of that one!). The production values were first-rate, and the characters, especially the robot Sonny, were especially sympathetic. I should add that when I say sympathetic I mean believable and expertly drawn, not necessarily “nice.” Sonny was both sympathetic and nice. Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics were carefully woven into the plot, which holds up throughout.

I browsed through the review of the film on the Internet Movie Data Base and found that the general reaction by reviewers there was quite favorable. One otherwise favorable review contained the following summary: “A clichéd cop thriller crossed with sci-fi but it is noisy, enjoyable fun - all a summer action film should be.” That’s superficially true, but unfair to the film as a whole. Any SF film that combines an intriguing moral question with intelligent scientific speculation is doing just what that type of film should do.

The last film I will mention is “Signs,” which is the oldest of the several discussed here. I did not see this one when it appeared two or three years ago, but recently obtained a VHS copy. “Signs” is clearly science fiction. Any time you have a story about an alien invasion of Earth, it is by definition science fiction. But “Signs” is more a morality play than science fiction. No, that’s not fair, either. As I said above, science fiction can be about any theme, idea, or emotion. The focus here is on the character of Graham Hess, a framer who has lost his faith following the tragic death of his wife. The narrative question here is, Will the humans survive the invasion? But the more interesting question is, Will Graham regain his faith?

As science fiction, “Signs” is not exceptional. There are a few weak spots, such as how could creatures not terribly unlike humans in form be allergic to water? Also, the whole idea of aliens trying to conquer Earth is pretty clichéd by now.

Two things stand out in this movie. One is the suspense, which is very effective. The isolation of the farmhouse and the fact that we don’t see much of the aliens for most of the movie contribute to a really scary atmosphere. I confess it scared me. In this regard, I am reminded of the horror movies (“The Cat People,” “Leopard Man,” etc.) produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s for RKO Radio Pictures.

The second point, and I suspect the more important one both for the film’s creator, M. Night Shyamalan, and the lead actor, Mel Gibson, is the moral question represented by the character of Graham Hess. Hess is terribly shaken by the death of his wife, so much so that he has given up the ministry. His grief colors everything in his life. Where before he looked to God for guidance, he now believes “we are on our own.” The balance of the story revolves, on one level, around the attack by aliens on the Hess farmhouse, and on a deeper lever, around Hess’ rediscovery of his belief in God.

I am convinced, based on his performance in this film, that Mel Gibson is a really good actor. While he didn’t create the film, I am certain that he was attracted to the project largely because of the story’s theme of lost and regained faith.

Is “Signs” good science fiction? Well, it may not be exceptional, but it’s not bad. Is it good horror/suspense? You bet it is!! And how about good drama in terms of character portrayal? On this score it is perhaps at its strongest.
***
Today’s paper brings an item about a possible method of detecting incoming cruise missiles launched by terrorist against U.S. soil from boats off shore. David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, reports that Lockheed Martin VP David Kier is worried that not enough money is being spent to develop methods to detect low-flying missiles carrying WMD warheads. Kier’s suggested technology is intriguing.

He proposes development of a “passive coherent locator.” The trick is to amplify FM radio waves, then wait for the detection of a disturbance in the FM energy field caused by a cruise missile. There is no mention in the article of the how the technology would actually work. I wonder whether the nature of the FM signal is a factor. I mean, would it work just as well to broadcast The Rolling Stones as it would to play something by Miles Davis?
***
My wife and I subscribe to Science News, which every week carries interesting science items. A recent issue had an intriguing article, complete with color cover, outlining a new discovery in the field of art.

It seems art critics and historians have long marveled at the luminescent quality of paintings created by Venetian Renaissance artist. In her article “Venetian Grinds” (who says science writers have no sense of humor?), Alexandra Goho says that that for many years researchers and art experts have had the following question: “How did Venetian Renaissance painter create the strong, clear, and bright colors that make objects and figures in their paintings appear to glow?”

It appears that the answer has been discovered. Louisa Matthews, an art historian at Union College, has discovered a revealing list on a piece of paper dated 1534. The paper was among the state archives in Venice. It is a list written by a Venetian pigment seller. In addition to the expected items, azurite, vermilion, and the like, raw material used in the making of glass were listed. It seems that the Venetians were master glass makers. One of their achievements was a high-quality colorless glass called cristallo.

Venetian artists, like all artists in those days, mixed their own paints from raw materials. The theory is that they must have included tiny bits of this special glass in their paints. Goho mentions the painter Lorenzo Lotto in her article. Lotto left a notebook which lists various items related to his work. Among them was sal ammoniac, a clear colorless crystalline salt. The glass particles had the effect of making paint somewhat transparent. A microscopic examination of a portion of one of Lotto’s paintings in fact showed that tiny particles of silica were part of the paint.

The effect of this glass-in-paint technique was to allow light to shine through top layers of paint and illuminate lower layers of paint. Such paint had other non-aesthetic purposes as well. This just reinforces the fact that the ancients (or, as in this case, people from the Renaissance) had a trick or two up their sleeves that we have forgotten.

Bill Rupp

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