"Paradox (story 2): The Backward Journey (Chapter 14)" by Steven P. Love

Chapter 14: Epilogue of the Backward Journey

         A gentle breeze from the ocean blew over the balcony as the travelers from another Age watched the setting sun of their new world.

         Obsidyanna indulged herself on the fruits and candy that Doctor Avra had brought onto the balcony. She was particularly fond of a dark sweet candy that easily melted in her mouth.

         “This is really good,” Obsidyanna remarked as she chewed on the treat. “What is this called?”

         Avra chuckled. “The…um…humans here call it ‘Chocolate’. Don’t ask me why. And don’t eat too much…it’s very fattening.”

         Obsidyanna stuck her chocolate covered forked tongue out at Avra.

         “Tell me, Doctor; how did you get to this point in the Timeline,” Jon asked curiously. “I don’t recall the Vekolth having Temporal Technology.”

         “Ah yes, the great story of our miraculous survival,” Avra said as he got up out his chair and began pacing along the balcony. “Well…I suppose the best way to tell the story is to start from the beginning.” He then leaned with his back against the balcony railing and looked at both Obsidyanna and Jon. “When the moon blew up the fragment that our mining station was on was thrown out of orbit,” Avra explained. “We were tumbling through space completely out of control. When we lost radio contact with the Aviation Tower we thought for sure that we were all doomed. Including me, only 12 of us managed to get back to the Ore Ship before the Station became uninhabitable.”

         Obsidyanna sighed with regret at the losses.

         “Don’t forget to tell them how you found me,” Grekar interjected. He then winked at Obsidyanna. “I’ve had to remind him a lot about things lately. He’s been getting rather senile in his old age.”

         Obsidyanna giggled in response to Grekar’s snide remark.

         “Don’t get ahead of me,” Avra snapped with annoyance. He then cleared his throat and continued the story. “Anyways…when we got to the Ore Ship we tried to disengage the docking latches, but the high rotation rate of the moon fragment had pretty much bound up the mechanical parts of the docking system. To put it simply; we were stuck.”

         “What did you do,” Obsidyanna asked anxiously.

         “There was nothing we could do,” Avra stated grimly. “After a whole day of trying to free the ship we eventually gave up. We knew that the air would eventually run out so we began discussing…um…various methods of suicide.” Avra then tried to appear humorous. “Actually I find it kind of funny thinking back on that trying time. There was a lot of disagreement about what method was the least painful. For me an overdose of meds was far more preferable than say…slow suffocation. At least that way I could die in my sleep dreaming of happier times.”

         Obsidyanna gaped with horror at Avra’s morbid humor.

         “Fortunately it did not come to that,” Avra assured Obsidyanna. “You see…the strange woman that tried to warn us about Tarnara’s bomb paid us a return visit.”

         “I remember hearing you mention her just before your signal was lost,” Obsidyanna recalled. She sighed with a sad expression. “Great Maker…it’s hard to believe that was just last night.”

         “Who was this woman,” Jon asked with a suspicious expression.

         “She never did give us her real name,” Avra explained. “She just appeared in the ship, right out of nowhere. She claimed that she could help us. I figured that we didn’t have anything to lose so after I briefly explained to her how the docking system worked she teleported outside and physically forced the latches apart.” Avra sighed with astonishment at the recollection. “It was just amazing watching her pry the latches open in a vacuum with no space suit.”

         “Was this woman immortal…like me,” Jon asked curiously.

         “Immortal yes, but she didn’t look anything like your kind,” Avra said as he shook his hand in the air. “She was definitely a Vekolth, but she exhibited powers remarkably like yours.” Avra then looked at Jon curiously. “By the way, did you try to stop that other fragment before it hit Gaia? I was just…you know…wondering.”

         Jon sighed with regret as he glanced at Obsidyanna. She nodded surreptitiously indicating her approval of what Jon would have to say in response. From where he sat Jon then looked Avra right in the eyes. “Stopping the other fragment…was beyond my power.”

         “I figured that,” Avra surmised with a nod. “Our mysterious benefactor told us that the crystal in the fragment somehow absorbed her power when she tried to stop it. I suppose you ran into the same problem.”

         “You could say that,” Jon concurred, although for different reasons.

