“I think there’s a new signal, that wasn’t there before.”
Athika turned toward the screen.
“You’re right. It looks like an attempt to open up channels of communication with the outside. Look here, the frequency of the neural dialog is increasing. See the change in the delta waves? And the propagation between perception and thought? Wait, let me ‘hear’ what’s going on.”
Athika stood ‘listening’ for a while.
“Try calling her….”
Helias moved next to Kathia and pronounced her name. Athika shook her head. Helias noticed that the professor was looking at his hands. Perhaps they were thinking the same thing. The professor raised his eyebrows and nodded. Helias reached over and stroked Kathia’s hair.
“Kathia, can you hear me?”
A flicker of color on the screen.
“Go on! I don’t know how, but she felt something.”
Helias continued to stroke her hair, and to call her in his thought.
The flickering was there again, the signal coming and going.
“Something’s there….” said Athika. “But I can’t make it out. Because the images have also increased in intensity and frequency.”
Then Helias said “Kathia, is there something you want to tell us?”
“She hears you! The images are quietening down. There. Now I can almost make out what’s there.”
Prolonged silence. Athika, eyes slitted with the effort, was concentrating on a far, faint signal.
Then she opened her eyes.
“Nothing more, now.” she said.
“What did you hear? Did she ‘say’ something?” asked the professor.
“She repeated the same phrase several times. A kind of refrain.”
“Tell us.”
“Yes, but you should move away from her now, Helias. I think she needs rest more than she needs you, at the moment. I can see that you’ve helped her a great deal, but if she’s going to get better, it will have to be a very long, gradual process, with nothing that could shake her up too much. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Certainly.”
And Helias, after stroking Kathia’s cheek one last time with the backs of his fingers, moved to the other side of the room.
“At first, I could only hear indistinct ‘noises’. Then I began to make out a word or two, again and again. She was repeating the same phrase over and over, like a warning, or a maxim of some kind. She was saying ‘What has already happened cannot be prevented. We can only work to make it happen.’”
Helias and the professor were in the ‘projection room’, the one where they had talked about the Feynman diagrams. The screen was on, and the professor was describing the findings of some of his investigations to Helias, illustrating them with images of the documentation.
The professor’s cell rang. It was about Mattheus. They had brought him back. He was still in a state of confusion. They had run some tests on him and now he was being detoxed. He was sleeping, and wouldn’t wake up for another half hour.
They continued their discussion for a while. Then they went to Mattheus.
He was still sleeping. Not completely detoxed yet.
Athika arrived almost immediately. She had heard them come in.
“He knows something.” she said, smiling at Helias.
Helias smiled back. “About Kathia?” he asked.
Athika nodded. “She’s alive. And doing well, physically at least. Or this, at any rate, is what Mattheus ‘knows’.”
“How did he find out?”
“That I don’t know. We’ll know tomorrow. Now it’s better to let him rest. He’s been through a lot. Worse than we thought. What they did to get him to tell them what he knew reduced him to a wreck.”
“And the others?” asked Helias of the three remaining patients.
“Fairly stable. Kathia is the only one who continues to show signs of recovering.”
Helias and the professor wished each other good night. Both were off to bed. Both needed to sleep.
Once in his room, Helias turned on a low, diffuse light and went into the bathroom. He urinated copiously. Then he looked at his wound in the mirror. It was practically healed, just a slight scar left. A nice hot shower, that’s what he needed. He undressed and entered the stall. But stopped immediately, before turning on the water. He had heard a noise. Like a chair being moved. He stood listening. Nothing. He got out of the shower and went to check that he had locked the door. But the dim light and his fatigue prevented him from seeing into a dark corner, where a shadowy figure was waiting, motionless and in silence.
Ten minutes later he exited the shower, clean and dry, and walked toward the bed. But out of the corner of his eye he saw something unusual on the desk. He came closer. It was a sheet of paper, something written on it in a tiny hand. He could have sworn that before, when he came in, it wasn’t there.
He turned up the light and took the piece of paper. A shiver shot up his spine, as far as the nape of his neck. Hand trembling, he brought the sheet closer and read the first lines carefully.
“Since you’ve certainly recognized the handwriting already, maybe it’s better for you to take a seat and calm down before going on.”
Like an automaton, Helias obeyed and sat, never lifting his eyes from the paper. He reread, incredulously, the first sentence.
He looked up then, scanning the room around him. No, nobody there. And the door was closed, he’d already checked. But, this, clearly, was not a significant detail. And the noise he’d heard before made sense now. He drew a deep breath and sat thinking for a while, staring blankly into space. Then he went back to reading.
“You’ll think it’s stupid, but you have no idea how happy I was to see you again. How is the injury doing? It should be pretty much healed by now. Yes, and some of the credit for that is mine. When? When you were asleep, under the boulder. Before they came to get you. Yes, I have them myself, the diskettes. I’ll give them back to you when the moment comes, when you’re no longer in danger of being hunted for them. Now relax for a while. Then come outside, to the lakeshore. There’s nobody around at this time. We can have a chat, if you like. See you soon.”
