by Anthology
‘Time’s Arrow.’ ”
“Then negative entropy—my gosh!”
For a moment the two men looked at each other. Then Barton asked in a rather subdued voice: “What does Henderson say about it?”
“I’ll quote from his last letter: ‘The discovery of negative entropy introduces quite new and revolutionary conceptions into our picture of the physical world. Some of these will be examined in a further communication.’ ”
“And are they?”
“That’s the snag: there’s no ‘further communication.’ From that you can guess two alternatives. First, the Editor of Nature may have declined to publish the letter. I think we can rule that one out. Second, the consequences may have been so revolutionary that Henderson never did write a further report.”
“Negative entropy—negative time,” mused Barton. “It seems fantastic; yet it might be theoretically possible to build some sort of device that could see into the past . . .”
“I know what we’ll do,” said Davis suddenly. “We’ll tackle the Professor about it and watch his reactions. Now I’m going to bed before I get brain fever.”
That night Davis did not sleep well. He dreamed that he was walking along a road that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. He had been walking for miles before he came to the signpost, and when he reached it he found that it was broken and the two arms were revolving idly in the wind. As they turned, he could read the words they carried. One said simply: To the Future; the other: To the Past.
They learned nothing from Professor Fowler, which was not surprising; next to the Dean, he was the best poker player in the College. He regarded his slightly fretful assistants with no trace of emotion while Davis trotted out his theory.
When the young man had finished, he said quietly, “I’m going over again tomorrow, and I’ll tell Henderson about your detective work. Maybe he’ll take pity on you; maybe he’ll tell me a bit more, for that matter. Now let’s go to work.”
Davis and Barton found it increasingly difficult to take a great deal of interest in their own work while their minds were filled with the enigma so near at hand. Nevertheless they continued conscientiously, though ever and again they paused to wonder if all their labor might not be in vain. If it were, they would be the first to rejoice. Supposing one could see into the past and watch history unfolding itself, back to the dawn of time! All the great secrets of the past would be revealed: one could watch the coming of life on the Earth, and the whole story of evolution from amoeba to man.
No; it was too good to be true. Having decided this, they would go back to their digging and scraping for another half-hour until the thought would come: but what if it were true? And then the whole cycle would begin all over again.
When Professor Fowler returned from his second visit, he was a subdued and obviously shaken man. The only satisfaction his assistants could get from him was the statement that Henderson had listened to their theory and complimented them on their powers of deduction.
That was all; but in Davis’s eyes it clinched the matter, though Barton was still doubtful. In the weeks that followed, he too began to waver, until at last they were both convinced that the theory was correct. For Professor Fowler was spending more and more of his time with Henderson and Barnes; so much so that they sometimes did not see him for days. He had almost lost interest in the excavations, and had delegated all responsibility to Barton, who was now able to use the big pneumatic drill to his heart’s content.
They were uncovering several yards of footprints a day, and the spacing showed that the monster had now reached its utmost speed and was advancing in great leaps as if nearing its victim. In a few days they might reveal the evidence of some eon-old tragedy, preserved by a miracle and brought down the ages for the observation of man.
Yet all this seemed very unimportant now, for it was clear from the Professor’s hints and his general air of abstraction that the secret research was nearing its climax. He had told them as much, promising that in a very few days, if all went well, their wait would be ended. But beyond that he would say nothing.
Once or twice Henderson had paid them a visit, and they could see that he was now laboring under a considerable strain. He obviously wanted to talk about his work, but was not going to do so until the final tests had been completed. They could only admire his self-control and wish that it would break down. Davis had a distant impression that the elusive Barnes was mainly responsible for his secrecy; he had something of a reputation for not publishing work until it had been checked and double-checked. If these experiments were as important as they believed, his caution was understandable, however infuriating.
Henderson had come over early that morning to collect the Professor, and as luck would have it, his car had broken down on the primitive road. This was unfortunate for Davis and Barton, who would have to walk to camp for lunch, since Professor Fowler was driving Henderson back in the jeep. They were quite prepared to put up with this if their wait was indeed coming to an end, as the others had more than half-hinted.
They had stood talking by the side of the jeep for some time before the two older scientists had driven away. It was a rather strained parting, for each side knew what the other was thinking. Finally Barton, as usual the most outspoken, remarked:
“Well, Doc, if this is Der Tag, I hope everything works properly. I’d like a photograph of a brontosaurus as a souvenir.”
This sort of banter had been thrown at Henderson so often that he now took it for granted. He smiled without much mirth and replied, “I don’t promise anything. It may be the biggest flop ever.”
Davis moodily checked the tire pressure with the toe of his boot. It was a new set, he noticed, with an odd zigzag pattern he hadn’t seen before.
“Whatever happens, we hope you’ll tell us. Otherwise, we’re going to break in one night and find out just what you’re up to.”
Henderson laughed. “You’ll be a pair of geniuses if you can learn anything from our present lash-up. But, if all goes well, we may be having a little celebration by nightfall.”
