A thought nagged at him, tugging at the back of his mind as he rode onward. It didn't hit him for several million years, then: The moon! Oh, my God, the moon!
His hands trembled too violently for him to stop the machine. Finally, with an effort, he controlled himself enough to pull the switch. He skipped on, looking for a night of full moon.
Luna. The same old face—Luna!
The shock was too great to register. Numbly, he resumed his journey. And the world began to look familiar, there were low forested hills and a river shining in the distance …
He didn't really believe it till he saw the village. It was the same—Hudson, New York.
He sat for a moment, letting his physicist's brain consider the tremendous fact. In Newtonian terms, it meant that every particle newly formed in the Beginning had exactly the same position and velocity as every corresponding particle formed in the previous cycle. In more acceptable Einsteinian language, the continuum was spherical in all four dimensions. In any case—if you traveled long enough, through space or time, you got back to your starting point.
He could go home!
He ran down the sunlit hill, heedless of his foreign garments, ran till the breath sobbed in raw lungs and his heart seemed about to burst from the ribs. Gasping, he entered the village, went into a bank, and looked at the tear-off calendar and the wall clock.
June 17, 1936, 1:30 PM. From that, he could figure his time of arrival in 1973 to the minute.
He walked slowly back, his legs trembling under him, and started the time machine again. Grayness was outside—for the last time.
1973.
Martin Saunders stepped out of the machine. Its moving in space, at Brontothor, had brought it outside MacPherson's house; it lay halfway up the hill at the top of which the rambling old building stood.
There came a flare of soundless energy. Saunders sprang back in alarm and saw the machine dissolve into molten metal—into gas—into a nothingness that shone briefly and was gone.
The gods must have put some annihilating device into it. They didn't want its devices from the future loose in the twentieth century.
But there was no danger of that, thought Saunders as he walked slowly up the hill through the rain-wet grass. He had seen too much of war and horror ever to give men knowledge they weren't ready for. He and Eve and MacPherson would have to suppress the story of his return around time—for that would offer a means of travel into the past, remove the barrier that would keep man from too much use of the machine for murder and oppression. The Second Empire and the Dreamer's philosophy lay a long time in the future.
He went on. The hill seemed strangely unreal, after all that he had seen from it, the whole enormous tomorrow of the cosmos. He would never quite fit into the little round of days that lay ahead.
Taury—her bright lovely face floated before him, he thought he heard her voice whisper in the cool wet wind that stroked his hair like her strong, gentle hands.
“Goodbye,” he whispered into the reaching immensity of time. “Goodbye, my dearest.”
He went slowly up the steps and in the front door. There would be Sam to mourn. And then there would be the carefully censored thesis to write, and a life spent in satisfying work with a girl who was sweet and kind and beautiful even if she wasn't Taury. It was enough for a mortal man.
He walked into the living room and smiled at Eve and Mac Pherson. “Hello,” he said. “I guess I must be a little early.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A MULTIPLE WINNER of the Hugo and Nebula awards, Poul Anderson (1926– 2001) wrote dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories since his science fiction debut in 1947. His long-running Technic History saga, a multibook chronicle of interstellar exploration and empire building, covers fifty centuries of future history and includes the acclaimed novels War of the Wing-Men, The Day of Their Return, and The Game of Empire. Anderson has tackled many of science fiction's classic themes, including human evolution in Brain Wave (1954), near-light-speed space travel in Tau Zero (1970), and the time travel paradox in his series of Time Patrol stories collected as Guardians of Time. He is renowned for his interweaving of science fiction and mythology, notably in his alien-contact novel The High Crusade. He also has produced distinguished fantasy fiction, including the heroic sagas Three Hearts and Three Lions and The Broken Sword, and an alternate history according to Shakespeare, A Midsummer Tempest. He received the Tolkien Memorial Award in 1978. With his wife, Karen, he wrote the King of Ys Celtic Fantasy quartet. With Gordon Dickson, he has authored the popular comic Hoka series. His short story “Call Me Joe” was chosen for inclusion in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1974, and his short fiction has been collected in several volumes, notably The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories, All One Universe, and The Best of Poul Anderson.
Gregory Benford has published more than twenty books, mostly novels. Nearly all remain in print, some after a quarter of a century. His fiction has won many awards, including the Nebula Award for his novel Timescape. A winner of the United Nations Medal for Literature, he is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, was Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, and in 1995 received the Lord Prize for contributions to science. He won the Japan Seiun Award for Dramatic Presentation with his seven-hour series, A Galactic Odyssey. His 1999 analysis of what endures, Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates across Millennia, has been widely read. A fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, he continues his research in both astrophysics and plasma physics. Time allowing, he continues to write both fiction and nonfiction. Recently he began a series on science and society with biologist Michael Rose, published online at Amazon.com Shorts. You can visit this site at www.benford-rose.com
Fredric Brown (l909–l972) was, with Robert Bloch, one of only two writers who attained equal prominence in mystery and science fiction. His first novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint, won the MWA Edgar for Best First Mystery in l947, and his science fiction novelette “Arena” (l944) appears in the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame and has been reprinted dozens of times. Brown's science fiction novels include What Mad Universe; The Lights in the Sky Are Stars; and Martians, Go Home! Collections such as Nightmares and Geezenstacks validate his reputation as the finest practitioner of the short short story in the history of science fiction.
