Adventures in Time and Space

by Raymond J Healy

  “So, it’s shrinking. Where’s my suitcase?”

  “I told you. In the future. Inductive reasoning showed that. It’s beautifully simple and logical. And it’s quite impossible of proof, too. A hundred, a thousand, a million years ago the Earth‌—‌the Universe‌—‌was larger than it is now. And it continues to contract. Sometime in the future the Earth will be just half as large as it is now. Only we won’t notice it because the Universe will be proportionately smaller.”

  Galloway went on dreamily. “We put a workbench into the locker, so it emerged sometime in the future. The locker’s an open window into a different time, as I told you. Well, the bench was affected by the conditions of that period. It shrank, after we gave it a few seconds to soak up the entropy or something. Do I mean entropy? Allah knows. Oh, well.”

  “It turned into a pyramid.”

  “Maybe there’s geometric distortion, too. Or it might be a visual illusion. Perhaps we can’t get the exact focus. I doubt if things will really look different in the future‌—‌except that they’ll be smaller‌—‌but we’re using a window into the fourth dimension. We’re taking a pleat in time. It must be like looking through a prism. The alteration in size is real, but the shape and color are altered to our eyes by the fourth-dimensional prism.”

  “The whole point, then, is that my suitcase is in the future. Eh? But why did it disappear from the locker?”

  “What about that little creature you squashed? Maybe he had pals. They wouldn’t be visible till they came into the very narrow focus of the whatchmaycallit, but‌—‌figure it out. Sometime in the future, in a hundred or a thousand or a million years, a suitcase suddenly appears out of thin air. One of our descendants investigates. You kill him. His pals come along and carry the suitcase away, out of range of the locker. In space it may be anywhere, and the time factor’s an unknown quantity. Now plus x. It’s a time locker. Well?”

  “Hell!” Vanning exploded. “So that’s all you can tell me? I’m supposed to chalk it up to profit and loss?”

  “Uh-huh. Unless you want to crawl into the locker yourself after your suitcase. Lord knows where you’d come out, though. The proportions of the air probably would have changed in a few thousand years. There might be other alterations, too.”

  “I’m not that crazy.”

  So there he was. The bonds were gone, beyond hope of redemption. Vanning could resign himself to that loss, once he knew the securities wouldn’t fall into the hands of the police. But MacIlson was another matter, especially after a bullet spattered against the glassolex window of Vanning’s office.

  An interview with MacIlson had proved unsatisfactory. The defaulter was convinced that Vanning was trying to bilk him. He was removed forcibly, yelling threats. He’d go to the police‌—‌he’d confess‌—‌ Let him. There was no proof. The hell with him. But, for safety’s sake, Vanning clapped an injunction on his quondam client. It didn’t land. MacIlson clipped the official on the jaw and fled.

  Now, Vanning suspected, he lurked in dark corners, armed, and anxious to commit homicide. Obviously a manic-depressive type.

  Vanning took a certain malicious pleasure in demanding a couple of plainclothes men to act as his guards. Legally, he was within his rights, since his life had been threatened. Until MacIlson was under sufficient restriction, Vanning would be protected. And he made sure that his guards were two of the best shots on the Manhattan force. He also found out that they had been told to keep their eyes peeled for the missing bonds and the suedette suitcase. Vanning Winchelled Counsel Hatton and grinned at the screen.

  “Any luck yet?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My watchdogs. Your spies. They won’t find the bonds, Hatton. Better call ’em off. Why make the poor devils do two jobs at once?”

  “One job would be enough. Finding the evidence. If MacIlson drilled you, I wouldn’t be too unhappy.”

  “Well, I’ll see you in court,” Vanning said. “You’re prosecuting Watson, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Are you waiving scop?”

  “On the jurors? Sure. I’ve got this case in the bag.”

  “That’s what you think,” Hatton said, and broke the beam.

