The Winds of War: A Message & A Warning from a Time Traveler

From The Gathering Storm

What follows was written by Dan Simmons. At the end of the story, “the Time Traveler said three last words and was gone”. My question to you – What do you think the three mysterious words were?

The answer is here. But read the entire piece first. It’s chilling.

#####

The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Year’s Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a husky voice that he was a Time Traveler come back to talk to me about the future.

Being a sometimes science-fiction writer but not a fool, I said, “Prove it.”

“Do you remember Replay?” he said.

My finger hovered over the final “1” in my dialing. “The 1987 novel?” I said. “By Ken Grimwood?”

The stranger – Time Traveler, psychotic, home invader, whatever he was – nodded.

I hesitated. The novel by Grimwood had won the World Fantasy Award a year or two after my first-novel, Song of Kali, had. Grimwood’s book was about a guy who woke up one morning to find himself snapped back decades in his life, from the late 1980’s to himself as a college student in 1963, and thus getting the chance to relive – to replay – that life again, only this time acting upon what he’d already learned the hard way. In the book, the character, who was to experience – suffer – several Replays, learned that there were other people from his time who were also Replaying their lives in the past, their bodies younger but their memories intact. I’d greatly enjoyed the book, thought it deserved the award, and had been sad to hear that Grimwood had died . . . when? . . . in 2003.

So, I thought, I might have a grizzled nut case in my study this New Year’s Eve, but if he was a reader and a fan of Replay, he was probably just a sci-fi fan grizzled nut case, and therefore probably harmless. Possibly. Maybe.

I kept my finger poised over the final “1” in “911.”

“What does that book have to do with you illegally entering my home and study?” I asked.

The stranger smiled … almost sadly I thought. “You asked me to prove that I’m a Time Traveler,” he said softly. “Do you remember how Grimwood’s character in Replay went hunting for others in the 1960’s who had traveled back in time from the late 1980’s?”

I did remember now. I’d thought it clever at the time. The guy in Replay, once he suspected others were also replaying into the past, had taken out personal ads in major city newspapers around the country. The ads were concise. “Do you remember Three Mile Island, Challenger, Watergate, Reaganomics? If so, contact me at . . .”

Before I could say anything else on this New Year’s Eve of 2004, a few hours before 2005 began, the stranger said, “Terri Schiavo, Katrina, New Orleans under water, Ninth Ward, Ray Nagin, Superdome, Judge John Roberts, White Sox sweep the Astros in four to win the World Series, Pope Benedict XVI, Scooter Libby.”

“Wait, wait!” I said, scrambling for a pen and then scrambling even faster to write. “Ray who? Pope who? Scooter who?”

“You’ll recognize it all when you hear it all again,” said the stranger. “I’ll see you in a year and we’ll have our conversation.”

“Wait!” I repeated. “What was that middle apart . . . Ray Nugin? Judge who? John Roberts? Who is . . .” But when I looked up he was gone.

“White Sox win the Series?” I muttered into the silence. “Fat chance.”

I was waiting for him on New Year’s Eve 2005. I didn’t see him enter. I looked up from the book I was fitfully reading and he was standing in the shadows again. I didn’t dial 911 this time, nor demand any more proof. I waved him to the leather wingchair and said, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Scotch,” he said. “Single malt if you have it.”

I did.

Our conversation ran over two hours, but the following is the gist of it. I’m a novelist by trade. I remember conversations pretty well. (Not as perfectly as Truman Capote was said to be able to recall long conversations word for word, but pretty well.)

The Time Traveler wouldn’t tell me what year in the future he was from. Not even the decade or century. But the gray cord trousers and blue-gray wool tunic top he was wearing didn’t look very far-future science-fictiony or military, no Star Trekky boots or insignia, just wellworn clothes that looked like something a guy who worked with his hands a lot would wear. Construction maybe.

“I know you can’t tell me details about the future because of time travel paradoxes,” I began. I hadn’t spent a lifetime reading and then writing SF for nothing.

“Oh, bugger time travel paradoxes,” said the Time Traveler. “They don’t exist. I could tell you anything I want to and it won’t change anything. I just choose not to tell you some things.”

I frowned at this. “Time travel paradoxes don’t exist? But surely if I go back in time and kill my grandfather before he meets my grandmother . . .”

The Time Traveler laughed and sipped his Scotch. “Would you want to kill your grandfather?” he said. “Or anyone else?”

“Well . . .Hitler maybe,” I said weakly.

The Traveler smiled, but more ironically this time. “Good luck,” he said. “But don’t count on succeeding.”

I shook my head. “But surely anything you tell me now about the future will change the future,” I said.

“I gave you a raft of facts about your future a year ago as my bona fides,” said the Time Traveler. “Did it change anything? Did you save New Orleans from drowning?”

“I won $50 betting on the White Sox in October,” I admitted.

The Time Traveler only shook his head. “Quod erat demonstrandum,” he said softly. “I could tell you that the Mississippi River flows generally south. Would your knowing about it change its course or flow or flooding?”

I thought about this. Finally I said, “Why did you come back? Why do you want to talk to me? What do you want me to do?”

“I came back for my own purposes,” said the Time Traveler, looking around my booklined study. “I chose you to talk to because it was . . . convenient. And I don’t want you to do a goddamned thing. There’s nothing you can do. But relax . . . we’re not going to be talking about personal things. Such as, say, the year, day, and hour of your death. I don’t even know that sort of trivial information, although I could look it up quickly enough. You can release that white-knuckled grip you have on the edge of your desk.”

I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said.

“The Century War,” said the Time Traveler.

I blinked and tried to remember some history. “You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .”

“I mean the Century War with Islam,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he stood, refilled his Scotch glass, and sat again. He said, “It was important to me to come back to this time early on in the struggle. Even if only to remind myself of how unspeakably blind you all were.”

Read the rest of theTimeTraveler's warning at the Gatherng Storm