Cosmic Entwinings

Roger W. Gruen

Description

Brilliant, young scientists are drawn together by a Nobel Laureate who has "proved" that space is not empty; it is a continuous fabric made of tiny, entwined "strings". His team is to devise experiments that show his acclaimed equations are true.

The professor draws criticism from some faculty for his profound, Christian views. He displays Christian art in his office and teaches a popular Sunday School class across the street from the University.

A deadly love triangle erupts among the researchers. A lovely girl is wooed by two very different men: one a devout young Christian, the other a demon-possessed, suave, rich and handsome young man. The rivalry is resolved in a bizarre sequence of events.

The tale progresses through a verbal tapestry of intriguing scenarios, filled with emotion, surprises and fascinating facts.

Sujets

• Adventure
• Fiction
• Action

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 22 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781633155817
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Cosmic Entwinings
 
Cosmology, Murder and Romance
 
 
Author, Roger W. Gruen
 
Publisher, Commendations Incorporated

Copyright Notices
 
Cosmic Entwinings
Copyright 2014 by Commendations Incorporated
322 North Main Street
Medora, Illinois 62063
All rights reserved.
618-729-9140
[e-mail]
 
Published in eBook format by Commendations Incorporated
 
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-6331-5581-7
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
 
Unmarked Scripture quotations
are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.
 
 
Scripture quotations marked NLT
are taken from the
Holy Bible, New Living Translation
Copyright 1996, 2004
Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Wheaton, Illinois 60189.
All Rights Reserved.
 
 
Scripture quotations marked NIV
are taken from the
Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010
by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission.
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

 
Other books by Roger W. Gruen
 
Crossword John With Answers
Crossword John Without Answers
 
Meet Your Biggest Booster, Jesus!

 
 
 
To Dottie
 
My Soul-Mate
on the
Path to Glory
Chapter 1. Victor
“Shha—Vic-ha—tur, Vic-tor-r-r.”
 
“Yes, Grandma,” Victor responded, recoiling from the onerous chore he had come to do. He half-filled a teaspoon with some mashed potatoes and raised it to her mouth. After tickling her lips with the tip of the spoon, he got her to open enough to let him instill the first bite of her evening meal.
 
“This is going to take too long,” he grumbled to himself. He had far better things to do.
 
Her skin was wrinkled, thin, and ghostly pale. He reviewed the blue veins near her temples with revulsion. She was splotched with light-brown age spots.
 
“How’s co-o-ollege?,” she asked, lifting her left eyebrow a little.
 
“I’m through with my Master’s,” he replied, “and about to start on my Doctorate, working on a project called ‘Strings’.”
 
“She won’t understand,” he mused, but the words filled the silence, as he pushed bite after bite into her light-purple lips.
 
“How many days can this go on?” he wondered. Usually, Vic’s Mom handled this effort twice a day, but sometimes, he had to take her place, while she attended to other matters.
 
“Remember,” Mom had often reminded him, “Grandma Berkmann has made you the beneficiary of a large insurance policy. She has been so generous to us through the years. She’s paid all your educational expenses, and that insurance money will be a blessing to you, someday.”
 
“Strr-ings?” Grandma queried in a whisper.
 
“Yes,” Vic disclosed, “we’re going to try to do something useful with the very tiny strings that are the building blocks of the Universe.”
 
The squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the tile floor announced the entrance of Nurse Edith Kilmaury. She swept into the room, saying, “Well, I see, Sonja’s good looks got handed down to you! You always rev-up the female staff, when you come to visit us. Come on, now. Don’t look so glum. Give me your fabulous grin.”
 
Vic was handsome, “Hollywood Handsome”, the girls on staff said. Tall and tan, he walked in a majestic manner and spoke in mellow tones. His loosely curled, dark-brown hair, chestnut eyes, and full lips, framing a perfect smile, all combined to elicit the attention of the feminine gender.
 
Vic offered a slight smile. But, he wasn’t in the mood for pointless small-talk. This feeding routine was crimping his plans. Edith and the girls on her staff were not the “hotties” he was eager to woo.
 
Nevertheless, Edith was drawn to him. She placed her hand on his shoulder, gazed into his eyes, and asked, “Need some help?”
 
Vic ignored the advance and said, “No,” in a definite manner.
 
Edith shrugged. “Let me know when you’re done. I’ll clean up,” she droned as she left the room.
 
Vic persisted with the feeding. He wanted to get to Club Palladium. “There’ll be drinking, dancing and dames there!” he shouted to himself, repeating a favorite line his Dad had often broadcast to his pals. That declaration always embarrassed his Mom.
 
But, Vic wasn’t his Dad. He was a brilliant, Chemistry student, a polished young man, a great dancer, the life of every party he graced with his presence. He wasn’t a plumber, like his “old man”.
 
