The Zal Intervention

Photograph by Gretchen Byers.
(image credits)

When Zeta and I built our retirement home, I imagined a refuge, a quiet place where I could continue my task of investigating the Secret History of Humanity and where I could finish writing about it in my old age. At that time, I only had a weak telepathic connection to Zeta, so I could not gaze deeply into her mind. I knew that Zeta's mission on Earth was to guide me in my work, but I did not know to what extent she had been allowed to view our future and plan accordingly.

When Zeta insisted that we build a large retirement home, I asked why. She had a complicated argument about her childhood and how she had grown up on a world where houses were large. Zeta claimed to feel claustrophobia in a small house. She also argued that it would be easier to sell the house if it was large and comfortable.

One thing I knew about Zeta was that she was in possession of some sophisticated medical nanites. She could pretend to be a sixty-year-old woman, but I knew that she had retained her youth through nanotechnological trickery. Sometimes I wonder if she might be essentially immortal because of her carefully crafted genetic pattern and her sophisticated femtobot endosymbiont.

Yōd

After our new home was built, we moved in with our cats and then almost immediately, Yōd had appeared on our doorstep and moved in with us and it was nice to have plenty of spare room.

When Yōd was forced to depart from Earth, the house had become strangely quiet, but that was only a short lull. My grand-daughter Rylla then appeared out of the blue and took up residence in one of the "spare" bedrooms. I found it odd that Rylla did not want to use the bedroom that had been occupied by Yōd and refused to wear any of Yōd's clothing.

{As I write this, Zeta is certain that Rylla is sensitive to a swarm of nanites that were left behind by Yōd. Although Yōd is one of Zeta's clone sisters, the body that Yōd used while living in this house was the same body that had belonged to Rylla's mother.}

Overseers

Then the day came when Rylla's father and Nora arrived. I was reminded of the day when Azynov had briefly visited and then an Overseer popped in. My quiet retirement world is turned completely up-side-down on days like that. Before I even knew what was happening, Nora, Zeta and Rylla were out of the house, off on a shopping adventure, in search of clothing for the impending wedding of Nora and my son.

After I gave my son a brief tour of the house, we settled in for a chat beside the pool. I sat there marveling at the fact that I was in telepathic contact with both Zeta and, to a lesser extent, Nora. In fact, I was trying to learn from Zeta why Nora and my son had come to America from Australia, but Nora seemed reluctant to explain anything. According to Zeta, Nora seemed to only want to do the normal things that an Earth woman would be expected to do; she seemed not to hear questions about synchronized pregnancies, telepathy and erasing memories... or any of the topics that were increasingly on Rylla's and Zeta's minds. My son had asked me a question and I had not been listening. He said, "What's wrong, dad, you seem distracted."

I was glad to see my son, so I made a serious effort to push Zeta out of my thoughts. "Sorry. I don't deal well with sudden emergencies."

Three is company: Zeta, Rylla
and Nora all 7 months pregnant

He laughed. "Ya, I hear you. I should have let you know as soon as Nora was pregnant, but I did not want to... well, I won't construct a justification. It is all so strange. Somehow, with Nora around, even the strangest things can seem ordinary."

I was worried that Nora was manipulating my son's mind and had taken control of his memories. Of course, I could not just blurt that out. "Nora seems like an amazing person. I'm so glad she was able to help you move on and begin to get over the loss of your wife."

He nodded. "That is a huge relief. I was not well for years, just in pain over the loss of Rylla's mom. Nora is good medicine for me. And Rylla seems very happy being here with you and Z."

I tired to find words to explain the situation. "I think of Zeta and your daughter as the dynamic duo. They are buddies in pregnancy; it is a great adventure for them. And now with Nora thrown in to the equation..." My mind was rather boggled.

