Ranh

by Ian J Miller

  "Welcome!" Hadell said to Methrell.

  "What just happened?" Natasha asked. "Was it . . ?"

  "Unless I am mistaken, tomorrow, she will be Kuyrill Methrell," Gaius said with a smile, "at which point, dissolution of the House of Seppet has no effect on her."

  "Hmmm," Natasha said. "The taking of the male family name shows that –"

  "Just stop right there!" Hadell warned. "If you are asking about custom, it is standard practice to adopt the house with the highest standing name, and if the two houses are about equal, they choose, based on where the interests of the two lie. In this case, only an outright fool would choose Seppet, knowing what will happen tomorrow."

  "Oh, I didn't realize."

  "And there will be a number of other clans where there will be clear relegation to lower castes," the Cardinal added.

  "Including amongst the Kuyrills," Hadell said. "I for one was very upset that none of them stood behind Kazyn during these troubles."

  "As an ex-Tenzat, you would appear to be the head of the clan," the Cardinal remarked. "That easily lies within your power."

  "To change the subject, may I make a request?" Lucius asked the Cardinal.

  "Yes?"

  "If we are to get everyone together quickly, it would help if the Great Conclave could help spread the message. We can do what we can, but we have limited communications and also if it is left for us it may be difficult to convince outlying humans that this is not a trick to –"

  "Of course," the Cardinal replied. "Any Ranhyn that disobeys will be disobeying the Creator, and I doubt many would dare, especially after the example I intend to show."

  "Example?" Hadell asked.

  "Yes." The Cardinal turned to Kazyn and Methrell, and said, "I know each of you have a claim against Seppet Tes, but you will have to forgo it. I need to make a public example, and Tes and a few other Seppets are the best available." He smiled at Kazyn, who was clearly trying to think of others, and added, "Sender's offspring are officially unacknowledged, so that is what they must now become. Baht here might indicate what that is like, but Baht was actually rather privileged because she got employment and was studying. Sender's offspring will be judged for their actions, and given employment suitable for ensuring they know they are being punished, and more to the point, so will everyone else. However, the unacknowledged are actually protected against what I have in mind, because it is assumed they cannot have done anything of sufficient vileness, through not having the opportunity, and, of course, we cannot have a class that are natural scapegoats."

  "And what will happen to Cardinal Sender?" Natasha asked.

  "He will take up a vow of silence and penury," the Cardinal said. "Cardinals are also protected," he added with a grin, "but in this case, being alone with his thoughts for the rest of his life, with only the basic of food, and only his feathers for warmth, should be a suitable punishment for him."

  "I wonder what happened to that Thuygen?" Baht asked.

  "Strictly speaking, you could decide," the Cardinal said. "I recommend adding two names." He turned to the humans and said, "To have one name added means you have been somewhat naughty. To have two names added means you have also been disgracefully stupid, which I think applies quite well to him."

  "I think Baht will agree," Kazyn said. He turned to Baht and added, "You never know. He will have trouble getting employment much above sewage treatment status, unless someone takes pity on him. Of course such a person could also give him quite humiliating jobs, and he would have to accept them."

  "Indeed," Zerrantyl agreed. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have other duties."

  "We also have a lot to do," Lucius said. "Besides getting everyone together, we need to make sure we take enough so that we at least have a chance of surviving."

  "We shall provide you with a list of what we think you should take," the Cardinal said. "Ranh has settled other planets, so we have some experience."

  "And we shall help," Gaius said. "Ulse has also had a lot of practice, and our computers are full of examples of what worked and what did not, and additionally, we have some information on the nature of the planet I have in mind."

  "Then we must make a start," Lucius said.

  Chapter 52

  The Cardinal had kept his word, the day for embarkation had been set, and everyone had been working furiously to ensure that everything would be taken.

  Lucilla had been down on Ranh for almost a month, and as she remarked, it was great to be standing on something other than a space ship, and to be able to talk to other humans who had, by now, adjusted their speech and accents so that they could converse in Latin as well as English. As had been predicted, Lucilla had been quite surprised to see the image of herself still preserved.

  "Quintus had this made to hang around his neck," she explained to Natasha when she first saw it, then she had to brush a tear away. As Natasha started to make some sympathetic remark, Lucilla continued, "I knew he would have been dead for so long, but it never occurred to me that part of him would still be here."

  "He must have loved you very much," Natasha said.

  "I'm not so sure," Lucilla countered. "The reason we got separated was that our last day together on the hill was just about one continuous fight. The android in charge of looking after us must have decided that we needed to be separated, and seemingly for ever."

  Natasha did not know what to say in response, and Lucilla, seeing the awkwardness, changed the subject a little, "You know what is really moving?"

  "No. What?"

  "The people here call me diva Lucilla. They've made me a Goddess."

  "I bet that went down well with the local theocracy," Natasha remarked.

  "You mean . . ."

  "That image, and your divine nature, may have helped the local theocrats feel more strongly about getting rid of humans." She grinned, and patted Lucilla on the arm as she said, "You may have been part of their problem."

  "Well, I guess I had better work to be part of their solution," she replied.

