Time To Leave
Kevin Gong
"Please, professor -- you've got to believe me! I need help to
find Professor Alyakin."
Professor Derbin gave a long stare across his desk at the pitiful
grad student standing in front of him.
"You expect me to believe that this Professor Whasisname has invented
a time machine?! I find that very difficult to believe."
Scott thought to himself: Geez, what a weasel. He's just jealous 'cause he hasn't done any
signficant research in . . . in fact, he hasn't done any significant
research period.
"He developed a method of shifting a closed interval of space-time
through the space-time continuum into another closed interval
of space-time." Scott mimmicked Professor Alyakin. He didn't know
what the hell it meant, or even if it made any sense, but he hardly
wanted Derbin to call it an incredulous "time machine."
Derbin glared through Scott's forehead, but he didn't seem to
notice.
"Oh, come on. What have you got to lose? I'll just show you his
office across campus and you can take a look."
The professor didn't flinch. "If he's been missing for so long,
why don't you just call the police?"
Scott gave Derbin a sarcastic glare. "I'm sure they'll believe
the time machine story. And even if they did, what could they
do? You're a scientist -- you should be able to do something with
it. In any case, he's only been missing a day. He told me he was
going to come back 5 minutes later. Now it's been over 24 hours.
And don't tell me he got side-tracked. He could spend a year wherever
he went and come back yesterday if that thing does what it's supposed
to do. The point is, the police wouldn't do anything cuz he hasn't
actually been missing for that long."
Derbin opened his mouth as if he was about to speak, then closed
it. He opened it again, but appeared at a loss for words.
"Come on, I'll show you. Who knows? If you find him he might invite
you to work with him on completing the project."
The small office walls bathed in silence.
"Okay."
Scott gave a cheery smile. "Great -- let's go."
Derbin held his hand up in a mild halting gesture and shook his
head. "I'm not saying I'll help. I'm just saying I'll take a look.
Okay? All right. Let's go."
Despite Derbin's remarks, Scott knew he would help.
* * * * *
"So, how does this thing work?" Derbin stared dubiously at the
contraption covering an entire wall of Alyakin's office.
Scott walked into a small crecifice in the machine, leaving the
door open so Derbin could see "It's really quite simple. You just
use these three buttons here to set the date." He pointed at a
lighted control panel in front of him. "Then you punch this little
sucker here, and you're off."
"Gee, thanks a lot."
Scott crawled out of the machine. "No problem." He paused for
a second, confused. "Oh -- sarcasm! You want to know how it works. Hell if I know. I just built the thing, I didn't design
it."
Derbin gave Scott another hard stare.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out the inner workings
with a little investigation. I have all the rough sketches and
diagrams he drew for me."
The professor walked slowly through the room, carefully avoiding
the metal garbage heap strewn across the floor. His gaze swayed
from corner to corner. "Isn't it a little strange for him to have
you, a grad student, actually build the thing?"
"That just shows you the kind of person Alyakin is. He doesn't
trust many people -- in fact, the fewer people he has to trust,
the better. That's his philosophy. After all, he's working on
some very important research here. He doesn't want someone to
steal his ideas. So he only deals with me. And he doesn't even
trust me -- when I ask him to explain the thing he starts yelling
and screaming at me."
Finding nothing of any use, Derbin turned again to face Scott.
"So, why don't you describe the scene when you last saw Professor
Alyakin."
Scott took a deep breath and began. "It was very much like it
is now. It was about the same time of day. It was only yesterday
. . ."
"Look! There it is, Scott! That book just appeared out of nowhere
over on that table. Right on time, too." Professor Alyakin pointed
towards a mass of metal gadgetry, under which it was assumed was
a table. On top of it all, though, clearly, was a book that obviously
had not been there a minute ago.
Scott looked at the professor. He wasn't a pretty sight. He had
locked himself up for months to finish this project. Scott could
hardly blame him -- it was rather important -- but he wished his
nose didn't care, either. The last few weeks Alyakin had taken
on the appearance of a hair growth scientist gone mad.
"Great. Now what, professor?"
"Don't be silly. Of course, I go in now." Alyakin went into the
crevice in the huge machine and punched a few buttons. Scott,
still a little in awe and in shock, stood outside, unable to see
what the professor was doing.
Alyakin poked his head out for a second, saw Scott's expression,
then came out in full. "It's okay. Nothing can go wrong. I'll
be back in five minutes. If anything goes wrong, just find the
nearest scientist and ask him for help." He paused a second, as
if reconsidering.
Scott felt relieved. He's not going to do this now.
"On second thought, if anything goes wrong, find Professor Derbin.
He's a capable man. I'm sure he'll be able to find out what's
wrong if anything does go wrong." Alyakin smiled as he went back
into the machine. "Well, adios, kid. See ya in 5 minutes. Don't
forget -- Professor Derbin."
"Right. Sure."
The door closed. There was a flash of light, and then nothing.
"So that's basically how it went. Doesn't give you much, does
it?"
"No, not really. He seemed really confident, didn't he?"
"Yeah. I guess so."
