Time Travelers

by Peter Haining (ed)

  And she kissed him gently, softly, under the serene sky of a sun-bright Michigan afternoon on the shore of a placid lake in the autumn of a very special year.

  PRODUCTION PROBLEM

  Robert F. Young

  “The man from TimeSearch, Inc. is here, sir.”

  “Show him in,” Bridgemaker told the robutler.

  The man from TimeSearch halted just within the doorway. Nervously he shifted the oblong package he was carrying from one band to the other. “Good morning, Honorable Bridgemaker.”

  “Did you find the machine?’ Bridgemaker demanded.

  “I—I’m afraid we failed again, sir. But we did locate another one of its products.” The man handed Bridgemaker the package.

  Bridgemaker waved his arm in an angry gesture that included the whole room, “But you’ve already brought me hundreds of its products!” he shouted. “What I want is the machine itself so I can make my own products!”

  “I’m afraid, Honorable Bridgemaker, that the machine never existed. Our field men have explored the Pre-Technological Age, the First Technological Age, and the early years of our own age; but even though they witnessed some of the ancient technicians at work, they never caught a glimpse of the machine.”

  ‘But if the ancient technicians could create something without a machine, I could too,” Bridgemaker said. “And since I can’t, the machine had to exist. Go back at once!”

  “Yes, Honorable Bridgemaker,” The man bowed and withdrew.

  Bridgemaker tore open the package. He glanced at the product, then set the controls on his Language Adjustor, Duplicator and Alterator machine.

  While he waited, he brooded on the irony of his life. Ever since he was a small boy he had hungered hopelessly for one vocation. Now that success in a totally different vocation had made him financially independent, he had focused all his energies into the attainment of his first love. But all he’d got for his trouble was a roomful of ancient products, and even though he’d increased his financial independence by duplicating and distributing those products, the basic frustration still remained: he was a secondhand artist and he wanted desperately to be a firsthand artist.

  He went over to one of the shelves that wainscoted the room and glanced at some of his vicarious creations: A Farewell to Arms, by Chamfer Bridgemaker … Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, by Chamfer Bridgemaker … The Odyssey, by Chamfer Bridgemaker … Ivanhoe, by Chamfer Bridgemaker—

  There was a loud plop! as the first copy Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone came out of the Language Adjustor, Duplicator and Alterator machine.

  Bridgemaker sat down to read his latest masterpiece.

  I HEAR YOU CALLING

  Eric F. Russell

  A frightened town, dark and deadly. A minor name on a vast map. Formerly noteworthy for nothing save the idle rumour that a flying saucer had landed nearby. That had been a month ago and proved baseless. Police and pressmen scoured the outskirts. No saucer.

  This event faded, lost significance as hunters took off in pursuit of something else, something weightier and more urgent that cleared the streets by night. On the main stem a few dusty, neglected neons glowed over empty bars while cops lurked in shadowy doorways, watched cats playing leapfrog and jumping low.

  Widgey Bullock knew nothing of this. To him the town had its virtues. That was why he had just arrived there. It was forty miles from port, devoid of naval patrols, officers, pickpockets and the same old bunch of painted trollops. A new landfall. A place where a naval stoker first-class could roll the boat without getting tossed into the brig.

  Entering a likely bar, he shoved his pork-pie on to the back of his head, said, ‘I’m in the mood, Mac. Give me an Atom bomb.’

  ‘What might that be?’ inquired the barman. He was a fat simple, pasty-faced with too little sun, too little sleep.

  ‘I should have to tell you?’ Widgey hitched his lean bulk on a stool, rubbed blue jowls. ‘Equal parts rum, tequila and vodka. Add a pinch of red pepper and shake.’

  ‘God!’ said the other. He slopped it together, vibrated it, slid it across. Then he watched warily as if awaiting the mushroom cloud.

  Widgey poured some down. He twitched his scalp and the cap jerked with it.

  ‘What a joint,’ he commented, staring around. ‘No juke-box, no dames, no company, nobody but you and me. Where’s everybody?’

  ‘Home,’ said the barman. He nodded toward the wall-clock. ‘Ten thirty and it’s dark.’

  ‘Mean to say the town’s closed down?’ Widgey tipped the cap over his eyes, stared incredulously. ‘Ten thirty’s the time for things to start livening up. The police should get jumping around midnight.’

