THE CUBE
Page 9
Without waiting for an answer, he turned his back to them and exited the room.
PART THREE: THE MUSIC
“Music expresses what cannot be said with words and what cannot be left unsaid.”
Victor Hugo
“If, God forbid, I die one day, let this be my epitaph: ‘The only proof of the existence of God was music’.” Kurt Vonnegut
The Base, Day 5, 4:24 a.m. The Lieutenant was standing before the three computers in the command room in the central dome and was watching the twinkling columns of data: communication with the US headquarters, announcements of seismic activity, the radar around the base, the red dots, representing all live organisms over three feet tall in a radius of three miles, weather forecast…
The meteorological forecast was not good at all. The barometer was falling, the weather was getting bad. The hurricane was caming from the north and was going to hit them strong. It was big and powerful, and they were going to be in its eye.
However, inside the base it was peaceful, the fifteen red dots, showing the position of the people, were in their places.
He liked things being in their places, then they could be seen easily. And to be able to see was to be able to control. Control was the premise for success of each mission. He only wanted to make his superiors happy.
Suddenly the screens before him went dark. The lamps on the ceiling blinked three or four times. The Lieutenant started nervously pressing keys and cursing.
“What’s going on, for fuck’s sake?”
The first thing he did was to restart the computers. He made sure all red dots were in their places. Then he checked the other data. Everything seemed okay.
The Lieutenant was extremely accurate and would never be careless about his job. He started tracing all the secret aps for new messages, that might be missed for those few seconds offline.
Suddenly the media player opened. Music sounded.
Babyface switched on the additional speakers and turned the volume up: a rock piece with lots of guitars.
He was not a great music fan.
The goddamn computer! Obviously, it was activated by chance or he opened involuntary some menu. He closed it and again started checking the secret communiques.
After two minutes the window opened again.
The same song.
The Lieutenant was a punctilious and responsible military man, but he did not like thinking much and was not good in taking decisions. Without improvising, he chose to follow the protocol for such cases.
He picked up the receiver.
From the theory of ‘The Thinking Melon’ by McDowell Junior: “1. If you think that you are a melon, then you really are a melon.
2. If you are a melon, you think like a melon.”
“I find it naive”, Alan said.
“Some outdated rock’n roll from the previous century” Michael’s comment was.
“This music was forbidden in our country during the
communist regime”, Sergey remarked.
“That’s the greatest song of all times!” Marcela exclaimed. “Do you think it’s coming from the ship?”, Norman asked. “Impossible, we are not connected in any way, neither by
Bluetooth, nor optically.”
“Do you think this technology needs it?”, Michael retorted. “Actually, it comes from the Cube”, Hans said, leaving his
quiet calmness. “They are trying to make contact with us.” “With Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’?” Michael
wondered.
“What did you expect? Beethoven?” Sergey asked. “Or ‘Farewell of the Slavic Woman’?”, Michael looked
amusedly at Ivanov, who did not buy the joke.
Norman made Babyface play the recording again. “Can you check it?”
“Of course, Sir. I’ll pass it through the filters now. Just give me five minutes.” The Lieutenant started hitting the keyboard
energetically.
“What do you think?” Norman glanced at them one by one. “I think this is an extra cool song and I love the way these
beings start their conversation with us…” Marcela was overexcited
as if she were at a rock concert, slapping slightly her thigh in the
rhythm of the music.
“How exactly they make a conversation? I didn’t get it” Alan
said.
“Well, that should be some kind of a code, shouldn’t it?”
Sergey addressed Hans.
All the rest also turned their eyes to the plump mathematician. In this obscure situation he was the only one keeping calm and
coolly appraising the facts. Despite his little oddities they couldn’t
manage without him. All the nuclear heads of a submarine, capable to destroy the world, could not match the force of that
brilliant mind.
Hans looked them over one by one, took out his white handkerchief and started clumsily cleaning his eyeglasses.
“I will need some time to find out. It could be something else.
Something in terms of a greeting or, emotionally, a part of art,
which I don’t quite appreciate. I would much more welcome a dry
but understandable message.”
“Well, the choice of a rock song is way cooler”, Michael interrupted.
“Not quite. If the aliens have art or a system of values, related
to music, it could become dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Norman raised an eyebrow.
“Not dangerous by all means, if an alien likes our music and
paintings that’s fine. Only what happens if he hates some tune or
piece of art? Emotions are bad… especially in inter-species communication.”
“Or inter-planetary”, Michael added.
“And why specifically music?” Alan seemed a bit disappointed. “As a whole, it makes sense”, Hans went on. “If you want to
start a friendly conversation with someone…”
“Or delude him and put him off his guard…” Ivanov was
frowning even more than usual.
“Do they necessarily have to harbor hostile intentions?”
Marcela was the incorrigible pacifist.
