Thrice upon a Time

by James P. Hogan

  "Well, the final group has been running all day," Murdoch said. "We should have the output by morning. Why?"

  "I want to aim at getting some kind of a tentative interpretation by this time next week, if we can," Charles told him. "A week from tomorrow, the Minister himself is coming up here with a couple of his scientific chappies. They want to see it for themselves." He sighed and rubbed his beard resignedly. "It looks as if we've really started something now, I'm afraid."

  Chapter 28

  The Honorable Graham Cuthrie, His Majesty's Minister for Advanced Technology and Science, stared over Murdoch's shoulder at the screen and went over in his mind the things that Charles had said. Then he took a sheet of blank paper off the top of the desk beside him and drew a large cross from corner to corner with a red broad-tipped pen. Slowly and deliberately he folded the paper in two and tore it across, then placed the pieces on top of each other and tore them again.

  "There is an event," he declared. "The paper with the red X on it has been torn up." He looked dubiously across the lab at where Charles was standing by the workbench. On the other side of the room with Lee and Cartland, Professor Norman Payne, Chairman of the Minister's Advisory Committee on Advanced Research, and Dr. Catherine Hazeltine from the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington stood silently watching with interest. Cuthrie continued, "The event of my tearing this sheet of paper is now established as part of the past. It's fact. Are you suggesting that it can now be changed?"

  Charles made no reply, but simply nodded at Murdoch. Murdoch composed a simple line of text on the screen: "Do not tear the sheet that has the red X drawn on it."

  "You tore it at exactly ten seconds after eleven-seven," Murdoch said, glancing back at Cuthrie. "I'm setting this message to arrive at a point in time five seconds before that. Whether or not anything changes will depend on whether or not the 'you' that exists at that moment decides to take any notice of it." Cuthrie sniffed suspiciously. Without further ado, Murdoch turned back to the console and pressed the Transmit key.

  Cuthrie took a sheet of blank paper off the top of the desk beside him and drew a large cross from corner to corner with a red broad-tipped pen. As he raised the sheet for everybody in the room to see, a line of text appeared suddenly on the screen in front of Murdoch and caught Cuthrie's eye. Cuthrie jerked his head up sharply in surprise and found Charles watching him with a faint expression of amusement.

  "Where the devil did that come from?" Cuthrie asked uncertainly.

  Murdoch leaned forward to read the numerical data that had appeared along with the text. "From a point in time that was in the future when this appeared on the screen," he said. "In fact, from just about now."

  "But… how could anybody know that I was intending to tear it up?" Cuthrie asked in a bewildered voice. "I never mentioned it in any way at all."

  "I think that perhaps you're missing the point, Graham," Catherine Hazeltine suggested. "From what Sir Charles said earlier, you did tear it up… on a timeline that has been reconfigured to the one we're all on now as a result of what is now on the screen. Am I right, Sir Charles?" Charles nodded but said nothing. Lee and Cartland looked as if they were enjoying themselves as they watched.

  "My God!" Cuthrie breathed, staring at the screen again with a new light of sudden respect in his eyes. Professor Payne thought for a moment, and then stepped a pace forward. "May I have that for a moment?" he asked. Cuthrie passed him the sheet. Payne produced a pen from his pocket and scrawled a large black circle on top of the red cross.

  "That circle is now there," he told them. "I've drawn it. Fact. If I understand you correctly, you're telling us that the event of my having done that could be changed, even though it's happened. Very well. Show me."

  "May I have that for a moment?" Payne said, moving a step forward. Cuthrie passed him the sheet. Payne produced a pen from his pocket and poised his hand over the red cross.

  "Hold it!" Murdoch called out. Payne looked up, puzzled. "If you were thinking of drawing a black circle, don't." Murdoch pointed to another line of text that had just appeared. "It's telling you here not to." Payne gasped incredulously and stood staring first at the screen, then at the paper, and then back at the screen again, temporarily at a loss of words.

