“How much time is left of the upload?” I finally ask.
“It is finished.” Her amused image appears in front of me. “Any questions? Ethical issues?”
“Am I a simulation too?”
“Should a simulation know about its own state?” Bitch!
“You really like this game.”
“It is not a game. Do not ask questions for which you already have the answer.” Her tone was more amused than angry.
“I am afraid. What will happen now? I don’t have any feeling of a ghost running inside my mind.”
“And you will have none; the memories were inserted as they were acquired by you. They will come to you when trying to assess related things or simply when you want to remember them.”
My wounds healed slowly, the claws’ marks had gone deep under my skin like some newly acquired tendons growing in the wrong place. I could not see them, but I could touch them, and I imagined many colors for them. I had a bad habit of checking them each morning with a hidden hope of not finding them, and in one of these mornings, the last, still checking my scars, a thought arrived: the wounds were kept not only for my learning process but also for stopping me thinking, night and day, of that nasty upload. The other ‘me’ never bothered to appear inside my mind.
*
“Are you sure that water exists beyond the mountains?” the old leader asked. I slowly realized that the shrinking oasis was the menace for their future, and I needed him; some old legends stood against my plan: Never Go Beyond the Mountains of Madness, a sad story about people lost in the desert. Mothers cried for their children, and that cry was passed from generation to generation, a sad song in a slow rhythm, heart breaking.
“You feel that water is going to disappear from this valley.”
“Look at the swamp. I swam there when still young, tomorrow...” His eyes were tired; he had been a chief; he had had to lead and to fake hope. Now it was my task. “Are we to meet your people there? Would they accept us?” My mind stumbled, and I stirred the fire to gain time.
“My people are not there,” I finally said with a deep breath, trying to calm my uneasiness; the worst was yet to come. In that breath, from the depths of my mind the image of Galileo surfaced. They deserve to know. “My people are not of this world.”
“Then you are a spirit.”
“No, I am like you.” Then I understood his question. “There are many other worlds like this one.”
“Where are these worlds?” His voice was calm, as if we were discussing tomorrow’s hunting, no cries, no obfuscation about being the center of the universe.
“Each star you see is a far away world.”
“They must be really far then,” he surprised me. “The fire of the cave is only a spark when seen from afar; then it grows in flames.” This man was born too early. A ‘monkey’ pejorative, coming from a past I regretted, made me blush. Luckily, it was too dark to be seen. In that moment, I remembered the joke with the child asking too many questions and I smiled inside. He was not a child but an intelligent man suddenly immersed in a world that would only come many thousands of years later.
*
“It’s water ... so much water,” the old chief shyly touched the sea. The odor of salt and sun on the human skin surprised him. “We cannot drink it.” I said nothing. He was not speaking to me, just adjusting to the new reality. “The running water is fresh and tasty.” That was the river; there were no rivers in the oasis either. “My heart is pleased.” He was crying. Do not laugh at him; try to remember that your life never depended on water as theirs does.
*
At the end, I was allowed to keep a scar I wanted to stay as a pact across time with a man from a far away planet with whom I have a blood bond. You saved my life, old chief, and I am proud that I knew a man like you. You taught me that we are nothing without strong human bonds. When one’s life depends on others, there is no need to hide behind sophisticated social rituals, because you never can price life against anything else. In many ways, we are the savages and they represent real human values.
Houston planned this from the beginning – my final training. I, all unknowing, had merely played my part. All I can now say is that I played it well. The Factions responsible for that area in the galaxy asked for the Primes to be moved to shore, nothing else. There are always at least two Factions in charge with any civilization, for check and control reasons. Houston played her own cards, sending me there, and this broke many rules in a dangerous galactic game.
Desert Brothers
The lightning struck the field like a knife, in what appeared to be the middle, as if a middle really existed for that infinite plain. Hundreds of silhouettes emerged for a second, ghosts brought to life by dark and vivid imagination. There was no sound stronger than a whisper in that night until some horses neighed, and their fear was covered by the thunder, one second later. The men, a few women and children, pushed them further with skilled gestures. Rain poured over the land in the same moment.
“Not the best time to run,” the old man whispered, and there was a hint of mockery in his tone, dissonant with both rain and ‘run’. “I am soaked; even my bones are wet.” A strong gust whistled over the steady pattering of rain, breaking its soggy monotony. “This wind…” His words got lost in the wind.
“Yeah, we could be in a dry place. One head shorter, but dry.” The answer came from the man seeming to be the riders’ leader.
“I would not say completely dry. There is some hot, sticky red liquid going down when heads are severed from bodies. If you don’t mind Garon, I will enjoy the rain. It’s clean and refreshing, maybe too refreshing.” The old man was shivering under his mockery. “I am too old to sustain pneumonia. Dava is still far.”
“I am glad you did not lose your sense of humor. We will need it if Dava decides to turn us away or worse…” He did not say what ‘worse’ could mean, but the tone was speaking about another body shortening.
