Read Times Without Number Online
Authors: John Brunner
Times Without Number (8 page)
"Yes," said Father Ramón, following with his eyes the movement of the
technicians taking apart the framework of iron and silver. And then he
repeated more slowly, "Ye-es . . ."
"What is perhaps worse still," continued Don Miguel, "is the knowledge
that we -- unworthy as we are -- have the power to re-shape history!
So far we have managed to confine that power to a nucleus of reliable
individuals. But out of a thousand or so Licentiates, if thirty have
already proved corruptible -- why, our greed and carelessness could
wreck history back to the moment of Creation!"
Father Ramón seemed to draw himself together inside his habit. He said,
"We are gifted with free will, my son. It is unquestionably a very heavy
burden."
Suddenly incredulous, Don Miguel twisted around on the couch and stared
at him. "But . . . ! Father, how could this never have occurred to me
before? With time-travel, would it not be possible for agents of evil
to plot journeys back into time, with the intention of undoing the good
consequences of the acts of others? Would it not even be possible for
such persons to deliberately corrupt the great men of the past?"
"You are astute," said Father Ramón after a second's debate with himself.
"It has indeed been conjectured that the influence of evil which we
discern in our history may be the working out of just such interference
as you suggest. Some theorists have even argued that the fall of the
angels hurled from heaven may have been a plunge through time, rather
than through space. But this is the deepest of all theological questions
today."
It occurred to Don Miguel that he ought perhaps to be surprised at
carrying on this casual conversation with one of the august General
Officers of the Society, especially with this Jesuit whose reputation was
that of an aloof philosopher inhabiting the rarefied regions of advanced
metaphysics. Yet he seemed singularly approachable -- far more so than,
say, Red Bear.
He ventured, "I myself do not see how such a question could be answered
at all."
"You mean the question as to whether the good results of human actions
could be wiped out by temporal interference? Good, of course, cannot be
destroyed, and it is heretical to maintain that it can."
The edge of reproof on the Jesuit's voice cut Don Miguel's self-assurance
to ribbons. He said humbly, "In that case it was foolish of me to voice
my speculation."
"Paradoxically, it was the reverse of foolish. It showed rather unusual
insight." Father Ramón rose, seeming to reach a decision. "When you are
rested, my son, visit me in my private office. I think you deserve some
information you have not yet been given."
IX
Father Ramón's office was perfectly bare; there was no ornament bar an
ivory crucifix and a candle, not even the usual portrait of St. Ignatius.
It contained only bookcases, a desk and two chairs, one hard, one soft.
The Jesuit was himself sitting in the hard one when Don Miguel entered,
and indicated that the other was for his visitor. Sitting down uncertainly,
Don Miguel wondered what information he was to be made
privy to.
Father Ramón offered him tobacco and a pipe, which he refused, and then
leaned back, putting his fingertips together.
"Consider what makes an act of free will free," he said.
The suddenness of the question took Don Miguel aback. He muttered a
confused answer which Father Ramón ignored.
"No, it consists in this: that all the possible outcomes be fulfilled."
" What?"
"Precisely that. If there is free will -- and we hold a priori that there
is -- all opportunities for decision must conclude in just so many ways
as there are alternatives. Thus to kill and not to kill and merely to
wound more or less severely --
all
these must follow upon a choice
between them."
"But I don't understand! There -- there is no
room
for that to be true!"
"No?" The other sketched his habitual faint smile. "Then approach it from
a concrete instance. You go into the past. You abstract a crucial object --
shall we say a bullet from a gun aimed by an assassin at a king? A king
may change history by living or dying. Would you thereupon return to the
same present as the one you left?"
"No, of course not," said Don Miguel, and heard his voice shaking.
"But knowledge is indestructible, isn't it? The knowledge, for example,
of how to construct time apparatus! So is there any reason why, from
that alternative historical outcome, you shouldn't return to replace the
bullet? The king dies --
again
, so to speak. And the present to which
you return after restoring the status quo . . . is the original present."
"Father, you are telling me that this kind of thing has already been done?"
"We have been doing it for nearly forty years."