Finally, Vic finished his chore. He perfunctorily kissed his Grandma’s forehead, said a goodbye, and raced through the door. “God! I hate this nursing home,” he thought as he trotted to his car. “The smells ... the wrecked bodies I pass in the halls ... the moans and screams I hear bouncing through the corridors ... They’re all sickening. Is Grandma really alive inside that bag of bones? She’s such an inconvenience.”
 
...
The action at the Club was lame. so Vic was out of sorts. He had missed most of “Happy Hour”. “And,” he wondered, “where’s Shelly?”
 
As he downed a drink, sitting alone, several girls threw a flirty smile at him. He was thinking of dancing with one of them when his smartphone trilled. He glanced at the screen. It advised, “Material should be in your email, Sanji.”
 
Vic changed course. He headed for his apartment and hurried to his computer. He had been expecting the transmission from Sanji. He had requested, from an Indian university, digitized images of some recently discovered, Sanskrit writings. They were documents concerning pharmacology. Vic had become proficient in Sanskrit while pursuing his interest in the methods used by sophisticated men of medicine in ancient times. His remarkable intelligence had allowed him to become one of the few who could read the oldest Sanskrit dialects. These texts were written using the " Brāhmīlipi " alphabet. They opened a whole new world to him. Especially, he loved the thought that he might be the only scholar on Earth who could read these words.
 
Vic checked his emails. “There it is!” he exclaimed. “This should be intriguing.” These writings were the most interesting he had seen. They had been found hidden in an alcove of a remote, Hindu temple.
 
Vic dug in. He snacked and read into the evening.
 
Suddenly, he found himself in the middle of a murder mystery. In it, a prince posed a question to a trusted Hindu physician, “Is there a potion that will slay a traitorous acquaintance seven days after he has dined in my palace? The victim must remain unharmed for seven days and, then, die quietly. His death must look natural and not arouse a suspicion of poisoning. No one should suspect that the victim was harmed in my court.”
 
The wise man replied, “Yes, lord, I can prepare a kind of sugar from five forest plants. It may work in five days, but not sooner. Also, the recipient will seem to be getting healthier before he dies. His skin will take on a beautiful glow. Now, you must be very careful with the substance. If you touch it and then use your hands to raise food to your lips, you will incur the same fate as that of the traitor.”
 
There followed a recipe for making the sugar. Vic’s encyclopedic mind recognized the names of the plants involved. In fact, they were plants undergoing study on campus. He had seen them in the campus Plant Repository, which housed an Herbarium and an adjacent Greenhouse. His passion for ancient pharmacology had caused him to spend many hours there, fraternizing with the staff.
 
Vic leaned back in his chair. He munched some chips and swigged some cola. An evil spirit, deep within him, promulgated a suggestion, “What if Grandma swallowed some of this sugar? She would pass quietly ... You would never need to return to that nasty, nursing home ... And, you would be rich.”
 
“What a liberating thought!” Vic mused.
 
The phone rang. It was Shelly. Vic said, “Sure, come on over. I’m in a wonderful mood. We’ll taste of loves till morning!”
Chapter 2. Chalk-Talk
Dan gazed out the shop window, as he nursed his French-vanilla coffee, sip by sip. He rehearsed the day’s schedule in his mind, “The Installation Ceremony at 10 o’clock ... the Reception following ... shopping for some comfortable school clothes ... then home.”
 
He wondered, “Who is this Dr. Angelo? What will he be like? He has such a grand reputation. How did Transcendental University get him to come here? What is this ‘Strings Project’?”
 
Dan was so stirred by the prospects of the day that he had awakened early. He had dressed as well as he could for the occasion, leisurely, and taken his time getting into the city. Even so, he was quite early. He finished his cinnamon roll and downed the last of his coffee, rose, and ambled through the exit. He stepped into a busy world. Pedestrians loped by, hurrying to work. A bus belched smothering, diesel fumes as it pulled away from the loading zone to his right. A frenetic panorama of cars of every shape and color oscillated on the wide thoroughfare before him.
 
But, Dan’s attention was drawn to a ruckus in the park on the far side of the street. There, in a grove of oaks, he saw a flock of crows in frenzied activity, mobbing a red-tailed hawk on the ground. He hurried to the corner and crossed the avenue to get a closer look.
 
A crowd was gathering as Dan approached the squabble. An elderly gentleman, out for a morning stroll, leaned on his ornate cane, watching in awe. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking at Dan.
 
“Well, crows and red-tailed hawks are mortal enemies,” Dan explained. “This hawk invaded crow territory and killed that small bird he is eating. The crows are furious and determined to chase him away.”
 
The crowd was hanging on Dan’s words. He was dressed in a nice, light-brown, business suit, looking like an ex