«Permit me to introduce myself. I am Hamalon Avard; dean of this branch of the College.» He raised bushy gray eyebrows in polite inquiry.
They gave their names and Avard bowed ceremoniously. A slim girl, whose scanty dress caused Belgotai’s eyes to widen, brought a tray of sandwiches and a beverage not unlike tea. Saunders suddenly realized how hungry and tired he was. He collapsed into a seat that molded itself to his contours and looked dully at Avard.
Their story came out, and the dean nodded. «I thought you were time travelers,» he said. «But this is a matter of great interest. The archaeology departments will want to speak to you, if you will be so kind—»
«Can you help us?» asked Saunders bluntly. «Can you fix our machine so it will reverse?»
«Alas, no. I am afraid our physics holds no hope for you. I can consult the experts, but I am sure there has been no change in spatiotemporal theory since Priogan’s reformulation. According to it, the energy needed to travel into the past increases tremendously with the period covered. The deformation of world lines, you see. Beyond a period of about seventy years, infinite energy is required.»
Saunders nodded dully. «I thought so. Then there’s no hope?»
«Not in this time, I am afraid. But science is advancing rapidly. Contact with alien culture in the Galaxy has proved an immense stimulant—»
«Yuh have interstellar travel?» exploded Belgotai. «Yuh can travel to de stars?»
«Yes, of course. The faster-than-light drive was worked out over five hundred years ago on the basis of Priogan’s modified relativity theory. It involves warping through higher dimensions— But you have more urgent problems than scientific theories.»
«Not Ih!» said Belgotai fiercely. «If Ih can get put among de stars—dere must be wars dere—»
«Alas, yes, the rapid expansion of the frontier has thrown the Galaxy into chaos. But I do not think you could get passage on a spaceship. In fact, the Council will probably order your temporal deportation as unintegrated individuals. The sanity of Sol will be in danger otherwise.»
«Why, yuh—» Belgotai snarled and reached for his gun. Saunders clapped a hand on the warrior’s arm.
«Take it easy, you bloody fool,» he said furiously. «We can’t fight a whole planet. Why should we? There’ll be other ages.»
Belgotai relaxed, but his eyes were still angry.
They stayed at the College for two days. Avard and his colleagues were courteous, hospitable, eager to hear what the travelers had to tell of their periods. They provided food and living quarters and much-needed rest. They even pleaded Belgotai’s case to the Solar Council, via telescreen. But the answer was inexorable: the Galaxy already had too many barbarians. The travelers would have to go.
Their batteries were taken out of the machine for them and a small atomic engine with nearly limitless energy reserves installed in its place. Avard gave them a psychophone for communication with whoever they met in the future. Everyone was very nice and considerate. But Saunders found himself reluctantly agreeing with Belgotai. He didn’t care much for these overcivilized gentlefolk. He didn’t belong in this age.
Avard bade them grave good-bye. «It is strange to see you go,» he said. «It is a strange thought that you will still be traveling long after my cremation, that you will see things I cannot dream of.» Briefly, something stirred in his face. «In a way I envy you.» He turned away quickly, as if afraid of the thought. «Good-bye and good fortune.»
4300 A.D. The campus buildings were gone, but small, elaborate summerhouses had replaced them. Youths and girls in scanty rainbow-hued dress crowded around the machine.
«You are time travelers?» asked one of the young men, wide-eyed.
Saunders nodded, feeling too tired for speech. «Time travelers!» A girl squealed in delight.
«I don’t suppose you have any means of traveling into the past these days?» asked Saunders hopelessly.
«Not that I know of. But please come, stay for a while, tell us about your journeys. This is the biggest lark we’ve had since the ship came from Sirius.»
There was no denying the eager insistence. The women, in particular, crowded around, circling them in a ring of soft arms, laughing and shouting and pulling them away from the machine. Belgotai grinned. «Le’s stay de night,» he suggested.
Saunders didn’t feel like arguing the point. There was time enough, he thought bitterly. All the time in the world.
It was a night of revelry. Saunders managed to get a few facts. Sol was a Galactic backwater these days, stuffed with mercantile wealth and guarded by nonhuman mercenaries against the interstellar raiders and conquerors. This region was one of many playgrounds for the children of the great merchant families, living for generations off inherited riches. They were amiable kids, but there was a mental and physical softness over them, and a deep inward weariness from a meaningless round of increasingly stale pleasure. Decadence.
Saunders finally sat alone under a moon that glittered with the diamond-points of domed cities, beside a softly lapping artificial lake, and watched the constellations wheel overhead—the far suns that man had conquered without mastering himself. He thought of Eve and wanted to cry, but the hollowness in his breast was dry and cold.
Chapter 3
Trapped in the Time-Stream
Belgotai had a thumping hangover in the morning which a drink offered by one of the women removed. He argued for a while about staying in this age. Nobody would deny him passage this time; they were eager for fighting men out in the Galaxy. But the fact that Sol was rarely visited now, that he might have to wait years, finally decided him on continuing.
«Dis won’ go on much longer,» he said. «Sol is too tempting a prize, an’ mercenaries aren’ allays loyal. Sooner or later, dere’ll be war on Eart’ again.»
Saunders nodded dispiritedly. He hated to think of the blasting energies that would devour a peaceful and harmless folk, the looting and murdering and enslaving, but history was that way. It was littered with the graves of pacifists.
The bright scene swirled into grayness. They drove ahead.
4400 A.D. A villa was burning, smoke and flame reaching up into the clouded sky. Behind it stood the looming bulk of a ray-scarred spaceship, and around it boiled a vortex of men, huge bearded men in helmets and cuirasses, laughing as they bore out golden loot and struggling captives. The barbarians had come!
The two travelers leaped back into the machine. Those weapons could fuse it to a glowing mass. Saunders swung the main-drive switch far over.
«We’d better make a longer jump,» Saunders said, as the needle crept past the century mark. «Can’t look for much scientific progress in a dark age. I’ll try for five thousand A.D.»
His mind carried the thought on: Will there ever be progress of the sort we must have? Eve, will I ever see you again? As if his yearning could carry over the abyss of millennia: Don’t mourn me too long, my dearest. In all the bloody ages of human history, your happiness is all that ultimately matters.
As the needle approached six centuries, Saunders tried to ease down the switch. Tried!
«What’s the matter?» Belgotai leaned over his shoulder.
With a sudden cold sweat along his ribs, Saunders tugged harder. The switch was immobile—the projector wouldn’t stop.
«Out of order?» asked Belgotai anxiously.
«No—it’s the automatic mass-detector. We’d be annihilated if we emerged in the same space with solid matter. The detector prevents the projector from stopping if it senses such a structure.» Saunders grinned savagely. «Some damned idiot must have built a house right where we are!»