Even though he knew that she was not being serious, Denny thought that this was a good idea.
‘I
do
really want to know,’ he said. ‘And, after all, what harm can it do really? They seem to be benevolent. And we can always get out of here at any time, if we need to anyway.’
‘If they are Aliens or some – “thing” that bastard thought up to cause trouble,’ said Tamar. ‘What makes you think they’ll admit it?’
Denny grinned. ‘Oh ye of little faith.’ he said.
* * *
It was against Tamar’s better judgement that they went to find the Giant Sky Men.
Further questioning had revealed that the sky men lived among them and even took wives sometimes from among the populace. Their tall houses were pointed out to Denny and Tamar, who saw them standing stark and austere against the skyline. They were elite. A sort of nobility, but the men assured them that they would be made welcome if they went seeking knowledge. The sky men were a benevolent race.
Tamar was interested in the fact that these men apparently wished to mingle their DNA with that of the people. ‘The Vikings have a myth of Giant men also,’ she said. ‘And they believe that they are the descendants of these men. Suppose it’s true.’
This time Denny did not yawn. ‘We need to find out who they are,’ he said
‘I think I might know,’ she told him.
* * *
They were welcomed into the house by a man who was tall, but by no means a giant, and asked to wait in a small chamber. ‘My lord Tempe would be with them shortly.’ The man disappeared.
Tamar and Denny looked at each other and without saying a word they both rose and left the room to follow the man. To be received when their hosts had had time to make ready for them, was to lose their advantage, they both felt.
The man passed by several doors and stopped at a hole in the wall, which Tamar realised after a few moments thought was an intercom of some kind. ‘Indoor plumbing too, I bet,’ she muttered inconsequentially.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Denny agreed.
‘There’s archaeological evidence to suggest that certain ancient peoples did have it,’ she told him. ‘They had to on account of them living in high rise apartment buildings.’
Denny yawned. ‘Is that important?’ he asked. ‘We already know that historians have consistently underestimated the people who lived before them. God, you’ve got
me
at it now.’
‘It might be important,’ said Tamar. ‘Then again, it might not. We just have to …’
She broke off, listening. ‘What’s that?’ she hissed
Behind one of the heavy doors they could just make out a heavy thumping beat. Denny cocked his head to listen. ‘Motown,’ he said eventually.
Tamar nodded.
She went to push the door open, Denny held her back. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘We might be you know…’ he went through a series of facial tics and knowing looks, ‘interrupting something.’ He winked. ‘You know. I mean it’s
Motown
,’
Tamar looked blank, but Denny knew she understood him, she did not often play dumb, but when she did … Denny shrugged, he knew when he was beaten. He stood aside, and Tamar raised her arms and the doors flew open. Denny thought that this was unnecessarily dramatic. But Tamar knew what she was doing.
The words of the song floated over the stunned silence. “Look out baby ’cause here I come. And I’m givin’ you a love that’s true, so get ready, ’cause here I come …”
The Giant men – and they really were (there were giant women too, they now saw) and many people of ordinary size stared at the intruders. Denny broke the ice. ‘The Temptations,’ he opined ‘“Get Ready” William “Smokey” Robinson, 1966’
‘– AD,’ he added inconsequentially. Denny knew this kind of thing. Who would have thought it would ever come in handy?
The tension broke, and a giant man with wavy brown hair and blue eyes who looked vaguely Irish laughed suddenly. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed all but the other giants. ‘Well, Well, Well,’ he said, in English. ‘You appear to have caught us.’
* * *
They were from the future, they said. What would be, on our calendar, the late 35th Century. They were humans, philanthropists who had discovered the secret to time travel and had come back in order to secure their own future. They did this in various stages of ancient history and all over the world. Yes, they had been among the Norse men and many others. Some cultures remembered them, and some did not, it did not matter. When Denny objected that it was dangerous to tamper with history they laughed at him.
‘But we had already done it.’ They said. ‘Who do you think brought fire to the cave man, Prometheus?’
