Time Travelers Never Die

by Jack McDevitt

  They sat down while the elder Shelborne contented himself with glaring at one of the walls. Then the eyes, dark, penetrating, cool even when he was irritated, locked on him.

  “Where are you going, Dad?” Shel asked innocently.

  “Why does it matter?”

  “That lunch tomorrow?” Shel made no effort to hide an accusing tone. “You never showed up. Or, rather, you won’t show up.”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

  He’d settled into an armchair. Now he pushed back in it, licked his lips, and braced his jaw on one fist. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Isn’t it sufficient reason?”

  “Don’t tell me any more,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Trust me.” He indicated the Q-pod, which Shel had attached to his belt. “How long have you known about that?”

  “A couple of days. To be honest, it’s hard to be sure. What day is this?”

  “Monday.”

  “Incredible. A few minutes ago it was Thursday.”

  Michael’s eyes closed. “Look, Adrian, I know you’re probably upset.”

  “Did you make this thing?”

  “You were supposed to destroy it.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “I’m sure you are.” Michael pressed his lips together. “Yes, I made it. Along with a colleague.”

  “Why do you want it destroyed?”

  “Because it’s dangerous.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “For a number of reasons.”

  “Tell me about them. I don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

  “I take it I haven’t turned up since the lunch?”

  “No. You’ve been missing nine days.”

  “Okay.”

  “Where were you planning to go?”

  He laughed. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “At this point, I’m ready to believe anything.”

  He smiled, casually, easily, like a man in charge of the world. “You know what the converters can do.”

  “A converter. Is that what you call it?”

  “Yes. But the name’s not important.”

  “I guess not. So where did you go? Where are you going?”

  “I’d always wanted to spend some time with Galileo.”

  “Galileo.”

  “Or maybe Cicero. Or Ben Franklin.” He managed a smile. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “You’ve had this thing—what?—three or four months? It’s part of that government project, right?”

  “More or less.”

  “How do you mean, ‘more or less’?”

  “It was an accidental discovery. We were working on something else.”

  “Okay. So now the government has time-travel capability.”

  “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “It’s too dangerous to put in anybody’s hands. Let alone a government.”

  “You keep saying it’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t think we would be permitted to change the past. Though there are people who’d want to. Hell, I’d want to. You could save Lincoln. Kill Hitler. Things like that. But I’m not certain what the result would be.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following.”

  “We had reason to believe that the time stream has a lot of flexibility. You can go back and do things, and the continuum will adjust. As long as you don’t create a paradox. A loop. Something that can’t be absorbed.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The math suggests it. But we pushed it too far. We did an experiment.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Adrian, my partner in the research was Ivy Klassen.”

  “Was?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What happened?”

  “The experiment.”

  “Explain.”

  “What happens if someone goes back and rescues JFK? Prevents his going to Dallas?”

  “I don’t know. We stay out of Vietnam?”

  “I don’t know either. What we do know is that it didn’t happen. Look, Adrian, the standard theory is that if you go back and rescue Kennedy, you cause a split in the timeline. Another reality is created. That’s nonsense, of course, but if it happened, there’d be diverging timelines. The one we live in, and the one in which he survives.”

  “And that’s what you wanted to test?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you try to do? Post somebody at the Texas School Book Depository?”

  “We did a different kind of test. We put a copy of a book into a briefcase.”

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “Because of the book. Anyhow, we closed the briefcase. Left it alone in Ivy’s office for fifteen minutes. Then we went in and opened it. The book was still there.”

  “I would think so.”

  “Then Ivy used the converter to go back five minutes, to a time before we looked in the briefcase. The intention was that she’d remove the book.”

  “So it should have been empty when you opened it.”

  “Yes. But had it been empty when we opened it, then Ivy would have done nothing. Either way, we’d have had a paradox. We would have changed reality.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I found her dead in the office.”

  “What? How?”

  “The doctors said it was a heart attack.”

  “My God.”

  “She was twenty-seven. In perfect health, as far as anyone knew.” He sighed. “It was my fault, Adrian.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I should have realized there might be a factor, something built into the continuum that prevents our screwing around with it. No paradox allowed.”

  “But we’ve both traveled in time. I did it tonight. This was a conversation that did not take place. And here we are.”

  “How can you say it didn’t take place? It is taking place. I did not live through a variant of this evening in which I called you, agreed to meet you and Jerry at Servio’s, and you didn’t show up here with a converter.

  “Listen, son, if we went back to watch the signing of the Magna Carta, then we were part of the event. If photographers had been there, taking pictures, they would have gotten us, as well as the other witnesses. There never would have been a Magna Carta event that we did not attend. I think—I can’t be sure, but I think—it’s only when we violate the time flow, when we create a situation we know could not have existed, that a corrective sets in.”

  “A corrective.”

