* * * POETRY * * *

To begin, it was an ebon, a void;
A nil, sans space/time/gravity;
No matter.
There was no mass, no light, nay;
It was the Un in no existence,
Yes, until:
Until the BIG BANG, a big and a
Theory t'was.
The passant of the years in the
Billions, creating a unity universe,
Non-adverse.
A universe in unity...At the BIG of
The BANG, so a fait accompli in
Universe creation.
Where before its reality was too
Far, and it was far too wee to let
Us see.
But the BIG BANGING around, it had
Only relativity in its singularity, all
Of it when it began to hang around
The universe.

In the later years in the billions,
Vanity's myopia became ours, with
Our fear of the crushing of our ego.

All alone we thought we were; but,
most of it was there before us, ere
Our
Anthropomorphic fears of limits in
Our universe.

Can we escape our MATH SET limits?

Poets need not be mathematical, nor is
Poetry the literary form of sadness, it's
     ever intuitive.
Only is it sad as it is so appropriated.
Metaphor is the language of intuition,
     Beyond math.
Because metaphor expresses the chaos of
Reality as intuitively perceived out
     Beyond math.
Of itself math can not be the object,
It can only be the symbol language, as
     it computes.
What is the radius of the totality of
The universe, the coincidence of four
     base forces?
Of four base dimensions known, as man
Takes mind intuitively as the fifth of
     Dimensional force.
Metaphors of all language is the symbol
Of the mind's intuitional abilities, as
     It leads out,
Beyond the exactitude of the higher and
Higher symbology of what is called in
     Metaphor, math.
A great math mind is also great at using
Intuitively, to use math as metaphorically
     In symbology
Else the exactitude of area confusion, as
Korzybski's map is not the territory, nor
     Math the area.

What is the spirit of the human? We have the art done by
     Prehistoric man in the caves of France.
We have the stick figures of the hunt and human artistry on the
     Rocks in the SouthWest United States.
Pottery from all over the orb, through thousands of years; it cries
     out from the spirit that is human down through
          The ages!
It says, "Look at me! I am Man/Woman, and I am expressing my
          Desire
     To be more than man has ever been, or will ever?
Men and women still bend their minds, their hearts to the task
     Of expression, to the need to know fulfillment.
Today, today it's done for pay, which tends to distort the process
     Of self-expressing, to the need to know fulfillment.
          Of one's self.
But the desire to be , to rise above the mundane, to make a
     Statement,
          Even to occasionally make a fellow being laugh,
Perhaps incite to tears occasionally, or to be thoughtful all
     Alone, and
          Cause growth a bit from what we offer to have read,
Of what we create, and yet we tend to finally give it all away
     For a dollar,
     or two or ten dollars, to bury our talents unto the day?

For man, in his spirit, pictures came first;
     Before words.
For man, pictures remain, abstract in their essay
     to communicate.
Words evolved over the aeons from man's ability to
     Picture his world.
Words are most commonly used for sere communicating,
     for boredom.
Yet words can be used to paint pictures, a certain
     Abstractness.
And we call it art; the right to write, to essay to
     Communicate.
To make contact with a higher form of self that seems
     To be in us.
Many men and women bend their minds, to this art task
     for expression;
To this need for fulfillment...the use of pictures and words
     To be used in
Conjunction, to reinforce meaning...abstract communication
     In what is called art.

A ship,
Its billowing
Sails fluttering above
The ponderous sea, the Beast;
The heavy of water-the light of air,
All around the bobbing conveyance;
A ship by frail man built, and
Ever it is horizon seeking,
Fleeing the wind with
All sails set.
Aspen so
In
The wind.

* * * FICTION * * *

Tausana

by
James B. Baker
Copyright 2001

Tausana was on the planet that had been named Esperth by her father; whose name was Clarke. Esperth was destined to be the home for the enclave of the Hominem ESPERS (humans capable of ESP) from the planet Earth.

As she had descended from orbit over the northern continent of Esperth, sifting down through the clouds, Tausana had hovered over the vast plains of that flora covered continent. Her ESPERense wove itself into a semblance of sight in those perceptual areas of her brain and pierced down into the vast sea of grass. It was low-forest tall and, though she scanned, she could not find any sign of macroscopic fauna there.

Microscopically there were myriads of beings on each stalk of grass and in the soil around the roots of this singular form of life. The thick loam was from each year's seasonal death of grass.

Disappointed by the lack of macro-seizure of fate by any form of fauna, Tausana continued to drift out over the southern sea on this beautiful re-imaging of a Terran replica.

Far over the southern horizon soon there appeared a new land, a small continent. As she approached, it appeared to her to be about the size of Australia. Her father had told her Australia was the one continent on Terra the least affected by his, Clarke's induced holocaust prior to the birth of Tausana's generation.

