Time Travel Omnibus, page 326
Do you believe in ghosts? As I stood there, with those shreds of faded red cloth in my hand, stroking the sand-polished handle of the shovel, I suddenly realized that so far as time itself went he might have been standing here only hours, or even minutes before me. It was as though he had turned his back for a moment, and I had stepped into his tracks there in the sand. I was a child again, tagging after him as he strode around the big laboratory with his giant’s strides, pulling down a book here, running through a file of negatives there, gathering his tools around him before he set to work to unravel some perplexing situation in his digging. A thin cloud passed across the sun, and it was as though his shadow had fallen on me.
I pulled the shovel out of the crack in which he had wedged it. It was in good condition—perfectly usable. In my time we did not work with shovels or picks, but any fool could handle the thing. I dug it into the sand—scratched at the base of the crack. It would take only a few moments to deepen it enough so that I could crawl inside.
There was a kind of satisfaction to the work. I exercise in the public gymnasia—all young men of my age have to, to keep fit—but there was a difference. Using this primitive tool brought with it a feeling of accomplishment—of purpose—that I never found in mere exercise. I was strong, and it gratified me to see the hole deepen and the drift of sand grow behind me. Soon I had a tunnel into which I could crawl without bumping my head. I went back to the shuttle for a glow lamp and a pocket scanner, and plunged into the darkness.
After the first few feet I had no use for the lamp. My eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and I saw that shafts and streaks of light broke through gaps in the ruin overhead. Presently I found a hard floor under my feet, and then I came out into a room which was like a wedge—the ceiling fallen in one mass which hung diagonally between the wall over my head and the floor about twenty feet before me. Sunlight seeped in through a crevice to the left, striking on the wall and filling the whole place with a kind of diffuse glow. In that glow I saw footprints in the thick dust which covered the floor, and the table to which they led.
They were his footprints, of course. On that table he had found the knife. I stepped out of the doorway where I had been standing, an odd feeling of familiarity growing in me. I crossed the floor to the table. It had been covered with heavy glass, which lay in shreds on the dusty bronze. I could see the marks of his fingers in the dust where he had moved the broken glass aside. And I could see the outline of the knife, as sharp in the unstirred dust as it was when he picked it up in his gnarled old fingers thirteen years—or was it thirteen minutes?—before.
The crack of light was widening as the sun moved; the place grew brighter. I brushed the dust away from the table top. It was heavy bronze; it told me nothing. And then, turning, I saw the opposite wall and the frieze in low relief which ran above the door—
I don’t like the impossible. I don’t like paradox. I sit here, toiling over my correlations—they have promised a machine by spring which will perform them for us more quickly and in far more detail than we have ever attempted—and when I grow tired I let my head slip down on my hands, and I dream of a day when I was a child. I dream of an old man and a knife—and murder.
I had had my chance. Others, more experienced and possibly more capable than I, followed me. The entire ruin was excavated, with the most meticulous attention to technique, down to bedrock. And I . . . I was sent back to my correlations and my trait tables, to work up the data which other men would presently send me. Because strive as they will, they can find no other explanation than the one which—to me—seems obvious. The answer which is no answer—
You can go into the Toynbee Museum now, today, and see the knife in a guarded case, in the anteroom of the main exhibit hall. In the course of three hundred years that case will have been replaced by a bronze table and a cover of heavy glass. Bombs will fall, the building will crumble in ruins, and the knife will still be there. Dust will cover the ruins, and one day a gnarled old man in shabby clothes will shovel it away and creep inside. He will find the knife and carry it away. Later a younger man will come—and then others—many others, men and women both. And all the while, on the granite lintel above the door to the room where the knife is kept, will be the inscription:
WALTER TOYNBEE
1962—2035
My grandfather brought the knife back from the future. He died. It was placed in the museum named for him. It lay there for three hundred years, while the human race went mad trying to solve its secret—while all civilization was turned upside down in the starch for something which never existed!