"But this is far more dangerous than what's been done by the corrupt
Licentiates!" Don Miguel cried, feeling the universe reel around him. It
was known to everyone in the Society, and suspected by a few outsiders,
that its upper echelons were party to unshared secrets; the incumbent
Pope, for example, at the inception of his reign was now customarily
taken on a trip into the period of the ministry of Jesus, a zone of
history completely banned to anyone else. But to have been assured that
Jesus was a historical figment could hardly have been a more terrifying
blow than what Father Ramón had just announced.
The Jesuit looked at him calmly.
"There is no corruption in this matter. There is only an honest desire
to explore the works of our Creator, that we may the more completely
comprehend His omnipotence. Would you condemn in the same breath a thief
who stole away a valuable watch in order to dispose of it for gain,
and a student of horology who took it in order to inspect and copy the
mechanism, so that he might improve his own abilities?"
"Naturally not," agreed Don Miguel, his mind working furiously. "But --
but if all this is true, it scarcely seems to matter whether we interfere
or not! We ourselves may be only a fluid cohesion of possibilities,
subject to change at the whim of someone who chooses not to obey the
rule of non-interference."
"True," said Father Ramón stonily. "That is a logical consequence of
there being free will; in His wisdom, God gave it not to an elect few,
but to all mankind."
There was silence. Eventually Don Miguel said, "I suppose this might
have been foreseen by anyone who troubled to work out in detail what
kind of a future Borromeo's discovery opened up to us."
"We may give thanks that up to now few people have thought the matter
through." Once more Father Ramón smiled. "Well, Don Miguel Navarro! How
do you like the universe we live in?"
"I do not," said Don Miguel, and was at a loss to describe the sense of
impermanence, volatility and changeability that the other's words had
instilled in him.
"Nonetheless," said Father Ramón dryly, "this is how things are. Go now
to Red Bear and report to him about your trip. And do not speak to anyone
of what I've told you. For if this truth were to become known to those
who are not ready for it -- why, the sky would fall!"
When Don Miguel turned and walked to the door, he was surprised to find
the floor still firm beneath his feet.
PART TWO
The Word not Written
I
The quatrocentennial year was dying in a blaze of glory. The winter
weather had been kind, and New Year's Eve proved to be fine and mild,
spiced with a wind whose nip was just enough to sharpen the step to
briskness and put colour in the faces of the people. Bonfires had been
lit at sunset in most of the main streets of Londres, and around them nut
vendors, potato bakers and kebab men with their rapier-like skewers laden
with alternate lumps of meat, kidney and onion cried their hot wares.
There had been a great mock battle on the Thames as dusk fell; natives
and visitors had flocked in their thousands to witness the finest
reconstruction ever presented of the battle between the all-conquering
Armada and the gallant but pitiful English ships four hundred years ago --
a re-enactment correct in every detail, thanks to the Society of Time.
Even so there were a few nationalist diehards in the crowd who shouted
objections to the display, maintaining that it was an insult to them
and their ancestors. But most of the spectators answered with jeers,
for they regarded themselves as subjects of the Empire regardless of
what blood happened to flow in their veins: Spanish, English, French,
Mohawk, Cherokee, Sioux . . . Soon enough the civil guards quieted the
disturbance, and when a golden barge hove in sight bearing His Most
Catholic Majesty Philip IX, Rey y Imperador, the loyal shout which
greeted its appearance echoed across all Londres.
Smiling, bowing graciously from side to side, the King was rowed over the
same water that shortly before had been blood-red with the fires of mock
battle. Another barge followed, bearing the Prince Imperial, his Princess,
and their children, and behind that again came the barge of the Prince of
New Castile. The King's barge had sixteen oars a side; those of his sons
had twelve, and at one of the oars sweated and cursed Don Miguel Navarro.
Whoever the blazes had thought up this delicate tribute to the royal
family, he muttered to himself, ought by simple justice to have been
pulling on the oars too. But it was fairly certain that he wouldn't
be. He was probably simpering and dancing attendance on the King or the
Prince Imperial.
Even though they were going with the stream, they were pulling against
the last surge of the tide, and it called for real work to keep up with
the King's barge, as it had eight more oars and was anyway less heavily
laden. As a gesture of loyalty the idea was splendid; as a job it was
abominable.
