by Simon Hawke
"We've got to do it to them before they do it to us," Forrester had said during one of their regular briefings. "It's as simple as that. They're apparently working on the assumption that if they create a massive temporal disruption in our time-line, the resulting timestream split will overcome the confluence effect at our expense. For all anybody knows, they may be right."
"Dr. Darkness doesn't think so," Steiger had said, referring to the scientist whose experiments with tachyon transition had altered his subatomic structure, making him the only human who was faster than the speed of light. Dr. Darkness believed it was equally possible for a timestream split to compound the confluence effect, resulting in multiple timestreams intersecting, but the only way to prove that was the hard way, something no one was anxious to do.
"I know what Darkness thinks," Forrester had said, "and I'm inclined to listen to him. However, the trouble is we have no choice. The alternative would be fighting a purely defensive action, something we just can't afford to do. If we disrupt their timestream, then our counterparts in the congruent universe will have to conduct their own historical adjustment missions to compensate for what we've done. If we can keep them busy doing that, they'll have less time to interfere with our history."
"So we cause disruptions in their timestream which they'll have to adjust and they'll do it right back to us," Capt. Finn Delaney said. "It's madness. Where does it all end?"
"Who knows?" Forrester said, wearily. "The Time Wars have been escalated into a new dimension. Literally. Nobody knows how it will end. We'll just have to ride it out."
The shuttle arrived at the entrance to the Headquarters Building of the Temporal Army Command. As Steiger entered the spacious lobby, he paused before the Wall of Honor, which listed the names of soldiers of the First Division who had died in action. Steiger stared at the most recent name added to the wall, that of his predecessor, Lt. Col. Lucas Priest.
Before the Temporal Intelligence Agency had been merged with the Temporal Army Corps, Steiger had been the T.I.A.'s senior field agent, code named Phoenix. Lucas Priest had been his counterpart in the First Division of the Temporal Corps, the elite commando unit assigned to deal with temporal disruptions. The temporal adjustment team of Lt. Col. Lucas Priest, Lt. Andre Cross and Capt. Finn Delaney had the most impressive record in the corps. Now that the First Division and the T.I.A. had merged, Steiger was the ranking officer after Moses Forrester, replacing the late Lt. Col. Priest as the exec. It was a large pair of boots to fill.
He snapped to attention and saluted the wall, according to tradition. Priest had given his life to preserve the past. Now those left living in the present would have to risk their lives to save the future.
1
The mission team sat in the darkened briefing room, watching the holographic presentation. The three-dimensional laser image of the centaur slowly revolved before them as the recorded voice of Dr. Hazen dispassionately described the examination procedure. At the appropriate moment in the briefing, the image of the centaur dissolved to the scanner graph recording, showing the interior organs and the skeletal structure. At the point where the recording switched to the psych team's debriefing session, Forrester allowed it to continue for a few moments, so the agents could have an opportunity to see the centaur, in its conditioned state, responding to the questions put to it in ancient Greek. The he switched the projection off and brought the lights back up.
"The centaur's name is Chiron," he said. "A check with Archives Section reveals that the name first appeared in old Greek legends. Its earliest recorded mention is reported in a story told by Apollonius of Rhodes, one of the librarians of Alexandria. According to the story, which was reputedly based upon actual exploits of seamen of the Mycenaean Bronze Age, Chiron was half-man, half-horse; a teacher who lived in a cave on Mount Pelion centuries before the time of Christ. The young boys who were brought to him for instruction became the greatest heroes of the ancient legends, among them Jason, Theseus and Hercules. The centaur confirmed this information during the interrogation session."
"Confirmed it?" said Delaney. "But those are all mythical figures!"
Forrester made a wry face. "Indeed they are, Captain. As are centaurs, I believe."
Under other circumstances, the exchange would have been funny, but no one laughed.
"What we are apparently confronted with," Forrester continued, "is our first example of how the congruent universe differs from ours. The centaur came through a confluence, appearing in our timestream during the year 219 b.c., at the beginning of the Second Punic War. It caused a considerable amount of excitement among some of Hannibal's troops before our Observers on the scene were able to capture the creature and clock back with it. I won't bother speculating whether our happening to have Observers on the scene was pure dumb luck or a manifestation of the Fate Factor, magnified by inertial surge in the presence of a confluence. I'll leave that brain bender to the scientists. Zen physics only gives me headaches. I'll simply concentrate on what this creature's appearance in our timestream means to us.
"The centaur provides us with our first piece of hard evidence supporting the theory that the physical laws of the congruent universe might not be the same as ours. There is also the question of the temporal focus of the centaur's appearance in our timeline. It came through in the year 219 b.c., but according to Archives Section, the story which mentions the creature dates back at least six centuries before the time of Christ. Either the chronology of the congruent universe is radically different from ours or the congruence has caused an even more pronounced ripple in the timestreams than we realized."
"Excuse me, sir," said Andre Cross. "Does this mean a confluence point which occurs at, say, the 18th century in our universe might lead to another time period entirely in the congruent universe?"
