Nestor pauses and looks sideways. In the corner of the screen appears a picture: a blue sphere with the outlines of the continents. I remember having seen it many times – and I even know what it is. Probably, I’m meant to be showing emotion now – at least, Nestor looks at me in anticipation – but I feel none. The sphere seems infinitely distant and, by and large, not terribly interesting.
“Well, yes,” I nod politely. “I see. Heavenly bodies, protein bodies and so on… By the way, I assume your brane is three-dimensional as well? And on it, in your life, I mean in my new life – there is at least something resembling a body?”
Nestor grimaces, “Don’t rush. For now, I can only answer you briefly, in your terms: there is something. And you are strangely indifferent to the image I showed you – in your place, many others have broken down in tears.”
“I’m not the sentimental type,” I say with a grin. “It’s probably down in my file.”
“Perhaps,” Nestor purses his lips. He seems to have been offended by the fact that his rotating blue sphere has not impressed me. “Well,” he continues, “let’s go on. So, carbon, water, proteins…”
The sphere on the screen dissolves. In its place, a chemical formula appears. An amino group attached to a radical, as far as I can recall.
“Life was capable of evolving and did evolve, although it took a lot of time,” Nestor proclaims without looking at me. “Over thousands and thousands of millennia, the unremitting search, combinations and recombinations, experiments with large molecules capable of replication… For about four billion years, nature tinkered with the constituent ingredients of life, poking them in all directions and trying every possible option. Even in their wildest dreams, the medieval alchemists who searched for the philosopher’s stone could not have guessed the number of trials, errors and efforts wasted in the labyrinth of evolution. For the first nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of its existence, your planet was not even visible beyond your brane – it was indiscernible and of no interest to anyone. Only in the last one-thousandth part – two million years ago – did the Homo genus separate itself from the family of the hominids, the large anthropoid apes. Then, in the last tenth of this period, just two hundred thousand years before your death – the blink of an eye, by cosmic standards – a new species was created, Homo Sapiens. A structure had evolved on the planet capable of interacting with the field of the conscions – the human brain – and then, only in the last tenth part of this tenth part, the first activation of true consciousness finally began to occur. The first B Objects began to appear in metaspace – where it borders your universe. Their number grew bigger and bigger – evolution wasn’t standing still. At the same time, little by little, humanity was succeeding in understanding the world in which it lived. There were important milestones – Pythagoras and Euclid; later Newton, Maxwell, then Einstein. Immediately after him came the quantum field theories that gave rise to the Standard Model; and later – string theory, M-theory, superstrings and branes. Humanity was readying itself for a decisive breakthrough, for a realization of its transcosmic role – and the necessary words began to emerge. Words are a very important step; they lead to ideas, and finally, you, Theo, came up with your work, which was mocked initially, with your hypothesis about invisible particles scurrying between worlds. This was another of the most important breakthroughs and, of course, the most intriguing with regards to each individual destiny. Your results have proved that the human mind is not simply a means of adapting to the reality in which people are born and are doomed to exist. No, everyone’s mind, memory and interior world have gained a self-sufficiency greater than all earthly realities, which are short-lived and hopelessly provincial. Thanks to you, Theo, humanity has proudly proclaimed itself – more proudly than it could have ever imagined. Before you, there were people who thought a lot about this – I’ll name just a few: Bohr, Pauli, Jung, James… But unlike you, they all fell short of the end goal – some lacked the math, others the freedom of imagination, and yet more perhaps, the disappointment with and resentment against society – to suffer unfair accusations and even subconsciously welcome them!”
Nestor pauses and looks into my eyes for a few seconds. Then he pronounces with a noticeable pathos, “At this point, I want to make an official statement. I would like to inform you, Theodorus: we here greatly value what you have done. Your merits will be noted – I guess you will be given some kind of award. Here, as a rule, justice triumphs post factum: those who in the first life were ahead of their time are held in honor here – great honor.”
“Well, but…” I interrupt him, noting that this is the first time he’s called me by my full name. “Wait, my theory – you are talking about it, but I don’t remember…”
“You will remember!” Nestor replies, unexpectedly harshly. He repeats, “You will remember,” and looks down. “Your estimated memory coefficient is very high: almost one. You should be able to recall everything, almost everything. And what you don’t recall you are capable of dredging up in order to fill the gaps – you just need to try hard; it’s your duty after all.”
“That’s funny – to whom do I owe a duty?” I mutter. “And why? Besides, you’re talking in riddles, Nestor. Can I read about the conscions somewhere? About their dance – can you give me something, a research article, a scientific journal? And, most importantly, what exactly is a B Object?”
Nestor twists his narrow tie around his finger, looks me up and down in silence as if assessing a slightly disappointing exhibit. Then, just as harshly he says, “I can only repeat: I hope that soon you will be telling me about this yourself!”
“You’re saying it in such a hectoring way…” I reply, forcing a grin. “Can you explain what the point of this pressure is?”
“Pressure?” Nestor raises his eyebrows. “You have no idea what pressure is. Coming to terms with a second life completely changes your mentality. Here, in our world, no one believes in naive fairy tales. Demagogues, inventors of gods, don’t find it easy here – their recipes for immortality are merely an object of mockery. All resources have been invested into gaining knowledge of the world – and big investments entail big pressure; is that clear?
“As for duties,” he carries on in a calmer vein, “everybody has them. Including me: it’s my duty, for example, to decide right now how you and I are going to move things forward. I have to choose your first dream for you – one that will help restore your memory. A kind of potion directly from Morpheus, so to say. And…”
My counselor makes a dramatic pause and glances down, probably at my inexhaustible file. Then he looks up at me again and declares, “I have made a decision. We will start at the end and move back toward the beginning. Let’s agree that the main part of the story – your story, the ‘story of Theo’ – culminated with your acquaintance with a certain Russian millionaire – if your file is to be trusted. And we have to trust it because with regards to you, Theo, it’s all we have to go on!”