Collision with Chronos

10

Hwen Wu’s cabinet ministers sat gazing impassively at the two Earthmen, their expressions mild, faintly supercilious. Rond Heshke found this detached look, which the people of Retort City invariably wore, somewhat unnerving. It was as if they weren’t really interested in one at all.

“So you understand, I hope, the situation that faces your planet,” Hwen Wu said calmly, conversationally, as though he were discussing how they might spend an idle hour or two. “We in Retort City have been aware of it for some months, ever since Shiu Kung-Chien made a chance survey in that direction. That’s why we put a space-timeship in orbit around Earth to make detailed observations.”

“How come our people never detected your ship?” Ascar asked sharply. “Our tracking stations keep watch on the whole solar system.”

“Its orbit was elliptical in time, I believe,” the Prime Minister told him, “swinging not only around the planet in space but also from the past to the future and from the future to the past. Your surveillance stations would never have picked it up.”

“Ingenious,” Ascar murmured to himself.

Hwen Wu continued. “Recently we decided to offer Earth what assistance we could afford. For this, since we’re racially unacceptable to your ideology, we needed emissaries your government would trust. That explains your presence here in Retort City: our observers watched your tragic journey through non-time and decided you’d be most suitable. You’re both eminent personages on Earth and were already to some degree acquainted with the facts.”

“What is it you want us to do?” asked Heshke.

“Merely return to Earth and make representations to your government, advising them of the facts and the help we can offer.”

“And just what form of help is that?” Ascar demanded, frowning doubtfully.

“The only solution for your civilisation lies in the style of life we’ve adopted.” Hwen Wu said. “By that, I mean a life in space, lived in artificial cities. You must get off the planet before the disaster strikes.”

Heshke was aghast. “But that’s practically impossible. We can’t possible take everyone off!”

“Not everyone, true. But we’ll be able to help you. Our productive facilities are as great, if not greater, than those of your civilisation. We’re able to put our Production Retort – the lower half of our city – through cycles of time, so that it can go through several production periods where an Earth factory would go through only one.”

“We’ll show you how to construct your space cities,” an aged, venerable minister put in, “and add our resources to your own.”

Hwen Wu nodded in agreement. “The two time systems won’t meet for generations yet. We should be able to establish, perhaps, two hundred million people in space. It might even be greater, but” – he waved a hand negligently – “we’ll also be making a similar offer to the civilisation which unhappily is to be in collision with yours, and probably the Production Retort will be working to capacity.”

“Two hundred million people – that’s only a fraction of the population of Earth.”

“But enough to allow your culture to continue, surely. We’re motivated, in part, by a desire not to see interesting cultures destroyed needlessly.”

“Interesting cultures?” echoed Heshke in bewilderment. “But do you not realise that by the norms of my culture you are biological perversions? Freaks? And should be exterminated? And you want to help us?”

“Your religious beliefs don’t influence us in any way,” replied Hwen Wu in his usual cold but cultivated voice. “We’re swayed by reason, by what’s possible, but not, I hope, by passion.”

“It won’t work,” said Ascar, an acid, final note in his voice. “The Titanium Legions just won’t hear of it. The Earth is a goddess to them. They won’t desert her in any circumstances.”

“I fear Ascar may be right,” Heshke sighed. “Is there no other way? You’re masters of time: can’t you do something to prevent the collision from taking place at all?”

“You ask the impossible,” Hwen Wu said. “We’re not masters to that degree! We’re able to control a time field large enough to cover this city, yes – but one so large and powerful as either of the two on Earth? It would be like trying to move the Earth itself. It that not so, Leard Ascar?”

“So Shiu Kung-Chien informs me,” complied Ascar dully.

“And what if my government does refuse?” Heshke asked.

Hwen Wu gave a small, delicate shrug. “Then that’s their affair. We’ll take no further interest.”

He rose to his feet and waved his hand, signalling a cybernetic servitor. The machine rolled to a flimsy screen door and slid the panel aside.

“You won’t return to Earth alone,” Hwen Wu said. “One of our people will come with you, naturally, as our liaison. If your mission is successful he’ll stay on Earth to help to coordinate our joint efforts.”

Into the room walked Hueh Su-Mueng.

Heshke reclined on a low couch, wiping his brow with ice cubes wrapped in a cloth. His head ached and he was tired. He needed a long rest; he was scheduled to leave for Earth tomorrow.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.…

Time’s illusion.

