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“Has Tyank been in touch?”
“Yes,” I confirm. This call is as pedestrian as it could be. I’m marooned thousands of years in the wrong direction of time, and he's acting like I’m out on asteroid patrol.
“We’ve cleared out the remainder of the Galactor forces,” he says. “Kar3n has been instrumental in that.”
“What is Kar3n? Some kind of secret weapon?”
“In a way,” he says, keeping the details to himself as per usual. He never shares information when he doesn’t have to. “The good news is we are in orbit. You already know the bad news. I want you on standby for retrieval at any time, understand? If we do get a window at all, it may be short and it may not come up again. The temporal trajectories are vastly complicated.”
“Understood.”
“And do not, under any circumstances, interfere with the human populations down there. They’re at a very delicate time in their development. Any interference or help whatsoever could be absolutely catastrophic for the future of the entire human race.”
“Understood,” I repeat.
“A single modern human is a mosaic of thousands of ancestors,” Krave growls. “If you interfere with even one woman or man on that planet, major figures might never be born. Humanity has relied on the insights of a few great figures throughout history in order to make progress. By the twenty-first century, most modern humans couldn’t build a toaster but they routinely used technology capable of sending satellites into space in order to show one another something they called duck face. Point is, you have to stay out of the way.”
Krave likes to lecture. He lives for it. Actually, that’s not fair. If I was standing in his presence, he’d probably try to remove a limb or two from my body for what he would consider to be this insolence. But all he has are words, and their tedium is worse than the thrill of physical battle.
“I know. Tyank told me.”
“I’m telling you again,” he snarls. “Because apparently, you have a problem with listening.”
There it is. It has taken several rounds of orders and lecturing to come out, but now I sense the anger I knew he had inside him. I owe him an apology. I owe him much more than that, actually, but an apology might be a decent start.
“Krave, I’m sor…”
“I have to end this transmission,” he says, not giving me a chance to apologize. “Stand by for further contact.”
The cylinder stops blinking and goes silent. I am left alone with only the deep tectonic sounds of the volcano to keep me company. For a moment, I felt connected to my brood again. Krave’s voice is a lifeline between me and the place I should be. Without it, I am isolated.
But I can wait. He has not taken very long at all to reach me, just one Earth day. He may very well come for me again in a matter of hours. Time is not likely to be running at the same pace. It took weeks for me to reach the old Earth position from the simulation, but he seemed to do it in a matter of hours. At least the discrepancy is in my favor. It would truly be hell if it were the other way around.
I sit tight inside what I’ve decided will be my base camp while I am here. It is a cave which opens onto a charred landscape of just barely solidified lava. No humans will be coming up here any time soon. The cave leads on to a network of tunnels which humans might come through.
I decide to block the back of the cave off so I do not get any curious human visitors. It is easy for me to move big volcanic glass boulders into place, though I need a lot of them, which makes it somewhat tedious work. Still, I must continue setting up this space for my use.
I work through the day and into the night and then into the next day as well. There is no way to tell the passing of the solar cycles when I am inside the cave, it is as if time itself slips away and becomes immaterial, which is a good thing because time is my enemy and captor at this moment. I am trapped in it, held by it, hoping to be freed from it. Every rock I lift is another prayer for release as I build my fortress against human incursion.
Just as I am about to press the heaviest bolder into position and block the tunnel off completely, I hear something. It is soft and distant, but even in this place of vents and steam, it stands out to my ears.
Tres
I’m hungry.
Not the kind of peckish you get between meals. Or even the ache you get during a fast. I’m ravenous. A fly lands on my lips and my tongue darts out to catch it, but it is gone in a flutter of wings, more free than I will ever be again.
