Time Travel Omnibus, page 485
I’d been in bed for an hour or so, unable to sleep and doodling thoughtfully on my report sheet, when the double flap of my tent opened, allowing a small amount of air to enter and promptly starting the disinfectors, killing off any unnecessary bacteria that had arrived, and with surprise I found Gloria, delightful in white silk dressing gown and radiant smile.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, taking off the transparent air mask which is an essential when travelling in four million B.C.
I nodded, not missing the discarded mask and wondering whether I should jump out of bed and offer her a seat. “I’m not very dozy myself.”
“Nick’s asleep!”
There was a small pulse beating rather rapidly at her neck and it was beginning to get extremely hot in the tent. “Lucky fellow,” I said awkwardly.
“He’s a fool!”
I waited. It was the old story, only somehow I hadn’t expected it from Gloria, with her sweet face and clear blue eyes. But she was lovely, and . . . well, if her husband couldn’t keep an eye on her, who was I to argue!
“He’s a fool and a coward. Look at the way he ran today, and yet he could talk of nothing else for the last few weeks but of how he was going to shoot a sabre-tooth. Why do men have to act so much? Why can’t he just relax and be himself?”
I wasn’t quite sure whether to be annoyed or pleased. This wasn’t the way it should go. Tears definitely didn’t come into it. No-good husband—yes. Doesn’t understand me—certainly.
“You’re so . . . so capable”—an absolute must. But there she was, standing in the middle of the floor, looking miserable and about to burst into tears.
“Maybe if he thought you loved and admired him he wouldn’t have to act?” I suggested.
She came and sat on the edge of my bed. “Do you think that’s where I’ve gone wrong?”
I felt like looking around for the pipe and beard. “Could be.”
“Oh, but it’s too late. I saw that today. I felt nothing but disgust . . . and loathing for him.”
She was crying now, and awkwardly I put my arm round her shoulders and tried to comfort her. At the back of my mind a cynical little man was laughing at me. Here was I, sitting up in bed, comforting a beautiful young woman and explaining how to become happily married to her “husband.” A T.T.V.O.’s life is a strange and trying one.
“Why don’t you run back and sleep on it?” I said. “In the morning you’ll probably feel quite different about things.”
She raised a tear-stained face. “You know, when I first came in here I . . . I was going to let you make love to me!”
“It’s never too late,” I said, cheerfully, but it was an empty gesture. The moment had long since gone; she saw that and left soon after with a promise to try and make a go of it the following day.
Morning dawned, a rosy red paradise with the air so clear and the bush that held our prey a brilliantly hued jungle from which came strange and fascinating sounds. Surreptitiously, I took down the energy screen I had erected the previous night, not wanting them to think they were being molly-coddled, and got the steaks frying over the fire and an assortment of cans slowly heating in their chemical coffins.
Nick was first out, face bright and looking capable of tackling a sabre-tooth barehanded as he swung his arms vigorously in the sharp morning air. We laughed over a joke or two, and when Gloria came out I watched her cautiously and wondered if last night had made any impression. Going over to Nick, she kissed him merrily through the plastic envelope of her mask, and with a sigh of relief I got on with the breakfast.
The change in Nick, after Gloria’s affectionate greeting, was miraculous. The three of us went into the brush and he was not only leading the way, but actually hoping we sprung a sabre-tooth. As we began to get deeper I moved him back a bit and took the lead myself, not at all as confident as he was. Threading our way through gnarled and twisted trees, hanging veils of vegetation, we finally sprung a fearsome brute that—if it had breathed fire—would have passed for a dragon in any man’s book.
But Nick, with astonishing agility, jumped to one side and in a flash was blazing away with his powerful automatic. I stepped back, letting him have the show as he stood—Saint George had nothing on him—and brought the animal crashing down with a roar that shook the very earth.
