Timeline Taxi: chapter 5
“Maybe we should have a proper talk then?” The doctor suggests after we’ve settled in the cockpit where I told him the trip to Mars will take around 10 days. He did remarkably well during our escape, but it seems he got through it on pure adrenaline and needs to decompress now. His hands are shaking, but he’s holding up. He could probably use the distraction of a talk. Fair enough.
“Ah,” he says after I tell him everything that happened over the past 24 hours, “I didn’t know they had their eyes on you. Otherwise I would have warned you when we met.”
“That might have spared me a very embarrassing hour or two…” I reply.
“Ok so, I reckon you’re totally clueless about what happened these past years on Earth, right?”
“I guess so, between spending seven years away from Earth and being dragged naked into a police station, I haven’t had much time to catch up… What happened?”
“Well, ISTRA, of course. But that’s only the result of a much bigger movement. I should probably tell you a bit about my field of study first.”
“Definitely.” I lean back in my seat and stare outside into the darkness. “Go ahead.”
“12 years ago, a small anomaly was observed at night in the UK, near Sheffield. A super bright flash of light in the sky, most people assumed it was a comet of some sorts. And indeed it was: a small comet the size of a melon. It was recovered by scientists shortly after it fell. Maybe you know, maybe you don’t, but comets these days aren’t all that uncommon. We recover close to a hundred sizable ones every year in the UK alone. Most of them are tested for rare materials, and processed accordingly. The same happened with this particular comet.”
“Yeah I’ve heard of more and more comet strikes during the past couple of decades. Is it really worth the effort?”
“In some cases it is. Most comets only contain common materials, but some can be processed for gold, cobalt, platinum, and silver — in significant amounts. With today’s processing technologies, the yield is worth the effort. Now, this particular comet was different though. Long story short, it contained an unknown element, and that’s where the Sheffield Institute of Space Travel finds its origin — specifically to research this one comet.
At first, I was recruited together with a team of two other scientists to do testing on this newly found material. Interestingly enough, the more tests we did on it, the more we realized it didn’t adhere to the laws of physics as we know them. As an experiment, we heated a small sample of the comet to observe how it behaved under high temperatures. Nothing happened. The next day, we wanted to conduct the same experiment again so we recalibrated our measuring equipment and prepared for another test run. During that calibration, the equipment picked up all sorts of particle activity around the sample. We assumed this was a very delayed reaction to our previous experiment, so we noted the time and delay, reheated the sample, and came back the day after. Nothing happened. We were puzzled about this and brainstormed possible theories for these inconsistent observations. Eventually we decided to retry the same experiment later that day, with two different sets of equipment. However, when setting up the new tools, they again picked up activity from yesterday’s experiment, now with what seemed to be a longer delay. Throughout the next few days, we kept running experiments and taking measurements. The timings never lined up and for days we weren’t able to find an answer for this odd behavior.
That is, of course, until we noticed a pattern. Our measurements seemed to always occur at a random time after each experiment, but they did occur on a fixed time before the next experiment. Always one hour before we heated the sample again.
Now, this of course makes no sense. How could an experiment we were going to do, influence the measurements of a past experiment? We did more test runs, but each time we moved the sample so that we had a more accurate understanding of which observation belonged to which experiment. It turned out that the past experiment had nothing to do with it. Each observation was consistent with the position of where the sample would be next. To make sure there weren’t any biases, we’d have one team observe the readouts, while another team, those who hadn’t seen the readouts, would move the sample. Next we experimented with changing the temperature. Slight changes to it seemed to influence the delay. The more we heated the sample, the earlier its readout could be observed. Again we had a blind team moving the sample at a random point in time to prevent any biases.
All of this experimentation led to a conclusion: we believed we had discovered tachyons.”
I know enough physics to raise my eyebrows. I have heard of tachyons before— particles that travel faster than the speed of light. “So the result of each experiment was measured before the experiment was done?” I repeat, just to let those words sink in.
“Exactly.”
“So you mean the experiment went… back in time?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that, no; but we can say the experiment’s results were observed without being constrained by the natural flow of time.”
“But, I believe tachyons were proven not to exist, weren’t they?”
“Well, it was never proven they don’t exist. However, their existence would lead to paradoxes, and their behavior would be inconsistent with our current laws of physics. However, no one managed to prove without a doubt they don’t exist.”
“So we’re talking time travel stuff?”
“I would be hesitant applying the term time travel because it has so many nuances and paradoxes that would distract from proper research. Here’s an example. One experiment was about making an observation, and then deliberately placing the sample in the wrong spot, so that the observation could not have taken place — to create a paradox.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. We weren’t able to pick up any reading. It makes sense, since we never actually put the sample in the right place. If we relied on a blind placement team once again, the readings only worked if they placed it in the spot we were observing. It seemed to be consistent.”
“So then what?”
“Well eventually we concluded that we didn’t discover tachyons.”
“Huh?”
“Tachyons were theorized centuries ago as some kind of particle that travels faster than light. In theory that could mean they would be able to send information back in time, which is what we were observing.
However, we discovered three distinct kinds of particles, all exhibiting the same behavior, albeit with subtle differences between them. So tachyons isn’t an accurate term. We’re also not sure whether the material we discovered is the source of these particles, or merely a carrier for them. On top of that, we can’t be certain whether they travel faster than the speed of light or not, because we simply cannot observe that. We can only observe a side effect that is theorized to be consistent with tachyon behavior. We did call the host material tachyonium, though. It seemed fitting.”
“What happened next?”
