Worlds of Maybe

by Robert Silverberg

  But as the party of riders arrived, half a dozen daring men came out of the forest. They had dared to enter it. Now they returned, still incredulous of their own experience, bearing leaves and branches and one of them certain small berries unknown on the Atlantic Coast.

  A State Police officer held up his hand as Minott’s party went toward the edge of the forest.

  “Look here!” he said. “We been hearin’ funny noises in there. I’m stoppin’ anybody else from goin’ in until we know what’s what.”

  Minott nodded.

  “We’ll be careful. I’m a faculty member of Robinson College. We’re going in after some botanical specimens. I have a revolver. Were all right.”

  He rode ahead. The State policeman, without definite orders for authority, shrugged his shoulders and bent his efforts to the prevention of other attempts to explore. In minutes, the eight horses and their riders were out of sight.

  That was now three hours past. For three hours, Minott had led his charges a little south of north-east. In that time they saw no dangerous animals. They saw some—many—familiar plants. They saw rabbits in quantity, and once a slinking gray form which Tom Hunter, who was majoring in zoology, declared was a wolf. There are no wolves in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, but neither are there sequoias. And the party had seen no signs of human life, though Fredericksburg lies in farming country which is thickly settled. In three hours the horses must have covered between twelve and fifteen miles, even through the timber. It was just after sighting a shaggy beast which was unquestionably a woodland buffalo—extinct east of the Rockies as early as 1820—that young Blake protested uneasily against further travel.

  ‘‘There’s something awfully queer, sir,” he said awkwardly. “I don’t mind experimenting as much as you like, sir, but we’ve got the girls with us. If we don’t start back pretty soon, we’ll get in trouble with the dean!” And then Minott drew his two revolvers and very calmly announced that none of them would ever go back. That he knew what had happened and what could be expected. And he added that he would explain as soon as they were convinced he would use his revolvers in case of a mutiny.

  “Call us convinced now, sir,” said young Blake. He was a bit pale about the lips, but he hadn’t flinched. In fact, he’d moved to be between Maida Haynes and the gun-muzzle. “We’d like very much to know how all these trees and plants, which ought to be three thousand miles away, happen to be growing in Virginia without any warning. Especially, sir, we’d like to know how it is that the topography underneath all this brand-new forest is the same. The hills trend the same way they used to, but everything that ever was on them has vanished, and something else is in its place.” Minott nodded approvingly.

  “Splendid, Blake!” he said warmly. “Sound observation! I picked you because you re well spoken of in geology, even though there were—er—other reasons for leaving you behind. Let’s go on over the next rise. Unless I’m mistaken, we should find the Potomac in view. Then I’ll answer any questions you like. I’m afraid we’ve a good bit more of riding to do today.”

  Reluctantly, the eight horses breasted the slope. They scrambled among underbrush. It was queer that in three hours they had seen not a trace of a road leading anywhere. But up at the top of the hill there was a road. It was a narrow, wandering cart-track. Without a word, every one of the eight riders turned their horses to follow it. It meandered onward for perhaps a quarter of a mile. It dipped suddenly. And the Potomac lay before and below them.

  Then seven of the eight riders exclaimed. There was a settlement upon the banks of the river. There were boats in harbor. There were other boats in view beyond; two beating down from the long reaches upstream, and three others coming painfully up from the direction of Chesapeake Bay. But neither the village nor the boats should have been upon the Potomac River. The village was small and mud-walled. Tiny, blue-clad figures moved about the fields outside. The buildings, the curving lines of the roofs, and more especially the unmistakable outline of a sort of temple near the center of the fortified hamlet—these were Chinese. The boats in sight were junks, save that their sails were cloth instead of slatted bamboo. The fields outside the squat mud walls were cultivated in a fashion altogether alien. Near the river, where marsh flats would be normal along the Potomac, rice-fields intensely worked spread out instead.

