A Century of Science Fiction Page 9

  “I could explain,” interrupted de Salcedo with all the brashness and impatience of youth. “I could say that the Admiral and the Rogerians are wrong about the earth’s shape. I could say the earth is not round but is flat. I could say the horizon exists, not because we live upon a globe, but because the earth is curved only a little ways, like a greatly flattened-out hemisphere. I could also say that the cherubim are coming, not from Luna, but from a ship such as ours, a vessel which is hanging in the void off the edge of the earth.”

  “What?” gasped the other two.

  “Haven’t you heard,” said de Salcedo, “that the King of Portugal secretly sent out a ship after he turned down Columbus’ proposal? How do we know he did not, that the messages are from our predecessor, that he sailed off the world’s rim and is now suspended in the air and becomes exposed at night because it follows the moon around Terra— is, in fact, a much smaller and unseen satellite?”

  The monk’s laughter woke many men on the ship. “I’ll have to tell the Las Palmas operator your tale. He can put it in that novel of his. Next you’ll be telling me those messages are from one of those fire-shooting sausages so many credulous laymen have been seeing flying around. No, my dear de Salcedo, let’s not be ridiculous. Even the ancient Greeks knew the earth was round. Every university in Europe teaches that. And we Rogerians have measured the circumference. We know for sure that the Indies lie just across the

  Atlantic. Just as we know for sure, through mathematics, that heavier-than-air machines are impossible. Our Friar Ripskulls, our mind doctors, have assured us these flying creations are mass hallucinations or else the tricks of heretics or Turks who want to panic the populace.

  “That moon radio is no delusion, I’ll grant you. What it is, I don’t know. But it’s not a Spanish or Portuguese ship. What about its different code? Even if it came from Lisbon, that ship would still have a Rogerian operator. And he would, according to our policy, be of a different nationality from the crew so he might the easier stay out of political embroilments. He wouldn’t break our laws by using a different code in order to communicate with Lisbon. We disciples of Saint Roger do not stoop to petty boundary intrigues. Moreover, that realizer would not be powerful enough to reach Europe, and must, therefore, be directed at us.”

  “How can you be sure?” said de Salcedo. “Distressing though the thought may be to you, a priest could be subverted. Or a layman could learn your secrets and invent a code. I think that a Portuguese ship is sending to another, a ship perhaps not too distant from us.”

  De Torres shivered and crossed himself again. “Perhaps the angels are warning us of approaching death? Perhaps?” “Perhaps? Then why don’t they use our code? Angels would know it as well as I. No, there is no perhaps. The order does not permit perhaps. It experiments and finds out; nor does it pass judgment until it knows.”

  “I doubt we’ll ever know,” said de Salcedo gloomily. “Columbus has promised the crew that if we come across no sign of land by evening tomorrow, we shall turn back. Otherwise—” he drew a finger across his throat—“kkk! Another day, and we’ll be pointed east and getting away from that evil and bloody-looking moon and its incomprehensible messages.”

  “It would be a great loss to the order and to the Church,” sighed the friar. “But I leave such things in the hands of God and inspect only what He hands me to look at.”

  With which pious statement Friar Sparks lifted the bottle to ascertain the liquid level. Having determined in a scientific manner its existence, he next measured its quantity and tested its quality by putting all of it in that best of all chemistry tubes, his enormous belly.

  Afterward, smacking his lips and ignoring the pained and disappointed looks on the faces of the sailors, he went on to speak enthusiastically of the water screw and the engine which turned it, both of which had been built recently at the St. Jonas College at Genoa. If Isabella’s three ships had been equipped with those, he declared, they would not have to depend upon the wind. However, so far, the fathers had forbidden its extended use because it was feared the engine’s fumes might poison the air and the terrible speeds it made possible might be fatal to the human body. After which he plunged into a tedious description of the life of his patron saint, the inventor of the first cherubim realizer and receiver, Jonas of Carcassonne, who had been martyred when he grabbed a wire he thought was insulated.

