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diff --git a/40953-0.txt b/40953-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64c40cf --- /dev/null +++ b/40953-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,623 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40953 *** + + A TRAVELER IN TIME + + by August Derleth + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Orbit volume 1 +number 2, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + +[Sidenote: YOU CAN'T ALWAYS ESCAPE EVILS BY RUNNING AWAY FROM THEM...BUT +IT MAY HELP!] + +[Illustration] + + +"Tell me what time is," said Harrigan one late summer afternoon in a +Madison Street bar. "I'd like to know." + +"A dimension," I answered. "Everybody knows that." + +"All right, granted. I know space is a dimension and you can move +forward or back in space. And, of course, you keep on aging all the +time." + +"Elementary," I said. + +"But what happens if you can move backward or forward in time? Do you +age or get younger, or do you keep the status quo?" + +"I'm not an authority on time, Tex. Do you know anyone who traveled in +time?" + +Harrigan shrugged aside my question. "That was the thing I couldn't get +out of Vanderkamp, either. He presumed to know everything else." + +"Vanderkamp?" + +"He was another of those strange people a reporter always runs into. +Lived in New York--downtown, near the Bowery. Man of about forty, I'd +say, but a little on the old-fashioned side. Dutch background, and +hipped on the subject of New Amsterdam, which, in case you don't know, +was the original name of New York City." + +"Don't mind my interrupting," I cut in. "But I'm not quite straight on +what Vanderkamp has to do with time as dimension." + +"Oh, he was touched on the subject. He claimed to travel in it. The fact +is, he invented a time-traveling machine." + +"You certainly meet the whacks, Tex!" + +"Don't I!" He grinned appreciatively and leaned reminiscently over the +bar. "But Vanderkamp had the wildest dreams of the lot. And in the end +he managed the neatest conjuring trick of them all. I was on the +Brooklyn _Enterprise_ at that time; I spent about a year there. Special +features, though I was on a reporter's salary. Vanderkamp was something +of a local celebrity in a minor way; he wrote articles on the early +Dutch in New York, the nomenclature of the Dutch, the history of Dutch +place-names, and the like. He was handy with a pen, and even handier +with tools. He was an amateur electrician, carpenter, house-painter, and +claimed to be an expert in genealogy." + +"And he built a time-traveling machine?" + +"So he said. He gave me a rather hard time of it. He was a glib talker +and half the time I didn't know whether I was coming or going. He kept +me on my toes by taking for granted that I accepted his basic premises. +I got next to him on a tip. He could be close-mouthed as a clam, but his +sister let things slip from time to time, and on this occasion she +passed the word to one of her friends in a grocery store that her +brother had invented a machine that took him off on trips into the past. +It seemed like routine whack stuff, but Blake, who decided what went +into the _Enterprise_ and what didn't, sent me over to Manhattan to get +something for the paper, on the theory that since Vanderkamp was +well-known in Brooklyn, it was good neighborhood copy. + +"Vanderkamp was a sharp-eyed little fellow, about five feet or so in +height, and I hit him at a good time. His sister said he had just come +back from a trip--she left me to draw my own conclusions about what kind +of trip--and I found him in a mild fit of temper. He was too upset, in +fact, to be truculent, which was more like his nature. + +"Was it true, I wanted to know, that he'd invented a machine that +traveled in time? + +"He didn't make any bones about it. 'Certainly,' he said. 'I've been +using it for the last month, and if my sister hadn't decided to blab +nobody would know about it yet. What about it?' + +"'You believe it can take you backwards or forwards into the past or the +future?' + +"'Do I look crazy? I said so, didn't I?' + +"Now, as a matter of fact, he _did_ look crazy. Unlike most of the +candidates for my file of queer people, Vanderkamp actually looked like +a nut. He had a wild eye and a constantly working mouth; he blinked a +good deal and stammered when he was excited. In features he was as Dutch +as his name implied. Well, we talked back and forth for some time, but I +stuck with him and in the end he took me out into a shed adjoining his +house and showed me the contraption he'd built. + +"It looked like a top. The first thing I thought of was Brick Bradford, +and before I could catch myself, I'd asked, 'Is that pure Brick +Bradford?' + +"He didn't turn a hair. 