“This.”
“What is this?”
“It is a new plant. We have its cousin on our world. We modified it just a bit so that it will cleanse the spores out of a woman’s system. Men can use it too, but there doesn’t seem to be any harmful side-effect of the spores on men.”
“How do we deliver them?” Alex asked, not noticing that for the first time he had included the visitors and himself as we.
“We’re already in the process of that. It’s too important to leave this to chance, so we are spreading these plants in a number of different ways. To honor Lanta-eh, we came here first. But, we have hundreds more teams just like us that are approaching people all over the entire world.”
“They might not get a warm welcome in a lot of places.” Alex envisioned five people that looked like this group walking up to the gates of Lasta-ah, for instance.
“We are aware of that, but there are no weapons on this planet that can hurt us. And, if people want to reject our aid, that is up to them. We believe in self-determination. But, we will not leave until we have given every village and group of people the chance to save themselves. It’s the least we can do. And,” Bista added with a sly smile, “do not think that just because the area you have seen is at this level of technological and societal development, that the whole planet is the same.”
Alex made a mental note to ask him about that, but first he said, “You are making the same mistake that Janus did.”
Bista and Limda’s smile froze a bit. “What do you mean?”
“It’s always the law of unintended consequences,” Alex said. “Janus saw a problem—an insect wiping out the bees. He created a solution—hybrid spiders. It worked, but many thousands of years later, those spiders nearly became the end of humanity.”
Bista closed his eyes and held them shut for a moment. “I see your point. What will this plant potentially do, what harm might it cause, tens of thousands of years in the future. But, aren’t there times that the problem at hand is extreme enough that you have to take that chance?”
“That’s always the explanation,” Alex answered. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It will allow humanity to survive. As a man with daughters, I can only thank you for that.”
Bista pointed at Sanda-eh, happily turning her new toy into a poor replica of a miniature Monda-ak. “You have another daughter?”
“On the other side of the door. She was four on the day I stepped through. She would be about fifteen now.”
“I had forgotten,” Bista said. He considered, glanced at Marta, then said, “We can send you back there, you know.”
Chapter Forty-OneA Door Home
Alex Hawk leaped from his chair. “What?” He knew his voice was too loud, but he couldn’t contain himself. “How?”
“I should have told you that to begin with, I suppose,” Bista said.
“Yes, you should have,” Alex said, stunned. He groped backwards for his chair and sat, his head swimming.
“Let me tell you a little more about the portals,” Bista said.
“Tell me a little more about getting me home, how about that?”
Sanda-eh moved closer to her father, laid her hand on his knee, and patted it turning her face inquisitively to his.
Alex took a deep breath, calmed himself, and said, “Fine.” He bit the word off, but he was becoming calmer. “Tell me about the doors.”
“Janus was a problem solver. Sometimes, he tried to solve problems before he had all the information he needed. The portals were an example. He knew there were a few key elements that were leading to the destruction of the earth. A few moments and decisions that, if changed, could buy the world more time. He financed research that ended in the creation of these portals. His intention was to send teams back to change those moments for the better.”
“He’d never read his Ray Bradbury then, had he?”
Bista ignored this. “The technology was flawed. He intended to create three portals in three key moments in time. Teams would go through, fix what needed to be fixed, then return. If that team failed, he would adjust the timing of the entry point and try again. There was a bug in the program—a major bug. Instead of creating three portals, it created hundreds. Instead of going to the precise times and places he had intended, they went to random locations at completely unpredictable times.”
“Like the basement of my house in 1977.”
“Among many, many other places. It was a complete disaster. He sent teams through that never came back. The best theory anyone could come up with was that many of the portals were placed in impassable locations, like inside a mountain, or at the bottom of the ocean. If it was truly random, more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is water, so you can do the math.”
“Why didn’t you just shut them off, or whatever you do to time portals?”
“Janus and his AI tried, but the entire program was broken. It wouldn’t respond. The likelihood is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of people that are living out of their own time. Not just here and now, but some portals were backward-facing, too. Someone might step from the year 3000 into 1250 AD.” He sighed. “As I said, a disaster.”
Alex waited patiently, but Bista seemed to be dwelling on the failures of the past.
Emily said, “There!” and stood back from the sculpture. Alex knew that the material she was working with was futuristic and high-tech, but he had watched her hands work it so skillfully. He knew what he was seeing was the result of the artist’s expertise, and not just a parlor trick.
She had captured every element of Lasta-ah. Even in
