Authors: Alexander Hammond
Her mind raced; surely she was being made to look stupid…when suddenly it came to her. She pierced his elaborate con with a deftness that caused her spirit to soar. “What you say cannot be true,” she said triumphantly. “You’re saying I gave you the pendant for you to travel back in time to give it to me, so I could give it to you here in the future again. If that’s the case, the pendant has only ever been in yours or my possession.”
“Keep going Charlotte,” said Bob quietly.
“Therefore” she said, executing her coup de grace “The pendant couldn’t exist, if it’s always been in yours or my possession then it could have never actually been manufactured, because we got it from each other.”
Bobs face relaxed. “You’re so right Charlotte, it can’t possibly exist, and yet you know that what I’ve done here is not a trick, your intelligence confirms it can’t be. You wanted proof didn’t you? Didn’t you say it yourself a few minutes ago?
Everything real doesn’t exist.
Isn’t that what I’ve been trying to say all afternoon?
His words hit her like an express train. The world, as she had known it, vanished.
Bob laughed. “Welcome back,” he said.
- The End -
AMBITION
In a time of war, he mused almost regretfully, she would have been a battleship. Vast, imposing and impossibly magnificent, the awesomeness of the Coalition’s mightiest starship came into view. Hanging in orbit above Earth’s blue oceans, the
Gilgamesh
patiently awaited her commanding officer
. ‘All I need is a tall ship and the stars to sail her by.’
The words from an ancient novel came into the commander’s mind. Romantic notions perhaps, he thought, but nevertheless fitting. He always savoured the short transport trip to his charge. A brief moment of calm before assuming the heavy mantle of responsibility for this beautiful vessel and it’s five hundred crew. He liked to think he had something in common with the Sumerian king after whom this leviathan had been named. It was one of the few conceits he allowed himself. In reality of course he knew it wasn’t true. He was an intellectual. To command a starship he had to be; a superior brain was a basic requirement. Nonetheless, despite his consummate cerebral skills, he allowed himself the luxury of the whimsical notion that in another time he would have been a warrior king. Like Gilgamesh, he was a leader of men but a leader in a time of peace. No thrill of victory or conquest rewarded his efforts; instead, the challenges of exploration, cutting edge science and diplomacy were his purview.
For most, the achievement of a star ship command was a heady enough victory for even the most ambitious mind yet he found himself unfulfilled. His IQ demanded stimulation yet his responsibilities provided less as time went by. Ten years previously he’d gained his appointment and been the youngest in history to have such a charge. Then he’d relished the fearsome challenges that came with the responsibility; his skills as a tactician, a scientist and numerous other disciplines that were continually put to the test. Equally he’d enjoyed the status and the power that went with the role. The whispered words ‘Starship Commander’ upon his arrival at social gatherings, by those who could only dream of such majesty, gave him pleasure. He affected indifference to them and to those who were drawn to his power. He chose his physical pleasures carefully, selecting only the most perfect to share intimacy. He comforted himself that although others were, he was not seduced by his power or intellect; nevertheless he allowed himself to enjoy his gifts.
The ship was
his
. He coveted it above all things. Though he was aware that, increasingly, his intelligence was demanding superior challenges, he could think of nothing greater than his command that would provide an increase in stimulation.
A further problem was his executive officer.
The exec was not only insufferably brilliant, but fifteen years his junior …and ambitious. The commander had no problem with ambitious officers; indeed he was a good enough manager to encourage this trait in the people that reported to him. The trouble was that she was rather better than he had been at her age. He acknowledged this to himself without rancour, it was a simple fact and not to be disputed. She wanted his command and he knew it. She wanted it for the same reasons he’d wanted his own command. He was caught in a trap of his own making. His superiors were well aware of his skills and after ten years of command experience they were keen to use his talents to train others. The better he did his job the more likely he was to loose his ship, and the sharp eyes at the Admiralty had clearly noticed his exec. It was a no win scenario…the march of time was his enemy.
It did not help one bit that he actually despised his exec. It was not that she was aloof, even with him, or that she clearly grasped some problems more quickly than he did…it was her manner. Whilst never less than respectful, he knew that she knew she intimidated him. Cognisant that her cool beauty had no effect on him, she used her quick mind instead and it worked.
