The Nick Of Time Part 2

"What a brave old world it is," said Cheryl. "I'm hungry."

Mihalik led her to the bench near the Washington statue, the one with the newspaper. They sat down; he held her hands in his strong grasp. "Cheryl," he said, "let me tell you of the nature of our imprisonment." And he sketched for her the immutable laws under which they had to live.

"Why, that's not so awful," she cried. "We can make a wonderful life together. We can overcome anything, so long as we have each other."

"But we can't build anything. At midnight, everything we've accomplished is destroyed, leaving us with nothing. We return to the same point in time and s.p.a.ce, and have to begin again."

Cheryl was not distressed. "I have confidence in you, Frank," she said. "Your mother told me what a clever little boy you were. She told me all about the summer you were a camp counselor and the time you found that lost little kid in the woods. I'll put my well-being in your hands and trust to providence that we'll be happy and healthy and everything. We'll earn money during the morning and spend it at night.

Then we'll get plenty of rest, maintain a regimen of good grooming habits, and get married somehow. It will be swell, Frank, don't you see? How many people get the opportunity to honeymoon in the past?"

Mihalik said nothing for a few seconds. "We don't have any identification, Cheryl," he said. "We don't have our birth certificates or our nucleotide registers."

"What does that matter? We're young and we're in love, and this is the romantic past. These people of 1939 will move mountains to see that we're happy, just like in all those musical comedies."

"We'll see." Actually, Mihalik was touched by her faith. He didn't explain to her his theory that they had been trapped as a punishment for tampering with the mechanisms of time. He had come to believe that there were certain things that should not be messed with by the hands of men. He was sure that he was being punished, but he didn't know by whom -- people of the far future? Nature? G.o.d? The Hershey Chocolate Company?

Cheryl was enthralled by the possibilities. "We have the chance to influence our own world, Frank,"

she said, indicating that she hadn't been paying close attention. "We can create an atmosphere of harmony and understanding, and steer the world away from the terrible course it will take without our guidance. We can start right here, right in this Fair. We can give them a new path to follow that will alter the future. Can't you see it, Frank? Right over there, among those statues, there will rise a tall, sharp, clean building that will teach these primitives what they must learn if they are to avoid their fatal errors. I can see it as plain as day: a s.p.a.cious central court decorated with cement swans, artistic but disciplined exhibition areas on both sides, every surface a different material, everything in cool pastel colors, a tribute to the after-dinner mint and Necco Wafers and--"

Mihalik slapped her face, hard; she stopped rambling. "I'm sorry," he said. "But if we're going to live in this place, we have to keep a deadly realistic outlook."

"Yes, dear, I understand," she said. "Maybe we should just forget about the Necco Wafers."

"I have been thinking about leaving notes for people in the future to discover. They buried a time capsule in the Westinghouse Building. It will be opened in the year 6939."

Cheryl felt her jaw; nothing seemed broken. "6939? But we'll be dead by then, Frank," she said.

Mihalik nodded grimly. "I know that. But no doubt they will have perfected time travel, and they will be able to zip back here and rescue us, then drop us off in 1996 on the way back to their own era."

"If that were true, they would have done it already. The fact that they haven't rescued us means thatthey won't rescue us."

Mihalik considered her objection. "But we haven't left the note yet," he said.

Cheryl explained it to him slowly, as if he were just another dim bulb from the past. "It's all the same whether we leave the note today or tomorrow or ten years from now. The note will get to 6939 at the same time, whenever we put it into the capsule, see?"

Mihalik squinted his eyes and tried to focus on her meaning. "Let's suppose I plan to put the note there this afternoon."

"Okay."

"At the moment I'm walking toward the time capsule, up there in the future it's already 6939."

"That's right."

"And the note is already there."

"Uh huh."

"Then why do I have to bother putting the note in the capsule?"

Cheryl chewed her lip thoughtfully. She had been an adhesives major in college and it hadn't prepared her for this sort of reasoning. "Because," she said, "if you look at it that way, the note was in 6939 even before you came back here. The note has always been in 6939, but it hasn't always been here. So you have to put the note in the capsule here before they can come get us."

