Chapter 13: Sins of the Children

Eight days later.

Time: Saturday, June 12, 2049 5:50 AM Universal Madeiran Time

The car trip from their Funchal condo to the energy labs was completely uneventful. Megan did the driving and let Alvaro close his eyes and get a bit of rest. He had come home just five hours before, after a series of short phone calls saying he would be late. And now after four hours of exhausted sleep, he was heading right back to the labs. This was the third day in a row he was doing this.

So Megan offered to drive him to work and she quietly walked with him to his office, hoping that he wouldn't dismiss her. He had been so kind and attentive earlier in the week as Megan entered the last month of her pregnancy, petting her feet, combing her hair, always asking if she desired anything. And then there were these last three nights, such a contrast, a few simple kisses after coming home after midnight and going straight into bed.

As they walked into Alvaro's office, Megan noticed a close friend of theirs sitting by the consoles around Alvaro's desk. Alvaro was the first to speak. "Lieutenant Rocha, you are relieved."

"Funny Alvaro, funny," Estevao replied. "You know, you should join the military someday. I think you'd like it."

"Oh, I don't know. Megan's been looking into the possibility, perhaps in a year or so when the baby's a bit older."

"Really?" Estevao turned to Megan and smiled. "Try the navy. It's the best!"

Megan gave a return smile. "From all your stories, it's first on my list."

Estevao nodded and turned back to Alvaro. "Do you think I have time for a shower before the festivities start?"

"Sure, take your time. Nothing's scheduled for the next hour. I'll page you if something unexpected comes up. Has Discovery reached its holding position?"

"Yes, just a few minutes ago." Estevao then bid them goodbye and left. Alvaro sat down at his desk, opening a few communications channels and checking in with some of the other senior lab members. Then he leaned back and sighed. He looked over to his wife and seemed mildly surprised she was still there. He gave her a kind smile.

Megan gestured to the room with her arm. "Green badge area." Her comment was a plea to tell her what was going on.

Alvaro nodded and after a moment hit the mute button on his console. "But this is classified as need-to-know only. It's not my decision. You'll have to leave before the conference begins. Hey, wait a minute." He unmuted his phone. "Renato, you still there?"

A warm laugh responded. "Surely you jest. I'm here by myself though. The committee members haven't arrived yet."

"Perfect. Renato, Megan is here with me now. I'd like to grant her need-to-know status. Do you concur?"

"Oh, absolutely. I officially concur. Megan's insight might prove invaluable. Good morning Megan. Alvaro, that's all you need, right?"

Alvaro started typing on his computer. "Yes, the two of us combined have the authority... Just click accept on the approval request I sent you... Great. Thanks. Renato, I'm going to mute and fill Megan in. Flash me if you need me or the meeting starts early." And after getting an acknowledgement, Alvaro muted the phone again.

Megan gave her husband a grateful smile. "Thank you, much appreciated."

Alvaro nodded and got right to business. "Three days ago Renato came into my office with some calculations. Life hasn't been the same since."

Megan tilted her head slightly. "So I've noticed. Good news or bad?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure how to answer that. Renato has a model for how Golem's bubble worked. It's an extremely elegant piece of mathematics, and it fits all the details of our observations."

"Okay."

Alvaro yawned and stretched. "The breakthrough came Wednesday morning when Renato realized Golem's bubble needed to work as a dipole. Once you make that assumption about the topology, everything else falls into place... Almost."

Megan stared at her husband. "You've completely lost me."

"Inside Newton's bubble there had to be two smaller bubbles. Think of the pair of bubbles as a temporal dipole. Renato modeled Golem as having a polarity oriented towards the north pole of time."

"The what?"

Alvaro sighed. "The Big Bang is sometimes called the north pole of time, the past all the way back to the beginning of time. That was Golem's orientation, not for the inside of its bubble but for what was outside. Golem's was focusing the backscatter of the dark energy into a net pull back in time."

"Uh, yeah, okay. So what would the people outside the bubble be observing?"

"According to Renato's model, their experience was similar to ours but on a global scale. Newton was just above geosynchronous orbit height on the opposite side of the planet. Earth probably still had their worldwide communications up. They were in total darkness for forty hours, just like us."

"Until we popped Golem?"

"Yes, which would have popped Golem's twin, the southern pole of the dipole. That was part of Renato's conclusions. You can't have a temporal monopole. And without an internal dipole, Newton must also pop. Think of it as a rubber band being stretched for forty hours, and then snapping back when we popped Golem. The Earth around us came here to the universe of 2049 A.D., and our future Earth snapped back to the universe of whenever."

"Any clues yet how far back?"

