The Illustrated Man Page 15

  She had opened the suction mail tube and there was the metal foil advertisement:

  ROME AND THE BORGIAS!

  THE WRIGHT BROTHERS AT KITTY HAWK!

  Travel in Time, Inc., can costume you, put you in a crowd during the assassination of Lincoln or Caesar! We guarantee to teach you any language you need to move freely in any civilization, in any year, without friction. Latin, Greek, ancient American colloquial. Take your vacation inTime as well as Place!

  Rene's voice was buzzing on the phone. "Tom and I leave for 1492 tomorrow. They're arranging for Tom to sail with Columbus. Isn't it amazing!"

  "Yes," murmured Ann, stunned. "What does the Government say about this Time Machine company?"

  "Oh, the police have an eye on it. Afraid people might evade the draft, run off and hide in the Past. Everyone has to leave a security bond behind, his house and belongings, to guarantee return. After all, the war's on."

  "Yes, the war," murmured Ann. "The war."

  Standing there, holding the phone, she had thought, Here is the chance my husband and I have talked and prayed over for so many years. We don't like this world of 2155. We want to run away from his work at the bomb factory, I from my position with disease-culture units. Perhaps there is a chance for us to escape, to run for centuries into a wild country of years where they will never find and bring us back to burn our books, censor our thoughts, scald our minds with fear, march us, scream at us with radios . . .

  They were in Mexico in the year 1938.

  She looked at the stained cafe wall.

  Good workers for the Future State were allowed vacations into the Past to escape fatigue. And so she and her husband had moved back into 1938, a room in New York City, and enjoyed the theaters and the Statue of Liberty which still stood green in the harbor. And on the third day they had changed their clothes, their names, and had flown off to hide in Mexico!

  "It must be him," whispered Susan, looking at the stranger seated at the table. "Those cigarettes, the cigars, the liquor. They give him away. Rememberour first night in the Past?"

  A month ago, their first night in New York, before their flight, drinking all the strange drinks, savoring and buying odd foods, perfumes, cigarettes of ten dozen rare brands, for they were rare in the Future, where war was everything. So they had made fools of themselves, rushing in and out of stores, salons, tobacconists, going up to their room to get wonderfully ill.

  And now here was this stranger doing likewise, doing a thing that only a man from the Future would do who had been starved for liquors and cigarettes for many years.

  Susan and William sat and ordered a drink.

  The stranger was examining their clothes, their hair, their jewelry--the way they walked and sat.

  "Sit easily," said William under his breath. "Look as if you've worn this clothing style all your life."

  "We should never have tried to escape."

  "My God!" said William, "he's coming over. Let me do the talking."

  The stranger bowed before them. There was the faintest tap of heels knocking together. Susan stiffened. That military sound!--unmistakable as that certain ugly rap on your door at midnight.

  "Mr. Roger Kristen," said the stranger, "you did not pull up your pant legs when you sat down."

  William froze. He looked at his hands lying on either leg, innocently. Susan's heart was beating swiftly.

  "You've got the wrong person," said William quickly. "My name's not Krisler."

  "Kristen,"corrected the stranger.

  "I'm William Travis," said William. "And I don't see what my pant legs have to do with you!"

  "Sorry." The stranger pulled up a chair. "Let us say I thought I knew you because you didnot pull your trousers up. Everyone does. If they don't, the trousers bag quickly. I am a long way from home, Mr.--Travis, and in need of company. My name is Simms."

  "Mr. Simms, we appreciate your loneliness, but we're tired. We're leaving for Acapulco tomorrow."

  "A charming spot. I was just there, looking for some friends of mine. They are somewhere. I shall find them yet. Oh, is the lady a bit sick?"

  "Good night, Mr. Simms."

  They started out the door, William holding Susan's arm firmly. They did not look back when Mr. Simms called, "Oh, just one other thing." He paused and then slowly spoke the words:

  "2155 AD."

  Susan shut her eyes and felt the earth falter under her. She kept going, into the fiery plaza, seeing nothing.

  They locked the door of their hotel room. And then she was crying and they were standing in the dark, and the room tilted under them. Far away firecrackers exploded, and there was laughter in the plaza.

