24
The Attorney General's visitor was an old and
valued friend. They had been roommates at Harvard and in the years
since then had kept in touch. Reilly Douglas knew that, in large
part, he owed his cabinet appointment to the good offices and,
perhaps, the political pressure that could be commanded by Clinton
Chapman, a man who headed one of the nation's most prestigious
industrial complexes and a heavy contributor to the party's
funds.
"I know this must be a busy time for you," Chapman told Douglas,
"and under the circumstances I'll take very little of your
time."
"It's good to see a friendly face," said Douglas. "I don't mind
telling you I don't go along with this. Not that there's nothing to
it, for there is. But we're rushing into it. The President has
accepted at face value this story of time traveling and while I can
see, at the moment, no other explanation, it seems to me there
should be some further study of the matter before we commit
ourselves."
"Well, now," said Chapman, "I agree with you - I couldn't agree
more completely with you. I called in some of my physicists this
afternoon. You know, of course, that among our several branches, we
have a respectable corps of research people. Well, as I was saying,
I called a few of them together earlier today and we did some
brain-storming on this time tunnel business. . .'
"And they told you it was impossible."
"Not exactly that," said Chapman. "Not quite that at all. Not that
any of them can see quite how it's done, but they told me, and this
is something that surprised me, that the matter of the direction in
which time flows and precisely why it flows that way has been a
subject of some quiet study and very scholarly dispute for a number
of years. They talked about a lot of things I didn't understand and
used terms I'd never heard before. Arrows of time and boundary
conditions, for example, and it seems that the arrows of time they
talk about can be viewed from a number of different points -
statistical, biological, thermodynamical, and I suppose other terms
that have slipped my mind. They talked about the principle of wave
retardation and causality and there was quite a lot of discussion
about time-symmetrical field equations and the upshot of it all
seemed to be that while, on the basis of present knowledge and
research it all seems plain impossible, there is really nothing
hard and fast that says it can't be done. The gate, it appears, is
just a little bit ajar. Someone come along and give that gate a
little push and it might be possible."
"You mean that in another hundred years or so. . ."
Chapman nodded. "I guess that's what it means. They tried to
explain some of it to me, but it didn't take. I haven't the
background to understand what they were telling me. These people
have a lingo of their own and so far as people like you and I may
be concerned it's a foreign language we never knew
existed."
"So it could be true," said Douglas. "On the face of what is
happening, it quite clearly is true. There seems no other
explanation, but my point was that we should not move until we know
it's true. And, personally, while I could think of no other
explanations, I found a great deal of difficulty in believing
it."
"Just exactly what," asked Chapman, "is the government thinking
about doing? Building new tunnels, I understand, and sending the
people of the future still farther back in time. Do they have any
idea of what it's going to cost? Or how much time it might take?
Or..."
"They have no idea," said Douglas. "Not a single figure. No inkling
of what's involved. But if anything can be done, we will have to do
it. The people from the future can't be kept here. It would be
impossible to do it. Somehow we must get rid of them."
"My hunch," said Chapman, "is that it will cost a bundle. And
there'll be hell's own uproar about the cost of it. The public is
more tax-conscious than it has ever been, and something like this
could bring about a confiscatory tax."
"You're getting at something, Clint."
"Yes, I suppose I am. A gamble, you might say."
"You always gambled well," said Douglas. "You have a natural poker
face."
"It's going to cost a lot of money," Chapman said.
"Tax money," Douglas said.
"I know. Tax money. And that could mean we'd lose the election a
year from now. You know I've always been rather generous in my
campaign contributions and have very rarely asked for favors. I'm
not asking for one now. But under certain circumstances, I would be
willing to make what I might think of as a somewhat more
substantial contribution. Not only to the party, but to the
country."
"That would be very generous of you," said Douglas, not entirely
sure that he was happy with the turn the talk had taken.
"I'd have to have some figures and some facts, of course," said
Chapman, "but unless the cost is higher than I could manage, I
think I would be agreeable to taking over the construction of the
tunnels. That is, if the tunnels can be built."
"In return for which?"
"In return for which," said Chapman, "I should like exclusive
future license for the building of tunnels and the operation of
them."
Douglas frowned. "I don't know," he said. "I can't be certain of
the legality of an arrangement of that sort. And there is the
international angle. . ."
"If you applied yourself to it," said Chapman, "you could figure
out a way. I am sure you could. You're a damn good lawyer,
Reilly."
"There must be something I am missing. I don't see why you should
want the license. What good would the tunnels be?"
"After all of this is over," Chapman said, "people will be
considerably intrigued with the idea of traveling in time. A brand
new way of traveling. A way of getting places they could never get
before."
"But that's insane!"
"Not as insane as you might think. Imagine what a sportsman would
be willing to pay for the privilege of going back to prehistoric
days for a spot of hunting. Universities would want to send teams
of paleontologists back to the Age of Reptiles to study and
photograph the dinosaurs. Classical historians would sell their
souls to go back and learn what really happened at the siege of
Troy."
"And the church," said Douglas rather acidly, "might want a
first-class ticket for a seat at the Crucifixion."
"I suppose that, too," Chapman agreed, "and, as you imply, there
would be times when it might get slightly sticky. There'd have to
be rules and regulations worked out and certain safeguards set up
not to change the course of history, but. . ."
"It wouldn't work," said Douglas flatly. "Time traveling, we are
told, works in only one direction, back toward the past. Once you
go back, you can't return. You can't move futureward."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Chapman. "Maybe that's what you
were told. Maybe that's true now. But my physicists assured me this
afternoon that if you can move in time at all, you can move in both
directions. They were sure of that. Sure it could be worked out. It
simply makes no sense, they said, for the flow to go only one way.
If you can go into the past, you certainly can go futureward for
that would seem the preferred direction. That's what we have right
now."
"Clint, I can't go along on this."
"You can think about it. You can see how things develop. You can
keep me well informed. If it should work out, there would be
something very worthwhile in it for you."
25
"So now you'll explain to me, perhaps," said
Alice Gale, "what a picnic is. You told me this afternoon you had
been going on a picnic."
The Secret Service man hunched forward on the seat. "Has Steve been
talking picnic to you? Don't ever chance it with him. .
."
"But, Mr. Black," she said, "I don't even know what a picnic
is."
"It's fairly simple," Wilson told her. "You pack a lunch and you go
out in a park or woods and you eat it there."
"But we did that up in our time," she said. "Although we did not
call it picnic. I don't think we called it anything at all. I never
heard it called anything at all."
The car rolled slowly down the drive, heading for the gate. The
driver, in the seat up front, sat erect and straight. The car
slowed to a halt and a soldier came up to the driver's window.
There were other military men stationed by the gate.
"What is going on?" asked Wilson. "I had not heard of
this."
Black shrugged. "Someone got the wind up. This place is closed in
tight. It's stiff with military. There are mortars scattered
through the park and no one knows what else."
"Does the President know about it?"
"I'm not sure," said Black. "No one might have thought to tell
him."
'The soldier stepped back and the gate came open and the car went
through. It proceeded silently along the street, heading for the
bridge.
Wilson peered out the window. "Where is everyone?" he asked. "A
Sunday night and the tourist season and there's no one
here."
"You heard the news," said Black.
"Of course I heard the news."
"Everyone's holed up. Everyone's indoors. They expect a monster to
come leaping out at them."
"We had such lovely places we could go out on picnics," said Alice
Gale. "So many parks, so much wild land. More open spaces than you
have. Not as crowded as you have it now, although somehow I like it
crowded. There are so many people; there is so much to
see."
"You are enjoying it," said Wilson.
"Yes, of course, enjoying it. Although I have the feel of guilt in
my enjoyment. My father and I should be with our people. But I was
telling you of our time. It was a good time to live in. Until the
aliens came, of course. And even then part of the time, in the
earlier days, before there were so many of them. They were not at
our throats all the time, you know, except in the last few years.
Although I don't think we ever were unaware of them. We always
talked about them. We never really forgot them, no matter what. All
my life, I think, they have been in my mind. There were times, in
the later years, when we were obsessed with them. We continually
looked over our shoulders to see if they were there; we were never
free of them. We talked of them and studied them..."
"You say you studied them," said Wilson. "Exactly how did you study
them? Who studied them?"
"Why," she said, "biologists, of course. At times they came into
possession of an alien's body. And the psychologists and
psychiatrists, as well. The evolutionists. . ."
"Evolutionists?"
"Certainly, evolutionists. For these aliens were very strange
evolutionarily. They seemed to be creatures that were consciously
in control of their evolutionary processes. There are times when
you are inclined to suspect they can order their evolutionary
processes. My father, I think, explained some of this to you. In
all their long history of evolution they apparently gave up no
evolutionary advantage they had gained. They made no compromises,
trading one thing for another. They kept what they had and needed
and added whatever else they could develop. This, of course, means
they are adaptive creatures. They can adapt to almost any condition
or situation. They respond almost instantly to stresses and
emergencies..."
"You almost sound," said Black, "as if you-well, not you, perhaps,
but your people-might admire these creatures."
She shook her head. "We hated them and feared them. That is quite
apparent, for we ran away from them. But, yes, I suppose we might
have felt something like awed admiration, although we did not admit
it. I don't think anyone ever said it."
"Lincoln is coming up ahead," said Wilson. "Naturally, you know
Lincoln."
"Yes," she said. "My father has Lincoln's bedroom."
The memorial loomed ahead, softly lit against the night-black sky.
The statue sat deep within the recess, brooding in the marble
chair. The car moved past and the memorial was left
behind.
"If we can find the time," said Wilson, "in the next few days,
we'll go out and see it. Or, perhaps, you may have seen it. But you
said the White House..."
"The memorial, too," she said. "Part of it is left, but less than
half of it. The stones are fallen down."
"What is this?" asked Black.
"Up in the time the people of the tunnel came from," said Wilson,
"Washington had been destroyed. The White House is a
wilderness."
"But that's impossible. I don't understand. A war?"
"Not a war," said Alice Gale. "It's hard to explain, even if you
know it and I have little understanding of it - I have read little
of it. Economic collapse, perhaps, is the best name for it.
Probably some ethical collapse as well. A time of mounting
inflation that reached ridiculous heights, matched by a mounting
cynicism, a loss of faith in government, which contributed to the
failure of government, a growing gap of resources and understanding
between the rich and poor. It all grew up and up and then it all
collapsed. Not this nation only, but all the major powers. One
after one they fell. The economy was gone and government was gone
and mobs ran in the street. Blind mobs striking out, not at
anything in particular, but at anything at all. You must excuse me,
please; I tell it very badly."
"And this is all ahead of us?" asked Black.
"Not now," said Wilson, "Not any more it isn't. Or at least it
doesn't have to be. We're on a different time track now."
"You," said Black, "are as bad as she is. You don't, either one,
make sense."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Black," said Alice. "Don't mind me," said Black.
"I'm not the intellectual sort. I'm just an educated cop. Steve
will tell you that."
26
The Reverend Dr. Angus Windsor was a good man.
He stood in grace and was distinguished in good works. He was
pastor of a church that had its roots in wealth, a long history and
a certain elegance and yet this did not prevent him from going
where the need was greatest - outside his own parish, certainly,
for in that particular parish there was little need. He was seen in
the ghettos and he was present where the young demonstration
marchers fell beneath the rain of clubs wielded by police. When he
heard of a family that had need of food he showed up at the door
with a bag of groceries and before he left managed to find a few
dollars in his pockets that he could get along without. He was a
regular visitor at prisons, and the lonely old folks put away to
die in rest homes were familiar with his stately tread, his stooped
shoulders, his long white hair and patient face. That he was not at
all averse to good publicity, sometimes even seemed to court it,
was held against him by some of the influential members of his
congregation, who subscribed to the belief that this characteristic
was unseemly in him, but he went his way with no attention paid to
this criticism; once he was supposed to have told an old, dear
friend that it was a small price to pay for the privilege of doing
good - although whether he meant the publicity or the criticism was
not entirely clear.
So it was thought by the newsmen present not at all unusual when,
late in the evening, he appeared at the site where the tunnel had
been closed upon the emergence of the monsters.
The newsmen clustered around the old man.
"What are you doing here, Dr. Windsor?" asked one of
them.
"I came," said Dr. Angus, "to offer to these poor souls the small
shreds of comfort it is in my power to dispense. I had a slight
amount of trouble with the military. I understand they are letting
no one in. But I see they let you people in."
"Some of us talked our way in. Others parked a mile or so away and
walked."
"The good Lord interceded for me," said Dr. Angus, "and they let me
through the barricade."
"How did He intercede for you?"
"He softened their hearts toward me and then they let me go. But
now I must speak to these poor folks."
He motioned at the scattered groups of refugees standing in the
yards and along the street.
The dead monster lay upon its back, with its clawed feet sticking
in the air and its limp tentacles lying snakelike along the ground.
Most of the human bodies at the tunnel mouth had been moved. A few
still lay here and there, shadowed lumps upon the grass, covered by
blankets. The gun lay where it had been toppled on its
side.
"The army is sending out a team" said one of the newsmen, "to haul
in the monster. They want to have a good look at him."
The spotlights mounted in the trees cast a ghastly radiance over
the area where the tunnel mouth had lain. Off in the darkness the
generator engine coughed and sputtered. Trucks pulled in, loaded up
and left. On occasion the bullhorn still roared out its
orders.
Dr. Windsor, with an instinct born of long practice, headed
unerringly for the largest group of refugees, huddled at an
intersection beneath a swaying streetlamp. Most of them were
standing on the pavement, but others sat upon the curbs and there
were small groups of them scattered on the lawns.
Dr. Windsor came up to a group of women - he always zeroed in on
women; they were more receptive to his particular brand of
Christianity than were men.
"I have come," he said, making a conscious effort to hold down his
pomposity, "to offer you the comfort of the Lord. In times like
this, we should always turn to Him."
The women stared at him in some amazement. Some of them
instinctively backed away.
"I'm the Reverend Windsor," he told them, "and I came from
Washington. I go where I am called. I go to meet a need. I wonder,
would you pray with me?"
A tall, slender grandmotherly woman stepped to the forefront of the
group. "Please go away," she said.
Dr. Windsor fluttered his hands, stricken off balance. "But I don't
understand," he said. "I only meant..."
"We know what you meant," the woman told him, "and we thank you for
the thought. We know it was only kindness in you."
"You can't mean what you are saying," said Dr. Windsor, who, by
now, was flustered. "You cannot hope, by your word alone, to
deprive all the others..."
A man came thrusting through the crowd and seized the pastor by the
arm. "My friend," he said, "let us keep it down."
"But this woman..."
"I know. I heard what you said to her. It is not her choice only.
She speaks for the rest of us."
"I fail to understand."
"There is no need for you to understand. Now will you please
go."
"You reject me?"
"Not you, sir. Not personally. We reject the principle you stand
for."
"You reject Christianity?"
"Not Christianity alone. In the Logic Revolution of a century ago,
we rejected all religions. Our non-belief is as firm a faith as is
your belief. We do not thrust our principles on you. Will you
please not thrust yours on us?"
"This is incredible," said the Reverend Dr. Windsor. "I can't
believe my ears. I will not believe it. There must be some mistake.
I had only meant to join with you in prayer."
"But, parson, we no longer pray."
Dr. Windsor turned about, went blundering up the street, toward the
waiting newsmen, who had trailed after him. He shook his head,
bewildered. It was unbelievable. It could not be right. It was
inconceivable. It was blasphemous.
After all the years of man's agony, after all the searching for the
truth, after all the saints and martyrs, it could not come to
this!
27
General Daniel Foote, commandant at Fort Myer,
was waiting for them with the three men in his office.
"You should not have come alone," he said to Wilson. "I said so to
the President, but he would not listen. I offered to send an
escort, but he vetoed the idea. He said he wanted to draw no
attention to the car."
"There was little traffic on the road," said Wilson.
The commandant shook his head. "These are unsettled times," he
said.
"General Foote, may I present Miss Alice Gale. Her father is the
man who contacted us."
The general said, "I am glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Gale.
These three gentlemen have told me something of your father. And
Mr. Black. I'm glad you are along with them."
"Thank you, sir," said Black.
"I should like the privilege," Alice said, "of introducing my own
people. Dr. Hardwicke, Dr. Nicholas Hardwicke, Mr. Wilson, Mr.
Black. Dr. Hardwicke is a sort of Albert Einstein of our
time."
The big, ungainly, bear-like man smiled at her. "You must not
praise me unduly, my dear," he said. "They'll expect far too much
of me. Gentlemen, I am very pleased to be here and to meet you. It
is time we were getting on in this matter which must be somewhat
unpleasant to you. I am glad to see you reacting so promptly and so
positively. Your president must be a most unusual man."
"We think so," Wilson said.
"Dr. William Cummings," said Alice. "Dr. Hardwicke was a fellow
townsman of ours, but Dr. Cummings came from the Denver region. My
father and the others thought it would be best if he were with Dr.
Hardwicke when they met your scientists."
Cummings was a shrimp - small, bald, with a wrinkled, elfin face.
"I am glad to be here," he said. "We all are glad to be here. We
must tell you how deeply we regret what happened at the
tunnel."
"And, finally," said Alice, "Dr. Abner Osborne. He is a longtime
family friend."
Osborne put an arm about the girl's shoulders and hugged her.
"These other gentlemen," he said, "are physicists, but I'm a more
lowly creature. I am a geologist. Tell me, my dear, how is your
father? I looked for him after we came through, but couldn't seem
to find him."
The commandant plucked at Wilson's sleeve and the press secretary
moved to one side with him.
"Tell me," said General Foote, "what you know of the
monster."
"We've heard nothing further. We have assumed it would head for the
mountains."
Foote nodded. "I think you may be right. We have had a few reports.
Not reports, really. More like rumors. They all came from the west.
Harpers Ferry. Strasburg. Luray. They must be wrong. Nothing could
travel that fast. Are you absolutely sure there was only one of
them?"
"You should know," said Wilson, curtly. "Your men were there. Our
report was that one was killed. The other got away."
"Yes, yes, I know," said Foote. "We are bringing in the dead
one."
The general was upset, thought Wilson. He was jittery. Was there
something he knew that the White House did not know?
"Are you trying to tell me something, General?"
"No. Not at all," he said.
The son of a bitch, Wilson told himself. All he was doing was
trying to wangle something straight out of the White House.
Something that, at some later time, he could talk about when he was
sitting in the officers' club.
"I think," said Wilson, "that we had best get started."
Outside they got into the car, Black in front with the driver,
Wilson and Osborne on the jump seats.
"You may think it strange," said Osborne, "that there's a geologist
in 'the group."
"I had wondered," Wilson said. "Not that you aren't
welcome."
