The World Starter

Araminta Station cover art by Boris
Vallejo. "The Beast and the Butterfly"

Sessily Veder is a tragic character in the Jack Vance novel Araminta Station. She is murdered and her body sealed up in wine keg and shipped off across space. Before her demise, she shares her personal outlook on life with her boyfriend, Glawen: "I like to pretend that the world started when I was born and will go on forever, and never change."

Building on that romantic world view, I've written Sessily into the Exode Trilogy. She is one of the few people who are transported from the Ekcolir Reality into the Buld Reality. In a way, Sessily did create (or is in the process of creating) the world as we know it.

I've previously described some of the basic facts about the version of Sessily who lives in our world. Recently I learned about the "original Sessily" who lived in the Ekcolir Reality.

Svahr's family tree

Here (to the left) is the "family tree" that Anney provided for the "original Sessily". According to Anney, the inspiration for Sessily was actually named Svahr.

Svahr was an interventionist agent who was stationed on Earth during the 20th century in the Ekcolir Reality. Svahr carried a heavy load of Preland genes, but while stationed on Earth she used facial nanites to provide her with normal human features.

art by Boris Vallejo

The true appearance of Svahr is not certain, but I've provided fanciful depiction (image to the right). When Svahr visited Earth, she was able to modify her physical appearance by using advanced nanites.

Svahr apparently played a role in many Reality Changes that were engineered during the Time War. Most of Svahr's work was erased, but Angela Fersoni recovered the story behind many of her exploits from information that still exists in the Sedronic Domain.

Eight months ago Angela and Ivory passed along some information to me about Meropa, one of the early interventionists who helped shape human civilization on Earth. I wish I had also known about Svahr back then.

Micro-changes

Ivory once tried to explain to me some of the intricacies involved in initiating the Buld Reality, the world as we know it. However, I still don't understand exactly what finally triggered the Reality Change that converted the Ekcolir Reality into the Buld Reality. The initial time travel events that contributed to that Reality Change only cause "micro-changes".

I've been struggling to understand the distinction between "micro-changes" and Reality Changes for years. Here is one (probably incorrect) way to think about Trysta's last time travel mission, when she went 10,000 years into our past. Imagine that her trip to Phasi and the second part of her mission, in Bermuda, did NOT trigger a Reality Change. This is analogous to what Asimov described in The End of Eternity when Cooper was sent back into the Primitive. When Trysta was stationed in Bermuda, she met Athlash and they had a son named Hyanti.

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The fate of Athlash is unclear, but it might be that he died while on a mission in South America. What is clear is that Trysta teleported off of Earth, perhaps while pregnant with Hyanti. At that time. Lendhalen did not yet exist, but there was some equivalent Interventionist base in the Koly star system. That is where Hyanti met a Kac'hin named Karonis.

Karonis and Hyanti were the parents of a woman named Tayge. Tayge was eventually cloned, giving rise to Meropa, Mintha and Psamatha. Psamatha was the mother of Svahr. Svahr somehow ended up as an Interventionist agent in the 20th century of the Ekcolir Reality. Anney has suggested to me that Svahr's mission to the 20th century involved moving an Earth human from the Ekcolir Reality into the Buld Reality. This "move" required a precisely timed process by which one selected Earthling was taken out of Time, kept safe in Eternity, and then he was "transplanted" into the Buld Reality, the world as we know it. There are parts of this story that Anney refuses to explain to me, in particular, the identity of the person who Svahr "rescued" from the Ekcolir Reality, someone who apparently now exists here in our universe as a member of the Dead Widowers Society.

"The old observatory" by Leon Tukker

When the Reality Change finally became complete and the Buld Reality replaced the Ekcolir Reality, then all the micro-changes caused in Earth's past by both Ekcolir and Trysta became part of the Buld Reality. In some sense, Svahr "began" in the Ekcolir Reality, but she must have come safely into Buld Reality where her genetic template was used to make the "version of Sessily" that exists in our Reality. Further, Anney insists that Svahr had (has?) a replicoid in the Hierion Domain that guided the cognitive development of the "version of Sessily" that exists in our Reality.

The Kac'hin

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The identities of Resk^Ki's father and grandfather remain
unknown. The name of Resk^Ki's mother has not
been revealed to me, although I suspect Anney knows it.

