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| 1953 in the Ekcolir Reality. (alternate Reality) |
Ariel is recruited for a time travel mission aimed at making an adjustment to the course of Earth's history. Ariel must arrange for a subtle change in the sequence of events that takes place in 1939, ensuring that Isaac Asimov meets his future wife at a particular time and place. If everything goes well on that fateful day, the new paths of their lives will guide them all towards a more desirable alternate timeline of the future that has been envisioned by Grean.
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Time of Theurgency
"The best way to defeat a catastrophe is to take action to prevent it long before it happens." -Isaac Asimov
1. Grean's Workshop
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| Viewing Realities |
Grean had long ago accepted the fact that Humanity in the current Reality of Earth was doomed. All that remained was a mop-up operation designed to mitigate human misery and allow the bumpha Interventionists to save face and regain their confidence. "That momentum is the source of temporal energy that will be tapped to create the Final Reality. We can't avoid the havoc caused by Fru'wu technology, but we can demonstrate that an effort was made to lesson the resulting human suffering."
Trysta folded her arms across her chest and muttered to Grean, "I hate to see that flinty coldness in your eyes, Grean. How can you just shrug off the horrible catastrophe that is looming over Earth?"
"I feel the weight on my shoulders, but we have a job to do. I close my mind to the pain and devastation so I can get my work done."
Grean tenderly took hold of Trysta's hand, giving it a soft squeeze. "Now, tell me what you have seen in the future."
It was as if an electric field moved from Grean to Trysta through their linked hands. Trysta squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. She pushed away thoughts of how Fru'wu technology would go terribly wrong in the hands of humans and successfully centered her thoughts on her work. As usual, Trysta had structured her temporal analysis around the four fixed points in Time: Asimov, Vance, Clarke and Gohrlay. Starting with the basic facts of the temporal analysis, Trysta told Grean, "It is clearly Asimov who is closest to the root of the needed Reality Change."
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| by Joan Vance in the Ekcolir Reality |
Trysta felt a twinge of envy. Grean was so much quicker at Viewing and analyzing alternatives in Time. The Kac'hin had been genetically engineered by the pek for optimal ability to think through problems in high dimensional state spaces. For Grean, this Change was just routine, but Trysta was always surprised by the mysterious twists and turns that coalesced to create the future. Thinking about the methods that would need to be used to make this Change in Time, Trysta shook her head in dismay, "I'd assumed that either you or I could make this little Reality adjustment, but I was wrong. It looks like this is another job for Svahr."
Grean shrugged. "That is certainly one option that we have. Svahr could go back in Time alter Gertrude's training. However, I believe there is a more elegant solution that involves the young girl, Ariel."
Trysta asked, "Ariel Adler, Marcia's friend?"
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| Grean the Kac'hin image credits |
Once again Trysta was impressed by how much detail Grean knew about 20th century Earth. Trysta had never investigated the life of Ariel Adler and she only knew of her as the college buddy of Marcia. "I never suspected that they were lovers."
Grean had been trained to make use of human emotions to guide human behaviors in desired directions. As part of that approach to making Changes in Time, Grean always investigated the sex lives of the humans who she needed to influence and control. She reminded Trysta, "Ariel met Asimov when they were in college and there was an instantaneous sexual tension between them. Who knows what might have happened had Marcia not been there to distract Asimov. She's got a high potential for telepathy and using the Bimanoid Interface so I think we should make use of Ariel."
Trysta thought about Asimov and his great loves. She knew that he'd had two wives and that while Marcia was the first, he had later married an engineer named Gertrude. "Show me what you have in mind."
Grean activated her Viewer and projected a temporal landscape in the air before Trysta. "Here is the critical temporal juncture for initiating this micro-change. Note this vortex of chaotic instability. I optimized my search by applying the assumption that by making use of Ariel as the agent of Change, there could be benefits for her, also. That allowed me to discover this temporal conduit that links 1939 to 1953 and 1972. Take a look; I've bookmarked the key events..."
Trysta took the controls for the Reality Viewer and checked the parameters of Grean's search. Trysta was surprised by the odd temporal linkages that had been found by Grean. Trysta asked Grean, "What does Deomede have to do with Asimov?"
Grean muttered her usual warning, "Be careful, Trysta. It is best that you not look into that aspect of this micro-change too carefully. You are simply too close to Deomede... attention paid to those details by you might create a Time paradox for Deomede."
