Time Travel Omnibus, page 1140
Wezleski thought so. No one ever knew why. I think maybe I understand what he was thinking when he would just smile at certain questions, making his joking apologies to humanity for all the harm he had caused by inventing time travel.
Whatever the case, we do know what we know, and it’s too damn late to go home again. We’re human beings. As a race we’ve always been on one edge or another. I guess this is just the latest one. Well, that’s what comes from getting the race to where it was—too damn smart for its own good.
Working at keeping my body from spilling onto the floor, I pulled myself erect in my chair as best I could. I had, of course, absorbed Thorn’s soul the way he had Peasley’s. The CEO had been right; it was a rush, all right. One my people and I have all been through in the past when eliminating other would-be conquerors.
Even through my rage, I almost chuckled at Thorn’s questions to me—if I had ever had a truly creative thought, if I had ever known the thrill of having every ounce of a person’s creative life flash through my system?
Yes, Mr. Thorn, I have. But like any truly mature person, I learned long ago that pleasure always comes with an ever-escalating price tag.
“You know, chief,” my second said, taking a brief look down into Thorn’s uncomprehending eyes, “whichever ‘they’ said it first, ‘they’ were right. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
I just groaned and threw a mock punch at her head. She laughed. Hoping that somewhere Quentin Peasley was having his own richly deserved last laugh, I dragged myself out of zVz’s chair and headed for the door and back to work.
I was sure there was something to do somewhen.
TRY, TRY AGAIN
John Gregory Betancourt
Success would come with the flip of a switch.
It was a matter of life and death for Dr. Keith O’Conner. Not his life, but the life of his son. That’s why he had invented time travel . . . the transmission of electrically charged impulses back through the years to a human brain . . . his brain, to be precise. He would plant a warning thought in his own head on the day his son had died.
Just in time to save little Jacob.
It had been bad enough when he had lost his wife to cancer. But to lose little Jake so shortly thereafter, and in such a pointless way, chasing a ball into the street . . .
The idea of saving his son consumed him. He had worked tirelessly for twenty years to complete the time-travel machine. He had endured professional ridicule, the loss of his job at Boeing, and more hardships and setbacks than he could count. He would do anything, make any sacrifice, to bring back his son. His wife, Sally, would have wanted it this way.
And now it was done.
Standing back, he surveyed the mechanism that filled the basement of his house, a tangled maze of wires and circuit-boards connecting nearly fifty thousand begged, bought, or scavenged parts. He might be an old man now, but it had been worth it. He would make certain Jakey never died.
He fitted the crude metal helmet over his head, set the controls, and activated the machinery. An electric current made his scalp tingle.
“Come on . . . come on . . .” he whispered, concentrating.
“Grow any hair yet?” Jake asked.
“Not funny, kiddo.” Keith glared at his son. Jacob, at twenty-six, reminded Keith of himself at that age: long brown hair, quirky smile, intense brown eyes. But where had he gotten that sense of humor?
Jake feigned remorse. “Sorry, Dad. Did it work or not?”
“I don’t know.” Keith swallowed hard and glanced nervously at the basement stairs. “Go check.”
Jacob sprinted up the steps two at a time. Keith found himself holding his breath. Would his wife be up there now? Had his warning about her not-yet-discovered cancer—and instruction on how to cure it—made it back in time to prevent her death? The thought of saving her had kept him going these last twenty-odd years. If he could only get that message safely back through time . . .
His son came down the stairs slowly, a dejected look on his face.
“Sorry, Dad. Not this time.”
Keith sighed. Every great inventor had an off day. Sally, his beautiful wife, would be cured if it was the last thing he did.
“Check the settings,” he said. “We’ll try again.”
“Right-o.”
The second try . . . that would be the successful one. They were close, and he knew it.
It took half an hour to review every setting. He and his son adjusted variance compensators, checked and rechecked figures, and at last nodded to each other. This time it would work. It had to.
Keith fitted the helmet over his head, took a deep breath, and flipped the switch. He concentrated on sending the cure for cancer back to his own brain twenty years in the past. Again came a faint electric tingling, but nothing more.
“Well?” Sally asked. “Did it work?”
“I don’t know,” he said, pulling off the helmet. “I don’t think so. Nothing feels different.”
“Poor dear.” She touched his shoulder. “I know how much it means to you.”
He sighed and patted her liver-spotted hand, then looked beyond her at the circle of disappointed faces. The six staff members of the research division at O’Conner Pharmaceuticals all looked grimly resigned. Even the few of them who half understood the principles of time-transmission hadn’t really believed it would work; they had only humored him because he signed the paychecks. His reputation might have been built on a breakthrough cure for cancer, but when he started chasing time-travel, he knew he had lost their respect. Only Sally had believed, as she had always believed in him.
“Let’s see,” Sally said. “Maybe it did work and we just don’t know it yet.”
She motioned at the nearest wall-active, said, “News 4,” and the program flickered on.
“. . . Eighty-six thousand reported dead this month in South Africa . . .” droned the announcer’s voice, as pictures of plague victims flashed past.
The researchers at O’Conner Pharmaceuticals had just come up with the vaccine this week; his plants were hurrying to manufacture enough serum to cure the four million infected men, women, and children throughout the world.
