&08

The Time War

By Gary LM Martin

Chapter 7: The Gold Mines of Gambia

Sarah had activated the Binochi Corridor. She was running some field tests on it. Calle stood at the entrance of it, feeling the heat of it, staring into the brightly lit swirling mists. He could almost hear the sounds of whispering.

Those glowing orange eyes.

"Could there be something alive in there?" Calle asked.

"Yes," said Sarah promptly. "I have seen it."

"Really? What have you seen?" Calle asked excitedly.

"The ghost of Carl Voidovich," said Sarah.

Calle's eyebrows furled. "I thought you were a

Passive

Observer."

"Yes. It doesn't mean I'm a

dumb

one." She watched as Calle turned back to the Corridor, staring into it. "You seemed obsessed with the Corridor," said Sarah. "That is a classic first stage symptom of temporal psychosis."

"Temporal psychosis?"

Sarah nodded, as she adjusted the controls. The Corridor flickered slightly. "First stage is obsession with the Corridor."

"I'm there, I've got that," said Calle.

"Good," said Sarah. "The second stage is where the subject gradually loses touch with reality."

"You mean, like believing the Louvre had been burned down when it wasn't?" said Calle, remembering what Colonel Strayker's wife Gina had said at the party last week.

"Yes, that's a good example," said Sarah. "That's stage two."

"And what's stage three?"

"Generally speaking, violent madness," said Sarah.

He looked sharply at her.

"Don't worry, you're only at stage one," said Sarah brightly.

He frowned at her again.

Sarah smiled radiantly at him. "Why didn't you go with the others, into the pocket?"

The pocket.

Major Reynolds had invited Calle to join the male members of the CS to go into a special pocket of time, one where Marilyn Monroe had just graduated High School and was feeling...

especially insecure

about her body. It was the CS's way of celebrating Calle's success on the Varonkov mission.

"I didn't feel like it," said Calle. The last time he had had sex was with Eva Braun, and he hadn't enjoyed it at all. It was nothing like... like....

"So, if you're not going to have sex with her, it probably means it's because you want to have sex with

me,

right?" Sarah asked.

Calle looked at her.

"Well, if you're turning down Marilyn Monroe, the only reason I can think of is because you'd rather have sex with me instead," said Sarah. "It makes sense. All the men are having sex with Marilyn, while you're here... with me." She looked at him slyly. "Is this your passive male way of asking for sex? If so, it's very persuasive."

"No," Calle said simply.

Sarah rubbed her flat chest. "It's my breasts, isn't it? Or rather, the lack thereof. They give you pause, don't they? When I never grew them, and every single other girl in my class did, they gave me a pause too." Sarah didn't give him any chance to get a word in edgewise. "Well, don't feel that way. Did I tell you my vagina is efficient? I think I did. That was the wrong word, I apologize. It's actually

quite inefficient

, by all the standard metrics of the 25th century used to measure vaginal efficiency.

What I meant to say

is that my vagina is very tight. So tight, in fact, that if you want to turn around when you're inside it, you can't, you have to go out the way you came and come back in again. You'll simply love it. You'll love it so much you'll be too distracted to even notice whether I have titties or an ironing board up here. I promise," said Sarah, caressing her flat chest. "What do you say?"

Calle just continued to stare at her.

"Has anyone ever told you that are not exactly the world's greatest conversationalist? In fact, you might be the exact

opposite

of the world's greatest conversationalist. Have you ever considered that?" Sarah asked.

Calle just turned back to the Binochi Corridor. He could hear the whispering. If only he could make out what it was saying....

********

The Black White Supremacists:

They were called the Black White Supremacists.

They didn't think of themselves as that, of course. Certainly not Ken Larson.

In the beginning, Ken Larson was a very proud black man. He was raised by a black mother and a black father, and he was dark skinned and he had a wonderfully wide African nose and curly black African hair and he loved all things black.

Black black black black black!

