Assignment In Eternity ( Collected Stories) Part 10

"This time I was wiser- Instead of leaving school, I found part-time work, graduated, continued as a graduate fellow, and eventually arrived where you now see me." He paused and glanced around.

"Doctor," asked young Monroe, "can you give us any idea as to how the stunt was done?"

'Yes, I can," Frost a.s.sented- "I worked on that problem for many years, trying to recapture the conditions. Recently I have succeeded and have made several excursions into possibility."

Up to this time the third woman, Estelle Martin, had made no comment, although she had listened with close attention. Now she leaned forward and spoke in an intense whisper.

"Tell us how, Professor Frost!"

"The means is simple. The key lies in convincing the subconscious mind that it can be done-"

"Then the Berkeleian idealism is proved!"

"In a way. Miss Martin. To one who believes in Bishop Berkeley's philosophy the infinite possibilities of two-dimensional time offer proof that the mind creates its own world, but a Spencerian determinist, such as good friend Howard Jenkins, would never leave the road of maximum probability. To him the world would be mechanistic and real. An orthodox free-will Christian, such as Miss Ross, would have her choice of several of the side roads, but would probably remain in a physical environment similar to Howard's.

"I have perfected a technique which will enable others to travel about in the pattern of times as I have done. I have the apparatus ready and any who wish can try it. That is the real reason why these Friday evening meetings have been held in my home-so that when the time came you all might try it, if you wished." He got up and went to a cabinet at the end of the room. "You mean we could go tonight. Doctor?" "Yes, indeed. The process is one of hypnotism and suggestion. Neither is necessary, but that is the quickest way of teaching the sub-conscious to break out of its groove and go where it pleases. I use a revolving ball to tire the conscious mind into hypnosis. During that period the subject listens to a recording which suggests the time-road to be followed, whereupon he does. It is as simple as that. Do any of you care to try it?"

"Is it likely to be dangerous. Doctor?" He shrugged his shoulders. "The process isn't- just a deep sleep and a phonograph record- But the world of the time track you visit will be as real as the world of this time track. You are all over twenty-one. I am not urging you, I am merely offering you the opportunity."

Monroe stood up. "I'm going, Doctor." "Good! Sit here and use these earphones. Anyone else?"

"Count me in." It was Helen Fisher.

Estelle Martin joined them. Howard Jenkins went hastily to her side. "Are you going to try this business?"

"Most certainly."

He turned to Frost. "I'm in. Doc."

Martha Ross finally joined the others. Frost seated them where they could wear the ear-phones and then asked, "You will remember the different types of things you could do; branch off into a different world, skip over into the past or the future, or cut straight through the maze of probable tracks on a path of extreme improbability. I have records for all of those."

Monroe was first again. "I'll take a right angle turn and a brand new world."

Estelle did not hesitate. "I want to- How did you put it?-climb up a bank to a higher road somewhere in the future."

"I'll try that, too." It was Jenkins.

"I'll take the remote-possibilities track," put in Helen Fisher.

"That takes care of everybody but Miss Ross," commented the professor. "I'm afraid you will have to take a branch path in probability. Does that suit you?"

She nodded. "I was going to ask for it."

"That's fine. All of these records contain the suggestion for you to return to this room two hours from now, figured along this time track. Put on your earphones. The records run thirty minutes. I'll start them and the ball together."

He swung a glittering many-faceted sphere from a hook in the ceiling, started it whirling, and turned a small spotlight on it. Then he turned off the other lights, and started all the records by throwing a master switch. The scintillating ball twirled round and round, slowed and reversed and twirled back again. Doctor Frost turned his eyes away to keep from being fascinated by it. Presently he slipped out into the hall for a smoke. Half an hour pa.s.sed and there came the single note of a gong. He hurried back and switched on the light.

Four of the five had disappeared.

The remaining figure was Howard Jenkins, who opened his eyes and blinked at the light. "Well, Doctor, I guess it didn't work."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "No? Look around you."

The younger man glanced about him. "Where are the others?"

"Where? Anywhere," replied Frost, with a shrug, "and way when."

Jenkins jerked off his earphones and jumped to his feet. "Doctor, what have you done to Estelle?"

Frost gently disengaged a hand from his sleeve. "I haven't done anything, Howard. She's out on another time track."

"But I meant to go with her!"

"And I tried to send you with her."

"But why didn't I go?"

