Presenting a retrospective guest post from the late Anthony P. Schiavo, Sr. who would have been 90 years old today. Anthony, or "Speed" as he was known in South Philadelphia, enjoyed science and science fiction. However, it irked him when the fiction prevailed over the science, and occasionally later in life, when the science precluded the spiritual.
In this parody short story that first appeared in the Tarpeian Rock 2003 issue, Speed skewered a familiar franchise that, he felt, played fast and loose with science and spirituality a little too often. I hope you will enjoy...
Did you ever notice that most science fiction that makes it to television just assumes that eventually, empirical data will be discovered that precludes the existence of the spiritual realm? What if....
“Let go you elf-eared adding machine! What in hell are you doing? I have to use the damned MP. Let go, that’s an order!”
Timothy Janus Jerik, captain of the SpaceWagon CHARTER II, was furious. Despite extraordinary effort—arms flailing and legs straining—First Intellect Aloo Nyvac, held him helpless in the Thoran Clutch. For some reason, Nyvac was preventing him from getting into the Molecular Projector. Obeying Jerik’s order, Nyvac released him but stood in his way. Jerik was dumbfounded. He was used to bizarre theories and actions from Nyvac’s Thoran personality but this was going too far.
“Look Nyvac, if you’re going to mutiny, have the damned courtesy to use your bLaser. What am I supposed to put in my report? That my wagon was taken over by the use of superior Greco-Roman wrestling?” Jerik was well known for retaining his sense of humor under almost any circumstances. Angry as he was, he had not missed the absurd appearance of the scene he had just played. Besides, there was no real threat to his command. He knew there was a reason. Though he might not understand it—there was a reason. But he was in a hurry.
“Okay, what in hell’s bothering you? You know I have to get down to New Hawaii. You brought me the report from the Gidget Surf and Turf Colony yourself. Do you realize how serious it is? The Supreme Court of New Hawaii has actually repealed the Laws of Robotics! ‘Highly discriminatory’ they said! The genes of the Ments have all been reprogrammed. LoMent public servants are out of control. They get to work late, leave early, work poorly, and are surly and unresponsive to the public. And they’ve been calling in sick. Sick! LoMents! I’d like to know who thought that using surplus low mentality androids for public service was a good idea.”
“Probably the same humans who thought that citizens taking turns on the Supreme Court was a good idea.” said Nyvac. But he didn’t smile and he didn’t move.
Jerik snorted at Nyvac’s comment. “No agricultural permits are being issued down there. Farming may as well be illegal. It’s threatening to turn into a disaster for the cocopinada crop. If we don’t move quickly, it could even turn violent. Besides, we need enforcement $tarBucks badly. We may have an environmental and social cleanup charter but we’re supposed to be paying most of our own way by a little mercenary arm twisting—exactly what they need on New Hawaii. We can’t pass it up for one of your bizarre morality attacks.”
He pointed to the insignia on his shirt—a connect-the-dots drawing of the Wide Bucket constellation as seen from Olympus enclosing the words CHARTER II. “Do you see this? Do you know what recruits are doing with it? They clip the “R” and call our wagon the 'CHAPTER Eleven' Chamberpot! I’ve been told it’s a big laugh at Space-Navy Headquarters.”
Uncharacteristically, Nyvac looked pained. “Captain, if Earth is any example, important things get done without public servants and permits; even in spite of them. Besides, history shows that we have almost eighty years to get down to New Hawaii before annihilation of the bureaucracy begins. The skuttle will be repaired in two days, you can use that and still arrive in time. It will take me only a few minutes to explain why you shouldn’t go there or anywhere else by the Molecular Projector for any amount of $tarBucks."
“Nyvac!” Jerik growled. “What is your problem? We have gone back and forth by MP between the CHARTER and planets and asteroids and other wagons and....Sure we’ve had some malfunctions but we’ve survived, a couple of thousand trips each maybe. You used it this morning! Why are you afraid of it now all of the sudden?"
“Actually Captain, your record shows twenty-seven hundred and thirty-four projections and mine...”
“Okay, okay!” Jerik knew argument was useless. “You can have your few minutes. But when you’re finished, I’m getting into the MP and projecting down to New Hawaii, understood?”
There was silence. Nyvac looked at Jerik with a friendly professorial face, tilted slightly. Jerik however seemed to be having a convulsion. Then, eyes bulging, face aflame, he howled, “Sooooul? Sooooooul? You almost crushed my liver, you’re going crazy and trying to drag me with you to save my soul? Do you think MP stands for Mephistopheles? You don’t have enough jobs on this wagon, you want to be the damned First Theologian too? There is no such thing as a soul, there is only matter, energy, and their properties. Everything else there is doesn’t exist. I mean, nothing else exists! Look at that, you’ve got me doing yogiberries.”
