Debt of Ages

by Steve White

  Andreas’ face gleamed with a sheen of sweat in the simulated sunlight and he licked his lips before continuing. “We didn’t know any of this, of course. But for the entire two centuries since the landfall on Chiron—that’s what we call the third planet of Alpha Centauri A—our lives have been built around preparation for the eventual arrival of the Korvaasha. Among other things, we’ve tried to develop a means of faster-than-light travel. But we ve never discovered the secret of artificial gravity; that’s one of the many ways in which our courses of development have differed since your timeline branched off.” He looked around at the other three as though challenging anyone to take exception to that particular phraseology, but no one did. “Our efforts were aimed at translating a ship into a parallel space in which the speed of light was higher, or ignorable altogether.”

  “Oho!” Sarnac smiled. “The old ‘hyperspace’ idea. It was a favorite with Terran science-fiction writers before the discovery of displacement points.”

  “The Chironites were wrong about faster-than-light travel,” Tylar said. “But in pursuing their erroneous theory they blundered onto something concerning which not even my people have ever had an inkling: the ability to access an alternate reality. Tell him what happened, Andreas.”

  “Theory predicted that our experimental drive would not work deep in a gravity well, so the experiments were carried on in the outer reaches of the Alpha Centauri system. At last a robot probe was launched—with apparent success, for it vanished and later reappeared on schedule at the same location. But its recorded data showed that it had emerged in exactly the same spot in the outer Alpha Centauri system! But not the same Alpha Centauri system, for all the regular communications channels were dead. Instead, there was an enormous volume of incomprehensible broadcasts from Chiron.”

  Lirauva, Sarnac mentally corrected him. That’s what we call Alpha Centauri A III, because Varien hle’Morna’s daughter Aelanni named it that when she used it as her base for studying twenty-first-century Earth, back in the days when Alpha Centauri had a displacement point.

  “Nowadays, being a nice place and just a short continuous-displacement hop from Sol, it’s a rapidly growing colony. What will it be like in the twenty-ninth century?

  “At first we thought we had inadvertently discovered time travel,” Andreas was saying. “But the probes photographic record showed absolutely no difference in the relative positions of the stars. Only one conclusion was possible: our probe had traveled not up or down the timestream but across to the same point of a different timestream.”

  “A conclusion that showed great intellectual courage and flexibility,” Tylar approved.

  “I suppose becoming hidebound is one of the many luxuries we’ve never been able to afford. At any rate, the video broadcasts the probe had picked up showed that the inhabitants of Chiron—the other Chiron—were human. Their language was indecipherable, although one of our more eccentric philologists claimed to discern, in part of the vocabulary, a remote kinship with the languages spoken by the barbarians of northwest Europe before their final incorporation into the Empire. Of more immediate concern was the fact that they possessed technology beyond our utmost horizons. We resolved to contact diem and seek their help against the Korvaasha, perhaps enlisting their aid in liberating Earth.

  “The energy cost of the transtemporal breakthrough is enormous, and the generating machinery is almost prohibitively massive relative to the payload. It was out of the question to send more than one emissary, especially given the tonnage of life-support equipment he’d need for the voyage insystem to Chiron… or whatever you call it. The competition for that posting was fierce, despite the danger; we had no way of knowing for certain that a living organism could survive the transposition. Senior government officials were generally too old or otherwise disqualified. So they turned to those of us who had been in training for the projected faster-than-light interstellar expeditions. In the end, I was selected for good physical and mental health, lack of ties to my own world—I have no living relatives— and broad-based scientific knowledge. Not for historical expertise, as Tylar can attest!

  “As it turned out, I successfully made the transit and emerged into your reality. Then, just after I had set a course for Chiron, I was met by a ship which made even the technology of the alternate Chiron seem primitive.”

  “You,” Sarnac stated flatly to Tylar.

