MERIDIAN

Copyright©2002, John A. Schettler

All Rights Reserved

This opening chapter is the longest scene in the story, and it takes place in a private study in near U.C. Berkeley, California. It should give you a good flavor for the characters and hopefully, a thirst for more.

Part I

The Tempest

A.E. Housman: Last Poems IX

Shakespeare: The Tempest, Act VI, Scene I

1

The Nordhausen Study: Berkeley, California – 8:15 PM

 “I warn you, if the outcome is anywhere close to the preliminary readings, then we have a problem; and a very serious problem at that.” Dorland allowed himself a sip of coffee, his eyes dark ovals in the haze of steam above the rim of a Styrofoam cup.

 “Oh, Paul,” Maeve Lindford was at the bookcase squinting at the spine of a volume in the literature section of the study. “When will you learn to drink from a proper mug?”

 “When I can find someone to wash the damn thing,” said Dorland with the same dire intensity.

 “Well, don’t worry about the numbers until they get here,” said Maeve. “We worked hard on this solution. Everything will be fine.”

 “Yes,” said Dorland. “Fine as rain. The preliminaries show a .0027 percent discrepancy value for the entry zone. We aren’t sure where the target will be in the time frame the professor has chosen, and that makes me nervous.”

 “It’ll be fine, Paul.” Professor Nordhausen spoke up from his place at the study table. “He’ll be there, I assure you—probably up in the gallery with the important guests.”

 “Well I wish I could be so certain.” Dorland was shifting uneasily in his chair by the table, obviously upset about something, though he seemed more frustrated than angry. “What time is it?” He craned his neck about to have a look at the study clock on the mantle overlooking the fireplace. “Where’s Kelly? Is he going to make us wait until morning again?” There were four chairs around the study table; three showing obvious signs of occupation, with coats and scarves draped on the polished wood uprights and stacks of books and papers heaped on the table. The odd chair was waiting for the fourth member of the group, Chief Technician Kelly Ramer, running numbers in the computer lab, and he was always late.

 “You know how hard it is to get time on an Arion mainframe these days, Paul,” Maeve chided again.

 “Damn near impossible.” Professor Nordhausen shifted in his chair and eyed Dorland over the dark rim of his reading glasses, an irritated expression adding definition to the wrinkles etching his forehead. In his late-forties, the professor had settled into a comfortable agreement with his deeply receded hairline. Dorland remembered when he sported a full head of curly hair in his college days, for the two had a long history. Nordhausen had long since given up on the effort to cultivate what little remained of his hair. “We need another Arion unit on site if the project surprises us and actually works.” He wagged a finger at Dorland as he finished.

 “I’d have three if I could,” said Dorland, “but the budget is strained enough as it is. An Arion mainframe will run us another ten million. Care to write me a check? Until then, we’ll have to stand in line and lease time on the university machines, like everybody else.”

 While simple desktops had tremendous computing power, the computational requirements of the Dorland Project would require a network of several thousand PCs. There were, however, a few Arion mainframes deployed in universities and government facilities for runtime sessions requiring intense computation like weather modeling or exotic 3D-Holography. Named for the mythical horse endowed with the gift of speech and prophecy, the Arion series computers were massive parallel processing units with enormous computational power. A typical Arion system could now do the work of three high-end Cray machines. They were usually booked the whole year through, but Dorland had managed to secure five coveted sessions to run the crucial calculations necessary for his project. The computer genius of the group, Kelly Ramer, was finishing the last session tonight and was scheduled to bring in the numbers on a laptop for the meeting. He had to go all the way into the City, however, as there was no time left on the closer machine at U.C. Berkeley.

 “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Nordhausen sighed, his tone shifting noticeably. “If you ask me, the whole thing is a waste of valuable comp cycles.”

 “You aren’t going to start in on that again, are you?” Dorland was drumming his fingers on the oak tabletop now, visibly agitated. His long slender hands moved in a graceful motion, index finger tapping out a steady rhythm.

 “Waste of time,” Nordhausen said again, obviously intending to stir the kettle, though Maeve shot him an admonishing glance just the same. “It won’t work,” he pressed on. “Even if the theory is sound, as it may very well be, I still think the whole thing is impossible. So it doesn’t matter if the target is there or not, Paul. We may never know.”

 “So certain again, are you?” Dorland shot him an annoyed glance. “Honestly, Robert, one minute you’re absolutely convinced that everything will be fine, and then the next thing out of your mouth is this damned pessimism! What’s your problem?”

 “I’m just being realistic,” Nordhausen corrected. “It’s not pessimism. I have my doubts, that’s all. Hawking said it best: if it really is possible to travel in time then why aren’t we awash in time travelers? You’ve never answered that one, you know. Don’t you think they’d be just a little bit interested in a meeting like this, for instance?”

 “Oh please,” Dorland rolled his eyes in obvious dismay. He had heard this complaint before; argued it many times in fact, but Nordhausen was still as stubborn now as when he had first broached the subject with him three years ago. “You really don’t expect a team of future researchers to just come barging in and join us for coffee, do you? Hello,” he acted the part, with a clear edge of sarcasm in his voice to let Nordhausen know he wasn’t happy to be launched on this course again. “Please excuse us, but we’re from the future and we understand this to be a particularly important meeting. Mind if we just stand here off to one side while you folks make a bit of history. We promise not to make any noise.” He looked away, obviously frustrated.

 “Well, to be honest I really don’t expect much of anything at all—and that’s exactly my point, Paul. Nothing is going to happen! Therefore this isn’t a particularly important meeting and, assuming your theory is correct, that’s why nobody is crashing the party. It’s simple, really, when you think on it.”

