The Time War Ch. 07&08

Jamal didn't quite understand how gold mines would end the slave trade. Couldn't the tribal chiefs do both?

And then, when they jumped ahead five years later to check on their progress, Jamal knew.

They saw the gold mines, in full scale operation. The tribal leaders were richer than they had ever dreamed, building elaborate palaces for themselves.

And the mines... the chiefs didn't have excavation robots, of course. Someone had to do the mining.

Someone being black slaves, thousands of them.

Instead of enslaving Africans to send them to the New World, the tribal chiefs had enslaved Africans to work in the mines.

"It's the same thing!" Jamal cried. "They're still slaves!"

Ken Larson shook his head and smiled. "They're still slaves... but in Africa. They're not in America. They're not in America, making white people feeling guilty about racism every minute of every day. They're not unfairly competing in schools and jobs and housing. Don't you see, son?" He put an arm around Jamal, as they stared at the vista of toiling slaves working in the mines. "We have removed the stain of 600 years of reverse racism from our people. We have become virtuous, we have become pure again. Don't you feel the weight of prejudice being lifted from your shoulder? I feel so light that I could fly in the air like a dove."

Jamal looked up at his father in horror. It had never been about ending slavery. It was all about keeping America white, as white as his father's dessert pudding. He grinded his teeth in frustration as his father's smile grew broader, even as they watched black slaves being whipped as they dragged chunks of gold from the mines.

********

The change occurred while Calle was at home. He had rented an upstairs apartment from a very nice lady named Mrs. Biddington. Calle was watching holovision, flipping through the channels, when he began to notice something odd. At first, he couldn't figure out what exactly was wrong. But then he gradually noticed.

All the news announcers were white.

All the holotelevision actors were white.

He flipped to a sports channel. All the hoverball players were white. This was sheer madness.

On a normal day, Calle expected nearly every other face he saw on holovision to be white. Hollywood and Caracas, where most media content was produced, felt that the more black faces they had on television, the more virtuous and popular their television shows would be. And so a country that was only 12% black somehow had black main characters on nearly every holodrama, and on some shows, white males were almost totally ethnically cleansed, reduced to playing villains, if even that.

But as Calle flipped from channel to channel, he saw that all the faces he saw were... white. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. His frown only grew deeper as he saw a white hand shove an orange ball into a tall basket. This couldn't be happening. It was like a terrible, terrible nightmare.

And then his comm chimed. The Continuity Service was calling him in. It was an emergency alert.

********

The main base was a bustle of activity when Calle arrived. Everyone was running around, preparing for a mission.

"What's happening?" Calle asked Daniel Acton.

"Follow me," said Acton. He led Calle into the briefing room.

Colonel Strayker was there, wearing a dark suit with high collars. He glared at Calle as if he were late.

"Captain Calle, thank you for joining us," said Strayker dryly. "And now, let us continue. As I was just saying, there has been a temporal incursion. The slave trade, as we know it, never occurred in America. History tells us that 600,000 slaves were brought to America; but the history we have now tells us that number is closer to 20,000. Black people, as we know them, are only one percent of the population in present day America. Someone... someone has taken away nearly all of America's black slaves."

The African slaves. They were all gone. It was as if they had never been enslaved, in chains, and forcibly brought to the New World to pick the cotton.

Someone gasped. Erica Green cried out, feeling like she had just gotten a sucker punch to the gut. There were low moans all across the conference room table.

"Who is it, sir?" Major Reynolds asked, brimming with rage. He had been off-base when it happened. If he hadn't been coated with anti-time particles, he would have vanished as well. "The Temporal Social Justice Warriors again?"

"Not this time," said Strayker. "We think this operation bears the hallmarks of the Black White Supremacists. Ken Larson's faction."

"Excuse me?" said Calle. "Did you say Black White Supremacists?"

"Yes," said Strayker.

"And what exactly are Black White Supremacists?"

Strayker glared at him. "They are black people who believe in white supremacy."

"Really?'

"Really." Strayker glared at him even harder. "They are led by Ken Larson, one of Doctor Voidovich's senior assistants."

"And this Ken Larson... he's a black man, a black man who-"

"Is a white supremacist. Have we covered this sufficiently, Captain? Or would you like me to repeat it again?" Strayker asked.

Calle shrank in his seat.

