CHAPTER 19
If God created us in his own image, we have more
than reciprocated.
-
Voltaire
"Arnistee!"
Sarwin
embraced the young Priat woman. She seemed
the least changed of his crew, five of whom stood around him now. Of his original expedition, only Siverelle
and Etyiam were missing. Sarwin was
told that Arnistee was the most recent, other than himself, to fall out of the
slipstream and into this reality, arriving about seven years before
Sarwin. He took turns hugging them all.
They
stood in a large hangar of the warm and well-lit cavern, with six of Sarwin's
original eight saucers in a ring about them.
After several minutes of greetings and embracing, Kleesic suggested they
move to their living area, where they could sit and talk comfortably, and they
could explain to Sarwin what had befallen the World.
Soon
thereafter, Sarwin found himself sitting at large round table, surrounded by
his crew, sipping hot tea from a capacious mug. He put down the cup and scanned around the table, looking each
of his people in the eye.
"Now..."
he finally said, "Will someone please tell me what in the world has
happened to the World?"
Kleesic
stood up and began to walk slowly around the table slowly, his hands clasped
behind his back.
"The
World," he began, "is gone now, Sarwin. In its place is this planet.
The like-like beings who live here call it Earth."
"But
this is the World!" protested Sarwin, "I saw the continents from
space. This IS the World!"
"It
is the same sphere that was the World," answered Kleesic, "The same
chunk of rock. But trust me, my friend,
it is an entirely different planet now.
The theater is unchanged, but the cast and scenery have been
replaced. The stage remains the same,
but the play has been rewritten. Our
people are gone, Sarwin. Erased. There are no more saurians, save what you
see before you. Our cities do not exist.
They never did exist here. Our entire civilization doesn't exist in
this place. It was ended before it even
began."
"Ended?"
Sarwin was confused.
"How?"
"By
us!" exclaimed Kleesic, almost
angrily. "Did you not see the
asteroid break apart when the slipstream collapsed? Great chunks of it were thrown in all directions. Some of it was sucked into the vortex with
us. Some of it was cast off into
space. But some of it landed here!" He slapped his hand flatly against the table top with a loud
crack.
"We destroyed the world, Sarwin!"
exclaimed Kleesic, renewing his pace around the table, "Everything we ever
knew... every person we ever loved...
everything we ever cared about...
Gone! All gone...
The rock we caused to fall upon the World destroyed our own ancestors and these hellish
Vartyiar creatures have evolved in their place! We wanted to prove the theory of evolution. I would say we have!"
Sarwin
was aghast. He had destroyed his own
people! A careless rock tossed from
space had upset the pattern of history and changed everything. Everything gone... His children... His
friends... He wrapped his head in his
arms and sank into his chair, groaning.
No wonder he could never travel into the future beyond the fifth day of
Cartoth! There was no future beyond
that! Not for his reality, anyway. He had destroyed it!
How
bitterly ironic it seemed. They had
taken every precaution to not displace even a single speck of dust of the
past. The used float-harnesses to drift
safely above the ancient soil, least a careless footfall trample the minute
ancestor of some later species. They
ensured not a single breath of the air they brought mixed with the antique
atmosphere, to preclude any germ from the future wreaking havoc in the past. They camouflaged themselves with shroud
shields so no ancient eyes would see them and be disquieted, in even the
smallest degree. But instead they
caused great rocks to shower from the sky!
He had destroyed the World! By
T'Chen's grace, he thought, I am the Q'Talon!
"Don't
hate yourself, Sarwin," said Arnistee, reaching out to touch his shoulder,
"We are all responsible for this.
You are not alone."
Sarwin
pulled away from her gentle hand. He
did not feel he deserved such comfort.
Any comfort.
"But
it was my discovery of time travel that caused this!" he protested,
"This is my fault. Everything's
gone... because of me... I should have known...
I should have..." He
buried his head in his hands, trembling, unable to speak further. Arnistee turned to look at Kleesic.
"Tell
him," she said.
Sarwin
pulled his head up, looking first at Arnistee, then Kleesic. "Tell me what?" he asked.
"We
have a plan, my friend," said Kleesic, almost smiling, "We intend to
go back in time and stop the accident from happening in the first place. That should restore the World, as we knew
it. As you know, five ships can not
generate a deep enough chronofield to go back sixty-five million years, but now
that you are here, we have six ships, which is enough. Just barely enough, but enough."
"This
is true?" asked Sarwin, feeling a ray of hope shine into his darkened
heart, "We can really do this?
Wait... we will need another asteroid to push against."
"Done!"
exclaimed Clemtia, who sat next to Arnistee, "In anticipation of your
eventual arrival, we have already moved an asteroid into position. We placed it in the same orbit as the World,
but on the exact opposite side of the sun, so that the humans would not see
it."
"We
have been waiting for you to arrive, my friend," added Kleesic, "The
fuel of our ships has deteriorated with each passing year and we do not have the
means in this reality to create more.
