Tomorrow's Spacemage

by Timothy Ellis

  "The first time, yes. But I said this was a loop. You were sent to the future, and went back to the past, where you made the changes which created the future. But with all that already in place, a higher being comes along, and sabotages your first jump, so you get captured by slavers. Instead of jumping home later on to create the future, you meet us, and we made a different future."

  "What about the timeline change?"

  "It changed the way you think."

  "How?"

  "You thought you destroyed the civilization by sending back nukes, because it vanished while you were in space. When we went back, this time you did it differently because it was different, and this time it was the threat of nukes moving kingdoms, and not just making a peace, resulting in the kingdom which should have made the city, now being on a different planet."

  "So it was me all along?"

  "It's just a theory."

  She grinned at me, and pecked me on the lips.

  "But nothing else changed?"

  "Apparently not," said Jen. "A civilization moved planets, but everything else stayed exactly the same."

  I looked at each of them in turn. Jen was looking serious, but her eyes sparkled. Jess and Lea were grinning. Tasha was looking smug. And the Oracle was looking very bemused.

  The thought being planted, I cast my sight to where my kingdom had been taken, and sure enough, there was the city I’d lived in for two years. It wasn’t exactly the same, but the technology looked like what I’d been living with. I pulled my sight back, grinned around at the others, and led them back to the village.

  We spent the rest of the day with the villagers, helping them get settled back in. No-one quite understood what had happened, or why the village had moved, but it didn’t take long for them to adjust.

  I came across the basics mage later in the afternoon.

  "I took care of your little problem," he said.

  "Which problem was that?"

  "The little shit who hexed you."

  "Not following."

  "Your memory problem. The kid you punched over the wall that time, turned out to be very good at messing with people's heads. He used magic on you to make you forget names."

  "Why was it limited to this planet?"

  "He had no understanding beyond his kingdom. So his intent was limited by lack of knowledge."

  "But why then do I forget names everywhere?"

  "It became normal for you to forget them, and so you never made an effort to remember them at all. Even expected not to remember them, so didn't listen to them in the first place. You adjusted to not using them, and so didn't need them."

  "What did you do with him?"

  "He went with the rest of the kingdom. There was no way I was bringing him here with us."

  "So he's been dead for millennia now?"

  "Yes. But I'm afraid what he did to you is permanent. He didn’t know how to remove what he'd done, and I've not heard of anyone else with that particular ability. So you're stuck with it."

  "I guess I'll live."

  We both laughed.

  Fifty Seven

  "THORN!"

  I woke out of a deep dreamless sleep. It sounded like the prime minister calling me. It was still dark, and I’d not had enough sleep, especially considering how much magic I’d been using lately. Reluctantly, I sent my sight to see what she wanted.

  What I saw had me out of bed immediately, and dressing. Tasha stirred, and looked up at me, squinting.

  "Trouble," I said. "Go back to sleep. I'll be a while."

  She turned over, and I finished dressing. A blink later, I was standing cloaked in the observer's gallery of the parliament building.

  There were armed people everywhere, and they appeared to have military weapons. Someone had a gun at the head of the prime minister, and another was pointed at the speaker. Most of the others were pointed at random representatives.

  "I'm not going to ask again," said the suited thug threatening the prime minister. "You will immediately make a motion to cancel the law removing guns from our society, and pass a new one making them the right of everyone to have, and carry on their person as they wish. You will apologize for removing our guns without our permission, and replace them. Whoever was responsible will be charged with grand theft, and locked away for the rest of their lives."

  "There is no such law," grated out the prime minister. "How many times do you need to hear the truth?"

  "Stop lying to me you bitch!"

  His finger was on the trigger, and twitching. I thought I’d better intervene before he shot her accidently. Just in case, I put a mini force wall at the end of every gun, the type which bounces things back, rather than disintegrates. I moved to stand near the PM, and dropped my invisibility.

  "Put that down," I said to the man threatening her, "or I'll shove that gun up your arse."

  He looked at me strangely for a moment, perhaps wondering how I'd snuck up on him without him seeing me earlier. Several guns pointed in my direction, while his remained where it was.

  "You and whose army?"

  I felt like sighing, but instead, I moved his assault rifle. The man screamed, and fell over, where he tried to pull the gun out. When it wouldn’t move, he looked at me with shock on his face.

  "I warned you. Now stay there and shut up, or I'm going to pull the trigger as well."

  "Who are you?"

  His voice was strained, and he flinched immediately he realized he'd not shut up. The prime minister smiled sweetly down at him.

  "May I introduce you to, Judge Thorn." She turned to me. "My apologies for the late hour, but thank you for coming so fast."

  I gave the man on the floor a look which made him turn white.

  "No problems prime minister. You don’t choose the time of night where arseholes decide to be arseholes."

  I wiggled the gun a bit, to emphasis exactly who I thought was an arsehole. I looked around the room.