But as Ken Larson grew up in suburban Philadelphia, he started to notice some things:

1) All the holotextbooks in school portrayed black and Hispanic people as brilliant, and white people as bumbling idiots;

2) In school he was taught over and over that black people were still suffering from slavery, which last occurred over 600 years ago, and that even today that white people suffered from "unconscious racism", "comatose racism", and "oxygen deprived racism";

3) In Ken's favorite holoserials, iconic white characters were all replaced by black actors, until there were few if any white protagonists left;

4) While white students struggled to get into the top colleges, black students with lower scores were vigorously courted and offered free tuition;

5) In hiring for jobs, blacks with lower credentials clearly had an advantage over their white counterparts.

These and other observations convinced Ken that white people were being discriminated against. Ken didn't think that white people were racist; in fact they were, for the most part, kind, decent, gentle and understanding people. Slavery had ended over 600 years ago, but for the past 600 years it was the whites who had been discriminated against. It was a social ill that Ken vowed to remedy, if he ever got the chance.

Ken went to college and then graduate school, and got a Ph.D. in Galactic Physics, and was eventually hired to be one of several assistants to the brilliant Doctor Carl Voidovich. Voidovich was developing a gateway which, in theory, would allow people to travel from one point in space to another in an instant.

Doctor Voidovich did much more than that. He developed a time machine which allowed people to travel into the past. Ken Larson remembered the first time they activated the bright swirling mists of the Binochi Corridor. They weren't sure if it could work. It could be a path to nowhere. Doctor Voidovich vowed to try it first. He stepped through, and disappeared...

...only to return a moment later, looking visibly shaken.

He wouldn't talk about his experience, at first, only collapsing into a chair. To all questions he held up a hand and said, "Wait. Just wait."

They waited. Five minutes, ten minutes, then twenty minutes. And then a gateway opened up in the middle of the room, and another Doctor Voidovich stepped out of this.

"I went nowhere?" he said quizzically. Then he saw the first Doctor Voidovich and his eyes went large. "How can this be?"

"You have travelled in time," said the version of Doctor Voidovich who was sitting down. "You are now twenty minutes into your future."

"Really?"

"Really," said Voidovich wearily.

"But... that's fantastic!" said the new Voidovich.

"Yes."

"So many questions! But also..,. such a tremendous weight of responsibility," said the new Voidovich. "So many implications!"

"Yes," said Voidovich. "You'd better return and start thinking about them."

The new Voidovich nodded, and turned around and reentered the glowing gateway, which promptly disappeared.

They had invented time travel.

********

Voidovich immediately decided to move their base of operations somewhere else, somewhere the military, which had funded the project, didn't know about. The device was too powerful to be run by the military. Only responsible scientists could use it wisely. With the help of a wealthy industrialist, the lab was moved.

At first, the lab was used only for research. Holomonitors could be hooked into the Binochi corridor to observe earlier periods of time. But Doctor Voidovich's senior assistant, Doctor William Bright, grew restless. He felt the Time Shaft should be used as a force for good, to improve society, to shape the history of man and strive towards a more positive outcome for all. He argued at length with Doctor Voidovich about it.

"Think about all the wars and famines and conflicts that could be avoided if history had gone a different path," Bright said.

Voidovich had always shaken his head. "We cannot alter time. We will wipe people out of existence with the smallest change."

"True, but think of all the benefits for the rest of us. We're talking about helping the entire human race, Carl! What's that compared to erasing perhaps a few thousand lives, or even a few million?"

Voidovich shook his head. "As long as I operate the Time Shaft, we will never use it for such purposes."

"I understand," said William Bright.

And he did.

And so the following week, when Bright showed up in the control room with a dozen men all armed with compression pistols and blasters, he announced a new regime change. He would be in charge now.

"I will never accept that," Doctor Voidovich declared.

"Your acceptance is not required," said Bright calmly. The blonde man was smiling, but his blue eyes were hard.

Voidovich rapidly started to activate the controls. One of Bright's men moved forward to stop him, but Bright waved him back. He waited patiently until Voidovich activated the Binochi Corridor.

Voidovich ran to it. "You'll never have my technology, never!" And then he ran into the Corridor, and vanished.

William Bright casually went over to the controls, and started manipulating them.

"No!" Ken Larson cried. "If you turn off the Corridor while he's still inside-"

Suddenly, the Binochi Corridor went dark.

William Bright turned and faced them calmly. "You were saying?" He paused. "What I did, had to be done. When dealing with a technology like this, we have to eliminate extraneous variables."

