A Glint In Time (History and Time) (8 page)

"And," Janet added, "we haven't seen any negatives come out of it."

"I wish we could test things on a smaller scale." Bill complained. "I'm afraid of making changes without more experimental data."

Sally was a little surprised when Janet spoke up, "We ae losing our options, Bill. It seems strange to say, but we're running out of time." Janet ignored the grunts and chuckles she got in response to her comment. "The farther back in time we try to send these capacitors, the less accurate we get, the more power it takes, the hotter they get, and the fewer we can send per day. Like throwing a ball, the downward curve gets increasingly steeper at the end of the span you can reach. As you throw harder, you get less accuracy. I'm not an engineer, or a physicist, or a ball player, but the effects seem clear."

Bill was silent as they walked to the river and back. "Okay, let's talk to the Woo boys and lay out the plan. It will take them some time to get the capacitors, won't it, Sally?"

"Yes, I guess so. I've got some ideas for things we can do to modern products to make them recognizable to a technician in 1943."

"Okay, then it takes them more time to line up their time machine, I'm sure. In the meanwhile, we can look for glitches in the plan."

Sally gave Ted a look and jerked her head slightly. Ted raised an eyebrow and hung back with her while Bill and Janet walked ahead. "I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I think maybe I've spotted a television camera lens in my room."

"Which one?" he asked.

"What do you mean, which one?" she whispered tightly.

"The one over the door or the one opposite the windows?" Ted replied innocently.

"You mean there are two television lenses in my room and you knew about them?" she asked with increasing but controlled fury.

"Well, there's two in everybody's room. The phones are the audio transmitters. Did you go sneak up on the lens that you saw? They must have enjoyed the view from the other side."

By this time, Sally was speechless. She made a few choking sounds, so Ted continued. "Look, I don't know why those cameras and microphones are there. Maybe they aren't even turned on. Maybe they're for security. I'll admit they're suspicious, I guess they make you pretty mad, but I just don't know what these guys are up to. That's why I try to suggest taking walks when we have something to talk about. Oh yeah, and now you know why I've never come knocking on your door in the evening to borrow a cup of sugar." He threw an arm around her waist, turned her around, and planted a sweet kiss on her lips. Then he took half a step back, still holding her hand.

"Damn," she said with a smile, "I thought you were just slow.Now I know that you're camera shy.Can those cameras see in the dark?"

"Probably not if it's really totally dark. But, what fun is that?"

GET THE PARTS

Thursday, August 24, 1995
0900 Indonesian Western
Standard Time
Ammero Group Compound
Indonesia

Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Brigadier General Ted Arthurs

Recorded May 2006
CLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL /TA

"The need for action was becoming obvious."

Bill started the meeting with the Woo family by explaining the important role of Joe Kennedy Senior and his sons in American politics. He described their personalities and the incredible political power that Joe Senior had gathered through the Democratic party. Then he described the competition between Joe Junior and Jack and the desperate mission that Joe Junior had undertaken in order to overcome Jack's apparent role as a hero.

"But," the oldest Woo asked, "did not Jack lose his ship, this PT 109 Boat, in a collision in the middle of the night without firing a shot? That would seem to be an action of bad seamanship, not something a hero does."

"The use of PR, press relations, was common among the Rockefellers and Kennedys. Even in those days they could give news the right spin." Bill replied.

Sally noted to herself that among his many talents, and despite some of his faults, Bill was a realist with a lot of insight. But then it was her turn to present her idea.

At Ted's insistence, she tried to ignore any thoughts about camera lenses in here room and to settle on the job at hand. After all, Ted explained, she could stop a war and hopefully have a father. That was pretty good motivation. Sally explained about capacitors and their function of draining off radio the frequency energy that set off the explosives in Kennedy's plane. James, the physicist in the group, nodded, popped open a laptop computer, and entered some data. While James worked, Sally continued.

"Today's bypass capacitors can be the size of a pencil point. What your company will have to do is to encapsulate modern capacitors in a small glass or ceramic tube about the size of a 1943 capacitor, leave the wire leads sticking out, and then etch the tube with the capacitive value and a voltage rating so the technicians will know what they are and how to use them. The values are still standard, so the only real problem is encapsulation and etching. That shouldn't be difficult or expensive."

Sonny Woo had been in America too long. He couldn't appear passive. "I'll, I'll get to it immediately! Sally, I'll need your help!" He waved Sally out of the room ahead of him, apparently on the way to find someone who knew where to get electronic parts.

James spoke up, "Making some assumptions about weight and mass, we'll only be able to transmit about six of these a day. Each shot will fully deplete the lasers and we'll have to re-charge and cool everything down between each shot. The items we send will all show up within approximately one hundred minutes of each other and they'll cover a circle with a radius of more than 300 meters."

"That's why we suggest targeting the parking ramp around the airplane." Ted said. "It will look like there was a spill from a cargo pallet on a passing truck or something. It's an open area, they'll be seen, and they'll probably wind up in the right hands. "

"We will have to ask our corporate people in England to pinpoint the site." James continued. "They'll have to do research there locally to find the exact location.We need to know exactly where that airplane, the ramp, and any work areas were and what the area looked like."

"I can help you with that." Janet said. "I have contacts in historical societies throughout England."

A few minutes later, Bill and Ted found themselves together in the computer room.

"Well," Bill said, "Let's see if we can find any other alternatives or problems. We don't know exactly what we're doing, but we'd better make sure that we do no harm." The two worked late.Sally checked in with Bill and Ted when she got back from the city. She reported success and then went to her room to get some sleep.

