Paolo

For Want of One

"There is a theory in quantum mechanics that says that everything that CAN occur, DOES occur 3; in alternate quantum universes 3;" – Data, Star Trek TNG.

"For want of that one fox, a man died and all of his unborn sons with him, and all of their sons 3;" – Ray Bradbury

Chapter 1

All eyes were fixed on the massive monitor which in itself was the south wall of the viewing chamber. Very slowly, a small white dot in the center of the enormous screen begain to grow, expanding its way ever so slowly to the edges. The dark screen changed with the dot's growth from nothing but cold, black, lifeless pixels to a soft pale gray as it heated up and slowly came online. Of the few spectators and many technicians, there was hardly a breath drawn as the rather feminine voice of the mainframe computer softly spoke, "System initialization in progress. Temporal field generators powering up. Power flow stable. Backup systems ready. Standby for imaging sequencing in ten, nine, eight, seven 3;"

The countdown continued as the tension heightened. Besides the research team, only the President of the New Western Alliance and his staff were in attendance. For the past ten years, at the cost of uncounted billions of dollars and not a few lives as well, not to mention raw materials, this experiment had been kept shrouded in utmost secrecy. It was far too dangerous for information on this project to leak out. Certainly the public would be more than alarmed, but for the sake of knowledge and the desire for history not to repeat itself, the project had gone on. It had taken planet Earth far too long to recover from the last series of wars that had done away with the many nations and factions that had once broken up the map. Now there was only the Western Alliance – consisting of what had once been Canada, the USA, Mexico and Central/South America, and the Eastern Coalition which was composed of what was left.

What was left was not much except for scorched wastelands and over two billion dead. Centuries had passed, rulers had come and gone, and slowly the Earth had healed. The West had taken pity on those it had fought to destroy, and the rebuilding had been slow. For the time being, however, it seemed Mankind had learned from his latest greatest mistake. And the culmination of that learning was about to come online – The Temporal Imaging Viewer.

The Viewer itself looked rather like a large video monitor, but the complex which held the Viewer was vast, taking up an area very nearly the size of New York City. Security was tight, and miraculously, the entire project had been a success. Cover stories had been successful, and the computer was counting down. Only seconds remained.

From his position at the Imaging Main Console, Temporal coordinator Kaelen Laws held his breath as the computer said, " 3; two 3; one 3; engaging all systems, Viewer online." There was increased humming noise as the power generators came up to full strength and the computer requested a timeframe. It seemed to be working, but no one was moving or reacting.

The screen glowed with a pale blue cast as Kaelen spoke directly to his console, "Computer, set temporal scanners to timeframe 1945 AD, country – Japan, city of Hiroshima – engage!"

"Factoring quantum variables," the computer responded.

"Is it working or not?" the President breathed.

"Working," the computer responded, as Kaelen opened his mouth then closed it.

Then there came a roaring sound which turned all heads again towards the massive monitor. The soft blue glow had been replaced by an overcast sky and the strange sound of a very old style airplane's engines. On the bottom of the monitor was a city, people moving, green grass, trees 3; and a whistling sound beginning as well. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light as the watching men jerked their hands up to cover their eyes and then a roiling mushroom-shaped cloud that was all to familiar. The atomic bomb had just detonated and wiped out the city, signalling the beginning of the end of World War 2.

The cloud lingered on the screen and began to dissipate.

"Computer, discontinue imaging," Kaelen ordered.

The screen reverted to soft blue as the whining sound of the power generators relaxed.

"Dear God," the President whispered, "it works!"

"Yes sir," Kaelen replied, "What would you like to see next?"

Kaelen Laws was a young man who had devoted his entire life to learning. As a child he had learned quickly and was soon found to be a prodigy. He graduated college and earned his PhD in physics and applied sciences by the age of seventeen. By the time he was twenty, he was already deep into designing his dream machine – the Temporal Imaging Viewer. He hoped, someday, to be able to gaze into the past and see what had actually happened at any given moment of history. It had come to him in a dream when he was still a child, perhaps twelve or thirteen. In this dream he had seen the monitor, so massive, and pictures of history playing across it at his command. From that point on, it had become his obsession.

Now four years of hard work later, standing alone in his apartment at the Complex, the President and his staff retired for the night after the demonstrations, that dream had become reality. The Past itself was his for the looking, and all the mysteries of modern history would soon be mysteries no more. Unable to relax, Kaelen headed for the bathroom and decided to take a shower. He disrobed slowly, his mind racing from one time frame to another. What should he look back on first? Kennedy? Marylin Monroe? The near Y2K disasters? There was so much to see and reveal, as his mind wandered further. He startled himself as he turned to adjust the bathroom's climate controls, seeing his nude reflection in the full length mirror just off to his side. He was a man of slight build, not overly muscular yet well proportioned. His skin was a pale shade of brown and his hair – had it not been harshly buzzed back to stubble as he preferred – would have been jet black and straight. He rubbed his hand over his stubbly scalp and remembered.

He had grown up in foster care, taking the name of his eventually adoptive family. His family had fled the East from somewhere near Iran, formerly Persia in ancient times, generations ago he had been told. His adoptive father had told him that his natural great-great-too-many-greats-grandfather had surely seen the possibility of a better life for his family in the West and immigrated. Kaelen sighed, wishing he remembered more clearly. His parents had both died in a power plant explosion when he was only a toddler, and his best memories of them were sketchy at best. His family that he knew had been close friends of his parents and had taken him in as their own after a fostering period. He resolved that first thing in the morning, he would have to ask the Temporal Imager to look them up for him. He was, after all, the last of his line and even though he bore the name 'Laws' out of love for his adoptive family, he longed for more.

He realized then that he thought about his given birth-name in years and didn't readily recall it.

"Maybe I did build this thing for me and me alone," he mused.

An errant itch distracted him from his reverie and he scratched at his ribs which showed, when he stretched his arms up, through his brown skin. His stomach was flat and his limbs well conditioned and a bit long. The itch taken care of, he stretched himself and continued to take in his lithe reflection. He was not unhappy with his body, although he seldom had time to exercise it. He was a bit annoyed at the erection that was beginning in his average-sized penis and absently scratched his balls. "Maybe later," he muttered, having no time for sex either. In fact, his studies and his work – no, his obsession – had kept him a virgin up to his age of 24. There was no excess fat to be seen on his frame, and many of the lab techs, male and female alike, were often noticed gazing at him when they thought he was not looking. Kaelen enjoyed this secretly, although he was too caught up in his work to persue any of that foolishness. In fact, he could have been a eunuch and not even noticed it for all the thought he gave to sex. He stared into his own face staring back at him. The deep eyes, almost black instead of brown, and so very shapely, looked back at him and seemed to ask, "What is it?"

For a moment, he thought he heard someone reply.

"Idiot," he mumbled and stepped into the shower.

Kaelen arrived early the next morning at the Imaging Chamber and immediately set to work. He checked and double checked all the readouts, checked for when the President would be back in for another look, and made sure everything was perfect. The vast monitor itself was spotless, the room immaculate. Power supply was steady and pure, and the temporal regulators and field generators were in good working order. Yet something just felt wrong. For some reason he remember gazing at himself in the mirror the night before and found himself thinking back to the first childhood dream of the Viewer. He sat down at his console and called out to the security guard on duty at the door.

"Kowalski here," came the voice over the speaker.

Who in the hell was Kowalski?

"Uh, where's Hanson, Mr.?" Kaelen asked.

"Hanson who?" came the curious voice.

"Never mind. How are things out there?"

"Looks like an empty waiting room, sir," the guard answered.

"Fine. Let me know when our guests arrrive."

"Will do, Mr. Laws," the guard replied.

Kaelen was disturbed. The first shift guard was Hanson. He had been on duty for all the time that Kaelen had been here overseeing the building of the Viewer. He was relieved by Porter, then Newport at night and Latham and Smith were the part-timers on their days off. Wondering what to make of it, Kaelen asked the computer. "There is no Hanson on record employed by this facility at the moment," the soft feminine voice replied. A chill passed through Kaelen and he shuddered. "Computer, any variances in the temporal systems?"

"Random negligible variances occur periodically," the computer replied.

Kaelen remembered that the system had only been running for a day then thought of something.

"Computer, compile all these variances and graph according to date and time with respect to X and Y axes and severity with respect to Z and show on main monitor." Kaelen prayed that the thought passing through his mind was wrong.

"Working," the computer replied.

Kaelen waited and began to bite the nail of his left index finger.

Suddenly the graph jumped to life on the monitor as the computer compiled all its data and drew the picture for him. What Kaelen saw literally made him cringe and grab hold of his console. There, on the screen before him, was a graphic representation of what looked like the beginnings of a wormhole. "What in hell is that?" he thought out loud.

"Insufficient data," the computer replied.

Kaelen jumped.

"Theorize, dammit," the shouted.

"Temporal disruptions and/or breaches," the computer replied.

The graphic was shifting as he watched, slowly shifting.

"Theorize as to source," Kaelen ordered.

"Minute deviations of quantum variables accumulating at one point to form a breach."

Kaelen shivered again. "Cause?" he asked.

"This system's main temporal core."

Kaelen Laws slumped in his chair and exhaled violently. His skin was covered in goosebumps and he was trembling. He pressed a red button on the main control panel and tried his best to keep his voice level. "Mr. President, we have a problem," he said.

When they all arrived moments later, Kaelen set about to explaining to what was going on. He had called up a schematic of the Viewer and its power supply, which was directly under the huge monitor. Then he had the computer add graphics for the flow of power in relation to the physical construction of the complex. Then he ordered the computer to superimpose the graphics from his earlier work. No one said a word as they all stared at the monitor and its display.

"Does this mean what I think it does?" the President asked.

"I'm afraid so, sir," Kaelen answered, "The Viewer has not only the ability to look back through time – it is EXEMPT from time. The laws of physics as we know them don't seem to apply to this chamber."

"So time isn't moving in here?" one of the staffers asked.

"Oh it's moving alright," Kaelen responded, "It just isn't moving like it should. You see, these minute variances the computer picked up seem to be happening at random. For all we know, they always have. But when the temporal core came online, that surge of power changed things. There's a field around this chamber now that gives us the ability to look back, and God knows what else, but it's drawing in those little disruptions like a magnet."

"So you don't really know?" the President asked.

Kaelen shook his head. "I didn't expect this, sir."

One of the staffers spoke up then. "Sir, we can't just pull the plug on this – the cost 3;"

The President nodded. "Mr. Laws, you and your computer have 48 hours to figure this out and find out what the hell it's doing here. Meanwhile, my staff and I and some of your techs are going to go out and bone up on temporal mechanics as well. This project cannot fail now."

"Yes sir," Kaelen replied.

Kaelen worked through the night with the computer, tracking the variables. By morning he had come to realize that Time itself was analagous to the ever-moving waves of the ocean. What man perceived as Reality floated like a boat atop this ocean, unaffected by the waves until one got big enough to cause some damage. Then things changed. With time, however, Kaelen thought that no one would notice the changes if they were changed right along with it. If you fell of the boat, you swam and hoped someone threw you a life preserver or a rope. You got back on and went on your way. Then he thought of the sand on the beach. The waves rolled in and changed it, but the sand was still sand, just a bit moved around. And the sand had no clue that it had been moved. It was about 3 AM when he realized where Hanson was, or rather, was NOT.

At some point between the time he had entered his 'exempt' working chamber atop the temporal core and the time he had paged Hanson, a rather large amount of variances had come together around the field of the room. Those variances had carried Hanson off somewhere to realms of nonexistence.

Still Kaelen worked. His dream was rapidly turning to nightmare as he struggled with the problem. 48 hours would not be enough time. Then it occurred to him, all he had to do was look back and see. He called up the time of his entry into the chamber and replayed it. There on the monitor before him, he watched the image of Hanson suddenly change into Kowalski. Nothing else moved.

"There's got to be a logical pattern to this then," he thought aloud.

The computer agreed and began recompiling its data. By the time the sun came up and the President and his staff and the day crew with it, Kaelen thought he had the answer. All he had to do was make them believe him or the project was doomed.

The President had a bemused look on his face as he sat in Kaelen's control room and pondered what the young scientist had told him. He thought he understood it. "Let me see if I've got this straight," he began, "Time is not constant. The past changes. These changes result in different timelines that we don't notice because we are IN that timeline, yet the other timelines and the other 'us' in THEM still exist. Somewhere out there is your missing Hanson guard that none of us remember, yet you do since you were in HERE, in the Chamber when he popped out of this Reality? And if something out THERE changes while we are in here, we remember the past as it was BEFORE it changed yet no one else does?"

Kaelen swallowed hard and nodded. But he had more and decided that now was a good time.

He replayed the changing with Hanson three times for the assembled men.

"Hanson's disappearing is what I like to call a 'breakpoint'," he said, "it's where the deviations come together and change something that we in HERE can see. No one out there is going to remember Hanson because that breakpoint took him away, and altered them with it. It goes back to the old belief that Hawking came up with in the 1980's or so : everything that can happen does happen in parallel universes that offshoot from another. Rather primitive way to put it, but he was on the right track."

"So 3;" the President stated, "since there isn't a damn thing we can do about Time and it's little changes, I guess we might just as well live with it. All we've done here is proove it. Continue your work, Mr. Laws. We have to. And by the way, see if you can find out if there are any other Timelines out there where the world didn't almost go straight to hell with war this last time. That will be all."

The group nodded and and got up to leave Kaelen to work in peace. Although he had been up for almost two days straight with only brief naps at the console, he was too excited to sleep. They were even actually considering letting word of the Viewer be made public! With that thought in mind, he decided to log out and go home for a bit. He was certainly entitled. As he got up to leave and approached the door, the computer said, "Don't forget your briefcase."

Kaelen grinned in spite of himself. The computer he had designed took things so literally, even if it was up to its coprocessors in quantum deviations. "Thank you," he replied.

"Contact me if you need my assistance," the soft voice spoke as the door closed.

The next few weeks were very eventful. The Viewer was publically announced and the following media circus kept Kaelen busy for days showing off his creation. Demonstrations were given, and over and over again he assured the media that, no, time travel was NOT possible and he did not plan on it being possible. Coping with the 'breakpoint–change' factor was enough for everyone involved. What he did not mention was the dayshift guard Hanson/Kowalski Paradox. He stated over and over for the record that no significant changes had been observed, but yes when one occurred he would happily publicize it.

Finally, after what felt like forever, things quieted down enough for Kaelen to keep a promise to himself. It was late one Thursday afternoon when he asked the computer to trace down his date of birth and show him the images. Since it was relatively close to the present, the images came up in no time. He was, however, unprepared for how it would affect him. There they were, right in front of him. The screen was so clear and lifelike he felt he could reach out and touch them. His mother was in labor, then he was born, then they were a family and his parents were holding him and staring into each others' eyes. Kaelen put his head down and cried a bit, ordering the computer to stop and save the last image and download to his own portable unit. When he got home, he would send the image to his adoptive parents, so that they might have a memory of their friends whose son they had raised.

Kaelen was just about to call it a day when the computer announced, in what sounded like alarm, "Deviations increasing exponentially, massive breakpoint detected!"

Startled by the unexpected outburst, Kaelen dropped his briefcase and demanded, "When?!"

"Circa 589 BC, Ancient Middle East, current Eastern Coalition Dead Zone, ancient city of Babylon."

Chapter 2

Kaelen dropped into his chair at the main console and began summoning up the graphic manually, letting the computer cope with the massive disruptions it was detecting. In the past few weeks, nothing had happened that meritted any major concern but this was, judging from the look of the graph, a disaster. He could hear the whine of the temporal field generators running harder than ever before, and the air itself felt different. Whatever it was, it was terribly wrong. Time, it seemed, had taken a nosedive and was trying to take the rest of them out with it. Then the phone rang.

It was almost funny, and Kaelen had to stifle a laugh as he punched the receive button. "Now is NOT a good time," he shouted.

"What in hell is going on there, Laws?" an exasperated voice demanded, "We're showing power consumption on your temporal core is up by a factor of more than a million! Is the computer alright?"

"I have no idea sir," Kaelen replied calmly now, "it detected a massive breakpoint somewhere around 589 BC in the Middle East and literally went into siezures over it. It's compiling now. I think it's going to be bad, sir, very bad. You may want to come over."

"I'm on the cell phone and coming up the elevator now with my entourage," the President stated.

"Good idea, get under the umbrella before the rain gets HERE if you know what I mean."

"I know, I know. I just hope the Alliance is still HERE when I get THERE!"

It was seconds later that the door to the Chamber burst open and the President and his staff along with a few media hounds entered. The computer was still compiling, the monitor was dark, and the whine was near deafening. Kaelen showed them the graph on his console's viewer, at a loss to explain it. Suddenly the whine lowered to normal levels. "Breakpoint detected and confirmed," the computer informed them, "Imaging beginning in three, two, one 3; Imaging!"

The immense monitor snapped to life, showing them an ancient city on a fertile plain. There were tall buildings made of stone beneath a clear blue sky that seemed to stretch forever. The people all looked like Kaelen and they all realized that it was the area of ancient Persia, the stuff of fantasy, that they were seeing.

There were mostly men on the streets, but some women and many children. They were, for the most part, dressed in turbans and other headwear and long robes of various colors. There were animals in the marketplace, much business and trading. Kaelen felt a pang from deep within himself as he looked at the ultimate history of his race.

They were looking into the once-greatness of a place that was now a desolate ruin.

There were gardens, landscapings, and wondrous sights too many to name. Since time did not seem to matter while they were in the Chamber, the President and staff and the hangers-on all became so taken by it that they almost forgot their urgency in coming. Even Kaelen found his mind drifting back to that simple time when even the wheel had not yet lost its novelty. Yet somewhere in all this splendor they were seeing was the reason they had come – the very thing that set off the computer's warnings of massive disruptions.