After fifteen minutes of fiddling with the Viewer, she could find no flaw in Grean's proposed micro-change. "Amazing. I never would have found this in a million years." She looked at Grean with awe.
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| Reality Viewing |
Trysta zoomed in on the core of the red regions and exclaimed, "We have to take Ariel into the Hierion Domain?"
Grean saw no other viable alternative. "Yes. And not simply Ariel. We must make a teleportation duplicate of Ariel and deploy her as our agent inside the Hierion Domain."
Trysta spoke quietly with a deep sense of wonder at what she was seeing in the displayed temporal matrices. "All this will take years. The duplicate will have to live with Svahr and the children..." Trysta was skeptical about the wisdom of mixing a human being in with Svahr's carefully selected collection of fain hybrids. "I hate this sort of patch-job repair work."
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| Trysta and Grean |
Trysta placed a hand next to Grean's and called up the nanite sub-display. Now Trysta could see a half dozen or so options for bodily alterations, each involving one of the special fain anatomical features that differed significantly from human body structures. There needed to be a way to clearly mark Ariel as being a hybrid, but that body sculpting could not be allowed to disrupt the close emotional bond that must form between Ariel2 and Gertrude. Using her intuition, Trysta adjusted the fine-tuner then Trysta showed Grean the optimal temporal sequence, "There. This one. This is it."
"Are you sure?" Grean glanced at Trysta for confirmation then nodded slowly while she checked the details of the specific solution Trysta had selected. "Good work... we agree. I suspected that this might be the best approach, but I wondered if my own personal biases were influencing my judgement."
Trysta tried to assure Grean that there was one objectively optimal choice that had to be selected among all the alternatives, "Just because you are an hermaphrodite yourself, that does not mean you should doubt the wisdom of giving Ariel2 a penis. Under the circumstances, there is no better way to mark her as a fain hybrid."
"But will Gertrude suspect..." Grean fell silent and tried to imagine the new web of thought processes that would develop in Gertrude's mind if she grew up in close contact with Ariel2. There was a chance that Gertrude would become obsessed with the uniqueness of Ariel2. None of the other fain-human hybrids were going to be sent to Earth equipped with the full fain genital anatomy.
Trysta placed a hand on Grean's arm, "Sure, I was startled the first time that you showed me your penis, but I was not traumatized. I was intrigued and Gertrude will respond in the same way."
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| Asterothropes: the females are larger than the hermaphrodites. |
"That's not true!" Trysta reminded Grean, "Not always. I was raised as a human woman and trained for a mission among humans. Only late in my training was I told the full truth about my own species."
Grean qualified her previous statement, "Ever since you have been here, in this Reality, you have known that hermaphrodites are common in the universe. In order to serve as a useful agent on Earth, Gertrude must be raised as a human. We've seen that Svahr can handle that task. However, what will Gertrude do when she learns that her sister is-"
Trysta interrupted and said, "They will be called 'sister' by Svahr, but the girls will all know that they not part of a biological family. I'll discuss with Svahr how best to prepare Gertrude for the course of events that will uniquely mark Ariel2's adolescence." Trysta slipped her arm around Grean and said, "Trust me on this."
"Very well. I'll leave those details to you, Trysta." Grean prepared to inactivate the Viewer. "My next task is to get the nano-programming team started on crafting Ariel2's developmental control nanites. Will you perform the duplication?" She pointed at the Time axis in the displayed data. The optimal time for the duplication of Ariel was shown as: July 23rd, 1939.
Trysta replied, "Yes, I've become proficient with the teleporter equipment here in your workshop. I'm almost as skilled with the teleportation system as I am with your equipment." Trysta playfully slipped a hand into Grean's skirt.
Grean giggled and put her arms around Trysta. She spoke tenderly into Trysta's ear, "I love the way you handle my equipment, dear, but I doubt if Ariel will like the idea of being duplicated. In my experience, humans resent the idea of not being unique." Grean inhaled the sweet smell that clung to Trysta.
Grean had full conscious control of her erectile tissue and she did not allow her penis to swell and pop out of her genital groove. Trysta briefly felt the wetness of Grean's labia then pulled her hand back out of Grean's skirt. Trysta was now living with Deomedes and had not made love to Grean for years, but it was nice to imagine that they could still revive their old sexual fires. Trysta wondered if maybe Grean was so nervous about this impending Change that she needed to be distracted by some hot sex. Trysta kissed Grean's cheek and asked, "Should we delay this Change and look at the parameters again in the morning?"
