The Depths of Time

by Roger MacBride Allen

  Norla would have been fascinated to hear his answer to that question, but Koffield did not reply.

  Their host laughed and went on. “Well, who doesn’t have something to feel guilty about? But I can tell you it’s nothing like that. Well, maybe with some people, the Glister refugees’ descendants, it is, but never mind that.”

  Norla was more than a little taken aback to hear Raenau mention Glister, but Koffield revealed nothing. She wanted to take the bait, and there was something in Raenau’s expression that told her he wanted to be asked, but now was not the time or place. There were other things they needed to know about. “Let’s just stick to the point, Commander,” she said. “We don’t know much of anything. What is it you’re trying to say? Who’s Pulvrick, and what about the Chrononaut?”

  “Of course. You don’t know it. My apologies. Short and sweet: The disappearance of the Dom Pedro IV used to be well-known. It isn’t really, these days. You’re not famous anymore. These days, you’re part of an old story that most people know just a little bit about. People know there’s a legend, or a mystery, but they don’t know exactly what it is. Things have gotten mixed up and forgotten. I’m sure your arrival will spark a new flurry of interest, but I’ve dug around in the records enough to know that the versions of the story best known to the general public are way off the mark. I had to do a lot of homework before I understood the situation well enough to suit myself.”

  Koffield smiled. “You make it sound as if you’ve been expecting us for some time.”

  “That’s a fact,” Raenau said. “I have been. I’m one of those guys who has to know things. And you people have been driving me nuts every day since I took on this job. And every other poor bastard who ever held this job. You’ve been staring us all in the face.”

  “How could that be?” Norla demanded.

  Raenau flipped open a panel on his desk and punched a few buttons. The image of swimming fish on the decorative folding screen by his desk vanished, the screen went black, and the upper half of the unit flashed up a text display instead.

  “My daily agenda,” Raenau said. “First item.”

  But Norla didn’t need to have her attention drawn to it. It jumped out at her. All the other items on the screen were in normal-sized black or dark blue lettering. But the first item was displayed in bright red letters twice as tall as everything else. Even the shape of the letters for that first item was different. Everything else was in the same sort of ornate, fussy-looking type she had seen on most of the signs and placards around the station. But the first item was in the thick, blocky, simplified style of lettering they used aboard the Dom Pedro IV and the Cruzeiro do Sul. It read:

  [EARTHSIDE STANDARD DATECODE 05FEB5213] TOP PRIORITY, PERMANENT STANDING ORDER, TO BE POSTED UNTIL COMPLIANCE: BE ON ALERT FOR ARRIVAL OF TIMESHAFT SHIP DOM PEDRO VI. ANY PASSENGERS ARRIVING FROM THAT SHIP TO BE CONDUCTED TO STATION MANAGER’S OFFICE’ AT EARLIEST CONVENIENCE. IF ANTON KOFFIELD ARRIVES, CONDUCT HIM AT ONCE TO MANAGER’S OFFICE AND ALERT MANAGER REGARDLESS OF TIME OR CIRCUMSTANCE. ATTACHED FILE WILL DECRYPT AT THAT TIME.

  It struck Norla at once that the syntax of the instruction was relatively normal. Everything else on the board was in the same odd compuspeak Sparten had used.

  “ ‘Posted until compliance,’ “ Raenau said. “I’ve been staring at those words since I took this job. So has every man or woman who’s run this station since it was posted. Praise be, the great day dawns at last!”

  “You couldn’t erase the message?” she asked.

  “Nope,” said Raenau. “The station manager of the time, a woman by the name of Pulvrick, saw to that. I couldn’t even change the typo and make it Dom Pedro IV instead of Dom Pedro VI. Probably they got it mixed up with the Chrononaut VI.”

  “Wait a second,” Norla said. “Back up a little. We know something about the Chrononaut, but none of the rest of it.”

  “Sorry. I keep assuming you’d know this stuff, because it’s all about you. Three days after the Chrononaut VI arrived in-system, Pulvrick told the station’s artificial-intelligence system to burn that message”—he stabbed at the screen with his cigar—”into the station’s core-memory systems. And every station manager since has had to see it every day.”

  “So why couldn’t you just get rid of the message—or the system running it?” Norla asked.

  “Because I don’t really run this station,” Raenau said. “The station artificial-intelligence system does that. Has to be that way with a system as big as this station. The complexity of the station operation systems approach that of a human body. You can’t yank out the brain and plug in a new one. You have to leave some systems running while you upgrade others. Backups in every subsystem, every sort of redundancy. I looked into it. There have been at least six replacements and fourteen major upgrades of the station’s artificial-intelligence system in the last century. And every generation of the station Artlnt has made sure that damned message popped to the top of the screen on the manager’s schedule, no matter what.”

  “Pulvrick must have thought we had something important to say,” Koffield said mildly.

  “People have wondered about that, from time to time,” Raenau admitted. “It was all the rage when the Glister refugees came in, back before I was born, and when I was just a kid. Not much anymore these days, of course, but there used to be a lot of theories floated about. It’s always been assumed that the Chrononaut was carrying some sort of message from you, saying you were working on something big, or had vital news, or whatever, but no one’s ever seen the message. That’s what got people guessing. There were whole books just on that one subject, as a matter of fact. Have a look in the archives when you have a chance, if you’re interested.” Raenau grinned suddenly. “But I guess you know if there was a message, huh? I guess you don’t have to read up on it.”

  Koffield looked intently at Raenau. “It’s been assumed that I sent a message on the Chrononaut? Why assumed? How is it they didn’t know? And if they didn’t know, why did they speculate?”

  Raenau pointed a beefy finger at the message display. “Because of that. ‘Attached file will decrypt.’ It was posted three days after the Chrononaufs arrival, and there’s an encrypted file linked to it. Because of that, and because the message mentions you in particular, it’s always been assumed that what Pulvrick had linked to that command was a message from you. People have tried to find it and crack it now and then, but the station’s Artint was under orders to protect the message, and it always found ways to do it. Even the message’s location in the memory storage system is encrypted.”

  “I did indeed send a message on the Chrononaut to the station manager—addressed to the office, as I had no idea who had the job. I never intended it to be kept secret,” Koffield said. “Pulvrick should have unbuttoned the message once we were badly overdue.”

  “Right,” said Raenau. “Except by then she was busy being dead. A bad virus ripped through the station, killed lots of people—including Pulvrick and most of her staff. And the Chrononaut VI never passed through the Solacian system again. It was years before anyone thought to track her down. She’d been sold for scrap by then, and the crew dispersed all over Settled Space. Just finding out that much took years. They traced one or two of the crew, but none of them knew anything. The captain was the one to talk to, but searching took a lot of time and money, and after a while, people gave up looking for him.”

  Koffield was staring straight at Raenau, and yet did not seem to see him at all. “Do you mean to say no one knows, no one in this star system has ever known, except this Pulvrick person, what was in my message?”

  “Nope.”

  “For a hundred and twenty-seven years it’s been in the station Artlnt’s memory store, waiting for me to show up?”

  “That’s right. At least we think so. We think that when we give the Artint positive confirmation of your identity, it will deliver up the message. But we don’t know for certain.”

  Koffield was plainly stunn
ed. Of all the possibilities he had considered, this was clearly not one of them. “Then you don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know.”

  “No, we don’t,” Raenau said. “And, well, I don’t mean to be too hard-edged* but you two are quite literally history. Maybe that hasn’t sunk in yet. Maybe your information was vital a hundred years ago, but, now, well—you’re too late. The historians will want to talk with you, and I want to know myself, but, well—a long time has passed.”

  “If we’re so unimportant, why did you bring us directly here?” Norla asked, a little belligerently.

  “Didn’t have much choice. Once your ship was identified as a lighter off the Dom Pedro IV, the station Artlnt systems started firing up every sort of alarm it had, insisting on compliance with its standing orders. Mind you, I was happy to cooperate. I want that message gone and my schedule board clear. Sick to death of staring at those big red words every morning. So—can we get you identified and get this over with?”

  Norla was about to protest further when Koffield caught her eye and shook his head. “What we have to say, and what was in the message, are still quite important, Commander. Once you decrypt that message, and once I open this secured container, we’ll prove that much.”

  “Hmmph. I suppose I have to admire your confidence, anyway. Lemme get the Artlnt into voice mode, and we’ll get this done.” He worked another of the controls hidden in his desktop.

  A dull, expressionless, genderless voice spoke, coming from nowhere and everywhere in the room. “Voice mode, command systems, activated,” it announced.

  “I hate talking to this damned thing,” Raenau growled. “Feel like I’m talking backwards to a smart-ass assistant who wants to show he’s smarter than I am.” He cleared his throat and spoke with exaggerated care. “Command Artlnt, receive command. Identity test, subject, seated in chair two. Compare results, standing orders, action list, item one, station manager schedule. Proceed.”

  “Subject, seated in chair two, state name, state personal identity phrase.”

  “Anton Koffield. *I warn of things to come.’ “

  “Match, preliminary, formed. Stand by.”

  One of the ceiling portals, a different one than the one the elevator had used, irised open. A small wheeled equipment cart, held by a hydraulic arm, came down into the commander’s office. The arm set the cart down and released it. It rolled toward Koffield and stopped in front of him.”Fingerprint, blood sample, for DNA extraction, retinal scan,” the dull voice announced. “Scanner-sampler active. Indicated slot, insert hand into, palm down.” Koffield put his hand into the slot with far greater apparent willingness than Norla would have shown. She could see him flinch slightly, no doubt as the sampling needle drew its blood from a fingertip. “Hand to be withdrawn. Subject to stand by.”

  A second slot opened in the top of the cart, and a scanner mask raised itself up and out on the end of a telescoping arm. It positioned itself at eye level, a few. centimeters from Koffield’s head. “Face, press up against mask, eyes, align with scanners. Eyes open, looking straight ahead.” Koffield obligingly leaned in close to the mask and pressed his face up against it. “Complete,” the voice announced. “Identity, subject, established as Koffield, Anton. Standing orders, action list, item one, schedule, commander compared. Action, required, execute.”

  The cart withdrew. The arm came back down out of the ceiling, picked it back up, and withdrew. The ceiling port irised shut.

  “It’s gone,” Raenau said, in a tone of wonderment and delight. “It’s actually gone away.”

  He was, of course, looking toward the screen, and at the big blank space where the old-fashioned red letters had been for so long. The space on the screen was empty, and on Raenau’s pugnacious face was the expression of someone who had just witnessed a miracle.

  “Is the file there?” Koffield asked. “Did it decrypt the file?”

  “Huh?” Raenau said, still all but transfixed by the sight of the message that wasn’t there.

  “The file. Has the Artlnt system released the decrypted file?” Koffield demanded. He was suddenly more alert, more animated than he had been a moment before.

  “Oh! Yeah. Right.” Raenau activated another screen, built into .the top of his desk. “It’s just coming in. Hell’s bells, that thing must have been coded to the devil and back if it’s taking this long to put it in clear.”

  “Very good,” Koffield said. “What it says should match up with the files in here,” he said, patting the secured container.

  This is it, Norla told herself. Koffield needed that file to be there first, read first, before he could go further. If Raenau could match the encrypted file that had waited here all this time against the information Koffield delivered now, that would be prima facie evidence of the information’s authenticity. No one would ever be able to claim it was planted or faked. Now he was ready. Now Koffield had come tothe end of his long, long road. She could read it all in his face. A century late, perhaps, but now, at last, he was about to fulfill his self-appointed mission.

  Koffield lifted the secured container up onto Raenau’s desk, moving eagerly, hurriedly, nearly knocking over the ashtray that held his forgotten cigar. “The data in this secured container here will match what’s in your file,” he said. “Each will help prove the other is authentic.”

