by William Tenn
"No. We have reached a point where journeying in time is possible, where a visit to the past may be made, where we are able to set up an embassy in a previous period. But we will not be allowed to do it! Instead, I drop my radiation depressor so that a century later, say, when the Embassy approves, some other physicist will build a machine using my notes and research—and be credited by history as the father of time travel."
"Are you sure that it's time travel? Possibly only a—"
"Of course I'm sure. Haven't I been measuring duration-gap since the first indication of electromagnetic dampening? Didn't I lose two mesotronic tubes before the reverse field had even approached optimum? And didn't I duplicate the experience of the tubes with over fifteen rabbits, none of which have reappeared? No, it's time travel, Terton, and I have to drop it. Officially, that is."
His tone confused me. "What do you mean, 'officially'?"
Banderling drew a universal necklace across the screen of the benscope until it began to pulsate. "Well, by officially—Terton, would you mind lifting the bar to your chest? A little higher. Fine. We'll be all set in a moment. Suppose someone from the present should be sent into the past as a result of a laboratory accident? Time travel would be an accomplished fact; the man who had built the machine that had accomplished it would be the accredited discoverer—the Temporal Embassy and all its plans notwithstanding. That would cause repercussions clear to the last dwindling curvature of time!"
I shivered, despite the extreme warmth of the lab at this point. "It would," I agreed. "If anyone were fool enough to try it. Seriously, though, do you really think your radiation depressor could send a man from our time into the past and bring him back?"
The physicist put the necklace aside as the benscope achieved optimum pulsation. "I couldn't effect the return with my equipment. But the Temporal Embassy would take care of that. Why, even they have only emissaries operating in the pre-intermediate civilizations—highly trained operatives working secretly and under great difficulties to make the necessary alterations in cultural evolution without the dislocation that would be caused by a Temporal Revelation to primitives. Anyone from our time who wandered into a previous period would be brought back in a hurry. And since the Temporal Embassy permits itself only advisory functions in an intermediate civilization like ours, he'd be brought back alive with a suggestion to Administration that he be shut up somehow. But no matter what happened after that, the secret would be out, the mission would be accomplished. Administration would probably shrug its bureaucratic shoulders and decide to accept the existence of time travel with its attendant Advanced Civilization status. Administration wouldn't object to that at all, once the thing was done. And the temporal embassies would ricochet irritation ahead for a couple of million years; but they'd have to revise their plans. Their grip on history would be broken."
I saw it. Fascinating! Imagine solving once for all the Thumtse Dilemna by watching its creation! And what fantastic new knowledge of the flirglers themselves? We knew so little. I would be particularly interested in the relationship of punforg to—
Unfortunately, the dream was only that. Banderling's radiation depressor had been revoked. He would work on it no more after tonight. Time travel was for another age. I slumped unhappily against the grid.
"That's it, Terton!" the physicist yelled delightedly. "It's passing optimum!" He picked up the universal necklace and held it over the screen of the benscope.
"I'm glad it's working again," I told him. "This grid has been punishing my back. Banderling, I have research of my own to do."
"Don't forget your training," he warned me. "Keep your eyes open and make careful mental notes of everything you see until you're picked up. Think how many investigators in your wing of the Institute would scramble to be in your place, Terton!"
"My place? Helping you? Well, I don't know—"
Then the turntable canted toward me in a flash of oozing green light; the bar seemed to melt into my chest and the grid to flow down my rigid back. Banderling's face tilted out of recognizable perspective through shimmering heat waves. A great goblet of ear-piercing sound poured over my head and numbed my mind. Something enormous, irresistible, punched at me hard and snapped the bubble of consciousness. Nothing was left but a memory of Banderling's grin.
And I was cold. I was very cold.
