Coronado Dreaming (The Silver Strand Series) (23 page)

Music was playing and food was handed out by workers that were dressed a bit more formally than most of the diners. Levitating trays followed the waiters and waitresses like well-trained dogs. Laughter and animated conversations accented the setting; the language was obviously a derivative of English, but, was as alien to me as the Old English of Shakespeare, if not more so. I only caught around every third word, or thereabouts, when I listened to a conversation.

I noticed Giddeon had grown about 6 inches so that he was on a level with most of the females at the gathering.

We walked around sampling food and drink like party crashers that wanted to get as much in as possible before being booted out. There was no danger of that, however, as we were quite undetectable. The fruits and vegetables were exquisite. The drinks were awesome, too. I could see why a foreign starship would set its sights on a bountiful planet like
Eden
.

Dessert was a chocolate mousse of sorts. It was beyond good. Imagine the best chocolate you’ve ever tasted, and multiply it times four. The taste seemed to linger in my mouth for way longer than the sensation normally does; it was as if the receptors that detected the deliciousness just kept firing and firing. It felt like I could savor it all of the way down my esophagus, cool and smooth and luxurious. I think it was also mildly hallucinogenic. The colors and hues of people, plants and things all took on slightly oscillating characteristics when I was halfway done. I waved my hand in front of my face, and could see just the slightest hint of chromatic trails behind the passage. If I didn’t focus too hard, I could have sworn that the music playing in the background was visible around the periphery of my vision.

Giddeon ate three cups of it.

__________

That afternoon, we took a trip into near
Eden
orbit. The spaceship that they had arrived on centuries before was basically an orbiting museum. It was huge, easily the size of two or three aircraft carriers, and was kept in pristine condition… I suppose in case it was ever needed, again. We wandered the interior and I was amazed at the ingenuity and engineering that must have been required to produce such a vehicle. It was quite remarkable, and even though it didn’t appear to be rotating, it somehow had its own gravity field.

Up was up, and down was down as far as the floors and ceilings went.

Giddeon explained that, according to what he could determine from their science, gravity might be thought of as more of a ‘push’ than a ‘pull’. He said that, apparently, virtual particles popping into and out of existence create a ‘force’, and the feeling of being drawn to a planet might be thought of as due to the summation of those particles ‘hitting’ your body… simply more are ‘hitting’ on the sides of you that are away from the ground… and, that is what is perceived as gravity.

Massive objects, such as planets, somehow create interference patterns in space, and, apparently, these patterns sort of cancel each other out on the side of your body nearest the planet. This cancellation allows infinity to ‘push’ you down towards the ground… at least until you’re repelled by the stronger electromagnetic forces of electrons between your periphery and what’s below. In the future, evidently these kinds of interference patterns are replicated in order to produce ‘gravity’ on space-going craft. My enthusiastic physics tutor told me to look up something called the
Casimir Effect
when we got back.

I never got around to it.

There was a crew, dressed in what can only be described as a tribute to ‘
Star Trek: The Next Generation
’. A few tourists were on board, and we even passed a small group of about twenty, or so, elementary schoolchildren.

The ship must have also doubled as a college, because there appeared to be lecture rooms… some with actual lectures taking place. Perpetual twenty-
somethings
sat in rapt attention as holograms filled the fronts of auditoriums. Giddeon and I wandered about for the better part of two hours while passing gardens, living quarters, restaurants and gymnasiums. Finally, we came to a wing that seemed to be dedicated to history and art.

__________

Paintings and sculptures adorned the rooms. The lighting was perfectly directed to give the maximum impact from each piece, and background music played softly in the air. It was beautiful in total; the whole area reflected Man’s journey down through the ages. Scattered among the art halls, in small alcoves, were holograms with audio… all recreating important figures and artists from the distant ‘past’. Of course, some of those figures hadn’t been born, yet, from our original frame of reference, but, many had.

Giddeon and I listened to Martin Luther King give his ‘
I Have A Dream
’ speech in the strange, lilting dialect of
Eden
… it was almost like we were there, beside the reflecting pool. There was Abraham Lincoln and ‘
The Gettysburg Address
’. Patrick Henry with a recognizable version of ‘
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
’. Mother Theresa administering to the poor.
Ghandi
and Nelson Mandela walking amongst their people. Elvis singing ‘
Blue Suede Shoes
’. Mozart and Beethoven playing the piano… Michaelangelo chiseling away at ‘David’… also, Leonardo Da Vinci, Confucius, Galileo, Picasso and the Wright Brothers.

All in 3-D, and as real as anyone you have ever seen.

I suppose I had my answer to the question of if our cultures would be carried forward into time.

Art, music and education hadn’t really changed all that much, despite technology… what was beautiful and informative, before, was beautiful and informative, then.

