Robert Heinlein - Time For The Stars

I said, "T. P. Bartlett, communicator tenth grade, reporting to the Relativist as ordered."

Dr. Babcock swung around in his chair and looked at me. He was a big raw-boned man, all hands and feet, and looked more like a lumberjack than a mathematical physicist. I think he played it up-you know, elbows on the table and bad grammar on purpose. Uncle Steve said Babcock had more honorary degrees than most people had socks.

He stared at me and laughed. "Where did you get that fake military manner, son? Siddown. You're Bartlett?"

I sat. "Yes, sir."

"What's this about you and your twin going off the duty list?"

"Well, my brother is in a hospital, sir. They're going to do something to his spine tomorrow."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I didn't answer because it was so unreasonable; I wasn't even in his department. "Frick never tells me anything, the Captain never tells me anything, now you never tell me anything. I have to bang around the galley and pick up gossip to find out what's going on. I was planning on working you over tomorrow. You know that don't you?"

"Uh, no, sir."

"Of course you don't, became I never tell anybody anything either. What a way to run a ship! I should have stayed in Vienna. There's a nice town. Ever have coffee and pastries in the Ring?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Nevertheless I was going to work you and your twin over tomorrow-so now we'll have to do it today. Tell him to stand by."

"Uh; what do you want him to do, Doctor? He's already been moved to a hospital."

"Just tell him to stand by. I'm going, to calibrate you two, that's what. Figure out your index error."

"Sir?"

"Just tell him-"

So I called Pat. I hadn't spoken to him since breakfast; I wondered how he was going to take it

But he already knew. "Yes, yes," he said in a tired voice.

"They're setting up apparatus in my hospital room right now.

Mother made such a fuss I had to send her out."

("Look, Pat, if you don't want to do this, whatever it is, I'll tell them nothing doing. It's an imposition.")

"What difference does it make?" he said irritably. "I've got to sweat out the next sixteen hours somehow. Anyhow, this may be the last time we work together."

It was the first time he had shown that it was affecting his nerve. I said hastily, ("Don't talk that way, Pat. You're going to get well. You're going to walk again. Shucks, you'll even be able to ski if you want to.")

"Don't give me that Cheerful Charlie stuff. I'm getting more of it from the folks than I can use. It makes me want to throw up."

("Now see here, Pat—")

"Stow it, stow it! Let's get on with what they want us to do."

("Well, all right.") I spoke aloud: "He's ready, Doctor."

"Half a minute. Start your camera, O'Toole." Dr. Babcock touched something on his desk. "Commander Frick?"

"Yes, Doctor," Frick's voice answered.

"We're ready. You coming in?"

"All set here," I heard my boss answer. "We'll come in."

A moment later he entered, with Anna Horoshen. In the meantime I took a look around. One whole wall of the computation room was a computer, smaller than the one at Los Alamos but not much. The blinking lights must have meant something to somebody. Sitting at right angles to it at a console was Mr. O'Toole and above the console was a big display scope; at about one-second intervals a flash of light would peak in the center of it.

Anna nodded without speaking; I knew she must be linked. Pat said, "Tom, you've got a girl named Anna Horoshen aboard: Is she around?"

("Yes. Why?")

"Say hello to her for me—1 knew her in Zurich. Her sister Becky is here." He chuckled and I felt better. "Good looking babes, aren't they? Maudie is jealous."

Babcock said to Frick, "Tell them to stand by. First synchronizing run, starting from their end."

"Tell them, Anna,"

She nodded. I wondered why they bothered with a second telepair when they could talk through myself and Pat. I soon found out: Pat and I were too busy.

Pat was sounding out ticks like a clock; I was told to repeat them... and every time I did another peak of light flashed on the display scope. Babcock watched it, then turned me around so that I couldn't see and taped a microphone to my voice box. "Again."

Pat said, "Stand by—" and started ticking again. I did my best to tick right with him but it was the silliest performance possible. I heard Babcock say quietly, "That cut out the feedback and the speed-of-sound lag. I wish there were some way to measure the synaptic rate arose closely."

Frick said, "Have you talked to Dev about it?"

I went on ticking.

"A reverse run now, young lady," Babcock said, and slipped headphones on me. I immediately heard a ticking like the ticks Pat had been sending. "That's a spectral metronome you're listening to, young fellow, timed by monochrome light. It was synchronized with the one your brother is using before we left Earth. Now start ticking at him,"

So I did. It had a hypnotic quality; it was easier to get into step and tick with it than it was to get out of step. It was impossible to ignore it. I began to get sleepy but I kept on ticking; I couldn't stop.

"End of run," Babcock announced. The ticking stopped and I rubbed my ears.

"Dr. Babcock?"

" "Huh?"

"How can you tell one tick from another?"

"Eh? You can't. But O'Toole can, he's got it all down on film. Same at the other end. Don't worry about it; just try to stay in time."

This silliness continued for more than an hour, sometimes with Pat sending, sometimes myself. At last O'Toole looked up and said, "Fatigue factor is cooking our goose, Dec. The second differences are running all over the lot."

"Okay, that's all," Babcock announced. He turned to me.

"You can thank your brother for me and sign off."

Commander Frick and Anna left. I hung around. Presently Dr. Babcock looked up from his desk and said, "You can go, bub. Thanks."

"Uh, Dr. Babcock?"

"Huh? Speak up."

"Would you mind telling me what this is all about?"

He looked surprised, then said, "Sorry. I'm not used to using people instead of instruments; I forget. Okay, sit down. This is why you m-r people were brought along: for research into the nature of time."

I stared. "Sir? I thought we were along to report back on the planets we expect to find."

"Oh, that—Well, I suppose so, but this is much more important. There are too many people as it is; why encourage new colonies? A mathematician could solve the population problem in jig time—just shoot every other one."

A Mr. O'Toole said, without looking up, "The thing I like about you, Chief, is your big warm heart."

"Quiet in the gallery, please. Now today, son, we have been trying to find out what time it is."

I must have looked as puzzled as I felt for he went on, "Oh, we know what time it is... but too many different ways. See that?" He pointed at the display scope, still tirelessly making a peak every second. "That's the Greenwich time tick, pulled in by radio and corrected for relative speed and change of speed. Then there is the time you were hearing over the earphones; that is the time the ship runs by. Then there is the time you were getting from your brother and passing to us. We're trying to compare them all, but the trouble is that we have to have people in the circuit and, while a tenth of a second is a short time for the human nervous system, a microsecond is a measurably long time in physics. Any radar system splits up a microsecond as easily as you slice a pound of butter. So we use a lot of runs to try to even out our ignorance."

"Yes, but what do you expect to find out?"

"If I 'expected," I wouldn't be doing it. But you might say that we are trying to find out what the word "simultaneous" means."