Timescape (2 page)

had dissolved last year, though.

This year research was a puppet whose strings led to the World Council itself. The western nations had pooled their research efforts in a gesture towards economy. The World Council was a political animal. To Renfrew it seemed the Council's policies boiled down to supporting highly visible efforts and little else. The fusion reactor program still got a lion's share, despite no apparent progress. The Cav's best groups, such as radio astronomy, had disbanded last year when the Council decided astronomy as a whole was impractical and such work should be suspended "for the duration." Precisely how long the duration might be was a point the Council neatly dodged. The idea was that as the present crisis deepened the western nations had to shuck off their research luxuries in favor of sweaty-browed concentration on the eco-problems and assorted disasters which dominated the newspaper headlines. But one had to sail with whatever wind was blowing, Renfrew knew. He had managed to find a way that tachyons could have a "practical" purpose, and that slant had kept his group afloat so far.

Renfrew finished calibrating some electronics gear–it was always going on the blink these days– and paused for a moment, listening to the preoccupied hum of the lab around him.

"Jason," he called, "I'm off to get coffee. Keep it all going, will you?"

He picked his old corduroy jacket off a hook and stretched mightily, showing crescents of sweat in the cloth around his armpits. In mid-stretch he noticed two men on the platform. One of the technicians was pointing down at Renfrew, talking, and as Renfrew lowered his arms the other man started down the catwalk to the laboratory.

Renfrew had a sudden memory of his college days at Oxford. He had been walking down a corridor which gave back the hollow, ringing echo only stonework can. It was a beautiful October morning and he was brimming with eagerness to begin this new life he had looked forward to, the goal of the long student years. He had known he was bright; here, among his intellectual equals, he would at last find his niche. He had come in on the train from York the night before and now he wanted to get out into the morning sun and take it all in.

There were two of them sauntering towards him down the corridor.

They wore their short academic gowns like courtiers' robes and they walked as though they owned the building. They were talking loudly as they approached him and looked him over as if he were an Irishman. As they passed him, one said with a lazy drawl, "Oh, God, another bloody yokel up on a scholarship." It had set the tone of his years at Oxford. He had got a First, of course, and he had made his name now in the physics world. But he had always felt that even if they were wasting their time, they were enjoying life more than he ever could.

The memory of it stung again as he watched Peterson walk towards him. At this distance in time, he could not remember the faces of those two undergraduate snobs and there was probably no physical resemblance, but this man wore the same graceful, arrogant self-assurance. Also, he noticed the way Peterson dressed and he resented noticing another man's clothes. Peterson was tall and lean and dark-haired. At a distance, he gave the impression of a young and athletic dandy. He walked lightly, not like the rugby player that Renfrew had been in his youth, but like a tennis or polo player or perhaps even a javelin thrower. Seen closer, he looked to be in his early forties and was unmistakably a man used to wielding power He was handsome in a rather severe way. There was no contempt in his expression, but Renfrew thought bitterly that he had probably just learned to hide it in his adult years. Pull yourself together, John, he admonished himself silently. You're the expert, not him. And smile.

"Good morning, Dr. Renfrew." The smooth voice was just what he had expected.

"Good morning, Mr. Peterson," he murmured, holding out a large square hand. "Pleased to meet you." Damn, why had he said that? It might almost have been his father's voice: "I'm reet pleased to meet ya, lad." He was getting paranoid. There was nothing in Peterson's face to indicate anything but seriousness about his job.

"Is this the experiment?" Peterson looked round with a remote expression.

"Yes, would you like to see it first?"

"Please."

They passed some old gray cabinets of English manufacture and some newer equipment housed in brightly colored compartments from Tektronics, Physics International, and other American firms. These garish red and yellow units came from the small Council appropriation. Renfrew led Peterson to a complex array housed between the poles of a large magnet.

"Superconducting setup, of course. We need the high field strength to get a nice, sharp line during transmission."

Peterson studied the maze of wires and meters. Cabinets housing rank upon rank of electronics towered over them. He pointed out a particular object and asked its function.

"Oh, I didn't think you'd be wanting to know much of the technical side," Renfrew said.

"Try me."

"Well, we've got a large indium antimonide sample in there, see."

Renfrew pointed at the encased volume between the magnet poles. "We hit it with high-energy ions. When the ions strike the indium they give off tachyons. It's a complex, very sensitive ion-nuclei reaction." He glanced at Peterson.

"Tachyons are particles that travel faster than light, you know. On the other side,–" he pointed around the magnets, leading Peterson to a long blue cylindrical tank that protruded ten meters away from the magnets.

"–we draw out the tachyons and focus them into a beam. They have a particular energy and spin, so they resonate only with indium nuclei in a strong magnetic field."

"And when they hit something in the way?"

"That's the point," Renfrew said sharply. "Tachyons have to strike a nucleus in precisely the correct state of energy and spin before they lose any energy in the process. They pass right through ordinary matter. That's why we can shoot them across light years without having them scattered out of their path."

Peterson said nothing. He scowled at the equipment.

"But when one of our tachyons strikes an indium nucleus in precisely the right state– a situation that doesn't occur naturally very often–it will be absorbed. That tips the spin of the indium nucleus away from wherever it was pointing. Think of the indium nucleus as a little arrow that gets knocked to the side. If all the little arrows were pointing in one direction before the tachyons arrived, then they would get disordered. That would be noticeable and–"

"I see, I see," Peterson said disdainfully. Renfrew wondered if he had overdone that bit about little arrows. It would be fatal if Peterson thought he was talking down to him–which of course he was.

"That's some other fellow's indium, I suppose?"

Renfrew held his breath. This was the tricky part. "Yes. An experiment operating in the year 1963," he said slowly.

Peterson said drily, "I read the preliminary report. These prelims are often deceptive, but I understood that. The technical staff tell me it makes sense, but I can't believe some of the things you've written. This business of altering the past–"

"Look, there's this fellow Markham coming–he'll put you straight on that."

"If he can."

"Right. See, the reason nobody's even tried to send messages back is an obvious one, once you think of it. We can build a transmitter, see, but there's no receiver. Nobody in the past ever built one."

Peterson frowned. "Well, of course–"

Renfrew went on enthusiastically. "We've built one, naturally, to do our preliminary experiments. But the people back in 1963 didn't know about tachyons. So the trick is to interfere with something they're already doing.

That's the ticket."

"Um."

"We try to concentrate bursts of tachyons and aim them just so–"

"Hold on," Peterson said, putting up a hand. "Aim for what? Where is 1963?"

"Quite far away, as it works out. Since 1963, the earth's been going round the sun, while the sun itself is revolving around the hub of the galaxy, and so on. Add that up and you find 1963 is pretty distant."

"Relative to what?"

"Well, relative to the center of mass of the local group of galaxies, of course. Mind, the local group is moving, too, relative to the frame of reference provided by the microwave radiation background, and—"

"Look, skip the jargon, can't you? You're saying 1963 is in the sky somewhere?"

"Quite so. We send out a beam of tachyons to hit that spot. We sweep the volume of space occupied by the earth at that particular time."

"Sounds impossible."

Renfrew measured his words. "I think not. The trick is creating tachyons with essentially infinite speed–"

Peterson made a wry, tired smile. "Ah–'essentially infinite'? Comic technical talk."

"I mean, with unmeasurably high velocity," Renfrew said precisely.

"Sorry for the terminology, if that's what bothers you."

"Well, look, I'm only trying to understand."

"Yes, yes, sorry, I may have jumped the gun there." Renfrew visibly composed himself for a fresh attack. "Mind, the essential trick here is to get these high-velocity tachyons. Then, if we can hit the right spot in space, we can send a message back quite a way."

"These tachyon beams will go straight through a star?"

