"TIME-STORM?  IT'S JUST a word I made up---an empty noise!"

"Even so, Tasha."

"Well, supposing this is a time-storm---whatever that might be.  What does that tell us? Nothing at all!  We're none the wiser."

"Feofil, did we pick up any temporal movement there?"

"Um...Yes, you're right!  We picked up almost 20 chronodynes.  That's not as much as we lost to the American Shield."

"No, it wouldn't be.  Listen," said Milan, "the temporal momentum we lost to the Shield must've been discharging itself back through history to our starting point.  Try to imagine it as a tidal wave running the wrong way up a river and gradually losing power.  I think the wave caught up with us just now---in 1908.  It discharged its remaining momentum and boosted our flux-field.  Result:  it tossed us back beyond 1908."

"But we all died!  I'm sure I died," said Tasha Ringkels.

"Oh, we did die, make no mistake!  But then history altered; and we didn't die after all.  What happens now is that we're going to explode in 1878."

"This is madness!  What about Tunguska in 1908?"

"Nothing will happen in 1908, Tasha---not now.  For a while it was reality, then the storm overwhelmed us. The wave caught it up.  It thrust us further back."

"Are you saying we've changed history?" asked Ila indignantly.

"Maybe there are a million streams of time?  Each one with its own unique history? Some similar, some radically different.  A wave built up behind us, surging against the current.  It was a wave of our own making.  Yes!  I see it now!  The wave bursts the banks, tossing us into a different stream so it could dissipate its energy.  Now the streams are calming down again.  Soon everything will start flowing the right way, just as soon as we hit the 1870s."

Feofil cackled. "What does it matter when we explode? Nobody paid much attention in 1908. You can count on even less attention in the 1870s."

"Good news:  we won't kill anyone's grandmother," Milan said.  "Hitler and Stalin will still be born.  The October Revolution will happen on time.  The fall of the Soviet Union will happen on time. And we'll be born, too, on time---and we'll fly backwards through time."

"We will?" Ila struggled to express herself.  "But we know that Tunguska happened in 1908!"

With an effort Feofil Tig pulled himself together.  "Maybe you're right about there being more than one stream of time," he said to Milan.  "But I don't see how there can be millions of streams, like you just said.  Maybe there are just two---with one main difference between them:  the date when we crash.  And that's because---it's us who split time.  In this present stream the wave catches up with us and bounces us back to 1878, canceling Tunguska 1908.  Time rolls by. We all grow up in a Tunguska-1878 framework---and that won't make a scrap of difference to the world! The Galactica sets off again, and the same thing goes wrong---but this time we're heading for a crash in '78.  Just as we explode, the wave catches up---and bounces us forward into a 1908-explosion world.  That one has to be followed by an 1880 world. Ad infinitum."

"Yes, but don't you see, these two possible sequences will always be exactly the same, no matter how often each is repeated?  They'll each of them be identical in themselves.  It's impossible to distinguish between identical events that occupy the same patch of spacetime, so we can't be conscious of any repetition.  Look, our successors---that's the best way to think of them---our successors will live out their 1878-framework lives, and they'll die in 1908. Then their successors, who'll be identical to us, will live out their own lives---and they'll be us.  I'll be saying exactly what I'm saying now. It will be me.  It is present tense.  They aren't really our successors---they're us."

Milan chuckled.  "Okay, this can't be the first time around, can it?  It must be happening an infinite number of identical times---and it's never caused me grief before!  You could even say we've become immortal, in a funny kind of way.  Not that I ever noticed it before...Well done, Feofil, comrade.  What year is it, by the way?"

"1885.  You surely aren't going to tell the crew again?!"

"I doubt if I could explain in time!  If they're immortal they're immortal.  And right now, they must think they've been reprieved.  It's like Dostoevsky in front of the firing squad.  It would be too cruel to set them up again. Anyway..." He hesitated.

"Anyway," said Ila, and she was shivering, with great bumps on her skin, "we have no guarantee that we'll die and an end of it this time either. Maybe there's a closed loop between 1908 and 1878.  Maybe this is the first time, and we just bounce to and fro from now on, altering reality and altering it back again because the Cosmic Censorship won't permit reality to be altered.  Maybe we'll die and die and die forever."

Milan leaned over to dig her in the ribs.  "Look on the bright side, darling!  We'd really be immortal then, and know about it.  So we'd get very wise---apart from the distraction of being killed every ten minutes.  They say you can get used to anything."

"It can't be that way," said Feofil.  "The whole of history from the 1870s on has to be involved.  I'll tell you why: just before I died, I saw images of events and personalities streaming by me."325Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFoS6AG3ivz

"You as well?"

"Those images were from the whole period right up to our own day.  That's how far the braid extends."

"I saw that myself," said Ila.  "And I saw a face as well---just at the very end before I found myself alive again."

"Yes, the face," agreed Feofil.  "I saw the face."

"I didn't," Tasha said sharply.  "I didn't see any history, either!"

"That's because you broke your neck before we exploded," said Milan.  "You can't expect to see things when you break your neck.  Now, are you sure you saw your own face, Feofil?"

"I did not see my face; I saw yours!"

"I saw your face, too," said Ila. "But it wasn't quite your face---there was something different about it, as if it was your own twin brother's face."

"Only I don't have a twin brother----Or do I?  Maybe that was Milan Adamavich, Mark 2, in the Tunguska- '78 framework----waiting in the wings?"

Ionization effects suddenly enflamed all the viewscreens, like jets of gas in burning ovens....

"And there was another face behind that one.  It was wearing old-fashioned spectacles---what did they call them?" Ila mimed.

"Pince-nez," said Feofil.  "That's right! There was one face wearing another face that was almost the same!"

"Negative Flux-field!" This time Tasha hunched to protect her neck.