The Third Time Travel Read online

  Kingley wheeled at the sound of Professor Newton’s voice, his heartbeats thudding frantically against his ribs. The old man was muttering to himself and his bright blue eyes were peering uncertainly about the lab.

  “Where in thunder’d I leave my glasses, Phil?” Kingley heard him mutter. “Can’t find a blasted thing when you need—ups.” He found them on his forehead and adjusted them over his eyes, harrumphing noisily all the time.

  Kingley’s hand tightened on the gun in his pocket. With his eye he selected a spot in the center of Professor Newton’s wrinkled forehead. He drew the gun half clear of the pocket flap, waited his chance.

  “Great thing our trip,” the Professor was mumbling. “Ought to be proud of ourselves, eh? First humans to travel through time and pierce the veil of the future. Yessir, a great thing.”

  Kingley tried to pull the gun then but his muscles refused to obey the desperate command of his brain. He slumped suddenly against the lab bench his chest heaving like a bellows, his heart hammering furiously.

  It was no use. He couldn’t commit murder. Not cold-blooded, deliberate murder. The gun slid back into his pocket. He couldn’t kill this way—but—already his mind was exploring another infinitely simpler and more subtle plan that had just occurred to him.

  “S’matter?” the Professor asked grumpily. “Sick? Snap out of it, ’cause”—he paused to cackle—“we can’t take any sick people into the future.”

  “No,” Kingley said weakly, “we can’t.” He watched the old man puttering about the lab bench and his lips parted in a triumphant smirk.

  IT was so simple. It was surprising that it hadn’t occurred to him before this.

  He and Professor Newton were testing the Professor’s time machine tomorrow. The machine worked—they had sent it into time by itself—but this was the first passenger trip. If they traveled, say, a thousand years into the future, what was to prevent him from leaving the Professor stranded there and return himself to the present? Then with the Professor out of the way the time machine would be his exclusive property, a source of limitless wealth and power.

  It wouldn’t be necessary to kill the Professor then, merely strand him in time, and thus eliminate him forever from the present.

  Kingley’s grin widened as his eyes followed the bent old figure of the Professor as he puttered around the lab equipment. Their time trip tomorrow would be a one way trip to oblivion for the old coot.

  “Can’t wait,” he heard the old man mutter, “to see, really see the future.”

  Kingley smiled.

  “No rush,” he thought to himself. “You’re going to be there a long, long time.”

  * * * *

  “Ready?” snapped Professor Newton, his old voice trembly with suppressed excitement.

  “All set,” Kingley answered.

  It was the following day. They were seated inside the time machine on the leather tractor seats provided for that purpose. Around them, circling them like a cage, gleamed the shimmering contours of the time machine, undulating weirdly, as if the silvery bars were twisting and bending from one dimension to another.

  The Professor’s hand moved to a sliding bar that governed the entropy reduction apparatus on the machine, then he turned and nodded briefly to Kingley. His other hand rested on a bar, calibrated with time units. Days, months, years, were marked above small levers and another bar, fitted above this one was marked with the smaller time units of seconds, minutes, hours.

  The Professor’s hand moved a lever and suddenly Kingley felt an amazing sensation. It was if his body had suddenly developed a fluid constituency and was twisting and bending and undulating in accordance with the silver bars of the machine. For an instant he tried to yell, but then the familiar lab, visible through the bars of the machine, vanished abruptly and he seemed to be hurtling at express train speed down a black corridor that seemed, somehow to be twisting and bending before him.

  How long this sensation lasted he couldn’t tell, but after what seemed an interminable period it ceased, almost imperceptively at first and then with a swift abruptness that brought the blood to his temples in a dizzying rush.

  The shimmering, undulating bars of the time cage gradually steadied slightly and Kingley was able to see a broad, vista extending before them.

  The Professor was nudging him.

  “All right, all right,” the old voice cracked in his ear. “We’re here. Get out, get out. Let’s look around.”

  Kingley climbed out of the cramped quarters and peered about, his curiosity for the moment transcending the real purpose of his trip.