 “Oh, he’s thought on it,” Maeve put in with a smile, secretly pleased to find herself the referee again in another sparring session between the two senior researchers. Dorland was the Master Of Sciences on the project, and Nordhausen was Chief Historian. They had argued Time Theory many times before, but now that the project was at the very edge of their first real attempt at opening the continuum, the debate had begun to heat up again. Nordhausen, ever the devil’s advocate, was constantly jabbing at Dorland’s theory, in spite of his enormous commitment of time and resources to the effort that had brought them all this far. It was, however, the last thing Dorland needed just now. Healthy skepticism was one thing, but lately Nordhausen had begun to show real signs of backing out of the project altogether.

 “Well it’s obvious that he hasn’t given it much thought,” said Dorland over his shoulder at Maeve. “I mean there are any number of ways I could answer his argument.”

 “Indulge me.” Nordhausen folded his arms with a smug look on his face. “And will you please stop drumming your fingers on the table!”

 Dorland looked at his hand, and then ran it through his full brown hair. Unlike Nordhausen the ravages of time lay gently on him. They were the same age, but Paul still looked ten years younger, and some even thought he was still in his thirties. “Alright,” he began, “let’s put your pessimism aside for a moment and suppose we’re successful tomorrow. If that’s the case then we will have accomplished something that will have the most profound effect I can imagine on the future course of history.”

 “Yes, yes,” said Nordhausen, conceding the point. “All future time lines would be vulnerable to alteration if we’re successful.”

 “All time lines,” said Dorland, “both future and past. That makes the experiment tomorrow a Deep Nexus, which would make this whole milieu a Point of Origin—closed to any temporal contamination according to my theory—unless it’s done by one of us here on the inside. So that’s why we don’t have visitors in the back of the room slurping coffee, Professor. It’s really simple, if you think on it.” He mocked his adversary to make his point, but the grin on his face betrayed the long friendship between the two men, in spite of their obvious intellectual differences. It was this bond, forged over some thirty years, that had kept Nordhausen involved in the project, though at times he was a reluctant warrior.

 “Well there wouldn’t be enough to go around anyway,” Maeve chimed in as she slid another volume from the bookcase, frowning at the dust on the binding. “Make another pot, Paul. It looks like we’re going to be here for a while. Did you bring Peets?”

 “Guatemala,” said Dorland absent mindedly as he flipped through the pages of a notebook, still hot on the trail of his argument with Nordhausen.

 “I thought you were going to bring Major Dickason’s blend tonight. Guatemala is a good breakfast coffee but we’ll need something a little stronger if Robert starts digging his heels in again.”

 “Oh come now, Maeve,” Nordhausen protested mildly. “I’m just trying to make him think about his own theory here. He dreamt up all this stuff, remember? The idea of a time ‘penumbra’ is convenient, but nothing more than pure speculation. I think my argument still holds up quite well. If they could visit a pivotal event like this, they would visit it. And since we can’t even seem to get Kelly to join us in a timely manner, I’m not expecting anyone else to show up either.”

 Maeve was frowning at the spine of a volume of The Norton Anthology of Literature. “Don’t you ever clean in here, Robert? I could spend a whole day getting the dust off these books.”

 “Be my guest.” Nordhausen warmed to the offer immediately, but Maeve shook a warning finger at him. He tacked back to the argument with Paul, as if suddenly remembering something. “I thought you said a Prime Mover was the primary causative factor for an Imperative, and that only an Imperative event can cast a time penumbra.”

 “Precisely,” said Dorland as he scribbled a brief note in his journal.

 “Getting a bit overconfident, aren’t we?” Nordhausen needled his friend again. “I mean if the experiment does become a Deep Nexus then the first moment when we open the continuum would be an Imperative event, an event that must happen—is that what you’re starting to think now, Paul?”

 “Why shouldn’t I? If I had your attitude I would have torn out my hair long ago over this business, and given up.” He gave Nordhausen an accusing glance but the other man brushed it aside. “If you’re so convinced this is all poppycock, then why are you here? Could it be that there’s just a thimbleful of faith in your heart as well?”

 “Believe me,” said Nordhausen, “If there’s any possibility that you might actually gain access to the continuum tomorrow, then someone has to be certain you don’t start mucking things up.”

 “Oh, I see,” said Dorland. “You want to supervise again, is that it?”

 “He ought to hire a maid,” said Maeve again from the bookcase.

 “What are you doing over there, Maeve?” Nordhausen took advantage of the interruption to veer away from the conversation with Dorland for a moment. The two had quarreled in recent weeks over who should have final authority over the experiment. Up to this point it had been Dorland’s team of science experts and physicists that had been the key players in the project. The time and investment required to build the project launch site, with its massive computing and power requirements, had been the mainstream of their effort thus far. Nordhausen worked on the sidelines with his team of historical researchers to isolate an appropriate target for their first experiment. Now that the project plant was fully operational, he argued that the historians should exercise primary operational control. Dorland was too close to the effort expended thus far to relinquish control, and the friction between them had been building as the launch date neared.

 Nordhausen slipped away from his place at the table and headed for the coffee station. He tugged on a gold chain attached to his sweater and drew out a pocket watch. “Eight-forty,” he muttered. “Wasn’t the meeting scheduled for eight? What’s Kelly up to? I know,” a mischievous glint brightened his eyes as he turned to Dorland. “He’s botched up the numbers again, and the whole thing is off. That’s why we don’t have visitors tonight. Kelly never shows and the meeting gets cancelled.” A satisfied grin dressed his features as he bent over the coffee station.

