“I can see the year in which Lady Gaga was born”, Michael laughed.
“Wrong answer, dear.” Hans was talking slowly, methodically and confidently, the way he conducted lectures before his students. “You can see the year the submarine was sent to and from which it took this square, ideally smooth thing…” Hans was as if giving a theatrical performance and was dying to increase the tension in his audience.
“Come on, Professor, this can’t be”, Marcela couldn’t help interfering. “Do you tell us it was built in 2020 and travelled back to 1986?”
“2019, hopefully” Sergey murmured barely distinctively under his nose.
“Not at all.” Hans turned the sheet of paper upside down and all of them goggled their eyes. “I tell you it went much further back in the past. To 9861.”
Turned upside down the sheet really showed the year 9861.
“Amazing! How did you guess it, dude?” Michael was sincerely fascinated with the plump scientist.
“How is it ‘back’?”, Alan wondered. “It says 9861, doesn’t it?”
“I remembered that when you travel in time, ‘up’ and ‘down’ do not make much sense, don’t you think? And to you, Alan, I will just remind that there was a dash before the year on the screen.” This time the Professor turned directly at Alan. “At least I thought it was a dash. Now I know it stood for ‘minus’. This is a year before Christ, according to the Gregorian Calendar. The ship traveled to 9861 B. C.”
“Okay, but that does not change things too much, and besides, the question remains: what the fuck did they do so far back in time and what did they find?” Alan was not ready to step back yet.
“The ship was sent 11 881 years back in time with an experimental mission”, Hans continued. “The purpose was to check the effectiveness of the Core, the exactness of calculations and the influence of singularity on biological units…”
“That is, to find out if people from the crew will survive” Marcela said, remembering the black notebook.
“The time is not randomly picked, is it?” Michael asked.
“That’s right, Mike, can you please stand for me in my attempts for collective encephalization?”
“About ten thousand years before Christ we date the great flood, the Bible one as some call it. As you can guess, it is a damn good period for any kind of water and sub-water vessels.”
“Can I ask you how exactly you ‘date’ this flood of yours?”, asked Alan, never ready to surrender.
“In many ways, one of which is the carbon analysis of different fossils of sea animals on the earth surface. Or, let’s say, according to the erosion of the stones of the Egyptian Sphynx. Research points out that the erosion on the pyramids and on the Sphynx itself cannot be caused by the wind and the climatic conditions in the desert, but it is the result of sea corrosion. Because the entire desert, in which we are at the moment, was under water about 12-15 thousand years ago.” While he was talking, Michael was looking at Alan, who only averted his head and did not continue picking up on everyone.
“And most of all it is an ideal time period from the point of view of safety. Thank you for being so thorough, Mike”, Hans said. “The ship has successfully made the temporal jump and has accosted on the bottom of the desert, where we are now… only it happened twelve thousand years ago. It found the Cube, which is a product of a civilization, unknown to us, and is manufactured with an unknown technology.”
“And it is utterly inexplicable how it entered through the much narrower opening in the metal corps of the submarine”, Marcela interjected.
“Yes, correctly noted”, Hans went on. “I myself cannot give a sufficiently adequate answer to this question. I gave some thought to the problem and reached a couple of scenarios: first, it is possible that there was a larger opening or entrance in the ship that was subsequently welded…”
“No way, Hans”, Alan interrupted. “We all know this can’t be true and the jacket has been thoroughly checked for welding, imperfections on the surface and repair works.”
“I agree, I just outline the possible explanations. The second probability is for the Cube to have passed through the corps by way of some teleportation.”
“Teleportation?” This time it was Marcela who interrupted him. “And how could this be achieved?”
“Well, I know it sounds like an impossible magic, but actually it’s not so hard to be done… at least in theory. There have been certain experiments in this direction ever since the beginning of the previous century. The principle consists in passing the molecules of one body through the intermolecular spaces of another body and that’s it – done! The only problem is the spatial memory and the restoration of the initial structure. Because if you pass a horse and a man through a metal wall, it is highly likely that you receive a centaur with a horseshoe on his head on the opposite side.”
“Okay, Professor, we got the basics”, Norman interjected. “Have you got any other suggestions?”
“The third possible version is that it is alive.”
“Oh, that’s really too much now!”, Alan exclaimed, raising his arms in the air.
“What do you mean ‘alive’, Hans?” Marcela asked in a calmer tone.
“The Cube was purely and simply created in the submarine itself.”
“I hope, not as a result of a sexual act between a parallelepiped and a sphere, which it took by force.” Michael said, amused as always.
“It was conceived? As any living creature? As me and you?” This time Marcela raised her voice a little.
“Since I presume everyone will blame us”, Sergey said, “I am telling you in advance, we don’ know anything about such theories.”
“I never mentioned anything about birth”, Hans said. “But there is a chance for some species to be able to reproduce in a way that is unknown to us. Don’t forget that the passing through a black hole is accompanied by huge radiation loads. And it does not have to be created inside, it might have been brought in while it was still young, sort of a ‘baby-cube’. It was inserted through the small entrance and then, when it grew up…”
“But radiation is detrimental for living creatures”, Marcela noted.
“For us, who are carbon-based – yes, but we cannot be sure about ‘them’, can we?”
“Actually, the strong ionizing radiation stimulates the growth of arthropods. Giant scorpions have been described in the vicinity of sources of radiation“
“Add the strong gravitation, that would slow our growth. But what if it acts on them in the opposite way?” Sergey added.
“So, anyway, sex between cubes is out, is that it?”, Michael said still giggling.
“Cut the bullshit! Everyone!” Norman shouted. “We leave this matter aside. Professor, go on.”
“Yes, of course.” He cleared his throat and continued: “The ship has activated the hyper-temporal engine or the Core in order to return back along the temporal line in 2020, from which it started.”
Hans took a thick black marker pen and started drawing on the board.
“Time can be represented in different forms according to different scientists. I can draw it for you, if you wish.” Hans started drawing on the board again. “It might be spherical or square, depending on the perspective. In this case it is a part of a flat plain, which, however is crossed perpendicularly by another temporal plain.”
“Much like drawing a house, isn’t it?” Michael asked. “That’s right. Only the observer is on the canvas, while the
drawing person is in perspective. It’s turned backwards.”