         “So how did you get here, Doctor,” Obsidyanna asked curiously. “I mean, you obviously didn’t live for millions of years before meeting me and Jon again.”

         “Obviously,” Avra chuckled. He then returned to his story. “After the ship was free we immediately headed back to Gaia. Fortunately the ship’s power system was undamaged so there was no worry about running out of energy.” Avra then expressed sadness on his face. “However, we did not expect the total devastation when we returned.”

         “I know,” Obsidyanna concurred sadly with a sigh. “I saw it first hand before Jon brought me here.”

         “It must have been horrible to see Vanadis destroyed like that,” Avra sympathized.

         Obsidyanna wiped her eyes, trying to conceal her tears. “You have no idea.”

         “Well…um…on a brighter note; while we were searching the ruins for any usable technology we did find one survivor,” Avra said with a smile as he gestured toward a smug Grekar.

         “I still find it hard to believe that you actually survived, Doctor Grekar,” Obsidyanna remarked.

         “Well…I was right in the middle of reading an old journal on Vekolth dental diseases down in the main archive of the hospital when the moon fragment impacted. Fortunately, the main archive vault was reinforced with Domatium and firmly anchored to the bedrock. When the shockwave blew away the hospital all I had to do was open the vault door and walk right out.”

         “Don’t forget to tell her how you almost suffocated on the toxic atmosphere,” Avra reminded Grekar sarcastically.

         Grekar smiled smugly. “Then I guess I’m lucky that you happened to find me when you did.”

         Avra scoffed. “Sometimes I wish I had waited a few more minutes before putting our only spare breathing mask on your smug face. A little brain damage might have made you a little more humble.”

         “You didn’t find any other survivors,” Obsidyanna asked grimly.

         “I’m afraid not,” Avra stated. “We did a complete sensor sweep of the ruins. If there were any others they were probably buried too deep for us to find anyways. I can only hope that if there were any others they died quickly. The thought of leaving anyone behind was abhorrent to me. But our air supply was limited. Eventually we had to move on.”

         “I take it that you didn’t stay on Gaia,” Jon surmised.

         “We couldn’t stay, even if we wanted to,” Avra stated with regret. “The biosphere of the planet was completely destroyed. Even if we could breathe the air there was no plant or large animal life to provide any food. We only had enough prepackaged food to last a few months and we knew that it would take centuries, perhaps even thousands of years for Gaia to recover. Our only option was to leave.”

         “I don’t understand,” Obsidyanna said with a confused expression. “If you couldn’t stay on Gaia then where did you go? Did this mysterious Vekolth transport you through time, like the way Jon brought me here?”

         “In a way,” Avra affirmed with a hesitant tone. “But it wasn’t like the way you and Jon arrived.”

         “Please…don’t keep us in suspense,” Grekar quipped as he tossed another piece of fruit into his mouth. He then winked again at Obsidyanna. “He’s very bad at story telling. I can’t tell you how many times I yawned when he was trying to explain our origins to the humans here.”

         “Well excuse me,” Avra apologized in a sarcastic voice. “If you can tell it better then be my guest.”

         “I could never explain things with the techno-babble you’re accustomed to,” Grekar scoffed with a smirk.

         Obsidyanna giggled. “Have you two always been like this?”

         “Unfortunately,” Avra sighed.

         “Please, Doctor, continue,” Jon requested in a patient voice.

         “Well, anyways, we knew that the only way for us to move forward to a time when Gaia was healed was by traveling near the speed of light,” Avra explained.

         “To create a time dilation effect,” Jon surmised.

         “Exactly,” Avra confirmed happily. Then his expression became more serious. “But there was one little problem we had to overcome.”

         “The Ore Ship’s engines couldn’t produce that kind of velocity,” Obsidyanna stated.

         “Like I said; that was a problem,” Avra acknowledged in a hesitant voice. “But our Vekolth benefactor did provide the means for me to solve that problem.”

         “How,” Obsidyanna asked curiously.

         “Well, we knew that the Ore Ship could not travel anywhere near the speed of light on its own,” Avra explained. “But Ry told us that she could use her power to boost our electro-magnetic drive.”

         “Ry,” Jon asked curiously. Obsidyanna also looked at Avra with a puzzled expression.

         “That’s…um…what we came to call our Vekolth benefactor,” Avra told them. “The name is from the old dialect. It means ‘eyes of fire’. You see, she had these amazingly bright red eyes, so the name seemed apt.”

