Blind Quest: Deceived by Experience

By Bert Tucker Jr.

Much impressed with the scope of your story, kept me entranced, a compelling and intriguing read, ability to mingle past, present and future is a rear trait.
LTG David Palmer Superintendent West Point

In an era when terrorist actions have become increasingly uncontrollable, seven contemporaries travel back to the days of the early twentieth century carrying twenty-first century knowledge, technology, and experience to influence historical leaders and thus change the course of humanity.

Blind Quest is an historical work of science fiction that illustrates how poorly equipped the people of 1905 were to meet emerging global challenges. This expansive adventure not only recounts the state of the world in 1905, but also of the condition of humankind through the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries. It places historic events and conditions in perspective as the fictional characters interact with that history and make it real to the reader.

Traveling with the experience of knowing the future of ten later decades, General Charles Anderson and his six colleagues are brought face-to-face with real historical personalities of the last century. As their paths cross, the story is woven into an exciting adventure traversing the country and encountering the visionary and the tyrants of days gone by.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 27, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450241700

Bert Tucker Jr.

BERT TUCKER a former military airplane pilot, helicopter pilot, and engineer he graduated from West Point with a bachelor’s degree and holds a master’s degree in physics from Louisiana State University. He now chairs ‘West Point Leadership and Ethics Conferences’ presented by academy officers, graduates and cadets for high school faculty and students in New York and New Jersey.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Historical Introduction

Chapter 1

Future Conflict

Chapter 2

Voyage into the Past

Chapter 3

Touchdown

Chapter 4

Intentions

Chapter 5

Reaching Out

Chapter 6

Initial Contact

Chapter 7

First Credibility

Chapter 8

Validation

Chapter 9

A Medical Miracle

Chapter 10

Medical Support

Chapter 11

First Explanation

Chapter 12

Associated Press

Chapter 13

Loose Ends

Chapter 14

Presidential Contact

Chapter 15

Conversations

Chapter 16

Show Time

Chapter 17

Brass Tacks

Chapter 18

Another Show

Chapter 19

Journey by Land

Chapter 20

Molly Brown

Chapter 21

Cowboy and Ragtime

Chapter 22

Taft, Root and the Press

Chapter 23

The Scientists: Michelson, Millikan, Hubble, and Recruits

Chapter 24

The Jungle

Chapter 25

Susan B. Anthony

Chapter 26

West Point

Chapter 27

New York City

Chapter 28

The Tycoons

Chapter 29

Columbia Meets Columbia

Chapter 30

George M. Cohan

Chapter 31

Inventors

Chapter 32

Pharmaceuticals

Chapter 33

Struggle

Chapter 34

Press Conference

Chapter 35

Washington DC

Chapter 36

The Roosevelt Family

Chapter 37

Cabinet Lunch

Chapter 38

Congressional Leaders

Chapter 39

Diplomats

Chapter 40

Congress in Session

Chapter 41

Going to Work

Chapter 42

Surgeon General

Chapter 43

Cannon and Frye

Chapter 44

Orville and Wilbur

Chapter 45

New York Again

Chapter 46

Communications

Chapter 47

Tycoons Again

Chapter 48

Washington Events

Chapter 49

Wrap Up in New York

Chapter 50

Shaking It Out

Chapter 51

American Forest Conference

Chapter 52

American Medical Association

Chapter 53

The Ghetto Tour

Chapter 54

Mark Twain

Chapter 55

Closing the Deals

Chapter 56

American Physical Society

Chapter 57

Sagamore Hill

Afterword

Modern Characters in Historical Setting

Author’s Biography

Acknowledgments

Referenced material is taken heavily from other sources and in large measure those are direct quotes from the apparent speaker. The part that was directly quoted from a source in my original was in italics to set it apart. My publisher and editor have removed those italics, telling me they are not necessary and are distracting to the reader.

I have interwoven those quotes into conversations in my story. However, without italics I have no way to show where the author’s words stop and where the historical figure’s words begin. Adding quotation marks within conversations already in quotation marks leads to confusion. Therefore please understand that sections that are footnoted most often do contain material where the historical figure is directly quoted in the original.

