For Want of One, Ch. 1 and 2

Time Paradox theme - an engineer in the future working outside Time 
finds his existence erased when an ancestor is sold as a slaveboy 
and gelded.

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"There is a theory in quantum mechanics that says that everything 
that CAN occur, DOES occur . . . in alternate quantum universes . . 
. " - Data, Star Trek TNG.

"For want of that one fox, a man died and all of his unborn sons 
with him, and all of their sons . . . " - Ray Bradbury

     All eyes were fixed on the massive monitor which in itself was 
the south wall of the viewing chamber.  Very slowly, a small white 
dot in the center of the enormous screen begain to grow, expanding 
its way ever so slowly to the edges.  The dark screen changed with 
the dot's growth from nothing but cold, black, lifeless pixels to a 
soft pale gray as it heated up and slowly came online.  Of the few 
spectators and many technicians, there was hardly a breath drawn as 
the rather feminine voice of the mainframe computer softly spoke, 
"System initialization in progress.  Temporal field generators 
powering up.  Power flow stable.  Backup systems ready.  Standby 
for imaging sequencing in ten, nine, eight, seven . . . "
     The countdown continued as the tension heightened.  Besides 
the research team, only the President of the New Western Alliance 
and his staff were in attendance.  For the past ten years, at the 
cost of uncounted billions of dollars and not a few lives as well, 
not to mention raw materials, this experiment had been kept 
shrouded in utmost secrecy.  It was far too dangerous for 
information on this project to leak out.  Certainly the public 
would be more than alarmed, but for the sake of knowledge and the 
desire for history not to repeat itself, the project had gone on.  
It had taken planet Earth far too long to recover from the last 
series of wars that had done away with the many nations and 
factions that had once broken up the map.  Now there was only the 
Western Alliance - consisting of what had once been Canada, the 
USA, Mexico and Central / South America, and the Eastern Coalition 
which was composed of what was left.  
     What was left was not much except for scorched wastelands and 
over two billion dead.  Centuries had passed, rulers had come and 
gone, and slowly the Earth had healed.  The West had taken pity on 
those it had fought to destroy, and the rebuilding had been slow.  
For the time being, however, it seemed Mankind had learned from his 
latest greatest mistake.  And the culmination of that learning was 
about to come online - The Temporal Imaging Viewer.
     The Viewer itself looked rather like a large video monitor, 
but the complex which held the Viewer was vast, taking up an area 
very nearly the size of New York City.  Security was tight, and 
miraculously, the entire project had been a success.  Cover stories 
had been successful, and the computer was counting down.  Only 
seconds remained.
     From his position at the Imaging Main Console, Temporal 
coordinator Kaelen Laws held his breath as the computer said, " . . 
. two . . . one . . . engaging all systems, Viewer online."  There 
was increased humming noise as the power generators came up to full 
strength and the computer requested a timeframe.  It seemed to be 
working, but no one was moving or reacting.
     The screen glowed with a pale blue cast as Kaelen spoke 
directly to his console, "Computer, set temporal scanners to 
timeframe 1945 AD, country - Japan, city of Hiroshima - engage !"
     "Factoring quantum variables, " the computer responded.
     "Is it working or not ? " the President breathed.
     "Working, " the computer responded, as Kaelen opened his mouth 
then closed it.
     Then there came a roaring sound which turned all heads again 
towards the massive monitor.  The soft blue glow had been replaced 
by an overcast sky and the strange sound of a very old style 
airplane's engines.  On the bottom of the monitor was a city, 
people moving, green grass, trees . . . and a whistling sound 
beginning as well.  Suddenly there was a bright flash of light as 
the watching men jerked their hands up to cover their eyes and then 
a roiling mushroom-shaped cloud that was all to familiar.  The 
atomic bomb had just detonated and wiped out the city, signalling 
the beginning of the end of World War 2.
     The cloud lingered on the screen and began to dissipate.
     "Computer, discontinue imaging, " Kaelen ordered.
     The screen reverted to soft blue as the whining sound of the 
power generators relaxed.
     "Dear God, " the President whispered, "it works !"
     "Yes sir, " Kaelen replied, "What would you like to see next ?"

