Pallis Atwrode

Angela's Exit

Recently, I gave a rendition of Trysta's early life as it had been sketched for us by Angela. Today I was discussing Trysta with my current collaborator Gohrlay. The conversation turned to Angela's account of Trysta's early life, back when she was known as "Skaña". Trysta Iwedon was the cover name adopted by Skaña when she first began living on Earth in the 20th century.

R. Gohrlay and Gohrlay

Trysta arrived in the 20th century of the Foundation Reality, so it is a challenge to sort through the available information stores of the Hierion Domain and reconstruct events in that Reality. More challenging still is verifying tales concerning the early life of Trysta that occurred in the far upwhen (future) of the Mallansohn Reality.

Gohrlay is apparently in possession of information that R. Gohrlay had accumulated concerning the early life of Skaña. According to Gohrlay, Angela's account of Skaña's early life is quite misleading. Below, I summarize the key differences between Angela's account and the historical record as it was passed from R. Gohrlay to Gohrlay and, today, to me.

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Greentown
According to Gohrlay, Skaña grew up in a community that was named after its local environmental conditions and given a name that we can reasonably translate into English as "Greentown". Gohrlay agrees with Angela that Skaña grew up in the 61 virginis system. However, Gohrlay believes that the habitation domes of Greentown were not located on an asteroid and supplied by artificial gravity, but rather, were on a planet with Earth-like gravity.

in the Hierion Domain

Gohrlay admits that such a planet has not yet been observed by Earth's astronomers in the 61 virginis system. In fact, Gohrlay is not sure that they ever will. Gohrlay believes that Greentown might have even been a simulation existing within the Hierion Domain. Also, there is evidence that the Earth-like planet where Greentown was located could have been an "artificial planet" or "rogue planet" temporarily placed in that star system.

Regardless of the actual galactigraphical location of Greentown, according to Gohrlay it was an important center for human genetic experimentation. Gohrlay believes that the Asterothropes were artificially evolved at Greentown.

Pallis Atwrode

Another Genetics Experiment
While we discussed Greentown, Gohrlay mentioned that Pallis Atwrode grew up on another planet where there were also long-lasting experiments in the artificial selection of humans. As described by Jack Vance in Star King, Pallis was born on the planet Ys. On that world, social conditions and marriage customs allowed for extensive human in-breeding. According to Gohrlay, Deleterious genes were secretly removed from the population by femtobot-mediated genetic engineering.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Gohrlay suspects that the human breeding project on Ys was carried out by Interventionists who were trying to use Pallis as a human tool for infiltration of a pek-instigated human genetics projects. Due to her special genotype, Pallis was apparently able to function efficiently as a "Bimanoid Anchor Point".

I'm not sure what a "Bimanoid Anchor Point" is, but from the description provided to me by Gohrlay, it seems like Pallis was the perfect infiltrator. The plan was for the rather exquisite phenotypic features of Pallis to attract the attention of the Demon Prince known as Malagate. Once in residence on "Teehalt's planet", Pallis could have then at any time been "taken control of" by her replicoid in the Hierion Domain and used to collect genetic data from the experimental test subjects on that planet. This plan became moot when Gersen killed Malagate and the timeline was shifted in another direction.

Next: the Trysta Pact

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Trilateroids

in the Ekcolir Reality
Special thanks to Miranda Hedman
for "Black Cat 9 - stock"
that I used to create the blue "sedronite"
who is in this image.
Original cover art by Lawrence Stevens

Only recently have I begun to appreciate how little Skaña knew about the end of the Mallansohn Reality. As the story was told by Asimov in The End of Eternity, Skaña explained to Andrew Harlan that because humans were so slow to spread to the stars, other beings colonized our galaxy, marginalizing humans and forcing the miserable remnants of the human species to remain isolated on Earth.

In that version of the story, since there were no exoplanets available for humans to colonize, the human species languished and died out. According to Gohrlay, the story is more complicated than that. R. Gohrlay and her team of positronic robots were trapped by their own programming. They were programmed to preserve Humanity, but the human species was programmed to destroy itself if given access to advanced (for example, hierion-based) technology.