But that wouldn’t help the two million already dead. Only sending the cure back in time could save them.
“Off!” Keith barked. The wall returned to normal. “All right, the cure didn’t make it back,” he said. “What happened?”
“I’ll check the settings,” Dr. Benhurst said. He motioned to the other researchers. “Places, everyone. Let’s find out where we went wrong.”
The third try . . . that would be the successful one, Keith knew. They were close. So many people would be saved, if only he sent the cure back fifteen years in time.
By the time they got to the fiftieth try, His Imperial Majesty Keith I, Emperor of the United Earth, was almost ready to give up.
His life was an open record of achievements. He had cured all major diseases, imposed world peace, and amassed a six-trillion-dollar fortune, which he used for the greater good of all mankind. His companies helped the poor, fed the starving, employed the unemployable. At his orders, human colonists had begun to settle the planets and moons throughout the solar system. Truly, a new age had dawned for mankind.
If only his time-travel experiments had worked, life would be perfect.
As his temporal transmission throne rose slowly from the isolation chamber in the center of the Silver Palace’s experimental medical unit, he had plenty of time to think about what might have gone wrong. The calculations? No, they were correct, to the last decimal! The transducer array? In perfect order! The potential Boltron particle accelerator? Hmm . . .
Then the shielding swung back like an eggshell pulling into itself, and dozens of staff members clustered around, monitoring his vital signs and the equipment functions.
“Well?” he asked.
“Sorry, Father,” said Prince Jacob, who headed the time-analysis team personally. “No change that we can detect.”
The emperor shook his head, and his elegantly coifed silver hair—so recognizable on every stamp and every coin in the world—flipped forward over his eyes. He casually brushed it back. Age had begun to creep up on him; his hands trembled.
“Check the settings!” he called. “Check everything! We will try again in one hour. The recipe for immortality must go back! Think of what I might accomplish if I get it young enough to make a difference! For the good of mankind, if I can be young forever, and forever inventing, there is no telling what I might accomplish!”
“Yes, sir!” said his son, beaming with pride.
“Keith,” said Empress Sally, taking his arm and helping him from the throne. “May I have a word in private, please?”
She looked radiant in her platinum-and-diamond tiara and the simple white lace dress and evening gloves she favored. But the lines around her eyes and the white hair showed her age. Of course, that would disappear with the cure for old age, and they would be young together forever.
He beamed at her. “Of course.”
They strolled out into the Silver Palace’s halls, past countless bustling servants, who stopped and bowed, and out into one of the countless gardens. As they settled into the deeply cushioned red velvet chairs, surrounded by strolling peacocks and the raucous calls of tame monkeys, servants appeared with trays of fruit drinks and delicate appetizers. The emperor waved them away.
“You have tried to send back the immortality formula fifty times now,” Sally said, taking his hand. “I don’t need you to be young forever, Keith. I love you just the way you are. Let it go.”
“But—”
“No.” She said it firmly. “It’s time to move on. Take the aging cure now and stay your present age. Fifty-six isn’t old. We’ll have forever together. That’s what matters to me.”
He sighed, but patted her hand. Yes, she was right. He had wasted too much effort on time-travel experiments. Never mind that it had been for her . . . it had always been for her.
He smiled, then kissed gently her hand.
“For you . . . anything.” He rose and offered her his arm. She accepted, and together they went out to rule the world.
Over the months and years and centuries that followed, he never gave another thought to his failed time travel experiments.
DEAR TOMORROW
Simon Clark
Ten
His name was—is—or will be John Salvin. The worst time of his life began when he waved goodbye to his wife and daughter. On that July evening, Kerry and ten-year-old Laurel climbed into a light aircraft that would take them on a sight-seeing flight over a Norwegian fjord.
The plane lifted off from the airfield before soaring out over the calm body of water that perfectly reflected the mountains. The last John saw of the plane—the last anyone saw of the plane—was as it climbed into a deep blue sky. The aircraft resembled a tiny, silver star as it gradually grew smaller, and smaller, and then vanished.
Nine
From the TV Times: Impossible, Isn’t It? The reality show that turns unreality on its head. This week the presenters go time-travelling.
Eight
London: Friday afternoon. Mr and Mrs Banerjee called in at a pizza takeaway to ask directions to a hotel. Mrs Kamana Banerjee had secretly planned a thirtieth birthday treat at the theatre for her husband. They were followed into the takeaway by a youth, who’d fled from a rival gang. One of the youth’s pursuers fired six rounds from a pistol. None of the bullets struck their intended target. Murad Banerjee, however, was, by sheer chance, hit in the throat. When the wounded man turned to his wife, his expression, she remembers, was apologetic, as if this incident was his mistake.
The instant Murad fell Kamana was beside him, cradling his head in her lap. Meanwhile, the hunted youth made good his escape over the pizza-seller’s counter and out the back.