  “Yes. The emergence of the unmanned probe had set up a kind of dimensional fluctuation which our listening post could not fail to detect. The energy flux was quite unprecedented; we had no idea what was happening. So I was sent for. We were fully prepared for Andreas’ appearance. We couldn’t allow him to contact the twenty-ninth-century inhabitants of Lirauva, of course; our own history said nothing about any such contact. It was clearly a case where intervention was required to keep history on its proper course—the course that eventuates in us. So we picked him up.”

  “I can imagine that scene,” Sarnac remarked. He really could. (“Oh I’m so sorry about this dreadful mixup, my dear fellow.…”)

  “It soon became clear what had happened,” Tylar continued, oblivious, “as incredible as it all seemed. The next step, of course, was to determine the exact point at which the two histories had diverged. Andreas, as he has admitted, is no historian. But he has an educated man’s familiarity with the salient events and personalities. He knew that in the late fifth century the Roman Empire was being reunified. And he knew who had done it.”

  “Yes,” Andreas said. “The man who bestrides the ages. When I met him…” He gazed across the table at Artorius. “Of course, I know that he isn’t really Artorius Augustus the Restorer, that in your history he died—or was supposed to have died—at the same time he was winning the Battle of Bourges in mine. But still… do you know I was born in a city on Chiron called ‘Artoriopolis’?” Artorius gave a gesture that was all offhand graciousness, while Sarnac tried to imagine meeting a George Washington who had been hanged by Lord North and lived on in legend.

  “Given this information,” Tylar resumed, “I accessed Roberts recorded memories of that period. It wasn’t hard to pinpoint that brief conversation.”

  “Wait a minute, Tylar,” Sarnac protested. “Are you really sure that for just those few moments the future was teetering on such a knife-edge, as you said earlier, that a few words from me could have tipped the balance?”

  “Yes,” Tylar stated shortly. “Those moments may have been unique in all the timestream. I devoutly hope so. But at any rate, the inarguable fact is that an alternate timeline was created, by application of precisely the right stimulus at precisely the right instant. Our subsequent researches leave no room for doubt on the matter.”

  After a few heartbeats, Sarnac decided it was incumbent on him to break the silence. “So, Tylar, what do you propose to do? Take me back to that same place and time and make sure that I keep my big mouth shut?”

  “Oh, no. I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. We’ve had a chance to investigate these matters in some depth, and while there’s much we don’t understand, one thing is clear: once an alternate timeline branches off, it can’t be unmade.”

  Sarnac felt that sensation of groping for an understanding of the basic fundamentals that was all too familiar when dealing with Tylar. “Uh, I don’t quite get it. If what happened can’t be undone, then what’s the use of all this?”

  “Andreas’ timeline can’t be obliterated, true. But it can be altered under the right circumstances, just as ours can. It’s precisely what my people and I are constantly on guard against, in our own reality. Well, in the alternate reality I’ll have to bring about that which I’ve dedicated my life to preventing, and change history so as to assure that by the twenty-sixth century the alternate Earth is prepared to defend itself against the Korvaasha. I fear I’ll be hard put to manage with equanimity such a… reversal of orientation.”

  “So you’re saying we should enter the alternate reality and go back to a point in time
just after the branching-off, and talk the alternate Artorius into changing his mind? Well, it shouldn’t be too hard.” He turned to Artorius. “The decision you made was entirely reasonable, given the information available to you at the time.”

  “So I’ve frequently assured myself,” the former High King said drily.

  “Ah, I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple.” Tylar sounded apologetic. “You see, after the crucial turning point the ‘fabric’ of the alternate reality becomes very strong for some time, as one decision leads with inexorable logic to the next. We’ve investigated the matter thoroughly, and the next area of ‘weak fabric’ when history can be changed occurs twenty-one years later, in the alternate year 491 A.D.”

  “What? But that’s a lot of time, Tylar—time enough for a lot of water to have flowed over the dam. Won’t the changes that lead to Andreas’ world have accumulated a lot of, uh, momentum by then?”

  “Indubitably. There will be certain difficulties, and I anticipate an extended stay in the alternate universe to assure ourselves that matters are proceeding as planned. But,” he added brightly, “anything worth doing is worth doing properly, as someone once said.”

