Meteor and Other Stories 2500 Headwords

by John Wyndham

  I told you it would confuse you,’ she said. ‘You think differently. I can only explain it in your way of thinking by saying that you came from one end of the human story and now you are at the other.’

  ‘But I don’t come from one end,’ I protested. ‘Human beings were developing for twenty million years before me.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ she said, dismissing those millions of years with a wave of her hand.

  ‘Well, at least,’ I went on, desperately, ‘you can tell me how I got here.’

  ‘Approximately, yes,’ she replied, it’s an experiment of Hymorell’s. He’s been trying for a long time’ - (and in this ordinary, everyday sense, I noticed, there did seem to be a word for time) - ‘but now he has tried a new idea, which seems to have been successful. He almost succeeded about a century ago …’

  ‘What did you say?’ I interrupted.

  She looked at me enquiringly.

  I thought you said he was trying a century ago?’ I remarked.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she agreed.

  I got up from the block I was sitting on, and looked out of the window arches. It was a peaceful, sunny, normal-looking day outside.

  ‘Perhaps you were right. I’d better rest,’ I said.

  ‘That’s sensible,’ she agreed. ‘Don’t worry about how and why. You won’t be here long.’

  ‘You mean I’ll be going back - to be as I was?’

  She nodded.

  I could feel my body under the unfamiliar clothes. It was a good, strong body, and there was no pain anywhere in it.

  ‘No,’ I said, i don’t know where I am, or what I am now, but one thing I do know: I’m not going back to the hell where I was.’

  She looked at me sadly, and shook her head slowly.

  The next day, after we had eaten, she led me to the hall and towards the chairs. I stopped.

  ‘May we walk?’ I asked, it’s a long time since I walked.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed, and turned towards the doorway. Several people spoke to her and looked at me curiously but kindly. It was obvious that they knew I was not Hymorell, and equally obvious that they were not amazed by what had happened.

  Outside we followed a path across rough grass and through a group of trees. It was peaceful and very beautiful. Feeling the ground beneath my feet was precious to me. I had forgotten that it was possible to enjoy life as I was enjoying it that morning.

  We walked in silence for a while, and then I asked:

  ‘What did you mean by “the other end of the human story”?’

  ‘Exactly that,’ she replied. ‘We think human beings are coming to the end - finishing. We are almost sure of it, though there’s always a chance.’

  I looked at her.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone more healthy, or more beautiful,’ I said.

  She smiled, it’s a good body,’ she agreed. ‘My best, I think.’

  For the moment I ignored the puzzling last four words. ‘Then what is happening? Can’t the women here have children?’

  ‘Yes, we can have children. But there is something our children do not have, the thing that makes us human instead of animal. We call it—.’ And here she used a word that I could not understand, though it seemed to mean something like ‘soul’. She went on: ‘Because most of the children lack this human “soul”, their minds are weak and do not develop. If this change is not stopped, all human beings will be like that one day, and then the end will have come.’

  ‘How long has this been happening?’ I asked. ‘There must be records.’

  ‘Yes, there are records,’ she replied. ‘Hymorell and I learned your language from them. But they are very incomplete, so I don’t know how long it’s been going on. Mankind nearly destroyed itself at least five times. There are thousands of years missing from the records at different salany.‘1

  ‘And how long will it be before the end?’

  ‘We don’t know that, either,’ she said. ‘Our job is to delay it as long as possible, because there is always a chance. Perhaps our children will become intelligent and develop “souls” again.’

  ‘What do you do to “delay it as long as possible”? Do you mean that you make your own lives last longer?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, we transfer,’ she explained. ‘When a body begins to grow old or weak, we choose one of the people with weak minds and transfer to that person’s body. This’, she said, holding up a perfect hand and studying it, ‘is my fourteenth body. It’s a very nice one.’

  ‘You mean you can go on living for ever, as long as there are bodies to transfer to?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, laughing, ‘not for ever. Some day, sooner or later, there will be an accident. It might have been a hundred years ago, or it might be tomorrow.’

  ‘Or it might be a thousand years into the future,’ I added, it sounds to me like living for ever!’

  I did not doubt that she was telling me the truth, but she must have seen from my face that I did not approve.

  ‘This body wasn’t any use to the girl who had it,’ Samine said. ‘She wasn’t really conscious of it. She couldn’t use it, so there was no point in her having it for another thirty years. I shall have children, and some of them may be normal human children. When they grow older, they will be able to transfer, and something may happen to help human beings continue to exist.’

  I did not reply to this, because I suddenly realized the truth.

  ‘So that’s what Hymorell was working on,’ I said. ‘He was trying to give you all a wider choice by being able to transfer to and from people far away in time. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why I’m here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, giving me a long, steady look. ‘He’s been successful at last. He has transferred completely this time.’

  I thought it over, and found that I was not very surprised. I asked her for more details.

  ‘Hymorell wanted to go back as far as possible,’ she told me. ‘But he had to be careful. If he went too far, there would be no electricity, and certain metals would be unknown. So he would not be able to make a machine that would bring him back here. Then he had to find the right person - a person whose soul was not very strongly attached to his body. Unfortunately, most people like that are on the point of death, but at last he found you. Your soul’s attachment to your body varied a great deal, and this puzzled him.’

