Only, this was more than topsy-turvy. This was unimaginable, absurd, fantastic.
Neil tried to remember the events that had led up to this very moment.
Yesterday had started out to be another normal day, yes. He had eaten his breakfast, and was heading over to the ball lot to see if any of the guys were around.
That’s when it had happened. Or at least, that’s when it had started. His mother had caught him just as he was leaving the house.
“Neil,” she said, “Dad wants to see you a minute.”
Neil’s face had expressed reluctance. “I’m pitching, Mom,” he said. “Does Dad know that?”
“It’ll only take a minute,” Mrs. Falsen assured him.
“Oh-h-h, all right,” Neil grunted.
He took the steps up to his father’s room two at a time, the ball glove still on his left hand. He knocked on the door softly, and his father’s voice answered.
“Come in, Neil.”
Neil opened the door and stepped into the room. Doctor Falsen lay propped against the soft, white pillows on his bed. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he saw Neil, and he moved his head off the pillows and leaned forward slightly. He shook his head sadly, the black locks of his hair jumping with the movement. Doctor Peter Falsen had a long, angular face, with Neil’s fine nose and deep blue eyes. His chin was covered with an immaculate black beard that covered the jut of his jaw and no more.
His leg stood out at an acute angle from his body. It was in a heavy plaster cast, and it hung suspended from the ceiling by a network of complicated strings and pulleys.
“This darned leg,” Doctor Falsen said, his head still wagging. “You know, Neil, it’s beginning to itch. Itch, mind you.” He opened his eyes in disbelief.
Neil grinned at his father and came straight to the point.
“I hope this isn’t important, Dad. I’m pitching and I-”
“Well, I don’t know if you’d call it important,” Doctor Falsen said.
“Good,” Neil replied, socking his right hand into the glove. “What’s on your mind, Dad?”
“Well, nothing much really. I just wanted you to go along on the time trip. In my place.”
Neil’s hand was poised, ready to sock into the glove again. It stopped suddenly, and his eyes opened wide while his jaw fell open.
“What!”
Doctor Falsen assumed the air of a man who had just said, “A nice day today, isn’t it?” He looked at Neil in mock puzzlement and said, “The time trip, Neil. I’d like you to go in my place.”
Neil’s astonishment wore off, and he looked at his father suspiciously. “Do you feel all right, Dad?” he asked. “Shall I get Mother?”
Doctor Falsen continued as if he hadn’t even heard Neil.
“It’s this way, son. The other men are anxious to get started. Heaven only knows when this leg of mine will be healed. It’s not fair of me to hold them up any longer.”
“Not fair?” Neil repeated blankly.
It seemed to be the only thing he could think of saying.
“Of course not,” Doctor Falsen went on. “I finally convinced them to leave without me. Arthur Blake, that stubborn old fool, held out to the last. But I threatened to club him with my plaster cast if he didn’t listen to reason.”
Doctor Falsen began chuckling while Neil swallowed the lump in his throat.
“But… but…” he stammered, “that’s impossible.. I mean, it’s your time machine.”
Doctor Falsen shook his head. “No, Neil, it is not my time machine. It is the University’s. They supplied the money that made the machine a reality. Without their grants, it would still be on the drawing board.”
“But you invented it!” Neil protested.
“Let us say, I had a part in inventing it. We mustn’t forget the brilliant work Dave Saunders did.”
Neil fell silent for a moment. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully.
Then, suddenly, he said, “I won’t go.”
“But why not?” his father asked.
“Because it’s not fair. You do all the work on the machine and then, because of a lousy accident, I take your place. No, sir, not for me!”
“Don’t you want to go?” Doctor Falsen asked slyly.
“I’d love-” Neil started, stopping himself before it was too late. “No, no, I don’t want to go.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, I don’t know anything about Yucatan. I don’t even know why you’re going there.”
“You don’t have to know anything about Yucatan,” Doctor Falsen said. “Doctor Manning is an archaeologist, and Arthur Blake is a historian. They’ll take care of that end.”
“Nope,” Neil said. “I’m not interested.”
“They’re going to look for a god, you know,” Doctor Falsen said.
“I’m still not-” Neil paused. “Look for a what?”
“A god.”
“That’s silly.”
“It may be, true. But they’re going to try to find the Feathered Serpent.”
“What kind of a snake is that?” Neil asked.
“It’s not a snake,” Doctor Falsen replied, laughing softly. “It’s the god they’re looking for. Kukulcan, he was called.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Neil said, beginning to get interested in spite of his resolve.
“You’ve probably heard of Quetzalcoatl. He was a man who lived in the thirteenth century, a man who greatly influenced the history of the whole of Central America.”
“Yes,” Neil said, “I’ve heard of him.”
“Quetzalcoatl was the Mexican name for this man. The Mayas called him Kukulcan. The name means practically the same in both languages, you see. In Mexican, it’s ‘Quetzal-bird-serpent,’ in Maya, ‘feathered serpent’”
“Well, if you know all about this Kukulcan, why are you going to look for him?” Neil asked.
“We do know a great deal about this thirteenth-century man named Kukulcan,” Doctor Falsen admitted. “But we’re not going back through time to find him”
“Who then?”
“The thirteenth-century man was named after the Feathered-Serpent god. We are looking for the original Kukulcan, the god the man was named after.”
“Then there are two Kukulcans,” Neil said.
“Exactly. One was a man. The other-who knows?” Here Doctor Falsen spread his hands wide, palms upward.
“What do you mean?” Neil asked.
“We don’t know,” Doctor Falsen said. “Was the original Kukulcan a man too? Or was he nonexistent, a story that simply grew into a legend? Or was he a combination of men? We just don’t know.”
“And that’s the reason for the time trip?”
“Yes. The University granted me the money to finish my time experiments on condition that the first trip be made to Yucatan, to find the Feathered-Serpent god. There’s quite an archaeology department here, you know.”
Neil considered this for a moment, and then asked, “How far back will you have to go? In time, I mean.”
“Very far. Perhaps all the way back to A.D. 50.”
Neil let a long, low whistle escape his lips.
“Perhaps farther,” Doctor Falsen added. “You see, we have no way of knowing when the legend came into existence.”
“It sounds exciting,” Neil admitted. “But I couldn’t go, Dad, really. I can think of a hundred reasons why.”
“Name one,” Doctor Falsen interrupted.
“Well-” Neil thought for a second and then said, “I’m too young. I’m only sixteen. That’s much too young to be-”
“Nonsense. Besides, you’ll be seventeen in two months.”
“And Mother would worry if I’m a…”
“I’ll take care of Mother. I’ve been taking care of her for twenty years now.”