In the Ekcolir Reality. Original
art work by Harold McCauley

In desperation, R. Gohrlay crafted and brought into being the Asterothropes, a derivative species that could safely colonize exoplanets if supplied with a carefully selected set of hierion-based technologies. R. Gohrlay's plan was for the Asterothropes to colonize and terraform exoplanets, then humans would be transplanted from Earth to those new worlds.

However, that plan had a flaw: it was like balancing a marble on a knife's edge. In Asterothrope Realities, either the secret of hierions also became known to humans who then proceeded to destroy themselves or the Asterothropes would successfully spread out from Earth to other planets of the galaxy but the human species would stay behind and eventually just die out. There was no happy intermediate in which humans both survived and spread to the stars.

Asterothropes

During the Time War, in any Reality where the Asterothropes flowered and began spreading between the stars, the pek countered by allowing humanoids from the Andromeda galaxy to begin colonizing our galaxy.

In the Mallansohn Relality, at a point in time after the human species had become extinct, Skaña and a group of Asterothropes were allowed to imagine that they were humans. Skaña was sent back in time in order to put an end to the long sequence of failed Asterothrope Realities. Skaña brought into existence the Foundation Reality.

In the Foundation Reality, it was the positronic robots themselves who played the role of colonists on exoplanets and humans were allowed just enough advanced technology to create a population force for expansion into the galaxy. As described by Asimov in his Foundation Saga, under these conditions it was inevitable that Earth became dangerously radioactive and uninhabitable, but humans did spread to all of the 25,000,000 Earth-like planets of the galaxy.

clones of Gohrlay

Trilateroids
According to Gohrlay, there was one particular type of humanoid from the Andromeda galaxy that was able to spread into our galaxy whenever the Asterothrope/human diad languished in a Asterothrope Reality: these aliens were the so-called Trilateroids.

"Trilateroid" is an exonym that refers to the three-sided eyes of these alien humanoids. The Trilateroids had three-lobed brains, three eyes, three lips and a nose with three nostrils. Much was published about the Trilateroids in the Ekcolir Reality and I have access to accounts of various stories told about the Trilateroids by way of Angela Fersoni.

origins of Asterothropes and humans

Gohrlay has also provided some insight into the unusual origins of the Trilateroids. Apparently, the Trilateroids can be traced back some 2,000,000,000 years to the home galaxy of the Huaoshy. One of the original humanoid species that merged to become the Huaoshy was very devoted to exploring the extent to which "better" biological brains could be produced by means of genetic engineering. This was the origin of the three-lobed brain of the Trilateroids. Eventually, that primordial humanoid species abandoned their efforts, but later, as the bumpha had need, they would occasionally make use of some their genetic tricks, including the developmental control genes that allowed for growth of a three-lobed brain.

telastids

Gohrlay claims that the bumpha worked hard to create a humanoid with telastid-based telepathy. Eventually, the bumpha had to concede that biological cells can only allow for low bandwidth telepathy powered by telastids. They abandoned research on hadronic telepathy and developed hybrid cellular/electronic telepathy. Of course, the pek outlawed any and all bumpha efforts to help primitive species (such as humans) develop either electronics or telepathy.

At Observer Base, the bumpha created an artificial environment where a small population of humans could explore science and simple technologies.

Gohrlay's brain

The human scientists of Observer Base developed electronics, but their progress in that field was stopped by the pek just short of the level required for electronics-based technology-assisted telepathy.

Mutants of Ys
original cover art work
by Harold McCauley
Click on the image
to enlarge.

The scientists of Observer Base then went in an unprecedented technological direction. They developed a sophisticated science of positronics. Eventually, their positronic computers reached the level of sophistication that normally triggered the pek to impose restrictions on the further development of electronic computers.

It was into this unusual technological milieu that Gohrlay was born and it was her brain that served as the template for the brain of positronic robots. That story is told in Foundations of Eternity.

Next: human genetic engineering in Deep Time

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Trysta Iwedon

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"Trysta Iwedon" is one of the many cover names that have been used by Skaña. Trysta is a master of disguise, having been carefully and beautifully designed to fool her human victims, particularly sentimental males such as me. Related Reading: Ex-code

I naturally prefer to think of Skaña (who is actually an Asterothrope) as being "Trysta", the woman who put in place the Trysta-Grean Pact. It is in her role as Trysta here in the Final Reality that I have personally known Skaña. During the past 40 years it is Trysta who has carefully guided me into the future and I fear that I still do not fully comprehend the extent to which she has shaped my life and may continue to do so in the future.