Edward Bryant was reared in the dry ranching country of southern Wyoming until he made his first fiction sale in 1968. Since then he's written primarily short fiction, some of which has been collected in such volumes as Among the Dead, Cinnabar, and Particle Theory. He also wrote Phoenix Without Ashes, a novel in collaboration with Harlan Ellison. Over the decades, he's also worked as a reviewer for Locus and Twilight Zone Magazine, an Internet interviewer for Omni magazine, and chaired the 2000 World Horror Convention. Graduate of the Clarion Workshop and founder of the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop, he's frequently lectured at various universities. In Hollywood he's written for CBS and the Disney Channel. Presently he lives in Denver.
Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools. Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy (Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys); biblical novels (Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah); the American frontier fantasy series the Tales of Alvin Maker (beginning with Seventh Son); poetry (An Open Book); and many plays and scripts. He was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs plays. He recently began a long-term position as a professor of writing and literature at Southern Virginia University. Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, and their youngest child, Zina Margaret.
Arthur C. Clar
ke's (1917–2008) wrote some of the finest science fiction of the twentieth century and manifests in a variety of forms, including the mysterious extraterrestrial overseers guiding human destiny in his best-known story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and its sequels 2010: Odyssey Two; 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: Final Odyssey represents the culmination of ideas on man's place in the universe introduced in his 1951 story, “The Sentinel,” and elaborated more fully in Childhood's End, his elegiac novel on humankind's maturation as a species and ascent to a greater purpose in the universal scheme. Clarke grounds the cosmic mystery of these stories in hard science. Degreed in physics and mathematics, he contributed to numerous scientific journals and first proposed the idea for the geosynchronous orbiting communications satellite in 1945. His Hugo and Nebula Award–winning A Rendezvous with Rama extrapolated his solid scientific inquiry into provocative new territory, telling of the human discovery of an apparently abandoned alien space ship and human attempts to understand its advanced scientific principles. He wrote Islands in the Sky and Dolphin Island for young readers, and his short fiction has been collected in Expedition to Earth, Reach for Tomorrow, Tales from the White Hart, The Wind from the Sun, and others. His numerous books of nonfiction include his award-winning The Exploration of Space, and the autobiographical Astounding Days. Clarke was officially knighted by the Queen of England in 2000.
Lester del Rey (1915–1993) sold his first short story to John W. Campbell at Astounding, and by the early l940s had become one of the key contributors to Astounding’s great first decade. Del Rey also contributed to Street & Smith's fantasy companion to Astounding, Unknown Worlds, and in l947 sold his first book, a collection of short stories And Some Were Human, to Prime Press. After the war, he worked as an editor at the offices of his new literary agent, Scott Meredith, before becoming a full-time freelancer; he also edited Space Science Fiction, a short-lived 1950s digest magazine, and with The Runaway Robot (1952) inaugurated a series of juvenile science fiction novels for Winston Publishers that were popular and influential. He married Judy-Lynn (neé Benjamin) in 1970 and with her became joint publisher of Ballantine's Del Rey books in l975. Del Rey Books under their guidance became the most important and successful of all science fiction publishers, bringing bestseller status to many writers such as Anne McCaffrey, Terry Brooks (Lester del Rey's discovery), and Stephen Donaldson. When Judy-Lynn died in 1986, Lester del Rey presided over the company until his retirement in 1991. Awarded the SFWA Grand Master Award that same year, del Rey passed away in 1993.
Worldwide bestselling author Neil Gaiman has long been one of the top writers in modern comics, as well as writing books for readers of all ages. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama. His New York Times bestselling 2001 novel for adults, American Gods, was awarded the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX, and Locus awards; was nominated for many other awards, including the World Fantasy Award and the Minnesota Book Award; and appeared on many best-of-year lists. His official Web site, www.neilgaiman.com, now has more than one million unique visitors each month, and his online journal is syndicated to thousands of blog readers every day. Born and raised in England, Neil Gaiman now lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has somehow reached his forties and still tends to need a haircut. Recently his children's book The Graveyard Book won several awards, including the Newbery Award, the Hugo, and the Locus Award for best children's novel.
Rick Hautala has had more than thirty books published under his own name and the pseudonym A. J. Mathews, including the million-copy, international bestsellers Nightstone, and Bedbugs, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, Four Octobers, The White Room, Looking Glass, Follow, and Unbroken. More than sixty of his short stories have appeared in a variety of national and international anthologies and magazines. His screenplay Chills was recently optioned by Chesapeake Films. Born and raised in Rockport, Mass., he is a graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with an M.A. in English Literature. He lives in southern Maine with author Holly Newstein and Kiera, the Wonder Dog. Visit him at www.rickhautala.com.
