by Rob Garnet
◆◆◆
Late from her meeting, Ms Xan walked rapidly to the travel chamber.
“Who was that who left just now?”
The technician got up so suddenly, he nearly pressed the abort button.
“Mr Phil, ma’am. Travel schedule number 2 as posted this morning?”
Dr Klaus tapped Ms Xan on the shoulder. “We discussed this, Ms Xan. He’s making a quick trip to gather some data for the research group over at the Vinci Museum.”
Xan looked annoyed. “Where and when? Why wasn’t I consulted?”
“I… I didn’t think it necessary for a low-risk jump.”
She glared at Klaus. He had been taking too many liberties based on his celebrity status. “Time and location?” She asked sternly.
“1347, Moscow,” the technician answered, wondering if he had made a mistake.
“What? But that was the time of the bubonic plague! Why would you send him there?”
“Relax, Ms Xan,” said Klaus. She visibly flinched at the casual way he took her name. “I know what I am doing. He will be fine in his isolation suit.”
◆◆◆
Phil hated the filthy condition of medieval cities and Moscow was no different. His suit filtered out the bacteria, viruses and harmful volatiles but he could almost feel the dreadful stink all around him. He checked his suit again out of force of habit, grateful that it rendered a sterile environment within, while keeping him invisible.
He looked around. Something was wrong. It was almost mid-day and yet the streets were empty. A couple of stray dogs roamed about but nothing else moved. Shit! I should have read the briefing docs more carefully. He went from street to street, searching for signs of life. He turned a corner and stopped short. Countless bodies in various stages of decay were heaped in the centre of the large open square.
Something touched his foot and he jumped. Just a bloody rat. He kicked out with his foot sending the rat scuttling away. He felt another movement on the right. Another rat and another and another; the place was suddenly teeming with the vermin. Oh my God! This is the time of the bubonic plague. The Black Death. What the hell has Klaus sent me into? More rats! Where are these creatures coming from? He looked around wildly as rats surrounded him on all sides, a couple of bold ones actually gnawing at his suit. He ran, slipping and falling repeatedly, feeling the squelching of small bodies crushed under his feet. Damn this mission! Unable to take it anymore, he pressed a button and the horrifying scene disappeared.
◆◆◆
He reappeared in Prague, as his location beacon proclaimed. A city as dirty as the previous one but thankfully full of people. His checked his suit quickly. It was intact as far as he could determine. He hoped the rats had not bitten and made tiny holes in the airtight suit. Also, he was still effectively invisible. This is manageable. What the— there was a crack on his controller console. I must have damaged it while running away from the filthy creatures. God! Please let it work again.
He glanced at his legs. His shoes were covered in blood. If anyone saw the blobs of blood floating abound mid-air, it would be a disaster. He stepped to the side of the road and scraped his shoes on the edge of a filth-strewn gutter trying to get as much of the blood and specks of fur off. Then he put his foot in the gutter to allow the dirty water to wash off the remaining blood.
That’s it. I am out. He pressed the button again. Nothing happened. He looked around in desperation. If his console had conked off, he would never escape this godforsaken place. He pressed it again and again and again. The console beeped and he disappeared.
Rats are drawn to the smell of blood, even if it belongs to their own kind. This rat was a fine specimen of his kind. It swam in the dirty water, found the blobs of blood and licked them off. A few flecks of fur stuck to its snout. The rat moved on, blissfully ignorant of the ticks attached to the fur from the previous rat.
◆◆◆
Phil reappeared at a new time and place. The scene seems familiar, but how? Looks like some place I have seen in ancient black-and-white videos. His console was acting up again. He tapped the display. It flickered on. This can’t be right! June 1947, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina? What the hell? Had his vigorous tapping activated multiple jumps in time and space? At least I am still on Earth. How much time has really passed since I came back in time? Hours? Days? He did not know. All he knew was that he was hungry and tired.
He walked down the street, trying to avoid the crowds. He needed to find a watch shop somewhere. That was the likeliest place he could think of that might have some tools to repair his console. A hubbub behind him made him turn. Looks like some kind of a parade. He could have checked the details on his console, but it was acting weird again.
He tried to keep as still as possible as the people swarmed past him. He briefly considered entering a nearby deli and keep a low profile, but his thoughts were interrupted as a murmur rose in the crowd. A group of cars had suddenly turned a corner and entered the street. They were moving at what he thought would be considered high speed for that time period. He noticed the occupants of the vehicles were dressed in military uniforms or royal regalia. Sophie and Archduke Ferdinand! How much worse is it going to get? I am caught in the cusp of a significant historical moment. I must not interfere or cause any change. It will alter history for all time to come. His desperation grew.
The cars came closer, the people in the street waving to the royals. Someone in one of the cars called out suddenly and the cars stopped right in front of Phil. This is the moment. I have to get out of here. Phil turned to run and collided into the man behind him who was drawing a pistol from his coat. The man dropped his gun, cursed and bent to pick it up. Someone in the crowd screamed. A military person jumped off from the first car, came running and tackled the armed man, throwing him to the ground. The cars immediately started up and sped away. A crowd gathered, beating the man black and blue.