It was small consolation to reflect that this ceremony was the outcome
of many months of behind-the-scenes intrigue at Court, and that precisely
because he was Commander of the Society of Time the Prince of New Castile
was going to play host this New Year's Eve to his father, elder brother,
and a gang of foreign dignitaries, chief among them the Ambassador
of the Confederacy of the East. Certainly it was a great and signal
honour for the Society to have been chosen as the focus for the climax
of the quatrocentennial year, but like a good many royal favours it
had its drawbacks. Don Miguel struggled to ignore the ache in his arms
and thought of the white elephants -- sacred, hence obligatory to feed
regardless of expense -- which the Kings of Siam were reputed to give
to subjects they intended to ruin.
He was in no mood for merrymaking anyway, what with the aftermath of
the revelations Father Ramón had recently confided to him concerning
the Society's exploration of unreal branches of history. With personal
friends, in a place and among company of his own choosing, he might
have passed a pleasant enough New Year's Eve, but as things stood he was
compelled to follow up this chore on the river with a whole evening of
acting as a host to all kinds of noble idiots in the Commander's palace
at Greenwich. He could tell he was not alone among the younger Licentiates
on the rowers' benches in thinking that this might prove unendurable.
Probably the crowds that watched the splendid water-procession from
the embankments did not even imagine that anyone could object to being
involved. Probably, when the spectacle was over, they dispersed sighing
with envy, thinking of the magnificence of the royal reception and
wishing they were prominent enough to be invited.
In bitter contrast Don Miguel and his companions sat hauling on their
oars and envied the simple folk going off to spend New Year's Eve with
their families or to join the revels which would make the streets noisy
and bright until dawn.
"You'd think," he growled, selecting one of the many discomforts that
plagued him, "in a Prince's barge they'd at least pad the seats decently!"
His opposite number on the other side of the boat, another Licentiate of
about his own age whose name was Don Felipe Basso, curled his lip. "It's
clear you'd rather be anywhere else tonight, Miguel!" he answered in a
low tone.
"Even Macedonia was better than this," Don Miguel agreed, invoking a
reference to the field-trip into the age of Alexander the Great on which
he had first made Don Felipe's acquaintance . . . and acquired the scar
which, while it merely twisted his smile, nowadays rendered his scowl
positively ferocious.
"Don Miguel! Keep the time!"
From his post in the stern Don Arturo Cortés rapped the order in his
shrill, acid voice. Seated in his most magnificent plum-coloured cloak
and snow-white velvet breeches on a high-backed gilt and plush chair,
he was making the most of his assignment as overseer of the amateur
rowers. He was one of the senior Licentiates of the Society below General
Officer rank; he had already commanded a number of expeditions into
the past, and was widely tipped to succeed Red Bear as the Director of
Fieldwork. Somehow he had acquired a General Officer's wand, to which he
was not yet entitled, and was employing it as a baton to beat time for
the oarsmen. Such a presumptuous gesture was typical of his over-weening
self-esteem.
Don Miguel bit back his answer -- he was altogether too close alongside
the tapestry pavilion in which the Prince was sitting to speak louder
than a whisper without being overheard and perhaps ticked off -- and
leaned compliantly on his oar. But when Don Arturo's attention had
wandered again, Don Felipe spoke softly.
"He doesn't seem to like you, Miguel!"
"Who -- Don Arturo? That makes us even. I don't like him either."
"A little faster still!" rasped Don Arturo, rising now with his wand
outstretched as though he were conductor of a band of music. "We're
falling too far behind!"
By the time the barge was gentled in to the wharf near the Commander's
palace, Don Miguel's buttocks were bruised, his hands were rubbed sore
by the oar, and his temper was close to flashpoint. Face like thunder, he
remained on his bench and watched Don Arturo with his usual officiousness
directing the disembarkation of the Prince. With part of his mind,
however, he was wondering whether out of sheer self-interest he ought
to try and counter the dislike which Felipe had referred to. It was
obvious where it had its source. Everyone seemed to think he had handled
the recent affair of the contraband Aztec mask rather well -- indeed,
he was wearing tonight for the first time at any Society function the
outward sign of the Commander's approval, the gem-encrusted collar and
star of the Order of the Scythe and Hourglass which cynical old Borromeo
himself had selected for the Society's emblem.
technicians taking apart the framework of iron and silver. And then he
repeated more slowly, "Ye-es . . ."
