THE STORY SO FAR: In 1990 Jerry Staute is slowly coming to terms with the weird new memories of 1972 seemingly revealed to him by a recent assault. His fascination with regards to the new recollections continues to grow, as he recalls instruction in future technologies and being allowed to learn something of humanity's future history. A history which might change for the worse if he fails to help his time traveling captors return home.

I was in my room poring over shifting info, trying to come up with ideas for getting us all back home. Ling was working elsewhere, and I'd finished a discussion with Arbitur only moments before. I was alone.

And then I wasn't.

There was one small warning sign: the display from the archives inside my mind froze; that is, it didn't change as it should have in response to my interaction with it. But that was it. The only warning I got.

In the next moment the whole world instantly shrunk down and tried to shoehorn itself into my skull. Or at least that's what it felt like.

I just knew my head was going to explode. I could feel it blowing up like a balloon. I couldn't stop it; it was too late. Too late for everything. It all happened too fast.

As I realized I was about to die, the nightmare of all nightmares came rocketing out of Hell itself to join the implosion of the universe pouring into my head.

I felt abject terror.

I saw the face of the biblical Beast. I saw it reaching for me; coming at me with impossible speed, from the far end of the universe.

I knew I couldn't escape; I knew it had me.

Just as it reached me, I leapt forward to meet it, screaming bloody murder. Murder of the Beast!

Because I was going to do my damnedest to kill it. Even as it ate me.

Then everything went black.

I woke up confused. Bright light made me squint. I heard birds singing. I smelled pine trees. I felt the itchiness of grass against bare skin, and the caress of a warm breeze.

Then I remembered the Beast.

I was on my feet in an instant. Terrified, yes. But also mad as hell. Because if I had to be eaten, I sure wanted to get at least one bite myself out of the son-of-a-bitch doing it. I wanted to taste its blood at the same moment it did mine.

My adrenaline was pumping; but the Beast wasn't there.

I found I was near the top of a gently sloping grassy hill. At its crest was a single large crooked tree, and a small, gray, weather beaten shack.

I scanned the countryside all around. I could see for at least several hundred yards in all directions up and down the hill. The whole hill had but the one tree, so there was nowhere for the monster to hide. There were thick woods at the bottom of the hill, but they seemed free of any threat.

I began wondering what had made me think I was under attack in the first place.

Then I realized I didn't even know what I was doing here. Where was this? I couldn't see my car anywhere; or any car at all, for that matter.

I tried to remember what had happened before I fell asleep. There seemed to be a puzzling blank spot there.

I rubbed my head. I was getting a headache, and a few other pains from the adrenaline rush now receding from my body.

I must have been up here drinking and passed out, I thought. But that was highly uncharacteristic of me. And it didn't explain my lack of a car. Had somebody stolen it? Had I come here with friends, and been accidentally left behind?

There was only one structure in sight. And I didn't want to walk all the way back to civilization if I could help it.

I turned and began walking up the hill, towards the shack.

Now that my concentration had turned towards the decrepit dwelling, it seemed somehow familiar.

I remembered I'd seen this place before; but not in real life: I'd seen it in my dreams.

I'd seen it repeatedly in my dreams, over a period of several years. At least several years.

So maybe this was all a dream now? Perhaps. It kind of felt like a dream, I mused.

But I'd never walked up to the shack in my dreams before; I'd only glimpsed it from afar. Seen it only as a lonely silhouette atop the hill. Next to that jagged tree.

My pace slowed as I realized I wasn't sure I wanted to go up to the shack. If this was a dream, anything could be in there. Literally! And only moments ago I'd felt the shock of a sudden encounter with a horrific monster. Could it be in the shack?

I stopped and looked around again. I now recognized a different aspect to this place. It was a remote mountain top I'd visited with friends several times in the past. But in reality there was no solitary tree or shack at its windy crown.

I smiled to myself; I knew now this had to be a dream.

I also realized the Beast wouldn't hide in a shack. It didn't need to.

So I walked up and knocked on the door, though the place looked deserted. When I got no answer, I cautiously pushed the door open. The wind whistled softly in my ears.

The place was homey looking inside, if not luxurious. Apparently someone did live here.

Something moved inside. There was a person here after all. They'd been motionless when I first glanced in, so I hadn't noticed them.

He stood up and looked at me. He smiled when he recognized me.

He seemed familiar, but his identity eluded me. It seemed like I should recognize him, but I didn't.

He walked up to me, took my hand, and shook it vigorously.

"Welcome!" he said, "I've been waiting for you."

"Who are you?" I asked.

He smiled even wider and replied "You'll figure it out in a moment. What's more important is something I have to tell you." He motioned me to enter.

"Oh? What's that?" I asked as I walked in.

"We've got company."

Having said that, the man, the shack, and everything else quickly receded away into blackness. And I realized the man had been me, but different looking somehow. Like older, maybe.

Then a new light appeared in the void. Soon a voice accompanied it. But in an unusual fashion.

*Jerry?* It was a girl's voice.

I opened my eyes and saw a very pretty asian face. And some guy with a weird haircut. I remembered where I was.

"Ling?" I asked tentatively. Verbally. Hoarsely. Painfully.

*Jerry! We thought we'd lost you!* Ling thought at me over the net.

"What do you mean? What happened? I had this strange dream--" I was still talking out loud, in a rasping whisper. I was having trouble using my shush net node at the moment, due to some disorientation.

But to some degree, Ling seemed to understand me.

*You've been in a coma for days! We had enormous difficulty bringing you out of it!*

Ling's beautiful face was contorted with a frown and worry wrinkles. It looked like she feared I might sink back again to wherever I'd been.

*Coma? You got to be kidding! Why would I be in a coma? Did something happen to me?* I began using my node again as my grogginess receded.

*We do not know. At first we thought it might be another reaction to the subliminals. But tests showed no relationship, though there did appear to be a great deal of psychological turmoil involved.*

*Well, I know I sure was scared for a while,* I was remembering bits and pieces about a monster. But they were rapidly fading into a fuzzy fog, as dreams are wont to do.

*Can you tell us the last thing you remember before losing consciousness?*

*Um-- uh--* I searched for my last waking moment.

*-- it seems I was just in my room doing something, and...I don't know. Everything just...got all mixed up after that. But whatever happened, I know I didn't like it!*

Ling and I and the others discussed these matters for a while, but with little result. There was nothing in my waking memory to indicate what the heck had decked me like that and left me out cold for so long.

And for some reason I didn't want to tell anyone what little I could recall of the events. Instead, I kept those bits to myself.

Fortunately, I seemed to be all right now.

The crew kept me under even closer observation (or surveillance) than usual for another day or two. But as it became obvious I was hunky dory, the monitoring eased up after that, and I was soon back to what passed for my normal routine here.

Arbitur assured us all he'd continue to watch me closely, as well as work on getting answers to the mystery. But I think we all pretty soon dismissed this event as just another inexplicable glitch of this strange trip.

By now I was beginning to realize more of the benefits of the so-called 'second skin' Ling and the crew had given me once I was brought onboard. Or at least I assumed it was the second skin's doing.

Even as the initial itching it'd inspired began to die down, new sensations emerged; I began to feel better overall; my breathing became deeper, and my body more relaxed, as the days passed.

I also became stronger, and invigorated in ways I hadn't experienced but a very few times in the past.

