"Reflecting on a Tattooed Man"
When we color outside the lines of our accepted lives,
Who knows what might appear.
Picasso was crazy and Warhol was nuts, some say –
Unless they saw what had always been.
“There be dragons there!” mappers drew sitting in safe ports,
As Columbus sailed off the map.
When staying within lines fails to keep faith alive, why linger?
That would be the true insanity.
Draw on, Tattooed Man! Sketch your life for all to see.
Show your spirit in your flesh.
One day the Father will take your art and mine,
And tack it on His great refrigerator.
"On the Edge of the Dark"
It’s dark where he sits.
A black hole sucks the life from him.
It’s an emptiness that looks familiar.
He invites me to sit with him, but I squat near the door instead.
I must be ready to move if the gravity well shifts,
As my heart balances on the abyss’s edge.
We swirl like specks of dust on the event horizon, our fates inevitable.
Perhaps we should connect to find a way through,
Hoping that God will be there where nothing else can.
"This Little Light"
The surrounding darkness swells so large.
My eye turns away from the devouring lust
That creeps over sills and through keyholes
Like a mindless virus that will die with its host.
The Son shines in His irrepressible way,
But my eye cannot bear His full glory.
So lesser lights must shine out of the opposing shadow
Like stars whose beams bless as they fall.
The ebony gloom does not grasp that its power is annulled.
Like a quenched dragon it rages its futility
While life's sailors and lovers use steady pinpoints,
Finding their way to the inevitable day.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Wavelength Excerpt
Arecibo Observatory, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
October 12, 1992
“Gentlemen and ladies, what you are looking at is the archeology of the future. Five hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus left a stagnating Europe and discovered a new world. Because of his bold venture, the political, religious, and scientific world was changed forever. Today marks the beginning of another such adventure.
“From the moment the first human raised his eyes above the ground out of which he sprang, he has sought physical and spiritual guidance in the stars. Today instead of looking at the stars, we will listen to them. We do this to answer mankind’s greatest question: ‘Are we alone?’ The enthusiastic cooperation of dozens of nations is evidence that humanity is united as never before by this quest.
“No one can predict when or if we will hear anything, but the quest stands as its own reward. Who knows? Perhaps we will happen across a broadcast relic -- or better yet -- receive a message meant especially for us.”
Downrange, Cape Canaveral, USA
March 21, 2030
“Everything looks good, Colonel,” the co-pilot of the Achilles announced. His faceplate pointed downward as he focused on the dozens of readouts that made up the control panel.
“Agreed,” a woman’s voice responded. Her faceplate was turned upward. Even though the ship’s computer brain steered the Achilles during takeoff far more accurately than any human pilot, the age-old admonition to “keep your eyes on the road” was a compulsion that few pilots had been able to resist since Kitty Hawk. Besides that, the baby blue Florida sky was giving way to the sparkling cobalt of space as the Space Plane climbed out of the atmosphere.
Colonel Samantha Jacobs removed her helmet and the motion drew her auburn hair to the top of her head where it floated in the absence of gravity as if she were underwater. Its length was just beyond regulation, but the way her co-pilot looked at her told her that he didn’t mind at all. Sam had gotten used to attracting attention from men over the years. A rare few of them had been dangerous and the rest were merely boorish. Paul was a mostly enjoyable flirt. After all, if he had really been interested in something more intimate, he would have made a move during the two years they had practically lived together in the flight school that served the United Space Agency.
She smiled knowingly. “If you don’t keep your mind on your work, you’ll end up sticking this thing where it doesn’t belong.” She stroked her hair down into place. “This is your maiden voyage after all.”
“Yes, Commander. And as you know, it is most exciting the first time,” his mock sheepishness sounded thick in his Russian accent.
Ten minutes earlier, at 12:14 PM, a signal from Mission Control raced at nearly the speed of light through the DNA-laced circuits that formed the Achilles’s nervous system, and its engines roared to life in a pulse of chemical ecstasy. Unlike its predecessor, the Space Shuttle, the Space Plane launched toward the stars horizontally down a five-mile runway. Also unlike the shuttle, this next generation of manned orbital vehicle would make its return to the Kennedy Space Center in one piece. Named the “Black Horse,” it had quickly become the primary transport vehicle between the surface and the International Space Station, “Freedom.” It hadn’t taken Runway #3 long to become as familiar to space enthusiasts of the 21stcentury as Launch Pad 39A had been during the moon race of the 1960s.
Sam glanced into a mirror at the dark-mustachioed passenger who sat in the seat normally reserved for the mission specialist. Hachiro Monda was already turning green as he sank deeper into his seat as the Achilles reached the end of the runway, pulled three Gs, and clawed its way into orbit. It was the first trip off earth for the Japanese engineer.
Although there had been instances of cooperation between the major space-faring nations, it took until the year 2020 for the United States, the Russian Federation, and Japan to grasp that unless they consolidated their resources, none would enjoy a profitable future.
“I apologize for my temporary distraction,” Zimrovich continued. “You are right that I am new to this vehicle. But you are forgetting my experience in the Russian space program. Say what you want -- back then we truly had to fly ourselves in and out of space. Today’s ships run themselves.”
The computer shut down the engine at the precise moment required. The resulting loss of g-forces propelled all three astronauts upward against their restraints and then bounced them back into their seats.
The Japanese passenger spoke in a weak voice, “What do you do if you think you’re going to throw up?”
“Right now you have only two options,” Sam responded. “The first is to hold it down. I would advise taking the first option, because you don’t want to experience the second.”
“Okay.” The engineer made a gulping sound.
“Thirty seconds from orbital insertion,” Sam announced into the microphone that connected her to the co-pilot and to ground control. “Prepare for burn.” When the appropriate thrusters fired, the ship turned its belly toward the sun so that the heat shield could provide protection against solar radiation. “Control, we have achieved our initial orbital path,” she reported to those who were monitoring from earth.”
A voice with a west Texas accent sounded in her earpiece. “Roger that, Achilles. We show you on path for cargo deployment in T-minus three hours, 16 minutes. Mark.”
“Affirmative, control. Will check in as scheduled. Out.”
“That was one smooth ride you gave me, Colonel,” co-pilot Major Paul Zimrovich said. He pulled his own helmet off and turned toward her.
Sam hooked her helmet into its niche and unbuckled her harness. She gave a slight push off the seat and began floating toward the ceiling. “Just keep your fingers off the wrong buttons.” She grabbed a support ring and turned herself around to face aft. “Are you alright, Hachiro?”
The Japanese scientist had removed his helmet. He looked toward Sam but kept his head still, as if afraid that any sudden motion might increase his nausea. “I will be fine.” He turned toward Paul and offered a weak smile. “I agree with you. She handled the launch very well.” He unfastened his harness. The action caused an equal and opposite reaction. He floated upward from his chair. His face flushed and his eyes widened.
Zimrovich opened a cabinet and pulled out a plastic bag. “I think you are going to need this,” he said just before the scientist’s cheeks swelled. The engineer took the bag and bent to the task while Sam and Paul turned their attention to other matters.
Three hours later, Sam studied their cargo through a six-inch diameter window in the airlock door. The satellite sat small and nondescript in the middle of the payload bay, temporarily fastened to the floor by clamps that would release during its disposition. Its owner, an obscure firm located in rural south Florida, had agreed to the United Space Agency’s significant surcharge for adding it to the mission at late notice. Satellite deployments were a rare assignment for manned spacecraft. Most companies employed what had come to be called “orbital launch firms.” Deregulation and the cheapening of formerly high-priced technology had resulted in the proliferation of many such companies. Poorer nations such as Somalia and Paraguay had found the industry to be an uncomplicated way to generate much-needed revenue.
“You know this is my last trip,” Sam said to Zimrovich over her shoulder.
“Da,” Paul answered. “You haven’t changed your mind, I see.”
She turned around. “I guess I’ve seen enough of things up here.” Her focus moved past him to the huge blue planet that drifted in space beyond the front shield window. North America spun slowly past two hundred miles below. She pointed toward the sphere. “My place is right there.”
Zimrovich turned to look. “Where exactly? It is a big planet.”
“Western South Dakota. The summer my older brother left for college, our family spent a week vacationing there. We spent Independence Day on Mount Rushmore. Then we took the road through Spearfish Canyon on our way to Devil’s Tower.”
“And this Spearfish Canyon was a special place to you?”
She nodded. “It is one the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I guess I was like a lot of other kids at that time, their eyes locked onto video screens. But when I saw that mountain stream and those tall pines, I knew I would come back. Last month I bought a forty acre place – of course thirty of those acres are straight up.”
“You bought the side of a mountain?”
“Yeah.” Sam turned toward the sound of tapping keys and saw Monda hunched over a laptop computer working an equation. The barf bag was nowhere in sight. “A few hours more and Japan will appear over the horizon. But we don’t have the time to wait. Suit up,” she ordered.
“That includes you, Monda. We have a satellite to launch.” At her signal, her co-pilot pressed a switch and opened the cargo bay doors. Reflected light from the earth bathed the inside of the bay. She preceded Zimrovich into the cargo bay while Monda stayed in the cockpit and observed them through the airlock’s window.
She drifted toward the satellite while he remained at a small console. The plan was simple. Press one switch and the clamps would release. Press another and the satellite would ascend on a blast of high-pressure air. When it reached a safe distance, small rockets would ignite and send it on a trajectory that would conclude in a geo-synchronous orbit over somewhere that Sam and Paul were not privy to.
“Achilles, this is command,” a voice spoke from hundreds of miles beneath the shuttle. “We show one minute to satellite insertion.”
“Roger that,” Paul answered. “Our boards are green.”
Sam gave him a thumbs-up signal. Sixty seconds later, Paul pressed a button and the securing clamps rotated back silently in the vacuum.
“Board remains green,” he reported.
“Command, we are ready to deploy payload,” Sam announced.
“Proceed, commander. Our telemetry remains good.”
“Deploying,” Paul said and pressed another button. The satellite rose out of the bay on a stream of compressed air. Particles of dust swirled around in the light as the satellite cleared the Achilles and shrank to little more than a speck against the greenish brown of the American plains. Sam turned her attention to the work of locking down the now empty bay and closing the doors. She looked at where the satellite had been and paused.
Something didn’t look right.
“Do you see anything out of the ordinary?” she asked Zimrovich.
He gave a cursory glance around the bay and shrugged. “Looks like an empty cargo bay to me.”
“Is your board still green?”
He looked down. “Da. No problems here.”
She shrugged and started toward the exterior door of the airlock. Her fingers closed around the handle of the airlock door as her mind put the pieces together and realized what was wrong. She spun slowly around and saw a gray block of metal on the floor of the cargo bay where the satellite had left it.
Five hundred yards above the Achilles, a countdown inside the satellite reached zero and a beam of invisible light raced back toward the Space Plane.
“What is that?” Sam pointed.
Her co-pilot turned to see what his commander was concerned about. “What . . .?”
The small but powerful device hidden within the metal block detonated and blew a hole in the side of the ship, rupturing the fuel and oxygen lines that ran along the wall. The mixture erupted into a ball of fire that carried Samantha Jacobs and Paul Zimrovich into space. A second explosion blew the airlock door apart and separated the command cabin from the rest of the ship. Hachiro Monda might have survived a while longer had he followed his commander’s order and secured his helmet to his space suit. The vacuum of space sucked his final scream out of his ruptured lungs.
