The Time Ships (22 page)

N
ebogipfel made to speak, but Moses held up his hand. ‘No – let me; I want to see if I’ve got it straightened out. Look here: You imagine the world is made up, pretty much, of
atoms
, don’t you? You don’t know the composition of these things, for they are far too fine to see, but that’s pretty much all there is to it: a lot of little hard Particles bouncing around like billiard balls.’

I frowned at this over-simplification. ‘I think you should remember who you’re talking to.’

‘Oh – let me do this my own way, man! Follow me closely, now: for I have to tell you that this view of things is
wrong
, in every particular.’

I frowned. ‘How so?’

‘To begin with, you can put aside your Particle –
for there is no such animal
. It turns out that – despite the confidence of Newton – one can never tell,
precisely
, where a Particle is, or where it is heading.’

‘But if one had microscopes fine enough, surely, to inspect a Particle, any degree of accuracy one desired –’

‘Put it aside!’ he commanded. ‘There is a fundamental limitation on measurement – called the Uncertainty Principle, I gather – which places a sort of bottom level to such exercises.

‘We have to forget about any definiteness about the world, you see. We must think in terms of
Probability
– the chance of finding a physical object at such-and-such a place, with a speed of so-and-so – et cetera. There’s a sort of fuzziness about things, which –’

I said bluntly, ‘But look here – let’s suppose I perform some simple experiment. I will measure, at some instant, the position of a Particle – with a microscope, of an accuracy I can name. You’ll not deny the plausibility of such an experiment, I hope. Well, then: I have my measurement! Where’s the uncertainty in that?’

‘But the point is,’ Nebogipfel put in, ‘there is a finite chance that if you were able to go back and repeat the experiment, you would find the Particle in some other place – perhaps far removed from the first location …’

The two of them kept up the argument in this vein for some time.

‘Enough,’ I said. ‘I concede the point, for the sake of the discussion. But what is the relevance for us?’

‘There is – will be – a new philosophy called the
Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
,’ Nebogipfel said, and the sound of his queer, liquid voice, delivering such a striking phrase, sent shivers along my spine. ‘There is another ten or twenty years to elapse before the crucial papers are published – I remember the name of Everett …’

‘It’s like this,’ Moses said. ‘Suppose you have a Particle which can be in just two places –
here
or
there
, we will say – with some chance associated with each place. All right? Now you take a look with your microscope, and find it
here
…’

‘According to the Many Worlds idea,’ Nebogipfel said, ‘
History splits into two
when you perform such an experiment. In the other History, there is
another you
– who has just found the object
there
, rather than
here
.’

‘Another History?’

Moses said, ‘With all the reality and consistency of
this one.’ He grinned. ‘There is another you – there is an
infinite
number of “you’s” – propagating like rabbits at every moment!’

‘What an appalling thought,’ I said. ‘I thought two were more than enough. But look, Nebogipfel, couldn’t we
tell
if we were being split up in this way?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘because any such measurement, in either History, would have to come
after
the split. It would be impossible to measure the consequences of the split itself.’

‘Would it be possible to detect if these other Histories were there? – or for me to travel there, to meet another of this sheaf of twin selves you say I have?’

‘No,’ Nebogipfel said. ‘Quite impossible. Unless –’

‘Yes?’

‘Unless some of the tenets of Quantum Mechanics prove to be false.’

Moses said, ‘You can see why these ideas could help us make sense of the paradoxes we have uncovered. If more than one History can indeed exist –’

‘Then causality violations are easily dealt with,’ Nebogipfel said. ‘Look: suppose you had returned through time with a gun, and shot Moses summarily.’ Moses paled a little at this. Nebogipfel went on: ‘So there we have a classic Causality Paradox in its simplest terms. If Moses is
dead
, he will
not
go on to build the Time Machine, and become you – and so he cannot travel back in time to do the murder. But if the murder
does not
take place, Moses lives on to build the machine, travels back – and kills his younger self. And
then
he cannot build the machine, and the murder cannot be committed, and –’

‘Enough,’ I said. ‘I think we understand.’

‘It is a pathological failure of causality,’ Nebogipfel said, ‘a loop without termination.

‘But if the Many Worlds idea is right,
there is no
paradox
. History splits in two: in one edition, Moses lives; in the second, he dies. You, as a Time Traveller, have simply crossed from one History into the other.’

‘I see it,’ I said in wonder. ‘And surely this Many Worlds phenomenon is precisely what we have witnessed, Nebogipfel and I – we have already watched the unfolding of more than one edition of History …’ I felt enormously reassured by all this – for the first time, I saw that there might be a glimmer of logic about the blizzard of conflicting Histories which had hailed about my head since my second launch into time! Finding some sort of theoretical structure to explain things was as important to me as finding solid ground beneath his feet might be to a drowning man; though what practical application we might make of all this I could not yet imagine.