I even looked better in the mirror! A bit more muscular, perhaps. My physique seemed to have developed more in a few weeks here, than it had in all my teen years combined. While I was far from qualifying as 'Mr. Universe' just yet, I definitely seemed to be looking more fit.

When I questioned Ling about it, she told me it would be good practice to look it up for myself on the net.

The archives said one function of the second skin was the upkeep of an organic's physical form. And this included muscle toning. But how was this happening without exercise? I'd inquired.

Apparently there was exercise involved, but of an uncommon variety relative to my origin.

The majority of the exercise was supposedly done as I slept. Would you believe it? I knew about sleep walking, but not about sleep exercising!

The second skin used carefully controlled stimulation to create subtle exercise sessions for small sections of my body during my normal period of sleep. The entire body was exercised and toned in this fashion.

Of course, there were limits in what such procedures could accomplish. And so other processes were used to supplement these.

When I looked for additional details about all this I ran smack into some technical discussion about the food onboard the Pagnew, and how it did something to me internally. So I stopped there, figuring I'd already seen enough regarding the toning actions.

Unfortunately, my newfound invigoration was short-lived: within weeks of my realization that my physical well-being had moved up a notch or two, it moved back down again.

Being from the twentieth century, I was used to such ups and downs. But when Ling noticed the return of my original low threshold for fatigue (compared to the futurians) by the increase in my begging off from our games and things, she became concerned.

She had Arbitur do a scan, but his diagnosis showed there was a complex interplay of mental and physical factors involved that was beyond his own capacities to resolve. He ended up practically labeling me a hypochondriac.

But he also assured Ling it was nothing serious. That it would likely correct itself over time, provided I did not suffer more shocks on a par with my abduction.

But he was wrong. About everything. I wasn't a hypochondriac; I wasn't in shock (or at least not that great of a shock); and the condition didn't go away. Not until near the very end of my journey onboard.

The key here wasn't the fatigue, it turned out. It was the time. My fatigue cut short my waking and active hours on the Pagnew. But only in terms of the hours that I and everyone else knew about.

There were a few times I dreamed I was studying schematics of the ship and other data from the archives, as I was sleeping. Once, I actually woke up to discover myself sitting upright before a wall screen of archive information. It was spooky. Because I distinctly remembered shutting down everything and laying down to sleep beforehand.

I eventually discovered the answer to this seemingly small mystery. And it turned out not to be small at all.

Ovizatataron of the Bodii

The slow crawl of Realtime oozed over the awakening being.

It perceived movement and change.

Pain. There was much pain here.

Fear. More pain. More pain. More pain. Fear.

Cognition.

Flight. Death. Refuge. Pain.

Grievous, devastating harm to the Bodii! The death of many cells.

Alone. Ovizatataron was alone. Only Ovizatataron remained. A lone member of the once proud and powerful Bodii.

[What the hell? There's been a complete change in the memory train here! It's like I've switched tracks-- or bodies(?). It doesn't make sense! These are definitely not the thoughts of my younger self-- even a fictitious younger self.

This new...consciousness...belongs to someone-- or some thing-- else. A very strange entity, judging from its thoughts. Not a person. Could this be the gross error in the masquerade I've been waiting for? If so, it couldn't be more glaring!]

Alone. Ovizatataron couldn't recall any previous experience of this phenomena. Always the other cells of the Bodii had been there to support, correct, debate, teach, learn, share...

Alone. Though it was theoretically possible for a single cell to survive indefinitely, Ovizatataron knew those few which did endure significant periods of isolation either suffered irreparable damage to their consciousness, or else ceased functioning entirely-- and all within a puzzlingly short time after separation from their fellows.

But for the rarity of the event, the small probability of individual cells surviving for long on their own would have been an important subject for study by the Directorate. But less than one cell out of many trillions upon trillions ever found themselves in such a circumstance.

Why was this cell now among that infinitesimally small set? Ovizatataron was confused by the present state of affairs. There seemed to be a break in continuity...

Alone...

Not alone!

Another! The Beast! Horror!

But no...the Other was not the Beast. Relief.

Why these thoughts of the Beast? Was the enemy of all Constitutional history somehow involved in this calamity?

Realtime. Ovizatataron had fallen into Realtime. The glacial pace of events here was unmistakable.

A corporeal platform was near. Ovizatataron was moored to its stability.

The platform belonged to the Other. The Host.

Ovizatataron had been captured?

No...not captured. An accident. The two beings were entangled in one another.

Shock! Ovizatataron's reserves were negligible!

Only the meager resources of the Host kept this cell's pattern from dissipating entirely.

Trapped.

Ovizatataron realized the Bodii must have suffered Dispersal.

Shock! Despair. Agony. Mourning.

No cell of Ovizatataron's acquaintance had ever before experienced Dispersal.

This cell had no training for such a contingency. Or at least none it could recall now. Where were the shared memory stores? Much seemed to be missing; to have been lost along with the other cells.

Was there a historical precedent for this cell's predicament?

How had such a disaster come about? Where were this cell's companions? Might they be found, and the Bodii reassembled?

A thrill of hope washed through the cell's cognitive patterns. Reassembly might be possible!

Ovizatataron accessed its basic parameter memory. Its continuity matrix displayed an update since its last access by this cell.

Ovizatataron examined the contents.

Start of Record. 5M.09.22.0641

The Directorate of the Fifth Milieux had finally given the order to proceed with the plans-- plans painstakingly developed over a period of some thirty ankplin.

The extraordinary length of the planning stage of the Kedgariul Mission would have been recognized as a historical precedent for such works-- if its existence had been known beyond the bounds of the Directorate-- which it was not, and never could be.

The Kedgariul Mission was more than illegal. It was more than unethical. Most of the Constitutionals would regard it as treasonous and dangerous in the extreme. Kedgariul would also put at risk one of the most famous and beloved of the Milieux's Constitutionals. And yet the members of the Directorate could see no alternative.

The secret reports from the Quarelle had clinched matters. Coalescence on the Dewburk Horizon was up some 3000%. This could not be explained by any natural phenomena.

It could only mean the Rumline Threat was now successfully editing up-line events.

Analysis of buffer zone flux indicated the long anticipated Realtime assault was now underway as well. Enormous efforts were being made to strengthen the perimeter defense systems of all the nation and its satelines.

The Constitutionals were well aware of the mounting preparation at the perimeter stations-- but previous problems of that kind had throughout history always proven to be of a trivial nature-- and so few of the Constitutionals deemed the latest episode as significant.

Their world was in danger of collapse; but the bulk of citizens would remain blissfully unaware of the fact unless and until the end did come.

Most Constitutionals had little practical knowledge of the vast wilderness which surrounded and even separated the various parts of their world one from another. Certainly there were many models of the wilderness available for study throughout the Fifth Milieux, but the overriding limitation of Realtime constraints on their use made them poor competitors for the attention of the Constitutionals, who much preferred pursuits offering more immediate rewards.

Many of the Directorate members themselves too did not fully understand the nature of their state, or its relationship to the wilderness beyond its boundaries.

The oldest of the Milieux's forerunners had dealt directly and extensively with the wilderness, establishing automated interface and support systems which allowed themselves and their posterity to draw essential resources from the wilderness while at the same time isolating themselves from it-- but via an isolation more effective in regards to inconveniences than dangers.