Nyvac seemed to grow calmer as Jerik grew more explosive. “I chose the word soul to distinguish it from anything physical. Call it what you want Captain, there is something in us not of matter or energy. If you prefer, let us call it ‘being’.”
“Call it ‘being’ or any damned thing you want—but demonstrate it exists or drop it.”
Nyvac was prepared. “Captain, let us try a thought experiment. Think about this. You’re standing in a bare chamber facing a black wall with a red wall at your back. God or a device or chance or something we can’t imagine has created an exact physical duplicate of you which is standing in exactly the same position as you but opposite, facing you and the red wall. What do you see?”
Jerik knew that he had to let this run it’s course. He answered as expected, “I see a man who looks exactly like me standing in front of a black wall.”
“Now consider the same scene except that you and your duplicate are in reversed positions, you are standing with the black wall at your back and your exact duplicate is standing with the red wall at his back. I ask again, what do you see?”
To his credit, Jerik did not hesitate or hedge, he again said what was expected. “I see a man who looks exactly like me standing in front of a red wall.” He was hoping to use Occam’s razor to slay the troublesome ‘being’ as an unnecessary concept, but he was getting worried.
“But Captain, the two situations in the chamber are physically identical. Every atom and sub-atomic particle, photon, quark, neutrino, graviton, ephemeron, everything inside the chamber is in the same position and in the same state in the first scene as in the second—yet you are seeing a different colored wall.”
A human would have waited for this surprising point to sink in, but Nyvac just went on. “What is different in those two scenes, your being and that of your duplicate, cannot then be physical. All sentient creatures have a being—but not made of matter or energy.
Although Jerik was expecting the unexpected, he was still surprised by the trap he had fallen into. But he was calmer now. He decided not to debate the conclusion of the thought experiment of the chamber but rather to the extension of that conclusion to the Molecular Projector. “Okay Nyvac, you can have the damned soul or being or whatever. How does the MP kill it when a spacewagon, or skuttle, or elevator, or slamdunkstick doesn’t?”
Captain, may we try another thought experiment?
Jerik glared but nodded. “Sure, why not. I had so much fun with the first one.”
“Captain, if the Molecular Projector transports you down to New Hawaii with a missing atom which is substituted for by an identical atom from the planet, who arrives on New Hawaii?”
Jerik was no fool. He spotted the trap in this line of reasoning immediately but he wanted to see how Nyvac played it out— to see how and if his mind was working. “I arrive there, replacing an atom is of no consequence.”
Nyvac continued as expected. “But what if ten percent or fifty percent or all of your atoms are replaced by identical atoms on New Hawaii. Who arrives there then?”
“It’s still me Nyvac. As you yourself said, my being is not physical. Besides, my being arrives or it doesn’t. It can’t arrive in part. If one atom causes no problem, then two or three or any number will not cause a problem.”
“But Captain, if none of your atoms need to be projected, what must be projected?”
Jerik was not as surprised this time. He even had a counter argument. “Look Nyvac, maybe the crucial part of what it sends is information, how to put the body, and therefore the being, back together.
“But Captain, if you could be projected down to New Hawaii by just sending information, why couldn’t the same information be sent to Olympus and to Earth assembling you in two or three different places from the matter there? And if they did, which would be the real Captain Jerik? Would you feel confident that any of them would be you? How do we know that the Molecular Projector has the ability or even attempts to send your being to the destination if reassembling your body creates a perfect duplicate who’s sure he’s you?”
This was getting complex. Jerik decided to return to basics. “Listen Nyvac, I don’t care what the MP can do, I know what it does do. It doesn’t make copies, it disassembles objects and puts them back together at the destination. It’s the same as taking a skuttle down except the atoms are scrambled on the way for logistic purposes.”
“True. Objects are physical and therefore may be disassembled, projected, and reassembled. But conscious beings are unique. We are the only unique objects in the universe. A perfect physical copy of the Mona Lisa is interchangeable with the original but a perfect copy of a person is not interchangeable with the person. Indistinguishable yes, interchangeable no. The Molecular Projector does just what its name says, it projects molecules, nothing more. That which makes us unique, the being, is left behind, disembodied, destroyed. The thread connecting being and body once snapped can never be repaired.”
Jerik could not see a flaw in this argument but viscerally he remained unconvinced. He switched his defense to psychology—a field he was better at than logic and certainly better at than Nyvac or anyone else on the wagon.
“Nyvac, do you believe that these arguments went unnoticed till now, till you thought of them? There are many brilliant scientists in SpaceNavy. If your conclusion is correct, how could SpaceNavy not know? Why wouldn’t they do something about it?”
