The Seeds of Time Read online

  I went on reflecting. Presently:

  ‘I shall have to get a job soon. That may make it difficult to keep a watch for them,’ I told her.

  ‘Job?’ she said.

  ‘In spite of what they say, two can’t live as cheap as one. And wives hanker after certain standards, and ought to have them – within reason, of course. The little money I have won’t run to them.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that, darling,’ Tavia assured me. ‘You can just invent something.’

  ‘Me? Invent?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. You’re already fairly well up on radio, aren’t you?’

  ‘They put me on a few radar courses when I was in the R.A.F.’

  ‘Ah! The R.A.F.!’ she said, ecstatically. ‘To think that you actually fought in the Second Great War! Did you know Monty and Ike and all those wonderful people?’

  ‘Not personally. Different arm of the Services,’ I said.

  ‘What a pity, everyone liked Ike. But about the other thing. All you have to do is to get some advanced radio and electronics books, and I’ll show you what to invent.’

  ‘You’ll – ? Oh, I see. But do you think that would be quite ethical?’ I asked, doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t see why not. After all the things have got to be invented by somebody, or I couldn’t have learnt about them at school, could I?’

  ‘I – er, I think I’ll have to think a bit about that,’ I told her.

  It was, I suppose, coincidence that I should have mentioned the lack of interruption that particular morning – at least, it may have been: I have become increasingly suspicious of coincidences since I first saw Tavia. At any rate, in the middle of that same morning Tavia, looking out of the window, said:

  ‘Darling, there’s somebody waving from the trees over there.’

  I went over to have a look, and sure enough I had a view of a stick with a white handkerchief tied to it, swinging slowly from side to side. Through field-glasses I was able to distinguish the operator, an elderly man almost hidden in the bushes. I handed the glasses to Tavia.

  ‘Oh, dear! Uncle Donald,’ she exclaimed. ‘I suppose we had better see him. He seems to be alone.’

  I went outside, down to the end of my path, and waved him forward. Presently he emerged, carrying the stick and handkerchief bannerwise. His voice reached me faintly: ‘Don’t shoot!’

  I spread my hand wide to show that I was unarmed. Tavia came down the path and stood beside me. As he drew close, he transferred the stick to his left hand, lifted his hat with the other, and inclined his head politely.

  ‘Ah, Sir Gerald! A pleasure to meet you again,’ he said.

  ‘He isn’t Sir Gerald, Uncle. He’s Mr Lattery,’ said Tavia.

  ‘Dear me. Stupid of me. Mr Lattery,’ he went on, ‘I am sure you’ll be glad to hear that the wound was more uncomfortable than serious. Just a matter of the poor fellow having to lie on his front for a while.’

  ‘Poor fellow – ?’ I repeated, blankly.

  ‘The one you shot yesterday.’

  ‘I shot?’

  ‘Probably tomorrow or the next day,’ Tavia said, briskly. ‘Uncle, you really are dreadful with those settings, you know.’

  ‘I understand the principles well enough, my dear. It’s just the operation that I sometimes find a little confusing.’

  ‘Never mind. Now you are here you’d better come indoors,’ she told him. ‘And you can put that handkerchief away in your pocket,’ she added.

  As he entered I saw him give a quick glance round the room, and nod to himself as if satisfied with the authenticity of its contents. We sat down. Tavia said:

  ‘Just before we go any further, Uncle Donald, I think you ought to know that I am married to Gerald – Mr Lattery.’

  Dr Gobie peered closely at her.

  ‘Married?’ he repeated. ‘What for?’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Tavia. She explained patiently: ‘I am in love with him, and he’s in love with me, so I am his wife. It’s the way things happen here.’

  ‘Tch, tch!’ said Dr Gobie, and shook his head. ‘Of course I am well aware of your sentimental penchant for the Twentieth Century and its ways, my dear, but surely it wasn’t quite necessary for you to – er – go native?’

  ‘I like it, quite a lot,’ Tavia told him.