Tausana was now fifteen years old and was mature, as though a woman of twenty.

It seemed to Tausana as if it was only yesterday that she had tried to be a Lockhead among the new savages on the continent called North America.

As she approached the continent in the South Sea of Esperth, Tausana lowered her ESPERense down into the forest she now found there just below her.

As she levered herself down, settling beneath the canopy of the giant trees, she was awed by the vast size of each of them. Where grass ruled the prairies on the northern land mass, the forest seemed rule much of the continent here below her. Each bole was a mighty torso capped by great fronds far above the ground, at the apex of the tree masts. She named the continent, Austropsi.

It now seemed sacrilegious to her that she maintain her hover under such Les Majesty. She let the pull of Esperth's gravity to gradually take hold, to pull, and to hold her to the ground. She strolled about, on lush loam formed by aeons of life and death, decay under the canopy of that vast forest.

As she strolled she lost sight from her grey eyes, using only her psi-sight to view her surroundings. She pierced below the deep bark of each tree, seeing there wormy ants and other macroscopic beings.

To the marrow of her bones she felt the silent song of the forest. Here in this land vacant of sapiens, she didn't have to maintain the neutron cloak over her nudity, for there were none of her kind to see and to commit sin in their minds. She began to dance a faun-like dance there on the forest floor. Happily, she laughed. On the Lockhead Earth, her laughing would have been considered as the laughter of hysteria.

Here on Esperth, with only her ears to hear and for her to consider, it was the laughter of an ESPER in total possession of her entire being. Knowing the joy of her creativity, she looked ahead to the future when she knew she would dance the dance of creation with a future lover; being the dance of anticipation for the present.

As she danced, she slowly became imbued with and into the paean of the forest. Finally, her high capering began to slow as she had again unconsciously slipped the bonds of gravity. Her vast leaps and their heights now became truly Esperth bound, and she was again strolling, musing and remembering.

She remembered that long, short time ago; when she had tried to be a Lockhead.

The Lockhead camp was just ahead as she drifted over it. She was happy that the kids she had been looking for were playing in the circle formed by the ring of tepees. She watched, hovering to the north of the camp; just above the high, huge and new continental, North American, fault ridge.

As she moved close to the edge of the glade, Tausana drifted down into the pine forest. On the forest floor she released her body to the pull of gravity. As she stood four-square just like a Lockhead, she could still see the high of the fault ridge through the pines.

She was to the north, the prairie part of the old State of Colorado, just where the plains began to hint at breaks into the foothills; foothills that led toward the distant peaks of the Rockies which were a far distant backdrop to the west, capped by the white of snow.

Roger, in the camp, felt the stir of a small breeze and glimpsed the dazzle of a sunbeam's sparkle and he knew. He thought, they're here, or at least one of them. He smiled in his mind as he solemnly intoned, "I am Emperor Jones. I'm leading the tide of Empire westward again. Beware, for I will be your conqueror in two years' time. I come."

His use of a title right out of a book of fiction from pre-holocaust days startled Tausana and the sparkle of her imperfect prism screen stopped two feet from Roger.

She often spent a deal of time in the library in the new town of Marina at South Lake Tahoe. There she read the books as fast as she could turn the pages; but, she was not up on the mundane things of the Lockheads' world. She didn't know that the conqueror of the east was called Emperor Jones. He was actually an old friend of her father, Clarke; and an old friendly adversary of his. That was when the two of them had still been Lockheads in the pre-holocaust days.

Roger prepared to leap by shifting his feet, but the adrenalin induced expectancy in his conscious mind alerted Tausana and she shot skyward on the wings of her ESPERense. In the process of reading his thoughts, she read his name and of his primitive awareness of her presence.

Tausana also picked up his slight psi tendency of maybe a three on her private scale of rating ESPER tendencies and potency. From high up she watched Roger lunge and hug the empty air where she had just been. Grinning, she drifted north out over the river that now flowed from the northwest to the southeast along the line of the new fault ridge. This new river ran into the changed course of the Mississippi River where it now bulged eastward into old Kentucky, where previously there had been an easterly river bend.

Roger was aware of the superior smile on the little redheaded girl's face, for he was always aware of Malci, and annoyed because of that awareness. He knew that there would be girls in his future, but mostly the awareness was subliminal, helping him to keep the awareness from his consciousness.

From the edge of the forest, Tausana watched the play continue as the redness of Roger's face slowly changed. He was alerted to her being in the vicinity now and she understood why. She mended the glitter glitch in her thin-prism energy screen, so that it now bent light away from her one hundred percent.

She couldn't bring herself to help it, she lightened herself enough for the easterly breeze to move her slowly in among the playing toddlers again.

