9 April, 2026

TILTING AT WINDMILLS

By Gerry Sammon

I would have described it as impossible, had I not been on board. The ship they sent took only a few months travel time. An astonishing achievement. 

Astonishing, yes, we travelled beneath the spatial plexus, the interdimensional network between solar systems. Yes, I know, the word plexus describes the makeup of the human nervous system, but isn’t that akin to the map showing how the interstellar highway is navigated? Call it what you will. That is how I understand it. In real terms, what it means is we voyaged beneath space-time, or beyond it. I don’t understand the science of it. All I know is we were transported to the far side of the galaxy, THROUGH the supermassive black hole at its centre as if it did not exist, nearly a hundred-thousand light years, in just a few months.

But perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Alicia 341, and I have been president of the Shangrilarian terraformed worlds and satellites in the Outer Swirl for the past three hundred years, Earth timescale. Just ninety-six years remain of my term of office. As for our milieu, you will need to ask one of my husbands, Arnold 307, for the exact coordinates. He is Shangrila’s specialist in cosmography. He sits with me now, the youngest of my husbands, as I think-dictate this mind-log. We will never see Shangrila again. That is our sacrifice. It was made plain to us before our departure. This saddens us, but our quest for knowledge of other Utopian worlds like ours supercedes all else.

An alarm sounds throughout the ship, or rather in our minds. Then a voice says: ‘All passengers prepare to disembark.’ I assume the voice meant us, the only passengers on board.

We stand on what appears to be a dislocation translator, the type we would normally use as a domestic transmat pad. But instead of transporting to a twinned translator in the port terminal, we immediately find ourselves in an airy and spacious room with views all around of a green and pleasant planet. We do feel reassured. The views were very much akin to what we are used to at home. Arnold 307 and I begin to feel a little bit of superiority, I have to say. These perfect people do not seem so different after all. Our Eden, our Utopia, seems much nicer. 

 I take the whole room in, my eyes flicker from one ornament to another, from one piece of fine art to another, and towards the centre of the room the air begins to tremble. I call out to Arnold 307. He turns. His optical implants focus on the disturbance. He shakes his head.

‘Alicia 341, I see nothing out of the ordinary. It’s like a heat haze, but I discern nothing else.’ I look at Arnold 307. His jaw is slack, his brow creased in concentration and puzzlement as the shimmer begins to take shape. He looks, what’s the word? Sick. ‘It is something,’ I say. ‘We should wait.’

We do not wait long. A man materialises through the disturbance. An old man with a long white beard, wearing a long white robe. His hand is raised and he is smiling. I have never seen a look like that before. I access my subliminal dataverse and find what I am looking for. The smile makes the old man look … beatific.

He steps forward, speaking deeply, calmly and perfectly measured, ‘Dominus vobiscum,’ he says.

Arnold 307 and I look at each other and laugh out loud, both with relief and with the knowledge these perfect people are not perfect at all. I access my subliminal dataverse links again.

‘You speak a language we know as Old Latin,’ I say. ‘That is not a language we know, but it was widely spoken eons ago. What you say is a religious blessing from long ago in our history. Our response, however, if it helps, would be: “Et cum spiritu tuo”.’

‘Ah,’ said the old man. ‘Forgive me, the plexus can mangle time somewhat. I suppose my appearance is also anachronistic for you?’

‘Just a little,’ says Arnold 307 with a smile.

‘Very well. Let me try again,’ says the old man. He transforms, this time a younger man, I would not place him at more than 250 years old, so much younger than us, dressed in similar clothes to us.

Again, his hand is raised, a universal gesture of welcome and friendship, I assume. This time, in perfect Shangrilese, he says, ‘Welcome Alicia 341 and Arnold 307.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, somewhat stunned by the transformation.

‘Shall we sit?’ he said. We sit.

We sit in silence for what seems an interminable time. I decide to break the silence. ‘Thank you for allowing our visit. Please, will you enlighten us, you know our designations, but we have no name for you. And we have no name for your planet or civilisation.’

‘A name?’ The young man looked bemused. ‘Yes, of course, I recall you find it difficult to function without names for things.’