"Quite possibly," said Forrester. "We don't know exactly what that means, though. It's possible that crossing over through a confluence point which occurs in our universe during the 18th century, to follow your example, might bring you to the 20th century, in the congruent universe, or the 25th or the 14th or any other century. But we still have no knowledge of what those time periods in the congruent universe are like. We believe the congruent universe is a mirror image of our own, but we now think it's a sort of funhouse mirror. Distorted, by our standards."
"Which means anyone going through would be going in blind," said Finn Delaney. "There would be no temporal reference. And we wouldn't have any idea what time period we might end up in."
"Correct," said Forrester. "However, we've already taken steps to work within those parameters. I've incorporated most of the former T.I.A. field agents now under my command into a new type of Pathfinder unit. This new unit has been designated as the 1st Ranger Pathfinder Division. Their function will be to go through confluence points as advance scouts for a mission team. They will be equipped with full battle kit, with orders to avoid unnecessary contact with locals if possible, but to engage any enemy decisively if they encounter hostility. Their primary responsibility will be to gather intelligence. However, if they are placed at risk, their secondary mission will be to conduct a quick guerrilla strike, inflict as much damage and as many casualties as possible and then get back fast so they can neutralize any hostiles coming through into our own timeline. Obviously, it's preferable to gather intelligence which allow a mission team to go through and conduct a covert operation designed to achieve maximum temporal disruption, but failing that, better to conduct a quick blind strike which may or may not cause significant temporal damage than to lose any of our people.
"The breakdown for this type of operation will be as follows: one, as soon as a confluence is pinpointed and logged, a commando unit will be clocked back to set up an outpost, providing security on our side of the confluence. A unit has already been dispatched to cover the confluence point through which the centaur came into our timeline. Two, a Ranger unit will effect crossover into the congruent universe for the purpose of gathering intelligence. If the
y do not encounter immediate resistance, they will utilize available local resources to blend in and gather whatever intelligence they can. If feasible, they may be directed to capture locals and bring them back for interrogation. Three, a mission team of adjustment specialists will effect crossover with instructions, based on intelligence gathered by the Rangers, to conduct a coven operation aimed at creating a significant historical disruption in the congruent universe. Four, units of the newly organized Temporal Counter-Insurgency Strike Force based in Galveston will stand by on alert status in the event hostiles attempt to effect a crossover into our timeline.
"Needless to say, this does not cover all contingencies. We are still vulnerable in the event that hostiles from the congruent universe discover a confluence point we are unaware of and send units through to cause disruptions in our timeline, as they did in the Khyber Pass. We were lucky that time, but we need to guard against something like that happening again. For this reason, all available temporal divisions are being broken up and reorganized, converted to Observer squadrons. We clearly cannot begin to cover all of recorded time. Nevertheless, we have to try. We can only hope that between mobile Observer squadrons looking out for temporal anomalies and members of the Temporal Underground providing unofficial intelligence support, we can spot disruptions and clock out adjustment teams to effect repair before the damage becomes permanent. Word has been unofficially leaked through channels that will reach the Temporal Underground so far as that's concerned. They'll cooperate. They have no choice, since their existence is at stake, as well. So if you want to be optimistic, you might say it's business as usual, only more intensified. Much more. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the overview. Now, we get down to the specifics of this case.
"The appearance of the centaur brings up an interesting question. As Capt. Delaney pointed out, centaurs are mythical beings, yet here we are confronted with one in the flesh."
"Horseflesh," said Delaney. Forrester ignored him.
"The debriefing session with the centaur produced the names of individuals who, according to our history, are also mythical figures. Jason, Theseus, Hercules and others. Yet there is some question about that. There is, for example, evidence showing Theseus actually lived. He was described in Plutarch's writings. We don't know for certain about some of the others, such as Hercules. There exist a number of versions of the story of Jason and the Argonauts and there are a number of irreconcilable details. Reconciling those details would require a mission in itself and it would only give us intelligence about what happened in our timeline. What happened in the congruent universe could be something entirely different.
"Archives Section feels this situation has raised a number of fascinating questions. For example, is it possible that our mythology, to a certain point, is their history? And does that then suggest that our history is their mythology? Or are we confronted with some sort of metaphysical transtemporal contamination? In other words, is our mythology the direct result of the situation confronting us today? Has the congruence of the two timelines resulted in a sort of trans-temporal psychic leakage to which espersensitive individuals are susceptible? When Apollonius of Rhodes wrote his Argronautica, was he actually subconsciously picking up images and impressions from the congruent universe? If this is the case, then we might have a basis for gathering intelligence about the congruent universe from the mythology of our own history. Archives Section is particularly anxious for information which might corroborate this theory."
"I think someone in Archives Section has gone right around the bend," said Finn Delaney.
Forrester heard the not quite sotto voce comment. "Perhaps, Capt. Delaney. But what if going 'around the bend,' as you put it, leads to the congruent universe?"
Delaney grimaced. "That's what I love about zen physics," he said. "The more you understand about it, the less you know."