My son shook his head in wonder, "An amazing coincidence, really, that they should all get pregnant at the same time. I thought you were past that stage, dad."

source

What could I say? My mind was full of thoughts about the mysteries of mind clones and I was grateful that my son did not know about his former student, Georgy White, being alive and caring for the first of the mind clones at Observer Base. As far as he knew, Georgy had died a horrible death; I tried to imagine what his reaction would be if I casually mentioned that Georgy was alive and in nearly constant telepathic communication with his daughter. I lied, "It is not that hard to have a vasectomy reversed. Surgeons are very skilled."

My son is a trained scientist, a professional skeptic. He has long been embarrassed by my interest in alien visitors to Earth, visitors who have left behind no physical evidence of their presence. Now he suspected that I was indoctrinating his daughter with my strange beliefs. Rather desperate to change the subject away from the matter of how I had implanted an alien-designed mind clone into my wife, I tried to shift our conversation towards my son's life. I'd long imagined that my son was wedded to his work and unable to visit America. Now, suddenly, here he was. I asked, "How did you get away from the lab?"

"After the accident and the investigations into Georgy's death and with Nora and several others leaving the lab, there were only a few people left behind. When I decided to take a sabbatical it was easy enough to move them into the care of other PIs. Five months from now I'll be back in Perth and start building up the personnel for my research lab again."

For a minute we fell silent and watched hummingbirds flit around the yard, chirping at two of the cats who were on patrol. I felt a bit guilty for having let the cats out; Zeta worried that they would be eaten by coyotes. Finally my son asked, "Do you think it is wise to allow Rylla to skip school?"

About a month after arriving in the USA, Rylla passed the GED tests and started taking some online university courses. Gradually, her studies had come to focus on the Secret History of Humanity, a topic that was not part of the curriculum for any university. Rylla and I had gotten into the habit of working together to explore mysteries of human origins and how aliens had shaped the course of human civilization. I suspected that Rylla's baby would completely derail the conventional life course that my son had imagined for his daughter. Pushing all of these thoughts away, I replied, "I'm still discovering all that is to be known about Rylla, but I think you know she is not a bookish nerd like you or I."

My son knew perfectly well what I was trying to say. "Well, sure. She has always lived in the world, not just in her head the way you do." He seemed to hesitate, then continued, "I don't want Rylla to become a problem for you and Zeta."

I chuckled, "Don't worry about that. You know, everything happens for a reason."

"You always say that, dad, but I don't know what it means."

The Time Teller

My point of view is impossible for other people to comprehend. I've learned not to tell people the truth: that my entire life has been guided by my replicoid Irhit, Zeta and her clone sisters and possibly others... nothing bad has ever happened to me (at least, nothing that was not quickly corrected). I was tempted to say: We live in a perfect world. But how could I say that to my son who had lived through being abandoned by his wife, being forced to raise his daughter alone and who had lost a young member of his research lab in a horrible accident? "Rylla came here for a purpose and when she is ready, she will move on. Zeta and I are happy that she is here with us now. Eventually, Rylla might even want to move back home and live with you for a while. More likely she'll be off traveling. She really seemed to enjoy her visit to England." I started showing my son pictures from that European vacation and the following months.

My son asked, "When did you become a photographer?"

I replied, "Most of these pictures were taken by Zeta."

"I see." My son took out his phone and said, "I seldom take pictures of anything except geological features, but I need to show you something." He handed me his phone.

At first I thought he was showing me a picture of Rylla, but he said. "Look at the date on that image. That was 15 years ago, just before Rylla was born."

I asked, "This is your wife, Vendela?" It was quite amazing: Vendela looked identical to Rylla. I blurted out, "Now I understand why Vendela left you. Except..."

"Except what, dad?"

I was thinking about Yōd and her ability to use nanites to alter her appearance. I quickly decided that there was no point for me to even wonder about Vendela, her background, her training and the question of what nanites she might have been equipped with. My son continued, "It is strange. I think I always knew that Rylla looks like her mom, but the reality of it never struck me until today when I saw her pregnant. What's going on, dad?"

