Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel

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Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel Page 15

by Selected Essays


  Tempter?” The word was almost inaudible, so that he didn’t know whether

  he said it or only thought it.

  “Why should that bother you?” The voice remained just as gentle. “If I am

  the Tempter, then we are on the same side. We have the same opponent.”

  “Why...why are you here? What do you want from me?” He had a strong

  urge to cross himself but at the last moment thought it somehow

  inappropriate.

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  “I don’t want anything from you. On the contrary, I have a gift for you. Sort

  of a token of our alliance. A trip.”

  “A trip?”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t leave this cell, and you will get back on time,

  before they come for you.”

  “What kind of a trip will it be if I stay here?”

  “The only one possible under the circumstances: through time.”

  The prisoner blinked. This was not really happening. He was still asleep.

  However, there was none of the awakening that necessarily followed such a

  realization. He brought his hand to his face and pinched his cheek hard. The

  pain was real. Only too real.

  “I don’t want...to go...anywhere.”

  “But you’ll like it there. I’m quite sure. The future has pleasant surprises for

  you.”

  “The future?”

  “Yes. Almost three hundred years from now.”

  “Why would I want to go...to the future?”

  “Out of curiosity, above all. Aren’t you interested in checking whether you

  really succeeded in outwitting the Church? Even though you certainly appear

  self-confident, there must still be a shadow of doubt in there. What if your

  sacrifice is in vain?”

  “But you said it isn’t. That my students...”

  “A moment ago that did not sound convincing to you. In any case, can you

  believe in the word of the Tempter, even when you’re on the same side as he

  is?”“What would the future corroborate? What would I see there?” As he asked

  these questions, he felt completely foolish. He had let himself be drawn too

  easily into a crazy, impossible conversation. Where was the common sense he

  took such pride in? Had he gone out of his mind? He had heard that this

  sometimes happened to people waiting to be burned at the stake. Fear twisted

  their minds.

  “A better question would be what you won’t see. First of all, you won’t see a

  monastery on the top of this hill. Its walls will still be there, but it will no

  longer contain dark, humid cells, corridors all sooty from torches, or a torture

  chamber in the basement.”

  “The monastery will fall into ruin?”

  “No, it will be remodeled.”

  “What can you remodel a monastery into?”

  The answer was preceded by a brief silence that seemed to indicate a certain

  hesitation, indecision. “I suppose that in the end you would recognize it

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  without my help, although it will certainly look...strange. But I would do well

  to prepare you. You will not have much time, and the future can have a

  stunning effect. At the time of your visit, instead of a monastery this will be an

  astronomical observatory.”

  He knew that he should say something in return, that it was expected of

  him, but he could not utter a word. His vocal cords were vibrating, forming

  confused questions, but his throat had closed completely and no sound came

  out. He stared blankly ahead, his mouth a void.

  In the infinite silence that reigned once more, a white-gloved hand set the

  cane between the knees, then disappeared in the folds of the black robe. The

  hand took a moment to find something there, then emerged with a round, flat

  object on its open palm. Golden reflections shone from its engraved curves.

  The dark figure’s thumb moved along the edge of the object and the lid

  popped open.

  The hand extended toward the prisoner, but he remained stock-still. It was

  not indecision; the spasm that had closed his throat had now spread to his

  entire body. He wanted to move, do something, anything, he couldn’t stay

  there motionless forever, but his muscles refused completely to obey.

  “Yes, before you leave, there is one more thing you should know. It will

  please you, I believe. The observatory will be named after you.”

  The movement with which he accepted the watch had nothing to do with

  his will. It seemed to him that someone else received the Tempter’s gift, that he

  was just an observer who should in fact warn the incautious sinner not to do it,

  that it was insane. He wouldn’t have listened, anyway, his soul was already lost,

  so it made no difference; actually, nothing could help him anymore.

  The watch face radiated a bright whiteness. In the dark cell it was a

  lighthouse summoning sailors, the flame of a candle attracting buzzing insects,

  a star luring the glass eye of the telescope. And over it were two ornate hands at

  a right angle, forming a large letter L.

  II

  Staring at the shiny surface, he failed to notice the changes that had started to

  take place. Something sparkled in the cell, apparitions passed through it more

  transparent than ghosts, and the specter on the other bed instantly dissolved

  into nothingness.

  His attention was attracted only by sudden daylight in the high barred

  window.

  Isn’t it still early? he asked himself, raising his eyes in bewilderment.

