The Best of Lester del Rey

by Lester Del Rey

  Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you—and no time, apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space. You look at your watch, and it’s still running. That means you either carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small increment of time from the main field. I don’t know, and you won’t think about that then, either.

  I’m smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine was wide open, yet you haven’t seen any effects of air loss.

  “Where are we getting our air?” you ask. “Or why don’t we lose it?”

  “No place for it to go,” I explain. There isn’t—out there is neither time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel gravity, but I can’t explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a gravity field built in—or maybe the time that makes your watch run is responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.

  Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe easier, though we’re in complete darkness, except for the weak light in the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement floor around. You take another cigarette from me and you get out of the machine, just as I do.

  I’ve got a bundle of clothes, and I start changing. It’s a sort of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it looks comfortable.

  “I’m staying here,” I tell you. “This is like the things they wear in this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to pass fairly well. I’ve had all my fortune—the one you make on that atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some identification I’ve got with me, so I’ll do all right. I know they still use some kind of money—you’ll see evidence of that. And it’s a pretty easy-going civilization, from what I could see. We’ll go up, and I’ll leave you. I like the looks of things here, and I won’t be coming back with you.”

  You nod, remembering I’ve told you about it. “What century is this, anyway?”

  I’d told you that, too, but you’ve forgotten. “As near as I can guess, it’s about 2150. He told me, just as I’m telling you, that it’s an interstellar civilization.”

  You take another cigarette from me, and follow me. Fve ^ot a small flashlight, and we grope through a pile of rubbish, and out into a corridor. This is a sub-sub-subbasement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs, and

  there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.

  “What about the time machine?” you ask.

  “Since nobody ever stole it, it’s safe.”

  We get in the elevator, and I say “first” to it. It gives out a coughing noise, and the basement openings begin to click by us. There’s no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says “first” back at us.

  It’s obviously a service elevator, and we’re in a dim corridor, with nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. “You go that way. Don’t worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can’t. Find the museum, grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you.”

  You act as if you’re dreaming, though you can’t believe it’s a dream. You nod at me, and I move out into the main corridor. A second later, you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I’m asking questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.

  You come out of the side corridor, and go down a hall, away from the restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at them, realizing that things have changed.

  STEIJ:NERI, FAUNTEN, Z:RGOT DISPENSERI. The signs

  are very quiet and dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains, and the like. What a zergot is, you don’t know. You stop at a sign that announces: trav:l biwrou—f:rst-clas twrz—

  MARZ AND X: TROUDJ:N PLANETS. SPEJ:L REITS TU AOL

  s:nz wtxin 60 lyt iirz! But there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get the hang of the spelling they use, though.

  Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you. Why should they? You wouldn’t care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin suit—you’d figure it was some part in a play, and let it go. Well, people don’t change much.

  You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might be papers on tapes. “Where can I find the Museum of Science?”

  Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss,” he tells you. Around you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using stuff as garbled as his. You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface of the walk: miuzi:m :v syens. There’s an arrow pointing, and you turn left. Ahead of you, two blocks ‘on, you can see a pink building, with faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the information that it is the museum.

  You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You hesitate for a moment, then. You’re beginning to think the whole affair is a bunch of nonsense, and you should get back to the tune machine and go home. But then a guard comes to the gate—except for the short legs in his suit, and the grin on his face, he looks like any other guard.

  What’s more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort of drawl, with softer vowels, and slurred consonants, but it’s rather pleasant. “Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in ‘Atoms and Axioms.’ The museum’s closed, but I’ll be glad to let you study whatever you need for color in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice.”

  “Thanks,” you mutter, wondering what kind of a civilization can produce guards as polite as that. “I—I’m told I should investigate your display of atomic generators.”

  He beams at that. “Of course.” The gate is swung to behind you, but obviously he isn’t locking it—in fact, there doesn’t seem to be a lock. “Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight of stairs, and left. Finest display in the worlds. We’ve got the original of the first thirteen models. Profesor Jonas was using them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he couldn’t explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though. Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It’s quite a hobby with me, sir. I’ve read everything I could get on the period. Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our oldest tapes.”

  You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building seems deserted, and you wander up the stairs. There’s a room on your right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row of what seem to be bearings, and slips a hunk of something about the size of a penny toward you. “Souvenir,” it announces in a well-modulated voice. “This is a typical gemstone of the twentieth century, properly cut to fifty-eight facets, known technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child, press the red button for the number of stones you desire.”

  You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the corridor. You turn left, and go past a big room in which models of space ships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is labeled first lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then there is one labeled wep:nz, filled with everything from a crossbow to a tiny little rod four niches long and half the size of a pencil, marked fyn:l hand-arm. Beyond is the end of the corrid
or, and a big place that bears a sign, mod:lz :v atomic pau:r sorsez.