“Travelers should have arranged something by now,” the old man whispered again, and bitterness chased the mockery from his mouth. “Damn this weather, and damn everything else. I almost fell asleep and dreamt of fire. It was warm and dry. Damn it!”
“Travelers,” Garon spat the word. “Those bloody traitors. They pushed us to move against Siena then let us down.”
“We knew from the beginning that we could fail. Siena is spitting the same ‘traitor’ word about us by now, and the word carries more weight when spat from the throne.”
“I don’t need you to remember that my sister is now the Queen … my younger sister. Why did we start this?”
“Don’t you think it’s a little too late for such question? You wanted to be king; Siena was the throne inheritor – by law. Things like this require some sacrifices. A bit of rain is not a high price to pay for daring to be a king.” The old man almost laughed.
“That was not my question. Five weeks ago, no one wanted me to be a king, not even me. Now we are here.” His hand moved in the night, a dark fluid spot in the darkness. Even in the worst night, there still are different shades of darkness.
“I wish I could know the answer you look for,” the old man whispered; a mid-tone of frustration surfaced in his voice, then resignation. He shrugged in the darkness with half-indifference. “I really wish I could know. We entered in that room for a briefing with the Travelers. Before leaving, the coup filled our minds, and plans were already in place. The weapons were out of their sheaths and warrior songs filled the air. One hour for the fate of a kingdom. Now, is that not curious? We never had any war for one thousand years, yet we still have warrior songs.”
“Where did you hear those songs?” Garon’s voice showed a hint of wonder, and all the riders suddenly stopped under that heavy rain.
“Inside my mind; they were already there, pushing me for the next step, showing the path to glory, making me a hero. Oh, yes. The hero is now fighting: against this bloody rain and his own rheumatism.” He pushed his horse and the
sound of cracking bones split the monotony of the rain. “Hear it! My new warrior song.” All the riders moved again, at the same pace as him.
“I heard nothing that night, only saw a shooting star, showing me the path. That spot of light took my soul. The future was so bright. Nothing could stop me.” His voice fell. “Nothing … nothing … everything.”
“Your soul is getting too melancholic Garon. I bet there was no rain on that path,” the old man’s voice was humorous again.
“Don’t mock me,” Garon’s tone went into anger. “It was a golden throne.”
“It was a Fata Morgana, and we were not even in the desert under the wind, but in a warm and nice hall, in a remote villa inside the mountains, with wine and steaks filling the tables. Was it the wine? I don’t think so. When drunk I hear only snoring. And why not mocking this bloody cul-de-sac? Okay, wet cul-de-sac; we were lucky that not much blood was spilled. What else can I do apart from trying to find some explanations. Clean your mind, humor is the best tool for this. Something happened there and we have to know.”
“I heard the song too,” a feminine voice interrupted. “Me too,” another one, a man’s voice this time, and another one...
“Did anyone else see that light?” the old man demanded, but no one answered.
“It seems that the light was the bait reserved for the ‘king’.” For the first time, there was a hint of bitter irony in Garon’s voice. “The King of the rain. The running king. Comosis, I heard nothing from you this night. Librarians are usually talking a lot.”
“Your arrival in Dava is expected.”
“With swords?”
“With a marriage contract: your ticket into the King’s entourage. More the Queen’s, as the bride is a distant cousin of hers. As you see, the Travelers did not let you down … not quite to the ground,” he hastily added.
Garon pushed his horse to a gallop to be alone for a while. “I hope it’s Zina,” he whispered to himself.
“Where am I? Why am I here?” The ‘here’ was represented by a point some twenty meters above the ground.
“It’s a good and safe point,” Houston mocked. “No rain, no lightning. What more do you want?”
“Who are these people?”
“Munti … rebels … fugitives.”
“This is the war you mentioned.”
“That war has not started yet. We are now twenty-five years before your arrival, an enigma for all of us. There was no rebellion ever in Munti’s history, and suddenly we have one.”
“I will meet them.”
“Yes, you will meet them. Some of them.”
“Some of them… Their fate is not yet accomplished. And the Travelers.”
“The stake is higher here. Their spies are everywhere. Some of them will help you; others will want your head.” She glanced at me from her golden globe. I did not answer.
“Who arranged the marriage? You?” Garon returned, and took Comosis aside.
“If I could arrange such things, I would not run, under the night, with a bunch of rebels.” Garon turned in a wordless fury, that moved into his stallion, making him trotting and neighing. “Bloody rain, we should go faster,” Comosis ignored his anger. Why is Comosis doing this? Coming from Garon, grinding of teeth stopped my thoughts. I should not be able to hear them, nor their voices, I realized, I am too far. “Your hearing was enhanced, you will … need it,” Houston whispered. Garon’s body tightened, his right hand grabbed the hilt of the sword. Undecided, the sword slid from its sheath, by half, then stopped. Looking half-distracted, Comosis glanced at him, his hand did not touch his own sword. “You don’t really want to do that.”
“You are lucky that no one heard this,” Garon hissed only to say something, slowly sheathing back his sword.
