“Do you have any plan or just a long list of complaints?”
You grill me to appease Batranu, and you want me to say it. “I need someone to trust from the first day, to watch my back while I’m away from Dava, to keep an eye on the library, to become a member of the Librarian Society. This kind of resource can’t be found at short notice on an alien planet. In time … maybe. Do we have that time?” I bet we don’t. Ten years with the Primes … she could have moved them in one second. Maybe we have.
“If our friend here accepts the mission; how do you think we can impose him on the Faction?” Yes, it worked. Batranu’s eyes sparked resignation, no other reaction came from him. The young old man is old in experience and young in reflexes. Things that we can use. Use? You start to become them.
“You want us to succeed. Want you? Logistics is your part, whatever that means in your world.” A curse rose in my mind and died there. With no reliable data, I can have lots of ideas ... good for nothing. “Can a human be considered a ‘technical resource’ and teleported there without the Faction's permission?”
“Why do you need to hide this from the Faction hiring you?”
“For the same reason they have hidden precious information from you and me, for the reason you talked about treason after the first landing, for having to jump over a cliff with a broken leg, for freezing and for many other things. Is this enough? There is more on that planet than meets the eye.” I glanced at Batranu. You had your own adventures, old man. I am sure; you must enjoy this one too. Two months of loneliness are enough. I need you. Sorry.
“Yes, it is possible. A mission is like a black box: they set the goals at the end; I open the door for the real players. You play.” And you peep inside... ‘Fair’ game. She stopped as if waiting for something.
“Okay,” Batranu said with a sigh, “you have another ‘player’ ... with some limitations which you, Houston, are aware of.”
He accepted too fast. Is she coercing him? I have to figure this out. Later. “Is my identity known to the Faction hiring me?”
“No. They want to have their hands clean in case something happens.”
“Can it stay like this until the end?”
“If they ask, I have to reveal you, but I will inform you in advance. And remember, for them ... you are not there yet.” Something resurfaced about my identity: I was switched there from the future to hide my presence from some Factions. These ones? The hidden player working with the Desert Brothers? No, that one is hidden even from you. Have you other reasons to conceal my identity? Should I ask now? I decided not to, fear is a good adviser – when it is not too much.
“Who are the Erins? What are the Erins? I don’t know the correct form.”
“An anomaly.” That whole world is an anomaly. “An experiment with an unexpected outcome. They wanted to annihilate it. They still do.” Annihilate! They … want … to kill … them.
“I suppose they tried.”
“Yes, they tried. They tried to blow up the planet. A form of quarantine was imposed because of this. You already know some restrictions.”
“And you send me there to preempt a war. Arrows and swords.”
“To preempt planets being blown up we have different players.” Bitch! Everything is a game for you.
“What is stopping them?” What is stopping me quitting?
“It started with a genetic experiment on a small sample of Baragans by Faction One. The usual stuff: the genetic code is modified while the subjects are teleported. You know the details.” Yeah, you alter our ‘specifications’. “Faction One was desperate; they had bet on Baragans, and wanted a big leap to assure their survival – the number of Baragans had gone below 100,000 at that time. They created a variant of the Boskop race on Earth with Baragan specifications.” Of course. “Highly intelligent people with a native capacity for prediction and anticipation.” This tells me nothing about my ‘what is stopping them’. Her glance told me to wait. “Aldira is an Erin descendant, seventh generation; and the answer to your question is: uncertainty. Neither Faction knows what to do with the Erins.” I did not pay attention to ‘it started with’; I thought I knew what I needed to know. I was wrong.
“I have to meet Armin. He knows too much for a simple coincidence.”
“You don’t meet Armin when you want; you meet Armin when he wants. Let things develop in stages. There will be a time when the Erins will interact with you … if they judge it to be necessary.”
