There's more to this world than just people, you know.

- Hobbes

“Calvin & Hobbes”

„The second person I wanted to visit was Mowgli“, Mr Tuniak told me. „Juan had given me his address, when I was on Leviathan... well, strictly speaking he gave me coordinates, where I could find him.“

„Why coordinates?“, I asked.

„Because Mowgli had moved to India, but not into any of its cities“, Mr Tuniak explained. “He had bought a piece of real estate right next to the ocean, where...” He did not finish the sentence and I could see a smile forming on his face. “You know what? It would be easier if I showed it to you. Care for a short trip?”

So we took the time machine and went to India. As we landed there on a beach and exited, I could see the sun out above the sea, nearly touching the horizon.

“Is that a sunrise or a sunset?”, I wanted to know.

“Sunrise”, Mr Tuniak said. “We travelled a few hours into the past, otherwise it would already be evening here.”

There was a stone quay, built using only big stones, and from it a paved path led into the forest, which marked the end of the beach. As we walked towards the trees, I had to think about the fact that at the same time I was lying in my bed in Europe and sleeping soundly. A strange thought, but one Mr Tuniak had probably gotten used to a long time ago.

As we set our feet on the path, two animals suddenly came out of the undergrowth. I froze in the middle of my step and my heart started to beat faster and faster. Two big cats were looking at me. I wasn't sure if they were lions or tigers, but at that moment I didn't really care about such details. My hands got wet with sweat and my legs began to shake. The cats were not wearing any chains and I could not see any other obstacle between them and us. Nothing would stop them, if they decided to attack.

Mr Tuniak continued walking.

Alexander landed the time machine on a beach. As he exited, the screams of sea gulls greeted him. He saw the little wooden quay, Juan had described to him, and the dirt track that led into the forest. With started walking towards it with quick steps.

He hadn't come far, when a big cat was blocking his way. Alexander stopped immediately. The big animal was a cat of prey, that much was certain, but he couldn't tell if it was a lion or a tiger. Her fur had stripes like that of a tiger, but on her head was a thin mane, like of a lion. The cat returned his look and for a moment neither of them moved. Then Alexander turned around and ran as fast as he could back to the time machine. He never looked back, so he didn't know if the cat was following him or not.

Back in the time machine (and safe behind its closed door), he switched on the cameras and screens to watch what the cat would do next. The animal slowly ambled to the quay and looked out at the sea, as if it was waiting for a ship to arrive. When it didn't come, the cat focused its attention on the time machine. It had never seen anything like that big grey cuboid before. She came closer and sniffed at its corners and at the ground around it. Then it lay down right in front of it.

“You can't be serious”, Alexander murmured. He went to the main computer and activated the time machine. He wanted to jump one hour into the future, hoping that the animal had left the beach by then. But before he could execute that plan, he hesitated. How could he be sure that the cat wouldn't wait for him in the forest and surprise him there? But he didn't want to land the time machine any closer to Mowgli's house, because other people could be there and might see his arrival.

He decided to wait.

Half an hour passed by, before someone came walking down the dirt path. It was Mowgli himself. When he saw the time machine and the big cat lying in front of it, he started to laugh.

“Don't worry, they are not dangerous”, Mr Tuniak told to me. He put forth his hands and the two big cats licked at them, as if they were normal house cats. Then they walked over to me and the look they gave me somehow reminded me a of a small child who has just met new visitor and was told that the visitor had a present for it.

“You can pet them, if you want to”, Mr Tuniak said.

“What kind of animals are they?”, I asked. I slowly extended my hands as well and tried to touch the cats, but when one of them raised her head and tried to sniff on them, I drew them back immediately.

“They are ligers”, Mr Tuniak explained. “Their father was a lion and their mother a tiger. And you really don't have to be afraid. Those two are vegetarians.”

We walked through the forest, accompanied by the two cats. One of them stayed in front of us, the other behind us, as if they were two guides who had to make sure that we wouldn't get lost.

The forest was similar to the one on the island Leviathan. It wasn't very thick and its main purpose was to block the view from the sea to the land. Once passed it, we came to a large grassland, populated by so many different animals that I can't even remember half of them. In its middle was a big house and placed at irregular intervals smaller buildings surrounded it. Most of them were small huts or cages that one thing in common: Their doors were open.

Mowgli and Alexander left the beach, while the liger stayed with the time machine as if it was a watch dog. Behind the forest, there was a huge construction site, where countless small huts and one big house were being built.

“What are you building here?”, Alexander asked surprised.

“I'm not quite sure yet”, Mowgli admitted. “I told my bank that it would be a safari park, otherwise they wouldn't have lent me all the money I need. But I'm not sure if I really want strangers walking around between the animals. Maybe just small, selected groups. I don't know yet.”

A chimpanzee came running towards them. In his hands he was holding a banana peel, which he showed to Mowgli.

“What does he want?”, Alexander asked.

“He's called Charlie”, Mowgli replied. “And he is showing me that he has eaten his banana and now wants his sweets. Come, let's go inside.” He took the banana peel from the ape and together they walked to the only finished hut in sight. On one of the walls of the hut, several symbols were painted, none of which Alexander could recognise. Charlie pointed to one of the symbols and then at Alexander. He repeated this several times.

“He wants to know who you are”, Mowgli explained. “A friend.” The ape pointed to another symbol. “Yes, you got it”, Mowgli said. He went into the hut and returned, carrying several biscuits in his hands, which he gave to Charlie. The ape ate two of them, gave a third one back to Mowgli and offered the fourth to Alexander.

“That's how he show that he wants to be your friend too”, Mowgli said. “I'm afraid you have to take it, if you don't want to insult him.”

We passed a wooden table, on which four hammers were placed. There were thin, metal chains that connected the hammers to the table to make sure, that no one could remove them.

