The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(142)

It was as vulnerable as a snail without its shell. History, everything that had already taken place, could be changed. And this discovery, as you can imagine, caused an even bigger uproar than time travel itself. Suddenly, man had the power to modify the past. Unsurprisingly, most people saw this as God’s way of giving humanity a free hand to correct its mistakes. The logical thing was to prevent past genocides and afflictions, to weed out the errors of history, so to speak, for what lies ahead, gentlemen, is truly dreadful, far worse than in your innocent tale, Mr. Wells. Imagine all the good that time travel could do for humanity. For instance, it would be possible to eradicate the plague that devastated London, causing a hundred thousand deaths before the fire of 1666 ironically stamped it out.” “Or the books in the library at Alexandria that could be saved from being engulfed by flames,” suggested James.

Marcus gave a derisive smirk.

“Yes, a million and one things could be done. And so, with the blessing of the people, the government called on a group of doctors and mathematicians to analyze the set of aberrations that made up the past, in order to decide which acts deserved to be wiped out and to predict how this would affect the fabric of time, for there was no reason to make things worse. However, not everyone was happy, and voices were instantly raised against the Restoration Project, as it was called. Some considered this happy manipulation of the past that the Government was about to embark on unethical, and one section of the population did everything it could to try to sabotage it. This faction—let us call it conservative, which was gaining more followers by the day—argued that we must learn to live with the mistakes of the past, for better or for worse. Things being as they were, the Government found it more and more difficult to continue with the project.

Then everything permanently ground to a halt when the time travelers, fearful of becoming the target of a new wave of xeno-phobia, began fleeing through time in all directions, creating an inevitable wave of panic throughout society. All at once, the past had become soft clay in the hands of anyone who felt like altering it for personal gain or simply by accident. Suddenly, the history of the world was in jeopardy.” “But, how can we know when someone has altered the past if in so doing they change the present?” asked Wells. “We have no way of knowing whether someone is manipulating History; we would only experience the consequences.” “I applaud your perspicacity, Mr. Wells,” said Marcus, pleasantly surprised by the author’s question. “According to the laws of time, the consequences of any change to the past are transmitted along the time continuum, modifying everything in their path, like the ripples from a stone tossed into a pond. Consequently, as you have pointed out, it would be impossible to detect any manipulation, because the ripples produced by this change would affect our present as well as our memories,” he paused, before adding, with a mischievous grin. “Unless of course we had a backup copy of the world with which to compare it.” “A backup?” “Yes, call it what you will,” replied the traveler. “I’m referring to a collection of books, newspapers, and other material documenting as exhaustively as possible everything that has happened up until the present, the whole history of mankind. Like a portrait of the true face of the universe, you understand, one that enables us to detect at once any anomaly, however small.” “I see,” murmured Wells.

“And this is something the Government has been working on since the first epidemic of time travelers, with the aim of preventing anyone from unlawfully manipulating the past,” Marcus declared. “But there was one problem: where could such an archive be kept safe from the harmful ripples caused by any changes?” The writers gazed at him, enthralled.

“There was only one possible place,” the traveler answered his own question. “At the beginning of time.” “The beginning of time?” asked Stoker.

Marcus nodded.

“The Oligocene epoch, the third epoch of the Tertiary period in the Cenozoic era, to be precise, before Man had set foot on the Earth, when the world was the preserve of rhinoceroses, mas-todons, wolves, and the earliest versions of primates. A period no traveler could go to without linking various leaps—with all the risk entailed, and where there was no reason to go because there was nothing to change. In tandem with the project aimed at training time travelers, the Government had in the strictest secrecy organized what we could call an elite team, made up of the most gifted and loyal travelers. Evidently, the team’s mission was none other than to transport the world’s memory back to the Oligocene epoch. After countless journeys, the chosen travelers, of which, as you will have guessed, I was one, built a sanctuary there to house the world’s knowledge in. The place was also to become our home, for a large part of our lives would be spent in that epoch. Surrounded by immense grasslands we were almost afraid to step on, we would live and bring up our children, whom we would teach to use their talent, as we had done, in order to travel through the millennia, keeping watch over History, that timeline which began in the Oligocene epoch and ended at the precise moment when the Government decided to scrap the Restoration Project. Yes, that is where our jurisdiction ends, gentlemen. Any time beyond that moment is unguarded, for it is assumed that the physiognomy of the future can absorb any changes the time travelers might bring about because it occurred after they appeared.

The past, on the other hand, is considered sacred and must remain immutable. Any manipulation of it is a crime against the natural order of time.” The traveler folded his arms and paused for a few moments, studying his audience warmly. His voice sounded eager when he took up again: “We call the place where the world’s memory is stored the Library of Truth. I am one of its librarians, the one responsible for guarding the nineteenth century. In order to carry out my task, I travel from the Oligocene epoch to here, stopping off in each decade to make sure everything is in order. However, even I, who am capable of making jumps spanning tens of centuries, find the journey here exhausting. I have to travel more than twenty million years, and the librarians who guard what for you is the future have to cover an even greater distance. That is why the timeline we are protecting is dotted with what we call nests, a secret network of houses and places where we travelers can stop off to make our journeys less exhausting. And this house, of course, is one of them. What better place than a derelict building that will stand empty until the end of the century and is allegedly haunted by an evil ghost that keeps intruders at bay.” Marcus fell silent again, giving them to understand he had finished his explanation.