Bob Johnston Archives - Sci Phi Journal

Fiction

The Plaque

by Bob Johnston

The news about violent aliens landing all over Earth and beating up the human population took a while to hit the news feeds because it was such a crazy story. Even when jumpy images started being broadcast people still assumed it was some sort of April Fool’s Day joke, in the middle of August. This was Alvarez’s line of thinking as the day progressed and the stories started filling TV news updates.

Or it had been Alvarez’s position until he stepped out of the secured main door of his apartment building and right into an elderly couple being kicked on the ground by two individuals in gray coveralls. The kicking didn’t seem particularly aggressive, unlike a couple of muggings he had witnessed that were frankly terrifying. That said, the couple could not get up from the fetal positions they had assumed and Alvarez, seeing the obvious physical advantage their assailants had felt a wave of anger and stepped forward.

“Stop! Leave them alone.”

The coverall wearers did indeed stop, but then they turned and Alvarez quickly realized that the use of the word ‘aliens’ on the TV was completely correct. They were humanoid certainly but their heads might best be described as jack-o’-lanterns if jack-o’-lanterns were made out of pineapples. The glowing eyes persuaded him that he really needed to be back behind that security door and he ran for it.

As he watched the beating through the reinforced glass he confirmed that, for all the kicking that was going on, there wasn’t anything like deadly force being applied. It was more like an elementary school fight where a point is being made but no one wants to risk adults getting involved.

He made his way to the secured rear entrance and let himself out into the yard. A lane led out to the main road a little to the side of where the aliens were at the moment. As he quietly stepped forward his foot hit a metal object which clattered against the wall. He froze, focused on the entrance to the lane, and then, when no one (no thing) appeared he looked down.

The object he had kicked was a golden rectangle about 6 inches by 9, about as big as a medium sized envelope. He picked it up and studied the images that had been etched onto the surface. Close to where it had been lying were a few drops of blood, suggesting that another beating had taken place here.

He crept back into the yard and then made his way back to his apartment. Perhaps the internet might have a clue about what was happening. He propped the metal sheet against a pile of books and punched in a description. It took a couple of attempts but after a few minutes he was looking at the sheet on the screen, or rather he was looking at the original.

Why would a copy of the plaque attached to the antenna support struts of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft be lying in the lane behind Alvarez’s apartment? He did another search. It had left earth just over a century before and the plaque was a greeting to anyone who might intercept it along with some scientific information he didn’t understand and a picture of a man and a woman.

It was a nice image, created by Linda Salzman Sagan according to the search. He studied the figures. Average humans, the man raising his arm in what Sagan’s husband, scientist Carl, described as the ‘universal’ sign of good will. He stood and looked out of the window. It appeared quiet and he had to get some things in, especially if this wave of beatings was going to last.

He folded a couple of shopping bags and slipped them into his back pocket. Then he put on a pair of training shoes with thick, hopefully quiet rubber soles. His pants and light jacket shouldn’t make much noise. He looked at himself in the mirror and tried to suppress the frightened look that was etched there.

“Stealth, old man. Stealth,” he said loudly and confidently. Then he left the apartment.

Unfortunately stealth was not one of Alvarez’s physical features and in quick order he found himself on the ground being treated to the same beating the elderly couple had taken earlier. As he suspected there wasn’t a lot of power or violence in what was happening but one of them did clip his nose which made a troubling clicking noise and flooded his eyes with tears.

This seemed to be a cue to stop. He pushed himself up to a half sitting position and felt blood splash on the back of his hand. The nose was broken and it was no consolation that it appeared to have been an accident. He looked up and into the pineapple jack-o’-lantern faces and the glowing eyes looked back. Then one slid one of the gold plaques out of a wide pocket and dropped it at Alvarez’s knees. He leaned towards it and another splash of blood landed on the image of the man.

The aliens then removed their coveralls, assumed the positions of the human figures on the plaque, and the one nearest him raised its arm in imitation of the image of the man. They stood for a moment before one gently kicked Alvarez over. They then stood, naked for a moment longer, before dressing and walking away.

Alvarez rolled onto his back and dragged a breath of air through his pained nose. He touched it and winced. Another visit to the doctor. He got up again as far as he could and studied the bloodied plaque. Who would have thought that taking your clothes off and raising your right arm would lead to an interstellar incident? He got to his feet with a groan. Perhaps they should have thought of that in 1972.