  I expect that was the effect of the drugs,’ I suggested.

  ‘Possibly,’ Samine said. ‘Anway, he found that there was a regular pattern in the weakness or strength of your body-soul attachment. He tried when it was weakest. This is the result.’

  I see,’ I said. ‘And how long did he think he would take to build a machine for his return?’

  ‘He couldn’t tell,’ she replied, it depends on how easy it is for him to find the right materials.’

  ‘Then it will take him a long time,’ I said. ‘A legless man in a wheel-chair wasn’t a good choice for his purpose.’

  ‘But he’ll do it,’ she said.

  ‘Not if I can stop him,’ I told her.

  She shook her head. ‘Once you have transferred, you are never as closely attached to your body again. If he can’t do it at any other time, he will increase the power and take you when you are sleeping.’

  ‘We shall see,’ I said.

  Afterwards I saw the machine which he had used for the transfer. It was about the size of a small typewriter. It appeared to be a liquid-filled lens fixed on to a box with two polished metal handles. However, I was very pleased when I saw how complicated it was inside. Nobody living in my place in my century was going to put together a machine like that in a few days, or even a few weeks.

  *

  The days passed slowly and gently. At first I enjoyed the unending peace. Later there were times when I badly wanted something exciting to happen.

  Samine took me to the great hall to hear and see the things that entertained her and her people. I could not understand or enjoy their music, or what they watche
d instead of films. Colours were projected on to a screen, and these colours seemed to come from the audience in some way I could not understand. Now and again they would all sigh or laugh together as the colours changed.

  She took me to a museum. It was a collection of instruments that projected pictures or sound or both. I saw some horrible things as we went further and further back in time. I wanted to see or hear something of my own age. ‘There’s only sound,’ she said. ‘There are no pictures from so far away.’

  ‘OK. Then let me hear some music, please,’ I said. She instructed the machine to do as I asked. In the great hall of the museum there came, softly and sadly, a familiar tune. It brought back memories of my world, and the hopes and the joys and the childhood that had vanished, and I was filled with desperate pity for myself. The tears ran down my face, and I did not go to the museum again. And what was the music that brought back a whole world from ages past? It was not by Beethoven or by Mozart: it was, I confess, ‘Home, Sweet Home’ …

  ‘Do you ever work? Does anybody work?’ I asked Samine. ‘Oh, yes - people can if they want to,’ she told me.

  ‘But who does the work that must be done?’ I wanted to know. ‘Who grows the food, gets rid of the waste, and provides the power?’

  ‘The machines do all that, of course,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t expect human beings to do those things. What have we got brains for?’

  ‘But who looks after the machines and repairs them?’ I asked.

  ‘Themselves, of course,’ she replied. ‘A machine that couldn’t look after itself wouldn’t be a real machine; it would be nothing more than a kind of tool, would it?’

  ‘Do you mean,’ I went on, ‘that for the whole time of your fourteen bodies - about four hundred years - you’ve done nothing but live every day like this?’

  ‘Well, I’ve had quite a lot of babies,’ she said, ‘and three of them were normal. And I did some work in the science laboratories. Almost everyone does that when he has a new idea about saving mankind. But none of the ideas brings results.’

  ‘But doesn’t it drive you crazy - just going on and on and on?’ I asked.

  It’s not easy sometimes,’ she answered, ‘and some people give in. But that’s a crime, because there’s always a chance. And each time we transfer, we experience something new. When you feel young again, you are full of hope. You feel in love again as sweetly as before. It’s like being born again. You can only know how wonderful it is if you’ve been fifty and then become twenty.’

  I can guess,’ I said. ‘My previous condition was worse than being fifty. But love! … For four years I haven’t dared think of love …’

  ‘You dare now,’ she said. ‘Daren’t you …?’

  Time went by, and I learned much about the world’s past from Samine. She told me that my own age had not come to an end by blowing itself up. It had died slowly by becoming so safe and well-organized that it lost the power to change, to progress, to develop. She told me that although we visited other planets in space, our dream of mankind’s spreading to those planets never happened.

  I did not like Samine’s world. I could not understand its attitudes, and I was not sympathetic towards it. All the comfort I enjoyed there depended on Samine. When I was with her, the bitter feelings of the last four years left me. I realized I was falling deeply in love with her.

  This was a second reason for not letting Hymorell come back. Even Samine could not make this place heaven, but I had escaped from hell, and I was determined to stay out of it. Because of this, I spent countless hours studying Hymorell’s transfer machine. I learned all I could about it, and although my progress was slow, I began at last to have an idea of how it worked.

  But I began to be more and more anxious. I thought constantly of Hymorell in my wheel-chair, slowly building a machine that would take me back to suffer in my old body again. My fear grew stronger. I was afraid to go to sleep in case I woke to find myself back in that chair.