  ‘Not here,’ said the barman. His gaze drifted toward the door, came back. He didn’t seem to know what might enter next but obviously didn’t want it, not at any price.

  ‘What’s wrong with here?’ demanded Widgey, ignoring the door.

  ‘Folk are getting themselves killed.’

  ‘How’s that? Somebody feuding?’

  “They just lie around dead,’ said the barman. ‘Dead and empty.’

  ‘Empty?’

  ‘No blood,’ said the barman.

  ‘Give me another,’ Widgey ordered, poking his glass. He got it, took a deep gulp, coughing with the fire of it. ‘Now let’s have this straight. Who’s being killed?’

  ‘One here, one there,’ the other said. ‘Mostly strangers.’

  ‘I’m a stranger myself,’ Widgey pointed out. ‘Does that put me on the list?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘What a dump!’ Widgey complained. ‘Forty miles I come for bright lights and freedom. What do I get? A hick town heading for bed and a barkeep measuring my corpse.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the other, ‘But you might as well know.’ He waves a hand to emphasize the sheer emptiness of the place. ‘This is just the way it’s been every night for the last three weeks. When I go home I keep close by the wall and wear my eyes in my pants the whole way. I keep my door locked twice over.’

  ‘What are the cops doing about it?’

  ‘Looking,’ said the barman. ‘What else can they do?’

  ‘This sounds like a bar-yarn to me,’ observed Widgey, suspiciously. ‘Are you figuring on getting rid of me and shutting shop early?’

  ‘Dead wrong,’ the barman told him. ‘It’s all in the papers. A dry stiff every other night.’ He eyed the door again. ‘Besides, I can’t close up when I like and I need the company.’

  ‘I’ll say you do.’ Widgey assured. ‘Fellow your weight will have buckets of blood. You’re a major target.’

  ‘Shut up!’ said the barman, looking sick.

  ‘I’m not worrying,’ Widgey went on. ‘Just one night here and back to the ship tomorrow. After that, you can have this lousy town and welcome.’ He took a long swig, smacked his lips. ‘Know of any other joint where there’d be more than two of us?’

  ‘No. Not at this time.’

  ‘Well, d’you know of an address where I can knock three times and ask for Mabel?’

  ‘Think I’m a pimp?’ asked the barman, frowning.

  ‘I think you ought to know your way around seeing this is your own stamping ground.’

  ‘It isn’t mine. I’ve been here only a couple of months.’ He wiped the back of his neck, peered towards the street. ‘That’s what scares me. I rank as a stranger too.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Widgey advised. ‘When you’re dead and empty you won’t know it even if you look like a slack sack.’ He poked the glass again. ‘Make it a double. If you can’t give me an address I’ll have to do without. Maybe I can drink myself beyond what I have in mind.’

  The barman said, ‘Any more you’d better take with you. This is where I shut shop.’

  Widgey pointed to a yellow bottle. ‘I’ll take that.’ He fumbled clumsily in a pocket, dug out money and paid. A couple of coins fell to the floor. He teetered as he picked them up.

  ‘It’s work
ing on you,’ said the barman.

  ‘Which is all that is,’ said Widgey.

  Pocketing the bottle he rolled out with a decided list to starboard. The street was a mess of greys and blacks, the neons gone. A thin sliver of moon rode above bulging clouds.

  He headed uncertainly for the crummy hotel where he’d booked a room. A leering tomcat slunk across his path, wanting the same as he did. Hidden in the dark entrance to an alley a policeman watching his passing, made no sound to betray his presence. On the other side of the road a woman hurried along, wary and fearful.

  ‘Hi, Babe!’ he hoarsed across, not caring whether she were hot or cold, young or old.

  She broke into a near-run, her heels making a fast and urgent clip-clop. Widgey stood watching her and swearing under his breath. The policeman emerged from the alley, kept an eye on both of them. The woman stopped two hundred yards down, frantically stabbed a key at a door, went into a house. The slam of the door sounded like the crack of doom.

  ‘Bet they say their prayers, too,’ scoffed Widgey.

