Thrice upon a Time

by James P. Hogan

  The first response came from Leonard B. Kenning, the U.S. Presidential Science Adviser. "Are you saying we change the whole timeline for three months back?"

  "Three months wouldn't give enough time," Murdoch replied. "The vaccine would still have to be manufactured and distributed, probably after thorough testing. I'm saying make it six months—for as long as the Storbannon machine has been available."

  "Six months?" a representative from Germany protested. "Who knows what else might be affected? Everything interacts with everything in our society. We could drastically affect other things that have no obvious connection with the epidemic. The whole idea is simply too… too outrageous."

  "We do it all the time anyway," Murdoch pointed out. "Every day of the week, governments make decisions that will affect every individual on the planet, but that doesn't stop them. And if you do nothing, won't that affect every aspect of society just as drastically? And could any alternative that you create be any worse? I don't think so. That's why this situation is ideal for the experiment you've all been asking for."

  "Surely we need more time before something like this," an Italian insisted. "Something smaller to begin with… something we can progress slowly from. Oh, I don't know, something like—"

  "There isn't time," Murdoch said simply.

  "Let's get straight what you're suggesting," an Australian scientist piped in. "You're saying that we package the whole thing up—how to manufacture the vaccine and all that business—and send it back to the world of six months ago. Am I right?"

  "More than just that," Murdoch replied. "Every scrap of data on the situation that led to our making the decision… even significant events that may appear totally unconnected with it. Then the world of six months ago can make informed decisions on the action it wants to take. It will be able to judge reliably exactly what it has gained and what, if anything, it has lost, and why. When that world gets to its July, it will know where to go next, unlike us." Murdoch's expression lightened somewhat. "And the beauty of it from our point of view is that whatever that world does, we will all still be part of what grows out of it."

  "That's the part that bothers me," the Australian said. "Never mind all this high-sounding talk. I'll be honest; I'm bothered about me. I don't like this idea of somebody somewhere pressing a button, and me being—what do you call it?—reset into somebody else. It gives me the creeps. Why should I agree to it?"

  "Fifty years from now you'll probably grow up taking the process for granted," Charles threw in.

  "Maybe so," the Australian conceded. "But I don't happen to have grown up fifty years from now." A few heads here and there were nodding in agreement.

  "It happens naturally all the time anyway," Charles said. "The timeline reconfigures spontaneously. Within the last few seconds you could have been reset from somebody who existed on another timeline to the one we're on at this moment, without even knowing it."

  "That's all very well to say in theory," the German who had spoken earlier objected. "But how can you know for certain that it happens all the time? From what I have gathered, that supposition follows merely from abstract mathematics and indirect inferences from a few trivial tests with random numbers. And as for the claim that we can never be cognizant of the process, that sounds far too contrived to me for comfort. It certainly doesn't constitute a sound basis for anything as drastic in its effects as what's being proposed."

  "It's still an act of faith," another voice declared. "We can't sanction something like this purely on the say-so of a handful of people."

  "Evidence," another muttered loudly. "Give us some evidence." Other voices began joining in. Fennimore and Charles exchanged looks and then turned their heads toward Cuthrie. Cuthrie gave a slight nod, raised his hand for silence, and then gestured toward Charles.

  "Nobody in this room should have any qualms about being reset along with altered timelines," Charles said, speaking in a firm, authoritative voice that compelled silence. He threw a defiant stare around the room. "You see, it's already happened… to all of you!" He paused, but everybody was momentarily too confused to offer any response. He went on, "We are here now, saying these things, as a result of a reset that the machine has already caused! Another timeline did exist on which this conference was never called, and on which everybody in this room was at this moment somewhere else, doing something different. That timeline no longer exists."

  For the next five seconds a falling pin would have sounded like a landmine.

  "What the hell are you talking about?" the Australian demanded at last.

  A dozen other mouths started to open, but the words froze as Fennimore, who had been introduced at the beginning of the proceedings, rose slowly to his feet. He stood erect and dignified, and stared calmly out at the rows of faces until satisfied that the attention of everybody in the room was focused upon him. Then he began speaking in a slow, clear voice.

  "A few minutes ago, Murdoch Ross accurately summarized the seriousness of the present situation. The situation is serious despite the strenuous efforts being expended on the inoculation program, which, I can assure you, is contributing substantially to containing further spread of the disease. In other words although the program cannot be totally successful, the situation today would be indescribably worse without it.

  "Imagine, if you will, the world as it would be at this moment if the program had not been implemented when it was. Almost certainly the western U.S.A. would be in a state of virtual quarantine, the outbreaks in other places would have consolidated, and Murdoch's figure of hundreds of thousands would probably already be fact. And without any effective defenses to offer, the world would be facing merely the beginnings of what was to come." He stopped for a second to allow the audience time to dwell on the picture.

