The Raja gave a little sigh. “It’s a tempting thought, Reggie, but we really cannot, you know. Not done.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “Well, let’s tie him up and take him back to camp.”
We agreed there was no safety for us unless we kept James under guard every minute until we got home. Once a man has tried to kill you, you’re a fool if you give him another chance.
We marched James back to camp and told the crew what we were up against. James cursed everybody.
We spent three dismal days combing the country for that tyrannosaur, but no luck. We felt it wouldn’t have been cricket not to make a good try at recovering Holtzinger’s remains. Back at our main camp, when it wasn’t raining, we collected small reptiles and things for our scientific friends. The Raja and I discussed the question of legal proceedings against Courtney James, but decided there was nothing we could do in that direction.
———
When the transition chamber materialized, we fell over one another getting into it. We dumped James, still tied, in a corner, and told the chamber operator to throw the switches.
While we were in transition, James said: “You two should have killed me back there.”
“Why?” I said. “You don’t have a particularly good head.”
The Raja added: “Wouldn’t look at all well over a mantel.”
“You can laugh,” said James, “but I’ll get you some day. I’ll find a way and get off scot-free.”
“My dear chap!” I said. “If there were some way to do it, I’d have you charged with Holtzinger’s death. Look, you’d best leave well enough alone.”
When we came out in the present, we handed him his empty gun and his other gear, and off he went without a word. As he left, Holtzinger’s girl, that Claire, rushed up crying:
“Where is he? Where’s August?”
There was a bloody heartrending scene, despite the Raja’s skill at handling such situations.
We took our men and beasts down to the old laboratory building that the university has fitted up as a serai for such expeditions. We paid everybody off and found we were broke. The advance payments from Holtzinger and James didn’t cover our expenses, and we should have precious little chance of collecting the rest of our fees either from James or from Holtzinger’s estate.
And speaking of James, d’you know what that blighter was doing? He went home, got more ammunition, and came back to the university. He hunted up Professor Prochaska and asked him:
“Professor, I’d like you to send me back to the Cretaceous for a quick trip. If you can work me into your schedule right now, you can just about name your own price. I’ll offer five thousand to begin with. I want to go to April twenty-third, eighty-five million B.C.”
Prochaska answered: “Why do you wish to go back again so soon?”
“I lost my wallet in the Cretaceous,” said James. “I figure if I go back to the day before I arrived in that era on my last trip, I’ll watch myself when I arrived on that trip and follow myself around till I see myself lose the wallet.”
“Five thousand is a lot for a wallet,” said the professor.
“It’s got some things in it I can’t replace,” said James.
“Well,” said Prochaska, thinking. “The party that was supposed to go out this morning has telephoned that they would be late, so perhaps I can work you in. I have always wondered what would happen when the same man occupied the same stretch of time twice.”
So James wrote out a check, and Prochaska took him to the chamber and saw him off. James’s idea, it seems, was to sit behind a bush a few yards from where the transition chamber would appear and pot the Raja and me as we emerged.
Hours later, we’d changed into our street clothes and phoned our wives to come and get us. We were standing on Forsythe Boulevard waiting for them when there was a loud crack, like an explosion, and a flash of light not fifty feet from us. The shock wave staggered us and broke windows.
We ran toward the place and got there just as bobby and several citizens came up. On the boulevard, just off the kerb, lay a human body. At least, it had been that, but it looked as if every bone in it had been pulverized and every blood vessel burst, so it was hardly more than a slimy mass of pink protoplasm. The clothes it had been wearing were shredded, but I recognized an H. & H. .500 double-barreled express rifle. The wood was scorched and the metal pitted, but it was Courtney James’s gun. No doubt whatever.
Skipping the investigations and the milling about that ensued, what had happened was this: nobody had shot at us as we emerged on the twenty-fourth, and that couldn’t be changed. For that matter, the instant James started to do anything that would make a visible change in the world of eighty-five million B.C., such as making a footprint in the earth, the space-time forces snapped him forward to the present to prevent a paradox. And the violence of the passage practically tore him to bits.
