Chapter Six
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Stargate #1, March 22
“So, now that we have a world government, can you please tell us how the gates work?” asked Captain James Deutch as he watched the shuttle launch. The trip to drop off extra mines and other defenses around the stargate was to be his last time in command of the Gulf. When they got back to the moon, he was going to be relieved by Captain Lorena Griffin, who was moving up from her duties as executive officer (XO). He would return to Earth to lead the new curriculum in spaceship operations for officers going through commanding officers’ school. Although it was necessary to pass on everything he had learned as a starship commander, it would not be as exciting to talk about driving a spaceship as it was to actually do it. Not even close.
“Although the procedural methodology of wormhole employment has been reliably established,” answered Arges, “we are stymied as to the internal mechanism of its functioning.”
“Huh?” asked the helmsman. He turned around and asked, “What was that?”
The XO turned to look at the helmsman. “They don’t know how it works,” she said.
Steropes shrugged, “Unfortunately, that is an accurate assessment. We don’t know how the gates work. They’re the product of an earlier civilization. We also don’t know why they were placed the way they were. Most systems have two stargates, which would appear to be a way in and a way out of the system. Why do some only have one? Why do other systems have multiple gates? We don’t know. It may be because of the stellar mechanics...it may be something as simple as the earlier civilization liked traveling to a particular star system for some reason, so all of their roads led there.” He paused for a second, collecting his thoughts.
“Our best engineers have worked on figuring out how the stargates work for over 10,000 years,” he said when he continued, “and they still don’t know. We believe that they are collapsed black holes, but the method for collapsing them and linking them together is beyond us. The closest we’ve come to figuring out the gates was the Churther Box. Arton Churther was a brilliant scientist whose life’s work was trying to figure out how the gates worked. No one is sure how he did it, but he created a box that appeared to open a doorway to either somewhere else or to some other time.”
“Didn’t he know what he created?” asked Calvin, who was aboard to coordinate the air wing’s operations. “Where did he think it went?”
“That’s the problem,” said Steropes. “He never got a chance to say; he got sucked into the first gateway that the box opened. His assistant turned off the box, but Churther was gone. The assistant knew enough about the box to try turning it on and off a few times, but he couldn’t find the world that Churther went into. After a large group of Drakuls came through one of the gateways he created, the government stopped allowing people to operate the box. Of course, there wasn’t anyone left alive who knew how to operate it, so the point was rather moot.”
“So what did your scientists think that the box did?” asked Captain Deutch.
“We don’t know,” Steropes answered. “It created a gateway to another time, another place, or another universe. We don’t have enough information to make a reliable guess as to which. The incredibly scary thing is that one time they turned on the box, the gate led to nothing.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” asked Captain Deutch.
“I mean just that,” replied Steropes. “There was nothing there. The universe was gone.”
Terran Government Headquarters, Lake Pedam, Nigeria, March 29
President Bill Jacobs surveyed the bustle going on to the east of him. The site was a beehive of activity, with so many large earth movers working that he wasn’t sure how they didn’t get into each other’s way. It was a well-choreographed dance of construction, he decided. As he watched, a truck pulling a flatbed with yet another bulldozer came trundling down the road from the airport, along with a giant crane.
The new Terran Government Headquarters building was going up on his left, with the foundations of several other buildings also in progress. The site was nestled along Pedam Lake in the shadow of Aso Rock to the east of Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. Aso Rock was a 1,200’ tall stone monolith and Abuja’s most noticeable feature. He had found the site fitting, as the name ‘Aso’ meant ‘victorious’ in the native language of the local Asokoro people. He tried not to think about the fact that the Asokoro (literally, ‘the people of victory’) had themselves later been defeated and forced to move from the area.
He turned to Arges, whom he had asked to meet him here. “We’re going to make this happen, even if I have to get out there and start building with my own two hands,” he said with a smile. “Happily, I think that we now have enough buy-in from all of the other nations that won’t be necessary.” The smile faded. “The Russians even appear to be committed to the process now, although I don’t know how we’re ever going to get the Chinese involved. The war pushed us so far apart that it will be difficult to bring us back together.” He looked intently at Arges. “I am not giving up on bringing them in; I just wanted you to know how hard it will be.”
“You have done a tremendous job in a very little time,” said Arges. “And I believe that you have put together the beginnings of a world government. I wish that I had better news for you, but your accomplishments so far are only a small portion of the effort that will be required.”
