Shock III Part 3

'Mary,' he said, 'you know John Randall has travelled five years and I've travelled a hundred. Why do you start worrying now?'

She closed her eyes. Tm not just starting,' she murmured. 'I've been in agony ever since you men invented that a" that thing.''

Her shoulders twitched and she began to cry again. He gave her his handkerchief with a helpless look on his face.

'Listen,' he said, 'do you think John would let me go if there was any danger? Do you think Doctor Phillips would?'

'But why you?' she asked. 'Why not a student?'

'We have no right to send a student, Mary.'

She looked out at the campus, plucking at the handkerchief.

'I knew it would be no use talking,' she said.

He had no reply.

'Oh, I know it's your job,' she said, 'I have no right to complain. It's just that -' She turned to him. 'Robert, don't lie to me. Will you be in danger. Is there any chance at all that youa won't come back?'

He smiled rea.s.suringly. 'My dear, there's no more risk than there was the other time. After all it's -' He stopped as she pressed herself against him.

There'd be no life for me without you,' she said. 'You know that. I'd die.'

'Shhh,' he said. 'No talk of dying. Remember there are two lives in you now. You've lost your right to private despair.' He raised her chin with his hand. 'Smile?' he said. For me? There. That's better. You're much too pretty to cry.'

She caressed his hand.

'Who told you?' he asked.

'I'm not snitching,' she said with a smile. 'Anyway, the one who told me a.s.sumed that I already knew.'

'Well, now you know,' he said. 'I'll be back for supper. Simple as that.' He started to knock the ashes out of his pipe. 'Any errand you'd like me to perform in the twenty-fifth century?' he asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his lean mouth.

'Say h.e.l.lo to Buck Rogers,' she said, as he pulled out his watch. Her face grew worried again, and she whispered, 'How soon?'

'About forty minutes.'

'Forty min -' She grasped his hand and pressed it against her cheek. 'You'll come back to me?' she said, looking into his eyes.

'I'll be back,' he said, patting her cheek fondly. Then he put on a face of mock severity.

'Unless,' he said, 'you have something for supper I don't like.'

He was thinking about her as he strapped himself into a sitting position in the dim time chamber.

The large, gleaming sphere rested on a base of thick conductors. The air crackled with the operation of giant dynamos.

Through the tall, single-paned windows, sunlight streamed across the rubberized floors like out flung bolts of gold cloth. Students and instructors hurried in and out among the shadows, checking, preparing Transposition T-3. On the wall a buzzer sounded ominously.

Everyone on the floor made their final adjustments, then walked quickly to the large, gla.s.s-fronted control room and entered.

A short, middle-aged man in a white lab coat came out and strode over to the chamber. He peered into its gloomy interior.

'Bob?' he said, 'you want to see me?'

'Yes,' Wade said. 'I just wanted to say the usual thing. On the vague possibility that I'm unable to return, I-'

'Usual thing!' snorted Professor Randall. 'If you think there's any possibility of it at all, get out of that chamber. We're not that interested in the future.' He squinted into the chamber. 'You smiling?' he asked. 'Can't see clearly.'

'I'm smiling.'

'Good. Nothing to worry about. Just keep strapped in, mind your p's and q's and don't go flirting with any of those Buck Rogers women.'

Wade chuckled. 'That reminds me,' he said. 'Mary asked me to say h.e.l.lo to Buck Rogers. Anything you'd like me to do?'

'Just be back in an hour,' growled Randall. He reached in and shook hands with Wade. 'All strapped?'

'All strapped,' Wade answered.

'Good. We'll bounce you out of here in, uh -' Randall looked up at the large red-dialled clock on the firebrick wall. 'In eight minutes. Check?'

'Check,' Wade said. 'Say good-bye to Doctor Phillips for me.'

'Will do. Take care, Bob.'

'See you.'

Wade watched his friend walk back across the floor to the control room. Then, taking a deep breath, he pulled the thick circular door shut and turned the wheel locking it. All sound was cut off.

'Twenty-four seventy-five, here I come,' he muttered.

The air seemed heavy and thin. He knew it was only an illusion. He looked quickly at the control board clock. Six minutes. Or five? No matter. He was ready. He rubbed a hand over his brow. Sweat dripped from his palm.

'Hot,' he said. His voice was hollow, unreal.

Four minutes.

He let go of the bracing handle with his left hand and, reaching into his back pants pocket, he drew out his wallet. As he opened it to look at Mary's picture, his fingers lost their grip, and the wallet thudded on the metal deck.

