by Anthology
Vicki swung off her bike, threw down her knapsack, and collapsed beside it. “I am really tired.”
“Yeah, me too.” Paul took off his pack. He knelt beside it and brought forth the capsule. Opening the control panel cover, he moved his hand to a red-colored toggle. “This is the switch.” Then he pulled back his hand.
“What’s the matter?” said Vicki. “Why didn’t you flip it? Don’t you think we’re close enough?” Paul turned off his LED lamp so he could look at Vicki without blinding her. Vicki turned off hers as well.
“I’ve been thinking.” Paul, feeling a surge of affection, gazed at his friend. “I really don’t know what might happen. It could be very dangerous. While I’m willing to risk my life, I’m not going to risk yours.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Only one of us is needed here.” Paul reached in his pocket and handed Vicki the map. “You should go back to the lifeboat and row back to Cowes—or at any rate, row as far as you can into the Solent. I’m sure some craft will pick you up.”
Vicki canted her head. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Our Southampton might materialize right on top of us. We could be killed.”
“Do you really think that could happen?”
“No,” said Paul. “But it might. I’ll stay here and wait as long as I can—until morning hopefully, maybe longer. Then I’ll throw the switch. Whatever happens, you’ll be safe. I want you to be safe.”
“Paul.” Vicki hesitated. “Paul, I’m not going to leave you here.”
“You’ve got to.”
“Not bloody likely!” With a quick, sinewy motion, Vicki darted her hand to the capsule and threw the switch.
The capsule emitted a whirring sound, the same sound Paul had heard over the phone when Richardson activated his device.
Then, suddenly, water and darkness. Paul, gurgling water, felt himself sink. He pawed upward but the weight of his clothing and shoes dragged him down. He felt one foot contact a complex of hard, rodlike structures—My bicycle! He let his legs fold under him, then sprang up with all his strength, expelling the last of his air with the exertion.
He pawed the water above, felt his body slide upward, and after a few agonizing seconds his head broke the surface. He coughed out water and took a frantic breath before sinking again. Rolling into a ball, he yanked off his shoes and again fought for the surface. His ears cleared and he heard splashes to his left as his head cleared the water.
“Vicki,” he gasped. “Is that you?” He blew out some more water. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” came a labored voice.
Through water-blurred eyes, Paul saw a glowing redness in the distance. Treading water, he shook his head and blinked a few times to clear his vision. The red glow resolved into a word: EXIT.
The swimming pool! Paul stroked toward the sign and heard Vicki following behind. Then, his eyes adjusting to the dim illumination of a starry night sifting in through the windows, he saw her overtake him. She climbed out of the pool at a metal ladder and Paul, following, became engulfed in the torrent of water spilling from her clothes.
“We did it!” shouted Paul when he’d emerged from the pool. He raised his hands in victory. “We’ve brought Britain back!”
“Gosh,” said Vicki. “I am so glad to be back in this building, chlorine smell and all.” She laughed, then impetuously hugged Paul. Turning then, she pointed to a towel hamper. “Come on. Let’s dry off. I’m starting to shiver.” She darted to the hamper, pulled out two towels, and tossed one to Paul. As Vicki toweled herself down, clothes and all, she absently gazed out the window, upward toward the sky—then gasped.
“What’s the matter?” Paul joined her near the window and followed her gaze. “What do . . . Geez! What’s that? It looks like a comet. My god, it’s almost as bright as the moon.” He furrowed his forehead in puzzlement. “I didn’t know of any comets coming. Certainly not a comet like this.” He looked at the diffuse fiery brightness with its ghostly arced tail. “This is amazing!”
“When beggars die, there are no comets seen,” Vicki whispered, her face showing fear. “The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
“What?”
“Halley’s Comet,” said Vicki, still at a whisper.
“No. Can’t be. Halley’s Comet isn’t due again for years. And Halley’s hasn’t been this bright since—”
“It was very bright just before the Battle of Hastings.” Vicki broke her gaze from the comet and looked wide eyed at Paul. “1066. It was taken as a portent for William the Conqueror.”
“Wait a minute. Are you . . .” Suddenly the truth and significance of Vicki’s words registered. The capsule hadn’t pulled modern Britain back from the age of the Anglo-Saxons, but had instead hurtled them into that very Britain—the twenty-first-century kingdom in an eleventh-century world. He staggered, leaning for support against the glass wall of the Sports Centre. Vicki had her world back, but his—everything he knew: Harvard, Boston, the United States, everything but Great Britain—gone. He was an orphan. Everyone who was important to him, everyone except Vicki, lived in another Universe.
Vicki touched his arm. “I’m sure your Dr. Richardson will know what to do.”
Paul was too upset to speak and he was angry: angry at the Universe, all of them; angry at himself; angry at Dr. Richardson; and even angry at William the Conqueror. When that bastard William sets foot on England, he’s going to be in for one nasty shock. Finally, Paul found his voice. “Come on,” he said, “Let’s go find Professor Richardson.” He stormed toward the exit leading to the changing rooms and showers.
