by A. I. Zlato
Some people raised voices in the assembly, to approve any suggestion coming from the Prophet. Although, at the beginning of the meeting, many people said they thought Mossa was the Messiah, they were now no more than a handful. Many were sceptical and distrustful vis-à-vis his suggestions. The suspicion of collusion with the Machine had shaken a part of the assembly, and his improbable suggestion to take Kandrons along, that is, to increase the shuttle's transport capacity by more than double, had tipped the majority in Egeon’s favour.
To increase the size of the vessel, taking into account the needs of Kandrons that were unknown to date, would mean deferring the project for several generations. The beginning of the meeting ushered in the fulfilment of their dream; Hope seemed within reach. Taking Kandrons along meant, somehow, giving up, deferring unsustainably the departure time. Mossa's motives were unclear, and while pretending to help, he suggested things that would defer the departure. The guide, the Messiah, the real one, could not have done that.
While leaving the meeting, pondering things retrospectively, Egeon felt that this meeting, at least, would have allowed most people to stop believing in the coming of the Prophet. At least something gained ...
Thus the Prophet’s time shall come.
He will accomplish what no one else has dared imagine before him.
And he will do it unwillingly.
The Legend of Chaacetime
Chapter 46
Space H. (Periphery)
Paul prepared Edgard’s meal reflexively. His hands started moving without his own mental intervention, automatically. While pondering one million things, he dropped the bowl, which broke on the floor, mixing glass and food. Sighing, he cleaned and injured himself. Wounded in his self-confidence rather than in the flesh, he cursed off his clumsiness. He pulled out a biocompatible compress, which merged with the skin covering the wound. He pulled another container, trying to focus, this time, on what he was doing. There were so many things in his mind.
For starters, the creature in the midst of the storm ... He was convinced that he had seen an Inter-Space ... The border between Space H. and ... impossible to know. Impossible to also know what was the entity he had seen in the centre...
While continuing the study of the diary, he had discovered a hidden message. It was about a Space rule as a ‘heritage,’ and about Guardians who would be its stewards. These few sentences had plunged him into an endless abyss of questioning. On the edge of his consciousness, he began to realise he had been daydreaming.
Baley then arrived and overwhelmed him with her new theory of an anti-Machine movement. As with her previous assumption, she was not interested in the trigger factor, and she hurtled headlong. She was ready to pull other children from their families, to adopt extreme decisions, in her own words. The discussion with Vlad on the principle of totalitarian systems had more sense after Baley’s arrival. He could not work with her, without feeling as if he condoned her demented attitude. He nonetheless wanted to prevent her, but he had no way to act against her. Unless of course ... to solve the Problem. To find the solution before her, and to prevent her from tyrannising the City …
He paused for a moment on this idea and knew it was the right thing to do, what he was going to do. He did not intend to conduct interviews — even worse, to upset parents immersed in grief, or to spend time on the suicide scene. This was Baley’s method, and he saw where this was leading. He would do just the opposite, and use his skills, doing what he was gifted at. He would go to the laboratory to study Thomas’ manuscript, because Edgard had told him that it contained elements of a solution. If the Kandron had instructed him so violently to devote time to studying it, the reason must have been necessarily compelling. The Problem was, too.
“Edgard?” Paul waited for the Kandron to mentally contact him.
“Edgard !!!”
“I told you there was no need to shout. My answer is not conditioned to the sound level of your call.”
“Edgard, I decided to stop the investigation with Baley. I thought I had reached the bottom with the Chrijulam sect, with the forced removal of these children ... but no. She had to invent a new theory, and above all, she wants to use the same methods. Totalitarian! I cannot go in her direction. I want to do it my way and get back to the diary to ... to prevent her from harming people.”
“You will get in there the Elders’ dream you have already visualised; the form will be different, that's all. I know that, for you, the way information is presented is paramount. However, be careful not to confuse the mirror’s image with reality.”
“You mean that the form should not mask the content? I understand, but if I see the image, that means I see the reality, so I'm on the right track.”
“The very principle of logic is intrinsic.”
“What? I do not understand what you mean or what you're getting into. I must ... I must act, now; I do not have time for abstract concepts.”
“This is not abstract; it is your destiny, you have to follow it.”
“How many times have you already told me that?”
“I repeat things when you're not listening. This is all your fault.”
“Well okay, it's my fault; it’s not easy for me to understand things ... but how to follow what I do not know?”
“If you know, then you don’t follow it.”
“That, too, you told me already.”
“Because this issue – there too, you've already asked me ...”
“Suppose I ... Will you be okay if I stop working with Baley?”
“It seems that is the way you chose to expand your mind.”
“It's a way of seeing, but OK. So, I stopped the investigation. Then I resume the study of the manuscript, the one that is so important to you, for which you had landed me in the lab in the middle of the night, saying 'Read, Learn, Find'. And I will find in it the keys to solve the Problem.”
“...”
“Answer, Edgard. Please do.”
“You did not ask me anything. The courtesy phrase that ended your sentence changes nothing.”