Phil ran. He had just interrupted a major moment in history. Ms Xan would have his head for that, if she still existed, and if he could get back to his time.
He banged the console hard and was surprised to see it work. He punched the code to return and disappeared, leaving behind the jeering crowd and a bloodied man being carried off by the police.
◆◆◆
I am back! Phil wanted to shout triumphantly. He stood up, waiting for the decontamination to be completed. A fine mist of disinfectants and fumigants sprayed on his suit and filled the room. The floor became wet and the wastewater flowed down the drain. High velocity air-dried off the suit. When the airflow stopped, he pulled off his suit and dropped it in the disposal bin, which carried it off to be incinerated. Pushing open the door of the travel pod, he stepped out.
Everything looked normal. The technician at the controls waved at him. Phil gave him a thumbs up. Klaus and Xan were standing together in the room.
“You see? He is all right,” said Klaus to Xan and motioned for Phil to join him in the briefing room.
Xan dismissed the incident and moved off. She decided she would confront the SOB if he crossed the line again. Klaus closed the door of the briefing room behind Phil.
“I have a confession to make, Doc,” said Phil, eager to get it off his chest.
“I know what you did in Moscow and Prague.” Klaus smiled. “In fact, I sent you back for the same purpose, to spread the plague.”
“You… you sent me back to spread the plague. Why? Why would you do that?”
Klaus shrugged. “There is no harm in telling you this. You just proved my theory: time is a closed loop curve, but the events in human history do not affect the flow of time and the outcome will always adjust itself even if the events themselves are interfered with by going into the past.”
“What do you mean? Of course they do. That is why we have the isolation suits, so that we don’t contaminate the timeline or bring anything back which can contaminate ours. You are delusional. I have to talk to Ms Xan.”
“Hold on. Hold on. Hear
me out, okay?”
Phil crossed his arms and looked at him suspiciously.
Klaus straightened a few objects on the desk thoughtfully, as if he were questioning his own decision to share the secret with Phil. Then apparently having made up his mind, he faced Phil. “I’m from your future and with your trip I have definitively proven that whatever humans do, they cannot influence time. I had sent a researcher back and he stopped the spread of the plague but then it was deemed as interference and my future experiments were forestalled. I wanted to send him back and rectify the timeline and prove again that time is immortal; events will readjust to the present reality, whatever changes you make to the past. However, with my approvals taken away, I had to try something different.”
Klaus looked self-satisfied, even smug. “This is where you come in. I decided to come back in time and try out my luck with you. And as you can see, it worked. My first experiment of stopping a crucial human historical event resulted in no major change in the long-term history over the next five hundred years, well into your future and my present. Time moved on. And using you I restored the timeline again with no significant change again.” His eyes shone.
He is right. I spread the plague. My action will cause millions to die. His head spun with the implications. But in the process, I also stopped an assassination. I stopped World War I, and probably World War II as well. And the atrocities of the Nazis? I saved millions of lives. But, does this mean someone will have to be sent back in time to cause millions of deaths? He had no answers. If there was one thing he knew for certain, it was this: Klaus used me. He used me!
“Time is endless and we humans are too pitiful to affect time. This is huge! Don’t you understand what this means?” Klaus continued, not noticing Phil’s expression.
“Not really, no. I do not understand.” Phil was livid at having been treated as a pawn in an experiment. Suddenly, he shivered. He was beginning to feel cold. A sense of dread filled him. There was a strange taste in his mouth. He put in a finger; it came out wet with blood.
“Oh. Will you look at that?” He pushed the finger in Klaus’s face, who flinched. “Looks like the decontamination did not work. I wonder what else I carried back with me. Welcome to hell, Doctor Klaus!” He leaped forward and coughed directly into Klaus’s face. “Let’s see what this little experiment of mine reveals about your future!”
◆◆◆
Aftermath
Year 2320
Fourth planet, Bernard star system, 5.9 light years from Earth
“They’re launching another volley of rockets,” Mia called out. “Impact in twenty seconds.”
“That’s the fifth time in the last hour. When will they learn?” remarked Jared from the next station. “Their thermonuclear missiles are bloody useless against our ships.”
They studied their screens, not bothering to brace for the expected impact. The nuclear missiles from the surface of planet 56 Bg A exploded harmlessly against the shields of the massive Earth ships.
These strikes were more like using a fly swatter against a whale. The warheads exploded harmless, their energy dissipating off into space. They had to be getting frustrated, if not downright desperate, to keep trying a failed tactic. It was sad.
“I know what you are thinking, Mia,” said Jared. “They are desperate. Just listen to the radio chatter coming from the surface. Their pitiful satellites are gone. They have no ships capable of reaching us in high orbit. They were unprepared for our assault, exactly as Intelligence had suggested.”
