Mesopotamia - The Redeemer (8 page)

He turned his back to the mirror
and buried his face in his hands. 'What happened to me? Who am I?'
His head began to spin and he leaned against the mirror for
balance. All of a sudden, he became so weak that he forced himself
to pinch his left arm, to grab hold of reality, of tangibility.
'What kind of man am I? Where did I grow up? Do I have a family?'
But the more he grappled with these unknowns, the greater his
terror became. Everything around him was spinning: no certainty,
not reality aside from the throbbing in his arm. He pinched himself
again.

He only succeeded in calming
himself after some time had passed. Survival instincts had pulled
him back to reality. 'Well, now I'm here! I must clarify everything
I can about this place and these people. I need to use my head, to
think. Thinking and learning may also jog my memory.' He breathed a
succession of deep breaths and returned to scanning his
environment.

A creeping suspicion within him
wondered if part of him refused to know, denied knowledge. The
celestial music was so pleasant, the objects and items were so
smooth and Sophia was so calming and enchanting. Perhaps he came
from a more distraught place and was in no hurry to return to it?
'Perhaps I was captivated by the enchantment of a siren, causing me
to forget all of my self-awareness? And how do I even know about
sirens anyway?' he wondered.

Sophia appeared from around the
bend in the corridor. He averted his gaze and caught her reflection
behind him. Something in the confidence of her stride calmed him.
He alternated glances between her and her reflection, trying to
ascertain if the reflection deceived him. If she is identical to
her mirror image, it means that the stubble on his chin was indeed
his own stubble, the wrinkles his wrinkles, and the image... well,
while it might not be him, the image was his own image.

This time, he was sufficiently
alert to examine her closely. She wore the same blue gown, made
from a single bolt of cotton fabric. Her hood was rolled back to
reveal straight brown hair, light skin, serene smile and the same
soft, pleasant eyes like lakes. The garment did not conceal the
curves of her feminine body and the grace with which she moved.
Sophia murmured in an incomprehensible language. The mirror
extinguished and became a blank wall that glowed faintly.

“Sophia?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Who am I?”

Sophia inhaled deeply and looked at
him with concentration, as if to determine if he were capable of
tolerating this conversation. “We believe you came from one of the
colonies, and not from Earth. The fact is, your body is healthy,
well-nourished and clean. If you had come from Earth, your body
would have borne signs of neglect, hunger or various diseases,
unless you are a Gnostic, and we haven't found any evidence of
that.”

He murmured softly, “Earth? What is
Earth?”

“Earth is our homeland, the planet
where all of us, all humans, came from. Today, however, it has gone
from a planet teeming with life to a ruined wasteland inhabited by
only a few free men. Most of Earth's inhabitants are enslaved by
crime lords, poverty and Gnosticism. Whoever could leave has
already left, like we, the Pythagoreans, did.”

“And who are you, the
Pythagoreans?”

“Come, let me tell you,” she
stretched out her hand and smiled as she assisted him to rise from
his chair. He leaned on her, stood up from his chair, and
immediately let go of her hand. She led him out of the
infirmary.

“As I have already explained to
you, this is the Samos Space Station.”

“Yes, I do recall.”

“If so, your amnesia only affects
your past memories. You are capable of procuring new memories.”

“Yes. I do not know how to explain
this. I remember certain things yet other places in my mind are
blank, erased. As if doors and passages have been sealed off,” he
said with frustration.

“It is probably only temporary. You
must be patient,” she said compassionately. “Let's continue. We,
the Pythagoreans from Octavia, established this space station as a
research base for the development of a particle processor. The
Samos space station is comprised of balls or spheres that revolve
within each other. The processor lies in the heart of the station,
in the core sphere. It absorbs stardust from the space all around
us and processes it into any material for which we know the
formula.”

“The processor can create any type
of material?” asked the stranger in amazement.

“Almost any material. Any material
that we have analyzed.”

“And you are capable of analyzing
all matter?”

“We are still in the research
phase. The processor can create any material for which we know the
formula, or any object that we can analyze and decode its
formula.”

“It’s formula?” he asked.

“Do you hear the music?”

“Yes.” He had become accustomed to
the harmonies playing throughout the station.

“Simple computational mathematics
is not sufficient for the simulator or the processor, so we
developed musical calculation engines and interfaces.”

“Musical?” he smiled dubiously.

“Yes. The properties of an object
are interpreted by the simulator analysis into notes and coded into
sounds. The specification of an object is basically a score of
notes that the processor can play,” she explained excitedly.

“So you play objects into
being?”

“Exactly.” Sophia smiled happily.
Sharp minds like his brought her satisfaction and pleasure.

The stranger was encouraged by her
reaction.

“And what I am hearing right now is
the sound of matter?”

“Yes,” she rejoiced in his
understanding, “but that's not all. You are mostly hearing the
sound of the station revolving.”

“Explain.”

“Gladly.” Her eyes flashed. As soon
as they began discussing music, something had stirred inside her.
“The station's spheres revolve within each other at various speeds
and directions. These rotations are critical not only for
maintaining gravity, but also because they constitute an integral
part of the process of absorbing and processing the dust.”

“I think I understand the
principle.”

“Come with me.” Sophia led him
through arched corridors whose pastel colors gradually changed from
pink to peach to silver. The walls appeared to be wet but when he
touched them, his hand was dry.

“It's not wet?” he asked.

“No, it just looks like it is. The
station is made of raw star dust whose molecules are so small that
it appears to be liquid when it is in fact solid.”

Sophia paused to allow a team of
ten scouts in flight jumpsuits to pass them in the hall. They
nodded in greeting towards them and continued on their way.

