“Ms. Schwartz, I am David Danielson”.
“Professor Danielson, I am pleased to meet you”. Deborah extended her hand. Professor Danielson looked at it, quizzically. Deborah looked at his face, saw his expression and retracted her hand.
“Come with me to this desk, and we’ll get you signed in. Put your right hand on the plate”
She put her right hand on the plate.
“Now, take your right hand off the plate, shake it a few times, and put it back on the plate”
She did.
“Okay, you are all signed in. When you come to a locked door, there will be plate on it. Put your palm against the plate, and if you are authorized, you will be let in. Any questions?”
He took a squeeze bottle, spritzed the plate with something that smelled vaguely of alcohol, and then wiped the plate with a paper towel.
“No questions”
“How do you like your timeship, so far?”
“I haven’t really had a chance to explore it. I am the first woman to see the far side of the moon, so that’s noteworthy.”
“I sorry to tell you that that will have to be kept a secret.”
“Why?”
“Let’s go for a walk. You can leave your suitcase here and we will come back for it - it will be perfectly safe”
Deborah followed Professor Danielson out the door and across a grassy knoll.
“The reason why you can’t tell anybody about your exploits is because changing the past is illegal”
“Why are you involved in this, if it is illegal?”
“That’s a little complicated. The law was passed because people were going back into the past and gambling on sports games, investing in the stock market, cheating on insurance premiums. People with access to time travel technology were growing wealthy and powerful. Finally, there was a popular uprising, threatening to ban time travel technology all together.
“However, a loop hole was introduced into the law - it was legal to travel into the future, collect certain restricted information, and bring it back to the present. So, for example, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were rising, but we couldn’t develop an alternate fuel with the same energy density, economy, and safety as hydrocarbons. Time travelers were extensively indoctrinated to the highest levels of ethical conduct, that they would go out, find out what was needed to be known, and come back but do nothing else. A military force, the chronopolice, was created to enforce the law.
“But somebody went back into the distant past and changed something, something important. We discovered a parallel time line that forked in the distance past. In the alternate timeline, there were no Greek or Roman characters in any alphabet. There was an Indo-European protolanguage, but it was very different and there were many localized variations. Industrial and intellectual development didn’t happen.
“We finally determined that the significant event was a war described in the book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5. That war either didn’t happen or else it turned out differently. We know where this war occurred sometime in a range of about 350 years. We needed somebody to go back in time and fix the problem - we could not do it with automated probes”.
“Why not?”
“Because a primitive people who had barely figured out how to use bronze and iron would be terrified by an artificially intelligent probe. Using an autonomous robot would also be technically challenging. We needed a human being. We picked you for the task”
“Why me?”
“You had a combination of the knowledge about ancient Hebrew and the ethical fortitude that we needed”
“No, wait a second. The Hebrew I am studying is from roughly a thousand years after the book of Judges”
“That will have to do. We needed somebody female, because you have to marry a specific man. We needed somebody that was highly intelligent, and who was susceptible to the learning machine and the telepathy pill. We needed somebody young enough that they would still be of marriageable age, but old enough to use the learning machine. Not everybody can meet those requirements. We had you, but as an old woman. So she volunteered to go into the past and find you at the right moment in your lifetime so that you could accomplish the mission.”
“So I volunteered myself?”
“Well, this is kind of awkward, but yes.”
“What is your role in all this?”
“I am responsible for your training. For the next two years, you will spend most of your time connected to a learning machine which will train you in all of the technologies you need to know to fly your timeship into the past and into the future. You will learn how to fix your timeship if it becomes damaged, and how to fight with it in case you encounter the entity that changed the past. I am also responsible for your safety while you are here.”
“Am I in danger?”
