Bisesa took copies of all this to store in their only significant portable electronic device, her phone. The data was precious, she saw. For a long time these images would be all they would have to tell them what was on the other side of the horizon. And besides, she agreed with cosmonaut Kolya that there should be a record of where they had come from. Otherwise people would eventually forget, and believe that this was all there ever had been.
But the phone had its own agenda. Show me the stars, it said, in its small whisper.
So, each evening, she would set it up on a convenient rock, where it sat like a patient metallic insect, its small camera peering into the sky. Bisesa put up little screens of waterproofed canvas to protect it. These observation sessions could last hours as the phone waited for a glimpse of some key part of the sky through the scudding clouds.
One evening, as Bisesa sat with her phone, Abdikadir, Josh and Ruddy walked out of the fort to join her. Abdikadir brought a tray of drinks, fresh lemonade and sugar water.
Ruddy grasped the nature of the phones project readily enough. By mapping the sky, and comparing the stars positions to the astronomical maps stored in its database, the phone could determine the date. Just like astronomers at the Babylonian court, he said.
Josh sat close to Bisesa, and his eyes were huge in the gathering dark of the evening. He could not be called handsome. He had a small face, with protruding ears, and cheeks pushed up by smiling; his chin was weak, but his lips were full, and oddly sensual. He was an endearing package, she admitted to herselfand, though she felt obscurely guilty about it, as if she was somehow betraying Myra, his obvious affection for her was coming to matter to her.
He said, Do you think that even the stars have been washed around the sky?
I dont know, Josh, she said. Perhaps thats my sky up there; perhaps its yours; perhaps its nobodys. I want to find out.
Ruddy said, Surely by the twenty-first century you have a much deeper understanding of the nature of the cosmos, even of time and space themselves, than we poor souls.
Yes, said Josh eagerly. We may not know why all this has happened to usbut surely, Bisesa, armed with your advanced science, you can speculate on how the world has been turned upside down
Abdikadir put in, Maybe. But its going to be a little difficult to talk about spacetime, as you wouldnt have even heard of special relativity for another couple of decades.
Ruddy looked blank. Of special what?
The phone whispered dryly, Start with chasing a light beam. If it was good enough for Einstein
All right, Bisesa said. Josh, think about this. When I look at you, I dont see you as you are now. I see you as you were a little way in the past, a few fractions of a second ago, the time it took starlight reflecting from your face to reach my eye.
Josh nodded. So far so clear.
Bisesa said, Suppose I chased the light from your face, going faster and faster. What would I see?
Josh frowned. It would be like two fast trains, one overtaking the otherboth fast, but from the point of view of the one, the other seems to move slowly. He smiled. You would see my cheeks and mouth moving like a glacier when I smiled to greet you.
Yes, she said. Good, youve got the idea. Now, Einsteinah, he was a physicist of the early twentieth century, an important oneEinstein taught us this isnt just an optical effect. Its not just that I see your face move more slowly, Josh. Light is the most fundamental way we have of measuring timeand so, the faster I travel, the slower I see time pass for you.
Ruddy pulled at his mustache. Why?
Abdikadir laughed. Five generations of schoolteachers since Einstein have failed to come up with a good answer to that, Ruddy. Its just the way the universe is built.
Josh grinned. How wonderfulthat light should be forever young, forever agelessperhaps its true that Gods angels are creatures of light itself!
Ruddy shook his head. Angels or no angels, this is damned fishy. And what does it have to do with our present situation?
Because, Bisesa said, in a universe where time itself adjusts around you depending on how fast you travel, the concept of simultaneity is a little tricky. What is simultaneous for Josh and Ruddy, say, may not be simultaneous for me. It depends on how we move, how the light passes between us.
Josh nodded, but he was evidently uncertain. And this isnt simply an effect of timing
Not timing, but physics, Bisesa said.
I think I see, Josh said. And if that can happen, it may be possible to take two events that were not simultaneouslets say, a moment in my life in 1885, and a moment in Bisesas in 2037and bring them together so that they touch, so closely we can even
Kiss? said Ruddy, mock-solemnly.
Poor Josh actually blushed.
Ruddy said, But all this is described from the point of view of one person or another. From what mighty point of view, then, is our new world to be seen? That of Godor of the Eye of Time itself?
I dont know, Bisesa said.
We need to learn more, Josh said decisively. If were ever to have a chance of fixing things
Oh, yes. Ruddy laughed hollowly. There is that. Fixing things!
Abdikadir said, In our age weve grown used to our seas and rivers and air being fouled. Now time is no longer a steady, remorseless stream, but churned up, full of turbulence and eddies. He shrugged. Perhaps its just something we will have to get used to.
Perhaps the truth is simpler, Ruddy said brutally. Perhaps your noisy flapping machines have shattered the cathedral calm of eternity. The whizzes and bangs of the terrible wars of your age have shocked the walls of that cathedral beyond their capacity to heal.
Josh looked from one to the other. Youre saying all this might not be naturalit might not even be the actions of some superior beingsit might be our fault ?
Maybe, said Bisesa. But maybe not. We only know a little more science than you, Joshwe really dont know.
Ruddy was still brooding on relativity. Who was this fellowdid you say Einstein? Sounds German to me.
Abdikadir said, He was a German Jew. In your time he was, umm, a six-year-old schoolboy in Munich.
Ruddy was muttering, Space and time themselves can be warpedthere is no certainty, even in physicshow Einsteins opinions must have helped the world toward flux and disintegrationand now you say he was Hebrew, and a Germanits so inevitable it makes one laugh!
The phone said quietly, Bisesa, theres one more thing.
What?
Tau Ceti.
Josh said, What is that? Oh. A star.
A star like the sun, about twelve light-years away. I saw it nova. It was faint, and by the time I noticed it the light was already fading, already past its peakit lasted only a few nightsbut
Abdikadir pulled his beard. Whats so remarkable about that?
Just that its impossible, said the phone.
How so?
Only binary systems novaa companion has to add inert material to the star, which is eventually blown off in an explosion.
And Tau Ceti is solitary, Bisesa said. So how can it have gone nova?
You can check my records, the phone said tetchily.
Bisesa looked at the sky uncertainly.
Ruddy grumbled, In the circumstances that seems a rather remote and abstract puzzle to me. Perhaps we should concern ourselves with more immediate matters. Yon phone has been working on its Babylonian date-calculating for days already. How long will it take to deliver its marvelous news?