Where we are now is not the Atlantic seabed.
— Maybe it just wasn't preserved the same way? Didn't you do some kind of comparison?
— Exactly. Parameters. I was sure I wouldn't find a 100 % probability, that much is clear. But the results I got were less than one percent similar. 0.00002 percent. A 0.00002 percent location match means that the system just hit some points in the sky.
— And what versions do you have on all this? Are the maps wrong? Or what?
— I would have thought, of course, that they were wrong, outdated or something, but on this scale… It's only been millions of years. But if that were the case, there'd be nothing left of our station… But that's not all. I'm not just talking about the view from the window… When you observe everything so volumetrically every time, you start to compare many things.
— Like what else?
— For example, sunrise and sunset…..
He looked out at the horizon, and she thought at that moment that it looked like a somewhat romantic scene was about to begin. And the view was good for it-after all, the vastness of the view from his apartment was impressive. Something similar could be observed only in the dining room, but there the view was of the starry sky, not of the earthly expanse. And slowly doubts began to creep in that it was not only because of the high cost of production of such glass….
— You've probably noticed how many of the movies we're allowed to watch have the main characters get up at the crack of dawn, right?
— Of course you do. It was the main topic for romantic delights among girls. " Natalie smiled.
It was indeed a frequent topic of discussion and personal fantasies — waking up at dawn with your lover and going to bed with him at dusk. In the movies it was shown with incredible ease, while in the realities of the world dawn and dusk happened once every 14 days. There were 14 days for each daylight period, and the same number for each night. Hollywood portrayed everything as if all the most important events took place necessarily in those days when dawn or dusk occurred, apparently to make a more tangible impression on the audience. Why it was necessary to build the entire cinema in this way, was still quite unclear, but the traits of romance penetrated the girls when watching these films from an early age.
— Well, both sunrise and sunset in reality look very different from what is shown there. And they don't last the same amount of time that they do. There it happens literally in an hour, and what I see lasts for 24 hours. And I could believe that the ancient filmmakers waited two weeks each
time for the right day to shoot everything for the best commercial benefit. But to make a day into an hour, that's just silly.
— Good. — Natalie nodded and took another sip of coffee, remembering the interesting discovery about the multifaceted nature of perception. — What is your conclusion?
— I don't have a conclusion yet. But what I can tell you is that what we're being told is a blatant lie. And all these measures of handing over found materials to the elders first are just a way to keep the truth out.
— That's a very immodest thing to say for your position of authority. — Natalie was beginning to like what he was saying. Sure, it was the kind of talk her buddies like Taylor were talking about, but it was still a lot better than boring on about new kinds of electrification and testing. And after all, they're talking about all this while sitting on the couch in his apartment, not over blueprints in the lab.
— Yeah, I know… And who better than me to remember such things when my best friend designed Tosca. — Morgan got up and headed for the bar. — You want a drink?
— Oh, so much news at once! — Nathalie laughed, also because she was glad that things were taking a more intimate turn. Alcohol was available in very small quantities on the station, and it was given out in very limited quantities on and before holidays. There were rumors that some of the higher administration had unlimited access to booze, but it never got any further than talk.
Especially after an engineer from the mining section had been deprived of his alcohol vouchers for a year for making such a public statement.
As for the construction of Tosca, there were only rumors about this process. Those who returned kept their mouths shut, and if they answered anything, it was only that they had seen nothing but an aluminum box of a cell with one toilet, a sink and a bed. What was known, however, was that the prison itself was separate from the general structure of the station, and was taken there by overcars. Given the way Morgan had just spoken of Tosca, he obviously knew a lot more than the others.
— I take it that's a sign of agreement. — Morgan concluded, opening a door in the bar and squatting down. — Whiskey, gin, cognac?
— To be honest, it doesn't tell me anything… I've tried whiskey a couple of times. It was interesting, of course, but I was thinking so much about Helium-3 at the time… And not only…" Natalie remembered her state of mind at the time. It had been three years ago, when she had been thinking more and more about the fact that she had never found someone. It was all the more difficult because she had begun to realize that she was somewhat detached from the rest of the group. After all, she was one of the few who had awakened on the station as a child of only 8 years of age, and she had to start not by living but by growing up among strangers. She often wondered if maybe her parents were among the others, just not remembering it. Don't remember, just like everyone else… That maybe there were sisters and brothers who didn't know about each other.
Because they all went to sleep and woke up not remembering anything, not even their own names, which they then proceeded to pick out from fashion magazine catalogs and movies and whatever else they could find. And when she was then asked what name she wanted for herself, she said "Natalie." She loved that song, with that name, where someone sang in what she now knew to be Spanish that name, as if gently embracing her. She wanted so much to be hugged then, too, and repeated that word all the time. It seemed so light, airy and charming… But when she grew up, she noticed that they didn't treat her so romantically… And some relief came when she tried to drink. She was tired from work and regolith research during the day, so she took a bottle of whiskey she was entitled to, and drank a little of it. Then she wanted to sleep almost immediately, so she lay down and listened to the song "Natalie" in her mind, dreaming of being held in the arms of a nice man.
— What did you try? — Morgan turned around and asked.
— Whiskey. It's still in my closet… It's probably dried up by now.
— Good thing my staff can't hear that," Morgan grinned, took out a bottle and poured two glasses from the bottle, then took out another and poured the same amount into each glass, then tossed ice cubes into them and took them both and returned to the couch.
— Is this cocktail just like in the movies? — sniffing the liquid, the girl asked.
— Well almost… I think they were doing things differently though. What we make here is obviously more synthetic than real. We're more imitating the flavor than producing it. Just like alcohol itself, actually. With the ancients it was therefore quite harmful, and with us it's safe, while giving the same effects… Well, if you don't overdo it, of course. If you do, I guess our disadvantages are even worse than those of real whiskey.
Everyone knew the story. One of the chiefs of the security section, Reagan Cross, was suffering from what the ancients called alcoholism. Everyone, in general, didn't mind it, because he performed his duties the same as before. He did not miss anything, did everything according to the rules, and what he did in his free time, no one really cared. Maybe that's why his passions crossed the line. The very line when one day he didn't show up at his post in the morning. They sent for him and when they entered his room, they saw that everything was turned upside down and he had cut himself with a broken bottle neck. Those photos were shown to everyone to show them what excessive alcohol consumption can lead to. And they were not even afraid to criticize the fact that only the highest administration had access to alcohol in such quantities — they pretended that he had stolen those bottles secretly. In short, the decisions of the elders, as always, turned out to be correct