Sunday

A quiet day. Not that yesterday wasn’t, really, but at least today was relatively free of health problems.

I had my weekly writing group and wrote this:

The city below them lay in ruins, or at least it did from the vantage of command, where the smoldering rubble flickered in the static of the ship’s main viewscreens.

“You can’t put much stock in that,” said Tendall. “Those images are from at least twenty-four hours into the future.”

Bergen grunted, it seemed in assent, but then just ask quickly she asked, “And how many hours until we make actual landfall?”

Sighing heavily, Tendall said, “Thirty-seven. Even if we push the engines to the breaking point, we won’t be back in same-time for another day and a half.”

“So we’ll miss being concurrent with the disaster?” Bergen asked.

“That’s assuming it happens, ma’am,” Tendall said. “But yes. I’m afraid if these images are the future, we won’t exit the probability stream in time to prevent this disaster from happening. Or even to ascertain its cause, most likely.”

“Can’t we turn around, then?” Bergen asked. “Or exit the stream earlier?”

“You’ve never flown in a timeship before, have you, ma’am?”

“No,” she told him. “We don’t have much call to in the Ambassadorial core. This trip was…unexpected.”

“Well, we’re fighting more than the usual tug and drift of spaceflight,” Tendall said. “We’d just as likely tear the ship apart if we tried adjusting course once we’ve entered the stream.”

“Can’t we even send a message ahead?” Bergen asked. “If we know in twenty-four hours the capitol city is going to be destroyed, we have an obligation to send them a warning.”

“You’re free to talk with engineering about that, ma’am. I don’t see how it would work, but that kind of physics is a little above my pay grade.”

“You seem remarkably calm. Don’t you have family in the capitol?”

“I’ve had family in most of the cities I’ve seen destroyed in the future, ma’am. After a few relative-centuries, I’m afraid it’s an occupational hazard. If I let not being able to do anything about it bother me, I couldn’t pilot the ship.” He offered her a smile which he knew she would not return. “I suppose that’s why time-flight isn’t recommended for you folks in the core.”

I dunno. The prompt was “When we lose our innocence, how do we regain it?” Yeah, I dunno.