"It was thought," said Osborne, "that there might be some questions
about the Miocene."
"About us going there, you mean. About us going back as well as
you."
"It is one way in which the problem could be solved."
"Are you trying to tell me that you were fairly sure some of the
monsters would get through? That enough of them might get through
that we'd be forced to leave?"
"Certainly not," said the geologist. "We had hoped none would get
through. We'd set up precautions. I can't imagine what could have
happened. I'm not inclined to think that this single
monster..."
"But you don't know."
"You're right. They're monstrous clever things. Very capable. Some
of our biologists could tell you more."
"Then why this feeling we should go back into the
Miocene?"
"You're nearing a danger point," said Osborne. "Our historians
could explain it better than I can, but all the signs are there.
Oh, I know that now you've been switched over to a different time
track and will travel a different road than we. But I think that
the changeover may have come too late."
"What you're talking about is the economic and social collapse.
Alice told us Washington, up in your time, is gone. I suppose New
York, as well, and Chicago and all the rest. . ."
"You're top-heavy," said Osborne "You've gotten out of balance. I
think it's gone too far to stop. You have a runaway economy and the
social cleavages are getting deeper by the day and..."
"And going back to the Miocene would put an end to it?"
"It would be a new start."
"I'm not so sure," said Wilson.
Up in the front, Black raised his voice. "It's time for the
President's speech. Shall I turn on the radio?"
He didn't wait for anyone to say he should. He turned it
on.
The President was talking.
". . . little I can tell you. So I shall not keep you long. We
still are in the process of sorting out the facts and I would be
doing you a disservice if I told you less, or more, than facts. You
may be assured that your government will level with you. As soon as
we know anything for certain, you shall know it, too. We'll pass it
on to you."
"These things we do know. Up in the future, some five hundred years
from now, our descendants were attacked by an alien race. For
twenty years or more our people held them off, but it became
apparent that they could not stand against them indefinitely.
Retreat was called for, out there was only one place they could
retreat. Quite fortunately, they had been able to develop time
travel and so it was possible for them to retreat in time. This
they did, coming back to us. They do not intend to stay here; as
soon as possible they intend to go back, far deeper into time. But
to do this they need our help. Not only our help in building the
time tunnels they will need, but our help in supplying the bare
basics which will enable them to start over again. For economic
reasons which everyone must understand, we, in conjunction with the
rest of the world, cannot refuse to help them. Not that we would
refuse in any case. They are our children's children, several times
removed. They are our flesh and blood and we cannot withhold
assistance. How we will go about the helping of them is now under
consideration. There are problems and they must and will be solved.
There must be no delay and our effort must be wholehearted. It will
call for sacrifice and devotion from every one of you. There are
many details which you should be told, many questions which must
occur to you. These all will be fully given and fully answered
later; there is not the time to put them all before you this
evening. After all, this all began happening only a few hours ago.
It has been a busy Sunday."
The voice was confident, resonant, with no hint of desperation -
and, thought Wilson, there must be in the man a certain sense of
desperation. But he was still the old competent campaigner, the
polished politician. He still could sell himself, still could
reassure the nation. Hunched forward on the jump seat, Wilson felt
a sudden surge of pride in him.
"All of you know by now," the President was saying, "that two of
the aliens came through a tunnel in Virginia. One of them was
killed, the other one escaped. I must be honest with you and say
that we have had no subsequent word of it. We are pressing all
efforts to find and destroy it and while it may take a little time,
we will do exactly that. I ask you most urgently not to place too
much emphasis upon the fact that an alien is loose upon the Earth.
It is only one of the many problems that we face tonight, and not
the most important. Given the sort of cooperation that I know we
can expect from you, we will solve them all."'
He paused and for a moment Wilson wondered if that was all -
although he knew it wasn't all, for the President had not said good
night.
The voice took up again. "I have one unpleasant thing to say and,
unpleasant as it may be, I know that, on due consideration, you'll
realize that it must be done, that it is the least that I can do.
You'll realize, I think that it is necessary for the good of all of
us. I have, just a few minutes ago, signed an executive order
declaring a national emergency. Under that order, a bank and
trading holiday has been declared. This means that no banks or
other financial institutions will open their doors for business, or
transact any business, until further notice. Under the order all
trading in stocks shares and bonds, or in any commodities, will be
suspended until further notice. All prices, salaries and wages will
be frozen. This, of course, is an intolerable situation and cannot
exist for long. Because of this, it is only an emergency order that
will be lifted as soon as the Congress and other branches of the
government can implement rules and regulations imposing such
restraints as are necessary under the situation which has been
imposed upon us. I hope that you will bear with us over the few
days the executive order will be in force. It was only with the
utmost reluctance that I decided it was necessary."
Wilson let out his breath slowly, not realizing until he let it out
that he had caught and held it.
There'd be unsheeted hell to pay, he knew. From the country and
from the White House press corps. For Christ's sake, Steve, you
could have tipped us off. You could have let us know. And they
would not believe him when he told them he had not known
himself.
It was such a logical step that they should have guessed it; he,
himself, should have thought of it. But he hadn't. He wondered if
the President had talked it over with anyone and he doubted he had.
There hadn't been much time and there'd been other things he had to
talk about.
The President was saying good night to his listeners. "Good night,
Mr. President," said Wilson, and wondered why the others looked at
him so strangely.
28
The pressroom office was dark except for the
feeble light from the clacking wire machines ranged along the wall.
Wilson crossed to his desk and sat down. He leaned forward to snap
on the desk lamp, then pulled back his hand. There was no need of
light and there was healing in the dark. He leaned back in his
chair; for the first time this afternoon there was nothing he
should do, but there was still inside him the nagging sense that he
should be up and doing.
The President, he thought, should long since be in bed. It was
nearly midnight and well past his usual bedtime and he had missed
his nap in the afternoon. Samuel Henderson, he thought, was getting
old, too old for this sort of thing. He had seemed drawn and
haggard when the refugee scientists were escorted to his office to
be introduced to the men from the National Academy.
"You heard my speech, Steve?" the President had asked him when the
men were gone.
"In the car."
"What do you think? Will the country go along?"
"Not at first. Not willingly. But when they think about it, I
believe they will. Wall Street will raise a lot of dust."
"Wall Street," said the President, "is something I can't afford to
give my time to right now."
"You should be heading for bed, Mr. President. It's been a long,
hard day."
"Directly," said the President. "First I have to talk with Treasury
and Sandburg phoned in to ask if he could come over."
Directly, he had said, but it still would be hours, more than
likely, before he got to sleep.
Somewhere, in some secret room, the scientists were talking; out
there, in the vastness of the nation, of the world, in fact, people
from the future were walking from their tunnels; in the mountains
to the west a monster was skulking in the darkness.
It still was unbelievable. It had happened all too fast. A man had
not been given time to catch up with it. In a few hours now the
people would be waking to a new day that, in many respects would be
utterly unlike any day before, unlike any day in all of human
history, faced by problems and dilemmas no man had ever faced
before.
Light showed through the crack underneath the doors that led into
the press lounge. Some members of the press would still be there,
although they were not working. There was no sound of typewriters.
He remembered that he'd never gotten to eat the sandwiches. He'd
put two of them upon a plate and had taken a bite out of one of
them when Brad Reynolds had come bursting through the door. Now
that he thought of it, he realized that he was hungry. There might
be some sandwiches left, although they'd be dry by now, and for
some reason, he wanted to stay here in the dark, alone, with no
necessity of talking to anyone at all. Although, perhaps, he
thought, he should see what was on the wires. He sat for a moment
longer, unwilling to move, then got up and went across the room to
the bank of teletypes. AP first, he thought. Good, old stolid AP.
Never sensational, usually fairly solid.
Yards of copy had been fed out of the machine, running down into
wads of folded paper back of the machine.
A new story was just starting. . .
WASHINGTON (AP)-A search is being pressed tonight in the mountains west of here for the monster that escaped from a time tunnel in Virginia a few hours ago. There have been numerous reports of sightings, but none can be confirmed. There is reason to believe that most of them arose from fertile and concerned imaginations. A number of troops and contingents from many police and sheriff's departments are being deployed into the area, but there is little hope that a great deal can be done before daylight. . .
Wilson hauled in the copy paper, letting it fall and curl up before his feet, checking rapidly.
LONDON, ENGLAND (AP)-As dawn came this morning
ministers still were in conference at the residence of the Prime
Minister. Throughout the night, there had been a steady coming and
going.
NEW DELHI, INDIA (AP)-For the last ten hours people and wheat have
continued to pour out of the tunnels from the future. Both present
problems. . .
NEW YORK, N.Y. (AP)-Evidences multiplied throughout the night that
dawn may bring an explosion of protest and rioting, not only in
Harlem, but in many of the other minority areas of the city. Fear
that the heavy influx of refugees from the future may bring about a
reduction in food allotments and other welfare benefits are
expected to spark widespread demonstrations. All police leaves have
been canceled and the police force has been notified that its
personnel must be prepared to work around the clock. . .
WASHINGTON. D.C. (AP)-The President's action declaring a business
holiday and freezing wages and prices was both attacked and
praised. . .
Moscow, Madrid, Singapore, Brisbane, Bogota, Cairo, Kiev-and then:
NASHVILLE, TENN. (AP)-The Rev. Jake Billings,
noted evangelist, today called for a crusade to "bring the people
of the future back into the arms of Christ."
He issued the call from his headquarters here after learning that a
group of refugees who had come through the now-closed time tunnel
near Falls Church, Va., had refused the ministrations of the Rev.
Dr. Angus Windsor, a celebrated churchman of Washington, D.C.,
giving as their reason that they had turned their backs, not on
Christianity alone, but on all religion.
"They came to us for help," said the Rev. Billings, "but the help
that they are seeking is not the help they should be given. Rather
than helping them, as they ask, to go further back in time, we
should help them to return to the brotherhood of Christ. They are
fleeing from the future for their lives, but they have already lost
a thing far more precious than their lives. How their rejection of
Christ may have come about, I have no way of knowing; I do know
that it is our duty to point out to them the road of devotion and
of righteousness. I call upon all Christians to join me in my
prayers for them."
Wilson let the long sheaf of paper fall and
went back to his desk. He switched on the light and picking up the
phone, dialed the switchboard.
"Jane - I thought I recognized your voice. This is Steve Wilson.
Will you put in a call to Nashville for the Reverend Jake Billings?
Yes, Jane, I know what time it is. I know he probably is asleep;
we'll simply have to wake him up. No, I don't know his number.
Thank you, Jane. Thank you very much."
He settled back in the chair and growled at himself. When he'd
talked with the President early in the afternoon, Jake Billings had
been mentioned and he'd promised he would call him, then it had not
crossed his mind again. But who in hell would have thought a thing
like this would happen?
Windsor, he thought. It would take an old busybody, a meddling fool
like Windsor to go messing into it. To go messing into it and then
when he got his face pushed in, to go bawling to the newsmen,
telling what had happened.
Christ, that's all we need, he thought, to get the Windsors and the
Billings of the country all mixed up in it, wringing their hands in
pious horror and crying for a crusade. A crusade, he grimly told
himself, was the last thing that was needed. There was trouble
enough without a gang of pulpit thumpers adding to the
dust-up.
The phone tinkled at him and he picked up the receiver.
Jane said, "The Reverend Mr. Billings is on the line,
sir."
"Hello," said Wilson. "Is this the Reverend Billings?"
"Yes, God bless you," said the deep, solemn voice. "What can I do
for you?"
"Jake, this is Steve Wilson."
"Wilson? Oh, yes, the press secretary. I should have known that it
was you. They didn't say who was calling. They just said the White
House."
The bastard, Wilson told himself. He's disappointed. He thought it
was the President.
"It's been a long time, Jake," he said.
"Yes," said Billings. "How long ago? Ten years?"
"More like fifteen," said Wilson.
"I guess it is, at that," said Billings. "The years do have the
habit..."
"I'm calling you," said Wilson, "about this crusade you're drumming
up."
"Crusade? Oh, you mean the one to get the future people back onto
the track. I am so glad you called. We need all the help that we
can get. I view it as fortunate that they came back to us, for
whatever reason. When I think of the human race, a mere five
hundred years from now, forsaking the good old human faith, the
faith that has sustained us all these years, I get a cold shiver up
my spine. I'm so glad that you are with us. I can't tell you how
glad I am that you..."
"I'm not with you, Jake."
"You're not with us? What do you mean, you're not with
us?"
"I'm not with you, Jake - that is what I mean. I'm calling to ask
that you call this silly crusade off.".
"But I can't..."
"Yes, you can. We have trouble enough without some damn fool
crusade. You'll be doing the country a disservice if you keep it
up. We have problems up to here and we don't need any more. This
isn't just a situation that will allow Jake Billings to show off
his piety. This is life and death, not only for the refugees, but
for every one of us."
"It seems to me, Steve, you're using an approach that is
unnecessarily rough."
"If I am," said Wilson, "it's because I'm upset at what you're
doing. This is important, Jake. We have a job - to get the refugees
back to where they want to go before they upset our economy. And
while we do that we'll be getting plenty of flak. We're going to
get it from industry, from labor, from people on welfare, from
politicians who will grab the chance to take cheap shots at us.
With all of this, we can't face flak from you. What difference can
it possibly make to you? You're not dealing with a present
situation, a present people. You are dealing with the future, with
a segment of time that ordinarily would be out of your reach. The
refugees are back here, sure, but the windmill you are tilting at
wasn't even built until long after you and I were dead."
"God moves," said Billings, "in many mysterious ways..."
"Look," said Wilson, "climb down off your pulpit. Someone else,
maybe, but not me. You're not going to impress me, Jake. You never
did."
"Steve, are you calling for the President?"
"If you mean did he ask me to make this call, the answer is no. He
probably doesn't know as yet what you have done. But when he finds
out about it, he is going to be sore. The two of us talked about
you earlier in the day. We were afraid you might take some sort of
hand in this. We couldn't, of course, foresee what happened. But
you do take a hand in everything that happens. I was supposed to
phone you, to head you off beforehand. But so many things were
happening. I never found the time."
"I can see your position," said Billings soberly. "I think I can
even understand it. But you and I see things from different
viewpoints. To me the thought that the human race became a godless
people is a personal agony. It goes against everything I have been
taught, everything I've lived by, all that I've believed
in."
"You can rest easy," Wilson said. "It will go no further. The human
future is ending, up there five hundred years ahead."
"But they'll be going back in time. . ."
"We hope they will," said Wilson bitterly. "They'll go back, if we
aren't completely hogtied by people such as you."
"If they go back," protested Billings, "they'll make a new start.
We'll give them what they need to make a new start. Into a new land
and a new time where they'll build a godless culture. They may, in
time, go out in space, out to other stars, and they'll go as
godless people. We can't allow that, Steve."
"Maybe you can't. I could. It wouldn't bother me. There are a hell
of a lot of other people it wouldn't bother, either. You're blind
if you can't see the beginning, the roots of their rejection of
religion in the present. Maybe that is what is really bugging you.
You're asking yourself if there was anything you could have done to
prevent its happening."
"That may be it," Billings admitted. "I haven't had the time to
think it through. Even if it were true, it would make no
difference. I still would have to do exactly what I'm
doing."
"You mean you intend to go ahead? Even knowing what it means to all
of us. Stirring up the people, riding that great white
horse..."
"I have to do it, Steve. My conscience..."
"You'll think it over? I can call again?"
For there was no use arguing further. No point in trying to talk
reason to this pious madman. He'd known him, Wilson reminded
himself, ever since their undergraduate years. And he should have
known from the very first that it would be useless to try to make
him see another point of view.
"Yes, call again," said Billings, "if you wish. But I won't
reconsider. I know what I must do. You cannot persuade me
otherwise."
"Good night, Jake. Sorry that I woke you up."
"You didn't wake me up. I expect no sleep this night. It was good
to hear your voice, Steve."
Wilson hung up and sat quietly in his chair. Maybe, he thought, if
he'd done it differently, if he'd not come on so strong, he might
have accomplished something. Although he doubted it. There was no
such thing as talking reason to the man; there had never been.
Perhaps if he'd called him this afternoon, after he first had
talked with the President, he might have been able at least to
moderate Billing's action, but he doubted that as well. It had
been, he told himself, a hopeless business from the start. Billings
himself was hopeless.
He looked at his watch. It was almost two o'clock. Picking up the
phone, he dialed Judy's number. Her sleepy voice
answered.
"Did I wake you up?"
"No, I've been waiting for you. Steve, you're awful late. What
happened?"
"I had to go to Myer and pick up some refugees. Scientists. They're
here, talking to the Academy people. I won't make it,
Judy."
"You're not coming out?"
"I should stay in touch. There's too much happening."
"You'll be dead on your feet, come morning."
"I'll stretch out on a couch in the lounge and get some
rest."
"I could come down. Stand watch."
"No need of it. Someone will get hold of me if I'm needed. You go
to bed. Be a little late if you want. I can get along."
"Steve?"
"Yes?"
"It's not going good, is it?"
"It's too soon to tell."
"I saw the President on TV. It'll be an awful mess. We've never
faced anything like this before."
"No, not quite like this before."
"I'm scared, Steve."
"So am I," said Wilson. "It'll be different in the morning. We'll
feel different in the morning."
"I have a terrible feeling," Judy said. "As if the solid ground
were slipping out beneath my feet. I've been thinking about my
mother and sister out in Ohio. I haven't seen Mom in a long, long
time."
"Phone her. Talk with her. You'll feel better."
"I tried to. I tried and tried. But the circuits are jammed.
Everyone is calling everyone. Like a holiday. The country is
upset."
"I just made a long-distance call."
"Sure you did. You're the White House. They'd clear the lines for
you,"
"You can call her tomorrow. Things will quiet down
tomorrow."
"Steve, you're sure you can't come out? I need you."
"Sorry, Judy. Truly sorry. I have this horrible feeling that I
should stay in reach. I don't know why, but I do."
"I'll see you in the morning, then."
"Try to get some sleep."
"You, too. Try to shut this out, try to get some sleep. You'll need
it. Tomorrow will be bad."
They said good night and he put the receiver back into its cradle.
He wondered why he was staying here. There was, at the moment, no
real need to stay. Although one could never know. Hell could break
loose any time.
He should try to get some sleep, he told himself, but somehow he
resisted sleep. He didn't need it; he was too strung out, too tense
to sleep. Later he'd need sleep, when there was no chance of sleep.
Later, a few hours from now, it would all catch up with him. But
right now his nerves were too tight, his brain too busy to allow
for sleep.
He went out the door and around the walk to the front lawn. The
night was soft, resting for the heat and turmoil of the coming day.