After all, sending naked pictures to strangers, here on earth, in the year 2081 wasn’t exactly the done thing. No wonder that Sagan fellow had put the word ‘universal’ in quotation marks.

~

Bio:

Bob Johnston lives in Scotland where he scribbles, reads theology, and marvels at the country’s beauty when it isn’t raining, which isn’t often. He likes a good story; ancient, old, or brand new and tries to create good stories of his own. He can be found at bobjohnstonfiction.com.

Philosophy Note:

When we think of universal norms the only solid ground we can start from is ourselves. From appropriate hand gestures to our preferred computer operating system there is little out there that is universally intuitive. In which case how do we best reach out when we want to communicate with others?
In Carl Sagan’s ‘The Cosmic Connection’ (1973) he discussed the plaque which was placed on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, and referred to the ‘universality’ of the raised-hand greeting of the male figure (although even he had misgivings). I took the idea forward and wondered how an alien people would react to the image if they intercepted the spacecraft.

Fiction

The Archive

by Bob Johnston

Marrak slipped and fell heavily on her backside. The land had turned out to be a nightmare of deep, ankle-breaking pits. She thought of the crippled capsule on the high moor behind her. Crippled, but weatherproof, and with ample supplies. God, what a journey.

She resisted the urge to stand and push on. She was tiring and weakening rapidly, and had to manage her physical resources cleverly. Another ten minutes wouldn’t hurt, even if the anemic sunlight of Barnard’s Star would soon be gone for forty hours. She sat tight for the full ten minutes, ate a little, drank a lot, and then pressed on.

Long, tough walks force the mind to do two things at once; focus and wander. From the doubt when she left earth, her resolve to find a safe place for the Gutenberg Bible in her backpack had only strengthened as she got closer to her destination. Even now, increasingly scared of falling, breaking something and dying slowly, that resolve was unbroken.

She crashed out of the field of ferns and onto a mat of what passed for grass here. The mountains were close and, she was glad to see, not so intimidatingly high as they had seemed from a distance.

What did the book she was carrying really mean, she wondered. She wasn’t sure, but she lived in a time when the incinerators were back at work across the galaxy, and she had decided, if there was one book she could save, it was going to be the Gutenberg. It wasn’t burning on her watch, she remembered thinking dramatically. She smiled and stepped forward into the light drizzle. When the inquisitors of rationality came looking, Marrak had decided the Gutenberg would be gone.

#

The Archive, if it actually existed, had once been a military facility. Then it had become a repository for business records. Then some enterprising sort had taken ownership of the complex and, instead of torching the lot and making some other use of the place, they had started reading the material lining its shelves. And it became the legendary Archive, holding the second most important thing in the universe, knowledge. The first is, of course, time.

She imagined how this citadel built for war might look, but when she finally stumbled upon it, sore and blistered, she found a modest single floored structure with a slate roof. She sat on a raised bank of rock and fern. There was no question that this had once been a military location. Barely a stone’s throw to her left was a massive gun emplacement, its concrete base still terrifying but magnificent, the barrel a huge lump of rust.

Finally rested, she walked to the door and knocked, politely but firmly, three times.

The door opened and a very ordinary man stood in front of her. He smiled.

‘Can I help you?’

She had practiced her reply many times.

‘I have a Gutenberg Bible. I heard there was an archive where it might be safe.’

‘You look like you’ve had a tough journey. Come on in.’

#

Menhenick and his colleagues seemed delighted to have new company. He was enthusiastic to show her the vast, cavernous underworld below the modest building on the surface.

‘The process of organizing such a vast archive will take centuries. The business that established this facility was cynical in the extreme. Knowing that most of what came in would never be looked for again they simply piled it in. They forgot that, seen again or not, it was important, otherwise it would not be here.’

Marrak ran her hands along a shelf of newly translated and printed material.

‘Do you engage with this stuff? I mean, beyond archiving, does any of it interest you personally?’

He smiled.

‘Most of it is like everything else, but I have dealt with a few amusing pieces. We found a package recently that had been deposited in a rural bank shortly before a major world war on earth. The receipt for the deposit was signed by several members of prominent families in the town. The pack contained substantial amounts of paper cash; in the currency of the enemy their country would soon be facing. I studied the families in question and they remained influential for several generations while none of their neighbors ever knew that their grandparents had been feathering their own nests, even in the face of a foreign invasion.’