"The government wants to take things slowly. Judging by the brief exploration we did at the Canary Islands, almost certainly before colonial times, before the 1500's. In the two thousand years before that, the islands were probably visited by the Phoenicians, the Romans and the Arabs. We didn't see evidence of them, but we only searched one small part of Tenerife, around where the capital should have been."

Megan nodded. "I saw Discovery leave port Wednesday evening. Was it heading back to the Canaries?"

Alvaro shook his head. "No. For the last two and a half days, it was traveling flank speed to North America. It just got to a holding position a few minutes ago, fifty kilometers due south of Block Island..."

"Huh?"

"... and about 260 kilometers from where we think southern pole of the temporal dipole was."

Megan was silent for a second and then whispered, "Princeton, New Jersey. My gosh. Does southern temporal dipole mean the future?"

"Well, sort of... No, scratch that. Megan, the past exists. It has a tangible physical reality. The future does not. It's completely unformed."

"What?"

"I mean undetermined. I agree with Renato's mathematics, but we're contending what the mathematics means in physical reality. Renato thinks a ninety kilometer radius around the Princeton dark energy site might be in the far future. But that violates some of the core axioms of singularity mechanics. The only way to get to the future is at the slow pace of one second per second, in whatever your local frame of reference is. Moving forward faster should be absolutely impossible."

"But Renato disagrees with you?"

Alvaro gave a thin smile. "Well, only for the moment. We need to prepare ourselves for a nice dinner as the guests of Dr. Costa and his wife when all this is over."

Megan smiled. "Sounds like fun. You're that confident, huh? I mean, I wouldn't mind doing the cooking on this one."

"Oh, I'm sure. The universe just can't work the way Renato is suggesting."

Megan nodded. "So Discovery will be exploring New Jersey?"

"No, probably not, not unless the Bombardier jet finds something unusual. The bluebirds just don't have the range to reach Princeton from the Atlantic, and Congress didn't want to risk the mission to a helicopter. Discovery is there as a backup. The jet will do the reconnaissance of ground zero, and if nothing is found Discovery will make a brief scan of Long Island and the New Jersey shoreline and then return to Madeira." Alvaro looked at a clock. "The jet departed Madeira hours ago and is scheduled to be over Princeton just after dawn."

"Okay. And when's that?"

"Princeton sunrise today will be at 8:27 AM Madeira time, two hours from now. Local sunset will be about a half hour before midnight."

"Wait a minute. Wasn't the jet going to be unavailable because of the floor modifications?"

"Oh, that'll only take a few weeks. That work's been postponed." He paused for a moment. "You might remember the two pilots. I believe Xanti and Cintia are on this flight."

Megan nodded just as a light flashed on Alvaro's console. Congressional committee members were joining Renato at the capital building in Funchal. Alvaro announced Megan's presence and there where no objections. Estevao Rocha returned a few minutes later looking very refreshed. They all sat and waited for the jet to report.

Time: Saturday, June 12, 2049 7:30 AM UMT, fifty km south of Block Island, coordinates 40 degrees 42 minutes North, 71 degrees 36 minutes West

Xanti hovered 200 meters above Discovery, communicating with Captain Mendes below through a laser and briefing her with the last two and a half days of events. The jet and Discovery were both equipped with short wave radio and could contact Madeira directly at any time, but were under orders to maintain radio silence until the Princeton issue was resolved.

At 7:30 AM UMT Xanti and Cintia accelerated the plane to 257 kph, expecting to be over their target at 8:30 AM. The sun was still eight degrees below the horizon and the moon had set about two hours previously. The ocean below was lit only by starlight as they began their run, but the sun would soon overtake them on their slow west southwest course to New Jersey.

Cintia gazed at the dark horizon for a moment and then commented. "I hope we don't fly into a tree. I sure do miss GPS."

Xanti chuckled. "Yeah. Once we pass over Sandy Hook though, the terrain recognition software should be able to map our position to within a few meters." He studied his instruments for a moment. "We should be exactly on course, entering the mainland over what will be Leonardo New Jersey at 8:19 AM, eleven minutes and forty-seven kilometers from target."

Cintia nodded. "You think Dr. Lopes is correct then? All we'll see are trees, nothing from the thirtieth century or beyond?"

"I've never known the man to be wrong, once he says he's sure of something."

Cintia nodded. "I'm betting on Alvaro too. Literally, with a sailor aboard Discovery."

"Oh? How much?"

"Oh, nothing major, a hundred Milreis. Xanti?"

"Yeah?"

"We have a lot of discretion, what altitude we take this."

"I know. You want something higher?"