What could I say? I knew that six months in the future, my son would again be caught up in his scientific research. I did not want to derail his career. Still, for the first time in his life, my son seemed interested in my work, my investigations of the secret history of Earth. I started talking about everything that had happened to Rylla during the past year. Some of what I had to say was known to my son, but Rylla had not bothered to share everything with her father.

A few hours later we were still catching my son up on the many details of the past half year of Rylla's life, but then I could no longer keep Zeta out of my thoughts. I fell silent, my mind totally occupied with thoughts about Zeta. My son seemed to be contemplating the mysteries of his daughter and we sat in silence. Then my phone rang.

It was Zeta. "Come meet us for dinner in Sedona."

I could see in Zeta's mind the many places where she and Rylla had decided to take Nora, including the plan for dinner at Rylla's favorite restaurant in Sedona. Zeta and I were using the phone call as an act, mostly for the benefit of my son, who knew nothing about telepathy. I asked, "Where do you want to eat?" Zeta told me the name of the restaurant and after some additional small talk I put away my phone. I told my son, "We better hit the road. It is a long drive over to Sedona."

In the car, my son started dozing off. "It has been crazy the past few weeks. I have not been getting enough sleep."

I told him, "This is a good time to catch a nap." I was eager to read Rylla's report on the intervention into Jack London's life in 1895. I put in my ear buds and let Rylla's report play via text-to-speech so I could listen to what she had written while I drove.....

The Zal Intervention

First Contact

When Trysta and Grean were waiting for the end of time travel, they were still making use of the Reality Viewing equipment inside Grean's workshop. Trysta was living near the workshop with Deomede and it is Deomede's account of those end days that eventually found its way into the library of the Writers Block. Gram-pa has previously provided an account of events just prior to the shift in the dimensional structure of the universe (see the Prelude to Trysta and Ekcolir).

According to Deomede, just prior to the Eanru Intervention, Grean was forced to deal with her own last-minute emergency before time travel came to an end. One day, one of the two teleporters in Grean's workshop activated and an elderly Kac'hin materialized. Grean's mind was instantly linked to that of Zal: I am a copy of you, but to avoid confusion, refer to me as Zal.

telepathy

Grean briefly thought about the famous Kac'hin named Wyzalex Torvaya. But the focus of her thoughts was here and now: she ventured into the memories of her copy (Zal) and saw that she herself must make a telportation duplicate of herself. That new individual, (Zal) must then be sent back in time to 1895. Zal would make a few small adjustments to Earth's timeline and eventually arrive back in the workshop, 75 years older than the other copy of Grean. Grean asked Zal, "What does this Intervention accomplish?"

Reality Viewing

Zal activated the Reality Viewer and adjusted the settings. "Look. Here is the comparison between the current Reality and what would have been, had I not gone to 1895." Grean looked at the displayed differentials. "Notice that with this small Reality Change, Rylla is still able to play her role in telling the people of Earth about the Secret History of Humanity. This Reality is better because there is only one minor technical violation of the Trysta-Grean Pact. Nora will remain on Earth, but her memories will have been edited so as to prevent any problems."

Interventionists

Grean nodded. "I see. Without your trip to the past, three Interventionist agents would have been trapped on Earth, leading to degradation of the course of Humanity's future." Grean pulled away from the Viewer and glared at Zal. "You have left us very little time!"

Zal giggled. "We have no time for arguments, as I planned. Make the duplication of yourself and we will teleport out." Zal tossed a vial of infites to Grean. "Then follow these instructions."

Grean stepped into the teleporter for a moment. Zal adjusted the settings on the device and then suddenly there was a copy of Grean across the workshop, inside the time kettle. Zal walked over to the kettle and adjusted the control circuits. Zal told the younger copy of herself, "Good luck." The time machine activated and the copy of Grean was sent back to 1895.

Grean climbed out of the teleportation device and said, "I hope you know what you are doing."