  But the time of miracles had just begun. His eyelids barely had time to blink

  before it was dark in the window again. The astronomer in him opened his

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  mouth to contend the obvious, but he was silenced by the stronger voice of the

  child who cares not at all whether something is possible or not, as long as it is

  fascinating.

  Many short interchanges of light and darkness took place before the child

  had had enough of this monotonous kaleidoscope, finally letting the scientist

  think about solving the mystery. There was only one explanation, of course.

  To accept it, however, one had to accept the impossible almost as an act of

  faith.

  Before him the days and nights were passing at accelerated speed, but he

  could not ask the questions dictated by his reason. He had lost that right the

  moment he took the watch. In any event, was the “how” important? If this was

  the way to travel to the future, so be it.

  Finally the hypnotic flashes of blue-gray and black images in the stone

  window tired even the astronomer. He turned around—and at first it seemed

  that the dizzy rush through time had stopped. Nothing was moving, every-

  thing looked fixed, unchanging. And then he realized that it was only an

  illusion. There could be no rapid changes here: the monastery walls were built

  to withstand the centuries.

  Nonetheless, there were a few things in the cell made of less durable

  material. He stood transfixed as he watched the boards on the bed across

  from him gradually swell up from the perpetual humidity and then split and

  fall to the ground, where they slowly turned into a shapeless mass on the

  flagstones.

  He jumped up from his bed when it
struck him that the same fate had to

  affect the boards on which he was sitting. Sure enough, they also ended up as a

  pile of sawdust. He, however, had not felt a thing: if this possibility had not

  crossed his mind, he would have continued to sit calmly on nothing, in midair.

  The wooden door was considerably thicker, but in the end it, too,

  succumbed to the effects of decay. First the steel bars fell off, then the hinges

  gave way, cracks appeared, then gaps and holes, until finally there was nothing

  to stop him from going into the corridor. The cell ceased to be a prison. But on

  the other side of the threshold, freedom was an impenetrable darkness, since

  no one lit torches to dispel it anymore.

  Thoughts of freedom reminded him of the many prisoners who must have

  sojourned here in misery after him. During this rapid movement through time

  he could not see them, of course, although here and there he had the deceptive

  feeling that there was someone else with him. During the instants of darkness

  that were nights, a shape seemed to bulge on the bed across from him, but this

  illusion was too brief to make anything of it. In the flashes of lightning that

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  were days, something would flicker in front of him periodically, a certain hint

  of movement, but it was as cryptic as a flash seen out of the corner of the eye.

  The ceiling disappeared so suddenly that he did not have time to catch his

  breath. It was there one moment and then suddenly gone without a trace, as

  though a giant had taken a huge lid off the monastery. At the same time, all the

  partition walls were removed, leaving only the solid outer walls that no longer

  had any windows.

  The rapidly changing days and nights were incomparably more exciting

  with the entire firmament spread over his head than before, when he had only

  had a tiny corner of sky. The entire universe seemed to be hurriedly whispering

  some secret message to him...

  But he was not given the time to figure it out. Just as mysteriously as the lid

  was lost, it returned a few moments later, although not the old one. He found

  himself inside an enormous closed space over which there rose a gigantic

  dome. Only cathedrals boast such roofs, he thought, but this was certainly

  not a cathedral; their domes did not have a wide slit cut through the center,

  let alone a large cylinder pointing upward through that opening.

  He did not realize that the voyage was over because there was no slowing

  down; it happened all at once. He was looking at the empty opening in the

  vault over his head, but many heartbeats had to pass before he finally noticed

  that the alternating light and darkness had stopped. The night sky that settled

  in his eyes was sprinkled with the clusters of stars found in the thin air of

  mountain peaks.

  A click in his hand jolted him out of the paralysis that had overcome him.

  The watch had completely slipped his mind, although it had been in his

  outstretched palm the entire time. Now it had closed, since its magic work

  was finished. He originally thought to put it in his pocket but then decided he

  should keep it in his hand; his first idea would have shown inadmissible

  disrespect.

  He slowly and timidly began to turn around in the semidarkness of the large

  area. As wondrous things whose purpose he could not divine entered his field

  of vision, he remembered the Tempter’s words; he had said that in the end he

  would see for himself that it was an astronomical observatory. The Tempter

  must have greatly overestimated him. There was nothing here he could

  recognize: no telescope, sextant, map of the stars, or brass model of the

  planetary system.

