“Saurian Time-mine.”
“What's a Saurian Time-mine?”Why can’t she provide more accurate answers? I asked only to delay an uneasy decision.
“Later. Get out; the bubble is closing. Now!” Her tone was like a whip, and a foreign will pushed us toward the tunnel. “What bubble?” I whispered. We stumbled, but entered in the mouth of the tunnel, and we saw her face at the end. “The mine is creating its own temporal bubble, a micro-universe trying to keep you in.” Then I realized that she wanted to keep us away from desperation with technicalities, to keep our minds busy, a temporal dilatation was already visible while the tunnel narrowed. We ran, faster and faster, yet we could not cover the twenty feet to the tunnel’s end. I panicked and almost stopped running. “Do not stop!” she shouted again.
“What is happening?” I breathed, my lungs were burning, several minutes had passed and yet those damned feet were still there in front of us.
“Time-space continuum distortion,” her voice tried to calm us. “Our vortex interferes with the mine's own time gradient.” The white fog swirled for a moment, and the next second we were finally able to exit the tunnel. A sudden lightning penetrated the fog behind, annihilating it, closing the tunnel. Thank God, I mumbled. Then something seemed to break, as if the white sphere behind us had suddenly popped, silently but palpably. The large black one was shrinking, powerful and silent, embracing everything to death.
“Jump! Now!” In the middle of the jump, the light faded, and I felt myself floating in space, the white sphere appearing farther and farther behind. Batranu was flying in the same direction, our bodies almost parallel. I caught his eyes.
“Are you okay?” I saw his mouth opening in slow motion: “I... I caaaannnnoooottt hhhheeeeaaaaarrr yoooouuuu weeeeeellllll.”
“What's this?” I asked, hoping that Houston could still hear me.
“You are not in the same vortex spiral.” Then blackness surrounded us.
When my senses returned to life, all that terrible dark was gone, and my mind, remembering with unwelcome clarity, what had occurred, shrank from trying to recall things and events; yet curiosity prevailed. We were in my garden, Houston sitting in front of us.
“What's a Saurian Time-mine?”
“It is forbidden knowledge developed when the Saurians rebelled against The Universe.”
“Mutiny against The Universe.” The notion was too strange to believe.
“It is a long story.” The coded answer for: the revelation of that event has yet to come. “This came from a future we are not yet able to see and was planted in the past of this timeline. The entities doing this have very good knowledge of current events. They tracked you all the way from the Sarmis Library, they knew your path, and they were able to bypass all our checks.”
“Wait, wait, wait! One thing at a time. It stopped the spear and destroyed that marauding band.”
“It was planted there to generate a violent time-event resembling a rescue, to provoke Time, and kill you. What saved you both was the white fog.”
“How can white fog save …?” I abruptly stopped her. Why does she not understand that we need a little more time to handle such an avalanche of news? We are not machines.
“That white fog was an Observer, the one I told you had some interest in your adventure there,” she continued, as if I had said nothing. “Now, the beauty of this ‘fairy-tale’ is that unintentionally the SAT-mine saved you.” You are contradicting yourself, I wanted to say, but I only frowned at her. A brief smile formed on her face. “Our simulation showed a good chance that the marauding band would kill you without this outside interference. Let's say it was fifty-fifty.” A good chance! Thank you. “The entities planting this mine wanted a 100% chance; they got nothing. We were allowed to interfere only after we proved to Time that the intention of the event was to kill you, not to save you.” She took a small pause as if pondering something and fear returned. That frown always means bad news coming. “The checks I told you about before.” Yes, the checks, I mumbled. I know, I forgot them, but who would react differently with such an avalanche of news?
“Okay, what about that check?” I finally asked, as she was not yet delivering the bad news.
