“The essential quality of life is living; the essential quality of living is change; change is evolution; and we are part of it.
“The static, the enemy of change, is the enemy of life, and therefore our implacable enemy. If you still feel shocked, or doubtful, just consider some of the things that these people who have taught you to think of them as your fellows, have done. I know little about your lives, but the pattern scarcely varies wherever a pocket of the older species is trying to preserve itself. And consider, too, what they intended to do to you, and why.”
I found her rhetorical style somewhat overwhelming, but, in general, I was able to follow her line of thought. I did not have the power of detachment that could allow me to think of myself as another species, nor am I sure that I have it yet. In my thinking we were still no more than unhappy minor variants; but I could look back and consider why we had been forced to flee.
I glanced at Petra. She was sitting pretty much bored with all this apologia, watching the Zealand woman’s beautiful face with a kind of wistful wonder. A series of memories cut off what my eyes were seeing—my Aunt Harriet’s face in the water, her hair gently waving in the current; poor Anne, a limp figure hanging from a beam; Sally, wringing her hands in anguish for Katherine, and in terror for herself; Sophie, degraded to a savage, dying with an arrow in her neck . . .
Any of those might have been a picture of Petra’s future.
I shifted over beside her, and put an arm around her.
During all the Zealand woman’s disquisition Michael had been gazing out of the entrance, running his eyes almost covetously over the machine that waited in the clearing. He went on studying it for a minute or two after she had stopped, then he sighed, and turned away. For a few moments he contemplated the rock floor between his feet. Presently he looked up.
“Petra,” he asked, “do you think you could reach Deborah for me?”
Petra put out the inquiry, in. her forceful way.
“Yes. She’s there. She wants to know what’s happening,” she told him.
“Say first that whatever she may hear, we’re all alive and quite all right.”
“Yes,” said Petra presently. “She understands that.”
“Now I want you tell her this,” Michael went on, carefully. “She is to go on being brave—and very careful—and in a little time, three or four days, perhaps, I shall come and fetch her away. Will you tell her that?”
All of us looked at Michael, without open comment.
“Well,” he said, defensively, “you two are proscribed as outlaws, so neither of you can go.
“But, Michael—” Rosalind began.
“She’s quite alone,” said Michael. “Would you leave David alone there, or would David leave you?”
There was no answer to that.
“You said ‘fetch her away’,” observed Rosalind.
“That’s what I meant. We could stay in Waknuk for a while, waiting for the day when we, or perhaps our children, would be found out . . . That’s not good enough. Or we could come to the Fringes.” He looked around the cave and out across the clearing, with distaste. “That’s not good enough, either. Deborah deserves just as well as any of the rest of us. All right, then; since the machine can’t take her, someone’s got to bring her.”
The Zealand woman was leaning forward, watching him. There was sympathy and admiration in her eyes, but she shook her head gently.
“It is a very long way—and there’s that awful, impassable country in between,” she reminded him.
“I know that,” he acknowledged. “But the world is round, so there must be another way to get there.”
“It would be hard, and certainly dangerous,” she warned.
“No more dangerous than to stay in Waknuk. Besides, how could we stay now, knowing that there is a place for people like us, that there is somewhere to go?
“Knowing makes all the difference. Knowing that we’re not just pointless freaks—a few bewildered Deviations hoping to save their own skins. It’s the difference between just trying to keep alive, and having something to live for.”
The Zealand woman thought for a moment or two, then she raised her eyes to meet his again.
“When you do reach us, Michael,” she told him. “You can be very sure of your place with us.”
The door shut with a thud. The machine started to vibrate and blow a great dusty wind across the clearing. Through the windows we could see Michael bracing himself against it, his clothes flapping. Even the deviational trees about the clearing were stirring in their webby shrouds.
The floor tilted beneath us. There was a slight lurch, then the ground began to drop away as we climbed faster and faster into the evening sky. Soon we steadied, pointed toward the southwest.
Petra was excited, and a bit over strength.
“It’s awfully wonderful,” she announced. “I can see for simply miles and miles and miles. Oh, Michael, you do look funny and tiny down there!”
The lone, miniature figure in the clearing waved its arm.
“Just at present,” Michael’s thought came up to us, “I seem to be feeling a bit funny and tiny down here, Petra, dear. But it’ll pass. We’ll be coming after you.”
It was just as I had seen it in my dreams. A brighter sun than Waknuk ever knew poured down upon the wide blue bay where the lines of white-topped breakers crawled slowly to the beach. Small boats, some with colored sails, and some with none, were making for a harbor already dotted with craft. Clustered along the shore, and thinning as it stretched back toward the hills, lay the city with its white houses embedded among green parks and gardens. I could even make out the tiny vehicles sliding along the wide, tree-bordered avenues. A little inland, beside a square of green, a bright light was blinking from a tower and a fish-shaped machine was floating to the ground.
It was so familiar that for a swift moment I imagined I should wake to find myself back in my bed in Waknuk. I took hold of Rosalind’s hand to reassure myself.
It is real, isn’t it? You can see it, too?” I asked her.
