“‘Yeah?’ is my comment. ‘Well, he is beginning to look irritated. I don’t think he likes Hollywood night life. Nobody seems to have been hurt yet, but—’
“Doc’s dinosaur did look peeved. His flabby lips drew back in a snarl, showing his teeth. He sort of bristled up on his hind legs, like a walking mountain, and his snaky neck darted from one side to the other.
“He still headed for the theatre, shaking the earth as he shambled along the little flag-laden parkway in the middle of the wide boulevard. Right across from his great shadowy bulk was the theatre entrance, blazing with light.
“There, under a flower-banked canopy were the stars of Back To The Dawn, Dorothy LaMarr and Stanley Smoosh, dithering into a microphone.
“Suddenly, as I glanced around, I heard a lot of commotion off to one side. Then Brindell van Hastings’ fat torso pushed out of the sidelines, followed by a flock of cameramen and props carrying cameras and flood-lights.
“Brindell van Hastings was one of Hollywood’s ace flicker men. He was producer-director of the premiere opus. He yelled and gesticulated at his men.
“They propped up their sound cameras and flood-lights, and went to work, under his orders.
“There were about half a million other cameras snapping and blinking up at Doc’s brontosaurus, too. Reporters, newsreel men, and amateurs. No wonder the dino was annoyed.
“He unclamped his jaws, slavered, and uttered a thunderous squeal. Then he lumbered over and dumped one of the cameras, sending the cameraman sprawling.
“‘You big baboon!’ Van Hastings yells, shaking his fist up at him. He whirled on his men. ‘Get all this action, you nincompoops—or I’ll chop you!’
“‘Quick, Jock!’ Doc Greylock yells, pulling my arm. ‘You start wheeling the Time-Net out, and set the cable up around him, while I go and enlist the aid of the police!’
“So I started carting the junk out of the station wagon, shoving bystanders aside.
“‘What’s up, Bub?’ the guy with the red-head asks importantly, grabbing my arm.
“‘Listen,’ I tells him. ‘That dino is on the level. And if you and this whole bunch of boobs knows what’s good for you, you’ll blow!’ There upon I socked him for being so familiar.
“Things commenced to happen thick and fast after that.
“Word spread around that the dino wasn’t a fakus, and before long the whole mob was bleating and milling like a herd of sheep.
“It was my last trip. I wheeled the Doc’s gadget ahead of me like a kiddie-car. The monster started cleaning up.
“I heard a shrill feminine shriek. It was Dorothy LaMarr. Her dress was gold, and shone fit to knock your eyes right out through the back of your head.
“I wouldn’t know whether the dino liked that or didn’t like it. Anyway, he made a sideways grab at her with one of his slow-moving nippers—the size of a steam-shovel scoop.
“I was too far away to do anything. Not that I would have anyway. Who but a dope wants to pick on a walking mountain?
“But Stanley Smoosh did something. He started to run away. His cute face was drained white as a blotter.
“But his foot got tangled up in the train of Dorothy LaMarr’s dress, and he fell flat, right plop on Dorothy.
“This was a break for her, as it turned out, on account of the dino missed her, and had to draw his claw back for another grab.
“By this time Dorothy and Stanley Smoosh, hugging each other like they never even had done in flickers, crawled hurriedly away to hide in a hole somewhere.
“Which wasn’t a bad idea.
“Me, I had to get real close to the monster, in order to set out the boundaries for the Time-Net. He caught sight of me, and turned on me curiously.
“The place was a pandemonium. Everybody was wise by now that this was the real McCoy. Not a reasonable facsimile.
“They were shrieking, and yelling, and trampling each other underfoot. Made a kind of Roman holiday of it.
“Van Hastings’ cameras were still rolling, getting it all in. He stood off to one side, yelling directions. His strident voice topped them all.
“I edged around the dino, spreading out the heavy coil of wires that was to mark the Time-Net limits. And when I edged, he edged.
“His snaky head weaved downward to get a good look at what I was up to. His funny eyes blinked at me coldly.
“Finally I had the time circle around him. I knocked down a couple of Van Hastings’ flood-lights to do it, and he let loose with a couple of old Armenian curses.