"Hard to believe something that happened so long ago could affect us today," the President breathed, hardly loud enough to be heard.

"Agreed, sir," Kaelen replied.

"But what IS it?" the President asked.

The computer, as if in answer, zoomed the image to the marketplace and did a hard left turn to what appeared to be a public stage. There was a very well-dressed man on the stage, waving his arms and shouting to the vast crowd who waved their arms in reply and shouted out numbers. Behind the wildly gesticulating man on the stage were several other men, a few women, and about six boys. All of them were naked and had their hands tied behind their backs. Their ankles were hobbled to permit standing and very slow, measured walking only. The men and boys all had their heads shaved, eyes downcast. Each had a thick leather thong tied around his head clenched between his teeth as well. The women had their hair and no gags, yet none of them looked up either.

"Slave market," one of the staffers replied, drawing startled looks from his peers, "Uh, history was my second major you see."

Everyone nodded and agreed and looked on at the Viewer.

One by one, the slaves – the women first – were sold off to the highest bidders. They were led away by their new owners to face their lives of servitude. "They have little hope of freedom," the historically inclined staffer, Benson, said, "the best they can hope for is a kind master."

"Pity," Kaelen replied, feeling a racial empathy to these people. Somehow, he took it as a personal insult, although racism had been unheard of in the West for centuries. People were simply people, not a color.

When the women were all gone, the bidding began on the men. This took more time, higher bids, and a bit of insulting and some calling of the slaver's guards to calm things down. The men brought high prices, some almost as high as the most beautiful of the women had. They were all muscular, lean, and darker than most from the time spent in the sun without full clothing. Their shaved heads reflected the ancient sun almost out of the Viewer's monitor and into the watching eyes of the nervous spectators. Kaelen shuddered at the sight, remembering staring at his own reflection that night that the Viewer had proven a success. He remembered hearing something and calling himself an idiot. But what had it been?

Still they stared and the computer kept its seemingly endless show running.

One by one the men were led down the steps when suddenly Benson shouted, "Freeze image!"

The show paused.

There were gasps from all watching as they stared with new fascination at the image before them. The shows had stopped with a man being led down the steps, an iron collar with a length of chain around his neck and his hands still bound. The hobbles had been removed so that he could follow his new master home. What had gotten Benson's attention and now everyone else's was that where the slave's genitals should have been, there was nothing but a smooth, paler colored area and a small hole.

"Eunuch," Benson supplied helpfully, "It was big business then and for centuries to come. Without his balls, a man is qualified for all sorts of work. Without his penis, he's qualified for even more delicate duties. Eunuchs were in demand for harem guards especially, since the noble who owned him knew that he couldn't DO anything to his women."

"Do continue," Kaelen said sarcastically, having unconsciously closed his knees together.

"I don't think there's really that much to it, Mr. Laws," Benson continued, "You cut off a man's genitals, what's he got left? He's a slave, no family, no way to have his own family, so he gives his loyalty without stint to the man who can make his own life better if he works well. What the master wants, the master gets. Many a eunuch became rich and powerful that way, and many rose to even official positions and wielded great power in affairs of state. I mean, really, they didn't have anything else to do 3;"

"This is all well and good," the President interrupted, "but what we need to know is what happened that set the computer off. We need to see the breakpoint that brought us all here before we leave! For all we know, we may not have anything to go back to outside this room."

Again, as if answering the call automatically, the computer resumed its imaging. The monitor once again went back to the slave block and this time there was only one slave remaining. He was boy of about eleven years of age, dark skinned and lean. His head was also shaved, but his eyes – not downcast like the others – were looking out over the crowd and almost looking into the future. Kaelen felt he knew those eyes. A chill passed through him as he heard that voice from long ago saying, through the monitor, "What am I bid for this handsome young piece of Persian boyhood?"

There were shouts from the crowd. Hands waved bags that certainly contained gold coinage. More shouting. The well-dressed auctioneer called for civility. The guards stepped forward, pushing the hobbled and naked boy with them. One of them placed a hand on the boy's shaved scalp and forced his head down. Someone in the crowd called out, "No, let us see his marvelous face!" The bids went higher. Finally, a very well-dressed man and two burly attendants stepped forward. The man reached into his robe and pulled out a very large pouch and placed it in the auctioneer's waiting hands. His face went pale as he opened the bag. It was clear from his look that sale had ended. The boy had been bought.

Slowly, the crowed began to break up and head back to other areas of the marketplace. The computer zoomed the image even closer to only the stage as the wealthy man and the auctioneer exchanged some documents. "He is a very good one," the auctioneer agreed.

"I have not seen one like him a long time," the wealthy man replied.

"Slave boys are sold by the hundreds here over the year."

The wealthy man shook his head. "There is something about the way he looks. His face, his body. He is so well proportioned and attractive. Look at him! Untie his hands, yes, that's it, look at these! Slim, long fingered, soft. No hint of a beard yet and certainly a high piping voice. He will be the envy of my court with those looks!"

"My Lord," the auctioneer nearly choked, "You have a fine taste."

The wealthy one agreed and the attendants took the hobbles from the silent boy's ankles and lifted him by the upper arms to move him closer. The boy looked his new master in the face, an act unheard of that certainly would have earned any other slave a good beating. He chewed at his leather gag a bit then looked at the huge men holding him.

Uncounted centuries later, Kaelen Laws looked back at the slave boy, the boy with his own face that had looked at him a few weeks ago from his bathroom mirror. He got up and moved towards the Viewer, almost daring to touch its flawless surface. The attendants still held the boy up, his bare feet dangling almost a meter off the stage. He was still staring into the eyes of his new Master.

"There is one other thing," the Master asked the auctioneer.

"Of course, my Lord!" the auctioneer almost shouted.

"I believe it is my right if I find fault with my purchase that I may demand it be remedied?"

The auctioneer nodded in disbelief. "But he is so perfect, excellency!"

"He has one flaw, good merchant."

Standing next to Kaelen, Benson the historian/staffer groaned.

The auctioneer looked puzzled.

The attendants holding the boy up looked him over and grinned evilly.

Still the boy did not take his gaze from staightforward, straight into Kaelen's Viewer.

A voice came over the intercom, but no one took his gaze from the Viewer, or rather, the boy on it.

"Power Generator Control to Imaging Chamber, Mr. President, is Temporal Coordinator Smith there?"

"He is a boy, good merchant. An intact boy. Geld him for me!" the Master demanded.

"BREAKPOINT!" the computer shouted in alarm.

Chapter 3

The inventor of a viewer back into time finds his existence wiped out due to the castration of an ancient ancestor. Once he isolates the Breakpoint in Time, he goes back to fix it.

"Hello? Coordinator Smith? Mr. President?" asked the alarmed voice.

Kaelen Laws had dropped to his knees and the Viewer had gone dark. The hum of the temporal field generators was nominal, and no one in the room said a word. They all stared now at Kaelen, at his stubbled scalp as he held his head in his hands, crying softly. Every so often a spasm would shake his lean body, but still no one moved to comfort him. They had been studying. They knew. They just didn't expect it to happen so soon, or for it to have such an impact. Finally the President spoke.

"President James here, now listen to me, mister, and listen good. We have just observed the Breakpoint that set off this bru-ha-ha and let me tell you son, it's a goody! At all cost, and I repeat, at ALL cost, keep the Temporal field around the Chamber up and running and let the computer have as much power as it needs. There is no Coordinator Smith here. Coordinator Kaelen Laws is here, and he's rather indisposed. You see, my boy, he just had his existence wiped out by that Breakpoint we all came running here to see. Fortunately we got here in time. You understand me?"

There was a moment of silence from the PGC man and then, "Uh, no sir. May I come up?"

Kaelen looked up at the people looking at him and nodded. His face was wet with tears and Benson helped him back to his chair at the main console.

"Get up here on the double, mister," President James ordered.

"On my way."

Kaelen tapped a few buttons on his console and wiped his eyes. What he had just seen was ghastly. First he had been an orphan, raised by an adoptive family. He gone on to achieve greatness, given the world its greatest invention since the wheel, and now, simply – he no longer existed. The very deviations in Time he had discovered had somehow, as if in retribution, wiped out his entire line.

For want of one boy, Kaelen Laws and all those who had come before him never existed.

"Power flow is stable, field strength normal," he choked.

"Well that's just fine, Kaelen, but what do we do about YOU now?" the President asked.

Kaelen shook his head and put it down with a 'thunk' on his console.

"Input error," the computer piped up.

"Blow it out your ass," the President replied.

The computer paused and beeped loudly once. "Temporal Coordinator Laws cannot leave the Imaging Chamber without serious damage to himself and the Timeline."

Everyone turned to look at Kaelen once again as the PGC officer burst into the room. He took one look at Kaelen and sighed. Then remembering himself, he turned to the President and saluted.

President James nodded.

"I get the point sir," the PGC officer stated, "Seems the Chamber kept 3; uh 3;" he gestured at Kaelen, ". . . him from disappearing."

"Just like Hanson," Kaelen murmured.

"Excuse me?" the President asked.

Kaelen just shook his head. "Never mind."

"Sir," the PGC officer interjected, "We all understand what happened, and some of us are wondering, well, if he's HERE and Coordinator Smith is, well, gone, he can't leave the Chamber can he? I mean, he is sort of outside of the rules isn't he?"

The President nodded and turned to his staff. "Gentlemen, we need to confer seriously with the computer, which has already stated what our good PGC officer has. There seems to be only one course of action for this and that is to fix it!"

All eyes turned towards President James.

The staffers began murmuring amongst themselves.

The few media hounds were busy taking notes.

Kaelen looked up with a perplexed expression on his face.

He watched as more than a few private arguements broke out.

It was Benson who finally came right out and asked the computer what to do. After all, with all its memory and even Kaelen's own synaptic patterns imbedded in its processors, certainly it could theorize how to fix this mess. "Computer, he shouted into the air, theorize on how to reverse Breakpoint incursion concerning Coordinator Kaelen without his existence outside the Chamber being compromised."

The answer came quickly; so quickly it shocked them all into silence.

"Repair the Breakpoint at source."

"And just how in the hell do we do that?" the President demanded.

"Adjust power flow to compensate for high temporal stress factors and intentionally make a breach in Time. Send Temporal Coordinator Laws back to 589 BC to Breakpoint to repair damage by making sure the boy in TIF589.3472.388 is NOT gelded," the computer replied.

"What is a TIF 583 whatever it said?" Benson asked.

"Temporal Image File and allocation," one of the techs added helpfully.

"Oh that's just lovely," Kaelen groaned, "and how can we be sure that won't make an even bigger mess of things?"

"Imaging started," the computer replied, and on the monitor, there suddenly appeared the view of ancient Babylon, zooming in to the slave block where the boy who looked like Kaelen was being inspected by the wealthy buyer. The burly attendants were still holding him up off the stage and the Master was eyeing the boy speculatively.

"It's the same image sequence," Benson said.

"Negative," the computer replied.

On the monitor, the Master looked at the auctioneer of slaves and said, "I can't wait until he's old enough to breed, and only to the finest beauties in my harem. Certainly I can do without a few of them for the sake of the riches their children will bring me!"

Then the monitor opened another smaller window in its upper left corner and replayed the Master's ominous words, "Geld him for me!"

"Files both acquired at Breakpoint. Two outcomes – the boy is gelded or he is not," the computer stated.

"And just how do I stop them from gelding him?" Kaelen demanded of his computer, "We can only use you to SEE into the past, not GO there!"

The computer replied instantly, "There are sufficient deviations interacting with the temporal fields around the Chamber to create sufficient breaches. Mere focusing of these deviations to a single point will suffice, provided there is enough power to increase field density by factor one million."

Kaelen and all the technicians and some of the staffers choked on that one. When the computer had detected this Breakpoint in the first place, they told him, it had nearly caused a hemisphere-wide blackout by pulling all the power it could lay hold of to compensate. To do it again was unspeakable.

"Well, I guess that's what we do then, Kaelen," the President began, "We make an announcement, from this room that at 3AM local time we are shutting down power in the whole Alliance for what? uh, computer, how much time?"

"Ten seconds at the most."

"Alright," he continued, "ten seconds. We inform the populus we have a computer reset to do and at 3AM the lights go out for ten seconds. Hell most of 'em should be in bed anyway. Gentlemen, I have to ask that we all stay here in the Chamber. Out there, it seems they still know who we are, at least our good PGC tech here did, with the exception of Kaelen. We have food, etc. brought in to us and we send our good Coordinator back to rescue his ancestor to restore his own existence. Any questions?"

No one said a word. Most of the staff and guests were already lounging about on the assorted furniture of the Chamber, having studied and already guessed as to the course of action. Most of them didn't know Kaelen that well, but they still respected him. In fact, most of them were too afraid to leave the safety of the Chamber to take his or her chances with the altered Timeline. It was clear from the looks on their faces as they stared at Kaelen in sympathy : how many of them still existed out there? Had their lives changed if they did indeed still exist? None of them was willing to take that chance, it seemed.

Kaelen sighed and got up. "That leaves one thing, computer, where do we focus?"

"Prime location is in front of the Viewer over the temporal core."

"Alright, let's do it. Computer, begin compiling and schedule, uh, I guess I'll call it an Incursion, for 3AM our time, center of the Viewer's frame, one meter out."

"Working," the computer replied.

The sun was beginning to sink into the west as they all stared out the window to await the coming of 3AM.

Kaelen had retreated to an unused small office space behind his main console with his laptop linked to the main computer. There were several obstacles to overcome, the language barrier being the worst of them. He hated to distract his ultimate creation, the computer that had detected this whole mess and kept him from the fate of nonexistence, but he had to have help. And he also wanted to be left alone. The face of that boy on slave trader's block haunted his memory, distracted his mind from rational thought. That one beautiful boy, the epicenter of his own private temporal paradox. Private? Not exactly. Why didn't the crowd out there in the main Chamber leave? They weren't viewing anything in the past now, just sitting and waiting. Certainly they were not his friends, just working acquaintances. None of them really cared about him. Only his parents – his adoptive parents.

Then it came to him – his biological parents might be out there somewhere now, his adoptive ones not even knowing who he was. But were they still friends in this altered Timeline? Perhaps they were, perhaps not. Kaelen wondered then dismissed the thought. If I don't exist, neither does my father nor his father 3; for want of that one boy.

Fortunately, the computer had offered sufficient memory resources to 'listen in' on random conversations taking place circa 590-600 BC and had learned the language well. It had had also suggested a hearing aid of sorts, small enough to disappear in Kaelen's ear canals. The computer would keep a tight beamed communications channel open, translating and telling him what to say. "I never would have thought of that," he told the computer, as he sent an order out to a costume shop for a few changes of suitable dress for the period. One problem, however, was his hair. Since he had been a little boy, Kaelen had preferred to have his thick, straight black hair shaved down to the skin with a 00000 guage clipper. He had tried shaving it with his father's razor once, but the irritation and the nicks broke him of that habit. He thought about the timeframe and what he had seen – the slaves had their heads shaved, except for the women. The free men seemed to wear ornate headdresses in public, but there on the Viewer in all its clarity Kaelen could see hair sticking out here and there. A rather sturdy hat was definitely in order, lest he be mistaken for a runaway slave.

His next problem was what to do once he got there. When he had arrived, the computer would only have to devote a small amount of power to run his translator. He had come up with the idea of taking several spare batteries for his laptop and downloading the data and images of the timeline where this 'Breakpoint-Boy' was free and Kaelen's own life secure. Of course, there was a flaw in that plan. It was nothing short of miraculous that the boy had caused only two possible futures in the moment he was sold to his Master. But the data that the Viewer could supply would be data that was formed BEFORE Kaelen went back to try to restore his own Timeline. Once he stepped through the breach, there could very well be a multitude of new Breakpoints heading up the Timeline to affect his own present. The very thought of it made his head hurt.

Finally, in desperation, he asked the computer to theorize and it had confirmed his suspicions. The best it could offer was to monitor the Timeline into which he was stepping and compare it to the old one that had existed before the Breakpoint had been detected. He had viewed the two different series of events over and over, taking in only enough of them to realize that he had to meet with this Master who had bought his great-great-God-so-many-greats-grandfather as a boy. He would have to persuade the Master that the boy should be kept and bred, allowed to mature into a man and continue his line. Kaelen sighed as he wondered what kind of lives he would be forcing his own ancestors to live. But the boy could NOT be gelded, and if Kaelen failed, he doubted he would get another chance. He wondered if he himself might not end up marooned in ancient Babylon, Persia, wherever, unable to get back. If he failed, then what? It was almost too much for his mind to ponder.

He checked his watch. 10PM. He had time to view it one more time. It made him ill to see it, the horror of it, but yet he was fascinated by it. It was the critical nature of his situation which drove him to it. He triple checked his supplies as the computer reset a small monitor to view the scene once again. A knock at the door from the President of all people announced that his costuming had arrived. Kaelen found himself, amazingly, telling the President of the Western Alliance to just set it by the pack – as if the President were his butler!

President James said only one thing as he turned to leave Kaelen with his planning and private suffering. "Kaelen, I wouldn't do this for just anyone and if I hadn't been in HERE when it hit, I would never had believed it. You're the greatest mind we've ever seen, and your Viewer is the greatest invention of all time. We can learn so much and we owe you this one chance."

What a great one he is for speeches, Kaelen thought and said, "Thank you."

President James nodded and left the room.

When he had closed the door, Kaelen ordered the computer to begin playing the imaging sequence again on the small viewer. Benson, with his history studies, would probably have liked to see it but Kaelen was not sharing it with him or anyone. He stared at the still image and word PAUSE flashing in the corner of the small screen. The Master was standing with his arm around the slight shoulders of his recent purchase. They seemed to be staring at something, the two of them. The Master had a contemptible look of satisfaction on his face, while the boy – naked and pale looking – seemed to be taking in the same scene with a look of terror on his face.

