Chapter Fifty-Two
October 20, 2230, Gliese 581, Private Cabin of Dr. Raphael Maras aboard the Bifröst
Raphael loved numbers—their shape, their meaning, their utility. There was nothing more exciting than a good stream of numbers and the depth of meaning hidden behind those simple digits and symbols. It was a pure form of communication that made normal words seem like the crude grunts and growls of beasts. After all, the most fundamental aspects of reality, space, and time were best expressed numerically. Humanity’d had to invent new forms of math to explore the rules underlying physics.
He sat at his desk, surrounded by his beloved numbers filling data windows. Erik and Jia had finished their business on the planet and were on their way back to the jumpship, but that still gave him a co