  Then a figure appeared nearby. Wide hat, wadded cotton-padded jacket, cotton trousers, and clogs, it was Chinese peasant incarnate, and all the more so when it turned a slant-eyed, terror-stricken face upon them and fled squawking. It left a monstrously heavy wooden yoke behind, from which dangled two buckets filled with berries it had gathered in the forest.

  The riders stared. There was the Potomac. But a Chinese village nestled beside it, Chinese junks plied its waters. . . .

  “I—I think,” said Maida Haynes unsteadily, “I— think I’ve—gone insane. Haven’t I?”

  Minott shrugged. He looked disappointed but queerly resolute.

  “No,” he said shortly. “You’re not mad. It just happens that the Chinese happened to colonize America first. It’s been known that Chinese junks touched the American shore—the Pacific Coast, of course—long before Columbus. Evidently they colonized it. They may have come all the way overland to the Atlantic, or maybe around by Panama. In any case, this is a Chinese continent now. This isn’t what we want. We’ll ride some more.”

  The fleeing, squawking figure had been seen from the village. A huge, discordant gong began to sound. Figures fled toward the walls from the fields round about. The popping of fire-crackers began, with a chorus of most intimidating yells.

  “Come on!” said Minott sharply. “We’d better move!”

  He wheeled his horse about and started off at a canter. By instinct, since he was the only one who seemed to have any definite idea what to do, the others flung after him.

  And as they rode, suddenly the horses staggered. The humans atop them felt a queer, queazy vertigo. It lasted only for a second, but Minott paled a little.

  “Now we’ll see what’s happened,” he said composedly. “The odds are still fair, but I’d rather have had things stay as they were until we’d tried a few more places. . .

  That same queazy vertigo affected the staring crowd at the end of the road leading north from Fredericksburg. For perhaps a second they felt an unearthly illness, which even blurred their vision. Then they saw clearly again. And in an instant they were babbling in panic, starting their motor-cars in terror, some of them fleeing on foot.

  The sequoia forest had vanished. In its place was a dreary waste of glittering white; stumpy trees buried under snow; rolling ground covered with a powdery, glittering stuff. . ..

  In minutes dense fog shut off the view, as the warm air of a Virginia June morning was chilled by that frigid coating. But in minutes, too, the heavy snow began to melt. The cars fled away along the concrete road, and behind them an expanding belt of fog spread out—and the little streams and runlets filled with a sudden surplus of water, and ran more swiftly, and rose. .. .

  There were only sparse trees and a tall, canelike grass. The ground was still rolling, but the air was misty. Clear vision was not possible for a very long distance. Still, the topography in terms of hills and valleys had not changed. But they saw a tapir—it looked like a pigmy elephant at first glance—and they had seen other things that looked human, but weren’t. So two of the young men rode on ahead, watching lest there should be anything hidden in the breast-high grass, and Minott followed with the four girls, and another of the students followed twenty yards behind.

  “I don’t like this,” said Minott coldly. “Not at all. But we’ll keep going.”

  Lucy Blair rode beside him on one hand. He’d shown her how to use a revolver. Maida Haynes rode on the other.

  “What were those—things we saw?” asked Lucy shakenly. “They—looked human. Were they, really?”

  “Depends on what you mean by human,” said Minott. “If you mean homo sapiens—our species�
�probably not. The human family had a number of species, like the equine and feline families. There was Neanderthal man and Java man and so on. Homo sapiens wiped them out, in the world we came from. But in the history of this particular place the battle may have gone the other way.”

  Maida Haynes licked her lips. She was terribly tense.

  “History,” she said in a queer voice. “What has that to do with—what’s happening to us? I—I still think I’m dreaming. I—I must be!”

  “I think I’m dreaming too,” said Lucy. “And I’m scared too, but so far it’s rather wonderful. I—think I’ll get over being scared, in time.”

  One of the two figures on ahead swerved to one side. He rode cautiously, and reined in, and then turned his horse and came racing back to Minott.

