Through the Eye of Time (10 page)

‘Not judging by the newstapes.' Queghan too had studied the mid-Twentieth and made a number of mythological surveys. The era was rich in symbolism. ‘They revered the planet so much they almost killed it – the ruptured biosphere, remember.'

‘We
made
ours,' Oria said; ‘We shaped it into a lump and hacked it around. The custom-built planet, suitable for all ages, races, colours and creeds.' There was disgust in her voice.

‘You want to return to nature?' Queghan mocked, ‘Become the protoplastic woman and start from scratch?'

‘There's nothing wrong in trying to regain our roots.'

‘You sound like a sociology textbook. What roots? They're right here, all around you.'

It was an argument they had rehearsed many times until it had grown stale. Queghan couldn't understand what drove her back into the past; it was an evasion of reality; neither
could he understand why this should annoy him the way it did, and not understanding any of these things annoyed him even more.

Oria said, ‘You have your work. It fulfils you. You lose yourself in it and find yourself in it.'

‘You're a trained archivist,' Queghan pointed out. He sensed chauvinistic blackmail and he wasn't having any. ‘If you want a job you could get one easily enough: MyTT would take you back tomorrow.'

Oria covered her eyes. ‘Emotionally I'm blank. I can't feel for things. Everything tastes dead.'

Queghan didn't know what to say to this. They went out into the garden. It was a calm night, the wind barely moving the leaves on the huge plane trees. The smaller of the two moons was a pale crescent rising in the eastern sky. The configurations of stars sharpened in icy brilliance as the darkness came on. Somewhere out there, Queghan reflected, shone the sun of Old Earth, too faint to be seen with the naked eye. An average star of no special significance, which somehow by accident had given birth to a species of intelligent creatures who so far were alone in the universe. It was true that their explorations had been tentative and minuscule in cosmic terms – no more than a few thousand light-years – and the galaxy must surely be teeming with life: the law of statistical probability made this fact self-evident. What would it do to the human race when the first shock of contact was made – the confrontation of alien cultures with nothing in common but the stars?

Some scientists believed that contact had been made already. Some of those engaged in MetaPsychical Research were of the opinion that intelligent life was at this moment communicating with the Colonized States but that human technology was incapable of deciphering the messages. They pointed to the radio chatter from the stars which, if only it could be interpreted correctly, would form a coherent signal from other beings elsewhere in the galaxy.

Queghan kept an open mind on this subject. The related sciences of Myth Technology and MetaPsychical Research sometimes worked at cross-purposes but in the long term they each contributed to the sum total of knowledge regarding man's
place in the scheme of things. For instance, MetaPsychical Research had done much to relate human neurochemistry to the elemental forces of the universe, the ‘celestial clockwork of the Metagalaxy' as it was known to the purists.

In contrast his own field was concerned with psi phenomena and its relation to the four prime energy sources. They knew, and had known for a long time, that human thought could affect such random events as the radioactive fission of atomic nuclei. The production of ‘mind stuff' was a scientifically accepted fact, the research data were irrefutable; yet how and why this was so had still to be explained.

It was this search that had led him into the murky regions of quarks and anti-quarks, the genus of particles whose existence could not be proven but which had to exist if the material universe was an objective entity and not simply a figment of the imagination. ‘I think I am, therefore I am,' was still the most telling proof of all for the ultimate reality of the mythical quark.

A bright steady speck of light came from behind the trees, heading due north. It was one of the satellite beacons circumnavigating Earth IVn: homing fixes for incoming shuttles. Queghan felt a sudden yearning to go into space. It was like the call of the sea the old mariners had experienced, the compulsive biological urge to cross uncharted oceans and discover unknown continents. There was life out there somewhere amongst those billions of winking stars; they were calling to him, a vast cosmic whispering like the seductive lure of the sirens of ancient mythology.

The air had become slightly chill. The moon was now a brilliant slice of melon, perfectly clear and hard-edged against the night.

