Alex Gore - The Cube

Marcela was in love with her work. Here, under the microscope, there were only alive real things, not like with people. There were no fakes, cheatings or hypocrisy. Death was genuine and unarguable just like life was. The smaller, or like they were termed the lower organisms hid that immaculate beauty and frankness, that she had never yet encountered in men. In people , she corrected herself in her mind.

The loneliness of the laboratory work and the direct contact with nature by way of the membrane of a singular cell through the eye-lens of the microscope made her happier than all scientific awards in the world. She might be living in her own sterile world without realizing how much she had distanced herself from normal human communication.

The image under the lens of the electronic microscope was unclear and smeared, she put it to focus, turning the knob with her slender white fingers, and scrutinized again the cellular ring.

No, she was by no means mistaken. She had conducted the experiments again and again dozens of times.

She needed to call Norman.

“What is it, March?”

“Major, you’ve got to see this. The corals are really unusual, I’ve never seen such… Most corals depend on sunlight and grow in shallow transparent waters, so that they can absorb energy from the sun. But these here are structured in a way to survive at a much greater depth…”

“How deep are we talking?”

“Look, species are known here, on Earth, inhabiting deeper waters and not so strongly dependent on sunlight, up to a depth of about 10 000 feet, and only some species at that.”

“What about those here?”, Norman pointed to the samples in the Petri dish.

“Those here are able to process chemical energy from sea water, without needing sunlight…”

“Do you mean they come from a greater depth?”

“I mean, there is no way for such species to exist on the Earth!”

“And where do you think they came from?” Norman asked skeptically.

“How, the hell, do I know, Norman? I am only a university biologist who came to the fucking desert after being dragged from the plane against my will! How can I have any idea?!” Her voice was trembling. Her nerves could not hold on and she broke down rying.

Norman was caught unprepared to see her so vulnerable, but it was obvious that the pressure of the last couple of days had been too much for her.”

“Pull yourself together, March, everything will be okay, I promise” Norman said without flinching. “Now, tell me about the corals, please.”

She turned towards the samples. She hated displaying weakness and was now ashamed of the fact that she demonstrated vulnerability and lost her self-control. She wiped her wet eyes, took a deep breath and went on:

“They have a very thick layer of calcium carbonate, which does not have the usual rhombic lattice but possesses a complex fractal polymorphic structure. Besides, chemical macro structure hard cover of calcite forms something like a space suit and I am sure they can bear thousands of atmospheres of underwater pressure. Moreover, they don’t need energy and do not have mitochondria or any other organelles. I noticed tiny bubbles which most probably serve for the processing of hydrogen sulphide and other molecules at great depths… much deeper places than we have ever had on Earth… a 50 or… I don’t know… 100 miles underwater.”

“And where could those depths be, March?”

“Well, the deepest place on the Earth is the Mariana Trench 36 000 feet, but these here probably come from greater depths of other oceans…”

“Like from which place?!”

“There are oceans so deep in our Solar System only on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. On Europe, under a deep layer of ice, there are oceans, heated by the warm core of the heavenly body, that reach depth of 70 miles.”

“Okay, I need to report to Washington. Thank you, you may continue with your work.” Norman started abruptly for the door.

“Just one more thing… Do you know the ancient Greek legend about the birth of the corals?”

Norman half-turned without stopping.

“According to Greek mythology when Perseus cut the head of Gorgona Medusa, a few drops of blood fell in the sea and created the corals”, Marcela said and sat before her utensils.

“And God looked the man who He had created Himself and told him:

‘You shall be imperfect, because so I order and because all things in nature are imperfect. Here you get also an imperfect and illogical woman, in order to make you love and be unable to escape your nature…’

‘I accept’, the man replied to Him.

Bare field. Among its bushes and trees are scattered and trash, blown by the wind.

The man decided to build himself a house. He arranged the stones, sorted tree trunks and cut them, mixed mud and baked some bricks. He needed seven summers and lots of efforts to create his home. He extracted a lot of energy from his strong muscles to introduce harmony in this natural disorder.

Man lived happily in the house with his family, but after many years he met his demise and nobody ever came to this field. After standing for one hundred years in the wind, rain, snow and living creatures, the house steadily collapsed. And after one hundred years more the field was empty again, with rocks, bushes and innumerable specks of dust, covering the earth.

The measure of chaos in a system is entropy. The bigger the chaos, the less the energy and the more stable the system is. The better arranged the system is, the greater the energy and the less the entropy. Correspondingly, the system itself is more unstable.

Each system strives for minimum energy and maximum disorder.

Conclusion: Perfection is only hypothetical and is practically impossible from the point of view of the Second principle of thermodynamics, since it would require infinite quantity of energy and zero chaos.

Each system, existing in nature, contains imperfect details, which make it possible.”

Norman and the Lieutenant were standing in front of the blue screen and did not believe their eyes.

The figures appeared from the top like an avalanche, as if coming from nothing, and the new ones quickly pushed the old ones down. They were an endless row, which did not make any sense at first glance.

“Are you sure it’s coming from the ship?”

“No, Sir, I rather believe it comes from the Cube.”

“Like the music in the air, doesn’t it?” Norman already knew the answers to these questions before even asking them.

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“I know what the music is”, Hans began.

“You have cracked the code, haven’t you?” Norman was triumphant.

“The music is the key.”

“The key to what?” Sergey asked uncomprehending.

“To everything.” Hans sat in front of the computer and the rest of the group encircled him. “The music of Deep Purple is undeniably great but let’s focus on what we received.”

“’Smoke on the water’.”

“Yes, but which came first… The key is there! The first was the guitar riff. The intro, music without vocals on it.” Hans played it again, as if they had forgotten it and hummed: “Tamtam-taaammm… tam ta ta ta taaaaam…If you were an alien, how would you begin conversation with another civilization? You have several options. You could be direct, as long as you know the language… which, having in mind what’s written in the lower part of the Cube, is not a problem…”