The exec glanced sideways at the commander. She didn’t dislike him, indeed she felt that there was nothing about him to dislike. As far as she was concerned he was a competent line officer. She understood it wasn’t his fault he was less able than her. She held this view not in contempt but in a simplistic logical evaluation of his talent when placed against hers. She regarded the commander as simply an unwelcome obstacle to her ambition. She had been patient, knowing that eventually her swiftness of thought would one day show him to be less capable than her, and the powers that be would make the necessary changes. She
needed
command.
As the transport drew close to its destination the true majesty of the
Gilgamesh
became apparent. The bright sunlight almost fell into its dark contours. It was an engineer’s dream made reality, the most advanced starship ever conceived. A creation of unimaginable power, capable of travelling at speeds that were science fiction only a few decades previously.
It was concerning speed that this voyage was tasked. There were those who thought that they could make her go even faster.
Einstein had suggested that the speed of light was the speed limit of the universe. Of course both the commander and the exec had read his ancient writings with some amusement, however in his time his views had been far reaching and brilliant. He’d proved that, essentially, the faster one travels, the greater one’s mass becomes. He further proved that at the speed of light ones mass would become infinite and therefore it was the fastest one could travel. Of course, knowing what he thought knew at the time, he was quite correct. He’d only begun to have an inkling of quantum mechanics and the true nature of the universe. The eclectic Swiss patent clerk had influenced many for centuries until it was discovered these so called laws could be side stepped quite easily.
In some ways Einstein had been correct. The speed of light was indeed the speed limit of the universe but only in ‘normal’ space. The solution was simple. To travel at speed greater than the speed of light all one had to do was to create an envelope of space around the ship ‘different’ from the nature of normal space thus enabling it to break the light barrier as, protected by the envelope, it was not subject to the laws of normal space. It was a system that worked very well.
There was now a body of thought that suggested this thinking was as archaic as Einstein’s had once been and the
Gilgamesh
had been selected to demonstrate this. It was these matters that occupied the commander’s thoughts as he walked onto the bridge. He noted with some discomfort the new equipment which had been assembled around the navigator’s console. The navigator was making no effort to hide his own disquiet.
The exec noticed the Commanders ill-disguised uneasiness. She knew her captain simply didn’t grasp the physics of this new drive. Indeed, how could he?…she could only just grasp it herself in its most basic terms. Nonetheless, this edge would make her reports to the Admiralty more impressive than his. It could be enough to move him ‘upstairs’. She amused herself by giving the navigator a piercing look which she knew would affect him on numerous levels. His nervous reaction served to make the moment complete and satisfying.
The thinking behind the new drive was impressive…and radical. In basic terms it considered not only the destination for each voyage but also ‘where’ this destination actually was. ‘Where’ it postulated, was a relative term. ‘Where’ is a term that relates to a three dimensional view of the universe. i.e. There are physical co-ordinates that can be detailed in normal space-time for where one is and where one wants to go. The drive engineers had interrogated this matter further and apparently ‘proved’ that distance was a function only found in three-dimensional space. If space was regarded as having multiple dimensions, then it was feasible that distance was irrelevant outside the parameters of three-dimensional space.
The engineers demonstrated, via some highly baffling equations, that everything and every place in the universe actually existed in one moment and one place simultaneously. Therefore they had developed a ‘drive’ that would actually create a quantum causality around the ship enabling it to exist in this multi-dimensional realm therefore being everywhere in the universe ‘at once’. In that instant of existing everywhere, the ships sensors, set to recognise the destination that the ship had set itself, would literally, electronically, tell the universe where it wanted to go and therefore ‘call up’ its destination. As one of the engineers described it patronisingly to the Captain. “We literately ‘dial up’ a destination and its delivered to us without us actually moving. A bit like phoning for a pizza delivery.” A senior engineer had chuckled at the analogy. It was close to being true.
Two days later they tried it for the first time. As the drive was initiated the commander had a vivid daydream. He was in amongst blood dripping slaughter on a distant plain, where bronzed men with swords and gleaming armour hacked each other to pieces in the name of God. The Exec also daydreamed. She dreamed of gazing disdainfully at young men who were intimidated by her power.
In a few seconds they travelled a light year…or rather, as the engineer reminded them…they had called the destination to them. Not very far, a mere eight million million kilometres.
