The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Twenty-Six: The Forgotten Name

Chapter Twenty-Six of my book, The Journey to Eternity, shared here chapter by chapter as I write it. Earlier chapters: Chapter One · Chapter Two · Chapter Three · Chapter Four · Chapter Five · Chapter Six · Chapter Seven · Chapter Eight · Chapter Nine · Chapter Ten · Chapter Eleven · Chapter Twelve · Chapter Thirteen · Chapter Fourteen · Chapter Fifteen · Chapter Sixteen · Chapter Seventeen · Chapter Eighteen · Chapter Nineteen · Chapter Twenty · Chapter Twenty-One · Chapter Twenty-Two · Chapter Twenty-Three · Chapter Twenty-Four · Chapter Twenty-Five.

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Forgotten Name

For the first time since we had begun investigating the old stations, something we had built ourselves stood before us.

Three transparent circles floated in the center of Naama's workshop. Thin lines of light stretched between them, strengthening and weakening according to the system's activity.

The first circle represented the disconnected space.

The second was a simulated observation space, in which a consciousness could experience a representation of another place without leaving its own.

And the third presented a possible destination in the open world.

There was no real passage between them. No door was about to open, and no consciousness was supposed to change its place.

And yet I had difficulty taking my eyes off them.

Maybe because until now we had tried to understand systems built so long ago that even those who researched them no longer knew how to explain all their actions.

This time we could set the boundaries ourselves.

And also bear responsibility for what would happen within them.

Naama stood by the control panel. Adra examined the circles' stability, Sahar checked the stopping mechanism, and Eliya compared the results with the records gathered in the previous experiments.

Liara stood beside me.

"Do you think it will work?" I asked.

"I hope so."

"And if not?"

"We'll learn why."

I looked at the circles.

"I wish we could learn without endangering anyone."

"That is exactly why we begin with a simulation."

Naama raised her head.

"We're ready for the first test."

First we sent a simple signal into the system.

A point of light appeared in the first circle. It passed through the communication line to the second circle, and there expanded into a vague shape.

Sahar activated the stopping mechanism.

The shape vanished at once.

"The disconnection works," he said.

Naama nodded.

She repeated the test several times, each time at a different strength.

One time a small fluctuation appeared in the third circle.

Adra stopped the experiment.

"There's a response we didn't ask for," she said.

"From where?" I asked.

"From the simulated destination."

"But it isn't supposed to influence the second circle."

"Correct."

Naama opened the experiment record I had brought from the Archive of First Possibilities.

She compared the lines.

"There's an indirect connection here," she said. "The circles don't transfer a consciousness, but a change in the structure of one of them can influence the way the others present information."

"Like the point that moved in Arena's experiment?"

"Similar, but not identical."

Adra approached the surface.

"We'll need to separate the displays too, not only the communication channels."

They worked for a while.

When they finished, they sent the test signal again.

This time the third circle remained stable.

Sahar activated the stopping mechanism.

All the lights went out at once.

"Good," Naama said. "Now we can offer the first experiment."

"To Nir?" I asked.

"I thought to begin precisely with the woman who spoke with him."

"Why?"

"Because she asked to understand her memories before deciding whether to leave. The simulation may let her look at things she remembers, without our needing to enter them."

I thought of the window she had told us about.

Of the plant pots.

Of the water drops that slid from the leaves.

"And if she doesn't want to?"

"We'll turn the system off and go on working."

The connection opened after the woman received an explanation of the experiment and agreed to participate.

Her voice was heard from within the bowl.

"Do you hear me?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Is this the new place you told me about?"

"It's a simulation," Naama explained. "You'll stay in your place. If you want, you can see and describe things that appear in the observation space."

"And you'll see my memories?"

"No. We'll be able to see only the shapes you choose to present."

"How will I know what I'm presenting?"

"We'll try gradually. If something feels wrong to you, tell us."

She was silent.