According to Anney, Svahr and Resh^Ki ended up on the same planet of the Galactic Core, a world where they are struggling to resolve one last dispute that was left "up in the air" at the end of the Time Travel War. Anney still has doubts as to whether we are actually in the true Buld Reality that was the basis of the Trysta-Grean Pact. Apparently we are in unexplored territory, possibly still with micro-changes yet to be "completed" that will determine the final form of our Reality, even though time travel is now no longer possible.

Here is how Anney explained it: "Some of the effects of time travel are still propagating through the information flows of the Hierion and Sedron Domains." It is like the dramatic last scene of The End of Eternity when Andrew must decide if he will trust Noÿs or kill her.

When Anney told me that the Buld Reality is, in essence, still forming, I asked if we are actually still in the Ekcolir Reality. She assured me that the Ekcolir Reality ended after the pek brought into existence the Kac'hin and deployed them on Battle Field Earth.

Hermaphrodites
If you ever want to watch Anney get "fired up", just mention hermaphrodites. Apparently the Prelands were designed as hermaphrodites for a fairly innocuous reason, but then the whole "hermaphrodite thing" snowballed. Thus, we ended up with hermaphroditic Buld, Asterothropes, Ek'col, Kac'hin and tryp'At. According to Anney the tryp'At hermaphrodites are the "problem" because they were specifically crafted so as to be superficially indistinguishable from Earthlings.

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Thus, the tryp'AT have claimed (based on a technical interpretation of the Rules of Intervention and the Trysta-Grean Pact) the right to become the self-appointed Overseers of Earth in the Buld Reality.

Anney claims that the grab for control of Observer Base by the tryp'At has prevented the "true Buld Reality" from coming into existence, threatening a collapse of the Trysta-Grean Pact. Kach and Parthney have gone off to the Galactic Core in an effort aimed at discovering the home of the tryp'At. Anney and the Dead Widowers are trying to act as a counter force to the tryp'At here on Earth.

World Starter

"Hydratellian Archaeology" by
Hannah Rose Williams

Anney says that the final nature of the Buld Reality is still being determined. Along with the "version of Sessily" that exists in our Reality and the other Dead Widowers, Anney is struggling against Resh^Ki and the tryp'At Overseers to decide the fate of we Earthlings.

I'm baffled and confused by what Anney has told me about her continuing struggles against Resh^Ki. Sometimes I feel that Anney is impatiently waiting for me to develop my ability to control the Bimanoid Interface. I suspect that Anney's talk about "propagating information" through the Hierion Domain is specifically in reference to me and my ability to consciously retain information that is already available to my replicoid inside the Hierion Domain.

My working hypothesis is that there is some "deep secret" surrounding the particular hermaphroditic tryp'At who was the father of Resh^Ki. Anney refuses to discuss the matter with me.

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First Contact

cover art by Howard V. Brown

It was four years ago when I blogged about the type of first contact story that I prefer. Since deciding to write myself into Exode, I've been having the fun of discovering the story of my own first contact with aliens.

For the Exode Trilogy, the back story tells us that aliens have been visiting Earth for millions of years and we humans were created by the aliens. Thus, in a sense, we Earthling are way past first contact. However, we all have the opportunity to become aware of the presence of aliens among us.

In my case, achieving awareness of our human condition has been a rather complex multi-step processes. Here are some high points .....

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1) First and fundamentally, I was born with a lucky combination of genes that gave me a brain with some capacity to do more than just be a passive host for alien nanites. Thus, I've always had some limited capacity for neural/nanite-mediated contact with aliens.

2) Trysta spent much time and effort studying our Reality (the Buld Reality) before it came into existence. I have to assume that she either saw me in the role of "the Editor" or she selected me as the person who would become "the Editor". I believe I first met Trysta about 40 years ago. Trysta's shape shifting ability makes it difficult to know for sure.

3) When Thomas and Izhiun gave me their nanites, my mind nearly fractured. It was a puzzle: why did they select me as the recipient of their little "gifts"?

A whimsical book cover inspired by
Angela's exposure of the important role
played by Overseers in the Buld Reality

Only slowly have I made progress in untangling this mystery. I now know that I met Thomas 35 years ago. I have to wonder about the possibility that he was acting with the guidance of his mother Trysta when he brought Izhiun to me.

4) My collaboration with Ivory began less than a year ago. Her first email was rather cryptic and we had to dance around for a while before we could confirm the security and fidelity of our communications. Frustratingly, just when I was attaining some small degree of proficiency at working with Angela through Ivory as our intermediary, I lost contact with them.

