There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.

- Tom Stoppard

„With the exception of Bill, Ethan knew more than any other of the children from Leviathan that the world isn't a perfect place“, Mr Tuniak said. „I told you that he was born in Australia. His mother was the child of Aboriginals. Do you know what happened to a lot of Aboriginal children there? Not any more, but for a very long time?“

„No“, I said.

„They were taken away from their parents“, Mr Tuniak told me. „For about a hundred years, from the middle of the nineteenth century right until the middle of the twentieth, children were taken away from their birth parents and given to foster parents. This way they wanted to make sure that the children would grow up in a civilised environment.“ I could see in his face how he despised that practice. „There are no exact numbers known, but Ethan's mother was one of the last children to be taken. The authorities took her right after her birth, right in the hospital were she was born and gave her to a new family. She never knew her parents.“

„And Ethan wanted to find his grandparents?“, I asked.

„In the beginning, yes“, Mr Tuniak answered. „But later he planned bigger things.“

After the boat race was over, the children were allowed to roam in the city of Alice Springs for a few hours without supervision. Alice had returned to the time machine, because there the air condition made the heat more tolerable for her. Alexander was sitting alone in a café, but not for long. Ethan sat down in a chair opposite him.

„You left the race before it was over“, Alexander said. It was just an observation, not an accusation.

„I have seen several like it“, Ethan said.

„Where did you go?“

„I was visiting... some people who I thought had information regarding the real parents of my mother“, Ethan said. „But it was a dead end.“

Alexander drank from his cool ice tea, before he said: „Why have you never asked me, if I could help you? You know it would be easy to go back to the hospital where your mother was born...“

„We don't know in which hospital she was born“, Ethan interrupted him. „We have a few guesses regarding the general area, but we are not even sure about that.“

„But your mother must know where her foster parents where living“, Alexander said.

„Yes, but we know for a fact that she was not born in the same city, we checked every hospital there.“ Ethan shook his head. „No offence, but if we thought that you could help us, we would have asked you. But I don't know how. I have spent entire nights thinking about this. I have devised thousands of plans to find my grandparents, but none of them have worked out... Sometimes I'm convinced that it is impossible. If there ever were any documents about the birth of my mother, then they are lost by now.“

Alexander nodded. He knew from his own experience that that sometimes happened. No hospital had a listing for his birth, for instance.

„You probably know several fates like ours from history“, Ethan continued.

„Yes“, Alexander said after a moment's hesitation. He had already guessed why Ethan had asked the question.

„Were you ever tempted to change the course of history?“, Ethan asked. „To change the destiny of the world?“

Alexander thought about his answer before replying. He had never told the children of Leviathan about what Alice and he had done. But looking at Ethan now, he knew that the boy deserved the truth. „Yes, I was“, he said.

„I told Ethan that I had once tried to change history or, to be more precise, to hasten it along“, Mr Tuniak said. „I did not tell him that Alice helped me and I didn't tell that story in as many details as I did to you. But when I had finished he knew what I had done and why I had stopped doing it.“

„You hoped that telling him about what you tried to do would stop him from trying something similar, right?“, I said. „But how could he? He didn't have a time machine like you, did he?“

„He had mine“, Mr Tuniak said. „During all the travels I took the children from Leviathan with me, Ethan had watched me control the time machine and he had learned. He was no expert of course, but he knew enough to use it.“

„And what did he want to do?“, I asked. „Did he want to change the legislation in Australia?“

„No, he wanted more.“

Philip and Alexander met in Cape Town, a few days after Philip had spent several weeks on Leviathan. Alexander was in the city, to gather information for the Gemini Foundation and Philip had agreed to help him. He knew one of the museum directors in Cape Town and with this contact he had managed to get Alexander access to his archive.

„Why don't you just travel to the Stone Age and take your pictures there?“, Philip asked, putting a stone that had once been used as a primitive knife on black velvet.

„I already did that“, Alexander said, adjusting the lights to get the best possible picture of the tool. „But this is not about the knife itself, but about the effects weather conditions and climate change and so have on it. Did you ask the director if I could pick out a small piece of...“

„You can not“, Philip said immediately. „And if I were you I wouldn't repeat the question again. As I asked him, he nearly withdrew his permission to even let you take photos.“

„A pity“, Alexander said. „A chemical analysis would have been very interesting.“

„Speaking of chemistry: Have you taught about molecular biology recently at Leviathan?“, Philip asked.

„No, not me. Why do you ask?“

„Ethan asked me a lot of questions about genetics recently. Things like Mitochondrial DNA or what gets passed on on the Y chromosome... I thought it was about one of the school projects. He even spends most of his nights at the laboratory.“

„And why did he ask... oh.“ It had taken a few moments for Alexander to remember that Philip had worked as a geneticists for some years in the middle of the twentieth century. He had taken the job, because he had wanted to know why he was an immortal. „I don't know why he asked you. He is probably just curious.“

„I really didn't think much about it at the time“, Mr Tuniak said. „The children on Leviathan are encouraged to pursue their own interest and any kind of curiosity is welcome.“

„Did you ask him why he was especially interested in genetics?“, I asked.