And – it occurred to me – if Nebogipfel was right, perhaps I was
not
responsible for the wholesale destruction of Weena’s history after all. Perhaps, in some sense, that History still existed! I felt a little of my guilt and grief lift at the thought.

Now the smoking-room door clattered open, and in bustled Filby. It was not yet nine in the morning; Filby was unwashed and unshaven, and a battered dressing gown clung to his frame. He said to me: ‘There’s a visitor for you. That scientist chap from the Air Ministry Bond mentioned …’

I pushed back my chair and stood. Nebogipfel returned to his studies, and Moses looked up at me, his hair still tousled. I regarded him with some concern; I was beginning to realize that he was taking all this dislocation in time quite hard. ‘Look,’ I said to him, ‘it seems I have to go to work. Why don’t you come with me? I’d appreciate your insights.’

He smiled without humour. ‘
My
insights are
your
insights,’ he said. ‘You don’t need me.’

‘But I’d like your company … After all, this may be your future. Don’t you think you’ll be better off if you stir yourself a bit?’

His eyes were deep, and I thought I recognized that longing for home which was so strong in me. ‘Not today. There will be time … perhaps tomorrow.’ He nodded to me. ‘Be careful.’

I could think of no more to say – not then.

I let Filby lead me to the hall. The man waiting for me at the open front door was tall and ungainly, with a shock of rough, greying hair. A trooper stood in the street behind him.

When the tall chap saw me, he stepped forward with a boyish clumsiness incongruous in such a big man. He addressed me by name, and pumped my hand; he had strong, rather battered hands, and I realised that this was a practical experimenter – perhaps a man after my own heart! ‘I’m glad to meet you – so glad,’ he said. ‘I work on assignment to the DChronW – that’s the Directorate of Chronic-Displacement Warfare, of the Air Ministry.’ His nose was straight, his features thin, and his gaze, behind wire-rimmed spectacles, was frank. He was clearly a civilian, for, beneath the universal epaulettes and gasmask cache, he wore a plain, rather dowdy suit, with a striped tie and yellowing shirt beneath. He had a numbered badge on his lapel. He was perhaps fifty years old.

‘I’m pleased,’ I said. ‘Although I fear your face isn’t familiar …’

‘Why on earth should it be? I was just eight years old when your prototype CDV departed for the future … I apologize! – that’s “Chronic Displacement Vehicle”. You may get the hang of all these acronyms of ours – or perhaps not! I never
have; and they say Lord Beaverbrook himself struggles to remember all the Directorates under his Ministry.

‘I’m not well-known – not nearly so famous as you! Until a while ago, I worked as nothing more grand than Assistant Chief Designer for the Vickers-Armstrong Company, in the Weybridge Bunker. When my proposals on Time Warfare began to get some notice, I was seconded to the headquarters of the DChronW, here at Imperial. Look,’ he said seriously, ‘I really am so glad you’re here – it’s a remarkable chance that brought you. I believe that
we
– you and I – could forge a partnership that might change History – that might resolve this damned War forever!’

I couldn’t help but shudder, for I had had my fill of changing History already. And this talk of Time Warfare – the thought of my machine, which had already done so much damage, deployed deliberately for destruction! The idea filled me with a deep dread, and I was unsure how to proceed.

‘Now – where shall we talk?’ he asked. ‘Would you like to retire to my room at Imperial? I have some papers which –’

‘Later,’ I said. ‘Look – this may seem odd to you – but I’m still newly arrived here, and I’d appreciate seeing a little more of your world. Is that possible?’

He brightened. ‘Of course! We can have our talk on the way.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the soldier, who nodded his permission.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘Mr –’

‘Actually, it’s
Dr
Wallis,’ he said. ‘Barnes Wallis.’

I
mperial College, it turned out, was situated in South Kensington – it was a few minutes’ walk from Queen’s Gate Terrace. The College had been founded a little after my time, in 1907, from three principal constituent colleges, with which I was familiar: they were the Royal College of Chemistry, the Royal School of Mines and the City and Guilds College. As it happened, in my younger days I had done a little teaching at the Normal School of Science, which had also been absorbed into Imperial; and, emerging now into South Kensington, I was reminded of how I had made the most of my time in London, with many visits to the delights of such establishments as the Empire, Leicester Square. At any rate, I had got to know the area well – but what a transformation I found now!

