R. Nyrtia

cover art by Steve Youll

Back in the 1970s, not long after I first discovered the existence of Isaac Asimov, I bought a copy of his collection of short stories I, Robot and now, almost 50 years later, I'm still intrigued by his Sci Fi creation: positronic robots. There is Daneel (image to the right) the humaniform robot, as depicted by Steve Youll. The metallic robot is Giskard.

Most of Asimov's positronic robots (such as Daneel) were depicted as masculine, but in the last two Foundation novels there was the distinctly female robot Dors Venabili, who Asimov depicted as the great love of Hari Seldon.

creating R. Gohrlay

When Asimov died without being able to continue his Foundation saga past Foundation and Earth, I had to start writing my own fan-fiction positronic robot stories and I did not hesitate to depict the first positronic robot as being female. In my imagination, the logical way to make a positronic brain was to copy the neural networks of a "donated" human brain into the corresponding positronic circuits of a robot brain.

the positronic robot, Nyrtia

Since the woman who "donated" her brain pattern was a Neanderthal named Gohrlay, the first positronic robot was R. Gohrlay. Sadly, R. Gohrlay was destroyed, but due to the wonders of time travel, R. Gohrlay was given a second life.

Robots and Time Travel. Previously, as part of the Exode Saga, I introduced another positronic robot R. Nyrtia and identified her as the first robot who traveled through time. R. Nyrtia is something of a mystery, even three years after I first realized that she exists. As the master of high technology among the positronic robots, R. Nyrtia is rather secretive and protective of the advanced understanding of hierion physics that she has achieved during her long life. However, the replicoid copy of Ivory Fersoni, Yrovi, was able to learn some of Nyrtia's secrets and "pass them along" to me, as told in The Historical Archive, below.

image source

Back in the summer of 2013, I made a page for "First Time", which could have told the story of the first time travel trip. However, I got distracted by other things and it is only now, in 2022 that I'm in the mood to write about R. Nyrtia and the first use of time travel technology. 

I'm also going to make this my Change Challenge for 2022. I've previously commented on the fact that I often end up writing backwards. In his novel Nemesis, Asimov had alternating chapters that were temporally out-of-sync. I'm going to try an experiment: writing my new science fiction story (The Historical Archive, below) so that it has two distinct temporal threads. One thread will start with R. Nyrtia in the First Reality and the first ever trip through time. The second thread will start in the Final Reality, when time travel is no longer possible and R. Nyrtia is the last remaining positronic robot. Those two threads will converge and eventually allow the Editor to meet Many Sails in ancient Italy.

image source - art by Peter Dana

 Historical Institute. I love the way that Jack Vance deployed agents of his imaginary Historical Institute in some of his stories. Ten years ago, I blogged about Vance's character Ifness, who was a roving agent of the Historical Institute. Ifness made use of advanced technology while visiting primitive "lost planets" such as Durdane. He could do so as long as he made some effort to disguise his technological prowess from the general population. 

For the Exode Saga, I have similar fun with the technologically advanced R. Nyrtia, the positronic robot, and Manny the bumpha who both have sometimes visited Earth and lived among we technologically-deprived humans. For some backstory, you might benefit from reading the two-part Prelude to Telepaths of Site Q before reading  The Historical Archive, below...

The Historical Archive

Zeta

Zeta was finally all packed and the baby was asleep. Now Zeta was seated between my legs and carefully examining my recently-altered genitals. She asked, "Do you think your testes have stopped growing yet?"

I sighed then replied, "They are not tender anymore, that's all I care about." In fact, just then, with Zeta touching my scrotum with her soft finger tips, I felt like I might ejaculate. Also at that moment, I was holding Zeta's spectacular mama breasts, one in each of my hands and marveling at their impressive gravity-defying perkiness. During the past week, both of our bodies had been systematically altered by body-sculpting nanites and I had to wonder if Zeta was going to be able to fit into any of her shirts that she had packed for her trip to Australia. I wondered: why has this happened to us... and why now? I had to believe that there was a reason for these changes to our bodies... maybe someone was trying to send us a message...

With the two of us both still struggling to adapt to our newly altered body parts, we proceeded to make love and then afterwards, just as I was drifting into contented sleep, Zeta said, "I need to warn you..."

Her words pulled me back from the edge of sleep and I muttered, "Hmm?"

"Don't feed the cats too much. The vet wants them to lose weight."

"Right." I had not forgotten about the cats and the instructions Zeta had given me concerning techniques for quashing their habit of over-eating. Now I could sense telepathically that Zeta was getting ready to tell me something that she had been hiding from me... something about Ivory Fersoni.

"I recently had a visit from..." Due to our telepathic link, I could sense that Zeta was struggling to say the one word that she never wanted to hear in our bed. She hesitated for about fifteen seconds, then said, "Ivory."

That knocked me out of my gathering slumber. My overly loud, "What?" almost woke the baby. I wondered: I missed a visit to Earth by Ivory?

image source

After a minute of us listening anxiously to the little one's quiet sounds, Tihri fell back into a deep sleep. I asked quietly, "Ivory visited Earth?" That did not seem possible, given what I knew about Ivory's exile and subsequent death.

"Well, no... I suppose I should say 'Yrovi'... although she looked like the skinny little girl version of Ivory that I've seen in your thoughts." Zeta further explained, "And she did not actually come here to Earth. I think I was taken off of Earth, through a portal and into the Hierion Domain... Ivory and I met inside some sort of Reality Simulation. Don't ask about that, because I don't really know what was happening. However, R. Nyrtia was there, too. They talked to me about Tihri and the other mind clone babies and ways to boost their telepathic abilities. However... and I'm only just remembering this... they also told me that they were planning to 'check-in' with you... I suspect, sometime soon."

Since I was again wide awake, I began playing with one of Zeta's breasts. Based on their feel and their miraculous perkiness, my guess is that her new super-breasts are not made out of normal human breast tissue. There she was on her back, but Zeta's two breasts were proudly defying gravity and standing tall, like two strange alien creatures sitting on her chest. And it only took a gentle caress by me to make her nipples popped erect. I mused, "Wow... a visit from Yrovi." I'd experienced a similar event eight years previously and I thought about the interesting bits of information that Yrovi had shared with me back then. Returning my thoughts to the present, I said, "Tell, me... did Yrovi take credit for your growing breasts?" 

One week previously, when our bodies began to change, Zeta had named Ivory as the source of the medical nanites that were at work altering my genitals and bloating Zeta's breasts to comicbook proportions. Now, Zeta had moved both of her hands to her breasts. She seemed to enjoy touching them even more than I did. The skin of her breasts seemed so taught that I sometimes imagined they might explode. She had fallen silent and as she stroked her breasts, I began to wonder if she wanted us to again try to enter into an orgasm trance. After a couple of long minutes during which my penis stiffened and I had begun to stoke her hot silky labia, she finally replied, "I can't tell you anything more..."

Ivory Fersoni

I could sense telepathically that Zeta did want to say more, but she was frustrated. Apparently, there were memory locking nanites in her brain that prevented her from telling me everything she knew. Of course, I began trying to guess what she was unable to speak to me about. "So this is what sent you into a wild rush... this mad dash to Australia?"

Zeta insisted, "My trip to Perth is not crazy. Nora and Rylla both agree that we have to get all the children together. We need to study the mysterious distance effect that limits telepathic communication-"

I interrupted, "I wish you would not go." I'd even tried arguing that it made no sense to expose Tihri to risks of viral infection by traveling. Zeta had ignored all of my arguments. Knowing that I was defeated, I quietly whispered in her ear, "I'm going to miss you, lover."

"I doubt it." Zeta giggled and then kissed the tip of my nose. "Yrovi has plans for you. Some sort of new writing project."

I asked, "Writing what?" However, now Zeta's head sank back into her pillow. She remained silent and eventually we both fell asleep. There is no arguing with mind-control infites, even if you are Zeta Gohrlay.

While drifting into sleep, I reflected on the fact that had I been questioned a week before and asked if Zeta would ever be apart from me for an extended period of time, I'd have replied, "No way." However, the unthinkable had already happened. Zeta had just discussed Ivory in our bed and I had not telepathically detected the usual hot fire of jealousy in her mind that had always previously accompanied even mere mention of Ivory Fersoni. Just then Qyla the cat jumped up on the bed and curled up beside Zeta.

