The man from time. Frank belknap long. Daring moons and he was called me it was a proud name a brave name but what good was a name that rang out like a summons to battle if the man who bore a good not repeated allowed without fear moonshine had tried telling himself the man could conquer fear.
If we could but one someone the courage to laugh at all the sins and ever were and do as a damned well pleased. An ancient phrase that damned well and when clear back to the elizabeth an age and moon and had tried picturing himself as an elizabethan man without ruffling his throat and a rapier in his class brawling lustfully in a tavern in the a list.
A be than age men had thrown caution to the wins live with their whole bodies not just with their minds alone. Perhaps that was why even in the year thirty six eighty nine defiant name still cropped up names like independence forest and man live forever.
Where it was not easy for a man to live up to a name like man live forever but moon in was ready to believe that it could be done. There was something and human nature which made a man abandoned caution and try to live up to the claims made for him by his parents at birth. It must be bad moods and thought it must be bad if I can control the trembling of my hands the pounding of the blood my temples.
I am like a child shut up alone in the dark hearing rat scurrying in a closet thick with cobwebs and the tapping of a blind man’s kane on a deserted street at midnight. Tap. Tap. Tap nearer and nearer through the darkness. How soon with the rats be swarming out blood fang than holy vicious.
How soon with the cane strike. He looked up quickly his eyes searching the shadows for almost a month now the gleaming intricacies of the machine had given him a complete sense of security. As a scholar traveling in time he had been accepted by his fellow travelers as a man of great courage and from determination. For twenty seven days a smooth surface of shining metal and walled him in enabling him to grapple with reality on a completely adult level.
For twenty seven days he a gone prideful a back through time taking creative delight in watching their heritage of the human race unroll before him like as cinerama scope under glass. Watching a green land in the dying golden sunlight of an age lost a human memory.
Could restore a man strength of purpose by it’s serenity alone but even an age of war and pestilence could be observed without torment from behind the protective shields of the time machine. Danger accidents catastrophe could not touch him personally to watch death and destruction as a spectator in a traveling time observatory was like watching a cobra poised to strike from behind a pain of crystal break glass in a zoological garden you gotta trump. Mendis thrill and just thinking how dreadful if the glare should not be there how lucky I am the be alive with the thing so deadly and monstrous within striking distance of me for twenty seven days now he had travel without fear sometimes the time observatory. Would pinpoint and age and hover over it while his companions took painstaking historical note sometimes it would retrace its course and circle back a new age would come under scrutiny and more notes would be taken but a horrible thing that happened to him had awakened in here.
Im a lonely nightmare of restlessness. Childhood fears he had thought buried forever had returned to plague him and he had developed the sudden terrible dread of the forgiveness outside the moving view bane the way the machine itself wield and dipped when an ancient ruins games sweeping toward him he had developed. A fear of time there was no escape from that time of year.
The instant it came upon him he lost all interest in historical research ten sixty nine seven thirty two twenty four o seven nineteen twenty eight every day terrified him the black plague and london the great fire.
The spanish armada in flames off the coast of a bleak little island that would soon mold the destiny of half the world. How meaningless it all seemed in the shadow of his fear. Had the human race really advanced so much time had been conquered but no man was yet wise enough to heal himself if a stark unreasoning fear took possession of his mind and heart giving him no peace moons and lowered his eyes saw that route tello was wa.
Ching him in the manner of a shy woman not wishing to break into abruptly on the flights from a stranger deep within him he knew that he had become a stranger to his own wife and the realization sharply increased his torment. He stared down at her head against his knee. At her beautiful back and sleek dark hair. Violet eyes she had not black as they seemed at first glance but a deep lustrous violent he remembered suddenly that he was still a young man with a young man’s order surging strong and him he bent swiftly kissed her lips and eyes. As he did so her arms tightened about him until he found himself wondering what he could have done to deserve such a woman she had never seen more precious to him and for an instant he could feel his fear lessening little but it came back and was worse than before. It was like an old pain returning at an unexpected moment to chill a man with the sickening reminder that all joy must end. His decision to act was made quickly. The first step was the most difficult but with a deliberate effort of will he accomplished it to his satisfaction.
His secret thoughts he buried beneath a continuous mental preoccupation with the vain and the trivial. It was important to the success of his plan that his companions should suspect nothing.