“Time traveling is governed by complicated rules, especially when events are altered and new time-lines are formed, for a good purpose.” She paused again, pushing up our anxiety level. “You already know this. The next bit of knowledge was not supposed to be delivered to you, but there is now a new reality and I have to adapt to it.” Really bad. I glanced at Batranu, but he managed his nervousness better, ignoring me. “I will try to keep it simple: you never change an event directly, a new physical mini-world is created in an independent time-loop and that event happens only inside that bubble. Then there are two possibilities: the event is of a low magnitude, Time and The Field are unaware, and reality is stealthily replaced; big events do not pass unobserved and you need an approval from the two Cerberuses. Believe me it is hard to obtain. Failed experiments are stored as memories in The Field. To change existing reality, new specifications have to be slipped in when The Universe is reconfiguring himself, replacing old ones.”
“Of course,” I mumbled, only to say something.
“I hope I am not losing you; this is the lowest possible technical explanation I can give. To go back, your journey happened both on the real planet and in some mini-worlds created by us; we could not find the SAT-mine, and so we replicated it each time. We failed, and nothing can guarantee that things will not repeat.” I had a thousand questions to ask, but as usual, she was already gone after dropping the bomb. One of them lingered for a while in my mind: when were we on the planet and when in the bubble? And why? The thought disappeared in the next moment, and made a comeback much later, together with the information that it was suppressed on purpose.
*
Recovering at length from the laziness into which the almost unnatural sun had thrown us, I realized that we were at the end of the desert. From the top of the hill, on each side different conditions held sway. On my left as I faced sunset, was a far sea of great yellow sand waves rolling peacefully under a brightly shining sun. On my right was a white glittering vista, clinging on the mountains' peaks, under a blue sky.
“Let’s go,” I told Batranu, “the road will be easier.”
“The easiest road is always behind you.” He managed a slight smile, a thin slit on his tired face.
“At least the heat will subside.” I stopped talking, the road was steep and full of holes, and I had to lead the uneasy horse. A large trace of dust stayed long in the air, behind us, slowly spread by the wind. “I don't like this.”
“What?”
“This,” I moved my hand toward the dust behind. “It's visible from miles away, showing people are passing, not many, easy to catch, good prey.”
Deep in the valley the sun was no longer in sight and the horses paced faster as they sensed the water.
“There is something ... between here and the water, an ambush.” Batranu took out his bow from its cover. “A small gadget in my brain just activated. I received it a long time ago on another mission.” With slow movements, we nocked our bows. “It was a temporal game here; some chrono-particles are still floating around.”
“That big rock there?” Just before the water, a tall pillar of stone narrowed the path. No more than two riders were able to pass together. “Could be that marauding band, they followed me and the people from Dava for some time. They think of a better chance now.”
“Locals have no gadgets to feel temporal games. We are still far; they will not think they’ve been spotted ... if they are there.”
“I don’t feel anything... I’m not entitled to fancy gadgets.” A sudden envy overtook me. We were alerted. What more do you want? “Should we try another route? We have enough time.”
“Something is telling me to go forward, maybe this is a rite of passage.”
“Made by whom?”
“There is ano
ther player here, a larger game. Not sure if it was meant for us, or it's coincidental. Let’s push the horses in front of us, and walk as if everything is normal.”
I did not see the first arrow; I only heard the long hiss as it passed between us crashing into the rocks behind us. What I saw was the archer on my side, and my arrow flew when his arrow's hiss passed behind me, and the archer was down. And the second one was down before releasing his mortal toy, thanks to Batranu's arrow. We kicked the horses and ran behind them; another arrow passed by, flying too high. Of the archer, I saw only a swift shadow. You are afraid … that's good. Just before the pillar, we moved between the horses and passed further along the gorge. Four men hurtled out towards us from behind the large rock: “Kill! Kill! Kill!” their shouts filled the valley, and scared birds scattered into the air. They were untrained savages, easy prey. Blood and shadows of desperation marked their faces, yet something behind their scared eyes pushed them further. “Kill,” one of them whispered. “Kill ... ki... Have mercy.” His unnatural will broke; his sword fell in the sand, he was gasping and trembling. “Pity... I did not...” You did not what? Want? Who sent you? I checked their tattoos: The Desert Brothers. “Who sent you here?”
