by Ian Miller
"You think they'll destroy the M'starn?" Gaius asked.
"Possibly, but there's another outcome, which is largely why you're being permitted to go. If the M'starn know or guess that they'll be turned away from Ranh, they might well decide to try their luck at the nearest near-technology."
"And that's Earth?" Gaius asked slowly.
"I'm afraid so. And I'm afraid that while you've saved our civilization, we can't do the same for yours, other than give you these two ships. However," and here the Queen waved a claw, "if you think about this, you're likely to succeed."
"That doesn't follow," Gaius frowned.
"The people from your future know you can win."
"No," Gaius countered, "the people from my future believe I can solve their problem. But if Ulse were beaten, perhaps Earth always lost, and their problem is nothing to do with saving Earth."
"That is possible," the Queen agreed. "The problem is that by altering the timeline, your race has now sent the M'starn in their direction and that did not happen on your young lady's timeline. Anyway, you may now be able to work out why Ulse forbids such temporal activities. My advice to you is that you should always keep your word, but don't sacrifice yourself. You must realize that their problem has nothing to do with you, as far as we can tell. Their problem is for them, and for something that will happen when you return to Earth, or wherever. Your presence could not have been there on the original line that they interfered with, and they are hoping you will get them out of their mess. You must realize that your life will continue down this time line, irrespective of what you choose to do until for some reason you die. Die you will, for we all die, but that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice yourself for them. Remember, you can always say no, and generate your own time line. They don’t know the future. They only know their past, and if your line does not include the future they want, that is tough on them.
"Now, there isn't much more I can do for you, except wish you luck. This sphere should be returned to the Actium. It contains a record of this conversation, and it will send instructions for the Krothians to send some ships to assist you, in case you need them. Don't count on their arriving fast enough to solve your problems immediately, but you can count on their arriving at some stage."
"So, what am I supposed to do now?"
"In the box is another object. Place it on the wall in a socket that should be made for it, press the green button, then go and sit in that chair without attempting to move it, and wait for your lady from the future."
"She may not be at the other end," Gaius frowned.
"As long as they are in your future, the message will wait until they arrive, and you won't know the difference because it is merely added to the time that is cut out in talking to you."
"You knew I was going to say that," Gaius muttered ruefully.
"It's not difficult to guess that you would see their not being at the other end as a problem," came the reply. "Now, as far as Ulse is concerned, you have complete freedom of action. So, with that, I shall leave you, and wish you good luck with whatever it is you have to do."
Gaius stared at the wall as the image had died. He collected the ball, replaced it in the box, then took out the other object and unwrapped it. On one side it was a small fraction of the area of a large sphere, with two holes that somehow reminded Gaius of eyes, and below these was a small green button. The back of the object showed that within it there were a number of wires, and across the back were two metal braces in the form of a cross, and where these met were two metal hooks, and an electrical plug. There, in the wall, were holes for the hooks, and an electrical socket. Gaius carefully fitted the object and pushed down for a good electrical connection, then he turned the adjacent switch on. As instructed, he returned to the chair and sat down.
The room darkened as the lights dimmed, then a glow appeared in front of the object, then a space seemed to form, as if it were a hole in the very fabric of everything. On the other side, there was the blonde-haired grey-eyed woman. Gaius was about to get up, when Marcellus said, "No, Gaius, do not attempt to go closer. It is not safe."
"So you are from my future, and you're messing with my life?" Gaius mused.
"Not any longer," Athene smiled enigmatically. "Thanks to temporal interference, I no longer exist, at least in the sense you do."
"Now I really don't understand," Gaius shook his head.
"I am in some sort of a limbo," Athene said, "where it is unclear whether I live or never exist. That I can still talk to you indicates I might still."
"So you want me to do something so you can live," Gaius mused.
"What happened is this. We have been experimenting in temporal viewing. We could look back in history, and across space, to see events that actually happened, and this was a useful adjunct to our history studies. There are profound limitations, and we can't transfer a physical object. However, it turned out that we discovered that under certain circumstances we could communicate. Unfortunately, one of our technicians did something that changed our past in a way that led the Ranhynn to exterminate life on Earth. We do not know what he did. He won't say, perhaps because he thinks there is still some chance of his benefitting, or perhaps he doesn't even know."
"So you want me to do something?"
"What we decided to do was to try to get someone else into a position to change the situation. Our first problem was that the event took place on Ranh, so we had to create someone who might be able to save our planet."
"Me?" Gaius nodded.
"We hope so," Athene smiled. "In the original history, when the Ranhynn exterminated human civilization before our temporal viewer was constructed, they created a paradox, and timelines that might resolve that paradox were revealed to us. So I had to goad you into working somewhat harder than the original did. We also had to get you into that ship, and we had to get one or two other things right.
