The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (45 page)

‘Time’s Arrow’ is an example of how hard it is for the science-fiction writer to keep ahead of fact. The quite—at the time—imaginary discovery described in the tale now actually exists, and may be seen in the New York Natural History Museum. I think it most unlikely, however, that the rest will come true…

The river was dead and the lake already dying when the monster had come down the dried-up watercourse and turned onto the desolate mud-flats. There were not many places where it was safe to walk, and even where the ground was hardest the great pistons of its feet sank a foot or more beneath the weight they carried. Sometimes it had paused, surveying the landscape with quick, birdlike movements of its head. Then it had sunk even deeper into the yielding soil, so that fifty million years later men could judge with some accuracy the duration of its halts.

For the waters had never returned, and the blazing sun had baked the mud to rock. Later still the desert had poured over all this land, sealing it beneath protecting layers of sand. And later—very much later—had come Man.

‘Do you think,’ shouted Barton above the din, ‘that Professor Fowler became a palaeontologist because he likes playing with pneumatic drills? Or did he acquire the taste afterward?’

‘Can’t hear you!’ yelled Davis, leaning on his shovel in a most professional manner. He glanced hopefully at his watch.

‘Shall I tell him it’s dinnertime? He can’t wear a watch while he’s drilling, so he won’t know any better.’

‘I doubt if it will work,’ Barton shrieked. ‘He’s got wise to us now and always adds an extra ten minutes. But it will make a change from this infernal digging.’

With noticeable enthusiasm the two geologists downed tools and started to walk toward their chief. As they approached, he shut off the drill and relative silence descended, broken only by the throbbing of the compressor in the background.

‘About time we went back to camp, Professor,’ said Davis, wristwatch held casually behind his back. ‘You know what cook says if we’re late.’

Professor Fowler, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., mopped some, but by no means all, of the ochre dust from his forehead. He would have passed anywhere as a typical navvy, and the occasional visitors to the site seldom recognised the Vice-President of the Geological Society in the brawny, half-naked workman crouching over his beloved pneumatic drill.

It had taken nearly a month to clear the sandstone down to the surface of the petrified mud-flats. In that time several hundred square feet had been exposed, revealing a frozen snapshot of the past that was probably the finest yet discovered by palaeontology. Some scores of birds and reptiles had come here in search of the receding water, and left their footsteps as a perpetual monument eons after their bodies had perished. Most of the prints had been identified, but one—the largest of them all—was new to science. It belonged to a beast which must have weighed twenty or thirty tons: and Professor Fowler was following the fifty-million-year-old spoor with all the emotions of a big-game hunter tracking his prey. There was even a hope that he might yet overtake it; for the ground must have been treacherous when the unknown monster went this way and its bones might still be near at hand, marking the place where it had been trapped like so many creatures of its time.

Despite the mechanical aids available, the work was very tedious. Only the upper layers could be removed by the power tools, and the final uncovering had to be done by hand with the utmost care. Professor Fowler had good reason for his insistence that he alone should do the preliminary drilling, for a single slip might cause irreparable harm.

The three men were halfway back to the main camp, jolting over the rough road in the expedition’s battered jeep, when Davis raised the question that had been intriguing the younger men ever since the work had begun.

‘I’m getting a distinct impression,’ he said, ‘that our neighbours down the valley don’t like us, though I can’t imagine why. We’re not interfering with them, and they might at least have the decency to invite us over.’

‘Unless, of course, it is a war research plant,’ added Barton, voicing a generally accepted theory.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Professor Fowler mildly. ‘Because it so happens that I’ve just had an invitation myself. I’m going there tomorrow.’

If his bombshell failed to have the expected result, it was thanks to his staff’s efficient espionage system. For a moment Davis pondered over this confirmation of his suspicions; then he continued with a slight cough:

‘No one else has been invited, then?’

The Professor smiled at his pointed hint, ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s a strictly personal invitation. I know you boys are dying of curiosity but, frankly, I don’t know any more about the place than you do. If I learn anything tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about it. But at least we’ve found out who’s running the establishment.’

His assistants pricked up their ears. ‘Who is it?’ asked a Barton, ‘My guess was the Atomic Development Authority.’

‘You may be right,’ said the Professor. ‘At any rate, Henderson and Barnes are in charge.’

This time the bomb exploded effectively; so much so that Davis nearly drove the jeep off the road—not that that made much difference, the road being what it was.

‘Henderson and Barnes? In
this
god-forsaken hole?’

‘That’s right,’ said the Professor gaily. ‘The invitation was actually from Barnes. He apologised for not contacting us before, made the usual excuses, and wondered if I could drop in for a chat.’

‘Did he say what they are doing?’

‘No; not a hint.’

‘Barnes and Henderson?’ said Barton thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know much about them except that they’re physicists. What’s their particular racket?’

‘They’re
the
experts on low-temperature physics,’ answered Davis. ‘Henderson was Director of the Cavendish for years. He wrote a lot of letters to
Nature
not so long ago. If I remember rightly, they were all about Helium II.’

Barton, who didn’t like physicists and said so whenever possible, was not impressed. ‘I don’t even know what Helium II is,’ he said smugly. ‘What’s more, I’m not at all sure that I want to.’

This was intended for Davis, who had once taken a physics degree in, as he explained, a moment of weakness. The ‘moment’ had lasted for several years before he had drifted into geology by rather devious routes, and he was always harking back to his first love.

‘It’s a form of liquid helium that only exists at a few degrees above absolute zero. It’s got the most extraordinary properties but, as far as I can see, none of them can explain the presence of two leading physicists in this corner of the globe.’