Mortally wounded, the Achilles began an unplanned descent that would deposit its remains in the Pacific Ocean seventy-five miles southwest of Samoa.
Fifteen minutes later, the satellite received a signal from a ground station and responded by opening a hatch in its side. Several panels of radar-absorbing material swung forth and wrapped around it, leaving only a small antenna exposed. A series of rocket burns moved it into a higher geo-synchronous orbit above the Aegean Sea where it powered down and awaited its next orders.
Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA
October 8
Jim Talbot stood on a walkway and looked down at the Arecibo radio telescope. Thousands of highly polished aluminum panels reflected the sub-tropical sunshine back into his eyes. It was the oldest and still largest of its kind.
He leaned his almost two-hundred-pound, six-foot frame confidently against the sturdy railing and listened as an intern spoke to a group of visitors lined up along a lower catwalk.
“Gentlemen and ladies, thirty-eight years ago someone else stood in this very spot and referred to what you see as ‘the archeology of the future,’” the white-coated woman said. “It is an appropriate term. We are digging among the stars and what optical telescopes cannot see, we can hear.” The visiting members of the United World Council’s Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space had heard all of this before. Nevertheless, they appeared impressed.
“The collapse of the large dish at Green Bank in 1988 set the International Search for Intelligence in Space back for a while, but through the determined efforts of the late Senator Robert Byrd, an even larger and more useful dish was built in its place. When Ames, California, and Jodwell, England, joined Green Bank and Arecibo, ISIS transformed a third of the Northern Hemisphere into one huge interferometer.” The observer team nodded in apparent awe.
Jim lingered behind as the intern led the group ahead to another observation point. He wasn’t really needed. These observers were little more than tourists -- feed them generic descriptions of the scope’s operations, let them snap a few harmless pictures, and on they would go to the souvenir shops, restaurants, and beaches.
Reporters were another matter. They could be difficult, especially those who worked for smaller papers. They didn’t consistently follow the rules of the media game and could ask simplistic and sometimes embarrassing questions. “How far away can the dish pick up signals? How were ‘cosmic static’ and intelligent signals differentiated? Even if a signal were received, how would it be translated? How was the fifty billion dollar annual price tag justified in the national budget in light of the recent global crash?” How seldom it was that Jim heard a question that addressed the deeper and truer issues of the project, even of life.
Jim arched his back, enjoying the warmth of the sun after having spent the last two weeks in his office buried deep in the hill that surrounded the dish. He reflected upon how ambition and happenstance had come together to bring him to this island at the eastern entrance of the Caribbean. When ISIS came calling, it was the culmination of his ambition. Let the media fixate upon project budgets and technical trivia. That’s not what had secured the commitment of his career and life.
Jim looked past the railing at rolling acreage surrounding the dish. Ninety-five percent of the Arecibo installation was underground. A ten-foot electrified fence marked the perimeter, its two gates watched by small guardhouses. All incoming vehicles were routed along a ribbon of asphalt that ended at a tunnel sealed by a steel door. ISIS had to keep a low profile in the fierce techno-war being fought by several corporations, non-profit groups, and national space agencies who vied to be the first to answer mankind’s oldest question, Are we alone in the universe? Several of these groups employed surveillance satellites as well as human agents in the hopes of stealing even a micron of information. Concerns far beyond the financial mandated such protection. The wrong people could misuse, alter to suit their purposes, or announce such information in an ill-timed manner. Its gathering, understanding, and distribution had to be carefully managed.
That was Jim’s job.
Those who criticized the Project just did not understand. Jim knew why they had to spend such large amounts of time and money listening into space, even when the needs of America’s urban battle zones screamed for funding. The end of the cold war had only served to expose man’s tendency to find hot wars to fight. The Pakistani-Indian Crisis of 2014 had nearly brought about the nuclear winter that most thought had been left behind in the successes of Reagan and Gorbachav. It was ironic that the Kashmir region over which the two countries had fought so bitterly would remain uninhabitable for at least another seventy years.
ISIS was needed because the answer to man’s problems was not in man. If it was, humans did not know how to access the key that would unlock their potential. Even if the human race did manage to avoid Armageddon, it seemed doomed to the misery of having to relearn the same lessons century after century. Science, philosophy, literature – each kept coming up empty. Even religion had proven itself impotent – nothing more than a distraction. Orthodox Jews longed for the worldwide acceptance of the Torah that would usher in a messianic age. Astrologers divined planetary alignments. Buddhists sought personal Nirvanas through the obliteration of desire. Christians identified signs of the imminent return of Jesus to earth. New Age self-help gurus were pronouncing that the Christ was already here.
Mankind had proven its inability to take the next step in its evolutionary process. This was the real driving purpose of ISIS. If it was true that Man was alone, then the universe was headed for a cosmic dead end. Jim rejected that. Certainly someone in the cosmos had found “The Answer.” Such an advanced society would not be stingy with such life-giving information.
October 12, 1992
“Gentlemen and ladies, what you are looking at is the archeology of the future. Five hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus left a stagnating Europe and discovered a new world. Because of his bold venture, the political, religious, and scientific world was changed forever. Today marks the beginning of another such adventure.
“From the moment the first human raised his eyes above the ground out of which he sprang, he has sought physical and spiritual guidance in the stars. Today instead of looking at the stars, we will listen to them. We do this to answer mankind’s greatest question: ‘Are we alone?’ The enthusiastic cooperation of dozens of nations is evidence that humanity is united as never before by this quest.
“No one can predict when or if we will hear anything, but the quest stands as its own reward. Who knows? Perhaps we will happen across a broadcast relic -- or better yet -- receive a message meant especially for us.”
Downrange, Cape Canaveral, USA
March 21, 2030
“Everything looks good, Colonel,” the co-pilot of the Achilles announced. His faceplate pointed downward as he focused on the dozens of readouts that made up the control panel.
“Agreed,” a woman’s voice responded. Her faceplate was turned upward. Even though the ship’s computer brain steered the Achilles during takeoff far more accurately than any human pilot, the age-old admonition to “keep your eyes on the road” was a compulsion that few pilots had been able to resist since Kitty Hawk. Besides that, the baby blue Florida sky was giving way to the sparkling cobalt of space as the Space Plane climbed out of the atmosphere.
Colonel Samantha Jacobs removed her helmet and the motion drew her auburn hair to the top of her head where it floated in the absence of gravity as if she were underwater. Its length was just beyond regulation, but the way her co-pilot looked at her told her that he didn’t mind at all. Sam had gotten used to attracting attention from men over the years. A rare few of them had been dangerous and the rest were merely boorish. Paul was a mostly enjoyable flirt. After all, if he had really been interested in something more intimate, he would have made a move during the two years they had practically lived together in the flight school that served the United Space Agency.
She smiled knowingly. “If you don’t keep your mind on your work, you’ll end up sticking this thing where it doesn’t belong.” She stroked her hair down into place. “This is your maiden voyage after all.”
“Yes, Commander. And as you know, it is most exciting the first time,” his mock sheepishness sounded thick in his Russian accent.
Ten minutes earlier, at 12:14 PM, a signal from Mission Control raced at nearly the speed of light through the DNA-laced circuits that formed the Achilles’s nervous system, and its engines roared to life in a pulse of chemical ecstasy. Unlike its predecessor, the Space Shuttle, the Space Plane launched toward the stars horizontally down a five-mile runway. Also unlike the shuttle, this next generation of manned orbital vehicle would make its return to the Kennedy Space Center in one piece. Named the “Black Horse,” it had quickly become the primary transport vehicle between the surface and the International Space Station, “Freedom.” It hadn’t taken Runway #3 long to become as familiar to space enthusiasts of the 21stcentury as Launch Pad 39A had been during the moon race of the 1960s.
Sam glanced into a mirror at the dark-mustachioed passenger who sat in the seat normally reserved for the mission specialist. Hachiro Monda was already turning green as he sank deeper into his seat as the Achilles reached the end of the runway, pulled three Gs, and clawed its way into orbit. It was the first trip off earth for the Japanese engineer.
Although there had been instances of cooperation between the major space-faring nations, it took until the year 2020 for the United States, the Russian Federation, and Japan to grasp that unless they consolidated their resources, none would enjoy a profitable future.
“I apologize for my temporary distraction,” Zimrovich continued. “You are right that I am new to this vehicle. But you are forgetting my experience in the Russian space program. Say what you want -- back then we truly had to fly ourselves in and out of space. Today’s ships run themselves.”
The computer shut down the engine at the precise moment required. The resulting loss of g-forces propelled all three astronauts upward against their restraints and then bounced them back into their seats.
The Japanese passenger spoke in a weak voice, “What do you do if you think you’re going to throw up?”
“Right now you have only two options,” Sam responded. “The first is to hold it down. I would advise taking the first option, because you don’t want to experience the second.”
“Okay.” The engineer made a gulping sound.
“Thirty seconds from orbital insertion,” Sam announced into the microphone that connected her to the co-pilot and to ground control. “Prepare for burn.” When the appropriate thrusters fired, the ship turned its belly toward the sun so that the heat shield could provide protection against solar radiation. “Control, we have achieved our initial orbital path,” she reported to those who were monitoring from earth.”
A voice with a west Texas accent sounded in her earpiece. “Roger that, Achilles. We show you on path for cargo deployment in T-minus three hours, 16 minutes. Mark.”
“Affirmative, control. Will check in as scheduled. Out.”
“That was one smooth ride you gave me, Colonel,” co-pilot Major Paul Zimrovich said. He pulled his own helmet off and turned toward her.
Sam hooked her helmet into its niche and unbuckled her harness. She gave a slight push off the seat and began floating toward the ceiling. “Just keep your fingers off the wrong buttons.” She grabbed a support ring and turned herself around to face aft. “Are you alright, Hachiro?”
The Japanese scientist had removed his helmet. He looked toward Sam but kept his head still, as if afraid that any sudden motion might increase his nausea. “I will be fine.” He turned toward Paul and offered a weak smile. “I agree with you. She handled the launch very well.” He unfastened his harness. The action caused an equal and opposite reaction. He floated upward from his chair. His face flushed and his eyes widened.
Zimrovich opened a cabinet and pulled out a plastic bag. “I think you are going to need this,” he said just before the scientist’s cheeks swelled. The engineer took the bag and bent to the task while Sam and Paul turned their attention to other matters.
Three hours later, Sam studied their cargo through a six-inch diameter window in the airlock door. The satellite sat small and nondescript in the middle of the payload bay, temporarily fastened to the floor by clamps that would release during its disposition. Its owner, an obscure firm located in rural south Florida, had agreed to the United Space Agency’s significant surcharge for adding it to the mission at late notice. Satellite deployments were a rare assignment for manned spacecraft. Most companies employed what had come to be called “orbital launch firms.” Deregulation and the cheapening of formerly high-priced technology had resulted in the proliferation of many such companies. Poorer nations such as Somalia and Paraguay had found the industry to be an uncomplicated way to generate much-needed revenue.
“You know this is my last trip,” Sam said to Zimrovich over her shoulder.
“Da,” Paul answered. “You haven’t changed your mind, I see.”