Mihalik pretended that her explanation made sense. "But at midnight everything we do disappears.

The note would disappear, too."

"Maybe it wouldn't," said Cheryl. "Maybe it would be safe in the time capsule."

"How are we going to get it into the time capsule?" asked Mihalik.

She looked exasperated. "I don't know," she snapped. "Why do I have to think of everything? You're the big hotshot explorer. You think of something for a change."

"Here comes Roman," he said. "I'll get us money for lunch."

The World of Tomorrow Delivers the Goods There was no way for Mihalik to know how long he had been trapped in Thursday, July 27, 1939. It had been many months, but whether they totaled a year he did not know. Cheryl had been with him for at least six weeks, and she had adjusted to the routine of life. Indeed, she seemed to have a quicker grasp of the possibilities than he did. It was her suggestion that prompted him to give Dr. Zach Marquand another call.

And so, at quarter past twelve on the afternoon of July 27, Mihalik, Cheryl, and Dr. Marquand rode the subway out to the Fair -- to Manana Meadow, as it was called, to view A Happier Way of American Living Through a Recognition of the Interdependence of Men and the Building of a Better World of Tomorrow with the Tools of Today. They had virtually kidnapped the scientist, bribing him with bits of information, luring him with hints of the future. He hadn't visited the fair yet, anyway, and like the hayseed from Indiana, he had heard all about the attractions that featured swell dames.

They got off the train and paid their way into the Fairgrounds. "Now watch closely," said Mihalik.

"Do you see that man over there? In about five seconds he's going to take off his suit coat and a wallet will fall on the ground."

Dr. Marquand said nothing. In a few seconds, just as Mihalik described, the coat came off and the wallet fell. "How did you know that?" asked Marquand.

Mihalik shrugged. "I've seen it happen again and again, every day at just this hour. I've lived through this day hundreds of times. I know exactly what is going to happen. Look, quickly, over there. That kid with the candy cigarette in his mouth is going to lose his balloon. See? And in about ten seconds a band will start playing some march."

"'The Thunderer,'" said Cheryl.

"Great Caesar's Ghost!" cried Dr. Marquand when the band started playing. "You've persuaded me.

You are indeed travelers from the future. But how can I help you?"

They walked slowly along the avenue, past the statues of the Four Freedoms. "The crew in our timegave me a message," said Cheryl. "They haven't been able to return Frank and me to our own era because they can't overcome something they call temporal inertia. No matter how much energy they pump into their apparatus, they can't budge us from the past. That has to be done from this side. What you have to do is find some way of giving us just a tiny shove, and then the people in 1996 will be able to recover us easily."

Dr. Marquand stared at a young woman straightening the seams of her silk stockings. "Then what we need is a source of great energy," he said, "enough energy to topple you out of the s.p.a.ce-time trap. Too bad we don't have that cobalt bomb you told me about."

Mihalik stopped to win a dollar from a young married couple he had come to know and like. He told them their names, their address, the names of their parents, the years they graduated from high school, whom they voted for in the last election, where they had spent their honeymoon, and the location of a strawberry birthmark on the young woman's body. He came back and gave the dollar to the scientist.

"Does it have to be something like an explosion?" he asked. "Maybe they could drop us off a building or something."

"I'd rather be blown up all at once," said Cheryl.

"I suspect," said Dr. Marquand, "that there's something here at the Fair that would serve us. Let me think.... I've seen pictures in the newspaper -- I know! The General Electric Building! Let's go."

Cheryl wanted to pick up a souvenir for Ray, who would be disappointed if they returned without bringing him anything. She chose a pickle pin from the Heinz Dome. "He'll like this," she said. For herself, she found a pin in the General Motors Futurama that said I Have Seen the Future. It was poignantly appropriate.

"He'll get a kick out of the pickle pin," said Mihalik.

The two chronoventurers walked hand in hand. Mihalik took the opportunity to say goodbye to all the people he'd come to know here on Day One; of course, none of them knew who he was, but they all acted polite, if uncomfortable.