The city was quiet. Far off a motor growled, but there were no cars
on the avenue. The pillars of the portico gleamed softly in the
night. The sky was clear and a million stars hung there. A red
light went blinking across the sky and from far overhead came the
thrum of motors.
A dark figure stirred at the edge of a group of trees.
"You all right, sir?" a voice asked.
"Yes," said Wilson. "Just out for a breath of air."
He saw now that the dark figure was a soldier, his rifle held
aslant his chest.
"Don't go wandering," said the soldier. "There are a lot of us out
here. Some of the boys might be a little nervous."
"I won't," said Wilson. "I'll go back in directly." He stood
listening to the quietness of the city, feeling the softness of the
night. It was not the same, he told himself; there was something
different. Despite the quiet and softness, a certain tenseness
seemed to reach out to touch him.
29
A sound brought Elmer Ellis out of a sound
sleep, sitting up in bed, befuddled, unable for a moment to orient
himself. On the night table beside the bed, the clock was ticking
loudly and beside him his wife, Mary, was levering herself up on
her elbows.
Her sleepy voice asked, "What is it, Elmer?"
"Something's at the chickens," he said, for now the reason for his
waking came churning up into his consciousness.
The sound came again, the frightened, flapping, squawking of the
chickens. He threw the covers back and his feet hit the cold floor
so hard it hurt.
He groped for his trousers, found them, got his legs into them,
pulled them up, slid his feet into his shoes, did not stop to tie
the laces. The squawking still went on.
"Where is Tige?" asked Mary.
"Damn dog," he growled. "He's off chasing possum."
He charged out the bedroom door and into the kitchen. Groping, he
found the shotgun, lifted it down off the pegs. From the game bag
that hung beneath the pegs, he got a handful of shells, jammed them
in a pocket, found two more and thrust them into the chambers of
the double barrel.
Bare feet pattered toward him. "Here's the flashlight, Elmer. You
can't see a thing without it."
She thrust it at him and he took it.
It was pitch black outside and he switched on the light to see his
way down the porch steps. The squawking in the henhouse continued
and there was no sign of Tige. Although it was strange. In a flare
of anger, he had said the dog was out hunting possum and that
couldn't be true. Tige never went out hunting on his own. He was
too old and stiff in the joints and he loved his bed underneath the
porch.
"Tige," he said, not too loudly.
The dog whined from underneath the porch.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" asked Elmer. "What is out there,
boy?"
Suddenly, he was afraid - more afraid than he'd ever been before.
Even more afraid than that time he had run into the Vietcong
ambush. A different kind of fear - like a cold hand reaching out
and gripping him and holding him and knowing he'd never get
away.
The dog whined again.
"Come on, boy," said Elmer. "Come on out and get them."
Tige did not come out.
"All right, then," said Elmer. "Stay there."
He went across the farmyard, shining his light ahead of him,
picking out the henhouse door.
The frightened squawking was louder than ever now, insane and
frantic.
Long ago, he told himself, he should have repaired the henhouse,
plugging up the holes. With the shape that it was in, a fox would
have no trouble gaining entry. Although it was strange, if it were
a fox, that it should still be there. At the first flash of light,
the first sound of a human voice, a fox would have been gone. A
weasel, maybe, or a mink. Even a raccoon.
Outside the door he paused, reluctant to go on. But he couldn't
turn back now. He's never be able to live with himself if he did.
Why, he wondered, should he be so frightened? It was Tige, he
thought. Tige was so scared that he refused to come from beneath
the porch, and some of that fright had rubbed off on him.
"Damn that dog," he said.
He reached out and lifted the latch, slammed the door back against
the side of the building. He balanced the gun in his right hand and
directed the flash with his left.
The first thing he saw in the circle of light were feathers -
feathers floating in the air. Then the running, squawking, flapping
chickens and in among the chickens..."
Elmer Ellis dropped the flash and screamed and in mid-scream jerked
the gun to his shoulder and fired blindly into the henhouse, first
the right barrel, then the left, the shots so close together that
they sounded as one explosion.
Then they were coming at him, leaping from the open door, hundreds
of them, it seemed, faintly seen in the light of the flash that lay
upon the ground - horrible little monsters such as one would never
see except in some sweating dream. He reversed the gun, scarcely
realizing that he did it, grasping the barrels in both his hands,
using it as a club, flailing with it blindly as they came swarming
out at him.
Jaws fastened on an ankle and a heavy body struck him in the chest.
Claws raked his left leg from hip to knee and he knew that he was
going down and that once he was down they would finish
him.
He sagged to his knees and now one of them had him by the arm and
he tried to fight it off, while another clawed his back to ribbons.
He tipped over on one side and ducked down his head, covering it
with his one free arm, drawing up his knees to protect his
belly.
And that was all. They no longer chewed or ripped him. He jerked up
his head and saw them, flitting shadows, moving out into the dark.
The beam of the fallen flashlight caught one of them momentarily
and for the first time he really saw the sort of creatures that had
been in the henhouse and at the sight of it he bawled in utter
terror.
Then it was gone - all of them were gone - and he was alone in the
yard. He tried to get up. Halfway erect, his legs folded under him
and he fell heavily. He crawled toward the house, clawing at the
ground to pull himself along. There was a wetness on one arm and
one leg, and a stinging pain was beginning in his back.
The kitchen window glowed with a lighted lamp. Tige came out from
beneath the porch and crawled toward him, belly flat against the
ground, whining. Mary, in her nightgown, was running down the
stairs.
"Get the sheriff," he yelled at her, gasping with the effort.
"Phone the sheriff!"
She raced across the yard and knelt beside him, trying to get her
hands beneath his body to lift him.
He pushed her away. "Get the sheriff! The sheriff has to
know."
"But you're hurt. You're bleeding.,"
"I'm all right," he told her fiercely. "They're gone. But the
others must be warned. You didn't see them. You don't
know."
"I have to get you in. Call the doctor."
"The sheriff first," he said. "Then the doctor,"
She rose and raced back to the house. He tried to crawl, covered a
few feet, and then lay still. Tige came crawling out to meet him,
edged in close to him, began to lick his face.
30
Once the men were seated around the table in
the conference room, Dr. Samuel Ives opened the
discussion.
"This meeting," he said, "despite the solemnity of the occasion
which brings us together in the dead of night, marks what for all
of us of the present must be an exciting event. All of our
professional lives most of us have at times puzzled over the
fundamental nature of time irreversibility. A couple of us, myself
and Dr. Asbury Brooks, have spent a great deal of time in its
study. I am of the opinion that Dr. Brooks will not take it badly
if I say we have made little, if any, progress in our studies of
this fundamental question. While the lay person may question the
validity of such study, viewing time as a philosophical rather than
a physical concept, the fact remains that the physical laws with
which all of us work are embedded in this somewhat mysterious thing
that we call time. We must ask ourselves, if we are to completely
understand the concepts that we employ, both in our daily lives and
our continuing investigations into many areas of science, what may
be the physical interrelationships underlying the expansion of the
universe, information theory, and the thermodynamic,
electromagnetic, biological and statistical arrows of time. In the
description of any physical phenomenon, the time variable is a
parameter, at the most elementary level. We have wondered if there
were such a thing as universal time or whether it may be only a
feature of boundary conditions. There are some of us who think that
the latter may be the true explanation, that in the universe the
time factor was perhaps rather randomly set at the moment of the
beginning of the universe and has persisted ever since. And all of
us, I think, are aware that our thinking about time must be
overwhelmingly prejudiced by our intuitive notions about the
direction of time flow and that this may be one of the factors
which has made it so difficult for us to understand and formulate
any real theories about this thing that we call time."
He looked across the table at the three men from the future. "I
must beg your indulgence for this sort of introduction to our
discussion, remarks that, in view of what you have learned, may
sound somewhat silly. But I did think it important to set out our
own views and study into some sort of perspective. But now that I
have said this much, I think that it is your turn to talk and I
assure you that all of us will listen most attentively. Which one
of you would like to begin?"
Hardwicke and Cummings looked at each other questioningly. Finally
Hardwicke said "Perhaps I might as well. I must express the deep
appreciation all three of us feel for your willingness to meet with
us at this unusual hour. And I am afraid that we are about to
disappoint you, for I must tell you that we know very little more
about the fundamental nature of time than you do. We have asked
ourselves some of the same questions you have asked and have found
no real answers. . ."
"But you can travel in time," said Brooks. "That would argue that
you must know something of it. You must have at least a basic
understanding. . ."
"What we found," said Hardwicke, "is that we are not the only
universe. There are at least two universes coexisting within the
same space, but universes so fundamentally different from one
another that neither would be ordinarily aware of the other. At the
moment I will not go into the manner in which this other universe
was detected or what we know of it. It is not, however, a
contraterrene universe, so there is, so far as we know, no danger
from it. I might add that the first hint of its existence came from
a study of the strangeness of certain particles. Not that the
particles themselves are a part of this other universe, but
because, in certain instances, they can react to certain
not-entirely-understood conditions in the other universe. Two
totally different universes. The other made up of particles and
interactions which have little to do with the particles and
interactions of our universe, although, as I have indicated, there
can be interactions, but on so small a scale that only blind, dumb
luck could bring them to one's notice. Fortunately, researchers
experienced that blind luck.
And it was mostly luck, too, that revealed to us something else
about the second universe. I often wonder if luck, for want of a
better word, might not be a factor that should be in itself the
subject of a study with a view to a better determination of its
parameters. As I say, we found out one thing else about the other
universe, a very simple thing and yet, when one thinks about it, a
rather devastating concept. What we found was that the arrow of
time in the second universe was flowing in exactly the opposite
direction to the one it traveled in our universe. While undoubtedly
in that universe it was moving from the universe's past toward its
future, in relation to this universe, it was traveling from our
future toward our past."
"There is one thing that puzzles me," said Ives. "You were dealing
with a very complex matter and yet in twenty years or
so..."
"It is not as remarkable as you think," said Cummings. "There was a
crash project, certainly, to achieve time travel, but before the
project was begun we were in possession of the knowledge that Dr.
Hardwicke has outlined. On your old time track the fact of the
second universe was discovered somewhat less than a hundred years
from now. It had been investigated for almost four centuries before
we finally put the time arrow of the second universe to work. As a
matter of fact, much significant work had been done on the
possibility of using the opposite time direction of the second
universe as a time travel medium. All we had to do was give the
investigation a final push. I think the method might have been
worked out earlier, even before the invasion by the aliens, if
there had been any reason for it. But, aside from scientific
curiosity, there wasn't. Under ordinary circumstances, there's not
much attraction to time travel if you can move in only the one
direction and there's no possibility of returning."
"Once we decided," said Hardwicke, "that the only way in which we
could survive was to travel backwards into time, much of the real
work already had been done. In all the history of scientific
inquiry there always has been a certain segment of the population
that questions the validity of pure research. What is the good of
it, they ask. How is it going to help us? What can we use it for? I
think that our situation is a perfect example of the value of basic
research. The work that had been done on the second universe and
its opposite direction time flow had been pure research, the
spending of effort and funds on something that seemed to offer no
chance at all of any benefit or return. And yet, as things turned
out, it did have a return. It offered the human race a chance to
save itself."
"As I understand it," said Brooks, "what you have done is to make
use of the opposite time flow of the other universe to bring you
here. Somehow or other your time tunnels trap the opposite flow.
You step into the opposite flow in your own present time and step
out of it at our present time. But to do this you must manage to
speed up the time flow tremendously and must be able to control
it."
"That," said Hardwicke, "was the hard part of the job. Not the
theory of it, for the theory had been worked out, but the
implementation of the theory. As it turned out, it was unbelievably
simple, although on the face of it complex."
"You think it is in the range of our present technology?"
"We are sure of it," said Hardwicke. "That is why we chose this
particular time. We had to select a time target that held men who
would understand and accept the theory and other men, engineers,
who could build the necessary equipment. There were other factors,
as well, that we took into consideration. We needed to reach a time
where the intellectual and moral climate was such that there would
be a willingness to provide us the help we needed. We also had to
find time where the productivity of the economy was such that it
could supply us with the implements and tools we would need to
start life over in the Miocene. Perhaps we are being unfair to hope
for so much from you. We have one justification. If we had not come
back to this time bracket or some other, the race of man would have
ended some five hundred years from now. As it is, you have been
shifted to a new time track, a phenomenon we can take the time
later to discuss, if you should wish, and there now is a chance,
although no certainty, that you can continue into the future with
no alien invasion."
"Dr. Osborne," said Ives, "has so far taken no part in this
discussion. Is there something you might like to add?"
Osborne shook his head. "All of this is beyond my competence,
gentlemen. I'm not a physicist, but a geologist, with leanings
toward paleontology. I'm simply along for the ride. Later, if some
of you might want to discuss the Miocene, which is our eventual
destination, that is something I could talk about."
"I, for one," said Brooks, "would be interested in hearing you
right now. I have heard there is some proposal that the present
population of the Earth go back into the Miocene with you. This is
something, I would imagine, that might appeal to some of the more
venturesome among us. There is always a feeling in many people that
they have lost something by being born after the age of geographic
pioneering. There would be a strong appeal to the idea of going
back to a time where many of the present-day restrictions might be
shed. I wonder if you would be willing to tell us something of what
we might expect to find in the Miocene."
"If you feel it is appropriate," said Osborne, "I would be glad to.
You must understand, of course, that we are dealing in some
suppositions, although we can be fairly sure of certain facts. The
main reason we picked the Miocene is that this was the time when
grass first appeared upon the Earth. There are reasons we believe
this, although I won't go into them right now. For one thing, it is
the time when true grazing animals acquired a kind of teeth adapted
for grass eating. Grazing animals, in the early part of the epoch,
seem to have increased rapidly. The climate became somewhat more
arid, although by our calculations there still would be plenty of
rainfall for agriculture. Many of the huge forest tracts gave way
to grassy plains, supporting huge herds of herbivores. We know
something of these herbivores, although I think it may be possible
there may have been many species of which we have no
paleontological evidence.
"There would be great herds of oreodonts, sheep-sized animals that
may have been remote relatives of the camels. There would be
camels, too, although far smaller than the ones we know today. We
could expect to find small horses, the size of ponies. There might
be a number of rhinos. Sometime during the Miocene, probably in its
early days, elephants migrated to North America over the Bering
land bridge. They'd be four-tuskers, smaller than today's
elephants. One of the more dangerous animals would be the giant
pig, big as an oxen and with skulls that measure four feet long.
They could be ugly customers to meet. With so many herbivores
running in herds on the prairies, the Miocene could be expected to
have its full quota of carnivores, both canines and cats. Probably
you'd find the old ancestors of the sabretooths. That's only a
quick rundown. There is much more. The point is that we believe the
Miocene was a time of rather rapid evolutionary development, with
the fauna expanding into new genera and species, characterized,
perhaps, by a tendency for animals to increase in size. There might
be a number of holdovers from the Oligocene, even from the Eocene.
I suppose some of the mammals might be dangerous. There could be
poisonous snakes and insects - I'm not entirely sure of that. As a
matter of fact, we have little evidence along those
lines."
"In your estimation, however," said Brooks, "it would be livable.
Man could get along."
"We are sure he can," said Osborne. "The great forests of past ages
would be giving way to prairies, and while there still would remain
plenty of wood for man's use, there would be great open spaces
waiting for the plow. There would be grass to support man's
livestock. The heavy rainfall that characterized some of the
earlier epochs would have decreased. Until he got started, man
could live off the land. There would be plenty of game, nuts,
berries, fruit, roots. Fishing should be good. We're not as certain
about the climate as we'd like to be, but there is some evidence
that it would be more equable than now. The summers probably would
be as warm, the winters not so cold. You understand this can't be
guaranteed."
"I understand that," said Brooks, "but in any case, you are set on
going."
"We have," said Osborne, "very little choice."
31
Steve Wilson came back into the pressroom. The
desk lamp still was lit, painting a circle of light in the darkened
room. The teletypes muttered against the wall. Almost three
o'clock, he thought. He'd have to get some sleep. Even with the
best of luck, even if he could go to sleep, he had at the most four
hours or so before he'd have to be back on the job again.
As he approached the desk, Alice Gale rose from the chair where she
had been sitting in the dark. She still wore the white robe. He
wondered if it was all she had. Perhaps it was, he told himself,
for the people from the future had carried little luggage with
them.
"Mr. Wilson," she said, "we have been waiting for you, hoping that
you would return. My father wants to talk with you."
"Certainly," said Wilson. "Good morning, Mr. Gale."
Gale came out of the darkness and laid his attaché case upon the
desk top.
"I am somewhat embarrassed," he said, "I find myself in a position
that could be awkward. I wonder if you would listen to me and tell
me how to go about this thing I want to do. You appear to be a man
who knows his way around."
Wilson, moving to the desk, stiffened. The whole thing, he sensed,
as Gale had said, had an awkwardness about it. He sensed he was
going to be placed in a difficult position. He waited.
"We are well aware," said Gale, "that our coming from the future
has placed a terrible burden upon the governments and the peoples
of the world. We did the little that we could. In areas where we
knew there would be food shortages, we arranged the delivery of
wheat and other foodstuffs. We stand ready to supply any labor that
will be required, for we represent a large, and idle, labor force.
But the building of the tunnels and the supplying to us of the
tools we will need in the Miocene will represent a vast expenditure
of funds..."
He reached down into the circle of light on the desk top and,
unlatching the case, opened it. It was packed with small leather
bags. Lifting one of these, he pulled it open and poured out on the
desk top a shower of cut stones that flashed and glittered in the
light.
"Diamonds," he said.
Wilson gulped. "But why?" he whispered. "Why diamonds? Why bring
them to me?"
"It was the only way," said Gale, "that we could bring anything of
value in small enough volume to be conveniently transported. And we
know that, if dumped upon the market all at once, these stones
would ruin prices. But if they were fed into the market a few at a
time surreptitiously they would have but small effect. This
especially would be true if their existence were kept secret And we
have been very careful that there be no duplications, that there
are no paradoxes. It would have been possible to have brought from
the future many of the famous gems that now exist and are well
known. We have not done this All the stones in this case are ones
which were found and cut in your future. None of them is known at
the present day.
"Put them back" said Wilson horrified. "Good God man, can you
imagine what might happen if it became known what was in that case.
Billions of dollars..."
"Yes many billions" Gale said calmly. "At the going prices in this
age perhaps as much as a trillion. Worth much more than they were
in our time. We five hundred years from now did not place as great
a value on such things as you do now..."
Unhurriedly he picked up the stones put them back into the bag
fitted the bag back into the case closed and latched it.
"I wish most heartily" said Wilson "that you had not told me of
this."
"But we had to" Alice said. "Don t you see? You are the only one we
know, the only one that we can trust. We could safely tell you and
you could tell us what to do."
