Is it a comedy or a tragedy?

- Connie Willis, “All Clear”

I wrote last week that Mr Tuniak's unusual appearance had surprised and distracted me. In retrospect he had looked basically the same way he always does. That, at least, was the thougth that first crossed my mind when I saw him today. The man who was waiting for me...

Mr Tuniak was sitting on the couch in front of the book shelves. His beard was even longer than last week, it reached down to his breast. His hair had also grown longer and appeared unwashed. He wore a grey toga, which had several small holes and was also clearly in need of a cleaning. On the floor in front of him lay a long wooden stuff, at least as long as he was tall.

I greeted him with a short „Ave“ to which he responded with a small smile. I could see that he had even coloured his teeth yellow. „What happend to you?“, I asked.

„Convincing, isn't it?“, a voice said.

Surprised, I turned around to face the desk. I hadn't noticet that a third person was in the room with us. I recognized her immediately as Sarina. She looked to be around sixty years old and wore glasses. She also had, as a joke I presumed, a monocle for her third eye.

„Today we are going to travel to Ancient Rome“, Mr Tuniak said. „But we are going to be as inconspicious as possible there, so we have to dress up.“

„I have prepared a tunic for you“, Sarina said. She pointed at a screen that hid a corner of the office.

I went behind the screen and began to change. The tunic was a big too bit and hung down to my knees. The fabric it was made of felt rough and like Mr Tuniak's toga it had holes and was dirty. No, I must correct myself: It was made to appear dirty. Looking at it up close I saw that the „dirt“ was part of the fabric and the tunic didn't smell either. I also found a pair of sandals, made of some kind of leather that looked like the flip-flops you can buy in shops today (later I learned that those shoes were called solea and were only worn indoors).

„Shall I put on those sandals as well?“, I asked.

„No, just take them with you“, Mr Tuniak replied. „We put those on when we get out of the time machine. I don't find them very comfortable for walking.“

I walked back in front of the screen. Sarina had prepared a huge piece of cloth which I at first thought was a sail for a surf board or maybe even for a small sailing boat.

„What is that?“, I asked

„Your toga“, Sarina answered.

„It's at least three times my size!“

I don't know how she did it, but she wound that toga so many times around me that in the end I really did appear – if you didn't look at it too closely – like someone who had just come from Ancient times. I tried to take a few steps. The toga nearly dropped to the floor.

„Wait a second“, Sarina said and fixed the cloth with a hidden broche. „Now, you should be able to move more easily.“

I tried again to walk a few steps, carefully, and this time the toga did not drop to the floor. „It is... unusual“, I said. „But I guess, if you are used to wear this every day of your life...“

„...it wouldn't become any more comfortable“, Mr Tuniak finished. „I don't know who invented the toga, but I think it is quite obvious that he wanted to torture the Romans. You canj believe me, even in Ancient times, when this was wore by everyone, no one particularly liked it.“

„Then why did they wear it?“, I asked.

„As a symbol of wealth“, Mr Tuniak said. „Come on, let's get to the time machine.“ He got up and took his staff. All three of us then went down to the car.

Exiting the time machine, I found that we had appeared in a narrow canyon, with a small river running through it. Mr Tuniak came after me, but it had been decided that Sarina would stay behind. Mr Tuniak had explained to me that he would be pretending to be an old fortune teller, a seer, and I was to be his dumb assistant. Dumb, because I couldn't speak Latin, of course. But I had a little radio in my ear which connected me with Sarina back in the time machine. Sarina could hear everything I heard and would provide a real time translation of everything that was said. That way I could at least understand what was happening around me.

We went on our way.

We had walked for nearly two hours, before we reached the next city. Mr Tuniak had had to hide the time machine at a safe distance and with our shoes it was impossible to walk at a fast pace. On the street that led to the city, we met several other people, but none of them greeted us. Once we even had to move quickly aside, when a horse drawn-carriage was moving past.

„That's not Rome up there, is it?“ I whispered.

„No, we are south of Rome“, Mr Tuniak replied in a similarly silent voice.

„There seem to be a lot of people around“, I said.

„Yes, today is market day and a theatre has also come to town“, Mr Tuniak explained. Then he gave me a sign to signal that we shouldn't talk any more.