Zal walked past Grean, made a new adjustment to the control settings and stepped back into the teleporter. Grean asked, "Why rush off? I'm learning so much from looking into your memories of the past 75 years. Where are you going?"

Zal shrugged, "I'd rather not say. I don't want you to be influenced by my choice of retirement destinations." There was a tiny "pop" and Zal was gone.

Respecting Zal's wishes, Grean had resisted the temptation to dig down into Zal's mind in search of her teleportation destination. It was frustrating to have a copy of one's self appear and then rush off, but Grean told herself to be philosophical: If I can't trust myself, who can I trust?

Grean opened the bottle of infites and let the nanoscopic memory storage devices settle into her brain. Grean was surprised by what she learned. In order to assist Zal, some of the infites had to be sent back to 1947. And that task had to be completed quickly, before the Huaoshy put an end to time travel. Grean immediately took the infite bottle to the time machine and set the bottle inside the kettle. The controls were set to a particular time and place in 1947 and the bottle disappeared into the past.

Grean saw that she had two more tasks to complete before the end of time travel. She must initiate what Zal's infites referred to as the Eanru Intervention. Also, in just a few seconds there would be another individual arriving in the workstation by teleportation: an Interventionist agent who Zal would be finding at work in 1895. Then, after dealing with that captured Interventionist, just before time travel would end, Grean would finally be free to teleport herself off to the Galactic Core.

1895
Upon arriving in 1895, Grean felt a bit silly. She had not changed her appearance in any way and now she found herself inside a school house. Luckily, the school day had already ended and no students were in the building. She opened the bottle that she had received from Zal and felt a swarm of infites move into her body. Almost instantly she began thinking of herself as "Zal" and she knew what her mission in the past was. Using her facial nanites, Zal adjuster her appearance to become that of a typical woman living in California in the year 1895. Zal heard footsteps echoing down the hallway. A woman had entered the school and was approaching Grean. Zal glanced through the doorway to her left which opened into the school library. Inside the library, a woman was at work, re-shelving books. Zal began walking quickly down the hallway towards the approaching woman, who Zal knew to be her target. The two women stopped walking and stood there in the hallway, about four feet apart. Zal said, "I'm afraid there has been a change of plans."

The Interventionist agent looked closely at Zal, trying to identify her, and also tried to hide a slim red booklet behind herself; rather awkwardly the red book got stuck in the protruding folds of her dress where it flared out around her hips. Only moments before, this hallway had been clear, and was to remain clear until the librarian was done working and would walk through the empty hallway on her way home. Zal tossed the little infite vial to the Interventionist agent who caught the bottle. That activated the pre-set time kettle back in Grean's workshop. The Interventionist disappeared from 1895, having been sent back to Grean's workshop in the future.

Zal turned back towards the library and took only two steps before the librarian emerged into the hallway, closing the library door behind her. The Librarian said, "I thought I heard voices. Who are you and why are you here?"

Zal replied, "I'm new in town. I need to register my children so that they can begin attending school."

"I can't help you. I'm the librarian and I teach reading. You'll have to return in the morning and talk to the headmaster."

They walked down the hallway and the librarian asked, "Where are you from? I can't place your accent."

Zal replied, "I'm from New Zealand."

The librarian said, "By the way, my name is Carol. Carol Hayes. The headmaster should be in about 7:30 in the morning. Nice to have met you, ah, Mrs.-"

"Green. Zoe Green."

Miss Hayes nodded politely, turned and headed off down the street. Zal turned and walked in the opposite direction, using her voice-modification nanites to shift her voice so as to be more like that of the librarian. Zal felt like she was being followed. Rushing to become familiar with the infites that were settling into the structure of her brain, Zal now realized that she was being monitored by a replicoid. This particular replicoid was also a time traveler into the 1800s and had originated in the Ekcolir Reality as an analogue of Jack Vance. Using her sophisticated zeptite endosymbiont, Zal opened up a communications link to the Vance replicoid. Deciding that there was no better way to proceed, Zal said: Hello, Miss Vance, or should I say, Jackie?

