by Anthology
He must have walked half a mile without coming upon one single familiar landmark. A finger-post told him what he already knew—that he was four miles from Ealing Village. He paused outside an inn to read a notice which announced that the stage-coach Highflyer, plying between London and Oxford, would arrive at the George at Ealing (d.v.) at 10.45 A.M. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He was turning away, having read the bill, when he first saw Miss Marjory.
She was, if you please, a full seventeen years of age, and husband-high according to the custom of her times. She wore a prim little bonnet, a costume of royal blue, and carried a silk parasol which, when open, must have looked ludicrously small. He had one full glance at her piquantly pretty face and saw, for the fraction of an instant, great blue eyes staring at him in frank wonderment. She lowered her gaze abruptly, with an air of conscious modesty, when she saw that he had observed her.
Hitherto, as far as the strange circumstances permitted, Trimmer had felt entirely normal. That is to say that his emotions and outlook were in keeping with a man of his age, station, education and habit of mind. Now came a change, sudden, bewildering, well-nigh overwhelming.
Once he had been in a state which, for want of a better phrase, he called being “in love.” He had “walked out” with a young lady who was a draper’s assistant. After a while she had deserted him because of the superior attractions of a young clerk in a warehouse. He had been wounded, but not deeply wounded. Marriage was not necessary to his temperament, or, as he put it, he could get along without women. Not for the last sixteen years had he thought of love until that moment, when he, the waif of another century, beheld Miss Marjory.
It was as if some strange secret were revealed to him on the instant. The ecstasy of love which engulfed him like a wave told him that here was his true mate, his complement according to Nature, born into this world, alas! one hundred and fifty years too early for him. Yet, for all that, by a miracle, by witchcraft, by some oversetting of the normal laws, the gulf had been bridged, and they stood now face to face. He walked towards her, fumbling in his mind for something to say, some gallantry preliminary to street flirtations such as happened around him every day.
“Good evening, miss,” he said.
He saw the blush in her cheek deepen, and she answered without regarding him:
“Oh, sir, I pray you not to molest me. I am an honest maiden alone and unprotected.”
“I’m not molestin’ you, miss. And you needn’t be alone and unprotected unless you like.”
The maiden’s eyelids flickered up and then down again.
“Oh, fie on you, sir!” she said. “Fie on you for a bold man! I would have you know that my father is a highly respected mercer and drives into London daily in his own chaise. I have been brought up to learn all the polite accomplishments. ‘Twould not be seemly for me to walk and talk with strangers.”
“There’s exceptions to every rule, miss.”
Once more she gave him a quick modest glance.
“Nay, sir, but you have a pretty wit. ‘Tis said that curiosity is a permitted weakness to us women. I vow that you are a foreigner. Your accents and strange attire betray you. Yet I have not the wit to guess whence you come, nor the boldness to ask.”
“I’m as English as you are, miss,” Trimmer protested, a little hurt.
The ready blush came once more to her cheek.
“Your pardon, sir, if I did mistake you for one of those mincing Frenchies. Nay, be not offended. I have heard tell that there is something vastly attractive about a Frenchy, so, if I made the error, Oh, why does my tongue betray my modesty!”
“I don’t know, miss. But what about a little walk?”
She broke into a delightful little laugh.
“Sir, you speak a strange tongue and wear strange clothes. Yet I confess I find both to my mind. Doubtless you wonder how it is that you find a young lady like myself promenading alone at fall of evening. Ah, me, I fear that Satan is enthroned in my heart! I am acting thus to punish my papa.”
Trimmer made an incoherent noise.
“He promised to take me to Bath, and broke his promise,” she continued. “Oh, sir, what crimes are done to the young in the name of Business! He has not the time, if I would credit such a tale! So, to serve him, he shall hear that his daughter walked abroad at evening unattended, like any common Poll or Moll. You may walk with me a few yards if it be your pleasure, sir—but only a few yards. I would not have my papa too angry with his Marjory.”
From then he had no count of time. He walked with her in a sort of dream-ecstasy, while veil after veil of darkness fell over the fields of pasture and half-grown corn. When at last she insisted that the time had come for parting he stole a kiss from her, a theft at which she more than half connived. In a low voice she confessed to him that she was not so sure of her heart as she had been at sunset.
Trimmer walked back on air to where his shop stood, alone and incongruous. He had learned the true meaning of love, and was drunk with an emotion which hitherto he had scarcely sipped. They had made an assignation for the following evening; for he believed that he had been fated to meet her, and that his shop door would let him out once more into the eighteenth century.
When he returned to his shop he was aware of one strange thing—that while it was visible to him it was invisible to others in the world to which it gave him access. He expected to find a crowd around it on his return, so queer and incongruous must it have looked to eighteenth-century eyes. But only a rustic couple was strolling in the moonlight, on the other side of the road, and as he crossed the threshold it must have seemed to them that he had vanished into thin air, for he heard a shrill scream, which ceased on the instant as the clock struck the first beat of twelve.
