Science Fiction Books
--the first novel in the Certainty Principle Universe
2020 1rst Place Winner: Best in Category, Chanticleer International Book Awards contest
A geology grad student with a spiritual bent and a mystic from the Pleistocene find a modern skeleton in ancient rock and must risk their growing affection to save the world from an unexpected danger lurking within the laws of physics.
Cover Blurb
Jen Hewitt, a quiet geology graduate student, doesn't actually believe in time travel. Were it possible, rocks from the age of dinosaurs should already be cluttered with artifacts from future time-tourists. Nevertheless, she proves with fellow geologist Jonathan Renner that a human skeleton encased in Pleistocene rock came from their own time. Their work, coupled with fundamental research by physicist Susan Arasmith, reveals an unexpected character to the universe that carries them from the safe world of science into a struggle with powers and possibilities they hadn't imagined. The three friends, along with Kar-Tur, a frightening mystic from the ancient past, learn that discovery is sometimes as much about faith as knowledge, and that friendship and love are often found where least expected.
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Sample Chapter, Chapter 1
I fussed at my hair instead of
working with it, turning this way and that in the mirror and finally choosing
to believe it was fine. Brown could only be brown and straight was only
straight. I pulled my peach sweater over my shoulders, a nice complement to my
hair that I d chosen to wear even in the warm Southern California air. It
might, after all, get cool tonight at the open-air restaurant Jonathan had invited
me to. In any case, I wasn t entirely at ease in the shoulder-baring dress I d
summoned the courage to wear.
A date, for crying out loud. Why
a date? If we just went out together like graduate school buddies, it would be
fine. His quaint insistence on paying my way tonight completely transformed
the experience.
I liked Jonathan and felt excited
to see him for the first time since he took the faculty position at Burns
College. But he was a friend, nothing more. I considered whether I should
tell him as much tonight but was afraid he might be hurt. Even more afraid our
date really was just buddies reuniting after a time apart, and I d look
ridiculous.
Probing my feeling a bit deeper, I
wondered if I resisted telling him because he was an important professional
contact for me, having already taken a first job, while I still had a year hopefully
no more to go on my Ph.D.
I hoped I wasn t that cynical
yet.
Regardless, I really didn t want
a date. I felt uncomfortable mixing friendship and romance. One was sure to
end up losing both.
I heard his knock at the door and
bounded from my chair, hoping to jump-start my inner enthusiasm with outward
buoyancy. A flash drive containing my day s calculations lay on the table, and
I grabbed it to drop off at my lab in the geology building on the way to the
restaurant. I wondered briefly if I really needed to make that extra stop at
the geology building or if I used my work as a way to polish the sharp edges
off my nervousness.
Humph I said aloud to no one
but me. Just quit obsessing. And, listening to myself almost not at all, I
met Jonathan at the door.
***
The restaurant he picked truly was
delightful and the night lovely. I found myself seduced to an inner quiet by
the bright stars and the susurration of the waves about fifty yards from our
table. Jonathan didn t seem hurried to talk. I imagined that perhaps the
evening would pass in good company and few words, and I relaxed a bit more at
the prospect.
His eyes drifted away from the
shoreline, just making its final disappearance into the gathering gloom of
night, and toward a loud and slightly intoxicated group of people at a nearby
table.
Do you ever wonder what other
people, ones you don t know, are happy about? he asked.
I looked at my friend of four
years with new interest. I did think about such things. It surprised me that
he did.
I smiled and nodded, feeling no
need to speak, perhaps a bit afraid that if I encouraged intimate conversation
it might stir whatever motives he had for asking me on a date. I wondered for
a moment if I should be interested in him as more than a friend. With his fit
5 10 frame, dark hair and eyes, he wasn t unhandsome, although that seemed
rather feeble praise for a friend to grant. He looked sufficiently distinguished
when not wearing his quaint and goofy field hat the one I teased him about when
we did field work together. And he was certainly intelligent.
But I felt no overwhelming
romantic urges. I wondered if you were supposed to feel some irresistible
impulse toward the person you were meant for.
What do you think about alien
visitors? He turned his fierce gaze on me, catching my eyes into his.
I smiled at his effort to start a
conversation. He always spoke forthrightly and often abruptly of what he
thought, which always made me believe he had no hidden agendas, no secret plots
for how to use people.
Do you mean aliens, like, from
outer space? I raised my brows.
Sure, he said noncommittally,
inviting me to choose my own interpretation.
Aha. I paused a bit, sipping
from the tea I had ordered as we awaited our dinner.
As a geology professional, I
think there must be no other intelligent beings in the universe. I grinned,
letting him know I was being silly with the geology professional bit. Or
perhaps it s simply impossible for intelligent beings to travel the stars.
