Eschaton

by Andrew Hastie

  ‘What’s Ahnenerbe?’ he asked Caitlin, flicking through a book.

  ‘An elite SS research unit that was trying to validate Hitler’s theory of an ancient Aryan race by using scientific methods,’ she answered, without taking her eyes off the formula. ‘He called them the “founders of culture”. They were supposed to be looking for evidence of German racial superiority through archaeology among other things.’

  Josh looked along the shelves. ‘Well, Heisenberg has collected quite a few books about it.’

  Caitlin wasn’t paying him much attention, too busy studying a complicated equation on the last board – her eyebrows furrowing in the usual way.

  Josh picked up an official-looking letter that was signed by Himmler and browsed its timeline.

  ‘Cat?’ he whispered. ‘We need to go.’

  ‘Shh! I’ve nearly got it.’

  ‘The thing in the cave, it’s not a nuclear reactor.’

  ‘This equation,’ she said, drawing her finger across a part of one line. ‘He shouldn’t know this. It’s the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, and wasn’t proposed until 11.960s and even then it took another forty years to prove.’

  ‘Cat!’

  ‘What?’ she snapped.

  ‘The thing in the cave isn’t a reactor.’

  ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to work out what he was really doing?’

  ‘That he was building a time machine?’

  She looked confused. ‘How do you know?’

  Josh held up the letter. ‘Because I’ve just seen the demonstration!’

  64

  El Presidente

  Sitting in the red leather pilot seat, Chief MacKenzie pored over the brass controls of the Nautilus, admiring the fine detail and craftsmanship of the navigation system.

  ‘Well?’ asked Juliana.

  ‘It’s not your rudder. The trim’s off by two degrees in the bow plane, and you need to replace the journal bearing on the second generator, but my god lass, she truly is a beauty.’

  Juliana glowed with pride. ‘I’ve had a lot of time to perfect her.’

  ‘Thought we’d lost you for good.’

  Her smile faded. ‘So did we. It was only Marcus’ plan that saved us.’

  ‘I’ve heard nowt about him since that farce with the Eschaton presentation. Did he go back to wandering the lost paths?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea. He’s always been one to follow his own trail.’

  ‘Do you still have it? His plan?’

  Juliana looked towards her husband who was staring out of the viewport. ‘Thomas is obsessed with it, and has hundreds of variations on the original, but they all come back to the same endpoint.’

  ‘The end of times?’

  ‘Yes, Thomas is convinced the only way to make a difference is to introduce the Paradox, but he can’t work out exactly how it will change the outcome.’

  ‘Sometimes you just have to put your trust in fate.’

  ‘Ha! Don’t let the Institute of Engineers hear you say that — you’ll get expelled!’

  The chief chuckled. ‘I doubt it. I’m the bloody president.’

  ‘What? How the hell did you manage that?’

  ‘Everyone else died, or retired,’ he said with a tinge of sadness. ‘It’s not like the old days. You’d hardly recognise it.’

  ‘No more Christmas parties?’

  ‘Oh, we still have those. We managed to get chucked out of Goldsmith’s Hall last time.’

  Juliana smiled. ‘Does Newton still do the speech about the apple?’

  ‘Every year and Davey does the trick with helium.’

  ‘Still pisses Faraday off?’

  The chief nodded.

  She laughed at the memory of the two scientists nearly coming to blows. ‘Never gets old.’

  ‘Never. Now shall we see if we can find this damn engine.’ He reset the dials on the main control desk and pulled a series of levers. The lights dimmed slightly as the generators kicked.

  ‘You may want to go and sort out number two.’

  ‘On it, El Presidente,’ said Juliana with a mock salute.

  65

  Time machine

  The cave was packed full of SS officers, all eagerly awaiting the start of the demonstration. Standing at the centre of them, looking impatiently at his watch, was Heinrich Himmler.

  Heisenberg looked stressed as he oversaw the final preparations of his experiment. There was a constant hum of power from the reactor, the vibrations so intense that Josh could feel it through the soles of his boots.

  Arranged in a circle at one end of the chamber were twelve black obelisks. Standing at over two metres tall, each one was covered in ancient runes and connected to the reactor by thick, industrial cables which were making them vibrate ever so slightly.

  Caitlin was standing behind the lead shielding with the other nurses, while Josh had found a radiation suit that looked more like something from Star Wars, and had made his way into a group of technicians collected close to the circle.

  ‘The search for our ancestors is nearly over,’ said Himmler to his officers. ‘Soon we shall know the true heritage of our forefathers.’

  Heisenberg took his cue from Himmler and stepped into the circle. ‘This will be a momentous day for the Reich. To conquer time and prove to the world that we are truly an Aryan race! For this demonstration, I have chosen one of our primary archaeological sites, Bohuslän, twelve hundred years before Christ.’ He nodded to his assistant, who pulled a lever and the low whine of the reactor changed pitch. ‘We will require over a million kilowatts of energy to create the temporal field,’ he shouted over the noise of the device. ‘I suggest you all take refuge behind the screens.’

  Heisenberg placed a padded helmet over his head and turned towards a group of soldiers, motioning them to come forward with one gloved hand.

