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.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

- Thomas Carlyle

„Cailinn and I studied Babbage's house for several days, but in the end we really couldn't do much“, Mr Tuniak told me. „Cailinn decided to travel back to England, but she wanted to return as soon as possible.“

“You did not go with her back to England?”, I asked.

“No, I claimed that I had other things to do somewhere else, business deals, and we parted in Italy”, Mr Tuniak said.

“What kind of business deals?”, I wondered. “What did you say you had to do?”

“I can't remember any more”, Mr Tuniak admitted. “But whatever it was, Cailinn accepted it without further questions. She had already guessed a lot about where I came from, a lot more than I suspected. Maybe that was the reason, why she didn't ask any questions... Whatever the reason, we agreed to meet in London again, a few months later. At that time Cailinn was sure that she would have managed to go a second time to Babbage's house and return.”

“Where did she get the money for the second journey?”, I asked. “I know you payed for the first one...”

“I payed for the second one as well”, Mr Tuniak said. “Or, to be more accurate, the money came from Philip both times. And Cailinn's second journey was quite a disappointement.”

They hadn't agreed to a certain date, but when Alexander returned to London, a telegram was already waiting for him. He had given her the address of a friend and that friend told him that the telegram had arrived a few days before. Alexander read it quickly. Cailinn had written that she was staying in a small hotel for a few days, before returning to Scotland. She didn't mention anything about her second journey.

Alexander went to the hotel the very next day. It was really quite small, run by a family, but Cailinn couldn't afford a room in one of the bigger hotels in the city. He knocked at her door, which was opened a few moments later.

“Miss Noneach”, Alexander greeted her.

“I did tell you to call me Cailinn, didn't I?”, she returned, before stepping aside to let him enter.

Alexander immediately saw that he had pretty much come at the last possible moment. Two full suitcases were lying on the bed, a train ticket on the table. A few hours later and she would have been gone.

“You took your time”, Cailinn said, closed the door and sat down on the bed. Alexander remained standing in the middle of the room. He felt that something had happened and whatever it was it had changed Cailinn's opinion of him.

“How was it in Massa di Somma?”, he asked.

“What do you think?”, Cailinn said angrily. But when she saw that Alexander had no idea what she was referring to, her mood changed immediately. “Oh, you really don't know what happened.”

“What did happen?”, Alexander asked confused.

“Mount Vesuvius erupted”, Cailinn told him. “Three weeks after we left there. The whole town got destroyed and there is nothing left of Babbage's house. I went there, in spite of that, but I couldn't do anything.”

“I'm sorry”, Alexander said and sat down on one of the chairs at the table.

“Ah, well, it isn't your fault”, Cailinn said. “You couldn't know what would happen, now, could you?” She laughed, but Alexander wasn't sure if the last question had really been just a joke or if there were more serious implications behind it.

“What are you going to do next?”, he asked, to change the subject.

“For now, I will return to my grandfather”, Cailinn said. “I will write you down, where he lives, you should come and visit us some time. I think I will take some time to write everything down I can remember about Babbage's place... I have a few sketches... After that...” She looked out of the window as if she could look into the future. “I don't want something like that to happen again. But I don't know how it could have been prevented. Do you have any ideas?”

“I decided to let two years pass, before I went to visit her again”, Mr Tuniak said.

“Two years from her point of you, right?” I wanted to be sure.

“Yes, for me it was only a few weeks or maybe months”, Mr Tuniak said. “I had to make sure of course that Cailinn would be at her grandfather's, so I did not go there directly, but went to Edinburgh. There I asked around, until someone told me that she had gone to the south of England. So I went back to my time machine, travelled a few weeks into the future and asked again. This time, people assured me that she was at home, so I could finally visit her.”

There were a lot of open fields around Cailinn's grandfather's house. Because of that Alexander judged it to be too risky to land the time machine close to the building. Instead he hid it in a nearby forest and rented a carriage.

As he knocked on the door of the big mansion, it took several minutes, before a servant came and opened it.

“Whom may I announce?”, the servant asked, after having greeted Alexander as if he belonged to the high aristocracy.

“Alexander Tuniak, I'm here to see Miss Noneach”, Alexander said.

“She hast just left to meet someone at the train station, but...” The servant hesitated a moment, before he continued. “I'm sure she would want you to wait for her in the library.”

