Casey placed both hands on the table, as if for support, her lips tight with determination. "All right. I'm going to tell you the bottom line, then we can go back and fill in the details. I don't know how else to tell you. So, bottom line: Sam and I come from the future. We traveled backward through time from the year 2006, quite by accident. Nevertheless, we are here, and there are things in your future that happened in our past. The Titanic is one of those things. And so is that iceberg."
Tom stared at her, disappointment warring with fury in his gut. He had so much wanted her explanation to make sense, to be something he could believe and understand, something honest and plausible. But this: they're looking for a gullible fool to rob and they think they've found him. Flushing with humiliation, he stood, wanting only to leave, to forget, but Casey was up and standing in front of him before he could take a step or say a word. She stood an inch from him, her hands on his arms, and looked right up into his eyes, her face serious and intense.
"Mr. Andrews. You asked. I would have tried to work up to it, but you know, there really is no way to easily say something like that. You don't believe me. Of course you don't believe me, that's only sensible. But it is the truth, and I'm begging you, give us a chance to prove it. Even if you never believe us, at least listen to what we know about the Titanic. It will never hurt you to make any ship safer."
He stared down at her, thinking hard. This woman was not someone he knew. Perhaps there was something of Casey the boy in her, he didn't think that all of that had been an act. But this woman was more adult, more confident than the person he remembered. Beautiful, desirable, infuriating–all of that in a package standing determinedly in front of him, blocking his exit.
And making a not unreasonable request. He nodded once and sat back down, still angry but willing to listen.
"You didn't ask me to come here," he said, thinking out loud. "You gave me one warning and left me alone. I suppose I should at least listen to you. But I don't understand. Assuming you're telling the truth: why me? If you're really from the future, which is ridiculous, there must be a million important things you can change. Why bother me?"
Sam answered with a shrug. "Casey met you, and I knew who you were. She liked you and wanted to warn you. She often lets her feelings overcome her logic."
"Sam." Casey's voice carried just a hint of a child begging a parent not to embarrass her in front of someone she liked. Sam smiled slightly at Tom and tilted his head toward Casey, tacitly informing him that there were serious feelings there. Tom might have been pleased about that, earlier.
Sam held out a hand. "You don't believe us, Mr. Andrews, and as Casey said, that's all right. Forgive me, but in this case, time really is on our side. Sometime this year, this summer I think, Pirrie and Ismay will hatch a plan to build a new line of ships, the largest, most luxurious ships in the world. There will be three of them, Olympic, Titanic and Britannic. In our time, the Titanic is known as the most famous ship since Noah's Ark. You're free to go your way and forget about us, Mr. Andrews. But I expect we'll see you again after Pirrie's announcement."
Tom reached for his spoon and began eating, determined to treat this as a normal conversation. "You're telling me we build a ship called Titanic that hits an iceberg and suffers damage. Does she sink?"
Sam was eating, but Casey was staring at her bowl. She nodded.
"When? When does this happen?"
Casey answered, "April 14, 1912."
Tom stopped eating and stared at her. "My God. We'd be starting on it in the next year or so and even then, she'd just be out of the slip. It happens in her first year?"
Casey glanced at Sam. He shook his head. "That's her maiden voyage, Mr. Andrews."
He couldn't speak. For a moment, he couldn't even breathe. Losing a ship on its maiden voyage! What an awful disaster. He shook his head. These people were crazy. Remember that, Tom. They're crazy! Or this was some kind of act or trick to accomplish some act of espionage.
He rubbed his forehead, weary and confused. "What am I supposed to do? What is it that goes so wrong, but that I can fix to keep this from happening?" He gestured to Casey. "When you told me about the iceberg, I thought about it. I even talked to Mr. Carlisle and to the design team. We all agreed the best thing is a double hull and watertight compartments. But we also have to live with economic realities. A double hull's expensive and it takes up space that could be used for accommodations. I don't know if we'll ever get that. Watertight compartments, yes. Those are standard."