Material that is inset and footnoted is a block of material taken directly from a source in its entirety.

Most references are in the public domain (published before 1923) or a quote from before 1923 reported by someone else in a more recent publication, for example, John Muir’s extended speech and Theodore Roosevelt’s extended speech before the Forest Conference.

Numerous and often extended direct quotes are taken from autobiographies, biographies, and histories.

Organizing the story in this intermingled format makes the story much more readable. The endnotes are provided, but only touch the surface. The historical characters are represented throughout the story, taking actions and making statements that are entirely fictional. There is an enormous treasury of books by and about Theodore Roosevelt. I have a set of his works and many out-of-print books by others. I have read quite a bit of this material but make no claim to have researched exhaustively. The endnotes give credit where I have been able to construct a link, but this is a novel, not a research work, so please forgive any oversights. I’m most willing to rectify acknowledgment oversights in subsequent printings of this book.

Amy Verone, curator of the Sagamore Hill Historic Site for the National Park Service, was exceedingly helpful when in 2000, she reviewed the manuscript, searching for out-of-character depictions of Theodore Roosevelt, and made corrections. Roosevelt did not use vulgarity, much less profanity, and he did not smoke. He was never called Teddy to his face. He was called Teedie by intimates. Ms. Verone provided information about the Roosevelt family and showed me around the Sagamore Hill properties, which included Roosevelt’s remarkable collection of preserved animals within the house.

This is a second printing following substantial editing. The last three chapters about meeting Joel Chandler Harris, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver, and where the fictional character, Charles Anderson, meets his ancestors were moved to begin the sequel, Blind Quest: Avoiding Pitfalls.

The author is deeply indebted to the editor for many corrections having to do with style and punctuation as well as many suggestions on presentation.

Preface

This story seeks to provide the reader with new perspectives. This is history from a futuristic view. It is in fictional form to bring out the human influence. There is much real history inserted to keep the reader focused during his journey.

The reason for this story is to show how poorly 19th century life experiences prepared these people for 20th century challenges. The goal of the moderns is to influence public perceptions and thus to steer behavior away from impending catastrophes. Thus we see how with hindsight the past century could have been much less hostile. It places the decisions and actions that actually occurred into perspective.

So you see, this is not just a fantasy historical story, somewhat like a novel. It is teaching the people of today about the mistakes and missed opportunities of the past. It employs about sixty genuine historical people who often speak their own actual words from autobiographies, biographies and speeches. That alone would be terribly dry. The moderns make the story come alive by participating in fictional conversations and activities with the historical characters. This story in some ways employs modern-day people as moderators. The trick is to make the story line and the quotes fold smoothly together. The quotes from historical characters are attributed to sources in many footnotes here and in the sequel, Blind Quest: Avoiding Pitfalls.

This book is something new, a hybrid, as with automobiles having both internal combustion and electrical power sources. In this case real historical personalities and experiences are intermixed with fictional characters and events. This is NOT a novel in the classical sense and it certainly is not a history in the pure factual sense. Booksellers will not have a place to catalog it. Editors throw a fit. Reviewers will not be able to judge its worth by normal standards. This approach seeks to encourage the reader to question conventional histories.

Most importantly, the 20th century is THE century of change in virtually every aspect of life and science / technology. This story repeatedly contrasts the conditions at the beginning of the century to events that would normally develop during the course of the century. This is a history in the sense that there are many, sometimes voluminous quotes from historical characters. This is an historical novel in that there are seven modern characters and many historical characters that follow a plot with many challenges. That is to say, this form of writing is a hybrid that connects real past with real future, creating a new perception of what might have been.

Ideas are what make change possible. Enhanced communications make change probable. Perceptions give life to ideas. This is a story where the moderns pollinate the past with ideas, changing public perceptions before their time, and perhaps resulting in a better wishful future for the world.

So while you may be disconnected from historical reality you should not let your preconceptions mislead you. ‘Historians’ often distill and remove the essence of what is actually happening and how real people of the time saw their experiences. Be guided by the many quotations to find real history.