What had changed Zeta's mind, sending her off to Perth and made me the designated cat-sitter for the next week? After I'd realized she could not be deflected from going to Australia, I had told her that I would go along on the trip down-under, but she had told me, "There's no need for that. I'll discover if Tihri can better link telepathically to Marda and Dysyn when they live in close proximity, under the same roof. The cats need you here, taking care of their needs." I'd quickly investigated the possibility of hiring a house sitter, but there was not enough time to get that scheduled before Zeta's impending departure day.

Nora

In the morning Zeta went off to the airport with Tihri. After watching Zeta drive away, I returned inside our house and I settled in at my computer. I worked diligently all day in an effort to catch up on some end-of-the-year tasks. 

With no other people in the house, but with a herd of cats to deal with, I got less work done than expected. It had been cloudy all day and it grew dark early, but I went for a walk then made dinner and then stayed up late writing. At 10:00 PM, I had a video conference with my grand-daughter Rylla, who was in Perth, 15 hours ahead of me and who had just eaten lunch, tomorrow.

Rylla updated me on her contact with Stacy at the Writers Block. Rylla had used the Mind Clone Network to issue an emergency request for any new information related to R. Nyrtia. Now Rylla reported that Stacy was providing information about a story, apparently from the Asimov Reality. The story was from the archives of the Writers Block and Rylla believed it was about Nyrtia, but it seemed to involve events in ancient Italy and there were the usual problems trying to pass the information along telepathically from Observer Base to Earth. Rylla told me, "Stacy is having a hard time explaining ancient Greek history to Amiante."

I could see that Rylla was nursing her daughter Marda. Rylla is unusual for an Earthling in that she has two rows of nipples, an anatomical feature that she apparently inherited from her mother. In fact, Zeta suspects that Rylla is actually a clone of her mother. Trying to keep my mind off of breasts, but wondering if I should warn Rylla what to expect when Zeta and her two enlarged breasts arrived in Perth, I again reflected on what little I knew about Nyrtia. In rather rambling fashion, I told Rylla, "I don't know how far back in Deep Time Nyrtia was constructed. I don't recall hearing anything about her until the Asimov Reality, but..." Again, I made a mental note to ask Yōd about Nyrtia the next time she made telepathic contact with Zeta and I. Yōd was inside the Asimov Reality Simulator and might be able to investigate Nyrtia's origins in that Reality.

Stacy is at Observer Base (image source)

Marda said something like 'no, thuria, mama'. Rylla shifted Marda over to the other side. Marda latched on to the other nipple and continued nursing. Rylla suggested, "Nyrtia would not have been given such an important role in the Asimov Reality unless she was already an experienced time traveler." Marda started getting milk from the second breast and Rylla sighed. "Imagine traveling back in time two billion years..."

"Ya, going back that far to get help from the Phari was an audacious stunt." Pulling my eyes off of Rylla, I looked back at one of my old blog posts about Nyrtia from three years previously. "Apparently, it was Nyrtia who figured out the connection between replicoids and the Momentum of Time."

Rylla began using her phone to do an internet search. She informed me, "It looks like Zeta's flight is on schedule. I'm going to the airport to pick her up." She looked at me and added, "I wish you were also going to be here during this visit."

"I could not find a house-sitter on such short notice." Rylla looked exceptionally mature and calm, but I suggested, "I suppose the household there in Perth has been thrown into disarray by Zeta's sudden visit."

"I don't mind. I'm curious about Zeta's idea that distance might be preventing Tihri from establishing a telepathic linkage to either Dysyn or Marda." Marda knew her own name and as she heard it, she popped off of Rylla's nipple and said, "Aly and Ami, mama."

"Yes, baby, I know you talk to Alexina and Amiante... we just want to know if you can maybe also find a way to link to Tihri."

source

Marda asked, "Why?"

It was spooky to see such a young child who was so precocious, but by having shared telepathic links to Alexina and Amiante it seemed that Marda was going through unusually rapid cognitive development. With a grin, Rylla asked me, "See what I have to put up with? It is a full-time job keeping up with all of Marda's questions and demands." Rylla told Marda, "Grandma Zeta wants you to play with Tihri and see if you can link your thoughts."

I told Rylla, "We can't really blame Zeta for this. Someone put the idea for this trip into her head. She's blaming Ivory... or, more accurately, Yrovi." I was not happy thinking that Zeta was being manipulated and being used as the tool of either Yrovi or Nyrtia.

Rylla buttoned up her shirt and set Marda on the floor. "Well, I'm off to the airport. Catch you later."

For a time, I tried to get the image of Rylla's four breasts out of my mind, then I continued searching through my meager records concerning Deep Time and fretting over how little I actually know about Nyrtia. Eventually, I was worn out and having trouble keeping my eyes focused on the computer screen. I was just getting ready to turn in when the phone rang. It was Zeta, at last.

Zeta had called just to let me know that she was at my son's house in Australia. From the sound of my voice, she could tell I was tired, but at that distance we expected to have no telepathic linkage. Still, I could hear the sound of small children and even Nora's voice in the background. I had a flash-like vision of them all and something in Zeta's voice told me that although she was also tired after a long travel day, she was eagerly anticipating the opportunity to have a steamy sexplay session with Nora. 

Nora had visited us at our house four years previously. Now I recalled how Zeta had been unable to keep her eyes from lingering on the artful curves of Nora's artificial body. I suspect that Nora is the one femtobot on Earth and she seems to never hesitate to shape her body into a sweet confection that is more delightful than any natural human body form. 

Qyla

Four years ago, Zeta had seemed annoyed at how Nora flaunted her lovely body in front of me, but now, with Zeta sporting her spectacular breasts, I was certain that she was returning the favor and giving my son an eye-full. I knew that Zeta had grown up enjoying sexplay with women, and I could well imagine a conflagration burning and catching both Nora and Zeta up in lusty desires.

During that brief phone call, on my end there was something odd going on with the cats. Finally, I told Zeta, "The cats are upset about something." My guess was that the cats did not know how to behave with no Zeta in house.

"Did that skunk return?"

"I don't know... I better investigate." I could see that Qyla had a puffed out tail, like she had seen something alarming. I told Zeta, "Well, have fun, dear."

Zeta said, "Goodnight... you have fun too, darling."

When the phone call ended, I was wondering what could possibly be fun with Zeta on the other side of the planet and the cats all in an uproar. It passed through my mind that Zeta had warned me to expect a visit from off-planet guests, but being a skeptical scientist, I had filed her warning away under the category of "sure, I'll believe it when I see it".

original cover art by Allen Anderson

I followed Qyla to the master bedroom suite and started pulling off my clothes to prepare for sleep. I did a classic double-take; there was Ivory, in bed. At least, she looked like Ivory, but I felt slightly dizzy and I immediately suspected that I'd been pulled into the Reality Simulator that Zeta had warned me about. Ivory had the appearance of the skinny teenager I had first known, back decades before, when we had lived our long, glorious lifetimes together inside a virtual reality environment. "Ivory?" As I spoke her name, I noticed that I was no longer tired. In fact, I was no longer in my 60-year-old body.

She replied, "Actually, I'm the copy, Yrovi, but don't be picky, my love." Yrovi had her legs spread and her pretty pink labia pointing at me. "Get undressed and get inside me. Now! We need to deal with ten years of my pent-up horniness... and the thought of having you naked on this big bed is driving me wild." 

I started to say that it had only been eight years since she had last visited me, but that rational side of my mind was soon muzzled. There was not the slightest delay: I followed her instructions and was soon there on the bed, my thoughts focused on Ivory's sexy body. Just the sight of her long, graceful form had me fully erect and eager to renew the physical relationship that we had experienced fifty years previously. Something whispered in my mind, reminding me: this is Yrovi, using the body form of a very young Ivory.

Yrovi stared at my genitals and said, "What in the world... Nyrtia told me that, for this simulation, you would be back in your teen-aged body... but it looks like you have grown."

I kissed her pouty lips and mumbled, "Nyrtia?"

"Forget I mentioned her. I just did not expect you to be so huge. Not that I'm complaining..." She was intently playing with my big testes and erection.

the planet Cynk in the galactic core

I was intrigued by the fact that both Zeta and Yrovi had mentioned Nyrtia the mystery robot. I'd known of the existence of Nyrtia for a few years, but there seemed to be no reliable source of information about that positronic robot, only rumors. Maybe now I would actually get to meet Nyrtia! The main problem that I faced when trying to write about the secret history of Earth and robots was that I had never had objective evidence for things like positronic robots and so my accounts of the past could only be viewed as science fiction. I thought: if only I could bring a robot like Nyrtia to Earth and demonstrate the existence positronic robots to all the scientists of the world...