     Kaelen Laws was a young man who had devoted his entire life to 
learning.  As a child he had learned quickly and was soon found to 
be a prodigy.  He graduated college and earned his PhD in physics 
and applied sciences by the age of seventeen.  By the time he was 
twenty, he was already deep into designing his dream machine - the 
Temporal Imaging Viewer.  He hoped, someday, to be able to gaze 
into the past and see what had actually happened at any given 
moment of history.  It had come to him in a dream when he was still 
a child, perhaps twelve or thirteen.  In this dream he had seen the 
monitor, so massive, and pictures of history playing across it at 
his command.  From that point on, it had become his obsession.  
     Now four years of hard work later, standing alone in his 
apartment at the Complex, the President and his staff retired for 
the night after the demonstrations, that dream had become reality.  
The Past itself was his for the looking, and all the mysteries of 
modern history would soon be mysteries no more.  Unable to relax, 
Kaelen headed for the bathroom and decided to take a shower.  He 
disrobed slowly, his mind racing from one time frame to another.  
What should he look back on first ?  Kennedy ?  Marylin Monroe ?  
The near Y2K disasters ?  There was so much to see and reveal, as 
his mind wandered further.  He startled himself as he turned to 
adjust the bathroom's climate controls, seeing his nude reflection 
in the full length mirror just off to his side.  He was a man of 
slight build, not overly muscular yet well proportioned.  His skin 
was a pale shade of brown and his hair - had it not been harshly 
buzzed back to stubble as he preferred -  would have been jet black 
and straight.  He rubbed his hand over his stubbly scalp and 
remembered.
     He had grown up in foster care, taking the name of his 
eventually adoptive family.  His family had fled the East from 
somewhere near Iran, formerly Persia in ancient times, generations 
ago he had been told.  His adoptive father had told him that his 
natural great-great-too-many-greats-grandfather had surely seen the 
possibility of a better life for his family in the West and 
immigrated.  Kaelen sighed, wishing he remembered  more clearly.  
His parents had both died in a power plant explosion when he was 
only a toddler, and his best memories of them were sketchy at 
best.  His family that he knew had been close friends of his 
parents and had taken him in as their own after a fostering 
period.  He resolved that first thing in the morning, he would have 
to ask the Temporal Imager to look them up for him.  He was, after 
all, the last of his line and even though he bore the name "Laws" 
out of love for his adoptive family, he longed for more.
     He realized then that he thought about his given birth-name in 
years and didn't readily recall it.
     "Maybe I did build this thing for me and me alone, " he mused.
     An errant itch distracted him from his reverie and he 
scratched at his ribs which showed, when he stretched his arms up, 
through his brown skin.  His stomach was flat and his limbs well 
conditioned and a bit long.  The itch taken care of, he stretched 
himself and continued to take in his lithe reflection.  He was not 
unhappy with his body, although he seldom had time to exercise it.  
He was a bit annoyed at the erection that was beginning in his 
average-sized penis and absently scratched his balls.  "Maybe 
later, " he muttered, having no time for sex either.  In fact, his 
studies and his work - no, his obsession - had kept him a virgin up 
to his age of 24.   There was no excess fat to be seen on his 
frame, and many of the lab techs, male and female alike, were often 
noticed gazing at him when they thought he was not looking.  Kaelen 
enjoyed this secretly, although he was too caught up in his work to 
persue any of that foolishness.  In fact, he could have been a 
eunuch and not even noticed it for all the thought he gave to sex.  
He stared into his own face staring back at him.  The deep eyes, 
almost black instead of brown, and so very shapely, looked back at 
him and seemed to ask, "What is it ?"  
     For a moment, he thought he heard someone reply.
     "Idiot, " he mumbled and stepped into the shower.

