A Century of Science Fiction Read online

  “The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hillside upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me grey and dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapor, now brown, now green: they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed—melting and flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently I noted that the sunbelt swayed up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that, consequently, my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of spring.

  “The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. They merged at last into a kind of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked, indeed, a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to account. But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of stopping, scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind, a certain curiosity and therewith a certain dread, until at last they took complete possession of me. What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I thought, might not appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes! I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hillside, and remain there without any wintry intermission. Even through the veil of my confusion the earth seemed very fair. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping.

  “The peculiar risk lay in the possibility of my finding some substance in the space which I, or the machine, occupied. So long as I travelled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered: I was, so to speak, attenuated—was slipping like a vapor through the interstices of intervening substances! But to come to a stop involved the jamming of myself, molecule by molecule, into whatever lay in my way: meant bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle that a profound chemical reaction, possibly a far-reaching explosion, would result, and blow myself and my apparatus out of all possible dimensions—into the Unknown. This possibility had occurred to me again and again while I was making the machine; but then I had cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk—one of the risks a man has got to take! Now the risk was inevitable, I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. The fact is that, insensibly, the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerve. I told myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance I resolved to stop forthwith. Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through the air.”

  One problem Wells did not try to cope with is the time paradox, usually expressed in the form, “What happens if you go back and kill your own grandfather?”

  A Russian-French writer, Nathalie Henneberg, has recently given what may be the definitive Gallic answer, which she identifies as the “uncertainty principle”: “As if anybody could be sure of his grandparents)”

  At any rate, this and similar paradoxes have goaded modern writers into producing many ingenious short stories, of which you are about to read one of the most scintillating examples. It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1951.

  Alfred Bester, a radio and television writer-director by trade, has been writing science fiction for pleasure since 1939. He is the author of three novels and some thirty short stories, many of them about time travel, a theme to which he has given a mordant twist of his own. He has been an entertainment columnist for Holiday and Rogue magazines.

  Bester is a well-set-up man and when clean-shaven is handsome, but in recent years he has been wearing a truly villainous beard.

  OF TIME AND THIRD AVENUE

  BY ALFRED BESTER

  What Macy hated about the man was the fact that he squeaked. Macy didn’t know if it was the shoes, but he suspected the clothes. In the back room of his tavern, under the poster that asked: “WHO FEARS MENTION THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE?” Macy inspected the stranger. He was tall, slender, and very dainty. Although he was young, he was almost bald. There was fuzz on top of his head and over his eyebrows.

  When he reached into his jacket for a wallet, Macy made up his mind. It was the clothes that squeaked.

  “MQ, Mr. Macy,” the stranger said in a staccato voice. “Very good. For rental of this back room including exclusive utility for one chronos—”

  “One whatos?” Macy asked nervously.

  “Chronos. The incorrect word? Oh, yes. Excuse me. One hour.”

  “You’re a foreigner,” Macy said. “What’s your name? I bet it’s Russian.”

  “No. Not foreign,” the stranger answered. His frightening eyes whipped around the back room. “Identify me as Boyne.”

  “Boyne!” Macy echoed incredulously.

  “MQ. Boyne.” Mr. Boyne opened a wallet like an accordion, ran his fingers through various colored papers and coins, then withdrew a hundred-dollar bill. He jabbed it at Macy and said, “Rental fee for one hour. As agreed. One hundred dollars. Take it and go.”

  Impelled by the thrust of Boyne’s eyes, Macy took the bill and staggered out to the bar. Over his shoulder he quavered, “What’ll you drink?”

  “Drink? Alcohol? Never!” Boyne answered.

  He turned and darted to the telephone booth, reached under the pay phone and located the lead-in wire. From a side pocket he withdrew a small glittering box and clipped it to the wire. He tucked it out of sight, then lifted the receiver.

  “Co-ordinates west seventy-three—fifty-eight—fifteen,” he said rapidly, “north forty—forty-five—twenty. Disband sigma. You’re ghosting . . .” After a pause he continued: “Stet. Stet! Transmission clear. I want a fix on Knight. Oliver Wilson Knight. Probability to four significant figures. You have the co-ordinates. . . . Ninety-nine, point nine eight oh seven? MQ. Stand by. . . .”

  Boyne poked his head out of the booth and peered toward the tavern door. He waited with steely concentration until a young man and a pretty girl entered. Then he ducked back to the phone. “Probability fulfilled. Oliver Wilson Knight in contact. MQ. Luck my Para.” He hung up and was sitting under the poster as the couple wandered toward the back room.