"I want Nir to hear me."

"We can ask him if he's interested in joining the conversation," Naama said.

We sent him a request.

After a short time his voice was heard.

"I'm here."

"Can you hear me?" the woman asked.

"Yes."

"I'm about to try something."

"I know."

"I'm a little afraid."

"I was afraid too when I spoke with Nera."

"But you weren't inside this system."

"Correct."

He stopped.

"If you want me to stop talking, say so."

She didn't answer at once.

"I actually want you to stay."

Naama activated the second circle.

At first only white light appeared in it.

The woman was silent.

"Do you see anything?" Liara asked.

"Light."

"Does it bother you?"

"No."

"Do you want us to leave it like this?"

"Wait."

The light began to change.

Within it a rectangular shape appeared.

At first I didn't understand what I was seeing.

Then two vertical lines formed, and between them a bright surface.

A window.

The woman made a short sound of surprise.

"That's the window," she said.

Naama looked at the record.

"The system presents your description. It doesn't extract a memory."

"But it looks like my window."

"Can you change it?"

The shape changed.

The windowsill widened.

Beside it appeared a small vessel, and after it two plant pots.

"There were three," the woman said.

A third pot appeared.

"One of them was taller."

The pot rose a little.

"And its leaves were narrow."

The leaves changed.

Nir listened quietly.

"Do you remember the home?" he asked at last.

"Not all of it."

"But you remember the window."

"Yes."

"Then maybe tell me what was outside."

The woman was silent.

The light in the circle dimmed.

"I don't know," she said.

"That's all right."

"I'm trying to see, but everything mixes."

Naama lowered the display's strength a little.

"We can stop."

"No. I want to stay another moment."

We waited.

Then a small drop of light appeared on the windowsill.

It rolled along a leaf, stopped at its edge and fell.

The woman laughed.

"That always happened."

"What?" I asked.

"The water would drip from the leaves onto the floor. Someone would complain about it."

"Who?"

She tried to remember.

The drop vanished.

"I don't know."

"You don't need to know now," Nir said.

The woman was silent.

"You always say that," she said.

"What?"

"That one doesn't need to know everything now."

"Because I myself don't know much."

She laughed again.

Naama kept the simulation stable.

"If you want," she told the woman, "you can try to create a shape that represents you within the room."

"How?"

"Think of the way you want to see yourself."

"But I don't remember how I looked."

"You don't have to reconstruct the body you had."

The woman was silent.

After a while a small point of light appeared before the window.

It expanded slowly.

At first it looked like a cloud.

Then delicate outlines formed within it.

A head.

Shoulders.

Two arms.

Not a real body, but a shape created from the information she chose to present.

"I see hands," the woman said.

She sounded surprised.

The shape raised its arms.

"Are these my hands?"

Liara approached the circle.

"These are the hands you imagine now."

The woman looked at them.

"I remember something."

No one spoke.

"I had a ring."

On one of the fingers appeared a thin line of light.

It curved, widened, and at last received a deep blue shade.

"It was blue," she whispered.

I came closer.

The ring looked simple.

Not large.

Not decorated.

Just a blue, thin ring.

"Do you remember who gave it to you?" I asked.

"No."

She went on looking at it.

"But I remember I would turn it on my finger when I was thinking."

The shape in the circle began turning the ring.

The movement was so small and natural that for a moment I forgot we were looking at a simulation.

The woman was silent for a long time.

Then she said:

"I think I remember my name."

Naama raised her head.

"Do you want to say it?" I asked.

"I'm not sure."

"You can wait."

The shape in the circle stopped moving.

"Ayla," the woman said at last.

The name sounded almost like a question.

She repeated it.

"Ayla."

We were silent.

"I think that's my name."

"How does it feel to you?" I asked.

"Familiar."

She laughed a small laugh.

"As if someone once called me that, and I turned toward him."

Nir was heard from the bowl.