"What is perhaps worse still," continued Don Miguel, "is the knowledge
that we -- unworthy as we are -- have the power to re-shape history!
So far we have managed to confine that power to a nucleus of reliable
individuals. But out of a thousand or so Licentiates, if thirty have
already proved corruptible -- why, our greed and carelessness could
wreck history back to the moment of Creation!"
Father Ramón seemed to draw himself together inside his habit. He said,
"We are gifted with free will, my son. It is unquestionably a very heavy
burden."
Suddenly incredulous, Don Miguel twisted around on the couch and stared
at him. "But . . . ! Father, how could this never have occurred to me
before? With time-travel, would it not be possible for agents of evil
to plot journeys back into time, with the intention of undoing the good
consequences of the acts of others? Would it not even be possible for
such persons to deliberately corrupt the great men of the past?"
"You are astute," said Father Ramón after a second's debate with himself.
"It has indeed been conjectured that the influence of evil which we
discern in our history may be the working out of just such interference
as you suggest. Some theorists have even argued that the fall of the
angels hurled from heaven may have been a plunge through time, rather
than through space. But this is the deepest of all theological questions
today."
It occurred to Don Miguel that he ought perhaps to be surprised at
carrying on this casual conversation with one of the august General
Officers of the Society, especially with this Jesuit whose reputation was
that of an aloof philosopher inhabiting the rarefied regions of advanced
metaphysics. Yet he seemed singularly approachable -- far more so than,
say, Red Bear.
He ventured, "I myself do not see how such a question could be answered
at all."
"You mean the question as to whether the good results of human actions
could be wiped out by temporal interference? Good, of course, cannot be
destroyed, and it is heretical to maintain that it can."
The edge of reproof on the Jesuit's voice cut Don Miguel's self-assurance
to ribbons. He said humbly, "In that case it was foolish of me to voice
my speculation."
"Paradoxically, it was the reverse of foolish. It showed rather unusual
insight." Father Ramón rose, seeming to reach a decision. "When you are
rested, my son, visit me in my private office. I think you deserve some
information you have not yet been given."
IX
Father Ramón's office was perfectly bare; there was no ornament bar an
ivory crucifix and a candle, not even the usual portrait of St. Ignatius.
It contained only bookcases, a desk and two chairs, one hard, one soft.
The Jesuit was himself sitting in the hard one when Don Miguel entered,
and indicated that the other was for his visitor. Sitting down uncertainly,
Don Miguel wondered what information he was to be made
privy to.
Father Ramón offered him tobacco and a pipe, which he refused, and then
leaned back, putting his fingertips together.
"Consider what makes an act of free will free," he said.
The suddenness of the question took Don Miguel aback. He muttered a
confused answer which Father Ramón ignored.
"No, it consists in this: that all the possible outcomes be fulfilled."
" What?"
"Precisely that. If there is free will -- and we hold a priori that there
is -- all opportunities for decision must conclude in just so many ways
as there are alternatives. Thus to kill and not to kill and merely to
wound more or less severely --
all
these must follow upon a choice
between them."
"But I don't understand! There -- there is no
room
for that to be true!"
"No?" The other sketched his habitual faint smile. "Then approach it from
a concrete instance. You go into the past. You abstract a crucial object --
shall we say a bullet from a gun aimed by an assassin at a king? A king
may change history by living or dying. Would you thereupon return to the
same present as the one you left?"
"No, of course not," said Don Miguel, and heard his voice shaking.
"But knowledge is indestructible, isn't it? The knowledge, for example,
of how to construct time apparatus! So is there any reason why, from
that alternative historical outcome, you shouldn't return to replace the
bullet? The king dies --
again
, so to speak. And the present to which
you return after restoring the status quo . . . is the original present."
"Father, you are telling me that this kind of thing has already been done?"
"We have been doing it for nearly forty years."
