Crichton, Michael - Timeline

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Timeline

Michael Crichton

For Taylor

"All the great empires of the future will be empires of the mind."

WINSTON CHURCHILL, 1953

"If you don't know history, you don't know anything."

EDWARD JOHNSTON, 1990

"I'm not interested in the future. I'm interested in the future of the future."

ROBERT DONIGER, 1996

INTRODUCTION

Science at the End of the Century

A hundred years ago, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, scientists

around the world were satisfied that they had arrived at an accurate picture of

the physical world. As physicist Alastair Rae put it, "By the end of the

nineteenth century it seemed that the basic fundamental principles governing the

behavior of the physical universe were known."* Indeed, many scientists said

that the study of physics was nearly completed: no big discoveries remained to

be made, only details and finishing touches.

But late in the final decade, a few curiosities came to light. Roentgen

discovered rays that passed through flesh; because they were unexplained, he

called them X rays. Two months later, Henri Becquerel accidentally found that a

piece of uranium ore emitted something that fogged photographic plates. And the

electron, the carrier of electricity, was discovered in 1897.

Yet on the whole, physicists remained calm, expecting that these oddities would

eventually be explained by existing theory. No one would have predicted that

within five years their complacent view of the world would be shockingly

upended, producing an entirely new conception of the universe and entirely new

technologies that would transform daily life in the twentieth century in

unimaginable ways.

If you were to say to a physicist in 1899 that in 1999, a hundred years later,

moving images would be transmitted into homes all over the world from satellites

in the sky; that bombs of unimaginable power would threaten the species; that

antibiotics would abolish infectious disease but that disease would fight back;

that women would have the vote, and pills to control reproduction; that millions

of people would take to the air every hour in aircraft capable of taking off and

landing without human touch; that you could cross the Atlantic at two thousand

miles an hour; that humankind would travel to the moon, and then lose interest;

that microscopes would be able to see individual atoms; that people would carry

telephones weighing a few ounces, and speak anywhere in the world without wires;

or that most of these miracles depended on devices the size of a postage stamp,

which utilized a new theory called quantum mechanics - if you said all this, the

physicist would almost certainly pronounce you mad.

Most of these developments could not have been predicted in 1899, because

prevailing scientific theory said they were impossible. And for the few

developments that were not impossible, such as airplanes, the sheer scale of

their eventual use would have defied comprehension. One might have imagined an

airplane - but ten thousand airplanes in the air at the same time would have

been beyond imagining.

So it is fair to say that even the most informed scientists, standing on the

threshold of the twentieth century, had no idea what was to come.

Now that we stand on the threshold of the twenty-first century, the situation is

oddly similar. Once again, physicists believe the physical world has been

explained, and that no further revolutions lie ahead. Because of prior history,

they no longer express this view publicly, but they think it just the same. Some

observers have even gone so far as to argue that science as a discipline has

finished its work; that there is nothing important left for science to discover.

But just as the late nineteenth century gave hints of what was to come, so the

late twentieth century also provides some clues to the future. One of the most

important is the interest in so-called quantum technology. This is an effort on

many fronts to create a new technology that utilizes the fundamental nature of

subatomic reality, and it promises to revolutionize our ideas of what is

possible.

Quantum technology flatly contradicts our common sense ideas of how the world

works. It posits a world where computers operate without being turned on and

objects are found without looking for them. An unimaginably powerful computer

can be built from a single molecule. Information moves instantly between two

points, without wires or networks. Distant objects are examined without any

contact. Computers do their calculations in other universes. And teleportation -

"Beam me up, Scotty" - is ordinary and used in many different ways.

In the 1990s, research in quantum technology began to show results. In 1995,

quantum ultrasecure messages were sent over a distance of eight miles,

suggesting that a quantum Internet would be built in the coming century. In Los

Alamos, physicists measured the thickness of a human hair using laser light that

was never actually shone on the hair, but only might have been. This bizarre,

"counterfactual" result initiated a new field of interaction-free detection:

what has been called "finding something without looking."

And in 1998, quantum teleportation was demonstrated in three laboratories around

the world - in Innsbruck, in Rome and at Cal Tech.* Physicist Jeff Kimble,

leader of the Cal Tech team, said that quantum teleportation could be applied to

solid objects: "The quantum state of one entity could be transported to another

entity. . . . We think we know how to do that."² Kimble stopped well short of

suggesting they could teleport a human being, but he imagined that someone might

try with a bacterium.

