A Time Conundrum – Part 4

August 4, 2006

The next morning Bill awoke in his apartment with a broad smile on his face. Last night had been one of the best of his life. Sheila had been a brilliant conversationalist. They had talked until the wee hours of the morning. He had accompanied her back to the house where they chatted some more. They had made plans for the future. For now they would concentrate on their secret project so that all their energy would go towards its completion. Afterwards they would start a life together. With the celebrity and funding that would surely come from bringing back the dinosaurs, they would have all the opportunities to do the research that they both wanted. Their common goal was to make earth a better place to live in.

Bill slowly showered and dressed. He met Sheila in a park near the Institute of Advance Physics. They hugged tenderly. Sven was already at work to finalize the details with Dr. Hillzinger. Sheila escorted Bill through a service entrance. They arrived at her laboratory undetected. They were met at the door by Rudder Rudigast. Technicians were busy working around the large time capsule.

It looked like a giant cylinder with rounded ends resting on a gigantic pancake. It always reminded Bill of a colossal fried egg with a cylindrical yolk. The test pilot said.

“Dr. Blomquist is waiting for you in the office with Dr. Hillzinger. They have some good news for you.”

Sheila turned toward Bill. She said. “It is nice to have good news for a change.” She led Bill to her office’s door.

Behind the glass partition Bill could see the tall Swede discussing emphatically with a short grey haired man. He presumed that the older man was Dr. Hillzinger. Sheila confirmed his suspicion. When she entered the room, she turned toward the man and said.

“Good morning Dr. Hillzinger. It is nice to see you. I hear that you have good news for us.”

The man answered in a raspy voice, the result of a lifetime of too much good living.

“I have located the ideal black hole to deviate your asteroid. With a few more hours of computations, I will have the exact coordinates for the transfer and interaction. My containment equipment should be installed in your time capsule within two days. Now the only thing that I need from you is the rigorous location, in time, of the inter-action, so that we get the results that you want of it.”

Sven put his arm around Bill’s shoulders and brought him in front of a large wall terminal. He punched a few buttons on the control unit and said.

“This is the theoretical results of the asteroid’s interaction with earth, after a close miss. We will have to decide what ecological consequences would best serve our goals. I suggest that we do not create too drastic a change to preserve as much of the habitat as possible, on a large enough scale, to be effective.”

The two men worked for several days on their theoretical model. They finally agreed on the parameters needed to preserve part of the Late Cretaceous ecosystems and end up without too much drastic changes in the modern ones. From these parameters they calculated the precise timing of the interaction with the asteroid. The experiment was scheduled for the following week. In the meantime they would examine all the data and scrutinize the equipment.

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From 1990: A Time Conundrum

The Sass