The Gordian Protocol

by David Weber

  “But it did,” Philo stated calmly. “We knocked into ourselves.”

  “And we shouldn’t be able to do that! It’s impossible for two of the same time traveler to be in the same spot. You can’t meet yourself.”

  “And yet we did.”

  “I know! And that’s why I’m so upset and why smiley faces in the dunes aren’t going to help!”

  “I could add ‘Raibert and Philo were here’ if you like?”

  “No! Now please, can we take this seriously?”

  “Oh, trust me. I’m taking this very seriously, too. I just think we should approach this in a calm, rational manner.”

  “I am calm!”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Okay, fine! No I’m not, but I have some very good reasons to be not calm right now.”

  “Shall we get on with the test?” Philo inquired.

  “Might as well,” Raibert huffed. “My mood isn’t improving. Kleio, take us to plus one week.”

  “Plus one week destination confirmed. Phase-out in three…two…one…jump.”

  Raibert turned away from the table and waited for the nine-second trip through time to finish.

  “Well?” he asked, consciously not looking at the command table.

  “It’s still there,” Philo reported. “Some parts have been filled in, but it still looks as cheerful as the day I shot it.”

  “Damn it. How can it still be there?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Kleio, give us another jump. Plus one month this time.”

  “Do you think that’ll make a difference?” Philo asked.

  “We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we? Kleio, execute.”

  “Plus one month destination confirmed. Phase-out in three…two…one…jump.”

  The journey took thirty-seven seconds.

  Raibert forced himself to look at the camera feed this time. A month of blowing sand had shifted the dunes and filled in much of the damage, but the outline of Philo’s mark could still be seen.

  “There’s no doubt about it,” Raibert said. “We’re affecting time downstream of our location.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Philo sighed.

  “But how far, I wonder.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “I guess so. Kleio, take us to plus one year of our current reference.”

  “Destination set to plus one year. Phase-out in three…two…one…jump.”

  Raibert checked the timer as Philo manifested on the other side of the command table and smoothed out his beard. The trip would take over seven minutes this time.

  “You okay?” Philo asked.

  “No,” Raibert admitted. “Do you think we’re affecting the timeline all the way to the thirtieth century?”

  “I don’t see how we could be. Granted, I don’t have much to base that statement on, but logically how would we be here if our future didn’t exist?”

  “Hrmph. We don’t have much besides guesses right now, do we? It’s not like anyone but Andover and Chen have given this much thought in the last hundred years or so.”

  “And why would we?” Philo asked. “We’ve had proof you can’t change the past. To us, people like them were kooks.”

  “Well, they’re looking a lot less kookish to me right now.” Raibert took a deep breath and watched the timer tick down. “It’s an uncomfortable thought, suddenly having everything we’ve known thrown into doubt.”

  “Yeah.”

  Both of them waited as the minutes passed by.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” Philo asked.

  “Nah, it’s all right. I’m not hungry.”

  “Maybe a drink?”

  “No, nothing right now. I think the only thing I’d enjoy is a bit too potent for the situation. Thanks, though.”

  The timer ticked down to zero.

  “Phase-in complete,” Kleio said.

  “Well, the smiley face is gone,” Raibert said.

  “Though that’s not saying much given how fast the dunes can change.”

  “Yeah. Kleio, how about it? Any sign of that we were here before?”

  “Yes, Professor. I am detecting traces of depleted uranium in the sand dunes consistent with our weaponry.”

  Raibert nodded slowly. Whatever this phenomenon was, it wasn’t localized.

  “Should we jump forward again?” Philo asked.

  “Maybe, but what would be the point? What would we learn from that?”

  “We could keep moving forward in increments to see how far this phenomenon goes.”

  “Yeah, but that feels like it would be a waste of our time,” Raibert said, then caught the sour look from Philo. “Relatively speaking, of course. You know, what with us having a time machine and all.”

  Philo stuck his tongue out at him.

  “Wait a second!” Raibert snapped his fingers and his eyes gleamed with a sudden revelation. “Of course!”

  “I bet this is good. You’ve got that look again.”

  “The storm front that hit us and the changes in the timeline. The two have to be connected.”

  “Well, I don’t know if they have to.”

  “But it makes perfect sense. We only noticed this phenomenon after the chronoton storm knocked us around. Here, let’s take a look at it again.”

  Raibert brushed the external view aside and called up the chart on the original event.

  “Yes, you see it here? A massive chronoton event hit us from behind and flung us off course. Though…”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m wondering how we ended up in 1986 in the first place. Weren’t we already past that year when we got hit? Kleio?”

  “That is correct, Professor. We were phasing through 1995 at the time.”

  “Then how did a storm front moving downstream push us upstream?”

  “Must be the bent impeller,” Philo surmised. “The impeller’s permeation changed and we were accelerating in the wrong temporal direction while our systems were off line.”

  “Okay, I can buy that. Kleio?”

  “That explanation is consistent with the data I have, up to the point my systems experienced an emergency shutdown. When I came back online, we had already decelerated and phased in at 1986 CE.”