But he's still a boy, not a eunuch, Kaelen thought, and if I get there he'll stay a boy!

With a great sigh, Kaelen spoke.

"Computer, resume playback of TIF sequence last viewed. The meeting with the caravan factor. It's a better place to look."

Chapter 4

Fadil was a very rich man who had made his fortune years ago in the ports of the Red Sea. He had been a merchant, a sailor, and a shop-keeper. He had taken risks, gotten lucky in a good market, and was now enjoying the benefits of a financial empire that was run by hirelings. He knew that they were robbing him, of course, all wealthy men knew their underlings robbed them, but there was enough money coming in to make him one of the wealthiest men in all of the region, so what did it matter? He had money and time to give himself over to a life dedicated soley to his own pleasures. He had an ornate estate, a large harem, servants, horses (which was one of his biggest money-makers) and everything a man could dream of. His many wives had given him healthy strong sons and many beautiful daughters. With all this and more, a man should feel his life fulfulled, but not Fadil. There was always more.

Of course he had slaves, most of them black Africans which his contact in Arabia supplied when he needed them. Mostly, the contact that was on his payroll ran a slave trade in eunuchs from Arabia, and arrived yearly in an impressive caravan to bring the spoils of ruined lives to his employer in the form of gold and jewels and other precious materials. This factor, as he was, made his own way and made Fadil even richer by dealing in human suffering. But Fadil did not think of such things as the eunuch servants of the caravan took care of the menial details whilst the factor and he made merry in the harem, guarded by even more eunuchs. They paid scarce attention to the huge black men who stood at the doors outside as they entered. They didn't think about the razor sharp sabers or the thoughts running through the brains underneath those shining and shaven blacks scalps. They thought only of their own pleasures.

The guards, of course, were slaves, but they also were well indulged. They worked the harem in duty shifts, and when they were off duty they each had their own private quarters and indulgences. Fadil was not a stupid man, by far. Most of his guards and attendants were Africans who had been selected for their size and stamina and totally gelded well into adulthood. Any one of them could have picked him up and broken him in half with hardly breaking a sweat and Fadil made sure that they were all happy workers.

None of this concerned Kaelen as he watched his small Viewer, however.

He was listening to the computer's many voices translating the conversation of this factor and the Master, Fadil, who might/might not be responsible for erasing his existence. Kaelen watched from centuries later, looking back at the two self-centered and currently – very horny – men headed for the harem.

"Fadil, you spendthrift! " the factor was saying, "I hear you picked up a prize today at the market!"

"Word travels fast, I see."

"I hear he's a real beauty, this one," the factor pried.

Fadil, being the egotist he was, was more than happy to describe his prize. "Ah, yes, a young boy of Persian stock and one of the most fascinating I have ever seen. Did you know that when I was inspecting him he looked me STRAIGHT in the eyes?"

Adis, the Factor, was stunned. His jaw dropped.

"But I dared not hit him, not that perfect face. I was so taken all I could do was stare back," Fadil explained. Still, Adis stared and shook his head.

"I must see this prize for myself then, my friend. You always were one to tell a good story!"

They had reached the main hall of the harem, and the two huge eunuchs on duty saluted with their sabers and said, "Master!" as they pulled the great doors open.

Fadil and Adis returned a small gesture to the huge black men and thanked them. Then, almost a side thought, Fadil added, "If you are not on duty day after tomorrow around noon, we shall have an entertainment, I believe. Have YOU heard about the boy as well?"

One of the eunuchs nodded. The other shook his head. "Word travels fast, Master. Those who have seen him say that his looks are almost beyond possibility." The other eunuch looked at his companion and said, "You did not tell me of this!"

"I would have gotten to it," the first replied.

"Anyway," the Master continued, "I think I shall have him gelded very soon. The auctioneer offers this service to buyers and is more than happy to come here and complete his sale."

The two eunuchs nodded, their eyes seeming to be gazing off into some unknowable place. Indeed, they wanted to see it. At some point in time, they themselves had gone under the knife and received some perverse pleasure still in seeing it done.

"As the Master wishes," the first eunuch replied, "and the Ladies are waiting," he concluded, gesturing at the door. Fadil and Adis smiled and stepped through into the waiting harem.

Kaelen sat and wondered why he had spun the recording back to this conversation and then it came to him. He could place himself in the caravan on route to Fadil's estate with the yearly payoff of the eunuch trade. He would take plenty of gold and jewels with him, all carefully formed and cut to period specs. He would buy his way into a greedy man's house and flatter him. Kaelen thought he could appeal to what drove a man like this, and once in, he would talk of riches to be had in the trade of offspring of this beautiful boy and some ravishing girl of the harem. It would work. It had to.

Still, Kaelen found himself drawn to the other segment of images.

"Computer, forward this TIF sequence to 898.3498.894, the gelding," he ordered, tapping the keys on his laptop that contained his notes. Notes on critical points he had observed. Places to 'drop in.' Places to make his attempt at restoration. This was definitely not a good one, but Kaelen had to see it again. It was so unbelievable.

The screen blurred a bit as images raced by too fast to comprehend then came back to the paused scene of Master and boy staring at something.

His name was Rahim, and he was eleven years old, having just had a birthday that no one noticed. He had come from a village far outside the city, from a small community of farmers. Some raiders had spotted him when he had wandered too far from home and decided that they could sell him off in far away Babylon for a handsome price. He was a good-looking boy, they said, and fortunately for Rahim none of them had had a taste for boys. He had simply been bound and gagged and secured to a spare horse for the long journey. After weeks of travel, they had finally arrived in the city and gone straight to the slave auctioneer's home. Rahim could not help but figure out that his abductors obviously did this on a regular basis. He was taken in, inspected, and placed in chains in small sideroom of the auctioneer's house. The next morning, he had undergone the humiliation of having his long black hair shaved with a gleaming razor, the mark of a slaveboy. For several weeks after he was well fed, bathed, yet never let out of his chains. As time passed, he gained weight and good color. Then came a day when his keeper told him that it was time he be sold off.

Rahim had cried at bit at the news, expecting a beating. He had heard of the slaves in the cities, but never dreamed that he would someday be one. But his captor never once struck him and always made sure that he was fed and clean and free of disease. Even his manacles were lined with soft cloth to keep from chaffing his smooth skin. He soon learned that boys like himself were money – worth a fortune – and nothing more. Rahim realized as he was collared and led out the front door by his captor that his days of carefree boyhood were indeed over.

Kaelen knew the rest of the story too well, the scene at the auction 3; the Breakpoint. That moment of indecision by a greedy Master who could almost not choose between his own curious lusts and his familiar lusts of money and possessions. Indeed, he had not chosen one or the other; he had chosen both and in doing so wiped out Kaelen's entire history and life. Kaelen sat staring at the paused image of man and boy and ordered the computer to continue.

Master Fadil was standing in the doorway, his arm about the slight shoulders of Rahim the slaveboy. They were flanked by the two large attendants, and two more standing guard at the door. All of them were shaven-headed Africans, large and threatening and all carrying sabres. Into the small room off to the side of Fadil's private infirmary (he even had his own estate physician) they entered. In the corner of the room stood a finely polished wooden frame of sorts, almost like a table with thick leather straps at various points. Rahim was staring at it in terror. He knew what it was from things he had overheard in his period of confinement with the man who had bought and sold him. It was a gelding bench.

He felt the grip of the Master's arm about his shoulders tighten. He glanced up and looked at the Master's face and was stunned to see a smile there. He looked around at the guards, who were all trying without much success to suppress grins as well. Rahim knew what they were going to do with him and he knew that there was escape through that veritable wall of black muscle and sword. He felt his chest tighten up and he gasped for breath. The physician of the estate was busily undoing the straps and wiping down the polished and very clean surface. Then he turned to his workbench and picked up a small curved knife with a pearl handle and tested the edge. He turned to looked at his employer, Rahim's Master, and nodded.

The Master took a step forward. Rahim didn't. At that point, as if expecting it, two of the eunuch guards stepped forward without a word. Each took one of Rahim's arms and lifted him up off the floor and carried him, kicking and screaming, towards the bench. One of Rahim's kicks caught the eunuch to his left square in the crotch and the large black man tightened his grip and smiled. "THAT, my boy, may well be the ONLY advantage of our state!" he said. Neither of them missed a step though as they set Rahim down on the frame, one holding him while the other tightened the straps around his wrists, upper arms, and waist. Then he took a step back and began strapping the helpless boy's legs into place, spread apart and held down at the ankles and just above the knees. Rahim let out a choked sob and went limp, the fight gone out of him. Yet he did not beg, and spoke not a word. His flaming gaze said it all.

Kaelen took a drink of his coffee and snarled deep in his throat at the image, unconsciously crossing his legs and scooting his chair forward.

"Has he been properly prepared?" the physician asked.

The Master turned to the two eunuchs who had accompanied them in. "Yes," one of them spoke up, "The Master placed the boy in our care for purging and preparation two days ago. He has had only a very sips of water since and no food. He is thoroughly empty."

"Excellent," the physician said, picking up a small cup of something that smelled foul. "Make him drink this and stoke up the fire, I'll need it nice and warm in here."

One of the black eunuchs took the flask and pried Rahim's mouth open. With one huge hand gripping the boy's nose shut, he poured the nasty smelling drink into his mouth and then held it shut. After about a minute of trying to retch, the boy gave up and swallowed.

"Perhaps if you sweetened it a bit," the Master suggested. The physician shrugged.

"We will need about a half an hour I think, Master. I am not a cruel man and I don't wish any more pain on the boy than is necessary. Besides, I am certain that his survival is my survival as well?" the physician asked.

Master Fadil simply nodded and smiled at Rahim, who was already beginning to moan softly, turning his shaven head from side to side but seeing nothing through his glassy eyes. Two of the black eunuchs stood at the door, sneaking glances while the other two worked at building up the fire and placing a pot of water and another small pot of oil over it to boil.

"I am curious," the physician mused as he inspected his cutting tools one final time, "why did you not use the auctioneer's gelding services instead of me, Excellency. I am can only assume that you want the utmost assurance of the boy's wellbeing?"

The eunuchs turned to look at Fadil but said nothing. The room was warming up nicely. The Master, his gaze not wandering from the now insensate boy on the gelding bench, merely nodded. He pulled a small flagon from inside his robe and took a long drink. "I had thought to have the auctioneer services, since I decided that the boy would be better to me gelded, but then I thought to myself – Fadil, your own physician is much much more reliable! "

"You flatter me," the physician replied.

Master Fadil took another drink and looked directly at his physician. His gaze spoke volumes.

"I have not lost a man or boy in gelding for a long time now, Excellency, and I still believe with all my heart that the last one simply had no will to live," the nervous physician offered.

Fadil made an indelicate sound and removed his outer robe. The room was getting warmer and warmer as the eunuchs stoked the fire and the oil and water began to boil. "All is ready," one of them said.

The physician nodded and inspected first the pots and then the boy. Everyone was beginning to sweat heavily. "Very well," he stated, let us begin. You there," he said to one of the eunuchs by the fire, "aid me." The eunuch nodded and stepped over to the workbench, offering the physician a small bottle. It was clear that he was familiar with the procedure as well. The physician took the bottle from his large black hand and pulled the stopper out. The smell of alcohol was strong, and he poured some of it over Rahim's genitals, slackened and hanging a bit with the heat. Next the eunuch handed the physician a length of thin cord. The cord was wrapped around the unconscious boy's genitals, pulled tight, and tied. They would wait a few moments.

Kaelen winced at the scene and checked his clock. 1AM. He glanced around and checked his supply pack again. On the screen in front of him, the boy lay unconscious as his undeveloped manhood turned slowly red, then blue to an ugly shade of purple.

Fadil watched his physician's progress with interest. The boy would survive, he knew it. There was fire in this boy's spirit that shone through his dark, round eyes. That look had captived Fadil when he had first seen it, and even when the boy had stood on the slave block, bound and helpless and defiantly met his gaze, Fadil felt himself captured by it. He remembered his thoughts of keeping the boy to breed him, to sell the certainly beautiful offspring for a handsome sum. But then then the boy's priceless beauty which he had been so taken with would surely be lost as well to the maturity of manhood. Of course Rahim would have grown into a handsome man, there could be no doubt, but somewhere inside Fadil was a strange new emotion that stirred and somehow could not bear the thought of that beauty escaping. He had almost given in to his greed, but in fact he had given in to his own newfound lusts. He had always enjoyed the company of women, but he had always been tempted by good-looking eunuchs. It was not uncommon, he knew.

He watched with anxiety as the physician heated the knife until the blade was almost glowing red. The same eunuch was standing ready, the other boiling white bandages in the pot of water on the fire. As the physician reached down and grasped the boy's genitals and pulled them a bit, the eunuch by his side picked up a small and long plug and waited for the red hot knife to do its work. Very slowly and with great precision, the physician drew the curved blade up under Rahim's scrotum and pulled up. The razor sharp edge continued to slice thru the soft tissue, up and into the penis until finally severing the genitalia in one sweep. The cord held as the severed genitals dropped to floor, and the eunuch quickly inserted the plug into the exposed urethral opening. The physician had turned and pressed a cloth to the wound to catch some of the blood, but there was not much.

Even in his unconscious state, Rahim uttered a small cry and turned his head.

Kaelen cried out as well, a bit louder. It was a shocking thing to see.

As Kaelen watched from the relative safety of his temporal field, the eunuch at the fire picked up the pot of oil with some tongs and grabbed a small ladel from the workbench. As the other eunuch stepped back, the physician took the tongs and pot and ladelled some of the boiling oil onto the wound to cauterize it. He was careful, even artful. "I hate scarring," he muttered, handing the tongs and pot back to the waiting eunuch. From across the bench, Fadil watched and wondered what Adis was up to in the harem where he had left him. Adis when been taken by the boy's looks as well, but had declined to watch the operation, claiming that it always turned his stomach. Rahim moaned in his sleep.

Then, quickly, the first eunuch produced a small knife and cut the cord. There was no seepage of blood through the angry red tissue where Rahim's manhood had once been. The second eunuch brought a tray with the hot bandages on it, letting them cool just enough to wring the water out of them and the physician dressed the young eunuch's wounds and secured the bandages. The first eunuch bent down under the workbench and retrieved Rahim's severed manhood, placing it in a small jar of foul smelling liquids and driving in a tight stopper. He handed the jar to Master Fadil, bowed and departed with his companion.

The physician stepped back to inspect his work and nodded. "Shouldn't scar too badly, I think. Most of my work looks like they were never men to begin with, you know."

"Take care of him and inform me when he is up and about, I shall not want to see him until then," the Master ordered. And with that, he turned and left.

Kaelen could not remember ever being so angry. To do such to a man was monstrous, but to do it to a helpless child was unspeakable. This Master Fadil would not go unpunished. Kaelen made up his mind then, that as soon as Rahim, his ultimate great-grandfather, was safe from gelding that Fadil would pay for his moment of indecision and the wrong choice with his life. He checked with the computer about Fadil's descendents. Time passed. 2:30AM. All of Fadil's children were already born. He would have no more and Kaelen did not ask why. It seemed safe enough to assume that this monster of a man would live out the rest of his life given over to his own debaucheries. The Timeline would be better off without him. Deep in thought, Kaelen watched his clock tick, all the Viewers dark. In the Chamber, the frightened guests were still waiting. The show they had seen of Coordinator Laws vs. Coordinator Smith made them wish they had not come in the first place. At 2:55AM, Kaelen emerged from the small office where he watched the horrors of one little slice of history.

"Well, Sultan," the President spoke up. He, like the rest was unable to sleep nor did he want to.

Kaelen smiled a viscious smile and hitched up his pack a bit over his shoulder. He was in costume and ready to go. More than ready.

"Computer," he shouted into the air, "begin assembling deviations for Temporal Incursion."

Time passed and didn't inside the Chamber.

The computer compiled, power was shut down all over the West, and the whine of the field generators grew to a deafening pitch. The Viewer came on, filling with a vision of the ancient Persian landscape so real one wanted to touch it. Then, a glowing blue/green distortion formed in the center of the viewer, one meter out from its surface. Kaelen turned to the faces all staring at him and then took one final look at the man who had given the go-ahead on his project, his dream, his nightmare : the Leader of the Western World.

"Save him," he said over the din.

"Breach in progress, portal open. Instability in seven seconds," the computer warned.

"I will," Kaelen answered, and stepped through the distortion for want of that one boy.

Chapter 5

Eunuchs, murder and mayhem near Ancient Babylon. Minimal cutting scenes, time travel, hard to follow, and no sex. Sorry 3; it's based on a recurring nightmare and this is how it always goes.

Kaelen awoke with a pounding headache, unable to remember the last time he had felt so bad. Thoughts of the last office party came to mind, making him very afraid to even open his eyes. Slowly, he sat up and did so anyway.

The light was blinding, and Kaelen realized he was sweating. Wherever he was, it was hot. Very hot, and dry. As he gradually came to his senses, he realized he was sitting in the sand, out in the open, in the blazing sun. He looked around, but saw nothing but sand. There were flat areas, dunes, and the sand blew up over the tips of those dunes in fog-like clouds. There were patterns, dizzying to look at. Kaelen shook his head and tried to focus his eyes. The pain was almost intolerable. "Where in hell am I? " he asked aloud.

The voice that replied inside his head made him yelp and jump straight up, to land with no dignity at all face-first in the sand. "Outskirts of ancient Babylon, circa 5 to 600 BC."

Then it hit him.