These quantum curiosities, defying logic and common sense, have received little

attention from the public, but they will. According to some estimates, by the

first decades of the new century, the majority of physicists around the world

will work in some aspect of quantum technology.

It is therefore not surprising that during the mid-1990s, several corporations

undertook quantum research. Fujitsu Quantum Devices was established in 1991. IBM

formed a quantum research team in 1993, under pioneer Charles Bennett. ATT and

other companies soon followed, as did universities such as Cal Tech, and

government facilities like Los Alamos. And so did a New Mexico research company

called ITC. Located only an hour's drive from Los Alamos, ITC made remarkable

strides very early in the decade. Indeed, it is now clear that ITC was the first

company to have a practical, working application employing advanced quantum

technology, in 1998. In retrospect, it was a combination of peculiar

circumstances - and considerable luck - that gave ITC the lead in a dramatic new

technology. Although the company took the position that their discoveries were

entirely benign, their so-called recovery expedition showed the dangers only too

clearly. Two people died, one vanished, and another suffered serious injuries.

Certainly, for the young graduate students who undertook the expedition, this

new quantum technology, harbinger of the twenty-first century, proved anything

but benign.

A typical episode of private warfare occurred in 1357. Sir Oliver de Vannes, an

English knight of nobility and character, had taken over the towns of Castelgard

and La Roque, along the Dordogne River. By all accounts, this "borrowed lord"

ruled with honest dignity, and was beloved by the people. In April, Sir Oliver's

lands were invaded by a rampaging company of two thousand brigandes, renegade

knights under the command of Arnaut de Cervole, a defrocked monk known as "the

Archpriest." After burning Castelgard to the ground, Cervole razed the nearby

Monastery of Sainte-Mère, murdering monks and destroying the famed water mill on

the Dordogne. Cervole then pursued Sir Oliver to the fortress of La Roque, where

a terrible battle followed.

Oliver defended his castle with skill and daring. Contemporary accounts credit

Oliver's efforts to his military adviser, Edwardus de Johnes. Little is known of

this man, around whom a Merlin-like mythology grew up: it was said he could

vanish in a flash of light. The chronicler Audreim says Johnes came from Oxford,

but other accounts say he was Milanese. Since he traveled with a team of young

assistants, he was most likely an itinerant expert, hiring himself out to

whoever paid for his services. He was schooled in the use of gunpowder and

artillery, a technology new at that time. . . .

Ultimately, Oliver lost his impregnable castle when a spy opened an inside

passage, allowing the Archpriest's soldiers to enter. Such betrayals were

typical of the complex intrigues of that time.

From The Hundred Years War in France

by M. D. Backes, 1996

CORAZON

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory does not understand it."

NEILS BOHR, 1927

"Nobody understands quantum theory."

RICHARD FEYNMAN, 1967

He should never have taken that shortcut.

Dan Baker winced as his new Mercedes S500 sedan bounced down the dirt road,

heading deeper into the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona. Around them, the

landscape was increasingly desolate: distant red mesas to the east, flat desert

stretching away in the west. They had passed a village half an hour earlier -

dusty houses, a church and a small school, huddled against a cliff - but since

then, they'd seen nothing at all, not even a fence. Just empty red desert. They

hadn't seen another car for an hour. Now it was noon, the sun glaring down at

them. Baker, a forty-year-old building contractor in Phoenix, was beginning to

feel uneasy. Especially since his wife, an architect, was one of those artistic

people who wasn't practical about things like gas and water. His tank was half-

empty. And the car was starting to run hot.

"Liz," he said, "are you sure this is the way?"

Sitting beside him, his wife was bent over the map, tracing the route with her

finger. "It has to be," she said. "The guidebook said four miles beyond the

Corazón Canyon turnoff."

"But we passed Corazón Canyon twenty minutes ago. We must have missed it."

"How could we miss a trading post?" she said.

"I don't know." Baker stared at the road ahead. "But there's nothing out here.

Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, we can get great Navajo rugs in

Sedona. They sell all kinds of rugs in Sedona."

"Sedona," she sniffed, "is not authentic."