Over the course of a few months, we were able to sort out some of the hints that Parthney had given me through the medium of his information nanites. For example, at first I could not understand the differences between the Buld Reality and Ekcolir Reality.

The Urak Intervention
by Ivory Fersoni
(click image to enlarge)

Parthney is a creature of Buld Reality and he did not know the significance of the long chain of Interventionists that preceded him to Earth. By delving into the information stores that exist in the Sedronic Domain, Angela was able to see that constant fine-tuning was needed through the long history of human civilization in order to make sure that the Buld Reality would turn out as it has.

I've previously blogged about Meropa, who seems to have been an important early force among the Interventionists. An artificial life version of Meropa apparently first assisted an Interventionist agent on Earth during the establishment of Eridu as an urban center. Angela has traced Meropa's tenure on Earth through many additional Interventions at Ur, Urak, Shuruppak and other Sumerian cities.

Exactly what were the terms of truce between Trysta and Grean that brought an end to the Time Travel War? Did Gohrlay's 10,000,000 year struggle for Humanity yield any positive outcomes for we humans or were her efforts simply smothered by the vast technological superiority of the Huaoshy?

More importantly, does the answer to that question depend on the skill with which I am able to tell Gohrlay's story? In a sense, R. Gohrlay became entangled in a chess match with Grean. I usually refer to their epic battle as "The Time Travel War". Frankly, a game of chess does not make for riveting fiction.

The events in John Bunner's novel The Squares of the City was apparently based on a chess match that he translated into human actions. I think he failed to make the human conflict of the story (and all of the deaths) believable.

I'm still struggling to understand the motives of Grean. At first I could only view Grean as a puppet of the Huaoshy, but I've started to reconsider. If Izhiun, Thomas and even Ivory and Angela have all decided (did they, of their own free will?) to conform to Huaoshy ethical standards which dictate that we Earthlings must be left alone to sort out our own problems, then I can't sustain resentment over the hypothesis that we humans are mere pawns in the intergalactic game being played out by the Huaoshy.

The Pek

The pek have a knack for becoming almost invisible. They don't flaunt their extraordinary technological powers. Parthney was able to provide considerable information about the Interventionist side of the Buld Reality, but it has been more difficult for me to obtain insight into how the pek deployed their own chess pieces: the Overseers.

The silly magazine cover (to the left on this page) plays with the idea of first contact between humans and the pek, here represented as sentient board pieces engaged in a spirited game of laser chess.

Ivory tried to convince me that the pek have not been on Earth during the past million years. However, I imagine that some pek could be just a step away from we Earthlings, within the Hierion Domain. The pek are artificial life forms, composed of zeptites and able to take on any convenient physical form. How would any of us know if we had contact with a pek? For that matter, how would we know if pek zeptites were residing inside our brains and guiding our thoughts and behavior?

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Image credits.
I went looking for an image that would represent the artificial life version of Meropa during the age when "she" was on duty helping human Interventionists get civilization rolling in Mesopotamia. My search ended when I found "Temple of the Unknown Goddess" uploaded by ThornErose to the deviantART website (see image to the right). I tried to transform the head gear from Egyptian to Sumerian and provide a bit of a science fiction feel with the sky.
 

Super Science Stories 1949

1946 cover art by William Timmins

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Assignment: Meropa, J. L. Forrest writing scifi, Clarke in Columbo

Seamount Bermúdez

Hemmal

At the start of 2012 I began trying to imagine how Parthney, a young man who grew up on the distant planet Hemmal, would be prepared and trained for his mission to Earth as an Interventionist agent. Parthney is trained at a secret base called Lendhalen which is nominally controlled by the Pla, however the alien Fru'wu have long provided technical and doctrinal support to the Pla.

Syon

Also at Lendhalen are robots. In particular, Parthney is assigned the robot Syon as his personal aide and domestic helper. At first Syon seems backwards and clumsy, by far the most primitive artificial life form in the Exode Trilogy. But slowly through his years of training, Syon changes and Parthney finds that she is a source of amazing insights into the true nature of the entire Earth Interventionist operation. When Parthney sings praises of Syon to his Pla handlers they don't believe him and he can't convince anyone else at Lendhalen of Syon's value. When ever anyone else is present, Syon is her old klunky self.

