The Future People Page 4
another point in time. Please don't be alarmed. It is not my intention to cause you distress. You have been chosen, you and one other. The other remains asleep at present. Shall I wake her for you?"
"The-the other. You mean Savannah?"
Kenneth didn't think he liked the idea of being alone in the future with a girl who had just got done insulting him only a few hours before. He started thinking of all the things he would say to her. Many of them he would not repeat to his parents.
"Is that her designation? A geographical area that is neither plains nor forest, yet a mixture of both. This land type vanished completely from record around the 30th century when-"
"Let her sleep," Kenneth said. "I'm hungry, and sore. You have anything to eat?"
"Ahh, yes," Unquill's green eyes glowed. "The consumption of nutrients. This possibility has been foreseen, fortunately. In preparation of your arrival, we have begun growing edible plants. We have not done so for many, many years. Such a long time it's been. But then, it's too much to expect citizens of the past to have evolved beyond the need for nourishment."
Kenneth grunted. "Whatever. I don't understand what you're saying. Just bring me anything. I'm hungry. It's supper time."
Unquill seemed to grow taller for a moment before he left the room.
Kenneth ran a hand down his face, trying to grasp his situation. He'd heard something about centuries and time stream.
Time travel, then?
He considered the possibility of Unquill being an actor hired by somebody as a part of an elaborate farce. Yet the man had seemed too genuine to Kenneth, too willing to serve while at the same time establishing the notion of his own superiority.
If he really was in the 73rd century, the man in the spacesuit must have brought him here.
With the room to himself, Kenneth tried to recall every detail he had observed before he had passed out. The behemoth he had seen touch Savannah on the back looked to be about the same height as Unquill. The black passage had appeared all of its own accord. Kenneth had just been getting ready to decorate the school yards with toilet paper when the mysterious rift had appeared.
The prank had been at the back of his mind, not yet fully formed into a conscious thought. Yet, he recognized it now as a true thought, one that would have remained if the bus didn't show when it was supposed to.
He thought about the math and geography homework he had been assigned, which he usually didn't bother doing. Kenneth liked math about as much as he liked waiting. The numbers had always filled up his head until he couldn't keep them straight anymore. Then the textbook would ask a question about trains or cars, or some other improbable event that never happened, and ask him to figure out the solution. Kenneth hadn't ever really understood why the people who wrote those math books didn't solve the problems themselves, then give him the answer. Even at thirteen, he knew the world worked that way. Those who couldn't solve problems on their own didn't try to improve their problem-solving skills but relied instead on people who could do the work for them.
The evening meal back in the twentieth century would have been leftover chili from the weekend. Kenneth's stomach growled, thinking of the two bowls he would have had-might still have, if he got back in time for supper. Unlike the school cafeteria food, which Kenneth had always found gross to the point of absurdity, his mother's cooking always left him with a full belly before he sat down in front of the seventeen-inch television in his room to play video games.
He wanted to play Super Violent Girls now. He wondered if anyone even knew of that game over five thousand years after its release.
While Kenneth was lost in thought, Unquill returned with a plate full of broccoli. Kenneth had never liked broccoli, even when his parents had smothered it in soy sauce. Unquill lay the plate of green vegetables on the bed. Kenneth felt it might be rude to refuse any kind of food after he'd asked to be fed. He picked up one piece of broccoli and bit into it. The vegetable tasted better than he expected, crisp and wholesome. To his own surprise, Kenneth found himself eating vegetable after vegetable until he'd eaten them all. Then he ate up the leftover pieces from the plate, licking his fingers afterward.
"That was good," Kenneth said. He surprised himself by meaning what he said. He hadn't intended to compliment anyone on futuristic food, especially when all the vegetables he had tried always tasted bland.
Unquill appeared on the point of tears. He clasped both hands before him, as though in supplication. "Oh significant citizen, you must forgive me. What a moving sight I have just witnessed. The past has come alive right before my very eyes. I never thought to see it! Oh, what a pleasant ritual it must be to consume plants. Tell me, is it true that people from your century consumed animals as well? Such things are forbidden today, of course. I cannot imagine yet. Is it even possible?"
