Colonel John Bo-torin inhaled his breakfast, then took the next hour to share everything he had learned about the space probe. Too many scientists, with their values of honesty and public disclosure, he explained, were involved in the space program to keep significant events hidden for long. At its current speed, the little machine would be home in about ten days, on a journey that had taken more than fourteen months the first time.
Retired General Samuel Bo-seklin quickly voiced what everyone was wondering, and while speaking, he looked at the person he hoped could answer. “What would cause a space probe to come back? ”
Doctor of Physics Chris Po-selem ruffled his hair to give himself time to think. “Er . . . um . . . a solution to anthropogenic climate change might be easier to imagine . . .”
Nervous chuckles came from several places in the room.
“Seriously . . .” Chris went on, “. . . the probe would have to encounter an unknown, fast-moving planetary body, such as a comet, in just the right place so that it swung around the body, was greatly accelerated, and then broke free of the body’s gravity at precisely the right moment to be pointed back home.”
“What are the chances?” Doctor of Philosophy Larry Bo-leden asked with a frown.
Chris just shook his head. “Especially since we’ve never detected anything that could do that.”
“That’s what I thought,” Larry said, leaning back and gazing up at the
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ceiling.
After a moment of silence, Colonel Lisa Ka-markla looked at Priscilla. “Do you know anything about this?”
“No, and that makes sense, because our source person doesn’t have access to a short-wave radio, and isn’t fluent in any foreign languages at this point in her life.”
The silence lingered again. Brian, starting to work on lunch in the kitchen, tried to be very quiet.
“What will it do when it gets here?” Doctor of History Richard Tu-feltin asked.
“Hmm . . .” Chris considered. “It doesn’t have much mass . . . if it’s perfectly on course and actually does get back here, it will just burn up in the atmosphere. At that speed, nothing of a craft that small would make it to the ground, and we have nothing that could go out and meet it to slow it down.
But of course, if it was following the laws of physics, it wouldn’t be coming back.”
The thoughtful silence stretched for nearly a minute.
“I think . . .” Doctor of Biology Tanya Po-morna finally began, “. . . this might be your divine intervention, Chris.”
The physicist sighed. “I was hoping for the solution to our climate predicament, not a melted space probe!”
Several people chuckled.
“I know I’m not a commanding officer anymore,” Sam admitted, “but I want everyone to tap into any news sources you have, and make a note of any information or speculation that comes to you, no matter how strange. And we’re going back to our old schedule — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday —
until this thing plays itself out, to whatever end.”
Susan and Priscilla nodded.
“I think we should visit Malcolm in the nursing home after lunch,” Sarah proposed, “as many of us as can go, and bring him up to date. He’s one of us, and deserves to know what we know.”
Most everyone agreed with waving hands.
At the local diner on Tuesday afternoon, a top-forty song started playing
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from the juke box. Priscilla wiggled in her seat, and almost wished the place had a dance floor.
“Can you tell me . . .” Brian began after enjoying the first bite of his deluxe cheeseburger, “. . . in words a nineteen-year-old boy can understand . . .
what’s going on?”
Priscilla finished sucking on her chocolate milkshake and stirred it with the straw while she thought about his question. “I wish it was that easy. Our space probe is coming back home and no one knows how, or why. We’re trying to figure out if it’s something important, or if it’ll just burn up when it gets here and everyone’ll sweep it under the rug as another embarrassment to add to the embarrassment of not getting any pictures out of it.” She sank her teeth into her fish sandwich.
“So . . .” he said, contemplating the curly fry in his hand, “. . . you don’t know any more than anyone else? That’s not like you!”
“I know! That tells us it’s probably nothing . . . at least nothing we’ll ever know any more about. But the scientists are making phone calls today with every free minute of their time, so we might find out something tomorrow.”
He took a long pull of his soda. “That means I have to cook again tomorrow. We need to hit the grocery store on the way home!”
The situation changed long before Wednesday arrived.
Somewhere in the echoey halls of government, someone realized that if the entire rest of the world found out the truth while this country was still in the dark, the embarrassment of a cover-up, added to the embarrassments already created by the pictureless probe and its mysterious return, could push the people over the edge. They could call for new leadership. They could demand blood.
The president sighed but agreed, a new story was invented to cover up the cover-up, telephone calls were made, and by the evening news on Tuesday, the truth about the space probe was finally told to the people of the country who launched it.
Priscilla didn’t sleep that night.
Brian watched her dance in the living room, sat in the kitchen to sip
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chamomile tea with her, and dragged her off to bed to make love to her.
But he could not figure out how to help her relax.
The team members looked at Priscilla with narrowed eyes, almost hostility, as they arrived to find her sitting on the living room floor eating banana pancakes. They got food and drink, whispered among themselves, and found places to sit.
“Good morning,” she said from the floor.
“Were you lying to us? Did you know?” General Ba-kerga asked pointedly.
From the kitchen door, Brian bristled, and was a moment away from teaching the general a little respect for his wife, with fists if necessary. Then he saw the tears in Priscilla’s eyes and heard the calmness in her voice.