We look at each other again. He says, ‘So, a name then. We do not possess names. However, you may choose a name for me, and for us. All of us. We are all one. Please, if it helps, choose.’

I confer with Arnold 307 as our host silently stands and walks around, peering around the room as if he had never been there before.

‘You are the one with the most generalised subliminal dataverse,’ Arnold 307 says to me. ‘That’s why you are president. Find something that is most fitting for our strange friend.’

I search my internal dataverse. I see something that is quite fitting. The name of a fictional character from long ago. 

‘I have it,’ I say. ‘A knight who thought himself in search of the ultimate Utopia. It’s a story-tale from way before Shangrila. A mad hero who never found what he was searching for. Perhaps in this way he has found it.’

‘Sir,’ I announce. The young man looks up, smiles, ceases his wanderings around the room and sits down again, a look of expectancy on his handsome features. ‘I have a name for you. I believe it is quite fitting. It is a name from our distant past.’ He seemed to look pleased.

‘We would like to refer to you by the noble name of Don Quixote, a storybook character from our history who went in search of the perfect society,’ I say.

The young man stands, bows, still smiling. We stand too. ‘Then I shall become known to you as Don Quixote. Now, you must rest, and later we will feast in your honour.’ He stands, stamps his feet and raises his right arm in a fitting flamenco-style stance from ancient Spain, then fades into the ether through the trembling air.

*

We rested; we slept. Both Arnold 307 and myself had been exhausted. When we awake, we sexted for a while, merging our relevant subliminal dataverse thoughts simultaneously. We had experienced months of travel on our journey here, but on waking it felt like only an instant had passed. 

‘Time doesn’t work here,’ announced Arnold 307, shaking his head in wonder. ‘These people are either like mayflies or are immortal. Both being one and the same here.’

The air shimmers and the young man appears. ‘It is I, Don Quixote,’ he declares, seemingly proud of the name we have given him. He now assumes an ancient Spanish accent. ‘Dinner is served, amigos.’ The room transforms immediately from that of a smart, modern, Shangrilarian penthouse, to an ornate seventeenth century Spanish-style dining room, the table groaning with delicacies. Don Quixote himself now wears the garb of Cervantes’ fictional knight-errant. His features remain young, however, just as we saw him earlier.

‘Sit, eat. You must both be starved,’ says Don Quixote. ‘Travel through the plexus can be tiring, I am led to understand.’

‘Indeed it is,’ said I, suddenly starting to feel overwhelmed by what we had let ourselves in for. We had to think of a name for this Don Quixote, who seems quite happy about having a name when no one else on this planet seemed to need one. But when we meet other leaders of this community, will we have to think up names for them too, which seems burdensome? Arnold 307 too appeared to be thinking the same.

‘Don Quixote, may I ask a question?’ I say.

‘By all means, Alicia 341,’ he says.

‘When do we get to meet your fellow leaders?’ For the first time Don Quixote looked puzzled.

‘Fellow leaders?’ he asked, doubly puzzled. ‘Leaders?’

‘Yes, the people who run your world, your society, your civilisation,’ I explain.

‘Your Utopia,’ added Arnold 307.

‘No one “runs” this place,’ says Don Quixote. ‘There are no leaders. I am we. We are I.’ He continues to chew on a juicy-looking roasted chicken leg while deep in thought.

‘I’m sorry, Don Quixote. We do not understand,’ I tell him. Arnold 307 nods in agreement, his mouth full of the delightful sweetmeats in front of him.

Don Quixote places his half-eaten chicken leg on his plate, wipes his hands and mouth on a napkin, and sits back in his carved, dark wood dining chair. He points to himself and says, ‘There is only the we. The us. The I. We are many and one.’

‘That is how we Shangrilarians once referred to a supreme being we knew as God,’ I tell him.

He smiles what has now become his irritating beatific smile. 

‘We are not this God,’ he says.

Now all appetite is lost. Don Quixote seems to sense this as the dining room disappears and we again find ourselves sitting in the penthouse watching over what can only be described as the Eden below us. Have we insulted him somehow, I wonder.  

