Maybe I was.
“They’ll be doubling back, of course.” Ian said, “Why was Lieutenant Fitzsimmon acting as if he was superior to Captain Stepanski?”
“Because by their rules, he is. Not having had the benefit of a proper military education, you never learned that a navy lieutenant is equal in rank to an army captain, for some strange historical reason. After that, Fitzsimmon had more time in grade. Also, a navy captain is equal to an army colonel, but why should I tell you this when you’re the one with the exalted history major?”
“Oh. Someday, I’ll look it up. For now, I think our next step should be interviewing our subordinates.”
“Right,” I said, pushing a button on my desk. “Kowalski, come in here.”
She walked in immediately, and stood before my desk, looking worried. I didn’t feel like setting her at ease.
“Kowalski, a while ago, you were down in the time canister area, standing behind Hasenpfeffer and apparently supporting his demands that our trip be aborted. Why did you do that?”
“But, I didn’t! I mean, I was there because Dr. Hasenpfeffer had invited me, but I never took anyone’s side on anything! I never said a word!”
“You didn’t have to. You stood there behind him, literally backing him up. Also, you heard me order you and the rest of the crowd out, and you didn’t obey me. Why was that?”
“But, you wanted one thing, and Dr. Hasenpfeffer wanted another, and I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything!”
“For future reference, this outfit is owned by three equal partners. If we ever have the bad taste to disagree in public again, remember that any two of us can outvote the third.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, did you know of any reason why we should not have taken that trip?”
“Well, when you got back, you were all sent to the hospital! Isn’t that reason enough?”
“Yes, but did you know about that before we left?”
“No, sir. But Dr. Hasenpfeffer did say that your trip was ‘ill advised,’ and that was hint enough for me.”
“Huh. Well, go, for now. Send in the rest of my senior staff, one at a time, and don’t tell them what all this is about.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rest of my people came in one at a time, and they all said about the same thing as Kowalski. They were there because Hasenpfeffer had invited them, and they didn’t do anything because they didn’t know what to do.
We went to Ian’s office and he repeated the procedure with his people.
We got the same results.
“Maybe we’re reading more into this thing than we should,” I said.
“Maybe. Let’s see what those military types of yours have come up with. We’ve kept them waiting for over an hour.”
“Oops! I forgot about them.”
We went back to my office and had Kowalski send in the three officers.
“I’m sorry to keep you gentlemen waiting for so long, but we got involved in something else, and I lost track of time.”
“No problem, sir,” Fitzsimmon said in his best phony British accent. “With any appointment, it’s common to make a TARR—that’s a Time Actually Required Request—to a bloke’s secretary. It saves all sorts of time that would otherwise be wasted sitting around and waiting. Your Miss Kowalski informed us of when you’d really want us here, so we got here just in time.”
“A TARR, huh? I see that you are as efficient as ever. Well then, what can you tell us about the ‘accident’ we had earlier today? What are we up against? Technical failure or sabotage?”
“Technical failure, beyond all doubt. Last night, all electronic systems in the canister were completely torn down and everything was carefully checked. The controls of the canister were in perfect working order. Early this morning, a technician typed the program in accurately, checked it herself, and then had a co-worker check it all again. I then personally verified that the program installed was the one you wrote. No one went into the canister from then until your group entered an hour later.”
“How can you be so sure of all of this?”
“Besides our personal checks, we used various classified surveillance devices to verify everything.”
“What sort of ‘classified’ devices.”
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that, sir.”
“I don’t like that answer.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s the best answer you are going to get, sir. Please consider that these devices will someday be invented by the two of you gentlemen. If you learned about them before you had invented them, you would be messing with the laws of causality, a most unsafe procedure.”
“So just what would happen to me if I did break these laws of yours?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea, sir. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a well-documented case of anyone ever daring to break those laws.”
“Then how can you possibly say that breaking them is dangerous? The best you can honestly say is that it is unknown.”
“Sir, you haven’t taken the time to consider the facts carefully. We have two entire cultures where millions of people have been using time machines for many thousands of years. Thus, there have been untold trillions of opportunities to violate causality. Consider that some of those people were probably dishonest, and that many more of them were doubtless curious. Yet there is not one single verifiable case of violated causality on record. Do you know why?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Neither do I. The best guess is that nature has some mechanism that corrects these violations. How it does this is unknown. My own thought is the data can also be stated thusly—”There is no one still in existence who has ever violated causality.’ Given that, the short of it, sir, is that I prefer existence to its alternative, and therefore I have no intention of ever messing with the laws of causality.”
“Interesting, but let’s get back to the problem at hand,” Ian said. “You said that we had technical problems. What do you recommend that we do?”
“Your equipment was designed with simplicity and efficiency in mind, which was appropriate for use in disposable canisters when only discrete electronic components were available. Now, with large, non-expendable canisters, we recommend that you redesign your circuitry for greater safety. For example, you are using only a simple, horizontal parity check. We suggest that at the least you add an additional, vertical parity check. A good investment might be in a military style, triple redundant circuit, where two out of three circuits must agree for anything to happen. With the new integrated circuits, this shouldn’t cost much in terms of bulk or power requirements. There are many other security techniques to be found in the textbooks.”
“Very good, gentlemen. Thank you for a job well done,” I said as they left.
While Ian and I mulled their report over, I called Kowalski in and asked her to tell me exactly how she used TARRs.
“Well, sir, when those three officers first left your office a few hours ago, one of them, the Air Force captain, told me that they had an appointment to see you in an hour, so I wrote it down in your appointment book. Then the Navy lieutenant asked me for a TARR, and I wrote down the time he had asked for it. Then my mail box dropped a letter from its out slot addressed to him. I gave him the envelope without opening it, of course. Then, a few minutes ago, after you’d actually called them in, I wrote down the time you called for them, and sealed the note in an envelope. I addressed the envelope with my own address but the lieutenant’s name, and the time when he asked for the TARR. Then I put the envelope in the box’s in slot.”
“So this mail box of yours has a time machine in it?” Ian asked.
“No sir. At least I don’t think it does. My understanding is that it just has a timer to drop out each letter at the proper time. I go to the post office about once a week, drop off my old box and pick up the new one at the same time, with the right letters all set to come out at the right time. Only they’re both the same box, of course. I mean, it’s my personal property, you know.”
“So the post office does the time traveling. How do they know when a letter should be delivered?”
“From the address, of course! Oh, I remember that in America, a letter is just addressed for the place you want it delivered to. Here, we have to state both the place and the time it should get there.”
“I see. And these letters are not only from yourself, but from others as well?”
“Of course. You can use a letter to talk to anyone when a phone isn’t handy. Or to talk to people in other time periods. I mean, my sister is back in 43,519 B.C., and we write each other all the time.”