The ships that have been here the longest, such as mine, are degraded
nearly to the point of uselessness. We
should leave as soon as possible. They
will only be good for one more jump, so we have to make it count."
Sarwin
stood and began to pace the room also, in the opposite direction of
Kleesic. His mood had gone from total
defeat to hopeful exuberance in a moment's time. His mind began to race as he thought about the calculations for
the jump, even though he was sure the others would have already worked them
out. They'd have to adjust for only six
ships, not the original eight. It would
be a lot easier if they had the other two ships. Etyiam's ship was lost of course, but... Siverelle! By the goddess, he had been so distraught
over the loss of the World that he had let the fate of his own wife slip from
his mind.
"Kleesic! What happened to Siverelle? You said you thought she was still alive,
did you not?"
"I
said I knew she was a alive at least seven years ago. I cannot say for sure if she lives now."
"What
do you know about her? Tell me
everything! Now!"
Sarwin was not going to wait anymore.
Somewhat
unsteadily, Kleesic took a seat in the chair that Sarwin had abandoned.
"Okay,
here is what we know," he started, "Siverelle was the first to arrive
here, probably because she had rebounded out into the slipstream after her
collision with Etyiam. She arrived
approximately thirty-nine years ago, in the year 5417. The humans refer to it as the year
1947. Most humans, anyway. They are still quite primitive and don't
seem to have yet devised a common standard on even the most basic of things,
such as a calendar."
Kleesic
picked up Sarwin's teacup, looking at his own reflection in the dark liquid,
then continued.
"Because
of Siverelle's erratic topple through the slipstream, her ship likely
materialized into normal space tumbling end over end. Probably the damage from her collision with Etyiam prevented any
chance she might have had to recover control before she hit the
atmosphere. She crashed in a desert in
the southwest corner of the Waythus continent.
The humans call it Nor Amer..
Nor Ameri... never mind, I can't
pronounce it. Anyway, we believe she
was captured alive by these humans, who seem to be the reigning sentient beings
in this reality."
"So
they have her?" asked Sarwin, "Where?"
"Well,
we didn't know until recently. You see,
we didn't learn any of what I now tell you until much later. By the time we began to arrive here, one by
one, Siverelle and her ship had been spirited away to some hidden
location. When enough of us were here,
we began to get organized and work as a team again. We did try to search for Siverelle, using a lot of fuel to do so,
I might add. But we never found
her. Her ship must have been completely
shut down, as we have never heard any signal from it."
"How
do you know so much about these humans?" asked Sarwin.
"By
listening to them, mostly," Kleesic answered, "They've been projecting radio and video transmissions for
decades, which we monitor and study.
Analogous to their lack of a standard calendar, they have many
languages, but we have translated the most prevalent of them by listening in on
their transmissions."
Kleesic
now swished the teacup playfully around, causing the liquid inside to gyrate in
circles.
"And
we have, on occasion, picked up some of the humans for a quick physical
examination. We always put them back
though," he said with a slightly devilish smile. He put the cup down and continued.
"Would
you like to hear something amusing?" Kleesic asked, "They think
Siverelle is an alien... from a another
planet..." he gestured around the table, "They think we are all
aliens too. They call our chronoships
'unidentified flying objects' or better yet, 'flying saucers.' Quaint, no?"
But
Sarwin was in no mood for humor.
"You said you knew she was alive at least seven years ago. How?"
"I'll
show you," answered Kleesic, getting up and moving slowly to a display
monitor on the wall, "We recorded this seven years ago. It's one of many video transmissions we have
intercepted and recorded. But I think
you'll find this one especially interesting.
We've dubbed the sound with a translation of the dialog, so that you can
understand what they are saying."
Kleesic
tapped a key and the monitor lit up with images and sound. Again, Sarwin found himself looking at
pictures of the repulsive Vartyiar beings.
"Hello, and welcome to this edition of ‘Mysterious World’"
said the human, the words not matching the movement of its awful mouth in an
almost comical fashion, "I’m your host, Clifford Canter."
They
watched the recording through
and when the video was over, Kleesic turned off the
monitor. "So there you have it,
Sarwin. That's all we know."
"So
you knew where she was," said Sarwin, accusingly, "why didn't you go
rescue her?"
"It's
not that easy, my friend," defended Kleesic, "For two reasons. First of all, this transmission was
broadcast two years after that human saw Siverelle. The goddess only knows where they might have moved her and her
ship in that interlude. We have no idea
if she is even still at that facility."
Sarwin
folded his arms and scowled, not satisfied with his friend's explanation.
"Secondly,"
Kleesic went on, "We investigated this place where the human claims to
have seen your wife. It turns out that
it is a military base. A very well defended,
high security, military base, I might add.
