Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time

by Judith Merril (ed. )

  I turn away my head, unable to bear the hideous recollections and associations that the sight of the man calls up, and I suppose that they both look.

  “Are you sure that you are not letting your imagination carry you away?” asks he presently, in a tone of gentle, kindly remonstrance. “As I said before, these fellows are all so much alike; they have all the same look of debased, squalid cunning. Oblige me by looking once again, so as to be quite sure.”

  I obey. Reluctantly I look at him once again. Apparently becoming aware that he is the object of our notice, he lifts his small dull eyes, and looks back at me. It is the same face—they are the same eyes that turned from the plundered dressing table to catch sight of me last night. “There is no mistake,” I answer, shuddering from head to foot. “Take me away, please—as quick as you can—out of the field—home!”

  They comply, and over the hot fields and through the hot noon air we step silently homewards. As we reach the cool and ivied porch of the house, I speak for the first time. “You believe me now?”

  He hesitates.

  “I was staggered for a moment, I will own,” he answers, with candid gravity; “but I have been thinking it over, and, on reflection, I have come to the conclusion that the highly excited state of your imagination is answerable for the heightening of the resemblance which exists between all the Irish of that class into an identity with the particular Irishman you dreamed of, and whose face (by your own showing) you only saw dimly reflected in the glass.”

  “Not dimly,” repeat I emphatically, “unless I now see that sun dimly” (pointing to him, as he gloriously, blindingly blazes from the sky). “You will not be warned by me then?” I continue passionately, after an interval. “You will run the risk of my dream coming true—you will stay on here in spite of it? Oh, if I could persuade you to go from home—anywhere—anywhere—for a time, until the danger was past!”

  “And leave the harvest to itself?” answers he, with a smile of quiet sarcasm; “be a loser of two hundred or three hundred pounds, probably, and a laughingstock to my acquaintance into the bargain, and all for—what? A dream—a fancy—a nightmare!”

  “But do you know anything of the man?—of his antecedents?—of his character?” I persist eagerly.

  He shrugs his shoulders.

  “None whatever; nothing to his disadvantage, certainly. He came over with a lot of others a fortnight ago, and I engaged him for the harvesting. For anything I have heard to the contrary, he is simple, inoffensive fellow enough.”

  I am silenced, but not convinced. I turn to Jane.

  “You remember your promise; you will now put no more hindrances in the way of my going?”

  “You do not mean to say that you are going, really?” says Jane, who is looking rather awed by what she calls the surprising coincidence, but is still a good deal heartened up by her husband’s want of faith.

  “I do,” reply I, emphatically. “I should go stark staring mad if I were to sleep another night in that room. I shall go to Chester tonight and cross tomorrow from Holyhead.”

  I do as I say. I make my maid, to her extreme surprise, repack my just unpacked wardrobe, and take an afternoon train to Chester. As I drive away with bag and baggage down the leafy lane, I look back, and see my two friends standing at their gate. Jane is leaning her head on her old man’s shoulder, and looking rather wistfully after me; an expression of mingled regret for my departure and vexation at my folly clouding their kind and happy faces. At least my last living recollection of them is a pleasant one.

  IV

  The joy with which my family welcomes my return is largely mingled with surprise, but still more largely with curiosity, as to the cause of my so sudden reappearance. But I keep my own counsel. I have a reluctance to give the real reason, and possess no inventive faculty in the way of lying, so I give none. I say, “I am back: is not that enough for you? Set your minds at rest, for that is as much as you will ever know about the matter.”

  For one thing, I am occasionally rather ashamed of my conduct. It is not that the impression produced by my dream is effaced, but that absence and distance from the scene and the persons of it have produced their natural weakening effect. Once or twice during the voyage, when writhing in laughable torments in the ladies’ cabin of the steamboat, I said to myself, “Most likely you are a fool!” I therefore continually ward off the cross-questionings of my family with what defensive armor of silence and evasion I may.