  The young man was about twenty-six, of medium height and inclined to be stocky. His suit was rumpled, his seal-brown hair was rumpled, and his friendly face was crinkled by good-natured creases. The girl had black hair, soft blue eyes, and a small private smile. They walked arm in arm and liked to collide gently when they thought no one was looking. At this moment they collided with Mr. Macy.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Knight,” Macy said. “You and the young lady can’t sit back there this afternoon. The premises have been rented.”

  Their faces fell. Boyne called, “Quite all right, Mr. Macy. All correct. Happy to entertain Mr. Knight and friend as guests.”

  Knight and the girl turned to Boyne uncertainly. Boyne smiled and patted the chair alongside him. “Sit down,” he said. “Charmed, I assure you.”

  The girl said, “We hate to intrude, but this is the only place in town where you can get genuine stone ginger beer.”

  “Already aware of the fact, Miss Clinton.” To Macy he said, “Bring ginger beer and go. No other guests. These are all I’m expecting.”

  Knight and the girl stared at Boyne in astonishment as they sat down slowly. Knight placed a wrapped parcel of books on the table. The girl took a breath and said, “You know me, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Boyne. As in Boyne, Battle of. Yes, of course. You are Miss Jane Clinton. This is Mr. Oliver Wilson Knight. I rented premises
particularly to meet you this afternoon.” '

  “This supposed to be a gag?” Knight asked, a dull flush appearing on his cheeks.

  “Ginger beer,” answered Boyne gallantly as Macy arrived, deposited bottles and glasses, and departed in haste.

  “You couldn’t know we were coming here,” Jane said. “We didn’t know ourselves . . . until a few minutes ago.”

  “Sorry to contradict, Miss Clinton.” Boyne smiled. “The probability of your arrival at longitude seventy-three—fifty-eight—fifteen, latitude forty—forty-five—twenty was ninety-nine point nine eight oh seven per cent. No one can escape four significant figures.”

  “Listen,” Knight began angrily, “if this is your idea of—”

  “Kindly drink ginger beer and listen to my idea, Mr. Knight.” Boyne leaned across the table with galvanic intensity. “This hour has been arranged with difficulty and much cost. To whom? No matter. You have placed us in an extremely dangerous position. I have been sent to find a solution.”

  “Solution for what?” Knight asked.

  Jane tried to rise. “I ... I think we’d b-better be go—” Boyne waved her back, and she sat down like a child. To Knight he said, “This noon you entered premises of J. D. Craig and Company, dealer in printed books. You purchased, through transfer of money, four books. Three do not matter, but the fourth—” he tapped the wrapped parcel emphatically—“that is the crux of this encounter.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Knight exclaimed. “One bound volume consisting of collected facts and statistics.”

  “The almanac?”

  “The almanac.”

  “What about it?”

  “You intended to purchase a 1950 almanac.”

  “I bought the ’50 almanac.”

  “You did not!” Boyne blazed. “You bought the almanac for 1990.”

  “What?”

  “The World Almanac for 1990,” Boyne said clearly, “is in this package. Do not ask how. There was a mistake that has already been disciplined. Now the error must be adjusted. That is why I am here. It is why this meeting was arranged. You cognate?”

  Knight burst into laughter and reached for the parcel. Boyne leaned across the table and grasped his wrist. “You must not open it, Mr. Knight.” "

  “All right.” Knight leaned back in his chair. He grinned at Jane and sipped ginger beer. “What’s the payoff on the gag?”

  “I must have the book, Mr. Knight. I would like to walk out of this tavern with the almanac under my arm.”

  “You would, eh?”

  “I would.”

  “The 1990 almanac?”

  “Yes.”

  “If,” said Knight, “there was such a thing as a 1990 almanac, and if it was in that package, wild horses couldn’t get it away from me.”

  “Why, Mr. Knight?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. A look into the future? Stock market reports . . . horse races . . . politics. It’d be money from home. I’d be rich.”

  “Indeed yes.” Boyne nodded sharply. “More than rich. Omnipotent. The small mind would use the almanac from the future for small things only. Wagers on the outcome of games and elections. And so on. But the intellect of dimensions—your intellect—would not stop there.”

  “You tell me.” Knight grinned.

  “Deduction. Induction. Inference.” Boyne ticked the points off on his fingers. “Each fact would tell you an entire history. Real-estate investment, for example. What lands to buy and sell. Population shifts and census reports would tell you. Transportation. Lists of marine disasters and railroad wrecks would tell you whether rocket travel has replaced the train and ship.”

  “Has it?” Knight chuckled.

  “Flight records would tell you which company’s stock should be bought. Lists of postal receipts would tell you which are the cities of the future. The Nobel Prize winners would tell you which scientists and what new inventions to watch. Armament budgets would tell you which factories and industries to control. Cost-of-living reports would tell you how best to protect your wealth against inflation or deflation. Foreign-exchange rates, stock-exchange reports, bank suspensions and life-insurance indexes would provide the clues to protect you against any and all disasters.”