‘Did you know it was the Americans who made the first atomic bomb?' Oria said. She was back in the mid-Twentieth, still seeking the roots of emotional response.

‘So much for their reverence for natural living things.'

‘The first nuclear detonation took place on the 16th July, 1945 in New Mexico in the United States.'

‘I hope that isn't going to be the subject of your next historical reconstruction,' Queghan said, and saw the gleam of a smile
in the darkness. He still refused to believe there was anything seriously wrong with her.

Oria moved against him. How much was real and how much a jaded simulation? It was an uncharitable thought but one he couldn't dismiss. The accumulation of emotional debris that had built up over the aeons was like a log-jam in the mind; too many memories to accommodate within a single human brain. They were the most advanced of their species and had to carry the total collective consciousness of the race. It was a crushing burden.

‘The Director wants me to talk to the CENTiNEL people. I shall have to visit the
Tempus
Control Laboratory.'

‘How long will you be away?'

‘Not more than a week via the Field. Possibly two or three months on your time-scale.'

‘It isn't your job to go. Karve should send a physicist or go himself.'

‘He's an old man. A trip through the E.M.I. Field wouldn't do his cardiovascular system any good, even if they kept him in hyper-suspension. And in any case it is my job; the call of duty.'

‘What you mean is you're itching to go into space again, and you'll also be away from me for a while.' But she said this with no rancour and it suddenly came to Queghan why, in spite of everything, they had stayed together all these years: he loved the woman, and if he had thought of looking into her mind he would have seen that she loved him.

*

The
Tempus
satellite Control Laboratory orbiting in the inertial frame of reference Theta
²
Orionis in M.42 was the deepest thrust into the void, a lonely outpost on the furthermost edge of manned exploration. It was uncomfortably, almost dangerously close to the Temporal Flux Centre x-ray designation
2U0525-06
.

From a distance the satellite appeared as a glittering six-pointed star, each of the arms a thousand metres in length, accommodating experimental laboratories, stimulose vegetable gardens, living space and recreational areas. Whenever he saw it
poised against the star-filled backdrop Queghan felt the hairs rise on his spine that a man-made artefact could possess such awesome beauty. He became very aware of fragile mankind out here in dimensionless space, a soft-bodied bipedal primate gazing out at the universe like a child from its crib.

The transit shuttle docked and Queghan was greeted by the satellite Commander, Aldrin Laurence, a man with a large frame and a full dark beard streaked with grey. He ran
Tempus
as the old sea-masters had commanded the clippers, a mixture of rigid discipline tempered with paternal benevolence. It was a psychological tightrope he had to tread, a delicate balance to keep his crew and the scientific community in peaceable equilibrium. Out here there was nowhere to escape to; you had a job to do and it was the one hold on any sort of normality, the purpose that made life sane and bearable. And not far away – a few million miles – the unavoidable fact of all their lives: the inescapable presence of the Temporal Flux Centre, the datum point of infinite spacetime curvature where every law of physics was not only broken but twisted and distorted beyond comprehension.

During the first quarter-period Queghan stowed his belongings, took a nap, ate a light meal and acclimatized himself to the satellite's weak gravity. It usually upset his stomach so that while he continually felt the need to empty his bowels he was unable, when the time came, to perform the function. Karla Ritblat had prescribed some pills which helped to alleviate the predicament, but it remained rather distressing until his body had adjusted itself.

The CENTiNEL people were glad to see him. They were glad to see anybody. Johann Karve had outlined the purpose of Queghan's visit to the project leader, Professor Max Herff, and the first thing Herff said, even before Queghan had stepped through the door into the laboratory, was to express disappointment that a mythographer, ‘so accustomed to working in minus time, should feel it necessary to arrive before he departed'.

‘Rather mundane, I agree,' Queghan replied. ‘But I thought that showing my arse before you saw my face might lead to some misinterpretation.'

‘How do you know we would have noticed?' said one of Herff's colleagues, a tall slender woman with a languid face and dark somnolent eyes; at no time during his stay did he ever see her upright – she was either leaning against something or lounging in a chair with her legs in the air.