"The important thing is that you understand what our priorities are," said Forrester. "First and foremost, we need to safeguard the integrity of our own timeline. Only after we've made certain no hostiles can cross over through a confluence, either intentionally or by accident, can we contemplate sending a mission team through. These teams will be kept small, as in historical adjustment situations, in order to maximize covert flexibility and minimize the chances of discovery before the mission can be completed. We don't want to risk a mission team blowing its cover and falling into the hands of S.O.G. interrogation teams. The first mission will, assuming it's successful, teach us a great deal about how these operations should be conducted. Consequently, I'm sending in our best team. Capt. Delaney and Lt. Cross, you will report to mission programming immediately following this briefing. Since you have already had experience working in the field with Col. Steiger, he will be joining your team, replacing the late Lt. Col. Priest. The rest of you will provide mission support on this end. You will clock out to reinforce the outpost team stationed at the confluence point. With the exception of the mission team, you will draw full battle kit in addition to period ordnance and report for mission programming. The crossover team will carry period ordnance only. Any questions?"
"Just one, sir," said Finn Delaney. "What exactly is our mission?"
"You will cross over into the region known as Mount Pelion," said Forrester, "located near the kingdom of Iolchos in Thessaly. There you will make contact with Jason, son of the deposed King Aeson of Iolchos. Your orders are to gather intelligence and create a historical disruption in the timeline of the congruent universe."
"Sure," Delaney said, wryly. "We'll infiltrate the argonauts and steal the golden fleece."
"Interesting idea," said Forrester. "If, in fact, they do find the golden fleece, see if you can bring it back with you. I'd like to see it."
The mission briefing was unusual, to say the least. According to the legend, Phrixus and Helle were brother and sister, the children of King Athamas of Minua. Their mother was the cloud nymph Nephele, but Athamas also had two children with a concubine named Ino. It was Ino's belief that if the children of King Athamas were dead, she would be able to convince him to adopt her own children as his heirs. When famine came to Minua, Ino's intrigues came to fruition. She convinced Athamas the gods were angry with him and that to regain their favor, he had to make a sacrifice. He had to give them that which he loved best. Ino insisted that if Athamas gave Phrixus and Helle to the gods, their anger would be appeased.
Driven by the effects of the famine on his kingdom and by Ino's ravings, Athamas ordered an altar built and tearfully sent word for Phrixus and Helle to be brought to the high priest. But Nephele learned of the peril to her children and refused to stand by and let them die. The god Hermes had given her a present of a flying ram and Nephele took Phrixus and Helle, set them on the ram's back and had the ram fly them to safety, forever out of reach of Athamas.
When Athamas learned that the ram had flown off with his children, he realized the gods had never intended for them to die and he went mad. In a fury, he killed one of Ino's children and Ino, escaping from him, leaped off a cliff with her other child in her arms. She fell into the sea and turned into a dolphin that would swim the waves forever, crying with its offspring at its breast. The people of Minua drove out their mad king and he was forced to wander miserably until he came to the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle told Athamas his fate would be to wander in penance for his sins until wild beasts would feast him as their guest. Mad and sorrowful, Athamas wandered starving through the wilderness until one day he encountered a pack of wolves. So fearsome was his appearance, the wolves ran off at the sight of him, leaving their kill. Athamas, desperate with starvation, threw himself upon the carcass of the sheep which they had left behind. In this way, a feast was provided for him by wild animals and the prophecy was fulfilled. Athamas recovered from his madness, founded a new settlement and eventually became a king again.
As to the fate of his two children, the ram flew far from Minua with Phrixus and Helle on its back. Helle became exhausted and lost her grip. She fell i
nto the sea near Thrace and drowned. From that day on, the place where she fell bore the name of Hellespont. The ram flew on with Phrixus over the Euxine Sea to Colchis, on the Circassian coast. There it landed, spent, and promptly died of exhaustion. In recognition of the ram's heroic feat, the gods turned the ram's fleece into gold. Phrixus settled in Colchis and gave the golden fleece to King Aietes of Aea in exchange for his daughter, Chalciope, in marriage. In celebration of the union, Aietes hung the golden fleece upon an ancient beech tree in the sacred grove of Ares. It became the greatest treasure of his kingdom, a relic of the gods.
Phrixus did not have many years to live happily and peacefully in Colchis with his wife. When he died, his spirit had no rest because his body was buried far from his native land. Thereafter, he appeared often to the heroes of Minua in dreams, pleading with them to bring back the golden fleece so that his spirit could return with it and find rest.
Aeson of Iolchos was a cousin of Phrixus. He had a stepbrother named Pelias, who was said to be a nymph's son. When he was an infant, Pelias was abandoned in the mountains where he was meant to die, but a shepherd found him, nursed him back to health and raised him. When he became a man, Pelias returned to Iolchos and drove out King Aeson, who escaped to the mountains with his young son, Jason. At Mount Pelion, the deposed King Aeson encountered Chiron the centaur, a teacher in the arts of music, healing and warfare. Aeson gave his son into Chiron's care so the centaur could prepare him for the day when he would return to Iolchos and reclaim his birthright.
Jason grew up with Chiron and his other young students and remembering the wishes of his father, he learned his lessons well. He became accomplished in all Chiron had to teach him and he lived by the principles which Chiron preached. He vowed never to speak harshly to any soul whom he might meet upon his travels, to give his help to all in need of it and always to stand by his word.