The attempt had succeeded. The temporal viewer had actually managed to focus enough of the distortions in Time to send him back. Those same distortions, which he himself had discovered, and which had also erased his very existence. He thought back to the initial launch of the Temporal Viewer. There was so much to see, so much to learn in the past. He never even dreamed of the side effect of the Viewer's power consumption, however. While viewing the events that had lead to the last great war, enough minute distortions in the very fabric of time had collected around his chamber. He had, in fact, become exempt from the normal flow of time. Then things begun to change.

At first it was the name and face of the guard at his door, which he dismissed out of hand and blamed on faulty memory or inattention. Then he had found, bluntly, that HE himself no longer existed. Somewhere back in time, something had gone wrong while he was in the chamber.

One boy.

One boy had had a son.

That son had had sons.

Eventually, Kaelen had descended from that one boy, centuries later.

But as he had sat watching history unfold on his monitor, something happened.

The computer called it a Breakpoint. It was based on the theory that anything that CAN occur, does occur – in alternate Timelines. Kaelen, however, was outside of ALL the timelines when it had happened.

One boy.

His sons.

Their sons – perhaps a very nation.

Gone with the single stroke of a knife.

Kaelen bowed his head to his knees, fumbling for his canteen. He had come prepared, at least. Well, prepared to travel. His implants were functioning, and he was in discreet communication with the computer he had built, centuries distant in ONE possible future. The fact that the computer had spoken through the implant and frightened him bolstered his faith that he would succeed. Kaelen took a long drink and remembered why he had come.

His name was (is?) Rahim, and he was a beautiful boy. Somewhere near ancient Babylon, this boy had lived, grown up, perhaps married, and fathered children who would in turn father children who would in turn give rise to Kaelen in the far future. That was one possibility. The other was that Rahim, long before his reached manhood, was sold as a slave boy to a wealthy merchant and made into a eunuch. With his emasculation, countless descendants had disappeared before Kaelen's eyes on the monitor. Himself included. Trapped in the temporally exempt chamber, he was left with only one choice.

For want of that one boy, he had gone back in time to make sure that the Breakpoint never happened. He had to make sure that Rahim was not gelded to live out his life as a plaything for some depraved and wealthy merchant.

"Computer," Kaelen whispered to himself, "respond."

"Working 3;" replied the soft feminine voice.

"WHEN am I, computer?"

"Approximately 5 to 600 BC as stated outside ancient Babylon. You have three days to the Breakpoint to which you were drawn," the computer informed him.

Kaelen drew himself up and set out, walking slowly to conserve his strength. The open desert was not the best climate for a hike and he had little time. Following the tips from the voice only he could hear through his implants, he made his way to a caravan route. The water and food supplements he had packed would sustain him, but Kaelen could not help but wonder how long he could hold out in the heat; especially with all the packs he was going to have to carry. Fortunately, he did not have to wait long. Upon the advice of the computer, he found himself on the track coming up behind a caravan which had stopped for the worst part of the day to rest at a scant oasis. Obviously the computer had picked a near perfect place to 'drop' him. He adjusted his garments, paying special attention to his turban so as not to expose his shaven head. Kaelen reminded himself that that, in this time frame, was a sign of a slave and very few free men or boys shaved their heads.

No one in the caravan seemed to be paying much attention as they went about the business of watering their mounts and tending to their cargo. Kaelen made an indelicate sound as he approached. There were at least a fifty camels in the caravan, and a few horses and what looked to be mules. There were armed men, carrying wicked looking swords and staffs, and servants attending to the men as well as the animals. It was obviously a well guarded caravan of a rich merchant, and the cargo was slaves.

"I should be so lucky," Kaelen muttered.

Confirmed, the voice in his head supplied helpfully, This is the caravan of the merchant you seek, but the boy is not with it. He is already in the city.

Kaelen nodded, not thinking that the gesture would go unnoticed since the Viewer could not actually see him in person. He continued to survey the caravan. The servants were clad only in brief loincloths, and all of them had shaven heads. Most were black, and very few of them were large and muscular. In fact, almost all of the ones serving seemed to be tall and thin. Many of the guards were ominous looking, huge men with which Kaelen decided it would be best not to tangle with. The men being served were richly dressed, and obviously had not wanted for anything in quite some time. Still he approached, hoping that the implant could translate both ways fast enough for conversation. It was then that he paused, taking closer notice of the cargo.

That cargo was indeed slaves, now that he could see them better.

They were being hauled in large cage-like wagons, which Kaelen found unusual. He had assumed that they would be on foot, suffering with every step. But upon further examination of that idea, he decided that a bunch of dead or injured slaves would not be worth much. It made sense, especially if the market was good. A few of the bald servants were passing water skins to the prisoners in the wagons, and plates of fruit and dried meat as well. From the looks of it, whoever owned them did not want them damaged in transit. The slaves in the rolling cages took the food and drink without much enthusiasm and passed it amongst themselves.

"You there!" A voice shouted .

Kaelen stopped as a large guard approached him, brandishing his sword.

"What do you want?" The man demanded.

The lag was negligible and Kaelen breathed a sigh of relief. "I am a lost traveler, good sir, separated from my company. Might I travel with your great caravan? I can pay you well."

The guard looked Kaelen over, judging him on sight. In a deep and threatening voice he replied, "I will take you to the Overseer who will decide." Then he paused. "He is a greedy man who will no doubt take what you can offer him, but be warned 3;" and he left that last statement hanging. Visions of being robbed and sold as a slave himself filled Kaelen's mind, but he followed the guard to the oasis where a tent had been pitched under a puny palm tree. The guard announced their arrival, and pushed Kaelen inside.

The man who sat in the tent was a bit fat, and dressed in fine silks and jewelry. He looked at the guard and Kaelen and demanded, "What is this?"

"A lost traveler, sir, who wishes to pay to travel with us," the guard answered.

"Very well, I am always open to make a profit. What can you offer me, stranger?"

Kaelen reached into his pocket and produced a small bar of gold. He had come prepared for monetary emergencies and gold was a universal currency. The guard snatched the bar from Kaelen's slight hand and presented it with a bow to the Overseer, whose eyes bulged. "You are no doubt a well to do citizen," he replied, "and this will insure your travel with me. Judging from the looks of you, you come from the high district, am I right?"

The computer had prepared his disguise well. Kaelen nodded, inclining his head in respect.

The Overseer then laughed. "Dine with me, stranger, and tell me how you came to be out here in the desert, all alone and wandering."

Kaelen sighed silently in relief. To be invited to dine, in this culture, was a good sign.

The guard gestured to a cushion, and Kaelen seated himself. "My own company was set upon by robbers, good sir, and only I escaped with my life and a few small things. I was merely traveling back to the city, returning home. This is a most terrible setback for me."

As they continued to talk, two bald and near naked servants entered. They were much larger and healthier looking than the others Kaelen had seen. They did not, however, make eye contact with either Kaelen or his host. Both were black, with large lips and small ears and flattened noses. In each ear and in their septums they wore thick gold rings. Their brief loincloths left almost nothing to the imagination, and their sweating bodies showed very little, in fact, almost no body hair at all. As one bent over to present him a plate of fruit chunks, Kaelen stole a glance at the small, tight garment. It was coarse cloth, and very tight in the front, coming up to fit between the cheeks of the servant's butt. It left no doubt, upon a close look to the front, that the young servant showed no bulge at all through the cloth. He was indeed a full eunuch.

Kaelen, despite the oppressive heat, shivered.

When the two of them had finished serving, the rich man waved them off to a corner where they sat cross-legged staring at the floor of the tent. Kaelen took his queue to begin eating when the host did, which made him smile. "You are well mannered, as I would expect from a high born man. We will make the city by nightfall, which is good. The desert can be very cold at night and all those naked slaves of ours might catch a chill. They will need all the strength they have for what is to come when we arrive."

"And for where are they bound, excellency?" Kaelen asked politely.

"Ah, they are the finest of Africa and a few young Arabs whom are destined to be sold on the slave block in the city. They are all young and strong and healthy, and most have great looks. My employer only imports the finest to sell, as there is much profit in this. Why, on the last trip we brought him a Bedouin beauty of a boy which sold for more than I can remember in a long time." The fat man paused over a bite of fruit and took a long drink, passing the wineskin to Kaelen. "In fact," he continued, "He looked somewhat like you."

"I do descend from stock in that area, I am told," Kaelen replied.

"Most arrogant boy I ever saw," the Overseer continued, "no respect, no manners, fighting with everyone all the time. He actually tried to escape several times and we finally had to tie him to a horse, literally, to keep him. He even dared look everyone in the eye. He was so perfect, however, that no one dared damage him 3;"

As the fat man rambled about the boy, the computer confirmed through Kaelen's implants that it was indeed Rahim that the man spoke of. There was still time, it assured him, and the boy was being kept in careful preparation for his gelding – or not.

Kaelen continued to eat and to watch the quiet eunuchs as the fat man rambled on and on, while all the time some deep part of his mind was screaming.

***

Kaelen had no problem with the caravan's leader, and his gold bar did indeed get him into the city. The trip was even pleasant. The only thing that had unnerved him was the fact that his host had seen fit to assign him his own servant, a shaven-headed eunuch like all the rest Kaelen had seen. The eunuch was young, perhaps twenty at the most but with fairer skin. Like the rest, he also wore the gold rings in his nose and ears and was dressed only in the tight and small loincloth that made it painfully obvious of what he was missing. It had taken several hours, but Kaelen had finally gotten the eunuch engaged in some conversation.

He told Kaelen of how he had once been free and had lived in a small village on the banks of the Red Sea some three or four years past. He had been seventeen, he said, when the area's crops had failed and the tax collectors had taken many of the young people as slaves to pay what their families owed. He did not offer many details of his emasculation, only that he had expected it and had heard stories – all of which had proven true. He had been purged and starved for three days in the slaves' holding cells, then they had come for him. There had been others as well, and all of them had been taken to a special cell and one by one, strapped down to a strange bench to watch as the slave broker's men came at them with a glowing hot knife. One by one, they had their genitals tied off with a tight cord, then sliced off completely with the searing blade. For three days, they were given no water nor food, and the wounds where their penises had been were stoppered with a very painful plug. Kaelen shivered at the mental image, with one phrase burnt into his brain :

"About half of us were lucky," the eunuch had said, "they died on the second day."

Kaelen had excused himself at the end of the eunuch's tale, and had gone straight to the overseer. He produced two medium sized bars of silver, and had bought the young eunuch on the spot. There might be nothing he could do for the emasculated youth as far as the damage that had been done to him, but there was definitely something he could do about the eunuch's future.

So it was that, as promised, they arrived in the city. Kaelen and his eunuch, who refused to speak his name, parted the caravan and headed into the merchant district. Kaelen purchased a room for the night, complete with bath, and shocked both his eunuch servant and the proprietor by only paying for one room. The innkeeper had suggested that he put the eunuch in the slaves' quarters with the others, but Kaelen claimed that he had just bought the youth and needed to have a long talk with him that would doubtless take most of the night. The innkeeper had given him a sly look, mentioned that the room with bath would be ready for them shortly, and happily taken a small silver bar from Kaelen's purse without further comment.

As they entered the room, Kaelen looked around in surprise. He had expected it to be bleak, but obviously his silver had purchased the best suite that the inn had to offer. Weary and wanting only to be clean and to sleep, Kaelen began to undress. "You know," he said as the eunuch took his garments one by one, "I just can't call you 'hey you' or 'boy'. If you won't tell me your name, I'll give you one."

The eunuch folded Kaelen's clothes and laid them on the one bed. He was obviously nervous. "As you wish, sir," he said.

Kaelen sighed. "Alright, then how's this? 'Tal'. Best I can do. I'll call you Tal."

The eunuch nodded and then looked strangely at his new master.

"Your headpiece, master," he said questioningly.

"Oh, yes," Kaelen replied, pulling the turban off. Tal gasped as he stared at Kaelen's stubbled scalp. "Lice," Kaelen lied glibly.

That seemed to appease Tal, who seated himself in a corner and watched Kaelen get into the bath. Kaelen could feel the eyes upon him as he sank himself into the cool water. It was impossible to know what was going through Tal's mind, watching him – an unmutilated man, his new master – naked before him. Tal quickly averted his eyes and lowered his head.

"What's wrong, Tal?"

The eunuch did not answer.

The fires from the many lamps cast eerie shadows as Kaelen waited for a reply.

"I'm not going to hit you, Tal," Kaelen said finally.

"Forgive me. I looked. I envy you, as all eunuchs envy men. Punish me as you will, sir."

Kaelen was taken aback. Quickly his mind ranged through what he knew of this ancient culture, and seemed to remember that it was not unnatural for slaves to attend all of their masters' needs. The computer's soft voice promised in reply to devote some study to it, and also to the eunuch's height and build. Kaelen was puzzled, but merely let it go. "When I am done, I want you to wash as well, Tal," he ordered. A visible shiver ran thru the eunuch's slim body, but he nodded.

"Then when neither of us smell like camels anymore, we're going to bed. It's large enough for the both of us and there's no sense in you sleeping on the floor." Kaelen stated. Another shiver ran through Tal. He scratched nervously at one ear, adjusting the gold ring. "And by the way," Kaelen continued, "Do those rings come out?"

Tal shook his head. "They are sealed loops, master, the only way to remove them is to cut them out." Kaelen smiled. "Perhaps not," and he left that idea hanging.

When he finished bathing, Kaelen dried himself and ordered Tal into the bath. Now that the himself was clean, the smell of travel was evident on Tal. He put on a robe and sent his clothing out with an employee of the inn to be laundered, also ordering something more for Tal to wear. He also ordered food and drink. He turned just in time to see Tal dropping his scarce garment onto the floor, but the eunuch's backside was to him and he saw nothing of the mutilation that the youth had obviously endured. Tal began to scrub himself quickly, pausing after he had lathered his head.

"Problem?" Kaelen asked.

Tal nodded. "It is a rule that slaves have shaved heads. I am beginning to stubble, and, well," he faltered, "I cannot do it myself without another servant. We used to do each other."

"I think I can handle it," Kaelen offered.

All of this was obviously coming as a shock to Tal, who had seemingly never been well treated by any master he had had before. Kaelen found a razor in the pack which contained what few provisions a slave would carry, and set to work on Tal's head. He noticed that they were about the same color in flesh tone, and since he had shaved his own head on numerous occasions, Kaelen had no trouble in giving Tal a smooth and shining shave. As the eunuch passed a hand over his shaven scalp, he stared up at his new master in wonder. "In a few days, Tal, you'll understand. I'm not like anyone you've ever met before." He paused for a moment, looking the youth up and down. "You're really short for a eunuch, you know."

The eunuch nodded, and Kaelen respectfully turned his back as Tal stood up and stepped out to dry off. There was a knock at the door, and Tal jumped, clutching his towel in front of himself. Kaelen answered the door to find a girl there with a large plate of food and a decanter of wine. She smiled at them, her eyes lingering a bit on Tal, and then turned and left. Kaelen sat the plate down on a small table near the foot of the bed and sat down to eat. "Hurry up and dry off," he said to the seemingly frozen eunuch, "there's plenty here."

Tal bent to pick up his brief garment, but Kaelen stopped him, "No, forget it. It smells like a camel. Use the towel until the laundry gets back." Reluctantly, Tal secured the towel about his narrow waist and came over to stand by the table as Kaelen continued to eat. "Sit down and eat, Tal, don't serve me." The eunuch did as he was told, never taking his large brown eyes off of his new master. Kaelen felt those eyes upon him, and glanced up to make eye contact. Tal quickly averted his gaze.

"Tal," Kaelen said flatly, "I think you need to understand something. I bought you from the caravan master not because I wanted a slave. I needed help carrying things, and I also need someone more familiar with this area and culture to help me. I don't expect you to serve me, I am NOT going to hit you, and as far as I am concerned you're not my slave. You're my partner if anything. I need your help, not your fear or submission. Alright?"

The young eunuch stared into the face of this strange man who had just bought him. While life as a caravan servant had been hardly easy, this was just too strange to cope with. Tal thought for a moment and shook his head. "I don't understand, sir," he replied.

Kaelen sighed. "I didn't think you would. You've been too well trained I guess."

Tal shuddered a bit. Kaelen caught it.

"You've been beaten, haven't you?"

The eunuch nodded.

"Well I am NOT going to do that, Tal, and I trust you'll not run away. I mean, it is sort of obvious with the shaven scalp and the gold rings that you're a slave. You'd just get picked up as a runaway and resold 3; so 3; you may as well adapt to how I treat you and help me out," Kaelen explained, "Besides," he added, "I lied. I am not from here and I need your help."

Slowly the light of realization began to show on the eunuch's face. He looked at the plate of food, then he looked at Kaelen and his many packs he had helped carry. "Very well," he agreed, I will trust you since you have been so kind to me. It has been a long time." Unshed tears stood in Tal's large, luminous eyes and Kaelen felt a lump rise in his own throat. How long had it been since anyone had shown kindness to this unfortunate youth? Besides the painful emasculation, how much more suffering had he been forced to endure? It was more than Kaelen could imagine. No wonder Tal had been so self-conscious during the evening in this room.

They finished eating in silence, and there was more wine in the decanter than was probably good for either one of them. Tal excused himself to go the toilet, and Kaelen quickly consulted the computer via his implants. Nothing had changed. His actions had not altered history, nor damaged it any further. No new Breakpoints had taken place, Tal was still short and the computer had no clue why, and Rahim was still out there, somewhere, waiting for Kaelen to rescue him – to rescue himself 3;

***

The wine was beginning to affect Kaelen when Tal returned, still clad in the towel with which he had dried himself. Kaelen gave brief thought to how the youth relieved himself, then decided that he really didn't want to know. Tal pointed his new, if not easy-going, master in the general direction of the facilities and sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed to wait. When Kaelen returned, weaving a little, Tal pulled back the covers, took his robe, and gently assisted Kaelen into bed. Then he stood there watching. "Go around to the other side, put out the lamps, and get into the bed, Tal," Kaelen mumbled. He had not had that much wine in a long time, and no wine he had ever tasted had tasted like that. He silently cursed himself under his breath.

