3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years (The Time Traveler's Passport)

by John Scalzi

The butterfly effect is correct, but the butterfly is in another reality entirely.

The client asked how we compensate for the fact that the earth is not a static object, either in space or time, and how we could manage dialing in the planet when it had moved billions upon billions of kilometers away from where it had been at the time of his temporal destination. I told him the answer was too complicated to explain in the time he had left before his exit, which was probably true and a convenient way to cover my own ignorance.

Nevertheless, if the client has not returned before ten seconds, we technicians are trained not to panic. If they have not returned after ten seconds, we are also trained not to panic. That is because they are dead, and there is nothing we can do about it.

We cannot and could not know their fates, and whether they met ends that were comforting or disastrous. We can only know what we are told. If they don’t return, we are not told.

The client who had just dropped his pack had asked to be transported to an area that would, eons later, be rich in the bones of the Tyrannosaurus rex. Prior to the pack drop, it was possible he simply wanted to get a good look at an example of that famous creature. After the pack drop, he was telling us, implicitly but to the point of near explicitness, that he was hoping to be eaten by one.

Except for that one client who traveled to another reality expressly to walk up to the younger alternate version of themself and punch them square in the teeth. The client did not explain themself to their other version. They did not explain themself to the organization in the debrief afterward. But I never did see a client happier with their experience.