"I can't say-probably the suggestion wasn't strong enough to overcome your skepticism. But don't be alarmed, son-we expect her back in a couple of hours, you know."

"Don't be alarmed!-that's easy to say. I didn't want her to try this d.a.m.n fool stunt in the first place, but I knew I couldn't change her mind, so I wanted to go along to look out for her-she's so impractical! But see here, Doc-where are their bodies? I thought we would just stay here in the room in a trance."

"Apparently you didn't understand me. These other time tracks are real, as real as this one we are in. Their whole beings have gone off on other tracks, as if they had turned down a side street."

"But that's impossible-it contradicts the law of the conservation of energy!"

"You must recognize a fact when you see one- they are gone. Besides, it doesn't contradict the law; it simply extends it to include the total universe."

Jenkins rubbed a hand over his face. "I suppose so. But in that case, anything can happen to her- she could even be killed out there. And I can't do a d.a.m.n thing about it. Oh, I wish we had never seen this d.a.m.ned seminar!"

The professor placed an arm around his shoulders. "Since you can't help her, why not calm down? Besides, you have no reason to believe that she is in any danger. Why borrow trouble? Let's go out to the kitchen and open a bottle of beer while we wait for them." He gently urged him toward the door.

After a couple of beers and a few cigarettes, Jenkins was somewhat calmed down. The professor made conversation.

"How did you happen to sign up for this course, Howard?"

"It was the only course I could take with Estelle."

"I thought so. I let you take it for reasons of my own. I knew you weren't interested in speculative philosophy, but I thought that your hard-headed materialism would hold down some of the loose thinking that is likely to go on in such a cla.s.s. You've been a help to me. Take Helen Fisher for example. She is p.r.o.ne to reason brilliantly from insufficient data. You help to keep her down to earth."

"To be frank. Doctor Frost, I could never see the need for all this highfalutin discussion. I like facts."

"But you engineers are as bad as metaphysicians- you ignore any fact that you can't weigh in scales. If you can't bite it, it's not real. You believe in a mechanistic, deterministic universe, and ignore the facts of human consciousness, human will, and human freedom of choice-facts that you have directly experienced."

'But those things can be explained in terms of reflexes."

The professor spread his Rands. "You sound just like Martha Ross-she can explain anything in terms of Bible-belt fundamentalism. Why don't both of you admit that there a few things you don't understand?" He paused and c.o.c.ked his head. "Did you hear something?"

"I think I did."

"Let's check. It's early, but perhaps one of them is back."

They hurried to the study, where they were confronted by an incredible and awe-inspiring sight.

Floating in the air near the fireplace was a figure robed in white and shining with a soft mother-of- pearl radiance. While they stood hesitant at the door, the figure turned its face to them and they saw that it had the face of Martha Ross, cleansed and purified to an unhuman majesty. Then it spoke.

"Peace be unto you, my brothers." A wave of peace and lovingldndness flowed over them like a mother's blessing. The figure approached them, and they saw, curving from its shoulders, the long, white, sweeping wings of a cla.s.sical angel. Frost cursed under his breath in a dispa.s.sionate monotone.

"Do not be afraid, I have come back, as you asked me to. To explain and to help you."

The Doctor found his voice. "Are you Martha Ross?"

"I answer to that name."

"What happened after you put on the ear-phones?"

"Nothing. I slept for a while. When I woke, I went home."

"Nothing else? How do you explain your appearance?"

"My appearance is what you earthly children expect of the Lord's Redeemed. In the course of time I served as a missionary in South America. There it was required of me that I give up my mortal me in the service of the Lord. And so I entered the Eternal City."

"You went to Heaven?"

"These many eons I have sat at the foot of the Golden Throne and sung hosannas to His name."

Jenkins interrupted them. "Tell me, Martha-or Saint Martha-Where is Estelle? Have you seen her?"

The figure turned slowly and faced him. "Fear not."

"But tell me where she is!"

"It is not needful."

"That's no help," he answered bitterly.

"I will help you. Listen to me; Love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and Love thy neighbor as thyself. That is all you need to know."

Howard remained silent, at a loss for an answer, but unsatisfied. Presently the figure spoke again. "I must go. G.o.d's blessing on you." It flickered and was gone.

The professor touched the young man's arm. "Let's get some fresh air." He led Jenkins, mute and unresisting, out into the garden. They walked for some minutes in silence. Finally Howard asked a question, "Did we see an angel in there?"

"I think so, Howard."

