The Third Level

by Jack Finney

  Well, that's the way things were. We'd drop in on each other, take Sunday drives together and go on picnics, play a little bridge at night and on week ends.

  Odd little things would still happen occasionally, but less and less often as time went by — and none of them were ever repeated. When Ted bought something now, he never had trouble finding the right change, and he didn't discover any more rare old new books and Ann stopped walking into doors.

  They were always interesting neighbors, though. For one thing, Ted was an inventor. I don't know why that should have surprised me, but it did. There are such things as inventors; they have to live somewhere, and there's no good reason why one shouldn't move in next door to us. But Ted didn't seem like an inventor; why, the first time he cut their grass, I had to show him how to adjust the set screw that keeps the blades in alignment.

  But just the same he was an inventor and a good one. One evening I was picking tomatoes in the little garden we have, and Ted wandered over, tossing something into the air and catching it again. I thought it was a paper clip at first. Ted stood watching me for a minute or so, and then he squatted down beside me and held out this thing in his hand and said, Ever see anything like this before?

  I took it and looked at it; it was a piece of thin wire bent at each end to form two egg-shaped loops. Then the wire had been bent again at the middle so that the two loops slid together. I can't explain it very well, but I could make you one easy in half a minute. What is it? I said, and handed it back to him.

  A little invention — the Saf-T-Clip, he said. You use it wherever you'd ordinarily use a safety pin. Here. He unbuttoned one of my shirt buttons and slid the thing onto the two layers of cloth.

  Well, do you know that I couldn't unfasten my shirt where that little thing gripped it? Even when I took hold of both sides of my shirt and pulled, that little piece of twisted wire just dug in and held. Yet when Ted showed me how to undo it — you just pressed the wire at a certain place — it slid right off. It was just the kind of simple thing you wonder, Now, why didn't somebody ever think of that before?

  I told Ted I thought it was a hell of a good idea. How'd you happen to think of it? I asked.

  He smiled. Oh, it was surprisingly easy. That's how I'm planning to make a living, Al — inventing little things.: First thing I did, the day we arrived in San Rafael, was get a patent application sent off on this thing. Then I mailed a sample to a wire company. He grinned happily and said, I got a reply today; they'll buy it outright for fifteen hundred dollars.

  You going to take it?

  Sure. I don't think it's the best offer in the world and I might do better if I shopped around. But I've been a little worried, frankly, about how we were going to pay for the furniture and stuff we bought, and the house rent. He shrugged. So I'm glad to get this money. We'll be okay, now, till I finish the next project.

  What's the next one? I said. If you can tell me, that is. I set the tomatoes down and sat down on the grass.

  Sure, I can tell you, he said. Picture a flashlight with a little dial set in just above the button. There's a lens, but it curves inward, and it's painted black except for a tiny round hole in the center. Press the button and a little beam of light — a special kind of light — no thicker than a pencil lead, shoots out. The beam doesn't spread, either; it stays the same thickness. You get the idea?

  Yeah. What's it for?

  For measuring distances. Turn it on, aim the little dot of light so it hits the end of any distance you want to measure. Then look at the dial, and you can read off the distance from the dot of light to the edge of the lens in feet and fractions of an inch, down to sixteenths. He smiled. Sound good?

  Heck, yes, I said. But how will it work?

  On flashlight batteries, Ted said, and stood up, as if that were an answer.

  Well, I took the hint and didn't ask any more questions, but if he can make a thing like that — a guy who had to have help adjusting his lawn mower — then I'll eat it when he's finished. And yet, darned if I don't think, sometimes, that he might do it at that.

  Oh, Hellenbek's an interesting guy, all right. Told me once that in fifty years they'd be growing full-grown trees from seeds in ten days' time. Indoors, too, and with absolutely straight grain and no knots; regular wood factories. I asked him what made him think so and he shrugged and said it was just an idea he had. He said he thought that it would be quite some time in the future, though, and I'm sure he was right about that. But you see what I mean; the Hellenbeks were interesting neighbors.

