1
Zeke had been ready to fly for a number of days. He had elaborately set up the large gravity sail with twenty-four, separate, heating elements, all hose-clamped to the tubing at regular intervals. He sleeved the twelve electric leads in a heat-resistant ducting material. The twelve leads were plugged into three, four-socket, power boards, which were in turn plugged into three power points on the wall. He allowed enough slack in the leads so that the gravity sail could rise freely to the limit of the hold-down straps. The bucket seat hung in the centre of the geometric, metallic contraption.
He could have performed the experiment on the 19th of March, but Doyle couldn’t make it that day. He could have done it on the 20th or 21st, but Adam couldn’t make it on those days because he was attending a dental seminar in Sydney. In the end they all managed to get together on Sunday, March 22, 1992.
It was late afternoon and the three of them were relaxing in Zeke’s shed, doing their favourite things. Doyle needed to step out for a moment, for the usual reason. The other two joked with him,
‘Gee, Doyle, I could set my watch by your excursions.’
‘Maybe you ought to get your prostate checked.’
‘How tragic it is that you boys don’t have anything better to worry about other than my natural bodily functions.’
When he returned, he commented,
‘It’s getting dark outside. I think there is a storm brewing.’
Within a few minutes, they began to hear the tap tap tap of the first raindrops hitting the corrugated-iron roof of the shed. Like all tin sheds, it amplified the sound of the rain like a drum. As the noise of the rain became louder, the three men engaged themselves in casual conversation. Zeke walked around his construction checking the electric leads, the heaters and the plugs in the wall. He had done this at least a hundred times already, but he always seemed to find another reason to do it again. He had chosen the musical track he wanted to listen to while attempting to become the first Earth-human to gravity fly. It was Stairway to Heaven by the iconic, English band Led Zeppelin. For the occasion he also wore his favourite, all black, Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
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When he satisfied himself that all was in order, he sat in the swing seat, which hung within the framework of the sail. He grabbed the two, angled uprights in front of him, like they were the uprights of an A-frame of a hang glider, and swung himself side to side and forward and back.
‘I really think that I can control this thing with weight shift.’
Doyle, who was lounging on a pile of old hang-glider sails and was quite stoned by then, queried,
‘I wonder if Liberty’s space ship was controlled like that?’
‘Not a chance, Doyle,’ Zeke answered. ‘A weight-shift gravity ship like this one would have to be strictly terrestrial. You’d need the gravity of the planet actin on the pilot, creatin weight to shift around, to control it. The pilot would be weightless in space, so it wouldn’t work there.’
‘What about mass?’ Adam queried. ‘Wouldn’t the mass of the occupant of the space ship have to be zero in order to withstand the insane accelerations?’
Zeke thought about it for a while, then answered,
‘If an object can be made massless it would take next to zero energy to accelerate it.
Also, it would have no inertia and therefore would experience no force of acceleration.
That has to be how they accelerate through the speed of light. They zero their mass. It can’t be anythin else.’
Doyle sat up and recalled,
‘I read somewhere that some physicists believe that mass is nothing more than a vibration, that even matter is just a vibration. I think it’s called string theory or something.’
Zeke responded somewhat dismissive,
‘Mate, string theory is one huge wank, just like religion. It can never, and it will never, be proven. It can’t be. It will always just be a theory. That’s why they all jump on it.
They can’t find any other way to get famous or influential, so they get into somethin that can’t be proven or disproven, like string theory or bloody religion. Mate, there are no such things as strings. It’s all bullshit. Mass is caused by gravitons interactin with matter. The same thing that causes gravity causes mass. In fact, mass is the primary effect, an gravity, or weight, is only the secondary effect. Mass is not dependent on weight. Both the mass and weight of matter is dependent on the field of gravitons. In space, somethin weightless still has mass. That is because it is still in a graviton field. When matter interferes with
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the flow of gravitons, an inertial effect is created, an it’s called mass. Matter outside of, or shielded from, the graviton field has no mass whatsoever. Why should it?’
Doyle scratched his head, irritated.
