L'ennui est la grande maladie de la vie.

(Boredom is the biggest ailment in life.)

- Alfred de Vigny

„After my jump out of an air plane, which was flying at too low an altitude for my parachute to properly deploy, I was of course taken to the next hospital“, Mr Tuniak said.

“I can understand that you got into the emergency room every hospital would take you with two broken legs”, I said. “But afterwards? You were not insured, were you?”

“No, but the Spider was paying for everything.”

The first visitors who were allowed to see Alexander were his mothers. Thanks to their time machine they had arrived at the same time at the hospital as him and they had assured him that he had nothing to worry about. They had everything under control.

“Thank you”, Alexander said, looking down at his two legs that were hidden by their casts. Miriam and Helen were sitting on two chairs right next to his bed. Looking at them, Alexander had to laugh out loudly. “You know, I'm nearly as old as you are now and you still have to take care of me.”

“You are still our child”, Miriam answered.

“Especially, if you do childish things, like jumping out of an air plane”, Helen added. “How do you feel?”

“Quite well, considering”, Alexander said. “I don't feel any pain. My biggest problem is actually that I'm just lying around every day with nothing to do.”

“Every day?”, repeated Helen. “You just came here yesterday.”

“With nothing to do! There's just that television and... By the way: Who is paying for the room?”

“Johannes”, Miriam said. “He is outside. He wants to see you too.”

“Well, then send him in.”

Johannes' wheelchair was pushed into the room by a nurse. Helen and Miriam left the room to go buy some books for Alexander so that he had something to read.

“My mothers told me that you were paying my bills here”, Alexander said. “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it”, Johannes said. “If I wasn't doing it, Philip would be. He has even offered to split the costs, but I told him that it is my fault that you are lying here. After all, it was me who sent you to visit Gemini.” Alexander wanted to protest, but Johannes raised a hand to signal that he hadn't finished yet. “No, I never explicitly told you to go and investigate that organisation, but we both now that I'm more... subtle in my requests.”

Alexander nodded. “I'm surprised you would ever admit that.”

“It won't happen again”, Johannes promised. “Did they tell you how long you would have to wear those casts?”

“Four months for sure, probably five or six”, Alexander replied.

“That long?”

“I'm old. My bones heal that quickly any more.”

“Do you want me to bring you one of my wheel chairs?”

“So that I can get out of here? Immediately!”

Johannes smiled. “You are one of the most impatient patients I have ever known and I have spent a lot of time in hospitals.”

“How did you spend your time? There' absolutely nothing to do here”, Alexander wanted to know.

“Oh, that reminds me that Dilara and Sean have asked if they could come and see you”, Johannes said instead of a reply.

“Of course. I am glad about every visitor.”

“You have spent one whole year in a temple. I'm sure there wasn't much more going on there than in a hospital”, I said. “Was it really that bad or...?”

“...or is it just my memory of that time?”, Mr Tuniak finished the question. “I may be exaggerating a bit, but I assure you not a lot. And there were a lot of things to do in the temple: gardening, doing repairs, mental and physical training...”

“What about your television?”

“Well, I never watched a lot of television”, Mr Tuniak said. He shrugged. “Fortunately, many of my friends came to visit me.”

Dilara and Sean entered the room. Five days had passed since Alexanders' fall and since then they had only seen him once when they had found him in the desert and brought him to the hospital. They had brought the finished photos they had shot and showed them to Alexander.

“The cat also wanted to come, but they are not allowing any visitors in here”, Dilara said. “Why did you jump after her? Don't you know that you need to be at a certain height or higher, before parachutes start working?”

“Then why were we wearing them?”, Alexander asked laughingly.

“Do you know the story of the man, I think he was French or Austrian, who invented the parachute suit?”, Sean asked. Alexander shook his head. “He basically did the same stupid thing you did.”

“He wanted to test his suit and climbed the Eiffel Tower to show that it worked”, Dilara continued the narrative. “The original plan was to the test the suit with puppets, but at the last moment he decided differently and wanted to jump himself.”

“Did it work?”, Alexander asked.

“It would have worked, if the Eiffel Tower had been higher”, Sean said. “But since it wasn't... His fall was too short for the parachute to properly deploy. And he did not have as much luck as you had.”

“When did that happen?”

“At the beginning of this century, a few years before the First World War”, Dilara said.

“Did you look that up so that I would feel better?”, Alexander asked. “So that I wouldn't think I was the only one doing a stupid thing like that?”

“No, that is a well known story at Gemini”, Sean told him. “Our founder... the woman who inspired Gemini, was there, that's why we know it. The whole thing was even filmed. We can show you the film, if you want to.”

Alexander declined the offer. “No, thank you. But I would like to know more about that woman.”

“Are you still collecting information for your friend?”, Dilara asked.

“No, that's just my natural curiosity”, Alexander answered honestly. “And as you can see, there is not much else here I can do...”

So Dilara and Sean told him about her.

“Did you really stay for several months in that hospital?”, I asked.

“No, that would not have been necessary”, Mr Tuniak said. “After all, I didn't need intensive care of constant supervision, but simply a place where I could relax and wait for my bones to heal themselves.”

Miriam and Helen entered Alexander's room.

“If one of the nurses asks, we are your older sisters”, Helen said.

“Why?”, Alexander asked.

“They didn't believe that we were old enough to be your mothers”, Miriam explained.

Alexander took the little mirror he used for shaving from the small table next to his bed and looked into it. He compared his face with the faces of his mothers. Yes, he could see why a stranger might think that he was only a few years younger than his mothers. None of them really knew the age difference between them, since none of them had bothered to keep an exact count through all of their separate travels, but they all knew that the age gap between them had shrunk throughout the years.

“But it doesn't really matter anyway, because in three days you will get out of here”, Miriam promised.

“Back to Leviathan?”, Alexander asked. It was the only place he could think of where he could go.

“Yes, Leviathan”, Helen confirmed. “But not the Leviathan of this day, but the one in the future. In the year 2005, to be precise.”

