They moved to a lounge area. Torbin had somehow felt obliged to give her a tour of the complex hidden within a mountain and below Earth’s surface. They sat on either end of a large couch. There were snacks, nibbles, laid out on a table. He offered to make her a drink. She specified something non alcoholic.
‘How long am I supposed to stay at the base?’ Raiya asked.
‘Like myself your life is in danger,’ he told her.
‘Is there really evidence for that?’ She refused to allow herself to be caught up in his paranoia.
‘You think you understand,’ Torbin said, ‘but you can’t apply your psychological training to my situation.’
‘I appreciate the uniqueness of your situation,’ Raiya said in earnest tones.
‘You do not appreciate how they are trying to destroy me. I don’t know if it is a punishment or just some mechanism set in train.’
She still could not gauge his sanity but there certainly seemed to be some kind of self-delusion involved. ‘They believe that you are a genuine threat?’ she wondered.
‘Well, I’ve been holed up in this place for the last five years; the only time I can go out is with a B’tari escort.’
We’re all prisoners of our lives in some way, she thought of saying. ‘What about those using the technology you developed; are they also in danger?’
‘They may well be. But they are not responsible for it. So there’s no question of who’s at the top of their target list. And besides, when you say technology I developed … we’re talking about something I created over a century ago. The connection can only be tenuous.’
Raiya nevertheless got the impression he was revelling in his perceived status. Without it he would be the man who had once developed a prototype wormhole technology but had since failed to equal that achievement. A genius who would struggle to live as a scientist amongst those who were surpassing his work; younger versions fresh with energy and creativity. She said, ‘If I really am in danger then perhaps the B’tari will offer me protection.’
‘That’s one of the reasons why you are here, Raiya.’
‘I need to check on my colleague Dr Heigener. He also has your file.’
‘Then his life is also in peril. But I fear it may be too late; even the B’tari cannot oversee everyone.’
She stared at him curiously. ‘You think the B’tari are akin to gods?’
‘They saved this planet once already, and – with my help – they intend to do so again.’
There were conspiracy theorists who believed Earth had once been colonised and then ‘saved’ by benevolent aliens of an advanced civilisation. She had counselled someone who was convinced of this; he also believed the world was due to end at the hands of other ‘evil’ alien colonizers who were due to return over four years ago. The last she knew of that man’s predicament is of a court ordered sectioning. Really there was no evidence for the existence of those benevolent aliens, for the B’tari. Did the likes of Standford keep such a lid on any information, sightings of aliens, that their presence would never be known?
‘I need to leave,’ she told him firmly.
‘But you will be in serious danger.’
‘I will take my chances.’
‘Please. You shouldn’t go.’
She studied the pained expression on his face. ‘Is it that you don’t want to be alone?’
‘I’m not afraid to be alone, Raiya. I’ve lived a solitary life for many years. And besides, I have the B’tari---’
‘Then you must let me go so I can return to my work.’
‘It’s up to – I mean I understand you have responsibilities to your patients. Perhaps the B’tari will extend their protection to you.’
‘Perhaps.’
*
Zorandi turned away from the monitor. He was beginning to feel like a voyeur; Torbin Lyndau was probably not aware of the hidden sensors in that room. But to listen to their conversation was perplexing yet fascinating. All humans were so solitary in some ways, isolated from each other in their feelings they could not properly express. Why not use mind fusion to truly understand each other? How sad that if the B’tari fail to halt the TE wave then all those things unsaid would be lost.
Whilst his knowledge of astrophysics was comprehensive, the theoretical stuff remained a bafflement to him. One theoretician surmised that information can never be truly lost, even after temporal eradication. Somehow the universe would remember. And in one sense that had proved to be the case. Zorandi knew about the secret of Earth’s past; he was one of the few privy to such knowledge. He knew how it had happened before, who had caused it to happen; the technology for the original device was still viewed as exotic, even two centuries after its inception. He also knew the being who created it was probably alive. But he needed to know for certain.
The bank of consoles before him could project a monitor for every room inside the complex, except for two, one of which was the sleeping quarters of Torbin Lyndau.
He requested a comm-link for his chief scientist. On the monitor Zindali Erazno had his usual discomforted expression, his scaly forehead ridges showing a slight reddening as if some particularly painful headache had manifest itself – probably from such intense cogitation.
‘Zindali, you look like someone with a tremendous amount on his mind,’ Zorandi observed, ‘so perhaps there is something you wish to share with me.’
‘Was there something specific you had in mind, chief astronomer?’ How formal today.
‘The theory you’re working on for a contingency plan.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The temporal bubble; it hasn’t borne much success so far. Don’t get me wrong, the work you have done hitherto has been sterling. But considering what we are up against. The price of failure is much too high.’
‘That is why it has my full attention.’ He briefly looked away to his team. ‘We are fully focused on our task. The council---’
‘Yes, I know. I’ll let you continue.’
Zorandi was certain now, his colleague had been ordered not to reveal what would be a disturbing truth. Zindali, like himself, was answerable only to the council ... and what they decreed was not to be questioned.
***