Wilson struggled to put some calmness into his words. "Let us all
sit down," he said, "and talk this over. Let's not speak too
loudly. I don't think there is anyone around, but someone could
walk in on us."
They went back beyond the circle of light, pulled three chairs
together and sat down.
"Now suppose you tell me," Wilson said, "what this is all
about."
"We had thought," said Gale, "that the proceeds from these stones,
wisely marketed, could compensate in part some of the actual costs
that helping us entails. Not one government, not one people, but
all the governments and all the peoples of the Earth. Putting the
proceeds into a fund, perhaps, and once all the stones are sold,
allocating the monies in proportion to the actual costs
involved."
"In that case..."
"I anticipate your question. Why were the stones not divided and
offered each government involved? There are two reasons this was
not done. The more people who are involved, the greater the
possibility that the news would leak out. Our only chance was to
keep the number who knew of it at a minimum. Among us there are not
more than six who know. Here, you are the only one so far. There
is, as well, the matter of trust. On the basis of history, we knew
there were few governments we could trust - actually, only two, you
and the British. On the basis of our study, we decided on the
United States. There had been some feeling the United Nations
should be the organization entrusted with the gems. But, quite
frankly, we had little confidence in the UN. I was supposed to hand
the stones to the President. I decided against this when I realized
how many problems he had weighing on his mind, how he was forced to
depend upon the judgment of so many people."
"I know only one thing," said Wilson. "You can't keep on carrying
this case around with you. You have to be placed under security
until it has been put into some safe place. Fort Knox, probably, if
the government is willing to accept it."
"You mean, Mr. Wilson, that I'll have to be placed under guard. I'm
not sure I like that."
"Christ, I don't know," said Wilson. "I don't even know where to
begin."
He reached for the phone and dialed. "Jane, you still on duty? Do
you know - has the President retired?"
"An hour ago," said Jane.
"Good," said Wilson. "He should have long before then."
"Is it important, Steve? He left orders if there was anything
important that he should be called."
"No, this can wait. Do you think you can get hold of Jerry
Black?"
"I'll try. I think he's still around."
The room was silent except for the teletypes. Gale and Alice sat
unstirring in their chairs. Light still shone beneath the press
lounge doors, but there was no sound of typing.
"We're sorry to upset you so," Alice said to Wilson. "But we were
at our wits' ends. We didn't know what to do."
"It's all right," said Wilson.
"You don't know how much this means to us," she said. "The rest of
the people may not know till later, but we'll know. That we did not
come as beggars. That we paid our way. That's important to
us."
Footsteps came down the corridor and turned in at the
door.
"What's going on, Steve?" asked Jerry Black. "We need a couple of
men," said Wilson. "I'm one of them," said Black. "I can find
another." "It'll be a favor," said Wilson. "I have no jurisdiction.
I'm acting on my own. It'll be until tomorrow morning, as soon as I
can see the President."
"It's OK," said Black, "if it's for the President." "I think," said
Wilson, "that it might be for him."
"All right," said Black. "What is it?" "Mr. Gale has an attaché
case. I won't tell you what is in
it. You wouldn't want to know. But it's important. And I want him
to keep it - him and no one else. Until we know what to do with
it."
"That can be managed. You think it needs two of us?"
"I'd feel better if there were two of you."
"No trouble," said Black. "Let me use your phone."
32
Dawn was graying in the eastern sky when Enoch
Raven sat down to his typewriter. Outside the window lay the green
Virginia hills, and in the trees and shrubs a few awakening birds
began their twittering and chirping.
He flexed his fingers over the keyboard and then began to type,
writing steadily, without pause for thought. He had made it a rule,
these many years, to have it all thought out before he sat down to
write, to have run the subject matter through his mind, refining it
and sharpening it so that the readers of his column need never
search for meaning. The meaning must be there for all to see, the
logic well developed.
He wrote:
The world today faces what may be its greatest
crisis and the strangeness of this lies in the fact that the crisis
comes not by the ordinary channels we have come to associate with
crisis. Although, when one thinks it through, it becomes apparent
that it does parallel a crisis situation we long have recognized -
overpopulation and the economic problems which could spring from it
As short a time ago as last Sunday morning, however, no one in his
right mind could remotely have imagined that the overpopulation
which had been feared and preached against so long, could have come
upon us overnight.
Now that it has, we are faced with a situation that must be solved,
not over a long period of careful planning, but in a matter,
perhaps, of weeks. The brutal fact of the matter is that we can
feed the hordes of people who have come to us for help over only a
very limited span of time. They, themselves, are frank in admitting
that they were aware of the problems their coming would create and
in consequence of this have brought us the knowledge and the tools
we will need in solving them. All that remains is that we use these
tools forthwith. For this to be done requires the willing
cooperation of every one of us. This phrase is not used lightly,
nor in its hortatory political sense, but in a very personal way.
Every one of us, each of us, all of us.
What is needed from the most of us is forbearance, a willingness to
bear certain sacrifices, to tolerate certain inconveniences. It may
mean that there will be less food, and not so good, for us to eat.
We may have to wait for delivery of that new car. We may not be
able to buy a new lawn mower when the old one that is now on its
last legs finally breaks down. The economic energy and direction
that under normal circumstances would be channeled into the
production and distribution of items and services we need must be
cancelled not only into sending our far descendants back deeper
into time, but into providing them with the equipment, tools and
supplies they will need to build a viable culture. It may be that
Detroit may be called upon to turn out plows and other implements
rather than cars. It may be that, voluntarily, or by government
decree, we may have to ration ourselves. Wise as the actions taken
by President Henderson may have been in calling for a bank and
transactions holiday and a price and wage freeze, a case can be
made that he should have taken one further step by issuing a strong
warning against hoarding. While we can ill afford to deal in a
bureaucratic manner with the press of events that have been forced
upon us, it would seem that some move toward a strict rationing of
food and other items vital to the continuing economy should be
taken at once. It is quite understandable, for political reasons,
why Mr. Henderson might have been reluctant to do this. But it is
upon such unpopular actions, or the failure to take these actions,
that we will stand or fall.
It would seem scarcely necessary to point out that such actions as
the President has taken should be taken by other nations as well.
It is reliably understood that Britain, Russia, France, Germany,
Japan, China, and possibly other nations may have already taken
corresponding actions before these words see the light of print.
But the action must be worldwide rather than the actions of just a
few of the more powerful nations. The problem that we face is a
worldwide problem and for it to be solved temporary economic
strictures must be imposed not only upon the larger economic units,
but upon the entire world.
The appearance of the people from the future undoubtedly will call
forth from the various intellectual factions a wide variety of
opinions, many of which undoubtedly will be ill-founded. This is
well illustrated by the public agony which is being exhibited by
the Rev. Jake Billings, one of the more colorful of our
evangelists, over the revelation that the people of five hundred
years from now have forsaken religion as a rather footless factor
in the lives of mankind. Distressing as this may be to the
professional religionists, it is scarcely a consideration which has
any bearing upon the matter now immediately at hand. Not only on
this point, but on many other points, profound questions will be
raised, but now is not the time to expend any noticeable amount of
energy in trying to answer or resolve them. They will do no more
than to further divide a population which, under the best of
circumstances, is bound to be divided by the basic task which has
been brought upon us.
We have not as yet had the time, nor indeed the facts, to enable us
at this moment to form a true evaluation of the situation. While we
have been made aware of some of the basic facts, there may be other
facts that are as yet unknown, or perhaps some which, in the press
of other considerations, have not become apparent. It may well be
that some of the emphasis may be at fault - not as a result of
someone trying to obscure the importance of any fact, but simply
because there has not been the opportunity to assess the various
factors and give each the weight of importance which rightly
belongs to it.
There is no time, of course, for deliberate consideration of the
crisis; in essence, the world must act with more expediency than
may be entirely wise. The very fact that expediency is necessary
calls for a public forbearance that is usually not desirable when
great issues are at stake. A storm of criticism and a violent
putting forward of opinions at variance with official opinion and
action will accomplish nothing other than an impedance to a
solution which must come quickly if it is to come at all. The men
in Washington, at Whitehall and in the Kremlin may be wrong on many
points, but their various publics must realize that they are acting
not out of the perversity of stupidity, but in honest good faith,
doing what they consider proper to be done.
Insofar as the republics of the world are concerned, this is not
the way things should be done. Democracy demands, and rightly, that
all men should have a voice in their government and in governmental
decisions and actions, that all viewpoints be given full
consideration, that there be no arbitrary decisions counter to the
public will. But today we cannot afford the luxury of such an
idealistic concept. The situation may not be handled as many of us
would wish that it would be handled, some toes undoubtedly will be
trod upon, certain ideas of justice and propriety may be outraged.
But to accept all of this, if not in silence, at least without
raising too great an outcry, is a part of that forbearance that is
called for.
This is not one country that is threatened, not one political party
nor one political fortune, not one people nor one region, but the
entire world. This commentator has no way of knowing what will
happen. I cannot even guess. I am aware that there may be much that
I will not like, much that I will consider might have been done
differently or better. In the past there has been no hesitancy on
my part to place personal opinion upon record and at a later date,
after this is over, I suppose I might not be above the pointing out
of glaring errors as I may have perceived them. But from this day
forward I shall, as a personal contribution to the forbearance
which appears to me so necessary, exercise stern censorship upon,
if not my thoughts, at least upon my typewriter. I am hereby
enrolling myself as charter member in the Keep Your Mouth Shut,
Enoch Club. The membership is wide open and I invite all of you to
join.
33
He had somehow climbed a tree and got out on a
limb and had been hanging onto it, for no reason that seemed quite
logical, when a sudden violent wind had come up and now he was
hanging grimly to the branch which was whipping in the wind. He
knew that at any moment his grasp might be torn loose and he'd be
thrown to the ground. But when he looked down, he saw, with horror,
that there wasn't any ground.
From somewhere far off a voice was speaking to him, but he was so
intent on maintaining his grip upon the branch that he was unable
to distinguish the words. The shaking became even more violent.
"Steve," the voice was saying. "Steve, wake up." His eyes came open
a slit and he realized that he was in no tree. A distorted face
swam crazily just above him. No one had such a face.
"Wake up, Steve," said a voice that was Henry Hunt's. "The
President is asking for you." Wilson lifted a fist and scrubbed his
eyes. The face, no longer distorted, was the face of Henry
Hunt.
The face receded into the distance as the Times man straightened
up. Wilson swung his feet off the couch, sat up. Sunlight was
streaming through the windows of the press lounge.
"What time is it?" he asked.
"Almost eight."
Wilson squinted up at Hunt. "You get any sleep?" he
asked.
"I went home for a couple of hours. I couldn't sleep. Things kept
spinning in my head. So I came back." He picked a jacket off the
floor. "This yours?" he asked.
Wilson nodded groggily. "I got to get washed up," he said. "I got
to comb my hair."
He rose to his feet, took the jacket from Hunt and tucked it
underneath his arm. "What's going on?" he asked.
"What you might expect," said Hunt. "The wires are clogged with
screams of anguish over the business holiday. How come you didn't
tip us off, Steve?"
"I didn't know. He never said a word about it."
"Well, that's all right," said Hunt. "We should have guessed it.
Can you imagine what would have happened if the exchanges were
open?"
"Any word about the monster?"
"Rumor. Nothing solid. One rumor says another got through in
Africa. Somewhere in the Congo. Christ, they'll never find it
there."
"The Congo's not all jungle, Henry."
"Where it's supposed to have happened, it is." Wilson headed for
the washroom. When he returned, Hunt had a cup of coffee for
him.
"Thanks," he said. He sipped the hot brew and shuddered. "I don't
know if I can face the day," he said. "Any idea of what the
President has in mind?"
Hunt shook his head.
"Judy in yet?"
"Not yet, Steve."
Wilson put the cup, still half full, down on the coffee table.
"Thanks for getting me up and going," he said. "I'll see you
later."
He went through the door into the pressroom. The lamp he had
forgotten to turn off still shone feebly down upon the desk. In the
corridor outside footsteps went smartly up and down. He
straightened his jacket and went out.
Two men were with the President. One was General Daniel Foote, the
other was one of the refugees, rigged out in a mountain-man
outfit.
"Good morning, Mr. President," said Wilson.
"Good morning, Steve. You get any sleep?"
"An hour or so."
"You know General Foote, of course," said the President. "The
gentleman with him is Isaac Wolfe. Dr. Wolfe is a biologist. He
brings us rather frightening news. I thought that you should hear
it."
Wolfe was a heavy man - heavy of body, deep in the chest, standing
on short, solid legs. His head, covered by a rat-nest of graying
hair, seemed oversize.
He stepped quickly forward and shook Wilson's hand. "I am sorry,"
he said, "to be the bearer of such disturbing facts."
"Last night," said the President, "rather sometime this morning, a
farmer not far from Harper's Ferry was wakened by something in his
chicken coop. He went out and found the henhouse full of strange
beasts, the size, perhaps, of half-grown hogs. He fired at them and
they got away, all except one which the shotgun blast almost cut in
two. The farmer was attacked. He's in the hospital. He'll live, I'm
told, but he was fairly well chewed up. From what he says there can
be little doubt the things in the henhouse were a new batch of the
monsters."
"But that's impossible," said Wilson. "The monster escaped only a
few..."
"Dr. Wolfe came to me last evening," said Foote, "shortly after the
monster escaped from the tunnel. I frankly didn't believe what he
told me, but when the report of the henhouse episode came in from
an officer of a search party out in West Virginia, I looked him up
and asked him to come to the White House. I'm sorry, Doctor, for
not believing you to start with."
"But it's still impossible," said Wilson.
"No, no," said Wolfe. "It is not impossible. We are dealing here
with an organism entirely different from anything you've ever
known. The evolutionary processes of these monsters are like
nothing you have ever guessed. Their reaction to environmental
stress is beyond all belief. We had known something of it and had
deduced the rest, but I am convinced that under stresses such as
the escaped monster is experiencing, the developmental procedures
can be speeded up to a fantastic rate. An hour or so to hatch, an
hour later hunting food. The same pressure that is placed upon the
parent is transmitted to the young. For both the parent and the
young this is a crisis situation. The parent is aware of this, of
course; the young, of course, would not be. But in some strange
manner which I can't pretend to know, a sense of desperate urgency
is transmitted to the egg. Hatch swiftly, grow up quickly, scatter
widely, reach the egg-laying stage as soon as possible. It is a
genetic reaction to a survival threat. The young monsters would be
driven by an evolutionary force that in an earthly life form would
be inconceivable. They are members of a strange race that has a
unique, an inborn, capability to use every trick in the
evolutionary pattern to its advantage."
Wilson found a chair and sat down limply. He looked at the
President. "Has any of this leaked out?"
"No," said the President, "it has not. The farmer's wife phoned the
sheriff. The military search party had just reached the area and
was talking with the sheriff when the call came in. The officer in
charge clamped on a security lid. That is why you're here, Steve.
We can't keep this buttoned up. It'll leak out - if not this
particular incident, then others. There may be hundreds of these
tiny monsters out there in the mountains. They'll be seen and
reported. The reports will begin to pile up. We can't sit on all of
them, nor should we."
"The problem," said Wilson, "is how to release the news without
scaring the pants off everybody."
"If we don't tell them," said the President, "we create a
credibility gap that will make everything we do suspect. And there
is, as well, the matter of public safety."
"In a few days," said Foote, "all the mountains will be full of
full-grown monsters. They probably will scatter. We can hunt some
of them down, but not all of them. Probably only a small percentage
of them. The only way we can manage it is to put in every man we
can lay our hands on to hunt them down."
"They will scatter, that is right," said Wolfe. "By scattering,
they will insure their chances of survival. And they can travel
fast. By another day, perhaps, they'll be up in New England, down
into Georgia. They will keep, at first, to the mountainous terrain
because it would give them the best concealment. In time they'll
begin branching out from the mountains."
"How long would you guess," asked Wilson, "before they begin laying
eggs?"
Wolfe spread his hands. "Who can know?" he said.
"Your best guess."
"A week. Two weeks. I do not know."
"How many eggs in a clutch?"
"A couple of dozen. You must understand we do not know. We found
only a few nests."
"When will they begin their killing?"
"Now. Right now. They must eat to grow. They must do a lot of
killing. Wild animals, farm animals, occasionally humans. Not many
humans to start with. By killing men they draw attention to
themselves. Warlike as they may be, they still will know they are
vulnerable because there are so few of them. They may be
psychopathic killers, but they aren't stupid."
"We have some troops out now," said the President. "We'll have to
use many more. Get planes and helicopters up to spot the monsters.
I talked to Sandburg just a while ago. He is coming in. He'll know
what we can do. This means we call out the reserves, perhaps call
back some troops from abroad. Not only do we have to hunt the
monsters, but we have to maintain the camps for the
refugees."
"We do not wish to stand idly by," said Wolfe. "There are many
thousands of us. Give us arms and we'll go in side by side with
your military. We know about these creatures and we were the ones
who brought them here. We have a duty and. . ."
"Later," said the President, "there'll be plenty you can do.
Getting you into the field would be a tremendous task. Right at the
moment we must depend upon our own men."
"How about the people out there in the mountains?" asked Wilson.
"Do we pull them out?"
The President shook his head. "I don't think so, Steve. We have,
right now, all the refugees we can handle. And I'm inclined to
think that at the moment our monsters may not be too aggressive.
They're probably concentrating on staying out of sight. There may
be some incidents, but we must be prepared to accept those. It's
all that we can do."
"I think, sir, that you are right," said Wolfe. "They are
outnumbered now and must build up their strength. In any event, the
young aliens will not, for a time, be too great a menace. They'll
have to put on some size and weight. I suppose that, as well, they
may know that they face more deadly weapons, in much greater
numbers, than we could ever bring against them. We had lived in
peace so long we had lost most of the military techniques and we
started from scratch in weapon building."
"You face a busy day, Mr. President," said Foote. "If there is
nothing further that you wish from us..."
The President rose and came around the desk. He shook both by the
hand. "Thanks for coming by," he said. "This is something we must
get busy on immediately."
Wilson rose to leave. "Do I call in the press immediately?" he
asked. "Or should I wait until after you have talked with
Defense?"
The President hesitated, considering. "I. should think right away,"
he said. "I'd like for us to be the first to tell them. The
military has the lid clamped down, but it won't stay clamped for
long. Some of the people from the Hill are coming in to see me. It
would be better if they knew about this before they
arrived."
"There's another matter," said Wilson. "You were asleep and I
didn't want to wake you. There's a dispatch case full of diamonds.
. ."
"Diamonds? What have diamonds got to do with this?"
"It's a rather awkward business, sir," said Wilson. "You recall
that case Gale was carrying. . ."
"There were diamonds in that case?"
