<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n If you can look into the seeds of time, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>— Macbeth, Act I, scene iii<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Only when I saw my guests wandering around my living room, interested in every book, every knickknack, did I realize just how isolated I\u2019d been for such a long time.\u00a0 Bob had gotten sick so soon after we moved that we\u2019d never had a chance to develop a circle of friends, never had people over socially.<\/p>\n The only time this place had seen visitors was when the hospice staff moved in.<\/p>\n Suddenly, I felt like the stale air was finally circulating, like all the light bulbs had been replaced with a higher wattage.\u00a0 These people radiated energy, something about the way they took in everything around them with curiosity and enthusiasm.\u00a0 Despite my first impression about their cluelessness, since then, I\u2019d been steadily revising my opinion.\u00a0 Whatever all this starship crap was about, I had to admit, they carried themselves with a businesslike, maybe even military, esprit de corps<\/i> that inspired a certain confidence.<\/p>\n I kept an eye on them while I dished out the Chinese, wondering why on Earth I should feel this comfortable, my house invaded by total strangers who claimed to be from outer space.\u00a0 They were clearly more interested in unraveling the problems at hand than in eating, though Captain Jim, after I explained fortune cookies to him, was highly amused at his, which said \u201cTime is on your side\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n Getting down to business, Jim laid it out, pacing around my living room like a caged lion.\u00a0 Set up Worsham and take him out.<\/p>\n \u201cTake him out?\u00a0 You don\u2019t mean\u2026?\u201d\u00a0 I blurted, shocked by the implication.<\/p>\n Jim looked at me thoughtfully, like he was keeping his options open, but his words were a relief.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see, at this point, the problem isn\u2019t just Worsham, it\u2019s all the forces that have been set in motion.\u00a0 Removing him by itself might keep the trends from accelerating, but they\u2019re already playing out.\u00a0 We have to find a way to\u2026 turn the tide.\u00a0 To\u2026 reverse what he started, try to give events a little shove in the opposite direction.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you think you can do that?\u00a0 Change the course of the world, in the next\u2026 what\u2026 16 hours?\u201d I asked dubiously.<\/p>\n Jim gave me a smile I was already beginning to recognize.\u00a0 The guy didn\u2019t seem to be intimidated by anything.\u00a0 I was still withholding judgment as to whether he was as good as he thought he was, or whether he was well, full of it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do have\u2026 resources,\u201d he grinned.<\/p>\n The biggest resource they appeared to have was access to the future;\u00a0 the ability to look at the present \u2013 my present \u2013 from the vantage point of what they already knew had happened or was supposed to have happened.\u00a0 Or will have happened in some version of the future.<\/p>\n Being a writer, I couldn\u2019t help thinking there was no grammatical tense to encompass this time-twisted mess.\u00a0 Future perfect? \u00a0Things will have come to pass, seen from some future vantage point?<\/p>\n I thought about my own tangle of a life: how I\u2019d just realized (shortly before the death threats and the arrival of the gang from outer space) that I no longer had any attachment to my own present tense.\u00a0 The past was gone.\u00a0 Bob was gone.<\/p>\n I understood, intellectually at least, that both past and future are illusions, that Truth only exists in the present moment.\u00a0 Be here, now, and all that.\u00a0 But if my own personal past was gone, and my present on-going life held nothing for me, suddenly Future Perfect seemed like the only tense that was worth a damn.<\/p>\n I wrestled my attention back to the conversation at hand.<\/p>\n The loose plan that emerged was that they had to take Worsham out of commission somehow; frame him, for some crime or preferably crimes.\u00a0 It had to be something big enough, serious enough, lurid enough that he couldn\u2019t twist his way out of it.\u00a0 Had to be blatant enough, horrific enough, to turn his followers against him.<\/p>\n At the same time, they could use their information about the future to provide the right people with enough leverage to counter any after-effects of Worsham\u2019s manipulations.\u00a0 They could plant the seeds for inventions, innovations, solutions and cures that might have taken many years to discover otherwise.\u00a0 They could provide enough hints and leads for honest reporters to expose the depths of the corruption, and for a handful of decent politicians to rise to key positions of power.<\/p>\n If Worsham had been playing with a stacked deck, they could deal a new hand, and stack the deck with their own cards.\u00a0 It was the best they could hope for.