The blinding intrusive darkness flared and waned, waned and flared, until Duhyle had no idea whether he was blind in the presence of brilliant light or seeing nothing amid darkness. Slowly, he became aware of a coolness that became an icy chill. Was this death, the chill of Niflheim, the old and discredited idea of the depths of an after-world where even the flames of fire had no heat?
Amid that darkness, he became aware of Helkyria, and a soft silver-golden light that radiated from her. He turned and opened his mouth to speak, but there was no sound. Yet there were words, as if upon a neuralnet of some sort. You're silver-gold.
So are you, came her calm reply.
Where are we? Or when? Or if?
We are…because we're thinking. As for the other questions…
Abruptly, the darkness vanished, and they stood in the chamber where they had activated the synchronizer. Yet it was not the same chamber, because banks of instruments lined the walls, each clad in a soft silver light, each displaying symbols that changed, and with each change, words ran through Duhyle?s mind. He didn?t understand the words.
Do you know the language? he asked.
I don't, she replied. I'd judge it's that of the builders.
Builders? Someone had to have built the canal, but to think they might encounter them after millions of years? That was improbable, since time travel had long since been proven impossible.
Even before Helkyria?s words faded in Duhyle?s mind, a figure appeared before them, midway between them. At first, Duhyle thought that a man stood there, then a woman, but features and physique shifted. All that remained common was the fitted scarlet singlesuit.
You keep shifting. What else could Duhyle have said that wouldn?t have revealed even greater ignorance?…no shifts…perception…
Behind the figure, whose appearance continued to change, one image/figure/persona replacing another in flicker-fashion, the instruments also changed-at the same time as the figure did.
Are we seeing all possible futures? Duhyle finally asked.
I don't think time works that way, replied Helkyria. There's something else…
Duhyle took a step forward, and everything swirled around him so violently that vertigo and nausea left him trembling. He was barely able to hold himself together. After a long moment, if they were where time existed, and he had his doubts about that, he straightened up slowly and carefully. Don't move…very painful…disconcerting. Sodizzy…vertigo…disorientation.
Thank you. After a pause, she added, It was painful and disorienting to watch you. Youseemed to fragment…but you didn't.
The figure in scarlet seemed to speak…all event-points…all at once… Then he/she became an indistinct shifting shape.
Duhyle thought he?d understood what it had said or projected. Did you get that-about all event-points at once?
That could be a suggestion that sequence or causality exists independent of perception, replied Helkyria.
Or? You don't sound all that certain.
There's always been a debate about whether time exists in de pen dent of space. Mosttheorists say it doesn't…or that it doesn't exist at all. Rainbows, or something like them, flickered around Helkyria.
How can time not exist at all? questioned Duhyle, slowly beginning to feel the last of the vertigo and nausea subside.
More than a few people have asked-
All the silver vanished, and the darkness returned.