The Third Time Travel Page 4

  “We have already produced a generation of the next form of man, and the individuals of that generation are applying all the powers of their minds to the problem. As you can see, our facilities are pyramiding rapidly, since we have created the next form of man and they are busy on the problem of going a step beyond.

  “But, back to Walt. We need him. He carries three extremely valuable, recessive mutations which have never been discovered before. We feel that he will enable us to make the second step beyond man as you know him. You wouldn’t dare interfere with that critical advancement, if you could understand the full depth of the problem. Unfortunately, first-hand knowledge cannot be given you.”

  Starbrook had been listening with a gradually increasing tension that left his muscles aching as he abruptly shook his head and forced his attention away from, Rogers’ face.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just can’t grasp it all so suddenly. If only I could see for myself—”

  “You can’t,” said Rogers with finality. “Ordinarily, of course, we do not complicate our operations with these problems. It is only the accident of your own peculiar mutation that you have become aware of us at all. We could act without your consent at all—”

  Starbrook felt a sudden frantic chill sweep through him. He had seen enough to know that these mutants could do as Rogers said. They could steal Walt away and banish him forever in this strange land beyond the doors of the Children’s Room.

  “It is against our principles to cause pain to anyone,” Rogers continued. “You are a scientist. I want you to follow the teachings provided your son. Study along with him. Learn the facts of our science and finally details of the crisis that faces humanity. If you are not convinced by then, perhaps the Council which controls these matters will bow to your possession, though, frankly, I doubt it. Walt is too important to us.”

  “But how can you take any of these children without causing pain? How many parents are willing to see them taken away forever? You can’t just take them away and leave a vacuum where they have been!”

  “No, we don’t do that.” Rogers hesitated a moment, then he stepped to a door and called to someone. He sat down again. “We do not simply yank an individual out of his environment and leave a vacuum. That would cause too much disruption of your society considering the numbers we have taken. It would lead to too much pain.”

  At that moment a figure moved into the room from the doorway through which Rogers had called.

  “Walt!” Starbrook rose in amazement. “I didn’t know you were here!” But the boy did not answer, or even look at Starbrook with any recognition.

  “He is not finished,” Rogers explained.

  “What do you mean?” Starbrook saw now the empty expression on the boy’s face, repulsive in its vacuousness. Terror seized him and he staggered back into the chair from, which he had risen.

  “When we take someone, we provide a substitute to insert in their environment,” said Rogers. “We create a homolog such as this and make the substitution without the knowledge of anyone except the one who joins us.”

  Starbrook’s horror mounted. “You expect to take Walt and leave us this—this monster!”

  Sudden, terrible pain crossed the boy’s face and Rogers rose with a snarl of rage. He led the boy out of the room and returned.

  “Starbrook! You’re supposed to be a scientist. Act like one!”

  “I’m Walt’s father first. You could hardly expect me to give up my son and accept that—thing of yours as a substitute!”

  “I suppose I was stupid to think that you could view this matter with any degree of objectivity. We should have simply made the substitution without your knowledge as we have done in all other cases.”

  “Do you think you could have done that without our knowing your homolog wasn’t our son?”

  “Of course. It has been done in thousands of other cases. This homolog is your son in every respect—or will be when he is completed. Every emotional pattern, memory, instinct, and physical form and composition that goes into your son’s makeup is being duplicated. With the exception, of course, of the creative mutations which set Walt apart from other men, and which cannot be duplicated in homolog. The homolog will fill Walt’s place in life in every respect. He will grow and develop and respond to his environment in a manner parallel to that of Walt. He can live a normal, useful life. He can marry, though not reproduce. He has an intelligence comparable to Walt’s and will be professionally superior. If you love him or hurt him, if you make him happy or sad, you are doing it to Walt. He is Walt. His emotions and feelings are simply transplants, so to speak, of those of your son. That is why you hurt him so terribly just now when you despised him as a monstrosity. What would Walt’s reaction be if you called him that? It will take considerable effort to eradicate that painful experience from the homolog mind.”

  Abruptly, Rogers rose. “You may have time to think it over. Our final course of action will be decided by the Council. I am only a technical advisor in these matters, but I can tell you that you will be doing yourself, your son, and the human race a great service if you try to comprehend the things you have seen and heard; conversely, a great disservice.”

  Rogers hesitated. “Perhaps the easiest solution would be for you to come here. It might be arranged since you have the one essential mutation. You could be useful as a technician. A homolog could, of course, be provided to take up the life you leave.”

  Starbrook, from where he sat, could see the distant view of the strange valley through a window across the room. It bespoke of serenity and peacefulness such as he had not known, and there was evidence of science here such as he had not dreamed of. But he had no purpose here. The invitation was a mere concession to the accident of nature that had granted him his single, useless mutation.

  As for leaving Rose—

  “Thanks,” he said, “but, no.”