  “I feel convinced it was the husband,” says one of my sisters, after a long catechism, which, as usual, has resulted in nothing. “You are too loyal to your friend to own it, but I always felt sure that any man who could take compassion on that poor peevish old Jane must be some wonderful freak of nature. Come, confess. Is not he a cross between an ourang-outang and a Methodist parson?”

  “He is nothing of the kind,” reply I, in some heat, recalling the libeled Robin’s clean, fresh-colored human face. “You will be very lucky if you ever secure anyone half so kind, pleasant and gentlemanlike.”

  Three days after my return, I received a letter from Jane:

  Weston House, Caulfield, —shire.

  My dear Dinah,

  I hope you are safe home again, and that you have made up your mind that two crossings of St. Georges Channel within forty-eight hours are almost as had as having your throat cut, according to the programme you laid out for us. I have good news for you. Our murderer-elect is gone. After hearing of the connection that there was to he between us, Robin naturally was rather interested in him, and found out his name, which is the melodious one of Watty Doolan. After asking his name, he asked other things about him, and finding that he never did a stroke of work and was inclined to he tipsy and quarrelsome, he paid and packed him off at once. He is now, I hope, on his way hack to his native shores, and if he murders anybody it will be you, my dear. Good-bye, Dinah. Hardly yet have I forgiven you for the way in which you frightened me with your graphic description of poor Robin and me, with our heads loose and waggling.

  Ever yours affectionately,

  Jane Watson.

  I fold up this note with a feeling of exceeding relief, and a thorough faith that I have been a superstitious, hysterical fool. More resolved than ever am I to keep the reason for my return profoundly secret from my family. The next morning but one we are all in the breakfast room after breakfast, hanging about, and looking at the papers. My sister has just thrown down the Times, with a pettish exclamation that there is nothing in it, and that it really is not worth while paying threepence a day to see nothing but advertisements and police reports. I pick it up as she throws it down, and look listlessly over its tall columns from top to bottom. Suddenly my listlessness vanishes. What is this that I am reading?—this in staring capitals?

  SHOCKING TRAGEDY AT CAULFIELD

  DOUBLE MURDER

  I am in the middle of the paragraph before I realize what it is.

  From an early hour of the morning this village has been the scene of deep and painful excitement in consequence of the discovery of the atrocious murder of Mr. and Mrs. Watson, of Weston House, two of its most respected inhabitants. It appears that the deceased had retired to rest on Tuesday night at their usual hour, and in their usual health and spirits. The housemaid, on going to call them at the accustomed hour on Wednesday morning, received no answer, in spite of repeated knocking. She therefore at length opened the door and entered. The rest of the servants, attracted by her cries, rushed to the spot, and found the unfortunate gentleman and lady lying on the bed with their throats cut from ear to ear. Life must have been extinct for some hours, as they were both perfectly cold. The room presented a hideous spectacle, being literally swimming in blood. A reaping hook, evidently the instrument with which the crime was perpetrated, was picked up near the door. An Irish laborer of the name of Watty Doolan, discharged by the lamented gentleman a few days ago on account of misconduct, has already been arrested on strong suspicion, as at an early hour on Wednesday morning, h
e was seen by a farm laborer, who was going to his work, washing his waistcoat at a retired spot in the stream which flows through the meadows below the scene of the murder. On being apprehended and searched, several articles of jewelry, identified as having belonged to Mr. Watson, were discovered in his possession.

  I drop the paper and sink into a chair, feeling deadly sick.

  So you see that my dream came true, after all.

  The facts narrated in the above story occurred in Ireland. The only liberty I have taken with them is in transplanting them to England.

  Dr. Isaac Asimov is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University’s School of Medicine. He is currently engaged in research on nucleic acids, and has recently published a high-school textbook, The Chemicals of Life. But his first prominence in scientific circles was achieved when he published—even before earning his Ph.D.—a paper on his discoveries about “Resublimated Thiotimoline,” a remarkable substance which according to that august journal, Astounding Science Fiction, has a memory like the Red Queen’s, and an inclination to react in reversed time.