'Not by a long shot,' he answered. 'H. G. Wells +was there first. I owe it to Wells.' + +"'I see,' I said. + +"'The hell you do!' he shot back. 'You think I'm as nutty as a +fruit-cake.' + +"'The idea of time travel is a little hard to swallow,' I said. + +"'Sure it is. But me, I'm doing it. So that's all there is to it.' + +"'If you don't mind, Mr. Vanderkamp,' I said, 'I'm a dummy in scientific +matters. I have all I can do to tell a nut from a bolt.' + +"'That I believe,' he said. + +"'So how do you time travel?' + +"'Look,' he said, 'time is a dimension like space. You can go up or down +this ruler,' he snatched a steel ruler and waved it in front of me, +'from any given point. But you move. In the dimension of time, you only +seem to move. You stand still; time moves. Do you get it?' + +"I had to confess that I didn't. + +"He tried again, with obviously strained patience. Judging by what I +could gather from what he said, it was possible for him--so he +believed--to get into his machine, twirl a few knobs, push a few +buttons, relax for any given period, and end up just where he +liked--back in the past, or ahead in the future. But wherever he ended +up, he was still in this same spot. In other words, whether he was back +in 1492 or ahead in 2092, the place he got out of his time machine was +still his present address. + +"It was beyond me, frankly, but I figured that as long as he was a +little touched, it wouldn't do any harm to humor him. I intimated that I +understood and asked him where he'd been last. + +"His face fell, his brow clouded, and he said, 'I've been ahead thirty +years.' He shook his head angrily. 'What a time! I'll be seventy, and +you won't even be that, Mr. Harrigan. But we'll be in the middle of the +worst atomic war you ever dreamed about.' + +"Now this was before Hiroshima, quite a bit. I didn't know what he was +talking about, but it gives me a queer feeling now and then when I think +of what he said, especially since it's still short of thirty years since +that time. + +"'It's no time to be living here,' he went on. 'Direct hits on the +entire area. What would you do?' + +"'I'd get out,' I said. + +"'That's what I thought,' he said. 'But that kind of warfare carries a +long way. A long way. And I'm a man who loves his comforts, reasonably. +I don't intend to set up housekeeping in equatorial Africa or the +forests of Brazil.' + +"'What did you see thirty years from now, Mr. Vanderkamp?' I asked him. + +"'Everything blown to hell,' he answered. 'Not a building in all +Manhattan.' He leered and added, 'And everybody who'll be living here at +that time will be scattered into the atmosphere in fragments no bigger +than an amoeba.' + +"'You fill me with anticipation,' I said. + +"So I went back to my desk and wrote the story. You could guess what +kind it had to be. 'Time Travel Is Possible, Says Amateur +Scientist!'--that kind of thing. You can see it every week, in large +doses, in the feature sections of some of the biggest chain papers. It +went over like an average feature about life on the moon or prehistoric +animals surviving in remote mountain valleys, or what have you. Just +what Vanderkamp went back to after I left, I don't know, but I have an +idea that he gave his sister a devil of a time." + + * * * * * + +_Vanderkamp stalked into the house and confronted his sister._ + +_"You see, Julie--a reporter. Can't you learn to hold your tongue?"_ + +_She threw him a scornful glance. "What difference does it make?" she +cried. "You're gone all the time."_ + +_"Maybe I'll take you along sometime. Just wait."_ + +_"Wait, wait! That's all I've been doing. Since I was ten years old I've +been waiting on you!"_ + +_"Oh, the hell with it!" He turned on his heel and left the house._ + +_She followed him to the door and shouted after him, "Where are you +going now?"_ + +_"To New Amsterdam for a little peace and quiet," he said testily._ + +_He threw open the thick-walled door of his time-machine and pulled it +shut behind him. He sat down before the controls and began to chart his +course for 1650. If his calculations were correct, he would shortly find +himself in the vicinity of that sturdy if autocratic first citizen of +the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, as well as Governor +Stuyvesant's friend and neighbor, Heinrich Vanderkamp. He gave not even +a figurative glance over his shoulder before he started out._ + +_When he emerged at last from his machine, he was in what appeared to be +the backyard of a modest residence on a street which, though he did not +know it, he suspected might be the Bouwerie. At the moment of his +emergence, a tall, angular woman stood viewing him, open-mouthed and +aghast, from the wooden stoop at the back door of her home. He looked at +her in astonishment himself. The resemblance to his sister Julie was +uncanny._ + +_With only the slightest hesitation, he addressed her in fluent Dutch. +"Pray do not be disturbed, young lady."