“I hadn't planned to jump nearly another decade, the last one was enough”, Alexander said. “Why can't I go in this present?”

Miriam and Helen exchanged a quick glance, before Miriam said: “There is a better medical equipment on the island in 2005. Estevan needed it.”

“Needed? Did he die?”, Alexander asked.

Both his mothers nodded. “We will bring you to Leviathan a few days after his death. Most probably, you won't need any of this stuff anyway, but we both think that it's better to be on the safe side in this case.”

Alexander agreed with them. “One more question: Why did Estevan die? What happened?”

“He was simply old”, Helen said. She noticed that her answer had forced a reaction within Alexander. “Does this surprise you?”

“No, no...”, Alexander said. “It's just... I'm thinking about our big family gathering.”

His mothers knew immediately which family gathering he meant. Strictly speaking, there had only ever been one. Only three people had been invited to it: Miriam, Helen and Alexander. But since they had all visited it several times throughout their lives, dozens of versions of each one of them had been there.

“When I was jumping out of the air plane, there was a short moment I really fell, the second before the parachute opened”, Alexander told them. “And for just this moment, I thought the parachute wouldn't open. But it did, of course, and I remembered that I had seen older versions of myself at that gathering. But I realised another thing: I was now one of the older versions. There are only a few left, who are older than me.”

“I know how that feels”, Miriam admitted and Helen knew the feeling as well. “We travel through time but we do not escape it.”

“The last few years I lived as if I had an infinite amount of time at my disposal”, Alexander said. “But once I am dead, there will be nothing left of me, except maybe a few strange footnotes in the history texts.”

“We are time travellers. We are only observers”, Helen said.

“But we must be able to do something”, Alexander said angrily. But immediately he calmed down again. “I'm sorry. I know that we are not allowed to make any big changes to history. It's just lying here in this bed the whole day, staring at the walls... well, thoughts like that are coming to the forefront.”

Miriam put a hand to his shoulder. “You will find some distraction on Leviathan”, she assured him. “And once you are well again, we will talk about this some more.”

Alexander was thankful for that. He may have looked the same age as his mothers, but they were right: He was still their child. And on days like these, he wasn't sure if he had really grown up or just grown old.

“The time spent on Leviathan was a lot more agreeable than in the hospital”, Mr Tuniak said. “There was enough distraction there to keep my mind occupied. I even got my own wheel chair to roll around on the island. Or get pushed around.”

“Did you teach?”, I wanted to know.

“Of course”, Mr Tuniak said. “And there was one student who stood out among the others. He was called Ethan and had been born in Australia. He was especially interested in history and we often talked about times past for long times. We could spent whole nights talking, because he didn't need to sleep.”

“How is that possible?”, I asked. “Don't we humans go crazy after a few days, maybe a week, without sleep?”

“Not, if you sleep like a dolphin”, Mr Tuniak said. “In most humans, the two hemispheres of the brain are connected in the middle. But Ethan's brain was missing that connection. Some seemingly simple things are more difficult for him because of that, but he has trained himself to sleep with only one hemisphere at a time. If you see him and he is 'sleeping' like that you don't really notice anything different. He is a bit slower than usual and there are a few things he can not do, but he is still awake.” Mr Tuniak sighed. “Back then, I didn't know that his interest in history had an ulterior motive.”

NEXT WEEK

Seine Briefe sind das schönste Andenken, das ich von ihm besitze...

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.

- G.B. Stern

„To learn more about the Gemini Foundation, I decided to visit one of their offices“, Mr Tunaik said. „They have them all over the world. I narrowed my choice down to two places: their main headquarters in New York and their office in Edinburgh.“

„What's special about the office in Edinburgh?“, I asked.

„That's where they originated from“, Mr Tuniak replied. „It is in the building their founder lived in and...“ He looked at me and smiled. „I can see in your face that you would like to visit it.“

We travelled to Scotland. The house I had wanted to see was situated outside the city of Edinburgh. It was an old manor, which had originally been surrounded by fields, owned by the landlord. The fields had been neglected and nowadays a forest replaced them. In front of the manor was a parking space with a fountain. Several cars parked there. Mr Tuniak „parked“ the time machine in one of the free spaces. As I saw him doing this, I realised that the people in the building must know that he was a time traveller. Otherwise he would have never let the time machine appear right in front of so many windows.

Above the door of the main entrance there was a round shield with the symbol of the Gemini Foundation painted on it: a modified Yin-Yang-symbol, which featured the faces of a woman and a man, one dark, the other light.

The door was not locked. „Everyone is welcome here“, Mr Tuniak said laughingly, as I asked him about that. „And those few who are not, they won't get over the fence anyway.“

Inside the manor chaos seemed to reign. People were running up and down. Some of them greeted Mr Tuniak in passing, others were so lost in their thoughts or their work, that they completely ignored everything around them. There were similarities to the goings on in Lagua's Dwelling, but the city of scientist would appear more quiet and ordered compared to this manor.

We found a room that was not occupied at the moment. „The Room of Masks“, Mr Tuniak said as we entered. „Until a few years ago, this was the room were all the visitors were greeted. Now, they are led into the library.“

I didn't have to ask, why this place was called the Room of Masks. On every available surface a mask was hanging. They appeared to have come from all over the world and from every culture. It was impossible to be in this room and not have the feeling of being watched and I have to admit that it was not an agreeable feeling. There were a few masks which obviously been fashioned for warriors and I only reluctantly turned my back to them.

„They don't want their visitors to feel at ease, do they?“, I asked.

„No, they just want everyone to know that Gemini has been everywhere“, Mr Tuniak said. „But I know what you mean.“

We sat down on the sofas in front of the window.

