Chapter 15 #2
“Yes. This all goes back to the headaches you get. There’s something there, Dad.
I just don’t know what yet, if it’s something biological or something integral to the way the phenomenon interacts with the electrical signals of your brain.
I’d like to get some bone marrow and spinal fluid as well, for analysis, but I thought that might upset you.
I have this vague memory that you’re terrified of spinal taps.
This wouldn’t be anything like a twentieth-century spinal, but I figured it would freak you out anyway. ”
“No shit.” I sat back. I was conscious of Lyle, Heather, and Victor all frowning at me, but I didn’t care. They weren’t sitting in my place. “You really think it’s necessary?”
“I do.”
I held his eyes for a moment. “All right.” Lyle clapped me on the back and stood. “Lyle. How much more would it take to get the other samples you need?”
Lyle raised his eyebrows and glanced at Victor.
“I can set probe to gather all samples at same time.”
“Are you sure?” Lyle asked me.
“Better to have all the data we can get, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then do it.”
It was, actually, painless. Victor shaved a small spot on the back of my head with clippers and applied a topical analgesic.
He gave me a shot, in the same spot, to further deaden the nerves in the area.
He had me lie face down with my head in a padded brace so I couldn’t move.
He maneuvered a robotic arm over me. All I saw was the shadow of the arm moving across the tile. There was a hum.
“Probe is in,” Victor said from across the room. He was either controlling the robot arm via a computer terminal or watching the computer run itself. Within ten seconds the humming stopped, and the shadow of the arm moved away. “Finished.”
“Any problems?” Lyle asked.
“Extraction was successful. I will send samples for analysis.”
There was the sound of movement, the brace around my head loosened, and Lyle helped me sit up. “Okay?”
I rolled my neck. “I guess I’m just a few IQ points worse for wear.”
Lyle smiled and patted me on the back. Behind him, Rhineland growled something at another grad student, the harsh edge to his tone carrying across the room.
Lyle’s face twitched at the sound, his smile turning brittle.
He met my eyes, but I couldn’t parse the look. “Let’s continue, Dad. Almost there.”
There were a few more tests, as well as a personality questionnaire I took on Lyle’s bracelet.
The hardest part was using the holographic keys.
There was no tactile response when I pressed them, just tapping on air.
But the buttons glowed with each “press,” and the response—the letter, the checkbox, whatever—appeared on the display instantly.
The display was razor-sharp and three-dimensional.
Brilliant and clear for the intended audience, but fuzzy and indistinct for others.
Maybe it projected the image directly into the observer’s eyes?
I could have asked, and someone would have happily explained it to me—in detail—but I didn’t.
By the time the tests were finished, it was almost six thirty in the evening, and I was both exhausted and starving. Rhineland dismissed his staff and invited Lyle, Heather, and me to dinner. “I know a terrific steak house. Casual attire.”
I was distracted as I thought of the faux-meat burgers I’d eaten with Lyle on my last jump and what kind of steak I might find now.
Lyle jumped in for me. “That sounds great, Professor,” Lyle said.
When he looked in my direction, I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and a fine-by-me shrug.
The steak house was a few blocks off campus and advertised itself as a favorite place for university staff.
Rhineland told me it was less than five years old, despite appearing significantly older.
The walls were dark wood. Faux oil lamps made for a dramatic ambiance.
LEDs mimicked candlelight, flickering and wavering and reflecting off the white tablecloths and sparkling glassware.
“This one is on me,” Rhineland said with a wide smile as we sat down in our wooden booth. Heather sat next to me, Lyle across from her, next to Rhineland. “So, get whatever you like. After all, it might…” He trailed off, and for the first time I saw a touch of embarrassment on his face.
I unfolded my napkin and gave him a tight smile. “It might be the last time I ever get to eat somewhere like this.”
Rhineland grimaced.
Lyle’s brows furrowed.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s true. Thank you for the offer. I’ll take you up on it.”
“Quite a thing,” Rhineland said.
“It is that.”
“I’ll let you look over the menu. Then, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to just chat.”
Heather and Lyle watched this exchange silently.
