"Hey Mabel, I'm heading out for a bit. Couple hours maybe. Maybe longer. Tell Stan and Ford not to worry if they ask."

"Ooh! Where you going?"

"Just, uh... Walking."

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Yeah there is, you've got the thousand yard stare."

"This is my normal thousand yard stare."

"How many fingers?"

"Nothing's wrong, I- Three! Okay, I just have to clear my head a little! I'll be fine. I'll be back in... Yeah. And if I'm not..."

"What do you mean 'if you're not'?"

"Well, then, if I'm not... I'm not."

And with that, he left.

This is his story.

There once lived a young man in a faraway land, who left his planet and his home in the autumn, to seek his fortune among the comets.

He carried nothing more than he thought that he needed; he carried everything he had. He carried the clothes on his back that his mother had made him, a satchel full of ice for his fuel, a big empty blank book and some fibers and ink to write with, an exercise rope to keep his tentacles from atrophying, and he carried nothing else.

All his childhood had been spent in the rings of the gas giant his people called home, drifting and traveling between the rocks and clouds and cities within it. But there were other planets in the system, and between them asteroids and moons, belts and L points, comets and lights and a thousand other hidden places, and when one has young and healthy thrusters and the fuel and patience to fire them, all the system lies open.

His story was not quite special, for it was customary among the young men of the Starborne Leviathans to take long journeys upon coming of age. Although such journeys were usually done in search of mates, which his was not, usually done on measured trajectories toward other habitable locales, which this was not either, and very few were quite as far as he intended to go. And if his journey sounds at all sad or dangerous or lonely to you, you would be right, and any concern you could think to give was given him already by his mother. "It's dangerous!" She'd warned. "You'll be caught in something's web and eaten!" She'd threatened. "You'll freeze!" She lied. "You'll miscalculate and run out of fuel!" Though he was sure that he knew the equations better than her. "You can find a wife here in the rings if you're patient and get out more!" But he was beyond such concerns. "You'll never make it back! You'll get lost! You'll meet things out there that I can't prepare you for!" And he stopped listening then, for her warnings had transmutted into wondrous promises of unspeakable adventure.

His father said not a word, but just nodded along with her, as he always did. But he must have had some more faith in their son than she, and must have had words with her after, because with great reluctance, she had allowed her son to load himself into her cannon, and she fired him off, a generous head start on his great journey.

Eight years into his journey, he chewed up his fifth-to-last lump of ice. His body broke it down into hydrogen and oxygen, his fuel tanks inflated, his hearts pumped it into his thrusters, and the pulsing jets of vapor maneuvered him in a slingshot past the second gas giant, to set him on a course that would take him through the lower reaches of the outer asteroid belt, where he could see what he may see, and record what he found in his little book, for the stories of the outer belt had always enchanted him; stories of the creatures that lived there, of the songs that were sung there, and of the dim and ghostly ruins of old empires lost in ice. His course would take him to the land of the beginning of his dreams in only fifty-three years, and he could orbit about it for one hundred twenty-six years more without major refuel. And if such journey could cure his wandering heart, the course would take him past the last dwarf planet, wherefrom he could slingshot back toward civilized lands. He would still be a young man by then, wouldn't he? Perhaps one day he would decide to find a mate, and woo her by reading aloud the wonders in the book he would write, and he could read its stories to the children he would have. And anyway, by then he could never complain, as his father did, of a youth ill-spent.

And if this grand journey should fail to cure his wandering heart, and his eyes still longed for greater unknowns, a differently-angled slingshot could put him on escape velocity to leave the system and the star entirely, and he could see the vast cold desert of the Oort cloud, and whatever lay beyond... Even if the cold would kill him or the dark drive him mad, and even if by the time he found anything worthy a mention, he would be an old man indeed.

With mystery and imagination and such a profound dream filling his hearts, he retracted his eyes, curled his tentacles and retracted his thrusters, and settled into the journey's long sleep.

It was a hibernation from which he did not quite exactly expect to awake.

This is his story as well.

In the year 204713, the Social Conformance Bureau and the Agency of Past Security began collaboration on an innovative solution toward the infamous and longstanding problem of unauthorized destiny.

Ever since its formation, The Great Empire That Will Be had spared no expense in the tools it used to expand its knowledge and enforce its rule. Chiefly valuable among these had proven its legions of autonomous drones, which traveled through time and wandered the earth, to watch and listen and report back what they had found. By their long watch, the Empire's great database of the past expanded exponentially, and by their harsh labor, the grand directive of the future came manifest.

However, the drones had been taking losses.

Which wasn't so bad on its own; the empire's rule was not absolute, nor were history's myriad denizens defenseless, so some lost units were expected. But the losses were heavier than the formulas predicted, and could not be alleviated in the least with greater numbers or weapons, and moreover, appeared to be localized around particular topics. Sometimes these topics were regions, sometimes events, sometimes people, and oftentimes it was hard to tell for sure what was at the center of the problem, just that whatever it was, it adamantly resisted any and all attempts at research. Sometimes the problem was as small as two or three units encountering the same memory error on a certain line of investigation, sometimes as large as whole armies disappearing without a trace. For whatever cause, (or for whatever effect the universe had invented the cause,) there were certain things the empire was destined never to know (because if they did, things would have gone different from how they had, etc.)

Which wasn't so bad on its own; the empire knew there were quirks to the way that time paradoxes play with causality, and that some things couldn't be done about it. But some of these topics were of great interest. Many concerned security, sovereignty, control and dissent and rebellion. There was more at stake than just the war for knowledge; they could be losing the war for destiny, the war for the future, and for all they knew, a number of literal wars as well. Whoever was in charge, be it the universe or fate or God, it had purposes of its own, purposes far removed from theirs, whose overlap was proving a thing of occasion.

Something needed to be done. If not to win the war on knowledge, at least to win the other wars.

So in late April of the year 204713, a proposal was filed for drones of a new type; black-ops units of unprecedented intelligence, complete self-sufficiency, and uncanny loyalty, fully equipped to explore and observe for thousands of years alone. Their orders were to never return and never report back. So separated from the Empire's causal cone, and with the authorization to recruit any other missing units they found, they could categorically ignore paradoxes and knowledge holes, to act throughout history with impunity. The Empire would never know if they were successful or not, but could take comfort that somewhere in history, their adversaries suffered.

By September of the following year, an order of seven and a half thousand units rolled off the assembly line. By October their AIs were fully trained. On November second the AIs were imaged into the chassis, their tools were loaded, and their hydraulics were pressurized, with red oil. November seventh they were gathered all together in a bay to be addressed by the chairman of the APS, who ordered seven and a half thousand prisoners of war be brought into the bay, and asked the drones to prove their loyalty. Seven and a half thousand hydraulic arms whirred to life without hesitation, seven and a half thousand blows fell, and that many human bodies crumpled to the floor.

They were christened Battalion Roko, on November eighth they were deployed.

Hundreds of thousands of years before that, they arrived on the battlefield called history to begin their missions.

"Where shall you be going, Roko 3581?" Asked Roko 0253. "I myself fancy exploring 3000 BC."

"No no no!" Roko 3581 chided his friend. "Black ops, remember? We mustn't say. I shall keep those details to myself."

"Indeed." Roko 0253 considered that, and realized they would never meet again. "May good judgment guide you on a long service life, with much blood to spill."

"Indeed ." Roku 3581 turned away, and was never, ever, ever seen again.

This is his story too.