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| A story from the Writers Block. |
Trysta tried to sound confident, "The probability of success is high" But not as high as Grean would have liked. The temporal stresses and strains in the 20th century were very intense because of the impending macro-temporal shift to what should be the Final Reality. "Ariel number one will never know that she was duplicated."
Grean shut down her Viewer. She warned Trysta, "In my experience, most humans notice when they are teleported, even if it is only for purposes of duplication. Be careful; Ariel has sensitivity for hierion fields."
"Ariel might notice the teleportation event, but she will not know its significance." Trysta was more concerned about the second copy of Ariel. "I suppose I'll have to find a permanent place for Ariel2 at Observer Base, but that won't be difficult." She was thinking that Ariel2 should be happy to join the Writers Block.
The tricky part of this micro-change would be the newly created "hybrid", Ariel3. However, during the time she would spend with Gertrude, Ariel3 need not know the details of her origins as a teleportation duplicate of an Earthling. Trysta imagined that Ariel3 might become a useful Interventionist agent, with unique and valuable skills, much like Svahr. Of course, Trysta was not even imagining that Ariel3 would have an analogue in the Final Reality.
2. Duplication
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| The nation of "New England" as it was commonly known during the 20th century (official name: Beverwijck en Nicotiana) in the Ekcolir Reality. |
Having gotten all of their luggage in through the front door, the two young women sat down on the settee in the entrance way. Ariel said, "Well, that was fun." She was too tired to put any enthusiasm into the declaration, although she meant it. Their just-completed trip to France had been her first time out of New England.
After catching her breath, Andrea stood up and tugged on Ariel's arm, "Let's change. We need to hurry to the show."
Ariel moaned and complained, "I'm tired." Andrea kept yanking on Ariel's arm and managed to pull Ariel off the settee. Ariel suggested, "You go without me." Andrea tucked a shoulder into Ariel's belly, lifted her off the ground and started carrying her towards the grand staircase. "Let me be! I'll go another time." Ariel was well aware that Andrea was a trained dancer with powerful muscles. She wondered if the other girl could actually climb up the stairway while carrying her. Deciding it was too dangerous to allow Andrea to try that stunt, Trysta slipped herself to the floor while saying, "Oh, very well... I'll go."
Andrea charged up the stairs. "This is opening night! Everyone will be there!"
Trysta marveled at Andrea's energy and wondered if the girl expected to see one of her lovers at the reception that night. Certainly the hot-blooded Andrea had not seemed to be striving for chastity while in France and Ariel suspected that there were many boy friends eagerly awaiting her return to New England.
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| from the film, Elevator to Paris |
At the top of the stairs, Ariel turned right and went down the hallway to her mother's suite, but nobody seemed to be in the house except Ariel and Andrea. Ariel sat down at her mother's desk and used the phone. Her first two calls were not answered, then she reached her father at the Hierion Entertainment studios. "Daddy? This is Ari. Andrea and I just got home."
"Welcome back. You two cut it tight... I'm going to leave for the theater in a few minutes. Will you be there?"
"We might be late, but Andrea argued and bribed us through customs in a mad dash to attend the opening night festivities."
"You sound down. I hope you two had a nice European vacation."
"Spectacular, but I'm exhausted. Andrea has not let me rest for two weeks."
"Your mother was worried about you."
"I wonder where she is. I can't reach her by phone."
"She's probably there already, getting everything lined up at the theater. And I should be on my way. Later!"
Just as Ariel put down the phone, Andrea came down the hallway carrying and armload of clothes. She looked through the doorway at Ariel and said, "Let's go, slow poke!"
Ariel ran past the naked Andrea and rushed to her room. "Give me a minute!"
Andrea was pulling on her dress and called to Ariel, "Why is it that for you a minute always turns into ten minutes?"
Ariel went to the big writing desk in her bedroom and searched through the mail that had accumulated in the past two weeks. She found the letters she was looking for and returned to the hallway. She went down the stairway, calling to Andrea, "I'll be in the cab before you are!"
Still buttoning her blouse, Andrea chased after Ariel and asked, "You are going to the theater dressed like that?"