“No. The timeline has changed. Our source person could have missed the short-wave broadcasts in other languages, but not what is all over the newspapers, radio, and television today.” She picked up the morning paper from beside her and unfolded it in the middle of the floor for all to see. The headline, and several stories on page one, were all about the space probe and its mysterious and rapid journey homeward.
Seeing that Priscilla was taking the situation with humility, the others relaxed.
“Are you . . .” Tanya began hesitantly, “. . . absolutely sure that you . . . I mean our source person . . . didn’t just happen to miss reading the newspaper that day . . . I mean today?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. At sixteen, she followed the space program with a passion, was even thinking of being an astronaut. I remember it all with crystal clarity — the disappointment over the lack of images transmitted back, and the final planetary fly-by of Ko-meriana, known only through basic telemetry. She even followed the telemetry reports from the probe for years to come, after everyone but a handful of scientists had forgotten about it. The probe stayed on course, and exited the solar system in the direction and at the speed it was supposed to. It faithfully measured gravity and magnetic flux, and transmitted those numbers back. There were no weird gravitational forces, and certainly nothing to fling it back toward home.”
“So . . .” Sam pondered.
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“The timeline has changed,” Priscilla repeated. “And to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time. That other point I missed, about eight years ago, was just me mixing up the details of several very similar events . . .”
“And us taking the opportunity to see how you would handle a humbling situation,” Sarah admitted.
The sixteen-year-old almost smiled at the retired executive officer.
For a few minutes, some people ate in silence, and others, who had not yet had the opportunity, gathered around the newspaper. John verified that it matched what he got from the foreign radio stations, except the lame excuse for the cover-up.
“Doctor Po-selem,” General Bo-seklin began, “I feel the urgent need for us to gain a much better understanding of what she means when Priscilla says the timeline has changed, and I sense that she’d like a break from leadership today . . .”
Priscilla, still on the floor, nodded.
“. . . so would you do the honors?”
“Sure,” Chris replied, “but I’ll do it from this folding chair, and leave Priscilla’s seat at the fireplace for her, whenever she feels ready for it.”
Most people nodded agreement.
“There now appear to be two universes, two timelines,” the physicist began with his heart in his throat, “and I don’t say this lightly or with any jest.
Priscilla has the clear memories of a girl who lived in a universe whose space probe did what it was supposed to do, as far as flight path goes. We are now in a different universe. They might have been the same until very recently —
perhaps until the probe’s fly-by of Ko-meriana — or they might have diverged earlier and we just had no way of knowing it. Let me think — Priscilla’s most recent verified prediction was . . .”
After a moment of silence, Sarah said, “No pictures from the space probe, admitted by the government, after lots of hedging, about five months ago.”
“So it’s probably safe to assume that the two timelines were one at that point. We may never know exactly when they diverged . . .”
“But what does that mean? ” George demanded.
Chris took a moment to breathe as he looked at the ceiling. “It means, I
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believe, that any predictions Priscilla has made, or will make, about the future from this point forward, may no longer be valid. In other words, her track record has just been reset to zero.”
The rumble lasted several minutes, and Chris let it run its course. He noticed that Priscilla had her eyes closed. Eventually he raised his hands for silence.
“But,” he continued his earlier thought, “her predictions CAN still be accurate. The two timelines CAN have things in common. In fact, it’s possible that the space probe’s course is the ONLY difference.”
Doctor Bo-leden the philosopher raised his hand.
“Larry?” Chris called.
“I think we should approach this question with a little logical perspective.
All our speculations about Priscilla’s predictions notwithstanding, the important question is whether or not our civilization is going to collapse not far into the next century.”
Most people nodded.
“And that collapse will be caused by climate change, which is the result of the slow accumulation of certain gasses in the air. The course of a space probe, however interesting, does not, cannot, have any logical effect on those gasses. In other words, please, let us not confuse purely human concerns, like Priscilla’s track record, with much larger, physical things that care nothing for our human issues . . .”
Priscilla
was
so glad when they all finally left.
She crawled in bed and slept deeply for the next five hours. Susan and Brian used that time to get groceries in Susan’s car.
As the coolness and quiet of evening approached, Priscilla moped around the house in pajamas, looking and acting like a lost puppy. Brian tried to cheer her up, but as evening darkened into night, he admitted defeat and retreated to the kitchen.
Susan
waited.
Priscilla poked at her dinner, ate a little but didn’t seem to taste it, then stared at the blank television screen in the living room.
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Susan picked up a book, but didn’t get far.
“Do you . . . have a little . . . free time?” Priscilla asked.
The therapist smiled and nodded.
When Priscilla finally emerged from the counseling room two hours later, her eyes were red but she appeared ready to rejoin the human race. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, then crawled into bed with Brian.
“Now I know what a fish would feel like without water, or a bird without wings. My entire life has been based on knowing what’s coming. Chris thought I might someday lose my memories of the future. This is worse. I still have them, but don’t know if they’re right anymore.”
Brian let some time pass to make sure she had said all she wanted.
“Maybe . . . you could just enjoy being a girl for a while — a very smart and talented girl, but still, you know, a girl.”
She snuggled closer. “Yeah. With Susan’s help, that’s what I decided to do.”