The next morning Sally found Ted waiting for what had become their usual pre-breakfast walk. Ted's stolen kiss had led to a lot of passion under the trees on the side of the quiet path.Sally was ready to hang some towels over the TV cameras lenses in her room, but despite the explicit offer Ted wasn't ready to alienate the watchers. That led to some unusual tension between them.

"Well, how did you do with the capacitors?" Ted asked.

She fished in her pocket before she replied and handed Ted something that appeared to be a tiny colored glob of ceramic material hanging on two wires. "It turns out that several companies make these things in Malaysia and the Woo's ships carry them. James found a shipment and liberated a box of a couple of hundred pieces. When he left me yesterday he was on his way to get them coated in ceramic or glass to make them look like the older capacitors. He might be done today."

"Wow," Ted replied. "Things move fast."

"If it stops that war, it can't come too soon for me." Sally replied.

"Yeah, but Bill's caution is contagious. We worked past midnight looking at different options and scenarios. We can't find anything wrong, but Bill says it still doesn't feel right and I think he's right. Let me ask you something that I thought about this morning while I was shaving."

"Do you get a lot of good ideas while you're shaving?" she asked. She reached over and put her hand on his smooth cheek.

"Yeah, sometimes I get a lot of ideas. period."He ducked away. "Now cut that out. I'm serious. Listen, is there some way to get into the computer network in Florida? Can I try some of the same changes on that software and database?

"Sure," she said with assurance.“The satellite communications link is still up. I've been using it to access some North American historical databases through the local area network in the beach house in Florida. I can make a laptop computer a remote node into the Florida network. It won't be anyplace near as fast as being on a local connection, but if you only want to do a limited amount of work it will be fast enough."

"Yeah,“Ted said. "I'd like to do that."

"But you verified that they have the same program and the same database running here, didn't you?"

"We checked what we could. But there's a lot of code in this system and you never know without comparative runs. I just want to submit this one scenario to the Florida system and see what it comes up with. And Sally, can we do this quietly? Let's not tell anyone?"

"Okay, let's head back and get breakfast like normal. Then, I'll set up a laptop in the communications room. I'll

come by your console and smile at you when it's ready. Or," she paused, "will that be too suspicious?"

Without a word, Ted bent over, blew in Sally's ear, and started back to the computer room at a slow jog. Sally yelped and started after him at a run.

After breakfast, it took Sally only a few minutes to connect a laptop computer to the Florida system over the satellite link. She made a few checks to see if Ted could effectively use the system. It was slow and the small screen on the laptop computer made it much more difficult to use the program, but it worked. She walked into the main console area and smiled at Ted, who smiled back. She busied herself at another console and noticed that Ted waited fifteen minutes before going into the communications room. It was nearly two hours before he came out.

Ted wandered out of the communications room and headed in the direction of the single bathroom. It was another half an hour before he came back and Sally was almost a nervous wreck. "How about a walk before lunch?" he said innocently.

They were well away from the building when Ted said, "Keep walking and let's talk normally. It's not good Sal. At least I think it's not. I started out by erasing Joe Junior's death and putting him back into the national scene. Then I moved forward in time to see the divergent changes. Sal, we never got to the Vietnam War. That part is true. But we didn't get there because there was something big that happened before Vietnam started. I couldn't tell what it was, I'm not

expert enough, the screen was too small and the link was slow, but it made a big spike on the screen and everything, and I mean everything, was different after that."

"What does that mean?" Sally asked.

"It means that this computer is giving us very different results from the one I trust back home."

Sally had very mixed feelings. She wanted to eliminate that horrible war, but she didn't trust the people she was working for. The motivation of the Woo brothers had never persuaded her about their honesty and elements like the television cameras in her room made her even more suspicious.

"How can we tell Bill?" she asked.

"Let's develop a plan before we tell Bill and Janet. Sal, you're the expert, how can you get them access to the Florida computer system using the big consoles in this computer room?" he asked. "They have to have the big screens and software aids to input a detailed scenario and examine the results."

Sally was about to answer when Ted reached into his pants pocket like he had been bitten. He pulled out a pager equipped with a screen that displayed three lines of text. He kept walking while he looked at the pager and pushed the button that scrolled the text. He grunted, pushed another button, waited a moment, and then put the pager back in his pocket.

"How did a page reach you here?" she asked. "I didn't hear it beep."

"It's a satellite system. It works world-wide. But the acknowledgment that I sent isn't a widely available option. And it doesn't beep, it vibrates."

"Ah...." Sally said with a giggle. "Maybe I'll page you sometime."

"Remember the TV cameras." Ted said. "Maybe I don't care." she replied.

"Back to work." Ted said. "I'm a great performer, but not on TV."

"Promises promises." Sally replied.

On the way back, Sally explained that she would have to change the network address of the consoles that Bill and Janet used. She knew she could change the addresses to match those of the computers in two consoles in Florida. Then, the consoles in Indonesia would route their data from the Indonesian local network, across the satellite link, and on to the Florida network. "But the darn problem is, those Russian computer guys will get suspicious the minute I do something out on the consoles."

The two Russian computer technicians typically sat in a small room off of the main computer room. In there, they apparently smoked and played chess when the American

team was working. They had one maintenance console and if there were any system malfunctions, they popped out to take care of them. Sally knew that they also cleaned the systems when they weren't in use. She also knew that as soon as she put a console into the maintenance mode necessary to change an address, the Russians would get a status alarm and investigate.

"We could put some knock-out drugs in their vodka or something." Sally said.

"Have you seen them drinking vodka?" Ted asked.

"No," she replied. In fact, the two Russians seemed more like California wine-sipping computer geeks than vodka-swilling Cossacks.

"Do you have any drugs?" "No."

"Probably, you should stick to engineering and other things that you might do well." Ted observed.

"Okay, let me see what I can do." she said.

WORLD SHAKING DIFFERENCE