The Space Sieve

by David Smith

CHAPTER 16

  ALPHA AND OMEGA

 

  “I DONE TOLD YOU THIS IS YER PROBLEM!” Donna pointed at her husband Craig, “so git in there and see what’s a-goin’ on!

  Craig shifted nervously in the kitchen chair. “Okay, Donna. But you know it’s more than a might worrisome to me. I ain’t never seed the like.”

  “Well,” Donna countered. “Yer the one’s been gone to high school – so go git in there and figure out what’s goin’ on. After all, if we’re gonna be his parents, we a need to be part of his life. We gotta know what all he’s gittin’ himself into.”

  Donna and Craig were two good people, if largely uneducated ones, who had become the unintended parents of a teenage boy, named Steven, whose parents had died in a tragic car accident. Donna and Craig were the closest relatives to the only child, who had come to live with them two years before.

  “You know, to tell ya true, it’s a fright to me, it is,” Craig continued, “what with it sometimes makin’ more noise than my old log splitter when it’s a-runnin’.”

  But Donna was persistent. “Go on and git in there! He’s just a little boy a-playin’ with some ol’ thing he’s he done found.”

  Craig hesitated then headed toward Steven’s room. Then he paused and turned back. “Donna, that ain’t no toy. It’s creepy. Why, you ain’t seed all the strange things been happenin’ round here lately.”

  “I did done seen that black box all the time, Craig. Done cleaned it too. Why, I know it’s makin’ a frightful noise right now and all. But it ain’t nothin’ but some little toy pianny or some such.”

  “But,” he continued to protest, “I ain’t never seed no pianny like that ‘afore, what with all them flashin’ lights. And you don’t know, but late some nights when I’ve done stayed up, Steven’s showed me things with it that I ain’t never heard tell the like of. I done told Preacher, and he done said them thing’s I seed is flat impossible. He said I’d best quit hittin’ the ’shine. But I ain’t been. I tell ya, that thing’s got some kinda powers or something, sure as sure.”

  “Go on!” she urged, pointing down the hall. And so, he went.

  As he came to the boy’s bedroom door he noticed something odd. It appeared that there was a shoe on the door. But it wasn’t that the shoe was painted onto the door, or that there was a shoe stuck to the door, but rather, it looked like a tennis shoe had been melted into the door. Craig smiled and tried to bulk up his courage, and then he opened the door.

  “Steven?” he said.

  The boy, Steven, was sitting in front of the Device - the Space Sieve – the exact same Machine that I have mentioned previously and which is one of the reasons for my producing this document. And as Steven sat in front of it with his fingers dancing on the glowing, shifting keys, its screen was ablaze with shapes and colors. To the left and the right of the Machine floating in mid-air were three auxiliary screens each, for a total of seven screens. Under each screen was a keyboard, and Steven, while turning his attention from one screen to the next, moved his hands upon the keyboards as they whipped toward him and than back again at his command. His toys and knick knacks on his dresser and other parts of his room jiggled about, and Craig felt what seemed to him like a breeze in the room. The window at the opposite side of the bedroom was open. It was a clear, sunny day outside.

  You will recall that the former user of this Device – David – had lost track of it. And after he did, the Machine went to a landfill, where it was buried under tons of garbage.

  You will also recall that when the Device originally entered your reality, it was as a result of its drifting there – a coincidence.

  However in this case, its showing up where it did was no happenstance, but was by design.

  This boy – the orphan Steven – who had come to live with his distant relatives, Craig and Donna – had found the Device resting inside a hedge of tall oleanders as he was walking down a dusty road one day. You see, it had been deliberately placed there for him to find. Steven had gone back to retrieve it, by pulling a wagon tied behind his bicycle. He had placed the Device on the wagon, and had hauled it home.

  But unlike David, Steven did not learn how to operate the Device himself, nor could he have done so. For David to have figured out how to operate a Device such as this on his own was very, very rare indeed. By contrast, Steven was shown how to operate it.

  But now I’m getting a little ahead of myself. You see, now that I am composing these concluding notes I can feel that I am almost done with this account. I suppose it is understandable that I would be feeling a little hasty. In spite of my acceding to a desire to relate these last notes, I do still so want to get this experience with your language over with.

  Craig stepped into the boy’s room and closed the door behind him. He really didn’t want Donna listening to him as he tried to do something he feared he would be no good at. (Is this not a strange characteristic of humans? What creatures are there that one can find who are in many ways, more incompetent than you? And yet, because of your remarkable pridefulness, you feel hesitant in admitting you are deficient at anything, hating even worse to have someone see you being deficient at something.)

  In any case, as Craig closed the door the light from the seven glowing screens lit his face as his jaw dropped. Stunned, he stood there, watching Steven’s hands wildly moving from keyboard to keyboard like a genius plying a great organ for what he knew would be the final performance of his life. And indeed, so it was.

  Passing in front of Craig’s eyes on the various screens were wonders that he had never imagined, much less seen. He had come to talk to Steven about all the noise and mayhem that Steven was causing. But now that thought was far, far away. Craig’s mind was now adrift – it was a leaf in the wind. There was nothing for him to think, and nothing for him to do, but stare. And as he did, his mouth slowly moved into a smile.

  As he watched Steven’s fingers move strangely upon the shifting keys, it was shocking to behold. But more than that, it was truly wondrous.

  And at that moment, still unseen to Craig, to the side of room were two glowing beings. They appeared to be standing on the floor, but the soles of their feet were hovering a few inches above it. The man was blonde, the woman was dark haired.

  But surely, you already knew that.

  Sapentia leaned over to Actio. “I just can’t begin to tell you how much of this I disagree with,” she said. “Showing this boy how to operate this Machine – showing him all these functions . . . The other boy, David – who figured it all out – that was bad enough. But to actually show one of them . . .”

  Actio didn’t reply.

  Sapentia continued. “I still can’t understand . . .”

  Actio turned to her. “A commitment,” he said, and he turned back to watch Steven, “is a commitment.”

  “But Actio,” Sapentia continued, “no one could ever have expected you to fulfill the commitment you made to those two boys. It was impossible. I knew that when you said it. I knew that when I asked you to say it to them.”

  “It was my fault,” he said. “Ultimately, it was my responsibility.” He turned to her. “That alone would have been reason enough.” And he turned back to watch Steven. “But on top of that, I gave my assurance.”

  Sapentia turned back to watch Steven as he worked the Machine with the skill of a carefully tutored student. She looked back at Actio, then at the Machine again, and she said, very softly, while very faintly shaking her head, “Not possible.”

