by Mara Amberly
Everything appeared as it should be, including the absence of Vesta, though a large amount of rubble now occupied its former orbit.
He established orbit around Earth, attempting to blend in with the multitudes of satellites and space junk, and waited to get a clear reading of Antarctica on his sensors.
“We’re not flying down to the base?” Cora asked.
“Not unless we need to,” Eric replied. He had no intention of making it any easier for the enemy to find him than necessary.
“But it’s cloaked?” she asked. “I mean it was cloaked,” she corrected.
“And then it wasn’t,” he said, “but that might’ve changed. Let’s see what’s there before we do anything. Keep a close eye on the sensors; we might need to get out of here in a hurry.”
It only took a short time before the region came into view.
Eric understood the Valteran military well enough to know there was likely no ill will toward those people on the base; they would’ve been following orders. It saddened him that they carried them out.
“There,” Eric said, as he scanned the region encompassing the glacier. “There’s no sign of the base, but that suggests to me the cloaking field is still in effect. Either the base was blown up the same as before, but the cloaking field wasn’t powered down, or we were successful.”
“What about the village; is it there?” Cora asked.
“It’s there and I’m reading life signs.”
He studied the readings for a minute, considering the best course of action. He didn’t want to take the Equinox down there unless he had to.
“Let’s try contacting Juliane,” he said. “She won’t know us but I doubt her communication ID has changed.”
Cora smiled. “It would be great if she’s still alive. I hope she will be.”
“I know,” Eric replied. He felt the same way.
It only took him a moment to key in her comms profile and call her, using audio-only.
After several rings, a familiar face showed on the view screen, but it wasn’t hers; it was Commander Woods’.
“Hello?” he answered. “Who’s this?”
Eric hadn’t used a secure channel, but he decided to continue with the call.
“Commander Woods. We spoke a year ago. I gave my name as Captain Furey.”
“You,” he replied, and then a few moments passed. “Thank you for the warning,” he said.
“What happened?” Eric asked. “The fact you’re alive is a good sign.”
“It is and it isn’t,” he said. “The base is gone – most of it. They let most of us go, but they took the Admiral with them. He was in command on the day of the attack. We’ve got no way to reach our people and no way to get home. They’ve forgotten us.”
Cora climbed into her seat beside Eric and squeezed closer to the microphone. “How’s Juliane? Is she alright?”
“Not really,” Commander Woods replied. “She was in an accident a week ago and lost a leg, but she survived. She’s in the hospital recovering and they’re equipping her with a replacement.”
“I’m just glad she’s alive,” Eric replied.
“Replacement?” Cora asked in a soft voice. “I don’t think she’ll remember us but please tell her we’re thinking of her.”
“Who is that?” the Commander asked with interest.
“Oh, I’m Cora.”
Eric ushered her away from the microphone, but she continued to listen.
“Well thank you, Cora. I’ll do that,” he said. “I’m wondering if there’s more that could be done to prevent the destruction of the base.”
Eric felt that on one level he’d achieved his aim in helping the men and Juliane escape with their lives, but on another, he wasn’t sure the base could be successfully saved without having a fleet of ships to protect it. At the moment they didn’t have the resources.
“The problem is we lack the means to adequately defend the base. Do you know how many ships were present when it was bombarded?”
“I don’t know,” Commander Woods replied, with a sigh. “A dozen or more.”
It occurred to Eric that if he hadn’t released that explosive artefact on Vesta, he probably could’ve used it, but it had been dangerous from the start and he was ill at ease with the thought of killing so many people. It also made him wonder about the secret society that had kidnapped him, believing him to be Merlin. Was it possible they still existed in the 22nd Century? Were they still keeping an eye out for him on Earth or did they have better things to do with their time?
“You should be careful about visiting the ruins of the base as we did. We must’ve triggered a beacon that attracted one of their ships. It was a missile they fired that killed Juliane in the alternate timeline. It also took out the docks.”
“Understood,” Eric replied with a notable sadness.
“Our son is back on Valtera and it’s not an ideal situation. We would like to bring him back to Earth, but we’re not sure how. Are you going back there?”
Eric already knew the answer to that question. He had no choice but to return.
“Eventually,” he replied, “but we have some matters to attend to first.”
“I’ll send you through his profile,” Commander Woods said. “If you’re near Valtera, I’d appreciate it if you could keep an eye out for him. He’s eleven years old and part of a study program near Relsar’o. We’ve been trying to get back there to find him, but passing ships have been refusing communications. It’s almost as though they’ve been warned against communicating with us.”
“They probably have,” Eric replied. “I can’t make any promises but if I can get him out, I will.”
“Thank you,” the Commander said. “Even better, you could take me with you and I’ll look for him myself. I could even bring a few friends.”
This was getting more complicated, but he couldn’t see any clear reason to refuse, provided they remained loyal to him.
“I’m not sure there won’t be other changes to the timeline before that happens, but I can come back here and if you still want to go, you’re welcome to come with us,” he said. “Your friends too if you’re sure they can be trusted.”