 “He’ll be here,” said Maeve, defending their missing compatriot. “He’s probably just stuck in traffic with all this weather. My lord—” She was squinting through the rain drizzled pane of the study window now, still clutching the volume of the Norton Anthology under her arm. “What’s going on out there? You’d think it was rush hour.”

 “Probably a concert letting out over at Sidney Hall,” said Nordhausen. “I think they were presenting a Verdi set tonight.”

 “Not exactly the type of crowd you’d expect to be rushing about like that. Especially in the rain. Maybe there was a fire or something.”

 “Good!” said Nordhausen. “They should never have built that hall, if you ask me. The acoustics are terrible in the place. In fact, there isn’t a decent concert hall on this side of the bay. You have to go into the city if you really want to hear anything.” The professor taught at U.C. Berkeley, and he kept a private study on the northwest fringe of the city as it reached towards the East Bay community of Orinda. It was a small apartment that was more of an office, completely furnished as a library and work area. The professor maintained living quarters elsewhere and was generous enough to donate the study as the primary meeting place for key project team leaders. It was convenient for his work, but he hated having to cross the Bay Bridge any time he wanted to pursue his love of classical music. He had chosen this place for his study because of the proximity of the newly built Sidney Hall, but was soon disappointed in the acoustics there. He frowned at the near empty coffee pot, tilting it to try and dribble the last of the coffee into his mug.

 Maeve saw what he was doing and came away from the window. She went straight over to the study table and plopped a heavy volume of the Norton Anthology down with a thud. “Paul,” she said with a stern glance. “Where’s that Peets you said you brought?”

 “What?” Dorland was preoccupied with his notebook. “It’s over by the sink.”

 “Good,” said Maeve, her hazel eyes flashing as she reached out and snatched away Paul’s pen to interrupt his scribbling. “Go make some.”

 Paul started to protest, but one look at Maeve quashed that idea. She had signed on two years ago with the history team to chart potential outcomes and consequences for the experiment. A slim woman in her middle thirties, she had a no-nonsense manner about her, a penchant for cleanliness, schedules and an almost maniacal insistence for structure in the way she ordered her work. She had been a key research leader for the Outcomes Committee, and the considerable force she was able to exert on the group mechanics had soon demonstrated that she was not a person to be trifled with. She smoothed back a lock of her reddish blond hair and fixed Paul with the same patented stare that had cowed the wayward elements of the Outcomes Committee. “Now.” The single word added just enough emphasis to set Paul in motion.

 “Alright,” he offered a meek defense. “I’ll make another pot. Just give me a second here.” He reached for his Styrofoam cup as he retreated to the coffee station.

 “Better hurry,” jibed Nordhausen, “the visitors could show up any moment. If they get here and find the hospitality lacking they might just pack up and leave.” The sarcasm in his voice was laced with just enough humor to soften its sting.

 “Very funny,” said Maeve. “No doubt the mess in this place would be reason enough to send them on their way.” Nordhausen shuffled off to the bookcase as though he wanted to see just how bad it was before he dared to say anything. He thought his argument with Dorland offered better prospects, however, and returned to the coffee station while Paul ground a bowl of fresh coffee beans he had poured from a dark brown bag. The noise of the grinder imposed a moment of silence on the conversation, but Paul started right in when he was done.

 “Your problem is that you are just too wedded to your own subject, Robert.” He tilted the coffee grinder on its side and tapped the contents of the bowl into the protective lid.

 “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nordhausen was quick to defend himself, and Maeve smiled to herself as the two men warmed up the argument again.

 “I mean you love your history so much that you simply can’t bear the thought that anyone could go back and ‘muck it up’ as you are fond of saying.” He was rinsing out a coffee press and wiping it down with a paper towel. The aroma of fresh ground coffee was already thick on the air as he worked.

 “Well someone ought to be concerned enough about it to put in a good word or two for history’s sake—don’t you think? Can you imagine the potential nightmares we could have if this thing actually works? What if someone botched up the continuum and we end up losing Shakespeare, or Milton or Da Vinci?”

 “We’re the only ones who would know about it,” said Dorland falling back on his inscrutable theory again. “Once the continuum changes, all trace of the altered past is gone forever. If Shakespeare ended up dead before he ever started writing, then no one would ever know about it—unless they were in the Nexus Point where the Meridian was altered.”

 “Oh they’d know,” Nordhausen countered. “They’d know in their gut. There would be an immense hole in the entire progression of Western thought and expression that would leave us all the more impoverished. And if this be error upon me proved—” he began to quote one of the sonnets, and Maeve quipped in the finishing line for him.

 “Then I never writ, and no man ever loved.” She was secretly delighted with the discussion, for it was just the sort of temporal conundrum that she so enjoyed sorting through. While her primary academic interest had been in Byzantine History, she was very well read and could hold her own in a discussion on almost any subject involving history, literature, and the other liberal arts. But the real reason she had been selected from among the thousands of applicants for the project was the incredible analytical ability she seemed to have. Her scores on the outcome variable testing were right at the top of the list, and she could back up each and every answer she gave with a hundred references and logical arguments. “That’s why I’m here, Robert,” she continued. “Don’t worry. It’s my job to be certain no one does drown Shakespeare before his time, and I can assure you that Hamlet and Othello have nothing to fear.”

 Nordhausen smiled at her, convinced that she meant exactly what she said. Maeve Lindford would set a guard on the hallowed halls of history like no one else. It was precisely her research on potential Outcomes and Consequences that would stand that watch, and a sudden thought occurred to him.