She became aware that about two of the other children also had a touch of ESPERense; but not enough for measurement, except by an ESPER, such as herself. She saw uneasy frowns and fidgeting. It made her careful so as not to be bumped as the group played around her. She watched the unconscious avoidance by the few perceptive ones.

Roger did not try to avoid her, knowing by other means just about where she was. He stopped playing and stood still. The others quit trying to tag him. "Be still!" he said. He cocked his towhead, which was much the same color as was Tausana's, even to the grey eyes. "Did you hear it?"

The group thought he was asking them, but he was speaking directly at the empty air where Tausana stood. It caused her to grin.

Malci said, "What? I didn't hear anything."

Roger laughed, "I heard the snap of a twig and the rustle of feet through the grass. A man knows such things."

"You're a boy," Malci said. "Humph!"

"That's all you know." Roger thought he was being funny.

"Momma says all I need to know is the difference."

Tausana giggled out loud as Malci made a viciously perceptive remark. She tried to smother the giggle.

"Who giggled?" asked Roger.

Malci replied, "I wish it had been me."

Other children replied, "It wasn't me."

The last one left said, "Not me."

Roger made motions through the air.

Malci cocked her head in the pretty way she had seen her redheaded mother do to use on her father, "What's that, boy?"

Roger smirked, "I'm inventing a new dance for when I become a hunter next year."

Tausana retained her laughter inside this time as she spitefully pinched Malci. She was aware of Roger's unwilling fascination with the little redhead.

Tausana decided it was time to leave, so she soared off into the sky. She listened to the group patter through Roger's ears and she heard Malci, "Ouch! Did you pinch me, Roger?"

"Did I what, Malci? I'm off over here."

"No, I guess you didn't. But then who pinched me?"

"I could tell, but, I won't," Roger said.

Malci retorted, "I'm going to tell Momma. I'm turning black and blue, I can just tell."

Roger stepped forward, "Let me see."

"No way, Roger. You stay away. That's private."

Malci blushed as the group laughed at her remark and they chanted, "Roger's sweet on Malci."

"The song of power that sang in Tausana's head seemed to be also be in her blood and was the fulcrum with which it was literally possible to move a world. After all, her father, Clarke had done it once and had to do it again to move Terra back into its proper orbit.

It never occurred to Tausana to question her ability to apply the power and to make things happen. It just was. It was her birthright and also of those of her peer group among the younger generation of the ESPER hominems. It was nature's superior power, the power Mother nature evolved species toward by way of mutations, the cap of all sources of power in the physical universe, the fifth power. It was possible for her to use this fifth force as a catalysis for her ESPER sense to writhe the other four base forces of nature into different configurations. The fifth power controlled the gravity of the universe, the electromagnetic force, the weak and the strong forces, moving them around as she needed them to do any given task at hand.

It was a twist of fate, so to speak, In Tausana's head and all of the heads of all of the ESPER heads of the ESPER enclave, of both the converted Lockheads and the naturally born ESPERS.

The song of power sang in the minds and the blood of them all. It was only in the minds of the converted Lockheads, such as Clarke, that it even occurred to them to use and be of the fifth force, to grasp how it worked.

How could it work otherwise? The mind was of flesh and blood; a very fragile organic instrument. There was no way any great surge of power would or could be fed through the mind. Certainly, one might build a construct on how to support one's local sheriff, or the local wizard; how to use a shotgun, or to cast a spell to protect one's flesh and blood.

But then again, one might not.

Tausana materialized inside the house on Telegraph hill. Her mother, Tau, stood there too as if she had been waiting for her daughter.

"Ah, yes, little one, it is you. Where have you been?!"

Tausana smelt the anger which hung in the room. "Out and about, Mother."

"I asked, young lady, and I expect a civil answer."

"I was out floating over the forest."

"You've been warned time and again about that. We cannot be seen."

"I know, Mother, I was bending the light around me. They couldn't see me."

"Tau pounced, "They? Who couldn't see you?"

Tausana smiled inside, "Any normal who might have been out hunting, Mother."

"Be careful, Tausana. You're up to something."

"Oh, Mother!"

"Don't use that tone of thought with me or you'll be having a thought session with your father, little lady. You know how fearful he can be."

"Yes, Mother, I know."

She did know how fearful her father could be. She fell into a brief reverie as she recalled that Clarke was also a deep one and that he would often forgive her when Tau would not. The occurrence of her mother's name in her mind, made her mindful of her mother and her present mood.

She considered Tau to be shallow, for Tausana could read her mother's mind while keeping her own shielded to any degree necessary to keep her personal, girlish secrets.

Tausana considered herself to be better than any of the first generation of the converted ESPERS, over from Lockheads, and better than most of the first generation of naturally born ESPERS, such as herself.

Tausana knew that Clarke and Jalena, of her immediate family, were better than was she and each of them considered themselves to be one in ten thousand ESPERS; and Tausana to be one in a thousand ESPERS.