Sam stood and pulled paper and pencil from a sideboard drawer. He quickly sketched, unaware of the effect his drawing was having on Tom, who stared astonished, as an elegant ocean liner took shape on the page. Sam roughed in compartments and turned an intense gaze on Tom, tapping the paper with his pencil. "Let me tell you first, that I grew up in Belfast, and I learned all about this in school. I know what I'm talking about. The compartments on Titanic only went up to E deck. To be effective in this accident, they need to go all the way to the main deck and need watertight tops. During the accident, the first six compartments are punctured and fill with water. As the bow sinks, the water spills over into the next compartment, on and on down the ship. So you need to fight for higher bulkheads. You need to fight for that double hull. You need to keep that ship afloat for at least five hours, Mr. Andrews. It's four hours before the first rescue ship arrives."
Tom stared at Sam. "How many…" his voice rasped. He cleared his throat and started over. "How many die?"
Sam sat down. "Over fifteen hundred. Including your guarantee group. And you, Mr. Andrews."
Tom blinked. On some level, he'd known that, of course. He would be on that ship on its maiden voyage. And the guarantee group…. He thought of the men he worked with, his pals. And fifteen hundred others, all of whom counted on him to build them a safe ship.
"Casey," Sam said, "why don't you show him our things?"
She left the table without looking at either of them. Sam went back to eating while Tom sat, staring at Sam's drawing. In a moment, Casey was back with a small bag in her hands. She took several objects from the bag and placed them on the table. Tom was suddenly more afraid than he had ever been in his life.
Casey sat, and smiled a little at his expression. "Go ahead. Look them over."
He shook his head. "What are they?"
Sam laughed a little. Casey shrugged and pointed at two of the objects, both small, hard, and rectangular, one black, one pink. "These are telephones, basically. They each have a camera, a calendar, message center, and internet connection. Of course, most of that stuff needs a service network to function, and anyway, the batteries have been dead for more than a year."
She picked up a small silver stick and a strange cord split into a 'Y' with something round attached to each end. She waved the stick at him and showed him buttons on one side. "This is a music player. It contains over three hundred songs that can be played back, sort of like a gramophone. But believe me, the sound quality is much better. You listen to them by plugging this into the player," she demonstrated, "and putting the ear buds in your ears. Of course," and she set everything down with a sad expression, "the batteries for this are also dead." There was real regret in her voice and Sam spoke up.
"I've been working on a way to recharge the batteries, but I just don't have the materials I need." He sounded apologetic.
Nothing they said made sense. Uncertain, Tom picked up the pink rectangle and examined it. It fit in the palm of his hand. There was a small blank square on the front and the words "Verizon" and "Samsung" were embossed on the cover. There was a hinge at the top, so it was obvious it opened up. He lifted the cover and stared at the inside of it, a bigger blank square on top and buttons everywhere, buttons with tiny little arrows or pictures, or numbers or letters. The word "Samsung" was embossed again along the top.
His heart was pounding, and once again he found it difficult to breathe. His mind was whirling so much, he felt as if he had stepped outside his b
ody. This… thing… could not be made up. He was an engineer. He knew a technological machine when he saw one. This… was real, whatever it was.
Casey smiled sadly. "The battery worked for about 2 weeks after we got here. There was no service, of course, but when I opened it, it would still light up and play music and I could still look at pictures and read all the old messages from my friends." Tears coursed down her cheeks. "My schedule said I had a test coming up and a doctor's appointment in a week. I used to drive Sam crazy, because I would just open it up and look at it all the time. It was home. It had my life in it."
A completely crazy story, but Tom could not say she wasn't telling the truth. He did not have it in him to turn away from someone in pain. He closed the thing and put it back into Casey's hands, watching as she held it like the precious thing it was. Sam cleared his throat and pushed the last object toward Tom. A black rectangle, again with a small blank space and covered with buttons. But these buttons made some sense. Numbers: 0–9. A plus sign. A minus sign, an asterisk (multiplication?), a slash (division?). An equal sign. Buttons that proclaimed cos, tan, %, sqrt (square root?), 1/x, many others. Texas Instruments. Scientific Calculator. He looked at Sam, who smiled slightly.
