The Man from Time Page 3

sees.Even about some that aren't so pretty. But then you get to know and likea woman, and you don't feel that way so much. You respect her and youdon't let yourself feel that way._

  _Then something happens. You love her so much it's like the first timeagain but with a whole lot added. You love her so much you'd die to makeher happy._

  * * * * *

  Joe was shaking when he slipped into the chair left vacant by Mike andreached out for both her hands.

  "I'm taking you away tonight," he said. "You're coming with me."

  Joe was scared, she knew. But he didn't want her to know. His hands werelike ice and his fear blended with her own fear as their hands met.

  "He'll kill you, Joe! You've got to forget me!" she sobbed.

  "I'm not afraid of him. I'm stronger than you think. He won't dare comeat me with a gun, not here before all these people. If he comes at mewith his fists I'll hook a solid left to his jaw that will stretch himout cold!"

  She knew he wasn't deceiving himself. Joe didn't want to die any morethan she did.

  The Man from Time had an impulse to get up, walk over to the twofrightened children and comfort them with a reassuring smile. He satwatching, feeling their fear beating in tumultuous waves into his brain.Fear in the minds of a boy and a girl because they desperately wantedone another!

  He looked steadily at them and his eyes spoke to them ...

  _Life is greater than you know. If you could travel in Time, and see howgreat is man's courage--if you could see all of his triumphs overdespair and grief and pain--you would know that there is nothing tofear! Nothing at all!_

  Joe rose from the table, suddenly calm, quiet.

  "Come on," he said quietly. "We're getting out of here right now. Mycar's outside and if Mike tries to stop us I'll fix him!"

  The boy and the girl walked toward the door together, a young andextremely pretty girl and a boy grown suddenly to the full stature of aman.

  Rather regretfully Moonson watched them go. As they reached the door thegirl turned and smiled and the boy paused too--and they both smiledsuddenly at the man in the bathing trunks.

  Then they were gone.

  Moonson got up as they disappeared, left the tavern.

  It was dark when he reached the cabin. He was dog-tired, and when he sawthe seated man through the lighted window a great longing forcompanionship came upon him.

  He forgot that he couldn't talk to the man, forgot the languagedifficulty completely. But before this insurmountable element occurredto him he was inside the cabin.

  Once there he saw that the problem solved itself--the man was a writerand he had been drinking steadily for hours. So the man did all of thetalking, not wanting or waiting for an answer.

  A youngish, handsome man he was, with graying temples and keenlyobservant eyes. The instant he saw Moonson he started to talk.

  "Welcome, stranger," he said. "Been taking a dip in the ocean, eh? Can'tsay I'd enjoy it, this late in the season!"

  Moonson was afraid at first that his silence might discourage thewriter, but he did not know writers ...

  "It's good to have someone to talk to," the writer went on. "I've beensitting here all day trying to write. I'll tell you something you maynot know--you can go to the finest hotels, and you can open case aftercase of the finest wine, and you still can't get started sometimes."

  The writer's face seemed suddenly to age. Fear came into his eyes and heraised the bottle to his lips, faced away from his guest as he drank asif ashamed of what he must do to escape despair every time he faced hisfear.

  He was trying to write himself back into fame. His greatest moment hadcome years before when his golden pen had glorified a generation ofmadcaps.

  For one deathless moment his genius had carried him to the heights, anda white blaze of publicity had given him a halo of glory. Later had comelean and bitter years until finally his reputation dwindled like agutted candle in a wintry room at midnight.

  He could still write but now fear and remorse walked with him and wouldgive him no peace. He was cruelly afraid most of the time.

  Moonson listened to the writer's thoughts in heart-strickensilence--thoughts so tragic they seemed out of keeping with the naturaland beautiful rhythms of his speech. He had never imagined that asensitive and imaginative man--an artist--could be so completelyabandoned by the society his genius had helped to enrich.

  Back and forth the writer paced, baring his inmost thoughts ... His wifewas desperately ill and the future looked completely black. How could hesummon the strength of will to go on, let alone to write?

  He said fiercely, "It's all right for you to talk--"

  He stopped, seeming to realize for the first time that the big mansitting in an easy chair by the window had made no attempt to speak.

  It seemed incredible, but the big man had listened in complete silence,and with such quiet assurance that his silence had taken on an eloquencethat inspired absolute trust.

  He had always known there were a few people like that in the world,people whose sympathy and understanding you could take for granted.There was a fearlessness in such people which made them stand out fromthe crowd, stone-markers in a desert waste to lend assurance to a tiredwayfarer by its sturdy permanence, its sun-mirroring strength.

