The Space Sieve Read online

CHAPTER 5

  THE FIRST WORLDS

  THERE IS A SAYING among my kind whenever the young begin to play: “The first worlds are always the hardest.”

  But as was the case with so many things, this did not hold true in David's case either. For David, the first worlds to which he traveled were by far the easiest.

  However, David’s first experiences were comparable to that of many other creatures in the sense that he initially chose to travel to realities that resembled his own – some with people like himself in them, and some without.

  From each reality to which David traveled he was able, using the Device, to return to home very near the time he left, always complying, of necessity, with the 1-hour limit that his parents had placed on him.

  As soon as David arrived at the first world to which he chose to travel (and details about how he did this and how he returned will be described later) he sat on his stool next to the Space Sieve and anxiously looked around the large, darkened room in which he found himself. The walls were made entirely of old concrete and there was a noticeable dampness. The gray surfaces were streaked and spotted with black slime, as was the floor, where the slime alternated with numerous black, hairline cracks.

  As he glanced around, David saw tiny balls about the size of grape seeds here and there on the floor. They were solid, clear, and perfectly spherical, and were a reddish color. None of the tiny balls were stacked; each ball was resting directly on the floor, but while some of them clustered in large groups, many were scattered individually here and there.

  David got up from the Space Sieve and began to walk across the room, taking care not to step on any of the balls. Momentarily however, he did happen to step on one of them. As it crushed under his shoe, it seemed to David as though the tiny ball had been only a thin shell filled with fluid. As he walked into another part of the dark room he noticed more balls – these about the size of BBs – that were translucent green and black. As he looked at them, David wondered whether they were the same sort of objects as the small red balls that he had just seen.

  Just about then, he saw several of the balls move. They quickly rolled to one side, and then began to roll back and forth. The balls that had been clustered together in a group dissociated themselves from each other and also began to roll around on the floor of the room. For the most part they rolled in essentially straight lines, back and forth although some briefly moved in curved paths before resuming a back-and-forth direction. Neither the balls nor their movement concerned David, but it now began to appear obvious to him that these balls were some kind of living creatures, and it troubled him that he had accidentally crushed some of them.

  David walked back toward the Space Sieve, and passing it he traveled to the other end of the room, where he found a ledge that dropped several feet. Near the edge clustered still larger balls – about the size of small peas – and these balls were a pale, clear blue color. As David watched, these balls too began rolling back and forth on the floor. Walking back to the Device, David activated it and used it to examine the balls that he had found on the floor.

  He discovered the balls were a life form. They existed in this dark, damp world, and served the function of cleaning flat surfaces of the slime and various other forms of organic matter. They had no intelligence to speak of. Essentially, they just rolled around eating whatever they could find.

  Another world to which he traveled had a large, indoor pool. The pool was 300 feet long, 100 wide, and 50 feet deep at one end. Oddly, the water in the pool was perfectly clear, except for a slight bluish tint, so clear in fact that David could see the bottom of the pool as easily as if the pool had been empty. This was something David had not realized before – until he saw truly clear water he had never realized how cloudy most water usually is. He realized that even the water in the clearest pools of his own world were actually relatively cloudy by comparison.

  Around the pool near the deep end, glass walls and doors separated the pool area from dressing rooms also made of glass, some clear, some opaque, and there were bright chrome accents. Seeing only a few people around, David helped himself to a swim suit which he put on, and he slid into the pool at the deep end.

  But once in the pool, David felt an increasing sense of foreboding, although he couldn’t tell why. A decent swimmer, David tried to swim out across the pool. But as he did, he felt terrified, and he returned to the side of the pool once again.

  He resolved then to swim to the bottom of the pool. As he went deeper and deeper the water, he noticed that the pressure building on his body, and especially in his ears, was distressing. He stopped, and looked back up. He could see the surface of the water above and the light shining through it. He thought it looked like he was a mile underwater, and he once again felt the same sense of fear. He swam back to the surface, climbed out of the pool, changed back into his clothes, and left.

  As he wondered what had been so frightening, he concluded that it was the perfect transparency of the water that struck him with trepidation. His experience in swimming pools had been in water that was much less perfect than that which was in this large pool. He concluded that the perfect clarity of the water enabled him to see more than he truly wanted to see.