  Suddenly, the sound in the room increased. If you had been there, it would have sounded like a train was passing over the roof of the house at the same time that a great wave was crashing upon it, and although it was a sound that was very full and loud, it caused no pain. The light in the room grew intense as the screens all turned an electric blue-white, and the keys on all the keyboards flashed a blinding white light, like electric welders all str
iking a hundred arcs at once – like the corona of the sun flashing in the room – and yet no one had to squint, not even Craig.

  Sapentia’s face grew grim, and then her mouth opened. She stepped back, and placed her hand on Actio’s shoulder. (For a being of Sapentia’s knowledge and power to step backward in awe is no small thing, to say the least.)

  Actio stood firm.

  “That can’t be,” she said.

  For in the middle of the room a spherical object had appeared. It resembled one of the ships of the Kex that I mentioned previously, but it was only as big as a large melon and was perfectly brilliant in color, as if it contained all the colors in existence at once, including both black and white, as well as all the other colors, at the same time.

  Sapentia pressed her lips together, and they trembled in fear. (As I said, this is no small thing.) “Actio, tell me that’s not what I think it is.” And although, as I have said, these two speak in a language of clarity and beauty that you cannot comprehend, as she spoke, her voice cracked very noticeably.

  “It IS!,” he said firmly, if gravely, as he concentrated on what was happening.

  As Sapentia spoke, she sounded very plaintive. “But no Actio, that can’t be. No. It’s just not possible, Actio. If that is truly the temporal nexus of that Machine, it cannot exist outside of the enclosure of that Device, much less be taken out of the Machine!”

  The sphere hovering in the room flashed.

  His eyebrows raised and then lowered. “It is possible. Indeed, there it is. More importantly, it was the only way.”

  She shook her head. “Oh Actio, what have you done? That nexus cannot exist outside the Machine. For it to even be here is impossible. But given that it is here, oh Actio, if that really is the temporal nexus of the Machine . . .” and her voice trailed off.

  “Indeed,” he said. “I know the risk! But as I said, I have planned it all to the last detail! Everything that is occurring here in this room is happening just as I have planned it! There is not the slightest deviation!”

  He pointed at Craig. “He will begin to move toward the boy. Then he will retreat.” Just as Actio finished speaking, Craig did just that.

  “There, you see?” said Actio. “I have planned everything to the slightest detail!”

  At this, Sapentia moved in front of Actio and faced him. She grabbed his robe and pulled him up close. “Brilliant!” she said, fully earnest. “Absolutely brilliant! This is one of the greatest achievements ever performed! To have caused a Device such as this to disembody its own temporal nexus – it is an unfathomable accomplishment! You are truly amazing!” Then she clenched her teeth. “But Actio! Do you know why nobody has ever even tried to do this?!”

  He looked at her, and his teeth also clenched. “I know!” he said. “The risk is great! It is immense! But what stands to be gained – to be recovered – is also great! Please, I need you Sapentia! I need your support!” And he looked at her entreatingly.

  She stared back at him for a moment then returned to his side. “Well,” she said soberly, “I guess what stands to be gained must be important. After all, it’s worth risking the complete annihilation of this universe.”

  Actio shook his head. “Not just this one,” he said, all of them. All the universes with which this Device has interacted.”

  Sapentia tried for Actio not to notice as she involuntarily raised her hand to her mouth in horror.

  You see, what has happened here, is that Steven – following Actio’s instruction – has freed the temporal nexus of his Device. For those of you unfamiliar with what that means, and indeed, for those of you who are insufficiently familiar even with your own language to guess what it means, I will tell you.

  The temporal nexus is that part of the Machine that maintains all events relating to any action the Machine has taken in any universe that is time-constrained, such as yours is. You will recall that when Leland traveled back in time, he had no power to change time whatsoever. When he traveled back, everything happened just as it had before. But this Device has the power to change time (Indeed, it has changed the present and the future, has it not?) For it to do this, all of those changes must be stored, and indeed created, by the Machine’s temporal, or time, center, or nexus. But the existence of the temporal nexus inside a Device such as this has always been only a theory. Indeed, it is to Sapentia’s immense credit that she was able to recognize so quickly what it was that she was seeing, inasmuch as nobody had ever seen one before.

  To be brief therefore, it is Actio’s intention simply to destroy the temporal nexus of the Space Sieve. Theoretically, if he were to do this, it would be as though the Space Sieve never had existed. Obviously, given the events of this record that I am writing, for the Space Sieve to have never existed would have immeasurable benefits.

  But there is one downside.

  Rather than leave you to guess, I will once again have to explain. You see, when it was contained within the Space Sieve, this temporal nexus could only interact with the outside world through the controlling systems of the Machine. But now that it was outside, it could interact with your universe, indeed with any universe, independently. And indeed, in this unconstrained form, it was highly unstable.

  “Actio,” she said. “If this nexus becomes unstable, it will destroy this universe and all those others – not just for all time to come, but for all past time as well.”

  Actio didn’t respond.

  She looked at him. “You are sure, Actio?”

  He nodded, determinedly. “I have calculated everything to the last degree. There is no possibility of error.” And just then, he pointed at Craig, who was watching all of this, and Actio said, softly, “Wow,” and then Actio shook his head.

  Just as he did, Craig said softly, “Wow,” and then he shook his head.

  “You see,” said Actio,” I know everything that will happen, to the smallest detail.”

  And indeed, Sapentia, with her emotion rising, hoped he did.

  In other words, to explain it again, one of two things is going to happen here. This is important, and I am writing this part of this account just for you, so please pay attention: Either Actio will succeed, and he will implode the temporal nexus, in which case it will be as though his Device had never existed. This will of course, have immeasurable benefits. The other possibility is that he will fail, in which case the temporal nexus will essentially detonate. This will annihilate all time within all time-constrained universes with which the Space Sieve has interacted. In other words, time within your universe will cease to exist, and your universe therefore, will cease to exist. There will be no more you, there will be no more Earth, there will be no more stars, or anything else in your universe. It will not “blow up” or anything so theatrical as that. Instead, it will simply cease. It will simply, no longer be. Or more accurately, to the extent one can be accurate using your language, your entire universe will simply, cease to ever have existed. Since time itself is integral to your universe, and since time within your universe will be annihilated, it will be as though your universe never did exist.

  Imagine, in the blink of an eye, you, and everything you have ever known, everything you have ever seen, vanishes – and everything, no matter how far out in space, simply ceases. And moreover, try to visualize that not only does not one bit of it exist anymore, but it never will exist, and perhaps more difficult for you to understand, none of it ever will have existed. All history, as you call it, will never have been.

