Collision with Chronos

Brourne coughed and returned his attention to Heshke. “We are wondering if you have sufficient enthusiasm for the task that has been entrusted to you?” he asked, sending a chill down Heshke’s spine. “Perhaps you fail to appreciate the urgency of what confronts us. Remember that the research you’re doing has more than one motive. There is the need for scientific knowledge, of course – the need to know as much as possible about the great war our ancestors fought with the aliens, so as to give our political attitudes a firm historical basis. But there is also another reason. Already the aliens have tried to steal Earth once: who knows when they might try again? We have to know where they came from, we have to know whether they might still be lurking out there in space. We have to know about their weapons.”

Brask entered the conversation again. Into his icy blue eyes came a glint of steel, making their oddness all the more striking. “Have you heard the latest theories about how the deviant subspecies arose? It has always been a mystery as to why they should arise when they did, when the natural course of evolution is quite plainly in the direction of pure-blooded True Man. Radioactivity from warfare cannot be the answer, because the nuclear weapons used in the classical era were radiologically clean. Well, it has recently been discovered that the Earth’s magnetic field wards off high-powered particles coming in from outer space. If this field were interfered with so as to allow the passage of these particles the rate of biological mutation on Earth would increase to an unnatural level. Such a situation is consistent with the growth of deviant species.”

Heshke frowned. “But could Earth’s magnetism be interfered with?” he asked doubtfully.

“Theoretically – yes. We don’t know precisely how, but we’re working on it, naturally. I think there can be little doubt what happened – the deviant subspecies are the products of an alien weapon whose object was to destroy our genetic purity – to pervert nature itself!”

Brourne nodded his agreement. “We know for a fact that not only man was involved. Several breeds of dog existing today, for instance, were not in existence a thousand years ago.”

Heshke ignored this dubious item of reasoning. “If it could be established that Earth’s magnetic field did undergo changes at the appropriate time, then that would largely substantiate the theory,” he ventured. “But even then – could it not equally have been one of our own weapons that did it?”

Titan-Captain Brask’s response to this suggestion was indignant. “Would True Man have jeopardised the blood of the future? The idea is absurd, inconceivable. The interference can only have come from a nonhuman source, and the enemy that produced it may still exist, preparing himself for a fresh assault. We may yet be called upon to defend not only Earth, but our very genes!” And he fixed Heshke with an icy stare.

“And so there you have it, Citizen Heshke,” Brourne resumed in a tone of deadly seriousness. “Now do you see why our archaeological work is of such importance?”

Wearily Heshke nodded his understanding. The endless ideologising of the Titans fatigued him, yet he had to admit the urgency of their demands. Unpleasant though their practices sometimes were, they were a necessary force.

And at the moment a chill more penetrating than their veiled threats had entered his loins. The picture of alien fingers meddling with man’s genetic heritage was a vision of pure horror.

“You’re right, absolutely right,” he said in subdued tones. “We need to call on all our resources to meet a threat as big as this. Yet to be honest I don’t see what I can do that I’m not already doing. The Hathar Ruins are just about played out. I don’t think I can draw any more fresh conclusions without fresh evidence.”

The two Titans glanced at one another. Brourne nodded, and instantly the atmosphere seemed to relax.

“We’re aware of your difficulties,” the Titan-Major said, “and we have some news for you. In another part of the world a discovery has been made that you don’t yet know about. We want you to take part in a field trip.”

A feeling of relief swept over Heshke. He was not going to be purged after all!

Traditionally suspicious of everyone, the Titans had been baiting him, sounding out his attitudes to make sure he was the right man for the job. Evidently it was something they couldn’t use one of their own people for – Heshke was well aware that they would have liked to dispense with the services of civilians altogether, but they couldn’t. Titan scientists, if left to their own resources, too often seemed to fall down in the last analysis, tripped up by their attachment to prejudicial theories. Heshke was the foremost authority in his field and they needed him and men like him.

Often he had wondered what he would do if, appallingly, he was offered a Titan commission. To accept or to refuse both had the aspect of suicide.