My Shipmate-Columbus Part 2

There was a silence. The tape went on winding. For a moment, Danny thought that was all. Then the voice continued: "No, your old grand-uncle isn't nuts, Danny. It's a time machine. I know it's a time machine because I used it all my life. You expected some kind of complicated gadget down here, I know. I made everybody think it was a gadget. Going down to your bas.e.m.e.nt and tinkering with a gadget is fine in our culture. h.e.l.l's fire, boy, it's approved behavior. But locking a bank-vault door behind you and curling up in a steamer trunk, that isn't approved. Now, is it?

"I'll tell you about this here time machine, sonny. It isn't a machine at all, in the strict sense of the word. You can see that. It's just--well, an empty box. But it works, and what else ought a fellow to care about.

"Funny how I got it. I was eighteen or twenty, maybe. And my Grand-uncle Daniel gave it to me. Daniel, get me. Daniel to Averill to Daniel. So when you have a grand-nephew, see that his name's Averill, understand? Keep it going, Danny. Because this trunk is old. A lot older than you think.

"And you can travel through time in it. Don't look at me like that, I know what you're thinking. There isn't any such thing as time travel. In the strict sense of the word, it's impossible. You can't resurrect the past or peek into the unborn future. Well, I don't know about the future, but I do know about the past. But you got to have faith, you got to be a kid at heart, Danny. You got to have this dream, see?

"Because you don't travel anywhere. But your mind does, and it's like you wake up in somebody else's body, drawn to him like a magnet, somebody else--some_when_ else. Your body stays right here, you see. In the trunk. In what they called suspended animation. But you--the real you, the you that knows how to dream and to believe--you go back.

"Don't make the mistake I made at first. It's no dream in the usual sense of the word. It's real, Danny. You're somebody else back there, all right, but if he gets hurt, you get hurt. If he dies--taps for Danny Jones! You get me?"

The dead man's voice chuckled. "But don't think this means automatically you'll be able to travel through time. Because you got to have the proper att.i.tude. You've got to believe in yourself, and not in all the historical fictions they give you. Now do you understand? If you're skeptical enough and if at the same time you like to dream enough--that's all it takes. Want to try it?"

Suddenly the voice was gone. That was all there was and at first Danny could not believe it. A sense of bitter disappointment enveloped him--not because Uncle Averill had left him nothing but an old steamer trunk but because Uncle Averill had been, to say the least, off his rocker.

The fabulous machine in the bas.e.m.e.nt was--nothing.

Just a steamer trunk and an incredible story about time-traveling.

Danny sighed and began to walk back toward the cellar stairs. He paused.

He turned around uncertainly and looked at the trunk. After all, he had promised; at least he'd promised himself that he'd carry out his peculiar uncle's wishes. Besides, he'd come all the way down here from Whitney College and he ought to at least try the machine.

But there wasn't any machine.

Try the trunk then? There was nothing to try except curling up in it and maybe closing the lid. Uncle Averill was a practical joker, too. It might be just like Uncle Averill to have the lid snap shut and lock automatically so Danny would have to pound his knuckles black and blue until the lawyer heard and came for him.

You see, sonny? would be Uncle Averill's point. You believed me, and you should have known better.

Danny cursed himself and returned to the trunk. He gazed down at the yawning interior for a few seconds, then put first one foot, then the other over the side. He sat down and stared at a peeling blue-paper liner. He rolled over and curled up. The bottom of the trunk was a good fit. He reached up and found a rope dangling down toward him. He pulled the lid down, smiling at his own credulity, and was engulfed in total darkness.

But it would be wonderful, he found himself thinking. It would be the most wonderful thing in the world, to be able to travel through time and see for yourself what really had happened in all the world's colorful ages and to take part in the wildest, proudest adventures of mankind.

He thought, I want to believe. It would be so wonderful to believe.

He also thought about his history cla.s.s. He did not know it, but his history cla.s.s was very important. It was crucial. Everything depended on his history cla.s.s. Because he doubted. He did not want to take Columbus'

bravery and intelligence for granted. There were no surviving doc.u.ments, so why should he?

