Travelling Sideways

Ian Chai

Copyright (c) 1987

So. Professor Yang is gone. And we are still here. The fact that I wrote this story and you are reading it proves that he was wasting his time, anyway. But I am getting ahead of myself.

"Professor Yang," of course, was not his real title. One might call him "Yang Lao Tze," but his full title, roughly translated from Mandarin Chinese would have been "Honorable Old Master of Light and Dark Natures specializing in Sub-Unity Life-Forces." Of course, it does not sound that long in Chinese, since all words in Chinese are only one syllable long, unless you count compound words.

I was the personal aide of Tun Ismail bin Karim, professor of Anthropology at the Royal Academy of Natural Learning of Melaka, while he was on vacation in Tiong Utara. Tun Ismail told me he had wanted to visit the Great Wall of Cin Sih ever since he saw it from the viewport of the restaurant in the orbital station, Angkasa Tiga. Even today, it is the only man-made object visible on the Earth's surface from there.

So, although I was only a Chinese servant, he took me with him on his vacation because I could speak to the natives there. Not that he would have had any trouble finding Malay speakers, of course. Tiong Utara had been a Melakan colony for over three hundred years. So had half the world. But the anthropologist in him wanted to experience the culture to the fullest. In any case, I had been working for him for half my life, and we had become as close friends as a non-Malay can be with his Malay master.

We were walking down one of the old narrow streets of Peiping near our inn one morning, window shopping, when a middle-aged Chinese man was thrown out of one of the restaurants in front of us. "Can't you read the sign?" shouted the bouncer. "Malays only! Chinese scum! How did you get into the private dining hall, anyway?"

The man just sat in a daze on the street. After tossing a bag out after him, the bouncer went back inside. Sir gestured to me to help him up, and I did. That's one of the nice things about working for him: he has a concern for non-Malays one seldom sees.

As I was helping the man, I noticed that he was dressed in what resembled a white ancient Chinese scholar's skirt, black waist-coat and skull-cap, except that the material was very smooth and soft, and to my surprise, it was not soiled by his recent union with the street.

"Had a nasty bump, there, didn't you, eh?" said sir to the man. "I'm curious about what you're doing dressed in that odd looking outfit of yours, too. Is it for some kind of local cultural thing?" The man did look out of place in modern Peiping. Most of the locals had gone over to the baju and sarong of modern Asia Tengarra dress, as had most of the world, in order to fit with the styles of the Melaka Empire.

The man looked blankly at sir, and said nothing. Now, sir was a pretty liberal Malay, but one does not just stare when a Malay talks to you, so I shook him a bit, urging him to reply.

He mumbled something in Chinese.

"Come on, man, answer the sir!"

"I don't understand your language," he said, in Mandarin Chinese.

Now, by that time, I was pretty fed up with the guy. Sure, he might not have been able to speak the Sultan's Malay, but, surely he should have known enough to get along. I was all for dropping him right then, and let him thank his lucky stars sir was such a tolerant man, and I said as much to sir. However, sir was intrigued by the man's appearance, so he told me to ask the man in Chinese.

"Ok, so you claim not to know Malay, eh? Well, the sir here wants an explanation for your outlandish dress. It's not even Chinese New Year, so what's with the get-up, eh?"

"Uh, I... "

"Well, speak up, man!"

"I... that is to say, well... "

Sir interjected, "I think he's still pretty dazed, Yahya. Here, pick up that bag of his, and bring him back to the hotel, where we can question this guy further."

So I grabbed the bag and dragged/carried/walked the man back to our suite. He was mumbling something which sounded like "Miscalculation? Can't be... It worked, didn't it? Miscalculation?... "

"I created your world, you know?" he said, as we sat down in the outer room of our suite, where I slept. Sir's bedroom led in from there, so that anybody wanting to disturb him would have needed to go through me first.

"What?" I said, surprised.

"I said, I created your world. Or formed it, anyway."

"This guy's mad," I told sir, "he seems to be claiming to be Allah or something."

"Really? Quite a psychosis... you sure that's what he said?"

"Well, more or less. He says he formed our world." I turned to him and said, in Chinese, "You say you formed our world? What do you mean?"