“Take one of the hammers and see what happens”, Mr Tuniak told me.

I did, as he told me and waited. For five seconds, nothing happened, but then a crow landed on the table. In its beak it was carrying a nut, which it placed on the surface of the table. It waited a moment and then rolled the nut closer to me and looked at me expectantly.

“Does it want me to...?”, I started to ask, when a second crow landed right next to the first one. It put a nut down in front of me too. But it seemed to has less patience, because immediately afterwards it began to cark. “Do they want me to smash the nuts?”, I asked and Mr Tuniak nodded. So I did smash them and the two crows picked out those pieces they wanted to eat. A third crow landed, again putting a nut on the table.

“Smash that one quickly as well and then put the hammer back”, Mr Tuniak advised me. “Otherwise more birds will come and we will never be able to leave.”

They walked along the borders of the estate. Alexander could only guess at its size, but it had to be enormous. Mowgli had to have accumulated a small fortune to be able to buy it and finance all the construction work.

“Is there a fence behind this hedge?”, Alexander wanted to know. “Or how do you stop the animals from leaving?”

“I like to think that they don't want to leave anyway”, Mowgli answered with a smile. “But otherwise... no, there is just this hedge.”

“Only these bushes?”, Alexander asked and pointed at the plants that were several metres high.

“You can try to pass through them.”

Alexander accepted the challenge, but after a few tries he had to admit defeat. The brushes of the hedge were grown so closely to each other and their branches were interwoven so tightly, that it was impossible to pass through.

“I had the idea for this kind of... fence, when I read about the Great Hedge of India”, Mowgli told him. “It's also why I call it jokingly the Small Hedge of India.” They turned their backs to the hedge and returned to the small hut.

In front of the main entrance of the big building – I guess, villa would be a more appropriate description – a woman was kneeing on the ground and creating a complex pattern with white powder. It looked to me like a cross between the plan for a labyrinth and a mandala, but later I was informed that it was actually a Kolam and the white powder was rice powder. We waited silently for her to finish. I saw two chimpanzees coming towards us, but as they saw what the woman was doing they waited with us.

“Hello, Kunjana”, Mr Tuniak said, as the woman was finished and stood up. Kunjana was Mowgli's wife and after being introduced to her and after the two apes had gotten what they came for (two pieces of long rope and I don't know what they needed it for), we entered the house.

We came to a big hall, where several waiters were preparing a rather large buffet. All the dishes were protected by glass lids.

“I hope you don't mind, but I haven't eaten anything yet”, Kunjana said. She took a plate and put fruit and bread pieces on it. Mr Tuniak and I did the same, not because we were hungry, but because it was the polite thing to do. “The first group today won't arrive for another thirty minutes, so we have some time”, Kunjana said.

“So the park is still going well?”, Mr Tuniak asked. Kunjana nodded and he continued: “That's great to hear. We came her to visit Mowgli. Does he have a lot to do today?”

“I don't know”, Kunjana said. “He went to the city yesterday... about the plans for... Did he tell you about his plans for the bay?”

“Yes, he did”, Mr Tuniak answered and explained to me: “He wants to built a... well, an open aquarium there, basically.”

I wanted to take one of the grapes that were on my plate, when a parrot was landing on the table next to it. “Hello, how do you do?”, the bird asked.

I was so surprised by the question, that I didn't answer or move. The parrot took the opportunity – I'm pretty sure he had expected my moment of surprise – and picked up the bunch of grapes. Then he flew into the air and landed on top of a cupboard.

“He, Maina, what do you say?”, Kunjana asked laughing.

The parrot stayed at the cupboard, looked first at her, then turned to me and cried: “Thank you!” Then he began eating the grapes.

“We can't stop her from stealing, but at least she is thanking her victims afterwards”, Kunjana said. “But back to Mowgli. He and Neela went to the city and I'm not sure, when they will return. Could be evening, could be tomorrow. You can of course wait, if you want to.”

We decided to do exactly that. Time passed quickly among all the different animals and as evening came, Mowgli and his daughter hadn't returned yet.

“I guess, we will have to come back next week”, Mr Tuniak said.

NEXT WEEK

Sports is the toy department of human life.

Das Schönste, was wir erleben können, ist das Geheimnisvolle.

(The most beautiful thing we can experience, is the mysterious.)

- Albert Einstein

„The simplest way to find out what my friends were doing, was by going back to Leviathan“, Mr Tuniak explained. „Practically everyone who ever went to school there stayed in contact with it for the rest of his or her life.”

“Was Alice accompanying you?”, I asked.

Mr Tuniak was hesitating for a moment before he answered: “Yes, we went to Leviathan together. But there, our ways... separated. She stayed at Leviathan for several years and became a teacher there.”

Juan and Alexander were walking along the beach of the island together. On the horizon they could see huge cloud towers building up. A thunder storm was coming this evening.

“You have grown old, what did you do all these years?”, Juan wanted to know.

Alexander was looking at him in surprise. “You mean my mothers didn't tell you? Or Sarina?”

“No, should they have?”, Juan asked.

Alexander shook his head. For a few short moments he was contemplating if he should lie to Juan and make up some kind of story about what Alice and he had been doing with the time machine. But at the same time he knew that Juan would never judge him and therefore he decided to tell him everything. The only thing he did not mention was that Alice was with him the whole time and had helped him change the course of history. If she wanted to she would tell Juan herself, but he had no right to take that decision from her. Especially, since he had been offered the same choice.

“And what now?”, Juan inquired after Alexander had finished.

“I don't know”, Alexander admitted. “I thought I'd visit... my old classmates. Do you know where they are right now?”

