by Yossi Soika
“To the facility!” exclaimed Da Costa.
We were surprised when the room started to orbit upwards at hypervelocity.
“You may leave the room,” Da Costa said. “We have arrived!”
The door opened widely and we saw a well-lit corridor in front of us.
“Come, follow me again, please,” Da Costa repeated his request, and led us in great hurry. After a while we arrived at a prominent door that vanished when we reached it. Da Costa strode forward to a wide-opened terrace and said, “Notice the beautiful view. You are now at the highest observatory in the world. This place is called The Monastery.”
“Wow!” I called aloud, “What an amazing surprise.” You may well understand how astonished I was when I heard the ominous name.
Melanie stood mesmerized, rubbing her eyes and murmuring continuously, “I can’t believe… I can’t believe… this is too much for me.”
“Here,” Da Costa exclaimed, pointing to a small-sized facility that projected a beam of mauve light into the space about ten feet from where we were.
“Notice the image of Earth – it is projected from great height… and you are standing at this spot.”
To our great surprise the photograph quickly became magnified and very soon we were able to see the monastery at the top of the mountain where we stood on the terrace.
“And now my young friends, is there any place in particular that you wish to visit?”
“Yes,” we answered unanimously, “we want to see our small town.”
“Excellent, Larchmont please. It’s getting closer. Here is your small town of Larchmont.”
As soon as he stopped talking, we could see, to our great amazement, the houses of the town approaching quickly. The next minute the town was seen very clearly, until we could easily spot the numbers of the houses on the walls.
“Look!” Melanie cried out excitedly, “I see my mother working in the garden. It’s unbelievable… It’s impossible!”
“You have just witnessed, in a nutshell, the immense power of this staggering facility which is called Elisoik.
“To me it all seems like a hallucination, like farfetched nonsense,” I exclaimed excitedly.
“I can understand why you’re so excited, but wait and let me finish what I am saying. This device has many features; one of them is the capability to observe tremendous distances. We don’t need telescopes. By using the Elisoik we can observe enormous distances in infinite space; it also has a feature, that can magnifying a marked area to the point of being able to detect bacteria. We possess here vast capabilities of probing the compounds of our universe, and this is only the tip of the iceberg of the Elisoik, but we will come back to it later.
And now my friends, I’m going to present to you the Land of the Ten Tribes exactly as it appeared to me for the first time.”
He concluded his explanation and we returned to the room.
“We are going to see the Land of the Ten Tribes, and now we will return slowly.”
As soon as the door was closed, the room began to descend, at first at a great speed and then suddenly at a snail’s pace. The opaque walls of the room gradually became as transparent as glass, and we could see the surroundings with ease.
“I see clouds…” Melanie exclaimed excitedly. “Are we floating in the clouds? I can see a very big city below me, what’s going on here? Is it an elevator or an aircraft?”
I also wanted to bombard him with endless questions, but was so shocked with surprise that my vocal cords were constricted and I wasn’t able to utter a word. The scenery revealed in front of me was so spectacular, and retrospectively I’m currently lost for words when I try to relay what I exactly saw there. Shortly before we touched the ground we were able to see strange buildings sparkling and glowing in all colors of the rainbow. It was a city with no roads, only tiny sidewalks and spacious, impressive parks.
“Incredible! We are in such a wonderful place! Are we in heaven?” I called out again and again with marvel.
The Land of the Ten Tribes
“Is it a city?” Melanie asked in amazement, “And if it is a city, where are all the roads and cars?”
We had almost touched the ground when we noticed three youths wearing strange and glaring shoes. They flew through the air, while doing somersaults, zigzagging their way sharply, and swinging in big circles while their bodies were positioned upside down in the air. For a moment I almost swallowed my tongue because it was such an amazing vision.
At the sight of the exceptional phenomenon I approached Da Costa, “What’s going on here and how are they floating in the air?”
“Have a little patience, my honored guests; soon you too will take part in such a floating circle.”
“No, no,” Melanie replied quickly. “I really don’t like to be in the air. I only feel safe on the ground.”
Slowly and gently the room landed on a large white-washed building. After landing we left the spacious hall with small hesitant steps. When we both stepped outside the large building we were almost petrified – everything we had seen up to then was merely beyond imagination.
“I still have many surprises in my bag, and my advice is to keep your excitement for what is still to come; very soon we will visit the Land of the Ten Tribes.”
“Oh no, I’m so tired,” Melanie announced, “I must have a short rest.”
“Actually I also feel awfully tired,” I said yawning, “I also think that a short rest wouldn’t hurt.”
“Follow me,” Da Costa called. Soon afterwards we entered a long corridor that led to a spacious room. As soon as we entered we noticed a large room with no furniture. At the center of the room were positioned five semi-transparent pyramid-like structures.
“You wanted to have a nap, so enter the napachinizer, and I’ll wait for you right here.”
Melanie and I peered at the structure of the napachinizer, and immediately uttered simultaneously, “There is no bed, mattress, or even a pillow”.”
“We must take a nap,” Melanie added wearily.
“A bed and bed-linen have not been seen here for hundreds of years.”