_ + +_"A fine way for a gentleman to call!" she exclaimed in a voice +considerably more forceful than her appearance. "I suppose my father +sent you. And where did you get that outlandish costume?"_ + +_"I bought it," he answered, truthfully enough._ + +_"A likely tale," she said. "And if my father sent you, just go back and +tell him I'm satisfied the way I am. No woman needs a man to manage +her."_ + +_"I don't have the honor of your father's acquaintance," he answered._ + +_She gazed at him suspiciously from narrowed eyes. "Everyone in New +Amsterdam knows Henrik Van Tromp. He's as unloved as yonder bumblebee. +Stand where you are and say whence you came."_ + +_"I am a visitor in New Amsterdam," he said, standing obediently still. +"I confess I don't know my way about very well, and I chose to stop at +this attractive home."_ + +_"I know it's attractive," she said tartly. "And it's plain to see +you're a stranger here, or you'd never be wearing such clothes. Or is it +the fashion where you come from?" She gave him no opportunity to answer, +but added, after a moment of indecision, "Well, you look respectable +enough, though much like my rascally cousin Pieter Vanderkamp. Do you +know him?"_ + +_"No."_ + +_"Well, no matter. He's much older than you--near forty blessed years. +You're no more than twenty, I don't doubt."_ + +_Involuntarily Vanderkamp put his hand to his cheek, and smiled as he +felt its smooth roundness. "You may be right, at that," he said +cryptically._ + +_"You might as well come in," she said grudgingly. "What with the +traffic on the road outside, the Indians, and people who come in such +flighty vehicles as yours, I might as well live in the heart of the +colony."_ + +_He looked around. "And still," he said, "it is a pleasant +spot--peaceful, comfortable. I'm sure a man could live out his days here +in contentment."_ + +_"Oh, could he?" she said belligerently. "And where would I be while +this went on?"_ + +_He gazed at her beetling nose, her jutting chin. "A good question," he +muttered thoughtfully._ + +_He followed her into the house. It was a treasury of antiquities, +filling him with delight. Miss Anna Van Tromp offered him a cup of milk, +which he accepted, thanking her profusely. She talked volubly, eyeing +him all the while with the utmost curiosity, and he gathered presently +that her father had made several attempts to marry her off, disapproving +of her solitary residence so far from the center of the city; but she +had frowned upon one and all of the suitors he had encouraged to call on +her. She was undeniably impressive, almost formidable, he conceded +privately, with a touch of the shrew and harridan. Life with Miss Anna +Van Tromp would not be easy, he reflected. But then, life with his +sister Julie was not easy, either. Miss Anna, however, had not to face +atomic warfare; all she had to look forward to in fourteen years was +surrender to the besieging British, which she would have no trouble in +surviving._ + +_He settled down to his ingratiating best and succeeded in making a most +favorable impression on Miss Anna Van Tromp before at last he took his +leave, carrying with him a fine, hand-wrought bowl with which the lady +had presented him. He had a hunch he might come back. Of all the times +he had visited since finishing the machine, he knew that old New +Amsterdam in the 1650s was the one period most likely to keep him +contented--provided Miss Van Tromp didn't turn out to be a nuisance. So +he took careful note of the set of his controls, jotting them down so +that he would not be likely to forget them._ + +_It was late when he found himself back in his own time._ + +_His sister was waiting up for him. "Two o'clock in the morning!" she +screamed at him. "What are you doing to me? Oh, God, why didn't I marry +when I had the chance, instead of throwing away my life on a worthless +brother!"_ + +_"Why don't you? It's not too late," he sighed wearily._ + +_"How can you say that?" she snapped bitterly. "Here I am thirty nearly, +and worn out from working for you. Who would marry me now? Oh, if only I +could have another chance! If I could be young again, and do it all +over, I'd know how to have a better life!"