Photographs taken, we returned to camp, Nick jubilant, and Gloria still a little pale, but smiling happily at him. It was as we broke from the bush that the trouble started. Like a fool I had forgotten to put up the energy screen before leaving camp, and the immense shape of a sabre-tooth was engrossed in the interesting task of ripping our tents to shreds. Gloria had fallen back and was talking eagerly to me about the photographs we had taken, and before I could stop him, Nick had sprung forward with a shout of triumph and was running towards the camp.
I called him back, but he took no notice and, with a curse, I started after him, Gloria shouting fearfully as the sabre-tooth glanced up from his task and slowly took in the scene. Sabre-tooths are no easy game, and although Nick had his rifle at the ready.
I wasn’t any too sure of him. Perhaps it was the success of the morning, perhaps a show of courage for Gloria, but he was running towards the tiger with a marvellous disregard for the fact that it could cover the ground at something like eighty miles an hour.
He had covered only half the distance, when it began to run towards him, body crouched, tusk-like teeth gleaming whitely in the sun; and at that moment his foot hit a rock and sent him sprawling to the ground. Quickly I reached for the whistle, only to find, to my horror, that I had left it in the shirt I had changed that morning. Kneeling down, I brought up my rifle and began to shoot, carefully and calmly, at the charging beast.
I had run to one side of Nick, so I could see his face plainly. He was as white as chalk, only now realising the stupidity of his move, and rising to his feet he began to fire rapidly. The distance I was firing at was not good, but even so I could see puffs of dust flying from the tiger’s shaggy coat and knew that it could only be a matter of seconds before it dropped. But in a matter of seconds it would be upon Nick!
Gloria was screaming shrilly, and from the corner of my eye I saw her bring up her rifle and start shooting erratically at the charging tiger. I was too busy to realise that Nick was in her line of fire, until suddenly he stiffened, spun round and fell to the ground. At the same moment I put three more bullets into the sabre-tooth and watched it fall heavily, dead before it hit the ground.
With a sick horror inside me I went towards the crumpled body of Nick, knowing it was useless to try and keep the running girl away. Crying hysterically, she dropped beside him. He was dead. Shot in the back; and with my mind racing over time, vector medium, displacements, I couldn’t afford to comfort the pathetic figure at his side. There was only one chance.
Quickly jerking out the recall signal, which we all carried in case of emergency, I snapped over the switch and, with a nauseating plunge, found myself back in the projecting room. Jim Summers was working the platform and regarded me with amazement.
“Something wrong?”
“And how. I’ll want a ‘retake.’ Chief in?”
He nodded, face blank as he already flicked on the emergency generators and set the alarm echoing through the mighty building of Time Tourists Ltd. But I was on my way to Mark Garthway’s office at a run. Garthway was the director of the company, a man about to blow his top in two minutes.
“Yes?” he barked, glancing up from behind a wide expanse of mahogany.
“I want a ‘retake’,” I said as calmly as I could.
The cigar jumped from his mouth. “Are you crazy?”
“No, and it’s got to be done in the next five minutes. If not you’ve got a dead Nick Lestrange on your hands and God knows how much in law suits and insurance.”
“Dead!” he exclaimed, face paling. “How?”
“Wife, shooting wild in hunting scrape. Nothing I could do. It’ll have to be a ‘retake’.”
“You’re prepared to take the risk?”
I nodded, mouth dry as I tried not to think of that risk.
“Right. It’ll cost us ten thousand in power alone, but if you think you can do it, it’s your skin.” He said it grimly, voice like metal grating, on wood, but I knew the chief. He was with me, even though he might not show it.
Back in the operating room Jim had already got the equipment set up and the room was filled with the high scream of the generators as they droned out enough power to blast the entire city of London. Anxiously I waited for the beam to become powerful enough to probe back into my sector, wondering if we would be in time to catch the fading impressions.
A “retake” is a suicidal device which was evolved for the purpose of probing into the different time sectors in order to undertake time study, but on rare occasions it had been used to project T.T.V.O. men in an endeavour to duplicate a sequence of events and possibly change them. The majority of these attempts had finished with the obituary of the T.T.V.O.