  The two sailors found excuses to walk off. The monk was a good fellow, but hagiography bored them. Besides, they wanted to talk of women. . . .

  If Columbus had not succeeded in persuading his crews to sail one more day, events would have been different.

  At dawn the sailors were very much cheered by the sight of several large birds circling their ships. Land could not be far off; perhaps these winged creatures came from the coast of fabled Cipangu itself, the country whose houses were roofed with gold.

  The birds swooped down. Closer, they were enormous and very strange. Their bodies were flatfish and almost saucer-shaped and small in proportion to the wings, which had a spread of at least thirty feet. Nor did they have legs. Only a few sailors saw the significance of that fact. These birds dwelt in the air and never rested upon land or sea.

  While they were meditating upon that, they heard a slight sound as of a man clearing his throat. So gentle and far off was the noise that nobody paid any attention to it, for each thought his neighbor had made it.

  A few minutes later, the sound had become louder and deeper, like a lute string being twanged.

  Everybody looked up. Heads were turned west.

  Even yet they did not understand that the noise like a finger plucking a wire came from the line that held the earth together, and that the line was stretched to its utmost, and that the violent finger of the sea was what had plucked the line.

  It was some time before they understood. They had run out of horizon.

  When they saw that, they were too late.

  The dawn had not only come up like thunder, it was thunder. And though the three ships heeled over at once and tried to sail close-hauled on the port tack, the suddenly speeded up and relentless current made beating hopeless.

  Then it was the Rogerian wished for the Genoese screw and the wood-burning engine that would have made them able to resist the terrible muscles of the charging and bull-like sea. Then it was that some men prayed, some raved, some tried to attack the Admiral, some jumped overboard, and some sank into a stupor.

  Only the fearless Columbus and the courageous Friar Sparks stuck to their duties. All that day the fat monk crouched wedged in his little shanty, dot-dashing to his fellow on the Grand Canary. He ceased only when the moon rose like a huge red bubble from the throat of a dying giant Then he listened intently all night and worked desperately, scribbling and swearing impiously and checking cipher books.

  When the dawn came up again in a roar and a rush, he ran from the toldilla, a piece of paper clutched in his hand. His eyes were wild, and his lips were moving fast, but nobody could understand that he had cracked the code. They could not hear him shouting, “It is the Portuguese! It is the Portuguese!”

  Their ears were too overwhelmed to hear a mere human voice. The throat clearing and the twanging of the string had been the noises preliminary to the concert itself. Now came the mighty overture; as compelling as the blast of Gabriel’s horn was the topple of Oceanus into space.

  Once, a good many years ago, I was rash enough to say in print that I thought the time-travel story was played out. 1 would hate to tell you how many time stories I have written since then. And in a story called “Worlds of the Imperium” (Fantastic, February 1961), a young Air Force officer named Keith Laumer set down a major new idea in time travel—the first one, 1 suppose, in over twenty years. The idea is just this: that events may be ordered, may have a logical sequence, across the sheaf of parallel universes. Think of time as an endless series of film strips laid side by side, each strip almost identical to the adjoining ones. Now, if you were to take one frame
from each strip, moving at right angles across the series of strips, and then combine these frames into a new sequence . . .

  Just such a film, in Laumer's story, has been made by a vehicle moving sidewise in time. Watch:

  A selection from

  WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM

  BY KEITH LAUMER

  A man stood alone in a field. . . .

  The man changed, the scene behind him changed, drifting and oddly flowing, though he stood unmoving. The sun was visible in the sky. A leaf falling through the air hung, suspended. The man held a hoe, with which he was in the act of rooting out a small green weed. On the screen, the weed grew visibly, putting out leaves. The leaves grew larger, became splotched with red. The man seemed to shrink back, without moving his feet. The hoe shortened, the metal twisting and writhing into a new shape. The man’s arms grew shorter, thicker, his back more stooped.

