Our Children's Children

45

The kids out in the street might be the ones. Wilson told himself, with the right idea. There was some well-founded fascination in starting over once again, with the slate wiped clean and the record clear. Only trouble was, he thought, that even starting over, the human race might still repeat many of its past mistakes. Although, going back, it would take some time to make them and there'd be the opportunity, if the will were there, to correct them before they got too big, too entrenched and awkward.

Alice Gale had talked about the wilderness where the White House once had stood and Dr. Osborne, on the ride from Fort Myer to the White House, had expressed his doubt that the trend which had made the White House park a wilderness could be stopped — it had gone too far, he said. You are too top-heavy, he had said; you are off your balance.

Perhaps the trend had gone too far, Wilson admitted to himself — big government growing bigger; big business growing fatter and more arrogant; taxes steadily rising, never going down; the poor becoming ever poorer and more and more of them despite the best intentions of a welfare-conscious society; the gap between the rich and poor, the government and the public, growing wider by the year. How could it have been done differently, he wondered. Given the kind of world there was, how could circumstances have been better ordered?

He shook his head. He had no idea. There might be men who could go back and chart the political, economic and social growth and show where the errors had been made, putting their fingers on certain actions in a certain year and saying here is where we made one error. But the men who could do this would be theorists, working on the basis of many theories which in practice would not stand the test.

The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up.

"Mr. Wilson?"

"Yes."

"This is the guard at the southwest gate. There is a gentleman here who says that he must see you on a matter of importance. Mr. Thomas Manning. Mr. Bentley Price is with him. Do you know them, sir?"

"Yes. Please send them in."

"I'll send an escort with them, sir. You'll be in your office?"

"Yes. I'll wait here for them."

Wilson put the receiver back into its cradle. What could bring Manning here, he wondered. Why should he have to come in person? A matter of importance, he had said. And Bentley — for the love of God, why Bentley?

Was it, he wondered, something further about the UN business?

He looked at his watch. The cabinet meeting was taking longer than he'd thought. Maybe it was over and the President had gotten busy with some other matters. Although that would be strange — Kim ordinarily would have squeezed him in.

Manning and Bentley came into the room. The guard stopped at the door. Wilson nodded at him. "It's all right. You can wait outside."

"This is an unexpected pleasure," he said to the two, shaking their hands. "I seldom see you, Tom. And Bentley, I almost never see you."

"I got business elsewhere," Bentley said. "I get my legs run off. I'm running all the time."

"Bentley just got in from West Virginia," Manning said. "That's what this visit is about."

"There was this dog in the the road," said Bentley, "and then a tree came up and hit me."

"Bentley took a picture of a monster standing in the road," said Manning, "just as it disappeared."

"I got her figured now," said Bentley. "It saw the camera pointed at it and it heard it click. Them monsters don't stay around when they see something pointed at them."

"There was another report or, two of one disappearing," Wilson said. "A defense mechanism of some sort, perhaps. It's making it tough for the boys out hunting them."

"I don't think so," said Manning. "Forcing them to disappear may be as good as hunting them."

He unzipped a thin briefcase he was carrying and took out a sheaf of photos. "Look at this," he said.

He slid the top photo across the desk to Wilson.

Wilson took a quick look, then fixed his gaze on Bentley. "What kind of trick photography is this?" he asked.

"There ain't no tricks," said Bentley. "A camera never lies. It always tells the truth. It shows you what is there. That's what really happens when a monster disappears. I was using a fast film…"

"But dinosaurs!" yelled Wilson.

Bentley's hand dipped into his pocket and brought out an object. He handed it to Wilson. "A glass," he said. "Take a look with it. There are herds of them, off in the distance. You can't do tricks of that sort."

The monster was hazed, a sort of shadow monster, but substantial enough that there could be no doubt it was a monster. Back of it, the dinosaurs, three of them, were in sharp focus.

"Duckbills," said Manning. "If you showed that photograph to a paleontologist, I have every expectation he could give you an exact identification."

The trees were strange. They, looked like palm trees, others like gigantic ferns.

Wilson unfolded the magnifier, bent his head close above the photo, shifted the glass about. Bentley had been right. There were other strange creatures spread across the landscape, herds of them, singles, pairs. A small mammal of some sort cowered in hiding underneath a shrub.

"We have some blowups," Manning said, "of the background. Want to look at them?"

