Джек Макдевитт - A Voice in the Night

“I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Do you expect it to return to normal, Professor?”

“Leon, who knows? My instincts tell me that conditions will seek equilibrium. Which is to say yes, eventually it should back up and recalibrate itself with the outside world. But I really don’t know. Before it blurred, the land area inside the bubble seemed to be increasing. As if it was sucking everything around it inside. I don’t want to start a panic now, because we know that’s not what happened. But it is what it looked like. And the river seemed to get longer. It was shrinking to accommodate the new world it was constructing. It’s proceeding into the future. As it does so it needs to recreate its own space/time continuum. It needs a world in which to exist. So it recreated the world it had once been attached to. Does that make sense to you?”

“Professor, are you making this up?”

“Yes, of course. But it’s the most reasonable explanation for what’s happening.”

“This is Wolf Blitzer on Evening Edition. We know a lot of you are watching us on battery-powered sets. We’ve been staying all day with this very strange story out of Niagara Falls. More than forty people were rescued today on both sides of the river from the phenomenon they are now calling the time bubble. Aside from one heart attack, no casualties have been reported. But, more than forty thousand people are believed trapped inside the bubble, in hotels, in the Niagara Casino, on the Maid of the Mist , and along the streets and restaurants looking out over the Falls from both sides. One of many odd things about this story: None of the people who were brought out earlier had any recollection whatever of their experience. This is certainly the wildest story of this, or any other, age.

“The stretch of river affected by the event is about two and a half miles long. Here’s what it looks like now. You can’t see anything, just a white blur. It’s been like that for more than an hour. The river is still pouring into the bubble beyond Goat Island, but we can see nothing whatever coming out the far end. Professor Abraham Harding, who’s been with us all through this trying day, is standing by. Professor, why aren’t we getting any water out of the north end?”

“Wolf, from our perspective, time is moving very quickly inside the bubble. That’s why it’s blurred.”

“How quickly?”

“Maybe a year or two per minute. There’s really no way to know.”

“A year or two per minute?”

“It’s possible. Whatever the true rate is, from our point of view, it’s very fast. But we need to think about things from the interior point of view. From inside the bubble. What’s happening in there is that the Niagara is flowing in, up near Goat island, but instead of entering at, say, what is it, six million cubic feet of water every minute, it might be six million cubic feet every six thousand years. That’s not very much water. Which is why none of it makes it to the other end.”

“So what’s happened to the Maid of the Mist ?”

“Well, I suspect it’s lying in an ancient and long dry river bed at the moment.”

“And what of the people?”

“In that continuum, they would long since have lived out their lives. If time is moving as quickly in there as I suspect, there’ve been a long line of fresh generations since any of the original people set foot on Rainbow Bridge, or registered in the local hotels.”

“Wolf, this is Bill Hemmer. It’s comforting to see a large silver moon overhead. Almost as if the normal world has returned. I’m standing on Niagara Street, just outside the bubble, just off Main. There’s a large crowd here. It’s gotten cold but they show no signs of going home. They’re carrying candles and praying and sometimes just watching.

“There are tears, and occasionally you can hear people sing. It’s a somber place. There are two cities called Niagara Falls, this one, and one in Canada, and I’m told this is going on tonight all over both. People have come in from Buffalo and Toronto, and all over New York and Ontario. We’re hearing that the president will be here tomorrow. And the prime minister. I suspect when they arrive, these folks will be waiting.”

“Paula, this is Sherry Weinberg. We’re getting water downstream again. It’s dribbling out of the bubble.”

“This is Bill Hemmer from the top floor of City Hall. Paula, I wish I could say we can see things in the bubble, but we can’t. Still, if it means anything, the haze, the blur, whatever you want to call it, has gradually gone from white to blue. Sky blue.”

“Bill, I think we can see movement in there.”

“I can see the casino tower! It’s there.”

“There’s the Bridge. I can’t see anything moving on it, but it’s there.”

“Paula, the Falls are becoming visible. Hey, do you believe this? Look at them! They’re running backward. The water’s falling up!”

“Paula, this is Mark Espy. We’re setting the chopper down now. These folks are moving like nothing happened, coming off and going on the bridge. We’ll try to interview some of them. We’re getting some cheers over in the parking lot behind the hotel. Maybe a little premature. But we can see again. There’s Goat Island—And the Days Inn. And the Maid of the Mist . It looks okay. Still headed downstream. And Paula, look! There’s the kid with the balloon.”

“Professor, why don’t these people remember any of this? You said time was running in there.”

“Well, yes. It ran forward. And then we must presume it ran backward. Their experiences, whatever they were, theirs and I suspect their descendants, didn’t happen. Not in this continuum.”

“This is Whit Morrison in downtown Niagara Falls with Maggie Bennett. Ms. Bennett, some people think your time machine caused all this. Do you have a time machine?”

“Yes, I have a time machine. Or at least I did until they hauled it away a few minutes ago.”

“Was it responsible for what happened here yesterday?”

“Ridiculous. It’s still in an experimental stage. It doesn’t work. Never has.”

“Then why did they seize it?”

“People are scared. I don’t blame them. But anybody thinks I can shut down the Niagara is a damned fool.”

“Sherry Weinberg reporting from the Days Inn, scene of the annual science fiction convention, Eeriecon. Sir, what can you tell us about the last twenty-four hours?”

“Ummm. What is this all about again?”

“There are some physicists saying you’ve probably traveled hundreds of years into the future. That’s pretty much an ideal weekend, isn’t it, for science fiction people? What can you tell us? What was the future like?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Really.”

“You’re talking about panels. And the masquerade. Yes, I suppose you could say we spent some time downstream.”

“Downstream?”

“In the future. It’s where we’re all headed.”

“So what did you see?”

“You got a few minutes?”