Harry Turtledove

by The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century

There was a sensation of jarring, a sense of slight bouncing. Then the ship was still, its pointed nose straight up, glittering brilliantly in the bright sunlight.

  “I want us to stay together,” Ross was saying. “No one takes any risks. That’s an order.”

  He got up from his seat and pointed at the wall switch that let atmosphere into the small chamber in the corner of the cabin.

  “Three to one we need our helmets,” Mickey said to Mason.

  “You’re on,” Mason said, setting into play their standing bet about the air or lack of it in every new planet they found. Mickey always bet on the need for apparatus. Mason for unaided lung use. So far, they’d come out about even.

  Mason threw the switch, and there was a muffled sound of hissing in the chamber. Mickey got the helmet from his locker and dropped it over his head. Then he went through the double doors. Mason listened to him clamping the doors behind him. He kept wanting to switch on the side viewers and see if he could locate what they’d spotted. But he didn’t. He let himself enjoy the delicate nibbling of suspense.

  Through the intercom they heard Mickey’s voice.

  “Removing helmet,” he said.

  Silence. They waited. Finally, a sound of disgust.

  “I lose again,” Mickey said.

  The others followed him out.

  “God, did they hit!”

  Mickey’s face had an expression of dismayed shock on it. The three of them stood there on the greenish-blue grass and looked.

  It was a ship. Or what was left of a ship for, apparently, it had struck the earth at terrible velocity, nose first. The main structure had driven itself about fifteen feet into the hard ground. Jagged pieces of superstructure had been ripped off by the crash and were lying strewn over the field. The heavy engines had been torn loose and nearly crushed the cabin. Everything was deathly silent, and the wreckage was so complete they could hardly make out what type of ship it was. It was as if some enormous child had lost fancy with the toy model and had dashed it to earth, stamped on it, banged on it insanely with a rock.

  Mason shuddered. It had been a long time since he’d seen a rocket crash. He’d almost forgotten the everpresent menace of lost control, of whistling fall through space, of violent impact. Most talk had been about being lost in an orbit. This reminded him of the other threat in his calling. His throat moved unconsciously as he watched.

  Ross was scuffing at a chunk of metal at his feet.

  “Can’t tell much,” he said. “But I’d say it’s our own.”

  Mason was about to speak, then changed his mind.

  “From what I can see of that engine up there, I’d say it was ours,” Mickey said.

  “Rocket structure might be standard,” Mason heard himself say, “everywhere.”

  “Not a chance,” Ross said. “Things don’t work out like that. It’s ours all right. Some poor devils from Earth. Well, at least their death was quick.”

  “Was it?” Mason asked the air, visualizing the crew in their cabin, rooted with fear as their ship spun toward earth, maybe straight down like a fired cannon shell, maybe end-over-end like a crazy, fluttering top, the gyroscope trying in vain to keep the cabin always level.

  The screaming, the shouted commands, the exhortations to a heaven they had never seen before, to a God who might be in another universe. And then the planet rushing up and blasting its hard face against their ship, crushing them, ripping the breath from their lungs. He shuddered again, thinking of it.

  “Let’s take a look,” Mickey said.

  “Not sure we’d better,” Ross said. “We say it’s ours. It might not be.”

  “Jeez, you don’t think anything is still alive in there, do you?” Mickey asked the captain.

  “Can’t say,” Ross said.

  But they all knew he could see that mangled hulk before him as well as they. Nothing could have survived that.

  The look. The pursed lips. As they circled the ship. The head movement, unseen by them.

  “Let’s try that opening there,” Ross ordered. “And stay together. We still have work to do. Only doing this so we can let the base know which ship this is.” He had already decided it was an Earth ship.

  They walked up to a spot in the ship’s side where the skin had been laid open along the welded seam. A long, thick plate was bent over as easily as a man might bend paper.

  “Don’t like this,” Ross said. “But I suppose . . . “

  He gestured with his head and Mickey pulled himself up to the opening. He tested each handhold gingerly, then slid on his work gloves as he found some sharp edge. He told the other two and they reached into their jumper pockets. Then Mickey took a long step into the dark maw of the ship.

