“Yes, we’ve developed what you might call an analog computer of sorts. That is, in fact, what the German Enigma machine is. I’ve spent some time thinking in that direction.”
“Your Universal Turing Machine?” Tovey smiled.
“You know about it?”
“I read your paper on it shortly after we met. Very interesting work, Mister Turing. Well now… and I mean no disrespect here, but it seems the Russians have taken your work to heart. I was shown devices on that ship that make all our computing machines look ridiculous. They use electronic machines to control every aspect of their operations-navigation, radars, fire control for their weapons, communications-all of it. While I cannot say I am up to speed on all our latest technologies, I knew enough to realize I was seeing things that were entirely beyond our present capabilities, things that would take us decades to develop on our own. Well, these Russians told me flat out they had come from the year 2021, a statement any man alive today would dismiss as pure malarkey. Stating the impossible, is one thing. I suppose any man capable of telling a straight faced lie could do so, and I’ve heard more than my fair share of tall tales over the years. But seeing these devices, these incredible machines they have on that ship, well, it was very convincing. In fact, assuming this ship had come from some unseen future was the only thing that made sense.”
“I can only imagine,” said Turing. “Perhaps you might arrange a little tour of that ship for me as well. I would be most interested to see what you are describing here.”
“I have no doubt. It was all quite a revelation-truly life changing. Ever since that ship turned up off Cape Farewell I have been haunted by the feeling that I knew what it was, and now these men have confirmed that was so. Do you recall what you said to me at our last meeting, that one of the envelopes in that box revealed who the culprits were behind those photos and reports?”
“Envelope nine,” said Turing quietly.
“Yes, well these men confirmed that as well. It was you and I, Turing. We were the ones who gathered that material together and stowed it away, and it was all very hush hush. These men lived through those years, and everything in that box is a testament to that fact. The only question they had for me was how we possibly came by that material, here, in 1940, and well before any of those events happened.”
“That is certainly something quite frightening when I think about it,” said Turing. “It is a real anomaly of the first order.”
“The Russians thought the same thing.”
“And I suppose they immediately wondered how that material could be in our possession, sir.”
“They did indeed. Have you given that any thought?”
“A good deal of thought,” said Turing. “This may sound odd, but I have a favorite watch. Why, it’s right here in my pocket, but a month or so ago it vanished. Of course I simply thought I had misplaced it, and looked everywhere as one might, but it was nowhere to be found. Then, as I was shuffling through that box to select the photographs you asked me to deliver, there it was.”
“Your watch?”
“Precisely!”
“In that box? Are you sure you didn’t leave it there by chance?”
“I’m quite certain that was not the case. It was like a missing tooth, and quite gone, until that very day when you were last here. Yet how could it have hopped out of my pocket and into that box-a box sealed off with thick masking tape, and buried under so much dust that it looked like it had sat there undisturbed for… well, for decades?”
“Quite strange,” said Tovey.
“Eerily so! An anomaly. That’s what I have come to call it. I’m a very meticulous man, Admiral. Some say I can be a bit absent minded at times, but they have no idea what is actually going on inside this noggin of mine. When I set my mind to solving a problem, it becomes all consuming for me. So you will please believe me when I say that I was able to work out the very last day when I could recall having possession of this watch, as I remember using the stop-watch feature to time the revolutions on my bicycle and plot out the mean time between incidents of gear failure-the chain tends to slip after a good ride, and that was the day I rode into town to do a bit of shopping. I even found the receipt from the store, and so the date is quite certain.”
“I see,” said Tovey, not exactly following what Turing was leading up to here.
“Yes, I worked it all out, then noted the date on the receipt. The 12th of June, sir. That was the day my watch went missing, and I cannot recall laying eyes on it again until I found it by complete chance in that file box.”
“The 12th of June?” Tovey found himself searching his recollection for anything significant that he could hang on that date, but it was all a blur. Thankfully Turing had more clarity.
“Yes, sir. That was the very day in June when we first receive the reports from HX-49 regarding that ship.” Turing raised his eyebrows, waiting for a reaction to register on the Admiral’s face.
“You mean to say you believe the appearance of that ship had something to do with… Forgive me, Mister Turing, but I’m not quite sure I follow you.”
“I’m not certain of it, Admiral, but facts are stubborn things. Isn’t that what the American statesman John Adams asserted? Yes, stubborn things indeed. All I know now is that my watch vanished the very same day that ship appeared, and it ended up in that box-the box named for that very ship-the Geronimo file.”
Now Tovey nodded, suddenly intrigued by Turing’s deduction.
“Very astute reasoning,” he said. Might it be mere happenstance?”
“Possibly, but the coincidence is somewhat unnerving.”
“And what do you conclude from this?”
“A possible answer as to how that box can now exist here-in 1940, and contain evidence of things that have not yet transpired.”
“Things that might never transpire,” Tovey put in. “The Russians were of that mind. Those photographs clearly depicted our relationship as adversarial, and the Russian Admiral confirmed that. The report you gave me of a meeting on Las Palomas Island was supposedly arranged to work out a truce. Yet now, with their appearance here in our time, they believe that none of those events will occur.”
“Quite amazing,” said Turing. “Well I find it very odd that my watch should turn up in that box… as if I had put it there myself and forgotten about it, but I assure you, that is not the case, at least not in this year. In fact, I’ve rummaged about in that archive many times, and I have never stumbled across this file box before. That in itself proves nothing, but I am beginning to suspect that box turned up on that very same day, dust, cobwebs, and all.”
“What? On June 12th?”
Turing nodded in the affirmative.
“Well that would be quite a little mystery, wouldn’t it? Yet I suppose no more astounding than what we have already learned. But why, Turing? Why would your watch suddenly go missing like that?”
“It’s really quite simple, Admiral. Assuming the material in that box does indeed come from a future time, then I must assume that everything I found their did so as well.” He gave Tovey a knowing look.
“You mean your watch as well?”
“Exactly. It is already apparent that I was instrumental in gathering all that material, so I can only suppose that I must have deliberately placed my watch in that box. Assuming that, this is my theory. That box, and everything in it, is a remnant from that future time, the time this Russian Admiral claimed he lived through. When that ship appeared here, it must have dragged that remnant along in its wake. Don’t ask me how or why this is so, but it is what I have come to deduce. Time was making a little delivery, and all was in order except one item-my watch. You see, nothing in that box existed here at the moment it might have appeared- except my watch! That item could not come to this time from the future as it already existed here, and that would be quite a little paradox. And so, to resolve the matter, one of the variables had to be cancelled out. My watch goes missing in the here and now, and then mysteriously turns up in that box!” Turing smiled, folding his arms with a satisfied look on his face, as if he had just completed a perfectly sound mathematical proof.