Time Loves a Hero

by Allen Steele

  “Repairs the skin, using microscopic nanites.” Absently stroking his beard, Murphy inched a little closer as he studied the canister with fascination. “C’mon … it’s not like I’m a caveman, you know.”

  “You had this?” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Not yet, but an Italian biotech firm was supposed to be working on it.” Murphy watched as Lea carefully poured a little of the lotion onto Franc’s back. “Where did this stuff come from?”

  “I don’t know. The Moon, probably.” Lea began massaging the Naderm into the red and blistered parts of Franc’s skin. “So let’s try to figure this out. If you saw John Pannes on the Hindenburg, then that means you and I never got aboard. Right?”

  “That’s the way it seems to me.” Franc scowled as he resisted the urge to reach back and scratch at himself. She was wrong; the lotion didn’t tickle, it itched, like a bad case of poison ivy. “And that shouldn’t have happened, if we’ve returned to our original worldline … that is, the worldline we left in 1937.”

  “No, that would have been the changed worldline.” Murphy raised a finger. “The way you’ve explained it to me, in Worldline A, the Hindenburg explodes on schedule, killing John and Emma Pannes along with a couple of dozen other people.” He raised another finger. “And in Worldline B, the changed worldline, the two of you are on board instead of the Pannes, but screw things up so that history is altered and this new worldline is created … the one I’m from. Have I got it right so far?” Franc nodded. “So this shouldn’t be Worldline B, because you went back and changed things back to the way they should be, in Worldline A.”

  “Yes, but when we boarded the Hindenburg, we were in Worldline A.” Lea finished spreading the lotion on Franc’s back and moved to his legs. “The night before we left Frankfurt, we arranged for the Pannes to be abducted on their way to the opera. We wouldn’t … we couldn’t have boarded the airship if that hadn’t succeeded.”

  “So now we’re in Worldline C … a completely new worldline?” Franc suddenly felt hollow inside. “Then all this has been for nothing.”

  “No … no, not necessarily.” Murphy stood up and walked to the wallscreen. It displayed Earth from low orbit, where Franc had taken the Oberon after leaving New Jersey. The elderly scientist had relished the ride into space; now he gazed down upon Earth, marshaling his thoughts. “You say you reset the bomb from eight o’clock to seven-twenty-five, right? It may have been that the bomb was set for eight o’clock all along, but the timer simply malfunctioned and it detonated prematurely. The fact that Lea encountered this Spehl guy may have been totally coincidental.”

  “That doesn’t work,” Lea said. “When we checked the recordings made by the divots we placed in the envelope, we saw Spehl go back to Cell Number Four shortly before the Hindenburg reached Lakehurst.”

  “Yes, but did you actually see him reset the timer? Or was he simply checking to make sure the bomb hadn’t been discovered?”

  “That … seemed to be the logical assumption,” Franc said reluctantly.

  Murphy smiled and shook his head. “Never assume anything … and that includes the notion that Worldline A has been altered because of events that occurred prior to today.”

  Lea’s mouth fell open; for a moment she stared at Murphy. Then, without bothering to put away the Naderm, she got up from the floor. “Is there something wrong?” Franc asked.

  “No. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” She left the compartment, heading in the direction of the monitor room.

  “Nice lady,” Murphy said once she was out of earshot. He returned to his seat and sat down. “Your girlfriend?”

  “No … not really.” Franc impulsively reached down to scratch at his legs, then thought better of it and removed his hand. The nanites were rebuilding his burned flesh; the pain had disappeared, but the constant itch threatened to drive him out of his mind. “What gives you that idea?”

  “She was worried sick about you while you were aboard the Hindenburg. I thought she was going to tear your pilot’s head off when he told you that he couldn’t maintain position any longer.” Murphy’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Maybe it’s none of my business, but I think she cares a lot for you. If you don’t know that … well, like my generation used to say, you need to get a clue.”

