Button in the Fabric of Time (4 page)

When I lived in Los Angeles, people were
predicting global warming, over population, and war. My first trip
into the future proved that they were right, but what I was seeing
now indicated that the people had recovered from the war, and
learned to deal with their problems. I wanted to talk to someone to
find out how they had recovered.

I wanted to see what else had happened, so I
walked toward the distant green mountains. The land was lush, and
white clouds drifted in a blue sky. Everything was magnificent. I
saw no caretakers, but someone, or something, was maintaining this
place, and doing a good job of it.

In the distance I saw what appeared to be a
transportation device. Curious, I walked toward it, but before I
got there, I heard laughter coming from over a knoll. I walked to
the top of the knoll and saw twelve young people—six men and six
women—swimming in a stream; their bathing suits shimmered in the
sunlight. I was surprised to see people swimming in a stream. The
streams in the twenty-first century had been polluted.

Trees and shrubs on the knoll concealed me,
so I watched in secret. I felt like a Peeping Tom, but I wanted to
learn as much as I could before making myself known. The women were
all lovely and about five-foot-five, with light-colored skin, and
their hair was all different colors. Their lightly tanned skin
glowed with radiant health, and there was not a blemish on them.
Some of them had round eyes, and others had eyes that were
almond-shaped. No matter their shape or color, they were soft and
sparkling. The women had trim bodies with small waists and shapely
hips. The nipples on their firm, full breasts stood erect, pressing
against their bathing suits. They were so beautiful that it was
difficult to look at anything else. Two of them appeared to be
identical twins.

The men were all about six-feet tall, lean
and muscular, with wide shoulders and narrow hips, but they were
darker than the women. Fascinated by how the men and women related
to one another, I watched before making myself known. They didn’t
seem to be pairing off. At first, they seemed to be relating in a
normal way; then I noticed that each man flirted with each woman,
and that the women responded equally to the attention of each
man.

It would have been difficult to choose a
particular woman as a companion because they were all so beautiful.
As a group, they reminded me of a flock of doves. The men were the
aggressors, but the women did the choosing—it was simple yet
beautiful.

At first, I couldn’t understand their
language, but after listening for a while I began to understand a
word now and then. Hoping to make myself understood, I stepped into
the open. My sudden appearance startled them. After a slight
hesitation, one of the men came forward. I extended my hand in a
gesture of friendship, and asked, “What is this place called?”

He responded with words that sounded strange,
yet were perfectly understandable. “This is Alpha Bravo 325,” he
said. “From where did you come? Are you lost?”

I thought for a moment and decided it would
be best to answer as plainly as I could. I replied, “No, I’m not
lost, but I’m in a place that is unknown to me. I am a time
traveler. I hope I have arrived at the same place I left; only the
time should be different. I left on July 7, 2007. If my traveling
device has worked as I hoped, the date now is July 7, 3107.”

“The date is right, but your story is
strange. How could you come from the past using technology unknown
to us? Our scientists tell us that time travel is possible, but
we’ve been unable to develop the technology.”

“I can see why it would be hard to
understand, and I’ll try to explain, but it’ll take time,” I
responded.

“Why are you here?” the man asked.

“I want to learn about your way of life, your
technology, and your culture.”

“I can’t reveal that information,” the man
said. “Earth is under surveillance by beings from a planet in
another galaxy. We don’t know how they get here; all we know is
that they come and go at will. I’ll take you to security, where
they’ll verify your story. If it’s true, you’ll be able to help us
more than we can help you. How are you called?”

“My name is Gus. I have identification in my
wallet.” I produced my driver’s license and handed it to him.

He studied the card, then shook his head and
said, “This is interesting, but it means nothing to me. Your
clothes tell me more than the card. Your shoes are made from skin
of animals, and your clothes are made from spun plant fibers. That
tells me that you come from a primitive culture, but I still must
take you to security. They’ll examine you more closely.”