Thea, who was thirty-five hundred years old was an anomaly and it was almost impossible to estimate Thea's Esper ability. She had had so much experience with the use of the fifth power over the eons.

But Tausana was good enough that not even Clarke could get below her consciousness unless she willed him too. He could, of course, force his way in; but, he knew that if he did he would be destroying a fine, delicate mind. It was as Jalena had destroyed the dolphin that she had known for a few hours as a friend. That was the year that Jalena was fifteen. The dolphin and she had agreed to call him Josh and she had mooned around for two years after she had caused Josh to convulse and to die, from blood bleeding into his brain; a hemorrhaging.

Clarke could never do that to any of his own or to any human; nor would he likely do it to any sentient, unless it was life or death for him or one of his own, then he just might and certainly he could.

Clarke and Jalena were tens. Tausana thought of herself as a nine and one-half. She rated Tau, her mother, as a five and one-half. Hesitantly, she classed Thea, the ancient one, as a nine. All of this on a scale from one to ten.

It all had to do with their E.Q.s, or their ESPER Quotant. Tausana felt that most humans had some E.Q., but most were not of a measurable quantity.

Tausana's musing caused her to smirk and it made her mother angry, "Don't be so superior. I make up some of our difference in ESPERense with experience, child. I'm not the ESPER your father is, nor your half-sister, Jalena; but I'm not a Lockhead either. Don't treat your elders with contempt, for you just might need one or the other of us someday. There were tears in Tau's eyes as she turned away from her precocious daughter, "Wish I'd never met him."

"Who him? Mother, would you really wish me out of existence?"

"Your... Oh, never mind; you'd never understand."

"Mother, I do. You mean Clarke, my father. He used to be a Lockhead. We all know that."

"Yes, child, I know, but that was a long time ago, long before he had to induce holocaust. Who knows?"

"Jalena knows."

"Sure. She knows everything. She knows how many-- Oh, I don't care, Tausana, if you can read my mind. There are just things that you are too young to understand. It doesn't matter just how much book knowledge you have."

"Ok, Mother, but I don't willingly read your mind, except when we're thinking together, as now."

"You let too much of the liquid of your emotions splash over into the basin of your consciousness.

"That I can't help you with, Mother, only you can."

"I know, Tausana. But-" Tau was bemused as her eyes turned inward toward the past, "Well, my generation--while we were still Lockheads--were the product of the openness of TV. It taught us that our children should know about the good and the bad of sex as it affects the temple, which is made up of the body and soul.

"Sentience, intelligence is important. Psi, ESPERense is important. But, even as ESPERS we are subject somewhat to our emotions. Your resentment of the ESPER community--"

"Who told you that, Mother?"

"Uh, is a case in point. You did, dear. Your ego makes you careless. The reason for one's childhood is so that you can make mistakes in a protected environment and hopefully you will learn from them. You must learn to control your emotions, no matter what I can or can't do, and control your erratic desires. On occasion they are one and the same, like Einstein's matter and energy interchangeability.

"The ego can lead a child into dangerous byways; like in the exploration of sex and as in the use of drugs to make the thrill of it all the more binding; that's as drugs were used before the holocaust.

Such things start as a hunger and they can lead one into addiction. Many of the Lockheads are still addicted to various drugs." Tau was crying silently, "I don't know just what dangers await the teenage, second generation ESPER. Do you?"

'No, Mother, I'm just getting there myself."

Sadness was in Tau's voice as she replied, "It would be a putdown for such as myself, the original members of the ESPER enclave; but, no, that's not all I'm afraid of. What scares me the most is what the future might hold for those of you of the second generation of ESPERS. That's what really scares me. Yes, I'm scared. There are no precedents for us."

Tausana had no answer for her mother. She did what she was prone to do. She flickered out of existence in one place on her way to someplace else. She went at the speed of thought. Her mother's house was on the last hill in old San Francisco that still stood high enough to hover above Clarke's induced flood. Tau could have done the same thing, except it left her queasy; especially when she witnessed each time how effortlessly Tausana did it.

Tau stayed home, there alone in her little house; still standing from 1898 atop Telegraph Hill. For Tausana the house was mostly a way station as she flashed about the world in her restless, rebellious way.

Here I try to restrict her somewhat, Tau thought, but I always fail. She leaves me here alone most of the time. Leaving me wondering when it was that I lost my child."

The night of the little one's birth had been typical. She jarred me out of my post-natal shock when she spoke to me, mind-to-mind.

I was staring down at her, staring into the focused eyes of my new born child, when the child's signatory mental tone colored itself inside my head, Momma? I'm a Tausana. Momma! I'm Tausana.

