I stood motionless. He reached and took my gloved right hand firmly in his naked right hand. He shook my hand firmly.
“The handshake’s how men in America greet each other, Sir Humphrey. All this must be confusing for you. I hope I can explain. I’m sorry about the suit. I know they’re damned uncomfortable. But”—he gestured that I should turn round—“I thought perhaps you’d like to get a good look at us for once, instead of it always being the other way around.”
I turned. My sense of shock was increased, for Lubick and Big Hands and Small Hands had all removed their helmets. They were people! Lubick was blushing as I scanned him. He was blond and curly-haired, not untoothsome, though a bit soft in the features, and he found it hard to meet my eyes. As for Big Hands, he had a curious, drooping face, with melancholy eyes and a drooping moustache. But it was Small Hands who astonished me.
“You… you are yellowskinned! You are American too?”
She was pretty, with almond eyes, and she laughed in a warm way at my consternation. In some confusion I turned to the Captain.
“Sir!” I barked. “Please be good enough to explain!”
We faced each other from deep soft chairs. I ignored my white-suited discomfort. Captain Pointer impressed me. Here at last was a man of sufficient authority and self-respect to acknowledge me directly. But he too was uneasy as he began to tell me what I did not want to hear. He licked his lips as he told me about “miscalculation” and “accident,” and I became very unhappy.
“Sir, are you Christian?” I demanded.
“I’m not a great believer,” he said honestly.
“Sir,” I went on, “from what you say it seems that your government admits responsibility in the destruction of my vessel and crew, and in the forced transplanting of myself to… here… in America.” I was finding it hard to breathe. “Plainly it is your duty to deliver me safely back to England, and also to make financial reparation for all the hardship I have been caused!”
His face was troubled. I ignored the others. In a grey voice the Captain declared his government unlikely to meet my demands.
“So!” I snapped. “You mean to hold me here and keep your blunder secret. Why did you not let me drown? Why go to all this trouble? I was ready for death, I’d prepared myself and made my peace—and you snatched me from it! How dare you! In the Name of Christ, how dare you! You have worked a science or magic on me that I cannot controvert, which you cannot or will not undo. At least you, sir, do not claim to be of Christ, you do not insult my intelligence! At least you tell me the bald truth, that I am a captive, alone, with no hope of redress or freedom. I thank you for that, anyway!”
There was a brief silence after my rant.
“Well, no,” said the Captain slowly, “You are not quite alone. There are eighty-seven DTIs altogether.”
“Deetee eyes? What are deetee eyes?”
He explained what the initials stood for.
“Distressed Temporal Immigrants? What does that mean?”
“Bureaucratic jargon. It means that, apart from yourself, eighty-six other people were brought into this time by the… accident.”
I could not make sense of this.
“You tell me that… there are other men and women… from different ages… here… caught… like I’m caught?”
“Yes,” the Captain agreed, looking more unhappy than ever. “Very soon I expect you’ll be meeting some of them. I’m instructed to tell you that shortly you’ll leave here and go to an institute in New Jersey, at a place called Horsfield. It is being prepared to take all of you. The U.S. Government acknowledges responsibility for what has happened, and as a matter of common humanity undertakes to look after your welfare and transhabilitate you as well as possible, so that you will be able to lead useful and meaningful lives… within the context of the situation… and taking the need for strict security and proper health precautions into account…”
“What does all that mean?” I demanded.
“I wish I knew,” he said. “I’m very sorry, Sir Humphrey. Very sorry indeed.”
His voice was perfectly wooden.
Thus began my Debriefing. Soon I was taken to Horsfield. Now I know exactly what he meant.
