Temporal Exploring 101 - Cultural Immersion

II.23 Lost in time

On Sunday afternoon, James drove Nancy, Natty and me back to St. Albert's.

Sitting in the backseat of the big limousine, we retrieved the strange green sphere and the small electronic gadget from Natty's bag.

"I wonder if Courts and Rackney have discovered yet that you stole those things from their office," Nancy mused.

"It's possible they don't know about that yet, even now," I said. "Both the sphere and that device were hidden under huge piles of papers."

I studied the electronic device carefully.

"Actually, I suspect that this may be some future version of a ansible."

"Can you do anything with it?" Natty asked excitedly. "Like, switch it on or something?"

"Nah, I don't think so. It certainly does not react when I put my thumb here, on the sensor field." I shrugged. "Actually, I would be surprised if I could obtain access, since I certainly don't have the present owner's finger print. Maybe 23rd century technology would be able to crack it, though."

I turned to the heavy green ball. "I wonder what that would be used for."

"Maybe it is just some kind of fancy paperweight," Nancy suggested.

"Could be," I admitted. "Now, let us have a look at that report Mr Courts typed for our friend Ainsworth."

"What do you mean, our 'friend' Ainsworth?" Natty protested. "That guy wanted to murder you and me, Cathy."

"I know. It's just a figure of speech. To call him our friend, I mean." I tore open the envelope and took out the single sheet of stationery. Then I read Courts' report out loud to my friends.

'Concerning JF: Tracked him down to Birmingham. Entered his hotel room on March 12 but found that he had left. Somebody must have tipped him off. We talked to the concierge but got no useful information other than that JF had stayed at the hotel for four consecutive weeks, and that he had been seen with some tall blonde lady. According to the concierge, her first name was something like Maureen or possibly Maura. Also, he supposedly carried a gun – no surprise, that. Even that meager information cost us a bundle. Will put it on your bill. In summary, we traced JF all the way to Birmingham but then we lost the trail.'

'Concerning the MN: So far we failed to obtain any useful information about them, apart from their existence. We do not know if they are in any way affiliated with JF. It is possible that that broad Maureen (or Maura) was one of them, and that it was her who warned JF that we were onto him. But that is mere speculation. Even the possibility that JF may collaborate with the MN cannot be ruled out anymore.'

'About the green sphere: we had it examined by a material sciences expert at Cambridge, a Prof. Jason Bowler. Bowler reports that it consists of pure emerald and it has the shape of an almost perfect sphere. There are indications that it may possess some sort of internal structure. To test that in the lab, Bowler says he would have to damage the sphere, which could impair whatever function it may have. Please inform us if you agree to such further investigation, at the risk of damaging the object in question.'

'About the girls you sent to us to convey your message: I have major doubts if they are trustworthy. Please consider using different channels of communication in the future.'

"So that's why he has been using initials rather than full names in his report," Nancy concluded. "He doesn't trust us."

"Come on, we never expected him to trust us in the first place." Natty shrugged. "It is close to a bloody miracle that he handed over this report to us at all."

"He will be furious when he finds out that we took the green sphere," I observed. "In fact, I hope that we will never meet that guy again."

A bit later, back in our dorm room at St. Albert's, the first thing I did was to retrieve my ansible from where I had hidden it under my socks and my underwear. I was eager to tell Sara and Mira about the object that might be some future version of an ansible, and also about the mysterious emerald sphere, as well as about the report of the detective Rackney who apparently had worked for one of the three pyrtar that had tried to kill Natty and me.

To my dismay, I found that I was unable to set up a connection to the 23rd century.

"What's wrong with it?" Natty asked, indicating my ansible. "Is it broken or something?"

"No, I don't think so," I told her. "See, it is still on standby."

"But aren't you cut off from home now?" Nancy asked, thereby putting into words my own worst fears. "I mean, you can't return to the 23rd century without it, right?"

"Well, it is not as if the connection is lost completely," I reassured her, and myself. "Even in standby mode, the ansible retains a weak connection to its original temporal region. It has to, of course. Otherwise no temporal explorer would ever be able to return home."

"But why can't you connect and talk to your people. then?"

"I don't know. Such problems have been known to happen, in the past. Usually they are only temporary. They tend to last for no longer than a few hours, or days. Very rarely have they been observed to last for longer than a week. It is just so inconvenient that I can't talk to my Temporal Instructor right now. I feel that I could use some advice on how to proceed from here."

As it turned out, the problem did not disappear after a day or two. Every night I tried to connect to my Temporal Instructor or her grad student, and each time I failed. When a week had passed without any success I started to panic. Natty noticed that, of course.

"What could happen, in the worst case scenario?" she asked.

"Well I could be trapped here, I mean in this temporal region, for a long period of time. Eventually, they might send somebody to pick me up. But then, they have consistently failed to send anybody other than me to the 1960s. So I might have to stay here until the year 1970 or even later."

"Couldn't they just send somebody to the 1950s, to live here until say, the end of this year, and then pick you up?"

"In principle they might do that. But who would be willing to take that job, to waste years of their life living through the 1950s, just so they can pick up some unimportant young temporal explorer in the 1960s?"

"I see. Well, let's hope that it doesn't come to that. I guess it is best not to worry about it too much."

But I did worry, a lot. At night I would sleep fitfully, crying out in my sleep, upon awakening from strange, scary dreams. In my dreams, I was not merely stranded in time but lost, tossed about by the waves and currents of time like some ancient mariner lost at sea, transiting from one temporal region to another at random. All the time I was looking for a key, the key to save myself from this turmoil, but try as I might I could not find it.

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A / N : Just what Cathy does not need at that point: to be cut off from communicating with her Temporal Instructor, unable to ask her for any kind of advice, and possibly to be stuck in the 1960s for years.

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