“We all are, so the sooner we get started, the sooner you can get to your mission”
“Well, then let’s get started”
They turned around and walked the other way, back towards the building where Deborah had left her suitcase. Sure enough, it was as she left it. Professor Danielson led her to another building, down a hallway, and to a door. The door had a very sturdy combination lock. Professor Danielson spun the combination. Deborah noticed that the combination had 6 numbers. Then Professor Danielson put his hand against a plate. A green light turned on, the door opened, and they entered an airlock, which was interlocked so that the outer door had to be shut before the inner door would open and vice versa.
“Why an air lock?”
“The official reason is that we are conducting electromagnetic research in this room, and we want to keep stray EM fields out of the room. The real reason is that we don’t want anybody tapping into the learning machine to find out what you are learning. Now, what I want you to do is climb into the chair, and let me put this helmet on your head.”
“What is the helmet”
“The learning machine interfaces directly with the neurons in your brain, and creates new memories. However, you have to be old enough so that the new memories can be kept separate from the old memories. Normally, we would wait until you were 25 before putting you in the machine, so we are running a risk. However, nothing went wrong in this timeline, so we think the risk is acceptable”
“That’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one taking the risk”
“Oh, but I am. If your training doesn’t go well, and you make a mistake in the past, then this moment won’t exist. That would mean that there is a fork in the timeline. We want to avoid forking timelines. In fact, we try to coalesce timelines if we can. Other mistakes may expose you to the chronopolice, and if they find you, then they will find me, and I will be liable for execution. Finally, at this time, there is a police force and they may find us. So, yes, I am running a risk, too.”
“Oh”. Deborah thought for a moment. “Explain to me about the risk of using the learning machine again please?”
“You want to keep your real memories separated from your synthetic memories. Otherwise, you get confused and it becomes harder to concentrate, harder to cognate. It is best to wait until you have achieved a certain body of knowledge before connecting to the learning machine. Generally, it is safest to use the learning machine between the ages of 25 to 40. It is risky to use it one somebody as young as you are, but people as young as 16 have used it with no ill effect, so it depends on the individual’s tolerance. We think you can tolerate it.
“The future of humanity is at stake?”
“Yes”
“And you think I am the best qualified person to deal with it?”
“yes”
“And you are a tenured professor?”
“Tenure track, so I can still be professionally ruined”
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
“Good. Please have a seat in the chair”
Deborah sat down.
Professor Danielson put the helmet on Deborah’s head. The helmet was quite comfortable. She felt soft pads form around her ears. Professor Danielson lowered a shield over her face. It was vaguely claustrophobic, but Deborah decided that for the good of humanity, she would live with it. Something was forced into her right hand. Then, Professor Danielson’s voice appeared in her head - according to her ears, it was inside a her head, a strange experience. “In your right hand is a squeeze bulb. If you want to stop the session, for any reason at any time, squeeze the bulb. I want you to squeeze the bulb now, to test it”. Deborah squeezed the bulb. Immediately, the shield popped up.
“Very good. Did you have the weird experience that my voice was in your head?”
“Yes”
“Excellent. That means that the learning machine is working in all respects. We are ready to proceed. The first session will last not more than 3 hours and then we will break for dinner”
“Okay”
Professor Danielson lowered the shield again. All of a sudden, Deborah started seeing equations fly by very rapidly. The first equations she vaguely remembered: the solution to the quadratic equation and how to solve any planar triangle. But then the equations got more complicated: how to solve trigonometric problems on spheres and hyperbolas, derivatives and integrals, the wave equation, the Fourier transform, the Laplace transform, quaternions. She couldn’t stand it any more and she squeezed the bulb. The shield popped open.
“34.52 seconds. Excellent”
“What the hell?”
“For a first time in the learning machine, you managed to get through about 2 percent of the mathematics curriculum in more than 30 seconds. That’s excellent. It is unusual to find somebody that can tolerate that for more than 20 seconds, although the record is 46 seconds.”
“I thought you said that the first session would last for 3 hours”
“It will, if you will stand for it. You needed to get some experience with the machine, and have your experience explained to you. We’ve done that.”
“I don’t remember anything”
“Oh? What do you know about complex numbers.”
