He Stays a Stranger

Go to the Mirror any Time you Damn Well Please

Pariotric changes can and must be effected for the benefit of mankind. The benefits to our allies will follow. The past is wrong. The future can improve it. And, in time, augment and perfect it. It is our duty, as keepers of this sacred and marvelous technology, to help our forebears.

It is, therefore, our stated mission, to put right what is wrong with the past, in order to perfect it, so as to achieve a perfect future."

"So the Perfectionists just want us all to be happy and free and healthy, eh?" Kevin asked sarcastically.

"And then they mess it all up," Sheilagh said, "Those people wouldn't know how to make a good change if it came up and bit them in the patoot. Everything they touch just shatters."

"I'm going back to my office," Carmen said, "and I'll call you each in, individually. Polly first." The two women left.

"I suppose we'll see if Dan and Marisol were the only ones," Sheilagh said, "or if the Perfectionists placed anyone else in here, to try and turn us to their way of thinking."

"Oh, I'm sure there's someone else," Rick said, "'cause Fluxy could not have been taken otherwise."

=/\=

A few hours later, Carmen had talked to Polly, Otra, Sheilagh, HD and Crystal. At least according to Dan, they were all cleared. She then called Rick into her office. "Now," she said, "I have very little reason to tell you much of anything. And I don't have to remind you that what Dan wrote might not be accurate. There are things he may not have known. Still, he had no reason to lie."

"Well, if I don't exist in this reality, the guy can't exonerate me," Rick pointed out.

"Precisely. But you have insights and skills that tell me that you are telling the truth. At least, it's the truth that you, personally, believe. Tell me, do you trust the engineers?"

"Yeah, I guess so. But, you – er, in my reality, at least, it was you – you told me to give all my engineering work to Kevin. There had been dark matter intake lines cut on the various time ships. I was almost stranded in 1968." 1968. He would have been stranded with Milena.

"I would have told you that here as well. See, Mister Daniels, our friend Beauchaine was somewhat cryptic. He gave us the remainder of the Manifesto file and informed us that it was planted here by one Helen Walker."

"Isn't she dead?"

"Apparently not, but he didn't provide any helpful hints as to her whereabouts. He may not have known, though. This ties in with, there had been a number of diversionary missions, and many of them involved HD Avery. See, after I interviewed everyone last year, two shuttles departed. One of them crashed, and Helen Walker – or so we thought – came to her end. The survivors evacuated and the body and the shuttle were left to Berren One's flames."

"So things are not what they seem, eh?" Rick asked.

"Avery was on that shuttle. So was Crystal Sherwood, for that matter. But it was Avery who saw Marisol Castillo confirm Helen's death. The Perfectionists knew of this, so they exploited Avery's talents and kept him hopping."

"How did they know?" Rick inquired.

"Someone on the shuttle was one of their operatives."

"Crystal?"

"Probably not. Beauchaine was insistent that there was an engineer and another."

"So who was on that shuttle?" Rick asked.

"Avery, Castillo, Walker, Carol Tilson and Rajesh Kumar. And Beauchaine."

"So it was Beauchaine who let the Perfectionists in on what had happened."

"Yes, although I don't put it past Kumar to be our engineer friend."

"Maybe," Rick allowed, "but there's someone internal. Fluxy didn't just up and fly away by itself."

"Yes. And it's potentially more than one engineer. See, Beauchaine also let us in on how the Perfectionists travel in time. Usually travel, that is. There's a device and an enzyme that one swallows. The two inventions work together and off you go. So they don't need time ships. It's rather convenient for a secretive organization."

"But they needed a time ship in order to head to the mirror."

"Right," she said, "which is probably, in your reality, where Helen is. Or, perhaps, her Daddy, who Beauchaine, thankfully, fingers as being the leader of that pack. Do you know why they would have gone to the mirror? Dan wrote that they only care about the first epoch of space travel – that is, from Sputnik to the first Warp One vessel – and they only care about our side of the pond."

"I think they went there," he said, "because I, personally, am not allowed to go there." He explained about Empress Hoshi, and about Jun.

"But if you never existed," Carmen said, "then there is no Jun, right? So I'd say, Mister Daniels, that you should feel free to go to the mirror any time you damn well please."

=/\=

Trees swayin' in the summer breeze

Showin' off their silver leaves

As we walked by

– Chad and Jeremy (A Summer Song)