"Of course it's authentic, honey. A rug is a rug."

"Weaving."

"Okay." He sighed. "A weaving."

"And no, it's not the same," she said. "Those Sedona stores carry tourist junk -

they're acrylic, not wool. I want the weavings that they sell on the

reservation. And supposedly the trading post has an old Sandpainting weaving

from the twenties, by Hosteen Klah. And I want it."

"Okay, Liz." Personally, Baker didn't see why they needed another Navajo rug -

weaving - anyway. They already had two dozen. She had them all over the house.

And packed away in closets, too.

They drove on in silence. The road ahead shimmered in the heat, so it looked

like a silver lake. And there were mirages, houses or people rising up on the

road, but always when you came closer, there was nothing there.

Dan Baker sighed again. "We must've passed it."

"Let's give it a few more miles," his wife said.

"How many more?"

"I don't know. A few more."

"How many, Liz? Let's decide how far we'll go with this thing."

"Ten more minutes," she said.

"Okay," he said, "ten minutes."

He was looking at his gas gauge when Liz threw her hand to her mouth and said,

"Dan!" Baker turned back to the road just in time to see a shape flash by - a

man, in brown, at the side of the road - and hear a loud thump from the side of

the car.

"Oh my God!" she said. "We hit him!"

"What?"

"We hit that guy."

"No, we didn't. We hit a pothole."

In the rearview mirror, Baker could see the man still standing at the side of

the road. A figure in brown, rapidly disappearing in the dust cloud behind the

car as they drove away.

"We couldn't have hit him," Baker said. "He's still standing."

"Dan. We hit him. I saw it."

"I don't think so, honey."

Baker looked again in the rearview mirror. But now he saw nothing except the

cloud of dust behind the car.

"We better go back," she said.

"Why?"

Baker was pretty sure that his wife was wrong and that they hadn't hit the man

on the road. But if they had hit him, and if he was even slightly injured - just

a head cut, a scratch - then it was going to mean a very long delay in their

trip. They'd never get to Phoenix by nightfall. Anybody out here was undoubtedly

a Navajo; they'd have to take him to a hospital, or at least to the nearest big

town, which was Gallup, and that was out of their way-

"I thought you wanted to go back," she said.

"I do."

"Then let's go back."

"I just don't want any problems, Liz."

"Dan. I don't believe this."

He sighed, and slowed the car. "Okay, I'm turning. I'm turning."

And he turned around, being careful not to get stuck in the red sand at the side

of the road, and headed back the way they had come.

"Oh Jesus."

Baker pulled over, and jumped out into the dust cloud of his own car. He gasped

as he felt the blast of heat on his face and body. It must be 120 degrees out

here, he thought.

As the dust cleared, he saw the man lying at the side of the road, trying to

raise himself up on his elbow. The guy was shaky, about seventy, balding and

bearded. His skin was pale; he didn't look Navajo. His brown clothes were

fashioned into long robes. Maybe he's a priest, Baker thought.

"Are you all right?" Baker said as he helped the man to sit up on the dirt road.

The old man coughed. "Yeah. I'm all right."

"Do you want to stand up?" he said. He was relieved not to see any blood.

"In a minute."

Baker looked around. "Where's your car?" he said.

The man coughed again. Head hanging limply, he stared at the dirt road.

"Dan, I think he's hurt," his wife said.

"Yeah," Baker said. The old guy certainly seemed to be confused. Baker looked

around again: there was nothing but flat desert in all directions, stretching

away into shimmering haze.

No car. Nothing.

"How'd he get out here?" Baker said.

"Come on," Liz said, "we have to take him to a hospital."

Baker put his hands under the man's armpits and helped the old guy to his feet.

The man's clothes were heavy, made of a material like felt, but he wasn't

sweating in the heat. In fact, his body felt cool, almost cold.

The old guy leaned heavily on Baker as they crossed the road. Liz opened the

back door. The old man said, "I can walk. I can talk."

"Okay. Fine." Baker eased him into the back seat.

The man lay down on the leather, curling into a fetal position. Underneath his

robes, he was wearing ordinary clothes: jeans, a checked shirt, Nikes. He closed

the door, and Liz got back in the front seat. Baker hesitated, remaining outside

in the heat. How was it possible the old guy was out here all alone? Wearing all

those clothes and not sweating?

