“If you ate with them, you’d see that it’s not so bad. You get used to the clicking-sucking sound.”
“Never. I’ll eat in my room if you please. How can you eat when the entire room is filled with the smell of rotten eggs? Worse than my dog’s gas – and that was the worst.”
Sergio chuckled at the comment as he led Margot down the dimly lit corridors towards the Observation room.
Chapter 11
“WHERE IS EVERYONE TODAY?” she asked.
“They must be at the feeding, or maybe today is a council meeting,” he replied.
“Then do you think he’s in?”
“Don’t know, Gordita. Let’s try.” Margot and Sergio now stood outside the door of the Observation room.
Inside the room sat a Das, staring at the sky, his wings spread out comfortably on the long neck of the chair. He knew the visitors were just outside the door. The Wall informed him of this, but he decided to keep them waiting a minute.
“Isda," Margot asked, "are you in there? Isda,” she spoke a little louder, “are you in there? I’m Margot. I’ve never talked to you.”
“And it’s me, Fishda, Sergio.”
He waited a few more seconds then allowed the door to open. Margot and Sergio proceeded cautiously inside.
“If you were in here, why didn’t you just open it?” queried Margot, somewhat perturbed at this Das’ behavior. She had met nearly all of the Das by now, and they always seemed expedient and courteous.
“In the middle of a thought,” Isda droned in the monotone voice of the Wall.
“Can’t this damned Wall change your voices?” she muttered. “You guys all sound alike to me.” As she spoke to her new acquaintance, she noticed that Isda’s left eye was slightly smaller than the right, and that side of his head had a distinct dent in it, unlike the other perfectly monotonous heads of the Das. In fact, she had indeed seen this one but had never looked closely at him.
How can we distinguish any differences when these beings look exactly alike yet wear no clothes or jewelry, nor do they have other distinguishing marks? If they at least had distinct voices. This one, however, clearly has something that distinguishes him from the others.
“The eye, you’re wondering. An accident, six hundred million years ago, give or take a few. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“Maybe you don’t know,” Margot responded, “but I’d appreciate it if you’d let me speak my own thoughts. I’ve let virtually everyone else know this and they respect it. I demand it!” she said forthrightly. Margot had gotten very particular in the months that followed her awakening. The Das were so accommodating, and she thought it only fair that their advantage of thought-reading should be limited.
“So you say. Interlocking Effects.”
By this time, Margot had grown to hate those words. It was used to explain everything. The Das used the words to describe why they didn’t help the earth, why nearly all civilizations came and went in short time, why the Das were so dominant in the known universe, and why they all got along so well. But it disturbed her. It sounded too much like “good job, comrade” or “all for one, one for all.” Too goody-two-shoes.
“I hate those words,” she uttered.
“Margot, how can you hate anything?” Sergio asked.
“Sergio,” she turned to her friend, “you know I don’t really hate it. I just get tired of hearing it all the time.”
“Explain to me why you visited me since you will not allow me to answer your mind’s thoughts,” Isda said.
Satisfied she had won this small battle, Margot moved towards Isda expecting him to shuffle back in his chair. She thought it was funny that the Das had a natural reaction to a quick approach, and it always gave her a little jolt of dominance. Rovada explained it as an instinctual need to move away from danger since their skeletal structure was so light and fragile. Isda didn’t flinch.
“I have been close to death, Margot,” Isda stated, “unlike all of the others. I do not live in fear of death like my friends do to varying degrees. It is the one fear still present in most Das.”
“And like I haven’t been there, too?” Margot responded quickly, rubbing the back of her neck where the long scar still protruded.
“You have your trophy, I have mine. It is something in common. Sit down and be comfortable. You have no need to position yourself with me. Time and the vastness of our existence make this meaningless.”
Margot didn’t know what to make of this Das. All were friendly to her, but none spoke to her in this direct way. None seemed as authoritative or certain, and she hated it when they all deferred to the Council, even on trivial matters, like giving her a Viewing room, or her insistence to eat separately from them.
“You know where I’m from,” she stated flatly.
“Of course.”
“Do you know more than I know? More than the Wall knows?” She looked over at Sergio who was amusing himself with pieces of odd-looking equipment that were scattered about the room.
Good, no interruptions. This is too important.
“About what?”
“What do you think?”
“You asked me not to read your mind.”
“Oh, right,” she said, retracting back into her floor-formed chair.
“Then I’ll ask properly,” she said sarcastically. “About earth.”
“In what regard?”
“Don’t be difficult! I want to know if you can see anything beyond what I see.”
“Hasn’t the Wall told you that the resolution you see is the best that it can do?”
“Yes.” There was a pause, too long for Margot. “Okay, then,” she stammered, getting up from her chair. She began walking towards Sergio, and then grabbed his arm to force him with her toward the door. “Just forget it!”
“If you so desire. This is your emotion, not mine.”
“Interlocking bullshit! I can’t believe that you’re a Das!”
“You’ve become intolerant.”
“What’s so bad about that?” she retorted.
“Nothing. It’s what’s good,” Isda said as the door closed.
