Time Travel Omnibus, page 412
“My God.” Eckels twisted his mouth. “It could reach up and grab the moon.”
“Sh!” Travis said angrily. “He hasn’t see us yet.”
“It can’t be killed.” Eckels pronounce this verdict quietly, as if there could be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. “We were fools to come. This is impossible.”
“Shut up,” hissed Travis.
“Nightmare.”
“Turn around,” commanded Travis “Walk quietly to the Machine. We’ll return one half your fee.”
“Didn’t realize it would be this big,” said Eckels. “Miscalculated. Now, I want out.”
“It sees us!”
“There’s the red paint, on its chest!”
The Tyrannosaurus raised itself. Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green fins. The coins, crusted with slime, earned. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch ad undulate, even while the monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.
“Get me out,” said Eckels. His mouth loved several times. A few words fell from is tongue. His jaw worked. “Too much. Too much. Never. Never like this before.” Then he made a series of grunting sounds, as if he had been hit, very hard, in the stomach.
“Don’t run,” said Lesperance. “Turn round. Hide in the Machine.”
“Yes.” Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet, as if he were trying to make them move. He gave another helpless grunt and started out.
“Eckels!”
He took a few steps, blinking, ruffling.
“Not that way!”
The monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one hundred yards in a few seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from re beast’s mouth engulfed them in re stench of slime and old blood, the monster roared, teeth glittering with sun.
ECKELS, not looking back, walked blindly to the edge of the Path, his gun limp in his arms, stepped off the Path, and walked, not knowing it, in the jungle. His feet sank into green moss. His legs moved him, and he felt alone and remote from the events behind.
The rifles cracked again. Their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great level of the reptile’s tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and branch. The Monster twitched its jeweler’s hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulder-stone eyes leveled with the men. They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris.
Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell. Thundering, it clutched trees, pulled them with it. It wrenched and tore the metal Path. The men flung themselves back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold flesh and stone. The guns fired. The Monster lashed its armored tail, twitched its snake jaws, and lay still. A fount of blood spurted from its throat. Somewhere inside, a sac of fluids burst. Sickening gushes drenched the hunters. They stood, red and glistening.
The thunder faded.
The jungle was silent. After the avalanche, a green peace. After the nightmare, morning.
Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and threw up. Travis and Lesperance stood with smoking rifles, cursing steadily.
In the Time Machine, on his face, Eckels lay shivering. He had found his way back to the Path, climbed into the Machine.
Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took cotton gauze from a metal box, and returned to the others, who were sitting on the Path. “Clean up.”
They wiped the blood from their helmets. The monster lay, a hill of solid flesh. Within, you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest chambers of it died, he organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever. It was a little like standing by a steam engine at quitting time, all valves being released or levered tight. Bones cracked; the tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead weight, snapped the delicate forearms, caught underneath. The meat settled, quivering. Another cracking sound. Overhead, a heavy tree branch broke from its mooring and fell. It crashed upon the head beast with finality.
“There.” Lesperance checked his watch. “Right on time. That’s the tree branch that was scheduled to fall and kill this animal, originally.” He glanced at the two hunters. “You want the trophy picture?”
“What?”
“We can’t take a trophy back to the future. The body has to stay right here where it would have died originally; so the insects, birds and bacteria can get at it, as they were intended to. Everything in balance. The body stays. But we can take a picture of you standing near it.”
The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking their heads. They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They sank wearily into the Machine cushions. They gazed back at the ruined monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armor.
A sound on the floor of the time machine stiffened them. Eckels sat there, shivering.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“Get up!” cried Travis.
Eckels got up.
“Go out on that Path alone,” said Travis. He had his rifle pointed. “You’re not coming back in the Machine. We’re leaving you here!”
Lesperance seized Travis’ arm. “Wait!”
“Stay out of this!” Travis shook his hand away. “This stupid fool nearly killed us. But it isn’t that so much. Hell, no. It’s his shoes! Look at them! He ran off the Path. My God, that ruins us! Who knows how much we’ll forfeit! Tens of thousands of dollars of insurance! We guarantee no one leaves the Path. He left it. Oh, the damn’ fool! I’ll have to report to the government. They might revoke our license to travel. God knows what he’s done to Time, to History!”
“Take it easy. All he did was kick up some dirt.”
“How do we know?” cried Travis. “We don’t know anything! It’s all a damn’ mystery! Get out there, Eckels!”
Eckels fumbled with his shirt. “I’ll pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!”
Travis glared at Eckels’ checkbook and spat. “Go out there. The monster’s next to the Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with us.”
