Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [56]
Oh my God … it’s possible, isn’t it?
And what if that happened while she was standing out here like a complete lemon? Waiting for Foster to turn up, when quite probably he was never going to. Computer Bob was right. That’s what he’d said, wasn’t it? ‘Just wait.’
‘Oh, you freakin’ idiot, Maddy,’ she hissed to herself, tossing the polystyrene cup into the bin beside her and heading down the walkway towards the pier.
CHAPTER 31
65 million years BC, jungle
‘You can do what?’ said Liam.
Becks hefted the log up in her taut arms and held it steady as Liam lashed it in place with a hand-woven length of rope made from the species of vine they’d found dangling from virtually every tree around the clearing.
‘I believe it is possible for me to calculate when in time we are with a very high degree of accuracy.’
He wrapped the rope tightly round the log, tugging it hard so that it shuffled up against its neighbour. The palisade wall so far stretched only a dozen feet: about twenty logs, each just under eight inches in diameter and all roughly about nine feet tall. When they were done, they’d have a circular enclosure about four yards across – large enough for all sixteen of them to huddle inside should something nasty find its way on to their island and they needed somewhere to retreat to.
‘How?’ asked Liam.
‘I have a detailed record of all the variables during the time of the explosion.’
‘Variables?’
‘Data. Specifically, directly after we arrived here. The particle decay rate.’
Liam cocked an eyebrow. ‘I haven’t a clue what that means, Becks.’
She walked over to a dwindling pile of logs and effortlessly picked up another. They were going to need more. Across the clearing he could see Whitmore and several of the students carrying one between them, stumbling across the lumpy ground towards them. She slammed one end of the log down into the soft soil with a heavy thud, next to the last log, and Liam began to lash it into their wall.
‘I have a detailed record of the explosion. The number and density of tachyon particles that we were exposed to in 2015 and the number and density of tachyon particles that emerged here alongside ourselves.’
Liam looked at her and shrugged. ‘Assume I’m a child that knows nothing, Becks.’
She looked at him and he thought he caught her rolling her eyes at his stupidity: a gesture the AI must have learned from Sal back when it was computer-bound and its visual world was what it picked up from the one webcam.
‘Tachyon particles decay at a constant rate. That is why it takes greater amounts of energy to beam a signal further into the past.’
Liam tugged hard on the vine rope, cinching the knot tightly. ‘I get that. So, if these particles die out at a steady rate, that means …?’
‘I am able to calculate how many particles decayed and, from that, determine how far in time we were sent.’
He grinned. ‘Really? You can do that?’
Becks looked up and tried mimicking his uneven smile. ‘I have the processing power to do this.’
‘And we’ll know exactly when we are?’
‘To an accuracy level of one thousandth of a per cent.’
Liam shook his head in wonder. ‘Jay-zus, that metal brain of yours is a bloody marvel, so it is!’
She seemed pleased with that. ‘Is that a compliment, Liam O’Connor?’
He punched her arm lightly. ‘Of course it is! Don’t know what I’d do without you.’
Her gaze drifted off across the clearing for a moment then back at him. ‘Thank you.’
He finished lashing the log and waited for her to pick up another and slam it down heavily beside the last one.
‘So what? We’ll actually know what day we arrived in the past? Even what time?’
‘Negative. I am unable to give that precise a calculation.’
‘OK. We’ll know to the nearest week or something?’
She shook her head.