Timescape (5 page)

Renfrew nodded again. "Yes, there was a paper in the Physical Review just recently, on huge density fluctuations."

"They're having their problems in Los Angeles, too," Peterson said, considering. "Mainly the big fire, of course. If the wind changes, that could be disastrous. I don't know what effect these things have on the Caltech people. We can't afford to wait for years."

Renfrew cleared his throat. "I thought funding of scientific experiments was to be given top priority." He sounded slightly petulant.

Peterson's answer held a hint of condescension. "Ah, you're referring to the King's speech on television the other day. Yes, well, of course, he wants to look good in his Coronation year. So he's encouraging funding of scientific experiments–but of course, he knows nothing of science, he's not even a politician. Very well meaning fellow, of course. Our committee advised him to stick to uplifting generalities in future. With a touch of humor. He's good at that. Anyway, the basic fact is that money is short and we have to pick and choose carefully. All I can promise at this stage is that I will make a report to the Council. I'll let you know as soon as I can their decision about granting you emergency priority. Personally, I think it's a bit of a long shot. I don't know if we can afford to take chances."

"We can't afford not to," Markham said with sudden energy. "Why keep on plugging the leaks here and there, sinking money into relief funds for drought and dieback? You can slap on patches but the dam's going to burst. Unless–"

"Unless you tinker with the past? Are you sure tachyons can reach the past at all?"

Renfrew said, "We've done it. Tried some table-top experiments. They work. It's in the report."

"The tachyons are received, then?"

Renfrew nodded briskly. "We can use them to heat up a sample in the past, so we know they've been received."

Peterson arched an eyebrow. "And if, after measuring this heat increase, you decided not to send the tachyons after all?"

Renfrew said, "That option's not really available in these experiments.

See, the tachyons have to travel a long way if they're to go far back in time— "

"A moment, please," Peterson murmured. "What has traveling faster than light have to do with time travel?"

Markham stepped toward a blackboard. "It comes straight out of special relativity, see—" and he launched into a description. Markham drew space-time diagrams and told Peterson how to understand them, stressing the choice of slanted coordinates. Peterson kept an intent expression through it all. Markham drew wavy lines to represent tachyons launched from one spot, and showed how, if they were reflected about in the laboratory, they could strike another portion of the lab at an earlier time.

Peterson nodded slowly. "So your point about the experiments you've done is that there's no time to reconsider? You fire the tachyons. They heat up this indium sample of yours, a few nanoseconds or so before you triggered the tachyons in the first place."

Renfrew agreed. "Point is, we don't want to set up a contradiction either. Say, if we connected the heat detector to the tachyon switch, so heat coming in would switch off the tachyons."

"The grandfather paradox."

"Right," Markham broke in. "There are some subtle points involved with doing that. We think it leads to a sort of intermediate state, in which a little heat is generated and a few tachyons get launched. But I'm not sure."

"I see ..." Peterson struggled with the ideas, scowling. "I'd like to go into that some time later, once I've had a thorough reading of the technical material. Actually, I'm not depending on my own judgment alone in this—" he glanced around at the two intent men beside him, "—as you've probably guessed. I got an assessment from Sir Martin at the Council, and from that fellow Davies you mentioned. They say it's the straight stuff."

Markham smiled; Renfrew beamed. Peterson held up a hand. "Hold on, though. I really stopped by here to get the scent of things, not to make the final decision. I've got to make my case to the Council itself. You want electronics flown in from the American labs, and that means wrangling with the NSF."

"Are the Americans thinking along the same lines?" Renfrew asked.

"I don't think so. The Council's attitude is that we must pool our resources. I'm going to urge that you fellows get the backing and the Americans chip in."

"And the Soviets?" Markham asked.

"They say they have nothing along these lines."

Peterson sniffed in disdain. "Probably lying again. It's no secret that we English have a big role in the Council only because the Soviets are keeping a low profile."

"Why are they?" Renfrew asked innocently.

