1 The Attack (1.1)

"THE ARUK DEFIED THEIR HOME PLANET'S GOVERNMENT and launched an attack on Earth. In the dark of night, they appeared in houses all over Earth. The Aruk attacked the Earth families in their homes and kidnapped 150 children." The futurity historian's body faded in and out but did not entirely materialize as he continued the lesson.

"The futurity histographers from planet Aun's government shuddered as they sensed the future timeline fracture in front of them. The Aruk, in taking children from Earth, sent Earth's timeline splintering off into many directions—an action that would ultimately change the course of that planet's destiny. Many of the Earth children had not even been born yet, and the Aruk sped up their development to take them. Only a few of the children were older, between three and five Earth years of age, and we watched in horror as the Aruk caused fires, tornadoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis to cover their tracks.

"Planet Aun's government sent its best team to try to stop the Aruk, but their efforts were blocked by the Aruk's agents. The Aruk disappeared into the galaxy, taking the children as prisoners."

"Where did the aliens take them?" asked one young boy in a hushed voice.

Fifteen children sat in beanbag chairs around their history teacher. They were in a circular room. Various charts and pictures, portraying scenes and events from Earth's fascinating history as well as things no normal human would recognize lined the walls. Some depicted the history of an alien race, and each was captioned in the characters of a strange language.

The children did not seem bothered by what the pictures portrayed. They were not aware that they should find their surroundings anything other than ordinary. Instead, they paid rapt attention to their alien teacher, Ankh.

Like all individuals of his race, Ankh had a special gift that enabled him to make full use of his mind. He was a futurity histographer. Not only was he able to remember all of history, but he could also see the past, present, and future timelines. As a futurity histographer, he was a guardian of all of the timelines. After the Aruk incident, he devoted his life to teaching history and how consequences ripple through time.

It didn't even bother the children that their teacher never took on a solid form. To the children, their history teacher was not strange. Neither his three arms and legs nor the purple tinge to his skin seemed out of place to them, and the deep green tattoos circling his head that marked him as a futurity histographer seemed as natural to them as their own hair. The human children had known him most of their lives. They listened because they wanted to learn, and Ankh was one of many teachers schooling the Earth children in how to use their whole brain capacity, how to think in more than three dimensions, and how to think outside the hypercube.

"Where did the aliens take the children?" the boy asked his history teacher, a little more loudly the second time.

"Draeton, please remember to raise your cube," Ankh prompted gently.

Draeton closed his eyes and grimaced as he concentrated hard on the cube in his hand. For only a few seconds, and with a great deal of difficulty, the boy managed to use his mind to rearrange the molecules in his cube, changing the cube's material into an element lighter than the air around it. This caused the cube to float a few inches above his hand before he lost control of it, and it dropped back into his palm. He slowly opened his eyes and looked apologetically to his teacher.

"That is all right, you are getting better at it," Ankh reassured him. "Now, regarding what happened to the 150 children, you must have all memorized the story by now. Must we go over it again?"

A fourteen year-old girl smiled. She understood Draeton's question.

"It is more fun hearing you tell the story," Rivinaig said, grinning.

Ankh's normally purple face deepened in color, blushing as he pretended to concede to finishing a story he had already planned on finishing in the first place.

"Very well," he said with a smile. "The kidnappers were from our species, the Aunantet. They were members of the Aruk, a faction that had separated from the main government. After the Aruk attacked Earth, they disappeared. It took the Aun government two years to find where the Aruk were hiding the children.

"Meanwhile, the Aruk brought the children back to their secret base. They tested the children repeatedly, trying to find every weakness the children had. The Aruk put starvation, pain, rigorous training programs and confusion upon these young ones to find the breaking points of their species." Ankh lost himself in thought a moment and his voice slowed. "From what we could tell, it seemed they treated you children as though you were just some new weapon for them to develop and test. Then again, you all were infants and they never were the parenting types."

Rivinaig, the oldest, remembered many of the tests and punishments, unlike the younger children. She shut her eyes against the flow of memories streaming past her mind's eye. Ankh paused and glanced at her in sympathy, knowing the other children were too young at the time and their memories would not have endured as long and remained as vivid as Rivi's.

The memories were tough on her, but she knew it was important to face them. After a second or two, Rivi opened her eyes and nodded at Ankh, who was not only her teacher, but her guardian as well. She knew he would understand her feelings.

Ankh continued the story.

"The Aruk did not have time to fulfill whatever their objective was because two years later, the Aun government discovered their hidden facility and sent a group of Aunantet to storm the place. They freed the children and captured a few of the Aruk, though most escaped.

"The Aunantet tried to contact the people of Earth, but Earth apparently couldn't respond or couldn't understand the message when it reached them. So the Aun government assigned Aunantet parents to each of the children, and a facility was established to teach and house the children. The Aunantet government decided to teach the children everything they could from the collected knowledge of both worlds.

"These children soon began not only to learn the history, science, literature, math, and geography of both Earth and Aun, they also began to learn to use more of their brain capacity than any other, normal human. They began to learn to use their minds more efficiently."

"Like the Aunantet!" a young girl towards the front of the class said.

"Yes," answered Ankh. "Now who can tell me who the 150 children are?"

"Us!" another child said.

"Yes, very good. You know the story well," Ankh said, with a chuckle that made his robes ripple like water in a pond. "I believe that's the end of class for today. It's time for you to go. But don't forget: over the weekend, I'd like you to write a report on what we've learned this week about freedom and how it influenced changes throughout history."

A hole materialized in the wall of the circular classroom and fourteen of the fifteen students filed through. Rivi stayed behind.

