Caltraps of Time

by David I. Masson

  Next morning they packed and set out in the automob for home. Their twenty days’ holiday had cost 160 days of Oluluetang time. Heavy rain was falling when they reached the city. Mihányo, when the children were settled in, had a long talk on the opsiphone with her friend across the breadth of Oluluetang: she (the friend) had been with her husband badger-watching in the western uplands. Finally Arisón chipped in and, after general conversation, exchanged some views with the husband on developments in local politics.

  ‘Pity one grows old so fast down here,’ lamented Mihányo that evening; ‘if only life could go on for ever!’

  ‘For ever is a big word. Besides, being down here makes no difference to the feeling — you don’t feel it any slower up on the Sea, do you now ?’

  ‘I suppose not. But if only ...’

  To switch her mood, Arisón began to talk about Derestó and his future. Soon they were planning their children’s lives for them in the way parents cannot resist doing. With his salary and investments in the firm they would set up the boy for a great administrator, and still have enough to give the others every opportunity.

  Next morning it was still in something of a glow that Arisón bade farewell to his wife and went off to take up his work in the offices. He had an extremely busy day and was coming out of the gates in the waning light to his automob in its stall, when he found standing round it three of the military. He looked inquiringly at them as he approached with his personal pulse-key in hand.

  ‘You are VSQ 389 MLD 194 RV 27 XN 3, known as Hadolarisóndamo, resident at’ (naming the address) ‘and sub-president today in this firm.’ The cold tones of the leader were a statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Arisón as soon as he could speak.

  ‘I have a warrant for your immediate re-employment with our Forces in the place at which you first received your order for Release. You must come with us forthwith.’ The leader produced a luminous orange tag with black markings.

  ‘But my wife and family!’

  ‘They are being informed. We have no time.’

  ‘My firm?’

  Your chief is being informed. Come now.’

  ‘I – I – I must set my affairs in order.’

  ‘Impossible. No time. Urgent situation. Your family and firm must do all that between them. Our orders override everything.’

  ‘Wh — wh — what is your authority? Can I see it please?’

  ‘This tag should suffice. It corresponds to the tag-end which I hope you still have in your identity disc — we will check all that en route. Come on now.’

  ‘But I must see your authority. How do I know, for instance, that you are not trying to rob me, or something?’

  ‘If you know the code you’ll realize that these symbols can only fit one situation. But I’ll stretch a point: you may look at this warrant, but don’t touch it.’

  The other two closed in. Arisón saw that they had their quickguns trained on him. The leader pulled out a broad screed. Arisón, as well as the dancing characters would let him, resolved them in the light of the leader’s torch into an order to collect him, Arisón, by today at such and such a time, local Time, if possible immediately on his leaving his place of work (specified); and below, that one man be detailed to call Mihányo by opsiphone simultaneously, and another to call the president of the organization. The Remployee and escort to join the military mag-lev train to Veruam (which was leaving within about fifteen minutes). The Remployee to be taken as expeditiously as possible to the bunker (W) and thence to the higher bunker (from which he had come some twenty years before, but only about ten minutes in the Time of that bunker, it flashed through Arisón’s brain — apart from six or seven minutes corresponding to his journey south).

  ‘How do they know if I’m fit enough for this job after all these years?’

  ‘They’ve kept checks on you, no doubt.’

  Arisón thought of tripping one and slugging two and doing a bolt, but the quickguns of the two were certainly trained upon him. Besides, what would that gain him? A few hours’ start, with unnecessary pain, disgrace and ruin on Mihányo, his children and himself, for he was sure to be caught.

  ‘The automob,’ he said ridiculously.

  ‘A small matter. Your firm will deal with that.’

  ‘How can I settle my children’s future?’

  ‘Come on, no use arguing. You are coming now, alive or dead, fit or unfit.’

  Speechless, Arisón let himself be marched off to a light military vehicle.

  In five minutes he was in the mag-lev train, an armoured affair with strong windows. In ten more minutes, with the train moving off, he was stripped of his civilian clothes and possessions (to be returned later to his wife, he learnt), had his identity disc extracted and checked and its Relief tag-end removed, and a medical checkup was begun on him. Apparently this was satisfactory to the military authorities. He was given military clothing.

  He spent a sleepless night in the train trying to work out what he had done with this, what would be made of that, who Mihányo could call upon in need, who would be likely to help her, how she would manage with the children, what (as nearly as he could work it out) they would get from a pension which he was led to understand would be forthcoming from his firm, how far they could carry on with their expected future.

