An Uncertain Future (11.4)

Dan and Rivi laughed as the rest of the leaves floated down around them.

Ankh jumped down from the roof, manipulating the atoms in the ground under him to absorb his impact, and landed nimbly on all three legs. His long, straight robe swept delicately around his ankles. Rivi and Dan stepped out of the leaves encircling their feet and shook their heads, laughing as the last of the leaves fell from their hair.

Ankh walked over to them, smiling as he helped them brush the leaves from their long traditional-Aun style robes. He motioned with a hand up the stairs and they followed him into the house, walking through the door, not bothering to open it.

"How long has it been since you cleaned the roof off?" Rivi asked, laughing and shaking her head at Ankh as they reemerged on the other side of the door.

"About a year," Ankh replied, grinning bashfully.

Dan chuckled as Rivi's guardian father led them down a short hallway and into his living room. The round living room had only a few pieces of furniture in it. It was obvious that Ankh and Enuet didn't spend much time in here. There was a pile of bean bags in the center in case of guests. One rocking chair sat off to one side with a little side table beside it. A small, velvety, round-leafed plant in a painted pot sat on the table. The walls were plain except for the occasional half-foot-long crystal hanging from strings of various lengths attached to the very top of the wall. Light from Enuet's backyard garden came into the room through a large mesh wall and sparkled off the crystals.

"It's so easy to forget small stuff like clearing off the roof, in real-time, while you are traveling in the T dimension. The rest of me just got back two days ago," Ankh explained.

Rivi frowned slightly and then her eyes widened in shock as she realized that Ankh was now fully visible. Ever since she could remember, Ankh had always been semi-transparent. Now he stood before them as solidly as any normal being.

"Hold on, what is the T dimension?" Dan asked.

"It's where everyone sits around drinking tea all day!" Rivi's Aunantet guardian mother, Enuet, called sarcastically from the back porch.

"No!" Rivi exclaimed with a laugh, "It's the thin dimension within our dimension in which all time is kept and recorded. Futurity Histographers can separate themselves ... and while one part of them stays in the real world the other part of them observes the T dimension. This is why Ankh can know about Past, Present, and Future events... And why up till now, he has been semi- transparent."

"Why did you come back then?" Dan asked, now even more confused.

"It was getting too dangerous. I couldn't observe in peace anymore. I was being chased through time," Ankh replied.

"Go ahead, ask him by whom, ask him!" Enuet snapped in reply, as she stepped into the mesh wall.

The wall parted sharply and suddenly in response to Enuet's heated temper. It continued to ripple around her as she stood there with her three hands perched on her hips and middle back. The part in the wall revealed the porch behind her. The semi-enclosed porch contained many huge potted plants. As a Herboviromentor, Enuet could work with plants the same way Rivi could with computers. Enuet liked to bring some of her work home with her ...although she did try to keep it out on the porch.

"Go on ...Ask him!" Enuet reiterated.

The thin mesh-like porch wall she was holding open rippled with her irritation. Rivi and Dan looked back to Ankh.

"It was the Aruk, wasn't it?" Rivi asked flatly.

"Yes," Ankh groaned as he walked over to sit on the pile of bean bags across from Enuet.

"The T-dimension is supposed to remain untouched!" Enuet said stormily as she released the wall and marched over to a rocking chair in the corner of the room and began rocking furiously.

"Do you know what they're trying to do?! They are trying to break into the time string to change the history of whole civilizations!" Enuet fumed.

Rivi and Dan looked at one another and then from Enuet to Ankh in utter disgust.

"It's alright, En," Ankh said soothingly as he watched Enuet stew in her rocking chair.

"We've got to do something ... all those histories being destroyed... We have to...." Rivi stuttered, trying to put together a coherent plan.

"Hold on ...we know what they've done in the past," Dan stated, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. "We also know what they are doing now, especially on planet Gronter ... But how does all of this add up to form whatever their plans are for the future?"

"It sounds like a modified adaptation of their 'take over the galaxy' plan," Rivi speculated quietly as she paced back and forth behind the stack of bean bags, "If you change the history of a civilization you can make it into what you want. They could make themselves rulers over these civilizations! Like the Gods over Egypt of old!"

"I know that look," Dan warned as he watched Rivi. "You can't stop them all by yourself."

"Rivi, I know you feel like you want to go straight out there and stop them, but this problem is just too big," Ankh said.

"I can't let them ... I know what it is like to be in their captivity... I can't let them do that to others!" Rivi exclaimed.

"Perhaps you would rethink what I think you are planning, young one, if I showed you the immensity of the situation," Ankh stated as he got up from his chair.