"Made the slide rule obsolete," he said. "And unlike the other things, this runs on solar power. It still works."
Tom could feel himself begin to sweat. It worked? Sam reached over and pressed a button labeled with the word 'On'. There was no sound or movement, but a '0' appeared in the blank space. "Do something simple," Sam suggested. "Make it add two and two, just like you're writing it on paper."
Tom’s hand shook, but he slowly pressed the '2' button. The zero went away and was replaced by a 2. His hand shook a little harder. He pressed the plus sign and nothing happened, making him glance at Sam quizzically. He heard Casey breathe out a giggle. Sam indicated the calculator. "Keep going."
He pressed the '2' button again, and again, nothing happened. But he dogged ahead and pressed the equal sign. A '4' appeared in the screen, silent, irrevocable. Tom felt the world spinning around him, as everything in his existence spun inward to that number '4'. He was sure he'd fallen out of his chair, but a grip on his hand anchored him, and he looked up at Casey, the world straight again, her hand covering his, her eyes concerned, but calm. "Breathe," she instructed softly, and he did, letting his breath out in a gasp.
Sam was relentless. "Try another one. You choose the equation."
"No." Tom took another breath, waited for his heart to stop racing. His lips twitched slightly. "Maybe another time." He turned his hand, gripping Casey's hand firmly in his. Hers was small and soft, but he could feel the strength in it. That strength helped him calm down, but when he looked at her again, he decided he wanted to continue holding it for a lot of other reasons, too.
"Is it true?" he asked her. "Everything you told me?"
She nodded.
"The future? 2006?"
She nodded again.
"How?"
Sam explained, as best he could, about his time travel experiment, and the accident that brought him and Casey to this time. His story made little sense, and Tom kept interrupting, needing explanations about nearly everything. They seemed unaware of what would confuse him, and it was this, as much as anything, that further convinced him they were telling the truth. He was shocked when he realized Casey had been walking alone in the garden in the middle of the night, and this brought the explanation to a halt for a moment.
"You were alone? Your friend didn't walk you home? This is normal for girls in the future?"
She looked abashed. "It's not unusual," she started to say, but hesitated at Sam's expression. "Well, it probably wasn't the wisest thing to do. But I'd done it several times before and never had a problem."
"But Casey." Tom couldn't hide his horror. "Anyone could have been in the garden. What happened was bad enough, but what if Sam had been a criminal? Violent or drunk? Is it so different in the future that there are no people like that out at night?"
She shook her head, shame in her eyes, but she lifted her chin defiantly. "The thing is, women have worked hard to ensure we're safe on the streets at night. We don't think it's right that we have to restrict our movements so that violent men can wander the streets. We're taught to be careful and I've had self-defense training, so I wasn't completely helpless." She glared for a moment before relenting a bit at the worry on his face. "Yes, it would have been safer to stay at the dorm when we had finished studying. My friend had offered to let me stay, but I just wanted to go home. There shouldn't have been a problem."
"I can testify to the self-defense training," Sam offered. "She darn near took me out before I could explain what happened to us. And more than one ruffian around here has been put in his place, believe me."
Tom blinked at this. Was she still going out alone? Then he remembered her months masquerading as a boy. She'd been on the streets of Belfast for a long time. A small smile twitched his lips. "That is somewhat comforting to know." He touched her hand in apology. "You must think I'm treating you like a child, but I'm not, truly. It's just that in this time, there are certain rules that women follow. That's what I'm used to."
She tilted a shoulder in a small shrug. "I'm afraid I hate to be told what to do. I always have to know the reason, and even then, if I don't agree with it, I don't always do it." Her eyes flicked to Sam for a moment. "This time I paid a steep price. I try to be more cautious, now."