Alexander thanked him and agreed that he would wait there. An old man was sitting in the library, as old as Alexander himself, but with less hair on his head. He was reading a newspaper. He stood up to greet Alexander and introduced himself as Lord Noneach, Cailinn's grandfather. They talked with each other, until Cailinn returned. During their talk, Alexander noticed that Lord Noneach often looked to the door and was obviously relieved when his granddaughter returned.

“Alexander, you should have written that you planned to visit us”, Cailinn said, after having greeted and hugged him. “May I introduce: Hugo Delake.” The young man, who had accompanied her, shook his head. He was a detective for the police and it turned out that Cailinn had been able to help him solve two strange cases, which everybody else had declared unsolvable.

“In the first case, it turned out that a huge mirror had been used to set fire to warehouses”, Cailinn said. “You know the story of Archimedes and the siege? Well, what we found was that...”

She was interrupted by a servant who entered the library and announced that dinner had been prepared.

“I turned out to be a long night”, Alexander remembered. “Her... grandfather was the first to go to bed. He excused himself, claimed that he was not feeling well and that he would go to his room. But he urged us to stay as long as we liked. Hugo had go leave shortly after that, because he had to catch an early train the next day to get back to London. So, in the end only Cailinn and I remained in the library.”

“What are you thinking about?”, Cailinn asked. “And I want an honest answer.”

Alexander looked over to her. They had spent several minutes in comfortable silence. The servants had already gone to bed. “An honest answer?”, Alexander repeated the request. “All right. I was wondering who the man who introduced himself as your grandfather really was. I know that he is not your grandfather, but I can't figure out who he really is and why he didn't tell me his real name.”

“Why do you think I know?”, Cailinn answered with a smile. “But yes, I was curious how long it would take you to ask that question... What tipped you off?”

“When he told me his name, he said that he was Lord Noneach”, Alexander said. “But I know that that is not your real name. So, why should it be the name of your grandfather?”

“My real grandfather died several years ago”, Cailinn said. “Before he died, he wanted his servants to take over the estate. That's of course impossible, so we kept his death quiet. The man who claimed to be my grandfather is really the butler. He impersonates him whenever guests are expected. If friends of my grandfather show up or people who might have known him – which is thankfully not that often – then I am greeting them and tell them that my grandfather is unfortunately not here at the moment and we are not sure when he will be back.” She looked back at Alexander. “You owe me a secret now.”

“I do?”, Alexander asked amused. “What do you want to know.”

“Who are you? You were not born in this society. I noticed that the first time we met, the very first instance, but...”

“How?”, Alexander wanted to know.

“You never seemed surprised by the fact that I am wearing trousers”, she said. “A woman wearing trousers seems to be common for you. Even Hugo... I like him a lot and he is thankfully a lot more modern than most men I know... but even he can't help it and sometimes has to say something about the way I dress. Or that I like to travel alone.” She pointed at Alexander. “Or be in a room alone with a strange man. For you it seems to be quite normal. And you were not surprised by Babbage's house. Fascinated, yes, but not surprised. I had a theory about who you are and were you come from, but then you didn't know about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. And according to my theory, you should have know, which reminds me...” She stood up and went over to the desk that was standing in one corner of the library. There was a thin pile of papers lying on the desk. She took it and gave it to Alexander. He saw that the sheets were pages of a manuscript. There were also sketches, tables and charts. Alexander read several of those pages and found a description of Babbage's house. “Those are all things I have seen and experienced in the last few years. I hope to write several such books in the future. About things that should not be forgotten.”

“I am sure you will write a whole bunch of those”, Alexander assured her. He remembered the books Sean had shown him in this very library, about a hundred years in the future. Cailinn had written dozens such books and their existence and the idea that had born them was what had led to the creation of Gemini.

“Are you?”, Cailinn asked. “But why didn't you know about Mount Vesuvius?”

“Because I didn't think about it”, Alexander admitted. “I forgot to check when the next eruption would be.” And thus, without actually saying it, he had admitted that he had come from her future. But it was no surprise for Cailinn, it was just the confirmation of something she had suspected for quite some time.

“Then I'll take it, that this will not be our last meeting”, she said.

“Definitely not”, Alexander promised.

“But if Cailinn knew that you came from the future and that you had a time machine, why didn't you take her back to Babbage's house before it was destroyed, so that she could take pictures and so preserve it for the future?”, I wanted to know.

