Time Travel Omnibus, page 136
As I said at first, I suppose the thing could have happened only to Storrs, or another like him. If someone with scientific knowledge had made the trip, someone who could observe and learn, could understand and remember the things Ted never noticed, either the apparatus for sending him back would not have worked, or it would have been a motor truck he collided with on his return to our world. Otherwise, if he came back and reproduced things a hundred years before they were invented, they could not be invented because they would be already known, and he would have learned in the future of his miraculous discovery of them, which he did not.
And yet, for all such theory, the thing is maddening. Surely he could have brought back something, some secret which would disappear when he died, like the lost ancient arts of tempering metal, or the premature knowledge of Roger Bacon. There are so many little things he might have got. The secret of cold light, or of that fog-piercing ray, or, to ask only a little of Fate, the formula for the cosmetic that must have been used to stop the tanning at any stage.
But Storrs would not—or perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, could not—learn these or dozens of other things. He never thought of what he might bring back, even after he had learned that return was possible. He does not seem to realize the chances he missed. Instead, all he talks about when we bring up the subject, which is not often now, is “the cleanness and fineness, the beauty as well as the utility, of twenty-second century civilization.”
I wonder, sometimes, if that really might not be the heart of his vision.
THE END.
[*] She meant, “four raised to the fourth power,” or 4x4x4x4—256.
WORLDS TO BARTER
John Wyndham
ONE of the fascinations of the time traveling story lies in the endless source of speculation concerning its manifold possibilities. So many elements of time traveling stories seem to be contrary to reason and lead the thinking reader into all sort of absurd situations. Some of these were pictured quite vividly in our readers9 column by young Mr. Nicholson last month.
Readers may find some of these apparent contradictions in the present story. Even the scientists of the 22nd century found themselves unable to follow the mysterious program of the owners of the silver vehicles who wanted to transfer a whole race through time.
But this story is thrilling from beginning to end.
It leaves one with a sense that there was much that our hero could have told us, if he were able. It leaves us with a haunting sense of mystery, of un-namable fear and of desolation.
OUTSIDE the tall laboratory windows the sun shone brightly on the gardens. It was that kind of June morning when one forgets the deficiencies of our civilization and everything seems for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Certainly in the minds of Professor Lestrange and myself there was no suspicion of any untoward occurrence. We had already been working for some three and a half severely practical hours.
Lestrange, in that year 1935, was not unlike the photographs, taken ten years later, which now adorn the physics textbooks. Already, at forty, his most striking characteristics were that broad white forehead where so many mysteries were solved and those piercing eyes which saw so much that was hidden from ordinary men. Already his adaptations and improvements marked him for success though he had made none of those revolutionary discoveries individual enough to be understood and acclaimed by the public.
The time was yet to come when the name of Lestrange would be more familiar than that of Edison had ever been and when his commanding face would peer out from a million printed pages.
The critical moments of our present experiment were approaching. I was attempting to fight down my rising excitement so that no trembling might show in my hands. Lestrange was, to all appearances, as calm as a frozen sea. During his work he preserved the mien of a poker player. Not a hurried movement betrayed any anxiety as in the silence of the long laboratory he tested the last connections and inspected the final adjustments.
“Stand by,” he ordered, at length, in an unemotional voice.
As I moved aside, his hand was on the switch. My eyes were fixed upon the intricate apparatus before us. In a few seconds now, the throw of a copper bar would prove whether we faced a marvellous discovery or the symbol of wasted months of labor.
There was a mighty crash behind us.
That noise, so dreaded in our surroundings, hit my taut nerves like a hundred volts. I whirled round. Lestrange’s scientific abstraction was shattered. Slowly his hand left the switch and his mouth dropped open. At any other time the way blank amazement succeeded intelligent concentration might have amused me, but, now, I myself, was too bewildered.
Two thirds of the way up the room, in the middle of what had been a clear floor space, lay a piece of machinery. A few feet from it sprawled the figure of a man.
As we stared, the man sat up.
He was dressed in a close-fitting black suit of a texture and finish resembling leather and apparently made in one piece. His build was tall and strong and his face, though it bore an expression of confusion at the moment, showed firmness of character.
For a few seconds he gazed about wonderingly, then alarm seized him. His voice was urgent as he addressed us.
“Quick,” he said. “Some Quick.”
Something in his manner caused me to search my pockets without question.
“Here,” I said, holding out a length of packing twine.
He snatched it and turned to the machine behind him. Hurriedly he raised the contraption from its side to a vertical position. More than anything else it seemed to resemble the skeleton framework of a miniature building using, instead of steel, bright silvery bars which crisscrossed in all directions. Enmeshed in them was a bucket seat before which were arrayed two rows of dials. There was no time for a further examination.