„I had planned to, but then I forgot about it“, Mr Tuniak admitted. „You must that during that time, I was not just teaching and working at the school. Parallel to that work, I also did a lot of research and projects for the Gemini Foundation. I will tell you about it next week or the week after. But not because it happened later, but because it's easier to first talk about Ethan and then about Gemini. Things may happen at the same time, but for simplicity's sake I'll tell you about them one after the other... So, several weeks passed and I didn't think about the little chat with Philip any more, until...“

It was night at Leviathan. Alexander was sitting on a canvas chair in the garden, a blanket wrapped around his body, looking at the stars. He heard soft steps in the grass and someone put two cups on the table next to him. Then the other man sat down on a chair next to him.

„I brought you some green tea“, Ethan said.

„Thank you“, Alexander said and took one of the cups. He drank a bit. The tea tasted slightly strange, bitter. „What are you doing here?"

„Waiting“, Ethan replied.

„Is one of the experiments in the lab taking longer than you expected?“, Alexander wanted to know.

„Something like that“, Ethan said. „I already got a result. I will show it to you, but first I...“

But Alexander never found out how the sentence ended. He fell asleep.

„...until one night, when he came to me, brought me tea he had mixed with a sleeping potion and kidnapped me and the time machine.“

When Alexander woke up again, it took him several minutes to make sense of his surroundings. He discovered that he was inside the time machine, but he couldn't remember having entered it. The door was open and a bit of cool air was wafting in. He could see a part of a red sky, so it had to be either morning or evening.

Alexander got up and left the time machine. Outside was a light forest and Ethan was standing there, waiting. In his hands he was holding a knife and a long branch, like a staff.

„I am sorry that I had to do this“, he said and came closer. He put the knife away and offered Alexander the staff. „Here, take this, I made it for you. You can lean on it.“

Alexander took the staff without saying a word.

„Come, I want to show you something“, Ethan said.

They walked in silence next to each other through the forest until they reached its end. There Alexander could see that they were on top of a hill and in front of him the grass was sloping down. Far away he could see the camp of a nomadic tribe. Judging by the form and shape of the tents, Alexander estimated that they were sometime in the Stone Ages.

„I have found Cain“, Ethan said and pointed to the humans that were busy in and around the tents.

„Cain?“, Alexander repeated. His mouth was dry.

„That's what I call him. You do know the Bible, don't you? Cain, the first murderer?“, Ethan asked. „The first time I heard about your time machine, I thought about using it to make sure that the Aborigines of Australia would never be suppressed. But then I thought that that would only be a small part in the tragedy of the world. What, if I could stop any tragedy? It was you who gave me that idea.“

„Me?“, Alexander asked, looking at the grown-up boy who didn't look at him, but stared straight at the tents.

„You told us that most Europeans nowadays are descendants of Charles the Great and most of the people in Asia of Genghis Khan“, Ethan said. „One origin. I have spent the last months, maybe even years, to trace back the ancestors of every dictator in history. Even those of mass murderers, as far as I could find them. They all led back to this man down there.“ He pointed at a young man who was skinning a rabbit. „If I kill him, I will prevent the birth of every dictator that has ever lived.“ Ethan turned and faced Alexander. In his face several emotions were visibly fighting with each other: fear, hope, doubt. „Tell me that I am wrong.“

„You are wrong“, Alexander replied. „If you prevent one dictator from gaining power, someone else will take his place.“

„Maybe not“, Ethan insisted. „I have watched Cain for several days. He is a cruel man. Maybe his genes are responsible for every cruelty any human ever committed.“

„You can't just blame genes for everything“, Alexander said. “And the fact that you have brought me here, shows me that you are not even sure of that yourself.” He let out a deep sigh and sat down on a stone on the ground.

“If you have the opportunity to stop a murderer, doesn't it become your duty to do so?”, Ethan wanted to know.

“But the man down there is no murderer, is he?”, Alexander replied. “But let's for a moment assume he is. Let's say that thanks to the time machine we have seen that tomorrow he will kill someone. Because of that, we kill him today and thus prevent the murder tomorrow. We would have killed a man who is still innocent.”

“But we know for sure what he would have done tomorrow.”

“Do we? If you admit that you can change time, that you can stop this man today, then you also have to admit that history is not predetermined. As soon as you allow for the possibility of someone changing history, history is no longer set in stone. It can change and you don't know for sure what is going to happen the next day. Maybe he will kill someone, but maybe he won't.”

Ethan thought about this and finally nodded. “I wouldn't have been able to do this anyway.” They turned around and walked back to the time machine.

“By the way: How did you manage to get all this research done?”, Alexander asked after a bit.

“Usually, when you were asleep”, Ethan said. “If one doesn't have to sleep, the day really has twenty-four hours one can use. It's a lot of time. I used the time machine at night to collect DNA samples, go to top research laboratories... The work I did in the lab on Leviathan was just preparation, the equipment there is too primitive to do actual genetic research.”

“What happened to Ethan afterwards?”, I asked.

“He is teaching now”, Mr Tuniak said. “On Leviathan and in schools in a dozen different countries. He still wants to change the world, but then, who doesn't? But he has learned that there are no simple solutions to big problems, because otherwise, they wouldn't be big problems. So he is now changing it slowly, one child at a time.”

NEXT WEEK

Most children are born with a wail. Rachel Estersdaughter was born with a laugh.