We walked out through Queen’s Gate Terrace towards the College, and then turned up Queen’s Gate to Kensington Gore, at the southern edge of Hyde Park. We were escorted by a half-dozen soldiers – quite discreet, for they moved about us in a rough circle – but I wondered at the size of the force that might be brought down on us if anything went awry. It did not take long before the sticky heat started to sap my strength – it was like being in a large, hot building – and I took off my jacket and loosened my tie. On Wallis’s advice, I clipped my heavy epaulettes
to my shirt, and reattached my gas-mask bag to my trouser-belt.

The streets were much transformed, and it struck me that not all the changes between my day and this had been for ill. The banishment of the insanitary horse, the smoke of domestic fires and the fumes of the motor-car – all for reasons of the quality of the air under the Dome – had resulted in a certain freshness about the place. In the major avenues, the roadway was surfaced over by a new, more resilient, glassy material, kept clean by a chain of workmen who pushed about trolley-carts fixed with brushes and sprinklers. The roads were crowded with bicycles, rickshaws and electrical trams, guided by wires which hissed and sparked blue flashes in the gloom; but there were new ways for pedestrians, called the Rows, which ran along the front of the houses at the height of the first storey – and on the second or even third storeys in some places. Bridges, light and airy, ran across the roads to join up these Rows at frequent intervals, giving London – even in this Stygian darkness – something of an Italian look.

Moses later saw a little more of the life of the city than I did, and he reported bustling shops in the West End – despite the privations of the War – and new theatres around Leicester Square, with frontages of reinforced porcelain, and the whole glowing with reflections and illuminated advertisements. But the plays performed were of a dull, educational or improving variety, Moses complained, with two theatres given over to nothing but a perpetual cycle of Shakespeare’s plays.

Wallis and I came past the Royal Albert Hall, which I have always regarded as a monstrosity – a pink hatbox! In the obscurity of the Dome, this pile was picked out by a row of brilliant light beams (projected by
Aldis lamps
, Wallis said), which made
that memorable heap seem still more grotesque, as it sat and shone complacently. Then we cut into the Park at the Alexandra Gate, walked back to the Albert Memorial, and set off along the Lancaster Walk to the north. Ahead of us I could see the flickering of the Babble Machine beams against the Roof, and hear the distant boom of amplified voices.

Wallis kept up a descriptive chatter as we walked. He was good enough company, and I began to realize that he was indeed the sort of man who – in a different History – I might have called a friend.

I remembered Hyde Park as a civilized place: attractive and calm, with its wide walkways and its scattering of trees. Some of the features I had known were still there – I recognized the copper-green cupola of the Bandstand, where I could hear a choir of Welsh miners singing hymns in gusty unison – but this version of the Park was a place of shadows, broken by islands of illumination around lamp-standards. The grass was gone – dead, no doubt as soon as the sun was occluded – and much of the bare earth had been covered with sheets of timber. I asked Wallis why the Park had not simply been given over to concrete; he gave me to understand that Londoners liked to believe that one day the ugly Dome over their city could safely be demolished, and their home restored to the beauty it had once known – Parks and all.

One part of the Park, near the Bandstand, had been given over to a sort of shanty-town. There were tents, hundreds of them, clustered around crude concrete buildings which turned out to be communal kitchens and bath-houses. Adults, children and dogs picked across the dry, hard-trodden ground between the tents, making their way through the endless, dull processes of living.

‘Poor old London has soaked up a lot of refugees
in recent years,’ Wallis explained. ‘The population density is so much higher than it was … and yet there’s useful work for them all. They do suffer in those tents, though – and yet there’s nowhere else to keep them.’

Now we cut off Lancaster Walk and approached the Round Pond at the heart of the Park. This had once been an attractive, uncluttered feature, offering a fine view of Kensington Palace. The Pond was still there, but fenced off; Wallis told me it served as a reservoir to serve the needs of the increased populace. And of the Palace there was only a shell, evidently bombed-out and abandoned.

We stopped at a stand, and were served rather warm lemonade. The crowds milled about, some on bicycles. There was a game of football going on in one corner, with gas-masks piled up to serve as posts; I even heard speckles of laughter. Wallis told me that people would still turn out to the Speakers’ Corner, to hear the Salvation Army, the National Secular Society, the Catholic Evidence Guild, the Anti-Fifth Column League (who waged a campaign against spies, traitors and anyone who might give comfort to the enemy), and so forth.

This was the happiest I had seen people in this benighted time; save for the universal epaulettes and masks – and the deadness of the ground beneath, and that awful, looming Roof over all our heads – this might have been a Bank Holiday crowd from any age, and I was struck again by the resilience of the human spirit.