  I guess the most interesting time we ever spent with them, though, was one evening on our front porch. Supper was over, and I was reading a magazine that had come in the mail that morning. Nell was on the porch swing, knitting. The magazine I was reading was all science fiction — trips to Mars in space ships, gun fights with atomic pistols, and so on. I get a kick out of that kind of stuff, though Nell thinks it's silly.

  Pretty soon the Hellenbeks wandered over. Ann sat down with Nelly, and Ted leaned on the porch rail, facing my chair. What're you reading? he said, nodding at the magazine in my lap.

  I handed it to him, a little embarrassed. The cover illustration showed a man from Jupiter with eyes on the ends of long tentacles. Don't know if you ever read this kind of stuff or not, I said.

  Ann said to Nell, I tried that biscuit mix. It's wonderful.

  Oh, did you like it? Nell was pleased, and they started talking food and cooking.

  Ted began leafing through my magazine, and I lighted a cigarette and just sat there looking out at the street, feeling lazy and comfortable. It was a nice night, and still pretty light out. Ted got very quiet, slowly turning the pages, studying the illustrations, reading a paragraph or so here and there, and once he said, Well, I'll be damned, sort of half under his breath.

  He must have looked through that magazine for ten minutes or more, and I could tell he was fascinated. Finally he looked up, handed the magazine back, and said, kind of surprised, That's very interesting, really very interesting.

  Yeah, some of the science-fiction stuff is pretty good, I said. Collier's magazine had one not long ago, by Ray Bradbury. About a man of the future who escapes back to our times. But then the secret police of the future come for him and take him back.

  Really? Ted said. I missed that.

  It might still be around the house. If I find it, I'll give it to you.

  I'd like to see it, he said. I had the impression that that sort of thing was brand-new to Ted, but I was wrong because then he said, Now that I know you're interested — For just a moment he hesitated; then he went on: Well, the fact is I wrote a science-fiction story myself once.

  Ann glanced up quickly, the way a woman does when her husband gets off on the wrong subject. Then she turned back to Nell, smiling and nodding, but I could tell she was listening to Ted.

  Yeah? I said.

  I worked out this story on the world of the future that you —

  Ted! said Ann.

  But he just grinned at her and went on talking to me. Ann's always afraid I'll bore people with some of my ideas.

  Well, this one's silly, Ann said.

  Of course it is. Nell said, soothing her down. I can't understand why Al reads that sort of thing.

  Well, you gals just go on with your talk, then, Ted said. You don't have to listen. Honey, he said to Ann, this is different; this is all right.

  Sure, I said, it's harmless. At least we're not out drinking or hanging around the pool hall.

  Well — He shifted his position and was smiling, very eager, almost excited. I could tell this was something he was itching to talk about. A friend of mine and I used to bat the breeze around about this kind of stuff, and we worked out a story. Matter of fact, we did more than that. He was an amateur printer; had his own printing press in the basement. Did beautiful work. So one time, just for a gag, we printed up an article, a magazine, the way it might look and read sometime in the future. I've still got a copy or two around somewhere
. Like to see it?

  Ted, Ann said pleadingly.

  It's all right, honey, he said.

  Well, of course I said sure, I'd like to see his article, and Ted went on over to their house and in a minute or so he came back with a long narrow strip of paper and handed it to me.

  It didn't feel like paper when I took it; it was almost like fine linen to the touch, and it didn't rattle or crackle, but it was stiff like paper. At the top of the page, there was a title, printed in red — long thin letters, but very easy to read. It said: Time on Our Hands? Underneath was a caption: Should TT be outlawed? A grave new question facing a world already stunned with fear of oxygen-reversion, population-deterrent and “crazy-molecule” weapons.

  Ted said, The funny shape of the page is because that's how it comes out of the teleprint receivers in subscribers' homes.

  Both the girls looked at him contemptuously, and went on with their conversation.

