The Lord of the Sands of Time

by Hubbert, Jim

  The forces allocated to the Messengers amounted to everything that humanity in the twenty-sixth century could assemble, but those forces were still hard-pressed to cover two planets as well as the countless small bodies orbiting the Sun. Their main energy source was antimatter brought from the future, but supplies were not inexhaustible. A long-term conflict would mean building antimatter production plants. The twenty-second century lacked the facilities necessary to support the operations of the fleet, which forced the Messengers to rely on local help. To give up on humanity—that is, to conduct operations without them—was not a realistic option.

  “We blew the Hamersley Range mining deal?” Orville was on a break. As part of the Messengers’ call for assistance from Earth, they had even gotten involved in deal-making, offering technology in exchange for access to resources. Orville’s colleague in Sydney replied:

  “The cabinet members were rolling their eyes during the entire meeting. I explained that if we leveled the mountains, they’d be able to access several times as much ore as they do now, but they couldn’t stomach the loss of wildlife habitat and tribal homelands. The whole group walked out in a huff before I was even finished. What’s more important to them, the history of their country or the future of humanity?”

  “History’s just an idea. The urge to sacrifice yourself for it isn’t something they can develop overnight,” said Orville. Then he paused; his own use of the word “history” troubled him. The word usually refers to the past. Did it make sense to use history to refer to things that have not yet occurred? The future seemed weightier than the past.

  “Completion rate of negotiations with major corporations is now 45 percent of target.” Cutty’s expressionless voice cut in. She was capable of communicating with all Messengers simultaneously, but right now she didn’t seem to have the processor cycles available to add expressive color to her voice. To Orville she sounded weary.

  “The corporations are as bad as their governments. They’re completely intractable. The ignorance and delusions of their executives are beyond belief. Even the few corporations with an AI on their management team are obstructing and misrepresenting information. And only 2 percent of corporations have AIs.”

  “There’s not much we can do if they haven’t achieved data presence,” said Orville. The Messengers’ world had full data presence—any public information could be searched from any location, limited only by the speed of light. Except for minor anomalies like Sayaka’s Supply Department, it was virtually impossible to suppress, conceal, or be beyond reach of information. If agreement on something was reached in New York, it was taken for granted that Beijing and Mumbai would fall in line within seconds. If a corporation on Mars was found to have cooked its books, its sister companies on Saturn and Uranus would be targets for punishment after a comm lag of only a few hours. Orville was painfully aware of the ignorance and suspicion caused by not having the required information at one’s fingertips at all times: endless meetings, deliberations and consultations, inconceivable misunderstanding and hostility.

  A small, high-speed shuttle on the surface of the Moon. The Messengers had been traveling back and forth between Earth’s bases, scattered throughout Sol System as far as Mars.

  “The launch platform’s not available? What’s the story?” Orville called on his internal comm circuit.The voice of the human transport chief at Moon Polar Base North came back in a flat monotone. “Orders from headquarters. If you have a complaint, direct it to them.”

  “Haven’t you heard about the UN resolution? Bases and industrial installations are to render all possible assistance to Century XXVI Upstreamer Forces. I’ve got to have your cooperation,” said Orville.

  “We’re aware of the resolution, but our government hasn’t passed the domestic legislation. We’re working to transition our manufacturing processes in time for passage of the new laws. This will require a bit more time.”

  “We don’t have time, the ET could attack at any moment,” shouted Orville.

  “We’re a commercial enterprise. We can’t take our facilities offline without compensation.”

  “You—” Orville cut the comm link and smashed his fist against the wall of the cockpit. “Pig-headed fool!” he muttered.

  The four Messengers sitting behind him shrugged or smiled distantly. The voice of Cutty Sark reached their shuttle docked at the terminal adjacent to Polar Base North.

  “Still won’t budge?” asked Cutty.

  “It’s no use. Looks like they don’t plan to get moving till their butts go up in flames. What about other bases?” said Orville.

  “The same everywhere. National governments, big corporations, and private organizations and facilities. I’m meeting resistance at every level. Conflicting ideas, poor communication, key people nowhere to be found or even mentally absent. Demands for kickbacks. Meddling from protestors and skeptics. I’ve simply no idea how long these delays are going to continue.”

  “Total gridlock. Unbelievable.” The jubilation that had greeted their arrival in this timestream seemed to have evaporated.

  “What do we do?” Alexandr asked Orville.

  Orville was silent, deep in thought.

  “Do we sit tight and wait? These delays aren’t going to last forever. If we’re going to wait, there’s something I’d like to work on,” said Alexandr.

  “What?”

  “I’m writing a book.”

  Orville turned to see that Alexandr was writing by hand in a notebook. “What’s all that about?”

  “I’m sending it to Triton in a capsule with a beacon. If I drop it off in the vicinity, someone will pick it up in a century or two,” said Alexandr.

  “Addressed to Shumina?”

  “She said I have a talent for words.”

  “What’s your book about?” Orville asked without much interest.

  “It’s about a bug.”

  Orville suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at Alexandr’s earnest expression. “A bug?” he repeated.

