POMPEII.
“You’re the best level ten galactic threat I’ve ever worked with,” said Edward Albert.
“Thanks.” Non faced the front in an elevator, Picoid on his shoulder.
“You need to work on your small talk. Strive to impress with every second.”
“I’m an introvert with–”
Edward waved the excuse away. “You could be charming if you weren’t lazy.”
Non struggled to maintain eye contact as he tried to come up with something to say.
Ᵽ SINCE YOU’RE BLANKING, SAY THE FOLLOWING:
“Edward, I’m honored I met you. I do hope you’ll help me to save Picoid. Feel free to contact me at any time, it would be my pleasure to spend more time with you.”
“Better. Do you like parties?” asked Edward, walking out as the elevator opened.
They stepped into a vast domed room with a ceiling transparent to the sky. ‘The 31 great circles of the icosahedral group.’ A dozen avians perched in upper levels of Dome 1.
“I would love a party, Edward. Anything you’d like, Picoid?”
Ᵽ ANTS, NUTS, BUGS, SUET AND SEEDS. THAT LIMPING HUMAN IS BLOODFOOT. LAKOTA. I KNEW HIM AS RUMBLER.
Non saw the American Indian barely walking with a blood-soaked pants leg.
Ñ̰ LOOKS LIKE A PAINFUL SCHTICK.
A stiff maître d’ koala waved by Edward but stopped Non. “Sir, you’re under medical dietary restrictions at the moment.” The koala assembled a set of cards with food choices and pointed to two other eateries. Each card featured a plant and details. The cashew leaves and fruit looked good. He didn’t know the nut was the only poisonous part.
Ᵽ I’LL TRY THE AVIAN BUFFET UP THERE.
After a nod, Non spread out the cards for a cook. “I’ll take any of these. I’m not picky.” The cook returned nine cards, then handed over a large tray with nine sections filled with those foods. “Next!”
With Edward’s advice in mind, Non thanked the cashier. As he perused a free buffet of freshly washed edible weeds, he missed his Information Overload. Violets and dandelions went into his feedbag, then he looked at a food card. “The aerial roots of giant mixe maize ooze a sweet mucus that feeds symbiotic nitrogen-producing bacteria. This corn dish contains some of the sweet mucus.” One table had floor padding suitable for a large taur. He settled there. ‘Mucus, yum!’
“Oshá, spicy celery or bear root, is a mountain plant in the carrot family. This mildly bitter dish mixes the roots, stalk and leaves.” Non liked it.
Ᵽ I FOUND LUNCH AND MET NEW BIRDS. I CAN READ YOUR CARDS FROM WAY UP HERE. MY VISION IS GREAT!
Non wrote the numbers -7 to 7 on blank salt packets and started arranging them on the table as he ate, read messages and filed reports. Chyron sent an article on the double thymus gland system for tauroid regenerators. Non notified Dad of his location. He enjoyed the mixe mucus mixture as Edward Albert joined him with a large bento box.
[https://i.imgur.com/8vfefmf.png]
“It’s been too long since I’ve had lunch with someone. Thank you, Edward.” He started on a murnong dish. ‘This sweet tuber served as a primary food source in Australia before its eradication.’
“You’re welcome. What’s this you’ve laid out?”
“This is my Magic Mod 15 Orchard.”
“The black vertical 4-5-6 makes 15?”
“Sorta. Mod 15, that sum is Zero.”
“So white is plus, black is minus?”
“That or vice-versa, sure.”
║ I UNDERSTAND THIS! 4 + 0 - 4 IS ZERO!
Ñ̰ CORRECT. THAT’S ONE OF THE LINES.
║ THE 31 GRAY LINES MAKE ZERO, MOD 15!
Ñ̰ THAT’S RIGHT, TYCHO.
“Does that maximize zero triplets?”
“Max is ⌊1/6 (p-3) p⌋+1 lines except for sporadic cases. So p=15 gives 31 lines. Proved by Terence Tao and Ben Green.”
“What are the sporadic cases?”