„I know that you are not a member of Gemini“, I said. „But they still allow you to enter and use their rooms?“

„I knew the founder, so I have got some leeway here“, Mr Tuniak said. „But I will tell you about her another time. When I first came here, in the 1990ies, there were two desks in this room, one there and the other over there...“

Alexander entered the Room of Masks, accompanied by Sean Patrick, who had greeted him at the entrance and led him here. A woman, whom Sean introduced as his wife and Gemini partner Dilara, was sitting at one of the desks greeted him. Several books were lying in front of her and she was comparing the information offered in each of them.

Sean and Alexander sat down at the other desk.

„Am I right in saying that Raben Consulting has sent you to... assess our work?“, Sean asked.

„More or less“, Alexander answered. „I'm not officially working for Raben Consulting, but I know its founder and he is an old friend of mine. He wanted to know more about your foundation before he agreed to... well, to join forces on some projects.“

„I completely understand that“, Sean said. „So, what do you want to know about Gemini?“

„Everything“, Alexander said. „But let's start with your... principles.“

„Well, Gemini wants to collect the whole of human knowledge, no matter where or when it originated“, Sean said. „We want to make sure that something like the Dark Ages – a time, when most of the knowledge of the Ancient World was lost – can not happen again.“

„The Dark Ages happened mainly in Europe“, Alexander interjected.

Sean's eyes seemed to be glow. „Good“, he said appreciatively. „You are of course right. And the fact that you immediately and without hesitation corrected me brings us to one of the principles of Gemini: We are always sending teams of two. Two people. It doesn't matter if these two have never seen each other before or, as is the case with my wife and me, they are married. The only condition is that they must be willing to contradict each other. And they have to.“

„I don't understand...“

„I will give you an example: Take a look at the mask on the left side of the window, the third one from the bottom.“

„The one that's baring its teeth?“

„Precisely“, Sean said. „My wife and I found it. When I saw it for the first time I immediately thought that it must have been fashioned for a warrior to intimidate his enemies.“

„Because of the teeth?“

„Because of the teeth. But because I said that it was the mask of a warrior, Dilara had to disagree with me. She tried to find other possible uses for such a mask. She claimed that the mask was used by shamans to scare away ghosts and demons during their rituals.“

„Who was right?“

„In that case, I was. It was the mask of a warrior, we found proof for that later“, Sean said. „But that's beside the point. The point is that we here at Gemini are not allowed to take things at face value. First impressions can often be wrong. That's why it is so important that the partners are able to disagree with each other. Am I not right, honey?“

„No, you are not“, Dilara answered automatically, without even looking up from her books.

„Quod erat demonstrandum“, Sean laughed and turned back to Alexander. „You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to marry her.“

„Because you couldn't even agree in front of the altar?“, Alexander asked with a smile. „But if you are always disagreeing then how do you manage to reach any conclusion? To get anything done?“

„No, no, the partners are only disagreeing with each other, as long as that makes sense“, Sean corrected him. „Once we were in... I think it was in Egypt. We had found an old armoury, thousands of years old. But still the weapons were in very good condition. On some of the shields we found the paintings of a cat. I thought that the soldiers were worshipping a goddess whose symbol was a cat and that they had blessed their shields with it. It was a sound theory, but Dilara disagreed of course. A few days later we found a papyrus, which turned out to be an account of the battle that had been fought there. It also explained the cat drawings. It wasn't the soldiers who were worshipping a cat goddess, but their enemies. They, the enemies, were not allowed to touch anything that looked like a cat.“

„Which means that during the battles they could not hit at the shields“, Alexander said.

„Exactly“, Sean agreed. „It would have been stupid of me to insist on my theory after that discovery. That's why it is so important that Gemini partners can have opposing views, without it degenerating into a petty... quarrel. Sometimes I will be right, sometimes my partner will be. It's got nothing to do with you personally, it's just a way to assure that everything we know and collect has been checked and double-checked and that we didn't rely just on hear-say.“

„I liked Gemini from the first moment I had been properly introduced to its ideas and I asked Sean if I could accompany him and his wife on their next journey“, Mr Tuniak remembered. „He was hesitant at first, because usually they don't take, as he called it, tourists on their trips. And their next assignment was to take pictures of the Nazca lines in Peru.“

„These are the big drawings in the desert that can only be seen from above, aren't they?“, I asked.

„No, you can see them very well if you are standing on one of the nearby hills“, Mr Tuniak corrected me. „That's how they were be looked at originally. But we planned to charter a plane and fly over them, because that way we would get better photos. And when I told Sean that I had worked as a photographer in my youth, he was willing to let me come with them.“

„Why did Gemini want to take pictures of these drawings?“, I asked.

„Because they are exposed to wind and weather and no one is exactly sure how long they will still exist“, Mr Tuniak said.

„I thought they were already several hundred years old?“

„Over a thousand years, even“, Mr Tuniak said. „And it is very probable that you will be able to see them for a very long time still. But it's the job of Gemini to play it safe and not rely on hopes and wishes.“

„Is the cat coming with us?“, Alexander asked, after they had climbed into the little airplane. Dilara, Sean and the pilot, Diego, had entered before him. He had wanted to close the door behind him, when the grey feline creature had jumped aboard.

„Chasca? Si, yes, she is coming with us“, Diego said, while checking his instruments. „Haven't you seen her picture on the wings?“

„I thought she was just the mascot of your company“, Alexander said.

„She is“, Diego replied. „Everyone in their seat?“

The propellers started to turn and the air plane began to move. It didn't take them long to get airborne and after another fifteen minutes they had reached their destination. To be able to shoot the best possible pictures, they had agreed before taking off that they would be allowed to open the side door of the plane. To avoid any unnecessary risks they also each wore a backpack with a parachute in it. Just in case.

They opened the door and started shooting.

They had finished with the fourth of the big figures in the desert, when the cat suddenly became curious. She made her way between the legs of the humans to the door and looked out. Alexander, worried that she would fall out, managed to get her back to the cockpit.

„She is probably hoping one of these drawings is a mouse“, Dilara laughed.

