CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: NATURE AND SCIENCE

Inside the whale, the darkness was filled with every imaginable danger.

Miss Prysby screamed.

Peter hid in Miss Morgan's lap.

Linda S. said, "This is scary, Miss Morgan. This is really scary. I've never been this scared before, not even in the Fun House".

Kevin said, "Fun House? Aw, that's kids' stuff. I saw this Dracula movie once . . ".

"Dracula?" said Joey, "That's nothing. You should have seen..".

Everybody had a more horrible horror story they wanted to tell. Miss Morgan told one called "The Dance of Death," about the Boogey-Woogey Man, who hypnotized people with his music so they danced themselves to death.

Soon they were singing songs, like "The worms crawl in" and "Found a peanut," and "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest".

"Music mighty strong medicine," said Paul Newman.

"My, this is exciting," said Miss Prysby. "It's just like being swallowed by Nature. I feel, so so natural". And she stretched out on the whale's soft tongue and took a nap.

Soon everybody was taking a nap.

Then the whale's belly started to twist and turn. Everybody woke up and huddled together. A great retching noise came from somewhere way down deep, and the whale threw up, and the whole class was thrown up on the shore.

"Man, I feel like a new man," said Paul Newman. It sounded funny hearing him say that again after all they'd been through together, but everybody was feeling great and knew what he meant.

Miss Morgan checked the VW. It had landed right-side up; and by some miracle, it still worked. "Don't go running off," she told the kids. "There's no telling where we might be. This could be Ome, you know. Everything feels so good it just must be Ome. So everybody put on your sunglasses now. We'll all be perfectly safe, I'm sure, if we keep our sunglasses on".

So they put on the sunglasses and stretched out on the beach with the waves coming up to tickle their toes. They felt even better than that time on the river after they had been in the mushroom. Maybe they were relieved to be safe after all the danger they'd been through. Maybe it just felt so good thinking the quest was ending -- finally they were in Ome, and soon they'd be Home.

"Gosh," said Donny, "that bush over there is on fire".

Everybody went running to the burning bush. Timmy got really close.

"Watch out there," shouted Miss Prysby. "You'll get burnt".

But Timmy said, "It isn't burning".

"Of course it's burning," said Miss Prysby. "You can see it's on fire".

But when she got closer, she saw it wasn't burning. "I wish Mr Shermin were here," she said. "He was always so good at explaining things. I learned so much from him".

"Why that's the fire that doesn't burn," said Miss Morgan, and she rushed forward with the stick that Plato had given her.

"What are you doing?" asked Joey.

"I want to see if this stick will catch fire, so we can bring the fire back home".

The stick glowed for a while when she put it in the bush; but when she took it out, the glow faded.

"Do you think it's God?" asked Miss Prysby.

"Beware," a voice boomed out, like it was coming from a loudspeaker.

Miss Prysby screamed, "The bush is talking!"

But Donny said, "Gosh, no, Miss Prysby. It's that astronaut over there".

On top of the hill two men in space suits were walking toward them, waving as frantically as they could with all that cumbersome equipment on. "Stand back from that bush," they said. "Return to the water. This area is contaminated. Radioactive material".

Everybody ran back to the water and got up to their waists in it. Slowly but surely, the spacemen plodded close to them.

"What's wrong?" asked Miss Morgan. "Did somebody drop a bomb or something?"

"No, miss, it's a natural phenomenon," answered one of the men. "Alpha and omega particles. It's long been a mystery, but we're very close to a break- through. Research has been going on here for quite some time. They named the land Ohm because they thought the phenomenon was electrical, and an ohm is a measure of electrical resistance. But just last week we successfully separated and identified the two major forms of radiation: the alpha particle and a new particle we've christened the ohm-ega particle. It's an event of cosmic significance".

Miss Prysby explained, "That means it's very important".

"Well, not really," he answered. "You see, alpha and omega particles are very significant for the study of cosmic rays; but nobody's sure how significant cosmic rays are in elementary particle physics".

Miss Prysby explained, "Elementary means basic. The most important things, the building blocks you need for further study are elementary. Our school is an elementary school".

"Well, it's rather different in physics. You see, elementary particles are really very advanced. Not that we've advanced that far in our knowledge of them, but that only advanced students ever study them. Actually, very few people study them, and we know very little about them and how they relate to the world of ordinary experience".

"You mean they don't matter?"

"Brilliant, my dear, brilliant!" he exclaimed. "Particles 'matter.' The very word I've been looking for. It's so difficult to talk about matter and energy at the subatomic level. Sometimes it only makes sense to talk of matter, and other times, it makes sense to talk of energy. Neither concept alone is sufficient, and yet the concepts of energy and matter seem mutually exclusive. When we try to put them together, we wind up with strange sounding things like 'matter waves.' It all makes perfectly good sense in terms of equations; but when we try to tell people what we're doing, language keeps leading us into the most perplexing difficulties -- meaning more than we mean it to mean.

