A Paradox in Retrograde (5 page)

"Why yes your grace. I did not intend to disparage the systems
that be, only to add as you asked, my perspective. I assure you
that of which I had spoken was merely my personal opinion, and
that my reports will be factual in nature."

"I would appreciate that in our future communications. We at
court can not be seen to be aligned or even sympathetic to such
notions. You must be careful in future." You mustremember
how in a long ago time, the very foundations of this citadel were
built around the crystal room to keep it safe fromour enemies.
Since its discovery our people have been transformed from tribes
of barbaric of savages to a peace loving people who hold dominion over the seas. That is my philosophy and it is also that of the
king." Alfred tipped his hat and greeted them good bye. He
turned from them and began making his way back toward the station with his guard.

Landaus followed and caught up with Alfred some distance now
from the object. Landaus was surprised by the concern he saw
there on his face. Alfred seemed now preoccupied and Landaus
could tell he was not in the same convivial mood that earlier possessed him. He knew him well enough to know no good would
come from asking him about it. So he decided to avoid the subject. After a short moment the governor spoke, "Landaus you
asked me for the opportunity to show me that you can handle
greater political responsibility beyond your responsibility as colonel of the guard. We'll this is your chance. I warn you though;
there will not be another one. So you better hold a tight rein on
this keeper of the books that you've employed for this venture.
Good day then."
"Good day to you your grace." Then the governor and his entourage turned abruptly leaving him there standing alone before the
gate.

Xora and Grunhuf watched this exchange at a distance. She was
curious and asked "Where has his grace gone to? I would have
thought he would stay a while longer.". "He'll most likely continue onward to Tauburg to report his findings directly to the
king." responded Grunhuf. He was perhaps dismayed by your
apparent naiveté in the ways of politics and in particular how
you made a point to agitate the governor's sensibilities. Xora I
must ask what ever did you hope to accomplish with that exchange? I've known you for a number of years and it never ceases to amaze me how you can be so blatantly belligerent to personages of power. I know Alfred well. We went to school together. You don't see me trying to force the governor to chuck
the official philosophy into the dust bin publicly. There is a time
and a place for everything and your timing is terrible."

"That's exactly the point Xora. No he can't actually. As the royal
governor his only job is to maintain the status quo. It's my job to
run things around here. If you think I'm going to give all that up
for the sake of an opinion that in the end will sway nothing, you
must be mad. It may have us ultimately on the outside looking
in. Is that what you want Xora?" She had no time to answer for
Landaus had since walked the distance that separated them.

Ibsen, who had sat silently awaiting the man in white to leave,
leapt from behind the object towards his father. His presence
there surprised and startled his father. "How long have you been
hiding back there?" his father asked. "I was there long enough to
know that these people want to take my prize away from me.
They can't do that. I found it fair and square." They all knew the
law and it was sure enough true for any ordinary object. This
however was something quite different. No other forerunner object since the crystal room had been found with this level completeness and complexity. It was indeed too important an object
to leave in the hands of a child, or even for that matter, a single
adult. His father searched for a way to explain his predicament
in a manner he could understand. But none easily came or
seemed adequate. He put his hand on his boys head and said,
"Son we don't know what we are dealing with here. You're going
to need to be patient. I will make sure everybody knows that it
was your discovery, I promise."

For days on end a storm upon the restless ocean with great surges had raked the coast of Baldur without mercy. Of those who
had endured it, many had called it the worst in living memory.
When finally it had passed and the skies again cleared, the citizens returned from their places of shelter to examine what fate
had delivered unto them. As they arose that morning to their
shock they discovered the extent of nature's fury. There they
found that great swaths of coastline that had lain stable for centuries had shifted in the course of one night. There too along the
sea bottom, the great dunes of silt were not spared from the havoc of the churning waves. From out of these depths many a rare
and beautiful object from a previous age were freed from their
restraining bounds, to be deposited there upon the beaches.

There farther out upon the open ocean beyond the naked skeletons of atolls a rather mysterious object bobbed to and fro
amongst the newly arisen detritus. Delivered there from some
long ago burial there a sarcophagus calmly floated upon the sea.
Unlikely as it was that an object clad in heavy sheets of bronze
might float, it did so none the less. Its markings though dulled as
they were by the passage of time were visible. They however
would almost certainly prove unreadable to a contemporary viewer. It was true then that this was no ordinary coffin. It must surely have been designed by the forerunners to deliver up its contents intact. There tossed about within for unknown centuries, a
man had slumbered in a deathlike sleep. After long delay his moment of awakening had come.

As is the nature of things, that all the workings of man in due
course must fall to dust, so was this the destiny of his lost age. All
but Ananda was, or possessed had passed into the darkened void
of lost memory. He alone would be their sole voice. To what context could his lone voice belong? All that was his world had been
forgotten as their time ended. By some cruel gremlin in the works
perhaps, the mechanism of his reawakening had malfunctioned.
The clock within his time capsule, like those of his people had
long since stopped ticking. It then was by no small miracle that
he alone had survived the ravages of time.