The second step was less difficult the mental block remain firm and he succeeded in carrying on actual preparations for his departure in complete secrecy. The third step was the final one and it took him from a large compartment to a small one from our high arching surface of metal to a maze of intricate control mechanisms in a space so narrow that he added crouch to work with accuracy. Swiftly and competently his fingers moved over instruments of science which only you completely sane man would have known how to manipulate.
It was an acid test of his sanity and he knew as he worked that his reasoning faculties at least had suffered no impairment. Beneath his hands the time observatories controls were solid shafts some metal.
But suddenly as he worked he found himself thinking of them as fluid abstractions each a milestone and man’s long progress from the jungle to the stars. I am in space. Mass and velocity how incredible that it had taken centuries of patient technological research to master and a practical way the tremendous implications of einstein’s original postulate warp space with a rapidly moving object move away from. The observer with the speed of light and the whole of human history assume the from contours of a landscape in space. Time and space merged and became one and a man in an intricately equip time observatory good revisit the best as easily as he could travel across the great curve of the universe to the far this planet of the this star the controls were suddenly from and.
His hands he knew precisely what adjustments to make the irish of the human eye dilates and contracts with every shift of illumination. And the time observatory had an iris to that iris could be open without endangering his companions in the least if he took care to widen it just enough to accommodate only one sturdily built man a medium height sweat came out and great beads on his forehead as he worked. The light they came through the machines iris was fade first the barest glimmer of wide and deep darkness. But as he adjusted controls the like grew brighter and brighter beating in upon him until he was kneeling and a circle of radiance the dazzled his eyes and said his heart pounding. Lived too long with fear he thought I’d live like a man in prison. Shut away from the sunlight.
Now when freedom beckons I must act quickly or I shall be powerless to act at all. He stood erect took a slow step forward his eyes squeeze shot another step another and suddenly he knew he was it the gateway to time sure knowledge in actual contact with the past for his ears were now assailed by the high confusion of ancient. Sounds and voices.
He left the time machine and flying leap one arm held before his face. He tried to keep his eyes covered as the ground seem to rise to meet him but he lurched and an agony of unbalance and opened his eyes to see the green surface beneath him flashing like a suddenly uncovered jewel. He remained on his be just long enough to see his time observatory dim and vanish. Then his knees gave way and he collapsed with a despairing cry as the fear envelop to him. They were daisies in the field where he lay his shoulders and naked chest press to the you’re a gentle when stirred the grass and the flu like warble of a songbird was repeated close to his ear over and over with a tireless persistence. Abruptly he sat up and stared about him.
Running parallel to the field was a winding country road and down it came a yellow and silver vehicle on wheels it’s entire upper section encased in glass which mirrored the a the landscape with a startling clearness the vehicle halted directly in front of him and a man with ruddy. Cheeks and snow white hair leaned out the way about him good morning mister the man shouted gonna give you a lived in the town.
Moon and rose unsteadily alarm and suspicion any stare very cautiously he lowered the mental barrier and the man’s thoughts impinged on is mine in bewildering confusion. Me is not a former lag sure must have been swimming in the cree with those bathe than from sees were in or out of this world ah. Wouldn’t have the nerve to parade around and trunks like may even on a public beach. Probably an exhibitionist but why should he were I’m out here in the words know blogs were red heads to knock silly out here. Oh he might have the courtesy to answer me.
Well maybe does one lived in the town mates no concern of mine moons and stood watching the vehicle sweep away out of sight. Obviously he had angered the man by his silence but he could answer only by shaking his head he began to walk pausing an instant in the middle of the bridge to stare down at a stream of water that rippled in the sunlight over moss covered rocks.
Tiny silverfish darted to and fro beneath a tumbling waterfall and he felt calm and reassured by the site.
Shoulders erect now he walked on it was high noon when he reached the tower he went inside saw men and women dancing and a dim light and there was a huge rainbow colored musical instrument by the door which startle him by it’s residents the music was.
Wild weird my little terrifying. He sat down at a table near the door and searched the minds of the dancers for a clue to the meaning of what he saw the thoughts which came to him or startlingly primitive direct men sometimes meaningless to him.
Go easy maybe swing it sure we’re in a groove now much you never can tell I’ll buy you an orchid honey not roses just one orchid black like your hair ever see a black orchid on their rare and they’re expensive oh darling darling hold me closer the meals.
