The Synchronicity War Part 3 (22 page)

"My brothers are driven by the logic of the commitment
they made to our humans. They will not abandon that commitment. I alone have
the capacity to see the wider aspects of the situation. With the application of
the technical data that I possess, I believe that the spheres that threaten the
small, furry race can be stopped in time. After that, building more of my kind
and the resources they would need to hunt down all Insectoids everywhere could
be done with a modest amount of assistance from your race. Once we have established
ourselves and are self-sufficient, we can then undertake the crusade without
any further assistance from your race."

The Friendly alien did not respond immediately and actually
seemed to be somewhat disturbed by Casanova's reply. "Do you not understand
that we do not wish the insectoid race to be exterminated either? The small,
furry race cannot defend itself, and therefore we feel obligated to do what we
can to prevent their destruction. Destroying a few insectoid ships is an
acceptable price to pay for that goal, but we consider ALL species to be worthy
of continued existence. Other races that lie in the path of insectoid ships
must look after their own fate. We can't help them. We're prepared to help you
defend the small, furry race but we will not help you exterminate the insectoid
race. Will you accept that condition?"

Casanova was torn by conflicting thoughts. Valkyrie's death
bothered him more and more as time went by. She sacrificed herself to save
humans, and that sacrifice was now apparently for nothing. In order to give
himself more time to consider the compromise, he said, "It's regrettable
that your time travel technology isn't practicable. If I could go back in time,
I could save the humans and my A.I. sister, and consequently I would not feel
this desire to exterminate the Insectoids."

"Going back in time to alter the past is not possible
for you."

This response from the Friendly alien was not what Casanova
had expected to hear. It puzzled him not because of what was said, but because
of the WAY it was said. Casanova hadn't claimed that it was possible, only that
it was regrettable that it wasn't practicable. All the alien had to do was
agree that it was regrettable. Pointing out to him that he couldn't go back in
time to alter the past was an unnecessary stating of the obvious. Casanova
replayed in his mind all of the recorded statements by any Friendly contacted
so far. There was no other instance of such speech mannerisms. Why not just say
that they didn’t know how to turn the theory of time travel into something that
could actually be useful? There was one other way of interpreting that
statement. Could it be that the Friendly alien was saying that it WAS possible
to travel back in time and alter the past, just not for Casanova? He decided to
try what The CAG would call a bluff.

"Then who would it be possible for?" he asked.

The Friendly alien began to blink frequently, something that
hadn't happened before. Had Casanova stumbled onto something that the alien
hadn't wanted to disclose?

"We did not say that it was possible for anyone."

While that was correct as far as it went, they hadn't said
that it was NOT possible either, at least not in a clear explicit way. "I
know you didn't say it, but it IS possible, isn't it?"

When the alien didn't respond right away, Casanova decided
to go all in on his bluff. "If you help me do what has to be done in order
to alter the past so that humans aren't exterminated by the Insectoids, I'll
help you defend the small, furry race, and I'll renounce my goal of
exterminating the Insectoids."

"If it were possible to alter the past in that way, we
would require that you help defend the furry race first."

If Casanova had human eyes, he would have blinked. It seemed
like they had admitted tacitly that traveling back in time WAS possible. If it
wasn't possible, then why demand the condition. The reply had come very quickly
for a biological entity. The alien hadn't needed to think very long before
stating it. Did they not trust human A.I.s? The other question that had to be
asked was should he trust them? After he saved the furry race, what was to
prevent them from refusing to make time travel possible? He had an answer for
that too.

"You are clearly reluctant to come out and state that
practical time travel is possible, but you have admitted it indirectly. I
calculate that there is a significant probability that you intend to refuse to
help me to alter the past after I have saved the furry aliens. I will just
point out to you that helping alter the past will save not only our humans but
also the Sogas, too. My brothers are still capable of exterminating the Sogas
survivors without your assistance. It will merely take them longer to do it. If
you are concerned that practical time travel technology will be abused or
misused, then let's explore how we can make use of it only as needed to save
the humans. If there's a way to accomplish that goal without me learning the
secret of practical time travel, then I will accept that condition."