Yes, their weapons are primitive, but they are many. And we are not a combat unit, Sarwin. Our chronoships are not designed for battle,
you know that. If we tried to land
there to rescue Siverelle, they would have blown us apart with their missiles
and guns. ...and like I said, we have
no way of knowing if she is even there anymore. Or even still alive, for that matter."
Sarwin
was pacing again... thinking... then he had a thought.
"The
shrouds!" he exclaimed, "Surely these primitive humans would have no
way to detect us if we are cloaked by our shroud fields! If we wear float-harness's and the shrouds,
we could slip right onto that base under their noses!"
"We
thought of that," answered Kleesic, "but the shroud fields were
stored only on your ship, where they did us little good before you
arrived."
"Well,
we have them here now!" said Sarwin, excitedly, "Let's go find
her!"
"Now
calm down, Sarwin," replied Kleesic, putting up his hands, "It's too
risky to try that. Besides, it doesn't
matter."
Sarwin
was angry. "Doesn't
matter?! That's my wife down there for
T'Chen's sake! That matters a hell of a
lot to me, Kleesic!"
"That's
not what I meant," snapped back Kleesic, "I love Siverelle like a
sister and
you know that! What I meant was, it doesn't
matter if we save her here, in this reality, because once we go back and undo
the accident, none of this will have ever happened. Our World will be restored.
Etyiam will have not betrayed us.
Siverelle will have never fallen into the human's clutches. The humans will have never existed. There is no point in risking a rescue of the
Siverelle that is down there now, even if she is still alive, don't you
see?"
Sarwin
was taken aback... He hadn't thought
about it like that, so blind was he to rescuing his wife as soon as possible,
no matter what. But what Kleesic said
made sense. If they could undo this
whole tragedy from the beginning, a rescue now was pointless. Still, despite that logical conclusion, he
felt a strange need to find her in the here and now, in this reality, to keep
his word that he would always be there for her.
"That
makes sense," Sarwin finally said, "but I still need to find
her. I don't expect you to understand
my friend, but I must go to her. I must
know what they have done to her and she must know that I have not forsaken
her. If she is even still alive. I must know..."
Kleesic
just looked at his friend, unsure how to react.
"I
don't expect anyone else to risk their life for this," continued Sarwin,
"I will go alone. If I fail, if I
am killed or captured by these humans, then continue the jump as planned,
without me."
"Sarwin,"
said Kleesic, shaking his head, "I don't know... This seems very
risky. And for no necessary reason at
all."
"Ah-ha!,
but there is a good reason," exclaimed Sarwin, "Even if
rescuing Siverelle herself in this time-frame is pointless, saving her ship
is not! You know as well as I do that
jumping back sixty-five million years will be a lot easier and less risky with
seven ships, rather than only the six we have now."
"Uh,
well... yes, I suppose that is true..." acquiesced Kleesic, "but her
ship has been here the longest. Its
fuel must be very deteriorated by now, perhaps unusable."
Sarwin
was unfazed. "Yes, but her
ship has been completely shut down all this time. It must have been, or you would have detected its signal. With its reactor core shut down for a long
period of time, the fuel would go inert after a while and deteriorate much
slower than in an active core. We will
need to bring a trace of active fuel with us, to reenergize her reactor."
"You
could be right," agreed Kleesic, nodding, "but how do we know the
humans have not damaged or destroyed the ship trying to take it apart. It could be in pieces. ...or worse."
"Perhaps
it is destroyed," agreed Sarwin, "that is a chance we will have to
take. These humans are primitive and the chronoship was
designed to be difficult to operate or to disassemble by anyone other than our
kind. We must hope it is still
intact."
Kleesic
just nodded.
"Good!
Then we are in agreement," said Sarwin,
"I will go to this human military base as soon as possible and look for
Siverelle and her ship. So what does
this place look like?"
In
answer, Kleesic walked over the monitor and punched in some commands. An aerial view of the base appeared on the
monitor.
"Looks
complex," said Sarwin, studying the image, "...and big."
"It
will be a lot to search. And you will
have only one night to rummage around.
The daytime heat of the desert where this base is located will quickly
overload a shroud field. You remember
how finicky they get in hot climates, don't you?"
Sarwin
nodded.
"Unfortunately,"
continued Kleesic, "other than aerial images like this that we have taken
from orbit, we have little knowledge of the layout of this place. As I said, it is a top secret military base,
so no useful details about it are transmitted by the human media."
"Then
what I need is a guide," suggested Sarwin, "someone who knows this
place. Someone who can tell me where
best to search."
"A
guide..?" asked Kleesic, "Where would you find a guide for that place?"
Sarwin
tapped the monitor's controls and the image of the base disappeared. In its place, he restarted the recording of
the Mysterious World episode Kleesic had showed him earlier. He fast-forwarded it until he found a point
in which Renoldson's chubby face filled the scene and Sarwin froze the picture on that
frame.
"This one," said Sarwin,
pointing to Renoldson's frozen visage, "He knows the base. Let's see if we can find this one."