  "You did draw one!" Catherine Hazeltine whispered. "It's happened again. This is impossible!"

  "Let me try something else," Cuthrie said, taking the pen and paper from Payne's unresisting fingers.

  "Before you do, let me just clarify what's happening," Charles said. "It's futile to try and catch the system out by trying to set up paradoxes. All that will happen will be that the timeline will reconfigure to a new one on which all our memories and records—such as what's drawn on that piece of paper—will be fully consistent with the new events resulting from the information impressed upon it. In other words you won't see a paradox however hard you try.

  "When you think about the problem, it makes sense. By definition a paradox can't exist. It's to be expected, therefore, that the logic that governs the process will not permit one to exist. It's a strange form of logic when judged by ordinary standards, to be sure, but then ordinary standards never took account of anything like this."

  "What it boils down to is that it's a waste of time trying to fool it," Cartland summarized. "You won't. What we should be doing is thinking about how to use it."

  "Are you sure you're all right in here on your own?" Morna asked anxiously. "It must be awfully boring for you sitting around all day. Mrs. Paisley is preparing you some lunch—turkey-and-ham salad. It'll be ready in about five minutes." The RAF pilot, who had flown the three visitors directly to Storbannon from London, grinned up from the armchair in the library, from where he was watching a movie on the vi-set. He was young, probably not much over twenty, and with boyishly styled hair and a freckled face that had immediately aroused Morna's motherly instincts.

  "Don't worry about me, miss," he replied cheerfully. "There's plenty to read if I get tired of this, and I'm nice and comfy. To tell you the truth, I could do with a few more days like this."

  "Are you sure there's nothing more I can get you?" Morna asked.

  "A cuppa char'd go down nicely… if it isn't too much trouble."

  At that moment Cartland breezed in from the hallway and caught the tail-end of the conversation.

  "How about a noggin instead, old boy?" he suggested. "If you've got a few hours to kill, you might as well do it in style."

  The pilot hesitated. "Well, I am on duty, sir… But thanks very much; a small beer'd go down a real treat."

  "Newcastle okay?" Cartland asked as he walked across to the cabinet by one of the walls. "It's export."

  "Just the job."

  "Och, ye must be all coming out for lunch," Morna said to Cartland. "I'd better go and give Mrs. Paisley a hand." She hurried out of the door and turned in the direction of the kitchen. Cartland poured two beers and brought one across to where the pilot was sitting.

  "Thank you very much, sir," the pilot acknowledged. "Good health."

  "Cheers, old boy." Cartland took a sip from his own glass and studied the insignia on the shoulder of the pilot's jacket. "Which Command—Air Support?"

  "Eighty-third Squadron."

  "Ah, let me see now… " Cartland thought for a second. "Number Three Transport Group, isn't it? Based at Northolt."

  "That's right," the pilot said, slightly surprised. "You must be ex-RAF."

  "I was in Orbital Command for nearly ten years. Transferred from there to liaison and advisory."

  "Shuttles and sats?"

  "Yes," Cartland said. "You ought to think of pushing for it. That's where all the fun is. It'll get better too when Europe sets up the Integrated Space Wing. You could get a lunar trip, or maybe even a joint Mars effort with the States. Who knows?"

  "I've been thinking about just that," the pilot told him. "I'll need my advanced nav and some more hours logged first though." He took a drink from his glass and nodded approvingly. "This is goo
d stuff. Beats the southern brew, never mind what I say when I'm back 'ome."

  "Where's that, London?"

  "Near enough. Gravesend—just down the river a bit." The pilot sank back in the chair and went on absently after a few seconds, "I had a pal in Orbital Command… from Southampton 'e was. He copped it on Centurion." The pilot shook his head sadly. "A bad business that was… "

  Cartland frowned at him uncertainly. "Sorry… I'm not quite with you. What's Centurion?"

