by D. J. Gelner
“My God…it’s…your own machine!”
I told you so, you twit! I thought.
“Indeed,” I said.
“This is remarkable! Do you know how much these things cost? No one can buy their own, and no one’s ever stolen one. ChronoSaber has quite the nice little monopoly on it.” The panicked look returned to Fleener’s face, “Assuming you didn’t steal it—”
“I assure you, that’s hardly the case,” I interrupted.
Hank wasn’t fazed, “This is just so insane—do you realize how fortunate you are?”
“I doubt fortune has anything to do with it,” I replied coolly, “Though presently I appear to be quite the prisoner of my own success.”
I explained the situation with my Benefactor, and the pre-planned jumps.
“That’s curious,” Hank said. “So you’ve never heard of Commander Corcoran?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“Hmm…” Hank stroked his chin, “Well that does leave a limited number of hypotheses. It could be—”
“That I end up destroying the machine, yes, or that I meet my untimely demise at some point, I know.”
“I was going to say, could you be Commander Corcoran?”
“What do you mean?” before the words were out of my mouth, I knew exactly what Hank meant.
“Assume his identity. Take credit for his accomplishments. Or maybe that’s a code-name you developed in the first place.”
The wheels began to turn inside my head. Though I had no designs on stealing someone else’s identity at the moment, little did I know how crucial those words (spoken by pitiful little Hank Fleener, no less!) would become in due time.
“Eh, I don’t know…”
Hank spent the better part of a half-hour trying to convince me of the various virtues of becoming Commander Corcoran, but I waved each of his advances away with a suitably English “harumph” of some sort or another.
I gave him a tour of the ship, always careful to keep my distance behind the fellow, in case he should obtain designs on stealing the thing, but Fleener proved to be as harmless as a fruit fly, at least if you weren’t one of his students.
When we had finished, we made small talk outside of the ship for a bit, talking shop about my solutions to all manner of common physics issues, until we came to an awkward pause. Like a couple of teenagers on a first date, I sensed that Fleener wanted me to say or do something to him, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what.
“Do you…err…want a lift back to the future?” I finally asked.
“What? Oh no, I’m fine here. No, as I said before, I have a greater purpose than teaching high school physics, and the creditors can’t very well reach me here. I suppose they could, but why would they want to shell out the cash, y’know? Besides, the whole ‘what happened, happened,’ thing comes into play, so I know I don’t set myself up with a lot of cash from some adventure we have, or from buying a lot of low-priced stock in the sixties and putting it in a trust, so what’s the point? Also—”
That was all the response that I needed as I zoned out for the rest of Fleener’s lengthy explanation as to why 1666 was a better “time fit” for him. It was a curious concept; a debtor taking a windfall to head back in time and escape his creditors. Even more bizarre was the idea that a person who “didn’t fit” in a given time period could actively go out and try to save enough money to travel to a time and place where he would cease to be a curious anachronism, and could become a happy, functioning member of society. I wondered if Trent would have proscribed such a system to some nonsense about it being the “wishes of the universe,” even though I knew deep down that it was far more likely a product of nostalgia and wish-fulfillment than anything else.
As the sun set behind the smattering of hay stacks in the field, Mrs. Newton started to prepare dinner. I had to wait several more hours for the gravity drive and tunneling lasers to recharge, so to pass the time Isaac, Hank, and myself built a fire outside to sit around. Hank forced poor Isaac to break out some fine port that he had been saving for quite some time, despite my offers to get another bottle from my collection in the time machine, and we sat around getting positively pickled for the next several hours.
If you think I’m a lightweight, then Fleener could barely keep his feet on the ground, such a teetotaler was he. After a couple of drinks, the man became positively blotto (or, as I’ve often suspected since that evening, he pretended as much for the attention that it afforded). At some point, the teacher wore a goofy smile on his face as he addressed his student civilly for the first time.
“You know, Finny over here is a time traveler?”
“Psssh!” Newton still had his faculties about him, or at least he appeared to to the two of us.
“Now Isaac, what hast I taught thee about listening to me?” Fleener’s expression darkened. “Thissun’s got a silver time machine and everything.”
On a normal night, I probably would have played my cards a bit closer to the vest. Unfortunately, I, too had a few pulls off of the cask, which loosened my tongue a bit.
“Yep,” I said.
“Verily, thou both doth seek to make a fool of me!”
“It isn’t…tisn’t true…whatever the hell you morons talk like now!” Hank laughed, and I couldn’t help but follow suit.
“Yep, I’m from the future.” I calmed down enough to form the words before I had to stifle another booming belly laugh.
“Verily? Then tell me, fair traveller, what doth I accomplish in the future?” Newton asked.
“Ha! That’s easy. If you listen to your mentor, Mr. Fleener over here, then I think you’re in for quite a lifetime. You’ll revolutionise physics, optics, mathematics, and that’s all before your forays into politics and even printing money!”
Newton smiled, “Perhaps the man is more veracious than he initially appears.”
Hank laughed for a moment before he became “asshole Hank” to Newton once more as he picked up a stick and poked the man with it, “See there! Listen to Master Templeton! He knows—listen to me and great things are in store!” I laughed, but Hank didn’t follow suit.
Newton’s skin paled and reflected more of the flickering firelight, “Indeed! Indeed!” he turned to address me, “So what other times hast thou been to, Master Templeton?”
“So far? Hmm…let’s see…” I paused for effect. “Ever heard of Jesus Christ?”
“Balderdash!” Newton couldn’t believe it.
“No, no, it’s quite true. Except…”
“What?” Newton was deeply interested.
“Ah, I really shouldn’t…”
“No, no—I want to know!” I mean, the man practically begged me to tell him, and I knew that Newton was a bit “unorthodox” in his religious beliefs. In fact, he was what they may have called a “heretic” at the time, and been burned at the stake had he not kept his views on the non-divinity of Christ hidden.
“Well…okay!” I finally gave in. “The thing about Jesus Christ is that his name isn’t Jesus Christ at all. It’s Trent Albertson. You see, Trent is very much a time traveller like myself, but he decided to go back in time and become Jesus Christ. He performed all of the miracles, hell, he even used the Bible as his own personal road-map. I’ve actually been meaning to broach this topic since I arrived since I know that you hold rather ‘interesting’ views about the man.”
Newton looked as if he had seen a ghost, “I hadn’t prior, but now I do,” he looked at Hank, “Is this true, Master Fleener? Doth Master Templeton speak the truth?” Hank shrugged with a sly smile. Newton continued to fret, “This information is of great interest to me; you see, as a Fellow at Cambridge, I’m required to take Holy Orders sometime in the next few years. This wouldn’t be of great concern, were it not for the vow of celibacy that was included in the right.” Fleener burst out laughing, and I couldn’t even stifle my chuckle.
“That’s a big sacrifice to make to a religion that preaches false orthodox
y,” Fleener said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I think the lessons of Trent—sorry, Christ—are good morality tales no matter if the person that professed them was some half-wit stoner from Boulder. I’ve had a couple of days to think on this now, and ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter who delivered the message, but rather what people do with it, to what ends and purpose they put that message. A lesson is only as good as the student who implements it.”
Hank poked Newton with the stick once more.
We debated all manner of physics, and spoke of all of the fanciful inventions that would one day be made possible by Isaac’s “discoveries.” The odd part was as we continued to speak of his contributions to society, it was almost as if the firelight made its way into Newton’s belly. His cheeks lost their puffiness, and the fire ground the gears inside of his head.
“Thank you both, so much,” Newton said as he shook both of our hands at the end of the night.
“Thou aren’t going to get rid of me that easily!” Hank said. “We still have much work to do.” Hank turned to me, “Goodbye, friend!”
“Goodbye…you!” I shook his hand vigorously.
“If you ever stop by again—” Hank had snapped out of his stupor for a moment.
“I’ll be sure to look you up,” I lied. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the man, but I had little desire to see one of the towering geniuses and intellects in history be bullied around by Hank Fleener any more than necessary.
“Si—uh, Scientist Newton, it’s been a pleasure,” I caught myself; some surprises didn’t need to be ruined. I shook hands with one of my heroes, and practically skipped through the field back to the ship behind the haystack. As I opened the door, I wondered if Newton saw the light escape from the cabin and illuminate the night sky.
And until the day I die, I’ll wonder who had more of an impact on Newton’s life: Hank Fleener, or me?
Chapter Seven
I spent the night in the small quarters in the cabin. The Newtons had gracefully offered to put me up for the evening, but I figured that a bed of straw and lice may not be the most conducive to proper rest, which I sorely needed given my scotch-addled escapades from the previous evening. It was nice to sleep in a proper bed again, though I had several horrific nightmares about a giant apple that chased me and poked me with a stick.
I awoke the next morning refreshed and reinvigorated, though I had to strain to remember whether Hank Fleener had exposed me as a time traveller to Sir Isaac Newton before I figured that even if he had, there wasn’t much to do about it now, and “what happened, happened,” right?
I figured that whatever last night had been was my task for the time period, and sure enough, as I sipped my tea and the gravity drive “recharged” indicator lit up the screen, I pulled up the display on the console. I entered the next coordinates:
“23-1-65,132,571 B.C.: Cozumel, Mex. : Dine w/ TR”
This was the jump that I had most been dreading since opening my Benefactor’s insane list. Over 65 million years in the past? If what Trent said was accurate, then this was sure to be the most harrowing part of the journey. Future quantum computers couldn’t even process such large jumps in time without significant errors; how was my lowly, first-generation model supposed to get me there and back safely?
Then again, if the time machine could make it all that way, then I was about to live every young boy’s dream:
Dinosaurs!
Though I had outgrown my preoccupation with dinosaurs years before, I still remember my father handing me a number of the figurines shortly after we had moved to London, perhaps to calm my mind and ease the transition. Naturally, like any other young lad, I took to the terrible lizards like a duck to water. I learned everything I could about the great beasts and stuffed the information into my comfortably oversized young brain.
On a lark, I changed my mind and entered “July 6, 2032, Baltimore, Maryland, USA” in the console. After several moments, the computer returned the probability:
“2.1%”
More resigned than frustrated, I entered the Benefactor’s coordinates, and (surprise, surprise) the console read “99.9%” once again. I shook my head; perhaps Trent hadn’t been correct after-all. Maybe this was a wild goose chase set up by my Benefactor for reasons beyond unknown to me.
Or maybe, this is where you’re destined to die.
The thought had occurred to me; with my Benefactor in possession of all of the technology I had created, my lab, my notes, and bloody hell, even Avi, perhaps this list was designed for me to meet my bitter end, and leave all of the “loose ends” neatly tied up. I cursed my curiosity for having gotten the better of me, and my stupidity for not having tested the machine properly before jetting off in it to times unknown.
I opened the glove box and, once again, asked for suitable garments for this leg of the trip. The computer spat out the vacuum-sealed bag with my “normal garb,” which consisted of a long-sleeved, Brooks Brothers shirt, slimly-tailored knickers, and a navy sweater-vest, as well as a pair of comfortable loafers. One piece of clothing that certainly was not from my usual ensemble was the camouflaged flak jacket that was at the bottom of the package.
That’s odd… I thought, before I realised that any humans during this time period would most certainly be from the future, and thus would wear similarly modern garb. The flak jacket was, of course, for protection in the event that whatever nasties inhabited the Earth 65 million years in the past wanted to get a better look at me, or fancied me as their supper for the evening.
The red button glowed on the console and illuminated the dimmed cabin. It was an eerie effect, a klaxon of red light that seemed to prophecise impending doom, though I fully admit that my trepidation about the time shift may have had something to do with my thoughts on the matter.
I had brought my tea over to the console, but, thinking the better of ruining literally billions of dollars of equipment with one jolt that might slip by the inertial dampeners, I dutifully placed the cup over in the galley before I returned to the command chair, strapped myself in, and hit the red icon.
The ship hovered above the ground for several moments. I noticed that Isaac and Hank had come out to see me off despite the chilly, dank weather that hung over the farm. Mrs. Newton tended the plants in front of the house, and though she looked up, and though the cloaking device wasn’t engaged, she didn’t even so much as perform a double-take as the shiny metallic saucer lifted into the sky.
I had grown quite used to the ascent by this point, and was for once able to enjoy the view as the British Isles grew smaller and smaller against the calming blue of the North Sea. Whisps of white clouds obscured the view as I approached the edge of the atmosphere, but somehow I found it fitting, and thought they added to the beauty.
Clear of the atmosphere, the ship bolted away from the Earth and away from my new celestial nemesis, the moon, to the edge of Earth’s gravity envelope. The green button flashed on the console, and, after steadying myself with a deep breath, I hammered it with my fist.
The tunneling lasers did their thing, whilst the gravity drive began to pulse as it tugged, pushed, pulled, and nipped at the very fabric of spacetime itself. I began to fret after several minutes; the first two jumps had taken far less time, but the gravity drive bravely soldiered on. The strain on the poor thing must’ve been incredible; though there were no bolts to come flying out of pipefittings or boilers to burst open with pressure, there was an odd, metallic “groan” that started at a low hum, and eventually came to reverberate through the ship.
It’s happening! I thought. We’re making a black hole.
Normally, this would be a fantastic scientific achievement; an artificial singularity? Yes, I’ll take that Nobel Prize, thank you! But when the black hole’s epicenter is the time machine in which you’ve invested decades of your life, and it’s near enough to Earth to cause a bit of a snafu, then you see if your shorts stay dry!
Fortunate
ly, at the last possible moment, the noise ceased as the ship jolted forward through the wormhole. Decorum prevents me from wholly confirming or denying what I said above regarding the condition of my shorts, but needless to say, though I was shaken up, I was glad to still be in one piece, especially since that one piece wasn’t a string of spaghetti with infinite length (little physicist-black hole inside joke there).
As soon as I had regained my wits, I surveyed the cabin, and instinctively ducked, fearing another stealth flyby of the moon that never came. The autopilot engaged, and I hurtled through space toward the now-familiar hanging blue orb. This time, upon closer inspection, the planet actually was different. I could make out the various land masses, but they were at the same time familiar and different, eerie precursors to the well-known and map-worn shapes that they would become, made even more alien by the lack of ice caps and correspondingly higher sea levels, which sanded away many of the rough edges of the continents.
As the time machine descended into the atmosphere, the sky turned a pinkish, almost Martian hue. Active volcanoes dotted the landscape, as plumes of smoke drifted skyward toward the craft. Though such a thought was utterly insane, I was glad that the time machine didn’t rely on such an archaic means of conveyance as a jet engine, lest the volcanic debris clog the intakes and leave me hopelessly vulnerable and stranded in this most foreign of lands.
The ship jolted as something connected with it. I ordered the three-hundred sixty degree view from the computer, and saw an honest-to-God-damned six-foot wide dragonfly in a momentary daze before it dropped toward the Earth.
A collection of pterosaurs coasted in front of the craft, and for the first time in many years, I felt my childlike reverence for these beasts return. My father, voracious “apex predator” that he was, loved the cretaceous and all of the T-Rexes and allosaurs that populated it. Truth be told, my gentler sensibilities were often more piqued by the majestic, plant-eating beasts of the jurassic such as stegosaurus, though I also had a soft spot for triceratops and ankylosaurus, those gentle vegetarians that had the temerity to stand up to those bullying, savage killing machines of the same era.