Tales Of Hope and Time

By Ian Anderson

Tales of Hope and Time is a collection of four science fiction stories. Total words 100,000

For Fleur.
After frantic effort, Professor John Elliott discovers how to look into the future. He is desperate to save the life of his wife Fleur, who is dying of cancer. He hides in a medical school library overnight where he can record the computer screens of future readers as they research cancer topics. He learns that he will deliver a public lecture in the future in which he will announce stunning details of cancer prevention and cure. Can he watch his future self and did he save his wife?

Empathy Shrew.
Is it possible to find your perfect partner who exists somewhere in the world? Miles Watson is a socially limited zoology lecturer who faces dismissal from a minor American University because his research is not of commercial value. Unknown to him, he is the subject of research by a group of aliens who are studying empathy in humans. They have found that he is the perfect partner for a European woman who is unusually empathetic and their main study subject on Earth. The aliens try to expedite their meeting by giving Miles an empathy amplifying device.

The Last Run.
An impoverished alien species charters a ship with Artificial Intelligence to transport one of its members to a dangerous and dying planet. The purpose of the visit is secret. The unemotional AI becomes interested in its passenger, something that it has never felt before with previous passengers. The alien Spurl has a historic mission to perform for the sake of his race, but it is also young and immature. It has its own risky, personal agenda on the planet. The alien and the AI are alone, many distant light years from home. They may find they need each other far more than they thought.

Ahead of his Time.
Matt and Jim Harper are two brothers who work together to fantastically improve the abilities of Mark Armstrong an average, county class cricketer nearing retirement. Matt, a wayward and unconventional scientist, has invented a beam that can move Mark forwards fractionally in time. Jim a TV cameraman, has the means of projecting the beam, but he also has an illegal gambling habit.
Mark Armstrong has two beautiful sisters who have famous boyfriends in the visiting Australian Cricket team. If Mark is selected for the national side, how far will the criminal fraternity go to sabotage his debut test performance? How will his two sisters relate to these two unusual brothers?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Anderson
• Release date: Apr 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9780473245450

Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson is professional geologist with a long-standing interest in history and archaeology, who has lived and travelled extensively in SE Asia for over 25 years. He has previously published papers in geology and an article on travel by light aircraft in Mexico, and lives immersed in a ‘foodie’ environment as his wife is a cordon bleu chef. He lives in Suffolk.

Book preview

Tales of Hope and Time

By Ian Anderson

Maioro Books

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 Ian Anderson

These stories are works of fiction, the characters and situations portrayed are the work of the author's imagination. His background knowledge and experience of some situations and places has provided non specific generic details which are not applicable to any real person. He senses however that time could be a particle, although he has absolutely no scientific proof of this.

License Notes

This E-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share it with others, please purchase another copy for each of them. If you didn’t purchase this book and you like it, I would be grateful if you would consider buying your own copy.

E- Book EPUB Edition April 2013 ISBN:978-0-473-24542-0

Table of Contents

Title

Acknowledgements

Dedication

For Fleur

Empathy Shrew

The Last Run

Ahead of His Time

Footnotes

Author Information

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my wife Carol, plus my sons Alexander, James, and Colin for saying that they liked at least some of these stories. My family has humoured me over the years that I spent writing them.

Thank you to Nils Danneman for his cover design. He can be found at www.fireflycovers.com

Thank you also to Mrs Kat Bargh for the Czech translation in Empathy Shrew.

Dedication

For Fleur is dedicated to my friend Sergio and his wife Trish.

For Fleur

1.

John Elliot woke when his computer bleeped and lit up its obsolete, flickering screen. Once again he had slept at his workbench when he only meant to rest his head for a few minutes. He glanced at the cob-webbed clock. There was still time before he needed to attend to his dying wife.

Another glance towards the bedroom video monitor, confirmed that she remained peaceful; asleep under the influence of her morphine pump.

Reassured by the image, he began to massage his stiff neck and stretch his cold limbs one by one. The computer which had been sorting through the evenings set of algorithms seemed to have crashed again: judging by the discouraging shades of green which glowed in the darkness of his shed.