She turned around. “I guess I’ve seen enough of things up here.” Her focus moved past him to the huge blue planet that drifted in space beyond the front shield window. North America spun slowly past two hundred miles below. She pointed toward the sphere. “My place is right there.”
Zimrovich turned to look. “Where exactly? It is a big planet.”
“Western South Dakota. The summer my older brother left for college, our family spent a week vacationing there. We spent Independence Day on Mount Rushmore. Then we took the road through Spearfish Canyon on our way to Devil’s Tower.”
“And this Spearfish Canyon was a special place to you?”
She nodded. “It is one the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I guess I was like a lot of other kids at that time, their eyes locked onto video screens. But when I saw that mountain stream and those tall pines, I knew I would come back. Last month I bought a forty acre place – of course thirty of those acres are straight up.”
“You bought the side of a mountain?”
“Yeah.” Sam turned toward the sound of tapping keys and saw Monda hunched over a laptop computer working an equation. The barf bag was nowhere in sight. “A few hours more and Japan will appear over the horizon. But we don’t have the time to wait. Suit up,” she ordered.
“That includes you, Monda. We have a satellite to launch.” At her signal, her co-pilot pressed a switch and opened the cargo bay doors. Reflected light from the earth bathed the inside of the bay. She preceded Zimrovich into the cargo bay while Monda stayed in the cockpit and observed them through the airlock’s window.
She drifted toward the satellite while he remained at a small console. The plan was simple. Press one switch and the clamps would release. Press another and the satellite would ascend on a blast of high-pressure air. When it reached a safe distance, small rockets would ignite and send it on a trajectory that would conclude in a geo-synchronous orbit over somewhere that Sam and Paul were not privy to.
“Achilles, this is command,” a voice spoke from hundreds of miles beneath the shuttle. “We show one minute to satellite insertion.”
“Roger that,” Paul answered. “Our boards are green.”
Sam gave him a thumbs-up signal. Sixty seconds later, Paul pressed a button and the securing clamps rotated back silently in the vacuum.
“Board remains green,” he reported.
“Command, we are ready to deploy payload,” Sam announced.
“Proceed, commander. Our telemetry remains good.”
“Deploying,” Paul said and pressed another button. The satellite rose out of the bay on a stream of compressed air. Particles of dust swirled around in the light as the satellite cleared the Achilles and shrank to little more than a speck against the greenish brown of the American plains. Sam turned her attention to the work of locking down the now empty bay and closing the doors. She looked at where the satellite had been and paused.
Something didn’t look right.
“Do you see anything out of the ordinary?” she asked Zimrovich.
He gave a cursory glance around the bay and shrugged. “Looks like an empty cargo bay to me.”
“Is your board still green?”
He looked down. “Da. No problems here.”
She shrugged and started toward the exterior door of the airlock. Her fingers closed around the handle of the airlock door as her mind put the pieces together and realized what was wrong. She spun slowly around and saw a gray block of metal on the floor of the cargo bay where the satellite had left it.
Five hundred yards above the Achilles, a countdown inside the satellite reached zero and a beam of invisible light raced back toward the Space Plane.
“What is that?” Sam pointed.
Her co-pilot turned to see what his commander was concerned about. “What . . .?”
The small but powerful device hidden within the metal block detonated and blew a hole in the side of the ship, rupturing the fuel and oxygen lines that ran along the wall. The mixture erupted into a ball of fire that carried Samantha Jacobs and Paul Zimrovich into space. A second explosion blew the airlock door apart and separated the command cabin from the rest of the ship. Hachiro Monda might have survived a while longer had he followed his commander’s order and secured his helmet to his space suit. The vacuum of space sucked his final scream out of his ruptured lungs.
Mortally wounded, the Achilles began an unplanned descent that would deposit its remains in the Pacific Ocean seventy-five miles southwest of Samoa.
Fifteen minutes later, the satellite received a signal from a ground station and responded by opening a hatch in its side. Several panels of radar-absorbing material swung forth and wrapped around it, leaving only a small antenna exposed. A series of rocket burns moved it into a higher geo-synchronous orbit above the Aegean Sea where it powered down and awaited its next orders.
Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA
October 8
Jim Talbot stood on a walkway and looked down at the Arecibo radio telescope. Thousands of highly polished aluminum panels reflected the sub-tropical sunshine back into his eyes. It was the oldest and still largest of its kind.
He leaned his almost two-hundred-pound, six-foot frame confidently against the sturdy railing and listened as an intern spoke to a group of visitors lined up along a lower catwalk.
“Gentlemen and ladies, thirty-eight years ago someone else stood in this very spot and referred to what you see as ‘the archeology of the future,’” the white-coated woman said. “It is an appropriate term. We are digging among the stars and what optical telescopes cannot see, we can hear.” The visiting members of the United World Council’s Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space had heard all of this before. Nevertheless, they appeared impressed.
“The collapse of the large dish at Green Bank in 1988 set the International Search for Intelligence in Space back for a while, but through the determined efforts of the late Senator Robert Byrd, an even larger and more useful dish was built in its place. When Ames, California, and Jodwell, England, joined Green Bank and Arecibo, ISIS transformed a third of the Northern Hemisphere into one huge interferometer.” The observer team nodded in apparent awe.
Jim lingered behind as the intern led the group ahead to another observation point. He wasn’t really needed. These observers were little more than tourists -- feed them generic descriptions of the scope’s operations, let them snap a few harmless pictures, and on they would go to the souvenir shops, restaurants, and beaches.
Reporters were another matter. They could be difficult, especially those who worked for smaller papers. They didn’t consistently follow the rules of the media game and could ask simplistic and sometimes embarrassing questions. “How far away can the dish pick up signals? How were ‘cosmic static’ and intelligent signals differentiated? Even if a signal were received, how would it be translated? How was the fifty billion dollar annual price tag justified in the national budget in light of the recent global crash?” How seldom it was that Jim heard a question that addressed the deeper and truer issues of the project, even of life.
Jim arched his back, enjoying the warmth of the sun after having spent the last two weeks in his office buried deep in the hill that surrounded the dish. He reflected upon how ambition and happenstance had come together to bring him to this island at the eastern entrance of the Caribbean. When ISIS came calling, it was the culmination of his ambition. Let the media fixate upon project budgets and technical trivia. That’s not what had secured the commitment of his career and life.
Jim looked past the railing at rolling acreage surrounding the dish. Ninety-five percent of the Arecibo installation was underground. A ten-foot electrified fence marked the perimeter, its two gates watched by small guardhouses. All incoming vehicles were routed along a ribbon of asphalt that ended at a tunnel sealed by a steel door. ISIS had to keep a low profile in the fierce techno-war being fought by several corporations, non-profit groups, and national space agencies who vied to be the first to answer mankind’s oldest question, Are we alone in the universe? Several of these groups employed surveillance satellites as well as human agents in the hopes of stealing even a micron of information. Concerns far beyond the financial mandated such protection. The wrong people could misuse, alter to suit their purposes, or announce such information in an ill-timed manner. Its gathering, understanding, and distribution had to be carefully managed.
That was Jim’s job.
Those who criticized the Project just did not understand. Jim knew why they had to spend such large amounts of time and money listening into space, even when the needs of America’s urban battle zones screamed for funding. The end of the cold war had only served to expose man’s tendency to find hot wars to fight. The Pakistani-Indian Crisis of 2014 had nearly brought about the nuclear winter that most thought had been left behind in the successes of Reagan and Gorbachav. It was ironic that the Kashmir region over which the two countries had fought so bitterly would remain uninhabitable for at least another seventy years.
ISIS was needed because the answer to man’s problems was not in man. If it was, humans did not know how to access the key that would unlock their potential. Even if the human race did manage to avoid Armageddon, it seemed doomed to the misery of having to relearn the same lessons century after century. Science, philosophy, literature – each kept coming up empty. Even religion had proven itself impotent – nothing more than a distraction. Orthodox Jews longed for the worldwide acceptance of the Torah that would usher in a messianic age. Astrologers divined planetary alignments. Buddhists sought personal Nirvanas through the obliteration of desire. Christians identified signs of the imminent return of Jesus to earth. New Age self-help gurus were pronouncing that the Christ was already here.
Mankind had proven its inability to take the next step in its evolutionary process. This was the real driving purpose of ISIS. If it was true that Man was alone, then the universe was headed for a cosmic dead end. Jim rejected that. Certainly someone in the cosmos had found “The Answer.” Such an advanced society would not be stingy with such life-giving information.
I Feel Young
Our family chose the North Carolina side of the Smoky Mountains as our vacation destination during the summer of 2007. I welcomed the break from the routine of job and chores. The younger two of our children were going to college in a few weeks and I knew that this trip might be the last one my wife and I shared with them for some time.
Our first campsite was at 5,300 feet with no facilities except for flush toilets and cold water. Our last campsite was alongside a beautiful stream with blessed hot showers. We hiked trails through four kinds of forest environments and waded up to beautiful waterfalls. Through drama re-enactments, we came to appreciate the culture of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee People that dates back to pre-history in North America.
As we passed along one of the hiking trails, a mountain rose up to our right and a stream rolled by to our left. I heard another hiker behind us. “It all makes you feel kinda small.”
I appreciate what that person meant, but in that moment another awareness came to me. “It makes me feel kinda young,” I said to my wife.
“Small” can feel like helpless or insignificant or unimportant. In comparison to the huge universe, what is the earth or me for that matter? Compared to a river that can cut a Grand Canyon out of ancient rock, what can I do to make a difference? “Feeling small” can incapacitate me. It can steal opportunity from my life and tempt me to escape my responsibility.
On the other hand, “feeling young” means that compared to the rocks and trees and seas, I’m just getting started and I don’t have a lot to protect or preserve. Long before the Great Smokies became a national park, settlers built the cabins that now sit on display. The Europeans arrived to find the Cherokee already there.
Thousands of years before that were the deer, the wolf, and the bear. I was only the most recent in a long line of travelers. Who am I to think that I am further along or more important than any of them? Why do I think I have to be? If I am “young” maybe the pressure is off and I don’t have to know all the answers or have it all together. If I am “young” maybe I can still take risks with new ways of thinking and acting.
Long ago in a faraway land, a Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi revealed that it takes a youthful heart to thrive through this life and into the next: “Unless you are converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” He knew what He was talking about because He had stepped out of eternity into our time frame for a little while. He brought the perspective we needed.
God help me to stay “young:” wise enough to realize that the goal of life is to receive it as the gift it is -- especially when I’m not on vacation.
Our first campsite was at 5,300 feet with no facilities except for flush toilets and cold water. Our last campsite was alongside a beautiful stream with blessed hot showers. We hiked trails through four kinds of forest environments and waded up to beautiful waterfalls. Through drama re-enactments, we came to appreciate the culture of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee People that dates back to pre-history in North America.
As we passed along one of the hiking trails, a mountain rose up to our right and a stream rolled by to our left. I heard another hiker behind us. “It all makes you feel kinda small.”
I appreciate what that person meant, but in that moment another awareness came to me. “It makes me feel kinda young,” I said to my wife.
“Small” can feel like helpless or insignificant or unimportant. In comparison to the huge universe, what is the earth or me for that matter? Compared to a river that can cut a Grand Canyon out of ancient rock, what can I do to make a difference? “Feeling small” can incapacitate me. It can steal opportunity from my life and tempt me to escape my responsibility.
