Students

Jarvis University was a hive of activity. The massive campus was built deep in the wilderness on a hundred acres of gentle green hills, a thousand miles away from any major settlements. Massive buildings hundreds of years old were neatly nestled into the landscape, almost seeming to be a natural part of it. Students were milling about – some enjoying the fine day, and others hustling to get to class on time.

Isaiah Long was walking to his mathematics class when he saw an old friend sitting on the campus lawn at a circular stone table. The figure, dressed in worn overalls and his trademark wide-brimmed hat, was intently reading a very thick textbook and seemed oblivious to his surroundings. Papers covered with mathematical equations and theorems were strewn haphazardly about the table, and a large collie dog was lying at his feet, sound asleep.

“Brice!” Isaiah called out as he approached the table. “It’s so good to see you, my friend! I haven’t seen you in ages.”

The individual turned around to see who had called out his name. “Ah, Isaiah!” he replied, standing up from the table to grasp his hand. “It is also good to see you. Here – have a seat!” he said as he picked up some papers and set them aside.

Isaiah sat down beside his friend and helped Brice straighten up the table. “I see you’ve finally shaved your beard!” Isaiah said. “That’s the first time you’ve been clean-shaven in what, a thousand years? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it.”

Brice grinned. “Things at campus are not the same as they are in space. They are more – civilized, perhaps?”

“So what brings you here, anyway?” Isaiah asked. “This is the very last place I would expect to find you. I thought you hated classes and studying – and especially mathematics!”

Brice laughed. “I never claimed to be a scholar. That is more your line than mine.”

“True,” Isaiah said. “I’m here studying history – particularly, historical analysis as it applies to economic patterns.”

“Wonderful,” Brice said, looking at the theorems textbook that his friend had laid down on the table. “I am sure that math is very useful in history classes, and that only my natural ignorance prevents me from seeing that fact.”

“You’d be surprised at how useful mathematical theorems can be when engaging in historical analysis! It’s very useful when plotting trends and analyzing economic patterns over time.”

“I knew it,” Brice said. “Life is really much simpler out among the stars. There is no economy on unsettled planets.”

“Which explains why you are studying – what’s that – applied relativity? That’s certainly not a field for beginners!”

Brice nodded. “I’m really struggling with it – this has to be the hardest thing I have ever done, including founding that colony on Omega Centauri IV. There is much here that I understand – that comes from spending so much time in the field – but the math behind it, yes, the math is hard. I try to avoid math, but I can do that no longer. I have avoided your world of studies as long as I can, but that time has ended.”

“I’m impressed!” Isaiah said. “For a thousand years we have been as different as day and night. I stay at home and read about the stars, and you spend your time traveling among them. You make the discoveries and I read about them in magazines. I’ve been all theory and you’ve been all practice.”

“I have not been mentioned in magazines that often, my friend – I am just one of many. There are thousands of us – millions – and I am just a small part of the effort.”

“You are much too modest! You don’t give yourself enough credit. I’ve read your reports, you know. Speaking of which – why are you studying here, anyway? Last I heard you were part of a big expedition.”

“You must have heard of the Door,” Brice began.

Isaiah nodded. “Ah! You’re still trying to open it, aren’t you?”

His friend nodded. “That is all anyone is doing now. It has been an obsession since we discovered it five hundred years ago. I still remember the surprise it was.”

“I remember reading about it,” Isaiah said. “You’ve seen it, though, haven’t you?”

“I have seen it many times. Years I spent in vain trying to open it, but I failed like all the others. That is why I am here, learning. This is not my field, to be studying, but it must be done. I have explored the stars for thousands of years using technologies that I did not understand; I have now reached a point where I must understand what is going on behind the scenes if I ever hope to get through the Door.”

“So that’s it,” Isaiah mused. “But I still don’t understand. Why do you think that a course in applied relativity will help you?”

“The Door is a machine,” Brice said. “We are now quite sure of it. We thought at first that it might be a part of the world beyond science – we have found such worlds, you know – but we have proven that it is just a machine, and machines can be understood and used. We have learned that it links two universes together – ours, and another. It does this in a way that we do not understand, but it does it scientifically.”

Isaiah looked at the equations on the papers strewn in front of him and thought a moment. He was familiar with some of them (that came from his lifelong love of mathematics) but others were beyond his ability. His friend was clearly getting into deep waters. “And so you hope that, by studying spatial mechanics and relativity and so forth, that you’ll gain a greater understanding of that type of technology and will be able to use that understanding to aid in the effort to open the Door?”

“Yes, exactly,” Brice said. “I must understand what is going on. Alex,” he said, nodding toward the sleeping canine, “he does not like all of this research so well. I think he would rather be back in space, on our ship. But this will end soon. I have been here four years now; another two years and I will be back in space.”

