by Anthology
Outside the black night hurtled past.
The ship wobbled violently. Prediction true was the only phrase Mason could think of. His own vision of the screaming, the numbing horror, the exhortations to a deaf heaven—all coming true. That hulk would be this ship in a matter of minutes. Those three bodies would be . . .
“Oh . . . damn!” He screamed it at the top of his lungs, furious at the enraging stubbornness of Ross in taking them back, of causing the future to be as they saw—all because of insane pride.
“No, they’re not going to fool us!” Ross shouted, still holding fast to his last idea like a dying bulldog holding its enemy fast in its teeth.
He threw switches and tried to turn the ship. But it wouldn’t turn. It kept plunging down like a fluttering leaf. The gyroscope couldn’t keep up with the abrupt variations in cabin equilibrium and the three of them found themselves being thrown off balance on the tilting deck.
“Auxiliary engines!” Ross yelled.
“It’s no use!” Mickey cried.
“Damn it!” Ross clawed his way up the angled deck, then crashed heavily against the engine board as the cabin inclined the other way. He threw switches over with shaking fingers.
Suddenly Mason saw an even spout of flame through the rear viewer again. The ship stopped shuddering and headed straight down. The cabin righted itself.
Ross threw himself into his chair and shot out furious hands to turn the ship about.
From the floor Mickey looked at him with a blank, white face. Mason looked at him, too, afraid to speak.
“Now shut up!” Ross said disgustedly, not even looking at them, talking like a disgruntled father to his sons. “When we get down there you’re going to see that it’s true. That ship’ll be gone. And we’re going to go looking for those bastards who put the idea in our minds!”
They both stared at their captain humbly as the ship headed down backwards. They watched Ross’s hands move efficiently over the controls. Mason felt a sense of confidence in his captain. He stood on the deck quietly, waiting for the landing without fear. Mickey got up from the floor and stood beside him, waiting.
The ship hit the ground. It stopped. They had landed again. They were still the same.
And . . .
“Turn on the spotlight,” Ross told them.
Mason threw the switch. They all crowded to the port. Mason wondered for a second how Ross could possibly have landed in the same spot. He hadn’t even appeared to be following the calculations made on the last landing.
They looked out.
Mickey stopped breathing. And Ross’s mouth fell open.
The wreckage was still there.
They had landed in the same place and they had found the wrecked ship still there.
Mason turned away from the port and stumbled over the deck. He felt lost, a victim of some terrible universal prank, a man accursed.
“You said . . .” Mickey said to the captain.
Ross just looked out of the port with unbelieving eyes.
“Now we’ll go up again,” Mickey said, grinding his teeth. “And we’ll really crash this time. And we’ll be killed. Just like those . . . those . . .”
Ross didn’t speak. He stared out of the port at the refutation of his last clinging hope.
He felt hollow, void of all faith in belief in sensible things.
Then Mason spoke.
“We’re not going to crash—” he said somberly—“ever.”
“What?”
Mickey was looking at him. Ross turned and looked too.
“Why don’t we stop kidding ourselves?” Mason said. “We all know what it is, don’t we?”
He was thinking of what Ross had said just a moment before. About the senses giving evidence of what was believed. Even if there was nothing there at all . . .
Then, in a split second, with the knowledge, he saw Ross and he saw Carter. As they were. And he took a short shuddering breath, a last breath until illusion would bring breath and flesh again.
“Progress,” he said bitterly, and his voice was an aching whisper in the phantom ship.
“The Flying Dutchman takes to the universe.”
DECISIONS
Michael A. Burstein
Life is an endless series of decisions. Some carry far more weight than others, but they all need solid foundations. And the ultimate responsibility . . .
Commander Aaron Eliassen threw the tray across his cell. It smashed against the far wall, covering the white molded plaster in a mix of browns, greens, and reds. The tray slid down to the floor, clattered for a moment, then fell still.
Aaron glared around the small, featureless white room at nothing in particular. For the twentieth time, or the hundredth, or perhaps the thousandth, he ran and smashed himself against the locked door, hoping that perhaps this time he would break apart the unseen hinges.
As before, the door refused to budge. All he succeeded in doing was getting his blue jumpsuit even filthier than before.
Aaron placed his eye against the crack between the door and the wall, again trying to peer through to the outside, to get some idea of what lay beyond. He tilted and twisted his head to get some sort of view, but all in vain.
He shuffled back from the door until he stood in the center of the room, then looked up at the ceiling. Although he had not yet spotted a microphone or surveillance camera, he assumed he was being monitored. “You hear me?” he shouted. He pointed at the mess of food that lay in a lump on the floor. “Did you see that? I’m not going to eat anymore. Not until I get some answers.”
No one responded. Eliassen walked over to the discolored wall and stared at the gloppy mess of stew, asparagus, and gelatin. His stomach rumbled slightly, but he ignored it.
“Let me out!” he screamed. He beat against the door with both his fists in unison, and then when that got tiring he changed the rhythm. Right fist, left fist, right fist, left fist. He walked around the perimeter of the room, continuing to bang against the wall, until he had come back to the door and his hands felt raw. He dropped his arms to his sides, pant-ing. How many times had he done this? He couldn’t say. He couldn’t remember.
