"Despite man’s best efforts to destroy himself over the millennia, we’ve managed to prosper on this planet. But we were reaching a point in our race’s history where our own prosperity was going to succeed where we had failed at war. We’d outgrown our planet and were approaching the point when we’d start starving ourselves. While massive deaths - on the order of several billion - would solve its own problem - it would create stagnation in our race. It’s been an accepted fact for decades that space colonization was absolutely essential for the healthy continuance of mankind. While we had some extra breathing room by colonizing Mars and the micro colonies of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto, colonization on anything other than an M class planet only extended the misery. Man had to spread to other Earth type planets.

"The problem, of course, was distance. Once outside the solar system, everything is measured in light years. Traveling to even a relatively nearby star like Alpha Centauri required years. It would be impossible to colonize without shortening the time it took to travel vast distances.

"We attacked the problem from three directions. If we could increase velocity, we could shorten the time it took to traverse the distance between planets. That was the arm that eventually developed the ball chasers and was independent of the Oregon projects.

"The second attack - and primary project at the lab - was on shortening the distance. We’d been working on the theory of hyperspace and hyperidor travel for decades, long before the ball chasers were built, and it seemed possible to bypass normal space and travel at high speed over a route that was actually shorter than physically possible. If this solution could be applied, colonization would be cheap, practical, and widespread.

"The third approach, however, had the most potential. If we could circumvent physical space, thus changing one component of the problem, could we not also change _time_, the other component of the same problem?"

"You actually had people working on time travel?" Frost asked incredulously.

"Do not sound so surprised, Mr. Frost," Magill reproved gently. "You should know from your second year of astrophysics the six theorems of event horizon space. Four of them directly involve time. And of the three approaches, this one had the best opportunity of success."

"Why is that?" Mal asked.

"Because not only had preliminary work been done by Carl Woldheim in the late 20th century, there’s every indication he _used_ such a time device shortly after inventing it. You’ll forgive me if I do not go into detail.

"Regardless, there were two projects, each with the same goal, being developed at ITA Research Labs in the spring and summer of 2214. In an effort to maintain all secrecy, we’d cut ourselves off from the puterverse and created our own net. For whatever reason, being disconnected from the puterverse propelled our research forward at an amazing pace. We accomplished more in six months developing hyperspace and time travel theory than had been done in six decades. On August 29th, by sheer coincidence, both projects completed the most rudimentary prototype drives. We had hoped for an indication of which direction to take further studies. We ended up with two solutions."

He paused and closed his eyes a moment to steady his voice, which had become excited and emotional.

"We joined the two project teams and discussed the possibility of joining the technologies as well. It was very quickly determined however, that the results would be disastrous. Apparently we had not broken the laws of physics; we’d better defined the fringes of it. The laws of physics as they are understood today are essentially immutable and universal. When applied against themselves, however, it is possible to ‘alter’ them, for lack of a better word."

"You mean, like the immovable object and irresistible force paradox?" Miss Hochkins, Frost’s companion, interrupted.

"Hmm… yes, I suppose to an extent," Magill said thoughtfully, "though not as simplistic. Your example contains two conditions impossible in physics, Miss Hochkins. There is no such thing as an immovable object nor an irresistible force. And while the fringe laws of Physics might allow for one in theory, proof of one’s existence demands a corollary proving the nonexistence of the other.

"Which brings us back to our chilling discovery. If the physical law says that distance is equal to time multiplied by velocity, it is possible to change one aspect of the law, but not two. Not in the same application."

"But you tried anyway, didn’t you, Professor?" Mal asked quietly.

"They did not," Dean Walker stated flatly. All eyes swung to him. "The unnecessary evil that is alive and not alive combined the two projects into an unbreathable force of balance."

"That’s right," Magill said slowly, "It was decided to keep the two projects independent and let them mature at their own pace. We made plans to move the time travel segment to the ITA labs in Brazil on September 15th. The date was originally going to be September 8th, but I had to attend high level symposium with the world council from September 4th to the 7th, so the move was delayed a week."

"And ended up being delayed forever," Mal said dryly, "because the lab and half of Oregon went up on September 5th. Somebody played with matches and mixed the hyperspace drive and the time drive, didn’t they, Professor?"

Magill shrugged. "It seems impossible. Every person there was absolutely convinced of the catastrophic results bringing the two technologies together would wreak. When the vote was made to split the two teams, it was unanimous and instant. Yet there can be no other explanation. The two drives were combined and activated."