The sign probably wouldn't have been necessary. All around me there was so much to see that I wasn't able to formulate any sentences anyway. The market seemed familiar and strange at the same time. Familiar, because there was basically not much difference between this market two thousand years in my past and the markets one can still find, especially in villages out in the country. The goods at offer were praised in a loud voice, customers tried to get the best price for whatever they wanted to buy and there where stands which offered snacks (although I'm sure they didn't call it 'snacks' back then, but something different). Strange, because the people were talking in a language, I couldn't understand, wore clothes that seemed foreign and old to me and because the smells were unlike any other I had experienced in any market I had been to so far. There were jugglers and musicians. Beggars and preachers. I am pretty sure that there was also a flourishing black market, because several times I thought I saw people who did not want to be seen and who gestured to potential customers to follow them aside.

We were walking towards a temple. Several steps led to the huge main entrance of the building. Even there people crowed and pushed against each other. There were several statues which seemed to guard the temple. I remembered that I had read once that the reason old statues don't appear to have pupils, is that originally the pupils were painted. And the statues I saw there were painted. But only in the face. The clothes they “wore”, the arms or other things they held, all of that was painted in countless colours. Nothing was bleak and white, the way we are used to it nowadays.

I was so fascinated from this new world that I had entered, that I forgot to watch Mr Tuniak for a moment and because of all the people around us, lost him. Looking around, going up and down, it was impossible to find any trace of him in the crowd. For a moment I felt panic. Without Mr Tuniak there was no way for me to return to my time and as much as I liked this old city, as much as I was fascinated by it, there was no way that I wanted to spend the rest of my life there. Luckily, Mr Tuniak had a radio in his ear as well and with Sarina's help we soon found each other again. Afterwards, I never let Mr Tuniak out of my eyes.

We continued walking through the city for about half an hour. The whole time we stayed close to the market. It was obvious to me that Mr Tuniak was looking for something or someone. As we were entering a street with fewer people, I risked it and asked as quietly as possible: “What are you looking for?”

“I'm looking for a young boy who, just like you, has gotten lost”, Mr Tuniak replied. “But I'm not quite sure where...” Then he lapsed back into silence.

We continued. From time to time Mr Tuniak talked to a few people and (I only understood this because of Sarina's translations) offered them his services as a fortune teller. But no one took him up on that offer. I didn't think he expected to. He just wanted to avoid drawing attention to himself by not doing anything, I guess.

Suddenly he stopped. He took my arm and with his staff he pointed to a market stand, several metres in front of us. In front of it, a small, young boy was standing. He must have been four or five years old and he was looking around and searching for someone. It took me a moment, before I realised that the boy was looking for his parents.

Mr Tuniak gave me a sign to tell me that I should follow him, but leave a bit of a distance between us. Then he walked towards the boy. The closer we came, the more I felt as if I knew the boy. But surely, that was ridiculous? I wasn't going to be born for another two thousand years, so whom could I possibly know...?

And suddenly I knew, who the boy was.

Alexander had lost his mothers. Together, they had gone to the theatre, but suddenly – during the play – they had decided to leave and had left their seats. Alexander didn't understand why. They had promised him that they would tell him how the play ended, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they wouldn't. He was sure that something was happening at the end that he was not supposed to see.

As a way to make up for it, they had gone to the market, but because there were so many people there and even though Maria had held his hand since leaving the theatre, he had somehow manage to loose both of them. Now he was alone and didn't know what to do.

“Did you loose your parents?”, a man asked. He was old and dirty and looked like a beggar. Alexander didn't answer and took a step back. “Don't be afraid”, the old man said. “I am a seer and I can see into your future.”

“Nobody can see into the future”, Alexander said defiantly.

“I can”, the old man assured him. “And I can promise you that you will lead a great... no, a fantastic life. I see that you will travel around the whole world. You will see things that no one else or very few other people have seen. You will meet many people and most of them will become your friends... There will be times, of course, when you will feel sad, but I promise you that those times, those moments, are few and will pass quickly.”

Alexander took another step back. The old man had only used general phrases and mentioned nothing specific. The life he described could be true for a lot of people. But in spite of that Alexander felt that the old man knew more about himself than he himself did. “Do you know where my mothers are?”, he asked.

“Yes”, said the old man. “Come!” He offered Alexander his hand, but the boy didn't take it. The old man shrugged and started walking. Alexander followed him. They had only gone a few dozen metres, when the old man stopped again. He pointed to the steps in front of the temple and there Alexander saw both his mothers. They saw him too and came running towards him. Helen took him in his arms and pressed him tightly against her. Maria looked at the old man who had accompanied him.

“He found you”, Alexander explained.

“Did you?”, Maria said. “And who are you?”

“Just an old seer”, the man replied.