I stood on a ridiculously stony thoroughfare, looking at a scene from Mark Twain, Washington Irving or Ernest Hemingway—one of the authors of that period, in any case. Brick buildings were scattered carelessly over the landscape like a newly discovered trove of spindfar; metal vehicles crawled noisily past on both sides of me; people walked on the raised stone sections near the ugly little buildings with leather clogs laced tightly to their feet and bandages of various fabrics wrapping their bodies.
But above all, it was cold. Why, the city wasn't even air-conditioned! I found myself shivering violently. I remembered some drawing I had seen of an urchin shivering in just such a scene. Medieval New York. 1650 to 1980, I believe.
Abruptly I remembered the last moments in the lab. And understood.
I raised my fists to my face. "Banderling!" I shrieked at them. "Banderling, you are a fathead!"
This, so far as I can remember, was the first time I used a remark which was to become a cliché with me. Let me repeat it nonetheless, out of a full heart and an aching body—fathead! Fathead!
Somewhere, a woman screamed. I turned and saw her looking at me. Other people were laughing and pointing. I gestured impatiently at them, sank my head on my chest and tried to return to consideration of my predicament.
Then I remembered.
I didn't know exactly when I was, but one thing all of these pre-intermediate civilizations had in common: a clothes fetish with severe penalties for those who disregarded it.
Naturally, there were reasons. I wasn't certain which of them was most important here. For example, there was evidently no thermostatic control of the atmosphere in this area, and the season was the cooling third of the four ancient natural ones.
A gesticulating group had congregated on the raised cement surface facing me. A burly figure in blue, primitive weapons dangling from his belt, shouldered his way out of the crowd and started rapidly in my direction.
"Hey, character," he said (approximately). "Whadaya think this is? Free show? Huh? C'mere!"
As I said, I approximate. I found I was terribly afraid of this savage.
I retreated, whirled, and began to run. I heard him running behind me. I ran faster; I heard him do likewise.
"C'mere!" a voice bellowed. "I said c'mere!"
Was I in an era when burning at the stake was used on those who ran contrary to the psychotic edicts of society? I couldn't remember. I considered it essential, however, to find the privacy necessary for concentration on my next move.
I found it in a dark corner of an alleyway as I galloped past a building. A large metal receptacle with a cover.
There was no one close to me at the moment. I dodged into the alleyway, removed the cover, jumped into the receptacle and got the cover back over my head just as my pursuer puffed up.
Such an incredibly barbarous period! That receptacle—unspeakable, unspeakable...
I heard a pair of feet trotting up the alley, coming back. After a while, several more pairs of feet arrived.
"Well, where did he go?"
"S'elp me, sergeant, he musta gone over that nine-foot fence in back there. I coulda sworn he turned in here, coulda sworn!"
"An old guy like that, Harrison?"
"Pretty spry for an old guy, even if he was a gejenerate. Gave me a run."
"Gave you the slip, Harrison. Guy probably took off from some sanitarium or other. Better find him, men, before he terrorizes the neighborhood."
The feet slapped off.
—|—
I decided that my temporary escape from capture was balanced by the notice I had attracted in what seemed to be the higher echelons of the city's offici
aldom. I tried desperately, but futilely, to remember some of my Terran history. What were the functions of a sergeant? No use. After all, sixty years since I had studied the subject...
Despite my intense olfactory discomfort, I couldn't leave the receptacle. It would be necessary to wait quite a while, until my pursuers had given up the chase; it would also be necessary to have a plan.
Generally speaking, I knew what I must do. I must somehow discover an emissary of the Temporal Embassy and request a return to my own period. Before I could go about finding him, though, I would have to equip myself with such standard equipment as clothes.
How did one go about getting clothes in this period? Barter? Brigandage? Government work- coupons? Weaving them on one's own loom? Banderling and his idiotic idea that my specialty would be useful in such a world! That fathead!
The cover of the receptacle lifted suddenly. A very tall young man with a vague and pleasant face stared down at me. He rapped on the metal of the lid.
"May I come in?" he inquired courteously.
I glared up at him, but said nothing.
