CHAPTER 14
I beg you, dear sisters,
to believe in the Goddess. For as long
as you do, you are nobody’s fool.
- Thalsha
"A Matron's Tale"
Etyiam
looked up from the calculations she was studying when she heard someone enter
Sarwin's office. She couldn't decide
which ached worse from her study; her eyes or her brain. But the pain of both vaporized immediately
when she saw it was Sarwin who entered the room. She sat up straight, shrugging off the slouch that the weight of
hours of concentration had impressed upon her shoulders.
"How long
have you been here?" he asked, approaching her, "You were here when I
left before breakfast this morning.
It's well past dinner time now!"
Etyiam
opened her mouth to reply, but instead of coherent speech, a long cavernous
yawn emerged from her mouth, which she could not contain despite her best
effort. Embarrassed, she hid her gaping
maw with her hand and when the yawn finally passed, after what seemed like
minutes, she regarded her new boss and mentor sheepishly.
"It
is that late then?" was all she could muster.
"Yes,
it's that late," he said, "Can't you see how dark it's become
outside? Have you eaten yet?"
"Eaten? Yes sir, I had a sandwich from the
commissary just a little while back."
"The
commissary has been closed since lunch time," he said, "You haven't
eaten in hours then."
"That
long?" she asked, trying to sound surprised, even as her belly growled in
consensus with Sarwin.
"Yes,
that long," he replied. He looked
around his office. The unfathomable
mess of papers that had seemed to leak from every surface and bin in the place
when he left this morning was now transformed.
Carefully stacked piles of paper now stood where heaps of it had been
strewn before. He could see that they
were now organized and categorized, and the paper took up much less space now
that it was neatly stacked.
"My,
my," he said, looking around in disbelief at his new and seemingly much
larger office, "This is some piece of work you did today. Thank you Etyiam. There was no need to do it all at once though. I appreciate your dedication, but there was
no need to kill yourself on your first full day in my employ!"
"Not
at all, sir," she said, "I was my pleasure to help. I felt badly that I could not stay as late
last night as I had hoped. I had an
appointment of my own I had forgotten about.
I really do enjoy such things."
"If
you say so," he replied, "I could never manage this mess. You are more clever than I."
"Most
certainly not, sir," she disagreed politely, knowing her intellect was not
a quarter of his.
"What
is that you're studying there?" he asked, pointing to the book opened in
front of her, "They look like some of my calculations."
"Yes
sir," she replied, a little uncomfortable, "I came across them while
organizing your things and was curious to have a look. I should not pry thus. I apologize. I shall look no longer."
She began to close the book.
"No,
no." he said, "I don't mind at all.
In fact, I encourage you, or anyone for that matter, to study new
things. There is no such thing as
knowing too much. I'm just amazed you
would have any interest in this inscrutable subject."
"I
wish to understand this time-travel of yours," she said, "I do grasp
the general concepts, but some of the details are still very confusing."
"Trust
me," he said, smiling, "They are confusing to anybody, present company
included. Traveling through time is the
ultimate paradox. To make it real takes
a metaphysical vision of physics."
"Indeed,"
she said, looking down at the pages of hieroglyphic formulas spread out before
her. One arcane equation was nested
within another, and another, and another, "You are a genius to have
conceived of this, sir."
Sarwin
waved his hand dismissively.
"Bah... I've just got my
brain screwed in sideways, so I see things a little differently than others
before me have, that's all."
Etyiam
smiled at her boss. But it was more
than the smile of appreciation for a minor jest. Perhaps the quip had pried the smile from her lips, but it was
the kind of grin that is brought on by new and untested feelings that are
exhilarating, yet also terrifying, to any adolescent.
"You've
got to be starving," he offered, "I am too. Why don't we grab a bite to eat?"
"I
would like that, sir."
"Call
me Sarwin."
Etyiam
smiled again. "I would like
that... Sarwin."
"Great,"
he said. He picked her coat off the
rack and handed it to her. "I know
a good place to go."
About
an hour later, Sarwin walked Etyiam to the tram station. They had had a nice, but simple, meal at a
small restaurant Sarwin knew. They had
pleasant conversation and laughed much.
But they were serious too, and Etyiam seemed especially interested in
Sarwin's theories of time travel. He
tried to explain it to her, as best he could.
Etyiam was bright, to be sure, but it was still like trying to explain
calculus to a ten year old. It wasn't
her fault. It took a special type of
brain to grasp the nuances quickly.
Most brains couldn't grasp them at all, but Sarwin was sure that
Etyiam's could. Given time.
He
had paid the bill, even though it was customary for the female to pay. But Etyiam was much younger than Sarwin and
had little money.
The
sign at the station told them Etyiam's tram would be along in a moment. His, a few minutes after that.
"Sarwin,"
she asked, "I have another question about time travel."
"If
only all my students were so inquisitive!" he said, with a somewhat
affected laugh, "What is it?"
"You
have gone into the past a number of times already."
"Yes,
I have," he replied, "But not very far. Not yet. That's not a
question, though."
"Have
you not tried to go into the future?" she asked.
"Ah,"
he said, pensively, "The future."
The smile disappeared. The
question seemed to trouble him.
He
looked down at his feet, as if they could provide the answer. "You can't go into the future," he
finally replied.
"Why
not?" she persisted, "I don't pretend to understand all the details
of time travel, but I don't see why the equations can't run positive, as well
as negative."
"They
just can't," he said, all but snapping at the girl. He felt bad and wished he could take back
the words when he saw the hurt look.
"I'm
not sure why, Etyiam," he offered, in an apologetic tone, "I just
know they can't. My hypothesis is that
you can't go into the future because it hasn't happened yet. There's just nothing to go to. It may look workable on paper, but the
universe doesn't always listen to paper."
"I
see," acquiesced the girl. A
tramcar pulled up to them and hissed to a stop.
"Your
ride," said Sarwin, gesturing toward the car with a nod of his head.
"So
it is," she said, "Good night then, sir. I mean... Sarwin."
"Good
night, Etyiam."
The
girl stepped onto the tram and the doors slid shut behind her. Sarwin watched as it pulled away. She watched him also, from the window, until
distance robbed from each of them the sight of the other.
When
she was gone, Sarwin gazed down at his feet again. The night had been pleasant, but their parting had troubled
him. She had asked him the one question
about time travel he could not answer.
The question that burned in his mind and wouldn't go away. The damnable date winked on in his brain
again.
Year
5456. Month of Cartoth. Day five.
Seventeenth hour.
He
hadn't told her the whole truth about it.
He hadn't confessed that he had, indeed, tried to go into the future and
with some success. But for some reason,
he could not go far. No matter how far
into the future he set his calculations, he always ended up at the same
instant.
Year
5456. Month of Cartoth. Day five.
Seventeenth hour.
No
farther. Not a microsecond beyond. And as soon as he arrived at it, he was
dashed back into the past, to the moment from which he had departed, without
even time to see what occurred at that portentous dead-end moment.
He
realized that that fateful date was only a few months away now and it haunted
him. It was the date they had planned
for his next expedition into the past.
Why couldn't he travel beyond that?
What was he missing? The
questions, and the date, spun around in his mind, like an annoying jingle that
gets lodged in the brain and circles around the outside, mocking the
consciousness within.
Year
5456. Month of Cartoth. Day five.
Seventeenth hour.
Sarwin
heard a hiss and he looked up to see his tramcar had arrived. The doors opened, the warm light within
beckoning him from the dark chill of the night. He stepped in and was whisked off toward home. But the question followed him. It always did.