Now that this is better understood, the professor won’t send anybody to a period less than five thousand years prior to the time that some time traveler has already explored, because it would be too easy to do some act, like chopping down a tree or losing some durable artifact, that would affect the later world. Over longer periods, he tells me, such changes average out and are lost in the stream of time.
We had a rough time after that, with the bad publicity and all, though we did collect a fee from James’s estate. Luckily for us, a steel manufacturer turned up who wanted a mastodon’s head for his den.
I understand these things better now, too. The disaster hadn’t been wholly James’s fault. I shouldn’t have taken him when I knew what a spoiled, unstable sort of bloke he was. And if Holtzinger could have used a really heavy gun, he’d probably have knocked the tyrannosaur down, even if he didn’t kill it, and so have given the rest of us a chance to finish it.
———
So, Mr. Seligman, that’s why I won’t take you to that period to hunt. There are plenty of other eras, and if you look them over I’m sure you’ll find something to suit you. But not the Jurassic or the Cretaceous. You’re just not big enough to handle a gun for dinosaur.
POUL ANDERSON
A winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, Poul Anderson (1926–2001) wrote more than fifty novels and hundreds of short stories since his science-fiction debut in 1947. His first novel, Brain Wave, is a classic example of the techniques of traditional science fiction, extrapolating the impact that an abrupt universal rise in intelligence would have on the totality of human civilization in the twentieth century. Anderson is highly regarded for the detail of his stories. His vast Technic History saga, a multibook chronicle of interstellar exploration and empire building, covers fifty centuries of future history spread out over the rise and fall of three empires of a galactic federation. The vast scope of the series gave Anderson the opportunity to develop colorful, well-developed characters and to explore the long-term impact of certain ideas and attitudes—free enterprise, militarism, imperialism, individual styles of governing—on the society and political structure of a created world. Two characters, distinct products of their different times and civilizations, dominate the series’ most notable episodes: Falstaffian rogue merchant Nicholas van Rijn, hero of The Man Who Counts, Satan’s World, and Mirkheim; and Ensign Dominic Flandry, whose adventures include We Claim These Stars, Earthman, Go Home! and A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows. Anderson has tackled many of science fiction’s classic themes, including near–light-speed travel in Tau Zero, time travel in the series of Time Patrol stories collected as Guardians of Time, and acclerated evolution in Fire Time. He is known for his interweaving of science fiction and history, notably in his novel The High Crusade, a superior first-contact tale in which a medieval army captures an alien spaceship. Much of Anderson’s fantasy is rich with undercurrents of mythology, notably his heroic fantasy Three Hearts and Three Lions, and A Midsummer Tempest, an alternate history drawn from the background of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Anderson received the Tolkien Memo
rial Award in 1978. With his wife, Karen, he wrote the King of Ys Celtic fantasy quartet, and with Gordon Dickson the amusing Hoka series. His short fiction has been collected in numerous volumes, including The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories, All One Universe, Strangers from Earth, and Seven Conquests.
The idea of a man going back in time to change the past has been well mined over the decades (L. Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall and de Camp’s short story “Aristotle and the Gun” are two classic examples). Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early” is a paradigm of the idea. When all is said and done, a man sent back in time with nothing save what he is carrying on himself is just a man, no matter how grand the ideas he knows or the technology he’s used in the his own time. The attention to tenth-century Nordic life makes the contrast between the erstwhile time traveler and his new surroundings all the more real.
THE MAN WHO CAME EARLY
POUL ANDERSON
YES, WHEN A MAN grows old he has heard so much that is strange there’s little more can surprise him. They say the king in Miklagard has a beast of gold before his high seat which stands up and roars. I have it from Eilif Eiriksson, who served in the guard down yonder, and he is a steady fellow when not drunk. He has also seen the Greek fire used, it burns on water.