  All around, the other plants drew back, apparently drifting through the soil, some fading down to nothing, others gathering together into gnarled clumps. The weed burgeoned enormously. Fleshy leaves waved out toward the man, now hardly a man. Horny armor spread like a carapace across his shoulders, and great clamplike hands gripped a glittering scythe. Now teeth were appearing along the edge of each leaf, as the scythe merged with their fat stems. The roots of the plant twisted into view above the ground, entoiling the legs of the no longer human creature attacking it. He too gained height now, the head enlarging to accommodate great jaws.

  All around, the field lay barren, the remaining plants grouped in tight impregnable mounds here and there. The figure of the monstrous animal now reared high above the plant, locked in its leafy embrace. The scythe, buried among the stems, twisted, and tendrils withered and leaves wilted back to shriveled brown husks as new shoots appeared, raw and pink. Plant teeth grated on flaring armor. It was a grim and silent battle, waged without movement under a changeless sky.

  Now the plant shrank back, blackening, drooping. The sharp steel blade was visible once more; the armor plates melted gradually back into the shoulders, as the victorious creature gave up his monstrous defensive form. The great jaws dwindled, the hands and legs changed. In the distance, the mounds opened and plants flowed out across the soil. Another minute and the man, or almost a man if you overlooked the green skin and short horns, stood with upraised hoe before a small crimson weed.

  Mack Reynolds is a student of political history who once lived peacefully and kept goats in Taos, New Mexico, along with Fredric Brown. In Taos, Reynolds and Brown consumed much wine and collaborated on many stories and on one anthology (Science-Fiction Carnival, 1953), which they gratefully dedicated to each other. Some years ago, however, Reynolds pulled up stakes, sold the goats and went to Europe. He has been traveling all over the world ever since, supporting himself by men’s-magazine articles about each new country he visits. Most of his science fiction stories have been routine space-adventure pieces, but he is also the author of a number of stories notable for their brevity and bite. Here is one which 1 think will effectively close the discussion of time traveling—for a while, anyhow.

  THE BUSINESS, AS USUAL

  BY MACK REYNOLDS

  “Listen,” the time traveler said to the first pedestrian who came by, “I’m from the twentieth century. I’ve only got fifteen minutes and then I’ll go back. I guess it’s too much to expect you to understand me, eh?”

  “Certainly I understand you.”

  “Hey! You talk English fine. How come?”

  “We call it Amer-English. I happen to be a student of dead languages.”

  “Swell! But, listen, I only got a few minutes. Let’s get going.”

  “Get going?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Look, don’t you get it? I’m a time traveler. They picked me to send into the future. I’m important.” “Ummm. But you must realize that we have time travelers turning up continuously these days.”

  “Listen, that rocks me, but I just don’t have time to go into it, see? Let’s get to the point.”

  “Very well. What have you got?”

  “What d’ya mean, what’ve I got?”

  The other sighed. “Don’t you think you should attempt to acquire some evidence that you have been in the future? I can warn you now, the paradoxes involved in time travel prevent you from taking back any knowledge which might alter the past. On your return, your mind will be blank in regard to what happened here.”

  The time traveler blinked. “Oh?”

  “Definitely. However, I shall be glad to make a trade with you.” *

  “Listen, I get the feeling I came into this conversation half a dozen sentences too late. What d’ya mean, a trade?”

  “I am willing to barter something of your century for something of mine, although, frankly, there is little in your period that is of other than historical interest to us.” The pedestrian’s eyes held a gleam now. He cleared his throat. “However, I have here an atomic pocketknife. I hesitate to even tell you of the advantages it has over the knives of your period.”

  “Okay. I got only ten minutes left, but I can see you’re right. I’ve got to get something to prove I was here.”

  “My knife would do it.” The pedestrian nodded.