“Ali is still here, you have already seen him, of course. Bill is coming back tomorrow, he went on a little shopping trip for me”, Juan began. “Mowgli has bought quite a big piece of real estate in India. He has opened something like a zoo there. Sarina is in London at her university... no, wait! Right now, she is at this one excavation site... in Crete, if I'm not mistaken.”

“And Cate?”

“She is at the South Pole.”

“Really? What's she doing there?”

“She is working for the Gemini Foundation and is helping with an expedition that started seven months ago. They are going across the whole of Antarctica. She is not travelling herself, but she is taking care of the base camps.”

Alexander was impressed that Juan knew what everyone of his former pupils was doing right now, where he was doing it and what he was planning to do in the future. It was one of the reasons why Leviathan would always feel like home.

“There is one thing I probably should have mentioned last time, but I can do it now too. I went to meet Sarina after our meeting in the desert.

“You met her, when you went back to the villa?”, I asked.

“No, later”, he corrected me. “After I had left Alice in New York, but before I went to the temple. Sarina was working at the university. She had just become... I think it was assistance professor. Something like that.”

Alexander wasn't sure when Sarina had found out that he was travelling through time and changing things. Because of this he didn't know when she had gone to his mothers and informed them about her suspicions either. But as he walking up the stairs to the third floor of the university, looking for her office, he estimated that about two years had passed from her point of view since their last meeting.

He knocked at her office's door. “A moment, please”, she answered from the other side.

“It's me, Alexander”, he said. “You don't need to put on your head scarf.”

The door was unlocked and opened by Sarina. “Come in”, she said and locked the door after him again. She didn't have to explain why she did this. It was clear that she didn't want her students to see her without her headscarf, but with her third eye. Her office was small, but offered enough space for a desk, two shelves, three chairs and one window.

“How are you?”, Alexander asked after they had both sat down.

Sarina pointed to all the papers that were lying on the desk. “I have to correct all these tests. Unfortunately, that's nearly all of what I do nowadays. Do you know, when they offered me this job they said that I would have enough time to continue my studies on Linear A?” Linear A was an old script, mainly found on the island of Crete. Sarina had written her thesis on it and the ongoing – and still unsuccessful – attempts to decode and translate it. No one could read it any more. “But once I got the job, they swamped me with all this administrative stuff. Honestly, I would like the university a lot more if there weren't any students here.”

“It's not so long ago that you yourself were one of them”, Alexander said.

“That's two years in the past”, Sarina said.

“I could help you”, Alexander offered. “Deciphering Linear A. I could go into the past and find out what some of the words mean for you.”

“No!”, Sarina said immediately.

“Why not?”, Alexander asked surprised. “I wouldn't tell anyone.”

“Besides other things, I don't want to get the laurels for something I did not do”, Sarina said. “I want to be responsible for my achievements, thank you. There is also another reason, but I'm not sure if you would understand it.” She hesitated a few seconds, before adding: “Besides: Wouldn't that be changing history again?”

“I don't know, but I'm pretty sure Juliette is watching everything I do right now very closely. She would intervene immediately”, Alexander said. “We should find out.”

Sarina was shaking her head. “I wouldn't risk to cross her if I was you”, she said. “Do you know what she wanted to do, when she found out about your changes? She didn't just want to reverse them, she wanted to change your past too.”

“She wanted to stop me from ever affecting any change in the first place?”

“Yes, but your mothers were against it”, Sarina said. “They argued that if mankind is allowed to make mistakes and learn from them, then surely the same must be true for a single man as well. Juliette agreed, but I wouldn't annoy her anyway.”

“I don't really plan to.”

For some minutes they were sitting quietly together.

“Why are you here?”, Sarina finally asked.

“I... I wanted to say good-bye”, Alexander said. “I'll be going to be away for some time... about ten years.”

“You want us all to be the same age again?” Sarina smiled. “So, you are not the first one who has to wear glasses? Right?” She pushed some papers aside that had hidden her reading glasses until now. “Well, I have you already beaten in that regard.”

“After returning to Leviathan, the first one I wanted to visit was Sarina”, Mr Tuniak explained. “She had become a full professor by that time and was working at an excavation site in Crete.”

“Crete? Had she managed to decode this old script?”, I asked.

“No, no one has, not even now”, Mr Tuniak said. “Although there are several promising projects going at the moment. They have managed to find out the meaning of a few words.”

“Can you read it?”

“No. The language was spoken over three thousand years ago on Crete. I've never visited it during that time.”

Sarina was no longer an assistant, she was employing one now. Her name was Filipa and like he, she had also lived on Leviathan for several years and left it recently. Together they were sitting in a tent and studying old pot fragments. Filipa was reading the letters out loud and Sarina was writing them down. The work on the site had ended for the day and the other workers had returned to their homes or to their tents, which is why the women were surprised when someone suddenly entered the tent.

“Alexander!”, Sarina recognized the newcomer immediately.

Alexander came in and the two hugged each other. Sarina then took a step back and looked Alexander up and down critically. “No”, she said. “You are still looking older than me. May I introduce Filipa?”

Alexander offered the young woman his hand as a greeting, but Sarina was shaking her head. “Come, let's go for a walk outside”, she said and took her headscarf that had been lying on the back of her chair. “Filipa, take a break until I return.”

After they had left the tent and walked quietly for a bit, Alexander wanted to know if Filipa had also come from Leviathan. “I ask, because you were not wearing your headscarf inside.”

“Yes, she does”, Sarina said.

“And why wasn't I allowed to shake her hand?”

“She cannot see movement”, Sarina explained. Looking at Alexander's face, it was clear that he didn't understand what that meant, so she added: “Imagine you see the world not as a film, but as a series of photos. Every time you blink, you get a new picture. That's why things like shaking hands are very difficult for Filipa. When she sees a hand, it has already moved. Writing is equally difficult for her, but we are making progress on that front.”