"You'll think I'm mad, but I've got proof. I'm from another universe, really... a parallel one."

Sir interjected, "Translate everything he says for me, Yahya."

The man's name was Yang Chin Shih. He claimed that he was some kind of professor of nature or some such. In his world, he claimed, Melaka was a vassal state of a Chinese empire, not the other way around. In fact, the Chinese empire, which had blossomed from the Sung dynasty a thousand years ago, controlled the whole solar system, in a system-wide bureaucracy where the Chinese were the supreme people, guardian of Heaven and Earth. All other races, "barbarians", were subject to the great Chinese Emperor and the Brilliant Chinese People. No non-Chinese could own property; they had no rights, no claim to justice.

But he, Yang Lao Tze, saw the cruelty and injustice of their utopia. He felt that all races of humans should be given a fair chance, instead of being made slaves of the Chinese. He felt that this was in direct contradiction to the teachings of that great moralist and philosopher, Kung Fu Tze, which the Chinese claim to uphold.

It was also contradictory to the teachings of Buddha, whom most of the religious Chinese still upheld. Yet, the fact that the Buddha was Indian did not prevent the Chinese from mistreating the Indian race all through history.

(Sir mentioned, at this point, that his own Malay race had also historically mistreated the Prophet's own race, the Arabs.)

But because other Chinese in the past who had pointed out this contradiction between the actions and the principles of the Chinese people had mostly been ignored, and because he feared that if he spoke up against the injustice, he would be classed with the "barbarian lovers" and stripped of his position in the Imperial Institute, Yang had kept quiet about his convictions.

("Hah! That's what some people have accused us anthropologists of doing," interjected sir, "but we know that although the cultures of the non-Malay are not as advanced to ours, they have value, still, in Allah's plan. And, after all, everyone has the potential of becoming one of Allah's followers.")

He was, however, a learned man in the science of sub-unity life-forces, the microscopic building blocks of the universe itself, and he had discovered a method of harnessing the reverse-yin element. The reverse-yin element had been theorized by other sub-unity scientists as far back as a century ago, but although many findings of sub-unity had been capitalized for things like planet-ship propulsion, the reverse-yin element, which appears to be an analogue of the yin element, which orbits the yang element of the unities that make up compounds, but appears to travel BACKWARDS in time, had yet to be put to the service of China.

Until Yang found one, that is. He discovered a way to capture the reverse-yin element, and that led to an antiquity viewer, which, to put it mildly, caused quite a stir among the Masters of Nature around the solar system. He, in fact, received an Imperial Commendation of Nature Studies from the Heaven-Mandated Emperor himself, in Chang-an. This was the greatest discovery in nature studies since Zhou Man Kung discovered that the unity could be dispersed, releasing an enormous force, which could be harnessed for, among other things, electriliquid power and interplanetary travel.

Having received an Imperial Seal Grant, he now had virtually unlimited funds to continue his research into the nature of the reverse-yin element. He obtained one of the most powerful liquid-brains to aid him in the manifold calculations. And this was how he came upon his plan to save the world from Chinese oppression.

For he had not revealed everything he had discovered to the Imperial Nature Commission. They thought that his device merely was capable of capturing reverse-yin elements and thus providing them with a window in which to `view' history. But what he did not tell them was that he had also discovered a way to send yin and yang elements BACK through the window, thereby `changing' the past. Changing history.

Not only that, but he had devised a way to project a chi-field that would expand into the new universe thus formed, bringing him into it along with it.

He began his experiments by changing small things in the near past, like moving a piece of paper on a desk, after having photographed it in its original position and bringing the picture with him in the chi-field. Then he tried more adventurous things, like changing the color of one of his colleague's vehicle.

Once, he prevented a traffic accident which had claimed the life of a friend's son. He projected a board into the past, pushing the boy out of the way of a runaway xi-cart, just before it hit him. When he emerged, everyone only remembered the near-miss, not the mangled child. Yet he had a newspaper article and photograph to prove to himself that history had indeed been changed.

(Sir interrupted him at that point, objecting that his very act of appearing in the analogue universe would mean displacing something. But he explained that the chi-field starts as a geometric point in the new universe, pushing air and other matter out of the way to make way for his projection.)