"But this is far more dangerous than what's been done by the corrupt
Licentiates!" Don Miguel cried, feeling the universe reel around him. It
was known to everyone in the Society, and suspected by a few outsiders,
that its upper echelons were party to unshared secrets; the incumbent
Pope, for example, at the inception of his reign was now customarily
taken on a trip into the period of the ministry of Jesus, a zone of
history completely banned to anyone else. But to have been assured that
Jesus was a historical figment could hardly have been a more terrifying
blow than what Father Ramón had just announced.
The Jesuit looked at him calmly.
"There is no corruption in this matter. There is only an honest desire
to explore the works of our Creator, that we may the more completely
comprehend His omnipotence. Would you condemn in the same breath a thief
who stole away a valuable watch in order to dispose of it for gain,
and a student of horology who took it in order to inspect and copy the
mechanism, so that he might improve his own abilities?"
"Naturally not," agreed Don Miguel, his mind working furiously. "But --
but if all this is true, it scarcely seems to matter whether we interfere
or not! We ourselves may be only a fluid cohesion of possibilities,
subject to change at the whim of someone who chooses not to obey the
rule of non-interference."
"True," said Father Ramón stonily. "That is a logical consequence of
there being free will; in His wisdom, God gave it not to an elect few,
but to all mankind."
There was silence. Eventually Don Miguel said, "I suppose this might
have been foreseen by anyone who troubled to work out in detail what
kind of a future Borromeo's discovery opened up to us."
"We may give thanks that up to now few people have thought the matter
through." Once more Father Ramón smiled. "Well, Don Miguel Navarro! How
do you like the universe we live in?"
"I do not," said Don Miguel, and was at a loss to describe the sense of
impermanence, volatility and changeability that the other's words had
instilled in him.
"Nonetheless," said Father Ramón dryly, "this is how things are. Go now
to Red Bear and report to him about your trip. And do not speak to anyone
of what I've told you. For if this truth were to become known to those
who are not ready for it -- why, the sky would fall!"
When Don Miguel turned and walked to the door, he was surprised to find
the floor still firm beneath his feet.
PART TWO
The Word not Written
I
The quatrocentennial year was dying in a blaze of glory. The winter
weather had been kind, and New Year's Eve proved to be fine and mild,
spiced with a wind whose nip was just enough to sharpen the step to
briskness and put colour in the faces of the people. Bonfires had been
lit at sunset in most of the main streets of Londres, and around them nut
vendors, potato bakers and kebab men with their rapier-like skewers laden
with alternate lumps of meat, kidney and onion cried their hot wares.
There had been a great mock battle on the Thames as dusk fell; natives
and visitors had flocked in their thousands to witness the finest
reconstruction ever presented of the battle between the all-conquering
Armada and the gallant but pitiful English ships four hundred years ago --
a re-enactment correct in every detail, thanks to the Society of Time.
Even so there were a few nationalist diehards in the crowd who shouted
objections to the display, maintaining that it was an insult to them
and their ancestors. But most of the spectators answered with jeers,
for they regarded themselves as subjects of the Empire regardless of
what blood happened to flow in their veins: Spanish, English, French,
Mohawk, Cherokee, Sioux . . . Soon enough the civil guards quieted the
disturbance, and when a golden barge hove in sight bearing His Most
Catholic Majesty Philip IX, Rey y Imperador, the loyal shout which
greeted its appearance echoed across all Londres.
Smiling, bowing graciously from side to side, the King was rowed over the
same water that shortly before had been blood-red with the fires of mock
battle. Another barge followed, bearing the Prince Imperial, his Princess,
and their children, and behind that again came the barge of the Prince of
New Castile. The King's barge had sixteen oars a side; those of his sons
had twelve, and at one of the oars sweated and cursed Don Miguel Navarro.
Whoever the blazes had thought up this delicate tribute to the royal
family, he muttered to himself, ought by simple justice to have been
pulling on the oars too. But it was fairly certain that he wouldn't
be. He was probably simpering and dancing attendance on the King or the
Prince Imperial.
Even though they were going with the stream, they were pulling against
the last surge of the tide, and it called for real work to keep up with
the King's barge, as it had eight more oars and was anyway less heavily
laden. As a gesture of loyalty the idea was splendid; as a job it was
abominable.
