When the commander of the “Inconfidência” warned through the audio system that the passengers could already unbuckle their seatbelts, and that soon the flight attendants would serve snacks, Airu breathed relieved. She hated planes. She hated airships. Of course she knew the laws of Physics and also knew that was the safest way to travel, but it went against all her instincts. And she always relied on them.

She was sitting next to Túlio and Professor José Antônio. They were traveling in Economy Class, where there were three seats on each side of the center corridor. Several of the seats were empty, as on Fridays it was common for people to return from Cuiabá to the capital, Ouro Preto, or to the coast, while they were going the opposite way.

The city was on the border of Desert Tuiuiú, the largest ecological disaster of the whole Empire — the disordered exploration of the flood land of the Province of Mato Grosso and the introduction of pasture and cattle had destroyed the soil of a hundred and fifty thousand square kilometers. In Cuiabá, the Empire had set up a massive laboratory to research the recovery of the region, but with the constant budget cuts (destined to the War Ministry), the population had already conformed to the tragic destiny, and few believed it would be possible to do anything.

With so few people in the plane, Túlio got excited, thinking that maybe the professor would go back to talking about the mysterious drawing or the other secrets that must be hidden in his suitcase.

The deep noise of the aircraft's four engines was incredibly low, and now that they neared eight thousand meters high, the sky had a dark indigo tone.

Airu, who was avoiding looking through the window, took from her backpack a map filled with pencil annotations and began to unfold it. The Professor called Túlio's attention: “Look, Túlio — Airu already has a preliminary study of the region. Or, at least, what is known of the region.”

“Look, cari, where we're going: the mouth of the Padauari River, 800 km north of Ouro Preto do Oeste. Our initial idea was to use the military camp of Manaus, but it seems the people in the village will be training all month, so our visas were denied.

“Anyway, a plane will drop us off at the mouth of the river, and from there we'll go up by boat until the source. Or as far as possible… it's a very unexplored region, we can't know for sure what we'll find.”

Túlio remembered the nightmare he'd had and shivered. Airu pretended she didn't see it, but he got embarrassed and, trying to look braver than he truly felt, asked:

“And our task is to map the river? Just that?”

Professor José Antônio intervened: “It's not just that, Túlio. Since the theft of the rubber tree seeds, the Empire has finally awoken to the enormous economic potential of the Amazon Forest Area. It's extremely important that we reconnoiter all of its territory, map its riches and plan its occupation. Unfortunately, we don't have enough people for that, so during school vacations, teachers and students delve into the woods, helped by the army. It's a great adventure!”

“Maybe… but, in our case, we'll do more than map the river, won't we?” Túlio was already impatient to know more about the drawing.

“Speak lower, speak lower… yes, we'll do more than that. We'll fix everything!”

“Sometimes, Professor, I don't understand anything of what you say…”

“Rest assured, you're not the only one,” Airu retorted.

“Airu is more patient than you, Túlio, but she is also curious, I know. We're already on our way to the Forest Area… and out of danger, I hope.”

“Danger?” Túlio stammered.

“Quit being so fearful, cari!”

“Here's the thing: my father was titular of the Colonial History chair at the Imperial University, Salvador campus. When I was a kid, I remember his arguments with my mother about how long he spent entangled in the woods or in libraries looking for data to conclude his doctoral thesis. Those were Homeric fights…

“They got divorced before my father finished the thesis and my mother took me to live in São Paulo, where she began to teach Maths in the Polytechnical School of that campus of the Imperial University. My father never looked for us and the last news we had of him was that he had died of typhus in a trip to the interior of the Amazon Forest Area.”

“Wow, I'm sorry, Professor…” said Airu.

“It's alright… that was a long time ago. Anyway, that subject was buried and my mother never touched on it anymore. I graduated, got my masters and doctorate and, as you know, I teach at Cuiabá. When my mother died, I went to São Paulo to deal with the practical part: the burial, the house sale…

“Cleaning the attic, I noticed an old chest locked with two padlocks. I didn't have the keys and wanted to be done with the cleaning, so I sent it to Cuiabá together with some pictures and paintings. For over a year it sat in my garage, until, during a weekend of my winter vacations, I ended up making up my mind to break the lock and check out the contents.

“To my huge surprise, the chest was full of my father's belongings! Among the stacks of papers, there was a letter where he explained that all the research material for his doctoral thesis was there and asked that my mother kept it, because he didn't trust anyone anymore.