So, priest, I am not unwilling to believe what you say about the White Christ. I have been in England and France myself, and seen how the folk prosper. He must be a very powerful god, to ward so many realms . . . and did you say that everyone who is baptized will be given a white robe? I would like to have one. They mildew, of course, in this cursed wet Iceland weather, but a small sacrifice to the house-elves should—No sacrifices? Come now! I’ll give up horseflesh if I must, my teeth not being what they were, but every sensible man knows how much trouble the elves make if they’re not fed.
Well, let’s have another cup and talk about it. How do you like the beer? It’s my own brew, you know. The cups I got in England, many years back. I was a young man then . . . time goes, time goes. Afterward I came back and inherited this, my father’s farm, and have not left it since. Well enough to go in viking as a youth, but grown older you see where the real wealth lies: here, in the land and the cattle.
Stoke up the fires, Hjalti. It’s getting cold. Sometimes I think the winters are colder than when I was a boy. Thorbrand of the Salmondale says so, but he believes the gods are angry because so many are turning from them. You’ll have trouble winning Thorbrand over, priest. A stubborn man. Myself, I am open-minded, and willing to listen at least.
Now, then. There is one point on which I must set you right. The end of the world is not coming in two years. This I know.
And if you ask me how I know, that’s a very long tale, and in some ways a terrible one. Glad I am to be old, and safe in the earth before that great tomorrow comes. It will be an eldritch time before the frost giants fare loose . . . oh, very well, before the angel blows his battle horn. One reason I hearken to your preaching is that I know the White Christ will conquer Thor. I know Iceland is going to be Christian erelong, and it seems best to range myself on the winning side.
No, I’ve had no visions. This is a happening of five years ago, which my own household and neighbors can swear to. They mostly did not believe what the stranger told; I do, more or less, if only because I don’t think a liar could wreak so much harm. I loved my daughter, priest, and after the trouble was over I made a good marriage for her. She did not naysay it, but now she sits out on the ness-farm with her husband and never a word to me; and I hear he is ill pleased with her silence and moodiness, and spends his nights with an Irish leman. For this I cannot blame him, but it grieves me.
Well, I’ve drunk enough to tell the whole truth now, and whether you believe it or not makes no odds to me. Here . . . you, girls! . . . fill these cups again, for I’ll have a dry throat before I finish the telling.
———
It begins, then, on a day in early summer, five years ago. At that time, my wife Ragnhild and I had only two unwed children still living with us: our youngest son Helgi, of seventeen winters, and our daughter Thorgunna, of eighteen. The girl, being fair, had already had suitors. But she refused them, and I am not one who would compel his daughter. As for Helgi, he was ever a lively one, good with his hands but a breakneck youth. He is now serving in the guard of King Olaf of Norway. Besides these, of course, we had about ten housefolk—two thralls, two girls to help with the women’s work, and half a dozen hired carles. This is not a small stead.
You have seen how my land lies. About two miles to the west is the bay; the thorps at Reykjavik are some five miles south. The land rises toward the Long Jökull, so that my acres are hilly; but it’s good hay land, and we often find driftwood on the beach. I’ve built a shed down there for it, as well as a boathouse.
We had had a storm the night before—a wild huge storm with lightning flashes across heaven, such as you seldom get in Iceland—so Helgi and I were going down to look for drift. You, coming from Norway, do not know how precious wood is to us here, who have only a few scrubby trees and must get our timber from abroad. Back there men have often been burned in their houses by their foes, but we count that the worst of deeds, though it’s not unheard of.
As I was on good terms with my neighbors, we took only hand weapons. I bore my ax, Helgi a sword, and the two carles we had with us bore spears. It was a day washed clean by the night’s fury, and the sun fell bright on long, wet grass. I saw my stead lying rich around its courtyard, sleek cows and sheep, smoke rising from the roofhole of the hall, and knew I’d not done so ill in my lifetime. My son Helgi’s hair fluttered in the low west wind as we left the buildings behind a ridge and neared the water. Strange how well I remember all which happened that day; somehow it was a sharper day than most.