  ‘Young women will be romantic, I know. But have you thought of the trouble you will be causing Sir Ger – er, Mr Lattery?’

  ‘But I’m saving him trouble, Uncle Donald. They sniff at you here if you don’t get married, and I didn’t like him being sniffed at.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking so much of while you’re here, as of after you have left. They have a great many rules about presuming death, and proving desertion, and so on; most dilatory and complex. Meanwhile, he can’t marry anyone else.’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t want to marry anyone else, would you, darling?’ she said to me.

  ‘Certainly not,’ I protested.

  ‘You’re quite sure of that, darling?’

  ‘Darling,’ I said, taking her hand, ‘if all the other women in the world …’

  After a time Dr Gobie recalled our attention with an apologetic cough.

  ‘The real purpose of my visit,’ he explained, ‘is to persuade my niece that she must come back, and at once. There is the greatest consternation and alarm throughout the faculty over this affair, and I am being held largely to blame. Our chief anxiety is to get her back before any serious damage is done. Any chronoclasm goes ringing unendingly down the ages – and at any moment a really serious one may come of this escapade. It has put all of us into a highly nervous condition.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Uncle Donald – and about your getting the blame. But I am not coming back. I’m very happy here.’

  ‘But the possible chronoclasms, my dear. It keeps me awake at night thinking –’

  ‘Uncle dear, they’d be nothing to the chronoclasms that would happen if I did come back just now. You must see that I simply can’t, and explain it to the others.’

  ‘Can’t –?’ he repeated.

  ‘Now, if you look in the books you’ll see that my husband – isn’t that a funny, ugly, old-fashioned word? I rather like it, though. It comes from two ancient Icelandic roots –’

  ‘You were speaking about not coming back,’ Dr Gobie reminded her.

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, you’ll see in the books that first he invented submarine radio communication, and then later on he invented curved-beam transmission, which is what he got knighted for.’

  ‘I’m perfectly well aware of that, Tavia. I do not see –’

  ‘But, Uncle Donald, you must. How on earth can he possibly invent those things if I’m not here to show him how to do it? If you take me away now, they’ll just not be invented, and then what will happen?’

  Dr Gobie stared at her steadily for some moments.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I must admit that that point had not occurred to me,’ and sank deeply into thought for a while.

  ‘Besides,’ Tavia added, ‘Gerald would hate me to go, wouldn’t you, darling?’

  ‘I –’ I began, but Dr Gobie cut me short by standing up.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can see there will have to be a postponement for a while. I shall put your point to them, but it will be only for a while.’

  On his way to the door he paused.

  ‘Meanwhile, my dear, do be careful. These things are so delicate and complicated. I tremble to think of the complexities you might set up if you – well, say, if you were to do something irresponsible like becoming your own progenetrix.’

  ‘That is one thing I can’t do, Uncle Donald. I’m on the collateral branch.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, that’s a very lucky thing. Then I’ll say au revoir, my dear, and to you, too, Sir – er – Mr Lattery. I trust that we may meet again – it has had its pleasant side to be here as more than a mere observer for once.’

  ‘Uncle Donald, you’ve said a mouthful there,’
Tavia agreed.

  He shook his head reprovingly at her.

  ‘I’m afraid you would never have got to the top of the historical tree, my dear. You aren’t thorough enough. That phrase is early Twentieth Century, and, if I may say so, inelegant even then.’

  The expected shooting incident took place about a week later. Three men, dressed in quite convincing imitation of farmhands, made the approach. Tavia recognized one of them through the glasses. When I appeared, gun in hand, at the door they tried to make for cover. I peppered one at considerable range, and he ran on, limping.

  After that we were left unmolested. A little later we began to get down to the business of underwater radio – surprisingly simple, once the principle had been pointed out – and I filed my applications for patents. With that well in hand, we turned to the curved-beam transmission.