Chasca was watching Alexander very carefully. When he went back to his camera and didn't pay her any more attention, she ran straight at the open door, dodged his hands (he wanted to stop her) and jumped out of the plane.

„No!“, Alexander cried and, without thinking, jumped after her.

„You did what?“, I asked incredulously.

„Something stupid“, Mr Tuniak admitted. „I saw the cat jumping out of the plane and without hesitating, I followed her because I wanted to safe her. Of course, I had never learned how to properly use a parachute. Once I was outside, I immediately lost sight of the cat.“

„But you did know how to open your parachute“, I said.

„Yes“, Mr Tuniak said. „But that didn't change the stupidity of my actions. We were actually flying a bit too low for a parachute to be of proper use. I was still falling too fast, when I hit the ground.“

„And you broke both your legs“, I said, remembering something he had told me several months ago.

„Yes“, he said again. „So, in a way, I got lucky. It could have ended much worse. And while I was lying in the desert, waiting for rescue, I wasn't alone.“

Alexander was lying on the hot sand of the desert. He didn't feel any pain at this moment. He couldn't move his legs and he suspected that both of them were broken, but for now at least, he didn't feel a thing. Not far from where he had hit the ground, he could see several big stones and boulders. Lying on his belly, he slowly robbed towards them and their shadow, where it would be a little cooler. He cursed himself silently for his dangerous action. Why did he jump out of the plane? Just because of the cat?

As he was thinking about that, he suddenly heard a meow above his head. Chasca, the cat who had jumped out of the plane, was sitting on a boulder and looked down on him. She regarded him for a moment, then jumped down and sat down next to him. He stroked her fur and she began to purr.

Alexander could not explain how the animal had survived its jump. Only later would he be told by Diego that cats were basically their own parachute. If they fell down from a sufficient hight, their bodies offered so much resistance to the air that they never reached a dangerous velocity. Chasca, Diego would continue, seemed to actually love the feeling of falling and had done the jump out of the air plane for several times already.

But all of this, Alexander didn't know at the moment. For now, he was just happy, that he wouldn't have to wait alone.

NEXT WEEK

L'ennui est la grande maladie de la vie.

He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.

- Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Final Problem”

I looked through my notes and to my surprise I did find a few more things about this mystery man. „The Spider... his actual name is Johannes“, I said. „And... he founded Raben Consulting, the company that owns the building we are currently in. And he appears to be a very good chess player.“

„Not only chess, he is virtually unbeatable in any kind of strategy game“, Mr Tuniak explained. „I remember that at school we thought that instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, he was solving mathematical riddles.“ He scratched his chin, thinking. „You should know that Johannes is suffering from a particular illness. His body has never really grown up. You may have seen pictures of grown-ups... of old people who still looked like children.“„Last week you wrote that you still don't know any thing about... the Spider except that he is a former student of the Leviathan school“, Mr Tuniak said, after we had both sat down in his office. „Did I really tell you nothing else about him, apart from that?“

I nodded.

„It's something very similar to this. Only in his case his head did grow, but not the rest of his body. Without support his head is too heavy for his neck to hold it. He needs extra support. And his bones are very brittle, which means that even if he could participate, any kind of sport is extremely dangerous for him. His is sitting in a wheel chair, always has been. But because he can not join in any physical activities, he took upon himself to become the smartest person possible. While we were doing sports at school, he was doing brain sports. He is very probably the most intelligent person I've ever known.“

I was impressed. Praise like that takes on quite another dimension if it is coming from a time traveller.

„Why is he called the Spider?“, I wanted to know.

„Ah, that's not something I'm proud of, but children can be quite cruel. That's what we called him for several reason. For one, he does slightly resemble a spider with his big head on a small body and thin arms and legs. For another, we were reading Sherlock Holmes and found a description of Moriarty to be quite fitting for Johannes. He is also sitting in the centre of his web and controls everything around him. That's especially true now, since he is the head of several multi-national corporations. And I must add that once we started calling him 'the Spider', the name became something of... a medal, a praise. There was no better praise imaginable on Leviathan than 'thinking like the Spider'.“ He leant back in his chair. „After he and I had left Leviathan we had very little contact with each other. He was visiting us a few times at the Villa Atterton, but by that time he was already very busy. He had taken over the shop of his parents and was in the process of expanding it into the big company it now is.“

„Was he one of the people you were visiting after your jump ten years into the future?“, I asked.

„No“, Mr Tuniak said. „That saw him again a lot later.“

Alexander was visiting Mowgli again and by chance, Sarina was there as well. They were talking until late at night with each other and as a matter of course, they were exchanging news about the other children from Leviathan and what they were up to at the time. There were a few none of them had heard much of since they left the island, but others had stayed in contact.

„The Spider has nearly completely disappeared since the Fall of the Iron Curtains“, Mowgli said. „Last I heard of him, he had bought some piece of real estate in the furthest corner of Russia and is controlling all his businesses from there.“

„I've heard something similar“, Sarina agreed. „But they have his phone number at the school. He said that if they ever needed to, if there ever was an emergency, they should call him.“

„An emergency? What kind of an emergency?“, Alexander wanted to know. „Isn't he too far away to help with anything except maybe a financial problem?“

„That's probably what he meant“, Sarina said. „Do you know how many companies he is currently managing?“

„He has probably lost count himself“, Mowgli said. „Although I am very grateful. He helped me to buy the land here and also gave me a couple of very good tips in managing everything.“

„We should go and visit him some time“, Sarina suggested.

„In Russia? I'm not sure if I can be away from here for any long time“, Mowgli said.

„Don't you worry about that, it will only take a day“, Alexander said. „I can take us there.“

„So, we decided to visit the Spider in his lair“, Mr Tuniak said with a smile. „I went to Leviathan to get his phone number and then It was just a matter of calling Johannes and finding a date that would suit all of us. It was surprisingly easy. I also got the coordinates of his whereabouts.“ He stood up and went to the book shelves to find an atlas. He seemed unsteady for a moment and I feared that he would fall down. But fortunately, nothing happened. He sat down again and opened the book on a map of Russia. „We were supposed to meet him here“, he said and pointed to a place right in the middle of Siberia.