“And how are you?”, Alexander asked and pointed to her forehead. “Do you still pretend that you can see the future?”

“No, now I see into the past”, Sarina answered.

“And are you still trying to decipher Linear A?”

“Yes, and I think I'm getting somewhere with it. What did you do in the last ten years?”

Alexander told her about the year he had spent in the temple with Philip. Then they returned to the tent, but no one was thinking about doing any more work. They were talking about and remembering their time on Leviathan. Filipa also joined in and they exchanged memories about the things they had done on the island, Juan, the teachers they had had and what had changed and stayed the same. It became a long night.

“You didn't offer to translate the old script again”, I said. “Why?”

“Because by then I had realised that the script was not important in itself”, Mr Tuniak said. “I don't know if I can explain it properly, but... Sarina looked at research, any kind of research, not only as a way to invent or discover new things, but also as a way to train the brain. She is convinced that the human brain is only capable of all its fantastic feats, because it has been constantly challenged throughout human history. If you go back to the first humans and give them an air plane and show them how to fly it, they would have never developed into modern humans. We need riddles and mysteries, otherwise we are standing still.”

“And taking away this... mystery, would not have been a favour, but actually... what? Been a detriment? Am I getting this right?” I was a bit confused. “But you also said that she still hasn't managed to translate Linear A. So, what about unsolvable problems?”

“Those are the ones where the brain can really thrive.”

NEXT WEEK

There's more to this world than just people, you know.

You can't go home again.

- title of a novel by Thomas Wolfe

They were standing in the garden of the Villa Atterton and looked silently at the big building in front of them. Ten years had passed since they had seen it the last time. Ten years for them, but only one year of the villa. But still there were a few, subtle changes: windows had been replaced, parts of the roof repaired and there was new flower bed in the garden.

The door to one of the balconies opened and Bill exited. He saw them immediately, but it took him several moments to recognise them. “Alice? Alex?”, he cried in surprise. “You... have grown old.”

“You look well too”, Alexander answered after a moment's hesitation. “How are you?”

“Fine, fine”, said Bill.

“Is Mowgli there?”, Alexander asked.

“Mowgli? No, he is... well, right now he is probably still in London, but he should be getting on the ship in a few hours”, Bill told him. “He wants to go to India.”

“And Sarina?”, Alice wanted to know.

“She got a job at an excavation site”, Bill informed her. “Somewhere in France, if I remember it correctly.”

“And what are you still doing here?”, Alexander said.

Bill just shrugged as an answer. “Come in, the kitchen door should be open!”, he told them.

“For the others, we had only been gone one year, but a lot can and did happen... and change during that time”, Mr Tuniak told me. “New people were living in the Villa Atterton and on the Island Leviathan now, the next generation had taken over, so to speak. Of course, if we had wanted to, there would still have been a place for us at either of these locations.”

“But you didn't want to?”, I asked.

“Yes... no”, Mr Tuniak said. “At first we did want to go back. We, Alice and I, we wanted to just go back and pick our lives up just where we had left them. We thought we could pretend that our absence had never happened. We were of course wrong.”

“Because you missed a whole year. Couldn't you just have returned earlier?”

“The problem wasn't the missing year”, Mr Tuniak corrected me. “The problem was that a lot more time had passed for us. We were not only ten years older than all our friend, we also had lived through a lot of things during that time.” “He looked at me. “You are too young to have experienced this, but I'm sure one day you will. If you have a friend, a good friend, and you haven't seen him for a very long time and then suddenly you meet him again... the best case you can hope for then is that you will talk about what you have done since you last met. If the worst case happens, you will discover that you have nothing in common any more.”

“And that's what happened to you?”

“Yes.”

“Did... Bill and Mowgli and the others... did they know what you did?”

“No, only Sarina really knew”, Mr Tuniak said. “The others thought that we had just been travelling through time. Without aim or purpose. Just for fun.”

“So, what did you do then?”

“We are here”, Alexander announced, after the time machine had landed.

“And where is here?”, Alice asked. A week had passed since they had returned to the Villa Atterton. Fourteen days during which they had tried without success to get back to their former lives. Finally, they had had to admit that too much time had passed and had decided to once again enter the time machine.

“Where to?”, Alice had asked.

“That's a surprise”, Alexander had promised.

And so they had entered the time machine again and departed. Saying good-bye to the villa and its inhabitants had been surprisingly easy.

“Take a look outside”, Alexander suggested and opened the door of the time machine.

Alice did, as he had said. She saw that they had landed close to a big city. Trained by her countless travels through time Alice was able to pinpoint very quickly when and where she was. Small details (like the architecture of the buildings, the plants that were growing, noises she heard) combined in her mind to offer a full picture of where she was.

“It's the beginning, no the middle of the twentieth century... America”, she said to herself. “Oh, of course! That's New York!”

“Yes, New York, and the year is 1946”, Alexander told her. “I thought you might want to visit someone who lives here.”

“Whom do I know who lives...”, Alice started, before the penny dropped. “My parents”, she whispered, barely audible.

“I asked Louis”, Alexander said. “He told me when and where to find them. One year ago your parents met and it will be another two years before they move to England.”

Alice turned around to face him. “Why?”, she asked.

“The first time you asked me why I hadn't tried to change history, I thought you were only asking because of your parents”, he explained. “I thought that maybe you wanted to see them or maybe you wanted to bring them into the future. But in all our travels you never mentioned them. Not once.”

Alice was quiet for a few minutes before she answered. “I cannot remember them. But I do think about them. I do imagine who they were, what they did... Louis has of course talked about them a lot. Over the years my image of them has become... quite defined. But it is still only my imagine of them and not who they really are. In reality it is quite probable that they were very different from what I thought them to be.“

Alexander was nodding. “I imagined it was something like that. When you talked about Kingsleigh, I was convinced you were feeling the same thing about something.”