“Mhm.” Maria did not sound convinced. She threw him a coin and said: “If you are a seer then tell me this about the life of my son: Is it a comedy or a tragedy?”

“A comedy”, the old man said and disappeared in the crowd.

“I wanted to tell myself so much more”, Mr Tuniak said, as we were walking back to the time machine, the city safely behind us. No one else was close, so we could talk again. “But once I saw... myself, I...”

“Do you remember this meeting?”, I wanted to know.

“Not really”, he said. “I remember having been lost once in a market and that an old man helped me find my mothers, but nothing else.”

“Do you think your mothers recognized you? Or suspected who you were?”

“I think so. Otherwise they wouldn't have asked their question.”

“Comedy or tragedy? You would describe your life as a comedy?”

“Yes, but you have to remember that we are in Ancient Times now. The word comedy has a slightly different meaning to the one you are used to”, Mr Tuniak said. “A comedy isn't necessarily a funny story. It simply means a story with a happy ending.”

NEXT WEEK

Oh, there's just one more thing...

And now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, „The Lord of the Rings“

„I want to talk about my last journey today“, Mr Tuniak said. „Or... my last big journey, to be more precise. I went to America, to the United States in 1926.“

“Did you travel alone?”, I wanted to know.

“No, I was accompanied by Cailinn”, Mr Tuniak replied. “The whole journey, the idea for it, was hers. She would have done it with our without me. We met in London and boarded a ship there that would take across the Atlantic Ocean.”

I should have asked right there, why they didn't take the time machine to be quicker, but I have to admit that I was distracted today. Today, Mr Tuniak was sporting a full beard and his hair was so long that it nearly touched his shoulders. I have mentioned before that each time I met him there have often been subtle differences in his appearance, but never as drastic and radical as this time. At least, that's what I am claiming and using as an excuse for not paying full attention.

Mr Tuniak continued: “We got off the ship in New York and from there we took a train that would take us to Auburn, Massachusetts.”

Cailinn had hired several porters to take care of all their luggage and equipment and to carry it to their train. This way, she and Alexander didn't have to carry any suitcases as they were looking for the departure platform. Cailinn was about seventy years old and Alexander estimated that he was at least ten years older than her. All around them people hurried to the trains or the exits, but they were not in any hurry themselves.

“I think that there is our train”, Alexander said. “In which car are our seats?”

“You don't have to pretend as if you don't know”, Cailinn said. “We have a whole vehicle, of course. My vehicle.”

Alexander stopped walking in surprise. “You still have it?”, he asked. “I have read about it in the Gemini archives, but I thought you had sold it the last time you were here.”

“I did”, Cailinn said. “But Michael was nice enough to lend it to me for the time I am here. He is in California at the moment and will stay there for the next several months, so he has no need of it. Come on!”

They reached the last car which was a bit shorter than the others. It had fewer windows too and there was only one entrance. Cailinn and Alexander entered.

Alexander had seen sketches and photos of the inside of the car, but as is usually the case, reality was a bit different. It was also probable that the buyer – Cailinn had never said who he was and Alexander suspected that Michael was not his real name – had made some changes to suit his tastes better. Most of the car was like one big living room. There were sofas at the side, a bar and a library with a writing desk. There was also a small kitchen with a gas stove and a potable water tank. The back part of the car was hidden behind a curtain, but Alexander knew that the bedroom and a bathroom had to be there. The whole car reminded Alexander of a TV series his friend Farid had watched in his childhood, but he couldn't remember its name. He smiled thinking about how even after a century had passed, Gemini would still be influenced by this. Of course, in the future it wouldn't be a train car, they would modify into a moving apartment, but a whole jet plane.

“Would you prepare something to drink? I think I need a whisky”, Cailinn asked. “I'll take care that all of our luggage is safely stored. I don't want the same thing to happen as last time, when they left half of it somewhere in the train station.”

When she came back, they both sat down on the sofas, drinks in hand and Alexander asked: “I have seen you have brought several stilts?”

“And you want to know why, right?”, Cailinn said. “To get as quickly as possible to the rocket, if the experiment should prove to be a success. Those stilts are my seven-leagues boots.”

“Seven-leagues boots?”

“Have you never heard of them? The fairy tale?”

“No, I have, but...” Alexander thought about it for a moment and then he realised how Cailinn planned to use those stilts. The longer they were and the higher up you were standing on them, the bigger the steps would be you could make. As long as you didn't fall down from them, they would be a simple way to move very fast.

“I bought those stilts in France”, Cailinn told him. “I saw shepherds there who used them to be able to get quickly from one end of their herd to the other. And of course they have a better view standing on them. You can try them, if you want to.”

