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Eynta meets a new mind clone. (click image to enlarge)
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During March I wrote the first 10 chapters of a new science fiction story called "
Meet the Phari". In the image shown to the right,
Eynta, one of the human-alien hybrids in "Meet the Phari", is getting her first look at a new
mind clone. The fetal mind clone has begun making telepathic contact with its mother. This scene takes place in Chapter 12 of the story, on the planet Viole in the
Alastor star cluster. Or does it?
It does.
Sort of. "Meet the Phari" is set during the
Asimov Reality when time travel was still possible. Both the
positronic robots of Earth and the alien
Huaoshy had sophisticated time travel technology available for their use during the Asimov Reality. However, "Meet the Phari" takes place during the
Trysta Truce, when use of time travel was restricted as part of an effort to cool down the
Time Travel War.
"Meet the Phari" starts out with the premise that Delpha, Rau and Tuttuhr all have access to information from the future that allows them to make plans for the next 20 years of Grean's life. During those 20 years, the "new" Grean is supposed to be on vacation and have time for a family and children.
However, Delpha is eagerly awaiting her chance to help humans make telepathic contact with the Phari. Delpha can't resist the temptation to involve Grean in the process of assembling the mind clone network that is needed to allow humans to make telepathic first contact with the Phari.
I think of "Meet the Phari" as fan-fiction set in
Jack Vance's Alastor Cluster. However, the type of time travel that I include in the
Exodemic Fictional Universe is what
Isaac Asimov described in his story
The End of Eternity. Asimov described how it was possible to
view the future, but a time traveler could never be certain that the future would turn out exactly as it had been seen. Unexpected events happening by random chance can alter the flow of time and bring into existence a future that is different from the previously viewed future.
Such a fork in time takes place in "Meet the Phari". Eventually, Grean must step in, make emergency use of time travel and get the timeline of Alastor Cluster back on course. However, Grean does not want to completely avoid the fork in time because it results in the creation of an interesting telepath, a mind clone that Eynta helps bring into existence during the time that she spends on Viole while trying to finance an expedition to the planet Kwenslo.
Grean can collect the special gene patterns that are "discovered" by Eynta on Viole and retain them for future use even after she causes a
Reality Change that erases that mind clone from existence. After the Reality Change, Grean must make use of nanites (
infites) to make Eynta aware of the events that took place on Viole. It becomes Eynta's responsibility to nurture the special gene patterns since Grean has arranged to incorporate them into Eynta's child. Figuring out how to seamlessly knit together the Lost Reality of Viole with the Asimov Reality is tricky and I've been working on that task for the past month.
I'm impressed by authors such as
Heinlein who seemed to easily think their way through temporal adventures in non-linear time. Sadly, my brain is firmly devoted to the linearity of time, so inventing and writing about time-loops is hard work for me.
Next: celebrating the fiction of Jack Vance - science fiction in 1951
Related Reading: Reality Reviewing And Chapter 11 of "Meet the Phari"
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