Babyface interrupted the argument.
“Sir, we are ready with the sound analysis.”
“Report, Lieutenant.”
“The musical file is on the computer hard disc. It’s just there.
There is no any date and hour of installing and downloading. It
plays itself for no reason. It is a standard file, format MP3. Just an
ordinary song, Sir.”
“Except that aliens greet us with Deep Purple.”
“We checked for attached information. Nothing, Sir. No other
channels or any added file. It’s a perfectly clean little file.” “Could be a virus…” Michael offered.
“Yes, did you trace the system for bugs? Can’t it be something
like a cyberattack?” Norman asked.
“No, no, it’s definitely clean.”
“You know, as a young girl I was a great fan of Richie Blackmore, the solo guitar”, Marcela said. “And the band is awesome. I
know all their songs by heart.”
“Couldn’t it be something related to the lyrics?” Sergey suggested.
“No, I don’t think so. The lyrics are just fantastic, but there is
hardly anything with reference to a first contact with aliens.” “What is it about, anyway?” Ivanov’s English was perfect. So
was his suspiciousness.
“Well, the band was in Switzerland with Frank Zappa for a
concert when the concert hall on the bank of Geneva Lake got
on fire. They wrote the song with reference to the occasion. The
lyrics go like this:
We all came out to Montreux On the Lake Geneva shoreline To make records with a mobile We didn't have much time. Frank Zappa and the Mothers Were at the best place around
. But some stupid with a flare gun Burned the place to the ground.
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky Smoke on the water… They burned down the gambling house, It died with an awful sound.
Funky Claude was running in and out Pulling kids out the ground.
When it all was over,
We had to find another place.
But Swiss time was running out, It seemed that we would lose the race.
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky Smoke on the water… We ended up at the Grand hotel.
It was empty, cold and bare.
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside, Making our music there.
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat.
No matter what we get out of this,
I know we'll never forget.
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky Smoke on the water…” “It doesn’t sound all that innocent to me. There are instigators, explosions, casualties, damages on a large scale and definitely an inside attack…” Ivanov remarked with a stony face.
“Don’t embarrass yourself, Colonel”, Marcela gasped unbelieving.
“He might be right” Norman interfered. “There are some curious moments in the lyrics, that are worth being thought over. Couldn’t the words be some sort of a semantic message?”
“May I see the lyrics at my leisure?” Hans addressed the Major, who nodded in approval.
The Lieutenant typed something on the keyboard, took a memory stick out of the USB port and gave it to him. Hans gave a discreet sign to Marcela and the two of them left the room.
“I have to call Washington”, Norman said, also rising from his seat and going out.
“People, do you imagine what a great moment in human history that is?” Alan had overcome his initial anxiety and now his voice was charged with excessive pathos. “For the first time during the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution we make contact on the level of reason with an alien civilization.”
“Just please explain to me how exactly we are talking to those little green men and what you understood of what they told you”, Michael contradicted him in his own style.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a historic moment and it is our duty to record it for the future generations! We have the tremendous honor to…”
“Alan, you are not on TV, dude”, Sergey interrupted him. The slang address and his accent made the others laugh.
At this moment Marcela entered with a cup of coffee.
“I didn’t ask if you want any, but I definitely need it…”
“I need to make a phone call”, Ivanov said and stood up.
Everybody knew he was going to report to his superiors in Moscow.
“I need to take some fresh air”, Marcela said and went out to collect her thoughts. She was dead tired, but after some point she felt her body numb, not feeling anything, neither tension, nor exhaustion or pain.
She had experienced hard challenges before, but it was different now. Never till the present time had she felt deadly fear and she could not help but feel that she was standing on the edge of a precipice. She sensed that someone was watching her stealthily, lurking in the shadows behind her back and is only waiting for his chance to push her to the abyss of hell.
She remembered what that sailor had written.
They did not stop to think that a young life was lost. Where? What happened to him? What about the rest of the crew? Where had they vanished. Did they suffer a lot while dying? Nobody knew and maybe nobody cared about people and their life.
She had heard about incredible things happening to live matter on the boundary with the impossible. Why, just a month ago she saw a movie, ‘The Philadelphia Experiment’. It was about a U.S. Navy destroyer escort being rendered invisible by the military so it cannot be detected by Japanese radars. Nobody knew where it had been and through what deformations of time and space it passed, but after people from the team go on board they see something horrible.
Some of the sailors had totally lost their minds and behaved irrationally, others were found just dead on the deck, while another group were embedded in the metal structure of the ship. It was as if their atoms had passed through the molecules of steel, turning them into martyrs of matter. Surely, the reports about those events were top-secret. The last thing military staff cared about was the suffering of those young innocent men who had to pass through hell.
She hated everything military and all people in uniforms! All of them were dumb parrots who could not think independently and were only able to repeat commands and rules. Greedy bastards, deprived of human feelings and common sense.