“They have the form a+bi where i is the square root of negative 1”
“How do you calculate e to the x, where x is an imaginary number?”
“cosine x + i sine x”
“Is that a real memory or a synthetic memory?”
“It’s a synthetic memory”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. Hey - I learned that from the machine!”
“Yes, you did”
“Cool. Hey - I know how to solve any triangle! I can navigate using the stars! I can measure distances to places without having to go there. I can use a surveyor's transit with verniers!”
“Excellent. Are you excited now?”
“Is the book of Daniel in my curriculum?”
“Let me check and see”. Professor Danielson turned to his computer and typed something. “Yes, it is, along with several commentaries in English and Hebrew. I’m not sure why it is in there, but it is”.
“I asked for it as a favor”
“I think we owe you a favor”
“Great! Put the helmet on again and let’s get cracking!”
Professor Danielson put the helmet on and lowered the shield. More images started flowing into Deborah’s mind. Now that she was convinced that the machine was working, she made an effort to relax and let the knowledge flow into her. After a while (her sense of time was not working properly), she squeezed the bulb and the shield popped open. She saw that Professor Danielson was working at the computer, but he was already turning towards her.
“How long have I been in there?”
“73 minutes 11 seconds. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know”
“Does your head hurt? Are you having troubles breathing? Claustrophobia?”
“No, none of that. It’s just that, well, I felt that I had had enough for a while”
“That’s okay. Shall we go for a walk? Are you hungry?”
“What time is it?
“17:11. But you’re a time traveller and you may be experiencing what you call ‘Jet Lag’, and what we call circadian displacement disorder or CDD. The learning machine can sometimes induce CDD, especially for new learners”
“Maybe that’s so”
“Fine. Let’s go for a walk around the campus. I should show you to your room, and then get you something to eat”.
“Professor, I’m wearing a jumpsuit. Is that the fashion for women these days?”
“No, it isn’t, but the University of Chicago accepts students from all over the world. Everybody is going to assume that you are from somewhere else”
Deborah picked up her suitcase. Professor Danielson shouldered a backpack. He worked the controls of the airlock and they walked out. They left the building and walked across the campus. They came to another building.
“Put your hand against the plate”
She did. A green light turned on, and the door opened. Then a wiper slid across the plate. They walked in, down the hall, to an elevator. She knew it was an elevator because there was a row of numbers across the top of the door. However, there was no up or down button, just a plate. She put her hand against the plate. A green light turned on. She removed her hand. A wiper slid across the plate. She watched as the numbers counted down to one. Then the door opened. Elevator technology hasn’t changed much in three hundred years. They rode to the 14th floor. The door opened, and they walked out. An electronic sign said “Welcome, Deborah Schwartz. Go to room 1459 to the right”. They walked to the right. They came to another sign that said “Welcome, Deborah Schwartz. Go to room 1459 to the left”. They walked to the left. Eventually, they came to room 1459. There was a plate by the door. Deborah turned to Professor Danielson and said “Put your hand on the plate”.
“Why?”
“I’m testing the security”
Danielson put his hand on the plate. A red light turned on. Danielson removed his hand. A wiper swept over the plate. Deborah put her hand on the plate. The green light turned on. Deborah removed her hand. The wiper swept over the plate again. The door opened. They went in. The room was 2 meters wide by 3 meters long. There was an upper bunk bed on the right, a desk, a chest of drawers, and a chair under the bunk. There was a closet, 1 meter square. On the left was a sink and some cabinets.
“Cozy”
“Well, you won’t spend much time here, and most of the time you do spent here you will spend sleeping. This will be your home for the next two years. Leave your suitcase here and let’s get something to eat”
She left the suitcase and they walked out the door. She checked that the door was locked, it was. Electronic signs gave instructions on how to get to the elevator. They walked past a bathroom I didn’t notice the bathroom going in. Maybe this is an important matter. “Excuse me”, she said, and turned in. The toilet was full of foam. She emptied her bladder, wiped herself, and then looked for something to flush the toilet. How do I flush the toilet? She gave up, washed her hands in the sink (there were no handles - she put her hands under the spout and water turned on) and then walked out to meet Professor Danielson.