"Then let us continue," said Strayker, staring down the conference room table. "Needless to say, we have to undo this. Sarah?"

"The incursion seems to have occurred in the year 1708," said Sarah.

"1708? I didn't think it was possible to go back that far," said Major Reynolds.

"The farthest we've ever gone back is 1722," said Colonel Strayker.

"So how can we stop them?" Reynolds asked.

"Doctor Vladek has an idea," said Strayker.

"The main problem is energy," said Doctor Vladek. "If we store up enough energy before we open the Binochi Corridor, kind of like a capacitor, we may be able to reach the year 1708."

"May be able to?" Erica asked.

"It's always a risk every time we step through the Corridor," said Strayker. "Major Reynolds, I want you and Captain Calle and Lieutenants Green and Acton to go back, find the source of the interference, and nullify it."

"Yes sir," said Reynolds.

********

Calle looked nervously at the Binochi Corridor. The Time Shaft was pulsating more wildly than he had ever heard it do before, the blue energy coursing up the shaft almost violently. The Time Shaft, normally humming with power, was practically roaring now.

They had never gone back this far in time before. "Are you sure this is going to work?" Calle asked Sarah, who was operating the controls.

"I have absolutely no doubt," she grinned.

"And why is that?" Calle asked.

"Because of the vision I had, in the Binochi Corridor."

"You had a vision of us returning safely?" Calle asked

"No," Sarah grinned. "The vision of us having sex. You can't have sex with me if you're stranded in 18th century Africa, can you?"

"I suppose I can't," said Calle, again wondering if she was telling the truth.

"So you'll be fine," she said brightly. Her smile grew broader at Calle's obvious discomfort.

"If you two are finished not having sex, we'd like to go, please," said Erica Green, in an annoyed tone.

"Of course," said Sarah. "Just making the final... adjustment....." She looked up at Doctor Vladek for guidance, and when Vladek nodded, she pressed a button. And then the Binochi Corridor lit up.

Calle stepped close to the threshold. He could already hear the whispers. "Do you hear that?"

"I don't hear anything," said Major Reynolds. "Do you, Lieutenant?"

"Not a thing," said Erica, looking at Daniel, who also shrugged.

"Let's go," said Reynolds, giving Calle an odd look.

********

As Calle stepped into the Binochi Corridor, he felt the familiar heat on his face. The bright mists were swirling around him. The others were ahead of him, he was last. He followed them, trying to ignore the whispered voices. But then he heard a shrill wind, and suddenly, saw something in the mists.

It himself. Completely naked. Having sex.

With Sarah Chambers?

No. Not unless Sarah suddenly grew a big pair of breasts.

Calle peered at the image intently. It was hard to see through the mists. But Calle seemed to be having sex with a light skinned black woman. She was moaning wordlessly as Calle moved in and out of her, his buttocks clenching and unclenching as he pounded within her, once, twice, thrice-

"Captain, keep up or you'll fall off the path!" Reynolds barked from ahead of him.

"Yes sir," said Calle. He started moving again, and the image disappeared... into the mists.

********

It was a hot day in the year 1708 in what would someday be called Gambia. Calle and the others were dressed in European clothes of the period, trying to pass for traders. Reynolds was black, but there were some Europeans who were black. A few, at least, Calle hoped.

They had arrived not far from the harbor. They walked there on foot. When they got there, they saw their first slave market.

There were black people, men, women, children, with their hands tied behind their back. All were being sold in an auction.

But the oddest thing was, all the buyers at this market were black. They were also Africans. Africans were selling Africans... to Africans!

"This... this is very odd," said Daniel. He was the team's resident historian. "It was well known that certain tribes, like the Ashanti, enslaved blacks and brought them here to be sold... but they were sold to white slave traders, to be taken to America. There were no black slave traders with ships. What are these Africans buying these slaves for?"

They soon found out. Daniel went over to one of the buyers and started talking to him. They had all been brainstamped with the local language, what they hoped was the local language. Daniel used hand gestures as he talked, showing their guess at the local language hadn't been entirely successful. But he came back to them a moment later.

"He says they need slaves to dig rocks out of the ground."

"Rocks?" said Major Reynolds.

"That way," said Daniel, pointing to the hills.

They started walking.

As they did, Erica turned to Major Reynolds. "Was that painful for you?"