“‘Go peel an apple-knocker,’ I says.
“I caught a glimpse of Doc running toward me and the dino, with a battery of cops on his tail. I turned to yell at him.
“About that time I felt a slimy claw reach around my mid-section, and sweep me up in the air. First thing I knew the palms; searchlights, and mob was all way down below.
“I sweated, struggled, and yelled. Then I was peering into the ugliest puss I ever hope to see. Awful green and brown and orange, with cold lizard’s eyes, and a red gaping mouth. The odor that came out of it gagged me.
“‘Let me down, King Kong!’ I hollers. ‘You’re pinching my belly!’
“Down below, running back and forth, was Doc Greylock. And in his hand he held the Time-Bomb.
“‘Throw it!’ I yells.
“‘No!’ his far-off voice protests. ‘You don’t want to go back to the Mesozoic too, do you?’
“I could see what he meant. It looked bad.”
* * * *
“What happened, Mr. Wemple?” I asked breathlessly. Very deliberately, he called the waiter over, and ordered three more beers.
“You ain’t interested, chum,” Wemple grinned aggravatingly. “No. You don’t want to hear my story. I’ll stop now!”
“Please, Mr. Wemple,” I said very humbly. “Don’t stop now! The brontosaurus has got you in his clutches!”
“Okay, chum,” he grinned. “I was only kidding. Well—
“The idea was to get him to set me down easy, if possible. Instead of plucking me to pieces, or tossing me clear down to Central Avenue…
“I yanked out this little pen knife I always carry on the other end of my watch chain. I jabbed it into his claw.
“He let out a funny squeal, looking down at me questioningly.
“I jabbed him again. He swung me around until I didn’t know from nothing.
“I found out later Doc distracted him some way, and he swung his claw down, tossing me carelessly away. I passed out cold.
“But not before I vaguely glimpsed Doc draw back, like a Notre Dame left end, and toss his Time-Bomb…
“When I woke I was lying on grass. That scared me. Grass! I didn’t dare open my eyes for a couple seconds. Then somebody grabbed my arms, and turned me over.
“I blinked my peepers open. ‘Doc!’ I yells. ‘Are we in the Mesozoic?’
“‘No, Jock.’ Doc felt me over for broken bones. ‘I thought you’d be half-dead. You seem to be indestructible!’
“‘Where’s our playmate?’ Tasks, pushing up on my pins, and squinting dizzily around.
“He’d tossed me on the parkway grass, which helped break my fall a trifle. But no brontosaurus could I see.
“‘Back where he came from,’ Doc says. ‘A sadder and wiser lizard, no doubt. You know, Jock, I’ve just figured out something that has been puzzling me for some time. Just why the dinosaur was so persistent in his drive to get to the Theatre—’
“‘Maybe he ain’t never seen a premiere,’ I puts in.
“‘Jock, I think the Cathay Square Theatre is now standing in the exact spot that was his home-site, back in the Mesozoic. Instinct immediately brought him here, and when he didn’t find his mate waiting for him, he became furious.
“‘The brontosaurus was a herbivorous lizard. He wouldn’t have eaten anyone, but—’
“‘But he sure could have trampled this joint into a shambles!’ I finished for him.
“The police herded
the crowd gently away, but a lot of them stayed. The feeling persisted that this had been all part of the show. And would you believe it, they went right ahead with the premiere.
“A medium sized crowd hemmed us in, curious-eyed. All at once Brindell van Hastings bristled through, and marched importantly up to the Doc.
“‘So you’re the scientist who invented the Time-Net, that brought back the dinosaur!’ he cries, sizing the Doc up. He shoved a paper and pen into Doc’s hands. ‘Sign right there, on the dotted line!’
“‘What is—?’ Doc begins puzzledly.
“Van Hastings looked around him fearfully, as if he was afraid of rival studio spies, and then bent over pompously and whispered something in Doc’s ear.
“‘What did you say?’” Doc exclaims.
“Van Hastings gives a repeat performance. This time I shove my shell-like ear in and get the low-down.
