The Lord of the Sands of Time (21 page)

“Will you return to us?”

“No, and it is better that we do not. We came to eradicate the enemy, not to interfere in any other way with your history. We must do everything to preserve the integrity of this stream, because once the enemy is destroyed, the stream will be complete. That is our mission, no more and no less.”

“And besides,” he said with a laugh as the boat stirred the water beneath. “I believe you despise any form of meddling. Isn’t that right?”

“Omega!”

The boat moved away quickly, was swallowed by the ship. A moment later the great sky ship rose into the air, dipped once, and accelerated out of sight. One instant it was hanging in the sky, the next there was only the echo of a titanic thrumming, like some great chord. After a long moment, it faded as well. There remained only the sound of waves on the beach and the crackling of dying fires. The soldiers stood in small groups, heads bent with weariness or staring in blank astonishment at the smoking field. Instinctively, they began to gather around Miyo.

“My queen…”

“What next?”

“What has happened?”

“We’ve won,” said Miyo, and exhaled deeply. “Our battle cry summoned the mighty host, just as the Laws foretold. The mononoké will not come again. Our descendants have come to destroy them all.”

She looked around her. The faces of the men were filled with doubt. Too much fear and suffering had been spun into a spell that would not release them. She needed something to break it. Then she saw the answer, lying on the sand.

“Let us bury the Messenger. We will build him a great tomb. Gather the bodies of the fallen and bury them together. And let us cry for their sakes, until the tears will flow no more.” At these words, the men seemed to understand that everything was over. They walked slowly out of the water and up the beach.

“Lady Miyo…” Kan was beside her, his eyes brimming with tears. He spoke so only Miyo could hear. “I wished the Messenger had never come. He took you away from me. But he died so deliverance would be ours.”

“Enough, Kan. It is over.”

“How could I ever have doubted him?” He began to cry. His heartbroken keening carried across the beach and was echoed by other voices, first on one side, then the other, till the gray shore seemed shrouded in sorrow.

Miyo grasped his hand. She felt a tenderness for this boy as he grieved for the Messenger, and she knew their journey together would continue for many years. He was the only one who understood her.

“I’m glad you’re with me, Kan.” Miyo wiped her misting eyes and stared ahead. She could not afford to cry. It was time for Queen Himiko to begin restoring the Land of Wa, to watch over the tomb and honor the teachings of the Messenger of the Laws.

J
APAN A.D.
2010

In the twentieth century, matters were decided in favor of historical fact when traces of antimatter were discovered deep in Africa’s Victoria Crater. Until then, scientists had assumed the enormous depression was caused by a devastating meteor strike. Now it was clear that some sort of titanic struggle had taken place around 400 A.D.

Once the technology of time travel was a reality, the AIs dispatched into the past were configured for scholarly investigation as well as armed confrontation. Pathfinder Omega’s ship was the first to come upon the struggle as it was taking place. Immediately, he realized the importance of recovering O’s memories.

Still, the sheer size of the data partition was beyond anything he had imagined. Here was every detail of O’s existence, beginning with his inception in an alternate timestream, his encounters with the ET in the twenty-second century and beyond, and his desperate struggles across more than four hundred parallel universes. Omega wandered this compendium of memory with stunned admiration. It was like a vast, silent labyrinth abandoned without regret by its builder. The riches of this data trove were beyond price, both for their scientific value and as the record of a hero’s exploits.

But for Omega, such notions of value paled into insignificance compared to his direct experience of the data itself. He wandered through O’s memories as if they were his own. To know such an entity—no, to inherit such a man—was a truly unexpected gift. And as the war on the ET spread from this secure universe to alternate timestreams, the lessons of Messenger O’s memories were destined to play a decisive role.

Yet as he merged his mind with the data, Omega was baffled. The emotional traces he had expected to find were strangely absent. There seemed to be no pride in victory, no shame in defeat. Instead, there was a persistent thread, some residue of a thought that had carried O through untold years of striving. Whatever it was, it seemed to have been the raw material of his personality; the stuff of life that had formed the core of his being.

What is this?
Omega had encountered nothing like it. It was a tiny, indefinable void, a mold once filled with something but now the essence of emptiness. The immanence of whatever had dwelt there long ago was palpable but always out of reach, like a phantom beyond the edge of his vision. It was something lost, never to be recovered, yet relentlessly pursued nevertheless.

Like a frozen caress, the void whispered its loneliness. Omega felt growing astonishment. As the core of O’s self spread through his mind, he felt unaccountably happy, as if loneliness were the single emotion he associated with beauty or joy. It
was
beauty and joy. He felt a remarkable sense of peace. Was this what had driven Messenger Original for over a hundred millennia? That was something the data could not tell him.

“Are you crying?” asked the flag officer in surprise. Omega returned to the present with a jolt and touched his face. It was streaked with tears. “No. It’s nothing.”

“The gangway’s out,” said the officer brightly. “Sounds like quite a celebration.” Omega rose and made his way to the portside hatch. As he stepped, blinking into the sun, onto the head of the long gangway, he understood the twinkle in the officer’s eye. This was no mere celebration. It looked as if half of Japan’s capital was crowded onto the space terminal’s two-hundred acre apron, waving and cheering.

For the enemy, it was the beginning of the end of their reign of terror over the branching streams of human history. The species would soon reach out across time to wreak an icy vengeance, and that was reason enough for celebration. But this was almost too much.

Pathfinder Alpha stepped out onto the gangway behind him. “I might have known. The Temporals have to prove their money was well spent. It must have cost a fortune to shut down the port for this.”

Omega smiled. “Oh, don’t be such a cynic. This is exactly the way things were destined to be.”

Alpha flashed a smile of his own, strong white teeth over which black skin stretched. “What happened to you? You’re the original cynic.”

“Yes. Something has changed,” said Omega. He descended to the apron. The gangway ended in a large semicircle ringed by luminaries from the Ministry for Temporal Administration and the Global Confederation of Nations. Closer to the gangway was a line of young women, each holding a large bouquet of flowers. Just as Omega felt the old frown forming at the sight of all this choreography, one of the women stepped forward. When he saw her, all cynicism vanished again.

“Welcome home, Pathfinder.” She held her bouquet out with slender arms. Her accent was slightly different from the lilt of standard Osakan. Her hair was jet black, her skin sun-browned. A curious, snake-like tattoo circled her upper arm in a crimson ring. Hanging from a silver chain around her neck was a single curved
magatama
bead. Omega stared; it looked like the real thing. For an instant he felt oddly disoriented. He couldn’t decide whether he was looking at something ancient and barbaric or starkly contemporary. Then he realized the girl was from a region east of Osaka, where a cone-shaped mountain rose abruptly from the plain and the people carefully preserved some of the ancient forms of dress and speech.

“Listen,” he said with a strange urgency. “Are you from Makimuku?”

“What?” The girl looked stunned. “How did you know? I was born there.”

“And your name?”

The girl’s eyes widened, and for an instant something flickered deep inside them. She stared at Omega. “Do I know you?” she said finally, a bit awkwardly.

“I doubt it.”

“I’m Sayo.”

“Sayo. That’s a pretty name,” he said. Then something inside him cried out from a place far beyond memory, like a hand stretched out longingly to touch the moon.

Just as awkwardly, he asked her, “Can I call you later?”

“Really?” Her eyes widened again. “You mean it?” She blushed. Omega nodded and took the bouquet.