Nearby was a decanter of a light, peach-tinted wine, of which Heshke had taken a draught. It was refreshing on the tongue and had an invigorating effect, but he was in no mood to drink any more of it.

Ascar, however, sloshed it back with gusto. “I think it’s very bad of you,” Heshke reproved him, “to back out at a time like this. In spite of your past actions, which have been awful enough, I’d have expected you to show a greater sense of responsibility, in the circumstances.”

The physicist had announced that he wouldn’t be returning to Earth with Heshke. Shiu Kung-Chien had accepted him as a pupil; he washed his hands of Retort City’s entire scheme for the sake of an academic career under the great master.

He guffawed to hear Heshke’s protest. “You know what the Titans are like,” he said. “The whole enterprise is a lost cause. I’m too old to back any more lost causes – you’re quite capable of conducting the fiasco by yourself.”

Perhaps he’s right, Heshke thought to himself. I’ve suffered enough mental upheavals myself lately. Someone as unbalanced as Ascar probably would react by turning his back on everything, his whole race, his whole planet.

Not that Heshke could count himself as a racist any more. As an archaeologist, he had taken good care to delve into Retort City’s version of Earth history. Theirs wasn’t archaeological inference, it was recorded fact. And the fact was that there never had been an alien interventionist invasion, never had been such a thing as True Man. Human civilisation had risen and fallen into barbarism again and again of its own accord, that being its pattern. The elders of Retort City claimed that theirs was the only system that wasn’t subject to that pattern, the only one that could preserve itself for millennium after millennium. As for the deviant subspecies, Heshke knew now that Blare Oblomot’s version of their arising had been the correct one. It was a natural tendency for species to radiate into diverse subspecies. Usually, when there were global communications, so much interbreeding took place that the different strains all merged. But some time ago, after one particularly violent collapse, geographical groups of men had been isolated from one another for a lengthy period. The natural mutation rate had been accelerated by radiation left over from a series of nuclear wars, and they had evolved into distinct races.

And the subspecies to which Heshke belonged – known in Titan racial science as True Man – didn’t particularly resemble the homo sapiens that had existed, say, thirty thousand years ago, any more than the others did. It was simply the one that had come out on top.

“I wonder if Hwen Wu’s scheme extends to rescuing the dev cultures, too,” he mused, dropping his futile attempt to make Ascar feel ashamed of himself. “Did you know there’s an organised underground on Earth, opposed to the Titans and trying to help the devs?”

Ascar grimaced. “Yeah, I know of them. The Panhumanic League. A bunch of nuts.”

“Well, I suppose the devs are pretty well beyond any kind of help now, anyway.” He put down the ice and wiped his brow with a towel. “Tell me, Leard, what do you think of our hosts?”

“What do I think of them? Why, they’re brilliant, of course!”

“I’m not sure I like them. There’s something cold about them. Something too logical, too sophisticated. They’re effete, over-cultured… without any real compassion.”

Ascar grunted. “You sound like a Titan education tape.”

“Perhaps. But have you learned how their social system works? How they give up their children to be brought up as workers and technicians?” Heshke could remember the horror and revulsion he had felt when the system had first been explained to him. The two retorts were phased differently in time. The children of the Leisure Retort, taken from their parents at birth, were passed back twenty-five years in time. They grew up and usually, at the age of about twenty-five years, had children of their own… which were passed to the Leisure Retort. People gave up their babies and on the same day received a baby in return… their grandchild.

“I think it’s fascinating,” Ascar said, a rare smile coming to his features. “They play all kinds of tricks with time. They oscillate the Production Retort through phases, sending it on cycles not just forward and backward but sideways in some way, in other dimensions.… You know what this means? Here in the Leisure Retort you can order something that takes six months to make, and it’s delivered five minutes later. Shiu Kung-Chien does it all the time. Beautiful!”

“Beautiful if you’re Shiu Kung-Chien!” Heshke said angrily. “What if you’re the man who has to spend his life satisfying these people’s whims?” It all made the Titans’ plans for humanity – True Man, anyway – seem just and compassionate, he thought. At least the Titans believed in a kind of rough democracy. And they believed in culture – even for the workers.

“Oh, they do all right,” Ascar said vaguely. “They’re looked after, they’re happy. And anyway we’re not down there, so what are you worried about?”

“If you don’t mind,” Heshke said wearily, defeated by the man’s single-minded narrowness, “I’d like to get some sleep. We’re starting early in the morning.”

“Oh. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ascar backed out of the room. He didn’t bother to say good-bye.