by Anthology
They walked softly to the window. By Tom’s light they could see the desk, but there was no book lying on it—only the half written letter. “We’re early,” said Tom. Then, as realization came to him he muttered, “Well I’ll be . . .”
Charlie looked at him inquiringly. Garmot went on. “If we wait here we’ll see ourselves land and leave the book.”
“And I can go up and speak to myself?”
“Not if I know it, you can’t. If you do, the whole future may be changed. You’ll hide with me over there, behind the bay window, and we’ll carry the machine there, too. It’s not too heavy for both of us.”
This was quickly done. They waited in the shadows. Whispering, Charlie asked to see the stamps. “I’m not a collector, but I would like to have a look at them if they’re worth a hundred dollars apiece.” Tom handed them to him. Under the protection of his coat, by flashlight, Charlie had his look. Tom stood peering into the sky, all attention.
There was a faint whine overhead. “Lights out, Charlie. Here they come,” Garmot whispered.
Down came a machine. Out of it stepped a man and a boy of 18. From the shadows, Garmot and Charlie watched, scarcely breathing. The two visitors raised the window and entered.
Charlie chuckled. He turned to Tom. “Do you think we were here watching when we came the first time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we were.” Before Tom could stop him, Charlie tiptoed forward and peered into the window. He returned.
“It’s us, all right. You’re writing the note. They’ll be out now.”
And out they came. Tom noticed that they left the window-stick outside.
Well, he could correct that. The two men got into their machine and rose swiftly. Suddenly the sound of their motor stopped. They had gone into the future.
Tom breathed a sigh of relief. “Come,” he said to Charlie, “let’s do this right. Give me the stamps.”
Carefully he raised the window. Charlie held it for him while he stepped through. After putting the window-stick in its place, he crossed the room and secured the handbook, the radio tube, and the note. He carefully replaced the stamps as near their original position as he could remember. Then he came out. After silently closing the sash, the two pushed the machine out to clear the eaves and got aboard.
Garmot let the machine stop itself. The sudden burst of sunshine almost blinded them. Below lay the familiar laboratory, its skylight open.
Tom looked down. “There’s our friend Laddo waiting for us. Won’t he have a fit in about two minutes?” He guided the machine toward the opening. Gently they settled to the floor.
Laddo strode rapidly toward them. “Well, here you are at last, Garmot. What have you got to say?”
“I’ve got some batteries for you that will knock your eye out,” said Garmot.
After his first few words, Laddo demanded a full and orderly explanation. For perhaps an hour he listened to Tom’s story, with occasional comments from Charlie. When it was finished he began questioning.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Charlie ventured. “I haven’t had my breakfast. You fellows just go on. I’ll run out and get something to eat.” Garmot nodded assent and Charlie left. When he returned an hour later he found the two still talking.
“You’re right, Garmot, in your track theory,” Laddo was saying. “If you tamper with the past you cannot expect to find the present unchanged. As you say, time seems to be like a railway track on which we travel. When, in my machine, you go back into the past and do the least thing, you change the whole future from then on; and when you then go into that future, you find it different. Let’s see, now. What tracks have you been on?”
“You started from 1938A. That was when you first came here to try out your battery for elevating the machine. You inadvertently—how about that, young man?—went back to point P in 1936 and talked to the watchman. He has, by the way, died since then. This threw a switch and you returned to 1938B. All that is clear enough.”
“That’s just the-way Tom explained it to me,” Charlie put in.
“And to me, too. I am merely clarifying it in my own mind. Now, to proceed, last night you got into the machine and went back to Q, in 1851. Leaving that handbook threw another switch, and you went forward to 1938C, where you bought the power box a few hours ago. You then returned to Q and hid there until you removed the book at point R. This threw another switch and put you back on the B track at point S. You returned to 1938B, and that’s where you are now.
“I want to congratulate you, Garmot, on your cleverness in making over a future to meet your requirements. But I have a question that needs clearing up. This is embarrassing, but I gather from some of your remarks that you feared I would sue you and take your invention from you. You hint that you have considered me a hard and soulless fellow. Am I right?”
Tom’s face reddened. He certainly did not want to reopen a sore spot that seemed to be healing. But Charlie had no such inhibitions.
“You’re right, Dr. Laddo. And I don’t blame him. He told me how you talked to him—what you said when you accused him of stealing that isotopic lead.”
“What were the exact words I used?”
“You told him any jury on earth would give you damages when only you two had the keys to the laboratory.” Laddo was silent for a long time. Garmot wondered if there would be another outburst.
“I was wrong,” he said finally. “You are on still another track.”
“What’s that?” said Tom.
“I mean you are in 1938D.”
“When you went back to Taggert’s house the second time, you failed to leave everything just as it had been before your first visit. You failed to return all of his stamps, for you sold some of them, remember? Taggert missed those stamps, and accused one of his associates of stealing them. Later, he found that this person could not possibly have been there at the time. This made a deep impression on him, and years later, he wrote a short article about it. Yonder is a copy, framed.” Laddo pointed to the laboratory wall. “That little sermon deeply affected me, too. I admire old Thaddeus Taggert’s character, and have always tried to follow his precepts. So you see, at R, by recovering the book but not returning all of the stamps, you threw another switch, and you are now in 1938D. I hope you like it here—for I see no way for you to go back and undo everything.”