Wilson shook his head. "No, I'm satisfied."

"We looked it up in a geology book," said Bentley. "That there is a Cretaceous landscape."

"Yes, I know," said Wilson.

He reached for, the phone. "Kim," he said, "is Mr. Gale in his room? Thank you. Please ask him to step down."

Manning laid the rest of the photos on the desk. "They are yours," he said. "We'll be putting them on the wire. We wanted you to know first. You thinking the same thing that I am?"

Wilson nodded. "I suppose I am," he said, "but no quotation, please."

"We don't need quotes," said Manning. "The picture tells the story. The monster, the mother monster, I would suppose you'd call it, was exposed to the time travel principle when it came through the tunnel. The principle was imprinted on its mind, its instinct, whatever you may call it. It transmitted knowledge of the principle to the young — a hereditary instinct."

"But it took time tunnels, mechanical contraptions, by the humans to do it," Wilson objected. "It took technology and engineering…"

Manning shrugged. "Hell, Steve, I don't know. I don't pretend to know. But the photo says the monsters are escaping to another time. Maybe they'll all escape to another time, probably to the same time. The escape time bracket may be implanted on their instinct. Maybe the Cretaceous is a better place for them. Maybe they have found this era too tough for them to crack, the odds too great."

"I just thought of something," said Wilson. "the dinosaurs died out…"

"Yeah, I know," said Manning. He zipped the briefcase shut. "We better go," he said. "We have work to do. Thanks for seeing us."

"No, Tom," said Wilson. "The thanks are yours and Bentley's. Thanks for coming over. It might have taken days to get this puzzled out. If we ever did."

He stood and watched them go, then sat down again.

It was incredible, he thought. Yet it did make a lopsided sort of sense. Humans were too prone to think in human grooves. The monsters would be different. Again and again the people from the future had emphasized they must not be regarded as simple monsters, but rather as highly intelligent beings. And that intelligence, no doubt, would be as alien as their bodies. Their intelligence and ability would not duplicate human intelligence and ability. Hard as it might be to understand, they might be able to do by instinct a thing that a human would require a machine to accomplish.

Maynard Gale and Alice came into the room so quietly that he did not know they were there until he looked up and saw them standing beside the desk.

"You asked for us," said Gale.

"I wanted you to look at these," said Wilson. "The top one first. The others are detail blowups. Tell me what you think."

He waited while they studied the photos. Finally, Gale said, "This is the Cretaceous, Mr. Wilson. How was the photo taken? And what has the monster to do with it?"

"The photographer was taking a picture of the monster. As he took it, at the moment he took it, the monster disappeared."

"The monster disappeared?"

"This is the second report of one disappearing. The second that I know of. There may have been others. I don't know."

"Yes," said Gale, "I suppose that it is possible. They're not like us, you know. The ones that came through the tunnel experienced time travel — an experience that would have lasted for only a fraction of a second. But that may have been enough."

He shuddered. "If that is true, if after such an exposure, they are able to travel independently in time, if their progeny are able to travel independently in time, if they can sense and learn and master such a complex thing so well, so quickly, it's a wonder that we were able to stand up against them for these twenty years. They must have been playing with us, keeping us, protecting us for their sport. A game preserve. That is what we must have been. A game preserve."

"You can't be sure of that," said Wilson.

"No, I suppose not. Dr. Wolfe is the man you should consult about this. He would know. At least, he could make an educated guess."

"But you have no doubt?"

"None," said Gale. "This could be a hoax?"

Wilson shook his head. "Not Tom Manning. We know one another well. We worked on the Post, right here, together. We were drinking companion. We were brothers until this damn job came between us. Not that he has no sense of humor. But not in a thing like this. And Bentley. Not Bentley. The camera is his god. He would use it for no unworthy purpose. He lives and breathes his cameras. He bows down before them each night before he goes to bed."

"So then we have evidence the monsters flee into the past. Even as we fled."

"I think so," said Wilson. "I wanted your opinion. You know the monsters and we do not."

"You'll still talk with Wolfe?"

"Yes, we'll do that."

"There is another matter, Mr. Wilson, that we have wanted to talk with you about. My daughter and I have talked it over and we are agreed."

"What is that?" asked Wilson.

"An invitation," said Gale. "We're not sure you will accept. Perhaps you won't. We may even offend you with it. But many other people, I think, would accept the invitation. To many it would have a great attraction. I find it rather awkward to phrase it, but it is this: When we go back into the Miocene, if you wish to do so, you would be welcome to go along with us. With our particular group. We should be glad to have you."