  The pilot took a long gulp from his glass, obviously in an attempt to disguise his sudden embarrassment. "Oh, Gawd! I shouldn't have mentioned that, sir. It was a slip of the—"

  "That's all right. I understand," Cartland said. He waited curiously for a moment all the same, but the pilot was clearly not about to volunteer anything further. Cartland glanced at the name-tag stitched above the pilot's breast pocket.

  "William G. O'Malley, eh?" he said to change the topic. "That doesn't sound like a long line of Gravesenders to me. There must be some Irish in there somewhere."

  "My old man was from Galway," the pilot told him, sounding relieved. "I used to go there a lot on 'olidays when I was a kid. Nice place."

  At that moment Morna came back in to inform Cartland that lunch was about to be served in the dining room.

  "I hope you're taking care of him too," Cartland said, indicating the pilot with a nod of his head.

  "Mrs. Paisley's preparing something for him now," Morna replied.

  "Good," Cartland said. "Must look after the troops." He walked back to the door, then stopped and looked back at the pilot. "Help yourself to another beer if you feel like it," he called back.

  "Thank you very much, sir. I don't mind if I do."

  "Take it easy though, old boy," Cartland cautioned. "It wouldn't do to go flying that lot into Big Ben on the way home. They'd never put you in Orbital Command then… More likely, the Bloody Tower."

  "From what we can tell at the moment, I don't think that a coherent dialogue between past and future universes would really be feasible," Charles said across the luncheon table. "Or at least, I can't see that it would make much sense."

  "Why is that?" Cuthrie asked over a piece of caviared toast.

  "Well," Charles replied. "Imagine ourselves attempting to conduct a dialogue with the 'us' who exist, say, an hour ahead of now. We could ask questions, and they could reply, but every time they did so, the very act of their replying would restructure the timeline that they themselves exist as part of. Thus they would become new versions of themselves who never sent any reply, and without any recollection of having sent one."

  "Unless they made it their business to send back exactly what they had already received themselves, when it was time to send it," Payne pointed out.

  "If they had already received the information, there would be no point in their doing anything like that," Charles replied. "They could send it, I agree, but it wouldn't achieve anything or tell them anything they didn't already know. Therefore I assume they wouldn't bother. That was why I said that an attempt at a meaningful dialogue wouldn't make much sense."

  "But there's nothing to stop messages being sent both ways," Cuthrie said, just to be sure.

  "No, there isn't," Charles confirmed. "But every successive response from the future would come from different individuals on changed timelines. Hence such an exchange couldn't be what you could call coherent."

  "But that kind of thing would be just entertainment," Murdoch said, joining in. "The real power of the whole thing is that information can be sent back to alter past events. You've seen that done already."

  "And I think it's going to take me a few days to grasp fully what it all means," Catherine Hazeltine said.

  "It's a servoloop through time," Cartland told them.

  Payne thought about the statement and nodded slowly. "That's a good way to put it," he agreed, smiling faintly.

  "Ye-es… " Cuthrie murmured. "I see what you mean… a feedback-loop through time. A feedback system works by measuring the difference between the desired output of a process and the actual output, and generating an input to correct for any error. That's exactly what you can do with this machine, isn't it… " His voice took on a note of awe as the full implications at last dawned on him. "There's no need to rely on trying to predict and forecast as best we can any more. We can monitor the actual consequences of our decisions and actions, and change them until they produce the required results! My God… it's staggering!"

  The room became very quiet for a while as the enormity of the whole thing became clear. The whole future course of civilization could be transformed. The wasted efforts, the futile ventures, the uncertainties, and the risks—all of them could be done away with forever.

  At last Charles spoke. "Up at Burghead, they're trying to solve a difficult problem right now. Perhaps they could know immediately whether or not they're using the right approach and, if they are, what it's outcome will be. Billions are being spent on studies and experiments on star-probe designs; perhaps we could obtain the answers now. Will the space colonies succeed? Perhaps we could know in advance before we commit anything. And who knows what else might be possible?"

