The Long Road to Gaia Read Online Free PDF Page A

longer flying combat
fighters.
    I pondered the time wall, and came to the
conclusion it was part of the meeting's time lock, designed to give me a taste,
but not the whole story.
    I willed myself back to the meeting room.
     

Four
     
    The others looked as if they hadn't moved.
Most likely they hadn't. Time for us is fluid. We could live a millennium, and
still be back here an eye blink after leaving. Actually, that was a good
thought. Maybe a millennium would give me some time to think, and time to drop
in on more of the future, so I could see firsthand how humans developed over
the next six hundred years. I wondered why I hadn't. It was already too late.
The time lock again, I suspected.
    "So," said One. "Has your
opinion of humans altered at all?"
    I thought about it. Certainly, I'd not seen
what I'd expected.
    "One family doesn’t demonstrate what
the species as a whole is like," I said at last.
    "True," said Kali. "But this
family will be the flag bearer for the human race as it launches itself to the
stars. Even if they are not representative of all human kind, are they not
worth looking after?"
    "Perhaps. Do they need to be looked
after?"
    "At times," said Ganesha,
"yes. Their future is a slender thread in the tapestry of the galaxy. If
the thread breaks, the tapestry will unravel."
    "So what if it does?"
    "Darkness will fall," said One.
"I've seen it. I won't allow it to happen."
    "What is darkness to me?" I
responded. "I'm a dark matter nebulae after all. Most things in the galaxy
are light compared to me."
    "There is darkness," said Four,
"and there is Darkness. Dark it is between the light of the suns, and we
the nebulae which light the spaces between the suns, while birthing new suns.
But darkness of the soul is something much different, and it is this darkness
which threatens to overrun the lesser species of the galaxy. For now, it is
contained. This will not always be so."
    "Why don’t you do the work to ensure
it remains contained?"
    "All of us will," said Two.
"But only you can keep the thread intact."
    "This family are so important?"
    "The family as such," said Kali,
"no. But a few of them across six hundred years, yes."
    "Why not just drop me in at the needed
times?"
    "Because time is fluid," said
One. "Only by following it forward will you be in the right place, at the
right time, to subtly effect its flow, and keep the thread intact. And besides,
as previously said, eventually you will be asked to intervene, and only by
taking this journey in full, will you understand your role when it counts the
most."
    "I don’t like being used this
way."
    "We know," said Twelve. "But
it is necessary."
    I looked at them without saying anything.
They looked back at me.
    I sighed. Damn, that was a human mannerism.
I was already being sucked into this. Undoubtedly this was why the meeting was
time locked, so the human form could influence me just by being locked into it.
    "Fine. I'll babysit this family for
you."
    "We knew you would," said One.
    "The boy I just saw, the one who
thinks he's going into space? What's his name?"
    Kali smiled.
    "Hunter," she said.
"Jonathon Hunter."

2016
One
     
    The middle aged man stepped out of the taxi
in front of the hotel. His hair was thinning, his short beard was grey, and he
was no longer the thin athletic build of his youth. His head ached, and he was
tired from the journey.
    He looked around. The main street was
almost empty, of anything. A couple of cars further up, was all. A few people,
dressed in white, walking. Opposite the hotel was an empty field, with a sign
in Portuguese. Parking lot, I whispered to him. The road was pretty normal, but
the field was brown clay.
    Further down the road, there was a lot of
white and blue paint, and another sign. He couldn’t read it at this distance,
but he could guess what it said. It was after all, why he was here.
    The taxi driver unloaded his cases, and
they moved inside. The receptionist didn’t speak any English, but he was the
only