     Kaelen arrived early the next morning at the Imaging Chamber 
and immediately set to work.  He checked and double checked all the 
readouts, checked for when the President would be back in for 
another look, and made sure everything was perfect.  The vast 
monitor itself was spotless, the room immaculate.  Power supply was 
steady and pure, and the temporal regulators and field generators 
were in good working order.  Yet something just felt wrong.  For 
some reason he remember gazing at himself in the mirror the night 
before and found himself thinking back to the first childhood dream 
of the Viewer.  He sat down at his console and called out to the 
security guard on duty at the door.
     "Kowalski here, " came the voice over the speaker.
     Who in the hell was Kowalski ? 
     "Uh, where's Hanson, Mr. ? " Kaelen asked.
     "Hanson who ? " came the curious voice.
     "Never mind.  How are things out there ?"
     "Looks like an empty waiting room, sir, " the guard answered.
     "Fine.  Let me know when our guests arrrive."
     "Will do, Mr. Laws, " the guard replied.
     Kaelen was disturbed.  The first shift guard was Hanson.  He 
had been on duty for all the time that Kaelen had been here 
overseeing the building of the Viewer.  He was relieved by Porter, 
then Newport at night and Latham and Smith were the part-timers on 
their days off.  Wondering what to make of it, Kaelen asked the 
computer.  "There is no Hanson on record employed by this facility 
at the moment, " the soft feminine voice replied.  A chill passed 
through Kaelen and he shuddered.  "Computer, any variances in the 
temporal systems ?"
     "Random negligible variances occur periodically, " the 
computer replied.
     Kaelen remembered that the system had only been running for a 
day then thought of something.
     "Computer, compile all these variances and graph according to 
date and time with respect to X and Y axes and severity with 
respect to Z and show on main monitor."  Kaelen prayed that the 
thought passing through his mind was wrong.
     "Working, " the computer replied.  
     Kaelen waited and began to bite the nail of his left index 
finger.
     Suddenly the graph jumped to life on the monitor as the 
computer compiled all its data and drew the picture for him.  What 
Kaelen saw literally made him cringe and grab hold of his console.  
There, on the screen before him, was a graphic representation of 
what looked like the beginnings of a wormhole.  "What in hell is 
that ?" he thought out loud.
     "Insufficient data, " the computer replied.
     Kaelen jumped.
     "Theorize, dammit, " the shouted.
     "Temporal disruptions and / or breaches, " the computer 
replied.
     The graphic was shifting as he watched, slowly shifting.
     "Theorize as to source, " Kaelen ordered.
     "Minute deviations of quantum variables accumulating at one 
point to form a breach."
     Kaelen shivered again.  "Cause ? " he asked.
     "This system's main temporal core."
     Kaelen Laws slumped in his chair and exhaled violently.  His 
skin was covered in goosebumps and he was trembling.  He pressed a 
red button on the main control panel and tried his best to keep his 
voice level.  "Mr. President, we have a problem, " he said.

     When they all arrived moments later, Kaelen set about to 
explaining to what was going on.  He had called up a schematic of 
the Viewer and its power supply, which was directly under the huge 
monitor.  Then he had the computer add graphics for the flow of 
power in relation to the physical construction of the complex.  
Then he ordered the computer to superimpose the graphics from his 
earlier work.  No one said a word as they all stared at the monitor 
and its display.  
     "Does this mean what I think it does ? " the President asked.
     "I'm afraid so, sir , " Kaelen answered, "The Viewer has not 
only the ability to look back through time - it is EXEMPT from 
time.  The laws of physics as we know them don't seem to apply to 
this chamber."
     "So time isn't moving in here ? " one of the staffers asked.
     "Oh it's moving alright, " Kaelen responded, "It just isn't 
moving like it should.  You see, these minute variances the 
computer picked up seem to be happening at random.  For all we 
know, they always have.  But when the temporal core came online, 
that surge of power changed things.  There's a field around this 
chamber now that gives us the ability to look back, and God knows 
what else, but it's drawing in those little disruptions like a 
magnet."
     "So you don't really know ? " the President asked.
     Kaelen shook his head.  "I didn't expect this, sir."
     One of the staffers spoke up then.  "Sir, we can't just pull 
the plug on this - the cost . . . "
     The President nodded.  "Mr. Laws, you and your computer have 
48 hours to figure this out and find out what the hell it's doing 
here.  Meanwhile, my staff and I and some of your techs are going 
to go out and bone up on temporal mechanics as well.  This project 
cannot fail now."
     "Yes sir, " Kaelen replied.