He looked at Marrak, his face now serious.

‘It is a small anecdote but it demonstrates how important information is. If anyone in that bank had told the town what its most notable citizens had hidden away, things would have been very difficult for those families. Information is the most ubiquitous of things, the easiest to record, and that which the powerful are most fearful of. Hence their constant obsession with concealing it. An obsession that never succeeds.’

Marrak unslung her rucksack and remove the bible. She unwrapped the book and held it up to him.

‘This is one of the most important books ever printed and I want to ensure it is never thrown into the flames. Can you help me?’

Menhenick looked the book up and down as if it was a penny paperback at a second-hand book sale.

‘We have many early printed books and you are correct, this is important in the history of printing. But you seem to have a more intimate attachment to what is just paper and ink.’

Marrak was outraged.

‘Just paper and ink? It’s a Bible.’

Menhenick merely smiled, once more.

‘I understand. A sacred text. We will take care of it but it will simply become another part of The Archive.’

Menhenick took the Gutenberg Bible and placed it on a high table behind him.

‘We will look after it, believe me.’

The immensity of his lack of understanding suddenly overwhelmed her.

‘Menhenick, that is not just a book, it is…’

‘We do not doubt how sacred this document is but we are also confident that your God is perfectly capable of recreating it anywhere and anytime it is needed. This is an archive, not a church.’

#

Marrak walked under the feeble rays of Barnard’s Star. The Archive had no vehicles to take her back to her stricken capsule, but had given her plenty of food, water, and assurances that her Bible would be cared for. She sighed. It clearly meant little to them, beyond its notoriety and seeming danger to the powerful.

She stepped out of the valley of the Archive and was awed by the landscape in front of her. She had not once looked back on the journey in, vision still blurred by single-minded purpose. All this beauty shrouded from her on that walk.

She could call for rescue when she reached the capsule but, smiling, she realized she was in no particular rush right now to be anywhere other than here.

She sat down and prayed quietly.

~

Bio:

Bob Johnston lives in Scotland where he scribbles, reads theology, and marvels at the country’s beauty when it isn’t raining, which isn’t often. He likes a good story; ancient, old, or brand new and tries to create good stories of his own.

Philosophy Note:

The inspiration for this story is the censoriousness of recent years, and the Bowdlerising of old established titles. None of this is new, but one does hope that these waves of narrow-minded banning might eventually come to a stop. Philosophically the piece addresses the conflicting human drives to protect knowledge and to suppress it, and whether those who protect it need to be particularly interested in it.

Fiction

Combustion

by Bob Johnston

Carver hung out over thousands of meters of nothingness and suddenly realized he didn’t want this assignment. Not for all the phlogiston in the three worlds was he prepared to be dangling by a rifle strap from the weakening hand of his squad leader. And then suddenly another hand appeared out of the rolling mist to haul him back onto the narrow ledge. And even as the voice of their point man announced that the target was within reach Carver felt the purpose fill him up again, just as the bowel loosening terror subsided.

The squad continued to move round the curved wall but a sudden burst of noise told them that the target was already being restrained. As Carver stepped onto the flat platform, he could make out figures struggling in the mist. He ran forward just as the squad leader turned holding a small glowing bottle.

“Get that physicist up here, Carver.”

“Phlogiston?”

“I think so.”

The prisoner suddenly jerked and threw his captor off. In a moment he had risen and grabbed back the bottle. With a smooth spin he threw the cap off and tipped the entire contents down his throat.

Everything stopped, everyone stopped, and every man and woman adopted pretty much the same facial expression, that of a rabbit caught in headlights while picking someone’s pocket.

The prisoner turned slowly and let the empty bottle fall into the ankle-deep mist.

Finally one of the squad spoke for everyone else.

“Oh bollocks!”

The prisoner pulled off his head-dress, eyes wild and triumphant.

“The very essence of combustion, my friends, and in moments it’s going to be all yours. Brace yourselves people, this is going to be memorable”

His belly filled with a substance stolen from a government installation and extracted from the very fires of reality, the very spaces between atoms, the very spark points that brought the universe into being. He prepared to launch the fatal counter-strike they all knew only too well.