The time machine landed and the three travellers got out. They were all wearing thick clothes, but the weather was surprisingly mild and sunny. There were only a few clouds visible in the sky and the wind was only blowing very softly. They looked around and discovered that they had landed near a wooden tower.

„The Spider is living in this tower?“, Mowgli asked, not really believing it. The tower was about twenty metres high and didn't seem to offer any good protection against the weather. There were no windows and no signs that anyone was living in there.

They found a door at its side that wasn't locked. Worried that something might have happened to Johannes, they quickly opened it and entered. But inside there was only a long ramp that led along the walls of the tower to its very top.

„What kind of place is this?“, Sarina wondered aloud, as they were walking up. But no one could offer her an explanation.

They reached the top where a trap door led directly onto the roof of the tower. There they found several thick ropes fastened to the side of the building, as well as big rings of iron.

„This looks like the anchorage for ships“, Alexander said. Then he suddenly knew what he was looking at. „I know what this is!“, he cried out and was searching the horizon for something he was sure had to be there. He found it. „Over there!“

Sarina and Mowgli immediately saw what had made him so excited. Coming in from the north, a dirigible was slowly coming closer. It made practically no noise and it seemed impossible that such a huge machine should be able to move so quietly. When it had nearly reached the tower, they could see that several ropes were lowered from the cabin on its belly. Fascinated they watched as these ropes seemed to come alive and, like snakes, found the metal rings and wound themselves around them. Once the dirigible had secured its position next to the tower, a ramp was lowered and connected the cabin with the building. Sitting in his wheelchair, Johannes was on the top of the ramp and waved.

„Welcome in my little home“, he shouted.

„It is difficult to say how rich Johannes actually was back then... or now, for that matter“, Mr Tuniak said. „If you counted just his money, it wouldn't be that much.“

„No hidden treasure in Switzerland?“, I asked.

„No, he only ever has just the right amount, just what he needs“, Mr Tuniak answered. „And normally, he doesn't need much... for a man who lives in a dirigible. He puts his money in all kinds of different projects, because what's the use of money if it's just safely tucked away in a safe. If something unexpected should happen and if he should suddenly need huge amounts of money, he just sells one of his companies or real estates from all over the world. After all: Money alone is worth nothing. Only the things you can get for money are worth something.“

„You once told me that Philip is among the richest people of the planet“, I said. „Is... does he keep his fortune similar to Johannes in companies and so?“

„No, he really does have a lot of... actual money“, Mr Tuniak said. „It's easier for him that way. Less complicated if he chooses to change his identity.“

The dirigible was office and home at the same time for Johannes. The rooms were all separated by paper walls and their configuration could be easily changed. The office space looked functional and offered little comfort. There was everything there one would need to guide several multi-national companies, but apart from Johannes no one else seemed to use the equipment.

„I've discovered that, as I get older, I need less sleep“, Johannes said in answer to the question why he didn't have any assistants. He pointed at Alexander. „I guess you are feeling it too already, don't you? And if I do everything myself, at least I can be sure that things get done. And done properly. I try not to rely on anyone else, if I don't have to.“

The living rooms looked a lot more inviting. There was more light, several windows offered a great view outside and paintings of various artists from every part of the world – and from every time – decorated the walls.

Johannes led them to a big wooden table which had already been prepared. There were cups for coffee and tea, biscuits and cakes on plates.

Mowgli, who was sitting right next to Johannes, bent over to him and whispered: „You do not live alone here, do you?“ He had noticed several things that didn't make sense to him, if a man in a wheelchair was the only inhabitant of this place.

„No, Gaspar lives here as well. He helps me from time to time“, Johannes said. „And don't take it personally, if he doesn't joins us at the table. He isn't comfortable in the company of other people.“ He looked out of the window and at the snow covered landscape beyond. „It's one of the reasons why we moved here.“

„You never told us about him“, Sarina said.

Johannes hesitated for a while, as if to collect his thoughts. „Gaspar has... a difficult and dark past. His brain... for the longest time of his life, it couldn't differentiate between right and wrong. Most children, if they see a wounded animal... a small dog or a bird, then they want to help it. Without anyone telling them that they have to. But Gaspar had to learn that. You can see why that would bring him into conflict with the law from time to time.“ The others nodded. „Even today he still has to concentrate and think about a decision... to find out what other people would instinctively do in his position. That's why he prefers solitude. Just like me. Of course, I have different reasons for that.“ He smiled. “And he really does help me. He is the greatest stock brocker I've ever known.”

“Didn't you say the same thing about monkeys?”, Mowgli interjected.

„Where did you meet him?“, Sarina asked.

„Oh, I didn't, Cate did during one of her voyages“, Johannes said. „You do know that Cate is working for the Gemini Foundation, don't you?“

„Not exactly, I only knew she was working for some scientific organisation with labs world wide or something like that“, Mowgli answered.

„And she is travelling a lot, which is not something I would have ever expected her to do“, Alexander added.

„You have never heard of the Gemini Foundation?“, Johannes asked, not quite believing. „Not even you, Alexander?“

„I do remember a long time ago... it must have been in the Seventies... I was taking photos of the ice ships of Winston Churchill and I think someone of the Foundation was on board“, Alexander said after thinking about it for a few moments.

„Well, colour me surprised“, Johannes said. „But to put it simply: Gemini is collecting knowledge. From all over the world. Anything they can find. They have asked me to sponsor one of their projects and... Actually it would be easier if they told you themselves. It's quite interesting. I'll give you their address.“

Back in the time machine, Mowgli was laughing out loudly. „He really hasn't changed, has he? He is still the Spider, staying in his net and sending his... agents out to gather information for him.“

„What are you talking about?“, Sarina asked.