Gwyned

In addition to the Pla and the robots there are some Earthlings who live at Lendhalen. The most recent arrival from Earth is Gwyned, who is actually Parthney's half sister, although they are not aware of their familial relationship. The other Earthlings are all from deep in Earth's past, a living human library that can provide Parthney with valuable insights into the history of Earth and how a long series of Interventionist agents who preceded Parthney to Earth have shaped the course of technological and cultural progress. While Gwyned is the most "modern" Earthling who Parthney works with at Lendhalen, Meropa is the most "ancient". Her Earthly origins can be traced back 10,000 years.

Location of the Priabonian mining
operation (blue) of the pek.

In the Ekcolir Reality, Bermuda is completely submerged by the rising sea level after the Antarctic ice sheet melts. Looking into the future, Trysta observes the disastrous effects for life on Earth from rising temperatures and rapid changes in ocean pH. As described in my previous blog post, Earth is locked into a strange temporal attractor that causes ecological disaster either by nuclear radiation or global warming.

Trysta works long and hard searching through alternate Realities of ever lower probability in an attempt to find a future in which humans can reach the stars without devastating Earth's ecosystem. One day, she comes upon a possible Reality in which there is only modest sea level rise due to fossil fuel use and global warming. Following her standard protocol, she then begins to look for a satisfactory Reality Chain branching off from this promising Reality. In this way, Trysta makes her great discovery: the Buld Reality is the Final Reality.

It takes a while for Trysta and Grean to understand how it might be possible for the Huaoshy to put an end to time travel. Eventually, the deed is done: the Huaoshy alter the dimensional structure of the universe so as to make further time travel impossible. By that point, Trysta is in the Buld Reality and it is no longer possible to obtain any information from the future.

Image to the left. Location of one of the pek-engineered Priabonian asteroid impact sites.
Below: the pek-induced Priabonian crustal fracture lines are indicated, although most of these cracks are deep and have not yet been detected by Earthlings.

Locations of 10 Priabonian asteroid impacts (red arrows). The older Manicouagan crater is visible.

Bermuda Triangles

Mistastin crater: one of 10 Priabonian asteroid impacts.

The island of Bermuda is quite familiar to Trysta. For the Exode Trilogy I imagine that 7,000,000 years ago the pek began to alter primate evolution on Earth. However, the pek first visited Earth 655 million years ago. At that time, they initiated a plan for gradually improving the diversity of life on Earth.

When Thomas wrote Miners of Earth he had only a vague understanding of the long period of time during which the pek had been visiting Earth.  The pek spent over half a billion years mining planet Earth for sedronic matter before humans existed.

The last such mining efforts was initiated during the Priabonian. The pek engineered the synchronized impact on Earth by 10 asteroids (at the locations shown by the arrows in the image above). This bombardment was prelude to extension of ongoing pek mining operations past the continental shelf and out under the growing Atlantic sea floor. This new phase of mining triggered the eruption that formed Bermuda. The older Manicouagan crater marks the eastern edge of earlier pek mining operations further west and north under the North American plate.

Earth 655 million years ago

The basic pek mining method was to teleport huge volumes of sedron-containing magma to an orbital processing facility. Most of processed magma was then returned to Earth, but this type of large-scale teleportation operation (in continual use for over 600 million years on Earth) also allowed the pek to buffer natural swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, thus moderating climatic changes and preventing any further "snowball Earth" events.

By the Priabonian, the yields of sedronic matter from mining Earth were low and climate control was the main pek concern. Sedron mining eventually became unnecessary after time travel was invented.

For about 10 million years the island of Bermuda was a convenient base for pek mining operations. Then, with the evolution of larger brained social primates, the pek could no longer treat Earth as a mining depot. They ended all mining and removed some early apes from Earth and began experimenting with their directed evolution on other planets near the core of the galaxy.

Mintha and Meropa

In the Ekcolir Reality, Interventionists often used Bermuda as a convenient base of operations. When Trysta went back in time to help initiate the Buld Reality, she worked with an Ek'col named Athlash. Their son, Hyanti, was raised on Bermuda before being sent from Earth to the Koly star system. There, he and a Kac'hin named Karonis had a daughter, Tayge. Tayge was cloned, resulting in many "sisters", including Meropa, Psamatha and Mintha. Meropa became an important collaborator with Leymaygn and was one of the residents of Lendhalen during Parthney's training. An artificial life replica of Meropa became an important assistant to Interventionist agents on Earth during the 4th millennium BCE.