He tried to reach it. The straps held him back. He glanced nervously at the clock. Three and a half minutes. Or two and a half? He'd forgotten when John had started the count.

His watch registered a different time. He gritted his teeth. He couldn't leave the wallet there. It might get sucked into the whirring fan and be destroyed and destroy him as well.

Two minutes was time enough.

He fumbled at the waist and chest straps, pulled them open and picked up the wallet. As he started to re-buckle the straps, he squinted once more at the clock. One and a half minutes. Or a"

Suddenly the sphere began to vibrate.

Wade felt his muscles contract. The slack waist band snapped open and whipped against the bulkhead. A sudden pain filled his chest and stomach. The wallet fell again.

He grabbed wildly for the bracing handles, exerted all his strength to keep himself pressed to the seat.

He was hurled through the universe. Stars whistled past his ear. A fist of icy fear punched at his heart.

'Mary!' he cried through a tight, fear bound throat.

Then his head snapped back against the metal. Something exploded in his brain, and he slumped forward. The rus.h.i.+ng darkness blotted out consciousness.

It was cool. Pure, exhilarating air washed over the numbed layers of his brain. The touch of it was a pleasant balm to him.

Wade opened his eyes and gazed fixedly at the dull grey ceiling. He twisted his head to follow the drop of the walls. Slight twinges fluttered in his flesh. He winced and moved his head back to its original position.

'Professor Wade.'

He started up at the voice, fell back in hissing pain.

'Please remain motionless, Professor Wade,' the voice said.

Wade tried to speak but his vocal chords felt numb and heavy.

'Don't try to speak,' said the voice. 'I'll be in presently.'

There was a click, then silence.

Slowly Wade turned his head to the side and looked at the room.

It was about twenty feet square with a fifteen foot ceiling. The walls and ceiling were of a uniform dullish grey. The floor was black; some sort of tile. In the far wall was the almost invisible outline of a door.

Beside the couch on which he lay was an irregularly shaped three-legged structure. Wade took it for a chair.

There was nothing else. No other furniture, pictures, rugs, or even source of light. The ceiling seemed to be glowing. Yet, at every spot he concentrated his gaze, the glow faded into l.u.s.treless grey.

He lay there trying to recall what had happened. All he could remember was the pain, the flooding tide of blackness.

With considerable pain he rolled onto his right side and got a shaky hand into his rear trouser pocket.

Someone had picked his wallet up from the chamber deck and put it back in his pocket. Stiff-fingered, he drew it out, opened it, and looked at Mary smiling at him from the porch of their home.

Thef door opened with a gasp of compressed air and a robed man entered.

His age was indeterminate. He was bald, and his wrinkleless features presented an unnatural smoothness like that of an immobile mask.

'Professor Wade/ he said.

Wade's tongue moved ineffectively. The man came over to the couch and drew a small plastic box from his robe pocket. Opening it, he took out a small hypodermic and drove it into Wade's arm.

Wade felt a soothing flow of warmth in his veins. It seemed to unknot ligaments and muscles, loosen his throat and activate his brain centres.

'That's better,' he said. 'Thank you.'

'Quite all right,' said the man, sitting down on the three-legged structure and sliding the case into his pocket. 'I imagine you'd like to know where you are.'

'Yes, I would.'

'You've reached your goal professor a" 2475 -exactly.'

'Good. Very good,' Wade said. He raised up on one elbow. The pain had disappeared. 'My chamber,' he said, 'Is it all right?'

'I dare say,' said the man. 'It's down in the machine laboratory.'

Wade breathed easier. He slid the wallet into his pocket.

'Your wife was a lovely woman,' said the man.

'Was?' Wade asked in alarm.

'You didn't think she was going to live five hundred years, did you?' said the man.

Wade looked dazed. Then an awkward smile raised his lips.

'It's a little difficult to grasp,' he said. 'To me she's still alive.'

He sat up and put his legs over the edge of the couch.

'I'm Clemolk,' said the man. 'I'm an historian. You're in the History Pavilion in the city Greenhill.'

'United States?'

'Nationalist States,' said the historian.

Wade was silent a moment. Then he looked up suddenly and asked, 'Say, how long have I been unconscious?'

'You've been "unconscious", as you call it, for a little more than two hours.'

Wade jumped up. 'My G.o.d,' he said anxiously, 'I'll have to leave.'

Clemolk looked at him blandly. 'Nonsense,' he said, 'Please sit down.'

'But-'

'Please. Let me tell you what you're here for.'

Wade sat down, a puzzled look on his face. A vague uneasiness began to stir in him.

'Here for?' he muttered.

'Let me show you something,' Clemolk said.