The Lovers
Chapter Seven
The voice of temptation distracted Qblh back to reality. Anahita had touched Jim. She took his hand and led him to her bedchamber. She never said a word, but controlled him with natural ease. He seemed to understand her every thought, but he could never really know, because she didn't speak, and yet they communicated quite well. She gave him her golden peg, and then walked him to the bridge from her island. She kissed him and sent him away. As he walked away, he heard her singing. When he turned and looked at her, the singing stopped as she appeared silent. Qblh had heard her but had never seen her make a sound.
Jim looked at his pegboard, and considered the number of women left before he was to appear before Isis. It would be a few days before he would be allowed to leave.
In the mean time, she would have been able to tend to a great deal of state affairs. Should he wait all that time, before accessing Idiot. Qblh decided that he would take Genie along with him to visit the rest of the nymphs. The background became alive with the chorus again as he pondered his next move.His immunity to the ambrosia caught up with the extreme amount of ambrosia that he had received. Qblh felt his reasoning ability strengthening, and he could feel Isis's aggravation at him as he strengthened.
"Out of my mind," he thought. He summoned the Genie.
Gemini immediately appeared upon the arrival of the Box.
"Isis doesn't want Genie "
"in the Pleasure Dome, Qblh. It is forbidden."
"Please instruct Genie to leave."
Quickly Qblh reacted, "Genie, tell Idiot to freeze time so we may talk."
Time stood still around Qblh, and all motion ceased.
"Idiot, it seems you're not wanted in the Pleasure Dome. What is the status of your repairs?"
"Am unable to cross event horizon, my power potential is only twenty two percent. Freezing time is depleting my potential further."
"What is estimated time frame before you can take me to Earth?"
"I can manage a teleportation to the Dutchman using the portal, but we will have to eventually return to this point in space and time if I am ever to effect complete repair."
"I had that in mind. But you can return us to now?"
"Now would correspond to the point at which we diverged from the space-time continuum. I assume you wish to return at the point of command utterance?"
"Which is now?"
"No, I am talking to you now, but our now is not their now."
"Idiot, I am assuming that we can return to their 'now' by unfreezing time, which is really not my past but also an alternative now. I simply am experiencing condensed time."
"True we are at the event horizon limit, but we cannot move anything in the external world. The apparent mass of anything we would contact is essentially infinite and immovable."
"I know, Idiot. Motion creates time, and we have stopped time, except between ourselves. Transport us to the Dutchman. I shall repair you on Earth."
Idiot rematerialized entering the Flying Dutchman through the portal which immediately became nonexistent after he exited. Jim had all his devices ready. . He heard Helen singing. Jim resolved to surprise her. He looked out the portal and saw that they were underway. Idiot advised Jim that Helen seemed to be making way to Maui from Hawaii. Helen loved the islands. Idiot also confirmed that no one else was aboard.
Jim examined the yacht. Uncertain as to the state of the Box, condition, Qblh was somewhat reluctant to use the device to improve the yacht's interior. Jim turned on one of the yachts guidance computers, to pull up repair information. He found a web page concerning the Merkabbah. Being that the Box and Merkabbah were similar devices, he found the information somewhat useful to envision the repair that was immediately possible and necessary.
"If a Golden Mean Spiral, in perfecting translation of spin from line to circle without loss of pattern, is the only path from energy to matter (spin stored in circles), then it is also the perfect balance between a closed and an open system. When EKG harmonics create a recursive electrical nest by frequency signature, they make the only 3D fractal, light can circle into. This way bending light makes mass, and gravitation appears to bend the light."
"Love can bend the light as well." Helen had sensed Jim's arrival and greeted him with a kiss.
She had surprised him, instead of him her. "I heard you switch the computer on. I would have thought that you would have said hello to me first."
"Well, first things first," he commented. "I need to log in."
Helen pouted.
"If I didn't love you, I wouldn't have bent time and space to get here. I need to stabilize some systems, in lieu of my arrival. She named me, 'Qblh'."
