Amirhan, Part 26 - Cave

Dr Kroonstad looked alarmed.

- What happens? Why is there an alarm? Did you collapse the wave function? Ismen asked almost in panic. From his eyes I could see that he was thinking that his twin was still in the hub and he was here, so he would vanish in a second.

- Calm down, everyone, I shouted. - We don't know what's going on, but our Rock is safely hanging up in the air, so our part was successful. The realities are not collapsing, on the contrary, we stopped them from collapsing. If our work is done up here (I looked intensively at Dr Kroonstad, and he seemed to understand that I wanted his confirmation so he nodded), we must immediately go down to the village to see what's going on there. People may need help. We must stop thinking about ourselves and help others.

Ismen seemed to relax a bit, so we started to walk downhill toward Ashakati. The sirens and loudspeakers had shut up, but we started to hear noise, shouts and clatter when people came out of their homes. The noise increased as we approached the village. When we came to a road going South-West from the village, we saw a line of people walking away with small bags or pouches.

We came to the road and turned toward the village. People we faced looked serious and worried, but they were determined and everyone seemed to know what to do.  They said to us things such as "you need to go to safety", and "don't go back, it's dangerous", but I said that we must go there to help. So we continued against the human tide, until we saw a familiar face in the line.

- Khorixas, thank goodness you are here. Please explain what is going on, I said. He stopped with us at the roadside.

- There is a village emergency. We must all go to the cave for safety.

- What emergency and what cave? Shouldn't we help people in the village, I asked.

- No need, the priests will take care of that. They will check everyone gets away and they will be the last ones to leave the village. Everyone needs to go to the safety cave that is just a few minute's walk from here.

- But what happened in the village? It seemed very peaceful, and there was no sign of fire or something, Enembe said.

- It was a divine announcement of a danger. The priests saw a sign in the temple and they set the alarm.

- What! cried Enembe. - What nonsense is that?

- I don't know very well, you know I am rather a science person myself. But for generations we have had this safety cave that is used when a celestial danger threats us. They say that there is food and equipment there for weeks just in case. The congregation has some kind of a warning system. When I was a kid, there was a warning and we spent two days in the cave. They say that it saved our lives. Six people were out in Amirhan, and they were never seen again.

- Right, sure, said Enembe doubtfully. He was a bit aggressive against religions, and I guess this situation was quite upsetting for him anyway. - And what is the celestial warning sytem anyway? Astrology?

- I don't know really. I never go to the temple. But it is somehow built into our administration, so that people are not asked whether they believe in these things ot not. The system is enforced.

We fell silent as everyone was trying to understand what was going on. We started walking with the stream of people, as there was nothing to do in the village. The road went around the highest hill that we were just on top of half an hour ago. People were walking pretty fast an mostly in silence, and the line reminded me of a giant glowworm as there was no other light than people's pocket lights. After another hundred metres, the glowworm turned left and entered  a hole under a cliff. It was big enough for two tall men to walk in side by side, but I had my doubts about whether the whole village actually could fit in a cave. It should be huge.

It was. After the entry, the cave became a bit higher and more spaceous, but especially it turned out to be long and branchy. There were corridors going to left and right, and it was clearly built and designed and built for a long-term shelter for a large group of people. We entered a larger hall that seemed to be a central place in this cave system.

The fire brigade, together with the priests, efficiently organised a bunk  or a mattress for everyone, and after a long day, we were happy to go to sleep and have some rest.

~x~

Next morning we went to the hall for breakfast. It was merely canned soup and dried bread, but we were happy that there was next morning and the whole village did not just collapse into some hole between realities. After the breakfast, we headed to talk with the fire brigade people to find out about the emergency and what is going to happen next.

We learned that the alarm was given by the priests of the village temple. They have a Floating Rock also in the temple (actually, the temple was built around the Rock more than a hundred years ago). The alarm system was based on the rock: if there were important changes in the Rock movement, the priests would make interpretetions and launch an emergency if needed.

- You said that the story about holy rocks was a lie, Enembe reminded Dr Kroonstad when we learned this. Doctor looked ashamed and scratched his head.

- Erm, I heard the story but I thought it was a joke. I am not really an anthropologist, so I didn't pay much attention to this religious stuff. I couldn't believe it would turn out important.

- Well, listening to others may be a good idea sometimes, even if you think they are wrong, said Enembe. That was something that I did not expect Enembe to say, but maybe he had also learned something. I did't want the discussion to get personal, so I switched topic.

-  If the priests could detect a disturbance in the wave function, they might be able to tell us something we don't know. They seem to have decades of experience on this, if they have successfully built evacuation caves and everything. We should talk with them.

We agreed that we would do that with Ismen, while Enembe and Dr Kroonstad could do some calculations about the wave function and try to estimate how stable it is now and how we could make it collapse in a controlled way.

We spent most of the day talking with priests and other people. The local religion was indeed quite practically oriented to protect people from alternative reality disturbances. It became obvious that such events happen in Amirhan frequently enough so that people could have observed when problems arise and which actions prevented people from vanishing into reality discrepancies. Of course they did not talk about wave functions and realities, but we could understand them when they described what they meant with each religious term.