This story takes excerpts from antiquarian non-fiction materials in the author’s library mainly from before 1905. These actual words and actual experiences restore the true character of the time. The people of 1905 see their world through their experiences. Some of the historical characters state views in their writings or speeches quoted here, that are politically incorrect today, but that is how it really was. What these characters tell us was real despite what we have been taught to believe. Their quotes reflect their world and the modern characters that interact with them must live in that world.

One obvious disconnect with the modern world is the common use of ‘Negro’ when referring to African-Americans. That word is used throughout this story, with no offense intended. Both Booker T. Washington and Joel Chandler Harris describe a world where slave and master often lived together in harmony.

Many historians consider Theodore Roosevelt to have been the first modern president. He exploded onto the political arena out of nowhere. His perceptions and actions were way ahead of his time.

The fictional characters allow a framework for encountering the historical characters and the inclusion of about eighty actual quotations. The fictional characters also provide commentary relevant to their time (and our time) while experiencing the world of 1905.

Theodore Roosevelt is the sounding board for the duration of the story. In the first part of the book, considerable dialogue between Roosevelt and the fictional characters contrasts the early twentieth century (where the story takes place) with the early twenty-first century (from which the time travelers have come). The historical characters represent 1905 during which the fictional characters tell the story of the future to the people of 1905 in conversations and motion pictures.

The roots of many of the problems that shall plague the 20th century and into the 21st already existed in 1905. The fictional characters must discover the truth of these problems and guide matters toward solutions. That is the struggle as this story progresses. These problems involve the real historical characters so much of the dramatic interplay is between the modern with the historical characters.

But to make this narrative interesting it must be presented in a realistic manner. For example, the medical emphasis at the beginning provides a positive introduction for the fictional characters into the historical scene.

The first few chapters are intended to orient the reader. The first part of the story introduces Theodore Roosevelt and many other historical characters. Some historical characters play significant fictional roles in order to expand the reach of the fictional characters. Examples are young Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall, Harry Truman, and George Washington Goethals (Panama Canal).

The seven modern-day people are transported to 1905 to head off a global nuclear terrorist war being fought in the time from which they come, the early 21st century, TODAY. That could have been accomplished at least in part by preventing the Jewish holocaust and by locating a homeland for the Jews physically distant from their ancient rivalries with the Moslems. You must read the story to see how that is advanced.

Historical Introduction

This introduction is conventional history. It sets the historical stage with actual events leading up to the arrival of the modern-day time travelers in the story.

Coming after the Colonial era and the Industrial Revolution, those who lived in 1905 were the first generation in a new world where the experiences of the past had little to do with the future. Instead of sailing ships, there were now steamships. High-speed railroad trains moved people and freight in place of barges pulled by mules along narrow canals. Instead of communicating through the services of the Pony Express, people used the telegraph and telephone. Automobiles and autobuses replaced the stage coach and horses as means of transportation. The plantation slaves were replaced by the economic slaves of the industrial barons. Multi-barrel Gatling guns replaced single-shot rifles, and flying machines replaced hot-air balloons. Those who once cut only enough trees for a cabin or two stripped the forests and poisoned the land and water.

In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt was president, and history was in the making. The Panama Canal was in the early stages of construction. Workers were literally in combat with the owners of mills and factories. Russia and Japan were at war. The European colonial powers, all monarchies except France, were armed to the teeth and looking for an excuse to fight. Marxist Communism was on the rise. Tycoons had accumulated great wealth in the Industrial Revolution, and they dominated the American economy and the American political scene.

America and the world were in transition. The United States had consolidated its position as the dominant political and economic force in North America, but not the world. America’s enormous space, natural resources, growing population, inventiveness, and industrial genius were changing its relationships with the other nations of the world.

It was a time when the quickest transport to the other continents was by ship. A voyage to Europe took more than a week, even in the large, new steamships of the day. Telephones were new and primitive, although telegraphic communications had been around for a half century.

The political leaders had matured in another era. They saw their world through their youthful experiences. They had great difficulty understanding the impact of the new technologies or their increasing influence upon daily life.