  It was a barren, rock-blighted scene that met their eyes. As far as they could see mighty boulders were piled one upon the other and everything was quiet; frighteningly quiet.

  “H-how far are we?” Kingley asked.

  “Five thousand years into the future,” the old Professor said casually. “If there’s any humans, they must be occupying another part of the globe.”

  Kingley clenched his fists nervously as the Professor moved away from the shimmering machine to inspect a peculiarly colored piece of slate. He was bending over, his back to Kingley, inches away from a fissure in the rock that dropped into a shallow valley.

  Kingley stepped behind him, noiselessly, carefully. This was his chance. He’d never get a better one. A slight shove with his hand…

  His hand reached out, and then the Professor turned.

  “Say look—” his voice trailed off as he took in Kingley’s tense, crouched figure. His eyes widened and his mouth opened but it was too late to cry out. Kingley’s hand collided with his frail shoulder. The old man staggered back a step and crashed downward into the shallow gully.

  Kingley watched triumphantly as the Professor slid down the rough shale siding, clawing frantically with his hands and feet until he stopped at the base of the rock, a cloud of rock dust rising about his frail, crumpled old figure.

  Then Kingley wheeled and stepped into the time machine. He grinned exultantly as he set the devices and levers, his hands working swiftly, automatically. But even in his haste he did not forget the primary law of time travel which the Professor had drummed into his head. Never return to the same second in time from which the trip originated. Wouldn’t do to get caught in a time groove at this stage in the game.

  He heard the Professor’s thin, cracked voice shouting frantically and he heard a scuffling, scratching sound as the old man attempted vainly to scramble to the top of the ledge.

  Kingley’s grin split wider as he listened to these sounds.

  The twisting tunnel of blackness stretched before him then, endlessly, infinitely mysterious. Through its black unknown he rushed, backward, backward into the time that was past.

  As before, the sensation departed slowly at first and then with a dizzying rush of speed. The silvery shimmer of the bars was once again visible and through their glittering undulation he glimpsed the familiar benches and equipment of Professor Newton’s laboratory.

  He scrambled out of the machine, the delirious feeling of success and power coursing through his veins like strong drink. His eyes traveled about the laboratory, slowly, gloatingly. All of it his. The equipment, the formulas and most important of all—the time machine.

  The Professor was removed from the scene forever. Kingley thought of the old man wandering dazedly about, five thousand years in the future and he laughed shrilly. If any snooper got suspicious—why let them snoop. What could they prove without a body?

  His possessive gaze rested on the time machine and he felt himself trembling with anticipatory greed. The money, the power, the position that it would give him were beyond the limits of imagination. Millions—

  “Well, well,” a horribly familiar voice blasted into his thoughts, “you look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

  Kingley wheeled, the cold crushing hand of fear closing over his heart.

  Professor Newton stood in the doorway!

  FOR a frozen instant Kingley stared into the P
rofessor’s bright blue eyes and then he staggered back, his jaw hanging slack, an inarticulate bleat welling hysterically from his throat. Somehow—the thought pounded with horrible force into his frenzied brain—the old man had followed him back from time. Followed him from the future to point the finger of guilt at him. Now he was moving toward him.

  Kingley’s tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

  “For God’s sake,” he tried to scream, “Keep away from me, do y’ hear? You can’t be here, you’re not here. Keep away from me.”

  Instinctively his hand slipped into his pocket, jerked out the automatic. The muscles in his arm refused to lift the gun shoulder high. His breath hissed through his teeth in great choking sobs as he backed away from the Professor. He couldn’t kill the old man. No one could. He had gone five thousand years into the future to get rid of him, but like some horrible nemesis the old Professor had tracked him back across the bridgeless gulf of Time.

  Suddenly strength flowed into his arm and he raised the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. The blasting report reverberated through the lab and Kingley never heard the old Professor say: “Trip tomorrow got you scared?” Nor would Kingley ever know that in his haste to return to the Present, he had selected the day before he and Professor Newton started for the Future.

  He didn’t even see the figure behind him. The figure to which Professor Newton now said, his voice unmoved by the tragedy that had taken place before him:

  “Where in thunder’d I leave my glasses, Phil?”