  Chuckling, Vanning donned his topcoat, collected the guards, and headed for court. There was no sign of MacIlson‌—‌ Vanning won the case, as he had expected. He returned to his offices, collected a few unimportant messages from the switchboard girl, and walked toward his private suite. As he opened the door, he saw the suedette suitcase on the, carpet in due corner.

  He stopped, hand frozen on the latch. Behind him he could hear the heavy footsteps of the guards. Over his shoulder Vanning said, “Wait a minute,” and dodged into the office, slamming and locking the door behind him. He caught the tail end of a surprised question.

  The suitcase. There it was, unequivocally. And, quite as unequivocally, the two plainclothes men, after a very brief conference, were hammering on the door, trying to break it down.

  Vanning turned green. He took a hesitant step forward, and then saw the locker, in the corner to which he had moved it. The time locker‌—‌ That was it. If he shoved the suitcase inside the locker, it would become unrecognizable. Even if it vanished again, that wouldn’t matter. What mattered was the vital importance of getting rid‌—‌ immediately!‌—‌of incriminating evidence.

  The door rocked on its hinges. Vanning scuttled toward the suitcase and picked it up. From the corner of his eye he saw movement.

  In the air above him, a hand had appeared. It was the hand of a giant, with an immaculate cuff fading into emptiness. Its huge fingers were reaching down‌—‌ Vanning screamed and sprang away. He was too slow. The hand descended, and Vanning wriggled impotently against the palm. The hand contracted into a fist. When it opened, what was left of Vanning dropped squashily to the carpet, which it stained. The hand withdrew into nothingness. The door fell in and the plainclothes men stumbled over it as they entered.

  It didn’t take long for Hatton and his cohorts to arrive. Still, there was little for them to do except clean up the mess. The suedette bag, containing twenty-five thousand credits in negotiable bonds, was carried off to a safer place. Vanning’s body was scraped up and removed to the morgue. Photographers flashed pictures, fingerprint experts insufflated their white powder, X ray men worked busily. It was all done with swift efficiency, so that within an hour the office was empty and the door sealed.

  Thus there were no spectators to witness the advent of a gigantic hand that appeared from nothingness, groped around as though searching for something, and presently vanished once more‌—‌ The only person who could have thrown light on the matter was Galloway, and his remarks were directed to Monstro, in the solitude of his laboratory. All he said was:

  “So that’s why that workbench materialized for a few minutes here yesterday. Hm-m-m. Now plus x‌—‌and x equals about a week. Still, why not? It’s all relative. But‌—‌I never thought the Universe was shrinking that fast!”

  He relaxed on the couch and siphoned a double Martini.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” he murmured after a while. “Whew! I guess Vanning must have been the only guy who ever reached into the middle of next week and‌—‌killed himself! I think I’ll get tight.”

  And he did.

  THE LINK

  Cleve Cartmill

  Mr. Cartmill describes the imaginary events of what was, perhaps, the most important day in our history. That day when a certain animal braced himself on his short hind legs, picked up a heavy stick and started a world order that was really new. New, yes‌—‌but apparently the old order didn’t change completely, for we couldn’t help thinking how unchanged is the human trait of instinctive hatred of the one who dares to differ from his fellows.

  * * *

  LOK KNEW that he was different from his brothers after the incident with the big black and yellow cat.

  It stood in the trail and looked at him. True, it drew back its lips, exposin
g long, yellow tusks, but it did not growl insults, it did not attack.

  After a time, the cat said, “I could eat you.”

  Lok returned the steady, yellow gaze.

  The cat asked, “Why don’t you run into the trees like the others? What are you doing here?”

  “I am seeing pictures,” Lok replied.

  The cat arched its back and snarled with suspicion. “What is that?”

  “Why … why,” Lok faltered, “things.”

  The cat edged back a pace.

  “Things,” Lok continued. “My brothers have tried to kill me. I am alone. I am going … going‌—‌” He broke off, puzzled, and stared with vacant, dark eves at the cat.

  “You have no hair,” the cat said, moving forward again.

