Costigan's Needle

by Jerry Sohl

“So?”

  “So we build another Needle, Devan,” Orcutt said.

  12

  Devan laughed at the thought of building a Needle in the wilderness in which they found themselves. It would be impossible. To build a Needle takes electricity, lathes, forgings, wire, radio tubes, a million and one things. Orcutt should have known that.

  “Where would you get the iron, Ed? Just answer me that.”

  “I don’t know the answer any more than you do, Dev. All I know is I want to go home and so does everybody else and another Needle’s the only way I can think of doing it.”

  “But iron!”

  “Hell, we’re not savages, Devan, are we? When we came to this place we didn’t revert back. We still have our minds. All we need is a blast furnace, some iron ore and a fire, isn’t it?”

  Devan laughed again. A blast furnace, indeed! Then the thought of it sobered him and brought him face to face with the fact that home and Beverly and the children were far, far away. Years away. He shuddered and the remembrance filled him with a loneliness he hadn’t known for years. It was while he was thinking nostalgically of familiar faces and rooms and chairs and streets, and realizing that they would have aged by many months before he would ever see them again, that he saw Betty looking at him with the same expression he must have had. To see her made him feel less lonely and he felt a kinship with her because she, too, realized they would be here a long time. He was glad they had agreed to be together.

  “Orcutt’s right about iron,” he told Betty when they went on a trip to the beach to pick up shells that might be sharpened into usefulness. “Not just for the Needle. We’ll need it for everything else.”

  He told her that iron was more valuable than gold. But then, it was at home, too, wasn’t it? You could take all the gold and throw it away and who would miss it? The men guarding the vaults at Fort Knox, the dentists, metallurgists, manufacturers and jewelers. But if you took iron away, it would be the end of civilization. No more stainless steel, scissors, cars, motors, airplanes, knives, guns, skyscrapers. The list was endless. He knew the metal was versatile. It could be one of the toughest or one of the most brittle, strong or weak, magnetic or not, soft or hard—it all depended on what you mixed it with and how you stirred the pot.

  “I see why you’re an engineer,” Betty said. “You talk about things like that as if there wasn’t anything else in the world. You love your work, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Just as you do your flowers.”

  “You’ll build another Needle.”

  He stood for a moment looking out over the lake, at the choppy waves, the horizon. “Yes,” he said. “I think I will.”

  “It will take years, though.” Suddenly she stooped down, picked up the bones of a fish. She laughed. “Look. Does your engineering mind tell you what this is? I’ll bet not. It would take a woman to figure this out. See my pins? I’ve got thorns and here are fishbones. I’m going to do a consumer report on which makes the better pin.”

  “We don’t need anyone to invent the safety pin,” he said. “Had you thought of that?”

  “We could use a chemist, though.”

  “That’s not all. How about a doctor?”

  “I noticed the women. They came through, unborn babies and all. Didn’t you see them?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I noticed the women. One in particular.” He grinned at her. She was pretty, standing there, her toes in the sand, the wind blowing her black hair about her bare shoulders; she was lovely, a vision, smaller than he but not fragile. There was something appealing about her posture, in the round line of her breast, the gentle curve of her hips, something challenging about her glance. He met the challenge and she was warm and soft and pliable in his arms.

  Later, they sat on rocks and looked out over the water.

  “It’s beyond imagination what needs to be done, isn’t it? We haven’t even a penknife to start with.”

  “You mentioned a doctor awhile ago. What good would he be without chemicals? Nothing for his hypodermic. In fact, no hypodermic.”

  “He’ll get his hypodermic when you make iron and glass.”

  “And the chemicals?”

  The stones were cold and, when they were inactive, so was the air. “Let’s not worry about it,” she said. “At least the doctor can tell you what kind of a disease you have. As far as the prescription goes, this will undoubtedly go down in history as the era of the placebo.”

