Collision with Chronos

“It was too much of a coincidence,” Brask said. “Here was independent, objective evidence of the findings that we had thought were subjective and illusory. We immediately dispatched the time traveller to Hathar at around the time these photographs were presumably taken, and took a corresponding set of photographs from the same viewpoints.” He opened a drawer underneath the table and withdrew a sheaf of glossy prints. “Here are copies of both sets. Check them: you’ll find they match, more or less.”

Heshke did as he was told, looking over the prints. One set was in colour, the other – the old ones – in monochrome. He pushed them away, feeling that he was being surrounded by too much strangeness for one day.

“Yes, they look similar. What does that prove? That you did travel back in time after all?”

“Yes,” said Leard Ascar fiercely, speaking for the first time.

And the other Titan, Spawart, also spoke for the first time. He adopted an expression of meticulous care, choosing his words slowly. “It may not necessarily mean that. We can’t really take these photographs as substantiating our own findings. They could have been faked. Or, knowing now that time travel is possible, they could have been displaced in time, owing their origin to our future. There are a number of possibilities which do not rule out a malfunction in our time traveller.”

Yes, thought Heshke. Someone sent a package of photographs from three hundred years in the future to three hundred years in the past – a hop of six hundred years. That could have happened. But why?

It was useless to speculate. There could be a thousand bizarre, trivial, or unguessable reasons.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’m finding this all just a little bit too bewildering. Do you mind telling me exactly why I’m here?”

“Yes, of course,” said Brask solicitously. “We hadn’t meant to call on your services until we had ironed the defects out of our time-drive system, but these photographs have thrown us somewhat into confusion. So we want you to take a trip back to the Hathar Ruins of three hundred years ago.”

“Why?” Heshke asked.

“Well —” Brask hesitated. “We’re working in the dark at the moment. Our most pressing need is to know whether our present capacity to travel through time is objectively real or merely illusory. The psychologists tell us that if it is illusory then there will be anomalies in the structures that appear to exist outside our own time – much as a dream fails to reconstruct reality with accuracy. There would be something to distinguish the ruins in the second set of photographs from the real Hathar Ruins.”

Heshke glanced again at the two sets. “They don’t look much different to me.”

“Agreed. But perhaps there’s a difference the pictures don’t show. Now you know the Hathar Ruins better than anyone: they’re your speciality. We just want you to go back and make a study of them; see if you can throw any light on the mystery.”

“Those are pretty vague directives.”

Brask shrugged. “Quite so. But Leard will be going with you; perhaps you can work something out together.”

Heshke contemplated for a few moments. “This travel into a ‘fictitious past’: it would be like a descent into the subconscious mind, wouldn’t it?”

“Possibly so,” Titan-Lieutenant Vardanian said. But Leard Ascar gave vent to a derisive guffaw.

“Take no notice of all this nonsense, Heshke,” he said waspishly. “‘Fictitious past,’ my eye! The time-drive works!”

“Then the ruins …?” Heshke inquired delicately.

Ascar shrugged and then seemed to retreat into himself.

Heshke turned to Brask. “When do we go?”

“As soon as possible. If you feel up to it, today.”

“I’ll need recorders, and a few tools.”

The other nodded. “We’ve anticipated that. I think you’ll find we have everything you could require.”

“You mentioned danger. …”

“Only because the unit is relatively untested. That’s the only source of risk.”

“Apart from other aliens?” Heshke queried. “This business makes their technology look pretty formidable.”

“Yes, but not necessarily in all-area advance of our own,” Spawart replied. “After all, we were able to copy their time-drive. That would indicate that we have comparable ability.”

“That is, provided we have copied it,” Brask rejoindered, giving the other a sharp look.

“Of course we have!” snapped Ascar.

Heshke first inspected his equipment, and then was given a private room in which to rest. He slept for a couple of hours and then lay on the couch thinking over everything he had learned.

The expedition, he gathered, was to comprise four men in all: himself, the physicist Leard Ascar, and two Titan technical officers to pilot the time traveller. Departure was timed for midafternoon, and as the day wore on his nerves began to fray.

Shortly after lunch had been brought to him he was visited by Leard Ascar, who had spent the morning working on the time apparatus.

“Hello, Heshke, feeling nervous?” the sour-faced physicist said.

Heshke nodded.

“No need to worry. It’s all quite safe and painless really. This is my third trip.”