They had now arrived at the camp, and Davis brought the jeep to its normal crash-halt in the parking space. He shook his head in annoyance as he bumped into the truck ahead with slightly more violence than usual.

‘These tyres are nearly through. Have the new ones come yet?’

‘Arrived in the ‘copter this morning, with a despairing note from Andrews hoping that you’d make them last a full fortnight this time.’

‘Good! I’ll get them fitted this evening.’

The Professor had been walking a little ahead; now he dropped back to join his assistants.

‘You needn’t have hurried Jim,’ he said glumly. ‘It’s corned beef again.’

It would be most unfair to say that Barton and Davis did less work because the Professor was away. They probably worked a good deal harder than usual, since the native labourers required twice as much supervision in the Chief’s absence. But there was no doubt that they managed to find time for a considerable amount of extra talking.

Ever since they had joined Professor Fowler, the two young geologists had been intrigued by the strange establishment five miles away down the valley. It was clearly a research organisation of some type, and Davis had identified the tall stacks of an atomic-power unit. That, of course, gave no clue to the work that was proceeding, but it did indicate its importance. There were still only a few thousand turbo-piles in the world, and they were all reserved for major projects.

There were dozens of reasons why two great scientists might have hidden themselves in this place: most of the more hazardous atomic research was carried out as far as possible from civilisation, and some had been abandoned altogether until laboratories in space could be set up. Yet it seemed odd that this work, whatever it was, should be carried out so close to what had now become the most important centre of geological research in the world. It might, of course, be no more than a coincidence; certainly the physicists had never shown any interest in their compatriots so near at hand.

Davis was carefully chipping round one of the great footprints, while Barton was pouring liquid perspex into those already uncovered so that they would be preserved from harm in the transparent plastic. They were working in a somewhat absentminded manner, for each was unconsciously listening for the sound of the jeep. Professor Fowler had promised to collect them when he returned from his visit, for the other vehicles were in use elsewhere and they did not relish a two-mile walk back to camp in the broiling sun. Moreover, they wanted to have any news as soon as possible.

‘How many people,’ said Barton suddenly, ‘do you think they have over there?’

Davis straightened himself up. ‘Judging from the buildings, not more than a dozen or so.’

‘Then it might be a private affair, not an ADA project at all.’

‘Perhaps, though it must have pretty considerable backing. Of course, Henderson and Barnes could get that on their reputations alone.’

‘That’s where the physicists score,’ said Barton. ‘They’ve only got to convince some war department that they’re on the track of a new weapon, and they can get a couple of million without any trouble.’

He spoke with some bitterness; for, like most scientists, he had strong views on this subject. Barton’s views, indeed, were even more definite than usual, for he was a Quaker and had spent the last year of the War arguing with not-unsympathetic tribunals.

The conversation was interrupted by the roar and clatter of the jeep, and the two men ran over to meet the Professor.

‘Well?’ they cried simultaneously.

Professor Fowler looked at them thoughtfully, his expression giving no hint of what was in his mind. ‘Had a good day?’ he said at last.

‘Come off it, Chief!’ protested Davis. ‘Tell us what you’ve found out.’

The Professor climbed out of the seat and dusted himself down. ‘I’m sorry, boys,’ he said with some embarrassment, ‘I can’t tell you a thing, and that’s flat.’

There were two united wails of protest, but he waved them aside. ‘I’ve had a very interesting day, but I’ve had to promise not to say anything about it. Even now I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but it’s something pretty revolutionary—as revolutionary, perhaps, as atomic power. But Dr Henderson is coming over tomorrow; see what you can get out of him.’

For a moment, both Barton and Davis were so overwhelmed by the sense of anticlimax that neither spoke. Barton was the first to recover. ‘Well, surely there’s a reason for this sudden interest in our activities?’

The Professor thought this over for a moment. ‘Yes, it wasn’t entirely a social call,’ he admitted: ‘They think I may be able to help them. Now, no more questions, unless you want to walk back to camp!’

Dr Henderson arrived on the site in the middle of the afternoon. He was a stout, elderly man, dressed rather incongruously in a dazzling white laboratory smock and very little else. Though the garb was eccentric, it was eminently practical in so hot a climate.

Davis and Barton were somewhat distant when Professor Fowler introduced them; they still felt that they had been snubbed and were determined that their visitor should understand their feelings. But Henderson was so obviously interested in their work that they soon thawed, and the Professor left them to show him round the excavations while he went to supervise the natives.

The physicist was greatly impressed by the picture of the world’s remote past that lay exposed before his eyes. For almost an hour the two geologists took him over the workings yard by yard, talking of the creatures who had gone this way and speculating about future discoveries. The track which Professor Fowler was following now lay in a wide trench running away from the main excavation, for he had dropped all other work to investigate it. At its end the trench was no longer continuous: to save time, the Professor had begun to sink pits along the line of the footprints. The last sounding had missed altogether, and further digging had shown that the great reptile had made a sudden change of course.

‘This is the most interesting bit,’ said Barton to the slightly wilting physicist. ‘You remember those earlier places where it had stopped for a moment to have a look around? Well, here it seems to have spotted something and has gone off in a new direction at a run, as you can see from the spacing.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought such a brute
could
run.’

‘Well, it was probably a pretty clumsy effort, but you can cover quite a bit of ground with a fifteen-foot stride. We’re going to follow it as far as we can. We may even find what it was chasing. I think the Professor has hopes of discovering a trampled battlefield with the bones of the victim still around. That would make everyone sit up.’