‘Jesus, Zeke, who can keep up with your crazy logic. You know, we haven’t spent much time talking about how Libby got here and where she came from. When you talk about Libby you’re talking about an interplanetary astronaut. Just think about it. Think about her reality, like her navigation abilities for example. Her skills and her knowledge had to be beyond our comprehension. And her technology, I can’t even find the bloody words.’
Zeke fantasised, ‘I wonder what her ship was like, what the controls were like, whether she could see out, where she came from an what it’s like there?’
‘I wonder if all the women on her planet are as gorgeous as she was?’ Adam added.
Doyle grinned and said, ‘I hope they’ve got a soft spot for old bastards. I hope they’ve got a couple of soft spots.’
‘You’d be so lucky, Doyle, but you can dream.’
‘We can all dream, Adam, in fact that is all we can do.’ Doyle changed the subject.
‘So, what are you going to want us to do tonight, Zeke?’
‘You mean with the experiment?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Besides just witnessin the world’s first, human gravity flight, I’ll need you to control the power points. When I say switch em on, you switch em on, an when I say switch em off, you switch em off. You have to be ready to instantly react to my instructions. I’d do it myself but I won’t be able to reach the bloody things. Other than that, we’ll cross every bridge as we get to it.’
Doyle enquired further,
‘What exactly do you expect to happen?’
‘Well, Doyle, ultimately I hope to lift off the ground. How it’s gonna happen, how hot it’s gotta get, how quickly it’s gonna rise, is anybody’s guess. I hope to end up hangin a foot off the ground bein held down by the seat-belt straps.’
‘Shouldn’t we take a photo of that?’ Adam suggested.
‘No!’ Zeke replied, shaking his head. ‘That’s how these things get out. It’s only a good thing while nobody knows about it. I wouldn’t recommend any photos at this stage.
Maybe later. I don’t know, what do you guys think?’
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‘It’s OK with me, Zeke.’
‘Me too. Who’s rollin?’
‘I’ll roll,’ said Adam.
‘Don’t you like me pipe, Doyle?’
‘Oh yeah, I like your pipe, Zeke, but, you know, sometimes it’s nice to just smoke one on your own.’
Adam recalled, ‘Remember that stuff of Libby’s we used to smoke?’
‘Oh, mate, how could I forget? You wouldn’t have believed it, Doyle. It was the most different stone. It felt like every cell in me body was comin to life. An me pain stopped, an I felt like I was floatin. An the oddest thing is that a tiny bit of that feelin has stayed with me. It’s still there. I can still feel it.’
‘Yeah, Doyle, I feel it too. It only took one tiny puff out of her little white pipe and it felt like someone filled me up with warm water.’
‘Cut it out, boys, you’re making me even more envious than I already am. You can’t imagine how much I wish that I had met her.’
2
As the evening wore on, the rain falling on the iron roof of the shed became heavier and heavier, saturating the workshop with loud noise. Zeke looked at his watch, then at his friends and, in a raised voice, declared,
‘I suppose now’s as good a time as any.’
Adam and Doyle watched him check the contraption one last time. The noise from the rain on the roof was becoming almost deafening. Just as Zeke was about to insert Led Zeppelin’s audiocassette, Doyle yelled out,
‘Hang on a sec, Zeke, you got an umbrella in here?’
‘God, Doyle, now, you gotta go now?’
‘I want to be relaxed during the experiment, OK, so can both of you get off my back!’
Zeke handed Doyle a large, golf umbrella. As Doyle opened the shed door, there was a bright flash of lightning and a loud crack of thunder. Adam exclaimed,
‘Jees…us, that was close. The storm seems to be getting worse.’
The violence outside only had the effect of exciting Zeke even more. There was another loud crack and the boys could see a lightning bolt strike the ground through the small, side window of the shed.
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‘Wow! Did you see that, Adam? That wouldn’t have been more than a hundred yards away. Doyle better watch it standin out there under an umbrella, he might get fried.’
Within a minute, Doyle was back.
‘Did you see that? The lightning struck the ground less than a hundred yards from me. I nearly crapped my pants.’