She shook her head to chase away the depressing thoughts and inhaled deeply the cool freshness of the night desert sea. Her temples were pulsating with pain. She knew herself, that was the effect of tension and sleeplessness with her.
She did not resist the strong desert wind, that was tousling her long black hair and was pulling her white shirt as a sail in the sea. How she longed to surrender to it as a virgin in her first night and that it would take her far away… She only wished not to remember anything about this place and be far away from it… Way beyond the horizon, far from this cursed spot…
She felt like having a drink. She disliked alcohol and rarely touched it, but now she really needed a drink.
Control room, Day 5, 05:16 a.m. “Sir, you must come at once, Sir!”
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Norman entered the control room with energetic pace and crisp voice, as if he had not been devoid of sleep for the last five days.
“It’s coming right at us, Sir!”
“How bad is it? Degree?”
“Very strong, ninth degree and going up… Its eye will pass about thirty miles away from the base, Sir…”
“What did the Headquarters say?”
“The order is for immediate and full evacuation Sir, but in view of the latest events and the report we sent to them the recommendations are not very clear…”
“What do you mean, not very clear? What recommendations? We follow orders and act according to statute, we don’t like recommendations.” Norman was really amazed.
“Well, yes… We have not received such orders till now. It says evacuation is a must, but ‘in view of the circumstances and of the fact that the information in the enemy submarine is of vital importance for the national security, we recommend your staying in position until further orders’…”
“In other words, ‘you have to get the fuck out of there, because the storm will kill you, but we need the submarine, therefore don’t you dare move your goddamn asses from the fucking desert!’ Is that it?”
“More or less, Sir…”
“Lieutenant, we stay despite the danger. Prepare the people and the base for meeting the hurricane.”
The canteen, Day 5, 6:17 a.m.
“All right, it’s fairly simple. How can you not grasp it?!” Marcela and Hans were sitting all alone in the canteen, she had a full glass of vodka in front of her and this time was drinking for real. There was also a glass of orange juice but she had not touched it. Hans was sipping his juice with unidentified expiry date directly from the box.
He was too excited to sleep and when she came in for a drink, she found him bent over a piece of paper, biting a pencil and looking at the ceiling deep in thought.
Some odd bond of friendship was created between the two of them, which was felt also by the others in he group. They too saw that Hans and Marcela are of the same blood type and speak the same language.
“Sorry, dear, it’s more abstract than I can absorb.” “Right, we’ll start again from the beginning, okay?” Hans smiled at her and went on. He was obviously enjoying being able to instruct such a smart and beautiful lady. “1+1 makes what?” “2 of course”, Marcela replied timidly.
“Hmmm…No, wrong. What about 2+2?”
“Obviously 4”, she answered more confident this time. “Have you ever heard of the Theory of Subjectiv
e Numbers?” “No.”
“There is one queer professor, super eccentric, slightly mad, but exceptionally innovative with his statements. Professor McDowell. Several years ago he blew up the mathematic world. It’s simple, there is only one condition…”
Marcela raised her eyebrows inquiringly.
“That he would be believed. Half of the world renowned mathematicians pronounced anathema against him, the other half declared him ‘the new Einstein’. It was fun.” Hans sounded exhilarated.
“Tell me how 1+1 is not 2.”
“Well, imagine you have two apples. They are not exactly the same, are they? They differ in color, ripeness, taste, shape and especially in weight. Right?”
“Yes, this is correct.”
“If you cut these apples precisely through the middle, exchange the halves and put them together, will you have two apples that are exactly the same?”
“Of course not”, Marcela answered, trying to imagine it. “Of course not, because the two apples and their halves correspondingly are not the same.”
“So, if we have two pears in a basket and add them to two other pears in another basket, we won’t get the equivalent of 2+2=4 equal pears, right?” Hans smiled again.
“Yes, that’s right”, she admitted, “but it does not correspond somehow with the mathematics I studied.”
“Mathematics is an idealized and correspondingly untrue reflection love, dear…” Hans was beaming. “It is a beautiful but just as much incorrect abstraction of reality…”
“Crazy stuff. I still cannot comprehend it…”
“The same goes for distances. For example, do you know how much the difference of the distances along the figure axis is between 0 and 1 and between 1 and 2?”
“Err… the distances are the same. They are both… 1…”
“No, I absolutely disagree. The distance between 0 and 1 is much greater, than between 1 and 2… accordingly that between 3 and 4 is less than that between 1 and 2, but bigger than that between 4 and 5. And so on…”
“That cannot possibly be correct”, Marcela argued.
“As I told you, it is very easy to be understood… Imagine you are poor and sick and you have no money for bread. If you have 0 dollars, you cannot buy food and will soon die. Right?”
“Well, I suppose so…”