on the ethics of time travel

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Here's the thing though, space doesn't exist. Space is just time. Some people say it's time visualised, or maybe it's just an easier concept for us to understand. But all we know is that once you leave the stratosphere, we're just travelling through time.

And trust me, you can definitely hear in time. You can hear everything that has ever happened in that slice of time. If you scream, everyone who will ever cross that slice of time will hear you. They won't dare linger for too long, but at least they'll know you were here, if that is any comfort.

Intergalactic travel pods are made with this in mind. All the pods are super sound proofed, and then they tell people that sound doesn't travel through space. Also, those 'far off' galaxies that you visit? They're actually just our future or past. You go fast and far enough, you'll eventually reach where our planet sits in a thousand years, or maybe a million. The trick is to get there when the planet is actually there. If you don't? Well, I guess you'll be joining the chorus of screams that nobody will ever hear.

Now, you might be asking me how I know all this. Well, you see, I was on the team who discovered time travel. Sort of anyways, we can get into the details later. Key word of course is was--when I realised that we would be affecting our past and future worlds, I thought that was a mighty bad idea. But everyone was all, "shut up Tommy" or "you're just the janitor, Tommy".

Who cares! I have a PhD in aerospace engineering too. Grant funding is tough, y'all, you take whatever you can get to stay working in labs. And that's exactly why, when they realised I might say something that could threaten more money, they decided that I should be the one who tested out the new technology.

Anyways, when they threw me out (to space, quite literally), I learnt two things. One was that you could actually survive out in space. We thought of space as a vacuum and that without a helmet or space suit you'd immediately die. I really had hoped that we were right and that I wouldn't need to wither away. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

And the second thing I learnt? Is that the comms on my suit weren't broken. They were turned off. So the rest of my team back home? They definitely know I'm alive. I'm just biding my time until they catch up to where we are now. They know it, I know it. They're probably hoping that I'm dead by the time the planet gets here, but I've just had a very, very long time to think about my revenge. If I've done my calculations correctly, they should be here twenty-one years after I got here. What year did you say you left Earth? Okay. So we've got another seven years to plan our revenge. What am I saying, our? I meant, my revenge.

But enough about me, how are you? You mustn't hyperventilate too much. I've survived this long out here, and I really have enough supplies that I needn't kill you. You'll get used to the lingering screams after a while and you look a bit too small to eat. So what do we say, do you want to be my second in command? You don't really have a choice. What's your name? Mila? Welcome aboard, well, this plot of space, Mila. We'll be back on Earth in seven years, so just hang tight until we land.

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