Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 4 Read online

  Not-Too got pregnant. I could feel the puppies growing inside her distended belly.

  "Puppies will be easy to make behave correctly," I told Green, who said nothing. Probably he didn't understand. Some people need concrete visuals in order to learn.

  Eventually, it seemed to me that Ruff was almost ready for his own grub. I mulled over how to mention this to Green but before I did, everything came to an end.

  * * *

  Clang! Clang! Clang!

  I jerked awake and bolted upright. The alarm—a very human-sounding alarm—sounded all around me. Dogs barked and howled. Then I realized that it was a human alarm, coming from the Army camp outside the Dome, on the opposite side to the garbage dump. I could see the camp—in outline and faintly, as if through heavy gray fog. The Dome was dissolving.

  "Green—what—no!"

  Above me, transforming the whole top half of what had been the Dome, was the bottom of a solid saucer. Mangy, in her cage, floated upwards and disappeared into a gap in the saucer's underside. The other grub cages had already disappeared. I glimpsed a flash of metallic color through the gap: Blue. Green was halfway to the opening, drifting lazily upward. Beside me, both Not-Too and Ruff began to rise.

  "No! No!"

  I hung onto Not-Too, who howled and barked. But then my body froze. I couldn't move anything. My hands opened and Not-Too rose, yowling piteously.

  "No! No!" And then, before I knew I was going to say it, "Take me, too!"

  Green paused in mid-air. I began babbling.

  "Take me! Take me! I can make the dogs behave correctly—I can—you need me! Why are you going? Take me!"

  "Take this human?"

  Not Green but Blue, emerging from the gap. Around me the Dome walls thinned more. Soldiers rushed toward us. Guns fired.

  "Yes! What to do? Take this human! The dogs want this human!"

  Time stood still. Not-Too howled and tried to reach me. Maybe that's what did it. I rose into the air just as Blue said, "Why the hell not?"

  Inside—inside what?—I was too stunned to do more than grab Not-Too, hang on, and gasp. The gap closed. The saucer rose.

  After a few minutes, I sat up and looked around. Gray room, filled with dogs in their cages, with grubs in theirs, with noise and confusion and the two robots. The sensation of motion ceased. I gasped, "Where . . . where are we going?"

  Blue answered. "Home."

  "Why?"

  "The humans do not behave correctly." And then, "What to do now?"

  We were leaving Earth in a flying saucer, and it was asking me?

  * * *

  Over time—I have no idea how much time—I actually got some answers from Blue. The humans "not behaving correctly" had apparently succeeding in breaching one of the Domes somewhere. They must have used a nuclear bomb, but that I couldn't verify. Grubs and dogs had both died, and so the aliens had packed up and left Earth. Without, as far as I could tell, retaliating. Maybe.

  If I had stayed, I told myself, the soldiers would have shot me. Or I would have returned to life in the camp, where I would have died of dysentery or violence or cholera or starvation. Or I would have been locked away by whatever government still existed in the cities, a freak who had lived with aliens, none of my story believed. I barely believed it myself.

  I am a freak who lives with aliens. Furthermore, I live knowing that at any moment Blue or Green or their "masters" might decide to vaporize me. But that's really not much different from the uncertainty of life in the camp, and here I actually have some status. Blue produces whatever I ask for, once I get him to understand what that is. I have new clothes, good food, a bed, paper, a sort of pencil.

  And I have the dogs. Mangy still doesn't like me. Her larva hasn't as yet done whatever it will do next. Not-Too's grub grows slowly, and now Ruff has one, too. Their three puppies are adorable and very trainable. I'm not so sure about the other seventeen dogs, some of whom look wilder than ever after their long confinement in small cages. Aliens are not, by definition, humane.

  I don't know what it will take to survive when, and if, we reach "home" and I meet the alien adults. All I can do is rely on Jill's Five Laws of Survival:

  #1: Take what you can get.

  #2: Show no fear.

  #3: Never volunteer.

  #4: Notice everything.

  But the Fifth Law has changed. As I lie beside Not-Too and Ruff, their sweet warmth and doggie-odor, I know that my first formulation was wrong. "Feel nothing"—that can take you some ways toward survival, but not very far. Not really.

  Law #5: Take the risk. Love something.

  The dogs whuff contentedly and we speed toward the stars.

  Darwin's Suitcase

  Written by Elizabeth Malartre

  Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

  "Our English sphinx moths have proboscides as long as their bodies, but in Madagascar, there must be moths with proboscides capable of extension to a length of between 10 and 11 inches."

  Charles Darwin, 1862, "On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing."

  * * *

  Sister Solange checked herself just before she nodded off. She stared bleary-eyed at the balky Temporal ViewScreen.

  It was before matins, and she was never bright in the early morning. And if someone should find her here . . . the sister who ran the library would never allow this observation during regular research hours. It wasn't on the Approved List.

