Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon
68
International Bob
I PROMISED MAY that I knew several people at Space Pioneers and could get her in to see them. She was doubtful at first, but I convinced her with a first class ticket to Houston where the main offices were. Doug met us there. She recognized him from the television show.
“I’ll take it from here, Cleveland Bob,” he said, using the name I’d adopted for my travels. “We’ll give you a call and let you know how things turn out.” He led May to a conference room. I went into a bathroom and transformed to The Bob. Twenty minutes later, I entered the conference room.
May gasped when she saw me.
“Hello, May. I’m Bob,” I said. “We’ve had a lot of applications to be on the show, but I think you’re the only one that tracked us down here.”
“It uh… wasn’t really me who did the tracking. The import/export guy I met in Cleveland made all the arrangement. If you don’t mind, this uh… Doug didn’t give me a chance to say a proper goodbye. I’d like to see Bob again.”
“That’s not a problem. I hope he was civil and decent to you.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve never met someone quite like him. I really like him, you know. I mean, I’m sure I’ll like you, too. I did apply to be on your show.”
“And so you are,” I said, pointing out the cameras in the room. She caught her breath again.
“So, tell me about your design for a space station that would fly away from earth. Do you have drawings? Specifications?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “They’re probably too much for the budget of a television show. I was hoping to talk to the people at Space Pioneers because maybe they could get funding for it.”
“I see. You didn’t know I’m the majority shareholder in Space Pioneers.”
“You are? I thought that president fellow, Leroy Reese, founded and owned it. He’s always in the news as the spokesperson.”
“Yes. He runs most things on a daily basis. The Mars Mission is all mine. So, tell me more about yourself.”
We got into quite a conversation. Many of the things she was telling me were a repeat of what she had told Bob of Cleveland. But there was significant new information, as well.
“It’s almost impossible for a woman to get a hearing in the science and technology arena. And what’s worse, using just a first initial is as much a red flag to reviewers as a woman’s name. Their first assumption is that it is a woman trying not to appear to be a woman. I have to ask, did you ever select a woman for your crew who wasn’t sexually active with you? That seems to be the expectation.”
“Actually, that was never intended. It has worked out that way in a majority of cases, but I don’t bring women to Areola just to have sex with me.”
“Areola. You named your palace after a woman’s nipple.”
“The women named it. I had nothing to say about it.”
“I see. So, what do I need to do to get selected as one of your crew, if it isn’t sleep with you? I mean… You’re nice. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be a hardship to sleep with you. But I’d like to be valued for what I can contribute, not for my collection of holes,” she said. “Um… Besides, as nice as I think you are, I’d kind of like to see where the relationship with Cleveland Bob goes. I do like him.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I will make no demands on you, but understand that Bob has responsibilities traveling around the world. Your base of operation will be here in Houston,” I said.
“My base of operation? You mean I’m hired?”
“I expect you to head up the design team for our space station cum interplanetary colony ship. Can you handle that?”
“Yes! Yes! Oh, thank you, Bob. Uh… Do you mind if I call Cleveland Bob and tell him the good news?”
“I’ll step out and give you privacy.” I immediately headed down the hall so she couldn’t hear my phone ring.
Let me tell you about Mia in Firenze. I know that’s a jump, but it’s the next thing on my mind. It started with a conversation I had with Doug on that visit to Houston.
“It would be awfully damn nice if you could just open a gateway to and from Areola whenever and wherever you wanted to without depending on the satchel to function as your portal,” Doug said. I would leave him in Houston, as I headed off to Europe. There were just so many loose ends. We’d hired nearly a thousand non-Areola personnel to work on the production of season two, in addition to those special individuals who were jumping in and out of Areola from my satchel.
“You mean open a gateway to Areola from wherever I happen to be, regardless of where the satchel is? And open a gateway from Areola to anyplace in the natural world? I don’t know if that can be done, Doug. Areola is kind of in the bag.”
