Our Children's Children

30

Once the men were seated around the table in the conference room, Dr. Samuel Ives opened the discussion.

"This meeting," he said, "despite the solemnity of the occasion which brings us together in the dead of night, marks what for all of us of the present must be an exciting event. All of our professional lives most of us have at times puzzled over the fundamental nature of time irreversibility. A couple of us, myself and Dr. Asbury Brooks, have spent a great deal of time in its study. I am of the opinion that Dr. Brooks will not take it badly if I say we have made little, if any, progress in our studies of this fundamental question. While the lay person may question the validity of such study, viewing time as a philosophical rather than a physical concept, the fact remains that the physical laws with which all of us work are embedded in this somewhat mysterious thing that we call time. We must ask ourselves, if we are to completely understand the concepts that we employ, both in our daily lives and our continuing investigations into many areas of science, what may be the physical interrelationships underlying the expansion of the universe, information theory, and the thermodynamic, electromagnetic, biological and statistical arrows of time. In the description of any physical phenomenon, the time variable is a parameter, at the most elementary level. We have wondered if there were such a thing as universal time or whether it may be only a feature of boundary conditions. There are some of us who think that the latter may be the true explanation, that in the universe the time factor was perhaps rather randomly set at the moment of the beginning of the universe and has persisted ever since. And all of us, I think, are aware that our thinking about time must be overwhelmingly prejudiced by our intuitive notions about the direction of time flow and that this may be one of the factors which has made it so difficult for us to understand and formulate any real theories about this thing that we call time."

He looked across the table at the three men from the future. "I must beg your indulgence for this sort of introduction to our discussion, remarks that, in view of what you have learned, may sound somewhat silly. But I did think it important to set out our own views and study into some sort of perspective. But now that I have said this much, I think that it is your turn to talk and I assure you that all of us will listen most attentively. Which one of you would like to begin?"

Hardwicke and Cummings looked at each other questioningly. Finally Hardwicke said "Perhaps I might as well. I must express the deep appreciation all three of us feel for your willingness to meet with us at this unusual hour. And I am afraid that we are about to disappoint you, for I must tell you that we know very little more about the fundamental nature of time than you do. We have asked ourselves some of the same questions you have asked and have found no real answers…"

"But you can travel in time," said Brooks. "That would argue that you must know something of it. You must have at least a basic understanding…"

"What we found," said Hardwicke, "is that we are not the only universe. There are at least two universes coexisting within the same space, but universes so fundamentally different from one another that neither would be ordinarily aware of the other. At the moment I will not go into the manner in which this other universe was detected or what we know of it. It is not, however, a contraterrene universe, so there is, so far as we know, no danger from it. I might add that the first hint of its existence came from a study of the strangeness of certain particles. Not that the particles themselves are a part of this other universe, but because, in certain instances, they can react to certain not-entirely-understood conditions in the other universe. Two totally different universes. The other made up of particles and interactions which have little to do with the particles and interactions of our universe, although, as I have indicated, there can be interactions, but on so small a scale that only blind, dumb luck could bring them to one's notice. Fortunately, researchers experienced that blind luck.

And it was mostly luck, too, that revealed to us something else about the second universe. I often wonder if luck, for want of a better word, might not be a factor that should be in itself the subject of a study with a view to a better determination of its parameters. As I say, we found out one thing else about the other universe, a very simple thing and yet, when one thinks about it, a rather devastating concept. What we found was that the arrow of time in the second universe was flowing in exactly the opposite direction to the one it traveled in our universe. While undoubtedly in that universe it was moving from the universe's past toward its future, in relation to this universe, it was traveling from our future toward our past."

"There is one thing that puzzles me," said Ives. "You were dealing with a very complex matter and yet in twenty years or so…"

"It is not as remarkable as you think," said Cummings. "There was a crash project, certainly, to achieve time travel, but before the project was begun we were in possession of the knowledge that Dr. Hardwicke has outlined. On your old time track the fact of the second universe was discovered somewhat less than a hundred years from now. It had been investigated for almost four centuries before we finally put the time arrow of the second universe to work. As a matter of fact, much significant work had been done on the possibility of using the opposite time direction of the second universe as a time travel medium. All we had to do was give the investigation a final push. I think the method might have been worked out earlier, even before the invasion by the aliens, if there had been any reason for it. But, aside from scientific curiosity, there wasn't. Under ordinary circumstances, there's not much attraction to time travel if you can move in only the one direction and there's no possibility of returning."

"Once we decided," said Hardwicke, "that the only way in which we could survive was to travel backwards into time, much of the real work already had been done. In all the history of scientific inquiry there always has been a certain segment of the population that questions the validity of pure research. What is the good of it, they ask. How is it going to help us? What can we use it for? I think that our situation is a perfect example of the value of basic research. The work that had been done on the second universe and its opposite direction time flow had been pure research, the spending of effort and funds on something that seemed to offer no chance at all of any benefit or return. And yet, as things turned out, it did have a return. It offered the human race a chance to save itself."

