The Star Diaries Page 16

  “I’d like to hear something a little more specific first—what I really don’t understand is why they didn’t simply send me a delegate of that institute instead of you—I mean, myself. How did you—that is, how did I—get there in the first place?”

  “That I’ll explain at the end and separately. As for the main business, you remember of course Molteris, that poor man who invented a manual time traveling device and, wishing to demonstrate it, perished miserably, for he aged to death immediately upon takeoff?”

  I nodded.

  “There will be more such attempts. Every new technology entails casualties in its initial stages. Molteris had invented a one-seat time buggy without any shields. He was doing exactly what the medieval peasant did, who climbed the church steeple with his wings and killed himself on the spot. In the 23rd century there were—or rather, from your standpoint, will be—clockcars, calendar sedans and syncoscooters, but the real chronomotive revolution will only begin three hundred years later, thanks to men I will not name—you’ll meet them personally. Time travel over short distances is one thing, expeditions deep into the millennia quite another. The difference is more or less like that between going for a stroll downtown and journeying to the stars. I come from the Age of Chronotraction, Chronomotion and Telechronics. There have been mountains of nonsense written about traveling in time, just as previously there were about astronautics—you know, how some scientist, with the backing of a wealthy businessman, goes off in a corner and slaps together a rocket, which the two of them—and in the company of their lady friends, yet—then take to the far end of the Galaxy. Chronomotion, no less than Astronautics, is a colossal enterprise, requiring tremendous investments, expenditures, planning … but you’ll find this out for yourself when you get there, that is, at the proper time. Enough now of the technical aspect. The important thing is the purpose behind it; we haven’t gone to all this trouble just so someone can frighten Pharaohs or kill his own great-great-grandfather. The social structure of Earth has been regulated, the climate also, in the 27th century—from which I come—things are so good, they couldn’t possibly be better, but our history remains a constant source of aggravation to us. You know the state it’s in; high time, then, we put it into shape!”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said, my ears humming. “You’re not happy with history? Well, but what difference does that make? I mean, it’s not something you can change, is it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s precisely THEOHIPPIP that heads our list of priorities. I already told you, Teleotelechronistic-Historical Engineering to Optimize the Hyperputerized Implementation of Paleological Programming and Interplanetary Planning. For World History to be regulated, cleaned up, straightened out, adjusted and perfected, all in accordance with the principles of humanitarianism, rationalism and general esthetics. You can understand, surely, that with such a shambles and slaughterhouse in one’s family tree it’s awkward to go calling on important cosmic civilizations!”

  “The regulation of the Past?…” I said, dumbfounded.

  “Yes. If need be, alterations will be made even before the rise of man, so that he arises better. The necessary funds have already been gathered, however the post of General Director of the Project is still vacant. Everyone’s frightened off by the risks connected with that job.”

  “There aren’t any volunteers?” My astonishment was growing by the minute.

  “Those days are gone, where every jackass wants to rule the world. Without the proper qualifications no one’s anxious to take on a difficult assignment. Consequently the position remains unfilled, yet the matter is pressing!”

  “But I don’t know a thing about it. And why me, of all people?”

  “You’ll have whole staffs of specialists at your disposal. Anyway the technical side of it will not be your concern; there are many different plans of action, different proposals, policies, methods, what’s needed are carefully thought-out, responsible decisions. And I—that is, you—are to make them. Our Hyperputer examined by psychoprobe every man who ever lived, and concluded that I—you—are the only hope of the Project.”

  After a long pause I said:

  “This is, I can see, a serious business. Perhaps I will accept the position, and then again, perhaps I won’t. World History, h’m! That’ll take a little thought. But how did it happen that I was the one—that is, that you were the one—to approach me? I certainly didn’t go anywhere in time. It was only yesterday that I got back from the Hyades.”

  “Obviously!” he interrupted. “After all, you’re the earlier me! When you accept the offer, I’ll give you the chronocycle, and you’ll go where—that is, when—you’re supposed to.”

