River of Time

Below on this page is part 4 of the science fiction story "Grean Fiction". Tara Morbius is the only person returning from the first human space flight mission to Altair IV. Tara was born in deep space, grew up on the planet Altair IV and participated in the discovery of alien teleportation technology. When she arrives on Earth, she tries to contact the tryp'At Interventionists who she suspects of having engineered the destruction of the Fru'wu teleportation terminal on Altair IV.

the Fru'wu

Tara has in her possession a written account of her father's visits to several of the planets that are linked by the trans-galactic teleportation network of the Fru'wu. Knowing of her mother's interest in old science fiction movies, Tara believes that she must find a way to send her father's memoirs back in time to the 20th century in order to allow Ariel Adler to make the film Fateful Planet and complete the time loop that brought Tara into existence.

___________________________

Part 4 of Grean Fiction. (read part 1)(part 2)(part 3)

 

Tequid

Tara was in a hurry. Not much time remained before radio signals from Altair IV would arrive and inform all of Earth about the fantastic discovery of Fru'wu teleportation technology. Tara was already famous on Earth due to her role in the first contact with the Tequids, but in the minds of the people of Earth, she was only a young child.

 

There were many things that the people of Earth did not know about Tara such as the existence of her powerful telepathic abilities and that fact that she had grown to become a tall, graceful young woman and the human authority on Tequid society.

Iteru, the river of Time

The Tequid had originated as Earthly primates, but they had been genetically modified by the Fru'wu so as to adapt them to the ocean of Altair IV. The Tequid had no spoken language, but their minds were linked by a form of telepathy. Using her own telepathic ability, Tara had studied Tequid society for many years.

 

Tara parked the Belerephon over the desert and rode one of the ship's landing craft into Aswan. She had learned from her father that the tryp'At maintained a base in Egypt from which they had long operated to influence events on Earth. 

 

Tara felt somewhat a snoop. She had gained access to her father's encrypted files onboard the Belerephon after his death Tara and had learned about his secret mission and the alien-provided tools which allowed him to guide the behavior of his wife. 

 

Tara wondered to what extent her own early life had been secretly shaped by Justin's use of technology-assisted telepathy. In those files onboard the Belerephon she had also found out about the secret hierion-based communications system that the tryp'At agents used to coordinate their activity on Earth. As her aircar passed over Aswan, she sent a message to the tryp'At using their secret hierion-based transmission frequency: "Tara Morbius calling the tryp'At base... come in."

 

After a short delay, a reply came from the secret base of the tryp'At. "Hello, Tara. Can you load my gpro to your autopilot?"

She put the tryp'At guidance program in control of the aircar's AI pilot system. "Done" The aircar quickly slanted down and landed at one of the farms in the suburbs of Aswan. A big modern farmhouse stood to one side and the farm outbuildings were arrayed off to the south. She stepped out of the car into the hot afternoon air and stared in amazement at a nearby ancient stone ruin that sat in a patch of sun-baked sand that received no irrigation water. She noticed that some of the carved hieroglyphs looked like symbols in one of the ancient Fru'wu scripts. Then she saw her grandmother rising up out of the ground along a nogee pole. The old woman said, "Come, child. Don't stand there in the hot sun."

Tara rushed to her grandmother and they hugged. Tara was tall by Earth standards, but Erca was even taller. Tara could feel the mind of her grandmother and she tried to communicate telepathically: Thank the stars! It is you Erca! I did not even know if you were still alive!

Erca Morbius guided Tara down into the underground tryp'At base while saying, "Welcome to Earth, Tara. You'll need some practice with our style of technology-assisted telepathy. It is a bit different than the one you used on Altair IV." Erca took off her broad sun hat which had covered her ears and shaded her large eyes.

At the bottom of the nogee pole, Tara's eyes adjusted to the dimmer light and she was able take a good look at Erca. She blurted out, "You aren't really human, are you?"

 

Before Erca could reply, they were met by another tryp'At. Tara felt a new mind whispering: Almost human...

 

Erca told Tara, "This is Meloh, my partner." 

 

Meloh shook hands with Tara. "I'm afraid you caught me napping. I've gotten into the habit of sleeping during the heat of the day." Tara was somewhat alarmed by Meloh's long, pointed canine teeth. Meloh could see into Tara's thoughts. No, I'm not a vampire!