 “There you go, Paul,” he angled over to Dorland where he was impatiently waiting on a simmering water kettle. “Why not put Outcomes in charge of the operational phase of the project? Good Maeve here would be a formidable defender for us both, don’t you think? You theoreticians set up the equipment and parameters, and the historians will find you that needle in the haystack of time you’ll be wanting to get at. But we need someone like Maeve to knock our heads together when we can’t agree on what we should do. Outcomes and Consequences—Isn’t that what it’s really all about in the first place? Let Maeve’s committee exercise final authority on the operation and keep Shakespeare and Milton sleeping comfortably in their graves.”

 “Here, here!” Maeve smiled at the thought of knocking a few heads together, and she knew exactly where she might begin.

 The whine of the water kettle interposed itself and Paul quickly rescued it from the electric burner, pouring the hot steamy water into the coffee press. The aroma of the coffee redoubled. He was already looking for his Styrofoam cup to pour in his favorite creamer, a blend of powdered Carnation milk with a hint of hazelnut.

 Maeve shot him a disapproving glance as he heaped the powder into his cup. “I can smell that way over here,” she said with an edge of complaint in her voice.

 “What?” said Dorland as he stirred the coffee in the press with a long-handled spoon. “You mean my precious powders?”

 “Whatever,” said Maeve with a half smile. “Are you sure you really like coffee? Why don’t you just mix up a batch of hot water with that stuff and enjoy your hazelnut.”

 Nordhausen was quick to take her side. “I’ve always said that most of Paul’s problems can be attributed to an excess of hazelnut in his coffee.” They laughed together, the mood lightening a bit as Paul began pressing the coffee.

 “Seriously,” said Dorland, trying to tack back to the heart of the discussion. “This gets at the crux of the matter, doesn’t it?” He filled his Styrofoam cup and Nordhausen watched the creamer billow up as he poured. “Now, the way I see it, the Old Bard would have to be a Prime Mover all on his own. He simply influenced too many lives with his writing to be so easily erased from the time continuum. I mean, anyone who has ever read the man seriously could not help but be changed by his poetry and plays in some way. Shakespeare is a perfect example of my theory on Primes. He’s just too damn important to be shunted aside, and history will do everything possible to see that it could never happen. A little help from Maeve in the bargain would be all the assurance you need, my dear Professor. See what I mean? Prime Movers cast a kind of protective shadow on the time line. They aren’t easy to derail.”

 “Here we go. He’s going to give us that penumbra nonsense again,” Nordhausen complained.

 “Well think about it, will you?” Dorland took a sip from his cup and extended the pot to Nordhausen as he spoke, filling the other man’s mug with the rich, black coffee. “You’re the man who is so adamant about protecting our cherished past. Perhaps the time continuum has a way of protecting its own, if you will. A man like Shakespeare or Milton is simply too important to the progression of Western culture to be lightly tampered with. Isn’t that why we picked Shakespeare for our first target? So, the continuum surrounds such a man with a protective aura of some kind. Such men stand so tall in the course of history that they cast a deep shadow about them once they first give birth to a work of art or science or whatever it is they do to become so important to the future. The shadow deepens as their influence on other lives grows and changes the progression of the time line. It soon reaches a point where their influence is so great, where they have altered so many individual lives, that it cannot be undone. The shadow they cast on history is so deep that it simply cannot be penetrated—That’s the penumbra surrounding the Prime Mover and insuring the Imperative such a person or event must give rise to. Shakespeare must write Hamlet, Othello, The Tempest and all the rest. ”

 “Yes, but there’s a problem with that,” said Nordhausen. “What’s the Imperative, the man or the message? Is it Shakespeare that is important to the time line, or Hamlet?”

 “To be or not to be? That is the question,” quipped Maeve.

 “Well, we darn well better answer it, my friends,” said Nordhausen. “They still aren’t sure if Shakespeare even wrote half of the stuff that has been attributed to him.”

 “Oh, now don’t drag in that silly theory about Sir Francis Bacon again,” Maeve protested, a warning in her eyes as she sidled over to the coffee station, mug in hand.

 “Suppose it’s true,” said Nordhausen. “Then Shakespeare, the man, would be irrelevant. It’s Hamlet that matters, no matter who wrote the damn thing. I mean, suppose it was written by a squire somewhere and Shakespeare simply bought up the manuscript and published it for the local playhouses—grist for the mill.”

 “So now it’s a simple country squire who’s doing the writing for you. Does he happen to work for Sir Francis Bacon?” Maeve jabbed him in the ribs with a firm fingertip.

 Nordhausen laughed at this, letting the humor cover his retreat as he made his way to his seat at the study table again.

 “The point is, it was published,” said Dorland. “Whether it was written by Shakespeare, or Bacon or his squire doesn’t matter.”

 “And what are you getting at?” Nordhausen had reached his chair and was settling in again with a glance at his pocket watch. He snapped it closed and slipped it into his sweater. “Nine-ten.” He muttered.

 Paul continued. “It’s the whole milieu of the time that surrounded Shakespeare’s life that gave rise to Hamlet, by one means or another. You can’t separate the man from his environment, and all of the history that gave rise to it. The two arise mutually—hand in glove. If Shakespeare were alive today he couldn’t write Hamlet, or Romeo and Juliet or anything even remotely like the plays and sonnets that made him famous. He was a man for his time, and the time produced the man. Don’t you see? It was an era where all the social and cultural elements that allowed a play like Hamlet to be written just came into the proper focus. Someone simply had to write Hamlet, no matter who it turns out to be.”

 “Someone did write Hamlet,” said Maeve with an air of finality. “It was Shakespeare.”

 Dorland filled her coffee mug with a smile. “Sure you won’t try my hazelnut creamer?”

 “Don’t press your luck,” said Maeve, and she went over to the study table to retrieve the copy of the Norton Anthology of Literature she had dragged out of Nordhausen’s bookcase.