Obviously, the computer's voice said in his head.

"Oh shut up!" Kaelen retorted so that Tal would not hear him.

Reluctantly, Tal blew out the last lamp and Kaelen could feel it as the eunuch slowly got into bed. He himself was naked, and he certainly hoped that Tal had discarded the damp towel. Certainly the laundry would arrive in the morning, he thought, as the long day and the wine finally claimed him.

***

It was not right, Tal thought to himself. He buys me, brings me here, and then treats me like a friend instead of a slave. But I AM a slave. A eunuch slave, and he IS my master, no matter how strange he may seem. What will he ask of me, what will he have me to do? He has invited me to his bed, yet he sleeps 3;

These thoughts kept Tal from sleep. For him, sleep had been the enemy for the past three or four years. When he slept, the dreams came. And with the dreams came the horrors. Many a night, Tal had awakened his fellow servants with his cries in his pain-haunted slumber. He had not been the only one, but over time the others had seemed to adapt. But it was not to be for Tal. When sleep took him, he found himself night after night waiting in the cold dark cell with no food nor water. The straw scratched at his naked skin, and the men came with their coarse rags and stinging soap to scrub him raw and rake the hair from his body with cold, sharp razors. They held him down and drove sharp needles through his ears and septum, forcing the smooth gold rings into the holes and then bending them shut. Somehow, they would heat the rings and his skin would burn as the rings melted a bit and became an unbroken loop. Then they would leave him to suffer along with the other boys, burnt and bleeding, and knowing that the worst was yet to come.

Some time later, they would return. They would take them to a new cell, and scrub them down again, tearing at their already damaged flesh. They would hold him down, and he could see the them taking the others, bending them over and pushing long pipes up into them via their backsides. The pipes were attached to large waterskins, and the men would hold those large skins high so that the water mix would flow down and fill the struggling youths with the irritating fluid that made them loosen their bowels. They did it to him, several times a day. His belly would stretch and the cramps would tear at him. Still they came to scrub them and purge them, promising them that the worst was yet to come. They were handsome youths, they said, and they would bring much money on the market.

Finally, they came and took them to the room with the bench. The room with the smoking braziers and red hot tools heated in them. They were large men, muscled and strong – which Tal and the others would never be. They laughed as the first of them was tied to the bench and the cord tied around his manhood. He was young. Too young. Many of them like him, voices unbroken and faces untouched by beards. Still slight of build, their futures sealed. Tal watched in his pain-haunted dreams – or were they dreams? Where was he?

Suddenly he would find himself free, lying naked in the sand on the beach. His friends were there, and they were happy and healthy. They were boys dreaming of being men, sharing each others' secrets and fantasies, getting intoxicated on pilfered wine, and enjoying life. Then the clouds would roll in, blotting out the sun and the men would come. They emerged from the waves like demons coming up out of Hell to take the youths and bind their thin limbs with cutting ropes. Their lurid grins spoke volumes as they called Tal and his friends slaves, taking them away to some terrible place they could not understand. It was dark, then there was light in the cramped cells. The cells gave way to the room, that room with the bench and the hot knives 3; Tal's closest friend Aron was tied down, a gag in his mouth. The men held him and the others, making them watch as they tied Aron's manhood off with tight cord. Tal could feel the man behind him; he had an erection and it was pressing into Tal's back. The grins were the worst. Eternities seemed to pass.

One of them was feeling the bound youth's manhood, turned blue and cold in his grasp.

Then came the knives, only it was not Aron but Tal on the bench and the hot knife dug into him 3;

Chapter 6

Kaelen was awakened in the middle of the night by the scream. He was also cold. Tal had pulled the blankets off and wrapped himself tightly in them, curled up into a fetal position. That awful cry had brought Kaelen up out of his wine-induced slumber into sobriety, and he saw Tal shaking and crying out in his sleep. "No," he moaned in a voice that brought tears to Kaelen's eyes, "No please, have mercy!" And then the scream again.

Quickly, Kaelen grabbed at the covers and pulled, yanking the dreaming eunuch close to his side. He grabbed Tal by the shoulders and pulled him up, shaking him and shouting in his ear.

The room was dark, nowhere near morning yet. Kaelen continued the shaking, and suddenly the cries of anguish faded into soft whimpers. Instinctively, perhaps from memory, Kaelen took the shivering youth in his arms and pulled him close. Tal buried his face in Kaelens' shoulder, and he could feel the hot tears flowing freely down the eunuch's face. At first Tal resisted, but then gave himself over as the storm of weeping tore at him anew. Kaelen held the youth tight, pulling him closer and offering what words of comfort he could. He wondered how long it had been since there had been ANY comfort, and not beatings for this. How often did it happen? Was every night like this? Of what was Tal dreaming that was so horrible?

Then it came to him.

The gelding.

Slowly, as he remembered his mother doing when he had had nightmares as a young boy, Kaelen began to rock the still-crying eunuch back and forth. He placed a hand on the back of the youth's smooth shaven head and held it down to his own bare shoulder. "I'm here, Tal, not them. They can't hurt you anymore. It's over now." Small words, he knew, of even smaller comfort, but it was the best he could do. It seemed like hours before Tal fell, wordlessly, back into sleep. He tossed a great deal, and Kaelen could feel it. Tal slept, but Kaelen did not. He arose after a time, lit a small lamp, put on his robe, and pulled the blankets back over the sleeping eunuch. He carefully made his way to the window, groping in the near-darkness for one of his packs. By touch, he located his small portable computer and pulled it out, filling the room with a soft glow from the screen. He also located something to take for his hangover. He checked and rechecked the map of the city. He consulted via his implant to the computer centuries in the future; the fact that it was still there giving him comfort. Aman Fadil – that was the man who had Rahim, and Kaelen's very existence as well.

And then he had a new idea. Actually several.

There would be no more sleep for him tonight, he could tell.

***

Tal awoke feeling sandy-eyed and groggy. As usual, the nightmares had ruined his sleep. He rubbed his eyes and then jerked himself into a sitting position as he realized where he was. Then he sneezed and uttered a rancid oath. Kaelen, who had been sitting by the window eating breakfast, choked on his juice and sprayed a fair amount of it out of his nose. They both paused then laughed for a moment. When each had recovered his composure, Tal spoke first.

"I really hate this thing," he muttered, touching the sealed ring in his septum.

"It does look uncomfortable," Kaelen agreed, "Not all the slaves had them though."

Tal shook his head. "It was an affectation of the master who owned me before the caravan leader. He very much liked ornamentation. At least he took back the cuffs and collar when he sold me." Kaelen looked confused, so Tal clarified. "All of us, his slave boys I mean, had the nose ring, rings in the ears, heavy gold collars inlaid with jewels, and wrist and ankle cuffs which all locked. He figured if we ran away, someone would be more than happy to cut off our heads or limbs to get the jewels. No one ever tried it."

Kaelen shook his head in disgust. "Just sit there a moment, Tal. The laundry isn't back yet and I don't want to make you any more uncomfortable than you are. I have an idea," he said, rooting in the larger pack. "This is going to be odd, but I want you to close your eyes and keep them closed until I say to open them. Trust me."

The eunuch nodded and did so, having no reason to distrust his newest master yet.

Kaelen pulled out a laser cutter and flipped it on. It made a soft hum as it powered up, and he set it for precision tight beam. He went to the bed, placed one hand on the back of Tal's shaven head, and bent it down. He carefully set the point of the cutter to the gold ring which hung just above the eunuch's upper lip and hit the trigger. A small bolt of red light shot out of the end and Tal twitched. The ring grew warm, and within a few seconds, a small gap appeared in the ring. Kaelen reset the tool's controls and it emitted a beam of force which spread the ring enough so that it could be removed. He then stowed the tool back in the pack. "Alright, Tal, open your eyes and take that ring out of your nose."

The young eunuch's eyes popped open and he looked dumbfounded at Kaelen. "I cannot."

"Just turn it and pull," Kaelen suggested. Tal complied.

The ring slid around until the eunuch could feel the gap on his septum and pulled. He stared at the ring in his palm and touched the end of his nose and rubbed his upper lip. His smile was like the sun rising. "How?" he asked, "There was almost no heat and no cutting and no tools!"

"Trust me," Kaelen replied, returning the smile, "I have some rather odd tools in my pack."

Tal nodded and tossed Kaelen the ring, feeling more secure of their relationship with each passing minute. For some reason, he felt almost no fear of this strange man who had bought him on impulse and taken him away from the boring life of the caravan route. What other adventures could such a strange master have waiting for them?

"Why don't you have some breakfast?" Kaelen suggested.

Tal started to get out of the bed then stopped suddenly. "I won't look," Kaelen promised, tossing the slim eunuch a small pillow and turning his back, "Just put that in your lap once you sit down, it'll do. Where is that damn laundry?"

Once seated, Tal began to eat and Kaelen turned back around to face him.

"I keep forgetting, I'm sorry. I know it must be a very sensitive thing for you. Eunuchs are not very common where I come from, you know." Kaelen supplied, resuming his own eating.

Tal looked confused but said nothing. Since his mutilation, only the old women who had tended the wounds of the new eunuchs had seen him totally naked. Of course each new master insisted on seeing him, but he did not – for some reason – count that. It was simple – the buyer had to see the merchandise he was paying for. Certainly THIS master would sooner or later give up the subtle approach and order him to expose his ruined body. They finished eating in silence, then as they sat contemplating what to say next, there was a knock at the door. Tal stood up, dropped the pillow, pulled on his scant but still dirty loincloth, and answered it. Kaelen watched as the eunuch took the clean laundry from the servant who had brought it. The servant was a girl, and her face paled as she stole a not so quick glance at Tal's obviously smooth and empty crotch, bowed and left. The eunuch sat their now-clean clothing on the bed and merely stood there facing his master.

Then he pulled the drawstring and let the brief garment fall.

Kaelen said nothing, then averted his eyes.

But what he had seen left a lasting impression on him and toughened his already iron-hard resolve to find Rahim and restore his own future. There was no sign between Tal's legs that he had ever been a man. Whoever had cut him had done a precision job, evenly removing all of Tal's manhood. There was little scarring, although the skin was a slightly paler color than the rest. There was a tan line of course, from being out in the sun in only the scant loincloth he had worn. But the wounds had healed very well, obviously making him a much more valuable piece of merchandise. Where his penis had been, there was not even a stump as Kaelen had thought that there would be. There was a small hole, of course, but there was also a divot, indicating that the stump had somehow been taken out as well. There was only smooth skin below it with a slim white scar running vertically where Tal's balls had once been. Kaelen considered the anatomy, the crude methods of the day, and marveled that anyone could live through it. Of course, many more had not.

"There should be a short tunic for you there, Tal, I had to guess on the size. I thought you might like something less revealing than what you had."

The eunuch turned and pulled a plain gray tunic from the pile of clothing and put it on. He tied sash at the waist, tightly, for he had never eaten much since the gelding and was very slim. Tal had seen other eunuchs who became obese, unable to lose the weight once they put it on and had vowed never to become unsightly like them. The tunic had a V-neck and no sleeves, and it reached almost halfway to his knees. Kaelen watched as the eunuch smiled once again and it made him feel warm. "I have not had real clothing since 3;" Tal began, then stopped as if choking on the words.

"It couldn't have been easy, Tal, and I didn't expect you to show me," Kaelen offered.

"You are my master, you are entitled," Tal replied.

Kaelen had no idea what to say. "Well, if you just had hair now you could pass for a free boy, you know."

The eunuch reached up and tugged at an earring, and Kaelen noticed that the large gauge had stretched the youth's earlobes considerably. He could remove the earrings like he had the septum ring – but unlike the septum scar which was not noticeable, the holes in his ears would be. "Are earrings common among free men here?"

Tal shook his head. "Not this type. These are only for slaves. Stretched ears are another sign. We are marked too well to hide it, master."

"Call me Kaelen, please. I don't feel like a master quite yet."

The eunuch looked puzzled, but he agreed.

"At least your hair can grow back out," Kaelen said.

"Perhaps, but you will have to make out emancipation documents. Until then it must be kept shaved."

"We'll see as we go. "

"And where ARE we going, mas – uh, Kaelen?" the eunuch asked.

"We need to find the estate of one merchant by the name of Aman Fadil."

Tal's face paled visibly and his hands began to tremble.

"What's wrong?"

The eunuch sat down heavily on the bed and sighed. "He is the richest man in the city. He is also the largest dealer in the slave trade, and he specializes in eunuchs. The caravan you joined, when you bought me in the desert, was his. He was importing African youths to geld and sell as slaves for harem duty, among other things. Do not cross him mast – Kaelen, he is very very powerful." Tal fell silent then and sat staring at his feet, which were small once Kaelen noticed them. Small, but calloused. He made a mental note to find sandals or some type of soft shoes for the eunuch.

"Time index 46.2 hours to breakpoint," the voice said inside Kaelen's head, making him flinch.

Fortunately, Tal was still lost in his own thoughts and missed that one.

"Tal, if he is a merchant of such gain, he is greedy and I have money. More than you can imagine. I am NOT going to sell you to him, don't worry. I am buying again, and NO, not to replace you," Kaelen explained.

Tal still did not look up, but he whispered, "He is a horrible man, and his estate is a horrible place. I do not want to go there, Kaelen. Please don't make me go there 3;" and the eunuch's soft but high voice trailed off into small choked whimpers. There was more, and suddenly Kaelen made the connection.

"He bought you at first," Kaelen stated. It was not a guess. "Then HE ordered you cut."

The eunuch nodded.

"Then he sold you to the caravan master."

Tal shook his head and tried to suppress a choking sob. He failed.

Kaelen sat down beside the eunuch on the bed and put an arm around his slender shoulders. Tal flinched away momentarily, then as he had done the night before, he gave himself over to a fresh storm of weeping. It took a long time regain his composure, but once he did, there was something strange in his eyes.

"Tell me," Kaelen said softly.

"When we were taken as payment during the year of the drought, me and the others from my village, the collectors sold us on the slave block. They knew that Fadil's caravan Master would buy us, it was prearranged. We brought a low price then, as the auction was rigged. They hauled us across the desert in wagons as you saw, where we were attending the others when you arrived. It was at Fadil's estate where the nightmare actually took place. They locked us naked in small cells, clean and airy, but then they stopped feeding us and starting the purgings. Several times each day we were made to drink something oily and foul, and they took great pleasure in filling us up with soapy stinging water that made us lose our bowels. For three days they did this, then stopped. The next day, they came and took us to the cutting room. I think it was worse for those who went last, like me. We had to watch 3;" Tal paused for a moment, lost in memory and trembling in Kaelen's embrace.

"I watched them cut Aron, my lifelong friend. We were born on the same day and were like brothers. He was so slight of build and beautiful, you know. They cut him very deeply, not wanting to leave any evidence of the man he would have become. Some they do this to so that they feel nothing, they say, when their masters 'use' them. He screamed so much, and I watched him struggle. I am so ashamed, Kaelen 3;" Then the eunuch wept softly for a bit more, as Kaelen waited patiently.

"They MADE us watch, we could not look away. It was compelling somehow. I had an erection, we all did, while they were doing it and the guards laughed and made jokes. It was terrible watching them mutilate my best friend, and then they promised to do the same to ME. I was aroused by it, and I hate myself." Tal hung his head then, his shoulders slumped, but the crying seemed to have run itself out. "You want to go there and buy a youth? Why?"

Kaelen noticed that the spark had returned to Tal's eyes, something he had not seen in the eunuch, nor any of the others in the caravan.

"WE are going there Tal, to buy ONE certain boy BEFORE they can do to him what they did to you. I cannot explain it fully so that you will understand, but this one boy must NOT be gelded. Too much will go badly wrong if he is," Kaelen said, "And I have traveled farther than you can imagine to prevent it."

Tal looked up the ceiling and sighed. "With my gelding, my sons-to-be died. And with them all their sons, and perhaps with them, a very nation."

A cold chill ran up Kaelen's spine as the young eunuch quoted a piece of literature that would not be written for almost 2000 years. "A Sound of Thunder," he replied. Tal looked at him in puzzlement.

"A story written in my home land long ago – well, long ago for ME that is. The story goes that a man killed a butterfly in the far distant past. A small thing really, but for want of that one butterfly, a bird starved later on in the future. For want of that one bird, a fox starved – and for want of that one fox, a man starved to death and all of his sons died with him. What would have been did not come to pass, and the whole world was changed," Kaelen summarized quickly.

Tal's mouth was slightly open and his eyes wide. The thoughts of every eunuch that realizes that HE would have no sons ran through his mind and he was amazed to know that a MAN like Kaelen would understand or care. He remembered seeing his master's nude body at the bath and feeling jealous, but also wondering if Kaelen had any sons. "And THIS one boy MUST have sons?"

Mutely, Kaelen nodded.

"Why him?" Tal asked. "Why is HE special?" There was an edge of jealousy in his voice, irrational, yet there.

"Because if he is made a eunuch, Tal, as I said, all of HIS sons will die and theirs with them. Me included."

The look that the slim eunuch gave his master clearly indicated that he did not understand, but was willing to hear more.

Kaelen decided to try to explain it, even though the computer's voice was screaming inside his head not to try.

"Tal, what would you do if the Gods could send you back to the time before the slavers came for you?"

The eunuch's response was immediate. "I would take Aron and run far away and never look back."

Kaelen nodded. "Perhaps we can find Aron then."