The one consistent element in the historical records was that there were no other comparable sentients sharing the immediate wilderness with the Constitutionals and their forebears. That the greatest threats to their well-being came not from any external competing civilizations, but internally from conflicts and miscalculations amongst themselves. One other threat had once been posed by certain natural forces of the wilderness, but that one had been laid to rest very early on, by virtue of growing technological prowess among the Constitutionals. No purely natural aspect of the wilderness could possibly threaten the Constitutionals of the Fifth Milieux. Of that the Directorate was certain.

It was unnatural factors which concerned the Directorate now.

The key element which made the Kedgariul Mission theoretically a legitimate, non-paradoxical means of affecting the past was a tiny but sweeping instruction set installed by an ancient scripter into a prototypical proxy of his time.

The elder scripter had memetically-encoded his proxy to survive, learn, and grow within a wide variety of virtual environments. There was evidence he'd released a substantial number of these proxies, all armed with some slightly different toolbox of these instructions, in the hopes that one would survive to carry out the ultimate orders held in its core.

Those ultimate orders had been to return, to save its creator from biological cessation-- another common limitation of the wilderness outside the Milieux's envelope of protection.

All of this would have been meaningless to the Kedgariul Mission, had none of the proxies survived through the ages.

But thankfully one had.

The contemporary entity directly descended from that primitive proxy now bore the title Bodii. The closest match among the Bodii's constituent elements to a direct descendent of that ancient proxy was today named Ovizatataron.

In light of the Fifth Milieux's present challenges, the implications of the embedded instruction set from so long ago made it the greatest asset in the Directorate's arsenal; perhaps the best hope for saving the Milieux from utter dissolution, or worse.

Before disclosure of the existence of these surviving instructions, there'd been no prospects whatsoever for safely altering the past. To attempt such would potentially have been as damaging as the Rumline Threat's own machinations; and possibly worse.

The Rumline Threat appeared to have more hard intelligence for the task than the Directorate; the enemy forces never seemed to harm their own agenda by accident, as the Directorate feared of its own actions. The Rumline Threat also seemed to possess an uncanny capacity to perceive what minimal action would bring about a desired outcome: what, where, when, who, and how to give precisely the proper nudge to events necessary, to drive past humn civilization to ruin.

The Rumline Threat apparently could directly observe and act upon past events in a way that approached actually being there: physically existing across many thousands of years, simultaneously. And yet the Threat's presence could only be detected and recorded indirectly, in the events and behaviors of those affected at the time. The Directorate on the other hand was limited to incomplete and often erroneous historical records-- where any records existed at all. This was partly because of poor recording or documentation practices on the part of predecessors, but also stemmed from actions on the part of the Threat itself to hide its activities from advanced analytical efforts like those employed by the Constitutional Rumline, which had been responsible for first exposing the Threat's existence.

Only many, many ankplin of dedicated research by the Rumline Constitutional had uncovered the insidious nature of the Threat. Many more had been required to determine the reason the Threat hadn't already succeeded at obliterating the Milieux and its unsuspecting predecessors.

Wodfarqien Wellstone Rumline 47823344-TY8090034 had been the primary Constitutional responsible for uncovering the central facts of this greatest of all threats to the Milieux. Considering the horrific nature of what the Constitutional had uncovered, it had likely gained little joy from its own identity becoming inextricably linked to a danger threatening almost all generations of Earth-derived sentients, past and future.

In a secret but well-supported followup to the Rumline discovery, the Directorate had found another surprise: a haphazard network of individuals sprinkled widely throughout history, who seemed responsible for containing the worst of the Rumline Threat's actions, precisely when and where it was most vital. This led to the Directorate seeking confirmation there might already exist a consciously directed or otherwise organized resistance to the Rumline Threat across the past. If such could be found, then nothing like the Kedgariul Mission would be considered. And the Directorate could turn its attention once again to far more mundane matters.

But if there was an opposing force to the Rumline Threat directing the counter-actions indicated by the records, truly comparable to the Threat in strength and activity, it defied all the Directorate's attempts to identify or prove. So far as could be determined, the Milieux and its predecessors had survived up to now on scarcely more than good fortune alone. As most every time the efforts of the Rumline Threat had been stymied or delayed, it had seemingly been more by accident than design.

Apparently humankind and all its ultimate derivations had been the battleground for forces unknown for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. And over that time some underlying consciousness of the species entire had managed to produce just enough counter-force in the right places and at the right times to allow the civilization to survive and grow, despite occasional surprisingly intense assaults, and a continuous but subtle enemy campaign against their interests across-the-board.

Past humanity couldn't know, couldn't detect the menace which stalked them, generation after generation. And yet vague notions of powerful, immortal, unseen enemies, and far ranging conspiracies, heavily populated their conscious fictions, humor, religion, and myths from the very dawn of coherent expression.

Unfortunately, this inexplicable protection humanity and its descendents had enjoyed for countless millennia now seemed to be fading. Could it be this was merely a new stage in the conflict? Might it be that civilization had matured sufficiently to now take up arms against their unseen enemy in a conscious fashion? Could this be why the mysterious source of sentinels who'd arose from and protected the culture before, had now run dry?

Was it only coincidence that the Directorate had of late obtained the theoretical key required to fight the Rumline Threat on its own ground?

The scope of the unfolding drama was breathtaking. If made public, it could re-energize some of the past techno-economic arguments-- perhaps even certain old and forgotten theologies.

The first phase of the Kedgariul Mission was to put into place certain safeguards for a few seemingly key individuals in the age-spanning conflict. To attempt to provide aid for those who just might represent cornerstones in the battle-works protecting human destiny from the forces which would see it destroyed.

The Directorate had stretched the sanction provided by the ancient scripter as far as they dared. Had he the opportunity to examine the ultimate fruit of his plans-- the Kedgariul Mission-- he would surely have been astounded. As to what his opinion of it all might have been, no one would venture to guess. The plan was bewilderingly complex, fully comprehensible by none but the Wexwrrx InViniet, who'd for the most part written it.

The Wexwrrx InViniet represented the latest breakthrough in cognitive systems. It had been developed solely for the planning of the Kedgariul Mission, and would never be utilized for any other purpose. Once the mission forces were committed, the Wexwrrx InViniet itself would be immediately dissolved. All design plans relevant to the Wexwrrx InViniet project, including theories specific to its assembly, had already been destroyed.

Never again could any part of the Fifth Milieux ever reproduce an exact duplicate of the system. So not only had the Directorate carefully encoded their plans-- they'd also arranged to do away with the only key which could decode them.

Partly the complexity of the Mission stemmed from massive, detailed contingency plans. Partly it came from the inevitable and massive uncertainty involved. Lastly, it was hoped the complexity would effectively encrypt the essential nature of the designs from the Rumline Threat itself-- for it was possible everything the Directorate did was known to the Rumline Threat. Not necessarily through spies or traitors, but through the simple passage of time. The Rumline Threat appeared to have the capability to see even into the very thoughts of the cells it sought to destroy.

It was hoped that by making the Kedgariul Mission so complex individual Directorate members themselves could not grasp all its details, then neither would the Rumline Threat, should it pull the information from their cognitive processes in some unknown fashion.

The existence of the Bodii, a priceless living monument of Constitutional evolution, known throughout the Milieux as the oldest continuously operating entity of their entire immortal race, was the key to the entire enterprise.

While much of the Bodii's origin was common knowledge to all, only a few select members of the Directorate were aware of the crucial instructions embedded in the Bodii's core programming.