  How is that possible, you ask? How could all this solid matter, all this energy, all of these things that you see and feel all around you and all of the things you see so far away in Space, simply cease?

  Well, as you would say, it’s easy.

  You see, all of what you see is largely comprised of nothing anyway. Your bodies – solid as they seem to you – are mostly water. Even the most unyielding matter in your universe is largely comprised of
nothing but empty space. You understand that even atoms are comprised of virtually nothingness. Energy is virtually nothing. And even you would have to ask, what is time? Although it is the very fabric of your lives, even time is essentially, nothing. As I have said, what you call past, present, and future, is all the same thing to me. And what is it all, if not almost nothing?

  The temporal nexus of this Space Sieve has far and away sufficient interactive influence to annihilate your universe. Indeed, it can do it more easily than your morning sun can eliminate the morning frost – one minute it is there, so real and so visible, and the next minute – gone. Of course, in the case of the frost, it simply becomes water vapor. In the case of your universe, it will really be gone – and not just your universe, but many others. Indeed, the world they called “New California” would also be gone, and the two girls with it.

  To be more succinct –

  Actio succeeds: And it will be as if the Space Sieve has never existed.

  Actio fails: And it will be as if nothing you have ever known in your universe has ever existed.

  So you see, Sapentia was quite right to be concerned. I have to admit at that particular moment even I was a little concerned myself.

  But from where you’re sitting, there’s nothing to be concerned about, is there? Even though we’re talking here about the possibility of the complete annihilation of your universe and many other universes, from where you’re sitting, you should have absolutely no concern at all.

  After all, since you are in fact sitting there reading about all of this, you know how it all turned out, don’t you? After all, you’re still there, aren’t you? Surely you had already realized that Actio would be successful, by virtue of the mere fact that you still exist!

  None of this therefore, can have the slightest suspense for you, can it?

  (And indeed, I have to tell you that regarding your universe and all these other universes, there were other beings [who I do not describe here] who were very interested in them and in how all of this was going to turn out. In truth, these beings take an intense interest in some of these universes. In fact, these beings were involved enough by this point that they had already taken steps to insure that Actio’s success was already a forgone conclusion. But neither he nor Sapentia knew that.)

  Just then, the temporal nexus became clear and increased in size, flashing violently.

  “It’s going now Actio!” she said.

  “Watch the boy’s glasses,” he replied.

  And at that moment, a shockwave emanated from the Machine and tore across Steven’s, head and hurled his glasses to the ceiling, where they stuck, and then melted into it.

  “Don’t worry,” said Actio. “He can do the rest by feel – and he’s going to have to, because now that the Machine will begin to disintegrate his body, he will be unable to do it any other way.”

  Sapentia entreated, “But these creatures need their bodies – fragile as they are – to be able to live. ! Actio, is this boy going to . . .”

  Actio turned to her and shook his head. “Is one boy’s life really so high a price to pay, for the safety of all these universes?”

  And may I add at this point: What is the big deal? In spite of all your pretentiousness, people in your world live and die as you say, like flies, every day, anyway. What’s one boy? After all, he gets to save his own world. How many of you get to do that? And in reality, even though you think that it’s all you have, how long do any of your short lives last anyway?

  “This was part of my studies,” said Actio. “It took a long time to find a boy who would have the courage of this – the courage to persevere – no matter the personal cost. No, this boy doesn’t want to die, far from it. But he has both the skill to run this Machine, as well as the determination to see it through to the final conclusion no matter what!”

  Just then, another shockwave emanated from the Machine. Craig staggered back, able to do little but stare, and watch. But momentarily, his mood changed, or his beloved pet, “Lady,” had just poked its head in the bedroom window.

  This animal was one of what you call a “dog.” And may I say, I find it odd that you use the word “dog” as a general reference of great derision, while at the same time loving a few of them. In other words, while you use the word “dog” as a slur for almost anything, and while you often view other people’s dogs with contempt, nonetheless, you develop a great attachment for your own dog. This is due to the fact that these animals have been bred for centuries to do nothing so well as flattering their own owners. And this they do energetically, and convincingly. Vain creatures that you are, you always take this personally. Thus, while you generally see dogs as vile creatures you see your own dog as much smarter than the rest. After all, your dog, unlike others, seems to recognize how wonderful you are, doesn’t it?

  “Lady!” Craig said, as he leapt to the window. Characteristically, the dog began to lick Craig’s face, and Craig, characteristically, puckered his lips. There was a sense of relief to Craig to be playing with the animal, and thus to have a distraction from the bizarre goings-on in the room.

  “How’s my little honey?” he said, and he turned back to the boy. “Hey Scoot . . . uh . . . . I mean Steven, hey Steven, this little girl’s a-wonderin’ what’s a goin’ on in here!”

  As Steven turned to look – and even though he couldn’t see it clearly – he knew how Craig was kissing the animal, and it disgusted him. And as Steven looked, his attention waned from the Machine. There had been three auxiliary screens to either side of the Machine. Two of them disappeared.

  Actio jumped.

  “Variable!” he cried, with anguish in his voice. His jaw clenched and he became rigid and confused. He hadn’t planned for this!

  But Sapentia acted quickly. The situation was critical now, and in this time-constrained reality there was no time to lose. Her eyes fell on the dog and her hand went up to her mouth in concentration. Her lip flinched.

  “YIPE!!” the dog called out, as it immediately broke away and ran out to a safe distance in the yard.

  “What’s a-matter honey?” Craig called. “Bee done bit ya?”

  Sapentia’s finger flicked.

  “YIPE!” The dog let out another cry and tore across the backyard and ducked under the fence.

  Sapentia lowered her hand. The variable had been removed.

  Spinning now in three axes, and flashing wildly and blindingly, the nexus appeared to grow wild with fury. (But of course it wasn’t growing furious. It isn’t alive. It has no emotion. I just have to use these sorts of words to describe what is going on, since there is little other way to explain it to you.) It also appeared to be roaring – to be screaming at an ear-piercing volume. And yet, there was no need cover one’s ears. It was perfectly possible to speak in a normal voice, and be heard.

  “Steven?” Craig asked. Steven had already recreated the two screens, so there were once again seven screens and seven keyboards, which he was working furiously.

  “Steven?” Craig asked again. “Whatcha doin’ son? Ya . . . ya need’n any help there boy?”

  Steven didn’t look up. “It’s all right Uncle Craig. I’m almost done. It’s almost, almost ov . . .”

