A Gift of Time

by Merritt, Jerry

  It never hurt to be polite. “You fit the part nicely.”

  He bowed slightly before continuing.

  “Like the broken control rod, you too are an anomaly. The Protocol Council must now resolve this never-before-encountered issue—a misunderstanding beginning when Lovely Pebble assumed you wanted to upload her copy, Ell, as payment. And yet you were clear from the beginning that the control rod was a gift, so obviously you were not conducting any form of protocol manipulation to force a prohibited action. But your gift forced the glider, caught between conflicting protocols, to default to the superior and accept the rod without payment since refusal would have resulted in the eventual death of the original Lovely Pebble and subsequent loss of the glider itself. That you spent much of a human lifetime in an effort to produce the rod, of course, makes the breach of payment all the more egregious from the council’s point of view.” He paused for effect.

  “In short, sir, you have left us with a mess. A discrepancy requiring major restitution.”

  “Well, that should be easy enough to fix.” I started to ask for Ell’s repatriation to clear their books, but that was a serious protocol violation in this virtual world and I suspected this wasn’t the right time to address that problem. After a brief hesitation, I said, “We request a time glider able to handle a crew of twelve.”

  The reply confirmed my suspicion. “A copy doesn’t fall under the payment protocol. Is that your request?”

  “Yes.” Several seconds passed.

  “Is there nothing else that would be a suitable alternative? We cannot grant that request. An untrained glider operator can, by the merest slip, change all of recorded history.”

  At that remark, Ell could no longer contain herself. “No. That’s not possible.”

  The spokesman turned to Lovely Pebble. “There is no provision for your copy to address a council. Only you may speak.”

  To her credit, Lovely Pebble informed the council that she had delegated her presentation to Ell. The council seemed to hem and haw about for a good second or two before acquiescing.

  Ell recounted our experiments in the lab and our trip back to Earth’s Cretaceous in our own glider without affecting our future. “So, if we caused changes that had seventy million years to propagate through time and that didn’t alter our present, nothing will.”

  She turned to the assemblage. “The problem lies, not with time, but with you. You have all lost your skepticism and accepted a flawed explanation of the real world. I don’t know where that explanation came from, but it’s wrong. And it falsely supports your assumptions about how changes to the past influence your present. Nor have you ever bothered to test your assumptions experimentally as Cager did.”

  During my time with her, Lovely Pebble had mentioned her disdain for these virtual beings and their lack of curiosity about the real world their self-indulgent existences depended upon. That opinion had obviously carried over to Ell.

  “Simply put,” Ell continued, “there is no way to change your present. The universe doesn’t work like that. If it did, existence would degenerate into chaos as civilizations developed time travel. But the universe is internally and forever consistent. Nothing any of you do by returning to the past can change you in any way since the present continues moving forward through time at the same rate as the change to the past. So all of your protocols involving the past have been a waste of time.”

  I cringed at her vehemence, but the ancient translator appeared to consider her words without rancor before replying, “Our protocols and interpretations of the world are self-evident concepts that have served us well since the aborted attempt to enslave us all through seizure of the machinery of our existence. It would be foolish of us at this point to accept the version you offer without unequivocal proof.”

  “Then let me demonstrate,” I said. “It’s quite simple.” I slipped off my watch and placed it at my feet. “Give me a recording device, send me back in time a few minutes to smash the watch, then bring me forward again. The recording will prove I broke the watch but the watch here will remain unbroken.”

  The spokesman was aghast. “We cannot allow that. You would appear here now breaking the watch, yet you are not here breaking the watch. And if you were, the watch would be both broken and not broken. Such temporal paradoxes would wreak havoc on our existence.”

  “Okay, okay. I understand your concerns. So just send the watch back a few microseconds in time. There should be no paradox there. Then see if it returns.”

  Though the council remained unconvinced, they agreed to the experiment. After the watch failed to reappear, I said, “Unless you retrieve it, it will never return. It simply can’t catch up to your present time to change it. It’s that simple.” Yet the spokesman remained perplexed.