Only for a faint, and distinctly wet, belch to replace the expected flames of creation. And the life seemed to crumple out of him as he slowly collapsed to the ground. Two troopers grabbed him while the squad leader fished about in the mist for the dropped bottle. He found it, raised it to the poor light, and then cautiously sniffed at the rim.

Then he turned to Carver.

“It’s another wrongly labelled bottle! Carver, get onto base straight away and tell them we’ve found another of the missing samples.”

Carver stood dumbly for a moment until the penny dropped and his eyes went straight back to rabbit, headlights and pickpocket wide.

“Holy Spirit?”

The squad leader just nodded and looked down at the restrained man, whose eyes were now a solid, opaque white. A gentle, unpleasant froth was oozing from his mouth.

“They’ve got an hour to get here. After that we’ll be wishing it was phlogiston he took.”

He sighed. “Holy Spirit. Damn. Why is there never a theologian when you need one?”

~

Bio:

Bob Johnston lives in Scotland where he scribbles, reads theology, and marvels at the country’s beauty when it isn’t raining, which isn’t often. He likes a good story; ancient, old, or brand new and tries to create good stories of his own.

Philosophy Note:

Despite science’s bold claims about logic and systematic thinking, most great ideas started out like most terrible ideas. In this story I describe a world where the long debunked phlogiston theory actually works, alongside other ideas, and where science and theology are parts of the same intellectual framework.

Fiction

The Year After Creation 7530

by Bob Johnston

Vladimir handed over his diplomatic token and walked past the guard. The interior of Hagia Sophia was cool after the searing sunlight, but light filled the magnificent space and he felt the familiar warmth in his belly. It was not his first time in Constantinople but he had only ever walked around the cathedral before. It was the model for every church in the lands of the Rus and the Romans, but everywhere else they were pale imitations of this glory.

The service would be packed, but mostly with invited dignitaries from around the two allied empires. He presented himself to an usher and was politely taken to his seat. He smiled as he sat, three quarters of the way back from the high altar and discretely out of the way. Protocol had placed him precisely where he belonged, a Rus brother but neither a Roman nor someone of especially high rank. He relaxed. He was here for the annual commemoration and having no official functions suited him just nicely.

A Kievan magistrate was seated beside him, his chains of office glittering in the light pouring down from the dome and in through the many windows. Vladimir greeted him in formal Rus manner, which the man replied to, but then made it clear that he too was here for the event and not for chatting. Both men went back to studying this masterpiece of architecture while the seats around them slowly filled up.

The Romans began arriving as fashionably close to the beginning of things as their status allowed. Their various robes were ostentatiously grander than those of the Rus guests but Vladimir was aware of inverted snobbery among his people. Their garments were of the finest manufacture, but deliberately given a peasant cum soldier look.

A dignified silence fell as officials began gathering on the wide marble chancel. And everyone stood as the Roman emperor entered. He was preceded by three assistants dressed in magnificent robes which would have graced Justinian’s court fifteen hundred years earlier. Each was carrying a book which they placed side by side on the wide oak lectern. The emperor then motioned the assembly to sit.

Vladimir studied the robed soldier on the chancel. Theophilus the 9^th. A soldier born of soldiers and yet a great administrator, a friend of the people, a diplomat. Vladimir approved. Rome had suffered too many times under corrupt and weak leaders. One could only hope that Theophilus might ignore the biological urge to pass the crown onto his son. The Rus had long since used adoption to ensure good succession. Ironically they had taken the idea from the Romans.

“My fellow Romans, my Rus kindred, my Frankish and British guests. Welcome. Today is the 29^th of May, in the 7530^th Year After Creation. Or for my friends from the north-west 2022 Anno Domini.” A polite chuckle rolled round the vast space. The emperor raised one of the books, a battered object in a tattered light brown dust cover. “Gibbon’s ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’.” He shook his head and gently replaced the book. The second book was tidier. “The Quran.” He put this down with a little more reverence and lifted the final book. “The Christian Bible, containing the scriptures of our Jewish friends.” He set it down.

“Around our empire, and that of the Rus, today we remember the events of the 20^th of May 6961.” Again he smiled in the direction of the Franks and Britons who politely smiled back. “The 29^th of May 1453. The day the Roman Empire came to an end…” He paused and lifted up Gibbon’s book “…according to this document. And the end of the Roman Empire was brought about by the followers of the faith described in the Quran.” He put down Gibbon’s book and briefly lifted the Quran. He then walked round the lectern and stood in front of the gathering.