  “Yeah, yeah. Listen, I’m a little confused, like. They picked me for this job the last minute—didn’t want to risk any of these professor guys, see? That’s the screwist knife I ever saw, let me have it for my evidence.”

  “Just a moment, friend. Why should I give you my knife? What can you offer in exchange?”

  “But I'm from the twentieth century.”

  “Ummm. And I’m from the thirtieth.”

  The time traveler looked at him for a long moment Finally, “Listen, pal, I don’t have a lot of time. Now, for instance, my watch . . .”

  “Ummm. And what else?”

  “Well, my money here.”

  “Of interest only to a numismatist.”

  “Listen, I gotta have some evidence I been in the thirtieth century!”

  “Of course. But business is business, as the proverb goes.” “I wish the hell I had a gun.”

  “I have no use for a gun in this age,” the other said primly. “No, but I have,” the time traveler muttered. “Look, fella, my time is running out by the second. What d’ya want? You see what I got—clothes, my wallet, a little money, a key ring, a pair of shoes.”

  “I’m willing to trade, but your possessions are of small value. Now, some art object—an original A1 Capp or something.”

  The time traveler was plaintive. “Do I look like I’d be carrying around art objects? Listen, I’ll give you everything I got but my pants for that screwy knife.”

  “Oh, you want to keep your pants, eh? What’re you trying to do, Anglo me down? Or does your period antedate the term?”

  “Anglo . . . what? I don’t get it.”

  “Well, I’m quite an etymologist—”

  “That’s too bad, but—”

  “Not at all, a fascinating hobby,” the pedestrian said. “Now, as to the phrase ‘Anglo me down.’ The term ‘Anglo’ first came into popular use during the 1850-1950 period. It designated persons from the Eastern United States, English descent principally, who came into New Mexico and Arizona shortly after that area was liberated—I believe that was the term used at the time—from Mexico. The Spanish and Indians came to know the Easterners as Anglos.”

  The time traveler said desperately, “Listen, pal, we get further and further from—”

  “Tracing back the derivation of the phrase takes us along two more side trails. It goes back to the fact that these Anglos became the wealthiest businessmen of the twentieth century.

  So much so that they soon dominated the world with their dollars.”

  “Okay, okay. I know all about that. Personally I never had enough dollars to dominate anybody, but—”

  “Very well, the point is that the Anglos became the financial wizards of the world, the most clever dealers, the sharpest bargainers, the most co
mpetent businessmen.”

  The time traveler shot a quick despairing look at his watch. “Only three—”

  “The third factor is one taken from still further in the past At one time there was a minority, which many of the Anglos held in disregard, called the Joos. For many years the term had been used, ‘to Joo you down’—meaning to make the price lower. As the Anglos assumed their monetary dominance, the term evolved from ‘Joo you down’ to ‘Anglo you down’; and thus it has come down to our own day, although neither Anglo nor Joo still exists as a separate people.” -

  The time traveler started at him. “And I won’t be able to take the memory of this story back with me, eh? And me a guy named Levy.” He darted another look at his watch and groaned. “Quick!” he said, “Let’s make this trade; everything I got for that atomic knife!”

  The deal was consummated. The citizen of the thirtieth century stood back, his loot in his arms, and watched as the citizen of the twentieth, nude but with the knife grasped tightly and happily in hand, faded slowly from view.

  The knife poised momentarily in empty air, then dropped to the ground as the time traveler completely disappeared.

  The other stooped, retrieved it, and stuck it back in his pocket. “Even more naive than usual,” he muttered. “Must have been one of the very first. I suppose they’ll never reconcile themselves to the paradoxes. Obviously, you can carry things forward in time, since that’s the natural flow of the dimension; but you just can’t carry anything, not even memory, backward against the current.”

  He resumed his journey homeward.

  Marget, hands on hips, met him at the door. “Where in kert have you been?” she snapped.

  “You mustn’t swear, darling,” he said. “I met another time traveler on the way home.”