SF: HMS Golden Lance #33 - From the Home Alterverse

Sat Feb 18 18:43:29 PST 2006

SF: HMS Golden Lance #33 - From the Home Alterverse

Diana Dark of Earth gasped, goggled, stuttered, sputtered, and did any
number of other things that people generally do when they are in situations
they do not understand.  Oh, she wasn't flummoxed that she was standing on
the bridge of a dying starship hundreds of lightyears and thousands of
universes away from her native planet.  She wasn't at all put out by the
fact that her boyfriend was a 500 year old alien from even farther away
(Time Agent 357).  It didn't bother her that she was sharing the room with a
degenerate old Spamologist (Doctor Bing Von Spleen), an intelligent
weaseloid ("Call me Ralph"), a former immortal servant of Heaven itself
(Omegas), and the android avatar of a shipboard synthetic intelligence
(Valerie McSteel).  She could even handle the fact that several enemies had
recently introduced themselves and gotten killed off one after the other
(Greez Hyperiok, Dijon Mu'tard, and Priscilla Tussbonnet).  See previous
issue for details.

What had her gasping was the fact that their latest enemy, the grand high
galactic overlord of them all, was in fact...

"357! It's you!" she gasped.

The dark figure before her paused, hands still on the hood it had just
pulled back.  It was the same height and general build as Time Agent 357.
The eyes were the same steel blue.  The hair had the same wave, though it
was shot through with considerably grey and thinning in the back.  The
crooked smile was a mirror image of 357's, though the face was somewhat more
lined and scarred.  There was definitely a resemblance.

A family resemblance.

"No, it's not 357!" the figured yelled.  "I'm 386, you brainless git!"

"My young nephew!" 357 exclaimed.  "We didn't know what had happened to you.
We planned to track you down once we finished our current mission."

"I *am* your current mission, dolt!  It was I who persuaded Priscilla
Tussbonnet to convince her son Sylvester (better known as Greez Hyperiok,
Renegade Time Agent) to hire Dijon Mu'tard to steal Doctor Spleen's new
Automatic Beet-Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator Mark II."

Diana found her voice.  "But why?  You're one of the good guys."

"I was," 386 snarled, whirling to face her.  "I did my best to be the best
Time Agent I could.  But everywhere I went, I was competing against the
memory of 357.  People mistook me for him.  He got the credit for the cases
I solved and the people I saved.  Even when they did realize that I was 386,
the headlines would read 'PLANET SAVED BY NEPHEW OF FAMOUS TIME AGENT 357!'
Hell(tm), I've spent 800 years zig-zagging through time and space trying to
make a name for myself, and all I've done is increase his legend!"

"800 years?  But I last saw you only a few months ago."

"Zig-zagging through time," 386 repeated.  "I grew old and frail in the
service of the Time Police.  When I was finally ready to give up and retire,
in what to you would be the distant future, Commander Floyd Cobalt called me
'357' all through my retirement dinner.  My own dinner!"

He glared at them all before continuing.  "That was when I decided that I
was through playing mister nice guy.  I commandeered a timeship, jumped back
in time to just after I'd last seen you, killed my younger self, and freed
Greez Hyperiok instead of delivering him to Time Central.  I replaced him
with a synthorg which was supposed to destroy 357, but naturally it failed.
The real Greez did manage to steal the ABPSARII for me, but also failed to
destroy 357.  All the other minions failed to destroy you, though the did
keep you busy while I tried to erase 357 from history."

"You what?" 357 gasped.  "That must be why I was flickering in and out there
for a while.  It was the universe trying to adjust to the reality of me no
longer existing.  Luckily, we were able to come up with these headphones
which continually reinforce my life story in my own mind, which gave me an
anchor to concentrate on.  That, combined with-"

386 barged in.  "That, combined with your Time Agent training which makes
you resistant to alterations in the timestream, aided by the fact that we
are of an ancient and long-lived race, kept you in one piece despite my best
efforts.  Any changes I made were only temporary, eventually corrected by
the timestream."

Doctor Bing Von Spleen, realizing that this was his one chance to get in
some dialog in this episode, interjected.  "That's why you needed my
ABPSARII!  With it's power, you could finally wipe out 357 once and for all,
rewriting history so that you got all his glory."