Cintia shrugged. "This low, we'd have no time to restart the jet engines if we lose dark power. And at 257 kph, we don't have quite enough speed for that either."

Xanti almost made a quick retort, but then stopped himself. "The dark power is so reliable, I wasn't even thinking about the jet engines. But you're right. It's a long way from home." He thought for a moment. "Maximum terrain elevation on our path to Princeton should be about thirty meters, and we should have good predawn visibility by the time we reach Leonardo. How about if we continue to detect no RF and see a virgin landscape at the shore, we do the final leg at 2000 meters?"

Cintia let out a sigh of relief. "Sounds great. I hate low-level flying. There's no chance to respond to a problem."

Fifty kilometers from Sandy Hook, Xanti and Cintia began to see the New Jersey shoreline on the western horizon. About twelve minutes later they flew low over Sandy Hook, seeing nothing but a wild sandy coastline covered in dunes in the predawn twilight. The meadows beyond looked pristine and wild too. Xanti began his climb to 2000 meters.

"My gosh, look!" exclaimed Cintia pointing. Near the shore there was a small community of people. Everyone visible was looking at the jet in such an absolute shock that it was obvious even from a height of 300 meters.

"Delaware Indians," said Xanti. "They fit our briefing profiles perfectly. I'm going to approach Princeton at high altitude, climb to 15000 meters and increase speed to 500 kph."

Cintia nodded and reminded Xanti, "Mission plan states we maintain radio silence until target scans are complete."

"Agreed. Wow, what a beautiful sight Cintia! I hope we didn't frighten them too badly."

Cintia nodded. "Yes. Did you see how small their community was? What would you guess? Thirty adults?"

"Yes, thirty to forty adults. That fits our mission briefing too, that the Delaware lived in small communities made up mostly of extended family members. Did you see the animal skins being dried?"

"Yes! What a privilege Xanti, so see the Earth like this."

"Yes, and what a responsibility, to see it's not destroyed again."

"I agree completely. This is big news! The Delaware were thought to colonize New Jersey about 10,000 years ago. Look at the climate below. The land is a delight! This is definitely the Holocene!"

"Yes, I agree. Any guesses to the exact time? We have a range from 8000 B.C. to 1500 A.D."

Cintia smiled. "Yeah. Pre-Columbian is almost a sure bet. But how much further back before 1500? Have any thoughts?"

Xanti sighed and thought. "Not really. I heard a rumor Lieutenant Estevao Rocha had an idea about exactly how far back but he's not talking about it publicly, at least not yet. I guess we'll find out soon enough."

A few minutes later the jet was hovering above the future site of Princeton, New Jersey at 15000 meters. At that altitude, the jet established a direct line-of-sight laser lock with Discovery 257 km away and reported their findings. They then spent the next ten minutes descending to 1000 meters and taking high-resolution pictures with two wing cameras of the exact spot where the Princeton dark generator was calculated to have been. Neither pilot saw anything at all that looked like a distinguishing mark. Returning to high altitude, they announced to the world their findings and then headed home at their maximum cruising speed.

Three weeks later.

Time: Saturday, July 3, 2049 10:15 PM

Megan was waiting for Alvaro in their Funchal condo, listening to some classical music and trying to relax. A few days ago her daughter-to-be had dropped low into her pelvis and was now pointing down head first to the birth canal, perfectly positioned for delivery anytime Megan's body wanted to start the birthing. But so far Megan's body seemed content to hang onto the child. Except for some lower back pain that she found easy to ignore, Megan decided she had rather enjoyed her pregnancy. But the anticipation of holding and nursing and cuddling with her daughter had been building week by week, and she was now eager for the pregnancy to end.

Except for the brief three-day period, Alvaro had been a faithful husband throughout June, pampering his wife so completely she would often blush from it. But today was another one of those times when his work called him away. He and a large number of other scientists were working at the University image processing labs. Megan didn't mind. She had a cell phone and neighbors. Any trouble at all and Megan would be at the nearby University Medical in minutes, with Alvaro joining her there. And the reason for his absence now? Yesterday was the second time Madeira had attempted to do long-range reconnaissance with the Bombardier jet. They had done a high fly-by over Thebes Egypt and the Valley of the Kings.

The cargo bay area of the jet had undergone substantial modifications in mid June. It now had a transparent acrylic floor and very powerful near-infrared lasers and precision downward scanning imaging equipment. From a height of almost 16,000 meters, the jet could hover silently at night and make extremely fine scans at wavelengths slightly longer than visible with the human eye. Alvaro joked they could almost read a book from 16 km away. They actually were able to read hieroglyphics.