  “Your mother,” Sarnac supplied. If you had one, he didn’t add.

  “Ahem! Well, to business! You’ll need to be supplied, via implant, with updated knowledge that Artorius and Andreas already possess. Then these data will have to be supplemented with a conventional briefing concerning the precise state of affairs at the moment when we’ll—”

  “Tylar.” Sarnacs tone achieved the not-inconsiderable feat of stopping the time traveler in his verbal tracks. “Look, I think I understand all this, at least on a superficial level.

  And I’m not blind to the ethical implications—I’m willing to admit a degree of responsibility. But like all adult human beings, I have to balance my responsibilities. And, as you know, I’m in command of a naval force that is shortly going into battle against some very dangerous enemies of the human race—our human race.” His glance at Andreas was rueful but not apologetic. “That has to be my first priority.” - “But, my dear fellow, there’s no conflict! As I explained, after your obligations are fulfilled I’ll return you to your office at the precise time we left it.”

  “Yeah, if I’m still alive! You’ve implied that changing the alternate history is going to involve a lot of difficulty and danger as well as an ‘extended stay,’ and I know from experience how rough that era can be.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I’m not afraid of personal risk—not as an individual. But my life isn’t strictly my own to risk. I’m not even talking about the fact that I’ve got a wife and children; I’m talking about—”

  “… the just cause which is entrusted to you to defend,” Tylar finished for him. It sounded like a quotation, but Sarnac couldn’t quite place it. “Yes, I can respect that. But I cannot let it weigh in the balance against the fate of an entire reality—a reality in which the human race is doomed to be slaves and meat-animals for all that remains of its existence. You are, at this point in time, the guardian of an ephemeral polity called the Pan-Human League. I am the guardian of universal reality!”

  Memories of which he had been robbed not once but twice came back to Sarnac, for once before, in this very place, Tylar’s eyes and voice had seemed to fill this artificial continuum of his own creation. And now, once again, the eyes and the voice were all that was or could be, and he was in free fall through a bottomless cosmos of the incomprehensible…

  But then there was something else. There was a face in which the blood of Earth and Raehan blended into a harmony of coppery skin and dark-red hair and features which held all that that was worthwhile in Sarnac’s personal universe. And all at once he knew where he was and who he was.

  “Tylar.” He heard his own voice as though from a great distance. “Tylar!” he shouted—or at least the rasping in his throat told him he was shouting. Abruptly, all was as before in the elegant lakeside pavilion. Artorius and Andreas looked on in silence, and Tylar smiled slightly.

  “You’ve grown up,” the time traveler observed. Then he leaned back, head tilted to one side, as though inviting Sarnac to speak.

  Sarnac forced steadiness on himself. ‘Tylar, I know there’s no point in trying to refuse you. So I’ll go along—on one condition. Tiraena comes too.”

  Tylar’s eyebrows lifted. “But that’s really not necessary. She bears no part of the responsibility; she was in Britain at the time when…”

  “Yes, I know. But that’s not the point. The half-memories you left in my subconscious but not in hers have been like a… a fault line between us. I don’t want to take the chance of that happening again. And besides, Tylar—you owe her! I won’t let you give me back my memories of what we went through together without giving them back to her as well, even if it’s only for a little while for both of us.” He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “You may be able to compel my cooperation—but you can’t compel my willing cooperation! The only way you’re going to get that is by going along with me on this!”

  There was a moments silence, while Andreas looked lost and Artorius’ face wore an expression that Sarnac had never thought to see there. Tylar finally spoke in a conversational tone. “How can you be sure she’ll want to go along on this expedition?”

  “I can’t. But it has to be her choice. You have to give her memories back to her and then let her decide. So help me, that’s the only way you’re going to get my wholehearted participation.”

  There was another pause. When Tylar spoke, it was at least half to himself, and with seeming irrelevance. “My work requires me to violate my own ethics far too much as it is, you know. In your case, I think I’ve already violated them quite enough.” He seemed to reach an inner decision. “I believe what you request can be arranged.”

