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Rachel
The wild joy was gone. The stench of fire and blood filled my nostrils. I felt sick, exhausted.
Cassie was interrogating Visser Four's host. She had a plan to stop all of this.
But she couldn't. Not all. Even if we undid the damage to history, we were still facing the Yeerks. Humanity could be dead or enslaved in a few years, and who knew if we could stop that.
I thought, very fast, sensing that this was really really important. The future we'd been in, that was when Visser Four had done what he did, but without our intervention. Maybe in that reality, he'd done twenty more things. We didn't know what the result of this timeline would be, with our intervention.
But the Yeerks, I thought. Nothing we did to Earth's history could change the Yeerks or the Andalites. They'd be coming for us, no matter what.
Unless...
I had a Packard Outstanding Student Award. I paid attention in history class. I could figure this out.
I thought very fast. People - humans - would always fight, unless there were laws that made them stop. My parents had talked about laws like that, talked about when they were kids, when people had thought the UN might actually do something useful, that it would turn into a World Federation to save us from all nuking each other. But people hadn't been that smart, and it seemed like we couldn't be. We needed a different way to unite, against the Yeerks, against ourselves...
Berryman was babbling about Shakespeare. I knew somehow time was running out.
I didn't think about it every day or anything, but I suddenly thought of Rome. That had lasted hundreds of years. Pax Romana, roads, aqueducts, trade, two thousand years ago. With what I knew, with two thousand years to work from it -
Berryman spoke, sounding like he'd totally given up. "San Francisco. 1967. My dad's name was John, too. My mom is Theresa. She was Theresa Knowlton."
As we edged back from Cassie, I aimed those steps for the Time Matrix. None of the others would agree to this, and Ax really wouldn't, but this was the only way. We, humans, could do what you needed to do about the Yeerks. The Andalites had tried and failed. They couldn't not fail.
Every time we did anything, or nothing, we changed the future. This was no different.
Doubt, for a moment. I had thought so fast, I was this sure...was this really how I...
But I looked around again. I looked at the mud and blood and waves of Germans and French guys who'd charged in to die and kill. We had to stop doing this to ourselves. Maybe if I had more time, I could think of something better, but I didn't.
Ax was looking over the Time Matrix. I stepped closer.
I hesitated again. If this worked, I would be killing all of my friends, and everyone I had ever known. A butterfly's flap could change everything, and this was a...dragon's wing beat. There was no way anyone anything like my parents, Jake, Tobias, could come to be...
I actually stepped back a moment, then remembered Tom, Jake, Chapman, Eva. Yes. It was better to have never been than to live as a Controller.
<The Time Matrix is surprisingly simple to operate> Ax informed us, after a few moments. <It can be directed by simple thought-speak command. There are no security measures, nor other subtleties; one can simply mentally specify location and time.>
Part of me screamed to stop, to think this through, but there was no time. This was my one chance.
I knew what I wanted, but not the precise..."Ides of March", March 15, that's easy...I don't know how I remembered 44 BC, but I did. The exact spot, I had no idea, but if the Time Matrix could understand "San Francisco", it could understand "place where Caesar is in Rome"? I fixed this in my mind.
And I took two quick steps forward, pushed Ax's hand from the Matrix, and slammed mine flat onto it before anyone could react.
It was suddenly warmer. Big marble columns were all around me, and I could hear men talking. Little bits sounded like English, roots passed down across the thousands of years, but most of it, I had no clue. I tried to decide whether to stay, only for the Time Matrix to silently fade into nothingness. I waited a second or two, expecting Ellimist to pull me out too, but apparently their rules didn't let him, or something.
I looked out around the column I was behind. There was one guy sitting on a fancy chair, with a bunch of others around him, all in togas. One of them pulled out something on a scroll, and started trying to show it to the chair guy, talking fast. The other guys all closed in, and I knew I had only seconds.
I wasn't fully morphed to elephant when I saw the dagger flash, but I was far enough to trumpet and charge, feet thundering across the stone floor, and the senators shouted and scattered, Julius Caesar bleeding but not bad enough to kill, and I stopped as quickly as I could (elephants are big), between where Caesar fell and the senators.
<I am a messenger of the gods> I thought-spoke to the speechless senators, and Caesar. <Jupiter, Athena, and Neptune speak through me. Julius, all these men have daggers, and conspired to kill you, which they meant to do here and now.>
No one seemed interested in arguing.
