He had walked away from a gravel path though he knew where the path was while he walked through the rye. It was to his right. He figured that, if he continued walking straight ahead, he’d intercept the path and, once that happened, he would follow it. He could see, by the line of trees that grew at his right that a stream ran through the fields. Once he got to the path and followed it, he figured he would eventually reach the stream and wondered if a bridge had been built there that crossed the stream.
He supposed that there was a bridge and wondered about its design. He hoped he’d find a simple arched bridge. He decided that, once he got to the bridge whether it was arched or not, he’d step away from the path, lay down on the banks of the stream, submerge his head in the cold water, lift it out of the water, and drink the water. He was looking forward to that very much because he was very thirsty and hot.
He thought of the cool drink while walking across the rye field. Suddenly, a gust of wind appeared and began moving the rye stalks about. The wind got stronger and stronger. It pushed and pulled on him. He saw lightning followed by strange thunder which, instead of making a booming noise, consisted of a bell ringing three times. A voice came down from the clouds saying, “Wake up, Peter, wake up. The bells have rung. We need to go.”
He opened his eyes and saw Sylvia sitting in the chair next to the bed completely dressed. She leaned forward and pushed against his back and then took his hand and finally kissed him. “It is morning,” she said, “and time to get up. The bells have rung. We’ve got to get to the classroom.”
He had gotten so far away from this place and time in his dream that it took him awhile to bring himself back to his current reality which, as he looked at Sylvia and felt her lips on his face and recalled the night before, he knew was much better than walking through a field of rye however beautiful it was and getting to that trail and that stream and that drink of cold water.
He hurriedly dressed and asked her if she would mind going with him to his room because he wanted to brush his teeth. She said, “Okay,” I wanted to take a look at your room anyway in order to see if the creatures had done something or left something to indicate how they felt about the room’s being left vacant the night before.
But the room seemed to them exactly as they had last seen it. Sylvia sat on the bed while Peter quickly brushed his teeth. Then, together, they walked to the classroom which meant passing through the large room with the raised platform where they saw quite a few of the beetle-like or tick-like creatures scurrying about as if in preparation for a holiday of some sort. This included creatures rolling about on the motorized cars and creatures crawling on the floor and clinging to the walls and ceilings. Round black eyes on long grey stalks darted about.
Some of the creatures in the motorized carts had devices strapped to the slits on their chests. The night before they saw one creature with a device like a bagpipe attached to its slits. And that creature was rolling about on the floor now, busily fingering holes cut into the tubes that hung over its shoulder. Out of the opening on the end opposite the slits sounds came. It seemed to be practicing.
The creature with the bagpipe was not the only musician. Others had all sorts of tubes, some flexible and some not, some straight and some wrapped around one another in all sorts of elaborate designs. The instruments were strapped to various parts of their bodies. All made sounds of various kinds.
Sylvia took his hand, leaned close to him, and whispered in his ear, “This fascinates you, I know, but we can’t linger. We’ve got to get to the classroom. Our getting there matters to them. I don’t want to be pushed back into the maze which, more than once, I’ve been told will happen if I break what they call “our few and far between and not very cumbersome rules.”
As they moved along, Peter whispered to her, “What is going on? It looks like they’re celebrating some sort of holiday. The band is out and practicing. The creatures seem to be tense and full of excitement.”
She said, “I’ll tell you later but now is not the time for me to explain anything to you. Look. There’s the classroom. Let’s go.” And, after saying that, she got behind him and started pushing him through the archway that led to the classroom with him still trying to hold back and not wanting to miss a second of this chance to see so many creatures doing what he could not yet comprehend the meaning of.
When they got to the classroom, they found one of the creatures in the motorized carts posted behind a desk and examining tapered sticks that it had evidently lined up on the desk’s surface. It leaned forward from its seated position on the motorized cart and touched the sticks, one after another, with its top two limbs.
Like the stick Peter had found in one of the corridors of the maze, all of these were painted on one end with thin bands of color that varied from stick to stick and that circled completely around each stick. There were pink bands, dark red bands, yellow bands, blue bands, green bands of a couple of different shades, and orange bands. Unlike the stick Peter found in the maze, the thin ends of these sticks had slightly rounded ends, like pool sticks, rather than hooks.
The wall behind the creature sorting through the sticks was flat white. On it, various symbols had been drawn. To the right of the creature, a tall rectangular contraption full of buttons and dials and with a cylindrical section at the very top that was full of holes stood atop a wheeled platform.
Chairs were lined up in front of the creature sorting through the sticks with seats that enabled creatures not in possession of the motorized carts to crawl up along the leg of the chair and around the back and finally settle upright into the chair.
The back wall of the classroom had a yellow band about two feet wide running clear across it. There were holes neatly arranged in rows and columns on the yellow band. And out of the holes, pale yellow rubbery tubes that had dark brown disks at their ends dangled.