“I don’t remember.” I raised my sword. “I don’t remember, have mercy.”
“Where is the Black Eye?”
“He’s dead; he was punished. I don’t remember,” he squeaked again. We took their swords. “Run!” I growled. They ran. In that moment the SAT-mine story came back.
“What the hell are you doing? Why did you send us back in time?” I rumbled at Houston.
“Time’s order. You gained an intolerable advantage from the SAT-mine killing your enemies. He wanted things to be settled without any outside interference, and if we don't take into consideration the small brain enhancements, everything was played by the book.” She smiled. “And you were not sent ‘back’. Time is now satisfied, you will go back onto the planet, half an hour later.” Time is satisfied… Can ‘he’ laugh or shout too? He shouted… The Second Pillar…
“The Second Pillar is … Time.”
“Yes,” she swiftly confirmed, as if telling me to keep my mouth shut. Why? And you are the third one. Forbidden knowledge? “Now, the SAT-mines … they are the ultimate killing machine in this universe; the target is not only destroyed, it is erased from The Field, altering the universe reconfiguration. That person or thing would never have existed. There is no possibility of reconstruction for trapped human beings, Observers or Gates,” she chilled us. Gates, you were in danger too... Yet, you helped us… I never thought…
“Thank you Houston,” we whispered together. “Are you, hmm, affected by the fight?”
“Some effects can be delayed, we are still checking, but thank you, the worry is usually the other way around,” she smiled. Is she really worried? That's quite a human trait.
“Are there any other SAT-mines on the planet?” I was afraid to ask this question. What is worse? To know it and fear? Or to fear too much?
“We destroyed another two of them; one was at the Library of Sarmis. Do not ask why it was not activated when you went there, we do not know. The other one was in a place I cannot yet disclose to you. And this doesn't mean that we have found them all.” She dampened our incipient exuberance. “The knowledge of these things was supposed to be wiped away ... it seems that we are wrong.” She stopped as if waiting for another question but our minds were too disrupted.
“I see, plenty of questions. The band attacking you ... they were looking for a certain Deceneus. I read their minds, they knew nothing.” Old news, I frowned. “This name will stick to you later, we don’t know how or when. It is only an indirect assessment extracted from their quest. We have some good ideas about why your presence here is known to the unknown entities, but we are not yet able to figure out why they don’t have your ‘picture’.” If you can’t figure it out... But, inadvertently or not, she let it slip that it was me they were looking for. A me not yet established at this point, a me from my future.
“The SAT-mines prove your impact on that timeline. The Factions spying there are not involved or aware. Everything happened inside the time matrix. They are far from having the technology to detect those temporal waves. The Saurians were the only civilization able to alter the time matrix.” She finally sensed a nascent question in our minds, and she briefly smiled before stopping the flow of information to allow us a bit of analysis.
“I can't see the Saurians as an advanced civilization. Sorry, don't kill me; I know it's a Jurassic Park cliché: huge tyrannosaurs with big fangs instead of large brains.” A malicious smile formed on Houston's lips. “You are ready to drop the bomb.” I reacted to her smile.
“They were tall, almost ten feet, and had mostly white feathers, and wings, large wings ending with almost human palms. Their ‘pithecanthropus’ ancestors were close to your pterodactyls. Are you satisfied now?” I scratched my head, unconvinced by her story.
“Okay, big birds, big wings, small heads. And? Where is the bomb? How can some overgrown turkeys produce an advanced civilization?” Then I noticed a change on Batranu's face, and her smile, which was growing. Big turkeys. What the hell is this? Some independent links formed inside my mind: hell, heaven. How can our mind autonomously jump so fast from one pattern to another? Why the hell have I thought about heaven? She was patiently waiting, Batranu was stunned. Something popped-up into my mind and I answered with a shy whisper.