  Josh watched through his half-fogged visor as three men strode out into the circle.

  They were all blonde, athletic-looking specimens in white vests and shorts, which they proceeded to remove once they were in the centre. Their bodies were taught and muscled, like Greek gods, and each one of them stood proudly in the glare of the spotlights displaying the swastika tattooed over their hearts.

  Josh could see the others watching eagerly from behind the shields. Many of the nurses were taking it in turns to stare through the glass slits at the naked men. There was a tiny pang of jealousy as he wondered if Caitlin was one of them.

  Heisenberg signalled to his team, and the thrum of the reactor shifted pitch. Everyone felt the surge of power as the energy poured through the obelisks and out into the circle. A bubble of distortion materialised between the three men, expanding quickly to envelop them. They became distorted inside the ball of flux, like a hall of mirrors, their limbs elongating as their heads seem to twist on impossibly long necks.

  There was no sound other than the high-pitched whine of the reactor.

  Then they were gone.

  Nothing remained of the men, other than the faint impression of footprints on the dusty floor.

  The reactor began to wind down, and Heisenberg took off his helmet, his hair sticking limply to his head.

  ‘Very impressive,’ said Himmler, stepping out from behind the lead screen, ‘but how do we know it worked?’

  Heisenberg pulled off his gloves. Josh could see his hands were shaking as he pointed to the crowd behind Himmler. ‘I believe Herr Wirth should be able to confirm its success.’

  An older man stepped out from the crowd, wearing a tweed suit that reminded Josh of a stereotypical university professor.

  The archaeologist cleared his throat with a subtle cough. ‘The men were given a straightforward brief. As we’re all aware, this is not an exact science and a one-way mission at best.’

  Wirth took out a series of photographs from a leather briefcase and showed them to Himmler.

  ‘These were taken on my last visit to Bohuslän,’ he began, pointing at the images
of cave art. ‘At the time there was no evidence to suggest that they were anything more than bronze-age petroglyphs.’

  Himmler’s face was a mask of concentration as he studied the black and white photos, and then slowly a smile broke across his face.

  ‘You are a genius, Herr Heisenberg,’ he crowed loudly, showing each of the other officers the photograph. ‘Do you see? There in the carvings. It’s them. The swastika.’

  The other SS officers each took their turn to look at the image, nodding and congratulating their commander.

  Josh removed his helmet and moved around through the group until he could see for himself.

  There in the photograph were the simple rock drawings of three elongated men, each one with the Nazi symbol carved into their chests.

  ‘We should go,’ Caitlin whispered in his ear.

  66

  Snowball

  [Date: -654,000,000]

  ‘When are we exactly?’ asked Alixia, looking out through the observation window onto a sheet of snow and ice.

  ‘Minus six-point-three-three to the eleventh,’ Juliana said, consulting the dials.

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Thomas, looking out across the bleak white expanse. ‘Six hundred and fifty-million years ago? That’s snowball earth territory!’

  ‘Snowball?’

  ‘The Marinoan glaciation. The entire earth surface is covered in ice.’

  ‘How on earth did the founder get a vestige back this far?’ Lyra wondered aloud.

  The chief climbed up from the engine room, his face smeared with grease.

  ‘That’s your bearing fixed.’

  Juliana nodded her appreciation.

  He took in the view from the window. ‘I see we’ve arrived.’

  ‘What exactly are we supposed to do back here?’ Alixia asked the engineer as he wiped his hands.

  ‘You wanted to know where the founder hid the engine and I’ve brought you to it.’ He nodded at the icy landscape beyond the glass. ‘He put it out of most members’ reach.’

  ‘He can travel back this far?’ blurted Thomas.

  The chief shrugged, holding up the founder’s locket. ‘His range is virtually infinite. The temporal location contained in this vestige would only be accessible to someone with a ship like this or an infinite.’

  ‘And he’s the only one,’ Thomas mused. ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed the chief. ‘Now, assuming you’ve cold weather gear, I suggest we get out there and recover the device before your friend gets any worse.’

  67

  Cave art

  [Bohuslän, Sweden. Date: 11.936]

  Josh and Caitlin looked down from the top of the rock outcropping, their shadows matching the elongated figures of stick men carved into the stone plateau below — they were exactly like the ones from the photograph. The swastika was unmistakable.

  ‘We’re not supposed to use naturals,’ complained Caitlin.

  ‘We don’t have much choice,’ said Josh. ‘We can hardly let the Third Reich go back fifteen-hundred years and start some kind of Aryan super race.’

  ‘You don’t know for sure that they did.’

  The German archaeologist Wirth and the rest of his expedition were busy taking photographs further down the valley. For some crazy reason, they had brought a musicologist called Fritz Bose who was making recordings on something called a magnetophon.

  Josh had to improvise, using the timeline from the photograph to get them back to the point when it was taken. It was an impulsive decision, one he didn’t really have time to discuss with Caitlin, and she wasn’t particularly happy about it.

  ‘We should’ve gone back and told the founder about the time machine,’ she insisted, unpacking their travel robes.

  ‘Isn’t there another crisis about time machines?’