“How do I flush the toilet?”
“Flush?”
“Yes. When I come from, there is a handle or a button or something that flushes the toilet”
“Oh, yes, right. Here water is precious so you don’t flush the toilet. Takes too much water and generates too much sewage. The urine, feces, and toilet paper are broken down by the foam and then drained once or twice a day. By the way, the only things that go in the toilet are pee, TP, poo, and puke. Floss, paper towels, sanitary napkins, tampons, condoms, all are forbidden.”
“The toilets on the timeship flush”
“I didn’t know that”
“Have you ever been on a timeship?”
“I briefly toured yours, but that was only for a few hours, so the issue didn’t come up. Shall we get something to eat?”
They walked to a low building, a cafeteria. There were sinks, so they washed their hands. They got trays, went through the line. Each item was labeled with what it was, what it was made from, and how many Joules it contained.
“Isn’t a calorie a metric unit?”, She asked.
“Well, it is a metric unit, but it isn’t an MKS unit, so they changed to Joules everywhere in the world”
“MKS?”
“Meters, Kilograms, Seconds. Did you not learn this in elementary school?”
“Well, I learned the metric system, but North Americans in the 21st Century still used the English system.”
“I will make sure you get some training in modern measurement. Anyway, a Calorie is a metric unit for energy, but it isn’t defined in terms of Meters, Kilograms, and seconds. A Joule is the amount of kinetic energy in an object of 1 Kilogram mass moving at 1 meter per second”.
She made an effort to pick low calorie foods (she still thought in terms of calories). They got to the end of the line. A red laser scanned her tray, and a yellow light turned on above a plate on the wall. Deborah put her hand against the plate. The light turned green and then a wiper swept over the plate.
“Professor, I’ve noticed something. You didn’t shake hands with me, the traditional greeting. Each plate has a wiper that wipes it, except for the plate in the building you met me at, which you cleaned by hand. What’s the deal?”
“There are a lot of diseases that are communicated through shaking hands, touching contaminated surfaces, and so on. We try to minimize that. It is cheaper to prevent disease than it is to treat it.”
“I notice that nobody seems to be smoking”
“smoking?”
“Inhaling burning tobacco leaves”
“Ah yes. That went out of vogue about 150 years ago”
“What happened to AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis?”
“AIDs was eradicated by a vaccine. You should go to student health and get a shot. Gonorrhea and syphilis are still around, but infection rates are very low because everybody uses condoms.
“I’m not planning on having sex with anybody.”
“Suit yourself”
“What about Chicken Pox, Measles, Rubella?”
“All eradicated by vaccine in most parts of the world. We still vaccinate against them.
“The common cold? Influenza?”
“There is a combination cold and influenza vaccine that you get every year in October. It seems to work pretty well, although people still get colds”
“What about chronic diseases: arthritis, diabetes, cancer?”
“There still is cancer, but it is a relatively rare cause of death any more. People who have a genetic disposition to certain cancers get frequent screenings for that kind of cancer, so we get them when the tumors are still small, typically a millimeter in diameter or so. Juvenile diabetes is controlled through an artificial insulin pump. However, genetic counseling has made juvenile diabetes relatively rare. Adult onset diabetes is largely controlled through diet and drugs that modulate blood sugar levels. The problem with just giving diabetics insulin is that people’s physical activity levels change from hour to hour and day to day. Having a drug that adapts to the need reduces some of the consequences of diabetes. However, it is cheaper to avoid diabetes in the first place, so there is an emphasis on healthy eating habits, weight control, that sort of thing. Arthritis is still an issue, but it typically starts at about 120.”
“120….”
“Years old”
“What is the life expectancy of a 22 year old now?”