When we came down to the strand, the sea was beating heavy, white and gray out to the world’s edge, smelling of salt and kelp. A few gulls mewed above us, frightened off a cod washed onto the shore. I saw a litter of no few sticks, even a baulk of timber . . . from some ship carrying it that broke up during the night, I suppose. That was a useful find, though as a careful man I would later sacrifice to be sure the owner’s ghost wouldn’t plague me.
We had fallen to and were dragging the baulk toward the shed when Helgi cried out. I ran for my ax as I looked the way he pointed. We had no feuds then, but there are always outlaws.
This newcomer seemed harmless, though. Indeed, as he stumbled nearer across the black sand I thought him quite unarmed and wondered what had happened. He was a big man and strangely clad—he wore coat and breeches and shoes like anyone else, but they were of odd cut, and he bound his trousers with leggings rather than straps. Nor had I ever seen a helmet like his: it was almost square, and came down toward his neck, but it had no nose guard. And this you may not believe, but it was not metal, yet had been cast in one piece!
He broke into a staggering run as he drew close, flapped his arms and croaked something. The tongue was none I had heard, and I have heard many; it was like dogs barking. I saw that he was clean-shaven and his black hair cropped short, and thought he might be French. Otherwise he was a young man, and good-looking, with blue eyes and regular features. From his skin I judged that he spent much time indoors. However, he had a fine manly build.
“Could he have been shipwrecked?” asked Helgi.
“His clothes are dry and unstained,” I said; “nor has he been wandering long, for no stubble is on his chin. Yet I’ve heard of no strangers guesting hereabouts.”
We lowered our weapons, and he came up to us and stood gasping. I saw that his coat and the shirt underneath were fastened with bonelike buttons rather than laces, and were of heavy weave. About his neck he had fastened a strip of cloth tucked into his coat. These garments were all in brownish hues. His shoes were of a sort new to me, very well stitched. Here and there on his coat were bits of brass, and he had three broken stripes on each sleeve; also a black band with white letters, the same letters
on his helmet. Those were not runes, but Roman—thus: MP. He wore a broad belt, with a small clublike thing of metal in a sheath at the hip and also a real club.
“I think he must be a warlock,” muttered my carle Sigurd. “Why else so many tokens?”
“They may only be ornament, or to ward against witchcraft,” I soothed him. Then, to the stranger: “I hight Ospak Ulfsson of Hillstead. What is your errand?”
He stood with his chest heaving and a wildness in his eyes. He must have run a long way. At last he moaned and sat down and covered his face.
“If he’s sick, best we get him to the house,” said Helgi. I heard eagerness; we see few faces here.
“No . . . no . . .” The stranger looked up. “Let me rest a moment—”
He spoke the Norse tongue readily enough, though with a thick accent not easy to follow and with many foreign words I did not understand.
The other carle, Grim, hefted his spear. “Have vikings landed?” he asked.
“When did vikings ever come to Iceland?” I snorted. “It’s the other way around.”
The newcomer shook his head as if it had been struck. He got shakily to his feet. “What happened?” he said. “What became of the town?”
“What town?” I asked reasonably.
“Reykjavik!” he cried. “Where is it?”
“Five miles south, the way you came—unless you mean the bay itself,” I said.
“No! There was only a beach, and a few wretched huts, and—”
“Best not let Hialmar Broadnose hear you call his thorp that,” I counseled.
“But there was a town!” he gasped. “I was crossing the street in a storm, and heard a crash, and then I stood on the beach and the town was gone!”
“He’s mad,” said Sigurd, backing away. “Be careful. If he starts to foam at the mouth, it means he’s going berserk.”
“Who are you?” babbled the stranger. “What are you doing in those clothes? Why the spears?”
Harry Turtledove Page 17