  “Hold on, now!” Ross called up. “Wait until I get there.”

  He pulled himself up, his heavy boot toes scraping up the rocket skin. He went into the hole too. Mason followed.

  It was dark inside the ship. Mason closed his eyes for a moment to adjust to the change. When he opened them, he saw two bright beams searching up through the twisted tangle of beams and plates. He pulled out his own flash and flicked it on.

  “God, is this thing wrecked,” Mickey said, awed by the sight of metal and machinery in violent death. His voice echoed slightly through the shell. Then, when the sound ended, an utter stillness descended on them. They stood in the murky light and Mason could smell the acrid fumes of broken engines.

  “Watch the smell, now,” Ross said to Mickey who was reaching up for support. “We don’t want to get ourselves gassed.”

  “I will,” Mickey said. He was climbing up, using one hand to pull his thick, powerful body up along the twisted ladder. He played the beam straight up.

  “Cabin is all out of shape,” he said, shaking his head.

  Ross followed him up. Mason was last, his flash moving around endlessly over the snapped joints, the wild jigsaw of destruction that had once been a powerful new ship. He kept hissing in disbelief to himself as his beam came across one violent distortion of metal after another.

  “Door’s sealed,” Mickey said, standing on a pretzel-twisted catwalk, bracing himself against the inside rocket wall. He grabbed the handle again and tried to pull it open.

  “Give me your light,” Ross said. He directed both beams at the door and Mickey tried to drag it open. His face grew red as he struggled. He puffed.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s stuck.”

  Mason came up beside them. “Maybe the cabin is still pressurized,” he said softly. He didn’t like the echoing of his own voice.

  “Doubt it,” Ross said, trying to think. “More than likely the jamb is twisted.” He gestured with his head again. “Help Carter.”

  Mason grabbed one handle and Mickey the other. Then they braced their feet against the wall and pulled with all their strength. The door held fast. They shifted their grip, pulled harder.

  “Hey, it slipped!” Mickey said. “I think we got it.”

  They resumed footing on the tangled catwalk and pulled the door open. The frame was twisted, the door held in one corner. They could only open it enough to wedge themselves in sideways.

  The cabin was dark as Mason edged in first. He played his light beam toward the pilot’s seat. It was empty. He heard Mickey squeeze in as he moved the light to the navigator’s seat.

  There was no navigator’s seat. The bulkhead had been stove in there, the viewer, the table and the chair all crushed beneath the bent plates. There was a clicking in Mason’s throat as he thought of himself sitting at a table like that, in a chair like that, before a bulkhead like that.

  Ross was in now. The three beams of light searched. They all had to stand, legs spraddled, because the deck slanted.

  And the way it slanted made Mason think of something. Of shifting weights, of things sliding down. . . .

  Into the corner where he suddenly played his shaking beam.

  And felt his heart jolt, felt the skin on him crawling, felt his unblinking eye
s staring at the sight. Then felt his boots thud him down the incline as if he were driven.

  “Here,” he said, his voice hoarse with shock.

  He stood before the bodies. His foot had bumped into one of them as he held himself from going down any further, as he shifted his weight on the incline.

  Now he heard Mickey’s footsteps, his voice. A whisper. A bated, horrified whisper.

  “Mother of God.”

  Nothing from Ross. Nothing from any of them then but stares and shuddering breaths.

  Because the twisted bodies on the floor were theirs, all three of them. And all three . . . dead.

  ———

  Mason didn’t know how long they stood there, wordlessly, looking down at the still, crumpled figures on the deck.

  How does a man react when he is standing over his own corpse? The question plied unconsciously at his mind. What does a man say? What are his first words to be? A poser, he seemed to sense, a loaded question.

  But it was happening. Here he stood—and there he lay dead at his own feet. He felt his hands grow numb and he rocked unsteadily on the tilted deck.