Theodore Roosevelt’s face would become the fourth on Mount Rushmore … perhaps Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. He was changing America at a crucial time. While he had been a warrior, he was not fighting a military conflict or forming a new nation. He was reforming a nation and carrying it forward toward a global destiny, almost single-handedly. When asked of his significance, he stated that he was a common man who worked harder at it than most.

Building the Panama Canal was the big American event of that era. While the completion of the first intercontinental railroad helped unite the country politically, the Panama Canal would go a long way toward uniting the country economically and greatly increase the ability of the U.S. Navy to defend the nation’s shores.

Finding a shorter way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans had been a dream for centuries. Explorers, even Lewis and Clark, had failed in their attempt to find a Northwest Passage. The only passageway between the oceans was around the southern tip of Chile’s Tierra del Fuego and through the hazardous Strait of Magellan. This made the distance by water from the east coast of the United States to the west coast extremely long. Beyond this, it took far too long to reinforce an American fleet from one ocean to another. A canal for ocean-going ships through Panama or Nicaragua was the obvious, if very expensive, solution.

On the world scene in 1905, the Russians had just opened the Trans-Siberian Railway all of the way to Vladivostok on the Siberian Pacific coast. But the Russians were in trouble. On February 8, 1904, after territorial negotiations with Russia had failed, the Japanese launched a successful naval surprise attack on the Russian fleet at anchor in Port Arthur, Manchuria. This began the Russo-Japanese War. It was just thirty-seven years later that the Japanese were to employ the same strategy against the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. On January 1, 1905, Port Arthur in Manchuria was surrendered to the Japanese as the Russian Army met defeat after defeat.

Things would only get worse for the Russians. Czar Nicholas II had dispatched his Baltic Fleet to the war zone, but it would take the fleet considerable time to reach its destination down the Atlantic Ocean, around Cape Horn at the southern tip of Africa, across the Indian Ocean, and then across the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the Japanese had defeated the Russians in the Battle of Mukden in March, with the Russians suffering seventy thousand casualties. This experience made Russia the first European country to be humbled in combat by an Oriental country and humbled the czar before his European counterparts.

The news was even grimmer for Czar Nicholas at home. Some seventy-five thousand workers held a militant strike on January 19, and some five hundred workers were killed in another strike on January 22. The omnipotent power of the Russian monarch was threatened. On January 25, he promised reforms. On February 18, an assassin’s bomb killed Grand Duke Sergei in Moscow. On March 3, the Czar had agreed to the establishment of a Consultative Assembly.

Labor insurgence was common around the world. In the United States, militant labor unions demanded some of the fruits of their work. Their purpose was not just to seek improvements in the lot of labor, but to foment Socialists and Communists who proclaimed labor should own and manage the companies. There appeared little room for compromise. The owners were individuals who ran their companies as fiefdoms. They paid little in wages to those who earned them riches and palatial mansions.

Many of these tycoons of industry were actually worse tyrants than the former slave owners of the old South. They drove their workers to exhaustion and deeply into debt at company-owned stores. They hired small armies of thugs to keep their workers in line. At one point, there was a small war in Pittsburgh when the owners actually laid siege to their own steel mill while it was held by armed workers.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court delivered a decision on January 30, written by a relatively new justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, making a landmark decision against Swift & Co. for acting in restraint of trade. However, in a subsequent decision on April 17, the Supreme Court found the states could not set maximum work hours. The case was brought on appeal against New York, which had passed a law that bakery workers could not be made to work more than sixty hours per week or an average of ten hours per day. Note that workers at that time worked full time on Saturdays.

In 1905, Roosevelt was facing challenges and doing what he thought was right. He was extremely popular and was using that popularity to press issues many older and conservative politicians would oppose. He had risen to the presidency by happenstance. In the summer of 1898, he had gained enormous public stature from his military daring. During the Spanish-American War, he personally led the charge of his Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in Spanish Cuba. In the fall of 1898, his newfound popularity catapulted him into the governorship of New York for a two-year term.

In 1900, his home-state Republican political leader, Senator Thomas Platt, pushed TR into running for the vice presidency with incumbent President William McKinley with the intention of preventing him from running for reelection as the New York governor. McKinley was not much of a personal campaigner. Roosevelt was, and through his efforts, they won.