Alice started to laugh. “Oh, that is great. You are using my own words against me.”

“Not against you”, Alexander said. He was holding an envelope in his hand. “I have got the address of the place where your parents are working. It's a small circus that's currently doing performances in the city. We can go there or not. I leave that up to you.”

Alice took the envelope form him. “Let's go”, she said without hesitation.

“Alice decided to stay with the circus”, Mr Tuniak explained. “For two years, until her parents left America. There was no way she could ever get her childhood back with them, but it was some sort of compensation. At least, she had finally met her parents and she never regretted it.”

“She never told them that she was her future daughter, did she?”, I asked.

“No, of course not”, Mr Tuniak said.

“Did you stay with them the whole time?”

“No”, he said. “I journeyed on. We agreed that Alice would send a letter when she wanted to be picked up again. A letter to an apartment that Philip owned and where I could pick it – and then her – up. When we parted she told me that she wanted to stay a few months, but in the end she stayed two years.”

“And you just jumped two years into the future?”

“I wanted to do that but – to my own surprise, I must admit – I discovered that I wanted to spend some time alone”, Mr Tuniak said. “Nowadays you would probably say: I wanted to find myself or something similar.” His gesture made it clear that he didn't think much of that phrase. “Actually, I just needed time to think. I couldn't change history and I no longer had any desire to do so. But loosing that idea meant that I also lost what had driven me the last few years. If you want to put it that way: I had lost my purpose and was looking for a new one.”

Philip was walking with measured steps along the small path. From time to time he was leaning on his hiking stick, because he was feeling tired. He had walked a long way and the thin air exhausted him further. But his goal was finally right in front of him: an old monastery, which he had visited several times before. One day, he thought, he would build his own similar place of recluse.

He was walking through the field that surrounded the monastery and where monks were working. It had been several decades since he had last been here, but it seemed as if time had stopped at this place.

One of the men on the fields stopped his work and started to come over to him.

“Alexander?”, Philip said in surprise.

The man smiled. “Hello, Philip,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”, Philip wanted to know.

“I was looking for a quiet place to think”, Alexander told him. “And someone I know very well had suggested this place to me.”

Philip immediately knew that sometime in the future he himself would be this someone. “Did I also tell you that life here can be quite hard?”, he asked.

“I have already experienced that for myself”, Alexander said. “And I'm not sure if my old bones can actually stand it much longer.”

“If my old bones can stand it, it should be no problem for yours”, Philip said. “How old are you?”

“A bit over forty, I think”, Alexander said. “The work on the fields, I can manage. It's exhausting, but manageable. And if something is broken, I can repair it, no problem at all. But the fitness program they practise here...” He was shaking his head. “Every day there are new exercises. I'm the worst in my group, but I can't really tell you why. I do the same things as all the others. Honestly, sometimes I get the feeling they are secretly practising in their sleep. It seems impossible otherwise.”

“They do practise while sleeping”, Philip said. “They can control their dreams to a certain extent, so they can repeat their exercises in their sleep. And surprisingly, it does have an actual effect on their muscles.”

“Really?”

“Yes”, Philip said. “Didn't they tell you?”

“They may have, but I've been here for three weeks and I am still having troubles with the language”, Alexander admitted.

“Three weeks? And how long do you plan to stay?”

“I stayed for nearly a year there”, Mr Tuniak explained. “It was the most quiet year in my whole life. I never used the time machine, not even once, during the whole time.”

“You did not tell me where this monastery was located?”, I said. “Not even the continent.”

“I was there two hundred years ago, I doesn't exist any more”, he answered.

Since he apparently didn't want to divulge any further information regarding the monastery's location, I changed the subject. “And what did you do, once the year was over?”

“I decided to return to my family... to my friends”, Mr Tuniak said. “The last time I had returned to the Villa Atterton, I had expected to find everything the same way I had left it. That way my mistake. We all change and there are some place not even a time machine can take you. But it had also been a mistake that I did not try to start something new. A mistake I had decided to remedy.”

NEXT WEEK

Das Schönste, was wir erleben können, ist das Geheimnisvolle.

Vous interdisez les erreurs vous empêchez ainsi la victoire.

(If you can't accept your defeats, you can't accept your victories.)

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Citadelle"

„After the meeting with my mothers in the desert, I had realised that I mustn't play around with history any longer“, Mr Tuniak told me.

„One meeting?“, I asked. „There was just this one meeting – and I still don't know what was really said there – and it was sufficient to make you change your mind completely?“ I looked through my notes. „All those change you did, all the things you mentioned... from your point of view several years must have passed, before your mothers found you. Years, during which you must have been absolutely convinced that you were doing the right thing. And you told me yourself and even invited Madame Debarou to one of our meetings to attest to it, that you were quite headstrong during that time and always sure that your opinions were the right ones. And now you are telling me that all it took to change your mind was this one meeting?“

„First: I could be very stubborn during that time, I know that. But I was never like that with my mothers or Juliette“, Mr Tuniak said. „Or Philip. Those four people were the only ones whom I trusted completely... and in the case of time, the nature of it and the course of history even more than myself.“

„And secondly?“

„And secondly, it wasn't that easy to simply stop“, Mr Tuniak said. „Especially Alice was not convinced so easily.“

„Do you believe everything they have said?“, Alice asked quietly.

„I don't have to believe it, I know it“, Alexander replied.