So that's what Professor Voidovich was.

An extraneous variable.

Those hard blue eyes surveyed the other scientists. "But I see other variables which may also need curbing." Bright stood upright. "I intend to use the Time Shaft for the benefit of mankind. Will you join me?"

Ken Larson, Marsha Kalinsky, Mercury Jones, and Richard Smith, all of Doctor Voidovich's senior assistants, looked at each other. Then, one by one, they stepped forward. Ken Larson was last. Bright gave Ken a hard look, as if to say, "I'll be watching you", but nodded.

And so the new regime began.

William Bright didn't make any changes to the timeline, at first. He said he wanted "minimalist efforts". But when they learned the full extent of his plans, they were all dismayed.

********

Mercury Jones protested against Doctor Bright's plans. Doctor Bright responded by "making an example" of Mercury.

And then Mercury was

gone

, leaving only three of Doctor Voidovich's original assistants left: Ken Larson, Marsha Kalinsky, and Richard Smith.

They talked quietly in the cafeteria the day after Mercury Jones... the day after he had been made an example of.

"We can't be a part of this," said Ken desperately.

"What can we do?" Marsha Kalinsky whispered. "We can't leave. He had guards around all the exits."

"Not

all

the exits," said Ken knowingly.

Marsha understood immediately. "You want us to escape through the Binochi Corridor?"

Ken nodded.

"But there are two guards in the control room at all times," said Marsha.

"We can handle them," said Ken.

"What time will we escape to?" Marsha asked.

"The present. We'll simply go to a different place."

"And let William Bright change the timeline?" Marsha said.

Ken shrugged. "You heard William explain it. We won't be affected by it in the slightest."

"But billions of other people will," said Marsha.

"She's right," said Richard Smith. "We should go back right before Bright took over, and warn Doctor Voidovich."

"No," said Ken firmly. "Looping ourselves could create enormous paradoxes. We can't risk it."

"Ken is right," Marsha sighed. "I think we should just get out of here."

After some more arguing, they reluctantly agreed.

********

One evening when they knew William was at home with his wife, Gina, they all gathered in the control room. There were two armed guards there, as always. Ken went up to one of them with a Pad. Richard Smith approached the other.

"Could you have a look at this, my friend?" said Ken, approaching one of the guards. His name was Roger B. Taney, a mild mannered Scottish man, and he had always been friendly to Ken. Ken felt bad for what he was about to do. He simply dreaded what he was about to do to the Scot.

"What do you want me to look at?" Roger B. Taney asked.

Ken punched Roger B. Taney in the face, and Roger B. Taney groaned and went down. Richard Smith yelled and chopped the other guard on the back of the neck. The second guard dropped to the floor as well.

"Hurry!" said Marsha, rushing to the controls. She rapidly pressed buttons. The blue strokes of power surged through the vertical time shaft, making loud roaring sounds. And then the Binochi Corridor activated, its bright light shining on them. The three of them ran to the ramp, looked at each other, and took deep breaths.

"This is it," said Marsha. She was the first to go. Ken and Richard followed her seconds later.

********

They emerged in Pittsburgh, of all places. They all looked at each other--Ken Larson, Marsha Kalinsky, and Richard Smith, and realized they were free. They mumbled about keeping in touch with each other, and went their separate ways, never to see each other again.

Ken Larson couldn't get the thought of the Time Shaft out of his mind. Used properly, it could be a tool for good. But not as William Bright wanted to use it. At that moment, Ken Larson decided to create his own Time Shaft. And he would use it for the ultimate good: to help oppressed white people.

Whites had suffered from reverse discrimination for 600 years, creating a tremendous moral stain on the character of the black race. 600 years of discrimination was too much, he decided. White people had suffered too long. It was time to change things, for the better.

And so the Black White Supremacists were born.

It took Larson several years to build his base of operation. First he had to get financing. He found a sympathetic ear in Mel Watts.

Mel Watts was a black geneticist who felt the same way that Larson did about the oppression of white people. Mel got rich isolating the gene for curly, black afro hair. He patented it, and then made billions of dollars selling it as an injection to white people who wanted to "blackize" their hair so they could look African. Even as Mel profited handsomely from it, he felt sorry for white people who felt so ashamed of their culture that they were trying to become black.

