To the Nth Degree

By Gregory Dwyer

 

“Research, Peterson. Basic Bloody Research”. Boomed Starch. His loud voice conflicting with the general functional hallway environment of the test laboratories building, sounding more like a Parade Sergeant than a member of the upper management. “Science, as with any discovery is worth nothing, if you don’t ‘fully’ research it. They said they had.” He strode down the hallway of the TTR Laboratories. His long rapid pace dragging the agitated assistants following him down the bright hallway towards the SISTEM monitoring rooms. “Do you think James Lovell didn’t know where he was going when he set off?” 

“Er.. Lovell Sir?” Peterson responded, unsure who Lovell was in the conversation. “Our subject man is named Clark, Sir. And he.…” He began before being cut short by Starch, who, stopping so suddenly and quickly that the assistants following them practically ran into each other. Turning on him Starch’s voice sneered.

“James Lovell. First man to pilot a ship to the moon.”

“Oh…Yes, well… No, Sir.” Peterson began. 

“What?”

“I didn’t recall his name”. Peterson replied nervously.

“Apollo 8.” Another less reticent assistant, Rogers suggested, then continued in a slightly embarrassed quieter tone as Starch swung his gaze on him. “21st to the 27th of December, 1968”

“There. Classic example, Research the information. Well done, Roberts.” Said Starch before turning on his heel and striding away again.

“Rogers, Sir” Rogers attempted to correct him and was ignored.

“Research the information, Peterson.” Don’t assume!” Continued Starch loudly.

He stopped at the large tinted glass double doors at the end of the corridor and looked up angrily when they didn’t open for him automatically, waiting as the others caught up. Peterson reached forward and swiped a key card at the panel to the left and the doors opened softly. 

“I should have one of those.” Starch observed. “General Head of project …” 

“It’s not necessary for you, Sir.” Peterson tried to say calmly. “You really don’t need to be down here. Security…”

“I’m Research Operations Manager…” Starch suggested annoyed.

“This is for Operational staff only, Sir” Then realising Starch thought he was implying something, added quickly “Every entry is scanned and logged, Sir. For the Oversight Committee’s Inspection.’ Peterson said. “No need to put yourself under their scrutiny unnecessarily … Sir” 

“Humph” Starch grudgingly agreed. 

They entered the SIS-TEM space. The full room name of ‘Space Intelligence Sequential Telemetry Engagement Monitoring, had been abbreviated to SIS-TEM mainly as it was too long to put on the door sign and building map. 

His loud entry drew heads to turn and faces to look up. The room was usually a very quiet space of monitors glowing and data being quietly considered and just as quietly discussed. The arrival of the Project’s Head of Operations was never a pleasant experience for those who lived and breathed only data and numbers. Starch strode up to a tired looking analyst, Jeffery Collins, Head of SISTEM. 

“So? Tell me?” He stared at Collins. His eyes focussed intently. “Who’s fault was it?” He boomed. Others in the room flinched and many of the turned heads suddenly focussed back on the monitors streaming the data before them.

“It’s what we are looking into” Collins replied. He wasn’t going to be harangued by this senior management bully. “There is a lot of data to process and…”

“That’s what those billion dollar super computers I bought are meant to do” Starch proclaimed. “That’s why we have them.” He continued. “Are you saying “they’ made the mistake?”.

“No. I’m saying we are re-checking the data” Collins replied tiredly. “It is all I am doing.”

It’s happened. We know… Where he is, and…” He paused and swallowed. “And when he is. That’s not the problem.” Collins replied calmly. 

“So? What Happened?” Starch snapped back. Facing and glaring at the wall of the main monitors above the technicians, as if he knew what he was looking at. .

Collins paused. “There is nothing in the pre-calculation set. Something that wasn’t calculated has happened.”

“What?” Turning his face to glare at Collins. “So you made a mistake” Starch’s tone implied consequences.