It was an interesting concept and I don’t know why I’d never thought of it before. I had often thought of Areola as being in the satchel, so I needed to be where the satchel was in order to protect Areola. This would be a completely different understanding of what that meant.
“Bob! Did you hear me?”
“Sorry, Doug. You just got me thinking. What was it?”
“Yes, but the big problem today is that you need to be in Italy on Sunday to meet Mia D’Angelo. She’s going to be touring the cathedral in Firenze, compiling historical notes for the Società di Antropologia Religiosa. She is a member of the Order of Shebites, a non-monastic order of nuns and outspoken critics of the Pope,” Doug said.
“I’m going to interview a nun for a place in my harem?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes. But don’t get in the habit,” Doug laughed. I just groaned.
“Unlike many of our contestants, her life reads like an open book,” Doug continued. “She’s been in the news since she was fifteen and told the pope that he was wrong about the church’s stand on celibacy and the acts of priests through the ages had proven it. She quoted Paul in saying ‘Better to marry than to burn,’ and that she sincerely hoped the priests who abused nuns and children were burning in hell.”
“And they allowed her to become a nun?”
“The Order of Shebites snatched her up immediately, rushed her off to their chapter house, and helped her refine her position. She is actually vacationing to conduct her research for the Society of Religious Archaeology. The Shebites are devoted to the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom and take their name from the Queen of Sheba, praised both in the books of Solomon and in the Koran.”
“Wow. Am I up to this?”
“Only time will tell, Bob. Good luck.”
I didn’t have a problem talking to the nun. She wasn’t naked. Sister Mia D’Angelo was a pleasant woman in her late twenties with a real thirst for knowledge. She was making notes as she walked through the duomo. I paused beside her and looked up at the duomo.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she asked. “Every brick cut precisely to the measurements needed to create the eight-sided dome.”
“One hundred fourteen and a half meters from the floor to the top of the lantern above the dome. You know that’s more than the length of a football field!” I responded.
“Oh, my, you know your architecture, don’t you?”
“I studied this particular cathedral extensively.” I cut myself off before I added, “as it was being built.” She would definitely not understand my being in Firenze when the cathedral was built. I’d intended to come back and help with the dome, but just before I headed that direction, Esmira managed to trap me in the infinity room.
“What can you tell me about it… uh…?”
“Bob,” I supplied offering my hand. She took it warmly.
“Mia.” No last name. No ‘sister’ or other honorific. Just Mia.
“Well, let me see. You probably know there was a competition to see who would become the architect/builder for the dome. The walls had already been erected and it remained for someone to engineer the dome. DiCambio had actually built a model of the dome that was fifteen feet high, right over there. But the engineering had never been done at the scale of this dome. Before or since. Brunelleschi won the competition to engineer the dome, closely contended by Ghiberti. There was some competition by two patrons of the architects that resulted in Ghiberti being awarded an equal sum to Brunelleschi’s.”
“I have read that the two architects were not only competitors, but were close friends,” Mia said. “Ghiberti even took over the construction when Brunelleschi became ill.”
“It was an illness, I believe, that was feigned, specifically to get his rival out of the way,” I said. Mia looked at me sharply for an explanation. “You see, the tools we would use today to measure and cut the bricks of the outer shell had not yet been invented. Simply measuring the model and scaling up left quite a lot of variances. After laying several courses of bricks, modifying the sizes by a technique he did not share, he feigned his illness and begged his dear friend to continue his work so the dome would be completed. Ghiberti took over, but did not have the technique for making the courses turn out correctly. After a year, he gave up in frustration. At that time, Brunelleschi miraculously recovered from his illness and came back to work, finishing some years later. The dome, I’m told, was finished before Brunelleschi’s death in 1446, but the lantern was constructed after.”
“And what was this special technique that Brunelleschi used to make his course of bricks fit perfectly and that Ghiberti could not do?”