  “Hey! Careful you don’t scratch my desk with that thing,” Raenau warned, getting up out of his chair.

  We’re here to warn about the end of the world, and he’s worried about his desktop. Norla found that she had to fight back a half-hysterical giggle.

  “Your desk is perfectly safe, Commander,” Koffield said with something close to sharp impatience. “It’s your planet that is in danger. You need to examine the information in the file you have just decrypted, and the information I have in this container.”

  “Now wait a minute—”

  “There is a two-page summary at the start of my message brought to you by the Chrononaut VI. Read it.”

  “I have got better things to do than—”

  “My rank might be a hundred years out of date, but I am your superior officer. Read it. Now!”

  Raenau stared at Koffield, and time froze for the space of a dozen heartbeats. Then, slowly, Raenau sat back down, stubbed his cigar out in the ashtray, and brought up the file on the display built into his desk. Norla watched him intently. It wasn’t far from her mind that there were any number of ways for him to pull a stunt, to push a panic button and have armed guards drop out of the ceiling. But he did not. He sat, and he read, the glow of the display screen softly illuminating his expressionless face.

  The room was silent, utterly still. Norla found herself holding her breath without knowing why. She forced herself to start breathing again. She stared at the station commander’s face.

  But Raenau was giving very little away. He frowned at one point and seemed to look back at something earlier on in the text before going forward.

  At last he finished and shut off the screen. He sat there for perhaps half a minute, frowning down at the blank top of his desk. At last he spoke, still staring down at nothing at all. “My first instinct is to throw you both out of my office and have you locked away as a pair of lunatics,” he said. “Your summary, Admiral Koffield, reads like a carefully reasoned, thoughtfully worked-out, hundred-year-old list of paranoid delusions and apocalyptic claptrap. I’m very much surprised Pulvrick took it seriously at all.” He let out a weary sigh, then looked up at them. “Trouble is, everything predicted in your summary has come true. That makes it harder for me to think you’re crazy. Not impossible. Just harder.”

  “Let me make it harder still,” Koffield said. “Open this secured container, and then the case inside it. First detach the longwatch camera, and aim it so it can see what you’re doing.”

  “This is what you do to help prove you aren’t crazy?” Raenau asked. He glared at the impassive Koffield for a second, then shrugged. “All right. I’ll go along with the gag. Quick
est way to get this over with is to get this thing open and you out of here.” He looked down at the secured container, saw how the longwatch camera was fastened, and removed it. He set it down on the opposite side of his desk so it would have a clear view of the proceedings, then turned his attention back to the secured container. “So how’s this thing work? Not quite like what we’ve got these days.”

  “It’s an open-once system,” Koffield said. “Opening the main latches destroys the locking mechanism, so it can’t be resealed. I believe there’s a printed label by the latches, with instructions there.”

  “Ah, where—oh, okay, there it is.” Raenau read over the instructions, then opened the seals and the latches, one by one. The container came open. He swung the lid open and revealed Koffield’s personal pack, his Chronologic-Patrol-issue travel case. Raenau lifted it out, set it down on his desk, then took the now-empty secured container off his desk and put it on the floor. Norla could not help wondering if Raenau simply wanted more room to work, or if he was still concerned about marring the surface of his precious desk.

  Koffield was visibly restraining himself, holding back from grabbing the travel case and opening it himself. But it would make infinitely more sense for Raenau to do the job. Koffield had done so much already to avoid any chance for trickery that it would be foolish to invent chances now. So long as he did not touch the travel case, there was no way anyone could ever invent a story about Koffield using some sort of sleight of hand to plant a newly written “prediction” of what had happened in the last hundred and twenty-seven years.

  “Go ahead,” Koffield said, his voice eager, his eyes bright, “Open it. Open it.”

  Norla stared at Anton Koffield, and for once the man was understandable. She could read his thoughts and feelings as clearly as if they were up on Raenau’s display screen. It was the moment he had worked toward all along. Once his report was delivered to a high local official, and in such a way that no one could ever charge fraud, then the worst of the battle would be over.