Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3)
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Authors: Ian Miller
Tags: #Science Fiction
Scaevola's Triumph
Book 3 of the
Gaius Claudius Scaevola
trilogy
Ian J Miller
© Copyright, 2014. Ian Miller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for fair use, such as the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
This is a work of fiction, and all characters are quite fictional and bear no relationship to anyone. Relativity is real; the inertial field is fictional, maybe.
Chapter 1
As Pallas Athene and Ralph Grenfell returned to their chairs in the temporal viewing room, Doctor Chu locked the door behind them. After an intervention, it appeared to take just under an hour for the new timeline to settle and the viewer to decide what had happened. The temporal viewer would show history, but Doctor Chu had arranged it so that it could also indicate the probability that a timeline would solve the paradox.
While the temporal viewer had been constructed to study history, when Pallas Athene had learned how to use it to send messages to the past, at least under special circumstances, she had immortalized her name. Then a technician had also sent a message, apparently to the civilization on Ranh, a planet in the nearby Epsilon Eridani system, and the Ranhynn had apparently decided that such tampering was unacceptable. As a consequence, they set about eliminating all of humanity before the temporal viewer was constructed, thus creating a paradox. Those on the temporal viewer were the only remaining members of
Homo sapiens
, as far as they could tell, but they were displaced from any timeline, and thus did not exist in the Universe that was observable to anyone else.
The temporal viewer indicated there was one chance for humanity: a messenger had to go to the planet Ulse to get help and because of relativity, that messenger had to come from the first century. That messenger was to be a legionary
Legatus
Gaius Claudius Scaevola, who, with a small party of Romans, had been "collected" by an alien zoo specimen collector, who in turn was going to sell them to an interplanetary zoo on the planet Kroth, which lay very roughly half-way between Earth and Ulse. One fundamental problem was that the Ulsians were in the business of losing their own war, and it was well known that their civilization had been extinguished. For the Ulsians to help, they had to win their war, and the temporal viewer had initially indicated that the probability of Ulse not being extinguished was equal to the probability that the paradox would be resolved. They knew that Scaevola was critical, because it was his presence that determined the Ulsian survival, they knew how to get Scaevola to Ulse, and they knew at least some of the things he had to accomplish before abduction. They had tried nine timelines, and in each one the messages sent back to Scaevola in his prophecy were altered to improve the prospects. This had seemed to work. The last six times the party had been collected, the last four times they had got close to what they thought they needed to do to succeed, the last three times Ulse had survived, but overall they had always failed. The tenth was their last effort, and the prophecy was running. The Romans had been collected, and they were settling down in their cells on the alien ship.
What was particularly frustrating was that prior to this tenth run and out of nowhere, a message had appeared on their computer that described what they knew, and even some of what they did not know, but it provided nothing to get through this present crisis, other than to note they had to use logic. Where this message had come from was unclear. One theory was that it was from
their future
, which implied that the intervention would work, provided they gave Claudius this additional information. They had done that, but they were still in this predicament.
"Nothing has changed," Pallas Athene said as she looked up from the temporal viewer. "We've been here before, and we are getting the same probability as we always do at this time. If we do not do something different, this timeline will declare itself unable to resolve the paradox, it will be all over, and
Homo sapiens
will become extinct."
"I must confess to being puzzled," Ralph Grenfell said. "Three times we prevented the end of Ulse, or so we thought, but each time Scaevola was forbidden to return and the timeline then collapsed."
"We have been instructed to use logic, and in logic, there is one possibility we have overlooked," Doctor Chu said. "It is possible that saving Ulse once is insufficient."
"You mean there is a further crisis that we know nothing about?" Athene asked.
"That is exactly what I mean," Doctor Chu said, "and we have no idea what it is because the timelines always collapse before we get a chance to view it, and if that message has any meaning at all, logic tells us we have to make a change now."
"And this is our last shot at this," Ralph Grenfell added. "The questions are, what can we do, and when on that timeline do we do it?"
"My guess is that getting on the alien vessel is absolutely necessary," Athene said. "We know getting Scaevola to Ulse is imperative, and it is absolutely impossible to do that without the abduction."
"We also know that that ship must stop at Kroth to sell the other specimens," Grenfell added. "So far we have assumed that Scaevola must avoid this fate, and we know he has done enough to do that, but suppose he was really supposed to stay there?"
"We can eliminate that option," Doctor Chu said firmly. "If we do that, and if Scaevola can ever get out of the zoo, and if he could get back to Earth, he would arrive back during the Dark Ages, and that could not possibly help us. Nor for that matter would Ulse's fate change, and the viewer tells us the two are linked."