  With a crash, the nexus flashed and increased in size for the final time. Partly involuntarily, Sapentia cringed, as did Actio. And indeed, Sapentia stepped back again, for she didn’t want Actio to see she was trembling now.

  The temporal nexus was now only moments from detonation – and you, and your universe, only moments from annihilation.

  As Craig looked around, the room looked strange.

  Back in the kitchen, as Donna reached for a pencil, it disappeared. She looked out the window. Somehow, everything looked odd, like in a dream.

  Sapentia, now almost hysterical, could now do little but watch. She stood in silence, where Actio could not see her.

  “This is the end,”
said Actio, as always, speaking in his own language, which I am having to translate into your crude form of communication.

  He looked fondly at the boy. “You’ve done your part – goodbye, Steven.”

  And Steven vanished. Without giving you all the details, the light from the nexus appeared to dissolve him. As he disappeared, Actio took the controls of the Device himself. And as he did, Craig saw him, and then Sapentia, for the first time. But by now, Craig could no longer think, or move.

  From his perspective, what happened to Steven was this. He found himself falling in a black void. While he sensed himself increasing in speed, there were at first no points of reference to be seen to prove he was actually falling. Then, below, he saw large, dull-brown spinning disks. They looked essentially like the undersides of huge, spinning tops. He was heading for one of them. As he landed and sprawled on it, near the center, the friction grabbed him and he turned around and around with the spinning surface. But soon he began to slide outward, to the edge of the disk. Unable to hold on, he slipped off, and was falling once again. Then, below him, another disk appeared as he fell toward it. He landed on this disk, held on, then was thrown off again, and so forth. While falling, and landing, and then being thrown off a succession of these disks, everything continually grew darker. Then finally, the darkness became total and there was nothingness. It was oblivion.

  This is why Actio had to let Steven do the first parts of the work that needed to be done. Actio knew that he himself would have to do the last part. And if Actio had been annihilated as Steven had been, he would not have been around to do that. Could Actio have spared Steven, and taken his place, he would have done so. But it had not been possible.

  And what Actio did now with the Space Sieve, he did quickly. With a sound like a huge chorus of screaming voices, and with trembling and terrible flashes of light, the temporal nexus of the Machine trembled, then imploded, and then, was gone.

  In the same instant, the house that they were in vanished, Craig and Donna vanished, and Actio, Sapentia, and the Device were in an open meadow. The sky overhead was still clear, and the sun blazed in it. A single cow chewed its cud lazily at the end of the meadow, beside a fence that ran into the distance. The Space Sieve lay on the grass, on its back.

  Except now, it wasn’t black. It was a dull, cream color. If you had been sufficiently perceptive as David had been, you would have always felt that somehow, the Space Sieve looked alive. This contrast was especially vivid now, because now, it looked truly dead.

  Sapentia smiled at Actio. “It’s nice to see the sun, nice to see the grass too, and the fence, and the cow,” She waved her hand expansively, “and the rest of this universe.”

  But rather than reply at first, Actio savored the moment. They both knew his accomplishment in imploding the nexus had been immense. But he was thinking about something even more important.

  “Have you looked?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “When the temporal nexus was extant outside the Machine – when it was visible – I saw all that it contained. I saw all that had happened as a result of this Machine. I saw all that it did.”

  She looked at him very directly. “I assume it’s all gone now, Actio.”

  But Actio was quick to correct her. “If I may say, my love, it was not the Machine that did any of it. After all, it is only a Device.”

  But Sapentia would not accept his argument. “Had it not been for your Machine none of it would have happened. Nonetheless,” she continued, “I did see. The Machine is gone now, and all that it had done must now also be gone.”

  Somewhat chastened, Actio followed up. “But have you looked?”

  “No,” she replied. And after a pause she said, “I believe I know. But I want you to show me.”

  Then she chuckled. “For starters,” she asked, “What happened to the house?”

  (To help you understand, I will point out that Actio and Sapentia, using their own abilities, can travel to various points in time, space, and reality. As creatures advance, their knowledge becomes such that they can do many things that might otherwise appear miraculous. Yet, Actioand Sapentia cannot do all things. This is something few beings attain.)

  The scene around them changed. They were standing in the air above an intersection. A car was hurrying through, clearly running a red light.

  “This is the time and place where Steven’s parents were killed,” Actio said. “But look, now they made it safely. Oh, this is a coincidence,” he continued, “the garbage truck that killed Steven’s parents was the same one that was going to take away the Space Sieve when David’s parents threw it away that morning. The delay caused when David ran out of the house to stop it, resulted in the garbage truck being in this intersection a little later than it would have been, and as the truck came through the intersection, hurrying, it was here when Steven’s parents were running a red light. That coincidence – together with his parents running the light – is what killed them.

  “But now, none of that happened. David never stopped the garbage truck because he never had the Device. Steven’s parents were never killed. The Space Sieve never was.”

  Then around them, the scene changed again. And if you don’t understand it – and I think you should have by now – Actio and Sapentia can travel backward and forward in your time as easily as I can, and indeed, as easily as they can travel from place to place, not only in your world, but in the total sphere of creation. And they knew where to go as well, having seen while the temporal nexus was disembodied.

  Now, it was Christmas, five years hence. Steven was at his parents’ house with his brothers and sisters.

  “He’s even cuter now than when I first saw him,” commented Sapentia. “It looks like he’s traded his glasses for contact lenses.”

  Actio continued. “His parents never died, so Steven never went to live with Craig and Donna, and it turns out those two never built that house we were in either. All that has ever been there was that field – and I suppose, the fence, and the cow.

  As Sapentia smiled at him, the scene changed again. They were standing on the curb, outside David’s boyhood home.

  “This is the day the garbage truck picked up the Device in front of David’s house – the day David ran out and stopped it – and the day it fell off the truck and hit the sidewalk.” And Actio rubbed the sidewalk with his toes. “There’s no chip in the sidewalk here. The Space Sieve was never here to chip it.” And the scene changed again.

  They were standing now in a far-away world. At least, it is far away for people from Earth.

  Sapentia recognized it immediately. “This is the planet where Kito-Ono lived,” she said.

  “Yes, it is.” Actio replied.

  Surely, if you are not blinded by the hubris that is so typical for you kind, you would have anticipated that the interactions of the Space Sieve – while it existed – stretched far beyond your Earth and influenced the lives of many other creatures besides your own and beyond what I have recorded herein. Indeed, it is a vast number of them. What Actio and Sapentia are investigating here then, is one of those other instances.