"Yeah, we did that sometimes. Chicken and beef, mostly," Kenneth said, thinking of the pieces of hamburger meat in the leftover chili.
"Oh yes, I'd forgotten that as well. So many facts about your time had to be learned that I glanced over what I deemed to be minutiae. Now I can see I was wrong. How significant for you to be brought forward in time to a people who have forbidden activities you find commonplace. You must think us extra-terrestrials."
"Not really. You look like a Roman glam rocker," Kenneth said, smiling. He patted his stomach and suppressed a burp.
"Oh? I do not understand these terms. What is a 'Roman glam rocker'? Is that your terminology for asteroidal geologist? Oh, but people didn't start exploring space seriously until the 28th century. Dear me, it's all so confusing. You are from the 21st century, are you not?"
"Yeah," Kenneth said. "What difference does that make?"
"All the difference in the world, my young significance! All the difference in the world. Do you not know that at the beginning of the 22nd century, there was-oh, but perhaps I should not tell you about that. You are scheduled to return in two weeks, after all." Unquill looked away from Kenneth, blushing as though he had embarrassed himself.
"What do you mean, scheduled to return? You're going to send me back to school after all? I think I'd rather stay here." Kenneth crossed his arms over his chest. He was prepared to stay right there in that spot, even if the man called Unquill proved to be as strong as he appeared.
"Ahh, yes, antipathy for public education. Well, I can hardly blame you, given the nature of the education given out during your time. Most historians agree public education from those days more closely resembles propaganda than the dissemination of fact.
"Ahem, yes, to answer your question, you have been brought here to solve a problem we cannot. I regret to tell you this, for it is the shame of our people to interrupt the lives of two of the most important citizens in the time stream, yet I must tell you. Otherwise, how would you know what to do while you are here? Oh dear, troublesome indeed."
"Let's just start from the beginning," Kenneth said.
"The universe has no beginning," Unquill replied. He furrowed his eyebrows, trying to understand the meaning of Kenneth's statement.
"The beginning of...whatever it was that happened."
"Ah yes, that beginning. Yes, I can tell you that story safely enough, I believe."
TWO
UNQUILL PAUSED FOR a moment.
To Kenneth, it appeared the tall man collected his thoughts. When Unquill spoke, the tone of his voice dropped. He sounded like a completely different person to Kenneth.
"We call this the Golden Century, for in all of our studies of the time stream, we have yet to discover a society more prosperous than ours. We live in the 73rd century. I told you that, yes? In the middle of the 75th century, there will occur a spiritual re-awakening which will lead individuals to question the wisdom of their current way of life. We have seen this. Afterward, people will have great faith. In exchange, they will begin consuming nutrients again. With our population of one hundred and twelve trillion-"
"Trillion?"
Kenneth was incredulous. He'd heard the word used
when people on the news spoke about debt, but he hadn't ever really understood the significance of the word. How many fingers would he have to count on before he reached a trillion? A trillion, of course, he suddenly thought, answering his own question. That didn't bring him any closer to conceptualizing the number in concrete terms.
"Yes, with one hundred and twelve trillion people, there just won't be enough nutrients to go around for all. It will be a time of great upheaval. The prosperity we have enjoyed thus far will come to an end, as we are told all things must come to an end. The spiritual re-awakening occurs because of a single man. He is designated Hinjo Junta. We-that is, myself together with the other members of the Temporal Constabulary-don't have a lot of information on him. We know he was born on a Saturday sometime during April 7201. We know he will die in the year 7454, during the re-awakening. His cause of death will come as a result of his refusal to continue utilizing his body's own natural processes to stay alive. A foolish man, perhaps, yet one many will come to see as a martyr. We have grown too much, we are too many, they will say.
"So it will happen-or, from the perspective of one who can see the time stream, it has already happened-that many citizens of this world will follow Hinjo's path. Death upon death upon death until the world becomes paralyzed from the loss of so many of its citizens. By the year 7500, it is estimated that a