‘You people of Shangrila, since you emerged from your home called Earth in your Sol system, have throughout time yearned for a Utopia, which you have now achieved. Yet you continue to look. You should be congratulated. You are one of the few civilisations in the galaxy to have achieved the nearest form of a Utopian society that is possible for you. You cannot transcend the society you have already achieved because you are finite. Your lifespans have been lengthened to their limits. Alicia 341, when to become Alicia 400 and your terminal age of 400 years, you will expire and become reborn. The same applies to you, Arnold 307 when you become 400, as it does to all members of your society, on all your worlds. But then your accumulated knowledge ends and must be relearned.

‘Put simply, your species is too young, too mortal to reach a Utopian level of society. You do not live long enough to put the Utopian practices you understand into perfect symmetry with your lives. 

‘We, however, are transmortal, existing outside what you refer to as the timelines. We are outside the pull of entropy. We do not end. That is how we, I, can achieve the purest Utopian form, as you call it.’

I did describe it as astonishing, didn’t I? Well, it is. It is also frightening. Frightening because for millennia we Shangrilarians believed we lived the perfect Utopian existence. Unique and unsurpassable. I know now we do not.

It seems we Shangrilarians do not live long enough to enable us to fully integrate pure Utopian systems in our society. That, and our technical and scientific inferiority to our hosts, who remain nameless in any meaningful sense of the word. This Arnold 307 and I have learned on our journey. It has come as quite a shock to us.

‘I am sorry, Alicia 341, Arnold 307,’ said Don Quixote. ‘We cannot help you. But it has been pleasant conversing with you both. You have at least ensured this embodiment of Don Quixote has achieved his goal.’ 

We are both shocked into silence. 

‘Alicia 341, I will give you one message to relay to your Shangrila,’ said the entity known as Don Quixote.

I look at him in my well of despair, not understanding. ‘Our journey here cannot be retraced. Your emissaries informed us of this binding condition of passage before we set out. What shall we do, where can we go?’

Don Quixote laughed, long and loud. This angers me. I must restrain Arnold 307, who is about to rise and strike this man who we believe is now mocking us. He now seems to be more alien than ever. Most uncharacteristic of Arnold 307, a most unendearing quality. 

The laughter stopped abruptly, almost artificially, as I thought this.

‘Alicia 341, Arnold 307, you have travelled nowhere. You are still in your presidential office. Your “travel” time has been an illusion, as is all time. I imposed this illusion to allow you to experience what you expected. I did this with the best of motives. We do not wish to cause you any shock or upset. We have been conversing outside of your imagined timeline. No time, as you know it, has elapsed at all. But you will remember everything, and you are free to relate it all to your people, should you wish to do so.’ 

The palatial setting, the Eden outside, began to shimmer and fade, as did Don Quixote, who continued speaking, his voice assuming an echoing, empty quality as he began to discorporate. ‘We will return in a millennium or two, to use a timescale you are familiar with. You may be ready by then. Now, Don Quixote bids you farewell. However, the real Don Quixote is you, in search of the unattainable. At least for the moment. Thank you for a most enlightening conversation.’

Alicia 341 and Arnold 307 look around. They are still in the presidential office. The office chronograph shows no time had elapsed, as Don Quixote had told them. The office Brain is unable to explain how they could have been missing for months, while it knew full well Alicia 341 and Arnold 307 had been discussing business in that very room, without a break in the conversation and without a gap in the timeline.

‘We are not there yet,’ said Alicia 341 with a sad smile. ‘We have been so superior, so smug.’

‘Alicia 341, we must make arrangements immediately. We must consult our best gerontopathic practitioners. We need to make ourselves evolve into a like state Don Quixote has become,’ said Arnold 307.

‘Yes, I propose our consciousness must start to transfer with every rebirth, to enable the continuity Don Quixote said was necessary,’ said Alicia 341. 

‘Will the Council of Elders approve, Alicia 341? It is a new evolution,’ says Arnold 307. He looks worried.

‘Nevertheless, we should aim for my next rebirth in ninety-six years. Then in another millennium we may be ready when Don Quixote calls again.

‘The struggle for Utopia continues, my dear Sancho Panza,’ I tell him.