Those disconcerting eyes fronted that strong mind, holding my scared attention. That was the first time she made me cry. It was then a cry of joy. She had hugged Tausana, "Oh, my bab-y! Tausana? Yes, Tausana, you are."

The strong-willed child had selected her own name, attached to her mother's name, Tau.

Because of those memories, Tau shed more tears there in the silence of her small, empty house. She had answered her own question. She had never had any control over the child. So, did she really lose her? Only Clarke, the father, could control the wilful child. Tau thought, Clarke and I, we have to talk.

In the library at Marina on the Southeast shore of Lake Tahoe, down in the Tahoe Basin and out of sight of the vast inland sea which was once the great, Central Valley of California, Tausana was sitting at one of the old, heavy library tables. She was looking back into the cubicle that was her mother's home. Tausana frowned.

Much of the discontent she felt came from her contempt for this woman she loved, the one who had given birthed her, and the contempt hid much of her affection for Tau, who's full name was Tausis; shortened to Tau for most of her life.

Tausana sighed and focused again on the pages of the book she was reading, reading as fast as she could turn the pages. Again, she was distracted by the sound of the rumble of her father's voice, out of a far cubicle in the library. Clarke always affected the trappings of normal 'Lockheadedness' when in an environment that included Lockheads. Tausana felt the heavy tumble of his voice even when he spoke to her mentally.

Clarke said, "Yes, Thea, yes. I've found our new planet and I've named it Esperth. It is earth-like and it has a Sol-like sun. All of you will love it. We will be free there to communicate and to be open communally."

Thea replied, "Do we really want that? Do we want our private thoughts read by just anyone? Anyhow, when will we be going?"

Tausana sat very still.

She could have been crying for her mother. She could have been crying because she sure didn't want anyone reading her mind. She immediately recalled her early experiences with Jalena. Jalena was thirteen at this particular time and Tausana was only seven. Jalena had tried to make Tausana her mind-slave as she had been doing with others of their half brothers and sisters. She had taken advantage of Tausana's trust, monkeying with her time-clock to speed it up. She succeeded to a degree. It was one of the reasons why Tausana was so precocious, and why she refused to let anyone tamper with her mind ever again. She resented to this day Jalena's little feat of amorality.

Tausana now used her own special little talent and elided into a time pocket, just a tenth of a second off of the norm, disappearing even from an ESPER's ken.

Nancy Wong was the librarian and a good ESPER. She too was from San Francisco; but her Chinatown had been flooded out. Nancy was Jade and an oriental beauty. Her EQ did not match Tausana's, so that Tausy could look through Nancy's eyes to watch her father. It was a conscious, physical function. She was sharing a sensate function without invading Nancy's privacy.

As usual, Nancy was looking at Clarke, considering Thea an intrusion there. Even with just the surface glide of silent viewing, Tausy was still tinged by Nancy's emotional regard for the male structure that was Clarke.

They were looking at, and Nancy was drawn to, a man who was now seven feet tall, three feet wide and very thick through the chest. As a ten on the EQ scale, Clarke had gradually changed the contours and dimensions of his own body.

His face was rugged with its testimony of his many years of living, deeply grooved like the face of the moon. Though his hair was grey to match his eyes, his eyes were as laser beacons--quite penetrating.

Thea was an unknown quantity as to her EQ, for she had her eons of experience to stack against any other person's EQ. The rest of the Enclave had very few years of experience as ESPERS. It was known she was Clarke's great aunt and that made her Tausana's great-great aunt. That designation made her as distant from Clarke, genetically, as would be a second cousin. Who would have expected a great aunt to be alive, let alone tres vital or so alluring?

Like all of the other children of the Enclave and their mothers, Tausana resented Thea. She resented her most of all of the women who still mooned around at a short distance from Clarke. But Thea was the second in command of the Enclave and would be around no matter what.

Because of Thea's vast years of living, Tausana was very afraid of her. Thea also had a bit of Tausy's special talent, able to slide her mental probes into the Alta-Space, to probe without being caught.

Man's eyes are augens of passivity to convert the reflection of light patterns off of M/E groupings into familiar forms in the macrocosm.

In contrast the Esperense touched and shaped the macrocosm with its beam of the fifth force. It was a form of energy unperceived by the lockhead senses or instruments of normal man. Even the lockhead theorems lagged behind.

With a high eq and with experimentation to gain experience, an Esper could use his Esperense to pierce any matter-energy veil, be it clothing or walls or a screen of obscure light.

Tausana sharpened her enquiry through Nancy's eyes; seeing through to Thea's womanliness, that she was a blond and that she had Clarke's grey eyes. Tausy sneered there inside her time-warp veil.

It had been said that Thea's brother, John was much the same as Thea and Clarke before he was executed by the remnant of the ancient Helenic Enclave of Espers.