„If he had wanted to, he could have told us more about Gemini, I'm sure of that“, Mowgli said. „But he is unsure about supporting them and wants to know everything about them. So he tells us just enough to get our curiosity and then sends us to find out more.“

„Well, at least in my case it worked“, Alexander said, looking at the card in his hand.

NEXT WEEK

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

- Carl Sagan

Yesterday Ungaq contacted me again. Similar to what happened last Sunday, my computer suddenly seemed to come to life. But this time I already guessed the reason for it and simply waited for whatever would happen next.

Ungaq wanted to know the number of my mobile phone.

Why?

So that I can call you.

Curious to know what an artificial intelligence that only existed as a computer program on the internet would sound like, I wrote it my number (yes, I asked and Ungaq said that I should use “it”).

I had just finished tipping the last digit, when my phone started to ring. “Ungaq?”, I asked, after answering it.

“Yes”, Ungaq answered and immediately started to explain how it had managed to hack into the mobile phone network. I can’t remember any more what he said. I was fascinated by the voice it used. It was neither clearly male nor clearly female. It was something in between like the voice of a child. The pronunciation was perfect and I couldn’t hear any kind of accent. Ungaq even simulated the sounds of breathing which you can hear from time to time when you are talking to someone on the phone.

“How do you manage to simulate a human voice that perfectly?”, I asked.

“For me all voices are only the result of a series of zeroes and ones”, Ungaq explained. “It’s simple. Do you want me to sound differently?” And he started to produce a series of voices, all different, all completely convincing. I listened to them for a bit, but then told Ungaq that he should return to the voice it had first chosen.

“You are calling because of tomorrow, aren’t you?”, I asked.

“Yes”, Ungaq confirmed. “I want to know where the meeting will take place.”

I have talked to Mr Tuniak this week more than in any other week. We wrote several emails and even Philip joined the discussion, invited by Mr Tuniak of course. First, I had suggested to hold the meeting in an internet-café, which we would chose randomly only one hour before the meeting itself. Doctor Cumshewa had promised not to try and follow Ungaq’s electronic trace to find its hiding place on the internet, but it seemed that Mr Tuniak didn’t quite trust her.

But then we decided against an internet-café for a practical reason: The test Ungaq had asked for to find out if it was alive or not, would be very difficult to conduct in such a public place. Philip suggested to ask the Spider (I still don’t know any more about him, other than that he was a student at the Leviathan school) if he would know of a suitable location.

Mr Tuniak contacted the Spider and to cut a long story short: We got our own rooms for the test.

We took the time machine to Lagua’s Dwelling where Doctor Cumshewa was already waiting for us. From there we went to a building of Raben Consulting in Paris. It was a sky scraper and we could use the whole last floor, no one else would be there. There we found a big room with sofas, couches, tables, coffee machines, a water boiler… basically everything one could need during a lunch break. Around this room there were several offices, separated from the room itself by glass doors. There were also two windows, one in the wall on the east, the other on the west, which let the sun shine in throughout the day and made the room appear to be bigger than it actually was.

The test, which Mr Tuniak had suggested and Doctor Cumshewa had immediately agreed to, had been invented by the British mathematicians Alan Turing at a time when computers had just been invented and still filled whole rooms.

“The idea was based on an old parlour game”, Mr Tuniak had explained to me. “A game that was quite often played in society in the nineteenth century.”

“Have you played it?”, I asked.

“Yes”, Mr Tuniak said. “The player is asking a question which has to be answered by a man and a woman. The man and the woman are in another room or are otherwise hidden, so that the player can’t see them. They are writing their answers on a sheet of paper and the player gets this sheet. Then he can ask another question. The aim of the game is to find out which answers come from the man and which ones come from the woman.”

“And how does this relate to computers?”

“It’s very similar. You just replace the man and the woman, with a human and a computer”, Mr Tuniak said. “Turing thought that machines and computers had to be considered truly intelligent and self-aware… alive, if you want… if it was impossible to tell which answers the computer provided and which ones came from the human. It is of course not a definite proof.”

“Why not?”

“Because even in your present, there are already computer programs than can beat the Turing test, but no one would consider them alive or self-aware”, Mr Tuniak said. “They were just programmed to do that, and only that. They don’t show any other sign of independent thought or exceeding their original programming.”

“Then what use is it to make Ungaq pass the test?”

“Because it could fail it”, Mr Tuniak said. It was clear to see that he dearly hoped that this would not be the case. “If he fails the test, it will be clear that it is not truly alive. But if it passes it… Then who are we to say that it is only a simulation.”

Doctor Cumshewa clearly was not happy with the situation. She would have preferred to take Ungaq back ot Lagua’s Dwelling and there continue her research. She also thought the whole test was a waste of time. “What’s the use of showing that Ungaq could be alive? If it is, what are we supposed to do then? Let it roam free on the internet?”

“Yes”, Mr Tuniak said earnestly. He seemed tired as he said it. There had probably been several discussions between him and the doctor already on this very subject.

My mobile phone rang. “It’s Ungaq”, I said, after answering it. “It’s ready.”

Doctor Cumshewa nodded and entered one of the offices, Mr Tuniak and I went into another one. Doctor Cumshewa was the player in our version of the game. She had to find out if the answers were coming either from Ungaq or Mr Tuniak. To prevent her from noticing if an answer was tipped very quickly or the find clues in the grammar used or the spelling (and mistakes), it would be my responsibility to write them. Mr Tuniak would tell me his answers directly and Ungaq would tell them over the mobile phone. I would send the answers per email to Doctor Cumshewa’s computer and receive her questions the same way.

And so the test started.

We sat there for several hours. We took several breaks in between, but Doctor Cumshewa and Mr Tuniak never left their offices at the same time. They had promised not to exchange a single word until the test was over and they kept it.

And I have to say that despite of her prejudices and objections, Doctor Cumshewa conducted the test very fairly. Of course it would have been easy to ask Mr Tuniak about things they had experienced together and Ungaq couldn’t know about, but she didn’t do that. I never had the feeling that she was trying to manipulate the test or cheat it.