  Alcoholically aggrieved, he lurched onward, found the hotel, climbed upstairs. Savagely he flung his cap across the room, pulled off his jacket and shied it the same way, kicked his shoes under the bed. He spent a minute examining himself in the mirror over the washbasin, pawing his ears and making faces at himself. Then he went to the window and looked out at the night.

  There was another woman on the road below. She drifted along in a strange unhurried manner, an undulating glide like that of a column of grey smoke wafted by a gentle breeze. She was blurry as if draped and veiled. A lot of things look blurry when a man has heavy cargo under the hatches.

  But a woman is a woman. One who travels late and without haste is always a good prospect, thought Widgey. Slipping the catch, he opened the window and leaned out. No cops were visible. Nobody but the vague figure.

  ‘Yoohoo!’

  It achieved nothing. Perhaps she hadn’t heard.

  ‘Yoohoo!’

  The figure stopped. Moonlight was too poor to show which way she was looking but at least her halt was encouraging.

  ‘YOOHOO!’ bawled Widgey, bending farther out and throwing discretion to the winds. He waved an energetic arm.

  The figure made a vague gesture, crossed the road towards the hotel. Closing the window, Widgey delightedly tried a slow soft shoe routine but his balance had gone to pot. Seas were rough tonight.

  He left his door a couple of inches ajar so she would know which room was which. Hurriedly he cleaned a couple of glasses by sloshing water around them, put them on the bedside table along with the yellow bottle.

  A timid knock sounded.

  ‘Come in!’ He spat on his hands, used them to brush back his hair, fixed a welcoming grin on his face.

  The knocker came in.

  Widgey backed away fast, then more slowly as strength flowed out of his legs. His grin had vanished and he’d gone cold sober in one-fifth of a second. He wanted to yell bloody murder but couldn’t emit a squeak.

  The edge of the bed caught behind his retreating knees. He flopped backward, lay on the bed with chest and throat exposed. He couldn’t do a thing to save himself, not a damn thing.

  It glided soundlessly to the bedside, bent over and looked at him with eyes that were black pinheads set deeply in green fluff. Its long, elastic mouth came out and pouted like the nozzle of a fire-hose. The last that Widgey heard was a whisper from a million miles away.

  ‘I am Yuhu. You called me.’

  THE MEN WHO MURDERED MOHAMMED

  Alfred Bester

  There was a man who mutilated history. He toppled empires and uprooted dynasties. Because of him, Mount Vernon should not be a national shrine, and Columbus, Ohio, should be called Cabot, Ohio. Because of him the name Marie Curie should be cursed in France, and no one should swear by the beard of the Prophet.

  Actually, these realities did not happen, because he was a mad professor; or, to put it another way, he only succeeded in making them unreal for himself.

  Now, the patient reader is too familiar with the conventional mad professor, undersized and overbrowed, creating monsters in his laboratory which invariably turn on their maker and menace his lovely daughter. This story isn’t about that sort of make-believe man. It’s about Henry Hassel, a genuine mad professor in a class with such better-known men as Ludwig Boltzmann ( see Ideal Gas Law), Jacques Charles, and André Marie Ampère (1775-1836).

  Everyone ought to know that the electrical ampere was so named in honor of Ampère. Ludwig Boltzmann was a distinguished Austrian physicist, as famous for his research on black-body radiation as on Ideal Gases. You can look him up in Volume Three of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, BALT to BRAI.

  Jacques Alexandre César Charles was the first mathematician to become interested in flight, and he invented the hydrogen balloon.

  These were real men.

  They were also real mad professors. Ampère, for example, was on his way to an important meeting of scientists in Paris. In his taxi he got a brilliant idea (of an electrical nature, I assume) and whipped out a pencil and jotted the equation on the wall of the hansom cab. Roughly, it was: dH = ipdl/r2 in which p is the perpendicular distance from Ñ to the line of the element dl; or dH= i sin è dl/r2. This is sometimes known as Laplace’s Law, although he wasn’t at the meeting.

  Anyway, the cab arrived at the Académie. Ampère jumped out, paid the driver and rushed into the meeting to tell everybody about his idea. Then he realized he didn’t have the note on him, remembered where he’d left it, and had to chase through the streets of Paris after the taxi to recover his runaway equation. Sometimes I imagine that’s how Fermat lost his famous “Last Theorem,” although Fermat wasn’t at the meeting either, having died some two hundred years earlier.