  “Call it a principle that maintains chronological integrity. That prevents modifications to history. It disallows paradoxes. Negates contradictions.”

  “A chronological integrity principle.”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean a cardiac principle. Threaten the prescribed chain of events, and your heart gives out.”

  “It need not be so dire. I hope not. But yes, I think you’re correct.”

  Shel sat quietly, trying to absorb it all. “What was the book? Why did you smile when you mentioned it?”

  “It was one of my favorites. The Library of America edition of Tom Paine.”

  “Why’s that funny?”

  “The first essay is ‘Common Sense.’ ”

  “DAD, if you were actually to go back to talk to Galileo—”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s your Italian?”

  “Not bad. I’ve been doing a crash course.”

  “Have you done anything like this yet? Have you actually been anywhere?”

  “Only a couple of experimental trips.”

  “Nothing long distance?”

  “No. But let’s get to the point. You’re here because I didn’t come back from this, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He pursed his lips. Not to worry. Everything’s under control. “Okay.”

  “Dad, I don’t think you understan
d. You’re going back there to Renaissance Italy, or wherever, and something happened. Happens. Probably the Inquisition gets you, too.”

  “No,” he said. “Nothing will happen.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because when I’m done with my visit, instead of coming back here, I’ll return in, say, two weeks.”

  Shel’s head was starting to spin again. “Then the reason you disappeared is because I warned you you’d disappear.”

  “Sure.” He grinned.

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler, and safer, not to go?”

  “It’s perfectly safe, Adrian. Because I know what I’m doing.”

  “What would have happened if I hadn’t shown up here?”

  “Pointless question, son. You did, and that’s all that matters.”

  Shel listened to a car approach, slow down, and pull into a driveway across the street.

  “Now, I’m still missing as of when? When did you leave your base time?”

  “Base time?”

  “Your present.”

  “Um. Thursday, the twenty-f ourth.”

  “Morning? Night?”

  “Morning.”

  “Okay. That’s the day I’ll come back. In the evening.” He produced a Q-pod, a converter, and did something to it. “Make it nine o’clock. In the evening. I’ll call you as soon as I get in.”

  “Okay,” said Shel. “Good. That’ll work.” A sense of relief flooded through him.

  “One other thing: You need to keep quiet about this, Adrian. Tell nobody.”

  “Okay.”

  Mission accomplished. Shel got up, as did his father. They embraced. “It’s good to see you again, Dad. I thought I’d lost you.”

  He laughed. “Nice to know you care, son.”

  “So, where’ve you been, exactly? Where were the experimental trips?”

  “I sat up front and watched Beethoven play the Pathétique. And I went to Broadway for Over the Top.”

  “Over the Top?”

  “Fred and Adele Astaire.”

  “Who?”

  “Before your time, lad.”

  “When was that? Over the Top?”

  “Nineteen seventeen.” He actually looked apologetic. “I probably shouldn’t be doing it. But it’s been hard to resist.”

  “How about if I come?”

  “To talk to Galileo?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “How’s your Italian?”

  CHAPTER 6

  . . . To the gods alone

  Is it given never to grow old or die,

  But all else melts before relentless Time.

  —SOPHOCLES, OEDIPUS AT COLONUS

  SHEL returned to Thursday morning, October 25, retrieved his car from the driveway, and went home. He came away from the conversation with mixed feelings. An overwhelming pride in his father’s achievement. Exhilaration at the knowledge that he, too, had traveled in time, had literally gone back into the previous week. Misgivings that his father was going ahead with his intention to travel to Renaissance Italy. Or wherever he finally decided to go.

  He called the office and told them he’d be late. He stopped for breakfast at Maggie’s and thought about calling Dave to tell him what had happened. But that meant flying in the face of his father’s insistence that he keep the existence of the converters quiet. Anyhow, Dave would think he’d lost his mind.

  When he arrived at the office, Linda didn’t want to let him in. “Have you been to see the psychiatrist yet?” she asked. She tried to make it sound like a joke, but her expression clashed with that notion.

  “He’s a psychologist,” Shel said.

  “What did he say?”

  “I’m supposed to be over there at eleven thirty.”

  “Okay. Good. Why don’t you take the rest of the morning? Go to Starbucks or something. Relax. See the doctor, then come back.”

  “Linda,” he said, “I’m okay.”

  “I know that, Shel. But I think maybe you’ve been under too much stress lately. I mean, something like this could happen to anybody.”

  In fact, Shel had forgotten about Dr. Benson. “I’ll be fine, Linda,” he told her. “Look, I’ve got work to do, and I’m not delusional.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “How long have you known me?”

  “I’m sorry, Shel. But yesterday was a little scary.”

  “I know. Look, I’ll sit quietly in my offic e and play with the computer for an hour. Then I’ll go see Dr. Benson. Okay?”