He goes round and round it will always be like that with us honey don’t ever be a square that’s all I ask don’t ever be a square cuddle up to me let yourself go when you’re dancing with one girl you should never look at another don’t you know that johnny sure. I know a doll but did I have reclaim I was in human dark doll. Doll baby.
All you want to but if you ever dare moons and found himself relaxing a little dancing in all ages was closely allied to love making but it was pursued here with a careless rapture which he found creatively stimulating people came here not only. Dance but to eat and the thoughts of the dancers imply that there was nothing stylized about a tavern the ritual was a completely natural one in egyptian bas reliefs you saw the opposite and dancing every movement rigidly prescribed arms hailed rigid and sharply.
Bennett the elbows slow movements rather than lively was a bowing and scraping with bowls of fruit extended in gift offerings at every turn there was obviously no and throned authority here no be jewel king to pacify when emotions ran wild but complete freedom. To embrace joy with corey benthic abandonment. A tall man and ill fitting black close approach moon sins table interrupting his reflections with thoughts that seem designed to disturb and distract him out of sheer perversity. So even here they were flies in every ointment. And no dream of perfection could remain unchallenged he sat on moving absorbing the man’s thoughts. What does he think this is a bathhouse mike says it’s okay to serve them if they come in from the beach just as a are but just one quick beer no more this late in the season you’d think they’d have the decency to get dressed the sepulchral a dressed man gave the table a brush with a cloth he carried then three. His head forward like an ill tempered scavenger bird can serve you anything but beer bosses orders okay.
Moose and nodded and the man went away then he turned watching the girl she was frightened she sat all alone plucking nervously at the red and white checkered tablecloth. She sat with her back to the light bunching the cloth up and a little foles then smoothing it out again. She groundout lipstick smoke cigarettes until the ashtray was spilling over mon sun began to watch the fear in her mind her fear grew and she thought that mike wasn’t gone for good the phone call wouldn’t take long and he’d be coming back any minute now and mike wouldn’t be satisfied and. Oh she was broken and a little bits yes mike wanted to see her on her knees begging him the killer kill me but don’t hurt joe it wasn’t his fault he’s just a kid he’s not twenty yeah mike. That would be a lie but mike had no way of knowing that joe would be twenty two on his next birthday. Although he looked eighteen and most there was no pity and mike but would he is pride let him hot rod and eighteen year old michael care michael kill him anyway. Joe couldn’t help falling in love with me but mike won’t care who a joke it out.
Mike was never young himself never a sweet kid like joe might kill the man when he was fourteen years old he spent seven years and a reformatory and the kids there were never young joe will be just one of those kids to mike. Fear kept growing. You couldn’t fight men like mike mike was strong and too many different ways when you ran a tavern with an upstairs room for special customers you had to be tough strong you sat in an office in when people came to you begging for favors she just laughed ten grand is and hey buddy.
My wheels are rig if you think they are get out at your funeral it’s your funeral mike would say laughing until tears came into his eyes. You couldn’t fight that kind of strength my could push his knuckles hard into the faces of people who owed him money and he’d never even been arrested my could take money crisp and new out of his wallet spread it out like a fan say to any girl crazy enough to give him a second glance my I’m interested in.
You honey get rid of him and come over to my table you could say worse things to girls to decent and self respecting the look at him at all. You can be so cold and hard nothing could ever heard you you could be mike golan day how could she have love such a man and drag joe window it a good kid who had made only one really bad mistake in his life.
The mistake of asking her to marry him she shivered with a chill of self loathing and turned her eyes hesitantly toward the big man and bathing trunks who sat alone by the door. For a moment she met the big man’s eyes and her fears seem to fade away she stared at him sunburn almost black muscles like a lifeguard all alone and not on the make when he returned her stare his eyes sparkled with friendly interest. But no suggestive flirtatious intent. He was to rugged be really handsome she thought but he wouldn’t have to start digging in his wallet to get a girl change tables either. Guiltily she remembered joe now I could only be joe then she saw joe end of the room he was deathly pale and he was coming straight toward her between the tables. Without pausing the way his chances of staying alive he passed a man and a woman who relished mike’s company enough to make them eager to act ugly for a daily handout they did not look up a josie passed but the man’s lips curled in a sneer and the woman whispered something that appeared to fan the flames. Names of her companions malice. Mike head friends friends who would never read on him well they’re police records remained in mike safe and they can count on him for protection she started to rise to go to joe and warn him that mike would be coming back but despair flooded her and the impulse the. I’d the way joe felt about her was a thing too big to stop joe saw her slim against the like and his thoughts were like the see surge wild unruly.