  When everyone gathered about the new fire in the clearing shortly before what appeared to be noon, Devan saw that the women had followed Mrs. Petrie’s example and were wearing stoles and new grass skirts. Both were much more functional than those worn earlier in the day, which had been made before daylight.

  There was a spread of fish on the grass and the men explained that some had been caught by hand and others by several small nets made of young saplings. Miss Treat displayed a row of bulbs and grubs and was highly pleased when Howard Tooksberry complimented her on her morning’s work. Lieutenant Johnson and several of his men had brought down about twenty rabbits, which were being prepared for the spits with sharpened shells and rocks. There were mounds of nuts here and there, some collected by eager youngsters who now danced around them, hardly able to wait for the eating.

  The scene gave Devan a start. It reminded him of the primitive tableaux in the Field Museum in Chicago.

  He was surprised to find how satisfied his appetite was after the meal. There was no salt or pepper, no bread, nothing except a piece of rabbit, a small fish, some nuts and watercress. Yet, when it all was washed down with water picked up by cupped hands from a nearby spring that fed the lake, he felt whole again.

  Later Orcutt mounted a pile of logs that had been dragged to the site from the forest, held his hands in the air for silence and then Devan knew how the organization in the middle of the night had been formed. Despite the white stubble of a beginning beard and the white hair, Orcutt’s black brows and flashing eyes demanded attention; he was still a commanding figure.

  Orcutt explained that, because some food was left, fewer people were needed on the food-gathering units. He asked for volunteers for a canoe-making detail, a group to look for sugar maple trees, some women to experiment with clay for pottery and others to try their hands at weaving. He directed the men working with the logs to erect lean-tos in a circle around the clearing, some small and some large, depending on the size of families.

  It was satisfying, having a man of Orcutt’s caliber directing the labors, Devan thought. He looked around at the many faces, did not see the men he had encountered the previous night on the beach; they must have belonged to the group that went with Eric Sudduth, he decided.

  When night came and they built up the fire, the group from the Needle experiment sat together, first warming one side of their bodies, then the other. Some of the others sat near by, though most family groups had carried burning twigs to start fires in front of their lean-tos.

  “Sure it’s the same sky,” Orcutt was saying. “There’s the Dipper and the Milky Way and—well, you can tell it is.”

  “Yes, but what year is it?” Basher asked.

  “It must be thousands of years ago.” Sam Otto turned his body around. “Otherwise there’d be Indians around.”

  “Anybody know anything about stars?” Orcutt asked the question of everyone within hearing distance.

  A man twenty feet away heard him, came over. “I know a little bit about ‘em,” he said. He was a tall man with stooped shoulders and no teeth, a mere shadow of a man, considering his weight. Devan wondered how he ever survived the transition.

  “My name’s Elmo Hodge. I used to manage that grocery store right down the street from your place. Astronomy’s my hobby.” He sat down. “You’ll have to bear with me a little. My teeth didn’t come with me. What do you want to know about the stars?”

  “The stars move, don’t they?” Orcutt asked.

  The man nodded. “Ever so little.”

  “Enou
gh to tell us how far back into time we went when we went through the Needle?”

  Mr. Hodge looked at Orcutt for a long time, then he looked at the others in growing amazement.

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Know what?” Betty’s hand tightened around Devan’s.

  “Only a day has gone by since we came through the Needle.”

  Devan’s hopes for information sank. The man didn’t know what he was talking about. Nobody wanted to start an argument. Nobody wanted the old man to feel bad, so they didn’t tell him how wrong he was.

  “I know what you’re all thinkin’,” he said. “But it just isn’t so.” He pointed to the north. “See the Big Dipper? Now. Starting with the stars in the handle, the first one is moving down, the second is moving to the left as are all of them except the one on the lip of the Dipper. It’s moving down just like the first one. If this were any other time, the Dipper’d be all out of shape. It looks pretty much as it always has, doesn’t it?”

  “A thousand years.” The gravel voice of Clarence Gleckman boomed from the edge of the circle of faces. “A thousand years wouldn’t make much difference.”

