Time Travel Omnibus, page 601
Expectantly they waited. The leaves stirred and they leaned forward. A piglike snout pushed out, sniffing the air, and two suspicious, slightly crossed eyes looked about the clearing. Satisfied that there was no danger for the moment, the creature came into sight.
“Coot! Is that ever ugly,” Phill-4 said.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, young man. I’ll ask you to hold your tongue. This is a perfect example of the subclass Proto-theria, the first beasts, Tritylodon itself. For many years a source of controversy as to whether it was mammal or reptile. The smooth skin and shiny plates of a reptile—but notice the tufts of hair between the plates. Reptiles do not have hair. And it lays eggs, as reptiles do. But it, she, this fine creature here also suckles her young as do the mammals. Look with awe at this bridge between the old class of reptiles and emerging class of mammals.”
“Oh, how cute!” Mandi-2 squealed as four tiny pink duplicates of the mother staggered out of the shrubbery after her. Tritylodon dropped heavily onto her side and the young began to nurse.
“That is another thing that the mammals brought into the world,” Teacher said as the students looked on with rapt fascination. “Mother love. Reptile offspring, either born live or when they emerge from the egg, are left to fend for themselves. But warm blooded mammals must be warmed, protected, fed while they develop. They need mothering and, as you see, they receive it in sufficiency.”
Some sound must have troubled the Tritylodon because she looked around,) then sprang to her feet and trundled off into the underbrush, her young falling and stumbling after her. No sooner was the clearing empty than the hulking form of Triceratops pushed by, the great horns and bony frill held high.
Thirty feet of lumbering flesh, its tail tip twitching as it dragged behind.
“The great lizards are still here, but doomed soon to final destruction. The mammals will survive and multiply and cover the earth. We will later discuss the many paths traveled by the mammals, but today we are going to leap ahead millions of years to the order Primates which may look familiar to you.”
A taller, deeper, more tangled jungle replaced the one they had been visiting, a fruit-filled, flower-filled, life-filled maze. Multicolored birds shot by, insects hung in clouds and brown forms moved along the branches.
“Monkeys,” Grosbit-9 said and looked around for something to throw at them.
“Primates. A relatively primitive group that took to these trees some fifty million years in our past. See how they are adapting to the arboreal life? They must see clearly in front of them and gauge distances correctly, so their eyes are now on the front of their heads, and they have developed binocular vision. To hold securely to the branches their nails have shortened and become flat, their thumbs opposed to strengthen their grip. These primates will continue to develop until the wonderful, important day when they descend from the trees and venture from the shelter of the all-protecting forest.
“Africa,” Teacher said as the time machine once more moved them across the centuries. “It could be today, so little have things changed in the relatively short time since these higher primates ventured forth.”
“I don’t see anything,” Ched-3 said, looking about at the sun-scorched grass of the veldt, at the verdant jungle pressing up next to it.
“Patience. The scene begins. Watch the herd of deer that are coming towards us. The landscape has changed, become drier, the seas of grass are pushing back the jungle. There is still food to be had in the jungle, fruit and nuts there for the taking, but the competition is becoming somewhat fierce. Many different primates now fill that ecological niche and it is running over. Is there a niche vacant? Certainly not out here on the veldt! Here are the fleet-footed grass eaters, look how they run, their survival depends upon their speed. For they have their enemies, the carnivores, the meat eaters who live on their flesh.”
Dust rose and the deer bounded towards them, through them, around them. Wide eyes, hammering hooves, sun glinting from their horns and then they were gone. And the lions followed. They had a buck, cut off from the rest of the herd by the lionesses, surrounded, clawed at and wounded. Then a talon tipped paw hamstrung the beast and it fell, quickly dead as its throat was chewed out and the hot red blood sank into the dust. The pride of lions ate. The children watched, struck silent, and Mandi-2 sniffled and rubbed at her nose.
“The lions eat a bit, but they are already gorged from another kill. The sun is reaching the zenith and they are hot, sleepy. They will find shade and go to sleep and the corpse will remain for the scavengers to dispose of, the carrion eaters.”
Even as Teacher spoke the first vulture was dropping down out of the sky, folding its dusty wings and waddling towards the kill. Two more descended, tearing at the flesh and squabbling and screaming soundlessly at one another.
Then from the jungle’s edge there emerged first one, then two more apes. They blinked in the sunlight, looking around fearfully, then ran towards the newly killed deer, using their knuckles on the ground to help them as they ran. The blood-drenched vultures looked at them apprehensively, then flapped into the air as one of the apes hurled a stone at them. Then it was the apes’ turn. They too tore at the flesh.
“Look and admire, children. The tailless ape emerges from the forest. These are your remote ancestors.”
“Not mine!”
“They’re awful!”
“I think I am going to be sick.”
“Children—stop, think! With your minds not your viscera just for once. These ape-men or man-apes have occupied a new cultural niche. They are already adapting to it. They are almost hairless so that they can sweat and not overheat when other animals must seek shelter. They are tool using. They hurl rocks to chase away the vultures. And see, that one there—he has a sharp bit of splintered rock that he is using to cut off the meat. They stand erect on their legs to free their hands for the tasks of feeding and survival.