“I have never tried walking on stilts and I'm afraid that now, I am too old to learn it”, Alexander said with clear regret.

“It's really amazing how fast you can move using them”, Cailinn continued. “I remember about... oh, I guess thirty years ago, when I met a baker in France who had used them to travel from Paris to Moscow in fifty-eight days. It's really quite amazing.”

“You had... Cailinn had her own train car?”, I asked. “I guess her financial situation had improved with the years.”

“Yes, it had”, Mr Tuniak agreed.

“Was it her books? Were they that successful?”

“No, not by a long shot. Her books were read, yes, and she earned money thanks to them, but most of her income she got through lectures and acting in an advisory capacity on many projects”, Mr Tuniak explained. “Also: When she bought the train car, it was just an ordinary and old car. She made all the changes herself.”

“And... why was Hugo Delake not with you on that journey?”, I asked. “Had they separated? Or was he dead?”

“Oh, no, far from that, Cailinn and he had married and were still married in 1926”, Mr Tuniak said. “It just that they usually travelled separately, because Cailinn thought they were agreeing to often with each other.” He shrugged. “She wanted to see new things and make new discoveries, but she didn't want to accept those on blind faith. She wanted to question everything and that was easier, she claimed, if you had two people who did not have the same opinion.”

“And thus one of the principles of Gemini was established, I see”, I said. “So, I take it that you two disagreed a lot of the time?”

“No, I didn't count”, Mr Tuniak said with a smile. “I was a time traveller, she thought that I would know the answer to everything anyway.”

“So, why did you travel to Auburn?”

It was a cold morning in March. The plain, where they had gathered, was covered with snow. They were all wearing long coats and thick boots. Robert Goddard was making final preparations. Today, he would test for the first time a rocket that was propelled by liquid fuel.

“I have done several test already in my laboratory last year”, he told Cailinn and several other people who were standing close by to watch the experiment. “It worked quite well, so I am confident that we will get a positive result today.”

Cailinn studied the papers he had given her which contained the notes about those early tries. Most of it, she already knew. Goddard was one of a large group of people she exchanged letters and was in more or less constant contact with. Alexander was standing a bit apart from the group. He had brought a digital video camera and was now filming the proceedings as secretly as possible. Next to him, Cailinn's stilts were lying on the ground.

“Everyone ready?”, Goddard asked.

Cailinn and the other men took several steps backward, so to get a bit of a distance between them and the two metre long rocket, which at the moment, was still held by something that looked a bit like a metal cage.

“Attention!”, Goddard cried and lit the rocket.

At first nothing seemed to happen. A flame was coming out of the engine, but apart from creating a lot of noise it didn't have any visible effects. But then, slowly but surely, Nell – Goddard's name for his rocket – started to rise. The blow back was pushing her towards the sky. Because of the way the rocket was built (with the rocket engine at the top), the flight lasted not even three seconds, but within that time Nell had reached a hight of over twelve metres and came down sixty metres away from the place she had started from. The experiment had proven that it was possible to use a rocket with liquid fuel and could therefore be considered a success. Alexander looked up at the sky, knowing that on this day the first step on a long journey had been taken; a journey that would eventually lead to the moon.

“You told me that this was your last big journey”, I said, finally talking about the question which had formed in my head since Mr Tuniak had started talking today. “Why? Has it something to do with the fact that you didn't use the time machine to cross the Atlantic Ocean?”

“Yes”, Mr Tuniak admitted after a moment's hesitation. Unknowingly, he had placed his right hand on his breast. “Cailinn asked pretty much the same question, when we were still on the ship.”

The ship had survived the thunderstorm with hardly any damage. The same could not be said about the passenger, most of whom had gotten sea sick. Alexander was standing on deck, hands placed on the guard rail and looked out to the far horizon. The sun was mostly hidden behind a thin cover of clouds. Cailinn came to him.

“Well, you don't seem to be affected too much by the bad weather”, she said.

“I'm not”, he said. “I have seen... lived through worse.” He told her about the time in his youth, when the ship he had been on, had passed through such a thunderstorm that he had been swept into the sea.

“It's good that that incident hasn't made you afraid of ships”, Cailinn said, when he had finished. “But why are you here? Why didn't you travel directly to the United States?”

“Because I needed some rest”, Alexander replied. “The beyul is coming along very nicely and for most of the work done there now, they don't need me. But it was exhausting to get to this point... the last few years... I guess, they were too eventful for someone of my age.”