“Surrounding the processor is the
simulation sphere. The simulator is a holographic area that
supports a virtual reality of any place or object whose formula
exists in the formula bank. The simulator cannot function without
the processor: we can simulate objects in the simulator that the
processor will learn to create. The residential sphere, which we
are in right now, surrounds the simulator sphere. Here you can find
the living quarters, food and equipment warehouses, leisure rooms
and the infirmary. Above us, or more accurately, around us, is the
command sphere, which houses the command and control systems of the
station. The command sphere is enveloped by the surface sphere, and
the incoming and outgoing aircraft are anchored at the various
docks. Your aircraft is parked there. There are five physical
spheres in all: the processor, the simulator, the residential, the
command, and the surface. These are then wrapped in six additional
spheres comprised of strings of light. It is likely that you saw
Samos as a grid of light strings when you arrived.”

“I do not remember.”

“Are you familiar with the division
of Earth into latitudinal and longitudinal lines?”

“No,” he said, scratching his
head.

“It doesn't matter. Think of a ball
that you have wrapped in vertical rings at periodic intervals,
passing through the poles.”

“Fine, continue.”

“Now, add horizontal lines,
parallel to each other, also at periodic intervals.”

“Yes.”

“This is what each of the six light
spheres look like. The lines that you imagined are made of strings
of light that exhibit resistance. You cannot pass through them or
between them because they rotate at extremely high speeds.”

“So how did I get into Samos?”
asked the stranger.

“Thales, the chief scout, attached
your ship to his. Afterwards he accelerated the ship to the speed
of the light strings of the outermost sphere. With the aid of an
electromagnet, he connected to the string and rotated on its axis
to the internal portion of the outer sphere. From there he once
again accelerated to the speed of the stings in the next sphere,
attached himself to it and swiveled inside. He repeated the process
until he had reached the surface sphere.”

“It sounds complicated to me,” said
the stranger.

“It's not that complicated. We
don't go in or out that much anyway,” she replied with a smile.

“Exactly how do the processor and
the simulator work?”

“They function in tandem. The
simulator carries out an analysis of the subatomic, atomic and
molecular formulas. If it's living, it also analyzes its genetic
formula. The simulator creates a virtual version of the object and
saves its properties in the information bank.”

“And when you want to recreate that
object, the simulator transfers the data to the processor, which in
turn creates the object?” he asked in fascination.

“Exactly. The simulator can
simulate any object that exists as data in the information
bank.”

“Can the processor create
itself?”

“No, but that's an excellent
question.” She smiled at the paradoxical question, “At the
beginning of the twentieth century, a mathematician named Kurt
Gödel expressed a system's inability to demonstrate its own limits.
This is one explanation that accounts for the processor's inability
to create itself.”

He looked at her, confused.

“Never mind. It's not
important.”

“It is important,” he insisted
hotly. “I want to understand.” His voice was tinged with anger.

“Okay, no need to get irate,” she
said, taken aback by his reaction.

'What are you doing? Don't push her
away—she is only trying to help,' he thought to himself. He said:
“I'm not angry, just frustrated. I am grateful to you for your
patience and willingness, but I cannot convey to you how hard it is
for me to remember nothing. I don't know what world I am living in,
what my occupation is, if I have a wife, a family?” She empathized
with his distress.

“I can only imagine your plight,
but you must hold fast to what you do remember and progress from
there. Don't worry, you're in good hands,” she said, trying to
encourage him.

“Then let us continue.”

"
L
et's
find a base point and then continue from there. Have you heard of
Orpheus's constant of creation?"

"No."

"How about the Roman’s theory in
physics?"

"Maybe. I don't remember."

"How about Superstring theory?"

"No."

"What about Quantum theory?"

"Not that one either." 'What am I
going to do? How am I going to make up years of gaps? How can you
go back to a life with no memories at all?' He thought angrily.

"And general relativity?" Sophia
asked.

He looked at her in astonishment,
desperate and confused.

"I take it you have no recollection
or idea about Einstein's theory of Special Relativity?"

He nodded his head.

"Maxwell? Electromagnetism?"

He didn't respond.

"What about Newton? It isn't
possible that you haven't heard of Isaac Newton." She regretted her
words immediately; they made it sound like he was uneducated. That
wasn't what she had intended.

"Tell me about Newton," he saved
her from her embarrassment. 'I can't give up, I must start from
somewhere'.

She wondered for a few seconds how
to phrase her words and then began. "You have surely noticed that
everything around you is smooth".

"Yes. The smooth texture of the
walls, the round angles of the openings, the gradual change from
shade to shade. Yes, I've noticed".

"Well, we designed our surroundings
to reflect our world outlook. We, the Pythagoreans believe there is
continuity, that is, an inseparable connection between all the
components of our universe".

He nodded. She went on. "Once in
every few generations a cosmological genius comes along and reveals
another hidden connection between the phenomena. Newton wasn't the
first, but I can start the explanation with him so that you can
understand the rest of it, which is more complicated".

"I'm listening." He was indeed
listening, but found it difficult to concentrate. He tried to get
over his frustration at his situation, and returned his attention
to the woman in front of him. She spoke slowly and clearly. He
concentrated on her lips and saw how each word rolled out.

"One type of continuity is the
hidden unity that in fact exists in principles which seem to have
no connection between them".

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"There seems to be no connection
between the principle of gravity and the principle of motion.
Gravity, the gravitational pull that causes a moon to drift in
orbit around a planet, is determined by three factors: The mass of
the planet and of the moon, the distance between them, and their
motion. Assuming the moon's mass is constant, the faster the moon
moves in its orbit around the planet, the smaller the gravitational
pull of the planet on the moon. That's the centrifugal force".