“I did take pictures”, Mr Tuniak said. He showed them to me. There were two kinds of them: Those that were taken with a camera from the nineteenth century and those that were taken with a modern camera. “I offered the old photos to her, but she refused to take them. She said that she was glad that I had them, but that she didn't want them for herself, because this way she would always be reminded of the fact, that things can get easily lost, if we are not careful.”

NEXT WEEK

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

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

- William Tenn, „Of Men and Monsters“


„I told you that Dilara and Sean visited me in the hospital and to pass the time I asked them to tell me everything about the founder of the Gemini Foundation“, Mr Tuniak said.
„You mentioned it, yes“, I said. „But you haven't told me yet, what they actually did tell you.“
„I know“, Mr Tuniak agreed. „That's what today's meeting is partly about.“

There were three people in the little room. Alexander was lying on the bed, Dilara and Sean had sat down on two chairs right next to him. On the little table next to the bed, there were grapes and each of them picked one from time to time.
„Caileen is often called the founder of Gemini, but actually she hasn't founded it, nor was she ever a member“, Dilara began. „Gemini was founded after her death and posthumously she became a member. Like a guest of honour, you could say.“
„We don't know exactly when Caileen was born, but it was probably either 1848 or 1847“, Sean continued. „In hindsight, she was probably born about a hundred years early. The few things we know about her, show quite clearly that she was ahead of her time. It is also the reason why there was a big quarrel with her family, which led to her parents disavowing her. She left them when she was eighteen.“
„It would have been a big scandal, but her father did everything in his power to keep the whole thing quiet“, Dilara said. “That's also when she changed her name to Caileen Neoneach.”
„She only had one ally left in her family, her grandparents“, Sean said. „They were born during the time of the Scottish Enlightenment, so they were quite progressive people themselves. They accepted Caileen and what she wanted to do.“
„Rumour has it, that Caileen originally wanted to join the police, but of course women were not allowed to do that at that time“, Dilara explained. „With some financial help from her grandparents, she attended the university of Edinburgh. She never finished any studies, but she visited many of the lectures there.“
„It's also where she first met Charles Babbage who was visiting the university on a lecture tour.“ Sean again. „The last few years of his life she worked very closely with him. His family didn't approve of that, although there is nothing to suggest that the relationship was anything other than professional. Nevertheless, when Babbage died, Caileen was not invited to his funeral. His eldest son tried his best to ignore her. Babbage's funeral is also often cited as the first spark, the beginning of Gemini, because there she found...“
„Stop there“, Alexander interrupted him. „Don't tell me about that.“

„Why didn't you want to know, what Caileen discovered there?“, I asked.
„Because I had already decided then that I wanted to visit Caileen“, Mr Tuniak explained. „And you already know that I appreciate some surprises. I wanted to discover what she had found myself. A lot of newspapers wrote about Babbage's funeral, so it was easy for me to go there and find her. Which is what I did, once I was able to walk without help again.“

She hadn't gone to the funeral itself. The family of the late Charles Babbage had expressly told her that she was not welcomed there. But she had waited outside until the ceremony was over. She had tried to talk to Babbage's oldest son, but he had made it clear, that he had nothing to say to her. Nobody was interested in what she had to say.
Alexander had watched her from a distance. He followed her, when she left the funeral and went to a café. She sat down on a table alone, ordered some tea and started to read the newspaper. The other guests looked at her for only a moment, critically, and then ignored her.
Alexander went to her, closing in on her table from behind her and wanted to introduce himself, when she suddenly said: „Please, sit down.“ She turned and looked at him. Alexander saw that she was holding a small spoon in her hand which she had used as a mirror. „You have been following me for the last three streets, it would be polite by now to introduce yourself.“ She sounded genuinely curious.
„Alexander Tuniak“, Alexander said and sat down on a chair on the opposite side of the table. „And I have been following you for the last four streets.“
Caileen laughed out loud. „Where you at Babbage's funeral?“, she wanted to know.
„No“, Alexander said. „I didn't know him. But you seem to have known him better than his family.“
Caileen shook her head. „I wouldn't put it like that.“
„Then why are you apparently the only one who knows about a secret house, Babbage owned in Italy?“
„I was talking too loud, wasn't I? Especially for a funeral... But I only know about that, because I took a closer look at his documents than seemingly anyone else. Given time, I'm sure some else would have found it too.“ She leaned on the table. „But why are you interested in that?“
„I didn't know Babbage personally, but I have read a lot about his work“, Alexander said.“If fifty years ago he was really working on a secret project, I would be very interested. And if you have to go to Italy to find out more about that... I would be able to finance such a journey.“
Caileen looked at him critically. „Where are you from? I know you are no Italian, but I can't really place your accent.“
„I was born on Crete“, Alexander lied.
„No, you were not“, Caileen immediately replied. „But if you really want to help me to get to Massa di Somma, then I guess you are allowed to keep one or two secrets about yourself. Sooner or later, I will discover them anyway.“ And again she laughed. „You have to know: I like mysteries.“ She took the bag that had been standing next to her chair. She took several documents and laid them out on the table. „Those are the contracts Babbage signed in 1827. He bought an old house and he used it to built something big there, but there are no clues as to what that thing was.“
„You worked with him. Did he not mention anything?“
„You really didn't know Babbage. If I had become too nosy, he would have locked me out. You must have heard about all the complains he lodged against other people for... really minuscule stuff.“