“It was like this: Van Hastings wanted Doc Greylock to use his Time-Net to reach back in time and snare glamour gals like Cleopatra, Salome, and Helen of Troy, right out of their boudoirs—for him to star in exclusive autobiographical movies of their lives!
“Wow! I waited eagerly to hear what sad-faced old Doc Greylock would say to that. Knowing how he never had much use for women before, I doubted that he would approve.
“Doc’s eyes glittered. He pulled at his straw moustache, like he always did when in deep thought.
“‘Van Hastings!’ he says suddenly. ‘I will not sign on any dotted line! I will not get Cleopatra and Salome out of the past—for you to star in your misinformative epics! But you have given me a very marvelous idea! Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to—’”
* * * *
“Lem Mason, I’m surprised at you!” a shocked feminine voice behind me cried.
I was following Jock Wemple’s narrative breathlessly, so only glanced back in annoyance. But one glance was enough.
It was Susie May. She was standing in the bar-room doorway, tapping her foot. And when Susie May taps her foot, look out.
“Susie May!” I choked. “Er—have a drink?”
She sauntered over. “I will not have a drink, you wolf in cheap clothing! Sitting here talking about other girls behind my back, right in front of my face. I heard you!”
She talked so fast she swallowed her gum.
“But, Susie! We were only talking about Cleopatra. You know her!”
Her eyes snapped fire.
“I sure do know about her! She’s one of those burlesque queens down at the Folly Theayter on Main Street!”
She pulled me toward the door, tossing Mr. Wemple a look of scorn.
“Come away from that Hollywood smasher. He’s a bad influence on you, Lem!”
“But—”
At the doorway, as she whirled me out, I clung to the edge of the bar and yelled back,
“What was it the Doc said, Wemple? Quick!”
He looked up from his sixth beer, winked and nodded rakishly.
“Doc says to Brindell van Hastings, ‘You’ve given me a marvelous idea! I’m going to build me a hideaway some place far away, and bring back some of them historical glamour gals—all for myself!’”
TIME OUT FOR TOMORROW, by Richard Wilson
Originally published in Science Fantasy, December 1957.
Darius Dale banged on the speaker’s table with his empty highball glass in an attempt to bring the Omega Club to order. He didn’t have instant success because many of the members and guests had some holiday cheer in their glasses and others were at the bar getting refills. It was the Omega’s Club annual Christmas party and Darius, the chairman of the entertainment committee, was having his usual trouble getting people to sit down and pay attention.
Any other responsible scientist who had been visited by a man from the future probably would not have asked his visitor to become, in effect, a vaudeville performer. But Darius at the age of thirty was not yet altogether responsible. He had been a science fiction writer long before he became an electronics engineer and had never lost the prankishness which was reflected in some of his best stories.
And the Omega Club—that amorphous collection of science fiction writers, editors, illustrators, agents and just plain readers—was Darius’ first love.
Besides, it was the Christmas season, which meant a skit for the Christmas party. Darius Dale, perennial chairman in charge of the skit, had been procrastinating this year and had prepared nothing. His big worry had been a rush rewrite of the last two chapters of his new magazine serial—the first installment of which had already been published. It just happened to be a time travel yarn. So, when the time traveler made his appearance in Darius’ writing room one evening in late November, the nimble Dale mind quickly worked out several ways in which the visitor might be helpful.
* * * *
The hubbub of the Christmas party showed no signs of abating.
Darius shrugged and put his glass down. He buttoned his double-breasted coat and around his generous middle and killed time by telling his story about the old maid and the Martian. Groans and cries of protest came from those already seated but Darius only leered at them and went on with the story, varying it here and there from last year’s version and dragging in the names of prominent club members as incidental characters.
Darius finally reached the punch line—”‘By Deimos and Phobos,’ The Martian said, rubbing his eyes in the morning light, ‘two more!’”—and was rewarded with boos and jeers, as was customary.
By now the last straggler had seated himself. The straggler was James Overholt Edison, the science fiction editor who signed his editorials “—joe,” but who instead had come to be known to his readers as Old Overholt. He was pushing thirty-five, at most, and generally was sober.