14. “…Like a Million Motel Rooms…”
Horsfield, Horsfield! That bitter place! If that was its real name I know not, I never found it on a map, and doubtless the other DTIs were taken elsewhere after we escaped, to avoid the attention of reporters hot on the trail of the rumours. Perhaps it was razed to the ground, or turned back into an insane asylum, or… how do I know? I recall it all too well, my first day there, and how Tari made herself known, and how… God! I’ll tell it all in one, if I can, without interruption, if that’s allowed, for it all floods back, oh yes—but how to disentangle past from present? Where is the past found if not in the present? Barely an hour ago something happened that shocked me anew with sensation of the abyss that underlies our every sedative hope of normality—and now before Horsfield I must tell of it, though it may have been no more than my illusion, or wishful thinking, or poor eyesight. I know I may be a fool lost in darkness; my mind and memory may be weak—but if I see some light, well, light is light, universal and healing, no one man’s property, enough for all, all we’ve got, sometimes found in strange places—so I must leave no stone unturned. Remember the Hawk, Humfrey! The Day of Horus is—
But I babble. I’m still disturbed. I was almost back from the village, walking through the woods, when—
No. From the beginning. Logically.
This morning I walked to the village, Brynafan, five miles away. I needed supplies, fresh air, exercise, and also I needed to face the local outside world. That anonymous call, though not repeated, has preyed on my soul, and I will not languish in a fog of silly fear.
Hah!
Past Gwernacca and down the twisty narrow tarmacadam road I went, striding by sodden pastures and flinty dripping crags, and so came to Brynafan, a pretty little one-street place above a rushing river, not so far from Fairy Glen and Betws-y-Coed. And soon enough I knew that presently nobody can be very interested in the eccentric Englishman staying at Griffith of Gwernacca’s old house. Brynafan must usually be placid enough, but in the general store it took me a good quarter-hour to get any service, for at the counter a crowd of folk were vociferously discussing the news. The government has fallen, there is renewed rioting in big English cities, and locally there are fears that the outlaw “Lorry People” are coming this way, set on havoc and rape. Of course I said nothing of my acquaintance a year ago with these modern gypsies, who are rough folk, it is true, but by no means as vicious as the cowardly self-righteous love to make out.
In the crowded little pub I stopped for a Scotch and found the same nervous excitement. There were a couple of questions, they knew about me, but nobody seemed to care. My mind is relieved on that score at least. The anonymous call was probably the work of a bored local prankster, no more, and I have no evidence it came from further afield. So, I had a drink or two, and listened to men arguing on what will happen if soldiers are sent to fire on rioters and Right-to-Work marchers, as happened last year. Nearly I told how I was shot and wounded when the troops met the marchers from Scotland in York last summer, for the buxom dark girl behind the bar gave me the eye. I was tempted to tell her, to impress her with my tale and my scar, but managed to hold my mouth. Yet I was attracted to her, and she to me, and before I left I got her name. A lusty lass: as I walked back with my load I contemplated how good it would be to plough her, first fierily, then sweetly and at good length… and decided I’ll call her to see if she’ll meet me, for I’ve abstained too long, which is bad for the health.
But that’s not important now.
For on the way back, nearly home, while tramping through dead bracken amid a bare wood, something made me look up past the trees to the top of the hill where the stone stands.
There was a woman up there, looking down at me.
It was Tari! It was Mer
y-Isis!
Impossible! But I swear I recognised her.
When I checked and looked again she was gone. With my heart beating hard I climbed the hill, but there was nobody there. Of course not! Of course not! Now I’m nervous again. What if my dreams are invading my waking? More fearful still: Tari once told me that a ghost can be solidly materialised by an intensity of prolonged concentration, and said she knew how to do this. Well, I know that anything is possible, and she did have remarkable powers, but… more likely I saw someone I mistook for Tari, someone who slipped away during the short time it took me to climb to the stone. Yet who else in the world looks like Tari? And where could they hide on those bare slopes? It’s nonsense! As to the other possibility, that Tari herself… no! No no no! How can I even think it? Madness! No! It was an apparition, sprung from my wishful thinking and preoccupations, nothing more! My eyes are not good. I was still a little drunk. I fooled myself! It must be!
