Marlene Dotterer - Shipbuilder

“However,” he continued, with a glance at Casey, who looked ill and disturbed, “I can’t just ignore fellow humans in need. I’m not clear on what my responsibilities are. Should I work with you to see if we can send you back?” His intense stare turned back to Sam. “Is that possible? If you and I work on this, can you figure that out? Can you build another time machine to take the two of you home?”

Sam sighed and stared at the ceiling. “I doubt it, Dr. Riley. In 2006, I have technologies at my disposal that are necessary to build and run the time machine. None of that is available now. And we’ve never figured out the mechanics of time travel. Once we moved backward, it’s not at all clear what happened to the future. Is it still there, where we left it? Where was that? Are we in a tangential or parallel universe? You see, I have no idea where to aim for.”

Riley nodded. “Yes, I do see. And I assumed it would be something like that. Hence, your need for shelter and food.” He turned to Casey, his gaze critical. “And proper clothing.” He turned back to Sam. “Perhaps employment as well. Do you concur?”

Sam nodded, with a worried glance at Casey. She was sitting still, wide-eyed and pale. Two bright splotches of red marred her cheeks as she listened to them, but she didn’t try to interrupt.

“I can get you settled for a while,” Riley said. “But what kind of job can you do?”

“Well, I am a physicist. I think I can manage to work in this less advanced time, which, by the way, is considered a heyday of discoveries in many branches of science. I would be thrilled to participate.”

Riley looked alarmed. “I’m not sure if research would be a good idea, Dr. Altair. How would you cope with your advanced knowledge? And what would be the point? If you wanted to, you could just write a textbook, telling us of all the discoveries and knowledge discovered in the next hundred years. It might take us a few years to assimilate it, but just imagine—we’d be a hundred years ahead of ourselves.”

Sam exchanged an uncomfortable look with Casey, who shrugged to show she had no helpful opinion to offer. All three of them were silent. Sam finally spoke, feeling his way.

“That would necessitate announcing to the world that Casey and I have traveled through time. I don’t believe the world is ready for that idea, even if everyone believed us. It’s possible we’d just become prisoners or pawns of governments—I can’t, for instance, see the Queen, or rather, the King leaving us alone if he knew about us. I would be terrified of creating an extremely unstable political situation. I’m afraid I can’t even imagine how horrible it would be, Dr. Riley.”

Casey shuddered. “I’d rather we just tried to sink into the woodwork, if you know what I mean. Can we do that? Just work at normal jobs and try to live normal lives in this time?” She glanced at Sam. “We may have made a huge mistake in even talking to Dr. Riley. What if he feels obligated to tell someone, to turn us in?”

Riley shook his head. “Not to worry, Miss Wilson. I wouldn’t dare. I’ve worked too hard to reach this point in my career. I’m not about to throw it away blabbering about time travelers from the future.” He leaned toward Sam, gesturing earnestly. “I would prefer that you find ‘normal jobs,’ as Miss Wilson says. Something outside the field of physics would be best. Try to fit in as well as possible.”

He rubbed his forehead, staring off into space. “If you are from the future, that means the time from now until 2006 has already occurred. Which means we go through it again. What happens if you change something?”

“Not changing things might be impossible, Dr. Riley. You mentioned yourself that just having knowledge of us could change your own research. There are a billion possible variables we might affect at any time, even in all innocence.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Riley sat back and rested his hands in his lap. “Short of both of you committing suicide, though, I think we must take our chances and hope that whatever changes that happen are just small, unimportant ones.”

Casey spoke up, startling both men. “As far as I’m concerned, from the point of view of today, the future hasn’t happened yet. I understand our presence is a paradox, but I don’t see that it changes anything. The future is unknown for us as well as you, and everyone alive today. We have no idea what happens tomorrow. We don’t even know where our next meal is coming from. Except for Dr. Altair’s knowledge of scientific discoveries, the only things we know about are large events, like wars and elections and such. Things we can’t really affect. I don’t see that we’ll be that much of a danger. And if we do change something, how do we know if that’s a bad thing?”

“What if you change something that prevents your own birth?” Riley asked. “There are so many possible paradoxes.”

Casey spread her hands. “So? That seems so spurious. We were born. We’re here, now. Whatever happens from this point on, happens in the normal stream of time. There are no future events that must happen because they happened before. The future hasn’t happened, yet.” She rubbed her forehead. “Jesus, this is giving me a headache.”

Riley raised his brows at her language, but said, “And it’s a circular argument, which I’m afraid to say, is the only argument possible for this situation. We could discuss it forever and still end up where we started. So again, I say you should just try to live normal lives. I agree with you, Miss Wilson.”

“What about the San Francisco earthquake, Casey?” Sam asked.

“What?” She looked confused.

“The 1906 earthquake. That’s a good data point for us. If the earthquake happens in April, with the resulting fire and loss of life and property…” he hesitated. “I don’t know what that tells us. Except that we’ll know that certain events will occur in this “stream of time” as you called it, that did occur in our timeline.”

“We can’t stop an earthquake, Dr. Altair,” Casey pointed out.

“No, we can’t. I suppose if we had sufficient time, we could try to warn them, tell them what to do to prepare for it.”

“But they’d have to know you’re from the future,” Riley stated. “Back to our original problem.”

They were silent for several minutes, then Sam sighed. “A day at a time, I guess. We should try to solve our immediate problems and worry about the larger picture later. Dr. Riley, can you give us advice? How do we find jobs, shelter, clothing? What’s our first step?”

Riley leaned back in his chair. “Belfast is an industrial city, but the country has been through a rough economic time. People are pouring into town from the rural areas, hoping to find work. You’ll have a lot of competition. I can get you a newspaper; you can see what jobs are being offered.”

“This is going to take some thought,” Casey said, leaning forward in her chair, gazing at Sam. “You can’t just waltz into a shop somewhere and expect them to hand you a job. What will you tell them? Who are you? What experience have you had? Where have you worked before this?” She glanced at Riley. “Will we need some kind of identification? You can’t do anything in the future without that. What about now?”

Riley shook his head, bewildered by her quick questions. “Do you mean papers of some kind? No. Most people don’t have any kind of identification. Births, deaths, marriages, things like that are supposed to be recorded, but I don’t believe any employer would ask for something like that. They will want references, however.” He swallowed nervously, glancing at Sam. “I suppose I could write a letter of reference for you. Just general character, skills, knowledge, that kind of thing. It may not be the perfect solution, but it’s a start.”