Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe)

by Florian Armas

  “When Faction Two realized that Erins were responsible for the Baragans’ comeback, they tried to modify them, according to their specifications. It went wrong, an anomaly occurred, in the form of a singularity having its own rules. Their DNA was replaced by a quantum field, their brain changed too: no neurons, only quantum fields, with unknown capabilities. Any research done on their quantum fields generated such distortions in our time-space fabric that they were stopped immediately. They think now of Erins being a projection from a super-universe, even though nobody knows exactly what this means.” I frowned at her. “Let’s go back to the Erins. In your terms, they are an unknown riddle.” Tell me the politics behind it. That’s what is killing us, not super-universes filtering into this one.

  “And of course the Black Eye doesn’t know anything.”

  “The Black Eye has access to all information, as it is the eye of the Universe himself in this galaxy, but he is not consciously aware of Erins – statistically they are insignificant.”

  “Why don’t you alert the Black Eye?”

  “If they think of me as the eye of the Eye they will dare less, and this is not the intention. They must have liberty. That’s why I am never allowed to work with more than one Faction on the same planet.”

  No help from the Eye, no help from anywhere, let’s go back to basic things. The big brains are good only to create troubles …. a small brain from Earth has to solve them. “Last week, a number of Erins were killed in an attack started by a Munti faction led by Borg. Borg is now dead by my hand, as we had different ideas on how to handle Armin. I narrowly escaped being lynched by some mutinous Munti, most probably hypnotized by Faction... What Faction is working here?”

  “Your Faction. War between Munti and the Erins will ease the pressure on the Baragans.”

  “They work together now, the Factions.”

  “Incipient contacts.”

  “Incipient contacts... I am now a kind of super-marshal to prevent the Nogi invasion, but there is something more, and Siena... I don’t really know. Fifty Erins have been killed by the Nogi in sporadic attacks over the last years. This is the first Munti attack against the Erins. Is there any agreement to gradually 'solve' the Erin problem without it looking deliberate? I need to know.”

  “Changing the balance between their birth-rate and mortality ... making it similar to random 'natural' events, an interesting strategy. I do not know.”

  “Interesting for whom?”

  She ignored me. “Such an accord is possible, driven by a different Gate, and Siena can play many roles. A Faction can use several Gates on the same planet to avoid too much insight into their plans.”

  “Is there any collaboration between the Gates?”

  “There is no contact, or I simply never met one. I am not … sure.” Her voice had a sudden tone of sighing. You really are alone. What does it mean? She talks only to us, she reacts only with us. I glanced at her; her face was already composed. Your slip of the tongue was deliberate. As always. Do you want me to pity you? She let you understand more of her. What for?

  “They hide too many things; I don’t like to be just a cover for the real action. You wouldn’t like it either...” I started reluctantly as the idea was not yet fully ripened in my mind, only a thought going back and forth all the time.

  “Why bother? Most of the games are like a Matryoshka puppet set.” She confirmed my guess, but was so fast ... that it bothered me. What Matryoshka level will you reveal to me? “There are simple games where everything is in the open. That is not the case here. What happens when all these separate strings of actions are put together by their designers is something that we only can guess at.”

  “Killing people is not a game.”

  “You know what I mean,” she shut me up. “The name of the game is ‘uncertainty principle’. Any Gate is trained to deal with this uncertainty to a particular level, simply to increase diversity.”

  “You can have your own agenda, your own Matryoshka...” Will you deny it? I want to hear it from you.

  “We are not real actors, only facilitators, as we cannot take physical shape without having a link on a planet, so we always need a Traveler, for the first contact at least. Factions need to use outside third parties but never directly ... they cannot transport them. We can … just power separation, with the difference that here it is for real, unlike on Earth.”

  “Do you tolerate an independent course of action?”

  “All Factions expect me to act in a fair, discreet way. However, as always, the devil is in the details. My interpretation could be different on some points. So, if I consider that a certain detail will not interfere too much with the original scenario, I can postpone the disclosure until a new development changes that perception.” In that moment I started to trust her completely, she deserved this, and even when quarrels still happened later they were the result of different appreciations of certain facts, but not mistrust.

