by Tom Merritt
“I understand,” Pilot X answered.
“We begin with a broad request: tell us everything.”
“A broad request indeed, but I will try to address as intended. I will start with my beginning. Not my birth, but my beginning on the way to becoming who I am today.”
“And who is that?” interrupted Elder Hough with a smirk.
“The lone survivor of the Dimensional War, the lone member of the Guardians of Alenda, and perpetrator of the Last Crime of Existence.”
His statement was met with stunned silence.
“I became a Pilot when I successfully negotiated a return voyage to Alenda . . .”
BOOK 2—BEFORE
FIRST FLIGHT
“This is the Valiant, requesting permission for system entry.”
“Roger, Valiant,” system control responded. “Proceed to entry and submit credentials for orbit insertion point.”
“Roger.”
The tall dark-gray column of the timeship Valiant rotated from its orbital angle to a descent position and began to enter the atmosphere of the gray-green planet of Alenda below.
The Valiant’s trainee pilot, Apprentice X, turned to the Secretary.
The Secretary’s smile didn’t quite look complete. “Well done, Citizen X. You’re almost there.”
“Uh . . .” Apprentice X paused at the name change.
“He’s Apprentice X,” interjected the Instructor.
“Ah, my mistake,” said the Secretary in a soft voice. “I meant no offense, Apprentice X.”
Apprentice X tried not to grin. The Secretary was a legend for his leadership and diplomacy, but also legendary for his small gaffes. Apprentice X felt almost proud that he’d been the subject of one.
System control repeated their request for credentials, and Apprentice X turned his attention back to the flight test. He completed the rest of the procedures by the rules: entering coordinates, issuing ship-wide directives, guiding the Valiant from orbit into Capital airspace, and landing in the main shipyard.
“Valiant shows groundfall,” he reported.
“Landing confirmed,” system control responded. “Welcome to Alenda, Pilot X.”
The small crew of officers that had been observing burst into applause. Even the Secretary clapped him on the back. “Get used to it, Pilot X. That’s your name now.”
Pilot X just grinned.
As they left the Valiant, Pilot X looked out at the fleet of smaller single-pilot ships parked nearby. Each one was a gray cylinder with rounded edges and a translucent cockpit area just slightly bulging out of the bottom. Older models were squat and the cockpit looked like a bump. The newer models were thinner and slightly taller, and the cockpit was almost flush with the rest of the surface. Each one could propel itself through time as well as traditional space. One of them would be his.
“Trying to decide which one you’ll take?” asked the Instructor good-naturedly.
“I’ll take any! They all look good to me,” Pilot X laughed back.
“I think you should take that one.” The Secretary pointed to one of the newer models that had a slightly silver sheen. “It’s called the Verity. New stable onboard singularity with an expansive chamber and a top-notch AI.”
“Are you serious?” Pilot X gaped. “I’ll be time traveling straight out?”
“Very serious,” answered the Secretary, shaking hands with the new Pilot. “Congratulations, Pilot X.”
Alendans were the only true time travelers in the universe, and that ability was closely guarded. Only adults could be passengers on time-traveling vessels, and very few of those were qualified to pilot the ships. Pilot X felt truly honored to have that ability from the outset. And in a single-pilot ship! He could take passengers, but it was meant for solo voyages, meaning he would be sent on time-travel missions.
“You are destined for great things,” the Secretary mused. “I can say no more. You’ll find your first mission programmed aboard the Verity already. He—or she, your choice, I guess—will fill you in.”
The Instructor shook Pilot X’s hand and congratulated him again. The Secretary gave him the credentials he would need to show the guard and told him to take control of the Verity immediately, then he left.
The guard saw Pilot X’s credentials were in order and waved him over to the Verity without ceremony. Still, this was the biggest moment of Pilot X’s life. His first ship. His first command. His first job carrying the name he’d always hoped to earn. Pilot.
Alendans changed first names throughout their life based on their purpose, or what other societies would call an occupation. Pilot X had met an offworlder once who was thoroughly confused by it. Pilot X pointed out that the offworlders had multiple names at once. A first name, a surname, a nickname, a middle name, a religious name, a user name. So many names! That was confusing. At least the Alendans stuck to just two, and only one of those ever changed.
Each Alendan received a name at birth. That name had to be unique throughout Alendan history to avoid confusion. He was born the day single character names were finally allowed. So his name was X.
Until the age of twenty, each person’s first name was their age from one to twenty. At age twenty-one, Alendans progressed to something like “Trainee” or “Student,” or in X’s case, “Apprentice.” “Citizen” was what anyone without a purpose or someone between purposes was called. It was almost an insult. That’s why it was odd to hear the Secretary use it earlier. Surely he was not confused that Pilot X had been an Apprentice? Still, it didn’t matter now.
Every young Alendan anticipated the day they would receive their first real name. The name that made clear their purpose in society. They would carry more than one of these throughout their life, changing it as jobs and responsibilities changed, but the first name was always what one thought of oneself as truly being. He had wanted that to be Pilot X. And today that had come true. He would always think of himself that way.