On the other hand, “feeling young” means that compared to the rocks and trees and seas, I’m just getting started and I don’t have a lot to protect or preserve. Long before the Great Smokies became a national park, settlers built the cabins that now sit on display. The Europeans arrived to find the Cherokee already there.
Thousands of years before that were the deer, the wolf, and the bear. I was only the most recent in a long line of travelers. Who am I to think that I am further along or more important than any of them? Why do I think I have to be? If I am “young” maybe the pressure is off and I don’t have to know all the answers or have it all together. If I am “young” maybe I can still take risks with new ways of thinking and acting.
Long ago in a faraway land, a Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi revealed that it takes a youthful heart to thrive through this life and into the next: “Unless you are converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” He knew what He was talking about because He had stepped out of eternity into our time frame for a little while. He brought the perspective we needed.
God help me to stay “young:” wise enough to realize that the goal of life is to receive it as the gift it is -- especially when I’m not on vacation.
Keeping Time
Jacqui felt the shopkeeper stop a polite four feet behind her and waited another three seconds before she acknowledged his presence. “Does it run?” she asked over her shoulder. She waited to hear the surprised breath most people took when they discovered that she had disarmed them and they were no longer the primary actors. This time, she heard nothing. Perhaps she had inherited the ability from her mother. Nothing escaped that woman’s notice. She had always seemed to know exactly where her children were no matter how carefully they planned their escapes into the neighborhood. Like Jacqui, her sense of security came from her uncanny knowledge of when and from what direction to expect everything.
“If you are referring to the clock,” the man said, “it certainly does. All of our merchandise is in good working order.”
She heard an undercurrent of pride in his voice, absent of the cloying smugness in most that left a bad aftertaste. “Does it keep time?” she continued, keeping he eyes forward.
“I did not know that one could ‘keep’ time, Miss . . .”
She allowed a quarter turn toward this peculiar man and looked into his round face with one eye. He returned her gaze with an inviting smile. She dropped her eyes a degree and read the badge on his dark green shirt: Xavier. She completed her turn and faced him. “My name is Jacqueline Kimble. I don’t see a price tag. How much are you asking?”
Xavier paused just long enough for her to understand that negotiations would not be simple today. “To answer your first question, be assured that the mechanism is very precise, especially for the era of its creation. And yes, it is for sale.” He quoted her a price ten percent beyond what she had in mind to pay.
“Tell me about its previous owner. I purchase only those things that have been well-cared for.”
His smile grew even larger. “I am delighted that you are interested in this piece’s story. Too many these days think that time’s turnings begin and end with them.” Xavier adjusted his stance like a fencer preparing for a counter stroke. “We obtained the clock at auction from the estate of a Mr. Harold Armbrister.”
“Armbrister -- the millionaire who disappeared?”
“Yes, sadly so. It was the admirable and yet lamentable fact that he outlived the rest of his family that occasioned the auction. This particular clock hung in his library.” Xavier paused and looked past her. “The total in the library was well over twenty-five thousand.”
“Clocks?” She envisioned a cavernous hall covered with timepieces. Something out of Wonderland. The ticking would be raucous.
Xavier shook his head. “Books, Miss Kimble. No one can manage that much time.”
Mildly flustered, Jacqui turned back to the clock. Its twelve-inch face perched above a rectangular wooden box that held the gears and the pendulum. A glass pane edged with a gold covered the face and opened on two light metal hinges. Simple hands pointed at black numerals marking the time. Small block numbers denoted the date, month, and year.
“It is a attractive piece,” she admitted.
“Perhaps you feel it reaching out to you.”
Jacqui turned around a little more quickly than she planned. “What do you mean?”
She felt Xavier’s eyes lock onto hers. “The pearl of great price,” he said. Jacqui looked at him, waiting. “From the Biblical story, Miss Kimble. When you come across such a treasure, all else will lose value compared with it.”
Her brow twisted upward as she puzzled out his meaning. “It’s not like I’m going to sell my soul or something. It’s just a clock.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Something made her start to take a cautious step back, but she caught herself before she actually moved. “You must admit that the price is modest compared to others of its generation.” He reached around her and she leaned away as his hand brushed past her breast. He opened the little door and revealed the pendulum. “Here you can see a note saying that it was crafted in the year 1910 in Kobe.”
She bent closer to read and her nose picked up a scent of some woody spice from within the small space. “Japan?”
The shopkeeper inclined his head in a slight bow. “A product of shall we say, a more reflective era?”
Jacqui pointed at a tiny lever mounted on the right wall of the works compartment. “What is this for? It looks like a kind of switch.”
“Some clocks were customized to the buyer’s specifications. Does the note give any instructions?”
She squinted again. “Much of the writing is smeared or worn off.” Near the bottom she found small words written in English script and read them aloud. “‘Time is the school in which we learn; Time is the fire in which we burn.’ Is that a poem or something?” She pressed the lever up with her finger and it clicked into place. She pressed down until it passed two clicks through its original location and settled in the lower position. Nothing happened. “I guess I’ll find out what it does later.” She checked her watch and set the time: 10:01. She tapped the pendulum to start the clock.
“I’ll take it. It will look good in my entry way.”
“You are furnishing a new house?”
She twisted her head around. How . . ? She drew a breath to slow her suddenly pounding heart. “There was a fire. We tried to go back in and save what we could, but . . .”
“We? Is there a Mr. . . .?”
“No. Yes. I mean, not for much longer. The divorce was already in process and the fire simplified things.” Her eyes dropped to the floor before she could catch herself. “There wasn’t much left to fight over.”
“I am sorry, Mrs. Kimble. I do not mean to pry. I cannot imagine how . . . “
Her jaw hardened and she raised her eyes to meet the shopkeeper’s. “He’ll be fine with his part of the insurance money.” She turned back around to the clock. “This is not quite the same as the one I lost. It will help me start over.” She countered with the price she originally had in mind.
Xavier nodded. “I hope that you find that to be true.” She walked to the front desk to complete the transaction and the chimes of the clock rang out ten times as the hour struck.
Simpler times. Jacqui pulled into the driveway of the two-bedroom ranch house where she would start her new life with work and friends. She cradled the clock in her left arm as she slid her keycard through the electronic lock of her front door. She heard a reassuring click as the security system disengaged. She pressed down on the handle and the door slid silently open. Most of the necessary furnishings were already in place – appliances, living room and bedroom furniture. A new wardrobe hung in the walk-in closet and dishes, pots, and pans filled the cabinets along with groceries. Curtains dressed up the windows. She unpacked the clock and set it on the table. It was the first piece that would start giving the place character. Just in time for her favorite time of year -- autumn.
Character. Charm. Appeal. Those were the things that made life interesting. Bill’s lack of the above had provoked her decision to leave before she wasted any more of her life. Six months into the marriage all he could talk about was work and bills. And then there was all his nagging about starting a family. They had agreed to wait at least five years. How had getting married turned a fun-loving man into such a bore? The pre-nuptial would restore some of the money but there was nothing to do about the lost time and energy. If only she had known . . .
She found a place on the wall between the coat closet and the hallway bathroom and drove a nail through the drywall into a stud. With the clock mounted, she stepped back to view it. She visualized herself waking in the early morning to the sounds of its chimes striking six o’clock -- or seven if she had come in late the previous night. She set the time and opened the little door. The lever was still set in the lowest position. She placed her fingertip under it and popped it two clicks into the upper position, started the pendulum, and closed the door. “What are you for?” she said to the tiny piece of brass. “Maybe I can find something about you on the Internet.”
Minutes later, she changed her mind. Instead of searching the Internet, she ate a light dinner in the company of a good book and finished the evening with a hot bath. On the way to the bedroom she noticed the time: eleven o’clock.
The next morning she awoke with a headache and sunlight streaming through her window. She threw back the covers and stumbled into the bathroom. She had never slept this late! Ten minutes later she plunged through her front door, almost falling over a pile of newspapers individually wrapped in plastic on her small porch.
Someone’s idea of an early Halloween prank? Thirty minutes later, she drove into her building’s garage and found an unfamiliar car parked in the spot she had won and kept for eight months as the company’s high producer. She rode the elevator to the fourth floor and walked into her office -- third on the left. The door was open and a man was sitting behind her desk talking on the phone.
“Who are you?” she said from the doorway.
“I’ll get back to you,” the man said into the phone and then hung up. “Excuse me?”
“Who are you?’”
“Rob Keener. Why?”
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my desk.”
“No, it’s not.” She looked at the bare walls and nearly empty bookshelf. “What have you done with my things?”
“Wait a minute! I’ve worked here since I was hired two weeks ago. I’ve never seen you before.”
She reared back, her shoulders straightening. “I am Jacqueline Kimble, the top sales generator at this company!”
A shocked voice announced itself over her shoulder. “Jacqui? My God! Is it you?”
She turned around and recognized Lori Stine, the office manager. “Who else did you expect? What’s going on? First somebody’s taken my parking space and now this guy’s in my office.”
Lori led her into the hallway and spoke in a lowered voice. “Jacqui, where have you been?”
“What do you mean? You know that I had to spend the weekend setting up my new house. I’m sorry that I missed the trip to Chicago with you and Ben, but now its Monday and I’m back.”
“No, it’s not.” Lori shook her head.
“It’s not what?”
“It’s not Monday.”
“Sure it is. Last night was Sunday and I woke up this morning. Monday.”
Lori shook her head again as if she was trying to clear her thoughts. “After a week, John tried to call you but you didn’t answer. He sent Ben over to see if you were OK but your house was locked up. He found your car in the drive, but not you. After another week he called the police but they said that there was nothing they could do.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s been a month since anyone’s seen you. It’s Tuesday. Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“We thought you had moved away or were dead or something. You don’t work here anymore.”
Jacqui ran a hand through her short blond hair. “I need to talk with John. Where is he?”
“He’s in California closing the Toberton deal. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
“What am I supposed to do until then?”
“Gosh, Jacqui. I don’t know.” She placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”
A tremor raced through her back and hips, weakening her legs, and a pain shot from the back of her head out through her eyes. Everything seemed to turn inside out for a moment, like a photograph’s negative. “I don’t feel alright.”
As Jacqui drove home, her thoughts whirled. She tossed three painkillers into her mouth and chased them with some bottled water. Lori had told her that during the third week of her “disappearance” John had called the police. They obtained a warrant to enter the house, but found nothing out of the ordinary. “FM 103.5” she said. The voice of B.J. Thomas crooned out the end of a song: “because I’m free . . .nothin’s worrying me.” The digital readout displayed the time. 10:00AM. The DJ continued with a traffic report followed by the weather. Thanksgiving should be milder than usual around the District with rain coming in across Maryland on Saturday. Some delays possible for travelers through Dulles International Airport.
“Off,” she said and the radio shut down. She noticed that cardboard turkeys and pumpkins covered store windows and Santa Claus was appearing as well. She drove into her driveway and saw that the yard was coated with leaves. It had just been mid-October! She had completely missed the changing of the foliage. The pile of newspapers remained in front of her door. The most recent date was November 15th. The Post had probably canceled her subscription for non-payment.
She headed to the closet to hang up her coat and read the time on the clock: 2:00PM. “What’s wrong with you? He said you’d keep time.” She opened the face and spun the hands backward three hours plus. Then she opened the smaller door below and saw that the little lever still pointed upward. She placed a finger against it and shoved it down to the lowest position. A bolt of fire lanced through her skull. She leaned against the wall and decided to lie down. She made it as far as the sofa.
