Thrice upon a Time (43 page)

"Give us about an hour," Ross replied. "'We're a bit of a drive away. We'll call your room when we get there. Apologies for disturbing you, once again. I'm sure that when we've finished, you'll agree that it was necessary, however."

"I certainly hope so," Fennimore said in a still shaky voice. "Very well then, I'll expect you in about an hour."

After he had cleared the call, he got out of bed, rinsed his face, and dressed. Then he sat down at the table by the foot of the bed and began studying carefully the sheets of data that Ross had copied through. As he read, the expression of complete and utter mystification on his face only deepened further.

"The biggest single obstacle that the human race must learn to overcome is its persistent and morbid tendency to believe that certain things are impossible," Cuthrie said. The rows of faces arrayed in front of him around the conference theater listened in attentive silence. "I submit that there is no such thing. It was not very long ago that self-propelled carriages were proved to be 'impossible' on principle; survival at velocities above fifty miles per hour was once considered 'impossible'; heavier-than-air flight was 'impossible'; and so were rocket propulsion, space travel, nuclear fusion, feeding the Third World, and stabilizing global population. Throughout history, today's children have yawned at yesterday's miracles."

The conference was being held in the Health Ministry's new skyscraper in the center of London. The attendees were scientific and policy advisers from the various governments that had so far been brought into the Storbannon secret. They had come to London in response to an invitation extended by the British Government following certain approaches that had been made to Lansing by the World Health Organization in Geneva. Three weeks had gone by since Charles's call to Fennimore in his hotel room in Glasgow.

Cuthrie continued, "Yet even the most optimistic among us have always been obliged to constrain their philosophies to the observation that 'We can't change the past, but we can do something about the future.' That has remained the ultimate impossibility which has never been seriously questioned." He paused for effect, and swung his gaze slowly from one side of the room to the other. "But today, lo and behold, even that ultimate of impossibilities lies demolished at the end of the trail marked by the ruins of all the rest. The question confronting us is not 'Which direction do we take from here?'—for surely there can be no doubt about that, but, 'How do we take the next step?' "

Cuthrie paused again to invite comments, but the silence that greeted him was total. Charles had already spoken at some length, firing the imaginations of everybody present with visions of the future heralded by the new physics. But the visions had been of distant futures that lay at the ends of long, winding roads ahead, with nothing specific to guide the first moves needed to get to them. Charles had provided the tools for shaping a world, but where were the directions for using them? The paralysis that had gripped the minds of everybody who had grappled with the problem was still as much in evidence as it had been months previously. The moving finger, having writ, could now be erased; but nobody was willing to take a contract to do the rewrite.

"We have all been agreed for some time that the next step must be a fully controlled test," Cuthrie went on. "So far, however, nobody has been willing to decide what form such a test should take. We think that an ideal opportunity for such a test now exists, and we have called you all here in the hope that, as a result of what will be said today, your respective governments will see fit to add their endorsements to a decision for us to proceed." A sudden stir of interest ran around the rows of listeners at these words. Cuthrie waited for a moment, then concluded, "Murdoch Ross is going to describe to you what we have in mind. I think most of you have been to Storbannon at some time or other, and have already met Murdoch. For anybody who hasn't, he is from the United States and is the grandson of Sir Charles Ross, who spoke earlier. He is also a mathematician, and has been participating in the work that Sir Charles has described. Murdoch?" Cuthrie glanced across at where Murdoch was sitting, nodded, and sat down amid an undercurrent of murmuring from all sides.

Murdoch climbed to his feet and straightened up to face the august gathering. Charles had been the one to suggest that since the whole topic of the conference had been essentially Murdoch's brainchild, Murdoch should present it. Murdoch had accepted, although with some misgivings at the prospect of having to address an audience of delegates from the world's governments. Now, as he stood facing them with an expectant silence beginning to descend, everything that he had carefully prepared in his mind was already scrambled into a hopeless mess. He looked down at the notes that he had brought with him, but they no longer meant anything. Words poured into his head, but his mouth was unable to string them together into anything coherent.

And then he thought of the breathing vegetable that he had gone to see a few days previously in Glasgow—through which fluids circulated, and inside which proteins continued to assemble themselves only because of the never-altering vigilance of machines… which lay still only because of drugs and surgically implanted neural bypasses… which contained something that had once been a brain, but would never again think. He pushed the notes away, and looked up.

"In early May, almost two months ago, the first cases of
omnisclerosis
appeared," he said. "Today the number of confirmed cases worldwide is not far short of a hundred thousand, despite the intensive inoculation program that has been in operation for almost a month. In the past seven days there have been fifty-seven deaths among the earliest-reported victims: Also, we are told, no cure is currently in sight that will arrest the disease once the virus comes out of its gestating state and begins replicating its DNA. Therefore, in the months ahead, we can expect the death-toll to rise to at least a hundred thousand. That much seems certain.

"But that is not all. The gestation period is eight to nine months. Without doubt there are many people all over the world who are already unwitting carriers, and who, for one reason or another, will not be traced and treated before the viruses that they are carrying become active. And we know also that when that stage is reached, not only will those people be incurable, but the disease they are carrying will become communicable.

"Thus, one hundred thousand carriers have already been spreading it to who-knows-how-many more potential victims in who-knows-how-many parts of the world. So how many times one hundred thousand people will be under a death-sentence eight to nine months from now?"