 

Tara could sense that Meloh had recently experienced an orgasm. She had grown up being ably to experience the joy of her father's orgasms. Feeling rather silly, and trying to ignore the alien features of Erca and Meloh, Tara quickly asked, "Do you live down here or up on the surface in that farmhouse?"

Quit and Erca

Tara now noticed a tall man standing nearby in a dim passageway, but she could not feel his mind. He walked forward and said, "Everything you saw up above is for cover, to give the appearance of a normal farm. Erca and Meloh are usually down here, coordinating the activities of tryp'At the agents who are scattered around Earth and the orbital cities."

Erca could sense Tara's confusion. She gestured towards the man. "Tara, this is my assistant, Quit. He's a robot."

Tara scanned the robot's long lean body from head to toe. Like Erca and Meloh, the robot wore a sleek black bodysuit. She giggled and asked, "What kind of a name is Quit?" Gazing upon the robot's pretty face, Tara experienced the strange feeling that she had previously seen him somewhere.

The robot smiled and replied, "It is a typical tryp'At name for a robot. I ask so many questions that Erca frequently tells me to quit talking. Somehow the name stuck... she's been using it for the past fifty years."

Erca added, "You are lucky, Tara, never having taken on a complax. Quit never stops blabbering over the complax channels."

The robot objected, "I never blabber." The machine told Tara, "All my communications are related to my task of coordinating-"

Meloh held up a hand, "Quiet, please, Quit. Erca was making a joke."

The robot would not drop the matter. "I don't want Tara thinking that I blabber."

Erca gave Quit an order, "Bring us some tea and sandwiches." She took Tara's arm and guided her down a hallway and into a comfortable lounge. There were many ancient and beautiful objects displayed on the walls. Meloh followed along. "Now, sit yourself down and tell us why you are here."

Now seated beside Erca, Tara said, "I'm not sure where to begin. How much do you know about my mother?"

"Quite a lot. She was the object of intense tryp'At study, long before she ever met your father. We know how she first became interested in Altair IV."

a science fiction film in the Ekcolir Reality

Tara nodded. "Way back in the 20th century, I believe that Ariel Adler received information from her future that allowed her to make the film, Fateful Planet. And..." She paused, wondering if her guess might be a foolish mistake.

Erca completed the girl's thought, "You brought back to Earth the Report on Fru'wu teleportation that must now be sent into the past... and provided to Ariel."

Tara sat back in her chair and sighed in relief. For four long years, during the whole spaceflight back to Earth, she had wondered if her belief in time travel was insane. She asked, "Tell me, do you tryp'At have access to a time machine?"

Meloh chuckled and asked his own question, "Just what do you imagine we tryp'At are?"

Tara was trying not to stare at the pointy teeth and long ears of Meloh and Erca. She shifted her gaze towards a blank area of the wall and pictured the handsome face of Quit in her mind. "I was never able to learn that from my father. I feel like I know more about the tryp'At because of my interest in history and from reading science fiction stories than I ever learned from Justin." Tara turned her head, reached out and touched the fuzzy tip of Erca's long ear. Tara asked, "How is it that science fiction stories about the tryp'At were written and published hundreds of years ago?"

Erca explained, "There have been tryp'At on Earth for thousands of years, but we don't advertise our presence to humans." She gestured towards a hanging on the wall. "That is a painting from over 4 thousand years ago, an ancient depiction of a tryp'At."

Tara rose to her feet and went to examine the painting. She found that there was an entire slab of stone embedded in the wall. The stone had been carved to suggest a humanoid form for the head and then pigments had been added to color the stone. Below, the lower limbs and body had been given a feline morphology. The painting depicted a tryp'At who was shown with large alien eyes and pointy ears that looked very similar to those of Erca and Meloh. "The artist turned this tryp'At into a cat-person."

Quit arrived carrying a tray loaded with sandwiches and a pot of carefully steeped tea. While he poured the tea into cups he told Tara, "The tryp'At have been careful to remove from the historical record the most egregious bits of art that were inspired when humans saw tryp'At and imagined that they had met monsters or gods."