  "What a damned, loud nerve," said William. "Him sitting there, looking us up and down like animals, smoking his damn cigarettes, drinking his drinks. I should have killed him then!" His voice was nearly hysterical. "He even had the nerve to use his real name to us. The Chief of the Searchers. And the thing about my pant legs. My God, I should have pulled them up when I sat. It's an automatic gesture of this day and age. When I didn't do it, it set me off from the others; it madehim think, Here's a man who never wore pants, a man used to breech uniforms and future styles. I could kill myself for giving us away!"

  "No, no, it was my walk--these high heels--that did it. Our haircuts--so new, so fresh. Everything about us odd and uneasy."

  He turned on the light. "He's still testing us. He's not positive of us--not completely. We can't run out on him, then. We can't make him certain. We'll go to Acapulco leisurely."

  "Maybe heis sure of us, but is just playing."

  "I wouldn't put it past him. He's got all the time in the world. He can daily here if he wants, and bring us back to the Future sixty seconds after we left it. He might keep us wondering for days, laughing at us."

  Susan sat on the bed, wiping the tears from her face, smelling the old smell of charcoal and incense.

  "They won't make a scene, will they?"

  "They won't dare. They'll have to get us alone to put us in that Time Machine and send us back."

  "There's a solution then," she said. "We'll never be alone; we'll always be in crowds. We'll make a million friends, visit markets, sleep in the Official Palaces in each town, pay the Chief of Police to guard us until we find a way to kill Simms and escape, disguise ourselves in new clothes, perhaps as Mexicans."

  Footsteps sounded outside their locked door.

  They turned out the light and undressed in silence. The footsteps went away. A door closed.

  Susan stood by the window looking down at the plaza in the darkness. "So that building there is a church?"

  "Yes."

  "I've often wondered what a church looked like. It's been so long since anyone saw one. Can we visit it tomorrow?"

  "Of course. Come to bed."

  They lay in the dark room.

  Half an hour later their phone rang. She lifted the receiver.

  "Hello?"

  "The rabbits may hide in the forest," said a voice, "but a fox can always find them."

  She replaced the receiver and lay back straight and cold in the bed.

  Outside, in the year 1938, a man played three tunes upon a guitar, one following another.

  During the night she put her hand out and almost touched the year 2155. She felt her fingers slide over cool spaces of time, as over a corrugated surface, and she heard the insistent thump of marching feet, a million bands playing a million military tunes, and she saw the fifty thousand rows of disease cultures in their aseptic glass tubes, her hand reaching out to them at her work in that huge factory in the Future; the tubes of leprosy, bubonic, typhoid, tuberculosis, and then the great explosion. She saw her hand burned to a wrinkled plum, felt it recoil from a concussion so immense that the world was lifted and let fall and all the buildings broke and people hemorrhaged and lay silent. Great volcanoes, machines, winds, avalanches slid down to silence and she awoke, sobbing, in the bed, in Mexico, many years away. . . .

  In the early morn
ing, drugged with the single hour's sleep they had finally been able to obtain, they awoke to the sound of loud automobiles in the street. Susan peered down from the iron balcony at a small crowd of eight people only now emerging, chattering, yelling, from trucks and cars with red lettering on them. A crowd of Mexicans had followed the trucks.

  "Que pasa?"Susan called to a little boy.

  The boy replied.

  Susan turned back to her husband. "An American motion-picture company, here on location."

  "Sounds interesting." William was in the shower. "Let's watch them. I don't think we'd better leave today. We'll try to lull Simms. Watch the films being made. They say the primitive film making was something. Get our minds off ourselves."

  Ourselves, thought Susan. For a moment, in the bright sun, she had forgotten that somewhere in the hotel, waiting, was a man smoking a thousand cigarettes, it seemed. She saw the eight loud happy Americans below and wanted to call to them: "Save me, hide me, help me! Color my hair, my eyes; clothe me in strange clothes. I need your help. I'm from the year 2155!"

  But the words stayed in her throat. The functionaries of Travel in Time, Inc., were not foolish. In your brain, before you left on your trip, they placed a psychological bloc. You could tell no one your true time or birthplace, nor could you reveal any of the Future to those in the Past. The Past and the Future must be protected from each other. Only with this psychological bloc were people allowed to travel unguarded through the ages. The Future must be protected from any change brought about by her people traveling in the Past. Even if she wanted to with all her heart, she could not tell any of those happy people below in the plaza who she was, or what her predicament had become.