„Oh yes, the mysterious future“, Alice said. „Why is it that you have never shown me what's going to happen in three hundred years?“

Alexander shrugged. They were sitting on top of a sand dune and looking to the east, where the first rays of the sun were painting the sky a slight orange. Sun rise was not far. Behind them were the three time machines. Alice and Alexander had asked for a bit of space, so that they could talk privately with each other. Juliette had been against it, but Miriam and Helen had overruled her and granted it. Sarina had said nothing the whole time. She was just a quiet spectator and apparently satisfied with that role.

„I can show it to you, if you really want, but you might find it... scary“, he finally said

„After all the other journeys we have made?“, Alice asked.

„None of them went farther than the twentyfirst century“, Alexander reminded her. „My mothers are right. If we make a mistake... and we have already made several...“

„...all of which we were able to correct“, Alice interrupted him.

„Yes, but how long can we keep doing that?“, Alexander asked. „In case you didn't notice: We're not getting any younger. We may be able to travel throught time, but we can't stop it for ourselves.“

„Oh, I know, I have already discovered my first grey hair“, Alice joked, but neither of them was in the mood to laugh.

„One day we will be too old to travel any longer“, Alexander continued. „One day we will be too old to go back and correct our mistakes. And what then?“

„That still quite a long way off“, Alice said. „That's not really the reason, why you want to stop, is it?“

„My mothers could stop us any time they wanted to.“

„Even if that were true, it wouldn't really stop you. And I'm not convinced that it is. In fact, I'm sure that they couldn't even have found us, if you didn't want them to“, Alice said. „It's something else. Are you afraid of failure?“

„We have failed“, Alexander said. „We wanted to change the course of history and all we changed were a few small details.“

„But if you stop now, you can still claim... believe that you would have succeeded in the end, if your mothers hadn't stopped you“, Alice said.

„And what use would that believe be?“, Alexander asked. „Why would I want that?“

Alice looked at him. „Did I ever tell you about Sean Kingsleigh?“, she asked.

„Maybe... He was one of the secretaries for one of the audio play companies you worked for, wasn't he?“

„Yes. I didn't know him that well, really, but since we were working at the same place, I met him from time to time and we exchanged a few words. Once I'd asked him if he didn't want to write a book himself, what with him coming into contact with all the other writers and so. He answered that he had already done that. He had a completed manuscript in a drawer at home. But he had never shown it to anyone. I wanted to know why, of course. He said that as long as no one else had seen his writings, for all he knew it could be the best book that has ever been published. But the moment he shows it to someone, that possibility is erased, because – and there he got very serious – it was much more likely that it was just average. But as long as no one had read it, the possibility still existed.“

„Then why did he write it at all?“

„Maybe he hoped to become the next Kafka and be declared a genius after his death“, Alice said.

„A potential genius“, Alexander smiled. „That makes us potential...“ He couldn't think of a fitting word.

„Why only potential?“, Alice asked. „We still could...“

„We have tried it.“ Alexander put his hand on hers. „We have tried it and it didn't work. Even before my mothers found us. How often have we considered of taking glass to China, because we saw no other options? I agree with you, people often avoid taking risks, because they fear that they might be disappointed. But I don't think we are among those people. We did try it. And there comes a time when one has to admit defeat.“

She took his hand. „Ok“, she said after a while.

„Did you really want your mothers to find you?“, I asked.

Mr Tuniak tried to evade the question. „I don't remember any more. I did know that the time machine was recording every journey it ever made, but I don't think I thought any further than that.“

“Did you have to go back and undo all the changes you've made?”

“No, no, time itself took care of most of our changes”, Mr Tuniak explained. “Many things just, well, got lost with time, became forgotten and insignificant. There were things, we had to do ourselves. Like, for instance, all the companies we had founded.”

“Couldn't you just dissolve them? Fake bankruptcy or something like that?”, I asked. But then I realised what he actually did. “No, you didn't, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to visit them in Alaska. You hid them.”

“You can put it that way, yes”, Mr Tuniak agreed. “We didn't want to simply dissolve them. Many people were working for us and we thought it would be unfair to them, if we just fired them although they had done nothing wrong. So we offered them to stay with the company under one condition: Everything they did or invented had to stay secret. It was not an ideal solution, I know that, but I think it was the best we could do under the circumstances. But not everything was as easy.”

The archive was completely cleaned up. The cabinets and cupboards were empty and there were no papers left in the drawers and shelves. Apart from the furniture, the whole building was empty.

Mme Debarou was waiting at the main entrance and looked one final time up the wooden staircase she had gone up and down so many times. But now, no traces was left of her work or even of herself. It was as if she had never been here.

“I wonder if it will ever be known what happened in this building”, she said to Alexander who was standing next to her. “What I did here...”

“Like all secrets, I'm sure it will be revealed some day”, Alexander said. They left the house and he locked the door behind them.

“One more thing”, Mme Debarou said. “You wanted me to check on all the people you came into contact with during your travels. I've found this.” She gave him several sheets of paper. “It's about Henry Cavendish.”

“He became crazy?”, Alexander asked. “Because of us?” There was only one way to find out.

The time machine had landed not far from Cavendish's house. It was the eighteenth century, a late summer's evening and Alexander knew that he would find the inventor in his working room. He entered the house through a door at the back of the building which Cavendish had built for precisely that purpose.

“Henry, how are you?”, Alexander asked anxiously.

Cavendish, who had been reading a book, greeted him friendly and shook his hand. “Very well, thank you”, he said. “Why do you look so worried?”

Alexander was glad to hear that and also that Cavendish was one of the few people who knew about his true identity and where he came from. It made talking to him a lot easier. “I've read you biography”, he said. “It said that you were crazy.”

“Oh, that”, Cavendish laughed. “I'm just pretending.”

“You are pretending to be crazy? Why?”