„Of course, I didn't really have any money, I never have, but I contacted Philip and luckily he was able to help me out... as he usually does“, Mr Tuniak said. „Unfortunately, he was in East Asia during that period, so it took some time before I was able to have access to his funds. Several months passed before we could start our journey.“
„You stayed with Caileen the whole time?“, I wanted to know.
„Not during the preparations, no“, Mr Tuniak said. „But I had to travel by train with her to Italy, otherwise, she would have become suspicious... That journey felt like the longest one I had ever done.“

They had finally arrived in Massa di Somma. A new year had begun not long ago and a cold wind was blowing through the streets. They rented a horse-drawn carriage, because the house they were looking for was a bit outside the village, sitting right on the slopes of Vesuvius. It was built using only white stones and the windows were nailed shut with wood. The door was locked, but Caileen very quickly opened it anyway.
“You are not asking, where I learned to unlock doors?”, she wondered, while they were lighting their gas lamps.
“You let me keep my secrets, I'll let you keep yours”, Alexander answered. But he did wonder what Caileen was thinking about him. He knew that during their long journey he had accidentally let slip references to things not yet invented or discovered and he knew that Caileen had noticed every single instance.
“Who are you?”, Caileen asked, after she had entered the house.
Alexander followed her and immediately saw what she had discovered. Behind the door a human looking figure was standing. It reminded Alexander of a robot, but he realised that that word would be used only later and it took him a moment to find the appropriate term. “It's an automaton to open the door”, he said.
“And here is another one”, Caileen said and pointed at another metal figure. “I guess it's supposed to take your coat and... Yes, look! It's on wheels, so it can put the coat away.”
On the floor and on the automatons a thick layer of dust had collected. No one had been in this house for a very long time. Caileen and Alexander followed a long corridor and found a kitchen, a living room, a saloon and finally a library (although the books were missing and all the shelves were empty). Everywhere the furniture was protected by a piece of cloth and everywhere the automatons were standing like silent guardians. With some their purpose and functions were immediately clear, with others not so much.
“There must be something in the cellar to control all these machines”, Alexander observed, because he couldn't find any other way that it could be done.
“Probably”, Cailinn agreed. “Look at that!” They had entered the sleeping room and she had noticed that there were wheels like clockwork under the bed. “What do you think that is for? Do you think it's possible the bed can massage your back, while you are sleeping?”
Looking for a way down to the cellar, they got into a study. Another automaton was sitting behind a massive wooden desk, a feather pen in his hand and a glass of dried up ink in front of him. There was also a slot on the surface of the table. Caileen looked at it for a while and then opened something which she thought to be a drawer, but which turned out to be a small door. Inside the desk there were again countless cog wheels.
“You put your problem in the form of a data card, feed it into the slot here and then this automaton should solve it for you”, Alexander said. “It may even be able to draw things.”
“It's one of Babbage's analytical engines”, Cailinn added.
Eventually they found the door that led to the cellar. It was a single, huge room, several storeys deep. And it was filled with big and small cog wheels, so it felt like stepping inside a giant clock.
“I don't know where he thought he would get the power necessary to power all of this, but if he had... The whole house could be run by machines, no servants necessary”, Cailinn said. “Oh, why didn't I bring a camera? Apart from the fact that I can afford one, of course... This here is brilliant!” She took the small drawing board she had carried with her and started to sketch their surroundings.
Alexander, in the mean time, had found the beginnings of a tunnel that led away from the cellar. “Do you know what lies in this direction?”, he asked and pointed at the unfinished tunnel.
“Down here, no... Up on the surface... Vesuvius, I think”, Caileen answered.
“Then I know where Babbage planned to get the power from”, Alexander said. He pointed at something that were clearly the parts of several big steam engines, not yet built.
“Nice! He wanted to use the volcano”, Cailinn said in clear admiration. “Just wait, till the world knows about this!”