  "Anyone with a gun in their hands in five seconds time, will wish they'd shot themselves with it."

  I counted silently, and by four, all the guns were on the floor. I moved all of the people who'd been holding them to stand against a wall, held there by another force wall. The man on the floor remained where he was. I looked back at the PM.

  "What is going on here?"

  "These cretins think the government passed a law banning gun ownership, and then broke into everyone's homes and confiscated them. They want a non-existent law repealed, and the guilty punished. Of course, we don’t have a clue what happened to all the guns, although I can guess."

  I looked down at the bozo with the gun up his arse.

  "I did it. A smartarse who made slave collars compared the collars to gun ownership. I told him not to start me thinking about it, but when I get angry, shit happens I don’t actually think about." The gun tried to push further in for a moment, and he flinched. "The reality is, this society doesn’t need guns. We need a military to defend against outside threats, but there are no internal threats which warrant guns in civilian hands. The fact they all vanished, saved me the need to actually think about it."

  I nudged him with my foot, and looked around at the group up against the wall.

  "Now, I'm going to put you somewhere hot." The PM flinched. "Stay exactly where I put you, and I'll be along in the morning to hold court. Feel free to wander off, but those who do will be judged guilty, and will have killed themselves slowly. Do you understand me? Nod for yes. Shake for no."

  He nodded slowly, and deliberately. So did most of those on the wall, but some were now too scared to move. I looked down again.

  "Good. Now don’t play with the gun, or it might go off accidently."

  He flinched. They all moved to a spot in the desert, away from the sign. I turned back to the PM.

  "I'm going back to bed. I suggest you call it a night as well. I've not been paying attention today. More riots?" She nodded. "I'm too tired to deal with anything now. I'll decide what to do tomorrow. Good
night."

  Five minutes later, I was back in bed, and fast asleep.

  Fifty Eight

  I took my time the following morning.

  I rose late, ate a good breakfast, lingered for no particular reason, and finally took myself off to the desert. I found a group of somber people, sitting in the sand. A heat haze shimmered in the distance.

  "Court is now in session, Judge Thorn presiding."

  I removed the gun from its not designed for it sheath, putting it in the armoury on Jen's ship. The man visibly relaxed, but was not yet able to sit properly.

  "Now suppose one of you tell me what all that fuss was about last night?"

  Most of them looked down at the sand. But a young man on the other side of the group from me, look directly at me. I nodded to him.

  "We believe it's our right to own and carry a gun. The government has no right taking them away from us."

  "I took them away from you. Were you not listening last night?"

  "I…"

  "No, you didn’t. How do you think you got here?"

  "I don’t know. Magic?"

  "Yes. Magic. How else would all civilian guns just vanish? The government sneaking into everyone's houses, and taking your guns while you sleep? Who came up with that nonsense?"

  Several eyes flicked to the man who'd threatened the PM.

  "Tell me why you need a gun?"

  "For protection," said the youth.

  "From whom?"

  "From anyone who'd threaten us."

  "Ah. So you believe the parliamentary representatives should all have had a gun on their person, so they could protect themselves from you bozos? How well would that have gone for all of you?"

  No-one answered. I went on.

  "Badly I suspect. The ones who knew how to use them would have seen your rifles and shot you before you could shoot them. The ones who didn’t, would have been shot. Result? Instant bloodbath. Anyone still standing would have been shot down by the police response. Congratulations, you’re all dead, from your own stupidity. And now we don’t have a workable parliament."

  I paused, and shook my head. Several people flinched.

  "So this is why we don’t have guns in public places. Where did the guns come from?"

  "The local military barracks," said a woman in the middle. "We broke in, disabled the few guards, and took the guns."

  "Anyone killed?"

  "We don’t know," said someone else.

  And you didn’t stop to check either, did you? I didn’t bother saying it. My sight went out, and found two bodies in the morgue, there on the base.

  "You will each answer the question, telling the truth, regardless if you know the truth or not. Those who have killed another person, yesterday or at any time before, will identify themselves right now."

  I looked at each person one at a time, and they all coughed out a yes or no.

  "Those of you who said no are guilty of treason, and sentenced to a penal colony for the rest of their lives."

  About two thirds of the group vanished as I moved them to the colony's entrance beach. I started interrogating the remainder. The two who'd killed the guards, moved over to the sign and shovel. They were quickly followed by the rest, as I found out the details of who and why they'd killed.

  I stood there on my own for a few minutes, pondering things. Criminals killed criminals. Criminals killed people who got in the way of criminal activity. Ordinary people killed criminals. Why? Because they all had a gun and could. And then someone took away their gun, so they felt aggrieved enough to steal more.

  What was wrong with these people? Three thousand years, and the need to make war on each other still remained. Only now they had no justifications for it, other than fear and greed.

  I went home, and spent the day on the beach, listening to the whales.

  Fifty Nine

  "Now what's wrong?"

  Tasha had a note of concern in her voice.

  "I'm sick of the whole violence mentality."