Atlantis
When Earthlings finally settled Bermuda, the Interventionists were comfortable using a nearby undersea facility as a base of operations. This secret base was sometimes jokingly called "Atlantis". After the initiation of the Buld Reality, Grean had to change the rules for Interventionist on Earth. Grean stationed Many Sails near Bermuda and denied the use of Bermuda to Interventionists.

It was only with the aid of the Atlantis Clones that the Exode Trilogy became a story that could be told. As shown below, a linkage had to be made between Ivory and Thomas: "the editor".

Connections between Ivory and Thomas

Ivory

Neither Ivory or Thomas has many contacts with run-of-the-mill Earthlings. Ivory goes into seclusion at Atlantis and helps develop Angela's ability to use the Bimanoid Interface. Angela can sense the Buld who are approaching Earth, but she has no way to contact the Buld spaceship or even verify that her "vision" of an approaching ship is correct. Ivory is the one to go out and get help from Paul Allen to establish communications with the Buld Spaceship.

Thomas is in a difficult position when he arrives in the Buld Reality. Trysta has viewed his future in the Buld Reality and Thomas knows that he has some role to play in the future of Earth, but he knows no details of his future life. When he arrives in the Buld Reality, the Huaoshy alter the dimensional structure of the universe and make time travel impossible. Thomas has long had the ability to receive information from the future, mostly in the form of contact with his future self and Trysta, a type of communication that was mostly at an unconscious level. When that connection to the future is lost, Thomas becomes very unhappy. He decides that he needs to remove all the nanites from his brain. That decision precipitates as severe mental breakdown. He only slowly recovers and he develops a long-lasting relationship with one of his doctors, Janet Jepson. Thomas eventually takes back on board his nanites, but in the Buld Reality he is never comfortable with them in his brain.

Anney

After the Buld visit Earth, the Nereid Intervention on Earth is terminated and the Overseers abandon their monitoring of Earth then all of the conditions of the agreement between Trysta and Grean have been fulfilled. Everyone with knowledge of the secret history of Humanity from Thomas to Izhiun to Grean to Angela's little "sister" Anney depart planet Earth. However, Izhiun want's to leave the people of Earth with information about Genesaunt Civilization. After consultation with Thomas, Izhiun and Thomas leave their nanites in "the editor". At first, the editor has no real way to make sense of the information provided by those nanites. However, Ivory finally completes the connection and brings together Angela with key information from Izhiun's nanites, allowing Angela to finally make efficient use of the Bimanoid Interface to access data in the Sedronic Domain. This allows the Exode story to be told to the people of Earth.

UPDATE. The following short story was originally posted to another website (biosgraphy.com, now defunct), so I'm reproducing the text of that short story here.

The Athlash Intervention

When Trysta set off on her final time travel mission, she imagined that her years of motherhood were over and done with. However, as a relatively young Asterothrope female, Trysta still had time for further family building.

In a technical sense, due to the wonders of time travel, Gwyned and Andy, Tryst's two children who were born in the 20th century of the Buld Reality, were not Trysta's "second brood". In the timeline of the universe as we know it, Trysta's daughter Hyanti (who were fathered by Athlash) was born some 10,000 years before Gwyned and Andy.

After successfully completing her mission at Phasi, Trysta teleported herself to Bermuda. There, she activated the second teleportation terminal on Earth that would allow for direct long-distance teleportation of Interventionist agents all the way from the Galactic Core.

While preparing Trysta for her final time travel mission, Grean had been rather crafty. Trysta had been allowed to assume that Earth's teleportation terminals would be used by the so-called Grendels, the artificial lifeforms that had spent millions of years bringing the human species into existence on Earth. Thus, Trysta was surprised when Athlash, an Ek'col, was the first agent to emerge from the Bermuda teleportation terminal.

Trysta was enjoying something of a vacation while waiting for the Bermuda terminal to activate. It would be thousands of years before Earthlings colonized Bermuda, so she had the island to herself and she spent a few glorious summer months of long sunny days on the beaches. When her nanites signaled a teleportation event, Trysta quickly slipped into the Hierion Domain where the teleporter was safely hidden away from the prying eyes of the Overseers.