  "The situation that I have just described came very close to becoming a reality," he resumed. "Just how closely has been something which, up until now, has been known only to myself and a handful of people in the world. It was avoided only as a consequence of certain remarkable events which took place in the early hours of the morning of June 1. Those events I will now describe to you."

  Murdoch studied the faces of the delegates as they listened. They were expectant and tense, waiting for the testimony of what they now recognized was the star witness, for whom everything else had been the buildup. It was out of his hands now, Murdoch told himself.

  Fennimore went on, "The virus was first identified as an unknown strain in routine analyses of air samples collected late last year. I was a member of a joint Anglo-American study that was initiated to assess the possible effects of the virus on humans, and to explore methods of combating those effects in the event of their proving dangerous. To avoid the risk of needless public alarm, a decision was taken not to publicize these investigations, which at that time were viewed as being purely of a precautionary nature.

  "By the early weeks of this year, the virulence of the strain had been established, and a probable pattern of geographical spread had been determined, centered upon Northern California. At this stage the gestation period was not known with confidence; accordingly the search for an antidote was intensified, and medical centers throughout the world were alerted to watch for unusual symptoms associated with disorders of the nervous system. A communications system was set up to channel reports of such occurrences through the World Health Organization in Geneva to special offices in Washington, D.C., and London, from which centers the research was being directed.

  "Evidence of the gestating virus was obtained from tissue samples collected in the course of routine clinical tests on hospital patients residing in the San Francisco area. These patients were approached, and a group selected for reliability agreed to undergo voluntary tests of the vaccines being developed. By the end of April, a satisfactory antidote formula had been derived. At the same time, plans for a mass inoculation were worked out with the Federal health authorities, and arrangements for volume-manufacture of the vaccine were made with a number of pha
rmaceutical companies in the United States.

  "The first outbreaks appeared in early May, some of the earliest occurring in Scotland. I spent a considerable amount of time in May working with the staff of a medical facility in Glasgow who were treating these cases, in order to acquire as much information as possible on the disease in the most advanced stages available for study. I flew to San Francisco on June 1 to report my findings and to observe the effectiveness of the measures being proposed to counter the epidemic that was by then clearly imminent. The program of inoculation had been scheduled to begin there on June 2."

  Fennimore paused to fill a glass from the water pitcher on the table. As he drank, he scanned rapidly across the faces before him. They were still waiting. Everything that Fennimore had said so far had been simply a frank account of things that had been going on behind the scenes for some time; he had made no reference at all to Storbannon or the machine. But the audience could sense that he was about to come to the point of his statement. He set the glass down and resumed his former posture.

  "Some hours before I was due to leave Scotland, in the early hours of June 1, I was contacted by Sir Charles Ross, whom I had neither met nor heard of previously." Fennimore's voice rose to a louder note. "Sir Charles, who had not been involved with this matter in any way whatsoever, who was not included among the few people with access to information pertaining to it, and whose work had no connection with medical research in any form, was able to produce complete details of a production batch of the vaccine which, for reasons that are still being investigated by United States Food and Drug Administration officials, had been made defectively!" A chorus of surprised mutterings broke out at once. Fennimore spoke on above the sound.

  "Furthermore, Sir Charles was able not only to specify the chemical nature of the defect, the precise point in the manufacturing process at which it had occurred, the reference number of the batch concerned, and the name of the manufacturing plant that had produced it, but also to describe in detail the effects that such a defect would have on the human organism, namely selective blocking of certain neural ion channels with a high probability of death within hours.

  "Every one of those statements was subsequently shown to be accurate in every respect! Had Sir Charles not intervened in this way, there is no doubt that that batch would have been shipped and administered as intended. What the consequences of that would have been, I dread to think. Almost certainly, they would have included withdrawal of all batches of the vaccine, and therefore necessarily the postponement of the whole inoculation program for an indefinite period."

  The reactions of the listeners ranged through the whole spectrum of various degrees of bewilderment. A few had already seen the full implications and were just staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Some were frowning as they wrestled to make sense out of what Fennimore was saying. Others just shook their heads and gave up.

  "Are you saying that he got that information from the future through the machine?" the Australian asked in a choking voice.

  "How else?" Fennimore answered simply.

  "But how can you be certain of that?" the German challenged. "How can you prove word didn't leak out in some other way? Such things do happen, after all. You do not have to introduce the hypothesis of a time machine to explain it, since we already have other, perfectly adequate, alternative explanations that are familiar." He shot an apologetic look at Charles. "No disrespect to anybody, but that information could have leaked out and come from other sources, and merely have been purported to have been received through the machine. How do we know? What proof is there that positively excludes such alternatives?"

  "A very proper and correct question," Charles approved, nodding. He turned his head and looked up at Fennimore to invite a reply.

