Time waits for no man

Georgiou is nervous sitting in the capsule, looking out through the toughened glass windows.

The team have completed the experiment a hundred times, first with metal, then a series of inanimate objects. This was followed by a variety of organic materials and more recently they had used animals. Each time the experiment had worked perfectly. On the first occasions, when they had gone back in time, the capsule had appeared alongside itself, then the original capsule disappeared at the beginning of the experiment. Then, the reverse had happened, the machine that had travelled backwards disappeared and the original capsule had appeared again, in its original position. The first time, the group of scientists, running the experiment had cheered and cheered.

More recently, they had set the landing coordinates to more remote locations. The capsule had disappeared and then, sometime later, it returned with its cargo. The rat, the dog and the monkey all came through their journey through time with flying colours. One month after their return, the vets had pronounced each of them to be in full working order.

Of course, everything had been pre-programmed. The timing mechanisms and landing coordinates had been set at the beginning, for both the departure and the return. The same controls had been applied on Georgiou’s three trial runs, the first for a three-minute shift, the second shift ten minutes and the third shift he had gone back one hour. On all three occasions, he had returned, and the medical team had signed him off.

Now they are about to conduct the big one. Georgiou will set the timings and landing location from inside the capsule. The committee have agreed that he is permitted to go back one hundred years and that he can choose his own landing place, which he will bring back evidence of, when he returns. The landing place must be remote, to ensure that they do not to create consternation amongst unsuspecting souls seeing the capsule appear out of thin air. There has been no record of any such event, so the scientists are confident, that all such appearances were unobserved. He has programmed to arrive on a flat riverbank just outside Sedona.

The sound of a voice on his earphones saying, “one minute to embarkation”, brings Georgiou back to reality. He checks the dials and gauges, and everything seems to be in working order. “Check! All good to go!” he says, confirming his status. He is surprised when he receives a message from the Project Leader: “Green four two one; remember to use your telecommunication device, wherever you arrive. It will give us the opportunity to check whether contact is possible through the local wormhole that you create.” Georgiou responds automatically, “ten four”, but his attention is focussed on the digital clock, which is counting relentlessly downwards. The last few seconds are accompanied by a voice over his earphones; “Three, two one, go!” Georgiou hits the red button in front of him.

There is a violent jolting backwards as the capsule lands on uneven ground. He is at a twenty-degree angle, and he is glad that they made him strap himself in.

After a few moments, being careful to hold himself and prevent a fall, he releases the harnesses and checks the gauges. When he is happy that all is as it should be, he glances out through the toughened glass and sees that he is surrounded by undergrowth. The red rocks of the mountains outside Sedona, tower above him.

A blue light is flashing on the console, which reminds of the Project Leader’s instructions to use the communications array. Smiling, he taps the blue flashing light and verbalises the communication protocol: “This is Green, four, two, one checking in over”

He waits several seconds and when there is no response, he does it gain; “Green, four, two one, over!” Again, there is no response. Georgiou grimaces. He is not surprised that he is unable to communicate over one-hundred-year time span. With reluctance he abandons his attempt. He is keen to get outside and check his surroundings as well as gather evidence of his mission.

“Fuck!” Georgiou’s expletive is a consequence of finding that the door it stuck. He has turned the release lever and pressed his shoulder against the door, but it only moves one inch. When he crouches to look through the one-inch gap, he can see that the door is being impeded by the trunk of a small tree. Without thinking it through, Georgiou closes the door and locks it down, then he returns to his angled seat at the controls. Once he is in position, he selects a location 10 metres to his north, which he guesses is nearer the river, and a time frame 3 seconds back. Tis time when he presses the red button, the capsule ends up upright. When he leaves his seat and attempts to open the door, he finds that it does so with impediment. He closes his eyes and breathes in and out, to encourage himself to relax. Before he disembarks, he once more attempts unsuccessfully to communicate with base.

Georgiou breaths the clean air and closes his eyes, as he relishes the unpolluted world, he has arrived in. After a minute, he picks up his sack and walks towards the creek. There, he cannot believe his eyes when he sees an abundance of fish, jumping clean over the natural dam. Further downstream, Deer and Elk are drinking their fill of the clean water.

Georgiou sits down quietly and utilises his camera to video the scene. When he is satisfied with his recording, he stands and walks along the bank of the Creek until he comes to an irrigation ditch where a water wheel that pumped water through channels to nearby fruit orchards. Careful that he is not seen by anyone, he edges through the surrounding undergrowth until he gets to the trees. There, he takes an apple from one of the tees and crunches into its delicious core. It is crisp and sweet and stops him for a moment. Further down the Creek, he is surprised to come across peach trees. The peaches are large and sumptuous, far more so than anything he had tasted from his own time. He gathers several to join the apples he has collected and take back with him.

A little further down the Creek and he was able to video the house of the farmer. He even caught the farmer’s wife and son, relaxing in their garden.

When he eventually treks back to the capsule, Georgiou is high from everything he has seen. It has been a privilege to come here and witness the origins. He just wishes that he could have explored where the current Sedona mystical ethos had been born.

Back at the capsule, he locks up, straps himself inside and sets the coordinates for home. All set, he presses the red button.  An instant later, his instruments tell him that he at the correct place and time he frowns when outside he sees nothing but waste land. He tries the communicator but gets no response. Annoyed, but undeterred Georgiou resets the landing location and time, for a few minutes before he originally left. When he engages the ‘go’ button, the capsule seems to move a few feet. The scenery outside is the same.

It seems to be natural to open the door and go outside to survey the scene. He is perplexed that he is in the middle of a desert and can nothing and nobody.

Back in the capsule, Georgiou, resets the landing destination and date and time carefully. Once more he connects using the red button. He looks outside with trepidation and is amazed when he sees that he is within walking distance of town, full of houses made from red clay. It is as though he has landed just outside Taos in New Mexico. It is at that moment he remembers a discussion he had with Tricia, his partner. He had explained to her, the nature of his work and his forthcoming mission. She had put her head down while she had thought about what he explained to her. Eventually, she emerged and said, “if you leave the capsule, you will move into a different reality. You will take a quantum shift and you will not be able to return.