He had discovered a certain principle of history manipulation: having changed history, one can never go back to the old universe. It had ceased to exist, having been replaced by the new universe. If it were not for the chi-field, there would have been nothing to indicate that the other universe had ever existed.

Finally, he was ready for his greatest experiment. China had started its technological climb in the Sung dynasty, about a thousand years ago, when philosophers and historians Chang Tsai and Cheng Yi realized that in order to understand the universe, they had to study the things in it. Their work was continued by the influential Chu Hsi, which set the scene for modern Chinese technology to grow from their alchemy. It was this technological edge that kept the Sung dynasty in power for a record 1059 years, far surpassing the 300-odd years of Tang and 400-odd years of Han, and it seemed like it would go on for another thousand.

He reasoned that if he could retard Chinese technological growth, other races would not be so far behind, technologically, and so China would not have the chance to enslave the rest of the world.

And the crux were those three key philosophers: Chang Tsai, Ch'eng Yi, and Chu Hsi. If he could get them to divert their energies to another focus, the world would be saved.

With his viewer, he determined that the famous legend of how Chang Tsai was inspired to investigate empirical knowledge was true. He was on his way to his student Ch'eng Yi' s house, when he saw a little boy playing with marbles. Since he had a little time, he stopped and watched him. The little boy's marble had rolled into a hole under a rock, out of his reach. But the little boy proceeded to move the large rock off from over the hole with a stick he used as a lever, thus exposing his marble. This had led Chang Tsai to consider, if a little boy could, by studying his surroundings, move a rock he could never carry, what could grown men do by studying nature? Upon arriving at Ch'eng Yi's house, they discussed his new idea, and realized that their concentration upon history would not reveal new ideas like this. That realization was the first step that led them to formulate their `Principle of Empirical Knowledge', which later inspired Chu Hsi's studies and subsequent discoveries.

Yang's plan was simple: he projected a razor blade into the past, cutting the strap of Chang Tsai's sandals. This caused him to have to hunt for a replacement strap, which caused him to be late, which caused him not to stop and observe the boy, which caused him to remain more concerned with studying human history. Thus when he arrived at Ch'e ng Yi's house, they continued with their historical studies as they had originally planned, and the `Principle' was never written.

"So in the vacuum thus created, Melaka rose to power and grasped world domination?" I asked, incredulously. By then, it was evening, sir having ordered us a room service lunch.

"So it seems," replied Yang.

"Well, he certainly has a rather thought-out and complex delusion," sir concluded, "even going to the extent of coming up with that peculiar outfit to back him up. Much of his scenario is recognizable as permutations of real-world situations. He reversed the roles of Chinese and Malay, and made them more severe, probably as a reaction against what he saw as an injustice done against him and his people by our superior culture. Similarly for his allusions to persecution of his prophet's race, the Indians, by his people. That is obviously borrowed from Malay subjugation of the race of our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Arabs." He turned suddenly to Yang: "Now admit it, you understand my language, don't you?"

Yang was taken aback by the sudden accusation, but no trace of comprehension came upon his face.

"Hmm, it appears his delusion has even covered up involuntary acknowledgement of the language. This is a really interesting case... I'm sure Daud would like to examine him." Daud, being Tuan Dr. Daud bin Muhammad Zainal, psychology professor, close friend, and frequent partner of his in the game of sepak takraw.

Sir was given to acting on impulse when something intrigued him, and Yang intrigued him deeply. He had shown us his reverse-yin device, but he claimed it must have been damaged when tossed by the bouncer, for it would not show us any past views on its screen. (Sir took this as more evidence of Yang's delusion, but Yang asserted that he could fix it, given enough time and equipment.)

The outfit he was wearing, too, was intriguing. The material appeared to have been made by the new Kassim-Assad process, invented only last year by that Javan duo, which has an outer molecular structure so inert and smooth that no dirt or grime can attach itself to it, which makes for an unsoilable garment. But the process was still prohibitively expensive, and the whole garment must have cost him a year's wages. He claimed, however, that where he came from, the process was invented by Wang Chen Xiao a century and a half ago, and since then, improved techniques and mass manufacture had made it the standard material for clothes.