"Something troubling you, Rivi?" Ankh asked, standing and stretching all three of his arms over his head.

"I was just wondering why, over all these years, no matter how many times I've heard the story, no one tells us what happened to the Earth parents."

"Well, as far as I know, the parents did not fare well from the ordeal. Most of them probably died. Those who survived were probably sent to an asylum. No one would believe that aliens took their children," Ankh patted Rivi on the shoulder. "But that doesn't mean you children will never be able to go back to Earth."

"I doubt we'd fit in very well. Oh! Here's the computer I've been working on," Rivi said, walking over to her beanbag chair to retrieve a flat triangular object and hand it to Ankh.

"Hmm, this seems quite complex," Ankh said, looking it over. "I'll show this to Orlon in the Communications sector and see what he thinks."

"Thank you, Ankh. Is Enuet cooking dinner tonight?"

"Of course. You know she cooks on Fridays. She doesn't want you to forget how to eat like a normal, earth human!" Ankh answered with a laugh. "Don't worry. I fixed the food preparation generator system, just in case."

"Uh, Ankh, please don't be mean. Enuet has only degenerated one meal down to the molecular level this month. One meal!" Rivi shook her head and laughed.

"Okay, okay, you should get along now, go on," Ankh laughed, herding Rivi toward the portal in the wall, which sealed itself as she left.

#

Rivi returned to her family's quarters later than normal that day. She had stopped by the complex's library to investigate some irregularities she was sensing. After a moment's investigation, she had learned that the trouble was due to one of the library's computers. She went to the library to offer to fix the problem. When she could tell that everything was all right with the complex, at least electronically, Rivi's mind would relax and leave her alone until it noticed another anomaly in the functions of the residence complex's computer systems.

Enuet, her Aunantet mother, would understand. Ankh and Enuet encouraged her gift. Just like the Aunantet, the earth children had noticed that, once they began to increase their intelligence beyond normal human standards, and they became aware of special gifts they each possessed. During their classes, the children trained to combine their abilities with their advanced intellect and to use the resulting phenomena constructively.

In Rivi's case, her gift involved computers. She was a comp amalgamator. Combined with her advanced intellect and employing specific areas of her brain that went unused by most humans, she could link her mind to a computer's central processing unit and work directly with the system without needing to use the common input devices like touch screens or keyboards. She could get right into all the information constantly being processed and tell the computer what to do just by thinking it. Lately, she was learning how to form computers out of normal matter. She could form a seemingly useless piece of metal into a full computer system. It still took too much energy for her to complete the task all at once, but if she broke it down into small stages over a few days, she found it much more manageable.

"I am starting to get better at it," Rivi encouraged herself, then laughed and shook her head as she realized that she had actually spoken the thought aloud.

Rivi entered her family's quarters to find Enuet in the kitchen area, hand-preparing a salad. Enuet looked up at her daughter and smiled as Rivi came over to help.

"How were your classes today?" Enuet asked.

"Interesting as usual," Rivi answered with a laugh. "Where's Ankh? Normally, he's home by now."

"I don't know, but he should be home soon. Here, let's sit down and we'll eat dinner. He wouldn't want us to wait."

Rivi carried their dinner over to the kitchen table. Enuet joined her daughter as she sat down to eat.

"You were a bit late coming home."

"Yes, there was a problem with the library's computers," Rivi answered.

"Nothing serious, I hope?"

"No, not really. It was ..."

Suddenly, Ankh came in the door, and Enuet got up to get his food as he entered the kitchen.

"I don't have time to eat. Rivi, you'll need to come with me."

"Why? What's going on?" Rivi asked, pushing back from the table.

"Go and get a few things from your room to take with you. You have to leave now!" Ankh implored.

Rivi ran to her room. She'd never seen Ankh this agitated, this concerned.

I'm leaving? Where are we going? What do I bring? Rivi anxiously scanned her room trying to determine which of her few belongings to pack.

In the kitchen, Ankh paced back and forth. His body flickered in and out of focus as he desperately scanned the timelines.

"What's wrong, dear?" Enuet whispered to Ankh.

"I really don't have time to explain," he said.

"Okay, I'll go and help Rivi."

"That's all right, Enuet. I'm finished," Rivi said, reemerging into the kitchen holding a shoebox-sized black container.

"All right. We need to go. Enuet, are you coming with us?" Ankh asked.

"Yes, just let me get my shoes," she replied.

#

Ankh, Enuet, and Rivi walked down the hall toward the central common room. The large, circular room could seat almost three hundred. As Rivi and her parents entered the room, Rivi was certain it was almost filled to capacity. She used her mind to query the complex's central computer as to the agenda of the gathering, and what she learned worried her.

"You know, don't you, Rivi?" Ankh asked.

"Yes, sir," Rivi answered, like a bird realizing it was restricted to the confines of a metal cage.

"Don't worry. We have a plan. Let's go take a seat."

As they found their seats, an Aunantet male stood up in front of a lectern in the exact center of the room. He addressed the children and their guardians.

"Most of you have received the news in one form or another. For those of you who haven't, I do not have time to explain the full details. I can simply say that the Aruk have finally found our complex despite the government's attempts to keep us hidden for almost seven years. The Aruk are planning to attack soon and may try to take the children again. We must send them to a safer location."

An eerie silence filled the room. All of their worst fears were coming true.

"We still have not been able to contact planet Earth. The children will have to be relocated to the planet Ata, where we have created a safe haven in preparation for this type of scenario. The ships are standing by. You all know what has to be done. We do not have much time."