Chapter Six: Let's Discuss Time Travel Until We All Get Bad Headaches
Shortly after the completion of the new Darkstar, from which it appears that Suzcecoz had cannibalized parts from Kalli's old Darknova without her permission, which she was fairly miffed about as she now didn't have the little fighter she had loved so much for the last year or so they had been out. However, the new ship at least was small enough and maneuverable enough that flying it was not so much different, especially with how well Suzcecoz and Asura had installed the handling, as it turned on a dime and handled light as a feather, to which Kalli was well pleased.
They set off for Linear-Alpha-3, an alternate of the Linear-Alpha timeline some months before the apocalypse had occurred, in an attenpt to gather information that might allow them to avert the disaster or in some way alter the course of history, which was impossible, Suzcecoz insisted still, but to Kalli, altering the course of history in a timeline that may as well be their "real" one was just as well as fixing the "real" one. So they came in and parked the spaceship at the landing platform at the end of Wind's Road and disembarked to take a look around.
It appeared quickly that they had arrived at a point in time before Chaos had been cut off and removed from the Elkandu Universe, and Aviel was still in town. She saw them arriving and approached them, her robes flowing darkly about her and her eyes glittering dangerously. She was a quicksilver demon still at this point in time, and not yet a couatl, djinn, or phoenix, and hence her silvery wings were demonic and not feathered like a bird's.
"So," Aviel said as she came into their immediate vicinity, glancing over the ship. "Visitors from the future. What omens do you bring?"
Suzy said in an aside to Kalli, "Since our very presense here will have split off an alternate timeline, we dont' really need to worry about what we tell anyone here." She turned toward Aviel. "Well, in our future, the universe has just been utterly destroyed by the Nameless Ones."
Aviel cocked her head at Suzcecoz. "Yes, it is true what they say about Linear-Alpha. Million in one chances happen nine times out of ten. I had foreseen the possibility, but had not considered it likely enough to be concerned about. Since in order for the Urian Priests to find an opening in Torn Elkandu, Chaos would need to have been removed first."
"... yeah," Suzcecoz said, a little unnerved at how accurately the Chronomancer had assessed that. "It was. By Sardill. I'm still not sure why or how."
"Sardill," Aviel said, looking off thoughtfully. "He is powerful, but I doubt he could have managed it unless the gods had been cut off from immediate influence of this galaxy, by destroying or blocking the Interdimensional Bridge."
Suzcecoz nodded. "Yeah, the bridge was collapsed a few days prior to that. A dreamwalker detonated several ethereal nuclear bombs within the bridge just before the bulk of the fleet was about to come through. There was absolutely no way it should have ever worked."
Aviel frowned. "Another million in one chance. When was this to have taken place?"
Suzcecoz glanced around, scanning the town. "Where is Sindri?"
"Currently trapped in the past, with you, due to an error on my part regarding the Nexus runes," Aviel said.
Suzcecoz nodded. "Alright, now I know when we are. This will happen in approximately one week. I'm not too clear on the circumstances leading up to it, however, especially since I had never even heard of Iyriel before that incident."
"He will be found and killed quickly, and the cataclysm which destroyed your universe will be averted."
Suzcecoz smirked. "Well, it's not like changing things here will have any real affect upon our timeline, anyway. But still, it's something, I suppose."
"Don't be so certain, Suzcecoz Ilawi," Aviel said slowly. "The fate of all worlds is interconnected. The outcome of all timelines is intertwined. What happens in one place, in one universe, in one time, affects everything happening elsewhere and elsewhen. The ripples cross space and time, pulling, pushing, warping, and changing. The Trayziak Tatalyar binds and links all things together."
Suzcecoz stared at her. This went against everything she had ever been told. "You mean that it is possible to change the past?"
"Yes, it is," Aviel said. "It is not so easy as you might imagine it to have been, given the idea, but it is possible. If it were not, how could paradoxes have occurred? How could the Elkandu Crisis have ever happened?"
"Paradoxes?" Kalli said. "Paradoxen, paradoxii, paradoces?"
