Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,78

queens, and by five centuries later they had stripped those monarchs, where they survived at all, of every shred of power they once had wielded. The Tlaxcalans would have evolved as well."

"But outside the Americas, wherever the Europeans conquered, native culture survived," said Hunahpu. "Altered, yes, but still recognizably itself. I think the Tlaxcalan conquest would have been more like the Roman conquest, leaving behind little trace of the ancient Gallic or Iberian cultures."

"This is all irrelevant," said Tagiri. "We aren't choosing between the Interveners' history and our own. Whatever else we do, we can't restore their history and we wouldn't want to. Whichever one was worse, ours or theirs, both were certainly terrible."

"And both," said Hassan, "led to some version of Pastwatch, some future in which they were aware of their past and able to judge it."

"Yes," agreed Kemal, rather nastily, "they both led to a time when meddlers with too much leisure on their hands decided to go back and reform the past to coincide with the values of the present. The dead are dead; let's study them and learn from them."

"And help them if we can," said Tagiri, her voice thick with passion. "Kemal, all we learn from the Interveners is that what they did was not enough, not that it shouldn't have been attempted at all."

"Not enough!"

"They were thinking only of the history they wanted to avoid, not of the history they would create. We must do better."

"How can we?" asked Diko. "As soon as we act, as soon as we change something, we run the risk of removing ourselves from history. So we can make only one change, as they did."

"They could make only one change," said Tagiri, "because they sent a message. But what if we send a messenger?"

"Send a person?"

"We have found, by careful examination, what the technology of the Interveners was. They didn't just send a message from their own time, because as soon as they started sending it, they would have destroyed themselves and the very instrument that was sending the message. Instead they sent an object back in time. A holographic projector, with their entire message contained within it. They knew exactly where to place it and when to trigger it. We've found the machine. It worked perfectly, and then it released powerful acids that destroyed the circuitry and, after about an hour, when no one was nearby, it released a burst of heat that melted itself into a lump of slag and then it exploded, scattering tiny molten fragments across several acres."

"You didn't tell us this," said Kemal.

"The team that is working on building a time machine has been aware of this for some time," said Tagiri. "They'll be publishing soon. What matters is this: They didn't just send a message, they sent an object. That was enough to change history, but not enough to shape it intelligently. We need to send back a messenger who can respond to circumstances, who can not only make one change but keep on introducing more changes. That way we can do more than simply avoid one dreadful path -- we can deliberately, carefully create a new path that will make the rest of history infmitely better. Think of us as physicians to the past. It isn't enough just to give the patient one injection, one pill. We must keep the patient under our care for an extended period, adapting our treatment to the course of the disease."

"You mean send someone into the past," said Kemal.

"One person, or several people," said Tagiri. "One person might get sick or have an accident or be killed. Sending several people would build some redundancy into our effort."

"Then I must be one of the ones you send," said Kemal.

"What!" cried Hassan. "You! The one who believes we should make no intervention at all!"

"I never said that, " said Kemal. "I only said that it was stupid to intervene when you had no way of controlling the consequences. If you are sending a team back into the past, I want to be one of them. So I can make sure it goes properly. So I can make sure it's worth doing."

"I think you have an inflated idea of your own powers of judgment," said Hassan crossly.

"Absolutely," said Kemal. "But I'll do it, all the same."

"If anyone goes at all," said Tagiri. "We need to go over Hunahpu's scenario and gather far more evidence. Then, whatever picture we emerge with, we must also plan what our changes will be.