John Helfers is a full-time writer and editor living and working in Green Bay, Wisconsin. During his career, he has worked on anthology and novel projects with many bestselling authors. He has written and edited both fiction and nonfiction, including Tom Clancy's Net Force Explorers: Cloak and Dagger, The Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to the U.S. Navy, and the forthcoming nonfiction anthology From the Jaws of Death. His most recent nonfiction project, The Vorkosigan Companion, coedited with Lillian Stewart Carl, was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2009.
Nancy Kress is the author of twenty-six books: three fantasy novels, twelve science fiction novels, three thrillers, four collections of short stories, one you ads novel, and three books on writing fiction. She is perhaps best known for the Sleepless trilogy that began with Beggars in Spain. The novel was based on a Nebula- and Hugo-winning novella of the same name. She won her second Hugo in 2009 in Montreal, for the novella “The Erdmann Nexus.” Kress has also won three additional Nebulas, a Sturgeon, and the 2003 John W. Campbell Award (for Probability Space). Her most recent books are a collection of short stories, Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories (Golden Gryphon Press, 2008); a bio-thriller, Dogs (Tachyon Press, 2008); and science fiction novel, Steal Across The Sky (Tor, 2009). Kress's fiction, much of which concerns genetic engineering, has been translated into twenty languages. She often teaches writing at various venues around the country. Kress lives in Rochester, New York, with Cosette, the world's most spoiled toy poodle.
George R. R. Martin's varied output is divided between horror, fantasy, and science fiction, and has earned him multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards as well as a Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers’ Association. His science fiction novels include Dying of Light, and with Lisa Tuttle, Windhaven. Martin has written some of the best novella-length science fiction in the past two decades, including the award-winning “Sandkings,” and “Nightflyers,” which was adapted for the screen in 1987. Much of his best writing is collected in A Song for Lya and Other Stories, Songs of Stars and Shadows, Sandkings, Songs the Dead Men Sing, Tuf Voyaging, and Portraits of His Children. His horror novels include the period vampire masterpiece Fevre Dream and The Armageddon Rag, an evocative glimpse at the dark side of the 60s counterculture considered one of the top rock-and-roll novels of all time. Currently he is working on the next volume in his epic Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin has written for a number of television series, including the new Twilight Zone series, and has edited fifteen volumes of the Wild Cards series of shared-world anthologies.
Though William F. Nolan is known for his great science fiction trilogy Logan's Run (coauthored with George Clayton Johnson), Logan's World, and Logan's Search, he has also distinguished himself in the crime, mystery, and western genres as well—as a glance at his many awards will tell you. He has received the American Library Association citation (1960), Mystery Writers of America award (1970, 1972), the Academy of Science Fiction and Fantasy award for fiction and film (1976), the Maltese Falcon award (1977) and an Honorary Doctorate from American River College in Sacramento, california (1975). He has written major dramas for both television and movies, including Burnt Offerings, which starred Karen Black and Bette Davis. He currently lives and works in Vancouver, Washington.
Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in New Jersey. He went into the U.S. Army after high school and served in Korea. After discharge he attended NYU, graduating with a degree in English. He began selling stories to all the science-fiction magazines soon after his graduation, producing several hundred over the next several years. His best-known books in the science-fiction field are Immortality, Inc.; Mindswap; and Dimension of Miracles. He produced more than sixty-five books throughout his career, including twenty novels and nine collections of his short stories, as well as his five-volume Collec
ted Short Stories of Robert Sheckley, published by Pulphouse. In 1991, he received the Daniel F. Gallun award for contributions to the genre of science-fiction, and in 2001 he was given the Author Emeritus award by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Lucius Shepard lives in Portland, Oregon. His latest collection of short fiction is Viator Plus, and his latest novel, out in 2010, is titled Beautiful Blood. Forthcoming is the novella collection, Five Autobiographies.
Born in New York City, Robert Silverberg was educated at Columbia University and has been a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area for many years. His first book, Revolt on Alpha C, was published in 1955. He is a four-time Hugo Award winner (1956, 1969, 1987, 1990) and a five-time Nebula Award winner (1970, 1972, 1972 again, 1975, 1986) and has received most of the other significant science fiction honors including being named Grand master by the Science Fiction Writters of America in 2004. He served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, 1967–68, and was the guest of honor at the 1970 World Science Fiction Convention in Heidelberg, Germany. He is the author of more than a hundred books and an uncounted number of short stories. Among the best known titles—Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, Nightwings, Thorns, Up the Line, Tower of Glass, Gilgamesh the King, Lord Valentine's Castle, The Man in the Maze, Downward to the Earth, at Winter's End, Born with the Dead, Nightfall (with Isaac Asimov), Hot Sky at Midnight, and The Alien Years. An accomplished editor, he oversaw the New Dimensions series of anthologies from 1971 to 1980, the first volume of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame series, and Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder (reissued as Science Fiction 101), an anthology of great science fiction that is also a collection of his essays on the art of writing science fiction. He was the editor of the Legends and Far Horizons anthology series, and with his wife, Karen Haber, edited the Universe series of science fiction anthologies.
The End Of The World Page 37
