George and the Ship of Time

by Lucy Hawking

  Seeing Annie again was the biggest shock of all the extraordinary experiences of his journey.

  “You’re so old!” he couldn’t help but blurt out the minute he saw her. And yet he had recognized her instantly. She was still the same girl he had known all that time ago, but her face was furrowed by lines and there were streaks of white in her hair.

  At the same moment, Annie cried, “Is it really you?” She reached out to hug him. He could see how tall, thin, and muscular she had become. It was like hugging his grandmother rather than his best friend and favorite adventurer in the whole Universe.

  “Wow, this is weird!” said Annie as they both brushed the tears out of their eyes. “George! I never thought I would see you again!”

  “And here I am!” said George, unable to really believe this was happening. They were together again—but she was separated from him by decades of age and experience. It was like the time when he had half appeared through quantum teleportation on a distant moon of Jupiter, and half of him had shouted to Annie to rescue him. He felt as though part of him was calling to her across a great divide of time and space. “You always did know more than me,” he said, trying to cover up how strange he felt.

  “There’s so much to catch up on!” said Annie, her lined, weatherworn face smiling fondly at him. She pinched the back of his hand. “You’re so young, George! And I’m growing old, so much older than you now.” Old as she might think she was, Annie was straight-backed and alert. George wondered which one of them would win in a sprint race. Probably Annie, he thought.

  “Annie, I can’t believe I’m seeing you again!” said George. The back of Annie’s hand, compared to his, was roped with thick blue veins and the skin was scored by lines and dappled with dark patches.

  “I have so much to tell you!” said Annie. “But first my people here on na-h Alba want to know if you’re working for Dump. Be honest with me, George, for the sake of our long friendship—and it’s been way longer for me than it has for you! Are you on Dump’s side? Why have you come from Edenopolis?”

  “I am not working for Dump!” said George hotly. “As if, Annie!”

  “I know!” exclaimed Annie, rolling her eyes, just as she always had. “I said—I told them! It’s impossible! The moment you stood up in that boat and said my name, I knew it was really you—and I knew you weren’t with Dump.”

  “I was coming here with a girl,” said George, who was sitting on the large cushion opposite Annie with a view out over the heavily irrigated landscape of na-h Alba. The sun, he realized, was high in the sky, meaning he had slept until at least late morning. “A kid who I had to get out of Eden because she wasn’t safe.”

  “Still the same old George,” said Annie. “Always rescuing people!”

  “But we got separated—or she ran off, and I ended up in Edenopolis with my other friend, Atticus, who comes from the Swamp.” He glanced at Annie and saw that she looked a bit perplexed. Perhaps he wasn’t explaining this in a grown-up enough way? She looked like his mom or dad when he tried to give them an explanation but they just didn’t get it. He decided to cut to the chase. “I don’t have long—and I have a message for you from Dump himself!”

  “A message!” snorted Annie. “We’re always getting messages from Eden—most of them turn out to be fakes! They’re forever trying to trick us—that’s why we shut down our communications with them.”

  “No, this time it’s real,” said George. “And it’s happening—now. Dump. He wants you to come to Eden. Now, or it will be too late!”

  Annie gasped. “Too late?” she echoed. “Are you kidding me, George?”

  “No,” said George firmly. “I am absolutely not kidding you. Not at all. He has threatened to kill everyone there if you don’t come. Everyone, Annie.”

  “Do you know what Trellis Dump has done? Do you know what he and his father did to me? To my dad? To your family? To everyone here on Planet Earth after he took full power? Trellis Dump the First was bad enough, grabbing control during all the climate disasters, putting profit before people every time. But when his son decided he could go much further . . . we had a war, George. A war that killed millions of people. Then Eden. Do you know what a wretched place he has made Eden over the past forty years? I can’t go there with you! Whatever fake news he sends with you!”

  “Well, of course I don’t know!” said George. “I just arrived here from the past and I missed decades of stuff. I’ve been trying to figure it out but no one will tell me anything and, if they do, I don’t know if I can trust them! But I know I can trust you, and I need you to help, Annie.”

  Annie arched an eyebrow and leaned back on her cushions. She let out a cool whistle. “I see,” she observed, her blue eyes flashing. George realized that the Annie he had known was from the past: the schoolgirl, the scientist, the adventurer. But this adult Annie, this rebel leader and warrior, this fierce, rangy, graying-blond Annie, was someone he wondered if he knew at all.

  “Why?” demanded Annie, sitting up again and leaning forward on her elbows. “Why should I leave na-h Alba, where we live in peace and safety”—she gestured out beyond the veranda to where George could see rolling hills, low-rise buildings, sparkling lakes—“to go back to a place where I was robbed, imprisoned, lied about, rejected, and nearly killed? I had to flee for my life, George. I got out, but not everyone was so lucky.”

  “What happened to Eric?” asked George. He wanted to find out what had happened to his own family too, but he didn’t know if he dared hear the answer.

  “He was exiled,” said Annie.

  “To where?” said George.