“You had a heart attack”, Cailinn said.

“No, thankfully not”, Alexander said. “It was angina pectoris. My body just wanted to warn me that it couldn't do as much as before.”

“And that's why you stopped travelling?”, I asked.

“No big journeys, at least”, Mr Tuniak answered. “I'm still going on short trips, but never alone. Which reminds me: I wanted to ask you to accompany me on such a trip next week.”

“Of course”, I said immediately. “Are you going to tell me where we are going?”

“No”, Mr Tuniak said with a smile. “But I will tell you that you are going to see part of my biography with your own eyes.”

NEXT WEEK

Is it a comedy or a tragedy?

Nur wer die Vergangenheit kennt, hat eine Zukunft.

(Only those who know their past, have a future.)

- Wilhelm von Humboldt

Mr Tuniak and I were meeting at the parking space behind the office building today. As he had promised last week, he was going to show me today, what he had shown Cailinn a long time ago.

“Do you know what a beyul is?”, Mr Tuniak asked, when we were in the car.

“That's what they are calling swamps in the south of the United States, isn't it?”, I asked.

“No, you are thinking of bayous”, Mr Tuniak corrected me. “Beyul comes from Buddhistic believes. It is the name for hidden valleys, where wise men could find refuge and where all of their knowledge was stored. You can think of it as a version of Noah's ark. While outside the valley the world could go to hell, inside everything survives and can therefore lead to a new beginning, a new world.”

“And we are going to such a valley?”, I asked.

“Not quite. But I wanted to tell you this, so that you know why we called the place that.”

He continued his description of a beyul as a prospering and green valley, full of life and plants and...

...and pretty much the exact opposite of the place where we landed.

When the time machine had come to a stop, I was expecting to find myself surrounded by mountains, maybe even seeing the Himalayas. But instead dry and hot air was blowing in through the open door. We exited the time machine and I saw that we had landed in the desert.

“When you were talking about this valley, I was expecting something quite different”, I said.

“Well, there has been quite a jungle here in the past”, Mr Tuniak said. “But there are several reasons, why we decided to built the beyul here.”

“Because of the cheap energy?”

The time machine had landed close to a huge warehouse, huge like a aeroplane hangar. All around us were rows upon rows of of solar panels, which were connected through cables with this hangar.

“Yes, that is one of the reasons”, Mr Tuniak said. “We are producing enough energy here to supply a big city. The second reason is that this land here didn't cost us anything.”

“It was free?”, I wondered. “Did a state give it to you?”

“No, we are outside any state. We are between Egypt and Sudan. Egypt is north of here, that way, Sudan south.”

“How can we be between these two countries?”, I asked. “If I'm remembering correctly, they share a border.”

“Don't ask me”, Mr Tuniak said. “For some reason neither of these two states wants to own this land... this piece of desert. That's why Gemini started building the beyul here and since we started no one has come and complained.”

We were walking towards the warehouse. Its walls were painted with images of a green valley. Someone obviously had a sense of humour.

“One other thing I should mention”, Mr Tuniak continued before we entered. “From your point of view, we have travelled several years into the future. In your time this whole complex is still under construction and far from being finished... in a way it still isn't. And don't be surprised, if we don't meet any people inside. Today is a holiday.”

The warehouse, despite its size, was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The real complex was underground. The warehouse was just like a hat that protected the head from the storm and the weather. It was a reception area from which countless stairs, ramps and lifts led downwards. We took one of the lifts. At the back of it a touchscreen was showing the plans for the whole beyul and I tried to get a general impression of it. But it was too big to really grasp in that short amount of time. When we got out of the lift, the only thing I knew for sure was that we were somewhere deep underground.

“Once the construction is completely and definitely finished, the lifts will be turned off and their shafts will be blocked and sealed”, Mr Tuniak said. “The only way to get down will be the ramps then.”

“Why?”

“So that we can... control who gets down and how far”, Mr Tuniak explained. “You will understand it, when I show it to you.”

Getting out of the lift, I had the feeling of entering a workshop of the ancient world. It was like a gigantic museum, although the exhibits were not protected by glass. You could touch and use everything. Next to every single one the those primitive machines – and even next to some tools – were paintings explaining their use in simple terms. There was also a protected area, where scrolls (not made out of paper or papyrus, but some kind of new material, that hasn't been invented yet) were stored.

“You have probably read The Odyssey, haven't you?”, Mr Tuniak asked, as we were standing in front of all these scrolls.

