by Steve LeBel
“And I also know some of you have had experience with the Past Barrier, right?”
You could see painful expressions on their faces as they were reminded. Bernie winced as he recalled what had happened to him. He had wanted to see if he could go in reverse as fast as he could go forward. He could, actually. At least until he hit the Past Barrier.
When he regained consciousness, he found Phoebe standing over him. “You didn’t read your lab manual before you came in, did you, Bernie?” A week later, his head still ached.
“For those of you smart enough to avoid learning about the Past Barrier the hard way, I hope you will remember the lesson someone taught us recently,” she said looking in Bernie’s direction. The laughter that followed was no surprise to Bernie. The World is hard on its pioneers, he grumbled to himself.
“How do you know when you’re getting close to the Barrier?” Wanda asked.
Phoebe smiled. “A very good question, Wanda, probably the very one everyone here is asking.
“When you go into your universe, you move into UT. And when you do, the Past Barrier gets set to whatever the UT is at the moment you entered. This means everything in the universe’s past is no longer available to you. Otherwise it would be like going back into our own past in RT, which you know we can’t do.
“Now this is easy enough to understand, right?” Phoebe, taking pity on the room full of blank expressions, decided to try again.
“Think of it this way. You can go forward and backward in time in your universe. But you can’t go back any further than whatever time it was when you entered it. So, say your universe was one billion years old when you entered it today, you can go forward and backward as much as you want, except you can’t go any further back than the one billion year mark.
“Now let’s say you jumped ahead to the two billion year mark and then you left for the day. When you go back into your universe tomorrow, it will be two billion years old, right? When you enter, you can never go back in time further than the two billion year mark. That’s because the Past Barrier was reset to the two billion year mark when you entered your universe today. Is that clear?”
“But how do we go back and fix any mistakes we made?” Bernie asked.
“If your mistake happened earlier than the Past Barrier, then there’s nothing you can do about it. That is why it’s important to plan carefully, Bernie. As your Past Barrier moves forward, it keeps cutting off more and more of your universe’s past to you. That’s why you have to be careful the Past Barrier doesn’t advance when you didn’t want it to.”
“This is really confusing,” Tommy said. Everyone knew Tommy was talking about changing majors and trying something less complicated than building. “Is there anything else we need to know?”
“Yes. Before you leave your universe, think about where you want to leave it. Whatever the UT is when you leave becomes your new Past Barrier. Once you’ve picked your exit time, bring your time lever to a complete stop. Then you can leave.
“Now there’s one little detail you should understand,” Phoebe continued. “Even though you suspended time in your universe when you left, if you look close enough the next time you return, you’ll see your universe didn’t stop completely. It moved ahead no less than the amount of RT that passed for you. So, even if you suspended time when you left, if you come back two days later, you will find time in your universe has advanced by two days. There isn’t anything you can do about it. The Barrier just keeps creeping along with your RT,” Phoebe finished.
“But if the barrier sets when I go in, and it moves along with my RT, then how do I fix a mistake I made five minutes ago?” Bernie wanted know all the ways to fix mistakes.
“That’s a good question. As soon as you enter your universe, I suggest you move your time lever forward by a few days or weeks before you start work for the day. Then you have extra UT to work with. If you need to undo a mistake, you can go back to the time before you made the mistake and do it over. That trick also comes in handy if you’re rewinding from a future task, like a time check; you’ll have a little extra buffer before you hit the Barrier.”
“This seems quite clear,” Wanda said.
Phoebe knew it would take weeks for the class to understand the implications of today’s lesson. “If you don’t understand it completely right now, don’t worry too much. After a while, it’ll feel natural, and you’ll wonder why you were ever confused about it.”
* * *
Seven years later, Bernie wasn’t confused by it. He was just frustrated.
Is It Me, or…
Bernie paced back and forth in the Supply Division’s waiting area. He needed answers. He couldn’t build anything if problems like these kept happening.
Originally, he wanted to talk with the Quality Assurance Division but Lenny talked him out of it. “Are you crazy, Bernie? The last thing you want is to start a fight between divisions. If you complain to QAD, they will start another one of their investigations. Everyone will be upset. Wait until you get your probationary period done first.”
Bernie decided to go instead to the Supply Division for answers.
“Hello. My name is Saul. Are you Bernie?” came a soft voice from the doorway.
“Yes, sir. I hope I’m not bothering you. I have questions about some components I got from the Supply Division. I hope you can help me out.” Bernie struggled to get the words out without sounding too nervous.
“What would you like to know?”
“Well, sir, I picked up a sun and a planet the other day, and I’ve had problems. I wanted to know if you’d seen anything like it before.”
“What division did you say you’re from?”
“I work in Final Assembly.”
“Did Shemal send you here?” Saul asked suspiciously.
“No, sir. Actually, Shemal doesn’t know I’m here. I just hired in this summer, and I’m working on my universe project. I used a couple of prefabs so I could be sure everything started on a firm foundation.”