“There were some ingenious techniques, like the double wall, the chain supports, and the herringbone laying pattern, but exactly how he fit the bricks and kept them from caving in, he never revealed. I have studied the structure and all the most scientific data concerning how the dome was built and how it stands. I believe there was only one way he could have managed it, given the tools and measurement systems he had.”
“And that was?”
“Magic,” I whispered. Mia’s eyes lit up.
“Mister Bob, why don’t we have dinner together. I would like to explore this a bit more with you.”
“It would be my delight, Miss Mia.”
“I’m doing research for a report on the anthropology surrounding the great cathedrals of Europe,” she said when we were seated in a trattoria. “I look at the local culture and glean as much as I can about the people I find. The evidence of the gothic and new romance styles of cathedrals from about 800 to 1400 AD puts them at the same level as the great pyramids of Egypt in terms of the mystery of construction,” Mia said.
“How so?” I asked. “I’ve seen the great pyramids and they are at a scale far above the cathedral.”
“Yes, but what intrigues me is that neither society had the technology to build them. Here in Firenze, there weren’t even enough trees to cut to build a scaffold high enough to reach the dome.”
“And the scaffolds they had shook and were as likely to collapse or pitch a man off them as to help in the construction,” I said, remembering going around the building muttering binding spells to hold the scaffold together. “Another of Brunelleschi’s inventions was a platform anchored into the dome as it was being built.”
On one of those nights, I became aware of someone following me. I turned suddenly and found a young man. As soon as he was discovered, he rushed to the scaffold and attempted to rattle the joint I’d just bound. He turned back to me.
“Teach me,” he said. It was a simple request. “O Angel of the Lord, teach me to bind the blocks of this temple in honor of the Most High.” Okay. Not a request. A prayer.
I would have expunged his memory and walked away, but I had a strange feeling inside. It was as if Ninra was speaking to me out of the past.
“Teach him.”
That was not a request. It was an absolute command. I pulled the scrap on which I’d written Ninra’s spell to bind the bricks of his temple. It was essentially the same spell I’d used when building pagodas in China and holding the scaffold up in Italy. I sat with the young man all night long until I was certain he had the spell correct and just needed to go practice. Then I commanded him never to reveal it to another.
“I didn’t even think of that. Imagine even building a wooden scaffold out of today’s lumber materials that would reach a hundred meters in the air!” She paused to scratch a note in her journal. “When I look at the tools that were used and the precision of the scale, I have to believe that some sort of supernatural assistance was available for the construction. Even if it was only to guide a man like Brunelleschi in inventing tools like the lewis for lifting stones, he had divine help.”
“Or demonic help,” I suggested. She stopped abruptly and looked at me long and hard.
“Are you a Satanist?”
“No. Not at all. I merely suggest that supernatural help might come from a number of non-human beings. We call it divine if it comes from the God of the Christians.”
“And demonic if it comes from the God of the… uh… Romans,” she laughed.
“Or from any other being summoned from the primordial mass and imbued with such power as the summoner grants it.”
“I do not believe in superstitions of that sort.”
“What sort of superstitions do you believe in?”
“I… Don’t twist my words. I’m not superstitious.”
“Do you believe in prayer?”
“Of course.”
I simply held my hands up to present the case in point.
“Prayer is not the same as magic. Its answers come from God.”
“And how, exactly is that different than a… Roman praying to Jupiter and receiving an answer?”
“All answers come from God.”
“Then God might answer in any form? If Brunelleschi prayed to a god of masonry for an answer to lifting the heavy blocks and the God of Christians answered, how would he know the difference? And therefore, I submit, if he prayed to the God of Christians for an answer and the god of masonry answered, is that not, too, God’s will?”
“I have debated these very points within the sisterhood. But to acknowledge any other god than our Lord is heresy and I have trod dangerously near that in many instances,” she said.
“Like the celibacy of priests?” I asked.