“Yes, and also an account of the siege of Troy”, I answered. “And I think we read one or two other ancient plays as well at school.”

“But only a very small percentage of all the works written back then survived until your time”, Mr Tuniak said. “Here, we have really collected everything. I brought students into the past to watch these plays and write them down afterwards. Over there you can see some paintings we made of those old productions.”

I could have spent days in those rooms, looking at everything I could and still would not have seen everything. But we had to continue. There were even more things to see.

Mr Tuniak guided me to a hidden ramp that led further into the deep. As we were walking on it, he pionted out the steel doors in the walls which would someday block this way.

“Once we are finished, there will be no short cut down from the top to the bottom”, Mr Tuniak said. “You will have to pass through all storeys and the connecting corridors, like this ramp here, will be hidden and blocked. There will be riddles at each level and to pass on to the next, you will have to solve these riddles first.”

“Like in a computer game?”, I asked.

“If you want to put it like that, but there is a reason for this”, Mr Tuniak said. “Imagine that in the far future, mankind, for whatever reason, will fall back into the Stone Age. All our knowledge will be lost.”

“Is that going to happen?”, I wanted to know.

“Not as far as I know”, Mr Tuniak replied. “But the future is vast and I don't know what will happen in a million years. So imagine these new Stone Age humans discover our beyul here. Suddenly they would have access to all these modern technologies.”

“It would be as if you were travelling into the past and giving the people then modern technology”, I said. “You would influence the course of history.”

“And we would hand these discoverers a great deal of power”, Mr Tuniak said. “We don't want to do that. That's why every level is... guarded by a riddle. To solve these riddles, you will need a certain technical knowledge. It means that you can only access an area, once you have already discovered the hidden knowledge on your own. We don't want to influence the future here, we just want to make sure that the past is not forgotten.”

We passed quickly through the next level – I guess that the technology on display would fit at the beginning of the middle ages – and entered another lift. When we got out again, we were sometime in the nineteenth century. If we had walked all the way, it would have taken us several hours and I didn't even want to imagine how many metres (probably even kilometres) and tons of rock were above our heads.

“This is one of my favourite treasures”, Mr Tuniak said. He led me to several shelves were disc records were stored. Record players were standing in front of it.

“What kind of music are you collecting here?”, I wanted to know.

“Everything and anything we can find”, Mr Tuniak said.

“And why aren't you using CDs or store them on computer files?”

“Because they work better for our purposes”, Mr Tuniak explained. “If you store something on a computer file, you also have to provide a computer. They wouldn't fit into the time frame here and they would be just another thing that could get damaged. And speaking of digital storage in general: There's always the risk that they won't be able to read those files in the future.”

“I see you have other disks over there”, I said. “Why are they separate?”

“Because they are not songs, but languages”, Mr Tuniak said. “We have got dictionaries and sound samples over there.”

“And why have these shelves the image of a parrot carved into them?”

“Oh, that's an old story”, Mr Tuniak said. “When Alexander von Humbold came to South America, he discovered a parrot who was speaking an extinct language. Every human, who had spoken that languages, had already died, but the parrot still remembered it.”

“Speaking of languages... I see that all the inscriptions here are written in English”, I said. “Will they be able to understand that in the far future?”

“There is an explanation and dictionary several levels above us”, Mr Tuniak said. “But you are right that without those, people in the future would have a very difficult time understanding anything we have written here.”

Even further down...

I can't recount here everything Mr Tuniak showed me. When I came home afterwards, I felt as if I had spent several days walking through those corridors (and since the time machine returned us five minutes after we had departed, theoretically it would have been possible).

We came to a database, where the genetic codes of all animals and plants that ever lived were stored. There was also a big safe, which was connected to a cooling unit.

“What have you stored in there?”, I asked. “Cells?”

“We have thought about that and maybe we are still going to do it one day, but that's not in there”, Mr Tuniak said. “In there is primordial slime.” When he saw that I didn't get the significance of what he had said, he added: “It's the stuff that life originated in.”

“Do you mean... Is it possible to create new life with it?”, I asked.

“Maybe”, Mr Tuniak said. “It wasn't my idea and I am not convinced that it would actually work but... yeah.”

In some strange kind of way I felt reassured. No matter what would happen on the surface of the planet, down here the possibility of new life would exist. This beyul was the world – and its history – in miniaturised form. This here was the legacy of Mr Tuniak and his mothers: A memory of a world.

NEXT WEEK

And now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.

On se demande parfois si la vie a un sens, et puis on rencontre des êtres qui donnent un sens à la vie.