“That sounds like a wise decision. What happened?”
“Well, at first everything went fine. I had a good planetary rotation and revolution, and my future check showed everything was fine. I stopped the universe for overnight. When I came in the next morning, the planet had an awful wobble. The planet’s core had shifted off-center and was about to tear the planet apart. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“How far did you run the time check?”
“Two billion years.”
“Well, that’s certainly sufficient. Something must have happened between the time you did your time check and the time you found the problem. Are you sure you didn’t introduce anything else before you left that night?”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t,” Bernie said a little doubtfully.
“You said you had more than one problem. What else has happened?”
“Well, I repaired everything, and then I was busy planning for the next few days. When I checked again, I found asteroids in my universe. Quite a few had hit my planet.”
Saul winced. “Oh, that’s really hard on the life forms. Did you lose many of them?”
“Well, no, I hadn’t started any yet. It’s still just a sterile rock planet. I didn’t even have an atmosphere. Except for all the new craters, it was just the way I got it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Bernie. I can see if anyone has heard of something like this, but I know I haven’t. Get back with me next week, and I’ll let you know what I found out.”
Get Started Anyway
As much as Bernie was concerned about problems with the prefabs, he was more concerned about the next time Shemal came to check on his work. He needed to show progress. That was why he decided to put down the next few layers.
Bernie searched through his growing forest of stickies until he found the one he wanted. Reading in reverse order, he saw Sun, Planet, Atmosphere, Ocean… Okay, he thought, Atmosphere is next.
Bernie moved into the void
where he examined his sun and his planet before deciding everything looked okay. Out of longstanding habit, he advanced time by several rotations before settling down to begin the creative process.
He’d already decided on the type of atmosphere, which, of course, solved the question of where his ocean would come from. As Bernie concentrated, a fog-like structure began forming around the outer edges of the planet. Bernie used some Universe Putty to hold everything in place while he checked his work.
Beatrice said the best way to create oceans was to pull them out of the atmosphere. After some calculations, he decided more atmosphere was required for the amount of ocean he wanted. Bernie focused his creative powers, and the foggy atmosphere responded by growing thicker and extending farther into the space around the planet. A few more splotches of Universe Putty, and everything looked good.
Oh, no, he thought. He’d forgotten to prepare the planet surface. It was a round smooth ball, except for all the cracks and the nasty asteroid craters marking its surface. He had to create lower elevations to hold the ocean’s water. Otherwise, when he precipitated the oceans, he would end up with nothing but a shallow puddle covering the whole planet.
Thinking he would have to start over, he realized if he moved the time lever back a couple of days, he could make his topographical changes before the time when he created the atmosphere. So that’s what he did.
Bernie selected a planetary model commonly used by students. Beatrice once said it was ideal for people like Bernie—whatever that meant. Bernie carved out a large sausage-shaped continent that extended halfway around the world, wide enough to cover thirty percent of the planet’s surface. He designated this as Con-1. This long, thin continent would provide a tight climate range, since everything was located at the equator.
Then he moved to the open ocean basin located between the two ends of the long continent, Con-1. There, he raised up two round circles of land with diameters equal to the height of Con-1. He designated these mini-continents as Lab-1 and Lab-2. They were his laboratories where he could perfect his life forms before transferring them to the rest of the planet. If there were problems, he could always wipe Lab-1 or Lab-2 and start over.
Bernie smiled at his work. This was going well. He needed tall mountains for his higher life forms to jump from when they were ready to morph into winged creatures. He liked symmetry, so he created a mountain range that extended along the middle of his long continent. Thinking of the migratory and cultural implications, he flattened the mountains every few hundred miles, effectively creating north-south passages so his life forms could move between the northern and southern halves of the continent. Removing unnecessary barriers is good design practice, Beatrice had said.
He finished shaping the planet’s surface, making sure the oceans weren’t too deep and the mountains weren’t too high. He didn’t want his fish-kids getting lost in the depths, and he didn’t want his land-people unable to climb to the top of the mountains. Finally, it was ready.
Bernie pushed his time lever forward. After two rotations, he saw the atmosphere he had created in the future begin to form. It grew thicker as the right balance of ingredients was added. When it could hold no more, it began shedding its heavy load, allowing a salty rain to fill the ocean basin. After a time, the oceans and the atmosphere found a balance, and the level of the ocean stabilized.
Bernie took a mental bow to his non-existent audience. He chuckled. You don’t always have to understand the Great Mysteries to take advantage of them, he thought. His cloud must have liked that. Fortunately, Bernie noticed the storm cloud forming above his desk. He was able to dissipate it before the rain could start.
“Leave the creating to me, please,” he said for the zillionth time.
