Micha laughed again. ‘Seems to be two out of two, as well as the majority of the several hundred on the Council. If you need endorsement, you have it. Everyone would be very grateful if you would accept.’
He looked expectantly at her and her doubts crumbled. This was something that would truly make a difference. Sol would be so proud of her. Then she thought back to the strange looks of pride he’d been giving her on that last night. Had he known …?
‘Alright. I’ll do it.’
‘Excellent! Perhaps you’d like to communicate your new position to your family now?’
‘Wouldn’t I just! Micha, it’s been a pleasure and a privilege. I hope we meet again.’
‘I’m sure we will. I’ve accepted the role of CEO of the Galactic Agency.’ He held out his hand. ‘Goodbye for now, Deira. I think the future looks exceptionally good.’
She shook hands, her small human one enclosed in his huge El version, a harbinger, perhaps, of the good things to come. Then she folded back home to tell Josh.
§
It was six months before the Eich/Cthon situation was finally laid to rest. Micha had organised a gradual programme of rapprochement between the two sections of the species and, much to everyone’s surprise, rapid progress had been made. The process had culminated in a physical meeting on a neutral planet, and the level of trust between the groups had grown to such an extent that arrangements were already being made for transferring the Eich back to their home planet.
The positions of both Micha and Deira in the nascent Pan-Galactic Agency had been confirmed as soon as their acceptance of the offers made to them had arrived back at headquarters, and the young agents had been the first appointees to the Enforcement Section of the Agency. To nobody’s surprise, Josh was appointed as Director of Operations of this section, a post for which he was eminently suitable. So, despite humanity being an upstart species at the edge of the galaxy, they figured very prominently in the new organisation, a fact which made Deira inordinately proud.
Of course, the formation of this Agency necessarily brought other changes in its wake. It was considered, correctly, that such a multi-species, supra-planetary organisation could not be allowed to operate completely independently. There must be appropriate checks and balances. Most of the species contributing to the agency had experienced problems on their home planets at some time in their history, when powerful bodies, set up with the best of intentions, had become dictatorial and oppressive. That would not be allowed to happen with the new Agency.
The solution was an Oversight Committee, made up of members of a new Galactic Congress that would, itself, be made up of representatives from every species contributing to the Agency. In most cases, such contributions would be technological, but Earth was clearly a special case. It was technologically inferior to most of the member races, but it had already contributed the new Director of Strategy and Director of Operations, as well as the founder members of a new mentalic cadre of agents who would be responsible for projecting the power of the Agency across the galaxy. That was enough to ensure its position at the very centre of the organisation.
Then, of course, there was the whole issue of representation. It had only been a few months since the people of Earth had been informed by their leaders of the battle that had raged to prevent the planet being destroyed by the Cthon-directed asteroids. That had already resulted in major societal changes, with the realisation that humanity was not alone in the cosmos. Yet, even as the aftershocks of recent events rolled around the planet, the paradigm shifted once more. Now, humanity was faced with the fact that they were but one species among countless others across the known universe – and they were being invited to participate in the greatest multi-species cooperative endeavour ever developed. The culture-shock was considerable.
Faced with the collapse of long-held beliefs, people were initially left confused and rudderless. Established religions struggled to re-evaluate their teachings and there was widespread violence. Faced with common problems, the governments of the world were forced to cooperate as never before, reining in the worst of the excesses while avoiding a slide into authoritarianism. It took time, but eventually the new reality took hold, uniting the world’s peoples as never before. Faced by the almost bewildering array of intelligent species throughout the galaxy, the differences between individual human beings seemed increasingly petty and unimportant – as, indeed, they always had been. People everywhere simply took pride in the fact that they were human. In a galaxy that … wasn’t.
A United Earth was not long in coming.
Epilogue
Josh sat in the summer sun in the back yard of the old brownstone, idly watching four-year-old Joe playing with his new agent kit, and Tao fussing over baby Anna. His thoughts were everywhere and nowhere, hovering in a no-man’s land somewhere between wakefulness and dozing, and he knew he wouldn’t get many times like this, away from his new responsibilities at the Agency for a while, with absolutely nothing needing his attention. For a short time, he could simply sit, and absorb the rhythms of the world.
There was a sudden noise at the bottom of the yard and the gate opened to reveal a tall, male figure and a shorter, female one. Josh didn’t immediately recognise the newcomers, and little Joe clearly took them to be strangers, because he ran to Tao and grabbed hold of her leg. Then, it became clear who the visitors were, and Josh was out of his chair in an instant, smiling a welcome.
‘Barth. Nerima. What brings you two here? I’d have thought you’d have been off playing with cosmic rays or something.’
He shook hands with Barth and hugged Nerima. Tao struggled across as best she could with Joe still clinging to her, and, despite Anna in her arms, managed a brief hug with both the Founders.
‘Lovely to see you both,’ she said. ‘Joe, will you let go now? These are our friends.’
Joe reluctantly let go of Tao’s leg and stepped forward a little, holding out his hand.
‘Hello,’ he said, with carefully rehearsed politeness. ‘My name is Joe MacMahon.’