  “God.”

  Mickey again. He had his flash pointed down at his own face. His mouth twitched as he looked. All three of them had their flash beams directed at their own faces, and the bright ribbons of light connected their dual bodies.

  Finally Ross took a shaking breath of the stale cabin air.

  “Carter,” he said, “find the auxiliary light switch, see if it works.” His voice was husky and tightly restrained.

  “Sir?”

  “The light switch—the light switch!” Ross snapped.

  Mason and the captain stood there, motionless, as Mickey shuffled up the deck. They heard his boots kick metallic debris over the deck surface. Mason closed his eyes, but was unable to take his foot away from where it pressed against the body that was his. He felt bound.

  “I don’t understand,” he said to himself.

  “Hang on,” Ross said.

  Mason couldn’t tell whether it was said to encourage him or the captain himself.

  Then they heard the emergency generator begin its initial whining spin. The light flickered, went out. The generator coughed and began humming and the lights flashed on brightly.

  They looked down now. Mickey slipped down the slight deck hill and stood beside them. He stared down at his own body. Its head was crushed in. Mickey drew back, his mouth a box of unbelieving terror.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “I don’t get it. What is this?”

  “Carter,” Ross said.

  “That’s me!” Mickey said. “God, it’s me!”

  “Hold on!” Ross ordered.

  “The three of us,” Mason said quietly, “and we’re all dead.”

  There seemed nothing to be said. It was a speechless nightmare. The tilted cabin all bashed in and tangled. The three corpses all doubled over and tumbled into one corner, arms and legs flopped over each other. All they could do was stare.

  Then Ross said, “Go get a tarp. Both of you.”

  Mason turned. Quickly. Glad to fill his mind with simple command. Glad to crowd out tense horror with activity. He took long steps up the deck. Mickey backed up, unable to take his unblinking gaze off the heavy-set corpse with the green jumper and the caved-in, bloody head.

  Mason dragged a heavy, folded tarp from the storage locker and carried it back into the cabin, legs and arms moving in robotlike sequence. He tried to numb his brain, not think at all until the first shock had dwindled.

  Mickey and he opened up the heavy canvas sheet with wooden motions. They tossed it out and the thick, shiny material fluttered down over the bodies. It settled, outlining the heads, the torsos, the one arm that stood up stiffly like a spear, bent over wrist and hand like a grisly pennant.

  Mason turned away with a shudder. He stumbled up to the pilot’s seat and slumped down. He stared at his outstretched legs, the heavy boots. He reached out and grabbed his leg and pinched it, feeling almost relief at the flaring pain.

  “Come away,” he heard Ross saying to Mickey, “I said, come away!”

  He looked down and saw Ross half dragging Mickey up from a crouching position over the bodies. He held Mickey’s arm and led him up the incline.

  “We’re dead,” Mickey said hollowly. “That’s us on the deck. We’re dead.”

  Ross pushed Mickey up to the cracked port and made him look out.

  “There,” he said. “There’s our ship over there. Just as we left it. This ship isn’t ours. And those bodies. They . . . can’t be ours.”

  He finished weakly. To a man of his sturdy opinionation, the words sounded flimsy and extravagant. His throat moved, his lower lip pushed out in defiance of this enigma. Ross didn’t like enigmas. He stood for decision and action. He wanted action now.

  “You saw yourself down there,” Mason said to him. “Are you going to say it isn’t you?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Ross bristled. “This may seem crazy, but there’s an explanation for it. There’s an explanation for everything.”

  His face twitched as he punched his bulky arm.

  “This is me,” he claimed. “I’m solid.” He glared at them as if daring opposition. “I’m alive,” he said.

  They stared blankly at him.

  “I don’t get it,” Mickey said weakly. He shook his head and his lips drew back over his teeth.

  Mason sat limply in the pilot’s seat. He almost hoped that Ross’s dogmatism would pull them through this. That his staunch bias against the inexplicable would save the day. He wanted for it to save the day. He tried to think for himself, but it was so much easier to let the captain decide.