The thunder cracked again and then again as the boys observed the white light of multiple lightning flashes strobing through the window.
‘It’s getting biblical out there. How safe is this shed, Zeke? Maybe God is not entirely happy with us. Maybe we shouldn’t be messing around with this stuff.’
‘Keep your shirt on, Adam. If the lightnin hits the shed, it’ll go around us.’
The violence outside was rising to a manic crescendo as Zeke slid the Led Zeppelin cassette into the player. He looked at Adam and Doyle. Their faces were highly contrasted in the single-point light source of the solitary light globe. He could see a hint of apprehension in their eyes. He gave them a big smile and screamed out his instructions before pressing the play button.
‘Cause it’s gonna be so noisy, I’m gonna have to give you hand signals instead of verbal instructions. When I hold me hand out like this, it means switch the power on, an when I hold it up like this, it means switch the power off. You got that?’
Adam replied at the top of his voice.
‘Got it, Zeke. Out is on and up is off. Good luck buddy, let’s hope it works.’
Adam and Doyle positioned themselves next to the power points while Zeke pressed the play button on the cassette player. He cranked the volume full up, pulled a pair of heat-resistant, welding gloves over his hands and sat in the swing seat. Suddenly everything around them became larger than life. They heard the music begin. It was so loud that it felt like it was going to blow the shed apart. First the acoustic guitars sounded their crisp notes, then the flutes came in, then the lyrics.
Zeke looked at his friends, right in the eyes, and held out his hand. Adam switched on the power to the twenty-four heating elements. They heard multiple thunderclaps outside. It sounded like bombs were falling. Every so often there was a bright flash, its light briefly lighting up the dimly-lit workshop through the small, side window. In that light, Zeke looked like a crazed scientist, with body bent and distorted, face scarred and dominated by a black eye patch, and hair, long, blond and scraggly, that stuck out out like he himself had been plugged into the 240 volts. His good eye burned with blue light and
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his face possessed an expression of intense excitement as he began to live out his life’s biggest fantasy.
The boys observed all the heaters begin to glow red hot, transferring their heat to the steel tubing of the gravity sail. Zeke lightly touched, but did not grasp, the angled uprights to see if they were getting hot. He looked at his friends and smiled, nodding his head, when suddenly, faster than suddenly, in less time than the blink of an eye, accompanied by a deafening bang and a bright flash of lightning, he and the gravity sail literally disappeared right from before their eyes. Rain began to deluge into the shed through a big hole that had suddenly appeared in the roof. Doyle and Adam were thrown back against the wall as roofing iron rained down on the shed and all over Zeke’s back yard. Looking through the hole, they saw another blinding flash of lightning. They lay there on the floor, momentarily frozen in shock. The rain, falling through the hole, was beginning to soak their clothes. Their eyes bulged with astonishment as their brains desperately tried to comprehend the meaning of the unexpected event. It was Doyle who first managed to get some words out.
‘Switch em off! Switch those fucking power points off!’
It took a moment for Adam to react. Most of the heaters disappeared with Zeke, while some of them got ripped off the sail and were sparking on the wet floor in the centre of the workshop. Adam scrambled to the power points, grabbed a handful of leads and ripped them out of their sockets. The music stopped. Both men sat there in total shock and complete disbelief. The realisation of what had just happened slowly began to dawn on them. Zeke and the gravity sail were gone. It seemed like the experiment worked too well. It seemed like Zeke and the gravity sail got shot straight up, straight through the roof. There was now a huge hole in the roof letting in a deluge of rain, soaking the two men to the skin. After a brief moment of stunned silence, Adam screamed out at the top of his voice,
‘Zeeeeeeeeke, Zeeeeeeeeeke.’
Doyle struggled to his feet. He made an instant observation.
‘Look, Adam, the bolts got ripped right out of the concrete. Quick, let’s look outside, he might have come down outside.’
‘It’s too dark to see out there, Doyle, we’ll need a torch.’
Adam scrambled to his feet and screamed out into the darkness,
‘Hang on, Zeke, we’re coming.’
