Chapter 27

Day by day, Alice's education went on. Within a week, Susan had Alice's educational cube in her hand. She spent a wondrous month with Alice inside the cube. Alice was in awe.

"This is surely the most incredible wonder of all." Alice said, when they first met in the cube.

"You made this possible. With your rod. This cube is an extension of that technology." Susan said.

"So I have gathered, but I do not understand it." Alice said.

"Do not feel bad about that. This is of my time, and I do not understand it either. But that does not keep me from utilizing the technology. For what is technology? Is it not simply a tool for accomplishing your needs? You need not understand the technology to utilize it." Susan explained.

"Good. For I fear I shall never understand how this is possible." Alice said.

"I do not understand how that can be so. Did you not direct the changing of nuclear fuel into Bucky-balls during my induction as your High Priestess?" Susan asked.

"Yes, I did. But to do that, I tapped into many understanding minds. I used their thoughts as building blocks to accomplish my needs. I did not fully understand the process. But I can understand higher mathematics very well. I can take a formula and test the validity of it. Using these methods I calculated the needed energies to perform the task. I used the tools of the amulets to perform the task. Knowing the energies that they could control. I did not understand how they controlled them, only that they did." Alice said.

"But you made the first rod." Susan said.

"Yes. At much trouble to myself. I spent hundreds of years learning that some elements had certain effects. I combined the elements that gave me the effects I needed, but I did not understand how the elements did what they do. It is that understanding that leads to this, I surmise." Alice said.

"So you utilized technology you did not understand, as we are doing now." Susan said.

"Yes." Alice answered, simply.

"I see ... I think. It's quite an accomplishment anyway." Susan said.

"Oh ... I guess so. But I do not know how to drive a car, or how television works. Things you take for granted." Alice said.

"Oh, not so much for granted. I understand the basic technologies of both. The automobile uses the expansion of burning gases for power and converts that to rotary motion used to drive the wheels. Television breaks a picture up into small pieces, it detects the light hitting one of these small spaces and the information is transmitted in rows of dots that make up a whole picture. The television just sends the information to the right row and the initial information causes a corresponding dot on a TV screen to glow a similar amount. Your eyes put those dots all back together and you see the original picture." Susan explained.

"You make it all sound so simple, but I know it is not." Alice said.

"Maybe not. But it is understandable given time. I think you will eventually understand both that technology, and this. You are a very bright person." Susan said.

"Thank you, and you are a very kind person. Perhaps I may some day understand this. But not now. But as you say, that does not keep us from utilizing it, does it? We can enjoy our time together in here." Alice said, taking Susan's hand.

"That we will do. But actually this is for your education. Behind each door in this hallway is a different lesson. You can spend a month studying each one, in only an hour at a time of real time back home. It will educate you rapidly relative to that world where your lovely body resides. That will give us both the time we desire together to do the important things, like making love. You can make love in here as well. Jane is here. I am here. You can even make love to yourself in here. And the good part, is that you don't even have to spend much of the hour. Your personality can exist in here and learn all these things, and enjoy all these things, and then can update you quickly on what it has learned and experienced." Susan said.

"Wow." Alice said.

"Precisely." Susan said.

"It seems like cheating on an exam." Alice said.

"It's not. You still have to do the work somewhere. The you that is in here will have to study the material. This just lets you do it in a pleasant, non-challenging environment. You can learn about social customs and technologies without appearing awkward to those around you. As this environment was designed entirely for you." Susan said.

"You say we can make love in here?" Alice asked.

"Most certainly. And as we have a month, why don't we slip off right now if you'd like." Susan said.

"I think I shall enjoy this very much." Alice grinned.

Later they lay together enjoying the blissful afterglow of love.

"How did you ever get so good at making love?" Susan asked.

"I invented it, silly." Alice replied, dreamily.

"Seriously?" Susan asked.

"Yes, seriously. Before me, there was just mating. I mean it was pleasant, but it was over with much too quickly. Women never had orgasms. Then one day I was playing with time. I slowed it down for the man who was mating with me. To him it was just as fast, but to me it took much longer. I had the first orgasm a woman ever felt.

"After that I became fascinated by the subject. I began to study the body. As men were only interested in mating at the time, I induced women into helping me with my studies. Over time I learned what effects different things had upon the body. I began to combine different things. The result is what we now refer to as making love." Alice said.

"But that must have taken decades." Susan gasped.

"Oh, much longer than that, and I'm still learning. Now that others make love, I learn from them too. Trying always to perfect it. But I spent a thousand years studying it myself." Alice said.

"I don't understand how that is possible. I mean, you had a human body." Susan said.

"Not always. I am a very old spirit, Susan. Millions of years old in your time measuring. I have been back many hundreds of times. Sometimes coming back as a baby. Sometimes inhabiting the body of a mindless creature. It took me long before I developed even that degree of ethics. I inhabited minded creatures as well. Pushing them aside and taking their body's. I'm not very proud of those days." Alice said.

"Have I been here before?" Susan asked.