Collected Short Fiction, page 19
“I see,” Borwin said, looking even more puzzled. After a pause he added, “My compliments to the colonel, and tell him I’ll be down in the lab.” He cut off.
Treadwell was already rising. “I’ll be there,” he said to the priest. “We’ll see about this thing.”
JERRY STEIN was waiting by the elevator when Father Riley came out of his office. He looked worried. “In a jam, Father?” he asked.
Riley shook his head. “Not in the way you mean; and you’re not, either. Thanks for the data on those clock readings.”
“Thanks? Hell—I mean—well, it was a pleasure, Father.” He pushed his hair back out of his eyes as the elevator arrived.
General Borwin and two other general staff men were waiting for them in the lab.
Treadwell was glowering near the machine, but he was saying nothing; his lips were clamped in a tight line. There was no one else in the room.
“Father Riley,” Borwin said, “General Kahane, and this is General Robinson.”
Father Riley nodded a brief acknowledgement to the introductions. Kahane was a tall, scholarly-looking man with sunken cheeks and piercing eyes; Robinson was of middle height, and more than a little roly-poly in build.
The five men stared silently at each other for a moment. Finally Father Riley spoke. “I suppose you’re all wondering what this is about,” he said.
Kahane smiled. “Quite true, Father,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “Please fill us in on the entire affair.” General Robinson echoed the statement.
“Briefly,” Riley said, “I think that Dr. Treadwell and his men have come across one of the most revolutionary phenomena in the history of physics. Yesterday, after Dr. Treadwell’s staff made the discovery, Dr. Treadwell asked me to do the mathematical work while he did the experimental research. It hasn’t taken long, thanks to the assistance of Dr. Treadwell’s staff, especially Lieutenant Stein. The data supplied by these gentlemen was invaluable.”
He moistened his lips. “Before I explain what is happening, I would like to give a small demonstration of the effect itself.” He turned to Dr. Treadwell, and smiled. “Colonel, do you mind if Lieutenant Stein assists me in this?”
He squinted at Treadwell amusedly. Treadwell, he knew, had already sensed that he was getting credit where no credit was due; and he was ready to jump to get it, even though he was becoming a little suspicious of the Jesuit.
“Go right ahead, Pa—Father,” he said.
Stein stepped over to the TV screen and turned it on.
“You gentlemen will notice that this—” he pointed toward an object lying on a nearby table—“is a standard antigravity shell, carrying a television camera and the normal controls.”
THE OBJECT was almost exactly the size and shape of a regulation football: a prolate spheroid with a glass lens at one end. General Kahane walked over, bent down to it in a stiff motion of his hips, and scrutinized it closely without making any comment.
“Jerry, will you test the controls?”
Stein moved his hands over the control knobs. The a-g shell lifted from the table, did a quick circle around the room, went into an Immelmann turn, and settled back down to the table.
“Fine,” said Father Riley. “Now, let’s see what happens when the shell is subjected to a sub-electronic field in accordance with Bleeckman’s Equations.” Catching a puzzled frown which crossed Robinson’s face momentarily, the priest added, “According to theory, the shell goes out of the physical universe into what Bleeckman called ‘interspace.’ But he didn’t know what the nature of this space was. Go ahead, Jerry.”
Stein threw a switch. A high singing note was audible for half a second, hanging and quivering in the air, and then the a-g shell disappeared.
“All right, gentlemen,” Riley said. “If you’ll step over toward the screen, you’ll be able to see what is happening to the camera.”
The three generals watched with considerable curiosity, and Treadwell with none at all, as Jerry put the apparatus through its paces. The ghostly, flickering images were quite impressive.
When the demonstration was over, Father Riley said: “Now, the question is: What is causing this phenomenon? And the answer is very simple: That a-g shell, camera and all, has gone into the future.”
He stated it so simply that it took several seconds for the information to register on the brains of the men present. They said nothing, but Father Riley watched the play of emotion on their faces as their attitude shifted from one of curiosity and puzzlement to one of befuddlement, incredulity, and awe.
“That’s what ‘interspace’ is,” Father Riley went on calmly; “what you are seeing on that screen is what may happen in. the future.”
He paused a second time, on the old theory that you can’t communicate anything to a general the first time. After a lapse of a few seconds, General Borwin asked, “Why is it so jumpy?”
“The future is indeterminate,” said the priest. “It’s a matter of probability. At any given instant, the future is determined by the factors then existing in the universe. At any subsequent instant, the factors have changed slightly, and the future is likewise changed slightly. The image we have here is a reflection of the future; they change also.”
Aquinas again, he thought, watching the dumbfounded faces of his audience.
“But the future doesn’t look like—” General Robinson began, and allowed his sentence to trail off when he realized how foolish it sounded.
FATHER RILEY smiled. “You have to realize that if there are two or more probable futures at any given time, they all show up on the screen—since, from our point of view, no one of them is the entire ‘future.’ The less probable they are, the less vividly they appear. That’s why there are several images of each person on the screen—three of me, four of General Borwin, and so on.”
“I still don’t follow you,” said General Robinson weakly, shaking his head.