On September 6, McKinley was shot by an assassin, Leon Czolgosz, at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition. McKinley had appeared to be recovering. However, his condition took a turn for the worse on the thirteenth, and he died early on the fourteenth. With this chain of unlikely events, TR arrived in the White House without excessive political baggage. Until that time, no vice president who had succeeded to the presidency had ever been elected president on his own. On November 8, 1904, Roosevelt won the presidency in his own right in a landslide victory.

On election night he told his wife, Edith, I have won the greatest popular majority and the greatest electoral majority ever given a candidate for president. He wrote his son, Kermit, I’m stunned by this overwhelming victory we have won. I had no conception that such a thing was possible. I thought it probable we should win, but was quite prepared to be defeated, and of course, had not the slightest idea that there was such a tidal wave. The elated president took his wife aside to proclaim, My dear, I’m no longer a political accident.[1]

In those days, presidential inaugurations came in early March. Roosevelt was inaugurated in his own right on March 4, 1905. In his inaugural address, he pursued his familiar theme. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; we can shirk neither. He dwelt upon the need for "self reliance and individual initiative." He also recognized that accumulation of great wealth was a problem in itself. He carried the mandate of the people and could act from his own conscience.

Roosevelt was an outdoorsman. He was a conservationist in that he wanted to preserve what he enjoyed. It may seem contradictory today, but Roosevelt felt no reluctance against hunting wildlife when there was so much of it around. Animals were not so much furry friends to him as part of the natural scene. Predators were particularly suitable as human prey since they were the enemies of ranchers. TR had been a rancher. Wolves attacked and ate sheep and calves, and that made them the enemy. Bear were seen as worthy opponents, omnivores who could and would attack and kill the hunter. To hunt bear was seen as the ultimate North American adventure.

In early April 1905, Roosevelt took a personal trip for relaxation, his annual pilgrimage to his beloved Rough Riders reunion in San Antonio, Texas. He then headed north and west, indulging himself in his vigorous life, in hunting. From Colorado Springs, Colorado, on April 14, he wrote to his son Kermit:

Then came the five days of wolf hunting in Oklahoma, and this was unalloyed pleasure.… General Young, Dr. Lambert, and Roly Fortesque were each in his own way just the nicest companions imaginable, my Texas hosts were too kind and friendly, and open hearted for anything. The [hunting party] got seventeen wolves, three coons, and any number of rattlesnakes. I was in at the death of eleven wolves. I never took part in a run which ended in the death of a wolf without getting through the run in time to see the death. It was tremendous galloping over the cut banks, prairie dog towns, flats, creek bottoms, everything.

One run was nine miles long and I was the only man in at the finish except the professional wolf-hunter Abernethy, who is really a wonderful fellow, catching the wolves alive by thrusting his gloved hands down between their jaws so that they cannot bite. He caught one wolf alive, tied up this wolf, and then held it on his saddle, followed his dogs in a seven mile run and helped kill another wolf.

We were in the saddle eight or nine hours every day and I’m very glad to have thirty-six hours’ rest on the [rail] cars before starting on my Colorado bear hunt.[2]

Chapter 1

Future Conflict

On September 11, 2001, Muslim Arabs had hijacked four commercial airliners intending to crash them into prominent buildings in the United States. That date became synonymous with treachery. Everyone would remember when both of the World Trade Center towers crashed to the ground in flames… when almost three thousand innocent souls perished. Everyone demanded a powerful response.

It was now 2012. Before retiring, General Charles Anderson had commanded the NATO forces in Europe. He didn’t bother to glance up at the imposing face of the White House as his driver received clearance to pass through its gate. This was not his first meeting with a president. From 2005 to 2008, he had served as the Director for Recovery Planning. His job then was to anticipate the unthinkable, an attack on the United States using weapons of mass destruction. He sighed then ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair.

Anderson met the secretary of defense at the check point entrance to the West Wing of the White House. They were escorted to the Oval Office immediately. The secretary of homeland security and the national security advisor joined them.

