Kicking the Stones from Humanity's Path

Although Ash considered himself a student of history, his memories of early Chinese history was limited to primarily broad brushstrokes. However, it indeed appeared that the Song dynasty was still in control of Kaifeng along the southern bank of the Yellow River. Ash couldn't remember precisely when the Jin defeated the Northern Song but knew it was before 1130.

He had already verified through his surveillance satellites that the city of Señorio de Valencia in Spain was in the hands of the Al-Murābiṭūn dynasty of the Berbers. The city would probably be referred to again as Medina at-Tarab, or the City of Joy, soon. Although Ash did not care much for the history he knew of the Berbers in Europe; he had to admit that he approved of their naming sense.

The reconquering of Valencia happened in 1102 or 1103 if Ash recalled correctly, which doesn't help much narrowing down just exactly what year it was. This would be a lot easier if Google transmigrated with him as Ash was reduced to guessing in some places with the geography.

Ash had a lot better memory for warfare, so he instructed the bots who ran the surveillance constellation to note any potential battles, military movements or sieges. At first, they were of no help at all because their initial configuration was to recognise modern military manoeuvres, not knights on horseback going to the Crusades.

Eventually, Ash had something of a working system, but he had to again draw heavily on virtual gaming designs. The system had just alerted him to a potential amphibious attack and landing of troops investing a city somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea.

Squinting at the map, Ash used a mental finger to draw a Syria-like border to identify which city this was. It was more north than he remembers Lebanon being, so this has to be al-Ladqiyah. In Modern Syria, it was their principal port, and Ash had been there a couple of times. It was quite a pretty place.

Interestingly, the invaders seemed to be a Byzantine fleet, and the defenders were also a Christian Crusader state, judging from the heraldry on the flags. Ash can't remember what the Crusaders called this port when they were in charge, but the Greeks called it Laodicea.

Something clicked in Ash's quantum matrix, and he realised what he was seeing. Not an "amphibious troop landing", as his bots had said and not even really a battle. Sometime in the middle of the year 1104, the Turks kicked the asses of two Crusader state armies near Raqqa. One of the consequences of this battle was the Byzantines directed a naval fleet to Syria.

Either the Byzantines took this defeat as an opportunity and seized al-Ladqiyah, or alternatively, they reinforced it against the predations of the Seljuk's, depending on which story you believed.

So this must be May, June or July of 1104. Another circuit fired, and he recalled the name of this crusader state: The Principality of Antioch. Ash thought Saladin or maybe his son eventually conquered them sometime in the mid to late 13th century. They were one of the longer-lived Christian polities that popped into being after the First Crusade.

Ash smiled, although knowing the precise date wasn't entirely that important, it had been nagging at him like that feeling you have when you can not remember a song's name or that actor who played in that one movie; what was his name? The feeling where it would bother you until you solved this bit of trivia.

Besides, now he knew he had at least twenty years to save the Song dynasty, at least in its current form, if that was a choice he wanted to make. Although Ash didn't have any dogs in the fight between the Song and the Jin, he definitely desired the Song to triumph in their war against the Mongols in the next century, and that may very well be a lot easier for them if they didn't get so diminished now.

Plus, everything Ash read in his previous life told him that the emperors of Great Jin were all a bunch of assholes -- although he had to admit that all his sources back then were from modern Chinese scholars, who might have a significant bias against the non-Han dynasty.

The thread of awareness that was handling Ash's physical body and senses was elevated to primacy, and Ash found himself finishing the assembly of Dimitri and Meimei's quantum modules. Taking them in hand, Ash departed his workroom and walked across the ship to the main set of biofabricators on the Mistress of Space.

Thinking about the first time Ash had tried to fabricate something in these machines made him shudder in disgust. It had not ended well. To say that biofabs were finicky was a bit of an understatement.

They required some specialised knowledge to use, and after two attempts that would haunt his dreams for years to come, Ash finally fabricated a specialist class II AI to operate them. This AI was now in charge of all the fabricators on-board.

Their first project together was designing and fabricating his own body, one of indeterminate ethnicity and vaguely light caramel colouring.