"Was what painful for me?" Reynolds asked.

"Seeing black people, sold as slaves."

Reynolds snorted. "Are you asking if I'm especially pained, because I'm black?"

Erica was afraid to answer, worried that Reynolds might find her guilty of unconscious or comatose racism.

"Well, the answer is no," said Reynolds. "Slavery occurred over 600 years ago. It's history. And if it weren't for slavery, I literally wouldn't exist." Reynolds took a deep breath. "Can I tell you a little secret? I like existing. I was at home when this happened. My wife Sue-Ann suddenly disappeared. Gone, in the middle of a sentence, while she was whining something about her shoes. Even my dog disappeared, and he wasn't even black. And I would have gone the same way, if I hadn't had the anti-time dusting. No, I want things back the way they were: slavery, Sue-Ann, and Mr. Phibbs."

Erica, afraid that anything she said to that would seem racist, wisely kept silent. In a situation like this, it was difficult to figure out exactly what the virtuous thing to say was.

They soon arrived at the foothills, and before them was a tremendous sight. There were slaves, thousands of them, toiling in mines. They were pulling carts of rocks out of them.

"Let's get a closer look," said Reynolds. "Split up and see what you can find."

They went down into a rock quarry. Men with whips who were encouraging the slaves only gave them cursory glances as they walked among the workers.

Calle looked at the rocks piled on top of one of the carts. It had a familiar, yellowish color.

Gold.

Suddenly Daniel was at his side. "These are gold mines. Gold isn't supposed to be discovered here for another 300 years."

"It looks like someone has discovered it earlier," said Calle.

"That's how they're diverting the slave trade," said Daniel. "Instead of sending the slaves to America, they're having them work here."

"But black people are still enslaved."

"They don't care about that," said Daniel. "Remember, they are Black White Supremacists, not White Black Supremacists."

"I knew there were Black White Supremacists. But are there White Black Supremacists too?" Calle asked.

"Oh yeah," said Daniel. "Go to Berkeley or NYU sometime." He looked around. "I'm going to check out that assembly area over there. I'll meet you back at the rendezvous point."

After Daniel left, Calle continued to walk around. The mines would have to be shut down. But shutting down the mines would reinstate slavery in the Americas. Was that really a good thing to do?

As he was walking, and thinking, he heard a new voice. "Are you looking for gold?"

Calle turned and saw a black woman in a European dress. But she obviously wasn't an African; she was very light skinned, with a narrow nose with a more slender face like a white woman. She had juicy red lips and dark eyes. She spoke in old English... as he now did.

"I am always looking for gold," said Calle cautiously.

"Then you've come to the right place," she said, smiling at him. She waved an arm. "Look around you! Is this not awe inspiring, the way all the wealth being taken from the ground?"

"Yes, all the wealth is being taken from the ground. By slaves," said Calle. He was starting to get an odd feeling about this woman. Not by what she was saying, but by how she was saying it.

"You talk like an abolitionist, sir," she said, smiling at him again. "Are you here to cause trouble?"

"No," said Calle. "I'm just here to observe."

"Is that what Colonel Strayker sent you here to do?"

Even as Calle reached in his jacket for his compression pistol, the woman was quicker, drawing her own and pointing it straight at him. "Ah ah ah," she said.

Calle let his hand drop.

"What are your standing orders regarding contact with members of an opposing faction?" the woman asked.

Calle sighed, looking down the barrel of her compression pistol. "To capture you and bring you in, to learn your point of origin."

The woman nodded. "My orders were a little different. I'm supposed to kill you on sight." She raised her compression pistol, and aimed between his eyes. Her finger tightened on the trigger...

And then relaxed. She smiled at him. "My name is Sharice. What's yours?"

It would be a total, total breach of-"John," said Calle bluntly.

"John," said Sharice. "What a nice name for a man I have to shoot! Should I shoot you now, John?"

"I'd prefer if you didn't."

"No doubt!" Sharice laughed, and Calle instantly started to like her. She gave him a sideways look and lowered her compression pistol, however slightly. "Well, let's see where this conversation goes, and then maybe we'll both decide," said Sharice, looking him over. "Are you a new recruit?"

Calle nodded.

"Yeah. I haven't seen you before," said Sharice.