  “That’s not an answer to my question. I want to know how you ended up in the 27th century.”

  “I got there on a time vehicle, how else? And then, from there, I came to your here and now."

  “Yes, but if I didn’t take any time vehicle anywhere, then you too, who are me…”

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m later than you, so you can’t possibly know now what’s going to happen to you after you take off for the 27th century.”

  “You’re evading the issue!” I muttered. “Look, if I accept this offer, I go straight to the 27th century. Right? There I direct this Theohippip thing and so on. But where do you come into the pic—”

  “We can go on this way all night! Round and round. Look, here’s what. Ask Rosenbeisser, let him explain it to you. He’s the authority on time anyway, not me. Besides, this problem, hard though it may be to grasp, and time loops are always like that, is nothing in comparison with my mission—with your mission, that is. It’s a Historic Mission we’re talking about, after all! So what do you say? Is it agreed? The chronocycle will work. It wasn’t damaged, I checked.”

  “Chronocycle or no, I can’t just up and go like this.”

  “You have to! It’s your duty! You must!”

  “Ho ho! None of that must talk with me, if you please! You know how I dislike it. I will if I want to, when I’m convinced the situation demands it of me. Who is this Rosenbeisser?”

  “Research Director at ITS. He’ll be your top assistant.”

  “ITS?”

  “The Institute of Temporal Studies.”

  “And what if I refuse?”

  “You can’t refuse … you won’t do that … it would mean, well, it would mean that you hadn’t the courage…”

  A smile seemed to flicker on his lips as he said these words. This made me suspicious.

  “Really. And why is that?”

  “Because … eh, I can’t explain it to you. It has to do with the structure of time itself.”

  “Nonsense. If I don’t agree, then I don’t go anywhere, and thus this Rosenbeisser of yours will explain nothing to me, nor will I be regulating any history.”

  I said this partly to gain time, since one doesn’t make such important decisions at the drop of a hat, but also because, though I was completely in the dark as to why he—that is, I—was the one who came to me, I had the funny feeling that there was some catch, some deception involved here.

  “I’ll give you my answer in forty-eight hours!” I said.

  He began to urge me to decide at once, but the more he insisted, the more suspicious I became. Eventually I even started having doubts about his identicality with me. He could have been, after all, an agent in disguise! As soon as that occurred to me, I resolved to test him. The trick was to think of some secret that was unknown to any but myself.

  “Why does the numbering of the voyages in my Star Diaries contain gaps?” I shot the question at him.

  “Ha ha!” he laughed. “So now you don’t believe in me? The reason is, old boy, that some of the journeys took place in space, and some in time, therefore there can never be a first; you could always go back to when there were none and set out somewhere, then the one that had been first would become the second, and so on, ad infinitum!”

  That was right. However a few persons did
have knowledge of this—though true, they were my trusted friends from Professor Tarantoga’s Tichological Club; I asked, then, to see some identification. His papers were all in order, though that still proved nothing; papers can easily be falsified. He weakened my skepticism considerably by being able to sing everything that I was wont to sing while—and only while—traveling great distances, all alone; I noticed however that in the refrain of “Shooting star, shooting star!” he was terribly off key. I told him this; he took offense and said that I was the one who always sang off key, not he. Our conversation, till now reasonably peaceful, turned into an argument, then a violent quarrel, finally he got me so furious that I ordered him out of the house. This was said in anger, I didn’t actually mean it, yet he rose without another word, marched upstairs, put his chronocycle into position, sat on it like a bike, moved something or other, and in a twinkling of an eye had vanished in a cloud of smoke, or more precisely a puff, as if from a cigarette. That too was gone in a minute—all that remained was the pile of books strewn every which way. I stood there, feeling foolish, for this I hadn’t expected, and by the time he’d started preparing to leave I couldn’t very well have backed down. Mulling it over a moment or two, I turned around and went back to the kitchen, since we had been talking for three hours at least and I felt hungry again. There were still a couple of eggs in the icebox, a strip of bacon too, but when I turned on the gas and began frying them up, a terrible crash resounded on the second floor.