_ + +_In spite of his boredom with her, Vanderkamp felt the effect of this +cry from a lonely heart. He looked at her pityingly; it was true, after +all, that she had worked faithfully for him, without pay, since their +parents died. "Take a look at this," he said gently, offering her the +bowl._ + +_"Hah! Can we eat bowls?"_ + +_He raised his eyes heavenward and went wearily to bed._ + + * * * * * + +"I saw Vanderkamp again about a fortnight later," Harrigan went on. "Ran +into him in a tavern on the Bowery. He recognized me and came over. + +"'That was some story you did,' he said. + +"'Been bothered by cranks?' I asked. + +"'Hell, yes! Not too badly, though. They want to ride off somewhere just +to get away. I get that feeling myself sometimes. But, tell me, have you +seen the morning papers?' + +"Now, by coincidence, the papers that morning had carried a story from +some local nuclear physicist about the increasing probability that the +atom would be smashed. I told him I'd seen it. + +"'What did I tell you?' he said. + +"I just smiled and asked where he'd been lately. He didn't hesitate to +talk, perhaps because his sister had been giving him a hard time with +her nagging. So I listened. It appeared, to hear him tell it, that he +had been off visiting the Dutch in New Amsterdam. You could almost +believe what he said, listening to him, except for that wild look he +had. Anyway, he'd been in New Amsterdam about 1650, and he'd brought +back a few trifling souvenirs of the trips. Would I like to see them? I +said I would. + +"I figured he'd got his hands on some nice antiques and wanted an +appreciative audience. His sister wasn't home; so he took me around and +showed me his pieces, one by one--a bowl, a pair of wooden candlesticks, +wooden shoes, and more, all in all a fine collection. He even had a +chair that looked pretty authentic, and I wondered where he'd dug up so +many nice things of the New Amsterdam period--though, of course, I had +to take his word as to where they belonged historically; I didn't know. +But I imagine he got them somewhere in the city or perhaps up in the +Catskill country. + +"Well, after a while I got another look at his contraption. It didn't +appear to have been moved at all; it was still sitting where it had been +before, without a sign to say that it had been used to go anywhere, +least of all into past time. + +"'Tell me,' I said to him at last, 'when you go back in time do you get +younger?' + +"'Yes and no,' he said. 'Obviously.' + +"It wasn't obvious to me, but I couldn't get any more than that out of +him. The thing I couldn't figure out was the reason for his claim. He +wasn't trying to sell anything to anybody, as far as I could see; he +wasn't anxious to tell the world about his time-machine, either. He +didn't mind talking in his oblique fashion about his trips. He did talk +about New Amsterdam as if he had a pretty good acquaintance with the +place. But then, he was known as a minor authority on the customs of the +Dutch colony. + +"He was touched, obviously. Just the same, he challenged me, in a way. I +wanted to know something more about him, how his machine worked, how he +took off, and so on. I made up my mind the next time I was in the +neighborhood to look him up, hoping he wouldn't be home. + +"When I made it, his sister was alone, and in fine fettle, as +cantankerous as a flea-bitten mastiff. + +"'He's gone again,' she complained bitterly. + +"Clearly the two of them were at odds. I asked her whether she had seen +him go. She hadn't; he had just marched out to his shop and that was an +end to him as far as she was concerned. + +"I haggled around quite a lot and finally got her permission to go out +and see what I could see for myself. Of course, the shop was locked. I +had counted on that and had brought along a handy little skeleton key. I +was inside in no time. The machine wasn't there. Not a sign of it, or of +Vanderkamp either. + +"Now, I looked around all over, but I couldn't for the life of me figure +out how he could have taken it out of that place; it was too big for +doors or windows, and the walls and roof were solid and immovable. I +figured that he couldn't have got such a large machine away without his +sister's seeing him; so I locked the place up and went back to the +house. + +"But she was immovable; she hadn't seen a thing. If he had taken +anything larger than pocket-size out of that shop of his, she had missed +it. I could hardly doubt her sincerity. There was nothing to be had from +that source; so I had no alternative but to wait for him another time." + + * * * * * + +_Anna Van Tromp, considerably chastened, watched her strange suitor--she +looked upon all men as suitors, without exception; for so her father had +conditioned her to do--as he reached into his sack and brought out +another wonder._ + +_"Now this," said Vanderkamp, "is an alarm clock. You wind it up like +this, you see; set it, and off it goes. Listen to it ring! That will +wake you up in the morning."