  “Can I have these details?” A plan started to grow inside my mind, still in its early phase but something more than nothing.

  “As always, you will receive all the data needed for a successful mission.”

  “Successful ... what happens if I try to stop the Erins’ elimination, against Factions will?”

  “The actual scope of this mission is to protect intelligent life, the Erins included.”

  “Can they have two teams working on the same planet for different purposes?” I was not sure I understood her.

  “The purpose may look different for you, because you lack the overview.”

  “Any information you pass on about my actions here can be used to stop me.” Or kill me...

  “This is a valid argument for a retreat without activating the refusal clause.”

  “I am not going for an exit,”... yet.

  “Sometimes, it is not your call. Faction One just asked to renegotiate the contract. There is an agreement regarding the Erins’ fate; they represent a dangerous unknown and the situation is to be reversed to the initial stage before the error occurred.”

  “A wonderful description for genocide. Our bloody politicians fight for peace by invading poor countries. But I belong to a low-level civilization. And your opinion on this?”

  “I am a facilitator, not a part in the game.” You don’t like this, yet you are conditioned to obey.

  “You are a thinking … whatever you are, you are analyzing things and facts and reaching a conclusion about them. That conclusion is your opinion of the respective process.”

  “I do not have enough elements to judge whether the Erins are, or are not, an issue for this universe. The Factions have all the leads in this matter, and I cannot use my will against their decisions. I can sometimes bend the rules, based on my own judgment, breaking them brings my own annihilation. Anyway, I will not be part of this, no other Gate already in contact with them will do it either; another one not previously involved here will be used. The Gate must not know.” The Gate must not know... I felt sadness in her tone. I am sorry Houston; I have to press you.

  “A good excuse.”

  “The laws governing this system accept trial-and-error developments. There are infinite ways in which an event can develop. Human decisions narrow them down to a smaller spectrum of possible events, and as much as possible to the most favorable outcome. We do not trade information between different Factions or between them and the Eye, giving them the chance to design even when they make errors, to dare to try.” There was again sadness in her voice, in her eyes. Let her go, there is no need to push further. “You have ten days to leave the mission. My help for you will be the same until the last day.”

  “Then full destruction will begin.”

  “Ten days is a long time.”

  *

  “We have an agreement as to how to proceed against the Nogi. We now need to end the mutiny of the Northern Army.” Thus spoke the Queen. There had been a flurry of negotiations between her, Duras and the representatives of Borg's ar
my while I was in Houston's cave. Rholes and another six captains were completely against mutiny but acted as mediators; three of them openly threatened when the soldiers’ wishes were not fulfilled. Those three spread the word, the black hats’ word, that the Nogi would help us against the Erins. The door opened, admitting Armin and another Erin, a woman, and for a while, I could not stop staring at her.

  “Welcome, Altamira.” The Queen greeted her in a manner I had never seen before. I stared harder, putting a smile on her face. You … healed me … not an Altamira coming from the future…

  “I am not your young lady, but if you insist on staring at me like this, I am her many times great grandmother”, and she chuckled indulgently. “Altamira is the oldest Erin, the only one left from the first generation still alive,” Armin completed the story of the lady, many centuries old but still looking as if she was only in her forties.

  “I have to thank you for something that happened during my first days in Dava,” I reluctantly said, not completely sure that she was really my healer, or that she would like the information to be revealed.

  “I like your caution,” she gently answered, “and you are welcome. Now let’s go back to the present, there are more pressing things to be discussed. The mind is like an onion, with many layers of knowledge and memories,” she abruptly changed the subject. “The Erins' mind is an onion with layers belonging to many others, Baragan, Munti and some not as yet known to us. The Nogi have two onions, brought together by the same designers who created our minds. Their first onion is Munti while the second comes from outer space, between the stars. You are made from that foreign onion, with small layers of Baragan and Nogi, but I will not ask where it comes from, since you have heard that question often enough in the recent past. For various reasons, I still keep some patterns from our first mind while others discarded them, for good reasons.” Then she turned back to the political discussion. “The three captains had their onion remodeled, as did a hundred soldiers reporting to them, or as Deceneus prefers to say, a new narrative was inserted in their minds.”

