Beyond the Farthest Star: Chapter 37

The Sentinel spent hours staring into nothingness, thinking. Amy knew that he was running theoretical simulations in his mind so she remained quiet. She just silently floated in space and waited. After a while she got fed up with the darkness and asked the Sentinel to create some light so she could at least see something. The Sentinel obliged her and then went back to work.

“My father spent centuries trying to find a way to go backwards in time,” he said at last. “During that extended research project he accumulated a great deal of temporal data, and I have all of it in my mind. This gives us a tremendous advantage, but unfortunately it is not enough. Finding a way to use this data to unlock the barrier is proving to be extremely difficult. On the one hand, we have both created temporal fields before. That is relatively easy to do. What is not easy is to find a way to break the field while you are inside it. All of my father’s research indicates that the field must be terminated from the outside.”

“Just like the Wall,” Amy said thoughtfully. “But Miles found a way to escape.”

“He did?” the Sentinel asked, surprised. “How did he do it?”

“I’m not sure, exactly. He didn’t go into detail. All I know is that he used the power of Iapetus to match the power output of the four power stations. Then he opened a tiny hole in the Wall and slipped through.”

“So he didn’t actually collapse the Wall,” the Sentinel said. “He just created a flaw in it and slipped out that way. Interesting. Perhaps I have been looking at this problem the wrong way.”

“Maybe. But either way, I’ll just stay out of your way and let you do the math.”

The Sentinel looked at her curiously. “You don’t seem to be very upset over all of this. I thought that being forced even further into the future would cause you a great deal of angst.”

Amy shrugged. “I don’t have anything left to lose, Steve. My home on Mars crumbled into dust a long time ago, and my entire family is dead. It’s not like they could die twice or something. If we get out of this and find out that we’re in the 93rd century, well, I really don’t see how it makes any difference. I’ve already done everything I can do on Mars.”

“But you haven’t finished your work on Earth yet,” the Sentinel pointed out. “There are still people there who need your help.”

Amy sighed. “That’s true.”

“And there is also your dog Alex. He is still alive.”

“That’s true too. Poor thing! I’ve really neglected him since everything happened. Have you had a chance to see him lately?”

“I did check on him the last time I was on Tonina. It turns out that he has placed himself in hypersleep, awaiting your return. Time will not pass for him until you come back and wake him up.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess,” Amy said. “At least he’s not lonely right now. I don’t know, maybe all of this does matter. I’m just so tired.”

“Then get some sleep,” the Sentinel said. “I’ll take care of this.”

* * * * *

Amy woke up hours later. The sun was shining overhead but the sky was overcast and gray. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “How long have I been asleep?” she asked.

“About nine hours,” the Sentinel said.

The girl yawned and stood up. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the craters were still there. “That’s a good sign,” she remarked. “I was afraid that the craters would be long gone and another ten thousand years would have passed.”

“We were blessed,” the Sentinel agreed. “It could have been much worse. As it turned out, we were only transported a little more than three years into the future. It is June 17, 7243.”

“Three years? Do you mean that I’ve been transported three more years into the future?” She sighed. “Well, I guess you’re right – it could have been worse. Thank you so much for freeing us. If it hadn’t been for you I would never have gotten out of there.”

The Sentinel nodded and said nothing. He simply looked into the distance.
Amy noticed the pensive look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“I found out what happened,” he said quietly.

“So you know who trapped us?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Don’t tell me – I’m going to have to have another talk with them, aren’t I? I really thought I was done with this place.”

“You are done with this place. There is nothing more here that any of us can do. All of the people who once inhabited this planet are dead.”

“All of them?” Amy asked, surprised. “Really? But – that doesn’t make sense! We’ve only been gone for three years. What happened? Were they all killed when the city was blown up?”

The Sentinel was quiet for a moment. “After we judged Xanthe and left, Ms. Hamilton decided that she wanted to be the supreme ruler of this planet. She missed her position as god of her own universe, and she was determined to regain as much power as she could. So, using a combination of threats and promises, she gathered a small group of followers and established a base camp in the old communications building that was located well outside the city limits. She then decided that the only way she could have the planet entirely to herself was to kill everyone else.”

“But the bots would stop them,” Amy said.

The Sentinel nodded. “Yes, they would, and Ms. Hamilton knew that. So she decided to take a different approach. She talked with the Steward and persuaded him to create the schematics for a powerful, miniaturized nuclear reactor. Her followers then used the Tower’s fabricators to create a dozen nuclear generators, which were placed at strategic points throughout the city. The bots did not interfere with this because the generators were neither weapons nor bombs.”

“Which is exactly what you thought,” Amy added.

“Now, Ms. Hamilton was smart. She knew that the moment they destroyed the city the two of us would return and do something about it. She also knew that whenever we came here we always materialized on top of this hill. So she talked with the Steward and learned how to create a time stasis field.”

“Which is pretty much exactly what you thought had happened,” Amy replied.

“So they set up their trap on the hill, programmed the reactors to explode, and waited for us to fall into their trap. We then walked right into it.”
The Sentinel nodded. “Yes we did. But there was one detail that Ms. Hamilton overlooked. Apparently she did not ask the Steward about how nuclear power actually worked, for she took no precautions to shield herself or her followers from the radioactive fallout. When the reactors exploded they gave every last one of the plotters a lethal dose of radiation. All of them, including Ms. Hamilton, died within a week.”

Amy was silent for a long while. “So they’re all dead,” she said.

The Sentinel nodded. “No one is left.”

“What of the prisoners?”

“They are all dead as well. Ironically, the killers you exiled actually outlived the people who were left here. By sending them off to their own worlds you actually saved their lives.”

“Hold on a minute,” Amy said. “What about Miles? Weren’t you supposed to transport him to the prison planets if one of the prisoners had a question? Since we were trapped–”

“Oh, I automated that process,” the Sentinel replied. “I wanted to make sure that he could have access to them even if you and I were preoccupied with something else.”

“That was smart. Did it work?”

The Sentinel hesitated. “Miles made sixteen trips,” he said quietly.

“But there were more than a thousand prisoners!”

“I know.”

Amy paused for a moment.“Well, that’s something, I guess. I didn’t think any of them would care. What about Adrian?”

“He was not visited,” the Sentinel replied.

“Did any of them find a way to escape?”

The Sentinel shook his head. “All of them are now in graves on their respective worlds. The Stewards buried them after they died. Would you like to have them moved here?”

“No,” Amy said. “Just leave them.”

“So what would you like to do now?” the Sentinel asked. “This world is now deserted and its last city is gone. What are your orders?”

“Let’s just leave it how it is. We gave this world to its people and this is what they did with it. Fixing it again is just pointless – there’s no one left who cares. I’m ready to go.”

“Where to?”

“I’d like to visit Mars one last time. Noel has now had three years to restore the ruin that we gave him. I want to see if he’s made any progress – or if that also ended up being a big waste of time. And it would be kind of nice to say goodbye to Miles before I leave.”

“Leave?” the Sentinel asked. “Where do you plan on going?”

“To Earth,” she replied.