  Asimov’s science-fiction career antedates both his mock-scientific and serious one. He sold his first story at the age of eighteen, and since then has published almost eighty more, as well as eleven novels.

  I can imagine no one better qualified than Dr. Asimov to discuss the effects of a sudden unwelcome talent for levitation on the marriage, morale, and professional standing of Dr. Roger Toomey of Carson College,

  Belief by Isaac Asimov

  “Did you ever dream you were flying?” asked Dr. Roger Toomey of his wife.

  Jane Toomey looked up. “Certainly!”

  Her quick fingers didn’t stop their nimble manipulations of the yarn out of which an intricate and quite useless doily was being created. The television set made a muted murmur in the room and the posturings on its screen were, out of long custom, disregarded.

  Roger said, “Everyone dreams of flying at some time or other. It’s universal. I’ve done it many times. That’s what worries me.”

  Jane said, “I don’t know what you’re getting at, dear. I hate to say so.” She counted stitches in an undertone.

  “When you think about it, it makes you wonder. It’s not really flying that you dream of. You have no wings; at least I never had any. There’s no effort involved. You’re just floating. That’s it. Floating.”

  “When I fly,” said Jane, “I don’t remember any of the details. Except once I landed on top of City Hall and hadn’t any clothes on. Somehow no one ever seems to pay any attention to you when you’re dream-nude. Ever notice that? You’re dying of embarrassment but people just pass by.”

  She pulled at the yarn and the ball tumbled out of the bag and half across the floor. She paid no attention.

  Roger shook his head slowly. At the moment, his face was pale and absorbed in doubt. It seemed all angles with its high cheekbones, its long straight nose and the widow’s-peak hairline that was growing more pronounced with the years. He was thirty-five.

  He said, “Have you ever wondered what makes you dream you’re floating?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Jane Toomey was blond and small. Her prettiness was the fragile kind that does not impose itself upon you but rather creeps on you unaware. She had the bright blue eyes and pink cheeks of a porcelain doll. She was thirty.

  Roger said, “Many dreams are only the mind’s interpretation of a stimulus imperfectly understood. The stimuli are forced into a reasonable context in a split second.”

  Jane said, “What are you talking about, darling?”

  Roger said, “Look, I once dreamed I was in a hotel, attending a physics convention. I was with old friends. Everything seemed quite normal. Suddenly, there was a confusion of shouting and for no reason at all I grew panicky. I ran to the door but it wouldn’t open. One by one, my friends disappeared. They had no trouble leaving the room, but I couldn’t see how they managed it. I shouted at them and they ignored me.

  “It was borne in upon me that the hotel was on fire. I didn’t smell smoke. I just knew there was a fire. I ran to the window and I could see a fire escape on the outside of the building. I ran to each window in turn but none led to the fire escape. I was quite alone in the room now. I leaned out the window, calling desperately. No one heard me.

  “Then the fire engines were coming, little red smears darting along the streets. I remember that clearly. The alarm bells clanged sharply to clear traffic. I could hear them, louder and louder till the sound was splitting my skull. I awoke and, of course, the alarm clock was ringing.

  “Now I can’t have dreamed a long dream designed to arrive at the moment of the alarm-clock ring in a way that builds the alarm neatly into the fabric of the dream. It’s much more reasonable to suppose that the dream began at the moment the alarm began and crammed all its sensation of duration into one split second. It was just a hurry-up device of my brain to explain this sudden noise that penetrated the silence.”

  Jane was frowning now. She put down her crocheting. “Roger! you’ve been behaving queerly since you got back from the college. You didn’t eat much and now this ridiculous conversation. I’ve never heard you so morbid. What you need is a dose of bicarbonate.”

  “I need a little more than that,” said Roger in a low voice. “Now, what starts a floating dream?”

  “If you don’t mind, let’s change the subject.”

  She rose, and with firm fingers turned up the sound on the television set. A young gentleman with hollow cheeks and a soulful tenor suddenly raised his voice and assured her, dulcetly, of his never-ending love.