During this phase of her mission into the past, Trysta was scheduled to provide support for any incoming agents. Ten thousand years previously, Ekcolir had visited South America and genetically modified a few plant species, providing them with the enzymes that were needed to make some chemicals that would eventually play an important role in Earth's history during the Lendhalen Intervention.

At the moment when Trysta reached the teleportation terminal, Ekcolir was long-since dead, although he lived on as an artificial lifeform known as Rilocke. Rilocke was a passenger on the Buld spaceship that was then on its way to Earth from the Galactic Core. Trysta had seen into the future of the Buld Reality and knew that the Buld would make First Contact with Earthlings in the year 2012, but she had never been allowed to know the fate of Ekcolir.

Ekcolir had been instrumental in convincing Trysta to collaborate with Grean to end the Time Travel War. Working on Earth and disguised as an Earthling, Ekcolir had won Trysta's heart and her trust. The greatest shock and surprise of Trysta's life had come when Ekcolir fathered her first son, Thomas. Since no Earthling could have impregnated Trysta, the arrival of Thomas blew Ekcolir's cover. He confessed to being an Ek'col, a type of humanoid that had been specifically designed to allow Trysta to merge her Asterothrope genes into the human gene pool.

Thus, Trysta could barely believe her own eyes when she saw that the first Interventionist agent who arrived at Bermuda by teleportation from the Galactic Core. He was a man who looked just like her long-lost soul mate, Ekcolir. Stunned into silence for a few moments, she simply watched him as he moved around the teleportation chamber, checking the teleportation transcripts and confirming that he had arrived at the Bermuda terminal. He suddenly noticed Trysta, looked up from the data display and fixed her with his bright-eyed gaze.

Joyfully imagining that Grean had arranged to give her and Ekcolir a joint mission assignment on Earth, Trysta cried out, "Ekcolir!" and rushed to throw her arms around him.

Athlash stood rather stiffly, waiting for her to realize her error. He asked, "Who is Ekcolir?"

Trysta pulled back to arm's length and sent a swarm of nanites into Athlash. She quickly confirmed that he was genetically identical to Ekcolir, but a different and unique biological individual. With rising anger towards Grean (how could she play such a nasty trick?) she asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Athlash. Grean told me that you would be expecting me to appear here and that you will help me make some visits to South America."

Trysta let her hands fall to her sides. "Sorry, you're a clone of someone I knew in the previous Reality." The entire situation quickly became clear to Trysta. Had Grean informed her that a clone of Ekcolir would be assigned to Bermuda, Trysta would have objected. So here he was, sent without warning, another Ek'col, designed, crafted and no doubt trained to be exactly what Trysta needed and desired.

As an Asterothrope female, Trysta was herself designed to help rapidly populate planets that were being colonized. In essence, her body was an optimized baby-making machine. And she had just spent three months alone on an island, with nothing but her memories of Ekcolir and Deomede to keep her company. In an instant she evaluated and categorized Athlash: young, innocent, beautiful and an opposite pole of attraction that had been custom made for Trysta.

The two of them rather awkwardly fell into their designated roles as Interventionist agents. Athlash methodically briefed Trysta on the details of his mission. She let him talk, even though she had already assimilated the infites that Grean had implanted in his body. Those infites carried an even more detailed account of his mission than he had learned during his training as an Interventionist agent.

The first task for Athlash came as a bit of a surprise to Trysta. Knowing the dangers involved with sending Athlash to South America, Grean wanted to bring in a more experienced agent for support. Thus, as a "practice mission", Athlash was first teleported to the other side of the world where he emerged from the Phasi teleportation terminal. Noah was still in the area, helping the residents of Phasi adapt to changes in their lives that had been caused by the flooding of the Black Sea.

Taking advantage of the naïveté of Athlash, Noah convinced him to spend two months helping to re-settle the Phasians. What had been planned as a quick trip to recruit Noah for help in South America turned into two agonizing months for Trysta as she was forced to watch Athlash working with the Phasians.

Of course, the primitive Phasians were fascinated by Athlash and thought he was some sort of god. In any case, Trysta got plenty of practice using the Bimanoid Interface to monitor Athlash during the months when he lived with the Phasians. The only real "problem" was that the virtual reality in the Hierion Domain did not include a replicoid for Noah. As an alien Preland, Noah was not allowed access to Earth's virtual reality. With much time on her hands, Trysta pondered the means by which she, as an Asterothrope, had been granted special access to a virtual reality that otherwise only contained the artificial life replicas of humans.

