8 - Home Sweet Home

The shock of meeting The Orb having worn off, Nathan took stock of his surroundings. He stood in a Cavern so enormous it could have held one the airliners he took to California. A soft, pearl light created friendly shadows. Nathan couldn’t spot the light’s source, it simply was. It cradled the Cavern’s contours like a mother hugging her newborn.

The Cavern’s floor was smooth, too smooth in fact. It stretched out around him with a vastness that made him feel insignificant. In addition to being suspiciously flat, the color of the floor seemed at odds with the cookies and cream ceiling. It was darker, and looked slick as if it had been wetted by rain. Yet he could detect no moisture on it. He bent down to touch it and, as suspected, it was dry. It also had a polished feeling to it, as if millions of feet had sanded it down. 

The uniformity of the Cavern’s floor was mismatched by its ceiling which was undulating and chaotic. Vaults and arches started and stopped randomly, and everywhere stalactites thrust down like the teeth of some fearful dragon. At the far end of the Cavern a stalagmite and stalactite, presumably the oldest in the Cavern, had bonded. They created a macabre structure. It looked like one of death’s bony fingers had descended from the ceiling to interview one of the devil’s digits rising up from the formless floor. 

To his right Nathan saw a metal walkway, railings and all. It was about thirty meters above the ground, and traversed two buttresses. He wondered why The Orb had need of a walkway, since presumably it could move in three dimensions with ease. Perhaps it was scared of heights above a certain point? Around the Cavern’s sides Nathan saw exits (or entrances depending on whether you were coming or going). None of them were large enough for The Orb to fit through, which begged the question of how The Orb had gotten into the Cavern in the first place?

Nathan let out a yelp to test if the acoustics matched up with the visuals. His squeak disappeared, with no echo at all. Where there should have been reverb, there was absorption. He did a complete circle, his neck aching at the strain of looking up. The entirety of the Cavern was so awesome, that he decided the safest course of action was to sit down on the ground. He did this unceremoniously.

“So.” The Orb sounded amused by his ponderous circumspection. “What do you think of my home?”

Nathan shuffled himself around to face The Orb. “I think…” he stammered, then formed his thoughts  into something concrete. “I think it’s wonderful.”

“I am happy you approve. I selected this location for the obvious benefits it offers.”

“Benefits?” 

“Secrecy and seclusion. Both things that we will need to perform our work.”

Nathan pushed himself to his feet and took a few steps towards The Orb. “Work?” He wondered if the answer to his inquiry was going to make him regret the question.

The Orb floated closer, matching the distance of his steps as if they were Western gunfighters. “Yes, Nathan Stromberg. The most important work this planet has ever known. Work of a magnitude that will ensure future generations marvel at its significance.”

Nathan took a step back, suddenly nervous and unsure of himself. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“You? You are the selected. You are the centre. You are to be the transition.”

Nathan stepped forward again, his hand raised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t understand what you want of me.” 

The Orb’s shell rippled, and for a moment Nathan thought he was in trouble. Instead The Orb descended to the ground, coming to rest exactly at the point where its shell touched the floor. Nathan wondered how it didn’t roll over. 

“I believe that explanations are in order. You will have questions, but I would ask that you hear me before asking. Is that acceptable?”

Nathan wondered if he had a choice. “Yes, of course, but I…”

Although The Orb had no surface features Nathan got the impression that it had turned around. It  retreated several meters back towards the center of the Cavern before stopping. Again he felt that it had turned to face him. 

“Questions are the beginning of understanding,” The Orb said. “But you must accept that curiosity requires a basis of information. You are not prepared in that section.”

“Department,” Nathan said.

“Excuse me?” 

“The expression is ‘in that department’.”

“Indeed? Then I am corrected and updated. Thank you Nathan Stromberg for the gift of the lesson.”

Nathan put his hands in his pockets and walked towards The Orb, trying to exhibit a sense of calmness which he did not possess. He wondered if he would get a static shock if touched it. Perhaps enough to make his hair stand up in a best case scenario, or in the worst case enough to require a defibrillator.

“My surface is quite inert,” said The Orb. “You can touch me if you wish.”

Nathan realized the significance of this as his hand was half way to The Orb’s shell. “You can read my thoughts!” he cried. He was caught between feeling that his privacy had been violated, and fascinated that this being was able to hear his deepest wishes.

