Chapter Forty-One
THE TIME CHIP
1
In different times and different places, Ambriel told Adam, and Thebe told Slater and Lucy, the same story. It was a story about a great destruction on planet Earth and the Rama plan to save as many species as possible. The story was about a tiny chip, which well and truly represented the cutting edge of Rama technology. It was the ability to skip across time, albeit only in the forward direction. It was not widely practiced, except for short time shifts, because there was no way back. Whenever one shifted to, was where one stayed. There was no return ticket. As hard as they tried, the Rama could not figure out reverse time. They had, so far, accepted that time only flowed one way, forward, and that it could not be traversed in the reverse direction. Thebe explained,
‘Imagine an ocean wave breaking, forever, along an endless point. That is how we imagine the time wave. Like a wave, it seems that time destroys itself as soon as it has happened. So, there is nothing there to go back to. Time seems to be like a wave breaking into non-existence. The actual breaking wave, the barrel if you like, is the present. It appears impossible to ride that wave again because it has collapsed. There is no wave left to ride. It seems only possible to ride the wave before it has broken, and as it becomes the present, it breaks and destroys itself in the process. So, the only way to go from there is further forward.
‘Another way we think of it is like a record, like a musical disc, where the track, the groove if you like, is destroyed when it is played, when the stylus passes over it. Imagine if the only types of records you could buy were ones that could only be played once. They would be destroyed by being played. If you wanted to hear the music again, you would have to buy another record. In life, buying another record equates to being reborn into a new life, after dying. It equates to being reincarnated. On a record like that, you can only skip forward.
‘Did that make any sense? It’s only a theory. I don’t think anyone is actually completely positive about how the time chip really works. The only thing there is a fairly unanimous consensus on, is that it is not possible to traverse time in reverse because, as far as anybody knows, there has never been anyone from the future, near or distant, that has travelled backwards in time and paid us a visit.’
‘That was my time shift, in the surf, the day you spoke to me,’ said Slater.
‘Slater skipped an hour. He timed it with his watch,’ added Lucy.
‘That was a test,’ Thebe revealed. ‘Everybody that’s chipped gets a test run to make sure that the time chip is working properly.’
‘So, have I got a time chip implanted in me?’
‘You do, Slater. It’s just above your left knee, in the soft part. You can see a dimple there if you look closely.’
Slater looked at his knee while Thebe continued,
‘The time chip is microscopic. It resonates in fractal ultra-frequencies with the fractal, ultra-frequency progression of the time wave. Because the chip is locked into time, and is controllable, it can be re-set to another part of the time track and skipped forward in virtually an instant. It is like being able to skip forward to another part of a musical track, but not being able to skip backwards. The main worry is that you never know what to expect to find on the other side of the time shift because no one has ever been there before and come back to tell you. You can only guess.
‘It is the chip that actually does the time shift, and it drags whatever is loosely connected to it through the shift with it. It’s like dragging something through custard. It is attuned to the Earth, the Moon and the Sun, and times in the future may be selected and physically shifted to. I’ve never done it. I’ve never had a reason. The first time I’ll do it is with you guys.’
‘With us guys?’ asked Lucy.
‘Yes, we are all going to do a skip into the future one day, before the event.’ ‘Are you chipped?’ asked Slater.
‘No, I am not. I am going to be pulled through by you, as will Lucy. We will only need to tie our hands together. We’ll be in my ship because we’ll want to take it, and everything in it, with us. The time chip will be triggered by a master chip, which will be controlled by a man called Noah.’
‘Is that how my board came with me in the surf the other day? Is it because it was connected to me via my leg rope?’
‘The chip pulled you through and you pulled the board through.’
‘Aha … and you were in on it because you were there.’
‘That is correct, Slater. I triggered it.’
‘What’s wrong with just staying here?’ Lucy asked, mystified.
‘The here will soon experience an event that will make Earth uninhabitable for almost a century.’
‘Uninhabitable?’
‘Yes, uninhabitable, and we have the technology to skip across all that death and destruction and pop back in when everything has settled down.’ ‘So, what is the event?’ asked Slater.
‘A comet. There is a comet that is going to collide with the Earth. All the oxygen in the atmosphere will be consumed by the fire. The whole planet will become blanketed by a thick dust cloud and freeze up,’ emotion crept into her voice, ‘and everything will die.
We have seen it happen to other planets.’ ‘Jesus!’ Lucy exclaimed.
‘The first living creatures, on the other side of the event, will be those that will be time shifted there from this century.’
‘Whoah,’ exclaimed Lucy, ‘this is so mind-blowing that I think I’m gonna have to have a bloody smoke.’
2
Five months had passed since Lucy and Thebe did the Fish. Lucy’s health had improved so much that Slater and Thebe started taking her out to Granite in the boat, on the smaller days, and teaching her how to surf a bodyboard. Her whole physical demeanour had changed. It was as though she had become thirty years younger. They all took to cycling and ended up going everywhere on their bikes.