  “The Council needs to verify in a real-world laboratory what you have just shown us. They will reconvene in a moment?”

  I shrugged. “Take your time.”

  After a short pause, the interpreter turned to me. “Your request for the glider is granted.”

  I thought their response quite reasonable in view of Lovely Pebble’s opinion. But gaining a time glider hadn’t saved Ell. I pulled her close to me as I scanned across the arena of alien faces, though I wasn’t sure some of them were faces. The reason I had returned the titanium control rod was to reach this moment, yet, in preparing to get here, I’d had too little time to organize my thoughts. I blundered ahead as best I could.

  “Since Ell apparently has no right to speak for herself, I would like to address the issue of your denying her return to your world.”

  “Copies of originals have no right of return,” the interpreter stated flatly. “They are merely extensions of the original, carrying out duties for the original and, thus, for themselves. Their reward lies in their opportunity to exist for a time.”

  Obviously, discussing the matter wasn’t going to work. Their collective mind was made up. I appreciated how Copernicus and Galileo must have felt trying to change the early-Renaissance worldview. I needed to trap the council. Maneuver them to a conclusion they wouldn’t see coming until it was too late to deny.

  “Point taken,” I conceded. “But as to Ell actually being a copy, she has evolved to become as human as me, a different species, so can no longer be considered a copy of Lovely Pebble. And your protocol applies only to copies, does it not?”

  The council quickly pointed out that the protocol defined copies as personas made from an original which in this case was Lovely Pebble. So it did, indeed, apply to her. “And clearly the copy’s mission is complete,” the spokesman said.

  At that, Ell grasped at my sleeve as she slipped from my embrace. Before I could catch her, she collapsed to her hands and knees, reaching out to me one last time before crumpling onto her side, gasping.

  I had witnessed my college roommate’s hunting dog being put down years before. We had all stood around watching the animal stagger as the vet withdrew the needle. Then it slowly toppled over. Like Ell. And died right in front of us.

  “She had three days left!” I cried.

  “Our highest-level protocol required her termination,” the translator said. “She was a major violation and should not have been here among us. We have recovered Lovely Pebble. And the glider. And you have been compensated. All is well.”

  I knelt over Ell, looking for some way revive her, but she was already cold and very still. Too still. The spokesman announced that, having settled all issues, the council would adjourn.

  So Ell was gone. Was this to be my fate? That I would forever fail to save those I loved. As I rose to my feet, a single remaining argument came to me. I stepped forward. “Before you go, I have one final question.”

  The interpreter glanced back toward me.

  “Proceed with your question.”

  “Just moments ago you clarified that Ell being made from an original remains a copy no matter how changed she has become.”

  “Yes, yes. The protocol is quite clear a
bout that. What is your question?”

  “Well, where did the members of this council come from?”

  An unmistakable aura of discomfort rippled through the assembly. I would like to say they were stunned, but I couldn’t tell from the alien faces what their reaction was. From my time with Lovely Pebble, I knew that she was a copy of a now long dead original left behind on its home planet. Perhaps they were just remembering the original real-world selves they had been copied from.

  One being, a cherry-red blob, seemed to beat tentacles against what I took to be its head. Another flashed patterns of color across its skin. Yet another arrayed sharp quills in various configurations while swelling to twice its former size. Clearly, I had gotten through to them.

  After some moments of apparent consultation, the spokesman cleared his virtual throat. “Give us another moment please.”

  I nodded.

  Several more seconds passed. “There did, indeed, seem to be a problem with that protocol. We have, of necessity, modified it to allow single copies into the Network. And we have cancelled the programmed termination of the copy, Ell.”

  Ell’s face shown pale as winter dawn as I lifted and enfolded her in my arms. Whatever internal reaction had shut her down had been endothermic. She shivered uncontrollably, her icy breath cold on my neck. I just hoped the brief oxygen deprivation hadn’t harmed her. After a time, though, she put her arm around my neck and pulled her face up next to my ear. In a hoarse whisper, she said, “Get us out of here.”

  Chapter 66

  With Ell safe and a galactic-class time glider at my disposal, I was ready yet again to try to correct the worst mistake of my life.

  Ell and I strolled along the gleaming, black feeder strip leading from the production yard to the elevated mooring platform where our new glider waited. Ell uploaded first. Several hours later, my body lay next to hers as I followed her into the glider’s memory core where she waited in the virtual home we had left so long ago.

  After directing the glider to Earth, we held station high above Stubbinville, while we worked out the final order of business. My plan was to pick up Aunt Cealie first. She had been with me almost from the beginning. Ell agreed.

  “And after that?” she asked.

  “Either Joey or Arlene, I think.”

  “Not your parents?”

  “No. I should have Joey with me when I pick them up so they don’t have to wait to see him.”

  Ell nodded. “Of course. So Joey, then Arlene. So what about our bodies down there in the hold?”

  “Under Aunt Cealie’s bridge.”

  “Yes. I like that.”

  “Then let’s get this done.”

  We materialized in the late afternoon sun on the day before Ell and I had visited Aunt Cealie that last time. That day we had slid her body so carefully into the dark water. Aunt Cealie stood on the bridge watching her fishes when the glider popped out a quarter mile above her and slowly descended until it hung just above the treetops. She looked up at us and seemed not at all surprised. As Ell and I welcomed her onto the main deck, she said, “You must of got that letter I sent.”

  Since Aunt Cealie would have no memory of her final tomorrow, I introduced her to Ell again. Then, after the obligatory, lengthy chat about swamps, and Ell, and life in general, I asked Aunt Cealie if she wanted to join us as a different version of herself.

  She took on an air of exasperation. “Might’s well, Micajah. I feels kind of puny lately and my Maker ain’t bothered to swing by to pick me up. So you two is ‘bout as close to any angels as I likely to run acrost these days.”

  We hovered over the bridge until her upload was complete, and all three of us were standing under a colossal cypress in one of the loveliest swamps Ell could conjure with the glider’s virtual-world capability. It even had Aunt Cealie’s cabin at the end of her bridge. Two crows flew down and lit on the porch railing as she turned about taking it all in.

  “That were some ride you took me on, Micajah. I feel like I jus’ now seein’ everthin’ for the first time.”

  “That’s because you have different eyes to see with now, Aunt Cealie.”

  “That mus’ be it then.” Ell and I followed her out onto the bridge where she checked her fishes. “Looks like you done brung along the whole crew, Micajah.”

  “Don’t worry. They’re all here.” Then I pointed overhead at one of the floating mountains I had added. “Would you like to go up there to your other home and sit on the porch? I had some mint tea made up special for your house warming.”

  She sniffed. “Don’t mind if I do, Micajah. I gets up a bit of thirst this time of day, but how on earth we gonna git way up there?”

  “You know how, Aunt Cealie. You just don’t know it yet. Give it a try.”

  We strolled together out onto one of the cantilevered porches overlooking snowcapped mountains separated by verdant valleys. There on a patio table, a pitcher of pale-green liquid caught the light next to three sparkling mason jars. The glider had already searched my mind for her well-remembered beverage and gotten it just right—right down to the floating debris.

  We passed the afternoon sipping tea and bringing Aunt Cealie up to speed on where she was and how things worked. When I told her she could take on any form she wanted, she immediately morphed into a young woman with green-tinged eyes and ebony hair. She wore a brown gingham dress and sat with her bare feet stretched out in front of her looking as carefree as the swamp creatures she had lived with for more than half a century.

  “I been waitin’ a long time for somethin’ like this to come along,” she said, wriggling her toes. “I reckon it might even be better’n heaven, if they’s any stew to be had round here.”

  ***

  Late that evening, we gathered in the glider’s hold where our three abandoned bodies lay together. Ell and I talked Aunt Cealie into sliding them under her real-world bridge by herself. After some hesitation, she gave it a try.

  Afterward she turned to me in surprise. “Why I believe that was easier’n my first kiss, Micajah. I could git used to this real quick.” Then she cast a serious eye at me. “But this ain’t all you gots to do today is it? I’m right, ain’t I?”

  I nodded once. “As usual.”

  “Then we best be gittin’ on wid it. It’s been too long a’comin’ as it is.” She shook her head the way she had as an old woman. “Too long for such wickedness to be out there scratchin’ at people’s doors. Way too long.”

  Chapter 67

  We cloaked the glider as we dropped down over the little Stubbinville park with its dammed-up stream. Settling on the far side of the pond, we assembled on the deck to gather our bearings. I nudged Aunt Cealie’s shoulder and pointed. “There you are walking along the road, Aunt Cealie.” She clasped her hand to her throat.

  “Mercy, how is this possible. But sure’s a rat turd’s sharp on both ends, that’s me over there. Oh, I hopes this all works out this time.”

  “It will. Here come Arlie and Joey and me now and there’s Hartley’s bunch behind us way up the road there.” Seeing it all unfold again brought back the horror—the vision of little Joey that night in the trunk of Old Man Quintin’s Packard. And I still had him to deal with before this was done. It would be a busy few hours. Then I noticed something I had not seen that day.

  Hartley stopped his bicycle behind some trees. Twenty seconds later, he came racing out the other side. His three buddies, now a hundred yards ahead, looked over their shoulders as he pedaled hard to catch up. Crashing into Arlie, Hartley sent him careening across the park to fall off his bicycle at the water’s edge. It all played out exactly as I remembered. Hartley’s gang scrambling down the slope. The fight. And finally, Joey turning to run for help.

  Then the black Packard drove out from behind the clump of trees where Hartley had stopped. Arlie’s daddy had used the boys to distract Arlie and me from watching Joey. That explained the brutality of the attack. Why it had gone on far too long after Arlie and I were beaten. T
he sheriff’s early suspicions had been right. Hartley had played a role in Joey’s murder.

  But now Joey was running for the street. I had the glider transfer him onto the main deck and changed my projection to my younger self.

  Joey blinked in confusion. “Cager. How did we get in here?”

  “Long story, buddy.”

  Then Joey noticed Aunt Cealie and stared for several seconds before saying, “How’d you get so young, Aunt Cealie?”

  “I wish’t I knowed that myself, Joey. It’s jus’ some debilment your brother been up to these past years, though. But for now, you jus’ never mind. Go find you a seat over there in that corner and watch. This gonna be more fun than any movie-show.”

  The black Packard had slowed almost to a stop up on the road with Old Man Quintin craning his neck to look down into the park as he idled along. I just stopped him right there by transferring the old Packard, Quintin and all, into a cargo hold in the glider. I would deal with him later, and if what I suspected happened to Arlene was correct, that problem would take care of itself.

  Before we left Stubbinville, I moved forward into twilight to hover over the Quintin back yard. The glider opened the line of small graves down several feet deep and piled the dirt to the side. Then we left for Tennessee.

  Chapter 68

  I brought the glider out that rainy night directly over the red and white station wagon as it sped off into darkness with Arlene in the rear seat. Would it continue on to Nashville and deliver her to a new life, or had she; in some preposterous, misdirected, karmic reckoning; just delivered herself up to retribution for her childhood silence?

  I tailed the wagon up the Interstate as it passed the first two interchanges and kept going. But at the third, it slowed and turned off to follow a secondary road south out into the woodlands. It was the same road I had exited onto so many years ago after I had given up hope of recovering Arlene. I stayed above the vehicle for several miles until it slowed again and turned onto a logging road leading up into the hills. Then without warning, it swerved into a ditch as the rear door flew open. Arlene backed out, her stiletto pointed toward the open door. One eye was beginning to swell shut where she had been struck hard, and her blouse was torn. Then both front doors flung open. At that point, she turned and raced into the night with two men in close pursuit. I transferred her into the glider.