__________

Finally, we came to a room at the very end of the exhibit. Giddeon and I walked into the carpeted area, and even though it was already quiet in that area, a hush seemed to descend around us.

It almost felt like we had entered a sanctuary, or a church.

There, on a wall, hung a painting… a stunning, beautiful painting. It was surreal. Not really done in a realistic style, but, almost. Just a hint of impressionistic flavor accented the edge of the subjects.

I stood there in amazement, taking in the aura of concern, compassion and love that was expressed on the face of a woman. She had on a veil, of sorts, thrown back over her head. She was looking down and cradling the head of a man in her hands; his face was turned mostly away from view. A tear spilled down her cheek… it was difficult to tell for certain if it was a tear of joy, or sorrow. For quite some time I was rooted to the floor with shock, because there was no mistaking the vision of loveliness hanging on that wall before us. No mistaking it at all.

Back on
Eden
, Giddeon appeared just as amazed as I was by what we had seen. What on Earth was a portrait of Melody doing on a spaceship/museum circling a planet 500 light years from our home and 26,000 years in the future? It didn’t seem possible.

“Holy Cow! In this time-line, it looks like Melody became an important figure… maybe in the arts or politics,” exclaimed Giddeon.

“That was definitely her,” I confirmed.

After a few moments of contemplation, Giddeon replied, “Looked like her to me.”

“Well… she does paint…” I offered.

“And, she’s getting a Master’s in Ecology,” he responded. “Could be something to do with that.”

I scratched my head, and then shoved my hands down deep into my pockets. “Don’t forget Philosophy… maybe she becomes a famous philosopher.”

“Too weird,” said Giddeon. “There were no inscriptions… like she didn’t need an introduction.”

“Bizarre.” I shook my head.

“Humph,” Giddeon grunted.

We were walking along the same green path on which we had traveled to arrive at the noon time meal. This time, we were headed in the other direction. I looked around me at the terrain which was filled with a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar vegetation. Flowers on nearby vines and trees were in the process of opening; most seemed to emit a sweet fragrance into the early afternoon air, and the mixture of smells was wonderful. “Giddeon… is any of this even real? I mean, there are so many alternate futures… do you think it’s possible that you just picked one subconsciously that has a direct connection to us?”

“I am the subconscious… I’m not sure I have one.”

“Humph.” It was my turn to grunt. He had a point. “Well, I told you she was special.”

“That she is… that she is,” agreed my counterpart. We walked on in silence for a bit. Finally, my companion spoke, “Hey… did you notice anything about the guy she was holding?”

“Not really… I was concentrating on her. What about him?”

Giddeon was quiet for a moment, as if deciding something. Then,

“He sort of looked like you.”

__________

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the planet. The beaches were indeed nude beaches. The only difference between nude beaches there and on Earth was that instead of old, out-of-shape men and the occasional, adventurous middle-aged woman, everyone on
Eden
was in their prime. It looked like the cast of some hip, young T.V. series was filming naked on the sands. They even surfed in the buff.

The cities were amazing. The architecture and designs were phenomenal… like Frank Lloyd Wright on steroids and acid. From what I could tell, the population centers were mostly laid out with a central plaza, and the streets radiated outwards from them like spokes of a wheel. No flying cars… at least, not any that I saw. I did see some spheres that may have contained people and products, but, they moved about more like dirigibles, sort of slow and deliberate. When they reached their destinations, they would shimmer and disappear.

Even Giddeon just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders at that.

There were bicycles, motorcycles and scooters, much like we have on Earth… except there was no sound from engines of any kind. Periodically, on the larger routes, a vehicle of sorts would glide by, inches off the ground as if held up by some type of magnetic repulsion. The cities had a definite perimeter, and at the edges there were no suburbs… just an immediate transition to green vegetation and flowers.

I wondered about the power sources for all of the inhabitants inside the bustling cities… not to mention all of the rural dwellings surrounded by gardenlike countryside.

“Solar, mostly,” said Giddeon, reading my mind. “They have the conversion of energy up to about 98 percent efficiency. Graphene, carbon nano-sheets discovered during our time, plays a big part in the process. Also,” he motioned in the atmosphere, “they’ve begun to harvest those pairs of ‘virtual particles’ I told you about… the ones that pop into and out of existence.”

I noticed he had been using his hands even more often in conversation than he normally did… maybe he was spending too much time in
Italy
when he was gone.

He continued, “They quickly separate them before they can annihilate each other in a matter/antimatter type reaction, and somehow use the energy stored between them. I don’t really understand the technicalities.”

“Huh? You don’t say? Now, you know what I feel like with my 5.9 percent.”

“You’re over 6, I just didn’t want to listen to you crow about it.”

I imitated the sound of a rooster, much to his delight. Then, I said, “Shouldn’t we be getting back?”