Yet I’m still puzzled. She was there! Our eyes met, I felt her presence so strongly. And there is one other thing, when I reached the top. For a moment, overcome no doubt by the effects of whiskey and the brisk climb, I fell into a dizziness, and had to clutch at the stone for support, and as I did I heard a voice in me, and it was her voice! “Earth and Water are your friends!” it whispered, “Fire and Wind work on the hills! The elements are in you! We are your friends! No thought! No distraction! Act! Write! Remember! Testify! Fly with the Hawk! Awaken the divine neters within you: find your loving strength and responsibility!”
Neters was her Egyptian word for Gods or Powers.
Well, I came trembling off that hill, hardly able to put one foot before the other, a fog on my eyes and her ghost in my mind, and feeling so wild and strange I began fearing that perhaps I never got away from Horsfield at all! What if all my adventures have been but a spell or dream put in my mind by the doctors? I thought madly.
Now I am here. I am real. I pinch myself. It hurts. Perhaps this visitation is no horror, but Bonum Omen, an encouragement!
Now I am ready for Horsfield.
I have no memory of the journey. One night at the Navy base I fell asleep. I dreamed I was in a vibrating, droning machine. When I awoke it was to find myself in bed in another room, another place, and outside the small square window it snowed. So I came to Horsfield.
For a year I existed in this room. It was like a million motel rooms. Carpet, TV, Bible, bathroom, bed too soft, all of it. And there was a spyhole, hidden in the air purification box.
Yes, that first morning at Horsfield I awoke dizzy in pale blue cotton pyjamas to find myself shaved again, completely, and immediately vowed to give these rogues no more respect than they gave me! A one-piece red garment awaited me on a chair, and white rubber sandals on the white nylon carpet. The room was too hot. I went to the window. The sight of the snow soothed me. It curled gently from a leaden sky into the huge inner courtyard my window overlooked—a square, a hundred yards deep each side, without break in the bleak grey walls save for an arched gateway halfway along the block to my right. Hundreds of windows were all about, electric lighting bright in some, but all steamed up so that I could not see through any of them. I realised my window was in the topmost tier, the fourth.
Standing on its own at the centre of the snowy quadrangle was an oblong building with pitched roof and space all about. I soon knew that this was the library-chapel. Alongside it I saw a row of large smooth metal objects half-hidden by snow. There was another such row along the wall either side of the gate. Even as I watched I saw the gate opening: a huge carriage emerged from the tunnel—a long, grey, snow-topped carriage, pushed or pulled by nothing but itself, with a dark window running the length of its upper part. It must be a bus, I realised, angrily curious, and those smaller things will be cars.
Lubick had told me about them. I had seen pictures.
Huddled human shapes got out of the bus and hurried inside.
Like a child I stared. Who lived behind those misted windows? Other Deetee Eyes? Scientists and doctors devising schedules for us? I watched the bus being set parallel to the gatehouse wall. It left ribbed tracks. In time I saw people come out and get into it, and off through the gate it went. I didn’t know it yet: what I saw was the change-about in the shifts of Institute workers. The bus came every day at eight AM, four PM, and midnight. But as yet I knew nothing. I was a lost man. I didn’t know that this place had been an insane asylum, nor that folk outside thought this still the case. In a way it was. But the former inmates had been removed. There had been top-security appointments, reconstructions. Double airlock doors had been installed on many rooms, and the rooms converted into these sterilised imitation motel rooms. In fact the work of conversion was not yet complete, for as day succeeded day I saw many vehicles come and go, discharging stuff that was carried into the Institute.
