Гарри Тертлдав - The First Heroes

Rennie himself opened the door. "How do you do, Mr. Larsen," he said. "Welcome. Please come in." His formal courtesy had struck me a little strange at first, something out of another, more gracious age, coming as it did from an explorer on the frontiers of reality; but it had helped me trust him. Well, of course he was quite old by now. He led me to a living room lined with full bookcases and offered me a seat. A smile made further creases in his face. "Let me suggest we relax a bit first and get slightly better acquainted. If you don't think the hour is too early, would you care for a glass of wine?"

"Why—" I realized that I would. "Yes, thank you." His tall form moved off. "Uh, can I help?"

"No, no. I like to play host. Take your ease. Smoke if you wish. I'll be right back."

Not even a maid? I wondered. And him a full professor.

For a moment I thought that it fit the pattern. An emeritus should have the use of more university facilities than just the library, if he was still doing research. Certainly people throughout academe did who pushed ideas more controversial than his—sometimes harmful or downright crazy. Besides being a good teacher, Rennie had done respected studies of brain electrochemistry. But soon after he commenced on his psychophysics, he moved that work to his home, where it had continued ever since. I suspected pressure quietly applied. Not only did most scientists look askance at it, but a few of his subjects reported findings that didn't sit well with true believers in several creeds, especially political. And, of course, any administration would be afraid of legal liability. Thus far the dangers had been subtle, and nobody who suffered had sued, but you never knew.

Widower. He's got to have a housekeeper who comes in and maybe cooks most of his dinners, at least. And he does apparently have friends in town, and sees the children and grandchildren once in a while. But otherwise a lonely man. Also in his work. Yes, very much so in his work. Nobody else has ever managed to replicate his experiments with any consistency, no peer-reviewed professional journal has accepted any paper of his for decades, and he wants no part of the crank publications.

He returned carrying a tray with two glasses, set it on a coffee table before me, and lowered himself into the chair opposite. "Are you Danish, Mr. Larsen?" he asked. "My father's parents were," I said, "and I've explained that I've been over there quite a bit, and hope for more." His white head nodded. "A charming country." He lifted his glass. "Let me therefore propose 'Skdl' and request that you forgive my pronunciation." We clinked rims and sipped. It was a good Beaujolais. His manner, though, did more to loosen the cold little knot of fear in me. We chatted for maybe ten minutes, then: "Let's be honest," he said. "This is a gamble on your part, with nothing whatsoever guaranteed. Do you really want to take it? You have a family."

"Not much of a personal risk, is it?"

"No, no physical hazard, and nobody's suffered a nervous breakdown or anything like that. However, I trust it was made quite clear to you that some of my subjects have found the experience . . . disconcerting. In a few cases, almost shattering. They've been haunted for weeks afterward, depression or nightmares or— Frankly, I suspect one or two never entirely got over it. The past is, for the most part, no more pleasant than our world today, often less. Or—emotional involvements—I respect their privacy and haven't tried to probe. But it's not like being a tourist, you know."

"I do, sir. Generally, your people have come through all right, haven't they? Shaken up, sure. I expect to be, myself. However, the odds are, it should be well worth whatever it's likely to cost. My wife and daughter are prepared for having me broody a week or two."

Rennie chuckled, turned serious again, and said, "And you hope to advance your career as a promising young archaeologist. You certainly will, if you come back with priceless clues to what to look for and where. But—I'm staying stubbornly honest, albeit perhaps boring—you do understand, don't you, the odds strike me as being against it? Hasn't Scandinavia been thoroughly picked over?"

Eagerness stirred in me, the same that had made me apply for this. "You never know what'll turn up. Anyhow, way more important than physical objects, some insight into how people lived, thought, worshipped, everything. We have written records from southern European and Near Eastern countries, sort of, but nothing from the North."

Rennie raised his brows. "I fear your colleagues won't necessarily take your word for what you witnessed. What proof will you have that it wasn't a hoax or, at best, a delusion? On the whole, mainstream science finds what I do no more acceptable than psionics in general."

"I know that, too." I took a full swallow of the wine and leaned forward. "Sir, I didn't come in blind. I asked around, got in touch with several of your people, and—I think you're on to something. So maybe all I come home with is just an, an experience. Okay. I'll nevertheless have been there, lived it. I'll have interpretations of the evidence to offer; and what that might lead to, who can say?"

"Ah, yes. Your application and our interviews, official though they've been, have certainly roused my interest. The Scandinavian Bronze Age, centering in what's now Denmark, was rich, extraordinarily creative, and generally fascinating, wasn't it?"

"It had to be. Copper and tin aren't found there. So they had to trade widely across the known world, which means awareness of what was happening elsewhere. An aristocratic society, yes, like every society in its Bronze Age, but peaceful, to judge by what's been uncovered—not like the Stone Age before or, absolutely, the Iron Age afterward. How'd that come about?"

Rennie frowned slightly. "You do realize you'll have only some hours, while your body lies unconscious for the same length of time here? Of course, the one yonder will have his or her own memories of earlier life, and many of those should come to mind. Please understand, too, that my control over the point and moment to which you return is quite uncertain. It could be off by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years. I've only groped my way gradually to any targeting at all. And, finally, under no circumstances will I ever send the same person back twice. Given the hazard in each single venture, ethics forbids."

Impatience almost snapped: "Yes, I've been through this often enough."

He leaned back, lifted his glass, and said ruefully, "And, no doubt, the rather far-out theory behind everything. I merely want to make sure. You'd be surprised at what surprises I've had along the way."

Yes, theory, I thought. I've tried to grasp it. General relativity. A world line as the path through space-time of a body, like for example a human individual. Except that it doesn't commence at birth or end in the grave. At the moment of conception, it springs from the joining world lines of the mother and father, and when we heget our own children, their world lines spring from those moments. What Rennie's discovered is that the mind—or the soul, or some kind of memory, or whatever; nobody, including him,, knows—can be made (persuaded?) to go back down those branchings and for a while—not exactly be, but share the mind of an ancestor. Why we can't go likewise into the future, he doesn't know either. It suggests a lot about the nature of time, maybe even of free will. But his work isn't scientifically respectable. Easy to see why. So complex, so tricky, so much in need of exactly the right touch.

Maybe he can help me a little. And maybe afterward I can help him a little.

We talked onward for a while. He mainly wanted to put me more at my ease, but how he did it was interesting in itself. At last we agreed to start. He took me upstairs and had me remove my shoes and loosen my clothing before I lay down. The pill he gave me was simply a tranquil-izer, the meditationlike exercises through which he led me simply to establish the proper brain rhythms. Then he turned on the induction field and I toppled away.