End of an Era

Did that mean, No, I don’t have a PicPhone, or No, I won’t turn on its camera? "Uh, fine," I said at last. "That’s fine." Suddenly I didn’t know how to continue. What I wanted to ask her about seemed so incredible, so inconceivable. If this was a practical joke, there’s only one person who could have done it: Klicks, now living in Toronto for his sabbatical. I’d kill him if this wasn’t for real. "I’ve been trying to track you down for some time, Dr. Huang. There’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you."

She still sounded edgy. "Oh, very well. But please be brief."

"Of course. Do you happen to know Miles Jordan?"

"I knew a Susan Jordan once."

"No, that wouldn’t be any relation of his. Miles is another paleontologist. He’s with the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drum-heller, Alberta."

"A great museum," she said absently. "But what has this got to do with me?"

"Does the word ‘stasis’ mean anything to you?"

"It’s Greek for standstill. What do I win?"

"And that’s all it means to you?"

"Mr. Thackeray, I value my privacy greatly. I don’t wish to seem rude, but I am uncomfortable on the phone."

I mustered my courage. "All right, Dr. Huang. I put it to you: are you, or were you, doing experiments involving the cessation of the passage of time — a process you referred to as stasis?"

"Where did you get that notion?"

"Please, it’s very important that I know."

She was silent for several seconds. "Well, yes," she said at last, "I guess ‘stasis’ would have been a good name for it, although I never called it that. Experiments? Hardly. I came up with a few interesting equations, but that was before — that was a long time ago."

"So stasis is possible. Tell me: did your research give any indication that — that time travel would be a practical consequence of your equations?"

For the first time, the voice at the other end of the line had real strength. "I see now, Mr.— Thackeray, did you say?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Thackeray, you are a crackpot. Good-bye."

"No, please. I’m dead seri—"

Dial tone. I told the phone to redial, but the number in Vancouver just rang and rang and rang.

Countdown: 15

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis remain neutral.

—Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321)

Martians.

I’d had a hard enough time typing the words "time travel." But tapping out M-A-R-T-I-A-N-S seemed like asking for a trip to the funny farm. I guess there really are more things in heaven and earth, Brandio, than are dreamt of in my philosophy.

It was close to noon, the hot Mesozoic sun beating down from a silvery-blue sky intermittently visible through gaps in the thick foliage above us. Insects buzzed everywhere, and I kept batting my arms to disperse them.

The three troodons were close enough that I could smell the stench of raw meat on their breath. Their pebbly green skin was almost iridescent in the bright sunlight and their giant yellow eyes reflected back so much light they almost seemed to glow.

"Martians," I said softly — the word came easier to the tongue than it does to the fingertips. "Incredible."

The lead troodon, Diamond-snout, did its patented one-two blink. "Thank you," it rasped, speaking for the Martian jelly creature within its skull.

"But what are you doing here?" I asked.

The elongated green head tilted to one side. "Talking to you."

"No — I mean, what are you doing here, in general? Why did you come to Earth?"

"Come to? Pass out of unconsciousness? No link."

I shook my head. "What was the purpose of your trip to Earth?"

"Purpose not changed," said Diamond-snout pointedly. "Still is."

"Okay, okay. What is the purpose of your trip to Earth?"

"Me first," said the troodon. "What your purpose?"

I sighed. There seemed to be little point in telling the thing that it was violating Miss Manners’s rules of etiquette. Klicks, standing about a meter away from me, and not taking his eyes off the silent troodon closest to him, answered. "We’re scientists. Does that — link? Scientists. Ones whose profession is the quest for knowledge. We came here to discover what we could about the ancient past. We’re particularly interested in the event at the boundary between—"

" — in studying the lifeforms of this time," I said, cutting him off, a sudden wave of caution overtaking me. It seemed a good idea not to mention right off that most of the life on this world was about to be destroyed.

"Ah!" crowed Diamond-snout, evidently unperturbed by my having interrupted Klicks. "We are colleges." It looked down, then did that strange one-two blink again. "No, colleagues. We, too, came to this place because of the life here."

"One small slither for Martian," said Klicks, "one giant leap for Martiankind."

"No link," said the Martian through the troodon’s mouth.

Klicks looked at the ground. "Me neither," he said.