“What time do you expect to be back, Chief?”
“Somewhere around four. I don’t want you to have to walk back for tea.”
“O.K.—here’s hoping!”
The machine disappeared in a cloud of dust, leaving two very thoughtful geologists standing by the roadside. Then Barton shrugged his shoulders.
“The harder we work,” he said, “the quicker the time will go. Come along!”
The end of the trench, where Barton was working with the power drill, was now more than a hundred yards from the main excavation. Davis was putting the final touches to the last prints to be uncovered. They were now very deep and widely spaced, and looking along them, one could see quite clearly where the great reptile had changed its course and started, first to run, and then to hop like an enormous kangaroo. Barton wondered what it must have felt like to see such a creature bearing down upon one with the speed of an express; then he realized that if their guess was true this was exactly what they might soon be seeing.
By mid-afternoon they had uncovered a record length of track. The ground had become softer, and Barton was roaring ahead so rapidly that he had almost forgotten his other preoccupations. He had left Davis yards behind, and both men were so busy that only the pangs of hunger reminded them when it was time to finish. Davis was the first to notice that it was later than they had expected, and he walked over to speak to his friend.
“It’s nearly half-past four!” he said when the noise of the drill had died away. “The Chief’s late—I’ll be mad if he’s had tea before collecting us.”
“Give him another half-hour,” said Barton. “I can guess what’s happened. They’ve blown a fuse or something and it’s upset their schedule.”
Davis refused to be placated. “I’ll be darned annoyed if we’ve got to walk back to camp again. Anyway, I’m going up the hill to see if there’s any sign of him.”
He
left Barton blasting his way through the soft rock, and climbed the low hill at the side of the old riverbed. From here one could see far down the valley, and the twin stacks of the Henderson-Barnes laboratory were clearly visible against the drab landscape. But there was no sign of the moving dust-cloud that would be following the jeep: the Professor had not yet started for home.
Davis gave a snort of disgust. There was a two-mile walk ahead of them, after a particularly tiring day, and to make matters worse they’d now be late for tea. He decided not to wait any longer, and was already walking down the hill to rejoin Barton when something caught his eye and he stopped to look down the valley.
Around the two stacks, which were all he could see of the laboratory, a curious haze not unlike a heat tremor was playing. They must be hot, he knew, but surely not that hot.
He looked more carefully, and saw to his amazement that the haze covered a hemisphere that must be almost a quarter of a mile across.
And, quite suddenly, it exploded. There was no light, no blinding flash; only a ripple that spread abruptly across the sky and then was gone. The haze had vanished—and so had the two great stacks of the power-house.
Feeling as though his legs had turned suddenly to water, Davis slumped down upon the hilltop and stared open-mouthed along the valley. A sense of overwhelming disaster swept into his mind; as in a dream, he waited for the explosion to reach his ears.
It was not impressive when it came; only a dull, long-drawn-out whoooooosh! that died away swiftly in the still air. Half unconsciously, Davis noticed that the chatter of the drill had also stopped; the explosion must have been louder than he thought for Barton to have heard it too.
The silence was complete. Nothing moved anywhere as far as his eye could see in the whole of that empty, barren landscape. He waited until his strength returned; then, half running, he went unsteadily down the hill to rejoin his friend.
Barton was half sitting in the trench with his head buried in his hands. He looked up as Davis approached; and although his features were obscured by dust and sand, the other was shocked at the expression in his eyes.
“So you heard it too!” Davis said. “I think the whole lab’s blown up. Come along, for heaven’s sake!”
“Heard what?” said Barton dully.
Davis stared at him in amazement. Then he realized that Barton could not possibly have heard any sound while he was working with the drill. The sense of disaster deepened with a rush; he felt like a character in some Greek tragedy, helpless before an implacable doom.
Barton rose to his feet. His face was working strangely, and Davis saw that he was on the verge of breakdown. Yet, when he spoke, his words were surprisingly calm.
“What fools we were!” he said. “How Henderson must have laughed at us when we told him that he was trying to see into the past!”
Mechanically, Davis moved to the trench and stared at the rock that was seeing the light of day for the first time in fifty million years. Without much emotion, now, he traced again the zigzag pattern he had first noticed a few hours before. It had sunk only a little way into the mud, as if when it was formed the jeep had been traveling at its utmost speed.
No doubt it had been; for in one place the shallow tire marks had been completely obliterated by the monster’s footprints. They were now very deep indeed, as if the great reptile was about to make the final leap upon its desperately fleeing prey.
TIME’S CRUEL GEOMETRY
Mark Onspaugh
“At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on, waiting for The Time Traveler; waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveler vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned.”
—H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
The Time Traveler saw his friend enter the laboratory and stare where the Time Machine had entered its state of flux, rendering both conveyance and passenger a spectral blur. The Time Traveler made to wave to his friend, but by the then all was growing dark and then rapidly light as the traversing of the time stream gathered momentum and day and night alternated with sickening speed.