“Well after months of experimentation, we noticed something peculiar. We observed one of our tachyonium samples to emit what seemed to be controlled flashes of particles. What struck us the most, was that this particular sample was the so-called holotype sample: it was the first sample extracted from the meteorite that was used to determine that this was in fact an unknown element. We never touched it afterwards, let alone experiment on it. Now, all our samples were constantly measured, including the holotype. It was meant to be used as a baseline, since we never experimented on it, so it should never show activity. Safe to say, it doing so with a very distinct pattern — it grabbed our attention.
The very distinct pattern also seemed to be more deliberate than just a random occurrence, it kept repeating. It seemed as if the holotype was trying to communicate some sort of message. So we gathered the data over the course of several weeks until we noticed full repetition. We interpreted that data as binary information, and to our astonishment, it indeed included a message.”
“What — who…” I stumble for words.
“We don’t know, and we can only guess. My best guess is that future-us, or someone in the future, decided to send a message back in time via that sample. Since it’s the holotype specifically, it’s natural to assume that it was us, although we cannot confirm that.”
“What did the message say?”
“It included very helpful information about tachyonium that moved our research forward.”
“Hang on a second. So future you sent a message to past you, which influenced the situation of past you. Doesn’t that mean that future you would have never sent any information at all? Isn’t that something like the grandchild paradox?”
“The grandfather paradox, and our situation is most commonly described as the bootstrap paradox where information or an object which is needed to make time travel possible, comes into existence thanks to time travel, which causes a circular dependency, hence time travel cannot be created.
Now, I agree with you that this is paradoxical, but the fact is that it happened. We have no way of communicating with the future us, since tachyonium only allows one-way communication into the past. Future us also never disclosed any information about who or what they are so we can only guess about their motivations, though I assume they tried to limit the possibility of paradoxes as much as possible.”
“But it’s still a paradox, it cannot be.”
“Well, look at it from our reference point: we obtained information from an external party, all is fine, time just moves on with that newly acquired information. The paradox only impacts the future reference point. What happened to them after the paradox was created? Will they simply stop existing? Will there be an alternate version of the future, a branch, so to speak? We don’t know. And I don’t think we can ever know. The only thing we can observe is that the same message kept repeating over and over again even until today. So that’s an argument for the alternate future still existing somewhere.”
“Alternate — you mean like a multiverse?”
“Not really. For a multiverse you’d need multiple material copies of the same universe, I don’t believe that’s the case here. We’re only talking about time that’s alternating. That’s one dimension, not the other three. If we assume that time is an infinite dimension that we cannot perceive from our point of view, but one that’s there nevertheless; then we might have found a way to navigate a small part of that dimension using tachyonium. We’re not changing anything, we’re only experiencing one slice of that time dimension, and we’re moving through slices whenever a paradox is created. So don’t think of it as multiple universes, think of it as multiple timelines within the same physical universe.”
“Well I grant it to you doc, your story is way more interesting than mine.”
He smiles and stares out the window for a moment.
“Our stories might actually be more intertwined than you think,” he continues. “Did you notice how those shuttles after takeoff mentioned that both the ship wasn’t authorized to launch, and the pilot is a wanted criminal or something alike? Yeah I don’t think them chasing us is only about you having helped criminals with your taxi services. I believe it’s about your ship.”
“What about my ship?” I doubt it has much impact on all of this.
“See, ISTRA is what made it possible for you to be prosecuted, but ISTRA itself is one of the measurements taken to prevent our research. After three years of experimentation and research, we presented our findings to a special board of UN and USN members. They concluded that we weren’t allowed to continue it any further. On top of that, they created ISTRA to prevent us from bringing this research into the practical field.”
“How does ISTRA prevent you from doing so?”
“Simple. By discouraging or prohibiting near-lightspeed travel, we cannot get to the one place we need to be for our next breakthrough.”
“At a random spot in deep space?”
“At a very specific spot within the Oort cloud, 31000 AU away, give or take.”
I already knew we were traveling far, but it’s only right now that I realize how far. The Oort cloud… that’s huge. “What are you going to do there?”
“If you’re ok with it, I’ll keep that information to myself until we’ve left Mars and are on our way. I also won’t give you the coordinates of where we’re traveling to, until we’re ready to go for real.”
Once again, the doctor makes me feel uncomfortable. He’s asking to put a lot of trust in him. What is in it for me? I grimace as I’m reminded about my fate if I were to go back to Earth, which I seemed to have forgotten for a minute while the doctor was explaining all his science to me.
“Look,” he says, when he notices my worries, “I don’t think I’ve given you any reason to doubt my intentions. I’ve told you everything I can at this point, and I’m more than happy to provide all the financial means needed to get us refueled and on our way. Once we’re ready to go, I’ll give you access to the bank account containing your full payment — which you can check and transfer up front, if you want to. You can still abort the mission at that point if you decide you can’t trust me, but I cannot take the risk of telling you where we’re going or what I’ll do there before we’re certain we’ll get there. I hope you understand”
I nod. It makes sense, the doctor has a way of swaying my doubts the moment he addresses them.
“I’m ok doc. Thanks for being as open as you can. Give me some time to let everything sink in. I think I’ll be fine.”
“Good. Feel free to ask any questions you have. If I can answer them at this stage, I will.”
I stare out the cockpit window. The stars look fabulous. Our journey won’t even make it halfway to our nearest neighboring star. That’s how big space is. It makes me feel insignificant, but that’s not a bad thing right now. The less eyes on me, the better.