Tausana broke contact with Nancy too abruptly, making Nancy aware that she had been entertaining a visitor. Nancy only searched cursorily for that visitor's identity.

"I'm going to do it!"

Thus spoke Tausana out loud as she slid back into normal time, almost immediately hovering again over the camp of the savage Lockheads; savage because they preferred the hunting life to a limping village life. There near that river which formed south of the high, nearby fault ridge she hovered and remained invisible to Lockhead eyes. As far as she was concerned, she was making this a special day.

Tausana drifted down into the forest to the west of the camp. The sun was starting its demise to the west.

Tausy sauntered out of the forest, a small female of thirteen that looked to be about eleven. In among the tepees she skipped along and hummed a ditty of her own composing. She edged slowly toward the children who were running, playing and shouting in the center of the camp.

"Look-look! She's naked. Shame--shame!" This time Malci saw what Roger sensed the first time Tausana had been here.

This stopped Tausana. Her careful maintenance of her obscuring screen had failed when she decided to become a Lockhead. Seeing the breechclouts worn by the other children, she went invisible and beamed herself back to the edge of the forest, where she cast around for material to create a breechclout and bra for herself. No sooner created and she was properly clad.

In an instantl she was back where Malci had seen her.

"Malci, you lie. She's dressed like Mom. Who are you little one, from where? What's your name?"

"My name is Tausy, to my friends, and my parents were eaten by a pack of tigers back there a ways. We're from out west. My Pa was a cowboy."

"That's all we need: more girls. Tausy, what kind of name is that?"

"For you my name is Tausana, and be careful how you use it."

"Pack of tigers. You sure are dumb. Cowboy? What's that? Bet you've run away from home, and from the old village? From over the hill, ain't 'cha. You're a Scavenger and we can't play with ya. Go away, scum!" so did Roger speak.

Tausana's face was open, vulnerable as were all of the natural adepts, except perhaps Jalena; which was due to the sharing of their minds. Tears coursed down Tausy's cheeks and she took a deep, compulsive breath.

"Like all girls, crying for no reason." Roger was belligerent with girls that he felt attracted to. "All right Tausana, but only if Momma says you can stay, okay?"

"Momma?"

A statuesque young woman turned from her fire with drops dripping from her wooden spoon, "Roger, what? Can't you see I'm cooking dinner. Your father will be returning from the hunt soon and dinner must be ready. What is it, Roger?"

"Momma, I think this strange little girl has run away from the Scavenger village. Can we keep her, Momma?"

The woman dropped her stirring spoon into the cooking pot, walking over to Tausana while wiping her hands on her apron, "Little one, what is your name? You can call me Momma!"

"Momma, I'm Tausana."

"Tausana? Though unusual around here, it is a pretty name. What is your full name, little one?"

"Full name? Just Tausana, Momma."

"I see, well it is exotic. And you are a very pretty and clean little girl . . . hmmm, too clean to be a Scavenger, I would say.

"Will you stay with us, honey? When you feel you can tell me, I'd like to hear all about your folks. All right?"

"Can she really stay, Momma? Can she?"

"Yes, Roger. The two of you go and play now. I'll add taters to the pot. Tausana. That's a pretty skirt."

Roger ran back to play. Tausy floated along after his reaching gait, "Oh-oh!" She settled back to Earth and began losing ground to Roger.

The other children were playing hard, shouting and running. Tausy's shyness subdued her, keeping her from being her usual active self; for she was afraid of betraying herself as other than a normal Lockhead.

As the sun was setting, the aforementioned hunting party emerged from the trees out of the west, toting their kill on spears.

"Poppa! Poppa, Tausy can stay! Tausy can stay. I have a sister." Roger ran toward his father, shouting.

The six foot tall and heavily muscled leader of the hunting party was dark haired and had a dark complexion. He walked with the tread of a cat, soundless. Carrying his forty years easily, he held his heavy shoulders back; which pushed his bare chest out with muscles bulging over his big bones. He was at home in the cool, autumn air while wearing only his breechclout. His bare feet were hardened to horn hardness.

"Poppa, did you hear me?"

"Yes, son. Which little girl is Tausy?"

"I'm Tausana, sir."

"Call me Poppa, Tausy, like Roger does."?

"Thank you, Poppa. I'm proud to meet you."

"You're a very polite little lady. You and Roger go to the creek and wash. It smells like Momma has dinner ready."

Tausana and her adopted family gathered around the pit fire and ate deer stew, with lots of potatoes. The stew had been stretched with the potatoes, other vegetables and garnish gathered from the forest.

Tausy chewed doggedly and swallowed as she had never had to do as a practicing ESPER. Yet she wanted to be a normal Lockhead, so she chewed and swallowed like the others. She was soon surprised at the feel of physical repletion.

