The Depths of Time (77 page)

“
You
’
re going after him,
”
Norla said. It was not a question. It had never entered her head that he would not go.Koffield was not a man who found good reasons to do nothing.

“
I wish I wasn
’
t,
”
Koffield said.
“
With every fiber of my being, I want to turn my back on him, on Solace, on the terraforming disaster. I want to say
‘
I
’
ve done my part. Leave me in peace. Let someone else do the work.
’
But I can
’
t. I want to leave it be. But I
can’t.”

“
That
’
s not DeSilvo pulling the strings,
”
Norla said, standing up again.
“
That
’
s
duty.
He has no claim on you, no power. You won
’
t go after him because he asks. You
’
ll do it because it
’
s
right.
Because if he has stolen knowledge, science, technology that might save us, then someone has to take it back. Go. Find it. Take it back. Deal with the devil, because you have to—and see to it that he gets the worst of the bargain.
”

Koffield nodded.
“
Thank you,
”
he said.
“
I learned very early that you knew how to see beyond what was before you. You have just demonstrated that skill again. It is one I value tremendously. And if I go in search of Oskar DeSilvo, I
’
ll have need of it.
”

“
Admiral? Anton? What do you mean?
”

“
I came in here to ask if you
’
d come with me. I am going to need your help. I
’
m sure of that. If I go after DeSilvo, will you go with me?
”

Norla Chandray had not given a moment
’
s thought to her own life, her future, here in the future. She had no doubt that she could build a life of sorts in the Solacian system. Someone always needed a pilot.

But it was not merely the future that she faced. From Ulan Baskaw
’
s long-lost books to the collapse on Solace that was just gathering strength, forces were reaching up from the past, the present, the future, bubbling up from the ocean of years.

She could drift where she was on that sea. Find a way to live, eat, work, until it was time to die. If that could be called living.

Or she could set a course toward a goal that no skill of foresight could yet teach her to see, reach over the horizon for something worth doing, worth fighting for.

“
Of course,
”
she said.
“
I
’
ll go.
”

Anton Koffield smiled, and somehow the room got brighter.
“
Good,
”
he said. He laughed, and shook his head.
“
We make it sound as if we can head off right this minute and head straight for him. There are one or two details we need to sort out first.
”

“
We
’
ll get them sorted,
”
she said, and there was no doubt of it in her voice, or in her soul.
“
We
’
ll see it through. We
’
ll find him. I
’
m sure of it.
‘
I am hidden, but hidden where you can find me.
’
We
’
ll track him down.
”

“
I
’
m sure you
’
re right,
”
Anton replied.
“
We
’
ll find him.
”
He looked at her, straight in the eye, and his voice grew far more serious.
“
And after we do,
”
he said, “
then
will come the hard part.
”

Oskar DeSilvo’s power reserves were great, but they were not infinite. Every temporal-confinement field consumed vast amounts of energy, but one could realize a substantial power saving by setting the field to a less extreme time-dilation effect. If one let a hundred years go by in an apparent week, rather than an apparent hour, one could stretch out the field duration almost indefinitely.

A smaller containment likewise consumed far less energy than a larger one. DeSilvo had therefore directed his Artlnts to construct the smallest containment possible. It was in truth no larger than a prison cell, and scarcely more comfortable. The food store, recycler, and sanitary facilities took up most of the compartment. He scarcely had room to turn around.

But the sacrifice of space and comfort might well turn out to be a most prudent precaution. DeSilvo was well aware that he could be in the containment for a long, and unpredictable, period of time. What if Koffield failed to reach Solace, or, having arrived there, did not, for some reason, visit Greenhouse or learn of the tomb?

DeSilvo had planned as best he could, but a thousand things could go wrong. If Koffield did not come, and did not open the confinement, the field was programmed to shut itself down after.three hundred years of objective time had passed, but that circuit, and its backups, could fail. Then he would be held in the containment until the power system finally failed, or, perhaps, until he died of old age, or simply went mad from confinement. It was conceivable that he would be trapped in the containment for hundreds, even thousands, of years of objective time
—
months or even years of apparent time, trapped in a cell scarcely large enough to serve as a decent closet.

But he refused to believe in such things. Koffield would survive. It was obvious the man could survive anything. It was, after all, why DeSilvo had decided to make use of him.

DeSilvo thought about it as he made up his simple evening meal, then prepared himself for bed. He slept a lot while in temporal confinement. There was little else to do.

He entertained himself by imagining the scene in his head as he settled down to sleep. Koffield would find him. Koffield would shut down the confinement, and Admiral Anton Koffield would confront him, full of stern disapproval and righteous anger. Koffield would demand explanations, stand in judgment over all of DeSilvo’s moral lapses and failures of personal courage. He would question DeSilvo, interrogate him, insist that DeSilvo tell all.

And then
—

—
And then, Anton Koffield would get one or two surprises. Yes indeed.

Somewhere and somewhen, hidden away in the temporal confinement that blocked out the passing years, Dr. Oskar DeSilvo smiled happily to himself, rolled over, and fell into a dreamless sleep, floating in the dark and quiet of the limitless depths of time.