Just to the right of the opening into the classroom and flush against the wall there, a long table held two glasses filled with a green fluid. Sylvia pointed the glasses out to Peter and said, “That’s our breakfast.” She then walked over to the table, took one glass and held it out to him. After he took it, she said, “Drink that all the way down. You’ll find that it not only tastes good but will keep you from getting hungry or thirsty for the rest of the day. Between this cold drink in the morning and the warm soup at night, our needs for nourishment seem to be supplied.
“I don’t know what’s in it and I suppose that some of what is in it is intended to open our minds so that we can comprehend what we are being taught more quickly; nevertheless, it tastes good and seems to work to keep a human being alive.”
He took his glass and tilted it one way and another. He put his nose over the top of it and inhaled. The liquid smelled like fresh flowers like the flowers he recalled once being displayed at a farmer’s market. He looked at Sylvia who, by now, had nearly finished the drink, and said, “Getting just this in the morning and the soup at night makes our teeth superfluous. We don’t need teeth.” “Not now,” she said.
He drank the drink and did in fact feel better afterwards. When he finished, he put the glass down on the table next to the glass from which Sylvia had drunk. He made a smacking noise. “That was fine. I can’t wait until dinner,” he was joking. “What’s next?” he said. She said, “I’ve got to talk to you about the choice we’ve got to make before we do anything else. Just a moment. I’ll go talk to the teacher.”
She then went up to the creature which had picked up one of the sticks and was practicing swinging it through the air. When she approached, the creature put the stick down where it belonged on the table top and leaned in her direction. She spoke into its side, into a place between the top limb and the next one down, making the wheezing, clicking, and shrieking noises that seemed to comprise the audible inventory of sounds the creatures were capable of making.
The creature replied with its own combination of sounds that it blew out of one or the other of the slits on its chest. Sylvia nodded, walked
over to Peter and took his hand. She said, “It’s given us permission to take a little time to discuss the choice we have to make. Come on. Follow me. I want to show you something that will help me explain the choice to you while also convincing you that the choice they’ve given us to make is genuine. It is not just a game. It is not just a carrot tied to a stick at one end and the tops of our heads at the other end. Come on.”
She took his hand and led him out of the classroom and along the wall of the large assembly room which seemed to Peter to be more thickly populated with creatures scurrying about and rolling about than before. Scattered among the creatures were some who were busy blowing out of musical instruments of all kinds. The noise of all the moving about combined with the noise of the sounds being played created a din that Peter regarded as a convenient cover for his and Sylvia’s clandestine survey of the room.
“Something very special seems to be about to happen. I am curious as to what is going on,” Peter whispered into Sylvia’s ear. He had to get very close to her and talk into her ear if he was to be heard above the din. “You are right,” Sylvia yelled back. “Something very important in the lives of these creatures is about to happen later today. While I can’t say I know everything there is to know about what is going on, I know a lot. And I can’t wait to tell you. But first things first. And the first thing has to do with the choices we have to make.”
She led him to a door that looked exactly like the door on one wall of the elevator carriage. A lighted panel of buttons to the right of it with symbols printed on each of the buttons seemed to him to be exactly the same as the panel of buttons he found on that other door. He said, “This looks like the panel of buttons next to the door on the side wall of the little structure I entered when I first arrived.”
Sylvia stood beside him with her hand around his waist while he examined the door. Despite being interested in the door, he was not immune to the excitement aroused in him by this woman he thought of as being so beautiful putting her hand around his waist. Part of him wished they could go back to one of the bedrooms and just play in bed for a while; another part, however, remained interested in the door with the buttons.
“Is this the same elevator car that brought us down to the level where my maze and your ramp began? And now that it has descended a little farther, as far as here, do you suppose that getting back to the space ships would be possible if only we could discover which buttons to press?” Peter mused aloud. And Sylvia answered, “I am convinced it is the same one. In fact, I’ve been told it is the same one. In fact, I’ve been told which buttons to press to get us to the surface.” “Amazing and wonderful,” he said. “Then all we would have to do would be to retrieve our spacesuits and backpacks, get back here, and be homeward bound. Is that right? Do you suppose it is as simple as that? Would they let us do it?”
At the same time, he spoke so wistfully of returning to the surface and from there to Earth, he was thinking about his classes, his wish to learn the creatures’ language and how to read the inscriptions. He was thinking how nice it would be to learn about these creatures’ history and customs; about whether they have a home other than this place and, if so, where it is; about whether they know of other intelligent life forms besides themselves and human beings; about their science and religion; and about many other things.
He knew that, if the two of them ever did get back to Earth, people back there would ask them about these things and would be very disappointed if they explained that they were so anxious to get home that they never even tried to learn any of this.
He supposed Sylvia, despite knowing a lot more than him about some if not all of this, did not know enough—not nearly enough—to satisfy the curious ones back home. “Will they let us go?” he asked Sylvia. “Before I answer that question, I want to show you another door. Come on.” To understand the choice we have been given, you have to see the other door and understand what it represents.
