Time Travel Omnibus Volume 2, page 333
part #2 of Time Travel Series
I stood in the doorway of the kitchen. Romal was sitting next to Connie at the kitchen table, eating scrambled eggs she had cooked for him. They both looked up at me.
“My answer is yes.”
“Yes to what?” Connie gave me a queer, sideways look.
“To taking Romal’s place in the time vault,” I told her.
Connie looked at him.
“Damian proposed yesterday taking my place in the vessel,” Romal told her. Then, he added: “It was after I told him that I wanted to remain here with you, in this lifetime.”
Connie’s eyes widened. After some moments, she stood, came over, sat on his lap, and hugged him. Then, she looked over at me with a quizzical frown.
Suddenly, I knew, that I must do it right now, at that moment. Go downstairs, enter the secret chamber, step into the gel of the time vat, slowly immerse myself until I felt it all around me from head to toe like a warm, soothing bath overtaking my soul.
And sleep.
Without a word, I started toward the landing to the basement.
“Damian,” Connie said with some alarm. I heard from behind me the time traveler push her off him, his chair grinding across the kitchen floor.
“Damian,” Romal said, as he started after me. “No. You are not ready.”
I was already half way down the basement stairs when I stopped and looked back at him up at the landing.
“You must give it more thought than just one night,” he said.
“You want to stay here, don’t you?” I asked. “With her.”
Romal looked back at Connie.
“Don’t you?”
He nodded and reached for her hand.
“And have a child that you can watch grow up to manhood?”
“Very much,” he said, gazing into Connie’s eyes, “that is what I want.”
“Then you must promise to name him after his uncle,” I said. “And tell him to care for me when I wake up seventy-three years from today.”
Romal nodded. There was no mistaking my resolve. I had nothing to live for except this, entering the stone vessel and becoming the time traveler.
They followed me downstairs into the secret chamber. I stood for time at the brink of the time vault, its lid open, brimming with the magic gel that preserved the body.
“If you enter it,” the time traveler warned, “your life will be over. You will wake up every seventy-three years, once a generation, desperately alone each time. A few times you will venture out and remain a few weeks, months, and sometimes, you will fall in love.” He looked at Connie, then continued: “But something inside you, the vow you have made to yourself to carry on the mission no matter what, will compel you to leave, no matter how much you fall in love with that place, that time,” and he sighed, and gazed longingly into Connie’s eyes, before finishing, “that woman.”
The time traveler suddenly stepped forward and pushed past me. I watched in horror as, in the next moment, he inexplicably stepped into the vessel, back into the gel, and without another word, or even one final longing gaze at us, went under.
Connie screamed, but it was too late. The lid was already, irrevocably lowering, closing. As she rushed past me, I grabbed at her and held her back. She convulsed in my arms and by the time I looked back at the stone tomb, the lid had shut and the tomb was a solid gray lump of stone.
“No!” she howled, wept. “No!”
After gulping air for a time, she lamented: “Fool! I am carrying your child!”
She named the boy, Romal, and we called him Rommie for short. We took up residence in the old house our grandfather had built ninety years ago. Over the years, our distant neighbors wondered at the odd brother and sister living there like hermits, and the strange, bronze-skinned child they were raising.
We seemed content, however, if not completely happy. And patient.
I wondered if technology would make it possible for Constance and I to live long enough so that we would outlast the time traveler’s sleep. I also wondered what the time traveler would think of Rommie, his son. It was oddly amusing to consider that by the time he awakened, Rommie would be older than him.
But there are many years ahead of us to contemplate that.
THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE
Scott William Carter
There are two main ways to the future . . .
Years later, when the history books were written about the only known time travel experiment, it was said that Yolanda Green was not at all like her husband.
Yolanda was an even-keeled, mostly content person, who hummed her way through life. The ambitious Dr. Horace Green, known world over for his improvements to the subatomic laser, was usually depressed and irritable, and he never, ever hummed. Yolanda had a stress-free job as church secretary, spent her free time knitting sweaters for her nephews and playing bridge with the Evergreen Women’s Club, and her only true aim in life was to have a house full of children.
This goal, however, required the participation of her husband, whose desire to start a family ranked somewhere below his desire to spend more time on university committees. Still, she needled him with suggestions, tried to plant the seeds of it in his mind—“Oh, this backyard will be great for our kids, one day!”—all the while, waiting patiently for him to capitulate.
All her fancies seemed to blow out like candles in the wind one day when he made his announcement at dinner.
“We’ve done it,” he said. “Three times with a mouse and five times with a monkey. The university has approved my request for a manned test run. We’re going into the future!”
He had the gleam of excitement in his eyes and the flush of pink on his baby-smooth cheeks. When they were fifteen, it was his enthusiasm that made her fall in love with him.
“I’m proud of you, dear,” she said. “Who will be the lucky time traveler?” And her voice cracked because she already anticipated his answer.
He looked down at his egg salad and responded in the voice of a child: “Why, me, dear.”
“You? But you’re the project leader. Wouldn’t one of the grad students be a better choice?”