  "What about breakfast?" said William.

  Breakfast was being served in the immense dining room. Ham and eggs for everyone. The place was full of tourists. The film people entered, all eight of them--six men and two women, giggling, shoving chairs about. And Susan sat near them, feeling the warmth and protection they offered, even when Mr. Simms came down the lobby stairs, smoking his Turkish cigarette with great intensity. He nodded at them from a distance, and Susan nodded back, smiling, because he couldn't do anything to them here, in front of eight film people and twenty other tourists.

  "Those actors," said William. "Perhaps I could hire two of them, say it was a joke, dress them in our clothes, have them drive off in our car when Simms is in such a spot where he can't see their faces. If two people pretending to be us could lure him off for a few hours, we might make it to Mexico City. It'd take him years to find us there!"

  "Hey!"

  A fat man, with liquor on his breath, leaned on their table. "American tourists!" he cried. "I'm so sick of seeing Mexicans, I could kiss you!" He shook their hands. "Come on, eat with us. Misery loves company. I'm Misery, this is Miss Gloom, and Mr. and Mrs. Do-We-Hate-Mexico! We all hate it. But we're here for some preliminary shots for a damn film. The rest of the crew arrives tomorrow. My name's Joe Melton. I'm a director. And if this ain't a hell of a country! Funerals in the streets, people dying. Come on, move over. Join the party; cheer us up!"

  Susan and William were both laughing.

  "Am I funny?" Mr. Melton asked the immediate world.

  "Wonderful!" Susan moved over.

  Mr. Simms was glaring across the dining room at them. She made a face at him.

  Mr. Simms advanced among the tables.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Travis," he called. "I thought we were breakfasting together, alone."

  "Sorry," said William.

  "Sit down, pal," said Mr. Melton. "Any friend of theirs is a pal of mine."

  Mr. Simms sat. The film people talked loudly, and while they talked, Mr. Simms said quietly, "I hope you slept well."

  "Did you?"

  "I'm not used to spring mattresses," replied Mr. Simms wryly. "But there are compensations. I stayed up half the night trying new cigarettes and foods. Odd, fascinating. A whole new spectrum of sensation, these ancient vices."

  "We don't know what you're talking about," said Susan.

  "Always the play acting." Simms laughed. "It's no use. Nor is this stratagem of crowds. I'll get you alone soon enough. I'm immensely patient."

  "Say," Mr. Melton broke in, his face flushed, "is this guy giving you any trouble?"

  "It's all right."

  "Say the word and I'll give him the bum's rush."

  Melton turned back to yell at his associates. In the laughter, Mr. Simms went on: "Let us come to the point. It took me a month of tracing you through towns and cities to find you, and all of yesterday to be sure of you. If you come with me quietly, I might be able to get you off with no punishment, if you agree to go back to work on the hydrogen-plus bomb."

  "Science this guy talks at breakfast!" observed Mr. Melton, half listening.

  Simms went on, imperturbably. "Think it over. You can't escape. If you kill me, others will follow you."

  "We don't know what you're talking about."

  "Stop it!" cried Simms irritably. "Use your intelligence! You know we can't let you get away with this escape. Other people in the year 2155 might get the same idea and do what you've done. We need people."

  "To fight your wars," said William at last.

  "Bill!"

  "It's all right, Susan. We'll talk on his terms now. We can't escape."

  "Excellent," said Simms. "Really, you've both been incredibly romantic, running away from your responsibilities."

  "Running away from horror."

  "Nonsense. Only a war."

  "What are you guys talking about?" asked Mr. Melton.

  Susan wanted to tell him. But you could only speak in generalities. The psychological bloc in your mind allowed that. Generalities, such as Simms and William were now discussing.

  "Onlythe war," said William. "Half the world dead of leprosy bombs!"

  "Nevertheless," Simms pointed out, "the inhabitants of the Future resent you two hiding on a tropical isle, as it were, while they drop off the cliff into hell. Death loves death, not life. Dying people love to know that others die with them. It is a comfort to learn you are not alone in the kiln, in the grave. I am the guardian of their collective resentment against you two."