“All right. Let’s look at some photographs Lieutenant Stein took of the screen last night.” Father Riley pulled an envelope from his briefcase and took out a handful of prints.
“Look at this one,” he said. “We’re all here. General Borwin, you are here—here—and here. And there’s a very dim image over here in the corner which might be you. Now, if you’ll notice, there is a standard chronometer hung on the wall. The time is now.”
They all crowded around to look at the pictures, paying special attention to the clock.
“But I’m not standing in any of those places,” General Borwin objected after a few minutes of careful study.
“Exactly,” the Jesuit said, “As of any given instant, the most probable future is predictable. That does not, however, take into account any Improbable things which may happen between that instant and the time predicted.”
“Then the machine is useless for predicting the future?” asked General Kahane.
“Worthless,” the priest agreed.
There was considerable reaction to this. Treadwell scowled angrily, as if he had been planning to fool the generals into thinking the machine was of immense strategic value; General Borwin and General Kahane exchanged irritated glances, and General Robinson began to voice some sort of objection but changed his mind.
“You mean that?” Borwin asked. “Utterly worthless.”
“Let’s say—impractical,” Father Riley replied. “But it is still an insensely valuable bit of property, even if it’s not a perfect crystal ball.”
“I still don’t understand how the thing works,” Borwin said. “What happens? Physically, I mean.”
Father Riley shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s utterly beyond me. The camera certainly isn’t visible now, although you’ll notice that in all of those pictures at least one of us is looking at it.”
He walked over and stared at the screen. “Evidently the a-g shell can’t be moved from its position, once it has gone into interspace. The directional controls don’t respond at all; but the altitude control throws it into the future.
“If the control is set at zero, according to the gravitational potentiometer, the camera shows what is happening right now, in the present. Or, perhaps, a fraction of a second in the future, so small that we can’t detect the time differential.” Angels on a pin, he thought wryly, without allowing the smile to break the surface.
“Now, obviously,” the priest continued, “the less time there is between now and the future depicted in the screen, the fewer possible changes there will be between now and then. That’s why the scene looks perfectly all right when it’s set at zero; it’s only a tiny fraction of a second in the future. However, the greater the displacement from the present, the greater the number of possible variations in the future depicted.
“Have I made myself clear?” he asked, glancing at the smoldering face of Lieutenant-Colonel Treadwell, who was standing to one side, very much angered.
GENERAL KAHANE shot a sharp glance from Riley to the machine and back again. “How can you tell how far in the future it is?” he asked.
“That’s where the altitude control comes in,” Riley answered. “In acting against a gravitational field, the a-g shell, instead of going up, goes into the future. Lieutenant Stein has calibrated the gravitational potentiometer against two chronometers, one of which was hung in front of the sub-electronic field. The other one, synchronized with the first, was checked against the time shown on the screen; and that, in turn, was checked against the gravitational potentiometer.
“The hardest thing to predict the future of are, of course, those things which are most likely to change. The exact position of a human being isn’t easily predictable at all. Therefore, they blur rather easily, and we get that multiple-exposure effect.”
“I see,” said Robinson happily. “Chairs and tables don’t move around much.”
“Exactly,” Riley agreed. “The more stable structures—like desks, the walls of the room, and so forth—aren’t as difficult to predict. Even without the machine, we could easily bet that the building would be here tomorrow. But as for the movements of human beings—who knows?”
Father Riley moistened his lips and cleared his throat. In the momentary interval, Dr. Treadwell stepped out of the corner, walked over, and studied the machine in a proprietary manner. Then lie looked at the priest, and Father Riley met his gaze inflexibly.
There was a long silence. Then Treadwell moved into the center of the room, smiled benignly, and asked, “Are there any more questions? We have quite a bit of work to do before we submit our written report to the staff.”
There were plenty of questions.
4
WHEN FATHER RILEY returned to his study, an hour later, weary with the cares of the world—and especially with the problem of coping with General Robinson’s scientific ignorance, it was with a feeling of deep gratitude.
His office had a warm, somehow well-worn appearance that belied the cold chromium exterior of the building that housed it. Father Riley felt that it was a symbol of his double life—that when he stepped from the shiny corridor to the office he had so carefully made dingy, he was leaving behind the world of potentiometers and time machines and stepping, once again, into an older, more familiar, more congenial world.
He poured a drink from the water-cooler and sat down at the battered, deflated pneumochair, and let his eyes rest on the crucifix on the wall. And, suddenly, a new realization came to him, and he smiled.
Even the Cross is. chrome-plated, he thought with some amusement. Even that. He leaned back, thankful that the demonstration was over, and rested.
He knew he’d have a round of serious thinking to do—not the merely mechanical kind of brainwork he’d done in preparing his speech of an hour before, but true thought in what he considered the deepest sense of the word. He was morally uncertain, once again, and needed the answer to a new question.
It was no longer, what would Aquinas think of this? No, that sort of facetiousness was insignificant. Father Riley reached for his breviary.
No. Not Aquinas. What docs—He—think of this machine that sees the future?
