Myths of the Modern Man (22 page)

He stepped toward her and put his hand on hers. “Convince me otherwise.”

“
I won’t bother. Nor will I take steps to put your idea in action. That’s not my decision, Cassius. And it’s not a lack of guts or curiosity in the name of science, it’s just following protocol.”

“
My point is who would know?”

“
Well…I suppose…no one. No one but us. But, it doesn’t matter, it can’t be done.”

“
I think you had better work to prove that it can or it can’t, and not just for my sake but for the sake of your own conscience. General English will use this data from this mission for purposes of national defense. And we both know what a bunch of arrogant exploitation that is.”

Dr. L’Esperance quietly emerged from the stacks of intel disks. Eleanor did a double take.

“
What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

“
Dr. Ford kindly directed me to the other entrance,” she replied.

Eleanor turned to Dr. Ford, who deprecatingly glanced back and forth at the two of them, while inching backward toward the door.

“
Cassius,” she said. A sudden flush and she grew red in the face, “you know damn well this is a security breach.”

“
I have clearance,” Dr. L’Esperance replied.

“
The hell you do,” Eleanor snapped, and turned to her terminal, clicking out proof and retribution, but coming up only with a glaring screen that verified Dr. L’Esperance’s new clearance.

“
When did you get clearance to be in this lab unsupervised?” Eleanor asked, as dumbfounded as she was enraged.

“
I am not unsupervised. You are here to supervise me.”

Eleanor took a deep breath to keep from choking her, and shot a query glare at Dr. Ford, but he only lowered his eyes, turned, and proceeded to leave the lab.

“
Cassius, you coward!” Eleanor shouted, “You did this! You tricked me!” The door clicked shut behind him.

“
He did nothing,” Dr. L’Esperance said, “except to lead me to the other entrance. He had nothing to do with my clearance level.”

“
Then am I to assume you worked your way around General English as you did with Dr. Ford? Don’t tell me it was in the same slutty manner. That would be too grotesque, even for a manipulative cow like you.”

Dr. L’Esperance lowered her eyes, much as Dr. Ford had done, though not in embarrassment or a guilty conscience, but instead with a peaceful sense of self-control that let her listen carefully to Eleanor so that she might choose her own words with discretion. Eleanor noticed and it drove her mad.

“
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Cassius Ford, is that he goes whichever way the wind is blowing. He thinks I don’t know that about him, but I do. You’re part of the new military aspect of this little adventure, aren’t you? The Committee has sent you to exploit my project. If you think you’re taking over, think again because I won’t let go that easily.”

Dr. L’Esperance’s rueful smile remained, and shook her head.

“
No, I am not part of any military aspect.”

“
Then tell me, what are your intentions?” Eleanor asked, slamming her palm down on the metal counter.

“
What are yours?”

“
What are you talking about?”

“
I was never clear on what your motives were for this project. I could find no strong thread in collected data that you were ever interested in anything but your own personal glory.”

“
You’ve been looking at my personnel file? I doubt you have clearance for that. I will report you, Dr. L’Esperance. I can tell you right now that I’ve been reviewing your own file.”

“
Then we share an equal interest in each other.”

“
I should say I was unimpressed.”

“
You are defensive and vainglorious. I would not have surmised that by the data. This is the benefit of personal contact.”

Eleanor colored, and said evenly, “You can leave my laboratory now.”

“
I have my own mission, Dr. Roberts, and now is the time for me to tell you what it is. I’m here to stop your mission from failing.”

“
I’ve heard enough. You are nothing, if not tiresome.”

“…
Because it will fail,” Dr. L’Esperance continued, “and I know in your rigid thinking and brittle ego, you will refuse to believe me when I say this, but I also know you are a highly intelligent woman who eventually comes to her own conclusions. Your mission will fail, Dr. Roberts, and Colonel Moore will be lost in the time period you have sent him. Your reputation will come under scrutiny, your theories discredited, and between the government wanting to cover its losses and public outcry for recklessly losing its most public hero-figure, your department will be terminated. You will be terminated. You will take a position as a university lecturer in applied general physics, certainly not in your own field. In your own field, you will be vilified. When you die, you will be remembered only as a trivia question in crossword puzzles.”

“
You are as untalented at predicting the future as you are in….”

“
It is not the future. It is the past.”

“
You’ll have to do better than…” Eleanor started to say, but drew her glance back to Dr. L’Esperance, who looked her in the eye with firmness, but without the least bit of malice. There was even a touch of sadness in her expression, something akin to empathy. Eleanor felt a shiver down her spine, like an ominous, stinging tickle of static electricity. Her mental faculties reacted much slower to the shock. She could not take it in. She would not let herself take it in.

“
However,” Dr. L’Esperance continued slowly, and with sincere gentleness, “In another one hundred years, your theories will be dusted off. The miscalculations will be revisited, and revised. Your name will again become a shining example to young metaphysical theorists and your work will be respected once again. Studies will be written not just about your work, but about you. Of course, it would not be long after the resurgence of your popularity before the military aspect re-emerged. The department will become a full-fledged agency, and then a branch of the government.”

Eleanor looked at her in blank surprise. Her mind began to race now.

“
Of course, these were things I only read about,” Dr. L’Esperance continued, “as I was born many hundreds of years later.”

“
You’re…from the future?” She could not stifle the gasp or control the dubious smirk.

Dr. L’Esperance smiled, delighted, as if Eleanor were a toddler who took her first steps.

“
Surely, a scientist of your experience doesn’t think it impossible?” She fairly cooed with words with encouragement.

Eleanor sat down on the metal stool behind the counter.

“
Prove it,” she said. Her voice shook.

“
Well, as I said, your mission will fail….”

“
In the first place, no it won’t. But, if it does, how do I know you haven’t done something to sabotage it?”

“
Always about you,” Dr. L’Esperance shook her head, “Aren’t you curious to know what the future will be like?”

“
If you’re not from the future, your descriptions are fanciful imagination and myth.”

“
I see. Without proof, you have no faith.”

“
You sound like that idiot John Moore.”

“
Tell me about him.”

Eleanor turned away, then acquiescing, she said, “All right, tell me about the future.”

“
I grew up in the cusp of the millennium. The fourth millennium, A.D.”

Eleanor searched her face skeptically.

“
The environmental concerns you experience now have mushroomed into unstoppable transmogrification of the planet. You have already battled the rising seas. In my time, everything under 1,000 feet is under water. That includes most of what had been in your time the world’s great cities. Most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S., a great part of Europe. Much of Africa remains intact, with its higher plateau and not too many plate tectonic worries, like the kind that are demolishing the Rockies. I was named Cheyenne in honor of that city, where my ancestors lived. How terrible to watch it at the point of its tragic demise. In my time, it is a favorite archeological site, frequented by university expeditions. The terrible destruction and death is only a sad tale from long ago, in my time. Time may not heal all wounds, but it does give one a different and far less passionate perspective.

“
But, we revere the past, in my time. In fact, many people living in my time are given names that serve to keep alive the old cultures. Where once you might have been most proud of family names, clan names, in the future it will be about preserving in our names the heritage of place, because we are losing so much of it.” She smiled, cocking her head slightly.

“
Sons were often named for their fathers in your time, I believe. In my world, children are named after long-ago places. Boston. Athens. London.”

Eleanor’s expression lost its skepticism. She looked blankly at Dr. L’Esperance, and listened to the story she continued to tell, forgetting to question it.

“
Time travel has become an industry,” Dr. L’Esperance said, as her glance wandered aimlessly along the plain white, painfully clean meters of measurement and digital authority of the lab, “and a popular leisure activity. You see, since the planet’s environmental problems have become so great, mankind has ceased to engage in warfare. I know you must think that incongruous. Since the dawn of time warfare was the means of power, of gaining wealth, property. Therefore, with land area dwindling, more struggle must occur over what’s left.” She smiled again, “Not so. Happily for us, not so. Part of that is due to the millions of deaths in generations of natural disasters, and the famine and sickness that often accompany them. Several hundred thousand others left for the colonization of a similar Earth-like planet in another galaxy. Those of us who remained discovered profound comfort in each other. We treasure each other, and nurture our fellow human beings. In a sad way, now that it’s too late, we have at last found and embraced our humanity.”

“
Too late?”

“
Have you forgotten your own theories on entropy?”

“
Yes, I see.”

“
However, we do have an outlet, an escape. That was also provided by you.” Dr. L’Esperance continued, “Time travel. Since the French Riviera, the Florida Keys, and …well, many other places have ceased to exist, my fellow human beings enjoy vacationing not to a place, but to a past. Brief trips are arranged to era of one’s choice, and guides are provided. Such time-holidays are taken as annual family vacations, given as graduation gifts and taken as honeymoons. Sometimes, however, a person prefers to lose himself entirely, and does not return. It is not wise to encourage this sort of thing, of course, but most of time we do look the other way. One can hardly blame them. Occasionally, a person intends to return but has missed the geo-magnetic rendezvous and needs to be retrieved. Such rescuers we call ‘Retrievers.’”

Eleanor stuffed her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. She stared at her murky, somewhat bloated reflection on the metal counter before her.

“
However, the greatest achievement from time travel was the peace between nations we enjoy in my time. In the early days of time travel, generations ago, scouts were sent back to evaluate and accumulate data, much as Colonel Moore is doing, but with far greater resources, which has led to the sharp decline in warfare. One of the most enduring urges to culminate in warfare has been revenge. Revenge is based on past injustices or perceived injustices. When travel to the past was possible, that allowed mankind to see into the past with astounding clarity that negated decades, centuries of prejudice, suspicion and the roots of revenge. Two nations war over a common boundary, each claiming its right to the same land. Each has brought up it children with its own version of historical fact. Remove the versions and replace them with actual historical fact that shows the boundary was always fluid, that enemies were once the same people, then the motivations for revenge diminish.”

“
If time travel has made peace possible,” Eleanor asked, grudging, intrigued, “then why do you insist my project is failing?”

“
Because a terrible thing happens as a result of this mission, Dr. Roberts. After your failure, your colleagues and the public want no more to do with your time travel theories, as I’ve said. That terrible thing is centuries more of warfare, which in part has led to environmental havoc of this planet. It took a very long time for us to change, to learn from the past as historians had always meant us to learn. We couldn’t until we saw it for ourselves. What I want to do is correct your errors, bring Colonel Moore back, and make this mission a public success.”

“
Bring him back?”

“
You lost him.”

Eleanor stood again, slowly, her mistrusting gaze never leaving Dr. L’Esperance’s expressive face, but never having been a good judge of people by looking into their eyes, she was still at a loss to know whether she was being lied to. All she noted was that, just as John Moore had mentioned, Dr. L’Esperance’s eyes were truly green, and quite lovely.

“
I see,” Eleanor responded, “I should say that Dr. Ford is concerned about the military aspects of future missions. He only just mentioned that.”

“
The sooner time travel goes public, the easier it will be to rid those military aspirations from your projects. Such inventions are more easily manipulated when they are kept secret, or for use only by a few. Made public, the military will have much less influence. Once again, change the root causes of suspicion and revenge where all acts of the past are brought out into the open, and the need for warfare is diminished.”