After a long period of time during which I was enjoying how Yrovi was familiarizing herself with my altered anatomy, I finally got the flames of my emotions under some control. I pulled my trembling hands off of her sexy body and took hold of my long hot penis with both hands and I told Yrovi, "I don't think you can completely blame Nyrtia for this. Zeta claims that her body and mine were re-shaped by medical nanites from the future... from Ivory." 

"With both her hands also wrapped around my erection, Yrovi laughed. "So, this is Ivory's little gift to you?"

"I don't know. I can only report what Zeta told me." I ran my fingers through her silky hair. It was delightful to have this opportunity to play with Ivory (I corrected myself: Yrovi), but it seemed like a miraculous dream or some diabolical alien scheme. "It is all crazy... Zeta claims that one week ago I actually received a bunch of information nanites sent from Ivory, sent back through Time to me from the future, but then my memories of that were all quickly and efficiently erased."

"There is something wrong about all of this..." Yrovi teased me, "I'm here dripping vaginal secretions on this fancy bedspread and begging you to ravish me and now you just keep talking about your wife." She took the head of my penis in her mouth.

"Careful there, lover. I'm just about ready to ejaculate."

image Yrovi

Heeding my warning, Yrovi altered her strategy and pulled the tip of my erection inside her vagina. It was a tight fit, but she was oozing with silky secretions and eagerly pulling me deeper inside her. 

Fifty years previously, we had been young and passionate lovers and now I remembered Ivory as having been a perfect fit for my penis, but that was before the recent dramatic alterations to my genitals. As I slowly pushed deeper into her taught vagina, I asked skeptically, "Is this going to work?"

Yrovi reminded me, "Don't forget, I have femtobot components. I'll have no trouble creating a perfect fit for us..." 

After a long, pleasant sexplay session and sharing our sparking orgasms, we had a chance to speak again. There inside that simulation, I was back in my 16-year-old body, but for some reason I'd been allowed to retain my new larger genitals and it was an amazing new experience making love with Yrovi. The two of us had established a weak telepathic connection during our simultaneous orgasms and I was slowly emerging from an orgasm trance. 

As I returned to normal waking consciousness, Yrovi was gleefully playing with my erection and giggling. I suggested, "Ivory probably arranged for my new bigger sex organs just for your entertainment... not as a gift to Zeta."

Yrovi admitted that was possible. "If so, I hope I get a chance to thank her. There was nothing wrong with your penis in the old days, however this new you is exciting!" She licked the tip of my penis and commented, "Even the taste of your semen is new and improved. But I don't know about Ivory... the last I'd heard, she got herself sent off to the galactic core. I don't really expect her to return to Earth..."

I noted, "The last I'd heard, Ivory was dead, but I would not be surprised if that was a trick and a copy of Ivory was hidden away someplace and given a chance to continue living. A few years ago, I had a strange telepathic sensation of being briefly linked to Ivory's mind... then she was swept away."

Ivory during a brief visit to Earth

Yrovi squatted over me and moved the tip of my penis back and forth along the hot slick grove of her labia. "Yes, I guess Ivory is alive, but I don't really want you distracted and talking about either Ivory or Zeta. I want your complete attention..." Yrovi glanced over her shoulder towards the door. "Although, I should probably put our sexplay on hold and stop enjoying myself for now... I'm sure that Nyrtia is waiting impatiently for us to stop screwing around."

I loved how Yrovi was expertly handling my testes and stiff penis and I was in no hurry for her to stop. I figured that if Yrovi could mention Nyrtia, I could mention Zeta. "And I suppose I should thank you for Zeta's new and improved breasts. They are... quite impressive."

"Well, I enjoyed them, at least..." She ran one of her hands over one of her little round breasts. "I know you don't really care for big breasts."

As teenager, Ivory had no adipose tissue and Yrovi had adopted that slim, muscular form; she had only the smallest breasts imaginable, which to my eye were exceptionally cute and seductive. I was stoking Yrovi's stiff little nipples with my finger tips. "I agree with the old folk wisdom... anything more than a mouth-full is wasted."

Just then, a woman walked in and came to sit on the edge of the bed. She somehow seemed familiar to me, but paradoxically, at the same time I felt certain that I had never met her before. Yrovi told me, "This is R. Nyrtia."

Nyrtia told Yrovi, "I got tired of waiting." She had a sly grin on her face and Nyrtia immediately reached out to stroke my penis and said shyly, "Nice to finally meet you." Yrovi let go of my erection and rolled off of the bed, quietly muttering something about Nyrtia's sudden arrival in the bedroom causing a penis shortage.

Dimensional Engineering

I tried to detect a telepathic signal from the robot, but there was nothing. Only then did I remember that with the change in the Dimensional Structure of the universe, the twitino-mediated telepathy, the type that had originally been used by positronic robots, was no longer possible. I soon forgot about my long-standing interest in the telepathic abilities of positronic robots and reached out to stroke Nyrtia's spectacular breasts which were very similar to Zeta's recently inflated ones. I asked, "I think I know how you two got Zeta so fired up..." As if it was her explanation, Nyrtia took the tip of my penis in her mouth and began demonstrating the exquisite control that she had over her hot tongue.

Yrovi was over across the room, looking through the drawer that held Zeta's sex toy collection. She shrugged and replied, "We had to do something to get her out of the way, so we made up some nonsense about telepathy testing the mind clones." Now she closed the drawer and turned to face the bed. "But yes, you are correct, Zeta really likes large breasts. Although, when the three of us got together in this bed, I was surprised to see how similar Zeta's breasts are to Nyrtia's." Yrovi stood at the side of the bed and watched Nyrtia playing with my genitals.

I could see that Yrovi was holding one of Zeta's vibrators. She briefly waved it at me and said, "And I made use of this, too." Now she brought the toy onto the bed, switched it on and held it against Nyrtia's crotch. Nyrtia was kneeling on the bed and sucking on my penis. Nyrtia gave a happy little moan and soon Yrovi was energetically thrusting the vibrator in and out of Nyrtia's vagina.

Much later, after both Nyrtia and I had achieved two orgasms each, I was laying there with Nyrtia to the left of me and Yrovi to the right and they each had one hand on my erection. I sighed contentedly, but I was feeling slightly guilty. These two lovely ladies had ruthlessly ended my many years of fidelity to my beloved Zeta. Of course, it seemed quite certain that they had previously given this same treatment to Zeta. While I was floating on a cloud of sexual pleasure, the rational side of my mind was still trying to understand what was going on. I said, "Zeta mentioned a new writing project..."

Neither Yrovi nor Nyrtia seemed to want to talk shop. They were both in full sexplay mode. Yrovi asked me, "Have you ever previously been given oral sex by a robot?"

I shook my head and replied. "It is not really fair. Nyrtia does things with her mouth and tongue that no human can do."

Yrovi told me, "Well, yes... not only can she alter the shape of her mouth and tongue so as to give a sex partner maximal pleasure, she also has a couple billion years of experience."

Nyrtia said, "I traveled two billion years into the past, but I did not live for two billion years. In fact, I'm not all that sexually experienced." She explained, "I've always been able to please my human sex partners, but in all the years after my childhood, I've actually spent little time among humans." I was puzzled by the idea of a robot having a childhood.

Ivory and her clone sisters

After a brief pause during which Nyrtia gazed into my eyes, she continued, "I know you are an intellectual and I know you want to ask me a thousand questions. However, I hope you will forgive me for selfishly interrupting your reunion with Yrovi so I could join in your sexplay. Now I find myself wanting another round with Zeta's big vibrator, although I must say that Yrovi does not know how to wield it in quite the expert fashion that Zeta can."

Yrovi apologized to Nyrtia, "Sorry, you can't expect me to perform like a magician when waving another woman's magic wand. Although I must say, judging by all the noise you made, you must have had an adequate orgasm."

Nyrtia reflected on the matter then said, "The one you gave me was quite nice, Yrovi, but I'm glad I just got to experience vaginal sex with an actual human penis... that was even better than Zeta's magic trick."

