Time Travel Omnibus, page 460
During the war human beings had left Terra and gone to the Moon. Terra was devastated. Nothing but a globe of ruin and ash. Men had come back gradually, when the war was over.
Actually there had been two wars. The first was man against man. The second was man against the claws—complex robots that had been created as a war weapon. The claws had turned on their makers, designing their own new types and equipment.
Ryan’s ship began to descend. He was over City Four. Presently the ship came to rest on the roof of his massive private residence at the center of the city. Ryan leaped quickly out and crossed the roof to the lift.
A moment later he entered his quarters and made his way toward Jon’s room.
He found the old man watching Jon through the glass side of the room, his face grave. Jon’s room was partly in darkness. Jon was sitting on the edge of his bed, his hands clasped tightly together. His eyes were shut. His mouth was open a little, and from time to time his tongue came out, stiff and rigid.
“How long has he been like that?” Ryan said to the old man beside him.
“About an hour.”
“The other attacks followed the same pattern?”
“This is more severe. Each has been more severe.”
“No one has seen him but you?”
“Just the two of us. I called you when I was certain. It’s almost over. He’s coming out of it.”
On the other side of the glass Jon stood up and walked away from his bed, his arms folded. His blond hair hung down raggedly in his face. His eyes were still shut. His face was pale and set. His lips twitched.
“He was completely unconscious at first. I had left him alone for awhile. I was in another part of the building. When I came back I found him lying on the floor. He had been reading. The spools were scattered all around him. His face was blue. His breathing was irregular. There were repeated muscular spasms, as before.”
“What did you do?”
“I entered the room and carried him to the bed. He was rigid at first, but after a few minutes he began to relax. His body became limp. I tested his pulse. It was very slow. Breathing was coming more easily. And then it began.”
“It?”
“The talk.”
“Oh.” Ryan nodded.
“I wish you could have been here. He talked more than ever before. On and on. Streams of it. Without pause. As if he couldn’t stop.”
“Was—was it the same talk as before?”
“Exactly the same as it’s always been. And his face was lit up. Glowing. As before.”
Ryan considered. “Is it all right for me to go into the room?”
“Yes. It’s almost over.”
Ryan moved to the door. His fingers pressed against the code lock and the door slid back into the wall.
Jon did not notice him as he came quietly into the room. He paced back and forth, eyes shut, his arms wrapped around his body. He swayed a little, rocking from side to side. Ryan came to the center of the room and stopped.
“Jon!”
The boy blinked. His eyes opened. He shook his head rapidly. “Ryan? What—what did you want?”
“Better sit down.”
Jon nodded. “Yes. Thank you.” He sat down on the bed uncertainly. His eyes were wide and blue. He pushed his hair back out of his face, smiling a little at Ryan.
“How do you feel?”
“I feel all right.”
Ryan sat down across from him, drawing a chair over. He crossed his legs, leaning back. For a long time he studied the boy. Neither of them spoke. “Grant says you had a little attack,” Ryan said finally.
Jon nodded.
“You’re over it now?”
“Oh, yes. How is the time ship coming?”
“Fine.”
“You promised I could see it, when it’s ready.”
“You can. When it’s completely done.”
“When will that be?”
“Soon. A few more days.”
“I want to see it very much. I’ve been thinking about it. Imagine going into time. You could go back to Greece. You could go back and see Pericles and Xenophon and—and Epictetus. You could go back to Egypt and talk to Ikhnaton.” He grinned. “I can’t wait to see it.”
Ryan shifted. “Jon, do you really think you’re well enough to go outside? Maybe—”
“Well enough? What do you mean?”
“Your attacks. You really think you should go out? Are you strong enough?”
Jon’s face clouded. “They’re not attacks. Not really. I wish you wouldn’t call them attacks.”
“Not attacks? What are they?”
Jon hesitated. “I—I shouldn’t tell you, Ryan. You wouldn’t understand.”
Ryan stood up. “All right, Jon. If you feel you can’t talk to me I’ll go back to the lab.” He crossed the room to the door. “It’s a shame you can’t see the ship. I think you’d like it.”
Jon followed him plaintively. “Can’t I see it?”
“Maybe if I knew more about your—your attacks I’d know whether you’re well enough to go out.”
Jon’s face flickered. Ryan watched him intently. He could see thoughts crossing Jon’s mind, written on his features. He struggled inwardly.
“Don’t you want to tell me?”
Jon took a deep breath. “They’re visions.”
“What?”
“They’re visions.” Jon’s face was alive with radiance. “I’ve known it a long time. Grant says they’re not, but they are. If you could see them you’d know, too. They’re not like anything else. More real than, well, than this.” He thumped the wall. “More real than that.”
Ryan lit a cigarette slowly. “Go on.”
It all came with a rush. “More real than anything else! Like looking through a window. A window into another world. A real world. Much more real than this. It makes all this just a shadow world. Only dim shadows. Shapes. Images.”
“Shadows of an ultimate reality?”
