The Prophet's Ladder Read online

  The Prophet’s Ladder

  By Jonathan L. Williams

  The Prophet’s Ladder © 2015 by Jonathan L. Williams. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction created by the author. Any reference to real people, historical events, or real locations is used fictitiously. Other characters, places, incidents, and names are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual locations, events, or persons, dead or living, is completely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Justin Williams, www.bamboodev.com

  Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management, some changes made. Used with permission by Creative Commons.

  Dedication

  For my wife, Rebecca, who shares my love of North Africa and encouraged me to write, my brother Justin, who always read my stories when I was a lad, and in memoriam H. ‘Eddie’ Gabler, who taught me to appreciate history.

  Prologue

  Yours the limitless sea; it is possible, though why halt,

  Seduced by imaginings of mere droplets only,

  Yours are the mysteries of the stars though you

  Are satisfied with meager rays of sunlight.

  ― Farid Ud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds

  7th Century North Africa

  A man on a jet-black stallion, distantly followed by three thousand battle hardened retainers, rode into the crest of the ocean's waves. Dusky sand squelched beneath the hooves of his horse as he cried in anger at the blood red sun that straddled the horizon.

  "My God, the Bestower, Exceedingly Beneficent!" cried he. "You have seen fit to end my course here, my army waylaid by the endless sea."

  The man's horse whinnied as a breaker forcefully washed over its knees, and it stamped and pawed the beach, uncertain of its footing.

  "My God, Most Compassionate, Utterly Just!" called the man as he drew his sword, a hard, bejeweled blade that curved in sweeping lines as a gull's wing in flight, its hilt of gold enameled bronze. "Were my deeds not to end here, by your will I would still go on as Iskander, to the unknowable kingdoms of the Farthest West, to speak your holy name, and to put to the word those who would defy your love, who would debase themselves and worship false idols."

  At this Uqba ibn Nafi, the Conqueror, flung his sword into the swell of the waters, and it disappeared from the sight of his men with a flash of crimson light, reflecting the blazing fire of the sunset. He thereafter turned aside, and rode back to his camp in silence.

  Chapter 1

  The hadiths are worth less than the page they have been printed upon. The rise of the European and American epochs has served to illustrate their irrelevance. If the hallowed words of The Compassionate are to be taken to heart, Scholastic Islam should not rest upon its decaying laurels, and instead must stand and stride boldly into the second half of the twenty-first century, as the true believers have done throughout the “l-Thawrāt al-ʻArabiyyah.” Ignorance and blind adherence shall be replaced with knowledge and reinterpretation. For, does not the holy Quran state: “if any of you does a bad deed out of ignorance and thereafter repents and lives righteously, He shall be found much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace"?

  Our over-reliance on false precedent will be our undoing- we must look to the humanity around us for our religion.

  Ali ibn Abd al-Aziz pocketed his journal and strode through the crumbling façade of the old medina. Ahead of him, three women walked casually, pointing at various items stored behind the iron-barred, glass windows of the innumerable shops that lined the crowded, narrow street. The din of donkeys braying at scooters reverberated up and down the cobblestone, and Lebanese-Arabic pop music blasted from practically every window, creating discordance that mirrored the mood of the restive people about him. The medina of Tunis was older than a millennium, and the juxtaposition of the mortared, uneven stone buildings and the gleaming metal satellite dishes adorning them was ever more apparent. Ali recognized Amina from the particular headscarf she wore: black and white printed, patterned flowers colored an absurd variety of shocking neon hues through the use of magic markers; a wonderful mixture of the traditional and the recalcitrant new, much like the woman herself.

  “Amina! Wait!” Ali yelled out.

  “Ahhh, Ali.” She turned and smiled at him, and tugged on the disheveled Rzza scarf he wore about his shoulders. “What have you been up to today? Still working on that “great treatise” of yours?”

  “Yes…yes I have been,” he stuttered, his face coloring. The two girls accompanying Amina smiled at one another in knowing acknowledgement of his obsession. Clearly Amina had mentioned his work to them.