The next step was to verify the orbit. Moving landmasses around could cause subtle changes in the rotation that later became big problems. Bernie’s time check found a few planetary stresses, but they were corrected as he moved through time, fine-tuning the revolution. With the aid of an extra helping of universe putty, he made sure it was stable fully five billion years into the future. Beatrice would have deducted points for using so much putty; she always said better planning requires less putty, but it wasn’t a big infraction, so it was no big deal. Most builders took shortcuts to meet deadlines or design requirements. As long as you didn’t overdo it, the teachers generally understood.
Bernie was pleased. He looked at his planet and liked what he saw. It was going to be a good world. He had a blank tablet on which to create. In the days to come, he would populate the world with plants and animals. He dialed back his time lever, bringing the time in his universe to a gradual stop.
As he withdrew, his last thought was how wasteful it was to have so much void when he only used a tiny bit of it for one sun and one planet.
It Begins…
Journal Entry
I’m finally making progress. I added atmosphere and oceans today. It feels really good. I made two island labs so I can work on my life forms. I’m going to start with plants—fruits and vegetables mostly. I’m not going to worry about them too much. As long as they’re edible, I should be good.
I’m going to scoop out a section of Lab-1 so I can put an ocean in the middle. That’s where I’ll work on the ocean plant life.
Hmm… I didn’t think about my plant life on Lab-2. I need to break up the ground and make some dirt for them. It’s hard to grow good plants on rock. If I use the natural method and let meteorological effects hammer those big rocks into sand, I’ll use up a billion years of universe time. I guess that’s okay. I can’t think of anything I need to save the time for.
Once I get the plants made, I’ll be more careful with the time. I don’t want competitors or predators evolving independently on the planet. I don’t want my fish babies by themselves in the ocean if there’s anything out there waiting to eat them.
On another note, at lunch today, Suzie said Shemal put a report in my file saying he isn’t impressed with me. But he only checked my work once. Next time he stops by, he’ll see oceans and continents. That should make him happy, but Lenny says not to get my hopes up because it takes a lot to impress Shemal.
I just had an awful thought: what if I studied and worked so hard and Shemal decided I wasn’t good enough? That would be so awful. What would I do? It scares me just to think about it.
Hmm… That’s interesting. My cloud is quiet. Usually, when I have strong feelings, it starts doing things. It’s never been quiet before. The only time was when I was studying. It was like he got bored and left. Maybe he thinks writing in my journal is the same as studying.
Let’s try an experiment. Think about something I feel strongly about…
That was interesting. I just thought about Dad. Usually that would have him rattling everything in the room. This time, not a peep out of him.
He sees and feels everything I do, but that doesn’t mean he’s always paying attention. What if I write about it? Will he still ignore it?
Okay, here goes: I don’t understand my dad. He left us. He didn’t even come to my graduation. We sent him an invitation. But he never even replied.
Nothing… It’s almost as if my cloud is sleeping.
This journal is going to come in handy. It’ll be nice to have a place where I can talk about things without a certain something getting all riled up.
Payday!
When Friday came, Bernie was thrilled to receive his first paycheck. He’d never had so much money before. What was he going to do with it? A long history of unfulfilled daydreams and fantasies surfaced in his thoughts. But, every time he got excited about something to buy, he wondered what would happen if he failed his probationary period and there were no more paychecks. Not surprisingly, by lunchtime, he hadn’t made any decisions. He also hadn’t made any progress on his universe.
* * *
“Hi, guys,” said Bernie as he set down his lunch tray. There was a huge pile of macaroni in the center with some chocolate pudding
on the side.
“That doesn’t look very nutritious, Bernie. Do you want me to get you some greens to go with that?” Suzie asked.
“Naw, I’m good, thanks. I have a question for you both. What did you do with your first paycheck? I got mine today.”
“That’s great, Bernie. Congratulations,” Suzie said.
“I sure remember what I did,” said Lenny. “I went to an OWT swap meet, and I bought a ton of really cool stuff. This is one of the best things I got.” He pulled a flat, light-blue, oval-shaped stone out of his pocket.
Bernie took the stone from Lenny’s hand, turning it over to examine the other side. It looked like an ordinary stone except for the smooth edges and a slight indentation on one side. “What is it?”
“It’s a luck detector.”
“How does it work?” Bernie asked as Suzie rolled her eyes.
“All I have to do is rub my thumb on the stone while thinking about a course of action. The stone turns dark if it leads to bad luck and white if it’s good,” Lenny said with pride.
“Gee, that sounds useful, Lenny.” There was only the slightest hint of sarcasm in Bernie’s voice as he handed the stone back to Lenny.
“You have no idea. It’s changed my life. But this is my best one,” said Lenny as he pointed to a tiny lump of fur on his shoulder. There was a tiny chain running between the fur ball and a safety pin securely attached to Lenny’s shirt. “I call her Sissy.”
“What does this one do?” Bernie leaned closer for a better look.
“Sissy’s job is to scan the probability universe for me and make whatever adjustments she can to optimize my future. Basically, she tries to bend the rules to give me more good luck and less bad luck. She’s my little pride and joy.” Lenny gently stroked the little lump of fur.