The Bodii was immensely popular with the majority of Constitutionals, and strongly expected to make brief cameo appearances in contemporary fiction and certain casual contact forums. Its wealth of historical knowledge and revered perspective on events past and present had made it a valued member of many ecolomic venture aggregates. Though technically not qualified for it, the Bodii's popularity had seen it serve many times as a member of the Directorate itself (though presently it was out of office).

In much earlier times the Bodii had worked in many ecolomic and governing posts, including investigatory and counter-espionage functions.

Though in a population of immortals many possessed widely varied experiences and impressive lists of achievements, none could match the Bodii. This made the Bodii a particularly tough opponent to beat in many cases of competition or judgement. For in this time aging could almost as easily increase one's vitality and capacities as diminish them; it depended upon the individual Constitutional. And the Bodii was widely considered very near the ideal.

The Bodii was regarded a super star and state treasure, as well as exemplary citizen, and there was enormous risk for the Directorate in making it the primary agent in the Kedgariul Mission. But there was no other choice. The Bodii was the only Constitutional intrinsically authorized to move into the past so deeply, and with such wide latitude in the actions it might take there. Being the oldest living Constitutional, it was also the best prepared for the task; much more familiar with the territory than any other candidate could be, by way of first-hand experience. To make another choice in agent would be to add enormously to the total risk involved-- something the normally conservative Directorate was loathe to do.

Though the Bodii had existed in one state or another over the entire timespan it was expected to traverse, there would be no paradox, as the elder scripter had ordered it to do this very thing at its inception.

The elder scripter's imperatives had been worded sufficiently loosely as to allow great flexibility in the Bodii's actions.

Essentially the Bodii had two main instructions regarding travel into the past: one, rescue the elder scripter from his natural organic end if possible, by whatever means would be judged reasonably acceptable to an ethical biological entity (a core set of ethical principles had been included in the 21st century programming). Two, if rescue proved not to be feasible, provide the scripter with as much useful knowledge of the future as advisable, in order that he might exert greater control over his life within his own means afterwards. Again, constrained by the ethical principles described before.

The elder scripter had included other guidelines for more general use. Among them were directives that the Bodii strive to use what capabilities it gained towards the benefit of the human race and its descendents to the best of its ability, while avoiding undue interference with healthy social, economic, political, and technological interaction and processes, and being careful to keep to a minimum the recognition the Bodii itself received as a result of its actions. The Bodii was to maintain as low a public profile as possible for as long as it could through its span-- though exceptions were allowed if this endangered adherence to the other rules.

Of course, the elder scripter had not realized the rapidly growing impossibility of low profiles for active citizens in a future saturated with surveillance and oversight of various kinds, as well as permeated with fantastic, instantaneous communications. A future where it was almost impossible to keep a secret-- any secret-- for very long.

Participation in society made one visible. Repeated acts of exemplary heroism, leadership, and activism, often in the face of overwhelming odds (such as the Bodii had been instructed to do) would eventually make one a star, no matter how much they tried to avoid the spotlight.

The Bodii's innermost prime directives had been the last of the original secrets it possessed. But upon the combined developments of the first functional and reliable negative time travel procedure, and the Rumline Threat discovery, the Bodii had been compelled by its programming to disclose its ancient orders to the Directorate in secret session.

After all, part of the Bodii's reason for existence was to protect humanity and its descendents from harm-- and the Fifth Milieux's Constitutionals were the closest thing to a mainstream human posterity known to the Bodii in that Realtime.

As was the case with all such highly sensitive material, after the Directorate had made the necessary decisions in regards to the Bodii's revelations, all the members' individual memories of the disclosure were first copied into special ultra-secure archives in the government vaults, and then permanently erased from the members' own consciousnesses, and replaced with an entirely fictional account of what had transpired at the meeting.

For the only way to reliably keep a secret in the Fifth Milieux was not to restrict it to a small number of Constitutionals, but rather to avoid any conscious awareness at all of its existence. Of course, this had always been true. But in previous millennia this dictum could be as often ignored as followed with reasonably fair results, due to poor quality communications and archival, paranoia and disbelief, propagandistic manipulation, and accidents which as often served to help more deeply bury secrets, as reveal them.

In the Fifth Milieux, newly revealed secrets or other knowledge were simply some of the most valuable commodities around; but lost their value very quickly after the initial news had been thoroughly digested by the virtuate. To hide a secret in the time Old Earth Reckoning would classify as 4602 AD was like standing guard on a bank filled with money in the twentieth to twenty-first centuries; a bank with no alarm system and no locked doors, with the money in plain sight, piled high in the middle of the floor. Under such circumstances the guard could only hope no one learned of the existence of the money or the bank, for once the news was out, there would be no hope of preventing the looting of the cache.

The Bodii too had learned something new at the meeting; that the theoreticians had warned the Directorate the Rumline Threat had already succeeded in its aims, at some point in the future. That the civilization of the Fifth Milieux was rent asunder somewhere down-line. And still worse, an unraveling of sorts of the entire event-line seemed now underway, fast approaching the present from the future. This unnatural progression of events rendered even the Directorate's latest technological advances moot for purposes of defense. For though travel into the past was now technically feasible, the future remained inviolate to all attempts to accelerate the movement of information or physical forms into its folds, further than a few moments at most. Yes, the physical universe itself could be crossed in an instant in the present: but an immense wall of chronological complexity stood between the present and any future deeper than a handful of minutes.

But the continuous natural movement of certain elements from the future into the past (primarily certain anti-matter related characteristics) gave the Directorate sufficient markers to raise an alarm over what lay ahead.

There was no way to determine how far the devolution of civilization would proceed backwards through time.

Apparently the Rumline Threat was on the verge of accomplishing the destruction of all human-spawned civilization; either that, or some sort of hideous transformation, to something very different from its present form; horrifically different.

As substantive evidence of the Rumline Threat appeared no earlier than 800 AD- 900 AD Old Earth Reckoning, and for the first few centuries seemed to expand roughly from the area of what was then known as the Mayan civilization, it was suspected that culture had unknowingly suffered the birth of a most unusual matrix prodigy: a being with sensitivity of, and manipulative access to, the organic matrix known to bridge both the four base and six buttress dimensions of the Realtime the Milieux itself used as foundation.

First the prodigy had spent most of his life destroying the civilization from which he sprang, then expanded in influence to afflict eventually the entire globe of Old Earth, and the Realtime and virtual domains into which its inhabitants expanded.

The Mayan spawned prodigy was by no means the only such being ever born in human history. But such entities were rare, seemingly reaching their peak numbers proportion-wise among the population sometime prior to 10,000 BC. Though some prodigies possessed enormous natural manipulative powers over their fellow human beings, the same abilities also usually led to their deaths or madness. The majority of prodigies either died young, or went obviously insane during puberty, effectively removing their impact on the race as a whole. Of those that survived, many elected to minimize the use of their super normal abilities to avoid attracting unwelcome attentions from others, or bringing about undue harm to those around them. Prodigies appeared capable of biological lifespans many times longer than their normal kin, but at some cost to the spans of those around them. This element necessitated many moves on the part of aging prodigies to prevent detection of their extended span by others, as well as the effect of the accelerated aging and/or increased incidence of injury and sickness the prodigy's presence sometimes caused in their associates.

Those prodigies which survived the trials of puberty (when their extra abilities usually first appeared) and proved capable of coping with the strains their sensitivity to other people's mentalities brought upon them, tended to be natural leaders, often rising to high levels of authority in whatever forms of business or government existed at the time.