Anyway, as I said, sir was given to acting on impulse when intrigued, and since we were supposed to return to Melaka that week on Khamis, (it was then Selasa, so that was two days away) sir booked an extra seat in the non-Malay section on the kapal terbang and brought Yang back with us to the academy!

During the intervening time, we told Yang about Melakan history, because he was curious about it. We told him about how prince Parameswara of Palembang left his father's court and went to Temasik, and later on to Melaka, where he met some Arab traders who converted him to Islam. He then changed his name to Iskandar Shah, and, by the power of Allah, he proceeded to set up the most powerful empire in the world.

Of course, this did not happen at once. Melaka was only one state among many in a peninsula subjugated by the Siamese king.

But during the reign of Manzur Shah, a curious man appeared at the Melakan court with an interesting gift. Zulkifli bin Said Ahmad had fl ed from Arabia after being accused of heresy and consultation with Satan. He had harnessed a Chinese invention, gunpowder, and produced a weapon capable of killing an enemy from a distance: the bedil. Sultan Manzur Shah believed him when he asserted that he had discovered this by experimentation in natural phenomena, and logical reasoning, not by consultation with evil spirits as he had been accused.

Thus Zulkifli was appointed chief alchemist to the Sultan, and his disciple, a Malay prince and brother of the heir, Tengku Harun ibni Manzur Shah, eventually established the Royal Academy of Natural Learning, during the reign of his brother, Alaudin Riayat Shah.

It was from this distinguished institute that the golden age of Melaka blossomed. First came the fire-motor. Then the automatic bedil. The inventions multiplied faster and faster until no nation in the world could challenge Melaka' s superiority.

Thus the Empire of Melaka stretched over four continents and a hundred colonies. Even the Arabs and the Spanish in the end submitted, and with the exception of the Pikanas Federation on the Sunrise Continent, she had lost none of her colonies. But the Pika nas were Malays, anyway, having displaced the native orang asli tribals, who did not even have horses, or even wheels, but only domesticated dogs which dragged crosswood sleds.

At first, Yang was horrified. He kept mumbling, "It only shifted, from Chinese to Malay. Nothing's solved." But later, he changed his mind. He confided with me that our world did seem less unfair: at least non-Malays were not slaves with no rights. They were merely second-class citizens, and native peoples, and, by and large, were left to govern themselves, with a Malay overseer, except in the several cases when exploitation on a large-scale basis was thought profitable by Melaka. Of course, Melaka exacted a tribute from every colony, and even most of the semi-independent native states of Africa, and the Southern Sunrise Continent. But it was nothing compared to what China did in his world, he reasoned.

Even then, however, the world was still not perfect. Oppression still existed. "Well, I must try again, then," he reasoned, "We have taken a step in the right direction. I must repair my machine and take the next step."

Since I did not believe his machine ever worked in the first place, I just shrugged and humored him.

When we got back to Melaka, sir took him to see Dr. Daud, and I tagged along as an interpreter.

"Quite a change from your regular work with the English hill tribes, eh, Ismail?" The doctor had just finished listening to Yang (through me) tell his story again.

"Well, Daud, old chap, you know me... " replied sir, "So, what do you make of him?"

"I'd say he has a pretty deep-rooted psychosis here. As you pointed out, he had reversed the roles of our race and his in history, and made up quite an elaborate fantasy with it, too. In his world, the Chinese are higher in technology than we are, and even more oppressive. This is probably due to a Wadinian excessiveness condition. He probably views Malay oppression in an exaggerated manner and postulates Chinese superiority by giving them a technological edge."

"Uh, sir doctor, pardon, may your servant say something?" I interrupted. At his assenting nod, I continued: "He did say to me on the kapal terbang that his scheme wasn't a complete failure because the current regime is less oppressive than the previous."

"Well," asserted the doctor, "that's merely a Zaini complex of rationalizing to himself to make his position more bearable! But of course, you're just an unlearned non-Malay; you won't know that."

"No, sir. Sorry, sir."

"Well, Ismail, I'd say you've found another way to waste your own money again. He's just another typical delusion case."

"Oh, I won't say the money's wasted, Daud. I did have a good time, and my life's not in any financial straits."

