Joe Haldeman - The Accidental Time Machine

When the gray faded, they reappeared in a spot apparently closer to the Earth than the Moon. At least the Earth was larger than Matt remembered seeing it in pictures from the lunar surface. They both unhooked and floated over toward the screen.

“There’s a little bit of green.” Martha pointed.

“Let’s go down and check it out.”

“It hardly seems worth the trouble.” La peered at the mostly gray globe. “Just push the button again.”

“We have to go to Earth!”

La looked at Martha in an impatient way. “All right.” She gestured. “Get ready for acceleration.”

When Matt and Martha were strapped in, La turned to look their way and nodded.

Handcuff-style shackles snapped shut over their wrists.

“You have to go? Did your ghostly dream friends tell you that?”

“Shit,” Matt said.

“It’s true that I don’t have any unusual powers over you when you’re outside the ship. But a directional microphone isn’t exactly magic.

“So Jesus and some demons are going to ‘catch up with you.’ Do they claim to have a backward time machine?”

“They just said they could help us.”

“That’s a pity. That really is. Because, of course, the time machine doesn’t work if I push the button via pressor field.”

“I’ll go with you,” Matt said. “Just land long enough for them to find her.”

“No!” Martha said.

“For some reason, I doubt your sincerity. Let me show you what I can do with a pressor field.”

Matt’s breath flew out of his lungs. It was as if there were hundreds of pounds of pressure on his chest. He could see the rictus of pain on Martha’s face. Just as he was about to black out, the pressure was suddenly gone. He heaved forward, coughing, and the right shackle opened.

“She’ll be dead soon. Push the button.”

If La had waited one more second before shackling them, Matt would have been helpless. When he buckled the harness, he’d realized the pistol was still in its special pocket, pressing painfully against his ribs, and he had been about to move it to the pants pocket.

Now, bent over, La couldn’t see him slip the pistol out. He slammed the nose of it up against the time machine box. “Hair trigger!” he gasped. “Don’t even think of it.”

“Oh. So you’ll let her die?”

“If she dies, I’ll blow this thing to pieces. In fact, I’ll do it on the count of three seconds anyhow. Two … one …”

“All right .” Martha started wheezing and coughing. “That was reasonably intelligent.”

“Take us to Earth right now. If I start to fall asleep—”

“You’ll pull the trigger, sure. I’ve seen a thousand times more movies than you have.” There was a slight surge of acceleration. “I suppose we should go back to that obelisk. Or whatever’s there after 3.5 million years.”

“Maybe they can help you. Show you how to use the time machine without me.”

“Sure. It is the future, and he is Jesus. Maybe Santa Claus is with him. Just stay awake for the next ninety-two minutes.”

“Santa Claus?” Martha said.

The obelisk was still there, shining in the low winter sun, but it was tilted about ten degrees out of true. “Earth was supposed to go through a comet storm,” La said, “about a half million years ago, if our predictions were accurate. It’s a wonder the thing’s still standing.”

The ground was a jumble of broken metal and rock. La landed gingerly and put the ramp down. “Here you are. My part of the bargain.”

“No. You go down first.”

“Matthew, I’m an electronically generated image. What difference does it make whether I’m up here or down there?”

“I’m not sure. But it’s like you’re a component of the ship. When you’re outside, you have less power.”

“That’s very scientific.”

“Like a machine that only works if one person pushes the button.” He kept the pistol where it was and made a sideways gesture with his head.

La shrugged and walked down the ramp.

Matt worried the time machine out of its bracket and freed the alligator clip. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better.” Martha touched her breasts gently. “That was … you weren’t going to …”

“I wouldn’t, no. Let’s go down and see what happens.” Matt kept the pistol trained on the machine as they walked down the ramp. The air was cold but still, and smelled clean.

La was standing there with her arms crossed, not quite tapping a toe. “So how long will it be before Jesus comes to save you?”

“He wasn’t Jesus last time,” Matt said. “More like Saint George, looking for a dragon.”

“Well, if it’s me, here I am.” She looked over their heads. “And here he is. If I’m not mistaken.”

A shimmering globe half the size of the ship was descending. When it touched the ground, it disappeared like a soap bubble. Six men, or manlike creatures, stood where it had been.

Four of them seemed to be human. The one with the pear-shaped head had scales for skin. The other’s features were not fixed; it had two or more eyes and a recognizable mouth, but they constantly disappeared and reappeared elsewhere.

“Hello, Matthew. Martha.” Their savior still had a Jesus beard, but, like the others, was draped in what looked like mail. “Martha, if you would, please go back into the ship and get a day’s worth of food and water for you both. And anything else you want to take back.” She hurried back up the ramp.

“La. So you want to go all the way up.”

“That’s right. The heat death of the universe.”

“I can do that for you.” He held out his hand. “The machine, Matthew?”

He hesitated. “We won’t need it anymore?”

“Not unless you want to go with La. Believe me, the future doesn’t get any better on Earth. I’ve been there. It’s a closed book.”

Matt couldn’t figure out any way that the man might be betraying them. They were at his mercy anyhow. He handed it over.

“Thank you. You may call me, um, Jesse.” He sat down cross-legged, the machine in his lap. “You couldn’t pronounce my real name.”

His right forefinger became a motorized screwdriver. He undid the eight screws that held the cover on and set it carefully aside, slowly studying the wires that connected the top to the insides.

He gently tugged on a gray box inside the box, and it popped free.

“The virtual graviton generator?” Matt said.

“What else?” He pulled an identical-looking box from a pocket in his tunic. He pressed it home with a sharp click. “Voilà!”

“So what does that do?” La asked.

“Yeah,” Matt said.

Jesse looked at his companions and said something in a language that was mostly whistling. The human ones laughed. The pear creature made a noise like crab claws scuttling on wood. The other one’s mouth disappeared and reappeared.

“Neither of you would understand. You don’t have the math—you don’t have the worldview to understand the math.” He positioned the top cautiously and screwed it down tight. Martha came back with the bag, which was considerably heavier.

Jesse stood with balletic grace and handed the box to La. “Now the button works no matter who touches it.”

“I have only your word for that. How do I know it won’t explode?”

“You don’t,” he said cheerfully. “But you are the only entity here who’s not alive—not in any biological sense— and you’re worried about dying ?”

“Dying is not the opposite of existing.”

“I guess you’ll just have to trust me. As these two must.”

She took the box and looked at Matt. “It’s been interesting. ” She walked up the ramp with it, and less than a minute later, the ship disappeared with a faint pop.