"We have to be very careful with our words, for they can imply whole systems of thought, and no single system of thought or set of concepts is adequate for describing the world around us. We are faced with the difficult task of using several contradictory sets of concepts, now using one and now another, according to the needs of the moment. It's a complicated business. It has to be learned by experience. There are no signposts to tell us when to use which".

"Gosh, said Donny, "Winthrop's just like that. There aren't any signs, and it's awful easy to get lost unless you've got a magic coin".

Miss Prysby started to reprimand Donny for interrupting, but the scientist just kept talking. "Particles 'matter,'" he said. "It's beautiful. A simple pun might make it so much easier to talk about these things. Yes, 'matter' is a verb as well as a noun, and on the subatomic level it makes more sense to use the word as a verb. Light isn't matter as a noun, but it is matter as a verb. Language, for all its pitfalls, is capable of unexpected beauties. Its very imprecision can be the source of the greatest clarity. Light matters. Electrons matter. Elementary particles matter. Perhaps even matter matters".

"I certainly hope so," said Miss Prysby. "I'd hate to think people spend their lives studying things that don't matter".

The scientist laughed, "There it does it again. The words keep meaning more than we mean them to mean. If we aren't careful, we might find ourselves talking about values and morals and other things that have nothing to do with physics".

"All these theories are quite fine, I'm sure," said Miss Morgan. "But are these children in danger here? What's wrong? Why all this radiation?"

"As far as we know, miss, it's a natural phenomenon. Cosmic rays -- the sun is believed to be our major source of them. It's quite puzzling to find such a strong source here".

Miss Morgan explained, "Oh, then it's perfectly natural. You see, the Dragon of Ome, sometimes called the Lizard of Oz, swallowed the sun. It's in his belly".

"Dragon?" asked the physicist. "I must admit I don't know anything about dragons. They weren't in the curriculum. You mean to say there are dragons around here?"

"Why, yes, there is one dragon -- a very big one," said Miss Morgan. "We haven't seen him ourselves, but we have heard about him from a very reliable person. If you've been studying the source of these cosmic rays, surely you must have seen the dragon".

"Can't say that I have. But that really doesn't rule out the possibility that there is such a beast. You see, I might have stood right next to it, even touched it, without recognizing that it was a dragon. It's this protective suit, you see. I get everything second-hand, like hear-say. I don't see directly anymore than I hear or speak directly. The sense data are translated into electrical impulses, which are then re-translated inside the suit into recognizable stimuli. The equipment reports what it has been programmed to report. 'Dragon' simply doesn't compute. The way I get the message, there's a powerful source of cosmic energy in the form of alpha and omega particles diffused through a shield of organic material. Come to think of it, it's perfectly possible that the organic material could be a dragon's belly".

"Is it really dangerous, sir?" asked Miss Morgan. "You see, we've come a long way to find this dragon and bring back some of this fire that doesn't burn. But now you tell us it's dangerous radiation; and when I tried to light my torch on that bush over there, it didn't catch; it just glowed a short while and went out".

"We've noticed such things ourselves," noted the scientist. "It seems to be some sort of induced effect. The bush radiates because it has long been near the source of radiation. Somewhat like induced magnetism. If such a bush is separated from the source, its radiant properties diminish. As for the dangers, I think you'd better consult my colleague, an expert on the psycho- physiological effects of this unique variety of radiation".

"It's a source of psychic attraction," explained the other scientist, "the most powerful source of psychic attraction known to man. To the human mind and emotions, it's a sort of magnetic North Pole. It's incredibly attractive. If you don't wear protective equipment, why even from this distance, it's practically irresistible".

Kathy asked, "Is it really that attractive? Does it use a special perfume? Or a love potion?"

"I really couldn't say. The science of behavior doesn't concern itself with the physical form of these stimuli. It could be a dragon or a man or a pile of stones. What matters is what it does to people.

"As I was saying, the closer you get to the source, the greater the danger. You see the way that bush seems to be burning? Well, this source can do the same thing to a person that it has done to that bush. It can change a man so that he in turn can endanger others. Take a look at that patient over there". He pointed to a man on a stretcher on the beach. "No, don't get too close to him without protective equipment. We're waiting for a rescue team to carry him away," he explained. "Notice the strange glow around the head -- somewhat like that bush. We call it the 'halo effect.' It's possibly the origin of the myths about halos.

"This source, whatever it might be, destroys the will and the sense of self. The more extreme cases can no longer distinguish between themselves and the world. They seem to lose the power of human speech. They go into a sort of coma, mumbling meaningless syllables. Then physiological changes begin to appear -- abnormally low breathing rates, a slowing of the heartbeat, a slowing of all bodily processes.

"I'm here to conduct tests and to do what I can for the relief of the victims. It's rather difficult because they evince no desire to be cured and they early lose the will to coherently communicate. But perhaps one day we will be able to cure these poor unfortunates and make them productive members of society".

Mark asked, "What's he talking about, Miss Prysby?"

"He wants to cure that sick man with the halo. He wants to make it so that man can hold down a job and earn a living wage".

"You mean that guy won't have his halo anymore?"

"No, I suppose he won't".

"That's a shame," said Mark. "He looks neat with that halo".

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