  Later, using the Device, he returned to the same pool again, but this time when it was night there. The room that enclosed the pool was largely dark, and the pool itself was only very dimly lit with a yellowish-green light. Once again David tried to go for a swim, but this time he couldn’t even generate enough courage to get into the water. It seemed troubling how easily he could see how deep and large this pool was, and that he could still see the bottom of it, even at night. On another occasion he made a final attempt to swim in the pool during the daytime there, but once again found little success.

  Having gone swimming in a lake before, and even in the ocean, David had been in much deeper water, including at night. But it was easier for David to swim in deep water when he couldn’t see how deep it really was. By the same token, you are fortunate that in your present world your abilities are also limited.

  You see, for your kind it is often better that you do not see everything. When you can, it frightens you. But since your sight is limited, you are able to be more bold. If you think back about your own lives, you may realize that in many cases had you known what awaited you – had you known what difficulties lay ahead of you – you would never have tried to accomplish some of the things that you did. And so, without being able to see the difficulties that lay ahead, you proceeded. Sometimes you have even taken what you call a “leap of faith.”

  If you always knew what lay ahead of you, you would become afraid, and you would venture far fewer things. And since you would try far less, you would therefore, accomplish far less.

  In your present reality, your limited sight allows you to accomplish far more than what you would, if you could see as clearly as I do.

  In another world David found himself on the top of a tall building, standing on large gray tiles. A few potted plants, attached to this surface, stood decoratively here and there. But momentarily, a chill swept over David when he saw that the edge of the surface on which he stood had no railings of any kind. Basically, if David had rolled a marble, it would have rolled right off the top of the building.

  There were other people there too, sightseeing. As some noticed David, they did not perceive him as being different from themselves, nor did David perceive them as different from persons to whom he was accustomed, although he did not try to talk to any of them.

  When a little breeze began to blow across the building, all of the people quickly left. As David stood there, he felt the building sway gently. This seemed mind-boggling to David, if not completely asinine. He wondered, “Why were there no railings?”

  But the reason is simple: It is because the people he had seen there were immortal. Why protect themselves from falls when railings would obstruct their view and serve
no useful purpose?

  Another building David explored was a vast, brick one. Opening a door to a forum, he stepped out onto the dais, which was pitched downward at a severe angle, toward the audience which was 30 feet below and close in. On the dais were large, heavily-padded maroon chairs with high backs, and a few were occupied with people.

  Strangely, the dais curved sharply away from the audience to the left and right, such that the chairs on those parts of the dais were not visible to the audience below.

  As he looked down, David saw that the audience chairs, also sparsely populated at that moment, were also large and plush. Strangely, the chairs in the audience numbered only about 40 chairs – only about half as many as were on the dais. A disproportionate number of those who would attend this forum, it appeared, sat upon the dais, rather than in the audience.

  As David explored the building further, he found signs with arrows, which he followed.

  (You may be wondering: As David was roaming about, where was the Space Sieve? Whenever he went on his excursions he would simply, carelessly hide it somewhere – in a closet, behind a bush, or what have you. Was this irresponsible? Yes it was, and for myriad reasons that are so obvious I will not take the trouble to describe them.)

  After climbing a distressingly-long staircase, David stood in an ante-chamber. At the opposite side an opening led into a large room. As he crossed to the opening and traveled through it, he found it to be a short corridor which appeared to be made of rubber. He emerged onto a smooth wooden floor in a room which he recognized as a dance hall, measuring 200 feet by 200 feet.

  David walked to one of the vertical windows that were located at regular intervals on all the walls, and looked out. He could see far down to the street below. Tall buildings lined the street on each side. It appeared the room he was in was hanging from a bridge that was spanning the street between two of the tall buildings. As is the case with many boys, he was interested in engineering feats such as this appeared be, and so he looked out the window and upward, trying to determine how this heavy room was attached to the bridge, but he was unable to see any connections from the window.

  As David headed off to the other side of the large room to take in the view from those windows, he broke into a sprint. When he stopped, his shoes squeaked slightly, and he noticed an odd sensation, like the floor under him had moved slightly.

  It occurred to him that the room itself may have moved as a result of his coming to a sudden stop. He sprinted a short distance, and again came to an abrupt stop. Once again, it seemed to him that the room moved slightly.

  Two young men each appearing to be in their early 20’s saw David, smiled and came over near him. In unison, they began to step forward, stop, step back, stop, step forward, stop, etc.

  This time David definitely felt the room swaying, if only slightly, in rhythm with their movements. Soon, another joined them. As the threesome now stepped forward and back, David could see through the windows of the room that it was now indeed swinging slightly back and forth. Some excitement was heard outside the room, and then a large group came into the room and also started stepping and stopping in unison. Everyone but David was nicely attired.