It was still daylight when she woke to the sound of her phone ringing. She found it in the kitchen and checked the caller I.D: Unknown.
She held it up to her ear. “Yes?”
“Hello Jaqueline Kimble. You have had quite a day I would imagine.” The man’s voice held a light British accent.
“Who is this?”
“Please believe that I am a friend -- perhaps the most important person in your life at this moment.”
The pain in her temples threatened to glaze her vision. “Tell me who you are or I will have this call traced!”
“I am calling on behalf of Mr. Harold Armbrister. Earlier today you purchased a clock that once belonged to him.”
Earlier today? “Harold Armbrister went missing over a year ago and it has been a month since I have been to Xavier’s. I’m calling the police.”
“Please do not do that, Mrs. Kimble,” the man said quickly. “You have purchased a very special timepiece indeed. It is more dangerous than you may know, but then I believe you have already experienced some of its effects, haven’t you?”
“I’m listening.” She held her voice firm, but sat down gently on her couch.
“What I have to say is best delivered in person. Would you be willing to meet me and bring it with you?”
“Why? Do you want it back?”
“No,” the man said quickly. Then his voice softened. “My employer’s time with it is over. But he was concerned that . . .” He paused. “Will you meet with me?”
Jacqui could see the clock from where she sat. The pendulum was rocking steadily. The hands pointed to the time: 4:00PM. But what day was it? She went to the front door and pulled it open. The grass was green and uncluttered with leaves. One newspaper rested on the step. She stooped and read today’s date on the front page.
She stood up, shaking. “Tell me what is going on.”
“As I said, I would rather speak with you in person.”
“Alright. I want to see your face, too, when I tell you what has been happening to me.”
“Or course. One more thing. Before you leave your house, make sure the lever in the clock is in the middle position.”
She drove through Fairfax and noticed that Jack O’Lanterns had returned to front stoops, smiling toothlessly into the increasingly cold afternoon breeze. Santa had returned to the North Pole. She called her office as she approached the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. The secretary picked up and she asked to speak with Lori. There were no urgent messages for her and Lori had never heard of a Rob Keener.
The man had said he would be wearing a Washington Redskins jacket and would wait for her on a bench at the east entrance of the World War II memorial. She pulled the car into an empty parking lot. She realized that she knew nothing about Armbrister other than what she had read on the Internet. She glanced down at the clock on the seat beside her. Had two clicks of a brass lever taken her into the future and then back to the present? It was impossible to believe. She wondered about Armbrister’s experience with the clock. Given its awesome capabilities, why would the man sell it? What if he had not given up the clock voluntarily? The man had achieved power and wealth on an immense scale and then disappeared. If the clock was as powerful as she feared, what might he be willing to do to get it back?
She exhaled loudly and put the car back into gear. Come on! Let’s get this over with. She comforted herself that it was daytime and cars came and went continuously through the area. Even so, she reassured herself by touching the mini-taser in her purse. It was about the size of a lipstick but it packed enough of a jolt to put someone down long enough for her to get away.
Five minutes later, she pulled into the parking area and scanned the nearby benches for a man wearing a cranberry football jacket. Aside from a few bundled up picture-takers, she saw no one. “Guess I’ll have to look for him,” she said.
She reached for the door handle as someone tapped on the passenger door window. A red-faced man with gray hair combed tightly across his forehead was bending down and smiling at her. Can I come in? she read his lips through the safety glass. She nodded.
She pulled the clock closer with one hand and slipped the other into her purse as he opened the door and got in. “Mrs. Kimble? I hope I didn’t frighten you pecking on your window like that. It’s just that the blood thins a bit past seventy and I thought we could talk better out of this air.”
Something about the man played in the back of her mind, as if she had met him somewhere before. He seemed genuine enough as he waited for her reply. “Hello,” she managed. “What do you want?”
“All I want to do is help you.” He smiled as if a funny thought had occurred to him. “You do know that you possess -- as you might say -- all the time in the world?”
His attempt at humor irritated her. “Who are you and what do you know about it?”
His smile disappeared. “You can call me Mr. White. Your clock is a wonderful and terrible thing. As you have probably surmised, it is a means of slipping through time.” His eyes dropped to the clock and Jacqui saw a wave of something pass through him, as if he both desired it and was repulsed by it. “Would you tell me what has happened to you so far.”
Jacqui told him about her apparent trip to the future and return to the present. “Since then I have had bad headaches, worse than any migraine.”
He sighed. “They are one of the reasons Mr. Armbrister quit using the device,” he said. “The effect of crossing temporal boundaries accumulates until it can no longer be endured. He said that he dared not slip one more time.”
“How does it work?”
“I do not know exactly. He had the best scientists examine it, but as far as they discovered, it is just an ordinary clock. He never told them what it could do. His next option was to track the manufacturer – a small shop on the north end of Kobe, Japan. Sadly, he found that the shop had burned the same year that the clock was made. The entire inventory was lost and the company never recovered. This clock was the only one to survive.”
“How many times did he time travel?”
The man settled in his seat, enjoying the comfort of the warm car. “As I said, ‘slip’ is a more correct term. ‘Travel’ implies that one is doing the moving. Time is always moving and we are carried along with it at its pace like leaves on the surface of a steam. When the lever is in the center position, you move along with time. When you move the lever downward -- into reverse – you release your hold on the moment and time flows on leaving you in the past. Have you ever ridden the cable cars in San Francisco?” Jacqui shook her head, her eyes moving off his face and back again. “When the operator releases the clamp on the underground cable, the car stays put and the cable goes on. Mr. Armbrister believed that the clock functioned like a clutch on the transmission connecting you to time’s engine. It’s effects are demanding, but they are mitigated somewhat by the function of the date calibrator.”
“What is that?”
White pointed. “Right here. You set the blocks to the date you wish and then flip the lever in the appropriate direction. It functions like a cruise control and reduces the stress upon the user.” He saw Jacqui’s expression of incomprehension. “You slipped without setting a parameter? It is a miracle that you ever returned or even that you woke up. You could have been forever out of time!”
“I went into the future. How could I go somewhere that doesn’t exist yet?”
White watched a mounted police officer check on two disheveled men sitting on a bench who were warming their hands over what looked like a burning can of Sterno® scavenged from the trash. “Haven’t you experienced déjà vu or woken from a vivid dream that you forgot in minutes?”
“Sure, everyone has.”
“Could it not be one way of describing a slip into the future that has been mostly forgotten?”
“But I haven’t forgotten what happened to me.”
“Really? How much can you remember?”
Jacqui started to answer but found that she could not recall details of that day -- such as the color of the car in her parking space or the name of the man at her desk. She remembered her friend Lori, but that might have been because she had already known her before the ‘slip.’ She shook her head in frustration.
“The experience will soon fade out of your memory completely. That is why the myth of returning from the future with information on which to build a fortune is impossible. The knowledge just doesn’t last long enough. Even if you wrote it down, since it wasn’t your true future it is of no consequence.”
“What do you mean?”
“That future became possible only when you were taken out of the equation of its past. Had you remained in the present nothing like that could have happened. Now that you are back, your future is, as they say, what you make of it.”
Jacqui sat silently listening to the autumn wind blow around the car. A couple walked by holding hands, heading toward the monument.
Mr. Smith spoke again. “How the clock works is not what is most important. I want to help you understand why it came to you.”
“After what you told me, I wonder if I really use it at all.”
“Time has a character of its own. You cannot manipulate it without cost. Especially when one travels to the past.”
“Did Armbrister do that? Travel to the past?”
He sighed. “Yes, once. It was the last thing he shared before he left. I have never seen him again.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “Think of the great discoveries humanity has made. Fire. The wheel. Gunpowder. Electricity. String theory. Innovations driven by the desire for control. How often do people wish they had the opportunity to go back and fix the things that caused pain, defeat, or even death? How many long for power over their destinies? Would not such a control be a blessed assurance? The clock offers that ability. Mr. Armbrister gave into the temptation.
“Temptation? You make it sound like it is evil.”
“No, Mrs. Kimble. It is not evil. Evil does not exist in things. Guns, money, political power – none are evil, but all offer power and control. The evil -- and the good -- is in us.”
Jacqui changed the subject. “What happened to Armbrister?”
White’s eyes dropped to his lap. “Five years ago, he and his wife were returning home from a thirtieth anniversary trip to the Poconos. Their car hit a patch of ice and went over the side of the mountain. He fell free and ended up on the hillside with nothing more than a broken arm. His wife and continued with the car down the slope into some trees. She was killed.”
Jacqui stared at the downcast man. He seemed so sad, as if he himself had suffered the loss. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“It was a year later that I traveled with him in Southeast Asia. He was despondent and hoped to distract himself from his grief. He found the clock tucked away in a Buddhist monastery in a northern province of Vietnam. A Japanese general had brought it with him during World War II. The clock got left behind at the war’s end and was stored away by the monks. He told me that it reminded him of a clock that hung on the wall of his childhood home and since the monastery had fallen into disrepair, the monks accepted his generous offer.
“Like you, he learned by accident what it could do. He decided to travel back to the day of his wife’s death and keep the accident from happening. He succeeded.”
“Wait a minute. If he succeeded in changing the past, how would you know anything about it?”
He smiled wryly. “I accompanied him. When we returned to the present she was alive. But there was a problem. While she had no memory of her dying, neither did Mr. Armbrister have any memory of the alternate past he had created for them since their return from their anniversary. He hadn’t really been there. He changed their world, but he could not change himself.”
Jacqui struggled to get her mind around the idea. “At least he had her back and they could build a new life together.”
Smith’s shoulders sagged even more. “Time has a will that cannot be denied. You can dam up a river and it will serve you for a season, but eventually a flood will come that cannot be managed. The headaches are a warning. If they are ignored, more . . . difficult matters will arise.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Armbrister worked hard to conceal his ignorance from her. He managed to learn many things about that lost year through clever conversations with mutual friends. I cannot imagine how exhausting it was for him to sort it out. He came to believe that she suspected he was hiding something. She never accused him so he never had to deny anything, but a year ago, he came home to an empty house. It was a week later that I knocked on his bedroom door with his breakfast. He was gone.” He pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket. “I found this on the nightstand.”
His jaw trembled as he began to read. “‘My Dear Austin. I am sorry that I have put you through all of this. Please forgive me. Thank you for your service and your friendship. Having you beside me through this horrible experience has kept me from going insane. I know now that there is no longer a reason for me in this time. I will take a final journey and I hope that wherever the river takes me, I will find a measure of peace there.
“‘Do not use it! I thought for a time that destroying it was best, but I know now that its demolition would not deliver me from my predicament. The clock exists for a reason. The evil does not lie within the device. It must continue to exist, but I pray that you will choose a way to keep it safe for all our sakes. Please dispose of my goods and keep a fair portion for yourself. Disperse the remainder amongst the charities I have favored. You will find the appropriate signed documents in my desk drawer. Put me and this whole matter out of your life as best as you can. Farewell until the renewal of all things. Your employer and friend, Harold.’”
Austin White slipped the paper back into his pocket. “I was so distraught over his departing that I paid little attention to the details of the liquidation of his estate. I lost track of the device during the ensuing sales. I only learned today that the shopkeeper had acquired it and then sold it to you.”