  I was so startled, I ruined the eggs; they flopped out, bacon fat and all, right into the flame—while I, cursing everything under and above the sun, rushed upstairs three steps at a time.

  Not a single book was left on the shelves; the remainder lay in a huge heap, from under which he clambered out, dragging the chronocycle after him with difficulty, for he had fallen on top of it.

  “And what is this supposed to mean?!” I shouted, livid.

  “I’ll explain in a minute … wait…” he mumbled, pulling the chronocycle over to the lamp. He inspected it, preoccupied, not even bothering to offer an excuse for this second intrusion. This was really too much.

  “You could at least apologize!!” I yelled, beside myself.

  He smiled. He set aside the chronocycle, that is, propped it against the wall, found the pipe, filled it with my tobacco, lit it, crossing his legs, until I saw red.

  “Of all the nerve!!” I screamed. So far I hadn’t budged, but swore he’d be black-and-blue before I was through with him. Playing practical jokes on me, and in my own home!

  “Oh come now,” he said, and yawned. It was plain he didn’t feel at fault. And yet he had just dumped the rest of my books all over the floor!

  “That was unintentional,” he observed, puffing away. “The chronocycle skidded again…”

  “But why did you return?”

  “I had to.”

  “Had to??”

  “We are, my dear boy, in a circle of time,” he calmly said. “Presently I’ll be urging you to accept the position of general director. If you refuse, I’ll take my leave, be back before long, and the whole thing will start from the beginning…”

  “That’s impossible! We’re in a closed curve in time?”

  “Precisely.”

  “I don’t believe you! If that were true, everything we say and do would have to be an exact, word-for-word and blow-by-blow repetition, and what I’m saying now, and what you’re saying, is no longer completely the same as the first time!!”

  “There are all sorts of old wives’ tales told about traveling in time,” he said, “and the one you’ve mentioned is among the most ridiculous. In a time circle everything must follow a similar course, but not at all the same, since closure in time, much as closure in space, does not by any means rule out freedom of action, it only limits it severely! If you accept the offer and depart for the year 2661, the circle will thereby be transformed into an open loop. But should you refuse and kick me out again, I’ll only return and … well, you know what the result will be!”

  “So I have no alternative?!” I said, boiling. “Yes, from the very first something told me there was double-dealing at the bottom of this! Out of my house! Out of my sight!!”

  “Don’t be an ass,” he replied coldly. “What happens depends entirely on you now, not on me, or to put it more accurately, Rosenbeisser’s people have shut the loop—locked it—on the both of us, and we'll stay stuck in here until you agree to be director!”

  “Some ‘offer,’ this!” I shouted. “And what if I just whop the living daylights out of you?”

  “You’d only have the same dished out to you when the time came. It’s your choice—turn down the offer, and we can amuse ourselves like this for the rest of our natural lives…”

  “Is that so! I’ll lock you in the cellar and go where I damn well please!”

  “Like as not, I’d be doing the locking, since I’m stronger!”

  “Oh?”

  “You should only know. The food they serve in the year 2661 is a great deal more nourishing than here—than now—you wouldn’t last a minute with me.”

  “We’ll see about that…” I growled, rising from the chair. He didn’t budge.

  “I know furjoto,” he casually remarked.

  “What’s that?”

  “A form of perfected judo from the year 2661. I’d put you out of action in a second.”

  I was infuriated, but my many experiences in life had taught me to control even the most violent passions. And so, having talked to him—that is, to myself—I reached the conclusion that there really was no way out of it. Besides, this historic mission waiting in the future, it accorded with my views as well as with my personality. The coercion was the only thing that I resented, however I realized it was not with him—a pawn—that I ought to deal, but with those whom he represented.