Evolution, they said was a circular phenomenon. ‘Without us, civilisation would not exist as we know it, and if it did not, we would not exist as we are. We are the creators of our own future. We know this. If we had not come we would have broken the cycle. We are our own ancestors, our own ancients and the teachers of our past generations. This is how it has always been, did you not know?’
They knew nothing of magic; this was technology, they said. And they had heard of the various gods but had seen nothing of them. They were not gods to the people they taught – neither had they ever pretended to be.
Their people no longer lived on Earth, this accounted for their greater height, they said. They had removed to a planet with a lighter gravity – they would not say its name – many thousands of years before they came back to Earth. They would not say why they had abandoned the Earth.
‘How did you discover all this?’ asked Denny.
It was not remembered now, but the truth of it had been proved again and again. The circular nature of evolution mirrored that of time itself and was a part of it. It was possible to look back over the history of the world and see that everything that had happened had also happened before and everything that was going to happen would happen again.
‘We read of the ancients and knew that it was of ourselves that we read. Round and round we go and each time, our pupils learn a little faster and a little better. And each time, we ourselves are a little further ahead because of it. This is not an interference in history. It is the nature of things. We hope that eventually we will eliminate many evils from the world such as poverty and war and malaise and also reality TV.’
‘How did you discover the secret to time travel?’ asked Denny. ‘I mean without that, you couldn’t have done all this.’
‘Well, in one sense you might say that we already had the secret, we only had to look into the past, it had all been done before. But, in a sense, you are right, in each cycle the discovery had to be made and who knows now how many times this has happened. But I will tell you. The secret was discovered in some old writings that were unearthed in the middle of the 29th Century. Long before we knew what use we would be putting it to. The secret was kept to prevent abuse of this power until our destiny was revealed to us.’
‘And what was the secret?’
The giant spokesman looked at him curiously. ‘And do you not know it yourselves? You are not of this time – that is clear’
‘Well,’ Denny began. Tamar dug him in the ribs. ‘No,’ he said, turning to her. ‘It’s a fair enough question.’ He addressed the Giant. ‘It was a sort of accident,’ he said, ‘us ending up here. We don’t know how we did it. But really I just wanted to know, what the writing was, you know, who wrote it in the first place.’
‘It was written by one who had discovered the secret, many centuries before. And the writing contained many vehement exhortations never to abuse the knowledge that she had found.’
‘
She
?’ they both said together.
‘Yes, she. And although you may find it strange, she had addressed the writing to the very man who eventually discovered it. Called him by his very name. But after all, it is only to be expected, if you think about it.’
‘What was his name?’ asked Tamar to avoid asking the other burning question that was in her mind. And absolutely
not
because she thought she might ever need to know it.
Denny asked it. ‘What was her name?’
The Giant took the questions in their due order. ‘He was called Roderigo Alvarez II. And her name was Tamar Black – but the maiden has fainted.’
‘Close file.’
* * *
Tamar did not want to talk about it. ‘We don’t have time to ponder the nature of the universe right now,’ she said testily. ‘We have more important things to do.
‘And why did you have to close the file before we found out how they pinpoint their destination? That could have been useful.’
‘We could always go back and ask them.’
Tamar shuddered. ‘No, they’ll know now that we lied to them about how we got there, besides …’ she shrugged expressively. Denny nodded, he too had found them creepy – unnatural was a better word. Perhaps he was more xenophobic than he had thought. It was just that they had been so – so …
‘Patronising,’ supplied Tamar, breaking in on his thought, ‘superior – condescending?’
Denny shook his head. ‘No. More, sort of, too perfect, too polite and too goody goody – inhuman, no vices or weaknesses. I just …’
‘Whatever, we’re not going back, besides we’ll find him, I know we will, and if what they said was right, I’ll find the way to locate the files myself. I’m the one who discovers it, they said so.’
This was an encouraging thought, so Denny just nodded ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You’re the genius. Pick a number, any number, go on, I dare you.’
‘I never said I was a genius, anyway, it’s your turn, we agreed to take turns, I’m not taking all the blame. Egypt was my fault. The next disaster can be down to you.’