  “Are you reading my mind?” I asked brusquely, but I had to know.

  “We are not so rude; we received your version from our Baragan friends. I kept only some parts from the initial mind, not all of them.” She talked as though addressing a child. “That narrative involved war against the Erins first. The Travelers have made the final decision of eliminating us, meaning the Erins, the Munti and the Baragans, and to make room for the Nogi.” You are in touch with Houston, I was about to say. I stopped just in time, but she stopped also, and had a long look at my struggling face. “You are a man of many surprises.” She continued without letting slip what exactly that meant. “None of us will be able to change the minds of the remodeled, at this moment. We must let them go and meet their new masters. When they fight with the Nogi against us the last shadow of mutiny will vanish. The new Marshal has to speak with the leaders; I hope he knows what to say.” And she chuckled again.

  *

  “You know me only by name.” Forty lieutenants and ten captains, all the staff of the Northern Army, agreed to hear my plea. “I know you even less. We are in a time of sorrow and harsh decisions have to be made. If you accept me, I will lead you into a war that none of us wanted to happen. My leadership will end with our destruction or victory. No one can foresee what that end will be, but I will do my part for the best. Any of you who fear the terrible Nogi can leave, and I will understand. But they must do it now.” So I hoped to pull the carpet from under the feet of the ‘modified’. And it worked. They left the room in silence. The mutiny was finished; the war was ready to start.

  *

  “Armin was right,” Siena opened the new war council, “there is something inside you ... more than meets the eye. I am not yet sure that we have the same understanding about this, but he was right.” Half of the ‘remodeled onions’ were able to break the black hats’ hypnosis, the first good thing to happen in many days. “Time is short; we need a plan and we need it fast.” She again stared at me.

  “I have no plan yet.” Being a super-Marshal does not make your brain smarter; I wanted to answer.

  “Better you have one before it is too late to need it.” Her old mistrust of me resurfaced.

  “There is no need for so much acrimony,” Altamira interrupted the ongoing escalation. “One step is done ... we have many others to do. First...” She stopped abruptly. “We are under attack.”

  “Nogi?” many voices asked together. Chrono-particles jumped around us in the same second.

  “This is not about Nogi,” Armin confirmed. Something was different again, not the powerful white spheres as before, but many faint sources, almost ‘invisible’ to my senses. Smaller than flies, hundreds of them, jumping from nowhere in swarms, and each swarm got around one of us. They knew how many we were. This was no immediate attack, rather a form of deception, to trick the other side. No black sphere appeared to help us.

  “Fight them!” I shouted and grabbed a chair, spinning it around me. Some white flies disappeared in smoldering holes, inside the wood. Duras followed and the Erins, then all the people in the room. “It burns!” cried a frightened voice. “Don’t touch the flies,” I shouted back. Charred flesh and burning wood filled the air and the smell of ozone. Yesss! I encouraged myself, and pushed further. Suspended silvery webs began to form around us – the flies adapted to our attacks. Small and fast, they avoided our improvised weapons, weaving with no rest. “We can’t break the webs,” a desperate voice cried. Fury overrode me and I hit again and again. My chair was now a bunch of splinters on the floor.

  “Stop this!” Altamira shouted. “Let them finish their webs and come closer.” With sinking hearts, we moved with small, trembling steps, between her and Armin. The webs allowed us, we gathered and the webs unified in one piece. This is bad. We were surrounded. The white-silvery web had a strange fluid beauty and silky touch, yet it was harder than steel. Deadly beauty. Where are the black spheres? How did they trick Time? Ten minutes had already passed. Too much ... too much... Where are the black spheres? Where…?

  She touched the web trying to feel it, the strings surrounded her fingers, and her fingers started to glow white, then her hands, until her whole body was a beam of white light. Paralyzed by fear, I glanced around; the same terror afflicted everyone apart from Armin, his hands also touching the web.