  “Okay, now it feels like we’re starting to piece this thing together,” Raibert declared. “Something happened before 1995 and its effects are pushing down the timestream toward the thirtieth century, but it hasn’t reached the thirtieth century because we’re all still here.”

  “We think,” Philo added with a shrug.

  “Well, we’ve got to start somewhere.”

  “So what’s our next move?” Philo asked. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Well that’s easy.” Raibert closed the chart and leaned over the table. “We go storm chasing, of course.”

  *

  Raibert gripped the edge of the command table, knuckles white, while the deck trembled under his feet.

  “Well, we definitely found it,” he said.

  “Yup,” Philo said.

  High-energy chronotons roiled in an infinitely wide front temporally ahead. They’d found the storm in 2050 and had slowed from seventy thousand factors down to twelve to keep pace with it less than one relative hour behind. At that range, their chronometric array could begin collecting a wealth of raw data. The downside, however, was what the storm was doing to Raibert’s stomach.

  “Is the ship supposed to be shaking like this?”

  “Turbulence is within acceptable parameters, Professor,” Kleio stated.

  “Oh, well as long as its ‘acceptable’ I guess I’m fine with it. But you know what’s missing, Kleio?”

  “What would that be, Professor?”

  “I feel like there should be a handlebar around the edge of this table. You know, something I can hold onto for dear life while the ship is convulsing all over the place. Something really sturdy, so there’s no chance of it coming loose. Would you mind fi
xing that for me?”

  “I am sure I can construct an appropriate solution, Professor.”

  “Thanks. That’d be swell.”

  “You’re getting cranky again.” Philo appeared next to him, smiling from one side of his bushy beard to the other.

  “Maybe so, but in my defense, I’m the only one here with an inner ear.” The decking jumped, and Raibert crouched to hug the table. “Are you sure the ship should be shaking like this?”

  “There is no immediate danger to the ship, Professor.”

  “Well my inner ear disagrees. This has got to be dangerous.”

  “That’s because it is,” Philo said. “We could have been smashed to bits the first time.”

  “I am sorry, but I do not concur with that analysis,” Kleio objected. “I am built tougher than I look.”

  “Oh?” Philo smirked. “Was that a hint of pride I caught in your voice?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Could have sworn it was.”

  The TTV shook again, and Raibert lurched over the table, catching himself with a splayed hand.

  “And another thing, Kleio!”

  “Yes, Professor.”

  “I want the floor in this room covered in padding.”

  “The whole bridge, Professor?”

  “The whole thing.”

  “Is that a sincere request?”

  “No. Now please tell me we’re getting something useful out of this.”

  “Oh we are,” Philo said. “We definitely are. First, the obvious parts. Chronoton density is just ridiculously high in the storm front. That, plus the fact that over ninety-nine percent of them are heading into the future makes this storm extremely unusual.”

  “Hold on a second,” Raibert interjected as he accessed the TOE again. “Ninety-nine percent? Aren’t they normally like half and half?”

  “That’s right. Chronotons, after all, are particles with closed-loop histories. They form circular paths through time and space and, from our point of view, they kind of vibrate back and forth through time. At any point in history, the number of chronotons moving into the future and the number of chronotons moving into the past is almost identical. But that’s not the strangest bit. You remember the resonating chronotons around you and also in a few places on board?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it turns out the chronotons in the storm are resonating too.”

  “Great. What are they resonating with?”

  “I don’t know,” Philo admitted. “But there’s something different about how they’re behaving. The resonance in the storm is, for lack of a better term, more complex than what we see around you.”

  “And I take it that means we need to stick around and collect more data.”

  “Sorry. But, you’re absolutely right.”

  “Do whatever it takes.” The ship rocked and shuddered under his feet, and his face paled. “We need to get to the bottom of this.”

  “I’m going parallel with Kleio. We’ll crunch some numbers and try to build a theoretical model for what we’re seeing. My gut tells me the key is the difference in the resonance patterns. If we can come up with an explanation that fits both data sets, I think we’ve got this.”

  “Great. You two work on that. I’m going to take something for my stomach before I throw up. Call me if you need me.”

  *

  “Well?” Raibert hurried up to the command table and grabbed the newly installed railing that ringed it. The ship jerked upward, then violently back down, and the railing helped him stay on his feet. “Nice. See, this was a good idea.”

  “I never said it was not, Professor,” Kleio replied.

  “So, do we have a theory that works?”

  “We’re closing in on it.” Philo manifested across from Raibert. “One mystery down, and one we’re still working on.” He grimaced. “No, this isn’t it, Kleio. Add another set and try again.”

  “Are you sure that’s necessary, Philosophus? I must caution you that the mathematics are becoming quite taxing and I am being forced to shut down non-essential runtimes in order to process these permutations within a reasonable timeframe. Do you still want me to proceed?”

  “Yes. We keep doing this until the theory matches the observed.”

  “Understood. Closing and filing 45+15 permutation. Starting 48+16 permutation.”