Trysta and Ekcolir

This latest and most worrying qualm is like a fresh wound in my mind. I had mistakenly imagined that my contacts with Trysta were all safely in my past (see Mayness), but that was part of her trickery.

Visitation

Why 'visitation'? Because I'm not sure that it was a visit. I'll describe some more of the encounters that I've had with her through the years at a later time, after I've had a chance to figure out what was going on. Maybe my most recent contact with Trysta is all just because of me and my ability to use the Bimanoid Interface when that channel is not being blocked by my replicoid. This is a subject for future investigation.

Ivory's family

At the time when I realized that it was the story of Trysta that must be told first, I imagined beginning the Exode Trilogy with an account of her life with Andrew Harlan in the Primitive, a story that naturally follows after the end of Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity. Then all hell broke loose.

First, Ekcolir demanded to explain why he seduced Trysta and impregnated her. And, for that biological mystery, the more important issue is how. Ivory Fersoni was able to explain that mystery away because of the strange history of her own family, so I did a lot of listening to Ivory and the stories told by her clone sisters, particularly Angela. However, I now realize that I was allowing myself to be distracted by the wealth of information available to me.

the Exode Trilogy

During my journey towards understanding Trysta, there were additional distractions waved at me by Thomas (the son of Trysta) and Peter (Ivory's uncle). Then, most recently, and most seductively, Gohrlay piled on. For a time, I mistakenly allowed myself to imagine that I should allow Gohrlay to tell Trysta's story. No, no, no. And no.

source

Maybe Trysta had looked deep into the Buld Reality and had seen that I would fall into that trap of over-reliance on Gohrlay. Had I imagined that Trysta could be jealous of Gohrlay, I would have been more cautious and more respectful of Trysta, the girl with the Viewer.

In some sense, Skaña was R. Gohrlay's golden girl. When R. Gohrlay created the Asterothropes there was no intention to replace we humans with Asterothropes. However, R. Gohrlay must have recognized the superior qualities of the Asterothropes and felt pride in a job well done.

our Reality Chain

But R. Gohrlay was trapped in 'her' own programming. Ultimately, R. Gohrlay had to destroy the Asterothropes. Skaña was R. Gohrlay's optimal example of humanoid perfection and so it was Skaña's task to erase the Asterothropes.

To what extent was Skaña tricked into destroying her own species? In the worst case analysis, Skaña was a dupe; given the physical form of a human and forced to destroy her own species. However, I wonder.

Where is R. Gohrlay? Maybe the only problem with Asterothropes arises in the unusual context of Humanity + positronic robots + Asterothropes. Maybe R. Gohrlay took the Asterothropes away, to a part of the universe where they don't have to worry about humans.

fanciful depiction of the pek (source)

In the Mallansohn Reality, Skaña hid the existence of time travel from Humanity. R. Gohrlay was in a desperate race to complete Galaxia and win we humans a chance to control and dominate our galaxy. By some trick of fate, Isaac Asimov became the tool of Grean and the Huaoshy. When Asimov traveled through time, he brought into existence a new reality that fittingly can be called the Asimov Reality. That was the start of the Time Travel War.

The Asimov Reality was an improvement over the Foundation Reality from the narrow perspective of Earth as a Garden World. Although there was a nuclear war during the 20th century in the Asimov Reality, Earth did not become uninhabitable as it had in the Foundation Reality.

the Asimov Reality

In the Asimov Reality, Grean used advanced Reality Viewing technology to identify Trysta as R. Gohrlay's remaining secret agent on Earth. In order to end the Time Travel War, the pek created the Ek'col and Grean positioned Ekcolir close to Trysta.

This brought into existence the Ekcolir Reality in which atomic catastrophes were avoided, but Earth went through a catastrophic phase of global warming, ice cap melting and sea level rise. However, within the Ekcolir Reality, Ekcolir accomplished his mission. By capturing Trysta's heart, Ekcolir created the necessary conditions for the Trysta-Grean Pact. Working together, Trysta and Grean were able to identify the Final Reality.

