Rolf was trying very hard not to panic. He was sure that the reports the computers were giving him were wrong (because they had to be) and had them process the numbers four additional times. But they all said the same thing.
They’d jumped somewhere they weren’t supposed to go.
The numbers had been hinting at this long enough for Rolf to know the truth, he just didn’t want to admit it, hoped it would work itself out. But with this jump to a time never intended by this project, he could no longer deny it. The slipstream was no longer in his control. Actually, it was never in his control to begin with, because time is simply too variable.
This was supposed to be a controlled experiment. But now there were things happening that he had never planned for. Areas of their timeline that were not shared that they were jumping to anyway. That was not part of the plan. Rolf had made sure of that. The physics were sound, the quantum mechanics were something he was very sure of. What he couldn’t plan for was their own actions within their jumps. There was no way to know that those actions were going to have such an impact on the slipstream. Rolf took a moment to behold the beauty in this inexact science and the absolute power it had. Rolf had to try to re-harness his subjects. But it was impossible. So, he went to work immediately on figuring out how to make that impossible happen and get control of the slipstream, which had now run amuck.