  BENSON must have been eighty. He wasn’t much taller than his desk, and he looked as if he didn’t eat enough. But he had a leisurely manner that put Shel, despite his reservations, at ease. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” he said.

  The truth, Dr. Benson, is that I have a time machine. Got it right here in my briefcase. “Doctor, my father is Michael Shelborne, the physicist who disappeared two weeks ago.” He gave a fictionalized account of the last few days. Stress over the loss of his father had left him confused, and he’d lost a day out of his memory. “But I remember it now. It came back to me.”

  Benson asked more questions. Had anything like this happened to him before? What sort of relationship did he have with his father? Was there a woman in his father’s life? He asked what day it was. (He almost got Shel there.) Who was the current occupant of the White House?

  Then it was over. “These things happen all the time, Dr. Shelborne,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. You’ve undergone a severe shock, and sometimes, when that happens, people simply want to get away from it. So we push it out of our memory. Or, we may forget other things instead.” He smiled. “You’ll be fine.”

  Shel drove back to the office and described the conversation to Linda. She was relieved, and said, “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  DURING the afternoon, Shel’s spirits improved. Linda seemed to have forgotten his odd behavior, and everything returned to normal. He spent most of his time thinking about the converter, where he’d like to go, what he’d like to see. The Wright Brothers, maybe. The “I Have a Dream” speech. And he’d like to go back and watch a couple of the ball games he’d played in for Teddy Roosevelt High School. They’d almost won a title one year. He’d cleared the bases late in the final game, the deciding game, with a double to right center. It gave the Rough Riders a one-run lead, but Lenny Khyber couldn’t hold it.

  Damn. It still annoyed him, remembering Lenny walking three guys in the seventh to give it all back. His father wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t approve, but in the end he’d give in. He had to, because he’d been doing it himself.

  And there was also going to be the matter of explaining where Michael Shelborne had been the last eleven days. But, ultimately, it wasn’t Shel’s problem.

  This would be a weekend to celebrate. Maybe with Helen. He hadn’t asked for her phone number—should have done that—but he found it easily enough in the directory.

  It was late in the week to call and try to set up a Saturday date. But another possibility suggested itself.

  That evening, he took the converter into the park and, when he was alone, used it to return to the previous night. Wednesday. Then he called her on his cell phone.

  She picked up on the fifth ring. “Hello?”

  “Helen? This is Shel.”

  “Who?”

  “Adrian Shelborne. From the Devil’s Disciples.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. How are you, Shel?”

  “I’m fine. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “No. I was just reading the paper.”

  “Helen, I enjoyed meeting you last night.” Was that right? Had it only been the night before? “I was wondering if I could talk you into having dinner with me Saturday?”

  “It’s nice of you to ask, Shel. But I already have a commitment.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” For a few moments neither spoke. Then Shel continued: “How about next week?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I think I c
an manage that.”

  AT twenty to nine, Thursday evening, he was parked in front of the TV, watching Heavy Hitters, a political show with people yelling at one another over, mostly, trivia. Whom could the ordinary people believe? Who was being inconsistent on the issues? Shel was grateful it was an off year for elections.

  He imagined what time travel could do for the media. Take a camera crew back and record what a given candidate had actually done or said. (They’d probably need a court order for that sort of thing.) And for specials, they could record the Caesar assassination. Or Alexander routing the Persians and their war elephants at—Where was it?—Guagamela? They could interview St. Augustine, talk about how it felt to be a god with Amenhotep, and settle the world’s religious arguments once and for all. They could interview Richard III. (“And what did you think of how Shakespeare portrayed you?”) They could talk with Columbus on the way to the New World, and get the native reaction as the galleys appeared on the horizon. He loved the possibilities.

  The moderator on Heavy Hitters was trying to get one of the experts to quiet down long enough for someone else to say something.

  The show that would really draw the ratings would be the talk show from the future. Tomorrow’s News Today. Imagine how many people would tune in to watch that. Shel pictured himself as host.

  He checked his watch. It was 8:47.

  A car pulled up outside. Doors opened and closed. Laughter. Then the car pulled away.

  “Love in Bloom” sounded. He picked up. “Hi, Dad,” he said. “You’re early.”

  “Shel?” A woman’s voice.

  “Yes. Who is it, please?”

  “Charlotte.” His cousin. “Have you heard anything new about your father?”

  “Nothing yet, Charlotte. Listen, let me get back to you. Just a few minutes. I’m expecting a call.”

  “But you haven’t heard anything? I wondered because you answered sort of funny.”

  “No. I think I got confused, Charlotte. Listen. I’ll call you right back.” He disconnected and put the phone down on the coffee table. Beside the connector. The calibrator. Whatever the damned thing was called. And he started thinking how he’d explain it to Charlotte. And Jerry. And everybody else.