  Pretty elaborate gag, I said.

  I know. he said, and laughed. We spent a lot of time fooling around with that thing.

  I turned back to the article, and a picture in the middle of the page caught my eye. It was a man's face, smiling, and it seemed to stick right out of the page. It was taken fullface, yet you could see the nose jutting out at you, and the ears and sides of the head seemed farther back in the page. It was beautifully printed and in marvelous color. You could see fine lines around the eyes, the film of moisture on the eyeballs, and every separate strand of hair. I raised the picture closer to my eyes and it went flat, two-dimensional, and I could see it was printed, all right. But when I lowered it to reading distance again, the photograph popped out in three dimensions once more, a perfect miniature human face.

  The caption said: Ralph Kent, 32-yearold quantum physicist and world's first Time-Traveler. His initial words upon his reappearance in the laboratory after testing TT are now world-famous. Nobody in sixteenth-century England, he announced, seems to understand English.

  Your friend does some pretty fine printing, I said to Ted.

  The photograph? he said. Oh, you can get results like that if you're willing to take the time. Go ahead; read the article.

  I lighted another cigarette and started to read. The article said: The first practical Time-machine reached blueprint stage in the Schenectady laboratories of the DeFarday Electric Company in November of last year, a closely guarded secret among seven top officials of the company. It is said to have been based on an extension of the basic theories of Albert Einstein, famous theoretical physicist of the last century.

  A handmade pilot model of DE's astounding invention was completed on May 18th of this year at a cost, excluding four years' preliminary research expense, of approximately $190,000. But even before it was completed and successfully tested, it was out of date. A young Australian physicist, Finis Bride, of the University of Melbourne, had published accounts of experiments in which he had successfully substituted a cheaply maintained electric flow-field for the conventional and expensive platinum-alloy heretofore used in gravity-repulsion. The way was cleared, as DE officials were quick to realize, for inexpensive mass production of Time-machines.

  It was vitally important, DE's board decided, to try to keep the young Australian's invention a secret from competitors. But almost inevitably, while DE was in the process of tooling up, the secret leaked, and soon Asco, BCA and Eastern Electric were in the race to hit the market first. Almost as quickly, British, French, Russian, Italian, and, soon after, televip manufacturers throughout the entire world were in the scramble. By June of this year TT sets were selling at the rate …

  Ted's article went on like that. It was really cleverly done. There were times when you'd almost think you were reading the real McCoy. It told how Time-Travel sets hit the market with a big advertising splash early in the summer. The first day they went on sale the public was apathetic and skeptical. But the following day the press and the televip networks (whatever they were supposed to be) were filled with interviews with people who'd tried Time-Travel, and they were all absolutely bug-eyed with astonishment because the damn' machines actually worked.

  You put a little gadget in your pocket called a “tampered relay.” Then you turned on your set, adjusted the dials, stepped into a little beam of invisible light, and you'd appear instantly at just about any time and place you'd set the dials for. You left the set on, or adjusted it to turn on automatically after a certain length of time, and as long as you still had your “tampered relay” all you had to do was stand in the same spot you'd first appeared in and you'd he right back home again standing in the beam of invisible light. Well, the public went nuts for it, and at the time the article was supposedly written, production was going full blast, twenty-four hours a day, and practically every last family in the country was scraping up at least the hundred and fifty dollars which the cheapest model cost.

  It was really an imaginative job. One of the neatest touches about it was the note of worry than ran all through the article. It was as though there were some awful problem connected with this rage for Time-Travel that the author didn't quite want to put into words. He kept hinting about it, wondering if new legislation weren't needed, and so on, but I couldn't quite figure out what he was supposed to be bothered about. Time-Travel sounded like a lot of fun to me.

  That's a wonderful job, I told Ted when I finished. But what's the point? All that trouble — for what?

  Ted shrugged. I don't know, he said. No point, I guess. Did you like it?

  I sure did.

  You can have that copy if you want. I've got another.