  "Look at the guardian of resentments!" said Mr. Melton to his companions.

  "The longer you keep me waiting, the harder it will go for you. We need you on the bomb project, Mr. Travis. Return now--no torture. Later, we'll force you to work, and after you've finished the bomb, we'll try a number of complicated new devices on you, sir."

  "I've a proposition," said William. "I'll come back with you if my wife stays here alive, safe, away from that war."

  Mr. Simms considered it. "All right. Meet me in the plaza in ten minutes. Pick me up in your car. Drive me to a deserted country spot. I'll have the Travel Machine pick us up there."

  "Bill!" Susan held his arm tightly.

  "Don't argue." He looked over at her. "It's settled." To Simms: "One thing. Last night you could have gotten in our room and kidnaped us. Why didn't you?"

  "Shall we say that I was enjoying myself?" replied Mr. Simms languidly, sucking his new cigar. "I hate giving up this wonderful atmosphere, this sun, this vacation. I regret leaving behind the wine and the cigarettes. Oh, how I regret it. The plaza then, in ten minutes. Your wife will be protected and may stay here as long as she wishes. Say your good-bys."

  Mr. Simms arose and walked out.

  "There goes Mr. Big Talk!" yelled Mr. Melton at the departing gentleman. He turned and looked at Susan. "Hey. Someone's crying. Breakfast's no time for people to cry. Nowis it?"

  At nine-fifteen Susan stood on the balcony of their room, gazing down at the plaza. Mr. Simms was seated there, his neat legs crossed, on a delicate bronze bench. Biting the tip from a cigar, he lit it tenderly.

  Susan heard the throb of a motor, and far up the street, out of a garage and down the cobbled hill, slowly, came William in his car.

  The car picked up speed. Thirty, now forty, now fift
y miles an hour. Chickens scattered before it.

  Mr. Simms took off his white panama hat and mopped his pink forehead, put his hat back on, and then saw the car.

  It was rushing sixty miles an hour, straight on for the plaza.

  "William!" screamed Susan.

  The car hit the low plaza curb, thundering; it jumped up, sped across the tiles toward the green bench where Mr. Simms now dropped his cigar, shrieked, flailed his hands, and was hit by the car. His body flew up and up in the air, and down and down, crazily, into the street.

  On the far side of the plaza, one front wheel broken, the car stopped. People were running.

  Susan went in and closed the balcony doors.

  They came down the Official Palace steps together, arm in arm, their faces pale, at twelve noon.

  "Adios, senor,"said the mayor behind them."Senora."

  They stood in the plaza where the crowd was pointing at the blood.

  "Will they want to see you again?" asked Susan.

  "No, we went over and over it. It was an accident. I lost control of the car. I wept for them. God knows I had to get my relief out somewhere. Ifelt like weeping. I hated to kill him. I've never wanted to do anything like that in my life."

  "They won't prosecute you?"

  "They talked about it, but no. I talked faster. They believe me. It was an accident. It's over."

  "Where will we go? Mexico City? Uruapan?"

  "The car's in the repair shop. It'll be ready at four this afternoon. Then we'll get the hell out."

  "Will we be followed? Was Simms working alone?"

  "I don't know. We'll have a little head start on them, I think."

  The film people were coming out of the hotel as they approached. Mr. Melton hurried up, scowling. "Hey I heard what happened. Too bad. Everything okay now? Want to get your minds off it? We're doing some preliminary shots up the street. You want to watch, you're welcome. Come on, do you good."

  They went.

  They stood on the cobbled street while the film camera was being set up. Susan looked at the road leading down and away, and the highway going to Acapulco and the sea, past pyramids and ruins and little adobe towns with yellow walls, blue walls, purple walls and flaming bougainvillea, and she thought, We shall take the roads, travel in clusters and crowds, in markets, in lobbies, bribe police to sleep near, keep double locks, but always the crowds, never alone again, always afraid the next person who passes may be another Simms. Never knowing if we've tricked and lost the Searchers. And always up ahead, in the Future, they'll wait for us to be brought back, waiting with their bombs to burn us and disease to rot us, and their police to tell us to roll over, turn around, jump through the hoop! And so we'll keep running through the forest, and we'll never ever stop or sleep well again in our lives.