Jerik had an answer but he wanted to be sure that Nyvac had the same one. He was beginning to see risks for himself where Nyvac was going. If he got there, it could be the end of Jerik’s career or worse. A Captain who wouldn’t use his Molecular Projector would be ridiculed into retirement. And one who told others why was in danger of losing more than his command. On the other hand, he had found that risks often presented opportunities. But he had to know for sure. He waited. He knew Nyvac’s avalanche of logic or slide into irrationality would soon be over.
“Captain, The Molecular Projector was a spectacular success. It worked better than anyone had imagined. It was dependable, accurate, near light speed, and produced no known harmful effects in many decades of use. It was almost as important as Whip Drive to the conquest of space.
“But just because something is desirable doesn’t mean it can be done. If SpaceNavy was to execute its mission successfully, it needed to have almost Godlike powers. Molecular Projection, the ability to pass sentient beings almost instantly through deadly or normally impassable territory was one of those powers. If it appeared to work, that was good enough.
“As of this morning, the Molecular Projector has saved the body of Captain Jerik sixteen times in twenty-four point six two Earth years. Without it, your life expectancy in this command averaged less than one point five four years. SpaceWagon captains need much longer life expectancies than that.” Nyvac then adopted a very personal and serious tone. “Tim, the Molecular Projector kills. It kills the person it is to send and assembles a perfect copy at the destination. Since the copy has all of the memories of the original, it does not know it has just been created. The Captain Jerik who was to take command of this wagon over twenty-four years ago never arrived on board. Two thousand seven hundred and thirty three other versions of you are also gone. You are less than six Earth days old. I was created this morning...”
“Happy birthday.” interrupted Jerik. But he was only momentarily amused.
“...but pre-pubsecent.” said Nyvac matter-of-factly.
“Good God!” said Jerik. “I didn’t know.”
“Lack of arsenic, which I’ve since corrected. But that’s what got me thinking about Molecular Projection.”
A Nyvac he didn’t recognize had put Jerik in a box with no apparent way out. He had been in such boxes before, however, and he was beginning to see a golden crack in this one.
But before Jerik could respond, Nyvac’s eyes unfocused. Looking right through the captain and said, “Nevermore.” And then, “Tapping, tapping, gently tapping, tapping at my chamber door. ’Tis a being, nothing more. Snap snap snap snap, two seven three four, Captain Jeriks nevermore.” And he began to cry quietly.
Jerik looked at his old friend sadly for a moment. Then he spoke softly into the intracom. “Joints, Mac, Deacon, get up to the bridge, I have to ask you all something.”
Dr. Stetson Hatfield, affectionately known as “Joints” was a former Toledo chiropractor. Only Jerik knew that his nickname didn’t have anything to do with his old occupation. Youthful escapades with now high ranking officers in SpaceNavy including Jerik, had helped him rise to Chief Medical Officer on a Spacewagon. He was the first to reply, “Okay Timbo, be right up.”
“Six one eight five, only one is still alive," sobbed Nyvac.
“Sixty one hundred and eighty five projections? Joints?” said Jerik incredulously.
Chief Engineer, Sark MacCutty was known as the best wagon mechanic in SpaceNavy. “Aye, Cap’n” he responded, “and I’ll bring your watch, it only needed a battery.”
“One two two six, nothing he can ever fix.”, wept Nyvac.
First Theologian, GrandDeacon Jimmyson Skaggrat, serving the needs of believers in well over two hundred religions, cults, superstitions, and assorted bizarre and demented philosophies, was one of the very few of his vocation to avoid disintegrative schizophrenia. He still only had one personality and it was a survivor. He answered cautiously, “You want me on the bridge Captain?”
“Zero zero zero zero, Deacon Skaggrat is no hero,” muttered Nyvac.
“That’s what I said,” Jerik snapped impatiently, “your Holiness...is required to settle a question that has come up.” Jerik knew his verbal recovery was ineffective but he didn’t care. He didn’t like Skaggrat much but trusted his scholarship if not his integrity.
In a few minutes, Hatfield stumbled smiling onto the bridge where the others were waiting. “What’s up Timbo?”
“Mr. Nyvac has raised very serious physical, medical, and metaphysical questions about the operation of the Molecular Projector. If he is right, the fate of SpaceNavy may depend on our resolution of this matter. If he is wrong...” Jerik trailed off with reluctant resignation. I want to get some technical, medical, and philosophical input on this before I make a decision.
“Mac, you’ve studied, repaired, and used the Molecular Projector many times. How do you feel about it? Do you think it’s safe?”
MacCutty answered with visibly injured pride, “Cap’n, it’s the most shipshape MP in SpaceNavy. It’s in perfect working order. I just oiled it myself.”
“No, I mean theoretically safe.” said Jerik.
“Cap’n, the scientists who designed the MP make even Mr. Nyvac look like the proverbial galactic idiot. No question has ever been raised.”