Tara returned to her place beside Erca. After 4 years of cooking for only herself during the trip to Earth, Tara was tantalized by the smell of the food that Quit had set out. She returned to her seat and picked up one of the small sandwiches. Taking a bite, she felt a gush of saliva in her mouth as her tongue was lashed by a sharp mustard.

Peering into the girl's mind, Erca could sense that Tara was obsessed with time travel. She suggested, "You should relax for a while now, Tara. Spend some time here with Meloh and I. This will be a good place for you to regain your equilibrium... merge yourself back into the flow of events on Earth. You've pushed yourself so very hard..." Her voice faded away and Tara imagined that Erca was hiding an unpleasant thought.

Tara swallowed and drank some tea, burning herself. "There is no time for relaxation! If I don't send the Report to Ariel..."

"My, my... you are so edgy!" Erca laughed. "I suppose you never learned the meaning of the word 'relax'. Have no fear, child. The time loop is complete. We've already taken in hand the Report data from the Belerephon."

"You broke into my spaceship?"

the tryp'At brain

"Your ship?" Erca giggled. "Well, girl, please don't forget, twenty years ago I was in charge of the Belerephon's mission to Altair. I still feel like I have some ownership rights myself..."

Gazing intently at Erca's alien features, Tara shook her head in wonder. Tara knew that Erca had served as General Marson in the Space Fleet. "You served in Space Fleet, cat ears and all?"

Erica flexed her long, narrow fingers. "Back in those days, I had carefully modified my appearance to match Earthly norms. With the advanced technologies available to we tryp'At it is easy to adjust one's appearance. Now that I'm retired from the Space Service, I've let myself go... I'm now fairly close to my natural body form."

Having grown up around Tequids, Tara was not really alarmed by the appearance of tryp'Ap. However, she did not want to be lulled into some false complacency. "Erca, you've casually suggested that I relax, but I'm really worried about the Report. I don't want it falling into the wrong hands."

 

"Ah, then have you come to agree that Earthlings need to be protected from the dangers of matter duplication technology?"

Ariel Adler

"I'm not sure about that. Right now, I don't want to be distracted from the task of getting the Report sent into the past, to Ariel. You now have the Report?"

Erca nodded. "It was a close thing. The police arrived on the scene and started investigating the Belerephon shortly after our agent, Myty, had scooped up the report. Luckily, the police were completely distracted by the mysterious sudden arrival of Belerephon and I don't think they noticed the departure of my agent from the scene. Myty, for now, is hiding in the desert and laying low."

 

Tara wondered, "Could your agent really grab all of the files from Belerephon? There were many yottabytes of data, much of it untranslated from the archived Fru'fu data files that were received through the teleporter. My mother thought we had received complete histories of several Fru'wu planets."

 

"Myty is being very cautious, but she will deliver the Report data to me as soon as it is safe for her to move. Dozens of investigators from multiple government agencies and a gaggle of reporters have now swarmed all over the Belerephon." Erca was already receiving reports transmitted by complax from Myty, accounts sketching the contents of the data files taken from Belerephon. And Erca was also using her telepathic abilities to look through Tara's memories.

Tara ate another bite of her sandwich then said, "I would have brought the Report with me, but I had no way to download and copy so much data. I want to avoid having to deal with investigators and the press, but I suppose they will prowl through the data files soon enough." She sipped the tea. "You never answered my question about time travel."

Erca had politely begun to eat with Tara. As she chewed, Meloh said, "That is a sore point for Erca. The tryp'At have never been given access to time travel technology."

Erca sipped some tea, swallowed and then said, "Grean will take care of the time travel, we don't need to worry about that. It is simply beyond our scope, beyond tryp'At technical abilities."

"Grean!" Upon hearing that name, Tara sat up straight. "My father mentioned Grean in his report on the planet Klyz, one of the worlds he visited."

Delpha

Meloh held up a finger to emphasize his point, "Actually, when we say Grean, we mean Grean's selfie, Delpha. Grean does not exist in this era... she sent herself into Earth's distant past."

