Nine Tomorrows

by Isaac Asimov

  Her breath came quickly. Oh, ridiculous, and yet—

  She listened with painful attentiveness, and this time she heard the sound.

  The boy was crying.

  Not shrieking in fear or anger; not yelling or screaming. It was crying softly, and the cry was the heartbroken sobbing of a lonely, lonely child.

  For the first time, Miss Fellowes thought with a pang: Poor thing!

  Of course, it was a child; what did the shape of its head matter? It was a child that had been orphaned as no child had ever been orphaned before. Not only its mother and father were gone, but all its species. Snatched callously out of time, it was now the only creature of its kind in the world. The last. The only.

  She felt pity for it strengthen, and with it shame at her own callousness. Tucking her own nightgown carefully about her calves (incongruously, she thought: Tomorrow I'll have to bring in a bathrobe) she got out of bed and went into the boy's room.

  "Little boy," she called in a whisper. "Little boy."

  She was about to reach under the bed, but she thought of a possible bite and did not. Instead, she turned on the night light and moved the bed.

  The poor thing was huddled in the corner, knees up against his chin, looking up at her with blurred and apprehensive eyes.

  In the dim light, she was not aware of his repulsiveness.

  "Poor boy," she said, "poor boy." She felt him stiffen as she stroked his hair, then relax. "Poor boy. May I hold you?"

  She sat down on the floor next to him and slowly and rhythmically stroked his hair, his cheek, his arm. Softly, she began to sing a slow and gentle song.

  He lifted his head at that, staring at her mouth in the dimness, as though wondering at the sound.

  She maneuvered him closer while he listened to her. Slowly, she pressed gently against the side of his head, until it rested on her shoulder. She put her arm under his thighs and with a smooth and unhurried motion lifted him into her lap.

  She continued singing, the same simple verse over and over, while she rocked back and forth, back and forth.

  He stopped crying, and after a while the smooth burr of his breathing showed he was asleep.

  With infinite care, she pushed his bed back against the wall and laid him down. She covered him and stared down. His face looked so peaceful and little-boy as he slept. It didn't matter so much that it was so ugly. Really.

  She began to tiptoe out, then thought: If he wakes up?

  She came back, battled irresolutely with herself, then sighed and slowly got into bed with the child.

  It was too small for her. She was cramped and uneasy at the lack of canopy, but the child's hand crept into hers and, somehow, she fell asleep in that position.

  She awoke with a start and a wild impulse to scream. The latter she just managed to suppress into a gurgle. The boy was looking at her, wide-eyed. It took her a long moment to remember getting into bed with him, and now, slowly, without unfixing her eyes from his, she stretched one leg carefully and let it touch the floor, then the other one.

  She cast a quick and apprehensive glance toward the open ceiling, then tensed her muscles for quick disengagement.

  But at that moment, the boy's stubby fingers reached out and touched her lips. He said something.

  She shrank at the touch. He was terribly ugly in the light of day.

  The boy spoke again. He opened his own mouth and gestured with his hand as though something were coming out.

  Miss Fellowes guessed at the meaning and said tremulously, "Do you want me to sing?"

  The boy said nothing but stared at her mouth.

  In a voice slightly off key with tension, Miss Fellowes began the little song she had sung the night before and the ugly little boy smiled. He swayed clumsily in rough time to the music and made a little gurgly sound that might have been the beginnings of a laugh.

  Miss Fellowes sighed inwardly. Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. It might help—

  She said, "You wait. Let me get myself fixed up. It will just take a minute. Then I'll make breakfast for you."

  She worked rapidly, conscious of the lack of ceiling at all times. The boy remained in bed, watching her when she was in view. She smiled at him at those times and waved. At the end, he waved back, and she found herself being charmed by that.

  Finally, she said, "Would you like oatmeal with milk?" It took a moment to prepare, and then she beckoned to him.

  Whether he understood the gesture or followed the aroma, Miss Fellowes did not know, but he got out of bed.