Jacqui looked down and saw that she was cradling the clock tightly to her chest. Her plans of profiting from future knowledge and correcting past mistakes disappeared like steam rising from a cooling pot. “Maybe I should I give it back to you!”
He recoiled against the car door. “Don’t tempt me!”
“I don’t want it either!” she shouted. “Why tell me all of this if there is nothing I can do?”
“Mr. Armbrister believed that it needed to be hidden away. Human beings weren’t ready for such a thing. Maybe someday but not yet.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Maybe this will help.” He handed her an envelope he had drawn from an inside jacket pocket. Jacqui opened it and found a debit card. “The account holds five hundred thousand dollars. Spend some and invest the rest. You and yours are now responsible for it.”
He opened the door and stepped out. “Wait!” Jacqui called above the wind. “What if I make a mistake? What if something happens?”
“Something always happens. Whatever does, it’s up to you to decline the offer.”
“What offer?”
“The most basic of temptations, Mrs. Kimble -- to become a master of your time instead of its steward.”
Jacqui watched Austin White cross 17th Street and disappear beyond a line of trees in the direction of the Washington Monument. She lay the clock on the seat. This was insane. But she had experienced the power of the device. OK, so manipulating the future was not an option. But what would be wrong with going into the past and preventing bad things from happening? That wouldn’t make her into some evil manipulator of the time stream. She would be more careful that Armbrister. What could be wrong about stepping into yesterday to prevent plane crashes and drive-by shootings? She should try something simple at first, like returning to the moment when she first met Bill. If I knew then what I know now . . .
She shifted the car into reverse and took her foot off the brake. She heard a woman’s scream and instinctively hit the brake. The car lurched to a stop after rolling only a couple of feet. A frightened looking woman ran toward the rear of her car. Jacqui looked into her rearview mirror and saw a curly red head just above the level of her trunk. The woman gathered up the girl and carried her back to the sidewalk, shooting a frightened glance at Jacqui. He lips formed the words Are you crazy?
Jacqui shifted the car into park as her heart beat powerfully, adrenaline rushing through her. If that woman had not noticed, or had been unable to scream -- or had Jacqui been listening to the radio with headphones, or had she hit the gas a second sooner, three histories would have changed forever. What if I had run over that girl?
Her head swerved every way as she drove home on the alert for danger. She pulled into her garage and climbed out of the car, fumbling for her keys with shaking hands. She hung the clock on its place on the wall and headed for the bedroom where she sat on her bed and kicked off her shoes. Too many things were forcing themselves uninvited into her life. It was getting too hard to keep up with everything, to plan for every contingency, to avoid every danger.
The clock sounded a chime for the half hour.
Now she could do something about it. She would be careful. She went into the hallway and opened the clock face. The numbers and hands stared back at her. She turned the dials to seven o’clock on the morning she desired. She opened the little door and her eye fell on the poem fragment: Time is the school in which we learn; Time is the fire in which we burn. She clicked the lever to the down position and braced herself for another headache as she set the pendulum in motion. Each step grew darker as she retraced her path to the bed. Her last memory was that of falling toward the embrace of the comforter-covered mattress.
------------------------------------
Andrew Johnson responded quickly when he received the page, but the mid-October storm that had blown ten inches of snow into the Shenandoah and Potomac Valleys made him frustratingly late. Many commuters still drove the old-style wheeled vehicles that didn’t manage the drifts as well as his hovercraft. He had to wait three times for trucks to clear stalled vehicles from the roadway before he could finish the trip to his mother’s nursing home.
He stepped into the doorway of her room and his sister Grace greeted him with a hug. “There’s nothing more we can do here.” She wiped away tears. “They’ve already called Anderson’s funeral home. I wish I could stay, but I’m late picking up Robby’s kids from school.” She lay a soft hand upon his arm. “Are you coming over later?”
“Sure. Emily’s feeling better now. I think she’ll feel up to it.”
The covers had been pulled up to his mother’s neck and her exposed arms had been crossed over her stomach. He noticed a pale band of skin on her eighty-seven-year-old left wrist. “Where’s her watch?” Over the thirty years she lay in that bed it had been an unexplained mystery as to why Jacqueline Johnson would become agitated unless she wore a timepiece.
“I have it in my purse. I just thought it would be nice to keep it.”
“We should leave it on her. You know how she always wore one.”
“Alright. I guess there are plenty of others.” She fastened it back on her mother’s wrist.
“I’ll stay here and confirm the arrangements,” he said.
“Ok. See you later.” She squeezed his hand.
He sat down on the plain white loveseat and pondered his mother’s quiet form. He and his twin sister had never known their father. She told them that he had been a good man, but that some things in life just didn’t work out no matter how hard you tried. Over all, life had been good before the stroke that had left their mother in a persistent coma. It was almost unreal how nothing bad ever happened to them up to then. She said they had a guardian angel, though Andy knew that she really had no room in her thoughts for such sentiments.
The first major stroke took her speech at fifty and she had to retire a year later. The last aneurysm burst the day before her sixtieth birthday. She had known ahead of time that something was wrong and Andy only found out after the fact that she had pre-arranged for her care at the nursing facility. She ate and drank when they placed food in her mouth, but she gave no other sign of awareness. Still, on the occasions when Andy stayed overnight with her, he would wake to her mumbling sentences and fragments from stories into which he could make no connection.
A nurse entered the doorway. “Mr. Johnson?” Andy stood recognizing the woman who had cared for his mother the last five years. “I’m sorry about your mother.” She hugged him briefly and then handed him a manila envelope. “This is yours now.”
Andy looked at the tan package. “I don’t understand.”
“She gave us directions that when she died, you were to have it.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“OK. Thanks. I appreciate the care you gave Mom.”
“It was our pleasure.” The nurse left. Andy opened the envelope and tipped it up. A five by seven index card and a small key spilled out into his hand. The card bore the address of a storage facility written in his mother’s handwriting. The key bore a number: 777.
The phone rang on the nightstand. He picked it up. “Hello, this is Jacqui Johnson’s room. This is her son Andrew.”
“Hello, Mr. Johnson. First, let me express my condolences over your loss of your mother. I know how difficult these last years must have been for you.”
“Thank you. Who am I speaking with?”
“My name is Abraham White. My grandfather was an acquaintance of your mother’s. Could I have a moment of your time to discuss some business they conducted a long time ago?”
“If you are referring to the clock,” the man said, “it certainly does. All of our merchandise is in good working order.”
She heard an undercurrent of pride in his voice, absent of the cloying smugness in most that left a bad aftertaste. “Does it keep time?” she continued, keeping he eyes forward.
“I did not know that one could ‘keep’ time, Miss . . .”
She allowed a quarter turn toward this peculiar man and looked into his round face with one eye. He returned her gaze with an inviting smile. She dropped her eyes a degree and read the badge on his dark green shirt: Xavier. She completed her turn and faced him. “My name is Jacqueline Kimble. I don’t see a price tag. How much are you asking?”
Xavier paused just long enough for her to understand that negotiations would not be simple today. “To answer your first question, be assured that the mechanism is very precise, especially for the era of its creation. And yes, it is for sale.” He quoted her a price ten percent beyond what she had in mind to pay.
“Tell me about its previous owner. I purchase only those things that have been well-cared for.”
His smile grew even larger. “I am delighted that you are interested in this piece’s story. Too many these days think that time’s turnings begin and end with them.” Xavier adjusted his stance like a fencer preparing for a counter stroke. “We obtained the clock at auction from the estate of a Mr. Harold Armbrister.”
“Armbrister -- the millionaire who disappeared?”
“Yes, sadly so. It was the admirable and yet lamentable fact that he outlived the rest of his family that occasioned the auction. This particular clock hung in his library.” Xavier paused and looked past her. “The total in the library was well over twenty-five thousand.”
“Clocks?” She envisioned a cavernous hall covered with timepieces. Something out of Wonderland. The ticking would be raucous.
Xavier shook his head. “Books, Miss Kimble. No one can manage that much time.”
Mildly flustered, Jacqui turned back to the clock. Its twelve-inch face perched above a rectangular wooden box that held the gears and the pendulum. A glass pane edged with a gold covered the face and opened on two light metal hinges. Simple hands pointed at black numerals marking the time. Small block numbers denoted the date, month, and year.
“It is a attractive piece,” she admitted.
“Perhaps you feel it reaching out to you.”
Jacqui turned around a little more quickly than she planned. “What do you mean?”
She felt Xavier’s eyes lock onto hers. “The pearl of great price,” he said. Jacqui looked at him, waiting. “From the Biblical story, Miss Kimble. When you come across such a treasure, all else will lose value compared with it.”
Her brow twisted upward as she puzzled out his meaning. “It’s not like I’m going to sell my soul or something. It’s just a clock.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Something made her start to take a cautious step back, but she caught herself before she actually moved. “You must admit that the price is modest compared to others of its generation.” He reached around her and she leaned away as his hand brushed past her breast. He opened the little door and revealed the pendulum. “Here you can see a note saying that it was crafted in the year 1910 in Kobe.”
She bent closer to read and her nose picked up a scent of some woody spice from within the small space. “Japan?”
The shopkeeper inclined his head in a slight bow. “A product of shall we say, a more reflective era?”
Jacqui pointed at a tiny lever mounted on the right wall of the works compartment. “What is this for? It looks like a kind of switch.”
“Some clocks were customized to the buyer’s specifications. Does the note give any instructions?”
She squinted again. “Much of the writing is smeared or worn off.” Near the bottom she found small words written in English script and read them aloud. “‘Time is the school in which we learn; Time is the fire in which we burn.’ Is that a poem or something?” She pressed the lever up with her finger and it clicked into place. She pressed down until it passed two clicks through its original location and settled in the lower position. Nothing happened. “I guess I’ll find out what it does later.” She checked her watch and set the time: 10:01. She tapped the pendulum to start the clock.
“I’ll take it. It will look good in my entry way.”
“You are furnishing a new house?”
She twisted her head around. How . . ? She drew a breath to slow her suddenly pounding heart. “There was a fire. We tried to go back in and save what we could, but . . .”
“We? Is there a Mr. . . .?”
“No. Yes. I mean, not for much longer. The divorce was already in process and the fire simplified things.” Her eyes dropped to the floor before she could catch herself. “There wasn’t much left to fight over.”
“I am sorry, Mrs. Kimble. I do not mean to pry. I cannot imagine how . . . “
Her jaw hardened and she raised her eyes to meet the shopkeeper’s. “He’ll be fine with his part of the insurance money.” She turned back around to the clock. “This is not quite the same as the one I lost. It will help me start over.” She countered with the price she originally had in mind.
Xavier nodded. “I hope that you find that to be true.” She walked to the front desk to complete the transaction and the chimes of the clock rang out ten times as the hour struck.
Simpler times. Jacqui pulled into the driveway of the two-bedroom ranch house where she would start her new life with work and friends. She cradled the clock in her left arm as she slid her keycard through the electronic lock of her front door. She heard a reassuring click as the security system disengaged. She pressed down on the handle and the door slid silently open. Most of the necessary furnishings were already in place – appliances, living room and bedroom furniture. A new wardrobe hung in the walk-in closet and dishes, pots, and pans filled the cabinets along with groceries. Curtains dressed up the windows. She unpacked the clock and set it on the table. It was the first piece that would start giving the place character. Just in time for her favorite time of year -- autumn.