  “Oh Ali, you’ll never get anywhere with posting your thoughts online. You should try submitting your editorials to the newspapers again. They paid you well enough, and your articles were read throughout Tunisia!”

  “It is a dying medium Amina, even here in the Afrique. Anyone who is anyone who reads anything these days does so online…if not that then they watch the news on TV at the cafes, you know that.”

  “Well, don’t break your back over it,” she replied, and patted his head knowingly. “My father is expecting to see you tonight at dinner. I will see you then?”

  “Yes. Yes of course. I will see you tonight.”

  “Thanks be to God. Terrific.” She waved goodbye, and, with her friends flanking her to each side disappeared around the corner and merged with the flowing river of people into the city.

  Ali returned to his corner workspace at the library just as the afternoon call to prayer blasted from the loudspeakers of all the nearby mosques. He sighed as the muezzins each tried to outdo the other in sheer acoustic, decibel-saturated piety. To his mind, his venerable religion remained chained to the trappings of the previous centuries, hearkening back to a golden age that, perhaps, never was. Ali looked at the books lining the plastered walls; works from the Islamic scholars of Turkey and Europe and North America – scholars whose humanist educations afforded them the luxury to dissect and study the historiographical routes of an Islam that tottered on false biographies and bad logical constructs. He would outdo them all, he thought. The tidal wave that was the Arab Spring had battered down the walls of stolid conservatism that once overburdened Arab society for more than a century; the waves of technology and new modes of thought now free to flow in behind the first swell.

  In the place of these fallen relics would grow a new culture, a new religion, a new life for millions of the disenfranchised Tunisian and Arab youth, whose victories in the sphere of politics, once achieved, had left a vacuum in their hearts. It was true that such access to novel modes of thinking, new techno-cultural assemblies and mental mores had always been present, but it was the repressive former government that had nailed their feet to the ground, preventing their full absorption and development. ‘Look, but don’t touch. See, but don’t imitate. Listen, but do not voice.’ No longer.

  ****

  The Mars mission has been a resounding success. They were now years into the Curiosity Rover’s exploration of the Gales Crater and its surrounding regions. Preliminary studies presented significant finds for the astrogeology and astrobiology teams. Yes, there was once water on Mars: an abundance of water. Life too, had seemingly evolved in the primordial oceans that had long ago ensconced itself on the planet’s surface. The water had since evaporated or had drained to the poles or into reservoirs deep underground. Todd still believed, however, that there was H2O further down, beneath many strata of rock substrate…water that could support life once again…though perhaps life operating at a different level of organizational complexity.

  The accompanying political mission that had been directed at Washington whilst Curiosity had surveyed the Martian landscape was, in comparison,
a dismal failure. There would be no additional funding for the rover programs. One would think, Todd pondered, that shooting a golf ball at a swimming pool 360 million miles away would be the more challenging of the two beasts, but that was far from the case. Rather, the funds for NASA’s continued existence seemed to be drying up faster than might any natural spring on that distant, oxidized, alien world. This great recession is certainly that, he thought as his feet took him away from the Capitol building and back towards his hotel room.

  Todd strolled down the avenues and boulevards of Washington D.C. that evening, heading back to his hotel. Clusters of homeless men and women huddled under overpasses, shoulder to shoulder about oil drum fires, hands extended over flickering tongues of flame as the November dusk enveloped and stole all of the city's residual warmth away. Above them expensive Mercedes and BMWs clattered across the crumbling infrastructure of the capital, their passengers speaking into the newest smart-device, be it a phone, a pair of glasses, even their ties and shirts woven with smart fibers and nestled electronics.

  Todd walked into the hotel lobby, grateful for the sudden warmth, and sat down at the bar. He noticed his co-worker Emily in a dim corner and ambled over to her with his scotch. She looked at him with an inquiring eyebrow raise.