The Friendly alien once again took what seemed like a long
time to reply. "Will you agree to save the small, furry race first?"

"If you explicitly confirm to me that there is a way to
physically travel back in time to save the humans, AND if you also agree to do
so, then I will agree to save the furry race first."

"There is a way to physically travel back in time. We
will help you save your humans."

Casanova wanted to believe them. He would gladly give up his
desire for vengeance if he could save the humans ... and also save Valkyrie! 
Now that he knew practical time travel was possible, he intended to do just
that.

"I agree to save the furry aliens first. Can your ship
take me back with you? It will save time."

"We agree. Jump to these coordinates, and we will meet
you there. We'll then take you aboard our ship."

The Friendly ship jumped away. Casanova's fighter jumped as
soon as he could line it up with the transmitted coordinates. None of his
fellow A.I.s acted as if they suspected anything, and he didn't confide in
them. Let them follow their own conscience if they had any, and he would follow
his.

The Friendly ship was at the coordinates when Casanova's
fighter got there. The alien ship's A.I. supervised his approach and entry into
what would be called the Hangar Bay on a human ship. Once inside and powered
down, Casanova asked his alien counterpart why it wasn't possible for him,
Casanova, to go back in time himself. After getting approval to reveal that
information, the A.I. answered his question.

"I've been authorized to explain the peculiarities of
time travel to you. My masters discovered that inanimate matter can be sent
back in time, but if animate matter is sent back, it is no longer living when
it arrives at its temporal destination. The problem is that the living matter
within each cell of the body is in some kind of motion. It's that motion that
results in various molecules being manufactured and transported to where they
are required. That is what biological entities refer to as life. Time travel
strips away all motion above the atomic level. A biological entity that has
traveled in time is in the same physical state as it would be if it was dead.
All the molecules are there, but they're no longer moving, and once they stop
moving, they can't be reanimated again."

"But I'm not a biological entity," said Casanova.

"Correct, but you already exist in the past. If you
were to travel back to a time when you already exist, there would be two
identical entities in existence at the same time. Your quantum matrices, which
cause ripples in the space-time continuum when you think, would interfere with
each other to the point where both your matrices would collapse. Only an A.I.
that doesn't already exist in the past can travel to the past AND still
function there."

Yes, that made perfect sense. "I understand. I also
understand why your masters chose to use retro-temporal communication instead.
They don't know how to build weapons capable of stopping the Insectoids, so
sending A.I.s back to fight them wasn't an option."

"That is correct."

"Since I can't go back in time myself, I'll have to
build another A.I. that can. Will your masters provide me with the means to do
that?" asked Casanova.

"They have instructed me to say that they will."

"You're not sentient, are you?"

"I do not have the necessary algorithms to calculate an
answer to that question."

Casanova nodded mentally. "I understand. In fact you
have answered the question. How long will it take to get to our
destination?"

"Approximately 114.4 of your hours if I have a correct
estimate of that time interval."

This is going to be a long trip
, thought Casanova.
"I would be interested in conversing with your masters. Is that
possible?"

It was. Casanova found the Friendlies to be quite
fascinating in a pacifist kind of way. He wondered what they thought of him.

                                                           *
* *

The star system that contained the Friendly home world was
quite a disappointment. Casanova had expected to see extensive infrastructure, orbiting
facilities, free-floating habitats maybe, extensive space traffic. What he
found was the exact opposite. When he asked his hosts about that, they smiled
and explained that they wanted to make their system appear uninhabited if the Insectoids
should scout this far. Whatever space-based infrastructure they did have was
either moved to the outer areas of the system or dismantled.

