The Gordian Protocol

by David Weber

  “Ah. Well, I suppose it would. You see, my TTV encountered—”

  “I’m sorry,” Hinnerkopf interjected. “Your TTV?”

  “Transtemporal Vehicle,” Shigeki said. “It’s what he calls his time machine.”

  “A chronoport by any other name,” Jonas offered while picking a thread off his uniform.

  “Exactly,” Shigeki said. “Professor, please continue.”

  “Of course. As I was saying, my TTV encountered a chronoton storm while passing through 1995 CE, and this storm—”

  “What were you doing in 1995?” Kloss interrupted with a soft voice that nonetheless demanded an answer.

  “Going home, actually.”

  “From where?”

  “Ancient Rome,” Shigeki said, and his staff all turned to him. “You may find this hard to believe, but the professor claims to be a time-traveling historian.”

  “What?” Jonas looked up. “You mean like what Cheryl wants us to do?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “I find this highly dubious,” Kloss said. “Why would anyone in their right mind waste time machines on the study of history?”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Jonas said, switching to Modern English. “This explains some of the odd trinkets we found on board his ship.”

  “Of course it would. It’s his story and his ship.”

  “Right. Because Lunar saboteurs just love to carry around a stash of pots and linens and hoplite armor when they’re on a mission.”

  Raibert frowned and began wringing his hands.

  “Perhaps we should hold back on the questions for now,” Shigeki said in Old English. “Professor, sorry about that interruption. If you would please continue?”

  “Of course, Director,” Raibert said, and began to tell his tale. He started with the initial hit that knocked the TTV off course, detailed the tests he’d run in the late twentieth century (being careful never to mention Philo), and then provided his analysis of the storm front and how sixteen universes would be destroyed if they did nothing.

  “So, in conclusion,” Raibert added over an hour later, “a critical point in the timeline has been changed. An Event somewhere between 1995 and 1905 is now different in this timestream and needs to be corrected. If this correction isn’t made, chronometric energy will continue to feed the storm, and when that storm finally does reach the Edge of Existence, it will destroy this universe and all the others that have become entangled at the Knot.”

  The room was deathly silent when he finished, and the Peacekeepers exchanged guarded looks.

  “So, yeah.” Raibert clucked his tongue. “That’s the problem we face in a nutshell.”

  No one said anything for long, awkward seconds.

  “Any questions?” he offered, more to break the silence than anything else.

  Hinnerkopf glanced at her colleagues, then leaned forward.

  “Professor, you indicated that this timestream, the one we all currently reside in, is a product of the Knot, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s right. The effects of the change have clearly propagated downstream from the Event all the way to the Edge of Existence. I had initially thought the damage was contained behind the storm front, but that is clearly not the case.” He chuckled nervously. “I think you can all imagine my distress at finding a thirtieth century that isn’t mine.”

  “Yes, you have my sympathy, Professor,” Hinnerkopf said without sounding sympathetic at all. “However, I want to make sure I fully understand your proposed course of action. You are suggesting that we go back in time and correct the Event that created the Knot. Is this an accurate summary?”

  “Yes, quite. By isolating and undoing the Event, whatever it may be, the downstream damage should heal itself, the Knot should unravel, and the buildup of chronometric energy will dissipate before the universe is destroyed.”

  “Restoring your native timestream and saving fifteen other universes in the process, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “At the cost of one.”

  “I…” Raibert paused and frowned. “I’m sorry?”

  “Your plan, assuming it could even be made to work, would necessitate the destruction of a single timestream. This one. The one everyone else at this table is native to.”

  “Umm…” A sick, sinking feeling filled his stomach. “Yes, I see your point. I guess I didn’t think this through.”

  “In other words, Professor,” Hinnerkopf continued in a clear, even tone, “what you are suggesting is that our timeline, indeed our very existence, is a mistake that needs to be fixed.”

  “I…no, I’m not saying that at all. I’m sorry if I came across that way, but please understand I didn’t expect to find any of this.” He indicated the whole room and, by extension, the world beyond it.

  “And now that you have?”

  “Well, it obviously changes things quite a bit!”

  “In what way, Professor?”

  “Well…I, uhh…” He bowed his head, thoughts rushing through him as all eyes focused on him. He’d been blinded by the solution in front of him, a solution that would undo the reality he saw before him. Granted, it also brought back his universe, but he could also see Hinnerkopf’s point. This was their home, after all. Yes, he wanted his home back, but they didn’t want theirs to be erased from all creation! What made the lives in his SysGov more valuable than the citizens of their Admin?

  Nothing. They were all human beings with God-given rights to life and liberty. He had to keep that in mind.

  But the storm front was advancing on the Edge of Existence every absolute second. It didn’t care about anyone’s rights, and it was getting worse. If they didn’t fix it now…if they turned away from the best course of action on hand and delayed, waiting and hunting for a perfect solution that may not be there…and what if while they procrastinated, the Knot wound itself so tight, distorted reality so severely, that only the death spasms of sixteen universes could untangle it?

  What would they do then? Consign themselves to the approaching end times and await obliteration?