"You are Qblh?" Helen was astonished. "How did you rate that? Certainly, she can't know you're here, or does she?"
"No, she doesn't know I'm here, nor do I want her to find out. I need to repair the Box. It's somewhat damaged."
"Well Jim I have screwdrivers and wrenches in my bedroom, but how do you fix your Box?"
"I need energy. A lot of it."
"Can't you convert mass into energy?"
"Not that type of energy. Anti-matter energy."
"I don't think they have anything like that here on Earth."
"We'll have to manufacture some. We need to contact Antiope."
"Can't Antiope wait? I need you now."
"Please Helen, I've just left the Pleasure Dome, and am simply not in the mood."
"Jim, you're such a jerk at times. I can wait, but don't leave me without giving a proper kiss."
"Genie, contact John. Tell him I need some help."
"By what means should I contact him."
"Is the pager circuit still active?"
"Let me check."
Genie acknowledged a message received prompt from John's computer link within Idiot's communication circuits. Since Genie was onboard the Dutchman, it managed to find a communication link from the Dutchman's computer archives. Apparently the circuit was still active. On board computers came alive as an E-mail prompt requested input.
"Need anti-matter like yesterday, Qblh. Rendezvous on Dutchman ASAP." Jim hit enter, and the message was sent
.Helen anchored the yacht so as to take a swim. She called to the dolphins and they came to her for play. Helen had learned to love the dolphins. She had learned to communicate with them and they loved her dearly. Although Helen was an excellent swimmer, she could not keep up with the dolphins, so they insisted that she would hold on to them while they swam with her. Helen loved the sea and her friends were more than willing to help her explore the oceans as well as defend her from ignorant hungry beasts. She enticed Jim to join her in the ocean for a swim with her friends.
Being his usual dreary self, Jim declined as he began to systematically scan the media network to evaluate the current status of world affairs. The effects of his tinkering with the past were a little more pronounced now that he had been there and had some idea what to look for. Isis had initiated rituals as a means for Earth to worship her as their ruler. These rites had survived the flood somehow, as the legend itself had survived. Jim was somewhat curious as to what had caused the flood, but he clearly remembered the feeling of not wanting to find out why when he had been in the past. Pharos had to have something to do with it, because that particular land mass didn't appear to exist anymore.
Jim decided to evaluate the humans on their ability to reason with what was immediately obvious. It was no good to cling to the traditions of the past, because the origins of those traditions were clearly misunderstood. The future was everything, and he would have to leave the past alone. Yet Jim was bound already to transit into the past again, so that he could return to Artemis as the continuum dictated. Yet what should he do with the twins of Helen and Antiope. Jim considered the future of these children yet to be born. Conceived before Xiang and Xuang, but not yet born. He would need to discuss with Helen the future of the children. If they were to live on Earth, they would be as Pharos and his sister. Memories flashed concerning Atlantis and prehistory. How would these children be received if the truth ever leaked out that their brother almost destroyed the entire human race. Some would believe that the bad is a genetic characteristic and wouldn't trust the different traits of these alien children. Jim clearly believed the misbehavior exhibited by Pharos was a result of sibling jealousy. He remembered how Pharos wished to be treated more like Xiang and Xuang, because he was Jim's son. It was ever present that Pharos was his son by trickery, but Venetian ethics saw trickery as irrelevant as well as necessary with respect to the reproductive process. Helen would want her children to also be able to experience the thrills of Jim's remarkable technological creations. Time traveling had its pluses and minuses. It always seemed to offer promise of remarkable adventures, but it also promised equally remarkable and deadly dangers.
Jim reevaluated the potential ability of man's self created extinction. Relying still on non reusable energy resources and faced with an exponentially increasing population, Qblh foresaw a very unpleasant future for mankind. Peoples of some nations took for granted the abundance of nature while other peoples scrimped for mere survival. He couldn't help but take pity on the human race, but he didn't want to have to hold their hand and give them all that they could ask for. So much misery had multiple causes.