  She tried to show him how to use a spoon but he shrank away from it in fright. (Time enough, she thought.) She compromised on insisting that he lift the bowl in his hands. He did it clumsily enough and it was incredibly messy but most of it did get into him.

  She tried the drinking milk in a glass this time, and the little boy whined when he found the opening too small for him to get his face into conveniently. She held his hand, forcing it around the glass, making him tip it, forcing his mouth to the rim.

  Again a mess but again most went into him, and she was used to messes.

  The washroom, to her surprise and relief, was a less frustrating matter. He understood what it was she expected him to do.

  She found herself patting his head, saying, "Good boy. Smart boy."

  And to Miss Fellowes' exceeding pleasure, the boy smiled at that.

  She thought: when he smiles, he's quite bearable. Really.

  Later in the day, the gentlemen of the press arrived.

  She held the boy in her arms and he clung to her wildly while across the open door they set cameras to work. The commotion frightened the boy and he began to cry, but it was ten minutes before Miss Fellowes was allowed to retreat and put the boy in the next room.

  She emerged again, flushed with indignation, walked out of the apartment (for the first time in eighteen hours) and closed the door behind her. "I think you've had enough. It will take me a while to quiet him. Go away."

  "Sure, sure," said the gentleman from the Times-Herald. "But is that really a Neanderthal or is this some kind of gag?"

  "I assure you," said Hoskins' voice, suddenly, from the background, "that this is no gag. The child is authentic Homo neanderthalensis."

  "Is it a boy or a girl?"

  "Boy," said Miss Fellowes briefly.

  "Ape-boy," said the gentleman from the News. "That's what we've got here. Ape-boy. How does he act, Nurse?"

  "He acts exactly like a little boy," snapped Miss Fellowes, annoyed into the defensive, "and he is not an ape-boy. His name is—is Timothy, Timmie—and he is perfectly normal in his behavior."

  She had chosen the name Timothy at a venture. It was the first that had occurred to her.

  'Timmie the Ape-boy," said the gentleman from the News and, as it turned out, Timmie the Ape-boy was the name under which the child became known to the world.

  The gentleman from the Globe turned to Hoskins and said, "Doc, what do you expect to do with the ape-boy?"

  Hoskins shrugged. "My original plan was completed when I proved it possible to bring him here. However, the anthropologists will be very interested, I imagine, and the physiologists. We have Here, after all, a creature which is at the edge of being human. We should learn a great deal about ourselves and our ancestry from him."

  "How long will you keep him?"

  "Until such a time as we need the space more than we need him. Quite a while, perhaps."

  The gentleman from the News said, "Can you bring it out into the open, so we can set up sub-etheric equipment and put on a real show?"

  "I'm sorry, but the child cannot be removed from Stasis."

  "Exactly what is Stasis?"

  "Ah." Hoskins permitted himself one of his short smiles. "That would take a great deal of explanation, gentlemen. In Stasis, time as we know it doesn't exist. Those rooms are inside an invisible bubble that is not exactly part of our Universe. That is why the child could be plucked out of time as it was."

&nb
sp; "Well, wait now," said the gentleman from the News discontentedly, "what are you giving us? The nurse goes into the room and out of it."

  "And so can any of you," said Hoskins matter-of-factly. "You would be moving parallel to the lines of temporal force and no great energy gain or loss would be involved. The child, however, was taken from the far past. It moved across the lines and gained temporal potential. To move it into the Universe and into our own time would absorb enough energy to burn out every line in the place and probably blank out all power in the city of Washington. We had to store trash brought with him on the premises and will have to remove it little by little."

  The newsmen were writing down sentences busily as Hoskins spoke to them. They did not understand and they were sure their readers would not, but it sounded scientific and that was what counted.

  The gentleman from the Times-Herald said, "Would you be available for an all-circuit interview tonight?"

  "I think so," said Hoskins at once, and they all moved off.