Maybe Columbus was a third-rater!

Maybe--at least you didn't have to wors.h.i.+p him as a hero just because he happened to discover ...

Now, what did he discover?

In absolute darkness and a ringing in the ears and far away a dim glowing light and larger and brighter and the whirling whirling spinning flas.h.i.+ng I don't believe but strangely somehow I have faith, faith in myself, buzzing, humming, glowing ...

The world exploded.

There was a great deal of laughter in the tavern.

At first he thought the laughter was directed at him. Giddily, he raised his head. He saw raw wood rafters, a leaded gla.s.s window, a stained and greasy wall, heavy wood-plank tables with heavy chairs and a barbarous-looking crew drinking from heavy clay mugs. One of the mugs was in front of him and he raised it to his lips without thinking.

It was ale, the strongest ale he had ever tasted. He got it down somehow without gagging. The laughter came again, rolling over him like a wave.

A serving girl scurried by, skirts flas.h.i.+ng, a rough tray of clay mugs balanced expertly on one hand. A man with a sword dangling at his side staggered to his feet drunkenly and clawed at the girl, but she shoved him back into his seat and kept walking.

The third wave of laughter rolled and then there was a brief silence.

"Drink too much, Martin Pinzon?" Danny's companion at the long board-table asked. He was an evil-looking old man with a patch over one eye and a small white spade-shaped beard and unshaven cheeks.

"Not me," Danny said, amazed because the language was unfamiliar to him yet he could both understand and speak it. "What's so funny?" he asked.

"Why's everyone laughing?"

The old man's hand slapped his back and the mouth parted to show ugly blackened teeth and the old man laughed so hard spittle spotted his beard. "As if you didn't know," he managed to say. "As if you didn't know, Martin Pinzon. It's that weak-minded sailor again, the one who claims to have a charter for three caravels from the Queen herself.

Drunk as Bacchus and there's his pretty little daughter trying to get him to come home again. I tell you, Martin Pinzon, if he isn't ..."

But now Danny wasn't listening. He looked around the tavern until he saw the b.u.t.t of all the laughter. Slowly, drawn irresistibly, Martin Pinzon--or Danny Jones--got up and walked over there.

The man was drunk as Bacchus, all right. He was a man perhaps somewhat taller than average. He had a large head with an arrogant beak of a nose dominating the face, but the mouth was weak and irresolute. He stared drunkenly at a beautiful girl who could not have been more than seventeen.

The girl was saying, "Please, papa. Come back to the hotel with me.

Papa, don't you realize you're sailing tomorrow?"

"Gowananlemebe," the man mumbled.

"Papa. Please. The Queen's charter--"

"I was drunk when I took it and drunk when I examined those three stinking caravels and--" he leaned forward as if to speak in deepest confidence, but his drunken voice was still very loud--"and drunk when I said the world was round. I--"

"You hear that?" someone cried. "Old Chris was drunk when he said the world was round!"

"He must a' been!" someone else shouted. Everyone laughed.

"Come on, papa," the girl pleaded. She wore a shawl over her dress and another shawl on her head. Her blonde hair barely peeked out, and she was beautiful. She tried to drag her father to his feet by one arm, but he was too heavy for her.

She looked around the room defiantly as the laughter surged again.

"Brave men!" she mocked. "A bunch of stay-at-homes. Won't somebody help me? Papa sails tomorrow."

"Papa sails tomorrow," said someone, miming her desperate tones. "Didn't you know that papa sails tomorrow?"

"Not sailing anyplace at all," the father mumbled. "World isn't round.

Drunk. Think I want to fall over the edge? Think I--"

"Oh, papa," moaned the girl. "Won't someone help me to--" And she tugged again at the man's arm--"to get him to bed."

A big man nearby boomed, "I'll help you t'bed, me la.s.s, but it won't be with your old father. Eh, mates?" he cried, and the tavern echoed with laughter. The big man got up and went over to the girl. "Now, listen, la.s.s," he said, taking hold of her arm. "Why don't you forget this drunken slob of a father and--"