Chapter 18

“Solomon Smith, I’ve got it solved!”

“You have? That’s fantastic! I could kiss you!”

“Well,” Katherine blushed furiously, “if you’d really like to...”

“Then it’s practically finished! We may be very close to a functioning prototype!” Solomon proclaimed as he wheeled around, flung his arms dramatically into the air and strode furiously around in his excitement.

Katherine was miffed. Once again, he had been given an invitation and totally failed to take action. Either he didn’t like her as much as she thought, or he was a complete cold fish, too wrapped up in his work to even think about her as something more than a brain and a pair of hands. And after he had brought up the subject! She was getting very tired of her lack of a relationship with Solomon.

“Well, that is, I think I’ve got it solved,” she cautioned, not wanting him to be disappointed with her if it didn’t work. “Obviously, we can’t know for sure until we actually can teleport a TDM to its desired destination.”

Solomon gazed happily at her. He loved her habit of blushing. He had become very attached to it over the years. It was – he hated to use the word, even to himself – quite cute.

“If you believe it will work, Katherine Dague, then I’m already convinced. Still, it’s quite a remarkable achievement, considering it’s been less than five years since you started working on the project.”

“Actually, it’s the same problem as you have, Solomon Smith. It could have been done a lot quicker if I could have used the resources of my lab. Unfortunately, having to seek advice in very indirect ways, not being able to do experiments in conjunction with others – except yourself, on occasion – well, it does make it a lot harder, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, that’s the way it has to be. So, please tell me. How does it work?”

“How about if we start with the overview, and we can get into the details later?”

“Sounds great.”

“As you know, the key to developing remote teleporter sites was the perfection of the ‘smart’ antenna, which allowed us to integrate signal processing with the antenna element working at higher frequencies.”

“Well, I recall that the advanced signal pre-processing was being done actually at the antenna, which reduced the size and improved efficiency on the component-system level.”

“Correct. Well, that turned out to be highly efficient for teleporters because they work at remote locations, but that wouldn’t solve the problem for your TDM, would it? I decided the only way it would work would be to incorporate all of the properties needed into a single, non-physical carrier.”

“Non-physical? You mean the antenna itself, as well as the amplification, signal pre-processing and the location fixation capabilities?”

“All of it. How else could we get accurate representation of the desired locus without some kind of physical equipment? So I created a spatio-temporally modulated phase beam that carries all of the information within itself.”

“Quivering quantums! That’s fantastic! I assume you’ve tested this on the computer model Robert Winston Wood developed?”

“Yes. All the results indicate it should work perfectly in the actual machine. Assuming the temporal displacement technique programmed into the computer was totally accurate, of course, and that all models we run off that assumption will work as predicted. Naturally,” she hastened to add, knowing how Solomon felt about the man, “I’m absolutely certain the computer program will do exactly what you and Robert Winston Wood said it will do. So I’m as certain as I can be that my newly integrated phase beam will work as well.”

“And you essentially did all of this on your own? That’s remarkable! It’s more than remarkable. It’s – well, it’s the ultimate in dedication to your work, to the advance of science!”

“Well, not just dedication to my work...”

“Oh, I know. Also to the cause, of course.”

“Oh, right. The cause.”

“Why don’t I just give up?” Katherine thought to herself. In a way, he was right. In the five years they had known each other, she had gone from hero-worship to a strong infatuation, then down to incredible admiration for his work and brilliance. She had finally settled on a strong, professional respect for his contributions as a scientist and as the leader of a growing revolutionary movement. She had certainly wanted more to come of their relationship, and had made several efforts to make it something other than platonic. In their society, she found it difficult to believe he had passed up the opportunities.

Maybe he didn’t find her attractive. Perhaps he didn’t like women. However, she really believed he was too wrapped up in his work and his cause to see her as anything but an assistant, another tool to complete his great invention. Maybe an important tool, but still. On the other hand, what could she honestly expect? After all, he was renowned as the greatest scientist in the world, the darling of the Zaibatsu who was going to perfect the most important invention the world had ever known. She was now only a Level 8 research scientist working on improving ancient technology. She had taught herself to put those romantic hopes aside, concentrate on her work, and be grateful for this fantastic opportunity to be a part of Solomon’s life and work. But, after all those years of dreaming her little girl dreams, it was very hard to just drop it like a bunch of sour grapes.

