The Flag on Gorbachev Crater

7. A Demonstration

Next evening, in the apartment, she said, “Sidi, I show you a… algo… thing.”

“Of course. Go ahead.”

“With rug. First, have you things you no want?”

“Well, I guess so. Sure. There’s the wastebasket. Some old newspapers, bottle, soda can, empty envelopes… a broken belt. Why?”

“For show you.” She picked up the wastebasket and brought it back to the rug, then picked up the rug. “On true hajj, pilgrim walk around Kaaba seven times. So I hold rug, vuelvo… turn, seven times.” And, holding the fabric to her chest, she began to revolve.

Beckwith watched, fascinated. He was beginning to grasp what was going on. The metal filaments in the rug were cutting the lines of force of the earth’s magnetic field and generating emf in the filaments. The turning rug was functioning like a dynamo.

The two rubies fastened in the rug began to flash intermittently. How could this be, he wondered. Yet, he had to concede that the phenomenon was not a physical or electrical impossibility. He had read somewhere of such things. Would she know? “Why do they light up?” he asked.

She explained as she rotated. “Djinns awaken.”

“Oh.” Of course.

She stopped and laid the rug on the floor.

And now the current must stop, he thought. The djinns will go back to sleep. But no. The eyes are still flashing. So what is going on? Are some of those filaments superconductors? Even at room temperature?

“Now,” she said, “put… puesto… los algos desagradables on rug. Sidi, watch! ¡Mire!” She upended the wastebasket and everything hit the surface of the rug—and vanished.

Beckwith jumped. “Wha—? Where did it go?”

She regarded him calmly. “El oceano atlántico, I think. With un astrolabio, say exactly.”

“You can do this every time?”

“Of course.”

“This is how you came here?”

“Yes, Sidi. I fell thus into el campo… the field of football.”

He thought about that. “In your little demonstration just now the rug stayed behind, but when you entered the football field the rug came along with you.”

“I held it tightly, and it came with me. As I explained, when the car was in the tubes. Perhaps Sidi did not then understand.”

“Perhaps I didn’t.” Yes, she had said something like that. So it was all true. She was indeed born in Cordoba in 1220. And in 1236 she had gathered up her jewels, said goodbye to her family and friends, and she had mounted this magic carpet, and she had—flown?—from thirteenth-century Spain to that football field in Virginia. Why?

He said bluntly, “We have to talk. We’ll start with you. What does ‘Zahra’ mean in Arabic?”

“It’s az-Zahra, Sidi, and it means ‘The Shining One.’ My father named me.” Her voice slowed.

“When was the last time you saw your father?”

The response was very soft. The lawyer had to lean forward to hear her.

“He was on the south wall. The Spaniards had brought up a siege tower, and at the top their captain was screaming, and waving Ferdinand’s red-and-yellow banner.” She paused, as though thinking back. “I hate men with flags.”

“I can imagine. Go on.”

“Father waited, with al-Saffah and a squad of eight men, just shopkeepers and clerks. I knew all of them. Dozens of barbarians were climbing the tower.”

“Al-Saffah? A comrade?”

“ ‘Al-Saffah’ means ‘blood spiller’… his sword. Very famous, very old.”

“You did not stay?”

“No. I wanted to stay and die with him, but he forbade it. He required that I take the rug and leave. Days before, he had made me swear on the sacred Koran that I would do this.”

“This was… 1236?”

“Yes, Sidi.”

“And at that time, nowhere in Europe or Asia or Africa was the existence of the Americas suspected?”

“As to that, I cannot be sure, your grace. At the university—”

“The University of Cordoba?”

She brightened. “Yes. You know about it?”

“Of course. At the time, the greatest seat of learning in Spain, perhaps in Europe. So, what did they say at the university?”

“Well, at the university we had a very learned philosopher and maker of maps, Busir ibn Murad. Busir claimed the world was round—a sphere—and that there must be a tremendous land mass far to the west, across the Atlantic Ocean. He said this land was necessary to balance the three continents of the known world. The northmen had already touched the shores of this new land, he said. He was referring to the voyages of Eric the Red and his son Leif. We had the Norse Sagas in our library. You have read them, of course?”

“Ah? Well, yes, I think so. So then, when you left Cordoba that terrible day, you were aiming your magic carpet at the Americas?”

“Yes, although I did not know the name America then.”

“Did you know it would be eight hundred years?”

“Yes. I knew how to control the time djinns.”

“Time… djinns?”

“The spirits of the rug.”

“Oh, of course. Why did you pick the great land on the other side of your world?”

“I chose this land to be far away from the Spaniards. I understand I did not completely succeed.” She smiled wryly.

“True, you didn’t. Spain has a long and brilliant history in the Americas. But how about that eight hundred years? Why go into the future at all?”

“I had hoped, your grace, that the passage of so many years would bring me into a world of peace and harmony, where men do not kill each other anymore.”

He regarded her glumly. Sorry to disappoint you, he thought. So that’s her story. I believe it. And now back to the real world. She’s here, with an idea that can solve a lot of the world’s problems: nuclear waste, carcinogens, smokestack effluent, auto exhaust. Is this the ultimate answer to pollution? This thing had possibilities. How to make money with it? Think of patents, commercial uses, licenses. “You can drop anything through the rug?”

“Anything.”

“You made the rug yourself?”

“Yes.”

“You could make another?”

“Any number. But I need special loom, and filaments of certain metal alloys. Metals very special. And not sure about rubies. May need star stones, perhaps as big as Eyes of Ayesha.”

That could indeed be a problem, he thought. But at least we should be able to find the right metals. But could she really recall the exact alloy compositions for all the different filaments?

And then there would be the question of how they were all woven into the warp and woof of the rug. He tapped his forehead. “Do you remember everything, up here?”

“Yes, Sidi.”

It was all coming together. Maybe this explains the flying carpet stories in the Arabian Nights. We’ll feed this design into a robocomputer. We’ll weave hundreds of these things—thousands—all automatically, by machine. How do we keep our monopoly? We’ll need a good strong patent structure.

“Sidi?”

He blinked. “Ah—?”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Well, to start, we are going to file a patent application on your rug.”

“Patent…?”

“Yes. Let me explain. Say you have an invention, in this case your rug design. You write down a careful description of the invention. You present this description to the Patent Office. If the Patent Office thinks you have something new, useful, and unobvious, they will give you a document called a patent. And for a certain term of years other people cannot use your invention legally without your consent.”

“Ah, I like that.”

“We’ll fix up a place for you to work, here in the apartment,” he said. “I’ll get you a drafting table, instruments, paper, raw materials, everything you need. You can draw a diagram of the filaments, how they attach to the rubies, and so on. For the patent we’ll need everything in detail.”

She grinned. “Si, Sidi. As you wish!”