"An odd definition of 'cautious,'" Tom murmured, but he patted her hand and turned back to Sam as they both laughed. "Please continue. You saw Casey next to the tree and then what happened?"
The technical explanation went on for a while. "Look," Sam told him finally, "you really need to have a degree in quantum physics to understand this. Not even Casey gets it and she has a lot more scientific knowledge than you do."
Tom and Casey moved to the parlor while Sam made tea, Tom still struggling to accept the idea of a future world interacting with his. "Tell me about your life," he asked Casey as they entered the parlor.
"My life?" She looked uncertain.
"In the future. Before you came here. What did you do? Who were your friends? How did you spend your time? What was the world like?"
"I was a student at Queens," she started explaining. "I went to classes, I studied, I took karate lessons. I shared an apartment with three other people who were also students. My friend, Colleen, was my roommate. We'd been roomies since freshman year; that's how we met." Casey smiled sadly. "She was so great. We laughed all the time. When I first moved to Belfast, I was so afraid I wouldn't make friends, but she was right there. She was… " She stopped and turned her head away, blinking back tears. "I keep wondering about her. What happened when I didn't come home that night? Do they have any idea where I am, what happened to me? She... she would have had to call my parents and tell them…"
Casey stopped talking altogether and Tom moved to her side, taking her hand, horrified at the scenario she described. "Stop. Casey, stop. I'm sorry." He rubbed her shoulder; somehow it felt natural to touch her. "I didn't mean to upset you."
She shook her head in frustration. "I've just never really talked about it, Mr. Andrews. We haven't told anyone except Dr. Riley, and he didn't want to know anything." She looked at him, her expression haunted. "I try to forget that I'll never get back. I try to just live in this new life, but sometimes, it hits me. I really will never see any of them again. They'll never know what happened to me. That's…" she took a deep breath. "That's the hardest part."
He slipped his arm around her and pulled her to him, driven by a need to comfort her. He should not give in to it, he knew. With no chaperone, he shouldn't even be alone with her, but he wanted to hold her. He also wanted to know more, but that could wait for another time. "When you're ready to talk about it, you can always talk to me, Casey. But I don't want to upset you. I want to know all about it, but only when you feel up to it."
She nodded into his shoulder a
nd stepped back, giving him a tentative smile. "You may find you regret that once I get started, but thank you."
Sam came in with the tea and Tom moved away from Casey, to sit in a safe chair. The conversation moved to more general topics. The question came up about "changing the past," but this was beyond Tom's patience. "You may think you are changing your past, but I don't see it that way. This is the future. That's all it is for me, for the other people who die, for this city. What happens in 1912 is wide open."
Sam wasn't sure. "Then did it happen at all? Has there been a 2006 yet, where the Titanic sinking is history? If it happened once, how do we know we can stop it? What if, in spite of all we do, the ship still sinks? What if we avoid one iceberg, just to hit another?"
Tom felt a headache coming on, as he tried to think it through. Casey threw up her hands. "I refuse to accept determinism, Sam. The universe does not "have it in" for the Titanic or for Mr. Andrews or anybody else. There's no point getting up in the morning if that's true."
Tom agreed, but with a caveat. "I do believe in determinism, Casey, but not in the way you and Sam mean." He watched her carefully, wondering how important her atheism was to her. "I believe that God has our lives planned and we can't change his plan. He may have it written that I die on Titanic, but I don't know that for certain. I must live as if I've been given a full measure of years. If I'm to die, then nothing I do will make a difference. But I still must try to make that difference."
She looked unhappy but said only, "As long as you try. That's all I'm asking."
Casey walked him to the door, while Sam took cups to the kitchen. He paused before leaving, needing to say one more thing. "Casey, you've had to make an incredible adjustment. I can't even comprehend what it must have been like for you." He took her hand in both of his. "You need friends, Casey. You can't spend your life working, or sitting in this house. There's a whole world out there. I know it's not your world, but you need to let it become yours. May I help you do that?"
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