He paused, and the president waited for him to begin again. After a long pause, Arges began talking quietly. “For over 10,000 years, we have led the Alliance of Civilizations and have ensured peace in this galaxy. There are many other races, of which we are just one. Some are naturally caring, what you would call ‘good;’ others you would probably consider to be ‘bad’ or ‘evil.’ Most, like your own race, lie somewhere in between. You are capable of great deeds, but also capable of inflicting misery on others of your own race when you have power over them.”
“Most of these races formed an alliance many millennia ago, and the races that are less benevolent were prohibited from interacting with civilizations that were just forming, like your own. Those days are over. The alliance that has watched over developing civilizations is no more. There are many races, like the Drakul, that now have free reign among the galaxy.”
“Wait a minute,” said President Jacobs. “You’re telling me that I had to bust my ass to put together a world government just to find out that we don’t have a chance?”
“Yes,” said Arges. “For two reasons. The first is that our rules really do prohibit transferring any technology to you without a world government, so you needed to have one for that. The other is that we’ve done an enormous amount of computer modeling on the future of this planet. In all of the scenarios where you didn’t have a world government, your planet didn’t survive another 25 years. You need a unified government in order to have any sort of a chance in the coming times. Our time is past. Our civilization is done. The alliance is crumbling and, like your Rome, the barbarians are at the gates. The races that were banished or that fled from civilized space have returned and are gobbling up systems on the periphery.”
“So...” said the president, “we are screwed.”
“No,” said Arges, “you definitely have a small chance. I believe the saying in your ‘poker’ card game is that we’re now ‘all in’ with you. Everything we know, we will pass on to you, without further delay. While we abhor killing and combat as a rule, we do not want to watch your species be destroyed by some of the other races that currently exist in the galaxy. We will give you all of our technology and knowledge. If you can reach one of the other good races, you may also gain additional technological and industrial opportunities. And even if you are unable to get outside assistance, it is a time of great deeds. Your heroes have arisen.”
“Heroes?” asked the president. “What do you mean, ‘heroes’?”
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Earth Orbit, April 2
“That is so cool,” said Sara, looking out the bridge viewer as the Vella Gulf orbited the Earth conducting cleanup patrol. The amount of space debris had gotten to be so overwhelming around the Earth that it was becoming a chore to fly through. Captain Deutch had volunteered as his last duty to clean it up a little. The Gulf was going to make a few orbits and burn up as much of it as was possible with the ship’s defensive lasers. If it also gave him a few more hours in command, so much the better. He was really going to miss this.
“Never thought that you’d be up in space looking at the Earth?” asked Calvin.
“What do you think?” Sara asked. “Of course not. Most art majors don’t make it into space, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
They watched in companionable silence as the ship continued to burn up space rubbish. Every once in a while, a laser would hit something with a little fuel still in it, and it would make a small fireball that immediately disappeared.
“Whoa,” said Sara suddenly. “Wow, big case of deja vu.”
“When you say you have a feeling of deja vu, you are saying that you feel like you have been someplace before, correct?” Steropes asked.
“Well, yes, that’s what it means,” said Calvin.
“In most cases,” replied Arges, “we believe that means that someone in your timeline has been there before.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sara, looking confused. “How could someone in my past have been here before, looking down on the planet?”
“That statement makes several assumptions,” began Arges, taking on his lecturing tone. “First, you assume that what you felt was this ship. It is very possible that you were on this class of ship, as thousands were built when the Eldive were still alive. Second, you also assume that the feeling came from looking at this planet. There are, in fact, more planets than can easily be counted. While only a small percentage of them are at all Earth-like, a small percentage of an infinite amount still gives many instances of Earth-like planets. Perhaps you were on an exploratory team somewhere else in the cosmos and found an Earth-like planet that was so close to this one that it made a strong impression on you, causing the deja vu feeling now.” Arges paused.
“And the other reason,” Steropes urged.
Arges gave a small, very human, shrug. “Finally, it may not have happened in the past,” he finished.
“Wha…what?” asked Sara. “What do you mean that it ‘might not have happened in the past?”
Arges frowned. “Our conceptualization of time is not the same as yours. While you see time as moving in one direction, like a river that is flowing too quickly to go back, we see it as a tapestry, where events are not necessarily so linear in nature. Actually, it is precisely because of events like this that we don’t believe time to be linear. There have been many instances where people had deja vu experiences where it was impossible for them to have been there in a previous life. If both of those data points are accurate, then the feeling must have been at some point in a future life and they are experiencing echoes of it now.”
“Are you saying that time travel is possible?” asked Calvin.
Arges nodded. “Can you prove that it is not?” he asked.
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