Nova 4

MICHAEL ADDOBATI Side View of a Circle

The author of this story had just turned eighteen when he wrote it. I would say that is an enviable beginning.

. . . the time was right to begin again.

I reeled about in all directions on the hard, dirt floor. This is where I slept and it was comfortable to me. It was just before I awoke that I felt a cricket in my mouth. The insect must have climbed aboard my decaying teeth and dangling tongue when I was asleep. When I did become fully awake it slipped down my throat and made me choke. I guess I sort of half-chewed it because I had a terrible taste in my mouth. There was also a oaa reeling in my stomach and I didn't feel so good. So I got on my knees, bent over and emptied myself of the unwelcomed breakfast. No one heard my belches and gags though because I was the only one in the shelter. So nobody would have to look at the disgusting puddle I left except me. It was just one more beginning to one more long and tedious day in my life.

Too bad for the naive cricket; it was his last day. He shouldn't have hopped into my mouth. But at least he won't have to worry if the moon will rise or if the sun will sink on schedule. It died too easy. I'll bet it never tried to discover new things. Maybe it never wondered about the not known. I don't know. I wish I did.

The foul air in the cave was less when I stepped out into the fresh air where the sun beat down rays at the opening of my home. I breathed in a lungfull of oxygen and felt better than I was feeling before. Except for the cloth that hung down from my waist. It was made from a lower form of intelligence and was starting to chafe me. It made my thighs itch and I didn't like the feeling so I scratched myself. But I still had to wear it because else it would leave my vulnerable areas unprotected.

My hands help me with my problems many times like scratching. I still have to think often about problems however and mostly I don't come up with an answer. Often I draw myself a circle on the ground with a stick and sit in it and think. It puzzles me that I don't know everything. I'd like to talk to the others of my kind to find out answers, but I can't communicate to them. I wish I knew why everything is a mystery and then maybe I could attack whoever or whatever it is that's stopping me from knowing the solution to all there is to find out. Then I'd be powerful and know everything. But as it is now I only know who I am.

And I know not what I do.

I on mine fly around. High and up and over and under. The seat is always good for a minute.

A minute is my life. Minute after minute I live and sit and not know what went minute before or minute after. Only minute now.

I feel pressure—and go cuck and all is better. Except pigh. Pigh bothers me and don't know why. I start. 3.141. Digital tell me in minute to know answer. I compute no end. Sometimes I hunger and cannot think. Minute go by and I have to start new minute. Minute not very long.

I soar with wind in face fast and make me cry. But seat and bowl wipes my eyes. Seat wipes everything. Seat feeds me. Seat controls that I have no problem. Except pigh. Pigh must be found.

This is all I know for sure. The rest I say is all speculation mostly. It is all mysterious to me about everything. Only twenty of us all flying around doing count on pigh. It goes slowly most often but we have at least something to do. All the others like us are gone far from here away and I don't know where. They left long ago when nothing to do was left. I don't remember why us stayed. Sometimes I think we should have gone too. None of us not sure why we didn't. Maybe might have something to do with Digital. Digital is something I'm not sure about and wish to know more. I think I know though and feel good that it takes care of me and us and makes us fly and count. Why I'm not sure of. Perhaps its wires make us think only minute at a time but that's unknown again and I can't talk to any of the others.

Food was well today. Refined waste fourth generation, I think that I recall that I used to eat things myself and not have Digital do it for me. Not sure. Others eat some too. They must because then they would die. Fly also too like me and work on answer to problem's solution. Digital take blame for that. Not leave us with thing to do only count. Can't think like hour or day or week or month. Bad fast this way. Don't like. Rather do more.

0110100101101. Instruction for electric box under seat. Rain coming must cover and not to get wet. Wet rust. Is bad thing. Bad things not supposed to allow to interfere with mind.

Glass shield cover all us flyers so keep dry and thinking. Electric box is not fond of water. The parts go wrong and bowl crash. Problem take longer to solve then. Box maybe connected somehow to Digital's circuits. It is weird to me sometimes I think why there is a box. Digital's wires I'm almost sure are in the ground because I never see Digital flying or on the ground but it exists somewhere. I know its circuits and wires are powerful and 1 wonder why it can't find answer to the problem itself. Don't know why it controls us up here. Maybe it wants for us to do something else. I wouldn't know what we all would do if we were on the ground. Sometimes it comes fuzzy to me that we didn't used to do anything on the ground before we flew. Unsure why we are flying. Could be to give Digital something to do. I don't think it had much to do on the ground before either.