It was as if he had just stepped out of a car.

So maybe he'd been driving, Baker thought. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. Maybe his

car had gone off the road and he'd had an accident. Maybe there was someone else

still trapped in the car.

He heard the old guy muttering, "Left it, heft it. Go back now, get it now, and

how."

Baker crossed the road to have a look. He stepped over a very large pothole,

considered showing it to his wife, then decided not to.

Off the road, he didn't see any tire tracks, but he saw clearly the old man's

footprints in the sand. The footprints ran back from the road into the desert.

Thirty yards away, Baker saw the rim of an arroyo, a ravine cut into the

landscape. The footprints seemed to come from there.

So he followed the footsteps back to the arroyo, stood at the edge, and looked

down into it. There was no car. He saw nothing but a snake, slithering away from

him among the rocks. He shivered.

Something white caught his eye, glinting in the sunlight a few feet down the

slope. Baker scrambled down for a better look. It was a piece of white ceramic

about an inch square. It looked like an electrical insulator. Baker picked it

up, and was surprised to find it was cool to the touch. Maybe it was one of

those new materials that didn't absorb heat.

Looking closely at the ceramic, he saw the letters ITC stamped on one edge. And

there was a kind of button, recessed in the side. He wondered what would happen

if he pushed the button. Standing in the heat, with big boulders all around him,

he pushed it.

Nothing happened.

He pushed it again. Again nothing.

Baker climbed out of the ravine and went back to the car. The old guy was

sleeping, snoring loudly. Liz was looking at the maps. "Nearest big town is

Gallup."

Baker started the engine. "Gallup it is."

Back on the main highway, they made better time, heading south to Gallup. The

old guy was still sleeping. Liz looked at him and said, "Dan . . ."

"What?"

"You see his hands?"

"What about them?"

"The fingertips."

Baker looked away from the road, glanced quickly into the back seat. The old

guy's fingertips were red to the second knuckle. "So? He's sunburned."

"Just on the tips? Why not the whole hand?"

Baker shrugged.

"His fingers weren't like that before," she said. "They weren't red when we

picked him up."

"Honey, you probably just didn't notice them."

"I did notice, because he had a manicure. And I thought it was interesting that

some old guy in the desert would have a manicure."

"Uh-huh." Baker glanced at his watch. He wondered how long they would have to

stay at the hospital in Gallup. Hours, probably.

He sighed.

The road continued straight ahead.

Halfway to Gallup, the old guy woke up. He coughed and said, "Are we there? Are

we where?"

"How are you feeling?" Liz said.

"Feeling? I'm reeling. Fine, just fine."

"What's your name?" Liz said.

The man blinked at her. "The quondam phone made me roam."

"But what's your name?"

The man said, "Name same, blame game."

Baker said, "He's rhyming everything."

She said, "I noticed, Dan."

"I saw a TV show on this," Baker said. "Rhyming means he's schizophrenic."

"Rhyming is timing," the old man said. And then he began to sing loudly, almost

shouting to the tune of the old John Denver song:

"Quondam phone, makes me roam,

to the place I belong,

old Black Rocky, country byway,

quondam phone, it's on roam."

"Oh boy," Baker said.

"Sir," Liz said again, "can you tell me your name?"

"Niobium may cause opprobrium. Hairy singularities don't permit parities."

Baker sighed. "Honey, this guy is nuts."

"A nut by any other name would smell like feet."

But his wife wouldn't give up. "Sir? Do you know your name?"

"Call Gordon," the man said, shouting now. "Call Gordon, call Stanley. Keep in

the family."

"But, sir-"

"Liz," Baker said, "leave him alone. Let him settle down, okay? We still have a

long drive."

Bellowing, the old man sang: "To the place I belong, old black magic, it's so

tragic, country foam, makes me groan." And immediately, he started to sing it

again.

"How much farther?" Liz said.

"Don't ask."

He telephoned ahead, so when he pulled the Mercedes under the red-and-cream-

colored portico of the McKinley Hospital Trauma Unit, the orderlies were waiting

there with a gurney. The old man remained passive as they eased him onto the

gurney, but as soon as they began to strap him down, he became agitated,

shouting, "Unhand me, unband me!"

"It's for your own safety, sir," one orderly said.

"So you say, out of my way! Safety is the last refuge of the scoundrel!"

Baker was impressed by the way the orderlies handled the guy, gently but still

firmly, strapping him down. He was equally impressed by the petite dark-haired

woman in a white coat who fell into step with them. "I'm Beverly Tsosie," she

said, shaking hands with them. "I'm the physician on call." She was very calm,

even though the man on the gurney continued to yell as they wheeled him into the

trauma center. "Quondam phone, makes me roam. . . ."

Everybody in the waiting room was looking at him. Baker saw a young kid of ten

or eleven, his arm in a sling, sitting in a chair with his mother, watching the

old man curiously. The kid whispered something to his mother.

The old guy sang, "To the plaaaaace I belongggg. . . ."

Dr. Tsosie said, "How long has he been this way?"

"From the beginning. Ever since we picked him up."

"Except when he was sleeping," Liz said.

"Was he ever unconscious?"

"No."

"Any nausea, vomiting?"

"No."

"And you found him where? Out past Corazón Canyon?"

"About five, ten miles beyond."

"Not much out there," she said.

"You know it?" Baker said.

"I grew up around there." She smiled slightly. "Chinle."

They wheeled the old man, still shouting, through a swinging door. Dr. Tsosie

said, "If you'll wait here, I'll get back to you as soon as I know something.

It'll probably be a while. You might want to go get lunch."

Beverly Tsosie had a staff position at University Hospital in Albuquerque, but

lately she'd been coming to Gallup two days a week to be with her elderly

grandmother, and on those days she worked a shift in the McKinley Trauma Unit to

make extra money. She liked McKinley, with its modern exterior painted in bold

red and cream stripes. The hospital was really dedicated to the community. And

she liked Gallup, a smaller town than Albuquerque, and a place where she felt

more comfortable with a tribal background.

Most days, the Trauma Unit was pretty quiet. So the arrival of this old man,

agitated and shouting, was causing a lot of commotion. She pushed through the

curtains into the cubicle, where the orderlies had already stripped off the

brown felt robes and removed his Nikes. But the old man was still struggling,

fighting them, so they had to leave him strapped down. They were cutting his

jeans and the plaid shirt away.

Nancy Hood, the senior unit nurse, said it didn't matter because his shirt had a

big defect anyway; across the pocket there ran a jagged line where the pattern

didn't match. "He already tore it and sewed it back together. You ask me, pretty

lousy job, too."

"No," said one of the orderlies, holding up the shirt. "It's never been sewn

together, it's all one piece of cloth. Weird, the pattern doesn't line up

because one side is bigger than the other. . . ."

"Whatever, he won't miss it," Nancy Hood said, and tossed it on the floor. She

turned to Tsosie. "You want to try and examine him?"

The man was far too wild. "Not yet. Let's get an IV in each arm. And go through

his pockets. See if he's got any identification at all. If he doesn't, take his

fingerprints and fax them to D.C.; maybe he'll show up on a database there."

Twenty minutes later, Beverly Tsosie was examining a kid who had broken his arm

sliding into third. He was a bespectacled, nerdy-looking kid, and he seemed

almost proud of his sports injury.

Nancy Hood came over and said, "We searched the John Doe."

"And?"

"Nothing helpful. No wallet, no credit cards, no keys. The only thing he had on

him was this." She gave Beverly a folded piece of paper. It looked like a

computer printout, and showed an odd pattern of dots in a gridlike pattern. At

the bottom was written "mon. ste. mere."

" `Monstemere?' Does that mean anything to you?"

Hood shook her head. "You ask me, he's psychotic."

Beverly Tsosie said, "Well, I can't sedate him until we know what's going on in

his head. Better get skull films to rule out trauma and hematoma."

"Radiology's being remodeled, remember, Bev? X rays'll take forever. Why don't

you do an MRI? Scan total body, you have it all."

"Order it," Tsosie said.

Nancy Hood turned to leave. "Oh, and surprise, surprise. Jimmy is here, from the

police."

Dan Baker was restless. Just as he predicted, they'd had to spend hours sitting

around the waiting room of McKinley Hospital. After they got lunch - burritos in

red chile sauce - they had come back to see a policeman in the parking lot,

looking over their car, running his hand along the side door panel. Just seeing

him gave Baker a chill. He thought of going over to the cop but decided not to.

Instead, they returned to the waiting room. He called his daughter and said

they'd be late; in fact, they might not even get to Phoenix until tomorrow.

And they waited. Finally, around four o'clock, when Baker went to the desk to

inquire about the old man, the woman said, "Are you a relative?"

"No, but-"

"Then please wait over there. Doctor will be with you shortly."

He went back and sat down, sighing. He got up again, walked over to the window,

and looked at his car. The cop had gone, but now there was a fluttering tag

under the windshield wiper. Baker drummed his fingers on the windowsill. These

little towns, you get in trouble, anything could happen. And the longer he

waited, the more his mind spun scenarios. The old guy was in a coma; they

couldn't leave town until he woke up. The old guy died; they were charged with

manslaughter. They weren't charged, but they had to appear at the inquest, in

four days.

When somebody finally came to talk to them, it wasn't the petite doctor, it was

the cop. He was a young policeman in his twenties, in a neatly pressed uniform.

He had long hair, and his nametag said JAMES WAUNEKA. Baker wondered what kind

of a name that was. Hopi or Navajo, probably.

"Mr. and Mrs. Baker?" Wauneka was very polite, introduced himself. "I've just

been with the doctor. She's finished her examination, and the MRI results are

back. There's absolutely no evidence he was struck by a car. And I looked at

your car myself. No sign of any impact. I think you may have hit a pothole and

just thought you hit him. Road's pretty bad out there."

Baker glared at his wife, who refused to meet his eye. Liz said, "Is he going to

be all right?"

"Looks like it, yes."

"Then we can go?" Baker said.

"Honey," Liz said, "don't you want to give him that thing you found?"

"Oh, yes." Baker brought out the little ceramic square. "I found this, near

where he was."

The cop turned the ceramic over in his hands. "ITC," he said, reading the stamp

on the side. "Where exactly did you find this?"

"About thirty yards from the road. I thought he might have been in a car that

went off the road, so I checked. But there was no car."

"Anything else?"

"No. That's all."

"Well, thanks," Wauneka said, slipping the ceramic in his pocket. And then he

paused. "Oh, I almost forgot." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and

unfolded it carefully. "We found this in his clothing. I wondered if you had

ever seen it."

Baker glanced at the paper: a bunch of dots arranged in grids. "No," he said.

"I've never seen it before."

"You didn't give it to him?"

"No."

"Any idea what it might be?"

"No," Baker said. "No idea at all."

"Well, I think I do," his wife said.

"You do?" the cop said.

"Yes," she said. "Do you mind if I, uh . . ." And she took the paper from the

policeman.

Baker sighed. Now Liz was being the architect, squinting at the paper

judiciously, turning it this way and that, looking at the dots upside down and

sideways. Baker knew why. She was trying to distract attention from the fact

that she had been wrong, that his car had hit a pothole, after all, and that

they had wasted a whole day here. She was trying to justify a waste of time, to

somehow give it importance.

"Yes," she said finally, "I know what it is. It's a church."

Baker looked at the dots on the paper. He said, "That's a church?"

"Well, the floor plan for one," she said. "See? Here's the long axis of the

cross, the nave. . . . See? It's definitely a church, Dan. And the rest of this

image, the squares within squares, all rectilinear, it looks like . . . you

know, this might be a monastery."

The cop said, "A monastery?"

"I think so," she said. "And what about the label at the bottom: `mon.ste.mere.'

Isn't `mon' an abbreviation for monastery? I bet it is. I'm telling you, I think

this is a monastery." She handed the picture back to the cop.

Pointedly, Baker looked at his watch. "We really should be going."

"Of course," Wauneka said, taking the hint. He shook hands with them. "Thanks

for all your help. Sorry for the delay. Have a pleasant trip."

Baker put his arm firmly around his wife's waist and led her out into the

afternoon sunlight. It was cooler now; hot-air balloons were rising to the east.

Gallup was a center for hot-air ballooning. He went to the car. The fluttering

tag on the windshield was for a sale of turquoise jewelry at a local store. He

pulled it from behind the wiper, crumpled it, and got behind the wheel. His wife

was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, staring forward. He started

the engine.

She said, "Okay. I'm sorry." Her tone was grumpy, but Baker knew it was all he

would get.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "No," he said. "You did the right thing. We

saved the old guy's life."

His wife smiled.

He drove out of the parking lot, and headed for the highway.

In the hospital, the old man slept, his face partly covered by an oxygen mask.

He was calm now; she'd given him a light sedative, and he was relaxed, his

breathing easy. Beverly Tsosie stood at the foot of the bed, reviewing the case

with Joe Nieto, a Mescalero Apache who was a skilled internist, and a very good

diagnostician. "White male, ballpark seventy years old. Comes in confused,

obtunded, disoriented times three. Mild congestive heart failure, slightly

elevated liver enzymes, otherwise nothing."

"And they didn't hit him with the car?"

"Apparently not. But it's funny. They say they found him wandering around north

of Corazón Canyon. There's nothing there for ten miles in any direction."

"So?"

"This guy's got no signs of exposure, Joe. No dehydration

dehydration, no ketosis. He isn't even sunburned."

"You think somebody dumped him? Got tired of grandpa grabbing the remote?"

"Yeah. That's my guess."

"And what about his fingers?"

"I don't know," she said. "He has some kind of circulatory problem. His

fingertips are cold, turning purple, they could even go gangrenous. Whatever it

is, it's gotten worse since he's been in the hospital."

"He diabetic?"

"No."

"Raynaud's?"

"No."

Nieto went over to the bedside, looked at the fingers. "Only the tips are

involved. All the damage is distal."

"Right," she said. "If he wasn't found in the desert, I'd call that frostbite."

"You check him for heavy metals, Bev? Because this could be toxic exposure to

heavy metals. Cadmium, or arsenic. That would explain the fingers, and also his

dementia."

"I drew the samples. But heavy metals go to UNH in Albuquerque. I won't have the

report back for seventy-two hours."

"You have any ID, medical history, anything?"

"Nothing. We put a missing persons out on him, and we transmitted his

fingerprints to Washington for a database check, but that could take a week."

Nieto nodded. "And when he was agitated, babbling? What'd he say?"

"It was all rhymes, the same things over. Something about Gordon and Stanley.

And then he would say, " `Quondam phone makes me roam.' "

"Quondam? Isn't that Latin?"

She shrugged. "It's a long time since I was in church."

"I think quondam is a word in Latin," Nieto said.

And then they heard a voice say, "Excuse me?" It was the bespectacled kid in the

bed across the hall, sitting with his mother.

"We're still waiting for the surgeon to come in, Kevin," Beverly said to him.

"Then we can set your arm."

"He wasn't saying `quondam phone,' " the kid said. "He was saying `quantum

foam.' "

"What?"

"Quantum foam. He was saying `quantum foam.' "

They went over to him. Nieto seemed amused. "And what, exactly, is quantum

foam?"

The kid looked at them earnestly, blinking behind his glasses. "At very small,

subatomic dimensions, the structure of space-time is irregular. It's not smooth,

it's sort of bubbly and foamy. And because it's way down at the quantum level,

it's called quantum foam."

"How old are you?" Nieto said.

"Eleven."

His mother said, "He reads a lot. His father's at Los Alamos."

Nieto nodded. "And what's the point of this quantum foam, Kevin?"

"There isn't any point," the kid said. "It's just how the universe is, at the

subatomic level."

"Why would this old guy be talking about it?"

"Because he's a well-known physicist," Wauneka said, coming toward them. He

glanced at a sheet of paper in his hand. "It just came in on the M.P.D. Joseph

A. Traub, seventy-one years old, materials physicist. Specialist in

superconducting metals. Reported missing by his employer, ITC Research in Black

Rock, around noon today."

"Black Rock? That's way over near Sandia." It was several hours away, in central

New Mexico. "How the hell did this guy get to Corazón Canyon in Arizona?"

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TimelinebyMichaelCrichtonForTaylor"Allthegreatempiresofthefuturewillbeempiresofthemind."WINSTONCHURCHILL,1953"Ifyoudon'tknowhistory,youdon'tknowanything."EDWARDJOHNSTON,1990"I'mnotinterestedinthefuture.I'minterestedinthefutureofthef\uture."ROBERTDONIGER,1996INTRODUCTIONScienceattheEndoftheCenturyAhu...

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