Tagiri was shaken. "I don't care that I don't understand the science of it," she said. "I only know that I hate it."
"It's always frightening to deal with something that is counterintuitive," said Maniam.
"Not at all," said Tagiri, trembling. "I didn't say I was frightened. I'm not. I'm angry and ... frustrated. Horrified."
"Horrified about the mathematics of time?"
"Horrified at what we are doing, at what the Interveners actually did. I suppose that I always felt that in some sense they went on. That they sent their machine and then went on with their lives, comforted in their miserable situation by knowing that they had done something to help their ancestors."
"But that was never possible," said Manjam.
"I know it," said Tagiri. "And so when I really thought about it, I imagined them sending the machine and in that moment they sort of -- disappeared. A clean painless death for everyone. But at least they had lived, up to that moment."
"Well," said Maniam, "how is clean, painless nonexistence any worse than a clean, painless death?"
"You see," said Tagiri, "it's not. Not any worse. And not any better, either, for the people themselves."
"What people?" said Marjam, shrugging.
"Us. Manjam. We are talking about doing this to ourselves."
"If you do this, then there will have been no such people as ourselves. The only aspect of our causal network that will have any future or past are those that are connected to the creation of the physical bodies and mental states of the persons you send into the past."
"This is all so silly," said Diko. "Who cares about what's real and what isn't real? Isn't this what we wanted all along? To make it so that the terrible events of our history never happened in the first place? And as for our own history, the parts that will be lost, who cares if a mathematician calls us dirty names like 'unreal'? They say such slanders about the square root of minus two, as well."
Everyone laughed, but not Tagiri. They did not see the past as she saw it. Or rather, they didn't feel the past. They didn't understand that to her, looking through the Tempoview and the TruSite II, the past was alive and real. Just because the people were dead did not mean that they were not still part of the present, because she could go back and recover them. See them, hear them. Know them, at least as well as any human being ever knows any other. Even before the TruSite and the Tempoview, though, the dead still lived in memory, some kind of memory. But not if they changed the past. It was one thing to ask humankind of today to choose to give up their future in the hope of creating a new reality. That would be hard enough. But to also reach back and kill the dead, to uncreate them as well -- and they had no vote. They could not be asked.
We must not do this, she thought. This is wrong. This win be a worse crime than the ones we are trying to prevent.
She got up and left the meeting. Diko and Hassan tried to leave with her, but she brushed them off. "I need to be alone," she said, and so they stayed behind, returning to a meeting that she knew would be in shambles. For a moment she felt remorse at having greeted the physicists' triumphant moment with such a negative response, but as she walked the streets of Juba that remorse faded, replaced by one far deeper.
The children playing naked in the dirt and weeds. The men and women going about their business. She spoke to them all in her heart, saying, How would you like to die? And not only you, but your children and their children? And not only them, but your parents, too? Let's go back into the graves, open them up, and kill them all. Every good and evil thing they did, all their joy, all their suffering, all their choices -- let's kill them all, erase them, undo them. Reaching back and back and back, until we finally come to the golden moment that we have chosen, declaring it worthy to continue to exist, but with a new future tied to the end of it. And why must all of you and yours be killed? Because in our judgment they didn't make a good enough world. Their mistakes along the way were so unforgivable that they erase the value of any good that also happened. All must be obliterated.
How dare I? How dare we? Even if we got the unanimous consent of all the people of our own time, how will we poll the dead?
She picked her way down the bluffs to the riverside. In the waning afternoon, the heat of the day was finally beginning to break. In the distance, hippos were bathing or feeding or sleeping. Birds were calling, getting ready for their frenzied feeding on the insects of the dusk. What goes through your minds, Birds, Hippopotamuses, Insects of the late afternoon? Do you like being alive? Do you fear death? You kill to live; you die so others can live; it's the path ordained for you by evolution, by life itself. But if you had the power, wouldn't you save yourselves?
She was still there by the river when the darkness came, when the stars came out. For a moment, gazing at the ancient light of the stars, she thought: Why should I worry about uncreating so much of human history? Why should I care that it will be worse than forgotten, that it will be unknown? Why should that seem to be a crime, when all of human history is an eyeblink compared to the billions of years the stars have shone? We will all be forgotten in the last exhalation of our history; what does it matter, then, if some are forgotten sooner than others, or if some are caused to have never existed at all?
Oh, this is such a wise perspective, to compare human lives to the lives of stars. The only problem is that it cuts both ways. If in the long run it doesn't matter that we wipe out billions of lives in order to save our ancestors, then in the long ran saving our ancestors doesn't matter, either, so why bother changing the past at all?
The only perspective that matters is the human one, Tagiri knew. We are the only ones who care; we are the actors and the audience as well, all of us. And the critics. We are also the critics.
The light of an electric torch bobbed into view as she heard someone approaching through the grass.
"That torch will only attract animals that we don't want," she said.
"Come home," said Diko It isn't safe out here, and Father's worried."
"Why should he be worried? My life doesn't exist. I never lived."
"You're alive now, and so am I, and so are the crocodiles."