"Then hello, Ayla."

She laughed again.

"Hello, Nir."

For a moment I thought the experiment had succeeded exactly as we had hoped.

The woman who had difficulty distinguishing between her memories and others' memories had managed to create a shape for herself, identify a movement familiar to her, and perhaps even remember her name.

But then Adra noticed a change in the record.

"Naama, look at this."

Naama came closer.

"What happened?" I asked.

"The simulation is beginning to present details that didn't appear in her description."

I looked at the circle.

Behind the window appeared a door.

It was closed.

Ayla turned toward it.

"I didn't ask for a door."

Naama lowered the display's strength.

The door remained.

"Ayla, do you recognize it?" I asked.

"No."

Nir sounded worried.

"What's happening?"

"We're checking a change in the display," Naama replied.

Adra examined the data.

"The system also uses information that remained in the communication channel from the previous conversations."

"What information?"

"Descriptions heard in the bowl. It may connect them without distinguishing whom they belong to."

I looked at the door.

"So it can show Ayla someone else's memory?"

"It can present a shape built from someone else's information," Naama specified. "And that is exactly the problem. Ayla might think she's remembering something she never experienced."

I felt a chill.

A moment ago we were so glad when she said her name.

And now I no longer knew whether the simulation had helped her remember or only gave a shape to something she wanted to find.

"Ayla," I said, "we need to stop the display."

"Why?"

"Because we're not sure everything appearing in it was created from your things."

She looked at the blue ring.

"The ring too?"

"We don't know."

"And my name?"

I didn't want to answer.

"That too we'll need to check carefully."

The light around the shape weakened.

"But I remember it," she said.

"I believe you that you feel it's familiar."

"Then why can't you simply be happy with me?"

The question hurt me.

"I'm happy for you," I said. "I just don't want us to tell you we're certain of something we haven't checked yet."

Ayla was silent.

Then she said:

"I want you to turn off the door. But leave me the hands."

Naama looked at Adra.

"We can try to isolate the display," Adra said. "But if it keeps using shared information, we'll have to turn off all of it."

"Try," Ayla asked.

Naama removed the old information channels from the system.

The door vanished.

The window and the pots also began to dim.

Ayla looked around.

"Wait," she said. "I'm losing the room."

"We're disconnecting the information used to build it," Naama explained.

"But I don't want to lose everything."

"You're not losing your memories because the display is turned off," Liara said. "We're only stopping presenting them here."

Ayla was silent.

She raised her hands.

They were still clearly visible.

The blue ring remained on her finger.

"Why didn't it disappear?" she asked.

Naama examined the record.

"Because you keep creating its shape yourself."

"So it really was mine?"

"I don't know, Ayla. We know only that the image remained even after we disconnected the information from the other channels."

Ayla turned the ring.

"I remember this movement," she said. "More than I remember the ring itself."

I looked at her fingers.

Sometimes the body remembers a movement even when the mind struggles to find a story for it. But Ayla had no human body now, and I couldn't know whether the movement we saw was a memory or a new way of expressing an old feeling.

"I want to keep it," she said.

"You can," Naama replied. "Within the simulation."

Ayla smiled.

"Even if it turns out it was never mine?"

"Even then."

We went on watching the simulation.

Ayla learned to move the shape she had created. Sometimes the hands lengthened a little, sometimes they became transparent. She tried to create hair, but gave up after a few attempts.

"I don't remember what hair I had," she said.

"You can choose how you want it to look in the simulation," Liara said.

"But I want to know how I really looked."

"Then maybe we shouldn't try to guess."

Ayla nodded.

She left her head without clear details.

After a while she asked to see the open world.

Naama opened a small observation window for her.

Beyond it were visible transparent structures, distant lights and lines stretched between them.

Nera appeared in a separate channel, from her room at the receiving station.

"Do you see it?" she asked.

"Yes," Ayla replied.

"That's part of the place where I live."