  Tavia hurried me along with that. She said:

  ‘You see, I don’t know how long we’ve got, darling. I’ve been trying to remember ever since I got here what the date was on your letter, and I can’t – even though I remember you underlined it. I know there’s a record that your first wife deserted you – “deserted”, isn’t that a dreadful word to use: as if I would, my sweet – but it doesn’t say when. So I must get you properly briefed on this because there’d be the most frightful chronoclasm if you failed to invent it.’

  And then, instead of buckling down to it as her words suggested, she became pensive.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I think there’s going to be a pretty bad chronoclasm anyway. You see, I’m going to have a baby.’

  ‘No!’ I exclaimed delightedly.

  ‘What do you mean, “no”? I am. And I’m worried. I don’t think it has ever happened to a travelling historian before. Uncle Donald would be terribly annoyed if he knew.’

  ‘To hell with Uncle Donald,’ I said. ‘And to hell with chronoclasms. We’re going to celebrate, darling.’

  The weeks slid quickly by. My patents were granted provisionally. I got a good grip on the theory of curved-beam transmission. Everything was going nicely. We discussed the future: whether he was to be called Donald, or whether she was going to be called Alexandria. How soon the royalties would begin to come in so that we could make an offer for Bagford House. How funny it would feel at first to be addressed as Lady Lattery, and other allied themes …

  And then came that December afternoon when I got back from discussing a modification with a manufacturer in London and found that she wasn’t there any more …

  Not a note, not a last word. Just the open front door, and a chair overturned in the sitting-room …

  Oh, Tavia, my dear …

  I began to write this down because I still have an uneasy feeling about the ethics of not being the inventor of my inventions, and that there should be a straightening out. Now that I have reached the end, I perceive that ‘straightening out’ is scarcely an appropriate description of it. In fact, I can foresee so much trouble attached to putting this forward as a conscientious reason for refusing a knighthood, that I think I shall say nothing, and just accept the knighthood when it comes. After all, when I consider a number of ‘inspired’ inventions that I can call to mind, I begin to wonder whether certain others have not done that before me.

  I have never pretended to understand the finer points of action and interaction comprehended in this matter, but I have a pressing sense that one action now on my part is basically necessary: not just to avoid dropping an almighty chronoclasm myself, but for fear that if I neglect it I may find that the whole thing never happened. So I must write a letter.

  First, the envelope:

  To my great, great grandniece,

  Miss Octavia Lattery.

  (To be opened by her on her 21st birthday. 6 June 2136.)

  Then the letter. Date it. Underline the date.

  My sweet, far-off, lovely Tavia,

  Oh, my darling …

  Time to Rest

  I

  The view was not much. To eyes which had seen the landscapes of Earth it was not a view at all so much as just another section of the regular Martian backdrop. In front and to the left smooth water spread like a silk sheet to the horizon. A mile or more to the right lay a low embankment with yellow-red sand showing through rush-like tufts of skimpy bushes. Far in the background rose the white crowns of purple mountains.

  In the mild warmth of noon Bert let his boat carry him along. Behind him, a fan of ripples spread gently and then lapsed back into placidity. Still further back the immense silence closed in again, and nothing remained to show that he had passed that way. The scene had scarcely changed for several days and several hundred miles of his quietly chugging progress.

  His boat was a queer craft. There was nothing else like it on Mars – nor any other place. For he had built it himself – and without knowing anything about the building of boats. There had been a kind of plan – well, a rough idea – in his head, at first, but he had had to modify that so many times that most of it had grown empirically from the plates and materials he had been able to find. The result had something of sampan, punt, and rain-water tank in its ancestry, but it satisfied Bert.

  He sprawled in comfortable indolence at the stern of his craft. One arm in a tattered sleeve hung over the tiller, the other lay across his chest. Long legs in patchwork trousers sprawled out to end in strange boots with canvas uppers and soles contrived of woven fibres; he had made those himself, too. The reddish beard on his thin face was trimmed to a point; above it his dark eyes looked ahead with little interest from under the torn, stained brim of a felt hat.

