Lora nodded. She relaxed a little at the confidence and calmness of his voice. Derek was leaving his ward for the first time during his stay at the hospital. A windowless ward had prevented him from seeing the city till this very moment. But now, passing through the hall with the panoramic glass walls, he could hardly contain his amazement.
“Oh, God…” sighed the young man, gazing at hundreds of towering skyscrapers; at the foot of which one could see rivers, lakes and parks, surrounded by rich greenery and blue rays.
“Welcome to Titanium!” said Lora proudly.
“This is unbelievable!” Derek moved closer to the window in his chair. “A real city! These are trees, aren’t they?” he pointed at one of the parks that could be easily distinguished even from the one hundred and eighth hospital floor.
“Yes, the city has a lot of greenery,” said the girl. It was hard for her to understand his emotions as the dark sunglasses hid his true feelings behind them. However, she could read the excitement in his voice and his pulse running wild as the bracelet indicated. “Let me show you the hologram,” she thought quickly. “This‘ll help you understand how Titanium was created.”
“Yes, of course!” Derek turned away from the window and looked seriously at the transparent tablet computer on Lora’s palm.
“Display the panoramic hologram of Titanium,” said Lora and a basketball-sized 3D model appeared above the tablet. “This is the view from space. The planet is a sphere with a blue nucleus at its core. The inhabited part of Titanium with all its buildings is not on its surface. The city expanse cuts the planet just above the equator into two hemispheres, while a part of the core stays visible and the city, sort of encircles it. The Upper hemisphere is the energetic dome rising over the megalopolis, which keeps the air and protects the inhabitants from the deadly radiation. The floating clouds are only a perfect illusion of the sky: a holographic projection. The Lower hemisphere housing all the city buildings is built from titanium and is shaped like a layered pie. It includes a layer of city communications system, an equatorial transport terminal and several thousand more layers going deep down.”
“And this?” the young man pointed at the shining, rainbow-like cover enveloping Titanium.
“It’s the outer energy field generated by the nucleus and functions as passive protection from a possible attack from the outside.”
“How could people have created such a thing and launched it into space afterwards?”
“The planet was built in space. At the base of the building process is a constantly perfected nanotechnology. The tiny nanites process raw materials and recreate the necessary construction elements according to the project.”
“Did nanites build all this?”
“Yes, nanites and the robotic devices. The raw material was the debris of a gigantic asteroid field. Our scientists have found a way to convert the basic chemical materials from the asteroids into the chemical combinations necessary for the construction. Titanium prevailed among other solids that were used; hence the name of the city: Titanium. Travelling in the megapolis is possible by means of a teleport. I think it’s time you had a real feel of the transport system at work. There are also stairs, but they’re not as popular. The teleport system is the fastest transport means in the spaceship.”
“The fastest after the stairs?” smiled the young man.
“No, after the micro-transport on the electromagnetic pillows,” Grinning, Lora pointed at the guest’s chair. Suddenly her tension that had been so strong back in the ward was melting away fast.
“Do many people use them?” asked Derek, feeling genuinely curious.
“Not these ones in particular, however, there are many devices for carrying different loads. By the way, the central teleport is a public transport, but there are also freight units.”
“I get it, like buses and lorries.”
“Buses?”
“Well, it’s like some old-fashioned transport means with tyres. They used to travel by land burning tonnes of petrol. However, they were improved later when the electric engines were introduced.”
“They̓re described in encyclopaedias,” Lora tried to remember.
“They must be.”
“So, you remember the transport means on Earth. Anything else?” asked the girl as they were slowly heading towards the closest teleport.
“I remembered when you started talking… This information sounded like something I take for granted…”
“The doctor said that you would remember things which were associatively connected to your memories.” remembered Lora.
“Looks like he was right then.”
“I can take you directly to your apartment if you wish to rest.”
“I’d prefer to take a walk if possible,” answered the young man.
“Alright, what would you like to see first?..” At that moment the UCD on Lora’s temple buzzed softly, lighting a green colour which was indicating an incoming call. “Will you excuse me, I’ll have to take it,” she explained to the man. “Yes, Jean.”
After a short conversation she returned to the previous discussion with the guest from Earth.
“I was going to show you some of the local attractions…”
“What’s that?”