Asterothrope female

Still, bringing into existence the universe as we know it was not a trivial task. In a flurry of activity, Trysta had to initiate the most complex Reality Change ever attempted. I imagine that Trysta not only wanted to provide humans with a future among the stars, but she needed to fulfill her own biological needs and satisfy her desire to have descendants who would spread through millions of worlds of the galaxy. And, as if that were not enough, I believe that she wanted to make sure that her story and the entire story of Deep Time, what I call the Exode, would be told and would be known to her descendants.

Science Fiction
I can't believe that it was only by chance that science fiction story telling became the means by which Trysta's story could be told. The bumpha seem to have a 2,000,000,000 history of using every trick in the book, including science fiction. Thus, science fiction was already the dominant fiction genre in the First Reality when a human civilization arose at Observer Base.

Observer Base

In the Asimov Reality, where Asimov invented his own form of science fiction, science fiction was again an outlet for deeply human aspirations. Earth of the Asimov Reality was Observer Base writ large. The pek firmly clamped down on human technological innovation in the Asimov Reality and Asimov, with his memories of the rapid pace of technological advance as it had existed in the 20th century of the Foundation Reality, only had fiction as a way to explore the vast space of technological progressions.

Fru'wu

I believe that it was the lurking bumpha who took pains to guide Asimov towards creation of the Writers Block. That Sci Fi Intervention created the milieu within which the Trysta-Grean Pact could exist. In the Ekcolir Reality, the science fiction genre itself provided "cover" for the twists and strains that had to be exerted upon Huaoshy ethical rules.

original cover art by Hans Wessolowski
and Derek Stowe

Further, the impending arrival of the alien Fru'wu, provided a sense of purpose and direction that I can only compare to the role played by the Foundation in an earlier Reality. We humans need our dreams, particularly while we are descending into a future that is as bleak as what existed in the Ekcolir Reality.

June blog posts

Here in the Final Reality, science fiction had to be shunted in a new direction. And Trysta had to first foster my interest in science fiction and then carefully regulate my access to this potent drug. Finally, she has intervened and made me realize that it is with her story that the Exode Trilogy must begin. And so, I salute you Trysta.

Prelands

And although I believe that you died about 10,000 years ago, I hope to see you again before I die.

Image shown to the left: "D'hab pretending to be a Preland". D'hab, is a temple pek (see this blog page).  Also see this blog page. Credits.

Next: the Prelands

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The Noÿs Intervention

Not long ago, the mystery surrounding the ultimate fate of R. Gohrlay and the positronic robots of Earth began to fade away.  First, Ivory Fersoni and her clone sisters began revealing some secrets from Deep Time. Their revelations served as an organizing force that began to help me to start deciphering the infites that I had obtained from Thomas and Izhiun. Then, most recently, Gohrlay revealed herself to me and I have had some success in wheedling more information out of her. I suspect that Gohrlay has access to all of the memories and past experiences that R. Gohrlay accumulated from the First Reality right up until Gohrlay began her life on Earth here in the Final Reality.

Viewing Realities

With some guidance from Gohrlay, I recently realized that I have access to the story of how Trysta became a time traveler and the agent who was used by R. Gohrlay to bring into existence the Foundation Reality. I was fooled by personal name differences and a language barrier, but with a few hints from Gohrlay, I've now broken the code and provide the following translation of the story as it was originally passed from Trysta to her son Thomas. Angela Fersoni pulled this story out of Deep Time, apparently without ever explaining its importance to Ivory.

The Noÿs Intervention
In Angela's version of the story, her account begins with two poetic descriptions, rendered in a less than poetic fashion below after translation from the original source language:

Skaña was crafted with care from the genetic constituents of the Asterothrope species, but forced to adopt the physical features of a human female. Born well after the extinction of the human species, Skaña was born into a small artificial society where everyone was an Asterothrope or an artificial life form. In fact, it was only those artificial life forms that could physically give birth to these mock humans. Skaña never knew that her entire life was shaped and guided by R. Gohrlay. When Skaña interacted with R. Gohrlay she thought that she was being mentored by an Elder, the esteemed Master known as Tomaught Mystry, the high Magastar.