"Is there more?"

"Very much."

"And can you walk between the structures?"

"Yes."

Ayla looked at the window.

"I want to see them up close."

"Maybe one day you will," Nera said.

Ayla turned to us.

"I want to try to come closer."

Naama checked the system.

"We can enlarge the picture. We won't move you from your place."

"That's enough for now."

The picture came closer.

Ayla looked at the structures for a long time.

She didn't ask to pass.

Only to see.

When the experiment ended, Naama began turning off the circles.

The window vanished first.

After it the human shape.

The hands and the blue ring dissolved slowly.

"I'm still here," Ayla said from the bowl.

"We hear you," I replied.

"I thought maybe I'd feel as if something was taken from me when the picture disappears."

"And how do you feel?"

"Strange. But I still remember the ring."

"And the name?"

She was silent a moment.

"Ayla."

I heard a smile in her voice.

"Yes. I want you to keep calling me Ayla."

"So we shall."

"And I want to speak with Nir again."

"We'll ask him too."

"I want to," his voice was heard at once.

Ayla laughed.

"Then we'll talk later."

The connection closed.

Adra stood before the records.

"We have a problem," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"The system didn't transfer memories, but it did use information from several channels to create one picture."

"Is that a fault that can be fixed?"

"Probably. But it teaches us something important."

Naama came closer.

"We must not assume that a display that looks precise is also precise testimony about its source."

I thought of the window.

Of the ring.

Of the name Ayla.

"So we don't know if she really remembered."

"We know she identified something as familiar," Naama said. "And we know the experience was significant for her. But the information's source is still unverified."

Adra enlarged the ring's record.

"There's an interesting detail here."

"What?"

"The blue color appeared before the system received an explicit description of it."

"So it came from her memory?"

"Possibly. But we need to check whether this information appeared in one of the previous channels."

I looked at the record.

The ring looked so simple.

And yet I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Later I found Liara in the garden.

She stood by the pool and looked at the reflection of the silver leaves.

"Do you think Ayla really remembered her name?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"She sounded certain."

"Sometimes we're certain about things that aren't true too."

"But she felt real joy."

"Correct."

I sat down.

"So what matters more? That the memory be accurate, or that she can build something from it?"

Liara thought.

"I don't think one has to choose between the two."

"Why?"

"Because one can honor what she feels without presenting it as a proven fact."

I looked at the water.

"But if one day we discover Ayla wasn't her name?"

"Then she can decide what to do with that knowledge."

"And if she doesn't want to know?"

"That too is a question we'll need to ask her."

I was silent.

I remembered the woman who woke in my body.

We both held the same memories until the moment our paths separated.

Since then we had experienced different things.

Did the shared memories make one of us more real than the other?

I couldn't think so.

But I didn't want to say memories aren't important either.

They were part of the way I knew myself.

When I returned to the workshop, I found Naama before the receiving station's map.

The two dots were still visible between the parallel lines.

One marked the active entry request.

The second, the stop request.

"Are they still there?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Nothing changed?"

"Something small."

Naama enlarged the record.

"The stop request was sent again."

"And the system?"

"Rejected it for the same reason. The sender is not authorized to cancel the entry request."

I came closer.

"So someone keeps trying."

"So it seems."

Adra entered the room.

"I found something in the archive," she said.

Naama turned.

"What?"

"In the receiving station's old records there's a reference to a state in which an entry request continues operating even after the destination stops answering."

"And what is done in such a case?"

"According to the instructions, the activation source must be located and the request cancelled from there."

"But we don't know who the source is."

"Correct."

Adra placed the record on the table.

"And there's something else."

She opened another layer.

In the case of an entry request with no identified source, no alternative route is to be activated.

A waiting state is to be maintained until the activator's identity is clarified.

Naama looked at her.

"That's a clear instruction."

"Yes. But someone added a later note."

Adra enlarged the line beneath it.

