"Does that mean you are not all going to die in that final attack tonight?" I asked.
"Of course not." Brianna Vercours shook her head. "We certainly are not going to sacrifice ourselves. Not if we can help it. We are just retreating, to a place where the enemy cannot follow us. To the past." She smiled. "But we can discuss all that with the rest of the team. I left them in the seminar room when I received that intruder alarm for my office. Please follow me, girls."
She led Natty and me out of her office.
As it turned out, the seminar room was located just two or three doors down the hall. Inside, four people were sitting: a young fair-haired woman, a bronze-skinned middle-aged woman, a black man in his early twenties and a red-haired boy who looked to be a year or two younger than Natty and I.
Brianna Vercours introduced the adults as Celia Graham, Larissa Montreve and Xavier Torc.
"And this is Victor Gabriel, our prodigy-in-residence," she added, indicating the boy.
"I found these two girls in my office, with the door locked from outside," she explained. "From what they tell me it appears they that they were sent by the Seipra, on August 14 in 1965. There is an entry in the log that corroborates that date at least."
"So who are they," Torc asked, "and why did the Seipra send them?"
"This is Catherine Hart." Brianna Vercours indicated me. "She appears to be a citizen of the Alliance, albeit from an earlier century. The other girl claims to be Natalie Fogg."
"Natalie Fogg? The Natalie Fogg? Seriously?" Celia Graham inquired, staring at Natty.
"I don't think so." The boy Victor scowled. "She doesn't look very bright."
Natty glared at him. "No offense, but when was the last time you looked into a mirror?"
Ms Vercours sighed. "Victor, how often do I have to tell you that being a prodigy does not entitle, much less require you to be rude?"
"Yes, that is definitely not part of the job description," Larissa Montreve confirmed.
"But she doesn't look anything like in the photographs and vid-clips," the boy insisted.
"What photographs and vid-clips?" Natty asked, intrigued.
Brianna Vercours ignored Natty's question. "She discovered the error in your calculations, Victor. The one we feared might be in it. The one I could not find," she quietly pointed out.
The boy blushed. "I would have found that one myself eventually," he claimed.
"Possibly. But not the way she did, after glancing at your derivation for less than a couple of minutes." Ms Vercours turned towards Natty. "I apologize for Victor's behavior, Miss Fogg. We have all been under a lot of stress, lately, and ..."
"Please call me Natalie, if you don't mind," Natty cut in.
"Yes, and I would also prefer it if you could address me as Catherine," I added.
"That's fine with me. We are all on first names here anyhow," Brianna Vercours replied. "So, Catherine and Natalie, I expect that you have a few questions that you are dying to ask us."
"Indeed we have," I told her. "For starters, who are those women that sent us here, the ... what did you call them, Seipra?"
"The Seipra, yes." Brianna cleared her throat. "They are special people, the result of an ambiguous project. What is your native temporal era, Catherine?"
"The early 23rd century," I replied.
"Right. Project Seipra started somewhat later than that, in the 25th century," the woman continued. "But I think you are more of an expert on this topic than I am, Xavier."
"Maybe so." The black man smiled. "As you may know, in the 20th century and even earlier than that, people developed an interest in what they called paranormal activity, a term covering such diverse topics as clairvoyance, mind-reading and psychokinesis, to name just a few of them. In the late 25th century, our scientists started a unique new approach to investigate these phenomena, using innovative techniques like the Gzaba scan and Aynuri Interferometry. Applying these and other state-of-the-art experimental techniques, they found that their tests for paranormal phenomena would systematically yield statistically significant results, and that there were certain people who were genetically disposed to have a special talent for performing feats such as mind-reading."
"These talents or gifts ran in certain families and were inherited in the female line. Subsequently, further attempts were made to study and understand these effects. These attempts concentrated on those specially gifted families. Eventually, successful attempts scientists discovered how to enhance these abilities via genetic engineering. 'Seipra' became the term used to refer to these special families that carry that special gift or talent." He turned towards Celia Graham. "I think it is your turn to continue with the story from here."
"Because I am the historian here, or because I am a Seipra myself?" The young woman grinned. "Never mind. There is not that much left to tell, really. The enemy from outer space appeared less than half a year ago, but we realized at an early stage of the war that eventually we would be forced to retreat, to prepare for a mass transit of our people into the past, to a time well before homo sapiens evolved."
"Now, many of the Seipra were not too happy about that. A group of a few hundred of them came up with an ambitious plan. Rather than go back and 'live with the dinosaurs' as they put it, they would transit to the year 1000 AD to live there. That way, they and their descendants would have more than a thousand years to come up with a solution to our problem, by applying their special abilities to develop a weapon capable of beating the intruders. Once they had achieved their objective, one or more of them would return to us bearing the good news. To this end, they were going to keep up an asynchronous ansible connection to a spot within Brianna's office, a connection ready to be activated at a moment's notice if necessary."
"So you actually made it work," I blurted out. "The asynchronous connection, I mean."
Brianna raised one eyebrow at my outburst, causing me to blush.
"They are just starting to experiment with asynchronous connections, in my time," I hastened to explain. "Sorry about the interruption."
"That's okay." Celia offered me a reassuring smile. "Now, where was I? The Seipra, or rather that group of them that decided to transit to the year 1000. They somewhat ironically called themselves 'The Adventurous Ones', because it was clear from the start that their endeavor was going to be an extremely risky one, without any guarantee of success. Asynchronous connections are incompatible with keeping up a standby line for communication, so we just established a dormant connection to Brianna's office."
"And you never heard from them, even once, since they left?" Natty asked.
"No, they did not return so we assumed that they had failed in their attempt to come up with a way for us to prevail against the intruders. From what you tell us, almost a thousand years went by for them, and then they sent the two of you, Catherine and Natalie. And we have no idea at all why they did that."
"When we left, they were under attack," I tried to explain, "They were trapped within a huge cave, besieged by a group of heavily armed mercenaries and thugs."
Our hosts exchanged worried looks.
"We will try and take care of that," Larissa Montreve announced, with a sigh. "Brianna, you said we do have their coordinates logged, right?"
"That's right," Brianna confirmed.
"Good." Larissa turned towards Natty and me. "Do you have any further questions."
"I don't see why we should waste more valuable time on answering their questions," Victor interjected.
"Because they need to understand the situation in order to be able to help us," Larissa told him.
Victor made a face. "What makes you think that they would be able to help us?"
"If nothing else, they may have information that we do not have," Brianna patiently explained. She pointed at Natty. "Don't forget that she is Natalie Fogg."
Victor shrugged. "Genius girls from the past are overrated, in my opinion."
Natty frowned. "I daresay the same holds true for certain boy prodigies-in-residence."
The boy rolled his eyes. "You are aware that your knowledge of mathematical physics is outdated by almost one thousand years, aren't you?"
Natty scowled. She could become rather mean when she was being attacked, as Victor was about to find out.
"Sadly, it does not look like you benefit a lot from your supposed lead in knowledge of state-of-the-art mathematical physics," she declared.
The boy glared at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Natty smiled. "I am about your age, give or take a year or two, but I have already laid the mathematical foundations behind your people's temporal transit technology. By comparison, what have you accomplished so far, yourself?"
Victor turned red with anger. "That is not fair!"
"It is too," Natty shot back. "It is is perfectly fair. And that calculation you did, in Brianna's office ... That was sloppy math."
"Says who?"
"Says I."
Brianna sighed. To say that she was looking pained would have been a huge understatement.
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A / N : Looks like Natty and Victor are not going to become best friends anytime soon.
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