Character. Charm. Appeal. Those were the things that made life interesting. Bill’s lack of the above had provoked her decision to leave before she wasted any more of her life. Six months into the marriage all he could talk about was work and bills. And then there was all his nagging about starting a family. They had agreed to wait at least five years. How had getting married turned a fun-loving man into such a bore? The pre-nuptial would restore some of the money but there was nothing to do about the lost time and energy. If only she had known . . .
She found a place on the wall between the coat closet and the hallway bathroom and drove a nail through the drywall into a stud. With the clock mounted, she stepped back to view it. She visualized herself waking in the early morning to the sounds of its chimes striking six o’clock -- or seven if she had come in late the previous night. She set the time and opened the little door. The lever was still set in the lowest position. She placed her fingertip under it and popped it two clicks into the upper position, started the pendulum, and closed the door. “What are you for?” she said to the tiny piece of brass. “Maybe I can find something about you on the Internet.”
Minutes later, she changed her mind. Instead of searching the Internet, she ate a light dinner in the company of a good book and finished the evening with a hot bath. On the way to the bedroom she noticed the time: eleven o’clock.
The next morning she awoke with a headache and sunlight streaming through her window. She threw back the covers and stumbled into the bathroom. She had never slept this late! Ten minutes later she plunged through her front door, almost falling over a pile of newspapers individually wrapped in plastic on her small porch.
Someone’s idea of an early Halloween prank? Thirty minutes later, she drove into her building’s garage and found an unfamiliar car parked in the spot she had won and kept for eight months as the company’s high producer. She rode the elevator to the fourth floor and walked into her office -- third on the left. The door was open and a man was sitting behind her desk talking on the phone.
“Who are you?” she said from the doorway.
“I’ll get back to you,” the man said into the phone and then hung up. “Excuse me?”
“Who are you?’”
“Rob Keener. Why?”
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my desk.”
“No, it’s not.” She looked at the bare walls and nearly empty bookshelf. “What have you done with my things?”
“Wait a minute! I’ve worked here since I was hired two weeks ago. I’ve never seen you before.”
She reared back, her shoulders straightening. “I am Jacqueline Kimble, the top sales generator at this company!”
A shocked voice announced itself over her shoulder. “Jacqui? My God! Is it you?”
She turned around and recognized Lori Stine, the office manager. “Who else did you expect? What’s going on? First somebody’s taken my parking space and now this guy’s in my office.”
Lori led her into the hallway and spoke in a lowered voice. “Jacqui, where have you been?”
“What do you mean? You know that I had to spend the weekend setting up my new house. I’m sorry that I missed the trip to Chicago with you and Ben, but now its Monday and I’m back.”
“No, it’s not.” Lori shook her head.
“It’s not what?”
“It’s not Monday.”
“Sure it is. Last night was Sunday and I woke up this morning. Monday.”
Lori shook her head again as if she was trying to clear her thoughts. “After a week, John tried to call you but you didn’t answer. He sent Ben over to see if you were OK but your house was locked up. He found your car in the drive, but not you. After another week he called the police but they said that there was nothing they could do.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s been a month since anyone’s seen you. It’s Tuesday. Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“We thought you had moved away or were dead or something. You don’t work here anymore.”
Jacqui ran a hand through her short blond hair. “I need to talk with John. Where is he?”
“He’s in California closing the Toberton deal. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
“What am I supposed to do until then?”
“Gosh, Jacqui. I don’t know.” She placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”
A tremor raced through her back and hips, weakening her legs, and a pain shot from the back of her head out through her eyes. Everything seemed to turn inside out for a moment, like a photograph’s negative. “I don’t feel alright.”
As Jacqui drove home, her thoughts whirled. She tossed three painkillers into her mouth and chased them with some bottled water. Lori had told her that during the third week of her “disappearance” John had called the police. They obtained a warrant to enter the house, but found nothing out of the ordinary. “FM 103.5” she said. The voice of B.J. Thomas crooned out the end of a song: “because I’m free . . .nothin’s worrying me.” The digital readout displayed the time. 10:00AM. The DJ continued with a traffic report followed by the weather. Thanksgiving should be milder than usual around the District with rain coming in across Maryland on Saturday. Some delays possible for travelers through Dulles International Airport.
“Off,” she said and the radio shut down. She noticed that cardboard turkeys and pumpkins covered store windows and Santa Claus was appearing as well. She drove into her driveway and saw that the yard was coated with leaves. It had just been mid-October! She had completely missed the changing of the foliage. The pile of newspapers remained in front of her door. The most recent date was November 15th. The Post had probably canceled her subscription for non-payment.
She headed to the closet to hang up her coat and read the time on the clock: 2:00PM. “What’s wrong with you? He said you’d keep time.” She opened the face and spun the hands backward three hours plus. Then she opened the smaller door below and saw that the little lever still pointed upward. She placed a finger against it and shoved it down to the lowest position. A bolt of fire lanced through her skull. She leaned against the wall and decided to lie down. She made it as far as the sofa.
It was still daylight when she woke to the sound of her phone ringing. She found it in the kitchen and checked the caller I.D: Unknown.
She held it up to her ear. “Yes?”
“Hello Jaqueline Kimble. You have had quite a day I would imagine.” The man’s voice held a light British accent.
“Who is this?”
“Please believe that I am a friend -- perhaps the most important person in your life at this moment.”
The pain in her temples threatened to glaze her vision. “Tell me who you are or I will have this call traced!”
“I am calling on behalf of Mr. Harold Armbrister. Earlier today you purchased a clock that once belonged to him.”
Earlier today? “Harold Armbrister went missing over a year ago and it has been a month since I have been to Xavier’s. I’m calling the police.”
“Please do not do that, Mrs. Kimble,” the man said quickly. “You have purchased a very special timepiece indeed. It is more dangerous than you may know, but then I believe you have already experienced some of its effects, haven’t you?”
“I’m listening.” She held her voice firm, but sat down gently on her couch.
“What I have to say is best delivered in person. Would you be willing to meet me and bring it with you?”
“Why? Do you want it back?”
“No,” the man said quickly. Then his voice softened. “My employer’s time with it is over. But he was concerned that . . .” He paused. “Will you meet with me?”
Jacqui could see the clock from where she sat. The pendulum was rocking steadily. The hands pointed to the time: 4:00PM. But what day was it? She went to the front door and pulled it open. The grass was green and uncluttered with leaves. One newspaper rested on the step. She stooped and read today’s date on the front page.
She stood up, shaking. “Tell me what is going on.”
“As I said, I would rather speak with you in person.”
“Alright. I want to see your face, too, when I tell you what has been happening to me.”
“Or course. One more thing. Before you leave your house, make sure the lever in the clock is in the middle position.”
She drove through Fairfax and noticed that Jack O’Lanterns had returned to front stoops, smiling toothlessly into the increasingly cold afternoon breeze. Santa had returned to the North Pole. She called her office as she approached the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. The secretary picked up and she asked to speak with Lori. There were no urgent messages for her and Lori had never heard of a Rob Keener.
The man had said he would be wearing a Washington Redskins jacket and would wait for her on a bench at the east entrance of the World War II memorial. She pulled the car into an empty parking lot. She realized that she knew nothing about Armbrister other than what she had read on the Internet. She glanced down at the clock on the seat beside her. Had two clicks of a brass lever taken her into the future and then back to the present? It was impossible to believe. She wondered about Armbrister’s experience with the clock. Given its awesome capabilities, why would the man sell it? What if he had not given up the clock voluntarily? The man had achieved power and wealth on an immense scale and then disappeared. If the clock was as powerful as she feared, what might he be willing to do to get it back?
She exhaled loudly and put the car back into gear. Come on! Let’s get this over with. She comforted herself that it was daytime and cars came and went continuously through the area. Even so, she reassured herself by touching the mini-taser in her purse. It was about the size of a lipstick but it packed enough of a jolt to put someone down long enough for her to get away.
Five minutes later, she pulled into the parking area and scanned the nearby benches for a man wearing a cranberry football jacket. Aside from a few bundled up picture-takers, she saw no one. “Guess I’ll have to look for him,” she said.
She reached for the door handle as someone tapped on the passenger door window. A red-faced man with gray hair combed tightly across his forehead was bending down and smiling at her. Can I come in? she read his lips through the safety glass. She nodded.
She pulled the clock closer with one hand and slipped the other into her purse as he opened the door and got in. “Mrs. Kimble? I hope I didn’t frighten you pecking on your window like that. It’s just that the blood thins a bit past seventy and I thought we could talk better out of this air.”
Something about the man played in the back of her mind, as if she had met him somewhere before. He seemed genuine enough as he waited for her reply. “Hello,” she managed. “What do you want?”
“All I want to do is help you.” He smiled as if a funny thought had occurred to him. “You do know that you possess -- as you might say -- all the time in the world?”
His attempt at humor irritated her. “Who are you and what do you know about it?”
His smile disappeared. “You can call me Mr. White. Your clock is a wonderful and terrible thing. As you have probably surmised, it is a means of slipping through time.” His eyes dropped to the clock and Jacqui saw a wave of something pass through him, as if he both desired it and was repulsed by it. “Would you tell me what has happened to you so far.”
Jacqui told him about her apparent trip to the future and return to the present. “Since then I have had bad headaches, worse than any migraine.”
He sighed. “They are one of the reasons Mr. Armbrister quit using the device,” he said. “The effect of crossing temporal boundaries accumulates until it can no longer be endured. He said that he dared not slip one more time.”
“How does it work?”
“I do not know exactly. He had the best scientists examine it, but as far as they discovered, it is just an ordinary clock. He never told them what it could do. His next option was to track the manufacturer – a small shop on the north end of Kobe, Japan. Sadly, he found that the shop had burned the same year that the clock was made. The entire inventory was lost and the company never recovered. This clock was the only one to survive.”
“How many times did he time travel?”
The man settled in his seat, enjoying the comfort of the warm car. “As I said, ‘slip’ is a more correct term. ‘Travel’ implies that one is doing the moving. Time is always moving and we are carried along with it at its pace like leaves on the surface of a steam. When the lever is in the center position, you move along with time. When you move the lever downward -- into reverse – you release your hold on the moment and time flows on leaving you in the past. Have you ever ridden the cable cars in San Francisco?” Jacqui shook her head, her eyes moving off his face and back again. “When the operator releases the clamp on the underground cable, the car stays put and the cable goes on. Mr. Armbrister believed that the clock functioned like a clutch on the transmission connecting you to time’s engine. It’s effects are demanding, but they are mitigated somewhat by the function of the date calibrator.”
“What is that?”
White pointed. “Right here. You set the blocks to the date you wish and then flip the lever in the appropriate direction. It functions like a cruise control and reduces the stress upon the user.” He saw Jacqui’s expression of incomprehension. “You slipped without setting a parameter? It is a miracle that you ever returned or even that you woke up. You could have been forever out of time!”
“I went into the future. How could I go somewhere that doesn’t exist yet?”
White watched a mounted police officer check on two disheveled men sitting on a bench who were warming their hands over what looked like a burning can of Sterno® scavenged from the trash. “Haven’t you experienced déjà vu or woken from a vivid dream that you forgot in minutes?”
