3 July 2025

　　"&And that, Your Excellency, is how the Chronomad finally embarked upon her mission to see the King."

　　Ris fell silent and watched her rotund host process her tale`s conclusion about the distant past. The rest of his entourage looked bored and disengaged, continuing their own mundane work as they humoured their superior`s play at being an amateur historian. Ris felt insignificant in a room full of such powerful people. Standing before the starship`s viewport, with the big blue planet as her backdrop didn`t help.

　　"Wonderful! Truly marvellous!" her host proclaimed with solitary applause. "I`ve never heard Matilda`s story told in such detail. With such perspective. And finished just in time for the Chancellor`s address. You must promise to finish the Chronomad`s story when we return."

　　His entourage came to attention and hurriedly prepared to fly down to Earth`s surface. Ignoring Ris, they bundled up the priceless torn Book on display and followed their enormous superior to the landing craft. Powerful people had gathered from across the Galaxy to watch the event responsible for catapulting Humanity into the stars.

　　The Dawn of The Long Day.

　　They would gather on Earth`s surface and enjoy the solar spectacle amidst an orgy of pomp and gluttony, protected from the charged ionosphere by rudimentary technology that was far beyond anything Matilda could`ve imagined.

　　But not Ris. She was a scholar, not a businessman or bureaucrat. She would remain on the starship and watch from space. Not that she minded, it meant more time to admire the planet and would allow her to witness the full magnitude of The Long Day.

　　Ris stared out from the starship`s viewport and into the depths of space. The stars of the Milky Way were denser than she`d expected of the outer galaxy but augmented annotations from her Eyepiece revealed that many of the dotted lights were actually other orbiting spacecraft also awaiting the historical event. The closest star was much bigger than the rest, a particularly bright yellowish-white dwarf. Sol, the source of the event they were all there to see.

　　Ris was amongst the lucky few selected from the galactic colonies to witness the Event in person. She`d become a leading historian on the period that followed Matilda`s arrival, yet it was her first time visiting the Sol system and she`d still never set foot on Earth. She hailed from the inner galactic colonies and the prohibitive costs of the long journey to Sol had always obstructed firsthand studies. She`d hoped that her expertise might one day merit funding to see the Cradle of Humanity and had been pleasantly surprised as the Long Day approached.

　　Ulrichs from across the Galaxy had flocked back to Earth and each sought a noteworthy historian for their pilgrimage. The Ultra-Rich were akin to the feudal lords that Matilda had tried to topple on her journey back in time. They terraformed planets and owned entire solar systems. It was their actions that now filled the history books and their existence proved the inevitability of human greed and oppression. Power breeds power, plus ever greater thirst.

　　Their mere existence was an insult to Matilda`s memory. Yet when an Ulrich had invited Ris to witness the Long Day, she`d found herself unable to decline. She earned her passage by answering the Ulrich`s many questions as the multi-day journey unfolded. Her benefactor could have easily achieved the same result with artificial intelligence or using comms arrays but the physical presence of a notable scholar was an antiquated symbol of prestige. Ris found the level of wealth in her lavish quarters aboard the Ulrich`s starship to be morally repugnant but who was she to turn down the opportunity? Her host did have a passion for historical truth so surely he couldn`t be completely bad.

　　Looking down at the planet, Ris knew that Earth`s Chancellor would be lecturing his wealthy guests on the important role his planet had played as the origin of humanity`s spacefaring civilisation, undoubtedly ignorant to the irony of his planet`s current dearth of technology. Earth was the capital of a fallen empire but desperately clung to the myth of its glory days. The days of Galileo and Newton. Einstein and Sam. Matilda and William.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it`s taken without the author`s consent. Report it.

　　Matilda had been Ris` childhood hero, a fellow red-haired woman who`d dared to jump into the unknown. Ris confidently argued that no single person had played a larger role in shaping humanity. With the help of William the Explorer and at great personal cost, she`d initiated a chain of events that catapulted civilisation forward.

　　Beyond only technical gifts from the future, Matilda had unknowingly established the Seeker philosophy. A school of thought that morphed into a religion, it promoted the pursuit of understanding and personal growth to enhance the freedoms of others. The Seekers directly contradicted the Ulrich way of life and had been persecuted for centuries as a result. But like many other philosophies over humanity`s history, suppression had only fuelled its grow. Ris` parents were ardent believers and had taught their daughter in secret. Its illicit nature only increased Ris` excitement to learn more about the time traveller. And it all began on this pale blue dot.

　　Ris` Eyepiece flashed a warning that the coronal mass ejection had commenced, meaning that the Long Day would begin in approximately eight minutes. The starship`s other lowly inhabitants - crew, assistant, droids - poured into the viewing room and claimed seats around the vacated amphitheatre. Ris tried to claim a seat of her own but familiar faces urged her back to the front.

　　"Oh great Historian," an engineer mocked, "what are we seeing?"

　　Ris cringed at the sarcastic tone but other cries of genuine interest convinced her back to the front to explain.

　　"Um, ok. You will all be aware of Matilda, humanity`s first Chronomad. She used primitive technology to make the first journey back through time, seeking to advance humanity into a new era. It is common knowledge that a great calamity was the catalyst for her voyage and her goal was to prematurely inject science in the hope that future generations would avoid The Long Day. That is the Event we are about to witness."

　　Everyone knew what was coming but there was still a swell of excitement from the crowd.

　　"Her premature demise robbed us of many gifts, but William took up her torch and illuminated a path out of the Dark Ages.

　　"We are left wondering what could have been. Where would we be today if she had managed to impart all that she knew? She didn`t share with us the secret to time travel, that is for sure. Deliberately most scholars agree. Although we eventually discovered it ourselves, it was left to us to learn the dangers of manipulating space-time. The Chronomad has left a permanent mark on our time. Literally. Our calendar was defined by the Chronomad`s arrival. To her, the Event we`ll see today occurred in 2025 rather than 902.

　　"We may never know just how much more Matilda may have offered but the fact that we can safely watch the Event proves that her mission was a success. I think she would be ecstatic to see all that we have learnt."

　　There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd and Ris`s Eyepiece went off again.

　　"It`s about to begin," she announced.

　　A hush fell over the crowd as the amphitheatre lights dimmed. Auroras appeared in the sky around them, surrounding the magnetic shields of the spectating spacecraft and darting across the surface of the blue planet below. Ribbons of light rippled across the planet, first around the poles and then over the entire surface with ever greater intensity.

　　"The Chronomad was only ten years old when this took place," Ris noted. "See the magnitude of the excitations. Such intensity hadn`t been seen for over a century and the magnetic forces wreaked havoc on the simple electronic systems of the Chronomad`s time. Evidence suggests that corruption also played a role, with contemporary leaders funnelling funds into endless wars and corporate sponsors rather than essential infrastructure and environmental protection.

　　"Rudimentary shielding capable of guarding against the Long Day was developed only a century after Matilda`s arrival from The World That Was. Additional development in the eight hundred years since guarantees that there won`t be a single loss of critical infrastructure today. Instead, the Event can even be harvested as a source of power."

　　Ris drew her eyes away from the planet and looked up at the other spacecraft, the slipstream of their own magnetic shielding making them look like an array of stationary comets.

　　"Of course, the other spacecraft watching with us today would`ve been astounding to Matilda. Even the most basic of them contains technology beyond her wildest dreams."

　　Ris looked around the room and found her audience enamoured by the spectacle before them. Deciding to enjoy the sight for herself, she wondered what her hero would say if she could see it. The planet. The starships. The auroras. A single thought replayed through her mind.

　　It was beautiful.

　　(C) Jay Pelchen 2023. All rights reserved.