  ‘Yes, the eleventh. So we can be pretty sure that these two are related.’

  ‘Which means there’s going to be another team dealing with this already,’ Josh said smugly.

  Caitlin didn’t look convinced. ‘I doubt it. They’re not making the same kind of connections as we are — it’s like they’re too scared to think outside the box.’

  ‘Do you think Fermi came back to give Heisenberg the information he needed?’

  Caitlin’s lips pursed as she considered the idea. ‘That would explain how he managed to overcome the gravitational quantisation issue —’

  ‘Just so I’m clear on this,’ Josh interrupted. ‘Do you guys actually know how to build a time machine?’

  Caitlin laughed. ‘Belsarus spent years trying to. There are a hundred different theories and thousands of books on the subject, but no, we don’t know how to build a time machine. All we know, is that if someone does, it will potentially cause the end of time as we know it.’

  ‘Potentially?’

  ‘Sim puts it at about ninety-four point-two percent.’

  ‘That’s pretty much a sure thing then.’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘And you still think I started it?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Caitlin knelt down and touched one of the figures. The rock was weather-beaten and smooth, but she could still sense the latent timelines stored deep within it. She saw fierce-looking men with primitive flint tools chipping away at the stone while a shaman stood over them with a firebrand, chanting.

  ‘It’s some kind of ritual,’ she said, taking her hand away from the stone.

  ‘Maybe they sacrificed the blonde gods to Odin.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She looked distracted as if something was bothering her.

  ‘What is it? Are we going to jump or not?’

  ‘There was something familiar about their shaman.’

  ‘Like you know him?’ Josh asked, sounding surprised.

  She shook her head. ‘No, but he looked a hell of a lot like my dad.’

  68

  Ice age

  The ice pack was vast. Millions of years of snow lay undisturbed, compressed into a thick blanket by the weight of layer upon layer of snow-fall.

  There was only one set of footprints to follow, which without the specific date would have been lost in a matter of hours.

  The team from the Nautilus tramped slowly across the glittering white plain. Clothed in thick sealskin coats lined with fur and bound together by ropes, they blindly followed in the footsteps of the chief. Moving like old men hunched against the biting wind, they made their way across the tundra.

  The temperature made it impossible to speak, and they’d wrapped scarves around their faces to prevent their lips from freezing which were now strung with white pearls of condensation. Snow goggles reduced the glare off the ice but made it difficult to tell them apart.

  The chief led the party, sinking his poles into the fresh powder in front of him as he followed the imprints left by the founder, his snow-shoes obliterating his master’s tracks as they turned over the loose top layer.

  Alixia, Thomas and Da Recco followed behind him, Juliana opting to stay with the ship. She was concerned the freezing conditions would drain the batteries too quickly and wanted to monitor their levels in case she needed to take it back into the maelstrom.

  After a couple of hours of slow, laborious progress the party made it to the cave entrance.

  Hidden beneath a precipice of ice carved out by the wind, the entrance glistened with long icicles that reminded Da Recco of a dragon’s mouth as he passed underneath them.

  Sheltered from the icy chill, they pulled off their thick mittens and shook the snow from their headgear.

  ‘That’s the coldest I’ve ever been,’ said Da Recco through blue lips and chattering teeth, ‘and I’ve been to Scotland.’

  ‘I would say minus eighty degrees centigrade at least,’ suggested Thomas to Da Recco, whose blank expression told him that he had no clue what a centigrade was, leaving Thomas wondering what they used for temperature readings back in the fourteenth century.

  ‘So where exactly are we?’ asked A
lixia.

  The chief chuckled. ‘The Himalayas, about four kilometres north of where the temple will stand in six hundred and fifty-million years.’

  They looked around the cave. The walls were covered in a slick layer of water and lichen.

  ‘The first signs of life,’ said Alixia, touching the small plants tenderly. ‘The Cambrian explosion begins.’

  ‘In about a hundred million years from now,’ corrected the chief, stamping his feet on the floor. ‘Now where’s that damn engine?’

  At the far end of the cave was an opening, a crude arch that led further into the mountain. Shedding their heavy coats and snowshoes, they filed through into the cavern beyond.

  ‘Geothermal?’ wondered Thomas as the air warmed their faces.

  ‘Temporal flux,’ Alixia whispered, studying the inside of the chamber.

  The rock around them looked as if it had been intricately carved into strange geometric patterns, but when she examined them closely it was obvious the fractal-like formations could only have occurred naturally.

  Floating in the centre of the cavern was a sphere of iridescent blue light, surrounded in a halo of energy that swirled over its surface like oil on water.

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Da Recco, moving towards it.

  ‘Wait!’ ordered Alixia, stopping him in his tracks. ‘We have no idea what physical contact with the engine will do,’ she added, pointing to the transformation of the cave walls.

  Thomas took out the box the founder had given them. ‘How is that going to fit in here?’

  The chief chuckled, taking the wooden container from him. ‘It’s bigger on the inside.’

  They all held their breath as MacKenzie approached the glowing light. Walking into its sphere of influence he seemed to grow younger, his bald head sprouting hair and his body tightening — growing stronger and fitter.