Julianne Toomey-Kautz (or somebody else of the same name) wrote in message
<0qednam1xuRNnJXanZ2dnUVZ_jKdnZ2d RemoveThis @rcn.net>:
> Congratulations!!!
>
> Cardiff, Wales? Oooooh, I want to read it!
> ************
> blessed be, Julianne
>
> Prai Jei wrote:
>> <plug>
>> To come back to the original topic, I can claim to be a published SF
>> author myself, after a short story of mine (a time-travel tale set in the
>> Soviet Union) got published in a local magazine here in Cardiff. Anybody
>> interested I'll post a copy.
>> </plug>
========================================================
ARE YOU SURE OF THE DATE?
by
Paul Townsend
Prologue
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, information on the more
obscure aspects of what went on in that curious episode of world
history are slowly reaching the attention of the rest of the world.
The narrative which follows has been painstakingly compiled from
many sources: a bit of gossip here, a charred fragment of a document
there. Even a requisition recorded in the stores book, from a pad
later found sitting unused (and intact) in the stationery cupboard,
can speak volumes. These slender clues all point to one undeniable
fact - that the Soviets did indeed develop time travel, but that the
project was rather hastily abandoned after the first manned
experiments. Note: certain names have been altered.
I
"Naturally, once the target object has been despatched through the
temporal interface, it is beyond our control and there is no way it
can bring itself back. We do not know - yet - what happens beyond the
interface. We must now proceed to Phase 3 - the development of a
manned vehicle. Target date is the end of June." Colonel Levitnov
summed up before a select committee of officers and scientists in a
secure wing of the Baikonur Space Centre. "Are we all agreed that we
can develop it within these timescales?"
Nobody dared disagree.
It was January 1983, and officially, Project Chronos did not exist.
In fact, it was known only to the General Secretary, the Chiefs of
Staff and a hand-picked team of personnel. Most of the several
hundred people working on the project assumed that they were part of
the mainstream activities of the Space Centre, launching and tracking
satellites and so forth. During the hectic months which followed,
Chronos went the usual way of all such projects - things were not
available on time, or not built on time, faults in the hardware, bugs
in the software, money running short, much time wasted in an endless
round of meetings, new staff appearing where previous staff seemed to
just disappear. Somehow a first mockup was ready by the end of April,
the design shortcomings were ironed out during May, the first
prototypes "flew" (unmanned) by the middle of June, and on June 27
Comrade Malinkievsky was ready to fly in Chronos One.
The first question facing the team on that date was, of course: when
is the target date? For practical reasons (due to the position of the
Earth relative to the stars), it should of course be June 27 of some
year. In the end Malinkievsky himself supplied the answer.
"I was reading through my little boy's book on the wonders of the
Soviet Union, and I came across an account of the Tunguska meteorite
of 1908. We're close to the seventy-fifth anniversary of that curious
event. How about aiming for that?"
"Sounds rather a dangerous time to aim for," put in Pyotr Shernavenko,
the chief technician of the project, was very much the practical man.
"It's all very well cherishing some idea of finding out what Tunguska
really was, but do you really want to be in on such a terrible event?"
"This is a golden opportunity to silence the fantasists of the West
once and for all," replied Mikhail Ternasov, local KGB chief and
political fanatic. "We can confound them with the truth, and dispose
once and for all of the idea that it was really an alien spacecraft.
It was a natural occurrence, we can tell them. Perhaps even something
devised by the capitalist warmongers themselves - their own version
of Chronos and an attempt to destroy the Soviet Union before it was
born! But the Soviet Union was born, and will endure till the end of
time! Victory for dialectical materialism! Victory for Marx and
Lenin! Tunguska it is! We'll show them what Soviet science can--"
"Are you sure of the date?", asked Shernavenko, bringing the debate
back down to earth with quite a loud thud. Ternasov made a few
stammering noises, then fell silent.
"Well - it was supposed to be on June 30, not 27," replied
Malinkievsky. "Does that matter though?"
"It means delaying the mission, or modifying the equipment to increase
the spatial component of the interface by a factor of ten to the
seventh or so to achieve the required displacement."
"I'd just as soon wait. We'd never get those modifications designed,
built and tested in three days."
