Atlantis Endgame Read Online Free PDF

back to see if the Baldies dropped a couple of their equivalent of nuclear bombs down the shaft of that volcano?" He sat back and sighed. "But if they caused the volcano to blow, then it doesn't really matter if it was them or Mother Nature, does it? It already happened. That means if we were there we lost the battle, and it happened. If we'd been successful—if we were to be successful in stopping 'em—then we might destroy ourselves up at this end of time."
    "Yes, and no," Ashe said, leaning forward. "As usual, it's not that simple; it's not clear that the Baldies touched off the volcanic explosion by some arcane means." He turned to the computer expert. "Marilyn?"
    "There is another hypothesis that projects an unexpected version of what our modern times might have been like if the Minoans had lived," she said, tapping at her computer console.
    The light under Ashe's display blinked out, and the power shifted.
    Once again the screen came to life, this time with a picture of the Mediterranean world. "This hypothesis, less popular, begins with the obvious statement that our present-day civilization is a direct result of that disaster."
    Eveleen frowned, staring at the map.
    "The key word, now, is peaceful," Marilyn went on. "The Minoans were peaceful and stable. If they had continued to build their remarkable ships and carry goods and ideas around the world, there is a chance we would have developed along more peaceful lines. Most of our technological development has been a side effect of inventions for warfare. Or defense.
    This second model gives us this picture—" The image shifted. "Had the Minoans continued to influence our development, Earth's population would have grown slowly, engaged more in trade than warfare, giving us—today—a largely pastoral civilization of maybe half a billion people."
    The images showed humans in small towns amid great forests and swathes of undisturbed land.
    "Our state of technological advance might be the equivalent of the early steam age."
    Kelgarries said, "Which would leave Earth open for invasion."
    Eveleen sat back in surprise. "So what you're saying is that the Baldies—if they were there at all—might have gone back, or might go back, to prevent the volcano from going off?"
    "It's possible," Ashe said. "In which case none of us would exist."
    Eveleen shut her eyes, struggling—as she always did— with the idea of time and what the higher-math experts termed superpositions. After all I've been through, you'd think I could get used to thinking in the conditional, nonrelativistic tenses, she thought wryly. And she noticed Ross rubbing his forehead; he was having just the same trouble.
    "The key thing to remember is that we seem to have gone back," Ashe said. He added with a faint, sardonic smile, "I say 'we' even though all we have is Eveleen's earring. But I know Ross won't be kept from going on this mission—"
    "Damn straight."
    "And I confess I would pull any strings I had to pull to be there as well."
    Ross flipped his pencil into the air. "All right, so what we're looking at is a trip to the past. See if we find any Baldies. If we don't, we come back. If we do, then what?"
    "Circumvent them, of course," Eveleen said.
    Ashe nodded at her. "If they did tamper with Thera's volcano, we have to find out what they intend. We might also be the ones who caused the evacuation—"
    "Oh, yes," Eveleen exclaimed. "I was just thinking of that. Those people have no other way of knowing, do they? So do you think we are the ones who got them safely away?"
    "We won't know anything until we get there," Ashe said. "And well begin training at once; we will have to assume that time is pressing."
    "Why?" Linnea Edel asked, leaning forward. "If we can truly travel back to any time—a concept I still have trouble grasping, even with the evidence before my eyes—why can't we just take a few months—years, even—to prepare and go back at our leisure?"
    Gordon Ashe indicated the three earrings.