_ + +_"More magic," she cried doubtfully._ + +_"No, no," he explained patiently. "It is an everyday thing in my +country. Perhaps some day you would like to join me in a little visit +there, Anna?"_ + +_"Ja, maybe," she agreed, looking out the window to his weird and +frightening carriage, which had no animal to draw it and which vanished +so strangely, fading away into the air, whenever Vanderkamp went into +it. "This clothes-washing machine you talk about," she admitted. "This I +would like to see."_ + +_"I must go now," said Vanderkamp, gazing at her with well-simulated +coyness. "I'll leave these things here with you, and I'll just take +along that bench over there."_ + +_"Ja, ja," said Anna, blushing._ + +_"Six of one and half a dozen of the other," muttered Vanderkamp, +comparing Anna with his sister._ + +_He got into his time-machine and set out for home in the twentieth +century. There was some reluctance in his going. Here all was somnolent +peace and quiet, despite the rigors of living; in his own time there +were wars and turmoil and the ultimate threat of the greatest war of +all. New Amsterdam had one drawback, however--the presence of Anna Von +Tromp. She had grown fond of him, undeniably, perhaps because he was so +much more interested in her circumstances than in herself. What was a +man to do? Julie at one end, Anna at the other. But even getting rid of +Julie would not allow him to escape the warfare to come._ + +_He thought deeply of his problem all the way home._ + +_When he got back, he found his sister waiting up, as usual, ready to +deliver the customary diatribe._ + +_He forestalled her. "I've been thinking things over, Julie. I believe +you'd be much happier if you were living with brother Carl. I'll give +you as much money as you need, and you can pack your things and I'll +take you down to Louisiana."_ + +_"Take me!" she exclaimed. "How? In that crazy contraption of yours?"_ + +_"Precisely."_ + +_"Oh no!" she said. "You don't get me into that machine! How do I know +what it will do to me? It's a time machine, isn't it? It might make an +old hag of me--or a baby!"_ + +_"You said that you wanted to be young again, didn't you?" he said +softly. "You said you'd like another chance...."_ + +_A faraway look came into her eyes. "Oh, if I only could! If I only +could be a girl again, with a chance to get married...."_ + +_"Pack your things," Vanderkamp said quietly._ + + * * * * * + +"It must have been all of a month before I saw Vanderkamp again," +Harrigan continued, waving for another scotch and soda. "I was down in +the vicinity on an assignment and I took a run over to his place. + +"He was home this time. He came to the door, which he had chained on the +inside. He recognized me, and it was plain at the same time that he had +no intention of letting me in. + +"I came right out with the first question I had in mind. 'The thing that +bothers me,' I said to him, 'is how you get that time machine of yours +in and out of that shed.' + +"'Mr. Harrigan,' he answered, 'newspaper reporters ought to have at +least elementary scientific knowledge. You don't. How in hell could even +a time machine be in two places at once, I ask you? If I take that +machine back three centuries, that's where it is--not here. And three +centuries ago that shop wasn't standing there. So you don't go in or +out; you don't move at all, remember? It's time that moves.' + +"'I called the other day,' I went on. 'Your sister spoke to me. Give her +my regards.' + +"'My sister's left me,' he said shortly, 'to stew, as you might say, in +my own time machine.' + +"'Really?' I said. 'Just what do you have in mind to do next?' + +"'Let me ask _you_ something, Mr. Harrigan,' he answered. 'Would you sit +around here waiting for an atomic war if you could get away?' + +"'Certainly not,' I answered. + +"'Well, then, I don't intend to, either.' + +"All this while he was standing at the door, refusing to open it any +wider or to let me in. He was making it pretty plain that there wasn't +much he had to say to me. And he seemed to be in a hurry. + +"'Remember me to the inquiring public thirty years hence, Mr. Harrigan,' +he said at last, and closed the door. + +"That was the last I saw of him." + +Harrigan finished his scotch and soda appreciatively and looked around +for the bartender. + +"Did he take off then?" I asked. + +"Like a rocket," said Harrigan. "Queerest thing was that there wasn't a +trace of him. The machine was gone, too--the same way as the last time, +without a disturbance in the shop. He