"Khorosho, we wait," said Shernavenko, picking up the phone. After a
few seconds: "Hello, Liaison. Announce a slight technical hitch - we
can soon stage a flash, bang and puff of smoke - launch postponed to
Thursday. We're still within the end-of-June deadline."
"Only just," added Ternasov. "You watch your step--"
II
Chronos One was not particularly pretty to behold. It didn't need to
be, since it was not intended to leave Earth's atmosphere or
experience the awful g-forces of a rocket-powered takeoff. It looked
cobbled together - and so it was. For obvious security reasons, a new
purpose-built craft was out of the question. Instead, cast-off panels
from previous space projects had been rather loosely put together,
ostensibly as the mock-up for the successor to the Mir space station.
It was located over a kilometre from the nearest building, to keep
prying eyes off, and as a precaution against mechanical failure -
correction, as a precaution against the activities of decadent
capitalist saboteurs.
Now, on the morning of 30 June, Chronos One was ready to go.
Malinkievsky was in good spirits, not revealing any inner trepidation
arising from the fact that he was to be the first man to journey in
time. He thought of Yuri Gagarin, over twenty years before, becoming
the first man in space. Shernavenko and his skilled technical team
were all at their consoles, monitoring every aspect of the craft and
its immediate environment. Colonel Levitnov and Comrade Ternasov, on
the top floor of the control house, watched Chronos One through
binoculars.
"What do we actually see?" asked Ternasov. "Does she just disappear,
or fade out, or what?"
"The effects seem to vary," replied Levitnov. "I've seen things
disappear without a trace, or there might be a flash of lightning as
any static left behind discharges itself. Of course..."
"Go on - of course what?"
"Nothing." Levitnov consulted his watch. "There's only a few minutes
left before projection time - that's what we're calling it - the word
'launch' doesn't seem appropriate here."
Malinkievsky's distorted voice came from a loudspeaker in the room.
"Chronos One to control, all clear."
"All clear, Chronos" came an answering voice. "Two minutes to
projection."
Those two minutes dragged. No further communications came through the
speakers. As projection time approached, Ternasov turned to Levitnov.
"No countdown?" he asked.
"Everything's automatic," came the reply. "We have no media here to
play to, so there's no need for the dramatics. Watch what happens..."
Several things happened simultaneously. Chronos One simply vanished,
leaving in its wake an ominously black, circular disc about a metre
in diameter. A lightning bolt shot out of this disc, discharging
itself onto a conductor rod placed nearby. All the lights dimmed for
a second or so before returning to full brightness. Static noises
issued from the loudspeaker. A parabolic aerial, mounted on a gantry
about a hundred metres from the disc, hunted from side to side and up
and down for a few seconds before aiming itself at the centre of the
disc.
III
"&*^%&*^& &^$%%{%$@ (*)*&*&^$^$% you read me? Come in please.
Hello Baikonur 1983, greetings from Tunguska 1908. Do you read me?
Come in please." The static suddenly resolved itself into
Malinkievsky's even more distorted voice.
"Receiving you loud and clear, Chronos," answered Control, not quite
truthfully. "Greetings from 1983. How are things?"
"There was quite a jolt, shook everything up," replied Malinkievsky.
"Most of the equipment is showing Green, but Reactor Pod Two gave a
Condition Orange - major loss of coolant. I've shut it down. Pods
Three and Five are showing Yellow - excess temperature and pressure.
I'm running them on reduced power. Meanwhile it's a lovely summer
morning. I think I'll get out and have a stroll around..."
"Negative, negative," replied Control. "You've got too much work to
do. Any sign of the meteorite approaching?"
"Negative. Everything looks peaceful and calm. Not a cloud - or
anything else - in the sky. I don't understand it. Are you sure of
the date? We were using the Julian Calendar in those days, you know."
"As far as we can tell, we have indeed taken you to the morning of
30 June 1908, when the meteorite was supposed to arrive. It was
supposed to come in from the south - keep looking in that direction."
The conversation continued, mostly discussing the technicalities of
the mission. Meanwhile, in the top floor of the control house,
Ternasov pondered what he had seen. Finally, he broke the silence.
"What is that black disc, suspended in mid-air where Chronos stood?"
he asked of Levitnov.