Artlnt—Artificial Intelligence. Any machine or device with sophisticated decision-making ability, and the capacity to interpret and execute complex orders. Generally speaking, Artlnts are deliberately built and programmed so as to be regarded as appliances and tools. Thus, while it is possible for them to speak and understand speech, they are usually designed to discourage any tendency to treat them as human.

Circum Central Wormhole Farm—The timeshaft worm-hole linking Glister to other worlds, usable for transit to Solace as well. The name is an optimistic misnomer. Circum Central is not central to anything, and there is only one timeshaft there, though the term
wormhole farm
usually refers to three or more wormholes clustered near each other at a main transfer point. Circum Central was supposed to be much more important than it turned out to be.

Chronologic Patrol—The military organization assigned to protect the timeshaft wormholes, and to defend against any deliberate or accidental attempt to abuse time travel so as to damage causality.

Comfort—A large gas giant planet in the outer reaches of the same planetary system that holds Solace. The satellite Greenhouse orbits Comfort, and the SunSpot orbits Greenhouse.Downtime—Referring to events in or travel toward the past as regards a timeshaft wormhole. For a hundred-year timeshaft connecting 5100
a.d.
and 5000
a.d.,
5000
a.d.
would be the downtime end.

Glister—A terraformed planet near Solace that has suffered a climatic collapse.

Grand Library—The ultimate storehouse of human knowledge, housed in a massive habitat orbiting Neptune. Two Permanent Physical Collections, or PPCs, serve as backups in the event of the Grand Library
’
s destruction. One PPC is in a different orbit of Neptune, while the other is buried in an undisclosed location on the farside of Earth
’
s Moon.

Greenhouse—A rocky satellite of the gas giant Comfort, used as the research station and breeding support center for Solace. It is illuminated by the SunSpot.

Habitat Seeds—Large and sophisticated self-actuating robotic machines programmed to seek out the raw materials for a space habitat, process the materials, and construct the hab with little or no human intervention. Typically, a Habitat Seed is released near a suitable stony-metal asteroid, which it mines as a source of raw materials. Habitat Seeds are one-shot items and cannot be reused because they self-cannibalize certain parts of themselves during the construction process. Furthermore, the seeds cannot manufacture all the items needed to construct a habitat; for example, sophisticated electronics. Seeds carry such items as cargo, and cannot replenish their stores of them.

Herakles DC
—Cargo ship, Ship One of the convoy caught in the middle of the Second Battle of Circum Central. The
Herakles IX
was the only ship of the convoy to make it through the timeshaft wormhole. She completed her journey to Glister, but her captain was detained, and all data related to the battle were impounded, in order to prevent a time paradox. Ships Two, Three, and Four of the convoy were destroyed. See
Stardrifter Gamma.

Intruders—Name given, more or less by default, to the thirty-two ships that attacked and went through the Circum Central Timeshaft Wormhole, transiting from downtime to uptime, past to future.

Lodestar—Local name of HS-G9-223, the star around which Solace orbits.

Machine language—The name given to the specialized syntax and dialect used by Solacians when talking to voice-capable computers and Artlnts.

Near-ancient, near ancients—Referring to a period of remote human history, or the people of that period. The near-ancient period is considered to start roughly with the Enlightenment, and ends roughly with the establishment of wormhole transit. Thus, from about 1740
a.d.
to 3000
a.d.

Objective time—The time or duration as measured by an outside observer. Typically used in regard to timeshaft-wormhole travel. A timeshaft ship might travel for one hundred years of self-chronologic time, and experience significant relativistic time dilation, but arrive only a week or so after departure in objective time, thanks to passage through a timeshaft wormhole. See
self-chronologic time
and
subjective time.

Self-chronologic time—The accumulated duration or age of an object, a person
’
s life, or an event, as it would be measured by a chronometer physically attached to an object or person, and ignoring the actual calendric time and date but accounting for relativistic time-dilation effects. Put another way, self-chron is a measure of how much an object or person has actually aged, regardless of time travel or cold sleep. A person who traveled, over the course of several trips, for five centuries in cryosleep, but traveled down five one-century wormholes, would have gone through five centuries of self-chron time, but have experienced virtually no subjective time, and might well end up in the same objective year from which he or she started. See
objective time
and
subjective time.

Sinus Power Cluster Farm—A large Timeshaft Wormhole Farm, near the Sirius star system.

Solace—A newly terraformed planet.

Solace City—Capital of Solace.

C.P.S.
Standfast
—The downtime Chronologic Patrol ship attacked and destroyed during the Circum Central incident.

Stardrifter Gamma
—A cargo ship, Ship Five in the convoy caught in the middle of the Second Battle of Circum Central. The
Stardrifter Gamma
was marooned on the uptime end of the wormhole and made her way to Thor
’
s Realm Wormhole Farm. Ships Two, Three, and Four were destroyed in the battle. See
Herakles IX.

Subjective time—The apparent time or duration as experienced. A passenger aboard a starship might be in cryo sleep for a century, but only be awake to experience a few weeks of subjective time. See
objective time
and
self-chronologic time.

SunSpot—A massive fusion generator, in effect a miniature sun, surrounded by an adjustable reflector, which orbits Greenhouse in the same period as Solace
’
s day, and thus provides simulated day and night to Greenhouse.