I Love Dialogue! The Wall of Time - a Lone Wolf novel

The Wall of Time is a prequel to my sci-fi series, which I wrote as my first NaNoWriMo novel in November of 2007. I've edited the passage slightly because I don't want to give any spoilers to books in the series that precede it, but I like this exchange & wanted to share.

Wil's in a tight spot. The Council has hired an assassin to kill him. Valkyrie, is a former lover of his, and takes the contract to protect him, but puts them both in danger. Wil takes her to a safe spot, but has to leave in order to protect her. He goes to a remote planet to visit a spiritual adviser, Abudali. Wil has a weird problem. His daughter, who lives 373 years in his past, is able to talk to him through space and time. He wants to find out how and why. After telling his old friend about it, he waits, impatiently, while Abudali meditates. Finally, the old man returns from his meditative trance.

Wreathed in smiles, Abudali came back to himself, poured a drink of cold water, and sighed contentedly. "Fascinating," he breathed as Wil's annoyance mounted.

"Well?"

"Patience, Lone Wolf. I am still reveling in the delightful talk I've had with your daughter. Hers is an astute mind. She has an amazing clarity of intellect that you sorely lack. It must come from her mother. As does her alacrity of speech and her understanding of the finer points of. . . ."

"All right! Enough of the veiled insults, Abu.” Wil inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly to calm himself. "What does she say?"

"First of all, you are correct. Her mother is Siegra. They live in a time approximately three hundred years in our past. Three hundred seventy-three, as a matter of fact."

"Is the number significant?"

"No way of telling without extensive numerology research. I can do that better with you gone. In any case, she says that she's trying to figure out how she can communicate with you too. It's not common among her people, many of whom have Hindersight, their term for psy powers. Theirs tend to be chiefly connected to precognition. The other powers, we deduce, came from your half of the genetic matrix."

"This isn't telling me what I need to know. How can she communicate with me? How can she know the things she knows?"

"I have no idea."

"Abu!" Wil was frustrated and angry. He wanted to yell and break things. This would serve no logical purpose, but would make him feel one hell of a lot better.

"But her instructor had a thought."

"Instructor? What is she being instructed in?"

"Oh, in Hindersight, of course. I thought she would have told you."

"It's not like we've had time to chat. What does her instructor think?"

"Chyou is of the mind. . . ."

"Chyou?"

"Her—instructor," Abu spoke slowly and loudly as if Wil was slow witted and hard of hearing.

"Chyou is her instructor?"

"That's what I said. Now be still. Sit down, you're pacing again."

Wil had stood in his frustration but hadn't moved from the spot. He sat with great agitation and lit another cheroot. He'd already been through five since this interview started. He began to suspect he hadn't brought enough.

"Chyou is of the mind. . . ." he prompted.

"That it is because you and her mother are from different times. Much as a man can freely travel within his lifetime, given the right instruction and correct set of parameters. . . . You know, that's an interesting phenomenon. I have been. . . ."

"Abu," Wil's low, quiet growl was more ominous than his shouting.

The old hermit cleared his throat and continued. "Be that as it may, we know that time travel along one's own lifetime is possible. It's been done, it's history. However, you may not be aware that it's been speculated that a man can travel through the lifetime of his parents. The actuality is theoretical at best. Outrageously incomprehensible at its worst.

"But," he held up a hand to stay Wil's protests, "we think that is why she is able to do this. She has been given the parameters of both her mother's lifetime and your own. Because of the disparate times you come from, she has much more leeway than a normal individual. And your daughter, Lone Wolf, is far from normal. She redefines psy powers. She's rewritten laws of contact! This should not be able to happen, but it is. Chyou thinks that's because no one ever told her it wasn't possible."

"So my daughter, whom I've never met, can contact me across space and time just because it's theoretically possible and she doesn't know she can't?"

Wil didn't know if he should jump for joy or punch the old man in the nose. He chose to remain sitting down and not react violently for the moment. He wasn't happy either way.

"Do you have any idea how confusing this is? You're talking about seventeen steps from reality. I have an open mind, Abu, but even I am struggling with this."

"Wil, I have made it as simple as I can. Perhaps you'd like the scientific lecture?"

"Is there one?" Wil asked hopefully.

"No, not really." Abu replied offhandedly. "Nothing in science can explain this. I'm truly sorry I can't make it easier to understand. I would if I could. You daughter did what any child would do, she thought of you. Because of her enormous psy power, she was able to make contact."

"And some of this comes from me? A man who never had any psy abilities, no training. . . . I'm a dumb grunt, Abu."

"Far from it, Wil." The old man was quiet and serious now. Gone was the flighty behavior, the eccentric mannerisms. "We both know the Marine doctors did incredibly intrusive things to your body. What we don't really know, as we haven't explored, is what they did to your mind."

© 2014 Dellani Oakes

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