“I’m asking you if this is the manuscript I have to study? Is there a solution in there?”
“It is a means, even if the Machine does not know. It is part of the Problem; even Baley knows that, although she would not admit it. Gateways know. Equilibria are changing ... everything is there. The door to possibilities ...”
“My dreams are important, I know. Premonitory, perhaps. But Edgard, for the last time, will the manuscript give me answers to end the child suicides?”
“You'll find in there the answers to the questions you ask yourself.”
“Perfect ... Therefore I conclude that I have to study it. That's all I wanted to know”
“No, that's all you wanted to hear; it's not the same. Don’t confuse mirror and reality.”
“You’re back at it ... And the logic is intrinsic, right?”
“Only if you understand what that means.”
“As if I could understand your speech ... you should know by now.”
“Time is not the same component for you and me.”
Edgard had told him something striking, but Paul refused to get carried away in a long and absurd discussion. He had a mission.
They set off together towards the laboratory. Paul entered the lobby and greeted the guard who inveighed about Edgard and the lawn, edgier than usual.
“You think you are superior to me because you are a researcher and I am a guard?”
“Not at all”, replied Paul, taken aback. “Why do you say that?” It was amazing the place and time that small, unimportant details could take. It was every day the same old story, and there was so much more important to do ...
“Because you and your creature do not respect my work! The guard replied. Yes, sir, to maintain the lawn, to prune it, to make it green and bushy, these things take a lot of time. And your pet tramples all those hours I spent maintaining the lawn.”
“I understand”, said Edgard. “
You can tell him that I understood. I make him lose time, and time cannot recover itself. I will no longer land on the lawn.”
Paul gasped a few moments. The anger of the guard, and above all, his unusual way of presenting his grievances, had succeeded where dozens of talks had failed. He transmitted Edgard’s response to the guard, who glanced at the Kandron, incredulously. Paul assured him that the Kandron understood, and would act as he had said. The man, still suspicious, immediately announced that he would remove the prohibition sign Keep out of the lawn, as he had only placed it to restrain Edgard, and that if it ever did it again, it would be up to Paul to replace the sign because, as a guard, he had thousands of things to do, and ...
Paul left the scene, thanking Edgard mentally. To present things differently ... it was what the Kandron had said about the manuscript. A simple altercation over a trivial matter could be carrying a message ... Edgard, thank you.
He went to his office, where he found Vlad in full contemplation of his coffee cup.
“Hi boss! So how’s the investigation? Are you guys making progress in implementing the dictatorship?” The latter asked in a tone that was half-sarcastic, half-aggressive.
“I decided to distance myself from Baley.”
Paul told him of the last events. He explained the Special Agent’s increasingly extreme attitude, and his intention to counter her behaviour by being the first to find a solution.
“You are starting to agree on my perspective then, regarding the methods ... OK, but do you think the best way would be to solve the Problem with an old document that is, what, thousands of years old?”
“Vlad, the manuscript I'm working on, refers to, among other things, the Machine’s construction, Its earliest era. And the Problem ... refers to an anti-Machine movement. This cannot be a coincidence. There are other obvious connections with the investigation, which I cannot talk about. Believe me, the key to the Problem might be right before our eyes.
Something else. I imagine that there are other documents such as the one about the early stages of the Machine. I should explore them, too; I am confident, but I cannot do everything. Perhaps you find it interesting? You could maybe focus on the beginning, from the Machine’s invention date? The Elders created It, there the Earliest Space, which has connection to our department, while also connecting to what you are passionate about ... what do you say?”
“This is nice of you, really. This is the first time ... but OK, you are making efforts, I'll reciprocate, too. I accept your proposal; I will explore the beginnings of the Machine. Do you think this will help? For the Problem, I mean?”
Paul almost told Vlad that Edgard had persuaded him in his dreams that it was the case, but he refrained and answered.
“Directly, I do not know, but it inevitably will, one way or another, I am convinced.”
“Then I'm all with you!”
“Good! I suggest that I continue working on the translation of my manuscript; then I will give you the sections you need to cover. You also have to find other documents on the same subject in the database.”
“You don’t want me to touch your precious document?” Vlad asked, suspiciously.
“It's not that; the fact is, the language is very different from the one you and I use. You have not studied much about ancient languages; it will be difficult for you. Of course, I encourage you to work on it, as you can work directly on the future manuscripts you will have identified.”
“That makes sense. While you translate, I'm going to start. I learn the language, and I try other documents. We will kick this apprentice dictator’s ass with scrolls. Let's do it!”
For the first time since they have met, Paul and Vlad ended a discussion serenely, happy one vis-à-vis the other. While Vlad studied the Machine, he would focus on the remaining text. Together, they would find trails, and would get ahead of Baley and her dictatorial tendencies, as Vlad had just said.
He went into the Archives Room and kicked away Alexander, who often went there. They apologised simultaneously while greeting one another, then an embarrassed silence percolated. Paul almost told him about the investigation, as well as the results of their hard work, but thought he had better not say anything.
