THE CUBE

by Alex Gore

  “While if you have 1 dollar, you’ll still be alive.”

  “Yeah, but no for long with food for 1 dollar.”

  “True, but the difference between being alive or dead is quite substantial, as I’m sure you will agree. And it is present.”

  “You convinced me” she said with a note of irony in her voice.

  “It is the same with bigger numbers: the difference between having $1000 and $1 000 000 is great, but between 100 billion and 200 billion it is insignificant.” Hans took a pencil and paper and started writing.

  (0-1) >(1-2)>(2-3)>(3-4).......(1million-10million)>>(10million-10 billion)>>>(10billion-100billion) etc.

  “It is the same, of course, to the left of zero, with the negative numbers. The bigger the suffering is, the less it is distinguishable from the neighboring, near in measure.”

  “Say again?”

  “Imagine, like we said, that you are poor and sick at the point of zero. But the temperature outside is also zero and your teeth clatter with the cold. Not only that, but someone steals your trousers and you fall down to minus one on the number axis.”

  “It sucks… Hungry and with no pants”, Marcela shook her head.

  “It sucks, yes, but after some time your shirt is stolen too and you are sent to minus two, right?

  “You are walking stark naked in the street, I get it…”

  “Not until someone steals your underwear for good measure.”

  “Come on, this is too much. There’s no way someone could take off the panties off your ass, Hans”, she laughed.

  “We are talking just hypothetically, Marcela. Tell me, please, there is no big difference in being naked or half naked, is there? Even smaller the difference is between being naked and stark naked. In both cases you’ll die of freezing.”

  “Yeah, I think so… still I don’t get it…”

  “Okay, then, I’ll give you the same example as with positive numbers. If you are without a buck, it’s too bad, you are at zero level. On the other side, this is much better than beside not having anything you also owe one dollar that you borrowed from the bank the previous day to buy bread.”

  “Well, that is correct…”

  “But if you have two dollars and you owe two more is much worse than if you have 2 billion and you owe the bank another 2 billion, don’t you agree?” He smiled at her.

  “Yes, Hans, I give up, you are right.”

  “Sure, there were many mathematicians who squarely refuted Professor McDowell, because with the methods of pure mathematics the distance between 1 and 2 is exactly the same as between 2 and 3. Both are infinity.”

  “Well here you lost me as a listener. Hans, you are crazy!” “Let me write it to you.” He took again the pencil in his hand. “How many numbers can you write between 0 and +∞?” “An infinite number.” This time she was sure.

  “Correct. And how many between 0 and 1?”

  “I suppose, a lot less” she mumbled not so sure any more. “Wrong! You can also write an infinite quantity of numbers, although you wouldn’t know where to begin… Because if you start from 0.0001, you can insert between it and the zero 0.00001, and after it 0.000001 and so on till infinite number of values between whichever two numbers on the axis, no matter how close they are to each other…”

  “Err… if you put it like that… when I think of it… I guess, you are right.”

  “That is so, because between any two numbers there is always an infinite quantity of other numbers. And if the distance between 0 and 1 is infinite, it is equal to the distance between 1 and 2, which is also infinite, because infinities cannot be compared… they are equal. Exactly in the same way as zeroes are nothing and also cannot be compared. But the difference between being alive or dead is unimaginably more significant than the difference between being a millionaire or a billionaire… i.e. the infinity between 1 and 2 is still bigger than the infinity between 2 and 3 and so on. As you can see infinity is everywhere – in the small and in the big both.”

  She sighed.

  “Hans, you are right as always but I got a bit exhausted of all those figures…” Marcela was declaring retreat.

  “As I said this “Theory of subjective numbers” is a lovely untruth, which, however, is a fine description of the beauty of mathematics…” The triumph of Hans was obvious.

  “Right now, I personally would prefer a hot bath and a glass of Merlot… Actually, Hans, why is this theory so important and why are you telling me about it?”

  “I remembered about it a short time ago, while I was working on the matter of music and the ship. It helped me understand the truth about the music. ”Hans sipped his coffee and glanced knowingly at her above the rim of the cup. “It also makes you realize that nothing here is what it seems to be.”

  1.2 miles outside the Base, Day 5, 9:43 a.m. Ivanov pressed the red receiver on his phone.

  The instructions were clear.

  Nothing had to be left in the hands of the enemy. The Americans should not in any circumstances get hold of

  the Cube as a weapon, nor the submarine itself. It kept too many and too vital secrets or him to take a risk with hesitation and indulgence. He was obliged to take the secret weapon, only for his country to avail of, or to destroy everything.

  Everything.

  Even if it cost them the loss of the ship. Even if it cost him his own life. The Cube was a priority but if he could not take it only for the Russian side to keep it, destruction would follow.

  He completely agreed. Not that his opinion mattered, because even if he did not approve of the orders from above, he would never question their execution.

  He looked at the bag, full of explosives.

  The Submarine, Day 5, 10:47 a.m.

  “Be careful with that!”