“That’s unreasonable!”
“The monster’s dead, you yellow——. The bullets! The bullets can’t be left behind. They don’t belong in the past—they might change something. Here’s my knife. Dig them out!”
The jungle was alive again, full of the old tremors and bird cries. Eckels turned slowly to stare at that primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror.
After a long time, like a sleepwalker, he shuffled out along the Path.
He returned, shuddering, five minutes later, his arms soaked and red to the elbows. He held out his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets.
Then he fell. He lay where he fell, not moving.
“You didn’t have to make him do that,” said Lesperance.
“Didn’t I? It’s too early to tell.” Travis nudged the still body. “He’ll live. Next time he won’t go hunting game like this. Okay.” He jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance. “Switch on. Let’s go home.”
1492 . . . 1776 . . . 1812.
They cleaned their hands and faces. They changed their caking shirts and pants. Eckels was up and around again, not speaking. Travis glared at him for a full ten minutes.
“Don’t look at me,” cried Eckels.
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Who can tell?”
“Just ran off the Path, that’s all. A little mud on my shoes—What do you want me to do—get down and pray?”
“We might need it. I’m warning I you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I’ve got my gun ready.”
“I’m innocent. I haven’t done any thing!”
1999 . . . 2000 . . . 2056. The Machine stopped.
“Get out,” said Travis.
The room was as they had left it. The same man sat behind the same desk.
Travis looked around, suspiciously. “Everything okay here?” he snapped.
“Fine. Welcome home!”
Travis relaxed. “Okay, Eckels, get out,” he said. “Don’t ever come back.”
Eckels didn’t move.
“You heard me,” said Travis, irritably. “What’re you staring at?” Eckels stared at the sign on the office wall, the same sign he had seen earlier that day, when he had first come into the room. But somehow the sign had changed.
TYME SEFARI INC.
SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST
YU NAIM THE ANIMALL. WEE TAEK
YU THAIR
YU SHOOT ITT
Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling. “No, it can’t be. Not a little thing like that! No!”
Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful, and very dead.
“Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!” cried Eckels.
It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time. Eckels’ mind whirled. It couldn’t change things. Killing one butterfly couldn’t be that important! Could it?
His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking: “Who—who won the Presidential election yesterday?”
The man behind the desk laughed. “You joking? You know damn’ well. Lyman, of course! Who else? Not that damn’ weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with guts!” The official stopped. “What’s wrong?”
Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking fingers. “Can’t we,” he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the Machine, “can’t we take it back, can’t we make it alive again? Can’t we start over! Can’t we—”
He looked up into Travis’ angry, frightened face.
Travis shook his head. THE END
ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD
Arthur C. Clarke
Robert Ashton faced the most agonizing choice in the history of man—a choice in which he could only lose!
WHEN THE quiet knock came on the door, Robert Ashton surveyed the room in one swift, automatic movement. Its dull respectability satisfied him and should reassure any visitor. Not that he had any reason to expect the police, but there was no point in taking chances.
“Come in,” he said, pausing only to grab Plato’s Dialogues from the shelf beside him. Perhaps this gesture was a little too ostentatious, but it always impressed his clients.
The door opened slowly. At first, Ashton continued his intent reading, not bothering to glance up. There was the slightest acceleration of his heart, a mild and even exhilarating constriction of the chest. Of course, it couldn’t possibly be a flatfoot: someone would have tipped him off. Still, any unheralded visitor was unusual and thus potentially dangerous.
Ashton laid down the book, glanced toward the door and remarked in a noncommittal voice: “What can I do for you?” He did not get up; such courtesies belonged to a past he had buried long ago. Besides, it was a woman. In the circles he now frequented, women were accustomed to receive jewels and clothes and money—but never respect.
Yet there was something about this visitor that drew him slowly to his feet. It was not merely that she was beautiful, but she had a poised and effortless authority that moved her into a different world from the flamboyant doxies he met in the normal course of business. There was a brain and a purpose behind those calm, appraising eyes—a brain, Ashton suspected, the equal of his own.
He did not know how grossly he had underestimated her.
“Mr Ashton,” she began, “let us not waste time. I know who you are and I have work for you. Here are my credentials.”
She opened a large, stylish handbag and extracted a thick bundle of notes.
“You may regard this,” she said, “as a sample.”
Ashton caught the bundle as she tossed it carelessly toward him. It was the largest sum of money he had ever held in his life—at least a hundred fivers, all new and serially numbered. He felt them between his fingers. If they were not genuine, they were so good that the difference was of no practical importance.