Ash greeted him at the fabricators, "Are the bodies for our two guests completed?"

The AI, who went by the name Joseph, blinked confusingly, pushing spectacles that were entirely a prop and served no purpose farther up the bridge of his nose. He had also chosen a traditional white coat of a scientist, which amused Ash greatly, "Uh.. yes? I mean, I received the ACK packet when I notified you over the network a couple of hours ago. Has there been a network malfunction?"

Ash sighed; he tried to socialise these class II's as much as possible, but it was hit or miss, "It's a figure of speech, Joseph. It's more polite to ask if they are ready than just to show up and demand to see them."

Joseph looked sceptical but did not appear to want to contradict his boss. He turned and entered another room set up almost like a minor hospital ward and walked to two beds where what seemed to be a young Russian man and a Chinese woman were lying under sheets.

Joseph made a presenting gesture towards them and said, "Here they are. We need to install their quantum modules within the next four hours, or we're going to need to regenerate their scalp. I printed them according to the genome acquired from the samples in their previous bodies. I incorporated the changes to the baseline you requested, which essentially consists of a hazardous environment cybernetic package."

Dimitri and Meimei were, ultimately, going to Earth, so Ash included several defensive and lifesaving cybernetic options, mainly consisting of an armoured skull, chest cavity and a more robust embedded medical system. If a Viking or Teutonic Knight smashed Dimitri's head in with a Warhammer then his quantum module would at least survive even if this body did not. Ash considered including a tracking device but decided against it. His parents would probably discover it and taking that kind of action would likely then poison their relationship.

Ash handed Dimitri to Joseph, "Let's get him online first."

Ash declined to watch the procedure, which was rather gross and involved a bot with many fine articulating arms and something that looked more like a stapler than a medical device.

"Okay, bringing him up now," Joseph said as he finished.

Ash turned back around in time to see Dimitri blinking as he regained consciousness. Dimitri made a fairly passable attempt at a version of evil maniacal laughter, "You fools, you've brought me back!" When there was no response from either Ash or Joseph besides confusion, he blinked, "Uhh, did you not see that film? I thought everyone had… Hahaha, how awkward."

Dimitri took a moment to test out his new body before jumping up and hugging Ash, who tried his best to squirm away. "Please, stop. At the minimum, please put some clothes on."

"Thank you so very much! Ahahaha, it's good to be alive, you know?" Dimitri glanced around and saw the other body lying in bed next to him, "Oh! Meimei! Is she not in there? She is okay, right?"

Ash handed Meimei's module to Joseph and replied, "Yes, she's fine. Self-tests OK, just like you. I wanted to bring you online first as I thought it would be better if you were there when she woke up."

Dimitri nodded, "Yes, that sounds like a good idea. She's an urban environment android, so she has some issues with abrupt changes, sometimes."

Ash pointed to a room off this one, "There's the fresher. There is a clothes fab in there. Shower. Put clothes on, maybe pick something for Meiemei to wear, then come back. We won't start Meimei up until you're here. But the most important thing for you right now is clothes."

Ash glowered at Joseph as Dimitri left. He should have realised that of course, Joseph wouldn't have put clothes on the two androids Ash asked him to fab. Ash glanced down at his left hip where he distinctly felt Dimitri-wang touch him.

Ash would never wear this outfit again. He'd recycle this set of clothing down to its elemental feedstock. He'd send it down to the Lunar Surface and recycle it there so the atoms that comprise this outfit don't contaminate the feedstock Ash uses to make his clothes aboard ship. That was the only way to be safe.

After about ten minutes, Dimitri walked back into the room dressed in a generic-looking outfit in dark greys, he was carrying what appeared to be a dress. His hair was still wet.

Ash glowered at Dimitri now, "You're still damp! You're dripping all over my floor! Were there no towels?"

Dimitri laughed, "Ahahaha, you sound just like my mom!" Saying that sentence made Dimitri tilt his head to the side and pause in step, "Speaking of which you never told me your name. How can I even thank you when we haven't been introduced?"

Ash declined to answer and simply princess-stomped while pointing at the fresher, "Towel! Or use the drying field! Now!" Dimitri retreated back to the fresher and came back with a towel around his head. "Better?"