"Yeah, well, just be glad that his majesty Sultan Mahmud Idrin Shah likes your stuff about those British barbarians, and don't let him think you're wasting his money monkeying around with mad Chinamen instead of producing another of your cultural analyses on those heretical Anglicans. I never understood why he likes reading those boring papers of yours, anyway!"

Both men laughed. The two friends had been jestingly trivializing each other's work for as long as I had known them.

Sir gave Yang a job at his mansion as an assistant houseboy, for he took pity on the poor madman. After a while, Yang did learn enough Malay to understand simple commands, so things worked out pretty well.

The vacations were soon over, and his students came back and school started again, and we settled back into our regular routine.

Yang expressed an interest in history and gadgets, so I got him some books for him to read in his spare time, and even a Malay-Chinese dictionary. Malay was a very regular language, so it was relatively easy to learn. Yang was soon pretty proficient in interpreting the Arabic script that Malay was written in.

The next year, sir, several of his graduate students, and I went to Britain for three months to continue his fieldwork among the English hill tribesmen. Many of his students brought servants along, too, and we, along with the porters sir had hired in London, carried the equipment and followed them around. Because I had been with sir for so long, I had picked up quite a bit of the English language, and we had a fun summer hiking from village to village, talking to them, and recording their culture, religion and myth. I called myself "Ian" among them because it is the Scottish version of my name, "Yahya," and the English version, "John," was too common among them for my tastes.

One morning, a couple of days after we returned, Yang met me excitedly.

"I've fixed it! I've managed to fix my machine!" He grasped the sleeve of my baju, dragging me to his room.

"What? What machine?"

"The reverse-yin machine! I managed to decipher the Malay symbols for scientific terms and correlate them to my knowledge, and I've managed to rig it up again!"

Half his table was taken up by a jumble of wires, circuits, and various pieces of plastic taped, soldered and glued together. I recognized the main segment as the control panel of the machine he had shown us on that first day, with the same screen above it.

He sat down and put his hand on the control panel. Streams of Chinese text started filling the screen, which then split into two windows, one of text, and another of picture. The picture, which looked like an ordinary three-dimensional laser projection, showed me, as a boy of ten, being led into the house by my father! It was the day I was hired by sir! Eleven years ago, I had joined sir's household as a houseboy, but there were no cameras to record the scene! Just another domestic being hired, that's all. No big occasion for anyone but me. But I remembered it, and that was exactly what the screen showed!

I just stood there for several minutes, mouth agape, immobile.

Meanwhile, Yang was resetting the coordinates, and the scene changed. It now showed the Sultan's palace. Then the Jaffar dome installed fifty years ago around it disappeared. The scene changed rapidly, while maintaining the same view of the palace, while the surrounding background slipped back in time. The letricars disappeared, to be replaced by close-fired vehicles, then horse-drawn carriages. The entire New Wing of the palace disappeared. Finally, the palace itself was reduced to a relatively small wooden structure, raised on stilts. I recognized it as the original Manzur Shah palace of six centuries ago, which I had seen depicted in paintings and reconstructions before.

And there, in the courtyard, was the great Zulkifli, with his original bedil, about to demonstrate it to the Sultan and his advisers under the royal shelter behind him.

Suddenly, I realized to my horror what Yang was about to do: "No! You're going to change history again!" In that horrifying moment, I realized that if he was not mad all along, then he was what he claimed. This meant that if he changed history, he would kill every one of us!

He turned around with a determined look on his face: "It will be for the best! Melaka must not have the technological edge. Nobody must be allowed to, then there will be no opportunity for oppression." He moved his finger, and the air around him started glowing.

That must be the chi-field! He's starting it. I lunged at him, but too late: he had projected an air pocket into the metal of the explosion chamber of the bedil and, as it ignited, the whole thing blew up in Zulkifli' s face! That would cause Manzur Shah to lose faith in his science, and...

The universe changed.

We were in a clearing in the jungle. Or at least it was a clearing cleared by the extruding chi-field. I had just made it into the chi-field before the change was made.

"You... you've murdered them! Everyone I ever knew, my whole world... gone... " I felt like I had no energy left. I just sat down on the undergrowth, empty.

"No, they are not dead," he said, standing above me.