“The known sporadic cases are 7, 11, 16 and 19 points for 6, 16, 37 and 52 lines.”
“Who found the last sporadic case?”
“I did. 16 points with one at ∞.”
“Got a picture? Oh, is this it?”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Yes. Extend the six horizontal parallel lines to ∞ for 37 lines on 16 points.”
“What’s the curvy line?”
“That’s a cubic equation. If you draw a line through two points on a cubic and the line isn’t tangent, then the line goes through a third point on the cubic. And if the two original points are rational, then the third point is rational.”
Ᵽ THE LAYOUT REMINDS ME THAT YOU FAVOR POSITIONAL FIGHTING.
Non saw a familiar face at a nearby table as Edward Albert studied the diagram. Several from the table were looking in Non’s direction. ‘That looks like the film noir actor Edward G. Robinson.’
Ᵽ IT IS. HE’S WITH ALFRED NOBEL AND AGENT JIM DIGRIZ. HOW’S YOUR ESPERANTO?
Ñ̰ ĜI POVUS ESTI PLI BONA. ĈU ILI DISKUTAS SOYLENT GREEN? I DON’T SEE WHY NOBEL IS THERE.
Ᵽ ALFRED NOBEL SUPPORTED EUTHANASIA AMIDST BEAUTIFUL MUSIC AND IMAGERY. HARRY HARRISON USED THAT FOR EDDIE G’S FINAL DEATH SCENE. HE PREDICTED OVERUSE OF RESOURCES AND CLIMATE CHANGE BACK IN 1966.
“What did you do to Alfred Nobel?” asked Edward Alfred. “He doesn’t seem to like you.”
Non wasn’t sure, so he used the golden rule: When in doubt, look it up.
“We arrested Lester AKA Fred T. Jane, expert on weapon systems, Nobel’s bread and butter. We also arrested Alastor AKA Percy Shelley, who wrote The Censi, Alfred’s favorite book. He rewrote it as Nemesis, but added rape, incest, heresy, satanism and a forty minute torture scene. I’ll send a copy.”
Non caught up on his eating for a few minutes.
“Finally a moment with you! You can’t imagine how unfathomably I have longed for such happiness!”
Edward laughed at Non’s reaction. “That’s the first line of Nobel’s Nemesis. It gets worse, but I should study the original Swedish before accusing Alfred Nobel of being a terrible writer.”
“He has a good legacy considering his writings and life work.”
“Money does that,” said Edward, working on a sandwich. “The ultrarich have helpful sycophants. When they die, foundational sinecures fulfill their every lucullan fantasy in perpetuity.”
Ñ̰ LOOKUP LUCULLAN.
║ GENERAL LUCULLUS OF THE MITHRIL WAR ENRICHED ROME SO MUCH THAT LUCULLAN MEANS LAVISHNESS.
“Could I argue that the Nobel Foundation is one of the better ones?”
“It’s helping science and that helps everybody. Regrettably, for every broadminded institution, ten others only help the wealthy,” said Edward. “That drives Earth’s profit-fueled erosion.”
“Will Earth survive? In Nov 2022, the population reached 8 billion. Back in 1927, it was just 2 billion.”
“That’s a question for your bird.”
“When will Earth reach a peak failure?” said Picoid, trilling each word. “Anything that’s self-sustaining without profit gets eradicated. For example, the murnong in your mouth once fed all of Australia. Biodiversity allowed thousands of food types to grow everywhere. Now it’s a few dozen profit-based monocultures. Happily, the biodiversity eradication, habitat destruction, wealth concentration, resource overuse, ignorance promotion and climate change all help profit margins.”
“I saw Earth reach a billion,” said Edward. “You seem cynical, Picoid.”
“I represent an extinct species.” Picoid taste-tested items in the taur’s tray.
Non watched Picoid eat. “Icarus seems safer than Earth.”
“We live at galactic center. Severe threats happen monthly. But governments follow rule one: Don’t Destroy the Planet. Earth needs that bottom line for the financial bottom line.” Picoid tried cashew fruit.