Around about that time they received a visit from a time chip insertion specialist from Rama, named Adrian. He was on one of thousands of missions to Earth to time chip selected creatures for the forthcoming time shift.
He arrived at night and settled perfectly into the L shape of Slater’s jetty. His ship, being matt-black and silent, was almost undetectable. He was there to time chip a flock of Red-tailed, Black Cockatoos, Calyptorhynchus banksii. He also brought a gift for Slater. It was a levitation suit, which was custom made for him by Max and Ada.
Maximillian and Ada, the Sailsmiths, were known as ‘the Sailsmiths’ because of their profession. Max’s family had been manufacturing gravity sails for hundreds of generations. It was their business to trade their sails for goods and services they desired. Ada specialised in making the levitation suits. They were coalesced, in a bath of clear liquid, into a single piece of porous, stretch, silicon-like material. The material had embedded within it Max’s pride and joy, his thin, flexible, mind-controllable, gravity-sail panels. The colours and surface patterns of the material could be metamorphosed like a chameleon. The first time Slater put it on, the suit lit up in a blaze of staccato patterns in what could best be described as a psychedelic, psycho display. He looked like a human TV on acid. He had to learn how to tone it down.
Max and Ada were passing their skills on to their kids, Albion and Ambriel, though it was Ben who took the most interest in learning the lofty art of ‘smithing a gravity sail’. Zeke paid pretty close attention as well, so Max was nevermore lost for company in his workshop, which pleased him well.
3
Adrian spent a few days sightseeing around Noosa on Slater’s bicycle, while Thebe taught Slater how to fly the suit and control the camouflage function at the same time. He found it difficult to concentrate on both functions at first, but he got the hang of it eventually. It almost became second nature by the end of the three days. He was so excited by the flying that it was all he wanted to do. He spent all three days in the suit. He didn’t want to take it off. As he floated in the kitchen, sipping his morning mug of coffee, he exclaimed,
‘This is the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s insane. It’s like three-dimensional surfing, and it’s so natural. I just feel myself around.’
She taught him how to blend into backgrounds. Black was the easiest.
‘You do this most of the time, Slater. You have to be careful and stay in camo-mode so no one spots you. You have to concentrate all the time. It’ll become second nature.’ 4
Adrian’s ship was a compact three-seater. It wasn’t designed to carry too much cargo although there was camping gear stashed in the aft. The three, recliner seats were arranged one in front and two behind. The seats were plushly upholstered in grey, leather-like material. Adrian suggested they all go in his ship.
Slater was used to the inside of a Rama space ship by now as he had been on many joy rides with Thebe.
They sat in their respective seats with Slater and Thebe sitting in the back. The panel closed, the light dimmed and the spherical screen came on. It was before dawn. They rose to eight-thousand feet and slowly cruised off in a northerly direction doing about 200mph. They followed the long crescent of beach to Double Island Point, passed to the west of its lighthouse and cruised north to Fraser Island. They flew up the east side of Fraser Island and hopped off the end across to the first of a chain of offshore, coral islands. The sun was just rising. They flew north hopping from island to island. They flew over Lady Elliot and Lady Musgrave islands and marvelled at their silhouettes in the golden, morning light. They then flew further north and over the Whitsundays where they turned north-west. They picked up speed to about 500mph and flew over the Great Dividing Range. A green cross appeared, glowing on the ground, up in the distance.
‘That’s our spot,’ said Adrian.
Slater noticed how the cross was totally isolated, miles from anywhere.
‘It’s at the base of the western slopes,’ explained Adrian. ‘Just enough water trickles down there to keep the billabongs from drying up.’
The ship dropped out of the sky in a fluid curve and came to a perfect spot landing in the middle of a bare patch of land. They parked, in hover mode, about a foot off the ground. The ship shimmered with the reflections of its surroundings. The interior light came on, the screen faded and a panel opened and lowered itself to the ground. They stepped outside into the calm, cool, predawn of a crisp, outback morning.
Their approach was so silent and camouflaged that absolutely nothing was disturbed. Everything remained tranquil. They listened, smiling, as their hearing became acclimatised to the sounds of nature around them. The birds were the most prominent.
‘They’re Bellbirds,’ explained Adrian. He pointed down the slight slope at a crescentshaped pond and said, ‘That’s the billabong where the Black Cockatoos drink. It’s a nice body of water and they are the dominant flock.’
‘Have you been studying them?’ Slater asked.
‘Yes, for years. They’re the healthiest flock, and smart too. There are about 120 of them and I’ve got to chip them all.’
‘What? So, the whole flock gets shifted at the same time?’
‘That’s right. We figured that larger groups, especially families, will prosper better in a future environment.’
They were all already dressed in their levitation suits. They pulled their goggles over their eyes and rose together to 30 feet. They hovered there for a while as Adrian explained,
‘You see, we are at the edge of the eucalyptus woodlands, on the lower slopes of the Dividing Range. This is classic, Red-tailed Black Cockatoo habitat. They are seedeaters and cavity nesters, and they love to hang around the water holes. This shouldn’t take too long because I’ve got them pretty-well trained.’