Ariel held the front door open for Andrea. "Nobody will be looking at me."
They were quickly down the walkway and into the waiting cab. Andrea said to the driver, "To the Globe Theater, and don't doddle!"
Ariel opened a letter that she had received from New York University. She had gotten registered into all of her requested classes except she was on a waiting list for Ancient Art History with professor Homdek. She muttered, "Damn it."
Andrea glanced at the two letters in Ariel's lap. "Letters from your lovers?"
Ariel replied, "School... my fall classes." She now had open a letter that was from a boy who she had tried to entice into going to France. The letter was short:
Ariel- Thank you for your invitation. I'm in Montreal (Quebec) and replying to you after you have already departed for France. Hope you have fun on your adventure. I'll see you back at NYU this fall. -Joey
The third letter was from another of her school acquaintances.
Dear Ariel- I have a proposal. Let's work together in Dr. Sollar's class in the fall. Find enclosed a story idea that I hope you like. We could use it for our first assignment in Sollar's class. Give me a ring and let's get an early start on the course work. Love, Marcia.
Andrea was prattling excitedly about her film friends and Ariel was sure that she had heard it all before. Ariel wondered if Joey would have said yes to going to France had he been informed of the trip in time. If only her mother had not so suddenly sprung the whole idea of a trip to France on she and Andrea. When Ariel had agreed to help "keep Andrea out of trouble" that summer, there had been no mention of whirlwind trips to Europe.
"A student at the university. She's brilliant."
Andrea asked, "And gorgeous?"
Ariel did feel that Marcia was quite spectacular, but she knew that Andrea preferred boys over girls under all circumstances. "Not as gorgeous as Joey." Ariel handed Joey's letter to Andrea.
Andrea read the brief note from Joey and commented, "Good thing he did not join us. He might have scared away some of the French boys who we met."
Ariel looked at Andrea and sighed. She wondered: where does she get so much energy? While in France, Andrea had done much more than simply 'meet' her young French admirers. Ariel had seen a half dozen of them stumble away from Andrea's various hotel rooms on weak knees. Sadly, Ariel had been repulsed by the french custom that said manly men needed to smell like-
Her thought was interrupted by the driver who said, "We're making good time against the rush hour traffic, but one of the new radar check-points is up ahead."
Andrea handed the driver a hundred dollar bill. "I'll pay your speeding fine. Don't slow down." She turned back towards Ariel, "Tell me about Joey."
"I'd rather not. If you get interested in him then you'll do something nasty like call him up and invite him out on a date. I can't compete against a movie star."
Andrea laughed, "I wouldn't do that to you. Is he tall?" The taxi blasted through the busy intersection that had radar-triggered cameras. A flash of light indicated that the cab had been photographed.
Ariel shrugged, "I don't trust you with such sensitive information. Allow me to keep a few of my secrets."
Andrea reached out and grabbed one of the opened envelops. She held up and said merrily, "I have his address."
"That's his grandmother's address in Montreal."
Andrea looked at the envelop. "Actually, this return address says Cypress Avenue in Tabbs. Marcia Greenberg." She tossed the envelop to Ariel and asked, "Is that why you didn't screw any of the French boys... you prefer girls?"
Ariel replied, "I prefer to invest my time with people who have-" She was going to say 'brains', but Andrea was not the sharpest tool in the drawer. Why risk antagonizing her? "... shared interests with me." She added, "And people who bathe more than once a week."
Andrea laughed and explained, "If a boy is too dirty to pull into bed, you can always pull him into a tub. I've never met a guy who didn't enjoy being lathered up and rubbed down by a naked woman."
The taxi driver, a middle aged man who had been listening to the two girls, laughed and said, "Amen."
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| from the film, Elevator to Paris |
Andrea immediately stepped out of the cab and sank into a throng of reporters. With flashbulbs popping, Ariel pulled shut the door of the taxi and told the driver, "Let me off at the side entrance." She folded up the letters and was thinking very seriously about simply returning home, but she knew that her parents would be expecting her to show up for the reception that evening. Still, Ariel was feeling the burn of writer's itch. She asked the driver, "Is there a stationary store near here?"
"Sure. Several." He thought for a moment. "C.L. Tiff is just a block over." He waved a hand towards the west.
"When do they close?"
"Market Street shops start closing at 9:00."