Wilson did not move. He tried to find words and there were no words.

Alice said, "You were our first friend, perhaps our only real friend. You arranged the matter of the diamonds. You have done so many things."

She stepped quickly around the desk, bent to kiss him on the cheek.

"We do not need an answer now," said Gale. "You will want to think about it. If you decide not to go with us, we'll not speak of it again. The invitation, I think, is issued with the knowledge that in all probability, your people will be using the time tunnels to go back into an era some millions of years in the past. Much as it might be hoped, I have the feeling you will not be able to escape the crisis that overtook our ancestors (which are you, of course) on the original time track."

"I don't know," said Wilson. "I honestly do not know. You will let me think about it."

"Certainly," said Gale.

Alice bent close, her words a whisper. "I do so hope you'll decide to come with us," she said.

Then they were gone, as silently, as unobtrusively as they had come.

The dusk of evening was creeping into the room. In the press lounge a typewriter clicked hesitantly as the writer sought for words. Against the wall the teletypes muttered querulously. One button on Judy's phone console kept flashing. But not Judy's console anymore, he thought. Judy was gone. The plane that was taking her to Ohio was already heading westward.

Judy, he said to himself. For the love of God, what got into you? Why did you have to do it?

It would be lonely without her, he knew. He had not known until now, he realized, how much she had kept him from loneliness, had been a bulwark against the loneliness a man could feel even when with people he thought of as his friends. She had not needed to be with him, only the thought that she was somewhere nearby was quite enough to banish loneliness, to bring gladness to the heart.

She still would be near, he thought. Ohio was not distant; in this day, nowhere in the world was distant. Phones still worked and letters went by mail, but there was a difference now. He thought of how he might phrase a letter if he wrote her, but he knew he'd never write.

The phone rang. Kim said, "The meeting's over. He can see you now."

"Thank you, Kim," said Wilson. It had slipped his mind that he'd asked to see the President. It seemed so long ago, although it hadn't been. It just had been that so much had happened.

When he came into the office, the President said, "I'm sorry you were kept waiting, Steve. There was so much that had to be talked over. What is it that you have?"

Wilson grinned. "Not quite so grim as when I tried to reach you. I think it's better now. There was a rumor out of the U.N."

"This Russian business?"

"Yes, the Russian business. Tom Manning phoned. His UN man — Max Hale, you know him."

"I don't think I've ever met him. I read him. He is sound."

"Hale heard that the Russians would push for the international dropping of nuclear weapons on the areas where the monsters might be."

"I had expected something of this sort," said the President. "They'd never be able to pull it off."

"I think it's academic now, anyhow," said Wilson. "These just came in." He laid the photos on the desk. "Bentley Price took the shot."

"Price," said the President. "Is he the one…"

"He's the one all the stories are about. Drunk a good part of the time, but a top-notch photographer. The best there is."

The President studied the top photo, frowning. "Steve, I'm not sure I understand this."

"There's a story that goes with it, sir. It goes like this…"

The President listened closely, not interrupting. When Wilson finished, he asked. "You really think that's the explanation, Steve?"

"I'm inclined to think so, sir. So does Gale. He said we should talk with Wolfe. But there was no question in Gale's mind. All we have to do is keep pushing them. Push enough of them into the past and the rest will go. If there were more of them, if we had as few weapons as the people of five hundred years from now had when they first reached Earth, they probably would try to stay on here. We'd offer plenty of fighting, be worthy antagonists. But I think they may know when they are licked. Going back to the Cretaceous, they'll still have worthy opponents. Formidable ones. Tyrannosaurus rex and all his relatives. The Triceratops. The coelurosaurs. The hunting dinosaurs. Hand-to-hand combat, face-to-face. They might like that better than what humans have to offer. More glory in it for them."

The President sat thoughtfully silent. Then he said, "As I recollect, the scientists have never figured out what killed off the dinosaurs. Maybe now we know."

"That could be," said Wilson.

The President reached for the callbox, then pulled back his hand.

"No," he said. "Fyodor Morozov is a decent sort of man. What he did this morning was in the line of duty, on orders that he had to carry out. No use to phone him, to point it out to him. He'll find out when the picture hits the street. So will the people up at the UN. I'd like to see their faces. I'd say it spikes their guns."

