Ascent of the Aliomenti (40 page)

“What was it? What did it say? And why didn’t you tell me?”

“It told me
not
to tell you, that we needed the time apart to better appreciate each other and our time together.” Will scoffed, and she shrugged, as if to indicate that she, too, didn’t quite agree with the statement. “And it told me that you’d have a difficult time performing the mission it set for me. The mission was too important to take that risk.”

Will scowled. “What on earth would
I
have a difficult time performing?”

She chuckled. “Easy, there.” Then she sighed. “Do you remember that first city we spent time in, after leaving the original village?”

“Abrecan? The military outpost? Of course.”

“Do you remember what happened your first day there?”

He did. “I saw that little girl nearly killed by a soldier. You and Eva healed her. Richard, the man that I’d encouraged to leave a life of crime, seemed to take a fancy to the girl and her mother.”

She nodded. “The words on that paper told me that, many years later, I could finally know the truth of what had happened that day. You see, the girl’s mother was not well when you brought the girl to us for healing. When Richard met the little girl, he loved her instantly, like she was the daughter he’d never had. When the mother died six months later, he took the little girl in and raised her as his own child. She eventually married, had children of her own, and over time they had children, and so on.

“About a century ago, one of her descendants moved to the new lands to the west that have been discovered, the place you showed me so long ago. Eventually, several generations from now, one of the young women will marry a man named Richard, and they will have two sons. One of them will be named Seth.” She paused, took a deep breath, and fixed him with a pointed look. “And the other’s name...
is
Will.”

It took a moment for the reality to sink in. And then he stared at her. “That’s... that’s impossible.”

She laughed. “We just teleported five hundred miles to a hidden island that hides a boat you built that travels underwater, an idea you probably got from the future you were born in before a machine dropped you a thousand years in the past to keep me from dying. Yes, Will,
that
stuff is plausible, but the fact that you saved a little girl who was a distant ancestor to you...
that’s
impossible.”

In spite of his shock, he had to laugh. “Well, if you put it
that
way...” His mirth turned to a mood of somber reflection. “I guess that’s one reason why they had me promise not to kill anyone. When I met Richard, by the laws of the time... it wouldn’t have been a stretch to end his life. Yet if I’d done that, I might not be here anymore.” He shook his head, still letting the message sink in.

After a moment, he glanced up. “You said that story was why you left. Why you left Eva, why you left me. What was the mission it set for you?”

“You were sent back in time, Will, to protect me. I was stubborn, and I had no sense of self-worth, and if you hadn’t shown up that combination would have killed me. It still almost did.” She smiled mirthlessly. “I’m still stunned you didn’t just teleport me out of there the first day, despite my protests.” She shook her head. “But over the time we spent together, that changed. I developed that sense of worth and found I had the inner strength and perseverance that I needed for such a long life and journey. Those words... they told me that I was to act as a guardian angel to each descendant of that little girl, in the line that leads to you. Because of that, they’ve survived plagues, fires, robberies, and even a handful of attempts at poisoning. Had any of those incidents been successful, then everything we’ve tried to accomplish so far would be undone. I sent you gifts to let you know I hadn’t forgotten you, hoping the possibility that they’d come from far away would keep you from looking for me, because I was never far away. Then your ancestors moved to the New World a century ago, and... it became difficult.” She looked at him, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He stared at her. He’d spent many years protecting her, and then many more pretending to do so, purely driven by the expectations of the day. And yet she’d spent centuries now protecting his ancestral line from mishaps, pulled by the same sense of duty that, in retrospect, he’d agreed to when he’d started the time machine. After all, he’d left two grown people he’d learned were his children, one of which he’d never known existed, to accept the mission to save her life.

How much more difficult had it been for her? They both had long since developed such powerful Energy stores that teleportation for hundreds of miles was attainable. There was no reason they
had
to be apart. Yet she’d done so, not because she didn’t want to be with him, but because she wanted to ensure that she
could
.

He looked up at her, and his face and eyes filled with awe. “You are truly amazing. Do you know that?”

She sniffed. “Well, I could certainly stand to hear that a bit more often.” The smile returned.

He smiled back. “I’m available for compliments whenever needed.”

“You’re not angry at me? For leaving?” Her face filled with concern.

He sighed. “At first? I was, absolutely. But I realized that it did neatly solve the concerns about our relationship progressing beyond a mutual comfort level before its time. And I also realized that you needed space. You’d never really learned to be independent, never had a chance to live through a true adolescence. You needed it for that reason. And it wasn’t something that had to be forever. With the length of time we’ve both lived and will still live, spending years apart for important reasons is not a huge cause for concern.” He smiled at her. “But I
did
wonder why you didn’t come back after a few decades. Now I know you had a mission of your own.”

She nodded. “I must admit that it’s getting a bit boring, though, being by myself for so long.”

He looked up. “You haven’t seen Eva?”

She shook her head. “No. Not since that day. I don’t know what happened to her, and I feel at fault for that. I knew you had a mission that would keep you going, no matter what, but Eva has no such message or guidepost. When we both left... I don’t know, Will. I don’t know if she’s still around anywhere, if she’s even still alive.”

It was a sobering thought. Eva had been one of the few friendly faces for Hope in the original Aliomenti village, and the thought that Hope’s sudden departure might have ended Eva’s life prematurely was clearly a traumatic one. “But she took the ambrosia when we did. How could she be... not here?”

