by Allen Steele
There was a long, silence as the Vice President studied the photocopy in his hands. No one said anything for a long time. Colonel Ogilvy had opened the hearing by making his statement; Murphy followed with his testimony. Although the men seated on the dais remained quiet, Murphy was acutely aware of every small sound in the room: the restless shifting of feet, the occasional phlegmy cough from the flu-stricken senator from Vermont, the gentle tinkle of cracked ice as the senator from California poured water into a glass from the pitcher on her desk. His wool suit, comfortable when he put it on this morning, was now unbearably warm, yet he dared not loosen his tie, and he was reluctant to even mop the sweat from his brow until Ogilvy, sliding his hand beneath the table, surreptitiously placed one of his ever-present handkerchiefs in his lap.
The Vice President gazed at the facsimile for another few moments, then raised his questioning eyes. “So, Dr. Murphy,” he said, “I take it that this …” He raised the photocopy. “… is your only evidence that you’ve encountered someone from the future.”
“Uh … yes sir.” Murphy had trouble finding his voice; he covered his mouth and cleared his throat. “Sorry … yes sir, Mr. Vice President. The only tangible evidence, that is. As I’ve told you, it was recovered only by accident, during my … uh, encounter … on the road outside the campground.”
“We have the original, Mr. Vice President, if you care to inspect it.” Ogilvy picked up the Hindenburg passenger manifest. Mounted on a piece of cardboard and sealed within a polyurethane wrapper with a red Top-Secret strip across its upper edge, it less resembled a historic artifact than evidence gathered from a crime scene. “I’ve brought it to show you and the other members of the committee that it’s not a forgery, but an authentic item.”
The Vice President was unimpressed. “I don’t doubt its authenticity, Colonel, yet this is the sort of thing one could find in any private collection.”
“We’ve got antique stores in my state where you could easily find something like this.” The senator from Vermont rubbed his nose in the paper tissue, then reached for the pint carton of orange juice on his desk. “In fact, just a few years ago, a dealer opened the back of a framed painting he had purchased in an estate auction and discovered a copy of the Declaration of Independence. A passenger list from a German airship …”
“With all due respect, Senator,” Ogilvy interrupted, “any document that old would show signs of aging. The paper would be brittle, the ink faded.” He gently laid the manifest on the table, then opened the report which lay before him. “If you’ll read page nineteen of our summary, you’ll find that we submitted this’s document to the FBI Crime Lab for analysis. They determined that it was printed no more than two weeks ago, on a type of industrial-grade paper that hasn’t been manufactured in Germany since the end of the Hitler regime. It’s brand-new, sir. It can’t possibly be a forgery.”
The senator from Vermont scowled at Ogilvy, then opened his unread copy of the report to the appropriate page. The Vice President, though, remained stoical. “Thank you for clarifying that point, Colonel, but the question was addressed to Dr. Murphy. Aside from this, what proof do you have of your allegation?”
Murphy knew that he had to be careful. Before he became the President’s running mate in the ’92 election, the Vice President had served as chairman of the Senate Science and Technology Committee, the same position now held by the senator from Vermont. Although the committee approved the annual OPS budget, the VP, no friend to mind readers or spoon-benders, was known to be profoundly skeptical of the agency’s purpose. Convincing him would be the toughest task of all.
“Mister Vice President,” he started, “regardless of the conclusions made by my agency, I believe that the origin of the … uh, the Center Hill Lake anomaly … wasn’t extraterrestrial …”
The senator from California raised a hand, politely interrupting him. “Excuse me, Dr. Murphy, but I wish to clarify this particular point. Although you’re a senior OPS investigator, you’re presenting testimony which runs contrary to your agency’s official findings. May I ask why?”