The converted garden shed was full of old electronic equipment which John liked to tinker with in his spare time. His wife Fleur had always been amused that his hobby was merely a variation of his daytime job, but like any understanding wife she kept out of his way, permitting him to potter in his own place. Now his old computer snuggled against a small box from which cables flowed to a video camera fixed on a roof truss. Below the apex of the corrugated iron roof a hole, just big enough, permitted the camera lens to focus on a small stand of trees growing on the far side of the stream at the bottom of the garden.

He swore under his breath. It looked as if most of the night’s work would be lost in the crash. Each day he loaded the faithful computer with new sets of time variables to sift through and search for a match. Seventy-five percent of the possibilities had been eliminated over the last six weeks; the next two weeks should cover the rest. He would have preferred to use the fast university computers which would have saved much time, but he couldn’t let anyone see what he was trying to do.

As he moved to the sink to fill his kettle for a welcome pot of tea, he paused half way. There was something different about this latest crash which didn’t resemble the uniform green of previous ones: instead dappled shades of green animated the screen. Also, the alarm continued to emit the correct signal for a successful data match, exactly as he had programmed it all those weeks ago.

He lowered the kettle, held poised in mid-air, and moved almost with reluctance to the keyboard. A quick nervous fumble with the keyboard confirmed that he could minimise the waving screen to reveal the functioning operating system behind it.

His hands shook as he opened the night's log file to run his eyes down the entries. The lists of numbers flowed down the page, each one ending with the familiar three words: ‘No match found’. At the bottom the final phrase leapt out like an intruder from the screen. ‘Match detected.’

He had to sit down. In a previous more humorous life he might have programmed something like ‘Match detected, congratulations you’re a winner,’ but now all displays of frivolity were unthinkable. His permanent exhaustion and numb fear prevented any sense of triumph.

He saved the crucial data file with its number sequences to his memory card, then brought the rippling green image back up on the screen. There should have been more clarity; he would have to work on that. The live picture of the trees outside the shed was good enough to show a mass of blurred green leaves as they fluttered on a breezy sunny day.

Outside across the stream as he looked through the window, those same trees were bare, shrouded in darkness as they waited for a winter’s dawn to creep over the horizon.

2.

His wife stirred in the bedroom as she rolled over to fling an arm above her head. The sound and sight encouraged him to quickly log off the computer. He quit the shed, crossing the short distance to the laundry door leading through into the house.

‘Did you sleep all right Fleur?’ He asked as he lowered himself on to the side of their double bed.

‘Yes thanks. You look tired John, have you been out in that shed all night again?’

‘Only for a few hours,’ he lied. ‘I didn’t sleep very well after that.’

He checked the syringe driver to confirm that the level was compatible with its changeover time. Sometimes there were prepared morphine syringes which he could take from the fridge and substitute, but today he wanted to discuss a dose change with the cancer nurse. Fleur’s pain was increasing again, but as usual she preferred to down-play her condition.

He adjusted the sheets, wiped her forehead with a flannel; ran the moist sponge stick inside her lips and mouth; then propped her up to comb her lank hair.

She smiled up at him.

‘Up we come,’ he said, as she put her thin arms around his neck. He eased her forward to straighten her night-dress and plump up the pillows. These arrangements complete, he moved to the kitchen to prepare her morning drink.

‘Would you like me to hold it for you?’ he asked on his return.

‘No I can manage John.’

Sometimes Fleur’s weakness meant that she would drop things, but she still resisted being fed by another person. John however always insisted on holding her hot drinks.

‘Joan will be here at lunch time and we can give you a bed bath. The hospice nurse is also coming this morning. I think we should increase your morphine dose a little; it doesn’t seem to last as long as it used to.’

She tried to smile, her face wan. ‘John I’m OK, don’t fuss. Some days are better than others, I can’t predict them. At least my nausea and vomiting has settled down.’

They whiled away the morning talking and listening to some of their favourite music. John brought his laptop to her, so that she could read the emails from their children. Later after a family conference with Bronwyn the cancer nurse, they agreed that she would check with Dr Clark and suggest an increase of Fleur’s morphine in her next 24-hour syringe. Joan the district nurse arrived as Bronwyn was leaving; the two of them stood together in the kitchen to talk in low tones about their dying patient.

Joan was cheerful as usual. She bustled around the bedroom commenting on the flowers in their vases and how tidy the winter garden looked. John assisted her to support his wife on to the commode. He emptied and changed Fleur's catheter bag before they both combined to bed bath her. When Joan left, John tried to feed Fleur, but after a short time she became tired, so he drew the curtains and left her to have her afternoon nap.

Back in the shed, he switched on his equipment and began to work with the identified time congruency. This required the correct balance of three important components; time wavelength; time particle acceleration, and time advancement or retardation.

It took almost an hour to refine the image on the screen. The dappled green was now clearer, composed of a jostling mass of branches with their leaves in full summer array. He could see that the three trees were taller than they were now, and guessed that he was looking at them as they would be in about four or five summer's time.

The next calibration was for gain. How would the seasons roll backwards or forwards with the use of the plus and minus keys, or with mouse movement? His initial tapping of the keys shifted the picture in short jerks. Leaves sprang up, to wither and die in absurd fashion, while birds flashed across the screen at impossible speeds.

Another hour passed before he managed to damp the sensitivity to a level that allowed him to glide forwards in time. He had no interest in going backwards in time.

Fleur was stirring and he needed to leave the shed. He had promised her that she would never be alone when she was awake. His life over the last three months had become a rigid routine since her stem cell transplant failed, allowing her lymphoma to recur.

Their previous happy existence ended two years earlier when Fleur showed him her enlarged neck glands. He kept working at the University, but in a much reduced capacity. This was necessary for financial reasons, but also to retain some normality and hope in their lives. They became frequent attendees at medical clinics, where multiple specialists raised and lowered their hopes. Their haematologist and oncologist were always supportive, staying as positive as they could be about their patient's condition.

John was aware that his wife was another ‘case’ among many. He learnt to accept the guarded ways in which the medical profession spoke to them. He came to realise that doctors were deliberate and sometimes dispassionate as a means of coping with sick patients who often had a poor prognosis.

Fleur’s type of lymphoma was very malignant. The specialists told them that there would be a fifty percent chance of a ‘cure’. He felt helpless in the doctors hands and as a scientist he knew enough to be very frightened, but he dare not show it.

Fleur however remained optimistic and he tried to feel this hope too, for her sake. They went through her chemotherapy together, the vomiting, and the embarrassment for Fleur when her hair fell out. Then there were visits to hospital at all hours when her immune defences dropped so low that she caught infections from previously harmless organisms.

In her first remission she seemed well, regaining most of her old energy. She put on weight, gardened, and walked the dog again. There was even a brief few months when she went back to her teaching job. At that time he found it easier to push his fear deep into a place where he didn’t have to face it. Despite his science based misgivings, he was happy to support his wife in her desires for alternative therapies. The odd diets made her happier; that was all he could ask for.

At work his colleagues in the physics department tried their best. It isn’t easy to pass the time of day with a cancer victim or their relatives. The silent knowledge of his wife’s cancer constrained all light hearted conversations. The family doctor could do nothing except offer sympathy and positivity. His part in the illness would lie ahead if Fleur’s cancer proved untreatable.

After the chemotherapy failed, the lymphoma recurred and Fleur received the stem cell transplant. The roller-coaster ride of hope began again, until halted by the final relapse.

In their polite conversations with the doctors; hope drained away. John could see pity in their eyes and hear concern in their voices, but he noticed when they began to protect themselves, their intent moving on to other patients whom they hoped would do better. He became terrified, then desperate, then determined to do something for Fleur himself.

He reasoned that somewhere in the future there would be a cure for her lymphoma. Perhaps a drug or some technique that was already available, but nobody at this time could see it’s application. He obsessed on the idea of discovering what this would be. He had some expertise, good access to knowledge, and the ultimate motivation. He continued to travel to the university but gave up most forms of communication. His colleagues believed his decline was the result of depression, but they were wrong: only one task occupied his thoughts and actions.

His two children Fiona and Larry, had long accepted his frequent absences, when he worked with old equipment in his garden shed. Now while he spent hours alone there, Larry phoned Fiona in London to tell her that it was dad’s way of coping with mum’s illness. Fleur had come to accept that she would die soon. She was preparing herself, but she worried that John’s odd behaviour was a denial of her approaching death.

With Fleur resting again, John was able to return to the shed to make his final calibrations. He needed to know the range of his equipment, so he crossed the stream and hung a red bucket on the middle tree. Through the kitchen window, Gail their cleaner watched his activity with an odd expression, which he ignored.

Back in the shed he moved the image backwards and forwards in time making the bucket appear and disappear. He went back to watch himself put the bucket up on the tree. Then he moved forward at a faster rate counting the winter seasons as they rolled by again and again. At the plus fifteen year mark, to his surprise, the trees flashed away. Puppet like figures began to erect a building in their place; he had lost his time calibration marker.

In itself this didn’t affect his plans. Once his time scanner was active at any location, he would be able to see the future or the past at that spot, all the way to it’s maximum possible range.

3.

Next day, after he settled Fleur into her favourite chair by the large window overlooking the garden, he broached the subject.

‘Fleur, I’m going to have to stay away tonight. I know you’ll be well looked after because Gwen is coming this afternoon to stay for a couple of days.'

Gwen, Fleur’s sister, a nurse, was a great source of practical help.

Fleur didn’t ask the obvious question.

‘That’s great John. Why don’t you ring up George Kay at the department? He’s always asking if you want to go out for a night. You need time away from me.’

‘I may do that, but you’re my only important job now,’ he said as he stooped to kiss her.

In the evening he entered the medical school library and stopped at the counter to talk to the librarians at the front desk. As a physics professor he had open access to all the university libraries. The staff knew him well now; he had become a permanent feature in the Medical library, where he sat for hours poring over text books in the oncology section.

Today he pulled a large airline suitcase behind him.

‘Professor Mc’Ilroy has asked me to deliver these journals to him. He wants me to leave them in the photocopying room. Will that be convenient?’ he asked at library reception.

The two librarians were well aware of Professor Elliot’s personal troubles and they were eager to oblige him. Once he had placed the suitcase in the photocopying room he sat again at his seat in the oncology section. It occupied a small area screened off from much of the library by several high book stacks. Nearby there was a study table with alcoves for three computers where doctors or medical students sat to read journals and research topics of interest.

Just before seven pm the head librarian approached him.

‘It’s five minutes to closing time Professor Elliot.’

‘Thank you Mary, I’ll get my things together now.’

When Mary continued out of sight behind the stacks on her mission to advise closing time, John stopped pretending to read his book, picked up his small day pack, and let himself into the photocopying room. His suitcase was under the table where he had left it. A large partition was under construction in one corner of the room and on a recent visit he had marked it as a good hiding place. There were no surveillance cameras in the photocopying room unlike other areas of the library; plus the door could be unlocked from the inside. The room was empty as he had expected; therefore he quickly climbed over the table and settled down to wait behind the partition.

Mary returned. After a brief glance around the room, she turned off the two photocopiers, switched off the lights, and locked the door. Her footsteps clicked away on the parquet floor fading into the distance. John watched through the door glass as one by one the library lights were turned off.

The library and the medical school had closed. A general air of quietness spread throughout the building as night fell. Outside the darkened library a few fluorescent tubes lit the corridors and soon the two security guards would start their patrol.

John had scouted their shift routine which started with a sweep of each floor of the medical school, then involved hourly tours outside the building. For the rest of their time they sat at their desk on the ground floor monitoring security cameras which covered the outside of the medical school and the few internal corridors which remained lit. Other cameras such as those inside the medical library were inactivated when their rooms were locked for the night.

Soon he could hear the slow approach of a guard who stopped to test each of the locked doors down the corridor. The library door rattled in its turn before his footsteps disappeared down the stairway at the end of the corridor.

