They had done a nice job, Deitrich thought. The new building was located in a government vegetation preserve, and had about as much beauty and luxury as was available anywhere in the system. And that was considerable.
As he entered his office, the secretary glanced up at him and raised a finger. Then, in a time-honored gesture, she pointed it to her head. “Inside,” she said cryptically. “You’ll have to give me a better clue than that,” Deitrich protested. “After all, I just got here.”
She frowned with annoyance, but she explained. “I couldn’t keep him out. Said you were the only one who could help him and that it was practically a matter of life and death.” Deitrich nodded doubtfully and went on into the inner office.
A short, muscular man jumped to his feet with a clatter of hard plastic sandals. His clothing indicated that he was a lower-class merchant, which was somewhat surprising to Deitrich because a lower-class man like that could hardly be involved with a TJ transport. The only exception would be as a subsidy-colonist, and the Eighteen Planets never shipped any of those.
“I’m sorry to bother you sir, but my wife thought you might be able to—” The man hesitated and nervously fingered the tassels on his blouse.
“What’s your name?”
“Tsuroak, sir.”
Deitrich motioned, and they both sat down. Tsuroak continued to fool with the yellow-corded tassel.
“And what is the trouble?”
“It’s my son.”
“I see. And what is it about your son that you think I can help you with?”
“He’s run away, sir.”
Deitrich waited.
Tsuroak dropped the tassel, cleared his throat and continued more resolutely.
“He… we, that is… had an argument of sorts and he ran away. Took a time-jump ship somewhere. We aren’t exactly sure just where.” The man leaned forward. “But he’s only twenty-seven, sir.”
Deitrich frowned. “It’s against the law to lake a passenger on an intergalactic transport who is under legal age. Have you notified the authorities? There may still be time to intercept it.”
The man leaned back in his chair. He shook his head disconsolately.
“He left six months ago. There was a note, but we didn’t believe that he would actually do anything like that.” He gestured hopelessly. “We thought he’d be hiding some place here in the Eighteen Planets.”
Deitrich waited again.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that he’s left the system.”
After allowing the proper pause, Deitrich said, “That’s too bad. But—what can I do about it?”
Tsuroak rubbed his hands together, thick, tough, heavily-veined skin whitening from the pressure. “It was just a silly argument,” he said. “I had no idea—Sir, they tell me that you are the only time-jump pilot in the system right now. I… that is, my wife and I… thought that maybe you could go up and get him and explain things to him a little bit. And bring him back.”
“I’m afraid—” Deitrich started, but the little merchant interrupted him immediately.
“I can pay you, sir. Not too much, I guess. But something. Maybe a lot if you’ll just wait a few years.”
Deitrich shook his head. “I’m sorry, Tsuroak. Money is not the question. What I wanted to say was that you seem to be under a rather popular misconception. A time-jump transport moves in time, as its name indicates. But only one way. Forward. As far as I know, nobody has ever been able to go the other way. Perhaps in the future.”
Tsuroak protested mildly. “But how do you travel so far and get back again. The stars—”
“When a time-jump leaves the Eighteen Planets System,” Deitrich replied, “you will never see it again in your lifetime. It is run simply on a basis of suspended animation. You set the course, punch out a control code, and all of a sudden you find yourself at your destination. But actually you’ve been unconscious for the entire trip, even if it takes a thousand years. It’s called a time-jump because subjectively you are not affected by the passage of time.”
The little man’s heavy shoulders sagged. His face showed his disappointment, and he murmured, “I told her that it wasn’t like she thought.” He paused, meditated briefly, and then said, “So he’s gone. We’ll never see him again.”
Deitrich watched, keeping his face devoid of expression. He said, “Three intergalactic transports have left here during the past, six months. Do you have any idea at all where he went?”
“My wife thinks he went out to M33 Galaxy. He talked about going there at times.”
“That’s about two hundred years away.” Deitrich pursed his lips. “Of course, there is a way that you can see your son again. And that is to take a transport to M33 yourself and look for him there. We can trace the destination of the fleet he left on, and you can get within regular transport distance of him. But the chances of finding him there are still no belter than the police methods of the system he terminates at.”
“But it is possible?”
“It is. However, while you are considering it, don’t forget that if you follow him, anything you leave behind you will be left behind for good. No coming back to see your relatives and friends. If you don’t take your family with you, by the time you get back your name may have evolved into something you might not recognize, because four hundred years or so is a long time to be away. Do you understand what I’m saying? You might as well die as far as anything or anybody left behind is concerned.”
Tsuroak nodded dumbly, and Deitrich continued.
“The brighter side of it is that things are pretty stable, even over such igreat spans—as a whole, that is. Barrng accident, you should be able to start over again wherever you terminate, although you will have to spend some lime adjusting yourself to the local conditions. There is a lime lag in development, you see, that exists for the destination as well as it does for you. Wherever you may go in M33 is probably about two hundred years behind us here as of this point in absolute time, if such a thing existed. There are certain shifts that are unpredictable. But they are relatively mild, at least as you go outward from the home. The other way would be much harder.”
“Is it—costly?” Tsuroak asked hesitantly.
“Since it was a government error that allowed your son to slip through. I think I can arrange it to have the government pay for your entire trip. You can take your immediate family and any reasonable amount of personal effects. And of course, standard intergalactic exchange credits for your money.”
Tsuroak stared at him uncertainly. “I have a small business,” he murmured. “Four other children—he was the oldest. My wife.”
Deitrich did not interrupt.
“I just don’t know. I’m fifty-two. It’ll be kind of hard starting over again with my life already pretty close to half over.”
“Well, you don’t have to make up your mind right now. I’ll be piloting the next intergalactic transport out that way, and it won’t leave for at least a month yet. You have plenty of time to think it over.”
Tsuroak struggled with himself a moment and then blurted out.
“Would you go if you were me?” His eyes were fixed anxiously on Deitrich’s face.
“You’ll have to make up your own mind, Tsuroak. I merely pointed out some of the considerations involved.”
“Oh.” The little man gazed blankly at him.
“A month,” Deitrich repeated kindly. “Not a minute.”
Tsuroak nodded and smiled for the first time. “Of course,” he said and stood up. “It’s a big decision to make, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I don’t know how to thank you for your help. I’ll talk it over with my wife and let you know.”
“Fine.”
For some minutes after he left, Deitrich stared at the ceiling, trying to think of nothing, absolutely nothing. He had seen the Tsuroak sort of thing happen before, one way or another. It was the tragic reason for the careful regulation of the big fleets. But sometimes men were bribed. Sometimes they were stupid or just careless.