(Sometimes you ask yourself if life has any meaning and then you meet people who give live a meaning.)

- Gyula Halasz Brassaï

When I entered Mr Tuniak's office today, he appeared more thoughtful than usual. He greeted me, but he seemed older than last week. I have noticed (and noted) before that more time passed for him between our meetings than for me, but it had never been as obvious as today. Maybe the reason for that was that the topic of “age” seemed to trouble him a bit today.

“When you are young, you try to change the world”, he finally said. “When you get older and realise that the world won't be changed so easily, you start trying to at least leave your mark. For that reason I met with my mothers in Singapore, in a restaurant called Aurum. Eshe and Philip were also there.”

I remembered Eshe. I had met her several months ago in Iceland and like Philip, she belonged to the few immortals that lived in a little house on the island.

“Sorry, for interrupting you”, I said, “I know that it's not important, but I am curious: Was there anything special about the restaurant?”

“Yes”, Mr Tuniak answered, slightly amused. “Have you ever heard of molecular gastronomy? No? Well, the cooks there tried to create not only new dishes, but completely new tastes. Why did you ask?”

“I was just wondering if you had ever eaten or met someone in a... normal or average restaurant”, I replied.

Mr Tuniak laughed. “No, I don't think I ever did”, he admitted. “But because we have a time machine, any place and any time is pretty much close at hand for us, so why not make use of that?”

“Are you sure that this is a restaurant?”, Philip asked, after he had entered and looked around. “It looks more like an OP to me.”

“I think that's the idea”, Maria replied.

They went, followed by Eshe, Helen and Alexander to the table they had reserved in advance. But instead of chairs there were wheel chairs.

“Well, at least, they seem to know how old we all are”, Eshe commented, while sitting down. She put her hand on the arm of the chair. “How disappointing, it's not real gold. But it looks good.”

“If you like it, you should come back soon. One year from now, this place will have closed down”, Maria said. A waiter appeared and they all ordered different dishes.

“Do you think anyone will remember this place ten years from now?”, Alexander asked no one in particular. “Philip, did you ever wonder what your legacy might look like?”

Philip shook his head. “No.”

“Neither have I”, Eshe said. “If you don't die, you can't really leave anything behind.”

Looking at the table from the outside, it presented a strange picture. The people, who seemed to be the youngest, were actually the oldest, but at the same time they had probably a lot more of their lives left than the other three.

“Did I tell you about the time capsules Yuuto is hiding all over the planet?”, Alexander asked and everyone at the table nodded.

“It's a nice idea, but as with everything he does, he isn't really behind it”, Philip said. “The way he is doing it, he can only save a small percentage... the percentage of a percentage maybe of all possible knowledge.”

“I was thinking... what if one would implement this idea, but on a much broader scope”, Alexander said. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw how his mothers focused their whole attention on him. Maybe they feared that he wanted to change the course of history again, but they didn't say anything and let him continue and make his case. “I have met a woman in the nineteenth centuy, who wants to preserve all the knowledge of her time. Her name is Cailinn Noneach. Have you heard of her?” His mothers, who were working with Gemini, knew the name of course.

“I think I have read one of her books”, Eshe said. “But it's been... quite a few years. She wrote travel books or something like that, didn't she?”

“She was the founder... well, the inspiration for the Gemini Foundation which aims to collect and store all knowledge of humanity, wherever it may come from”, Alexander explained. “But Gemini is of course limited in what it can do. They can't go into the past and therefore a lot of the things humans have done or discovered are not accessible to them.”

“And you want to travel into the past for Gemini and do what they can not?”, Helen asked and Alexander noticed that she was only barely able to surpress a smile. “To go and document everything you can find there?”

“Yes”, Alexander said. “No one has to know where the data is coming from. I can do it in secret. And Gemini is – unfortunately – not that well known world wide, that it would cause any kind of... What are you two laughing about?”

“You are trying to convince us of something, we have already planned on doing for a while”, Maria said. “Why do you think we decided to join Gemini?”

“We already have several ideas and... well, not quite plans, but the first stages of plans about what we should do and how we should do it”, Helen added. “But there is one thing one of us has to do first.”

“My mothers and I thought that before we could do anything like that, there was one person we had to convince that this was the right thing to do”, Mr Tuniak said. “Juliette Belloq. She knew more about time and time travel than anyone else and she was the only one who could say with certainty... well, with near certainty if what we were doing was doing any harm to the course of history or not.”

“You just wanted to collect knowledge”, I said. “How can that be bad?”