<All right then, Mr. Caesar> I went on, turning my big gray head back to him. <There's gonna be some changes around here. First of all, women get a say in...>
...
I finally gave in and closed my eyes. The lecti cubicidare was beautifully decorated, but I didn't really notice that, or how hard the mattress was, now, well into the small hours.
Anything that can think understands thought-speak. Normal humans cannot send thought-speak. This is a problem when the normal human you're trying to talk to only speaks a language that, for you, has been dead for fifteen hundred years.
But I had explained the best I could anyway, and Julius had listened. He didn't always like what he heard, and he didn't always get it, but after I'd morphed a few more times he stopped saying skeptical sentences with "Semite", "Briton", and "deus" in them. First because I thought they were cool, and then to try to learn how to fight the Yeerks better, I'd read up on old-timey weapons and tactics, so I had loads to teach him. I'd explained black powder, and we'd even got a few tests in, which just smoked and fizzled, but it was enough to convince Julius I wasn't totally retarded. I'd told him about things I kinda knew how to make, like electric generators, lightbulbs, external combustion engines, crossbows...and on, and on. I'd also explained to him just how mad the gods would be at him if someone tried to do me harm. He seemed to have bought both, and when I'd got too tired to talk right, he'd had me brought to this heavily guarded room, and I'd heard him outside talking very seriously to the guards. So I wouldn't be harmed resting...but tomorrow...
I was asleep before I could think of anything else.
It was a dream, but I knew at once it wasn't just a dream.
And there I was, where we'd all been before: under Crayak's incomprehensible colossus, under the all-consuming bloody red of his eye.
"It was so simple to push you in the proper directions," he taunted. "I am not permitted to control your mind directly, but to bring certain thoughts to the fore? Yes, and you did all the rest yourself. The Ellimist has still not learnt that the strong will always serve me, in the end, by their will or not."
I could only stare, silent, in doubt, then horror, then...
"You're lying," I said to him. "I've put us on a path to kick the Yeerks' butt. Our scout ships will be finding their homeworld, not the other way..."
I trailed off, realizing far too late what he meant. The Gallic Wars, the slavery, the crucifixions, the persecutions...that pushed out into the galaxy! But no, no, there were centuries to get better, and I'd pushed them in the right direction...
There was a long sigh behind me, and I saw the Ellimist, as the wise old man. But there was no laughing joy in him this time; he looked, he felt, beaten, almost despairing.
"Such things are not so deterministic, Crayak, you know that as well as I," he said. "The conquered are subjugated, not annihilated, by Rome. Their traditions, their cultures, live on, are used to make the land rich and the limes safe. So it shall be for the races under human rule, across this galaxy; all will prosper in an age of high technology, guarded and served by humanity's machines."
"For a time, yes," Crayak taunted. "But you know as well as I do what end will come to that. If humanity is strong enough to subjugate, humanity is strong enough to annihilate. And then I will become three, and a fourth shall join us, and all zero-space shall be our domain, and we shall consume this galaxy."
"Many thousands of years will pass before that can be," the Ellimist countered. "Much may change before then. We will see."
"Indeed," Crayak answered, and simply vanished.
The Ellimist sighed again. "I see my blunder now," he said. "Your resort to violence is swift, your loyalty to your species unbreakable; this made you an excellent tool against the Yeerks, but Crayak all this time was looking for a chance to give you such an opportunity. I could not have played into his hands more perfectly in this matter of the Time Matrix."
"I'm not like him!" I shouted, pleaded. "I mean, maybe I liked to fight, but not what it meant, not the death and destruction! I wanted peace! I did this for peace! And women! And all of us on Earth! And all those guys out in space the Yeerks were coming for!" I was barely coherent, it finally sinking in what I had done.
"I know," the Ellimist said, and a wave of calm rushed from him. I listened, tears trickling down my cheeks. "I did not lie to you. Crayak thinks he has achieved a great victory, but many things may come of this. For many human lifetimes to come, the galaxy will be a happier place, and I cannot fault you for that. But there is much I must do, now; two thousand years of events and plans have been undone, and our game demands my attention. By the terms of our original agreement, I must return you to 1999, as it will be in this new world you have created."
"But...if I could stay in 44 BC, could I fix it?!"