“A whole house, completely automated and built in the nineteenth century?”, I said. “Why have I never heard about something like that before? What happened to it?”
“It was built right next to a volcano”, Mr Tuniak answered. “What do you think happened?”

NEXT WEEK
All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

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.

Seine Briefe sind das schönste Andenken, das ich von ihm besitze...

(His letters are the most beautiful mementoes I own of him...)

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

„After what I told you last week, I'm sure you can guess that the time when my legs had healed again couldn't come too soon for me“, Mr Tuniak said. “And once I was able to walk again, I actually started several projects, more or less at the same time.”

“You wanted to make up for the time you had lost lying in your bed?”, I asked.

“You can put it that way”, Mr Tuniak agreed. “The first thing I decided upon was to return to Leviathan more often and on a regular basis, so that I could teach the new children there.”

“You mentioned that last week”, I remembered. “You also mentioned one of the children in particular... Ethan.”

“Yes, I know”, Mr Tuniak said. “About Ethan... well, maybe we will get to him later today. The other thing I wanted to do was work some more with Gemini. Shortly after my accident, my mothers joined that organisation and to my surprise they told them right from the start that they were time travellers. As for me... Even if I could walk again, I had to take care for the first few weeks, so any exhausting expeditions were out of the question. So, Gemini had to wait for the moment. This, of course, doesn't mean that I didn't travel a lot.”

“With the children from Leviathan?”, I asked.

“Exactly”, Mr Tuniak said. “When I was a child my mothers took my friends and me around the world and through time to anyplace and anywhere that might be interesting and now it was my turn. We travelled a lot and sometimes one of the other teachers came with us. Alice, for instance, joined us quite often.”

“Alice had returned to Leviathan as well?”, I asked.

“Yes, she had quit her job as a narrator for audio books and started writing herself”, Mr Tuniak told me. “Both fiction, like historical novels and non-fiction, like travel guides. Quite unusual guides too, they don't list facts, but tell stories and legends... Anyway, her new work had the advantage that she could write wherever she wanted and didn't have to live at one particular place.”

As I had entered the office today, I had immediately seen that Mr Tuniak had put a box on his desk. It wasn't big or in any way impressive looking, but once I had seen it, I had wanted to know what was inside that box. Now, just as my curiosity threatened to get the better of me and moments before I could ask, Mr Tuniak opened the box. It contained several letters.

“We didn't travel around the world just for fun, of course, the children were supposed to learn something with every trip”, Mr Tuniak explained. “After we returned, we always asked them to write down what they had seen and experienced. But Carla did something else as well: Your remember Carla?”

“The daughter of Cate, right?”, I said. “We met her on Leviathan and she took us in that little submarine down to the Gemini station in the ocean.”

“Yes, that's her. She had the idea of writing letters about our trips”, Mr Tuniak said.

“To whom?”, I wanted to know. “Her parents?”

“No, her parents were visiting often and well informed about what she did”, Mr Tuniak said. “No, she was sending letters to randomly chosen people. She looked up names and addresses on the internet and wrote the people she found, people she didn't know and had never met in her life, her letters.” He put some of those letters on the table between us. “When I thought about it, I asked her to copy those letters. I thought they would be a nice reminder of all the things we did. Normally, they are kept on Leviathan.” He pushed the letters over to my side of the table. “I went there yesterday and brought some back. Do you want to read them?”

Of course I wanted to. Here are three excerpts:

We were visiting your city yesterday. Are the thunderstorms there always so loud? I reminded me of the time we were in Catacumbo. Have you heard of it? It's in Venezuela. In South America. There is a thunderstorm that has existed for several centuries. The only time that it stopped was about a hundred years ago and even then only for about three weeks. And then it started again and hasn't stopped yet.

Yesterday, I felt as if I was back there.

We came to your city and went to the place where all the old factories are. At school we learned how animals and plants adapt to fit their environment. Last week we saw a moth that had changed the colour of its wings to resemble ash instead of the bark of trees. That way it's more difficult for birds to see them in polluted areas.