They gave each other insider glances, and we all buried our noses in the menus until the waiter arrived.
I ordered a martini, the most expensive one on the menu, and the filet-with-lobster special—also the most expensive.
Rhineland didn’t blink. He ordered a pricey Scotch, the same dinner, and supplemented it with an appetizer of escargot for everyone. “You have to try them.”
I wondered who was the real Rhineland: the cantankerous, curmudgeonly scientist who browbeat his students, or the kindly mentor-grandfather before us?
Which was the mask, which was reality? It didn’t matter.
I’d be gone tomorrow anyway. And Lyle could take care of himself.
He didn’t need me to protect him, to unmask his professor.
He didn’t need me.
At all.
I watched Lyle, trying to be covert about it, until our drinks arrived.
Rhineland proposed a toast. “To Scott Treder.” He raised his Glencairn. “The first confirmed time traveler in history, that we know of, and, more importantly, the father of my brightest student.”
Lyle flushed, and Heather gave a delighted laugh. I did my best to smile. We tapped our glasses together, and I took a sip of the vodka martini. It left a smooth trail of heat down my throat.
“So, Scott, tell me,” Rhineland said. “Is history repeating itself?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“You seem the best person to ask, given your perspective.”
“I don’t think I am. I barely know anything about what’s happened in the last twenty years.”
“Gone by in a blur.”
“You could say that.”
“Professor,” Heather said. Her eyes darted toward mine. “We’ve asked Scott about what he thinks is going on, with us and the world. What about you? What do you think’s happening to him?”
Rhineland leaned back, bringing his Glencairn with him. It was an eighteen-year single malt Islay Scotch. I’d seen it on the menu. The liquid hadn’t even gone into the barrels when all this began. “Well,” Rhineland said, “first of all, are we on or off the record?”
“Does it matter?” Heather asked.
“Depends.”
“Okay,” Heather said, “how about on the record, first?”
“On the record? This is a singularly extraordinary event. Scott’s experience confirms some of our most contentious theories about the basic properties of the universe.
Scott has proved that instantaneous transits forward through vast stretches of time are possible, without resorting to things like gravitational time dilation.
There are, of course, many ramifications to this.
And there are many things we don’t know. ”
“Such as?” Heather asked. She took off her bracelet and began tapping holographic keys.
“Such as, Scott’s experience doesn’t directly prove or disprove the theory of an infinitely branching timeline.
Though it does suggest, at least obliquely, the possibility there is one single timeline, a single universe, which in turn suggests, much to my chagrin, to be sure, at least some form of determinism. ”
“Can you explain that?”
“No, not really, not without subjecting you to a year of lectures and forcing you to read a dozen books on the subject.” Rhineland smiled.
“But, in short, there is a theory of the universe postulating that every decision, every possible action taken by humans or any other creature, results in a splitting of the universe. In one universe, you took the road on the right. In the other, you went left. And things branch, infinitely, from there, resulting in a staggeringly vast number of possible universes. Every possible universe.”
“The multiverse. Sure. I’ve seen the old movies. But you think Scott’s experience suggests otherwise?”
“Again, there’s no firm proof. But the fact Scott can jump ahead and appear in a universe logically consistent with the one he left—in which there is a consistent history of him having made that jump forward—suggests a single universe.
Or to be pedantic, a single universe for us.
A single path down which the arrow of time flows and upon which our existence is predicated.
And that, in turn, suggests a single possible universe—again, for us, those of us who exist in this self-consistent frame.
Which raises the specter of determinism. ”
“As in, our actions are predetermined?” Heather asked.
“Precisely. Or almost precisely. The concept would be, in short, that destiny, in a sense, works. This life is the way it is because this is the only way it can be. The sum of all the decisions and actions taken in the past since the moment of the Big Bang led to this very moment. Whatever words I say or do not say, whether I drink this Scotch or set it aside, is the only choice that could possibly have been made because it was the one that was made.”
“But that’s not predeterminism in the classical sense,” Lyle said. I got the impression he knew where this was going and added the comment at the right time to keep Rhineland’s flow going.