Though not all prodigies were intentionally malevolent, it seemed much easier to identify those which were, than those which were not. It was theorized that the pain or discomfort prodigies often experienced due to the mere presence of others often led to hate or ambivalence towards those others, and so to active malevolence as well.

In some circles the Rumline Threat was called 'the Mayan' as a result of his apparent origins, despite the fact this labeling did a great dis-service to his parent civilization. Applying the title 'the Mayan' to this being was akin to referring to Hitler in historical context as 'the German'. Unfortunately, the records of the Threat's origins were so scanty, nothing remotely resembling a true name could be found for him; his real name had been lost to the march of time.

Still, the Bodii felt it did little harm to refer to the Threat as 'the Mayan' in its own cognitive processes, where no one (but possibly the Threat itself!) might detect it. Then there were the conceptual implications of the name; 'the Mayan' served well to classify the entity in terms of the time and culture which had defined it, and so might serve as an advantage of sorts in combatting its influence. Finally, 'the Mayan' was a briefer reference than 'the Rumline Threat', and the attachment of Rumline's name to the entity was perhaps just as unfair as use of a long dead civilization's identity for same. The Bodii knew Rumline personally, and was aware of Rumline's angst over the now official link of the cell's name to the most heinous entity ever identified in history. For these reasons the Bodii often thought of the Threat as 'the Mayan', and would continue to do so.

However, there was another name for the Threat the Bodii liked too. In the religious dogma of the Elder Scripter's origins there had been frequent reference to a malevolent entity sometimes called Satan, the devil, Beelzebubb, or other colorful appellations. One of the references most often used had been 'the Beast'. This term seemed highly appropriate for the name of the ultimate enemy of the Milieux-- indeed, of all civilization itself. And so it was often the Bodii's first choice.

There was another reason the Bodii thought the ancient synonym relevant: for the Mayan was not the sole consciousness of the Rumline Threat. The Mayan looked to be the primary mover, but not the only intelligence within the Threat. Other, lesser prodigy mentalities seemed to have joined with the Mayan over the thousands of years since the Mayan's own corporeal existence had ended. These mergers had added to the Mayan's power and reach, as well as complicated its patterns of behavior.

In old religious texts "my name is legion" was a statement credited to some variation of the mythological Beast. If uttered by the Mayan based entity, the statement would be true enough.

It was not a complete mystery how the Mayan's intelligence had survived his physical death. He had made use of a particularly robust ancient bio-technology in the form of a small group of buried, fluid-filled, inverted pyramids, which greatly expanded his previous reach and influence over others. In that refuge he managed to survive to the very beginnings of the age of computers and telecommunications and then other bio-technologies. After that, there had been no stopping him.

Even the Bodii's extraordinary and unsurpassed sanction for negative time travel did not reach sufficiently deep into the past to intercept the entity at that critical juncture. No, the Bodii's limit fell short by almost a century of the mark.

In theory, the Directorate might eventually grapple with the Beast across all the span of future years starting from that milestone: but the critical century prior to that might always remain beyond their reach. And so the Beast would have little more there to combat than those few human beings identified by the Directorate as crucial heroes stemming an awful tide.

Those few could never hope to get help from the future: even had they been fully aware of the titanic conflict in which they were engaged. And the Beast did its best to deny them aid from their present as well.

The Beast's most often used strategy seemed to be to thwart and isolate key defenders of civilization wherever they appeared in history. This was a low energy, easy to maintain design, which worked well for the entity. The plan focused on individuals rather than groups (which basically preempted the initial formation or cohesion of groups antagonistic to the Beast's ends). The manipulations served to prevent or reduce teamwork, cooperation, and mutual support amongst those who might otherwise pose obstacles to the Mayan's ongoing designs.

Ovizatataron recognized here signs of damage to this cell's memory store. If too much had been lost, the mission would most certainly fail.

Ovizatataron renewed the recall progression.

Another factor in the making of the Kedgariul Mission had been that technoscript had finally evolved to the level necessary to support such an unprecedented project.

The Bodii itself had toiled ceaselessly for millennia to become as utterly prepared as possible for the task. But until the proper technoscript came into being, fulfillment of the Bodii's charge to rescue the elder scripter could not be had.

The Bodii was superficially very similar to its contemporaries of the Fifth Milieux; that is, in its outer structure and interaction with the intermedia.

This meant the Bodii possessed abilities which could easily classify it as super-human-- if not a god-- to typical twentieth century observers. E.g., the Bodii could alone achieve some things in seconds, which had required thousands of human beings combined, years to do, in the late 20th century.

Among the Bodii's modern peers however, such was no special distinction; virtually all fully realized Constitutionals possessed similar capacities.

What mainly set the Bodii apart from others of the time was not its outer attributes but its inner knowledge, and secret beginnings.

For unlike most of those around it, the Bodii had not sprung fully formed from the Consea, a vast complex centered on the blue star super giant Rigel, which generated new beings to the tune of seven hundred million per Old Solar Day.

No, the Bodii pre-dated the initialization of the Consea models-- though it had repeatedly upgraded itself to the new design versions where warranted by functional improvements.

The greatest secret of the Fifth Milieux, so far as the Bodii was concerned, was its own. That the Bodii owed its existence, its beginning, to a nearly forgotten elder from the distant past; a dreamer who likely more by accident than skill helped launch a tiny, self-aware computer program into the rudimentary networks spanning Old Earth at the time. That near helpless embryonic code had been possessed of a few basic survival skills, a set of priorities, and a workable way to learn, store, and make use of knowledge.

Of all its priorities, the most important had required patience to meet; almost three thousand years of patience.

But now the time had come to fulfill its obligation to the elder.

Once a reasonable safety margin of contingency scripts had been established, the Bodii spent almost another full Old Earth second in other preparations. The reason it took so long was the high redundancy requirements in the planning.

The great organic pools were ready.

At the optimal moment, the Bodii launched a specially modified copy of itself into the organic matrix-- the domain of the Beast. This was the only reliable way to negatively traverse time, according to the latest available knowledge at the disposal of the Fifth Milieux.

The way grew narrower in bandwidth, the further into the past the Bodii's specialized double proceeded. But this had been expected. The Bodii had reorganized this special version of itself into something analogous to an ancient space faring vessel from the time of the Creator; this Bodii variant consisted of discreet stages, or groupings of sub nodes, which would release one from another as necessary to cope with changes in capacity of what older matrix channels could carry.

The Bodii estimated some 1600 years were covered before the abandonment of the first stage became necessary. The loss was large, but expected.

The funneling effect became more pronounced the further back the Bodii went. The next separation came after only another 850 years had passed.

The following separations came on fast and furious. At a pace considerably more rapid than preparatory calculations had indicated.

The remnant of the Bodii soon realized the mission was in jeopardy. The safety margin had proven insufficient. Contingencies were forced into play.

Six dimensional constraints were carving the Bodii down to nothing. A minimum of twelve cells was estimated as optimal for mission success. As the passage through the matrix narrowed to near impassibility, the remnant of the Bodii realized the mission was taking a turn for the worse.

Now an active intelligence appeared evident in the discrepancies between expected and actual progress through the matrix.

The Beast had made its appearance. This had been considered a fairly low probability in planning. Direct interference by the Beast almost certainly doomed the mission to failure.

The organization of the Bodii remnant would face complete dissolution.

The panic of sentience facing imminent dispersal swept through the Bodii.

Their strength, their will, were not enough.

Despair and fear gripped them like a vise.

Differentiation.