  Chapter Four

  The grav raft swept in out of the red sunset, knifing through the mists under the ghostly outline of the giant close moon that hung where it always hung over this planet whose rotation it had long ago halted.

  Tiraena zho’Daeriel DiFalco-Sarnac watched the Survey base come into view as the raft slid silently over the flatlands. It lay near the estuary of Naeruil II’s greatest river, surrounded by native dwellings that had sprung up around it. The Naeruilhiv were at least the equal of their human discoverers in their appetite for novelty, and had little attachment to a particular place to deter them from moving close to where that appetite might best be satisfied. Maybe their disinclination to stay in one place long enough to form elaborately stratified societies had contributed to keeping them in the Bronze Age despite their high intelligence—it seemed to get higher every time the neural-scanner technicians recalibrated their equipment.

  Of course, it wasn’t easy to measure the intelligence of a race that consisted of two symbiotic species, so that each “individual” was, in fact, a duality. By the same token, it gave them a natural gift for communication…

  “Cleared for landing,” the pilot broke into her thoughts. She nodded absently and the native settlements (Camps?

  Something else?) vanished behind structures that seemed to rise up as they settled like a falling feather onto the landing stage.

  “Very smooth, Nicky,” she approved. Nicole Hunyadi grinned in response.

  “Hard to go wrong with these new models,” the pilot admitted, slapping the console affectionately. “My dad— he used to pilot the old Solar Union drop shuttles during the war—keeps telling me that my generation’s got it soft.”

  “Well, you do,” Tiraena stated firmly. Hunyadis grin was unabated in its infectiousness, and it duly infected Tiraena. She found it easy to share the pilots irreverence, having grown up with the kind of refined grav repulsion to which the peoples of the former Solar Union were still adjusting.

  Still, she thought, have a little respect! I’m more than old enough to be your mother. But, she assured herself as she swung herself out of the raft under Naeruil II’s 1.18 G pull, she didn’t feel
it, nor look it. She had, from birth, had access to the best bioscience Raehaniv money could buy, and at fifty-four Terran years her hair was as darkly auburn and her body as lithe as ever. Though chronologically older than Bob, she was almost certain to outlive him. It was a dilemma that linked her with her great-grandmother Aelanni zho’Morma, and they had both made the same decision.

  She swung her satchel over her shoulder, waved goodbye to Nicky, and started toward the headquarters building with the cautious stride that was her natural gaits compromise with the local gravity. The sun seemed almost as stationary as the moon—this planet’s sidereal day was longer than four of Earth’s—but it was setting, and there was some relief from the heat that had, over the last few watches, made Tiraena thankful for her utility suit’s ability to “breathe.” Soon would come the long night when it would get as close to cold as Naeruil II ever got. The enormous moon kept this hemisphere’s night from being very dark, but still it was good to get as much done as possible in daylight. Which, she told her conscience, is a perfectly valid reason for me to go out and pitch in with the field work, rather than spend my whole time back here doing my administrative chores like a good little station director. Plenty of time during the night to catch up on all that rhylieu shit.

  Rationalization completed, she grinned to herself as she checked in at her office and proceeded on to her quarters, thinking back over all the wonders she had seen in the hinterlands. The universe was full of planets with the right conditions for life, but most had not yet existed long enough to bring it forth. Earths Sol and Raehan’s Tareil were exceptionally old members of that exclusive club of F, G, and K type main-sequence stars which could sire living worlds. Prebiotic planets were everywhere, readily terraformable but as yet barren. And of the life-bearing worlds, most held only primitive marine microorganisms that made scummy the seas that lapped their landmasses of naked sand and rock. A planet with a mature, highly developed and richly diversified biosphere was a rare and precious thing. And rarest and most precious of all were the worlds which had brought forth sentience—like this one. Every one of the sentient races we’ve found has been a new adventure—a new perspective on reality. Every one of them has been unique, showing us one more road that leads beyond what we had thought were the boundaries of the possible.