“All right,” I said, “I’ll hear him out. But if it doesn’t come out right, this thing that calls himself O’Gillicuddy has a lot to answer for.”
“I assure you,” said O’Gillicuddy, “that in time . . .”
“There’s something else that’s wrong,” said Cynthia. “There is one who isn’t here. The census taker isn’t here. What happened to him?”
“I can tell you that,” said Elmer. “Once this place was finished . . .”
“By this place,” said Cynthia, “I suppose you mean this museum. It is a museum, isn’t it? Housing the collection of the census taker.”
“Then you know about the census taker.”
“We made a guess,” said Cynthia. “Of course,” said O’Gillicuddy, “you would have. You both are quite astute.”
“Well, thanks,” said Cynthia. “Once we had his collections housed,” said Elmer, “the collection that was here and the original and much larger collection recovered from its hiding place in the old Balkans area, he took off for the planet Alden to lead an expedition of archaeologists to his old home planet.”
“That would be,” I said, “the planet that Thorney speculated on. The one that had never been found.”
“That’s the one,” said Elmer.
I thought how excited Thorney would have been if he only could have known of this. But that had been impossible, of course. Thorney was long dead. And as I thought of that a shudder built up inside of me and I had to hold on tight to keep it from breaking out. I felt the devastating loneliness of an alien time, the sense that I was in a time where I should not have been, realizing that the alienness of time could be more frightening than the alienness of place. I felt cut off from everything and inside of me was a scream to go back where I belonged and I wondered, as I sat there battling against it, if Cynthia felt it, too. And even as I wondered it came to me that somewhere deep in the past Cynthia and I were dead as well, and that made our being here even more unbearable.
“Fletch,” asked Elmer, “is there something wrong with you?”
“I’m all right,” I said.
“You’re trembling.”
“I’ll be all right,” I said.
Cynthia laid a hand upon my arm. “Take it easy, Fletch,” she said, and I knew from the way she said it that she may have felt some of the alienness as well.
“Please go ahead,” I said.
“The census taker,” said O’Gillicuddy, “was deeply worried about his people. He had long since lost contact with them and he was convinced that his race had disappeared, for any one of the many reasons that can bring about the disappearance of a race. So far there has been no word of the expedition. We await it anxiously.”
“We?”
“Myself and all the rest of my brother shades.”
“You mean you’re all like this?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “It was all a part of the bargain. But I forget you know not of the bargain. I shall have to tell you.”
“Well, get on with it,” I said, a little angrily.
“So much,” he said, “depends upon you. We had it all planned out and it seemed to be so foolproof . . .”
“There is nothing,” Elmer said, “that is ever foolproof.”
“Yes, yes,” said O’Gillicuddy, “and especially in time manipulation one never can be sure. I shudder at the thought of what would have happened if these two had not arrived . .
“Let’s stop this talk of shuddering,” Elmer said, impatiently. “If they were not to have arrived all this would have disappeared. Although, come to think of it, that’s not entirely right.”
“Elmer,” I yelled at him, “for the love of God, talk sense.”
“Believe me, Fletch,” said Elmer, “it all is most confusing. I am supposed to understand it, but even so I get confused.”
“Then,” said O’Gillicuddy, “suppose we start again. From here we’ll send you back to your own present time, to that temporal moment you would have expected to arrive at if the time trap had worked as I said it would . . .”
“But you bungled then,” I said, “and you will bungle now . . .”
He raised a metallic hand to silence me. “We never bungled,” he said. “We did, as Elmer told you, what we had intended. We brought you here, because if we had not brought you here the plan would not have worked. If you were not here to have the plan unfolded, you’d not know what to do. But going back with the plan in mind, you can bring this all about.”
“Now wait a minute,” I protested. “You’re getting this all tangled up. There is no sense . . .”
“There is an amazing lot of sense to it,” said O’Gillicuddy. “It works this way. You were in the distant past and we bring you forward to this future so you can be told the plan, then you’ll be sent back to your present so you can implement the plan that will make it possible for the future you now occupy to happen.”
I jumped to my feet and banged the desk. “I never have heard so damn much foolishness in all my life,” I shouted. “You’ve got time all twisted up. How can we be brought into a future that won’t exist unless we are in our present to do whatever damn fool thing we have to do to make this future happen?”
O’Gillicuddy was somewhat smug about it. “I admit,” he said, “that it may seem slightly strange. But when you think of it, you will perceive the logic of it. Now we’re going to send you back in time . . .”
“Missing your mark,” I said, “by several thousand years . . .”
“Not at all,” said O’Gillicuddy. “We’ll hit it on the nose. We no longer depend upon mere psychic ability. We now have a machine, a temporal selector, that can send you anywhere you wish, to the small part of a second. Its development was a part of the bargain that was made.”
“You talk about plans,” said Cynthia, “and bargains. It might help a little if you tell us what they are.”
“Given half a chance,” said O’Gillicuddy, “I would be charmed to do so. We will send you back to your present and you will go back to Cemetery and see Maxwell Peter Bell . .
“And Maxwell Peter Bell will throw me out upon my ear,” I said, “and maybe . .