“I will write ‘Looking for Erins’ on my door – if I will have a door.” If I can wait... “I missed some lessons about mental patterns.” The worse thing in dealing with her is that you never feel when she is annoyed or upset. The eventual manifestation of these human traits appears only by will, when she wants to emphasize something, never an uncontrolled reaction, and this constantly put me in an awkward position.
“Nothing to worry about; incipient telepathy. They are not able to read thoughts or to transmit them, only to intercept some cerebral waves and determine what ethnic group a person approaching them belongs to. A few are more sophisticated; they can determine who that person is, if they have met before. And, yes, the mind-rangers hunting you can ‘see’ further than others, nothing special.” She was a little amused when underlining the ‘nothing special’.
“And this was kept hidden for obvious reasons.”
“I am glad that your level of understanding is growing. Yes, you were not notified in order to keep your anxiety at a controllable level.”
“Limitations,” I whispered as if talking to myself, making Batranu aware that his time had come; Houston was gone.
“Yes, limitations,” he answered. “You young people think that the whole universe is yours and the possibilities are infinite. In a way you are right, there is much power behind Houston. Too late for me, I am filled with the ‘garbage’ people accumulate with age. I had my share of interesting experiences in the past ... I am overloaded. You considered a partial memory clean after the Primes experience, then changed your mind. It is hard to erase the you inside you; I never could. Houston is keeping me young inside this old body for various reasons, as you have already perceived.”
“Why are you afraid of a youthful appearance?” I know, it was rude, but wilderness is not a place for the unchecked. He never asked me anything, 167 years of experience; this can explain things but cannot ease bad feelings.
“This suits me. I have not enough energy left to start a new life, neither do I have the kind of enthusiasm that belongs to young people; I am busted, a ghost afraid to take decisions on my future.” He sighed, and for the first time I pierced a little behind his mask.
“You told me about The Field and the possibility of being in willful contact.”
“Not with this brain; enhancements are needed for conscious contact. The pineal gland is only the first step into the next level of human evolution.”
“Did Houston refuse you the enhancement?”
“Au contraire, she proposed it. I can have the enhancement, I can think about immortality, about joining the advanced races of the universe. Can I have all this while still being the same person?” His voice troubled me more than the answer itself. “I am waiting for a sign.”
“Sign?”
“I am joking. I am afraid to make a decision. Becoming a superior person and acquiring immortality brings great responsibility. Think of the Boskop race; they had that kind of superior intellect and still they chose to disappear. Why? Is this not enough to raise an alarm bell?” It was not, but I did not see any problem in this.
“No, I can make an appropriate decision after the enhancement.”
“Do you think it is that easy? Intelligent forms evolve in small steps, and organically merge all their technical and cultural achievements. Now think of a monkey being suddenly transformed into a human.”
“We are not some stupid monkeys.”
“For whom?” Discomfort crept inside me with his question. I cannot be a monkey for Travelers
. Is a monkey aware what a monkey means for us? “Will the new monkey-man survive the shame of being a monkey in the past?” You’ve got me old man, not that I fully agree with you. But you don’t tear yourself apart like this for nothing.
“Indeed I am young,” I finally whispered while Batranu took his hat to leave. He stopped in the doorway: “Do you remember the proud advanced Saurian race that altered our past? They are only memories now.”
“Were they punished for the disaster they created here?”
“No, The Universe considered the experiment useful, even with these strange results; we represent something new, not yet tested. From time to time The Universe is upgrading himself ... we are part of him. They didn’t cope with the enhancement.” The deep sadness in his eyes disturbed me even more, letting me guess if it was the relief of being able to lay everything out, or a warning that retiring would become more difficult with the attractions Houston was using to keep us in the game, or both.
*
Long after the moon rose, the wind softened in the desert, like the breath of a child; two weeks already on that planet again, and Batranu made my life easier. Much easier. After a while the talk died, from cold or tiredness or for other reasons. The sky was clean, full of stars. All unknown, I sighed, not even one known constellation. They are all beautiful. Yes, but they did not fill my childhood with wonder. I wandered with the moon in its slow dance toward the west until it melted in my eyes; unknown voices caught my attention, then images, blurred at first, then clear.