“It’s beautiful, David. I never thought there could be anything so lovely . . . And there’s something else, too, that you never told me about.”
“What?” I asked.
“Listen! Can’t you feel it? Open your mind more.—Petra, darling, if you could stop bubbling over for a few minutes . . .”
I did as she told me„ I was aware of the engineer in our machine communicating with someone below, but behind that, as a background to it, there was something new and unknown to me. In terms of sound it could be not unlike the buzzing of a hive of bees; in terms of light, a suffused glow.
“What is it?” I said, puzzled.
“Can’t you guess, David? It’s people. Lots and lots of our kind of people.”
I realized she must be right, and I listened to it for a bit, until Petra’s excitement got the better of her, and I had to protect myself.
We were over the land now, and looked down at the city coming up to meet us.
“I’m beginning to believe it’s real and true at last,” I told Rosalind. “You were never with me those other times.”
She turned her head. The under-Rosalind was in her face, smiling shiny-eyed. The armor was gone. She let me look beneath. It was like a flower opening . . .
“This time, David—” she began.
Then she was blotted out. We staggered, and put our hands to our heads. Even the floor under our feet jerked a little. Anguished protests came from all directions.
“Oh, sorry,” Petra apologized to the ship’s crew, and to the city in general, “but it is awfully exciting.”
“This time, darling, we’ll forgive you,” Rosalind told her. “It is.”
Copyright 1955 by John Wyndham.
Reprinted by permission of the author and author’s agents
Scott Meredith Literary Agency Inc.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS THAT CAME
by Richard Deming
Had Georg
e Blade been a scientist like his Uncle Zeke, who invented the time-nightshirt, instead of merely a writer, he would have submitted to the College of Physicists an impersonal report on his trip fifty years into the future. And though in the year 1900 he was but twenty-three and possessed none of the literary fame he was destined to acquire, he probably would have been believed. Not because he was a writer, of course, but because he was the nephew of the late Dr. Ezekiel Herkheimer, the mere mention of whose name was enough to obtain audience with any scientist in the world.
But since he was a professional writer, strange experiences to George were material for fictional stories. It never even occurred to him he should report his trip as fact. He made it a love story about a man from 1900 and a girl from 1950.
He was rather proud of the story. As he waited in the outer office of Mr. Thomas Grayson, his editor, in response to a note from that gentleman, he anticipated nothing but friendly congratulations and a substantial check. When the secretary finally told him he could go in, he smoothed the long sideburns which added so much dash to his appearance, gave his heavy mustache a final tweak and opened the door with a smile of confidence on his face.
The smile died the moment he saw the editor’s expression.
“You didn’t like it,” George said flatly, without waiting to be told.
“Sit down, Mr. Blade,” Thomas Grayson invited.
George seated himself on the edge of a chair, leaned forward to grip the head of his stick and resigned himself to the bad news.
Thomas Grayson was a round, cherubic man who looked too kindly to be an editor. As a matter of fact he was kindly, a quality he found a handicap in his work, for it caused him to waste much valuable time explaining in detail to disappointed authors just why their manuscripts were unacceptable.
“You obviously put a lot of work into this story, Mr. Blade,” the editor said. “And you have quite a fanciful imagination. But, to put it bluntly, your background is entirely implausible.”
“Implausible!” George echoed, having expected Mr. Grayson’s criticism to center around the story’s plot, or perhaps a defective style. “But, sir, I assure you the background is authentic to the last detail.”
Mr. Grayson looked puzzled. “We must be talking about two different scripts. I refer to The Time-Nightshirt, which I have here before me.” He emphasized his statement by rapping the manuscript with his knuckles. “And so do I, sir.”
The editor narrowed his eyes, cleared his throat and said with a touch of impatience, “If you mean that the scientific wonders you describe are theoretically possible, I won’t argue with you, for my scientific background is too limited to judge. I am concerned solely with potential reader reaction. The average reader simply won’t believe in your year 1950.”
George said, “But Mr. Grayson, I meant it literally when I said the background was authentic. I was there.”
Mr. Grayson’s head snapped up and he stared at the young author in astonishment. Realizing the strange effect of his remarkable statement, George hastened to explain.
“You see, sir, my Uncle Zeke . . . Dr. Ezekiel Herkheimer, the physicist, that is. . . died January twelfth last, and since he died intestate, I inherited his entire belongings. Among them, in one of the trunksful of laboratory equipment, I found the time-nightshirt described in my story.”
“You mean,” Mr. Grayson asked incredulously, “there actually is such a piece of equipment?”
“Exactly as described, sir. In shape it is a common enough nightshirt, the head opening having the regulation two buttons to hold it snugly against the throat and keep out the night air. But the material seems to be some kind of odd metal . . . a metal so soft and pliable, the garment folds into a bundle small enough to fit a coat pocket. And the two buttons are not merely buttons, but movable dials. I do not understand the pages of technical notes I found with it, explaining my late uncle’s theory of time-space travel, but the operation of the nightshirt is very simple. The top dial projects you fifty years into the future, and the bottom dial returns you again.”