  He showed me how to operate the chronocycle, gave me a few pointers, so I climbed into the saddle and was going to tell him to clean up after himself and also call the carpenter to fix the bookshelves, but didn’t have time, for he pushed the starter. Then he, the light of the lamp, the entire room, everything disappeared, as if blown out. Beneath me the machine, that metal rod with its widened, funnel-like exhaust in the back, shook, at times jumping so violently I had to grip the handlebars with all my strength to keep from falling off; I couldn’t see a thing, but only had the sensation as though someone were rubbing my face and body with a wire brush; when it seemed that my headlong rush into time was growing excessive, I pulled the brake, whereupon shadowy shapes emerged from out of the swirling blackness.

  These were enormous buildings of some sort, now bulging, now slender, and I flew right through them like the wind through a picket fence. Each such passage seemed to threaten collision with a wall, I instinctively shut my eyes and turned up the speed again—that is, the tempo. A couple of times the machine kicked so much that my head jerked and teeth rattled. At one point I experienced a change, difficult to describe, it was like being in some thick, syrupy medium, in glue that was hardening; the thought occurred to me that I was now passing through a barrier which might eventually become my grave, and that I and the chronocycle would be trapped, both frozen in concrete like some strange insect in amber. But again there was a lurch forward, the chronocycle quivered, and I landed on something elastic, which yielded and swayed. The machine slipped out from under me, a burst of white light hit me in the eyes; I had to close them, blinded.

  When I opened them again, a hum of voices surrounded me. I was lying in the middle of a large disk of foam plastic that was painted with concentric circles like a target; the overturned chronocycle was resting nearby, and all around stood men, several dozen of them, in glittering jumpsuits. A short, balding towhead stepped onto the mattress of the disk, helped me up and shook my hand repeatedly while saying:

  “Glad to have you aboard! Rosenbeisser.”

  “Tichy,” I automatically replied. I looked around. We were standing in a hall as big as a city, win
dowless, with a sky-blue ceiling hung high overhead; spread out in a row, one after the other, were disks, exactly like the one on which I had landed, some empty, some bustling with activity; I won’t deny that I had a few biting remarks prepared for the benefit of Rosenbeisser and the other creators of that temporal net they’d used to haul me from my home, but I said nothing, for suddenly I realized just what this vast hall reminded me of. It was like being in a gigantic Hollywood studio! Three men in armor filed by; the first had a peacock plume on his helmet, a gilded buckler, laboratory assistants adjusted the jewel-encrusted medallion on his chest, a doctor administered an injection in the knight’s uncovered forearm, someone else quickly fastened the cuirass straps, he was given a two-handed sword and a wide cloak emblazoned with griffins; the other two, clad in simple steel, squires probably, were already seated on the saddles of their chronocycle at the center of the target, while a voice from a loudspeaker boomed: “Attention please … twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”

  “What’s this?” I asked, bewildered, for at the same time—about thirty feet away—there was a procession of emaciated dervishes in enormous white turbans; they were getting injections too, and a technician was arguing with one of them, it seems the traveler had been caught with a small pistol concealed beneath his burnoose; I saw Indians in war paint wielding freshly sharpened tomahawks, laboratory assistants frantically straightening their feather headdresses, and on a small wooden cart an attendant in a white apron was pushing towards another disk a dreadfully filthy, tattered beggar without legs, who bore a striking resemblance to those monstrous cripples out of Breughel.

  “Zero!” announced the loudspeaker. The three in armor on their chronocycle vanished in a faint flash which left a whitish vapor hanging in the air, not unlike the smoke from burnt magnesium: I was already familiar with that effect.

  “These are our poll-takers,” Rosenbeisser explained. “They study public opinion in various centuries, all statistical stuff you understand, strictly information gathering; so far no corrective steps have been initiated, we’ve been waiting for you!”