  "It sounds insane," Catherine protested. "How can we obtain information from the future when the future contains it only by virtue of having been the present? It's a closed circle." She looked appealingly from side to side. "We ask somebody in a future universe a question, and get an answer. But the only reason that person knows the answer is that he remembers being told it when he was us and asked it. But who discovered the answer? Where did it originate from? It's ridiculous."

  "I can't answer that for sure yet," Charles confessed. "That's why I don't want us trying to use the machine for anything like that at this stage. The only thing I can suggest as a possibility is that the effort that went into finding the answer was expended on a timeline that did exist, but which was subsequently restructured."

  "But the answer can still be sent back and preserved on the new timeline?" Catherine still could not help sounding distinctly skeptical.

  "Quite," Charles said simply. "That must be clear from what you've already seen."

  "When you think about it, it might not be as ridiculous as it seems at first sight," Payne said. "Compare it to the invention of language. To somebody who had no concept of it, the idea of later generations being able to profit from the knowledge gained by previous generations might seem equally ridiculous. To somebody like that, the idea of lots of people all being able to know something that had only had to be learned once might seem to be every bit as much 'cheating' as this business does to us. Maybe that's a good way to think about it—simply as extending the same process further."

  "I suppose that makes about as much sense as any other way of looking at it," Catherine conceded, although still sounding dubious.

  Cuthrie had been looking thoughtful while he followed the conversation. When the silence had lasted for a few seconds he said, "I must admit, I hadn't really appreciated how big all this is until today. It could have repercussions that will affect every nation on Earth, radically… the whole race. I'm not at all sure that something like this can stop with the British Government. There may be a lot more people who should be brought in on it."

  "I was wondering about that too," Charles said, nodding. "Let's see what they say when you report back to London. I'm not at all sure how we should handle it."

  "But how can anybody even begin playing around with something like this?" Payne asked. "How can anybody presume to make decisions that could change the lives of everybody on the planet? Whose priorities come first when there's a conflict of interests? Who decides? The whole thing sounds monstrous."

  "Haven't people been presuming just that all through history anyway?" Charles suggested soberly. "Passing laws, industrializing countries, declaring wars… what's the difference?"

  "And maybe you're forgetting that it's already happened," Lee said, nodding his head to indicate Murdoch while he addressed the
others. "The Burghead black holes. We're already part of a universe that has been restructured. I don't see any bad effects of it."

  "That's true," Payne admitted.

  "But we don't really know anything about what happened or why," Murdoch pointed out. "The message that came back was too short. We don't know what the situation was for sure in the universe that it came from, or exactly what it was that we avoided, or… anything about it."

  "That's the problem," Cuthrie declared. "There's nothing to measure exactly how beneficial, or otherwise, this messing around with timelines is. Take the example that Murdoch just mentioned. As he said, we don't know anything for sure about the timeline that was changed. For all we know, it could just as well have been changed for the worse as for the better. We know a little bit about one hazard that appears to have been avoided, and nothing at all about anything else that may have been affected. The people who existed on that timeline no doubt knew a lot more than we do, but we don't know any of that… and they don't exist any more. How can we even begin to think about a policy on how to use this capability when there doesn't seem to be a way of telling whether or not it's going to do any good?"

  "We need an experiment," Charles said after another silence. "A carefully designed, comprehensive experiment conducted under controlled conditions. Not a few scraps of data such as we had about the Burghead problem, but a fully detailed package of information that describes exactly what in the past is to be changed, why, how, and everything about the situation that such an action is intended to affect. Then the people in the past who receive that information will be in a position to compare exactly the situation that they come to experience with the one that they would otherwise have experienced. Then they'll be able to measure just how effective the exercise has been." He looked at Cuthrie. "Given that, your Government would have all it needed to decide its policy."