"Maybe he set the wrong time or something."
Scott was taken aback. "Be serious. He's done it dozens of times
with an accuracy of up to a tenth of a second."
Derbin scratched his balding head. "Well, let me take a look inside."
"Be my guest." Scott extended his hand toward the opening.
Derbin walked silently into the machine, bent down on his knees,
and examined the crevice from top to bottom. He soon found this
wouldn't take very long. The entire section was featureless except
for the control panel. He undid a couple of screws and lifted
the panel cover to take a look inside.
"Wait a second . . ."
Scott looked up at the professor, disengaging his eyes from two
mice fighting over a piece of food. "You found something?"
Silence.
"Professor?"
"No, I guess not." He replaced the cover on the panel, screwed
it back on, and dusted his hands off. "Well, tell you what . .
. why don't I think about this overnight. Alyakin isn't going
anywhere."
Scott hesitated, not yet ready to trust Derbin, but saw no real
harm in it. "Okay. Let's go so I can lock up."
"Oh, and I think I probably need a set of keys to get down here
in case I think of something. I may have to come down here and
examine it more closely."
"No!" Scott definitely didn't trust him that much. "If you need
to get in, just call me and I'll meet you here. There's no reason
for you to have a key."
Derbin smiled and said "Well, you don't have to get upset. All
right, I'll call if I need to."
* * * * *
Professor Randall E. Derbin slept not at all that night. He was
sure he knew what went wrong with the time machine.
It's so simple. The little toggle switch marked 20th or 21st century,
and it was set on 21st century. So, obviously, the poor man was
off by a hundred years. Now what can I use this machine for .
. .
I know -- I'll go a little into the future, find some significant
scientific discovery, then come back here and publish it myself.
But wait, if I publish it myself, I'll get rich and famous; there
will also be no reason for the guy who found it to publish it
himself. Then I would never have found it. But, arg! This would
make a good course -- Time Travel Paradoxes 1A.
So let me see . . . how can I get rich and famous without messing
up the future? Well, okay . . . I'll settle for rich.
Oh, that's simple enough.
Derbin snapped on his light as he jumped out of bed. "Now where's
that phone number?"
* * * * *
"All right. Now, I'm going to go into the future five days, then
come back 1 minute from now. Okay? So, remember, leave this door
unlocked the day that I'm supposed to be going to. That would
be Monday. Got it?"
Scott puzzled over this for a few seconds. The more he thought
about it, the more confused he got, so he stopped thinking about
it. "Sure, I got it. Five days; one minute. What do you need to
do this for?"
"I'm going to see if my calculations are correct. If they are,
then when I get back I should be able to tell you what happened
to Professor Alyakin." Derbin was a good liar.
* * * * *
A minute later Derbin appeared out of the machine.
"You idiot! You forgot to leave the door unlocked!!!"
* * * * *
"Well, do you have the plans to the machine with you?"
"Yes. Why?"
Derbin sighed. "I think I'm going to have to examine them to find
out exactly what went wrong."
"No you don't. You just want to steal them. I'm beginning to regret
ever telling you about Professor Alyakin. I think I'll just wait
for him to come back."
"Oh, so what if I want the plans for myself? Face it, kid. Alyakity-yak's
not coming back. Now hand over the plans."
"Absolutely not."
At that moment, a flash of light came out of the time machine.
Out walked Professor Alyakin.
"Hello Scott, Professor Derbin. What are you doing here?"
Both of them stared at Alyakin.
"Professor! You're back! Derbin here is trying steal the plans
for your time machine!"
"What do you mean, back?"
Scott looked for a way to explain it, but could find none. He
was just as confused.
All this time, Derbin just stared with his mouth wide open.
Suddenly, there was a noise outside. Alyakin thought for a second,
sparks flying furiously through his magnificent mind. "Ah, goodbye
gentleman."
With that, he re-entered the machine and disappeared.
The front door to the office opened and Alyakin entered. "Okay,
Derbin -- get out of here, go back to bed and go to sleep. Try
anything again and I'll press charges. I would report you, but
your reputation is bad enough already."
Instead, Derbin made a dash into the time machine. Alyakin raced
over, but was too late.
"I guess that's the last we'll see of him." He set the thing for
a hundred years into the future.
Scott asked the question that had been bugging him for the last
two days. "Where have you been?"
Alyakin looked at Scott, then laughed. "Let's go get some coffee
and I'll explain."
* * * * *
"So I've been following you all this time. When I came back, when
I told you I would, I accidentally put myself outside of the room.
I decided I would just see what kind of person you really are."
"Do you think we'll ever see Derbin again?"
"Nah. And I don't think I'll publicize this machine. Too many
wrong uses. People can come up with some weird schemes to use
it for evil purposes. I think I'll probably just shut it down."
"Oh, yeah." Scott smiled to himself. "Remind me to lock your office
door in five days. Derbin should be arriving then."
"I wonder." Alyakin sipped from his cup. "I wonder what would
happen if we didn't lock it."
Copyright 1988 by Kevin Gong. Unauthorized duplication,
posting, or publication is strictly prohibited.
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