The Skaña Intervention

Skaña grew up in a community of learners and scholars known as the Lykeion. The majority of the residents were artificial life forms who did all of the menial tasks required to keep students such as Skaña free from distractions. The Lykeion was an artificial environment that existed within the Hierion Domain, but the residents believed that they inhabited a space station in the asteroid belt of a planetary system [editor's note: apparently the star we know as 61 virginis] of a Sun-like star not too far from our Solar System.

[editor's note: Angela's version next provides a detailed account of the Lykeion community and of the monorail line that Skaña routinely used to travel between the Scholar's Nexus and her home dome.]

[editor's note: apparently Skaña exercised complete control over the artificial environment of her home dome. As the story opens (below) it is late evening and the simulated sky is crawling with a simulated display of purple lighting, there is a constant hot wind blowing and tossing the leaves and branches of the trees that grew near her house.]

The 111,394th Century

original cover art by Swen Papenbrock

Skaña returned to her home, weary after a long shift at the Lykeion. She was four years into the qualifying phase of her research studies and she found herself pressed hard to efficiently deploy her scholarship skills under the difficult and challenging conditions that arose while Viewing ancient (Primitive Era) history in the First Reality. Her research topic was mathematical physics, and now only one Magastar even understood the difficulty of Skaña's research.

Skaña sat down in her favorite chair at the dining table and watched her assistant Yequel scurry in from the kitchen with her dinner. "Good evening Yequi." With more than just a little delight, Skaña watched his arm and shoulder muscles ripple as Yequel quickly and efficiently set out her meal on the table.

With a grin and a sly glance from the corner of his eyes, Yequel said, "Welcome home, dear. Why so late again?" He handed her a hot towel and magically brought a hair brush into his right hand. With a few practiced strokes he quickly brushed back her long hair from her face, setting it in place with a silver clasp.

Glancing at their image as reflected in the mirror on the wall across the room, Skaña felt her spirits rise as Yequel transformed her from the appearance of a frazzled and tired girl into a dazzling and confident woman. She squared her shoulders and looked hungrily upon the first course of her meal. "I was making some excellent progress with my German translations. I did not want to stop." She picked up a spoon and began devouring the soup.

Yequel switched effortlessly to German: "Natürlich hast du, mein Liebling." Rather than take his usual place at the table across from Skaña, Yequel set out another set of dishes on the table. "Magastar Mystry is coming up the walk."

Skaña sputtered and spit out some soup. Caught by surprise, she asked, "The Magastar is coming here? Tonight?"

Now sharing her alarm, Yequel raised a hand to his lip. "I thought you knew. Magastar Mystry spoke to me as if you had been forewarned."

"Well, I wasn't told. Did she say what she wants?"

"I was not told." Yequel ladled soup into the bowl that he had set out for Magastar Mystry and then he returned to the kitchen.

The door signaled and the Magastar's voice could be heard through the com system. "Hello the house, I'm coming in."

Skaña rose to her feet and went to stand in the archway that led to the dining room. She bowed to the ancient scholar. "Welcome to my home, Magastar." 

Magastar Mystry crossed the room and passed close to Skaña. "Sorry to arrive in your home on short notice, my dear, but Time waits for none of us."

Skaña gestured towards the second place setting at the table and said, "I'm honored to host you in my little home." Magastar Mystry commented politely on the decor of the house then both of them took their seats.

The Magastar said, "Sorry to intrude at such a late hour, but I could not wait to discuss with you the exciting news."

Skaña picked up her spoon, then waited to see if Magastar Mystry would eat. With some guilt, Skaña said, "I'm sorry, but I got busy this evening and I have not seen my recent personal messages."

Magastar Mystry nodded. "I know well your refusal to use a messaging prosthetic, and I approve. In fact, your aversion to using electronic implants was part of what qualifies you for Advanced Standing."

Skaña had worked steadily for years with the goal of attaining Advanced Standing, but she had imagined that as a long-term and distant goal. Now all she could manage was to repeat the words robotically, quietly and with the smallest possible intonation: a mix of interrogation and excitement. "Advanced Standing?"

