When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony by Chris Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

screwed.”
    “No,” said Arges, “you definitely have a small chance. I believe the saying in your ‘poker’ card game is that we’re now ‘all in’ with you. Everything we know, we will pass on to you, without further delay. While we abhor killing and combat as a rule, we do not want to watch your species be destroyed by some of the other races that currently exist in the galaxy. We will give you all of our technology and knowledge. If you can reach one of the other good races, you may also gain additional technological and industrial opportunities. And even if you are unable to get outside assistance, it is a time of great deeds. Your heroes have arisen.”
    “Heroes? ” asked the president. “What do you mean, ‘heroes’?”
     
     

Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf , Earth Orbit, April 2, 2020
    “That is so cool,” said Sara, looking out the bridge viewer as the Vella Gulf orbited the Earth conducting cleanup patrol. The amount of space debris had gotten to be so overwhelming around the Earth that it was becoming a chore to fly through. Captain Deutch had volunteered as his last duty to clean it up a little. The Gulf was going to make a few orbits and burn up as much of it as was possible with the ship’s defensive lasers. If it also gave him a few more hours in command, so much the better. He was really going to miss this.
    “Never thought that you’d be up in space looking at the Earth?” asked Calvin.
    “What do you think?” Sara asked. “Of course not. Most art majors don’t make it into space, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
    They watched in companionable silence as the ship continued to burn up space rubbish. Every once in a while, a laser would hit something with a little fuel still in it, and it would make a small fireball that immediately disappeared.
    “Whoa,” said Sara suddenly. “Wow, big case of deja vu.”
    “When you say you have a feeling of deja vu, you are saying that you feel like you have been someplace before, correct?” Steropes asked.
    “Well, yes, that’s what it means,” said Calvin.
    “In most cases,” replied Arges, “we believe that means that someone in your timeline has been there before.”
    “I don’t understand,” said Sara, looking confused. “How could someone in my past have been here before, looking down on the planet?”
    “That statement makes several assumptions,” began Arges, taking on his lecturing tone. “First, you assume that what you felt was this ship. It is very possible that you were on this class of ship, as thousands were built when the Eldive were still alive. Second, you also assume that the feeling came from looking at this planet. There are, in fact, more planets than can easily be counted. While only a small percentage of them are at all Earth-like, a small percentage of an infinite amount still gives many instances of Earth-like planets. Perhaps you were on an exploratory team somewhere else in the cosmos and found an Earth-like planet that was so close to this one that it made a strong impression on you, causing the deja vu feeling now.” Arges paused.
    “ And the other reason,” Steropes urged.
    Arges gave a small, very human, shrug. “Finally, it may not have happened in the past,” he finished.
    “Wha…what?” asked Sara. “What do you mean that it ‘might not have happened in the past?”
    Arges frowned . “Our conceptualization of time is not the same as yours. While you see time as moving in one direction, like a river that is flowing too quickly to go back, we see it as a tapestry, where events are not necessarily so linear in nature. Actually, it is precisely because of events like this that we don’t believe time to be linear. There have been many instances where people had deja vu experiences where it was impossible for them to have been there in a previous life. If both of those data points are accurate, then the feeling must have been at some point in a future life and they are experiencing echoes of it