This was the first interview inside the new salt-mine prison. Despite a self-induced coronary, Ramiro looked fit and comfortable. His room was finished, but little else was done. Despite copious amounts of soundproofing, the deep drumming of machinery bled into the audio track—the Army Corps working fast on what they were told was a new secret shelter for the wise heads of their elected government.
“Paper and a pen,” Ramiro demanded.
I wasn't the first to notice that while making important notes, our time traveler preferred ancient, proven tools.
He wrote hard for half an hour, breaking only to mention that he was by no means an expert in this esoteric branch of science.
Neither was Collins. But that little bald character had done just enough reading to decipher a few equations and recognize the general shape of the diagrams. With a nod and a poker player's guts, he said, “This looks like you're playing with the Casimir Effect.”
“Very good,” Ramiro responded.
“Parallel plates set so close together that they tap into the vacuum energies everywhere. Is that about right?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“I've heard there's a lot of energy in a vacuum. Virtual particles and structure too.” Flipping through the pages, Collins allowed the overhead camera to record everything. “So what are you doing on this page? Making a wormhole?”
“Hardly.”
“Doesn't time travel need a wormhole?”
Ramiro sat back. “That's a very difficult trick to achieve. And in the end, unnecessary.”
“Why?”
“A pocket of Lorton Energy is far easier to make.”
“Who's Lorton?”
“An unborn Australian genius, if that matters. In my day, he was just as famous for his piano playing as for his peculiar physics.” Then Ramiro launched into a lengthy and occasionally self-contradictory lecture about exotic states and branes and the means by which modest energies can throw matter across years and entire eons. But there were strict limits to the magic. The larger the mass to be moved, the shorter span it could cross. A substantial building might be thrown several years into the past, while a tiny grain of sand could find itself resting in the sultry Jurassic.
“Is that how they tested their machine?” Collins asked. “Make a probe and send it back, then dig it up in a fossil bed somewhere?”
Ramiro's smile flickered.
“Hardly,” he said.
“Wait,” his interrogator said. “I forgot. You told me already ... what was it you told me...?”
“The universe is a quantum phenomena,” Ramiro mentioned.
“Which means?”
“Your physicists have played with a very difficult concept. They call it the many-worlds reality, and to an amazing degree, that model is correct. Everything that can happen will happen. An unstable nucleus might explode today or in a thousand years, which means that if it detonates both events will happen. And it also explodes during every nanosecond between now and then. In our astonishing, endlessly inventive universe, every possible outcome is inevitable. Every consequence plays out endlessly. The most unlikely event happens too often to count. And possibility is as easy and perfect as the great thoughts that pass through God's good mind.”
Collins was a natural actor. But many years later, watching the interrogation, I could tell that he was impressed. It wasn't play-acting on his part. This was no feigned emotion for effect. The camera showed an awestruck gaze and hands that had to find one another, wrapping their fingers into an elaborate knot. Collins was pleased. No, he was thrilled. For a moment or two, he allowed himself to stare at the stack of papers in his lap, humble and unexpected, and in ways that few people can ever know, he felt honored.
Then he remembered his job—his duty—and quickly returned to the scruffy matters of state and war.
“Okay, it's 1999,” he said. “In one reality, nobody jumps back to our day. Nothing changes, and the world pushes on exactly as before. Lorton is going to be born and stroke the keys and play with his mathematics—”
“Exactly.”
“But there's this other 1999,” said Collins.
“Yes.”
“Abraham and you, and the rest of the group ... they calmly step out into our world. Is that about it?”
“Except that process was never calm,” Ramiro mentioned. “There was a crack like thunder and quite a lot of dust. Since they occupied a fair amount of space, your native air and ground had to be pushed out of the way.”
“Naturally.”
Ramiro waited.
“Where?” Collins asked.
Then as Ramiro began to speak, his interrogator interrupted, saying, “I know. It's in Kashmir. You've mentioned that before.”
“It was beside the Shyok River.”
“The Shyok? Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure,” said Ramiro, bristling slightly.
“And how many came?”
“One hundred and ninety-nine warriors,” Ramiro reported.
“You're sure?”
“I didn't count the bodies. But that number was mentioned to me.”
“Is that how much mass can be thrown back across one hundred and forty years? About two hundred men's worth?”
“Men and women.”
“How many women?”
“I don't know.”
“Because of the masks. You claim.”
The first interrogation had delivered that sour news. Collins had wanted Abraham's description, but Ramiro couldn't identify any of the temporal jihadists. Every head was covered with a thick black fabric. It was a miraculous cloth, transparent to the person beneath but hiding the faces from the outside world. And if that wasn't terrible enough, the cloth also wiped away the character and even the gender of every voice.
“Very smart,” Collins.
Ramiro nodded agreeably.
“And your leader, this Abraham fellow—”
“I never saw his face. But please, ask me that question twenty more times. I love repeating myself without end.”
“Sorry,” Collins said.
Ramiro waited for a few moments. Then he thought to mention, “We also brought a few personal effects and some special equipment too.”