  Miss Fellowes looked after them. She understood all this about Stasis and temporal force as little as the newsmen but she managed to get this much. Timmie's imprisonment (she found herself suddenly thinking of the little boy as Timmie) was a real one and not one imposed by the arbitrary fiat of Hoskins. Apparently, it was impossible to let him out of Stasis at all, ever.

  Poor child. Poor child.

  She was suddenly aware of his crying and she hastened in to console him.

  Miss Fellowes did not have a chance to see Hoskins on the all-circuit hookup, and though his interview was beamed to every part of the world and even to the outpost on the Moon, it did not penetrate the apartment in which Miss Fellowes and the ugly little boy lived.

  But he was down the next morning, radiant and joyful.

  Miss Fellowes said, "Did the interview go well?"

  "Extremely. And how is—Timmie?"

  Miss Fellowes found herself pleased at the use of the name. "Doing quite well. Now come out here, Timmie, the nice gentleman will not hurt you."

  But Timmie stayed in the other room, with a lock of his matted hair showing behind the barrier of the door and, occasionally, the corner of an eye.

  "Actually," said Miss Fellowes, "he is settling down amazingly. He is quite intelligent."

  "Are you surprised?"

  She hesitated just a moment, then said, "Yes, I am. I suppose I thought he was an ape-boy."

  "Well, ape-boy or not, he's done a great deal for us. He's put Stasis, Inc. on the map. We're in, Miss Fellowes, we're in." It was as though he had to express his triumph to someone, even if only to Miss Fellowes.

  "Oh?" She let him talk.

  He put his hands in his pockets and said, "We've been working on a shoestring for ten years, scrounging funds a penny at a time wherever we could. We had to shoot the works on one big show. It was everything, or nothing. And when I say the works, I mean it. This attempt to bring in a Neanderthal took every cent we could borrow or steal, and some of it was stolen—funds for other projects, used for this one without permission. If that experiment hadn't succeeded, I'd have been through."

  Miss Fellowes said abruptly, "Is that why there are no ceilings?"

  "Eh?" Hoskins looked up.

  "Was there no money for ceilings?"

  "Oh. Well, that wasn't the only reason. We didn't really know in advance how old the Neanderthal might be exactly. We can detect only dimly in time, and he might have been large and savage. It was possible we might have had to deal with him from a distance, like a caged animal."

  "But since that hasn't turned out to be so, I suppose you can build a ceiling now."

  "Now, yes. We have plenty of money, now. Funds have been promised from every source. This is all wonderful, Miss Fellowes." His broad face gleamed with a smile that lasted and when he left, even his back seemed to be smiling.

  Miss Fellowes thought: He's quite a nice man when he's off guard and forgets about being scientific.

  She wondered for an idle moment if he was married, then dismissed the thought in self-embarrassment.

  "Timmie," she called. "Come here, Timmie."

  In the months that passed, Miss Fellowes felt herself grow to be an integral part of Stasis, Inc. She was given a small office of her own with her name on the door, an office quite close to the dollhouse (as she never stopped calling Timmie's Stasis bubble). She was given a substantial raise. The dollhouse was covered by a ceiling; its furnishings were elaborated and improved; a second washroom was added—and even so, she gained an apartment of her own on the institute grounds and, on occasion, did not stay with Timmie during the night. An intercom was set up between the dollhouse and her apartment and Timmie learned how to use it.

  Miss Fellowes got used to Timmie. She even grew less conscious of his ugliness. One day she found herself staring at an ordinary boy in the street and finding something bulgy and unattractive in his high domed forehead and jutting chin. She had to shake herself to break the spell. It was more pleasant to grow used to Hoskins' occasional visits. It was obvious he welcomed escape from his increasingly harried role as head of Stasis, Inc., and that he took a sentimental interest in the child who had started it all, but it seemed to Miss Fellowes that he also enjoyed talking to her.

  (She had learned some facts about Hoskins, too. He had invented the method of analyzing the reflection of the past-penetrating mesonic beam; he had invented the method of establishing Stasis; his coldness was only an effort to hide a kindly nature; and, oh yes, he was married.)