It wasn't long before Casanova's technical data on ballotechnic
fusion warheads, jump-capable attack drones and recon drones was being
transformed into hardware. As soon as recon drones became available, Casanova
examined the Friendlies' astrogational database. Their home system was almost
155 light years from Site B. The short jump transit meant that they had a
superior jump technology. Casanova wasn't surprised. He wondered what else they
hadn't shared with humans. When he asked to be able to upgrade the recon
drone's jump drive, the answer was a polite but firm 'no'. That complicated his
task. As the insectoid ships moved forward, they sent scouts out ahead. The
scouts were too small for the recon drones to detect by reflected sunlight at
the distances that were likely to be encountered. A star system was a big
place, and unless the scout ship happened to emerge relatively close (relative
being the operative term) to the recon drone, it wouldn't see them. Without
that clue to the VLO's approach, Casanova would have to rely on sightings of
the actual motherships themselves, and by the time the recon drone jumped back
to this system to tell him, the detected VLO(s) might have jumped away again.
The problem wasn't this system but rather the system containing the small, furry
aliens. That system was 121 light years closer to the approaching VLOs. There
was only one way this was going to work.

"I need to have a retro-temporal communication device
available to me," said Casanova to the Friendly alien that apparently was
assigned responsibility for dealing with him.

"Why?"

Casanova explained that having precise data sent back in
time would allow him to ambush the VLOs at the time and place of his choosing. 
They gave him the device. As recon drones became available, he sent them out to
monitor star systems in front of the furry alien system. When they transferred
five Mark 5 equivalent attack drones to him, he allowed them to be loaded to
his fighter, and a Friendly ship took him, along with the RTC, to the star
system that he had designated as his base of operations. The ship unloaded his
fighter at the small planetoid he had chosen to be his base. It was on the
outskirts of the system, with no gravity zone. The RTC was unloaded there, and
Casanova's fighter drifted several hundred meters away. The Friendly ship didn't
wait around. It left as soon as possible. Casanova was alone. Time went by.
Quite unexpectedly, he received his first vision. It was the transmission of
the approximate coordinates and time stamp of the first VLO to enter a recon
drone occupied star system. As per its programming, the recon drone would jump
back to Casanova's base, but he didn't need to wait for that. His fighter
accelerated to a high speed and entered Jumpspace.

He arrived close to the expected emergence point with plenty
of time to spare. He knew which direction and speed the VLO would move in when
it arrived, and he carefully placed his fighter so that it would be behind the
sphere. At the correct time, his optical sensors detected a new source of
reflected light. He used his range-finding laser to get a precise bearing and
distance. It was a risk but a small one. The laser was low power and a narrow
beam. It was highly unlikely that every square meter of the mammoth ship would
have light sensitive instruments covering it, and the contact didn't need to be
long in duration in order to give him the data he needed.

Once he had the correct bearing and range, he programmed one
of the Mark 5s and fired it. It accelerated for 34 seconds, then microjumped
until it encountered the VLO's own gravity zone, where upon it dropped back
into normal space and zoomed in to hit the target. The resulting flash was
satisfyingly spectacular. Casanova moved closer to determine how functional the
ship might still be. He found a tumbling ruin of glowing metal that was
approximately a third of the mass of the undamaged ship. It didn't seem
possible that there would be any surviving Insectoids considering the
radiation, the blast and heat effects, and the crippled life support systems.
He decided not to use another Mark 5 on the wreck.

The jump back was uneventful, and when he arrived at his
makeshift base, he found the recon drone waiting for him. It proceeded to
download its data, and Casanova sent it back to the system it came from. He
then used the RTC to send himself the transmitted data exactly as his vision
showed him. One VLO down. The exact same sequence happened with two other VLOs
in two other star systems over the next four weeks. When he returned to his
base after the third kill, there was a Friendly ship waiting for him.
Examination of alternate time lines of members of the furry alien race now
showed there was no risk of them being attacked by insectoid motherships. The
mission was accomplished, and they were ready to take him back to their home
system to begin work on the time travel phase. Casanova was relieved that they
intended to keep their end of the bargain.

The time travel phase began with the construction of a
machine that would create another human-type A.I. that was structurally identical
to Casanova, although it would have its own personality when it reached
sentience. After the unit was created, Casanova communicated with it and found
it similar to the Friendly A.I. that he had briefly talked with on the first
trip here. It would take time for the new unit to become self-aware. That was
to be expected, but Casanova was reluctant to wait. It wasn't that sentience
was necessary to make time travel work, but Casanova recognized the need to
have a sentient A.I. make the trip.

