Page 60 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
B axter looked at me like I was completely insane when I introduced her to my mom as the Devouring Mother. I got it. I’d been saying this entire time that we shouldn’t tell people. But that wasn’t the kind of relationship I had with my mom. We were honest about everything, and I knew Mom wasn’t going to make her uncomfortable about it. She would want an explanation.
“I’m guessing you didn’t lead with that when your father started to open his stupid mouth because something happened on your quest, and you don’t want people to know.”
“Yes. Time travel is a lot more complicated than I originally thought. The Devouring Mother isn’t a prophet. She’s a human who knew enough about two races on our planet to describe them in that much detail that we thought she was because we crashed in her backyard when she was a child. The holy texts ended up here because I made a time machine and brought them there.”
My mother just stared at me for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“You always were into everything as a child. Why am I not shocked you were involved in our sacred texts? And that the Devouring Mother is also your Velne, and you brought her here. I love it. How do you intend to win your quest with this information while keeping that a secret? Valtens may have taken himself out of the running, but you haven’t won yet.”
I knew that. I built a working time machine, traveled to another galaxy, and went back seven thousand years in the past. I stated that my quest was to find the last holy text. All the time travel was just what I did to get the last holy text. None of it counted unless I got that text.
“I still don’t know what happens in the last book, but if you tell me what it needs to say to fix things, I can still write it,” Baxter said.
“Absolutely not. I’m terrible at any form of art. I can’t sing, draw, and I loathe any type of ball where I might have to dance because I’m also bad at that. I have immense respect for artists. Enough that I’d never dream to dictate your creativity, even if it would fix a lot of issues here and guarantee my son the throne.”
Yeah, I inherited most of that, though I’d managed to figure out dancing without stepping on someone’s toes. Mom was a big patron of the arts. When she hired an artist, she never told them what to do. She’d bring them to the space she wanted something and ask them to do something amazing with it. It hadn’t led her wrong, and I intended to continue that tradition.
Baxter started laughing and that meant she figured something out. This wasn’t really a science problem or a theory I needed to solve. This was where a creative mind would come in handy and that was why she ended up my Velne.
“You’re also going to need to explain why you went looking for the Devouring Mother and ended up spending enough time around me that you figured out I’m your Velne and brought me back. That sounds like a massive distraction instead of working on your quest, even though I think everyone would be happy for you.”
“Yes, that’s definitely a complication.”
“So, we have people called prophets on Earth. The Devouring Mother can still be a prophet, but we can make her a recluse. No one knows her true identity, and she likes it that way because no one on Earth believes her.
“You tried to locate the Devouring Mother, but you met her scribe, me. The Devouring Mother is a prophet, but she’s not a writer. She shares her visions with me, and I weave them into the holy texts. I don’t know her, either. All my communication with her is electronic, so I’ve never seen her face.
“I didn’t hear from her for a long time, and then she sent me the information for the last book and the purpose for writing them. Valtens figured out I was the scribe when he got stuck fifteen years in the past and got close to me, hoping I would tell him who she was.
“When he realized you had found me, too, he decided to just kill all of us and come back with his own version of the texts that suited his needs. So, you didn’t find the Devouring Mother, but you found her scribe with the last holy text in her head.”
“That’s brilliant,” Mom said. “I see why she’s your bond. It explains why you and Valtens were so focused on her and why he tried to kill her. If she’s just the scribe who only got information as needed, then people won’t pressure her, and she won’t be in danger if you can give enough of an explanation for the last text.”
She was brilliant. That would secure my place on the throne and she was willing to deal with the attention to help do that. All we needed to do now was figure out what the last text was supposed to say and make the announcement.
“Listen, I know you don’t want to tell me how to write my story, but if I want to come up with an ending that’s going to settle the conflict, I’m going to need help. I got a crash course in what’s going on, but those books were me trying to write an entertaining tale people would buy and possibly reach people who might have met the time traveling space bastards that crashed in my pool.
“All I wanted was a group chat so I could talk to those people about that without having my agency taken away like my parents did to me for telling the truth. I never intended for it to be the basis of any society. The planet being discovered and invaded was just for drama, not because I see the future.”
“Excuse me, but your parents did what?” Mom said.
Yeah, Mom was going to hate what they did to her just as much as we did. She looked horrified when Baxter told her everything that happened after we left to fix Big Daddy. It was our fault, and I felt terrible about it, but it had to happen like that.
“That’s terrible, but rest assured, it will never happen here. We have multiple planets in this galaxy that can sustain life. You’ll see people from other planets here all the time and you’ll travel to them as well.”
“It’s going to be a totally opposite situation. As far as we know, Earth is the only planet in my galaxy with life on it. People have been claiming they’ve seen people from other planets or that things that seem impossible were done by them.
“Most people don’t believe anyone that they’ve seen, met, or been abducted by people from another planet, but there are those that do. I’m the only human in this galaxy. People might not believe I’m real or that anyone met me.”
“Oh, love. You’re about to be one of the most important people on this kingdom. You won’t have as much power as my son, but you’re going to be his consort. You’ll be infamous and everyone is going to know you’re human.”
“Weird, but okay. I’m also going to be shaking shit up as my official cause. I’m also bonded to Torrek and Enix. Cyborgs can love, even if they haven’t been programmed to, which means it’s possible. Enix saved my life and Ghol saved yours. Neither of them were programmed to do that.
“They can eat and drink. They can learn things they weren’t programmed to do. The cyborg also have preferences. There are foods Enix doesn’t like, and that was all him, not someone telling him he should. They should be allowed to say no if they don’t want to do that without getting their brains erased.”
“I actually agree with you on that and I’m sure Kuka does, too. You do realize you can use the fact that Enix saved the future king’s Velne to do something big that starts that movement and makes sure Enix’s awful owner can’t take him back for any reason. Or, technically, since I’m still queen and Ghol prevented a coup, I can start it and you can finish it.”
That was why I loved my mom so much. The Enix usually passed to different family members when their owners died. Ghol was purchased for my brother by my father. If my mother hadn’t been who she was, she could have just assumed ownership of Ghol and tried to say that Ghol protected her because he belonged to our entire family.
My mother knew better and so did I.
So, we had a something of a plan for my crown, my friend, and the cyborg who saved my mom.
We just needed one for the future of this planet.