  There were a few people like that in the world but you sometimes went alifetime without meeting one. The big man sat there smiling at him,calmly exuding the serenity of one who has seen life from its tangled,inaccessible roots outward and testifies from experience that theentire growth is sound.

  The writer stopped pacing suddenly and drew himself erect. As he staredinto the big man's eyes his fears seemed to fade away. Confidencereturned to him like the surge of the sea in great shining waves ofcreativeness.

  * * * * *

  He knew suddenly that he could lose himself in his work again, could tapthe bright resonant bell of his genius until its golden voice rang outthrough eternity. He had another great book in him and it would getwritten now. It would get written ...

  "You've helped me!" he almost shouted. "You've helped me more than youknow. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you. You don't know what itmeans to be so paralyzed with fright that you can't write at all!"

  The Man from Time was silent but his eyes shone curiously.

  The writer turned to a bookcase and removed a volume in a faded coverthat had once been bright with rainbow colors. He sat down and wrote aninscription on the flyleaf.

  Then he rose and handed the book to his visitor with a slight bow. Hewas smiling now.

  "This was my first-born!" he said.

  The Man from Time looked at the title first ... THIS SIDE OF PARADISE.

  Then he opened the book and read what the author had written on theflyleaf:

  _With warm gratefulness for a courage which brought back the sun._

  _F. Scott Fitzgerald._

  Moonson bowed his thanks, turned and left the cabin.

  Morning found him walking across fresh meadowlands with the dewglistening on his bare head and broad, straight shoulders.

  They'd never find him, he told himself hopelessly. They'd never find himbecause Time was too vast to pinpoint one man in such a vast waste ofyears. The towering crests of each age might be visible but there couldbe no returning to one tiny insignificant spot in the mighty ocean ofTime.

  As he walked his eyes searched for the field and the winding road he'dfollowed into town. Only yesterday this road had seemed to beckon and hehad followed, eager to explore an age so primitive that mentalcommunication from mind to mind had not yet replaced human speech.

  Now he knew that the speech faculty which mankind had long outgrownwould never cease to act as a barrier between himself and the men andwomen of this era of the past. Without it he could not hope to findcomplete understanding and sympathy here.

  He was still alone and soon winter would come and the sky grow cold andem
pty ...

  The Time machine materialized so suddenly before him that for an instanthis mind refused to accept it as more than a torturing illusion conjuredup by the turbulence of his thoughts. All at once it towered in hispath, bright and shining, and he moved forward over the dew-drenchedgrass until he was brought up short by a joy so overwhelming that itseemed to him that his heart must burst.

  * * * * *

  Rutella emerged from the machine with a gay little laugh, as if hisstunned expression was the most amusing in the world.

  "Hold still and let me kiss you, darling," her mind said to his.

  She stood in the dew-bright grass on tiptoe, her sleek dark hair fallingto her shoulders, an extraordinarily pretty girl to be the wife of a manso tormented.

  "You found me!" his thoughts exulted. "You came back alone and searcheduntil you found me!"

  She nodded, her eyes shining. So Time wasn't too vast to pinpoint afterall, not when two people were so securely wedded in mind and heart thattheir thoughts could build a bridge across Time.

  "The Bureau of Emotional Adjustment analyzed everything I told them.Your psycho-graph ran to fifty-seven pages, but it was your desperateloneliness which guided me to you."

  She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it.

  "You see, darling, a compulsive fear isn't easy to conquer. No man orwoman can conquer it alone. Historians tell us that when the firstpassenger rocket started out for Mars, Space Fear took men by surprisein the same way your fear gripped you. The loneliness, the utterdesolation of space, was too much for a human mind to endure."

  She smiled her love. "We're going back. We'll face it together and we'llconquer it together. You won't be alone now. Darling, don't yousee--it's because you aren't a clod, because you're sensitive andimaginative that you experience fear. It's not anything to be ashamedof. You were simply the first man on Earth to develop a new andcompletely different kind of fear--Time Fear."

  Moonson put out his hand and gently touched his wife's hair.

  Ascending into the Time Observatory a thought came unbidden into hismind: _Others he saved, himself he could not save._

  But that wasn't true at all now.

  He _could_ help himself now. He would never be alone again! When guidedby the sure hand of love and complete trust, self-knowledge could be ashining weapon. The trip back might be difficult, but holding tight tohis wife's hand he felt no misgivings, no fear.

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.