Scherzo with Tyrannosaur

by Michael Swanwick

Release: July 1999
Format: Short Story
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

The director of Hilltop Research Station extinguishes various fires while hosting a donor dinner in the Cretaceous and planning predatory behavior of his own to keep the donor funds flowing, all while ensuring that the mysterious beings known only as the Unchanging remain in the dark about a quagmire of time travel violations.

— Michael Main

It would bring our sponsors down upon us like so many angry hornets. The Unchanging would yank time travel out of human hands—retroactively.

DEBUT

“Scherzo with Tyrannosaur,” Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 1999.

VARIANTS

3 English variants

TRANSLATIONS

Translations to French, Spanish

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Age of Reptiles (252 Ma to 66 Ma: Mesozoic/Triassic/Jurassic/Cretaceous): Hilltop Station in the late Cretaceous
Circa AD 2100 to 2199: The Home Base in 2140

Timeline Models

Hypertime: Not explicitly mentioned, but it seems likely that the Unchanging are outside of time as we know it.

Time Travel Methods

Alien Time Travel Technology: “The Unchanging would yank time travel out of human hands—”

Themes

Get Rich Quick through Time Travel: A brief incident
Guardians of Time: The Unchanging
Oedipal Time Travel: Not consumated
Paleontologists
Self-Visitation: The director meets his older self, while Don meets his younger self.
Time Cops: Time Safety Officers
Time Corps: Presumably, the agency that the Unchanging have charged to run Hilltop Station (and other projects?)

Real-World Tags

Dinosaurs

Groupings

Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (periodical): July 1999

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From Hilltop Station, the late Cretaceous ⋙ to Home Base, 2140. Round trip. Note: The director takes a quick round trip to deal with a waiter problem.
From Hilltop Station, the late Cretaceous ⋙ to Home Base, 2140. Note: Back to the office at 2 a.m.
From 2140 or ’41, about nine months after the Cretaceous Ball ⋙ to some ten years before. Note: We are told that baby Philippe was sent back to be raised by younger grandparents.
From perhaps forty years or so after the story ⋙ to Home Base, 2140. Note: The director’s older self travels back.
From Various and sundry notes, various times ⋙ to various times. Multiple trips. Note: Many sundry notes are sent back and forth.

INDEXER NOTES (SPOILERS!)

We don’t know which of the two male narrators (<a href='Tom_Dheere'>Tom Dheere</a> or <a href='Adam_Epstein'>Adam Epstein</a>) for <em>Timeless Time Travel Tales</em> narrated “Scherzo with Tyrannosaur.”