Temporal Exploring 101 - Branch Cut

V.31 L'Hopital's lobster

"Catherine, we need to talk," my Temporal Instructor announced, as soon as the ansible connection had been established.

Uh oh.

What had I done this time? It had to be something that they had not known about yet the last time we talked.

What could they possibly have found out about? Well, there was one obvious thing.

"Um, if you are upset about our break-in into Ms Delmond's apartment, I can like, totally explain that."

There was a moment of puzzled silence on the other end of the line.

Then, "Catherine, what are you talking about?" Sara inquired.

Oh. It's not about that, then.

"If this is about me helping Ndemba to run away from St. Albert's and to hide in London, I can assure you that this was not even my idea in the first place."

"Catherine, what are you talking about?" Sara repeated.

"Nothing. A misunderstanding. Please forget everything I just said."

"I shall attempt to do that," my Temporal Instructor replied.

She sounded faintly amused which was altogether not a bad sign.

"I daresay it is a little bit too late for that, though," Mira helpfully observed.

Shut up, Mira!

I cleared my throat. "What is it that we need to talk about, Sara?"

"We need to discuss the status of our investigation into the nature of that new type of portal or gateway. Also, there are certain decisions to be made about your next project, Catherine."

"What is the status of that investigation, then?" Natty wanted to know.

"So Natalie is also present. Good." There was a brief pause. "Mira, would you like to present the preliminary outcome of that investigation, such as it is?"

"Certainly," Mira's grad student agreed. "A group of experts in our field have done research on the new phenomenon and discussed their results. They reached the conclusion that the observations cannot be explained in terms of conventional physics. Rather, these observations would tend to suggest the existence of a hitherto undetected new force which has been speculated about for more than two centuries."

"Ah. I see." Judging from expression on her face, Natty was more than a bit skeptical about that conclusion. "Is there more?"

"Unfortunately, there is nothing else of substance to report. It appears that additional observations and more data will be needed before any progress can be made," Sara told us. "Which brings me to the bad news. We repeatedly tried to send scientists and special forces, but all attempts at initiating temporal transit invariably failed for each and every one of them."

"Does that mean that there is nothing left that can be done at this point?" I asked.

"Indeed it appears that there are few if any options left," Sara admitted. "Which leads me to the second point of our discussion: decisions to be made about your next project, Catherine."

"Surely this can wait until after my return to the 23rd century, can't it?" I pointed out. "I am scheduled for transit fifteen days from now, if I remember it correctly."

"This is difficult for all of us, Catherine," Sara declared. "We have not forgotten that a few weeks ago you asked us to prematurely terminate your First Temporal Assignment and that you are having second thoughts about a possible career in Temporal Exploring."