“So what gave you the idea to integrate the hardware into the beam itself?”

“Pardon? Oh, sorry. Well, actually, it was your theory about the nature of Time.”

“Really?” he said, seeming quite pleased. “How’s that?”

“Well, you explained to me how Time was made up of all of the elements in which life exists. You know, electrical energy, light and sound in all of their wavelengths, color in all of its spectra, motion, and all of the intangibles. But the key was the integration of the tangible items, such as mass and texture. Well, if Robert Winston Wood’s computer program could assimilate and interpret all of those seemingly disparate properties, the implication was they could all be digitized and encoded into a tightly focused beam that could carry all of the elements. Correct?”

“Yes, of course. Brilliant! Please go on.” Solomon’s enthusiasm was infectious.

“Okay, so the trick was establishing a target point for the beam to locate in the first place, since it’s not like we’re pointing a physical antenna into outer space and telling it ‘Keep going until you find a target to bounce off of!’ That’s where the homing unit had to take the information from your temporal/GIS database and use that in a sort of ‘divining rod’ effect. I mean, the homing unit now has the general information of the Time/Space Continuum it’s seeking, like the divining rod supposedly seeks water hidden deep under the ground, and then tracks that point down in the general flow of time until it gets close. When it does get close to the target coordinates, it starts sending out the acquisition signal. As it starts to gain feedback information from the exact point it’s seeking, the beam begins the signal processing function, gathering and refining the data from the source.”

“Quivering quantums!” Solomon was genuinely impressed.

“Exactly. So then the feedback information becomes absorbed into the existing database, which starts making instantaneous use of the updated readings to refine the output signal, and the whole thing very quickly takes on a very tightly spiraling effect of output and input information that...”

Katherine continued her explanation, and the two became lost in the world of scientific theory and development. For the moment, she had totally forgotten the relationship she thought she desired with Solomon and just reveled in the one she had. Even better: for that brief point in time, she became the master and he the pupil. Later, she would admit to herself that it had been better than sex.

The four of them stared at the contraption on the table in front of them. It didn’t look much like the full-sized TDM, but then, it didn’t have to. It held almost the same components as the machine in the Institute’s laboratory, although most of these components were also much smaller, and therefore had less capacity. Of course, with very few exceptions, these components were also much more advanced that those in the Institute’s full-sized TDM.

The only part missing entirely was the anti-gravity unit, which was not needed in a model the user could pick up and move wherever he wanted. Only the central processing unit of the computer still had to be large enough to process vital data and compute accurate ‘landing’ conditions in order to work properly. On the other hand, the most advanced Comvirsent wasn’t much bigger than Solomon’s thumb, so its size wasn’t much of an issue. There were less dials and switches, not only because it was hand-carried, but because the machine had none of the pre-set coordinates Solomon intended to use on the final version. Each time the smaller machine was used, every single coordinate and desired setting would have to be programmed in separately, and each trip would be a one-way journey. For all of its limitations, it was still an extremely powerful machine. If it worked.

“Wafer, you’ve done an incredible job with the containment mechanism,” Solomon praised.

“Thank you, Solomon,” Wafer said mildly, although his tiny body swelled with the praise from his mentor. “I only hope it’s sufficient to get the job done.”

“We’ve tested it many times,” Solomon reminded him. “That’s the least of our worries.”

Strangely, that was true. The power source was certainly the most dangerous part of the entire machine. After all, it was the only part that could actually explode. Yet it was the only part they had been able to test well enough to verify it would work as planned. Everything else, including the acquisition signal, the computer processing, and the teleportation through time as well as space, could only be modeled and simulated in Robert Winston Wood’s computer programs. Today would be the first time the machine was tested as a complete unit. In a few hours, they would be able to see if everything really worked the way the computer models said they would.