  A grey pre-dawn saw the train’s arrival at Veruam. Foodless (he had been unable to eat any of the rations) and without sleep, he gazed vacantly at the marshalling yards. The body of men travelling on the train (apparently only a few were Remployees) was got into closed trucks and the long convoy set out for Emmel.

  At this moment Hadolaris’ brain began to re-register the conceleration situation. About half a minute must have passed since his departure from Oluluetang, he supposed, in the Time of his top bunker. The journey to Emmel might take up another two minutes. The route from Emmel to that bunker might take a further two and a half minutes there, as far as one could work out the calculus. Add the twenty-years’ (and southward journey’s) sixteen to seventeen minutes, and he would find himself in that bunker not more than some twenty-two minutes after he had left it. (Mihan, Deres and the other two would all be nearly ten years older and the children would have begun to forget him.) The blitz was unprecedentedly intense when he had left, and he could recall (indeed it had figured in several nightmares since) his prophecy to XN 1 that a breakthrough might be expected within the hour. If he survived the blitz, he was unlikely to survive a breakthrough; and a breakthrough of what? No one had ever seen the Enemy, this Enemy that for Time immemorial had been striving to get across the Frontier. If it got right over, the twilight of the race was at hand. No horror, it was believed at the Front, could equal the horror of that moment. After a hundred miles or so he slept, from pure exhaustion, sitting up in a cramped position, wedged against the next man. Stops and starts and swerves woke him at intervals. The convoy was driving at maximum speeds.

  At Emmel he stumbled out to find a storm lashing down. The river was in spate. The column was marched to the depot. Hadolar was separated out and taken in to the terminal building where he was given inoculations, issued with walker, quick-gun, em-kit, prot-suit and other impedimenta, and in a quarter of an hour (perhaps seven or eight seconds up at the top bunker) found himself entering a polyheli with thirty other men. This had barely topped the first rise and into sunlight when explosions and flarings were visible on all sides. The machine forged on, the sight-curtains gradually closing up behind and retreating grudgingly before it. The old Northern vertigo and somnambulism re-engulfed Had. To think of Kar and their offspring now was to tap the agony of a ghost who shared his brain and body. After twenty-five minutes they landed close to the foot of a mag-lev train line. The top-bunker lapse of twenty-two minutes was going, Had saw, to be something less. He was the third to be bundled into the mag-lev train compartments, and 190 seconds saw him emerging at the top and heading for bunker VV. XN 1 greeted his salute merely wit
h a curt command to proceed by rocket to the top bunker. A few moments more and he was facing XN 2.

  ‘Ah, here you are. Your Relief was killed so we sent back for you. You’d only left a few seconds.’ A ragged hole in the bunker wall testified to the incident. The reliefs cadaver, stripped, was being carted off to the disposal machine.

  XN 2. Things are livelier than ever. They certainly are hot stuff. Every new offensive from here is pitched back at us in the same style within minutes, I notice. That new cannon had only just started up when back came the same shells — I never knew They had them. Tit for that.’

  Into H’s brain, seemingly clarified by hunger and exhaustion and much emotion, flashed an unspeakable suspicion, one that he could never prove or disprove, having too little knowledge and experience, too little overall view. No one had ever seen the Enemy. No one knew how or when the War had begun. Information and communication were paralysingly difficult up here. No one knew what really happened to Time as one came close to the Frontier, or beyond it. Could it be that the conceleration there became infinite and that there was nothing beyond the Frontier? Could all the supposed missiles of the Enemy be their own, somehow returning? Perhaps the war had started with a peasant explorer lightheartedly flinging a stone northwards, which returned and struck him? Perhaps there was, then, no Enemy?

  ‘XN 3. Couldn’t that gun’s own shells be reflected back from the Frontier, then?’

  ‘XN 2. Impossible. Now you are to try to reach that forward missile post by the surface — our tunnel is destroyed — at 15º 40’ east — you can just see the hump near the edge of the I/R viewer’s limit — with this message; and tell him verbally to treble output.’

  The ragged hole was too small. H left by the forward port. He ran, on his walker, into a ribbon of landscape which became a thicket of fire, a porcupine of fire, a Nessus-shirt to the Earth, as in a dream. Into an unbelievable supercrescendo of sound, light, heat, pressure and impacts he ran, on and on up the now almost invisible slope ...