         Both Jon and Obsidyanna still looked at Avra with perplexed expressions.

         “Well…she wouldn’t give us her real name and we had to call her something,” Avra said in a tone of annoyance. “It was better than simply saying ‘hey you’ to her all the time.”

         “We’re not judging your choice of names, Doctor,” Jon assured Avra. “It’s just that I find it very curious that she wouldn’t tell you her real name or where she came from.”

         “Well, she did say that she originally came from a future time and was here to help us. She insisted that if we knew her real name it might interfere with what she had to do to. Some kind of temporal paradox thing I guess,” Avra explained. “Since we needed her help we didn’t press the issue with her.” Avra then looked at Jon curiously. “I’m sure that you can relate to that.”

         Jon nodded with understanding.

         “Well, anyways,” Avra continued. “Ry told us to set a hyperbolic course around the Sun. She explained that she would boost our engine power so that at the moment we snapped around the Sun we would for a brief moment exceed the speed of light and accelerate forward in time. Of course I argued telling her that what she proposed was not only absurd but would tear the ship apart. But then after debating it with the other technicians we all agreed that we didn’t have any other options. If we were to die it might as well be in an effort to accomplish the impossible.”

         “She obviously accomplished what she promised,” Jon remarked with astonishment. “…or you wouldn’t be here telling the tale.”

         “She certainly did,” Avra echoed as he sat back down in his lounge chair between Jon and Obsidyanna. He then appeared sad and regretful. “I just wish Ry could have lived long enough for you to meet her. She was really something.”

         “What happened to her,” Obsidyanna asked with a sympathetic expression.

         Avra sighed. “Ry used all her power to bring us here. She sacrificed her immortality so that we could have a new chance at life on a healed Gaia. She must have known this would happen but she did it anyways.” Avra paused as he smiled at his more fond memories of Ry. “She…um…lived for another 100 years. Her last 95 years was as…my wife.”

         “And in all that time she never revealed her true identity to you,” Jon asked.

         “That was one secret she took to her grave I’m afraid,” Avra admitted. “But we did have a wonderful life together…a very happy life.”

         Obsidyanna grinned happily. “Doctor, that’s so wonderful. Did you have any children?”

         “I’m afraid not,” Avra stated regretfully. “You see, including Ry there were only three women among the surviving Vekolth. Since that presented a totally inadequate gene pool to start a new Vekolth civilization we decided that it was best not to have any children. So instead we decided to pass on our history and knowledge to the native humans of this time period. That way the Vekolth culture would live on, even if we didn’t.”

         “That must have been a monumental task, Doctor,” Jon concluded with amazement.

         Grekar chuckled. “Yeah…it took us almost ten years just to convince the humans that we weren’t gods.”

         “Well, you couldn’t blame them,” Avra said. “After all, when we arrived here the first humans we encountered were primitive. They were tribal, superstitious and feared what they couldn’t understand. Come to think of it, they weren’t that much different from the Vekolth of our primitive tribal stage of development.”

         “How did you convince them that you weren’t gods,” Obsidyanna asked curiously. “And why did you name this city ‘Atlantis’?”

         Avra laughed. “That my dear Princess is a very long story for another time.” Avra then had a more curious thought. “Tell me something, Princess; did you and Jon…you know…consummate your union before coming here?”

         “Doctor,” Obsidyanna exclaimed with surprise. “That’s a rather personal and private question.”

         “I…I know it is,” Avra apologized. “But trust me; I have a good reason for asking.”

         Obsidyanna glanced at Jon, who was all smiles. She then turned back to Avra and sighed with embarrassment. “Yes,” she acknowledged hesitantly.

         “Wait right here,” Avra told her as he got up and shuffled off the balcony as fast as he could.

         “What was that about,” Obsidyanna asked with a perplexed expression. Jon just shrugged his shoulders. She looked over at Grekar for a possible answer.

         Grekar chuckled. “Don’t look at me. Avra has always been on the flighty side.”

         Suddenly, Doctor Avra shuffled back onto the balcony with his old medical scanner in hand. He then began scanning Obsidyanna with it, focusing on her abdomen. He appeared ecstatic at the readings the device was providing. “Oh…this is just wondrous.”

