Confessions

"There's something I've got to tell you," says Dr. Ritenrong.

"Yes?" Doc looks up from the glass of 300 year old Chananna brandy the Host and Cook had thought to make in anticipation of their future arrival.

In the distance, the Sleipnirs dance a with a viking around the crystal pond beneath the orbiting Earth as the sun and moon rise.

"I caused the destruction of the galaxy."

Doc looks at Steve solemnly, as if the wind had just changed for the worse.

"It was the XD Drive. I stole the idea from Dmitri Valia. He was supposed to come up with the idea that neutrinos were just mathematical shadows of extradimensional high energy particles, and that by utilizing gamma reflectors and manuseisium electromagnetic-gravitational converters one can vector the full thrust of an antimatter reaction and accelerate a ship instantly faster than light. He was his era's Tesla, and I was his Edison.

"When I gave myself the power of time travel, I started a paradox that is going to destroy us all. But it won't happen all at once, just through a series of causal catastrophes that lead inevitably towards armageddon. The first thing I did with the power to time-travel was jump ahead to see the future. I took inventions refined from Dmitri Valias ideas back only ten years and held them up as my own. It brought me fortune and glory, but humans lept into the universe faster than they should have. That shortcut of only a decade slashed the continued existance of our galaxy from billions of years to a handful of centuries, and it gave extraordinary power to people like Admiral Spaaz.

"I've tried my best to undo what I've done, but it's like trying to influence a Pachinko game to get the ball into the one slot that won't trigger nuclear armageddon with my mind. And I'm the one who dropped the ball.

"I'm a poor scientist. I'm a thief. Hell, I stole my only true invention from myself. I was given power and the first thing I did was misuse it, and the rest of the galaxy will suffer the consequences. I know it wasn't me, or this iteration of me who did the actual deed, but I can't say that I would've done it differently were I in the same position as the version of me who was.

"You saved my life, though. I was supposed to die on that ship. I wouldn't have been able to escape again, to tell myself of the plight of the future. I would not have made it to that cave where all my other bodies lie, where the history of a hundred failed futures is carved on the wall. I would not have been able to add my own failed future to it, and I certainly would not have been able to write the one that succeeded.

"I don't think, now, that we can stop the destruction of the galaxy directly. Every time I do, it seems to bring a more powerful ship with a bigger, more powerful XD engine into the grasp of that insideous beast. It's like that being, or force, or whatever it's pan-dimensional name is- has control over me, and that by doing what I think is right, I'm only bringing it what it needs. It's as if the paradox its self is intelligent, omnipotent, and malevolent."

One of the eight legged horses, the foal, breaks away from the pack and approaches cautiously, looking for food. Steve extends a handful of dried insects, locust-cockroach crossbreeds designed to maintain a specific link in the food chain of this artificial paradise. The young horse strobes bright greens and blues as it munches merrily on the snack.

The viking comes to join them, sweating from the joy of playing with his new found companions. "So when will we meet Odin?"