In the darkness of the night after the evening meal, the two children went to bed while the adults stayed and sat around the dying fire. Tausy reclined where she had been assigned. It was on a bed of covered pine boughs inside the family tepee.

In the night while trying to sleep she moved about restlessly, unable to get comfortable. Her full body weight now rested on the crude bedding and she found every lump, dip and nub that was pushing upward. Eventually, she slipped off to never-never land and was proud of herself. The sandman had finally sprinkled sand over her eyelids.

In the early dawn she drifted out of a deep sleep, into an euphoric-waking dreamland, where reality and fantasy were co-mingled. Again she nodded off into a light nap while hearing an almost indistinct rumble of adult voices. Hallucinating, she glimpsed Clarke. Then she homed in on the conversation.

"She doesn't touch, so I say she is." That was Poppa's rumble.

"I'll ask her today. If we are so blessed, so be it. She arrived here about sundown, showing scared but determined. I had no heart to quiz her then, " Momma said.

Just before the rising of the sun, with the morning light glowing in the tepee, Tausana was suddenly wide awake; realizing that she was floating above her pallet. Roger was standing and looking down out of wide eyes, with his mouth agape. "Tausy, you're of the sky people. Why didn't you say so? We'll all be so happy. You'll bring us luck."

"No Roger! No one must know."

"I'm sorry, Tausy. It is already too late. Momma and Poppa know and they have told the camp." Roger stepped out of the tepee, dropping the flap back in place, "Tausy, the sky child, she is awake."

"Call her to breakfast."

"Tausy?"

Tausy was howling as she materialized inside her mother's house. Tears rolling down her cheeks. Tau took her daughter in her arms, "What's the matter, little one?"

"Mother, I can't be a Lockhead. I tried. Why is it so hard?"

"I don't know, honey. Since I've had Lockhead practice, it would be easy for me; but, then I don't ever want to be a Lockhead again." Tau said this as she cuddled Tausana, rocking her back and forth.

After a long time, Tausana's crying wound down to sniffles and shy, dimpling smiles.

"Momma, I will just have to try to be the best ESPER I can." Tausana sniffled again, "Oh Momma." She again clung to Tau and began to cry almost as much as before.

Tau thought, "The ending of childhood is sometimes very hard."

* * * ESSAY * * *

THE LIVING OMEGA

by
James B. Baker
Copyright 2001

Any language is organized symbology, from the base alpha to the word, to the sentence; from the paragraph to the unit of communication, whether it be a poem, short story, novel or an equation.

G.U.T.? Yes, or a Grand Unified Theory.

1] "In 1976, American physicist Steven Weinberg produced a book called THE "FIRST THREE MINUTES." it described the ealry stages of the Universe, the Big Bang itself." "The story Weinberg told, about how a superdense state of primordial stuff became an expanding Universe in which atomic matter was distributed evenly across space in the form of roughly 25% helium and 75% hydrogen, did indeed end about 3 minutes after the singularity; but it also began a hundredth of a second after the singularity, not 'in the beginning' itself" "It is now widely accepted that there is a fundamental unit of time, the 'PlanckTime,' beyond which intervals cannot be subdivided. This quantum property of spacetime implies that time 'began' in a sense, when the Universe was 10[-43]of a second old." "The big bang implies the appearance, not merely of matter and energy, but of space and time as well. The bonds of gravity marry spacetime to matter; where one goes the other must follow. The big bang is the past extremity of the entire physical universe, and marks the beginning of time; there was no before.'"

Since there was no before, we will then go to the Living Omega. It is estimated the Universe is about 14 billion years old. The living end must be near for we are dealing in the trillions in our Nat'l Economy.

2]"I believe there is considerable merit in a varient of this that was recently described by Arp., Fred Hoyle, Jayant V. Narlikar, N.C. Wickramasinghe and me. In it, continuous creation takes place in a series of little big bangs, and in such a model the cosmic microwaves are generated by the galaxies and never coupled to them. This model is at least one viable alternative-"

1] From 'THE MATTER MYTH' by Paul Davies and JOhn Gribbin.[C. 1992. Ppgs 140-141..Paragraphs 1 & 2 of Chapter 5..'The First one Second'..chosen bits of quotes from those two paragraphs.

2]"The February, 1992 edition of Scientific American on Pg. 120 from the article 'WHY ONLY ONE BIG BANG?' By Geoffrey Burbidge, Professor of Physics at the University of Ca. at San Diego,a nd the former Director of Kitt Peak observatory.

The variance expressed by the three scientists in the two quotes shows there is a difference of opinion between the accredited authorities, all of whom are searching for a GRAND UNIFIED THEORY.