  "You look like hell," Emily uttered. "I take it the presentation didn't go so well?"

  "Nah." Todd took a sip of his halfway-decent drink.

  "Well we all knew the Senate Finance committee wasn't staffed with scientists and academicians."

  "Yeah. I know we're biased and all, but Jesus, if they had their way Emily, NASA wouldn't get any funding at all."

  "Maybe," she replied. "But we have to fight for what we've got anyways. Who else can do what NASA does?"

  "The Chinese, in a couple of decades maybe," Todd answered glumly. "Or maybe one of the private enterprises out west with some successful launches attracting more Silicon Valley billionaires. Did I tell you I got another offer from Alcaeus Space Systems?"

  "No..." Emily spared him a sidelong glance, a near imperceptible frown crinkling her eyes only briefly. Todd caught the expression and chose to ignore it.

  "Yep. A good one too. Better pay, flexible work hours, more vacation time." He downed the last of his scotch; it warmed his throat as it went. "I'm thinking of accepting."

  "Well that's your call," Emily acknowledged. "But don't come crying to me when they fold in five years."

  "They won’t. Sorry Em." Todd looked at her. "I know your feelings on the whole 'privatization of space exploration' thing, but hey, at least someone's trying, you know?"

  "Yeah, I know." Emily stood up and yawned. "I'm headed to bed. Early flight back tomorrow yeah?"

  "Yeah," he replied. "Goodnight Em."

  "Goodnight Todd."

  As Emily crossed the lobby to the elevators, Todd checked his email on his phone. Two new messages flashed in his inbox; one from his wife, inquiring as to how the testimony went. The other email was from an unknown entity. He initially supposed it was spam that had slipped through the filter: some foreign “prince” phishing for his bank account number, but the subject header did seem oddly specific. It read:

  Open Invitation for T. Wittry, Lead Robotics/Avionics Engineer from Al-Hatem Aerospace LLC.

  Todd paused. He hadn’t heard of Al-Hatem Aerospace. Was it another startup? He opened the email and read.

  Twenty minutes later, after perusing the email twice, Todd called his wife. It was late but she would be up grading papers for her university class. The phone rang three times before Anne picked up.

  “Hey honey. How’d it go?” Her voice sounded tired; she wasn’t getting enough sleep these days.

  “Oh not well...just about how I expected it to go.”

  “Ahh, I’m sorry.” Anne was legitimately concerned. How she invested herself so much in his work as well as her own always astounded him. “What time do you fly out tomorrow?”

  “Early. Should be home around noon,” he answered. “Hey, but I got another offer just now: another private firm. This one’s in the UAE.”

  “Really?” Anne’s voice picked up. “You know I’ve always wanted to check out that part of the globe. There’s supposed to be some terrific desert biomes out there. I was just reading a paper about it.”

  Todd was surprised that his wife was showing any interest; he hadn’t expected her to. “Well let’s talk about when I get back. Okay?” He stifled a yawn.

  “Ok. Love you. Get some sleep.” Anne yawned back empathetically.

  “You too.”

  Todd walked to the stairs, ignoring the brass elevator doors that beckoned him alluringly. His room was eight floors up. He spoke out loud to himself, an old habit. “Might as well get some more exercise before bed.” As he began the long climb upwards, his mind raced over the day’s proceedings. Just an hour ago he was so sure he would be moving out to Arizona, taking that cushy job offer from Alcaeus Space Systems, but the offer from Al-Hatem intrigued him. The email asked for a response confirming certain details so that they might set up a video chat interview… in English. The email specifically stated that the position being discussed did not require any fluency in Arabic whatsoever, something for which Todd was eminently grateful; his grasp of higher mathematics notwithstanding, he acknowledged that foreign languages were never his strong suit.

  His hands swiping the room key through the door scanner, Todd’s body unconsciously guided him to the bathroom door. He always did his best thinking in the steam and heat of a hot shower...something about the humid air and the sound of falling droplets helped him sort through the unlabeled filing cabinets cluttering his mind.