  Hodge frowned a little, nodded his head again. “You’re right, there. A thousand years wouldn’t do much. It would take a hundred thousand years to make a big difference.”

  “Then how do you know you’re right?” Orcutt said.

  “All right,” Hodge said. “Look at Saturn. Right at the edge of Virgo and near to Libra. Just as it was early last night, if my eyes serve me right, right there on the horizon.” He studied the stars for a few minutes, scowling. Then he said, “I’ll wager you’ll find the North Star still the North Star. A few thousand years ago Alpha Draconis was the Pole Star, just as Vega will be the North Star in twelve thousand years.”

  “Well, there’s no doubt about one thing,” Devan said. “You know your stars.”

  “Seems to me I’ve heard about that somewhere,” Holcombe said. “It sounds right.”

  “I think so, too,” Tooksberry added.

  “I don’t care about the stars,” Mrs. Petrie said. “I looked at them often enough when I was a girl. What I want right now is some yarn. My fingers are itching for some knitting to do.”

  “We’ll put you on weaving as soon as somebody builds a loom,” Orcutt said.

  Hodge cleared his throat. “Another thing. If we get any glass made, I’ll grind lenses for telescopes. I’ve made hundreds of them. With the first one I’ll take a look at Castor. It’s a double star and they’re getting about as close as they’ll ever be, if time hasn’t changed. And I don’t think it has. Oh, there’s plenty of proof up there,” he said, pointing to the sky, “if you care to look for it.”

  “So no time has gone by.” Dr. Costigan was staring into the fire. He sighed. “Imagine that.”

  “Well,” Miss Treat said by way of getting attention. Devan was pleased to see she was with Tooksberry. “If this isn’t some other time... Am I being silly?”

  “Not at all, my dear.” Tooksberry patted her hand and smiled up at her and she beamed at him in return. “It’s a perfectly good question. If this isn’t then, how can it be now and not Chicago?”

  “That is a good question,” Orcutt said.

  “I once read a story about identical worlds that existed both at the same time, both occupying the same space,” Basher said. “It was some years ago. The idea was that there were supposed to be an infinite number of possible worlds and if you knew how you could jump from one to the other and find yourself in the same place but in a different possibility.”

  “Fantastic,” Tooksberry said.

  “Instead of trying to figure out where we are,” Mrs. Petrie said, “let’s begin by admitting we’re here and then figure out how we can get back to where we were.”

  “We’re going to make another Needle,” Devan said. “But it’s going to take a long time. We’ve got to mine iron ore and make a blast furnace and set up all the processes for everything we’re going to need.”

  “It will be a tremendous job,” Dr. Costigan said.

  “That’s not all that’s going to be laborious,” Orcutt said, winding a tough length of grass around a branch. “What if we can’t make a Needle?” He looked up at the faces. “We might as well face it. Suppose we’ve forgotten some industrial process? We know it exists, but we don’t know how to go about solving it because we haven’t anyone in our group who has had any experience or training in that line. What then?”

  “We’ll work around it,” Basher said. “Just as during the war you couldn’t get certain kinds of radio tubes so you revised the circuit to accommodate what tubes were available.”

  “Maybe. All right. Suppose we have a Needle built. Where do we know it’s going to take us when we walk into it? Just as you say, Basher, maybe it will take us into another possible world, one different from our own and different from this one. Maybe one inhabited by beings different from us.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Dr. Costigan said. “And I think I’ve got the answer. If we make another Needle, it’s going to be just like the one we made. I can tell you that the part that energized the units that created the force field that brought us here was powered by direct current. So I think if we reversed polarity—just reversed the wires on the input side—we’d create a field that would take us back.”

  “I don’t know about you people,” Mrs. Petrie said, “but I’m going to get some sleep. I’m not accustomed to moving around so much as I have today. Good night.”

  “One cigarette,” said Lieutenant Johnson after Mrs. Petrie had gone. He had been sitting near by all the while. “Just one cigarette. That’s all. That’s the thing I miss most. You wouldn’t think a little thing like that would ever get such a hold on you, would you?”