"I don't think that anything is going to change my mind," Rivi exclaimed.

Ankh walked over to the side table beside Enuet's rocking chair. He opened a drawer and took out a tangled mess of wires. He pulled three-disk looking objects out of the tangled mess and set them beside the plant. Ankh shook out the wires and pulled it over his head like a cap. Enuet handed Ankh the disk-looking objects one at a time. He held one with each hand and held his arms straight out. His body slowly started to fade in and out again until it was transparent like Rivi remembered him normally looking.

Dan turned around in a circle and Rivi gasped as the room around them seemed to fade into the background. Hundreds of images from other planets flashed in and out all around them, almost like a three-dimensional hologram. With so much to take in, Dan and Rivi walked over to sit on the beanbag chairs in the center of the room.

"Sorry," Ankh said as he opened his eyes and realized that everyone was overwhelmed, "I have not had reason to show anyone what I see for the longest time. Bear with me - it requires concentration to use this device."

The images slowed down and began to fade into a huge three-dimensional galactic map of the milky-way galaxy. Bright dots showed systems with inhabited planets and most of the dots had smaller screens floating above them showing the images they had seen just moments ago. The galaxy and all the individual planetary systems swirled and turned through the room just like it would in space.

"Whoa," Dan exclaimed as his face lit up with wonder at the sight.

Rivi, however, was far more contemplative.

"What are we seeing here?"

When Ankh did not answer, Rivi turned to look at him. His eyes were squeezed shut and his mouth formed a thin hard line in concentration. Rivi turned to look at Enuet with concern.

"Using this device is hard on him," Enuet explained. "I believe what you are seeing are images of the Aruk involvement on all these various planets."

"But this is improbable! There cannot possibly be this many Aruk to affect all these planets," Rivi said.

"This is the future you are seeing here. If they go unstopped this future will take hold. They will apparently recruit more to their cause." Enuet said sadly.

"How can they do this without the rest of the Aunantet knowing?" Dan asked.

"They have been blocking, attacking, and booting out any Aunantet Futurity Histographer who tries to step too close," Enuet replied.

Rivi stared at all the images above each of the planets. Some showed stone images or paintings of the Aruk in temples. Some showed images of whole civilizations utterly destroyed. Others showed the Aruk deliberately altering different civilizations' artifacts and lost temples.

Rivi reflected on the similarities between these images and the pictures of the temples and lost artifacts of Egypt she had been shown in the Aunantet school when she was younger. The way the Egyptians would worship those Gods of old... and enslave people to build their temples.

"But why are they doing this - what is their plan?" Dan asked.

"And more importantly, how do we stop them," Rivi added.

Ankh's forehead furrowed deeper in concentration. His feet shifted under him. He suddenly let out a gasp. His eyes snapped open and the images faded. He dropped his hands and flopped into the beanbag chair beside Dan's with a sigh. Rivi leaned over Dan from her beanbag chair to peer worriedly at Ankh.

"Are you ok?" Rivi asked quietly.

"Yes," Ankh answered as he breathed a sigh of relief. "I've never liked using that device."

Enast gave Ankh a few moments rest before she brought up Rivi and Dan's questions again.

"We don't know what their end goal is - Aun has always been a peaceful place, kids. It was never necessary to defend ourselves or others from these kinds of horrendous attacks before. The Aruk abducting you kids in the way that they did was shocking enough. We never thought they would get this far," Ankh explained.

"We are not prepared for this," Enuet said, shaking her head. "We do not have the resources or enough of us to gather together to combat the Aruk on such a scale."

"The Aruk called 1 implied that we children were the key to their undoing," Rivi suggested.

"Why would we be the key, though, and not everyone else on Earth?" Dan asked.

"The only thing we have been able to find is that Earth children have the ability, when they are young, to expand the potential of their minds," Ankh said. "If this potential is not unlocked before adulthood is reached it won't be reached. Few species have the ability to do what we do."

"Numbers are what we need then? More of us to fight against the Aruk?" Rivi said jumping up from her seat.

"Unfortunately, yes," Ankh replied.

"Wouldn't the rest of the children who were kidnapped be willing to help, Rivi?" Dan asked, looking up at her.

"There wouldn't be enough," Enuet replied sadly.

"Then we need to find more people that would be willing to help!" Rivi answered as conviction colored her voice.

Dan and Ankh nodded in agreement. At that moment a bright, clouded spot appeared in the timeline, hiding Rivi's intentions and plans from the Aruk's prying Futurity Histographers. The future was about to change!

THE END... or is it?