“I am impressed you are so quick, and of course that is the humanized version of them.”
“What are the circles over their heads?”
“Communication belts. Because of the wings, they had to use their heads, obviously. Almost all of them were changed to humanoid shape in the last DNA enhancement, then they ascended to the Galactic Council, and later melted into The Field, as this is the path for all intelligent species; still, I will reveal their real form to you; there is a blocked obscure area where they still survive.” She abruptly cut off our questions; of course, we were not yet ready for full disclosure of deep mysteries. A hologram formed in the middle of my garden, leaving us staring in deep silence: angels are beautiful. In that marvelous awe another thought arrived to me: “The fallen ones?” She briefly smiled. “The mutineers; you know about a certain prison planet: Hell.”
Next moment we were back on the planet trying to assimilate the stunning revelations. Sometimes, mixing with advanced entities leaves our poor minds as collateral damage from the encounter.
*
Forests are a gift from Heaven, shadow, and birds singing and flowers, and a curse from Hell, any tree can hide an arrow. The leaves were stirred by a wind flowing like cold water, sharp and smelling of berries. You are a sentimental fool, let the birds sing and watch the road. We were walking with the horses at halter. One of the heavy bags started to slip, on my side. “Stay there”, I whispered, and pushed it back. “How in hell were we able to carry these books, without horses, from Sarmis to that valley? I am glad Houston finally agreed to provide horses.”
“I don't have any memory of carrying the bags on my back,” he slowly answered, scratching his, now, long beard. "Yet I had no horse, then.”
“Neither did I.” My mind retraced everything step by step: found the library – found the ‘Rare books’ room – chose the books – went out… After this, everything fogged. No memory of the books between the library and the SAT-mine event, not even a single hint ... nothing.
“I think these are different horses, the first ones were probably trapped by the SAT-mine. They simply vanished.” SAT-mines … nothing remains; no piece of skull, no pictures, no memories, nothing. No wonder they were forbidden. Shit! You did not really exist. So what? Nobody would cry for you; it is not a matter of life and death, it is a matter of existence and non-existence. The unborn cannot be mourned. “Who took the books when we jumped from the sphere? You?” He had a long look at them.
“No way could I jump with them, they are
too heavy. It was the last thing to think about. I hope that my horse is the same color as the first one. The people from Dava,” I answered his frowning. “They know my old horse.”
“Houston is experienced in preparing missions, so I’m sure she considered this, or you can tell them you just found another horse.” But it was more of a bland statement thrown out to soothe me. “The books are here; somehow they escaped from the trap. We have to credit Houston again, or the Observer.” The sun was sinking, a golden eye below the trees, and we made camp on top of the hill.
*
The volcano was now so close that smoke began to rise from many points roundabout, a foggy-headed, morose sentinel sending poisoned fumes to keep intruders away. Breathing was difficult and painful, and the horses were uneasy. We wandered for weeks, back and forth to kill time, but finished in the wrong place at the wrong time as there were so many bright red lava flows creeping everywhere. I should have been more careful in choosing the road, but who could have foreseen that a new caldera would open on this side of the mountain?
“We have to go down.” I tapped the horse’s neck and he turned slowly like an old friend, understanding my words. As before, the road back was no more than a treacherous path, taking a toll on both men and horses. My binoculars offered a brief glimpse of the Baragans we were looking for on our right, still far away, running into the dead end of the valley where, without our help, they would be killed; the smoke was chasing them too. We changed direction and took the only escape route, a long ridge aligned with the deep canyon created by an old flow of basaltic lava and closed in a multitude of dead-end tunnels going under the hill – riddling it for many miles.
“The news now: I have none.” It was the last contact cave before finding the Baragan group. “We still don’t know who is behind the SAT-mine. It left a trace we could pursue almost one hundred years into the future of that past. If you want to kill me do it now.”
Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe) Page 14
