by Anthology
An hour later, a fat man was found lying on the street out of breath. He insisted that he had kidded a taxicab driver about being the Taxi Monster, and the next thing he knew, he’d been thrown out on the street. Minus his watch, belt-buckle, hearing-aid, pants-zippers, shoe-nails, and other possessions.
In quick succession other missing persons reappeared on the public streets. All were more or less disheveled. Each had lost all metal carried on his or her person. Each was convinced that he—or she—had not disappeared at all, but had merely gotten into a cab, instantly been thrown out, and immediately had come to report the offense. In four hours, nine missing persons reappeared—persons who had been missing for four to five days. In six hours, fifteen others appeared—having been missing from six days to seven. In twenty-four hours, fifty-eight out of the seventy-one known vanished persons had reappeared and unanimously identified Mr. Steems as associated with their mishap. And the end was not yet.
With keen intelligence, the police observed that those who returned were doing so in the reverse order from that in which they had disappeared. When, therefore, Susie’s mother appeared in outraged fury to report the theft of her shoes, wedding-ring and the steel springs out of her foundation garment by the villianous Mr. Steems—whom Susie would never speak to again—the police knew the end was near.
It was nearer than that. It had come. Mr. Binder found himself lying flat on his back on a public street. He had, he thought at first, fallen out of a taxicab. Then he realized that he had merely fallen into the soft, ancient deerskin over which he had been gloating a moment before at 5:07 in the afternoon of May 3rd. Now there was neither taxicab nor deerskin about. Moreover, it had suddenly become the middle of the night, and his watch and small change was gone, and his pants were falling down . . .
Mr. Binder went home—a matter of two blocks—and opened the door with a spare key under a flowerpot. Mail and newspapers were piled in his front hall. He discovered that it was May 14th. He learned what had been going on. He’d gone out of his house, tumbled into the deerskin which proved compenetrability a practical matter—and now it was eleven days and some hours later.
Mr. Binder brewed a cup of strong tea and thought concentratedly. With the facts before him and his background of technical knowledge, it was not difficult to work out a theory which completely explained all the observed and reported facts. But this had more than merely intellectual interest. There was a legal aspect. Seventy-one people could sue . . .
Mr. Binder shuddered. Then he discovered that his name had not been listed as among the missing. Nobody had reported him gone because he lived alone. No souvenir of him had been found in Mr. Steems’ lodging because Mr. Steems had hocked his watch.
Mr. Binder came to a very intelligent conclusion. The thing for him to do was keep his mouth shut.
Next day, however, he went over to see his friend Mr. McFadden.
“Now, what d’you know!” said Mr. McFadden. “I had it you were a victim of that there Taxi Monster. Where were you, anyway?”
“I’d like to be sure,” said Mr. Binder. “Listen, George!”
He told Mr. McFadden exactly what had happened. He had found, said Mr. Binder, the secret of compenetration. The atoms of solid things, even steel, are very small and relatively far apart, so that the solidest of objects has actually as much empty space in it as a dust-cloud; neutrons and cosmic rays go through without trouble. Ordinarily two solid objects can no more penetrate each other than two dust-clouds can penetrate each other. The dust-clouds are held together by the air on which the dust-particles float. Solid objects are held together by the electric and magnetic fields the individual atoms possess. But if the electric fields of atoms can be stopped from hindering, there is plenty of room for one seemingly solid object to penetrate another, and therefore for two or more things to be in the same place at the same time.
“And that,” said Mr. Binder, “is what I did. I couldn’t take away all the hindering of the atoms, George. I could just cut it down. But I fixed up a deerskin that used to be a throw on the parlor settee, and I could push anything but metal right through it without making a hole. Metal wouldn’t go through. It stayed behind. I had the deer-skin sort of magnetized, George, and the effect wouldn’t last forever, but I started over here with it to show you that I could make things compenetrate.”
“Does that tell me where you’ve been—if I believe it?”
“Well,” said Mr. Binder, considering. “I don’t know that it does. You see, George, I missed out on one thing. Normally those atom-fields hold each atom in its place up-and-down, and side-to-side, and fore-and-aft—if you get what I mean. When something—an atom—tries to push between them, they push right back. But when I hindered them from that, they still pushed. Only they pushed at right angles to up-and-down and side-to-side and fore-and-aft. At right angles to all of the other directions they ought to push in.”
“At right angles to all other directions?” said Mr. McFadden skeptically. “How could that be? ’Twould be a fourth dimension!”
“It was,” said Mr. Binder modestly. “And the fourth dimnesion is time-flow, George. So when I fell through the deerskin, and all those atoms pushed on the atoms that are me, they pushed me off in the fourth dimension. They pushed me into the middle of week after next. This is the middle of week after next to me, George. By relativity.”
Mr. McFadden stared. Then, carefully, he filled his pipe. He lit it and puffed without words. Mr. McFadden was a skeptical man.
Mr. Binder said meditatively: “Ah, well! Those atoms that get their fields all tricked up won’t stay that way. Every day they threw people who fell through the deerskin just a little shorter distance. From the middle of the week after next, where they threw me, they’ve slowed down and slowed down. By what the papers say, I figure the last missing people only got thrown into the day after tomorrow. And maybe by this time the atoms in the deerskin are back to normal and won’t allow any compenetration.”
“Is that so?” said Mr. McFadden, with fine scorn.
“I’m afraid so,” said Mr. Binder regretfully. “Compenetration can be done, George, but it just isn’t practical. I’m going to try replication.”
“And what, may I ask, is replication.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Binder enthusiastically. “That’s the philosophical notion that it could be possible for the same thing to be in several places at the same time! That has possibilities, George!”
It can be reported that Mr. Thaddeus Binder is now at work on the problem of replication, which—he will explain—is a philosophico-scientific prospect of great interest. He is a very nice, pink-cheeked, little man, Mr. Binder, but maybe somebody ought to stop him. He does not realize his talents. Replication, now . . .
Mr. Steems could be applied to for an opinion. After all, he has had experience of Mr. Binder’s experiments. If the matter of the Taxi Monster and the middle of the week after next is mentioned in his vicinity, he will begin to speak, rapidly and with emotion. His speech will grow impassioned, his tone will grow hoarse and shrill at the same time, and presently he will foam at the mouth. But on the other hand, Susie Blepp and Patrolman Cassidy feel quite otherwise.
It’s pretty hard to decide.
THE MIST
Peter Cartur
The big man grunted, then spoke slowly. “Can’t do that, mister. I go into town Saturday nights. This is Saturday night.”
The little man on the porch was trembling as he leaned forward, trying to catch the words above the noise of the hounds baying in the side yard. His small, alert face was pale, drawn, his eyes too eager. He gave the appearance of being smaller, somehow, than he should be—as though he were shrunken. His clothes hung on him, too large. His eyes were tired, lost-looking.
“Mr.—Mr. Brown, please listen. If this is real, this time—not a rumor—please!”
Brown shook his head slowly, his eyes careful.
“But it’s what I’ve searched for, Mr. Brown. You’ve seen it. O
thers have. You’ve sworn to the truth of it.”
“Sure.” Brown spat, nodded his head. “Sure. And them as says we ain’t are liars for sure.”
“I know . . . Mr. Brown, I’m an investigator of psychic phenomena—of ghosts and things. I must see that apparition tonight.” The shrunken man closed his eyes for an instant, leaned against the porch post.
“Saturday night.”
“But, Mr. Brown—this will be the last night.”
“Might be here right along, now. I dunno.”
“I know, Mr. Brown.” The little man rubbed at his finger with the big golden ring on it. “I know. Another ten minutes at the most. And I’ve got to—” He stopped, let his eyes beg for him.
“Well, I reckon it’s worth lookin’ at, right enough.”
“You’re—sure of what it looks like?”
“I know what I seen. Golden and glowing, it is. You gotta have dark to see it. Real dark. It don’t move, exactly. Just stays still but sorta shimmies like.”
“That’s it, Mr. Brown. I’ve got to see it!”
“Reckon that’s out, mister. I’m goin’ to town.”
Brown watched the little man’s eyes, saw the pain in them. “Course, if it’s worth somethin’—reckon it’d have to be for me to stay home Saturday night.”
“It would take a minute—a moment.”
“I gotta be getting along.”
“It’s worth everything to me, Mr. Brown. Everything.”
“How much?”
“I—I don’t have money.”
“Hunh!”
“I begged rides for seven hundred miles to get here.”
Brown shook his head. “Nice ring you got . . . Well, I gotta be gettin’ to town.”
The little man dropped his hand to his side. Then he raised it again. His eyes, too, moved to the curiously shaped ring on his finger.
“I—can’t let you have that.”
Brown shrugged his big shoulders, stepped back, and fingered the inside doorknob.
“I gotta lock up now an’ let out the hounds . . . Don’t be hangin’ around the yard when I let out the hounds.”
“No . . . Wait—you can have the ring.”
Brown closed his eyes. “I don’t know—”
“You can have it.”
The big man opened the screen door, took the ring. He stepped back so the little man could come through the doorway. Brown struck a match, lit the lamp on the table.
He turned the ring over and over, very slowly, in his thick fingers. His eyes squinted shrewdly. Golden, but not gold.
Too heavy for gold—or any other metal. Much too large for the little man’s fingers. Brown pushed it on his last finger, felt it grip the flesh.
The little man, moving nervously, found the bedroom door.
Brown gave him a rough shove. “Go ahead. You paid, and it ain’t nothin’ to hurt a man.”
But the little man stood aside, let Brown lead the way.
It was a golden blot in the air, shimmering in the center of the bedroom. Eight feet high, perhaps, and about four wide.
Brown laughed coarsely. “Not a spook, is it, mister? I knew it wasn’t. Reckon you was paying for a spook.
Course I didn’t say it was a spook.”
The little man’s face hardened. He looked at Brown appraisingly, sadly. Then he shrugged.
“I can’t quite believe you really walked through that, Brown.”
“Sure.” The big man laughed. “Sure I did. Watch.”
“Wait. I’ll walk with you. Wait!” The little man stepped forward, then, as though still uncertain, put his fingers on Brown’s arm. “All right.”
Together they moved forward into the golden mist.
It was different for the big man—this time. As they entered the mist he felt sharp tingles dance over his skin.
Before, there had been nothing but the feel of air. He started to step back, was stopped by surprising strength from the little man. Brown was forced forward.
The tingling was almost unbearable. It seemed to come in hot flashes, now, from the finger that wore the ring. Brown hurried, trying to get back to the familiar bedroom.
They stepped out of the mist.
There was no familiar bedroom. The house was gone, and with it the night.
Daylight. Daytime on a countryside where the grass was blue as Brown had never seen it, and where trees were slender, unbranched needles reaching for an orange sky. A sky in which Brown could see three gigantic suns.
The big man ripped free, swore, spun back to face the mist. The little man shook his head.
“We just made it, Brown. The mist is gone.”
The little man was changing. He seemed to grow, fill out his clothes. “I’m sorry, Brown. I couldn’t get through except with the ring—or with someone wearing the ring . . . That meant it had to be you.”
“This is crazy. Where—” The big man stopped, looked again at the suns. He rubbed his forehead.
“Home. My home . . . Find another mist while you wear the ring. Then go home . . . to your home.”
“But—a mist?”
“You’ll hear rumors. Wild tales. We have stories of ghosts here, too. Be an investigator. Track down those rumors.”
“But—”
“Good luck, Brown.”
The little man turned quickly, began walking across the strange blue grass. Once he looked back, saw Brown staring helplessly after him. He hesitated for an instant, then hurried on. In a moment he was among the needle trees, then out of Brown’s sight.
