The Time Surgeons

The man sat at his desk, watching the displays on the electronic panels arrayed before him. He sipped his coffee, bitter and black, its black bitterness alleviated only by the two spoons of somewhat gritty sugar dissolved in its depths.

Had he been asked to name the defining aspect of his personality, and had he cared to answer, he would have said ‘phlegmatic’. On any other day. But not today. Today he wondered if he was going mad.

Could it be true? Impossible! It must be some trick!

He had been telling himself that ever since the previous evening. Now he thought back to that time as he continued to watch his displays and sip his bitter coffee; for once, less bitter than his soul.

It was his habit after work to stop at a bar near his home. He would sit at a table near the back, indulge in a shot of vodka and a piece of pickled cucumber. It was his time. A break between work and home, so the pressures of the former could fall away and leave space for the cozier existence of the latter.

The owner of the bar knew of his habit and always kept the table free for ‘my Colonel Stanislaw’ at this time.

So Stanislaw was surprised, and somewhat irritated, to see a stranger occupying his table this evening, with the owner of the bar nowhere to be seen. But the stranger had seen him come in and was looking at him, as if he had been awaiting his arrival.

“Good evening, Lieutenant Colonel,” the man said as he approached. “Please. Take a seat.”

The hairs on his neck stood on end. These were dangerous times, and his country was dangerous enough at the best of times. Who was this man, who acted as if he knew him? He could be Secret Police, suspecting him of some imaginary crime against the State, in a State where even some thoughts could be a crime. Or he could be an agent of another country, here to tempt him into such a crime, whether by bribery, threats or blackmail. Or perhaps he was just a drunk who recognized his uniform.

“Thank you for inviting me to my own table,” he replied somewhat acerbically. “Did Alexei not tell you I like to be alone?”

“Alexei found my gold persuasive, not only to let me sit, but to give us both privacy and his best vodka. It would even pay for that urn,” he added cryptically. “Here,” he said, pouring a shot of the chilled fire, “Enjoy.”

He left it untouched. “Who are you? If you are the Secret Police you do not need to throw money around to speak to me in private. If you are some drunk you would not. That only leaves a criminal or a spy. Perhaps I should shoot you myself and gain another medal.”

“Colonel, I am none of those things. I shall tell you my story, then you may shoot me or report me if you wish. Is that fair?”

He looked at the man coolly. If this was entrapment he could always claim, with justification, that he had continued the conversation only to trap the man himself.

“As you wish. Now what do you want?”

The man looked at him speculatively. “If I tell you, you will probably shoot me anyway. So I will show you. Will you humor me, and put this on your head?” he asked, extending a thin metal band made of a lustrous metal that shimmered in the light, like some kind of industrial era diadem.

Stanislaw took it and turned it over in his hands, learning nothing more. “What is this? A joke?”

“Put it on your head. To play, tap your right finger. To rewind, tap your left. To pause, tap both at once.”

“Play! Pause! Rewind! Are you mad? What are you talking about?”

“Put it on, and you will see.”

Giving the man a searching glance, Stanislaw slowly put the ring over his head. He twitched in surprise when it contracted to fit firmly but comfortably around his head.

“What in…!?”

“Tap.”

He tapped, then jerked backwards. It was as if he were suspended in space, watching the history of the world unfold around him. The destruction of his world in nuclear war. A voice spoke, and it seemed to him that it spoke not into his ears but directly into is mind, as it explained the three-dimensional imagery also filling his head with its horror.

“Oh my God,” he muttered once, then was silent.

Near the end, the scene changed. He saw himself, at his post. He saw a warning, the warnings he had trained for. He saw himself make the decision he would have made. He saw the world end.

“Oh my God,” he whispered again.

And then he was shown the truth. It was a false alarm. There was no attack. The death unleashed upon the world was unleashed… by him.

Then the scene faded, and again he was looking through his own eyes, and all he could see was the stranger across his table.

“What… what the hell was that, blya?”

“That is the future of the world.”

Stanislaw just stared at him, too appalled to question or doubt.

“But I… but I… No. No. It cannot be!”

“Yes. One decision destroys the world. Your decision.”

“How do you know all this?!”

“That is the future I am from.”

“Why are you here? To punish me? To kill me?”

“To save you.”

“To save me? Why? How?”

“Not you in particular. I do not know your fate after today. But to save the world. Prevent the war. You have seen the truth. Tomorrow the thing you saw will happen. Your system will detect an attack. It will be a false alarm. You must report it as such.”

“Tomorrow!?”

“Tomorrow.”

“This is some trick!”

“Do you think your time has the technology you just witnessed with your own eyes? With your own mind?”

“No… no… but… maybe! Some advanced experimental system, perhaps… some trick… to trick me… into ignoring a real attack…”

“Then I have something else to show you.”

With that, he took out another small object and showed Stanislaw, not letting him touch it. Just a small ovoid, of a size to fit in the palm of his hand, with what looked like a large lens at one end. He pointed it at the large urn in the center of the room and pressed a button, upon which the urn vanished in a crackling flash of light, leaving nothing but a pile of dust settling onto the floor.

“Do you think if the Americans could do that they would bother risking their own necks in a nuclear war, and spend their time in bars fooling Russian officers?”

Stanislaw just gaped at him.

“Colonel, it is true. Accept the evidence of your own eyes and your own reason. Tomorrow you will destroy the world. You will kill yourself, your wife, your family, everybody you ever loved and ever will love. Your home, your country, your race.

“Or tomorrow you will know what you have seen and report a false alarm. You will be the man who saved the world.

“So, Colonel,” he said, reaching for his own shot. “Drink with me. Drink to the future of the human race.”

Stanislaw reached out and picked up his glass, examined it critically as if it held all the bitterness of the years, and tossed it back.

“And what of you?”

“You can choose to escape your fate. The rules of travel through time are inescapable. I will cease to be.”

“So you have come back to save us at the price of your own life?”

“You are a military man, Colonel. You know I am not the first nor the only man to do that. But in my case I have less courage than you think. I am not here only to save you. I would be dead anyway, soon enough. Your war will cost humanity millennia of progress, and in losing those millennia we lose everything. It is the extinction of the entire human race that I seek to prevent. It is what I was born for, and what I will die for.”

Stanislaw sat back with a sigh, staring at the man, unable to believe, unable to doubt.

Then the man… vanished. He was there, then where he had been was a black void, then he was simply gone.

Unseen, unheard in his hiding place, Alexei gasped. The man had given him not worthless rubles, but actual gold. More than enough to buy vodka and privacy. But a man couldn’t be too careful, he’d told himself. These days a man had to be cautious, and he owed it to himself to keep an eye on strangers bearing gold, though he had been able to make out little of their conversation. He felt the gold in his pocket… but it was gone. He felt cheated. But he knew there was no person on Earth he could complain to.

Over at his table, Stanislaw looked around. Everything the man had left on the table was also gone. There was no magic crown, no sign the man had ever been here.

Am I going mad? Did I imagine all this?

Then he looked at the expensive bottle of vodka, with beads of water condensing on its chilled sides. He looked at the two shot glasses. He looked at the pile of dust on the floor.

I never liked that urn anyway.

Then he reached for the bottle, and poured himself another shot.

His mind jerked back to the present and his eyes widened. The early warning system was reporting the launch of a single intercontinental ballistic missile from the USA. Then the system reported a second launch. And more.

The system is new and not yet fully tested, he wrote. Nor would the Americans launch only a few missiles. My assessment is it is a false alarm.

He sent his report to his superiors.

Then he sat back, to sip his coffee and watch his displays.

There were no more alarms, false or otherwise.