Again, he had to be careful, although for different reasons. Unlike the Vice President, the senator from California was a major supporter of the Office of Paranormal Sciences; no surprise, since she was known to employ psychics during her reelection campaigns. Murphy was about to reply, but Ogilvy beat him to it. “With respect to OPS, ma’am, Dr. Murphy is here today without his agency’s knowledge or approval. He has agreed to offer his testimony on behalf of the Defense Department, under the condition that whatever he says remains classified.”
And besides, Murphy thought sourly, it beats hell out of sitting in prison. Yet they were far past that point by now. He and Ogilvy had long since reached their peace. Now they had an entirely different agenda.
“Please let Dr. Murphy answer for himself, Colonel.” The senator returned her attention to Murphy. “The OPS report unequivocally states that the object which crashed in Tennessee was an alien spacecraft. The other OPS investigator, Ms. Luna, is convinced of this, as is your Chief Administrator, Mr. Ordmann. You, on the other hand, seem to be jumping ship. May I ask why?”
Murphy let out his breath. “Ms. Luna reached that conclusion even before we reached the crash site. She based her opinion on … well, personal convictions, rather than the evidence of her own eyes. I can’t speak for the Chief Administrator, since I haven’t yet personally discussed the matter with him, but I’m basing my conclusion on the evidence of my own eyes … along with the document we’ve shown you.”
“Which brings us back to the original question,” the Vice President said. “What other proof do you have?”
“When I climbed aboard the … uh, time machine, for lack of any better term … I briefly caught sight a human being behind its single porthole. That was my first indication that the craft wasn’t extraterrestrial. Later, when I first encountered the unknown party at a nearby camp store, he left behind three coins in the pay phone he was using. The coins were two Mercury dimes and a buffalo nickel, all in mint condition. That made me curious, so I followed him up the road, which is where he attacked me …”
“And this is where the … as you say, the time machine … landed to pick him up.” This from the senator from Arizona, who had remained quiet until now. A staunch Republican, he was here because of his chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but judging from his bemused expression, Murphy had little doubt that he wouldn’t have believed Earth was round if a Democrat told him it was.
“Yes, sir,” Murphy continued, “but just before the craft landed, after he knocked me to the ground, he took pains to recover the coins from my pocket. He didn’t realize that, during our fight, I had ripped the Hindenburg manifest from his pocket. If he had, I’m sure he would have taken that away from me as well. In hindsight, I believe he was trying to remove all evidence of his visit.”
“And why would he want to do that?”
Now they were stepping onto thin ice. “I’m not sure, Senator, but I believe that the craft’s arrival was entirely accidental. Judging from the man’s style of clothing, the change in his pocket, and the manifest I took from him … I think the craft was returning from 1937 when it crashed in our time. Why, I don’t know, but nonetheless it happened.”
“And this leads you to believe that the craft wasn’t from outer space,” said the senator from California.
Murphy shook his head. “No, ma’am, I think it came from space, all right. I just don’t think it originated there. It makes more sense to conclude that it came from somewhere … some time, rather … in the future.”
There was a long silence in the conference room. The senators jotted down notes, shifted in their seats, cleared their throats. The Vice President glanced at his watch, then leafed again through their report. Off to the side, the Air Force stenographer briefly rested her hands next to her keyboard. Murphy glanced at the pitcher of ice water on the table between him and Ogilvy. His throat was parched,
but he dared not reach for it. Don’t look scared, he told himself. They can smell fear.
“Colonel Ogilvy,” the Vice President said at last, and the colonel sat up a little straighter, “on page thirty-two of your report, you state that this affair constitutes a scientific crisis of the highest order. Would you mind telling us why?”
“Mr. Vice President,” Ogilvy said, “we have here evidence that we’ve been visited by individuals from the future.” The senator from Arizona rolled his eyes in disbelief, but the colonel chose to ignore him. “Whether or not this visitation was deliberate or accidental is almost a moot point, for the fact remains that time travel is possible. Furthermore, these visitors have displayed the ability to cloak their craft to the point of near-total invisibility, thus allowing them to penetrate American airspace. Their ships are capable of disabling F-15 warplanes without firing a shot themselves, and operate by means of propulsion systems far beyond our current technology.”