"What a sweet age this is," murmured Cheryl. "How they slumber unaware. There are no monostellaphen.a.z.ide leaks, no Chou-Tsien plague, no tick worms in the Midwest, no signals from Sinus to worry about."

"It isn't all wonderful," said Marquand. "We have our share of worries, too."

Mihalik paused to take a last look around the Fair. "It's been wonderful," he said, "but I kind of look forward to not knowing what's going to happen next. Dr. Marquand, do you want us to tell you what is going to happen in your world?"

The scientist thought for a moment. "It would give me a peculiar responsibility," he said. "It could be a terrible secret to know ahead of time, a fearful curse. But why not? What the h.e.l.l, go ahead. Tell me."

Mihalik and Cheryl took turns filling in the history of the world, as much as they could recall, from 1939 to 1980. Mihalik was able to remember some of the winners of certain sporting events as well as financial trends during those decades. "In 1980, the presidential election will be won by Ronald Rea--"

"Who cares?" said Marquand. "I'll probably be dead by then. Here we are, the General Electric exhibit."

They went in. Dr. Marquand's reputation allowed them to examine the machinery used in the demonstrations of artificial lightning -- really just a static electricity generator that produced dramatic displays of metal-vaporizing and timber-shattering. The centrepiece of the demonstration was an arc of ten million volts that leaped thirty feet from one pole to another. "Gee," murmured Cheryl.

"Yes," said Dr. Marquand soberly, "science is our friend; but we must be careful, for without a sense of responsibility the playthings we create may become our deadliest enemies."

"Like nuclear energy, for instance," said Mihalik.

"Well," said the physicist, "I was thinking of the martini and the gimlet, myself. There won't be another exhibition here for almost fifteen minutes. Let's position you on that target pole and whip a couple of bolts at you. That ought to do the trick."

Cheryl slipped her hand into Mihalik's. "Are you afraid?" she whispered. "Not at all," said Mihalik. He laughed in the face of death.

"If this doesn't work," said Dr. Marquand respectfully, "it will char you into a little pile of black powder. You're a very brave man."

Mihalik laughed again. "We'll try anything, sir," he said. "We're from the future."

"Yes, I keep forgetting. Okay, hold still. I'm all ready here. Before you go, however, there's something I want to ask you. Do you know which of all the different versions of today will be the real one? The one everyone will remember?"

Mihalik shook his head. Cheryl had no answer, either.

"Another thing," asked Marquand. "Why do sweets play such an important part in your lives? Is there some situation in the future that makes candy more valuable than it is today?"

Mihalik looked at Cheryl. "Dr. Marquand," he said, "we can't answer that, either. All we know is that over the years the manufacturers have become immensely powerful. It began during the Second World War, I think. We don't know how or why, but something started civilization on the road to what, in 1996, amounts to a virtual sucrocracy. It is a mystery that baffles our historians."

"Thank you," said Marquand. "I will watch the trend carefully. Knowing about it will guarantee me security in my old age. Now hold very still--"

The technology of the past exploded upon Mihalik and Cheryl; ten million volts of blazing lightning smote them, but all they experienced was a flicker of amber light....

With an echo of thunder in their ears, they fell to the floor. Both were dazed and groggy. They opened their eyes. They were no longer in the General Electric Building. They were now in a small room that appeared to be someone's office. There was a desk and a filing cabinet, a telephone, a typewriter on a small stand, and a framed picture of the Man from Mars -- the chairman of the candy company who had become boss of the world years ago. "We're back," whispered Mihalik. "Such a miracle as this is evidence of the secret hand of Providence governing the world, that the eye of an infinite power searches into the remotest corner of s.p.a.ce and time, and sends help to the miserable whenever it pleases."

"Well," said Cheryl, "I give a lot of credit to Dr. Marquand, too."

"Or else it was all just a lucky accident. I wonder whatever happened to Marquand, that primitive genius. We will have to find out. But for now it's enough just to rejoin our world and our own time. Ray will be glad to see us; I have to admit that I've missed his ugly mug. Say, did those pins come with you through time?"