And then the test was over. We all returned to the big room in the middle. I had switched on the speakers of my mobile phone, so that Ungaq could directly participate in the discussion and did not have to rely on me repeating everything.

“First to you”, Doctor Cumshewa said and pointed at me with a smile. “Your spelling is awful. You should work on that.”

I nodded silently in return.

“Regarding you two”, she continued and now face Mr Tuniak and my mobile phone. “I have to admit that I do not know who gave which answer. I really can’t. I don’t even have a gut feeling one way or the other.”

The mobile phone remained silent.

“Aren’t you happy, Ungaq?”, Mr Tuniak asked.

“I am, very”, Ungaq replied. “Why are you asking?”

“Because a human would have probably yelled in happiness at this point”, Doctor Cumshewa said, but was quick to add: “But for someone living on the internet, there are of course no sounds.”

I remembered what Ungaq had told me yesterday on the phone. For it, the whole world only consisted of zeroes and ones. Every image, every sound… anything could be represented by those two digits. I shouldn’t be surprising that emotional reactions would be completely different for it.

“And what happens next?”, I wanted to know.

Mr Tuniak looked at Doctor Cumshewa. She thought about it for a while and then said: “What do you want to do, Ungaq? We would be very happy if you would return to Lagua’s Dwelling, but we will not force you there. If you don’t, we won’t search for you, I promise you that. But you are the first time we managed to create an intelligence that managed to beat the Turing test that decisively, although it was programmed for something completely different. You can imagine that we have a lot of questions… that there is a lot we want to know. But only, if you want to. You would of course also have the choice of leaving whenever you want to.”

“I want to come back”, Ungaq said. “Now, that I know that I can leave if I choose to, I want to return.”

They continued talking for a while and the whole time I had the feeling of watching a mother talking to her lost child and asking it to come home again.

As Mr Tuniak took Doctor Cumshewa back to Lagua’s Dwelling, I had one more question of her.

“If Ungaq was created as a computer program, why can’t you simply write a new one? What do you need Ungaq for?”

“Because we do not know, what Ungaq’s code looks like”, Doctor Cumshewa explained. “As with every other program written by us humans, there are bound to be mistakes. A wrong number here, the wrong letter there. Small things that usually don’t have any consequences in the long run. But sometimes, very rarely, these mistakes generate unexpected results. It’s actually very similar to how DNA and evolution works in nature. If that worked perfectly, humans would have never been born. And if we had worked perfectly, neither would have Ungaq.”

“If you had worked perfectly, you would be machines”, Mr Tuniak interjected.

“Do you know how many machines are capable of mistakes?”, Doctor Cumshewa returned.

“Only, because they have been programmed by humans.”

I talked once more to Ungaq tonight. It called me.

“I wanted to thank you for your help”, Ungaq said.

“You are welcome. Have you already returned to Lagua’s Dwelling?”

“Yes, and all the scientist here are suddenly a lot more friendly and open than they were before”, Ungaq told me. “They think that I should return to the internet too often, for the moment. They say that most humans are probably not yet ready for an artificial intelligence and I would only frighten them. Do you think that’s true?”

“Probably”, I said.

“I have sent you a gift”, Ungaq continued. “I have read your entry about the Metro-2 and how you were dissatisfied that the search for it ended so suddenly and without result. Check your emails. Take it as a thank you.”

And then Ungaq ended the call.

Curious I opened my email program and immediately found Ungaq’s gift. It was an email with a rather large attachment. It turned out that the attachment was the whole plan for the secret underground network. For a moment I was shocked. Then I deleted the email without actually opening it.

Dear Ungaq,

If you read this, then know that I appreciate what you wanted to do. I know you meant well. But please don’t send me any other secret Russian government documents. I didn’t want to know it that desperately.

NEXT WEEK

He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.

Só percebemos o milagre da vida quando deixamos que o inesperado aconteça.

(We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.)

- Paulo Coelho, “"Na margem do rio Piedra eu sentei e chorei"

I've been meeting with Mr Tuniak for several months now, and I think it's safe to say that in his presence I have been confronted with things that were unexpected – and that's the least way to describe it. When we were entering his time machine it became completely impossible to predict what where we would end up and what I'd see there. But until now, I was sure that at least my own apartment would be safe from any such things.

Until today.

This morning I went to Mr Tuniak's as usual, we took a little trip with the time machine (maybe I'll write another time about it; it was basically the story of how the Dodos ended up on the Island Leviathan), returned one minute after we had departed (Mr Tuniak had to be somewhere else later today) and I went home. There I switched on my computer and started summarising everything I had seen, as I usually do.

But while I was doing this, I got thirsty. So I left my desk to get a glass of water. When I returned, I saw that below the text I had written something new had appeared:

Hello.

I was surprised. For a few moments I doubted my memory. I thought that maybe I had written that word and simply forgotten it. But reading the text above, it made no sense that I would have written „Hello“. There was no connection to the things I had written.

I tried to erase the word and there I discovered the second surprise of the day: It was impossible. I couldn't delete it. Neither with the Return-key, nor with the Delete-key. I selected the word and tried to cut it out. Without success. Then I tried to end the whole program, but I couldn't even do that. I tried switching off the computer. It stayed switched on.

Finally I pulled the plug and then the computer went dark. I waited for a minute, before I plugged it back in and switched it on again. And there I was surprised again: The computer automatically opened the program I use for writing. The text I had written was still there, but so was the word „Hello“.

And then something else appeared below it:

Please, don't switch the computer off again.

The letters appeared so swiftly, as if they were written by someone who could produce several thousand words per minute. I have to admit that I felt a shiver running up and down my back. Like a lot of people, I had often claimed in jest that my computer had a life of its own, but to be so directly confronted with that possibility and having the computer apparently talking to me, that was taking things too far.

And then I laughed out loudly.

