He sat on one side of a table, she on the other. He did not speak. His mood had become apathetic. She seemed sympathetic and he was attracted to her for the qualities which he had first noted on the beach, and for her warm womanliness, but his despair was greater. He stared at the table, his twisted body bent over it, his hands stretched out in front of him.
'Your yearning, Pepin Hunchback, is not for the past as it was,' she was saying softly. ' It is for a world that never existed - a Paradise, a Golden Age. Men have always spoken of such a time in history-but such an idyllic world is. a yearning for childhood, not the past, for lost innocence. It is childhood we wish to return to.'
He looked up and smiled bitterly. 'My childhood was not idyllic,' he said. ' I was a mistake. My birth was an accident.
I had no friends, no peace of mind.'
'You had your wonderment, your illusion, your hopes. Even if you could return to Earth's past-you would not be happy.'
'Earth's present Is decadent. Here 'the decadence is part of the process of evolution, on Moon it is artificial, that is all. Earth's past was never truly decadent.'
'One cannot recapture the past.'
'An old saying - yet your ability disproves that.'
'You do not know, Pepin Hunchback,' she said almost sadly.
'Even if you used the ship, you could not…?'
'Ship?'
'A Time craft, an earlier, cruder experiment we abandoned.
We have no need of such devices now.'
'It still exists?'
'Yes - it stands behind the Hall of Time,' she spoke vaguely, her thoughts on something else.
Afraid that she-would soon guess what was in his mind, Pepin changed the subject.
'Maybe you are right, Tall Laugher. Old Earth has none to love her any longer-her appearance does not inspire love.
If I am the last who loves Earth, then I should stay with her.'
Part of him meant what he said, he realized. The words had come spontaneously, he had never considered this before.
She had only half-heard his words. She gave him a slightlystartled look as he spoke. She rose from the table.' I will show you to your room,' she said.' You need sleep.'
He pretended to agree and followed her out. There would be no sleep now. He must seize his opportunity. Outside, in.the fading light of evening, lay a Time craft. Soon, perhaps, he could return to the past, to security, to a green, golden Earth, leaving this tired ball of salt forever!
There was enough light coming from the houses to show him the way through the twisting streets to the Tower of Time. He was unobserved as he circled around the great building, searching for the ship which Tall Laugher had said was there.
At last, half-seen in shadows, he noticed a shape lying in a small square at the back of the Tower.
Resting in davits was a ship of cold, blue metal. It could only be the Time craft. It was large enough to contain three or four men. Several other machines stood nearby, showing signs of neglect. Pepin limped cautiously forward until he stood by the ship. He touched it. It swayed slightly and the davits squealed.
Pepin tried to steady it, looking nervously around him, but no one had noticed. The ship was roughly egg-shaped, with a small airlock in its side. Running his hand over it, Pepin found a stud which he pressed. The outer door slid open.
With considerable difficulty, Pepin managed to heave himself into the violently swinging ship. The noise of the squealing davits was ghastly. He shut the door and crouched in the utter blackness of the interior as it swayed back and forth.
It was likely that a light-stud was near the door. His searching hand found a projection and hesitated. Then, risking the possibility that it was not for the light, he pressed it.
The light came on. It was a bluish, mellow light, but it served adequately to show the interior of the ship. There were no seats and most of the machinery seemed hidden behind squat casings.
At the centre of the ship was a column on which was set, at hand height, four controls. The ship was still swaying as Pepin went over to the controls and inspected them. His life on Moon had made him very familiar with all kinds of machinery, and he noted that the system of measurement was the same. The largest dial was in the middle. A division on the right was marked with a minus sign and on the left with a plus sign - obviously indicating past and future. Yet Pepin had expected such a control to be marked off with dates. There were none. Instead there were figures-units from one to ten. One trip, however, was all he would need in order to equate these numbers with the actual period of time they measured.
Another dial seemed to indicate speed. A switch was marked 'Emergency Return' and another, mysteriously, 'Megaflow Tuner'.
Now all Pepin had to discover was whether the ship was still powered.
He limped over to another bank of instruments. There was a lever set into it. At the moment the indicator on its handle said OFF. His heart beating rapidly, Pepin pushed the lever down. A light flashed on the indicator and now it read ON. An almost inaudible humming came from the bank of instruments as needles swung and screens gleamed. Pepin returned to the column and put his large hand on the central dial. It moved easily to the right. He left it at -3.
The ship no longer swung on its davits. There was no sensation of speed, but the banks of instruments began to click and whirr noisily and Pepin felt suddenly dizzy.
The ship was moving backwards in Time.
Soon, he would be in the past at last!
Perhaps it was something to do with the ship's motion, the eruptions of colour which blossomed and faded on the screens, or the weird sounds of the instruments that made Pepin become almost hysterical. He began to laugh with joy. He had succeeded! His ambition was close to fruition!
At last the sounds died down, the sensation of sickness left him, the ship no longer seemed to move.
Pepin trembled as he raised his helmet and set it over his head. He knew enough to realize that the air of an earlier Earth would probably be too rich for him at first. This action saved his life.
He went to the door and pressed the stud to open it. The door moved backwards slowly and Pepin stepped into the airlock. The door closed. Pepin opened the outer door.
He looked out at absolutely nothing.
A lightless void lay around the ship. No stars, no planets nothing at all.
Where was he? Had the ship's instruments been faulty? Had he been borne into an area of space so far away from any material body? He felt vertigo seize him, backed into the airlock for as far as he could go, frightened that the vacuum would suck him into itself. He closed the outer door and. returned to the ship.
In panic he went to the control column and again twisted the dial. This time to -8. Again the screens filled with colour, again lights blinked and needles swung, again he felt sick. Again the ship came to a stop.
More cautiously, he opened the inner door, closed it, opened the outer door.
Nothing.
Shouting inarticulately, he hurried back into the ship and turned the dial to -10. The same sensations. Another stop.
And outside was the same featureless pit of empty space.
There was only one thing left to do to test the ship. Set the dial for the future and see what lay there. If it was the same, he could switch to Emergency Return.
He swung the dial right round to +2.
The humming rose to a shrill. Lightning exploded on the screens, the needles sped around the dials and Pepin flung himself to the floor in panic as his head began to ache horribly. The ship seemed to be tossed from side to side and yet he remained in the same position on the floor.
At last the ship came to a halt. He got up slowly, passed through the airlock.
He saw everything.
He saw gold-flecked bands of blue spiralling away into infinity.