“I can’t make them take that risk. Besides, I’ve worked all of my life on this.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “You’ve seen what’s happening. I’ve got to believe that in a hundred years all our problems—poverty, war, disease—will be solved. So I’m doing this for us, dear, for our unborn children. I’ve got to give them a vision of the world the way it will be.”
“You’ll come back, won’t you?”
“Of course, dear! I would never leave you behind. I’ll be back for dinner as usual.”
Of course, Dr. Green did not show up for dinner as usual. Instead, a portly man in a gray suit showed up at her door with the news that her husband had not returned according to schedule, and the schedule, when it came to time travel, was everything. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t show up at some point, but it was also possible that something prevented him from returning.
The news of the experiment leaked out, and all the tabloids ran with it. “Scientist Vaporizes Himself in Attempt to See Buck Rogers.” Her friends gave her sympathetic looks, which were unbearable—unbearable because they knew, like her, that she would never have children unless she had them with another man. Since she had never loved anyone else, this thought was unthinkable to Yolanda.
Eventually the public’s interest in her faded. Since the insurance provided more than enough money to take care of all of her needs, she spent her days knitting socks her husband would never wear, and her nights listening to the old grandfather clock ticking away the hours. She watched in grim silence as her husband’s fears about the world were confirmed. Violence, poverty, starvation, plague—all of these became facts of life, and each year it worsened.
To escape from witnessing such despair, Yolanda began to read.
She had never read much before, so her skills were limited. Her husband had an extensive library, so her choices were varied. She read Dickens, Alcott, Bronte and Austen. Her skills improved and she tackled Faulkner, then Conrad and Camus. She had never been educated beyond the eighth grade, and with each book, her understanding of the world deepened. She worked her way through their set of Britannicas, then moved on to Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Marx. Soon she had exhausted her husband’s collection and she began to visit the library. The librarians soon knew her by name.
The years passed and one day Yolanda received an official-looking letter in the mail. It bore the Presidential seal.
Mrs. Green,
Congratulations on reaching the graceful age of one hundred years!
It bore the President’s signature, a stamp she was sure, but it still thrilled her. What astonished her more was her age, for she hadn’t given it a second thought.
She had little time to enjoy it. The next day the United States went to war. Yolanda decided right from the start that people needed a message of hope. She started small, with peace sittings in her own city, and letters to her congressman, but her efforts spread. No one knew who she was or even her last name. To those who asked her age, she said simply, “I’m older than most.”
When the war finally ended, Yolanda was asked to give speeches everywhere, and she did not disappoint. She called people her children, and she asked them not to shirk their responsibilities. She told them, “If this little old lady can do it, so can you.”
Finally, she allowed herself to fade quietly into the background, and made her plans to die. But strangely, the end did not come.
When she arrived at the university, she saw that an oversized grandfather clock had been mounted next to the red-carpeted stage. As the time approached, everyone counted down the seconds. With a voice hoarse from years of giving speeches, Yolanda counted with them. At precisely zero, the egg-shaped metal contraption appeared. No fanfare, no smoke, no lights. The stage was simply bare one moment, then there the time machine sat. The crowd cheered. The hatch popped open and her husband emerged.
He had not aged one day since she last saw him. Dressed in a blue jump suit, he smiled and waved to the crowd. Scientists and journalists immediately converged on him, assailing him with questions.
Yolanda moved toward him, nudging her way through the crowd like a needle through a soft fabric. Soon she stood near her husband, just outside a circle of people.
“Horace, it’s me, dear,” she said.
The circle around him parted. When he saw her, his eyes widened, and he moved to her instantly, putting his arms on her shoulders.
“Yolanda?” he asked, incredulous.
“Yes, dear.” There was a strange tremor in her heart.
He looked her up and down. “My God,” he said, “what kept you going?”
She smiled and slumped into his arms. Her immortal and endless strength had finally deserted her. The people in the crowd—her children, her many children—fell silent, so all could hear her final words.
“Someone had to give you the future,” she said.
And she realized, finally, why he never came back.
THE TIMESWEEPERS
Keith Laumer
The blindness of a blind alley may be not so much in the alley as in its inhabitants.
The man slid into the seat across from me, breathing a little hard, and said, “Do you mind?” He was holding a filled glass in his hand; he waved it at the room, which was crowded, but not that crowded. It was a slightly run-down bar in a run-down street in a run-down world. Just the place for meeting strangers.
I looked him over, not too friendly a look. The smile he was wearing slipped a little and wasn’t a smile anymore, just a sick smirk. He had a soft, round face, very pale blue eyes, he kind of head that ought to be bald but was covered with a fine blond down, like baby chicken feathers. He was wearing a striped sport shirt with a very wide collar laid back over a bulky plaid jacket with padded shoulders and wide lapels. His neck was smoothskinned, and too thin for his head. The hand that was holding the glass was small and well-lotioned, with short, immaculately manicured fingers. There was a big, cumbersome-looking ring on one of the fingers. The whole composition looked a little out of tune, like something assembled in a hurry by somebody who was short on material and had to make do with what was at hand. Still, it wasn’t a bad job, under the circumstances. It had passed—up until now.