"You have already placed knowledge of gunpowder centuries before it should have existed on Earth. There is no way to stop the spread of that knowledge. Roman society cannot accept changes sufficient to align their values with yours; attempting to force this in the name of their gods would only bring religious civil war and societal collapse. By the date of your intervention, the institutions of the Republic have been weakened too much to be restored; you could change the identities of future Emperors, but not the existence of some equivalent institution, without causing Roman civilization to quickly collapse. Unhindered by my rules, the problem would be trivial; but I cannot risk all reality."
The way he talked was...uncharacteristic.
Crying, on my knees, I saw that place fade, and I was among thick bushes and trees with sunlight streaming through the leaves.
There was no Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, then.
Bald eagles existed here; I could fly around the huge, beautiful cities, admiring what these people had done. Vertical farms run by fusion power provided healthy food to billions. Towering, spacious apartment buildings had abundant room for everyone, but there were still plenty of farmsteads in the outer ring of the city, for people who liked that life. Linked computers with instant information and communication across Earth and beyond had been a fact of life for a century. People of every shape, size, and color roamed through all this, and seemed to be having pretty happy lives. There were a fair number of aliens too: I spotted some Andalites and one hork-bajir, but most of them I didn't even recognize.
The computer net had some barely-used public terminals, for the few people who couldn't use or didn't want neural interfaces. The language barrier was a problem, but I eventually spotted an Andalite using one, and figured out it was a kind that could produce artificial thought-speak, for use by the species who did that.
So I morphed human, and walked to the terminal, and figured out how to put in a query.
<Roman Empire> the machine relayed mechanically, <Precursor state to the Terran Empire. Founded by Gaius Julius Caesar Gods-Chosen in Rome, 15 March 0 Imperial (43 BC Christian). The...>
<Terran Empire. Successor state to the Roman Empire and the Heavenly Empire of China, formed by their unification, 27 July 692 Imperial. Precursor state to the Romulan Star Empire...>
I laughed a little at that, for reasons that no longer make sense to anyone else in the entire universe.
<Romulan Star Empire. The polity of which all humans and 15 citizen races are citizens. The Romulan Star Empire's imperium extends to 2,713 star systems and approximately 493 billion sentient beings of 54 distinct species. Successor state to the Terran Empire, formed by...>
<Yeerk. Imperial subject race encountered on planet 4, KY-class star, catalogue number 2891, 15 Rachuary 1764 Imperial (1721 AD Christian). Superficially resembling gray slugs, their most notable attribute is the ability to seize control of cognitive and motor functions of other life-forms by distribution of selves over their cognitive organs, having accessed same through orifices and/or percolation. Without hosts, their sensory, manipulatory, and cognitive abilities are greatly reduced. Though some Senators advocated their extermination because of the danger they could covertly infest Imperial citizens, their dependence on Kandrona radiation was found to render this sufficiently unlikely. Formally declared subjugated by Imperial Grand Legate Sciopio Vladimir Wisconsicanus, 3 November 1775. Their voluntary hosts are primarily Gedds, which are natives of the same planet, and Taxxons, who benefit from the Yeerks' limited ability to control Taxxon hunger. Current population, 1.7 billion, of which 1.2 billion have regular hosts.>
You know the rest about how some algorithm spotted me, and the cops or whatever grabbed me before I could demorph, and you used some brain wave machine to make me tell the truth, and if I wasn't in it right now I'd be trying to rip your arms off.
<We have reviewed video footage demonstrating your ability to transform into a bald eagle,> the Praetorian Inspector says through the thought-speak machine. <No known process allows this. Therefore, I am inclined to believe your information. But the magnitude of the implications of this...>
<So can you listen a minute?!> Rachel asks, with desperate urgency, through the thought-speak machine. <You heard what Crayak said. You have to stop that future! You spared the Yeerks, so your humanity prevails, so I know you don't want that future! Tell the...the Emperor, the Senate, they have to listen to the Ellimist, let him guide them...>
<Given the obvious importance of your information,> the Inspector answers, <I will ensure that it is reviewed at the highest levels at once. However, I cannot determine my superiors' response.> He rises from the chair opposite the heavily reinforced, hermetically sealed room normally used to contain dangerous alien animals, but proving useful in holding an - rather, the Animorph.
The conceptual transfer of thought-speak is not perfect. He pauses. <'Mankind prevails'. I like it. Might catch on. Anyway...> He finishes disconnecting from the thought-speak machine, and goes to give his report.