C J L MARR
Scales of Time
a short story written in 1995
Hesta closed his eyes as the years flashed by. It wasn't the first time he'd travelled back through time, but this was by far the longest trip he'd ever made. In fact it was the longest trip ever attempted and, while there was no danger to him, it was uncomfortable and he felt a strange apprehension.
Hesta was going back 70 million years to encounter some of his earliest ancestors. These were the dinosaurs from which he was directly descended. The similarities between these ancient creatures and Hesta were widespread. He was substantially smaller with different proportions, infinitely more intelligent and completely civilised, but apart from that he was essentially an allosaurus. A large number of the dinosaurs had evolved into more intelligent species over time, but Hesta's species had proved the most adaptable and had dominated. His ancestors had wiped out the competitors before leaping forward in intelligence to dominate the planet.
His brief was simple - observe and film. Time travel was overflowing with dangers to the planet and everything living on it. If even the smallest microbe is affected in the smallest possible way it could have devastating effects on that time's future. After all, that microbe and its descendants over the following 70 million years could develop into something that affects the entire universe. Hesta and his fellow researchers knew all these dangers, which is why they could only ever observe from space. The time machine was equipped with the most sophisticated image-enhancement technology ever invented and it bristled with sensors and cameras. He could pinpoint a dragonfly flying through the prehistoric undergrowth if he wanted to.
Hesta glanced at the instruments. He had been lying there for many minutes already and had still only travelled 13 million years back. On previous trips he had been back as much as 40 million years and had observed environmental and climatic changes that had threatened to wipe out his ancestors, yet somehow they had evolved and developed. Why had they grown to dominate the planet instead of the insects or the birds or the mammals? That was still one of the great mysteries and he was hopeful that he might find something on this trip that would help formulate a theory. The religious ones professed to know the answer, of course, that they were made in the image of God, but Hesta was not religious and had seen too much of his ancestors to realise that this was a fabrication.
He reached out a scaled finger and pressed a button. A scene appeared on the screen in front of him and started to move. It was an old film, a western, and Hesta had been watching it prior to lift off. One day he would like to return to the time of the wild west and the cowboys just to see it for himself. It was one of his favourite periods of history.
Hesta caught sight of a display out of the corner of his yellow eye. The display showed the years flashing back and it took a moment for him to realise that something was wrong. He casually read the figure, 56 million years, and thought casually that the last 20 minutes or so had passed very quickly. Then it dawned on him that 20 minutes had not passed at all. He jumped up and glanced over a few other displays. His mouth dropped open. He was travelling far too quickly. The temperature display was almost off the scale.
He was normally such a controlled person, but he had never been placed in such a situation. The machine was threatening to destroy itself and his automatic reaction was to shut everything down. Visions of hurtling back as far as the "big bang" flashed through his mind and instead of performing a controlled shutdown, Hesta punched the emergency shutdown button. The machine lurched and Hesta was thrown against his couch. He gasped with pain and tried to get up but his leg was damaged and he stumbled. Several lights were flashing now indicating problems with power containment, life support, coolant leakage and stability controls. The time indicator had just flashed up 65 million years back.
Why had the machine suddenly failed? There wasn't time to investigate. His immediate assessment was that the machine would destroy itself in a matter of minutes. It flashed through his mind that he should ensure that nothing on the planet below was damaged by the ship, but at the same time he knew that the controls were inoperative and there was nothing he could do. Self-preservation was the new priority. He had to abandon ship and hope that somebody could pinpoint the exact time and position of the crash and rescue him. Hesta crawled painfully into the escape pod and pushed the button. Within moments he was flashing through the outer atmosphere and then the black sky turned blue and he was drifting through clouds suspended beneath his parachute.
The time ship was visible through his porthole and he watched as it lurched again and then suddenly flashed off as the main engines fired. It was completely out of control. He never saw it again. He floated gently down into a forest. With a jerk, his descent ended as the parachute snagged on a high branch of a huge tree leaving his pod swaying two metres above the ground. He sighed with relief - he'd survived.
A large tyrannosaurus had been tearing the last morsel of flesh from his last kill when the pod drifted down just metres from him. He watched it for a moment, swaying in front of him, then decided it looked good enough to eat. He took a step forward but the pod and it's parachute suddenly disappeared. The creature snorted and returned to his kill. He was too stupid an animal to see beyond his little clearing. He couldn't come close to comprehending what had happened.
The time ship had continued accelerating until it smashed through the sound barrier and then mach 2 and mach 3 before it plunged into the atmosphere with a deafening sonic boom. The ship was built well and held together as it heated up to unbelievable temperatures and roared toward the ground. It hit in an area of jungle that was parched and dying. It hadn't rained in this area for almost three years and even the ground had been sucked dry. The ship plunged deep into the ground and exploded with the force of a small earthquake. The shock wave of the explosion toppled trees for kilometres around the impact site, and hurled dust and flames hundreds of metres into the air. Soon the whole area was ablaze.
Fanned by strong winds possibly generated by the crash itself, the flames spread quickly and within two hours an area of over 4,000 square kilometres was alight. Three days later every tree and bush within 2,000 kilometres had gone and the fire was still moving. The smoke belching out from this monstrous conflagration blocked out the sun and, by the time the fire had burned itself out, the entire planet was in darkness.
When the sun dimly forced it's way back to the scorched land below, two months had passed and not one dinosaur was left alive to enjoy it's warmth. Hesta's ancestors had been wiped out. The planet's future no longer could be dominated by the allosaurus, so Hesta's kind had never evolved. Without Hesta's existence, the trip back through time hadn't taken place and the accident hadn't happened. Hesta hadn't abandoned his ship in the pod, which hadn't caught in the tree and swayed in front of the tyrannosaurus. The future of the planet had been completely rebuilt.
A small furry creature gazed up at the dim sun and then returned to it's scavenging, completely unaware that Hesta had accidentally destroyed his competition and that the planet was now his to dominate. The dominant creature would evolve from him and one day it would look back and wonder what had caused the dinosaurs to die out so suddenly.