Either way, there are no aliens visiting us here on Earth. If there were other
beings, intelligent beings able to traverse space, the Earth s rocks would be
filled with evidence of their presence here. A million years is only a moment
to the universe, but an eternity to the expansion of a technologically
intelligent race. All the universe should have long since filled up with
them. The Earth would not only bear the mark of their exploration, but of
their colonization. They would be here, and not us.
And, I continued, By the same
measure, there will never be time travel. Otherwise the rocks of the age of
dinosaurs would already be filled with the petrified refuse from an eternity of
future time-tourists."
I paused for his response, my
eyes crinkling as I held back a grin. This was one of the more enjoyable aspects
of graduate school, the expansion of ideas and testing of reasoning that took
place in half-jesting, half-serious intellectual sparring over supper, or in a
stairwell, or in a lab late at night. I wondered if Jonathan missed it.
Jonathan didn t answer
immediately. He seemed rather more sober than he had as a grad student when he
had been quick to leap into the verbal fray. He started to speak, but stopped
as though unsure what to say or, perhaps, whether he really wanted to say it.
I wondered if my somewhat silly intellectualism had turned him off.
Our meals arrived, and Jonathan
turned to his with such delight that I thought he must be relieved at the
interruption.
Jonathan relaxed with the meal,
and we reminisced about our grad school days. They were still very present for
me, but Jonathan seemed to have already developed a melancholy attachment to
their memory, although he d only finished last spring. When conversation
lapsed, we watched the stars, enjoying each other s company and the universe we d
chosen to study.
We took a walk along the beach
behind the restaurant, finding a few shells tossed up by the recent windstorms,
shells that the endless swarms of beachgoers had somehow left untouched for a
day or two. A grove of palms stood near where the restaurant property went
down to the sea, and we lingered there for a while.
We talked
casually, pausing now and then as we listened to the waves. Several times,
Jonathan became sober again, as he d been before our meal was served, and he
seemed about to share something that weighed on his thoughts. Each time,
something else came out, or he turned his eyes back to the sea and fell quiet,
allowing both his sudden intake of air and intense look at me to simply breathe
away. By evening s end, I grew quite curious about his behavior.
I felt somewhat awkward, fearing
that I knew what he wanted to talk about. I thought seriously of preempting
it, by commenting, perhaps, how glad I was that we were friends with no
romantic entanglements with each other. But I didn t, hoping that any
potentially-awkward revelations would not emerge.
Jen, he began as we leaned on a
palm tree watching the waves sparkle in the light of the just-risen Moon, I
didn t bring you here just to maintain our friendship, which is certainly
valuable to me. I have an ulterior motive. I think I need your help, as both
a friend and geologist. Your advice at least, and maybe your collaboration.
My heart
crossed from a mysterious combination of hope and fear to relief as Jonathan
spoke, relief especially that I had not announced uninvited that I was only
interested in him as a friend. I realized with chagrin that I was unsure
whether I felt happy or disappointed that my fears of his romantic interest in
me proved unfounded.
What kind of help? I asked.
My question earlier about aliens
wasn t a casual one. He paused for a long moment, searching out into the sea
for his words. I ve found something.
At your field area in Wyoming?
I knew he was working in Quaternary rock, much too young for my interests.
He nodded. Suppose I were to
tell you that I ve found evidence of ancient alien visitation. Or found
something unusual anyway. Something not ordinary in the rock.
I haven t told anyone else yet.
I m not sure if I m afraid the Caltech folks will steal my thunder, or if I m
just afraid everyone will think I m a nut. But I don t know what to do with
it. I think I m even a little scared of it. Does that make sense? It s
really not even in my field. I m no anthropologist.
What have you found? I prompted
when he said no more.
I ve found something...odd. A
human skeleton in partially lithified shale, in the Atosoka Formation. I,
well, I measured several bones in the skull and found that the dimensions are
almost modern. It s a woman, apparently quite old when she died.
Why is that odd? I brushed a
wayward lock of hair from my eyes. Late Pleistocene, I d expect the skeleton
to be of modern appearance, at least within the variability common to our
species.
I found it in the Atosoka
Formation, he repeated. And the skeleton seems to be buried there, not
deposited naturally. There are he paused again, belongings with it.
I remembered that the Atosoka
Formation was a lake deposit, not a typical place for a burial. And with an
age of nearly forty thousand years, it was also a bit early for humans in North
America, especially ones who buried their dead. My eyes were just beginning to
widen with comprehension when he added, clearly delighted with himself, or on
the border of hysteria.
And the old-time radio I found
buried with the skeleton was a bit odd too.