There seems to be three things tightly restricting the search for a G.U.T. [1]the desire to keep the Universe a curved, closed entity; but, Dr. Burbidge has reservations on this point. [2]Dr. Davies and Gribbin , they insist that space is infinitely curved the closer one gets to the singularity, which has presumably been isolated by quantum physics. There seems to be an almost universal denial that the universe could be an open universe. [3]We are massively restricted because we are very limited in our senses. Sight is our far-sensing organ and it can't see beyond the horizon of our world; or beyond the horizon of seeing so created in our universe by the speed of light. The red shift is evidence that the further Galaxies are speeding away from us at ever greater speed, to the point that the combined speed of two seperating galaxies on the opposite rim of the universal spread will eventually exceed the speed of light and lost from each other's sight. Therefore the limiting of our sensory abililities, even when massively aided, makes our Universe appear to be flat; When it is like a blimp that is being incurred with hot air; expanding or a rubberoid similarity being forever expanded, even if it is an open universe.

I believe[1] that we are part of an open unvierse, and[2] that space is not something material and it cannot be curved; [3]that when our universe dies that will be the living Omega and not a dead end; that the following described process will be the story of the death of our portion of the Universe and an on-going rebirth right to the next one. Fourteen billion years is far too short a time for something so all-encompassing to be halfway to breaking down without a chance for redemption, so to speak.

No G.U.T. can be arrived at for more than a virtual solution until it is better understood just how the next BIG BANG is going to come about. Obviously, to argue with the standard approach is to say that most conclusions so far reached are based on either a fallacious premise or some faulty data has been incurred into the equations somewhere. The virtual model says that space is curved, ergo it could be infinitely curved and could create a singularity for a closed Universe.

It does seem to me to be infinitely more plausible to this mentality to start with the assumption that universal destruction and re-birth is a continuous process.

The coming BIG BANG will be the result of the adequate gathering ofour old universe matter in some relative area of space. There can be no absolute area. Location in space can only be designated by relative positioning of the players.

Stars either burn out or go nova, while black holes in isolation will slowly bleed their gathered mass;but, suppose a black hole is never isolated and is constantly fed? Then it would wax rather than wane.

A black hole that starts at the center of a galaxy would be able to wax for an indeterminate period of time. The inverse square of its effect over astronomical distances would still limit its event horizon, but if galaxies were to co-mingle such as the Milky Way and the Large Megallanic Cloud, or more distinctly, the eventual co-mingling of the Cluster of which the Milky Way, the large and small Megallanic Clouds, the Andromeda Galaxy, plus our local group includes about two dozen galaxies all told. Our local Cluster is in turn included in a Super-Cluster, along with about 100 other clusters. Our supercluster is moving us all along toward the Great Attractor, which is behind a wall of light millions of yearss long. This movement is identified by the blue shift as opposed to the average red shift. Our supercluster is moving across the expansion path of our observable universe; mostly marked by the red shift in the detectable light of far galaxies; that is beyond our super-cluster. What if the Great Attractor is a Great Maw behind that wall of light? Or, is the wall of light the marker for the event horizon of the GREAT MAW?

If a black hole became large enough, it would eventually have to find another way to change, aside from the usual bleedoff. It enough of the super, dense sludge was clubbed together and this was the mechanism to prduce a BIG BANG for our next universal birthing; it would have an event horizon of enough degrees Kelvin[like 30 zeros of degrees-behind a 1]to instantly convert all of taht sludge to extreme shortwaves, likely unlike any we have yet detected in the ElectroMagnetic Spectrum.

If such a massive black hole was the mechanism of rebirth, then the Universe would not be one to wind donw; but, one that was ultimately consumed by A GIANT MAW.

When this Universe-sized star burst forth, all of the four base laws would be suspended, such as Gravity. If I understand what I am reading, that Photons have no mass,but with a spin of 1.

I can't say whether photon particles of the electromagnetic immediately figures into this or whether it is strictly very short waves of a very high density. Gravity has to be totally suspended because of the extreme heat created and the primordial sludge heated, so that there is no mass extant, only energy and any distant clusters or superclusters, and/or other massive black holes would be trying to pull at this very dense cloud of very high energy, trying to find a hold to pull it apart.

The giant explosion would have already given the cloud of energy an initial impetus in excess of the speed of light[no gravity yet-no matter yet]. It would now start to fill in the empty space so recently vacated by the event horizon of the GREAT MAW.

This would be the expansion phase , helping to explain much of the present problems holding back A Grand Unified Theory. It would be that first second after that helium and hydrogen, would be evolving in place of the pure energy, as the cloud would have spread and began to cool very quickly.

It likely would depend on how close the cold dark matter from the past would be, before the clustering for galactic formation would begin.

There would likely still be a great deal of matter from the old universe still spiraling in toward the location of where the GREAT MAW had resided. Some of the old matter might be galactic and still viable, like having stable stars that would last longer than a specie's estimation of the age of their universe.

FIN