  "The gun riots?"

  "Among other things."

  My whale listening had been interrupted at one point, by news from the Orange end of our little part of the galaxy. They were rioting there too. The move from military dictatorship to democracy had released all the petty grievances everyone had against anyone else, and the military had been called in to augment the police. This had sparked rumours of the military taking over again, and more riots happened.

  I’d actually thrown my pad in the water before I got a grip. I pulled it back out with a thought, fast enough it still worked. But I moved it to my little office so I’d see no more. Mental note, when enjoying whale song, leave the tech in the house.

  "What's the real problem?"

  She was getting to know me too well.

  "I failed to change anything."

  "How did you expect to?"

  "I made sure the leaders understood what had to change. We may have peace here now, but it's still because I forced it, and when we meet the next alien species formally, some idiot will pull the trigger before trying to talk to them."

  "You'll be there."

  She sounded certain.

  "To fix the mess, yes. To prevent it though? Probably not."

  "I know you better than that. After all, you vanished this morning before anyone could do anything truly stupid."

  "So this is what my life's going to be from now on? Continually stepping into the middle of the eternally stupid, every time they do stupid?"

  She laughed. It stopped when I looked offended.

  "Get a grip love. Things are as they are. Deal with it."

  "I already tried. It didn’t work."

  "Down something around three thousand years? What did you expect?"

  "Not nothing changed."

  "It could have been worse you know."

  "I know. But I was hoping to head off a lot of problems by getting them started without them. Apparently it made no difference."

  "Pity there wasn’t a point in both histories, where change could be forged."

  I thought about it for a moment. Her look changed.

  "Now I'm sorry about mentioning it."

  "Why?"

  "I hate that look."

  "What look?"

  "The one where you think you had a great idea."

  "I have had a great idea."

  "That's what I'm afraid of."

  It took me a while, but by the time I went to sleep, I'd found everything I needed.

  Sixty

  I was trying something new this time.

  The girls had agreed to come with me again, although I'm not sure they understood just how risky this was for them. My family would be safe though.

  Before leaving, I'd made a change to the monument, so I’d know where to come back to. I’d also spent some time practicing.

  Jen's ship appeared just where I’d wanted it. The force wall was now projecting an image. My sight went high, and a screen came on showing both fleets, and how we looked between them. I sent out two more, one each for the fleet flagship bridges. On both, there was shock, followed by just two words.

  The Reaper!

  I'd covered the ship with my cowl and skeletal hand look. The hand held a huge version of my staff.

  Commands barked on two flagships, and both fleets came to a stop. Seconds later, both flagships launched missiles.

  I turned them back. Both ships staggered as their shields went down, and both suffered hull breaches. I moved crew members on the wrong side of now closed emergency bulkheads, to safe areas of each ship.

  "That went well," laughed Jen. "Were you expecting anything different?"

  I'd been hoping for different, but no, I hadn't expected it. After all, I'd jumped into the middle of the first contact situation for both kingdoms, and they still had a shoot first and don’t bother talking after mentality.

  "Not really. Hold the fort while I try forcing them to talk."

  "Have fun!" laughed Tasha.

 
; I jumped to the flagship of the orange kingdom, appearing on the bridge, as me, but holding my staff. I’d considered changing my skin colour, but they needed to adapt anyway. I didn’t give anyone a chance to react.

  "Your admiral is coming with me for talks. If anyone in this fleet does anything of an offensive nature, I will destroy the fleet."

  A blink later, we were both in the desert. There was no sign, or shovel. I hadn't put them there yet.

  "Wait. I'll be back."

  The admiral flinched. I returned with the democratic admiral, having said the same thing again there. Both of them flinched when they saw each other. I added in a round table, chairs, and waved them to sit. Water from each ship appeared in front of them. A bottle from Jen's ship appeared in front of me. Over us, an umbrella appeared, enough to keep the sun off us, but not enough to change the heat. I looked at both of them.

  "You are one people, despite the obvious difference. You will act like it, or I'll bury you here, and bring your next in commands instead."

  "There's no need to threaten," said democracy.

  "I agree," added kingdom.

  They looked at each other suddenly, as they realized they were hearing both another language being spoken, and what was said in their own.

  "I'm allowing you to communicate. Assuming we come to a satisfactory conclusion, you will need to get your language and computer people working on a translator."

  "What does a satisfactory conclusion look like to you?" asked democracy.

  "Peace."

  "Who are you?" asked kingdom. "And why do you think you need to broker a peace?"

  "You called me the reaper. I was there when your kingdoms separated thousands of years ago. I was there when the war you were about to start was ended several hundred years in the future from now. I'm here now to stop it starting."

  Their eyes were wide.

  "Are you immortal?" asked democracy.

  "No. I'm a Spacemage. I learned to travel the time lines as well as through space."

  "Mage?" asked kingdom. "You mean magic? There's no such thing."

  "Of course there isn’t," added democracy.