Read Time Loves a Hero for Free Online Page B
Authors: Allen Steele
the botâs camera, though, and then he would have received a warning from the station AI not to interfere with maintenance equipment. He reached up to grasp an overhead handrail, and swung his legs up to let the bot pass. âThank you for your cooperation,â the bot said as it whirred beneath him; its brushes barely missed Lea, who had flattened herself against the wall. âPlease do not block the corridor.â
âThatâs the whole point.â Lea looked up at Franc while he was still hovering above her. âWeâre teammates. Weâve got to work together. Not only that, but weâre about to go on another expedition â¦â
âYou didnât mind New York.â
âThat was different.â The first time they had slept together, it was while they were researching the causes of the Great Depression of the twentieth century. Three days after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, it had been easy to get a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria; by then, they wanted some relief from the mass panic that had caused young millionaires to throw themselves through office windows. âThat was a Class-3,â she added, speaking a little more softly now. âWeâre about to do a Class-1. You know how dangerous that is.â
Franc reluctantly nodded. Like it or not, he had to agree. Class-3 expeditions were relatively low-risk sorties so long as no one interfered with the turn of events. The stock-market crash of 1929 was one of these, as was the Challenger disaster of 1985. Class-2 expeditions were more difficult, since they required CRC researchers to be closer to hazardous situations: the Paris student riots of 1968 were an example, as was pre-Renaissance Europe during the Plague. Class-1 missions were those in which the lives of researchers were directly placed in jeopardy. During the entire existence of the Chronospace Research Centre, there had only been two previous Class-1 expeditions: the eruption of Mont Pelée on Martinique in 1902, and the Battle of Gettysburg in 1864. No one had been hurt during the 1902 expedition, mainly because the research team had vacated St. Pierre before the village was destroyed, but during the Gettysburg expedition a CRC historian posing as a contemporary newspaper reporter was shot and killed by a Confederate rifleman while attempting to document Pickettâs Charge. His colleagues had been forced to leave his body behind, after first removing his recording equipment. Fortunately, there had been no risk of causing a paradox; so many unidentified corpses had littered the Gettysburg battlefield, the addition of one more made no real difference.
Since then, the Board of Review had been more careful in selecting potential missions. This wasnât a difficult task; because of the inherent limitations posed by chronospace travel, many destinations were already out of the question. For reasons as yet unknown, it was impossible to travel farther back in time than approximately one thousand years. No one knew why, yet all previous attempts to open Morris-Thorne bridges that extended beyond the mid-1300s failed when the tunnels through the spacetime foam collapsed in upon themselves. Although there seemed to be no static cutoff line, the barrier existed nevertheless.
Likewise, although a timeship was able to return to its point of departureâsay, from 1902 to Tues, Feb 12, 2313, when the Mont Pelée expedition was sent outâit was impossible to travel past the departure point. Therefore, the future was just as unvisitable as the more distant past. Just as no expeditions would ever be sent to witness the crucification of Christ or the destruction of the Library of Alexandria no one from the early twenty-fourth century would ever know what happened even a nanosecond after their departure. Chronospace could be breached, but it would never be conquered.
The Hindenburg expedition was dangerous. Franc didnât dispute that. He was about
âThatâs the whole point.â Lea looked up at Franc while he was still hovering above her. âWeâre teammates. Weâve got to work together. Not only that, but weâre about to go on another expedition â¦â
âYou didnât mind New York.â
âThat was different.â The first time they had slept together, it was while they were researching the causes of the Great Depression of the twentieth century. Three days after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, it had been easy to get a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria; by then, they wanted some relief from the mass panic that had caused young millionaires to throw themselves through office windows. âThat was a Class-3,â she added, speaking a little more softly now. âWeâre about to do a Class-1. You know how dangerous that is.â
Franc reluctantly nodded. Like it or not, he had to agree. Class-3 expeditions were relatively low-risk sorties so long as no one interfered with the turn of events. The stock-market crash of 1929 was one of these, as was the Challenger disaster of 1985. Class-2 expeditions were more difficult, since they required CRC researchers to be closer to hazardous situations: the Paris student riots of 1968 were an example, as was pre-Renaissance Europe during the Plague. Class-1 missions were those in which the lives of researchers were directly placed in jeopardy. During the entire existence of the Chronospace Research Centre, there had only been two previous Class-1 expeditions: the eruption of Mont Pelée on Martinique in 1902, and the Battle of Gettysburg in 1864. No one had been hurt during the 1902 expedition, mainly because the research team had vacated St. Pierre before the village was destroyed, but during the Gettysburg expedition a CRC historian posing as a contemporary newspaper reporter was shot and killed by a Confederate rifleman while attempting to document Pickettâs Charge. His colleagues had been forced to leave his body behind, after first removing his recording equipment. Fortunately, there had been no risk of causing a paradox; so many unidentified corpses had littered the Gettysburg battlefield, the addition of one more made no real difference.
Since then, the Board of Review had been more careful in selecting potential missions. This wasnât a difficult task; because of the inherent limitations posed by chronospace travel, many destinations were already out of the question. For reasons as yet unknown, it was impossible to travel farther back in time than approximately one thousand years. No one knew why, yet all previous attempts to open Morris-Thorne bridges that extended beyond the mid-1300s failed when the tunnels through the spacetime foam collapsed in upon themselves. Although there seemed to be no static cutoff line, the barrier existed nevertheless.
Likewise, although a timeship was able to return to its point of departureâsay, from 1902 to Tues, Feb 12, 2313, when the Mont Pelée expedition was sent outâit was impossible to travel past the departure point. Therefore, the future was just as unvisitable as the more distant past. Just as no expeditions would ever be sent to witness the crucification of Christ or the destruction of the Library of Alexandria no one from the early twenty-fourth century would ever know what happened even a nanosecond after their departure. Chronospace could be breached, but it would never be conquered.
The Hindenburg expedition was dangerous. Franc didnât dispute that. He was about