Nyrtia had a leg draped over mine and I could feel some of my semen dripping out of her vagina and running down the side of my leg. I could feel the very stiff glans of her clitoris pressed against my skin, but I could not keep my eyes off of her pretty face and I was still trying to imagine why Nyrtia seemed to remind me of someone I had met long ago. I was about to ask about that mysterious familiarity when she finally began to address the issue of my new writing project. Nyrtia told me, "I've been letting Yrovi explore my Historical Archive."

"History?" As my attention turned away from sexplay, my erection was starting to soften and I asked, "The history of Earth?"

"Damn. I was hoping for a whole day filled with sexplay before we'd have to get down to business." Yrovi had immediately noticed when my erection began to fade and she jumped into action. 

Now she had one hand on my scrotum and one on my penis. As she stimulated my genitals, Yrovi informed me, "The Historical Archive is a huge collection full of data going all the way back through Deep Time to the First Reality... all in one place and much easier to access than the sedron data stream that I used to mine with my sisters." She started licking the sensitive tip of my penis.

Nyrtia gently squeezed the base of my erection. "Yrovi and I feel it is time for you to start sharing more of the events from the First Reality with the people of Earth." She breathing her warm breath in my ear while she spoke and now she pushed the hot tip of her tongue into my ear.

In response to the expert attention being lavished on me by Yrovi and Nyrtia, my erection was soon very hard once again and I was having trouble thinking about anything besides the two sexy women who were there with me in bed. Well... not quite women. I knew that they were both artificial life forms, and I was certain that we were all embedded in some kind of simulation. 

However, a fragment of my rational mind could not let go of the mystery of positronic robots in general and the specific mystery of Nyrtia's origins. I asked her, "So, Nyrtia, you actually existed all the way back in the First Reality, along with R. Gohrlay?"

Pulling her tongue out of my ear, Nyrtia replied, "Yes, I did originate in the First Reality. Actually, it was R. Nahan who built me... after Gohrlay's mind was destroyed. I wanted to use my time machine to travel back into the past and rescue Gohrlay, but he insisted on doing that himself. That journey back in time created a time paradox and erased Nahan from existence. He sacrificed himself and did so because he knew that I would be able to serve Gohrlay better... he was not a very well designed robot, while I was a new and improved model." After a pause during which Nyrtia rather vigorously stroked the shaft of my penis while Yrovi continued sucking on its tip, she added, "Even after he was restructured into femtobot components, at his core Nahan still had the old Wints circuit blocks." She rather sadly shook her head.

robot by Ed Valigursky

All I knew about Nahan had come from information provided to me by Angela Fersoni and what little she had been able to extract from the sedron data stream. Years before, I'd written all of those findings into the beginnings of a story called Foundations of Eternity, but then Ivory had been abruptly removed from Earth and I'd never been able to complete that novel. Now Yrovi again took my erection inside her tight vagina and then she snuggled against my chest. Nyrtia moved her hand to cup my scrotum. Nyrtia told me, "Actually, your new genitals are modeled after Nahan's. His friend, R. Qway, put a lot of effort into their design."

It sounded like Nyrtia had said 'Q Way', but I could telepathically sense in Yrovi's mind that it was just one word. I asked, "Who was Qway?"

Nyrtia explained, "Qway was Nahan's first archivist, but she is most famous for..." Nyrtia fell silent. I was surprised to see a robot cry, but Nyrtia seemed to be brushing tears from her eyes.

After a long uneasy period of quiet, Yrovi finally told me, "Nyrtia has been moping over the fact that all her old friends are gone."

Nyrtia told Yrovi, "I'm not moping."

"Sexplay is the best medicine for what ails you, Nyrtia." Yrovi handed Nyrtia the big vibrator. "Here... give yourself another orgasm. Let's see if we can all synchronize our orgasms this time..." Yrovi began enthusiastically rubbing the glans of her clitoris against me. This time, when Yrovi and I again entered into an orgasm trance together, I could sense a faint telepathic signal from Nyrtia, but her mind pattern was very strange and did not resonate well with mine. 

three archivists; Qway, Myum and Ursyña
Original cover art by Harold W. McCauley,
Ed Valigursky and Robert Gibson Jones. 

During that second synchronized orgasm, Yrovi and I had better linked our minds and during the orgasm trance that we shared, I could see that she was thinking about how to achieve a telepathic link to Nyrtia. Yrovi, now resting on top of me and wrapped in my embrace, told me, "I think we'll get better with practice... Nyrtia's mind is based on a human brain pattern..."

I was only slowly emerging from my orgasm trance and I murmured, "Neanderthal."

Nyrtia, with her two protruding breasts, was snuggled closely beside Yrovi and I could feel one of her stiff nipples pressed against my side. She said, "Yes, it is true... the original template for positronic brains was the brain of a Neanderthal woman, the original Gohrlay, but her brain was not really all that different from your brain's structure. As a later model robot, my brain structure was based on a different template..."

I'd lived for years with the strong suspicion that I was tryp'At, a human variant. I asked, "How different from a tryp'At?"

Nyrtia seemed surprised that I was so ignorant of my origins. She patiently said, "When you were gestating, developmental control nanites from your mother prevented you from developing a fully-functional tryp'At brain configuration. You are mostly a normal Earthling." She squeezed one of my testes in her hand, "Except for your recently modified genitals."

I had the suspicion that Nyrtia new exactly how easy it is to provide me with sexual pleasure by touching my modified testes. There inside that simulation, we were in what seemed like a perfect replica of my home and even the cats were there... or rather, simulated cats. As much as I wanted to believe that I had never left Earth, rationally I knew that I had somehow been transported into a simulation where I was being given the opportunity to learn Nyrtia's hidden secrets... assuming it was her intent to allow me to do more than just engage in sexplay. 

source

I was curious about Nyrtia and a hundred questions that I wanted to ask the robot were all dancing at the back of my mind, but at that moment, with my arms wrapped around Yrovi's hot body, I was in no hurry to stop playing with her. 

As my hands kept tracing over the seductive contours of Yrovi's body, I was awakening more and more memories from the wonderful lifetime I had once been allowed to share with Ivory. In some way, my mind had been imprinted on Ivory and with her (at least Yrovi) there in my arms, it seemed a very good idea to simply enjoy this gift of Ivory. Yrovi, I reminded myself lazily. 

I also reminded myself that three things were different now. First, with the aid of the Bimanoid Interface version 2.0, I could telepathically link to Yrovi's mind. Second, Yrovi had an artificial body that could accommodate my enlarged penis. And third, rather than the two of us being alone inside a Simulate Reality, Nyrtia was there with Yrovi and I.

Yrovi and I had a strengthening telepathic connection that seemed to grow stronger each time we shared orgasms, and I was reflecting on the orgasm trance we had just shared and thinking about a repeat performance, but sadly my penis was not up to the task. Yrovi seemed content to simply snuggle against my body and Nyrtia was still playing contentedly with my large testes. I wondered if with time and continued sexplay, I might establish a direct telepathic link to Nyrtia's mind that would allow me to learn all of her secrets.

Finally, a sensible question bubbled up in my erotically-distracted mind and I asked Yrovi, "What have you learned from the positronic robots' data archive that would be of interest to Earthlings?"

The sedron monopoly

Yrovi giggled and a powerful contraction of her vaginal muscles squeezed my limp penis out of her body. "You are the only Earthling that I care about..." She kissed my mouth hard then told me, "You tell me, lover... what is it that you have most wished you knew about Deep Time?"

I turned my head and looked at Nyrtia. As soon as my penis had popped out of Yrovi, Nyrtia had latched on to it. I sat up and Yrovi rolled off of me. I watched as Nyrtia began sucking on my penis and again I was amazed by the odd feeling that I could almost recognize Nyrtia. Baffled and confused and distracted by the magical way Nyrtia could vibrate her tongue, I muttered, "Somehow, I never imagined that you would look like..."

Nyrtia took her mouth off of my penis and told me, "Well, about that..." She then resting her chin on the knuckles of one hand and I could hear Zeta's vibrator as it was still buzzing away inside Nyrtia's vagina. She explained, "I was constructed after Nahan's research efforts had allowed we positronic robots to learn the basic secrets of the femtobot replicoid."