He found it in the museum where it had always been. He carried it back through time, and it was placed in that museum. It lay there until he came and found it, and carried it back through time—
It was a simple pattern—as simple as ever was. Must we think only in terms of a beginning and an end? Cannot a thing—even a person—exist in a closed cycle without beginning or end? Appearing to us now, at this level of our time thread, accompanying us down its extension into our future, then vanishing from our stream and circling back to the point where it appeared? Can’t you imagine that?
I thought I could. I thought it was a paradox—no more—as simple to explain as ever was. I was wrong, of course, and they are right.
The knife old Walter Toynbee brought back from the museum built in his honor, to house his knife, was perfect—worn, dirty, but perfect. A little notch was sawed in the back of its translucent blue blade—sawed with a diamond saw, to provide the chemist and the physicists with the samples they needed to test its properties. That notch is still in its blade as it lies out there in the museum case—it will be there for the next three hundred years, or until the raids come and the museum falls in ruins. Until an old man comes out of the past to find it—
The knife old Walter Toynbee will find there in our future will have that notch. The knife he brought back to me thirty years ago had no notch in it. Somewhere the circle must have a beginning. Somewhere it must have an end—but where, and how? How was this knife created, out of a strange blue metal, and a strange, black, indurated wood, when its existence has no beginning or end? How can the circle be broken? I wish I knew. I might not dream of murder then. I might find logic and purpose in the future instead of chaos—instead of impossible worlds that never were.
THE END.
LEFTY FEEP DOES TIME
Robert Bloch
The wrong answer sent Lefty into the future. The right questions got him out . . .
“WHAT do you want to take me here for?” asked Bill.
“I thought you were my friend. But when I come to town you immediately try to steer me into the most awful-looking restaurant I’ve ever seen. I’ll bet the food is terrible!”
I smiled at Bill. “I’m not taking you to Jack’s Shack for the food,” I told him, as we entered the place.
“Then what?” Bill persisted.
“There’s a party here I’d like to have you meet,” I explained. “I think you’ll be interested.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Lefty Feep. And he tells some of the damndest yarns you’ve ever heard in your life. He’s just an innocent bystander at life’s little accidents—but to hear him talk, he has more adventures than Baron Munchausen.”
“You mean he’s a professional liar?” Bill asked me.
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t call him that. In fact, I wouldn’t know exactly how to describe him. Lefty Feep is—well, I’ll introduce you now and you can judge for yourself.”
I took Bill by the arm and steered him over to a table. Lefty Feep sat there, nonchalantly trimming his fingernails with a butter-knife. As he saw us approach, Mr. Feep waved and beckoned. There was a genial smile on his usually melancholy face.
“Hello,” he called. “Accept my greeting at this meeting and what are you eating?”
I introduced Bill, we sat down, and gave our orders to the waiter. Bill shielded his eyes, and I didn’t blame him.
Lefty Feep, in addition to his dazzling smile, was wearing a blinding costume. A sort of super-zoot suit with bolder shoulders, and trousers that were wowsers. The whole garment was done in a sort of subdued scarlet with yellow stripes. A purple shirt and orange-and-green necktie added to the general effect—which was nauseating.
I sympathized with Bill. His eyes hurt him now, and I knew that in a few minutes his ears would hurt him as Lefty Feep pulled another one of his stories.
Sure enough, the tall teller of taller tales cleared his throat for action.
“Lucky you contrive to arrive,” he told us. “It so happens I have a terrific adventure yesterday about which I have things to say.”
I nudged Bill. “But Lefty,” I objected. “Are you sure it was yesterday this adventure took place? I saw you, yesterday, all day.”
Feep never blinked. “Yesterday,” he insisted. “And I am away all day.”
“But I saw you!” I insisted.
“What you see is me to a degree,” said Feep. “But while I am here I am also somewhere else. Only that is another time.”