After a rather long and agonized pause, the replicoid replied: Who are you? How can you be speaking to me?

in the Buld Reality

Zal turned down a quiet narrow street and kept walking out of town. Sorry to interrupt your entertainment, but I could not allow a copy of "The Chronic Argonauts" to be slipped to Jack London. That was clever idea, but in the Final Reality, London will not be a science fiction story teller.

The replicoid complained: I was curious to discover why London became interested in science fiction... in the previous Reality he did not write science fiction stories.

Zal asked: So you had nothing to do with giving Jack London that book?

Me? Of course not. Who was that woman with the book? And who are you?

Zal laughed. I guess the three of us are the last foot soldiers in the Time War. How long have you been here in 1800s?

The Vance replicoid hesitated once more, not really wanting to explain how and why she had gone back into the 1800s. Finally she gave a minimal answer: Almost a year now. I wanted time to become familiar with California and Oakland in particular, before the events of today.

That reply fit in with what Zal had learned from her new infites. The Vance replicoid was doing useful work, preparing to mentor her analog who would be the Jack Vance of the Final Reality. The Jack Vance who would be born twenty years in the future. Maybe you can help me. I'd like to visit San Francisco. Does this street lead anywhere or should I turn around? Zal knew that she must soon make her way across the Bay to San Francisco, but first, there was a house that she needed to find, here in Oakland. However, she was disoriented and having some trouble matching her current location in the world to her infite-generated memory of the location of the house that she must visit.

Again the Vance replicoid hesitated. I'm not sure I should help you. Who are you? What are you trying to accomplish?

Zal chuckled. You are part of the crew at the Writers Block, aren't you?

The Vance replicoid disconnected from the equipment at Observer Base that allowed for observation of events on Earth. She had never been taught that it was possible for someone on Earth to communicate to an Observer who was inside Observer Base. Here in 1895, there were four other Observers at work, using four of the observation ports in the Fishbowl. Most of the ports were unoccupied. Observer Base was almost deserted now, everyone believing that the Time War was over. And now this! A strange woman on Earth, able to communicate with Observer Base and talking casually about the Time War, as if it was still raging! The Vance replicoid wondered: What is going On?

The Vance replicoid returned to the Writers Block and sent a message through to the future using the interwhen communications terminal. Soon, a connection opened up to the future where the Asimov replicoid was at work. Asimov's replicoid asked, "What's this about an Earthling talking to you, Jackie?"

Jackie explained, "Obviously not a normal Earthling. She has special powers. I watched her make an Interventionist agent disappear!"

Asimov's replicoid whistled, long and low. "Are you sure? That's a neat trick. I think you ran into an Overseer."

"I don't know what she is. She did not seem to care that I was there, watching the Interventionists try to turn Jack London into a science fiction author."

Asimov's replicoid shrugged, "Everyone, Interventionists and Overseers alike agree that science fiction is the best tool for telling the people of Earth about the existence of alien visitors to Earth."

"Well, it is annoying. This lady, Interventionist or Overseer or a Grendel in disguise... she did not want to tell me who she is. I get the feeling she's going to be kicking around California for some time."

Asimov's replicoid asked, "When are you?"

"I'm in 1895."

Twin Paradox

"Well, Jackie, you've got twenty years until your analogue shows up. You have plenty of time to kill. See if you can figure out who this mystery lady is and how she was able to speak to you. I'll investigate from this side, but if we are dealing with the Overseers then I'm not going to make much progress."

Jackie nodded. "And neither will I. I just hope I don't get my Observer's Permit yanked."

"You play it cool; don't go around Observer Base asking questions. I'll investigate matters here via indirect channels and let you know what I find out." Their connection through time was cut. Jackie hurried back to the fishbowl, hopeful that she could find the mystery woman.

Next (Part 2): the story continues in San Francisco, 1895.
Part 3: tryp'haven
Part 4: Escape Artist

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