“I don’t want to,” said Tom. “This suits me better.”
All of their questions were not answered. Laddo was stumped when Charlie asked him what would have happened had lie and Tom encountered themselves on that second visit to the porch roof.
“That’s a thing one would have to experiment with to find the answer,” he said.
When Dr. Laddo and his machine disappeared several months later, Tom and Charlie didn’t worry much. They knew he had gone wandering into the past. Garmot hoped he had found a world to his liking, on another track—and rather suspected he might have gone to leave a book on functional equations on some Newton’s desk.
OUTSIDE OF TIME
Carroll John Daly
They call me simply L.D. or The Lazy Dean. I have come to accept it as a title both of esteem and affection. The boys at the university started it. The faculty took it up. They mean, a lazy body and not a lazy mind. I am not so well informed on the happenings of the day. I use my reading time for the things that others do not read.
I am much more interested in what does not appear in the newspapers than what does appear. There are many better fitted to understand and explain the everyday happenings of life. I like to live by the side of the road—but the side of a side road.
For years I have enjoyed a very unofficial position at the school. I am a good listener and a good believer. Will I believe in the impossible? I don’t have to believe in the impossible, for I have eliminated the word impossible from my own lexicon. I find things improbable but nothing more. Too many strange things happen.
It is a pleasant saying around the university when one relates anything that strai
ns the credulity, of the academic mind: “Tell it to the Lazy Dean.”
So the boys often come to me with improbable happenings. Even the faculty, half-apologetically, with a pretense that it is all in good fun—but watching me furtively to see how I take it.
It is surprising how busy I am.
It is with a feeling of satisfaction and comfort that I sit down with my pipe and listen to one of our students confide to me things he would not even breathe to his closest friend.
So it was with that feeling that I opened the door of my rooms on the second floor of the museum building to Tommy Slater of the medical school. Tommy was a medium-sized rather slim dark young man who if he avoided surgery and didn’t specialize would, make a remarkably fine family doctor. Easygoing, pleasant of manner—mild, friendly bright blue eyes and a generous humorous mouth. He would never set the river on fire but then it was my opinion that a good doctor never would. Nature cures. A good doctor brings simply comfort and confidence to the sick.
There were lines under Tommy’s eyes and the likable little twist to the corner of his mouth was more pronounced. Tommy was the school hero though he hadn’t been near the university since it happened almost a week ago. He was New York City’s hero. Indeed a national and international hero who had swept all other news from the press and the radio and no doubt from the minds of men and women.
He saw me look at the clock for although I kept late hours it was then five minutes before twelve.
“Come, come, L.D.” His laugh was a forced one. “You never turn down your fellow man day or night. I know it is late and I expect it will be much later still before you get rid of me. I’ve come to smoke a pipe with you.”
Tommy assisted me in pushing the other easy chair close to the fire. Despite my gesture he waited until I was seated. Then he sat down opposite me—stretched his feet out toward the fire—placed a cigarette between his lips and lighted it. Though he always talked of smoking a pipe with me I had never seen him smoke one. I filled my pipe slowly, and lighted it, smiled over at him and waited.
“I hope,” he said suddenly, “That you have read a paper lately—or if you haven’t someone told you what was in it.”
“Yes,” I told him. “I have read all the papers; seen all the pictures—even went to the news-reel theatre twice. Surely you received my note of congratulation.”
“If I did I never read it.” He inhaled deeply. “I have had—literally thousands and thousands of letters. Hundreds of women want to marry me. Hundreds of people want to shower me with money—as many more want to deprive me of that money before I even receive it. I’ve been offered fabulous amounts from the movies—and one night club offered me ten thousand dollars for a single appearance.” He sat up a little straighter and leaned forward into the light. “Look at me,” he said. “And don’t say I’ve worn myself out—run myself down mentally and physically by overwork here at the school.”
“No—Tommy,” I told him. “I would never say that.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” He permitted himself a weak grin. “Do you know I’ve been to see Dean Stone—that august head of this whole institution. I saw him once before from a distance. I didn’t think he would breathe the same air with me, and do you know he tripped all over the foot-high softness in his rug trying to shake hands with me.”
“He should.” I nodded. “No matter how lightly you take it. It was a very courageous act—a very noble one—the school is proud of you.”
“Baloney.” The blue eyes sparkled into life. “I did nothing but reach up and lift the girl out of the air.”
“Yes—you told that to the reporters. It has been discussed here at the university. There is general agreement that you put it very modestly, Tommy—and they have been proud of the way you have conducted yourself. Modesty—”
“Was not my strong point,” he cut in. “I’m ashamed not to be modest. I feel like a crook and a cheat. That is exactly what I did do. Simply reach up and lift her out of the air.