For a long time Mr. Grayson examined George without saying anything. When he finally spoke, it was in the unnaturally calm voice of a man humoring a maniac. “Why fifty years, particularly?”
George shrugged. “I don’t know why. But it has only one speed forward and is entirely incapable of penetrating the past. Something to do with ‘areas of limitation’ as nearly as I can make out from my uncle’s notes. I was rather disappointed when I discovered this, for at first I had visualized trips millions of years into the future and millions of years into the past. But even with its limits, you have to admit it’s a remarkable invention.”
“Yes, it is that,” the editor said nervously. “But now if you will excuse me, Mr. Blade . . .”
It suddenly registered on George that the man did not believe him.
Nettled, he said coldly, “I assure you I am in full possession of my faculties, Mr. Grayson. Nor am I trying to play a practical joke. I actually have the time-nigh tshirt, and I actually leaped from the year 1900 to the year 1950. I was gone nearly two weeks.”
“I’m sure you were,” the editor said hastily.
George eyed him with suspicion. In a belligerent tone he said, “It was the most amazing two weeks I ever spent.” He added with less belligerence and more reflectiveness, “And the most embarrassing, in a sense.”
“Embarrassing?” Mr. Grayson asked cautiously.
“Embarrassing,” George repeated. “In the first place, Uncle Zeke’s notes contained no provisions for taking along anything but myself and the nightshirt. Consequently I arrived in the year 1950 a pauper and suitably attired only for bed.”
Mr. Grayson emitted a strained laugh.
“Fortunately I was able to remedy this situation almost immediately. But my embarrassment persisted during my entire stay for a different reason.”
“What was that?” Mr. Grayson asked, apparently deciding George was a harmless lunatic, and beginning to become interested.
George said, “I have what is supposed to be an excellent education, and always imagined that if I got up against it, I could make a living in any number of genteel ways. But in the year 1950 I was fitted to perform only the most menial tasks. In order to live I had to work, and the only work I could find which I was capable of performing was as a common laborer digging a sewer line.”
This time Mr. Grayson’s laugh, while still unbelieving, was not even strained. “How did you manage to clothe yourself on arrival?” he asked.
“I’m afraid I stooped to theft,” George admitted. “You see, I live in a suite at the Chelsea, and since it is a relatively new building, I assumed it would still be standing in fifty years. I therefore made the time leap in my own bedroom, picking midnight as the best hour to arrive in 1950. Fortunately the tenant occupying the suite which had been mine fifty years before was out when I materialized. Finding his clothing an approximate fit, I shamelessly appropriated what I required. Probably the man is still puzzled, for I returned the clothing two weeks later, when I transmitted myself back to 1900. Incidentally, my second impression of the year 1950 was amazement that aside from boots, trouser widths and cravats, men’s styles had remained unchanged for fifty years.”
“Your second impression?” Mr. Grayson said. “What was your first?”
“Also a feeling of amazement. The room was dark when I arrived, and I automatically felt for the gas mantle near the door. Instead my hand encountered a flat metal plate from which a tiny switch handle protruded. Experimentally I pushed it, and light sprang into the room.”
The editor looked at him blankly.
“They had perfected the incandescent lamp,” George explained.
The lamp over Mr. Grayson’s desk began to sputter at that moment, distracting the attention of both men until the flow of gas again became even.
“How did you manage to live until you obtained your sewer-digging job?” Mr. Grayson asked finally.
“For the
first day I was on charity . . . under false pretenses, I am afraid. After stealing the clothing, I sallied right out into the street. Or rather I ‘sallied’ as far as the front door of the Hotel Chelsea, after which my mode of progress is perhaps better described as a stagger. The impact of New York City in 1950 was so tremendous on a mind conditioned to 1900 that I could later recall nothing that happened from midnight, when I passed through the hotel’s front door, until two A.M., when I stumbled into a Salvation Army Hotel in a state of shock and was shown to bed by a kindly captain who apparently mistook my condition for alcoholism.”
A series of small explosions from the street outside interrupted George’s story. At the same moment the door flew open and the secretary excitedly burst into the room. She beat the two men to the window.
Along the cobblestoned street rolled an astonishing vehicle. Open-carriaged and high-seated, it was piloted by a creature so begoggled and so encased in a dust-wrapper that its sex was indeterminate. At ten miles an hour it roared past the building, the noise of its exhaust drowning all other sound in the area except the voice of a watching pedestrian who yelled, “Get a horse!”
Long after it had disappeared from sight, the secretary continued to lean out the window and peer after it. Finally she withdrew her head with reluctance.
“That’s the third one I’ve seen,” she said in an awed voice.
Shooing her from his office, Mr. Grayson resumed his chair and waved George back to his.
“Frankly, Mr. Blade,” he said, “I find your story of visiting 1950 as implausible as the script which you based on it. But I have to admit I find it interesting. What caused the state of shock you were describing when we were interrupted?”
“The same thing that excited your secretary, Mr. Grayson. Suppose when we rushed to the window a moment ago, instead of a single horseless vehicle, we had seen thousands travelling at five times the speed. Wouldn’t your eyes bug out?”
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