  The Lieutenant was giving instructions to the four soldiers who carried an enormous wooden crate. At last they reached the spot and placed it carefully on the sand at a distance of a yard from the corpse of the submarine. It was really heavy, made of thick wooden beams, reinforced with steel lining. It was designed for special loads.

  “Where do we cut, Sir?”, the Sergeant asked and opened the tool box. He took out of it the helmet and the safety goggles.

  He also took out the angle grinder and switched it on. He then pressed it to the metal jacket of the ship. The molten metal started throwing out an avalanche of glittering shavings.

  The shining in the sky was becoming with every passing hour less greenish and more intensely dark red.

  The Base, dormitories, Day 5, 8:21 a.m. The Lieutenant was going to the bathroom.

  He had a lot of cold tea and six cups of coffee during the night. He was alone on duty and there was nobody left to take over his shift. He had to be at his post, but nobody would know that he was absent from the control room for just two minutes in order to relieve himself. He had read in a magazine once that if you do not pee regularly and restrain yourself, it would be detrimental for your prostate and you might not be able to have children. Or you would not put it up any more… something of the sort. Whatever, he stood up from his chair and went out.

  He was walking along the corridor back to the control room, whistling merrily, when he noticed Alan to sneak out of the control room and close the door quietly.

  What the fuck?!, he thought.

  “Alan! Hey, Alan, what are you doing here? What’s going on?”, the Lieutenant shouted at him while approaching.

  The man just turned back, looked at him sharply with bloodred pupils, then started running along the passage to the front door.

  “Hey, Alan, what’s got into you, man?” He started going after him, but Alan disappeared around the corner as a shadow. The Lieutenant did not usually pay much attention to people’s eyes but was pretty sure that Alan’s eyes were brown.

  Room for biological control and analysis, Day 5, 11:29 a.m. She was checking the samples from the ship for the hundredth time maybe.

  The results were always the same.

 
; At the beginning she thought that she had made a mistake or that the samples were not fresh enough, but now she knew for sure: this here was presence of an unknown life form!

  Marcela was in love with her work. Here, under the microscope, there were only alive real things, not like with people. There were no fakes, cheatings or hypocrisy. Death was genuine and unarguable just like life was. The smaller, or like they were termed the lower organisms hid that immaculate beauty and frankness, that she had never yet encountered in men. In people, she corrected herself in her mind.

  The loneliness of the laboratory work and the direct contact with nature by way of the membrane of a singular cell through the eye-lens of the microscope made her happier than all scientific awards in the world. She might be living in her own sterile world without realizing how much she had distanced herself from normal human communication.

  The image under the lens of the electronic microscope was unclear and smeared, she put it to focus, turning the knob with her slender white fingers, and scrutinized again the cellular ring.

  No, she was by no means mistaken. She had conducted the experiments again and again dozens of times.

  She needed to call Norman.

  “What is it, March?”

  “Major, you’ve got to see this. The corals are really unusual, I’ve never seen such… Most corals depend on sunlight and grow in shallow transparent waters, so that they can absorb energy from the sun. But these here are structured in a way to survive at a much greater depth…”

  “How deep are we talking?”

  “Look, species are known here, on Earth, inhabiting deeper waters and not so strongly dependent on sunlight, up to a depth of about 10 000 feet, and only some species at that.”

  “What about those here?”, Norman pointed to the samples in the Petri dish.

  “Those here are able to process chemical energy from sea water, without needing sunlight…”

  “Do you mean they come from a greater depth?”

  “I mean, there is no way for such species to exist on the Earth!”

  “And where do you think they came from?” Norman asked skeptically.

  “How, the hell, do I know, Norman? I am only a university biologist who came to the fucking desert after being dragged from the plane against my will! How can I have any idea?!” Her voice was trembling. Her nerves could not hold on and she broke down rying.

  Norman was caught unprepared to see her so vulnerable, but it was obvious that the pressure of the last couple of days had been too much for her.”

  “Pull yourself together, March, everything will be okay, I promise” Norman said without flinching. “Now, tell me about the corals, please.”

  She turned towards the samples. She hated displaying weakness and was now ashamed of the fact that she demonstrated vulnerability and lost her self-control. She wiped her wet eyes, took a deep breath and went on:

  “They have a very thick layer of calcium carbonate, which does not have the usual rhombic lattice but possesses a complex fractal polymorphic structure. Besides, chemical macro structure hard cover of calcite forms something like a space suit and I am sure they can bear thousands of atmospheres of underwater pressure. Moreover, they don’t need energy and do not have mitochondria or any other organelles. I noticed tiny bubbles which most probably serve for the processing of hydrogen sulphide and other molecules at great depths… much deeper places than we have ever had on Earth… a 50 or… I don’t know… 100 miles underwater.”

  “And where could those depths be, March?”

  “Well, the deepest place on the Earth is the Mariana Trench 36 000 feet, but these here probably come from greater depths of other oceans…”

  “Like from which place?!”