Entrance to the Oval Office always had a pronounced effect on visitors. Anderson was no exception. The president greeted each of them and they were seated. The President turned directly to Anderson.

General, you have a reputation that I hope is well deserved. I trust that you are up to date on our situation. I need your assessment and your recommendations.

"Mr. President, I am not here to second guess your field commanders. I can only confirm that the situation is extremely dangerous. While there have been no successful attacks on the American homeland so far, I see that as a strategic decision by the enemy. They know that any attack here like 9/11 would certainly bring heavy handed action against them. They want anti-war movement sentiment to have time in order to weaken your ability to bring maximum forces against them.

"Homeland security at best can protect only our most critically exposed infrastructure resources and large population centers. We are an enormous country with over three hundred million in population and over three million contiguous square miles that encompass far too many potential targets. Other attacks like nine eleven, even many of them, cannot seriously injure our country.

Your real risk is that the terrorists could use weapons of mass destruction, WMD. You know that. Your risk there is that many such weapons could be smuggled into the United States and secreted in target areas. We cannot effectively disperse our population and we cannot effectively shield entire power grids, highways, and railroads. Your best hope is that any plot to use WMD will be discovered in time and certainly that it would not be part of a coordinated attack.

General, What can we do beyond our present approach?

Anderson had not expected these questions. His assignment was defensive.

"Mr. President, warfare by its nature is an aggressive business. Never be frugal in your resources when committing to such a course of action. Either give it everything you have or stay out. You cannot tweak your strategy from failure to success and that is the position you are in now. The war effort has little public support, and that is a tragedy considering the most recent successes and the consequences you face. Only the failed attempts to crash aircraft and to explode an automobile in Times Square keeps the public sympathetic to our need for action.

Beyond that, if you cannot build an airtight defense then you must think about recovery in the event of an attack.

General Anderson, there we are caught between a rock and a hard place. If we prepare areas with survival supplies then the public could well panic. We certainly can’t afford to have that happen.

Anderson was very frightened by the prospect of terrorist-initiated WMD war. He was looking for a way out if matters got out of control.

Sir, I did set a project into motion many years ago that could become your hail Mary" last hope in the event of a nationwide WMD attack. NASA has continued this project. A team of scientists has been conducting experiments in time travel into the past. I know that sounds like speculative science fiction, but these people have demonstrated remarkable success.

I recently visited the project site and observed tests that actually moved objects through time. I’ve brought Dr. Robert Hussey here today. He is the one leading the project. May he join us?

The president seemed taken aback. Still he nodded agreement. He welcomed the scientist.

Dr. Hussey, I understand you’re exploring what can only be called extreme methods. If it were not for General Anderson I would have you taken out of here in a straitjacket.

Hussey expected such incredulity. "Sir, I was not looking for time travel. The prospects fell out of my work in string theory. I just followed a mathematical trail and read the tea leaves.

I’m working in yet another perspective of science in explaining our natural world. I’ve developed a theory, and my colleagues have verified what that theory appears to tell us. Normally, this would be published. Others in my field would have a chance to criticize my work, and experimentalists would seek a way to test the consequences.

The president turned to General Anderson. Do you agree with all of this?

Sir, this is very new science, and the mathematics is totally foreign to me. Dr. Hussey and two other very knowledgeable experts agree not only on the concept of the theory, but the mathematical verification. The mathematical basis is confirmed.

What do you recommend?

Anderson continued. Turning this theory from concept to practical application was and is a long shot. We needed to conduct experimental tests to confirm or deny the theoretical predictions. We now have experimental confirmation, but we must turn this into a practical device. We also must determine how we want to use that device once we have it in hand.

OK. I’m going to bring my national science advisor into this. He’ll work with NASA and the scientists.

Anderson left the White House feeling distressed. This was still a long shot and even then would be used only after his world would be in chaos. How had things gone so wrong?

Hussey and his team had made considerable progress with time transport, including the ability to move small objects through infinitesimal time intervals, then to move larger objects and very small plants and animals for slightly longer periods of time.

Anderson, Hussey, the NASA administrator, the national security advisor, and the national science advisor conferred and Hussey made his presentation.

