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Bohr explained this phenomenon by suggesting that war, poverty, and limitations are one and the same thing and are all invalid phenomena. He said that freedom, peace, and prosperity, in contrast, must be understood as valid expressions of universal principles. Their substance is real, rather than being a myth. He also said that the two groups are as diametrically distinct from one-another as if they pertained to a separate universe. That's how Martin confirmed the theory by which he lived. "One thing, though, puzzles our friend Bohr," Martin added. "He can't imagine how we could shuttle so unaffectedly between one and the other.
I assured him that we didn't really do that. I assured him that we merely shuttled between two of the same kind of universe. The ship wasn't a scene of war, poverty and limitation anymore. I affirmed this fact most vigorously. At least it wasn't that in the grosser sense of the word.
Bohr had to agree. In fact he came to visit us on the ship almost as often as we were guests on his planet. After each tour of his 'exploration' with us, we would visit there for a week and be back at the ship without missing a shift. Bohr, Martin, and Odessa would all come to the ship occasionally for a concert or a movie, or when a special event happened that promised to become interesting. Occasionally Martin and Odessa would also invite us to the Earth for a symphony concert. As far as Martin was concerned, there was no greater music found anywhere in the universe than that of the Earth.
The hardest part of those concert trips was in not being able to make us known to our families back home. We could see them, but not talk, for their own protection. If we were to reveal ourselves, we would jolt them into our world. Martin warned that they would not survive the transition. Only once was I able to let them know that I still cared for them. When the maple tree died that had always stood in front of our home, I persuaded Martin into replacing it with one of those lovely flowering trees that grow in great profusion on Bohr's planet.
He did it as a scientific experiment, to see if such a transplant could be done.
One of the special occasions, for which even Werner Heisenberg came to the ship, and he arrived alone one day, was the expected arrival of the last scout probe. Werner Heisenberg loved the excitement. By then, everyone on board spoke about Alpha Centauri and had gone almost berserk over this little planet. The last probe had been designed to collect high-resolution pictures of the planet surface, monitor radio and television broadcasts if there were any, pinpoint their sources and do some general infrared mapping. A highly paralleled, Josephson-based computer had been readied during the preceding week for instant video processing and to perform a priority selection of the vast amount of data the probe should have collected over its one year mission surrounding the planet. Also, the computer was programmed for language decoding, in case there were radio and TV broadcasts recorded by the probe.
Bohr himself, who arrived later, called the occasion a milestone in human history. There was probably no man more excited than he was when the final probe locked itself into a synchronous flight pass with the ship and began to transmit its data. Bohr, though, unlike Heissenberg, made no efforts to conceal his presence. He was the one person on our ship who seemed to be simultaneously everywhere where things were happening. He knew everything, saw everything, and acted accordingly. Once I even saw him giving orders to the captain, and the captain following his command. Maybe he, more than anyone else on the ship, realized the significance that this event had for mankind. It was as though he could read the future, which he claimed he could, since the concept of time and future was invalid anyway in his frame of reference.
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