Ash sighed and nodded, "You can call me Ash. No surname. Just Ash, like Cher."

Dimitri blinked. "I don't know who Cher is, but okay. Ash huh? That's a nice name. Is it short for Ashley? That suits you!"

Ash merely narrowed his eyes. Ashley was a proud and noble name for male children in Britain! Was Dimitri blind?! Ash's current body didn't look male, did it?! Then why was Dimitri implying that name suited him?! Isn't that the same as saying Ash had a girl's name? Was this asshole bullying him?

Ash was really screwed over in the name department. Veisi was a good name, a strong family. But his first name, a Persian one, was so terrible that he preferred to go by the middle name his mother gave him. She told him it was a proud and noble name for boys in her country, and very common in her family.

Ash had been going by the shortened version ever since he discovered he was the only boy Ashley anyone had ever heard of since the Victorian times. One of Ash's favourite Western films was a horror series featuring the ultra-masculine Ash Williams. They were brothers!

Dimitri nervously chuckled after he realised his mistake, "Ahaha, just Ash then huh? Well, thank you very much, Ash. Before we bring Meimei online can you give me some details on just what the fuck happened, where my parents are and where we are?"

Ash blinked and nodded. Ash had to husband his words, though. Ash felt as if there were a finite amount of words a man could speak in his life and if he explained everything to Dimitri verbally, he might not be able to talk for a month or more. Instead, he directed a file transfer to Dimitri over the wireless.

The files contained a summary of everything that happened to the station, to the station's survivors including Dimitri's parents and the other group as well as images of parts of Earth in the 12th century, and even some of Ash's preparations on the Lunar surface.

Dimitri rocked backwards on his feet and it took him a while to digest everything. When he was done he exclaimed, "Wowwwww! Time travel?! Really?! I thought time travel was impossible! We are like LIVING a tri-d out, aren't we? Wow, how have you built so much in so little time. Do you have like a database of fab designs in your head or something?"

Ash blinked at him. He hadn't expected Dimitri to actually guess that, even if it was spoken in a way as though to indicate he wasn't serious. "Time travel IS impossible. That is why I am not worried about changing the timeline. There is no timeline to change. We are in an alternate, parallel universe where the only delta is the subjective difference in time at the point of divergence, which is incidentally sometime in the middle of the year 1104."

Dimitri looks sceptical, "Are you sure? Because I don't want to just vanish or something. Maybe those people who left on that freighter had a point."

Ash waved a hand at him, "Don't be an idiot. Even before your parents had landed a starship on the planet, that was a dumb idea. Besides, this is not an inference for me. I know. On the scale where 1 is uncertainty, and 10 is complete metaphysical certitude, I know this at a 10. And no, I am not willing to discuss how I know. You're making me waste too many words here."

Dimitri nodded, but then he seemed to get worried, "So, what are you planning on doing? World domination? Wait, you're not going to kill my parents because you see them as competitors, those who also have technology from the future, are you?"

What the fuck. Was Dimitri designed as an android whose purpose was to provide annoying insights at inappropriate times? Ash DID see Dimitri's parents as competitors, "I don't think I will have to do that. Your parents seemed very pragmatic. I'm hopeful we can get along. And no, I'm not interested in world domination."

Ash pursed his lips and tried to think of a way to summarise his plans that had been somewhat nebulous, even now, "If the future of Humanity is a road they are walking down, then I want to kick some of the larger rocks and snakes off that path before they trip over them. I want to eliminate some of the needless, incidental sufferings that plague mankind. Maybe Nietzsche would say mankind needs suffering, and maybe that is true, but even if you eliminated just half of all needless human suffering, there would still be a ton left to go around."

That was it. He was out of words, now. Ash felt that if he continued talking, it would cost him his very vitality.

Dimitri grinned, "Hahahaha, I don't know what half of that means or who this Nietzsche is, although the name sounds familiar. I hadn't realised how much I leaned on the datanet and it's web fraction to reference names and words in real-time. But I'm glad you're not out to get my mom and dad; I'd hate to have to fight you!"

Ash glowered. It wouldn't be a fight, kid.