"You've seen other CS operatives before?"

"I work in counterintelligence. I see you people all the time. But you don't always see me," said Sharice. "John... John... would you be someone named John Calle?"

"How did you know?"

"We heard the chatter, about the CS locating some new Special Talent. What does your Special Talent tell you here, John Calle?" Sharice asked.

"That this mining operation has to be stopped."

"Why? So 600,000 black people can be sent to America to be enslaved, and ten generations of their progeny after them?"

Calle winced. "I don't like slavery, but that's what happened."

"We've found a better way," said Sharice, gesturing with her hand.

"Slavery in Africa," said Calle grimly.

"Oh, these mines will run dry in about a hundred years or so. But by then America won't be of a mind to import slaves from Africa. Don't you see? We're shortening the period of slavery for millions."

"You don't care about slaves," said Calle. "You just want America to be white."

"Of course!" said Sharice. "And why not? By our time, white folk have been subject to 600 years of reverse discrimination. The stain of racism has shifted from whites to blacks. We can't have that."

"But slavery was wrong too!" said Calle.

"Of course it was. But two wrongs don't make a right," said Sharice.

She was making an uncomfortable amount of sense.

"Look at you," said Sharice. "You're here to reinstate slavery in the Americas, are you not?"

"I... yes," said Calle firmly.

"And I'm here to stop it. So tell me, John Calle, which of us is the villain, you, or me?" She raised her chin and looked at him in the eye.

Calle had no words. He knew what she was doing was wrong, but didn't know how to argue it.

"Unfortunately, I think our time together has come to an end." She raised her weapon. "Give me your gun, John Calle. Slowly."

Calle looked at her. At this range, she could hardly miss. He started to draw his weapon.

"Slowly," she repeated.

This was the moment of decision. Should he try to shoot her? His chances of shooting her first were slim. But it was better than being executed.

Why would she take the time to talk to me if she were going to kill me? And also, he thought he saw something, something in her eye, in her voice. She's attracted to me.

Calle meekly handed over his weapon.

Sharice smiled and put it in her pocket. "Good boy. And now, what shall we do about you?"

"Let me go," Calle suggested.

"That's your vote. My vote is to kill you," she said, steadying her aim. She smiled as she saw the terror on Calle's face. But then she lowered her weapon slightly. "Wait a minute, that's one vote for killing you, and another for letting you go. It's a tie vote. I guess I can't kill you, then." She smiled at him. "Besides, John Calle, you're way too cute to kill."

Her smile only grew broader as she saw him realize that she had been playing with him the entire time. "I'll leave your pistol underneath the cart at the bottom of the hill. Until next time, Sugar." She blew him a kiss, and she turned and walked off, so confident that Calle wouldn't jump her from behind that she never looked back.

Calle watched her go. This had been his first encounter with the enemy. He hadn't expected the enemy to be a pretty woman who would flirt with him. And then he remembered his vision in the Binochi Corridor.

Now that he thought about it, the image of the woman he was having sex with looked like Sharice. A lot like Sharice.

Calle, walking at a brisk pace, retrieved his gun, and rejoined the others.

********

"We'll blow up the mines," said Major Reynolds bluntly.

"No!" Erica cried. "Our intervention must be as subtle as possible! Otherwise our own efforts to fix the problem could make it worse!"

"Then what's your answer?"

Erica thought rapidly. "We could start some kind of... psychological campaign to convince the village chieftains that this area is cursed, or-"

"We could blow up the mines," said Reynolds.

"Wait!" said Erica. She turned to Daniel. "Daniel, you're the team historian. Surely you know something about the history of this region, the people of this time, that could help us come up with a more subtle solution."

Daniel thought for a moment. Then he said, "We could blow up the mines."

"That's my boy!" Reynolds grinned. He turned to Calle. "Unless our resident Special Talent objects?"

Calle felt everyone looking at him. He was being asked to put his personal stamp of approval on a plan to reinstate slavery in the Americas. He reluctantly shook his head.

"Then let's go back to Main Base, and get some explosives." Reynolds pressed his recall device, and in seconds the gateway had formed.

"But... if we blow up the mines, they can just start digging again," said Erica.

"Then we'll blow them up again," said Reynolds. "Remember, it's always easier to destroy, than to create." And then he stepped through the gateway, and they all followed him.