A week later they were ready to try again. This time, after five minutes, they arrived at the spectacular clouds of the Magellan Cluster at the very edge of human exploration. Unaccountably, as the drive was initiated, the commander again fell into a jarringly real daydream. He dreamt vividly of the smell of battle and the glory of his first kill. He’d driven a sword down mercilessly into one the barbarians who had invaded his land. His victim’s warm blood had spurted over his body and the taste of it lingered in his mouth. He stood victorious and aware that he had never felt so alive. He snapped himself out of it, shocked at the realness of the dream.
The Exec also daydreamed of walking from the Admiralty office with freshly issued orders in her hand. She enjoyed the hushed whispers behind her as she strode towards the transport terminal to take her to her new command, feeling almost overcome with the effect the power had on her.
The engineers fussed over their equipment and fiercely discussed some undecipherable anomalies on their instrument readings. Yes, they had called up where they wished to go, but it appeared that the ships clocks were at variance to the local time at their destination. They had reached the Cluster at a time in the past. They had unwittingly achieved time travel, a rather unwelcome side effect. ‘Where’ they were ‘now’ was actually ten years previous to when they’d set off. There were clearly variables in the drive program that they had not fully considered.
The engineers were confident that they had solved the problem. Time travel, whilst theoretically possible, had never been achieved before or even attempted. They apologised for the inconvenience and assured the commander and the exec they could reverse the situation. The problem had occurred, they suggested, due to the nature of space time itself. Not only did the drive put them ‘everywhere’ at once it put them ‘everytime’ at once, a variable that they had not considered. The solution was to ‘call out’ not only the destination but also the required time as well. They were certain that there could be no other variables involved in the procedure, they just needed to be certain of all the parameters that they electronically called out. There was something odd about this thought process at the back of the execs mind, but she couldn’t quite grasp what it was. The engineers initiated the drive.
The newly promoted exec stood at the helm of her ship. She couldn’t imagine not having a command. She stood erect and proud as her bridge crew went about their business. It was a role that sat well with her; indeed it defined her. Her time as second in command seemed like a dream.
The sun beat upon the commander’s back as he sat on his charger ahead of 100,000 baying troops. In the distance he could see the enemy. Heathen infidels who would be vanquished before the day was out. He drew his sword, threw back his head and bellowed the cry of a warrior. His hordes leapt forward as he charged towards the enemy.
The ship’s navigator, who had been thinking wistfully about a Caribbean beach when the drive was initiated, gratefully accepted another Pina Colada and gazed with deep pleasure at the turquoise sea. He enjoyed the feeling of the sand between his toes and propped himself up against a palm tree. The exec walked over to him, stunning and bronzed in her swimsuit. She affectionately planted a kiss on his cheek. He couldn’t imagine a life better than this…indeed it was the only one he had ever known.
- The End -
THE FUTURE
Being a futurologist in the year 113,435,501,677 was not the easiest of roles. Mind you, he supposed, being a historian was probably a lot more difficult. 113,435,501,677 plus the odd thousand or so years before the Gregorian calendar was brought into use was a lot to learn. Not that he really cared about such matters as he was concerned with what was possibly going to happen as opposed to what had already happened. Sadly, it was sometimes only by studying the past that gave him the clues as to what might happen. Yes, there were patterns amongst the chaos, but mostly it was chaos. He amused himself in lighter moments by studying the predictions of previous futurologists. He hoped that his own endeavours wouldn’t provoke the same reactions in his successors.
Some asked why he became a futurologist. The answer was easy. It was one of the last great unknowns. It’s mystery intrigued him. There had been a great deal of worry amongst his ancient predecessors when time travel had become reality. Firstly, as a fascinating experiment, and eventually as a pastime of the bored and jaded. There had been a wringing of hands in his profession as they feared they would be put out of a job. The ancient’s lack of understanding of the true nature of time was criminal when regarded now with the benefit of experience and research. Untold millennia ago when the first few brave souls had ventured into the future and back again they amazed with grand stories of what was to come. It took a while for everyone to realise that their stories differed on every trip if they picked the same time and location. All they saw of course was a possible future, a permutation on the infinite possibilities that the future had to offer. At the moment they embarked on their trip, they departed from the linear timeline in which they existed to one that was simply a logical extrapolation from the exact moment they made the jump. Even to jump a mere second later brought a different experience. In that one second, enough had happened in the universe to make the outcome different. The Universe was a pretty big place with lots happening in it.