John stood, switched on his small torch, and unwound his cramped body back around the partition. He paused to listen before unlocking the door with a click which sounded like a gunshot in the small room. The unexpected crack froze him in place and he held his breath until he persuaded himself that the sound could not have been heard.

He told himself to relax as he slipped into the main library trailing his suitcase after him. But each time he passed an avenue of high stacks he felt the old primeval dread of dark spaces that had troubled him since he was a child.

At the oncology section he halted, sweating, by the alcove with its three LCD screens. A video camera faced the screens mounted on the wall two metres above floor height. This was fortunate because it meant he could use it and leave his own bulky camera at home. Any camera would work because the image of the future didn’t require the same camera be present in the future. He laid his suitcase flat and began to remove his equipment.

In half an hour he was ready to record. The time scanner lay on the ground powered by an extension cord which snaked away into the darkness to a free electric socket. A new data lead connected to the camera in place of its usual one, which he cut off at floor level. If he had switched the camera on before interrupting its usual lead, the fault would have triggered an alert to the guards at their monitoring station. He hoped this mindless act of petty vandalism would be claimed as yet another example of student misbehaviour.

With his laptop positioned on the table next to the silent library computers, he sat down to take stock. The library seemed to wait, mute and expectant. It was so quiet that he could hear the racing, thudding of his heart. The time scanner lay on the floor, glowing and humming in the dark. He reached over to cover it with a blackout cloth. A second larger blackout sheet covered both himself and his laptop as he sat in the resemblance of an early photographer hiding from the light.

He took a deep breath to steady himself then activated his programme. The calibration sequence ran through until it switched on the camera, the image remaining black inside the library. He keyed in tiny slow time increments as he scrutinised the clock icon on his screen. The library began to move from darkness as a sliver of daylight percolated down from the skylights. He moved forwards faster until he noticed the first flicker of human movement as in an old silent film. Pausing and reversing, he stopped the image which showed a clear picture of Mary the librarian, frozen in time as she made her opening round of the library, at 9.05 am tomorrow morning.

As he moved forwards again, the library became more active. Other figures began to flick to and fro past the oncology section. At precisely 9.29 am tomorrow he slowed down to real-time and waited.

He gave a small, silent whistle of satisfaction when his calibration proved near perfect. At ten seconds past the half hour according to his time icon, a figure came into view beside the computer table. A middle-aged man stood there, with a full head of hair as judged from the camera angle above. Dressed in sensible muted university tweeds, he pulled a wheeled airline case up beside him. The figure glanced from left to right then turned to look directly at the camera before moving away out of view, towards the library exit.

The image fascinated John; he reversed it until he could look at himself as he would be at 9.30am next morning. That part of the plan had already worked. The paused figure looked up at him while John made a critical assessment of his future inexpressive self.

‘It looks like I’ve had a sleepless night which is hardly surprising.’ he thought.

Then he began to wonder why his future face didn’t show any hint of success or failure.

‘Maybe I think it would be the sensible thing to show my past self before he spends a long sleepless night.’

He gave up the struggle to decide future cause and effect. It was time to make his preliminary run forward with the scanner. He rushed through the nights, slowing down during daylight to watch the researchers at work in front of the computers. He soon realised that the central screen gave the clearest image of the three computers and he concentrated on that one from now on.

At one year forward the LED screens changed to larger models, which made his job easier. Then at about seven years forward something odd occurred; the screens flickered and were gone. John slowed and reversed time until he could review the event.

Over the course of two days, technicians removed the computers with their large screens, installed a new table with separated partitions, and set up other equipment of an unrecognisable type. John watched in fascination as a young technician sat down to put on a large headset. He wore a type of helmet and lowered a visor as he faced the blank wall of the partition to manipulate two small levers mounted in the booth. From this period onwards there was nothing that the video camera could show him. John sped to the forward limit of the time scanner which he now knew was about eighteen years. The booths and their curious equipment were gone by then. Figures walked backwards and forwards where the oncology study desk had been, but it appeared that the area was no longer a library.

He paused to study the dress fashion eighteen years into the future, noting with distaste the lurid metallic coloured shirts and dresses which were prevalent. He smiled a wry smile however at the future return of bell bottomed trousers.