"If individual lives don't matter," said Tagiri, "then why bother going back to make them better? And if they do matter, then how dare we snuff some out in favor of others?"
"Individual lives matter," said Diko. "But life also matters. Life as a whole. That's what you've forgotten today. That's what Manjam and the other scientists also forgot. They talk of all these moments, separate, never touching, and say that they are the only reality. Just as the only reality of human life is individuals, isolated individuals who never really know each other, never really touch at any point. No matter how close you are, you're always separate."
Tagiri shook her head. "This has nothing to do with what is bothering me."
"It has everything to do with it," said Diko. "Because you know that this is a lie. You know that the mathematicians are wrong about the moments, too. They do touch. Even if we can't really touch causality, the connections between moments, that doesn't mean they aren't real. And just because whenever you look closely at the human race, at a community, at a family, all you can ever find are separate individuals, that doesn't mean that the family is not also real. After all, when you look closely enough at a molecule, all you can see are atoms. There is no physical connection between them. And yet the molecule is still real because of the way the atoms affect each other."
"You're as bad as they are," said Tagiri, "answering anguish with analogies."
"Analogies are all I have," said Diko. "Truth is all I have, and truth is never a comfort. But understanding truth, that is what you taught me to do. So here is the truth. What human life is, what it's for, what we do, is create communities. Some of them are good, some of them are evil, or somewhere between. You taught me this, didn't you? And there are communities of communities, groups of group's, and--"
"And what makes them good or bad?" demanded Tagiri. "The quality o
f the individual lives. The ones we're going to snuff out."
"No," said Diko. "What we're going to do is go back and revise the ultimate community of communities, the human race as a whole, history as a whole here on this planet. We're going to create a new version of it, one that will give the new individuals who live within it a far, far better chance of happiness, of having a good life, than the old version. That's real, and that's good, Mother. It's worth doing. It is."
"I've never known any groups," said Tagiri. "Just people. Just individual people. Why should I make those people pay so this imaginary thing called 'human history' can be better? Better for whom?"
"But Mother, individual people always sacrifice for the sake of the community. When it matters enough, people sometimes even die, willingly, for the good of the community that they feel themselves to be a part of. As well as a thousand sacrifices short of death. And why? Why do we give up our individual desires, leave them unfulfilled, or work hard at tasks we hate or fear because others need us to do them? Why did you go through such pain to bear me and Acho? Why did you give up all the time it took to take care of us?"
Tagiri looked at her daughter. "I don't know, but as I listen to you, I begin to think that perhaps it was worth it. Because you know things that I don't know. I wanted to create someone different from myself, better than myself, and willingly gave up part of my life to do it. And here you are. And you're saying that that's what the people of our time will be to the people of the new history we create. That we will sacrifice to create their history, as parents sacrifice to create healthy, happy children."
"Yes, Mother," said Diko. "Manjam is wrong. The people who sent that vision to Columbus did exist. They were the parents of our age; we are their children. And now we will be the parents to another age."
"Which just goes to show," said Tagiri, "that one can always find language to make the most terrible things sound noble and beautiful, so you can live with doing them."
Diko looked at Tagiri in silence for a long moment. Then she threw the electric torch to the ground at her mother's feet and walked away into the night.
* * *
Isabella found herself dreading the meeting with Talavera. It would be about Cristobal Colўn, of course. It must mean that he had reached a conclusion. "It's foolish of me, don't you think?" Isabella said to Lady Felicia. "Yet I am as worried about his verdict as if I myself were on trial."
Lady Felicia murmured something noncommittal.
"Perhaps I am on trial."
"What court on Earth can try a queen, Your Majesty?" asked Lady Felicia.
"That is my point," said Isabella. "I felt, when Cristobal spoke that first day in court, so many years ago, that the Holy Mother was offering me something very sweet and fine, a fruit from her own garden, a berry from her own vine."
"He is a fascinating man, Your Majesty."
"Not him, though I do think him a sweet and fervent fellow." One thing Isabella would never do was leave the impression with anyone that she looked on any man but her husband with anything approaching desire. "No, I mean that the Queen of Heaven was giving me the chance to open a vast door that had long been closed." She sighed. "But the power even of queens is not infinite. I had no ships to spare, and the cost of saying yes on the spot would have been too great. Now Talavera has decided, and I fear that he is about to close a door whose key will only be given me that one time. Now it will pass into another hand, and I will regret it forever."
"Heaven cannot condemn Your Majesty for failing to do what was not within your power to do," said Lady Felicia.
"I'm not worried at this moment about the condemnation of heaven. That's between me and my confessors."
"Oh, Your Majesty, I was not saying that you face any kind of condemnation from--"
"No no, Lady Felicia, don't worry, I didn't take your remark as anything but the kindest reassurance."
Felicia, still flustered, got up to answer the soft knock on the door. It was Father Talavera.
"Would you wait by the door, Lady Felicia?" asked Isabella.
Talavera bowed over her hand. "Your Majesty, I am about to ask Father Maldonado to write the verdict."