“Talk to me,” he said between breaths. “Someone, anyone, talk to me. Please.”
He walked over to the bunk, stared at it, and then, in defiance, he collapsed onto the floor. For the third or fourth time, he cried himself to sleep.
Aaron heard the voice, a deep one, calling his name. “Commander Eliassen. Commander Eliassen. Please wake up.”
Aaron opened his eyes and immediately shielded his face with his arm. A bright light shone through the open—finally, open!—door. A figure stood in the doorway, with the light forming an aura around it.
Aaron fought down an urge to jump up and run through the door, knowing it would get him nowhere. Instead, he eased himself up, barely noticing that although he had fallen asleep on the floor, somehow he had ended up in the bunk. “Who is that?” he rasped.
The figure nodded to someone outside, and the door clicked shut, once again blending into the wall with but a tiny crack around it. Aaron’s eyes adjusted to the ambient fluorescent light. He glanced at the far wall; someone had cleaned all of the food off of it, but a nauseating spot of brown color remained on the floor.
“Do you recognize me?” the figure asked.
Aaron studied the man’s face and body for a moment. Black hair, solid jaw, etched wrinkles, blue blazer—it could not be possible, and yet Aaron did recognize the man.
“Director Carter?” he asked softly. “Gabe?”
Gabe nodded, his lips pressed together tightly.
Aaron jumped out of the bed and ran towards his friend, a mixture of anger, fear, and relief playing out within him. He raised his arms, but whether he intended to hug Gabe or choke him, even Aaron could not say. He figured he’d decide once within range.
Before he could get too close, however, Gabe pulled a revolver out of a shoulder holster and pointed it straight at him. Aaron stop
ped short. He lifted his gaze from the gun and stared into Gabe’s eyes, trying to read his friend’s blank expression.
“Gabe?” he said again. “Is it really you?”
Gabe nodded once. “Yes, Aaron, it’s me. Please do not come any closer.” His voice sounded cold but uncertain.
“I don’t understand,” Aaron said.
Gabe held the gun steady. “If you get violent, I will shoot you. If that doesn’t stop you, the soldiers standing outside will fill the room with gas and knock us both out.”
Aaron nodded. He backed away from Gabe with measured steps and sat on the bunk. “May I ask a question?”
Gabe slid the revolver back into its holster, but kept his eyes on Aaron the whole time. “Go ahead.”
“What the hell’s going on here?”
Gabe looked around the room for a moment. When his eyes finally settled on Aaron’s face, Aaron noticed that they were bloodshot. “Perhaps you can tell me,” Gabe said.
Aaron’s jaw dropped. “Ishould tellyou?”
Gabe nodded. “Yes. Tell me everything that happened after you returned from your mission.”
“After I returned? But the mission itself—I need to tell you about my discoveries—”
“Don’t!” Gabe shouted, holding up both his hands. “Only tell me about everything that happened to you since you landed.”
Aaron’s anger had disappeared into his confusion; it now returned stronger than before. He repressed an urge to spit. “Don’t you already know? Look around you!”
Gabe made no move to turn his head, so Aaron continued. “You locked me in a cell. You must know this already. Why are you torturing me?”
Gabe shook his head so slightly that Aaron could barely see it. “Assume I don’t know already. Assume I need to hear it from you. From the instant you made contact with Earth.”
Aaron yawned, cracking his jaw. “Well. The instant I made contact, hmm? Houston told me to bring her in at Edwards instead of the Cape. I came in fine, a perfect two-pointer.”
“And then?”
Aaron glowered. “And then a bunch of army soldiers grabbed me out of the shuttle and dragged me into this cell. No one listened to my protestations or questions; it’s as if I spoke Martian.”
“And what have you done since?”
“Done?” Aaron made no effort to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “Why, I took in a show and made out with a dancing girl. I’m planning to introduce her to Mom next week.” He tensed up. “What in God’s name do you think I’ve done?”
“I’m sorry. It was necessary.”
“Necessary? It was necessary for NASA to treat me like a common criminal? No—worse than a common criminal. No television, no radio, no Internet access—not even a telephone to call a lawyer, let alone my mom. Is this still America or what?”
Gabe lowered his eyes. “It’s still America.”
“How long have I been here? Counting the meals pushed through the slot and the cycle of the lights, I’m guessing four days.”
“Four days sounds about right.”
“ ‘Sounds about right?’ Don’t you know?”
Gabe placed his hand on his chest, near the holster. “Aaron, what’s the date?”
“Huh?”
“You remember your mission schedule?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then. If we assume that you landed four days ago, and have been here ever since, then what’s today’s date?”
Aaron thought for a moment. “If I returned on October tenth, as scheduled, then today’s October fourteenth.”
Gabe sighed. “It’s not.”
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s May eleventh.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me I was in space for over a year? Impossible. I didn’t have enough supplies to last for that long.”
“You misunderstood me. Today’s May eleventh, a week before your launch.”
That evening, still locked in his cell and eating bland food off one of the government-issued trays, Aaron went over the conversation from that afternoon. At first, he had refused to accept his old friend’s statement.