THE ASSIGNMENT
The planet and the people of Alenda had borrowed their name from the city Alenda, which had it first. Of all the planets and moons that the Alendans inhabited, the planet Alenda was not the most densely populated, but you’d never know it in the city Alenda.
Skyscrapers not only went up but also sideways, even at heights near the edge of the atmosphere. A few buildings maintained hermetic seals and internal pressure so they could poke above the atmosphere and attain notoriety until the next building extended just past it.
But none surpassed the elegance of one of Alenda’s smaller structures, the home of the Guardians of Alenda, rulers of the city, the planet, and the people of Alenda. It was five stories tall in the time Pilot X was visiting it. It had started as a simple mud hut and would eventually rise to seven stories.
It was home not only to the Guardians but also one location of their executive, the Secretary. Pilot X waited in the outer chamber of the Secretary’s temporary Alendan reception room. It wasn’t the Secretary’s real office, but Pilot X wasn’t high enough in stature to visit that office. Only the Guardians and certain Ambassadors in the Secretary’s employ even knew where the real office was. Pilot X could travel in time, but he wasn’t an officially recognized time traveler. He could only go where others directed him. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. He could conceivably go wherever he wanted, but if he did so without permission, he would be dismissed and stripped of rank.
Which was why he fidgeted. The Secretary would only want to see him if he had done something wrong. He had only been piloting the Verity for a few subjective years. A normal career path would take him toward rising positions in the Alendan Fleet and eventual entry into the ranks of Supervisors or Instructors. Only at that point would he expect to be called to the Secretary’s office—unless something very bad had happened.
A door opened. From behind its deep-brown wooden frame stepped the Secretary.
“Pilot X, so good of you to come. Right this way, please.”
No one was that nice if
they weren’t about to drop a hammer on you, no one of the Secretary’s rank, anyway. Pilot X braced himself.
The room was bare. Rich wooden shelves lined the walls, but nothing filled them. This wasn’t the Secretary’s main office, of course. Just a place for him to work while on Alenda in this time and location. Still, Pilot X found it odd that they had gone to the trouble of building in shelves without filling them with anything.
The Secretary motioned for Pilot X to sit in a red velvet chair. The Secretary took a stuffed brown leather chair for himself. There were only chairs in the room, no desk. Pilot X supposed the Secretary worked with his own data machine in his lap or something. There was a fireplace, however, and it was lighted and pleasant.
“Your commander has been telling me good things, X.”
Pilot X remembered his training run when the Secretary had called him “Citizen.” Now he dropped the first name altogether, something rarely even done by family. Pilot X stifled an internal giggle. Most said the Secretary acted eccentric because he moved through time so much. Pilot X kept in mind that he might in fact be meeting the Secretary before the Secretary had accompanied him on his qualification flight. After all, the Secretary would not let on to anyone—could not let on to anyone—in what order events were taking place for him.
“Thank you, Secretary,” Pilot X responded.
The Secretary grinned as if they’d shared a joke.
“Good. I have an assignment for you, Pilot X.” The Secretary paused as if unsure what he just said or what to say next. “It’s a little beyond the normal portfolio of a Pilot.” He stopped and eyed Pilot X. “But I know you’re the one for the job.”
The Secretary dropped an odd bundle on Pilot X’s lap. Pilot X jumped. He hadn’t even noticed the Secretary holding anything. A folded piece of stiff paper held a collection of other papers inside it. He picked it up gingerly.
“I expect you’ve never seen a folder before. Ancient stuff. Just brought it back from the Steel Times. It’s all they use for record keeping there. So I played along. Sorry about that. You can scan the orders and read them normally or pretend to be an ancient and consume them as is. It’s up to you. But all orders and details are contained in there, in any case. There are a few of those papers essential to the mission you’ll need to keep, though, so don’t get rid of the whole folder. You’ll take the Verity out tomorrow. Then come back a few minutes from now, if you would. Do be careful on your way back not to run into yourself. Might be best to leave soon and give a wide berth to yourself. I’ll meet you for a debriefing here in, say, twenty minutes?”
Pilot X’s training kicked in and without thinking, he checked his doublechron and punched in the return time.
“Got it. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.” He smirked. He could share jokes too. Except he imagined they both got this one.
The Secretary laughed. “Your commander wasn’t wrong. See you shortly, Pilot X.”
The Secretary did not get up, so Pilot X showed himself out. He looked around carefully, half expecting to see himself, then headed out the back way from the administrative building.
In the Verity, he took a moment to look over the papers. Verity had wanted to scan and incinerate the orders immediately. It was the safest procedure, of course. These were literally State Papers. But he wanted the feel of the ancients. So he leaned back in his pilot’s chair and shuffled through them as he suspected an ancient airplane pilot might have looked through a flight plan.
There wasn’t much to go on. He was to proceed to a planet called Mersenne at a medium point in its development, hence the folder with paper. They had some light industry but no real space travel yet. At least nothing that could leave their own system. But they still used paper, so he’d have to hide most of his technology. He had instructions to land away from settlement and camouflage the Verity, then get some papers signed regarding an agreement with Alenda.