Again he saw the laboratory disappear; leaving only the small green hill that had been its location. Other buildings and structures were built, occupied and crumbled as he sat watching, and then there was a violent shaking and he was surrounded by a cataclysmic whirlpool of swirling colors and what might be sparks or suns coming quickly to life and just as quickly dying out.
The Time Machine plunged down the center of the whirlpool, like Alice down the rabbit hole, though he suspected there were dangers and oddities to be found in the time stream never dreamt of in Wonderland.
It had been his intention to journey to the past and collect various artifacts and photos as evidence he had been there, then perhaps travel to the future to retrieve some scientific wonder, perhaps a bladeless scalpel or an apparatus that defied the laws of gravity.
The Time Traveler felt a tremendous jolt, as if the Time Machine had struck an enormous swell and then had plummeted several feet before finding its “footing” again.
Worried that something might be wrong with the delicate central mechanism, he moved to slow the Time Machine to a halt when it suddenly pitched sideways and he was thrown from the saddle. The Time Traveler struck his head on one of the brass rails and his vision blurred and filled with stars. The pain combined with the nausea peculiar to time travel made him retch, and he was glad he had foregone Mrs. Watchett’s offer of lunch before he had made this journey.
Shaking, his head pounding, The Time Traveler grabbed the saddle and hoisted himself up, careful not to misalign the controls.
The machine stopped with a lurch and he saw with mounting horror that he was sinking in one of the shallow seas that had once covered much of Britain. The base of the Time Machine gave it a temporary buoyancy, but The Time Traveler knew it would be taking on water and he would die either by drowning or as a refugee of time in this hostile place.
Water began to lap over the floor of the machine, and he worked quickly to remove the brass housing protecting the crystalline heart of the Time Machine. Though every instinct was urging him to panic, he willed himself to be calm, to proceed with deliberation and scientific detachment.
He saw now that the housing was bent, and that two of the screws had been stripped, as if someone had tried to pry off the housing and then bent it back into place.
Morlocks.
Obviously they had examined the machine while it had been in their possession, but had been unable to discern either its purpose or the manner in which it operated.
Thanking the fates the creatures had not breached its casing; The Time Traveler removed the remaining screws.
Beneath the cylindrical brass shield was an emerald, nearly fifteen centimeters in length and precision-cut into an orthorhombic dipyramidal crystal. It was this shape, combined with the high-energy potentiality of this particular variant of beryl that made time travel possible. It had taken him ten years and most of his inheritance to find and modify the emerald.
He saw now that the network of gold rods that held the emerald in place were bent, just enough that the emerald had become misaligned. It was further evidence that the Morlocks had tried to remove the crystal, their crude investigation resulting in damage to the delicate mechanisms.
The gold rods formed a sort of Chinese puzzle box, both holding the emerald in place and preventing its removal by anyone who did not possess the knowledge of the pattern of its release.
The Time Machine began to sink in the sea covering what would one day be London, and The Time Traveler’s pants became soaked with cold sea water.
With the deliberation of practice he carefully slid the rods in sequence and removed the crystal. He placed it in his coat pocket with care, not daring to think of his fate should it drop to the bottom of the primordial s
ea. Thinking of Weena calmed him, and he bent the damaged rods back into true, taking care not to damage either the amber lens or the obsidian mirror.
The water was up to The Time Traveler’s waist now, and the great bubbling disturbance the machine caused in sinking was attracting the attention of the large marine predators that were indigenous to the period.
A creature looking much like a cross between and crocodile and an eel leaped into the open air dolphin-like, one horrible red eye focused on him, its teeth plentiful and razor-sharp. It was a mosasaur, if his memory of paleontology was accurate. Another of the creatures was trying to gain access through the portion of the machine now submerged, but the narrower apertures available at the poles of the spherical machine denied it access. Once the mid-section was submerged, however, The Time Traveler would be at the mercy of the creature.
The machine suddenly sunk like a stone, its swift descent causing one of the charging mosasaurs to miss the Time Machine by inches. The creature was terribly fast, though, and it was circling him, looking for its most advantageous avenue of attack.
Now holding his breath, The Time Traveler reseated the emerald and slid the gold rods back into position.
As two smaller mosasaurs feinted at the Time Machine, The Traveler set the controls for his laboratory and engaged the machine.
The machine vibrated slowly, then more rapidly, inducing an unpleasant buzzing in his head and the profound nausea he had come to dread. Now that he was submerged, holding his breath in agony, the departure of the Time Machine seemed to take minutes rather than seconds. As day and night alternated with greater and greater speed, his chest burned and spasmed with a pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. The largest mosasaur was speeding toward him. It stuck its scaly head into the largest aperture and snapped at his face. The Time Traveler screamed as he threw up his hands, and felt a sharp pain in his left forearm, then the ocean and its denizens were no more.