  Instead, the circular wall was covered for the most part with unusual

  windows. They shone in a variety of colors, but it could not have been the

  light from outside because it was night. Some forms were moving on them,

  and he cautiously went up to one part of the wall to get a better look. They

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  turned out to be yellow numbers that proceeded as far as the eye could see in

  horizontal rows against blue or red backgrounds, appearing at one end and

  disappearing at the other, although the device that was writing them was

  nowhere to be seen.

  He would have stood there a long time staring at this sparkling display,

  whose meaning he had not even tried to penetrate, had it not been for the

  sound of quiet voices he suddenly heard behind him. He started in complete

  surprise. During his first moment of confusion, all he felt was the instinctive

  need to hide somewhere, but there was no time for that. When he turned

  around, just a few steps from him were two tall figures—a man and a

  woman—dressed in long white robes, heading his way, talking in hushed

  tones.

  They had to see him; it was unavoidable since he was standing right there in

  front of them, paralyzed and bewildered. But they went straight past him,

  paying no attention to his conspicuous presence, as though he were completely

  invisible. He stood there for a long time, immobile, trying to get used to this

  impossibility, as his temples pounded fiercely.

  The figures in white went up to one of the windows that was considerably

  larger than the others and was unlighted and started to touch some of the

  bumps that protruded under it. The window suddenly lit up, but it did not

  have the stream of numbers as on the others. It showed something that the

  prisoner could finally make sense of. The star field seemed far denser, brighter,

  and sharper, but basically did not differ from what he had seen through his

  small telescope.

  But how could the picture in the window and the telescope be the same?

  What kind of window was that? The answer soon followed, but his readiness to

  believe took considerably more time. The two people continued to touch the

  bumps, and the scene slowly started to change. The change itself was clear to

  him, but he could not figure out how it was done. He would have achieved the

  same effect if he were slowly to raise his telescope: some stars would disappear

  under the lower edge, while others would appear above. But here the window

  did not move at all.

  Then he heard something buzzing behind him. It was quite feeble, like the

  sound of a distant bee. He probably would not have turned around if he hadn’t

  been compelled by the pins and needles at the back of his head—the tension of

  premonition. Something was going on behind his back, something big was

  moving.

  The heavy, upright cylinder in the lower part of the slit in the dome slowly

  rose toward the highest point, although he could not see how it moved. It

  seemed to be doing so by itself, without the help of ropes and a winch.

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  He caught on to what was happening before the cylinder stopped at an angle

  of about seventy degrees. So, the Tempter had not overestimated him too

  much. In any case, it was only a matter of proportions here. Even though it was

  gigantic, the telescope had kept its original shape. What he could not under-

  stand was that the eyepiece had been moved.
Instead of being in the only place

  it could be, at the bottom of the cylinder, it was on the wall like a big window

  that everyone could look at.

  The picture on it stabilized just for a moment, and then a new change

  started. The stars began to flow over all the edges as though the telescope were

  rushing through the air at an unbelievable speed, although it was resting

  immobile. It penetrated more and more into the dark expanse, reaching for

  unattainable infinity.

  The impression was intoxicating, delightful. And then, as if this were not

  enough, music echoed. The woman in white went for a moment to a smaller

  window and touched something. At the same moment, the crystal sounds of

  heavenly harmony reverberated from all sides. He could not see any musicians

  or instruments, he could not understand a thing, but he did not care. He was

  experiencing what one undergoes perhaps once in a lifetime: exaltation.

  The two climaxes merged into one. One point in the middle of the picture

  started to get bigger, to expand. At first it was a star like the countless ones

  around it, then it was a circle, then a ring, and then finally it burst into a lacy

  flower that filled the entire window. The moment it opened its rosy, vaporous

  petals, the music streamed upward, greeting with an upsurge of joy the

  appearance of the yellow nucleus—the hidden eye of the Creator himself.

  He was not filled with frustration when everything around him suddenly

  froze and became silent. He knew this would happen, that the watch cover had

  to open once again. The moment of the about-face was perfect. The epiphany

  had just taken place. Dared he hope for anything greater?

  Return trips always seem shorter than departures. There were no more

  surprises and wonders to slow down time. Even though he felt awe as he

  watched the reverse sequence of what he had seen before—the disappearance

  of the dome, the return of the barred windows, the formation of doors and

  beds, the flickering of days and nights—his thoughts were elsewhere.

  His confused thoughts that gradually formed a crucial question.

  The end of the voyage came abruptly once again, just as when he had arrived

  in the future. At first, while his eyes were still blinded by the flashes, he could

  not make out anyone on the other side of the cell. Icy fingers of horror

  tightened around his chest. What if he wasn’t there anymore? If he had only

 

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