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.