It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient days that its enemy would come upon Thlunrana. And the date of its doom was known and the gate by which it would enter, yet none had prophesied of the enemy who he was save that he was of the gods though he dwelt with men. Meanwhile Thlunrana, that secret lamaserai, that chief cathedral of wizardry, was the terror of the valley in which it stood and of all lands round about it. So narrow and high were the windows and so strange when lighted at night that they seemed to regard men with the demoniac leer of something that had a secret in the dark. Who were the magicians and the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard of that furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded and cloaked completely in black.
The older man sat down on the grassy bank on the hill overlooking the orchard. The autumn sun was bright but the humidity was low and there was a breeze.
The younger man sprawled next to him.
“Cigarette?” he asked.
“Thanks,” said Roger Boynton. He looked across the valley, past the apple trees, to the fine white-columned house on the hill beyond. He smiled reminiscently. “A friend of mine once owned that house. A fellow commissioner in World Government. He and I used to sit on this very hill, sometimes. We’d munch on an apple or two that we’d picked on our way through the orchard. Winesaps, they’re called.”
“You were telling me about the colonizing,” said Allister gently, after a pause.
In the northern part of Austin there once dwelt an honest family by the name of Smothers. The family consisted of John Smothers, his wife, himself, their little daughter, five years of age, and her parents, making six people toward the population of the city when counted for a special write-up, but only three by actual count.
One night after supper the little girl was seized with a severe colic, and John Smothers hurried down town to get some medicine.
He never came back.
The little girl recovered and in time grew up to womanhood.
The mother grieved very much over her husband’s disappearance, and it was nearly three months before she married again, and moved to San Antonio.
The little girl also married in time, and after a few years had rolled around, she also had a little girl five years of age.
She still lived in the same house where they dwelt when her father had left and never returned.
One night by a remarkable coincidence her little girl was taken with cramp colic on the anniversary of the disappearance of John Smothers, who would now have been her grandfather if he had been alive and had a steady job.
“I will go downtown and get some medicine for her,” said John Smith (for it was none other than he whom she had married).
“No, no, dear John,” cried his wife. “You, too, might disappear forever, and then forget to come back.”
So John Smith did not go, and together they sat by the bedside of little Pansy (for that was Pansy’s name).
After a little Pansy seemed to grow worse, and John Smith again attempted to go for medicine, but his wife would not let him.
Suddenly the door opened, and an old man, stooped and bent, with long white hair, entered the room.
“Hello, here is grandpa,” said Pansy. She had recognized him before any of the others.
The old man drew a bottle of medicine from his pocket and gave Pansy a spoonful.
She got well immediately.
“I was a little late,” said John Smothers, “as I waited for a street car.”
William Sydney Porter (1862-1910) was a writer and poet who was better known by his pen name O. Henry. His short story, “A Strange Story” was first published in 1912 in the collection, Rolling Stones.
“That hand didn’t move, did it?” Edwardson asked, standing at the port, looking at the stars.
“No,” Morse said. He had been staring fixedly at the Attison Detector for over an hour. Now he blinked three times rapidly, and looked again. “Not a millimeter.”
“I don’t think it moved either,” Cassel added, from behind the gunfire panel. And that was that. The slender black hand of the indicator rested unwaveringly on zero. The ship’s guns were ready, their black mouths open to the stars. A steady hum filled the room. It came from the Attison Detector, and the sound was reassuring. It reinforced the fact that the Detector was attached to all the other Detectors, forming a gigantic network around Earth.
“Why in hell don’t they come?” Edwardson asked, still looking at the stars. “Why don’t they hit?”
BENEATH him the clovered hill-slope was warm in the sun. Northwest Smith moved his shoulders against the earth and closed his eyes, breathing so deeply that the gun holstered upon his chest drew tight against its strap as he drank the fragrance of Earth and clover warm in the sun. Here in the hollow of the hills, willow-shaded, pillowed upon clover and the lap of Earth, he let his breath run out in a long sigh and drew one palm across the grass in a caress like a lover’s.
EARTH was so far away that it wasn’t visible. Even the sun was only a twinkle. But this vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. Machines compiled dictionaries and grammars and began translating the major languages. The history of the planet was tabulated as facts became available.
The course of the ship changed slightly; it was not much out of the way to swing nearer Earth. For days the two within the ship listened and watched with little comment. They had to decide soon.
What they called me, that was what started it. I’m as good an American as the next fellow, and maybe a little bit better than men like that, big men drinking in a bar who can’t find anything better to do than to spit on a man and call him Mex. As if a Mexican is something to hide or to be ashamed of. We have our own heroes and our own strength and we don’t have to bend down to men like that, or any other men. But when they called me that I saw red and called them names back.
“Mex kid,” one of the men said, a big red-haired bully with his sleeves rolled back and muscles like ropes on the big hairy arms. “Snot-nosed little Mex brat.”
Before Williams went into the future he bought a camera and a tape recording-machine and learned shorthand. That night, when all was ready, we made coffee and put out brandy and glasses against his return. “Good-bye,” I said. “Don’t stay too long.” “I won’t,” he answered. I watched him carefully, and he hardly flickered. He must have made a perfect landing on the very second he had taken off from. He seemed not a day older; we had expected he might spend several years away. “Well?” “Well,” said he, “let’s have some coffee.” I poured it out, hardly able to contain my impatience. As I gave it to him I said again, “Well?” “Well, the thing is, I can’t remember.” “Can’t remember? Not a thing?” He thought for a moment and answered sadly, “Not a thing.” “But your notes? The camera? The recording-machine?” The notebook was empty, the indicator of the camera rested at “1” where we had set it, the tape was not even loaded into the recording-machine. “But good heavens,” I protested, “why? How did it happen? Can you remember nothing at all?” “I can remember only one thing.” “What was that?” “I was shown everything, and I was given the choice whether I should remember it or not after I got back.” “And you chose not to? But what an extraordinary thing to—” “Isn’t it?” he said. “One can’t help wondering why.”
W. Hilton Young (1923-2009) was a British writer and politician and the 2nd Baron Kennet. His short story, “The Choice”, was first published in the March 1952 issue of Punch.
There was no question that Montie Stein had, through clever fraud, stolen better than $100,000. There was also no question that he was apprehended one day after the statute of limitations had expired.
It was his manner of avoiding arrest during that interval that brought on the epoch-making case of the State of New York v. Montgomery Harlow Stein, with all its consequences. It introduced law to the fourth dimension.
For, you see, after having committed the fraud and possessed himself of the hundred grand plus, Stein had calmly entered a time machine, of which he was in illegal possession, and set the controls for seven years and one day in the future.
Cyborg Ink 