  “Sent to Mars—for treason,” said Annie. “Someone betrayed him. They leaked inform-ation about his work to the regime. He just had time to tell me to continue his work before he was arrested. That’s when I tried flinging the message across the Universe to you! You were gone so long that I thought perhaps you might have set up home on Mars—we’d wanted to go there for so long, remember? You, George, were traveling into space to explore new worlds, to discover answers to the questions we had always asked; answers I knew you would at some point bring back to help science on Earth. I hoped that Boltzmann Brian would have kept you safe. That you might have been able to help Eric. But we were too late.” She paused. “We survived the war, but we only just got out of Eden in time.”

  “We?” said George.

  “I took your family with me and they’re all safe,” said Annie. George gave a great phew of relief. “I was already a scientist by then, a grown-up, in my thirties, and I had lots of scientist colleagues who didn’t want to stay. So we left—but we had to do it undercover so we couldn’t take everyone. Loads of people got left behind.”

  “I think I’ve met some of them,” said George, thinking of Matushka and the colony.

  “I still don’t really know who betrayed Eric,” said Annie. “Although I have my suspicions.”

  “I met Nimu,” said George. “She wanted me to tell you that it wasn’t her, that she didn’t betray Eric! What’s she got to do with it all? Who is she?”

  “Nimu,” sighed Annie with a shiver, “is my sister.”

  “What!” said George. “But how?” Yet, once Annie said it, it made a weird kind of sense.

  “She’s much younger than me,” said Annie. “My own lovely mom died in a terrible car accident while touring with an orchestra—before all this, before the Great Disruption, before Eden. I was so sad, but I’m glad she didn’t live to see all this. Nimu is the child of Eric’s second wife. She’s . . .” Annie exhaled. “I met her a long time ago. I didn’t like her and I thought she was dangerous. Spoiled. Very clever, of course. She was a prodigy, way smarter than you and I ever were. And so annoying! But Eric adored her and wouldn’t hear a word against her. Which makes it even worse that Nimu betrayed him. She got tangled up with the regime as a teenager and we believe she informed on him.”

  “But that,” said George, carrying on his train of thought, “means Eric is Hero
’s grandfather.”

  “Hero?” said Annie in surprise. “You mean a girl called Hero actually exists?”

  George nodded. “Yes! That’s the kid from the Bubble that I was traveling with. Why wouldn’t she exist?”

  Annie sighed. “I thought she was a trap,” she tried to explain. “A piece of fake news. Nimu knew that I would never do anything to help her, not after what she did to Eric. I thought she had invented this kid, this granddaughter of Eric, to try to lure me back!”

  “You know, Nimu seemed pretty upset about Eric,” said George. “And she was very sure she didn’t do it.”

  “I don’t believe anything she says,” snapped Annie. “She’s made herself Minister for Science—in a regime where science, scientists, and education of any sort are banned!”

  “Hero had an education,” said George sadly. “But she just learned loads of things that weren’t true and she had no way of finding out what was real. She was so excited about going to Wonder Academy.”

  “Nimu would send her own daughter to Wonder Academy!” Annie interrupted in disgust. “To that place! We raided it once to rescue kids and set them free. But we could only get one of them out.”

  “I met the kid you saved!” said George. “But she’s ancient now!”

  “What, like me?” said Annie slyly.

  “Oh no, much younger than you,” said George, without realizing what he had said. Then he stopped himself and blushed.

  “It’s okay,” teased Annie. “It’s going to take a while for us to get used to you being young and me being old. Tell me more about Nimu and Hero.”

  “So Nimu was pretending to send Hero to Wonder, but actually she was trying to send her here! When I touched down from space, I got picked up by Nimu’s robot, the one she uses to look after Hero, who then told Nimu that I should take Hero to na-h Alba.”

  “Nimu’s robot told you to flee to na-h Alba and take Hero?” said Annie in astonishment. “What kind of robot is that?”

  “Well, I think it was more like a supercomputer in a robot body,” said George. “Hero told me Nimu had found Empyrean in the—”

  “Empyrean?” said Annie, looking excited. “Did you say Empyrean?”

  “Yeah,” said George. “You know, it was so weird. I almost thought Empyrean was . . . Well, it was like he knew me.”

  “George, do you know what the word Empyrean means?” said Annie.

  “Uh-uh, nope,” said George. “And it’s not like I can look it up on my phone, is it?”

  “It’s a medieval Latin word—it means ‘highest heaven,’ ” said Annie gleefully. “Or, some might say ‘universe.’ George, I think you’ve found Cosmos!”

  “Oh my Dump!” said George, using Hero’s favorite expression. “OMD!” Just as Annie had turned out to be “her,” Empyrean, the cryptic robot, was Cosmos—their old frenemy from their adventures in the past.

  “But wait,” said Annie. “Did you say Cosmos was acting as Hero’s guardian robot?”

  “Yup,” said George.

  “So the greatest computer ever has been working as a babysitter!” said Annie. “But Nimu’s a minister! She should have turned Cosmos over to the regime the minute she located him. She definitely shouldn’t have kept him for her own purposes; that is way against the rules of Eden!”