Today we saw that plants can take waste products and make something useful out of them. We went to a metal factory that for a long time didn't properly clean its waste water. Because of that, metals contaminated the ground. A lot of people had to leave their homes. But you probably know that.

Most plants, because they could not leave, died, but there are a few trees that survived. We drove to those trees during the thunderstorm. We wanted to observe them. Of course, we stayed in the car, it would have been too dangerous outside. We watched as lightning hit the trees several times. By the way, did you know that most lightning stays in the clouds and only a small part of it hits the ground?

The lightning strikes hit the trees, but the trees did not splinter, burst apart or start to burn. We waited until the thunderstorm was over and then went over to the trees. The bark of those trees is not brown, but there are very thin silver and grey lines running from top to bottom. They are metal lines, made using the metal in the ground. The trees took that metal and used it to make lightning rods along their trunks. If lightning strikes them they can harmlessly channel the whole energy into the ground. The trees only get a little bit singed.

You definitely have to take a look at those trees as well.

Have you ever worn protective clothing?

We had to do that today during our field trip. The things we wore were big and looked a bit like the suits astronauts wear. We had to walk very carefully and very slowly, because they were heavy and they were also covering our heads. We only had a small window to look through.

We needed those suits because we very going to a very dangerous lake. The lake is called Laguna Caliente. There's no normal water there, the water is like acid! There are no fish or other animals that can live in that lake. And it's right on top of a volcano. Sometimes the lake is spitting its water into the air where it becomes a dangerous fog. The lake is in the middle of a rain forest, but all around it there is only stone. That's because the acid fog has killed all the plant life. If you stay there for only a very short time, you don't need protective clothing. But we had wanted to stay there for several hours.

We were told about the lake by a man who lives in a city near by. I can't remember his name, because when he introduced himself, I was distracted by his finger nails. No two of them were the same length. I asked our teacher to ask the man why. The man said that his fingers were tools and if his nails were all the same length, then he would have ten identical tools. And he didn't need ten of one kind, so he cuts them different lengths.

The man also told us that the lake can change its colour. That's why we stayed there for so long. We wanted to see if that was really true. When we first saw it, the lake was green and blue. Like a normal lake. We waited. We waited several hours, before we saw that the water was slowly changing its colour. It got more and more grey. It even started to bubble.

When our teacher saw that, he said that we had to go. The bubbling meant that the lake would shortly be spitting its water into the air again. And it can spit very high, nearly a kilometre. We didn't want to stay for that.

I want to tell you something that may sound like a joke:

In Australia there is a boat race that takes place in a river. It's a big event and lots of tourist come to see it every year. But one year, the race had to be called off. “Why is there no race this year?”, a tourist asked the mayor. The mayor replied: “Because there is water in the river.”

That's not a joke. That really happened about ten years ago in Alice Springs. That's in Australia. One of my fellow pupils suggested that we visit the race this year.

It takes place in the dried up river channel of the Todd River. And it is important that there is no water in the river. At the “banks” signs are put up. They say “Don't Angle Here” and similar things. There are lifeguards and live buoys. It's like a real boat race, just without the water.

Everyone can join in the race, if he has a boat. You can built the boat whichever way you like to. It should be light enough, so that you can carry it through the river channel. All the boats are carried. That's why none of them have any bottom. But some people don't come with boats. I have seen a man who joined in the race with his modified bath tub.

During the race, you can attack your competitors. You mustn't hit them with your fist or and hard object, but you can use water pistols and water balloons. Some of the boat crews are very good at it and they call themselves “Vikings” and “Pirates”. But some are not so good and miss their targets. We were standing right at the “banks” to get a good view at the race. We were hit by two water balloons there. But fortunately, it was very hot and our clothes got dry very quickly again, although mine took the longest.

“I wish our school had done field trips like that”, I said and gave Mr Tuniak back the letters. “You must have been a very popular teacher, I'm sure.”

“Most of the time”, Mr Tuniak said.

“The pupil who wanted to visit this race... was it Ethan?”, I asked.

“Yes. He was born in Alice Springs and therefore knew the race very well. Although I should have noticed that during all our travels, he never seemed to pay that much attention to the places we visited, but a lot more to the time machine itself. But such things really only ever become clear in hindsight.”

NEXT WEEK

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