“But the girl fell from the penthouse terrace—and you caught her in your arms and held her. The papers may play it up a bit for they say there was not so much as a scratch on her.”
“There wasn’t,” Tommy said. “Not so much as a pin prick.” And very seriously, “Did you read the number of floors she fell?”
“Yes—fourteen. I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of, Tommy. It was a remarkable piece of daring and courage.”
“Fourteen stories,” he said again. “I spread my legs apart—braced myself—my knees gave slightly and I stayed erect and held her so. I’m quoting that from the newspaper accounts. Now—did you ever think what became of the force of gravity? Do you—do you think that possible?”
“Possible—well I would have thought it highly improbable—but it did happen. You did catch her. You didn’t fall down. Countless people saw you. A news-reel camera—” He was looking intently at me.
“What is it, Tommy?” I asked.
“Go over it for me please,” he said. “Tell me what you read and what you saw in the news-reel. Tell it to me as you might to a stranger who hadn’t heard the full account.”
“Do you think there is such a stranger? All right, Tommy, if you want it that way. Wanda Lou Sherman, age eighteen, only daughter of Johnson H. Sherman, multimillionaire, steel magnate, was playing table tennis on the terrace of their penthouse apartment in the upper fifties on Park Avenue. It used to be ping-pong when I played it. In her enthusiasm for the game—or was it one of the few remaining English balls that made her dash to the little wall. But she did dash—jumped upon it—grabbed at the ball and for some unaccountable reason—and such reasons, Tommy, are always unaccountable—the heavy sturdy steel fencing bent over and she pitched out toward the street—fourteen floors below. So far we are correct?”
“Quite correct.” Tommy was very serious. “Go on.”
“Very well. It was before the dinner hour—rather five o’clock. The street was crowded, for there was a wedding across the way. The girl screamed as she fell. People looked up. The camera man turned and so got the picture. Then, Tommy, you dashed out. Caught the falling body—staggered—nearly fell. But held steady and saved the girl’s life. Am I to go on about the part you are going to marry her and learn the steel business and—”
“No. We can skip that. How many people do you suppose saw me dash out and catch the girl?”
“Everyone who was there I suppose. Even those who didn’t see you. That is human nature, Tommy. They said you just dashed across the street—I don’t think any of them were questioned as to the direction you came from.”
“Do you remember the old lady in the shawl—in the news-reel? What she said?” And when I seemed puzzled. “She said I just appeared as if from nowhere and had her in my arms.”
“Is that important?”
“So important,” said Tommy, “That it is the only true statement made. Besides mine that I simply reached up and lifted her out of the air.”
Tommy got up then and paced the room.
“Listen, L.D.” He talked as he walked. “I am serious about gravity and the speed of the falling body. Common sense would tell anyone that a giant of a man, let alone a shrimp like me, could not have caught a girl—even though she was only five-feet-two and weighed little more than a hundred pounds—after she had fallen fourteen stories. We’d both have been dashed to the street, dozens of bones broken. Can you believe that?”
“I believe that nature can reach great heights at times. Let us say that nature suddenly gave you super-human strength. Or perhaps more simply that you arose to the occasion.”
“Anything,” he smiled at me now, the little wistful smile again, “Is possible. But you see there is a simpler solution to the whole thing. The truth—that I just reached up and lifted her out of the air. I saw Dean Stone. I nearly blurted it out to him. I wanted to see how the truth would strike a cold-blooded, practical man. I actually threatened him with the truth. And do you know what he sai
d? ‘The truth can never hurt anyone.’ Do you believe that?”
“Well—no, Tommy. It is simply a stock phrase of the good dean’s. He couldn’t very well advise you to lie about it.” And after a long wait. “Are you going to tell me the truth, Tommy? I don’t think it will hurt either of us.”
“No,” said Tommy. “It can’t hurt you. You’ve talked to men who have seen so much—experienced—the—well other men would call them mad. And you didn’t have them committed—or anything like that.”
“No.” I smiled. “Nothing like that.”
“But it could be all an illusion, couldn’t it?”
“If life is an illusion, yes.”
“Could that be?”
“Anything could be—but I don’t believe that probable. You see, Tommy, I hear a great many things from a great many people. Each one taken individually seems beyond belief—but when you take them altogether you have a great deal of evidence that makes you believe. We do not deny the stars because we cannot see them on a cloudy night.”
“So you have heard about everything?”
“I hope not everything, Tommy.” And I meant that. “Life would be very dull indeed if I did not expect—at least always hope—to hear something different, something new to me—new to man.”
“Well I’ve got it.” Tommy stood looking down at me. “If it weren’t for the girl, and the newspapers and newsreels, I’d question my own sanity. But odd and impossible as it sounds it is the only thing that explains the truth about Wanda Lou Sherman . . . and my lifting her out of the air. It doesn’t make a hero out of me—but it explains how I happened to take the girl in my arms—with such ease.”
“Does it, Tommy?” I waited. And then, “Are you going to tell me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. And almost at once he, sat down and told it to me. It was new to me. I think it will be to you.