He was back once more in the twentieth century, his heart full of a girl who was a hundred and fifty years away. He was like a boy after his first kiss under a moonlit hedge. To-morrow night, he promised himself, if he could get back to the eighteenth century, he would remain in it, marry Marjory and live out his life, secure in the knowledge that Time was standing still and awaiting his return.
4
Next morning the change in Charles Trimmer was still more marked. There was a far-off look in his eyes and a strange smile on his lips.
“If I didn’t know ole Charlie,” said Mr. Bunce, the butcher, to a friend, over the midday glass, “I should think he was in love.”
Trimmer cared little about what his neighbours thought of him, nor had he any longer a regard for his business. His whole mind was centred upon the coming of midnight when, perhaps, he could step out across the years and take Marjory into his arms. He had no thought for anything else. Not having heard of La Belle Dame Sans Merci he saw no danger in his obsession. If he had it would have been the same.
Strangely enough he did not trouble himself greatly as to how he had come by this strange gift. He gave little thought to the old crosseyed woman who had bestowed it upon him, nor did he speculate much as to what strange powers she possessed. Enough that the gift was his.
It was a world of dazzling white which Trimmer saw when he peeped through the blind that night. It startled him a little, for he had not thought of seeing snow. There was no saying now what period he would step into outside his shop. Snow was like a mask on the face of Nature.
For a thinking space he was doubtful if he should venture out, but the fear of missing Marjory compelled him. His teeth chattered as he plunged knee-deep into a drift, but he scrambled up over a small mound, on which the snow was only ankle-deep, and beneath him the surface was hard, possibly that of a road. He turned his face towards London, wondering whether the snow concealed the friendly pastures of the eighteenth century or the wilderness of some unguessed-at period of time.
Away to his left, looking in a straight line midway between Harrow Hill and London, he could see a forest holding aloft a canopy of snow. He had forgotten if he had seen a wood in that direction on the occasion when he had met Marjory. He tri
ed to rack his brains as he trudged on, shivering, hands deep in pockets.
He had walked perhaps half a mile on what certainly seemed some sort of a track, without passing a house or any living person, when a sound, which he associated with civilization, smote upon his ears. It was the low, mournful howling of a dog.
The howling was taken up by other dogs, he could not guess how many, but the effect of it was weird and infinitely mournful. As nearly as he was able to locate them, the sounds came from the direction of the forest.
Vaguely he wondered whose dogs they were and why they were howling. Perhaps they were cold, poor devils. People in less advanced times were very likely cruel to their dogs. They left them out, even on such nights as this.
He trudged on, listening to this intermittent howling and baying, which became more frequent and sounded nearer. Vague fears began to assail him. He was not afraid of dogs which had been made domestic pets—the Fidos and Rovers and Peters of the happy twentieth century. But suppose these were savage—wild?
He halted doubtfully, and as he halted he saw some of them for the first time. There were six of them, and they were streaming across the snowfield from the direction of the forest, one slightly in advance of the others. They were barking and squealing, like hounds hot upon a scent. Their leader, a lean grey brute, raised his head, and uttered a loud yelp, and as he did so Trimmer saw that his eyes were luminous and burning, like two red coals.
In response to the creature’s yelp the whole fringe of the wood became alive with his kind. The darkness was specked with vicious luminous eyes. Over the snowfield came the pack, as a black cloud crosses the sky. Trimmer uttered a little sharp cry of fear.
“Wolves!” he gasped aloud. “Wolves!”
As he turned and ran an echo of an old history lesson came back to his mind. He remembered having been told that hundreds and hundreds of years ago the English forests were haunted by wolves, which, maddened by hunger in the winter-time, would attack and kill whosoever ventured abroad. He ran like a blind man, stumbling and slipping, with horror and despair storming at his heart.
In the distance he could see his shop, with the safe warm light gleaming like a beacon, but he knew that he could never reach it. The yelping of his pursuers grew nearer every moment. Already he could hear their scampering in the snow behind him. A minute later, and a lean body shot past his thigh, just missing him. He heard the snap of the brute’s jaws as it rolled over in the snow. Then sharp teeth gripped and tore the calf of one of his legs, and he heard amid his terror a worrying snarl as he tried to kick himself free.
More teeth gripped his shoulder. There was a weight on his back—more weight—and terror which drugged physical pain. One arm was seized above the elbow. They were all over him now, snapping, snarling, tearing and worrying. Down they dragged him—down into the snow—down . . .
The policeman, passing the shop of Charles Trimmer at nine in the morning, was surprised to find it not yet open. The daily papers had been left in a pile on the doorstep by the van-boy who had evidently despaired of making any one hear. Being suspicious, the constable examined the door and found that the green blind was lifted a little. Through the chink he could see an eye peering out; but it was an eye which seemed not to see.
Having called out several times and rapped on the glass without evoking any reply, the policeman broke in at the back. He found Charles Trimmer kneeling by the shop door, peering out under the green blind. He was quite dead.
There was not a mark on him, but a doctor giving evidence before the coroner explained that his heart was in a bad way—it weighed a great deal more than a man’s heart ought to weigh—and he had been liable for some time to die suddenly. A nightmare or any sudden shock might have brought this about at any time.
