Paul deVere answered the telephone on the first ring.
“Dr. deVere?” the female voice asked.
“That’s me.”
“This is Charlotte from the New York Times. I know you have been calling to see Mr. Salisbury. I just found out he’ll be out of town all next week. He’s going to be giving a speech up at Syracuse University Tuesday night and from there he’s flying to Kansas City. His first available appointment would be in two weeks.”
“Syracuse University?” deVere asked. “What kind of speech is he giving up there?”
“He’s going to be speaking to the journalism school about the church bombings story from last winter.”
“I see,” deVere answered. “No, that will be all right. If we still need to see him in two weeks we’ll get back to you then,” he said and hung up.
Paul deVere dialed the front desk and asked to be connected to Amanda’s room. How long is the train ride to Syracuse? he wondered.
Chapter 20
Paul and Amanda sat in the back row of Hendrick’s Chapel on the campus of Syracuse University. It was mid-September, and the school had been back in session only a few weeks. The lecture by Harrison Salisbury was well attended. In the aftermath, Salisbury stood at the front of the chapel chatting with a few students. One by one, they peeled off. Paul knew from his own teaching experience, Salisbury would soon be alone.
“Without the documents, he’ll never believe us,” Paul said.
“You’re the scientist,” Amanda said as she rose from the pew. “You explain the science. I’ll cover the history.”
Paul followed her to the front of the chapel. Seeing two adults approaching, the last student moved past them toward the doors. Salisbury, who Paul estimated to be about his own age, looked up. Amanda extended her hand.
“Mr. Salisbury?”
The man’s glance moved from her to deVere, and then to the rear doors. He slowly extended his own hand.
“Yes,” he answered cautiously. “Can I help you?”
“My name is Amanda Hutch. Dr. Amanda Hutch. And this is Dr. Paul deVere. Is there someplace we could speak privately?” she asked, searching the now empty chapel. Salisbury followed her gaze before shrugging.
“This is probably as good a place as any,” he said. “Is this about my speech? I noticed you sitting in the back, and you don’t look like students.”
“Oh, no, sorry,” Paul stammered. “It’s not about your speech. Although it was very interesting,” he added quickly.
“Are you physicians?” Salisbury remained polite but Paul detected concern in his voice.
“No,” Amanda answered. “We are not physicians. Actually, we are professors. We teach, sort of, at MIT.”
Salisbury raised his eyebrows. “What does ‘sort of’ mean?”
Paul cleared his throat. “Mr. Salisbury. The information we have to share with you may seem odd. We just ask that you hear us out before jumping to any conclusions.”
Salisbury’s gaze again moved from one to the other. “So, this is not about Birmingham?”
“Birmingham?” Paul asked.
Amanda turned to Paul, clearly exasperated. “You know, the topic of his speech.”
She turned back to the lecturer. “Mr. Salisbury, your articles on the church bombings were excellent. No, not about Birmingham. Paul, why don’t you explain the science.”
DeVere took a deep breath. Salisbury had visibly relaxed when Amanda had said that they were not there about Birmingham.
“Dr. Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History Of Time, discussed the concepts of time and space. Dr. Hawking wrote and lectured extensively on the subject, and developed a theory of wormholes. However, he believed that time travel was not possible.”
“Hawking? Does he teach with you, sort of, at MIT?”
“At Cambridge University in England. Astrophysics.”
“Ah,” Salisbury nodded.
“Same field as myself at MIT. We’re both Astrophysicists.”
“Well,” Salisbury interrupted. “I’m not the science man at the Times. If you’re looking to get a science article written—”
“No,” deVere interrupted. Amanda frowned at the force of deVere’s interjection.
“No, I’m not,” deVere continued. “Please hear us out. Another theorist, Kip Sone, believed that wormholes could be used to connect various points in time and space, in other words, to act as time machines.”
“Like H.G. Wells?” Salisbury asked.
“Yes. Like Wells. Anyway, a third theorist, Dr. Bennett David, took Sone a final step. Hawking felt that if one attempted to travel through a wormhole the resultant disruption in the space-time continuum would make the travel impossible. In his view this explained why we can only remember the past but not the future.”
“Or sometimes neither,” Salisbury joked.
DeVere smiled and continued. “Dr. David theorized that travel through wormholes was possible if matter were sufficiently accelerated. But to keep the balance in the universe that he theorized was necessary, there had to be contrapositive wormholes, in order to get back.”
Salisbury nodded slowly. “Roundtrip ticket.”
“Exactly!” deVere thundered. “And everything that traveled back to the earlier time can return without being accelerated again.”
Harrison Salisbury leaned back against the table, pursed his lips, and nodded.
“This is interesting. I like this. It’s certainly different than Birmingham. This David fellow, can I talk with him?”
DeVere shook his head. “In his later years he kind of, how should I say this, went off the deep end. He became a full time surfer.”
“Oh? That’s too bad. He moved to California?”
“No, he spent his days on the Gorenect.”
“The what?” Salisbury asked, his brow furrowed.
It was Amanda’s turn to enter the conversation.
“The Gorenect,” she added quickly. “It’s a system linking computers so that they can all talk together.”
She looked to Paul for help.
“It was named after its inventor,” Paul offered.
“I see,” Salisbury said. “I’m not familiar with computers. Well, what about this Hawking fellow. You said he wrote a book. When was it published?”
“Nineteen eighty-nine,” Amanda answered without flinching.
DeVere watched as the expression on Salisbury’s face stiffened. He looked at the pair and then his gaze drifted to the closed chapel doors behind them. Paul was aware of how alone the three of them were, and realized that Salisbury felt it too. His heart sank.
“I see,” Salisbury said. He cleared his throat. “This has been very interesting, but I’m not your writer.”
He stood up off the table and reached to the podium for his notes. “However, there are several writers in the New York area—“
“Wait!” Amanda’s sharp command startled even Paul. Salisbury halted, his hands poised to close his briefcase.
“Listen,” she continued. “We didn’t ride up from the Waldorf in New York City just to track you down to tell you time travel was possible. We come from Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2026. Cambridge, Massachusetts, A.S.S.R., not Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. From a world in which the Soviet Union has won what you call the Cold War. All that’s left of the U.S.A. are three semi-autonomous trade zones. The rest of the old United States is all Red. With a capital ‘R.’ Straight up Communist, blindly following orders from Yeltsengrad, which used to be Minneapolis. I risked my life to come back here and you WILL at least hear us out!”
Salisbury stood frozen, his hands clutching his case. His eyes, however, darted from one to the other.
“Minneapolis?” Salisbury asked. “My home town. Are you guys John Birchers?”