The Gods Look Down by Trevor Hoyle Page B

religious symbolism, is a highly sophisticated intellectual concept: a medieval cosmology which moves through a number of ascending levels until it reaches the throne of God. We shouldn’t brush aside these hypotheses as being naive or misguided: the mystics and philosopher-scientists of the time were perhaps in closer touch with the elemental forces of the universe than we may realize. Dagon ben Shem Tov was not a credulous fool.’
    â€˜Is there any evidence that he succeeded in transmuting base metal into gold?’ Queghan asked.
    â€˜Only his own testimony. But we must remember that his description of the process wouldn’t be in terms of our own advanced technology. Such terms would be unknown to him, so instead he would use anthropomorphic words – “brain” in place of computer, “hairs” in place of tubes or pipes, “skull” in place of vessel, “fire” in place of nuclear power source.’
    â€˜But if I understand this correctly he was transcribing folklore which had been handed down over many generations. The machine he describes existed hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.’
    â€˜It was part of the body of ancient knowledge,’ Dagon agreed. ‘However I think it possible that he was able to reconstruct the machine using the texts as a guide and blueprint; then he would be able to set up an experiment which succeeded in changing the atomic number of lead from 82 to 79 and thereby produce gold.’
    Blake said, ‘But to do that he’d require a particle accelerator the size of CENTiNEL and a power source equivalent to 400 thousand million electron volts.’ He glanced at the mythographer. ‘That’s a pretty tall order even for a medieval alchemist.’
    â€˜Wouldn’t such a device have survived?’ Queghan said. ‘Old Earth was excavated until there was hardly a rock left unturned. A machine like this couldn’t have escaped detection after several thousand years of intensive archaeological surveys.’
    Dagon pushed the lamp aside and stared into the surrounding darkness. ‘Perhaps it didn’t escape detection,’ he said calmly. ‘Records could exist which we’ve failed to interpret correctly. The ancient peoples of Old Earth were non-technological and they would have attributed the machine to God and described it in religious terms.’
    â€˜That doesn’t answer the question,’ Queghan said. ‘Where are the physical remains of the machine? It would have to be constructed of super high-grade alloys and such materials do not decay for centuries. If the device existed someone must have come across it and made a record. It can’t have just vanished into thin air.’
    â€˜It might have done precisely that,’ Dagon said, gazing into the shadows. ‘Whoever brought it to Old Earth took it awaywhen its purpose was fulfilled. Mission accomplished.’ He was smiling faintly at some private inner vision.
    â€˜Whoever brought it?’ Blake repeated. ‘You mean it was put on Old Earth by an extra-terrestrial intelligence?’
    â€˜It’s possible.’
    â€˜But who?’
    Dagon turned the ceramic spheres of his eyes to look up at them. The electronic sensing arrays inside the pupils caught and reflected the lamplight. ‘The gods,’ he said, his breath rasping in the prosthetic implant. ‘Gods from space and time.’

4
Transmission
    Milton Blake explained: ‘We’ll put you into deep trance and feed in the information. That should take five, perhaps six hours. Then we’ll take you into the transmission area and induce the dreaming phase by means of an Indexer. When dreaming starts you’ll be linked neurologically to NELLIE and, hopefully, we should get something through on the display. We’ll tape everything so that you can see for yourself when you return. How does it sound?’
    â€˜So long as you