  Not many of the sisters were even allowed to touch the machine. Solange was still new to the convent, so it was a great privilege for her to TimeView.

  Forty minutes before matins.

  She reached out again to the control panel. Maybe this time she'd get it set correctly. She was not very gifted with these new electronics, and far too impatient at their eccentricities. She stared at the crumpled sheet, "Charles Darwin during the writing of The Origin of Species, 1858."

  She ran her finger back and forth over the keyboard in frustration. Still nothing on the screen, but it triggered a recorded warning,

  "Caution. The Temporal Viewer is a delicate instrument. Please use it carefully."

  She looked at the ancient clock on the wall. Thirty-eight minutes left.

  She rapped her knuckles on the screen. The time-code indicator light flickered and a chime sounded. A toneless voice announced, "The new setting is 1866. Please confirm by pressing the return key."

  Sister Solange groaned. "Oh, no, what have I done?"

  She reached for the Year Control knob and turned it back. The time-code indicator flickered again. She briefly saw 1859, then it returned to 1866. In frustration she yanked the knob smartly to the left. It came off in her hand.

  She stared in horror at the knob. Too late she remembered what Sister Marthe the Librarian had said. There were nodes in the time stream that seemed to attract the Temporal Viewer. Maybe 1866 was one of them.

  Sister Solange sighed. Her impatience had gotten her into trouble once again. Penance, surely, maybe even . . . she stopped as the screen cleared suddenly, showing a figure dressed in dark clothes.

  "Oh, it's working. Thank you, Lord. I am so unworthy of your beneficence." She resolved to do penance anyway.

  She squinted at the screen. A middle-aged man was walking with a stick in the countryside. She looked at the paper again. Darwin walked and thought things through in an open field called the Sandwalk near his home in England, Down House.

  He looked ordinary enough for such an evil man.

  She wondered what he was thinking. Was he plotting his terrible attack on the Church?

  She adjusted the fine focus gingerly. It seemed like magic—but Holy magic, she corrected herself, to see something that had happened over two hundred years ago.

  She bent closer to the screen, wishing for the morning coffee of her pre-convent days.

  With a crackling sound, the screen erupted in diagonal stripes.

  "Oh, no, p
lease not now." As suddenly as it started, the lines stopped. Sister Solange stared anxiously at the screen.

  There were two people in the field—one walking, the second one standing a little way off.

  "Funny, I didn't see him there before." She shrugged. "But this is so much better. I'll be able to hear them talking. I'll actually hear Darwin's voice! Oh, thank you Lord!" Despite the Church's interdiction on viewing Darwin, this had to be Divine intervention, she thought. But no recording—this one was strictly off the record.

  She hunched over the screen, absentmindedly tucking a stray red curl under the edge of her severe black wimpole.

  * * *

  Thwack!

  Clink.

  Norman Albright hesitated, heart hammering. Through the early morning Kentish fog, he recognized the man wielding the walking stick and approaching at a steady pace.

  He cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Ahem, Mr. Darwin, sir . . ."

  He hoped he wasn't too startling a figure. His clothes had been carefully researched. The unfamiliar wool overcoat was heavy on his shoulders; in the damp air it exuded a musky smell. The stiff shirt collar was uncomfortable, and through the thick cotton of the shirt he felt the box in his breast pocket.

  The middle-aged man in front of him looked as Albright had anticipated: balding on top, heavy eyebrows, and a short beard streaked with grey. The few surviving photos had been morphed to this age to aid recognition. Overall, an unassuming man for so pivotal a figure. But the gaze from his pale eyes blazed forth with an intensity at odds with the rest of the body. This was indeed The Darwin.

  "You have the advantage, sir."

  Albright proffered his hand awkwardly. "Norman Albright. An honor to meet you, sir. I've traveled far for this." His words sounded stilted, archaic; his tongue was thick with nervousness. But Research assured him this was about right for 1866. He'd gone through a lot of coaching to get the language right.

  Darwin's hand shot out, and his grasp was firm. "Pleased, I'm sure. How may I be of assistance?"

  "I—I have urgent need to ask you questions . . . about your work. Perhaps I could walk with you for a while?"

  "That would be agreeable. It does a man good to compose his thoughts with a walk before breakfast."

  Albright fell into step beside Darwin. It was hard to concentrate. He was actually here, on the famous Sandwalk, with the Founder, where, tradition held, Darwin had done much of the thinking on his famous Theory of Natural Selection. The Temporal Voyager worked! He looked around. The land itself was unexceptional—a narrow strip of about one and a half acres, bordered by a gravel walk. On one side large broad-leafed trees shaded the gravel. But what trees! They appeared to be poplars, but much larger, and with many more leaves than the ones at home. On the other side of a low hedge was an adjoining grassy field. He stared at it. The grass was so green and lush! And the smells—so sweet. This was how country air used to smell, he understood. Unfamiliar notes hung in the air. Birdsong!

  Darwin walked steadily as Albright got his bearings and took in the scene around him. As he walked he punctuated his steps with blows from the walking stick.