“I’m not an actuary or an epidemiologist, so I don’t know the exact figure for a 22 year old. The life expectancy of an 80 year old woman is another 50 years.”
“What do 130 year olds die from?”
“Well, basically, modern medicine has reached the limits of what it can do for people, and their bodies just wear out. Typically, they decide that they’ve had enough for one lifetime and commit suicide”
“That sounds dreadful”
“Not at all - they’ve lived long and fulfilling lives. One of the reasons why we had such a hard time finding anybody to go with you was because the mission was full of dangers both known and unknown, and our society has become very risk adverse. In your day and age, and in the United States, death, and especially violent death, was remarkably common. That led to people doing brave, or maybe foolish things, and they died young. This was especially true for black people. Your governments seemed to feel that this was acceptable. Eventually, a political consensus developed, all over the world, that quality of life was an acceptable goal”
“Did we come up with a solution for global warming?”
“Fortunately, nuclear fusion technology was developed in time. I think had it waited another 50 years, it would be too late. Once we stopped using hydrocarbons for everything, CO2 levels went back to normal in about 75 years.”
“What about wind power, solar power, tidal power, geothermal energy, nuclear power, energy conservation?”
“They are part of the mix, but every one of those has problems that make them less than ideal. For example, your century left us with a terrible legacy of toxic radioactive waste. We still don’t know what to do with a lot of it, other than let it sit and decay. We also spend a lot of energy desalinating water, which was a major factor in pacifying the Middle East. All over the planet, there is a shortage of water. Incidentally, large scale desalination of water was part of the solution to the global warming problem: it allowed us to grow more trees in more places. There are very few deserts now. ”.
“Even on the east side of the Cascade mountains in Washington and Oregon?”
“Water on the West side is diverted through tunnels to the growing areas on the east side of the mountains”.
“I should spend more time learning about the past 250 years”
“My suggestion is that you complete your mission, and then you will have plenty of time to study history”
“Okay”.
As she got more and more practice with the learning machine, Deborah could spend more and more time in it. Eventually, she got up to 12 hours a day. She needed 8 hours of sleep and spent the remaining 4 hours doing self maintenance - exercising, eating, and coaching from Prof. Danielson, the only person she saw on a regular basis. She spoke to nobody else, and nobody else spoke to her. Somebody was doing her laundry for her, because her dirty clothes pile would vanish after she left for the morning and a clean clothes pile, neatly folded and smelling fresh, would appear in the evening.
Seasons went by. Deborah knew that it was fall because the trees were losing their leaves. She knew it was winter because there was snow on the ground. Mittens and a hat mysteriously appeared. Then the snow disappeared and leaves started sprouting on the trees. It was now light when she started in the morning and still light when she left in the evening.
One day, Prof. Danielson took her to his office. A woman and a man where there, waiting for them, seated around a table. The woman was old, the man looked in his late 20’s or early 30’s. She looks vaguely familiar - I have seen her before….
Prof. Danielson handled introductions, but poorly. “I would like you to meet Deborah Schwartz. Deborah, this is you, 60 years from now. This is James. Please, sit down”. They sat.
James spoke. “Ms. Schartz, you have received enough training at this point to begin your mission. It is rather imperative that you begin your mission as soon as possible. Therefore, we are going to break off your training now and resume it when you arrive in 2456”
“How much time has elapsed since I arrived at the University of Chicago?”
“2-½ years”, Prof Danielson replied.
“What are the three laws of Robotics?”, Deborah (the older) asked her.
Deborah (the younger) recited:
Not only that, but I know who Isaac Asimov is!
“Please recite from the book of Daniel, Chapter 6, verse 6”, Deborah (the elder) said.
אֱדַיִן גֻּבְרַיָּא אִלֵּךְ, אָמְרִין, דִּי לָא נְהַשְׁכַּח לְדָנִיֵּאל דְּנָה, כָּל-עִלָּה; לָהֵן, הַשְׁכַּחְנָא עֲלוֹהִי בְּדָת אֱלָהֵהּ.