"They figure our efforts are going to blow up in our faces," Peterson said. "So they're giving token support and probably hoarding their resources for later."

"Cynical," Markham said.

"Quite so," Peterson agreed. "Look, I must get back to London. I've got a number of other proposals–conventional stuff, mostly–the Council wants a report on. I'll do what I can for you." He shook hands formally. "Dr.

Markham, Dr. Renfrew."

"I'll walk out with you," Markham said easily. "John?"

"Of course. Here is a folder of our papers on tachyons, by the way." He handed it to Peterson. "Plus a few ideas about things to transmit, if we're successful."

The three men left the building together and paused in the bare parking lot. Peterson turned towards the car Renfrew had noticed there that morning.

"So that was your car," Renfrew blurted out involuntarily. "I didn't think you could have got here that early from London."

Peterson raised an eyebrow. "I stayed the night with an old friend," he said.

The flash of amused reminiscence that touched his eyes for a split second indicated clearly to Markham that the old friend was a woman.

Renfrew missed it, being busy putting on his bike clips. Also, Markham suspected, it was not the kind of thought that would occur to Renfrew. A good man, but basically dull. Whereas Peterson, though almost certainly not a good man by anyone's definition, was equally certainly not dull.

Marjorie was in her element, The Renfrews did not entertain often and when they did, Marjorie always gave John and their guests the impression of bustling activity and even of domestic disasters narrowly averted. In fact, she was not only an excellent cook but a highly efficient organizer.

Every step of this dinner party had been meticulously planned in advance.

It was only out of a subconscious feeling that she should not intimidate her guests by being too perfect a hostess that she darted back and forth from the kitchen, chattering constantly, and pushing back her hair as though it were all a bit too much for her.

Heather and James, as their oldest friends, had arrived first. Then the Markhams, a correct ten minutes late. Heather was looking startlingly sophisticated in a low-cut black dress. In heels, she was the same height as James, who was only five feet, six inches and sensitive about it. As usual, he was impeccably dressed.

They were drinking sherry now, except for Greg Markham, who had settled on a Guinness. Marjorie thought that a bit odd right before dinner, but he looked as though he had a large appetite, so it would probably be all right. She found him a little disconcerting. When John had introduced him to her, he had stood just a little too close and stared at her and asked her rather abrupt and unconventional questions. Then, when she had backed away–both physically and from direct answers to his questions–he had appeared to dismiss her. When she had offered him some expensive nuts later, he had scooped up a large handful while continuing to talk and had hardly acknowledged her presence at all.

Marjorie resolved to let nothing disturb her. It was now over a week since the awful incident with the squatters and– She brushed the thought away. She resolutely turned her attention to her bright, fresh party and to Markham's wife, Jan. Jan was quiet, of course–hardly surprising, as her husband had been dominating the conversation ever since they arrived.

His technique was to talk very rapidly, skipping from one subject to the next as they came to mind, in a sort of verbal broken-field running. A lot of it was interesting, but Marjorie had no time to think about a subject and work up a comment before the conversation lurched off in another direction. Jan smiled at his verbal leaps, a rather wise smile which Marjorie interpreted as signifying depth of character.

"You sound a little English," Marjorie probed. "Is it rubbing off on you already?"

This served to break them off from the circle of talkers. "My mother's English. She's been in Berkeley for decades, but the accent sticks."

Marjorie nodded receptively and drew her out. It developed that Jan's mother lived in the Arcology being built in the Bay Area. She was able to afford it because she wrote novels.

"What kind of thing does she write?" Heather broke in.

"Gothics. Gothic novels. She writes under the absurd pen name of Cassandra Pye."

"Good heavens," Marjorie said, "I've read a couple of her books. They're jolly good, for that sort of thing. Well, how exciting to think that you're her daughter."

"Her mother's a marvelous old character," Greg interjected. "Not all that old, really. She's–what, Jan?–in her sixties and will probably outlive us all. Healthy as a horse and a little crazy. Big in the Senior Culture Movement. Berkeley's full of them these days and she fits right in.

