Read Chronospace for Free Online Page B

building had dialed the wrong extension. It happened all the time. Then, a male voice:
    “Is this Za . . . I mean, David Z. Murphy?”
    “Speaking.”
    “The same David Z. Murphy who writes for Analog? ”
    “Sometimes, yeah.” He glanced at the button pad, noted that the call was coming in from the outside line. “Who’s calling, please?”
    “Dr. Murphy, this is Gregory Benford. I’m a professor of physics at the University of California-Irvine. I also write science fiction on occasion.”
    Murphy’s mouth dropped open. “Yes, of course I’ve heard of you.” He sat up straight in his chair. “I’m a big fan of your work.”
    Which was the unvarnished truth. One of the SF authorswhom he admired the most was Gregory Benford; not only did he have a superb imagination, but he was also one of the small handful of writers whose novels and stories possessed a high degree of scientific plausibility. When Murphy began writing, one of the authors whose style he had consciously attempted to emulate was Benford’s, albeit unsuccessfully.
    A dry chuckle from the other end of the line. “Call me Greg, please. And I rather like your stuff, too.”
    “But I haven’t written any . . .” Then he realized Benford wasn’t talking about science fiction. “Oh, you mean my Analog articles.”
    “You mean you’ve been published elsewhere? I haven’t seen your by-line except in . . .”
    “No, no,” Murphy said hastily. “The things I’ve done for Analog are all . . . I mean, y’know, I’ve tried to write fiction, but they didn’t . . . I mean, it just didn’t work out.”
    “That’s too bad. Anyway, Dr. Murphy . . .”
    “David.”
    “Sure. Anyway, as I was saying, the reason why I’m calling is that I’ve just read that article about time travel . . .”
    “Really?” Murphy absently picked up a paper clip, tumbled it between his fingers. “Hope you liked it. I mean, I was really out in left field . . .”
    “No, no, it was really quite interesting. The premise is a bit radical, to be sure, but you managed to support it quite well. I’m quite intrigued by the idea. In fact, I was hoping we could discuss it further. I have questions I’d like to ask you.”
    “Certainly. My pleasure.” Murphy craned his neck to glance at the wall clock near the door. “I’ve got a department meeting in about a half hour, but I’ve got time before then. What do you want to know?”
    “Actually, I sort of hoped we could get together for lunch.”
    Murphy’s eyebrows rose. “For lunch? Today?”
    “Sure, if it’s not too much trouble. I’m in town rightnow . . . there was a physics conference in Baltimore last weekend, and I stayed over to visit some friends in the area. I’m catching a flight back to L.A. this afternoon, but I’ve got some time to kill before then. Since I knew you worked at NASA, I thought I’d give you a buzz and see if you were available for lunch.”
    Odd. Murphy hadn’t heard of any physics conferences being held in Baltimore, and his colleagues at Goddard were usually pretty good about keeping him informed of these things. Yet such conferences were commonplace; this one probably slipped his mind. “No . . . I mean, yes. By all means, I’d love to get together with you. Where are you staying? I’ll . . .”
    “I was at the Hyatt, but I’ve already checked out,” Benford said. “Actually, I was thinking about dropping by the Air and Space Museum. It’s close to you, and I don’t want to take up your whole lunch hour, so why don’t we meet there?”
    “Well . . . sure,” Murphy said, a little more reluctantly than he meant to sound. There was a restaurant on the museum’s fourth floor, but it wasn’t anything special: a cafeteria for tourists, offering little more than cheeseburgers and pizza. If he was going to have lunch with Gregory Benford, he would have preferred a more upscale bistro. There were a half dozen good cafés on Capitol