Deborah (the younger) replied. Where the hell did that come from - and I think it is correct!
“And that means?” James asked.
“Then said these men: 'We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him in the matter of the law of his God.' “ Deborah replied, again.
“It also means that you fulfilled part of the agreement about curriculum”, Deborah (the elder) said.
It’s a synthetic memory!
“How much iron shot is in the shell of your timeship?”, James asked her.
“6.42 times ten to the 11th Kilograms”, Deborah answered. Another synthetic memory.
“Are you satisfied?”, Prof. Danielson asked.
“I am”, said James.
“So am I”, said Deborah (the elder). “However, I would like to take her for a walk around the campus, and have a chance to talk to her”
“We don’t have time for that”, James snarled.
“We do, too. It just means that she will travel in time an hour less than she would otherwise”.
“We have already granted you several concessions”.
“Given the importance of this mission, those concessions were reasonable. More than reasonable - I would have asked for a lot more had you asked me in time”.
“We’re giving her the timeship and trusting her with it”
“Because nobody else from this time would go. She is a valuable commodity, and that’s worth spending something on. Deborah, come along, we’re leaving”. Deborah (the elder) stood. Deborah (the younger) looked at Prof. Danielson.
“Go with her. Come back before sunset”, he said.
Deborah (the younger) stood up, and followed Deborah (the elder) out the door. They walked down the hall, passed the security desk, and walked out into the sunshine.
“What was that all about?”, Deborah (the younger) asked.
“Well, we have invested a great deal of time and energy in preparing for this mission. The timeship had to be readied, and you had to be trained. Your training had to be compressed because you were going on this mission all by yourself.”
“Why am I going alone?”
“Nobody else from this time would volunteer, and we could think of nobody as well qualified as you. We talked about this 2-½ years ago.”
“There are lots of people who know more about the era of the Judges than I do”
“None of whom are 24 years old females. Remember, you are going to marry a man about 8 years your junior in an age where the average life expectancy is 40 years.
“You have enough training to fly the timeship, take it into combat, and repair it under various extremes of damage with the assistance of the computer. However, you are lacking in enough training to fix things if the computer breaks down. We compensated for this by giving a computer that is 7 way redundant. Because we made this change at the last minute, it isn’t in the plans.
“I asked for some concessions in your training curriculum. I got them”
“What did you ask for?”
“The entire Book of Daniel in Hebrew and English, plus some of the more important Jewish commentaries.”
“Why, thank you”.
They walked on in silence. There’s something she’s not telling me. I wonder if there is some time-paradox that she’s avoiding.
“Is there something important that you’re not telling me?”
“There is so much I want to tell you. In the past 2-½ years, I wrote them down and stored in them your ship’s library. Some of them are practical, such as where and when I searched, so you will know what not to waste your time looking at. Some of it is wisdom. Some of it is battle instructions that they wouldn’t let me include, because they don’t trust your ethical sensibilities. One of the reasons why are walking around the campus is that it is hard to eavesdrop on people walking in the outdoors when they have an acoustic field generator. You and I can hear each other clearly, but anybody farther than 2 meters from us will hear an unpleasant hissing noise.
“Why is this mission so dangerous?”
“If we make a trip into the future, and the timeship breaks down, there is infrastructure to repair it for its journey home. When you go 3000 years into the past and anything breaks down, you have to fix it yourself or else you are stuck in the past forever. Nobody from this time would accept leaving all that infrastructure. They’re so afraid, they won’t even shake hands.
“Also, whoever changed the past may be willing to fight you to stop you, or fight you to prevent you from stopping them. The timeship is heavily armed so that can go into battle in space or on the ground. We didn’t tell the people you will be meeting in 2456 that, because such devices are illegal and because they can’t keep secrets”
“I remember battle plans - they are synthetic memories. I also remember performance characteristics of the weapons - the antiproton beam can put out 1 Petawatt for 30 seconds, which will cost 3 kilograms of Iron shot.”