"It was packed with sacks. He opened one sack and poured out
diamonds on the desk. He told me the rest of the sacks also
contained diamonds and I'm inclined to believe him. The refugees
had the idea they could turn them over to us to pay whatever was
laid out to send them back to the Miocene."
"I would like to have seen your face," said the President, "when he
poured out the diamonds. What, may I ask, did you do about
it?"
"I called in Jerry Black and put Gale under guard. I insisted that
he keep the diamonds."
"I guess," said the President, "that was all that you could do. I
think maybe I should call in the Treasury to take temporary custody
and check with Reilly Douglas about the legality of it all. Did you
get any idea how much the diamonds might be worth?"
"Gale said, at present prices, perhaps a trillion dollars. That is,
if they can be fed into the market slowly, without depressing
prices. They're not, you understand, for us alone, but for the
entire world. Gale wants to leave them with us, in trust for all
the governments. He said we were the only government they felt that
they could trust."
"You realize, of course, how sticky this could be? If word of this
leaked out. . ."
"To be entirely fair," said Wilson, "we still must realize that
they are only trying to be helpful. They want to pay their
way."
"Yes, I know," said the President. "We'll have to see what Reilly
says about it."
34
Since early morning the crowd had been gathering in Lafayette Park across the avenue from the White House. It was still the quiet and watchful group that had stood the Sunday vigil, with its stolid watchfulness. But now there were a few placards and there had been none before. One of the placards, crudely lettered, read BACK TO THE MIOCENE. Another read BRING ON YOUR SABERTOOTHS. Still another: LET US LEAVE THIS LOUSY WORLD.
A newsman pushed his way through the crowd,
zeroing in on the whiskered youth who bore the BACK TO THE MIOCENE
placard.
"Would you mind telling me," he asked, "what is going
on?"
"Man," said the youth impatiently, "it is there for you to read. It
says it loud and clear."
"It puzzles me," said the newsman, "what you are trying to prove.
Or don't you have a point to make?"
"No points this time," the sign carrier told him. "In the past we
have tried to prove some points and have mostly gotten nowhere." He
made a thumb in the direction of the White House. "The man don't
listen too good. No one listens too good."
"This time," said a girl who stood beside the sign carrier, "we're
not proving anything at all. We're simply saying what we want to do
and that's go back to the Miocene."
"Or the Eocene," said another girl. "Or the Paleocene. Just
anywhere at all to get away from this scruffy place. We want to
leave this crummy world and get another start. We want to go back
and build the kind of world we want. We've been trying for years to
change this society and we've gotten just exactly nowhere. And when
we saw we couldn't change it, we tried to get out of it. That's
what the communes are all about. But the society won't let us go.
It reaches out and hauls us back. It will not let us go."
"Finally," said the sign carrier, "here's a way to get shut of it.
If these people from the future can travel to the past, there's no
reason why we shouldn't. There aren't many people who would be
sorry to see us go. Most of them would be glad to see us
go."
"I suppose," said the newsman, "that this could be called a
movement. Most of the other things you people have done have been
labeled movements. Would you mind telling me how many of you. .
."
"Not at all," said the first girl. "Not more than fifteen or twenty
of us now. But you write your story and let us get a news spot on
television and there'll be thousands of us. They'll be coming from
Chicago and New York, from Boston and Los Angeles. There'll be more
of us than this town can hold. Because, you see, this is the first
real chance we've had to get away."
"That's all right," the newsman said. "I can see your point. But
how do you go about it? Storm across the street and pound on the
White House door?"
"If you mean," said the sign carrier, "that no one will pay
attention to us, you may be right. But twenty-four hours from now
they'll pay attention to us. Forty-eight hours from now they'll be
out here in the street talking with us."
"But you realize, of course, there are no time tunnels yet. There
may never be. It will take materials and manpower ..."
"They got their manpower right here, mister. All anyone has to do
is ask. Hand us picks and shovels. Hand us wrenches. Hand us
anything at all and tell us what to do. We'll work until we drop.
We'll do anything to get away from here. We don't want any pay for
working; we don't want anything at all except to be allowed to
go."
"You tell them that," said the second girl. "You put it just the
way we say."
"We're not out to kick up any trouble," said the sign carrier. "We
don't want to cause any fuss. We just want to let them know. This
is the only way we can."
"We won't ask anything if they'll only let us leave," said the
first girl. "We would like some hoes and axes, maybe some pots and
pans. But if they won't give us anything, we'll go
empty-handed."
"Prehistoric men made out with stone," said the sign carrier. "If
we have to, we can do the same."
"Why stand there listening to them?" asked a burly individual with
a cigar stuck in his mouth. "Hell, all they do is talk. They all
are full of crap. They don't want to go anywhere. They just want to
stir up trouble."
"You're wrong," said the man with the sign. "We mean exactly what
we say. What makes you think we want to stay here, along with jerks
like you?"
The man with the cigar made a grab at the sign and one of the girls
kicked him in the shin. Wincing from the kick, his reaching fingers
missed the sign. The carrier clunked him on the head with it. A man
who had been standing beside the man with the cigar hit the sign
carrier on the jaw. A scuffle exploded and the police came in and
broke it up.
35
Judy was at her desk. Notes were beginning to
accumulate on the spindle. The lights on the console were
blinking.
"You get any sleep?" asked Wilson.
She looked up at him. "A little. I lay awake thinking, scared. It's
not good, is it, Steve?"
"Not good," he said. "It's too big for us to handle. If it weren't
for the time element, it wouldn't be so bad. If we only had a
little time."
She gestured toward the door leading to the lounge. "You won't tell
them that, will you?"
He grinned. "No, I won't tell them that."
"They've been asking when you're going to see them."
"Fairly soon," he said.
"I might as well tell you," she said. "No use waiting. I am going
home. Back to Ohio."
"But I need you here."
"You can get a girl from the secretarial pool. Couple of days and
you won't know the difference."
"That's not what I mean. . ."
"I know what you mean. You need me to shack up with. It's been like
that for how long - six months? It's this damn town. It makes
everything dirty that it touches. Somewhere else it might have
worked for us. But it isn't working here."
"Damn it, Judy," he said, "what's got into you? Because I didn't
come out last night. . ."
"Partly that, perhaps. Not all that, of course. I know why you had
to stay. But it was so lonely and so many things had happened and I
sat there thinking and got scared. I tried to call my mother and
the lines were busy. A poor scared girl, for Christ's sake, running
back to Mama. But suddenly everything was different. I wasn't a
sleek, competent Washington hussy, any longer; I was a kid in
pigtails in a little town deep in Ohio. It all started with my
getting scared. Tell me honest now, I had a right to be
scared."
"You had a right," he said soberly. "I'm half scared myself.
Everyone is scared."
"What's going to happen to us?"
"Damned if I know. But that wasn't what we were talking
about."
"Monsters running loose," she said. "Too many mouths to feed.
Everyone fighting one another or getting set to fight."
"We were talking about you going to Ohio. I'm not going to ask you
do you really mean it, because I know you do. I suppose that you
are lucky to have a place to run to. Most of us have no place. I'd
like to ask you to stay, but that would be unfair. What's more, it
would be selfish. But I still wish you would."
"I have a plane reservation," she said. "With the phone tied up and
all, I was surprised to get one. The country's in a panic. In a
time like this you get that terrible helpless feeling."
"You won't like Ohio. Once you get there, you won't like it. If
you're scared in Washington, you'll be scared in Ohio."
"I still am going, Steve. Come six-fifteen tonight and I'll be on
that plane."
"There's nothing I can say?"
"There's nothing you can say," she said.
"Then you'd better let the press in. I have some news for
them."
36
Senator Andrew Oakes hitched himself up
slightly from the depths of the chair in which he'd sank. "I'm not
right sure, Mr. President," he said, "that it's wise to bring home
all the troops. We need to keep our bases manned. And it seems to
me we're allowing ourselves to get flustered just a mite too soon.
Some itty bitty monsters raid a chicken coop out in West Virginia
and we start bringing home the troops. It don't seem scarcely
right. And I'm not sure it was too smart, either, to tell the
newsmen about these little monsters. We'll get the country all up
tight."
"Senator," said Congressman Nelson Able, "I think you may have
gotten your protocol somewhat twisted. We were not invited here to
decide whether the troops were to be brought back home, but rather
to learn that they were being brought back and to be told the
reason for it."
"I still believe," said Senator Oakes, "that President Henderson
would want to know our thoughts. He might not agree with them, but
I think that he should hear them."
"That's right, Andy," said the President. "You know that through
the years I have listened to you often and almost as often have
been fascinated by what you had to say. Which is not to say I
agreed with you. Most commonly I don't."
"I am well aware of that," said Oakes, "but it has not stopped me
from saying what I think. And I think it's plain damn foolishness
to fly back the troops. It's not going to take the total strength
of our military might to run down some little chicken-killing
monsters."
"I think the point has been made," said Senator Brian Dixon, "that
the monsters will not stay little monsters. The only sensible way
for us to tackle them is to run them down before there get to be
any more of them and before they have a chance to grow."
"But how do we know," persisted Oakes, "that they will really grow
or increase in numbers? We're taking the word of people who came
scurrying back to us because they couldn't face them. And they
couldn't face them because they had let down their guard. They had
no military and they had no weapons..."
"Now just a minute, Senator," protested Congressman Able. "It's all
right for you to make your military speeches up on the Hill. You
get a good press there and can impress the public. But this is just
among ourselves. We won't be impressed."
"Gentlemen," said the President, "as I see it, this is all beside
the point. With all due deference to the Senator, the military will
be brought back home. It will be brought home because the Secretary
of Defense and the Chiefs of Staff have told me the forces are
needed here. Among ourselves, we discussed it very thoroughly
earlier in the day. The feeling was that we cannot take the chance
of anything going wrong. We may be aiming at overkill, but that is
better than negligence. It may be true that we have been given poor
information by the people from the future, but I am not inclined to
think so. They have faced the monsters for twenty years and it
seems to me that they would know far more of them than we do. I
have talked with members of the Academy of Sciences and they tell
me, while the characteristics attributed to the monsters may be
unusual, that these characteristics do not go contrary to any
established biologic rule. So I don't think that you can say there
has been any lack of responsibility in the reaching of our
decisions. Because of the press of circumstances, we have moved
faster than we ordinarily would, but we simply haven't got the time
to go at any of this with due deliberation."
Oakes did not reply, but settled back in his chair, grunting softly
to himself.
"There was a report of a monster loose in the Congo," said
Congressman Wayne Smith. "Have you, sir, any further
information?"
"None," said the President. "We can't be sure one did get through.
The reports are unreliable."
"There has been no request for aid to hunt it down?"
"No request," said the President. "Nothing official at
all."
"How about the tunnels, sir? The news reports seem to be in some
conflict. Some of them, we know, have closed, but I can't seem to
get a clear idea of what is going on."
"You probably know as much as we do here, Wayne. Here at home, the
Virginia tunnel is closed, of course. Two more were closed without
our intervention, one in Wisconsin, the other down in Texas. I
suppose those were shut down by the people up in the future when
the monsters were coming in too close, Either that or there were
malfunctions. Otherwise than that, all the tunnels in the United
States still are operating."
"Would you think that the two you mentioned as closing may have
done so because all the people had come through? There has to be an
end to all these people sometime?"
"We know the Wisconsin tunnel closed because of an attack at the
other end. The last of the people who came through told us that. I
don't know about the Texas closing. But as to the implied question
of all the people through - yes, I would hope that soon the tunnels
would start closing because they've done their job."
"Mr. President," said Senator Dixon, "what do you know about the
practical side of tunnel building? Can we build the tunnels so the
people can go back into the past?"
"I am told we can," said the President. "Our physicists and
engineers are working with refugee scientists and engineers right
now. The refugees have picked out the sites where the tunnels
should be built. One encouraging feature is that not as many
tunnels need be built as they used in getting here. There isn't the
immediate time pressure to get back into the Miocene that there was
in getting here. They built a lot of tunnels up in the future
because they knew they must get out quickly if they were to get any
appreciable part of the population out at all. Also, as I
understand it, there will be no need to build tunnels in all the
smaller countries. Transportation can be used to get the people to
tunnels several hundred miles away. The same situation applies
here. It will be easier to transport the refugees to the tunnels
than to build the tunnels. The one thing that is difficult about it
is that we must get some tunnels built and the people moving out
before the refugees eat us out of house and home."
"The construction of the tunnels, then, isn't beyond our
capability? All we need is time, money and labor."
"That is right, Brian. Labor is no problem. The refugees represent
a huge and willing labor force and just an hour or so ago I had
word from Terry Roberts that our labor people will raise no
objection to our using them on what must be viewed as a federal
project. Terry assures me that organized labor will cooperate in
every way, even to the extent of waiving union rules, if that
should be necessary, in the employment of their own members. Labor
is no problem. Money is. Even should industry be as willing to go
along with us as labor is, a vast amount of retooling will be
necessary before we can start fabricating the components for the
tunnels. Ordinarily retooling is a time-consuming process and a
costly one. The fact that we must get at it immediately and around
the clock, and. must get it completed within a fraction of the time
it would customarily take, makes it expensive beyond anything that
can be imagined. When that is done, the components themselves will
be costly items. You must remember this is not a problem that we
face alone. It is faced by the entire world. The brunt of the work
must be borne by the predominantly industrial nations-we, Germany,
Russia, France, Britain, China, Japan, and a few others must build
the components, not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the
world. While we do not need to match the number of tunnels the
future people built to get here, we do need to build enough so that
there will be a fairly consistent regional distribution when they
go back to the Miocene. While the population of the future is not
as great as ours, it still is great enough that it must be
scattered. The building of a new civilization in the past would be
defeated if we dumped too many people in one area. And the building
of the components is only part of the industrial problem that we
face. Although it is the greatest and the most important part. We
must also furnish the refugees with the tools and livestock and
seed they will need to make a new beginning. Furnishing the tools
is going to call for a significant industrial capacity."
"Have you talked with anyone in the industrial
community?"
"Not personally. Commerce is making some tentative approaches to
see what sort of reaction is forthcoming. I have no word as yet.
But it seems to me there should be some positive reaction. I should
be disappointed if there weren't. This is their neck as well as the
rest of us."
Oakes hunched up out of his chair. "Have you any idea yet, Mr.
President, what all of this might cost? Any good round
figure?"
"No," said the President, "I haven't."
"But it's going to be costly."
"It is going to be costly."
"Maybe a great deal more than the defense budget, which everyone
seems so horrified about."
"You want me to say it, of course," said the President, "so I will.
Yes," it is going to be more costly than the defense budget, many
times more costly. It will be even more costly than a war. It will
maybe break us. It may bankrupt the world, but what would you have
us do? Go out and shoot down all the refugees? That would solve the
problem. Is that a solution you would like?"
Grumbling, Oakes let himself sink back into the chair.
"One thing has occurred to me," said Able. "There is just the
possibility that no matter what it costs us, we may get value
received. The refugees come from a time period where many
technological problems have been worked out, new approaches have
been developed. One thing that has been mentioned is fusion power.
We are nowhere near that yet; it may take us years to get there. If
we had fusion power that would be a great leap forward. Undoubtedly
there are many others. I would assume that, in return for what we
propose to do for them, they'd be willing to acquaint us with the
basis of these technological advances..."
"It would ruin us," Oakes said wrathfully. "It would finish up the
job they've started. Take fusion power, for instance. There,
gentlemen, in the twinkling of an eye, the gas and oil and coal
industries would go down the drain."
"And," said Able, "I suppose the medical profession as well if up
in the future they had found the cause and cure of
cancer."
Dixon said, "What the Congressman says is true. If we had the
advantages of all their scientific and technological advances,
perhaps their social and political advances, that have been made,
or will be made, in the next five hundred years, we would be much
better off than we are today. To whom, I wonder, would the new
knowledge and principles belong? To the man who was able to acquire
the information, by whatever means? Or to the governments? Or to
the world at large? And if to the governments and the world, how
would it be handled or implemented? It seems to me that, at best,
we would have many thorny problems to work out."
"This is all in the future," said Congressman Smith, "It is
speculative at the moment. Right now, it seems to me, we have two
immediate problems. We have to somehow dispose of the monsters and
we must do whatever is possible to send the future people back to
the Miocene. Is this the way you read it, Mr. President?"
"Exactly," said the President, "as I read it."
"I understand," Oakes rumbled, "that the Russian ambassador is
coming over to have a powwow with you."
"You were not supposed to know that, Andy."
"Well, you know how it is, Mr. President. You stay up on the Hill
long enough and you get a lot of pipelines. You get told a lot of
things. Even things you were not supposed to know."
"It's no secret," said the President. "I have no idea why he's
coming. We are trying to work closely with all the governments in
this matter. I have had phone conversations with a number of heads
of state, including the Russian head of state. I take it that the
ambassador's visit is no more than an extension of these
talks."
"Perhaps," said Oakes. "Perhaps. I just tend to get a mite nervous
when the Russians become too interested in anything at all."
37
There was something in the hazel thicket at
the edge of the tiny cornfield - a vague sense of a presence, a
tantalizing outline that never quite revealed itself. Something
lurked there, waiting. Sergeant Gordy Clark was quite sure of that.
Just how he knew he could not be sure. But he was sure - or almost
sure. Some instinct born out of hundreds of patrols into enemy
country, something gained by the sharp, hard objectivity that was
necessary for an old soldier to keep himself alive while others
died-something that he nor no one else could quite define told him
there was a lurker in the thicket.
He lay silent, almost unbreathing in his effort to be quiet and
still, stretched out on the little ridge that rose above the
cornfield, with his rocket launcher steadied on an ancient, rotted
log and the cross-hairs centered on the thicket. It could be a dog,
he told himself, or a child, perhaps even nothing, but he could not
bring himself to think that it was nothing.
The drooping sumac bush bent close above him, shielding-him from
the view of whatever might be in the thicket. He could hear the
faint mutter of the mountain brook that ran just beyond the
cornfield, and from up the hollow hugged between the hills, where
the farm buildings were located, came the senseless cackling of a
hen.
There was no sign of any other member of the patrol. He knew
several of them must be close, but they were being careful not to
betray their presence. They were regulars, every one of them, and
they knew their business. They could move through these woods like
shadows. They would make no noise, disturb no brush or branch to
give away their presence.
The sergeant smiled grimly to himself. They were good men. He had
trained them all. The captain thought that he had been the one who
had trained them, but it had not been the captain. It had been
Sergeant Gordon Fairfield Clark who had beaten their business into
them. They all hated him, of course, and he'd have it no other way.