The others were getting out of the water and
putting on flowing robes that appeared to be made from fibers of
spun-gold. The robes glittered in the sunlight. After donning them,
they moved about talking quietly.

One of the identical twins attracted my
attention. She was something special, walking as gracefully as a
doe, and moving so smoothly that she seemed to glide. Beauty
radiated from her like the first pink glow of a sunrise.

“Do you mind coming with me?” the man
asked.

His question startled me. I had been so drawn
to the beautiful woman that I had forgotten him even though he was
standing right beside me. I answered, “I’d be pleased to go with
you, and I’ll share the information I have, but I doubt that it
will add to your knowledge. . . . What’s your name, and where will
we go? How will we travel?”

“I am called Roc-2. We will travel by keri to
our capital city, Alpha 1. A keri station is only a short distance
away.”

“What’s a keri?” I asked.

“Keri is what we call the compartments we
travel in,” Roc-2 replied. “We can go fast or, if you prefer, we
can travel more slowly, allowing you to see the country.”

“I’d like to travel slowly. I’m an engineer,
and I want to see how you have built your cities.”

“I thought you would want to travel slowly,”
Roc-2 replied. “We’ll take a keri with a view plate in the bottom
that will allow you to see the countryside as well as the cities.
We’ll go through two other cities before we reach Alpha 1.”

* * * * *

Chapter 6

The stunningly beautiful twin whispered to
Roc-2. He listened intently, then turned to me and said, “Jan-3 is
an anthropologist and a historian. She hopes you won’t mind if she
comes along. She wants to learn about the time you came from.”

“Mind! How could I mind? Would you introduce
us?”

With a quizzical look Roc-2 asked, “What do
you mean, introduce you?”

“Tell her what you know about me, and tell me
what you know about her, so that we can have a basis from which to
begin a conversation.”

Smiling, Roc-2 remarked, “What a quaint
idea.” He turned to Jan-3 and said, “Jan-3, this is Gus. He has
come from a time in the past and wants to learn about our
achievements. I’m taking him to Alpha 1, where security will
examine him to verify that he is who he says he is. The examination
should take only a few minutes. Then you’ll have time to talk. . .
. Gus, this is Jan-3. She wants to know what it’s like to live in
the twenty-first century. You each have information the other
wants; perhaps you can help one another.”

Jan-3 moved toward me, her robe flowed around
her exposing her slender legs. Her features were clearly defined.
She had large wide-set eyes, a slightly upturned nose, a small,
delicate mouth, and lightly tanned skin with a flawless complexion.
Her cobalt-blue eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul. I was
mesmerized. I extended my hand for the traditional handshake. Not
recognizing the gesture, she looked questioningly at me, then took
my right hand and placed it on her left shoulder, and placed her
right hand on my left shoulder. Smiling, she said in a soft, clear
voice, “I’m pleased to have this opportunity to experience your
life force.”

This was so much better than shaking hands,
and there did seem to be a force passing between us that was
disturbingly strong. Struggling to regain my composure, I asked,
“Why do you have numbers following your names?”

Roc-2 answered, “The number indicates how
many people have copied the DNA of an original. Jan-3 is
twenty-four years old.” Then, pointing to the woman I thought was
Jan-3’s identical twin, he said, “That is Jan-1. She is 130 years
old.”

“How is that possible? She has the body of a
teenager.”

“The human body is a perfect machine,” Roc-2
explained. “It replenishes itself, cell by cell, repeatedly. If it
is maintained in perfect health, it reproduces itself
perfectly.”

Fascinated, I asked, “How long can that be
continued?”

“We don’t know,” Roc-2 replied. “The method
of maintaining the body in perfect condition was discovered only
180 years ago. Until now, no one has died of what was called
natural causes.”

“How do you handle the problem of
overpopulation?”

“We don’t have that problem. The earth, if
properly used, can supply the needs of an infinite number of
people.”

“Do you control the number of children a
couple can have?”