“Paul. Stop,” Vicki called after him.
Paul, his eyes watery from the pool’s chlorine, spun around.
“The middle of the night might not be the best time for a person to drop in on someone,” said Vicki, “especially if that person is dripping wet and not wearing shoes.”
“You think?” he said with a forced smile as he walked to the pool edge. He looked down at the litter of bicycles and packs on the bottom. “I’ll get our stuff.” He dived in and as he splashed his way forward he understood that his outburst and wanting to see Richardson was so that he wouldn’t have to think about the loss of his family and friends back home—as well as his loss of back home itself. And he sorely needed to believe that Richardson could undo the damage he’d wrought.
In several trips, Paul retrieved their gear and bicycles. The pannier bags dripped lakes. Paul grabbed another towel, dried off again, then sat, resting his back against the towel hamper. “I’m wiped,” he said in a throaty whisper. “I can’t even think straight anymore.”
“You live off campus, don’t you?”
Paul threw a quick glance at his dripping bicycle and sighed. “About a fifteen minute bike ride away.”
“Well, I’m in Highfield Hall, virtually just down the street.” Vicki paused. “I don’t think you should bike home. It’s late. You’re wet. You’ll catch pneumonia. Why don’t you stay over at my place?”
Paul accepted the offer with heavy thanks, and the two left the humid pool with its heavy smell of chlorine.
As they walked their bicycles out of the Sports Centre, Paul glanced stealthily from side to side. He didn’t want to encounter anyone, especially anyone he knew. He felt guilty about his part in the catastrophe, and he couldn’t shake the notion that anyone he might meet would instantly know he was guilty by observing the soggy condition of his apparel.
“The campus seems too quiet,” said Vicki, softly as if reluctant to violate the silence. “Not a person in sight.” She shivered in her wet clothes. “I wonder if something has gone very wrong and there are no people left in England.”
Paul gave an uneasy laugh. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it? I’d have thought what’s already happened to be impossible also.”
They walked in silence. As they approached the Maison Francaise, lying between t
hem and Highfield Hall, they jumped at the sound of cheering. It came from the windows of the French dorm. As Paul and Vicki looked up toward the source of the exuberance, they saw a window thrown open and a student wave out as if he were the Pope. “On Capte a nouveau la television Francaise!” he announced loudly to the campus.
Vicki gazed up at him with wide, startled eyes.
Paul lowered his gaze to Vicki. “What did he say?”
“He said French television is broadcasting again.” She found Paul’s eyes. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t . . .” The answer occurred to him and Paul gasped. “It must be that instead of contemporary England switching to join the modern world, the modern world switched to join England.” He jerked his head up toward the student in the window. “Are you sure?” Paul shouted.
The student looked away for a few seconds, then leaned out the window again. “Yes. We’re getting satellite channels from all over Europe now.”
“Thank you!” Paul raised a hand in a V for victory.
Vicki’s eyes showed a lack of comprehension.
“It looks like,” said Paul, glancing up at the comet, “when we switched to the modern England in the eleventh century, we pulled the rest of the world we transferred from with us—but naturally enough, not the rest of the Universe.” He smiled, thinking of the implications. “Since whatever happens here on Earth can’t affect them, we’ll see all the astronomical activities of a thousand years replayed: comets, meteor showers and impacts, supernovae—and we’ll be prepared to observe them.”
“Then everything is all right now,” said Vicki.
“Yes, except for time.” Paul laughed. “Who knows what to call today’s date? The Greenwich Observatory will probably not be pleased. A very nasty time for them.”
HALL OF MIRRORS
Fredric Brown
For an instant you think it is temporary blindness, this sudden dark that comes in the middle of a bright afternoon.
It must be blindness, you think; could the sun that was tanning you have gone out instantaneously, leaving you in utter blackness?
Then the nerves of your body tell you that you are standing, whereas only a second ago you were sitting comfortably, almost reclining, in a canvas chair. In the patio of a friend’s house in Beverly Hills. Talking to Barbara, your fiancée. Looking at Barbara—Barbara in a swimsuit—her skin golden tan in the brilliant sunshine, beautiful.
You wore swimming trunks. Now you do not feel them on you; the slight pressure of the elastic waistband is no longer there against your waist. You touch your hands to your hips. You are naked. And standing.
Whatever has happened to you is more than a change to sudden darkness or to sudden blindness.
You raise your hands gropingly before you. They touch a plain smooth surface, a wall. You spread them apart and each hand reaches a corner. You pivot slowly. A second wall, then a third, then a door. You are in a closet about four feet square.
Your hand finds the knob of the door. It turns and you push the door open.
There is light now. The door has opened to a lighted room . . . a room that you have never seen before.
It is not large, but it is pleasantly furnished—although the furniture is of a style that is strange to you. Modesty makes you open the door cautiously the rest of the way. But the room is empty of people.