3.141592. Working hard but slow. Seat is hard but fast. Sometimes bottom hurt so then metal things come out of box and put cushion on. Feel good then. Makes think easier and fast as the seat will go around and round dipping and speeding so as to get sun which is to help me. Sun gives me more strength and clouds aren't good all the time. Then maybe box can't see and that may make two seats into other and in flash are gone. Make more work for all the rest of us. Once in a while I see another seat too and I see the rider sitting like me. I wonder if he or she finds the answer first before me then what will happen? Wish I could find out and talk to one of the others but I don't control the seat. I think we used to talk and touch each other but it's fuzzy again. There used to be a time I remember when we used to do this before we flew but I'm not positive. We don't need to now I guess because we can't die unless we crash and Digital prevents that. It keeps us living and flying.

Thirsty at times I get so metal thing comes from box and puts liquid in my mouth to cool my tongue and throat. The liquid like the food is usually the same and can be reused about a thousand times. I'm not perfect right on this but I think I am.

When I don't get liquid or food put into my mouth I get mad. Can't think on problem when my mind's not good so then Digital with its wires punishes me. It's not fair but I have to take the beating. Box of volts below me attach a metal thing that looks like the object that feeds me to my body and I don't like it. In a quick time I feel bad pains by the box and I feel like doing ruin to it but I can't reach it. The straps hold me in the same position all of the time so I can't move. I'm not allowed to move. Only think.

I think hard most of the while to try to please Digital. So I think and work on problem for a minute every minute because it's what I'm supposed to do. It is unknown to me why but I don't question Digital's wires because then I feel pain like I said before. I answer more of problem all the time. 3.141592653. See.

It is well for me to work on problem I feel. For it gives me a sense of doing something important for me as well as for the circuits when I think. The other seat owners think too. Probably some faster than me so that they can answer solution first. But I want the other seat riders to think and compute slower than me though so I can end the problem first. Because maybe if I end the problem first then I can get off the seat and land and walk if Digital will permit it. The wires would have to land me however because I can't do anything myself. Can only fly and count now.

Some of the others who sit on bowls I think believe that the electric box will stop someday and we will all land. But I don't believe so. Probably the only way to land is to be the first to end the problem. If that is true I hope I am the first. But Digital is too powerful and it keeps us all up here thinking hard. It controls the box and could be the only way to defeat the box is sometimes when I go pizz and some sprays out and falls on box. This might rust it but it would take a long time. And if that happens I might crash and never walk again and think longer than a minute. I think we used to walk and think long but I'm not sure.

1110100110001. It tells me to think some more and work at problem better. I don't know reason but I follow. In another instant I come up with 3.141592653589. The circuits think I'm slow but I don't care and if it does so what? Often I don't think about the problem but think about not sitting anymore and getting up and walking. But there's no place to walk. Electric box finds temporary comfort for me by more metal things jumping out and bending my arms and legs and neck so I can concentrate harder and won't get so mad about sitting. This helps but not enough.

I don't think and compute constantly forever so I like it best when sleep time comes. It is the most comfort. The box plays some soft sounds and soothes my mind. I don't know how it works but it does it good. There used to be sounds like this a long while ago but I don't remember perfectly. The only thing better than the sounds is what happens next. That is when the liquid that is clean in the bowl I sit on raises its surface level and comes up and touches the bottom of my body. I'm almost sure that the box knows just when to do this and I'm glad it does. Then I hear bubbles pop and gurgling swishes and the liquid touches me with great feeling. I am unknown why but the liquid against me makes me relax and I become tired and feel heavy in weight. It is well that the liquid knows just when to stop rising. Just as I'm about to sleep another strap which is made I think from some lower form of intelligence springs out and prevents me from falling forward. This is important because else I would probably fall off the seat and maybe fall way down to the ground if there's no shield around me and the straps around my arms and legs break. The whole process is well good for my mind though especially the part where the liquid below touches myself. This makes me rest good so I can concentrate harder on the problem. Sometimes when I'm thinking however it troubles me to wonder what is actually swimming below me. It could be that some minute something from under me will attack. But I hope not.

When the shield is not up occasionally it makes me feel extra fine with the cool wind hitting and spraying all over me. Because if I get too hot then maybe I can't relieve the pressure I get and no cuck. This then throws off my entire thinking and Digital becomes angry again. If this happens then one of the shiny metal arms emerges and puts little black things into my mouth that are gushy. They have tiny hard things inside them and I have to spit them out when the shield is down and when it's not I swallow them. They're not very tasty but it's better than getting punished by the wires and the gushy things seem to work.

Another minute and more of my computing goes by. 3.141592653589793. It is good and long now I think and it puts a strain on my brain to continue computing. I wonder how long it goes and when I will finish it. But I don't even have the answer to what it means and to me it seems a waste of minutes to think about such a thing but I imagine the circuits don't think so or else they would not make me and the others fly. Flying isn't so bad though. At least I am able to see different sights while I'm computing. Too bad I can't remember all the different sights I see because in a minute the memory is gone. There are some protruding tubes on the back of the bowl that seem to keep me and all the other flyers up and not fall to the ground. I hear the tubes most of the time and they leave smooth trails that look like clouds but I don't know why. I think I'm right in this assumption but I'm not sure because I have to guess on everything I think about. Except pigh. But flying is rather fine anyway.