  As the room swayed more and more and the people became more and more delighted, David began to realize that the entire room was hanging from the bottom of the bridge by a single point. The entire support for this heavy, hanging room was a solitary shaft, so that the whole room could swing in response to the crowd inside. And the people currently in this room were now having quite a time dancing and stepping, as the room itself swayed more and more.

  Picture a street in a large metropolitan city lined with skyscrapers, and a bridge, crossing high above the street, connecting two buildings. Picture a square, one-story room hanging from the bottom of this bridge, like an apple hanging from the branch of a tree.

  David was neither dancing nor stepping, but was just trying to keep his balance while watching the buildings outside the windows as they seemed to move and twist. It was scary to David, if not sickeningly, to be inside a large room that was full of people who were making the whole thing rock back and forth while it was essentially just dangling in mid-air, far above the street below. It occurred to David that he didn’t want to be there, and didn’t want to be around these people, and so, with a cross expression on his face, he left.

  Of course, had he been in a different frame of mind, David could have seen all of this as being fun.

  Other realities to which David first traveled included other worlds like your own, but with slightly lower gravity. David liked these worlds as it made it much easier for him to walk around and explore them, in some cases walking for miles along long, winding mountain trails. Once he saw a deep, perfectly-clear river that led to a terrifying waterfall. In some cases he would follow steep trails up vast mountainsides, climbing until the air became noticeably thinner (indeed, as the air was often thinner to begin with on some of these worlds.)

  In one world there were transportation devices that to David resembled cars, and so they were. After watching people using them it occurred to David that nobody seemed to own any of the cars per se, but rather they simply existed for anyone who wanted to use one. Upon realizing this, David climbed into one of the cars. It was nighttime and in the darkness he saw that the controls of the car were different from the ones he’d seen his parents drive. But he was sufficiently intuitive that soon, off he went. As he traveled along, he turned into a drive that wound along the edges of a large cluster of buildings. Following this drive, he found its course was a long circular path around the buildings. Parking it now, David left the car and walked into the center of the structures. There he found a large, concrete plaza. He walked along, and as the night had now turned to day, more and more people were walking through the open space. Eventually, David came to a long concrete foot bridge that arched over a wide river. As he walked up the rising side of the bridge he saw the flowing water below – a wide, swirling, eagerly-moving mass of brown, drifting fluid.

  Walking down the far side of the bridge, David first came to a wide dirt field and then he crossed a street. Standing at the curb beside a listless-looking tree and looking around, he was soon joined by three girls on heavy, two wheeled vehicles. These machines were laden with chrome and were accented with scarves tied to various locations. The girls seemed somewhat rough and masculine – although they were clearly female – and they took a level of interest in David that he found disturbing. As they climbed off their bikes and approached him, David smiled, but winced. Upon seeing this, they immediately lost interest, climbed back on their machines, and left. David quickly retraced his steps back over the bridge and returned to the place where he had begun.

  Once there, David came upon a being that was clearly not from that planet. This particular individual was an ambassador from a distant world – one that had an ecosystem based on oxidation by fluorine, rather than oxygen. Therefore this creature could not be exposed to the air on this planet, but since he was required to visit it in his official duties, he wore a “rendezvous” suit. The shiny black, skin-tight garment covered him completely and was not so much an outfit as a device in itself. It provided his body with the fluorine he needed to breathe, nutrients, and the appropriate temperature, as well as removing his bodily wastes, all the while perfectly separating him from the oxygen-rich environment around him. It made it possible for him to see, hear, smell, and to experience the other forms of sensory contact that were particular to his species. Wearing this device, the ambassador was to interact on this world in performing his duties, all the while being completely separated from it. But remarkable as it was, the suit was uncomfortable and so constraining that it often became oppressive for him even to move while in it.

  Perceptively, David recognized this suit as a mechanism, and marveled at the technological miracle that it was. And yet, using the Space Sieve, David himself could have create
d a rendezvous suit that not only performed all the functions that the ambassador’s did, but would do so while being entirely imperceptible to the ambassador and to every one around him.

  As gifted as he was, David never obtained even the slightest inkling of what the Space Sieve’s capabilities truly were.

