John Schettler: Meridian

“Iwarn you, if the outcome is anywhere close to the preliminary readings, then we have a problem; and a very serious problem at that.” Dorland allowed himself a sip of coffee, his eyes dark ovals in the haze of steam above the rim of a Styrofoam cup.

“Oh, Paul,” Maeve Lindford was at the bookcase squinting at the spine of a volume in the literature section of the study. “When will you learn to drink from a proper mug?”

“When I can find someone to wash the damn thing,” said Dorland with the same dire intensity.

“Well, don’t worry about the numbers until they get here,” said Maeve. “We worked hard on this solution. Everything will be fine.”

“Yes,” said Dorland. “Fine as rain. The preliminaries show a .0027 percent discrepancy value for the entry zone. We aren’t sure where the target will be in the time frame the professor has chosen, and that makes me nervous.”

“It’ll be fine, Paul.” Professor Nordhausen spoke up from his place at the study table. “He’ll be there, I assure you—probably up in the gallery with the important guests.”

“Well I wish I could be so certain.” Dorland was shifting uneasily in his chair by the table, obviously upset about something, though he seemed more frustrated than angry. “What time is it?” He craned his neck about to have a look at the study clock on the mantle overlooking the fireplace. “Where’s Kelly? Is he going to make us wait until morning again?” There were four chairs around the study table; three showing obvious signs of occupation, with coats and scarves draped on the polished wood uprights and stacks of books and papers heaped on the table. The odd chair was waiting for the fourth member of the group, Chief Technician Kelly Ramer, running numbers in the computer lab, and he was always late.

“You know how hard it is to get time on an Arion mainframe these days, Paul,” Maeve chided again.

“Damn near impossible.” Professor Nordhausen shifted in his chair and eyed Dorland over the dark rim of his reading glasses, an irritated expression adding definition to the wrinkles etching his forehead. In his late-forties, the professor had settled into a comfortable agreement with his deeply receded hairline. Dorland remembered when he sported a full head of curly hair in his college days, for the two had a long history. Nordhausen had long since given up on the effort to cultivate what little remained of his hair. “We need another Arion unit on site if the project surprises us and actually works.” He wagged a finger at Dorland as he finished.

“I’d have three if I could,” said Dorland, “but the budget is strained enough as it is. An Arion mainframe will run us another ten million. Care to write me a check? Until then, we’ll have to stand in line and lease time on the university machines, like everybody else.”

While simple desktops had tremendous computing power, the computational requirements of the Dorland Project would require a network of several thousand PCs. There were, however, a few Arion mainframes deployed in universities and government facilities for runtime sessions requiring intense computation like weather modeling or exotic 3D-Holography. Named for the mythical horse endowed with the gift of speech and prophecy, the Arion series computers were massive parallel processing units with enormous computational power. A typical Arion system could now do the work of three high-end Cray machines. They were usually booked the whole year through, but Dorland had managed to secure five coveted sessions to run the crucial calculations necessary for his project. The computer genius of the group, Kelly Ramer, was finishing the last session tonight and was scheduled to bring in the numbers on a laptop for the meeting. He had to go all the way into the City, however, as there was no time left on the closer machine at U.C. Berkeley.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Nordhausen sighed, his tone shifting noticeably. “If you ask me, the whole thing is a waste of valuable comp cycles.”

“You aren’t going to start in on that again, are you?” Dorland was drumming his fingers on the oak tabletop now, visibly agitated. His long slender hands moved in a graceful motion, index finger tapping out a steady rhythm.

“Waste of time,” Nordhausen said again, obviously intending to stir the kettle, though Maeve shot him an admonishing glance just the same. “It won’t work,” he pressed on. “Even if the theory is sound, as it may very well be, I still think the whole thing is impossible. So it doesn’t matter if the target is there or not, Paul. We may never know.”

“So certain again, are you?” Dorland shot him an annoyed glance. “Honestly, Robert, one minute you’re absolutely convinced that everything will be fine, and then the next thing out of your mouth is this damned pessimism! What’s your problem?”

“I’m just being realistic,” Nordhausen corrected. “It’s not pessimism. I have my doubts, that’s all. Hawking said it best: if it really is possible to travel in time then why aren’t we awash in time travelers? You’ve never answered that one, you know. Don’t you think they’d be just a little bit interested in a meeting like this, for instance?”

“Oh please,” Dorland rolled his eyes in obvious dismay. He had heard this complaint before; argued it many times in fact, but Nordhausen was still as stubborn now as when he had first broached the subject with him three years ago. “You really don’t expect a team of future researchers to just come barging in and join us for coffee, do you? Hello,” he acted the part, with a clear edge of sarcasm in his voice to let Nordhausen know he wasn’t happy to be launched on this course again. “Please excuse us, but we’re from the future and we understand this to be a particularly important meeting. Mind if we just stand here off to one side while you folks make a bit of history. We promise not to make any noise.” He looked away, obviously frustrated.

“Well, to be honest I really don’t expect much of anything at all—and that’s exactly my point, Paul. Nothing is going to happen! Therefore this isn’t a particularly important meeting and, assuming your theory is correct, that’s why nobody is crashing the party. It’s simple, really, when you think on it.”

“Oh, he’s thought on it,” Maeve put in with a smile, secretly pleased to find herself the referee again in another sparring session between the two senior researchers. Dorland was the Master Of Sciences on the project, and Nordhausen was Chief Historian. They had argued Time Theory many times before, but now that the project was at the very edge of their first real attempt at opening the continuum, the debate had begun to heat up again. Nordhausen, ever the devil’s advocate, was constantly jabbing at Dorland’s theory, in spite of his enormous commitment of time and resources to the effort that had brought them all this far. It was, however, the last thing Dorland needed just now. Healthy skepticism was one thing, but lately Nordhausen had begun to show real signs of backing out of the project altogether.