  “It’s a filthy habit,” Devan said, “and I love it.”

  Betty punched him in the ribs. “Me, too.”

  “We might be able to find the tobacco leaf around here somewhere,” Dr. Costigan said.

  “Personally, I’ll take a pipe,” Orcutt said. “You can have your cigarettes.”

  “You fellows don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam Otto said. “Cigarettes are a sissy smoke. Cigars are the only smokes.”

  “You’d get about the same pleasure out of an old twig,” Devan said. “You never light one anyway.”

  Dr. Costigan put his hands up for silence. “Gentlemen,” he said gravely. “There is something even more important than tobacco. It is the grape. And I plan to find a wild grapevine somewhere. What would life be without the wassail bowl?”

  It was only a small shelter, grass-covered logs and limbs set at an angle on a crossbeam which rested on large branches that had been forced into the moist earth. They had gathered considerable grass for the floor and more for a covering.

  That and the fire in front of the lean-to gave them a fair degree of comfort.

  “Will we ever get back, Devan?”

  Betty was lying on her stomach, looking into the fire, her hair blowing a little in the breeze as it swept by, her chin on her folded arms. There was something moist about the spring—night breeze, something that gave promise of blooms to come. There was, too, the odor of many fires which flickered and lighted the area, the air sounding with the cracking and popping of burning firewood. Devan was tired and sleepy.

  “I don’t know, Betty. We haven’t even started yet. We’ve got to start from scratch and even surviving against such odds would be problematical for city folks like us, much less working out a highly intricate problem like Costigan’s Needle. There are other things, too.”

  “Such as?” She turned on her side to look at him.

  “We’ll need paper to write the problems down on, for Dr. Costigan to record his diagrams. Have you thought of what would happen if he died? We’d never get back then.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it.”

  “And the electricity. How are we going to get that?”

  “You’ll
do it.”

  “And then the final thing.”

  “The final thing?”

  “It’s all right for Dr. Costigan to say he’ll reverse the polarity and we’ll get back, but supposing we reverse the polarity and go somewhere else? What then?”

  Betty sighed. “Maybe Mr. Sudduth is right after all. Maybe we should just relax and say God put us here and it’s up to Him to take care of us. Maybe we’re just creating trouble and worry.”

  Devan shook his head. “I don’t think Sudduth is right. There is the admonishment that God helps those who help themselves. If we don’t help ourselves, if we don’t have a goal, if we aren’t busy—then we’re in trouble. What would have happened if Orcutt hadn’t taken over and organized things and given us a goal?”

  “It would have been ghastly.”

  13

  A bright June sun made rocks hot and a warm breeze whispered among new leaves and spring flowers nodded their heads pleasantly. Everywhere in the long expanse of sometimes sand, sometimes woods and everywhere grass, except within a few hundred feet of the lake’s edge, there was activity. There was much to be done in the spring and summer.

  Birds up from the deep south were busy in the trees and their distant relatives, the prairie chickens and grouse, were just as busy in the fields. Beaver came out of lodges and looked over the situation around the rivers, their eyes on water levels—and other beaver. Turkeys strutted around, and for foxes and wolves the long winter and hunger was at an end.

  At one spot, almost insignificant in the area at the lake, there was much activity, too. It was marked by rising columns of smoke from several of the many log and brick buildings in a large settlement. These long plumes of smoke came, for the most part, from chimneys over fireplaces where, a short time before, dinner had been cooked. Now the men had gone back to their work in the fields, in the woods, in the building in the stockade, and the women, their noontime labors soon over, would go back to their special occupations at spinning wheels, looms, or in kindergarten and schoolrooms.

  There was one large cloud of smoke that rose lazily that came from no fireplace. It lifted from a particular spot inside the settlement on the north side where Devan Traylor, sweat trickling down his dusty, dirt-streaked face into his leather jacket, worked bellows with a frantic urgency.