Barth went down on one knee and shook the offered hand solemnly.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Joe. My name’s Barth.’
‘That’s a funny name.’
‘Joe,’ Tao scolded. ‘Manners.’
‘Sorry.’ Joe said and went back to Tao’s leg.
‘That’s alright,’ Barth laughed. ‘You’re quite right. It is a funny name. He pointed to Nerima. ‘This is Nerima’
‘That’s a nice name,’ came a muffled reply, and Nerima laughed too.
‘Your son’s got taste, I’ll give him that,’ she said. ‘Why don’t I stay and make friends with him and his little sister, and have a chat with Tao, while you men go and have a serious talk?’
Josh frowned at that. As soon as he’d identified his visitors he’d wondered what they were doing here, and he didn’t like the sound of “serious talk”. He glanced uncertainly at Tao, wondering if she’d like to be involved in the discussion too.
‘It’s alright, she said, nodding at Josh. ‘You two carry on.’
Josh led Barth back towards the house and fetched another chair.
‘Anything to drink?’ he asked, before realising what a stupid comment this was. The last thing Barth would be wanting was a drink. This wasn’t a real body he was currently wearing, it was a dirt body – one of the simple constructs the Founders used when they were paying short visits to their corporeal cousins. It would be gone again in an instant when Barth left, becoming dust, to be blown away in the breeze.
‘I’ll pass, thanks.’ Barth looked wistfully at the little group down the yard. Nerima appeared to have already gained Joe’s trust, because she was skipping around pretending to be a baddy to Joe’s PWC-wielding agent. ‘You might like one, though. Better make it a stiff one.’
This simply confirmed Josh’s original feelings. Shit, he’d known this was too good to last. What could the Founder have discovered now? He poured a straight scotch – a large on
e – and came back to sit next to Barth.
‘Nerima looks happy, doesn’t she?’ Barth said. ‘She’s been looking forward to seeing Joe and Anna for some time.’
‘Yeah,’ Josh said, tiring of these pleasantries. ‘So, what’s bothering you, Barth?’
Barth tore his gaze away from the two women and the kids and stared directly at Josh.
‘I’ve a few things I need to tell you.’ He frowned and ran his hand through his hair in an affectation Josh hadn’t previously noticed.
‘Like?’
‘Well, let’s go straight for the big one. My endeavours didn’t create this universe.’
Josh was astounded. How could that be? It was the basis of everything Barth had told him, and the reason the Founders had needed to be evacuated from sub-quantal space. Also, Barth had told him mentalically. It wasn’t supposed to be possibly to lie mentalically. Barth seemed to guess what was going through his mind.
‘I know,’ he said, with a big sigh. ‘It’s not supposed to be possible to dissemble mentalically. However, I think your mother once guessed that it’s eminently possible if you believe what you’re saying. When I first described our history to you, I truly believed what I was saying – or, at any rate, I’d persuaded myself to believe it. Then, I found out who you were, and things took on a different complexion. Nerima said she always knew.’
‘Knew what? What are you skirting around, Barth?’
The device I used at the end of our original universe was underpowered. I’d been worried about that, but when I saw what I took to be a new baby universe, I put my concerns to one side and assumed I’d been successful after all.’
‘But you were. You must have been, or we wouldn’t be here.’
‘Not true. The device punched a hole in space-time all right, but it didn’t create a new universe. It simply created a wormhole back in time to the early stages of our original universe.’
‘So …’
‘So, we changed things a bit. No, let’s be honest, we changed things quite a lot. I think I told you there was no sub-quantal space in our original universe? That was probably the biggest change, because it, together with the sub-quantal space consciousness waveform, was directly responsible for the generation of the many different life forms in this universe. In our original universe, we were the only sentient species.’
‘But that still doesn’t make sense,’ Josh said. ‘If you simply came back to your original universe, the cosmic constants should already have been set up for stars and life to evolve. That means you wouldn’t have changed them, and that means there shouldn’t have been a crisis. They’d already exist in their original settings.’
‘You’re right – it doesn’t make complete sense, and I haven’t yet found a suitable answer. I can only assume that it was either the introduction of sub-quantal space into the overall framework, or the generation of the extra constant, relating to consciousness, that caused the problem – but I’ve no idea how.’ He sighed and leaned back in his chair for a moment, watching Joe and Nerima, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘There’s something else too.’
Josh was almost certain he knew what that something else might be and thought he’d give Barth a break.
‘We know you’re human,’ he said, and then regretted he’d interrupted because, for some reason, he didn’t think that was what Barth was going to say. ‘Evara told Dad just before she went back to sub-quantal space. That explains about the Way being human-focused, as well as why your photon and dirt bodies are always human. Those are the bodies you’re used to – your original bodies.’
‘For most of us, yes. Did Evara say anything else?’
Josh missed the obvious inference from the first part of this comment. ‘Nothing that Dad told us about,’ he said, ‘though he was in a very strange mood for the rest of the evening.’ Barth stayed silent, so Josh continued. ‘Let’s be honest,’ he said, ‘regardless of what the condition of the constants might have been when you migrated, you’ve changed more than “a little bit”, or even “quite a lot. You’ve changed everything.’