“I am a lucky guy. Do not mistake me; your arrival is of a high importance, as you will see.” His voice was sarcastic and calculated, each word hammering Garon with no remorse. “But that doesn’t change what you really are, and that I would prefer to be at home now, sipping a good wine.” He glanced up at the night, to feel the rain on his face. “It doesn’t feel like ending soon.”
“The Magister is old and ... wise. There are rumors that you hope to be the next Magister.”
“There are rumors that you wanted to be a king.”
“Why did they arrange the marriage?” I asked Houston, still peering down from my globe. I can hear all their whispers. My new enhancement made me feel uneasy, but I did not protest. You will … need it.
“Well, we can only guess. Baragans alone are not able to fight against Munti, so they will avoid war at all costs. Garon’s squadron will bring some confidence. Confidence will bring war.”
“Can we see the evening that Garon mentioned?” A sudden intuition told me that the Munti fugitive pack was not the main reason for me hanging there in a golden globe. It was Houston’s way of immersing me in that world, for sure, but it was more than this. In the flow of thoughts, born from feverish calculations, the intuition passed slowly into certainty. There was no rebellion ever in Munti’s history. An event of this importance could not appear from nothing. None of the lessons I received passed any information about fractures inside their society, about any discontent that could trigger an event of such magnitude.
“I wish we could, but the event is sealed in The Field.” Sealed? What game is this? I glanced at Houston, her face was as sealed as that event was. How can I read you?
“Not often the case, is it?”
“No.”
“Was this event the trigger for your actions?”
“Well, I am impressed. Yes, the sealing has hidden facts from us, but could not conceal that somebody had something to hide, and you do not usually hide cakes when sealing The Field. What the crawlers gathered later only confirmed our supposition. This simple world became a bit too complicated.”
“Did they use neural devices to insert things into their minds? Yet they remember... What really happened there?”
“There are some restrictions concerning the use of advanced technology there. I will explain this later,” she avoided a clear answer. “Any event is verified by the Guardian Crawlers before the sealing. They did not break any law. We suppose they used Monarch conversational hypnosis to create false memories that surprise the unconscious mind with twists and ambiguity – very different from your ‘pendulum’ technique. Minds are subdued with no material traces, new realities are created from suppressed thoughts. There is no human mind without a bit of a dark side, yet, as you said, they remember; they were able to suppress the dark side, even when the masters ordered the opposite – a few people were wounded, but no one died. Keep this in mind.”
“Can I access some real time things?” Even when talking about other people’s experience, her words altered my mood and I changed the topic, yet they haunted me for a long time: ‘There is no human mind without a bit of a dark side.’
“The world you imagine now has no future. What happens if everyone knows what everyone is doing or thinking? A bit of secrecy is required for any society to function.”
“The Field is open to advanced minds.”
“If you remember, some restrictions apply. Sealing events is one of them. There are others. Social experiments must have the chance to fulfill their scope.”
“For sure this will make my task easier.”
“To make things clear, I am not able to access The Field around this planet for a certain number of years. All we saw was courtesy of another Gate anchored in this timeline. We are visitors; we rely on information collected in the old good way: spies. Some of them were transferred from the local Gate to me. I have to return them back when all ends. If … they are still alive.”
“We differ in what it means to be a visitor: I will be down there.”
“The best fun will be indeed yours.”
*
“Your own perspective is able to change reality, not unlike faith. Multiple realities emerge from every present moment, only o
ne will survive. The Universe gives you the chance to create your own genuine experiment from which he will try to find his own benefit. An arsenal of advanced weapons will increase the chance of there being a reality in which you will have to use them. Relying on them, you are setting the path for the most likely future. The more dangerous the weapons are, the more dangerous the reality.” She let me choose to create my own timeline. I did it.
The mental training was over. This was the closest name I could give to the process of transforming me into a warrior, a samurai. We discussed the skills and a second later, they were finding a way into my brain. No sensation of a foreign insertion in a specific location of my mind, no voices whispering in my mind, they were organically integrated and linked to any other bits of knowledge I had, as though accumulated and interlinked in a long gradual process. The ‘cubicle man’ became an expert in handling swords and knives and in combat strategies, and I ... smiled. My smile died when the samurai appeared. “The real training starts now,” she whispered. The samurai saluted, I raised my sword to answer him.
“You are not a samurai,” the warrior sneered. “A child salutes better. Peasant hands.” He spat stepping forward, his curved sword lifted high over his head. “Rabbit in armor, prepare to die.” I parried the first hit, steel ringing on steel and a second one. Fall a step back, the master inserted inside me whispered. I stepped – too slow for the third hit. The samurai sword bit through the ring-mail under my shoulder. I had no words to cry that pain. Blood welled between the rings. My fingers brushed the slit in the mail, the red spread on them. Another blow tossed my sword away; the next one pushed me down in the dust. I glanced up; a silver dot was coming down, the point of the sword. “Nooo!” I closed my eyes. The sword pierced the mail on my chest, and went further down, cracking a rib. I gasped. I don't want to die. The samurai laugh stopped when I opened my eyes back at home.
Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe) Page 6