He was looking down from a great height into a long, narrow valley between steep mountain peaks. In the distance, crashed against a cliff face, lay the hull, collapsed on itself, of a spherical spaceship with the characteristic equatorial rim of Lemurian construction. Smoke rose from it and some sections were burning. The refugees presumably came from that wreck. Further on, along the horizon, the skyline of a city could be seen.

  And in a light rust-colored sky, two suns shone.

  Two suns.

  The surprise stunned him.

  You are not on Gorbas IV any longer, his overbrain told him, stating the obvious in a dry, sober tone. The time machine has transported you to a different planet. That means it is actually a time-teleporter.

  Tolot took a deep breath while absorbing the shock. At the edge of his perception he was aware of the screams of the refugees, the impacts of the thermobeams, and the howling of the alarm sirens from the depths of the mountain.

  Don't waste any time, the overbrain urged him. You must find a secure hiding place and very quickly.

  Icho Tolot abruptly started running again and with long leaps raced down the steep face of the mountain towards the valley, the starship wreck, and the refugees who swarmed below. They were as small as ants, who suspected nothing of the Nemesis approaching them.

  7

  While high over Tanta III the bitter and bloody battle raged for the control of the galactic multi-star teleporter and the evacuation to Karahol. Levian Paronn sat in the secure refuge of his deep bunker laboratory and studied the memo from a simple starship commander named Thore Bardon. What he read took his breath away.

  A time machine in the 87th Tamanium on a secret Suen Project research planet?

  It sounded too fantastic to be true. But the memo's data-file attachment, the information that Bardon and his people had collected from various worlds about Tam Councilor Markam's temporal studies, seemed to confirm the idea. After all, there were enough hard facts to lead coldly calculating minds like Ruun Lasoth, the chief scientist of the First Tamanium, and High Tam Councilor Merlan, who was responsible for scientific questions on Lemur, to support Commander Bardon's mission.

  Levian Paronn leaned back in his chair and regarded with narrowed eyes his computer terminal's monitor as it displayed the data that Bardon had found in the secret research station on Zalmut. If it had not been falsified, it led to only one conclusion: on Torbutan, a remote planet in the 87th Tamanium, the location of a secret research complex belonging to the Suen Project—which now no longer existed—there was actually an operational time machine.

  Paronn trembled.

  Excitement seized him. Over the course of his scientific career, he had spent several years occupying himself with temporal physics. He knew that trips through time were at least theoretically possible even though their consequences, the potential results of interfering with the web of time, entailed enormous logical problems and incalculable risks. Changing the past in order to reshape the present was a seductive concept, but it called up the danger of time paradoxes, the collapse of the linear time stream, and the creation of closed loops in time. Temporal chaos.

  But even so, Paronn mused, when you consider the possibilities ... !

  The Lemurians had lost the war against the Beasts long before. What was happening now in Apsuhol were skirmishes. The last rear-guard actions fought to secure the evacuation to Karahol. The Beasts' attack on Tanta III showed that they wanted to cut off even that escape route for the Lemurians. But if it was possible to use the time machine to go back into the past, to the era before the war broke out ...

  We could change the outcome of the war, Paronn thought. We could retroactively transform total defeat into total victory!

  Of course, not the way Thore Bardon envisioned it. His plan to send a fleet of powerful, combat-ready starships into the distant past and destroy the Beasts' home world before they developed interstellar travel could not be realized. The Commander of the IBODAN didn't know what Levian Paronn knew. He wasn't aware of the secret intelligence service information that lay before the Technical Administrator of Tanta III.

  Since the outbreak of the great war, the Supreme Command of the Fleet had searched for the Beasts' home world in the hope of being able to destroy it. But no one had ever found it. Base planets had been discovered, military and industrial centers from which the war had been organized and supplied, but their home world remained impossible to locate.

  Presumably because it was not in Apsuhol.

  In all the thousands of years of their interstellar expansion, the Lemurians had never encountered a highly developed alien culture. They had journeyed from star to star, always in search of kindred spirits against whom they could measure themselves and with whom they could exchange viewpoints. But all they found were primitive cultures and the ruins of fallen civilizations. They had never found a trace of the Beasts in the Galaxy until ninety-seven years before, when the Beasts appeared virtually out of nowhere and attacked the Lemurians.

  Even though there was no solid evidence, the Fleet leadership's strategists believed that the Beasts came from another galaxy, that they had evolved in one of the billions of other spiral nebulae. They were invaders who had forced their way into Apsuhol to destroy—for whatever reasons—the Great Tamanium.

  And they had been successful.

  The Great Tamanium was smashed, the Galaxy devastated. Uncounted millions of Lemurians were dead, many billions had fled through the Multi-Star Teleporter to the twin galaxy Karahol. And proud Lemur, the nucleus of the Great Tamanium and Levian Paronn's home world, lay in ruins. In addition, following the destruction of its system's fifth planet, Zeut, a new ice age threatened to make Lemur uninhabitable.

