The Man from Time Read online

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  _The method by which one man might be pinpointed in the vastness of all Eternity was the problem tackled by the versatile Frank Belknap Long in this story. And as all minds of great perceptiveness know, it would be a simple, human quality he'd find most effective even in solving Time-Space._

  the man from time

  _by ... Frank Belknap Long_

  Deep in the Future he found the answer to Man's age-old problem.

  Daring Moonson, he was called. It was a proud name, a brave name. Butwhat good was a name that rang out like a summons to battle if the manwho bore it could not repeat it aloud without fear?

  Moonson had tried telling himself that a man could conquer fear if hecould but once summon the courage to laugh at all the sins that everwere, and do as he damned well pleased. An ancient phrase that--damnedwell. It went clear back to the Elizabethan Age, and Moonson had triedpicturing himself as an Elizabethan man with a ruffle at his throat anda rapier in his clasp, brawling lustily in a tavern.

  In the Elizabethan Age men had thrown caution to the winds and livedwith their whole bodies, not just with their minds alone. Perhaps thatwas why, even in the year 3689, defiant names still cropped up. Nameslike Independence Forest and Man, Live Forever!

  It was not easy for a man to live up to a name like Man, Live Forever!But Moonson was ready to believe that it could be done. There wassomething in human nature which made a man abandon caution and try tolive up to the claims made for him by his parents at birth.

  It must be bad, Moonson thought. It must be bad if I can't control thetrembling of my hands, the pounding of the blood at my temples. I amlike a child shut up alone in the dark, hearing rats scurrying in acloset thick with cobwebs and the tapping of a blind man's cane on adeserted street at midnight.

  _Tap, tap, tap_--nearer and nearer through the darkness. How soon wouldthe rats be swarming out, blood-fanged and wholly vicious? How soonwould the cane strike?

  He looked up quickly, his eyes searching the shadows. For almost a monthnow the gleaming intricacies of the machine had given him a completesense of security. As a scholar traveling in Time he had been acceptedby his fellow travelers as a man of great courage and firmdetermination.

  For twenty-seven days a smooth surface of shining metal had walled himin, enabling him to grapple with reality on a completely adult level.For twenty-seven days he had gone pridefully back through Time, takingcreative delight in watching the heritage of the human race unrollbefore him like a cineramoscope under glass.

  Watching a green land in the dying golden sunlight of an age lost tohuman memory could restore a man's strength of purpose by its serenityalone. But even an age of war and pestilence could be observed withouttorment from behind the protective shields of the Time Machine. Danger,accidents, catastrophe could not touch him personally.

  To watch death and destruction as a spectator in a traveling TimeObservatory was like watching a cobra poised to strike from behind apane of crystal-bright glass in a zoological garden.

  You got a tremendous thrill in just thinking: How dreadful if the glassshould not be there! How lucky I am to be alive, with a thing so deadlyand monstrous within striking distance of me!

  For twenty-seven days now he had traveled without fear. Sometimes theTime Observatory would pinpoint an age and hover over it while hiscompanions took painstaking historical notes. Sometimes it would retraceits course and circle back. A new age would come under scrutiny and morenotes would be taken.

  But a horrible thing that had happened to him, had awakened in him alonely nightmare of restlessness. Childhood fears he had thought buriedforever had returned to plague him and he had developed a sudden,terrible dread of the fogginess outside the moving viewpane, the way themachine itself wheeled and dipped when an ancient ruin came sweepingtoward him. He had developed a fear of Time.

  There was no escape from that Time Fear. The instant it came upon him helost all interest in historical research. 1069, 732, 2407, 1928--everydate terrified him. The Black Plague in London, the Great Fire, theSpanish Armada in flames off the coast of a bleak little island thatwould soon mold the destiny of half the world--how meaningless it allseemed in the shadow of his fear!

  Had the human race really advanced so much? Time had been conquered butno man was yet wise enough to heal himself if a stark, unreasoning feartook possession of his mind and heart, giving him no peace.

  Moonson lowered his eyes, saw that Rutella was watching him in themanner of a shy woman not wishing to break in too abruptly on thethoughts of a stranger.

  Deep within him he knew that he had become a stranger to his own wifeand the realization sharply increased his torment. He stared down at herhead against his knee, at her beautiful back and sleek, dark hair.Violet eyes she had, not black as they seemed at first glance but adeep, lustrous violet.

  He remembered suddenly that he was still a young man, with a young man'sardor surging strong in him. He bent swiftly, kissed her lips and eyes.As he did so her arms tightened about him until he found himselfwondering what he could have done to deserve such a woman.

  She had never seemed more precious to him and for an instant he couldfeel his fear lessening a little. But it came back and was worse thanbefore. It was like an old pain returning at an unexpected moment tochill a man with the sickening reminder that all joy must end.

  His decision to act was made quickly.

  The first step was the most difficult but with a deliberate effort ofwill he accomplished it to his satisfaction. His secret thoughts heburied beneath a continuous mental preoccupation with the vain and thetrivial. It was important to the success of his plan that his companionsshould suspect nothing.

  The second step was less difficult. The mental block remained firm andhe succeeded in carrying on actual preparations for his departure incomplete secrecy.

  The third step was the final one and it took him from a largecompartment to a small one, from a high-arching surface of metal to amaze of intricate control mechanisms in a space so narrow that he had tocrouch to work with accuracy.

  Swiftly and competently his fingers moved over instruments of sciencewhich only a completely sane man would have known how to manipulate. Itwas an acid test of his sanity and he knew as he worked that hisreasoning faculties at least had suffered no impairment.

  Beneath his hands the Time Observatory's controls were solid shafts ofmetal. But suddenly as he worked he found himself thinking of them asfluid abstractions, each a milestone in man's long progress from thejungle to the stars. Time and space--mass and velocity.

  How incredible that it had taken centuries of patient technologicalresearch to master in a practical way the tremendous implications ofEinstein's original postulate. Warp space with a rapidly moving object,move away from the observer with the speed of light--and the whole ofhuman history assumed the firm contours of a landscape in space. Timeand space merged and became one. And a man in an intricately-equippedTime Observatory could revisit the past as easily as he could travelacross the great curve of the universe to the farthest planet of thefarthest star.

  The controls were suddenly firm in his hands. He knew precisely whatadjustments to make. The iris of the human eye dilates and contractswith every shift of illumination, and the Time Observatory had an iristoo. That iris could be opened without endangering his companions in theleast--if he took care to widen it just enough to accommodate only onesturdily built man of medium height.

  Sweat came out in great beads on his forehead as he worked. The lightthat came through the machine's iris was faint at first, the barestglimmer of white in deep darkness. But as he adjusted controls the lightgrew brighter and
brighter, beating in upon him until he was kneeling ina circle of radiance that dazzled his eyes and set his heart topounding.

  I've lived too long with fear, he thought. I've lived like a manimprisoned, shut away from the sunlight. Now, when freedom beckons, Imust act quickly or I shall be powerless to act at all.

  He stood erect, took a slow step forward, his eyes squeezed shut.Another step, another--and suddenly he knew he was at the gateway toTime's sure knowledge, in actual contact with the past for his ears werenow assailed by the high confusion of ancient sounds and voices!

  He left the Time machine in a flying leap, one arm held before his face.He tried to keep his eyes covered as the ground seemed to rise to meethim. But he lurched in an agony of unbalance and opened his eyes--to seethe green surface beneath him flashing like a suddenly uncovered jewel.

  He remained on his feet just long enough to see his Time Observatory dimand vanish. Then his knees gave way and he collapsed with a despairingcry as the fear enveloped him ...

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