     Kaelen worked through the night with the computer, tracking 
the variables.  By morning he had come to realize that Time itself 
was analagous to the ever-moving waves of the ocean.  What man 
perceived as Reality floated like a boat atop this ocean, 
unaffected by the waves until one got big enough to cause some 
damage.  Then things changed.  With time, however, Kaelen thought 
that no one would notice the changes if they were changed right 
along with it.  If you fell of the boat, you swam and hoped someone 
threw you a life preserver or a rope.  You got back on and went on 
your way.  Then he thought of the sand on the beach.  The waves 
rolled in and changed it, but the sand was still sand, just a bit 
moved around.  And the sand had no clue that it had been moved.  It 
was about 3 AM when he realized where Hanson was, or rather, was 
NOT.
     At some point between the time he had entered his "exempt" 
working chamber atop the temporal core and the time he had paged 
Hanson, a rather large amount of variances had come together around 
the field of the room.  Those variances had carried Hanson off 
somewhere to realms of nonexistence.  
     Still Kaelen worked.  His dream was rapidly turning to 
nightmare as he struggled with the problem.  48 hours would not be 
enough time.  Then it occurred to him, all he had to do was look 
back and see.  He called up the time of his entry into the chamber 
and replayed it.  There on the monitor before him, he watched the 
image of Hanson suddenly change into Kowalski.  Nothing else moved.
     "There's got to be a logical pattern to this then, " he 
thought aloud.
     The computer agreed and began recompiling its data.  By the 
time the sun came up and the President and his staff and the day 
crew with it, Kaelen thought he had the answer.  All he had to do 
was make them believe him or the project was doomed.

     The President had a bemused look on his face as he sat in 
Kaelen's control room and pondered what the young scientist had 
told him.  He thought he understood it.  "Let me see if I've got 
this straight, " he began, "Time is not constant.  The past 
changes.  These changes result in different timelines that we don't 
notice because we are IN that timeline, yet the other timelines and 
the other 'us' in THEM still exist.  Somewhere out there is your 
missing Hanson guard that none of us remember, yet you do since you 
were in HERE, in the Chamber when he popped out of this Reality ?  
And if something out THERE changes while we are in here, we 
remember the past as it was BEFORE it changed yet no one else does 
?"
     Kaelen swallowed hard and nodded.  But he had more and decided 
that now was a good time.
     He replayed the changing with Hanson three times for the 
assembled men.  
     "Hanson's disappearing is what I like to call a 'breakpoint', 
" he said, "it's where the deviations come together and change 
something that we in HERE can see.  No one out there is going to 
remember Hanson because that breakpoint took him away, and altered 
them with it.  It goes back to the old belief that Hawking came up 
with in the 1980's or so : everything that can happen does happen 
in parallel universes that offshoot from another.  Rather primitive 
way to put it, but he was on the right track."
     "So . . . " the President stated, "since there isn't a damn 
thing we can do about Time and it's little changes, I guess we 
might just as well live with it.  All we've done here is proove 
it.  Continue your work, Mr. Laws.  We have to.  And by the way, 
see if you can find out if there are any other Timelines out there 
where the world didn't almost go straight to hell with war this 
last time.  That will be all."
     The group nodded and and got up to leave Kaelen to work in 
peace.  Although he had been up for almost two days straight with 
only brief naps at the console, he was too excited to sleep.  They 
were even actually considering letting word of the Viewer be made 
public !  With that thought in mind, he decided to log out and go 
home for a bit.  He was certainly entitled.  As he got up to leave 
and approached the door, the computer said, "Don't forget your 
briefcase."
     Kaelen grinned in spite of himself.  The computer he had 
designed took things so literally, even if it was up to its 
coprocessors in quantum deviations.  "Thank you, " he replied.
     "Contact me if you need my assistance, " the soft voice spoke 
as the door closed.