“Gibbon’s book describes, in a language that does not exist, the destruction of our empire over half a millennium ago, and the western territories a thousand years before that. We all know how the book arrived, dropped by a disembodied hand into the middle of an ecumenical council in this very city a century ago. Likewise the Quran, easier to understand because it is written in the language of our Arab allies to the south, dropped by a disembodied hand reaching out from a hole in reality.

“It took years to decipher Gibbon’s book, its language having to be built from dialects of German injected with elements of our beloved Latin and Greek, as well as contributions from the language of our Frankish friends. But difficulties aside the message was clear. The church was a huge factor in the destruction of this empire, presumably in some other world, and someone there was trying to warn us. And another faith dealt the final blow.”

He went back round the lectern and lifted the Bible.

“This was once a center of our communal life, but no more.” He replaced it, again carefully.

“I Theophilus, Emperor of the Roman people, Consul of the Roman Senate, Caesar Augustus, preach a sermon of personal tolerance. Believe what you will, but do it in the privacy of your hearts. We have seen the destruction of our world in some other version of reality and we will not see our beloved Rome similarly destroyed. You will stand.”

The assembly got to its feet.

“Repeat after me, there is no God.”

The crowd repeated the phrase.

“There is no son of God.”

Repeated.

“There is no spirit of God at work within us.”

“There are no prophets of God, and never have been, sharing the words and commands of God.”

“If there is an afterlife it is no part of God’s creation.”

“The universe is us, our families, our nation, and our emperor.”

Vladimir looked across at the Catholic Franks and Britons and saw their discomfort as this inversion of a Christian service played out. He turned his attention back to the emperor, betting to himself that all the old disputes between the eastern and western church must seem like wasted time and paper now. He dutifully repeated the denial of faith, loudly and clearly in his best Greek.

“Rome is eternal. Rome has no need of gods.”

Theophilus instructed the assembly to sit.

“Rome is 2775 years old. Its center moved to this great city fifteen hundred years ago, and our Rus friends like to think of their beloved Kiev as a third Rome. It is an idea I encourage. Many cities of Rome, but only one Rome, strong, steady and eternal.”

#

Vladimir made his way to his accommodation, his head still spinning from the beauty of Hagia Sophia and the sheer audacity of this annual anti-religious gathering. The cult of no-God had grabbed the empire in a matter of decades, but then again Rome had always been prone to latch onto religious fads. He wondered if this strangely religious atheism would survive Theophilus, but then noticed a flyer pasted to a wall. A race was starting shortly at the Hippodrome.

It was the 29^th of May 7530 and his employer, a well-connected supplier of rock oil to both the Romans and the Rus, was not expecting him back for days. He might as well enjoy his time in the great City for once. As he turned in the direction of the Hippodrome a flight of aircraft roared overhead, followed quickly by another, all six heading south. Another man watched them disappear over the Bosphorus and then turned to Vladimir.

“I wonder what those Persians are up to now?”

Vladimir nodded, reached into his cloak pocket and quietly squeezed the small Rus Bible he always carried with him.

Persians to the east, always testing Rome’s resolve. For a moment his thoughts turned to that Quran, handled so respectfully by the emperor, and those thoughts rolled above and across Persia’s westernmost reaches to the little known or understood lands of the Arabs. “Rome is eternal,” he whispered to himself. Clearly not in the world that had given them those two books that had turned this world upside down. He looked back at Hagia Sophia, drank in its beauty, and then went to bet on a few horse races.

~

Bio:

Bob Johnston lives in Scotland where he scribbles, reads theology, and marvels at the country’s beauty when it isn’t raining, which isn’t often. He likes a good story; ancient, old, or brand new and tries to create good stories of his own. A sample can be found on his website bobjohnstonfiction.com.

Philosophy Note:

As a Christian clergyman who is often baffled by what people believe, when compared with what passes for orthodox belief, I have wondered in this story if non-belief can be religiously embraced. The story also takes the fall of Constantinople on 29th May 1453 seriously because I don’t think the ramifications of that day have been fully played out yet.

Bob Johnston

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