The idea is that the probe picks up the impressions of the T.T.V.O., which fade very quickly due to the shortness of his stay in the past, and project him again into his body—already there—with a full knowledge of what is going to happen and consequently the capacity to change the ensuing events. “It pays not to try and think about the maths of it.” But the big snag comes if the projector operator doesn’t quite hit the target and we have two identical bodies both existing in the same time. Then there is one unholy mess and bits of the T.T.V.O. are scattered from the year dot to the year apostrophe.
Jim Summers was my friend and I had the fullest confidence in him, yet the pictures that were flicking through my mind were not pretty, and by the time the screen fit up with a view of my sector there was a nasty hole where my stomach should have been and the sweat was a cold, moist blanket on my face. Quickly I climbed onto the platform, rifle held ready and cocked to fire.
Slowly, terribly slowly, the probe brought the picture of the plain, the long wall of bush, the camp and the sabretooth tearing up the tents. Jim’s face was strained and rigid with concentration as the scene slowly evolved, like some old silent picture of the past.
“As soon as we come jumping out of that bush, throw me through.” I said hoarsely.
“I’ll try and get you in your own boots,” he answered, not looking away from the screen.
“You’d better. I’m too old to be twins!”
Two assistants were spraying me down with various vapours to ensure that I would carry nothing back with me that I hadn’t arrived with, and with straining eyes I waited for us to break through the wall of bush. It was Nick who came into view first, and then he was gesticulating and running towards the tiger. With beating heart I watched the picture slowly dwindle until I was the only figure on the screen, and slowly Jim’s hand was inching towards the projector switch. For a fraction of a second I had the curious thought that this was a damned silly position for me to be in, when I could just be working out the insurance and law suit damages with Mark. And then there was the plunge, blackness with flickering dots of coloured light, and a shock that took every bit of breath from my body.
The sound was terrific, Nick on the ground, the tiger roaring and charging across the fantastically short distance, and in the madness I found myself running beside the girl with the rifle clutched in my hands. A quick glance round showed that I was alone, no twin to mess the works up, so with a burst of speed I swerved back to the girl and grabbed the rifle from her hands.
I didn’t stop to explain, although her startled face showed that there would be some explaining to do later, but swerving out again I plunged to my knees and began to fire at the charging beast. Nick was already firing and, with a prayer in my mouth, I watched the dust flying from its coat, each lithe flying leap bringing it closer to the whitefaced man whom I had just saved from death. But the three seconds it had taken to snatch the rifle could mean the difference between Nick and the tiger.
The day was made hideous by the screams of the wounded tiger, the wicked spang of the quick repeating rifles, the sobbing cries of the girl. And then suddenly everything was quiet again, and Nick was walking forward with a smile of triumph and Gloria was running after him with a look on her face that said she’d never take the chance of losing him again. I stood and watched them for a while, breathing deeply and giving Jim a grateful wave of my hand—just in case he was watching. It was good to be alive.
That’s more or less the end of the story. We spent the next two days roaming about camp until the vector pulled us back, but the Lestranges were a little too wrapped up in each other to spend much time with me. They were probably quite amazed at the enthusiasm with which we were received back at Time Tourists, but then Jim and I had a secret that we had to go and get drunk over.
Of course they never knew what had happened, but I often wondered afterwards if somehow Gloria hadn’t retained a little of that picture I will never forget. Her tear-stained face, white with horror, bending over the dead body of her husband. I suppose it could be possible, for she looked long and thoughtfully at me when she said goodbye, and as they went out her hand was holding tightly to Nick’s.
But then, of course, it didn’t happen, anyway, really . . . did it?
RONDO IN TIME
Martin Jordan
There had never been such a—
“TIME TRAVEL’S UNnatural,” said Miss Balsam.
She was a skinny chip of Kensington, London, and she had been devoted to the composer, Hubingrath, for thirty years as secretary, protector and friend. The relationship had never deteriorated from the platonic, which on the surface seemed strange, for Hubingrath was a great lover. But the fact was, Hubingrath liked plump women. For years Miss Balsam had pensively experimented with pastries and Devonshire cream; now, in angular middle-age, she had reached a stage of brisk acceptance . . .
