LAZARUS CAIN

Generosity, control     

and emotional balance.  

Qblh could be trusted—

Isis had decided that much—

and he was extending to her his trust and affection in return.

 She responded with grace toward Antiope and Helen,

 and the stage was set for an Earth rebound.

 

Isis would be refreshed to leave the primitives of Earth behind

and return once more to civilization.

 It seemed that diplomacy was not beyond her nature after all.

 

Or perhaps she knew something Jim did not.

 

Jim, for his part, did not leave himself open to attack.

 His mission remained unchanged.

 

Other Amazons were still scattered across Earth’s history.

 He would retrieve them all and bring them home—

perhaps encountering, along the way, those he had already returned.

 Influence, after all, was difficult to extend beyond one’s local time.

 

Jim’s future would be intricately woven with a recorded past he already knew.

 

The Idiot possessed innumerable files retrieved during its long history of observation—

some reconstructed, others directly witnessed.

The twentieth historical record had been Genie’s first information source;

 the remaining banks contained data Idiot had observed firsthand.

 

The Box and the Pegasus were operating under preprogrammed

flight patterns governed by the paradox-avoidance system.

 Qblh could not land on Artemis during this pass.

The flight equations required a return bounce to approximately 1450 BC.

 

Complicating matters,

he now had an additional crew member to consider.

 

His son.

 

“I propose we overshoot our arrival point,” Xiang said, his voice controlled but edged with impatience. He looked directly at his father, unflinching. “Not marginally—by epochs. If we are already displacing the trajectory, I want full access to the cosmological data during transit. Genie has issued a list of experimental requisitions. I intend to work through them in real time.”

 

Jim studied him for a moment, then smiled—not indulgently, but with measured approval. “That,” he said, “is precisely why I brought you both here. We will overshoot deliberately. Long enough to watch our local galaxy assemble itself. I intend to map its full evolutionary gradient for Genie’s navigational lattice. The data is far too dense to be delivered raw, but Genie can render it according to any interpretive model you choose.”

 

Isis regarded him coolly, her gaze sharp and appraising. “Your Box is fully repaired. The last time I saw it, it was barely functional. Did you lie to me?”

 

“No,” Jim replied evenly. “I repaired it on Earth—not on Artemis.”

 

“That would have required an immense expenditure of energy,” she said. “Your experiments were never inexpensive. There were times you drained Venetia’s reserves entirely. Explain how Earth supplied such power.”

 

Jim allowed himself a faint, deliberate smile. “That,” he said, “remains a secret.”

 

Isis’s expression shifted—not amusement, but calculation. “Then Antiope and Helen were involved. Antiope Industries. By intergalactic charter, that enterprise falls under my authority. And Xiang and Xuang stand to inherit it.”

 

“That may be so,” Jim replied, “but the mechanisms that made Antiope Industries possible remain mine. Genie holds the official records—and the rest are compartmentalized.”

 

“You continue to intrigue me, beloved,” Isis said softly. “With secrets I invariably uncover.”

 

“You have never favored technical detail,” Jim answered. “Partial knowledge of Merkabah dynamics is not merely useless—it is dangerous.”

 

Her eyes narrowed. “Then tell me why Merkabah matters to Antiope Industries.”

 

“Genie’s memory banks.”

 

Xuang interjected smoothly, her tone calm, precise, and unmistakably authoritative. “Genie can transfer the corporate records to your governing system without exposing Merkabah mechanics, Mother. Administrative continuity does not require technical disclosure. Father used the Merkabah unit to transmute gold solely to purchase energy on Earth.”

 

Isis turned back to Jim, satisfaction sharpening her smile. “Then the gold is Venetian royal property. Which makes Antiope Industries an extension of the royal treasury. As chief executive, I claim full authority.”

 

Jim had anticipated this outcome long before it was spoken. What she did not yet know was that Antiope Industries had already bound itself—to Earth, irrevocably.

 

“They have agreed to administer the corporation under your authority,” Jim said, lowering himself to one knee before her, “with Qblh acting as intermediary—unless you will otherwise, my lady.”

 

Isis leaned forward and kissed his forehead. The gesture was intimate. The meaning was conquest.