“What are you talking about?” he had asked.
Gabe sighed, and slid down with his back against the wall next to the door. He crouched on the floor, looking ready to jump up if Aaron made any sudden moves. “What I mean is,” he said, drawing each word out, “you haven’t left yet.”
“Bullshit! I’ve gone and returned.” He stood up from the bunk and pointed at himself. “See? Here I am.”
Gabe appeared to tense up. “Oh, I can’t argue with the fact that you’ve returned, Aaron,” he said, waving a hand. “I mean, I’m talking to you right now.”
Aaron settled onto the bunk again. “Well, then?”
“Well, then.” Gabe sighed. “The thing of it is, I also talked to you this morning.”
“This morning? No way. I would have remembered.” Even though, Aaron thought, he had no way of knowing the time, since no clock hung in the cell.
Gabe chuckled. “I’m sure you do remember the conversation. I spoke with the real—I mean, the one of you who hasn’t left yet.”
“And what did we discuss?”
“We talked about the wafer with all the names on it.” Gabe stared at his face. “You said—”
“I said that it was a waste of my weight allowance.”
“Yes.”
Aaron snorted. “I remember that conversation. From over six months ago.”
Gabe shook his head. “It happened this morning.”
Aaron leaned forward. “Prove it to me.”
Gabe stood up again and held out his arms in a gesture of helplessness. “I wish I could.”
“Not good enough. If this is for real, then tell me—how did I travel back in time?”
“We believe your ship followed a Gott closed timelike curve, if you know what that means.”
Aaron shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Do you want me to try to explain it to you?”
Aaron smiled. “I wouldn’t consider it proof.”
Gabe put his fingers together and stared at the wall over Aaron’s head. “Think about my dilemma for a moment, even if you consider it just a theoretical exercise. How could I prove to you that you’re in the past? You’ve lived through it already. There’s nothing I can show you that you haven’t already seen.” He paused. “I suppose you could ask me questions to try to trip me up, but I don’t see how that would work.”
A sudden realization hit Aaron. “But I could prove to you I’m from the future, is that it? Tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow?”
The color drained from Gabe’s face. “No,” he said, “do not do that, under any circumstances.”
“Why not?” Aaron looked around at the walls. “Isn’t that why you locked me in here?”
“No. We locked you in here to avoid any paradoxes.”
“Paradoxes?”
Gabe sighed. “Aaron, what would you do if you managed to build a time machine? What would you use it for?”
Aaron’s nose itched; he scratched it. “You tell me.”
“You might use it to give yourself information about the future, so as to change it. But if you change it, then where did the information come from in the first place?”
Aaron thought for a moment. “I’ve heard of this. The Grandfather Paradox, right? I go back in time and kill my grandfather, and then I was never born. But then how did I go back in time if I never existed?”
Gabe nodded, a small smile on his face. “Good. You do understand.”
Exasperated, Aaron asked, “Whatdo I understand? Tell me.”
“You understand why we had to lock you up.”
Aaron glared at Gabe and clenched his fists. He suppressed the rage he felt. “I do not understand that at all,” he said in measured tones.
“We had to keep you away from everyone else to avoid contaminating the present with information from the future.”
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Aaron grunted. “I suppose,” he said, “I could grant that necessity.”
Gabe sighed. “I’m glad you can see it my way. My own presence here is a risk. If you told me something about the future, it could destroy the Universe.”
Aaron stared at his friend for a moment, then laughed. The hollow laughter rippled and cascaded, and wouldn’t stop. After a moment, Aaron began coughing.
“Are you okay, Aaron?”
Aaron waved his friend’s concern away as the last of his coughs spasmed out. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that you sounded so melodramatic.” He mimick-ed Gabe’s serious tone. “ ‘It could destroy the Universe,’ ” he repeated, and he started laughing again.
“It could.”
Aaron stopped laughing. “Literally?”
“Yes.”
Aaron thought for a moment. If Gabe was telling the truth . . . “Then coming in here to see me must be some risk.”
Gabe shrugged. “You weren’t doing too well, Aaron. Somebody had to explain.”
Aaron looked into Gabe’s eyes and realized that Gabe himself must have fought for the right to tell Aaron why they had locked him away. For a moment, Aaron felt affection for his friend. But it quickly faded. After all, Gabe might have fought to talk to him, but what Aaron really wanted, really needed—
“Let me go, Gabe.”
“I can’t. It’ll create paradoxes. We need to avoid them.”
“Youcan’t avoid any paradoxes! Hasn’t my presence here already affected the timeline, if you believe your nonsense?”
Gabe smiled. “And now you understand my problem, old friend. According to Doctor—I mean, according to our physicists, I have to minimize your impact here as much as possible.”
Aaron shook his head. “The only way you could do that is by keeping me locked away in here until the time comes for me to return.”
Gabe stared at him silently for a few seconds, and Aaron suddenly felt cold.
“No,” he said. “No way. You can’t possibly—”
“What choice do I have?”
Aaron’s mind raced through the possibilities. “You’ve got a million of them! If you believe this crap, just let me out after the shuttle leaves on May eighteenth.”