Herff introduced him to the senior personnel and they quickly got down to the business of discussing the latest CENTiNEL report. Queghan had hoped for a clue that might shed some light on the recalcitrant mu-meson readings but the physicists were as baffled as he and Karve had been. Professor Herff, whose gentle manner, rumpled appearance and rimless spectacles reminded Queghan of a friendly family doctor, repeated that the figures made no apparent sense – ‘unless we're prepared to accept Karve's notion of the interactions taking place in minus time, wherever that is.'

‘If you have an alternative suggestion, Professor, I'd be happy to hear it.' Queghan looked round at everyone. ‘Karve didn't propose his hypothesis for its novelty value; at least it's worth investigating.'

‘How do we go about it?' the tall languid woman, Dr Zander, asked him. ‘Did Director Karve say how we should conduct the experiment? CENTiNEL is based in this spatio-temporal continuum, not in some mythical nether world. I should have thought astrophysics and not metaphysics was our line.'

Herff said, ‘We're not going to start all that, are we? Queghan didn't make the trip from Earth IVn to engage in a debate on scientific demarcation.'

‘My apologies,' Dr Zander said, though she didn't sound apologetic or contrite.

Queghan pressed on. He wasn't going to get involved in that sterile argument. ‘Karve bases his theory on proemptosis. The idea is that the mu-mesons are being affected by time displacement so that there appears to be a discrepancy between the actual and the apparent rates of decay. On this side of the spatio-temporal interface we are observing the mirror-image of an event taking place on the other side.'

‘The other side being minus time,' Max Herff said.

‘That's right.'

‘Untouched by human hand,' Dr Zander said laconically.

Queghan chose to ignore this, though the sweat of mounting irritation prickled his shoulders and made the back of his neck damp. ‘Quantum theory tells us that when a particle and its anti-particle equivalent collide the result is instantaneous annihilation with a tremendous release of energy, mainly in the form of light.'

One of the other scientists said, ‘That's the current theory behind the quasars, a super collision of matter and anti-matter releasing vast amounts of radiation.'

‘However, it's conceivable that under certain circumstances the particle and anti-particle can coexist – those circumstances being prevalent in the vicinity of a Temporal Flux Centre. If this is possible, and were to happen, a matter/anti-matter interface would be set up.' He glanced round the circle of faces. ‘What I remember of quantum theory is rather sketchy, but one thing I've never forgotten is what would happen if we could isolate anti-particles and hold them for a controlled period in stasis—'

He became aware that Professor Herff was gazing at him with a peculiar expression on his face; it almost seemed as if he were about to break down and weep. Herff said:

‘You do know what you're suggesting?'

‘Yes,' Queghan said soberly. ‘The ultimate energy source: the anti-matter bomb.'

Dr Zander laughed. It was a dead and humourless sound amongst the banks of instrumentation, the grey cyberthetic consoles, the ticking meters. ‘I see now why you're a mythographer. Anti-protons and anti-neutrons held in stasis – impossible.'

‘I don't like to use that word if I can help it,' Queghan said, conjuring up a pleasant smile for her benefit. She was an attractive woman but he felt like striking her.

‘Now let's pursue this,' Herff said, hunching forward, his hands clasped between his knees. ‘Anti-particles isolated for a controlled period: very well, quantum theory says it's feasible, so for the moment we'll accept that. But how do you account for the aggregation of anti-matter at a given spatio-temporal coordinate? That would seem to suggest a deliberate and
systematic rationalization of energy and matter – that I find hard to take.'

‘I don't see why,' Queghan said. ‘Somebody here has already mentioned quasars. We're not sure what they are but they're quite definitely the most concentrated source of energy in the observable universe. And we know they exist.'

‘Very well. As Riemann said, quasars could be the result of a collision between matter and anti-matter, we're not certain, but whatever causes them they do seem to be naturally-occurring phenomena, not planned or directed by …'