Whizzing around the place on her bike, sleeping with all kinds of people, dabbling in mystical nonsense. Transcendent snake oil. A little over the edge, in fact, isn't she, Jan?"

This was obviously a standing joke between them. Jan laughed easily in response.

"You're such an unrelenting scientist, Greg. You and Mother just don't inhabit the same universe. Just think what a shock you'd get if you were to die and find out that Mother was right all along. Still, I agree that she's become a trifle eccentric lately."

"Like last month," Greg added, "when she decided to give all her worldly possessions to the poor of Mexico."

"Whatever for?" James asked.

"To show support for the Hispanic Regionalist cause," Jan explained.

"That's the people who want to make Mexico and the western US a free region, so people can move around as economy dictates."

James scowled. "Won't that simply mean the Mexicans will move north en masse?"

Jan shrugged. "Probably. But the Spanish-speaking lobby in California is so strong, maybe they can force it through."

"A strange sort of welfare state," Heather murmured.

"A farewell state is more like it," Greg put in. The chorus of laughter which greeted this remark rather surprised Marjorie. There was a quality of compressed energy being released.

A bit later Markham got Renfrew aside and asked about progress in the experiment. "I'm afraid we're pretty limited without better response time," John said.

"The American electronics, yeah." Markham nodded. "Look, I've been doing the calculations we discussed–how to focus the tachyons on 1963

with good reliability, and so on. I think it'll work okay. The constraints aren't as God-awful as we thought."

"Excellent. I hope we have a chance to use the technique."

"I've been doing a little nosing around, too. I know Sir Martin, Peterson's boss, from the days he was at the Institute for Astronomy. I reached him by telephone. He promised me we would hear soon."

Renfrew brightened and for a moment lost his air of the slightly nervous host.

"Why don't we take our drinks outside on the terrace? It's a lovely evening, quite warm, and not dark yet."

Marjorie threw open the French windows and gradually managed to herd her guests outside, where the Markhams exclaimed, as she had hoped they would, over her garden. The powerful fragrance of the honeysuckle in the hedge reached them. Footsteps crunched on gravel as they crossed the terrace.

James asked, "California is doing well, I take it?" and Marjorie, listening to others talk as well, caught fragments of Greg Markham's reply.

"The governor's keeping the Davis campus open ... The rest of us–I'm on half salary right now. Only reason I got even that was the labor union...

leverage... professors are allied with the clerical workers now ... damn students want to take shop courses ..." When she next looked his way conversation had trickled away.

Greg slipped away from the group and walked to the edge of the patio, his face clouded. Marjorie followed.

"I had no idea things were being cut back so," she said.

"It's happening everywhere." A resigned, flat tone.

"Do tell," she said, putting a bright, cheerful lift in her voice, "we here all hope things will straighten up in a short while and the labs will reopen.

The colleges are quite optimistic that–"

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride," he said sourly. Then, glancing at her, he seemed to shake himself free of the mood. "Or, if horses were vicious, rides would go begging." He smiled. "I love transmuted clich és, don't you?"

It was this sort of sudden, darting way of thinking Marjorie had come to associate with a species of scientist, the theoretical types. They were hard to understand, granted, but more interesting than the experimenters, like her John. She smiled back at him. "Surely your year here at Cambridge has taken you away from budget worries?"

"Um. Yes, I suppose it's better to live here in somebody else's past, rather than your own. It's a lovely place to forget the world outside. I've been enjoying the leisure of the theory class."

"In your ivory tower? This is a town of dreaming spires, as I think the poem goes."

"Oxford's the town of dreaming spires," he corrected her. "Cambridge is more like perspiring dreams."

"Scientific ambition?"

He grimaced. "The rule of thumb is that you don't do much first-class work past forty. That's mostly wrong, of course. There are lots of great discoveries made late in life. But on the average, yes, you feel the ability slipping away from you. It's like composers, I guess. Flashes out of nowhere when you're young, and ... and more a sense of consolidation, layering things on, when you're older."