Hope looked at him, her eyes moist. “Many have still died, Will.”

And that was the worst part. She could only die if killed... even if the killing hand was her own. “We can only hope that she’s not one of them. Perhaps she has her own grand adventure that she’s leading now, once she got me out of her hair.” He smiled.

She smiled back, faintly, trying to appreciate the humor in the joke, but struggling.

Looking for a change of subject, he nodded his head toward the river. “Would you like to see the submarine?”

“The what?”

“The underwater boat.”

Her eyes regained their usual spark. “Very much so.”

They walked to the river, and Will showed her the exterior of the craft, explaining the process he’d gone through to build the ship, the trial and error to create the material used for the hull, the many prototypes he’d used to create the propulsion and air filtration and sewage systems, how he’d rigged up a generator for electricity.

“Want to go for a ride?” he asked.

She looked at the boat. “How do we get inside?”

“In true Aliomenti fashion,” he said, as he held out his hand.

She took it, and he teleported both of them inside. Hope looked around, shaking her head in wonder. “This is amazing, Will. This has to be centuries ahead of its time. I can only wonder at what you’ll be able to do with this as we make further advances.”

“We?” he asked bitterly, arching an eyebrow, and then he wished he’d said nothing. “Sorry.”

She winced briefly. “No, that was fair. But yes, I do want to sail with you, and dream up new adaptations for this. But... I need to ride in it first.” She smiled, a look that told him his jibe was forgiven and forgotten.

“I can certainly arrange that,” he replied.

He’d made massive modifications in the decades since he’d first piloted the submarine. The propulsion system had been significantly enhanced, and it was capable of moving the vessel at speeds approaching forty miles per hour. The capacity of the generator had quadrupled, and he’d increased the number of lights and other devices capable of using the electricity.

“I love the little fires you have in here, providing light like that,” Hope commented. “But... what is
that
?”

He grinned. “
That
is something I borrowed from the distant future.”

Will had been a child of the computer and digital age, and since the time two centuries earlier that he’d encouraged the development of the electrical generator by Anna and Sarah, he’d been trying to create his own computer chips. It had taken a great deal of effort and time outside the effort he’d put into building the submarine itself, but he’d had a payoff. His computer chips were slow and inefficient by twenty-first century standards, but for the dawn of the eighteenth century, they were light years ahead of their time.

The video screens had been a challenge, but, as he’d reminded himself, it wasn’t as if he’d had much else to do. And over the course of two centuries, a man with a plan and determination could accomplish an immense amount.

“That’s a screen, and I have built little machines that... well, that can think.” Explaining computers to someone who’d never heard of them before was difficult. “The machines can figure out where we are, how fast we’re moving, how deep we are in the water. And they can actually pilot this ship. I...
we
... can tell it where we want to go and read or sleep or eat and not worry about it. The submarine will get us there. Sort of like very slow teleportation.”

She stared at him. “That’s impossible.”

He arched an eyebrow. “We teleported inside this vessel, after you teleported me here from hundreds of miles away. We’re approaching seven centuries in age. Those are plausible, but machines that can think are not?”

She chuckled. “Touche’. But machines that can
think
, Will? I’m still amazed at the gears and water wheels, and yet we’re in a boat that goes under the water and doesn’t need a pilot. That’s a big leap.”

He sighed. “It’s just the way our minds work. Gradual changes seem inconsequential, but over time they can be revolutionary. I’ve been working on this for
centuries
, and I come from an era where such machines are commonplace. If you see those centuries of gradual progress as one massive change, it will seem an impossibility.” He paused. “Think of that day so long ago when I teleported us out of that village to the cave. That was a shock, was it not?”

“Yes, but not as much as this,” Hope admitted. At his look of surprise, she explained. “Father had told us tales of people doing what we are all now able to do; the
concept
of what you’d done wasn’t a shock, even if the actual act was. This?” She shook her head. “This is beyond anything I could even think of. I could not even consider the idea of a boat that travels under water, of machines that can... can think. A boat that steers itself. This is not... this is... this is... impossible.”

“And yet it is not only possible, but here, right before your eyes,” Will replied, though he frowned. “In the future, when I spent time with the people I eventually discovered were our children, they had talked about an organization I’m supposed to start, a breakaway group from the Aliomenti. Angel, our daughter, said that our belief is that the advances we make, presumably because of the advantages we have from living so long, are to be shared, not hoarded. But she also said that it was very important not to introduce change too quickly, for it would be so shocking that it would be feared and rejected.” He paused. “I know what she means now.”

Hope turned on him. “Are you making fun of me?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. I went through the same thing before I was sent back in time. What we do with regularity today was mocked, relegated to myth and legend, called magic. I don’t believe in magic and did not believe people could do at all what I now do with ease. They showed me machines that were as shocking to my mind as this self-piloting underwater boat is to yours. And then I was told that they had used a time machine to rescue me. That, to me, was impossible, and yet for the past seven
centuries
I’ve been living in a different time. No, Hope, I know
exactly
what she meant, and I know
exactly
how you feel.”

“It’s just... just so
strange
,” Hope said, looking around. She tilted her head, a mischievous look forming on her face. “Are you going to stand there talking about this mysterious boat, or are you going to take me for a ride?”