  “Progress?” Raibert asked.

  “Of a sort.” Philo summoned a chronometric chart over the table. “Here, check this out. This is what’s been resonating around you.”

  Philo pushed the chart forward, and Raibert took it in. A pair of chronometric field lines flowed inward, twisted around each other, then broke off in opposite directions while an outward tension pulled on them, tightening the inner loops.

  “It’s a knot,” Raibert observed. “A knot made out of chronotons?”

  “More or less.”

  “Why does it look like a knot?”

  “The visual is a necessary simplification,” Philo explained. “Each field line actually represents three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. I’ve simplified each 3+1 set down to a single line, but you can still think of this chart as a 6+2 simulation.”

  “Pardon?” Raibert blinked, trying to keep up.

  “Two sets of three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Sound familiar?”

  “Yeah, it does. A 3+1 set is the universe.”

  “Exactly,” Philo said.

  Raibert didn’t even need to access the pathways bridging their mental firewall to remember that much. It was one of the foundations of the TOE, and indeed, all of modern physics. Past generations had dabbled with higher dimensions as an explanation for the magic tricks the universe seemed to perform, but the Theory Of Everything had torn aside the veil and exposed the core equation that bound the quantum to the macro and enforced the strict limits of width, height, length, and time.

  “This chart is showing two of them,” Raibert observed.

  “Right again. And that’s what the chronotons around you are resonating with. Another universe.”

  “Get out of here.” Raibert snorted a chuckle. “Seriously?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You’re not joking, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  Raibert chuckle ended abruptly as he realized his friend was dead serious. However impossible what he’d just said might be.

  “But there are only four dimensions.”

  “In our universe, yes. But you may recall the TOE does allow for a multiverse.”

  “It does?” Raibert asked in bewilderment.

  “Yeah. Check it out.” Philo flagged a new mental pathway, and Raibert opened it.

  “Huh,” he remarked as the knowledge seeped into his mind. “I must have missed that part. Probably wasn’t on the exam.” He scratched his head. “I really should have paid more attention in that class.”

  The ship lurched, and he immediately clutched the railing again.

  “So the chronotons around me are resonating with another universe. Well, that’s great,” he groused. “Any idea what it means?”

  “We’re still working on that.”

  “And the storm? Are you seeing the same thing there?”

  “Well, yes and no.”

  Raibert took a deep, slow breath and tightened his grip on the railing. The deck vibrated under his feet, but he kept his gaze locked on the AC’s avatar.

  “Philo?”

  “Yes?”

  “That was the very definition of an unhelpful answer.”

  “Sorry, but we’re just not sure yet. Kleio’s still trying to build an accurate model of what we’re seeing in the storm.”

  “Aren’t you running parallel with her?”

  “No, I had to back out,” Philo admitted.

  “Why aren’t you still in there?” Raibert asked, perhaps more harshly than he would have liked.

  The avatar took off the horned helmet and brushed back his fiery mane while avoiding eye co
ntact.

  “I found myself getting lost in the math and needed to take a step back and clear my head. It’s hard being a creative calculator, even for an abstract citizen. Sometimes we lose sight of the big picture when we dive in too deep.”

  “Hey, sorry,” Raibert said, backtracking. “It’s all right. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “I know you didn’t. And Kleio doesn’t need me at this point anyway. It’s just brute force number crunching until we find the right permutation.” He perked up and fit his helmet back on. “Ah. Speaking of which.”

  “I have completed the 48+16 permutation,” Kleio reported.

  “48+16?” Raibert asked. “Are we talking dimensions?”

  “We are.” Philo pulled the chart with two universes aside and opened a new one.

  “Whoa!” Raibert exclaimed.

  A chaotic tangle of sixteen chronometric field lines twisted around and pulled against each other, straining to break free from a central pulsating mass that looked like the yarn ball from hell. Lines glowed hot with energy magnitudes beyond anything Raibert had ever seen in all his missions, but for all the fury on display, the knot only seemed to tighten further as he watched.

  “Discrepancies between the model and the observed data are below one percent.” Philo thumped the air with his fist. “Yes, I knew it! I called it! And that one percent can easily be explained away by the accuracy of our instruments.”

  “You mean to tell me that storm is here because sixteen universes have become knotted together?”

  “Yes,” Philo stated simply. “We literally have a knot in time formed from sixteen separate timelines.”

  “But how is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This can’t be a natural phenomenon. Something must have caused this.”

  “I would tend to agree. And fortunately”—Philo beamed as he placed a hand on his chest—“we now have a predictive model we can work with. Let’s see where it leads, shall we?”

  “All right. How about we start with the origin of this storm? Can you trace it back?”

  “I can certainly try.” Philo pushed the second chart aside and opened a third. “We know the storm hit us in 1995 and it was moving forward through time. So we know the original event has to be somewhere upstream from that. But how far upstream is the tricky part. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of good data from when we got clobbered because the storm came at us from our array’s blind spot. All we really have is the storm front as we see it now and the model.”