Free The Long Road to Gaia by Timothy Ellis

wisdom, within the ship's databases. But these
were not all.
    Many of the colony ships to leave after,
carry similar databases. I methodically visit each one, deleting prophesy
completely. Except for one.
    The ship's name was "Thor's Chariot".
The people on it were all members of a much ridiculed group, trying to
perpetuate the old Norse way of life.
    Twelve stopped me this time, before I
deleted prophesy.
    "No," he said, materializing next
to me. "This one is different. Follow them forwards."
    I did. I see myself changing prophesy to
suit their beliefs. For centuries, nothing out of the ordinary happens. And
suddenly they burst forth from their system and attempt to control human space
travel. The result is war, and they lose. The war itself is blocked to me, as
is most things after it, but I still find headlines in the then media to know
the outcome. I also found something called 'the Hunter Memorandum', which
showed the war being used to support the Keepers of the time, advocating what
One wished.
    I returned to where Twelve waited for me.
    "Interesting."
    "Yes. And necessary, so don’t screw
with it."
    "What do I need to do here then?"
    He told me.
     

Three
     
    I returned to where the three great
explorer ships were proposed. I ignored Galactica, since I already knew she
survived long enough to provide prophesy for when it was needed, and in the
form required by One. Following her was unnecessary, since I already knew what
she had done up until this time, and was blocked from anything in her future
from there.
    I followed Prometheus to see what would
happen to her. She left Earth system faster than Galactica had, with the first
set of recommended updates sent back by her sister ship. She moved down the arm
in the opposite direction to Galactica.
    Her scout ships explored one system to each
side of her down spine course, sending back information for the third ship
still being built.
    Long years later, she arrived at the first
of the spine systems which seemed to have many systems beyond them. The scouts
were faster now, and they were able to map two jumps on, before Prometheus
jumped further down the spine again. Nations looking towards distant empires,
greedily divided up the core systems amongst themselves, gambling on how many
systems there might be beyond them. Russia, Japan, China, and India, all sent
colony ships to their new worlds, with newer Scout designs to explore their
space with. None of them were disappointed.
    Prometheus was long gone down the spine
when the first colony ships arrived.
    More long years later, she down jumped into
a system which almost proved fatal, as an asteroid field filled the system.
    At the last second before she hit the giant
asteroid in the down jump lane, I pushed both the ship and roid apart, long
enough for the helmsman to react and pull her upwards.
    "Nicely done," said Twelve.
    "Thanks."
    "You won't thank me soon."
    "Why not?"
    "You'll see."
    Three systems on, Prometheus down jumped
into a system with a pulsar. The shields protected them for just long enough to
become aware they were in trouble, but the entire crew died before they could
even change the ship's course.
    "You knew?" I asked Twelve.
    "Of course."
    "That's cold."
    "Necessary."
    "You sound like One."
    "Let's not descend to insults
please."
    "I assume I can't follow the ship to
see what happens to her?"
    "Correct. You need to delete prophesy
completely this time."
    I did so, also trying to see what I could
of the future from her databanks. I might as well not have tried. The data was
there, but I couldn’t retrieve it. I didn’t need Twelve saying anything to me,
so I simply returned to the launch time for Enterprise.
    Like Prometheus, I followed Enterprise to
see what happened to her. If she was destroyed, I wouldn’t need to do anything.
    Her launch was uneventful, and with the
second set of upgrades since Galactica left, she headed after Prometheus, but
instead of heading down spine, she started exploring off