  “Nimu isn’t on Dump’s side. I’m pretty sure she’s a double agent and wants Eden to end—so that Hero can have a normal life!” said George. “She said something about how she and Empyrean had done the work her father—OMD, that’s Eric—planned but couldn’t start because he got betrayed.”

  “I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Annie. “Nimu has carried out his plan?”

  “What plan?” asked George.

  “Eric’s plan was to program the machines to protect Planet Earth—he thought that one day the machines would learn so much that they would decide that Dump was the greatest threat to Planet Earth and work to defeat him! You know, George, human stupidity is far more dangerous than artifical intelligence. Eric believed that human and machine could work together in total cooperation for the benefit of everyone. Just like he himself always worked with scientists from all over the world. Sharing knowledge. He thought it was the way forward to help everyone tackle the huge global challenges of the Earth. And he thought it would protect us all against people like Dump and their evil plans. But he didn’t have time to finish his programming as he was taken away and sent to Mars! Do you mean Nimu finished his work for him—from inside the regime?”

  “Yes,” said George. “I think that’s exactly what happened! And now the machines are turning against Dump and he’s finding it really hard to stay ahead of them.” He remembered something he had heard in the Great Tower of Dump. “Dump claimed he had the best brainpower—what did he mean? If he’s so clever, why can’t he change the system?”

  “I don’t know,” said Annie. “It’s so hard to know from here what is true about Eden and what’s false.”

  “Well, there’s one way to find out,” said George, getting to his feet. “We’d better get a move on!”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” said Annie calmly.

  “What?” said George. “We have to, Annie! We have to go back, find Hero, get Cosmos, grab my friend Atticus, and save all those people! Annie, if you don’t come, he’ll just—I don’t know what he’ll do, but it will be really terrible for everyone in Eden.”

  “Look,” said Annie. “It’s complicated.”

  “No it isn’t,” said George. “You get to your feet, and you and I go to Edenopolis to fight Dump and save the people of Eden. That’s what the Annie I know would do.”

  “But I’m not that Annie anymore,” said Annie quietly. “I’ve lived years more than you—I’ve had to fight these people all my adult life. If you think I’m just walking into Edenopolis—”

  “What about Hero?” said George defiantly. “Don’t you think Eric would want you to save her? If you don’t come with me now, Hero and all those kids at Wonder Academy and everywhere else are going to die.”

  “Thousands of people live productive, happy, peaceful lives on na-h Alba,” protested Annie. “We have a missile shield here so we will remain protected for the time being. If I’m caught by Dump, I endanger them all and their way of life. No, we just wait. The machine resistance has begun. Maybe even the human resistance too? It will overturn Dump and his corporation, and then we will march into Edenopolis, victorious and safe!”

  “No!” said George. “There’ll be no one left in Eden to save! They’ll have been wiped out! And you don’t know what the machines will do—you’re guessing. And what if Nimu is so angry when you, her sister, fail to show up when she needs you that she really does decide to help Dump? You have no idea what he might be able to do!”

  “It’s too much of a risk,” said Annie decisively. “You’ll understand—when you’re older. I must stay here with my people. They need me.”

  George took a moment to think. “All right,” he said. “I know you’re a grown-up and I’m not. And you know all sorts of stuff I can’t even imagine. But I knew you back then, and I bet you’ve taught all those people”—he gestured out toward na-h Alba—“everything you know. Because that’s what you do. You get knowledge so that you can share it with others, just like you said about Eric. Those people, for instance.” He pointed at a random family walking along the street. “You’ve taught them what to do and how to do it.”

  “Okay . . .” said Annie slowly.

  “But you’re behaving like Dump now,” said George accusingly. “Saying that Eden lives don’t matter. Those people aren’t like my people so I don’t have to care about them. It’s not my problem if something terrible happens to them because we’re all happy here and everything is okay for us. Not good enough, Annie!”

  “I see,” said Annie, standing up and giving him a very grown-up look. “That’s your opinion, is it?”

  “It is,” said George.

  Annie finally smiled, a proper
Annie smile, rolling back the years and the distance between them.

  “What are we waiting for?” she said. “Let’s go!” She started to walk toward the door, but then stopped and turned. “Just one thing,” she said as George opened his mouth to speak. “Don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”

  “I was going to say,” replied George, “that your mom and dad would have been really proud of you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As they approached the port of Edenopolis, the sun was descending toward the horizon, casting an orange glow across the city. From the Dire Straits, where the sea was calm enough that late afternoon for them to have a smooth journey, they saw the reddening light catch the edges of the huge clouds of pollution, turning them into a blazing coronet of fire around the tall buildings. Annie shivered. She had been very quiet on the journey, lost in thought as they headed toward the city she had avoided for so long.

  “It’s almost beautiful,” she said regretfully. “There is so much good they could have done! And they didn’t.”

  George wasn’t exactly happy to be back in the big city either. In Na-h Alba, with its peaceful streets, small encampments, and happy people, he had for the first time felt properly safe back on his home planet.

  At that moment, a voice boomed out.

  “Identify yourself!” it said.

  Annie stood up in the boat—which was a far superior version of the craft George had been sent over from Eden in the night before. It was fast, stable, and powered by biomass.