The size of the cosmos had been a subject of intense debate in early human records and, he presumed, even before that. Now of course, he couldn’t think of anyone who hadn’t ventured to the ends of the universe. What existed beyond that was also well understood. Nothing. The ‘whys’ of this perplexing enigma were thankfully not his purview. He was a practical scientist not a metaphysical physicist. There was still conjecture as to what was in existence before the Big Bang but, again, it wasn’t his purview.
Interaction with alien species had not had a significant effect on the human race. Though eagerly anticipated, the moment of first contact had been something of non-event. It established two things. The first being the fact that the human race was indeed not alone. The second being that aliens were exactly that…alien. Communication had proved totally impossible and had remained so ever since with every race that had been encountered. Primitive writings romantically describing vast intergalactic empires and even the possibly of wars were embarrassingly wide of the mark. It was a simple fact that once a race had worked out how to exceed the speed of light and travel the vast distances needed to actually explore anything of relevance, they had evolved to a level of civilisation that hadn’t just renounced violence and conflict; they had simply forgotten about it.
Thus, on the odd occasion when races encountered each other, they simply politely ignored each other. A Freon breathing silicone-based quadruped had little in common with, say, a bloated bag of sentient gas. And those were the less exotic examples.
That the human race had survived beyond the year 2000 was a miracle. Nevertheless it somehow had. It took a while for their primitive minds to address something which they called ‘poverty’. A concept that the futurologist had difficulty in fully understanding, nevertheless it was well documented so he accepted it. There was also something called ‘disease’ which had him reeling in horror when he studied the records. The thought of such an existence made him shudder. The continual references made to an experience called ‘pain’ sounded downright unpleasant. He had no idea what it meant, but it certainly didn’t sound like something he’d want to endure. Thankfully they’d forgone the need for physical bodies eons ago.
This jump had been the last really significant event in the history of what was called the human race. Of course he didn’t remember it. It was before his time. He’d been called into existence by his parents well after that momentous event. They remembered it. They’d lived it. How he envied them. He also respected their bravery. Letting oneself be copied as binary code and downloaded onto a mainframe was a pretty courageous thing to do in those unenlightened times. To actually risk one’s existence on a scientific principle was radical, certainly with the archaic technology available then. Nevertheless it was successful. Instant immortality was the first advantage. The ability to experience anything within the range of the processing power of the mainframe was the second. Archaeologists called the experience ‘virtual reality’. Actually existing as binary code did away with the virtual bit. Their binary world was real. Naturally science soon did away with the need for hard-wired circuitry and soon progressed to more advanced storage mediums based on zero point energy and dark matter making the experiential possibilities almost limitless.
Eventually, even that became unnecessary. Using the very fabric of the universe as a storage medium, they roamed freely throughout the stars. Some vestiges of their physicality remained though. It seemed to be part of the human condition that they more often than not clustered together as if finding solace in companionship. This appeared to be the one constant in human evolution. Being alone for long periods was not pleasurable. Why, no one had yet fathomed.
And thus they drifted benevolently about the cosmos, observing and experiencing the wonders that it had to offer. Occasionally they came to a halt, unsure of what to do next. In those moments they let the heavens pull them along in its wake until, like a shoal of fish, an individual would have an idea and change direction and everyone else would follow. The reason they followed was why the futurologist did what he did. Boredom had set in. In a blink of an eye they could be anywhere they wished, and after many millions of years they’d been pretty much everywhere of interest. If someone even had a spark of a new idea they’d follow like sheep, eager for diversion. His job was to look into the future and suggest what the next step would be, what they could look forward to. What was going to change? He was a giver of hope. His companions hung on his every word. There had to be something else. Something more. Everything had been the same for so very long.
The two scientists studied their experiment carefully. “Damn,” said the more senior individual, “An evolutionary cul de sac. I don’t understand it. I was so sure that I’d given this group all the tools they’d need to progress but they’ve just hit a brick wall.”
His colleague smiled. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. This area of expertise is a challenge. That’s why we chose it, remember? I’ll destroy this batch and we’ll try a few new tweaks next time out. After all, tomorrow’s another day.”
- The End -