"That's the actual temporal interface. See that dish antenna? That's
how we communicate with Chronos. It must remain pointing - not at the
exact centre of the disc, but at the 'cusp of the golden section' or
something like that. The disc is an opening into a tunnel, or so they
tell me. It seems the length of the tunnel is finite and infinite at
the same time. It follows a spiral course which re-emerges in 1908. I
can't grasp all the theory behind it - you'd have to ask the
physicists."
Ternasov grimaced. His contempt of the scientific community was well
known. "Golden cusp of the whatever-it-was," he growled. "I don't
reckon half those scientists really know what they're talking about.
They use words, words, words, disguising their ignorance with words
and taking us for idiots."
"But you must admit," averred Levitnov, "that the temporal interface
theory works. Chronos One is back in 1908."
Ternasov was silenced for a while, but then he put the crucial
question. "If Chronos is back in 1908, where's that damned meteorite?
Answer me that!"
IV
In 1908, Malinkievsky had no more idea than Ternasov what had
happened to that "damned meteorite." The supposed time of impact was
rapidly approaching, but the sky remained cloudless and clear.
Meanwhile he had other problems. Reactor Pod Three had flashed up
Condition Red - mechanical failure, requiring an emergency shutdown.
Chronos was now running on half power. Back at Baikonur, the black
disc had shrunk to a mere ten centimetres in diameter, no longer
visible from the control house.
"Five minutes to impact time," called Malinkievsky. "Still no sign of
anything. Are you absolutely sure of the date?"
"Of course we're sure of the date," came the weak, distant, distorted
voice of Shernavenko. "Are you casting doubts upon the technical
competence of the project team, right up to Colonel Levitnov himself?"
"Condition Yellow on Reactor Pod Four," said Malinkievsky,
deliberately changing the subject. "Excess pressure. I've hit the
Total Shutdown button. The batteries will keep Chronos going for the
next ten vital minutes. We'll clear up this meteorite mystery one way
or the other, then there'll be just enough juice to get back."
"There'll be a top-level inquiry about this reactor," called Dmitri
Tobiasev, chief reactor engineer. "There can't be anything wrong with
my design - Comrade Ternasov seems to think there has been some
sabotage. We'll need you as a witness."
"One minute to impact," said Malinkievsky. "Still nothing. Are you
really sure of the date?"
There was no response from Control.
"We're nearly at impact time. Come in please," pleaded Malinkievsky.
"We're receiving you. Shut up about the date. Are you accusing us of
incompetence?" It was Ternasov, frustrated at the failure of the
mission so far.
"Attention! Attention!" The genuine urgency in Malinkievsky's voice
was unmistakable. "The reactor! She's going! Pod One safety vent
blown, Pod Two------"
V
At this point, contact with Chronos One was lost and could not be
re-established. The black disc disappeared. The parabolic aerial
hunted from side to side and up and down, fruitlessly until somebody
killed the power to its guidance motors. Silence descended on the
Chronos wing of Baikonur, until Levitnov switched on the microphone
on his desk.
"All right, it's over," he called to everybody in the wing. "Back to
your duties."
Naturally, there was a top-level enquiry which examined all aspects
of the Chronos One mission. It emerged - correction, it did not emerge
- that there was a basic flaw in Tobiasev's reactor design. If ever
another experiment were to be made, the successors to Tobiasev's team
(Tobiasev and his entire team were not seen again) would have to
totally redesign the reactor. Comrade Malinkievsky would be listed as
"missing", and posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin.
"But that leaves unanswered the main question of the entire mission,"
said Shernavenko. "The meteorite - what was it? Right up to the
failure point, the story was the same - no sign of it. We're no nearer
to knowing whether it was a real meteorite, or a comet, or a piece of
antimatter - or even some nuclear-powered craft which malf---------"
Shernavenko checked himself, and turned a deep red, as he realised
just what it was he had said. A tense silence followed, finally broken
by Colonel Levitnov.
"We shall erase the record of Chronos One from Soviet history, even
from Top Secret history. There was no such project, there is no
time-travel, there will be no more Tunguskas. Thank you all, comrades.
Good day."
===============================================
©1994 Paul V. S. Townsend
--
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