Dadr'Ba (13 page)

“This dream won’t last forever, and this dream may be the last, but there could be others. Rest assured though that as your psychic wound heals these dreams, these spatial-temporal entanglements will decrease, and they will reduce in frequency and intensity and eventually stop.  It’s impossible to predict where or when or how.”

“Consider this a blessing of sorts. A miracle, a gift that very few people, perhaps one in every few generations get given. Most undoubtedly, mistake it for a mere dream. Tell me, how do you feel about this ‘dream’?”

Su’Zi, not having to think about it, replied. “Most of it is so beautiful and pleasant that while it was happening and even now looking back, I’d want to be there and stay forever. It’s only the last, the feeling of pain, the wailing coming from everywhere and nowhere that made it seem like a nightmare. Now that I think about it the pain may have been coming from the soul of O’M, because I first felt it when I reached out to feel, to connect with it. As I did, it was as if O’M’s soul had been injured.”

Mi’Ka paused a moment, then, “I’ve been given the gift of perception, you have a gift of vision. You see real things from some place, and some time, you will probably never be able to control it, but know this, it is as real as anything there is in the universe. What you saw was real in a different place and time.”

Su’Zi thanked Mi’Ka and having finished her tea prepared to leave. Mi’Ka gave her a hug, telling her that she’s welcome anytime, adding “if the dream doesn’t stop by itself, she may be able to prepare a special tea that may help soothe her. But it would be better let this work out naturally, and that if she has any new dreams, that she’d be very curious to hear about them.

Finally, Mi’Ka cautioned, “The CA must never learn about these dreams. They know their nature and significance and would do terrible things to you to try to exploit your gift.”

After Su’Zi left, Mi’Ka allowed herself to ponder… that other person, in Su’Zi’s dream, for that person to be there they would have needed to share Su’Zi’s psychic wound, and if it wasn’t her mother or brother, who could have it been?...

Su’Zi made her way back home to the mining camp in sector two, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders and wondering if she would relive the dream tonight. The next morning, she woke to feel happier than she had in a very long time, rested and refreshed.

The dream didn’t return, but she still wondered about who she saw.

P’Ko stared up at the instructor, but his mind couldn’t register what she was saying. Physics is his favorite class, but he can’t take his mind off the woman in the dreams he’s been having.

He can’t complain or confide in anyone, his trouble learning in his first years, and the relentless teasing he received growing up made him want to blend in, not to stand out, to be quiet, reserved, okay, call it introverted. It would be impossible for him to share with anyone that a dream woman has been plaguing him.

Not long after the showdown defending Tn’, Dan’Zu and his gang settled down and having failed using bullying and intimidation have been trying to be nice, but P’Ko never trusted him. Then at the end of the school year, Dan’Zu disappeared, P’Ko guessed that he had served his penance at public school and went back to his private school.

P’Ko hoped that he’d never see or interact with Dan’Zu again. There was something about Dan’Zu’s actions, his demeanor, that didn’t sit right with P’Ko, or maybe it was his imagination or paranoia stemming from being persecuted for so long.

P’Ko knew that from a certain perspective, he owed Dan’Zu thanks, Dan’Zu’s continued assault pushed P’Ko to develop an inner strength and defenses and practically forced him to learn illegal martial arts. All things he wouldn’t have attempted on his own.

His martial arts experience increased his self-esteem and self-confidence. Now some of the other kids have started to look up to P’Ko and admire him.

His problems growing up put enormous stresses on Ma and Ba back then. He doesn’t want to put Ma and Ba through any more problems, after all, he’s just a few years from graduation, and his new life will begin.

But these dreams and this growing unease about things he cannot touch or quantify, the uncontrolled strengthening of senses and feelings, though minor in comparison to his childhood. These latest dreams and power feelings are starting to cause problems. Like now, P’Ko still doesn’t know what the instructor is talking about, how long has she been talking?