  As easy as walking was for David, he finally realized that walking is not as easy as flying. And soon, David experimented with that as well. And contrary to his experience in the large pool that I described, David was not afraid to fly. For when he was in the pool, he was swimming under his own power, and he felt alone. But when he flew, he did so using the power of the Machine, and as such he felt he was in the secure embrace of a friend. But of course, this was an illusion, because the Machine was not David’s friend or any one else’s, for it was not alive at all. It was merely a Device – a Machine – that responded to the commands given it.

  David’s first approach to flying was to create a field around him so that he had only a very small amount of weight. But he found that being largely weightless made it very difficult to travel in any direction except up. He found that when he was almost weightless it was a lot easier to push off the ground than it was to flap back down to it.

  Recognizing he needed more propulsive ability when airborne, he set a different field around his hands and feet so that the viscosity of the air around them was proportional to the speed at which they moved. In other words, the faster he moved his hands, the thicker the air became around them. The slower they moved, the thinner the air was. Thus, he could move by flapping, but could also cruise.

  The practical effect was that David could swim through the air much like a fish swims through the water. The best way to visualize this would be to imagine that the world you live in, instead of being filled with air, was filled with a perfectly clear liquid that you could breathe and swim in.

  After he became practiced in this method of flying, David spent many an afternoon, coasting leisurely along the tops of trees, rustling the leaves with his hands as he passed along. Lazily turning over in the air as he flew, he saw sky then ground, they sky again. He liked drifting alongside trees, and gently coasting among their branches, effortlessly nudging himself along from branch to branch.

  Kicking himself upward from the ground, he could now float confidently into the air. Several times he flew far upward into the clouds of the worlds to which he traveled, and felt their cool, misty darkness as he lingered inside them.

  Then, he would return to the ground once again, drifting slowly along, with an occasional flip of a hand, hanging, hovering in the air, with the Space Sieve standing silently below. It seemed to him like an attentive parent, watching as its child played.

  As David began to become more adept at flying and therefore began to fly faster, he found the problem of the wind rushing in his eyes and ears. So he created a bubble of dead air around his body except for his hands and feet, which allowed him to fly rapidly, as birds and insects do.

  As he began to fly faster, he found that it was more effective for his arms to act as wings. But this created still another problem. Light as he was, with his arms acting as wings he did not have the strength to keep the back half of his body from swinging behind as dead weight.

  He found the solution in the design of the dragonfly. Making both his arms and legs act as wings, he found he could fly skillfully, approaching the agility and aerobatic ability of that insect. On one world, he found an aging castle. After climbing to the top of the ancient wall, he looked down to the grassy ground seventy feet below, and he dove off. Keeping his arms and legs outstretched he raced downward with the castle wall racing faster and faster in front of his eyes, and with the ground racing upward toward him. Tilting his hands slightly into the rushing air, his fall became a graceful swoop. He felt the g-forces as his trajectory broke into horizontal flight, and he adjusted his course as he first raced just above the grass, then jumped to cut across the top of a row of trees, blazing in their fall splendor. With another slight adjustment, he rose executing a long, graceful arc, rising into the sky.

  It is perhaps difficult for you to imagine – grounded to the Earth as you are – what it feels like to fly – to be simply free in the air. Of course, you have your flying machines, and you even jump out of them and free-fall as the wind tears at you. But it is entirely different to feel only the slightest sense of the air around you and to be able to control your flight at will, like a dragonfly, free in the sky. This is one of the greatest experiences a living creature can ever have, and it is one of the many reasons beings such as I feel a sense of wonder at how primitive your human lives truly are.

  Of course, these sorts of experiences did little to stem David’s increasing intoxication with the Space Sieve.

  But as joyful a thing as flying is, it is also pleasurable to walk. And in the end, David found time and time again that the more interesting things in life are often those that are closer to the ground.

  In fact, one of his favorite worlds was one in which he never flew at all. In that lone, largely empty place there was a vast, flat plain with the jagged form of low mountains far in the distance. The colors there were mostly orange and white, and he seemingly endless flatness had a pattern thin lines and squares like an endless checkerboard, with the individual squares measuring five feet across that stretched to the horizon. David loved the splendid isolation, and he called the world, “Parallaxia.”

  Given David’s personality, he could have gone on like this for a long time – traveling from world to world and from reality to reality – alone. For David was what you would call an “introvert”: someone who is most happy when alone, or in the company of only one, close friend. Indeed, as time passed David began to think of the Space Sieve more and more as his closest friend. This was not good, as the Device was not a being of any kind but only a machine, having no capacity for love or for any emotion. But as time passed David felt more and more that between himself and the Machine was all that he needed, or all that he would ever need.