Everyone ignored her, except Theodore, who snickered. Suzy frowned. "I think I see what you mean. I could never understand how the Elkandu could have gone to modern Terra in our timeline, without having just split off an alternate timeline."
"It all depends upon being in the right place at the right time," Aviel said. "One small nudge in the right place can set off a chain of events that can affect billions of lives."
"Like how you destroyed the Karzan Galaxy?" Kalli said. "Not that I even care anymore. Sardill brought that back with a wave of his hand, too. I don't know why or how he did that either, not that that means much, seeing as I have no idea how any of you mages do your hocus pocus in the first place."
"The butterfly has flapped its wings," Aviel said slowly. "You cannot now stop the hurricane."
"So, wait. You're saying, even the smallest change could cause wide-reaching ramifications?" Suzy said, frowning some more. "Then how are we to know what is the correct change to make?"
"Some changes cause ripples you could not anticipate," Aviel said. "While sometimes other, huge changes, cause no appreciative change. Only a skilled prophet could accurately predict the results of any given action, and few Chronomancers are willing to delve that deeply into the future for fear of their sanity."
"Will you help us, then?" Suzcecoz asked.
Aviel looked at her, almost in amusement, for a long moment, before finally shaking her head. "No, not I. I have a dreamwalker to hunt down at the moment, but even if I did not, I do not have the skill or experience to properly manage that. However, I know one who does. He should be appearing at any moment now."
Suzy looked around in anticipation for a few moments. Nothing promptly happened. She smirked at Aviel a bit.
"Alternatively," Aviel said. "He could be not showing up just to make me look silly." She shrugged and wandered off, going to speak to some random people about hunting down Iyriel.
"I think I know who she means, though," Suzcecoz said. "And you know what? I can't believe that our Mika would just sit around and let himself be killed. He probably escaped in the same way we did, by travelling through time. All we need to do is track him down and ask for his help."
"And how do you propose we manage that?" Kalli said.
"Hop in our spaceship and stare into the crystal ball a bit," Suzy said, turning for the Darkstar to leave again.
Kalli sighed and followed after her. "All this talk of time travel is starting to give me a serious headache."
Asura said, "Me, too." He had been oddly silent during their conversation with Aviel, and Kalli could not help but notice the look on his face.
"Something wrong?" she sent to him via the cybernetic communications link in their brains.
"Nothing," Asura replied, heading back to the engine room to work on something or other.
Kalli shrugged and went inside, having no particular desire to hang around crazier than usual Chaos Elkandu. If nothing else, at least they had left Harmony behind. Even if they did still have Theodore hanging around. She sighed and went over to the "research lab" to stare over Suzcecoz's shoulder for lack of anything more useful to do while she scanned timelines to attempt to track down the Mika with the precise temporal signature of Linear-Alpha.
"Is this really necessary?" Kalli asked. "Couldn't we just nab the Mika from this timeline if he's so important?"
Suzy shook her head. "No, remember, our Mika used the Geneforge and is probably actually one of the most powerful Mikas around."
"No, I don't remember," Kalli said. "I wasn't there for that, remember?"
"Right, whatever," Suzy said, staring into the crystal ball. After several minutes of that, Kalli just went off to play with the holographic projection which looked suspiciously like a train set. Then, several hours later, when she had still not gotten any closer to actually finding him, Kalli meandered off to get something to eat in the mess hall, where Theodore and Kanraku currently were eating.
"I'm just glad we have replicators," Kalli said, commenting on the large quantity of food Kanraku was consuming.
"Replicators are great!" Kanraku said, making several tacos disappear.
"Right..." Kalli replicated a giant stuffed crust pizza with pepperoni, pineapples, bell peppers, olives, and sausage, and proceeded to eat it over on the far side of the table as far away from Kanraku and Theodore as she could get and still actually be in the same room.
When the pizza was almost finished, Suzy's voice came over the intercom. "I found him, guys. Set a course for Timeline Linear-Beta-7!"