If the inner space replies to the request, the reply is not to be seen as entry approval.

I looked at the words.

"Meaning, even if someone answers from inside the station, it doesn't mean he agrees to receive whoever asks to enter."

"Exactly," Adra said.

I thought of the voice we heard at Nera's.

Don't let them open.

"So maybe whoever is inside tries to warn us."

"That's a possibility," Naama replied.

"And maybe the stop request comes from him."

"That's a possibility too. But we still have no identification."

Naama was about to close the record when we heard a faint signal from the bowl.

"Someone asks to speak," Eliya said.

"Who?"

"The woman who calls herself Ayla."

We opened the connection.

"I'm sorry to disturb," she said.

"You're not disturbing," I replied.

"I wanted to ask something."

"Please."

"When you created the window's picture, you said some of the things may have come from other places."

"Correct."

"Can you know where the ring came from?"

I looked at Naama.

"We're checking," she replied.

"I want you to check something else too."

"What?"

"When I turned the ring in the simulation, I heard a voice."

Naama approached the bowl.

"What voice?"

"A woman singing."

"Do you remember the song?" I asked.

"No. Only the feeling that I knew it."

"Did you hear it during the simulation?" Naama asked.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell us before?"

"Because I was afraid you'd turn everything off."

I was silent.

Ayla continued.

"I know it was an experiment. But for me it was the first time I saw something that felt like part of me. I didn't want it to end."

"I understand," I said.

"Now I want to know if the voice was mine, or someone else's."

Naama looked at the records.

"We'll check."

"And if you discover it wasn't mine?"

"We'll tell you what we found, if you still want to know."

Ayla was silent.

"I want to."

After the connection closed, Naama returned to the experiment's record.

She checked all the information channels that had been connected to the bowl.

Suddenly she stopped.

"I found something."

"What?" I asked.

"The ring's description didn't appear in any of the conversations we saved."

"So it came from Ayla?"

"Probably from the information she created during the simulation. But it's still impossible to determine whether it's an accurate memory or an image created at that moment."

Adra came closer.

"And what about the song?"

Naama checked.

"No voice signal of singing was recorded in the communication channel."

"So she imagined it?"

"She may have heard it from within her memory. The experience may also have been created in response to the simulation."

She opened another layer.

"But there's something else."

"What?"

"At the moment Ayla told about the ring, a small fluctuation appeared in her connection channel with the disconnected space."

"Her connection with Nir?" I asked.

"No. Her source channel."

Adra looked at the record.

"Could another consciousness have heard her?"

"It could be."

"Can we know who?"

Naama went on checking.

Then a new signal appeared.

Not a passage request.

Not an opening request.

Only an attempt to create contact.

"Someone is calling us," she said.

She opened the channel.

At first a noise was heard.

Then a faint female voice.

"Do you hear me?"

"Yes," Naama replied.

"I want to speak with the woman who was in the simulation."

"Do you know her?" I asked.

The voice was silent.

"I think so."

"How?"

"She used to talk with me sometimes. Before you began sending the new voices."

I thought of Ayla.

"Do you know what she's called?"

"No."

"And what are you called?"

A long silence fell.

"I don't remember the name I once had."

"Then what would you like us to call you?"

The voice delayed.

"You can call me Tama."

"Tama," I repeated.

"Yes."

"What do you remember about the woman you want to speak with?"

"She used to tell me about a window."

I looked at Naama.

"And about plants," Tama continued. "She used to say she remembers someone who waters them, but doesn't know who."

"And what else?"

"She was afraid when the memories mixed. Sometimes she would ask me if I heard the same thing she heard."

"And what would you answer?"

"The truth. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no."

Tama was silent.

"Today I heard her say a name."

"Ayla?"

"Yes."

"Is the name familiar to you?"

"I don't know."

"Then why did you want to speak with her?"

The voice trembled.

"Because she sounded happy."

I was silent.