“Please don’t misunderstand,” he said. His voice was like the rest of him: not feminine enough for a woman, but not anything you’d associate with a room full of cigar smoke, either.
“It’s vital that I speak with you, Mr. Starv,” he went on, talking fast, as if he wanted to get it all said before he was thrown out. “It’s a matter of great importance to your future.”
He must not have liked what went across my face then; he started to get up and I caught his wrist—as soft and smooth as a baby’s—and levered him back into his seat.
“You might as well stay and tell me about it,” I said. I looked at him over my glass while he got his smile fixed up and back in position. “My future, eh?” I prompted him. “I wasn’t sure I had one.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, and nodded quickly. “Yes indeed. And I might add that your future is a great deal larger than your past, Mr. Starv.”
“Have we met somewhere?”
He shook his head. “Please—I know I don’t make a great deal of sense; I’m under a considerable strain. But please listen . . .”
“I’m listening, Mr . . . what was the name?”
“It really doesn’t matter, Mr. Starv. I myself don’t enter into the matter at all; I was merely assigned to contact you and deliver the information.”
“Assigned?”
He looked at me with an expression like a slave bringing ill tidings to a bad tempered king.
“Mr. Starv—what would you say if I told you I was a member of a secret organization of supermen?”
“What would you expect me to say?”
“That I’m insane,” he said promptly. “Naturally, that’s why I’d prefer to speak directly to the point. Mr. Starv, your life is in danger.”
“Go on.”
“In precisely”—he glanced at the watch strapped to the underside of his wrist—“one and one half minutes, a man will enter this establishment. He will be dressed in a costume of black, and will carry a cane—ebony, with a silver head. He will go to the bar, order a straight whiskey, drink it, turn, raise the cane and fire three lethal darts into your chest.”
I took another swallow of my drink. It was the real stuff; one of the compensations of the job. “Uh-huh,” I said. “Then what?”
“Then? Then?” my little man said rather wildly. “Then you are dead, Mr. Starv!” He leaned across the table and threw this at me in a hiss, with quite a lot of spit.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” I said. “No!” His fat little hand shot out and clutched my arm with more power than I’d given him credit for. “This is what will happen—unless you act at once to avert it.”
“I take it that’s where the big future you mentioned comes in.”
“Mr. Starv—you must leave here at once.” He fumbled in a pocket of his coat, brought out a card with an address printed on it: 309 Turkon Place.
“It’s an old building, very stable, quite near here. Go to the third floor. You’ll have to climb a wooden stairway, but it’s quite safe. A door marked with the numeral 9 is at the back. Enter the room and wait.”
“Why would I do that?” I asked him.
He wiped at his face with his free hand.
“In order to save your life,” he said.
“What’s the idea—that the boy in black can’t work in rooms marked 9?”
“Please, Mr. Starv—time is short. Won’t you simply trust me?”
“Where’d you get my name?”
“Does that matter more than your life?”
“The name’s a phony. I made it up about an hour and a half ago, when I registered at the hotel across the street.”
His earnest look went all to pieces; he was still trying to reassemble it when the street door of the bar opened and a man in a black overcoat, black velvet collar, black homburg and carrying a black swagger stick walked in.
My new chum’s fingers clamped into the same grooves they’d made last time.
“You see? Just as I said. Now, quickly, Mr. Starv—”
I brushed his hand off me and slid out of the booth. The man in black went to the bar without looking my way, took a stool near the end.
I went across and took the stool on his left.
He didn’t look at me. He was so busy not looking at me that he didn’t even look around when my elbow dug into his side. If there was a gun in his pocket, I couldn’t feel it.
I leaned a little toward him.
“Who is he?” I said, about eight inches from his ear. His head jerked. He put his hands on the bar and turned. His face was thin, white around the nostrils from anger or illness, gray everywhere else. His eyes looked like little black stones.
“Are you addressing me?” he said in a tone with a chill like Scott’s last camp on the ice cap.
“Your friend with the sticky hands is waiting over in the booth. Why not join the party?”
“You’ve made an error,” Blackie said, and turned away.
From the corner of my eye I saw the other half of the team trying a sneak play around left end. I caught him a few yards past the door.
It was a cold night. Half an inch of snow squeaked under our shoes as he tried to jerk free of the grip I took on his upper arm.
“Tell me about it,” I said. “After I bought the mind-reading act, what was to come next?”
“You fool—I’m trying to save your life—have you no sense of gratitude?”
“What made it worth the trouble? My suit wouldn’t fit you, and the cash in my pocket wouldn’t pay cab fare over to Turkon Place and back.”
“Let me go! We must get off the street!” He tried to kick my ankle, and I socked him under the ribs hard enough to fold him against me wheezing like a bagpipe. I took a quick step back and heard the flat whak! of a silenced pistol and the whisper that a bullet makes when it passes an inch from your ear: Blackie’s cane going into action from the door to the bar.