Man is emerging and you are privileged to behold his first tremulous steps away from the jungle. Fix this scene in your memory, it is a glorious one. And you will remember it better, Mandi-2, if you watcrlwith your eyes open.”
The older classes were usually much more enthusiastic. Only Agon-1 seemed to be watching with any degree of interest—other than Grosbit-9 who was watching with too much interest indeed. Well, they said one good student in a class made it worthwhile, made one feel as though something were being accomplished.
“That is the end of today’s lesson, but I’ll tell you something about tomorrow’s class.” Africa vanished and some cold and rainswept northern land appeared. High mountains loomed through the mist in the background and a thin trickle of smoke rose from a low sod house half-buried in the ground. “We will see how man emerged from his primate background, grew sure and grew strong. How these early people moved from the family group to the simple Neolithic community. How they used tools and bent nature to their will. We are going to find out who lives in that house and what he does there. It is a lesson that I know you are all looking forward to.”
There seemed very little actual evidence to back this assumption, and Teacher stabbed the button and the class was over. Their familiar classroom appeared around them and the dismissal bell was jingling its sweet music. Shouting loudly, without a backward look, they ran from the room and Teacher, suddenly tired, undipped the controls from his waist and locked them into his desk. It had been a very long day. He turned out the lights and left.
At the street entrance he was just behind a young matron, most attractive and pink in miniaturized mini, hair a flaming red. Mandi-2’s mother, he realized, he should have known by the hair, as she reached down to take an even tinier, pinker hand. They went out before him.
“And what did you learn in school today, darling?” the mother asked. And, although he did not approve of eavesdropping, Teacher could not help but hear the question. Yes, what did you learn? It would be nice to know.
Mandi-2 skipped down the steps, bouncing with happiness to be free again.
“Oh, nothing much,” she said, and they vanished around the corner.
Without knowing he did it, Teacher sighed a great weary sigh and turned in the other direction and went home.
ONE LIFE, FURNISHED IN EARLY POVERTY
Harlan Ellison
And so it was—strangely, strangely—that I found myself standing in the backyard of the house I had lived in when I was seven years old. At thirteen minutes till midnight on no special magical winter’s night, in a town that had held me only till I was physically able to run away. In Ohio, in winter, near midnight—certain I could go back.
Not truly knowing why I even wanted to go back. But certain that I could. Without magic, without science, without alchemy, without supernatural assistance; just go back. Because I had to, I needed to . . . go back.
Back; thirty-five years and more. To find myself at the age of seven, before any of it had begun; before any of the directions had been taken; to find out what turning point in my life it had been that had wrenched me from the course all little boys took to adulthood and set me on the road of loneliness and success that ended here, back where I’d begun, in a backyard at now-twelve minutes to midnight.
At forty-two I had come to the point in my life I had struggled toward since I was a child: a place of security, importance, recognition. The only one from this town who had made it. The ones who had had the most promise in school were now milkmen, used-car salesmen, married to fat, stupid dead women who had themselves been girls of exceeding promise in high school. They had been trapped in this little Ohio town, never to break free. To die there, unknown. I had broken free, had done all the wonderful things I’d said I would do.
Why should it all depress me now?
Perhaps it was because Christmas was nearing and I was alone, with bad marriages and lost friendships behind me.
I walked out of the studio, away from the wet-ink-new fifty-thousand-dollar contract, got in my car and drove to International Airport. It was a straight line made up of inflight meals and jet airliners and rental cars and hastily purchased winter clothing. A straight line to a backyard I had not seen in over thirty years.
I had to find the dragoon to go back.
Crossing the rime-frosted grass that crackled like cellophane, I walked under the shadow of the lightning-blasted pear tree. I had climbed in that tree endlessly when I was seven years old. In summer, its branches hung far over and scraped the roof of the garage. I could shinny out across the limb and drop onto the garage roof. I had once pushed Johnny Mummy off that garage roof . . . not out of meanness, but simply because I had jumped from it many times and I could not understand anyone’s not finding it a wonderful thing to do. He had sprained his ankle, and his father, a fireman, had come looking for me. I’d hidden on the garage roof.
I walked around the side of the garage, and there was the barely visible path. To one side of the path I had always buried my toy soldiers. For no other reason than to bury them, know I had a secret place, and later dig them up again, as if finding treasure.
(It came to me that even now, as an adult, I did the same thing. Dining in a Japanese restaurant, I would hide small pieces of pakkai or pineapple or terriyaki in my rice bowl and pretend to be delighted when, later in the meal, my chopsticks encountered the tiny treasures down in among die rice grains.)
I knew the spot, of course. I got down on my hands and knees and began digging with the silver penknife on my watch chain. It had been my father’s penknife—almost the only thing he had left when he died.
The ground was hard, but I dug with enthusiasm, and the moon gave me more than enough light. Down and down I dug, knowing eventually I would come to the dragoon.