"We tried nine times, and this is our last chance. Each time you were visited a few minutes earlier, with a revised goading message. Now we have got you to where you might do something. A human cannot succeed in doing anything on Ranh, but an Ulsian Space Marshall might."
"If you've tried that many times," an angry Gaius said, "you could have done more to save Vipsania."
"No, I couldn't," the voice said. "We cannot interfere, other than by having these conversations." She paused, then said "I really am sorry for you, but for what it's worth we have tried to save her several times, and each time it was a total failure. Also, if it makes you feel any better, on the first time you two didn't hit it off. Originally you did not rescue her from the Iazygians because you weren't there. She was abducted and killed. On the first interference, you did not drop stones, she took no notice of you, then she committed suicide rather than be bedded by Little Boots. Other times she was so bedded, she got pregnant, and committed suicide, she was also raped and killed by the Celts, other times she died in other ways so obviously fate did not intend her to become a grandmother."
"So you want me to go to Ranh?" Gaius asked, with his voice laden with bitterness. "I don't suppose it's occurred to you that my planet might be in a different form of trouble, due to the M'starn that are heading there, and presumably weren't originally?"
"No, they weren't, and unfortunately, the signals do not tell us what you did to get rid of them, but if it helps any, assume they are no more enthused about being there than you are. Now, you must go to Earth, which is what it's called now, and help it to get rid of the M'starn, who, I should inform you, will lose this war, and will soon reach a gracious peace with Ulse. You will find two Ranhynn in your system, studying Earth. You will set up a base near Rome on your old grounds, and there you will meet a woman who is the ugliest you have ever seen. When a crisis develops at that meeting, you must leave this woman to her own devices, so that she meets one of the Ranhynn alone. You will understand when the time comes.
"You will then help solve Earth's immediate problem, then you, Lucilla, the two Ranhynn, and your u
gly woman, who, as an aside, need no longer be ugly, should travel to Ranh."
"And do what?"
"I don't know," Athene said, "other than to prevent Ranh from invading Earth and exterminating all human life. You are on a timeline that has not previously occurred, if that makes sense, and what you have to do has not yet happened, so I don't know any more than you do."
"But I haven't gone back to Earth either, so how do you know what is on part of the line, but not the rest? And, for that matter, how did you know how to predict my life once you changed it?"
"That is an extremely interesting question," the woman replied pensively. "What happened is this. After our last attempt was made, a document appeared in our limbo that outlined what I should tell you about your return to Earth. It is from these that we made our final predictions, and what is interesting is that it contained points we had not thought of up until then. Our only explanation is that we have had help from some entity in our future.
"Whatever the explanation, all I can say is this. You still make your own future, but if you wish humanity to avoid extermination, you will do what I have indicated."
"It would be easier if I knew what I had to do at the end, though," Gaius muttered.
"Not necessarily," the woman said. "If you behave naturally, and with honour, all will follow, whereas if you are told to do something, in trying to find a reason to do it you might do it so awkwardly, and at the wrong time, that it doesn't work."
"But you've given me specific instructions for this ugly woman, and it might be easier if you gave me her name."
"You will recognize her," the woman smiled, "but it's the way you do it that's important. And yes, I told you to leave her. That is important, because in the normal course of events, that is exactly what you would never do. You leave her in danger, and stay away until everything is resolved. That is in the document, and it is very important, and in due course you shall see why."
"It's all very confusing," Gaius muttered.
"It is, isn't it? So, what do you think? Am I forgiven for changing you from what was a forgotten Roman soldier to what you are now?"
"And, if I follow, giving me a longer life," Gaius mused.
"That too," Athene smiled.
"In which case," Gaius replied with a slight smile, "I guess I owe it to you to try and give you your life back too."
"Then good luck," the woman said. "Now, as a matter of importance, I shall turn this link off. Count to fifty, then go to the switch, switch it off, and keep the item. Arrange for Gemep to give you a diagram for the fitting. If you ever think you have finished, you can try building another such fitting, in which case you will be able to find out whether you were successful . . .
"Before you go," Marcellus interrupted, "can you interface your computer with this device?"
"Yes, why?"
"Do so," Marcellus said. "An Ulsian computer will interrogate your computer to gather data for your benefit."
"Actually, I have little alternative," the grey-eyed Pallas Athene smiled. "Dr Chu, the physicist here has already linked up, because he has read the document that contains this discussion. Apparently a lot of personal information about us has been requested and transferred, so we all wish you much success. Also, when you get there, the language is English, and an English –Latin dictionary is being downloaded, as well as an English grammar. Now, I must go but remember, what follows is your life. There are no rights and wrongs, other than what is normal. Just live, and live well. Again, goodbye and good luck."
