The traveler

The substitution of mysteries

"You really don't remember anything, Keymard?"
Keymard shook his head.
He really felt quite guilty for all this. After all those years, they finally found the InstaClaust, and all they need to know is his full name. He'd been awake for three days, and still he barely remembered anything.
"All I remember is having a funny dream where I was a medieval guy and another one where I was an Ownie guy."
"Medieval and Ownie? What are those?" Zarchi asked.
"Yeah, you know, they're both referring to earth times, with medieval referring to the period between 358 and χ50, and Ownie referring to being one of the Humans from the Own Age as they call it themselves, from about 1161 to 1291."
Zarchi was quite interested now.
"You know, dreams can actually contain information that you'd like to know but can't remember," he said. "Can you tell me more about them?"
"Not really," was the answer. "I only remember having them... and I think it was somewhat in the period where I was unconscious."
"But you remember absolutely nothing from them?" Zarchi asked.
"I think I was called different names in both of the dreams," Keymard replied.
This couldn't be a coincidence. Two dreams, two more names, and he only needed two more.
"Do you remember them?"
Keymard shook his head again.
"I'm sorry," he said.

The moment Zarchi walked out of the hospital, a Llotri (again, without a name) came to him.
"I think I've got some important news, all the way from Earth," he said.
Zarchi stopped and listened. "What is it?" he said.
"A man named Isaac arrived there, but he claims to remember being Keymard."
Zarchi looked at him, completely astonished.
"But that's not all," the Llotri said. "We actually managed to verify it by asking him different questions. This man either did a real good job on research only nine days after everything happened, or he's telling the truth."
"Did he remember any names?"
"That's the best part. According to him, his full name is Pierce Isaac Keymard."
Zarchi started to think. Three names, seven letters. And it has to lead to a number. It didn't take him that long to figure out that the first few letters of each name spelled out "PI IS KEY."
"I think the number we're looking for is pi," he said. "You know, the one equal to 3;184809493ε918... and so on."
"You know that number by heart?" the Llotri replied.
Zarchi rolled his eyes.
"I've got too much free time," he said. "Seven digits, two dozenals was the last thing on the clue, right?"
"I think so, but you've actually read it."
"So that would mean that our required weight is 31848;09 grams?"
"Presumably."
Zarchi thought for a while. It was quite small, and he knew almost nobody with a weight smaller than that. Add the weight of the armor to that and you just can't get to it. So someone was supposed to get in without armor and somehow manage to get to it. Zarchi realized the problem wasn't over yet even though he knew the number.
"Oh, right," the Llotri still said. "That man wanted to talk to Keymard, would that be possible?"
"I guess so... But isn't it quite dangerous?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, if I get this all completely and frankly I'm not sure I do, but if I do, those two people are the same person..."
Zarchi stopped for a while.
"Which would mean they can't actually be on the same place at the same time whilst being the same person."
"Who says that?" the Llotri said.
"The 14th rule of time travel, remember? When travelling to any point in time where your other self is as well, they can never be the same person, and thus never know the same things."
"So no matter what, Keymard cannot learn anything from this Isaac?"
"Exactly. And that would also mean there's not really a point in seeing him. What would be a solution is that he would tell us what to say to him, so we can go ahead and tell him. And beforehand, we could ask Keymard some questions which he'd like to see answered."
"Let's go ahead and do that then," the Llotri said. "I'll go get Isaac, you go ask Keymard some questions."

But unfortunately, Isaac and Keymard never actually got to know anything about each other, because when Zarchi walked into the room again, he saw that Keymard was unconscious again. Zarchi should've seen it coming. He now noticed a pattern: every time Keymard was awake for three days, after which he fainted and was unconscious for six days. It couldn't be a coincidence. Whatever was happening to Keymard was not normal, definitely not seeing as someone completely unknown to anybody appears to be him as well. He'd get revenge on whoever did this to him, that's for sure. He used to be close friends with Keymard, and now this has to happen to him. Not to mention that Keymard might not be the only target. Maybe there were already similar cases somewhere in the galaxy... Zarchi even decided the InstaCaust could wait.
First, there were more important things to take care of.