“How can you live without sleeping?” Melanie asked in amazement. “Or do you sleep like horses –standing up?”
“Your guess is not far from the truth but it is far from accurate. Melanie, we do nap while standing up, but it is not the kind of sleep you are familiar with. Scientists of the Ten Tribes have developed an innovative method with energy waves, which are called Energylighteronl, that are fed into our bodies. These waves flow over our bodies, and swiftly discharge fatigue from the body, and recharge it with enough energy for a week.”
“Mr. Da Costa, do you mean that after a short visit to the napachinizer I will not feel tired and won’t want to sleep for a whole week? You must be joking!” Melanie continued with a short laugh of disbelief.
Notwithstanding his good manners, Da Costa rebuked us and commanded us to cease all this chattering, to enter the sleeping machine, so that we will be able to continue soon with our journey in the Land of the Ten Tribes.
What does he mean to continue soon with our journey? I know nothing about his goals but mine are to sleep for a long time. I’m dead tired, I made up my mind, and all at once I stepped toward the napachinizer. I resolutely stepped three more steps toward the circle in the middle of the napachinizer, and the door was shut behind me, and a pleasant warmth began to flood my body and soon afterwards my eyes closed.
A bluish glow of light that gradually turned into a bright white light wakened me from a deep sleep.
“Wow! Could I have been sleeping while standing up?” I asked in astonishment when I opened my eyes and realized that I was standing in the middle of the napachinizer. And how long had I slept? Probably for hours. I had been dead tired… When the door opened suddenly I saw Melanie and Mr. Da Costa in front of me.
/> “Oh!” I exclaimed in astonishment, “How did you know when I was going to wake up? You couldn’t have been waiting for me while I was sleeping for such a long time.” Melanie burst out laughing, and Mr. Da Costa smiled broadly.
“You must be pretending,” Melanie cried indignantly, “you only went in a few seconds ago, and now you’re asking the funniest question I’ve heard so far…”
“Melanie, please don’t tell me that you’re telling the truth… I think you are making fun of me, but the truth is that in my whole life I haven’t ever had such a good deep nap like this one.”
“Dan, stop, you are really overdoing it; your talk is nothing but pretense and jokes.”
“It’s the truth, Melanie, I’m not selling you anything, I’m not telling you anything but the truth.”
“The truth? Soon I’ll know everything about the truth!” she concluded and stepped into the napachinizer.
She wasn’t there for more than a minute, the door opened, and Melanie looked at us with an odd look in her eyes, and immediately exclaimed, “Don’t tell me that I was asleep for only a few seconds!”
“As a matter of fact, that’s the truth – you slept for only a few seconds, no longer, believe me!” I answered and laughed heartedly. “And now the lady will tell us about her amazing long sleep…”
“I must admit that I feel as if I slept for a very long time and I had an enjoyable sleep too, for many long hours.”
“Well, my young friends! You have just learned about a small difference that was developed and introduced in the Land of the Ten Tribes. The napachinizer is only an age-old invention, from about 1,300 years ago. One of the reasons that the city is so developed is that its residents are learning and working continuously. They don’t need any sleep. Sleeping wastes about one third of a human lifetime. And now my honored guests, we are going for a short visit to the Land of the Ten Tribes.”
He finished talking, turned around, marked three circles of light on the floor and said, “And now, please, each one of you takes an Hydrofoilner. Please notice that you may stand on any spot on the Hydrofoilner and that it’s not dangerous to position your feet wherever you want. Please stand on the dronenon.
“I don’t believe that by only marking it with a flashlight you can turn it into an aircraft. I’m willing to stand on the illuminated mark, but no more than that,” and then she stood with both feet on the Hydrofoilner.
“And now my friends, we are going for a short tour. You probably noticed that there are no means of transportation here, but right now you are standing on the slowest kind of Hydrofoilners, but some of the them can be very fast too and they are used for sports competitions, and there are also the big ones for commercial shipping of goods.”
“Can such strange illuminated lines really be used for aviation?” Melanie asked, her face turning slightly pale. She paused for a while and asked quietly, with a stressed expression, “Is there a possibility of it falling? Or, heaven forbid a sudden breakdown while it’s in the air?”
“Of course, there are breakdowns, but a Hydrofoilners would slowly descend during such a breakdown or continue to glide in the air, depending on what the user wants, and then it can stop for a rescue.”
“And could it drop and crash to the ground?”
“Never, for hundreds of years, nothing like that has happened, and it’s also impossible. At the moment of breakdown the dronenon locks on the spot where it stopped and remains suspended in the air until the rescue team arrives. And now my friends, we are going to rise, not so high, and after that I will give you directions for what to do, and you will practice the rules of flying a dronenon.”
“No, no,” Melanie yelled, “I’m really not interested in trying this bizarre illumination! I need to feel the ground underneath my feet, not some unfamiliar circus device.”
“Please pay attention my lovely friends, we are starting right away.”