At the very corner of the large room was an alcove. Standing against the walls that framed the alcove were two creatures sitting upright in the mechanized wagons that the creatures seemed so much to prize. Each carried long sticks with bands of paint on the lower end and hooks on the upper end. They held the sticks crosswise across their chests, with the lower end jutting out into the room and the upper end pressed against the wall. When Peter and Sylvia approached them, they seemed to be mumbling something to each other.
Peter supposed that they were complaining about having to work at a time when the other creatures seemed to be getting ready to enjoy some sort of important holiday.
When Peter and Sylvia approached, both creatures simultaneously bowed in first Sylvia’s and then Peter’s direction. They then started making the various sounds these creatures seemed capable of making. When Sylvia alone responded by making some of the same sounds, they both turned in her direction, made some more sounds, and then changed the direction of the sticks so that the part with the hook pointed into the large room, making a kind of corridor they could walk through to get to the alcove. Sylvia bowed. Peter imitated Sylvia, and then the two of them walked slowly in between the extended sticks and into the alcove.
Inside the alcove was another door like the last one but not exactly like it. This door, aside from being set into the back wall of a little alcove rather than on the main wall of the large room. This door, like the last one, had a box with a panel of lighted buttons to the right of it. But the buttons were bigger, and there were more of them to the right of this door than there were to the right of the last door. The box holding the buttons was also much bigger on this door than on the last one: it had to be.
This panel had three rows of buttons on it rather than just one. There were fifteen buttons in all. Like the last door, all of the buttons on the panel beside this one were alight. Also, like the last door, all of the buttons were covered with inscriptions. “What does this mean?” Peter asked Sylvia. “Is this an elevator door too? If it is, where does it lead?
Inside of the alcove were two chairs with high side rails and seats made to accommodate the creatures in that a wide slit separated the slat closest to the backs of the chairs from the next slat. Sylvia pointed to the chairs and said, “Let’s sit down. Now that you have seen both doors, I can explain the choice they’ve given us to make. I’ll do it now.” “Good,” he said as he took his seat opposite her. “It’s about time I found out what this choice is all about?”
Chapter 42: The Choice
She started to talk about how complicated the choice was and how many parts it consisted of when he got the idea that he didn’t like talking about so important thing while being so far away from her (even though the alcove was rather small).
“Just a second,” he said and pulled his chair closer to her and leaned forward and put his hands on her knees and ran them a little bit above and below her knees. She put her hands on his hands and leaned forward and kissed him. “I can’t wait until tonight,” she whispered. “Me too,” he said.
She leaned back against the wall, put her hands on the armrests (why chairs designed for creatures with eight scrawny limbs had armrests was somewhat of a puzzle though there would be no reason not to conclude that such creatures, though shaped so differently from humans might not also have enjoyed resting two or four of the uppermost limbs on armrests).
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she said, speaking very softly so as to be better able to organize what she was thinking, “We both have a number of choices. The choices we make are not necessarily tied together. I can make my choices without regard to what you choose to do. You can make your choices without having to take into consideration what I choose to do.
“Here are the choices. The first one is to ride to the part of the surface where we initially landed, the part where the structure housing the elevator carriage is and where our space ships are. The problem with that choice is that only I will be allowed to choose it immediately. They won’t extend that option to you right now.
I think the reason has to do with the amount of time you’ve been here. Since I’ve been here for more than two years and have taken classes and know a little of the language and have been altered by the soup and morning beverage and by the air and electrodes and by who know what else, they feel they’ve tested me enough and taught me enough and changed me enough to let me go as soon as today.
But it is different with you. Though they’ve watched you get trapped inside of the maze and watched how you’ve negotiated it, the few days you did that does not give them enough time to monitor, change, and teach you. So they want you to stay a little longer. I predict that, in maybe as little as a year’s time, the first option will be made available to you too in which case you too could go home. By that time, you’d know enough of their language to be able to communicate with them nearly as well as I can. They’d give you the option to return to Earth; and it would be up to you to decide whether to take them up on that one or whether to choose another option.”
She rolled her eyes as she spoke. She also nervously lifted and dropped the fingers that had earlier rested so comfortably and still on his hand. She added, “To go home as early as three days from now, all I’d have to do is to tell the teacher I’ve decided to go. They probably would schedule some sort of farewell ceremony.
“That night or the next day, creatures would put all of my possessions and any gifts I might get at the graduation ceremony or before or after and my space suit and knapsack and my notebooks. I think they’d also give me a supply of their food which I would need to consume for a while to be able to successfully make the transition to life back on Earth.
“The morning of my departure, I would wake up, don my space suit stuffed with supplies, carry my back pack similarly stuffed, and walk to the elevator that would take me to the surface, and go. That would be it. Two years later, assuming all goes well on the trip, I would be back on Earth.”
A Theory of Gravity Page 24