  “There are oceans so deep in our Solar System only on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. On Europe, under a deep layer of ice, there are oceans, heated by the warm core of the heavenly body, that reach depth of 70 miles.”

  “Okay, I need to report to Washington. Thank you, you may continue with your work.” Norman started abruptly for the door.

  “Just one more thing… Do you know the ancient Greek legend about the birth of the corals?”

  Norman half-turned without stopping.

  “According to Greek mythology when Perseus cut the head of Gorgona Medusa, a few drops of blood fell in the sea and created the corals”, Marcela said and sat before her utensils.

  From “Theory of the Imperfect Detail” by Professor. McDowell “And God looked the man who He had created Himself and told him:

  ‘You shall be imperfect, because so I order and because all things in nature are imperfect. Here you get also an imperfect and illogical woman, in order to make you love and be unable to escape your nature…’

  ‘I accept’, the man replied to Him.

  Bare field. Among its bushes and trees are scattered and trash, blown by the wind.

  The man decided to build himself a house. He arranged the stones, sorted tree trunks and cut them, mixed mud and baked some bricks. He needed seven summers and lots of efforts to create his home. He extracted a lot of energy from his strong muscles to introduce harmony in this natural disorder.

  Man lived happily in the house with his family, but after many years he met his demise and nobody ever came to this field. After standing for one hundred years in the wind, rain, snow and living creatures, the house steadily collapsed. And after one hundred years more the field was empty again, with rocks, bushes and innumerable specks of dust, covering the earth.

  The measure of chaos in a system is entropy. The bigger the chaos, the less the energy and the more stable the system is. The better arranged the system is, the greater the energy and the less the entropy. Correspondingly, the system itself is more unstable.

  Each system strives for minimum energy and maximum disorder.

  Conclusion: Perfection is only hypothetical and is practically impossible from the point of view of the Second principle of thermodynamics, since it would require infinite quantity of energy and zero chaos.

  Each system, existing in nature, contains imperfect details, which make it possible.”

  Control room, Day 5, 1:34 p.m.

  Norman and the Lieutenant were standing in front of the blue screen and did not believe their eyes.

  The figures appeared from the top like an avalanche, as if coming from nothing, and the new ones quickly pushed the old ones down. They were an endless row, which did not make any sense at first glance.

  “Are you sure it’s coming from the ship?”

  “No, Sir, I rather believe it comes from the Cube.”

  “Like the music in the air, doesn’t it?” Norman already knew the answers to these questions before even asking them.

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  Control room, Day 5, 4:18 p.m.

  “I know what the music is”, Hans began. “You have cracked the code, haven’t you?” Norman was triumphant.

  “The music is the key.”

  “The key to what?” Sergey asked uncomprehending.

  “To everything.” Hans sat in front of the computer and the rest of the group encircled him. “The music of Deep Purple is undeniably great but let’s focus on what we received.”

  “’Smoke on the water’.”

  “Yes, but which came first… The key is there! The first was the guitar riff. The intro, music without vocals on it.” Hans played it again, as if they had forgotten it and hummed: “Tamtam-taaammm… tam ta
ta ta taaaaam…If you were an alien, how would you begin conversation with another civilization? You have several options. You could be direct, as long as you know the language… which, having in mind what’s written in the lower part of the Cube, is not a problem…”

  “Then why don’t they send us a direct message in plain English but waste our time with some stupid songs?!” Ivanov was completely at a loss to understand.

  “Yes, but try to step in their shoes…”

  “If I have a nuclear submarine and I were in their place, I’d never waste time on music but would attack first. Attack is the best defense…”

  Ivanov’s and Hans’s ways of thinking were on the opposite ends of a deep precipice.

  “Or you could approach delicately and courteously as elegant communication demands… You would make the effort to explore the other person and would find out that one of the most pleasant forms of communication and, respectively, exchange of information for a man is melody. Thus, our life begins – with a nursery rhyme – and thus it ends…”

  “I’d have only rap at my funeral, not any of that burial tunes”, Michael joked.

  “You mean, they know everything about us?” Norman asked worried.

  “I mean a far more advanced civilization, as theirs seems to be, would know more about us than we about them… Don’t you agree?”

  “If we take as an example the representatives of the green euglena and our civilization, does that mean that we know more about unicellular organisms than they about us?” Marcela directed her question at Hans.

  “It’s quite relative. We think we know more about the populations of amoebas or ants, for instance, and they know nothing about us as a higher form of life… But maybe amoebas have perceptions of six more dimensions for which we possess no senses and any idea of their existence… Or, the amoeba is just the ‘visible’ for our senses part of a much higher creature, which we are unable to even notice.”

  “Or maybe ants understand our words and are even able to read our thoughts, but they are not fitted with speech apparatus and we are totally mistaken in considering them lower forms of life, compared to man”, Marcela offered.

  “Yes, but it’s also a fact that the ‘cubic creatures’ from the damn submarine are superior to us, because if they were amoebas or ants, we would hardly listen to hard rock on the speaker and lead this conversation now”, Sergey concluded.