"What do you mean, not dead? They're all gone! The house is gone! This is a jungle!" I screamed.

"Yes, they're gone, but not dead. They were never alive, so they could not die. They never existed, and there is no evidence that they ever existed, except in your memory and mine."

I felt numb all over. Yang collected his machine together, from the table, which had come with us, and put it into his bag.

"Come! We have a whole new world to discover, out there. And I daresay it will be a better one than the one we came from."

Yang was better prepared this time, and he had packed food, drink, clothes, survival equipment, and the gold which he had obtained by selling his unsoilable outfit. Most of this was packed in a knapsack which I slung over my shoulders.

We soon came to a road, which was paved with asphalt. Several vehicles passed us, engines roaring.

"I think those are close-fired vehicles," observed Yang, "which means that their technology is about a hundred years behind yours."

I just trudged dully beside him.

Suddenly, I saw a sign up ahead. I was written in some alien tongue in ROMAN characters! And below that, were the words, in English, "Coke: it's the real thing!"

Now if that didn't beat it all! English! Of all things to find so near Melaka. And there was another sign: "Melaka: 10 kilometer," made of molded white plastic reflective letters on a green-painted metal background.

Presently, we came to the outskirts of the city. The city of Melaka was a great deal smaller in this world, but it existed. We overheard several people talking in a jumble of Malay and English, and I soon realized that the alien language was Malay written with the Roman alphabet! Had England become the super-state in THIS world? I had a sinking suspicion that we were back where we started, with the English replacing the Malays. But in my world, the Malays had not made the English change their alphabet. Was this world worse off?

Melaka was little more that what I knew of before as Old Melaka Town, the part of Melaka which surrounded the original port area.

Most of the men and even some of the women were dressed in various shirt/trouser combinations, although we did see a few in sarongs, and a couple of women in some variant of the baju kurong. Most of the women wore simple skirts and blouses.

Near the old city center was the remains of an old fort. I deciphered the sign near it, which said that it was the main gate of a Portuguese kubu fort called A Formosa, which was destroyed by the British. So, the British did come into power, here. But the Portuguese preceded them?

We found a museum in a small scale reconstruction of the original palace not far from the kubu. After being told to do so by the Malay guard in English (there was also a little sign on the steps to that effect), we took our shoes off before entering. (So, the custom of removing footwear before entering someone's residence had spread to public buildings? Not so, we found out later: only in certain Malay museums.)

Through the displays there, we found out that the Portuguese had conquered Melaka 1511 years after the birth of Christ. (Yes, they used the ancient European calendar system, but I remembered enough information to convert it to the Islamic calendar, so I got a bearing of when it was.) Wow! That was nearly 500 years ago! So, Zulkifli's invention had come barely in time to save Melaka, being only a century before that. Later on, the Dutch took over from the Portuguese, and later, the British, in building an empire almost as extensive as Melaka's, took over the whole peninsula, and half the island of Borneo, as well.

But, as we found out from an adjoining museum, (which, curiously enough, incidentally, did not insist on the footwear removal) the British no longer held this empire. After something called the Second World War, the whole empire disintegrated into independent countries. Of which, Melaka was now a state in a federation known as Malaysia.

Since England did not have monopoly on the empire-making scheme but had to share it with other European nations, this world was less dominated than either of ours, so the colonies had all managed to garner enough power to throw off its yoke.

Melaka seemed to have become quite a museum town, as it became of little economic importance. The port had silted up due to neglect, and its main industry seemed to be catering to the various history-conscious tourists. For even though its life as a major empire had been cut short, even in this world it had had the largest empire in Asia Tengarra, or as they call it in English, Southeast Asia, prior the the European expansion.

By the time we finished gleaning all this information from the various museums, it was late in the evening. We had to do something about surviving this world ourselves. For the moment, we were all right, for Yang had brought enough microrized food for us to survive a month, and, what with the equatorial climate, it would not be too hard to survive without proper shelter, but it would not do for the long run. We walked out to the beach and set up the tent Yang had packed there, although that brought us quite a few curious stares from the locals. I guess they did not have automatic-pitching tents yet.