‘I was wondering how you were going to catch them?’ asked Thebe.
‘Ooooh, can’t reveal tradesmen’s secrets, can I?’
Adrian floated back down to his ship and brought out two tents.
Slater commented, ‘Boy, you’re really planning a stay.’
‘Might as well set up and get relaxed,’ Adrian replied.
The other two floated back to earth and began fidgeting with their tent.
‘We have to make sure we get the dominant flock. Middle of the day, early afternoon, that’s when they’re around. Don’t you just love this place?’
Slater admired the surroundings. ‘It’s such a vast land, isn’t it?’
‘By any measure,’ replied Thebe, ‘and so dry.’
They set their tents under the shade of a tall gum tree, about fifty feet to the east of the billabong. The tent material was made incorporating the same camouflage function as the flying suits. They just melted into the ground when they were set up. The trio sat inside the tents and waited for the Black Cockies to arrive.
They observed a large goanna come down to the water, hide amongst some green reeds and take a drink. They watched two wallabies hop over from further out on the grassland. The goanna scampered back up the bank and hid in some dried leaves under a bush.
By mid-morning, the sun had risen higher and it had become substantially warmer. The sky was a glaring blue and there was not a cloud to be seen anywhere. By mid-day, any moisture lingering in the atmosphere had long been baked out. It was becoming the kind of Queensland December day where it did one no good to be far from water.
‘There they are,’ whispered Adrian.
They observed a flock of about 120 Black Cockatoos swoop in from the north, along the edge of the tall eucalypts, fly a couple of circles around the billabong, screeching to each other, and then slowly, a few at a time, land, some on the ground and some in the surrounding trees.
‘The ones landing in the trees are the sentinel birds,’ explained Adrian. ‘They will alarm-call and let all the other ones know if there are any predators around. They take turns at doing that.’
‘They’re organised,’ commented Thebe.
‘That’s why they’re so dominant around this waterhole. Most creatures can’t even handle their screeching. You can tell the females by their more yellowy tails and their lighter coloured bills. They mate for life, you know. The females only lay one egg every two to three years. They have amazing lives.’
‘It’s a nice calm day,’ said Slater entranced by the scene.
‘That’s good because windy days make them nervous.’
So far, the flock had not noticed the trio’s presence. They scratched for seeds under the gums and drank and bathed in the cool water of the billabong.
‘There are plenty of other waterholes for the other birds,’ explained Adrian, ‘but this is the best one. They like to make their nests in the hollows of large, old eucalypts and are generally not migratory, although they will move away from humidity, preferring the drier climate, and they will follow seasonal food sources. They nest in all the old gum trees around here. It’s perfect for them here.’
‘It’s kind of like the last place Black Cockatoos go before they go to heaven,’ commented Slater.
‘Or it’s the first place they go to when they get there,’ added Thebe.
Adrian retrieved a small, silver, pistol-grip device and a bag of seeds from his backpack and whispered,
‘Just sit quietly and watch. Be really still.’
He floated out of his tent, flat on his stomach, with a couple of inches between him and the ground. He then snaked down the slight slope towards the water, stopped occasionally to calm the birds and finally sat himself on an old log by the water on the opposite side of the billabong.
‘Watch this,’ whispered Thebe, ‘he’s a bird master.’
As he sat there, he sprinkled the bag of seeds all over the ground in front of him, then stilled completely. A calm descended about the billabong. Suddenly, two cockies launched, flew over the water and landed at his feet. They nibbled on some seeds, then one of them hopped onto Adrian’s left knee. Like a pet, it let Adrian insert the time chip in the soft tissue on the side of its neck. The insertion was painless. Then the bird hopped off his knee and the other one, the female, hopped on. He chipped her and they both flew back to the flock. Another pair launched and went through the same procedure. Then a trio launched. Thebe whispered,
‘They must be a breeding pair. See, that must be their young male offspring. Look how cheeky he is … the way he flies. I think they are coming as family groups in order of seniority. I suspect that the dominant families are coming first.’
After about two hours of perfect, tranquil stillness, even the recalcitrant Cockies were finally enticed to hop over and receive their time chip.
When they were all back on the other side, Adrian lifted a finger.
‘Oh, he’s telling us to watch this,’ said Thebe.
In an instant, all the Black Cockatoos disappeared.
‘Oh look, he’s testing all the time chips.’
Adrian floated into the air and flew back to the tents. ‘They should re-appear in one hour,’ he said.
‘What? You mean you shifted them to one hour from now?’
‘That’s right, Slater, just to test the chips. They’ll re-emerge in the same place they were.’
And sure enough, exactly one hour later, the flock re-appeared around the billabong and in the nearby eucalypts. The birds were completely calm and totally oblivious to what had just happened to them.’
Adrian smiled as he dropped his tent and remarked, ‘Next time, it’ll be a hundred years.’
…….