"As I understand it," said Brooks, "what you have done is to make use of the opposite time flow of the other universe to bring you here. Somehow or other your time tunnels trap the opposite flow. You step into the opposite flow in your own present time and step out of it at our present time. But to do this you must manage to speed up the time flow tremendously and must be able to control it."

"That," said Hardwicke, "was the hard part of the job. Not the theory of it, for the theory had been worked out, but the implementation of the theory. As it turned out, it was unbelievably simple, although on the face of it complex."

"You think it is in the range of our present technology?"

"We are sure of it," said Hardwicke. "That is why we chose this particular time. We had to select a time target that held men who would understand and accept the theory and other men, engineers, who could build the necessary equipment. There were other factors, as well, that we took into consideration. We needed to reach a time where the intellectual and moral climate was such that there would be a willingness to provide us the help we needed. We also had to find time where the productivity of the economy was such that it could supply us with the implements and tools we would need to start life over in the Miocene. Perhaps we are being unfair to hope for so much from you. We have one justification. If we had not come back to this time bracket or some other, the race of man would have ended some five hundred years from now. As it is, you have been shifted to a new time track, a phenomenon we can take the time later to discuss, if you should wish, and there now is a chance, although no certainty, that you can continue into the future with no alien invasion."

"Dr. Osborne," said Ives, "has so far taken no part in this discussion. Is there something you might like to add?"

Osborne shook his head. "All of this is beyond my competence, gentlemen. I'm not a physicist, but a geologist, with leanings toward paleontology. I'm simply along for the ride. Later, if some of you might want to discuss the Miocene, which is our eventual destination, that is something I could talk about."

"I, for one," said Brooks, "would be interested in hearing you right now. I have heard there is some proposal that the present population of the Earth go back into the Miocene with you. This is something, I would imagine, that might appeal to some of the more venturesome among us. There is always a feeling in many people that they have lost something by being born after the age of geographic pioneering. There would be a strong appeal to the idea of going back to a time where many of the present-day restrictions might be shed. I wonder if you would be willing to tell us something of what we might expect to find in the Miocene."

"If you feel it is appropriate," said Osborne, "I would be glad to. You must understand, of course, that we are dealing in some suppositions, although we can be fairly sure of certain facts. The main reason we picked the Miocene is that this was the time when grass first appeared upon the Earth. There are reasons we believe this, although I won't go into them right now. For one thing, it is the time when true grazing animals acquired a kind of teeth adapted for grass eating. Grazing animals, in the early part of the epoch, seem to have increased rapidly. The climate became somewhat more arid, although by our calculations there still would be plenty of rainfall for agriculture. Many of the huge forest tracts gave way to grassy plains, supporting huge herds of herbivores. We know something of these herbivores, although I think it may be possible there may have been many species of which we have no paleontological evidence.

"There would be great herds of oreodonts, sheep-sized animals that may have been remote relatives of the camels. There would be camels, too, although far smaller than the ones we know today. We could expect to find small horses, the size of ponies. There might be a number of rhinos. Sometime during the Miocene, probably in its early days, elephants migrated to North America over the Bering land bridge. They'd be four-tuskers, smaller than today's elephants. One of the more dangerous animals would be the giant pig, big as an oxen and with skulls that measure four feet long. They could be ugly customers to meet. With so many herbivores running in herds on the prairies, the Miocene could be expected to have its full quota of carnivores, both canines and cats. Probably you'd find the old ancestors of the sabretooths. That's only a quick rundown. There is much more. The point is that we believe the Miocene was a time of rather rapid evolutionary development, with the fauna expanding into new genera and species, characterized, perhaps, by a tendency for animals to increase in size. There might be a number of holdovers from the Oligocene, even from the Eocene. I suppose some of the mammals might be dangerous. There could be poisonous snakes and insects — I'm not entirely sure of that. As a matter of fact, we have little evidence along those lines."

"In your estimation, however," said Brooks, "it would be livable. Man could get along."

"We are sure he can," said Osborne. "The great forests of past ages would be giving way to prairies, and while there still would remain plenty of wood for man's use, there would be great open spaces waiting for the plow. There would be grass to support man's livestock. The heavy rainfall that characterized some of the earlier epochs would have decreased. Until he got started, man could live off the land. There would be plenty of game, nuts, berries, fruit, roots. Fishing should be good. We're not as certain about the climate as we'd like to be, but there is some evidence that it would be more equable than now. The summers probably would be as warm, the winters not so cold. You understand this can't be guaranteed."

"I understand that," said Brooks, "but in any case, you are set on going."

"We have," said Osborne, "very little choice."