From the depths it had risen. Beyond all its makers expectations
the sarcophagus that held safe Ananda's hibernating body had
outlasted most but not all that his great civilization had created.
Buried for millennia beneath the shifting sand his once mighty
heart, like the echo of a raindrop, beat shallowly. Though they
were perhaps not designed to do so, the seals had held back both
the corrosive action of the sea and the robber of life. Sensed faintly, from within the encrusted capsule, a meager light managed by
chance to filter downward through the darkened sea above and
the almost opaque glass of the face plate. Having slept for untold
centuries this faint glimmer of light was the first to reach the
slumbering retinas of this forlorn traveler. Shimmering faintly,
through the membrane of his encrusted and swollen eyes, this
light appeared as if a skyrocket against the backdrop of black
night. To this flash he reacted most violently. To this stimulus, he
like a caged animal would react. In possession of only base senses, he howled without witness into the emptiness of the deep
ocean chasm. For an hour or more a potent surge of adrenaline
fueled to life his fight or flight response, to which he could do
neither. Through this passage of pain as if reborn, some semblance of consciousness began to leach through thefog that had
restrained him. Soon his senses would follow.
There bathed in the aqua tinted glow of emergency lights, but
for the dull ache that played in his head, he lay unrestrained by
sleep for the first time in a very long time. He looked up and
recognized that some of these now familiar controls had become
a victim of oxidation. Time and exposure to the elements had
taken their toll as the inevitable corrosion had rendered the display and most of the sensor mechanisms no longer operational.
This could be he imagined a serious challenge to his survival
chances. He would have to now depend on his training and instincts if he were to make it out alive. He somehow remembered
the contingency plans that he was made to painstakingly practice over and over again during what he imagined to be some far
off cadet training. In the escape maneuver the cadets learned to
use the mechanics tools of old to unhinge the faceplate of this
floating casket. He looked through the storage compartments
until he found there a conveniently marked packet labeled in
hieroglyphics, "Emergency escape tools." As he gathered the
tools together he could not help but to be puzzled at the extent
of the damage. It was far worse that he would have anticipated it
to be. The rate of decay for these materials should have endured
well past the length of his stay within his capsule. The extent of
the damage would lead him then to suspect he had in fact overslept well beyond the technologies expected shelf life, which
was a very long time indeed. He recalled the long ago day to
which he and his wife Samantha had said their tearful goodbyes
and how they hoped they would meet again on the appointed
day. He knew now this was not to be, for evidence was accumulating that he had slept far beyond the slotted moment. "It
was only yesterday," he said to himself, but the evidence was
stark and undeniable. He had held a fuzzy memory of how he
had participated in an experiment where five hundred years into
the future a group of elite sleepers would travel forward in time.
Slowly the memory unfolded. Along with several dozen others
he had volunteered to act as human seeds for the future. His
mind reeled as he pondered the possibilities. He asked himself,
"Where had they all gone? What had become of the experiment?
Had it succeeded?" To what kind of world he would emerge
into? He could not know. There however would be no way to
answer these questions or to tell for how long he had been adrift
until his capsule had reached the surface and he could manually
measure his coordinates.
The emergency escape mechanism by necessity possessed a rudimentary design and could be operated manually by turning a
sealed valve. Once turned, an exchange of gasses filled a metallic
mesh balloon which would be deploying automatically from beneath. He grasped the wheel tightly and with all his remaining
energy slowly rotated the wheel. The balloon, woven from a finely spun gold alloy began to fill and the casket then began to slowly rise. Leaving the murky depths behind, the automatic system
atmospherically adjusted to the changing pressures outside and
the once coffin became then a vessel, slowly guided itself upwards. After a tense thirty some odd minutes his vessel, approached the surface.

Like some bizarre creature the craft had breached the surface in a
tumult of roiling water. For a moment it rocked then stabilized.
Automatically a few of the working on board sensorsbegan to
measure and calculate its surroundings. By measuring the Earth's
magnetic field and the relevant depth of the surrounding ocean
the on board systems attempted to match its current location readings to charts loaded onto it's on board dataset. For several
minutes the mechanism attempted to calculate a location based on
known coordinates but was unable to make a lock. Our traveler
grew worried as the apparent malfunction threatened to leave him
perhaps stranded afloat in the middle of a churning sea. As time
wore on it became evident he would have to manually remove the
door himself and take his chances. There in the packet he found a
matching set of wrenches specifically designed for this maneuver.
With great relief he began the laborious task of removing the
twenty-nine bolts that held the transparent door in place. As he
labored he began to feel the full effects of the suns golden rays
beating down through the composite glass.

As the seal finally broke he could smell the salt air rushing in
through the gaps and could hear what he imagined were the welcome sounds of sea going birds wrangling in the air above him.
With the last bolt removed he pushed the hatch open slightly. He
rose up exposing himself to the full light of day glancing to his
left and right he would discover that his craft as had drifted for
some time. He found himself floating in shallow water perhaps
four feet of depth and mere feet from the spreading boughs of the
mangrove tree. He would discover that it was but one of a cluster
that formed a crown around a small abandoned island. He lay
there for a moment and breathed deeply the salty air. Pushing
back the heavy door into its full upright position, he sat up
straight. The sun was high in the sky now and he averted his still
sensitive eyes from its glare. He tentatively rose to a standing
position. Though his body shook he still was able to support his
own weight as he stepped carefully from the capsule. He made it
to his feet to discover that his body had been well preserved. He
estimated that there was very little muscular atrophy that could
not be countered by physical exercise. The water was surprisingly warm to the touch. After a few moments he rose from the
water only to fall onto the beach in exhaustion. As he lay there
he pondered his situation his mind however was still in recovery
mode.

The circumstances of his current misfortune were, at least for
now, lost to him. However slowly, over the course of hours and
days the details of his ordeal would begin to become clearer to
him as the effects of the chemicals that kept him long in suspension wore off. These unavoidable byproducts of his long endured slumber though acutely uncomfortable were temporary
though many of these facts would in the short term remain forgotten. However in the course events, no one had ever slumbered as long as he. Only with time then would the facts of his
unlikely journey be perhaps revealed to him.