  “Some of those—creatures lying in wait there,” he said through chattering lips. “The—funny things that look like men. What’ll we do?”

  Minott considered coldly.

  “If we planned to stay here,” he said presently, without emotion, “we’d charge them and kill enough of them to teach a needed lesson. But we don’t intend to stay here. It isn’t worth the risk or trouble. We’d gain nothing. Swing wide of them. If they try to follow us we’ll shoot one or two.”

  Harris sent his horse plunging back to join young Blake. They changed course. Beastly howlings arose from a spot they would now avoid. Loping, bouncing figures with long brown shaggy hair went leaping and bounding to intercept them. The figures carried clubs and spears.

  Minott very calmly drew a revolver. He aimed and fired six times. A creature screamed up ahead. Its fellows fled away, howling. The wounded creature thrashed and shrieked. Then it suddenly made bubbling sounds and was still. Minott reloaded his revolver.

  “You—killed it!” gasped Maida, horrified.

  “To be sure,” said Minott casually. “Killing one made the others run away. If they’d attacked us we’d have had to kill several, and it would have used up a good deal of ammunition.

  “Intelligence isn’t at a premium here,” said Minott. “We can’t make much out of this environment!”

  He made no other comment. Far, far away, the misty air seemed to grow thicker. There was a white fog before them. It seemed to stretch out of sight on either hand. They rode toward it.

  Lucy Blair said suddenly:

  “Do you really think well come upon a civilization where well be welcomed, Mr. Minott?”

  “Naturally!” His tone was dry. “I did not plan this expedition without some definite ideas!”

  “And do you think we will—we will—”

  “Rule it?” He said more dryly still: “I assure you that I will rule it. I need only to be received—to be accepted—in a community not too far advanced in culture, but a shade above savagery. Given that foothold, I can use my special knowledge to its full value. I need only a society still fluid, still malleable, not yet frozen in a pattern of conventional stability. I will end by ruling it. In our own culture, man is only afraid of losing what he has. I can do nothing with such people. But give me men who want what they have not, and I can give it to them! I can make them prosper as if by magic!”

  “By mathematics?” asked Lucy dubiously.

  He smiled faintly.

  “You might call it that,” he said ironically. “But by your definition mathematics is only a form of integration dealing with quantity. Logic is a form of integration which deals with ideas but not with quantity. There can be—there is!—a form of integration which deals with both and more besides. I discovered it. It is useless in our time, of course. It would upset too much that is solidly established. But it is as precise in its operation as either mathematics or logic. And I assure you that it will give me as much advantage in all dealings with men of a proper culture, as the ability to count gives in dealings with savages who cannot.”

  Lucy Blair looked at him oddly.

  “That sounds like pure intellectuality. You act like something else entirely. Do you know, I’ve always thought you were lonely?”

  “I always have been,” said Minott bitterly. “I always will be. But I shall do things to make up for it now! Let me find just one community of men who are restless and desirous, and I will remake it, remould it, rule and guide it, and—”

  But then he stopped. Lucy did not look shocked. She said interestedly:

  “And how do we fit into that?”

  “You will help me,” he said calmly. “All of you. You have no choice, of course, but you will have such rewards as you cannot now imagine. I won't need to force any of you. You'll have no choice. But you will be glad, I think.”

  “But it’s—preposterous—” protested Maida, shrilly, “not to—not to be able to go home again—”

  “You will marry,” said Minott practically. “Then you won’t mind. Even that, though, will be of your own choice. Of course. You won't find semi-savages interesting, any more than any of the rest of us would. You’ll do all right.”

  The two girls stared at each other. There were four girls. Three students—and Minott.

  “Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “I shall marry one of you. The most suitable for my plans. I shall want an intelligent empress.”

  But then he spurred ahead. The fog-bank before them spread from one horizon to the other. As the horses went uneasily into it, the air turned icy cold.