He was there. The bright paint rusted off his body, the saber corroded and reduced to a stub. Lying there in the grave I had dug for him thirty-five years before. I scooped the little metal soldier out of the ground and cleaned him off as best I could with my paisley dress handkerchief. He was faceless now, and as sad as I felt.
I hunkered there, under the moon, and waited for midnight, only a minute away, knowing it was all going to come right for me. After so terribly long.
The house behind me was silent and dark. I had no idea who lived there now. It would have been unpleasant if the strangers who now lived here had been unable to sleep and, rising to get a glass of water, had idly looked into the backyard. Their backyard. I had played here and built a world for myself here, from dreams and loneliness. Using talismans of comic books and radio programs and matinee movies and potent charms like the sad little dragoon in my hand.
My wristwatch said midnight, one hand laid straight on the other.
The moon faded. Slowly, it went gray and shadowy, till the glow was gone, and then even the gray afterimage was gone.
The wind rose. Slowly, it came from somewhere far away, and built around me. I stood up, pulling the collar of my topcoat around my neck. The wind was neither warm nor cold, yet it rushed, without even ruffling my hair. I was not afraid.
The ground was settling. Slowly, it lowered me the tiniest fractions of inches. But steadily, as though the layers of tomorrows that had been built up were vanishing.
My thoughts were of myself: I’m coming to save you. I’m coming, Gus. You won’t hurt anymore . . . you’ll never have hurt.
The moon came back. It had been full; now it was new. The wind died. It had carried me where I’d needed to go. The ground settled. The years had been peeled off.
I was alone in the backyard of the house at 89 Harmon Drive. The snow was deeper. It was a different house, though it was the same. It was not recently painted. The Depression had not been long ago; money was still tight. It wasn’t weather-beaten, but in a year or two my father would have it painted. Light yellow.
There was a sumac tree growing below the window of the dinette. It was nourished by lima beans and soup and cabbage.
“You’ll just sit there until you finish every drop of your dinner. We’re not wasting food. There are children starving in Russia.”
I put the dragoon in my topcoat pocket. He had worked more than hard enough. I walked around the side of the house. I smiled as I saw again the wooden milk box by the side door. In the morning, very early, the milkman would put three quarts of milk there, but before anyone could bring them in, this very cold winter morning in December, the cream would push its way up and the little cardboard caps would be an inch above the mouths of the bottles.
The gravel talked beneath my feet. The street was quiet and cold. I stood in the front yard, beside the big oak tree, and looked up and down.
It was the same. It was as though I’d never been away. I started to cry. Hello.
Gus was on one of the swings in the playground. I stood outside the fence of Lathrop Grade School, and watched him standing on the seat, gripping the ropes, pumping his little legs. He was smaller than I’d remembered him. He wasn’t smiling as he tried to swing higher. It was serious to him.
Standing outside the hurricane fence, watching Gus, I was happy. I scratched at a rash on my right wrist, and smoked a cigarette, and was happy.
I didn’t see them until they were out of the shadows of the bushes, almost on him.
One of them rushed up and grabbed Gus’s leg, and tried to pull him off the seat, just as he reached the bottom of his swing. Gus managed to hold on, but the chain ropes twisted crazily and when the seat went back up, it hit the metal leg of the framework.
Gus fell, rolled face down in the dust of the playground, and tried to sit up. The boys pushed through between the swings, avoiding the berserk one that clanged back and forth.
Gus managed to get up, and the boys formed a circle around him. Then Jack Wheeldon stepped out and faced him. I remembered Jack Wheeldon.
He was taller than Gus. They were all taller than Gus, but Wheeldon was beefier. I could see shadows surrounding him. Shadows of a boy who would grow into a man with a beer stomach and thick arms. But the eyes would always remain the same.
He shoved Gus in the face. Gus went back, dug in and charged him. Gus came at him low, head tucked under, fists tight, arms braced close to the body. He hit him in the stomach and wrestled him around. They struggled together like inept club fighters, raising dust.
One of the boys in the circle took a step forward and hit Gus hard in the back of the head. Gus turned his face out of Wheeldon’s stomach, and Wheeldon punched him in the mouth. Gus started to cry.
I’d been frozen, watching it happen, but he was crying—
I looked both ways down the fence and found the break far to my right. I threw the cigarette away as I dashed down the fence, trying to look behind me. Then through the break and I was running toward them the long distance from far right field of the baseball diamond, toward the swings and seesaws. They had Gus down now, and they were kicking him.
When they saw me coming, they started to run away. Jack Wheeldon paused to kick Gus once more in the side; then he, too, ran.
Gus was lying there, on his back, the dust smeared into mud on his face. I bent down and picked him up. He wasn’t moving, but he wasn’t really hurt I held him very close and carried him toward the bushes that rose on a small incline at the side of the playground. The bushes were cool overhead and they canopied us, hid us; I laid him down and used my handkerchief to clean away the dirt. His eyes were very blue. I smoothed the straight brown hair off his forehead. He wore braces; one of Sue rubber bands hooked onto the pins of the braces, used to keep them tension-tight, had broken. I pulled it free.
He opened his eyes and started crying again.