"But that's insane!"

*There are millions of people who wouldn't think so-unusual certainly, but not insane."

"But it's contrary to all modem beliefs-Heaven- h.e.l.l-a personal G.o.d-Resurrection. Everything I've believed in must be wrong, or I've gone screwy."

"Not necessarily-not even probably. I doubt very much if you will ever see Heaven or h.e.l.l. You'll follow a time track in accordance with your nature."

"But she seemed real."

"She was real. I suspect that the conventional hereafter is real to any one who believes in it wholeheartedly, as Martha evidently did, but I expect you to follow a pattern in accordance with die beliefs of an agnostic-except in one respect; when you die, you won't die all over, no matter how intensely you may claim to expect to. It is an emotional impossibility for any man to believe in his own death. That sort of self-annihilation can't be done. You'll have a hereafter, but it will be one appropriate to a materialist."

But Howard was not listening. He pulled at his under lip and frowned. "Say, doc, why wouldn't Martha tell me what happened to Estelle? That was a dirty trick."

"I doubt if she knew, my boy. Martha followed a time track only slightly different from that we are in; Estelle chose to explore one far in the past or in the distant future. For all practical purposes, each is non-existent to the other."

They heard a call from the house, a clear contralto voice, "Doctor! Doctor Frost!"

Jenkins whirled around. "That's Estelle!" They ran back into the house, the Doctor endeavoring manfully to keep up.

But it was not Estelle. Standing in the hallway was Helen Fisher, her sweater torn and dirty, her stockings missing, and a barely-healed scar puckering one cheek. Frost stopped and surveyed her. "Are you all right, child?" he demanded.

She grinned boyishly. "I'm okay. You should see the other guy."

Tell us about it."

"In a minute. How about a cup of coffee for the prodigal? And I wouldn't turn up my nose at scrambled eggs and some-lots-of toast. Meals are inclined to be irregular where I've been."

"Yes, indeed. Right away." answered Frost, "but where have you been?"

"Let a gal eat, please," she begged. "I won't hold out on you. What is Howard looking so sour about?"

The professor whispered an explanation. She gave Jenkins a compa.s.sionate glance. "Oh, she hasn't? I thought I'd be the last man in; I was away so long. What day is this?"

Frost glanced at his wrist watch. "You're right on time; it's just eleven o'clock."

"The h.e.l.l you say! Oh, excuse me. Doctor. 'Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.' All in a couple of hours. Just for the record, I was gone several weeks at least.'"

When her third cup of coffee had washed down the last of the toast, she began: "When I woke up I was falling upstairs-through a nightmare, several nightmares. Don't ask me to describe that-n.o.body could. That went on for a week, maybe, then things started to come into focus. I don't know in just what order things happened, but when I first started to notice clearly I was standing in a little barren valley. It was cold, and the air was thin and acrid. It burned my throat. There were two suns in the sky, one big and reddish, the other smaller and too bright to look at."

'Two suns!" exclaimed Howard. "That's not possible-binary stars don't have planets."

She looked at him. "Have it your own way-I was there. Just as I was taking this all in, something whizzed overhead and I ducked. That was the last I saw of that place.

"I slowed down next back on earth-at least it looked like it-and in a city. It was a big and complicated city. I was in trafficway with a lot of fast moving traffic. I stepped out and tried to flag one of the vehicles-a long crawling caterpillar thing with about fifty wheels-when I caught sight of what was driving it and dodged back in a hurry. It wasn't a man and it wasn't an animal either-not one I've ever seen or heard of. It wasn't a bird, or a fish, nor an insect. The G.o.d that thought up the inhabitants of that city doesn't deserve worship. I don't know what they were, but they crawled and they crept and they stank. Ugh!"

"I slunk around holes in that place," she continued, "for a couple of weeks before I recovered the trick of jumping the time track. I was desperate, for I thought that the suggestion to return to now hadn't worked. I couldn't find much to eat and I was lightheaded part of the time. I drank out of what I suspect was their drainage system, but there was n.o.body to ask and I didn't want to know. I was thirsty."

"Did you see any human beings?"

"I'm not sure. I saw some shapes that might have been men squatting in a circle down in the tunnels under the city, but something frightened them, and they scurried away before I could get close enough to look."

"What else happened there?"

"Nothing. I found the trick again that same night and got away from there as fast as I could-I am afraid I lost the scientific spirit. Professor-I didn't care how the other half lived.