"Yes, that is an operational category that very few people even know exists. I gave you a few hints about it three years ago and you have worked efficiently to meet every requirement that I have laid before you as a prerequisite for attaining Advanced Standing. I am pleased by your rapid progress as a scholar. In essence, you will now become my agent."

Skaña again set down her spoon, her attention quite effectively diverted from her hunger. "I am now to study directly under you?"

"Yes, of course. You sound surprised. But why? You know that only I understand your research."

"Well, I thought you were..."

The Magastar smiled and asked, "Too old?"

Skaña shook her head. "I imagined that you are retired, only occasionally offering advice and support to young students such as myself. I did not know that you still accept trainees. Had I known, I would have included you on my examining committee."

"Well, yes, technically I don't take any students. But you are past that level now. Your new rank is Technical Agent. You will be taking orders directly from me, but in the field of 20th century physics, you are the master."

Yequel came in and picked up the cold soup that sat on the table, untouched by the Magastar and now also too cool to appeal to Skaña. He scowled at the Magastar and said, "I suppose you don't eat, but Skaña needs food." He set out the main course on the table.

Magastar Mystry told Skaña, "Go ahead and eat, girl. I'll make a little speech." But she waited until Yequel left the room. "I run a little project that I call the Time Service. As an agent of the Time Service and under my command, you'll now start training for a mission back into the past."

Skaña dropped her fork. "Time travel?"

The Magastar nodded. "Needless to say, those of us who serve in the Time Service don't make public displays of our activities. You must also keep the secret: nobody outside of our small cadre can ever know that we travel through time."

Skaña snapped her fingers. "So that's what happened to Natalya!" She'd wondered where her friend Natalya had disappeared to. Most people who left the Human Colony traveled off to visit Earth or went to live on one of the exoplanets or possibly to visit the Asterothrope Capitol on Mars, but Natalya had simply vanished.

"Yes, you can now resume your friendship with your old chum Natalya. In fact, she will provide most of your training for the first part of your time travel mission."

In half of her mind, Skaña realized that she should be shocked and astounded by the Magastar's revelation that time travel was possible, yet somehow the other half of her consciousness was not at all surprised. From an early age her teachers had trained her to imagine living in the past times that she studied. Now, Skaña again picked up the fork and tried to eat a few bites of her dinner while once again imagining what it would be like to actually visit the 20th century on Earth. Strangely, that thought now made her think of the present. With an anxious tone in her voice, Skaña asked, "When I travel back through time, who will... will anyone go with me?"

The Magastar shrugged. "On the first leg of your journey through time you must travel alone into the past, although Natalya is already at work scouting out your destination and making preparations for your arrival in the past. However, you will be allowed to select your ultimate destination in time and the options available to you actually do include having a fellow time traveler as a companion."

For a moment Skaña tried to imagine forever leaving behind the Lykeion and living out the rest of her life in the Primitive Era of Earth's past. She wondered: who would I take as a companion? Natalya? Yequel? Skaña tried to weigh and compare the different varieties of love that she felt for the others in her life. Thinking of Yequel and her unquestioned faith that he would always be a part of her life, Skaña cursed herself as a fool. What an idiot I was to constantly make use of Viewing to watch the past while never thinking that it was possible to actually visit the past!

Magastar Mystry continued to speak. "But the details of your time travel mission will be decided later, after you have studied all of the possible paths for your intervention into the course of events on Earth."

With a growing sense of alarm at the responsibilities involved in such a time travel mission, Skaña asked nervously, "This is not the first such mission into the past, is it?"

The Magastar slowly shook her head. "No, the Time Service has changed the history of Humanity many times."

Skaña wondered out loud, "What is the goal of these changes to Time?"

Magastar Mystry replied, "Since you ask, I'll share another secret with you, although we may be rushing the details of your training just a bit. First, you tell me: what is the great goal of the Lykeion?"

Skaña replied without hesitation, stating the answer that she had been taught since her earliest days as a student. "We study the History of Humanity so that we can gain the wisdom to start again with a second human civilization on Earth."

"Yes, that is what you were taught. Now, adjust your thinking to the fact of Time Travel which you have only today become aware of: imagine how we might accomplish the worthy goal of the Lykeion by venturing back into the history of Earth and creating a new path for the development of human civilization."