“Excellent”
“When I dropped you off in my apartment, you said you would never travel in time again. What changed your mind? “
“I lived in Seattle for 20 years, writing a textbook on time travel. When the conspiracy found out what I had done, they brought me here three years ago. I don’t know why they let me stay in Seattle for 20 years - maybe they hoped I would be a pushover by the time I reached my mid 80s. Boy, were they wrong about that”.
“The conspiracy?”
“Yes. The conspiracy has sponsored the entire mission: the design, creation and stocking of the timeship, fetching me, fetching you, our tuition, the learning machine, even your laundry”
“I wondered about that”.
“The only people from the conspiracy that you’ve met are James and me.”
“Prof. Danielson?”
“A paid contractor.”
“I thought he cared about me!”
“A nanny can care about her charges and still get paid for them”
“Tell me more about the conspiracy”
“I can’t. I don’t even know James’ last name. Look, it’s getting late, we should turn around and walk back”
“Okay”
They turned around and started walking back the way they came.
“I feel that there is more that you want to tell me.”
“I have been granted an extremely rare gift: the ability to talk to my younger self”
“You remember this discussion?”
“Yes, I do”
“Then the words should come easily to your lips”
“No, I didn’t know what to say then, and I don’t know what to say now.”
They walked a few more tens of meters.
“If you find Lapidot, marry him, and become a Judge in Israel, I want you to advocate for the rights of women.”
“Count on it”
“Have children”
“Why?”
“Because we want to. I never had any, and now of course it is too late”
“If I have a husband and children and grandchildren, I will have to mourn them when I return, because not only will they be dead, but they will be reduced to nothing but bones, and perhaps even less than that. Not only will I be a widow, but all of the my friends will be dead and forgotten”.
“That’s part of the price we pay for love. However, the price of the alternative is loneliness.
“The medium of exchange in that time and place is copper. The timeship carries tens of metric tons of copper, shaped into disks about the size and shape of an old penny”
“Huh?”
“Sorry - I changed the subject. In order to buy what you want, use copper. Silver is so valuable, that it is hard for ordinary people to obtain it, and it is hard to transact business with it. Gold is practically impossible.”
“I don’t remember that”
“It’s not in your curriculum. We don’t know much about the language from that time and place. My suggestion is that the first you do is kidnap a resident and use the learning machine and a telepathy pill to get a crash course in ancient hebrew.”
James came running out to meet them. He was breathless.
“The chronopolice are coming!”
“Deborah, run!”, Deborah (the elder) screamed.
Deborah took off like a rabbit. James followed her, but he didn’t have the aerobic conditioning she had. She got to the door. It was locked. She saw Prof. Danielson inside, yelling something at her. She couldn’t hear what he said. Then he held up his hand. Palm Lock! She pressed her hand against the scanner. The light turned green and the door opened.
“Hurry”, Prof. Danielson urged.
They ran down the hall.
“What’s happened?”, Deborah demanded.
“Our spies in the chronopolice have learned that the chronopolice are coming here and now. We’ve got to get you out of here”
“I thought time travel was legal if you went to the future”
“It is, but you’re going to the past. Somehow, your mission profile leaked. Where did you park your timeship?”
“Lagrange 5”
“Summon it, quickly”
Deborah pulled out her medallion.
“Adelle”
“yes”
“This is an emergency. Use time travel to go into a low earth orbit. I want you to appear above - Prof. Danielson, what’s the longitude of Chicago?”
“87.6° West”
“90 ° West, altitude 200 Kilometers. When you arrive, beam me aboard. Once I am on board, use time travel to go to Lagrange 2”
“Understood. Use time travel to go to circular orbit altitude 200 Kilometers, beam you aboard, then use time travel to go to Langrange”
“Correct”
“Executing”
“I have a present for you”, Prof. Danielson said, handing her something wrapped in kraft paper.
“Why, thank you, Prof.”, she said and then she was gone.