It raised the question of Cora too, and whether he would take her with him. This was Valteran business and dangerous to say the least. He would talk with her about it.
Eric would appreciate the help, but he already knew what his preference was – keeping her as safe as possible. The ship wouldn’t be, even if they could avoid the fracturing around his planet.
“Thank you,” Commander Woods replied. “You can call me Tom. The closer to this time you can get us, the better. I don’t like the thought of Damien left alone there any longer than necessary.”
“Even if I come later, we’ll be travelling ahead. I would like to keep the jumps to a minimum, but I promise you I’ll do what I can.”
“How far ahead did it happen?” Tom asked. “The Event that provoked all this.”
“A matter of years, but we can’t afford to get too close to that time,” he said. “We’ll have to work further back.”
“So the Valteran military came that far back to attack us?”
“Yes,” Eric replied. “They wanted to make it harder for anyone to follow them. It’s lucky I have the technology I do.”
“I think we both know you’re no longer working for military intelligence,” Tom said. “One of these days, I’d love to know how you came by your ship.”
“It’s a long story. My mentor passed it to me,” he said, leaving it at that.
“Well I owe you my life,” Tom said, “and that of my wife. If there’s anything we can do to help, you let us know.”
Eric was tempted to take them up on that, and he knew he’d give it some thought.
“I can use all the allies I can get. I’ll be in touch,” he eventually said and cut the comm channel shortly after.
“What are we going to do now?” Cora asked him.
“Fix the past and s
ee if we can stop my people’s madness, I suppose… without getting ourselves killed. That’s if you want to come.”
“I do,” she immediately replied. “Where else would I go?”
“Home?” Eric suggested.
Cora shook her head. “I don’t want to go. Besides, I know you need to limit the number of rifts. You’ll just create more if you come back for me later.”
The look in Cora’s eyes told him she wasn’t sure he would return. Eric wasn’t sure himself, though he was growing to appreciate her company. He just didn’t want it to be at the expense of her life.
“I’ll take my chances,” she said, “the same as you, Eric.”
“It’s not your fight, Cora, and if anything happens to me or the ship, I can’t take you home. It might be a one-way journey. I want you to think about that before you make a decision.”
“I am,” she said with a soft sigh of frustration.
“Well think harder and what it would mean for you. I’m grateful to have you here – you know that, but if anything should happen, it wouldn’t just be you alone or gone. All of your descendants would be missing from the timeline.”
“They’re not born yet so I’m not going to let them govern my decisions, Eric. It’s my destiny and it’s my right to choose.”
Eric wasn’t sure when it had happened, but she had become more unyielding. He imagined her father mightn’t be thrilled with the change, nor her husband to be if she married him. Personally, Eric liked her better this way except for when it made his life a little more difficult.
“I intend to be there to help you,” she said, firmly decided on the matter already.
“I suppose it’s time to work through that list now. Repair the ship and place the items I needed back in time, where I could find them and use them to get here.”
Cora nodded. “I would like to see my father, but I want to leave with you again. Can we do that?”
“We’ll find a way,” Eric promised her, wondering if he was making the right decision.
It took a day and a half to repair the ship in its earlier time frame, so it would be in the same condition Eric found it in, and place the items they’d need in various locations throughout time. He felt like his own guardian angel, and he was careful he didn’t forget anything important.
It left one item on the list, and that necessitated their return to Tintagel, Cornwall. Eric knew he had to reconfigure the coordinates for his own escape rift with pinpoint accuracy and the time had come for Cora to help him in the past.
“What do you mean I have to club someone?” she asked in shock.
“I didn’t say club. Hit. Knock them over the head; I don’t know. You just need to put them down so they don’t kill me.”
“You never mentioned this before. Not the hitting thing.”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it,” he said. “Maybe you’d have done it even if I didn’t tell you, but it’s necessary to sustain the timeline.”
“This man I have to hit. Who is he?” she asked.
“I don’t actually know. A religious zealot, I think. They were camping out by this cave on the water.”
“Why would anyone do that?” she asked, “especially in Cornwall. It’s cold.”
“I don’t know.”
That was a very good question. It reminded him that the situation was a little too convenient; almost as though he’d intentionally guided his earlier self to that location, so he could encourage him to jump to the right place and time. It wasn’t something he could guess and that made him wonder if he’d left himself a message.
Eric raised his wrist, speaking to his TSAI in a low voice. “TSAI, scan the ship’s computer for records of Tintagel, Cornwall, with the exception of the encyclopaedia database.”
“Working…” it said.
“What are you thinking?” Cora asked him.
“That there might be more we have to do.”
There was a soft chime from his TSAI and Eric brought up the data on the ship’s view screen. As he quickly scanned through the records, he found what he was looking for. It was entitled ‘Note to Self’.
“When the ship’s clock reaches 178.204.32.6.14, you and Cora should return to Tintagel, Cornwall early on the night of the 14th October 1668 and park the ship at least half a mile from the castle where it won’t be seen.