"That was originally the plan," 386 admitted.  "But plans change.  I no
longer think I will be satisfied with eliminating 357.  No, I think I need
to eliminate my entire species."

The heroes present shouted out their protests.

"That's genocide!"

"You can't do that!"

"Billions and billions..."

"Is anybody else hungry?"

"SILENCE!" shouted 386 in a commanding tone which could only be learned at
Interstellar University, Home of the Fighting Cephalopods (GO PODS!) during
Time Agent training.  It was sufficient to get everyone's attention.

"Now that I have everyone's attention..."  He gestured and a bright light
appeared, blinding or otherwise clouding every eye and videocamera and
sensory input device in the area.

When 357's vision cleared, he saw that 386 was gone.  So was the ABPSARII.

"Uh oh."

Diana shared his concern, but tried to bolster his spirits.  "Don't worry,
357.  We can track him in your ship, the HMS Golden Lance.  He won't get
away."

"We don't have to track him," 357 said.  "I know exactly where he's going.
The only place he could go to wipe out me and the rest of my kind."
357 activated his communications link and contacted his ship.  "Val,
configure the engines for prolonged maximum power output.  We're going
home."

"You mean..." Diana gasped.

"Exactly," 357 confirmed.  "You're going to get to meet my mother."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In the beginning, there was nothing.

It exploded.

 From this primal explosion, this Pretty Darn Big Bang of which physicists
still speak, all of Creation was, well, created.

The instant matter coalesced from energy, choices were made.  Would this
atom fall into this gravity well or that one?  Would this electron stay in
its current orbit or move to a higher one?  Would this group of near-organic
molecules be fried by a nearby lightning bolt or be energized by it?  Would
this primative primate wander out into the plain or were the trees quite
nice enough thank you very much?

With every choice, there was a split in the fabric of reality.  With every
alternative, a universe was formed.  An alternative universe.  An
alterverse.  An altiverse.  Spellings and terminologies differ from culture
to culture, but any scientist who understands that the universe he lives in
is not unique also understands that there are a lot of alternatives out
there.

Imagine a giant beach ball.  In the center is the beginning.  As time
passes, new alterverses are formed around it with every passing chronon.  (A
chronon is a fundamental particle with a halflife so infintesimally small
that only one thing in an entire universe can happen before it disappears.)
Imagine the beach ball inflating.  This inflation is the passing of time.
This array of alterverses, this nth-dimensional hypersphere, is sometimes
referred to as the multiverse.

There are a lot of alterverses in a multiverse.

There should be an infinite number of alterverses, but there aren't.  Not
all alterverses are created equal.  Some peter out and die quickly.  But
most do not.  Most continue for billions and billions of years.

Eventually, entropy wins.  Everything runs down.  There are no more choices
to make.  There is no more expansion.  Without growth, there is no life.

Without life, there is only death and decay.

On some far distant day, the last choice will be made.  The last alterverse
will be created.  Instead of inflating, the beach ball will begin to shrink.
The shockwave which propelled change through the hypersphere will return to
its origin, unmaking all the choices that had been made.  The multiverse
will be undone.  All will be destroyed.

Not all.  Some will survive.  Some individuals have the power and ability to
exist outside of time and space as we know it, to survive the death of their
universe.  Or, indeed, any universe.  Timeless, immortal beings.

Some might call them gods.

Others are simply lucky.  Somehow, somewhere, an alterverse gets pulled away
from the hypersphere early in its existence.  Instead of splitting and
re-splitting and forming countless alternatives, it simply continues.  Life
evolves, or is created, or simply *is*>.  Life.

A different kind of life.

Imagine an alterverse where every sentient being is, for all intents and
purposes, immortal.  No disease, no passing years, no minor injury can
create any damage which can not be healed in time.  Advances in safety
technology make it increasingly difficult to receive a major injury which
can actually threaten survival, and advances in healthcare technology reduce
the chances that one could actually die.

The leading cause of death is dying in bed at age 800,000 while having sex
with a gorgeous 19 year old redhead, shot to death by a jealous spouse.

Of course, for every rule, there are exceptions.  Every once in a while, a
baby is born who is not immortal.  His cellular processes are such that
instead of maintaining the status quo indefinitely, he will actually grow
old and die.

These poor things rarely survive more than 1200 years.