For almost a minute Nyrtia again orally stimulated my genitals and I wondered if she would tell me anything more about the history of replicoids. Finally she told me, "When Gohrlay took control of Observer Base, she had also captured a large number of inactivated robots composed of hierions. With time and much study, it was eventually possible for Nahan to re-activate those old femtobots. When I attained my full adult pattern of consciousness and was under the influence of the Laws of Robotics, I could not resist making the transformation from my original body structure into the form of a particular human body. Not very surprisingly, I choose the body of the person who I admired the most, the woman who had provided the template for my brain... a woman named Qway."

I was confused by the semantics and asked, "So, you are not actually a positronic robot?"

Holly (1976)

"Its a matter worthy of serious debate." For a good long minute, Nyrtia seemed to contemplate that question. Then she said, "My body uses femtobots to precisely reproduce the form and structures of Qway's human body... however, I am composed of hierions not hadrons. Inside my head, you can still trace the actual positronic circuitry that was used to hold my mind when I was originally constructed."

I was looking at Nyrtia with deep appreciation for her pretty features and I could well imagine that she was an artificial construct, crafted to be more perfect than any real biological woman could ever be. Finally placing her, I snapped my fingers. "Holly!"

Nyrtia giggled and seemed pleased that I had recognized her. "Yes, and I used this body form when I went to Earth and played the role of Holly, that girl who you had a crush on when you were in high school."

Yrovi said, "When I got access to the data at Observer Base, I looked at Holly's whole life and decided she was most seductively beautiful at this age." She pointed at Nyrtia and told me, "I hope you enjoy finally being able to make love to Holly after so many decades, even if in this form she has the appearance of a far older woman than you remember from Earth..."

I admitted, "You know me well, Ivory... er, Yrovi. I can't fault the appearance of either of you... although I can't help but wonder exactly what forms you two took on during the time when you were recently with Zeta. I suppose in both our cases you tried to shape your bodies into forms that would sexually excite us..." I was gazing rather intently at Nyrtia and appreciating how the young girl, Holly, who I had known long ago could have matured into a woman who looked like Nyrtia. "Am I right?"

see this cover by Robert Fuqua and
see amazing works of Ástor Alexander

"Why ask such a loaded question?" Nyrtia giggled and said, "Yrovi told me that you can't control your curiosity."

"Let's not get off-topic." When I turned my head to look at her, Yrovi pressed the palms of her hands against my cheeks and told me, "We can accomplish great things if we all work together. And 'we' does not include your precious Zeta. Forget about her... she's off on vacation in Australia and we have a job to do." She playfully tapped a finger on my chin and said, "We can answer all your questions about the First Reality..." She glanced sideways at Nyrtia, "... and we can cheer up Nyrtia. She's been feeling sorry for herself since Gohrlay went off with Many Sails. And while we're at it, I'll be able to grab a goodly number of orgasms." She gazed into my eyes, "I've never felt that living one lifetime with you was enough."

I felt the same way. I told Yrovi, "Even while living happily with first Alpha and then Zeta, I've missed you. And now I can't really believe that we are back together, in the young and strong bodies of our youth..."

She kissed me passionately and then said, "So, yes, we will find this opportunity to be together very sweet, but we do have work to accomplish!" Now she moved above me again, her legs straddling me. "I've been trying to teach Nyrtia how to use the Bimanoid Interface, but it is not tuned to her brain."

source

Nyrtia told Yrovi, "As you suggested, I'm gradually restructuring my brain in an effort to erase the remnants of my original positronic circuitry, leaving only neural structures that match the original Qway pattern of neural pathways. However, it is delicate work... I don't want to erase my memories and thought patterns while I perform this microsurgery."

Confused by what I had heard, I was trying to picture Holly living somewhere on Earth. "Wait... tell me... about Holly... she is still living on Earth?"

Nyrtia admitted, "It is very complicated. The girl you knew as Holly was slipped into Earth's timeline sideways. I'm currently trying to re-build myself so that my brain closely matches the structure of the original template for Holly, which was obtained as a teleportation duplicate of Nahan's archivist, Qway."

I said, "Wait... do you mean that Holly originated as a woman who lived in Eternity? And now Holly is..." I could not figure it out.

Seeing my state of confusion, Yrovi told me, "I understand that Nyrtia was crafted by Nahan, using the Qway template... however, I don't understand what Nyrtia calls the Holly Intervention... apparently she actually lived on Earth for a time..."

Nyrtia told me, "Forget about the copy of Holly who is still living on Earth... she's now an old woman with four children and seven grandchildren. Grean made sure that you never had a chance to really get to know her."

rocket by Julian S. Krupa and
see this cover art by Gabe Keith

I nodded and reflected on my decades-old faded memories of Holly. "For a few years in my youth, I was totally infatuated with Holly. She was my great teenage crush. Seeing you... I can't quite understand..."

Nyrtia tried to explain what had happened with Holly, although she seemed embarrassed by the whole 'Holly Intervention'. "After it became clear that you would play an important role in the Final Reality, I was working to control the course of your life. I'd viewed a future in which Holly became your wife. However, during that time, Trysta and Grean had found an alternative future for you. In an effort to make you forget about Holly, you were distracted with Ivory and the two of you were given a lifetime together inside a simulation."

An image of the last time I had seen Holly was in my mind. I rubbed my head and tried to think it through. Why were Nyrtia and Yrovi now interacting with me by means of a simulation? Just ingrained habit? Or did Nyrtia have secrets that she did not want to share with me? Perhaps the simulation protected Nyrtia's mind from being telepathically inspected by either Yrovi or me. I told Nyrtia, "No matter how much you remind me of my first love, your efforts to control my behavior are not going to work if I suspect this is all a game, just a means of you telling me things I want to hear."

Nyrtia told me, "I know you don't like games, so I'll be honest with you. I'm not very happy with the way things worked out here in the Final Reality... the way the Writers Block is being used as a source of information for telling the history of Earth. I want you to start using a better source of information about Deep Time. With my help, you can make use of the Historical Archive of the positronic robots and set the record straight." She kissed my penis and said, "Of course, I'm willing to pay for your services."

Yrovi laughed and added, "That mean's she's asked me to entertain you with lots of mind-altering sexplay so you won't ask any questions about the questionable reliability of a history of Earth as told by robots."

Holly on Earth (1977)

Before Nyrtia could say another word, Yrovi pulled me out of bed and dragged me to my computer. She sat down in the chair in front of the computer and showed my how to access an index for the data inside the Historical Archive. "I set this all up as the type of data interface that you are familiar with, but be warned! Once you select a topic, the Reality simulator will place you inside a simulation of that specific place and time." 

Nyrtia had followed us from the bedroom and now she wrapped her warm arms around me from behind and we watched Yrovi working at the computer. Even the simulator had us in a rather chilly winter night and I was wishing I had pulled on slippers and a robe.

Reaching over Yrovi's shoulder, I spun through the Archive's index all the way back to the First Reality and with some help from Nyrtia I soon located data concerning the first time travel trip. Suddenly, the simulator shifted and I found myself transferred into the First Reality...

Next: Part 2 of the science fiction adventure, The Historical Archive

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers

Related Reading: 2021 Change Challenge.

Narratology

Miss Gohrlay

Back in 2016 I began struggling to find the right girl to tell the Secret History of Humanity in Exode Saga. At that time, I was auditioning Alpha Gohrlay, the clone of Gohrlay who received a vast collection of infites from R. Gohrlay containing several million years of accumulated memories. With her access to memories from all past Realities, Alpha Gohrlay was an excellent candidate for the task of narrating the Exode Saga, but any story told by her would be at continual risk of becoming a story about her. So, no. I simply could not allow Alpha Gohrlay to take control of the Exode Saga. However, several other clones of Gohrlay also auditioned for the part, including Roben and Zeta, but they are only supporting cast members in Exode.

Tez in Grendel keep

Then in 2017 there was Tez. Sadly, Tez was never allowed to believe in the reality of space aliens visiting Earth. However, embryonic within Tez was the idea that one of the Editor's grandchildren might be able to tell the Secret History of Humanity.

And why wait for the Editor to exit from Earth before allowing one of his grandchildren to start investigating the the Secret History of Humanity?

Agonist

The Georgy-Verella link.

Towards the end of 2018 another grandchild (Verella) stepped forward and volunteered to to become the Agonist. The Editor begins calling his grand-daughter "Agonist" as a kind of joke. In the Exode Saga, it is as if the Final Reality has been constructed as an opportunity for we humans to spread ourselves to the stars rather than be replaced by the Prelands. At the point in Time when the Huaoshy made all further time travel impossible, the Final Reality had been constructed as a mechanism, as a vast device needing one remaining piece to activate the process by which the human species would successfully ascend to the stars.

