Time Travel Omnibus Volume 2

by Anthology

  “Correct. An important evolutionary step. Before this, animals were either unprotected, like our annelid worm, or had skeletons outside, like snails or lobsters or insects. This is very limiting and inefficient. But an internal skeleton can give flexible support and is light in weight. An important evolutionary step has been made. We are almost there, children, almost there! This simple internal skeleton evolved into a more practical notochord, a single bone the length of the body protecting a main nerve fiber. And the chordates, the creatures with this notochord were only a single evolutionary step away from this—all this!”

  Teacher threw his arms wide just as the sea about them burst into darting life. A school of silvery, yard-long fishes flashed around and through the students, while sharp-toothed sharklike predators struck through their midst. Teacher’s speech had been nicely timed to end at this precise and dramatic moment.

  Some of the smaller children shied away from the flurry of life and death while Grosbit-9 swung his fist at one of the giants as it glided by.

  “We have arrived,” Teacher said, vibrantly, carried away by his own enthusiasm. “The chordate give way to the vertebrate, life as we know it. A strong, flexible internal skeleton that shields the soft inner organs and supports at the same time. Soft cartilage in these sharks—the same sort of tissue that stiffens your ears—changes to hard bone in these fishes. Mankind, so to speak, is just around the corner! What is it, Ched-3?” He was aware of a tugging on his toga.

  “I have to go to the—”

  “Well press the return button on your belt and don’t be too long about it.”

  Ched-3 pressed the button and vanished, whisked back to their classroom with its superior functional plumbing. Teacher smacked his lips annoyedly while the teeming life whirled and dived about them.

  Children could be difficult at times.

  “How did these animals know to get a notochord and bones?” Agon-1 asked. “How did they know the right way to go to end up with the vertebrate—and us?”

  Teacher almost patted him on the head, but smiled instead.

  “A good question, a very good question. Someone has been listening and thinking. The answer is they didn’t know, it wasn’t planned. The ever-branching tree of evolution has no goals. Its changes are random, mutations caused by alterations in the germ plasm caused by natural radiation. The successful changes live, the unsuccessful ones die. The notochord creatures could move about easier, were more successful than the other creatures. They lived to evolve further. Which brings us to a new word I want you to remember. The word is ‘ecology’ and we are talking about ecological niches. Ecology is the whole world, everything in it, how all the plants and animals live together and how they relate one to the other.

  An ecological niche is where a creature lives in this world, the special place where it can thrive and survive and reproduce. All creatures that find an ecological niche that they can survive in are successful.”

  “The survival of the fittest?” Agon-1 asked.

  “You have been reading some of the old books. That is what evolution was once called, but it was called wrong. All living organisms are fit, because they are alive. One can be no more fit than the other.

  Can we say that we, mankind, are more fit than an oyster?”

  “Yes,” Phill-4 said, with absolute surety. His attention on Ched-3 who had just returned, apparently emerging from the side of one of the sharks.

  “Really? Come over here, Ched-3, and try to pay attention. We live and the oysters live. But what would happen if the world were to suddenly be covered by shallow water?”

  “How could that happen?”

  “The how is not important,” Teacher snapped, then took a deep breath. “Let us just say it happened.

  What would happen to all the people?”

  “They would all drown!” Mandi-2 said, unhappily.

  “Correct. Our ecological niche would be gone. The oysters would thrivaand cover the world. If we survive we are all equally fit in the eyes or nature. Now let us see how our animals with skeletons are faring in a new niche. Dry land.”

  A press, a motionless movement, and they were on a muddy shore by a brackish swamp. Teacher pointed to the trace of a feathery fin cutting through the floating algae.

  “The subclass Crossoptergii, which means fringed fins. Sturdy little fish who have managed to survive in this stagnant water by adopting thsir swim bladders to breathe air directly and to get their oxygen in this Jnanner. Many fish have these bladders that enable them to hover at any given depth, but now they have been adapted to a different use. Watch!”

  The water became shallower until the fish’s back was above the water, then its bulging eyes. Staring about, round and wide, as though terrified by this new environment. The sturdy fins, reinforced by bone, thrashed at the mud, driving it forward, further and further from its home, the sea. Then it was out of the water, struggling across the drying mud. A dragonfly hovered low, landed—and was engulfed by the fish’s open mouth.

  “The land is being conquered,” Teacher said, pointing to the humped back of the fish now vanishing among the reeds. “First by plants, then insects—and now the animals. In a few million years, still over 255 million years before our own time, we have this . . .”

  Through time again, rushing away on the cue word, to another swampy scene, a feathery marsh of ferns as big as trees and a hot sun burning through low-lying clouds.

  And life. Roaring, thrashing, eating, killing life. The time researchers must have searched diligently for this place, this instant in the history of the world. No words were needed to describe or explain.

  The age of reptiles. Small ones scampered by quickly to avoid the carnage falling on them.

  Scolosaurus, armored and knobbed like a tiny tank pushed through the reeds, his spiked tail dragging a rut in the mud. Great Brontosaurus stood high against the sky, his tiny, foolish head, with its teacup of brains, waving at the end of his lengthy neck, turned back to see what was bothering him as some message crept through his indifferent nervous system. His back humped-up, a mountain of gristle and bone and flesh and hooked to it was the demon form of Tyrannosaurus. His tiny forepaws scratched feebly against the other’s leathery skin while his yards-long razor-toothed jaws tore at the heaving wall of flesh. Brontosaurus, still not sure what was happening, dredged up a quarter ton of mud and water and plants and chewed it, wondering. While high above, heaving and flapping its leathery wings, Pteranodon wheeled by, long jaws agape.

  “That one’s hurting the other one,” Mandi-2 said. “Can’t you make them stop?”

  “We are only observers, child. What you see happened so very long ago and is unalterable in any way.”

  “Kill!” Grosbit-9 muttered, his attention captured for the very first time. They all watched, mouths dropping open at the silent fury.

  “These are reptiles, the first successful animals to conquer the land. Before them were the amphibia, like our modem frogs, tied un-breakably to the water where their eggs are laid and the young grow up.

  But the reptiles lay eggs that can hatch on land. The link with the sea has been cut. Land has been conquered at last. They lack but a single characteristic that will permit them to survive in all the parts of the globe. You have all been preparing for this trip. Can anyone tell me what is still missing?”

  The answer was only silence. Brontosaurus fell and large pieces of flesh were torn from his body.

  Pteranodon flapped away. A rain squall blotted out the sun.

  “I am talking about temperature. These reptiles get a good deal of their body heat from the sun. They must live in a warm environment because as their surroundings get cooler their bodies get cooler . . .”

  “Warm blooded!” Agon-1 said with shrill excitement.

  “Correct! Someone, at least, has been doing the required studying. I see you sticking your tongue out, Ched-3. How would you like it if you couldn’t draw it back and it stayed that way? Controlled body temperature, the la
st major branch on the ever-branching tree. The first class of what might be called centrally heated animals is the mammalia. The mammals. If we all go a little bit deeper into this forest you will see what I mean. Don’t straggle, keep up there. In this clearing, everyone. On this side. Watch those shrubs there. Any moment now . . .”

  Expectantly they waited. The leaves stirred and they leaned forward. A piglike snout pushed out, sniffing the air, and two suspicious, slightly crossed eyes looked about the clearing. Satisfied that there was no danger for the moment, the creature came into sight.

  “Coot! Is that ever ugly,” Phill-4 said.

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, young man. I’ll ask you to hold your tongue. This is a perfect example of the subclass Proto-theria, the first beasts, Tritylodon itself. For many years a source of controversy as to whether it was mammal or reptile. The smooth skin and shiny plates of a reptile—but notice the tufts of hair between the plates. Reptiles do not have hair. And it lays eggs, as reptiles do. But it, she, this fine creature here also suckles her young as do the mammals. Look with awe at this bridge between the old class of reptiles and emerging class of mammals.”

  “Oh, how cute!” Mandi-2 squealed as four tiny pink duplicates of the mother staggered out of the shrubbery after her. Tritylodon dropped heavily onto her side and the young began to nurse.

  “That is another thing that the mammals brought into the world,” Teacher said as the students looked on with rapt fascination. “Mother love. Reptile offspring, either born live or when they emerge from the egg, are left to fend for themselves. But warm blooded mammals must be warmed, protected, fed while they develop. They need mothering and, as you see, they receive it in sufficiency.”

  Some sound must have troubled the Tritylodon because she looked around,) then sprang to her feet and trundled off into the underbrush, her young falling and stumbling after her. No sooner was the clearing empty than the hulking form of Triceratops pushed by, the great horns and bony frill held high.

  Thirty feet of lumbering flesh, its tail tip twitching as it dragged behind.

  “The great lizards are still here, but doomed soon to final destruction. The mammals will survive and multiply and cover the earth. We will later discuss the many paths traveled by the mammals, but today we are going to leap ahead millions of years to the order Primates which may look familiar to you.”

  A taller, deeper, more tangled jungle replaced the one they had been visiting, a fruit-filled, flower-filled, life-filled maze. Multicolored birds shot by, insects hung in clouds and brown forms moved along the branches.

  “Monkeys,” Grosbit-9 said and looked around for something to throw at them.

  “Primates. A relatively primitive group that took to these trees some fifty million years in our past. See how they are adapting to the arboreal life? They must see clearly in front of them and gauge distances correctly, so their eyes are now on the front of their heads, and they have developed binocular vision. To hold securely to the branches their nails have shortened and become flat, their thumbs opposed to strengthen their grip. These primates will continue to develop until the wonderful, important day when they descend from the trees and venture from the shelter of the all-protecting forest.

  “Africa,” Teacher said as the time machine once more moved them across the centuries. “It could be today, so little have things changed in the relatively short time since these higher primates ventured forth.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Ched-3 said, looking about at the sun-scorched grass of the veldt, at the verdant jungle pressing up next to it.

  “Patience. The scene begins. Watch the herd of deer that are coming towards us. The landscape has changed, become drier, the seas of grass are pushing back the jungle. There is still food to be had in the jungle, fruit and nuts there for the taking, but the competition is becoming somewhat fierce. Many different primates now fill that ecological niche and it is running over. Is there a niche vacant? Certainly not out here on the veldt! Here are the fleet-footed grass eaters, look how they run, their survival depends upon their speed. For they have their enemies, the carnivores, the meat eaters who live on their flesh.”

  Dust rose and the deer bounded towards them, through them, around them. Wide eyes, hammering hooves, sun glinting from their horns and then they were gone. And the lions followed. They had a buck, cut off from the rest of the herd by the lionesses, surrounded, clawed at and wounded. Then a talon tipped paw hamstrung the beast and it fell, quickly dead as its throat was chewed out and the hot red blood sank into the dust. The pride of lions ate. The children watched, struck silent, and Mandi-2 sniffled and rubbed at her nose.

  “The lions eat a bit, but they are already gorged from another kill. The sun is reaching the zenith and they are hot, sleepy. They will find shade and go to sleep and the corpse will remain for the scavengers to dispose of, the carrion eaters.”

  Even as Teacher spoke the first vulture was dropping down out of the sky, folding its dusty wings and waddling towards the kill. Two more descended, tearing at the flesh and squabbling and screaming soundlessly at one another.

  Then from the jungle’s edge there emerged first one, then two more apes. They blinked in the sunlight, looking around fearfully, then ran towards the newly killed deer, using their knuckles on the ground to help them as they ran. The blood-drenched vultures looked at them apprehensively, then flapped into the air as one of the apes hurled a stone at them. Then it was the apes’ turn. They too tore at the flesh.

  “Look and admire, children. The tailless ape emerges from the forest. These are your remote ancestors.”

  “Not mine!”

  “They’re awfull”

  “I think I am going to be sick.”

  “Children—stop, think! With your minds not your viscera just for once. These ape-men or man-apes have occupied a new cultural niche. They are already adapting to it. They are almost hairless so that they can sweat and not overheat when other animals must seek shelter. They are tool using. They hurl rocks to chase away the vultures. And see, that one there—he has a sharp bit of splintered rock that he is using to cut off the meat. They stand erect on their legs to free their hands for the tasks of feeding and survival.

  Man is emerging and you are privileged to behold his first tremulous steps away from the jungle. Fix this scene in your memory, it is a glorious one. And you will remember it better, Mandi-2, if you watcrlwith your eyes open.”

  The older classes were usually much more enthusiastic. Only Agon-1 seemed to be watching with any degree of interest—other than Grosbit-9 who was watching with too much interest indeed. Well, they said one good student in a class made it worthwhile, made one feel as though something were being accomplished.

  “That is the end of today’s lesson, but I’ll tell you something about tomorrow’s class.” Africa vanished and some cold and rainswept northern land appeared. High mountains loomed through the mist in the background and a thin trickle of smoke rose from a low sod house half-buried in the ground. “We will see how man emerged from his primate background, grew sure and grew strong. How these early people moved from the family group to the simple Neolithic community. How they used tools and bent nature to their will. We are going to find out who lives in that house and what he does there. It is a lesson that I know you are all looking forward to.”

  There seemed very little actual evidence to back this assumption, and Teacher stabbed the button and the class was over. Their familiar classroom appeared around them and the dismissal bell was jingling its sweet music. Shouting loudly, without a backward look, they ran from the room and Teacher, suddenly tired, undipped the controls from his waist and locked them into his desk. It had been a very long day. He turned out the lights and left.

  At the street entrance he was just behind a young matron, most attractive and pink in miniaturized mini, hair a flaming red. Mandi-2’s mother, he realized, he should have known by the hair, as she reached down to take an even tinier, pinker hand. They went
out before him.

  “And what did you learn in school today, darling?” the mother asked. And, although he did not approve of eavesdropping, Teacher could not help but hear the question. Yes, what did you learn? It would be nice to know.

  Mandi-2 skipped down the steps, bouncing with happiness to be free again.

  “Oh, nothing much,” she said, and they vanished around the corner.

  Without knowing he did it, Teacher sighed a great weary sigh and turned in the other direction and went home.

  THE FACE IN THE PHOTO

  Jack Finney

  On one of the upper floors of the new Hall of Justice I found the room number I was looking for, and opened the door. A nice-looking girl inside glanced up from her typewriter, switched on a smile, and said, “Professor Weygand?” It was a question in form only—one glance at me, and she knew—and I smiled and nodded, wishing I’d worn my have-fun-in-San-Francisco clothes instead of my professor s outfit. She said, “Inspector Ihren’s on the phone; would you wait, please?” and I nodded and sat down, smiling benignly the way a professor should.

  My trouble is that, although I have the thin, intent, professorial face, I’m a little young for my job, which is assistant professor of physics at a large university. Fortunately I’ve had some premature gray in my hair ever since I was nineteen, and on campus I generally wear those miserable permanently baggy tweeds that professors are supposed to wear, though a lot of them cheat and don’t. These suits, together with round, metal-rimmed, professor-style glasses which I don t really need, and a careful selection of burlap neckties in diseased plaids of bright orange, baboon blue, and gang green (de rigueur for gap-pocketed professor suits) complete the image. That’s a highly popular word meaning that if you ever want to become a full professor you’ve got to quit looking like an undergraduate.

  I glanced around the little anteroom: yellow plaster walls; a big calendar; filing cabinets; a desk, typewriter, and girl. I watched her the way I inspect some of my more advanced girl students—from under the brows and with a fatherly smile in case she looked up and caught me. What I really wanted to do, though, was pull out Inspector Ihren’s letter and read it again for any clue I might have missed about why he wanted to see me. But I’m a little afraid of the police—I get a feeling of guilt just asking a cop a street direction—and I thought rereading the letter just now would betray my nervousness to Miss Candyhips here who would somehow secretly signal the inspector. I knew exactly what it said, anyway. It was a formally polite three-line request, addressed to my office on the campus, to come here and see Inspector Martin O. Ihren, if I would, at my convenience, if I didn’t mind, please, sir. I sat wondering what he’d have done if, equally politely, I’d refused, when a buzzer buzzed, the smile turned on again, and the girl said, “Go right in, Professor.” I got up, swallowing nervously, opened the door beside me, and walked into the Inspector’s office.