Sergio tailed along, having to half-skip just to keep up with Margot who sped hastily away from the room.
“Margot,” Sergio begged, “will you stop for a second? You’re going too fast!”
Margot quickened her pace. “That asshole!” she whispered under her lips.
“I heard that, but you didn’t even give him a chance.”
“Chance?” She stopped in her tracks. “I’ve never seen a Das as rude as him, the stinking bug! Of course, I gave him a chance.”
Sergio paused, unwilling to move as Margot turned and began walking away. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No,” said Sergio, shaking his head matter-of-factly.
“And who do you think you are?”
“Margot, sometimes you get too mad. I’ve seen you before, in the Viewing room when you see some bad things. But this wasn’t your fault or his.”
“Fault? Who said anything about fault? He’s just plain rude.”
“Well,” Sergio responded, “sometimes you aren’t the nicest person in town, either. I think they think you’re pretty stuck-up or something.”
“Stuck-up? Me? Who the hell do I have to get stuck-up with?” She moved closer to Sergio, her face red.
Sergio reacted calmly. He remembered how his Mom and Dad would sometimes fight, how they’d talk first, normally, then get louder. How they’d move their hands around. How they’d swear at each other when they didn’t think the other was listening. But he knew they loved each other. And they didn’t fight too much, compared to other parents that his friends would tell him about.
“I’m just telling you what Vada told me. He said some of the Das thought you were stuck-up.”
“Ohhh,” she stammered, “wait till I see Ralph next. Where is that roach?”
“But Margot, wait,” Sergio pleaded.
“Wait? For what?” she ret
orted angrily at him, not caring if she hurt his feelings.
“I think you should go back.”
“To Isda? Why would I want to do that?”
“Because you’ve been talking about seeing Fishda for a long time.”
“Look, I can see him anytime I want. All I have is time. Maybe in enough time, they’ll get a new astronomer, then I’ll see the new one.”
“That’s probably a long time,” he responded.
Margot paused. She knew enough about the Council of Five to know that they were the last word and that they assigned jobs to all the Das, and those jobs lasted many years at the pace the Das moved. “So?”
“Well, you’ve been talking about finding out more of what’s on earth, more than the Wall can tell you. More than you can see in the Observation room. Seems you should talk to him.”
“Oh hell, what good is it to know about a dead planet?”
“But isn’t that what the Wall can’t tell you, whether it is dead or not?”
"You don’t know anything,” she mumbled, angry that she now so badly wanted to talk with Isda. She was also angry that she had just had a fight with this small friend of hers.
Undaunted, she strode boldly back to the Observation room door, thinking that Isda himself was watching her, and she could be proud in her defiance. They stopped at the door. “Do I have to say ‘pretty please’ this time?” she yelled.
The door opened. Isda was in a distant part of the room which was now darkly lit. A small, bright object appeared at the very top of the room’s sky.
“Would you like it dimensionalized?” he asked.
“What is it?” Margot sneered quietly. She had learned that this word meant to bring any object in the sky into the room in three dimensions. “Why should I care?”
“It is your sun.”
“So, I’ve done that already.”
Margot heard what she thought was a sigh from the Das. But she knew the Das did not sigh, at least, not by any air passing through their lungs. Their bodies absorbed the air, just like bugs. Gross beings.
“The Wall is limited in its interpretation sometimes and that is why you have come to me, no doubt. Would you like my own?”
“The Wall supposedly knows all things, and I suppose you believe that you are superior to the Wall?”
“But it has no intuition.”
“What? What good is intuition?”
“It is the one key thing the Wall has not.”
“Well, the damn thing is not alive, if that’s what you mean. How can you expect it to do everything we do?” she asked
“Have a seat,” Isda demanded.
“I don’t care to stand.”
“Then have a seat.”
“No, I mean I don’t want to sit.”
“Suit yourself. There are things you don’t know about the Wall, or about the Das.”
“And do I really care? You all stink, literally, and I’m the last human, so who gives a flying F about anything?”
“A flying F? That’s a new one on me.”
“Doesn’t matter. If humans had been around two billion years, or however long you odorous bugs have, you’d probably seem like ants to us, just like we seem like ants to you – at least some of you. And there are so many of you, I just think you guys are the ants of the universe,” she said with a snarky tone.
Isda moved to the center of the room. The small, bright object that lit the room at its center began to grow increasingly large. “You will learn about us. You have little choice, though there are other alternatives you could exercise. This is your sun.”
His statement aroused Margot’s interest. Sergio had already moved close to the shiny object in the center of the ceiling.
“And here are your planets. Watch out Sergio,” he said. “Duck! You almost walked into Jupiter!”
“It’s too dark,” he replied anxiously.
"That’s okay, it’s only the Wall. It wouldn’t hurt you, of course. I just wanted you both to see the position of the planets.”
“What good is this doing us?” Margot asked sarcastically, intensely interested in what Isda was saying. “I’ve watched this same thing before. I’ve got it in my room when I want it.”
“Have you seen it lately?”
“No, what’s it matter?”
“Oh, it may matter, because nothing has changed.”
“Look, Isda, Fishda, whatever. The Wall has told me all I want to know about what little we can see. If you guys didn’t have your stupid rules, you could have left something there to tell us all what’s going on. But your damn stupid rules said you couldn’t leave anything behind on earth, or even close enough to it to monitor it half decently. Pretty damn stupid, if you ask me, if now you have to look at it in some defective telescope. I can’t believe you jerks sit around and make rules like this. But what the hell else do you do with so much time?”
“Okay. The Wall spoke to you. It interpreted for you. I imagine you had it guess probabilities and the like, based upon the observations.”
“Yeah, like nothing has changed. Big deal. The Wall says it’s what to expect. That things could stabilize in a short period of time, even if power plants imploded or melted down or whatever.”
“Impatience is of such value under the right circumstances.”
“What?”
“He said that impatience is valuable under circumstances,” Sergio repeated.
“I know that!” Margot countered, raising an eyebrow at Sergio as if to hush him up.
“But yours,” Isda continued, “is misplaced. Do you care to know more?”
“Seems like a waste of time. What more can you tell me that the Wall couldn’t?”
“You know intuition?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that you believe you have it.”
“Look, fish, I told you not to mind read.”
“Sorry, but you deny your own abilities.”
“Like what?”
“Like your senses. Signals you get. Feelings of clarity and rightness.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you believe there is life, animal life, still on earth?”
Margot paused. She turned away and slowly walked to the door.
This damn question. This damn question. Of course, that asshole, wouldn’t that be the main question in my mind? Isn’t it obvious that a person like me in a situation like this would always want to know? Do I have to tell him that? This guy is playing with me. He’s playing with the seven billion humans and the countless billions of animals and other life that died. But hell, there’s always that possibility that something made it through, for whatever reason, like we few.
“Okay, bird rot, so you can read my mind, despite my directly asking you not to. It’s obvious that I am here for that.”
“And what do your own feelings tell you?”
Margot turned back to face Isda, her eyes closed. She felt the burning moistness of tears at the edges of her eyelids. She saw her brother Joey, dead and dried, in stiff rigor mortis posed beside an empty hospital bed. “The flies lived.”
“Maybe so, maybe not,” Isda said.
“Dude, what the hell? Quit beating around the bush. You act as if you’re smarter than the Wall with your intuition.”
“Oh, no doubt I am.”
“You’re sure as shit sure of yourself. Have you ever looked in a mirror? Really. Tell me how you’re so great, how you can do the things the Wall does, or hold its knowledge?”
“You know, Margot, that the Wall does not live, at least in our terms. It cannot wonder for enjoyment. It cannot enjoy.”
“Big deal.”
“It is in the enjoyment of wondering that defines life for many sentient beings. In most cases, wondering is relegated to practical matters, rendering it useless over time.”
Margot was growing tired of this talk. “So just tell me, then. I don’t want to psychobabble, especially with a Das. I’ll pull-up Freud in my Viewing room
for that.”
“Listen, simply ‘postulating’ is nothing. It’s nothing. In the creation, there is the all. Move closer to the sun. Do you see?”
Margot begrudgingly obliged. “The sun, our earth, my earth, so what?”
“I can hardly see earth except that it is blue as always.”
The small blue dot suddenly grew larger to the size of her head.
“Disruptions can distort the image, but this is as it looks now.”
“I know that. I’ve done this”
“You’re angered with the lack of clarity?”
“Yes, it’s a piece of shit that I can’t see it clearly.”
“Margot,” Sergio pleaded, “quit cussing. It’s not ladylike!”
Margot rolled her eyes.
“Now look at the overlay.” Suddenly, the earth took on a clarity, as if it were taken from a photograph in three dimensions. Margot could see the huge mountain ranges of the Himalayas.
Surprised, with her heart beating wildly, she shrugged her shoulders. “What does this prove?”
“It is an overlay. This image has been overlaid. It is earth, taken as we left, then overlaid against earth, or what we can see of it today.”
“So I’m impressed? I don’t see what this tells me.” She was disappointed that this was not the real thing.
“Think about it Margot, think." The room was silent for a moment.
Margot stared impatiently at Isda. Her eyes darted to the ground.
“Think, Margot.”
“About what?” she replied, quite annoyed.
“You know so much, yet you put so little together. You don’t intuit.”
“I’m not the damn Wall!”
“The earth has not changed! Not changed since the time we left.”
“Big deal. The Wall said it’s possible. Even likely.”
“It didn’t say likely. You interpreted, you heard what you wanted it to say.”
“I’ve asked a few, a couple of times. I know what it said.”
“That was what?”
“Well,” she replied snobbishly, “ask it yourself.”
A voice came drifting into the space of the room. “Hello Margot, Sergio, and Isda. Relative to your question on earth. A fourteen percent chance exists that at this time, no substantial geographical or climatological changes will have occurred as a result of human influences, such as nuclear power plants and dams.”
The Space Between Her Thoughts (The Space in Time Book 1) Page 15