  The ferryboat from Berkeley, California, ploughed valorously through the fog. Its whistle howled mournfully at the proper intervals. Up in the pilot-house, the skipper said confidentially :

  “I tell you, I had the funniest feelin’ of my life, just now. I was dizzy an’ sick all over, like seasick an’ drunk together.”

  The mate said abstractedly:

  “Me too, a little while ago. Somethin’ we ate, prob’ly. Say, that’s funny 1”

  “What?”

  “Was a lot o’ traffic in the harbor just now. Whistlin’. I ain’t heard a whistle for minutes. Listen I”

  Both men strained their ears. There was the rhythmic shudder of the vessel, itself a sound produced by the engines. There were fragmentary voice-noises from the passenger-deck below. There was the wash of water by the ferryboat’s bow. There was nothing else. Nothing at all.

  “Funny!” said the skipper.

  “Dam’ funny!” agreed the mate.

  The ferryboat went on. The fog cut down all visibility to a radius of perhaps two hundred feet.

  “Funniest thing I ever saw!” said the skipper worriedly. He reached for the whistle-cord and the mournful bellow of the horn resounded. “We’re near our slip, though. I wish . . .”

  With a little chugging, swishing sound a steam-launch came out of the mist. It sheered off, the men in it staring blankly at the huge bulk of the ferry. It made a complete circuit of the big, clumsy craft. Then someone stood up and bellowed unintelligibly in the launch. He bellowed again. He was giving an order. He pointed to the flag at the stern of the launch—it was an unfamiliar flag—and roared furiously.

  “What the hells the matter with that guy?” wondered the mate.

  A little breeze blew suddenly. The fog began to thin. The faintly brighter spot which was the sun overhead grew bright indeed. Faint sunshine struggled through the fog-bank. The wind drove the fog back before it— and the bellowing man in the steam-launch grew purple with rage as his orders went unheeded.

  Then, quite abruptly, the last wisps of vapor blew away. San Francisco stood revealed. But—San Francisco? This was not San Francisco! It was a wooden city. A small city. A dirty city with narrow streets and gas street-lamps and four monstrous, barrack-like edifices fronting the harbor. Nob Hill stood, but it was barren of dwellings. And—

  “My Gawd!” said the mate of the ferryboat.

  He was staring at a colossal mass of masonry, foursquare and huge, which rose to a gigantic spiral-fluted dome. A strange and alien flag fluttered in the breeze above certain buildings. Figures moved in the streets. There were motor-cars, but they were clumsy and hu
ge. The mate’s eyes rested upon a horse-drawn carriage. It was drawn by three horses abreast, and they were either so trained or so check-reined that only the the center one faced straight ahead. The necks of the other two were arched outward in the fashion of Tsarist Russia.

  But that was natural enough, after all. When an interpreter could be found, the mate and skipper were savagely abused for entering the harbor of Novo Skevsky without obeying the ordinances in force by ukase of the Tsar Alexis of All the Russias. Those rules, they learned, were enforced with special rigor in all the Russian territory in America, from Alaska on south.

  The eight riders were every one very pale. Even Minott seemed shaken but no less resolute when he drew rein.

  “I imagine you will all be satisfied now,” he said composedly. “Blake, you’re the geologist of the party. Doesn’t the shore-line there look familiar?”

  Young Blake nodded. He was very white indeed. He pointed to the stream.

  “Yes. The falls, too. This is the site of Fredericksburg, sir, where we were this morning. There is where the main bridge was—or will be. The main highway to Richmond should run—” He licked his lips. “It should run where that very big oak-tree is standing. The Princess Anne Hotel should be on the other side of that hill. I—I would say, sir, that somehow we’ve gone backward in time or else forward into the future. It sounds insane, but I’ve been trying to figure it out . . .”

  Minott nodded coolly.

  “Very good. This is the site of Fredericksburg, to be sure. But we have not traveled backward or ahead in time. I hope that you noticed where we came out of the sequoia forest. There seems to be a sort of fault along that line, which it may be useful to remember.” He paused. “We’re not in the past or the future, Blake.