  Franc felt his face growing warm. “Let’s get back to what we were talking about before,” he said, deliberately changing the subject. “What did you mean by that?”

  “What I meant was, you’re working under the assumption that this worldline may have altered solely because of actions you may or may not have taken before this date. Given the nature of your previous visit, I don’t blame you for reaching that conclusion.” Murphy shook his head. “But you’re forgetting that nearly three hundred years have gone by since 1937 and 2314. In other words, something in the future may prevent you from coming back here. And that …”

  “Would you two mind keeping quiet? I can hear you all the way across the ship.”

  They looked up, saw Metz standing in the doorway. Pleading exhaustion, the pilot had chased everyone from the control room shortly after the Oberon had achieved orbit, then shut the door to get some sleep. Now he stood just outside the passenger compartment, bleary-eyed and slump-shouldered, plainly irritated at having been wakened.

  “Sorry, Vasili,” Franc said. “We didn’t know we were keeping you awake.”

  “You are,” Metz grumbled. “If you’re going to talk, at least …” Then he looked aside. “Hey, what’s the …?”

  “Excuse me.” Lea pushed Metz aside and stuck her head through the door. “I’ve found something in the library you need to see,” she said to the other two. “I think it’s important.”

  As they entered the monitor room, Murphy was the first to react to the person whose image was displayed on the wallscreen. “Hey, that’s me!” he exclaimed, then he peered a little closer. “At least I think that’s me. I’ve never worn a mustache.”

  “No, that’s definitely you.” Lea squeezed between him and Metz to take her place at the pedestal. “Just on the chance that I might find something, I entered your name into the library system. There was nothing under Zack Murphy, but then I tried David Zachary Murphy, and …”

  “Man, I’m so young.” Murphy walked around the pedestal, stared at the archival still photo. The image was of a youngish-looking man in his early forties, wearing a black turtleneck under a tweed sports coat, casually leaning against a bookshelf. “Where did this picture come from? I mean … do you know when it was taken?”

  “According to the file on you, it was taken in 2001.” Lea ran her hands across the pedestal keypad, and the photo diminished slightly in size as a horizontal bar of text appeared on the right side of the screen. “It comes from the dust jacket of the novel you … or rather, David Z. Murphy … published that year. Time Loves A Hero, it was called.”

  “I … I published a …?”

  “No,” Lea said, “he published a novel. David Z. Murphy, the man you became in Worldline A.” She scrolled down the text, reciting the vital statistics as they appeared. “Dr. David Z. Murphy was a NASA astrophysicist until 1998, when he left the space agency to become a freelance writer. He wrote nonfiction articles for various magazines until, in 2001, he published his first work of fiction, Time Loves A Hero, a science fiction novel …”

  “Wow,” Murphy breathed. “I used to love science fiction.” He grinned at Franc and Vasili. “They hated the stuff at OPS, but I …”

  “Wait a minute,” Lea interrupted. “It becomes more interesting. Time Loves A Hero was acclaimed as a major work of … get this … time-travel literature, in which the existence of UFOs was interpreted as being timeships from the distant future.”

  Murphy’s expression changed from pride to horror. “Oh, no.”

  “The novel was well received,” Lea continued, “and when interviewed by a science fiction fanzine … I have no idea what that term means … Murphy claimed that it was insp
ired by things he observed while working for NASA. In fact, he first delineated his theories regarding a possible connection between UFO sightings and time travel in an article published in 1998, in a magazine called Analog …”

  “I used to read that when I was a kid.” Murphy shook his head in puzzlement. “But this is too weird to be a coincidence. A science fiction novel about timeships …”

  “Hold on. It gets even more weird than that.” Lea touched the pedestal again and the screen changed; now it displayed a photograph of an athletic-looking man of indeterminate age, wearing a laboratory coat and standing near a large cylindrical machine. Although taller and with curly blond hair, his face bore a striking resemblance to Murphy’s.

  Lea didn’t say anything for a moment. She watched Murphy as he studied the man on the screen. For a few seconds, he didn’t seem to recognize him … then his mouth fell open in astonishment.