and his machine had simply +vanished off the face of the earth and were never heard from again. + +"Matter of fact, though," Harrigan went on thoughtfully, "Vanderkamp's +disappearance wasn't the really queer angle on the pitch. The other +thing broke in the papers the week after he left. The neighbors got +pretty worked up about it. They called the police to tell them that +Vanderkamp's sister Julie was back, only she was off her nut--and a good +deal changed in appearance, too. + +"Gal going blarmy was no news, of course, but that last bit about her +appearance--they said she looked about twenty years older, all of a +sudden--sort of rang a bell. So I went over there. It was Julie, all +right; at least, she looked a hell of a lot like Julie had when I last +saw her--provided you could grant that a woman could age twenty years in +the few weeks it had been. And she was off her rocker, sure enough--or +hysterical. Or at least madder than a wet hen. She made out like she +couldn't speak a word of English, and they finally had to get an +interpreter to understand her. She wouldn't speak anything but +Dutch--and an old-fashioned kind, too. + +"She made a lot of extravagant claims and kept insisting that she would +bring the whole matter up in a complaint before Governor Stuyvesant. +Said she wasn't Julie Vanderkamp, by God, but was named Anna Van +Tromp--which is an old Dutch name thereabouts--and claimed that she had +been abducted from her home on the Bowery. We pointed out the Third +Avenue El and told her _that_ was the Bowery, but she just sniffed and +looked at us as though _we_ were crazy." + +I toyed with my drink. "You mean you actually listened to the poor +girl's story?" I asked. + +"Sure," Harrigan said. "Maybe she was as crazy as a bedbug, but I've +listened to whackier stories from supposedly sane people. Sure, I +listened to her." He paused thoughtfully for a moment, then went on. + +"She claimed that this fellow Vanderkamp had come to her house and +filled her with a lot of guff about the wonderful country he lived in, +and how she ought to let him take her to see it. Apparently he waxed +especially eloquent about an automatic washing-machine and dryer, and +that had fascinated her, for some reason. Then, she said, he'd brought a +ten-year-old girl along--though where in the world old Vanderkamp could +have picked up a tot like that is beyond me--and the kid had added her +blandishments to the plot. Between them, they had managed to lure her +into the old guy's machine. From what she said, it was obviously the +time machine she was talking about, and if she was Julie there was no +reason why she shouldn't know about it. But she talked as though it was +a complete mystery to her, as though she'd no idea what the purpose of +it was. Well, anyway, here she was--and very unhappy, too. Wanted to go +back to old New Amsterdam, but bad. + +"It was a beautiful act, even if she was nuts. The strange thing was, +though, that there were some things even a gal going whacky couldn't +explain. For instance, the house was filled with what the experts said +were priceless antiques from Dutch New Amsterdam, of the period just +prior to the British siege. You'd think those things would make poor +Julie feel more at home, seeing as she claimed to belong in that period, +but apparently they just made her homesick. And, curiously enough, all +the modern gadgets were gone. All those handy little items that make the +twentieth century so livable had been taken away--including the +washing-machine and dryer, by the way. Julie--or Anna, as she called +herself--claimed that Vanderkamp had taken it back with him, wherever +he'd gone to, after he'd brought her there." + +"Poor woman," I said sympathetically. "They toted her off to the booby +hatch, I suppose." + +"No...." Harrigan said slowly. "They didn't, as a matter of fact. Since +she was harmless, they let her stay in the house a while. Which was a +mistake, it seems. Of course, she _wasn't_ from the seventeenth century. +That's impossible. All the same--." He broke off abruptly and stared +moodily into his glass. + +"What happened to her?" I asked. + +"She was found one morning about two weeks after she got there," he +said. "Dead. Electrocuted. It seems she'd stuck her finger into a light +socket while standing in a bathtub full of water. An accident, +obviously. As the Medical Examiner said, it was an accident any +six-year-old child would have known enough about electricity to avoid. + +"That is," Harrigan added, "a _twentieth-century_ child...." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Traveler in Time, by August Derleth + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40953 *** |