“If it’s unnatural,” Hubingrath said, “so’s Time itself.”
“T-T’s just a craze. Real people get on with the job in their own age.”
“I’ve a feeling I’ll never write another symphony. I felt the urge dying on me years back, like the head on a pint of beer. I want to get to know a world that likes my music. Visit the future.”
“Geniuses don’t care a pip what people think—now or in the future.”
“I care a whole lot. So probably did every composer since Palestrina.”
He gazed out of the window, surveying his world of Gore Mews. There was not much of it to be seen; Hubingrath occupied one of the last Mews flats to be found in London, and his view was bounded by a decaying row of garages which, since the banning of private transport from the central area, were filled with the neglected works of sculptors, painters and dreamers in metal.
“All right—go to your future. What if no one there has ever heard of you?”
He turned back into the untidy room. Miss Balsam was sitting at his antique electric typewriter; she came to Gore Mews every day to answer the letters that still reached him from odd corners of the earth, for although the concert-going public was sour about his music, promoters from Fez to Yucatan persisted in playing it.
“In that case,” he scowled, combing his greying hair with long fingers, “I’ll try to sell ’em some of my music.”
The T-T technician was sympathetic and discouraging. “Doctor Hubingrath? Do sit down. Yes, we’ve checked your application. We always advise people against T-T if they’re engaged in the arts. Think of the psychologic dangers. For all I know you might consider yourself a genius. Right. You land, say, in 2150 A.D., and nobody there has heard of you—your works are pulp. So you come back to your own time and spend the rest of your life looking into a glass in some drinkery. . . wasted.”
Hubingrath said: “I’m not modest—I am a genius. Up there in the future my name has a big sound like Beethoven.”
“I guess there are people who know if that’s true—I mean, returned time travellers. Of course, it’s an offence to reveal the judgments of the future to a third party, especially if that party happens to be the subject.”
“I demand T-T,” Hubingrath said.
“Well, it’s a free world . . . But take my advice and stay. Your works aren’t exactly popular, except among a few advanced composers; you’ve often been called a composers’ composer. They’re felt to be too contrapuntal, too austere. It’s probable that the future won’t be feeling differently—and then you’ll have taken on a load of avoidable grief. Whereas, if you leave T-T alone and keep on composing you might produce something that’ll . . .”
“I know—rumtitum for film strips. Well, I’ve written all the music I’m going to write. Where’s that time-cubicle?”
“On your own head be it,” sighed the technician. “By the way, the travelling part is instantaneous. An identification-formula has to be tatooed on your arm. You have to go it naked in case your clothes would cause a blow-out. There’s also the matter of your grave. You’ve heard of radio-plastic? It’s a bit of solid radiation like paper, with a life of under sixty seconds. It takes perforation-messages, and those are our only means of teleprinting the future to tell them to trace your remains and reduce them to radiation . . .”
When Hubingrath, after various checks, re-checks and delays, was confined in a T-T cubicle and sent with a flash and a smell of ozone into the year 2150, he noticed that the journey took less than a blink. A man entered the cubicle and clothed him in opulent stuff like silk, uncreasable as rubber. A blonde followed with smiles and flowers. The man said: “I am Brud, time guide. This is my colleague, Dris Leberth. Welcome, doctor. We have a full schedule—a concert in your honour at the Cybernetic Hall, the freedom of the City, various honorary degrees . . .”
“Am I famous?” Hubingrath asked, with an effort.
“Are you famous? You’re Hubingrath!”
The Cybernetic Hall was packed. Beefy and dignified, the leaders of the ruling class pumped his hand and confessed with too much insistence that music was the one thing they cared about. The wives of the leaders tried to show him their souls through their eyes. Dris Leberth squeezed his arm sympathetically and whispered an insulting commentary on her own sex; Hubingrath began to like the shape and sound of her.
