Our Children's Children (23 page)

“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 companions. 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?”

“I 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.