Yang was encouraged by the data we had gathered. Once more, his meddling had resulted in a more egalitarian world than the prior one. But it still had its colonizing empires, and although things appeared pretty benign then, it looked like things had not been so in the past.

"Just one more twiddle," he told me that night in the tent, "and we should be home free. I just need to find the crux for this British Empire."

"But if you negated the British Empire, won't someone else just take over again? You saw, the Portuguese and the Dutch beat them to Melaka," I argued.

"True... what I must do is to negate the whole European system. In any case... "

"Hey!" Someone outside shone a flashlight into the tent. "No camping is allowed here!" the voice said in Malay.

I got out, and there were a couple of policemen standing there. "I'm sorry; I didn't know... "

"All, right! Where's your I.C.?" one of them demanded.

"I.C.? What... "

"So, he doesn't have his identification card with him, eh?" He smiled a knowing smile at his partner. "Well, I guess we'll have to take him in, now, won't we?"

One of them approached me and started to take out his summons book. The other one continued, "Now, are you sure, perhaps you should look in your wallet?" he hinted.

They wanted a bribe! But I had no money of their kind, and I doubted that my Royal Melaka banknotes would appease them.

"Uh... I... "

"What do you say, we talk this over a cup of coffee? Hey, old man!" he shouted into the tent, "Won't you join us?"

"Wait... I come soon, good?" came Yang's voice. A pale glow came from the tent.

Suddenly, I realized what that was: the chi-field! The bastard! He's going to leave me here! I'm not ready for non-existence!

"Excuse me, I'll go get him... "

"Oh, no, you don't." The cop grabbed my arm. "Don't think you can get away so easily... "

The glow was brightening, and soon it would be too late! I punched the cop in the stomach with my other hand and lunged for the tent. The other cop grabbed my leg as his partner went down. I smashed to the ground halfway through the door of the tent, and I could see Yang in front of the reverse-yin machine, half obscured by the chi-field already.

I kicked the cop with my other foot, but as he fell backwards, the other cop got to his feet and threw a punch at me, but I rolled over and his fist hit the sand. I lunged again at Yang...

... And fell right through. Half the tent had disappeared, along with Yang, and some of the sand below him. I found myself in the depression in the sand thus created, looking up at the two amazed cops staring the spot where Yang was.

The knapsack lay just at the edge of the depression, and I grabbed it, took out the self-defense stunner Yang had packed as part of his survival equipment, and stunned the two men before they could react. As they crumpled to the ground, I realized something: we still existed.

According to Yang's theory, we should have ceased to exist as soon as he twiddled with the past, because we were not within the chi-field. We should have been replaced by the new world thus created, and it should have been as if we had never existed. Yet, there I was, standing over the two comatose corrupt cops. The sand felt real; the stunner in my hand felt real; and I felt real. My bruises even hurt, and I know pain is real.

In his haste, Yang had left almost all the survival equipment behind, so I packed up everything and started hiking away. The two cops would regain consciousness in a couple of hours. I know their kind: they would never file a report on me, for fear of being thought mad. They would not have any explanation for what had happened that night, and they were not the kind of people who would stand up for truth merely on principle.

That was over twenty years ago. With my superior technology survival equipment, and a considerable amount of luck, I had created for myself a legal entity in the local bureaucracy. Having established a small reputation for myself with some "inventions," I managed to persuade an American firm to hire me as an R&D specialist. Since the Americans were an English nation, I used that name I had given myself during those field trips in England with Tun Ismail, "Ian." Who would have thought, I would have ended up in the North Sunrise Continent speaking English!

As for old professor Yang, I suppose he shall continue along his merry way, travelling sideways through time, oblivious to the fact that he is in fact merely spawning off new branches, instead of creating a better universe of equality among races. The poor man would never know that each time he makes a better world, the uglier one he left would continue on without him, and thus his reform would, for them, be futile.

Ian Chai was introduced to SF at the tender age of 7, and to computers at the medium-rare age of 12. He was all set to make writing SF his career and programming his hobby, but his father wisely intervened and suggested he reverse them, so he is now a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of Kansas. Born in 1966 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, he has lived in Johore, Sabah, Singapore, Kansas, and Germany and his old Mac Plus he writes on is almost as well-travelled as he is.

chai@hawk.cs.ukans.edu