 Dorland was momentarily distracted by a honking horn outside. He glanced through the study window and noted the traffic only seemed to be getting worse out near Sidney Hall. He saw a group of people running, and thought it a bit unusual for a classical music concert to be so unruly at this hour of the night. His attention to the time produced that brief surge of anxiety in his chest again. “Now where is Kelly?” He was getting more and more exasperated as they waited, as if the commotion outside the room was slowly invading the quiet atmosphere of Nordhausen’s study and stirring up all his old fears about the project again. Here he was, on the most important night of his life, perhaps the most important night of history since the Nativity, and Kelly was late again.

 “He’s probably trying to get through that crowd out there by now.” Maeve took a sip of her coffee, and frowned. “You didn’t wait long enough before you pressed this,” she said. “It’s too weak. I thought you were going to bring Major Dickason’s blend?”

 “Sorry,” Dorland apologized. “The professor here had me all caught up in this Shakespeare business and I wasn’t watching the time.”

 “Don’t blame me, Paul.” Nordhausen was quick to defend himself. “Do not infest your mind with beating on the strangeness of this business.” He quoted Shakespeare again. “You’re the coffee expert here. You should know better.”

 “Thank you, Prospero,” Maeve was quick to pick up Nordhausen’s reference to Shakespeare. “Well, our coffee expert had better learn how to use a press properly. This is too weak.” She pushed her cup aside and began flipping through the pages of her Norton Anthology.

 “Looking for that quote?” Nordhausen ventured. 

 “Looking for trouble?” Maeve shot him a disapproving glance. “The Tempest: Act Five, Scene One.” She knew the play well and didn’t need her anthology to zero in on the reference.

 Nordhausen gave her a contented grin. “Oh? I liked the second scene in that act better,” his voice had a teasing edge.

 “There wasn’t a second scene,” Maeve was not in any mood for nonsense, and Nordhausen thought the better of prodding her further.

 Paul was staring at the coffee press, his feathers ruffled somewhat by Maeve’s last comment. He did fancy himself a bit of a connoisseur when it came to his coffees. After years of swilling down run-of-the-mill Columbian beans off of supermarket shelves, he discovered Peets on the Internet one day and his long habit finally exulted with a brew that was truly addictive. He tried every one of the many blends over the years, finally settling on a few favorites. Major Dickason’s blend was not one of them, but it was a favorite of his good friend Kelly, and Maeve seemed to like it as well. “Sorry, Maeve,” he apologized again. “I just forgot. I had the Guatemalan in my cupboard, so I just grabbed it and ran out to catch BART. If I had known Kelly was going to be this late I could have stopped by and bought something fresh. Can I get you a tea?”

 “No thanks,” Maeve was resigned to content herself with the Norton Anthology for a time. “You two can go right on arguing, if you want. Don’t mind me.”

 Dorland struggled to contain his frustration. He never thought it would be like this. Here he was on the night before the launch and Kelly was late and he was fussing with a coffee press and arguing with Nordhausen again! He had looked forward to this moment for so long that the seeming inconsequentiality of the events that were playing themselves out just didn’t seem to measure up to his expectations. In one sense, it confirmed a major principle of his own time theory: that most of the time line was littered with insignificant moments that simply flowed along, like bubbles in a stream. These were the ‘Thousand nothings of the hour’ as he liked to call them after a line from Matthew Arnold’s Buried Life. Somewhere in the stream, he knew, there was one tiny bubble that would give rise to Shakespeare and Hamlet and The Tempest. Which one?

 He had puzzled over his theory for years before the ideas really seemed to gel in his mind over a cup of coffee one day. It was odd the way it happened. He wasn’t even trying to think about his theory that night. He was simply relaxing in an idle moment with the TV and scrolling through the channels with his remote. After skirting away from a score of commercial messages and the latest political scandal to hit Washington, he settled on a science documentary about genetics.

 The narrator was explaining how only a tiny fraction of human DNA differed from that of a Chimpanzee, or from all the other animals on earth. He remembered the event so clearly now: how the narrator had emphasized that the human genome was littered with thousands of strands of unused, excess genetic material that served no real purpose. It had simply gathered there over the eons of mutation, redundant snips and errant strands of genetic flotsam and jetsam produced by the trillions of subtle errors DNA would make over time. Yet it was exactly these errors, the mutations arising in insignificant bits of protein, that gave rise to all the variety of life. If DNA were perfect in the way it replicated itself, the world would be awash in countless strands of DNA, and nothing else. Now, however, after a trillion, trillion errors, only a tiny fraction of all the DNA in the genome was actually useful, yet it still needed the supporting structure of all the trivial material around it in order to continue to move forward in the stream of evolution.

 Time was like that, he suddenly thought. The idea shot through him like a bolt of lightning and gave him the last critical tenet that had so eluded him in his search for an understanding of time theory. His life was transformed from that moment on. The incident became the founding principle of his theory of time: that all of history’s most crucial events arose from their opposite, from some single moment of utter insignificance that served as the key trigger for the event.

 What was it that had led him to the science documentary that night? Somewhere, he knew, there was some insignificant incident that led him to that single split second of insight. He did not know exactly where that moment in time was, but he knew it was there, a single point in time that gave rise to some compelling and truly significant event in the time line of history—a Pushpoint as he came to call it.

 Now he was here on a night that should be saturated with significance—the night before the project launch; the final briefing! He was fidgeting with a coffee press and listening to Nordhausen, and trying to keep Maeve content with a decent cup of coffee. Was there another Pushpoint hiding in the insignificance of all these trivial events?