A frightful possibility came into Skaña's thoughts. "Pardon me for asking, but if we change the Primitive History of Earth, won't that change everything here in our present?"

"Exactly so, my child. Does that prospect alarm you?"

"Yes, it terrifies me. Are you telling me that I must go into our past and erase all of history, erase the Lykeion from existence... and in so doing, won't I erase myself?" The last question was asked with astounded and hushed amazement.

Gazing upon the anguished look that was now on Skaña's face, Magastar Mystry laughed. "You must not worry about such paradoxes until you have learned the full details of Time Travel. For now, suffice it to say that you will be protected from the effects of any change to the timeline. You will have the honor of living out your life in the Primitive Era, launching Humanity on a new and better path into the future."

"But you and everyone in the Lykeion will be erased from existence?"

"You will make a better Reality, my child. Nobody will mourn the loss of the Lykeion. In the Reality that you bring into existence, Humanity will avoid the mistakes that turned Earth into a ghost world.  You will be celebrated as the founder of a new and better Reality for Humanity."

Skaña called out, "Yequel!"

After a few seconds, Yequel came rushing into the dining room. "Yes, Skaña?"

With some guilt, Skaña looked towards the Magastar and asked, "Can I discuss... what you have told me with Yequel?"

"If you must. But it will do little good. Yequel will not be allowed to remember any details he learns about time travel or your planned mission into the past. My advice: get some sleep then start your new life in the morning. Natalya will come by and lead you to the secret dome of the Time Service. Tomorrow you will begin a new phase in your life and Yequel will slowly fade away from your thoughts. Remember: where you are going you will have no servants. You will have to live out your life as a fully competent person who can take care of yourself and your family in the society of the Primitive Earth. You will make that adjustment. Your minimal reliance on -and attachment to- Yequel is one of the qualifying factors that won you an appointment as a Technical Agent." Magastar Mystry stood and nodded across the table to Skaña. "Welcome to the Time Service. Goodnight."

Skaña and Yequel followed the Magastar to the front door of the house and watched her walk away down the path towards the monorail. The wind in the trees seemed to speak. A strange idea popped into Skaña's head. She called after Magastar Mystry, "You were watching me work today?" It was more a statement than a question.

The Magastar stopped walking down the path, turned and explained, "I've always watched you."

Skaña felt her doubts and uncertainty about changing the flow of time all evaporate. "You found the future that you've been searching for. You have it now, don't you?"

"Nein, mein junger Nymphe. You found the key to the future, just as I knew you would." Magastar Mystry turned and was gone on the wind.

Yequel slowly closed the door then asked, "How about some dessert?"

Skaña looked at Yequel as if seeing him for the first time. "You knew. You've always known."

Yequel inclined his head in a tiny nod of acknowledgement. "Before you were born I was trained to be your servant and help guide you towards this day."

"And you never warned me, never gave me a hint of what was coming?"

Yequel put his arms around her and replied, "We are caught up in an optimization process. Everything in your life is directed towards allowing you to create the best possible new Reality for Earth and the human species."

For a minute Skaña allowed herself to be cradled and comforted in Yequel's arms. Then she gathered her wits and took him by the hand, leading the way into their house. That was their last night together and then Skaña went off into the future that had been so carefully planned for her, a future in which she changed human history all the way back to the Primitive Era, the time before space travel, in the Era when people only existed on Earth.
____________________

Dr. Asimov

Editor's note: Angela's version of the story continues on with an account of how Skaña was given 5 possible detailed plans for how to change the past. Natalya helped to infiltrate Skaña into the 482nd century, where she used the name Noÿs. In an act of misdirection, Natalya had already played a major role in creating and spreading the belief in that century that physical contact with an Eternal could give extended life to a non-Eternal.

blog posts in May

The final time that Skaña spoke to Natalya was when they were together in the 111,394th century, cut off from the Eternals by the temporal barrier that had temporarily been placed in the kettleways at the 100,000th century. Once inserted into the 20th century, Skaña began using the cover name Trysta Iwedon.

Next: the goddess of science fiction

May 2016 in review.

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