  "For one thing, I can state categorically that nobody concerned with producing the vaccine had any inkling of the existence of the defect until I brought it to their attention and insisted that they check," Fennimore said. "But beyond that, the document that Sir Charles presented to me on June 1, and that contained all the data I have referred to, was of a unique nature. It was written in specialized biochemical terminology, and contained numerous contractions, conventions, phrasings, and other characteristics that identified its author beyond any shadow of a doubt—at least it did to my satisfaction, but that was really all it needed to do." Fennimore paused for an instant. "There was only one person who could have written that information in that particular fashion: I myself! And yet I had never seen it before; neither was I previously aware of the content."

  Gasps of amazement were starting to come from all around. The Australian had turned a light purple and seemed to have gone into some kind of trance. Fennimore had the feeling that bedlam could erupt at any moment. He pressed on.

  "The document was dated as having originated on June 5," he told them. "Five days after the occasion in question! I had not written it. Therefore I was obliged to accept Sir Charles's explanation, ludicrous in the extreme though it sounded, that another 'I' must have—an 'I' who existed five days in the future. And an 'I,' furthermore, who existed in a universe that I did not subsequently come to experience, for I have never composed or contributed in any way to the creation of any such document.

  "On June 1, the information supplied by Sir Charles was completely new to me. After my arrival in the United States on June 2 and discussions with the other people involved with the project, I was satisfied that nobody else could have provided the information that Sir Charles had supplied. It could not have been leaked prior to June 1 because nobody knew about it; furthermore, I know that the document could not have been forged, since I would have to have been a party to it. Therefore there was no option but to accept Sir Charles's claim: that a different future had existed on a different timeline, and on that timeline, the defective batch was in fact distributed and administered."

  A few seconds passed by before the audience realized what Fennimore had said.

  "What!" The German was half out of his seat. "What do you mean, 'was distributed and administered'?"

  "Exactly that," Fennimore replied calmly.

  "How can you be sure?" somebody else demanded.

  "Because the document said so, and for the reasons that I have already given, I am quite satisfied as to its authenticity. I wrote it."

  "Said so?" the Australian repeated in a bewildered voice.

  "Yes. In the universe from which the document originated, the inoculation program was stopped on June 3 after eight hundred and eleven people had died from receiving the defective vaccine. The whole state was in panic, and Congress was in uproar. I think I can see very clearly why the inhabitants of that universe would have seen fit to send a message back five days with the hope of changing things. In that universe, after over eight hundred deaths, which incidentally have been avoided on our present timeline, there could have been no choice but to abandon the program. Reassurances would have been of no avail against public opinion after such an error. The only future they would have had would be the one that I described when I began speaking." Fennimore nodded his head solemnly and looked from side to side. "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I can see very clearly why they changed it."

  He waited a moment for any questions at that point, but there were none. "In conclusion, my position is that I have no doubts as to the benefits that this technology can bestow if used wisely, and I am convinced that we should use the opportunity that we have to learn more than we know now. We should not shirk from it. I endorse fully the action that Murdoch Ross and his colleagues are advocating. Thank you. That is all I have to say." With that, he sat down.

  A state of mass stupor seemed to have taken possession of the audience. From one side of the auditorium to the other, faces stared back with wide, glazed eyes. After a few seconds of total silence had dragged by, Murdoch turned and leaned across toward Charles. "What do you think they think?" he muttered from the corner of his mouth.

  "Och, ye'll get no sense out of any o' them now
until after lunch," Charles replied. "But I think they'll go along with it. The real test will come when they go running back to the people that sent them. That's when the shilly-shallying will start."

  Fifteen minutes later, when the conference was breaking up for lunch, the Australian stopped on his way to the door and looked down at where Charles was sitting.

  "You're a slippery old so-and-so, you know," he said in a voice that was a mixture of reproach and grudging admiration.

  Charles turned his face upward in surprise. "Why? What am I supposed to have done now?"

  "After all this insisting that the machine wouldn't be used for messing around with timelines until everybody had been consulted, you go and spring this on us. You go sending messages back that change the whole U.S. inoculation program… without a word to anybody about it. It contradicts everything you've been saying. Come on, admit it—you've conned the lot of us."

  Charles glared up and dismissed the accusation with a wave of his hand. "Hell, that was nothing to do with me at all," he said. "It was some other Charlie Ross in some other universe who did that. Go talk to him about it."

  Chapter 38

  "Well," Charles said as he paced slowly to and fro in front of the snow-crusted library window. "I still think the only workable approach is the one on which we've already more or less agreed: Keep it simple to begin with by using the results of complex algorithms that nobody can know in advance, and adhere strictly to a rigid, predefined schedule. Then later on maybe, we could try repeating the whole thing using random numbers or something like that." He stopped and turned to look questioningly at where Elizabeth was listening in one of the armchairs.

  "Yes, but that still wouldn't completely eliminate the element of human choice," she pointed out. "For example, somebody would still have to make a decision at some point of which algorithms to use. Until somebody makes that decision, obviously the actual results that will be obtained must remain undetermined. Whatever you do, you can't get away from human choice still being part of it. There's nothing that predetermines what we may or may not decide to do."