  Or take Boltzmann. Giving a course in Advanced Ideal Gases, he peppered his lectures with involved calculus, which he worked out quickly and casually in his head. He had that kind of head. His students had so much trouble trying to puzzle out the math by ear that they couldn’t keep up with the lectures, and they begged Boltzmann to work out his equations on the blackboard.

  Boltzmann apologized and promised to be more helpful in the future. At the next lecture he began, “Gentlemen, combining Boyle’s Law with the Law of Charles, we arrive at the equation pv= p0 v0 (1 + at). Now, obviously, if aSb = f (x) dx÷(a), then pv = RT and vS f (x,y,z) dV = 0. It’s as simple as two plus two equals four.” At this point Boltzman remembered his promise. He turned to the blackboard, conscientiously chalked 2 + 2 = 4, and then breezed on, casually doing the complicated calculus in his head.

  Jacques Charles, the brilliant mathematician who discovered Charles’s Law (sometimes known as Gay-Lussac’s Law), which Boltzmann mentioned in his lecture, had a lunatic passion to become a famous paleographer—that is, a discoverer of ancient manuscripts. I think that being forced to share credit with Gay-Lussac may have unhinged him.

  He paid a transparent swindler named Vrain-Lucas 200,000 francs for holograph letters purportedly written by Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Pontius Pilate. Charles, a man who could see through any gas, ideal or not, actually believed in these forgeries despite the fact that the maladroit Vrain-Lucas had written them in modern French on modern notepaper bearing modern watermarks. Charles even tried to donate them to the Louvre.

  Now, these men weren’t idiots. They were geniuses who paid a high price for their genius because the rest of their thinking was other-world. A genius is someone who travels to truth by an unexpected path. Unfortunately, unexpected paths lead to disaster in everyday life. This is what happened to Henry Hassel, professor of Applied Compulsion at Unknown University in the year 1980.

  Nobody knows where Unknown University is or what they teach there. It has a faculty of some two hundred eccentrics, and a student body of two thousand misfits—the kind that remain anonymous until they win Nobel prizes or become the First Man on Mars. You can always spot a graduate of U.U. when you ask
people where they went to school. If you get an evasive reply like:

  “State,” or “Oh, a freshwater school you never heard of,” you can bet they went to Unknown. Someday I hope to tell you more about this university, which is a center of learning only in the Pickwickian sense.

  Anyway, Henry Hassel started home from his office in the Psychotic Psenter early one afternoon, strolling through the Physical Culture arcade. It is not true that he did this to leer at the nude coeds practicing Arcane Eurythmics; rather, Hassel liked to admire the trophies displayed in the arcade in memory of great Unknown teams which had won the sort of championships that Unknown teams win—in sports like Strabismus, Occlusion, and Botulism. (Hassel had been Frambesia singles champion three years running.) He arrived home uplifted, and burst gaily into the house to discover his wife in the arms of a man.

  There she was, a lovely woman of thirty-five, with smoky red hair and almond eyes, being heartily embraced by a person whose pockets were stuffed with pamphlets, microchemical apparatus, and a patella-reflex hammer—a typical campus character of U.U., in fact. The embrace was so concentrated that neither of the offending parties noticed Henry Hassel glaring at them from the hallway.

  Now, remember Ampère and Charles and Boltzmann. Hassel weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. He was muscular and uninhibited. It would have been child’s play for him to have dismembered his wife and her lover, and thus simply and directly achieve the goal he desired—the end of his wife’s life. But Henry Hassel was in the genius class; his mind just didn’t operate that way.

  Hassel breathed hard, turned and lumbered into his private laboratory like a freight engine. He opened a drawer labeled DUODENUM and removed a .45-caliber revolver. He opened other drawers, more interestingly labeled, and assembled apparatus.

  In exactly seven and one half minutes (such was his rage), he put together a time machine (such was his genius).

  Professor Hassel assembled the time machine around him, set the dial for 1902, picked up the revolver and pressed a button. The machine made a noise like defective plumbing and Hassel disappeared. He reappeared in Philadelphia on June 3, 1902, went directly to No. 1218 Walnut Street, a red-brick house with marble steps, and rang the bell. A man who might have passed for the third Smith Brother opened the door and looked at Henry Hassel.