“The treaty of the Longwar was breached, Observer. One unauthorized Traveler has landed on the Baragan planet. Celestial Servants of Proper Life… Council mandated me to raise an official complaint.” Baragan planet! There were four entities in that chamber: two Travelers with their fancy black stuff, mantle, hat, not a dot of color on their clothes. Their faces, covered with a black veil, revealed nothing. The chamber was a light blue ovoid and they were suspended shadows in that semi-obscurity, nothing under their feet, no floor, no furniture, only the ovoid and the four entities. The other two entities were spherical, one white and the other black, the size of a human head. There was no gleam in their substance, and a strange sensation of depth came from them, hypnotizing me.
“Show the complaint, Celestial Traveler.” The inner voice came from the white sphere. The Observer? A white balloon? A diamond materialized in the middle and a hologram with unknown writing filled my mind, thousands of lines. There was nothing in the ovoid; those strange letters were floating inside my mind. “I see,” the Observer continued. “A white complaint.” How could you read it so fast? I understood nothing; only saw tens of defiling pages and shame filled me. I don’t belong to this place.
“It was a Shadowmind. We have no Faction name; four of our brothers followed him, they were not able to sense any Faction mental pattern, only shadow. The complaint is white but we all know who is interested in altering the timeline of that planet.” I am a shadow, Shadowmind, what the hell does this mean for them? The dark side? The dark side of what?
“May I reply, Observer?” The question was rhetorical, or there was hidden approval from the Observer. No words were spoken, no sounds; thoughts were being traded and I was able to ‘hear’ them. “A Shadowmind is a Shadowmind, they have their will, their own rules and agendas. It is highly speculative to make any link with our Existential Life Enhancers of Quadrant… they come and go of their own will.” So, you are my employer, black stuff. Why are you hiding your faces? I wish to see you. Houston told me that we are alike in this galaxy, all humanoid.
“I only stated the obvious Observer, Shadowmind or not, who else is interested in going there when an interdiction is in place? Maybe the Gate can shed some light in this darkness.” Houston! This is how you look? A black hole? She will read this later. So what? Who knows how she really looks?
“I state here, with the authority of the Third Pillar of the universe: I was the light pass of the Shadowmind to the Baragan planet. Chapter 50, from the Galactic Codex, traveling rules: There is no obligation to reveal a Traveler without cause. I state here that I have no reason to reveal the name of my passenger. Do you state otherwise, Celestial Traveler?”
“A treaty was broken.”
“Your interpretation doesn’t stand, Celestial Traveler,” the Observer answered for Houston. “There is no rule in that treaty regarding no-Factions. Should I register the white complaint as it is?”
“As you wish, Observer, the illegal landing should be officially recorded for future reference, white as it serves the light.” Something smooth, like a piece of silk, closed my eyes before I could stop it. The voices vanished.
I blinked; the moon was still there, far above, vast and pale and silent. Batranu’s eyes were questioning me in that cold light. “You moaned.”
“A weird dream about some Shadowminds.” He frowned. “Don’t tell me that they really exist.”
“Think of them as ronin by choice, adventurers working alone or doing hidden things for Factions. Not unlike us, only the level differs. On a scale from one to ten, they are at ten while we still struggle on the second level. You really have weird dreams.” I have to tell Houston. What if the dream was true?
The next cave meeting was close to the ancient Library of Sarmis, equivalent to the Library of Alexandria on Earth.
“This was not a dream.” What the hell was it if not a dream? I was on the planet, not in that bloody ovoid. Enough that I felt like an insect compared to them. “You have accessed The Field.”
“I had some strange sensations,” I remembered the silk-like veil opening and closing my eyes, my mind. “Should I feel proud that I accessed that recording?”
