“What is this? Who are they?”
Einstein sighed deeply. “I come here every now and then and every time I hope they have escaped. But nothing has happened yet, I am afraid.”
“Is this Benjamin Harris and Peter Parson?” I asked.
Professor Albert Einstein nodded. “I am afraid so, my dear.”
“What happened to them?”
“They froze in time. Their bodies became frozen. I tried to put them somewhere warm to begin with but that didn’t help and it was hard to find a deserted area with no people. So I chose this place instead. Sometimes I chop off some of the ice to make the block smaller, but it is always the same when I return. The fluid in their bodies is completely stiff and we haven’t found a way to thaw it.”
“But how … why?”
“They became obsessed with time travel. They kept going back and forth in time. Only by a few minutes and seconds, but because they tried to improve their time again and again without taking breaks, eventually they somehow managed to freeze time. And themselves.” Einstein touched the ice with the palm of his hand. “I have no idea how to get them out of there.”
“But what about Salathiel or Rahmiel or another Angel. Can’t they help them?”
“I am afraid not. See, Benjamin and Peter became greedy, they thought too highly of themselves and thought that they could be stronger and more powerful than the Angels. They became obsessed and they didn’t listen as Salathiel and Rahmiel warned them that this would happen. Instead they listened to the wrong voices and let evil emotions devour them from the inside. It became like poison in their minds. They were jealous of the Angels and wanted to be as good as them. Eventually the poison weakened their hearts. And you know what happens to a weak heart. It becomes a way for Satan to enter. And once that happens, Angels can’t help you any longer. You become unreachable.”
I swallowed hard again. This was quite the eye opener to me. I had to be careful. “How … How do I avoid this from happening to me?”
“I am no expert in that area, but I do know that you have to proceed with caution. You cannot ignore this gift that has been given to you. But you must guard your heart. Be careful what you think.”
When we left the ice blocks in the glacier I looked back one more time at the tormented faces. What went on inside of them? I kept thinking. Were their minds frozen as well? Or were they aware of what was going on outside of the ice block, but just couldn’t tell us? It was really scary and I suddenly had the deepest respect for my new ability. It was not something I could toy with. It was only to be used with caution.
But even after seeing this, I was still determined to know more. I wanted to know what I was doing and I wanted to be able to use it, to handle it—maybe even more than ever. I needed to control this so it wouldn’t control me. When we left the glacier and Antarctica with all its ice and coldness, Professor Einstein spoke to me again.
“I am not saying you cannot use your ability to fly back in time,” he said. “By all means I want you to explore it. I am just telling you to be careful. Don’t do it for the wrong reasons.”
“I get that now, thanks. But what I really want to know is how can I control it? How do I—say—go back in time and reach a certain date, for example.”
Einstein smiled at me. “Now that my dear is something I think you and I should work on. With my measuring instruments and scientific skills and your ability to fly fast, I am sure we can find a way.” He turned his head and looked at me. “Do you have a specific date in mind?
“I want to go eight years back in earthly time. To November fourth.”
Chapter 20
On our way back we stopped at the old airport where Professor Grangé had taken us the day before. Here I practiced flying for a couple of hours on the runway. Professor Einstein told me he wanted to see me in action to better put together a training program suited for me. He needed to know my weak spots, so we could improve them. I felt like an athlete trying out for a team. He kept pushing me in all kinds of tests and wrote a lot down on his notepad. He did a lot of measuring on my body and seemed very focused and in his own world all afternoon.
When the sun slowly went down over the ocean we finally stopped. Feeling exhausted from a long day, we flew the last miles back to the castle.
“Now I have something to work with,” he said. “I will meet you back here first thing in the morning.”
“But what about my school?”
Professor Einstein stopped in the middle of the air and looked at me. “This is far more important than your education. This is bigger than any of us. Salathiel will understand that. We need to get it right this time. We had two other students slip through our fingers and I will not let that happen again. I will not allow it.” He sighed before he continued. “I will talk to Salathiel about it. He will understand how important this is to all of us.”
I nodded. I finally got why he was so interested in this. It wasn’t just in a scientific way. This was his way of trying to make up for the ones they had lost. He felt guilty and responsible for not being able to protect Benjamin Harris and Peter Parson from what came over them. Maybe Salathiel and Rahmiel even felt the same way.
“I get it,” I said. “I will be here.”
“I know you will,” Einstein said as he left me at the entrance to the castle. Before he disappeared he turned and looked at me. “See you at sunrise.”
“To me it seems like it is easier for you to fly fast than to fly slow,” Professor Einstein said as I arrived at the airport just as the sun had started rising.
“Well, a good morning to you too,” I said while yawning and stretching. I was hardly awake and really not in the mood for flying yet. I hadn’t even gotten anything to eat.