  But all that does not have to be final, nor inalterable fate, Paronn thought feverishly. He trembled again. If the time machine really does exist, if a daring group of men and women took the risk of traveling back into the past ... we could still triumph in the end! All the sacrifices that we made, all the agony that we suffered—erased, made to never happen. And we don't even need a fleet of ships to do it as Thore Bardon has in mind, but merely information.

  His excitement grew.

  When the Beasts began their war against the Great Tamanium nearly one-hundred years before, the Lemurians had been completely unprepared. They were the only interstellar civilization in a Galaxy that otherwise slumbered in a primitive state. There were only ruins to show that there had been a long-gone golden age of other galactic empires. The Lemurians had no enemies worth fearing. And since they were united, only rarely threatened by rebels and secessionists endangering the solidarity of the realm, there had been no reason to establish a large military force. Peace lasted for thousands of years—and then came the Beasts.

  They had overrun the Star Guard and the few police troops, and laid waste to one planet after another. Until, after a colossal expenditure of effort, the Lemurians built a fleet from the ground up within in a few years and took up the battle against the invaders. But the cost in blood was already too high by then. The initial losses could not be made up for, and the Lemurians' under-developed knowledge of weapons technology could not be overcome despite all their efforts.

  The Lemurians had fought courageously and withstood the Beasts' onslaught for a long time, but in the end the enemy had triumphed.

  But if we warn the High Tam Councils of the pre-war era in time, Paronn thought ... If we provide them with the information that we have acquired about the Beasts over the last ninety-seven years ... If we give them the construction data for our modern weapons systems like the Resonance Beamer and the blueprints for GOLKARTHE-class battleships ... decades before the war started ... then they would have enough time to prepare and arm themselves.

  Paronn leaped up from his chair excitedly. Sudden elation filled him as he paced back and forth in the small computer room.

  The year 6290 dha-Tamar—after the founding of the empire—would be the ideal destination in time, he told himself. Thirty years before the outbreak of the war and the year in which the Star Guard was established. Three decades were enough to concentrate industry and research on the war, to build an excellent defense. A mighty fleet that could stand up to the Beasts' rampage. At the time, the Beasts did not yet have paratron technology and the devastating interval cannons at their disposal. It would be possible to strike them a crushing blow.

  The Great Tamanium would be saved and the deaths of millions upon millions prevented.

  Levian Paronn stopped. He was breathing heavily, but he didn't notice. His gaze wandered to the computer monitor with Thore Bardon's information on the Suen Project's time researches. A handful of bits and bytes that could be the key to the salvation of the Lemurian imperium. Without thinking, he raised his hand to the small, egg-shaped medallion that hung at his neck from a silver chain. To anyone else, it was just an exotic piece of jewelry, but he knew what the medallion really was.

  The guarantee of eternal life.

  A Cell Activator, as the stranger had called it.

  He still clearly remembered the day five years before when the stranger had come into his life. It was on Lemur, in a deep bunker laboratory like this one on Tanta III, 600 meters beneath the surface and secure from the Black Beasts' attacks. The guards had not noticed his entrance, nor had the security systems registered his appearance.

  He was suddenly simply there, in the middle of the night, while all the other scientists and technicians were sleeping. Paronn was brooding alone over the details of the multiple worlds theory that he had devised at the time. The stranger had resembled a Lemurian, but was surrounded by a strange, barely perceptible, shining aura, like a defectively projected hologram.

  He had appeared like a ghost who had effortlessly passed by the countless security barriers. However, Paronn had not been afraid, but instead felt only trust, instinctively and without reservation.

  You will accomplish great things, Levian Paronn, the stranger had said. You have been chosen to do things that no one else has done before you. Things that anyone else would consider impossible, but not you. I will give you the means for your mission, a life that can last forever if you are wise and prudent. As long as you wear this Cell Activator, death will lose its power over you ...

  Why me? Paronn had asked without doubting the stranger's words for a moment, overwhelmed and dumbfounded by the magnitude of the gift.

  Because the destiny of the Lemurians depends on you. You do not need to know more. All else will follow of itself.

  And as mysteriously as he had come, the stranger vanished once more, after having given him a datachip with the Cell Activator's construction plans. You will need helpers, the stranger had added, immortal like yourself. Choose them carefully when the time comes, and never say anything of what has happened here and now ...

  Paronn had not had any opportunity to ask him who he was, but that had not been necessary. He suspected it, he knew it.

  Vehraáto, the Twelfth Hero. The mythical savior from the dawn of Lemurian history. A figure of light who had come from the sun to stand with the Lemurians against murderously rampaging monsters, and then joined with the light once more after his work was done. But before departing he had announced that he would return when there was again a time of great peril.

  He had returned when the peril was at its greatest and granted Levian Paronn eternal life. Since putting on the Cell Activator, Paronn had not been sick. Strength he had never felt before flowed through him. Two or three hours of sleep per night were enough, and he never felt exhausted even after long, intensive work.

  At the time, the Twelfth Hero's words concerning his mission had not had any meaning. Now though, considering the dizzying possibility that in the 87th Tamanium there was a time machine that could be used to change the course of history, Vehraáto's message had a completely new significance.

  Is that what he prophesied, Paronn wondered. Am I expected to go through the gate of time and change history, and reverse the destiny of the Lemurian empire?