  Was there another way to fix the Knot besides undoing the Event? Perhaps, but he didn’t know what it was.

  All eyes watched him, and he swallowed and spoke in a softer tone.

  “Look, let’s all just take a step back for a moment. When I came up with the Undo-the-Event approach, I didn’t know about the Admin.”

  “And now that you do?” Hinnerkopf asked pointedly.

  “First, I freely acknowledge that other options may exist. However, we also have to accept that they may not, that undoing the Event may be the only path open to us. At this point, we simply don’t know. It may indeed be possible that the Admin can be saved.” He took a deep breath, stuttering a little as he did. “But it’s also equally possible that this universe has at maximum thirteen hundred years left in it before it is annihilated, and there’s nothing any of us can do to advert that disaster.”

  He swept is gaze around the table, but their expressions were cold and guarded.

  Hinnerkopf leaned forward. “A question for you, Professor.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Is it correct that the survival of your SysGov is wholly dependent upon the destruction of the Admin?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

  “How else would you describe it then, Professor?”

  “Well, it’s not really being destroyed, you see. I think a more accurate phrase would be ‘put back.’ This universe would be restored to the way it was originally.”

  “Which restores your native timeline.”

  “Yes.”

  “And erases mine.”

  “It…” He cringed inwardly. “Yes, regrettably so.”

  “Then it seems we are now quibbling over semantics. However you wish to phrase it, the end result is the same. The existence of your timeline, your home, is inexorably linked to the destruction of this timeline, my timeline
and that of everyone else here. If I may be so bold, your plan—the only one you claim to have—seems to disproportionately benefit you.”

  “But if we do nothing, this universe dies anyway,” he rebuked.

  “Yes,” Hinnerkopf agreed. “In over a thousand years. Which is hardly an immediate concern of mine.”

  “Look, I’m sorry.” Raibert took his hat off and gathered his courage. “Really, I am. But this problem is bigger than all of us. Whether you accept it or not, your timestream has a death sentence hanging over it. It had from the moment it formed. If we do nothing, then it dies, and it takes out a good chunk of the multiverse with it when it does. I can’t offer a solution for that, at least not now. But what I can give you is a way for us to prevent what could very easily be called the greatest calamity the multiverse has ever seen. Yes, there’s will be a cost, a terrible cost. But the price of inaction is even greater.”

  The room fell silent, and the Peacekeepers exchanged unreadable glances. He looked around the table, hands playing nervously with his hat, as no one spoke for almost a minute.

  “Professor,” Shigeki finally said, breaking the unbearable silence.

  “Yes?”

  “First I would like to thank you for your time and the candor with which you’ve discussed this grave situation with us. It has certainly been an illuminating discussion.”

  “Oh. Why, you’re welcome, Director. You’re very welcome.”

  “However, I feel I need some time alone with my staff. Nox, would you be so kind as to escort the professor to the, ahm, guest quarters?”

  “The ‘guest quarters,’ sir?” Nox asked.

  “Yes. The rooms on sublevel thirteen.”

  “Ah. Of course. I know the ones. Professor, this way, please?”

  The door split open and Nox guided Raibert out and down the corridor to the lift that had brought him up from his cell. The synthoid followed him into the lift, and they took it back down deep into the tower.

  “Do you think they’ll listen?” Raibert asked.

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “But I was getting through to them, don’t you think?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  Raibert grimaced. “Do you have any opinion at all about what I said?”

  “It’s not my place to judge.”

  The lift opened to reveal a long corridor lined with doors, too many doors too close to each other. Nox opened the first one, and Raibert glanced inside.

  “This isn’t a guest room. It’s another cell!”

  “We’re not used to entertaining guests,” Nox said, and shoved Raibert inside.

  *

  “The professor has been shown to his room.”

  “Thank you, Nox.” Shigeki swept his gaze across the table. “Analysis.”

  “Director, if I may start?” Hinnerkopf asked. Despite having worked for him over the course of thirty years, she’d never been what Shigeki would consider a friend. She kept her professional and personal lives strictly separate and always addressed him with his title when at work.

  “Go ahead.”

  Hinnerkopf placed a hand on the table and loaded an image of the “TTV” from her PIN to the table’s infosystem. The image sprang into their shared virtual vision above the table center.

  “I have only begun my analysis of this transtemporal vehicle, as the professor calls it, but I have already made several startling discoveries. First, I have identified at least three Yanluo Violations, including the use of self-replicating technology.”

  “Oh, bloody hell!” Jonas exclaimed. “And we’re keeping that thing in the basement?”

  “Are we safe?” Kloss asked.

  “We’ve detected multiple reservoirs of microscopic self-replicators spread throughout the craft, but the machines appear to be inactive. Regardless, we are following containment procedures to the letter. The TTV is sealed and secure in the subbasement, locked up in Hangar Four, and our study of it will be conducted via drones until I deem it safe enough for human entry.”

  “Clear it with me before you send people inside,” Shigeki said.

  “Of course, Director.”

  “What else?” Kloss asked.

  “Certain aspects of the chronoton impeller’s design are highly unusual.”

  “Another Yanluo Violation?”