Erca nodded, "Well, Delpha or Grean, it makes no difference. They are like two peas in a pod. I suppose it was the original Grean who first planned to protect Earth from too early adoption of teleportation technology. It fell to Delpha to carry out Grean's plan. If you are interested, Tara, I suppose I could arrange for you to meet Delpha, although that might mean the end of your time on Earth."

Tara had never previously heard the name 'Delpha'. "What do you mean? Delpha lives on some other planet?"

"No, Delpha resides in the Hierion Domain. She never comes to Earth, but she is not very far away. Delpha watches over Earth like a nervous mother hovering over her children. I would not be surprised if she is watching us even now, at this moment."

Tara had grown up hearing about old science fiction stories from her mother. "Ariel Adler wrote some stories about the Hierion Domain. Her science fiction stories always included some kind of magic trick, a way to hide the Kac'hin and keep them from becoming known to Earthlings, even while humans were meeting other aliens such as the Fru'wu."

"It is not magic, just physics. The Hierion Domain is a large part of the universe, it is all around us, mingled with the conventional space that we experience via our senses."

Tara slouched back in her seat. She had spent years imagining the things she would do and places that she would visit when she reached Earth. But now she wondered: what if it was her fate to deliver the Report to Delpha inside the Hierion Domain? She asked, "Do you know how to reach the Hierion Domain?"

"If Delpha wants you, she'll take you into the Hierion Domain." Erca looked intently at Tara and narrowed her big eyes. "Actually, it is possible that you are already there."

Hierion Domain (Hierion Crossing)

Tara laughed nervously. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, this is why you were created, my dear. Delpha needed to prevent Earthlings from obtaining technology that can be used to duplicate people. That's the problem with teleporters and why the people of Earth can't be allowed to have teleportation technology... they'll abuse it and use teleporters to make copies of people. That abuse of teleportation technology would quickly rip human society apart. But of course, Delpha has access to teleportation technology and she may already have used it to make a copy of you..." Just as the Fru'wu duplicated Justin.

"What did you say?" Tara was not sure. "About Justin..."

Erca shrugged. "I see that you have interesting telepathic abilities, Tara, and you can catch some of my stray thoughts." Erca sipped her tea thoughtfully and then set down her cup. Quit refilled the tea cups then Erca told Tara, "Allow me to explain something about your father. Justin began interacting with a copy of himself soon after he was created. A time travel duplicate. Your father was trained by his replicoid who, after learning all about Edith, came back in time to help train your father for his mission to Altair. Since Justin was comfortable with the idea of working with his own duplicate, he apparently made use of Fru'wu teleportation to make several copies of himself, allowing for acceleration of his investigation of many Fru'wu planets around the galaxy."

Replicoids

Tara slowly nodded. She had sometimes wondered how it had been possible for Justin to report on twice as many Fru'wu worlds as had all of the other crew members of the Belerephon. "What did you say... a replicoid?"

Meloh explained, "Replicoids are the basis of temporal momentum. They normally exist in the Hierion Domain and contain knowledge of everything that a person has ever done. But Justin's replicoid from the future came to Earth and taught Justin how to -why mince words?- manipulate Edith and guide her behavior."

Erca continued, "So, you see, Tara, it occurs to me that you might also have been duplicated... in your case, one copy of you might have been teleported into the Hierion Domain."

 

Tara gave her head a violent shake. "I'd think that I might notice if I were copied."

"Yes, you might. Unless you were asleep or otherwise distracted when the copy was made."

Quit suddenly stepped close to Erca and she handed him a small vial. The robot took the vial, turned and rapidly left the room on strides of his long legs. Erca and Meloh both stood up and Erca told Tara, "Well, this is annoying. The Inspector General of Space Fleet wants to talk to me. He's on his way here, having just toured the Belerephon."

Gwyned in the teleporter at Klyz

Tara, Erca and Meloh made their way back up to the surface. Meloh told Tara, "They want to question Erca about the crew of the Belerephon."

By the time they reached the surface, Erca and Meloh both had their ears and teeth morphed back to what might be normal size and shape for a human from Earth. They both put on dark sun glasses. Erca said, "See you later," and walked off towards the farmhouse. Quit arrived, swooping down from above in an aircar. Tara looked around the farm yard and could not see the aircar that had carried her to Aswan from the Belerephon.

