Losing Time

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“The Time Tube  is a self constructing mechanism offered by the GODS (General Overseers of Death and Sustainability) allowing the user to view historical events and to record, and sometimes manipulate, the future. Due to the consequences of its misuse the Time Tube is licensed to registered first division civilisations only. The penalty for illegal use is the confiscation of the time tube and the deletion of your local time.”

 

The contraption looked like a large black box that shimmered in the gloom, never keeping quite the same shape it had the moment before and making the notice quite tricky to read.  Paracetomol scratched his chin with his tail and reread the notice.

 

‘We’ve found ourselves a goldmine, Asprin,’ he said.

‘How’s that then? You see what it says.’

‘Don’t believe everything the GODS tell you.’

 

Asprin unrolled his tongue and wiped his rear hind leg thoughtfully. ‘I’m not happy. How do we make money and stay alive?’

 

‘We sell futures.’ Paracetomol’s centre eye turned orange with excitement. It annoyed Asprin because the sight of orange made him itch. ‘We survive by time manipulation.’

‘But you don’t know how to do that.’

‘We’ll find out. There has to be a way into this thing.’

 

The two were traders. Anything they could lay their hands on. They’d intended to land on Varucca to refuel. But they’d detected a crashed ship in the middle of one of the frozen seas and had gone down to see what they could salvage. This box looked by far the most interesting thing amongst the wreckage.

 

‘Someone’s going to be searching for this,’ said Asprin but his words were lost. Paracetomol had walked round the other side. Asprin followed him but Paracetomol had disappeared. In a few moments a hand materialised out of the side of the box and rose slowly. Paracetomol reappeared.

‘Found the entrance,’ he said. ‘There’s an invisible lock at the bottom. You put your hand through the side and raise it until you can walk through. It’s a virtual doorway.’

‘I said someone’s going to be looking for this,’ said Asprin as he followed Paracetomol inside. It was a lot bigger internally. A giant screen took up one wall and in the centre was a console stuffed with dials and switches. 

 

Paracetomol switched it on.

 

‘I don’t think you should be doing this,’ said Asprin

 

The screen burst into life.

 

‘Hey, it’s displaying a history,’ said Paracetomol. ‘For the people that ordered it I guess.’

‘Maybe we could get a salvage fee. Who are they?’

‘Dunno. Not surprising though. Ol’ Nefritis said there’s over six billion civilisations. We haven’t scratched the surface.’

‘I wonder what these ones are like.’

‘I can see they’ve got problems. It looks like they’re dying of disease.’ Paracetomol took a deep breath. ‘I just saw my name. Who are these people?’

‘They could use the same name,’ said Asprin. ‘You haven’t got exclusive rights.’

‘And yours. I’m getting the hang of these controls. Every name I’ve ever heard of they use to describe diseases or how to control them. That’s weird.’

‘What about our lives,’ said Asprin. ‘Are we going to be rich?’

 

Paracetomol studied some of the switches and shifted several. The screen suddenly sparkled and displayed a tube looking as though it was studied in diamonds. Above the diagram were the words ‘The Universal Time Tube’.

 

‘It looks like rope,’ said Asprin.

‘Yeah, it sparkles as every strand crosses another. Then you get all the possible consequences and all the next crossovers.’  He pulled a couple of levers. ‘You get to a major time junction and it tells you where and when you are, then you hone down to finer and finer detail. This is really fun.’

‘Hey look,’ said Asprin. ‘That’s the point yesterday when we decided to come here. What would have happened if we hadn’t?’

‘Impossible to tell. You get two choices first. Then they multiply up by the second. Within a few hours it looks like the alternatives are endless. Here’s one. Within a day of not coming here we get eaten by the Great Wart.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘Not did. Would.’

‘Whatever.’

 

Paracetomol had no time to respond. There was a thunderous noise and a voice called out, ‘Name your civilisation.’

 

Asprin and Paracetomol turned swiftly around but could see nothing.

 

‘I am one of the GODS. Name your civilisation.’ The voice boomed again.

‘We are Arthritics,’ said Paracetomol weakly.

‘Arthritics have no licence to use the time tube.’

‘We just found it,’ said Asprin. ‘We were seeing whose it was.’

‘We were going to return it.’ said Paracetomol.

‘You will return the machine to its original setting and leave. Otherwise you will lose your place in time.’

‘Yes, sure,’ said Paracetomol . ‘Can you give us a few minutes. We’re not sure how to do that.’

 

There was no answer.

 

‘Does that mean were going to die?’ asked Asprin.

‘Shut up, I’m thinking.’

‘Well, hurry up and let’s get out of here.’

 

Paracetomol stood at the console motionless.

 

‘This isn’t time to think,’ shouted Asprin. ‘Just do it.’

‘We can manipulate time with this thing, right?’

‘So what?’

‘If we advance the tube we’ll be beyond the point when they discover us. They’ll have to discover us again. By that time, we’ll be in control and won’t even be here.’

‘You’re crazy,’ said Asprin. ‘You can’t defeat the GODS. They invented the rules.’

‘All our lives we’ve taken risks. This is our final fling. With this thing we could be beyond anyone’s rules.’

‘Just switch the thing off and let’s get out.’ Asprin moved to set the switches back.

‘Don’t touch anything. I’m going to set it to “change” mode.’

‘Switch it off,’ shouted Asprin. He dived for the controls and switched some off as Paracetomol moved the lever from “display” to “change”.

 

Paracetomol scratched his chin with his tail and reread the notice.

 

‘We’ve found ourselves a goldmine, Asprin,’ he said.

 

The GODS nodded and smiled.