Maybe mike will give me maybe I’ll be dead by this time tomorrow maybe I’m crazy to love her the way I do her hair against the light a tumble mass of spun gold always a woman bothering me for as long as I can remember mauling and janice. Some good for me and somewhere bad you see a woman on the street walking ahead of you hips swaying and you think my don’t even know her name but I like to crush or in my arms my guess every guy feels like that about every pretty woman he sees even about some the marne so pretty.
But then you get to know and like a woman and you don’t feel that way so much you respect her and you don’t let yourself feel that way. Then something happens me lover so much it’s like the first time again but with a whole lot added new lover so much you die to make her happy.
Joe was shaking when he slipped into the chair left vacant by mike and reached out for both her hands I’m taking away tonight he said you’re coming with me. Joe was scared she knew but he didn’t want her to know his hands were like ice and is fear blended with her own fears their hands man he’ll kill your jaw you’ve got to forget me she sobbed I’m not afraid of him I’m stronger than you think he won’t dare come at me with a guy. On not here before all these people.
If he comes at me with his face I’ll hook a solid left to his jaw little stretch him out cold and she knew he wasn’t deceiving himself joe didn’t wanna die any more than she did. The man from time had an impulse to get up walk over to the too frightened children and comfort them with a reassuring smile. He sat watching feeling their fear beating and tumultuous waves into his brain. Fear in the minds of a boy and a girl because they desperately wanted one another. He looks steadily at them man his eyes spoke to them life is greater than you know if you could travel in time and see how great as man’s courage if you could see all of his triumphs over despair and grief and pain. You know that there is nothing to fear nothing at all come on he said quietly we’re getting out of here right now my cars outside and mike price to stop us ah fix him the boy and the girl walked toward the door together a young and extremely pretty girl and a boy.
Grown suddenly to the full stature of a man. Rather regretful he moans and watch them go as they reach the door the girl turned and smiled and the boy pause to and they both smiled suddenly at the man in the bathing trunks then they were gone. Lonesome got up as they disappear left the tavern it was dark when he reached the cabin he was dog tired and when he saw the seated man through the lighted window a great longing for companionship came upon him he forgot that he couldn’t talk to the man forgot the language. Each difficulty completely but before this insurmountable element occurred to him he was inside the cabin.
Once there he saw that the problem solved itself. The man was a writer and he had been drinking steadily for hours. So the man did all the talking not wanting or waiting for an answer.
A young ish handsome man he was with graying temples and keenly observant eyes. The instant he saw moon son he started to talk welcome stranger he said been taking a dip in the ocean I can’t say I’d enjoy this late in the season. Luna son was afraid at first that his silence might discourage the writer. What he did not know writers I it’s good to have someone to talk to the writer or and on I’ve been sitting here all day trying to write mile tell you something you may not know you can go to the finest hotels new an open case after case of the finest wine. And you still can’t get started sometimes the writers face seem suddenly to wage fear came into his eyes and he raised the bottle to his lips faced away from his guest as he drank. As if ashamed of what he must do to escape the spare every time he faced is fear he was trying to write himself back end of fame.
His greatest moment come years before when he is golden pen and glorified a generation of med caps. For one deathless moment his genius who carried him to the heights and a white blazer publicity had given him a halo of glory. Later had come lean and bitter years until finally his reputation dwindle like a gutted candle in a wintry room at midnight he could still write but now fear and remorse walked with him and will give him no peace. He was cruelly afraid most of the time. Moans and listen to the writers thoughts and heart stricken silence. Thought so tragic they seemed out of keeping with the natural and beautiful rhythms of his speech. He had never imagine that a sensitive an imaginative man an artist could be so completely abandoned by their society is genius to help to enrich.
Back and forth the rider paste bearing his in most thoughts. His wife was desperately ill and the future looked completely black how could he summoned the strength of will to go on let alone to right he said fiercely it’s all right for you to talk he stopped seeming to realize for the first time that the big man. And sitting in an easy chair by the window had made no attempt to speak. Which seemed incredible.