“Sure, everyone has.”
“Could it not be one way of describing a slip into the future that has been mostly forgotten?”
“But I haven’t forgotten what happened to me.”
“Really? How much can you remember?”
Jacqui started to answer but found that she could not recall details of that day -- such as the color of the car in her parking space or the name of the man at her desk. She remembered her friend Lori, but that might have been because she had already known her before the ‘slip.’ She shook her head in frustration.
“The experience will soon fade out of your memory completely. That is why the myth of returning from the future with information on which to build a fortune is impossible. The knowledge just doesn’t last long enough. Even if you wrote it down, since it wasn’t your true future it is of no consequence.”
“What do you mean?”
“That future became possible only when you were taken out of the equation of its past. Had you remained in the present nothing like that could have happened. Now that you are back, your future is, as they say, what you make of it.”
Jacqui sat silently listening to the autumn wind blow around the car. A couple walked by holding hands, heading toward the monument.
Mr. Smith spoke again. “How the clock works is not what is most important. I want to help you understand why it came to you.”
“After what you told me, I wonder if I really use it at all.”
“Time has a character of its own. You cannot manipulate it without cost. Especially when one travels to the past.”
“Did Armbrister do that? Travel to the past?”
He sighed. “Yes, once. It was the last thing he shared before he left. I have never seen him again.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “Think of the great discoveries humanity has made. Fire. The wheel. Gunpowder. Electricity. String theory. Innovations driven by the desire for control. How often do people wish they had the opportunity to go back and fix the things that caused pain, defeat, or even death? How many long for power over their destinies? Would not such a control be a blessed assurance? The clock offers that ability. Mr. Armbrister gave into the temptation.
“Temptation? You make it sound like it is evil.”
“No, Mrs. Kimble. It is not evil. Evil does not exist in things. Guns, money, political power – none are evil, but all offer power and control. The evil -- and the good -- is in us.”
Jacqui changed the subject. “What happened to Armbrister?”
White’s eyes dropped to his lap. “Five years ago, he and his wife were returning home from a thirtieth anniversary trip to the Poconos. Their car hit a patch of ice and went over the side of the mountain. He fell free and ended up on the hillside with nothing more than a broken arm. His wife and continued with the car down the slope into some trees. She was killed.”
Jacqui stared at the downcast man. He seemed so sad, as if he himself had suffered the loss. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“It was a year later that I traveled with him in Southeast Asia. He was despondent and hoped to distract himself from his grief. He found the clock tucked away in a Buddhist monastery in a northern province of Vietnam. A Japanese general had brought it with him during World War II. The clock got left behind at the war’s end and was stored away by the monks. He told me that it reminded him of a clock that hung on the wall of his childhood home and since the monastery had fallen into disrepair, the monks accepted his generous offer.
“Like you, he learned by accident what it could do. He decided to travel back to the day of his wife’s death and keep the accident from happening. He succeeded.”
“Wait a minute. If he succeeded in changing the past, how would you know anything about it?”
He smiled wryly. “I accompanied him. When we returned to the present she was alive. But there was a problem. While she had no memory of her dying, neither did Mr. Armbrister have any memory of the alternate past he had created for them since their return from their anniversary. He hadn’t really been there. He changed their world, but he could not change himself.”
Jacqui struggled to get her mind around the idea. “At least he had her back and they could build a new life together.”
Smith’s shoulders sagged even more. “Time has a will that cannot be denied. You can dam up a river and it will serve you for a season, but eventually a flood will come that cannot be managed. The headaches are a warning. If they are ignored, more . . . difficult matters will arise.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Armbrister worked hard to conceal his ignorance from her. He managed to learn many things about that lost year through clever conversations with mutual friends. I cannot imagine how exhausting it was for him to sort it out. He came to believe that she suspected he was hiding something. She never accused him so he never had to deny anything, but a year ago, he came home to an empty house. It was a week later that I knocked on his bedroom door with his breakfast. He was gone.” He pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket. “I found this on the nightstand.”
His jaw trembled as he began to read. “‘My Dear Austin. I am sorry that I have put you through all of this. Please forgive me. Thank you for your service and your friendship. Having you beside me through this horrible experience has kept me from going insane. I know now that there is no longer a reason for me in this time. I will take a final journey and I hope that wherever the river takes me, I will find a measure of peace there.
“‘Do not use it! I thought for a time that destroying it was best, but I know now that its demolition would not deliver me from my predicament. The clock exists for a reason. The evil does not lie within the device. It must continue to exist, but I pray that you will choose a way to keep it safe for all our sakes. Please dispose of my goods and keep a fair portion for yourself. Disperse the remainder amongst the charities I have favored. You will find the appropriate signed documents in my desk drawer. Put me and this whole matter out of your life as best as you can. Farewell until the renewal of all things. Your employer and friend, Harold.’”
Austin White slipped the paper back into his pocket. “I was so distraught over his departing that I paid little attention to the details of the liquidation of his estate. I lost track of the device during the ensuing sales. I only learned today that the shopkeeper had acquired it and then sold it to you.”
Jacqui looked down and saw that she was cradling the clock tightly to her chest. Her plans of profiting from future knowledge and correcting past mistakes disappeared like steam rising from a cooling pot. “Maybe I should I give it back to you!”
He recoiled against the car door. “Don’t tempt me!”
“I don’t want it either!” she shouted. “Why tell me all of this if there is nothing I can do?”
“Mr. Armbrister believed that it needed to be hidden away. Human beings weren’t ready for such a thing. Maybe someday but not yet.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Maybe this will help.” He handed her an envelope he had drawn from an inside jacket pocket. Jacqui opened it and found a debit card. “The account holds five hundred thousand dollars. Spend some and invest the rest. You and yours are now responsible for it.”
He opened the door and stepped out. “Wait!” Jacqui called above the wind. “What if I make a mistake? What if something happens?”
“Something always happens. Whatever does, it’s up to you to decline the offer.”
“What offer?”
“The most basic of temptations, Mrs. Kimble -- to become a master of your time instead of its steward.”
Jacqui watched Austin White cross 17th Street and disappear beyond a line of trees in the direction of the Washington Monument. She lay the clock on the seat. This was insane. But she had experienced the power of the device. OK, so manipulating the future was not an option. But what would be wrong with going into the past and preventing bad things from happening? That wouldn’t make her into some evil manipulator of the time stream. She would be more careful that Armbrister. What could be wrong about stepping into yesterday to prevent plane crashes and drive-by shootings? She should try something simple at first, like returning to the moment when she first met Bill. If I knew then what I know now . . .
She shifted the car into reverse and took her foot off the brake. She heard a woman’s scream and instinctively hit the brake. The car lurched to a stop after rolling only a couple of feet. A frightened looking woman ran toward the rear of her car. Jacqui looked into her rearview mirror and saw a curly red head just above the level of her trunk. The woman gathered up the girl and carried her back to the sidewalk, shooting a frightened glance at Jacqui. He lips formed the words Are you crazy?
Jacqui shifted the car into park as her heart beat powerfully, adrenaline rushing through her. If that woman had not noticed, or had been unable to scream -- or had Jacqui been listening to the radio with headphones, or had she hit the gas a second sooner, three histories would have changed forever. What if I had run over that girl?
Her head swerved every way as she drove home on the alert for danger. She pulled into her garage and climbed out of the car, fumbling for her keys with shaking hands. She hung the clock on its place on the wall and headed for the bedroom where she sat on her bed and kicked off her shoes. Too many things were forcing themselves uninvited into her life. It was getting too hard to keep up with everything, to plan for every contingency, to avoid every danger.
The clock sounded a chime for the half hour.
Now she could do something about it. She would be careful. She went into the hallway and opened the clock face. The numbers and hands stared back at her. She turned the dials to seven o’clock on the morning she desired. She opened the little door and her eye fell on the poem fragment: Time is the school in which we learn; Time is the fire in which we burn. She clicked the lever to the down position and braced herself for another headache as she set the pendulum in motion. Each step grew darker as she retraced her path to the bed. Her last memory was that of falling toward the embrace of the comforter-covered mattress.
------------------------------------
Andrew Johnson responded quickly when he received the page, but the mid-October storm that had blown ten inches of snow into the Shenandoah and Potomac Valleys made him frustratingly late. Many commuters still drove the old-style wheeled vehicles that didn’t manage the drifts as well as his hovercraft. He had to wait three times for trucks to clear stalled vehicles from the roadway before he could finish the trip to his mother’s nursing home.
He stepped into the doorway of her room and his sister Grace greeted him with a hug. “There’s nothing more we can do here.” She wiped away tears. “They’ve already called Anderson’s funeral home. I wish I could stay, but I’m late picking up Robby’s kids from school.” She lay a soft hand upon his arm. “Are you coming over later?”
“Sure. Emily’s feeling better now. I think she’ll feel up to it.”
The covers had been pulled up to his mother’s neck and her exposed arms had been crossed over her stomach. He noticed a pale band of skin on her eighty-seven-year-old left wrist. “Where’s her watch?” Over the thirty years she lay in that bed it had been an unexplained mystery as to why Jacqueline Johnson would become agitated unless she wore a timepiece.
“I have it in my purse. I just thought it would be nice to keep it.”
“We should leave it on her. You know how she always wore one.”
“Alright. I guess there are plenty of others.” She fastened it back on her mother’s wrist.
“I’ll stay here and confirm the arrangements,” he said.
“Ok. See you later.” She squeezed his hand.
He sat down on the plain white loveseat and pondered his mother’s quiet form. He and his twin sister had never known their father. She told them that he had been a good man, but that some things in life just didn’t work out no matter how hard you tried. Over all, life had been good before the stroke that had left their mother in a persistent coma. It was almost unreal how nothing bad ever happened to them up to then. She said they had a guardian angel, though Andy knew that she really had no room in her thoughts for such sentiments.
The first major stroke took her speech at fifty and she had to retire a year later. The last aneurysm burst the day before her sixtieth birthday. She had known ahead of time that something was wrong and Andy only found out after the fact that she had pre-arranged for her care at the nursing facility. She ate and drank when they placed food in her mouth, but she gave no other sign of awareness. Still, on the occasions when Andy stayed overnight with her, he would wake to her mumbling sentences and fragments from stories into which he could make no connection.
A nurse entered the doorway. “Mr. Johnson?” Andy stood recognizing the woman who had cared for his mother the last five years. “I’m sorry about your mother.” She hugged him briefly and then handed him a manila envelope. “This is yours now.”
Andy looked at the tan package. “I don’t understand.”
“She gave us directions that when she died, you were to have it.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“OK. Thanks. I appreciate the care you gave Mom.”
“It was our pleasure.” The nurse left. Andy opened the envelope and tipped it up. A five by seven index card and a small key spilled out into his hand. The card bore the address of a storage facility written in his mother’s handwriting. The key bore a number: 777.
The phone rang on the nightstand. He picked it up. “Hello, this is Jacqui Johnson’s room. This is her son Andrew.”
“Hello, Mr. Johnson. First, let me express my condolences over your loss of your mother. I know how difficult these last years must have been for you.”
“Thank you. Who am I speaking with?”
“My name is Abraham White. My grandfather was an acquaintance of your mother’s. Could I have a moment of your time to discuss some business they conducted a long time ago?”
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