"The cops are gone, Pop," he continued. "But I wouldn't get out just yet. Not in your uniform. I'll lay chick if you tell me all about you."
"Wh-who are you? And what do you want?"
"Joseph Burns, a poor but honest newspaperman." He considered for a moment. "Well, poor, anyway. I want any such story as you may have to give. I was in that crowd on the sidewalk when the cop started to chase you. I ambled along behind. You didn't look like the kind of nut who enjoys parading his glorious nakedness. When I got to the alley, I was too tired to follow law and order any more. So I took a rest against the wall and noticed the garbage can. Ecce you."
I shuffled my feet in the soft, stinking mass, and waited.
"Now, lots of people," he went on, twirling the lid absently and looking down the street, "lots of people would say, 'Joe Burns, what if he isn't a nut? Maybe he just tried to draw to an inside straight in a strip-poker game.' Well, lots of people are sometimes right. But did I or did I not I see you materialize out of relatively empty air in the middle of the street? That's what I care about, Pop. And if so, how so?"
"What will you do with the information?"
"Depends, Pop, depends. If it has color, if it has that certain—"
"For example, if I told you I came from the future."
"And could prove it? In that case, I would spread your name and photograph across the front page of the lowest, dirtiest, most thoroughly misinforming sheet in all this wide land. I refer to the eminent journal with which I am associated. Honest, Pop, did you come from the future?"
I nodded rapidly and considered. What better way to attract the attention of a temporal emissary than by letting him know through an important public communication medium that I could expose his existence in this era? That I could destroy the secrecy of the Temporal Embassy in a pre-intermediate civilization? I would be sought out frantically and returned to my own time.
Returned to scholarship, to dolik and spindfar, to punforg and the Thumtse Dilemna, to my quiet laboratory and my fascinating paper on Gllian Origins of Late Pegis Flirg-Patterns...
"I can prove it," I said swiftly. "But I fail to see the value to you of such a situation. Spreading my name and photograph, as you put it—"
"Don't worry your pretty white thatch about that angle. Joseph Burns will do right well with a tabloid tango about a guy from the future. But you have to get out of that can first. And to get you out of it you need—"
"Clothes. How does one get clothes in this period?"
He scratched his lower lip.
"Well, money is said to help. Not crucial, you understand, but one of the more important factors in the process. You wouldn't have a couple of odd bills somewhere? No-o-o, not unless you have an unrevealed marsupiality. I could lend you the money."
"Well, then—"
"But after all, how much suiting can be purchased in these inflationary times for a dollar twenty-three? Let's face it, Pop; not much. I don't get paid until the day after tomorrow. Besides, if Ferguson doesn't see much value in the yarn, I won't even be able to squeeze it onto my swindle sheet. It wouldn't do to fetch one of my suits down, either."
"Why?" The great quantity of wordage from above and garbage from below was having a very depressing effect on me.
"First, because you might be hauled away by the sanitation department before I returned, and converted into hollyhock vitamins. Then, you're somewhat stouter than me and a good deal shorter. You don't want to attract attention when you step out into this cop-infested thoroughfare; and, in my suit, believe me, Pop, you would. Add to all this the fact that the brave boys in blue may return at any moment and search the alley again—Difficult situation, Pop, most difficult. We face an impasse."
"I don't understand," I began impatiently. "If a voyager from the future appeared in my period, I would be able to help him make the necessary social adjustments most easily. Such a minor item as clothes—"
"Not minor, not minor at all. Witness the ferment in the forces of law and order. Hey! That hammer-shaped ornament, there, the one on your necklace—it wouldn't be silver by any chance?"
Twisting my chin with difficulty, I glanced down. He was pointing at my flirgleflip. I took it off and handed it to him.
"It may well have been silver before it was renucleied for flirgling purposes. Why, does it have any special value?"
"This much silver? I hope to win the Pulitzer Prize it does. Can you spare it? We can get at least one used suit of clothes and half an overcoat out of it."