  For your benefit then, this planet is called “Ono,” and Kito-Ono was a great leader there. Some time previous, under his leadership, the people of Ono had defeated their foes – those who would have invaded their world and deprived them of their liberty if not their lives. The wars having ended, Kito-Ono had retired to a small house in a rural part of their world to live out the rest of his life with his wife and family.

  But as a result of the inter-dimensional forces that were unleashed during the wars, the Device – the so-called Space Sieve – had come into this world and had been found by a girl named Shanna-Ono. She, like David, had gotten past the Tic, but she had never been able to achieve anywhere near the capability with the Device that David did. You see, there is a saying: “Just because you get past the Tic, doesn’t mean
you know everything.”

  Anyway, she managed to open an inter-dimensional rift – one that had been sealed after the wars. Opening it, using the Device, allowed a new enemy to emerge that attempted to conquer Ono. As a result, Kito-Ono had been forced to come out of retirement, to lead the people of Ono once again to the stars to fight for their world.

  Of course, in most worlds – and indeed for most of your own Earth’s history – it is the leaders who lead their people into battle. It is only in corrupt civilizations where a leader – or group of leaders – will argue for the benefits of having a war, and then for the leader or leaders to stay safely away from the battlefield, while others sacrifice their lives for the great causes that the leaders have put forth. Typically, if the cause is seen as being great enough for a leader to ask others to sacrifice their lives for it, the leader also is required to sacrifice – or at least risk – his life for it as well. You have a saying: “If it’s good sauce for the goose, it should also be good enough sauce for the gander.”

  But the Ono were a good people, whose leaders fought alongside them. So during this new battle for Ono, the enemy had employed an algorithm that had revealed to them, based on the movements of all the ships in the battle, which ship was most likely to be piloted by the commander of the forces of Ono. In this way, it was unnecessary for them to crack the communication codes of their enemies to find the leader’s ship. They could identify the leader’s ship merely from the nature of the movements of all the ships. They soon identified the ship piloted by Kito-Ono and directed a preponderance of their fire on his vessel, destroying it early in the battle.

  But far from disheartening the people of Ono, the loss of their great leader, Kito, had inspired in them a determination that was intense. For in addition to fighting for their world, their homes, their families, and their liberty, now they also fought for the memory of Kito.

  And they drove their enemies from their skies.

  “This is Kito’s home,” said Sapentia.

  “Yes,” replied Actio. “And there he is.”

  And sitting on the porch of a modest home, reading, was indeed Kito-Ono.

  Sapentia smiled.

  “There was no Space Sieve,” said Actio. “None of it ever happened. When the war ended, the inter-dimensional rifts were sealed. There was never a Device here to reopen them. The Ono are secure, and Kito lived to an old age.”

  “And Shanna?” inquired Sapentia.

  Actio smiled and wagged his head. “The Machine never existed, so it was never here for her to find,” he said.

  Now, Actio and Sapentia were standing on a vast prairie. This was the same one where the two Kex ships had cut the canyon-sized grooves into the planet surface when they were chasing the urchin ship that David had created to taunt them. But there were no canyons now.

  “It looks natural,” said Sapentia, as always, in her own language. “I like it this way better.”

  Actio nodded his agreement. “No Device. It was never here.” He shrugged. “It was never anywhere.”

  The scene changed again. They were now in space above the Kex home world.

  “It looks the same,” observed Sapentia. “There are mo tributary vessels of the Barbarian Hoard in orbit around the Kex home world.”

  “Indeed,” replied Actio. “The Kex are still a free people – still masters of their domain. They were never conquered by the Barbarian Hoard.”

  “Actio, I want you to tell me how it was that the Kex fell. I haven’t looked. I want you to tell me.”

  “Well,” he replied. “Early on, David had the presence of mind to set the Device so it would never do anything that would lead to his death or injury – this was first evidenced when they were at the Graveyard of the Gods – but sadly, he didn’t think to set it to protect anybody else. Anyway, David caused quite a ruckus with the Kex, and as you well know, all those ships that were around him in space when he plunged Chip and himself into that sun – all those ships were just private vessels – friends of the families of the children who David and Chip had been frightening. While they were all very powerful ships, they were just pleasure craft of the Kex, not their far more powerful military vessels. Indeed, once, when an enemy of theirs continued to vex them, the Kex sent a fleet of military ships that sliced up the enemy planet like a piece of fruit, until it was just a spherical mass of magma floating in space. I have to hand it to the Kex: As far as directed energy weapons they really know what they’re doing.

  “Anyway, those ships that David overcame were only private vessels that came to see what was going on with the two little ships that David was pestering. The parents basically came to see what all the fuss was that their children were having.

  “Well, the whole affair was disturbing enough that the Kex military that they immediately began to study the events – recognizing that David and the Device posed a potential threat to the Kex that was perfectly insurmountable and that could with impunity destroy the entire Kex civilization – and so they understandably felt it was their responsibility to do whatever was necessary to eliminate that threat. And David, who had still not perfected his use of the Device, in departing the Kex universe left a trail of wrinkled space that the Kex scientists eventually tracked all the way back to David’s home universe, and to Earth.

  “But these scientists realized it would not be easy, going and getting him, and securing the Space Sieve. It would in fact, take the combined power of two-thirds of the entire Kex battle fleet just to open a sufficient passage to be able to travel to David’s universe.

  “You know, some of these species are pretty good at some things, and then other parts of their technology are just so inferior . . .”

  “Just go on with the story, Actio,” she said.

  “Well, they concluded that once their fleet had traveled to David’s universe, it would be hopefully a simple matter to send a single ship, hidden in an electromagnetic drape, to David’s planet to capture him unawares and take him back to the Kex home world – together with the Device. But their problem, was once they traveled to David’s universe, for the Kex to return to their home universe would once again take the power of two-thirds of their most powerful ships, meaning of course that almost all of their vast battle fleet would have to travel to David’s universe, in order to be able to travel back.

  “So then it would follow,” Sapentia interjected, “that once the Kex fleet left their reality, the entire Kex domain was then largely undefended and open for invasion by the Barbarian Hoard. They must have seen David as quite a danger to have been willing to take so great a risk, and apparently, a risk that ultimately would prove disastrous to their civilization. Once they left themselves wide open, their enemies lost no time . . . but Actio, that couldn’t have been what happened.”

  “No,” Actio corrected, “Actually, quite the contrary. The Barbarian Hoard did overrun the Kex, but the Kex never traveled to David’s home world. For once the Device detected that the Kex were about to do so, because of the general directive that David had given it to protect him, the Machine basically ‘took the initiative’ and simply stopped the Kex from coming. It deactivated all the inter-dimensional drive capability from all of the Kex vessels, and it erased all related technology from all the Kex’ data banks.