"We have a scale-up proposal. The problem is that our everyday world changes with time, particularly celestial bodies. If we send something through time it will find the universe around it has changed. That means to send anything for any substantial amount of time, the device that moves it must also move through time.

"I won’t explain the details, but the only practical way for us to move through substantial amounts of time requires that we position ourselves as closely as possible to one of the two LaGrange points determined by the gravitational fields of the earth and the moon.

Moving through much time requires us to conduct this time transfer within a spaceship. We think it would be possible to time travel a loaded space shuttle with crew as much as a century.

Why would you want to do that, or is that obvious, a desire to change the future if the present gets out of control?

Chuck Anderson took a deep breath. That’s the idea. We send a team into the past, but the decision must be made as to how far into the past and to select the mission approach and the team.

There was another White House meeting. The science advisor sensed using time travel would be irreversible. The President trusted Anderson implicitly. Would you bet your own life on this?

Sir, I expect you would want a younger person.

I would want a person whom I knew would get the job done. That sounds like you. Furthermore, you know all of the particulars.

I would go if Dr. Hussey came along to make everything work properly.

The president turned to them both. Then I suggest you both pray for peace.

Anderson smiled grimly. "Sir, I pray for peace every day.

We need authority to take over a space shuttle and give Dr. Hussey permission to install his equipment and make necessary alterations. NASA will need to establish a mission organization with all needed personnel and equipment.

The president approved. No one is to know of this project. Even those working with it must not know more than is absolutely essential. This is our equivalent of the Manhattan Project. The meeting broke up.

Anderson continued the discussion with the NASA administrator, Andrew Powell. Anderson broke the ice.

Can you swing this in a reasonable period of time?

Powell responded, Yes, but you know that despite Hussey’s tests we have no way to determine whether it can really do what you want for longer time jumps.

"Yes, I share that uncertainty, but I really have a bad feeling about the terrorists. We have convincing information that Iran has nuclear weapons and can deliver them to Europe. The terrorists have the ability to produce dirty atomic bombs for as little as ten million dollars each. They are manic.

That brings us to the next step. We need two astronaut-pilots. Have you considered who might be suitable?

I have about a dozen who could do the job. The problem is that the mission will have them leaving us permanently, and I do not know how many would be willing to do that.

I’ll be selecting a crew of seven, including Hussey and myself. We’ve been considering who to select. Six of those, excluding myself, must be proven scientist-engineers in critical fields. Those fields are astrophysics and planetary geology for the two pilots. We also want a medical doctor, a pharmacologist, an electronics engineer, and a materials engineer. Hussey will double as the electronics engineer.

Well, I have two young men who are relatively new in our program, and both are single. One is African-American and a navy man. The other is a civilian. They fit your needs, but they are not aware of your project. I suggest you come down to Houston, and we can talk this over with them.

Chuck was in Houston the next morning. Powell had called in the two astronauts along with Hussey and his NASA astronaut-training team. They were seated in a secure area around a conference table. Powell provided the introductory orientation.

General Anderson, please meet Commander Neal Collins and Dr. John White. General Anderson will give you some background on a radical new mission. Then Dr. Hussey will present something of his recent work. Dr. Hussey has developed an extraordinary new device we will be installing in one of our shuttles. We have recommended you two for a shuttle mission that goes far beyond anything ever attempted. This mission and what we shall discuss requires the highest level of security clearance.

Anderson then spoke directly to the astronauts. "Commander Collins and Dr. White, this mission is prompted by the deteriorating international situation. This mission will be executed only if the terrorists make extensive WMD attacks on the United States, killing very large numbers of our citizens and destroying our national viability. In other words, this is a radical move that will be taken only if we have no conventional means of national survival.

Dr. Hussey has a proven method of time travel. Yes, that sounds like science fiction, but he has proven equipment that sends miniscule animals, plants, and small objects back in time for extremely short intervals of time. This mission would need to send a loaded space shuttle and crew back a much longer interval of time, far enough to make a real difference once they arrive. Dr. Hussey and I would be in the crew. There would be three others. We could be going back to a time before any of us were born.

