milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[oom: Guppy fails in his role as the fountain of all knowledge.]

Guppy makes it half way across the bar when he realises that a lot of the patrons are, well, kind of shorter and younger...

Hmmm.

He goes into the infirmary, and finds it as he left it (deducing from this that he has not gone back in time), except that one of his younger two (male) waitrats is attempting with limited success to feed a pair of tiny, eyes barely open half bald waitrats, still dressed in their now very oversized scrubs shirt.

"Aesclepius? Work Experience?" Guppy peers at the pair. The third waitrat, Backup, shrugs and hands him the syringe of milk.

"Wait, what happened?" he asks, but his remaining waitrat, tired by days of feeding every few hours, scurries off for a kip.

Five minutes later, he's got the two shrunk infirmary waitrats in a cardboard box on a warm towel, and is back in the bar looking for some answers.

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"It is very clear," Teja says. "The fangs, the dark face, and the axe distinguish us; and we are in circles as we are not, originally, part of the tale."

Pause.

"Valjean is worried of Javert, and Javert is scared of Valjean, to put it simply, because as they have known each other long and have been associates and enemies over the years. Valjean freed him at the barricade, when Gavroche recognised him as a police spy and the revolutionaries meant to kill him; and it seems that might have been what drove him to the river: - the overwhelming debt of his life, towards one that was an enemy, and not a good man by his books, which were ever strict and of the law. Now, Javert maintains Valjean is a good man, while yet running from him to another world in fright, and all his strict books of law inside his mind have come undone."

Pause.

"Also, I did not apprehend Vlad; I merely set him terms to make amends."

"I know, but it didn't fit on the page." Guppy says.

"This diagram doesn't explain what we do, mind."

"No, or it would be scribbled over completely," Teja says. "But yes, that does help."

Pause.

"I asked Valjean to come and speak with you, as you are Javert's doctor and should know whatever he would freely tell."

"Okay." Guppy nods. "Not that I've had much success."

"But you have sworn an oath, and have a code of conduct as a healer," Teja says, "which makes you trustworthy. I am not so much of Security in this, merely myself. I feel great sympathy with all of them, even Vlad."

"Make sure you take time to look after yourself."

"It is not a non-stop occupation," Teja says. "I do what I always do, and then I spin their story for these 1832 people -- at least that is what it feels like. They give my the unspun wool of their thoughts and feelings, and I try and make a tale, so that we may understand them, and help them where needed."

"We need to be careful how deeply we intervene." Guppy says. "And to acknowledge that whatever we do may not help."

"Thank you, Guppy," Teja says. "I had hoped you would say some such thing, some modern piece of experience, that would be helpful to an Ostrogoth that feels too much, maybe."

"Well as I said to Gavroche, we have to watch the butterfly effect."

"Butterflies?" Teja says. "That happens when?"

"There's a saying that if you go back in time and a butterfly flaps its wings a tornado occurs the other side of the world." Guppy says. "It means basically don't mess with the past, or you may not have a future to go back to."

Teja is silent.

"I think in Milliways, people do this all the time," he says.

"But if you know the future, it's different." Guppy says. "Stopping someone dying who you know in the future is dead is different from stopping someone dying when the future is unknown."

"I would not have the heart to tell Gavroche not to save his sister," Teja says. "Even though she is enamoured with the same Marius Valjean's adopted daughter loves, and if she lives, that might complicate things. But she cannot be let die merely to provide another's happy ending!"

Guppy is quiet for a moment.

"I explained the risks to Gavroche and advised him to let his sister decide."

"That is the most honest course," Teja nods, face grim.

"And only one that Gavroche can decide. But there's no guarantee that saving her now will not still cause history to spring back into place by killing her later."

"She might simply die later on the barricade, when Gavroche himself died," Teja says.

"Exactly. And then you risked the universe for nothing."

"But who would not risk the universe for someone they love?" Teja asks. "Would you not risk it for your wife and children? Would I not risk it for Adalgoth, Wachis, and their families?"

"I hope I will never end up in that position." Guppy says quietly. "At very least if I never know my own future I can do what I would do."

"But even knowing the future, how could one resist a chance to set things right in that way?" Teja says. "This is a place of second chances: - why should we ask them not to take those?"

"There isn't an easy answer to that." Guppy says. "And I'm certainly no expert."

"It if were easy, we would not still be mangling our minds over the question," Teja points out.

Edited 2013-10-21 21:25 (UTC)