“Wells,” she said, “was quite right. Time, the fourth dimension, unseen, yet extant...” she trailed off with a thoughtful smile. Some of our company, accustomed to such declarations, merely continued their supper, and for several moments there was only the rustling of napkins and the genteel clatter of silverware. I, curious as to how she was going to proceed, put my glass back down upon the table and gave the Professor my full attention.
“After all,” she continued blithely, “It's all there in Einstein. But our ancestors--” she laughed. “Ah, they were a warlike people, you know, and took from his works what they needed-- to build a weapon!” Here, the Admiral interrupted.
“But, my dear, surely without it, the West would have been destroyed in the war! Desperate times call for desperate measures.” She tapped her lips thoughtfully.
“Of course, one cannot say 'what might have been' with any certainty. Certainly its invention did not end war and conflict on Earth. Why, it took a century after the last dispute was settled before we were able to devote our energies to invention. And so, poor Wells has finally got his recognition! Surely you've read the papers on our first successful trip through time, a decade past.” Her audience nodded, and the Admiral, who had himself commanded a Time Vessel before retirement, puffed out his chest with pride. “But, dear Admiral, your point brings me to what I have been thinking about for some time now. Why must there be only one dimension of time? Why only one set course for it to follow?”
There was no question now of anyone proceeding calmly with their dinner. The table was silent, and our dining companions turned their excited attention to the Professor. She grinned.
“Perhaps it would be better explained by an illustration. Here-- Wells, perhaps, might have agreed with me if I portrayed his time in this way--” and she arranged her knife horizontally on the table, thusly:
and placed the salt-shaker on top of it. “Now, imagine this knife as the road, while the salt is us, or our vehicle. And so we travel, back and forth, at any rate we please-- with the right equipment.”
The Admiral, being familiar with this concept, looked mildly bored. Everyone now knew, in layman's terms, the workings of Time. Our hostess, however, was not finished.
“But now,” she continued, smoothly lifting my knife from its plate, “What if we have this?” And she placed the first knife above the other:
“And what about this?” She removed my neighbor's knife in the same manner, leaving three roads traversing the tablecloth:
The Professor smiled triumphantly as we stared, trying to make sense of what she was proposing.
“What if Time is not one highway? What if there are other times where-- say-- atomics had not been discovered, and the outcome of the second World War was different?” The Admiral snorted.
“Preposterous!” He exclaimed. “History has but one course-- there is only one future. Why, in some... alternate time, you might not have even been born!”
“Ah, but in the future, Admiral, you do not exist, either, except when you are there,” the Professor countered. The Admiral motioned for her to go on, and took a hefty gulp of wine. “How many times, in your life, have you had to make a choice? How many times have you gone back and forth between the two? How many things, in human history, have been left to choice and chance?”
“And so, what if we could not only traverse our time--” and here she moved the salt-shaker up to the next knife-- “but those other times, as well? Those other dimensions?” There was an excited murmur as our dinner companions began to debate among themselves, and the poor Admiral, quite beside himself, nearly choked on his drink.
“And I...” she laughed joyously. “I have made a machine to take me there!”
All of the bewildered guests had long departed, perhaps too uncomfortable to linger long over dessert for fear of what example their hostess might make of the cake. But I, believing, hung back, wanting to hear more, wanting to see. The Professor smiled; she seemed to know my mind. “It is a very simple construction,” she warned, as she beckoned me back to her workrooms. “Much like a small Time Vessel, really, but... improbable.”
And it was. A rounded, egg-like structure, containing its workings, surely, underneath a comfortably padded bench, the front of it half encased in glass. Though the glass was clear, I caught only flickering glimpses of the levers that must operate it. There it stood, a vehicle to carry travelers into a parallel world. Yet, simultaneously, it was not-there. I half fancied I could see the patterns of the wall behind it-- but I could not-- or perhaps, if I only observed it from the corner of my eye, it was more real-- or unreal. The Professor laughed indulgently at my confusion.
“I did say,” she said, with no malice. “And now, I must really test it, I suppose, before I can truly convince our companions...” She trailed off, and looked about her laboratory purposefully.
“Surely you're not going now!” I cried, as she gathered up a few items that I supposed were important. “Have you thought it through? Are your equations really correct?” The Professor smiled gently.
“There's no time like the present, dear friend. In Verne's immortal words, 'I don't know, but I'll find out!'” I envied her easy optimism, and stared as the Professor climbed into her machine, her form almost taking on its strange, light-bending qualities as it entered the chamber.
She held out a friendly hand through the open door as her smile broadened. “Would you like to come with me?”
And this, my friends, is where the story ends. I can only invite you to imagine what other worlds and other times might be like... these places of “what if.”
Related reading:
H.G. Wells: The Time Machine
Robert Anton Wilson: Schroedinger's Cat
Robert Heinlein: The Cat Who Walked Through Walls... and etc.
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