“You should feel danger. That record was sealed, only the participants have the right to grant access. It is a security breach I have to report to the Council.”
“Why? I did nothing. I never asked to go there.” My pride vanished, the insect feeling made a comeback. What the hell? “What would happen if...”
“At worst, the mission is compromised and you are sent to a prison planet with no Gate access.” She felt my unease, my mouth dropped. “The normal procedure ... but there is nothing normal in this. If someone is playing us, he is a very good player, a player coming from the future, again. I have no answer for you now; I have to send you home.” The next second we were back in my garden.
“Houston,” Batranu’s voice was changed; it was not his usual voice, but the voice of someone being suddenly on an equal footing with an advanced entity like the Gate. Must be something in this... I was waiting, Houston was waiting too. “I know that prison planet’s name.” He stopped again. “I don’t like its name: Hell.”
“I know. I must have a discussion with the Complete Me.” Houston is afraid... What the hell?
*
“You drink too much.” Slowly, so as not to disturb me, Batranu took the glass from my hand. My eyes were muddy; it was a quiet evening, a dying sun melting contours and colors, or it was only the wine in my eyes playing shadow games. A storm was raging inside my head taking me with it; the wine was not enough to stop the incessant swirling of my thoughts. Shadow games, Shadowminds. Bastard Shadowminds. No, that was me. I am not a bastard; they are the bastards. Three days already and no news from Houston.
“Do you hear me? They are the bastards not me. Why did they have to spoil whatever good things appeared in my life?” I tried to take my glass back; I could not.
“Drinking will not make them less bastards or you happier.”
“I don’t want to go to Hell. Do you hear me? I don’t want... I don’t want...”
“I know; I don’t want it either.” You don’t want, you don’t want... is anybody asking us what we really want? Go to Hell with that bloody Houston. You pushed me into this. Now I am waiting to go to Hell.
“What difference will it make? Is anyone listening to our wishes?”
“I don’t know.”
The next morning a slight headache was the only
reminder of the previous evening, that, and a hint of shame. Head in hands, I waited patiently for some inside clearing. Nothing happened, nothing was truly different – the fear was still there. When I washed my face to kill the headache, a strange figure looked back from the mirror. I have to stop this; Batranu is right, it will not help me. We did nothing; Houston will figure a way to get us out, or the complete Gate. Us, me, us ... Batranu was a bystander. Is it we or I? I think it’s I; he was not in the ovoid. How did I get there? Could that entity be hunting for Deceneus? Stop it! I went to my desk decided to look for a new job; the Traveler in me was gone. I turned on the computer and opened my last CV – I understood almost nothing. What’s happening to me? I am no longer drunk. I wrote this; I am sure, a few months ago. A few months ago... A few months ago on Earth ... ten years with the Primes. All my skills are gone… Houston, what have you done to me? I went to the kitchen; my last bottle of wine was there. I took the bottle into the garden, only the bottle. I don’t need a glass, I need to forget. I slumped in the chair and left the bottle on the table. No, this is not the way. The knowledge must be stowed in The Field, and Houston can help restore my memory. The Field, here we go again. This is not a morning like other mornings; it’s another beginning. If Houston... Stop it! Maybe I can dream. No! I'll jump into that bloody ovoid again. I don’t think so. I need some drink. Not too much. I went inside to get a glass. Not too much. Okay? Okay. I stared at the garden through the glass, the mysterious mix of tobacco, leather, dark pepper and chocolate ... Cotnari… A white spot fell, another one, the wind howled... It works. A pale spot moved just yards in front of me, a white wolf...
The lights dimmed until blackness came. I was floating in the position of a man sitting in a chair that vanished altogether with my garden. Here and there, points of turbulence emerged, their vague movements spreading to the entire area in sight. The blackness vanished, chased by glowing yellow, cherry red or ultramarine lights. “This has never happened. What dream is this?”
Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe) Page 12