The senator from Arizona stopped smiling. He leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped together on his desk. “Do you think this constitutes a threat, Colonel?”
“It very well may,” Ogilvy replied. “I’ve discussed this incident with a couple of a senior colleagues at the Pentagon, and they concur with my belief that this presents a possible threat to national security. Yet even if that isn’t the case, then there’s another consideration … if time travel is possible, then when was it invented?”
The senator from Vermont lowered the wad of tissue paper from his face. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but I don’t follow you. Why does that matter?”
“May I?” Murphy glanced at Ogilvy, and Baird nodded. “What the colonel means is, if some means of time travel was … or rather, will be … invented in the future, then when did this effort begin? We don’t know where … when, I mean … the ship came from. It could have come from two or three hundred years in the future, but it’s also possible that time travel was developed even sooner than that. Albert Einstein postulated that it was feasible when he devised his general theory of relativity over eighty years ago. Since then, several leading physicists have refined Einstein’s work to the point that many agree that the only real barriers to this sort of thing are technological.”
He hesitated. “This all sounds very wild-eyed, to be sure, and I may be stepping out on a limb here … but I think it can be done. Perhaps even sooner than we think.”
The senator from Arizona raised an cynical eyebrow. The senator from Vermont regarded him with eyes as stony as New England granite. The senator from California absently ran a hand through her hair. For just an instant, even the stenographer seemed to react; she blinked, and her fingers paused on the keyboard. Next to him, Baird Ogilvy allowed himself a slight smile, which he quickly covered with the back of his hand.
Yet Murphy knew he had made his point when he saw the Vice President, just for an instant, nod in agreement.
Tues, Oct 16, 2314—1432Z
Mt. Sugarloaf rose from the middle of the Frontier Valley of the eastern Berkshires as a talon-shaped rock, its steep granite bluffs looming above the Connecticut River. During the twentieth century, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had taken possession of the mountain and set it aside as a nature reserve; a winding asphalt road led up its rounded western side to its craggy summit, where a fieldstone observation tower had been erected as a scenic overlook. From here the entire valley could be seen, from the Holyoke Range at its southern end to the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains in the north, with the river cutting straight through the flatlands spread across the valley floor.
At least, that was how it must have appeared three hundred years ago. As the Oberon cruised over the Pioneer Valley, Franc, Lea, and Vasili saw that even this placid corner of New England hadn’t survived the catastrophe that had wiped out all life on Earth. The Connecticut River was covered with a thick sheet of ice; with the average global temperature now five degrees below normal, this place hadn’t experienced summer for almost three centuries. Uncontrolled fires had ravaged the dense forests of the surrounding mountains, and acid rain had sterilized farm fields where corn, squash, and potatoes had once been cultivated in abundance. As the timeship closed in upon Mt. Sugarloaf, it passed over the burnt-out and lifeless ruins of nearby Amherst; the skyscrapers of the University of Massachusetts library and dormitories, oddly misplaced in the countryside, now rose above the decaying campus like soot-blackened tombstones.
The coordinates specified in the transmission they had received pinpointed Mt. Sugarloaf as the rendezvous site. Although Vasili and Lea agreed that there was no real reason to cloak the timeship, Franc decided to err on the side of caution; after all, they didn’t know who might be down there, or what they wanted. So Metz reluctantly activated the Oberon’s chameleon, yet they were almost a half kilometer from the mountain when they discovered that subterfuge wasn’t necessary.
“Smoke,” Lea said softly, pointing toward the summit. “There. See it?”
Franc leaned over the back of Vasili’s chair to peer through the porthole. A wavering brown plume spiraled upward from the mountaintop. “Could be a forest fire,” he murmured. “Maybe lightning struck there recently.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Vasili nodded toward one of the screens above his console, where a tiny, irregular blotch of light glowed on the radar-topography map. “I’m picking up an isolated IR trace. Too small to be from a natural source.” He looked up at Franc. “Someone’s down there. They’ve set a signal fire.”