Returning once again to the helmeted era, John decided that this period involved a holographic display. The wearer must receive integrated information on the inside of the visor thus dispensing with the need to look at a flat LCD screen. He could admire this glimpse of the future, but it meant that his attempt to read about advances in cancer treatment over the shoulders of researchers would be limited to the next seven years.

It was now midnight, time to make a full recording of those seven years in the hope that the answer would be found in them. Focussing on the central computer, he changed his recording algorithm to exclude the hours of darkness and to record only the times when movement occurred as a researcher sat down to study. He closed off recording at the moment in the future when the screens disappeared.

The speed of the automated recording procedure ran at four hundred times real-time speed; he could now relax and passively monitor its progress. He dozed until the programme stopped at six am giving him ample time to dismantle his apparatus and return to the photocopier room. There was now enough time to drink coffee from his flask, eat his energy bars, and snooze under the table before his watch alarm alerted him. He was well positioned behind the alcove before Mary arrived to unlock the photocopier door.

There was enough activity in the library for him to exit the room unnoticed. It remained only to stop beside the oncology computers at nine thirty am sharp as shown on his watch. He already knew how to look at the video camera before he made his way out.

The morning city traffic had abated as he headed for his car, parked in a discreet alley not far from the library. Even in that short distance the sun's glare forced him to squint and shield his eyes downwards. The intense light together with the noise from the trundling, bumping, suitcase brought on another of his now frequent migraines. He was grateful to climb into his car and crawl to the southern highway home into the countryside.

4.

He found Larry’s car parked at the front gate beside several others. This was a welcome surprise as their son was abroad on essential business; John wasn’t expecting him back in the country for another week.

Inside, Fleur and three friends sat around a large armchair in the lounge which she liked to use when company came. Here she could catch the sunlight through the patio windows. Local gossip engaged the four women. It was good to see Fleur taking an active part in the conversation.

‘How did your project go John?’ asked Fleur. She turned to her group in explanation.

‘John has been at the university working on a secret project. He tells me he will reveal it all soon.’ She forced a weak smile, her wasted face turned in enquiry towards him.

John came forward, kissed her, and put his arms around her thin shoulders to whisper in her ear. ‘You’re right, I have been there. I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can. I promise.’

He could see that Fleur’s friends needed some explanation.

‘I’m working on something that I hope will help Fleur.’ he announced.

The three women displayed brief looks of pity which they quickly disguised. They knew there was nothing he could do. Only Fleur looked at him with such confidence, that he had to turn away to hide his emotion.

‘Dad would you like some coffee?’ Larry called out from the kitchen.

John was glad to leave the women and join Larry who was signalling to him with the coffee pot. He gave his son a quick hug and took the offered cup as they sat side by side on the kitchen stools.

‘It's great to see you Larry; you must have worked hard to get your business finished.’

‘Not really dad. I did the necessary, but no more. I can’t bear to spend too much time away from mum.’ Larry leant closer and lowered his voice. ‘Dad she looks much worse than last month. What do the doctors say?’

‘Your mum is slipping away Larry; she may only have a few more weeks left.’ John’s voice broke.

‘Dad you look tired. Are you getting enough sleep?’

‘I’m working on something that I hope will give me an answer that could help your mum.’

Larry looked concerned. ‘Dad that would be a miracle, but if it helps fill your time that’s OK by me. I just think you should take some time out. There are mum’s friends to help; Gwen, the nurses, and Fiona is coming in from London the day after tomorrow.’

Fiona was taking leave from her job to come home for as long as she needed. Soon all the family would be together again for the last time.

John placed his hands on Larry's shoulders.

‘I know you think I’ve been a little crazy since you mother became ill, but I can’t sit back and do nothing. The doctors have given up. They tried their best and I really hoped their treatments would work, but now I need to help her myself. There will be something I can do. I know it.’ He stood up to leave.

‘Larry would you keep an eye on your mum. I’m going to work in the shed today. It's great to have you home now; I feel better already.’

They hugged