Eventually, Noah and Athlash arrived in Bermuda. Trysta restrained herself from berating Athlash, but she gave Noah a severe tongue lashing. Noah just laughed and told Trysta to relax. "The Amazonian jungle has been there for millions of years and it will still be there tomorrow."

They spent a week discussing plans for the first trip to South America. Their goal was to introduce the natives to various plants that could be used as sources of mind-altering drugs. Noah would serve as Athlash's animal familiar. The Preland morphed to take on the form a fantastic jaguar with a half-human head. Athlash played the role of a shaman and morphed his skin so as to take on the appearance of a native.

From the start of the first trip to South America things went poorly. Neither Noah or Athlash were very good with the native language and they knew little about the natives' culture. Athlash nearly got himself murdered by a jealous warrior and Trysta had to perform an emergency teleportation to extract him from the life-threatening situation and bring him back to Bermuda.

While healing his wounds with her advanced Asterothrope medical nanites, Trysta complained bitterly about how quickly Athlash had antagonized the natives and how Noah had done nothing to protect Athlash.

Dismayed by Trysta's anger and harsh criticisms, Athlash assured Noah, "I saw you coming to help me. Trysta just acted faster."

Noah, now back in Preland form, nodded and patted Athlash's shoulder, "Ignore her. She's just in a jealous rage."

Athlash misunderstood what Noah was saying. "Trysta, I know I'm new at this. If you think could do my mission more efficiently then let me stay here and you go out there with Noah."

Noah laughed. "Athlash, Grean played a sly trick on you. You were selected for this mission because-"

Trysta interrupted Noah. "That's enough, Noah! You go away...I'll tell him."

Noah exited from the teleportation chamber. Athlash asked, "Tell me what?"

Trysta took him by the hand and led him out into a glorious fall day on Bermuda. A strong breeze pushed waves against the shore and for a time they walked together along a low cliff top. Finally she said, "I've been so lonely, and then you scared me today."

Athlash put a hand on her shoulder and tried to understand the change in her manner. "You've always seemed so angry at me."

Trysta shook her head and looked into his eyes. "I'm angry at Grean. It was easy to predict the effect that you would have on me. But I've already been through this. I told myself that Deomede meant nothing to me...I held out against his charms for almost a year....."

Athlash was only becoming more confused. "Who is Deomede?"

"He is you.....a version of you who will exist in the future."

"Ah.....Grean told me that you are a time traveler. You've seen me in the future?"

Trysta laughed rather nervously. "No, Grean allowed me no foreknowledge of you. I was shocked when you arrived here." In fact, Trysta had a bad feeling about Athlash and his future. Since his arrival on Earth, she'd repeatedly tried using her Viewing Nanites to look into his future, but she had failed to find evidence of him there. With a sense a dread, she could well imagine him dying while on a mission in South America.

Athlash tried to imagine what she was saying. He gently brushed a small tear from below her eye. "So, I remind you of this Deomede?"

She took hold of his strong arms and squeezed his biceps. "No, you are Deomede. You are Ekcolir. You were crafted and designed to be my.....soul mate."

Athlash laughed, "Ah, that explains it."

"What?"

"Even when you shout at me, I'm still attracted to you." Trysta rested her head against his chest and he put his arms around her. "Really, I can't be Deomede. I can't be this Ekcolir who you knew. Can't you accept me? Athlash?"

There, on that windy shore they became lovers.

With time Noah and Athlash developed a routine, a strategy for quickly and efficiently introducing tribes to the wonders the drugs that could give them access to the Bimanoid Interface. Trysta was always there waiting when the consciousness of a native awakened in their replicoid's body in the Hierion Domain. They set in motion the development of the first virtual reality community of Earthling replicoids who had some understanding of the Hierion Domain. Trysta shared with that growing replicoid community some of the "future history" of Earth.

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Then it ended. One day, Athlash poisoned himself by selecting the wrong plant. When Trysta realized what was happening it was too late. Her medical nanites swarmed and extracted the poison molecules from his body, but it was a dead body, laying there on the floor of the teleportation chamber. Athlash was gone. Trysta teleported herself back to the Galactic Core. Her time on Earth was over. But inside her was the daughter of Athlash. {the end}

Note: Hyanti was a mind clone of the daughter of Athlash and Trysta, used by Grean for a special mission on Earth.

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