  “As the Kex were preparing to jump into David’s universe, they suddenly found themselves completely without any inter-dimensional capability whatsoever. And without this capability, they were at a huge disadvantage to their enemies who had this capability. The Kex had lost most of their mobility, while their enemies retained all of theirs. This disparity allowed their enemies to attack and retreat without the Kex being able to follow them, or even to predict where their enemies would attack next. The Kex were left to play a war only of defense. They could not take the battle to their enemies. It was only a matter of time before they were defeated and overrun.”

  “It’s interesting.” he continued. “Th
e Machine could have done anything to fill the directive David gave it to protect him. What it chose to do was relatively minor, and quite unspectacular, nonetheless it was entirely effective in protecting David, to say nothing of changing the entire course of civilization in the Kex universe.”

  “Sometimes by small means, are large things accomplished,” observed Sapentia.

  Actio continued. “But now, none of that happened. The Space Sieve never existed. David was never here. The Kex never heard or dreamed of any of that. So here they are, still secure, still masters of their domain.”

  “Well I suppose then,” she surmised, “the only reason David was able to expire, the only reason he was eventually able to die was . . .”

  “He erased the memory of the Machine,” Actio replied. “And then he abandoned it. Had David’s order to the Machine remained intact, the machine would have continuously protected him as it did with the Kex, and as it did in so many other all other cases, even though David never realized it.

  “Moreover,” he continued, “it would have continuously maintained, repaired, and renewed his body. He would have lived forever.”

  “Hmmm.” She replied. “It’s a little confusing. Had David not wiped the memory of the Machine and his order remained intact he would have lived forever. But he did wipe the memory, so he died. But now, since the machine never existed and David never had it, he never gave it that order. So . . .”

  Actio replied. “David lived - will live – out the rest of his life, and die, just as he would have done had there never been a Space Sieve. And of course, there never was a Space Sieve.”

  The scene changed again. Actio pointed to the tops of the trees that were lining the small park in which he and Sapentia were now standing. “David, when he was flying, and when he was pulling himself along in the branches in the tops of those trees over there, he broke that little twig off right there. But look, it’s still there. David was never here.”

  Sapentia pushed him. “Okay, now you’re teasing me,” she said. But she looked at him with love and admiration. “Show me what I want to see. Show me the important things, Actio. You know those I wish to see.”

  And Actio and Sapentia found themselves in a large home near the Pacific Ocean. There were the sounds of children in the background.

  “This is one of the last times David and Chip met in their old age, after their kind,” Actio said.

  As one of the children ran past them, (and of course, Actio and Sapantia could not be seen), Sapentia’s eyes filled with delight as she saw the little boy.

  “It’s David!” she said.

  And she looked at Actio. “But you said this was when they were older! It’s David, and he’s just a little boy. How?” she asked.

  Actio beamed as he realized who it had been. “That little boy - it’s David’s grandson,” he said. “The resemblance is striking.”

  “You know,” he continued, “I really feel kind of strange showing you all this when you could perfectly well see for yourself if you . . .”

  “Just you keep showing me,” she interrupted.

  Actio smiled. He was so fond of her. Who wouldn’t be? I have to confess, Sapentia, is alluring.

  “Well,” Actio said to Sapentia, “then we’ll want to go onto the balcony.”

  And as they walked, the little boy ran onto the large balcony, and up to two older men who were sitting there in chairs, talking, as they looked out over the sea. In the distance the seagulls were soaring.

  “Amazing creatures,” said David, “the aerobatics are awe inspiring if you think about it.”

  “Yes they are,” replied Chip, “You know – Nature – everything around us – we take so much for granted. You seem to notice more than I do, David.”

  And for a moment, David and Chip just looked into the distance together, simply enjoying each other’s company as they had done so many times before in their close friendship that had lasted through the many years.

  “Just two old men,” said Sapentia. “No ‘Graveyards of the Gods’ for them. They never traveled to any other planets; never saw any other universes. They just spent all the years of their lives as good friends - living, and experiencing. But they never had the Space Sieve.”

  Actio shrugged. “Neither of them would even know what one looked like.”

  “Grandpa!” The little boy ran up to him. “Grandma told me to tell you a long time ago that dinner’s ready.”

  “Well we better get going then,” said David to the little boy. “And when Grandma gets mad at your grandpa, you tell her it wasn’t my fault that we’re late!”

  And as the little boy ran off, the two men got up and headed into the house.

  “You know Chip,” David said to him, “I’ve always liked evenings like this. We’ve had it pretty good, you and I.”

  “Yes,” said Chip. “I’ve enjoyed being in the furniture business, although I never found that perfect chair that I somehow always imagined there should be. But I did okay.”

  “Well,” replied David, and even in his advanced years his face still had a happy, boyish quality, and there was a twinkle in his eye, “the chairs you did sell were pretty good. I always liked ’em! In fact, I was thinking that anything better than that last chair you sold me would only have been possible in another universe!” And they chuckled.

  “You know, David,” he replied, “you were always the smartest person I ever knew.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said David. “You always tell me that! But look at you. I should be the one flattering you!”

  “Well,” replied Chip, “you’ll have to compete with my wife to do that. You know I can never get Diane to stop saying nice things about me.”

  “Yeah,” said David, “Sally’s the same with me. You know, I think I had a crush on her from the time we were just kids. We’ve both been very fortunate in a lot of ways. Having you as a good friend all these years – the times we’ve all spent together – you, me, Sally, Diane, our kids, the grandkids. It’s been a great life. We’ve been very fortunate.”

  “Yeah,” replied Chip, “of course my take on it,” and he put his arm around his old friend and they headed in, “is that we’ve both been very blessed.”

  “So,” asked Sapentia, “David married Sally and Chip married Diane?”

  Actio nodded, and as he did, he prepared to take them to yet another place.

  Sensing this, Sapentia stopped him. “Wait,” she said, as they paused to watch the family go in for dinner. Then she nodded at Actio, and they were on a large plain. In the distance were two peaks. It was the world the two girls had named “New California,” the peaks “The Two Alps,” and the valley, “Shenandoah.”

  But there was no castle between the peaks, and none of those places had ever been so named. The girls had never been there to give them those names. Nobody had ever been there to build the castle. None of what the girls did in this place, ever happened. They were never here.

  As Actio and Sapentia stood there, fully visible to all the creatures there, some of the creatures ran toward them, as a flurry of communication beetles flew up to them and swirled around. They were flying energetically, and they appeared haggard, to the extent that a beetle can appear haggard. And they were flashing wildly – a veritable fireworks show of communication beetles.