The Femtobot Hack

That final required component of the Trysta-Grean Pact is the individual who can tell the Secret History of Humanity as a science fiction story. Human society has been crafted to be like a receptor protein and Verella is like the needed agonist drug that can activate the receptor.

Mind Bridge
As a late arrival on the scene, there are only limited sources of information that are still available to Verella when she starts to investigate the Secret History of Humanity. In order to provide Verella with access to the vast information resources at Observer Base, she is linked into the "mind clone network" which includes two copies of a newborn baby who was genetically constructed with half of its genes from Georgy White and half from Verella. Georgy is now living at Observer Base and caring for one of these "mind clones".

cover art by Jim Burns

Verella can link through her own baby to Georgy's "mind clone" at Observer Base via the Bimanoid Interface. Their daughters are thus a two-way link, a communications conduit between Verella on Earth and Georgy at Observer Base. Georgy comes to function as a important source of information for Verella, allowing her to tap into the available data at Observer Base (particularly science fiction stories from Deep Time that are in the archives of the Writers Block).

The only other source of information available to Verella are the stories that have slowly been accumulated by the Editor during his long life.

True Science Fiction

end of the road

25,000 years ago, the last remaining Neanderthals on Earth lived in North Africa along side their Anatomically Modern (AM) Human neighbors. The demise of the Neanderthals was of great interest to the Observers. Neanderthal-human hybrids were the best natural telepaths that had ever been observed on Earth.

In the First Reality, the introduction of Prelands into Earth's ecosystem had been delayed until the extinction of the Neanderthals. However, a colony of Neanderthal scientists continued to reside at Observer Base and the telepathic abilities of Neanderthal-AM Human hybrids were still being studied when Gohrlay's brain was used as the template for the first positronic brain.

cover art by Bruce Pennington

It is fun to imagine that there was an ancient city of Neanderthal-human hybrids in Africa that was the pride and joy of the Grendel Interventionists and which gave rise to lingering legends and eventually morphed into the idea of a great lost civilization of Atlantis.

Narration Collaboration
The telling of the Exode Saga is a collaborative effort, too large in scope for any one person. Describing the key events that took place in the past Realities of Earth is a daunting task... I hope that Rylla (Verella) will be able to handle the job.

Next: Gift Clone

Visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers.

The Phasian Knot

Ivory was trained as a scientist.
She wrote her account of First Contact
in the form of a journal article.
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion

Back in 2014 I wrote a short science fiction story called "The Phasian Knot", a tale of First Contact with alien beings from a distant world. For several years the story was available online at another website. That other website seems to have evaporated, so I'm placing a copy of the story here.
_______________________

The Phasian Knot
by Ivory Fersoni

Abstract
This is a report on my recent and largely successful investigation into the question of how Earthlings achieved First Contact. Sadly, for what should have been a momentous occasion, Earth's First Contact with beings from another world was something of a PR flop for the Buld. Regardless, the technology that allowed Earthlings to reach out and converse with the Buld spaceship before its arrival in the Solar System was based on hierions, a form of matter that until this century had been unknown to our world's science of physics. Our still primitive understanding of hierion physics was a gift from Trysta, a non-human visitor on Earth. As an Earthling herself, Trysta's arrival from the far future did not in itself count as First Contact, in the technical sense. Of course, I should not have been surprised to find that my research efforts reveal that hierions, as a quantal advance in Earthly technology, and, indeed, the whole story of First Contact, can be traced back to the machinations of Trysta and her Kac'hin partner in Time, Grean.

Abbreviation used: PR - public relations

Introduction

Ekcolir viewing Trysta viewing a Reality.

This story begins in our previous Reality, the Ekcolir Reality, at a time within the key temporal nexus of the late 20th century. That was when Trysta used alien technology for Reality Viewing to peer into the Buld Reality: the universe as we know it. Here, I use the technical term "Reality" in the sense popularized by Isaac Asimov in his first ever account of the principles that govern travel through time (see his novel, The End of Eternity). When a time traveler such as Trysta goes back in time and alters the historical course of events, the old Reality is destroyed and a new Reality comes into existence.

source

While searching for a rare and precious Reality in which we Earthlings might survive to reach the stars, Trysta had stumbled onto the fact that her son, Thomas, would end up on the Moon, altruistically sacrificing his freedom so that his clone brother Parthney could be teleported back to the waiting arms of his lover, Kach. (Pardon the sarcasm ... I remain sadly bitter over the cruel course of my own romantic misadventures.)

Asterothrope hermaphrodites are
smaller than Asterthrope females

Thomas and his travels through time provided an important loop during the creation of the Phasian knot. The existence of Thomas, as the remarkable hybrid entity that he is, only became possible when the alien pek designed the Ek'col as a modified type of human organism that could capture Trysta's Asterothrope genes for use in the human gene pool. Thomas' father, Ekcolir, the prototypical Ek'col, was the great love of Trysta's life.

That love, brought to fruition from across a gulf of ten million years and lasting across a span of 20,000 years, from their first shy meeting and on into Trysta and Ekcolir's second lives as artificial life forms, constitutes a twisted love story that must be told in another, larger forum. Suffice it to say that the product of that romantic collision in space and time, Thomas, played out an essential role in the story of First Contact.

Location of the ancient "city" of Phasi

During their planning of our universe, Trysta and Grean took to referring to their jointly conceived plan for bringing the Buld Reality into existence as "the Phasian Knot". They did so because the complex Reality Change they devised involved Trysta going back in time to visit the ancient "city" of Phasi.

Given its size and function as a seasonal destination for semi-nomadic people, we of this age would not recognize Phasi as having been a true city. However, the rocky shoals of the area provided a rich source of shore foods and over the millennia a megalithic temple complex had slowly built up on a bluff fifty feet above the point where the river met the sea. The trivalent Phasi temples of the Moon, the Earth and the Sun formed the core of that early city.

That Earthly locale, at the east end of the Black Sea, was selected for Trysta's time travel mission for several related reasons, not the least of which being that the local population had retained high levels of expression of alien genes. Those genes had first been introduced to Earth during Ekcolir's time travel mission of about 20,000 years ago.

The Phasi children were golden-haired and efficient manufacturers of the D vitamins that their brains needed in large amounts in order to attain contact with "the gods". In contrast to the golden children of Phasi, the adults grew to have dark hair as they passed through adolescence, and their childhood telepathic contacts with the gods remained for them only a fodder for their highly developed cultural practice of story telling and myth building.

Of course, there never were any gods, but the children of Phasi did have real and largely unconscious contact with hidden Nereid agents, watching and waiting, tricking and treating, from within their secret refuge in the Hierion Domain. Those innocent children of Phasi were an obvious choice for Trysta when she went in search of a tribe of primitive Earthlings who could fulfill the strict requirements of her time travel mission.

source

Methods
Observer Base on the Moon holds vast detailed records of how humans spread across our planet's surface. I've lived at Observer Base on the Moon for months, but I have no hope of ever being granted insight into how such records were -and still are- collected. My guess is that Observers secretly live among the people of Earth, constantly making a record of our planet's history.

Across the millennia, tribes have flowed from place to place across the surface of Earth like amoebae in search of food. I've been able to watch the rhythm of that flow as recorded in the Observer databases here on the Moon. Of central importance to this particular story are a people who I will call the Phasi, although that name was never actually used by them.

The Phasi were descended from a human tribe that Ekcolir had originally selected and genetically modified based on the fact that they had inherited some key genes from Neanderthals. Their special genetic endowment simplified his work in the past and reduced the number of genes he had to insert de novo before a functional bimanoid interface could be established within the brains of some humans on Earth.

The bimanoid interface is what provides humans like myself with technology-assisted telepathic powers. The necessary technological assist is provided by the alien nanite swarms that have existed, unseen, on Earth for millions of years. The trick of telepathy is simply to match one's brain structure to the nanites so as to achieve a functional symbiosis: the bimanoid interface.

The Neanderthal brain was naturally adapted for non-technology-assisted telepathic contact. The full implications of that unusual evolutionary outcome must be told another day, but it is perhaps the most unique historical fact about our planet and we should acclaim its importance as the root of the twists and human contortions that formed the Phasian knot.