I perked up my ears and poked Bill. “Bill,” I said. “This ought to be a problem for you. After all, you’re a writer of science-fiction.”
That did it. Feep crouched over the table, eyes bulging.
“You write science-fiction?” he gasped. “Then indeed I must ask you to heed as I proceed. Because I got a truth that’s stranger than science-fiction. Listen——”
“Make it short,” I interrupted. “Bill and I haven’t got much time.”
“That’s what happens to me,” declared Lefty Feep. “Boy, what a time I don’t have yesterday!”
Feep opened his mouth. We opened our ears . . .
WHENEVER I am on the beach I go to see Skeetch and Meetch. Sylvester Skeetch and Mordecai Meetch are two giants of science who run the HORSECRACKER INSTITUTE—a laboratory where they conduct experiments on the stuff in various things. You see, when I am broke I often go up there and they give me a chance to put dough in my pants by helping them with their experiments.
That’s the way it is yesterday. I am very broke because my ex-wives are pulling some phoney baloney about alimony, so I feel moany and groany and being definitely broke but stoney, I root and toot over to the HORSECRACKER INSTITUTE.
Sylvester Skeetch and Mordecai Meetch are sitting in the gloom of a big room. But their two fat little faces go through the paces when I march in. They smile and exchange looks—which is no bargain for either of them.
“Lefty Feep!” exclaims Skeetch. “Just the personality we wish to see!”
“What brings you here at this propitious moment?” asks Meetch. “Hunger,” I explain.
Fat little Skeetch and Meetch shake hands with me and lead me to a chair. I sit and stare at the blank walls of the laboratory with a look to match.
“Why are you glad to see me?” I ask. “And where is all your scientific apparatus?”
“Come with me,” says Mordecai Meetch. “I will explain.”
Skeetch and Meetch lead me down a hallway into a large white-tiled room which looks as though it should have a GENTS sign on the door.
This room is also bare, but there is a large object, very big for its massive size, right smack in the middle of the floor. It is covered by a black curtain, and also by my curious glance.
Suddenly, from around in back of the covered object steps a new personality.
He is wearing a white coat like Skeetch and Meetch, and he sports the same kind of thick goggles. He could pass as a double of theirs, or a triple.
“Lefty,” says Skeetch, waving a fat finger at the stranger, “I would like to introduce our new scientific associate. Meet Cosmo Creetch.”
Cosmo Creetch puts out his hand and makes with the shakes.
“Pleased to meet you,” he mumbles. “Any colleague is always welcome. You have scientific standing?”
“I take mine sitting down,” I answer.
“But,” he persists, “are you interested in physics?”
“No,” I tell him. “I just drink a glass of warm water every morning.”
“You don’t understand,” Creetch murmurs. “I don’t mean that kind of physics. This deals with higher figures.”
“Speaking of higher figures, I meet a tall blonde once——”
“No!” sighs Creetch. “Not that. We are discussing mathematics.”
“Well, I might be interested in mathematics,” I confess. “You see, I owe a lot of dough.”
“Then you’re just the man I’m looking for. Perhaps you can earn some money by helping me do this.”
I cheer up. “Watch me holler for a dollar,” I tell him. “What can I do for you?”
“First let me ask you a question,” says Cosmo Creetch. “Do you know what a Time Machine is?”
“Yeah. An alarm clock.”
“No!” Creetch scowls. “Here, I’ll show you.” He walks over and pulls the cloth off the big object in the center of the room.
I STARE at a big steel cylinder, covered with metal bumps and shaped like an overgrown cucumber. There is a door at one end and Creetch pushes me over to the entrance.
“Step inside,” he invites. I look in at a bare room inside the cylinder. It resembles a cell for solitary confinement.
“Looks like a jail,” I comment. “You mean a guy should be put in here when he does time?”
“You don’t do time, you pass through it,” Creetch explains.
“Pass through it?”