Father Riley stirred restlessly in his seat. It was a problem that he’d have to attack from both sides; it was a penalty for serving two masters.
Suddenly, the doorbell chimed.
“I’ll never have any peace,” the priest muttered. He glanced at the screen, half expecting and dreading the sight of General Robinson, who would undoubtedly drive him to some sort of blasphemy. But he was relieved to see that it was only Jerry Stein. Riley smiled; if it had to be anyone interrupting, he was glad it was Jerry. He pushed the door-opener, and Stein came in.
“That was a beautiful performance, Father, but I saw through it.”
Riley looked up. “What do you mean, Jerry?”
“May I sit down?”
“Of course,” Father Riley said. “I don’t believe in keeping a man hanging on ceremony, even if he is an infidel.” He chuckled and drew out a chair.
After a pause Jerry said, “It took me a little time to figure it, but two things hit me dead center. In the first place, your daily double came in. Paid $841.70. Your bets always come in. Always.”
Father Riley twisted nervously in his chair. “I wondered when you’d notice that,” he said.
“But you don’t play them, do you? You never take your own tips. You told me why, the last time I was in here: you think it’s stealing to take money on a sure thing.”
“Let me show you something, Jerry.” Father Riley walked over to the desk and pulled out his ledger. He handed it to the lieutenant. “See that last page? That’s what I’ve made in the last several years, just betting on the horses.”
Stein took the book and read the entry. “ ‘Two hundred fifty-six million, three hundred and—’ Father! I didn’t—I never suspec—”
FATHER RILEY laughed heartily.
“It’s all on paper, of course; I’ve never actually made any bets. But if I had, I’d be worth better than three quarters of a billion dollars today.” His heavy jowls curled upward in a soft smile. “I wagered rather heavily on the daily double, myself,” he said.
Stein looked from the book to the priest and back. “Do you have any explanation for it, Father?”
Riley shook his head. “That’s the beauty of it; I don’t. I just look at the records and guess. They nearly always come out right.”
“But not every time?” Stein asked.
“Not every time, no. What are you leading up to?”
Stein stood up and paced around the study, not replying. He walked over to the bookshelf and examined the volumes there—an almost equal mixture of ecclesiastical works and the most recent mathematical texts and other scientific books—and then gazed up at the crucifix. After a while he said, “The second thing I noticed was that you weren’t the least bit surprised to see three generals at the meeting this afternoon. You weren’t, were you?”
Father Riley met the young technician’s gaze coolly. “No,” he said in a soft voice. “Not at all; I had a hunch about them.”
Stein smiled. “I thought so; your hunches hardly ever miss, either.”
He began to pace up and down again. “You told the generals that the machine was worthless for predicting the future,” he said. “There were too many probabilities, too many changes. And you told the truth; as far as the average man goes, the machine is worthless. But it isn’t to you—is it, Father?” He looked triumphantly at the priest, who sat by his desk, arms folded, smiling enigmatically.
“You made guesses on what was going to happen, according to what you. saw on the screen when we first showed it to you. You took hunches on which of the many probabilities out there was the strongest. And your guesses were right—as they almost always are.”
Father Riley stood up. “Very shrewd. What’s your point, Jerry?”
“You ought to see it for yourself. You know where you fit into this picture. You can guess it,” Jerry said.
Father Riley took his seat again. He folded his hands together and looked at them for a long time, thinking of Aquinas and Aristotle and Bonaventura and of a Higher Authority; and he wished he had had the chance to hold that conversation with himself before Jerry’s arrival.
It’s too late now, Riley thought, for meditation. My decision is due. He glanced up at the young officer.
“Jerry, I don’t think God intends man to look into the future. The Church has always forbidden fortunetelling of any kind. And what is this? It’s a form of fortune-telling, isn’t it?”
THE PRIEST looked at Stein as if waiting for confirmation, and then hurriedly went on. “I don’t bet on horses, except to myself, as a private amusement. I don’t base my life on my prescience—or whatever my power is.”
“But—”
“Hear me out, Jerry. I have a power. true enough; but I feel that it is against the precepts of the Church to use the power for gain—and I’d feel that way even if I hadn’t taken a vow of poverty. The future is in the hands of God, Jerry, not man.
“The Church isn’t against gambling, as such. Life is a gamble itself; you’re young, but you’ve found that out. It’s a process of taking one chance after another. But loading the dice is something else again; and so is using cards with marked backs.”
He studied the backs of his hands for a moment, gathering strength to set forth his decision. “I’m afraid I can’t be party to any such thing, Jerry. I won’t let myself be yoked to your machine.”
The lieutenant listened quietly. When Father Riley had finished, he smiled and said, “That’s about what I thought you’d say. I’m a pretty good guesser myself, though I’m not in your league.”
He stood up. “Maybe we could finish this discussion down in the lab,” he suggested. “I feel more at home there than I do up here,” he said, indicating the worn books and the crucifix and the tattered cushions.
Father Riley shook his head. “No, Jerry. Let’s have it out up here; I feel more at home up here, and I haven’t been home very much lately.”
Jerry smiled. “All right. Let me tell you why I don’t agree with your viewpoint, Father.”