He paused for a moment to let his listeners reflect on the question. A solemn hush had descended on the auditorium. Murdoch did not mention anything of the connection of the QX-37 orbiting laboratory with the whole business. The origin of the virus was still officially a mystery, and the question of how to handle the QX-37 issue was not Murdoch's problem; he was quite happy to let things remain that way.

He resumed, "Even if the inoculation program were one hundred percent successful, and
every single
carrier were traced and treated to contain any further spreading, we would still be left with one hundred thousand certain deaths. But that, of course, would be an unrealizable ideal situation. In reality we have to accept that the final count will be far higher than that before it's all over." He leaned forward to rest his hands on the edge of the table in front of him and swept his eyes around the conference theater.

"But…
just
suppose
that the vaccine had been available as little as three months ago, or maybe less, before even the first few cases turned malignant.
Suppose
that, three months ago, we had known in advance the name of every malignant case that subsequently developed.
Suppose
that the inoculation program had been commenced then, instead of three months and one hundred thousand people too late… " Excited mutterings began breaking out around the room as the gist of what Murdoch was driving at became clear. He spread his hands in appeal and raised his voice to carry above the rising hubbub.

"Not one case
of malignancy would have appeared today. Fifty-seven people who are dead wouldn't be. One hundred thousand people who are condemned to death would be living normal lives. And hundreds of thousands,
maybe millions,
who are already sentenced to join them would be reprieved.
And
you would have had your experiment." He cast a final look around the room. "That is what I'm proposing." Then he sat down. Cuthrie raised his eyebrows; beside him, Charles caught Murdoch's eye and nodded approval.

The first response came from Leonard B. Kenning, the U.S. Presidential Science Adviser. "Are you saying we change the whole timeline for three months back?"

"Three months wouldn't give enough time," Murdoch replied. "The vaccine would still have to be manufactured and distributed, probably after thorough testing. I'm saying make it
six
months—for as long as the Storbannon machine has been available."

"Six months?"
a representative from Germany protested. "Who knows what else might be affected? Everything interacts with everything in our society. We could drastically affect other things that have no obvious connection with the epidemic. The whole idea is simply too… too outrageous."

"We do it all the time anyway," Murdoch pointed out. "Every day of the week, governments make decisions that will affect every individual on the planet, but that doesn't stop them. And if you do nothing, won't that affect every aspect of society just as drastically? And could any alternative that you create be any worse? I don't think so. That's why this situation is ideal for the experiment you've all been asking for."

"Surely we need more time before something like this," an Italian insisted. "Something smaller to begin with… something we can progress slowly from. Oh, I don't know, something like—"

"There isn't time," Murdoch said simply.

"Let's get straight what you're suggesting," an Australian scientist piped in. "You're saying that we package the whole thing up—how to manufacture the vaccine and all that business—and send it back to the world of six months ago. Am I right?"

"More than just that," Murdoch replied. "Every scrap of data on the situation that led to our making the decision… even significant events that may appear totally unconnected with it. Then the world of six months ago can make
informed
decisions on the action it wants to take. It will be able to judge reliably exactly what it has gained and what, if anything, it has lost, and why. When that world gets to
its
July, it will know where to go next, unlike us." Murdoch's expression lightened somewhat. "And the beauty of it from our point of view is that whatever that world does, we will all still be part of what grows out of it."

"That's the part that bothers me," the Australian said. "Never mind all this high-sounding talk. I'll be honest; I'm bothered about
me.
I don't like this idea of somebody somewhere pressing a button, and me being—what do you call it?—reset into somebody else. It gives me the creeps. Why should I agree to it?"

"Fifty years from now you'll probably grow up taking the process for granted," Charles threw in.

"Maybe so," the Australian conceded. "But I don't happen to have grown up fifty years from now." A few heads here and there were nodding in agreement.

"It happens naturally all the time anyway," Charles said. "The timeline reconfigures spontaneously. Within the last few seconds you could have been reset from somebody who existed on another timeline to the one we're on at this moment, without even knowing it."

"That's all very well to say in theory," the German who had spoken earlier objected. "But how can
you
know for certain that it happens all the time? From what I have gathered, that supposition follows merely from abstract mathematics and indirect inferences from a few trivial tests with random numbers. And as for the claim that we can never be cognizant of the process, that sounds far too contrived to me for comfort. It certainly doesn't constitute a sound basis for anything as drastic in its effects as what's being proposed."

"It's still an act of faith," another voice declared. "We can't sanction something like this purely on the say-so of a handful of people."

"Evidence," another muttered loudly. "Give us some evidence." Other voices began joining in. Fennimore and Charles exchanged looks and then turned their heads toward Cuthrie. Cuthrie gave a slight nod, raised his hand for silence, and then gestured toward Charles.

"Nobody in this room should have any qualms about being reset along with altered timelines," Charles said, speaking in a firm, authoritative voice that compelled silence. He threw a defiant stare around the room. "You see, it's already happened… to all of you!" He paused, but everybody was momentarily too confused to offer any response. He went on, "We are here now, saying these things, as a result of a reset that the machine has already caused! Another timeline did exist on which this conference was never called, and on which everybody in this room was at this moment somewhere else, doing something different. That timeline no longer exists."