It was small consolation to reflect that this ceremony was the outcome
of many months of behind-the-scenes intrigue at Court, and that precisely
because he was Commander of the Society of Time the Prince of New Castile
was going to play host this New Year's Eve to his father, elder brother,
and a gang of foreign dignitaries, chief among them the Ambassador
of the Confederacy of the East. Certainly it was a great and signal
honour for the Society to have been chosen as the focus for the climax
of the quatrocentennial year, but like a good many royal favours it
had its drawbacks. Don Miguel struggled to ignore the ache in his arms
and thought of the white elephants -- sacred, hence obligatory to feed
regardless of expense -- which the Kings of Siam were reputed to give
to subjects they intended to ruin.
He was in no mood for merrymaking anyway, what with the aftermath of
the revelations Father Ramón had recently confided to him concerning
the Society's exploration of unreal branches of history. With personal
friends, in a place and among company of his own choosing, he might
have passed a pleasant enough New Year's Eve, but as things stood he was
compelled to follow up this chore on the river with a whole evening of
acting as a host to all kinds of noble idiots in the Commander's palace
at Greenwich. He could tell he was not alone among the younger Licentiates
on the rowers' benches in thinking that this might prove unendurable.
Probably the crowds that watched the splendid water-procession from
the embankments did not even imagine that anyone could object to being
involved. Probably, when the spectacle was over, they dispersed sighing
with envy, thinking of the magnificence of the royal reception and
wishing they were prominent enough to be invited.
In bitter contrast Don Miguel and his companions sat hauling on their
oars and envied the simple folk going off to spend New Year's Eve with
their families or to join the revels which would make the streets noisy
and bright until dawn.
"You'd think," he growled, selecting one of the many discomforts that
plagued him, "in a Prince's barge they'd at least pad the seats decently!"
His opposite number on the other side of the boat, another Licentiate of
about his own age whose name was Don Felipe Basso, curled his lip. "It's
clear you'd rather be anywhere else tonight, Miguel!" he answered in a
low tone.
"Even Macedonia was better than this," Don Miguel agreed, invoking a
reference to the field-trip into the age of Alexander the Great on which
he had first made Don Felipe's acquaintance . . . and acquired the scar
which, while it merely twisted his smile, nowadays rendered his scowl
positively ferocious.
"Don Miguel! Keep the time!"
From his post in the stern Don Arturo Cortés rapped the order in his
shrill, acid voice. Seated in his most magnificent plum-coloured cloak
and snow-white velvet breeches on a high-backed gilt and plush chair,
he was making the most of his assignment as overseer of the amateur
rowers. He was one of the senior Licentiates of the Society below General
Officer rank; he had already commanded a number of expeditions into
the past, and was widely tipped to succeed Red Bear as the Director of
Fieldwork. Somehow he had acquired a General Officer's wand, to which he
was not yet entitled, and was employing it as a baton to beat time for
the oarsmen. Such a presumptuous gesture was typical of his over-weening
self-esteem.
Don Miguel bit back his answer -- he was altogether too close alongside
the tapestry pavilion in which the Prince was sitting to speak louder
than a whisper without being overheard and perhaps ticked off -- and
leaned compliantly on his oar. But when Don Arturo's attention had
wandered again, Don Felipe spoke softly.
"He doesn't seem to like you, Miguel!"
"Who -- Don Arturo? That makes us even. I don't like him either."
"A little faster still!" rasped Don Arturo, rising now with his wand
outstretched as though he were conductor of a band of music. "We're
falling too far behind!"
By the time the barge was gentled in to the wharf near the Commander's
palace, Don Miguel's buttocks were bruised, his hands were rubbed sore
by the oar, and his temper was close to flashpoint. Face like thunder, he
remained on his bench and watched Don Arturo with his usual officiousness
directing the disembarkation of the Prince. With part of his mind,
however, he was wondering whether out of sheer self-interest he ought
to try and counter the dislike which Felipe had referred to. It was
obvious where it had its source. Everyone seemed to think he had handled
the recent affair of the contraband Aztec mask rather well -- indeed,
he was wearing tonight for the first time at any Society function the
outward sign of the Commander's approval, the gem-encrusted collar and
star of the Order of the Scythe and Hourglass which cynical old Borromeo
himself had selected for the Society's emblem.
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