"Why, I can requisition a new flirgleflip at any time. And I use the large one at the Institute for most of the important flirgling in any case. Take it by all means."
He nodded and replaced the cover of the can over my head. I heard his feet going away. After a lengthy interval in which I developed several surprisingly colorful phrases in regard to Banderling, the garbage-can cover was lifted again and some garments of crude blue cloth dropped upon my head.
"The pirate in the second-hand store would only allow me a couple of bucks on your gimmick," Burns told me as I dressed. "So I had to settle for work clothes. Hey, button those buttons before you step out. No, these. Button them. Oh—let me."
Having been properly fastened into the garments, I climbed out of the receptacle and suffered the reporter to tie shoes to my startled feet. Shoes—these were the leather bandages I had observed. My fingers itched for a crude flint axe to make the shambling anachronism complete.
Well, possibly not a flint axe. But a weapon like a rifle or crossbow did seem in order. Animal pelts and vegetable fibers all over my skin. Ugh!
Glancing nervously up and down the street, Burns led me by the arm to a badly ventilated underground chamber. There he flailed a path into an extremely long and ugly sectional conveyance—a subway train.
"I see that here, as elsewhere in your society, only the fittest survive."
He got a better grip on one man's shoulders and moved his feet into a more comfortable position on another's toes. "Howzat?"
"Those who are not strong enough to force their way inside are forced to remain where they are or to resort to even more primitive means of transportation."
"Honest, Pop," he said admiringly, "you'll make terrific copy. Remember to talk like that for Ferguson."
After an appreciable interval of discomfort, we emerged from the train—somewhat like two grape pips being expectorated—and clawed our way to the street.
—|—
I followed the reporter into an ornate building and stopped with him in front of a distinguished old man who sat in a small cubicle wrapped in dignified, thoughtful silence.
"How do you do, Mr. Ferguson?" I began immediately, for I was pleasantly surprised. "I am very happy to find in Mr. Burns's superior the obvious intellectual kinship which I had almost—"
"Lay off!" Burns whispered fiercely in my ear as the old man backed away. "You're scaring the pant
s off the guy. Fourth floor, Carlo."
"Gee, Mr. Burns," Carlo remarked as he pulled a black lever and the cubicle containing the three of us shot upward, "you sure do come in with characters. What I mean, characters."
The newspaper office was an impossible melange of darting humanity exhibiting complicated neurosis patterns among masses of paper, desks, and primitive machines that I later learned were typewriters. Joseph Burns placed me on a wooden bench and scurried inside a glass-paneled office after various ritualistic wavings of the arm and crying of such phrases as "hiya tim, hiya joe, whadaya know abe."
After a lengthy period during which I almost became ill in the atmosphere of perspiration and frenzy, he came out followed by a small man in shirt sleeves who had a tic in his left eye.
"This him?" the small man asked. "Uh-huh. Well, it sounds good, I don't say it don't sound good. Uh-huh. He knows he sticks to this future gag no matter how they try to break him down, and if he does break, nobody's to know we were in on it. He knows it, huh? He looks good for the gag, just old enough, just enough like a crazy prof. It looks good all around, Burns. Uh-huh. Uh-huh, uh-huh."
"Wait till you hear his line," the reporter broke in. "Talk about color, Ferguson!"
"I am unfamiliar with my prismatic possibilities," I told them coldly. "But I must own to a great disappointment that the first representative individuals of the pre-intermediate civilization to hear a coherent account of my origins persist in idiotic droolings—"
The small man's left eye rapped out an impatient tic. "Can that free copy. Or save it for Burns: he'll take it down. Listen, Joey boy, we got something good here. Uh-huh. Two days before the World Series start and not a stick of red-ink news in the town. We can let it run all over the front page, more if it bounces up enough argument. I'll take care of the milking—the regulation comments by the university guys and science societies all around your copy. Meanwhile, you haul whozis here—"