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  ~ * ~

  A Two-Timer

  ... I was standing, as it chanc’d, within the shade of a low Arch-way, where I could not easily be seen by any who shou’d pass that way, when I saw as it were a kind of Dazzle betwixt my Eyes and a Barn, that stood across the Street. Anon this Appearance seem’d as ‘twere to Thicken, and there stood a little space before the Barn a kind of a clos’d Chair, but without Poles, and of a Whiteish Colouring, and One that sate within it, peering out upon the World as if he fear’d for his life. Presently this Fellow turns to some thing before him in the Chair and moves his Hands about, then peeps he forth again as tho’ he fear’d a Plot was afoot to committ Murther upon his Person, and anon steps gingerly out of one Side, and creeps away down the Alley, looking much to right and to left. He had on him the most Outlandish Cloathes that ever I saw. Thinks I, ‘tis maybe he, that filch’d my Goods last Night, when I had an ill Dream.

  I came out of my Arch and onto the Street and follow’d him down the Alley a little way, not looking straight upon him, but making as to cut my self a Stick, that he might have no thought specially of me, if he shou’d turn round, and espy me. Then when I saw he was gone a good Furlong off from his Chair, and look’d not to turn about, I slacken’d my steps, and presently ran back to that Chair. No Body was abroad.

  I look’d stedfastly in this Chair and I must tell you, I never saw the like of it before. A Top Peice it had, four Walls, four Windows of thick Glass, two little Doors with Glass to them, and a Floor, and all of a kind of Silver, but never so lustrous as that Metal, nor so Cold. Within was a hard silvery Seat, but cunningly fashion’d to the Buttocks of a Sitter; and before the Seat as ‘twere a Lectern or Bench, on which I saw many Circles with Figures, like so many Clocks or Marriners Dials, and within them Handles with Pointers. I came softly in by one Door, and look’d narrowly on them. One Circle bore Writing, or rather some some kind of Engraving, in a stiff Roman Print, with Words, which I cou’d not understand: GEODETIC-COSMIC RENORMALIZER: SEALED IN WORKSHOP. Another had Words across it engrav’d: HEIGHT CONTROL. Another was a great Dial with YEAR (0 = 1), engrav’d below it, a Pointer and Handle within, and round its Circle, Numbers running from the Top clock-wise round, from Nought to Nine and Ninety. Another Dial like that Dial had engrav’d below it YEAR X 102, and Numbers from Nought to Nine; and a Third Dial had, YEAR X 103, and Numbers from near the Bottom of the Circle from 49 to Nought at the Top, clockwise upon the Left hand, and again to 49 clockwise down on the Right hand. Another, a small Dial, had, MONTH, engrav’d below it, and twelve Numbers like an Hours Clock. Another Dial had, DAY, and one and thirty Numbers. Another had, HOUR, and four and twenty Numbers. In the midst of all these was a Knob of Red colour, smooth and a little hollow, as big as my Thumb.

  Thinks I, this is Witchcraft indeed; but I fell to studying the Dials for the Years. I had learnt something in the Mathematicks, and I understood that 103 cou’d be the same with One Thousand, while 102 might by that token be the same with One Hundred. When I had puzzled these Dials and their Pointers out, methought the Pointers stood not at this present year 1683, but at the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty Four, with the Pointer for the Thousands of years touching the Number, 1, on the Right-hand side. The Day and Hour (and the Month) were the same as that Day’s in April was in truth. Thinks I to my self, This Necromancer wou’d find him self Two Hundred and Eighty One years after this Time, when he is tir’d of seeing how ‘tis with this Year of 1683. But you must understand that I was all of a maze, even while I thought these things so coolly.

  With that my Foot slips on the strange smooth Silver of the Floor, and I stumbles, and I puts forth my Hands to save my Body from falling, and with this comes down my Left Hand full upon the Red Knob, and in goes that Knob with a sudden push and a small sound. I felt as it might be in a Faint-ness, and the Street went out of my sight, but the Chair stood still. In the place of the Street and the Barn was a new and strange Place, like to a Chamber, and there fell a terrible Clangour about me.

  The Chamber was high and smooth. I cou’d not discover, whether it were Built of Wood, or Stone, or Bricks, for all was cover’d with a manner of smooth Plaster and painted over. The Windows were uncommon great and let in much light, and gave upon a great Road, whereon stood great Buildings of Stone. In the Ceiling of this Chamber I saw long Lines or Rods of some Substance, that were Glowing as if they were of Iron heated in a Furnace, for from them came much Light of a Whiteish Hue. I was afear’d they wou’d fall down upon me and burn me. There stood some Tables and Chairs, of a strange kind of design, and some were of Metal.