\u00a0 And there wasn\u2019t much time.<\/p>\n Now all that remained was to find the right frame up and pull it off, literally overnight.<\/p>\n In the end, they got their inspiration where most of 21st<\/sup> century people did: from television.<\/p>\n Jim was deep in conversation with someone on his cell.\u00a0 At least that\u2019s what I was still calling it, even though he showed the thing to me when we got to my place.\u00a0 It sure wasn\u2019t like any cell I\u2019d ever seen.\u00a0 And I\u2019d lived with an industry insider.<\/p>\n If I\u2019d had my doubts before about these guys, now I was beginning to feel almost superfluous.\u00a0 The flat robotic voice he kept talking to seemed to have more dope on Worsham than I\u2019d been able to dig up over the past couple of years.\u00a0 I\u2019d pulled out my laptop and was shamelessly running down the snippets of information I overheard.\u00a0 It was all checking out.\u00a0 How could they know so much?<\/p>\n And yes, I was a little miffed that Admiral Jim wasn\u2019t asking my opinion or input on any of this.\u00a0 After all, I was the one who was up to my eyeballs in this thing.<\/p>\n Uhura, curious, had spotted my TV, and, after she tried to work it like a touch screen, I intervened to explain our primitive remote controls.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t need any further guidance, but seemed to intuit our best technology – digital video, the latest thing – without missing a beat.\u00a0 She scrolled through the channels, the usual mix of crime dramas and trash reality shows, then came across something that caused her to call the doctor over.<\/p>\n He stood staring in fascination at some show, reacting here and there with a derisive laugh.\u00a0 Finally he turned and motioned to his buddy.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s your answer, Jim,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cCSI.\u00a0 Crime Scene Investigation.\u00a0 You said we need to frame him.\u00a0 The forensics here are so primitive it\u2019s laughable.\u00a0 I can set something up easily.\u00a0 We just stage a little murder scene.\u201d<\/p>\n Murder<\/i>.\u00a0 Jim mulled over the word.\u00a0 We all did.<\/p>\n Dr. McCoy added, more forcefully now,\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t forget, Jim, I\u2019ve seen what he did on Cigna 8.\u00a0 I was with the first rescue team that went in.\u00a0 I want to take this bastard down.\u00a0 And we\u2019re going to need Spock.\u201d<\/p>\n Jim talked into his cell-thing again, and told the robot voice \u2013 this \u201cspock\u201d – to join us.\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. McCoy sidled over to me and said I might want to brace myself. I thought he was talking about the light-beam thing.<\/p>\n That turned out to be the least surprising sight awaiting me.<\/p>\n A few moments later, not six feet in front of me, in my very own living room, that column of dancing light appeared, accompanied by a slight hum, then somehow solidified into the figure of a man.<\/p>\n He was tall and lean.\u00a0 He wore a uniform of some kind, pretty snappy-looking, actually.\u00a0 His dark hair was cut straight across the forehead, very weird.\u00a0 Long, grave face.\u00a0 Odd eyebrows, just two slashes up and out from center.\u00a0 And\u2026it took me a second to finish my inventory.\u00a0 Something wasn\u2019t normal \u2013 not just the weird hair and eyebrows, but his\u2026 ears.\u00a0 They were large and \u2026 they came to a pronounced point on top.<\/p>\n Connect those<\/i> dots, Hani.<\/p>\n There was a guy in my living room who didn\u2019t look quite\u2026 human.<\/p>\n I took a step back, and stumbled against the coffee table.<\/p>\n Then, realizing what I\u2019d done, I hoped he hadn\u2019t noticed, hadn\u2019t taken offense.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to insult anyone.\u00a0 Political correctness, all that.<\/p>\n And I sure didn\u2019t want to make this guy mad.\u00a0 He was a little scary.<\/p>\n The newcomer acknowledged Jim.\u00a0 \u201cCaptain\u201d, he nodded.\u00a0 He nodded at the others, too, and turned to introduce himself to me.\u00a0 \u201cI am Commander Spock, First Officer of the Enterprise<\/i>.\u00a0 And you are Hanalie Surat?\u201d<\/p>\n Unnerved, I blurted out the first thing my scattered mind came up with.<\/p>\n \u201cActually,\u201d I said, \u201cI think I\u2019m the murder victim.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n < previous<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next ><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" < previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next > If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow, and which will not, Speak. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 — Macbeth, Act I, scene iii \u00a0 \u00a0 Only when … Continue reading ![\"photo\"](\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo13-150x200.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAnd say which grain will grow, and which will not,
\nSpeak. <\/i><\/p>\n