"I would say so, sir," said Wilson. "I'll take no more of your time…"

"Stay for a minute, Steve. There's something you should know. A sort of precautionary knowledge. The question may come up and you should know how to field it. No more than half a dozen of our men know this and they won't talk. Neither will the future people. It's top secret, unofficially top secret. There is no record. State doesn't know. Defense doesn't know."

"I wonder, sir, if I should…"

"I want you to know," said the President. "Once you hear it you are bound by the same secrecy as the others. You've heard of the Clinton Chapman proposal?"

"1 have heard of it. I don't like it. The question came up this morning and I refused comment. Said it was only rumor and I had no knowledge of it."

"Neither do I like it," said the President. "But so far as I am concerned, he's going to be encouraged to go ahead. He thinks he can buy time travel; he thinks he has it in his hand; he can fairly taste it. I have never seen a more obvious case of naked greed. I'm not too sure his great, good friend Reilly Douglas may not have a touch of that same greed."

"But if it's greed…"

"It's greed, all right," said the President. "But I know something that he doesn't know and if I can manage it, he won't know it until it's too late to do him any good. And that is this: What the future people used was not time travel as we think of it; it is something else. It serves the same purpose, but it's not time travel as traditionally conceived. I don't know if I can explain this too well, but it seems there is another universe, coexistent with ours. The people of the future know it's there, but there is only one thing they really know about it. That is that the direction of time's flow in the second universe is exactly the opposite of ours. Its future flows toward our past. The people of the future traveled into their past by hooking onto the future flow of this other universe…"

"But that means…"

"Exactly," said the President. "It means that you can go into the past, but you can't come back. You can travel pastward, but not futureward."

"If Chapman knew this, the deal would be off."

"I suppose it would be. He's not proposing to build the tunnels from patriotic motives. Do you think badly of me, Steve, for my deception — my calculated dishonesty?"

"I'd think badly of you, sir, if there really were a chance for Chapman to do what he means to do and you did not stop him. This way, however, the world gets help and the only ones who are hurt are men who, for once, overreached themselves. No one will feel sorry for them."

"Someday," said the President, "it will be known. Someday my dishonesty will catch up with me."

"When it does," said Wilson, "and sometime, of course, it will, a great guffaw will go around the world. You'll be famous, sir. They'll build statues of you."

The President smiled. "I hope so, Steve. I feel a little sneaky."

"One thing, sir," said Wilson. "Just how tight is this secret of yours?"

"I feel it's solid," said the President. "The people you brought up from Myer told our National Academy people — only three of them. They reported back to me. The future scientists and the men who talked with them. To me alone. By this time, I had gotten wind of Chapman's deal and I asked them to say nothing. Only a few of the future scientists worked on the project that sent the people back; only a handful of them know what actually is involved. And as it happens, they all are here. Something like the diamonds. They all are here because they felt we were the one nation they could trust. The word has been passed along at Myer. The future scientists won't talk. Neither will our men"

Wilson nodded. "It sounds all right. You mentioned the diamonds. What became of them?"

"We have accepted temporary custody. They are locked away. Later, after all of this is over, we'll see what can be done with them. Probably rather discreet sales of them, with a suitable cover story provided. A few at a time. With the money put in escrow for later distribution to the other nations."

Wilson rose and moved toward the door. Halfway there, he stopped and turned. "I'd say, Mr. President, that it's going very well."

"Yes," said the President. "After a bad start, it is going well. There's still a lot to do, but we are on the way."

Someone was at Judy's desk when Wilson returned. The room was dark. There were only the flashing lights on the console and they were not being answered.

"Judy?" asked Wilson hesitantly. "Judy, is that you?" Knowing that it couldn't be, for by now she was probably landing in Ohio.

"I came back," said Judy. "I got on the plane and then got off again. I sat at the airport for hours, wondering what to do. You are a son of a bitch, Steve Wilson, and you know you are. I don't know why I got off the plane. Getting off, I don't know why I came here."

He strode across the room and stood beside her.

"You never asked me to stay. You never really asked me."

"But I did. I asked you."

"You were noble about it. That's the trouble with you. Noble. You never got down on your knees and begged me. And now my baggage is headed for Ohio and I…"

He reached down and lifted her from the chair, held her close.

"It's been a rough two days," he said. "It's time for the two of us to be going home."