     The next few weeks were very eventful.  The Viewer was 
publically announced and the following media circus kept Kaelen 
busy for days showing off his creation.  Demonstrations were given, 
and over and over again he assured the media that, no, time travel 
was NOT possible and he did not plan on it being possible.  Coping 
with the "breakpoint - change" factor was enough for everyone 
involved.  What he did not mention was the dayshift guard Hanson / 
Kowalski Paradox.  He stated over and over for the record that no 
significant changes had been observed, but yes when one occurred he 
would happily publicize it.
     Finally, after what felt like forever, things quieted down 
enough for Kaelen to keep a promise to himself.
It was late one Thursday afternoon when he asked the computer to 
trace down his date of birth and show him the images.  Since it was 
relatively close to the present, the images came up in no time.  He 
was, however, unprepared for how it would affect him.  There they 
were, right in front of him.  The screen was so clear and lifelike 
he felt he could reach out and touch them.  His mother was in 
labor, then he was born, then they were a family and his parents 
were holding him and staring into each others' eyes.  Kaelen put 
his head down and cried a bit, ordering the computer to stop and 
save the last image and download to his own portable unit.  When he 
got home, he would send the image to his adoptive parents, so that 
they might have a memory of their friends whose son they had raised.
     Kaelen was just about to call it a day when the computer 
announced, in what sounded like alarm, "Deviations increasing 
exponentially, massive breakpoint detected !"
     Startled by the unexpected outburst, Kaelen dropped his 
briefcase and demanded, "When ?!"
     "Circa 589 BC, Ancient Middle East, current Eastern Coalition 
Dead Zone, ancient city of Babylon."