“This?” the girl touched the mini contraption with her palm. “It’s a universal communication device, UCD for short.”
“Is it a walkie-talkie?”
Lora frowned trying to remember the meaning of this word and finally answered.
“It connects people, but that’s only one of its functions.”
“Why didn’t I hear the voice of the other speaker?”
“A UCD transforms sound into an electrical pulse and transmits it onto the auditory nerve.”
“What else can this device do?”
“It provides a connection to the central computer, thanks to which any information that I may need reaches the brain through the visual nerve and visualizes as if in front of my very eyes. Again, only I can see those images.”
Without realizing it, they arrived at the teleport cabin.
“Good morning!” Initiated by the arrival of two passengers inside the spacious matte glass cabin, the local teleport system interrupted Lora’s explanations. “State your destination, please.”
“The North City Park,” decisively said Lora.
The doors closed, opening a second later.
“Welcome to the central square of the North Park!” reported the programme.
The young people went outside and Derek looked around. They were in the middle of a brightly lit hall with a colonnade, while to the right and left of them other tele-cabin doors were opening and closing. Coming out of the cabins, people were joining a moderately moving crowd following the direction indicated by the neon lines on the floor.
“We are now on the fifth level of the North Park teleport complex,” explained Lora. “The building looks like a pyramid based on a square with a side of one hundred and fifty meters long and with nine hundred cabins on its twenty levels. There’s a viewpoint at the top, on the twenty-first level, boasting an amazing view of the park. The main staircase runs along the eastern side, we’ll use it to go down to the park.”
“The North Park, the eastern side,” said the young man thoughtfully, proceeding alongside Lora. “If this is a city in space, then where do the sides of the world come from?”
“A good question,” Lora smiled. “The city territory is divided into four parts: Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Titanium. On the one hand, these are just names that have nothing to do with the real sides of the world; but on the other hand, they are the internal guidelines – simply indispensable.”
The two of them slowly joined the bright lively flow of people ascending the staircase, and they soon found themselves on a large square, with a tall white pyramid of the teleport itself towering over it. Further down stretched a real park. Short trees and bushes framed the winding paths and straight alleys, while braided stems of blooming ivy were climbing up the park pavilions. Here and there the neatly-cut lawns were decorated with rock gardens featuring blooming flowers and gurgling clear streams. Derek looked up to face the clear sky, lit by the rays of the rising sun.
“It’s hard to believe that these are not real clouds…” he noted.
“No matter how realistic they look, these are just projected images,” Lora added, feeling a bit sad.
“The park’s so huge…”
“Yes, it is. The North Park is the biggest in the city. The city fairs, our painters’ exhibitions and alien cultures’ displays are all held here.”
“Alien cultures? You actually have found traces of life on other planets?” Derek was mistrustfully looking at Lora.
“Why traces? Travelling through our galaxy we have encountered many living alien civilizations. We collaborate with some of them, exchanging technologies and resources…”
“That’s incredible!..”
“That means that at the moment of your spaceship launch, contact with other alien races hadn’t been established yet.”
“Well, this… or my memory is failing me tragically…”
“At your apartment you can gain access to the central computer in order to get an idea about all the voyages of ‘Solar Flotilla’. There you can also get descriptions of all the habitable planets we have visited…”
“That would be great…” the guest from Earth suddenly froze and his chair stopped moving.
“What’s wrong?” Lora stopped beside him looking worriedly into his face.
“My ship…”
“You mean the rescue unit?”
“Yes, I wasn’t alone there. Did you find only me there?”
Lora slightly pushed his chair to a bench down in the alley and sat.
“There was also a woman in your rescue unit. Unfortunately, she had died before we arrived.”
There was a pause and the man shook his head.
“I don’t remember her name,” he said bitterly. “I’m trying but I just can’t recall anything!”
His last words were permeated with obvious rage.
“Are you angry with yourself?” her question sounded very quietly but Derek reacted immediately.
“Wouldn’t you be?!”
Lora shook her head.
“Of course I can become angry… But rage is a tremendously destructive force that can cause a lot of harm.”
Derek’s anger immediately turned into amazement and now he was intently listening to Lora.
“We have learnt to control the self-destructive part of our personality,” she explained, seeing how much it puzzled him.
“Control? What do you mean by that? Control your temper?”