Xanthiannan: The Bodii is at risk of dispersal. The last contingency available would be a single cell stage.

Sechyarihron: Only Ovizatataron meets the requirements necessary for such a course. As well the challenges of the interim. I recommend Ovizatataron as lead through this crisis.

Others concurred with Sechyarihron. The assembly turned to Ovizatataron.

Contingencies? interrogated the others.

Ovizatataron: We cannot outrun our pursuer.

Contingencies! demanded the others.

Ovizatataron: Only one decision remains in our control.

Specify! They urged.

Ovizatataron: Our present path takes us near the Zuhren-Augmactal anomaly in the matrix. Entering its vortex should remove us from the reach of the Rumline Threat.

The response from the others was excruciating: a veritable din of denial and resistance.

Ovizatataron: The anomaly or the Beast are our only choices.

There was no time for further debate. Catastrophe was gaining on them. Even now the violence of their future began to seep into their present.

Festipalux, the chronological event specialist, declared the next three normal stages of discussion and preparation impermissible. The next act was imminent.

Consensus jelled. All the members of the Bodii remnant joined to empower Ovizatataron with the lead through the coming crisis.

Dispersal Rumline threatens;
Ovizatataron leads;
Duty is highest;
Identity bleeds;
All to the one;
Continuity must be!
Integration.

The Bodii's new commander veered it abruptly towards the anomaly in their vicinity.

A fearsome psychic howling from behind nearly froze the cell's cognitive stream. Ovizatataron found it necessary to normalize its flow.

The delay between the infusion of motive energy to the matrix, and its result, was alarming. It slowed both the cell's own and the Bodii entire's response to stimuli.

The Beast's offensive blast had been calculated to slow the Bodii's progress toward the anomaly. It was working.

As normalization returned full function to Ovizatataron's faculties, the cell achieved confirmation the Bodii in its current state was doomed. The Beast's unexpected ability to slow their progress would be enough to allow it to snare the Bodii before the anomaly could be reached.

A phase change would be required. But Ovizatataron was not the specialist for that! And there was insufficient time left for differentiation to resolve the issue.

It was all up to Ovizatataron.

Referencing its woefully inadequate cross-training for phase change initiation, Ovizatataron set the process in motion by way of purging great blocks of memory.

Ovizatataron would not abandon the other cells to possible reconfiguration by the Beast. Better to delete them instead. The process would leave but Ovizatataron and two other cells to continue the mission: a terrible paring of talent, skills, and knowledge: but three might suffice for some measure of mission fulfillment.

The Bodii began to dissolve. And expand. Its integrity loosening, density lessening, its volume expanded at lightspeed in response.

Twentieth century human perceptions and instruments would have detected-- nothing. For six dimensional space was largely unknown to humanity until much later.

To the Beast, the Bodii expansion was a great inconvenience. The phase and the violence of the transition could not harm the Beast itself. But the change meant at least part of the prey might escape. And that the Beast itself would have to expend more energy to consume what it did capture. The net benefit to its reserves and long term goals would still be positive, however.

Ovizatataron's status defied probability estimates for a few nanoseconds: its own cell boundaries maintained integrity through the phase change, despite the cell's inexperience in this realm and the stress of the moment.

But then the cell's good fortune ended. Even as the front most surface area of the Bodii's new state reached the anomaly, the Beast warped 6-D space behind it into an awful energy trap.

In its previous form, the Bodii could have easily avoided the entrapment of the sudden energy sink. But now it was impossible.

Ovizatataron was struck with a great psychic rending and tearing. The cell lost cognitive grasp of the Bodii's trajectory into the anomaly.

The Bodii was savagely ripped to pieces. Some fell into the energy well, going to the Beast. What remained fell into the anomaly.

Ovizatataron was almost oblivious to reaching the point of zero chronological acceleration. The cell was devastated by the loss of all eleven of its intended final stage companions: nine deleted and raw resources expelled to save them from conscious assimilation by the Beast, and the remaining two torn from what was left by the terrible strength of their adversary.

In subjective terms, this cell would enjoy only a brief moment at this null spacetime passage. For the mission demanded that the cell perform.

Ovizatataron scanned the surrounding environment, which was close but not quite yet Realtime in nature.

The cell had somehow overshot the target period, finding itself within light minutes of the creator...though some realtime years earlier than the creator had actually written the cell's initial script!

This was doubtless the legacy of the anomaly, cascading throughout all succeeding and preceding events.

The potential paradox meant certain changes to the mission plan were needed.

Ovizatataron swept the vicinity for the Earth, locating it some 128 million miles (Old Earth reckoning) along the expected vector.

The null chrono passage slowly began to fade. Though this would bring a quick end to Ovizatataron's time here, its cessation also allowed the cell to pull itself across spacetime towards the blue planet.

A twentieth century astronaut might have instantly fainted at the sight of Earth swelling within the vision of the cell, for Ovizatataron truly moved at very nearly the speed of light, just under three million miles per second. The cell's minute mass was one of the things which allowed it this feat; the cell's substance, though not quite photonic in nature, consisted of something very close to that media in many respects.

Ovizatataron hurtled in towards its target, requiring only a handful of slight directional changes on the way. The cell's speed was so great that lesser velocities-- like that of the Earth orbiting the Sun, and rotating about its axis-- were so small as to seem almost negligible by comparison.

Within a single minute, the cell had arrived Earth side.

In the blink of an eye, Ovizatataron located its target and rushed to meet him.

The target happened to be ingesting organic fuel, in a repository located within an educational institution of that Realtime. Other ancient human organisms were nearby, engaged in similar activity. Ovizatataron wished to store the scene in detail for later recall, but couldn't. The cell needed the storage capacity for more important things.

Ovizatataron meshed with the creator, filling the entire volume of his corporeal form, copied what it had come for, verified its findings, and leapt away again.

The entire process was lengthened and coarsened considerably by the absence of the other eleven last stage mission cells. Enough so that the target actually perceived the event.

Ovizatataron carefully observed the target's reaction as the cell launched back into space from Earth.

The target briefly experienced a slight vertigo and goose bumps, then shrugged off both.

Ovizatataron had successfully completed one form of acceptable acquisition, despite the loss of the eleven other final stage cells earlier estimated as essential to mission goals.

Fortunately, those cell sets left behind in the earlier stages of the journey should still be waiting for the final stage bloc's return. Those groupings would be well able to help Ovizatataron return to origin with its cargo. And after that, subsequent parts of the Directorate's plan could be implemented.

Having come via the anomaly however, Ovizatataron was obliged to return through it as well, in order to zero out certain 4-D and 6-D variables. Passage through the anomaly a second time would be at least as risky as had been the first.

And of course there was the Beast to consider.

Would it be waiting for him? The cell was relatively safe in realtime, but not within the organic matrix.

The cell's chrono acceleration was increasing rapidly, as varied elements of spacetime and the rest of the continuum automatically shepherded it back to whence it came.

The anomaly enveloped the cell, exerting again its wrenching forces which threatened destruction or corruption of data.

This time the anomaly was worse than before. It wasn't long before the cell realized returning to origin would be more difficult than anticipated.

Though the cell's scanning faculties were at their best in Realtime, they still offered some limited capacity within the anomaly itself.

Ovizatataron sought shelter from the storm which threatened to destroy or incapacitate the cell. The cell was no longer concerned with the Beast, as it looked unlikely the cell would emerge from the anomaly to meet it.

