Timeline Homework

" - topic is the Sistine Chapel, one of the great ancients Arts."

Rymere almost missed his wrist sensor vibrating Class dismissed as he lifted his head from his desk. He felt his cheek burning where he had leaned it on his arm to sleep.

Around him, his classmates were tapping their home coordinates into their wrists and evaporating until he was one of only two left.

His head cleared and he looked down at his wrist, tapping his own coordinates in and disappearing before he had to explain himself to the teacher.

His mother opened the front door when she saw him appear. The door was equipped with brain-wave recognition, so it would've opened automatically on sensing him, but his mother had said she liked opening it for him, so he let her anyway.

"Mum," he said as he unpacked his school bag onto the kitchen table, "would you mind if I go for a walk before doing my homework?"

His mother pointed upstairs. "Your father's waiting for you in his study. He wants to ask about your Paleolinguistics progress. He thinks you don't have enough lessons on it."

"Of course he does." Rymere refrained from adding He's a Paleolinguist, for goodness sake. It was just stating the obvious, and he knew it would set his mother on a long monologue on how smart her husband was, how important his job was, how unique, how wonderful.

He trudged up the stairs, muttering to himself. If only his father could be interested in something more useful - like programming. Then at least they would have something in common. Ancient and dead languages never helped anyone.

The study door recognized Rymere's brain-wave pattern but didn't let him in until he heard his father voice. Rymere couldn't understand why they had the security measure put in in the first place - his father never used it.

The study was full. Planet, solar and galactic maps covered the five walls, stacks of books - real books, with real paper and printing disfigured and coloured with age - littering the floor. His father was the only person Rymere knew who owned more than a single book; each family had a communal Bible in print, but no-one else was bothered to go through the immense stress and strain of finding more.

Rymere thought of his own room - half-programmed robots and software experiments lying in piles, walls filled with holographic certificates for teen IT contests. His latest experiment lay in the middle of it, begging him to return to it so it could be finished.

Father and son were similarly messy, although each was focused (Rymere reluctantly accepted the word 'obsessed') on a different topic.

"So," his father said without looking up from the Searian map he was studying, "your mother tells me the school hasn't given you the Paleolinguistics test results yet."

Rymere tried not to go red, pushing away the memory of the B+ test result he had hidden under his bed the week before. His father didn't notice.

"Recite the first verses of The Bible, Old Testament."

Rymere cleared his throat and began. "In the beginning -" He was interrupted.

"In Inta-Solarian."

Rymere cleared his throat again. "Min m'nahi-rillan, God larikh... m'isiidah rhinah... m'gaia. Ffbin - ffbina -" he faltered. His father grunted.

"Could be worse. Now in Itarenchi."

Rymere cursed under his breath. He had hoped his father wouldn't test him on any ancient ancient languages, especially not Earth ones.

"In principio Dio creò il cielo... e la terra, r la terra era informe e vuota... E le tenebre erano sulla faccia dell'abisso... e lo Spirito di Dio... aleggiava sulla superficie... delle acque... E Dio disse..."

Rymer pinched himself. He had never been this good at Itarenchi. Where had it suddenly come from?

His father looked up at last, giving him a small smile. "Good. You're learning. And Wanèrian?"

Rymere's heart soared. His father had said 'good'. He recited the first and second verses in Wanèrian with a confident voice.

"Stop. Dismissed," his father said, and he left.

Rymere sat down at his own desk and opened a new screen page to study the details of the homework that he has slept through. Write an essay on the Sistine Chapel, it told him. Min 500 words.

He scowled. He hated when the screen left out the maximum word count - he never needed it, but that's why it annoyed him.

He leaned his arms on the desk and put his head in his hands. Why had he picked History as his study subject? Rymere had chosen it 6 months ago, when he moved to this planet, and for the last 5 months he'd regretted it. Who wants to learn about the past when you can create the future? He gazed longingly at his latest half-finished gadget, then turned away. Not now. Homework first.

He stared at the title of his essay, How the Sistine Chapel is important and why it should be preserved, his mind as blank as the screen.

History was boring. He had wanted to leam about battles between planets and the struggle for the Galactic throne, and in these 6 months all they'd learnt about was Art.

The essay title bulged, filling his eyesight, filling his thoughts.

He was fed up . He was fed up with History , with Art , with homework. He'd never seen the Sistine Chapel - he didn't even know where in the galaxy it was! - and he was expected to put up an argument for why it should be preserved. How was he supposed to have an opinion on it?

Again, his eyes wandered to his experiment, and he hesitated. With just ten minutes of work, he could make it entirely stable. Then he would use it, and he would have enough information to write the essay.

He would do it.

Rymere pushed his chair over to the part of the room where his experiment lay, and opened his computer. The guide opened - the one that he'd written incase he got amnesia or something.

Timeline Machine it said, its voice a perfect replica of his own. Transports the user to a specified time and place in famous history.Condition: Unstable. Side effects of use may include - Rymere shut it off as his wrist vibrated. Class in fifteen minutes.

He dismissed it, saying to himself that he would have to get it fixed - then stopped, remembering that he wasn't on Seara anymore.

Here, the sun pattern was odd, and school happened whenever there adequate light - the artificial light used in homes, the school had declared 'radioactive', and 'unsafe for children'.

When the buzzing stopped , Rymere stared at the mark on his guide that meant 'Unstable'. He hesitated. Then reached out his hand. Hesitated again. And picked up the Timeline Machine.

The metal was soft in his hands, automatically adjusting shape, size and temperature to suit him. Rymere remembered the first time he had handled this metal - alien to his home planet Seara - he had dropped it in surprise.

He formed a keypad and typed the words Sistine Chapel. His finger hovered over the 'Activate' button and again he hesitated. His wrist vibrated Class in ten minutes, and he pressed it.