  “We’re all dead,” Mickey said.

  “Don’t be a fool!” Ross exclaimed. “Feel yourself!”

  Mason wondered how long it would go on. Actually, he began to expect a sudden awakening, him jolting to a sitting position on his bunk to see the two of them at their tasks as usual, the crazy dream over and done with.

  But the dream went on. He leaned back in the seat and it was a solid seat. From where he sat he could run his fingers over solid dials and buttons and switches. All real. It was no dream. Pinching wasn’t even necessary.

  “Maybe it’s a vision,” he tried, vainly attempting thought, as an animal mired tries hesitant steps to solid earth.

  “That’s enough,” Ross said.

  Then his eyes narrowed. He looked at them sharply. His face mirrored decision. Mason almost felt anticipation. He tried to figure out what Ross was working on. Vision? No, it couldn’t be that. Ross would hold no truck with visions. He noticed Mickey staring open-mouthed at Ross. Mickey wanted the consoling of simple explanation too.

  “Time warp,” said Ross.

  They still stared at him.

  “What?” Mason asked.

  “Listen,” Ross punched out his theory. More than his theory, for Ross never bothered with that link in the chain of calculation. His certainty.

  “Space bends,” Ross said. “Time and space form a continuum. Right?”

  No answer. He didn’t need one.

  “Remember they told us once in training of the possibility of circumnavigating time. They told us we could leave Earth at a certain time. And when we came back we’d be back a year earlier than we’d calculated. Or a year later.

  “Those were just theories to the teachers. Well, I say it’s happened to us. It’s logical, it could happen. We could have passed right through a time warp. We’re in another galaxy, maybe different space lines, maybe different time lines.”

  He paused for effect.

  “I say we’re in the future,” he said.

  Mason looked at him.

  “How does that help us?” he asked. “If you’re right.”

  “We’re not dead!” Ross seemed surprised that they didn’t get it.

  “If it’s in the future,” Mason said quietly, “then we’re going to die.”

  Ro
ss gaped at him. He hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t thought that his idea made things even worse. Because there was only one thing worse than dying. And that was knowing you were going to die. And where. And how.

  Mickey shook his head. His hands fumbled at his sides. He raised one to his lips and chewed nervously on a blackened nail.

  “No,” he said weakly, “I don’t get it.”

  Ross stood looking at Mason with jaded eyes. He bit his lips, feeling nervous with the unknown crowding him in, holding off the comfort of solid, rational thinking. He pushed, he shoved it away. He persevered.

  “Listen,” he said, “we’re agreed that those bodies aren’t ours.”

  No answer.

  “Use your heads!” Ross commanded. “Feel yourself!”

  Mason ran numbed fingers over his jumper, his helmet, the pen in his pocket. He clasped solid hands of flesh and bone. He looked at the veins in his arms. He pressed an anxious finger to his pulse. It’s true, he thought. And the thought drove lines of strength back into him. Despite all, despite Ross’s desperate advocacy, he was alive. Flesh and blood were his evidence.

  His mind swung open then. His brow furrowed in thought as he straightened up. He saw a look almost of relief on the face of a weakening Ross.

  “All right then,” he said, “we’re in the future.”

  Mickey stood tensely by the port. “Where does that leave us?” he asked.

  The words threw Mason back. It was true, where did it leave them?

  “How do we know how distant a future?” he said, adding weight to the depression of Mickey’s words. “How do we know it isn’t in the next twenty minutes?”

  Ross tightened. He punched his palm with a resounding smack.

  “How do we know?” he said strongly. “We don’t go up, we can’t crash. That’s how we know.”

  Mason looked at him.

  “Maybe if we went up,” he said, “we might bypass our death altogether and leave it in this space-time system. We could get back to the space-time system of our own galaxy and . . . “

  His words trailed off. His brain became absorbed with twisting thought.

  Ross frowned. He stirred restlessly, licked his lips. What had been simple was now something else again. He resented the uninvited intrusion of complexity.