For out of hatred could sometimes come respect. Fear or respect, he
thought - either one would serve. There were some of them, perhaps
not now, but sometime in the past - had cherished the fantasy of
putting a bullet through his skull. There must have been
opportunities, but they had never done it. For they needed him, the
sergeant told himself - although not really him, of course, but the
hatred that they had for him. There was nothing like a good strong
hatred for a man to cling to.
The farmer at the buildings up the hollow thought he had seen
something. He couldn't tell what it was, but it had been awful, the
glimpse he had gotten of it. A sort of thing that he had never seen
before. Something that no man could imagine. The farmer had
shivered as he talked.
The thing that had been in the thicket came out. It came out with a
rush so fast that it seemed to blur. Then, as quickly as it had
moved, it stopped. It stood in the little open space of ground
between the thicket and the corn.
The sergeant caught his breath and his guts turned over, but even
so he swiveled the launcher barrel around so that the cross hairs
centered on the great paunch of the monster and his finger began
the steady squeeze.
Then it was gone. The cross hairs centered on nothing except the
ragged clump of brush beyond the cornfield's edge. The sergeant
didn't stir. He lay looking through the sight, but his finger
slacked off from the trigger.
The monster had not moved. He was sure of that. It had simply
disappeared. One microsecond there, the next microsecond gone. It
could not move that fast. When it had come out of the thicket there
had been a blur of rapid movement. This time there had been no
blur.
Sergeant Clark raised his head, levered himself to his knees. He
put up a hand and wiped his face and was astonished to find that
his hand came away greasy wet. He'd not been aware that he had been
sweating.
38
Fyodor Morozov was a good diplomat and decent
man, the two not being incompatible, and he hated what he had to
do. Besides, he told himself, he knew Americans and it simply would
not work. It would, of course, embarrass them and point out their
sins for all the world to see and, under ordinary circumstances, he
would not have been averse to this. But under present conditions,
he knew, the Americans (or anyone else, for that matter) were in no
position to observe the niceties of diplomatic games, and because
of this, there was no way one could gauge reaction.
The President was waiting for him when he was ushered in and beside
the President, as was to be expected, stood the Secretary of State.
The President was all open blandness, but Thornton Williams, Fyodor
could see, was a somewhat puzzled man, although he was doing an
excellent job of hiding it.
When they had shaken hands and sat down, the President opened the
conversation. "It's always good to see you, Mr. Ambassador," he
said, "for any reason, or even for no reason. But tell me, is there
something we can do for you?"
"My government," said Fyodor, "has asked me to confer with your
government, as unofficially as our official positions can make
possible, concerning a matter of security which I would assume is
of some concern to both of us, in fact, to everyone."
He paused and they waited for him to go on. They did not respond;
they asked no question; they were no help at all.
"It is the matter," he said, "of the alien monster that escaped
from the Congo tunnel. There is no question, knowing what we do,
that the monsters must be hunted down. Since the Congo does not
have sufficient military or police forces to accomplish this, my
government is offering to supply an expeditionary force and we are
about to sound out both Britain and France and perhaps other
nations as well to determine if they might want to contribute to a
joint expeditionary force against the monster."
"Certainly, Ambassador," said Williams, "your government does not
feel compelled to seek our permission to embark upon so neighborly
an undertaking. I would imagine that you are prepared to make
guarantees that you'll withdraw all forces immediately the monster
had been taken."
"Of course we are."
"Then I fail to grasp your point."
"There is also," said Fyodor, "the matter of the monster, or the
monsters - I understand that now there are a number of them - on
your own territory. We are prepared to make the same offer to you
as we will make the Congo."
"You mean," said the President, amused, "that you would be willing
to lend us some of your forces to hunt down the
monsters."
"We would go, I think," said the ambassador, "somewhat beyond the
word you use - willing. I would think that unless you can guarantee
absolute effectiveness in containing and disposing of the monsters,
we might possibly insist. This is not a national matter; the
international community is concerned. The creatures must be
obliterated. If you can't accomplish this, then you must accept any
help that's offered."
"You know, of course," said Williams, "that we are bringing home
our troops."
"I know that, Mr. Secretary, but the question is how quickly can
you bring them home. Our military people estimate it will take you
thirty days at least and that may not be fast enough. There also is
the question of whether you have personnel enough to cover the
required territory."
The President said, "I can assure you that we appreciate your
concern."
"It is the position of my government," said Fyodor, "that while
naturally you wish to use your own troops, many more men would be
placed upon the ground and more quickly if you would accept the aid
that we offer and which I am sure other nations as well would offer
if you made known your willingness. . ."
"Mr. Ambassador," said the President, interrupting, "I am certain
you know better than to come to us with such an impudent
suggestion. If there had been genuine good will on the part of your
government, surely you are aware that a different approach would
have been employed. There is no question in my mind that the sole
purpose of this call is to embarrass us. In that, of course, you've
failed. We are not in the least embarrassed."
"I am delighted that you're not," said Fyodor, unruffled. "We
thought that it was only the decent thing to approach you first, in
private."
"I assume," said Williams, "you mean you now will bring the matter
up before the UN, where you'll seek to embarrass us in
public."
"You gentlemen," said the ambassador, "persist in placing a wrong
interpretation upon the matter. It is true, of course, that our
countries have had their differences in the past. We have not
always seen exactly eye to eye. Under present circumstances,
however, the entire world need stand together. It is only with this
thought that we bring the matter forward. It is quite clear to us,
if it is not to you, that solving the monster problem quickly is in
the international interest and that it is your duty to accept such
aid as may be needed. We should be reluctant to report to the
United Nations that you neglect your duty."
"We would not attempt," said Williams stiffly, "to suggest what you
might tell the UN."
"If you should decide to accept our offer," said the ambassador,
"it would be agreeable to us to leave the initiative with you. If
you should ask other nations - perhaps Canada, Britain, France and
us - to supply the additional forces that you need, there need be
nothing said concerning this particular conversation. The newsmen,
of course, will know that I am here and will ask me about it, but I
shall tell them it was only a part of the continuing discussion
which is going on between our two countries concerning the refugee
situation. That sort of answer, it seems to me, would be a logical
one and probably acceptable."
"I suppose," said the President, "that you will want an answer to
relay to your government."
"Not necessarily now," said Fyodor. "We would imagine you might
want to deliberate upon it. The UN does not meet until tomorrow
noon."
"I imagine that if we asked some of our friends among the community
of nations to supply us forces and did not include your government
among them, you would feel slighted and be indignantly
offended."
"I cannot speak to that with any surety, but I would presume we
might be."
"It seems to me," said the Secretary of State, "that all of this is
no more than official mischief-making. I have known you for some
years and have held a high regard for you. You have been here among
us for three years, or is it four - more than three years, anyhow -
and surely you have grown to know us in that length of time. I
think that your heart may not be entirely in these
proceedings."
Fyodor Morozov rose slowly to his feet. "I have delivered the
message from my government," he said. "Thank you both for seeing
me."
39
In New York, in Chicago, in Atlanta mobs
hurled themselves against police lines. The signs read: WE DIDN'T
ASK THEM TO COME. They read: WE HAVE LITTLE ENOUGH AS IT is. They
read: WE REFUSE TO STARVE. The crowds threw objects, stones,
bricks, tin cans battered into tin-shinny pucks so they had cutting
edges, plastic bags filled with human excrement. The ghetto areas
were filled with shouting and with violence. Some died; many were
injured. Bonfires were kindled. Houses burned and when fire rigs
tried to reach the blazes, they were stopped by barricades. Great
areas were given over to looting.
In little towns throughout the country grim-faced men talked
sitting on benches in front of general stores, filling stations,
feed stores, stopping at street corners, gathering for coffee in
the corner drugstore, waiting their turns in barbershops. They said
to one another, among themselves, bewildered: It don't seem right,
somehow. It don't seem possible. It ain't like the old days, when
one knew what was going on. There ain't no telling, these days,
what is about to happen, what will happen next. There is too much
new-fangled now. The old days are going fast. There is nothing left
for a man to hang to... They said judiciously: Of course, if it is
the way they say, we got to do our best for them. You heard the
President say it last night. Children of our children. That is what
he said. Although I don't know how we are going to do it. Not with
taxes what they are. We can't pay no more taxes than we are and
them tunnels are about to cost a mint. Taxes on everything you buy.
On everything you do. On everything you own. Seems no matter how
hard a man may scratch he can't keep ahead of taxes...
They said sanctimoniously: That preacher down in Nashville hit it
on the head. If a man loses his religion he has lost everything
worthwhile. He has nothing left to live for. You lose the Good Book
and you have lost it all. It don't seem possible that even in five
hundred years men would have given up their God. It's the evil in
the world today, right now, that made it possible. It's big-city
living. The meanness of big-city living. Out here you could never
lose your God. No, sir. He's with you all the time. You feel Him in
the wind. You see Him in the color of the eastern sky just before
the break of dawn. You sense Him in the hush of evening. I feel
sorry for these people from the future. I do feel purely sorry for
them. They don't know what they lost...
They said angrily of the riots: They ought to shoot them down. I
wouldn't fool around with stuff like that. Not for a minute would
I. Those people, some of them ain't never done a lick of work in
all their entire lives. They just stand there with their hands out.
You can't tell me, if a man really wants to work, or a woman
either, they can't find a job. Out here we scratch and dig and
sweat and we get next to nothing, but we don't riot, we don't burn9
we don't stand with hands out...
They said of the young people with the signs in Lafayette Park: If
they want to go to the Miocene or whatever this place is, why don't
we let them go? We won't never miss them. We would be better off
without them. . .
The village banker said, with ponderous judiciousness: Mark my
word, we'll be lucky if these future folks don't ruin the entire
country. Yes, sir, the entire country; maybe the entire world. The
dollar will be worth nothing and prices will go up... And
inevitably they got around to it, whispering the blackest of their
thoughts: You just wait and see. It's a Commie plot, I tell you. A
dirty Commie plot. I don't know how they worked it, but when the
wash comes out, we'll find these Russians at the bottom of it. .
.
There was marching in the land, a surge toward Washington - by
hitchhiking, by bus, by old beat-up clunkers of cars. An inward
streaming of the countercultural young. Some of them reached the
city before the fall of night and marched with banners saying: Back
To The Miocene; Bring On The Sabretooths! Others continued through
the night or rested in the night to continue with first light,
sleeping in haystacks or on park benches, wolfing hamburgers,
seeking out alliances, talking in hushed tones around
campfires.
Other bands marched as well in the streets of Washington, bands in
the center of which were young men staggering under the weight of
heavy crosses, stumbling and falling, then staggering up again to
continue on their way. Some wore crowns of thorns, with blood
trickling down their foreheads. Late in the afternoon a furious
fight broke out in Lafayette Park when an indignant crowd, among
them many of the hopefully Miocene-bound youngsters, moved to stop
a crucifixion, with the victim already lashed to the cross and the
hole half dug for its planting. Police charged in and after a
bloody fifteen minutes cleared the park. When all were gone, four
crudely fashioned crosses were gathered up and carted off. "These
kids are crazy," said one panting officer. "I wouldn't give you a
dime for the entire lot of them."
Senator Andrew Oakes phoned Grant Wellington. "Now is the time," he said in a conspiratorial voice, "to lie extremely low. Don't say a word. Don't even look as if you were interested. The situation, you might say, is fluid. There is nothing set. No one knows which way the cat will jump. There is something going on. The Russian was at the White House this morning and that bodes no good for anyone. Something we don't understand is very much afoot."
Clinton Chapman phoned Reilly Douglas. "You
know anything, Reilly?"
"Nothing except that there really is time travel and we have the
blueprints for it."
"You have seen the blueprints?"
"No, I haven't. It all is under wraps. No one is saying anything.
The scientists who talked with the future people aren't
talking."
"But you..."
"I know, Clint. I'm the Attorney General, but, hell, in a thing
like this that doesn't count for anything. This is top secret. A
few of the Academy crowd and that is all. Not even the military,
and even if the military wanted it, I have my doubts . .
."
"But they have to let someone know. You can't build a thing until
you know."
"Sure, how to build it, but that is all. Not how it works. Not why
it works. Not the principle."
"What the hell difference does that make?"
"I should think it would," said Douglas. "I, personally, would be
distrustful of building something I didn't understand."
"You say it is time travel. No doubt of that, it is really time
travel."
"No doubt at all," said Douglas.
"Then there's a mint in it," said Chapman, "and I mean
to..."
"But if it only works one way -"
"It has to work both ways," said Chapman. "That's what my people
tell me."
"It will take a lot of financing," said Douglas. "I've talked to a
lot of people," said Chapman. "People I can trust. Some of them are
interested. Enough of them. Definitely interested. They see the
possibilities. There'll be no lack of funds if we can put it
through."
Judy Gray got on the plane and found her seat. She looked out the window, saw the scurrying trucks - saw them mistily and quickly put up a hand to wipe her eyes. She said to herself, almost lovingly, through clenched teeth: "The son of a bitch. The dirty son of a bitch!"
40
Tom Manning spoke guardedly into the phone.
"Steve," he said, "I have been hearing things."
"Put them on the wire, Tom," said Wilson. "That is why you are
there. Put them on the wire for the glory of dear old Global
News."
"Now," said Manning, "that you've had occasion to show off your
shallow sense of humor, shall we get down to business?"
"If this is a ploy," said Wilson, "to trick me into seeming
confirmation of some rumor you have heard, you know that it won't
work."
"You know me better than that, Steve."
"That's the trouble, I do know you."
"All right, then," said Manning, "if that's the way of it, let's
start at the beginning. The President had the Russian ambassador in
this morning. . ."
"The President didn't have him. He came in on his own. The
ambassador made a statement to the press. You know about
that."
"Sure, we know what the ambassador said and what you said in this
afternoon's briefing, which, I might say, added very little light
to the situation. But no one in town, no one in his right mind,
that is, buys what either of you said." "I'm sorry about that, Tom.
I told all I knew."
"OK," said Manning. "I'll take your word for that. It's just
possible that you weren't told. But there's a very nasty story
being whispered up at the UN in New York. At least, it was
whispered to our man up there. I don't know how much farther it has
gone. Our man didn't put it on the wire. He phoned me and I told
him to hold it until I talked with you."
"I don't have the least idea, Tom, of what you're talking about. I
had honestly assumed the ambassador told all that could be told.
There have been some conversations with Moscow and it sounded
reasonable. The President didn't tell me differently. We mentioned
it, I guess, but we didn't talk about it. There were so many other
things."
"All right, then," said Manning, "here's the story as I heard it.
Morozov talked to Williams and the President and offered troops to
help hunt down the monster and the offer was rejected..."
"Tom, how good is your source? How sure are you of this?"
"Not sure at all. It's what our man at the UN was told this
afternoon."
"You're talking about Max Hale. He's your man up there."
"One of the best," said Manning. "He's fairly good at sorting out
the truth."
"Yes, he is. I remember him from Chicago days."
"Hale's informant told him that tomorrow the UN will be told of our
refusal and a demand made that we be forced to accept troops from
other nations. It'll be said that we are negligent in not accepting
them."
"The old squeeze play," said Wilson.
"And that's not all of it. If other troops are not accepted and the
monsters can't be controlled, then, the UN will be told, the entire
area must be nuclearly destroyed. The world can't take a chance. .
."
"Wait a minute," said Wilson quickly. "You're not putting this on
the wires, you say?"
"Not yet. Probably never. I hope that it is never. That's the
reason I phoned. If Hale heard it, there's a likelihood someone
else will hear it and, sure as God, it will get on a wire or be
published somewhere."
"There's no truth in it," said Wilson. "I am sure of it. Christ,
we're all in this together. For the moment, political power plays
should be set aside. Or it seems to me they should. Tom, I simply
can't believe it."
"You know nothing of this? Of any of it? There hasn't been a
breath?"
"Not a breath," said Wilson.
"You know," said Manning, "I wouldn't have your job, Steve. Not for
a million dollars."
"You'll hold off, Tom. You'll give us a little time to
check."
"Of course. Only if the pressure gets too great. Only if someone
else - I'll let you know."
"Thanks, Tom. Someday. . ."
"Someday, when this is all over," said Manning, "we'll go off in
some dark corner in an obscure bar, where no one possibly can find
us, and we'll hang one on."
"I'll stand the drinks," said Wilson. "All the drinks."
After hanging up, he sat slumped. Just when another day was about
to end, he thought. But hell, some days never ended. They just kept
on and on. Yesterday and today had not been two days, but a
nightmare-haunted eternity that seemed, when one thought of it, to
have no reality at all. Judy gone, kids marching in the street, the
business community bitching loudly because it was prevented from
using the economic disruptions to go out and make a killing,
pulpit-thumping preachers hell-bent to make another kind of
killing, monsters running in the hills and the future still
emptying its humanity upon this moment in the time track.
His eyelids slid down and stuck and he forced himself erect. He had
to get some sleep tonight - he had to find the time to get some
sleep.
Maybe Judy had the right idea. Just up and walk away from it.
Although, he told himself, quite honestly, there still remained the
question of what she'd walked away from. He missed her - gone no
more than an hour or two and he was missing her. Quite suddenly, he
realized he'd been missing her all day. Even while she still had
been here, he had been missing her. Knowing she would be leaving,
he had started missing her. Maybe, he thought, he should have asked
her once again to stay, but there hadn't been the time and he'd not
known how to do it - at least he had not known how to do it
gracefully and you did things gracefully or you did them not at
all. More than likely, had he known, she'd not have listened to
him.
He picked up the phone. "Kim, you still there? I'll need to see the
President. It is rather urgent. The first chance you have to
squeeze me in."
"It may be some time, Steve," she said. "There is a cabinet
meeting."
41
Sergeant Gordon Fairfield Clark said to
Colonel Eugene Dawson, "I had it in my sights and then it wasn't
there. It disappeared. It went away. I'm sure it didn't move. I saw
it move before it stopped. It blurred when it moved. Like a
cartoonist drawing something moving fast, lettering in a SWISH, but
this was without a swish. When it disappeared there wasn't any
swish. The first time I could see that it was moving. But not when
I had it in my sights. It didn't move then. It didn't blur. It
didn't swish."
"It saw you, Sergeant," said the colonel.
"I would think not, sir. I was well hidden. I didn't move. I moved
the launcher barrel a couple of inches. That was all."
"One of your men, then."
"Sir, all those men I trained myself. No one sees them, no one
hears them."
"It saw something. Or heard something. It sensed some danger and
then it disappeared. You're sure about this disappearance,
Sergeant?"
"Colonel, I am sure."
Dawson was sitting on a fallen log. He reached down and picked up a
small twig from the duff of the forest floor, began breaking it and
rebreaking it, reducing the twig to bits of wood. Clark stayed
squatting to one side, using the launcher, its butt resting on the
ground, as a partial support to his squatting pose.