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Both men desperately searched for a torch amongst all the junk. Doyle expressed his frustration,
‘It’s so bloody dark in here. Why doesn’t Zeke get some more light in this fucking dump?’
‘Here’s a torch, Doyle, get the umbrella.’
The rain was still falling very heavily and there was still an occasional flash of lightning, welcomed now by the two desperate searchers as it briefly lit up the surroundings of the shed. They searched the whole cleared area that was Zeke’s property, calling out his name at the top of their voices.
‘I can’t see him anywhere, Doyle. There’s just the roofing iron everywhere.’
After about five minutes, it became clear to them that Zeke had not come down anywhere in his yard.
‘He might have come down somewhere in the bush, Doyle.’
They shone the torch into the darkness.
‘He could be anywhere,’ commented Doyle. ‘He could have got shot into outer space.
He could have hit escape velocity and be on his way to the next galaxy.’
‘We should call somebody, to help search for him …’
Doyle turned towards Adam, shone the torch directly into his eyes and, with a stern voice, interjected him mid-sentence.
‘We can’t do that! Do you understand?’
‘What? Why not? We have to find Zeke!’
Doyle grabbed the front of Adam’s shirt and pulled him towards himself.
‘We don’t call nobody, got it?’
‘What’s got into you, Doyle? Have you lost your mind? I need to help my friend!’
Adam pushed Doyle away. ‘He might be dying out there.’ Adam pointed into the darkness, desperation beginning to creep into his voice. ‘He’s my mate and I’m going to find him, and you can do whatever you want. You’re a bloody idiot, Doyle. I’m calling the police and you can go screw yourself.’
Adam ripped the torch out of Doyle’s hand and turned to walk into Zeke’s hut with the intention of calling the police and reporting the incident.
3
The next thing he could remember was being woken up in his bed by the incessant ringing of the telephone. At first, as he opened his eyes, he didn’t know where he was. His
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vision was blurred. His first realisation was that he had a vicious headache. He felt the back of his head. It had a huge, painful lump on it. He winced as he felt it. Everything was a blur. He struggled to his feet and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen. The phone did not stop ringing. He picked it up and answered,
‘Ugh … hello?’
‘Doctor, it’s Rose. Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for a day and a half.
I’ve been worried sick. I’ve been cancelling your patients, one by one. Where have you been?’
‘What day is it, Rose?’
‘Why, it’s Tuesday, doctor. You’ve missed a whole day of work. Where have you been? Are you OK?’
‘Ohh … sorry, Rose … ahh … ah … Rose …’
‘Yes, doctor?’
‘Rose … ah … could you please scratch the rest of the day … and Rose …’
‘Yes, doctor?’
‘Rose … would you be so kind and scratch tomorrow as well. I don’t think that … agh
… I’m going to be able to make it tomorrow either.’
‘Are you all right, doctor? I was worried sick about you.’
‘I’m fine, Rose … ah … I had a little accident. Got a bump on the head, but I’m fine now.’
‘You don’t sound so fine, doctor.’
‘Really, I’m OK. Thanks for looking after the surgery, Rose. I’d be lost without you …
really.’
‘It’s my job, doctor. You don’t know how much you worry me sometimes. Please be careful, please.’
‘Thank you, Rose, I will, thank you. I’ll call you tomorrow. Thank you again. Bye, Rose.’
‘Bye, doctor.’
He hung up the phone and looked at the clock. It said 10.39 and apparently it was Tuesday morning. His head hurt and he realised that he was very thirsty. He drank a glass of water and put on the kettle for some coffee. He looked out the window at his front yard and the beach in the distance. It was one of those perfect, calm, autumn mornings. The sun was shining bright and the ocean looked like turquoise glass. He noticed a small group
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of surfers sitting off a clean, three to four foot, left and right peak. He wasn’t really thinking though. His brain was completely stalled. The sound of the boiling water brought him back to the kitchen. He made his coffee and stumbled back to his bedroom. He sat down on his bed and sipped his coffee staring at the blank wall in front of him. After a couple of minutes of not thinking anything, he lay down, placed his sore head on his pillow and fell into a deep sleep from which he would not awaken until the following morning.
…….
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