Professor Einstein was so focused on his instruments he had brought with him, he didn’t even notice my sarcastic remark. He was setting up all the instruments on the runway while mumbling and talking to himself. I stared at him and envied him his energy and dedication to the project, but also found it a little annoying at this hour of day.
Suddenly he stopped and turned to me like he had just thought about something. “It is very interesting when you think about it,” he said. “I don’t think I have ever encountered anyone like you.”
I looked behind me to see if there was someone else present he could be talking to, but we were alone. Even the birds were still in their nests. I ignored his talking and decided that I was way too hungry to do anything right now. I needed breakfast. And I only had one choice if I wanted to have something to eat. I had to make it myself. It had been a few days since I had last tried to make anything appear between my hands, so it took awhile for me to find the concentration. I rubbed them hard together with my eyes closed and thought about all kinds of food I liked in the morning. And as I did I felt my hands get warm and when I opened my eyes I saw smoke appear from them. Out of it appeared pancakes, yogurt, strawberries, scrambled eggs and bunches of fruit: bananas, apples, pineapple, and watermelon. I stared at all the food and started laughing. I had actually done it right this time. This was exactly what I wanted.
I started eating and looked at Einstein as he scratched his wild white hair. Then he looked at me and at the food.
“Oh you brought food. How delightful! And very thoughtful of you. This is very good,” he said as he piled food into his hands like he was expecting a famine. “So have you thought about what I said?” he asked with his mouth full of pancakes.
“Thought about what?” I asked.
“The fact that you seem to be using less energy on speed flying than slow flying. I measured your energy level yesterday on various tests and you used much more energy on the slow flying. That is very unique. I can’t say I have ever seen that before.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but it did explain why I hadn’t been that tired after flying back in time. I could feel my energy dropping a little, but I also felt I could continue for a very long time.
“What you have is
great endurance, my dear. It is very rare.”
“Endurance?”
“Yes the ability or strength to continue, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions.” Einstein said while chewing. His eyes seemed wild like a thousand thoughts went through his mind every second. “It is very unique,” he repeated. “I can’t say I have ever seen it before.”
I stared at him for a second, worried whether he had lost it. He seemed a little off, like he had drawn himself back into his own world of thoughts. I just hoped he knew what he was doing. I didn’t want to end up frozen in an ice block on the South Pole.
Suddenly he seemed to snap out of it. His friendly eyes were back and so was his smile. “So are you ready for this?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
As we began the practice I realized that Professor Einstein had been right. It was so much easier for me to speed fly than to take it slow. When I first accelerated I didn’t use any energy to keep at the same speed or even accelerating even more. Einstein kept pushing me on the runway and made me fly faster and faster in a very small area. But as soon as I reached the speed of light, he would stop me. He didn’t want me to go back in time just yet, he said. For now we were only practicing and researching to find out more about how I did it. The rest was to follow, he kept telling me.
After four hours I started to get bored and I wanted to stop, but Professor Einstein had more tests to run and more instruments to test me with, so we continued. I flew in straight lines; I flew in circles; I flew ultra fast; I flew very slow. I flew long; I flew short. We tried everything and Einstein just observed and pushed buttons on his machinery. He never said anything to me except the orders on what to do next. Eventually I began to feel like an animal, like one of those lab mice.
As the sun was about to set, we were finally done. Einstein let me lie on the grass and regain my strength while he packed all of his instruments into a huge bag.
“So now what? What’s next?” I asked.
“Tomorrow we try to let you go back in time. Only by a few seconds. I want to be able to stop you and control you, but I want to get closer to figuring out how we control it.”
I jumped up. I was really looking forward to that. “I’m ready,” I said, suddenly filled with new energy. “Let’s do it now. Right away.”
Einstein looked at me and smiled under his thick mustache. “I know you are ready, but you need rest first. This has to be done right. Rest is important. We cannot push you too much. I am not running any risks with you.”
“But I really think that I can do it now. I don’t feel tired at all.”
Einstein looked at me. “You may not, but I need my rest.”
The next morning I was at the airport before he arrived. Since I now knew how to get breakfast on my own, I ate in my dormitory before I left the castle. I was already flying back and forth on the runway when the professor got there.
“So how do we do this?” I asked as soon as he came down to me. “How do I control how far in time I go back?”
“Well, a good morning to you too,” Einstein said with a smile. “I am glad someone is eager to get started today.” Professor Einstein started unpacking all of his instruments and putting them up. Then he strapped different kinds of tracking devices on me. “Are you ready for this?” he asked when he was done. “Well that is just a silly question, isn’t it?” He laughed.