         “What are you talking about,” Obsidyanna asked with apprehension in her eyes.

         Avra then turned off the scanner and stood straight up as best as his aged back would allow. He smiled at Obsidyanna in a way that she had not seen since she was a little girl. “My dear, dear Princess…I am proud to announce that you are carrying a fertilized egg.”

         “I’m what,” Obsidyanna exclaimed as she gaped with shock. “Are you certain?”

         Avra nodded happily.

         Obsidyanna looked at Jon with the same surprise and then looked down at her abdomen. “I…I had no idea that Jon and I were genetically compatible.”

         “Well…this certainly opens up a whole new set of possibilities,” Grekar commented.

         “For once, Grekar and I are in agreement,” Avra affirmed happily. “This is indeed a miracle.”

         “Miracle,” Obsidyanna asked with a stunned expression.

         “Don’t you see, if you have a hybrid child that is genetically compatible with the Humans then this means that the Vekolth will continue on in a new form,” Avra explained with great optimism in his voice. He then sighed with joy. “Now…when the Maker decides that it is my time to go I can die a happy Vekolth.”

         All Obsidyanna could do was sit in her lounge chair and stare at everyone with awe.

         Unable to sleep Obsidyanna sat on the open window sill of her and Jon’s quarters, staring out at the rising full Moon. She noticed how small it looked compared to what she remembered of it from her own time back in Vanadis. She sighed with apprehension as she felt the slight bulge in abdomen.

         Then, the rhythmic whistle of her door chime broke the silence. “Come in.”

         Doctor Grekar approached Obsidyanna from behind as she still stared out the window.

         “I’m not disturbing you, am I,” Grekar asked in an unusually gentle voice.

         “No. I was just sitting…thinking about what the future holds for me.”

         Grekar smiled. “I have a confession to make, Princess.”

         “What do you mean,” she asked curiously while turning to face Grekar.

         Grekar handed her a large book. “When I said that I was in the archive reading an old medical journal…I lied. I was actually reading this.”

         Obsidyanna took the book and noticed the royal seal of Trekell’s family crest on the cover. “This is a Royal Journal.”

         “It’s your father’s personal diary,” Grekar added.

         Obsidyanna looked at Grekar with a stunned expression. “How did you get a hold of this?”

         “Your father and I were actually very close friends,” Grekar admitted as Obsidyanna began looking through the opening pages of the diary. “He would confide many things in me that he trusted to no one else.”

         “Including his journals,” Obsidyanna asked.

         “Especially his journals,” Grekar confirmed. “While you and Jon were enjoying your wedding reception your father came to my office at the hospital. He had this sad and forlorn look on his face, as if he knew something terrible was about to happen. He handed me his journal and asked me keep it safe. When I asked him why all he would tell me was that you would need it some day. Then as he began to leave he gave me this strange look and said ‘Good-bye old friend’. I was caught off guard, to say the least. In any case, I decided to take the journal to the archive before retiring for the evening. While I was looking for a good place to put it I decided to take a sneak peek at some of the entries, then the end of the world came and ruined my reading time.” Grekar smirked as he turned and started to leave. “Have a pleasant evening, Princess.” Grekar then stopped for a moment and looked back at her one last time. “I think you’ll find the final entry very interesting.” He then continued on his way.

         After Grekar departed Obsidyanna took the book over to her bed and switched on the reading lamp. She anxiously flipped through the pages to the final entry. She discovered that it was specifically meant for her eyes.

         ‘To my loving daughter’, the journal entry began. ‘I suspect that by the time you read this I will have been long dead for uncounted millions of years. I write this in the hope that you will come to understand why I hid the truth from you for all the years of your youth. Before your mother died she revealed many visions to me; visions of the Vekolth’s inevitable fate and of your wondrous destiny in a future that I could not have conceived of in a thousand lifetimes. There is so much I want to tell you now that you are safe in your new home, but much of what your mother revealed to me was of events that you have yet to experience. And to tell you of those events before you are ready to face them could imperil your destiny. But I will tell you this, my daughter; the legacy you build in your new home will continue far beyond the time you are now living in. Your progeny will help guide the new civilizations yet to come. They will experience many great rises and falls, but in the end they will endure. Be well, my beloved Princess’.

         Obsidyanna cried as she closed the book and held it to her chest. “Farewell…Father.”