  “Be calm,” Altamira whispered, and with the last word small fumes of blue appeared from her body; they moved around the web, doubling it string by string. A larger fume passed over us and Armin's body captured it. The web trembled and waves formed, shaking it. The room changed as if it were melting, walls changed form, our bodies changed form. Strange temporal lines suddenly formed, fluid and unstable. Nausea invaded me, all my inner organs complained. Stop this. No! Don't stop. I knelt on the floor; all Munti did the same. One by one, they crunched and rolled; one vomited, and the sour smell filled the air. I tasted bile rising in my throat. I will die... They will vanish ... Munti, Baragans ... Altamira. No, not her, please... I don't want to vanish... The floor melted under Siena's feet and she started to slide, into a wood having the consistency of foam. I tried to grab her hand, but I simply passed through her body. “Help me!” she cried. I stared at her continuous slide below the floor, unable to react. Ten white spheres erupted in the room, mixing with the web. The web tightened and Duras was the next one to slide under the floor. “We are doomed,” I whispered. The old Altamira kept her calm; thinner and thinner the blue fumes were still fighting the web. They retreated under the white spheres’ pressure, slowly going back into her body. I closed my eyes. An explosion deafened me and a strident wave of white hit my eyelids, then darkness came.

  “Open your eyes.”

  “This is not Altamira’s voice,” I muttered.

  “I wish to be such a young lady again,” the voice teased me, “but it is not possible.”

  “Houston!” I cried like a kid and embraced her. She laugh
ed but did not oppose. Did she have a childhood too? I asked myself while stepping back. Why not? She is a Gate...

  “Can the Gates be young too?” I finally asked and blushed in the same moment.

  “I was once a newborn spark of pure intelligence. A long time ago, when the humans were not yet born on Earth,” she teased me. “I was a fly, and a bird, and a fish, and a human, and many other things. All in the same time, and I enjoyed learning and discovering as any other intelligence enjoys. So yes, I was young. Once upon a time, you can say.” With a sudden impulse, I hugged her again. And when, letting her free, I had the impression of feeling a trace of emotion in her deep violet eyes.

  “What happened?” I asked to hide my embarrassment of feeling things that I should not.

  “The Erins’ magic.” I frowned. “Okay, it is not magic; it’s not possible to make a human joke anymore these days.” She continued teasing. “You had a glimpse of the Erins’ mystery; their quantum field interfered with the SAT-mines’ temporal waves. The web lost its power and in desperation, they called for the heavy cavalry. Bad idea, Time intercepted them, so plenty of good news.”

  “Who are they?” Why did it take so long? I wanted to ask. I dared not.

  “Not all is good news these days, we still don’t know.” She dashed my hope of solving the awful threat of the SAT-mines.

  “What's next? If they catch me, all things there will disappear.” You already know this.

  “An alternate line of time was created where the Primes were teleported to the shore. I hope to keep it sleeping in The Field; if activated they will be now a Stone Age tribe, that line has only a few seconds.” What about me? Fearing her answer, I did not ask the question. Later, after she left, I realized that the new reality will have no Altamira or Delena, a completely new civilization will emerge. And Earth will change too, as the old Deceneus will never be born. Further in time, I learned that the relation between me and Deceneus was much more complicated. “A High Guardian Crawler was attached to the planet.” She glanced at me. “Now you will ask what is a High Guardian Crawler.” Of course I will ask. I gestured her to continue. “You don't have the clearance for this information.” I know, I am a primitive. One needed to solve what people with 'clearance' can't. “They have much power; they can destroy a planet with a single word.” So, what? “If you are caught, I would have a hard time to explain this ... after your teleportation to Hell." I jumped to my feet. In fact, I tried to jump; then I realized that I was not in my garden, nor in a cave, as usual, but in a bubble. Floating around Houston, I grabbed her hand and she stabilized me. “There are some legends about them, so I will make the link. They destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah planets in the Saurian wars. And many others, until the Saurians ended their revolt against The Universe.”