  What Miss Fellowes could not get used to was the fact that she was engaged in a scientific experiment. Despite all she could do, she found herself getting personally involved to the point of quarreling with the physiologists.

  On one occasion, Hoskins came down and found her in the midst of a hot urge to kill. They had no right; they had no right— Even if he was a Neanderthal, he still wasn't an animal.

  She was staring after them in a blind fury; staring out the open door and listening to Timmie's sobbing, when she noticed Hoskins standing before her. He might have been there for minutes.

  He said, "May I come in?"

  She nodded curtly, then hurried to Timmie, who clung to her, curling his little bandy legs—still thin, so thin— about her.

  Hoskins watched, then said gravely, "He seems quite unhappy."

  Miss Fellowes said, "I don't blame him. They're at him every day now with their blood samples and their probings. They keep him on synthetic diets that I wouldn't feed a pig."

  "It's the sort of thing they can't try on a human, you know." :

  "And they can't try it on Timmie, either. Dr. Hoskins, I insist. You told me it was Timmie's coming that put Stasis, Inc. on the map. If you have any gratitude for that at all, you've got to keep them away from the poor thing at least until he's old enough to understand a little more. After he's had a bad session with them, he has nightmares, he can't sleep. Now I warn you," (she reached a sudden peak of fury) "I'm not letting them in here any more."

  (She realized that she had screamed that, but she couldn't help it.)

  She said more quietly, "I know he's Neanderthal but there's a great deal we don't appreciate about Neanderthals. I've read up on them. They had a culture of their own. Some of the greatest human inventions arose in Neanderthal times. The domestication of animals, for instance; the wheel; various techniques in grinding stone. They even had spiritual yearnings. They buried their dead and buried possessions with the body, showing they believed in a life after death. It amounts to the fact that they invented religion. Doesn't that mean Timmie has a right to human treatment?"

  She patted the little boy gently on his buttocks and sent him off into his playroom. As the door was opened, Hoskins smiled briefly at the display of toys that could be seen.

  Miss Fellowes said defensively, "The poor child deserves his toys. It's all he has and he earns them with what he goes through."

  "No, no. No objections, I assure you. I was just thinking how you've
changed since the first day, when you were quite angry I had foisted a Neanderthal on you."

  Miss Fellowes said in a low voice, "I suppose I didn't—" and faded off.

  Hoskins changed the subject, "How old would you say he is, Miss Fellowes?"

  She said, "I can't say, since we don't know how Neanderthals develop. In size, he'd only be three but Neanderthals are smaller generally and with all the tampering they do with him, he probably isn't growing. The way he's learning English, though, I'd say he was well over four."

  "Really? I haven't noticed anything about learning English in the reports."

  "He won't speak to anyone but me. For now, anyway. He's terribly afraid of others, and no wonder. But he can ask for an article of food; he can indicate any need practically; and he understands almost anything I say. Of course," (she watched him shrewdly, trying to estimate if this was the time), "his development may not continue."

  "Why not?"

  "Any child needs stimulation and this one lives a life of solitary confinement. I do what I can, but I'm not with him all the time and I'm not all he needs. What I mean, Dr. Hoskins, is that he needs another boy to play with."

  Hoskins nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, there's only one of him, isn't there? Poor child."

  Miss Fellowes warmed to him at once. She said, "You do like Timmie, don't you?" It was so nice to have someone else feel like that.

  "Oh, yes," said Hoskins, and with his guard down, she could see the weariness in his eyes.

  Miss Fellowes dropped her plans to push the matter at once. She said, with real concern, "You look worn out, Dr. Hoskins."

  "Do I, Miss Fellowes? I'll have to practice looking more lifelike then."

  "I suppose Stasis, Inc. is very busy and that that keeps you very busy."

  Hoskins shrugged. "You suppose right. It's a matter of animal, vegetable, and mineral in equal parts, Miss Fellowes. But then, I suppose you haven't ever seen our displays."

  "Actually, I haven't. —But it's not because I'm not interested. It's just that I've been so busy."