Гарри Гаррисон - Rebel in Time

'So try.'

'Spoken in the true spirit of science. And I know just what we need.'

Kleiman rooted around in his desk until he found the in-house telephone directory. He checked a number, then push-buttoned it into the phone. Then leaned back in his chair with his feet on the desktop as he listened to it ring.

'Is that you, Hugo? Yes, Bob Kleiman here. I know, long time no see. This is a big place, we're all overworked. Listen, I got a question for you if you've got a moment. Great. You remember about six months ago I set up a small field generator for you, so you could check out the effect of the tau field on cellular life? Any results? Well, no news is good news. Did you ever move on from unicellular forms the way you said you would? Good news indeed, white mice. Maybe I can help. I want to put one through the entire field at full strength. Right — I thought you would be interested. But please send me one that you are not too fond of, because there is no guarantee how healthy it will be after it has zipped its way through the space-time continuum. You're a bubeleh, thanks.' He hung up the phone and turned back to Troy.

'A messenger is on the way. I'll set up the experiment now and we'll soon have the answer to at least one of your questions.'

It was a very small white mouse. It had pink eyes and a pink nose, and sat up while it daintily cleaned its whiskers with its front paws. It looked on with interest while its cage was placed on the laser marker at the experimental site.

'Blast off,' Kleiman said, pressing the button that initiated the experiment. The cage vanished. 'I'm giving it a full five minutes. The alarm will sound ten seconds before return. Now let me check this print-out again. Because I have been doing some thinking myself. It is obvious by hindsight that those jokers must have run some kind of experiment that we never thought of. Some way of finding if past projection works, a way of testing the theory experimentally without getting involved in time paradoxes.'

'You've lost me again.'

'Sorry. But like it or not, when we begin to talk about reverse time flow we very quickly find ourselves getting involved with the old saw about what would happen to me if I went back in time and killed my grandfather before my mother was born.'

'What would happen?'

'That's the question. If I killed him, why then I could never be born, so I couldn't have gone back and killed him, therefore—'

'A paradox.'

'Correct. We never found a way to set up an experiment that would get around this difficulty. And of course very brief time movements were out of the question. We had proof of that before we even started.'

'You wouldn't care to explain that in some detail, because once again I haven't the slightest idea of what you are talking about.'

'It's obvious. We never found anything lying on the transmission site on the rock — so we never sent anything back that we could find lying on the rock. So we didn't try. If we had found something unexpected on the test site we would have known that we in the future had sent it back in time to be found, so therefore we would have to make the experiment later to send it back. It gets complicated.'

' You think that it is complicated!' Troy burst out laughing. 'Can you imagine how it looks to me? This stuff is just not in my league. After high school I went to college, graduated with a BA in history, then was instantly snapped up by the draft. For a couple of years I got shot at, so I learned how to shoot back. I stayed in the Army after the war. I've forgotten most of my history but I know a lot about modern weaponry, as well as how to stay alive when a lot of other guys are trying to kill me. But about all this equipment here, I know — what was that word you used? — bupkas.'

'A good word. It's Yiddish for goat shit. And what could be of less value than that?'

'Nothing. Bupkas. For openers, I don't even know why that rock is there.'

Kleiman looked at the mass of grey granite rising out of the floor and nodded. 'That's an easy one. When you think of time you have to think of physical movement. Not only do people move around in physical space during any given time interval, but the Earth also revolves around the sun. While the entire solar system itself is moving through interstellar space. This is a complication that we luckily do not have to face. The tau field works in what we call world time. That means that objects are displaced in time — but not in space. An object on top of that rock will move minutes into the future and still be on top of that rock. Which is why we use it. If we used something like a workbench instead, there is always the chance that someone might move the bench. The object would move in time to the space where the workbench used to be — but no longer is. Crash, tinkle, the experiment hits the floor. Therefore our pet rock. This very solid object is a hundred per cent metamorphic granite. It has been on this spot for a couple of million years, and hopefully will be there for as long again. The preliminary research was done before my time, but I understand that a geological survey was made of the area before this lab was built. In a sense it was built here, because that stone was here…'

The ping of the bell interrupted him. They turned to the rock just in time to see the cage reappear. The mouse was sitting up, looking at them. It hurried over and sniffed Troy's finger when he put it between the bars.

'Another question answered,' Kleiman said cheerfully, picking up the cage and smiling at its very lively occupant. 'Time travel is good for you. A tonic. This mouse never looked better. Hugo will be happy to get the results.' The smile vanished. 'So, to answer your earlier question. Yes, the iron colonel could have escaped through time. How or why, I have no idea.'

'Then we'll just have to find out. You're doing great so far. Do those figures tell you how far into the past he went?'

'Those figures tell me little or nothing at the present moment. We must calibrate — and we can save time by finding out how McCulloch and company calibrated their own experiments. For openers we can reverse the equation that we use for future displacement. However there is no guarantee that the terms will work precisely in reverse. But McCulloch and Harper must have done something to calibrate the time displacement or they wouldn't have dared risk the big trip. If they did it — we can follow their lead, get their results and use them ourselves. Let me see if I can find their traces. There's a coffee machine in the corner. Pour us a couple of cups while I browse through the print-outs looking for their footsteps. It shouldn't take long.'

It didn't. By the time they were finishing their coffee, Kleiman had found the entry he was looking for.

'Eureka! Which, in case your classical education was deficient, is Greek for I have found it. There are some smaller probing experiments here, a lot of them, but I looked for a big one. And here it is. It took place a little over a year ago. Look at the juice they used! Don't show the electricity bill to the tax payers. Now some quick work with the math.'

Kleiman checked the figures twice, and the results remained the same. He scribbled on a ruled pad, then tore off the sheet and passed it to Troy. 'December tenth, nineteen forty-one,' he said.

Troy looked at it. 'This is the arrival date?'

'Correct. Something weighing approximately fifteen kilos was sent back to that date. Or at least I think that is the date. The mass is correct, but the date is simply an inversion of the future equation. It may not check out exactly, but we can do the same thing they did to find out. Check the newspapers. Whatever they sent back had to be unusual enough to make news. A rabid wolf, twenty-five plucked and deep-frozen two-headed chickens, I don't know what. But you can be sure that whatever they sent, it was something odd enough so that they knew it would be noticed and reported in the papers.'