You step into the room, turning to look behind you into the closet, which is now illuminated by light from the room. The closet is and is not a closet; it is the size and shape of one, but it contains nothing, not a single hook, no rod for hanging clothes, no shelf. It is an empty, blank-walled, four-by-four foot space.
You close the door to it and stand looking around the room. It is about twelve by sixteen feet. There is one door, but it is closed. There are no windows. Five pieces of furniture. Four of them you recognize—more or less. One looks like a very functional desk. One is obviously a chair . . . a comfortable-looking one. There is a table, although its top is on several levels instead of only one. Another is a bed, or couch. Something shimmering is lying across it and you walk over and pick the shimmering something up and examine it. It is a garment.
You are naked, so you put it on. Slippers are part way under the bed (or couch) and you slide your feet into them. They fit, and they feel warm and comfortable as nothing you have ever worn on your feet has felt. Like lamb’s wool, but softer.
You are dressed now. You look at the door—the only door of the room except that of the closet (closet?) from which you entered it. You walk to the door and before you try the knob, you see the small typewritten sign pasted just above it that reads:
This door has a time lock set to open in one hour.
For reasons you will soon understand, it is better that you do not leave this room before then.
There is a letter for you on the desk.
Please read it.
It is not signed. You look at the desk and see that there is an envelope lying on it.
You do not yet go to take that envelope from the desk and read the letter that must be in it.
Why not? Because you are frightened.
You see other things about the room. The lighting has no source that you can discover. It comes from nowhere. It is not indirect lighting; the ceiling and the walls are not reflecting it at all.
They didn’t have lighting like that, back where you cam€ from. What did you mean by back where you came from?
You close your eyes. You tell yourself: I am Norman Hastings. I am an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Southern California. I am twenty-five years old, and this is the year nineteen hundred and fifty-four.
You open your eyes and look again.
They didn’t use that style of furniture in Los Angeles—or anywhere else that you know of—in 1954. That thing over in the corner—you can’t even guess what it is. So might your grandfather, at your age, have looked at a television set.
You look down at yourself, at the shimmering garment that you found waiting for you. With thumb and forefinger you feel its texture.
It’s like nothing you’ve ever touched before.
I am Norman Hastings. This is nineteen hundred and fifty-four.
Suddenly you must know, and at once.
You go to the desk and pick up the envelope that lies upon it. Your name is typed on the outside. Norman Hastings.
Your hands shake a little as you open it. Do you blame them?
There are several pages, typewritten. Dear Norman, it starts. You turn quickly to the end to look for the signature. It is unsigned.
You turn back and start reading.
“Do not be afraid. There is nothing to fear, but much to explain. Much that you must understand before the time lock opens that door. Much that you must accept and—obey.
“You have already guessed that you are in the future—in what, to you, seems to be the future. The clothes and the room must have told you that. I planned it that way so the shock would not be too sudden, so you would realize it over the course of several minutes rather than read it here—and quite probably disbelieve what you read.
“The `closet’ from which you have just stepped is, as you have by now realized, a time machine. From it you stepped into the world of 2004. The date is April 7th, just fifty years from the time you last remember.
“You cannot return.
“I did this to you and you may hate me for it; I do not know. That is up to you to decide, but it does not matter. What does matter, and not to you alone, is another decision which you must make. I am incapable of making it.
“Who is writing this to you? I would rather not tell you just yet. By the time you have finished reading this, even though it is not signed (for I knew you would look first for a signature), I will not need to tell you who I am. You will know.
“I am seventy-five years of age. I have, in this year 2004, been studying `time’ for thirty of those years. I have completed the first time machine ever built—and thus far,
its construction, even the fact that it has been constructed, is my own secret.
“You have just participated in the first major experiment. It will be your responsibility to decide whether there shall ever be any more experiments with it, whether it should be given to the world, or whether it should be destroyed and never used again.”
End of the first page. You look up for a moment, hesitating to turn the next page. Already you suspect what is coming.
You turn the page.
“I constructed the first time machine a week ago. My calculations had told me that it would work, but not how it would work. I had expected it to send an object back in time—it works backward in time only, not forward—physically unchanged and intact.
“My first experiment showed me my error. I placed a cube of metal in the machine—it was a miniature of the one you just walked out of—and set the machine to go backward ten years. I flicked the switch and opened the door, expecting to find the cube vanished. Instead I found it had crumbled to powder.
“I put in another cube and sent it two years back. The second cube came back unchanged, except that it was newer, shinier.
“That gave me the answer. I had been expecting the cubes to go back in time, and they had done so, but not in the sense I had expected them to. Those metal cubes had been fabricated about three years previously. I had sent the first one back years before it had existed in its fabricated form. Ten years ago it had been ore. The machine returned it to that state.
“Do you see how our previous theories of time travel have been wrong? We expected to be able to step into a time machine in, say, 2004, set it for fifty years back, and then step out in the year 1954 . . . but it does not work that way. The machine does not move in time. Only whatever is within the machine is affected, and then just with relation to itself and not to the rest of the Universe.