“I thought it was the simplest way to make people forget about me and what I discovered”, Cavendish explained. “They won't take a closer look at my work know, because they will think it's just the mad rumblings of a crazy mind. And thus, history remains unchanged.”

Alexander felt as if he had been struck by lightning. “I don't know... what to say...”, he stammered. “I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry. If it wasn't for me, you could have become the greatest genius of this century...”

“Maybe, and maybe not”, Cavendish said. “Fact is that, thanks to you, I've seen things I wouldn't have thought possible otherwise. Why should I care what people think about me in a hundred years time. I'll be dead anyway.”

Alexander still didn't know what to say. “If I can do anything for you...”, he offered.

“Come and visit me”, Cavendish suggested.

“As often as possible”, Alexander promised.

“What happened to Mme Debarou”, I asked. “What did she do, once you closed your archives?”

“I offered her to stay in the present – the time she was in at that moment – but she wanted to go back to the past – to her time”, Mr Tuniak said. “She had aged a few years, but she told all her friends and her family that she had been working and living in the United States. At the beginning of the 30ies she moved to London. Luckily.”

“She lived through the Second World War? She didn't want to skip it?”, I asked.

“Quite the opposite in fact”, Mr Tuniak explained. “She was actively involved in it, although she had to keep secret about it for several decades. She was working at Bletchley Park. Have you heard about it?”

“No.”

“The British secret service had a base there”, Mr Tuniak said. “She was one of several code breakers who managed to break the code of the Enigma machine.”

“Are you still meeting her from time to time?”, I asked.

Mr Tuniak nodded. “Yes. I check up on everyone whose life I'd tried to change. It's the least I can do.”

NEXT WEEK

You can't go home again.

Irrtümer entspringen nicht allein daher, weil man gewisse Dinge nicht weiß, sondern weil man sich zu urteilen unternimmt, obgleich man doch nicht alles weiß, was dazu erfordert wird.

(Errors happen not only because we don't know certain things, but also because we are willing to judge without knowing everything that is necessary to judge.)

- Immanuel Kant

„It was not easy for Sarina to find my mothers“, Mr Tuniak said. „After I had left Leviathan, their presence there had also become more sporadic. They went there, but not as often or as regularly as before. Still, it was the most likely place for Sarina to meet them, so that's where she went. Back to Leviathan.“

„You have already mentioned once that it is very difficult to find a time traveller“, I said. „How did they find you eventually?“

„One thing at a time“, Mr Tuniak said. „The time Sarina had to spend waiting, she wasn't idle. That wouldn't be like her. She had brought a lot of different books and magazines about history and old cultures. She read as many of them as she could. She had to wait three weeks, before my mothers turned up and in this time she read nearly everything she had brought along.“

„What for?“

„She wanted to find out if I had changed anything else“, Mr Tuniak explained.

„How could she?“, I wondered. „With one exception – the book about the early cultures in Polynesia – she had no books from the... unchanged version of history, did she?“

„No, she didn't“, Mr Tuniak agreed. „But she was searching for events or developments that seemed to appear out of nothing. Things that seemed to happen without prior reason. Inventions that had come from nowhere and seemed to be far beyond what people could achieve at a specific time.“

„Do you know if she found the changes you made?“

„Some. Not all of them and there were several instances and inventions where seh suspected my doing, but where I had nothing to do with it. But she got quite a few right. Finally my mothers returned to Leviathan and Sarina showed them everything she had found out and told them everything she suspected. My mothers were convinced very quickly that someone had been playing around with time, but they were not immediately convinced that it was me. But in the end they had to admit to that as well, because no one else had a time machine that...“

„That's not true“, I interrupted him. „Juliette had one as well, You gave... or you will give it to her.“

„While it is true that Juliette is responsible for a few changes in history, her interfering was... is... of a completely different kind“, Mr Tuniak explained.

„Juliette changed history too?!“

„I know, I know, you probably think everyone with a time machine is suddenly playing around with history“, Mr Tuniak said. „But she made changes to correct other changes.“

„Why are we meeting here?“, Sarina asked, after they had entered the bar. She felt as if she had passed a thousand miles with only one step. On the other side of the door she had just passed, was Melbourne. Hot Melbourne. Inside this house it was like on the South Pole. The whole bar had been built using only ice blocks. The tables, the chairs, the walls... everywhere she looked she only saw ice.

„Why not?“, Miriam asked.

„We meet Juliette on a regularly“, Helen explained. „And before we part, we agree on a time and a place for our next meeting.“

„In between those meetings, different amounts of time pass for her and for us“, Miriam continued. „From our point of view, we have seen Juliette about ten days ago. I think it's safe to say that from her perspective, several months will have passed.“

Sarina saw a woman, who was sitting alone at a table, stand up and wave at them. She had never seen Juliette before, but it became immediately obvious to her that she had to be that woman. Sarina had expected to meet someone about her own age. Alexander had told her about Juliette and in his description she hadn't been much older than himself. But the woman who greeted them now was at least ten to fifteen years older than Sarina.

„You look serious“, Juliette said, after she had been introduced to Sarina and they had all ordered drinks.

„Sarina has found something... disquieting“, Helen said.

Sarina told her of her discovery of the two seemingly identical books and the suspicions they awakened within her. She also told her of all the other strange things she had found throughout history and which she thought were connected. Once she had finished, the other three women were quiet for a while, each following their own trains of thoughts.

“No big damage has been done yet”, Miriam said finally. “If we find him now, all his changes will erase themselves with time.”

Juliette answered quickly and in French. She spoke for quite some time, but Sarina didn't speak French and therefore didn't understand a word of it. Juliette noticed it and stopped. She started again this time in English, but it was a lot slower and she obviously difficulty in translating her thoughts.