First, Alexander had not asked him, and he perhaps was not interested. Secondly, there was no need that someone else carried on his or her shoulders the guilt of having helped Baley to kidnap children, even if Alexander could not, singlehandedly, have made the connection between Paul’s involvement and the kidnapping. Paul pretended he was working on something important, Alexander did the same, and they went separate ways after the Archives Room door closed. The shadow of Baley and her actions still hovered over Paul ... but not for long.
He retrieved the manuscript and carried it to his reading table. In the office, he saw Vlad, focused as ever on his terminal, displaying the training course to decipher the ancient language. If someone had told him — even yesterday — that his assistant would be working diligently on this, Paul would not have believed it. He copied for him the notes concerning the construction of the Machine, as Thomas had described it in his diary, and placed them beside Vlad.
He sat down before the manuscript, a handy notepad nearby, and resumed his reading about Thomas Anderson’s life where he left off the last time. After referring to his discovery of Space H., the beginnings of the construction of the City, Thomas made a new cut in his narrative, to evoke memories of the E.S., as he had done in the first pages. Paul exulted. Of course, Thomas did not explicitly call the Earliest Space, because the latter did not bear that name. Yet that was exactly what it was ... Paul held his breath, and continued reading, his tight pencil in his hand, feverishly noting his translation as he progressed. He did not know what connection this could have with the investigation, but it was his subject of study, to which he had devoted his whole life. In addition, Edgard had told him he would find the answers in this document. Therefore, there was no reason to feel guilty.
Thomas chronicled how humans were living in the underground, to protect themselves as much as possible from the polluted outside world, from the constant noise of fans filtering the air. He likened this confined life to the happiness of now living in the open, as well as the related feeling of sheer elation. The undergrounds of the E.S. spread over kilometres, and humans survived crammed into fetid guts displaying aggressive and white lighting. Thomas mingled in his narrative descriptions of his world and parts of his personal life. He thus described in detail the encounter with the woman who would later become his wife, Helen. The alabaster complexion, common to all humans living underground, in the absence of the sun, was beautiful in that woman.
Like a porcelain doll, with her big black eyes with long lashes, her thick hair fell on her hips. He had first looked at her from afar before daring to approach her. The love he felt for her was present in his writing, in his way of describing it, in how he talked about all those little things that made her unique to him. He wrote that she was a very private person. Recently, she happened to be away for days without giving any explanation. Yet her smile had the gift of instantly erasing all of Thomas’ queries. She must have had her reasons ... he trusted her. They lived from day to day, seeing the world decline.
One day, the impossible loomed. A rumour spread about a possible exit from the underground, and into a new life in the open air. The rumour had expanded, and hysteria percolated in the underground world. Thomas even saw a woman screaming that she wanted to go out, rushing into an elevator. Surface lifts had not been maintained and were crumbling from year to year. Pressing the ‘surface’ button, the woman set off the elevator, which, instead of rising, made a steep descent, which the brakes could not slow down for a long time.
The sound of the lift crashing down in the hole echoed in all the adjoining galleries. This tragedy diminished by no means people's enthusiasm. They were nearly there; they had found a way to live again on the surface. When the population became uncontrollable, the President warned of his intention to
give a ‘televised’ address. At the set time, life came to a halt in the underground; every human being had his or her eyes on the ‘TV’ set. Although Paul did not know what a ‘TV’ was, he however understood that it was a means of communication. He continued reading feverishly.
Thomas stood beside Helen in front of the ‘TV’ at the Intersection 14. When the President appeared, the crowd became silent. The President announced that a new concept of Space had been invented, which would multiply to the infinite the capacity of the Earth, and thus solve the problem of overpopulation. It was thus true! There was a solution! The President announced that people would be selected based on their skills, to be among the pioneers who would go first to colonise the Space. Everyone would then secure a place, once the pioneering teams would have built the necessary infrastructure.
Authorities had assigned Thomas to the first team. He was not authorised to tell anyone, not even Helena, a ban that filled him with mixed feelings. He chronicled the meetings he attended, with fifty other people who had been selected as he was. The challenge they faced was to take with them the best of humanity knowledge, in order to establish a colony without going back to the Bronze Age, while eliminating whole sections of their culture. One had to extract of humanity all desire for domination and expansion, inculcating respect for the environment, respect for all forms of life, not just human life. Past mistakes should not be repeated, neither here nor there.
Neither here nor there? Paul stopped and wrapped those words three times. There meant Space H. certainly, but here ... here, meaning the Earliest Space? If past mistakes should not be repeated here, it was necessary that the descendants of ‘there’ not know ... so, it meant that the Earliest Space had survived... That was a revolution. Historically, researchers had been unanimous on this point. The Earliest Space, the place that the Elders departed from, had disappeared. After the Elders had limited their world to the Earliest Space, in order to allow the creation of other Spaces, they had abandoned that dilapidated world. It could not be otherwise. And yet ... Thomas was saying the opposite. Paul resumed his reading.