  Rogers nodded and escorted him back to Miss Edythe’s office. She was disappointed when Starbrook told her what had happened.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” she said, “but the world of mutants is a disappointing place, as I told you before. I suppose we won’t be seeing you again, but we’ll look forward to the visits of your son. Would you care to take along a couple of new volumes for him?”

  The world seemed to have taken on a curiously unreal quality to Starbrook as he left the building and got into his car. He drove mechanically through the streets and along the highway that led to the outskirts of the city where the Bradford Electronics plant was located.

  There, he secluded himself in his office with orders to his secretary to keep everyone else out for a while. He leaned back in his chair. Through the window he could see the hazy, disordered landscape of the city, just as through that other window only, a few moments ago he had seen the peaceful scene out of that unknown era of the future.

  He had not illusions about the reality of that strange vision. The experience carried its own conviction. He knew that he had seen the miracle of a scene from the future, and had spoken to men whose lives lay far ahead of his in the time continuum.

  His mind speculated at the fringes of his experience, ever trying to dodge the core of it. But at last he forced himself to face it.

  Walt.

  He tried to submerge the subjective factors in his mind and consider the things he’d heard as a scientist should consider them. He didn’t doubt the truth of Rogers’ statements—and when he once admitted that to himself he was left helpless.

  Walt would go.

  He would carry forward the mutations which he bore so that the race might profit.

  It was as simple as that, and there was no alternative.

  But that conclusion released the flood of subjective opposition that his mind had held in check. Were a man’s feelings for his son to be wholly ignored? They weren’t, he reflected bitterly. They were supposed to be expended upon some grisly automaton shape in the image of his son. Surely Rogers would destroy the thing after he’d seen Sta
rbrooks’ reaction to it.

  And Rose.

  Up to now he’d left her reactions out of his thoughts. She was no scientist. She had never pretended to understand the objective, selfless attitudes of science. Surely she would not be able to do so in this. It would be impossible to convince her that Walt’s destiny lay with the mutants of a future age.

  And what of Walt himself?

  Soon he would be faced with full understanding of the thing that he was and his possibilities. Would he choose to go with the mutants?

  There was little doubt that he would. The genius of the boy’s mind was tempered with an emotional stability that would let him see the problem whole, that would let him evaluate it without fear and personal prejudice—as Starbrook knew that he should be doing, himself.

  They could, of course, forbid his further study of the books of the Children’s Room. They could enforce their will upon him by sheer physical means.

  And for the rest of his life he would hate them with an untranscended bitterness. In any profession he undertook he would be taunted by the incubus of longing for lost worlds and vanished dreams. And with it would ride hate—hate and revulsion for the thing that his parents had done.

  Starbrook sighed wearily and put away that bitter vision. He forced himself to recognize that he was completely helpless. The decision lay not with him, but with Walt.

  He’d have to tell Rose, somehow, he thought. That was the hardest part of all. Harder still, because she could not comprehend the mutant language or see that world of the future. All of it would have to be understood only as he could tell it.

  For a while he tried futilely to dispose of some of the work on his desk. It was no use. He cleared it off and gave necessary instructions to his secretary, telling her he’d be back in the morning.

  When he reached home, Rose met him in the front hall, her face reflecting her startled surprise.

  “Bill! What are you doing home at this time? Nothing’s wrong—”

  “Of course not, darling.” He lifted her with his hands on her waist. “Just got lonesome for home cooking for lunch. What’s on?”

  “Bill, you silly. There’s nothing on—nothing that would satisfy your gourmandizing. Some fruit salad, sandwiches—for me and Walt.”

  “Swell. Lead me to it.”

  It isn’t going over, he thought. This isn’t the right approach. But how can I say it? What am I going to tell her—

  After lunch, he led her into the living room and drew her down beside him on the sofa.

  “Bill, what’s wrong? Something is on your mind.”

  He smiled uncertainly. “Yes. There is something special I want to tell you, something I’ve got to make you understand—about Walt.”

  “Walt! What has happened—?”

  “Something good. It’s happened, or is happening, and he’s going to need all our help and understanding. Darling, do you know what a mutant is?”

  Rose furrowed her brow. “I remember something about them in college biology. Six legged calves, fruit flies with extra wings—”

  “Yes, but that’s the wrong kind. Every improvement in living creatures from the dawn of life has come about through mutations, changes in characteristics of offspring from those of the parents. Rose, Walt is a mutant.”

  Uncertain disbelief, shock, and revulsion moved in waves across her face. Then slowly, Bill Starbrook began his story. He explained about the books, the Children’s Room, and his own experiences there. He told of the mutant colony and their struggle to step up the evolutionary rate of the human race to keep from being swept aside and exploited by more rapidly advancing races. Then he told of the need of Walt’s potentialities in that struggle.

  When he was finished, Rose was sitting still as ice, her face expressionless. When he touched her hand, it was cold.

  “You can’t expect me to believe such a story,” she said at last. “It isn’t true. It couldn’t possibly be true. Things like that don’t happen.”