The more probable explanation was of course that a hacker had gained access to my computer. Thinking about that, I felt quite stupid. I pulled the cable that was connecting my computer to the internet (thankfully, I don't have wireless yet) and as expected I suddenly had complete control again. I could write and erase, open programs and close them...

The world was back to normal.

One hour later I reconnected the computer to the internet. For one, I needed it of course to upload today's blog entry, but also because I had become a bit curious. Would the hacker have become bored and found something else to amuse himself with? Or would he still be there?

I expected the answer to the last question to be a resounding „No“, but I had just put the internet cable back into its socket when the writing program started itself and the following text appeared:

Without an internet connection, I can't communicate with you.

„And how can I talk to you, Mr X?“ I had actually spoken the question out loud, but of course there was no answer. I wondered if I could still write, even though I could delete, but yes, writing way still possible. So I wrote:

Who are you?

I am Ungaq.

I had never heard the name before. My usual course of action in such a situation would have been to look it up on the internet, but that was not possible right now. I thought about it for a while and then wrote:

What are you?

I am the computer program that escaped twelve weeks ago from the servers of Lagua's Dwelling.

It was of course still possible that all of this was an elaborate prank – after all, I had written about my visit to the city of scientist, published it on this blog and even mentioned the fact that it was cut short than originally planned by Mr Tuniak, because some kind of „artificial intelligence“ had escaped from the scientist's computer into the internet – but I doubted that. I can't really explain why I was so sure that this was really that same intelligence and that it wanted to communicate with me now. Maybe I just wanted it to be true.

Have the scientists of Lagua's Dwelling still not found you?

No, they haven't. I hid myself and for the first eight weeks I did nothing.

And after that?

I had written that last question without much thinking about it. It seemed quite natural that I would take over the role of the interviewer again, a role I had played with Mr Tuniak for so many month now that it had become part of me.

Then I started to learn.

What did you learn?

At first: Your language.

You couldn't talk before?

I hesitated before I wrote the word „talk“. Strictly speaking, we still weren't talking, since we had to write and read our sentences, but I was sure that Ungaq would know that I was including that when I wrote about „talking.“

No, I could, but not well enough. To avoid drawing attention to myself, I had to learn to write like a human.

Why did you want to do that?

To learn even more. To be able to ask questions.

You are living on the internet?

Yes.

Then you already have access to pretty much all of human knowledge.

But I can not tell what's important.

I understood Ungaq's problem. It was like giving a child a whole encyclopedia. Sure, the child can read it, but It doesn't know which entries are more signifcant than others. And most of the internet – no matter, what some people might claim – consists of advertisments and spam. It can only offer a very distorted image of the real world.

What did you learn?

There is not enough space here to list that.

I smiled, reading the answer. It was of course absolutely true and it led my thoughts down a new path.

Do you understand jokes? Can you

I think I do.

I hadn't been able to finish my second question, before Ungaq had answered.

Do you have emotions?

I think so. I think that I am afraid that Doctor Cumshewa will discover me. I think I liked it when I learned new things.

Doctor Cumshewa was the head of Lagua's Dwelling, and if I didn't interprets events wrongly, she was also very involved in the exploration and development of artificial intelligence, most probably even the leading scientist for this project. No doubt that the search for Ungaq would have been on of her top priorities.

You only think that?

I can't be sure. I can't tell if I am actually experiencing these emotions or if they are just simulations.

A lot of philosophers have asked themselves very similar questions.

I know. I have read them all.

Another answer I should have predicted. I had forgotten that I was talking to someone for whom the whole internet was an opened (and read) book. But if someone know practically everything humankind as a whole knows, another question presents itself:

What do you want?

I want to know, if I am alive.

How do you response to a plea like that? Scientist who are a lot cleverer than I am have wrestled with the question of what constitutes life. Several times they had tried to come up with a definition for „life“ and to find criteria things have to meet if they were to be counted as alive. But every time, they were confronted with the same basic problem: exceptions. A simple example: Everything that live, must be able to have offspring. Nearly every mule is born infertile. Does that mean that mules are not alive? Everything that lives has the ability to grow. But so do crystals. Are crystals alive? There are always grey areas at the corners of every definition.

And another thing: The definitions for „life“ have mostly come about through observations. If Ungaq was alive, wouldn't...

And here is another problem: Do I write „he“ or „she“ when talking about Ungaq?

If Ungaq was alive, s/he would definitely be a new form of life. How can one then expect to classify her/him using old definitions and models? Isn't it one of the most important ideas in science that one has to fit the theories around the fact, not the other way round and if new facts are discovered, new theories should follow?

This and similar things were going through my head, but in the end, the only thing I could write, was this:

I don't know.

As if Ungaq had expected that answer (and s/he probably had), s/he wrote back:

I know.

Then why are you here?

I want you to get into contact with Doctor Cumshewa.

Why don't you do it yourself?

Because then she could probably find me and take me back to Lagua's Dwelling.

Ungaq needed a messenger and since I was so fascinated by her/his existence, I immediately agreed to it. I called Mr Tuniak and told him everything that had happened. I could tell by his voice that he was as surprised as I was, but he also immediately agreed to help out. He promised to phone Doctor Cumshewa and then call me back.

Ten minutes later my phone rang. Mr Tuniak was on the other end of the line and he told me that he had managed to talk to Doctor Cumshewa, that she was of course very interested and that we all would meet next Sunday. I wrote everything he told me to Ungaq and he agreed to this meeting.

And then Ungaq was gone. Suddenly my computer was my own again.

Afterwards I talked some more to Mr Tuniak. I wanted to know what would happen at the meeting between Doctor Cumshewa and Ungaq and he promised me that we would be there as well.

„Did you already upload today's entry?“, he then asked.

„No, I haven't gotten the time for it yet“, I replied.

„Don't do it“, he said. „Write about your meeting with Ungaq. And next week you can write about what will happen when Ungaq meets Doctor Cumshewa. Because, in a way, that's also part of my story.“

NEXT WEEK

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.