‘It wasn’t exactly a disaster, but okay. Um, this one.’ He pushed open a trapdoor. ‘Have you noticed,’ he said as he entered the file. ‘Whoever chooses the file has the most to do with what happens when we get there? I mean I chose the Viking file and the one in the nightclub, didn’t I?’
‘Coincidence,’ scoffed Tamar. ‘Besides that’s a generalisation. What about King Richard?’
‘We decided on that one together.’
‘Oh shut up.’
* * *
Denny was actually about to be proved wrong in his theory for when they landed in the file Tamar immediately recognized it as Ancient Greece. A far more Ancient Greece however than the one she had known. The coastline where her home town would stand seemed a prehistoric landscape, yet clearly it could not be, for these were
historical
files, weren’t they?
‘Well, there’s nothing much to be seen here,’ said Denny after a few minutes. ‘What do you think? He can’t be here! There are no people.’
It was Denny’s day to be proved wrong. Just at that moment a figure appeared. That of a young woman carrying a box as carefully as another woman might carry her baby.
She was a tall woman and almost as beautiful as Tamar, but her face seemed to have no expression. One got the impression that she was unscathed by experience or emotion, untouched by life and yet she did not look vacant or silly, just inhumanly serene. Denny was fascinated, Tamar nervous. There was magic at work here, or she was a monkey! Big magic. She tugged at Denny. ‘Let’s go,’ she hissed. The woman – you really could not call her a girl, (although she looked no older than about sixteen) she was so tall, looked up.
‘He gave me this box,’ she said in a sing song voice. ‘He told me I must not open it up.’ For the first time, an expression flitted across her face. ‘I am his to be commanded,’ she said. ‘So why do I wish to disobey?’
Tamar started violently. ‘Don’t interfere,’ she hissed at Denny. ‘Say nothing, we shouldn’t be here.’
Denny sighed; it was the same old song. ‘We never should,’ he said. ‘Just once I’d like to end up somewhere that we
are
supposed to be.’
‘Shhh.’
The woman was clearly talking to herself. The feeling that they got, was that she only ever talked to herself – that she had no one else to talk to. But in that case, thought Denny, who was the “He” who had given her the box?
‘I must not open it,’ she muttered. ‘But then, if I must not, why was it given to me to keep? Surely if it is my own box, I can do with it what I wish. I wonder what it contains? One little peep cannot hurt. No, I promised, oh but how silly, it is only an old box.’
‘She knows what’s in it,’ said Denny. ‘I can tell.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Tamar, ‘She’s just talking herself into it, justifying herself.’ She tugged at Denny’s arm again. ‘We should go now.’
‘Why? Do you know what she’s got in there?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think, I think that that’s Pandora.’
For a moment Denny looked blank, and then he went white. ‘Oh God!’
‘Oh Zeus!’ responded Tamar.
The woman appeared to have come to a decision. ‘I
will
open it.’ And she lifted the catch.
‘RUN!’ yelled Tamar, already halfway down the beach. Denny followed, not fast enough. It was horrible.
To be caught in a maelstrom of all the ills of mankind is indescribable. But I will try.
On the one hand, there were the physical effects. It was like being caught in a huge whirlpool in the middle of the worst storm ever. He was cold and dizzy and sick, more sick than any human being ever was or will be. His head pounded with the noise, and he was pulled in every direction, it felt as if his body were being torn apart. And this was nothing compared to the emotional effects. To feel all the pain of what the whole of mankind would ultimately suffer with just one heart to take it, was unbearable. To feel the evil that men would feel and inflict, the misery and the jealousy and the cruelty, the grief, hunger, death and betrayal.
Denny thought, and hoped, that he was going to die. It lasted only a few seconds, each one an eternity, and then he lay on the sand. He was very still.
Tamar ran toward him on wobbly legs. She had been away from the centre of the storm, but she had caught the backlash of it, so to speak, before it had dissipated.
As she reached him, he sat up. ‘Crimeny,’ he said and threw up violently. Then he grinned. ‘I don’t half wish
you
had chosen the file,’ he said.