  He listened to the phut-phutting of the old engine as he might to the purr of a friendly cat; indeed, he thought of it as an old friend, bestowing upon it a kindly care to which it responded with grunts of leisurely goodwill as it bore him along. There were times when he talked to it encouragingly or told it the things he thought; it was a habit he did not approve of and which he curbed when he noticed it, but quite often he did not notice. He felt an affection for the wheezy old thing, not only for carrying him along thousands of miles of water, but because it kept the silence at bay.

  Bert disliked the silence which brooded over desert and water like a symptom of mortification, but he did not fear it. It did not drive him, as it did most, to live in the settlements where there was neighbourliness, noise, and the illusion of hope. His restlessness was stronger than his dislike of the empty lands; it carried him along when the adventurous, finding no adventure, had turned back or given in to despair. He wanted little but, like a gipsy, to keep moving.

  Bert Tasser he had been years ago, but it was so long since he had heard the surname that he had almost forgotten it: everybody else had. He was just Bert – for all he knew he was the only Bert.

  ‘Ought to be showing up soon,’ he murmured, either to the patient engine or himself, and sat up in order to see better.

  A slight change was beginning to show on the bank; a weed was becoming more frequent among the scrawny bushes, a slender-stalked growth with polished, metallic-looking leaves, sensitive to the lightest breath of wind. He could see them shivering with little flashes in increasing numbers ahead, and he knew that if he were to stop the engine now he would hear not the dead envelope of silence, but the ringing clash of myriads of small hard leaves.

  ‘Tinkerbells,’ he said. ‘Yes, it won’t be far now.’

  From a locker beside him he pulled a much-worn hand-drawn map, and consulted it. From it he referred to an equally well-used notebook, and read over the list of names written on one of the pages. He was still muttering them as he returned the papers to the locker and his attention to the way ahead. Half an hour passed before a dark object became visible to break the monotonous line of the bank.

  ‘There it is now,’ he said, as if to encourage the engine over the last few miles.

  The building, which had appeared oddly shaped even from a distance, revealed itself as a ruin on closer approach. The base was square and
decorated on the sides with formal patterns in what had once been high relief, but was now so smoothed that the finer details were lost. Once it had supported some kind of tower; though exactly what kind had to be guessed, for no more than the first twenty feet of the upper structure remained. It, too, bore remnants of worn carving, and, like the base, was built of a dusky red rock. Standing a hundred yards or so back from the bank, it was deceptive in its isolation. The size and the degree of misadventure which time and adaptation had brought it only became appreciable as one approached more closely.

  Bert held on his course until he was opposite before he turned his clumsy craft. Then he swung over and headed towards the bank at slow speed until he grounded gently on the shelving shore. He switched off the engine, and the indigenous sounds took charge; the tinny chime of the tinkerbells, a complaining creak from a ramshackle wheel turning slowly and unevenly a little to his left along the bank, and an intermittent thudding from the direction of the ruin.

  Bert went forward to the cabin. It was snug enough to keep him warm in the cold nights, but ill lit, for glass was hard to come by. Groping in the dimness he found a bag of tools and an empty sack, and slung them over one shoulder. He waded ashore through the few inches of water, drove in a hook to hold his boat against the unlikely chance of disturbance in the placid water, and turned with a long easy stride towards the building.

  To either side of the place and beyond it clustered a few small fields where neatly lined crops stood fresh and green among narrow irrigation ditches. Against one wall of the stone cube was an enclosure and a shed roughly built of irregular fragments which might have been part of the vanished tower. Despite its inexpert appearance it was neatly kept, and from beyond it came occasionally, the grunt of small animals. In the near face of the cube was a doorway, and to either side of it unsquare holes which, though glassless, appeared to be windows. Outside the door a woman was at work, pounding grain on a shallow worn rock with a kind of stone club which she held in both hands. Her skin was a reddish brown, her dark hair rolled high on her head, and her only garment a skirt of coarse russet cloth stencilled with a complex yellow pattern. She was middle-aged, but there was no slackening of muscles or deterioration of poise. She looked up as Bert approached, and spoke in the local patois: