“This simple diagram represents the transmission of the craft from Earth to Alkenia, along this world line which is partly baryonic and partly photonic. Along this other world line, whose photonic part is shared with the first line, we have the transmission of an equal quantity of matter backwards in time. ‘Back-now’ simply consists of replacing part of the anti-plasma with a small passenger craft.”
“Who, however, would have to be already traveling back in time….”
“That’s right.”
“And how do you do that?”
Helias was having a hard time getting the words out.
“Look at this. One of the simpler Feynman diagrams. Then we’ll take a look at something a bit more complex.”
The professor continued to draw diagrams and explain them in detail, with no interruption from Helias.
At the eighth Feynman diagram, Helias fell asleep, without even changing position. Which is why the professor didn’t notice until later. Four diagrams later. When Helias started snoring.
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Massimo VillataThe Dark Arrow of TimeScience and Fictionhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67486-5_7
7. A Sort of Autumn Had Arrived
Massimo Villata1
(1)Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, INAF, Pino Torinese (TO), Italy
Massimo Villata
Email: [email protected]
A sort of autumn had arrived. The leaves on the little trees and bushes were yellower and drier. Some had already fallen, and were blowing in the bitter wind. But the sun was warm that morning, and Helias was savoring its warmth on his forehead and cheeks, seated on ‘his’ rock. The first rains had passed, and the clouds covering the mountains had gone, leaving snow-capped peaks behind them. And then they were back, and the intermittent rain was mixed with sleet. On the fourth day, the weather cleared again, and this time the snowfields’ edge had dropped halfway down the slopes, an unwavering line scribed across all the surrounding mountains. It was spectacular, and Helias found it all inebriating, the scenery, the sparkling air and the bright sun.
The fresh snow and the angled rays of an ever more southerly sun had changed the landscape almost beyond recognition. And Helias had changed too.
He had changed department. He had been transferred, with his consent, to Physical Sciences, where his meetings with the professor would not arouse suspicion. And so he had had to cut himself off from the last thing that remained from his past: his research. However, he had managed not to change his room. It was a way of keeping something firm and certain, a memory of those first days, of that single, unique day spent with Kathia.
He hadn’t seen her again, swallowed by the mountain. Where he couldn’t go, so as not to reveal his secret.
He—an earthling—had to be the one to keep the diskette. An earthling was above suspicion. The professor had had it from a colleague, when he was on Thaýma.
This colleague was working in advanced experiments, dangerous stuff, pushing the limits of the permissible. Until then, transmission—whether forward or backward in time—required a transmitting station and a receiving station. Obviously. The new experiments investigated the possibility of transmitting anywhere, even if there was no receiving station. As the professor had explained to him, all of this was incredibly dangerous.
As it was now, ‘back-now’ made it possible to travel backward in time, from one station to the other. Only a few routes were allowed and transmissions in any case had to be duly justified. And the whole thing was rigorously controlled and controllable. Even if ‘clandestine’ trips—unauthorized ones—were somehow to evade notice, the ‘time pirate’ could at most go back to the period of the first existing station, and no farther. But what would happen if transmission were possible without a receiving station? Total chaos. A time pirate would be able to go anywhere and to any time, simply with a series of ‘rebounds’.
This is why the project run by the professor’s colleague, who was called Nudeliev, was not only top secret, but really did verge on the prohibited, and one almost wondered how it had ever managed to get itself authorized and funded.
And in fact something had gone wrong. Evidently the possibility of ‘free’ transmissions was very tempting to someone who had found out about it. And indeed, the review board for scientific research had many members, including the professor, and despite the secrecy surrounding the project, someone could have leaked something about it.
However it came about, one fine morning the members of Professor Nudeliev’s group discovered that their computer system had been hacked, even though it had been protected by the best security systems. Though the group’s findings at this stage had to be regarded as preliminary, the software they had developed was virtually able to control the free transmission of small amounts of matter. It was quite likely that the software had been copied and was now in unscrupulous hands.
However, in addition to the computer security measures and other precautions—for instance, no member of the group had access to the entire system, but only to the part on which he was working—the project leader, unbeknown to the others, had thought it best to introduce further safeguards. There was a ‘key’, a decoder or compiler or something of the sort, that only the group leader and the professor knew about. The professor was not involved in the project, was not part of the group, and had no other role. He had simply been chosen by Professor Nudeliev, as an old friend, to be the ‘keeper’ of this secret, in case something happened to the project leader.
The software was already coded to begin with, in the sense that it was written in a dedicated language known only to the group. But computer experts would have been able to translate it without too much trouble. Without the compiler, however, the software was completely unusable.
Professor Nudeliev and Professor Borodine had agreed that once a day the latter would receive a signal meaning ‘everything okay’. If he stopped receiving it, all he had to do was connect to his colleague’s private computer and transfer the compiler to himself, leaving no trace.
