The Six Fingers of Time

by R. A. Lafferty

wouldmove to avoid them, and his speed made him invisible to them.They were a nuisance and had to be discouraged. He belabored themsoundly and they became less eager to try to capture him.

  His only fear was that they would some time try to shoot him tosee if he were ghost or human. He could avoid a seen shot, whichwould come at no more than two and a half times his own greatestspeed. But an unperceived shot could penetrate dangerously, evenfatally, before he twisted away from it.

  He had fathered legends of other ghosts, that of the CentralLibrary, that of University Library, that of the John CharlesUnderwood Jr. Technical Library. This plurality of ghosts tendedto cancel out each other and bring believers into ridicule. Eventhose who had seen him as a ghost did not admit that theybelieved in the ghosts.

  He went back to Dr. Mason for his monthly checkup.

  "You look terrible," said the Doctor. "Whatever it is, you havechanged. If you can afford it, you should take a long rest."

  "I have the means," said Charles Vincent, "and that is just whatI will do. I'll take a rest for a year or two."

  He had begun to begrudge the time that he must spend at theworld's pace. From now on he was regarded as a recluse. He wassilent and unsociable, for he found it a nuisance to come back tothe common state to engage in conversation, and in his specialstate voices were too slow-pitched to intrude into his consciousness.

  Except that of the man whose face he had never seen.

  "You are making very tardy progress," said the man. Once morethey were in a dark club. "Those who do not show more progress wecannot use. After all, you are only a vestigial. It is probablethat you have very little of the ancient race in you. Fortunatelythose who do not show progress destroy themselves. You had notimagined that there were only two phases of time, had you?"

  "Lately I have come to suspect that there are many more," saidCharles Vincent.

  "And you understand that only one step cannot succeed?"

  "I understand that the life I have been living is in directviolation of all that we know of the laws of mass, momentum, andacceleration, as well as those of conservation of energy, thepotential of the human person, the moral compensation, the goldenmean, and the capacity of human organs. I know that I cannotmultiply energy and experience sixty times without a compensatingincrease of food intake, and yet I do it. I know that I cannotlive on eight minutes' sleep in twenty-four hours, but I do thatalso. I know that I cannot reasonably crowd four thousand yearsof experience into one lifetime, yet unreasonably I do not seewhat will prevent it. But you say I will destroy myself."

  "Those who take only the first step destroy themselves."

  "And how does one take the second step?"

  "At the proper moment you will be given the choice."

  "I have the most uncanny feeling that I will refuse the choice."

  "From present indications, you will refuse it. You arefastidious."

  "You have a smell about you, Old Man without a face. I know nowwhat it is. It is the smell of the pit."

  "Are you so slow to learn that?"

  "It is the mud from the pit, the same from which the clay tabletswere formed, from the old land between the rivers. I've dreamedof the six-fingered hand reaching up from the pit and overshadowingus all. And I have read: 'The people first counted by fives andtens from the number of fingers on their hands. But before thepeople--for the reason that they had--counted by sixes andtwelves.' But time has left blanks in those tablets."

  "Yes, time in one of its manifestations has deftly and with apurpose left those blanks."

  "I cannot discover the name of the thing that goes in one ofthose blanks. Can you?"

  "I am part of the name that goes into one of those blanks."

  "And you are the man without a face. But why is it that youovershadow and control people? And to what purpose?"

  "It will be long before you know those answers."

  "When the choice comes to me, it will bear very carefulweighing."

  After that a chill descended on the life of Charles Vincent, forall that he still possessed his exceptional powers. And he seldomnow indulged in pranks.

  Except for Jennifer Parkey.

  It was unusual that he should be drawn to her. He knew her onlyslightly in the common world and she was at least fifteen yearshis senior. But now she appealed to him for her youthfulqualities, and all his pranks with her were gentle ones.

  For one thing this spinster did not frighten, nor did she beginlocking her doors, never having bothered about such thingsbefore. He would come behind her and stroke her hair, and shewould speak out calmly with that sort of quickening in her voice:"Who are you? Why won't you let me see you? You are a friend,aren't you? Are you a man, or are you something else? If you cancaress me, why can't you talk to me? Please let me see you. Ipromise that I won't hurt you."

  It was as though she could not imagine that anything strangewould hurt her. Or again when he hugged her or kissed her on thenape, she would call: "You must be a little boy, or very like alittle boy, whoever you are. You are good not to break my thingswhen you move about. Come here and let me hold you."

  It is only very good people who have no fear at all of theunknown.

  When Vincent met Jennifer in the regular world, as he more oftennow found occasion to do, she looked at him appraisingly, asthough she guessed some sort of connection.

  She said one day: "I know it is an impolite thing to say, but youdo not look well at all. Have you been to a doctor?"

  "Several times. But I think it is my doctor who should go to adoctor. He was always given to peculiar remarks, but now he isbecoming a little unsettled."

  "If I were your doctor, I believe I would also become a littleunsettled. But you should find out what is wrong. You lookterrible."

  He did not look terrible. He had lost his hair, it is true, butmany men lose their hair by thirty, though not perhaps assuddenly as he had. He thought of attributing it to the airresistance. After all, when he was in the state he did stride atsome three hundred miles an hour. And enough of that is likely toblow the hair right off your head. And might that not also be thereason for his worsened complexion and the tireder look thatappeared in his eyes? But he knew that this was nonsense. He feltno more air pressure when in his accelerated state than when inthe normal one.

  He had received his summons. He chose not to answer it. He didnot want to be presented with the choice; he had no wish to beone with those of the pit. But he had no intention of giving upthe great advantage which he now held over nature.

  "I will have it both ways," he said. "I am already acontradiction and an impossibility. The proverb was only theearly statement of the law of moral compensation: 'You can't takemore out of a basket than it holds.' But for a long time I havebeen in violation of the laws and balances. 'There is no roadwithout a turning,' 'Those who dance will have to pay thefiddler,' 'Everything that goes up comes down,' But are proverbsreally universal laws? Certainly. A sound proverb has the forceof universal law; it is but another statement of it. But I havecontradicted the universal laws. It remains to be seen whether Ihave contradicted them with impunity. 'Every action has itsreaction.' If I refuse to deal with them, I will provoke a strongreaction. The man without a face said that it was always a racebetween full knowing and destruction. Very well, I will race themfor it."

  They began to persecute him then. He knew that they were in astate as accelerated from his as his was from the normal. To themhe was the almost motionless statue, hardly to be told from adead man. To him they were by their speed both invisible andinaudible. They hurt him and haunted him. But still he would notanswer the summons.

  When the meeting took place, it was they who had to come to him,and they materialized there in his room, men without faces.

  "The choice," said one. "You force us to be so clumsy as to haveto voice it."

  "I will have no part of you. You all smell of the pit, of thatold mud of the cuneiforms of the land between the rivers, of thepeople who were before the people."

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nbsp; "It has endured a long time, and we consider it as enduringforever. But the Garden which was in the neighborhood--do you knowhow long the Garden lasted?"

  "I don't know."

  "That all happened in a single day, and before nightfall theywere outside. You want to throw in with something more permanent,don't you."

  "No. I don't believe I do."

  "What have you to lose?"

  "Only my hope of eternity."

  "But you don't believe in that. No man has ever really believedin eternity."

  "No man has ever either entirely believed or disbelieved in it,"said Charles Vincent.

  "At least it cannot be proved," said one of the