“I missed your story, Darius,” Edison said pleasantly, stirring his fresh drink with a forefinger. “Would you mind repeating it?”
“Gladly, Joe,” said Darius, baring his teeth in a simulated smile. “I’ll have it on your desk next week, at my usual three and a half cents a word.”
“Frankly,” said Edison, “I’d be happier to see the re-do of the time-travel yarn. The printer’s having an ulcer. Just like mine.”
“I didn’t think this was a business meeting,” said Walter Crown, the agent, “but if it is I want my ten percent, Darius.”
“My right arm up to the elbow you’ve already got, Walter,” said Darius. “How much more?”
“As much more as it takes to make the next payment on his Cadillac,” said Edison. “That’s how much.”
“It’s only a Buick,” Walter Crown protested good-naturedly, “and I’m its sole support.”
“Buick-schmuick,” cried Darius Dale banging on the table again. “The meeting will come to order and be entertained. The feature of the evening, ladies and gentlemen, an act guaranteed to thrill and astound—not to mention astonish and amaze—has been obtained for your delectation at great trouble and expense.”
“How much expense?” demanded Jennie Rhine, the glamour-girl secretary-treasurer of the Omega Club.
“At ease!” cried Darius. “Hardly as much as you get for one of your illustrations, Jennie. Fifty dollars. I say it at the risk of embarrassing our guest, whose name…”
“Fifty dollars!” Jennie shrieked theatrically. She shook her dark head in dismay. “And just when I thought the books might balance.”
“A little dignity, please!” bellowed Darius. “Let’s not drag the good name of the Omega Club through these sordid financial gutters. Our many distinguished guests,” he said, looking around the large room through his thick horn-rims, “include, I have been told, a Life photographer and, for better or worse, one of the brighter young men from The New Yorker.”
“Gosh-wow-boyoboy!” quoted a thirsty member who was on his way to the bar.
“That was Time, George,” Darius said. “And why don’t you come back and sit down quietly before they reprint that precious little slander. George! If you insist on go
ing out there, bring me one, too—Scotch and water.”
George Granger, the novelist, nodded and kept going barwards.
* * * *
“Let’s get the show on the road, Darius,” Edison said and began to stamp his feet. Others joined in, beating out the slow rhythm of an impatient audience.
A portly figure stood up and went “Ahem” and “If you please” until the stomping ceased.
“Not now, Zorry,” said Darius hopefully.
“I insist,” said Zoroaster Ramm, the critic and anthologist. “I feel I must, under the circumstances, acquaint our new friends here tonight with the true aim of the Omega Club, lest they wrongly conclude that it is merely the gathering of juvenile science fictionists and—and—”
“Drunken crackpots.” George Granger supplied the description as he ambled back from the bar and handed Darius his drink. “Or maybe cracken drunkpots, Zorry. You admonish ’em, keed.”
Zoroaster Ramm smiled with what he imagined to be indulgence and waited for the laughter to die down. “It was not my intention to admonish anyone. I’ll leave that to the distinguished editor of Admonishing Stories.” He waited for a laugh of his own, but the only response was a polite smile from Edison, the editor of Astonishing Science Fiction. “However, at the risk of boring you—”
“Hear! Hear!” cried a voice from behind him.
“—at the risk of restating something already known to many here,” Zoroaster Ramm plowed on, “science fiction is not an adolescent hobby, but a finger pointing the way to the future, the harbinger of the stars, so to speak; the first faltering step—”
“Thank you very much, Zorry,” Darius said quickly, looking at his watch. “I’m sure we all agree. And now for the feature presentation of the evening, which happens to be not the finger to the future, as Mr. Ramm so putly apt it—aptly put it—what’s in this drink, George?—but the finger from the future, together with all the rest of him…Mr. Future himself!”
Darius Dale gestured with a flourish to the emptiness beside him on the speaker’s platform.
Nothing happened, except that Zoroaster Ramm sat down regretfully, looking hurt.
Darius looked at his watch again, held it up to his ear, shrugged and asked: “Who’s got the right time?”
The Third Time Travel Page 20