“Non, how much do you know about our local government?” asked Edward.
“The Senate abets bets,” replied Non. “Not much else.”
“Yes. A government based on bets is an aleatocracy,” said Edward Alfred.
“So the members are selected randomly from the whole populace?”
“That’s the version in Clarke’s Songs of Distant Earth. An aleatory contract insures a bet. In an aleatocracy, every bill and law has bets made against it to prevent any group’s unfair advantage. Citizens may add bets on the government website. The more accurate citizens may guide the docket or make suggestions. Anyone who bets wrong pays off their bet.”
“The docket is the agenda of things to do? A fare?”
“Precisely. Each year, best bettors randomly replace the worst of the 100 senators.”
“Better bettors on bloc blocks cue queues for fair fares. The principal principle uses the horde’s hoard to incite insight in a site for the Capitol’s capital.”
“Don’t make light of the power of a bet!” said Edward, slapping the table. “Just today, many bet against a line in a proposed law. That line will be changed. Soon after, people bet against a senator that used cherry picking. Bets assist facts and reason over opinions, lies and fallacy. Not perfect, but less tedious!”
“Edward, earlier today a centaur named Eurytion kept me captive. Fallacy of all sorts poisoned his mind. I’m glad the government has a modicum of protection from fallacy. But when the populace can still easily be swayed by it, we’re all less safe.”
“You managed to sway him back.”
“I swayed him with bigger lies, Edward. And you, in your life, made your fortunes by fallacy. Conning people. You lied in a big way today. I would much rather have a world more based on logic.”
“Your name is a fallacy, Non Sequitur. Did you want a world like George Boole envisioned? You’re a math historian, correct? Please, Non, educate me about how the Father of Logic died.”
Non cursed. “Boole and his wife were firm adherents of the belief Like Cures Like. He caught a cold.”
“Go on,” Edward Alfred prodded.
“So, during an Irish winter in November, he chained himself to a bed in a room with open windows and surrounded himself with wet blankets. His wife poured ice water on him every few hours. The cold and wet did not cure the cold and wet. After two weeks of starvation, lack of sleep and exposure, he died.”
“Are you sure you want a world created by George Boole, the Father of Logic?”
“No, I don’t want that. I concede.”
🐀 NICE DIAGRAM.
Ñ̰ WHO IS THIS? WAIT, YOU’RE AGENT JAMES DIGRIZ?
🐀 NEVER GIVE AN UNKNOWN STRANGER A CHANCE TO SIMPLY AGREE.
Ñ̰ SOMETHING TO DO WITH MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM?
🐀 WHAT DID I JUST SAY?
Ñ̰ OKAY.
🐀 ALFRED NOBEL CREATED A VIRTUAL WORLD BASED ON MY STORY. A 2022 DYSTOPIA SET ON MANHATTAN.
Ñ̰ BONE.
🐀 OBSCURE ESPERANTO. BETTER. CAN YOU KEEP HIM OCCUPIED WHILE I VERIFY THAT NOBEL WEARS A WHITE HAT?
Ñ̰ YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, AGENT DIGRIZ.
🐀 DANKON. I HOPE TO SEE YOU SOON.
Non felt the logoff.
Ᵽ I THOUGHT I WAS YOUR TOP PRIORITY?
Ñ̰ A TITAN OF SF ASKED THAT I HOLD UP A WORLD FOR THE BIG APPLE. HERCULES LABOR 11. SHOULD WE DECLINE?
Ᵽ IF DR. MAYHEM MIGHT BE INVOLVED, I DON’T THINK WE HAVE A CHOICE.
Ñ̰ EQUALITY, INDUCTION, SUBSET SCHEMA, PAIRING, UNION, MAPPING, INFINITY, POWER SET AND CHOICE. WE LIVE IN A UNIVERSE WITH A CHOICE FUNCTION.
Ᵽ AGENT FRAENKEL, WHAT IF NOBEL WEARS A BLACK HAT?
Ñ̰ I’M SURE NOBEL WEARS MY FAVORITE COLOR: GRAYSCALE.