Helen took over for her. “Imagine time as a long street”, she said. “What Alexander is doing at the moment is creating by-passes that lead away from the original path, but after a while they return to it again. So in the end, nothing much has changed. But if he creates too many of these by-passes, suddenly you won't return to the original street, he will have created a new one. Which means that history has completely changed.”

“Would we notice that?”, Sarina asked.

“Yes, we would... in a way...”, Juliette started, but never finished. Instead she began a new thought. “To be on the safe side, we should act as if his changes would erase our time line and us.”

“We are getting erased?”, Sarina cried horrified.

“No, we are not”, said Miriam calmly. “Juliette just has a... slightly different and stricter view regarding time. But we still have to find Alexander and make sure that he stops meddling with time. He has to see reason.”

“We are going to take the time machine away from him”, Juliette decided.

“That depends on him”, Helen said. The women looked at each other for some time. One could feel that a whole silent discussion was going on between them. Then Juliette lowered her eyes and nodded nearly imperceptibly.

“How are we going to find him if he can be anywhen and anywhere?”, Sarina asked.

“Gibraltar?”, Juliette suggested, but Miriam shook her head. “We already checked there. He didn't leave any notes. But there is another place where all our travels are chronicled.”

“How do you think my mothers found me?”, Mr Tuniak asked with a slight smile. The way he put the question, the way he looked, when he said it, convinced me that the answer had to be something simple and obvious. But I couldn't imagine what it was.

“With all the changes Sarina discovered in history, you could.... somehow...”, I tried.

“No, much simpler”, Mr Tuniak said. “The time machine stores all the information to every trip it ever made. It's basically like the history page of a web-browser, where you can look up when and where it has been.”

“And that's why your mothers had to go to Juliette”, I said. “Because she had gotten the time machine from you, which means that from her point of view, all your travels had already happened.” As I said, the answer was very simple and somewhat obvious.

“My mothers and Juliette... and Sarina... Sarina accompanied them too, found Alice and me close to a village in Persia.”

The sun had gone down quite some time ago and Alexander again noticed with a small part of his brain how quickly the air in the desert cooled at night. But that was only of slight interest now. The main part of his attention was focused on the two time machine that had materialised several metres in front of him and Alice. He also noted that they were blocking their way back to their own time machine. Even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't run away now. But he didn't want to anyway. He had known for some time – maybe not consciously, but definitely subconsciously – that sooner or later he would meet his mothers again.

The time machines opened and Miriam, Helen and Sarina exited one, Juliette the other. No one said anything, no one knew quite how to start.

“What do you think you are doing?”, Juliette asked fiercely.

“Making the world better”, Alice answered, matching her voice. “Something you should be doing as well.”

“You are risking the exact opposite”, Juliette countered. She wanted to say something else, but Miriam put a hand on her shoulder and said: “Why are doing this? What is your goal?”

“To hasten the technological development of the human race”, Alexander said. “Things, like the Dark Ages in Europe, have put humanity back several centuries from where it could be. It was only in the nineteenth century that electric lights were invented, it could have happened so much earlier.” He crossed his arms in front of his breast. “Where is the danger in that?”

“Have you ever visited the future?”, Helen asked. “Have you ever been in the twenty-fourth century?”

Alexander nodded. Some time ago, he had found out that his mothers had never travelled further into the future than that time and he had been curious why. He had wanted to know, what had made them turn back from there. What had happened – or what would happen – in the future?

“Do you know what you have seen?”, Miriam asked. “Did you understand it?”

“I think so”, Alexander said. “But nothing we did, endangers that future. On the contrary: If we succeed, it will happen a lot earlier. We can...”

“It mustn't happen earlier”, Juliette interrupted him.

“What's all this about?”, Alice asked.

Helen looked at her thoughtfully and then said: “Throughout history, certain things will always happen.” She pointed to the waxing moon, whose light dominated the night sky. “For instance: Humans will always travel to the moon, no matter how much you change history. They will always see the moon in the sky, they will always tell stories about her and they will always try to reach it. They will try so long until they have gone there.”

“The first story about a journey to the stars was written in Ancient Rome”, Miriam continued. “It took nearly two thousand years from that moment until the moment when the first human touched the surface of the moon. But he did get there. You of all people should know the power of stories.”

Alice nodded. “Once a story has been told, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a reality.”, she said, sounding as if she was quoting something she had read a long time ago.

“But while some things will always happen, the reason why they are happening is subject to change”, Helen said. “In your future there will be another such event. It will be huge and change the world and humanity for ever. If it happens for the wrong reasons, Earth will... will turn into a terrible hell. If it happens for the right reasons, it will turn into a paradise. At the moment, it still happens for the right reasons.”

“But if you help humanity and don't allow it do make mistakes, it will never learn certain things... and it will never fear others”, Miriam said.

Alexander wanted to answer something, to counter their arguments, but doubts had been raised within him. “But I've changed things in the past”, he said. “When I trained to be a photographer, I...”

“We were watching you back then”, Helen said.

I'm sitting in front of my computer and re-reading what I've just written. I am not satisfied. I know that the meeting in the desert must have happened a bit differently. I know that I have only told part of what had happened back then. I also know what is missing. To understand why Mr Tuniak stopped meddling with time, it is necessary to know what he had seen in the future.

“That is your future as well”, Mr Tuniak answered, when I asked him that question. “I'm not sure if I should reveal any of it to you.”

“But it is also an important part of your history, is it not?”, I said.

Mr Tuniak had to admit that it was. “Maybe I will tell you about it some day. Not today, I will have to think about it.”

As was already at the door and ready to leave the office, when he called me back once more. “If I tell you what happens in the future – and this is not a promise that I will – but if I do it, it will be at our last meeting, not before.”

NEXT WEEK

Vous interdisez les erreurs vous empêchez ainsi la victoire.