We also learned that this cave was a special place that seemed to protect from these disturbances.  It was practically below the place where we brought the Rock #2, so Dr Kroonstad's intuition about a correct place seemed to match the intuition of the villagers. Originally the cave was a natural formation and it was noticed to protect people inside it. Therefore it was built much larger with the idea to protect the whole village. It had been used for that purpose thirty years ago, when there was a major reality discrepancy. Now that we had learned about the wave functions and their connections to actual events in Amirhan, we realised the amount of ignorance scientists of that time had related to these events. They had simply been considered unfounded religious fallacies, and they had not been seriously studied.

~x~

In the evening, Ismen left to find the others, while I went to the other direction because I had promised to return a diary to an old priest that had made precise notes thirty years ago. His dormitory was at the very end of the corridors on the right. I hadn't been there before, so I looked closely at the signs on the walls.

Suddenly the corridor looked familiar. It was like a strong déjà-vu, but rather than just things feeling familiar, I knew what was behind each door. I knew that there was a large clock at the very end although I couldn't see it from here.

I was stunned and stopped. The feeling started to faint, and a strange anxiety grew inside me. It was so good, so right, and now it was going away. I felt an urge to turn around and go back. I looked around, and there was a warm, friendly spot, almost like glowing in the dim cave just beside me and offering nice thoughts to me. I took two steps to that direction, and the good feeling came back. But the feeling fainted again, and realised that the friendly spot was moving toward the main hall. I knew that I should go return the diary, but I didn't want to leave the spot. So I turned around.

I walked close to the spot, and it gave me new feelings and thoughts all the time. The whole place started to look familiar. I knew this place, and had known for a while. I knew many of the people, and they had become dear to me. I knew how the canned evacuation meal tasted like. This place felt like, well, not like a home but a like a place with purpose. I had a reason to be here.

Although I didn't know why, I was now determined to stay near my spot. The thoughts it gave me were both familiar and new at the same time. I could see the whole cave in a new way, and it brought me courage. I came to the main hall, when I thought about Enembe. He was probably in the eatery already, but I thought I saw him in the hall and that he greeted me: "Hello, Ndali!"

I also thought about an old man. He was nearby and turned around abruptly toward Enembe's voice. He looked just like Dr Kroonstad, but strangely enough, he didn't feel familiar at all. He turned his head around like trying to listen and then he shouted: "Dr Mariental, is that you? Please come here, I need to talk to you!" It was so lively, although it all happened in my imagination.

I felt awkward that he knew me, and I felt awkward that I felt that way, having spent the most intensive day of my life with him. I thought that I went to him. "Yes, sir?" He said: "Dr Mariental, it's a fortunate that you are here. Please help me. I need to ask you to shout: 'I found myself.' Please do it now. She might be nearby." He was very persuasive, and I felt that I should help him.

- I found myself! I shouted.

Then I fell silent. Why did I shout aloud? It was just my thought about shouting, why did I actually do it? People turned to look at me, and I felt embarrased. Dr Kroonstad was apparently nearby, as he showed up from somewhere and walked toward me.

- Ndali, is that you? What did you say?

- Eh, sorry doctor, I don't know what it was. I just suddenly felt like saying it.

My thought about the doctor intensified and rather than talking with him I started to think what he would say. He would seem pleased and say: "Very good, they heard you. Now things are going somewhere." I would say: "I'm sorry, I don't understand." And he would say: "I'll explain in a second. But I'd like you to say another thing: 'My twin met your twin in the snow world.' Please say it."

- My twin met your twin in the snow world, I said.

Suddenly it all made sense. Dr Kroonstad seemed to understand the situation as well.

Doctor's twin said in my head: "Ndali, I am Dr Kroonstad. Everything has been split into two for two weeks, and we have twins in the other reality. You twin met my twin in another reality yesterday. They are now in this very same cave. Your twin can hear your thoughts, and I can hear my twin's. So I can tell you what's going on in the other reality, and I need your twin to speak up everything you learn from here to tell the others. Do you understand." My twin said: "No", but I understood my role. I repeated his words aloud.

- Very good work, the doctor said. - Now we can have a real-time two-direction communication. Why don't we all go to the eatery and sit over there so it is more comfortable.

We went to the eatery and found Enembe and Ismen there. We all sat down in both realities and told each other everything. My twin was very confused at first, and I wished she could sense my feelings of comfort and joy when I found her, but apparently she couldn't. She only knew what doctor's twin told her. It was, however, easy to convince her because I could hear her thoughts and tell the doctor to tell his twin to repeat those thoughts. Soon enough, we were having an intensive discussion between the realities, me describing the says in the snow-world and doctor's twin those in here. It was interesting to notice, that although Enembe's twin was also present, Enembe could not hear him the same way I heard mine. There had to be large individual differences, as Ismen's twin heard Ismen only during sleep.

We learned that Enembe's and my twins had woken up in the snowy, empty village, when Khorixas was baking rolls for us. It had took some time to figure out that everyone had been evacuated, just like what had happened here yesterday. They had found their way to the cave and thought that the villagers needed their help. And besides, the priests were very strict about nobody leaving before the emergency was over. So they have lived in the cave with the villagers for more than a week, trying to figure out what was going on and how they could solve the emergency.

We told them what had happened in the non-snow world and that Ismen and Svetlana would come here today (rather, the village, so we should get them a message). Now that we had a direct contact, it should be easy to organise. So it seemed that we were pretty much on map already and knew that the double realities seemed quite complete on the area from the hub and the Floating Rocks to Ashakati and the cave. But one piece was missing: Svetlana's twin should be in this reality, and yet nobody had seen a glimpse of her since Sunday last week. How was she doing?

____________

The topic for tomorrow is The last snow.