Collision with Chronos

It seemed incredible that the deception could go undetected, let alone that Su-Mueng’s absence from his proper place could go unnoticed, but somehow Hueh had managed it for ten full years. Then his crime had come to light. And the law was the law: there could be no exceptions. Su-Mueng, having been raised in what was probably the most refined culture the galaxy had to offer, and despite his tender years, had been sent down to live with total strangers in a different, cruder environment.

The first few years had been nightmarish; and though he had eventually adjusted to some degree, he had conceived a burning sense of resentment against the divided form of society.

And his father – the son of the man who sat opposite him – had been punished. Was still being punished.

He glanced at his grandfather, realising that he was something of an embarrassment to the old man. He had arrived too late, like a messenger from another world.

They had no right to do that, he thought. They should have let me stay where I belong.

He got up from the table and slid aside one of the screens that divided their small dwelling, entering his minuscule home workshop. From a slender cradle he picked up a model of Retort City he had made: two bulbous glass vessels, cinched in the middle with a metal girdle, glittering within like a tinselled tree of metal components.

He had spent the best part of two years working on that model. It was not, in fact, a model – that was simply a disguise. It was a machine. He had put his utmost into it, all his skill, all his ingenuity and patience. One thing they did in the Production Retort was train you well.

This device was going to help him go back where he belonged, to his father.

He spent the next few hours checking it over with the instruments on his workbench. Eventually he heard his grandfather retire to his sleeping mat, followed by his gentle snoring. Su-Mueng made one last test, then slipped to his own cubicle where he changed into a loose, flowing tunic with a high collar. Then he put his model of Retort City in a cloth bag and left the house.

Minutes later he was on a high-speed elevator heading for the transporter end of the Production Retort, the great metal girdle through which all commodities passed to their destinations in the other half of the city. He swept past scenes that, in most circumstances, would have been fascinating: great shining structures of steel, aluminium and titanium that comprised an ascending industrial process terminating in the delivery area.

No one paid any attention to him when he left the elevator and picked his way across the shunting yards where big cylindrical carriers were pushed through the metal neck into the other retort. He went up a narrow passage, little used, that passed behind the main control junctions. He went through a series of doors and soon was in semi-darkness, climbing a spiral staircase that went up and up interminably.

A good deal of poring over maps and schematics, and a good deal of exploring, had gone into his discovery of this route. There were in fact several such routes: the area between the retorts was riddled with service access passages. All one needed was patience and the right equipment.

At length he came to the top of the staircase and into the galleries surrounding the massive coils that ringed the interior of the metal girdle between retorts. Already peculiar sensations assailed his body, warning him that he was approaching the influence of the stupendous field of variable time that separated the two societies. There was a feeling of tension across the bridge of his nose; his eyes went slightly out of focus; and his heart gave a cautionary jump.

If he had smuggled himself into one of the freight containers and got himself carried through that way, the steeply graded time difference would have killed him whatever precautions he took. This way, threading himself through the surrounding machinery like a needle through half a dozen holes, he stood a good chance. He took the fake model out of the bag and touched some studs fused onto its base. Within, a ragged pattern of subdued lights, amber, green and white, glowed.

He touched the studs again, making adjustments. The model had now taken control of his personal “now-moment”, protecting him from the ravages of the energies in the giant coils; it would synchronise him more gently with the gradient, hopefully making the transition without injury to himself.

He went forward. He was in a place which, though cavernous, was so chock-full of machinery that it seemed like a solid mass. He squeezed between cabinets and stanchions, the hum of the machinery becoming louder in his ears. Once or twice he paused to make further adjustments to his device, and eventually the instrument told him what he already guessed.

He was through the time barrier – synched with the time of the Leisure Retort.