“Yes! Exactly. The world behind all this.” Jon paced back and forth, animated by excitement. “This, all these things. What we see here. Buildings. The sky. The cities. The endless ash. None is quite real. It’s so dim and vague! I don’t really feel it, not like the other. And it’s becoming less real, all the time. The other is growing, Ryan. Growing more and more vivid! Grant told me it’s only my imagination. But it’s not. It’s real. More real than any of these things here, these things in this room.”
“Then why can’t we all see it?”
“I don’t know. I wish you could. You ought to see it, Ryan. It’s beautiful. You’d like it, after you got used to it. It takes time to adjust.”
Ryan considered. “Tell me,” he said at last. “I want to know exactly what you see. Do you always see the same thing?”
“Yes. Always the same. But more intensely.”
“What is it? What do you see that’s so real?”
Jon did not answer for awhile. He seemed to have withdrawn. Ryan waited, watching his son. What was going on in his mind? What was he thinking? The boy’s eyes were shut again. His hands were pressed together, the fingers white. He was off again, off in his private world.
“Go on,” Ryan said aloud.
So it was visions the boy saw. Visions of ultimate reality. Like the Middle Ages. His own son. There was a grim irony in it. Just when it seemed they had finally licked that proclivity in man, his eternal inability to face reality. His eternal dreaming. Would science never be able to realize its ideal? Would man always go on preferring illusion to reality?
His own son. Retrogression. A thousand years lost. Ghosts and gods and devils and the secret inner world. The world of ultimate reality. All the fables and fictions and metaphysics that man had used for centuries to compensate for his fear, his terror of the world. All the dreams he had made up to hide the truth, the harsh world of reality. Myths, religions, fairy tales. A better land, beyond and above. Paradise. All coming back, reappearing again, and in his own son.
“Go on,” Ryan said impatiently. “What do you see?”
“I see fields,” Jon said. “Yellow fields as bright as the sun. Fields and parks. Endless parks. Green, mixed in with the yellow. Paths, for people to walk.”
“What else?”
“Men and women. In robes. Walking along the paths, among the trees. The air fresh and sweet. The sky bright blue. Birds. Animals. Animals moving through the parks. Butterflies. Oceans. Lapping oceans of clear water.”
“No cities?”
“Not like our cities. Not the same. People living in the parks. Little wood houses here and there. Among the trees.”
“Roads?”
“Only paths. No ships or anything. Only walking.”
“What else do you see?”
“That’s all.” Jon opened his eyes. His cheeks were flushed. His eyes sparkled and danced. “That’s all, Ryan. Parks and yellow fields. Men and women in robes. And so many animals. The wonderful animals.”
“How do they live?”
“What?”
“How do the people live? What keeps them alive?”
“They grow things. In the fields.”
“Is that all? Don’t they build? Don’t they have factories?”
“I don’t think so.”
“An agrarian society. Primitive.” Ryan frowned. “No business or commerce.”
“They work in the fields. And discuss things.”
“Can you hear them?”
“Very faintly. Sometimes I can hear them a little, if I listen very hard. I can’t make out any words, though.”
“What are they discussing?”
“Things.”
“What kind of things?”
Jon gestured vaguely. “Great things. The world. The universe.”
There was silence. Ryan grunted. He did not say anything. Finally he put out his cigarette. “Jon—”
“Yes?”
“You think what you see is real?”
Jon smiled. “I know it’s real.”
Ryan’s gaze was sharp. “What do you mean, real? In what way is this world of yours real?”
“It exists.”
“Where does it exist?”
“I don’t know.”
“Here? Does it exist here?”
“No. It’s not here.”
“Some place else? A long way off? Some other part of the universe beyond our range of experience?”
“Not another part of the universe. It has nothing to do with space. It’s here.” Jon waved around him. “Close by. It’s very close. I see it all around me.”
“Do you see it now?”
“No. It comes and goes.”
“It ceases to exist? It only exists sometimes?”
“No, it’s always there. But I can’t always make contact with it.”
“How do you know it’s always there?”
“I just know.”
“Why can’t I see it? Why are you the only one who can see it?”
“I don’t know.” Jon rubbed his forehead wearily. “I don’t know why I’m the only one who can see it. I wish you could see it. I wish everybody could see it.”
“How can you demonstrate it isn’t an hallucination? You have no objective validation of it. You have only your own inner sense, your state of consciousness. How could it be presented for empirical analysis?”
“Maybe it can’t. I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t want to present it for empirical analysis.”
There was silence. Jon’s face was set and grim, his jaw tight. Ryan sighed. Impasse.
“All right, Jon.” He moved slowly toward the door. I’ll see you later.”
Jon said nothing.
At the door Ryan halted, looking back. “Then your visions are getting stronger, aren’t they? Progressively more vivid.”
Jon nodded curtly.
Ryan considered awhile. Finally he raised his hand. The door slid away and he passed outside the room, into the hall.
Grant came up to him. “I was watching through the window. He’s quite withdrawn, isn’t he?”