  Thanks, I said, and laid it in my lap. But what did you plan to have happen next?

  Oh, he said, you don't want to hear any more. He seemed a little embarrassed, as though he wished he hadn't started this, and he glanced over at his wife, but she wouldn't look at him. Matter of fact, he went on, the story sort of peters out. I'm really not very good at that kind of thing.

  Yes, said Ann, that's enough.

  Come on, I said to Ted. Give.

  Ted looked at me for a moment, very serious, then he shook his head again. No, he said, it's too hard to explain. You'd have to know a good deal about a world of the future, a world in which people are sick with the fear of self-destruction. Unimaginable weapons that could literally tear the entire solar system to pieces. Everyone living in absolute dread of the future.

  What's so hard to imagine about that?

  Oh, hell. He laughed. These are peaceful times.

  They are?

  Sure. No weapon worth mentioning except the atom and hydrogen bombs, and those in their earliest, uncomplex stages.

  I laughed kind of sourly.

  All in all, he said, these are pretty nice times to be alive in.

  Well, I'm glad you're so sure. I said.

  I am. Ted answered, and he smiled. Then he stopped smiling. But it'll he different in another century or so. believe me. At least, he added, that's how this friend and I figured it out in our story. He shook his head a little and went on, sort of talking to himself.

  Life will barely be worth living. Everyone working twelve, fourteen hours a day, with the major part of a man's income going for taxes, and the rest going for consumers' goods priced sky-high because of war production. Artificial scarcities, restrictions of all kinds. And hanging over everything, killing what little joy in life is left, is the virtual certainty of death and destruction. Everyone working and sacrificing for his own destruction. Ted looked up at me. A lousy world, the world of the future, and not the way human beings were meant to live.

  Go ahead, I said, you're doing fine.

  He grinned, looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. Okay, he said, and settled back on the porch rail. Time-Travel hits the world the way television has hit the country today, only it happens a hundred times faster, because it's just about the only way to have any real fun. But it's a wonderful way, all right. Within less than a week after the first sets reach the market, people everywh
ere are going swimming after work on an untouched beach in California, say in the year 1000. Or fishing or picnicking in the Maine woods before even the Norsemen had arrived. Or standing on a hill overlooking a battlefield, watching the Crusaders have it out with the infidels.

  Ted smiled. And sometimes not so safe. In Newton, Kansas, a man arrives home in his living room, bleeding to death from arrow wounds. In Tallahassee a whole family disappears, their TT set turned on and humming, and they are never heard from again, and the same thing happens here and there all over the country and the world. In Chicago a man returns from a day in seventh-century France and dies in two days of the plague; everyone is worried stiff, but the disease doesn't spread. In Mill Valley, California, a man reappears in his home, his face gashed, his hand mangled, his clothes torn to shreds, and he commits suicide the following day. His wife has been stoned to death as a witch because they were fools enough to appear in a crowded eleventh-century Danish public square in modern dress, talking twenty-first-century English.

  Ted grinned and winked at his wife; he was enjoying himself. I was fascinated and I think Nell was, too, whether she'd admit it or not. But then, he went on, warnings are soon published and televipped by all the TT manufacturers and by the government, too, and people quickly learn caution. Brief courses of instruction are published on how to conduct oneself in various times, how to simulate the dress and customs of earlier periods, what dangerous times and places to avoid, and TT really comes into its own. There are still risks, still accidents and tragedies, of course.

  Inevitably some people talk too much — the temptation is terribly strong — and they land in insane asylums or jails. Others can't stay away from the danger times and are lynched by superstitious mobs. A good many people die of the common cold, which science had eradicated and to which the human race had lost its old resistance. But there's risk in anything. and the important thing is that once again it's possible to take a vacation. To really get away from it all for a week, a day, or even an hour before dinner. To go back to simpler, more peaceful times, when life is worth living again. And nearly every last soul in the world soon finds a way somehow to own a TT set or get access to one.