“Not,” said Elmer, breaking in, “if Wolf and Bronco and myself go in with you to see him and if two war machines are waiting out in front. Those two war machines will make all the difference.”
“But how can you be sure that the war machines . . .”
“Why, that is simple,” Elmer said. “You set it up yourself. You asked them, didn’t you, to be at a certain place at a certain time to meet you when you came through the time trap? How about that, Joe?”
“That is right,” said Joe. “He asked us and we were there, Ivan and me, just like we said we’d be. And all the rest of you. Even now I can remember it. We made up a welcoming committee and they came stepping out and then we all went to Cemetery . . .”
“How the hell can you remember it?” I yelled. “It hasn’t happened yet.”
“Oh, yes, it has,” said Elmer.
“I think,” I said, “that we must all be crazy. I begin to get a glimmer of what is going on and that makes me suspect even more that I am going crazy.”
“Why, Fletch,” said Cynthia, “I am surprised at you. It is all quite clear to me.”
I gritted my teeth and said to Elmer, “All right, then, tell the rest of it.”
“You will go to see Maxwell Peter Bell,” said Elmer, “with the rest of us along to give you moral support and you will let him know that you can prove he is using Cemetery as a cache for smuggled artifacts . . .”
“But smuggling artifacts is not against the law.”
“No, of course it’s not. But can you imagine what would happen to Mother Earth’s carefully polished image if it should be known what is being done. There would be a smell not only of dishonesty, but of ghoulery, about it that would take them years to wipe away, if they ever could.
“You will explain to him most carefully, being sure that he does not mistake
your meaning or intent, that you might just possibly find it unnecessary to say anything about it if he should agree to certain actions. Perhaps, O’Gillicuddy, you should enumerate the actions.”
O’Gillicuddy held up a hand and began counting off the actions on his fingers, one by one. “Cemetery will agree to donate to Alden University all its holdings in artifacts, being very vigilant in recovering and turning over all that they have hidden, and henceforth will desist from any dealings in them. Cemetery will provide the necessary shipping to transport the artifacts to Alden and will immediately implement the establishment of regular passenger service to Earth at a rate consistent with other travel fares throughout the galaxy, providing reasonably priced accommodations for tourists and pilgrims who may wish to visit Earth. Cemetery will establish and maintain museums to house the historic artifacts collected since mankind’s beginning by a certain devoted student who is designated by the name of Ronex . . .”
“That is the census taker?” Cynthia asked.
“That is the census taker,” said O’Gillicuddy, “and now if I might proceed . . .”
“There’s one thing,” said Cynthia, “that still bothers me a lot. What about Wolf? Why should he first be hunting us and then . . .”
“Wolf,” said O’Gillicuddy, “was not exactly a metal wolf, although he has now become accustomed to being one and still maintains the shape. He was one of the census taker’s robots that had been infiltrated into Cemetery’s wolf pack. The census taker, you must understand, was no one’s fool, and he kept a hand in almost everything transpiring on the Earth. And now if I may proceed . . .”
“Please do,” said Cynthia.
O’Gillicuddy went on, counting off the points upon his fingers. “Cemetery is to contribute funds and all necessary resources to a research program aimed at a reliable system of time travel. Cemetery likewise is to contribute all necessary funds and resources to another research program aimed at discovering and developing a method by which human personalities can be transferred in their entireties to robotic brains and once such a method is developed the first objects of such transfers shall be a group of beings known as shades, now existing on the planet Earth and . . .”
“That’s how you . . .” said Cynthia.
“That’s how I came to be as you see me now. But to go on. Cemetery shall agree to the appointment of a galactic watchdog commission that will not only see to it that the provisions of this agreement are carried out, but shall, in perpetuity, examine Cemetery’s books and actions and make recommendations for the conducting of its business.”
He came to a stop.
I looked at Elmer and Elmer, looking back at me, nodded his head. “That’s the way of it,” he said. “That is how it goes.”
It still seemed a zany sort of fable, but if Elmer said that was the way it was, it was good enough for me.
“I believe,” said O’Gillicuddy, “we have told you everything.”
“Now,” I said, “one thing yet remains. Will Cemetery buy it?”
“I think they already have,” said O’Gillicuddy, “but we still must go through the motions. You are here and the rest of us are here and the museum is here and the temporal selector waiting for you and Miss Cynthia . . .”
“There is one thing you’ve forgotten,” said Cynthia. “Perhaps not an important thing to the rest of you, but it is what started all of this. What about Fletcher’s composition? You remember, the one that he and Bronco were to have put together. If it hadn’t been for his dream of making a composition, none of this would have come about. You don’t know how he worked for it and dreamed of it and . . .”
“Miss,” said Elmer, soberly, “I know. I worked and dreamed with him.”
“But did he ever have a chance to do it? Or was it all forgotten in this fantastic scheme the rest of you dreamed up?”
“We never dreamed it up,” said Bronco. “It was the shades who dreamed it up. We only went along with them. Not even the census taker knew until they told him and then the census taker told us and we went along.”
“That is right,” said Elmer. “We couldn’t talk with shades.”