2

     Kaelen dropped into his chair at the main console and began 
summoning up the graphic manually, letting the computer cope with 
the massive disruptions it was detecting.  In the past few weeks, 
nothing had happened that meritted any major concern but this was, 
judging from the look of the graph, a disaster.  He could hear the 
whine of the temporal field generators running harder than ever 
before, and the air itself felt different.  Whatever it was, it was 
terribly wrong.  Time, it seemed, had taken a nosedive and was 
trying to take the rest of them out with it.  Then the phone rang.
     It was almost funny, and Kaelen had to stifle a laugh as he 
punched the receive button.  "Now is NOT a good time, " he shouted.
     "What in hell is going on there, Laws ?" an exasperated voice 
demanded, "We're showing power consumption on your temporal core is 
up by a factor of more than a million !  Is the computer alright ?"
     "I have no idea sir, " Kaelen replied calmly now, "it detected 
a massive breakpoint somewhere around 589 BC in the Middle East and 
literally went into siezures over it.  It's compiling now.  I think 
it's going to be bad, sir, very bad.  You may want to come over."
     "I'm on the cell phone and coming up the elevator now with my 
entourage', " the President stated.
     "Good idea, get under the umbrella before the rain gets HERE 
if you know what I mean."
     "I know, I know.  I just hope the Alliance is still HERE when 
I get THERE !"
     It was seconds later that the door to the Chamber burst open 
and the President and his staff along with a few media hounds 
entered.  The computer was still compiling, the monitor was dark, 
and the whine was near deafening.  Kaelen showed them the graph on 
his console's viewer, at a loss to explain it.  Suddenly the whine 
lowered to normal levels.  "Breakpoint detected and confirmed, " 
the computer informed them, "Imaging beginning in three, two, one . 
. . Imaging !"
     The immense monitor snapped to life, showing them an ancient 
city on a fertile plain.  There were tall buildings made of stone 
beneath a clear blue sky that seemed to stretch forever.  The 
people all looked like Kaelen and they all realized that it was the 
area of ancient Persia, the stuff of fantasy, that they were 
seeing.  
There were mostly men on the streets, but some women and many 
children.  They were, for the most part, dressed in turbans and 
other headwear and long robes of various colors.  There were 
animals in the marketplace, much business and trading.  Kaelen felt 
a pang from deep within himself as he looked at the ultimate 
history of his race.  
     They were looking into the once-greatness of a place that was 
now a desolate ruin.
     There were gardens, landscapings, and wondrous sights too many 
to name.  Since time did not seem to matter while they were in the 
Chamber, the President and staff and the hangers-on all became so 
taken by it that they almost forgot their urgency in coming.  Even 
Kaelen found his mind drifting back to that simple time when even 
the wheel had not yet lost its novelty.  Yet somewhere in all this 
splendor they were seeing was the reason they had come - the very 
thing that set off the computer's warnings of massive disruptions.
     "Hard to believe something that happened so long ago could 
affect us today, " the President breathed, hardly loud enough to be 
heard.
     "Agreed, sir, " Kaelen replied.
     "But what IS it ?" the President asked.
     The computer, as if in answer, zoomed the image to the 
marketplace and did a hard left turn to what appeared to be a 
public stage.  There was a very well-dressed man on the stage, 
waving his arms and shouting to the vast crowd who waved their arms 
in reply and shouted out numbers.  Behind the wildly gesticulating 
man on the stage were several other men, a few women, and about six 
boys.  All of them were naked and had their hands tied behind their 
backs.  Their ankles were hobbled to permit standing and very slow, 
measured walking only.  The men and boys all had their heads 
shaved, eyes downcast.  Each had a thick leather thong tied around 
his head clenched between his teeth as well.  The women had their 
hair and no gags, yet none of them looked up either.
     "Slave market, " one of the staffers replied, drawing startled 
looks from his peers, "Uh, history was my second major you see."
     Everyone nodded and agreed and looked on at the Viewer.
     One by one, the slaves - the women first - were sold off to 
the highest bidders.  They were led away by their new owners to 
face their lives of servitude.  "They have little hope of freedom, 
" the historically inclined staffer, Benson, said, "the best they 
can hope for is a kind master."
     "Pity, " Kaelen replied, feeling a racial empathy to these 
people.  Somehow, he took it as a personal insult, although racism 
had been unheard of in the West for centuries.  People were simply 
people, not a color.
     When the women were all gone, the bidding began on the men.  
This took more time, higher bids, and a bit of insulting and some 
calling of the slaver's guards to calm things down.  The men 
brought high prices, some almost as high as the most beautiful of 
the women had.  They were all muscular, lean, and darker than most 
from the time spent in the sun without full clothing.  Their shaved 
heads reflected the ancient sun almost out of the Viewer's monitor 
and into the watching eyes of the nervous spectators.  Kaelen 
shuddered at the sight, remembering staring at his own reflection 
that night that the Viewer had proven a success.  He remembered 
hearing something and calling himself an idiot.  But what had it 
been ?
     Still they stared and the computer kept its seemingly endless 
show running.