Helias’s hands were cold and clammy. Once again, he read those words, with meticulous attention. To be certain he had understood, understood absolutely everything. Then he raised his head and closed his eyes. He could feel his heart hammering, his temples too. There was a sour taste in his mouth, and his throat was dry. He was needed to drink something, but he didn’t move. The words echoed in his mind, and it all seemed incredible still.
Finally he rose, drank, dressed, slipped on his jacket and went out.
The night was cold, but brightly lit by Nasymil. Other stars shone, uncounted, and the only sound was the soft steady plashing of the waves.
He was walking along the lake, deep in thought. When he heard footfalls pattering behind him. Afraid to turn, he slowed his pace, finally coming to a halt while facing the lake. The hooded figure came up beside him.
“Everything all right?” it asked him.
He nodded. That voice gave him the shivers. Helias made as if to turn.
“No, don’t look at me. It’s better not to.”
And the figure took half a step backward, standing almost directly behind him.
Helias was panting, as if he had just stopped running.
“What do you want? Why have you come here? Why can’t I look at you?”
“You already seem agitated enough as it is. Let’s calm down and talk, okay?”
“Okay, okay. You’re right, sorry.”
“I know there are a lot of things you’d like to know. Unfortunately, though, I can’t tell you everything. But maybe there’s something I can reassure you about, anyway.”
“What’s become of Kathia? And of… of my… parents?”
“They’re all right, now.”
“They’re prisoners?”
“Yes, they are.”
“What can I do for them?”
“You’ll know when the time comes. You’ll see.”
Then Helias smiled. The tension was beginning to evaporate.
“And you, how are you doing?”
“Not too bad. As you can see, I’m still alive.”
“I can see that. Or rather, I hear it. It’s a weird feeling, hearing your voice.”
“The effect on me is more or less the same.”
Helias laughed.
“You know you’re just the same old piece of shit you always were?”
The hooded figure laughed too.
“Look who’s talking!”
And at that, they both joined in a resounding peal of laughter.
“If it wasn’t for that hood I’d give you a good slap or two.”
“That’s exactly why I’m wearing it.”
“No. I’ll bet you’re wearing it because you’ve got so ugly now that you’re ashamed to let yourself be seen.”
“Hey, young fella. A little respect for your elders.”
Which made them break into helpless laughter again.
“Somebody’s coming.” said Helias.
“I know. We’d better split up here.”
“Already? Just when I was beginning to enjoy myself?”
“Yes, it’s better.”
“Will I see you again?”
“Probably.”
“Tell me something more.”
“You’ve already heard what you need to know.”
“And what would that be?”
“What has already happened cannot be prevented. We can only work to make it happen.”
Helias brooded over this for a while.
Faint footsteps roused him from his thoughts.
He would have liked to have asked how much time had gone by.
But when he turned, the dark hooded figure was already far away.
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Massimo VillataThe Dark Arrow of TimeScience and Fictionhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67486-5_14
14. The Meeting Had Left Helias Kadler Shaken and Confused
Massimo Villata1
(1)Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, INAF, Pino Torinese (TO), Italy
Massimo Villata
Email: [email protected]
The meeting had left Helias Kadler shaken and confused. He lay on his bed, unable to sleep despite his fatigue. Thinking that, whatever dream he might have that night, it could hardly be more unreal than everything that had happened to him lately.
And it was exactly that sense of unreality that had relegated him, unwillingly, to a role that had almost always been passive as these events unfolded, surprising and unpredictable events. It was like being catapulted into an unknown world, governed by its own strange and incomprehensible laws. Exactly what had happened to him, since setting foot on Alkenia.
And now, with that meeting, he had reached peak stupefaction. It had finally put him on the ropes, punch-drunk and battered, but in a way, he felt, that gave him the strength to battle back, just as a prize fighter leans on the ropes, stretching them as far as they will go and then bounces again into the ring, fists flying. And he couldn’t help but think of that dream, the one with the Martians on the elastic cords, in one of his first nights on Alkenia. The dream where he, too, ran and jumped on the cords, higher and higher, like the others. Even if he didn’t know what the purpose of it all was, he had learned to jump too. If for no other reason than not to slip and fall, tumbling down into the darkness, who knows where. It was necessary to jump, in that utter and absolute blackness. Even if he couldn’t see anything, even in his fear. Even if he didn’t know whether those jumps, each higher than the time before, each more harrowing than the last, would ever come to an end.
And the same feeling of adrenaline coursing through his veins that evening prevented him from sleeping.