Kamana Banerjee constantly replayed the lethal thirty seconds over and over in her head. The image of that unwarranted and unneeded expression of apology on her husband’s face haunted her ever since he’d died on the takeaway floor three years ago. Every time she recalled the circumstances of the killing she’d ask herself: Why did we choose that particular place to ask directions? Why didn’t we ask in the supermarket next door? Why didn’t we just walk further along the street? And she’d always offer up this heartfelt prayer to her pantheon of many gods: “Please turn back the clock. Please let me be back there in London with my husband, just before we go into the takeaway. Give me the chance to do things differently this time.”
Seven
Every so often, the tiny face of a child will peer out from a mass of starving people in Africa and touch humanity’s conscience. Might our “Dear Tomorrow” messages touch a nerve a thousand years from now? Just as the first, viable time machine shivers into life? So, why not join us, and be part of the greatest experiment in the history of humankind.
Press release for Impossible, Isn’t It?
Six
John Salvin hadn’t yet acquired the knack of living alone, even though five years had passed since his wife, Kerry, and daughter, Laurel, had vanished. This evening, he heard the drone of a light aircraft flying over the house. Instantly, he found himself transported back to the Norwegian airfield. In his imagination, he stood there again near the control tower, watching the single-engine plane dwindle into the distance, eventually turning into a silver speck that resembled a lone star drifting above the fjord.
John sighed. For as long as he heard the plane, which appeared to be doggedly circling above him, he would continue to inhabit that moment when the ill-fated machine carried his wife and daughter off the radar screens and out of his life forever. Quickly he set the tablet computer down on the sofa beside him, grabbed the TV remote then punched up the volume. Television didn’t interest him these days; however, laughter from an excited audience was enough to drown the memory-provoking sound of the aircraft above his house.
John never even glanced at the TV screen. Instead, he returned to the small screen that he balanced on his lap. Working in admin for a publisher of school textbooks kept him busy by day. Evenings were dangerous places, though. All too quickly he could find himself picturing what had become of Kerry and Laurel, so he’d managed to interest the company’s editors in his idea for a history book with an unusual twist.
Now here he was, gratefully busy with Voices from the Past—Letters from Long Ago. For six months he’d been carefully reading, winnowing, and listing items for an anthology of letters, missives and epistles written centuries ago. He preferred letters sent by ordinary people to family and friends, rather than those stilted communiqués emperors despatched to their civil servants. He scrolled down to find a choice example of a more homely missive—this particular one sent from a Byzantine mother to her son during the reign of Empress Theodora, circa AD 1056, in what is present-day Turkey: My son, to meet with your wishes I shall describe our house in Tarsus, which you have yet to see. From the street, we enter through a blue door into a cool hallway that has a floor of marble. To continue along a passageway brings you to the kitchen. This a pleasant place, and smells deliciously of fresh bread that Zoe bakes. The old chap that served us in Nicaea still tends the garden. We watch him munching grapes from the vine. Later he shouts loudly, shakes his arms, and performs such a drama to suggest that birds have stolen our grapes. This old greybeard is strange in his ways now.
John Salvin had been reading this vintage correspondence for several minutes before he realized that someone on television was talking about letters being like little time machines: that they often contain vivid glimpses of the past. John pretty much shared the same thought as he’d worked on his anthology of ancient writings, so the programme tweaked his interest; he looked up as the show’s presenter, a woman with a winning smile and clear, intelligent eyes, spoke to camera.
“Time travel machines don’t exist yet,” she said. “But what if they become a reality in the future? With that thought in mind, this show will conduct the most exciting and the most important experiment in the history of the human race.”
“Hyperbole,” John murmured, before adding a more resonant sounding, “Bollocks.”
The presenter continued, “Our experiment is beautiful in its simplicity. We ask viewers to record a short video that contains their message to the future. Here’s your opportunity to tell your descendants why you are speaking to them. When you’ve done that, I want you to upload the video to the Impossible, Isn’t It? website. We’ll be there at the rendezvous point on the big day, and our cameras will record what happens next. Now, over to Greg at the video wall.”
Bright and bouncy, Greg at the video wall described how TV programmes had acquired an immortality all of their own. With the aid of computer animations, he demonstrated how the viewers’ messages “will, indeed, be little time machines in their own right. Yes, okay, they will travel slowly into the future—just as slowly as you, me, Uncle Tom Cobley and all; nevertheless, your video messages will eventually be viewed sometime hence—perhaps a thousand years from now, when time travel is as straightforward as it is for us to nip down to the supermarket. So consider your letter to your descendants as being like a message in a bottle tossed into the sea of time.”
The female presenter returned to sum up the experiment. “Next week’s Impossible, Isn’t It? will feature a selection of your Dear Tomorrow messages. Archived recordings of the show will undoubtedly be watched centuries from now. What’s more, it’s my personal belief that time machines will be invented one day; that’s why I’m inviting time-travelling viewers from the distant future to visit us at our rendezvous point on Mount Snowdon in North Wales, on the tenth of July—that’s just twelve days away. We intend to broadcast a special live edition of the programme from the very top of the mountain. With us will be the vigil team, consisting of members of the public who have uploaded what we deem to be the most compelling and moving videogrammes. So will our unique invitation be a success? Will I be greeting people from those far off tomorrows? Find out for yourselves by joining us live on Mount Snowdon for the greatest experiment of all time.”