“No, we don’t actually repress fury, but we realize its futility.”
Derek still didn’t have any idea of what she was talking about.
“You are people though, aren’t you?” he tried to clarify. “Ordinary people get angry, fight, become furious…”
Lora sighed heavily, realizing that she was unable to explain her point of view to Derek without revealing to him the genuine reasons for the long voyages of ‘Solar Flotilla’.
“Derek, there is no doubt that we are human beings and that our ancestors were from Earth. But you must know something else. The doctor said that you mustn’t get stressed…”
“Please, spare me, Lora! What haven’t you told me? Do you mean about me spending 50 years in the rescue unit, and that since then the earthlings started flying into space on huge spaceships?”
“It’s much more complicated than that.”
“Even more complicated?” Derek repeated her words hesitantly.
“Our ancestors left Earth more than two hundred and fifty years ago. We think your ship was sent to look for us fifty years later. You were in stasis for two hundred years, Derek. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t know how to begin.”
There was a long pause.
“Every story has a beginning,” the young man uttered unexpectedly.
Lora nodded.
“In 2014 Andre Mendes, one of the richest men on the planet at that time, founded a society called the ‘Unity of Opposites’. Not many people believed that one day he would transform from a successful and practical businessman into a philosopher and philanthropist. Nevertheless, many different people became interested in his ideas and joined a team under his leadership. Andre thought that every human being has two opposite sides: one being a creative side, while the other a destructive side. The latter makes people desire limitless power which they use to start wars and enslave others; save up enormous fortunes at the expense of simple workers; and turn a blind eye to the hungry and terminally ill. Mendes was absolutely convinced that the expanding human ‘ego’ was to blame for the destruction of civilization. Our leader taught his followers to be aware of that destructive part, to find the line beyond which our feelings and desires become a deadly weapon against ourselves and the outside world.”
“Is this all the philosophy?”
“In general terms, yes. Many people thought that Andre created yet another sect of fanatics; however, with time, his teachings bore real fruit. People who managed to tame their ego and achieved harmony could discover new inner abilities. As a result, they could easily develop cutting-edge technologies and expand the human knowledge in all areas of science. Soon after, a large plot of land on the African continent was purchased where the society members built a whole city; a stronghold of science and new philosophy. Their inventions could help the human race to recover from many illnesses, preserve nature, create alternative sources of energy and much more. Besides, all of that was free of charge. Andre proposed to the governments of the world to collaborate in providing mutual help in the development and application of new technologies; not for profit or war victories, but for the sake of the harmonious co-existence of all the people on the planet.”
“But this is utopia!”
“No. He promoted the principles of rationality. However, politicians, religious organisations and large corporations wanted to master new knowledge in order to use it for their own benefit. As the years went by, the number of our enemies grew more and more. After seven years, the confrontation between the Unity and the rest of the world reached its culmination when an attempted assassination of Andre occurred during his annual speech. On that day the Council, created by Andre to manage his organization’s affairs, faced the ever-important question of ‘what to do?’ Their philosophy did not accept any kind of military resistance, but what could they do to defend their beliefs? After the injury, our founder was very weak and the councillors were afraid that the death of their leader in the circumstances of an implacable hostility could become fatal for the whole society. It was then that the ‘Solar Flotilla’ project, housed in some of the city buildings, became the ultimate priority. In its core lay one astrophysicist’s dissertation, where he had predicted the destruction of Earth due to strong flames from the Sun. Using this paper as a base, Andre Mendes decided to develop several experimental projects-arks of some sort, able to save humanity from extinction. The construction was in full swing, but this time with a new purpose. Gradually all the society members were relocated to the ships. None of the enemies had the slightest idea about the magnitude of the project. They were only watching closely fearing a strong reaction from the ‘Unity of Opposites’ to their potential direct hostilities. This never happened and on 22 July 2025 five of the biggest city buildings roared to the air and left planet Earth forever.”
She stopped.
Derek did not move and continued staring at nothing in particular in front of him.
“I realize that my story sounds absolutely bizarre and probably confuses you even more, taking into consideration your memory loss about any events that happened to you on Earth.”
“I guess you̓re right…” the young man answered, puzzled.. “All this is absolutely incomprehensible… The two hundred years in stasis, the people who had left Earth before my birthday and who continue living now in a space city…”