Read Online TW06 The Khyber Connection NEW by Simon Hawke - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Simon Hawke
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prime minister of Great Britain and led that nation through the Second World War."
"My God," said Andre. "And the programmers missed
that
? How could they?"
Lucas shook his head. "They couldn't. I just can't see it. Even if someone was somehow negligent, the data banks have built in failsafes for vital information. It's been driving me crazy. And you put your finger on it. The subknowledge. I
knew
something was missing, but I couldn't figure out what it was until you said that. I knew about Churchill, but I couldn't figure out why there was a gap. Why did I know about Churchill, but didn't know about him being on this campaign? Because I didn't know it through the subknowledge of my implant education either! I remembered. I just plain remembered about him on my own, because I like to read history. But it's been a while since I've read any British history, or any 20th century history for that matter. I didn't remember completely. It just goes to show you how dependent we are on our subknowledge. And that's the common denominator. There was nothing about Churchill in our mission programming, and neither of us could extract anything about him from our programmed subknowledge because it simply wasn't there. And that's impossible."
"You're right," she said. "It doesn't make sense. It should have been there."
"You still don't understand," he said. "It can't not have been there! I can only think of one possible explanation. A temporal disruption. There isn't any record of Churchill in our subknowledge or in our supplementary mission programming because there was no record of a Winston Churchill as a pivotal figure in history."
"But that doesn't make sense either,". Andre said.
"If that's the case and a disruption occurred that has prevented—or will prevent—Churchill from following his historical template as we know .. . as you know it, then how could you know about it in the first place?"
Lucas stared at her. "You want to run that by me again?
"I'm not even sure what I just said." She shook her head. "What I mean is, if there isn't any historical record of Churchill, then how could you remember reading about him in your history books?"
"I see what you mean," he said. "It has to be an anomaly of Zen physics. Whatever happened that caused Churchill to be wiped from history must have happened after I read about him."
"I'm confused," said Andre. "How could something have happened during his lifetime and yet have taken place after you read about him in the 27th century?"
"You're confused because you never studied Zen physics," Lucas said. "I only have a well-versed layman's knowledge of it. Delaney's the only one I know who's taken the full course, and he said it almost gave him a nervous breakdown. I take that back. Our friend Dr. Darkness understands it. Hell, he could probably teach the course in his sleep. I wish to hell there was some way of getting in touch with him so we could ask him about this. Let me try to follow it through with you. Assume that some action originating in our time, in the 27th century, kicked off a chain of events that led to the disruption. For the sake of argument, let's set up a simple hypothesis. Say somebody clocked out to Minus Time, to this scenario, on the day before we went in for our mission programming. And let's say that someone killed Churchill."
"You'd have a paradoxical situation which would have to be resolved by a disruption," Andre said.
"Right. Up until that someone clocked out to the past in order to cause the disruption, that is, killing Churchill, there was no disruption and Churchill was part of our history. If we assume that the disruption wasn't massive enough to overcome temporal inertia—and frankly, I don't see how Churchill's death wouldn't qualify as a disruption massive enough to cause a timestream split—then temporal inertia wouldn't be overcome. It would simply be affected significantly. You remember the analogy Delaney used, the timestream seen as a river?
"My God," said Andre. "And the programmers missed
that
? How could they?"
Lucas shook his head. "They couldn't. I just can't see it. Even if someone was somehow negligent, the data banks have built in failsafes for vital information. It's been driving me crazy. And you put your finger on it. The subknowledge. I
knew
something was missing, but I couldn't figure out what it was until you said that. I knew about Churchill, but I couldn't figure out why there was a gap. Why did I know about Churchill, but didn't know about him being on this campaign? Because I didn't know it through the subknowledge of my implant education either! I remembered. I just plain remembered about him on my own, because I like to read history. But it's been a while since I've read any British history, or any 20th century history for that matter. I didn't remember completely. It just goes to show you how dependent we are on our subknowledge. And that's the common denominator. There was nothing about Churchill in our mission programming, and neither of us could extract anything about him from our programmed subknowledge because it simply wasn't there. And that's impossible."
"You're right," she said. "It doesn't make sense. It should have been there."
"You still don't understand," he said. "It can't not have been there! I can only think of one possible explanation. A temporal disruption. There isn't any record of Churchill in our subknowledge or in our supplementary mission programming because there was no record of a Winston Churchill as a pivotal figure in history."
"But that doesn't make sense either,". Andre said.
"If that's the case and a disruption occurred that has prevented—or will prevent—Churchill from following his historical template as we know .. . as you know it, then how could you know about it in the first place?"
Lucas stared at her. "You want to run that by me again?
"I'm not even sure what I just said." She shook her head. "What I mean is, if there isn't any historical record of Churchill, then how could you remember reading about him in your history books?"
"I see what you mean," he said. "It has to be an anomaly of Zen physics. Whatever happened that caused Churchill to be wiped from history must have happened after I read about him."
"I'm confused," said Andre. "How could something have happened during his lifetime and yet have taken place after you read about him in the 27th century?"
"You're confused because you never studied Zen physics," Lucas said. "I only have a well-versed layman's knowledge of it. Delaney's the only one I know who's taken the full course, and he said it almost gave him a nervous breakdown. I take that back. Our friend Dr. Darkness understands it. Hell, he could probably teach the course in his sleep. I wish to hell there was some way of getting in touch with him so we could ask him about this. Let me try to follow it through with you. Assume that some action originating in our time, in the 27th century, kicked off a chain of events that led to the disruption. For the sake of argument, let's set up a simple hypothesis. Say somebody clocked out to Minus Time, to this scenario, on the day before we went in for our mission programming. And let's say that someone killed Churchill."
"You'd have a paradoxical situation which would have to be resolved by a disruption," Andre said.
"Right. Up until that someone clocked out to the past in order to cause the disruption, that is, killing Churchill, there was no disruption and Churchill was part of our history. If we assume that the disruption wasn't massive enough to overcome temporal inertia—and frankly, I don't see how Churchill's death wouldn't qualify as a disruption massive enough to cause a timestream split—then temporal inertia wouldn't be overcome. It would simply be affected significantly. You remember the analogy Delaney used, the timestream seen as a river?
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