"There's another technical issue too," Athene said. "There are not very many situations where we can send messages."
"Then what are our options?" Doctor Chu asked.
"The easiest ones are to the alien ships," Athene said, "because they are also sentient machines. The machines have a predictable internal configuration and have predictable behaviour. There are other options, and one that we should still try is to get a message through to the group of Ulsians that we have used on other timelines. We have had a good success before, and I recommend we try that again, because every other time we really improved the amplitude of that timeline."
"I agree," Doctor Chu said. "If nothing else, by doing something, we restore the timeline amplitude, which gives us a little more time to think of something else."
"There's one other thing," Athene said, a trifle hesitantly.
"Go on," Doctor Chu said.
"I am going to suggest they might like to help us get Scaevola into contact with us again. I shall say I want to apologize to him for putting this problem onto him, and . . ."
"I concur," Grenfell said. "It is something that goes towards their sense of honour."
"Right," Athene said. "I shall do this right away, but in the meantime if anyone can think of anything else, now is the time to say so. We have about ten minutes after I do this."
Athene then began the procedure of sending the message to Ulse. She had done this several times before, and the message took almost twenty minutes since she had to introduce herself to the Ulsians, and convince them that she was real and was conveying important information. This went almost identically to the previous times, and when she finished the standard message, she inserted her additional request. She got no immediate response, which at first made her feel a little dejected, but then Doctor Chu informed her that the probability amplitude had never been higher, so that had not done any harm.
"The question now is, should we do anything else," Grenfell said. He looked over at Doctor Chu, and said, "You've got something haven't you, but you think we won't like it."
Doctor Chu thought for a moment, then looked Athene in the eye and said, "Pallas, I suspect you are not going to like this, romantic that you are, but . . ."
"But?"
"Let's look back over our previous runs. We know that when we gave Quintus that dream that made him head off to Cornwall and also to take the two women, which he would never have done without the intervention, the probability amplitude went up quite dramatically."
"Yes, persuading him that having Vipsania to distract Scaevola so that Scaevola would not stop Vespasian from giving Quintus the tin was inspired. Great suggestion, Ralph, but where is this going?"
"Maybe it is Lucilla who is critical to the next part about which we know nothing," Doctor Chu suggested.
"So?"
"I think our best bet is to get rid of Quintus. He has been a problem in the previous runs, and −"
"Yes, but nothing he did was critical to the final outcome," Athene countered.
"We don't know that," Ralph pointed out. "While Quintus and Lucilla were always present, they were essentially spectators. They did not adversely affect anything we know about, but we don't know what would have happened had Quintus not been there."
"The problem was," Doctor Chu said, "while Quintus did not do anything that is likely to have changed the outcome so far, we don't know what he might have done in terms of the second crisis. Quintus may have distracted Scaevola, or irritated the Ulsians, or even worse, prevented Lucilla from doing whatever she has to do. My point is, we have got to this position three times already, but we still failed to get our outcome, and we don't know why. Once the amplitude of that timeline had no probability of resolving our paradox, we had no further view of what happened.
"Lucilla will behave much differently if Quintus is not there," Doctor Chu continued. "Don't forget, throughout the previous runs Quintus has assumed his role of keeping Lucilla as a passive Roman wife. She has contributed the next best thing to nothing, except for the plays."
Athene was clearly unimpressed. "First off, we don't know Quintus hasn't got an important role −"
"He hasn't shown any sign of it yet," Grenfell interrupted as he shook his head in disbelief. "Basically, Scaevola has had to do everything in spite of Quintus in our failed timelines."
"That doesn't mean we just kill him," Athene said. "Be fair, he wouldn't be there except for our meddling, so we have some responsibility for him, surely?"
"I didn't mean we arrange to kill him," Doctor Chu said, "although you may not like the alternative either."
"So, supposing we want to get rid of him, how do we do it?" Grenfell asked.
"There is an interesting possibility," Doctor Chu said. "We get the alien to sell that subsection of the party to Ranh."
"Where they will be slaves," Athene said with a frown.
"Yes, but there are some other humans there as well, including some Greek women, so −"
"You're all heart! That's despicable. We've taken someone with a good future and we shall make him a slave, and the only good thing from his point of view is he can breed more slaves."
"Pallas, with several billion human lives at stake, isn't it worth it?" Doctor Chu challenged.
"It may not even work!"
"It may not, but it might do something else. Remember, Ranh is also part of our problem," Grenfell said.