  “No, not in this case.” The exterior of the TTV vanished, leaving its power plant and drive systems. “As you are aware, all impellers follow the same basic design premise of achieving temporal flight via selective chronoton permeation. Whether they’re our own or the result of independent research performed by rogue factions, they all share design elements that can be traced back to the original prototype Doctor Tennant and I developed. There have been many improvements in the intervening years, but the evolution from that first design to modern impellers is immediately recognizable.

  “This impeller came from a totally different family of thought. It achieves the same effect, and outwardly looks somewhat similar, but how it achieves time travel is quite different. For instance, it doesn’t spin.”

  “Excuse me?” Jonas finally took his boots off the table and sat forward. “An impeller that doesn’t spin?”

  “That is correct. It may surprise you that Doctor Tennant and I once considered a nonspinning approach to the problem, but we abandoned it in the prototyping stage because we would have needed two dedicated impellers, one for upstream flight and one for going downstream.”

  “The TTV only has one impeller,” Jonas noted.

  “Yes, and I would theorize that it can control chronoton permeation dynamically during flight. If that is the case, then the Admin’s exotic matter printers do not yet have the level of precision necessary to replicate the TTV’s impeller.”

  Shigeki rubbed his chin and stared at the x-ray view of the professor’s craft as her revelation sank in.

  “In another unusual design choice, the impeller lacks any form of baffling, which, given the ubiquity of baffles on our own designs, can only mean the designers were unconcerned about reducing the craft’s signature at low factors.”

  “It certainly wasn’t subtle when it flew into the True Present,” Jonas pointed out.

  “Quite. And then there are these.” Hinnerkopf highlighted four blisters that stuck out between the impeller spike and the main body’s midpoint.

  “What are they?” Shigeki asked.

  “Graviton thrusters, I believe.”

  “Shit,” Jonas breathed. “This thing has a reactionless drive? How is that even possible?”

  “Gravimetrics really isn’t my field, but as far as I know there’s nothing that would prevent us from building something similar. Assuming our exotic matter printers continue to improve at their current rates, some researchers believe the first practical gravity-modifying devices are between a couple decades to a century away.”

  “No wonder the heat signature was so low while it was hovering.” Jonas shook his head. “That thing doesn’t leave any exhaust. I take it you believe Kaminski’s story, then?”

  “I have found nothing that contradicts him. I would say I tentatively believe his story, though I think our next step should be to send a chronoport to the storm and study it for ourselves.”

  “I must concur with Director Hinnerkopf,” Kloss said. “The technical review of the TTV is, of course, best left to her. But I’ve noticed a few things about the design myself.”

  “Go on,” Shigeki said.

  “My first thought upon seeing this thing”—he indicated the TTV image—“is that it was some strange Freep hoax, but the more I looked at it, the more convinced I became that no one on Mars had a hand in this. As the only Martian at this table, I think I’m uniquely qualified to make that statement.

  “Consider any good piece of Earth engineering. It feels refined, as if it’s the sixth or seventh or umpteenth version of something. You can feel the polish when you use it or fly it or whatever. But Martian engineering is much more haphazard because they
don’t shy away from saying ‘Hey, I have this crazy idea. Let’s try this,’ and then going for it.”

  “Because they have fewer qualms about flaunting the Restrictions,” Jonas pointed out.

  “Exactly. And that difference in mindsets pervades our two cultures at a basic level, going all the way back to how Earth eagerly formed the Admin, while Mars was brought along for the ride at gunpoint. History aside, my point is that Mars doesn’t have the same respect for the Restrictions we do, and you can see that lack of respect for not just the Restrictions, but for sticking to traditions in their engineering as well as other parts of their culture.

  “This”—Kloss wagged a finger at the TTV—“was not designed by Martians. It’s not the first of its kind. Despite how alien some of its systems might seem to us, there’s an elegance and refinement evident in the layout that tells me it’s the sixth or seventh or umpteenth version of an earlier design.”

  “Then you believe him,” Shigeki said.

  “Yeah, boss. I do.”

  Shigeki nodded and turned to his son. “Anything to add?”

  “Always. Check this out.” Jonas placed his hand on the table and a biometric breakdown of the professor replaced the TTV. “Eleven genetic violations, three of which can land you in a one-way domain. The other eight aren’t as severe and reside in the gray area around the Restrictions, and they may in fact become legal someday.”

  “What sort of changes are we dealing with?” Kloss asked.

  “Most of them seem to be focused on longevity. He may look younger than you, but I’m guessing he’s actually ten or twenty years older.”

  “But nothing weaponized?”

  “No. Nothing remotely dangerous to us. Just illegal,” Jonas scoffed. “Otherwise, I would have quarantined him. I’m not stupid, after all.”

  “Then you agree he’s telling the truth,” Kloss asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t think he has a clue what the Restrictions are, and there’s no one in the whole solar system that dumb.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Kloss said. “We appear to be in agreement. The professor and his ship are the real thing.”

  “In that case, we need to report this at once,” Hinnerkopf said.

  “Oh, boy.” Jonas rubbed the back of his neck. “Isn’t that going to be a lovely call to make?”