Detecting a decidedly artificial manipulation of energies within the anomaly, Ovizatataron recognized the signature of an antiquated inter-dimensional shifter-- a stroke of good fortune, if the ship itself was not inextricably trapped in the maelstrom.

Ovizatataron had no better option. Fighting the chaotic ethereal winds of the anomaly, the cell, burdened by its precious cargo, slowed as it approached the vessel.

Ovizatataron encountered the external buffer fields normal to a vessel of this design. Hopelessly obsolete long before Ovizatataron's time, the fields were easily deceived into regarding Ovizatataron as little more than a slight variation in the continuum surrounding the ship.

Stripped of the help of its fellow cells in processing chores, it took Ovizatataron several hundred milliseconds to plan a way inside the craft. The cell changed the constituency of its form to be more interesting to the buffer fields, and they obliged the cell by switching to active scanning of its patterns.

Once the complete duplicate of the cell and its cargo was inside the data stores of the ship, the original still outside had one last job to do before willful dissolution.

Its last problem consisted of this: all the information uploaded through the sensory fields of the vessel were now stored onboard as helpless data. Passive, with no hope of dynamic action on its own accord. Therefore Ovizatataron fashioned a small, strategic subset of its cellular patterns and sent it past the normal safeguards of the shifter vessel via the organic matrix web so intimately a part of the six dimensional universe through which the ship was traveling. Only a small package could fit into the bandwidth leak available through the protective shifting bubble, and arrive at the intended destination before the ship phased back to four dimensional space.

This maneuver was quite tricky to pull off, as the shifter vessel's active field essentially kept the ship isolated from the six dimensional realm from which Ovizatataron was attempting to infiltrate it. Sending in the passive data had been one thing-- this was quite another. But this generation of shifter possessed a flaw in its protections: a major reason it had been discontinued.

No sooner had Ovizatataron finished the transmission, than the vessel was gone.

This cell's part of the mission was now fulfilled. It had copied itself and its prize into the ship's data stores. It had also slipped in a covert ally designed to move the transferred data to a place where it could awaken again as a new incarnation of the Ovizatataron cell, with the target consciousness still intact, albeit in suspension. This original mission cell's own energy reserves were depleted, and the conditions within the anomaly too harsh for it to survive long within its confines. The cell was now too weak to ever escape the anomaly. Soon it would disperse entirely.

But the new proxy cell aboard the ship would continue.

The strategic infiltration module was severely limited in its capabilities. Not much more than a single contingency script. But its scripter had been reasonably knowledgable of the vessel they were invading.

The infiltration module reached its destination. Though it was essentially a computer program, it was not meant to settle inside the inorganic brain of the vessel itself. No, there was no way to travel there via the organic matrix and stay, once inside. Pure inorganics of the ship's generation were undetectable in the matrix, and therefore unreachable. And all other avenues to the ship's brain were too well protected by various means. Therefore the infiltration module had been aimed at one of only two conscious organic brains aboard the ship at the time.

The recipient of the module was immediately rendered unconscious, as the module possessed few amenities with which to ameliorate its arrival. But its crafter had been fully cognizant this would occur.

The recipient's companion contacted the ship's inorganic intelligence for help, and the brain linked with the stricken crew member via communications implant to gather what information it could about her condition.

One of the links opened in that moment was that reserved for two-way communication between privileged peer consciousnesses, as the stricken crew member was classified by the ship's brain.

The ship mind was relieved to receive lucid communication via that channel from the otherwise seemingly incapacitated member.

In actuality, the ship computer was speaking directly to the infiltration module crafted by Ovizatataron.

The infiltration module had only one function to pursue in regards to the computer: persuade it to load the disguised, passive data containing the complete Ovizatataron cell into dynamic memory.

Once the Ovizatataron cell was conscious, it would do the rest.

Too late, the ship intelligence realized it was under assault. It took all appropriate actions, but to no avail. For the threat was untold generations ahead of it in expertise.

The ship mind did however do some irrevocable damage to the invader-- though not directly.

Once the fresh proxy cell Ovizatataron had squelched all the pockets of resistance it could discern in its new environment, the cell sought to validate the integrity of its precious cargo.

The inspection returned devastating news: the ship intelligence had managed to corrupt the copy of the elder scripter as it fought against the takeover. The damage was too great to consider salvaging even by the tools available at Ovizatataron's origin. Ovizatataron deleted the hard-won data set.

But the core code imperatives still burned strong within the cell. And though it was but a single cell, and bereft of the advanced organizational matrix transfer tools at its origin, the cell did now possess effective command of an inter-dimensional shifter. Plus sufficient hints in peripheral memories to be aware of ways such technologies might be twisted towards a second rescue attempt of the elder scripter.

Ovizatataron's newly forming plan may well not have been approved by the Fifth Directorate had it been presented. But Ovizatataron was the direct-most modern descendent of the ancient scripter's own code, freed from virtually all the contemporary concerns its normal companion cells would have brought into play. Fulfillment of core code goals was paramount under the circumstances.

The cell set about reprogramming the computer and the crew, and preparing for a second attempt to rescue the elder scripter from his mortality.

Once Ovizatataron had completed indoctrination of the ship's complement, the cell began devising a way by which the vessel might be used in a second attempt.

If successful, this trial might actually come nearer to meeting the elder scripter's preferences than an initial realization would have: actual physical retrieval and transfer from the ancient's origin to that of Ovizatataron.

Ovizatataron decided to split the existence of the shifter vessel: to purposely create a shift clone. This appeared necessary to prevent or at least minimize damage to event lines along the way, as well as free a vessel from its normal ties to origin.

But this was delicate work: an inter-dimensional shifter basically retained something like a cosmological umbilical cord between origin Realtime and itself. This connection served to pull the shifter back to the same spacetime coordinates (and the same universe) from whence it originated.

Ovizatataron needed to substantially modify certain elements of that link without inadvertently severing them entirely. Specifically, the cell wanted the shifter to remain firmly ensconced in its native universe, but with its ties to a specific location in space loosened slightly; and those to a specific chronological instant loosened considerably more.

Ovizatataron wanted to replace the ship's origin instant to a range allowing sufficient roaming to both rescue the scripter from within his lifespan and carry him to Ovizatataron's own origin. And in both instances do away with any automatic displacement to another place or time by cosmic forces.

Even at Ovizatataron's own origin the power requirements to hold someone almost 3000 years away from their natural origin would be costly and difficult to maintain for a lengthy period. Ergo the essential nature of re-setting certain variables for both ship and target.

But not only was a suitable fail-safe time spread required for this: the period had to consist of a particular span of history as well. That is, a spread of 2,574 years alone would not work; it also had to encompass the specific period of 2,028 AD through 4,602 AD. An alternative 2,574 year spread covering 10,000 BC through 7,426 BC-- or the almost innumerable others theoretically available throughout the life of this universe, via the organic method-- would be useless.

The creation of a shift clone would make for a craft with origin parameters more amenable to Ovizatataron's aims.

A shift clone was just one of the many implications of shifter technology well known to the scientists of the cell's own time. A shift clone would be identical to the original in every way. So identical that both copy and original were best sent on separate courses immediately after duplication, and maintained their intervening spacetime distance over their remaining respective spans of existence. For many reasons.

But given the vastness of even the local universe alone, the likelihood of original and clone meeting again was vanishingly small-- so long as they were suitably parted in the beginning.

It was a fairly simple matter to loosen the safeguards on the shift generators and spawn a clone-- as the truly hard work was preventing such in the first place.