Hussey had been watching the two prospects. They didn’t react at all for a few minutes. Then they became very suspicious. Hussey continued. "Our theory shows that we must be in space as we travel through time. The space mission has a number of parts, including the launch to orbit, the move to the desired location, the transfer through time, the move to low orbit, and then the landing.

"There are three prospective destination times we are considering. Those are 1989 after the fall of Soviet Communism and before the first Persian Gulf War, the mid-1920s before the rise of Hitler and the Japanese invasion of China, and the turn of the twentieth century, before World War I, and when our modern technology would appear magical. All other times would place us in the middle of the Cold War, the Second World War, the First World War, or other times that would prevent us from doing much good. The middle of the Theodore Roosevelt presidency would be the most opportune, but it would be the longest leap with the increased danger that implies.

"This would be a one-way trip. We would be changing the future. We would not be reborn, and the theory does not provide means for a forward movement through time. You would leave your family and friends permanently, but remember we would not be doing this unless there were the direst of conditions here when we made our move.

You should notice that Dr. Hussey and I would place ourselves at equal risk with you.

Commander Collins responded. Are you sure you want to take a black man back to a time of pervasive racism?

Anderson responded. "Yes, we would organize as a working team in the past. You could act as our chief of staff and be kept somewhat in the background. However, we would include you wherever we go as a group, and we would stand totally behind you. You would become the role model for inclusion of African Americans in the society of that day.

We want to also include at least one woman, perhaps the doctor. If so, she would also become a role model and speak by her actions for women’s equality.

John White spoke up. I know a woman who should fit perfectly, if she wished to join us. We are very good friends.

Anderson smiled knowingly. "You must not speak to anyone of this project. We must identify the other members of the team and bring you together for training. We do not know how international events may develop, so we must imagine the worst and work very hard to prepare ourselves, the shuttle, and the equipment we will need. Getting the team together and determining our target arrival time are the most critical.

We will expedite this project, assuming we have only a year or less to prepare.

John brought home the news to Emily Cromwell. They were both in their early thirties and both very athletic. John and Emily had lived together for nearly two years. John had moved up the NASA ladder and had served twice as shuttle copilot. He was tall, dashing, and focused toward his work. For that reason he really enjoyed having Emily who was just past her residency in surgery at the large Houston medical center. She was brilliant and had a memory that was phenomenal. She was relatively tall herself, quite attractive, and brunette. They were very close to formalizing their relationship with marriage. They talked over whether to take the time plunge. Their adventuresome personalities drew them into their decision.

The three new prospective crew members were interviewed and selected. Emily was White’s recommendation for the medical doctor spot, Dr. Will Hoffman was the pharmacologist, and Dr. Jesse Wall was their new expert in materials production and applications. Hoffman and Wall joined the others in Houston for the duration. Anderson would split his time with Washington.

Their first group meeting was very different from any before. Anderson spoke.

"Please take a good look at those around you, the prospective shuttle crew and more. The technology we will be using is untested at this scale. This is a long shot. Even the best projects in new technology do not work without a lot of testing, and even then, they are very likely to fail. Mix travel through space and time with landing on an unprepared site, and we are at extreme risk of failure. If we fail, then we die!

"On the other hand, we would not be going if staying here was an acceptable option. I have been working for many years on how to save as many people as possible in the event of an extensive WMD attack, so we are not abandoning the present.

"What we have here is the ultimate, extreme, save-the-world scenario with three alternatives. In all three cases we appear out of nowhere at another time, contact the American government, and seek to change the course of history. Our ship is our biggest playing card. It clearly identifies us. We are all experts in our fields, and we will be carrying an enormous library of digital information we can use to perform technological miracles. We will also have very advanced equipment.

"The three possible time targets are 1989, 1924, and 1905. The arguments against these times are that 1989 is on the threshold of the Persian Gulf War, and the terrorist movements are already active. The seeds of World War II are sown by 1924 and the Communists have already taken over Russia. That is not a preferred choice. The problems in 1905 are left over from slavery, colonialism, and the Industrial Revolution. Those would be balanced by the enormous technological advantage the team would have to impress the people of that time.