  “I have, I have!” Lok cried desperately, and shook long, black locks over his face. “Look!”

  “That!” the cat sneered. “It is not like the others.”

  The others. Lok sensed a power within himself when he thought of the others, a power that did not quite come into focus. It swelled up into his chest, however, and he straightened so that his knuckles were not on the ground.

  “I am Lok,” he said with dignity. “Therefore, step aside. I would pass.”

  He marched deliberately toward the cat. It crouched back on its haunches, spitting between fangs, but it gave way. Its eyes were wide and yellow, no longer instruments of sight now that it was suddenly afraid. Roaring incoherent blasphemies, it backed down the narrow path as Lok advanced. With one last cry of rage, it leaped into the wall of vines to one side, and Lok passed on, his low and leathery brow creased in thought.

  He forgot the cat on the instant, but this new power held him erect as he moved away from the country of his tribe.

  His inner perception strove to grasp what had happened to him, and, as he marched along the trail, he sifted the symphony of the jungle with subconscious attention. He noted the quiet wrought by the roars of the curve-toothed jungle king. He felt the sleepy rhythm of the hot afternoon begin to flow again; somewhere a red and green bird shouted harsh and senseless cries; succulent beetles buzzed stupidly in trees; off to the right a troupe of his little brown cousins swung by fingers and tails and chattered of drinking nuts; moving toward him on the trail swelled grunts of the white tusks.

  This latter sound snapped him back to a realization of danger. He wanted no quarrel with a tribe of these quick, dark prima donnas, with their tiny, sharp hoofs and short, slashing tusks. Even the jungle king himself would tackle no more than one at a time. Lok broke through the green trail wall and went hand over hand up a thick vine, to wait for the white tusks to pass.

  They trotted into sight, twenty yards away, four full-grown males and three females. The leader, an old boar, with tiny, red eyes, grunted tactical instructions in case of attack at the next trail curve.

  Lok felt an ancient fury, and from the safety of a high limb he jumped up and down and screamed imprecations at the bristled band.

  “Cowards!” he yelled, flinging handfuls of twigs and leaves at them. “Weaklings! Fish food! If you come up here, I will fight you all!”

  At his first cry, the males had wheeled and stood shoulder to shoulder facing his tree, looking up at him with steady, gleaming eyes. The females huddled behind this ivory-pointed rampart, waiting without sound or motion.

  The old leader grunted his contempt for Lok and his race. “Come down,” he invited. “Fool!”

  Lok ceased his age-old antics, and regarded his actions with a dull sense of wonder. True, he had always done this; it was a part of life to insult other inhabitants of his world from a place of safety. He had done this with his brothers, and with his mother while he was still small enough to sit in her hand.

  Yet this new part of himself which controlled his new sense of power sneered at such conduct. Lok felt at first like hanging his head; then he felt the need to assert himself.

  He climbed down the vine, without fear. He marched toward the white tusks who now held their armored muzzles low to the ground in attack position.

  “Wait!” the leader grunted to his companions. “This one has a strange smell.”

  Advancing steadily, Lok said, “Step aside, I would pass. I am Lok. I am master.”

  When he was within three paces, the white tusks acted.

  “Go!” grunted the leader to the huddled females. “Remember his smell!”

  The leader and the three younger boars backed away as Lok advanced. When they had retreated twenty paces in this fashion, they broke and wheeled at a signal from the old one, and pattered after the vanished females.

  Lok stood motionless for some time, gazing vacantly but steadily at the bend of trail around which the white tusks had fled. Beside the last image of their curling tails and bobbing hindquarters now formed the picture of the furious, but frightened, cat.

  For the first time in his twelve years of life, Lok used past experience to form a theory. It was vague and confused, but he felt that he could reenter the tribe and rule in place of the Old One. He was Lok. He was master.

  He departed from the trail and climbed to a remembered treetop pathway which would lead him to his tribe. As he leaped and swung from swaying limb to limb a troublesome feeling grew within his head. He felt that a matter of importance should be considered, but its form and shape escaped his powers of concentration.