  By that tune, you’re almost convinced. And you’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what you can do. The story I’m telling has been sinking in, but you aren’t completely willing to accept it.

  You notice that the models are all mounted on tables, and that they’re a lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order, and the latest one, marked 2147—rings dyn:pot, is about the size of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining that this is the first invention which sprang full blown into basically final form.

  You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving his name—either they don’t know it, or they take it for granted that everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation, and full patent application. They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel, producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles, and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added since the original.

  So you go to the end and look over the thing. It’s simply a square box with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top, plus a little hole marked in old-style spelling, drop bb’s or wire here. Apparently that’s the way it’s fueled. It’s about one foot on a side.

  “Nice,” the guard says over your shoulder. “It finally wore out one of the cathogrids, and we had to replace that, but otherwise it’s exactly as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever. Like to have me tell you about it?”

  “Not particularly,” you begin, and then realize bad manners seem to be out up here. While you’re searching for an answer, the guard pulls something out of his pocket and stares at it.

  “Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is arriving, but I’ll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared to nineteenth-century man. You’ll pardpn me?”

  You pardon him all over the place, and he wanders off happily. You go up,, to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapot, or whatever it transliterates to. That’s small, and you can carry it. But the darned thing is absolutely fixed. You can’t see any bolts, but you can’t budge it, either.

  You work down the line—it’d be foolish to take the early model if you can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But they’re all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.

  And finally, you’re right back beside the original first model. It’s probably bolted down, too—but you try it tentatively, and you find it moves. There’s a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn’t touch it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.

  Well, you won’t be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I haven’t told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing. You lift it—and it weighs about fifty pounds! But it can be carried.

  You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact, if you’d stop drinking so much of that Scotch and staring at the tune machine out there now, you’d hear what I’m saying, and know what will happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you’re going to miss a lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But maybe some of it helps—I’ve tried to remember how much I remembered, after he told me, but I can’t be sure. So I’ll keep on talking. I probably can’t help it, anyhow.

  Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking for the guard, but all seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend down and try to scurry past, but you know you’re in full view. Nothing happens, though.

  You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate is closed. You reach it, and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe a quick sigh of relief, and start out onto the street.

  Then there’s a yell behind you. You don’t wait. You put one leg in front of the other, and you begin moving down the walk, ducking past people, who stare at you with expressions you haven’t time to see. There’s another yell behind you.

  Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don’t wait to find out about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you, and you dart past.

  The street is pretty clear now, and you jolt along, with your arms seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting heavier at every step.

  Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and on the beefy side appears—and the star hasn’t changed any. The cop catches your arm, and you know you’re not going to get away. So you stop.

  “You can’t exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow,” the cop says. “There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let me grab you a taxi.”

  Reaction sets in a bit, and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake your head, and come up for air.

  “I—I left my money home,” you begin.

  The cop nods. “Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won’t have to give you an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me.” He reaches out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. “Sir, emergency request. Would you help this gentleman?”

  The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. “How far?”

  You did notice the name of the building from which you came, and you mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out, and picks up the other side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him. Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming at you both.

  That way, it isn’t so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might like to stay up here in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation here doesn’t

  look too good. The guard .can get the same, and be there before you.

  And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow, and goes off at once when you nod at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera, and not too dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open, and you get set to duck.

  “You forget the prints, monograph, and patent applications,” he says. “They go with the generator—we don’t like to have them separated. A good thing I knew the production offices of ‘Atoms and Axioms’ were in this building. Just let us know when you’re finished with the model, and we’ll pick it up. What’s it for—repro for a new skit hi a hurry?”

  You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps you for some more information, which you give him at random. But it seems to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction, and heads back to the museum.

  You still don’t believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator. There is no button on it. In fact, there’s no door there.

  You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is right—the signs along the halls are the same as they were.

  Then there’s a sort of cough, and something dilates in the wall. It forms a perfect door, and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in, gulp
ing out something about going all the way down, and then wondering how a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that.- What the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has closed, and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again, and you’re at the original level. You get out—and realize you don’t have a light.

  You’ll never know what you stumbled over, but somehow, you move back in the direction of the time

  machine, bumping against boxes, staggering here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then a shred of dim light appears—it’s the weak light in the time machine, and you’ve located it.

  You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You reach forward toward the green button, and hesitate—but there’s a’ red one beside it, and you finally decide on that.

  Suddenly, there’s a confused yell from the direction of the elevator, and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating it. Your finger touches the red button.

  You’ll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally doped out the fact they’d been robbed, or whether they were trying to help you. You don’t care then. The field springs up around you, and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn’t been used so far—sends you off into the nothingness. There is no beam of light, you can’t hear a thing, and you’re safe.

  It isn’t much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with some pencil marks over