Perhaps Tari was right. Perhaps they did not expect us. It certainly seemed that they were not quite ready for us. To begin with, life was much as it had been at the Navy base. There was no hint of the work and experiments to come. Yet I suspect this was deliberate, and part of our “Orientation Program.” So. I read the books they gave me. I stared at the wall. I endured the bland food and the visits of “specialists” who “dropped by” to “chat” with me. I was taken to a dentist who cleaned, drilled, straightened, filled, capped, and crowned me. After this I hardly knew my mouth at all, and yes, I was amazed, as by much else. I even watched TV, sitting carefully to one side to avoid the harmful rays. I saw something called The Burning Boy, about a boy on fire who ran screaming from a house onto a busy city street. The passers-by stared at him as if they were watching TV, and let him burn to death. I felt the camera staring at me as I stared at the people who stared at the burning boy. Sick, I turned the TV off and did not watch it again. After that I spent many hours gazing through the window at the clouds. Without this evidence of weather I would have gone mad. Snatched from the mountains, forests, winds, oceans; from the natural world to this! I fought numbness by clinging to anger. I demanded to grow my hair and beard as I wished. They said there were medical reasons why I could not. “To hell with your medical reasons!” I shouted.
They said they were sorry. They did not look it. I could see their faces because here they all wore transparent helmets.
Norman Ernstein said this was done to reduce the “psychological stress” which the closed helmets had caused in many of us.
After a week or two this man Ernstein came to see me almost every day. His function was similar to that which Lubick had filled. (In fact Lubick had been transferred here, but I rarely saw him.) Ernstein was tall, with wavy black hair and hornrimmed glasses that perched on his bony nose under the transparent helmet. He had studied history more sympathetically than Lubick and was less prone to foolish generalisation. He was Jewish, and said that usually he lived in New York City, but that for the duration of this appointment he had taken lodgings nearby. He showed me pictures of his wife and two children. He said that over ten million people live in or near New York. I was appalled. “That is more than lived in all England and France together in my… in my time,” I said, and my slip pleased him. His eyes gleamed. “Do you now really believe and understand that you are actually in the year 1984?” he asked softly. “All I know is that I am falsely imprisoned and refused my beard!” I snapped.
Yet I asked him to tell me about the other DTIs.
He did.
I learned that fifty-seven of us came from the last two hundred years, when the volume of traffic through the region had been greatest; and nineteen of us from the three centuries before that; yet only eleven from the ages before the great Reconnaissance. With some hesitancy he told me that many more had come through dead or utterly demented and that, the further back in time we came from, the higher the casualty rate. As all the others did, he insisted the entire business was an accident. Also he said that nobody could explain how it was that I and some others had been snatched from outside the test region. “So far w
e can’t explain the mechanics of selection either,” he admitted, shrugging. “Millions of people have sailed or crossed that region, but it seems that only a few of you have been unlucky enough to strike the right combination of circumstances. We don’t have the answer—but we’re working on it.”
But what shocked me most was his telling me that, in this very building, as solid as myself, were five people who had lived before the Birth of Christ.
At this my mouth went dry. Briefly I shared the fear in the gut surely felt by these people at what they’ve done. People… from… before… Christ? I asked about them, and yes, I trembled, and the palms of my hands were sweating.
He replied very carefully:
“There’s a man we think came from ancient Ireland. We’re finding it difficult to communicate with him, but his… language… appears to be a kind of Gaelic. There is a Greek called Dion who claims he was in the Athenian army with Socrates. Zakar-Addi from Tyre apparently worked on the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, almost a thousand years before Christ. We have a woman from Egypt, who hasn’t said much but listens a lot, and we gather that she’s from the time of Queen Hatshepsut… of the Eighteenth Dynasty… thirty-five hundred years ago…”—he paused, breathing deeply in his suit, in his own way as overcome by all this as I was, I believe—“…and then… we have another man… a red man who will not speak to us, but… there are indications from material that came through with him that he’s of an age much earlier still… seven thousand years ago… though the dating’s very much in question.”
I was utterly shocked. The Abyss! Holy Writ!
“That’s impossible! The world’s not that old!”
An expression I knew already came over his face. He was wondering how to break the news. I forced a very thin smile.
“So tell me!” I demanded, my mind in turmoil. “Affright me with the true age of the world according to modern scientific estimation! Ten thousand years? Twelve thousand? Thirteen?” He gave me a number that meant nothing at all.
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