“Of course. This is a vehicle. It can be steered ultrasiderally,” he tells me. “Observe the panel board.”
He points to one wall, covered with switches and dials. The dials are numbered, and there are little slide inserts under them. “Months” and “Days” and “Years” and Centuries” and even one that says “Eons”. There is also a calendar built right into the steel wall. Under each slide is a dial and a switch.
“It’s very simple,” Creetch insists. “You turn the dial to any year, month or day you desire and you can travel backwards in time.”
I shake my head. “Travel backwards in time? I don’t see any future in it.”
“Why it’s got a great future! You can travel into the future any time you want and to any time you want,” Creetch tells me. “Here is the future feature fixture.”
He indicates another blob of knobs. “Understand,” he confides. “This machine operates on a very logical basis—a mere process of molecular acceleration, synchronized so as not to disturb the normal metabolic process of the human body inside, which is protected by the insulation of the machine itself. This molecular acceleration will carry you forward through the spacetime continuum and you will emerge undamaged at the precise point indicated by rhomboidicality as governed by the process.”
“Sure, sure,” I answer. “Why bother with such childish details? I figure it out the minute I see it. Why don’t you buy yourself a zoot straitjacket and forget it?”
Creetch gets mad. “I’m not deceiving you, Mr. Feep!” he snaps. “This machine will take a human being forward in time. All we need to prove it is to get the services of a human being. And if that’s impossible—well, maybe we can use you.”
“Yes,” adds Skeetch. “We want you to try out this Time Machine.”
“Nobody is taking me for a ride!”
I yell.
“Of course not,” says Skeetch. “You’ll go alone.”
“I refuse to be two-timed!”
“For $100?” purrs Cosmo Creetch. That changes my mind. The way I am sitting financially, I will take a climb into time for a dime.
“How about right now?” Creetch urges. “Just take a blast into the past. I’ll set the sight for about a hundred years back.”
I FOLLOW him into the hollow of the machine. He shows me the two types of dials—foresight and hindsight—and explains what I am to do. Merely turn on the machine, which will transport me through time in a juicy jiffy. Then get out and grab something to bring back—proving I make the trip. That is all there is to it. He tells me how to operate the crate so there will be no slip on a return trip.
“Set the dial for a trial,” he advises me.
I study the switches to avoid hitches.
“You know, the past does not appeal to me,” I confess. “How about peering into the future?”
“You’re steering, so do your own peering,” Creetch agrees. “Just set a course to suit yourself.”
I fiddle with the dials and turn the “Years” and “Months” and “Days” knobs.
“There!” I exclaim. “Exactly five hundred years! February 29th, 2544. Leap year—it works out.”
“Give it a workout, then,” Creetch tells me. “Here’s your $100. Let me get out of here, turn that master-switch, and bon voyage!”
He leaves. I shut the big silver door.
I am all alone in the steer cylinder. I go up to the panel and reach for the master-switch.
I pull it. There is a hell of a howl and five hundred years blast past my ears. I fall to the floor as I feel the machine churning and turning. My stomach matches it.
Then, all at once, the machine seems to land with a bump, and my stomach settles back into place with a thump.
Everything is a riot of quiet.
I make a score with the steel door. I open it slowly and stick my noggin outside. And I do mean outside!
Because I am not in the HORSECRACKER INSTITUTE any more.
MY TIME Machine lands me in a deserted street. All around me are huge skyscrapers and a lot of planes cutting capers. But the buildings are taller and the planes are smaller. I nearly break my neck trying to see the top of these edifices, and I shiver as I watch a lot of wingless little planes dart in and out of the buildings above.
Then I realize that the street is deserted because everybody is flying. Most people’s affairs seem to be conducted on a very high level these days.
Sure as I’m alive, this is 2544, or I miss my score!
I take a few steps away from the Time Machine and gander at the building nearest at hand. There are a couple of stores on this ground floor and I notice a sign—“DAN DRUFF’S BARBER SHOP.”