 A peal of thunder rumbled in the distance, and the rain pattering on the rooftop began to beat down more heavily. Dorland set the coffee press aside and went over to join the others at the study table. “Well,” he said, “there’s no use wasting any more time tonight.”

 “Good,” said Nordhausen looking around for his overcoat.

 “Don’t get any ideas about leaving yet,” Dorland cautioned him. “I meant we should get on with the briefing. We can always fill Kelly in when he gets here.”

 “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Nordhausen sighed. “I suppose it’s a bit wild out there with this storm blowing through. Let’s get on with it then. I’ll start with the history briefing, unless you have more time theory to discuss.”

 “Be my guest,” Dorland proffered a slight bow in the professor’s direction.

 “Shakespeare’s Tempest,” Nordhausen began. “A fine night for the subject, isn’t it? Now, unless Kelly finds something in the numbers to screw things up, our plan remains the same. The temporal locus is the early winter of 1612, at the Globe, of course. Our intention is solely observation. We’re going to watch the play. The Tempest was written in the fall and winter of 1610-11 and probably first produced at court in 1611. This particular event was a special showing at the Globe, probably part of the festivities preceding the marriage of Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine. Oh, we’re going to nose around a bit, but there won’t be any real interaction with the locals.”

 “Nose around a bit?” Maeve was immediately on guard. “What exactly is that supposed to mean? You said observation only—remember?”

 “Well you don’t expect us to simply take a seat, watch the play and then leave do you? What’s the point of opening the continuum if we don’t learn anything?”

 “At this point I’d be satisfied to simply get there and return safely,” said Dorland “If we actually manage to take in a scene or two of the play, all the better.”

 “What do you mean, nose around a bit?” Maeve fixed Nordhausen with those riveting hazel eyes and he squirmed a little as he answered.

 “Nothing out of the ordinary,” he started to explain. “I thought we might just have a look about the theatre—at least one of us—while the others enjoy the play.”

 “Where?” The tone of Maeve’s voice made it perfectly clear that Nordhausen had better come to the point, and fast.

 “Well, there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the origin of this play,” the professor ventured out onto the ice, choosing his words carefully. “I thought we might find something that would shed light on a few questions, that’s all.”

 “What questions?” Maeve was still waiting and Nordhausen took a deep breath and finally let his idea tumble out.

 “Source material, for one thing. There is no known source for the story, you see. As far as we know it was one of only two original plots Shakespeare came up with, the other being Love’s Labor’s Lost. There are some, however, who feel he was heavily influenced by the Bermuda Pamphlets, and—”

 “This wasn’t in your task list, Professor.” Maeve’s look made it clear that she wasn’t happy.

 “Yes it was,” said Nordhausen. “I put it in under observation of grounds and theatre.”

 “Bermuda Pamphlets?” Dorland was confused.

 “You expect a copy of the Bermuda Pamphlets to just be lying around somewhere for your perusal?” Maeve was on to something now.

 “What are you two talking about?” Dorland was only too glad that it was Nordhausen who was going to be the recipient of Maeve’s attention for a while, but he tried to get his footing in the conversation anyway.

 Nordhausen sighed and turned to explain. “Nine ships set sail from Plymouth for the colony of Virginia in June of 1609. The new governor of the Colony, Sir Thomas Gates, was on Sea-Venture, commanded by Sir George Somers. Well, the fleet hit bad weather on July 24, a tempest, if you will. Sea Venture was separated from the rest of the ships and was presumed lost at sea. Then, to everyone’s great surprise, the survivors of the ship’s contingent turned up in Jamestown the following May! They were adrift on two makeshift vessels they managed to build during a long sojourn on the isle of Bermuda—thought to be a devil’s island at the time. The reports and letters about the incident reached London in 1610, just before Shakespeare started work on The Tempest. It was very big news, you see, and particularly for Shakespeare.”

 “Why is that?” asked Dorland.

 “Because he had close relations with the folks who sponsored the expedition in the first place. Some even think he may have had a share in the profits of the planned Virginia Company. In any case, much of what we know about the incident comes from letters and reports that have been loosely called the Bermuda Pamphlets—William Strachey’s letter in particular.”

 “I knew you would try to pull something like this,” Maeve was getting angry now. “I won’t allow it, Robert!”

 “Oh come on,” Nordhausen tried to pacify her. “I have just as much interest in preserving the continuum as you do—even more, in fact. You know how I feel about the history.”

 “Only too well,” said Maeve. “That’s what worries me. Now, I’ll ask you one more time. Just where do you think you might go strolling?”

 Nordhausen had a flustered look on his face. There was no getting around her, he knew. Not on the night of the final briefing. He decided he had better come clean and see if he could get Dorland to chime in with something from his time theory to smooth the wrinkle over. “Just a quick peek in the rear offices,” he ventured. “Only one of us—while the others enjoy the play.”

 “Whose offices?” Maeve narrowed her eyes, knowing the answer to the question before Nordhausen had a chance to answer. “No, I’m sorry, but I won’t allow it. This was not on your list—at least not specifically, and we can’t run formulae on potential outcomes without exact details. I’m amazed that you would try to pull something like this at the last minute. I won’t hear of it!”

 “Whose offices?” Dorland was feeling a bit shipwrecked himself.

 “But I won’t be more than a few minutes,” Nordhausen’s voice seemed to plead now. “I’ll just slip away for a moment and take a quick peek at the old man’s study, that’s all. He might have copies of Strachey’s letters there.”

 “They weren’t even published until 1625,” Maeve put in adamantly, her arms folded with finality.