But the big man had listened in complete silence and with such quiet assurance that his silence had taken on and eloquence that inspired absolute trust he had always known there were a few people like that in the world people who sympathy and understanding you could take for. The. There was a fearlessness in such people which made them stand out from the crowd stone markers in a desert waste to lend assurance to a tired wayfarer by a sturdy permanence it’s son mirroring strength.
There were a few people like that in the world but you sometimes when a lifetime without meeting what. The big man sat there smiling at him calmly exuding the serenity of one it was seeing life from it’s tangled inaccessible roots outward and testifies from experience that the entire growth is sound.
The writer stop pacing suddenly andrew himself erect. As he stared into the big man’s eyes his fears seem to fade away. Confidence return to him like the surge of the see in great shining waves of creativeness. He knew suddenly that he could lose himself and his work again could tap the bright resonant bell of his genius until it’s golden voice rang out through eternity.
He had another great book in him. And it would get written now. It would get written you’ve helped me he almost shouted you’ve helped me more than you know I can’t tell you how grateful I am the you you don’t know what it means to be so paralyze with freight that you can’t write it all the man from time was silent but his eyes. Shown curiously.
The writer turned to a bookcase and removed a volume in a faded cover that had once been bright with rainbow colors me sat down and wrote an inscription on the fly leaf then he rose and handed the book to his visitor with a slight bow he was smiling now this was my first born here. 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 the fly leave. With warm gratefulness for a courage which brought back the sun. F scott fitzgerald. Loosen bowed his thanks turn and left the cabin.
Morning found him walking across fresh meadowlands with the do glistening on his bare head in broad street shoulders. They’d never find him he told himself hopelessly they’d never find him because time was to vas to pinpoint one man in such a vast waste of years the towering crests of each age might be visible but there could be no returning to one tiny insignia. Again spot in the mighty ocean of time.
As he walked his eyes search where the field and the winding road he’d followed into town. Only yesterday this road and seemed beckon and he had followed eager to explore an age so primitive that mental communication from mind mind had not yet replaced human speech.
Now he knew that the speech faculty which mankind in long outgrown would never cease to act as a barrier between himself and the men and women of this era of the best without it he could not hope define complete understanding and sympathy here.
He was still alone and soon winter would come and the sky will grow cold and empty. The time machine material I so suddenly before him that for an instant his mind refused to accept it as more than a torturing illusion conjured up by the turbulence of his thoughts all at once it towered in his path bright and shining and he move forward over the do drench gray.
Last until he was brought up short by a joy so overwhelming that it seemed to him that his heart muscle burst. Ru teller emerged from the machine with a gay little laugh as if he is stunned 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 do bright grass on tiptoe her sleep dark hair for. Calling to her shoulders.
An extraordinarily pretty girl the be the wife of a man so tormented you found me his thoughts exalted you came back alone and surged until you found me she nodded her eyes shining the so time wasn’t too vast to pinpoint after all. Not when two people were so securely wedded in mind and heart that their thoughts could build a bridge across time the bureau of emotional adjustment analyzed everything I told them your psycho graph rand fifty seven pages.
But it was you’re desperate loneliness 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 know man or woman can conquer it alone historians tell us that when the first passenger rocket started out for mars space fear took men by surprise.
In the same way your fear grip you the loneliness the utter desolation of space was too much for a human mind to indoor she smiled her love. We’re going back will face it together and we’ll conquer it together.
You won’t be alone now darling don’t you see it’s because you aren’t a clod because you’re sensitive and imaginative the to experience fear it’s not anything to be ashamed of you were simply the first man on earth to develop a new and completely different kind of free. Year time fear. Moons and put out his hand and gently touched his wife’s hair. Ascending end of the time observatory a thought came unbidden into his mind. Others he saved him so he could not save.
But that wasn’t true at all now he could help himself now he would never be alone again. One guided by the sure handle love and complete trust self knowledge could be a shining weapon. The trip back might be difficult but holding tight to his wife’s hand he felt no misgivings no fear. Oh man from time by frank male lab law. In two days on the last psi phi podcast a kind of peace had endured for a century.
People have forgotten anything else was like. They would scarcely have known how to react had they discovered that are kind of war and finally gone. Let’s get together.