  There was a period of silence as they fell into rhythm.

  Then Darwin turned to him. "Do tell me how you came to be here so early. Are you stopping nearby?"

  "No, I started out this morning from . . . London."

  "Indeed. I myself prefer not to travel, but when I must do so, I find it preferable also in the early morning. I trust the journey was not too tiring?"

  "No, not at all. It was most pleasant, and of course, I was looking forward to this meeting, so my thoughts were well occupied."

  "Very kind of you. How did you find me here? Did you first call at Down House?"

  "No, sir," said the younger man. "Your work is well known among my colleagues, and your regular habits have been chronicled. I knew you would be here at this time of day."

  Darwin seemed taken aback. He looked at Albright's collar. "Your colleagues, you say." He pursed his lips and frowned. "But you are a man of the cloth?"

  "Well naturally. Who is not these days?" A slight hesitation. "The Order of Scientism." To Darwin's puzzled look he added, "Protestant, of course."

  "Scientism. Pardon my confusion, I am not aware . . ."

  "Nor could you be. The Order was founded after you—your time."

  Thwack! As they rounded the last corner, the battered iron tip of the briar wood cane flipped the top flint off the pile. The rough-hewn grey stone landed solidly on the stony ground. Clink.

  "After my time? What do you mean?"

  Albright sighed. Time was short. He'd better start his pitch. "The Order of Scientism was formed in 1943. I appear in the guise of a Victorian clergyman, but I am from the future. From 2156, to be exact."

  * * *

  Sister Solange started. Had she heard correctly? This man Albright claimed to be from . . . eighteen years in the future! What was he doing there? Indulging himself, as she was, or trying to change something? She felt suddenly uneasy. Perhaps he was the reason the Temporal Viewer had picked this time.

  * * *

  Darwin stopped and looked at him sternly. "This conversation has taken a most remarkable turn."

  "I assure you, I am most earnest."

  "Yet you claim to be—"

  "From the future, yes, sir."

  "Whose future?"

  "Well, everyone's, I guess." He smiled briefly. To Darwin's puzzled look he added, "It's the future you helped to bring about. And that's why I'm here."

  "Indeed." Darwin frowned. "This is a prank, is it not?"

  "No, sir, not at all. I'm really from the future, and I'm prepared to prove it." He reached into his inside pocket and withdrew a small, carefully wrapped parcel which he handed to Darwin. "Please, sir, unwrap it."

  Albright watched anxiously as Darwin took the proffered parcel, fumbled with the paper and opened the small cardboard box. With a soft cry he gently lifted out its contents.

  With relief, Albright continued. "In 1862 you published a book on orchid fertilization, including a description of Angraecum sesquipedale, a Madagascar orchid species with an eleven and a half inch nectary. You predicted that there must be a sphinx moth with a proboscis long enough to reach the nectar.

  "In 1903, just before the Church clamped down all the way on biological inquiries, a collector named Morgan found the moth in Madagascar. He named it Xanthopan morgani praedicta to honor your prediction." He looked at the small brown object in Darwin's palm. "We thought you might like to see it."

  "Most remarkable. I am most gratified to see this." Darwin looked it over carefully before replacing it in the box. "I should like to study this more fully. The proboscis is curled, but it does appear to be fully long enough to extract nectar from the comet orchid." He looked at Albright. "Was this what you wanted to discuss?"

  "No, sir, this was for your pleasure only."

  Darwin straightened up with a jerk. "Of course, this lovely specimen does not, in itself, prove that you are what you say. The moth does not evince a date of discovery."

  "I am aware of that. On the other hand, you have not heard of the discovery, so I could be telling the truth." Albright smiled. "But in either case it indicates sincerity on my part."

  "That is indeed a reasonable argument. Do you have any other . . . proofs?"

  Albright's smile faded. "We thought long and hard about that. There are few objects which cannot be falsified—books and newspapers with later dates could have been printed at any time, for example. Same with coins. Also, there are certain limitations on objects that may be carried back into the past. We are only beginning to learn about them by experimentation, but it appears as though future technology cannot go backwards in time. In other words, it cannot exist before it was invented."

  He looked up with a pleading expression. "That also seems reasonable, does it not? We hoped that the moth would make the journey, because others of its kind exist in 1866. And, I, of course, for th
e same reason." He smiled nervously. "Humans are an old technology. So I bring only my argument, which I beg to be allowed to present."

  Darwin drew out a watch on a chain and squinted at it before tucking it back into his vest pocket. "Very well, I'm willing to continue our discussion, although I withhold judgment on your fantastic claim." They resumed walking. "So, what part of my work did you wish to discuss?"

  "A work that you are contemplating, but have not yet written. A work that is unnecessary to the acceptance of your theory, but which will cause a great deal of harm to the future of science. A great deal of harm. I am here to beg you not to pursue this work. And I have but little time to do it."