THE MISTS OF TIME
Tom Purdom
The cry from the lookout perked up every officer, rating, and common seaman on deck. The two-masted brig they were intercepting was being followed by sharks—a sure sign it was a slaver. Slave ships fouled the ocean with a trail of bodies as they worked their way across the Atlantic.
John Harrington was standing in front of the rear deckhouse when the midshipman’s yell floated down from the mast. His three officers were loitering around him with their eyes fixed on the sails three miles off their port bow—a mass of wind-filled cloth that had aroused, once again, the hope that their weeks of tedious, eventless cruising were coming to an end.
The ship rolling under their own feet, HMS Sparrow, was a sixty-foot schooner—one of the smallest warships carried on the rolls of Her Majesty’s navy. There was no raised quarterdeck her commander could pace in majestic isolation. The officers merely stood in front of the deckhouse and looked down a deck crowded with two boats, spare spars, and the sweating bodies of crewmen who were constantly working the big triangular sails into new positions in response to the shipmaster’s efforts to draw the last increment of movement from the insipid push of the African coastal breezes. A single six-pound gun, mounted on a turntable, dominated the bow.
Sub-lieutenant Bonfors opened his telescope and pointed it at the other ship. He was a broad, well-padded young man and he beamed at the image in his lenses with the smile of a gourmand who was contemplating a particularly interesting table.
“Blackbirds, gentlemen. She’s low in the water, too. I believe a good packer can squeeze five hundred prime blackbirds into a hull that long—twentyfive hundred good English pounds if they’re all still breathing and pulsing.”
It was the paradox of time travel. You were there and you weren’t there, the laws of physics prohibited it and it was the laws of physics that got you there. You were the cat that was neither dead nor alive, the photon that could be in two places at once, the wave function that hadn’t collapsed. You slipped through a world in which you could see but not be seen, exist and not exist. Sometimes there was a flickering moment when you really were there—a moment, oddly enough, when they could see you and you couldn’t see them. It was the paradox of time travel—a paradox built upon the contradictions and inconsistencies that lie at the heart of the sloppy, fundamentally unsolvable mystery human beings call the physical universe.
For Emory FitzGordon the paradox mea
nt that he was crammed into an invisible, transparent space/time bubble, strapped into a two-chair rig shoulder to shoulder with a bony, hyperactive young woman, thirty feet above the tepid water twenty miles off the coast of Africa, six years after the young Princess Victoria had become Queen of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and all the heathen lands Her government ruled beyond the seas. The hyperactive young woman, in addition, was an up-and-coming video auteur who possessed all the personality quirks traditionally associated with the arts.
“Four-minute check completed,” the hal running the bubble said. “Conditions on all four co-ordinates register satisfactory and stable. You have full clearance for two hours, provisional clearance for five hours.”
Giva Lombardo’s hands had already started bustling across the screenbank attached to her chair. The cameras attached to the rig had started recording as soon as the bubble had completed the space/time relocation. Giva was obviously rearranging the angles and magnifications chosen by the hal’s programming.
“It didn’t take them long to start talking about that twenty-five hundred pounds, did it?” Giva murmured.
John Harrington glanced at the other two officers. A hint of mischief flickered across his face. He tried to maintain a captainly gravity when he was on deck but he was, after all, only twenty-three.
“So how does that break down, Mr. Bonfors?”
“For the slaves alone,” the stout sub-lieutenant said, “conservatively, it’s two hundred and sixty pounds for you, eighty-nine for your hard working first lieutenant, seventy-two for our two esteemed colleagues here, sixteen for the young gentleman in the lookout, and two-and-a-half pounds for every hand in the crew. The value of the ship itself might increase every share by another fifth, depending on the judgment of our lords at the Admiralty.”
The sailing master, Mr. Whitjoy, rolled his eyes at the sky. The gunnery officer, Sub-lieutenant Terry, shook his head.
“I see there’s one branch of mathematics you seem to have thoroughly mastered, Mr. Bonfors,” Terry said.