The side door of Quit's aircar popped open and Meloh gestured, "After you, my dear."

Tara climbed into the car and soon they were rising into the sky. Quit asked, "Where would you like to go?"

Meloh replied, "We have a few hours to kill. I suggest a visit to the statuary park and then dinner at Farag's." Quit consulted with the autopilot of the aircar which then made an adjustment to their flight path.

Tara wondered if Erca would reveal to Space Fleet that Tara was on Earth. She asked, "What are the laws? Am I supposed to register as an immigrant to Earth or something?"

Meloh chuckled, "Erca wants to spare you all such formalities, however, your fate it is up to you. I suppose if you revealed yourself to the press then you would become quite a celebrity. Does that appeal to you?"

 

"Not interested." Tara turned her attention to the Nile river valley as seen through the window of the speeding aircar. "What is at the statuary park?"

 

"The official name is 'Remembrance of Pharaohs' or some such. The name seems to change periodically depending on which faction has won the latest election. I visited there once, about 40 years ago. They keep many of the ancient Egyptian artifacts inside a giant dome and sealed up in a controlled environment."

Quit told Tara, "The current name is 'Museum of Antiquities'."

Meloh added, "The museum holds four gigantic statues from malah depicting the two copies of ryms'Wy and their husbands."

Tara looked at Meloh and tried to judge if she was joking. By the feel of the tryp'At's mind, Tara thought that Meloh was serious. Tara wished she knew more about Earth's history. "Wait, now... you are speaking of those four giant statues from... oh, I forgot the name... that city near the Nile cataracts...? Where is malah?"

"Malah was an ancient name for the lands of the Nile valley... an ancient center for tryp'At Interventionism." Meloh grinned. "My family still sometimes uses the names 'Melah' and 'Meloh'. I'm Meloh the 217th, or something."

"What did you just say about two copies?"

image source

"I referred to the Pharaoh whose real name was 'ryms'Wy', transliterated into English. She is a good case study for the dangers of duplicating humans... how such use of teleporter technology can derail human history..."

Tara asked, "Wait, you mean there were teleporter duplicates living in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago?" Tara found it hard to believe. "You are having a joke at my expense."

Meloh could not suppress a chuckle. "Believe me, you can't make this stuff up. Truth is far stranger than fiction. It began innocently enough. Grean had revealed herself to ryms'Wy, and then ryms'Wy started making demands. Ryms'Wy was obsessed with building colossal monuments. All that ryms'Wy wanted from Grean was access to the anti-gravity tools that had been used to help speed construction of earlier monuments, such as the Great Pyramid, but then she learned about matter duplication and matter transmission... teleportation."

 

Tara objected, "Alien technology used to help build the pyramids... that sounds like science fiction."

 

Meloh nodded. "This was thousands of years ago and now several versions of the story exist. You might call it pre-science fiction. Some versions of the ryms'Wy legend suggest that she was the daughter of a tryp'At and had had somehow gained access to a teleportation device. More likely, Grean made a copy of ryms'Wy for her own purposes."

 

Tara glanced at Quit and tried to judge if the robot believed what Meloh was saying. She asked him, "Are you familiar with this ancient tale of teleporter duplicates?"

 

Quit nodded. "I've heard this story before." He chuckled quietly then added, "Each time Erca tells it, there is some new twist to the plot."

 

Meloh continued, "Anyhow, a copy of ryms'Wy was made by teleportation duplication. Almost at once, the two copies of ryms'Wy got into an argument over which copy should rule Egypt. At first they were enraged and began to fight among themselves, then one of the copies of ryms'Wy had the idea that by making more duplicated copies it would be possible to solve all of Egypt's problems. At the time, Egypt was threatened with attack by invaders from the north."

Tara laughed. "You're making this whole thing up! Are you going to tell me that they made an army of  ryms'Wy duplicates?"

source

"Go ahead and laugh." Meloh waited patiently while Tara giggled. "Of course, ryms'Wy was clever. She did not want to have to fight the well-prepared army from the north. Legend says that ryms'Wy talked Grean into making dozens of teleporter duplicates of ryms'Wy. As soon as there were enough of the new copies ready, they were teleported into the field tents of the commanding officers of the enemy army. During one night, each copy of ryms'Wy killed one of the top hy'Ty commanders. The next day, the Egyptian army attacked the invasion force and won a great battle against the now-leaderless northerners. By that victory alone, the fame of ryms'Wy was assured, but the amazing deeds of ryms'Wy were not yet complete."