  And then broad smiles spread across Sapentia and Actio’s faces.

  For, while the communication beetles were flashing many colors, the one they were flashing most of all, was the color blue.

  Still, as the communication beetles flashed and spoke in the language of Actio and Sapentia, they were all saying different things – they were all relating the messages of a different creature, so much so, that it was impossible to understand what any of them were saying.

  For each communication beetle that was flashing blue was carrying the message of a different individual baby cherub.

  And as
Actio and Sapentia looked, they could see there were thousands of them – tiny, blue baby cherubs were everywhere. They were flying and crawling. They were running and squawking. And all the other animals were having the times of their lives playing with them.

  In the distance, something caught Sapentia’s eye.

  “Look!” She pointed.

  In the distance were two large, flying creatures, almost at the range of visibility. “It’s them,” Sapentia said. “Actio, there they are!”

  Far off, with the glow of the sky behind them two mighty creatures plied the air, far above the hectic affairs below. Their flight was powerful and magnificent, yet graceful and beautiful. They appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely.

  And indeed, they were. Together as they flew, El and Asherah were enjoying a rare moment of peace, each of them in the company of their one true love.

  “If you don’t want to translate it for yourself,” Actio said, “she is talking to him. He’s saying that as much as he loves all their children, he misses the time he used to have to fly alone with her, and she is telling him that she agrees.

  Actio paused. “Now she is telling him though, that even with all the cares that go with all these little children, she likes it this way better. He is agreeing with her.”

  “I know,” said Sapentia. “I can understand their flashing. Let’s just watch.”

  “Noisy as our little ones are,” said El to Asherah, “our kind is preserved. Our children occupy the attention of the whole world.”

  “Yes,” Asherah replied. “It’s the way it has always been when the new ones are born.”

  She beat her powerful wings and climbed into the sky with El beside, matching her beat for beat.

  “And as it will always be,” he replied, and his eyes twinkled as he looked at Asherah.

  Their wingtips touched momentarily, then they continued to soar as they had done so many times before – and as they would do so many times still to come – flying together – two longtime friends – in bliss and peace. Asherah broke to the side and tumbled, El following, and then they restored their formation and drifted away into the distance.

  Sapentia turned to Actio, momentarily distracted from the tranquil scene by a disturbing thought. “I suppose that the Evil is still locked in the cave.”

  And she turned to Actio with a shocked expression on her face as he replied.

  “No, it’s not.” he said.

  And then he looked away. “I got rid of it,” he said. “It’s one of the last things I did while the Device was still working. I sent all of the Evil in this world into oblivion. I figured as long as something was going to be going finally and ultimately into oblivion, it might as well be that. It is gone, fully and completely.” And he smiled.

  Sapentia thought for a moment.

  “Kind of neat,” she noted. “I have a feeling those two flying creatures will become two of the most celebrated beings in all of creation for what they did – for the sacrifice they made. But of course, now that the Device is destroyed, they never actually did it. They never made their great and legendary sacrifice. And now, they never will. They will never even know about it.”

  Actio shook his head. “But they would have,” he corrected. “Those two – the ones the girls called the “cherubs” – they have the capacity. They still have that level of greatness within themselves, even though they will never have to make the great and final sacrifice.

  “And of course, they will never be called “cherubs” either, nor will they ever be called ‘El’ and ‘Asherah’. There will never be anyone come to this place to name them that. We can still celebrate their greatness, but they themselves will never know.”

  Sapentia puzzled for a moment. “Does that not in some ways defeat the purpose?” she asked. “Can they be truly great, if they never are called upon to perform the great works?”

  Actio thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Maybe,” he replied. “I don’t know. But it works for me.”

  Sapentia shrugged. “I guess, actually, I’m good with it too.”

  And as I now recognize that I am beginning to use some of your silly idioms to refer to their communication, Actio then said, “There’s just one last thing I want to show you.”

  And as he spoke, they traveled a great distance in time and space, to Earth once again, to a certain Thanksgiving party.

  In the main room of the house, the adults busied themselves with preparing the foods and drinks your kind find pleasant and which are customarily prepared and consumed on such an occasion, and while others of the party were occupying themselves with conversation, observation of various electro-mechanical devices in the home and so forth, four children were more or less running amok though the rest of the house. In this sense, they were both having the most fun and stood the chance of doing the most good, as little of interest was being accomplished by the parents, other than for preparing the meal. And indeed, the children’s activities were far more entertaining as well. For the parents, while they could have been engaging themselves in interesting conversation regarding the intimate details and secrets of their lives, chose not to do so, as adults almost always choose.

  Nonetheless, in the main room, Chip’s father, Duane, and the rest of the group, laughed. Duane’s wife, Ginger, had just related an entertaining joke. It was the one about the piano-playing mouse and the singing butterfly. She was always the life of any party, and Duane felt happy, as to simply have her nearby was all he ever needed to feel that way.

  “But Actio,” Sapentia pointed out. “I thought Duane’s wife . . .”

  “. . .died?” Actio completed her sentence, “years before?”

  “Well, it turns out,” he continued, “that once, while in another part of this universe, the Device was operated by someone such that it caused an unusual ripple that intersected this world. This ripple momentarily interrupted the chemical function inside the bodies of some of the beings in this world, including Chip’s mother. In a few of those cases, their bodies were unable to recover from this anomaly, so they died.”

  Actio held his hand to his chin, then flexed his fingers. “But there was no Device, so none of that ever happened. So here she is.”

  Duane reached over and squeezed Ginger’s hand. She beamed back at him.

  In another part of the house, four children, two boys and two girls had run down the hallway and had hidden in a closet. A few moments later they came out again, and as Sapentia and Actio watched, Sally, David, Chip, and Diane emerged from the closet, a collection of objects falling out with them. They quickly gathered it all up and put it back in again, then headed off down the hall.

  “No Space Sieve to fall out of the closet.” Sapentia observed.

  “It was never here,” replied Actio, stating the obvious. “It was never anywhere. It never existed. It never was.”

  They didn’t say any more to each other – Actio and Sapentia – they just briefly chuckled at the antics of the children. And Actio, for his part, looked both relieved and satisfied.

  And with that, the two of them headed off to a place of mutual interest, to continue their happy existences.

  What all this means then, is two things. First, I am very near to the point of being able to conclude this ordeal with your language and to head off on my happy existence as well. Second, it means that except for the events I have mentioned here in these final notes – meaning the parts of this account after the time the temporal nexus was imploded – nothing I have told you in this book ever actually happened. Indeed, although it is difficult for you to understand – and I have no intention of trying to explain it to you – while the events of this document were very real and indeed, were important enough for me to document them, in another very real sense, they never actually happened at all.