The assignment seemed too trivial for the Secretary to have taken time out of his busy schedule to deliver it personally. But it wasn’t the kind of thing a time Pilot usually did, that was for sure. Two bundles of a dozen papers, each held together with a small metal object, were to be delivered to Mersenne’s nominal leader, who went by the name Overseer Gaemmae. The Overseer was to review the copies and sign them both, then give one copy to Pilot X. Both copies were signed by the Secretary already.
The papers were confidential but Pilot X had clearance, so he looked them over. They were for something called a “technology binding.” The Guardians of Alenda took responsibility for the development of dangerous technologies, especially time travel, throughout the universe. A technology binding was put into force when a civilization had developed or acquired something that could harm others beyond their own planet.
Mersenne seemed an unlikely candidate for this kind of arrangement. It was an agrarian society that hardly had any electronics. From what Pilot X could tell from the briefing, they hadn’t developed anything that could destroy their own planet, much less harm anybody else’s.
The binding documents themselves only identified “previous agreed-upon items.” Pilot X supposed a separate document listed those items, but it was a document he didn’t have. What he did know was that Overseer Gaemmae had agreed to the binding in principle but requested time to consult with his deputies before signing. The Secretary had agreed. Waiting periods were never a problem for time travelers. But rather than jump to the end of the waiting period himself, the Secretary had given the assignment to Pilot X. It was odd.
Even if the Secretary didn’t feel Mersenne was worth his time, there were several Ambassadors that could have and should have taken the job. At the same time, Pilot X was excited. Although the Secretary often seemed mildly annoyed by Pilot X, he was never overtly hostile. People as powerful as the Secretary seemed annoyed by everyone. Maybe Pilot X was destined for greatness. The Secretary likely knew large parts of Pilot X’s history, even the parts he hadn’t experienced yet himself. Maybe he was only annoyed because he was impatient for this young Pilot X to become great.
Pilot X laughed at the thought. Ridiculous. How big of an ego did he need? This assignment was simple. Mersenne was a backwater. That was obvious. The Overseer was a time waster. The Secretary didn’t want to spend any of his or his Ambassadors’ valuable resources delivering papers to be signed. Pilot X was simply an errand boy. He finally allowed the Verity to scan the papers and prepare for departure.
Mersenne was beautiful. A lush green planet, half water, with golden seas in its north and south caused by some kind of ocean-dwelling microbe. Here and there some factory towns spewed smoke, but the planet had not progressed far enough to pollute itself. It was glorious.
Pilot X set the Verity down outside the capital city of Prime and put on his local clothing so he wouldn’t stand out. He told the ship to blend into the trees around it, and set out to enjoy his walk into town. Prime was inhabited by about five hundred thousand people, but even so, it had a definitive end to the town, meaning he could set down in unfarmed countryside and walk toward the settlement as if it were a town of twenty. Once he passed into the buildings, the city spread out in a series of green plots where people lived, punctuated by small collections of businesses he learned were called villagelets. Prime tried to preserve the village way of life while gaining the advantages of a big city scale.
The village was like hundreds of others Pilot X had seen in training. Simple people going about their lives the best way they knew how. Nobody paid him any mind. His clothes and manner didn’t stick out, so nobody noticed he only had two eyes. And they didn’t seem to be concerned with strangers. There was no war here. No conflict. They benefited from the peace of the Guardians without even knowing it, for the most part. It made him smile.
After a long walk he reached the capital center and found the Overseer’s offices. They weren’t terribly impressive. A two-story brick building with a statue of something that looked like a winged horse outside. There were no guards, so
very little ceremony. Signs pointed to the Overseer’s office up a grand staircase, inside on the second floor. This was not a very hierarchical society, Pilot X guessed.
He finally reached his first familiar sign of bureaucracy in the form of an elderly woman wearing assistive devices on her three eyes seated outside the office of the Overseer. The people of Mersenne were like Alendans in most respects except for the number of eyes. Their ears were not as flat to the head either, but otherwise bipedal symmetry reigned.
All three eyes of the woman went wide as he approached. He wondered if his face looked mutilated or empty without the middle eye.
“You’re not the Secretary, but you’re Alendan!” she gasped. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes. My name is Pilot X. The Secretary sent me to have the technology-binding papers signed. I’ve just arrived and came straight here. How do I go about making an appointment to see the Overseer?” Pilot X asked.
The woman laughed, dropping her shocked look at once. “Oh, you Alendans, so unnecessarily formal. Well, he’s only with two people, after all!” She waved her hands at him in an odd gesture that Pilot X assumed was Mersenne for don’t worry. “Go on in.” She waved over her shoulder and got back to work.
Pilot X was not prepared at all for how informal Mersenne was. Only with two people? He felt like he was being tricked into making a protocol mistake, but he went toward the door. He could hear voices on the other side. Should he really open it? He turned to look at the lady, but she had forgotten all about him.
He turned the ancient knob and entered. What he saw made him reach for a weapon that he didn’t have. His next thought was that it had been a mistake not to bring a weapon with him. A Progon drone and a Sensaurian SporePod were in the room with an elderly three-eyed man who must have been the Overseer.