“And when I was young, I just wanted to help humanity along to reach better technology quicker than it did, what can be bad about that?”, Mr Tuniak returned. “Unfortunately, good intentions are no protection against bad results.” He was silent for a moment, in case I wanted to say something else, but when I didn't, he continued. “I left Juliette a message in Gibraltar, telling her that I wanted to meet her in Aachen in 1374.”

“Why didn't you wait for her in Gibraltar?”

“What's with the video camera?”, Juliette asked. “Do you want to be conspicuous?”

“No one is going to see us out here”, Alexander assured her. He had put the camera on a tripod on a hill and was filming the happenings of a village, not far away. “And no one is coming up here, because down there everyone is dancing. Do you want to see it?”

Juliette stood behind the camera and looked at the little screen at its back. Thanks to the zoom function she could see the dancing people in the village as if she was standing right next to them. “Is it some kind of festival?”, she wanted to know.

“No, everyone just spontaneously started to dance”, Alexander answered. “No one knows why. Not even in the future There are of course theories, there always are... stress, something in the water, maybe it is some kind of festival... but no one knows for sure.”

“I'm guessing there is a reason why you wanted to see me here”, Juliette said. “And I don't think you want me to film you while you join them...”

“No, I'm just here to film it”, Alexander said.

“Why?”

“Why not? As I just said, no one knows why people started to dance. No one knows why they stopped again, why it never happened again after a certain date. Completely disappeared. Maybe it will come back. Maybe it won't. The point is we don't know. But if it should ever return, in the future, we will have more information, we will have these videos... And partly, it's just simple, old fashioned curiosity on my part. When you get to be as old as I am...” He stopped without finishing the sentence and looked questioningly at Juliette. “Which one of us is actually older?”

“If in doubt, I am”, Juliette said. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

Alexander told her about the idea his mothers and he had. He told her of the great amounts of knowledge that they hoped to preserve for the future. He told her about their first – but by no means finished and final – plans they had to store the collected information in a safe place. “And I tell you all of this, because we want to make sure that what we are doing has no negative influence... has no influence of any kind on the course of history. We don't live in the best of all worlds, maybe not even in the best possible world, but we have seen... the end and we know that we live in a world and in a history that works. And we want to make sure that it stays that way.”

“So, if I tell you that what you are planning to do is too dangerous...”

“...we won't do it”, Alexander promised her.

“Have you ever been to the far future?”, Juliette wanted to know, but Alexander shook his head. “Well, it isn't that important anyway... You want my blessing for your project? You have it. But there are certain conditions.” She listed several things she thought they should pay particular attention to and every time Alexander agreed with her without reservation.

“There was one last person I wanted to talk to before I started on our project”, Alexander said.

“Cailinn?”, I guessed.

“Exactly”, he confirmed. “Between the publication of her first and second book, several years had passed. A lot more time than between any of her other books. There had been a time when she hadn't been sure if she should continue writing and I wanted to know why.”

Cailinn was on a train, sitting alone in her cabin and although she was looking out the window, she didn't really pay a lot of attention to her surroundings. She was lost in her thoughts. She only noticed that someone had joined and taken the seat opposite her, when the person coughed slightly.

“Alexander, what are you doing her?”, she asked in surprise, as she recognised her fellow passenger.

“I just wanted to see how you are”, he said. “Are you going to London?”

“Yes, I'm meeting Hugo there”, Cailinn answered. “Why are you here?” Her eyes suddenly seemed to glow from an inner light. “Is something unsual and unexpected going to happen during the journey?”

“Not to my knowledge”, Alexander said and the fire within Cailinn, the fire that had been responsible for the glow in her eyes, was extinguished. “I am only here to ask you one question: Why haven't you written another book yet? When last we met, you were so full of ideas...”

“It is difficult to write books that nobody wants to read”, Cailinn said. “I did not expect a huge success or anything, but the numbers were... quite disappointing and depressing even for me.”

“You are disappointed that nobody is reading your books?”, Alexander said. He thought about that for a moment. Then he looked out of the window. He saw that the train was still standing in the station and waited for the last passengers. He stood up and took Cailinn's hand. “Come with me! I want to show you what your books... what your book is going to be responsible for one day.”

Mr Tuniak fell silent. I looked up from my notes and over to him. “You are only going to tell me what you showed to Cailinn when I return next week, won't you?”, I said.

“I will show it to you then”, he promised.

“Have you ever been compared to Sheherazade?”

NEXT WEEK

Nur wer die Vergangenheit kennt, hat eine Zukunft.