Disable life sign readings for that location on our earlier self’s TSAI, so he’s unable to pinpoint the presence of attackers. There’s a crossbowman up the hill who will fire on your earlier self twice. After the second shot, Cora should club him with a lump of wood, which she’ll find further up the hill behind him.”
“Ha,” she said. “Club. You wrote club him.”
“Oh, it wasn’t me-me. It was earlier, later, I don’t know. It was some other me.”
“Doesn’t that mean you have to leave this note to yourself?” she asked.
“Not now, no. Once it’s done, it’s done, so long as we don’t make any more changes.”
Eric could tell Cora was confused by this. He really couldn’t blame her for that. Causality loops were confusing at the best of times. Sometimes he didn’t know how he kept it all straight in his head and other times, he practically gave up. Eric knew he had to make an effort to get it right, but accepted the most he could do was his best. Anything beyond that was little more than a source of stress and he had enough of that already.
“I expected I’d need to place the Projector in the cave and lure in the zealots; perhaps spread rumours of the Projector to myself as well. Either that’s done and I no longer need to do it, or it will crop up later in our timeline and become apparent to us at that time. If it helps, I can tell you what I remember you saying to me. I’m certain though that if I don’t, you’ll make the correct decisions at the time.”
“I’ll hit him as you ask and I think I’d rather respond as seems appropriate at the time,” she said. “Somehow it feels more right. If I intentionally speak the words you remember, they would come out wrong, as though I’m only reciting them.”
Eric nodded.
“How hard do I have to hit him?” she asked.
Her tone was nervous because she wasn’t fully sure what she was getting herself into and wasn’t yet convinced it was the right thing to do.
“Hard enough to knock him out or put him down, but ideally not hard enough to kill him,” Eric said.
“How do I do that without hurting him more than I mean to?” Cora asked.
Eric didn’t have an answer for her; at least, not a good one. “Improvise?” he suggested.
“I’m not sure that’s the best approach,” she replied, but there was no simple, perfect answer.
“You can take comfort from the fact he was trying to kill me,” Eric said. “Thank you for saving my hide, by the way.”
She grinned at that, a smile like sunlight that overcame the worry for a long moment.
“I don’t know if that makes me a hero or a villain,” she said.
“That’s because life is seldom so straightforward. We usually do the things we do for our own reasons or for those people in power. One person’s hero is another person’s villain… some of the time. Are you ready?” he asked.
“Not even remotely,” she said, “but yes.”
“There are places you can take cover on the hillside and it will be dark. It’s likely better if there’s only one of us out there.”
“Oh no,” she said. “I don’t want to have to deal with that alone. I’d feel much better about it if you came with me.” She levelled a questioning gaze at him. “You will, won’t you?”
Eric knew it would be better if he didn’t, but perhaps it was too much sending her out there alone. The more he thought about it, the crazier it sounded, with all he’d asked her to do. Sometimes time put you up to crazy things.
“I’ll go with you,” he promised, “but I didn’t see another version of myself there, so I’ll stay out of sight.”
She seemed relieve
d by his decision to go with her.
“The hillside is rocky and I remember it raining a little.”
“It sounds delightful,” she exclaimed. “I suppose it will make it harder for them to notice me. We should do this before I change my mind,” she said.
The ship’s clock measured the true passage of time experienced on board the ship. There was little more than an hour until the scheduled time to re-visit Tintagel, so they made their preparations and brought the ship into the correct time frame. It was eye-opening to know that Eric’s younger self was there right now on the planet below. Eric always made an effort to stay well away from himself in previous time periods; he didn’t know if there would be consequences should he run into himself. He’d heard myths like the universe would implode, but he never truly believed them. It just didn’t seem the kind of thing you wanted to take a chance on.
Eric set the ship down in a meadow within walking distance of the castle and Merlin’s Cave. There was no farmhouse close-by, so he was unsure if the landowner might stumble across his ship. Covering it with branches wouldn’t normally do the trick, but a combination of darkness and the foul weather might help.
Cora pulled her coat around her shoulders before leaving through the hatch, whereas Eric fell back on the sturdy leather jacket he’d worn during his time in the 16th to 18th Centuries. They didn’t make them like that in the future.
They kept to the shadows as best they could as they climbed the hill toward the castle. The fresh air held a hint of salt, and even with the rain and the cold, Eric loved it. It was a world as yet unchanged by higher technology, which was a beautiful thing.
There were trees up ahead, and Eric guided Cora toward them, as they would provide better cover than the meadow.
“We don’t know where those men went when they left the cave,” he said. “I should be able to scan for life signs but it’s not working, again.”
“I’m keeping an eye out for them, believe me,” Cora replied.
Eric nodded, and they didn’t linger long before approaching the hill, where Eric remembered seeing the crossbowman. It was close to the castle, but Eric kept his distance from it because he wasn’t sure what kind of presence was there. He didn’t want to run into trouble, just as he didn’t want to disturb the timeline any more than he already had.