Hatfield did not wait to be asked. “Tim, it’s safe as in a mother’s womb,” he responded—an expression popular and accurate until the late twentieth century. Never one to let a foolish remark stand alone, he continued, “Except of course for MP lag on long hauls of a season or more. I remember a Whip Shot I was on...”
“Okay,” interrupted Jerik who had no idea what Hatfield was talking about. “You’re sure it’s medically safe—no harmful effects whatsoever?”
“Hey, it’s the only way to go Timbo. I take it everywhere. Boy do they jump when I pop up in the can.” Hatfield looked at Nyvac and shook his head. “If Nyvac’s broken up over the MP, you’d better put him ashore. He’s sure as hell got the Thoran MindSnap, ol’ Alzheimer’s supremissimo.”
Actually, as Hatfield well knew, the Thoran MindSnap was nothing like Alzheimers. What snapped in Thorans was the capability, the strength of will, to maintain perfect integrity, perfect logic, perfect loyalty. Though Hatfield now refrained, he had been fond of telling Nyvac that the MindSnap wasn’t a disease but a miracle—it turned a machine into a human being.
Unfortunately, snapped Thorans made very weak, overemotional ‘human beings.’ SpaceNavy service was impossible.
Jerik turned to Skaggrat with a question, but not what he had asked the others. That Skaggrat had never used the MP told Jerik what an honest answer would bring. Instead, he tried for a dishonest answer which might in some way help Nyvac. “Deacon, can the soul be separated from the body and the body survive while the soul dies?”
Skaggrat, anxious to please but still cautious began, “As you know Captain, I am an Ecumenical Theo...” but was interrupted by Jerik.
“I don’t want to know what the FooBoos on HooPoo think, just tell me what you think! You’re supposed to be the damned expert."
Skaggrat proceeded using a minefield strategy. “Well Captain, no. No, of course not....Body and soul are inseparable till death...when the soul separates for the transcendent journey....” Seeing no approval on Jerik’s face and guessing he was going down the wrong trail, he went on, “which we have been told of in the great religions...but of course we have no certainty, as there has never been a demonstration that the soul even exists...” Getting a nod from Jerik on this direction, he descended even further into faithlessness and agnosticism, “or even that there is a God anymore...or ever was for that matter.”
Jerik was appalled but satisfied.
Nyvac roused himself. He started saying, “Tim, maybe you’d better explain...” but he was interrupted by Jerik with his best SpaceNavy Academy, well practiced, Captain’s command decision manner.
“First Intellect Nyvac is relieved of duty immediately for medical reasons. His loss on the bridge means that I must remain here for the remainder of the voyage. Because his MP-phobia and breakdown may disturb the crew, Mr. Nyvac will be held incommunicado till we reach Olympus where he will be put ashore for medical treatment by skuttle. I will accompany him to see that he is properly cared for. I don’t expect to be back. I have very good reason to believe that I will be offered a SpaceNavy High Command position on Olympus—I will accept. That way I can continue my career and also keep an eye on Mr. Nyvac.”
Jerik silenced the expressions of protest and admiration with his hand. “For now, Joints, I want you and Mac to get your gear and go down to New Hawaii right away. Read the report. The cocopinada crop at the Gidget colony is threatened by a loMent insurrection.”
“Whoa!” said Hatfield.
“No!” said MacCutty.
“Hellfire!” said Skaggrat.
Cocopinada nutfruit juice was the best legal kick in the galaxy. The men were outraged at the loMent’s behavior. Jerik summed up their mission, “Find out what in hell’s going on and fix it before they do it themselves. And bring back two Mega$pacebucks, no less. If they’ve got a cash flow problem, take it in cocopinada.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n.” said MacCutty.
“All right, Timbo!” said Hatfield.
Jerik looked thoughtfully at Skaggrat for a moment, smiled and said, “You too Deacon. You can lose your MP virginity and give those loMents a fiery dose of old time religion with one trip.”
Skaggrat hesitated and then shouted the first sincere “Halleleujah!” of his life. Having read thousands of religious tracts, he was very uneasy about using the MP and had been able to avoid it thus far. But the thought of a cocopinada-laced holiday on a worldly paradise had blown away his anxiety. All three were pleased to get such shore duty and although it was an unusual mission for them, they were still surprised at their sendoff. Everyone had an icy cocopinada, normally banned in space, and as the three left, Jerik shook their hands firmly and patted them on the back. Nyvac embraced them tearfully.
“Don’t worry Cap’n, we’ll handle it.” said MacCutty.”
“Shalom.” said Skaggrat.
“Snap!” said Hatfield, tapping his temple, winking at Jerik, and fading to a broad grin like the Cheshire cat as they dissolved, disassembled by the Molecular Projector.
To the best of my knowledge, "Speed" never used a Molecular Projector and when his soul finally left his body in 2019 after 87 years, it was the first and only time. Please remember to pray for his happy repose.
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