“Carmen, there was no actual ‘time’ to pass. We knew in what part of space-time you would be turning around, and we just went there. Went here, approximately.”
“Wait. You just went here? Without traveling the twelve light- years in between?”
“Of course we traveled the distance. We got here. But there was no reason for the journey to have any duration, so it didn’t.”
“You were on Triton one instant, and here the next?”
“That’s what it feels like, but of course time isn’t shut down; there’s no way around relativity. But time is not the same thing as duration. This universe is twelve years closer to its end. But we didn’t have to experience the passage of the years.”
“You mean… your spaceship is some kind of time machine as well?”
“No, not really.” He seemed cross, exasperated. “This is like trying to explain to a bird how an elevator works. This is the way we go to the top of a building. We don’t have to flap our wings.
“Your own spaceship is a time machine; you compressed twelve years into less than four. What we do is no more magical than that. We just have better control over it; we’re more economical and efficient.”
I was completely out of my depth here. “Let me get Paul. I don’t understand—”
“Paul wouldn’t understand better. Like you, like any other human, he misunderstands the nature of time. His mathematics just compounds the error, because it’s already wrong before ‘one plus one equals two.’
“It’s time I had a talk with all of you, or perhaps all except Moonboy. Can you arrange that in about one hour?”
“Sure. It wouldn’t take an hour.”
“I want to spend an hour looking at your library, the paper printed books. This may be my last chance.”
“What? What’s going to happen?”
“I said ‘may,’ not ‘will.’ Shall we say 15:21 in the compromise lounge? I want to talk to the Martians, as well.”
“Okay… what should I say you want to talk about? Our ignorant mathematics?”
“Partly. Partly your survival.” He turned, and walked toward the lounge, presumably the “library” corner.
I sat for a minute, collecting my thoughts. Then I pinged Paul and told him what was going on. He said he’d make a general announcement and asked what I thought Spy was up to. “That’s as close as they’ve come to an actual threat.”
“I know.” My voice cracked. I wiped cold sweat from my palms. “See you there.”
I made a cup of tea and took it back to our room. I’d just begun a letter to my mother but couldn’t think of anything to say. Dear Mom, my survival was just threatened by a robot from another planet. What have you done when that happens?
I wondered what Spy meant by “our” survival. The people on this ship or humanity in general? Dear Mom, you may have only twelve years to live. Unfortunately, I wrote this twelve years ago.
Jacket and scarf and knitted socks. Might as well be nice and toasty for the occasion. I went over at precisely 15:20 and sat on the couch next to Paul.
Everybody but Moonboy was there, including both Martians. Rare to see them together outside of their tub. I guess if you bathed with someone twenty hours a day, you might avoid him the rest of the time.
Spy came in exactly on time and stood in the door. He was wearing his space suit, holding the helmet. “Other-prime has decided that we should precede you to Wolf 25. We have learned enough about you to help the Others there deal with the problem. So we will leave this iceberg and speed on to our mutual destination. We should arrive about eight months before you.”
I didn’t know whether to feel relieved. We wouldn’t have them looking over our shoulders, but then we wouldn’t learn anything more about them, either.
“We are going to impose something upon you that may be unpleasant, but Other-prime feels it is necessary. Your group is unstable in various ways, and there is a real possibility that not all of you, or perhaps none of you, will survive the rest of your trip.
“To keep this from happening, we will cause you to travel the way we do. The time it takes you to go the twelve light-years will not be affected, but the duration of the trip will be negligible. I just explained this to Carmen.”
“You did, but it made no sense.”
“Do you remember about the elevator and the bird?”
I looked around at everybody and shook my head. “You said that describing it would be like telling a bird how an elevator works.”
“Yes. How you can get to the top of a building without flapping wings. It would never understand. But that would not affect reality.”
“Of course not.”
“What would happen if you put the bird into the elevator and took it to the roof?”
“It wouldn’t like it,” Paul said.
“No,” Spy said, still looking at me. “But it would get to the rooftop.”
It turned to Paul. “It will happen tomorrow morning. I will call you a half hour ahead of time. People should be strapped in, including Moonboy.”
“Will I be shutting the engine down?”
“Not for another twelve years. Objective time. That would be about three years and three months in your decelerating frame of reference. Seconds, in your new one. It will all be clear.”
Clear to whom, I wondered. To Paul? “Spy, I don’t understand. You and I were sitting down in the garden, talking about, I don’t know, marriage…”
“Social connections. Friendships.”
“And now suddenly we’re going to be the birds in your elevator, flapping around and going crazy, I assume. What happened?”
“The Other-prime contacted me and said it was ready.”
“What if we aren’t ready?” Paul said, tense. “This is a pretty big deal.”
“Just have them strapped in, Paul. You will find it an interesting ride.”
“Wait,” Namir said, and it was like a command. “Suppose we don’t want to take your shortcut? Maybe we’d rather continue as planned and have those years to prepare for meeting your people.”
“They aren’t mine, and they aren’t people,” Spy said. “If all of you would prefer the old slow way, tell me now. I will ask the Other-prime.”
Meryl spoke up first. “Not me. The sooner the better.”
Dustin nodded slowly. “Me, too.”
“Paul?” I said.
He tugged on his ear, a sign that he was conflicted. “Spy… we know our technology has worked this far. I can understand Namir’s reluctance to try something new and untested. Just on your say-so.”
“I won’t argue with you.” It was looking at Namir. “But technology is not involved at all. It’s just that the way you experience time is connected to the way you think about time, and that is flawed.”
“And you can change that?” I said. “The way we think about time?”
“No, no, no. The bird does not have to build the elevator to ride in it.”
He moved his gaze to Paul. “What it is… Let me put this as simply as possible. We are—or you and the Other-prime are—here together in a definite place in space and time. In a simple Einsteinian way. Twelve years from now, you will again share a place in the space-time continuum. Share a point. So what connects those two points?”
I remembered that from school. “A geodesic,” I said, simultaneously with Paul and Namir.
“Exactly,” it said, and looked at the two Martians. “A geodesic in space-time is something like a line drawn between two points on a map.”
Fly-in-Amber sketched a line with his finger. “The shortest natural distance.”