“And as far as the composition is concerned,” said O’Gillicuddy, “I think we have the time. If you’ll just step across the hall to the auditorium . . .”
“You have it here,” cried Cynthia. “You mean you have it here!”
“Of course we have it here. It has lived all these years. It will live forever.”
I shook my head, bewildered.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Carson?” asked O’Gillicuddy. “You should be very pleased.”
“Don’t you see what you have done,” said Cynthia, angrily, her eyes bright with tears. “Experiencing it would spoil it all. How could you possibly suggest that he see and feel and hear a work he has not even done? You should not have told him. Now it will be always in the back of his mind that he must create a masterpiece. He wasn’t even thinking about a masterpiece. He was just planning to do a competent piece of work and now you . . .”
I put out a hand to stop her. “It’s all right,” I said.
But it wasn’t all right. It was terribly wrong.
“Bronco,” I said.
“I have forgotten it,” said Bronco. “It was so long ago I do not remember. I experienced it but once.”
“You’re getting all mixed up again,” said Elmer. “Bronco already has done the work and it is past. He won’t do it again. He won’t remember. Because there is nothing to remember. Back there in the past, you and he will put it all together . . .”
“And you, Elmer? Don’t tell me you forget as well.”
“How could I forget? It is beautiful. The thing for you to do, when you go back to meet us in the past, is to forget all this. There is a masterpiece up here, but the ability to do that kind of work lies in you, not in time, not in what others say or think. You simply do it as you see it. That will be good enough.”
“We,” said Bronco, “shall do a job on it.”
“I take it, then,” said O’Gillicuddy, “you do not want to see it.”
Something was pressing hard against my legs and when I looked down I saw that it was Wolf. I patted him and the metal of his hide resounded to the patting. He wriggled with delight and turned his head to look up at me, smiling with all those vicious metal teeth.
“Poor Wolf,” said Cynthia. “Are there rabbits here?”
“There are many rabbits,” Elmer said. “He chases them all day. But he never catches them. There is no need to catch them.”
O’Gillicuddy rose from his chair and came spidering around the desk on unhuman legs attached to his unhuman body.
“I suppose we best begin,” he said. “The temporal apparatus is on the floor below.”
Cynthia and I stood up.
From the rear of the room, Joe said, “We’ll all be waiting for you when you come through.”
I felt Elmer’s hand upon my shoulder, the great powerful metal fingers squeezing very softly. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said.
I tried to answer him, but couldn’t. What do you say to a guy like him? I couldn’t say good-bye, for it wasn’t good-bye. I don’t know what it was. A new beginning, maybe.
His hand lifted from my shoulder and Cynthia and I followed O’Gillicuddy.
I said to Cynthia, “It will soon be over for you. You can go back to Alden and fill Thorney in on everything that happened.”
“I’m not going back,” she said. “But I thought . . .”
“You’ll be going on with your composition. Would you have room for an apprentice, an assistant?”
“I think I would,” I said.
“You remember, Fletch, what you told me when you thought we were trapped back there in time? You said that you would love me. I intend to hold you to that.”
I reached out and found her hand.
I wanted to be held to that.
OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN
PART ONE
Fleeing Earth�
�s end they come—to give their “elders” another chance!
1. Bentley Price, photographer for Global News Service, had put a steak on the broiler and settled down in a lawn chair, a can of beer in hand, to watch it, when the door opened under an ancient white oak tree and people started walking out of it.
Many years had passed since Bentley Price had been astounded. He had come, through bitter experience, to expect the unusual and to think but little of it. He took pictures of the unusual, the bizarre, the violent, then turned around and left, sometimes most hurriedly, for there was competition from such as the AP and the UPI, and an up-and-coming news photographer could allow no grass to grow beneath his feet. And while picture editors certainly were not individuals to be feared, it was often wise to keep them mollified.
But now Bentley was astounded, for what was happening was not something that could easily be imagined or ever reconciled to any previous experience. He sat stiff in his chair, the beer can rigid in his hand and a glassy look about his eyes, watching the people walking from the doorway. Although now he saw that the opening was not exactly a door, but a ragged hole of darkness that quivered at the edges and was somewhat larger than any common door, for people were emerging four and five abreast.
They seemed quite ordinary although they were dressed a bit outlandishly. If they all had been young he would have thought they were from a university or a youth center and wearing the crazy kind of clothes that college students affected. But while some of these people were young, a lot of them were not.
One of the first to have walked out onto the lawn was a tall thin man, graceful in his leanness. He had a great unruly mop of iron-gray hair and his neck looked like a turkey’s. He wore a short gray skirt that ended just above his knees. A red shawl draped across one shoulder was fastened at his waist by a belt that also held the skirt in place. He looked, Bentley told himself, like a Scot in kilts, but without the plaid.
Beside him walked a young woman dressed in a white and flowing robe that came down to her sandaled feet. The robe was belted and her intensely black hair, worn in a ponytail, hung down to her waist. She had a pretty face, thought Bentley—the kind of prettiness one seldom saw—and her skin, what little could be seen of it, was as white and clear as the robe she wore.
The Complete Serials Page 137