And this is what was done when the system was hacked. Nudeliev, who at that point could take it for granted that his every move was watched, didn’t have to lift a finger. Had he been ‘searched’ or, worse, forced to reveal the secret, the compiler was safe.
The project, predictably, was put on hold, pending clarification, and the leader was provided with a bodyguard.
After some time, on the eve of his departure for Alkenia, the professor met with Nudeliev and, by common accord, decided that the professor would take the compiler—the red diskette—to Alkenia.
Once on Alkenia, the professor felt it would be more prudent to get rid of the diskette, since his friendship with his colleague was well known, and any search for the diskette would have quickly led to him. And apart from that, it was by no means unlikely that the ex-group leader would be forced to reveal his name.
He talked about the diskette with two people he had long trusted, Kathia and Mattheus, and they agreed to take responsibility. But there was alarming news from Thaýma: Professor Nudeliev had been kidnapped and almost immediately released, but in the meantime there could be no doubt that they had thoroughly probed his mind.
At this point, Helias had asked how it was possible to keep all these secrets on Thaýma, since people could read each other’s thoughts.
The professor had answered that they were well trained to hide secrets in their minds, and that in any case, there weren’t really all that many mind-readers among them.
After his release, the scientist had said that his captors had given him something to make him sleep, and that he remembered nothing. Then he had notified the professor that he was almost certain they had not read his name, though he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t found out about Alkenia.
It had thus been necessary to take further precautions: the diskette must be entrusted to someone unknown who would never be suspected, an earthling. But one they could trust, one hundred percent. And so th
e individual in question was scrutinized at length, without his knowing. After which his application for a transfer to Alkenia was accepted.
In the meantime, as yet another precaution, the diskette had been on Earth with Kathia, and all newcomers to Alkenia were rigorously checked, especially those heading for the Kusmiri Center. Clearly, though, something had slipped through the net. Not only. At a certain point, the watchers became the watched. With the ruse of the allergenic contact lenses and the fake optometrist, the ‘others’ were able to check the new arrivals, to distinguish Thaymites from earthlings. The new lenses, in fact, irritated and inflamed the eyes of the Thaymites, who already had their own special mimetic lenses. And so Kathia, just arrived as an archivist, was found out.
Helias, during one of his conversations with the professor, had objected, “Why go to all this trouble to prevent something that probably never happened? I mean, history is what it is, we have no knowledge of people who went back to the past to corrupt it. Nobody ever went, say, to kill Napoleon Bonaparte’s grandfather to prevent him from being born. Or even if they did, they clearly weren’t successful, since Napoleon existed. Nobody ever came from the future to conquer and enslave a primitive humanity, thanks to his advanced knowledge and technology. If it never happened, what is it that we’re supposed to prevent now? Or, conversely, if something happened, something we don’t know about, how could we prevent it now? In other words, hasn’t everything already happened, or not happened?”
“Certainly, certainly. You can’t manage to shake off the common single-time outlook, and I sympathize with you. And yet it’s simple, what happened or didn’t happen in the past clearly also depends on us here and now. The fact of knowing, in part, about the events doesn’t change anything. They also depend on us anyway. Remember the example of the anti-man who at a certain point causes something he’s already seen happen? His past was affected by a choice he makes in the future. For us it’s the same, we’re here fighting so that everything happens in the way it’s already happened. There’s nothing wrong with that, I’d say. Furthermore, don’t forget that—and this should matter to you even more—we still don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Tomorrow morning we could wake up free and happy as we are now, or enslaved and oppressed by a future power. Or we might not wake up at all. What do you say? Do we want to risk, and do nothing to prevent it? Or is it worth fighting, now and in the future, so that that doesn’t happen tomorrow?”
“Of course. You’re right. The answer is clear. Now I understand better. After all, even if it’s our past, our history, part of which we know about and take for granted, as something that’s already taken place and is now frozen and unchangeable, it still depends on us, now and in the future. In a certain sense it’s also part of our future, even though it’s our past at the same time. You’re right, all you need to do is break away from a single-time outlook. Conversely, it’s a bit as if we also belonged to the past and can thus influence it. It hardly matters if we already know how it will turn out. What I still don’t get, though, is why you Thaymites, with all your wisdom, approved such a dangerous project, whose consequences—which were pretty obvious and predictable—you’re now having to fight.”
“It’s the old dilemma between Knowledge with a capital K, and the dangerous consequences it brings. The thirst for knowledge almost always wins, not least because optimism is part of human nature. If it weren’t, the human race would probably have died out pretty soon. And it’s also true that if something becomes doable, it’s partly because we’re mature enough to do it. The vital thing is that it not end up in the wrong hands. And here, in this case, is where we come in.”