Then he thought again of Kathia and his parents, whom he knew were alive and well, somewhere. But where? Held prisoner by whom? And though the first thought was calming, the questions it raised unsettled him again, and led to more questions, new ones posed for the first time. And at the same time, he felt reinvigorated by the thought of Kathia and his parents, as if they were waiting for him, because they needed him. And who, if not he, had a chance at saving them now?
And in Helias’s mind, a mechanism hove into motion, searching for questions, spontaneously, continuously, almost without his realizing, questions without answers but which together, at the end, would form a picture. Not a picture of questions: the picture itself would be the answer. Like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, pieces that earlier, individually, seemed meaningless. But you had to have the right pieces, ask the right questions. The answer, the picture, would come on its own. So, long ago, it seemed, the professor had explained.
It was far into the night before Helias finally slept.
But the picture had not taken shape. Not entirely. And when, the next morning, Helias woke, he had the feeling that some of the questions and conjectures that had drifted through his drowsy mind during the night were not nearly so realistic now, in the light of day, as so often happens to those thoughts and meditations that arise in darkness and solitude, when the mind seems free from distractions, but which melt away in the morning, as they come up against reality. But he wouldn’t have been able to say which was right: the undistracted thought, undistracted but perhaps distorted by sleep, or what we understand to be real, but which in turn could be no more than a distorted vision, whose features seem real only because we are accustomed to them, and have come to like them. He didn’t know, in other words, whether true clarity had come with the morning, or before sleep. And so he had that unpleasant sensation of not being able to tell what was real, and what wasn’t.
To make his mood worse, there was the disappointment of realizing that he couldn’t remember certain elements, certain questions, that had seemed so essential the night before. The only thing that remained was the feeling of having made a discovery, or an intuition, of fundamental importance. And so even what little was left of his unfinished picture had fallen apart, completely and finally fragmented.
But he decided not to take it too hard and, as he went through the bathroom door, reflected that the pieces, the questions, were all there, somewhere, still working away in his mind.
Helias was finally able to relax when he went to breakfast. Immediately beforehand he had phoned the professor and made an appointment with him, for half an hour later.
Now, as he ate, he could feel that the mechanism was slowly starting up again, and he was careful not to jam it. He was having that ‘stubborn grease’ feeling of his, like in those laundry detergent commercials where the stains loose their hold on the grimy fabric, clumping together into fat black globs that float off and away, leaving the wash whiter than white. They were the questions of the night before, coming together again, retaking their shape and extricating themselves from the sleep-clogged meshes of the mind. Then it was like when droplets of mercury are evenly distributed over a soft surface, but all it takes is a moment’s pressure, the slightest pressure, and two droplets come together and coalesce. And then a third and a fourth. Gradually the droplet becomes a drop and then a ball, the soft surface curves under its weight, and all the other droplets roll down to joint it. Like the birth of a star, when all the surrounding gas is attracted and builds up around that globule that, at the beginning, was only slightly denser. Until the pressure of the gas that continues to accumulate becomes so great that it triggers the first thermonuclear reactions. And the ball of gas becomes a star. And the star shines with its own light, starting where once there were only solitary shreds of cold, rarefied gas.
And a picture took shape in Helias’s mind, starting from isolated, insignificant globs of grease and droplets of mercury.
The professor looked curiously at Helias, noting that strange glint in his eyes.
“You’re looking refreshed. Good. Tell me what’
s on your mind….”
“There’s one question, first, that had already occurred to me but I hadn’t attached too much importance to it. Now, however, it strikes me as crucial. I’m talking about three years ago, when Professor Nudeliev’s computer system was hacked into. Why would our hacker, whoever he was, have tried to steal the software when the product wasn’t finished yet? Why not wait for the final, definitive result? What good to him was a program that was incomplete and unusable, at least as far as was known, or should have been known outside of the project? We know now that it was already operative, though still at the experimental stage, but who could have known that at the time?”
“You’re thinking it was an inside job? That crossed my mind too. And not only mine. And there were extensive investigations that also—and especially—looked into that. But without turning up anything: everybody involved in the project was cleared. Or, at least, nobody could be suspected more than any of the others. And nobody had a serious motive, or the opportunity to hack the entire system….”
“And yet, hacked it was. And it’s certainly less difficult from inside. As for the motive, maybe just plain ordinary corruption: somebody on the team could have been paid off by somebody on the outside who wanted the software and had the wherewithal to use it….”
“Yes, I was getting there. No, there was nothing of that kind either. No questionable dealings with outsiders, especially with the few suspects who might be interested in a product like this….”
“Hmm, as I thought…. And so….”
But Helias broke off in mid-sentence, ruminating over something.
“And so?” echoed the professor, looking at him dubiously.
“No, nothing, just an idea of mine. But it would be premature to talk about it now. What I’d like is to be able to have a look at whatever records were kept of the recruitment procedures for the team that developed the software. Assuming that there was an open call, as I imagine there was….”
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