“I’m getting off, going down…” Melanie yelled hysterically, and deliberately she tried to stretch her foot and step down, but she was very surprised because her foot wouldn’t even move a bit of an inch further. “I must get off, and who–” Before she could complete her words, she was suddenly shot into the air. The scream that filled her contracted throat was trapped; all she wanted to do was scream.
Soon the Hydrofoilner began to turn upside down and Melanie stood with her head down. It was a unique experience, and it didn’t hold the pale Melanie back from overcoming her fears quite quickly, and she was quickly standing with her feet in a downward position.
“From now on you control the Hydrofoilner by yourself; all you have to do is to direct the aircraft using the power of your thought, and now it’s up to you – use it as you wish.” Da Costa concluded with a subdued smile. Melanie soon began to maneuver the Hydrofoilner, flying it with great velocity and moving it with sharp twists, and then I was able to see her wide smile with each maneuver she made, expressing her satisfaction.
“I can see now that you’ve made great advancements with the Hydrofoilner, and I can see that it’s about time to visit a few new plants, to introduce you to the latest innovations made by the Ten Tribes’ scientists.”
Da Costa finished and pointed to a vast building made of glass that looked as if it was far from us. A short time later we landed on the ground next to that building. As soon as we landed on the piazza the Hydrofoilner disappeared. Now we followed Da Costa who started to tell us about the place.
“We are now entering unique premises, no humans can be found here – all the machines working here operate without any human-powered touch. These very-refined machines have an incredibly advanced brain, and they know how to accomplish very sophisticated tasks, but the most astonishing thing is the fact that they know how to replace parts and repair serious mishaps, as well as many other faults that occasionally happen here, with no help from humans. These machines have a marvelous learning capacity, and they have solutions for every technical realm in our world. Currently the difference between these machines and man is immensely narrow, and now,” his face lit up with joy, “I have a surprise that I kept especially for you. Here you will find the most sophisticated machines that operate with the help of an implanted human brain that was installed in the control center.”
“Oh man!” I burst into an emotional cry, “A human brain?.... How can you install a human brain in a machine?! It’s an inhuman thing to do… that’s really quite barbaric!”
Melanie was quick to respond too and asked, “Have you murdered human beings and transplanted their brains inside those iron machines?” her bewildered voice became slightly choked.
“Wait a minute please! Let me explain the brain story. You are wrong. We have never ever hurt anyone. The brains were taken from demised people who died a clinical death in an accident.
Other control centers got their brains from postpartum infant deaths. We got the brains and fed them with technical information of the highest degree. We trained and coached the brains and only after many years of training and learning we harnessed their mental powers to the control centers of these machines,” we were told by our host.
“That’s terrible,” Melanie said. She was still very agitated.
“You are probably aware that shortly after the death of a human his or her brain stops functioning, and they are registered as a dead person. So a few moments after the brain stops functioning a freezing process is started in a freezing cell for that person, and only after some days and many, many preparations, the brain is discharged and dispatched to a distribution center where it is fed with new and appropriate data and is prepared for its missions as a commander of the most state-of-the-art machines.”
When I asked him why they used human brains and what is so special about them, Da Costa explained that the storage capacity of an electronic brain is magnificent and vastly superior to that of a human brain, but one element of it still it can
not be replaced and that is the impressive capacity of independent thought, as well as a capacity to generate changes and to improve and refine them.
“As you can see all the work of the human-brain-powered machines has been completely terminated because of an amazing event that occurred many years ago. One day the construction of a highly advanced backhoe shovel was completed; it was powered by cosmic waves and was allocated to dig tunnels around the world. For long days we waited for a human brain to serve as its control center, but nothing happened. After three months of anticipation we received the brain of a young adult, who had taken his own life due to a broken heart. Shortly, we had adapted the brain to the giant shovel, and it started to work in a tunnel, digging. Upon completion of the tunnel the shovel returned to the plant for some minor repairs, and on its way back, the shovel encountered its beloved in the arms of her new boyfriend, and then… without any warning it sent an immense wave of cosmic radiation which turned them into a heap of dust. This horrendous scene was intercepted by the control center, and without delay, three shovels were sent on a mission to arrest the giant shovel. After a devastating and exhausting battle, the giant shovel was deconstructed into tiny pieces. Three days later the Council of the Ten Tribes convened and decided to deconstruct all human-brain-powered machines. Since that day, human brains have not been in a command of a machine.”
“How can you experiment with human brains?” I asked after a long silence, “Doesn’t the Jewish religion forbid this?”
“Dan, my learned friend, you must learn and understand that the Sons of the Ten Tribes are the most advanced human beings on Earth with thousands of years of scientific knowledge. You are going to see some unprecedented things here. The Sons of the Ten Tribes have made giant steps, beyond imagination. From the day we accepted the Torah of Moses we have gone through enormous changes. Yet, even today the central core of Judaism is based on the Ten Commandments which are used as a universal law for all nations. Even today we maintain the laws of the Jewish tradition, that on its greatest part is based on enacting good relationships between people, and the tenet that epitomizes its essence is the short famous phrase, ‘Love thy neighbor’. This phrase stands as the cornerstone of the Torah of Israel and it serves as the gist of human creed.”