 “Yes, the public version of the report circulated in 1625, but we know all the senior members of the Virginia Company must have seen Strachey’s letters much earlier; immediately, in fact. I’m certain that Shakespeare must have been privy to them—probably even had a copy; perhaps in his study at the Globe. And there may be other documents or books there that would shed light on this question. Perhaps I’d find a copy of Thomas’ History of Italy. Many of the characters names in the play are thought to be derived from that narrative.”

 He looked at Dorland, reaching for some support. “Look here, Paul. This may be one of those little threads in the weave of time you’ve been talking about. What if there had been no real tempest at sea when the fleet set out?”

 “That’s an Imperative,” Dorland explained. “The weather on a given day is not subject to a willful act by any person. It can’t be changed.”

 “Fine.” Nordhausen brushed the point aside and pressed on. “What I’m saying is, that if we can establish a clear link between Shakespeare and the Bermuda Pamphlets at the time he wrote the play, then you may have a chance to hunt down one of those little insignificant moments in time that gives rise to The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s last, and greatest, plays. Why, some even think it was the summation of his work. First we find Strachey’s letters; then we try and hunt down your intersection somewhere on the Meridian—”

 “Pushpoint,” Dorland corrected him.

 “Whatever,” the professor hurried on. “We do other missions to follow that lead back in time and see what might have really seeded the incident. It had to be something that happened at Plymouth before the expedition put out to sea. Look, the fleet left on June 2^nd. We have the date right in Strachey’s report. If they had set sail a few days earlier or later, then no storm at sea; no shipwreck on Bermuda; no report reaches London in 1610, and perhaps no play! What a paper that would make!”

 “No!” Maeve’s eyes widened with her exclamation. “No, Robert. Absolutely, positively and authoritatively: No. Are you crazy? What if Shakespeare is there when you decide to take a peek into his office.”

 “Highly unlikely,” Nordhausen argued.

 “Why? You seemed so certain he would be at the site earlier tonight, right, Paul?” Maeve gave Dorland a quick glance, beginning to pull him over to her side on the matter.

 “He’d be there, alright,” said Nordhausen, “but he’d be in the upper gallery watching the play. There were official guests to be coddled. He wouldn’t be futzing about in his office during the performance.”

 “Say something, Paul.” Maeve gave Dorland a disparaging look. “If he bumbles into someone, he could introduce variations in the Meridian. Am I right?”

 “Well…” Dorland thought carefully before he spoke, and they both waited as he tapped his finger on the table, catching up to the implications of the argument at last. “The professor may be right that the Old Bard would probably be in the gallery, but probabilities are the province of Outcomes and Consequences.”

 “There,” said Maeve, seizing on the moment to assert herself again. “You should have submitted this idea in detail, Robert, along with all this business about the Bermuda Pamphlets, and Strachey’s letters and God only know what else you may be after with this. We can’t run probability numbers without specifics. You, of all people, should know that!”

 “But really,” Nordhausen made one last sortie. “What would be the harm? I’m not talking about some dolt blundering into Shakespeare’s offices and rifling the place for lost documents—”

 “No,” Maeve interrupted him. “You’re talking about a bemused history professor on a quest for primary source material in the office of one of the most significant ‘Prime Movers’ of the last 500 years, right? Are you telling me you’re going to be careful once you get your beady eyes on that man’s desk? You mean to say that you could resist the urge to open that desk drawer, or to slip a volume or two out of his bookcase? Lord, I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually tried to make off with something significant and bring it back!”

 “Well I’m not that daft,” Nordhausen was getting angry.

 “That would be a serious violation,” Dorland put in matter of factly.

 “Damn right,” said Maeve. “I just won’t allow this, so get it out of your head. If you plan on going tomorrow, then I am going to be glued to your right arm. Understand?”

 Nordhausen gave her a sheepish look. “Oh, what’s the use,” he said sullenly, a defeated look on his face. “I mean what good is the experiment if you don’t try to answer questions like this? Don’t get all bent out of shape now, Maeve. Nothing’s going to happen anyway. We’ll get all dressed up for the play and the Arch won’t work. Mark my words.” He fished out his pocket watch again, snapping it open to look at the time. “Nine-thirty-five,” he muttered. “Where’s Kelly and his numbers machine? Are we going to sit here all night?”

 Dorland saw that, with the loss of his fishing expedition, Nordhausen was going to lapse into his famous brooding intellect again. Lightning flashed in the sky outside the study, and it seemed there was a great deal of noise out on the street. He suddenly felt that the whole evening was spinning off kilter for him. All of the restless excitement he had brought with him to the meeting was dissipating into a rising sense of anxiety. He felt odd, and strangely out of place. One moment he had the reins of the project tightly in his grasp, and now he seemed to feel things slipping away from him. Maeve was clearly angry and Nordhausen was brooding and they were out of coffee and Kelly was nowhere to be found. The noise outside, and the roiling of the storm, seemed to mirror his inner states, leaving him adrift and unsettled in his mind about the outcome of the project. For the first time in many long years he faced a yawning sense of doubt about it all. What were they about to do?

 What if they really could open the continuum and visit the Globe on the night of The Tempest? What if Nordhausen did something stupid and introduced a Variation—or even worse, a Transformation? What if they got too damn curious and started tugging on one of those errant threads of time, to look for clues and answer those nagging questions that were sure to present themselves? Suppose Nordhausen was right and they managed to travel back to Plymouth before the fleet set out in 1609: what if they disturbed something, ever so slightly, and the fleet leaves on June 4 instead of June 2? The professor would be correct! The storm at sea happens on schedule, because it’s inevitable. But if they don’t run into the storm, and the Sea-Venture never gets separated from the group, then they don’t run aground on Bermuda and make that miraculous appearance a year later. Strachey has nothing to write about, and there are no Bermuda Pamphlets circulating among the higher ups of the Virginia Colony investors. Shakespeare never sees the damn thing, and then, perhaps…he never writes The Tempest! A sudden idea struck him in the face like blowing rain.