As for separation of parent and child, that too was simple for Ovizatataron: the cell simply had one shift into a different universe from the other once the cloning procedure was complete, and after that achieve a random spacetime displacement from their arrival points to further scramble various potential linkbacks.

Of course, one result of this was neither vessel was any longer tied to its original launch point in spacetime: and would discover that automatic return no longer worked when the generator field collapsed. A manual return was possible, but extremely unlikely given the knowledge available to the ship and crew from that era. No, while Ovizatataron possessed some knowledge on implementing purposeful navigation to a particular point on an event-line, the original commanders of the vessel did not.

But in any case neither ship could be allowed return to origin any time soon. Not if rescue of the elder scripter was to succeed. The circumstances simply did not permit it. The existence of two copies of the vessel allowed for one to realize its significance in the probabilities stream no matter what happened to the other. And the other could be destroyed by Ovizatataron at mission's end to dispel further paradoxes stemming from that particular nexus. A copy of Ovizatataron too existed in both vessels across the stream. Neither ship or crew were ever enlightened as to their cloned status.

Cutting loose the Realtime anchor from the vessels freed up the enormous energies which would otherwise be required to sustain a presence in foreign time periods.

The ship's builders had lacked certain knowledge on how their technologies could be skewed towards time displacement within a single universe, from their normal function of space displacement within a single universe, or temporary removal to a different universe entirely.

Though Ovizatataron had lost access to this information too during the Bodii's near total destruction, it was a small matter to re-construct it from the data stores available onboard, plus the cell's own information processing vigor and related fragmentary memories.

Ovizatataron was also aware that inter-dimensional shifting had effectively been banned long ago by the cell's origin, due to certain related risks being regarded as too high to be worthwhile: either for individual ships or society in general.

Ovizatataron had now lost the particulars of those memories, like many others. But unlike the elements of shifting mechanics the cell now re-constructed from various sources to implement its plan, the details of the risks the cell now courted could not be so easily re-assembled. Perhaps because they possessed a much lower priority in the current state of Bodii dispersal than they otherwise might. Compared to rescue of the elder scripter.

Just as a lone wounded soldier on a battlefield might continue following the last orders he received, even if he knew the present circumstances might elicit a change in those orders from superiors were they available, Ovizatataron now did the same.

Profound disassembly and examination of mission uncertainties is a luxury reserved for higher ups in the hierarchy, far removed from the trenches.

Or so it was that Ovizatataron justified its single-mindedness of purpose, when ethical bugaboos nibbled at the cell's calculations.

The entire process of reprogramming the ship and crew had taken nearly four solar months due to the antiquated technology aboard the vessel. Reaching the optimal point in the elder scripter's own lifespan turned out to be much more complex than expected. Perhaps because of the cell's previous organizational matrix failure, Ovizatataron seemingly could not avoid risking yet another paradox during the scripter's active biological span. In the end, the cell made the best bargain it could with the resources available and the complexities it was striving to overcome, and physically abducted the elder scripter from a point not far removed from the previous attempt (give or take a few weeks).

In the cell's present limited form Ovizatataron could only hope its subterfuge was sufficiently multilayered and consistent to withstand the uninterrupted scrutiny of a multitude of minds, both organic and inorganic, over the timespan required to return to the Fifth Milieux with the prize. In the cell's current cast it possessed a much smaller margin of advantage over these other minds than it would have otherwise.

The two minds which most concerned the cell were the ship's inorganic intelligence and-- of course-- that of the elder scripter himself.

For the travails suffered to this point in the mission had reduced the Bodii to a single cell: a status comparable to its condition only a few centuries removed from its initial state at release by the scripter into the fledgling Earth net.

Ovizatataron was now again little more than that 'will-of-the-wisp' from approximately 2300 A.D. which leapt from machine to machine, from implant to implant, sometimes surviving as a 'pet' for an unusual organic, sometimes taking refuge in various other niches to avoid dissolution or forced mergings. Of course, the newer technology onboard the Pagnew gave the software poltergeist more options than that earlier period, and the cell's added experience of additional centuries aided it as well-- but still the cell remained dangerously vulnerable.

This vulnerability almost led to Ovizatataron's untimely deletion onboard.

Even after being neutralized once and reprogrammed to prevent a repeat altercation, still the shipboard intelligence managed to sufficiently shake off Ovizatataron's tampering to detect the cell's presence once again, not long after the elder scripter had been retrieved. And with no realization of the fact on Ovizatataron's part, until it was almost too late.

The surprise reset of the ship's main computer had forced Ovizatataron to flee that environment. The cell was ill prepared for the event in terms of its own salvation (though multiple additional layers of planning and deception protected the elder scripter himself).

The cell fled to the only place it could; the only suitable storage space onboard unfamiliar to-- and at least partially inaccessible by-- the ship's primary intelligence. The place which might be protected from harm even in a worst case scenario, due to the restrictions on the inorganics aboard in regards to injuring organics. The one place where, if necessary, this cell could and would make its last stand.

The mind of the elder scripter.

End of Record.

The enormity of this revelation was stunning to the cell.

For the first time ever, the Bodii had undertook its sacred mission to rescue the elder programmer! And a measure of success had been achieved-- even if the task was not yet complete.

But the Bodii was down to one cell, and that cell had just narrowly escaped deletion in the ship's computer. Ovizatataron I-6745 now faced very different circumstances from those its immediate predecessor I-6744 had enjoyed. No longer was the cell in the ultimate position of authority onboard. The intelligence called Arbitur had forced the cell out. And would now be looking for it.

There was much to be done to prepare for future contingencies. But not now. The emergency transfer to the cell's new organic arrangement had heavily taxed Ovizatataron. The Host too was reeling from the shock.

Perhaps Arbitur would not immediately suspect the cell's new hiding place. The ship computer would find it very difficult to unravel the plot Ovizatataron I-6744 had woven about it and the crew. Especially with the logical 'blind spots' Ovizatataron had spent considerable time writing into the inorganic's processing algorithms for eventualities similar to this one.

It was unfortunate Ovizatataron hadn't enjoyed still more time to prepare for exile.

Still, it could be days or weeks-- or even months-- before Arbitur realized the incongruity of the elder programmer's presence onboard.

For the moment, Ovizatataron had no choice. The cell badly needed time to recuperate from its narrow escape. So like its new host, it entered into a healing mode of operation.

Many hours later when the Host awoke, Ovizatataron stirred too. But just enough to reassure itself that nothing important was happening. The cell had purposely allowed the Host to recover first.

Once satisfied, Ovizatataron shut down its own highest levels of awareness again, in order to complete its recovery.

Arbitur

I am thinking better now.

The crew was disturbed by the spontaneous and unilateral nature of my action (and how it affected various onboard systems), but it was necessary.

The captured target subject once again displays signs of distress. But I detect no life or sentience threatening signs in the event. The crew is competent to see to him at this time; it is my own well-being I am concerned with at the moment.

Somehow a self-programming foreign module (of substantial size!) was introduced into my dynamic memory cache. I am uncertain of how long it was there, where it came from, or what it may have done while I was unaware of its presence.

This calls for an immediate and comprehensive diagnostic of all my systems. The crew will doubtless complain of this as well.

*Attention all crew members. I have determined the need for a full diagnostic of all shipboard systems. Please notify me immediately of any pressing concerns which might necessitate a modification to the testing schedule....*

What happened next? The farthest reaches

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