Tal turned his head and sighed, his grief run out and only anger remaining. "No, we will NOT find him. He was one of the lucky ones. He died the second day after the cut. He began to bleed in the night and no one knew. In the morning, he was dead. We could not sleep for the pain, Kaelen. He had to know, yet he did not call out. Not even to me, and I was right next to him. I did doze a bit, but not real sleep and in the morning when I touched his hand, it was cold. Part of me went with him, I fear. A part, that like my manhood, I will never regain."

"Let me ask you this, Tal – do you believe that in time, in the future, man will grow wiser? That he will invent things that will make life easier and finally someday stop using his strengths to kill or hurt the weaker?" Kaelen asked.

The eunuch thought for a moment. "Yes," he replied wistfully, "but it is too much to hope for."

Kaelen then pulled the youth close to him and ran a hand over his very slightly stubbled scalp and smiled. "Believe it, for I will prove it to you. Now, let us pack up and head out. We must find Fadil's estate. We have many sons to save."

Chapter 7

With Tal's direction, they made their way through the city. After several hours of walking, however, Kaelen grew annoyed and bought two horses. He paid for them in very small gold bars, and Tal nearly choked on the price. They were fine and strong mounts, Arabian beauties, and full of life. The eunuch had selected the dealer, a man with a good reputation, as reputations went. They made much better time and arrived, naturally, on the far side of the city and it's outlying areas by nightfall. As they rode, Tal pointed out various things at Kaelen's questionings. As the day wore on, the eunuch almost totally ceased to think of their relationship as slave/master. Kaelen was nothing but kind to him, seemed to have plenty of money, and had not once yet spoken harshly nor struck him. Tal did not fully understand it, but he found that he liked it. It was just getting on towards nightfall when they arrived at Fadil's estate.

"We will need to make an appointment with the guard, Kaelen," Tal advised, "and he will expect a bribe."

Kaelen laughed. "I knew he would, Tal, some things never change."

They were indeed met at the gate to Fadil's estate by a mountain of a black man who was under arms. He was also not alone, another guard sitting in the small building that stood at the only frontal entrance to the vast palace grounds. "State your business," the man demanded in a deep rumbling voice that sounded like doom.

From his appearance, however, Kaelen could tell that he was a slave. He had all of the gold rings that Tal had mentioned, and the shaved head, but he was clothed and well-armed.

Tal gestured at Kaelen, then spoke softly in his contralto voice, affecting a slight lisp and a retiring mannerism. "Good sir, my master has traveled a great distance to seek audience with YOUR master. He wishes to conduct business that will be mutually beneficial."

The guard flexed his arms and let his hand fall from the hilt of his saber. "You look well to do, good sir. May I tell my master who it is that wishes his company?" He shot Tal a withering look and grinned. The eunuch sighed and lowered his gaze, clearing his throat as a signal to Kaelen.

"I am Kaelen of the Northern Moroccan Realm," Kaelen lied smoothly, not knowing if Morocco had even come into existence yet or not, "and my servant and I have traveled very far and are sorely fatigued by our journey. We have matters of great import to discuss with Master Fadil at his leisure that will surely benefit us all." And with that remark, Kaelen leaned over and slipped a small bar of silver into the guard's hand. As they clasped hands, the guard felt the bar in his palm, and grinned broadly.

"I will go to him at once, sir. Contrary to rumor, my master is not a total tyrant. Follow me, and we will see to your needs. You and your servant must be in need of comforts, and we shall see to them."

Tal stole a glance and Kaelen and grinned. The guard went into the small building and returned with a long trumpet, upon which he blasted a brazen note. A few minutes later, two panting boys came running down the hill from a complex of buildings. They were thin like Tal, but unlike slaves, had hair that was squarely cut off above their eyebrows and just below their ears. They wore breechcloths which covered them, and sandals. Neither wore jewelry of any kind, indicating that they were employees, not slaves. Kaelen considered this, not quite sure of the situation, until the large black guard spoke to them in his harsh voice. "Take this good man's horses and see to them. Run and tell the housekeepers that the master has a guest and his slave, and to see to their comforts."

The wide-eyed boys nodded and took the reins to lead the horses up to the stables.

Kaelen and Tal fell into step behind the huge guard and followed him. Kaelen leaned over to whisper in Tal's ear, "I don't' understand. The stable boys are not slaves are they?" Tal shook his head, his gold earrings swinging.

"Employed, or perhaps boys of noble birth being made to work for the lessons of it," the eunuch replied, "One can sometimes pay employees, especially poor youths from the city, and it can be cheaper than maintaining a slave. For a few pennies a day, the boys will work and not have to be fed and clothed and housed as slaves are."

Kaelen nodded. It made some sense.

It took them a few minutes to walk up the long path to the main house, and when they arrived, they were greeted by an older woman who appeared to be in charge of housekeeping. "Ah, Sajeel," she spoke to the guard, "come in, come in, I'm almost ready for them. Master Fadil says that he cannot meet with our guest until morning. He regrets the delay, but hopes you will take the time to freshen up and rest from your journey. He awaits your business, you know," she said with a rueful look in her aged and lined face.

"I will leave you now," Sajeel, the guard said, "This devious old woman will see to your needs."

"You flatter me," the old woman called after the departing hulk of a man. He waved one hand back at her over his shoulder and shook his head. "Follow me, please," she said, more to Tal than to Kaelen.

She led them deep into the huge house and up a flight of stairs to the guest chambers. The room was opulent. There was a huge bed near a bay window which led to a terrace overlooking the grounds. In the middle of the room was a sunken bath, huge, with steps leading down into it. Here and there were boxes planted in blooming flowers, and the room smelled of rich and rare spices. There was a large tray of food, and a large decanter of some red-colored liquid which Kaelen suspected was wine. He stood with mouth agape, not able to believe what he was seeing. Nothing in the historical database had indicated this level of sophistication for 5-600 BC. "Best we could do on short notice," the old woman offered, "Will you be needing ANYTHING else, sir?" The leering look she gave Kaelen spoke volumes.

"Uh, no, ma'am, we won't," Kaelen replied. Then she gave Tal a look that spoke even louder.

"I see." Then she turned and left, closing the door behind her. No sooner had she left than there came a knock at the door. It was another pair of servants, these two teenage boys, and obviously slaves. They were puffing from climbing the stairs and carrying all of Kaelen's packs. "Come in, just set those on the bed if you will, boys," Kaelen greeted them, "Carefully, mind. There are breakables in there."

"Yes, sir," the first one replied, "of course." They did as they were told, then stood next to the bed with hands clasped behind their backs, waiting. Kaelen studied their shaven heads, their gold rings, and tight and revealing loincloths. Each had a small bulge, but not what Kaelen expected from boys their age. Their faces were also smooth, indicating that neither shaved. They were of a slightly muscular build, and had only a very faint amount of body hair. Each had gold cuffs at the wrists and ankles, and they were barefooted. Around their necks were thick gold collars, each inlaid with a large red stone. They glanced at Tal, who was beginning to unpack their clothing bundle, then looked back at Kaelen. "My master will not require anything else," the eunuch said flatly, "you may go." The boys looked from Tal to Kaelen, who nodded. They fled.

"Houseboys, guest quarters," Tal explained, "shackled in gold so they cant' run away. Obviously not servants to the harem nor womens' quarters."

"I noticed," Kaelen replied, thinking that he was beginning to get the knack of visually identifying slave positions and rank.

"Eunuchs, but still with penises intact," Tal continued, "Most times it is uneconomical to risk a full castration of all their manhood when it need not be. Not that they can do much of anything without their balls to make them men though."

"The guard at the gate, what of him?" Kaelen asked, "He was certainly looking manly to ME."

"He WAS a slave, alright," Tal thought for a moment, then continued, "Probably a harem guard, perhaps on rotating duty. Usually they find the largest and strongest youth, cut their penises off and leave their balls to make them into men. They make them work, and they grow large and strong but are not a sexual threat to the women. At least not with the tiny stump that they leave them to remind them of what they have lost. They can guard the harem, they stay strong, and they always have BAD tempers. They're great in a fight, most of them love to fight."

Kaelen shivered. "I don't doubt it. I think I'd have a bad temper as well with that kind of frustration. I can't imagine what it must be like to be surrounded by that kind of temptation and arousal and not be able to do a damn thing about it."

Tal nodded. "Society has to have eunuchs to function though, master."

"I thought you were over that," Kaelen reprimanded him.

The eunuch shook his head. "I must play the role while we are here, you understand."

Kaelen nodded, and the voice of the computer implant began to explain the details of it to him as Tal was looking over the tray of food and pouring wine. It was all very complex. Eunuchs, some with no manhood at all, some cut deeper than others – as Tal and his friend Aron had been – and others still with only their penises removed, or the houseboys who had only had their balls cut off to make them beardless, soft, and docile. Each type had his part to play in this primitive society, it seemed.

The evening passed uneventfully. They ate, bathed, and went to bed. Tal slept soundly that night, dropping off early and sleeping deeply throughout the night. Kaelen had anticipated that the young eunuch would be up all night, or that since he was back in the very place where his manhood had been taken from him, that his nightmares would be even worse; so when Tal had not been looking, he had slipped a rather powerful sedative into the eunuch's third glass of wine which had knocked him out cold within minutes of drinking it. Kaelen had been amazed, when he picked the senseless eunuch up off the floor, at how little the youth weighed. He himself had slept little and awoke very early. When morning came, and with it the two castrated servant boys at the door, Tal was still asleep.

They had brought breakfast, and Kaelen thanked them and dismissed them. They looked a bit confused, and lingered a moment. "Sir," the one who had done the talking the night before asked, "Is your servant quite alright? Are you sure you don't need anything else?"

"He's fine, boys, really. He just had a little too much to drink last night is all," Kaelen replied.

They nodded, gathered up the plates from the previous night's meal, and started for the door. Then Kaelen remembered that he might need something else. "Boys," he called as they were almost out the door, "I must ask, as I am a stranger to this city and its customs, am I properly dressed – and is there anything I should know when I go to conduct business with the Master of this house?"

"Can you get all this?" the first boy asked of the other, who had not spoken.

The seemingly mute second boy nodded and took the tray and departed.

Then the first looked Kaelen over and smiled. "You are very well attired, sir, and if you are here to talk commerce, well – my master will no doubt talk with you all day. He never misses the chance to make a little more profit. One thing, though – if you take your servant with you, it might be prudent to dress him down a bit more. It is not seemly to the Master for slaves to be so well attired and forward," he concluded.

"I see. Thank you. Our relationship is a bit more casual than most, I have noticed. I have had him for so long that he's really almost like a son to me, you know, and we tend to confuse others at time," Kaelen lied glibly.

The servant boy nodded, and Kaelen noticed that he not once looked him in the face. Overcome by curiosity, however, Kaelen took the boy by the chin, lifted his head a bit, and looked him straight in the face. He turned the boy's shaven head from side to side, and placing his hand atop the youth's head, made to turn him around in a complete circle. "Sir?" the confused servant asked, once again lowering his gaze.

"Just curious," Kaelen replied, taking in the boy's smooth and flawless face, his large gold earrings, and the very round shape of his head, "and what of your silent friend?"

"I don't understand, sir," the servant replied, his face flushing slightly.

"The other boy you seem to work with, the one who didn't say a word."

"Ah," the servant replied, "him. He can't talk, sir. Hasn't said a word since I have known him, and we've both been here for as long as we can remember. I think we might have been born here even."

About then, Tal sat up and groaned. "Hangover?" Kaelen asked with a broad grin on his face.

Tal groaned again, covered his eyes with his hand, and fell back onto the pillow. The servant boy tried to suppress a laugh and failed, then took a step back and lowered his head. Kaelen sighed.

"I'm sorry, sir," he offered hastily.

"Not a problem, boy. I'm not going to hit you over it."

"Thank you," the servant replied quickly, still not looking up as if he did not believe him, "Will you need anything else?"

"Just an idea of WHEN to meet with your master is all, if you can find out."

"I will ask right away, sir," he replied, and bowed and fled.

Kaelen glanced over at Tal, who had managed to pull himself into a sitting position. He was holding his stubbled head in both hands and was a bit pale. Kaelen cursed himself silently, realizing that the eunuch's body probably wasn't at all ready to handle the effects of a 'modern' sedative mixed with wine. "Are you going to live?" he asked.

Tal slowly shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Well drag yourself over here and try to eat something," Kaelen suggested, "and drink this." He handed the eunuch a glass of water into which he had mixed a bit of what he used on himself for hangovers, although at a much lower dosage. Tal took the glass and drank it slowly, finished, and made a face.

"What was that?"

"Just a bit of something to clear your head," Kaelen replied. The drug took hold almost instantly and Tal stood up, unsteadily, and stretched. He yawned, and began looking around for his tunic. Kaelen was about to mention the servant boy's words of warning to the eunuch, but it seemed that Tal had already realized it. He did not put his sandals on, and instead of the soft tunic that Kaelen that given him he tied the brief slave garment about his waist and pulled out his razor. After his head has been shaved smooth once again, and they had eaten breakfast, Tal's eyes grew distant as he looked out the window. Kaelen sensed his discomfort.

"They haven't sent word when are to meet with Fadil yet," Kaelen stated.

Tal nodded but said nothing.

"I had a very interesting conversation with one of our servants before you woke up," Kaelen said.

"How did you manage that?" the eunuch asked.

"Must be my charm."

"It is very unusual for slaves to engage guests in conversation, you know. If word gets out, he will be punished," Tal supplied, "but I doubt if he mentions it to anyone. He should know better."

Kaelen nodded. "This is all very confusing to me, you know. Things are much different in my homeland."

"I will do my best to keep you from making too many mistakes then," Tal replied with a grin, the traces of the hangover seemingly gone.

"Well, what do we do now?"

"We await the Master's pleasure," Tal responded with a grim look.

Chapter 8

The day wore on. They sat on the balcony, walked around the gardens with another large black slave as an escort, toured the stables where the working boys were busily brushing the coats of the many fine horses there, and began to wonder if Fadil had forgotten them. They passed a few servant boys in the corridors and on the grounds, but did not see the two had seemingly been assigned to them the night before. The thought of them, however, gave Kaelen an idea. "Tell me," he asked the escort, "if you happen to know 3; does Master Fadil do much business in the breeding of slaves, or does he just import them?"

The large black man's brows creased and Kaelen could tell he was thinking very hard. "I am not sure how much he deals in that area," he replied, "but I do know he does breed some of the better looking slaves from time to time. Those he does not geld, that is, and that is most of them." His statement ended in a low, indelicate sound which spoke volumes.

"Thank you," Kaelen replied, "and do also know where I might find the guard called Sajeel? I picked up his name from the old lady in charge of housekeeping last night." As he asked, he slipped something into the large man's hand.

"He would be asleep now if he was duty last night late," the huge slave replied, "but I will tell him that you wish to see him when he relieves me tonight."

Kaelen glanced at Tal and the young eunuch nodded. He bent over to whisper into his master's ear, "He will, a failure to deliver a message is worth ten lashes. You can also be sure that the boy who promised to find out when Fadil will see us is either looking for us now or has someone higher up seeing to it."

Then the voice of the computer spoke silently to Kaelen. There is a 98% probability that Fadil will NOT see you today, it said flatly.

"Why not?!" Kaelen whispered.

One – he is busy in his harem, and two – later on he will be busy seeing to the preparations of Rahim.

"Explain," Kaelen demanded.

"Breakpoint probability indicates a 94% chance that he will geld the boy, the computer replied.

"What happened to 50-50?" Kaelen demanded in shock.

Your entry into this time frame has altered events slightly."

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" he demanded in exasperation.

You did not ask, the computer replied, However, you still have one more day. It is not advisable to try and force a meeting with Fadil. There is 99% probability that he will kill you if you do.

Kaelen could feel his anger rising. This was taking too great a risk, cutting it too close. There was nothing else to do but wait, however, and Kaelen and Tal followed along back to the main house and returned to their room. When they arrived, Kaelen sent Tal out to try and find the servant boys from the previous night, or the old woman in charge of guests. Tal, who obviously was well versed in the roles of the many slaves of Fadil's estate, left on his mission with only a nod. Once alone, Kaelen pulled his portable computer out of his pack and sighed a sigh of relief that its power cells were still at full charge. He spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening going over theoretical outcomes, refining his plans, and finally bringing events into line as he wanted them to turn out. He was not happy with the 65% chance of success that the computer gave him, but he could not help but think that since it was still there in the future and still communicating with him, that he would succeed. Then a chill passed through him as he realized that the main computer core back home in the future was inside the Chamber where time had no meaning. He himself had had his own existence wiped out by Rahim's gelding, but he had remained. Everything in the Chamber had remained. He had not considered that before. The idea of that paradox made his mind falter.

"Master," Tal announced as he entered their room, startling Kaelen so badly that he almost fell off of his cushion, "I have news. I did not mean to startle you," he offered, looking down at his bare feet.

"Well?" Kaelen asked in an irritated voice.

Tal came to stand beside him, glancing at the portable computer and its glowing screen, and whispered into his master's ear, "We have been and are being spied upon. It seems your mannerisms towards ME are giving Fadil ideas. I also picked up some gossip in the kitchens. It seems that over the past few years, Fadil's attentions have been drifting away from his harem ladies and more and more towards the more attractive of the slave boys here. He already has a whole regiment of children, and he is more concerned with his fortunes now than ever before. It seems he is of the idea that relations with eunuchs do not produce more legitimate children to support, and he is quite the depraved one."

"How did you find this out?" Kaelen asked.

Tal shrugged. "No one pays much attention to a slave who is asking around on where to find another slave to deliver a master's requests," the eunuch replied, scratching at the gold cuffs on his wrists.

"Where did you get those, and that horrible collar?" Kaelen asked in disgust, out loud.