  And while your own universe at one point, came very close to being completely vanished to a state of non-existence and never-existe
nce, in another very real sense, that never actually happened either.

  If you want to contemplate that for a moment you are free to do so. Indeed, you might be well to do so, although by the time you do, I will be done with recording these events, and will be long gone.

  I fear I am beginning to use your idioms far too much.

  There is one final loose end and it regards the physical “shell” of the Space Sieve. To understand what happened to it I will relate a future conversation between Sapentia and Actio.

  They were lying on a faraway shore, watching the waves and the creatures diving in the sea in the distance.

  Sapentia asked Actio a question, the subject of which by now was only a distant, relatively unpleasant memory to her. “You know that Device you made – the terribly powerful one you had to destroy?”

  He thought for an instant, then said. “Oh, you mean my Device? Yes, the Space Sieve?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “That’s what the human called it.”

  “Of course I remember it,” Actio replied. “What fun it was! But you say I destroyed it? No. I just imploded the temporal nexus.”

  “What?” she asked, her voice now tinged with concern and even a little anger. “You say, ‘What fun it was?’ It was responsible for the deaths of countless beings, and for ruining the lives of countless more. It damaged entire worlds!” Her eyes flashed. “Repairing the damage almost cost several universes! What do you mean it was fun?”

  Actio’s face now grew serious as well. “I’m sorry Sapentia; you’re right! It was irresponsible. Sapentia, what was I thinking? My love, I assure you, I am so sorry for all of it!”

  And indeed, he was truly sorry. In truth, he would have given his own existence if it had been necessary, to have made everything right.

  Accepting his sincerity, she nonetheless followed up, “But it is inert now? Your Device is truly and eternally inoperative - dead?” she asked.

  “Well yes,” he replied, “In a very real sense it is dead. I imploded its nexus after all. You know what that means.”

  “Well, yes, I do know what that means,” she replied. “And that’s my problem, Actio. I was thinking, and it came to me just now.”

  She looked at him with an intelligent, endearing expression on her face. “Just imploding the nexus doesn’t kill the Machine. All that would do, is make it as though it had never existed. But that’s not the same as being completely destroyed. It’s not oblivion, is it?”

  “No,” he replied sheepishly, “it’s not the same thing, I suppose. But it’s as good as if it was. “You see,” he explained, “once the temporal nexus is imploded, then naturally, another one is immediately spawned inside the Machine. But this one is inert, inasmuch as the Machine has never been turned on, you see?”

  “But if it were turned on?” she asked.

  “Well even if it were to be turned on, it would all be new. The existing nexus cannot ever recreate the events of the previous one. It would be as though the Machine had come into existence at that very moment. It would have no prior history. The lives of David, Kito, the cherubs, everything – nothing would change from the way it is now. Nothing would change from the current, natural state.”

  Sapentia stood up. “And that’s supposed to be a comfort?” she asked, and her voice was like the crackling of thunder across a wind-swept, stormy sky. “You mean somebody could activate it again and go rampaging across all of creation, but it’s not so bad because this time it would all simply be new? And so now you offer this to me as an assurance?”

  He also stood up now, and he raised his hands. “No.” he said. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. It cannot be reactivated. It’s locked.”

  “Locked?” she replied, incredulously. “You mean its still alive, but locked?! Her adorable voice rose in pitch. “Actio, this is one of the most disconcerting things that you have ever . . .”

  “No, no,” he assured her. “It’s not a simple lock. You see . . .”

  “I don’t care what kind of lock it is! I truly fear a lock is not good enough! I wish to asset with you my belief that the Machine should be taken apart immediately, and fully destroyed! Actio, I sincerely entreat you to insure that your Device is completely eliminated from existence!”

  It had been so long that she had been worked up like this that they both were enjoying it, at least a little.

  Actio smiled, and after pausing said, “I can’t take it apart.”

  “Please Actio, I don’t care what is required to do it.” She replied. “I deeply wish that it be completely disassembled and destroyed!”

  “I . . . I was trying to tell you love, I can’t take it apart. It can’t be destroyed. At least, I don’t know how, you see, I made it out of the same thing we’re made out of. It’s immortal . . . indestructible.” He looked at her, with his entreating eyes. “You see, the best approach is to lock it. Even were I to hide it or keep it safe somewhere, it wouldn’t be as good as locking it.”

  And as she began to realize the futility, or at least the difficulty of pressing her point, she asked him, “Well, this lock – it is a good one?”

  “Oh yes,” he replied eagerly. “It’s very complex - no, not just a tactile lock. No. It’s a chemical lock, a thermal lock, a tactile lock, all simultaneous, and then once you get through that lock then there’s another one. You see, once you get past that one then three objects appear above the Machine and you have to manipulate all three of them in just a certain way to . . .”

  “Okay.” She said. She was still disturbed, but was feeling that she had little choice but to trust him. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it. But just tell me it’s safe.”

  “Oh yes,” he replied. “It should be completely safe. Coming up with the key to the first lock set would be pretty hard to do, and the second lock – like I was telling you about the three objects above the Machine – the chances of getting past that are . . . well, and then you’d still have to get past the Tic. I know David did, but how many have ever . . .”

  He paused for a moment before continuing. “You know, I have looked at many possible outcomes relating to the shell, and I have not foreseen that it will ever be reactivated.”

  But as Actio said this, I assume you surmised that were the Device to be reactivated it would change the future of any time-constrained reality with which it interacted, and this Actio would not have been able to see, for it would be something that did not presently exist. For while Actio could travel into what you call the past and the future, he does not have the ability to manifestly change either of them, nor to calculate how they could be changed in all possible outcomes. Of course there are beings that know these things, but Actio is not one of them.

  Sapentia looked at him for a moment, a look of tension still on her face. But when he smiled at her, finally, she relaxed and smiled back too.

  Now you might wonder where Actio chose to leave his Device. Perhaps in the core of a sun, or a black hole, you might surmise, and yet such places are exactly the sort where some beings go looking for strange objects, just as you might go looking in the bottom of a well. You see, beings, thought they might have very different abilities, are often not so different in other ways. And so, if you had a dangerous, yet adored, possession, would you necessarily seek to be forever rid of it? I would suggest to you that you might be well advised to do just that. But instead, you might choose a place for it where it would always be available to you should you choose to recover it, while still being away from criticizing eyes.

  After all, what maker wishes to cast forever aside his greatest creation?