Black Rain

Moore stared. He could see it, sense it.

The researcher gazed at him, studying his face. “You know what it is,” he guessed.

The data had not yet been disclosed to him, but Moore had a feeling about it. “Yes,” he said gravely. “I think I do.”

The two men exchanged glances. “Well, you should know,” the scientist said, “that we believe you’re right.”

“A signal of some kind,” Moore said. “A message.”

The man nodded. “As I told you, it repeats itself, over and over, identical and unchanging,” he said. “Except for …”

Moore looked into the man’s eyes. “Except for what?”

“For one minor change,” the man explained reluctantly, “one we didn’t notice until we separated out the various phases of the signal.”

“What kind of change?”

The man flicked on a computer screen that displayed what looked like a sound chart, a digital representation of this complex signal, with thousands of peaks and valleys. With a click of the mouse, the chart began scrolling to the left. It moved that way for seventeen seconds and then froze. A second color began to overlay it. The peaks and valleys were identical, matching exactly as the screen scrolled along. Except for the very last one, which, in the new color, was of a slightly lesser magnitude. Moore watched as the third iteration of the signal reduced the last bar once again.

“It’s counting down to something,” Moore said, guessing at the significance of what he was seeing.

“Each new version of the pulse is fractionally shorter than the one previous to it,” the scientist said.

“Have you calculated the duration?”

The scientist nodded. “If we’re right, the signal will reach a zero state sometime on December 21, 2012.”

Moore knew that date. The end of the Mayan calendar.

“We don’t know what it means,” the researcher added. “But considering the power this thing is generating, we are concerned.”

The man offered nothing further, except a grim face and a tightly clenched jaw. Moore felt his own concern begi

He turned his attention back to the softly pulsing stone. Try as he might, he could not take his eyes off it, or strike down the sense of awe it filled him with, or shake away the feeling that the destinies of a great many people would be affected by what was found in that stone.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

As a writer, reaching the end of a novel is something of a goal in itself. As a reader, I find that same point to be only the begi

In case this book has had that effect, I offer the following.

The Mayan Civilization

The main premise of the book, that a branch of the Mayan race existed in the Amazon, is of course fiction. There is no evidence of any Mayan presence that far south. As Professor McCarter comments early in the book: “The Maya in the Amazon? I don’t think so.” The choice to set the story there was a literary one, done for the purpose of separation, both to separate the Chollokwan as far as possible from the classic Mayan civilization and to separate the NRI team as far as possible from the modern civilization we all live in.

On the other hand, the legends quoted in the book are based on the Mayan manuscript Popul Vuh. This incredible work tells the Mayan creation story, the ma

There were probably many written versions of the Popul Vuh in the days prior to the conquistadors. Unfortunately, the mass burning of Mayan books stole from history not only any hieroglyphic copy of the Popul Vuh, but presumably thousands of other texts, charts and works of brilliance.

It’s a tremendous shame that we know so little about this once sprawling and multifaceted civilization, and a greater shame that members of the clergy were responsible for much of the destruction. And yet it was a clergyman who gave us the Popul Vuh as we know it today. Father Francisco Ximénez transcribed the text between 1701 and 1703, either from an earlier document or from listening to an oral recitation. Father Ximénez wrote his version in both the Quiché language and Spanish. The document he wrote still exists and resides at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

In the years since, there have been many translations of the Popol Vuh. Three that I found interesting were Book of the People: Popul Vuh, the 1954 translation by Delia Goetz and Sylvanus Griswold Morley, which is a clear, concise read; Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya, a 2003 translation by Allen J. Christenson that includes a wealth of background information and even explanations of how specific terms and concepts were derived; and De

Fusion Power

As we begin to move through the new century, we remain heavily dependent on fuels discovered during the prior two, a situation not so different from being stuck using an abacus and a quill pen. But what will replace them? Can fusion actually become a legitimate power source? I guess we will have to wait and see. The big project, as described in this book, is the ITER, which is being funded jointly by most of the G-20 nations. While ITER has been translated as “the way,” the acronym actually stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. It’s a truly massive experiment, weighing 23,000 tons and standing a hundred feet tall. You can learn more at the official ITER website: http://www.iter.org.

As for cold fusion, it remains a mystery. In some ways the concept has become a scientific vampire, continuously rising from the dead. After being written off as a hoax in 1989, it made a comeback in the 1990s as venture capitalists and other scientists took a chance on the technology. When nothing pa

But it may still be alive. Respected labs are now looking at it and once again reporting excess energy, neutrons and even traces levels of tritium, effects that can only come from a type of nuclear reaction. Even those who consider it a wasted effort seem willing to at least look at the data before pronouncing judgment. Who knows, some entrepreneur might yet find a way to light up the world.

And perhaps it will come none too soon. According to a recent U.N. study, by 2050 at least nine billion souls will inhabit Earth. Without new sources of energy and a massive effort to reduce, recycle and reuse, what will become of our atmosphere, of places like the Amazon? What will become of the seas, fished to near extinction and filled with plastic leftovers? The current path is unsustainable. If we do not turn, we will eventually go off the cliff. And if it is adaptation that ensures human survival at that point, then who can say what the people of the thirty-first century will look like? As Professor McCarter states near the end of this book, in some ways we’re creating a world more suited for life other than our own.

Thank you for spending the time with me.

   Sincerely,

   Graham Brown

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