The Assemblage of Eternal Travellers

Hartdegen fixed me with his deep brown eyes and began his tale. "First off I would like to make one thing clear to you, the death of your parents was never intended and we played no part it in."

I made to refute this comment but Hartdegen continued, "Please just listen Tavis and when I have finished if you wish to end all of this I will transport you back to your own time and have no further part in your destiny."

"Sounds like Hobsons choice to me - I will still have to deal with Drufus."


"And others but it will be your choice."

"I Guess - but I still do not understand any of this - who are you - and why choose me?

"Well you now understand the nature of the void and I believe you can appreciate how it must always remain intact magically separating past, present and future.

"Yes."

"Left to its own devices this is how it would have remained but unfortunately just as on your planet greed is often a driving force and it can become all consuming shooting logic out of the equation. I am sorry to say this was no different for us?"

"Us," I ask

"Yes Tavis us. - The travelers. The nomads of time, beings who can flip through millenia with no more effort than it takes to breath. You are now a fellow of the most exclusive club ever to exist a fraternity with members from the four corners or the universe and from every era."

"How many travelers."

"As a percentage of the entire life force we are minuscule but in round figures two million souls."

"That is a big club - the Christmas party must be outstanding."

"Compared to the area we cover in time and space we have no more presence than a handful of sugar scattered about a continent. At one time you could journey for an entire life and never meet another traveller but in more recent times communities of travellers have started to form pockets of like minded people, some working on projects of discovery, others just telling the tale and exchanging news and gossip"

"So what's the deal with you manipulating my life, couldn't you have just left me to discover time travel for myself?"

"For the majority of travellers that is how we prefer it to be left alone to develop their talent, some fall by the wayside never reaching full potential but most progress to gain a complete understanding of what they can achieve and so lead a full and enjoyable life possibly ending up as part of one of the groups. Unfortunately we could not wait for you to mature we had to intervene."

"Why?"

"As I said greed became a factor and a theory began to emerge that if the void could be pierced and the resulting energy contained and then harvested this would result in great power and wealth, much as oil has done for certain nations upon Earth. So for several decades our scientists worked on the principles of how to achieve this - tirelessly fine tuning and modifying their calculations. Engineers designed vast machines that would drill down through time and tap off the enormous energy and after many years of hypothesis it was agreed to put all of this knowledge into practice. A Planet was chosen for the experiment and the equipment was readied it was agreed that because of the potential hazards only a limited number of people would attend the site of the drilling, ten in total, myself and nine others. The scientists had calculated that the immediate area surrounding the drilling would become unstable so these globes were designed to emulate the void and so afford us some protection, the fluid that i am suspended within is essentially the atmosphere or the void distilled and concentrated. Once we had been placed within these vessels the drilling began."

"Who were the nine others?"

"Mostly scientists, a couple of our senor travelers, myself and the project director."

"So what happened, am i now talking to the wealthiest man in the universe?" I laughed.

"Far from it Tavis, the drilling was a success and we achieved our aim of tunnelling through to the void, however we had greatly miscalculated the forces that would be unleashed and the mechanism designed to cap the flow and tap off the power failed instantly allowing past and future to mingle and spew out into the present the result of this unnatural brew was pure evil. Chaos."

"But you survived."

"Yes thanks to good fortune and the integrity of this globe I survived however the blast has somehow sealed me in here."

"You cannot get out?"

"I cannot. Myself and five of the others became prisoners of their globes."

"And the other five?"

"Two were atomised - killed instantly - the remaining three survived - two injured horrendously exposed to the full force of evil they mutated into beings the likes of which I had never seen before."

"What of the third survivor?"

" He was physically unharmed, but I cannot vouch for his sanity, maybe you could give me your considered opinion of Project Director Drufus."

"Drufus.."

"Yes Drufus. It was he who first proposed the experiment he was always around prompting and pushing dispelling doubts and encouraging more and faster development, he was the obvious choice for the position of project director."

Hartdegen continued to tell me of the ungodly visions he witnessed on that day - of how they struggled to cap the flow and how they eventually succeeded. He told me of how the capping mechanisms had been sabotaged and how it was determined that Drufus was to blame, of how they disabled the drill for ever by removing key components and scattering them randomly through out time. Not unsurprisingly Drufus did one and disappeared along with the two mutants. He told me how the remaining five survivors agreed to make a pact to track down Drufus and how a mandate was agreed between all contactable travellers that the five would become guardians, policing time to ensure that such a catastrophe never reoccurred. The five became know as The Assemblage of Eternal Travellers.

All throughout this discussion I was troubled by something - a nagging feeling - something Hartdegen had said and then I realised what it was, "You said my parents."

"Sorry?" Queried Hartdegen.

"You said that you had nothing to do with the death of my parents.....What about Lilly?"

"Yes I believe that is what I said."