“We created a ship that almost caused a calamitous temporal paradox.” Stacia restrained herself from pounding the table. That kind of demonstration only fueled Paki, letting him know that he achieved his goal of petty aggravation. As if he considered it his personal mission in life to irritate the shit out of the status quo. He “won” most arguments via his erosion strategy: he simply wore someone down until they threw their arms in the air and gave up. He and Yahya should form some sort of boy band.

Tenting her fingers against the table, Stacia pushed herself up. She took three calming breaths and allowed the seconds to pass between them in silence. Yahya often accused her of weaponizing silence.

Paki took a heartbeat and calmed down. He began again in a reassuring whisper. “We didn’t. Not to mention, we can’t. Time is fixed.”

“How do you explain what happened to the mothership?”

“History. It happened,” Paki said. “Astra Black happened. Muungano happened. But what do I know? I only have ten years of experience as a temporal mechanic. Before then, I was a lowly quantum physicist, with a few dozen papers to my name as a chair at the Thmei Academy.”

As warm and gracious as he was with students—whom he called journeyers or seekers—when he was around anyone he perceived as questioning or threatening his authority, he was quick to remind them of his intellect and skill. Any slick comment risked a person hearing his full résumé.

“All I’m saying is that I want to make sure we don’t cause something else to happen. If it were up to me, we’d have never sent HOVA gbeto through the Orun Gate before thoroughly understanding it. We’ve done enough to them.”

“What do you mean we’ve done enough to them?” Paki asked.

“As scientists, we tend to focus on the advantages, but rarely consider the dangers. We literally hacked the brains of the HOVA, members of our community, inserted AI so powerful into some of their minds, I wonder if they are still fundamentally human. Their decision-making processes outsourced to algorithms. We augmented their genome and very cellular structure in the name of enhancement and efficiency. Let’s at least admit that we have no idea what the application of such technology cost their humanity. Their essential being.”

“Because we needed the best gbeto possible.”

“To establish a military, we created living weapons. We sacrificed members of our community in the name of protecting that very same community. And we did it without hesitation.”

“They volunteered.” Paki’s voice remained irritatingly even.

“We still bear some responsibility.”

“But none of that was up to you. Not even going through the Orun Gate. The R gave the orders.”