The stranger leaned over the instrument board, adjusted several dials, tied a loop in the end of my bit of string and slipped it over a small lever. He took as many steps away as the length of the string permitted and gave a jerky pull . . .
THERE was no machine; before our startled eyes stood only the stranger, the string dangling from his hand. A sigh of relief broke from his lips as he turned towards us.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”
“You do, sir,” replied Lestrange. “I should be pleased to know by what right you intrude.”
“I admit, I have no right. I can plead only what they used to call in the old days, sanctuary. You are Mr. Lestrange—the inventor of the battery? My own name is Lestrange—Jon Lestrange.”
“My name is Lestrange,” the Professor admitted, “but I have invented no battery.”
“Not yet?” said the stranger. “I am earlier than I thought. You must excuse me, my dates were never good.”
There was puzzlement on Lestrange’s face as replied.
“I do not understand you. No doubt you will explain later, to infer from your name that you claim relationship?”
“Certainly we are related, but—er—distantly.”
“The matter must be examined. I cannot pretend ever to have heard of you before. Let me present my assistant, Henry Wright.”
The stranger held out his hand.
“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Wright,” he said with a smile. “Your rescue of Mr. Lestrange was an act of real bravery.”
It was my turn to be puzzled. In all the six years I had known Lestrange he had never been in more danger than anyone who crosses a busy street.
“I see I have made another blunder. Please forgive me,” the man apologized.
A change came over his expression. The smile of greeting gave way to a look of anguish. His eyes seemed to plead as he asked:
“Tell me, have you ever, either of you seen or heard of another machine like the one I came on?”
We shook our heads. I could recall no invention bearing any resemblance to it.
“There was really no chance, not one in a hundred million,” he said slowly. “I knew it wasn’t possible, but I had to ask.
His gaze wandered round the room pausing here and there upon apparatus until it came to rest upon the material of our thwarted experiment. His eyes brightened and he took a few steps towards it.
Lestrange and I were recovering now from our sense of unreality. Our eyes met and we knew that the same thought was in both our minds. All mystery was ripped from the affair with a jerk—the man was a spy, with the minutest care he was examining the product of our secret months of labor. Lestrange pulled a revolver from a drawer.
“Put your hands up,” he snapped. The other obeyed, a slight smile on his lips.
“I’ve heard that these were troublous times,” he remarked.
“Come over here,” Lestrange ordered, “and tell us just why you are so interested in that experiment.”
The other, who called himself Lestrange, opened his eyes wide in evident surprise.
“Surely,” he expostulated, “it is reasonable to show interest in the discovery which changed the face of the world? Besides, I may be mistaken, but it seems slightly different from what I remember. It’s a couple of years since I saw a picture of it, but I have a distinct impression that several of the connections ran differently . . . that terminal on the left should be coupled direct to.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” roared Lestrange. “You must be mad. The thing’s only been assembled four days.”
“Oh, Lord,” said the stranger, “I’ve put my foot in it again. I’ll have to try to explain it all to you, but it’s a long story. May I have some food first—I haven’t eaten for twenty four hours.
Chapter II
The Man from the Future
BY the end of the meal the visitor’s status had changed. He was no longer an interloper, but a guest whom we were calling, at his own request, Jon. Somehow in that desultory form of conversation appropriate to the lunch table, we had lost our suspicions though we were no nearer to understanding him. He was curiously ignorant at the same time that he was well informed. His broad outlines of current politics were good, but of the details he seemed to know nothing.
In speaking of well-known characters he appeared to hesitate as though he might commit himself. His knowledge of literature was excellent though occasionally he referred to works of which I had never heard, by authors whose fame was worldwide. My condensed impression was that while he appreciated the high lights of most matters, he was sure of himself only in a few subjects.
“You’ll smoke?” inquired Lestrange as we retired to his comfortable study. “Tobacco?” asked Jon.
“Of course,” replied the Professor with a touch of surprise. “What else?”
“There are many things to smoke where I come from—one has to be careful.”
He settled himself comfortably in a big chair and lit a cigar.
“Now,” he said, “if you can put up with a long tale, I, would like to explain this intrusion.”
“Our experiment . . .” I began.
“Would not be a success in its present form. Believe me, I can tell you where there is a miscalculation.”
I accepted his statement. He seemed to know something of our work. Lestrange, too, nodded agreement.
Jon began:
“I think the first thing to be explained is why I chose to thrust my company upon you rather than upon any one else. Perhaps the first reason is our relationship and the second that my studies have informed me that you, Professor, have probably a more open mind and a greater grasp of possibilities than any man now living . . .”
“This relationship . . .?”
“Our family has been proud of its direct descent from you and your wife, Joy.” Lestrange and I looked at one another. Now there was no doubt that the man was off the rails somewhere.
“But I’m not married, I . . .”