 “Wait a second,” he began. “Just a minute now…”

 Nordhausen was still sulking and fidgeting with his pocket watch. Maeve was flipping pages in her Norton Anthology and sending the professor unfriendly glances. She reached for her coffee mug, took one sip and then frowned again.

 “Robert’s got me thinking,” Paul began. The professor perked up a bit, looking in Paul’s direction. “He may be right, you know.”

 “What?” Maeve closed the Anthology abruptly, ready to do battle with this unexpected column reinforcing Nordhausen’s position.

 “Hear me out. Suppose everything Nordhausen says is true. Suppose we establish a link between the Bermuda Pamphlets and the origin of The Tempest. Like you said at the beginning, Robert: Shakespeare always got his plots from somewhere, and this is one of two plays that seem unusual. No one has found a source for the plot.”

 “Get to the point,” Maeve was ready to squash the objection the instant she heard it.

 “Well, if we do start looking around, and we go back to Plymouth before the fleet sets sail…” He laid out his line of thought for them. “Don’t you see? A Pushpoint is the triggering event that leads to something really significant in the time line—like the writing of this play. Yet, even though it is so powerful in its influence, it can be disturbed very easily—even prevented from happening altogether. If we were to go to Plymouth we could do something to interfere with the fleet’s departure date without even knowing it, no matter how careful we are to avoid contamination.”

 “That’s why we can’t allow it,” said Maeve.

 “No,” Dorland corrected her. “That’s why Time won’t allow it. We’d create a Paradox!”

 “Oh, here we go again,” said Nordhausen. He had hoped Paul was coming around to his side on the issue, but now he saw that he was spinning off into Time Theory again.

 “Think about it,” said Dorland. “If that fleet doesn’t leave Plymouth on June 2^nd, and Nordhausen is correct in his idea about the Bermuda Pamphlets, then maybe Shakespeare never writes the damn play!”

 Maeve was starting to get angry again, but her head began to filter through the possibilities and she settled into thought. After all, Outcomes and Consequences were her department. She should have seen the Paradox immediately. She was a little perturbed that Paul would happen on it first, but granted him a moment’s respect.

 “Paradox.” Paul let the word hang for a moment, and a timely roll of thunder seemed to accent the moment and add just the right dramatic effect. A dog started barking in the rain outside, disturbed by the flash of lightning. “The continuum is very uncomfortable with Paradox, you see, and so I’m afraid we can’t pull on this string, Robert. If we prevent the play from being written then where the hell would we be going tomorrow? Certainly not to the Globe in 1611 to watch a play that was never written!”

 “We don’t know that, Paul,” said Nordhausen. “Something else could become the source of the play.”

 “Too much haze,” said Dorland. It was a term he used when events became obscured in the time line, and probability algorithms became particularly convoluted. “I was worried about that .0027% discrepancy on the preliminaries, but now I think the possibility of Paradox is very real here. We may have to work this through a bit. Sorry, Robert, but I’ll have to weigh in with Maeve on this one. We watch the play, but nothing else.” He was starting to think that the prospect of Paradox had cropped up all too easily in this scenario, where he least expected it. They had chosen the play as a way of avoiding any potential complications on this first mission. Now, the slightest variation in their planned activities presented problems. Perhaps, he thought, any time travel would eventually lead to some kind of Paradox. Perhaps Nordhausen was right again, and nothing was going to happen tomorrow—nothing at all.

 “What’s wrong, Paul? Don’t let that man get you all depressed about this.” Maeve could see that something was clearly bothering him. He was biting at his lower lip as he considered the situation, very agitated. The weather outside rattled the windows, and they caught the sound of voices carried on the wind and rain. The voices seemed to be in Paul’s head as well, a tempest of doubt and uncertainty. Kelly was supposed to bring in the last crucial numbers for their launch, and he was late. Could the annihilating effects of Paradox already be at work?

 “I don’t think we’re going to the play tomorrow,” the words just slipped out, and Paul seemed to slump a bit in his chair, clearly upset. They would have to think this through a bit more. They had to be certain nothing would go wrong. Before he could say anything more, however, there was a noise on the stair well outside the study door. Someone was running up the steps with almost frantic footfalls marking his progress. They all turned to look at the door.

 “Well, it’s about time Kelly showed up,” Nordhausen put in. The door handle rattled and then the door flew open. Kelly was standing in the entrance, wet, bedraggled and clearly out of breath. His laptop computer was encased in its satchel under his right arm. The gray hood of his rain coat was thrown back and his short brown hair was thoroughly soaked. There was a cut on his forehead, and his normally amiable features were drawn with concern.

 “Good Lord,” he panted, “I made it. Never thought I’d get here alive!”

 “Kelly, what’s happened?” Maeve had noticed the gash in Kelly’s forehead, and the dribble of blood down one side of his cheek. Nordhausen snapped his pocket watch shut.

 “Well I suppose you brought your numbers, yes?” The professor was oblivious to Kelly’s state. “Close the damn door, man!” He turned to look at Kelly when he felt the cold draft, and his eyes widened with surprise.

 “Haven’t you heard?” Kelly was still panting.

 “What do you mean?” Dorland was up from his chair. Maeve was rushing to get a wet towel from the coffee station.

 “You haven’t heard?” Kelly staggered in and reached for the back of a chair. “Well,” he said, swallowing hard. “We aren’t going to see the play tomorrow, that’s for damn sure.”

 Everyone just looked at him.

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