"Sergeant," Dawson said, "I don't know what the hell we're going to
do about all this. I don't know what the army's going to do. You
find one of these things and before you can whap it, it is gone. We
can handle them. I am sure of that. Even when they get big and
rough and mean, like the people from the future say they will, we
still can handle them. We've got the firepower. We have the
sophistication. If they'd line up and we'd line up and they came at
us, we could clobber them. We have more and better armaments than
the people of future had and we can do the job. But not when
they're trying to keep clear of us, not in this kind of terrain. We
could bomb ten thousand acres flat and get, maybe, one of them. God
knows how much else we'd kill, including people. We haven't the
time or manpower to evacuate the people so that we can bomb. We got
to hunt these monsters down, one by one. . ."
"But even when we hunt them down, sir..."
"Yes, I know. But say that you are lucky. Say you bag one now and
then. There still will be hundreds of them hatching and in a week
or so, a month or so, thousands of them hatching. And the first
ones growing bigger and meaner all the time. And while we hunt for
them, they wipe out a town or two, an army camp or two. .
."
"Sir," said Sergeant Clark, "it is worse than Vietnam ever was. And
Vietnam was hairy."
The colonel got up from the log. "There hasn't nothing beat us
yet," he said. "Nothing has ever beat us all the way. It won't this
time. But we have to find out how to do it. All the firepower in
the world, all the sophistication in the world is of no use to you
until you can find something to aim the firepower and the
sophistication at and it stays put until you pull the
trigger."
The sergeant got to his feet, tucked the launcher underneath his
arm. "Well, back to work," he said.
"Have you seen a photographer around here?"
"A photographer?" said the sergeant. "What photographer? I ain't
seen no photographer."
"He said his name was Price. With some press association. He was
messing around. I put the run on him."
"If I happen onto him," said the sergeant, "I'll tie a knot into
his tail."
42
The Reverend Jake Billings was in conference
with Ray MacDonald, formerly his assistant public relations
manager, who had been appointed, within the last twelve hours, to
the post of crusade operations chief.
"I really do not think, Ray," said the Reverend Billings, "that
this business of crucifixion will advance our cause. It strikes me
as being rather crude and it could backlash against us. As witness
what one paper had to say of the attempt at Washington. .
."
"You mean someone has already gotten around to editorializing on
it? I had not expected such prompt reaction."
"The reaction is not good," said the Reverend Billings, with some
unaccustomed heat. "The editorial called it a cheap trick and a
pantywaisted effort. The young man's arms, it turns out, were
fastened to the crossbar with thongs - not nails, but thongs. The
entire editorial, of course, is in a somewhat facetious vein, but
nevertheless. . ."
"But they are wrong," MacDonald said.
"You mean that you used nails!"
"No, that's not what I mean. I mean that thongs were the way that
it was done. The Romans ordinarily did not use nails..."
"You are trying to tell me that the Gospels erred?"
"No, I'm not trying to tell you that. What I am saying is that
ordinarily - ordinarily, mind you, perhaps not always - the arms
were tied, not nailed. We did some research on it and..."
"Your research is no concern of mine," said Billings
icily.
"What I do care about is that you gave some smart-assed editorial
writer the chance to poke fun at us. And even if that had not
happened, I think the whole idea stinks. You didn't check with me.
How come you didn't check with me?"
"You were busy, Jake. You told me to do my best. You told me I was
the man who could come up with ideas and I did come up with
ideas."
"I had this call from Steve Wilson," Billings said. "He chewed me
out. There is no doubt that official Washington - the White House,
at least - is solidly against us. When he gets around to it, Wilson
will brand us as sensationalists. He brushed us off contemptuously
in his press briefing this afternoon. That was before this silly
crucifixion business. Next, time around, he'll blast us out of the
water."
"But we have a lot of people with us. You go out to the
countryside, to the little towns..."
"Yes, I know. The rednecks. They'll be for us, sure, but how long
do you think it is before redneck opinion can have any significant
impact? What about the influential pastors in the big city
churches? Can you imagine what the Reverend Dr. Angus Windsor will
tell his congregation and the newspapers and the world? He's the
one who started all of this, but he'll not go along with solemn
young men packing crosses through the street and getting crucified
on a public square. For years I have tried to conduct my ministry
with dignity and now it's been pulled down to the level of street
brawling. I have you to thank for this and..."
"It's not too different," protested MacDonald, "from the stunts
we've used before. Good old circus stuff. Good old show biz. It's
what you built the business on."
"But with restraint."
"Not too much restraint. Skywriting and parades and miles of
billboards..."
"Legitimate advertising," said Billings. "Honest advertising. A
great American tradition. The mistake you made was to go out in the
streets. You don't know about the streets. You ran up against the
experts there. These Miocene kids know about the streets. They have
been there, they have lived there. You had two strikes on you
before you started out. What made you think you could compete with
them?"
"All right, then, what shall we do? The streets are out, you say.
So we pull off the streets. Then what do we do? How do we get
attention?"
The Reverend Jake Billings stared at the wall with glassy eyes. "I
don't know," he said. "I purely do not know. I don't think it makes
much difference what we do. I think that gurgling noise you hear is
our crusade going down the drain."
43
It was the dog that did it. Bentley Price
hadn't had a drink all day. The road was a narrow, winding mountain
road, and Bentley, exasperated beyond endurance at what had
happened to him, was driving faster than he should. After hours of
hunting for it, he had finally found the camp - a very temporary
camp by the looks of it, with none of the meticulous neatness of
the usual army camp, simply a stopping place in a dense patch of
woods beside a stream that came brawling down the valley. Filled
with a deep sense of duty done and perseverance paying off, he had
slung cameras around his neck and gone plodding toward the largest
of the tents and had almost reached it when the colonel had come
out to stop his further progress. "Who the hell are you," the
colonel had asked, "and where do you think you're going?" "I am the
Global News," Bentley had told him, "and I am out here to take some
pictures of this monster hunt. I tell the city editor it isn't
worth the time, but he disagrees with me and it's no skin off my
nose no matter where I'm sent, so leave us get the lead out and do
some monster hunting so I can get some pictures."
"You're off limits, mister," the colonel had told him. "You are way
off limits, in more ways than one. I don't know how you got this
far. Didn't someone try to stop you?" "Sure, said Bentley, up the
road a ways. A couple of soldier boys. But I pay no attention to
them. I never pay attention to someone who tries to stop me. I got
work to do and I can't fool around..."
And then the colonel had thrown him out of there. He had spoken in
a clipped, military voice and had been very icy-eyed. "We've got
trouble enough," he said, "without some damn fool photographer
mucking around and screwing up the detail. If you don't leave under
your own power, I'll have you escorted out". While he was saying
this, Bentley snapped a camera up and took a picture of him. That
made the situation even worse, and Bentley, with his usual quick
perception, could see his cause had worsened, so had beat a
dignified retreat to avoid escort. When he had passed the soldier
boys who had tried to stop him they had yelled at him and thumbed
their noses. Bentley had slowed down momentarily, debating whether
to go back and reason with them, then had thought better of it.
They ain't worth the time, he told himself.
Now the dog.
The dog came bursting out of high weeds and brush that grew along
the road. His ears were laid back, his tail tucked in and he was
kiyodeling in pure, blind panic. The dog was close and the car
traveling much too fast. Bentley jerked the wheel, the car veered
off the road, smashed through a clump of brush. The tires screamed
as Bentley hit the brakes. The nose of the car slammed hard into a
huge walnut tree and stopped with a shuddering impact. The
left-hand door flew open and Bentley, who held a lofty disdain for
such copouts as seat belts, was thrown free. The camera which he
wore on a strap around his neck, described a short arc and brought
up against his ear, dealing him a blow that made his head ring as
if there were a bell inside it. He landed on his back and rolled,
wound up on hands and knees. He surged erect and found that he had
ended up on the edge of the road.
Standing in the middle of the road was a monster. Bentley knew it
was a monster; he had seen two of them only yesterday. But this one
was small, no bigger than a Shetland pony. Which did not mean the
horror of it was any less.
But Bentley was of different fiber from other men. He did not gulp;
his gut did not turn over. His hands came up with swift precision,
grabbed the camera firmly, brought it to his eye. The monster was
framed in the finder and his finger pressed the button. The camera
clicked and as it clicked the monster disappeared.
Bentley lowered the camera and let loose of it. His head still rang
from the blow upon the ear. His clothes were torn; a gaping rent in
a trouser leg revealed one knobby knee. His right hand was bloody
from where his palm had scraped across some gravel. Behind him the
car creaked slightly as twisted metal settled slowly into place.
The motor pinged and sizzled as water from the broken radiator ran
across hot metal.
Off in the distance the still-running dog was yipping frantically.
In a tree up the hillside an excited squirrel chattered with
machine-gun intensity. The road was empty. A monster had been
there. From where he stood, Bentley could see its tracks printed in
the dust. But it was no longer there.
Bentley limped out into the road, stared both up and down it. There
was nothing on the road.
It was there, said Bentley stubbornly to himself. I had it in the
finder. It was there when I shot the picture. It wasn't until the
shutter clicked that it disappeared. Doubt assailed him. Had it
been there or not when he'd shot the picture? Was it on the film?
Had he been robbed of a photo by its disappearance?
Thinking about it, it seemed that it had been there, but he could
not be sure.
He turned about and started limping down the road as rapidly as he
could. There was one way to find out. He had to get to a phone, he
had to somehow get a car. He must get back to Washington.
44
"We have made three contacts with the
monsters," Sandburg said. "There are yet to be results. No one has
had a chance to fire at them. They disappear and that's the end of
it."
"You mean," said Thorton Williams, "that they duck
away..."
"No, I don't mean that," said the Secretary of Defense. "They just
aren't there, is all. The men who saw them swore they didn't move
at all. They were there and then they weren't. The observers, all
reporting independently, not knowing of the other reports, have
been very sure of that. One man could be wrong in his observation;
it's possible that two could be. It seems impossible that three
observers could err on exactly the same point."
"Have you, has the military, any theory, any idea of what is going
on?"
"None," said Sandburg. "It must be a new defensive adaptation that
they have developed. These creatures, as you all by now must
understand, are very much on the defensive. They know they have to
survive. For the good of the species, they can't take any chances.
Cornered, I suppose that they would fight, but only if they were
cornered and there was no way out. Apparently they have come up
with something new under this sort of situation. We have talked
with Dr. Isaac Wolfe, the refugee biologist who probably knows more
about the monsters than any other man, and this business of
disappearing is something he has never heard of. He suggests,
simply as a guess, that it may be an ability that only the juvenile
monsters have. A sort of juvenile defense mechanism. It may have
gone on unobserved up in the future because the people up there had
little opportunity to observe the juveniles; they had their hands
full fighting off the adult monsters."
"How are you doing with getting men into the area?" asked the
President.
"I haven't any figures," said Sandburg, "but we're piling them in
as fast as we can get them there. The refugee camps have formed
their own caretaking committees and that takes off some of the
pressure, frees some troops. Agriculture and Welfare are taking
over a lot of the transport that is needed to get food and other
necessities into the camps and that, as well, has freed military
personnel. We expect the first overseas transport planes to begin
landing sometime tonight and that will give us more men."
"Morozov was in this morning," said Williams, "with an offer to
supply us men. In fact, he rather insisted upon it. We, of course,
rejected the offer. But it does raise a point. Should we, perhaps,
ask for some assistance from Canada, perhaps Mexico, maybe Britain,
France, Germany - others of our friends?"
"Possibly we could use some of their forces," said Sandburg. "I'd
like to talk with the Chiefs of Staff and get their reactions. What
we need, and haven't been able to manage, are some rather
substantial forces, both north and south - down in Georgia, say,
and in upstate New York. We should try to seal off the monsters'
spread, if they are spreading, and I suppose that is their
intention. If we can contain them, we can handle them."
"If they stand still," said the President.
"That is right," said Sandburg. "If they stand still."
"Maybe we should move on to something else," suggested the
President. "Reilly, I think you have something to
report."
"I'm still not too solid on it yet," said Reilly Douglas, "but it
is a matter that should be discussed. Frankly, I am inclined to
think there may be a rather tricky legal question involved and I've
had no chance to go into that aspect of it. Clinton Chapman came to
see me last night. I think most of you know Clint."
He looked around the table. Many of the men nodded their
heads.
"He came to me," said Douglas, "and since then has phoned three or
four times and we had lunch today. I suppose some of you know that
we were roommates at Harvard and have been friends ever since. I
suppose that's why he contacted me. On his first approach he
proposed that he, himself, would take over the building of the
tunnels, financing the cost with no federal funds involved. In
return he would continue in ownership of them once the future
people had been transported back to the Miocene and would be
licensed to operate them. Since then..."
"Reilly," Williams interrupted, "I can't quite understand why
anyone would want to own them. What in the world could be done with
them? The time force, or whatever it is, as I understand it,
operates in only one direction - into the past."
Douglas shook his head. "Clint won't buy that. He has talked with
his research men - and the research staff he has is probably one of
the best in the world - and they have assured him that if there is
such a thing as time travel, it can be made to operate in two
directions - both into the past and futureward. As a matter of
fact, they told him it would seem easier to operate it futureward
than into the past because time's natural flow is
futureward."
Williams blew out a gusty breath. "I don't know," he said. "It has
a dirty sound to it. Could we conscientiously turn over two-way
time travel, if two-way time travel is possible, to any one man or
any group of men? Think of the ways it could be used. .
."
"I talked to Clint about this at lunch," said Douglas. "I explained
to him that any such operation, if it were possible, would have to
be very strictly controlled. Commissions would have to be set up to
formulate a time travel code, Congress would have to legislate. Not
only that, but the code and the legislation would have to be
worldwide; there would have to be some international agreement, and
you can imagine how long that might take. Clint agreed to all of
this, said he realized it would be necessary. The man is quite
obsessed with the idea. As an old friend, I tried to talk him out
of it, but he still insists he wants to go ahead. If he is allowed
to do it, that is. At first he planned to finance it on his own,
but apparently is beginning to realize the kind of money that would
be involved. As I understand it, he is now very quietly trying to
put together a consortium to take over the project."
Sandburg frowned. "I would say no on impulse. Time travel would
have to be studied closely. It's something we've never thought
seriously of before. We'd have to think it through."
"It could have military applications," said Williams. "I'm not just
sure what they would be."
"International agreements, with appropriate safeguards, would have
to be set up to keep it from being used militarily," said the
President. "And if these agreements should fail at some time in the
future, I can't see that it would make much difference who held the
license for time travel. National needs would always take
precedence. No matter how it goes, time travel is something that
we're stuck with. It's something we have to face. We have to make
the best of it."
"You favor Clint's proposal, Mr. President?" Douglas asked in some
surprise. "When I talked with you..."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I favored it," said the President.
"But under the situation we face, it seems to me we should consider
all possibilities or proposals. We are going to be hard pressed to
find the kind of money or credit that is needed to build the
tunnels. Not only us, but the world. Perhaps the rest of the world
even more than us."
"That brings us to another point," said Williams, "I would suppose
Chapman and his consortium are proposing only the tunnels in the
United States."
"I can't say as to that," said Douglas. "I would imagine that if
Chapman could put his consortium together it might include some
foreign money, and agreements could be made with other nations. I
can't see a country like the Congo or Portugal or Indonesia turning
its back on someone who wants to build its tunnels. Other nations
might be hesitant, but if we went along with the plan and a couple
of the other major nations joined us, say Germany or France, then
most of the others, I would think, would follow. After all, if
everyone else were going ahead with the plan, no nation would want
to be left out in the cold without a tunnel."
"This is going to cost a lot of money," said Manfred Franklin,
Secretary of the Treasury. "Tunnels for the entire world would run
into billions."
"There are a lot of gamblers in the financial world," observed Ben
Cunningham, of Agriculture. "But mostly it is smart gambling, smart
money. Chapman must be fairly certain of himself. Do you imagine he
may know something that we don't know?"
Douglas shook his head. "I am inclined to think not. He has this
assurance, you see, from his research people, principally the
physicists, I understand that if time travel is possible it has to
be a two-way street. By now it is apparent that it is possible. You
see, this is the first new idea, the first really new idea that has
real technological and engineering potential, that has come along
in fifty years or more. Clint and his gang want to get in on the
ground floor."
"The question," said Williams, "is should we let them."
"Much as we may regret to do so," said the President, "we may have
to. If we refused, word would be leaked to the public and you can
imagine what the public reaction would be. Oh, a few would oppose
it, but they would be drowned out by those who would see it as
allowing someone to pay a huge expenditure that otherwise would
come out of the treasury and be paid by taxes. Frankly, gentlemen,
we may find ourselves in a position where opposing the consortium
would be political suicide."
"You don't seem to be too upset about it," said Williams somewhat
acidly.
"When you have been in politics as long as I have been, Thornton,
you don't gag too easily at anything that comes up. You learn to be
practical. You weigh things in balance. I admit privately that I
gag considerably at this, but I am politically practical to the
point, where I can recognize it may not be possible to fight it.
There are times when you simply cannot take pot shots at Santa
Claus."
"I still don't like it," said Williams.
"Nor do I," said Sandburg.
"It would be a solution," said Franklin. "Labor is ready to go
along with us in the emergency. If the financial interests of the
world would go along with us, which is actually what would happen
under this consortium setup, our basic problem would be solved. We
still have to feed the people from the future, but I understand we
can do that longer than we had thought at first. We'll have to
supply the future folks with what they'll need to establish
themselves in the past, but that can be done under normal
manufacturing processes and at a fraction of the tunnel cost.
Someone will have to do some rather rapid planning to calculate how
much of our manufacturing processes and resources will have to be
converted for a time to the making of wheelbarrows, hoes, axes,
plows and other similar items, but that's simply a matter of
mathematics. We'll have to face up for the next few years to
considerable shortages of meat and dairy products and other
agricultural items, I suppose, because we'll have to send breeding
stock to the Miocene, but all of this we can do. It may pinch us a
bit, but it can be done. The tunnels were the big job and Chapman's
consortium will do the job there, if we let them."
"How about all those banner-carrying kids who say they want to go
back in time?" asked Cunningham. "I say let them go. It would clear
the streets of them and for a long time a lot of people have been
yelling about population pressure. We may have the answer
here."
"You're being facetious, of course," said the President, "but. .
."
"I can assure you, sir, I'm not in the least facetious. I mean
it."
"And I agree with you," said the President. "My reasons may not be
yours, but I do think we should not try to stop anyone who wants to
go. Not, perhaps, back to the era where the future people plan to
go. Maybe to an era a million years later than the future people.
But before we allow them to go they must have the same ecological
sense and convictions the future people have. We can't send people
back who'll use up the resources we already have used. That would
make a paradox I don't pretend to understand, but I imagine it
might be fatal to our civilization."