     One by one the men were led down the steps when suddenly 
Benson shouted, "Freeze image !"
     The show paused.
     There were gasps from all watching as they stared with new 
fascination at the image before them.  The shows had stopped with a 
man being led down the steps, an iron collar with a length of chain 
around his neck and his hands still bound.  The hobbles had been 
removed so that he could follow his new master home.  What had 
gotten Benson's attention and now everyone else's was that where 
the slave's genitals should have been, there was nothing but a 
smooth, paler colored area and a small hole.  
     "Eunuch, " Benson supplied helpfully, "It was big business 
then and for centuries to come.  Without his balls, a man is 
qualified for all sorts of work.  Without his penis, he's qualified 
for even more delicate duties.  Eunuchs were in demand for harem 
guards especially, since the noble who owned him knew that he 
couldn't DO anything to his women."
     "Do continue, " Kaelen said sarcastically, having 
unconsciously closed his knees together.
     "I don't think there's really that much to it, Mr. Laws, " 
Benson continued, "You cut off a man's genitals, what's he got left 
?  He's a slave, no family, no way to have his own family, so he 
gives his loyalty without stint to the man who can make his own 
life better if he works well.  What the master wants, the master 
gets.  Many a eunuch became rich and powerful that way, and many 
rose to even official positions and wielded great power in affairs 
of state.  I mean, really, they didn't have anything else to do . . 
. "
     "This is all well and good, " the President interrupted, "but 
what we need to know is what happened that set the computer off.  
We need to see the breakpoint that brought us all here before we 
leave !  For all we know, we may not have anything to go back to 
outside this room."
     Again, as if answering the call automatically, the computer 
resumed its imaging.  The monitor once again went back to the slave 
block and this time there was only one slave remaining.  He was boy 
of about eleven years of age, dark skinned and lean.  His head was 
also shaved, but his eyes - not downcast like the others - were 
looking out over the crowd and almost looking into the future.  
Kaelen felt he knew those eyes.  A chill passed through him as he 
heard that voice from long ago saying, through the monitor, "What 
am I bid for this handsome young piece of Persian boyhood ?"
     There were shouts from the crowd.  Hands waved bags that 
certainly contained gold coinage.  More shouting.  The well-dressed 
auctioneer called for civility.  The guards stepped forward, 
pushing the hobbled  and naked boy with them.  One of them placed a 
hand on the boy's shaved scalp and forced his head down.  Someone 
in the crowd called out, "No, let us see his marvelous face !"  The 
bids went higher.  Finally, a very well-dressed man and two burly 
attendants stepped forward.  The man reached into his robe and 
pulled out a very large pouch and placed it in the auctioneer's 
waiting hands.  His face went pale as he opened the bag.
It was clear from his look that sale had ended.  The boy had been 
bought.
     Slowly, the crowed began to break up and head back to other 
areas of the marketplace.  The computer zoomed the image even 
closer to only the stage as the wealthy man and the auctioneer 
exchanged some documents.  "He is a very good one, " the auctioneer 
agreed.
     "I have not seen one like him a long time, " the wealthy man 
replied.
     "Slave boys are sold by the hundreds here over the year."
     The wealthy man shook his head.  "There is something about the 
way he looks.  His face, his body.  He is so well proportioned and 
attractive.  Look at him !  Untie his hands, yes, that's it, look 
at these !  Slim, long fingered, soft.  No hint of a beard yet and 
certainly a high piping voice.  He will be the envy of my court 
with those looks !"
     "My Lord, " the auctioneer nearly choked, "You have a fine 
taste."
     The wealthy one agreed and the attendants took the hobbles 
from the silent boy's ankles and lifted him by the upper arms  to 
move him closer.  The boy looked his new master in the face, an act 
unheard of that certainly would have earned any other slave a good 
beating.  He chewed at his leather gag a bit then looked at the 
huge men holding him.
     Uncounted centuries later, Kaelen Laws looked back at the 
slave boy, the boy with his own face that had looked at him a few 
weeks ago from his bathroom mirror.  He got up and moved towards 
the Viewer, almost daring to touch its flawless surface.  The 
attendants still held the boy up, his bare feet dangling almost a 
meter off the stage.  He was still staring into the eyes of his new 
Master.
     "There is one other thing, " the Master asked the auctioneer.
     "Of course, my Lord !"  the auctioneer almost shouted.
     "I believe it is my right if I find fault with my purchase 
that I may demand it be remedied ?"
     The auctioneer nodded in disbelief.  "But he is so perfect, 
excellency !"
     "He has one flaw, good merchant."
     Standing next to Kaelen, Benson the historian / staffer 
groaned.
     The auctioneer looked puzzled.
     The attendants holding the boy up looked him over and grinned 
evilly.
     Still the boy did not take his gaze from staightforward, 
straight into Kaelen's Viewer.
     A voice came over the intercom, but no one took his gaze from 
the Viewer, or rather, the boy on it.
     "Power Generator Control to Imaging Chamber, Mr. President, is 
Temporal Coordinator Smith there ?"
     
     "He is a boy, good merchant.  An intact boy.  Geld him for me 
!" the Master demanded.

     "BREAKPOINT !" the computer shouted in alarm.