  “That’s Steven,” he whispered. “My son.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said quietly. “Steven David Murphy … or rather, Dr. Steven D. Murphy, Ph.D., associate director of the Hawking High-Energy Physics Laboratory. Your son, Zack … or rather, your son in this worldline.”

  “Steven became a physicist?” Murphy laughed out loud. “But he didn’t … I mean, he couldn’t … Christ, I love my boy, but he can’t balance his checkbook, let alone an equation. In fact, he has no interest in science at all. Where I come from, he’s a truck driver in New York …”

  “In this worldline, it appears things went a bit differently.” Lea shrank the photo, adding text to the right side of the screen. “According to CRC historical data, Steven Murphy was inspired by his father’s writings to pursue a career in the sciences, particularly high-energy physics. After receiving his doctorate from Princeton, he went to work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, then moved to Hawking Station when it was built on the Moon in 2047 …”

  “That’s … c’mon, there must be a mistake!” Murphy pointed a shaking finger at the screen. “Steven … at least my Steven … was born in 1989! If that picture was taken in 2047 …”

  “Actually, it was taken in 2049, two years after he became its associate director.” Lea smiled at him. “And you’re correct … according to his biographical records, he was born in 1989 in this worldline as well.” She glanced over her shoulder at Franc. “Do you want to explain this, or shall I?”

  “There’s been no mistake.” Franc glided up behind Murphy, lay a comforting hand on his arm. “Beginning in the early twenty-first century, considerable progress was made toward increasing human longevity. Eradication of major diseases, cellular rejuvenation, gene therapy … it’s a bit too long to explain. Trust me … he may not look it, but your son is sixty years old in that picture.”

  “In fact, he didn’t die until 2152, at the age of 163,” Lea said. “But that’s not the point. According to CRC data, Dr. Steven Murphy was … pardon me, will become … one of the major theorists responsible for the practical development of time travel. His work at Hawking is directly connected to the invention of the wormhole generators.”

  No one spoke. The room went quiet as Zack Murphy stared at the image of the man who, following in his father’s footsteps, would make profound discoveries that would inevitably lead to the development of time travel. His son, yet not quite his son, nonetheless responsible for a long train of events that, in the long run, would cause a paradox that would bring about the destruction of Earth itself.

  “I’m … I think I’m.…” Murphy abruptly turned away, lurched to the side of the room. His face was ashen as he collapsed against the bulkhead; for a second it seemed as if he would retch, then his legs seemed to collapse beneath him.

  Franc rushed to his side. “Easy,” he murmured as he caught the old man by the shoulders, helped him slide down onto the floor. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be all right …”

  “I don’t see how.” Silent until now, Metz nodded toward the screen. “Not if his son’s one of the main people behind the discovery of time travel.”

  “But he didn’t!” Lea turned toward him. “Don’t you see? If John and Emma Pannes died on the Hindenburg, then that means Franc and I never got aboard, and the only way that could have happened is if we never left 2314! That must mean time travel was never developed in the first place!”

  “So why are we here at all?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t answer that.” Lea raised her hands in a helpless shrug. “I don’t think anyone could. Maybe it’s because of the laws of conservation of matter and energy, the fact that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Even though there’s been another paradox, we don’t simply disappear because … well, because we’re already here. Yet something must have happened … something will happen … which will prevent Steven Murphy from becoming the scientist who makes the conceptual breakthroughs that will lead to time travel.”

  “You might have something there.” Franc stroked his chin as he regarded the image on the wallscreen. “You know,” he said slowly, “there may be a common thread here.” Turning around, he looked down at Murphy. Huddled on the floor of the compartment, his arms wrapped around his knees, the scientist once more looked as distraught as when they found him in 2314. “Zack, in your worldline—Worldline B, in 1998—you began work on a project that led to the development of time travel. That happened because you encountered us and therefore discovered that time travel was possible.”