  It had to be so. There was no other possibility.

  And that meant that the time machine really did exist. Thore Bardon had been correct. Admiral Targant, that unimaginative, narrow-minded fool, had not listened to the commander. It was fortunate that as Technical Administrator of Tanta III, Paronn had the highest security clearance and routinely received all memos to Fleet Command.

  Paronn tensed. I will make Bardon's mission my own, he decided. I will go in search of the time machine and, if it functions, change the course of history. The Savior of the Great Tamanium—on behalf of the Twelfth Hero.

  He sank into his chair once more and stared at the monitor without seeing, shaken by the enormous implications of his mission. At the same time though, he was determined to carry it out against all obstacles.

  The dead will live again, the empire will rise up once more, he thought. And the accursed Beasts will die, all of them, without exception. They will be no more than a footnote in history. Phantoms used to frighten little children and nothing more.

  He pressed the com button on his terminal and put in a call to the Supreme Command of the Fleet. The face of a tactical officer from the command center appeared on the screen.

  The man stiffened as he recognized the Technical Administrator. "What can I do for you, Technad?" he asked.

  "I must speak with Admiral Targant," Paronn replied. "At once."

  The officer hesitated. "I'm afraid that isn't possible at the moment. The Admiral is in the combat-control center and leading the defensive battle for Tanta III. I'm sorry."

  "You're going to be even sorrier when I'm finished with you," Paronn replied, angered by the subordinate officer's refusal. He leaned forward until he was certain that his face filled the officer's monitor. "I have information for the Admiral that is of critical importance for the security of Tanta III and the entire central teleporter zone. Any delay will endanger the evacuation to Karahol. As Technad I have the right to speak with the Admiral at any time."

  The officer's face showed he was thinking hard. He had apparently received express orders from Targant not to disturb him during the battle. But he knew Paronn, his reputation and his achievements. As Technad he stood far above him in the hierarchy. As the leading scientist of Tanta III, specializing in stellar and neutrino research, he had optimized the transmission performance of the star teleporter and so enabled additional hundreds of thousands if not millions of Lemurians to escape to Karahol. One did not contradict a man like Paronn.

  "I'm waiting," Paronn added threateningly, "but not for much longer."

  The officer swallowed. "One moment, Technad," he said.

  He disappeared from the vidscreen and was replaced by the Fleet Command logo, two crossed galaxies on a black field. Paronn waited impatiently. Finally the logo disappeared, giving way to Admiral Targant's rugged face. His expression under the short-cropped hair showed irritation and annoyance.

  "What's so important that you had to bother me in the middle of a battle?" he demanded curtly. "I just read the memo from Commander Bardon," Paronn said.

  Targant looked at him in incomprehension. Apparently he was not familiar with the memo. Apparently he didn't even remember Bardon now.

  "The commander of the IBODAN," Paronn explained impatiently. "He fell into a Beast trap in the 64th Tamanium and ... "

  "I know," the Admiral interrupted brusquely. "The madman with the time machine." He laughed without humor. "That's why you're wasting my time? Because of a dubious memo from a man chasing after a delusion?"

  "Tam Councilor Merlan of Lemur does not consider the time machine a delusion," Paronn said with forced calmness. "Nor does Ruun Lasoth, the Chief Scientist of the First Tamanium. And I, Admiral, am also convinced that it exists."

  The Admiral opened his mouth but said nothing and instead merely stared at the Technad in disbelief.

  "The data that Commander Bardon gathered about the Suen Project's secret time research leads to only one conclusion," Paronn continued fervently. "On a remote world in the 87th Tamanium there is a functional time machine that we can use to influence the course of history retroactively. We can travel back into the past and destroy the Black Beasts once and for all before they unleash the war against the Great Tamanium, Admiral."

  Conflicting feelings flitted across the Admiral's face. Disbelief, skepticism ... and something like hope. "That's impossible!" he finally burst out.

  Paronn shook his head. "Time travel is possible," he contradicted him calmly but with a penetrating voice. "Modern temporal physics has proved it in theory. We just didn't know that under Tam Councilor Markam's leadership the Suen Project had already put it into practice." He took a deep breath, then went on, giving his voice emphasis. "Think about it, Admiral. Think about the possibilities that a time machine offers us—fundamentally changing the course of historical events! The war will not have happened. We can prevent it, we can cut the threat of the Beasts off at the roots. The Great Tamanium will exist again, more glorious and powerful than we can imagine. All the dead of this war will have never died."

  The Admiral looked at him silently, still skeptical but already half convinced because he wanted to believe him. Suddenly Paronn remembered that Targant's son had died in battle against the Beast some years before.

  "Your son will live again," he added temptingly. "Don't you understand? We can make his death never happen!"

  "But this is ... " Targant struggled for the right words. " ... so fantastic, so unreal ... "

  "Interventions in time are fantastic," Paronn agreed, "but they are not unreal. They might appear to us that way because we consider the stream of time as linear, unchangeable, unbendable. But time is not linear and not forever ordained. We can turn it back, ensure that it takes a different path. Small changes in the past are enough to give the present a completely new form."

 

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