“I think we’re expected.” Lea glanced uncertainly at Franc. “You want to go down now, or do you want to hold back a little longer?”
Franc hesitated. “No … no, let’s find out what this is all about.” He tapped Metz on the shoulder. “Deactivate the chameleon, then bring us in. Set down near the fire if you can.”
The pilot nodded, then he took Oberon out of chameleon mode. As the timeship closed in upon the mountain, they could see that the smoke rose from a rocky spur near the base of the observation tower. “We’re going to have trouble finding a place to land,” he murmured. “I don’t see any level …”
“Over there.” Franc pointed to a small clearing within the burnt-out remains of the woods just below the summit. “That looks flat enough.”
As the Oberon began to descend upon the mountain, the timeship was abruptly buffeted by crosswinds. As Lea grabbed the edge of the console for support; she happened to glance through the porthole. “Someone’s down there!” she snapped. “See him? Look …!”
One of the screens above the porthole displayed a close-up of the summit. Just as Lea said, a lone figure stood near the fire, watching the timeship as it approached. He raised his arms over his head and began to wave them back and forth.
“I see him.” Franc grabbed the back of Metz’s chair as the timeship was once again violently shaken by the wind. “How could anyone have lived through this?”
“We’ll find out soon enough.” Gripping the yoke within his fists, Metz carefully moved it back and forth as he fought for control. “Hang on, this might be a little rough.” Metz waited until almost the last moment before he lowered the landing gear; despite his caution, the wind caught the flanges. Franc was nearly thrown off his feet as the deck tilted beneath him, and Lea yelled as she fell against the console. Then the flanges connected with hard surface and Oberon was down. Metz quickly shut down the negmass drive, then slowly let out his breath. “Sorry about that,” he murmured. “This just isn’t my day.”
Franc smiled to himself, then glanced at Lea and found that she was grinning as well. Perhaps it was only fatigue, but Vasili was beginning to show a little humility. “You did fine,” Franc said, patting the pilot’s shoulder. “We’re in one piece, that’s all that counts.”
“Yes, well, that’s only half of it.” Lea picked herself off the console, headed for the hatch. “Let’s go see who’s out there.”
“Better put something on,” Vasili called after them as Franc moved to f
ollow her. “Temperature gauge says it’s just above freezing out there.”
The Oberon didn’t carry any survival gear, so they had to make do with the clothes they had worn in 1937. However, Franc found a stun gun in one of the equipment lockers; he had nearly forgotten that it was there, although it was standard equipment for timeships, just in case a research team encountered hostile contemporaries. He contemplated the weapon for a moment, then shoved it into his coat pocket while Lea’s back was turned to him. She probably would have objected to him carrying it, and under any other circumstances he might have left it behind, yet nonetheless he felt marginally safer for taking precautions.
The Oberon had landed in what appeared to have once been a small parking lot. Once upon a time, visitors to the overlook had parked their cars here, but now the asphalt was weather-beaten and broken, with weeds rising from its cracks. The air was brittle at the bottom of the ladder, the wind mournful as it groaned through the branches of dead trees. A short path led them past the blackened remains of a picnic shelter to the summit’s barren crown, where the ruins of the observation tower loomed against the hostile sky. The gray clouds had parted somewhat, allowing the cold rays of the midafternoon sun to bathe the mountaintop with its sullen light. As they reached the base of the tower, they saw Earth’s rings rising high above the distant mountains like a stone-colored rainbow.
The bonfire was a little larger than Franc expected, and the man who tended it said nothing as he and Lea cautiously approached him. Hands shoved in the pockets of what appeared to be a military-issue parka from the late twentieth century, he wore a dark blue baseball cap embroidered with the intertwined letters NY. The chill wind caught his brown-gray hair and blew it past his stooped shoulders, and his white beard smothered his mouth.