  “That’s the idea,” Knight said. “That’s for me.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I know so. Money in my pocket. The world in my pocket.”

  “Excuse me,” Boyne said keenly, “but you are only repeating the dreams of childhood. You want wealth. Yes. But only won through endeavor—your own endeavor. There is no joy in success as an unearned gift. There is nothing but guilt and unhappiness. You are aware of this already.”

  “I disagree,” Knight said.

  “Do you? Then why do you work? Why not steal? Rob? Burgle? Cheat others of their money to fill your own pockets?”

  “But I . . .” Knight began, and then stopped.

  “The point is well taken, eh?” Boyne waved his hand impatiently. “No, Mr. Knight. Seek a mature argument. You are too ambitious and healthy to wish to steal success.”

  “Then I’d just want to know if I would be successful.” “Ah? Stet. You wish to thumb through the pages looking for your name. You want reassurance. Why? Have you no confidence in yourself? You are a promising young attorney. Yes. I know that. It is part of my data. Has not Miss Clinton confidence in you?”

  “Yes,” Jane said in a loud voice. “He doesn’t need reassurance from a book.”

  “What else, Mr. Knight?”

  Knight hesitated, sobering in the face of Boyne’s overwhelming intensity. Then he said, “Security.”

  “There is no such thing. Life is insecurity. You can find safety only in death.”

  “You know what I mean,” Knight muttered. “The knowledge that life is worth planning. There’s the H-bomb.”

  Boyne nodded quickly. “True. It is a crisis. But then, I’m here. The world will continue. I am proof.”

  “If I believe you.”

  “And if you do not?” Boyne blazed. “You do not want security. You want courage.” He nailed the couple with a contemptuous glare. “There is in this country a legend of pioneer forefathers from whom you are supposed to inherit courage in the face of odds. D. Boone, E. Allen, S. Houston, A. Lincoln, G. Washington and others. Fact?”

  “I suppose so,” Knight muttered. “That’s what we keep telling ourselves.”

  “And where is the courage in you? Pfui! It is only talk. The unknown terrifies you. Danger does not inspire you to fight, as it did D. Crockett; it makes you whine and reach for the reassurance in this book. Fact?”

  “But the H-bomb . . .”

  “It is a danger. Yes. One of many. What of that? Do you cheat at solhand?”

  “Solhand?”

  “Your pardon.” Boyne reconsidered, impatiently snapping his fingers at the interruption to the white heat of his argument. “It is a game played singly against chance relationships in an arrangement of cards. I forget your noun.”

  “Oh!” Jane’s face brightened. “Solitaire.”

  “Quite right. Solitaire. Thank you, Miss Clinton.” Boyne turned his frightening eyes on Knight. “Do you cheat at solitaire?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Do you enjoy games won by cheating?”

  “Not as a rule.”

  “They are thisney, yes? Boring. They are tiresome. Pointless. Null-co-ordinated. You wish you had won honestly.” “I suppose so.”

  “And you will suppose so after you have looked at this bound book. Through all your pointless life you will wish you had played honestly the game of life. You will verdash that look. You will regret. You will totally recall the pronouncement of our great poet-philosopher Trynbyll who summed it up in one lightning, skazon line. ‘The Future is Tekon,’ said Trynbyll. Mr. Knight, do not cheat. Let me implore you to give me the almanac.”

  “Why don’t you take it away from me?”

  “It must be a gift. We can rob you of
nothing. We can give you nothing.”

  “That’s a lie. You paid Macy to rent this back room.” “Macy was paid, but I gave him nothing. He will think he was cheated, but you will see to it that he is not. All will be adjusted without dislocation.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “It has all been carefully planned. I have gambled on you, Mr. Knight. I am depending on your good sense. Let me have the almanac. I will disband—reorient—and you will never see me again. Vorloss verdash! It will be a bar adventure to narrate for friends. Give me the almanac!”

  “Hold the phone,” Knight said. “This is a gag. Remember? I—”

  “Is it?” Boyne interrupted. “Is it? Look at me.”

  For almost a minute the young couple stared at the bleached white face with its deadly eyes. The half-smile left Knight’s lips, and Jane shuddered involuntarily. There was chill and dismay in the back room.

  “My God!” Knight glanced helplessly at Jane. “This can’t be happening. He’s got me believing. You?”

  Jane nodded jerkily.

  “What should we do? If everything he says is true we can refuse and live happily ever after.”

  “No,” Jane said in a choked voice. “There may be money and success in that book, but there’s divorce and death too. Give him the book.”