  GEORGE ALL THE WAY, by Richard Wilson

  Even before the shimmering stopped, Bill Marcer saw that he was being surrounded. He felt a trifle uneasy, though the phlutters had assured him there would be no danger.

  Abruptly the shimmering was gone and Marcer seemed to feel the last of his personal molecules slip back into place as the Phleger effect faded. He wriggled his shoulders, threw them back, filled his chest and forced a smile.

  “Greetings,” he said to the crowd, pivoting to address as many as possible from the railed platform. “I, Billings Marcer, bring you greetings from the twentieth century” No one had told him to make a speech, but he thought it would be appropriate.

  One of the men of the future stepped forward, smiling formally. He was dressed in pantaloons and a skirt, or kilt, and halter top, something like a Macedonian dancer, or maybe a Scot.

  “Hi,” this individual said, speaking slowly and distinctly, as if to a foreigner. “Welcome to twenty-one seventy-seven. I’m Jeems Kenth to be your guide. Or would you prefer to make your double O solo?”

  “Double o solo?” Bill Marcer repeated. “You mean go around by myself?”

  “Oskie-wow-wow,” another pantalooned man said. “You win the sixty-four thousands.” He pronounced each syllable with care.

  “What?”

  “You did say twentieth century?” the first futureman, Jeems Kenth, asked. He looked anxious.

  “Yes.”

  “Then everything’s jake,” he said with a visible return of his assurance. “We’ve straightened up and are flying right. Ish-kabibble?”

  “On the beam,” his fellow futureman agreed. “Voot!”

  “The latter part of the twentieth century,” Marcer said.

  It dawned on him that these people, in preparation for his visit, had been studying the folk expressions of his time, or what they thought was his time.

  “The latter part?” Jeems Kenth looked disappointed. “Then we have not mastered your language? We are off the beam and icing up?”

  “Not at all,” Marcer said quickly. As unofficial ambassador from 1977, he had to be diplomatic. “You’re right in the groove. Reet. Cooking on the front burner, with gas.” He wasn’t fluent in the embarrassing slang of his father’s and grandfather’s time, but he thought he could get by. “Shut my mouth,” he added as he thought of another one.

  “Fan my brow!” Kenth said delightedly. “The kid’s okay!”

  “Terrif!” added his friend, who identified himself as Aces Jack. “Slip us some skin.”

  “Natch,” said Marcer. He got down from the platform and shook hands all around, murmuring “Real George” or “Howza boy?” as he was introduced to Sperris Theo, Stands Thom, Lucez Hank, Wobanx Joce and Jenfooz Ed.

  “What say we tie on the feedbag while we chew the rag?” suggested Jenfooz Ed, who was heavy and hearty. “Something for the inner man?”

  “Fine,” said Bill Marcer. “That’d be the most, I mean.”

  He saw that he had materialized in a public square and that the crowd around him was holding up traffic. Wildly colored three-wheeled vehicles waited calmly for the obstruction to clear, without a honk out of them. But now a uniformed man made his way through the crowd, saying: “Unclutter. Decong.”

  Aces Jack went to meet him, saying: “Twonce. Wantroduce chronaut from twencent. Marcers Bill. Bill, Phoebes Dick.”

  “Do,” Phoebes Dick said in the clipped speech that apparently was the proper language of 2177. He gave Marcer a brief look and turned away to Aces Jack. “Going? Must unsnarl.”

  He went back to the patient traffic jam as Jenfooz Ed and Jeems Kenth led the group toward a building shaped, Marcer thought, something like a hamburger. He felt a bit hurt by Phoebes Dick’s abruptness. The man could have looked up at least one slang expression, for politeness’ sake.

  Jeems Kenth seemed to sense Marcer’s disappointment. “P.D.’s a cop,” he said. “You savvy how cops are on duty. Dum-da-da-dum.”

  “Check,” Marcer said. He had no idea what the musical phrase was meant to convey.

  * * * *

  A big table had been reserved for them at the hamburger joint, as Marcer felt obliged to call it. Bowls on the table were piled high with familiar raw fruit and unfamiliar prepared foods.