Cheryl opened her hand; the souvenirs were gone. "He'll understand," she said sadly. "Maybe I dropped them."

"Tough break, kid."

"I wonder about something, Frank. Do you suppose that our telling Dr. Marquand about candy could be what actually began the trend? That somehow we influenced our own present by going into the past?"

"You mean that if we hadn't told him about it, when we came back here it would all be some other way?"

Cheryl nodded.

"What difference does it make?" he asked. "If it hadn't been candy, it would have been something else. Something worse, like green vegetables or fossil fuels."

"You're right, Frank. I'm lucky to be your girlfriend." Mihalik smiled.

They went to the door of the office. He put his hand on the k.n.o.b. "We've left the sepia-tinted days of yesteryear," he said. "It was fun and it was terrifying, but now we're safely home. Once we step through this door, we'll be back in our very own dull, drab, nougat-centered, cavity-p.r.o.ne World of Tomorrow."

"Can't you wait just a moment?" asked Cheryl. She pressed her warm, moist lips against his in a lingering kiss.

Mihalik pulled away. "No," he said decisively, "I'd like to stay here with you, but I have a duty to the project. I'm crazy about you, Cheryl, but you must respect my moral obligation."

"I do, Frank, really. I'm sorry for acting so foolish." So together they left the office and walked into the uncertainty of the rest of their lives. That, in the final a.n.a.lysis, is the great adventure in which each of us takes part: what more courageous thing is there, after all, than facing the unknown we all share, the danger and joy that await us in the unread pages of the Book of the Future....

Book Two

1361 A.D. Considered as a Row of Tenements

A Slight Miscalculation?

When they walked through the door, the returning time travelers were greeted by a roomful of people.

Colorful streamers hung from the glowing panels overhead; blue and white crepe paper decorated the edges of a row of tables, on which lay trays of hors d'oeuvres and bowls of punch; like tinted snow, handfuls of confetti drifted gaily down on the heroes' shoulders. It was a glorious moment, fit for song, laughter, and drunkenness; but there was also history to consider.

Frank Mihalik and Cheryl were entirely surprised and pleased by the reception. They stood like n.o.ble statues for a moment, poised, speechless; Mihalik was still considering history, and laboring mightily to come up with something memorable to say. The people in the room cheered and cheered. Cheryl tugged at Mihalik's sleeve and whispered, "Say something." Mihalik's mind was blank, a condition invariably induced in him by those two terrible words: Say something! He felt like an idiot, and he was glad that it was such a spectacular occasion, because no one would really notice how foolish he looked.

"Hi, everybody," he said. "It's nice to be back." At least six people scribbled down his exact words, for they would quickly be carved into the pediments of town halls and the cornerstones of libraries newly dedicated to the first volunteer to travel into the past and return.

His words, as simple and straightforward as the man himself, set off another round of cheering. By now Mihalik was beginning to get control of himself. He had always handled himself well in front of crowds; that had been part of his training after he had been selected as the first chrononaut. He had studied certain aspects of public relations: waving confidently to camera crews; flashing brief determined smiles that bespoke courage; suddenly becoming modest and even self-effacing on an instant's notice. All these things were the difficult part of his instruction. Traveling through time was the easy part; all he had to do was sit in a chair and be struck by some kind of ray.

Mihalik raised one hand, and the shouting died away. "Say," he said, smiling briefly, "can I get something to drink? A little gin, if you've got it. Beer, if you don't. Cheryl?"

She was still looking around the room with wide eyes. It hadn't occurred to her before that she was a hero, too. "Oh, just some soda water," she said. Neither she nor Mihalik was used to luxury, or even comfort. In their impoverished world of 1996, a bottle of beer was something to remember for days.

Yet both celebrities saw that there was a buffet spread for them more elaborate than anything they had ever seen. Mihalik looked past the appetizers and saw standing rib roasts and baked hams, huge turkeys stuffed and waiting for the carver's blade, pans of succulent vegetables keeping warm, all set for the preliminaries to end and the real festivities to begin. "Look," he murmured.

"Gee, I know," whispered Cheryl. "It's some layout."