P’Ko can’t focus. But is drawn back to the dream, such a strange dream, so vivid, so memorable, never had P’Ko been able to recall a dream so vividly. It was as if he had been awake and experienced it. The contents of the dream seemed to be written directly into long-term memory, and high refresh into short-term memory; he can’t get it off his mind. So unlike other, ordinary dreams, usually forgotten seconds or minutes after waking.

P’Ko now awake, hours after waking P’Ko couldn’t stop thinking about it, and about her, the most beautiful woman P’Ko had ever laid eyes on. Though in the dream, she was very far away, he could see her vividly. She wore a Mi’Nr’s uniform, the distinctive color was easy to see, and it was tailored and showed a shapely figure and though she was too far away to see her eyes he could tell that she was looking intently at him.

P’Ko found himself trying to dissect, and analyze this too vivid of a dream. His early childhood nightmares that plagued him as a Bo’Ba were as vivid but terrifying. P’Ko didn’t want to remember them, he had experienced them before he learned to speak and sort out his thoughts. Making those first nightmares easy to forget because he had no language to catalog them with.

This latest dream having come to him five night in a row was pleasant, the beach, the sun, the waves, the breeze and especially the woman, too beautiful for words, he never wants to forget it.  So many parts of this dream were so wonderful; P’Ko hoped that O’M was truly as beautiful and awe-inspiring as it appeared in the dream and that she would be there.

The only disturbing thing is the last part, not the spectacular sunset, but the feeling of pain and the wailing torturous sound coming from everywhere, it was then that she saw him too. Too far for eye contact but close enough for recognition, he knew that she saw him too, he felt her recognition; she had to be real. Then, a pang of despair or just part of the dream?

Despite Mi’Ka’s encouragement P’Ko still hasn’t tried to develop wholly or learn to trust in his psychic ability. He has trouble bringing himself to believe something that can’t be seen, touched, analyzed or put into numbers. Why can’t he just dismiss this dream woman?

P’Ko wondered if perhaps he should ask Mi’Ka about it, the dream had happened every night for five nights’ straight. He resolved to visit Mi’Ka if it goes another night.

Upon this resolve, and to his surprise, he felt better, almost as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

Ironically, as P’Ko’s mind cleared and the distraction of his dream faded his focus returned to the classroom, the professor was talking about “nothing” P’Ko laughed to himself about the irony of this as the teacher very carefully and deliberately described nothing.

“Nothing” “is not empty space,” she was saying “if you had nothing you wouldn’t even have empty space. Empty space has dimensions and contains a flux of subatomic particles that are spontaneously created and just as rapidly disappear. Empty space is a very capable medium for the transmission of matter and energy. In contrast, pure nothingness is incapable of transmitting or allowing anything to pass through it. It’s not that nothing is a solid or a barrier, it’s just that pure nothingness is dimensionless, and as soon as dimensionless space is encountered, nothing can pass through it.”

“Nothing exists outside our universe; Nothing exists beyond the three spatial dimensions supported by positive and negative space.”

“And just as a reminder time is not a dimension, time is simply a method of keeping track of things in the present. Time can be thought of as the compilation of all the forces of the universe working in unison moving matter and energy, which in turn with our perceptions and our need to create order gives the notion of the passage of time.”

“Our desire to arrange matter and energy to our liking and because we frequently prefer things a certain way or as they once were, creates the need for the concept of time and a wish to reverse time, which is impossible, except, of course, on the sub-atomic scale.”

“When it comes to the sub-atomic environment, the laws of nature accommodate and even insist on the bi-directional action of forces, but that in no way translates to the macro scale in which we perceive our existence. To truly reverse time in the macro scale, that we experience life in, all the forces of nature all across the universe would need to be reversed.”

“The impossibility of the reversal of time doesn’t negate the need for our bi-directional perception of time, recognition of past and future is necessary to gain control of our environment. Without the perception of time, we’d be nothing more than very primitive animals that have no concept of the past more than a few minutes of seconds into the past or machines that operate strictly in the present. Because this perception is so ingrained in us, it is difficult for many to recognize time for what it is. We mistakenly believe that just because we can think ourselves into the past, we can go there.”