“It’s difficult to talk to him. He seems to believe these attacks are some kind of vision.”
“I know. He’s told me.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?”
“I didn’t want to alarm you more. I know you’ve been worried about him.”
“The attacks are getting worse. He says they’re more vivid. More convincing.”
Grant nodded.
Ryan moved along the corridor, deep in thought, Grant a little behind. “It’s difficult to be certain of the best course of action. The attacks absorb him more and more. He’s beginning to take them seriously. They’re usurping the place of the outside world. And in addition—”
“And in addition you’re leaving soon.”
“I wish we knew more about time travel. A great number of things may happen to us.” Ryan rubbed his jaw. “We might not come back. Time is a potent force. No real exploration has been done. We have no idea what we may run into.”
He came to the lift and stopped.
“I’ll have to make my decision right away. It has to be made before we leave.”
“Your decision?”
Ryan entered the lift. “You’ll know about it later. Watch Jon constantly from now on. Don’t be away from him for even a moment. Do you understand?”
Grant nodded. “I understand. You want to be sure he doesn’t leave his room.”
“You’ll hear from me either tonight or tomorrow.” Ryan ascended to the roof and entered his inter-city ship.
As soon as he was in the sky he clicked on the vidscreen and dialed the League Offices. The face of the League Monitor appeared. “Offices.”
“Give me the medical center.”
The monitor faded. Presently Walter Timmer, the medical director, appeared on the screen. His eyes flickered as he recognized Ryan. “What can I do for you, Caleb?”
“I want you to get out a medical car and a few good men and come over here to City Four.”
“Why?”
“It’s a matter I discussed with you several months ago. You recall, I think.”
Timmer’s expression changed. “Your son?”
“I’ve decided. I can’t wait any longer. He’s getting worse, and we’ll be leaving soon on the time trip. I want it performed before I leave.”
“All right.” Timmer made a note. “We’ll make immediate arrangements here. And we’ll send a ship over to pick him up at once.”
Ryan hesitated. “You’ll do a good job?”
“Of course. We’ll have James Pryor perform the actual operation.” Timmer reached up to cut the vidscreen circuit. “Don’t worry, Caleb. He’ll do a good job. Pryor is the best lobotomist the center has.”
Ryan laid out the map, stretching the corners flat against the table. “This is a time map, drawn up in the form of a space projection. So we can see where we’re going.”
Kastner peered over his shoulder. “Will we be confined to the one Project—getting Schonerman’s papers? Or can we move around?”
“Only the one Project is contemplated. But to be certain of success we should make several stops on this side of Schonerman’s continuum. Our time map may be inaccurate, or the drive itself may act with some bias.”
The work was finished. All the final sections were put in place.
In a corner of the room Jon sat watching, his face expressionless. Ryan glanced toward him. “How does it look to you?”
“Fine.”
The time ship was like some stubby insect, overgrown with warts and knobs. A square box with windows and endless turrets. Not really a ship at all.
“I guess you wish you could come,” Kastner said to Jon. “Right?”
Jon nodded faintly.
“How are you feeling?” Ryan asked him.
“Fine.”
Ryan studied his son. The boy’s color had come back. He had regained most of his original vitality. The visions, of course, no longer existed.
“Maybe you can come next time,” Kastner said.
Ryan returned to the map. “Schonerman did most of his work between 2030 and 2037. The results were not put to any use until several years later. The decision to use his work in the war was reached only after long consideration. The Government seemed to have been aware of the dangers.”
“But not sufficiently so.”
“No.” Ryan hesitated. “And we may be getting ourselves into the same situation.”
“How do you mean?”
“Schonerman’s discovery of the artificial brain was lost when the last claw was destroyed. None of us have been able to duplicate his work. If we bring his papers we may put society back in jeopardy. We may bring back the claws.”
Kastner shook his head. “No. Schonerman’s work was not implicitly related to the claws. The development of an artificial brain does not imply lethal usage. Any scientific discovery can be used for destruction. Even the wheel was used in the Assyrian war chariots.”
“I suppose so.” Ryan glanced up at Kastner. “Are you certain USIC doesn’t intend to use Schonerman’s work along military lines?”
“USIC is an industrial combine. Not a government.”
“It would ensure its advantage for a long time.”
“USIC is strong enough as it is.”
“Let it go.” Ryan rolled up the map. “We can start any minute. I’m anxious to get going. We’ve worked a long time on this.”
“I agree.”
Ryan crossed the room to his son. “We’re leaving, Jon. We should be back fairly soon. Wish us luck.”
Jon nodded. “I wish you luck.”
“You’re feeling all right?”
“Yes.”
“Jon—you feel better now, don’t you? Better than before?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you glad they’re gone? All the troubles you were having?”
“Yes.”
Ryan put his hand awkwardly on the boy’s shoulder. “We’ll see you later.”
Ryan and Kastner made their way up the ramp to the hatch of the time ship. From the corner, Jon watched them silently. A few League Guards lounged at the entrances to the work lab, watching with idle interest.