“Some people marry and have families, but
most just make new copies of themselves and select a new mate from
time to time.”

“Is that a satisfying lifestyle?” I
asked.

“It’s satisfying to most,” Roc-2 replied.
“Individuals decide what kind of person they want to be, and then
becomes that person, by altering their DNA. They choose the size
and shape they want to be, determine the texture and color of their
hair and skin, and even the shape of their eyes.”

“Sometimes a person has a body that others
think is ideal. People can look the same as their ideal by
duplicating the DNA of their ideal. Then they take the name of the
person they’ve duplicated and add a number to indicate how many
people duplicated the original DNA. The number also identifies them
as being a separate person,” Roc-2 explained.

Then he continued, “The second or subsequent
persons are not truly the identical of the original, because their
life experiences are not the same. Each person has individual
emotions, feelings, and thoughts. That gives them different
personalities. Those who copy others are more like the person they
copy than they would be if they were the child of that person, but
it isn’t the same as being their child. Each person records his or
her DNA, and records are kept to prevent confusion.”

“Well, it’s confusing to me,” I said. I
looked at the other people who had gathered and was keenly aware
that they were smiling, watching, and listening. They weren’t
joining in on the conversation, but their expressions showed the
intensity of their curiosity.

Roc-2 and Jan-3 said goodbye to them and led
me to the transporter. The transporter is what I had seen earlier,
and was walking towards, when I heard their laughter. The station
was a glass enclosure attached to a glass tube that had an opening
in the side.

Roc-2 pressed numbers on the surface of a
pedestal, and a cocoon-shaped glass compartment appeared. We got
in, and Roc-2 pressed another set of numbers. The door closed, and
we moved silently and smoothly away. Only the changing view
indicated that we were moving. The temperature in the keri was
perfect, and its softly textured seats felt wonderful.

“How did you manufacture a machine that
operates so silently?” I asked.

“It is silent because there are no moving
parts,” Roc-2 replied. “The keri generates and travels in its own
magnetic field.”

“How do you prevent collisions?”

“There’s no possibility of colliding,” Roc-2
replied. “All keris travel in their own positively charged magnetic
field. It works the same as two like-charged magnets. They repel
one another.”

“That’s remarkably simple, but how do you
propel them?”

“That’s equally simple,” Roc-2 said.
“Like-fields of magnetism repel, and unlike fields compel. The
operator controls the magnetic force by directing it to compel in
the direction he or she wants to travel, and they control the speed
by controlling the strength of the compelling force. We travel at
extremely high speed in only special areas.”

“How fast can the keri go?”

“Theoretically, it could travel at the speed
of light, but some undesirable things happen when we approach the
speed of light, so we don’t go that fast,” Roc-2 explained.

I looked down and saw what in the
twenty-first century was called California. I had flown over this
terrain many times, and the outline of the mountains and valleys
was the same as I had remembered, but the canyons once dry and
ugly, were now flourishing and resembled a magnificent park. Bright
clear streams ran through the canyons and flowed to the sea.
Wildlife was everywhere. The countryside was clean and orderly,
with no evidence of animal or plant waste.

“How do you keep everything so clean, and
what do you do with the waste?”

“Thousands of people clean the land daily,
and there is no waste. We discard nothing. Everything is collected,
processed, reduced to its elemental components, and then converted
to other uses,” Roc-2 explained.

“What do you mean; you reduce it to its
elemental components?” I asked.

“As an engineer, you know that all matter is
comprised of elements,” Roc-2 explained. “Most of what you refer to
as waste is carbon-based. Our historians tell us that in your time
you burned or buried it. We use solar energy to incinerate it at
temperatures in excess of five thousand degrees Celsius, which
reduces it to carbon, metal, and gasses. We use the carbon and
metal in many ways, and then release the beneficial gasses back
into the atmosphere. We reduce the harmful gasses to their elements
and either reuse them or return them to the earth where they become
plant food.”