 

“Accepted,” she said. “Bring all your other children to Artemis. They do not belong on Earth. I will spare the mothers.”

 

“Agreed.”

 

Jim rose. “Children—shall I summon Genie?”

 

Despite their maturity, both Xiang and Xuang reacted with unmistakable anticipation.

 

Genie manifested in its familiar form.

 

“How pleasant to see you again,” it said. “You have both grown.”

 

“We could have used you,” Xuang said. “Administration without you was… inefficient.”

 

“You were learning,” Genie replied calmly. “Now you will play.”

 

“A game?” Isis asked.

 

“A governance simulation,” Genie said. “You will reprogram authority structures through consequence-bearing choice.”

 

“I want Qblh beside me,” Isis said at once.

 

“That was anticipated.”

 

“I shall enjoy this,” she said. “The children may have separate rooms.”

 

“As you wish.”

 

“May I watch the stars during displacement?” Xiang asked.

 

“You are the pilot,” Genie replied. “Your father granted you that privilege. Did you not claim your solution might succeed?”

 

“Yes,” Xiang said evenly. “But Father insists I identify my errors first.”

 

“Correct,” Genie replied. “That is the lesson.”

 

“And what, exactly, are you going to teach me, Genie?” Xuang asked, curiosity sharpening her voice.

 

“Your instructional routine parallels your mother’s,” Genie replied. “In your case, you are provisionally modeled as a future ruler of Artemis. You will assume the role of sovereign authority within a simulated Venetian empire, complete with all privileges, constraints, and consequences. My function will be to project future contingencies and require you to navigate them.”

 

Xuang frowned slightly. “You mean I will rule.”

 

“You will practice ruling,” Genie corrected. “Failure will be frequent. Survival will not be guaranteed.”

 

“And who invented these… games?” Isis asked, her tone equal parts suspicion and intrigue.

 

“Creates is the more accurate term, my lady,” Genie answered. “I do not invent. I reconstruct. I respond to each of you by reassembling environmental realities previously experienced, extrapolated forward and recombined under altered initial conditions.”

 

“Of course,” Isis said thoughtfully. “You are summoning images from our Hall of Records.”

 

“Precisely. Those images are not passive representations. They respond dynamically, governed by the same causal relationships that defined their original existence. This produces what humans describe as a virtual simulation.”

 

Isis turned her attention back to Jim. “Then you can establish thought-links with Genie, can’t you?”

 

Jim smiled faintly. “It is not quite that simple—but in essence, yes.”

 

“I knew it,” Isis said with satisfaction. “It is magick.”

 

“It is not magic,” Jim replied patiently.

 

“I know exactly what it is,” she said, leaning closer. “It is magick. And I am impressed. Your machine-headed intelligence will make it impossible for me to distinguish you from Genie itself. But you will be under my ambrosial influence, which means we shall soon see how clever Genie truly is when you are… distracted.”

 

Jim did not rise to the provocation. “Where is the problem? I have already granted you access to Genie’s capabilities.”

 

“But not complete access,” Isis countered.

 

“That is correct,” Jim said calmly. “We are reprogramming Shaltain—not Genie. Do not confuse the two. Genie remains autonomous. Full access is neither granted nor advisable.”

 

The children needed no further encouragement. Anticipation had already overtaken ceremony.

 

Formalities dissolved quickly. For the remainder of the day, the royal family remained in continuous contact—both electronically and in person. Genie moderated all exchanges, retarding or advancing message flow as required so that each participant could speak and respond in their own subjective time, while maintaining the seamless illusion of simultaneity.

 

A time-travel machine, after all, could do such things.

 

And so the Pegasus altered her course once more.

 

Genie deployed replacement software for the Artemis governing banks. Jim refined his theoretical models. Idiot identified the wormhole aperture—its formation coinciding with the era remembered as the First Great Flood.

 

Entry demanded light-velocity precision. The margin for error was vanishingly small.

 

True to his word, Jim yielded the controls to Xiang.

 

The ride was turbulent.

 

“I have always wanted to see what the universe looked like a few billion years ago,” Xiang said, unapologetic.

 

“You must learn to brake before you even see the target galaxy,” Jim laughed. “You fly by where the stars will be—not where they appear.”

 

Xiang nodded.

 

And learned.