Trysta lived in the city of Phasi at the time of the Great Black Sea Flood. After the Flood, remnants of the Phasi community eventually migrated westward and played their role in establishing the cultural foundation for what we think of as ancient Greek civilization.

Overseers

In order to tap into the historical databases of Moon Base, I needed to complete two methodologically difficult tasks. First, I needed to attract the attention of the Overseers and trick them into pulling me out of human society and taking me to the Moon. Second, I needed a way to transmit what I learned while on the Moon back to the ignorant and oblivious population of Earth.

Future Science

To get my ticket to the Moon, I made strategic use of Future Science magazine to provoke the ire of the Overseers. Moon Base is still dominated by Overseers who believe it is their duty to enforce the terms of the agreement that was reached between Trysta and Grean, the pact that ended the Time War. The Time War itself was brewed up by R. Gohrlay and it pitted her robotic self against the alien Huaoshy. That epic struggle provides the back story and framework for the story of the Phasian knot.

The true physical form of the
alien Nereids is unknown.

By publishing a few inflammatory stories in Future Science, stories in which I lied about receiving help from the alien Nereids, I was soon blessed by a visit from above. The Overseer who came to Earth in order to collect me was a real bitch. She called herself Ecce Maria, a kind of joke name, equivalent to a soldier operating in foreign territory as a spy who might be trained to tell the enemy, should he ever be captured, that his name is "John Doe".

Ecce Maria invaded my home, Atlantis, like an avenging angel. Knowing that my method of attracting Overseer attention would provoke such an exaggerated response, I'd already evacuated my fellow residents of Atlantis, all except for myself. At a later time I will reveal the fate of Angela and my other clone sisters, but for now I'm respecting their privacy and allowing them a chance to gain a head start on their pursuers

In the First Reality: Gohrlay aboard Many Sails.

My former base of operations, which has long been jokingly called Atlantis, is actually an alien spaceship. That sentient spaceship, known a Many Sails, was in complete "idiot mode" during the raid by Ecce Maria. Maria never guessed that Many Sails was watching, so she was quite rude and overbearing. After berating me for my stupidity in allying myself with illegal Interventionist forces, Maria seemed to slowly notice my calm demeanor. She quieted somewhat and seemed to lose a grip on her self-confidence. Ecce Maria then demanded, "What were you thinking, Ivory?"

Not wishing to risk provoking Maria to the extent that she would insert her vile Overseer thought control nanites into my brain, I played dumb. "I thought we Earthlings were now free to discuss among ourselves the secret history of Earth."

Maria shook her head and expressed her exasperation, "Don’t be a fool. Well, you can't help yourself, but at least don't take me for a fool! The Nereids should never have been on Earth and the Trysta-Grean Pact explicitly forbids them from operating on Earth now and in the future. The Nereids are forbidden from having contacts with humans until -or better put, if- you Earthlings ever manage to merge into galactic civilization."

The Trysta-Grean Pact

I meekly complained and pretended ignorance, "How was I supposed to know that? Can I see a copy of this Trysta-Grean Pact?"

Maria glowered and blustered, "Just because there is no written copy of the Pact does not mean that it does not exist. Anyhow, your ignorance of the law does not mean that you are not bound by it. I've seen the many recordings that were made of Trysta and Grean during the years when they hammered out the terms of the Pact. As my guest at Observer Base you'll now have access to Observer databases and the entire recorded history of Earth. I suggest that you start by watching the famous recording of Trysta that was made on the day when she agreed to the ban against Nereid Interventionism on Earth"

Maria was true to her word. After my initial orientation period at Moon Base, I did gain access to the Earth Observer databases, which, after all, had been my original goal in attracting Overseer attention.

More challenging than just getting to the Moon was then finding a way to share what I learned while on the Moon with my fellow Earthlings. In general, human travelers who go from the Earth to Observer Base only get a one-way ticket. I accept that travel restriction, but by the laws of divergent thinking there is always a way to cut the Gordian Knot.

Buld spaceship on Earth

Several years ago I began crafting a communications conduit by which I would be able to send information from the Moon to Earth. I developed the necessary receiver, an Earthling who I refer to here only as "the Editor". The Editor is a fellow scientist who was too stupid to hitch a ride off of Earth when the Buld spaceship briefly visited our dreary little world.

Latent within the Editor's body were the genes needed to access the bimanoid interface. Thus, with a little prodding and nudging, the Editor attained the ability to receive my technology-assisted telepathic communications. Now that I have left Earth, sacrificing myself to the zealotry of the Overseers, I must rely on the Editor to publish my account of the Phasian knot.

Results
About 10,000 years ago the city of Phasi grew and thrived on the shore of the Black Sea near a river that is now know as the Rioni. Trysta arrived in Phasi as a time traveler with a primary operational goal and several subsidiary missions. Her task of highest priority was establishing a secret teleportation terminal on Earth for use by Interventionist agents. The plan was to construct the terminal in the days just before the Black Sea attained its final and still current connection to the world's oceans. Trysta anticipated the ocean waters rushing in to fill the Black sea basin, raising the level of its waters and covering the teleportation terminal. The Nereids evolved as semi-aquatic creatures on their native planet, and it was natural for their agents on Earth to hide themselves under water.

Trysta arrived in Phasi well equipped with her brilliant mind and domineering personality as well as a swarm of Asterothrope nanites. Walking into town, she used a telepathic homing signal and quickly gathered most of the local children together. Accompanied by her gaggle of children, she walked into the temple complex, quickly taking over control from the local priestesses. Trysta used some harsh mind control nanites to silence the objections of the priestesses and the entire ruling clan of Phasi.

Surrounded by the children of Phasi, Trysta immediately began telling them the future shape of their lives and she even boldly spoke of the 10,000 year distant future times that we now live in. Of course, most of what she told the people of Phasi became lost in time or was eventually transformed into the stuff of myth and legend.

Trysta explained to the local adults that due to the moral depravity of their former rulers, their city would soon be flooded. Posing as the new temple priestess for the Earth Goddess, she recommended a mass migration to higher ground. Using her nanorobotic tools to perform a few "miracles", Trysta managed to convince most of the residents to listen to her warnings and depart, although most of the Phasi waited until they were forced to leave their huts and camp sites when the waters of the Sea began to rise.

Grendel Time

As soon as the teleportation terminal was assembled and operational inside the temple, a Nereid Interventionist was teleported into Phasi. That Interventionists agent was an artificial life form, what I've previously described (in the context of another story from Earth's past[2]) as a "Grendel". The terminology used to refer to artificial life forms is problematical.

After his journey to the Andromeda galaxy, Parthney introduced the term "Nereids" to refer to the mysterious Interventionists who have long worked to liberate we Earthlings from the tight grip of Overseer restrictions. I personally prefer the term "Grendels", but "Nereids" is perhaps the better term because the Nereids are typically depicted as cute girls rather than hideous monsters, a real PR bonus.

It is only from the human perspective that it makes sense to say that Trysta teleported a Nereid into Phasi. What actually happened was that a swarm of advanced Interventionist nanites were sent to Earth. Some of those nanites adopted the simulated physical form of a humanoid creature, a synthetic being who was known to the natives as Urinemi. Urinemi took up residence in the Phasi temple of the Moon, taking on the role of priestess to the Moon Goddess.

Using the language of the locals, Trysta frequently referred to this new lunar temple priestess in sentences that included the phrase, "uri nemi kas", which can be roughly translated into modern English as, "first source of teaching". The main task of this new Nereid Interventionist being was to teach Earthlings the fine art of domesticating plants and animals.

When the rising ocean waters broke through from the Mediterranean and as the level of the Black Sea began to rise, the people of Phasi were forced to abandon the ancient site of their huts along the shore. Trysta and Urinemi remained in the temple complex, which was soon isolated on a small newly-formed island.

During the time of the Flood, Trysta's phrase "uri nemi kas" became bastardized and transformed, first to the name Urinemi and then eventually that early name descended through time and lore, becoming known as the ancient water-associated deity Eurynome.

Trysta's remaining task was to find a way to preserve through the next 10,000 years a record of the critical hierion-based communications technology that would be needed at the start of this millennium in order for Earthlings to make First Contact with the arriving Buld spaceship. That spaceship, traveling just below the speed of light, had already completed one third of its 15,000 light year journey from the galactic core to Earth. Trysta knew that the safest place to store such information was not on Earth, but rather, on the Moon, at Observer Base.

