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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Time travel was really relatively simple--until the lawyers got involved. But Elizabeth may have found her own way out.

eBook Publisher: Rosetta Solutions, Inc., Published: 1994
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2002

65 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [224 KB], eReader (PDB) [82 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [59 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [54 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [97 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [125 KB], hiebook (KML) [175 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [113 KB], iSilo (PDB) [50 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [62 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [97 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [86 KB]
Words: 16800
Reading time: 48-67 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Elizabeth sat tightly in her chair a chair ordinarily occupied only by very important people.

The man on the other side of the desk, the senior-most partner of the most prestigious law firm in Washington, DC, had called her in from her little cubbyhole. Why? What horror had she, a mere junior associate, committed that required the personal attention of Barrington Wright? She was going to be fired. She just knew it.

Cocooned in tight invisible armor, Wright peered over at her somberly: "Ms. Gerard, do you know what TM is?"

TM? She thought. What the hell was that? Was she supposed to know? She suspected not. So just tell him the truth. "No, sir. I don't think I've ever heard of it."

She watched his face covertly. Yes, the muscles around his mouth seemed to relax. She had passed some sort of test. She hadn't known what TM was, and for some reason that was good.

He said in a soft monotone, "There are only ten persons in the world with TM clearance. That number includes myself and now, you."

She blinked. They were not about to fire her. Quite the contrary.

"'TM,'" said Wright, watching her, "means time machine."

She knew she heard him clearly, but it made no sense. She waited.

"A client," he said, "has invented a time machine. Theoretically, it works. Our Mr. Pellar prepared and filed a patent application on it." He paused and looked at his watch. "I had expected him to sit in with us, but he has been delayed coming in from the airport. So we'll go ahead with the preliminaries. To continue, the patent office has placed our patent application in interference with another application, earlier filed, and directed to the same invention." He paused and looked over at her.

She nodded. C. Cuthbert Pellar was evidently one of the charter members of this TM club. Pellar the Couth. Wright's clone, they called him but not to his face.

Wright was saying something to her. "Do you follow?"

"Yes, sir. We're junior party. To win the interference, we have to prove that our client is the first inventor."

"And what would that involve?"

"We'd need at least a prior conception, properly confirmed, with a good showing of diligence leading to actual reduction to practice."

"And what if the client can't do any of that?"

"Then somebody should tell him he can't win. At least save him the cost of useless litigation."

"That's good advice, ordinarily. But here it's a bit more complicated. Our client is the Department of Defense."

"And Defense won't let you give up?"

"Exactly. So what do we do now, Ms. Gerard?"

"Find some really close prior art, then move to dissolve the interference, as unpatentable to either party. That way, nobody gets a patent, but DOD will be free to use the invention."

She knew very well they didn't have any "really close prior art," and that somehow she would be involved in remedying the omission. It was beginning to come together.

The intercom buzzed. "Yes?" said Wright, without turning.

"Mr. Pellar, sir," said a disembodied female voice.

"Send him in."

C. Cuthbert Pellar smiled ingratiatingly at the man who could make him partner, frowned remotely at Elizabeth, and took the indicated chair.

"Nothing?" said Wright.

"Nothing, sir. We've searched the entire field of US and foreign patents, and all the scientific literature. We've spent three months and three million dollars looking for a reference to prove the TM is old in the art. We found nothing." He looked over at Elizabeth. His expression said plainly, "And she can't help."

"As I explained earlier," said the older man, "the DOD has examined the curricula vitae of every employee of the firm, including the associates, not only for security reasons, but also looking for special skills." He held up a printout, adjusted his spectacles, and studied the sheet. "Colonel Inman has called my attention to certain interesting facets in Ms. Gerard's background. She got her master's degree in assembling and translating ancient manuscripts. She has stack privileges in major international libraries. She is reasonably fluent in several foreign languages."

"Sir," said Pellar, "I don't understand."

Yeah, thought Elizabeth. Me either.

"Simple," said Wright. "We've exhausted the printed art; now we go farther back into the manuscripts."

"But" began Pellar.

"The client has requested it, Mr. Pellar," said Wright firmly. "Please describe the machine to Ms. Gerard, so that she can go to work."

"Oh, yes, sir. Of course, sir. We can start with the interference count. I quote." he half-closed his eyes and began to rattle away in a rhythmic sing-song. "Apparatus for shifting the space-time axis consisting of (a) silver tubes containing heavy water and positioned to form a tetrahedral framework; (b) a source of EMF adapted to cause an electrical current to flow through said framework; (c) a cubical crystal of uraninite; and (d) a mammal in cerebral electrical contact with said EMF source and said uraninite."

Son-of-a-gun, thought Elizabeth. He's memorized it. And meanwhile, she was thinking ... a tetrahedron? Had she seen something ... somewhere?

Pellar leered at her. "Well? Did you get it?"

He's mad at me already, she thought. The first team spent three million and crapped out. So now the problem is handed over to one lone female junior associate. And the worst is yet to come, Cuthbert, because I do indeed remember something. "Just a minute, please." She let an image form in her mind. Four equilateral triangles made of silver tubes ... Where had she seen this? Something in manuscript. She remembered the strange writing. She ran down a mental list of the major medieval mathematicians. Geber ... Kashi ... Copernicus. No, none of them. How about the minors? Biagio de Ravenna ... Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli ... two of the finest mathematicians of Renaissance Italy, and both had taught the boy Leonardo da Vinci.

Of course.

That's where she had seen the sketch. In a copy of a page from one of Leonardo's many noteBooks. Which one? There were dozens, and they were scattered in libraries all over the world. Yes, she had it now. The quaderno so recently bought by the Library of Congress. "Gentlemen," she said, "your time machine may indeed have been described in the unprinted literature."

The two men stared at her in puzzled silence.

Pellar was the first to move. He looked over at Wright. It was an expressive look, and it said, "You see, Mr. Wright, this is what you get when you bring in a woman."

Elizabeth blushed, and fought the urge to clench her fists. This is the twenty-first century. Why do we still have to put up with this?

"Ms. Gerard," said Wright gently, "would you excuse us for a moment?"

"Of course." She rose from her chair. They had decided she was useless, and they were going to take her off the case before she was ever really on it.

Like hell they were.