  “Yes. A little bug, born on the leaf of a big tree. He has this nice life, just eating leaves, but one day he notices he’s in danger. Something is trying to suck the life out of his tree. So, to avert the danger, he has to travel from his branch to the big tree trunk.”

  “What’s the danger? The ET?” asked Orville.

  “Don’t say that!” said Alexandr. “If the theme is that obvious, you lose the whole mood. This is children’s literature. But who should be the villain? Bees and spiders are so passé.” The rough-hewn Messenger was dead serious. Orville watched him write for a while, then stood up.

  “If the book’s for children, why don’t you make the villain a bear? I’m heading out.”

  “Oh? Going to try negotiating in person?”

  “I’m going to put a gun to their heads. Cutty? Hack the base mainframe and cook me up a system status message. Something like ‘all systems nominal.’ I don’t want any company headquarters or governments involved.”

  “Even if I can fool them at first, they’ll notice soon enough,” answered Cutty. “If they discover we used force, it will only make things difficult later. I’d very much prefer that you dropped the idea.”

  “Can’t do it. If the ET come down on us it’s too late. I need you to print me up a weapon too. A low-powered firearm. No, a sword is better. Projectile weapons are too everyday in this era. Make it as scary-looking as you can.”

  “Perhaps a uniforge carbon-titanium blade? With electrodischarge semiconductors embedded in the surface to cut, say, stainless steel?”

  “I knew you’d like it,” said Orville.

  The onboard molecular printer was capable of laminar fabrication of anything from food to weapons. The device gave off a faint smell as it whirred into activity. Orville and his team pored over a schematic of the moon base while the sword printed out. Finally, it was ready.

  Orville suited up for the walk outside and hefted the sword. It was longer than his arm, with a shimmering, milk-white blade
. Alexandr grinned.

  “Perfect. The galactic hero. Pure retrofuture.”

  “Put it in your story,” said Orville. “All right. I’ll take the lead. The rest of you follow me and do what you need to do.” The Messengers left the shuttle and began walking toward the base. The sun on the horizon cast long shadows across the surface.

  Orville wondered if he should write something too. A letter? If he sent a capsule now, before a fork in the timestreams, it would travel to all subsequent streams—to those destined to be changed by his journey as well as to those that would remain untouched. Except that he had nothing to say. It would be senseless to write only “I miss you.” He envied Alexandr, who had something to share with his beloved. Orville put it out of his mind.

  The sight of Orville’s sword alone was all it took to get instant cooperation from the transport chief, but a single sword could not slice through the oceans of red tape that seemed to straightjacket the Earth. Orville and the other Messengers fumed, frustrated. He thought of the sword and mused on a simpler answer.

  “Cutty,” said Orville.“Yes.”

  “Is there a way to totally eliminate all these delays?”

  “Subjugate the planet. You know that.” Orville knew. The quickest, simplest solution would be for them to simply notify humanity that they would be taking over all administrative and communication functions. But since this would clearly earn the Messengers a huge amount of hostility, the fact that they had considered it—and had the capability to make that decision a reality—was kept secret.

  To hijack Earth, to trample on the fundamental dignity of humanity in this timestream, would be going too far. As it was, the Messengers had already interfered extensively, changing far too much history. At this very moment they were excavating ore deposits that were not supposed to be discovered for another century and altering relationships and genealogies that would otherwise have remained unbroken for two centuries. It was impossible to forecast the impact such actions might have. Their orders were to save humanity, even if it meant rewriting history entirely. But should they do it?

  The Messengers decided policy questions via simple majority rule. Any Upstreamer Force AI could call for a referendum on any proposal. With full data presence, the whole process took less than a minute. But Orville never submitted a proposal to take over Earth. Sayaka’s convictions about human history somehow weighed heavily on him. During the next three months, other AIs twice called for votes on taking over Earth, but each time the proposal failed to attract even 30 percent support.

  The Messengers would regret their decision. But that was later, eleven months after the Messengers’ arrival, when the ET onslaught began.

  The first omen was the firing of multiple lasers from Earth into space.

  The lasers’ emanations were detected by Earth-based observers and the Messengers’ network in space. The initial verdict: in all likelihood a meaningless stunt. The emissions appeared to be aimed at random points in space rather than planets or bases. Only after the attack began did the defenders realize that all the lasers had been aimed at the plane of the ecliptic.In March of 2210, over a period of twenty hours 14,000 light sources topping 100 million degrees—thermonuclear propulsion signatures—were detected in the asteroid belt. The lights were distributed around the compass. Five hundred more were detected at the same time in the vicinity of Jupiter, shuttling at tremendous velocity between the gas giant and the asteroids. The Messengers immediately issued their highest-level alert and began analyzing the data. It took half a day to reach their conclusion. The ET’s strategy was time-consuming yet simple: to overwhelm humanity’s defenses and wipe out the planet by simultaneously launching huge numbers of small asteroids on a collision course with Earth. A saturation attack, ancient and brutally straightforward.

  The analyst AIs surmised that the ET had arrived in this era before the Messengers and sought concealment, probably to avoid having their customary invasion buildup blocked by the later-arriving Upstream Force; they’d hidden among the moons of Jupiter. Using their propulsion systems only when Jupiter shielded them from Earth, they’d deployed troops and thermonuclear fuel throughout the asteroid belt. While preparing to turn the asteroids into missiles, they had also dispatched a small recon team to Earth’s surface. Once the team had completed their target selection, they had fed their data to the asteroid belt by burst transmission and then self-terminated. This had been the cause of the “random” laser firings. As soon as preparations were complete, the asteroids were launched en masse toward Earth; once concealment was no longer needed, the ET operated openly from their Jupiter bases to create additional asteroid missiles as fast as possible.

  The enemy neutralized the orbital momentum of the asteroids and sent them in free fall toward Earth. The earlier intercept could be achieved, the smaller the warhead needed to divert an asteroid from its trajectory toward Earth, so the Upstreamer Force fired all their thermonuclear and antiproton warheads toward the asteroids and at the moons of Jupiter, overwhelming the 14,000 asteroids heading toward them. Still, there was little chance of total success and no margin for error. Even a single asteroid strike would cause untold damage on Earth.

  Humanity’s first reaction was to condemn the Messengers for not detecting the threat sooner. Even a child could guess the enemy might use asteroids to strike Earth. The Messengers responded that such a strategy was highly unusual; the ET had never resorted to it during the wars of the twenty-sixth century. In that era, they had taken possession of the Sun and were always completely reliant on large inputs of solar energy. They had never tried something as laborious and inefficient as drawing hydrogen from Jupiter for nuclear fusion. This time as well, the enemy must have actually preferred solar power. This new and different strategy, one that barely met their energy needs, must have been a huge gamble.

  Still, there was no denying that the Messengers had blundered. They had brought technology and power from the future—and a high-handed attitude—yet they had been easily outmaneuvered by the enemy. From this point forward, a dark shadow fell over their alliance with Earth.

  The fleet’s all-out attack was 99.586 percent successful. Fifty-eight asteroids still drifted toward Earth on flattened parabolic trajectories. Though they had exhausted their supplies of antimatter, more nuclear weapons were available. But these were controlled by Earth, and so the balance of power between the allies shifted definitively. Earth’s new demands astonished the Messengers: overall command authority, handover of principal fleet elements, transfer of all military and civilian technology. Earth even demanded the right to determine overall policy, now and in the future, out of respect for humanity as ancestors. We are your progenitors. You exist only because of us. Never forget that debt of gratitude. Defer to our wisdom.

  All this seemed to be, and in fact probably was, the irrational response of a desperate humanity venting its pent-up bitterness. But the Messengers yielded to all of Earth’s demands. Their orders were to save humanity by any means possible—even if they had to bear the insults of barbarians from the past. This was no time for petty squabbling.

  So, after several weeks spent retrofitting the ships’ living quarters to accommodate humans, fleet elements carrying nuclear weapons supplied by Earth conducted attacks under the command of UN Forces officers. These men of Earth acquitted themselves admirably. They may have relied heavily on the Messengers to offset their own rudimentary data-gathering capabilities, but they deployed their warheads accurately and successfully repelled the incoming asteroids. Humanity was defending itself. Their officers were jubilant, and the people of Earth went wild with joy at the news.

  Then, in an instant, they plunged from heaven to hell.

  They discovered that the ET had inserted cloaked spore colonies through a gap in the off-world surveillance network—a gap created by the difficulties and disputes with humanity. It was assumed that the enemy did not have the ability to interpret the subtleties of human civilization; they probably discovered the g
aps in the network based on communication traffic patterns and by movements of the fleet. By the time they were discovered, at least ten colonies had reached maturity on every continent. They began launching attacks on major urban centers and military installations.

  Humanity was taken completely by surprise. Confusion reigned, and the Messengers were powerless. Measures to strengthen Earth’s land-based forces had made little headway in the face of human opposition. Even the few nations participating in the defense structure had neither the right nor the means to quell the turmoil taking place beyond their borders. The ET colonies used local energy sources to increase their numbers. Using solar energy, coal, oil, natural gas, and other forms of energy, they built what they required from common, easily processed substances like iron and silicon. Their individual military capabilities were several ranks below those of their brethren in space, who had developed to a much greater level of sophistication, but they were far harder to deal with in groups. They had been bred for effective concealment in the terrain. Again and again, Earth’s forces were routed.

  After less than two months, the desolation was visible even from orbit. Forests and cities burned, sending huge plumes of smoke high into the atmosphere. Titanic craters, the aftermath of nuclear strikes by Earth’s forces, were scattered across the surface. After nightfall, instead of the dazzling city lights that once adorned the planet, an eerie orange glow from vast fires and the stabbing flashes of artillery flickered across the darkened land.

  “The attack on Mars has begun.” Cutty’s voice reached Orville at his quarters in the marine city of Penglai, floating in the East China Sea. “The ET are using asteroids in the ten-meter range. No particular advanced weapon use—they probably don’t have the resources to fabricate them. Apparently they’re using up their last reserves of strength, just as we are.”