The verdict was in accordance with the evidence.
BIRTH OF A NOTION
Isaac Asimov
That the first inventor of a workable time machine was a science fiction enthusiast is by no means a coincidence. It was inevitable. Why else should an otherwise sane physicist even dare track down the various out-of-the-way theories that seemed to point toward maneuverability in time in the very teeth of General Relativity?
It took energy, of course. Everything takes energy. But Simeon Weill was prepared to pay the price. Anything (well, almost anything) to make his hidden science-fictional dream come true.
The trouble was that there was no way of controlling either the direction or distance through which one was chronologically thrust. It was all the result of random temporal collisions of the harnessed tachyons. Weill could make mice and even rabbits disappear—but future or past, he couldn’t say. One mouse reappeared, so he must have traveled but a short way into the past—and it seemed quite unharmed. The others? Who could tell?
He devised an automatic release for the machine. Theoretically, it would reverse the push (whatever the push might be) and bring back the object (from whichever direction and whatever distance it had gone). It didn’t always work, but five rabbits were brought back unharmed.
If he could only make the release foolproof, Weill would have tried it himself. He was dying to try it—which was not the proper reaction of a theoretical physicist, but was the absolutely predictable emotion of a crazed s.f. fan who was particularly fond of the space-operish productions of some decades before the present year of 1976.
It was inevitable, then, that the accident should happen. On no account would he have stepped between the tempodes with conscious determination. He knew the chances were about two in five he would not return. On the other hand, he was dying to try it, so he tripped over his own big feet and went staggering between those tempodes as a result of total accident . . . But are there really accidents?
He might have been hurled into the past or into the future. As it happened, he was hurled into the past.
He might have been hurled uncounted thousands of years into the past or one and a half days. As it happened, he was hurled fifty-one years into the past to a time when the Teapot Dome Scandal was burning brightly but the nation was keeping Cool with Coolidge and knew that nobody in the world could lick Jack Dempsey.
But there was something that his theories didn’t tell Weill. He knew what could happen to the particles themselves, but there was no way of predicting what would happen to the relationships between the various particles. And where are relationships more complex than in the brain?
So what happened was that as Weill moved backward through time, his mind unreeled. Not all the way, fortunately, since Weill had not yet been conceived in the year before America’s Sesquicentennial, and a brain with less than no development would have been a distinct handicap.
It unreeled haltingly, and partially, and clumsily, and when Weill found himself on a park bench not far from his 1976 home in lower Manhattan, where he experimented in dubious symbiosis with New York University, he found himself in the year 1925 with an abysmally aching head and no very clear idea as to what anything was all about.
He found himself staring at a man of about forty, hair slicked down, cheekbones prominent, beaky nose, who was sharing the same bench with him.
The man looked concerned. He said, “Where did you come from? You were not here a moment ago.” He had a distinct Teutonic accent.
Weill wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember. But one phrase seemed to stick through the chaos within his skull even though he wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Time machine,” he gasped.
The other man stiffened. He said, “Do you read pseudo-scientific romances?”
“What?” said Weill.
“Have you read H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine?”
The repetition of the phrase seemed to soothe Weill a bit. The pain in his head lessened. The name Wells seemed familiar, or was that his own name? No, his own name was Weill.
“Wells?” he said. “I am Weill.”
The other man thrust out a hand. “I am Hugo Gernsback. I write pseudo-scientific romances at times,
but of course, it is not right to say ‘pseudo.’ That makes it seem there is something fake about it. That is not so. It should be properly written and then it will be scientific fiction. I like to shorten that”—his dark eyes gleamed—“to scientifiction.”
“Yes,” said Weill, trying desperately to collect shattered memories and unwound experiences and getting only moods and impressions. “Scientifiction. Better than pseudo. Still not quite—”
“If done well. Have you read my ‘Ralph 124C41+’ ?”
“Hugo Gernsback,” said Weill, frowning, “Famous—”
“In a small way,” said the other, nodding his head. “I have been publishing magazines on radio and on electrical inventions for years. Have you read ‘Science and Invention’?”
Weill caught the word “invention” and somehow that left him on the edge of understanding what he had meant by “time machine.” He grew eager and said, “Yes, yes.”
“And what do you think of the scientifiction that I add in each issue?”
Scientifiction again. The word had a soothing effect on him and yet it was not quite right. Something more—
Not quite—
He said it, “Something more. Not quite—”
“Not quite enough? Yes, I’ve been thinking that. Last year I sent out circulars asking for subscriptions to a magazine to contain nothing but scientifiction. I would call it Scientifiction. The results were very disappointing. How would you explain that?”
Weill didn’t hear him. He was still concentrating on the word “scientifiction,” which didn’t seem quite right, but he couldn’t understand why it didn’t He said, “The name is not right.”
“Not right for a magazine? Maybe that’s so. I have not thought of a good name; something to catch the eye, to get across just what the reader will get, and what he will want. That is it. If I could get a good name I would start the magazine and not worry about circulars. I would not ask anything. I would simply put it on every newsstand in the United States next spring; that is all.”