  “That’s … yeah, I follow you.” Murphy seemed to stir himself from his misery. “I think I do, at least …”

  “Stay with me. In this worldline—Worldline A, in 1998, the very same year—your counterpart also began work on time travel, although in an indirect way … he wrote a magazine article postulating that UFOs might be timeships. This, in turn, inspired your son … his son, I mean …”

  “I prefer to think that’s my son, thank you.” Murphy smiled despite himself. “Stevie’s a good kid, but his idea of intellectual discourse is comparing batting averages.”

  “What’s a …? Oh, right. Baseball.” Franc waved it off. “Never mind. What I’m trying to say is, the point of conjunction between these two worldlines may not be the Hindenburg disaster, but rather you yourself.”

  Murphy raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Me? But haven’t we already decided that the Hindenburg was …?”

  “No,” Lea interrupted. “That was what we assumed, certainly, but it may be that the different outcomes of the Hindenburg disaster were only a consequence of the paradox. The true cause may well be something different. Both you and David Murphy did things that resulted in …”

  “Wait a minute. Hold on.” Metz broke into the conversation. “Look, I’m not sure I’m following all of this, but aren’t you missing something? If Murphy … the other Murphy, I mean … wrote an article about timeships being mistaken for UFOs, then where did he get the idea?” He looked at Murphy. “If he’s as smart as you are, then something must have given him a clue … right?”

  For the first time in several minutes, no one said anything. Lea fell silent as she turned back toward the pedestal, and Murphy stared up the photo of his alternative-worldline son. Franc finally let out his breath.

  “I think we all know where this is going,” he said quietly. “Whatever the reason, we’re going to have to pay another visit to 1998 … this 1998, that is.” He glanced at Metz. “Can we do that? Without crashing this time, I mean?”

  “Sure.” The pilot gave a weary shrug. “Why not? The coordinates are still entered, so we shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “And what do you propose we do when we get there?” Murphy asked.

  “We’re going to have a little chat with you,” Franc replied.

  Monday, January 14, 1998: 12:55 P.M.

  Murphy had just bought a hot dog from the pushcart vendor and was about to cross Independence to have lunch on a park bench in the Mall when he heard someone running down the front steps of the National Air and Space Museum.

  H
e turned just in time to see Dr. David Z. Murphy come to a stop on the sidewalk only a dozen feet away. Behind him, a pair of nuns near the glass doors were glaring at him; a few feet away, the Washington police officer who had been carrying on a bull session with the vendor gave him a curious eye.

  As David looked his way, Murphy stepped behind the hood of one of the school buses parked at the curb, ducking his head to avoid being spotted. Neither of the teachers taking a cigarette break in front of the bus noticed him, nor did the cop or the homeless man rooting through a nearby garbage can.

  Murphy waited a few moments, then he cautiously emerged from hiding. He observed the younger version of himself striding the opposite way down the sidewalk; once past the last school buses, he dashed across Independence. Careful to remain out of direct line of sight, Murphy followed him across the street, and watched from a discreet distance as David began jogging down the Mall, heading in the direction of the M station.

  For a moment, he had an impulse to follow him. It was a strange thing to see himself as others must have seen him twenty-six years ago: a time-dilated mirror image, observed from afar. So far as he could tell, there was no significant physical difference; indeed, he had recognized himself immediately. He would have liked to continue spying upon himself, yet at the same time, the eeriness of the situation left a cold sensation in his stomach.

  Finding that he had lost his appetite, Murphy walked back to the Air and Space Museum and offered his hot dog to the homeless man, who regarded it with suspicion for a second before taking it from him with mumbled thanks. He reflected that he probably looked only a little less shabby: old Army parka, battered Mets cap, sleepless eyes. Probably just as well; it might help him fade into the background.

  Yet that wasn’t his immediate concern. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked up the front steps of the museum, then loitered just outside the front entrance. He didn’t have long to wait; less than a minute later, Franc came out of the building.