  Roger turned it down again and stood with his back to the instrument.

  “Levitation!” he said. “That’s it. There is some way in which human beings can make themselves float. They have the capacity for it. It’s just that they don’t know how to use that capacity—except when they sleep. Then, sometimes, they lift up just a little bit, a tenth of an inch maybe. It wouldn’t be enough for anyone to notice even if they were watching, but it would be enough to deliver the proper sensation for the start of a floating dream.”

  “Roger, you’re delirious. I wish you’d stop. Honestly.”

  He drove on. “Sometimes we sink down slowly and the sensation is gone. Then again, sometimes the float control ends suddenly and we drop. Jane, did you ever dream you were falling?”

  “Yes, of c—”

  “You’re hanging on the side of a building or you’re sitting at the edge of a seat and suddenly you’re tumbling. There’s the awful shock of falling and you snap awake, your breath gasping, your heart palpitating. You did fall. There’s no other explanation.”

  Jane’s expression, having passed slowly from bewilderment to concern, dissolved suddenly into sheepish amusement.

  “Roger, you devil. And you fooled me! Oh, you rat!”

  “What?”

  “Oh, no. You can’t play it out any more. I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re making up a plot to a story and you’re trying it out on me. I should know better than to listen to you.”

  Roger looked startled, even a little confused. He strode to her chair and looked down at her, “No, Jane.”

  “I don’t see why not. You’ve been talking about writing fiction as long as I’ve known you. If you’ve got a plot, you might as well write it down. No use just frightening me with it.” Her fingers flew as her spirits rose.

  “Jane, this is no story.”

  “But what else—”

  “When I woke up this morning, I dropped to the mattress!”

  He stared at her without blinking. “I dreamed I was flying,” he said. “It was clear and distinct. I remember every minute of it. I was lying on my back when I woke up. I was feeling comfortable and quite happy. I just wondered a little why the ceiling looked so queer. I yawned and stretched and touched the ceiling. For a minute, I just stared at my arm reaching upward and ending hard against the ceiling.

  “The
n I turned over. I didn’t move a muscle, Jane. I just turned all in one piece because I wanted to. There I was, five feet above the bed. There you were on the bed, sleeping. I was frightened. I didn’t know how to get down, but the minute I thought of getting down, I dropped. I dropped slowly. The whole process was under perfect control.

  “I stayed in bed fifteen minutes before I dared move. Then I got up, washed, dressed and went to work.”

  Jane forced a laugh, “Darling, you had better write it up. But that’s all right. You’ve just been working too hard.”

  “Please! Don’t be banal.”

  “People work too hard, even though to say so is banal. After all, you were just dreaming fifteen minutes longer than you thought you were.”

  “It wasn’t a dream.”

  “Of course it was. I can’t even count the times I’ve dreamed I awoke and dressed and made breakfast; then really woke up and found it was all to do over again. I’ve even dreamed I was dreaming, if you see what I mean. It can be awfully confusing.”

  “Look, Jane. I’ve come to you with a problem because you’re the only one I feel I can come to. Please take me seriously.”

  Jane’s blue eyes opened wide. “Darling! I’m taking you as seriously as I can. You’re the physics professor, not I. Gravitation is what you know about, not I. Would you take it seriously if I told you I had found myself floating?”

  “No. No! That’s the hell of it. I don’t want to believe it, only I’ve got to. It was no dream, Jane. I tried to tell myself it was. You have no idea how I talked myself into that. By the time I got to class, I was sure it was a dream. You didn’t notice anything queer about me at breakfast, did you?”

  “Yes, I did, now that I think about it.”

  “Well, it wasn’t very queer or you would have mentioned it. Anyway, I gave my nine o’clock lecture perfectly. By eleven, I had forgotten the whole incident. Then, just after lunch, I needed a book. I needed Page and—Well, the book doesn’t matter; I just needed it. It was on an upper shelf, but I could reach it. Jane—”