  His passage did not disturb the life of the sultry green forest. Gaudy birds flitted through the gloom, and hunting beasts made fleeting shadows at times below him. The sun dropped, stars flared overhead, and Lok found a sleeping crotch for the night.

  Sleep evaded him. Not because of night cries of questing white owls, or of brief threshings in the nearby pool of a gurgling stream, or of directionless roars of the big cats. He was accustomed to this pattern of sound.

  The disturbance was deep within himself, a troubling problem knocking at the door of memory. It was a new sensation, this groping backward. Heretofore he had been satisfied if there was fruit, if rotten logs yielded fat, white grubs. He had been content when fed and sheltered.

  Consideration of shelter brought the problem nearer to recognition and, as he concentrated, it burst into form. The problem was one of the passage of seasons. Since he had left the tribe, followed by foaming threats of his brothers and the Old One, the rains had come twice. His lack of a protective furry coat had driven him into caves where he had shivered through the long, damp months.

  Well did he know now what had made him uneasy. The tribe might not know him, after this long space of separation. An event took place, and during the time it affected them they considered it. Once it was over, it was as though it had never existed. Thus it had been for him, too, until now.

  Lok’s head began to ache, but he clung stubbornly to the pictures that formed in his thoughts. He saw himself forced to subdue the strongest of the tribe before he could take his rightful place at their head.

  He was Lok. He was master. But he was not as strong as some, and in a fight where strength alone would determine the outcome he might be subdued and killed.

  Restless, wide awake, he shook his head angrily and climbed to the highest level in search of a place where he might sleep. He moved from one tree to another, grumbling to himself. He crossed the stream near the drinking pool which gleamed in full brilliance under the shining eye of night.

  He was instantly thirsty, and dropped lower. As he did so, his watchful eyes caught movement at one edge of the pool, and the arm of a ripple moved lazily across the bright surface. A long snout lurked there. Though he was large and unafraid, Lok wished to avoid a brush with those long, fanged jaws or the flashing armored tail. He half turned to go upstream to a place of safety, but was arrested by a sound on the trail. He caught the delicate scent of a spotted jumper, and presently saw a trio, mother and two small twins, advancing to the pool in dainty leaps. The mother’s long, leaf-shaped ears were rigid, twitching toward every rustle in the night. She held her shapely head high,
testing the air with suspicious nostrils, and the end of every pace found her poised for instant flight. The little ones, crowding her heels, duplicated her every motion.

  Lok eyed the tableau with excitement, knowing what was coming. He could see the faint outline of the long snout motionless in the shallows near the path. A meal was in preparation.

  The mother led her twins to the edge of the pool and stood watch while they dipped trusting muzzles in the water.

  Lok saw blurred motion as the long snout’s tail whipped one of the little twins into the pool and powerful jaws dragged it under. With a cry of terror the mother and the remaining twin flashed into the darkness, the sound of their racing hoofs smothered by the threshing in the pool.

  The turbulent surface darkened, and Lok cried out once from suppressed emotion. Presently he returned to his sleeping crotch, his thirst forgotten in consideration of what he had seen.

  The long snout, Lok knew, was no match for spotted jumpers on land. Although the long snout could move for a short distance with great speed, the spotted jumper could simply vanish while one looked at it. Yet the long snout had caught, killed, and eaten one of the small spotted jumpers.

  Another factor, in addition to simple speed or strength, had made this possible, and Lok beat against his head with a closed hand trying to call it to mind. The long snout had waited like one of the big cats above a trail. Lok felt the solution begin to form and fixed wide, empty eyes on the dark while he made pictures inside his head.

  He had seen a cat crouched on a limb in an all-day vigil, waiting without motion until its chosen prey trotted along the trail below. Then a flashing arc, a slashing blow, and the cat had slain an inhabitant sometimes more than twice its own size and speed.