  The Clangour I thought came from without. It chang’d every minute, with a dreadful Thundring and Moaning. I crouch’d me down in my Sorcerer’s Chair and commended my Soul to ALMIGHTY GOD, for I thought, that some fearful Disaster was nigh, War or Earthquake mayhap, and that I shou’d soon perish. Before many minutes had past, the Thundring grew more lowd, and a manner of Chariot or Coach came Rowling down the Road without, with a swiftness that no Coach cou’d ever have (as I thought). No horse drew it, and so swiftly went it by, that I cou’d not perceive, whether any Body were within. As it went it Rumbled and Moan’d, ‘till the Soul had like to leave my Body for meer Terror. I was still shaking from the Fear of it, when by there came another such, going the other way, making a like Noise, and Snarling besides. Within it methought I saw a Face, that look’d ever forward, and took no mind of me or of the Buildings round about. It seem’d to me then, that all this Thundring and Moaning that continually assail’d my Ears, must come from a sort of Chariots, that came and went in the neighbourhood, but for the most part out of sight.

  Now (thinks I) the Boot is on the other Foot, for if that Sorcerer was afraid for his Life, so now am I. And am I (I says to my self) to take leave of this Machine wherein I now sit, and suffer it to be spirited away by the first Comer, even as he did? So (after offering up a short Prayer to the LORD GOD) I fell to exa
mining my Chair more searchingly and narrowly, then I had yet done. And I perceiv’d, low down by my Feet, a Black Rod, that seem’d as it were meant to slide to and fro in a Hole or Slot. It stood out to the Right hand, and by that side was writ (but in Metal), OPERATING. On the other side was writ, LOCKED. In a great Trembling I slid that Rod towards the Left. Then, to make sure that it wou’d indeed return, I slid it back to the Right. I cou’d not well understand the Words, but it seem’d to me, that with the Rod to the Left, the Machine might be safe, so that no Body cou’d do any thing with it, untill he had slid the Rod back again to the Right. Mr Sorcerer, for all his fears, was so secure, as to let alone that precaution.

  So, finally, and with another Prayer, I slid the Rod toward the Left again, and stole out of my Machine. The Chamber was warm, and wonderful clean, but there was a mighty strange Odour in the Air, somewhat as of Burning; I suppos’d, it might come from the Hot Bars in the Ceiling, and I perceiv’d that there were great Marks of Soot or Dust upon the Walls and Ceiling, tho’ there was no Hearth in the whole place. The Floor was made, or cover’d, with some singular Stuff, which was smooth like Wood or Stone, but resembled more some manner of Linnen-cloth or Carpet to the sight. On a great Bench stood a Row of Books, bound, not in Leather, but in some kind of Cloth (as it seem’d to me), each one in a different colour. Their Paper was more fine and white than I cou’d have thought possible, but thin and frail. The Letters were wonderful black and fine, and they dazzled my Eyes. Tho’ the Words were (it’s certain) English, yet I cou’d scarce comprehend the meaning of any two or three together. They us’d not our tall s, but throughout only the littie one. Their printing was in London, but one, that I took up, seem’d to be printed in some place call’d Chicago (which put me in mind of my Spanish Travells). Yet was this writ in the same English as the rest. As to their theams, as I cou’d not understand the Words, I can tell you little about ‘em. Many of’em seem’d to have much Mathematicks in them, but I found I cou’d not understand that either. The Title of one was, Diamagnetism, which I suppos’d, shou’d be some kind of Magnetick Operation, but it was full of Diagrams and Numbers, and I cou’d find no Loadstone or Compass pictur’d therein. Another Book was entitul’d, Thermistors, but what those might be, I cou’d not discover, tho’ herein there were a sort of Plates, such as I can give you little idea of; beyond saying, that they were smooth beyond belief so that they resembled less an Engraving, than a real vision of the Eyes, tho’ without colour beyond Black, and White. I cou’d not recognize any thing in them, for all was strange, except a Finger and Thumb in one Picture, that appear’d very large, and a Pin in another, that was also very big. Thinks I, am I come among Gyants? But I remember’d the Face in the Chariot, that was of an ordinary middle size; and the Chairs wou’d not have taken a Gyant, nor the Door.