“Are you an inquisitor?” she demanded. “I have treated fairly with you and have answered honestly, decrying heresy.”
“I am not of the church in any way,” I said. “I am not here to examine you on its behalf. I merely recognized you from… it must have been twelve or fifteen years ago. Quite a write-up in the news.”
“Thirteen years. The Sisters of Sheba gave me refuge and helped me formulate challenges that would not step over that line. They gave me a superb education.”
“Yet, you are still seeking another answer. One that does not seem to be found in the stones of the cathedral.”
“You seem to know me so well, Bob. I am on a quest for knowledge that seems to be officially denied and buried so deeply that people no longer think it exists,” she said. I poured another glass of wine, pleased to see it was from a small vineyard east of the city. Some things are more durable than even the temples we build.
We continued a stimulating chat that covered cultures and customs of a thousand years. When at last, I paid our check and we rose to go, we had put away two bottles of wine along with our meals. It was a beautiful night.
“Bob, I hope you don’t think me too forward, but I would like to see you again,” she said as we were ready to part ways.
“I would enjoy that,” I said. “But are you permitted a liaison with a man, Sister Mia?”
“I did not ask to sleep with you,” she said. “Though, were that to happen, I don’t believe my vows would interfere. I seldom find a man with thoughts as deep as yours. Most merely recite their catechism and are done with the conversation. You seem to have a depth of experience I would like to tap into.”
Yes, I actually thought she had depths I would like to tap as well. I wisely did not give that thought to my tongue.
“Then I would be delighted to go out with you whenever and as often as you would like,” I said.
“Good. Let’s meet at the museum tomorrow afternoon. I want you to explain what magic you believe might have been used in the construction of the duomo.”
“It will be my pleasure, Mia,” I said.
Then she surprised me by moving close and kissing me on the cheek. She tittered a bit, then turned to walk away.
It might sound like I just flew from Houston to Italy, and had only those two stops as I sought out talent for the next show. I’d been to Georgia, New York, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Brisbane, Rio, and Moscow. It was going to be a very international show, but I was having to spend a day between each stop just recovering in Areola and getting my head in the space for the next girl on the list. I watched recordings of my previous encounters and reviewed with the crew and family what I should be doing next.
I ended up back in Houston, which had been a regular stopover on my trips to see May. She was happily working on her designs for our space station/interstellar ship.
“How’s it coming?” I asked. I was still carefully maintaining a separation between The Bob and Cleveland Bob. As The Bob, I was getting daily reports on the progress and had made a few calls to smooth out the path for her. I let it be known that this was what I wanted and even the scientists grudgingly reviewed her designs, eventually becoming confused about them.
“Oh, it’s great, but I miss you. The preliminary station plans passed review, but now the hard part is to get the finals coordinated with all the departments that have to contribute to it. It seems like every time I need something, Presto! it appears. I was having difficulty with a materials list and this girl, Sally, shows up and introduces me to a new alloy that another division of The Bob’s company had developed. I have no idea how the stuff is made, but I had it run through various stress tests and it’s the lightest and strongest alloy that’s ever been manufactured. I guess it’s exclusive to our ship. It’s good that it will be so light. We’ll still have to shoot tons of it into space to build the station.”
“That sounds great. How about the power plant and engines?”
“Presto! An atomic engineer appears on the staff. He’s got some interesting concepts about compressing atomic fuel and channeling off only as much power as is needed at the time. I can hardly believe his estimates on output. It’s hard work and I’m crunching numbers absolutely all day long, but I’m so excited, Bob. Let’s go to my place.”
“Are you sure, May? I mean, The Bob is doing all this stuff for you and is really making things happen for you.”
“I won’t lie to you, honey. If I’d met him first, I probably would have fallen head over heels in love with him. But it’s hard to do that when I’m already head over heels in love with you.”
“Then let’s go to your place, lover,” I said.
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