‘Not quite everything. You once told me that the Eich had created you by selective breeding, and I told you that wasn’t true. I know it wasn’t true because, in our universe, you not only existed but existed in the form you do today. Your exploits, and those of your young agents rang down through time.’
Josh had trouble with that one because, once again, it just didn’t seem to fit the facts.
‘But I wouldn’t have existed in your universe. My father wouldn’t have been sent back in time if there had been no Cthon intervention in Earth history.’
‘Not true. In the original universe, Professor Chayka discovered sub-quantal physics without any stimulus from the Cthon, and his later formulation of mass PHASEing resulted in Sol being sent back to correct that mistake. Despite the absence of the Phthask Dominguez, Sol still met, and fell in love with, your mother. Josh, you were a very famous individual in the original universe, just as you are in this version of it. You and your family were the original mentalic humans – the ones that sowed the seed for the later energy-bodies.’
‘So, in the original universe, the development of mentalics went pretty much as it’s gone in this version?’
‘I’d say, almost exactly. As if it were ordained.’
‘I don’t believe in fate or destiny.’
‘Believe what you will, I’m simply stating a fact.’
‘But, if you didn’t create the universe, who did?’
Barth smiled. ‘Ah, well – that’s the mystery, isn’t it?’
That wasn’t what Josh wanted to hear at all. He was much more comfortable with the earlier version of events. He didn’t like mysteries in the slightest.
‘So, we’re doomed to go through all this again?’ The end of the universe stuff, and the migration?’
‘I suspect we’ll have some help this time round. The most significant effect of our migration back in time was the development of a sub-quantal space in which consciousness is one of the cosmic constants. The result has been to spread sentience across this version of the universe. Where once we were alone and had to face the end of the universe alone, this time we will have the help of all our evolved neighbours. This time, we may well be able to create a new universe … and another after that, and another … perhaps for all eternity.’
‘That’s one hell of a vision,’ Josh got up and gazed into the distance. ‘It’d be nice to live to see it.’
‘You will.’
‘Huh?’
‘You will, Josh. Not all of humanity will, it’s true, but those of you who develop mentalics to the point where you can create a new body. When your old body wears out, you can simply hop across to a new one. That’s only a partial solution, of course, but it won’t take many body changes before you work out how to form energy-bodies. Then you’ll become what you’ve been calling “Founders”. Immortality beckons, Josh.’
‘Immortality? For Tao and the kids too?’
‘Of course. In fact, your children will achieve the energy body before you do.’
Josh gazed at Tao, Joe and Anna. He had become so used to assimilating outrageous new ideas in short time-frames that this was just one more thing to take in. But, what a future for them all to look forward to. Barth was looking a little strange and Josh guessed there was more of this to come.
‘So what else do you want to tell me?’ he asked.
‘I am a little transparent, aren’t I?’
‘Just like me. I sympathise.’
Barth did a little double-take, opened his mouth as if to say something, then recovered.
‘Nerima and I heard about Evara and Adam remaining in sub-quantal space. A little strange, don’t you think, that there should have been a requirement for one of each gender?’
‘I’d go further than that,’ Josh said. ‘It was nothing short of weird. Do you know what it was all about?’
‘We had our suspicions.’
Barth
paused for a moment, watching Tao, Nerima and the children. He had a wistful look on his face and seemed to be far away. Josh frowned, wondering what this was leading up to, but opted to remain silent. Barth said nothing more for a moment then suddenly snapped back, looking a little embarrassed.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of another time like this, long ago. The children brought it back to me.’
‘Of course!’ Josh slapped his forehead. ‘I never stopped to think that you must have had children yourself at one time.’
‘As I said, it was a very long time ago.’ Barth smiled. ‘Anyway, I didn’t come here to reminisce. Where was I? Ah, yes – Adam and Evara. Do you know that events in sub-quantal space echo both forwards and backwards in time?’
‘Actually, yes, we do. Micha told us after we put down the mutiny on the El ship. He also told some outrageous story about me, and what effect I might have had on Earth’s history.’
‘Not so outrageous, in fact, but that wasn’t that I was thinking of. I was referring to the well-known story of Adam and Evara.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Or perhaps I should say, Adam and Eve?’
‘Well I’ll be damned!’ Josh laughed. ‘And I guess they must have created their own little Garden of Eden too. That’s good to know.’
‘Yes. Then there’s Original Sin and the expulsion of mankind from the Garden of Eden. That would relate to my actions to ensure our survival, together with our subsequent evacuation from sub-quantal space.’
‘So, all our legends come from distorted fact,’ Josh said. ‘That’s something I’ve always suspected.’
‘Not all, perhaps, but most.’ Barth paused for a moment. ‘The thing is, the requirement for one of each gender to remain behind didn’t make sense to us unless there was some link to genetics. So, we did a little research – specifically into anthropology. I’m sure you’ll have read about Mitochondrial Eve?’
‘Of course. She’s considered to be the matrilinear most common ancestor of all modern humans. The male equivalent’s called Y-chromosomal Adam.’ He stopped and frowned as he put two and two together. ‘You’re not suggesting …?’
Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Page 43