Gaius stared mechanically at the wall as the image faded. Marcellus watched some dial, then he retrieved the communication device, packed it in the box, and the two of them made their way to the transport capsule. Gaius was partly furious, because some people from the future were playing with him, and he was partly intrigued that there was a future. However, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, except to continue with his life. Perhaps he had to be more careful than most, by keeping an eye out for others with advanced knowledge who may be intending to kill him.
But then that appeared wrong as well. He was on this time-line, and the line had to run on to wherever it was destined to go. If someone was to interfere, that would create yet a further time line. He was this Gaius: there may have been others, but since he was completely unaware of them, effectively he was his own man, in his own time, living his own life that had to be free of temporal interference. Apart from these conversations he had across time, nothing could interfere with him, at least in a planned way.
Perhaps that was wrong too, but it did not matter. He had a life to live, and he was going back to Earth. To the ugliest woman in the world. Somehow that did not seem very enticing. To see Rome in ruins. Somehow that did not seem very enticing either. And to save humanity from total obliteration. Somehow the responsibility for that seemed quite depressing. Even the heroes of mythology did not have to manage that.
But then again, he was going home, to see and talk to other people, and that was enough to raise any spirit. Unbelievable as it was, bearing in mind where he was, he was going home!
* * *
And so, oh Ugly One, there is work to be done, and all that you, Lucilla and Gaius have to do is to save another civilization from extinction. This time it is yours.
M
Author's Note.
Thank you for reading this. If you enjoyed it, why not write a review? Such reviews really help authors.
Unlike the first two books in this trilogy, there is no history involved here, but I have tried to maintain the concept of showing what science and invention are about. Whether I succeeded in explaining some of the concepts of Einstein's relativity is a matter I would love to hear as a response. When this ebook is first published, I shall put a post on my blog, and I invite readers to give their opinions. The blog is at http://ianmillerblog.wordpress.com. Also, you might consider my comment on the Schrödinger cat. According to the paradox, the cat is in some indeterminate state until someone observes it, but why cannot the cat observe itself? If it can, it is alive; if it cannot, it is dead, and no paradox. My ebook "Guidance Waves An Alternative Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" has a number of further thoughts, but if you just like science fiction, you should leave this alone. It is not mathematically difficult, but it is not straightforward conceptually.
As can be seen, this story is not quite finished, which may seem odd for a trilogy. The reason is that the next in the series, Miranda's Demons was the first of these books that I wrote. I could not publish it because there was simply too much backstory that made it far too intractable. That will now be rewritten and simplified, and should be available in 2015. This trilogy was originally written as one book, but it was simply too long.
My previous novels form what I call a future history. Each are intended to stand alone, although books in the First Contact trilogy are probably better read in sequence. Each of these books also features a different form of governance, although the First Contact trilogy is essentially one form, because it was conceived as one book. The other fictional books are:
Puppeteer Set in 2030, it deals with a faltering government that arose through excess debt, terrorism and the energy crisis. The background is based on one interpretation of what will happen when oil becomes excessively expensive, and we have not become prepared.
Troubles Set in 2050, an anarchic society is coming out of the energy crisis, thanks to the invention of fusion power. As civilization rises from the ashes, those who move fast and ruthlessly will accumulate great wealth. The aged and decaying infrastructure is gold, life is cheap, and winners take all.
Red Gold Set in 2070, it covers the colonization of Mars, fraud, and when a scientific discovery is made that makes Mars viable, the fraud is exposed. However, the fraudster also has the only giuns on Mars, and men to use them.
A Face on Cydonia The first of the First Contact trilogy. When the rock winks, the question is, how, and eventually a disparate party set out to prove this rock has noth
ing to do with aliens, but instead each discovers exactly what they do not want to find. It also describes how evil has entered an entrenched corporate society.
Dreams Defiled shows how all their ambitions come to nothing, but the evil grows.
Jonathon Munros The conclusion of the trilogy, where machines begin self-reproduction and threaten the world, and where Jonathon Munro achieves immortality.
Athene's Prophecy is the first book in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy, in which Scaevola is sent on a quest to save civilization far into the future. Besides discovering some some science and learning military strategy, he must survive the erratic rule of Caligulae and prevent a Jewish Roman war.
Legionis Legatus is the second book in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy in which Scaevola becomes a Legatus and has a critical role in the Scribonianus attempted coup and in the invasion of Britain, and also works out how to prove the Earth goes around the sun.
I hope I have been entertaining, but I also hope that I have given readers something to think about.
Further details about me and about further books, including those yet to be written, and my scientific books can be found at my website, http://www.ianmiller.co.nz