  “They have happened,” Starbrook pointed out, “perhaps thousands of times in our own generation. It is only by accident that I found out about this instead of Walt being swept away without our knowledge.”

  “This must be some kind of a crazy joke, Bill. You can’t have believed a word you’ve said. Why are you telling me this?”

  “There are the books—”

  “Those books. Yes. Ever since Walt first brought them home I’ve felt their evil influence. Why, no one can even read them. The characters are like cabalistic scribbling of ancient spells and mysticisms. I can believe almost that they are responsible for such fantasies as you have described—in your minds.”

  “Rose.” And suddenly Starbrook knew it was no use, but he went on. “Walt and I can read those books. To us, the characters make sense—because we have the mutations that enable us to read them.”

  “Please promise me you won’t let Walt bring any more of them to the house. Whatever it is that has seized his imagination—and yours—will gradually be forgotten if he doesn’t have them around.”

  Starbrook kept silent. As he looked into Rose’s eyes he knew she would never believe this thing,. Not until it was too late, anyway—

  “I’ll see what I can do with Walt,” he said wearily, “We can’t suddenly force him to avoid the books. He would read them in the library at any cost. But I promise I’ll watch him and keep him from being hurt by them.”

  He got into the car again and drove away. His disappointment hung like a pall over everything, but he had not expected more, he told himself. He could not expect Rose to act differently. Her utterly conventional mind with its lack of scientific training was a narrow highway over which such ponderous vehicles of revelation could never pass.

  Suddenly, he realized he had no destination. He didn’t want to go back to the office. He glanced down at his briefcase in which lay the books Miss Edythe had given him for Walt, He’d forgotten to take them to him. He turned downtown and went into the reading room of the public library. There, he began studying the new volumes.

  With what was almost a pathetic eagerness now, he wanted to devour every concept of the mutants’ colony which he could obtain. He wanted to know that world in which Walt was going to live in all the detail he could.

  With somewhat of a shock he realized he was now thinking in terms of Walt’s going as a foregone conclusion. Now he wanted to preserve for himself every common facet of experience that would link them after Walt had passed irrevocably through time and space to a far future.

  He found the present volumes suddenly different from those that Walt had previously been given. The pretense of fiction and fairy tales was gone. The information being given now was straight stuff. So abstruse was it that Starbrook wondered how Walt could possibly absorb it, but he felt certain that the mutants had made no mistake. They knew what they were doing.

  There began to appear new bits of information that he knew was not a part of Earth’s science in this age. As he read on, he moved farther and farther into the difficult unknown of the mutants’ science.

  Slowly, his scientific objectivity began to predominate the mixture of feelings within him. Here was material that would be of inestimable value to his own age. It would be tragic to let it get away without making some attempt to preserve it. He wondered if the mutants would have any objection to that. Evidently not, since Rogers knew he had free access to everything that Walt obtained from the library, and had even advised him to go along with Walt.

  He decided to go back to the plant after all. It was late and near quitting time when he arrived, but the photo lab was still open. He took one of the books and gave it to Joe Copper, the photo technician.

  “How soon can you shoot the whole thing? Photostats of each page, say three copies.”

  The technician frowned as he glanced at the unintelligible pages. “What the devil—?” Then he glanced at Starbrook’s face.

  “We can get it out tomorrow,” he said, quickly, “if it’s that much of a rush
job,’ he said. “We’ve just finished up the instruction book work on that BC-124A set—”

  “Good. I’ll be around tomorrow for it—and have some more for you.”

  When he returned home neither he nor Rose made any mention of the incident of the afternoon. Together they went up to Walt’s room to see how he was. His cold was better and he was lying impatiently reading one of the mutants’ books.

  Rose’s face showed only a flicker of emotion as she saw the book, then she returned the smile that Walt gave them.

  “Gee, Dad, I thought you were never going to get home. Mom says you were here for lunch and never came up to see a guy flat on his back. What kind of business is that?”

  Starbrook ruffled his hair. “Very urgent business or I’d have come up. How’re your viruses—or what the devil do you call more than one of the bugs—”

  “They find me pretty poisonous. I’ll be up tomorrow.”

  “Not quite,” laughed Rose.

  “How about us working on our chess game while Mom gets supper, Dad? We ought to have time for a couple of moves. O.K. Mom?”

  “Sure. You go right ahead. I’ll bring yours on a tray.”

  When Rose was gone, Walt looked at the briefcase that Starbrook still held. “Did you bring some more books for me?”

  Starbrook nodded. He drew out the first of the two that Miss Edythe had given him. “We’ve got to do something about keeping these under cover from now on. They worry your mother. She’s afraid of their influence. She can’t understand what you or I can comprehend in them. I tried to tell her a little about them this afternoon. That’s what I came home for. It’s hopeless. She wants you to get rid of them. You’ll have to do that or else study them under cover.”