"Who would teach them this ecological sense and
conviction?"
"The people from the future. They don't all need to go back into
the past immediately. The most of them, of course, but some can
stay here until later. In fact, they have offered to leave a group
of specialists with us who will teach as much of what has been -
no, I guess that should be 'will be' - learned in the next five
hundred years. For one, I think this offer should be
accepted."
"So do I," said Williams. "Some of what they teach us may upset a
few economic and social applecarts, but in the long run we should
be far ahead. In twenty years or less we could jump five hundred
years ahead, without making the mistakes that our descendants on
the old world line made."
"I don't know about that," said Douglas. "There's too many factors
in a thing like that. I'd have to think about it for
awhile."
"There's just one thing that we are forgetting," Sandburg said. "We
can go ahead and plan, of course. And we have to do it fast. We
have to be well along to a working, operating solution to the
crisis that we face in a month or so or time will begin running
out. But the point I want to make is this - the solution, the
planning may do us little good if we aren't able to wipe out, or at
least control, the monsters."
45
The kids out in the street might be the ones.
Wilson told himself, with the right idea. There was some
well-founded fascination in starting over once again, with the
slate wiped clean and the record clear. Only trouble was, he
thought, that even starting over, the human race might still repeat
many of its past mistakes. Although, going back, it would take some
time to make them and there'd be the opportunity, if the will were
there, to correct them before they got too big, too entrenched and
awkward.
Alice Gale had talked about the wilderness where the White House
once had stood and Dr. Osborne, on the ride from Fort Myer to the
White House, had expressed his doubt that the trend which had made
the White House park a wilderness could be stopped - it had gone
too far, he said. You are too top-heavy, he had said; you are off
your balance.
Perhaps the trend had gone too far, Wilson admitted to himself -
big government growing bigger; big business growing fatter and more
arrogant; taxes steadily rising, never going down; the poor
becoming ever poorer and more and more of them despite the best
intentions of a welfare-conscious society; the gap between the rich
and poor, the government and the public, growing wider by the year.
How could it have been done differently, he wondered. Given the
kind of world there was, how could circumstances have been better
ordered?
He shook his head. He had no idea. There might be men who could go
back and chart the political, economic and social growth and show
where the errors had been made, putting their fingers on certain
actions in a certain year and saying here is where we made one
error. But the men who could do this would be theorists, working on
the basis of many theories which in practice would not stand the
test.
The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up.
"Mr. Wilson?"
"Yes."
"This is the guard at the southwest gate. There is a gentleman here
who says that he must see you on a matter of importance. Mr. Thomas
Manning. Mr. Bentley Price is with him. Do you know them,
sir?"
"Yes. Please send them in."
"I'll send an escort with them, sir. You'll be in your
office?"
"Yes. I'll wait here for them."
Wilson put the receiver back into its cradle. What could bring
Manning here, he wondered. Why should he have to come in person? A
matter of importance, he had said. And Bentley - for the love of
God, why Bentley?
Was it, he wondered, something further about the UN
business?
He looked at his watch. The cabinet meeting was taking longer than
he'd thought. Maybe it was over and the President had gotten busy
with some other matters. Although that would be strange - Kim
ordinarily would have squeezed him in.
Manning and Bentley came into the room. The guard stopped at the
door. Wilson nodded at him. "It's all right. You can wait
outside."
"This is an unexpected pleasure," he said to the two, shaking their
hands. "I seldom see you, Tom. And Bentley, I almost never see
you."
"I got business elsewhere," Bentley said. "I get my legs run off.
I'm running all the time."
"Bentley just got in from West Virginia," Manning said. "That's
what this visit is about."
"There was this dog in the the road," said Bentley, "and then a
tree came up and hit me."
"Bentley took a picture of a monster standing in the road," said
Manning, "just as it disappeared."
"I got her figured now," said Bentley. "It saw the camera pointed
at it and it heard it click. Them monsters don't stay around when
they see something pointed at them."
"There was another report or, two of one disappearing," Wilson
said. "A defense mechanism of some sort, perhaps. It's making it
tough for the boys out hunting them."
"I don't think so," said Manning. "Forcing them to disappear may be
as good as hunting them."
He unzipped a thin briefcase he was carrying and took out a sheaf
of photos. "Look at this," he said.
He slid the top photo across the desk to Wilson.
Wilson took a quick look, then fixed his gaze on Bentley. "What
kind of trick photography is this?" he asked.
"There ain't no tricks," said Bentley. "A camera never lies. It
always tells the truth. It shows you what is there. That's what
really happens when a monster disappears. I was using a fast
film..."
"But dinosaurs!" yelled Wilson.
Bentley's hand dipped into his pocket and brought out an object. He
handed it to Wilson. "A glass," he said. "Take a look with it.
There are herds of them, off in the distance. You can't do tricks
of that sort."
The monster was hazed, a sort of shadow monster, but substantial
enough that there could be no doubt it was a monster. Back of it,
the dinosaurs, three of them, were in sharp focus.
"Duckbills," said Manning. "If you showed that photograph to a
paleontologist, I have every expectation he could give you an exact
identification."
The trees were strange. They, looked like palm trees, others like
gigantic ferns.
Wilson unfolded the magnifier, bent his head close above the photo,
shifted the glass about. Bentley had been right. There were other
strange creatures spread across the landscape, herds of them,
singles, pairs. A small mammal of some sort cowered in hiding
underneath a shrub.
"We have some blowups," Manning said, "of the background. Want to
look at them?"
Wilson shook his head. "No, I'm satisfied."
"We looked it up in a geology book," said Bentley. "That there is a
Cretaceous landscape."
"Yes, I know," said Wilson.
He reached for, the phone. "Kim," he said, "is Mr. Gale in his
room? Thank you. Please ask him to step down."
Manning laid the rest of the photos on the desk. "They are yours,"
he said. "We'll be putting them on the wire. We wanted you to know
first. You thinking the same thing that I am?"
Wilson nodded. "I suppose I am," he said, "but no quotation,
please."
"We don't need quotes," said Manning. "The picture tells the story.
The monster, the mother monster, I would suppose you'd call it, was
exposed to the time travel principle when it came through the
tunnel. The principle was imprinted on its mind, its instinct,
whatever you may call it. It transmitted knowledge of the principle
to the young - a hereditary instinct."
"But it took time tunnels, mechanical contraptions, by the humans
to do it," Wilson objected. "It took technology and engineering. .
."
Manning shrugged. "Hell, Steve, I don't know. I don't pretend to
know. But the photo says the monsters are escaping to another time.
Maybe they'll all escape to another time, probably to the same
time. The escape time bracket may be implanted on their instinct.
Maybe the Cretaceous is a better place for them. Maybe they have
found this era too tough for them to crack, the odds too
great."
"I just thought of something," said Wilson. "the dinosaurs died
out. . ."
"Yeah, I know," said Manning. He zipped the briefcase shut. "We
better go," he said. "We have work to do. Thanks for seeing
us."
"No, Tom," said Wilson. "The thanks are yours and Bentley's. Thanks
for coming over. It might have taken days to get this puzzled out.
If we ever did ."
He stood and watched them go, then sat down again.
It was incredible, he thought. Yet it did make a lopsided sort of
sense. Humans were too prone to think in human grooves. The
monsters would be different. Again and again the people from the
future had emphasized they must not be regarded as simple monsters,
but rather as highly intelligent beings. And that intelligence, no
doubt, would be as alien as their bodies. Their intelligence and
ability would not duplicate human intelligence and ability. Hard as
it might be to understand, they might be able to do by instinct a
thing that a human would require a machine to accomplish.
Maynard Gale and Alice came into the room so quietly that he did
not know they were there until he looked up and saw them standing
beside the desk.
"You asked for us," said Gale.
"I wanted you to look at these," said Wilson. "The top one first.
The others are detail blowups. Tell me what you think."
He waited while they studied the photos. Finally, Gale said, "This
is the Cretaceous, Mr. Wilson. How was the photo taken? And what
has the monster to do with it?"
"The photographer was taking a picture of the monster. As he took
it, at the moment he took it, the monster disappeared."
"The monster disappeared?"
"This is the second report of one disappearing. The second that I
know of. There may have been others. I don't know."
"Yes," said Gale, "I suppose that it is possible. They're not like
us, you know. The ones that came through the tunnel experienced
time travel - an experience that would have lasted for only a
fraction of a second. But that may have been enough."
He shuddered. "If that is true, if after such an exposure, they are
able to travel independently in time, if their progeny are able to
travel independently in time, if they can sense and learn and
master such a complex thing so well, so quickly, it's a wonder that
we were able to stand up against them for these twenty years. They
must have been playing with us, keeping us, protecting us for their
sport. A game preserve. That is what we must have been. A game
preserve."
"You can't be sure of that," said Wilson.
"No, I suppose not. Dr. Wolfe is the man you should consult about
this. He would know. At least, he could make an educated
guess."
"But you have no doubt?"
"None," said Gale. "This could be a hoax?"
Wilson shook his head. "Not Tom Manning. We know one another well.
We worked on the Post, right here, together. We were drinking
companion. We were brothers until this damn job came between us.
Not that he has no sense of humor. But not in a thing like this.
And Bentley. Not Bentley. The camera is his god. He would use it
for no unworthy purpose. He lives and breathes his cameras. He bows
down before them each night before he goes to bed."
"So then we have evidence the monsters flee into the past. Even as
we fled."
"I think so," said Wilson. "I wanted your opinion. You know the
monsters and we do not."
"You'll still talk with Wolfe?"
"Yes, we'll do that."
"There is another matter, Mr. Wilson, that we have wanted to talk
with you about. My daughter and I have talked it over and we are
agreed."
"What is that?" asked Wilson.
"An invitation," said Gale. "We're not sure you will accept.
Perhaps you won't. We may even offend you with it. But many other
people, I think, would accept the invitation. To many it would have
a great attraction. I find it rather awkward to phrase it, but it
is this: When we go back into the Miocene, if you wish to do so,
you would be welcome to go along with us. With our particular
group. We should be glad to have you."
Wilson did not move. He tried to find words and there were no
words.
Alice said, "You were our first friend, perhaps our only real
friend. You arranged the matter of the diamonds. You have done so
many things."
She stepped quickly around the desk, bent to kiss him on the
cheek.
"We do not need an answer now," said Gale. "You will want to think
about it. If you decide not to go with us, we'll not speak of it
again. The invitation, I think, is issued with the knowledge that
in all probability, your people will be using the time tunnels to
go back into an era some millions of years in the past. Much as it
might be hoped, I have the feeling you will not be able to escape
the crisis that overtook our ancestors (which are you, of course)
on the original time track."
"I don't know," said Wilson. "I honestly do not know. You will let
me think about it."
"Certainly," said Gale.
Alice bent close, her words a whisper. "I do so hope you'll decide
to come with us," she said.
Then they were gone, as silently, as unobtrusively as they had
come.
The dusk of evening was creeping into the room. In the press lounge
a typewriter clicked hesitantly as the writer sought for words.
Against the wall the teletypes muttered querulously. One button on
Judy's phone console kept flashing. But not Judy's console anymore,
he thought. Judy was gone. The plane that was taking her to Ohio
was already heading westward.
Judy, he said to himself. For the love of God, what got into you?
Why did you have to do it?
It would be lonely without her, he knew. He had not known until
now, he realized, how much she had kept him from loneliness, had
been a bulwark against the loneliness a man could feel even when
with people he thought of as his friends. She had not needed to be
with him, only the thought that she was somewhere nearby was quite
enough to banish loneliness, to bring gladness to the
heart.
She still would be near, he thought. Ohio was not distant; in this
day, nowhere in the world was distant. Phones still worked and
letters went by mail, but there was a difference now. He thought of
how he might phrase a letter if he wrote her, but he knew he'd
never write.
The phone rang. Kim said, "The meeting's over. He can see you
now."
"Thank you, Kim," said Wilson. It had slipped his mind that he'd
asked to see the President. It seemed so long ago, although it
hadn't been. It just had been that so much had happened.
When he came into the office, the President said, "I'm sorry you
were kept waiting, Steve. There was so much that had to be talked
over. What is it that you have?"
Wilson grinned. "Not quite so grim as when I tried to reach you. I
think it's better now. There was a rumor out of the U.N."
"This Russian business?"
"Yes, the Russian business. Tom Manning phoned. His UN man - Max
Hale, you know him."
"I don't think I've ever met him. I read him. He is
sound."
"Hale heard that the Russians would push for the international
dropping of nuclear weapons on the areas where the monsters might
be."
"I had expected something of this sort," said the President.
"They'd never be able to pull it off."
"I think it's academic now, anyhow," said Wilson. "These just came
in." He laid the photos on the desk. "Bentley Price took the
shot."
"Price," said the President. "Is he the one..."
"He's the one all the stories are about. Drunk a good part of the
time, but a top-notch photographer. The best there is."
The President studied the top photo, frowning. "Steve, I'm not sure
I understand this."
"There's a story that goes with it, sir. It goes like this. .
."
The President listened closely, not interrupting. When Wilson
finished, he asked. "You really think that's the explanation,
Steve?"
"I'm inclined to think so, sir. So does Gale. He said we should
talk with Wolfe. But there was no question in Gale's mind. All we
have to do is keep pushing them. Push enough of them into the past
and the rest will go. If there were more of them, if we had as few
weapons as the people of five hundred years from now had when they
first reached Earth, they probably would try to stay on here. We'd
offer plenty of fighting, be worthy antagonists. But I think they
may know when they are licked. Going back to the Cretaceous,
they'll still have worthy opponents. Formidable ones. Tyrannosaurus
rex and all his relatives. The Triceratops. The coelurosaurs. The
hunting dinosaurs. Hand-to-hand combat, face-to-face. They might
like that better than what humans have to offer. More glory in it
for them."
The President sat thoughtfully silent. Then he said, "As I
recollect, the scientists have never figured out what killed off
the dinosaurs. Maybe now we know."
"That could be," said Wilson.
The President reached for the callbox, then pulled back his
hand.
"No," he said. "Fyodor Morozov is a decent sort of man. What he did
this morning was in the line of duty, on orders that he had to
carry out. No use to phone him, to point it out to him. He'll find
out when the picture hits the street. So will the people up at the
UN. I'd like to see their faces. I'd say it spikes their
guns."
"I would say so, sir," said Wilson. "I'll take no more of your
time. . ."
"Stay for a minute, Steve. There's something you should know. A
sort of precautionary knowledge. The question may come up and you
should know how to field it. No more than half a dozen of our men
know this and they won't talk. Neither will the future people. It's
top secret, unofficially top secret. There is no record. State
doesn't know. Defense doesn't know."
"I wonder, sir, if I should. . ."
"I want you to know," said the President. "Once you hear it you are
bound by the same secrecy as the others. You've heard of the
Clinton Chapman proposal?"
"1 have heard of it. I don't like it. The question came up this
morning and I refused comment. Said it was only rumor and I had no
knowledge of it."
"Neither do I like it," said the President. "But so far as I am
concerned, he's going to be encouraged to go ahead. He thinks he
can buy time travel; he thinks he has it in his hand; he can fairly
taste it. I have never seen a more obvious case of naked greed. I'm
not too sure his great, good friend Reilly Douglas may not have a
touch of that same greed."
"But if it's greed..."
"It's greed, all right," said the President. "But I know something
that he doesn't know and if I can manage it, he won't know it until
it's too late to do him any good. And that is this: What the future
people used was not time travel as we think of it; it is something
else. It serves the same purpose, but it's not time travel as
traditionally conceived. I don't know if I can explain this too
well, but it seems there is another universe, coexistent with ours.
The people of the future know it's there, but there is only one
thing they really know about it. That is that the direction of
time's flow in the second universe is exactly the opposite of ours.
Its future flows toward our past. The people of the future traveled
into their past by hooking onto the future flow of this other
universe. . ."
"But that means. . ."
"Exactly," said the President. "It means that you can go into the
past, but you can't come back. You can travel pastward, but not
futureward."
"If Chapman knew this, the deal would be off."
"I suppose it would be. He's not proposing to build the tunnels
from patriotic motives. Do you think badly of me, Steve, for my
deception - my calculated dishonesty?"
"I'd think badly of you, sir, if there really were a chance for
Chapman to do what he means to do and you did not stop him. This
way, however, the world gets help and the only ones who are hurt
are men who, for once, overreached themselves. No one will feel
sorry for them."
"Someday," said the President, "it will be known. Someday my
dishonesty will catch up with me."
"When it does," said Wilson, "and sometime, of course, it will, a
great guffaw will go around the world. You'll be famous, sir.
They'll build statues of you."
The President smiled. "I hope so, Steve. I feel a little
sneaky."
"One thing, sir," said Wilson. "Just how tight is this secret of
yours?"
"I feel it's solid," said the President. "The people you brought up
from Myer told our National Academy people - only three of them.
They reported back to me. The future scientists and the men who
talked with them. To me alone. By this time, I had gotten wind of
Chapman's deal and I asked them to say nothing. Only a few of the
future scientists worked on the project that sent the people back;
only a handful of them know what actually is involved. And as it
happens, they all are here. Something like the diamonds. They all
are here because they felt we were the one nation they could trust.
The word has been passed along at Myer. The future scientists won't
talk. Neither will our men"
Wilson nodded. "It sounds all right. You mentioned the diamonds.
What became of them?"
"We have accepted temporary custody. They are locked away. Later,
after all of this is over, we'll see what can be done with them.
Probably rather discreet sales of them, with a suitable cover story
provided. A few at a time. With the money put in escrow for later
distribution to the other nations."
Wilson rose and moved toward the door. Halfway there, he stopped
and turned. "I'd say, Mr. President, that it's going very
well."
"Yes," said the President. "After a bad start, it is going well.
There's still a lot to do, but we are on the way."
Someone was at Judy's desk when Wilson returned. The room was dark.
There were only the flashing lights on the console and they were
not being answered.
"Judy?" asked Wilson hesitantly. "Judy, is that you?" Knowing that
it couldn't be, for by now she was probably landing in
Ohio.
"I came back," said Judy. "I got on the plane and then got off
again. I sat at the airport for hours, wondering what to do. You
are a son of a bitch, Steve Wilson, and you know you are. I don't
know why I got off the plane. Getting off, I don't know why I came
here."
He strode across the room and stood beside her.
"You never asked me to stay. You never really asked me."
"But I did. I asked you."
"You were noble about it. That's the trouble with you. Noble. You
never got down on your knees and begged me. And now my baggage is
headed for Ohio and I. . ."
He reached down and lifted her from the chair, held her
close.
"It's been a rough two days," he said. "It's time for the two of us
to be going home."