  “Yes, we have no bananas,” said Lucez Hank brightly, although they had. “Pile in. Your stomach must think your throat’s been cut.”

  “That’s right,” Marcer nodded agreeably. “Haven’t eaten for a couple of hundred years, come to think of it.”

  Everybody laughed uproariously and for a while there was no conversation, only the sound of eating, which was done with the fingers.

  As Bill Marcer chewed, he studied his hosts, thinking of their names. They had called him Marcers Bill, inverting it. Back when surnames began to be used, people took them from occupations: Miller, Goldsmith, Wheeler, Hunter. Then the sons: Robertson, son of Robert—Robert’s son. That seemed to be the style again, here in 2177. Jeems Kenth, then, had been Jeem’s Kenneth or—of course!—GM’s Kenneth.

  He turned to Kenth, waving a dripless algyburger excitedly. “You’re with General Motors, aren’t you?”

  Kenth beamed. “Solid, Jackson.”

  Marcer turned to the man on his left. “And Jenfooz Ed. General Foods?”

  “Sensash!” Ed agreed.

  “And Stands Thom would be with Standard Oil, and Sperris Theo with Sperry’s, and Lucez Hank with Luce’s—publishing. Right?”

  “The kid’s a wonder,” Wobanx Joce said from across the table. “Now dig me and Aces Jack.”

  “Wobanx.” Marcer pondered it. “World Bank?” he guessed. They nodded in delight. “But Aces Jack? You’ve got me there, unless you’re in the playing-card business.”

  Jack grinned. “Higher stakes. Try AEC.”

  “Atomic Energy Commission?”

  “Corporation. Defederalized.”

  “Of course,” Marcer said. “Then that cop—Phoebes Dick. Could Phoebe be FBI?”

  “Bull’s eye!” said Lucez Hank. “Now you level with us, Marcers Bill. What’s your line?”

  “None, really. I’m what the papers call the heir to a silicone fortune. Just a playboy with a lot of money, which is why I’m here. I guess if I had any descendants, one of them might be Slix Bill. Tell me,” he said, forgetting to slang it up in his excitement, “is there anybody like that around? Could I see him?”

  There was a silence that Marcer took for embarr
assment. Stands Thom broke it with a laugh. “That’d be illegal, Fosdick, old boy. It’d be like wising you up to when you were going to kick the bucket. Couldn’t tip your mitt, you know.”

  “It wouldn’t matter,” Marcer said. “I won’t remember any of this, anyhow. Didn’t they tell you, when they arranged my trip, that I’ll have an amnesia shot when I get back? Time travel’s still top secret in 1977.”

  “Fill us in,” Jeems Kenth said. “We have the general picture, of course, but you’re a history book on legs. Give us the straight lowdown.”

  Bill Marcer flicked crumbs from his algyburger into the disposal slot in the middle of the table. “Well,” he said, “time travel was a Government project till it ran into budget trouble. Budgets haven’t become obsolete, have they?”

  They shook their heads, smiling ruefully.

  For years, he told them, Congress had appropriated money and the top-secret Ingersoll Project had gobbled it up, without notable success.

  On its best try, IP sent an expendable research worker five minutes into the future. He didn’t come back. But when the five minutes had elapsed, there he was. The intervening time simply hadn’t existed for him.

  This sort of research didn’t seem productive, economically or militarily. The costs worked out to about a hundred million dollars a minute, so the House Appropriations Committee balked at voting new billions for the next year’s program. One committee member wanted to know if there wasn’t a private agency that could carry on. The Rockefellers, maybe, or the Fords. The committee counsel was instructed to look into it.

  His looking produced the Phleger Foundation, consisting of the tax-free millions of a West Coast airplane manufacturer. Phleger set up his Foundation’s time division in a vast piece of property outside Los Angeles, which he’d taken over in one of his less inspired mergers. The property had been vacant for years and the chronicians swarmed in.

  To the Phleger people, the fact that someone had gone five minutes into the future proved time travel practical. The principle had to be the same for five years, a jump they eventually achieved. But these were one-way trips and valuable chronicians were lost to research for whatever span of time they jumped.