And so he was all ears when Larson came to him with his plan, and gave him financing. The Time Shaft took eight years to build. Larson recruited other supporters including Doctor Thelma Kendricks. Thelma was a black physician who was a brilliant neurosurgeon. Her colleagues promoted her to head of surgery at Johns Hopkins, but they were more interested in lectures about white racism than they were about developments in medicine. Kendricks felt like she was a totem being used to help ward off feelings of white guilt, and resented it.

Doctor Kevin Myrtle was another recruit. He was a brilliant black mechanical engineer, who taught at Caltech; but the university was more interested in having him give lectures on Diversity and Unconscious Racism than on spaceship mechanics.

Along the way Ken got married to Velma Louis, and they had a son named Jamal. While Velma loved Ken dearly, and was understanding about what he was trying to do, she couldn't exactly be called

enthusiastic

about the project. Ken's son Jamal was even less so.

*******

They were all eating dinner at a long table in their secret base of operations. Everyone was there, Ken, Velma, Jamal, Kevin, Thelma, and Ken's other followers, Sharice, Roy, and Turner, black white supremacists all.

Velma came out of the kitchen bearing a platter of roasted chicken. She came over to Ken. "Would you like the white or dark meat, dear?"

"White or dark meat? What kind of question is that, woman? Don't you know me better than that?" Ken said.

Velma frowned and gave Ken some white chicken breast. As she served the chicken down the table, Ken noticed with disapproval that Jamal was eating some of the dark meat.

"We are almost ready to begin our first mission," Ken announced, as he chewed.

My, how white meat tasted so grand!

"Are you sure?" Velma asked.

"The equipment has been tested. It works. It is time we began," said Ken firmly. "And I think we can start by preventing the slave trade entirely. Just think of it, my friends... a wonderful new version of America... completely free of black people!"

Jamal winced. "Dad, we

are

black people, in case you haven't noticed. What's wrong with black people?"

"Why, nothing, son. If they're in Africa," said Ken. "But once they come to America, they immediately start to oppress the white people. We can't have that."

"But black folks were enslaved!" said Jamal.

"For 300 years. But that was 600 years ago, and for 600 years, whites have been ruthlessly discriminated against. Effectively they have become second class citizens in their own country. We can't have that," said Ken.

Velma came out with two big bowls of rice, white and brown. She looked questioningly at Ken, who frowned at her. She quickly spooned out some white rice for him.

"How are we going to do it?" Sharice Robinson asked.

"Through gold," said Ken. "There are gold mines in Western Africa. We'll persuade the local tribal chieftains that the gold trade is much more profitable than the slave trade."

Ken smiled as he put a spoonful of white rice into his mouth. It was so clean, so pure!

Jamal had a thought. "But Dad, if we end the slave trade, all the people who were born as a result of slavery will cease to exist."

"That's true," said Ken. "But many new black people will be born in Africa, where they belong. And they'll be much happier, trust me."

He was still smiling as Velma put a cup of vanilla pudding in front of him, though his smile faded somewhat as he saw Jamal select chocolate pudding instead.

********

Using the Time Shaft, they had come back to what would eventually become known as Gambia, in the year 1708. This was about as far back as the Time Shaft could take them. Going back farther and farther required exponentially more energy. The slave trade had already started a hundred years earlier to Central and South America, but Ken Larson felt some comfort in at least knowing he could cut off the greater part of it to what would become the United States.

Gambia was one of the main embarkation points for slaves heading to the New World. Ken Larson, Kevin Myrtle, Mel Watts, and Jamal were dressed in period costumes, as black people of European origins. It was uncommon, but not totally unheard of.

They met with some of the local chiefs, and encouraged them to turn their attention to gold mining instead of the slave trade. The local chieftains well knew the value of gold, but they were unaware that there were gold mines almost literally in their backyards. Larson took a delegation of tribal chiefs into the hills and showed them mines brimming with gold. He had had a series of excavation robots working day and night for six months to tunnel in areas where he knew vast gold deposits would be found. When the tribal chiefs entered the first excavated cave, and saw the walls brimming with gold deposits, they were all smiles, and they thanked Ken effusively.