“Not yet. There’s a show tonight in the central plaza. I don’t think you want to miss it.”

“A concert?”

“Of sorts. Have you ever seen the
Cirque du Soleil
?”

“No. I’ve heard about it, though.”

That night, a beautiful, blue-tinted moon rose into the heavens above us.

Thousands of people were gathered in and around the city’s plaza, and the atmosphere of the place was quite festive. Music permeated the surroundings… however, I couldn’t make out the source of the sounds. Restaurants and cafes were all along the periphery of the vast open expanse, and many people had choice seats at outdoor tables. We milled about for twenty minutes, or so, walking this way and that while taking in the foreign environment. Finally, the show began. It was preceded by a hush in the crowd. The lights of the entire city dimmed, all somehow coordinated with the event.

Music began to play. Soft at first, then, strong and powerful. It was all encompassing. The sounds were a mixture of recognizable and unfamiliar instruments, and was what I would label ‘classical’, although, I’m not sure that does it justice. The forceful tones and rhythms carried on for the better part of a minute, and then, something extraordinary happened.

A woman in a glowing red, skin-tight outfit ascended at least a hundred feet into the air. She somehow hung there, floating, silhouetted against the moon, and gracefully moved and rotated… almost like a dancer on a stage. She seemed to grow in size; at first I thought that she was descending… then, I realized the effect was caused by a projection from her suit.

The red light of the fabric had expanded outwards in a hologram.
 
A hologram shaped exactly like her unsupported body.

Five more dancers leaped from the ground… three men and two women, all colored in blue. They rose quickly in unison. The group gracefully cart-wheeled in the sky and surrounded the first woman in a circle, each maybe thirty or forty yards from her center. The light from their suits, likewise, began to expand as it had done from the original woman’s outfit; they were all then facing the ground, like skydivers that were dipped in acrylic, frozen in place.

I was awestruck by the beauty of the spectacle, and after a few seconds of their stillness against the heavens, the music stopped. The lights from the city and the suits all went out simultaneously, leaving an afterimage on my retinas. Suddenly, the music came back with a vengeance; at the same time, the dancers in the sky re-illuminated. There appeared a sheet of gold light which filled the inside of the circle… it connected the five on the periphery to the original performer. The fabric/hologram encasing the female in the center then became an even more brilliant shade of red.

She rose higher and higher into the sky, dragging the golden sheet with her as if it were a thin leaf of latex… almost like a trampoline pulled in an upwards direction. The whole scene took on the appearance of a beautiful, yellow cone; blue at the bottom and red at the apex.

‘
Ooohs
’ and ‘
ahhs
’ from the crowd, present since the first appearance of the artists, increased in frequency and depth. The cone then began to slowly change into a uniform color that can best be described as a deep, phosphorescent green. The woman at the top held her arms close to her body, and then quickly began to fall, gathering speed as she plummeted towards the ‘earth’, bringing her trampoline of light behind her. She came to an abrupt halt, maybe five feet from the ground, as people screamed in delight.
 
The screams were also mingled with fear for their performer.

As if on a giant bungee cord, the woman was then pulled rapidly back in the other direction, all completely timed with the music.

She shot once again into the air, and as she passed through the center of the circle, the golden sheet detached and dissipated in a plethora of colors… reminding me of the aurora borealis as it dissolved into the magical night.

The artist continued her ascent, flipping and spinning; her suit, which was red, again, glowed brighter and brighter as she went. She came to a stop high above the others, who were quickly enveloped in an ethereal, pearlescent purple. A beam of white light came from each of the dancers below and connected with the ruby encased beauty above.

They began to spin, like children do around a Maypole, except that there was no pole… no visible means of support at all.

As we watched with complete fascination, the most complicated choreography and laser show imaginable ensued.

The members of the aerial ballet swooped and flew, rose and fell. They spun off and around each other in a kaleidoscope of interaction that’s difficult to explain. The music was perfectly matched to the motions, and the colors were sometimes monochromatic, sometimes psychedelic, and always brilliant. Often, the dancers would come down close to the crowd, and people would reach up and touch their extended hands. A small child begged to be picked up, so, the woman in red took her and held her close. They levitated and spun with the music, but never more than five feet off the ground. Trails of scarlet circled out around them in a silken, luminous spiral.

The crowd cheered when the woman returned the child to her mother. I have never seen such an expression of pure joy as was on the little girl’s face. The lead dancer then rejoined the troupe, and the show continued.

The finale was most unexpected. It was done to Pink Floyd… ‘
Dark Side of the Moon
’. Words would be an inadequate way to attempt a description, so, I won’t even try.

At the end of the performance, somehow, the actual moon dimmed in the night sky above us, as if by an eclipse. Only an outline of the celestial body remained.

We were all left in blue-tinged darkness, with memories of dancing light just inside our heads.