Almost as a consolation prize, these poor things are also very, very hard to
kill.  The very cellular processes which cause their premature aging also
rebuild and repair damaged tissue very quickly.  What would be a major,
life-threatening injury to anyone else is to them a minor inconvenience.

Roughly 500 years ago, as he figures his own personal timeline, a poor thing
which would be later known as Time Agent 357 was born.  He was, as people
often refer to such, a throwback to an (assumed) earlier time when people
were not immortal.  He grew up knowing he was different, but developed a
healthy sense of self worth regardless.  He eventually became the first of
his kind to travel outside of his home alterverse.  Others followed, but
none were as famous as he.

Roughly 200 years later than the time cited above, another of these poor
things was born.  By coincidence, as it has been shown that such things are
not genetic as was once thought, the poor thing which would be later known
as Time Agent 386 was born to 357's perfectly normal brother.  357 took
little 386 under his wing.  Eventually, 386 followed in his uncle's
footsteps and traveled outside the home alterverse.  He eventually joined
the Time Police.  He eventually became famous, though not quite a famous as
his uncle.

He eventually went mad.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

In a well-kept yard in a well-kept city in a well-kept country on a
well-kept continent in a well-kept hemisphere of a well-kept world orbiting
a well-kept star in a well-kept galaxy in what was probably the wellest-kept
alterverse in all the multiverse, though it wasn't technically part of said
multiverse, a spaceship sputtered into existence.  This was not the normal
method of travel into and out of the home alterverse.  Normally, travel was
accomplished with a specially modified Temporal Teleporation Terminal, or
TTT for short.  T3 if you wanted to get really short, but then you would get
it confused with three movies, two television series, and a rap music band.

The HMS Golden Lance settled gently on the lawn, somehow managing to squeeze
its landing gear between the white picket fences.  A hatch opened and a
group of people climbed out.  The most heroic, shoved from behind by his
girlfriend, knocked politely on the front door.

An attractive women answered the door.  She appeared young, but there was a
maturity and strength about her that hinted she had lived many lifetimes and
had raised many children.  When she saw who was at the door, her eyes lit up
and she rushed to hug him.

"357, it's been 20 years.  Why haven't you written?  Don't they have phones
in Space?  I bet you haven't been eating regularly.  Are you wearing clean
underwear?  Wha-"

"Mom!  Mom!  Mom!  Slow down.  I brought guests."  In short order, he
introduced most of his companions.

"But who is this young lady?" his mother asked.

"Mom, this is my girlfriend, Diana Dark.  Diana, this is Mildred, my moth-"

357 broke off because it is hard to hold up your end of a conversation when
the other person is hugging your girlfriend and jumping up and down
screaming "He's dating!  He's dating!  He's finally dating!" over and over
again.

A short while later, they were all enjoying tea.  Well, most were enjoying
tea.  357 and Diana had their hands full trying to keep Mildred from
planning their wedding.  "We're just dating, Mom!"
"Pooh," his mother poohed in a way that only a mother can pooh.  "Knowing
you, you'll put off marriage until you're too old to have children!"

"I'm only 500, Mom."

"Pooh," his mother poohed again.  "By the time I was your age, I'd already
had three children.  Why, in those days-"

357 jumped in to interupt what he knew would be a long story.  "While we're
on the subject of children, I need to tell you about your grandson, 386."

"Is that boy in trouble again?  Poor 519, bless his soul, did his best but
never quite raised that boy right."

"519?" Diana asked quietly.

"My oldest brother," 357 informed her before continuing.  He gave his mother
a quick rundown of the current situation.  "He's gone nuts, Mom.  He plans
to wipe out our entire alterverse.  I'm going to try to stop him, but I'll
need help."

"Son, you know that we of the home alterverse are many things, but we're not
fighters.  There hasn't been a war in recorded history, and our recordings
go back pretty far."

"I know, but we have to try.  Help me track down some of my old friends..."

Meanwhile (not all that far away in terms of time and space) an aged,
cloaked, hooded figure typed furiously at the keys of an Automatic
Beet-Peeler and Sub-atomic Re-integrator Mark II, programming it for the end
of existence.

Will 357 be able to stop 386's nefarious plot?
Will the destruction of the home alterverse disrupt the multiverse?
Will 357 buy the cow when he's already getting the milk for free?

For the answers to these and many other questions, come back in 30 days for
the next exciting episode of...  SFSTORY!