All in all, Helias was a little disappointed. It seemed he had been chosen for reasons of reliability. Nothing more. What he was being asked to do was to guard something precious. Hardly more than a watchdog or a performing monkey. He was none too pleased. Not least because, from what he had been told before, he had got the idea that his ‘mission’ consisted of something more active. They’d spoken of his intuition, spoken of it as something valuable and essential. But what good would it be in the task he’d in fact been given? Wouldn’t any earthling have done just as well? Any earthling with a minimum of smarts? But maybe that’s exactly what had happened: he was nothing more than the first dependable earthling with a minimum of smarts to come along.
A bit timidly, he had tried to sound the professor out.
“You see, my boy, you’ve got a great quality: that of asking yourself the right questions. That is the key to intuition. Not finding the answers, but identifying the questions. The answers come on their own, they’re the consequences of the questions. But if the questions are wrong, what good are the answers? You think I’m beating around the bush, don’t you? You’re right. You asked me a question, the right question. And the answer will come on its own. I know what it is, but I can’t reveal it to you, not now. In practice, you’ve asked me what your real role in this business is, because you’ve sensed that there’s something else, haven’t you? You’ve shown excellent intuition, as usual, by the way. You’ll know the answer soon. In a few days. Be ready.”
That ‘in a few days’ had become today. The professor had told him to come after lunch (obviously, since ‘you think better on a full stomach’), hinting that the time had come, a critical juncture: something was about to happen.
But Helias had no intention of getting all upset in the meantime, of agonizing over whatever that something might be. And so he sat happily basking in the warm sun, enjoying the nip in the air, surrounded by the curtain of snow covering the mountaintops, entranced by the splintered reflections of the sun flashing in the lake’s jagged wavelets.
It was lunchtime by now. Ten minutes to go. He couldn’t tear himself away from that idyllic scene, that sensation of peace, peace as deep as it was difficult to recapture.
Reluctantly he rose and, after a mute farewell to Kathia, he started off toward the castle.
As he stuffed his hands in his pockets, his fingers hit the object the professor had given him, saying it was from Mattheus. It was shaped more or less like a large curved cigar, slightly rippled to fit in a closed fist. Once the safety was off, a slight squeeze between finger and thumb was enough to release a paralyzing ray that disrupted an attacker’s nervous system. The harder you squeezed, the stronger the ray. Or so he had been told.
There was another person. Aside from him, Kathia, Mattheus and the professor, there was another person who knew about the red diskette. An important person, a member of the Thaýma Council. At the time the hacking incident was investigated, the project leader, before being questioned, had asked to speak with the counselor, his old and trusted friend. Together, they decided that it would be unwise to hand the compiler over to the authorities, given the skill shown by whoever had tried to steal the project’s findings, and the likelihood of complicity in the attempt. They agreed that the very existence of the compiler must remain secret, and that it should be kept hidden by a few trusted individuals, acting privately, unofficially, at the margins of legality.
When Helias and the professor entered the secret room, the counselor was there, pacing back and forth beyond the semicircle of armchairs. He barely turned to glance at them, pacing still, hands clasped behind his back. Helias and the professor stood waiting. Then the man stopped, staring motionless at the floor for few moments. Finally, with a mechanical gesture, he raised a hand to brush his medium length white hair away from his face and gazed at the newcomers with dark, deep-set eyes.
“Hello.” he intoned in a booming voice that seemed to command unstinting attention.
“Helias Kadler, I presume.”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Professor, have you already acquainted Dr. Kadler with the reason for this encounter?”
“No, I thought it best for you to do that directly.”
“So, Dr. Kadler, you are now our guardian.”
“So it would seem.”
“I imagine
you already know everything, more or less in detail.”
“More or less, I suppose.”
“Sit down, please.”
“After you.”
“Thanks, but if you don’t mind I would prefer to remain standing.”
Helias and the professor sat. There was a sheet of paper folded in half on the low table.
“There is one important thing that the professor has not yet told you. And you will understand why in a moment. It’s something that was known only to the project leader, Professor Nudeliev, and a very few others who were directly involved. If the project was top secret, this other thing, like the compiler, was secret to the rest of the project. Even Professor Borodine and myself were informed by Professor Nudeliev only as a result of the hack. You have been told that—as we all believed—the software developed by the group was virtually able to control free transmission. This is true, but it’s only part of the truth. In reality, the software had already reached the testing stage, and the first tests had been successfully conducted, unknown to us all. Though it was a question of transmitting small amounts of matter over small distances, it was nevertheless an almost definitive success for the project. These experiments were performed far from Thaýma and far from prying eyes, on a station orbiting around a planet.”
The counselor stopped and looked Helias in the eye.
“So you’re about to tell me that this meant that there is a second compiler, or rather, a copy of the compiler?”
“Exactly.”
“Where is it now?”
“Disappeared. Together with the people who performed the experiments.”
Helias had begun to blink rapidly, fingering the tip of his nose.
“And yet ‘they’ didn’t get it. Otherwise what point would there be in my safeguarding it? When did this happen?”
“A few months after the first theft. The station was thought to be a safe place, and so the second compiler was still there.”
The Dark Arrow of Time Page 10