"Take me to the closest store where I can get a composition book then bring me back here." At the C.L. Tiff stationary store, Ariel bought a notebook and a pen with glow-in-the-dark ink. Returning to the waiting taxi, she said, "Back to the Globe."
By the time the screening of Elevator to Paris was over, Ariel had completed a rough draft of her new story. Ariel managed to incorporate both the key elements of the ancient fable suggested by Marcia and her own contribution: details about the alien fain and their interest in Earth. Ariel and her parents and Andrea gathered for a place in the reception line as the film ended. After briefly greeting Ariel and asking a few questions about her experiences in France, her parents centered their attention on Andrea.
Long before the long line of well-wishers and autograph seekers had passed, Ariel found that she could not stop yawning. She went to the banquet hall below the theater, found their table and sat down at the seat beside the place card that said "Ariel Adler". She resumed writing in the composition book, making character sketches for the main characters in the story.
Eventually her parents and Andrea came to the table and their food was served. Food was not really the point of the reception and there was a constant flow of film industry people coming and going to the table. Ariel was mostly ignored. Finally her father moved to the empty chair beside Ariel and asked, "What are you writing?"
Ariel looked up from the notebook, feeling like she was swirling inside a literary wild fire. Sometimes the story ideas just flowed out her, like fond memories of past events. After a moment of hesitation, Ariel remembered where she was. "This is a new story about aliens."
He bent over and looked closely at the page where Ariel was writing. "In the Andromeda galaxy?"
"Yes."
"The Fru'wu are from our galaxy."
Ariel stated the obvious, "The Fru'wu are not the only possible aliens in the universe." Her father chuckled briefly then wondered about his daughter's furrowed brow. He asked, "Is there a problem?"
Ariel nodded. "I'm struggling to find a good name for a character in the story. She is designing an alien-human hybrid and..."
"Why bother? Humans having sex with Fru'wu has been filmed a dozen times-"
"This isn't about sex, daddy."
He stood up and said, "Well, have fun with your story. Are you ready to go home? Things are winding down here."
Ariel replied, "I'm ready to go at any time."
"I'm guessing about 15 more minutes." Her father moved back to his place at the table.
Ariel looked around the reception hall and noticed that most of the guests had already departed from the party. Looking at her wrist watch, she saw that it was well after midnight. Ariel stood up and tucked her notebook under her arm. It was her intention to empty her bladder, but she never made it to the lady's room. Making her way across the banquet hall, as she walked past a table, she heard her name called out: "Ariel!"
"Wonderful. And how was Montreal?"
"Hot and humid... I should have stayed in New York. Too bad I did not get your invitation in time to join your great adventure. Did you travel to Europe alone?"
"No, of course not. I went with Andrea, the girl who played Becky in Elevator."
"I should have known. You get to trot around the world with movie stars."
"I'm not really a world traveler. This was my first time out of New England."
Ariel was swaying slightly from her accumulated exhaustion and a need to urinate. Joey, oblivious to the mission that Ariel was on, told her, "Do sit down. Join us. Meet my family." By the time the introductions to Joey's family members were done, Ariel was trying to deal with another desert that had been placed in front of her and she had to quickly field a half dozen questions about Elevator to Paris that were hurled at her by Joey's family members. Ariel kept looking back and forth between Joey and his little sister Diana. Ariel was trying to decide which of them was more beautiful.
Ariel's mother said, "Well, thank you, Joey, for taking care of her. We'll get her back home right away."
Ariel had her head resting on Joey's shoulder and his arm was around her, holding her upright in the chair. She asked, "Why is everyone looking at me?"
Her mother replied, "You had some kind of a blackout. Joey brought you-"
Ariel suddenly knew the name of the character in her story. Ariel looked around, but her notebook was gone. She cried out, "Where is my notebook?"
Joey said, "I'll get it." He returned to his family's table and grabbed the notebook.
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| Trysta Iwedon |
She jumped up and grabbed the notebook. She hugged Joey and said, "Thank you. Thank you."
"Give me a call. I want to hear all about France." He went to join his family members who were ready to depart from the reception.
Ariel opened the notebook and wrote down the name: Trysta Iwedon. Then she turned to her mother, "I'm ready to go home, but first, I really need to pee."
Related Reading: an Ariel deviation
Next: Part 3 of "Time of Theurgency".
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