“If I want. But I do not do it without reason. I do it when it is necessary to communicate on multiple levels. Sometimes one communications channel is insufficient. At times I may need to hear both your voices, the external and the internal. It will help me read your patterns.”

“Patterns?” 

The Orb rose several meters in the air. Its skin changed from the dull, semi-luminous sheen to a gorgeous array of colored patterns, which swirled and glowed at different times. “I can mask my thoughts, whilst you display them openly on your face.” The Orb’s patterns disappeared as quickly as they had come. “When I color, you are seeing my inner thoughts, my emotions if you will. When I chose, I am blank. This is a skill I will teach you, for you will need to master it for the necessary work.”

“Do you mean like a poker face?” Nathan could swear The Orb chuckled, although it sounded like a tin can full of nuts being shaken.

“Very apt, Nathan. When I have finished training you, your ‘poker face’ will be so good you will be able to smile whilst someone is stealing your soul.”

“Is my soul in danger of being stolen?” Nathan asked.

The Orb bobbed a little, and a flash of crimson glanced across its surface. “Some will try, but I will attempt to prevent them through training and wise counsel.”

Nathan tried to put aside an image of a black hand dragging his soul out of the center of his chest. He took his hands out of his pockets and gestured around him. “This is all, so…” he groped for the word, “so awesome.” Maybe it wasn’t the best word in the Oxford English Dictionary, but under the circumstances it was apt.

The Orb rose up towards the Cavern’s cathedral-like roof. “Your appreciation makes me happy, Nathan Stromberg. Everything you see, and do not see, has been created for you. Now, perhaps it is time for explanations and introductions. But first, do you desire refreshment?”

Nathan’s stomach growled at the invitation, and he nodded. “Yes, actually I’m starving.”

“Not starving, but suffering mild dehydration and requiring nourishment. Please, sit.”

The Cavern’s floor suddenly changed color in an area to his right, and a table and chairs emerged. The table was orientated so that he was stood next to the chair at its head. Without thinking he sat in it. The Orb moved so that it floated at the opposite end of the table. There was a popping sound. A bowl of red grapes, and a glass of water rose on a pedestal next to him. He reached out and pulled a grape off its stalk. He bit one half of it, and was dismayed to taste the bitterness of seeds counteracting the succulent fruit. He grabbed the water and took a swig. He swilled his teeth to clear the seeds’ remains out of inconvenient gaps; the same gaps that a dentist had warned his mother would bug him until the Strombergs remortgaged to get them closed.

Nathan looked at the other seats. “Are we having company?”

The Orb bobbed slightly. A mustard streak ran around the centre of its shell. “Perhaps, but for the time being it is only you and I.” The Orb backed away from the table and the Cavern’s lights dimmed. 

Nathan tensed as he remembered the plunging darkness of the passage, and his breathing increased reflexively. Then a multi-layered, single light shone from above and projected a 3D holograph of the Earth. The clarity was way better than any Nathan had seen, either on TV or in VR. It was so realistic that he couldn’t resist walking over to it to check it was real. He was amazed at the detail: clouds moved over the surface of the planet, and on the dark side he saw minute lightening storms over the mid-west USA. “Is this real?” 

“Yes. You are seeing a real-time image of the Earth. If you look at the Gulf of Florida you can see a hurricane forming.”

Nathan followed the Florida pan-handle down, and saw the miniature storm rotating angrily off the Bahamas. The eye of the hurricane was dark and foreboding. He carefully placed his right index finger into its eye. He marveled at how the storm rotated around it. He could swear he felt pressure on this finger, although the swirling clouds ignored the disturbance. “Which satellite is this coming from?”

The Orb rotated quickly. A flash of crimson ran around its equator. “No Earth satellite is producing this image Nathan Stromberg, it comes from a…” The Orb bobbed up and down like a float acknowledging the nibble of a fish underneath. “The closest word in Shared English would be ‘surveyor’.”

“Shared English?” Nathan asked.

“The common root of English,” The Orb replied. “That spoken in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

Nathan was beginning to understand that The Orb dispensed information like a broken candy machine. You put a small amount of change in, but got a large amount of sweets out. He turned away from the hologram and looked back at The Orb. “Why am I here?” he asked, suspecting that the answer was not going to be simple.

“That is simple,” said The Orb.

Doh! thought Nathan.