Chapter 18: Deadlock

Suddenly Angel One became more involved, just when Huw and Bronwen thought they had reached a reasonable compromise with the visitor. This was caused by a massive swing, inspired by the opposition, of public opinion against live females going to the future. He declared that no humans would be allowed to go to the future, either as adults or as embryos

The visitor’s response was, “In that case, if we cannot complete our mission then we will be forced to destroy successively greater portions of your earth, day by day, until you yield. And as you pointed out I am a mechanical object and incapable of emotions such as pity, or regret.”

Huw’s reply was, “That is also your earth and I think I am quoting you correctly when I repeat ‘Thou wilt not do it because thou didst not do it. History tells me so since thou camest here.’ And I am prepared to ignore the paradoxes involved. I do not believe that your journey would have been allowed (or do I mean ‘will be allowed?’) if there were no evidence of an adequate measure of success. If you had not returned with an acceptable proportion of what you are asking, then you would not have been allowed to start.” He mentally crossed his fingers behind his back because he realised the fact that they possibly had to have started before the outcome was known was just one of the paradoxes he was ignoring, since they demonstrably had time travel though and thus may have started after first checking the outcome was known.

Angel One appeared at first to be convinced by this threat. Perhaps because of his position as the decision-maker Angel One actually agreed with Huw’s somewhat specious argument on this point, and so this led reluctantly to both parties agreeing on the compromise quantities.