“I have to ask this again,” Collins said. “My bosses insist.”
“As I told you, I can offer only guesses about what kind of equipment was included. My cell was small, and it was not responsible for any of it. I saw some anonymous packing crates. Nothing more.”
“A reasonable step,” Collins allowed.
Both men sat quietly.
“Again,” the interrogator said. “What can you tell me about Abraham?”
The biography was brief and chilling. Abraham was the only known name for a young gentleman who according to rumors was born into one of the world's wealthiest families. He had invested ten years and his personal fortune preparing for an invasion of the past. What Ramiro knew was minimal, and he openly admitted that he might have been fed lies. But the heart of the plan was for the invaders to come with little but make friends with a useful government, and then they would fabricate the kinds of weapons that would bring this primitive world to their leader's feet.
Ramiro patiently told the story again, and then his interrogator suddenly interrupted.
“Wait, I know,” Collins blurted. “It's the future.”
“Pardon me?”
“That's how they tested their time machine.” He shook the papers in the air. “If they threw a probe into the past, it would only create a new reality. A separate earth diverging from us. But if they had a marked, one-of-a-kind object ... and then let's say they sent it a minute or a day into the future ... then according to this quantum craziness, that probe would appear in every reality leading out from this scruffy little moment of ours.”
“Exactly,” said Ramiro, smiling like a long-suffering but proud teacher.
“That's how your physicists proved it?”
“Grains
of marked sand were sent two moments into the future,” said Ramiro.
“Huh,” said Collins.
The prisoner sat back in his chair.
“Which makes me wonder,” Collins continued.
Silence.
Then Collins sat back.
“What are you wondering, my friend?”
“What would happen?” The interrogator lifted his hand, holding an imaginary ball before his gaze. “If you had a time machine, and you happened to throw, I don't know, a couple hundred lumps of U-235 ahead in time? If you sent one of them every minute or so, but you aimed them to appear in exactly the same place, at the same exact moment ... all of that nuclear material pumped into the same tiny volume ... what kind of boom would that make...?”
I watched those ripe moments at least half a dozen times before I was sure of what I had seen. For an instant, the prisoner flinched. His heart kicked slightly, and the sweat came a little faster than before. But what held my interest was Ramiro's face, and in particular, how guarded he acted for the next little while.
“I will have to be careful,” he was thinking.
“This man is sharp,” I could imagine him warning himself. “Sharp and quick, and I need to watch my steps.”
* * * *
6
“A good day's work?”
“Reasonably exceptional.”
Jefferson nodded, and then he smiled. Then after careful consideration, he decided not to mention what was foremost on his mind. “How's the lamb?” he asked instead.
“Delicious.”
“And the rest?”
“Everything's wonderful,” I told him. “Thanks again for the invitation.”
Jefferson's efficiency apartment was the same as everyone else's, except for every flourish and individual oddity that he had impressed on its walls and floor and the serviceable, government-issue furnishings. Either his housekeeping was thorough, or he had changed his nature for me. He had a fondness for Impressionist painters and political thrillers. The worn carpet implied a man who liked to pace, possibly while talking on the phone. Only two people were allowed to communicate directly with the outside world, and even then, we had to accept some inflexible restrictions. Every image that entered or left the prison, and even the most ordinary sound, had to be examined by several layers of elaborate software. Hidden messages were the main justification. Ramiro might have secret talents; who knew what any of his microscopic implants really did? Those security measures gave voices a half-second delay, and the news broadcasts were delayed for nearly thirty minutes before they dripped their way down to us.
Jefferson's small television was perched on the kitchen counter, muted and presently turned to CNN. Not sure what to say, he glanced at the images coming out of China. I preferred to invest my next few moments staring at his Monet—a good quality reproduction, matted and framed above the sofa bed. Then I set down my fork and knife, and after wiping the juice from the corner of my mouth, I quietly announced, “You know, I don't like him.”
Jefferson turned back to me, trying to guess my intentions.
“Lemonade-7,” I said.
“I know who you mean.”
Picking up my fork again, I showed him a serious, sober expression. “There's something about that man ... I don't exactly know what ... but it's just wrong...”
Jefferson risked a neutral nod.
“Control,” I said.
“Pardon me?”
“He demands it,” I said.
“Of course he wants control.”
“And he does an amazing job holding on to it.”
Jefferson shrugged. “In small ways, he does.”
I said nothing.
“But he's still our prisoner. That never changes. Beyond our assurances to keep him secret and safe from harm, what can he count on?”
“Not much,” I agreed. But then I asked, “But what has he given us in these last five or six years? What do we have that's genuinely new?”
With the tips of two fingers, Jefferson scratched his short white beard.
“Does he offer any fresh insights now? Is he able to make any one of our wars a little less terrible?”
“You know how it is, Carmen.”
“Remind me.”
“The well always runs dry.”
“With our sources, you mean.”
“Of course.”
“So why did Collins remain here?”
A good poker face reveals nothing, except that it is a poker face. Which is a useful clue in itself.