  Samine also began to look worried. I wished I knew exactly why. She was certainly fond of me, and felt responsible for me. She was sorry for me because I felt so miserable at the thought of going back. But she felt just as sorry for Hymorell, who was now suffering in my body.

  And then, when six months had gone by and I had begun to hope, it happened. It happened without sign or warning. I went to sleep in the room of the great green building. I woke in my own world - with a dreadful pain in my missing leg.

  Everything was exactly as it had been, and I opened the drug bottle immediately.

  When I became calmer, I saw something that had not been there before. It was on the table beside me, and it looked like a radio that had been only partly constructed.

  I looked very carefully at all the wires and switches, but I touched nothing. I began to see that it was a simpler copy of Hymorell’s machine in the other world. I recognized the lens and the two small handles on either side of it. I was still looking at it and trying to see how it had been made when I fell asleep.

  When I awoke, I began to think hard. I was determined not to remain as I was now. There were two ways to escape: the first way I had always had, and still had. But now there was a second way - Hymorell’s machine.

  If I did manage to transfer, the main problem was that the transfer machine would be left behind, and would be waiting there for Hymorell to use again. I suppose he never expected that I would know how to use it myself. Somehow, I had to stop him using the machine when he found himself back in my body.

  Perhaps I could leave a small bomb in the machine, on a delayed time-switch. Then, after I had transferred, the machine would blow itself up. But Hymorell would be able to build another one. As long as he existed, he would be able to build another … That made the answer obvious. So I made my plan.

  About a year ago I had bought some poison in case the pain became so bad that I wanted to end my suffering. I poured the poison into the bottle containing the painkilling drug, which always stood by me. The poison was colourless, and did not change the appearance of the drug. I guessed that if Hymorell was transferred back into my body, he would do exactly as I had done. As soon as he felt the pain, he would take some of the drug.

  Then I tried the machine several times, but without success. 1 knew Hymorell’s mind and body would resist too strongly for him to be transferred while he was awake. I had to catch him while he was asleep, so I continued to try at intervals of four hours.

  At last the machine began to react, and the transfer was much easier than I expected. I took hold of the two handles, and concentrated on the lens, which began to give out a strange light. I felt as if I were swimming. The room began to move round me, and I could not see anything clearly. When everything stood still again, I was in that green room, with Samine beside me. I put out my hands towards her, and then I realized that she was crying. I had never seen her cry before.

  ‘What is it, Samine? What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  For a moment she was completely silent, and then she said:

  is that you, Terry? I can’t believe it.’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘it’s certainly me. I told you I wouldn’t stay there.’

  She began to cry again, but in a different way. I put my arm round her, and asked her why she was crying.

  It’s Hymorell,’ she said. ‘Your world has done something dreadful to him. When he came back, he was hard and bitter. He kept talking of pain and suffering. He was … cruel.’

  I was not surprised. Her people knew nothing of illness or pain. If a body became weak or sick in any way, they transferred. They had never experienced real suffering.

  ‘Why didn’t it affect you like that, too?’ she asked.

  I think it did at first,’ I admitted. ‘But I learned that bitterness doesn’t do any good.’

  I was afraid of him. He was cruel,’ she repeated.

  I kept myself awake for forty-eight hours, to make sure. I knew that Hymorell would need the drug soon after he woke up. When I felt sure that he must have
taken it, I let myself sleep.

  When I opened my eyes, I had returned to my old body. I knew then that he had suspected the drug, and had avoided it. The machine was on the table beside me, and I saw a feather of smoke rising from it. Cautiously, I switched off the power at the wall, and pulled out the wire leading to the machine. Inside it I found a small container from which the smoke was coming. Very quickly I threw the container through the window. Half an hour later his small bomb exploded. To make sure that the machine was not destroyed before he had been completely transferred, Hymorell had allowed a safety period. Luckily for me, he had made it too long.

  I desperately needed the painkilling drug, but I did not dare use the bottle on the table. I pushed my wheel-chair over to the cupboard and took out a new bottle. But I could not be sure about that, either, so I deliberately smashed it on the floor, and then phoned the doctor. I was glad when he arrived only ten minutes later, even though he was angry with me for being so clumsy.

  I began to think of other plans. I thought of fixing a poisoned needle in the arm of my chair. I thought of infecting my body with a fatal disease that would kill it after I had transferred out of it. The first plan was weak because I could not get the right poison without the help of another person ready to break the law. The second plan was too much of a risk because of possible delays. Besides, Hymorell might have transferred me back to my own body by the time the disease killed it.

  Then I thought of a time-switch. I could buy one without difficulty or questions, and I did. I still had my army revolver and I hid it between the books in my bookcase, so that it pointed exactly at my head as I bent over the machine. It was fixed to fire when someone got hold of the two handles of the machine, but it would not work until after the time-switch had switched itself on. This meant that I could use the machine safely, and after I had used it, the time-switch would switch on. The next time two hands touched the handles, the revolver would fire with fatal results.

  I waited for three days, thinking that Hymorell would stay awake until he was certain that his small bomb had been successful. Then I tried to transfer, and did it successfully. But three days later I was back in my wheelchair again.