“No. It’s something outside of the available information.” He paused. Then rubbed the bridge of his nose. ”You do understand, the calculations are more serious than us just saying a time and a place? And bingo we go there? You have to know exactly when and where to make the calculations work. 

“Of Course.” Starch snapped back. “I’m not an idiot.”

“The ‘When’ and ‘Where’…” Collins stated clearly ignoring the defensive attitude of Starch. “being when and where the earth was…”he paused to gather a breath. “‘in ‘space’ specifically. Exactly. At any given moment. The calculations are literally astronomical.” Collins stated. Tilting his head and looking at Starch.

“So? That’s what the supercomputers do isn’t it” Starch answered.

“Up to a point” Collins began.

Starch cut him off furiously. “Up to a point!” He exclaimed loudly. “The point is this project has cost… and is costing billions. And you’re telling me it only works… up to a point.? What point is that!”

“Time.” Collins responded. “And Space” Calm in the face of the blustering of Starch. “Time and Space which is relative”

“Don’t give me T-shirt quotes” Stormed Starch. “What went wrong?”

“That!” Collins angrily pushed a button on the console in front of him and pointed to the screen above the rows of analysts as the view changed. Everyone’s heads swung up to stare.

The large central monitor changed to a view of a small metal walled room with serious pressure airlock double doors on one side and in the centre of the room on a pedestal was a thickly padded reclining chair. Black in colour. Mostly. It was the only furnishing. But it wasn’t that which drew the eye. There was something distorting the padding. On, or more correctly ‘in’ the padding of the chair, observers could see a shape. It’s relief gave the appearance of a human body pushed into gelatine. Observers could see a face, a slightly raised right arm and hand lifting away from the padding. A left knee just above the padding surface. But it certainly didn’t appear as normal. A picture in picture inset showed the face of the form. The eyes staring. Terrified and fixed. And very dead.

“The micro-second test jump…” Collins began. Then paused. He swallowed before continuing. “Every test to date has worked. We have sent items up to 5 seconds back. And they have always arrived exactly….We’ve sent mice and even a dog.. perfectly. But this human test was only to do a micro-second…. There’s no reason …” He trailed off.

A light buzz from a console further away from Collins caused him to look towards the operator. The man drew his eyes away from the main screen and listened to someone speaking to him via his headset. He saw the man’s mouth opening slowly in surprise. He saw the man speak into his headset microphone and turn to Collins. His mouth trying to work as he formed the information.

“Marks?” Collins asked the operator.

“An earthquake Sir. Just 3.6 Richter. But. At the precise moment.” He answered stunned.

Realization crawled down Collin’s features. “Right” Collins nodded. “That would explain it.” He sat down heavily into his chair.

Starch stood there looking from Collins to the monitor, to the eyes of the subject he could see in the inset. “Explain what?” He asked.

“We moved” Collins replied. “In Time, yes, but also in Space. From where we had calculated we would be, from where we were. In just that micro-second.”

“What” Starch was totally out of his depth.

Collins looked at him. This Manager who didn’t really begin to understand the project. 

“Science. Basics. We moved as expected, the Earth through space at over 370 kilometres a second”

“Yes.” Starch replied frustrated. “Through space. I understand that.”

Collins looked at him pityingly. “We have been calculating using ‘your’ supercomputers so we know where we will be in the next ten seconds.”

“And…” Starch demanded.

“And Nature threw in a curveball.” Collins said.

“What?” Starch still didn’t understand.

Collins spoke to him as he would to his five year old sun. “We calculated from here to there. A micro second. All that computing. Perfect. But nature threw in an Earthquake.”

“I didn’t feel anything here?” Starch began before Collins cut him off.

“We didn’t either, but the Earth did. At the exact micro-second of the time travel test, the earth threw in a ‘wobble’ It changed our calculated position to somewhere else.” He said. Pausing. Looking up at the monitor and the embedded human form. “Where he is”

Realisation dawned on Starch. “Research. Basic Bloody Research”.