“Collins was better than anybody,” I said. “Nobody else understood the minds and makeup of these time travelers. So why didn't he step out into the world, take a new post, and use his hard-earned skills to interrogate fresh suspects?”
“Ramiro was his boy.”
“I understand that.”
“And honestly, I didn't want to lose Collins,” he said.
“Thanks for being honest.”
Jefferson shifted in his chair. “Maybe you're right,” he allowed. “Looking back, I suppose we might have gotten more good out of Collins.”
“I was scouring the world for Abraham,” I pointed out.
Hearing the name, Jefferson blinked.
“It's just that nobody bothered to tell me who Abraham was or how many people he had with him, much less what these temporal jihadists were trying to do. There were so many layers of security that responsible, effective work was impossible.”
“Why should I defend policies I didn't make?”
“I did piece a few things together for myself,” I mentioned. “At least to the point where I knew there was something deadlier than al-Qaeda, a powerful and hateful and almost invisible organization, and it could be anywhere in the world, and I shouldn't trust anybody completely.”
The bureaucrat fell back on his instincts. “Knowing what you know now, Carmen ... do you really believe that you should have been told?”
I didn't react.
“And everybody else with high clearances too? Should hundreds and thousands have been brought into the club?”
I gave the Monet another glance.
Jefferson bristled. “This operation has had its share of leaks over the years. Sure, most came from higher up. But I know of three incidents tied to this facility. And we could be on the far side of the moon, as isolated as we are. So what happens if we brief everybody who might like to know about Ramiro? In thirty seconds, nothing will be secret, and in ten minutes, we'll have forfeited what might be our only advantage.”
The fork had grown warm in my hand. “If it's an advantage,” I replied, “why aren't we enjoying some real success?”
“You don't think we are?”
I shook my head.
“We've done a marvelous job of undercutting Abraham,” he told me. “And since he's our main enemy, I think I should feel proud of my work here.”
I stifled a bleak little laugh.
He noticed. Outrage blossomed, and a tight voice said, “I shouldn't have to defend myself or my people.” Which was the kind of noise you make when defending everybody. “Before you take that tone with me, perhaps we should both remember what our prisoner—this man who you do not like—has given us.”
Then I smiled and nodded. “My parents live in Seattle,” I mentioned.
“Exactly. Yes!”
Two years ago, government geologists announced that low rumblings beneath the Pacific were precursors to a substantial earthquake. It was a bogus operation, but well staged. As a precaution, everyone in the Pacific Northwest was told to step outside before 10:30 in the morning, and the highways were closed down, and the airlines stopped landing and taking off. Sixteen minutes later, an 8.0 trembler hit western Washington, and it might have killed thousands. But instead of a mauling, only a few dozen perished and a few billion dollars in infrastructure fell down—almost a nonevent, considering these recent years.
“Seattle is the perfect example,” Jefferson said.
Ramiro had give
n us the dates and epicenters for dozens of future eruptions and earthquakes. But I wasn't the first voice to ask, “What kind of person carries those kinds of tidbits inside his head?”
Jefferson gave his beard another good scratch.
“An amateur astronomer might remember exploding stars,” I agreed. “But tectonic events too?”
“The man is brilliant,” Jefferson declared. “You've seen his test scores. Those extra genes and his buried machinery give him nearly perfect recall—a skill, I'll add, that he has kept secret from us.”
“Seattle didn't hurt his reputation, either,” I pointed out.
Jefferson needed to look elsewhere. So he glanced at the television, but whatever he saw there didn't seem to comfort him.
“I wish he'd given us more,” I mentioned.
“He can't do the weather,” Jefferson replied. “Hurricanes are chaotic, and the Butterfly Effects—”
“I don't mean weather.” Shaking my head, I asked, “What about the tsunami off Sumatra?”
“Which one?”
“The worst one,” I said. “The day after Christmas, in ‘04.”
His shoulders squared. “That wasn't my call.”
“But you recommended caution,” I pointed out. “I read Collins’ full report. He asked for some kind of warning to be released. But you didn't want us to ‘give away the store.’ Did I get the cliche right?”
Beneath the white whiskers, sun-starved flesh grew red.
Again, Jefferson said, “It wasn't my decision.”
“I realize that.”
“In those days, we couldn't fake this kind of knowledge. Any intervention on our part could have exposed our source.”
“A quarter of a million dead,” I said. “And mostly Muslim, too.”
He wouldn't let me drag him down this path. With a snort, he said, “You have no idea how difficult this has been.”
“Tell me.”
He wanted to do just that.
“Please,” I said.
But caution took hold, and Jefferson's mouth disappeared inside the coarse whiskers.
“Is Ramiro real?”
Jefferson didn't seem to hear me. He bent forward, staring at his own half-eaten dinner. Then quietly and fiercely, he said, “A lot of brilliant people have spent years wondering just that.”
“He's a lowly soldier,” I mentioned. “The lowliest of all, he claims.”
Asimov's SF, October-November 2008 Page 30