“I spent two weeks looking into that material. My father's theory was that Cabral had found something fabulous among the indigenous peoples, something that caused Portugal to overcome the technology of the greatest powers of the time. He had no idea what it was and found several obstacles during his research — most, practically all documents of that trip, had simply disappeared. He traveled to Portugal to proceed with his research and, in a stroke of luck, met an old monk in the Monastery of Alcobaça. The monk pitied him and, saying he could no longer keep ‘such a terrible secret,’ took him to the library. According to him, the Cloister of the Library was built in the XVIII Century to store a single document, hidden among many other ‘less important’ ones — a picture of the day of the discovery…”

“The drawing made with the ballpoint pen!” Túlio exclaimed without restraint.

“Exactly. The monk gave the drawing to my father and said he was the last guardian of that relic. He recommended a lot of caution, because that drawing ‘could bring nefarious consequences to the Empire by deconstructing all Human Creation and reverting the Firmament to the Divine will.’

“My father was impressed, because he immediately recognized the pistol on the indian's hand. On an envelope, the old monk wrote the name and address of a Jesuit priest, a Modern Physics professor at the University of Évora.

“A week later, my father met with priest Jaime Montalbaneros and said he had been indicated by the monk of the Monastery of Alcobaça. The priest took him to his office, and they locked themselves in there for more than four hours. At that point, the annotations edge on science fiction and even I have trouble believing they are totally true…

“According to priest Jaime's theory, it is possible to travel in time…”

He said that with a certain hesitation and looked from Túlio to Airu, waiting for sarcastic laughter or any other sign of discredit. But neither of the two even blinked — they were petrified, attentive to the story.

“Well, according to him, time travel is possible, but under one only condition: from the moment an apparatus is built, a ‘time machine’ or ‘portal,’ onwards.”

Airu retorted readily, “But that's obvious! Without a time machine, how could you travel in time?”

“That's not what I meant… I'm not a Physics professor, this is all a bit confusing. But the theory is that you can only travel to a moment in time where there already is a machine or portal. For example: if we build a time machine today, we cannot return to the time of dinosaurs… but someone from the XXIV century could come out of the portal and visit us!”

“But that machine is kind of useless, no?”

“No, Airu… we could visit the future… and, besides, maybe in two thousand years people will be interested in knowing our way of life… but that's beside the point. The thing is that this type of machine requires an immense amount of energy to work. A massive amount, equivalent to a medium-sized hydroelectric plant.”

“Oh… so we won't have a wristwatch that allows us to retake tests…” Túlio said with a naughty smile.

“Indeed, indeed… priest Jaime also explained something even more worrying to my father: the Germanics would be developing a new type of energy generator, something so powerful that, if used as a weapon, could destroy all Ouro Preto in a matter of minutes — an atomic dismemberer.”

“The name is funny… but something tells me that the effect isn't…” Airu frowned.

“It's not funny, Airu… the War Ministry seems to be very concerned about Germanic research, especially if it's related to time travels. According to priest Jaime, he himself was a consultant of a project to detect that type of energy, using airships especially prepared with devices sensible to wavy emissions, whatever that is.

“It seems that three areas of ‘radiologic’ activity as he called it were found: one is in the region of the Baltic Sea (Peenemünde), the other, lucky for the Empire, in the African colony of Gabon (Oklo), and the last one in the Amazon Basin Forbidden Human Permanence Forest Area. More specifically, a few kilometers above the mouth of Padauari river.”

Túlio felt his stomach twist: “Oh, no! You've got to be kidding!”

“So that's why they're sending us there!” said Airu.

“Exactly! But the military doesn't know I had access to my father's research material. To them, I'm only following orders, without second intentions. And be careful the two of you, huh! Don't go running your mouth!”

“But, Professor, do you think we'll find a power generator in the middle of the Amazon Forest Area? That's impossible! The indians couldn't have built something like that… nothing against you, Airu, but they had no way to do this, I don't know… five hundred years ago. Did they?”

“It's likely that all we'll find is an enormous number of rocks, Túlio, like priest Jaime said he'd seen in Oklo. But made of a curious mineral, still not well studied by our scientists. Anyway, he thinks this ore can be used as an energy source. And that, if there is an energy source capable of boosting a trip in time, it's in the Amazon Forest Area.”

“But what about the one that was detected in the Baltic Sea?”

“About that one, the priest had no information. He thinks it's an ‘experimental reactor,’ since the readings were in much lower scale than the ones of Padauari river.”

“Let me see if I understood well, Professor: we'll explore the forest looking for a magical source of energy capable of transporting us in time to the day of the discovery. Is that it?” retorted Túlio, who felt his stomach more and more revolted.

“Basically, it is,” said the Professor with a grin.

“Oh, my God… excuse me, I have to go to the restroom.” And he went running down the corridor with one of his hands holding his mouth, while Professor José Antônio and Airu laughed at him.