He ran his thumb to and fro along the edge of the wad as if feeling a pack for a marked card, and said thoughtfully, “I’d like to know where you got these. If they aren’t forgeries, they must be hot and will take some passing.”
“They are genuine. A very short time ago they were in the Bank of England. But if they are of no use to you throw them in the fire. I merely let you have them to show that I mean business.”
“Go on.” He gestured to the only seat and balanced himself on the edge of the table.
She drew a sheaf of papers from the capacious handbag and handed it across to him.
“I am prepared to pay you any sum you wish if you will secure these items and bring them to me, at a time and place to be arranged. What is more, I will guarantee that you can make the thefts with no personal danger.”
ASHTON looked at the list, and sighed. The woman was mad. Still, she had better be humoured. There might be more money where this came from.
“I notice,” he said mildly, “that all these items are in the British Museum, and that most of them are, quite literally, priceless. By that I mean that you could neither buy nor sell them.”
“I do not wish to sell them. I am a collector.”
“So it seems. What are you prepared to pay for these acquisitions?”
“Name a figure.”
There was a short silence. Ashton weighed the possibilities. He took a certain professional pride in his work, but there were some things that no amount of money could accomplish. Still, it would be amusing to see how high the bidding would go.
“I think a round million would be a very reasonable figure for this lot,” he said ironically.
“I fear you are not taking me very seriously. With your contacts, you should be able to dispose of these.”
There was a flash of light and something sparkled through the air. Ashton caught the necklace before it hit the ground, and despite himself was unable to suppress a gasp of amazement. A fortune glittered through his fingers. The central diamond was the largest he had ever seen—it must be one of the world’s most famous jewels.
His visitor seemed completely indifferent as he slipped the necklace into his pocket. Ashton was badly shaken; he knew she was not acting. To her, that fabulous gem was of no more value than a lump of sugar. This was madness on an unimaginable scale.
“Assuming that you can deliver the money,” he said, “how do you imagine that it’s physically possible to do what you ask? One might steal a single item from this list, but within a few hours the Museum would be solid with police.”
With a fortune already in his pocket, he could afford to be frank. Besides, he was curious to learn more about his fantastic visitor.
She smiled, rather sadly, as if humouring a backward child.
“If I show you the way,” she said softly, “will you do it?”
“Yes—for a million.”
“Have you noticed anything strange since I came in? Is it not—very quiet?”
Ashton listened. My God, she was right! This room was never completely silent, even at night. There had been a wind blowing over the roof tops; where had it gone now? The distant rumble of traffic had ceased; five minutes ago he had been cursing the engines shunting in the marshalling yard at the end of the road. What had happened to them?
“Go to the window.”
He obeyed the order and drew aside the grimy lace curtains with fingers that shook slightly despite all attempt at control. Then he relaxed. The street was quite empty, as it often was at this time in the midmorning. There was no traffic, and hence no reason for sound. Then he glanced down the row of dingy houses towards the shunting yard.
His visitor smiled as he stiffened with the shock.
“Tell me what you see, Mr Ashton.”
He turned slowly, face pale and throat muscles working.
“What are you?” he gasped. “A witch?”
“Don’t be foolish. There is a simple explanation. It is not the world that has changed—but you.”
Ashton stared again at that unbelievable shunting engine, the plume of steam frozen motionless above it as if made from cotton wool. He realised now that the clouds were equally immobile; they should have been scudding across the sky. All around him was the unnatural stillness of the high-speed photograph, the vivid unreality of a scene glimpsed in a flash of lightning.
“You are intelligent enough to realise what is happening, even if you cannot understand how it is done. Your time scale has been altered: a minute in the outer world would be a year in this room.”
Again she opened the handbag, and this time brought forth what appeared to be a bracelet of some silvery metal, with a series of dials and switches moulded into it.
“You can call this a personal generator,” she said. “With it strapped about your arm, you are invincible. You can come and go without hindrance—you can steal everything on that list and bring it to me before one of the guards in the Museum has blinked an eyelid. When you have finished, you can be miles away before you switch off the field and step back into the normal world.
“Now listen carefully, and do exactly what I say. The field has a radius of about seven feet, so you must keep at least that distance from any other person. Secondly, you must not switch it off again until you have completed your task and I have given you your payment. This is most important. Now, the plan I have worked out is this . . .”
NO CRIMINAL in the history of the world had ever possessed such power. It was intoxicating—yet Ashton wondered if he would ever get used to it. He had ceased to worry about explanations, at least until the job was done and he had collected his reward. Then, perhaps, he would get away from England and enjoy a well-earned retirement.