"I hadn't heard her happy like that for a long time," Tama said. "I wanted to know if she's all right."

We asked Ayla's permission before connecting them.

She agreed.

The connection opened.

"Ayla?" Tama's voice was heard.

"Yes."

"I don't know if you remember me."

Ayla was silent.

"I know your voice," she said at last.

Tama didn't answer at once.

"Really?"

"I don't know from where. But it's familiar to me."

"We used to talk sometimes."

"About what?"

"About the window. About the plants. About things we weren't sure were ours."

Ayla thought.

"Were you the one who sang?"

Silence fell.

"Sometimes," Tama replied.

"Which song?"

"I don't remember all of it."

"Can you try?"

Tama was silent for a while.

Then a faint melody was heard.

Not the stations' passage tune.

A different melody.

Simple, almost childlike.

It rose a little, descended and stopped.

Ayla didn't speak.

I was silent too.

"Is that the song?" Tama asked.

"I don't know," Ayla replied.

There was sadness in her voice.

"But when I heard you sing, I felt I wanted to cry."

Tama was silent.

"Is that bad?" Ayla asked.

"I don't think so."

"I don't remember what was between us."

"I know."

"But I want you to tell me."

"What do you want to know?"

Ayla thought.

"Something small. Not everything at once."

Tama was silent a moment.

"Once you asked me to stop singing."

"Why?" Ayla asked.

"You said the song reminded you of something painful."

"And did you stop?"

"Yes."

"Were you angry?"

"A little. I loved to sing."

Ayla laughed quietly.

"Then why did you stop?"

"Because I didn't want you to suffer because of me."

There was silence.

Then Tama added:

"Afterward you would ask me to sing again, but you always told me to start from the middle."

"Why from the middle?"

"I don't know. You never explained."

Ayla was silent for a long time.

"I remember that," she said at last.

"The song?"

"No. The request. I remember I didn't want to hear the beginning."

Naama looked at Adra, but neither interfered.

"You can sing now," Ayla said.

"From the beginning?"

"No. From the middle."

Tama began to sing.

The melody was faint and simple. It didn't have the sounds we knew from the ancient passage mechanisms.

Ayla listened without moving.

When the song ended, she didn't say she remembered everything that had been.

She only asked Tama to sing it again another day.

When we disconnected the connection, I didn't feel a great mystery had been solved.

We didn't know if Ayla was her original name.

We didn't know who gave her the blue ring.

We didn't know if the song awakened a real memory or only a familiar feeling.

But now we had additional testimony.

Someone who remembered her.

Someone who could tell about things they had experienced together, without entering her thoughts and without changing them.

Adra examined the record.

"We'll need to keep the testimonies separate," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"So we don't mix between what Ayla remembers herself and what Tama tells about her."

Naama nodded.

"And if one day Ayla wants to compare them, we can do it without imposing any memory on her."

I thought of the human beings I had known.

Of photo albums.

Of stories family members told.

Of moments from childhood we didn't remember ourselves, but knew through people who loved us.

Sometimes another person's story helped us understand something about ourselves.

And sometimes we discovered he remembered the same moment completely differently.

Memory was not always one picture preserved in its entirety.

But I didn't want to think it could be replaced by any story told to us either.

Naama was about to close the system when a message arrived from the watch over the receiving station.

She opened it at once.

The two parallel lines appeared above the table.

The two dots were still visible between them.

One marked an active entry request.

The second, a stop request that wasn't approved.

"Is there a change?" Sahar asked.

"Yes."

Naama enlarged the record.

The stop request was renewed.

Cancellation cannot be performed without identifying the activation source.

"Again the same answer," Adra said.

"Not exactly," Naama replied.

She pointed at another line.

A request for direct communication from the inner space was received.

I looked at her.

"Can it be heard?"

"Maybe. But we'll need to check the channel isn't connected to the opening mechanism."