Renfrew frowned. "We don't know, actually. There's a possibility that other reactions–between these tachyons and other nuclei besides indium–will be fairly strong. There's no data on those cross sections yet. If they are, a planet or a star getting in the way could be trouble."

"But you've tried simpler tests? I read in the report–"

"Yes, yes, they've been very successful."

"Well, still." Peterson gestured at the maze of equipment. "This strikes me as a fine physics sort of experiment. Commendable. But—" he shook his head. "–well, I'm amazed you got the money for this."

Renfrew's face tightened. "It's not all that bloody much."

Peterson sighed. "Look here, Dr. Renfrew, I'll be frank with you. I'm down here to evaluate this for the Council, because some pretty big names have said it makes some sort of sense. I don't feel I have the technical background to evaluate this properly. No one on the Council has. We're ecologists and biologists and systems people for the most part."

"Should be broader based."

"Granted, yes. Our idea in the past has been to bring in specialists as they're needed."

Gruffly: "So reach Davies at King's College in London. He's keen on this and–"

"There isn't time for that. We're looking for emergency measures."

Renfrew said slowly, "It's that bad?"

Peterson paused, as though he had given away too much. "Yes. Looks so."

"I can move fast, if that's your idea," Renfrew said briskly.

"You may have to."

"It would be better if we got a whole new generation of equipment in here," Renfrew took in the lab with a hand wave. "The Americans have developed new electronics gear that would improve matters. To be really sure we got through, we need the Americans to come in. Most of the circuitry I need is being developed in their national labs, Brookhaven and so on."

Peterson nodded. "So your report said. That's why I want this fellow Markham in on this today."

"Has he got the necessary weight to swing it?"

"I think so. He's well thought of, I'm told, and he's an American on the spot. That's what his National Science Foundation needs to cover itself in case—"

"Ah, I see. Well, Markham's due here any time now. Come have some coffee in my office."

Peterson followed him into the cluttered den. Renfrew cleared books and papers off a chair, bustling about in that nervous manner people have when they have suddenly realized, along with a guest, that their office is messy. Peterson sat down, lifting his trousers at the knees and then crossing his legs. Renfrew made more of a business than necessary out of fetching the acrid-smelling coffee, because he wanted time to think.

Things were starting badly; Renfrew wondered if the memories from Oxford had soured him automatically on Peterson. Well, there was nothing for it; everyone was fairly edgy these days, anyway. Perhaps Markham could smooth things over when he arrived.

Marjorie locked the kitchen door behind her and walked round the side of the house, carrying a bucket of chicken feed. The lawn behind the house was crisply quartered by brick paths, with a sundial at the intersection.

From force of habit, she followed the path and did not step on the wet grass. Beyond the lawn was a formal rose garden, her own pet project. As she walked through it, breaking beaded spider webs with her body, she stopped here and there to pinch off a dead bloom or to sniff at a bud. It was early in the year, but a few roses were blossoming already. She talked to each bush as she passed it.

"Charlotte Armstrong, you're doing very well. Look at all those buds.

You're going to be absolutely beautiful this summer. Tiffany, how are you?

I see some green fly on you. I'll have to spray you. Good morning, Queen Elizabeth, you're looking very healthy, but you're sticking out rather too far into the path. I should have pruned you more on this side."

Somewhere in the distance she could hear a knocking sound. It alternated with the trill of a blue tit perched on the hedge. With a start she realized that the knocking was coming from her own house. It couldn't be Heather or Linda; they would come round the back. She turned.

Raindrops splattered from the leaves as she brushed past the rose bushes.

She hurried across the lawn and round the side of the house, setting the bucket down by the kitchen door.

A shabbily dressed woman with a pitcher in her hand was turning away from the front door. She looked as though she had camped all night; her hair was matted and there were smudges on her face. She was about Marjorie's height, but thin and round-shouldered.

Marjorie hesitated. So did the woman. They eyed each other across the U-shaped sweep of the gravel drive. Then Marjorie moved forward.

"Good morning." She was about to say, "Can I do something for you?"