I flew onto the runway and got ready while Professor Einstein instructed me: “First we try for only one second. See if you can go back just one second. It is probably hard for you to do precisely, but try anyway.”
“How do I do that?”
Einstein shrugged. “I don’t know, my dear. That is what we are trying to find out. Just try to fly as fast as you can, until you reach the speed of light and as soon as you break the light barrier, you stop. Could you try that?”
“I guess.” I kind of knew when I had gone through the light barrier last time. I remembered that I saw an extreme light and guessed that had to be it. So I did as Einstein told me. I accelerated out the runway and circled the equator a couple of times until I saw the flash of light. Then I stopped. I didn’t think about where I was at that moment and when I did stop I didn’t see Professor Einstein or the airport anywhere, but after circling the area a little, I finally spotted it.
“Very well done, my dear,” the professor said as I came closer. “According to this, you went back three seconds. Let’s try again.”
So I did. Three more times before the professor stopped me. “You have done well, this last time you went back exactly one second. But we mustn’t overdo this, remember. Don’t forget to take breaks, while I look at the research.”
I did as I was told and stayed on the grass while I watched the cloudy sky above me. “How do I get back again?” I suddenly asked. I had just realized that it was one thing to go back a few seconds or even a few minutes. That didn’t matter much, but eight years was a lot. “If I travel back in time I need to be able to get back to my own time again, if you know what I mean.”
Professor Einstein looked at me from all his instruments. “In technical papers, physicists generally avoid the commonplace language of ‘moving’ or ‘traveling’ through time, since movement normally refers only to a change in spatial position as the time coordinate is varied, and instead discuss the possibility of closed time-like curves, which are worldlines that form closed loops in space time, allowing objects to return to the past. Relativity predicts that if one were to move away from Earth at relativistic velocities and return, more time would have passed on Earth than for the traveler, so that in theory allows travel into the future.”
“So what you are saying is that I have to circle Earth faster than the speed of light in order to go back in time and fly into space in order to get back to my own time again?”
“Something like that. But you have to be fast. And lucky for us, you are very, very fast.”
“But no one has ever done this before?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
I sighed and leaned my head back on the grass. Was this worth it? I wanted to help Rosey. I wanted to understand her story, I wanted to know who she was. But not if it meant I had to be stuck eight years ago. Or even worse, if I froze time and myself.
Einstein stopped what he was doing and came closer to me. He looked very serious. “There is one major difference between you and the two others,” he said.
“And what is that?”
“You are doing this out of the goodness of your heart. You are doing this to help someone, not because you want something or to become more important. You want to know this woman’s story so you can help her. That is good.”
“Maybe. But what if I am also doing it so I can gain something?”
“Like what?”
“I am trying to figure out how her story is connected to mine. I am supposed to learn something from this, but I can’t see how. I have this idea that if I knew her story, then I would know what this was all about.”
Einstein smiled again. “That is not a bad motive. I would call it … um … a side effect.”
“Maybe you could call it that.”
“Listen. You were told that you could use all you have learned for this assignment, right? You were told to get to know your human, get to know her story. That is what you are doing. You are using your skills to get to know her. In my head is seems very simple, really.”
He did have a point, I thought. I was going to go through with this. I wanted to go back to the day eight years ago when Rosey lost her husband and daughter. I knew I could do it. I just knew it.
All we needed to figure out now was how I could hit the exact date and year.
Chapter 21
Naturally, Professor Einstein had a solution the very next morning as we met at the airport. “It is all about the right calculations,??
? he said and looked at me with his wild, almost crazy eyes. I wondered if he had slept at all the last couple of nights.
The very idea made me tired. I had never been good at math. “What do you mean?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to calculate anything.
“I figured it all out last night.” The professor then took out his notebook and flipped a lot of pages. I didn’t understand anything of what he had written. It looked like just a lot of numbers and signs. “See, all of this is how I figured it out. The result is on the last page,” he said and flipped a couple more pages. More numbers appeared and I looked at him confused.
“Oh dear,” he said, seeing it on my face. “Let me explain. See what I did was, if it took you this amount of time to fly that far then you should …” The professor started pointing at more numbers and calculations and that was when he completely lost me. “… Since the speed of light is approximately 186,282 miles per second, that is what I call c here … and according to special relativity, c is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel, except for you and the Angels, of course. It is the speed of all massless particles and associated fields—including electromagnetic radiation such as light—in vacuum, and … Well, here is the bottom line. As far as I have calculated … If you make it to the speed of approximately 478,982 miles per second and circle Earth 843 times at that speed, you should reach the fourth of November eight years ago. To come back to our own time all you need is to fly into space and hit the exact same speed, and then you turn around and come back. According to my calculations you should return at the very moment you left.” The professor looked at me. “You have flown into space before, right?”