  As the shower turned on, Todd’s mind set to work. He would have to investigate Al-Hatem Aerospace, ask his NASA associates and contacts in the private sector if they’d heard of it. Then, if his preliminary research checked out, he’d agree to the interview. He could always say no, after all. There was always the Alcaeus Space Systems job, or the possibility that the Russians’ current intransigence would keep up, sparking another Cold War, another space race, meaning more public funding and a second renaissance for NASA. That was unlikely though, and his secret dream of a manned mission to Mars, shared by many of his coworkers, was always 30 years away, no matter the current decade.

  Todd’s thoughts drifted for an hour across the wide expanse of possibilities as his body went on autopilot, navigating through his regular bathroom routine and into bed. His subsequent dreams after drifting off to sleep were of the rust colored vista of Amazonis Planitia, one of the red planet’s largest, smoothest plains. The sun was high overhead, smaller, less distinct in the sky, seemingly stationary. A dust storm approached from the east, its howl a low indistinct growling. Soon, quite soon to his reckoning, the storm would obscure the orb of the sun and wash over him. Todd began to run, his feet leaving distinct footprints in the puce sand. The urge to find shelter was overwhelming, but there was none visible.

  Awakening with a start some hours later, Todd could recall the sensation of harsh, gritty winds raking across his flesh.

  Chapter 2

  Ali rang the buzzer to Amina’s parents home at eight o’clock. The blue metal door swung open after a time and a young six-year-old boy gestured for him to enter, a broad smile on his face. “Ahlan, Ali!” said the boy with a cheerful tenor. Mohammed looked up to Ali both literally and figuratively, especially since Ali often watched some of the same cartoons that Mohammed enjoyed.

  Amina’s family’s house was spacious and accommodating. Located on the outskirts of the new city in Tunis, it resembled not at all the cramped quarters of his family’s apartment in the old medina. Though the outside of the house might be considered austere by western standards, the inside was another thing entirely. The walls were made of beautiful glazed ceramic tiles in intricate, geometrical patterns. Classical Arab stucco decorated the molding of each room. In the living room where Ali was invited to sit, a large gold Hand of Fatima hung prominently above the couche
s and flat-screen television. Beautiful Moroccan carpets covered the floors of each room in sumptuous colors, and even the furniture was clearly imported hardwood. Ali was reminded once again that he was trying to date above his station; Amina’s father was a banker, and this home was but a fraction of his wealth.

  Amina and Ali had met at Tunis University several years before, right before graduation. He was there on a literary studies scholarship, she taking classes with the fine arts department. Why her father didn’t deem it necessary to send her to a school in France or the United States he would never know; nor would he ever ask.

  “Ali! Good to see you again young man!” said her father, Hassan, as he strode into the living room. “How is the journalism business?” He was dressed in a button down shirt and still wore his checkered tie; seemingly just returned from his offices in the financial district.

  “Very well sir, thank you.” Amina had wisely not told her father of his decision to leave a steady paycheck behind (for now). “And how are you? All is fine? Life is good and the sky is clear?” An old Maghrebi turn of phrase.

  “Yes, yes. All is well, of course, thanks be to God. Najwa! Coffee for our guest!”

  Amina’s mother, Najwa, carried in a tray of glasses and a silver pot containing spiced coffee. She smiled at Ali but said nothing, and placed the tray on the table between the two men. He thanked her with a nod, and she left without looking at her husband, returning to the kitchen where the smell of chorba and couscous wafted invitingly. Najwa was a terrific cook and a kind woman, eternally friendly and patient with Ali and her family both. She was also quite intelligent and terribly witty, much like her daughter. These were traits Ali admired in anyone, man or woman. Now, however, was not the permitted place or time for him to engage in discussion with Najwa.

  “And how are your parents, my boy? Are they doing all right? Making do in the walled quarter still? How cramped it must be there. Not like here!” Hassan gestured casually around the air with one hand as he poured the coffee.