“Now back to the subject of this lesson, nothing. Nothing must “really” be nothing. To ascribe nothing the basic ability to pass something, even light, or to provide it the ability to be measured, you provide it “something.” so you see there is an immense difference between empty space and nothing.”

“Continuing, it gets a little confusing because, although nothing cannot contain empty space, a little empty space can contain quite a lot of nothing. ‘Nothing’ in this sense is a kind of negative energy.”

“Think about it, it takes matter and energy to create or introduce something into or out of nothing, and though the universe has for all eternity existed, the universe and all it contains has its origins from nothing. This creates a space/energy/mass deficit half of one kind of space/energy and mass and the other half another kind of space/energy and mass. That, if all things were brought together, would equal nothing, a zero-sum balance.

Matter and electromagnetic energy contain elements of both sides of this balance, though due to the effect of dimensional distortion created by their very existence remain stable.

“In normal space, the space around stars, and the space within solar systems contain little nothing. As a matter of fact, standard space contains the equivalent of a kind of “space pressure” or “ether” that may be devoid of gasses (that typically provide the source of pressure) but is packed full of electromagnetic and gravitational fields.

It’s the level of intensity of these fields along with the spontaneous creation and annihilation of subatomic particles that provides the source of “space pressure,” which in turn readily permits the transmission of matter and energy.”

“Deep space, interstellar and especially intergalactic space contain the most nothing and perhaps at the edge of the universe, if there is one, there may exist nothing. But there would be no way of telling because as soon as we got there by definition, we would be finding or creating something in the process of discovery.”

“The “nothingness” level of deep space creates a kind of negative energy that is responsible for the redshift, or the loss of energy from the light from distant stars and galaxies. That in the old days was attributed to the expansion of the universe. Rest assured the stars and galaxies are moving with respect to one another only they exist in an ocean of various levels of nothing, or negative energy, that some named dark energy. Deep space nothing extracts a tax or imposes a resistance on all things traversing it, affecting their movement and their energies, especially light.”

“Right now we are leaving interstellar space, and there is still a good bit of nothing around us. This nothing, or negative space or dark energy was helping to slow Dadr’Ba robbing it of energy, but now as Dadr’Ba approaches O’M, the negative energy is working to push Dadr’Ba towards O’M just as O’M’s gravitational field is starting to take effect. As a matter of fact, both negative energy and gravity are manifestations of the same force.”

“If Dadr’Ba’s engine wasn’t active for the first half of the trip or O’M was further away the negative energy of interstellar space, interacting with Dadr’Ba’s something-ness would slow and eventually force Dadr’Ba to a complete stop. This nothingness or negative, dark energy also affects our spin velocity that provides us our artificial gravity; we periodically have to add to our spin energy or our rotational velocity would also slow and eventually stop.”

One of the other students caught the professor’s attention and asked: “what happens then?”

The professor replied, “Then?”

Student, “you know, after everything stops?”

Professor “This process is still not thoroughly understood. Little data has been accumulated, and there is still much speculation. But research is ongoing; it’s believed that all energy would be lost, escape and never replaced. Then slowly matter would eventually evaporate, the molecular movement would slow and cease in conjunction with atomic evaporation.”

“Subatomic particles are not static; many are in a constant state of flux, energy from this subatomic flux will leak out similar to radioactive decay operating on seemly stable isotopes but in a hostile environment working on a time scale of billions of years. The negative energy of the nothing or dark energy would eventually consume the entire ship. But don’t worry, according to our best estimates it would take many billions of years for even the deepest space to absorb all of Dadr’Ba.”

The professor then went into the mathematics involved with nothingness, which P’Ko tracked along with on his desktop slate and before he realized it, the professor was completing her summary and dismissing the class. P’Ko felt good and for the moment forgot his dream.

P’Ko’s O’M dream never returned, P’Ko still wondered about the woman on the beach, but dismissed it as only a dream, an unconscious manifestation of a conscious desire.