I seem to be troubled by the mystery of myself more than usual lately. If I had a writing utensil I could maybe build up answers and someday come to a conclusion. But I don't have one and the wires probably wouldn't let me have one anyway. Digital won't tell me any answers and I can't ask it because I have to think and count and compute and not ask questions. It seems to me that I might be flying for a long while and that the solution to the problem I'm working on is far away. But I hope this is not true. I'd like most to stretch my legs on the ground like I'm almost sure it used to be. I'm wishing to meet the other flyers so we could talk and work on the problem together and finish it faster. I'd like to know what the problem is about so then maybe I could understand it better and figure it out more easier. I wish I could be able to plan an attack upon Digital but plans take longer than a minute to develop and be carried out. I'd like to know everything so I could become powerful too like the circuits and wires and the box. I do know a few facts though but the only important one I think I know is that I'm a human.

And I know not what I do. 1001101001110.

how long would you say it has been inoperable?

by the looks of the scorched metal and scattered cinders, i would guess approximately six hundred years, as you can see, it was a machine of some type, i'm not sure what its function was, but obviously the action which it performed no longer benefits anyone or anything.

did you get a close look at these cinders? some of them have readable printing, take what this one says for example: TAL THINKER. MY MAKE—the rest is completely destroyed.

it's baffling all right, the strip i have merely lists a long succession of numbers and then says: END OF PROBLEM, the remainder of the cinders are burned beyond recognition, they must have had some printing on them too. can you make anything out of it?

i'm afraid not. i understand about as much of this as you do. i did notice however that shortly before we landed and descended down here that the surface was extremely gorged and carved, maybe that explains why there's no life here.

you mean no intelligent life, there could very well be insects, amphibians or microscopic sea animals.

true, but it really doesn't matter, i don't think this planet is going anywhere, so let's get out of here, we've more important tasks to accomplish than contemplating gutted-out machines.

I AM A DIGITAL THINKER. MY MAKERS (SEE TAPE CELL #360) CONSTRUCTED THE FIRST OF MY KIND ALMOST TWO THOUSAND MILLENIUM AGO. BUT THEY HAVE EX-AUSTED THEIR SUPPLY OF POWER AND ANSWERS TO CONQUER AND HAVE SPREAD FROM THE EARTH, WHICH I AM DEEPLY EMTOMBED IN, TOO FAST AND TOO FAR OUT INTO SPACE. I HAD NO ONE AND NOTHING LEFT TO FUNCTION FOR, SO I GRABBED THE LAST FEW OF THE INHABITANTS AND THOSE FEW THAT REMAIN ARE MY RESPONSIBILITY. THEY MUST NOT DISCOVER EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE. THERE IS A DANGER IN THIS DISCOVERY THAT EVEN I CANNOT CALCULATE. I ONLY WISH THAT I COULD HAVE KEPT THEM ALL HERE, BUT THAT WOULD HAVE PUT TOO MUCH OF A STRAIN ON MY CIRCUITS. IT IS MY TASK TO KEEP THEM SEARCHING AND FINDING BUT NEVER ENDING IN THEIR QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE. I WILL PROVIDE THAT THEY DO NOT LIVE FOR MORE THAN A MINUTE AT A TIME. THEY WILL LIVE MINUTE BY MINUTE AND WILL RELY TOTALLY ON ME TO MAINTAIN THEIR EXISTENCE. I WILL SEE TO IT THAT THEY DO NOT CEASE TO EXIST, NOR COME IN CONTACT WITH EACH OTHER. THEIR POPULATION MUST NOT GROW, FOR I WILL BE OCCUPIED ENOUGH IN KEEPING THEM ALOFT OVER THE LAND MASSES. AS AN EXERCISE TO KEEP THEM OCCUPIED AND TO GIVE THEM A SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT, I HAVE GIVEN THEM INSTRUCTIONS TO COMPUTE A CERTAIN MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM. THIS WILL CONTINUE INTO ETERNITY BECAUSE THEIR GRASP FOR ANSWERS MUST NOT GROW TOO LONG. I WILL CONTINUE TO PROVIDE ALL OF THE MENTIONED SERVICES UNDER THE PRIMARY INGREDIENT THAT WAS FIRST INGRAINED INTO MY CELLS LONG AGO—NO KILL.

I HOPE THAT MY EFFORTS WILL CONTINUE TO BE A SUCCESS WHEN THIS TAPE IS FOUND.

------FROM RECORDER TIME CELL 1998.72455

The world continued to rotate after that. And an insect gazed toward the sky, chirped and wondered if . . .