 

Tara asked, "This saga reached us by some oral story telling tradition? There are no written historical records to support this tall tale?"

 

Meloh said, "Sad to say, these legends have been embellished through many re-tellings.  More likely, Grean simply used her teleportation technology to remove most of the hy'Ty army from Earth, possibly moving them over into the Hierion Domain for safe keeping."

Tara sighed. She was fascinated by the depth of human history, stretching back thousands of years, but how could anyone really know the past, unless they made use of a time machine? "Even you tryp'At don't have accurate records of those old times?"

Grean (see "Grean in Space")

Meloh shrugged. "It was long ago. Sadly, no, there are no contiguous tryp'At records stretching back that far into the past. And Grean is not proud of some of her actions. She probably tried to erase all Earthly records of her Egyptian interventions."

Tara suggested, "All the true history might have been erased, leaving behind only silly stories."

 

Meloh continued, "I suspect that if there were a large number of duplicate copies of ryms'Wy, then after the war ended, most of the surviving copies were teleported off of Earth and sent into the Hierion Domain. However, legend says that the boldest and bravest copy of ryms'Wy was allowed to finish her life on Earth. She became the new queen and ruler of the hy'Ty..."

Tara complained, "Meloh, I don't believe a word of that wild tale." Still, feeling the fringes of Meloh's mind, Tara sensed that she was completely serious.

Quit was working together with the aircar's AI system to land them at the museum. The air space around the museum was crowded with many aircars visiting the popular tourist site. The robot said, "Parking is a problem. I'll drop you two here and come back later when you are done viewing the statues."

Meloh and Tara got out of the aircar at a loading zone and then they walked together a short distance through the hot air of late afternoon. They passed into the great dome that housed the museum. It was now growing late in the day and far more tourists were leaving the museum than entering. Inside the great great temple of ryms'Wy, Meloh pointed out some examples of Fru'wu text in the stone carvings. "Long ago, tryp'At Interventionists helped develop the first human writing systems and since they were familiar with the Fru'wu, some Fru'wu symbology crept into Egyptian hieroglyphics... maybe as a joke."

 

Tara at the great temple

Later, as they emerged from the interior of the great temple, Tara posed for a photograph in front of the colossal statues that depicted one copy of ryms'Wy and her husband as the rulers of Egypt and the other copy of ryms'Wy and her husband as the rulers of the hy'Ty Empire. Sadly, only tryp'At such as Meloh knew that these famous colossi depicted a case of teleportation duplication.

Tara commented on the appearance of the statues, "You know, the two husbands have quite similar facial features, also. Do you suppose that ryms'Wy duplicated her husband?"

"Why not? A duplicate copy of ryms'Wy would have felt it unfair not to have been provided with a copy of her lover when she was installed as the new ruler of hy'Ty."

When they emerged from the dome, Quit swooped down and picked up Tara and Meloh at the loading zone just as the museum was closing. Rising up into the evening air, Quit assured Meloh, "We have a reservation at Farag's, but we'll arrive there about half an hour early."

"That's fine, we can kill some time in the bar."

Tara was trying not to allow herself to believe that tryp'At had been altering the history of Egypt and Earth for thousands of years. Where would such meddling end? Unable to contain herself, finally she asked, "What are you tryp'At trying to accomplish?"

the first positronic robot

"The tryp'At originated as a human variant created by the positronic robots of Earth." Meloh explained, "Grean eventually caught the earliest tryp'At Interventionists on Earth and turned them against R. Nyrtia. Ever since that era, we tryp'At have done odd jobs for Grean. The ryms'Wy intervention set the tone for future empires on Earth in which female rulers dominated and matriarchal social structures flourished. Of course, these days, all our efforts go towards mitigating the disastrous effects of Fru'wu technology on Earthly civilization."

 

Related reading: part 5 of "Grean Fiction"

 

Next: 1000 posts to the wikifiction blog

visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers