Written in Time

by Jerry Ahern

  Crying, she had driven back to the site and lain awake all night, wrestling with every detail of the experiment.

  In the morning, Jane ate a very small breakfast (it wouldn’t do to get motion sick inside an armored stainless-steel capsule), showered, washed her hair extra well, dressed in her favorite comfortable clothes and set off to rendezvous with her coconspirator, Alan. Her backpack was filled but not stuffed with some essentials, should she survive. She used no special medications, and, if she survived, when Clarence and dear Peggy joined her in the past, she would have the services of a fine physician at her disposal. The essentials, rather than the usual things women of her somewhat advanced age might bring along, consisted of two favorite books, the small leather photo album with pictures of herself and her late husband, two changes of underwear and stockings, a long nightgown (in preparation for mixed company until everyone was settled), a flashlight, extra batteries, a Swiss Army Champion with every sort of blade imaginable, a topographical map of the immediate area and a lensatic compass, bought as G.I. surplus.

  Alan had met her at the control truck, asked her if she’d like to come in—she declined—and helped her to the canvas-backed folding chair in which she sat. He had told her, his voice held to a conspiratorial tone, that he had contrived a wild-goose chase for Clarence and Peggy, so that they would not be in the area when the time transfer experiment took place. Jane Rogers thought that quite wise.

  Lost in reverie, she was vaguely surprised when Alan was by her side again and asking her a question.

  “Did you just ask if I wanted a gun?”

  “Well, there are wild animals in these mountains, even today, and more so a century ago. And in the past, of course, you might encounter some disreputable person and—”

  “Alan, I have no quarrel with persons who choose to own, use or even carry firearms. It is a Constitutional right, as it is my right to profess total ignorance of the use of firearms. So, were you to insist that I lugged along such a contrivance, it would be of little use to me, unless it were shaped like a softball bat or a frying pan, both of which I know how to use in my own defense.”

  “I see.”

  Alan had excused himself to attend to some technical details, he said, but was gone for fewer than five minutes. Upon his return, they set out toward the capsule.

  The capsule was roughly the size and shape of the space capsules utilized by the Mercury astronauts in the early days of the United States space program, but would be more comfortable.The interior was littered with precious little instrumentation, merely two television monitors with which to view the surroundings of the capsule at almost any angle, a blood pressure and heart rate monitor and an oxygen tank and mask.

  “Who ordered the oxygen tank!?”

  “I thought that it might be—”

  Jane was determined not to let Alan outtalk her. “If the Naile family arrived alive, they did so without oxygen tanks and masks. However, from the wreckage photos, it appears that there was some sort of fire, perhaps electrical. A fire extinguisher, yes. Oxygen! I should say not! I have no wish whatsoever to be incinerated, young man.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” And he shouted over his shoulder toward the knot of technicians, “Deep-six the oxygen, guys!”

  The day was bright and clear, the sky a perfect blue punctuated by marvelously fluffy white clouds and higher, thin wisps of cloud, these in long, graceful tendrils stretching in series almost like protein chains from horizon to horizon.

  Alan, handsome lad that he was, suggested, “I think, Dr. Rogers, that it might be best to get started.”

  “Time is money,” she told him, thinking herself mean-spirited for saying so.

  “Not at all. I merely want to make certain that we’re well underway, at least, before Clarence and Peggy might return. Clarence’s temper, you know.”

  “Of course. I meant no slight. Will you see that the results of my initial studies and the work of your personnel are properly documented and published?”

  “Documented, to be sure. Published? Perhaps not advisable, unless you want 1898 to get awfully crowded.”

  “Well put, young man. Well put.”

  “May I kiss you, Dr. Rogers?”

  “Are you that afraid for me?”

  “Either way, it is good-bye, and I hate saying good-bye to a beautiful woman. Always a failing of mine and a worse failing with my great-grandfather.”

  “Really—”

  “Please? Not to be mercenary, but you wouldn’t be here on the threshold of discovery without my help.”

  “Really!”

  “Then, as a memory of a voyage I shall never take?”

  “Do you always get your way with women?”

  Alan smiled wolfishly. “Actually, you probably wouldn’t want to know.”

  “Shame on you. Yes, a solitary—”

  Despite the difference in their ages, Jane Rogers almost fainted as this marvelously handsome young man folded her into his arms and all but crushed her lips under his. She wanted to protest, but was embarrassed because she liked it. As Alan raised his mouth from hers, he whispered, “That will be something I will always treasure as a memory. My great-grandfather wasn’t much for a belief in God when he set out for the past, but he learned otherwise, and the habit has stuck with the family since. So, in all sincerity, God bless you.” And he kissed her hand as he ushered her into the capsule.

  Jane Rogers’ heart was fluttering.

  Inside the capsule, she found an aluminum softball bat and a cast iron skillet. She felt a smile cross her lips. He was a very nice young man, Alan Naile, and she was not surprised at all that he had his way with women, whatever that way might be—and she didn’t want to know.

  A very intelligent and very pretty blond-haired girl named Mary Cole—blonde jokes notwithstanding—was in charge of the capsule’s systems. In this capacity, Mary Cole was also in charge of the last minute check. “Now, Dr. Rogers, all you have to do is sit tight and relax. With this one control, you’ll be able to check any of the video.” She placed the remote in Jane Rogers’ hand, and then took an instant to refix her ponytail. “The reason, once again, that this is not a wireless remote is that we don’t want to risk any signal disruption as you travel. Actually, as we’ve discussed, you should be there in the blink of an eye, or less. This is the primary control for blowing the hatch. Remember to flip the guard away. As with everything aboard, there’s a backup and a redundant backup. God bless.”

  She leaned over and gave Jane Rogers a soft little peck on the cheek and stepped backward out of the capsule.

  Jane also had a panic button that she could hit if, at the last minute, she got cold feet. She had no intention of using the panic button.

  Instead, she played with the buttons on the remote. There were redundant backup screens, and she watched all of them, each flashing the same picture as she switched from one camera’s perspective to another then to another. Although she couldn’t hear the generators through the walls of the capsule, she could hear them perfectly over the monitors. Should sound become a problem during the time transfer, the pickup microphones in the cameras would automatically cut out until a safe decibel level had been reached.

  Everything seemed just as it should be.

  Jane Rogers felt like she had to piss, but that could wait ninety-six years. It wouldn’t be the first time that she had squatted in the woods. She looked around at her surroundings again. First-aid kit mounted on the bulkhead. Emergency rations in a small chest mounted to the deck. A survival kit, which she imagined held some sort of firearm and, more useful, a flare gun.

  Her backpack was secure in a chest about the size of the rations chest, this mounted to the deck on the opposite side of the capsule.

  Jane Rogers wanted to look at her watch, to see if time actually would move backward. But she did not want to miss the show for something that unlikely.

  She checked the seat restraints that Mary Cole had checked, and then leaned back, trying to relax.
<
br />   “This is capsule control.” Mary’s voice cut out the ambient audio. “Time transfer attempt will commence on my mark. God bless, Dr. Rogers. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . We have full power for lightning strokeand carrier beam.Four . . .three . . . two .. . one. . .

  “Discharge! Mark!”

  Jane forced herself not to blink. There was a blinding flash of light, the cameras unable to take it, she presumed. The screens whited out, the sound of thunder rumbling all around her. The screens went black. In less than a second, the high desert surrounded her again, the monitors revealing no trucks, no generators, nothing but sand, rocks and a view of the mountains, the same view she normally saw through her telescope, but seeming farther away because she saw it through the television screen, unaided by magnification. The only difference was that the mountains had a great deal of snow on them at the higher elevations.

  Was this it? Had she traveled through time?

  After a review of live video from every camera, Jane deduced that this was most likely exactly the same set of coordinates that she had left, except for the time, and hopefully that was 1898.

  Jane flipped the guard back and actuated the button to blow the hatch. The rush of air that entered the capsule was cold. She was glad she’d brought a good, warm sweater.

  “You let her do what?” Clarence Brown hammered his fist down on the capsule engineer’s desk; Alan was perched on its edge.

  “We had the test capsule, she wanted to go and she had the best motive— to save your lives,” Alan told his cousin many times removed.

  “And you’re sure she’s all right?” Peggy insisted.

  “The capsule reappeared the instant after it vanished. The interior of the capsule was fully intact, the exterior covered with dirt and moss and lots of surface corrosion. It seemed to our people that it was extremely likely the capsule had been exposed to the elements for a century or so. And look, you guys, she made the noble gesture, and it worked out. Anyway, I don’t think she wanted to be left behind. You guys are her family,” Alan supplied. “Look at the note.”

  The note was encased within a special, hermetically sealed plastic pouch, a superexpensive version of a Ziploc bag. When Clarence held it properly to lose the glare, he could read the words through the plastic. Clarence read aloud.

  “Dear friends,

  “I have traveled successfully through time, I

  think. There is snow in the mountains; so, if you

  come, remember to bring warm clothes, as it is

  rather nippy.

  “I seem to have suffered no ill effects.

  “Love and kisses.

  “Jane”

  “She was in great spirits when I did the last minute systems check with her. Relaxed, really.” Clarence looked across the desk at Marc Cole, as the man re-ponytailed his long blond hair. And, Clarence had the oddest sensation that there was something different about the person in charge of capsule command. But Clarence just couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ***

  The capsule in which they would travel through time was more like a gigantic steel crate with fold-down ramp doors at either end. It looked nothing like a movie time machine and, in fact, wasn’t. As Jane had explained to Clarence and Peggy, time-travel had not been “invented.” What they were doing was merely slavishly duplicating the effects of an anomaly. “Think of it this way, Clarence,” Jane had told him. “When Sir Isaac Newton identified gravitational pull with his famous—and likely apocryphal— dropping of the apple, he didn’t invent gravity, but merely took advantage of it. The phenomenon existed. He didn’t float through the air, because gravity disallowed that. Neither did the apple. It’s rather as if we were living on the edge of a lovely pool of water in the shadow of some enormously high precipice, and a rock fell—all by itself, due to forces which we could not understand—from the lip of the precipice and the rock struck the pool of water, making the most beautiful rippling effect anyone had ever witnessed. Now, we wish to see that gorgeous ripple effect again. So we dive into the pool and retrieve the original rock. Then we question everyone who witnessed the event, trying to ascertain the exact spot where the rock struck. We have certain givens, for example, in that we have the original rock, know precisely from whence it originated and know that the rock accelerated at a speed of thirty-two feet per second as it fell. Therefore, we can calculate its speed as it struck the water, given that we can deduce the precise height of the precipice utilizing basic geometry.

  “Now,” Jane Rogers had gone on, “for some reason, we can’t climb the precipice, cannot actually repeat the original event. But we can go up above the pool in a hot-air balloon or a helicopter or whatnot, and even though we can’t get as high as the precipice, we can increase the launch speed of the rock in such a manner that, as it accelerates, it will have precisely matched the speed it had when it struck the pool naturally. If we do all of that just right, and just the right portion of the rock makes the initial strike into the pool at just the right angle, we’ll get that same marvelous ripple effect as before. We still can’t climb the precipice and throw down bigger rocks or smaller rocks or strike other parts of the pool. We can’t travel through time willy-nilly, only simulate the effect, and do a trick without understanding why it works. Do you see, Clarence?”

  Clarence had always disliked driving the Suburban because it was so large, and with the trailer attached to it, the vehicle seemed more the “fucking bus” than it had to him when he’d dubbed it so after Jack and Ellen had first driven it home on New Year’s Eve, the last day of 1988.

  The crate—or “capsule”—was merely to protect them and what they brought with them through time from whatever forces might be exerted against them. And, like the solitarycapsule in which Jane Rogers had travelled, it served the function of an observatory from within which the occupants could witness what transpired around the capsule as the time-travel process occurred.

  Clarence doubted that they would see anything strange or even interesting unfold. He sincerely believed that in one instant they would be in the autumn of 1994 and in the next in the last month or so of 1898. If he blinked, he’d miss it.

  Cole walked into the crate-shaped capsule, two other technicians with him. Alan had accompanied them.

  To reduce the size of the capsule, once the Suburban and its trailer were inside, there was very little room on either side. The driver and passenger doors could be opened, but it was a squeeze to get out. Because of that, the video monitoring array was set on an armature which could be raised and lowered by means of something similar in appearance to a VCR remote control. The technicians, squeezed on either side of the Suburban’s hood, were guiding the arm downward to rest just forward of the windshield wipers. Marc Cole—his long blond hair in a single braid—was working the remote. Alan stood next to the driver’s side window. “Remember to leave word for us in the capsule, Clarence, like Jane Rogers did. That’ll help. But it’s really important for you guys to use the camera afterward. And then seal the film just like we worked it out. There’s a good chance that the film will survive a hundred years, and we’ll have an indisputable record of what’s about to transpire.”

  “But it’ll go no farther than you and your people,” Clarence insisted.

  “He’s right, Alan,” Peggy Greer cut in. “If this process got into the wrong hands—”

  “Hey, guys, I know,” Alan agreed. “I mean, this isn’t some 1950s sci-fi movie, right? This is 1994, almost 1995. We have state-of-the-art security. Nobody’s getting this technology. What I intend to do is have my top people perfect the means by which this process can be used both ways, like a doorway. That way, if Jane or you guys should wish to come back, you can. You leave a note, as agreed, and it’ll appear inside the capsule immediately after you leave. And we’ll be able to come and get you. I’m sure that we can work out how it’ll be possible. I mean, I know it’s not as simple as reversing the process literally, but it should be close to that
.

  “Anyway,” Alan went on, as he seemed to do so remarkably well without even pausing for breath, “that is the only reason for perfecting the return system. Maybe a hundred years from now, there’ll be a practical and safe use for time-travel technology, and this experiment we’ve begun will lead us to that technology’s full fruition. Right now, it’d be too damned dangerous.”

  “What we’re doing right now could have already had repercussions,” Alan concluded.

  Marc announced, “We’re ready, people!”

  Clarence felt Peggy squeeze his hand . . .

  The device Clarence held in his left hand and aimed out the Suburban’s window was an ordinary, if expensive, garage door opener, whereas the device that Peggy held in her lap was considerably more sophisticated. “Hit it, Peggy!” There was a sound like a small explosion from in front of them. The seal on the forward hatch was blown. Clarence pushed the button on his remote, and the front door of the crate-shaped capsule started to fold open and downward, forming a gently sloping ramp across which they would drive.

  “There’s her capsule!” Peggy barely whispered. “But I don’t see—Oh, my God! You don’t suppose that our capsule appeared on top of her and we crushed her to—”

  “Odds of that happening in anything outside of a Warner Brothers cartoon are extremely remote,” Clarence reassured her.

  As Clarence had anticipated, the journey through time was a non-event, at least from the standpoint of anything at all remarkable to see. There was a brilliant flash of light and the video monitors went to fuzz. Yet these were state-of-the-art pieces of equipment, and, sooner than Clarence would have thought possible, picture returned to the monitors. Despite the insulation of their carefully engineered capsule, thunder boomed loudly all around them. In the instant that the monitors returned to visible picture, the cacophonous rumbling ceased as well.