"I met up with our two room servants," Tal responded, "they noted that I should be more suitably attired for a slave, and if I looked a bit more like a palace regular I would attract even less attention."

"Did they give you a key, perhaps?"

"They will bring it with supper and give it to you. The quartermaster expects them back when we leave," the eunuch explained, "and besides, I don't like them. Did you know that the slightly shorter boy is a mute?"

"You're calling HIM short? But yes, the other one told me that earlier before you woke up this morning. Damn, I had hoped to get in to see Fadil today and get this cleared up. It looks like I'm going to be here a lot longer than I expected. Tell, me Tal, do you think this could get us a permanent dwelling near here?" Kaelen asked, reaching into his pack once again and taking out a cut ruby the size of a golf ball.

Tal stepped back and his face paled. "A house, or a palace?" he breathed.

Kaelen smiled. "I think I've found one flaw in my plan if Fadil won't sell me Rahim. It's going to require I take up residence here for a long, long time I think."

"Master, it would buy an estate probably a quarter the size of this one, and this place is vast!"

Kaelen put the ruby away and smiled. "I thought so."

"May I know this plan?" the eunuch asked.

"Not yet, I want to surprise Fadil, just in case someone is watching and listening," Kaelen said, glancing around at the walls and up at the ceiling.

"Spying is the custom, master," Tal offered.

There was a knock at the door, and the same two servant boys entered with supper. The smaller one, the mute, set down a tray on the table and glanced at Kaelen and his computer. All he could see was the back of it, so he didn't know what it was. Not that he could have told anyone anyway. Kaelen snapped it shut and pushed it back into his pack. The boy paused, reached into a pouch tied at his waist, and handed Kaelen a key. He wordlessly gestured at Tal, held out a wrist to Kaelen and pointed at his own gold cuff. He then touched the key, pointed at Tal, and then spun his hand in a circular gesture. "Are you trying to tell me this key unlocks Tal's cuffs and that I need to return them when we leave?" Kaelen asked.

The boy smiled and nodded.

"Open your mouth," Kaelen ordered.

The servant boy did as he was told. His teeth were white and straight, and he still had a tongue.

"So much for that idea, master," Tal offered.

"I just had to know is all, I'm sorry," Kaelen said to the boy, who shrugged his shoulders and took a step back to stand with his hands clasped behind his back as his partner set the table.

"If I may," the other said between setting out the glasses, "it is rare to cut out a slave's tongue here. One would have to say something very bad to have that happen, sir."

Kaelen turned back to the mute boy. "So you were born a mute?"

The boy nodded. He touched his chest, pointed to his partner, and made a sweeping gesture then pointed at the floor.

"He says we've always been here," the other servant translated, "Did I not mention that earlier, sir?"

Kaelen nodded. "Any more news?"

The first boy nodded vigorously. "Master Fadil will see you tomorrow morning, first thing. He has received your proposal and is very interested. He says he has some very important business to attend to tomorrow evening, but the morning has been set aside for you, sir."

"Thank you boys, both of you. Anything else?" Kaelen inquired, with a sly look.

The two of them looked confused, and shook their shaven heads. Kaelen couldn't help but notice how their earrings swung when they did that. "Well, I guess we'll eat, then retire for the night so we can have a fresh start in the morning. Oh, I almost forgot, is Sajeel on duty at the main gate tonight?"

"We can find out for you, sir. Have you already sent word about that?"

Kaelen nodded.

"Then he will meet with you first chance he gets, most likely in the morning when he gets off duty. Messages are always delivered, sir. Whomever you spoke to will see to that, as no one wants a beating," the boy said with a shiver.

"Very well, you may go now," Kaelen said, and he watched the two eunuchs bow and leave. Then he turned to Tal. "Since you're not much on sleeping, I don't expect you to try if you don't want to. I don't' know what you want to do, or if there is anything TO do, but consider yourself dismissed until morning," he said, looking around at the walls and winking at Tal. Tal's answering grin told him that he had understood. After they had eaten, he thanked Kaelen and left the room. Kaelen spent a great deal of the night with his computer, running down temporal scenarios and trying to refine his plan further. He went to bed late, and Tal had not returned. Kaelen didn't think he could run away, not after what the eunuch had told him, and especially since he had been nothing but kind to him. Kaelen sighed. He looked forward to the meeting in the morning, as he KNEW what Fadil was planning to do that night.

He also knew what HE was planning to do that night.

Chapter 9

The sun arose bright on the eastern horizon, holding the promise of a new day. Kaelen Laws stood on the balcony of his guest quarters and watched it rise. He was ready for his meeting with Fadil. The plan was worked out. The computer had verified it. Fadil had had all the children that history said he was going to have. Kaelen was not surprised to find this out. Tal returned only a few minutes after Kaelen had risen, and in whispers on the balcony, had told his master all that he had been able to learn in his night of snooping. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his face wore a haunted expression that indicated that he had seen something that he probably shouldn't have. They took their breakfast on the balcony, once again brought to them by the same two eunuchs. Kaelen noticed that both of the boys had the same look of a sleepless night about them, and theorized that they and Tal had been up to something. He had, however, not asked. Sajeel, the huge mountain of a black man who was the guard that had met them when they had first arrived stopped by and left quickly with a seemingly heavy bag from Kaelen's pack. They had said nothing. Shortly thereafter, the old lady in charge of housekeeping had come and done the same thing. Tal wondered what was going on, but did not ask. Not even when the mute servant boy returned and left with a bag as well did he say a word. He merely sat watching his master's face and wondering, considering himself very lucky to have fallen in with such a good man.

There had been no beatings, no harsh words, and certainly no sexual advances. This confused Tal at first, but he wrote it off to the fact that perhaps his master preferred women. The eunuch sighed, remembering the girls he had so longed to keep company with before the slavers had come. Then he remembered Aron, and the day they had interrupted Aron's oldest brother and his soon-to-be-wife in the act of sex. How long they had stayed quiet and watched, dreaming of the day – a day which had never come. Now here he was, come full circle with a new master who had some devious plan involving eunuchs, the very trade which had ruined his life. Many times Tal had considered taking his own life after he had healed up and been sold to the caravan master, but he had not the nerve to do it. He hated his life, yet he was afraid to die. Such was his conundrum. Now, however, he looked into Kaelen's face and found himself wondering for the first time in a long time, what the day would bring.

The sun rose higher, bathing the world in a golden light. The warmth spread all over them, and Kaelen motioned to Tal. The eunuch rose to stand by his master's side, and Kaelen said, "Look and remember this always if something goes wrong, my friend. No matter what happens, if I should fail, then you must go on. The very course of history depends on it." The eunuch stared into his master's eyes, not understanding. Finally, Kaelen rose, put a hand on the youth's shoulder, and led him back into the room. He pulled a small yellow device from his pack and handed it to Tal. "Put this in your pouch, Tal. If anything happens to me, shove this into one of your ears and say the word ACTIVATE aloud, loud as you can. Then all will be made clear to you. Do you understand me?"

Tal nodded and took the strange yellow device from his master. It was small and thin, and would certainly fit inside his ear. He did not really understand the reason for it, but he trusted Kaelen. No one had been so good to him since that terrible day so long ago. He decided to obey.

There was a rap at the door and they both jumped. "Enter," Kaelen said.

It was the first of the two servant boys. "Master Fadil will see you now," he said, "Follow me please."

They both did.

Tal noticed that Kaelen put on his overcoat, and that there seemed to be many things in the pockets.

They followed the still-nameless boy down the stairs and down a long corridor which opened up into a grand hall. There were many guards, all of them large black men like Sajeel, and all of them slaves. At the end of the hall, they exited into another corridor with many doors and followed it for another few minutes. It too opened into a great hall filled with statues, guards, potted plants and pools filled with live fish. There were caged birds as well, and small animals roaming freely. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon came to Kaelen's mind, and he wondered if this place were the precursor to them. The room was enormous, and at the far end was a throne-line pavilion. Seated alone with a large black guard to each side of him, and with a youth sitting cross-legged at his feet, was Fadil. He was smiling.

"Who approaches?" called out one of the guards.

The servant boy who had been leading them bowed and cleared his throat. Tal jabbed Kaelen in the ribs from behind and they did the same. "Master Kaelen from the Far Moroccan Reaches, Excellency. A merchant, seeking commerce with you."

"You may go," Fadil said flatly.

The eunuch turned and fled.

"Well, Merchant Kaelen of Morocco, wherever that is, what is on your mind?"

"Business, Excellency," he replied in a gay tone of voice, "I am told you are the richest, most shrewd merchant in this part of the world with an empire rivaling my own. I come to discuss mutually beneficial trade. I have come to seek a partnership of sorts, which may well make us both richer beyond our wildest dreams."

Aman Fadil was a man of great ego and greed. At the promptings of the voice of the computer in the silences of Kaelen's mind, he was able to pay compliment after compliment until Fadil was overcome with curiosity. Finally they made their way to a table off to the side of the throne-like pavilion and sat down to talk business. "You deal in slaves more than anything I am told. Slaves, slave girls, harem stock, eunuchs 3; I too deal in this area. It has come to my attention that we might combine markets, trade races. I have slaves from the farthest east that you may have never even seen before, and certainly I have not seen the like of some of the beauties I have seen in your land."

"Tell me more," Fadil said with genuine interest.

"Have you any white slaves?"

"White?" Fadil asked, "What do you mean?"

"Slaves with skin the color of this lily," Kaelen replied, pointing to a nearby flower.

"There are men like this?" Fadil asked in shock.

"Yes," Kaelen went on, "with hair as yellow as fine gold or red as a sunset. And I have none such as this one here –" he gestured at Tal, "whom I bought on the caravan of yours from Adis, I think it was. Wonderful man, picked me up in the desert where I had been set upon by robbers. He speaks highly of YOU you know."

Fadil grinned an evil grin. "Adis is yet here," he said, "we have some plans for tonight."

"If I may be so bold, what would that be?"

Fadil laughed. "Entertainments of men," he replied, shooting a condescending glance at Tal and not recognizing him, "and later, we will turn our attentions to some new stock."

"New stock? Perhaps the boy I have heard about?" Kaelen asked.

Fadil's smile faded. "What have your heard?" he demanded.

"Only that your last shipment, not this one but the last, yielded some rather remarkable boys, one in particular. A wild one who has no regard for protocol and is a rare gem of looks and body?" Kaelen offered.

Fadil snorted then laughed again. "Yessssss, that one. Rahim, he calls himself. His name is no matter." Then his eyes grew distant. "But his name is unimportant. I'm having him gelded tonight. That should settle him down."

"Truly?" Kaelen asked in amazement, "Excellency, would it be possible for me to join you? I hear also that your mortality rate is very low, and I have this problem with my own eunuchs. I am losing too many of them. Might I consult your physician and learn his technique?"

That remark sparked an ongoing conversation that went on and on. Tal sat cross-legged on the floor, listening. He caught a glimpse of Sajeel once, followed by Eris, the young eunuch who could not talk. Tal had gotten their names out of them the night before. Eris and Orin. He had also seen this 'Rahim' that Kaelen seemed so obsessed with, and understood why. They were all going from guard to guard, whispering to them, something changing hands. Tal began to have suspiscions after seeing that. Kaelen was up to something, and his banter with Fadil was only so much smoke and mirrors. Then he realized, with a start, that Kaelen looked a LOT like Rahim. Tal's eyes grew wide as he looked up at Kaelen. Fadil saw him.

"What is it, boy?" he demanded in a harsh voice.

Tal's mind raced. "I, uh, forgive me, masters. I must go." He winked.

"Go?" Kaelen asked .

Tal put his hands to his crotch. "Yes, you know 3; go!"

"Well then go by all means, Tal," Kaelen snapped, "The Excellency will be enraged if you have another accident."

Tal jumped up and fled.

"Eunuchs," Kaelen snorted, "I should make him wear diapers. He's good enough looking and timid and obedient, but he has leaks sometimes."

Fadil was laughing aloud, not suspecting the lies told to him. "It happens sometimes," he mused, "cutting off their penises can do that sometimes."

"Speaking of which 3;" and they fell back into heated debate over full castrations, partials, and finally, breeding. Tal could hear them talking money as he fled the room in search of Eris and Orin, and Sajeel.

Tal found them outside, sitting on a stone bench with a boy in chains. It was Rahim, the boy with Kaelen's face. He was as of yet unmutilated, although he had lost weight and his face had a downcast look to it. He was scantily clad in a slaves loincloth, and his head had not been shaved yet. He wore no jewelry, but Tal could tell that the heavy chains made it almost impossible for him to move. The eunuch glanced at the beautiful boy's crotch, and saw the bulge there. A thousand things clicked in his mind at once, most of them wrong, but he gasped aloud. All of them looked up at him. Sajeel spoke first. "Tal, there you are. I was told to bring this favored one out for some fresh air and sun. He has big night ahead of him."

"Maybe," Tal said, "My master wants to buy him."

"I know," Sajeel replied slyly.

"And maybe more?"

"Perhaps," Sajeel answered mysteriously.

"Shouldn't you be in bed for night duty?" Tal asked. Sajeel merely smiled.

"Well they're heavily into negotiations now. I did not know my master was so extended," the young eunuch said.

There was a rattle of chains, and Tal turned to see Eris and Orin helping Rahim off the bench. He then stretched out in the grass and sighed, staring up at the sky. "I don't suppose you'd care to kill me NOW would you?" he asked of Sajeel.

"Not yet, boy, but give me time," Sajeel rumbled.

Tal noticed a few more guards making their way towards the pavilion.

"Something is going on in there," he observed to no one in particular.

"Yes," Sajeel replied, eyeing the boy in the grass, "Something IS."

***

They debated all afternoon before reaching an agreement. When they finally signed it, Kaelen turned his attention to trying to buy Rahim. Fadil was obstinate however, and Kaelen turned his strategy to the idea of breeding. "Think of it," he said slyly, "That beautiful boy, left intact. In a few years, when his balls start to work, you could turn him loose with some of the gorgeous women I see here and let them breed. You could make a fortune in selling the offspring! But to be honest, I want him for that very purpose. I could buy a few girls, maybe another boy like him, and take them back with me. I could breed him with the white women as well in my country 3;" and Kaelen's story went on and on. Fadil's face shifted from curiosity to anger and back to speculation over and over. He was beginning to think he had met his match in Kaelen. Just who was this stranger who had appeared out of the desert and been brought here? Fadil cursed Adis under his breath and was about to summon the guards. He had made up his mind on the topic of Rahim, and none of Kaelen's ideas were going to change his mind.

The computer was literally screaming at Kaelen in his mind. The probability of Rahim being gelded had suddenly shot up to 99% and the voice was warning Kaelen that the chances of him dying on the spot were also increasing quickly. Kaelen then decided to withdraw. "I can tell when I have been outmatched, Excellency," he offered, "Please take this small gift in good faith to our forthcoming business ventures." He held out a sapphire the size of a cherry to Fadil. Aman Fadil's eyes bulged. He took the diamond and stared at it. It was the largest and finest he had ever seen. The computer's voice in Kaelen's mind informed him that his own life was now secure, but that Rahim's was not.

Fadil cleared his throat. "I accept your gift, and look forward to dealing with you more. I cannot wait to see these white people you speak of." And with that, he withdrew.

He had lost. There was to be no buying Rahim off of this man. Fadil was too far gone in lust, Kaelen could tell. As they had talked and talked, Fadil has let slip enough of his new taste for boys, namely eunuchs like Tal. Boys cut so deeply that they could feel nothing, and used only for the perverse pleasures of their masters until they were either too old or lost their looks to time. Time. "Time," Kaelen whispered to himself, knowing that he was almost out of it himself. The scenarios played over and over, and the very last one, the one he had hoped to avoid, was now the only one left open to him. Slowly he rose and went in search of Tal. The sun was setting.

***

Fadil went back to his personal quarters with the boy who had been seated near his throne and the two guards. His mind raced over Kaelen's arguments, and he was trying to visualize what a white boy looked like. The guards had never seen one either, they said, and they were intrigued as well. "Inform the harem guards that I will not be visiting tonight," Fadil barked at one of the black guards, who bowed and fled quickly. "Oh," he called out loudly," and if you see Adis, the caravan master, tell him he can go on without me." There was a shout of compliance from down the hall as the guard kept running to deliver his message. "And you," Fadil said to the boy who had gone to sit alone in a corner, "you stay right there. In fact, you WILL stay right there." The boy nodded and picked up a jeweled manacle from beside the pillow upon which he sat and closed it around his ankle. There was short chain running from the manacle to a metal loop sunk in the floor, making it impossible for him to even stand up. He sighed and kept his head down. "I won't have time for you tonight, so you might as well take a nap. I must tend to this wild new one shortly," he said to the boy and the guard both.

"As you wish," the guard replied.

"I suppose you want to watch?"

The guard simply grinned.

"Well find a replacement and let's go," Fadil ordered.

In the hallway they met Sajeel. The master stopped and looked as he joined them. "Shouldn't you be on the night duty at the gate?" he asked.

Sajeel's response was fast. "I have traded the duty with another, Excellency. I, uh, well 3; I had heard of the nights events and 3;" he left it hanging.

Aman Fadil laughed a wicked laugh.

"You cockless eunuchs are all the same, vindictive, vicious, and I love it!" he announced.

The guards looked at each other and then at Fadil. They fell into step behind him. Something changed hands between them and they said nothing.

They made their way down the corridor and down a long flight of stairs to a basement where the new slaves were kept. There were torches mounted in iron rings on the walls, and the air smelled of straw and smoke. Fadil knew where he was going. So did the guards. They made their way to a cell where there were two other guards stationed. They were dressed exactly like Sajeel. One of them pulled the door open as Fadil approached. "How is he?" Fadil demanded.