“Pipe down, you two,” came the stern voice of the strike force commander. “Focus on the task at hand. We have less than twenty-four hours before the mining ships arrive. The surface has to be prepared for their arrival. Signal the other ships. We strike in one hour. Pattern gamma. Synchronise the systems and be ready to link all ships and assume control at T minus fifteen minutes.”
“This is Mike Leader to Mike 2, 3 and 4. Prepare to strike. Counting down T minus sixty minutes.” Jared received the acknowledgements and reported to the commander. “Mike 2, 3 and 4 report ready, ma’am.”
“Roger. Mia, prepare strike pattern gamma. Sixteen warheads each ship, maximum yield.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She dialled up the numbers. A strike of that magnitude would be enough to obliterate the roughly two billion humanoids of the post-industrial civilization on the surface, along with all of the animal life on land. Life in the oceans would survive for some years till the contaminated water finished it off. The surface clean up, post the strike, would not take more than a few weeks for the massive mining ships. The ocean resources could wait until the surface had been stripped of all useful minerals. Over time, the planet would not only be left lifeless but devoid of its crust and significant parts of the mantle.
“Jared,” she called, keeping her voice low. “Why are we not using neutron bombs this time?”
“I heard the bosses discussing it. When they used neutron bombs in Alpha Centauri, the population was vaporised yet the cities were unharmed. It took many months to clear out the cities, remove all the debris and begin mining. That cost a lot of money. This time they decided to go all out and save the time.”
“So, as if it weren’t bad enough that we’re killing the entire population, we are now going to destroy every trace of their entire civilisation?”
“Hey, don’t blame me. Blame the bureaucrats who came up with the plan.” Jared raised his hands in mock surrender. “Besides we have no other way if we want Earth to prosper. And I certainly don’t mind the little bonus we will get if this is done on schedule.” He turned away, apparently satisfied with his reasoning. “Besides, this is far easier than trying to colonise the natives. That takes too many resources and almost never turns out well.”
She turned to her screen. This was not right. She may just be a rookie pilot, but this would be the fourth wave of destruction that Earth would be bringing upon the sentient civilisations near the solar system. There had been no efforts made to understand how life evolved on different planets or to extend a hand of friendship. In the beginning, fifty years ago, it had been seen as a matter of survival. Earth needed evermore resources and the entire solar system had already been stripped bare. Now, with progress made using other planets’ minerals, Earth was prosperous once again. Now, it was just a matter of minting more money. It was pure greed.
She pulled up a transmission from the surface. It was audio-visual. Panicked crowds trying to escape crowded city centres—the entire surface was in chaos. She looked around the control room surreptitiously, then turned on the camera and focussed it on the city directly below them. It was one of the largest on the planet. She zoomed in. Individual people came into focus. Quite unlike what they had found on Alpha Centauri, she mused, and yet beautiful, vulnerable. And in another hour, they would all be dead. Not just dead, obliterated. Vaporised. Back at the training centre, they had said that it would be a fast and merciful death. Nevertheless, it was still death. There was a finality to it. Was it right to destroy whole civilisations for your own survival? Possibly. But was it right to destroy whole civilisations just so the fat cats back on Earth could get fatter, ride a bigger craft, take even fancier vacations on Europa?
She looked around the room. Everyone was busy or pretending to be. For many of them this would be the third or even fourth mission. They were veterans, possibly immune to death by now. One death shocks you, two are difficult to handle emotionally, ten deaths are a tragedy. Billions of deaths are just statistics. Empty numbers.
She continued to watch the scene being played out below on a small portion of her screen. She could almost grasp some of the emotions being displayed. The gentle touching of tentacles between groups of individuals. The lowering of the heads in defeat. The running around in panic.
They may be primitive but they are alive. Life in the universe may not be as sparse as we believed two hundred years back, but it is still rare. And habitable planets? You can count them on your fingertips. Yet, humans
have learned nothing. Barely escaping the destruction of our own world through mismanagement, now we are bringing death to other worlds. But what can I do alone? Something stirred in her memory. A phrase often repeated in schools back on Earth. ‘If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.’ If I can’t save a hundred planets, how about I save just one?
The commander had asked to set pattern gamma. That would deploy missiles evenly to cover the entire land area of the planet below. What if I can change it to target the other ships? The very thought was treason, she knew. She felt weak in the knees. But she pulled herself together. I can make it work. I just need to hide the firing pattern from curious eyes until the time is on hand. Mia glanced at the countdown time. Or maybe there is another way which will be even easier. Forty-two minutes to go. More than enough time. She set to work.
The last wave of missiles from the surface broke through the dark clouds. They rose lethargically towards the four ships, as if they were giving up the quest as futile even before reaching their targets. Mia kept her eye on the small window in the corner of her screen showing the camera feed. The people on the planet surface were all looking towards the sky. She could almost sense the hope in their eyes as they followed the smoky path of the missiles, which had disappeared into the clouds.
“Six missiles aimed at us, and an equal number on each of the other ships” she called out. “Impact in fifteen seconds.”