Treachery
Page 15
didn't notice it either.
IDAN
Time-resistance is not usually apparent to a bystander, actually. It takes some trickery to spot it.
Idan takes a small step toward Janus.
IDAN
Janus. Because your enemies sent you back in time, then forward, you have an alternate time-stream to merge into. In the past. And it seems your enemies do not suspect you could merge back.
JANUS
But I wouldn't gain any possible time that way. You're saying that if someone travels back a thousand years, and they have the gift of merging, then they can merge forward up to a thousand years, right? But our enemies brought me back a thousand years--or however long it was--and then brought me forward a thousand years. I assume you lose the potential to merge if you move forward the same distance you went back, right? Lose a thousand years, then gain a thousand years, and I'm at zero net gain years--doesn't it work that way?
IDAN
It would if you hadn't brought anything back from the past with you. But you did. Or rather, your enemies caused you to. By forcing you to tow a fly fighter from the past, they gave you a physical connection from the past, a tow, a potential back time-stream to merge into.
Xenon takes a step forward and looks intently into Janus' eyes.
XENON
You have the opportunity to merge back in time as far as you wish, for your purposes. Do you feel it? Do you sense a potential back-stream?
Janus pauses and closes his eyes in concentration, then opens them, and stares, wide-eyed, at Idan, then Xenon.
JANUS
Xenon, you said that merging back is the only way to truly reverse time, including physical age.
IDAN
Yes. You begin to form a plan, but--
JANUS
Well, when I merged back in my test, I still remembered everything that had happened. If time truly reverses in a back-merge, my knowledge doesn't reverse with it. I'll remember all this. And I can stop all of this right where it began. I'm sure I'll see you later, and I'll explain. Or if not...It's been great to be friends.
XENON
Please tell me what you're planning. We've thought that we could turn the tables of the battle, by--
JANUS
I can turn the tables way more than anything like that. This war won't even happen.
Idan takes what looks like a roughly spherical, small rock out of his pocket, which shimmers like a dull metal. It reflects mostly white, with some iridescent rainbow colors, mostly violet and light blue. He offers it to Janus.
IDAN
You may need this.
Janus looks at the object in Idan's hand, and laughs.
JANUS
Why? What's that?
IDAN
A bismuth-tin alloy.
JANUS
And?
Idan doesn't answer, but holds it further forward. Janus shrugs, then takes it, and looks at it closely.
JANUS
Pretty. Whoa, heavy for something so small, too.
XENON
Janus, whatever you plan, I fear that with these dictators among our people, war will still be inevitable.
JANUS
Okay, then we get on your side before it's too late. I bet. I'll point out the signs.
IDAN
If you go, hold on to that tight, at least until after you go.
XENON
Please don't encourage him.
IDAN
He needs none. But Janus, I advise you to wait and listen to Xenon.
Janus looks at Idan, then back at the metal sphere, and puts it in his own pocket.
IDAN
No--if you go, hold it tight in your hand, or it will tear out of your pocket and be useless.
Janus takes it back out of his pocket, and holds it tight, in a fist.
JANUS
Okay. Like this?
Idan nods.
JANUS
Useless for what?
Idan doesn't answer, and looks distressed.
XENON
What signs? What signs will you point out? Please tell us what you're planning.
JANUS
The signs that you're our friends. Green and slimy, even, just like we always imagined, except friendly.
Janus tightens his fist around the metal ball, and merges. The previous five minutes of action rapidly reverse in a bright blue blaze, which turns to bright blue noise, then to hot white noise.
FADE OUT:
FADE IN:
EXT. HOUSETOP--NIGHT
JANUS THADDEUS AGE FOURTEEN lies in a sleeping bag atop the roof of his house. His Father NEREUS THADDEUS AGE THIRTY-SIX sits in a separate sleeping bag beside him, and is turned toward him. Nereus looks at his Son with admiration.
NEREUS
Son, if we do ever meet anyone else out there, I hope with all my heart that you're right.
Janus smiles at his Dad.
FADE OUT:
THE END
FORSAKEN
An original short story, in prose
For the beguiled
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doth. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears: “The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.” Then shalt thou say in thine heart, “Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro, and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?”
-Isaiah 49:15
At the cusp of obliteration, Father was prompted to deeply consider the inmost chambers of his soul. There, as he stared at the last star he could see—for how long he did not know, nor did he know how long it would be until the light from it, too, would seem to vaporize—he considered his many wrongs.
Forty years old, and tall and stocky, with grizzled dark brown hair, he was very tough yet gentle—gentle, when he chose to be. An ineffably sunny, joyful demeanor was sculpted into his face, which would perplex any observer who knew too well the contradictions under the surface. At the moment, however, all that sunniness was sucked away.
He came to a conclusion.
“Family Council!” he shouted.
Mother and the children hurriedly assembled under the orange iridescent light, around the kitchen table, then waited, breathlessly, for Father to arrive there, which he did.
He sat. “Children, I do not think that things have been quite right between you and I, nor between I and your Mother—”
Mother looked afraid and grieved—
“By which I mean for my part,” he hurriedly added, then continued, “I mean that I do not think I have been entirely right towards your Mother, for my part. Nor indeed towards you children, for my part.”
Mother looked relieved.
“I have thought about it long and hard, and I have concluded that there are altogether too many times—”
“About twenty per day,” fourteen-year-old Timothy interrupted. Timothy, brown-eyed and brunette, had eyes with a very playful, intelligent light in them, and he was tall and gangly, yet wiry—very tough.
Father looked stunned for a moment, but then continued anyway.
“Well, I suppose you must know what I'm about to say, as usual. So anyway, I've concluded that there have been altogether too many times when I've spoken, it breaks my heart to say so
—I've spoken too often in aggressive anger.”
“About twenty times per day,” Timothy repeated.
“Yes, I suppose that's about right,” Father agreed.
“No, it's exactly right,” Timothy continued, “if you average it all out to a per-day rate. I don't know why that is. It's some kind of internal barometer, I guess. Twenty explosions per day, then you're all settled. You're all done. Time's up. Time to tuck in and curl up. No more anger left.”
“How many times have you thought this?” Father wondered.
“Does it matter?” Timothy replied.
Sixteen-year-old Iris, observant and compassionate, beautiful and doll-like, and with very reddish auburn hair, spoke. “Does this account for the explosions of a magnitude to justify calling one explosion twenty?”
“Certainly,” replied Timothy. “The puzzling thing is that there's so little middle-ground. It's either one big explosion out of nowhere, interspersed with long silences, or a series of roughly regularized explosions, again, at about twenty per day.”
Father hid his face in his hands, and sighed. “Lord, have mercy on me.”
Iris tried very hard, and partly failed, to stifle laughter.
“Which is very unusual,” continued Timothy, almost as if Father had said nothing at all— “because aggression, generally speaking, is typically highly unpredictable. I wonder if you could enlighten us—”
“Timothy,” interrupted Mother, gently, and gave him a bemused but warning look, a look which said yes this is fun, but should you continue?—and Timothy got the hint and stopped.
Iris again stifled laughter.
Mother, thirty-nine years old, and of whom Iris was very much an image, looked on her children with affectionate bemusement. The only