The worst possible outcome. She heard the door of heaven clang shut against her. "Why today of all days?" she asked him. "You've taken all these years over this Colўn fellow, and today it's suddenly an emergency that must be decided at once?"
"I think it is," he said.
"And why is that?"
"Because victory in Granada is near."
"Oh, has God spoken to you about this?"
"You feel it too. Not God, of course, but His Majesty the King. There is new energy in him. He is making the final push, and he knows that it will succeed. This next summer. By the end of 1491, all of Spain will be free of the Moor."
"And this means that you must press the issue of Colўn's voyage now?"
"It means," said Talavera, "that one who wishes to do something so audacious must sometimes proceed very warily. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if our verdict were positive. Go ahead, Your Majesty, we say. This voyage is worthy of success. What then? At once Maldonado and his friends will seek His Majesty's ear, criticizing this voyage. And they will speak to many others, so that the voyage will soon be known as a folly. In particular, Isabella's folly."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I say only what will surely be said by those with malicious hearts. Now imagine if this verdict is reached when the war is over, and His Majesty can devote his fall attention to the matter. The issue of this voyage could easily become quite a stumbling block in the relations between the two kingdoms."
"I see that in your view, supporting Colўn will be disastrous," she said.
"Now imagine, Your Majesty, that the verdict is negative. In fact, that Maldonado himself writes it. From that point on, Maldonado has nothing to gossip about. There will be no whispers."
"There will also be no voyage."
"Won't there?" asked Talavera. "I imagine a day when a queen might say to her husband, 'Father Talavera came to me, and we agreed that Father Maldonado should write the verdict.'"
"But I don't agree."
"I imagine this queen saying to her husband, 'We agreed that Maldonado should write the verdict because we know that the war with Granada is the most vital concern of our kingdom. We want nothing to distract you or anyone else from this holy Crusade against the Moor. Most certainly we don't want to give King John of Portugal reason to think we are planning any kind of voyage through waters he thinks of as his own. We need his unflagging friendship during this final struggle with Granada. So even though in my heart I want nothing more than to take the chance and send this Colўn west, to carry the cross to the great kingdoms of the East, I have set aside this dream.'"
"What an eloquent queen you have imagined," said Isabella.
"All controversy dies. The king sees the queen as a statesman of great wisdom. He also sees the sacrifice she has made for their kingdoms and the cause of Christ. Now imagine that time passes. The war is won. In the glow of victory, the queen comes to the king and says, 'Now let's see if this Colўn still wants to sail west.'"
"And he will say, 'I thought that business was finished. I thought Talavera's examiners put a Stop to all that nonsense.'"
"Oh, does he say that?" asked Talavera. "Fortunately, the queen is quite deft, and she says, 'Oh, but you know that Talavera and I agreed to have Maldonado write that verdict. For the good of the war effort. The matter was never really settled. Many of the examiners thought Colўn's project was a worthy one with a decent chance of success. Who can know, anyway? We'll find out by sending this Colўn. If he comes back successful, we'll know he was right and we'll send great expeditions at once to follow through. If he comes back empty-handed, then we'll put him in prison for defrauding the Crown. And if he never comes back, we'll waste no more effort on such projects.'"
"The queen you imagine is so dry," said Isabella. "She talks like a cleric."
/> "It's a shortcoming of mine," said Talavera. "I haven't heard enough great ladies in private conversation with their husbands."
"I think this queen should say to her husband, 'If he sails and never returns, then we have lost a handful of caravels. Pirates take more than that every year. But if he sails and succeeds, then with three caravels we will have accomplished more than Portugal has achieved in a century of expensive, dangerous voyages along the African coast.'"
"Oh, you're right, that's much better. This king that you're imagining, he has a keen sense of competition."
"Portugal is a thorn in his side," said Isabella.
"So you agree with me that Maldonado should write the verdict?"
"You're forgetting one thing," said Isabella.
"And that is?"
"Colўn. When the verdict comes, he will leave us and head for France or England. Or Portugal."
"There are two reasons why he will not, Your Majesty."
"And those are?"
"First, Portugal has Dias and the African route to the Indies, while I happen to know that Colўn's first approaches to Paris and London, through intermediaries, did not meet with any encouragement."
"He has already turned to other kings?"
"After the first four years," said Talavera dryly, "his patience began to flag a little."
"And the second reason that Colўn will not leave Spain between the verdict and the end of the war with Granada?"
"He will be informed of the verdict of the examiners in a letter. And that letter, while it will contain no promises, will nevertheless give him leave to understand that when the war ends, the matter can be reopened."
"The verdict closes the door, but the letter opens the window?"
"Just a little. But if I know Colўn at all, that slight crack in the window will be enough. He is a man of great hopes and great tenacity."
"Do I take it, Father Talavera, that your own personal verdict is in favor of the voyage?"
"Not at all," said Talavera. "If I had to guess which view of the world is the more correct, I think I would favor Ptolemy and Maldonado. But I would be guessing, because no one knows and no one can know with the information we now have."
Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus Page 21
