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Thiotimoline To The Stars
“Same speech, I suppose,” said Ensign Feet wearily.
“Why not?” said Lieutenant Frohorov, closing his eyes and carefully sitting down on the small of his back. “He's given it for fifteen years, once to each graduating class of the Astronautic Academy.”
“Word for word, I'll bet,” said Feet, who had heard it the year before for the first time.
“As far as I can tell. -What a pompous bore! Oh, for a pin that would puncture pretension.”
But the class was filing in now, uniformed and expectant, marching forward, breaking into rows with precision, each man and woman moving to his or her assigned seat to the rhythm of a subdued drumbeat, and then all sitting down to one loud boom.
At that moment Admiral Vernon entered and walked stiffly to the podium.
“Graduating class of '22, welcome! Your school days are over. Your education will now begin.
“You have learned all there is to know about the classic theory of space flight. You have been filled to overflowing with astrophysics and celestial relativistic mechanics. But you have not been told about thiotimoline.
“That's for a very good reason. Telling you about it in class will do you no good. You will have to learn to fly with thiotimoline. It is thiotimoline and that alone that will take you to the stars. With all your book learning, you may still never learn to handle thiotimoline. If so, there will yet be many posts you can fill in the astronautic way of life. Being a pilot will not, however, be one of them.
“I will start you off on this, your graduation day, with the only lecture you will get on the subject. After this, your dealings will thiotimoline will be in flight and we will find out quickly whether you have any talent for it at all.”
The admiral paused, and seemed to be looking from face toface as though he was trying to assay each man's talent to begin with. Then he barked:
“Thiotimoline! First mentioned in 1948, according to legend, by Azimuth or, possibly, Asymptote, who may, very likely, never have existed. There is no record of the original article supposed to have been written by him; merely vague references to it, none earlier than the twenty-first century.
“Serious study began with Almirante, who either discovered thiotimoline, or rediscovered it, if the Azimuth/Asymptote tale is accepted. Almirante worked out the theory of hypersteric hindrance and showed that the molecule of thiotimoline is so distorted that one bond is forced into extension through the temporal dimension into the past; and another into the future.
“Because of the future-extension, thiotimoline can interact with an event that has not yet taken place. It can, for instance, to use the classic example, dissolve in water approximately one second before the water is added.
“Thiotimoline is, of course, a very simple compound, comparatively. It has, indeed, the simplest molecule capable of displaying endochronic properties-that is, the past-future extension. While this makes possible certain unique devices, the true applications of endochronicity had to await the development of more complicated molecules; polymers that combined endochronicity with firm structure.
“Pellagrini was the first to form endochronic resins and plastics, and, twenty years later, Cudahy demonstrated the technique for binding endochronic plastics to metal. It became possible to make large objects endochronic-entire spaceships, for instance.
“Now let us consider what happens when a large structure is endochronic. I will describe it qualitatively only; it is all that is necessary. The theoreticians have it all worked out mathematically, but I have never known a physics-joh
“The small thiotimoline molecule is extraordinarily sensitive to the probabilistic states of the future. If you are certain you are going to add the water, it will dissolve before the water is added. If there is even the slightest doubt in your mind as to whether you will add the water, the thiotimoline will not dissolve until you actually add it.
“The larger the molecule possessing endochronicity, the less sensitive it is to the presence of doubt. It will dissolve, swell, change its electrical properties, or in some way interact with water, even if you are almost certain you may not add the water. But then what if you don't, in actual fact, add the water? The answer is simple. The endochronic structure will move into the future in search of water; not finding it, it will continue to move into the future.
“The effect is very much that of the donkey following the carrot fixed to a stick and held two feet in front of the donkey's nose; except that the endochronic structure is not as smart as the donkey, and never gets tired.
“If an entire ship is endochronic-that is, if endochronic groupings are fixed to the hull at frequent intervals-it is easy to set up a device that will deliver water to key spots in the structure, and yet so arrange that device that although it is always apparently on the point of delivering the water, it never actually does.
“In that case, the endochronic groupings move forward in time, carrying all the ship with it and all the objects on board the ship, including its perso
“Of course, there are no absolutes. The ship is moving forward in time relative to the universe; and this is precisely the same as saying that the universe is moving backward in time relative to the ship. The rate at which the ship is moving forward, or the universe is moving backward, in time, can be adjusted with great delicacy by the necessary modification of the device for adding water. The proper way of doing this can be taught, after a fashion; but it can be applied perfectly only by inborn talent. That is what we will find out about you all; whether you have that talent.”
Again he paused and appraised them. Then he went on, amid perfect silence:
“But what good is it all? Let's consider starflights and review some of the things you have learned in school.
“Stars are incredibly far apart and to travel from one to another, considering the light-speed limit on velocity, takes years; centuries; mille
“To take the original crew to the stars in their own lifetime, freezing techniques may keep them in suspended animation for virtually all the trip. But freezing is a very uncertain procedure, and even if the crew survives and returns home, they will find that many centuries have passed on Earth.
“To take the original crew to the stars in their own lifetime, without freezing them, it is only necessary to accelerate to near-light velocities. Subjective time slows, and it will seem to the crew that it will have taken them only months to make the trip. But time travels at the normal rate for the rest of the universe, and when the crew returns they will find that although they, themselves, haveaged and experienced no more than two months of time, perhaps, the Earth itself will have experienced many centuries.
“In every case, star travel involves enormous duration of time on Earth, even if not to the crew. One must return to Earth, if one returns at all, far into the Earth's future, and this means interstellar travel is not psychologically practical.
“But- But, graduates-”
He peered piercingly at them and said in a low, tense voice, “ If we use an endochronic ship, we can match the time-dilatation effect exactly with the endochronic effect. While the ship travels through space at enormous velocity, and experiences a large slowdown in rate of experienced time, the endochronic effect is moving the universe back in time with respect to the ship. Properly handled, when the ship returns to Earth, with the crew having experienced, say, only two months of duration, the entire universe will have likewise experienced only two months' duration. At last, interstellar travel became practical.