"How long will that take?" Sahar asked.

"I don't know."

Adra came closer.

"We won't hurry. Last time we already saw what happens when a system interprets a reply as if it were consent."

Naama nodded.

She saved the request without replying to it.

Then another message appeared.

A repeated communication request.

Priority: high.

"Someone insists on speaking," I said.

"Yes," Naama replied.

"But he isn't trying to open a passage."

"At least not through this channel."

I looked at the two dots.

I thought of Nera.

Of the woman who warned us.

And of whoever sent a stop request again and again, even though the system didn't allow him to cancel the entry.

"We need to get there," I said.

Naama looked at me.

"I know."

Later I returned to the garden.

Mira sat by the pool, but this time I didn't approach her.

I wanted to be alone for a while.

I looked at the trees and the distant lights.

I thought of Ayla.

Of the moment she saw hands in the simulation.

Of the blue ring.

Of the joy in her voice when she said her name.

I also thought of Tama.

Of how she remembered a conversation Ayla was no longer sure had taken place.

They both held different parts of the same connection.

I didn't know if they would manage to reconstruct everything that had been between them.

Maybe not.

But they had a possibility to go on talking.

They could ask.

Listen.

Know each other anew.

I thought of my human life.

Of the people I loved.

Of the changes I had undergone over the years.

Even without losing memory, I didn't remain the same woman I was in my youth.

Things that once mattered to me lost their meaning.

Other things became dearer.

But there were also memories I never wanted to lose.

Voices.

Smells.

A hand's touch.

A child's laughter.

Maybe our identity is not one thing that can be pointed at.

Maybe it is composed of the things we remember, the choices we make and the connections we keep creating.

And yet, I didn't want to use this thought to justify a loss imposed on someone.

Ayla asked to understand herself.

Nir asked to leave.

Tamara asked to stay.

There was no one answer that would suit everyone.

Liara found me by the pool.

"Naama asks that we return to the workshop," she said.

"Did something happen?"

"They managed to isolate the communication channel from the inner space."

I stood up at once.

"Can we hear who is there?"

"They haven't opened it yet."

We walked together.

When we entered the workshop, Naama stood by the map.

Adra and Eliya examined the channel's boundaries, and Sahar held the disconnection mechanism.

"Is the connection ready?" I asked.

"By the first tests, yes," Naama replied. "But we'll begin with a short message only."

"What will you send?"

"That we're listening, and that we won't open any passage."

Adra nodded.

"That's important. Whoever is there needs to know we don't interpret the communication request as entry approval."

Naama activated the channel.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then a faint light appeared in the map's center.

She sent the message.

Communication channel open.

No passage was activated.

Is there someone who wishes to deliver information?

We waited.

The light flickered.

Then a reply appeared.

Yes.

Sahar came closer.

"Can the sender be identified?"

Naama checked.

"No."

She sent another question.

Was the stop request sent from the inner space?

This time the reply was delayed.

The light weakened.

Then strengthened again.

Yes.

I looked at Adra.

"So whoever is there is trying to stop the entry."

"At least one of those who can send a signal from this space," she replied.

Naama sent a third question.

Why must the entry be stopped?

We waited.

For a long time no reply appeared.

I thought the connection was lost.

Then one line appeared.

The requester is not identified by the station because he is not in the place from which the request was sent.

Naama froze.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

Adra approached the record.

"If the information is correct, the old passage station serves to relay the request, but it isn't necessarily the place where it was created."

"So someone is using it remotely?" Sahar asked.

"Possibly."

Naama sent another question.

Do you know who operates the request?

The light flickered.

For a moment it seemed no reply would come.

Then new words appeared.

Don't look only for whoever asks to enter.

Check who gave him the way.

The light went out.

The connection was cut.

Naama looked at Adra.

Adra had already opened the old record of the two signatures.

One of them was ancient.

The second was hidden only recently.

End of Chapter Twenty-Six

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