  And she had. She and Antonia had been almost tireless in ensuring that all the things the humans would need for several years were either provided, or there would be a means of providing it when they reached their destination.

  At first, Natasha had been highly upset that Gaius had effectively made the decision without consultation to have the humans settle on a completely new planet. Surely they had suffered enough, through the centuries, and she had made her feelings known to Gaius, but he had ignored her jibes. But to her surprise, Lucius and the others she knew were quite enthusiastic about the idea.

  "Gaius is right," Lucius confided to her. "We wouldn't fit in."

  "I would help you," she said, "and I am sure you are capable of adapting."

  "Maybe I am," Lucius said with a shrug, "but I doubt many of the others could. Most have spent their lives adapting to hiding, and scraping a living from growing food in really unsatisfactory conditions. Being able to venture out into a new world is just the thing to get them going."

  "That's not going to be easy," Natasha warned.

  "No, but neither is anything else, and Katya has assured me the children will be taught up to the standard of Earth. We shall have Earth technical information, and we shall have to work our way to wherever we wish to get."

  "And Earth will be told, and I am sure they will send help as soon as they can," Natasha said, although she had to add to herself, there could be some time before they developed space-going technology

  "Maybe," Lucius said. "What I want to do, though, is to try to ensure we take enough so that it doesn't matter if they don't. We have to be self-sufficient for at least ten years, so we might as well try to be self-sufficient indefinitely."

  "I can at least take the Livia to Earth," Natasha said, "and get supplies if necessary, although yes, it will take over eight years to make the round trip."

  "The other interesting thing," Lucius said, "is that Gaius said there had been a civilization there before. Maybe
something has survived that we could use.

  "I wouldn't hold out too much hope on that score," Natasha said. "That could have been millions and millions of years ago, and anything useful would have corroded out of existence."

  "Ah, you shatter another dream," Lucius said with a smile, "but yes, you are right. We must not assume we shall find anything."

  "Except possible food sources," Natasha said. "Fortunately, Ulsian technology can very quickly determine whether it is safe to eat."

  "It will all be one big adventure," Lucius said, his voice brimming with enthusiasm.

  Yes, Natasha thought to herself, but let us hope the dream does not become a nightmare.

  * * *

  "May I wish you all good luck, and a long and prosperous life," Gaius said, as he raised a glass of something vaguely related to wine. They were all seated around a table, eating dinner. Gaius had insisted that everyone he knew be present, although he had been somewhat mysterious as to why.

  "What's all that about?" Lucilla asked. "We're not embarking yet, and you're coming with us, aren't you?"

  "This will be the last time I see any of you," he said, then turned to Natasha, and added, "unless you want to come with me."

  "I don't understand," Natasha replied.

  "I have accepted that as a couple, we are not going anywhere," Gaius said, "and I am leaving in another four hours."

  "What? Where to?"

  "I feel I have an obligation," Gaius said with a shrug. "On another timeline, Sender must have wiped out Earth's civilization. A message was sent from a temporal satellite, and that resulted in my coming here to stop that, and, as a side issue, it also led Quintus to being taken to Ranh, and hence," he added, and turned towards the local humans, "to at least in part being the cause of your existence. I must go and try to save those who gave the warning."

  "Surely someone else could do that," Natasha said. "Earth can presumably send ships to a satellite."

  "Really?" Gaius said. "Where are the various satellites? Did you know of any satellites that were unaccounted for?"

  "Well, no, but –"

  "The reason is, this satellite, and all those that went up before it from that civilization, are on another timeline. Only Ulsian technology has any hope of crossing into that timeline, and that is not exactly a given either. The reason I must go now is I must burn up enough years at relativistic speed, but I need to break the journey into a "there and more or less back" type of journey, in other words I must travel to another star at the right distance, and loop around it, and come back at just the right time, because those in the satellite cannot last for more than a few weeks. They will run out of food, air, whatever."

  "Don't they grow food?" Lucius asked.

  "Yes, they do to a point. Their problem is, they are also displaced from their own timeline, and they have more or less created one of their own, in which the energy inputs are less than they need."

  The others stared at him, almost dumbstruck.

  "There's another personal reason too," Gaius added. "I was given a prophecy, and everything in it has come to pass, which is not exactly surprising, since they were looking into their past when arriving at my future." He knew when he said this that it was not entirely true, but nevertheless, it sounded good. "They remarked that there would be only two women in my life," he explained. "Natasha, you were the second, but we are going nowhere together. I can see that, but that doesn't mean I want to stay jinxed."

  "That prophecy did not go as far as this," Lucilla pointed out. "You can deny it, challenge it –"

  "Yes, but there's another way," he countered. "The prophecy only works up to their present. If I get there, it has run its time. Anyway, I have made up my mind. As far as I know, we have saved Earth, and at the very least, just in case Ranh was not the problem, we have a second human settlement. I am going to try to meet my goddess."

  "We can't change your mind?" Lucius asked.

  "No." He turned to Lucilla, and said, "You too have the option of coming with me if you wish."