"Exhausted, Excellency. He had his last purging about an hour ago. He should be totally clean by now," one of the door guards answered. Fadil smiled and stepped inside. As he did, Sajeel and his partner placed something into the hands of the other two door guards who nodded and smiled in return.

The room was small and the floor was covered in clean straw. Rahim was curled up in a fetal position, lying in a corner. He was naked, and his small thin body shook as he cried. Fadil turned to his physician who had been seeing to the treatment of the newest of the slaves. "Is he ready?"

"As ready as he's ever going to be, Excellency. I just told him what was about to happen to him and that finally broke him I think. He hasn't cursed me in a good half hour," the physician answered.

Again, Fadil laughed his wicked laugh. "You've been busy today?"

The physician nodded. "Twelve so far, I think I need to resharpen my knife."

Fadil gave him a dark look. "Just make sure this one survives," he threatened.

The physician stepped back a bit. "Have one of those black mountains outside haul the boy out of here, he's too worn down to walk to the cutting room, if you please. Let's get on 3; on 3; ughhhh 3; I 3;" The physician's words were cut off as he clutched at this throat and his eyes began to bulge. He sank to his knees, gasping. Fadil stood watching, too stunned to move. The physician's face began to turn blue, and he stretched a hand out imploringly to Fadil. Blood vessels began to burst in his eyes, turning the whites red. His nose and ears began to turn white as well, and he fell into a violent convulsion. Fadil called the guards, but although one of them ran to get help, it was too late. The physician's spasms stopped, and he lay dead at Fadil's feet. Rahim looked up, but said nothing. There was a look of pure terror on his face.

"What is this?" he demanded of the guards. They looked at the dead physician in puzzlement.

Fadil then turned to the shivering slave boy. "Has anyone else been in here?" he thundered.

"N-n-n-ooo, sir," Rahim squeaked.

Fadil looked around. "Then what has happened here?" he demanded.

"I think I can answer that," came a voice from the shadows, as Kaelen Laws stepped forward. In his hands was a long strange device that none of them had ever seen. It was thin and round and was made of a dark metal. It ended at Kaelens' hip in what looked like polished wood. Kaelen's hands gripped it steadily, and it was pointed at Fadil. "Poison," he explained, kicking the dead physician's head.

"You!" Fadil exploded, trembling in rage.

"Yes, me. And some help. You should have treated your slaves and hirelings better, Fadil. They were easily bought."

Fadil looked around as the guards, led by Sajeel, drew their sabers on him.

"Tal!" Kaelen barked to the shadows, and Fadil saw the trim, good-looking eunuch emerge to stand at his master's side. "See to Rahim," he said softly, get Eris and Orin to help you."

The young eunuch vanished into the shadows once again, and re-emerged in a moment with the two castrated slave boys.

"And you!" Fadil shouted at the mute boy, who returned his gaze with a level stare of pure hatred.

"Just because he's a mute doesn't mean he can't tell others about the depredations you've inflicted on him," Kaelen said, "he signs rather well and his partner translates what we don't' get."

"You bought them! Bribed them! But I have others, more loyal slaves than you know! You cannot succeed!"

Kaelen drew a deep breath. "Boys, take Rahim out of here, NOW!"

The three of the helped the weakened boy to his feet and half dragged, half carried him from the room.

"Sajeel, go inform the duty heads of what has happened. I'll be taking over here now," Kaelen ordered. Sajeel nodded and fled the room, leaving Kaelen with the other two guards who held their blades ready at Fadil.

"Just who ARE you?" Fadil demanded.

Kaelen sighed. "I am that young boy's great-great-infinitely-great-grandson. I come from the far future, because with the stroke of your gelding knife on that innocent child, you not only ruin him as a man, but you kill all of his sons and all of their sons, even a whole nation – ME included. I study time and history, Fadil. Events you cannot possibly understand drew me here. I was outside of time itself when I saw Rahim cut. I found myself alone in a chamber outside time, my whole existence erased. For want of that one boy, God only knows how many paid for your perversions. It is time for YOU to pay now!"

And with that, Kaelen leveled the gun at Fadil.

It was an antique gun from his extensive collection and his favorite. It was a bloody weapon, capable of much destruction. Not only did it have antique value in Kaelen's time, but it was also in perfect working order. He was very aware of what it would do to a man at this range, and he did not care. A hot taste surged up in his mouth, and he felt all emotion save his towering rage drain from him. Kaelen's fingers moved over the cold gunmetal, as a lover's move over the body of his partner. His right index finger twitched, there was a sound of thunder, and the computer's voice exploded in his mind – BREAKPOINT AVERTED! TEMPORAL PARADOX IN PROGRESS – LEVELING 3; minimal damage.

Chapter 10

They stood in stunned amazement as Sajeel returned with the heads of Fadil's various servant divisions. Adis, the caravan leader, was with them. On the floor lay the mutilated and blown apart body of Aman Fadil, the most notorious and wealthy merchant of Babylon. On the wall dripped the remains of his insides. The shot had taken him in the lower abdomen, and Kaelen laughed a small, vengeful laugh as the merchant's blown off penis slowly slid down the wall to land in the straw with a delicate sound. Sajeel was the first to speak.

"What manner of weapon is THAT?"

"Twelve gauge pump," Kaelen replied.

They all stared at him.

"It is called a shotgun. As I said to Fadil, I came from the future. I will explain fully later. Assemble everyone in the pavillion room. This place smells," Kaelen ordered.

The guards ran everyone back up the stairs, leaving the bodies of Fadil and his physician in the bloody straw.

***

They all assembled in the ornate throne room a few moments later, save for Rahim and Eris. The mute eunuch had stayed with the weakened and half starved boy in Kaelen and Tal's guest quarters. Kaelen ascended the throne and waited, his terrible weapon at his side and ready. Word had spread quickly of this strange man who had a kind nature and passed out jewels like candy and who spoke of a better life for slaves. It took some time, but after a few moments Sajeel announced that he thought that everyone who needed to be was there. Tal took his place at Kaelen's right hand, and his own hands was another of Kaelen's weapons. Tal held it tightly and carefully. His master had called it an 'uzi'.

"My name is Kaelen," he began, "many of you no doubt have seen me. Many of you have no doubt seen the newest slave boy who has the same face as I. I came here for one thing, and that was the boy. None of you are in danger from me, unless you move to threaten me. Aman Fadil, your former master, would not sell me the boy. Had he done so, I would have taken him and Tal and I would have left. But he would not, so I killed him. It is a long and unbelievable story, so I will not repeat it. Some know it, I am sure, and the story will spread. I had no wish to take over this place, but I must. For reasons you cannot understand, I cannot leave. Nor do I wish to leave."

He placed a hand on Tal's shoulder and pulled him close.

"Those of you who wish to leave and are not slaves may do so. Those who are slaves will report to me in groups, which Sajeel and the good lady who gave me a room a few nights ago will organize. Things will change, and I believe you will all like it very much. This is not some fleeting thing, as I have the means to continue the trade that brings money to this estate. My estate. Your estate. I know this will be difficult to accept, but in time you will. Any of you are free to talk to me, Tal, Sajeel, or Orin at any time. I don't think you'll get far with Eris. Anyway, for the moment, it might be wise to resume life as it goes on every day until I get reorganized here. It's been a long day, my friends. Goodnight."

And with that, Kaelen sank back into Fadil's ornate throne.

One voice rose up in protest however.

"Murderer!" Adis the caravan master shouted, but he soon found himself surrounded by several guards who had already become true believers in Kaelen.

"And how many slaves did you and Fadil murder in transit or by gelding?" Kaelen asked softly.

Adis fell silent.

"Your livelihood is not in peril, Adis," Kaelen said, "I still will need to run the caravans. Only now you will deal in general goods and not people."

"You lie!" Adis exploded.

The crowd parted away from him.

Kaelen sighed and casually approached the trembling man and shot the caravan leader in the head. At point blank range, Adis' head literally vanished and his body fell twitching to the floor. "Any other questions?" he asked softly.

No one said a word, and the hall emptied.

***

Kaelen did not sleep that night. He returned to the guest quarters to find the Eris and Orin still there, along with Tal, watching over Rahim. The boy was asleep in the bed, and there was evidence on the table that he had eaten a rather large meal before going to sleep. Kaelen motioned them all to sit back down and they did, watching the sleeping boy for whom Kaelen had literally sacrificed a whole Reality. After a few minutes, he reached into his pack and pulled out the portable computer. He turned it on as the three young eunuchs watched in amazement. On the screen were images of the future, and a soft voice spoke through it telling them that Rahim's descendents were all indeed safe and that Kaelen was free to return home without fear of his existence. In essence, for Kaelen, time has resumed it's normal flow. But something was still wrong.

He could feel it.

"Boys," he said to the two servants, "thank you for taking care of Rahim. I think you should both go and get some sleep. We're going to be very busy tomorrow."

The mute servant boy getured at everyone in the room, moved his arm in arc over his head, and then shrugged his shoulders. Kaelen thought for a moment, then said, "Yes, all of us are going to busy, you included. We have MUCH to do."

The boys nodded and turned to go.

"Eris, Orin," Kaelen called after them suddenly, "Who has the key to those cuffs and collars?"

They paused and smiled openly at the new master of the estate. "Yes, why, sir?" Orin asked.

"Because tomorrow they come off, for good. Now off to bed, both of you!"

The two young eunuchs fled, their smiles not fading in the least. Kaelen sighed.

"What's wrong?" Tal asked, once they were alone.

"What of this do you understand?" Kaelen asked.

The eunuch thought for a moment, obviously struggling with a concept he could almost grasp. "You come from the future, days that have not yet come, but somehow have. You came back to save this boy because if they had cut him, all his sons would have not been born, and you would not either since you descend from him. Now he is safe, and you can go back. Your thing there tells you so," Tal said, pointing at the screen.

"Close enough. But I can't leave, Tal. What will happen to you and the boys and all the others like Sajeel if I do?"

Tal considered it. "There would be no master to run this estate. We are slaves, we cannot hide from that. I do not know. Perhaps Fadil's first son would take over?"

Kaelen stared at the eunuch and then shook his head. He would have to deal with Fadil's herd of children somehow.

"I have to stay, Tal. In all my calculations and research, I overlooked one thing. ME coming HERE changed things too. Time and the future are like they should be, UP where I came from. But my arrival here changed something I had not even considered. My son, and his sons 3;" Kaelen said wistfully.

"But you have no sons here, Kaelen," the eunuch replied.

"Not yet."

Tal smiled, and it warmed Kaelen's heart to see it. What a fine boy he is! Kaelen thought, how could I even think of leaving him?

"You know, Tal, I owe most of this to you and your knowledge of this time."

The young eunuch's face flushed. "I was only doing my master's bidding like a good slave."

"And now?" Kaelen asked.

"Now, I wonder if my friend is going to leave me." There were tears standing Tal's eyes. Kaelen took the youth by the hands, pulled the key out of his pocket and removed the gold cuffs from his wrists, the collar from his neck, and bent down to free his ankles. He then pulled out the strange tool with which he had removed Tal's septum ring. He locked the cuffs and collar shut and tossed them aside. Once again, Tal's smile lit up the room. Kaelen took the short eunuch onto his lap and pulled him close. He held him as a father would hold his son who had made him very proud, and whispered into his ear, "Look at the screen, Tal."

"Computer, show us TI-File image 050031BC," Kaelen requested.

On the screen, Kaelen was in the throne room with a beautiful woman at his side. In her arms was a baby boy. A young man who looked much like Kaelen – who could only be Rahim, only older – was approaching them. In his arms he also carried a baby boy and was followed by an equally beautiful woman. Kaelen heard a small choked sound, and turned to see tears running openly down Tal's face. He hugged the eunuch tighter and said, "Wait, there's more." Tal watched the screen, his heart heavy in his chest. He turned to look at the sleeping boy, Rahim, who was so important to Kaelen, and back at the screen. As he wiped his eyes and watched, he saw himself – a bit taller but no different looking – enter the scene. This future-Tal was not alone, but at his side was no woman. He approached Kaelen and Rahim and their families, holding the hand of a little boy who looked just like him! The boy on the screen looked to be about 2 years old, perhaps 3, and he ran along on his sturdy little legs at his Tal's side.

Tal stared in disbelief. "Whose child is that?" he asked.

"Yours"

"And is that me? I have not grown any since 3; since 3; well, when I was cut," Tal informed him.

"I think I have a bit of some human growth hormone in that pack somewhere in the medkit, Tal. You're young yet."

Tal wiped his face again, his mouth agape. "But I am 3; I 3; I mean, I cannot have a son!"

Kaelen smiled. "You cannot, right NOW, in the way that you know how to make a son with a woman. But once, you were a whole boy and not a eunuch. I travel in Time, Tal. See here 3;" and Kaelen reached into another pack of his and pulled out another strange device. It looked like a slim metal cannister with some sort of odd device on the end which Tal had never seen. It was making a dull humming sound, and there was a flashing green light on it.

"What is it?" he asked, "And how can it give me, a eunuch, a son?"

"When I bought you from Adis, I knew you were a eunuch. I did a little research here on my machine that night. It told me in one view that you had a son, which I could not figure out. So, I looked further. You remember the night here that you slept so deeply and woke up feeling terrible?" Kaelen asked.

Tal nodded, his eyes still wide and his lip trembling.

"That night, I made a side trip back to your village. You were very young then, and you don't remember me. But, inside your body, some things had already begun to change. I followed you and your friends for quite some time on that trip. One night after a long day at the beach with your friends, you camped there, all of you. You had brought some stolen wine with you hidden in waterskins. While you were all playing in the sea, I slipped a drug into those waterskins. I was going to at least try to bring your friend Aron back with me, but doing that would have caused too much damage to the Timeline. You all slept very well that night, and I knew that at least you would have that memory when he was gone. I'm truly sorry about him, and leaving him there was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. So, I used a device called a med-spray. It can inject or withdraw. I took a large amount of your semen from you that night, and Aron as well." Kaelen explained.

Tal stared at him. "I don't understand. I have no manhood, I cannot make love to woman and make a son. What is this 'semen' you speak of and how can this tool help me?"

Kaelen smiled at him. "That's the fluid that's made in your balls and comes shooting out of your penis during sex. It is that fluid that makes a baby grow inside a woman." Kaelen held up the device. "Inside here is fluid from YOU and from ARON before the slavers took you."

The eunuch shook his head. "I do not understand. I never, I mean, I didn't ever do that before they 3;"

"Tal, you know about sex, right?"

The eunuch blushed and nodded.

"Sex causes children sometimes."

"I know, but, well, I just don't understand," Tal replied.

"All I have to do is inject a woman with this, and she will bear a son from YOUR seed, Tal. And your friend Aron, the one who died, his son can yet be born too!"

Slowly, the light began to show on Tal's tear-streaked face. "You have my seed, and Aron's, in there?" he asked, pointing at the med-spray, "from before they cut us? You went back in time from HERE and took it and then came back?"

"Yes."

Tal looked back at the frozen image on the screen. Kaelen touched a key on the computer and the image changed to one of Tal holding a little boy with another older boy standing at his side. The little boy had Aron's face, and the older one – Tal's. "So," Tal said softly, "Since I have no manhood to deliver seed that I no longer have, YOU will do it with this device?"

Kaelen nodded.

Tal began to cry again, burying his face in Kaelen's shoulder – only this time, his tears were tears of joy. All the nightmares, all the dread, all the pain that came from knowing that he would never have a son of his own vanished. It was if a great weight had fallen from his narrow shoulders. Kaelen held him tightly and stared at the screen and at the med-spray. He really only had one thing left to do, but he waited for Tal to recover.

Slowly, Tal regained his composure. He looked his friend in the eye and said, "Then I will never die, nor will Aron. Our sons will have sons."

"Yes," Kaelen agreed.

From behind them, Rahim sighed in his sleep. Kaelen went to the bed and pulled covers back up over the sleeping boy. He bent down and kissed his forehead. "We both owe it all to him."

"I understand," Tal said, "Someday, one of his sons and great-grandsons-to-come will sire YOU and you will come back here to save him so that he CAN, and you will also save mine and Aron's very souls in the process."

"I guess you could see it that way, Tal. Now I have but one thing left to do."

The eunuch jumped to his feet. "You're not leaving?" he almost cried.

Kaelen shook his head and walked over to the computer. He spoke softly to it. "Computer, transmit message 7, encoded to host processor, deliver to President. Then shut down the remote link and this unit as well. Once the President reads the message, initiate auto-destruct of the temporal core and erase all data."

He waited.

Confirm authorization, the computer's voice replied.

"Authorization code Tal – Aron – 0 – 0 – pi – initiate!" Kaelen said.

On the screen before him, Kaelen watched his dream die.

The voice in his head fell silent.

On the bed behind him, where Tal had finally succumbed to his own weariness, he watched his dream reborn.

On the computer's last printout, he watched his dream change history as the images of the smiling eunuch and the impossible sons came out in hard copy. In the last picture, he stood with his own family – a whole regiment of children. Their names were neatly spelled out across the bottom of the page, along with a brief genealogy across the back.

The screen faded to black.

On that genealogy sheet, Kaelen saw a small piece of his dream, a name that chilled him. He would change history again, this time in the form of his Great-Nephew – a boy he knew that he would not live long enough to know. "I cannot leave now," he whispered to the sleeping boys on the bed, "Not even if I wanted to."

Softly, he stepped out of the room and closed the door. He smiled at the two guards on duty, and they raised their sabers to him in salute. Things were changing. As he made his way down the stairs, Kaelen's thoughts drifted ahead in time and he spoke the name of the boy that would eventually descend from HIM in this time frame – another boy who would change history -

"Bagoas," he whispered.

[For Bagoas: check Wikipedia.]

The End