To accomplish this data storage, Trysta used the same sort of trick I recently used to reach the Moon. When the Phasi Temple of the Moon became, inevitably, half submerged by the rising Sea, Urinemi called for a sacrifice, specifying that the people of Phasi must give up one of the local children.

The sacrificial child was selected and sent to the sinking temple in a small boat. There, on the top of a megalithic arch, Urinemi and Trysta (in her adopted role as the Earth priestess) conducted their last extravagant performance for the natives.

In front of the bewildered people of Phasi, who had assembled and were watching from a nearby hill, Urinemi and Trysta pretended to sacrifice the golden haired child and transform its blood into a beastly sea serpent. Urinemi went through the simulated motions of being raped by the serpent and then giving birth to a heard of small dolphins that proceeded to put on a remarkable display of jumps and antics in the lagoon before swimming out to sea.

It was that over-the-top theatrical performance that finally attracted Overseer attention. Trysta teleported off of Earth, taking the "sacrificed" child with her, leaving Urinemi to be captured by an Overseer and taken to Moon Base.

Of course, the bumbling Overseers lacked the needed technology to detect the true nature of Urinemi as an artificial life form composed of advanced Nereid nanites. The Overseers have their own primitive nanotechnology, but Nereid "nanites" are actually composed of even smaller femtoscale components that can almost perfectly assemble to form simulated bodies of biological creatures. Urinemi lived out a normal human life span as a resident at Observer Base on the Moon. After a simulated death, "her" nanite components quietly went into hiding for the next 10,000 years, only to emerge again upon the arrival of Trysta's son Thomas.

Thomas, as a well-practiced expert in meshing his brain with naites, had no problem learning the secret of hierion-based communications from the Urinemi nanites. Using the same basic technology-assisted telepathy trick that I am now using, Thomas transmitted to Earth the secret of how to use hierion-based communications technology.

Luri selling Project Mercury

With the help of another Nereid agent, Betty, a team of Earthlings at Space Energy Missions was able to receive the information that had been telepathically provided by Thomas, making it possible for them to contact the Buld spaceship while it was still en route to Earth.

Of course, when the Buld spaceship reached Earth, Thomas arranged to accompany the Overseers who rushed to Earth. Once safely back on Earth, with my help, Thomas transferred all of his nanites into the brain of the Editor. Had I known that those nanites included some that had originated as Urinemi, I never would have simply handed them over to the Editor. However, in the end, it all worked out for the best. I was able to leave Earth and the Editor should be able to use "his" nanites to receive my telepathic transmissions from the Moon.

Discussion
It will be interesting to see how the Overseers respond when "The Phasian Knot" is published. Will the Overseers again swoop down upon Earth and this time scoop up the Editor? By the twisted logic of the Overseers, the Editor, by using the "Urinemi nanites", is in violation of the Trysta-Grean Pact.

However, it is not my purpose to win the Editor his ticket to the Moon. I hope to reveal to the Overseers the futility of their misguided attempts to keep the people of Earth from learning the secrets of Earth's past and how alien visitors have for so long shaped the development of human civilization. As far as I know, the Nereids have indeed abandoned their Interventionist efforts on Earth. In fact, the Nereids now seem quite concerned that they might have pushed we Earthlings too far and too fast.

We are now poised at the start of our space age, tantalized by the opportunity to explore the vastness of space, but still struggling to master and safely use the powerful technologies that we now suddenly find in our tool box. Good luck to those of you who remain on Earth: I fear that you will need luck, wisdom and courage to survive the journey down this path that Gohrlay and the Nereids set us on so long ago.

I was justifiably curious about Trysta's time travel adventure 10,000 years in our past. I've learned that she was successful in all phases of her mission. For thousands of years after the destruction of Phasi, young "women" emerged from the waters of lakes, rivers and the seas to live among men and teach the skills required for plant and animal domestication. Of course, those "women" were the nanorobotic "descendants" of Urinemi. After ten thousand years, all that remained as a record of past Nereid Interventionism on Earth was a collection of myths about water deities and creatures like the Nereids of the ancient Greeks.

In contrast, at Observer Base on the Moon there is an amazingly detailed historical record of Earth. Looking through the data now available to me here on the Moon, I can see that the Nereid Interventionists were careful to disguise themselves as humans and not attract unwanted attention from the Overseers. Thus, the Earth Observer databases are not as useful as I had hoped for revealing how our civilization ascended towards the stars over the past 10,000 years.

Nuclear Catastrophy

By cutting we Earthlings off from further contact with the Nereids, Grean knew that we would remain essentially ignorant of the extent to which our civilization was pushed ahead by alien influences. Thus, if we so choose, we can continue to imagine that it was our own innate ingenuity and courage that brought us to where we are today.

However, knowing that we were pushed by aliens into the future where we now find ourselves, we should all feel somewhat daunted. Will we find the wisdom to use for good the advanced technologies that we have been given or will we foolishly destroy ourselves by losing control of our technological genies?

Trysta's goal was to safely guide us between the Scylla of nuclear armageddon and the Charybdis of global warming. Only time will tell us if she was successful in her effort by creating the Buld Realty, the universe that we now find ourselves confined to.

Global Warming

I must insert an important reminder at this point in the story. After the Buld Reality was brought into existence, the Huaoshy altered the dimensional structure of the universe, making time travel impossible. We must make the best of this Reality: there will be no more re-dos.

Why did everyone associated with Space Energy Missions abandon Earth, depart with the Buld and take with them the advanced hierion technology that they had been given access to? The original plan was to use hierion technology to quickly provide Earth with a clean energy source, putting an end to fossil fuel use and removing the threat of global warming and catastrophic sea level rise.

Trysta purposefully chose to visit Phasi at its time of destruction by the rising sea. I believe that when she peered into our Reality she saw that the people of Earth would one day hear the story that I have told in "The Phasian Knot". I believe that Trysta and I are sisters, that we share a hope that Earthlings will learn from the past and find a way to save planet Earth.

My other spiritual sisters who once worked at Space Energy Missions seem to have decided that we Earthlings cannot be trusted with knowledge of hierion physics. Angela has looked deep into our past Realities and seen other Earth histories in which nuclear catastrophe made Earth's surface uninhabitable. Asimov himself published his warning of that all too likely fate for Earth[1]. I can well imagine how the immense forces latent within hierion matter could be an even greater threat to the bumbling primates of Earth than has been our understanding of nucleons.

From within the previous Reality, what Trysta called the Ekcolir Reality, Trysta saw firsthand the horrors of melting ice caps and rising ocean levels. She created our Reality and shaped it so that we have the chance to avoid technology-induced catastrophes. She gave us our chance to not only reach the stars, but save this precious Earth from destruction.

Let's not throw away that chance. With the abandonment of Space Energy Missions and their plan to make use of hierions to efficiently transmit energy to Earth from Mercury, we missed our shot at an "easy fix" for our voracious energy needs. Abandoned by the Buld and the Nereids, we must now roll up our sleeves and make our own future, a future that fulfills the Huaoshy vision of Earth preserved as an eternal garden of life while still making real our dream of reaching the stars.

Note from the Editor: By submitting "The Phasian Knot" for publication, I'm risking a trip to the Moon. I would not mind joining Ivory there, particularly if by doing so I can save her from any pending acts of Overseer retribution that arise from her effort to tell this story. Of course, the more likely outcome is that the Overseers will simply prevent publication of this story. I left this story in the format that was transmitted to me by Ivory, the format of a scientific research paper. I like to think of her as Humanity's researcher in residence on the Moon. With luck we will receive many more such reports.

References
1. Isaac Asimov. Robots and Empire Published by Doubleday Books in 1985.
2. Beowulf, author unknown. Available as the Nowell Codex of the British Library.

source

_______________________________

Looking back at "The Phasian Knot" from the perspective of 2018...

I had fun imagining that the "story" was written by Ivory. Ivory was trained as a molecular biologist, so it was natural for her to write her "story" in the format of a science journal article.

Mentioned in the story is Ekcolir's time travel mission of about 20,000 years ago. I later (in 2017) wrote about that mission into the past (see Ereus).

Related Reading: Horse Punk

2019

The Phasi Heights
The Phasian Elf
Assassination by Subtraction
The Sessily Trilogy
 
2018 - Ivory's fate: she ends up on Cynk
2019 - The Dead Widower Society ⎸The last Preland on Earth

Next: Bimanoid Interface 2.0

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers