“This will make sense, eventually. There are rules, and we must adhere to them. No exceptions. I’ve tried to explain to you. Maybe Isda can do a better job.”
“Isda! I’ll never talk to that hard-shelled turd ever again. He was so superior.”
“No, Margot, I think you should talk to him. He can explain things a little better than me.”
“I wouldn’t talk to him if he was the last guy on earth. I mean, oh hell, forget it.”
“Margot, listen, this incident with the Wall, it is indeed serious for us, not just the Das, but for all who depend on the Wall.”
“Well, you figure it out. I didn’t make the damn Wall.”
“That’s where we need your help, though. It happened with you. I don’t think you understand that you were a critical element to it, to the event, the circumstance. This thing we are dealing with is not within the realm of possibility, as we know it.”
“I still don’t care.”
“But Margot, the Viewing room. Haven’t you seen that we have explained all possibilities? I mean, there are outlying worlds, in outlying solar systems of outlying galaxies. Many we have not yet explored, but after the first few thousand, after the first few million, you begin to know all things. All things. No exceptions. This is billions of years now with the Wall. We have seen it in every circumstance, even beyond things that you could imagine. Now we have a problem. After two billion years, there’s a problem. Maybe so, maybe not. But we’d like you to help us find out. You are the only factor we haven’t thoroughly checked.”
“You make me sound like some part on a car.”
“Sorry, Margot. You are no car part.”
“Well, I’m sure the Wall has already checked my mind or you bugs have. What more can you get from me? You can’t.”
“We would like for you to re-create the event. And you’re right, the Wall has checked all possibilities as it is programmed to do. It can find nothing, outside of that specific event, and it can find nothing in the event, or in your mind, that would have caused the problem, the fault.”
“There’s nothing I can do, bug. You’ve scoured my mind. What can I offer?”
“Okay, Margot, I see I’m not getting through very well. Please, Margot, do me a favor. Can you please talk with Isda again?”
“No way in hell! I told you, that guy was rude!”
“But Margot, give him another chance. You must see that this is an important thing for us. So please, can you do me a favor and talk with him?”
“Oh, bug, I can’t see what the hell good that will do. I mean, like I said, you Das know everything and even more than I could tell you. I can’t tell you any more than you know.”
“No, no, maybe you can’t, but maybe we can tell you a little more, more than you know about us already. Maybe Isda can help you understand why this is so important to us, even to you. Can you please talk to him?”
Margot had been pacing around the room trying desperately not to look directly at Rovada. She knew him the best of all the Das, though since she arrived she tended only to stay with Sergio, and occasionally both Sergio and the Basque, not wanting or willing to be with Bing since Penny was always with him in lock-step. She knew she didn’t owe Rovada anything, except for the fact that he was her zookeeper while she was in the coma. It wasn’t Rovada who saw her laying outside on the hospital grounds, comatose, in the bed, a dead brother lying beside her. It was the Wall, at least the form of the Wall as it travels through space. The Wall indeed did see her.
Margot bit her lip and thought for a moment longer before glancing up at Rovada, his hard shell reflecting in the soft light of the Wall. She was mad that he interrupted her for this cause, anyway. Who cared what these bugs thought was important? They knew it all, they knew more than she did, and the Wall knew everything. Or almost everything.
Rovada didn’t move. He just stood there, waiting for an answer.
The Wall is my friend. It responds to everything I ask for, it creates food for me, it shows me worlds I could never have imagined, it plays my music, at least, that music which it had catalogued, which was the good rock and roll.
Not wanting to think she was in any way doing this for Rovada or the Das, she responded, “Okay, bug, but look, if I do this, it’s for the Wall. The Wall is the only thing worthwhile around here, except for Sergio and the Basque, and Bing to a degree, I guess. But not for you guys.”
“Margot,” Rovada replied, “I understand you are still angry with us. I suppose I would be too if I was in your situation. That may change in time. Does this mean that you will speak with Isda?”
Margot gave it one more moment to at least appear to reconsider. She didn’t care that the Wall and Rovada knew exactly what she was thinking. It was the mere fact that she could do it, that he had to play along with her in this game of her concoction, then wait for her to move. She loved teasing Rovada like this, but she was so frustrated by his patience and kindness. It didn’t seem real. Just so, she hated Isda’s rudeness, as she hated all people, or bugs in this case, who were snotty, holier-than-thou.
It’s not like they’d take my food away. The Wall wouldn’t allow them to do that, would it?
She got up from her chair, rising slowly to stretch out Rovada’s perceived agony. “I don’t see how I benefit at all from this,” she scowled quietly. “It’s your damn wall, bug. You should fix it, not me.”
“Thank you, Margot, you are helping us to fix it, and I appreciate that as well as the other Das.”
“All thousand trillion of you, or whatever number you are?”
“Well, I can’t speak for the others who are not here with us, because they are not aware of the problem as yet. Of course, we have sent out the message to the others, who will send it to others, and so on until all Das know. We will send them the solution, too, when we find it.”
“You’re so certain,” she responded, as they walked down the brown corridors.
“In our years we have found no problem that cannot be solved. It is all based in physics and quantum physics, all science, no magic, though our view of scientific limits is occasionally expanded by events. And this is an event, a major event for the Das. Isda can tell you more. You know he’s the chief scientist for our five hundred. It’s been a long time since I have been in that job.”
“When were you there?” she queried.
“The last time was over two hundred and seventy-two thousand years ago. Far too long ago for me to remember any of it.”
“You all seem to have such poor memories. If I was a scientist, I think I’d still remember it.”
“It just gets pushed aside, Margot, even after a few years, it loses strength. There are limits to our natural memory.”
“But the Wall takes care of that . . ..”
“And the Wall does a good job helping. Ah, here we are at the Observation room.”
Margot stopped. Isda’s misshapen head flashed before her eyes.
No need for rudeness. I know he’ll be reading my mind again when I walk in. I want him to know I won’t put up with his crap. I’ll walk right out if he’s rude. They can solve their Wall’s problems without me before I put up with his crap.
The door opened. Rovada moved aside to let her through, paused for a moment, then slowly ambled away.
Margot stepped inside. Isda was not to be seen in the room. A small chair with a tall straight back protruded from the floor. Isda’s console, the area from which he viewed the skies, was empty. Margot whispered, “Where is he?” as she turned, only to face the Wall. “Late. Rudeness, as expected.”
“Not late,” a voice responded.
Margot swirled around but saw nothing. “Where are you?” she stammered. “This is definitely rude.”
“As intended.”
Margot felt a swelling in her throat. “I’m leaving!” she demanded.
“No!” the voice commanded. “No, you’ll stay here and we will talk.”
“You’re such a bastard! Where are you?”
“What?” She looked down at the floor, stepping up as if he were under her feet. “Where in the floor? Why the hell are you in the floor?”
“You constrain your vision by what you expect or want. Your mental constructs are too limited.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Look, if you don’t come out of the Wall, the floor, whatever, I’m leaving. Rovada goaded me in coming here, anyway, so I’d just as soon leave.”
“I beg to differ. You did this of your own volition.”
“I did not! I did this because I was forced to. I just wanted to get you guys to stop harassing me.”
“You liked the attention.”
“Attention? From bugs? You guys flatter yourselves. You are simply not the most intelligent beings in the universe, and this ‘event’ you call it proves the fact, that’s for damn sure. Maybe you are the most prolific, you and ants, which seem to be pervasive in the universe in one form or other, but you Das are surely not the most intelligent. So screw the attention. I wanted you off my backs.”
“Were we really on it?”
“Yes, you were, damn it.”
“Who?”
“Rovada, he’s bugged me a couple of times," she lied. She paused a moment. “Get out here, now! I’m sick of talking to the air, this stinking, sulfury air. That’s how I know you’re here, somewhere, it’s this acrid, pukey smell you guys carry around with you.” Margot waited for a response. She was becoming impatient with the quiet.
“Intolerant,” Isda replied.
Margot didn’t respond. She knew he was goading her.
“Do you want your damn Wall fixed or not?”
More silence. Then Isda responded, “Let’s start with the Wall.”
“What’s the matter? Are you having trouble hearing or something? Did that hit in the head damage your hearing?”
“No, Margot, I hear your thoughts first, then your mouth speaks the words. Sometimes, the thoughts and words coincide. Most of the time they don’t. That’s one thing you may want to change about you.”
“Who said anything about me? I thought we were talking about the Wall. Why the hell won’t you come out?”
“Funny thing about the Das. Even before we learned to read minds, we spoke what we thought, unadulterated by the speech. Perhaps it was our language, perhaps simply the way our minds worked.”
“I don’t care what you guys learned or whatever. Look, Isda, I’m taking my own time away from the Viewing room to come to talk to you and you don’t even have the balls to come out and talk to me, face-to-face! Are you afraid I’ll hurt you?”
“The one fear we Das all have is death. Fear of it, or love of it, it gets confused, since we dwell on it so.”
“Why the hell would you guys dwell on death?”
“Expansion of the universe. We all see the inevitability of it.”
“What? Are you talking the end of the universe like fifteen billion years from now? But that’s fifteen billion years! Jesus, who’d ever want to live that long anyway?”
“You will. I guarantee you, you will. You will think about the inevitable end of this life you lead. All of us sentient beings do.”
“Sentient, sentient. That’s what someone said to me, it was Rovada, when I had come out of my coma. Something about sentient beings and some bullshit about why you couldn’t save my planet. Jesus, you assholes, how can you live with yourselves?”
“You may come to understand, Margot, what the rationale is. If you ask my opinion, we should have saved your planet, if we could have.”
“What? What are you talking about ‘could have’?”
“You don’t investigate enough. You don’t ask enough questions. You take it at face value, nothing deeper. You assume, using your constructs, what is comfortable for you. You never ask why or why not, you just react, emote, and react. Emote, react. You let your emotions rule your conscious mind. Might as well be your big toe for the usefulness that provides, which would be far better than emotion.”
“Christ,” she uttered dejectedly. “You still haven’t answered my question. What did you mean?”
“I said ‘could have’ which is different than ‘would have’. I meant that you assumed that we could have saved your planet. Think about it, Margot, we had so few Das on your planet at the time. They had limited time to respond, limited time between the Wall’s ability to determine the cause and the potential for global destruction. Things still take time, despite our advanced science. And what do you think we could have done during those few days?”
“Put something in the air, water, everything, anything, to stop it from spreading.”
“After how many billion had died, how do we counteract? Would you have preferred that we have stopped the comet that hit your planet so many millions of years ago and killed off the dinosaurs?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“The dinosaurs were the dominant form of life, beyond bacteria, bugs, and the like.”
“But dinosaurs weren’t sentient, doesn’t that matter?"
“How do you know? How do we know what is and isn’t sentient in the continuum of consciousness? And there is indeed a continuum, even for ethnocentric humans. Must something even be conscious to be sentient? Were you sentient in your coma?”
“How come you are using this sentient bullshit on me?”
“How have I used it?”
“You talk about sentience as if it’s some great thing, then you say it’s not.”
“I talked sentience?”
“No, well, not you that I remember, hell, I only talked with you once and that was when you were rude as hell to me. But you Das talk like it’s something important.”
“Believe me, it’s not. What’s important is what’s important to you. The reality of sentience is an individual’s reality, or that individual’s interpretation. Are things so black and white?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is sentience a yes or no, plus or minus? In fact, are plusses part minuses and minuses part plusses?”
Margot frowned. She peered back at the door but thought for an instant that this mind game was worth playing, that maybe she enjoyed it a little bit. Then she quickly moved the thought aside, knowing that Isda would hear her thinking it, as if he hadn’t already.
“Look, scumbag. I didn’t have to come here to talk about sentient beings. That’s the last thing I came to talk about. I was forced here by Rovada to talk with you about your damn Wall, so let’s talk about it. If you don’t effing come out, I can just as well leave right now.”
In instant, the floor extruded Isda and he moved slowly to his chair as he asked, “Do you mind if I open up the ceiling? I like the sky for talking. It soothes me to look outside. The Wall annoys me with its regularity.”
Margot frowned again and did not dare nod her head.
“Thanks,” Isda said as the ceiling disappeared and displayed the mass of stars above them. “You were saying that sentient beings are the last thing you care about. What is the first?”
Stupid Das! How the hell could you ask me that! All is gone! I am left with a Mexican and two Chinese to talk to! What’s the matter with you? How would you feel if the trillions of Das just suddenly died and you were one of only five left in the universe?
“I’d feel lonely, I suppose,” Isda replied. “Lonely, but unique in an odd way. Some bad, yes, but some good.”
Margot felt like spitting. “Damn you, I told you before that you could at least have the courtesy of waiting for me to talk before you answer my mind. It’s so damn unfair. I should get to do the same to you!”
“Oh, you can, if we were to change you in that way. But it is against our rules.”
“Fucking rules. Fucking rules!”
“I don’t recall that most people on your planet used expletives as often as you.”
“What the fuck does that matter since I’m about the only one left? Fucking rules. It’s proof you don’
t know everything, you scum who let my planet die!”
“Some things you have to accept, at least as they happened in the past. Yet, relative to the future, acceptance of those rules is a matter of choice. About the past, there is no choice. This is your human problem.”
“Human problem? Human problem? How the hell is there a human problem when there are no humans left? Stupid fucking rules, who made them?”
“We all did, we all did, Margot. But there’s one thing you may not know, that we all do not choose to live by them. There are many billions of Das who don’t, who never will abide by these rules, but then, they are not Das.”
“What?”
“Das are defined by these rules. They are us. They are our ethic, our belief. If a Das chooses not to live with the rules, that is not a Das.”
“Oh, bullshit! A Das is a big ugly brown shell, like you!”
“You think of a Das as this type of being. There are many who don’t look like me but are in the Das family. Indeed, at some point, you could become one. No, a Das is a being committed to Das rules, its norms, its ethics.”
“Ethics? What the hell ethics do you have? Rovada called you ‘zookeepers’, and that’s about the only rule I see. You guys chronicle lives of mostly long-dead beings. That’s where you get your ‘jollies’ if you know what I mean by that. You don’t do anything exciting yourselves, except slop together when you eat so disgustingly and fly in your cavern like oversized bats.”
“Margot, your brain can understand this, I’m sure. You can resist what I say. That’s fine. But listen to what I say. It may help to solidify your position.”
“My position? What the hell do you mean?”
“You talk without substance. No rules, no definition. That’s great because it allows all possibilities for what you can potentially be. Yet, as a result, you are nothing, because nothing is ever committed to.”
“God, are you nuts or what? I thought we were talking about rules.”
“I am. You don’t allow yourself to see the connections between rules and you, your behavior, what you are. That’s okay, but, as you would say in your own terms, it’s a ‘chicken shit’ way to be.”
The Space Between Her Thoughts (The Space in Time Book 1) Page 18