“I wondered about that,” Isaiah said. “Your dog is so much like you, you know. Is Alexander picking up very much of this?”

“Some. I do not think he is so interested, though. His knowledge is more than enough to be valuable in the field, and he is content with that. Alex is not much of a learner, really! It took a long time to convince him to learn to pilot our ship, and then he learned only because he knew it had to be done. Bookwork is not so much to his liking.”

Isaiah looked surprised. “You’re kidding! You can’t possibly tell me that you allow a dog to fly your starship!”

“Oh yes! Many of us do. They are quite smart, these dogs. You would be surprised! Sometimes they even have good advice. You really should get a dog, Isaiah. It would do you good. At the very least it would give you someone to talk to – someone that would actually talk back, unlike your books!”

“I’m not much of an animal person,” Isaiah said, laughing. “I just can’t imagine asking any animal to take a starship and run to the nearest space station for supplies.”

“That is because you stay here, in your world of papers and printed words. If you were out in the field you would learn to live in ways that you have not lived before. Reading books about the Door is nothing like actually seeing it with your own eyes. You know much more than I do about all of these things, but I have actually seen them myself, and you have not.”

“True,” Isaiah replied. “Together we might make a great team. In fact,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “I can even tell you what is beyond the Door.”

Brice thought a moment. “Man,” he said finally. “Man is behind the door. I do not know what that means, but I know that is the case. That is what is written on the Door.”

“That’s right. Do you know what else is written on the Door?”

“Not really,” Brice said. “I have been trying to open it, and that is a technical problem. Deciphering what the door says – that is for scholars and linguists. I have heard that it does not help open the door, so I have not considered it to be important. It is just history, Isaiah, and history is not interesting to me. I prefer the future to the past – the past is finished, and the future is not.”

“I think you are greatly mistaken. What will you do once you open the door?”

“Go through it, of course.”

“Right. And what are you going to find when you go through it? Who will you be dealing with? What situation will you find? Does that not seem important to you?”

“I suppose,” Brice said slowly. “I had not really given it much thought.”

“Then let me give you a short history lesson, so you will be prepared. On the other side of the door, as you said, is Man. Man is an old creature – they date back to the Old World.”

“I have heard that,” Brice replied. “They are in the New World but that is not where they came from. They are an older species than that.”

“They are not the oldest, though,” Isaiah said. “Another race – the angels – they existed before Man. We don’t know anything about them, though – they don’t seem to live here. Do you know what happened to the Old World?”

“Not really,” he said. “I know it no longer exists – the Creator destroyed it and replaced it with this place where we live in today. I do not know why.”

“The Old World came first,” Isaiah said. “The Creator made it and planted a garden in it – a place called Eden – and formed the first Man and Woman and placed them in that garden. However, Man was not content with the Creator’s design, and chose to bring evil into the world. Through him the world became polluted, and the Old World was filled with disease and death and pain and agony. It was a terrible place.”

Brice shook his head. “I don’t understand. What is death?”

“Death is the final result of evil. It is what happens when a living creature shuts down and decays, and returns to the dust from whence it came.”

“Dust?” Brice asked.

“Man was made from dust,” Isaiah explained.

“How odd,” Brice said. “They must be strange creatures. Do they get muddy when it rains?”

“I don’t really know. No one has ever seen a Man. I can’t really say.”

“Man sounds very bizarre,” Brice said. “Why would he choose to go against the will of the Creator?”

“I don’t know,” Isaiah said. “I cannot imagine what the Old World used to be like. It was certainly nothing like the one we are in now. When its time was over the Creator destroyed it and put this one in its place.”

“I’m glad of that. But – this Man – has he changed? If they are as bad as that then perhaps the Door was created to protect us from them.”

“Yes,” Isaiah said, “they have changed. They could not change themselves, so the Creator paid a very great price to redeem them. I don’t know the details – the Door did not say – but they were restored, and they now live with their Creator.”

“Do you mean to tell me that the Door leads directly to the dwelling place of God?” Brice asked.

“Yes,” Isaiah said.

“Wow. I did not know that.” Brice fell silent for a few minutes, thinking.

Isaiah looked at his watch. “I’m afraid I have to go or I’m going to be late for class. Now that I know you are staying here, do you mind if I look you up later? Maybe we can eat dinner together, or something.”

“Sure,” Brice said. He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to his friend. “Here is my contact information. Feel free to drop by anytime.”

“Thanks,” Isaiah said, as he took it from his friend. After bidding Brice farewell he disappeared into the air.

In the distance, hidden from view, a man stood in the shade of a large oak tree. He had heard the entire conversation between Isaiah and Brice and was quietly laughing. “The best way to open the door,” he said to himself, “is with the key. I wonder how long it will be until they find it?”