The examination seemed like a normal general exam— stethoscope on the chest, a look at the throat, eyes, ears, and such—but it also included placing two small instruments on him, one on his forehead, then another on his back. She checked both and nodded to herself. “Looking good,” she told him. “I think you’re fit enough to join the rest of the human race, such as it is in this day and time.”
The confection had helped a lot, although he was still thirsty and starved for more food. She got him a black suit of their standard issue, and he was surprised to find how well it fit when he put it on. It was, in fact, a two-piece affair, top and bottom, but he discovered that when he ran his index finger along the seam, it essentially vanished. “Good trick,” he told her.
“There’s a fly like that in yours, too,” she told him. “To open, simply press where you want the slit to start and continue down, keeping your finger on the material until it is open enough. Reverse the process to close.”
“This is not exactly one-million-B.C. technology,” he noted.
The boots were less impressive, being almost exactly the same as the pairs he’d worn in the Air Force. They were, however, without laces, and he found that you sealed them like you did the suit. Finally, she gave him a black belt with a small, and empty, leather-like pouch on it. The buckle, of flat black metal, was disappointing—it was a simple clasp type with no special features.
“You’ll find the pouch useful, since you have no pockets,” she told him.
“No underwear, either,” he noted, seeing every shapely part of her anatomy. He looked down and found that it worked both ways.
“We wear whatever is needed, no more. Most of so-called Western civilization overdressed to death, even in the tropics.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
They assigned him a small, comfortable apartment in the complex and got him a good meal—the meat was apparently synthetic, but tasted very good, while all the rest was organically grown on the base—and then took him down to meet the others, answer questions, and show off the base.
There were a total of twelve members in the squad, which was all they ever called themselves. They were, in fact, the only humans on the base or, as far as they knew, in the time frame, except for himself, although the place could accommodate about a hundred people, if pressed.
“The whole place is automated,” Doc told him. “In fact, much of the complex is a large, totally sealed computer. It’s the computer that keeps watch on the time stream, charting its phases and changes, and dispatches some or all of us.”
He nodded. “But why back this far in time? I would have thought that you would put this in your present.”
“Our—oh. I should explain. None of us are from the time of the builders. We’re all just like you—nightsiders originally from the other times. You are the earliest, I think, but we recruit from those who go nightside. The amount of power required for time travel is enormous. To do it the way we do, the power complex here could power your world for a year all by itself.”
He was shocked. “You mean you have never seen who you work for?”
She shook her head negatively. “None of us. Oh, as nightsiders, we could travel all the way to the leading edge, but that wouldn’t do us any good.” Several others joined in the conversation, and at last he was given a picture of just what was going on.
The leading edge was a little well over two hundred years in the future of his time. On the main line, atomic war was averted in a most terrible way, when two small countries went at each other with nuclear weapons. The results were a glaring case study of what a nuclear war would really be like, and the climatic changes caused by even the limited exchange were dramatic for many years. The larger nations did not rush to disarm, but they were clearly frightened. Together, they took steps to stamp out nuclear weapons and control such materials, no matter what the cost to smaller countries.
Seeing the results but still not convinced an all-out holocaust could be avoided, both East and West turned their energies to space, both as a diversion and because, both sides felt, the establishment of a true human permanence in space would guarantee the survival of humanity in the future. This, in fact, was the case, but the results were not at all what they expected.
Terraforming Mars, for example, was very possible, but also very lengthy—the time involved being at least several centuries. Other places in space that would be self-sufficient and require no Earth support were even less hospitable. So, instead of risking the time that it would take to radically change those places, they changed the people themselves. There was no shortage of volunteers, which surprised them, but between those who felt it was the only salvation of the human race and the romantics, the dreamers, the scientists, and, indeed, the down-and-out looking for a new start, it was irresistible.
By the time of the leading edge, colonies had been established not only on Mars but also on some of the distant moons of the gas giants and on asteroids. Expensive terraforming was done, but it was bargain-basement by comparison and short- rather than long-term oriented. The people, by a process they didn’t know, were altered to fit what the engineers could create.
The dividends were enormous beyond the salvation of humanity. New ways to find and use energy, and new sources of it, were discovered and even created by those who became known collectively as the Outworlders. They also bred new generations true to their mutated forms, and those new generations made new discoveries. But there was a great push on Earth now for large masses of people who wanted to undergo the processes and live as Outworlders. Many who were sent were political dissidents or criminals; other places used the new colonies, which had fragile ecosystems able to support only limited numbers, as population control valves.
Ultimately, the Outworlders faced the historic choice that all colonies eventually face. They could continue to supply the rapidly resource-depleted Earth with all it needed, while getting little in return, and continue to absorb new groups of people, many of them undesirables, until finally their ecosystems would collapse, unable to support the vast bulk of people and Earth’s requirements—or they could quit.
Soviet, Chinese, Japanese, European, and American the Outworlders had been, and culturally they continued for a while as these groups. But transport interdependence and their alienness from Earth’s race which had spawned them drove them ever closer together, no longer as echoes of Earth nations but as Outworlders. Political control was difficult anyway, since even the controllers had to become Outworlders.
Eventually there was a revolt. The Confederation of Outworlders was proclaimed, an association of free and independent races with a common military force. They took many of the spaceships of Earth, and revealed that they had many more of their own.
Earth did not take it easily, for they’d come to depend on the Outworlds for much of their resources and technology. For the first time, countries always hostile to one another put aside their differences and pooled their resources to mount a fleet to wrest control from the still weak Outworlders while they still could.
The Outworlders struck quickly, destroying the vulnerable orbital power stations and spaceship relays, where transfers were made from Earth to Orbit shuttles to deep space vessels. The installations on the moon were overrun or destroyed.
In the political backwash of this action, and as the standard of living for Earth’s vast population dropped like a stone from this cutoff, governments fell and the semi-combined military forces stepped in. The Earth came quickly under a ruthless worldwide military dictatorship formed from the officers of the multinational force. There was no nuclear war, for the very people on both sides who would have to ultimately fire the warheads refused to act—except against those who refused their rule.