  "Sorry, but no," Lucilla said. "I feel that all these people will need my help, and anyway, well, I guess I am a bit tired of all this relativistic travel, and having to adapt to whatever is there when I get there."

  "Do you really have to go?" Aella asked. She was looking at the sorrow on Lucilla's face. "After all the two of you have been through –"

  "There are at least five people on the shuttle who will die if I do not manage to rescue them," Gaius shrugged.

  "There is one alternative," Antonia said, as she came up behind the table. The three companions had not sat at the table, but had been standing in the background, and had obviously been listening.

  "What?" Natasha asked.

  "When you leave, do not go directly. There are two options. In the first, you go via another loop and go directly to Alpha Centauri. In the second, you take a slightly shorter route, get to Alpha Centauri about ten years earlier, but then once the settlement is underway, make an excursion to Earth and back. Assuming Gaius follows the plan Marcellus has devised, once he rescues those on the satellite, assuming he does, he can then go to Alpha Centauri, and check up on progress, or alternatively help you get started if you took the longer route. There will always be a few years slippage, and Lucilla will be the older sister, not the younger one, but you can meet again."

  "Well, Gaius?" Lucilla looked at her brother.

  "After I do what I have to do, and assuming I survive –"

  "What do you mean, survive?"

  "Linking time zones has its problems," Gaius said. "There is no guarantee both vessels do not simply annihilate each other in their own time lines and send them somewhere else."

  "But Ulsian technology does assure us the exercise will work if it is done properly," Antonia assured the listeners. "The only problem that can arise is if those being rescued do not comply, and there are ways to limit the damage to Gaius."

  "Anyway, assuming I survive," Gaius continued, "I shall proceed to Alpha Centauri. If you get there, and the time slippage is adequate, and if you need anything else, I shall bring it. In any case, I shall try to bring some extras that I think might make things better for you."

  "If they give them to you," Lucilla pointed out.

  "If they give them to me," Gaius agreed. "Right now, I intend to send a message to Earth informing them of what is happening, so they have plenty of time to assemble what you will need, and, for that matter, what I need for the rescue."

  "What you need?"

  "Energy and matter must be conserved exactly during the transfer," Gaius said, "and worse than that, it has to be more or less chemically equivalent. I shall need a good supply of various materials to balance what I take from them, and Earth will have to provide that."

  "I hope they can find it all," Natasha remarked. "Having some familiarity with the bureaucracy, I rather suspect a hurried request will not be filled in time."

  "Marcellus and Antonia are making the list right now," Gaius said, "and the Actium will check it and send it. All should be well."

  "Then, with Antonia's validation of the option, we shall take the long way to Alpha Centauri," Lucilla said. "And it will be a change to be big sister!"

  "Then we shall meet again. This deserves another toast!"

  "Indeed it does," Natasha said, and began filling glasses.

  Chapter 53

  "The crew are starting to despair," Dr Chu remarked. "I don't think they can take much more of this." He paused, then added with a wry smile, "Although the way our life support systems are starting to become troublesome, they may not have to."

  Pallas Athene shrugged, and added, "We knew there was unlikely to be a way out for us."

  "Fatalist!"

  "Or realist," she countered. "I just wish I knew whether we had succeeded. This probability indicator is still jumping between nought and one. I would have thought –"

  "Nothing extra will have happened in the time we have been here," Dr Chu pointed out. "The machine i
ntegrates the entire timeline that we created, up to the present, and the only changes that could have occurred while we have been watching are changes in real time while we were watching."

  "Then why is it oscillating?"

  "Because something is yet to be determined."

  "But we changed the past to correct what happened in the past."

  "Yes, but when we changed the past, what happened on the old timelines did not necessarily happen on this one."

  "I just wish we knew whether humanity was saved," Athene said. "It would make dying a little easier."

  "Then look at the bright side," Dr Chu said. "Assume the one is the correct one."

  "It can't take to the present to decide it," Athene said, "unless . . ."

  "Unless what?"

  "Unless we have this all wrong, and this dial is not the probability that humanity will be saved."

  "Then what will it be?"

  "That we shall be saved," Athene said. "This wretched machine may be showing the probability that the paradox it created will be resolved by removing this machine from the limbo it is in."

  "I suspect that is wishful thinking," Dr Chu said.

  "I know," Athene replied. "It's also why I spend all my time at this machine, in case something happens."

  "You could be asleep when it does," Dr Chu said.

  "I have wired up a really loud alarm," Athene said. "So far, it has . . ."

  "What?"

  "There's a signal! In Latin!"

  "Scaevola needs more help? Pity we have nothing more to tell him."

  "No, this is from the present." She held up her hand, then began typing. "Scaevola wants to know if we are still alive, so I told him, yes."

  "When is he? Where is he?"

  Athene held up her hand, to tell him to be quiet while she began tapping on the keyboard again, then she turned to Dr Chu, and her eyes lit up as she said, "He is planning a rescue. A rather large number of instructions are coming through."

  "Do I tell the rest?"

  "Yes, you do. Get them to gather in the mess. Meanwhile, I am connecting our life support controllers to this computer. Apparently he needs to know the precise physical conditions here, especially the air composition."