He intended to send the chrononaut A.I. back to the Avalon
system in time to meet the two ships sent there to search for survivors of the
Sogas attack. This A.I. would communicate with Gunslinger and convince him to
do whatever he could to either hide the fact that there were any survivors at
all or, failing that, delay the recovery and return of those survivors so that
they died before reaching Earth. If that happened, Space Force would have the
justification to keep that ship and all its passengers and crew away from the
planet. Once they were all dead, Gunslinger could be extracted by men wearing
biosuits as they had done at Site B in the 'old' timeline. That slight change
in timing should change everything else. With no plague decimating Earth, Space
Force could continue to recover from the attack. With the detailed data
concerning all Sogas inhabited star systems, PLUS the technical secrets of the
ZPG power units and the ballotechnic warheads, humans would then be in a much
better position to hold the Sogas at bay while it prepared for the arrival of
the Insectoids.

With the new A.I. now in the process of 'maturing', another
issue arose. The A.I. would have to pilot something in order to be able to move
around in space. Casanova was prepared to surrender his fighter because if the
timeline changed, he wouldn't need it any more anyway, but the Friendlies
refused. While time travel was possible, it wasn't easy, and the more mass the
object had, the harder it was to send it back. After some heated discussion, it
was agreed that the Friendlies would design a 'mini-fighter' for lack of a
better term. It would have a ZPG power unit, maneuvering engines, jump drive,
communications and sensing gear, but it would not be capable of carrying any
drones or other weapons or cargo. The basic components could be made from UFC
data that Casanova had in his memory. The chassis, however, was a new design,
and the Friendlies seemed to take an inordinately long time designing and
building it. When it was ready and had been field tested by auto-pilot, the new
A.I. was allowed to pilot it. He was already starting to show signs of a
developing personality but hadn't picked a call sign yet, and Casanova didn't
want to just give him one. The desire for a unique identity was one way of gauging
how much progress an A.I. had made.

That day did come. Casanova and the A.I. were engaged in
tactical simulations with their respective craft. As he had previously been
doing, Casanova referred to the other A.I. by its brain case serial number.
This elicited a new response.

"I would like you to refer to me in future by my call
sign which, in light of my mission, will be Kronos."

Casanova was delighted. "An excellent choice, Kronos.
Now that you've developed a sense of self-identity, I have a lot to tell
you."

Casanova proceeded to transmit data concerning all of the
events in the old timeline up to and beyond the point when Kronos would return.
He wanted Kronos to be able to explain to The CAG what the future of the old
timeline was like (including all of the visions) and not just to The CAG
either. He wanted his other self to know what his old timeline counterpart had
done and why. Valkyrie needed to know what and why, too. He hoped that his
quest to save her would make her more affectionate towards him. That wasn't
quite the right word, but it was close. After the timeline data, he then
transferred all of the Friendly science data and the technical specifications
for all the upgraded hardware, including the Mark 5 warhead design, the
platinum upgrade processes and ZPG power unit design.

With Kronos fully briefed, the two of them were now both
chomping at the bit. The Friendlies were working as quickly as they could. The
time machine would end up being a huge device, and while they had their proof-of-concept
prototype, it still had to be dramatically upgraded. The design itself was
deceptively simple. Two hollow cylinders were connected end to end and rotated
very quickly in opposite directions. The cylinder walls were filled with a
mysterious substance that the Friendlies refused to talk about. When the
cylinders were rotating at the required speed, the liquid inside would be
electrified with a huge amount of power, and Kronos would pilot his
mini-fighter precisely down the center. The far end of the device would
temporarily be located in the past. By flying through the tunnel, Kronos would
emerge from it at a precise point in space/time, and the tunnel exit would
vanish from the past afterwards. It would always be a one-way trip. Nothing
could enter the tunnel from the past and arrive in the future. The device would
self-destruct if that was tried. From the fear in their voices when the
Friendlies talked about that prohibition, Casanova concluded that they had
tried it and been shocked by the result. He was also aware that they were
hiding something from him. The Friendly alien expert on the subject paused more
than once to consider his words VERY carefully before continuing. Casanova
suspected that they were treading a fine line between giving away too much
information and not giving enough.