“Please let me go my own way. It is a difficult situation, but I hope I shall convince you. Very few men can have had the chance of convincing their great-great-great grandfathers of anything. I am now an anachronism. You see, I was born in the year A.D. 2108,—or should it be, I shall be born in 2108?—and I am—or will be—a refugee from the twenty-second century. I assure you that you will be married shortly, but I can’t remember when—I think I told you I was bad at dates.
“It will probably be easier for you if I tell the story in the past tense. Certainly it is a past life for me. You saw me burn my bridges when I tied the string to that machine.
“OF course the nature of time, we of the twenty-second century knew little more than you of the twentieth. Habit of thought still caused us still to think of it in terms of progression along a straight line. Though we were aware, of course, that this was inaccurate, yet for all practical purposes it served us as well as it had served the world for thousands of years before.
“Because I am here now, I know that time is somehow folded or circular so that it is all co-existent, or non-existent. But of the working principle of that machine which brought me here, I am as ignorant as you. I set the dials, pulled the lever—and there was your laboratory.
“I daren’t keep the thing to examine it. It’s even betting that the owners had some way of tracing it and that was not a risk worth taking.
“The world I was living in was not all you twentieth century men expected. It would have disappointed Wells and his fellow prophets to have had a true vision of A.D. 2135. We were on another swing of the pendulum.
“Scientific progress in the sense of physics, chemistry and engineering had slowed its advance to a minimum while the world caught up and readjusted. By the end of the twentieth century science was so far advanced that civilization was becoming seriously lopsided so that nature tended to restore the balance. Even today I expect you can begin to see how large scale production has begun to upset politics and social conditions which were designed to cope with a simpler way of life. It is making war no longer the solution of difficulties, it is uprooting the old order of things, but not reorganizing.
“So you will see that I come from a world in which Mr. Wells’ ‘Sleeper’ might awake, but from an age which had spent the previous century in improving its institutions rather than its machines.
“Since the year 2000 the Lestrange battery, of which you heard me speak, had been almost the only driving agent for machinery. In 2000, Mr. Lestrange, the internal combustion engine will have passed away. The whole world’s trains, ships, planes, radios, cranes, everything save the most ponderous machines will be depending upon your discovery.
“It is strange to tell a man of his results before the experiment has been made. Nevertheless, I assure you that your little storage battery is going to have a greater effect upon the whole world than any other single invention in the history of mankind. Even the machine which brought me here depended upon a modified form of your battery to carry it across half a million years.”
“But you said—”
“Oh, yes, I have taken only a little local trip on it. A mere jaunt of a couple of centuries.”
The Coming of the Menace
“LOOKING back, I can see that the first sign of the crisis we were to face occurred about a year ago—to me—in the summer of 2134. An account was published by newspapers and radio of the derailing of a train. (It was still more economical for heavy, imperishable goods to be carried by rail.) An investigation of the accident, so far from clearing up the reason, had obscured it.
“Among the debris was found the crooked frame of what we later learned to call a ‘time traveller’. Attention was first attracted to the silvery bars by their strength. Though the joints of the structure had been strained by the impact, rods, a quarter of an inch thick, were found to be supporting tons of wreckage without a bend. This unknown, silvery metal itself set a problem, but a greater puzzle was the body found lying near the track.
“There could be no doubt that the corpse was human, though to us whose standards were still those of ancient Greece, the thing appeared a travesty.
“In height it must have stood about five feet. The head had twice the volume of ours though the enlargement was mainly frontal. The neck was thickened in order to support the weight until the shoulders barely projected. Puny arms ended in small hands of which no finger carried a nail and none was longer than two inches.
“Each foot was just a pad showing no articulation of the toes. When the dissectors got to work on the body, they noticed many other curious malformations such as abbreviated intestines, atrophied aural system and absence of teeth.
“Speculation ran rife. Everyone made the creature’s origin a sort of guessing game. It was suggested that the thing was a natural freak, a product of vivisectional experiment, a sensational hoax, an attempt at artificial creation and a dozen other things all equally wide of the mark.
“The only explanation which attempted to account for the machine was offered by an ingenious gentleman who claimed that the body was that of an interplanetary explorer who had selected a singularly unfortunate spot for his landing. It was curtly pointed out that a metal framework is not the best protection against a vacuum. It nevertheless transpired later that the only thing seriously wrong about this explanation was the inclusion of the word ‘interplanetary’.
“As the controversy began to cool, it suddenly received fresh fuel from the finding of a similar body in a coastal rock-pool. The boy who reported it said that there had been a shiny machine near, but when he touched a lever, it had disappeared. Again the crop of surmise sprouted. Every suggestion which could be made, was made; save the right one—that the people of 2134 had gazed on the bodies of their own remote descendants. Could we have read in the mystery the warning it carried, it would have been useless to us.
“Three months ago, the curtain rose on the last act of our drama—only three months.”
