The Steam-Driven Boy (15 page)

The bully guffawed. ‘Stuff!’ he said. ‘Nobody kin go into the future!’

With a knowing smile, Emil bent over his work. After fitting the piece of isinglass into a gear of peculiar shape, he set about attaching a pair of wires to a telegraph key.

Morbes flushed red about the nostrils of his broad, saddle-like nose. He was not used to being ignored. ‘Stuff!’ he exclaimed once more. ‘Even if it works, this here engine won’t bring in enough to feed your peafowls, let alone pay the mortgage when my Paw comes around to foreclose.’

‘Foreclose!’ said the young inventor, growing pale.

‘Yep. You’d better have a hundred dollars ready by next Monday,’ said Morbes with a grin. ‘Tell you what. If you’ll wash my bicycle, I’ll give you a whole dollar. Get it spanking clean now, for I’m to go on a picnic today, with Miss Maud Peed.’

At this news, Emil grew even paler, and staggered back as tough he’d been stuck.

‘Oh, I know you been kinda sweet on her,’ smirked the bully. ‘But she ain’t got no time for a crazy feller what putters around his bicycle shop with time engines. Hah!’

No time for him! As the colour continued to ebb from Emil’s face, and into the coarser features of his rival, he wondered what strange fate it was that had made them both suitors for the hand of the lovely Maud Peed. So be it. He raised his tear-filled eyes once more to the portrait of Sam Franklin. He seemed to draw strength from the homely features, the rheumy eyes. What was the right thing to do, the truly
Columbian
thing? To try to stay and win Maud back from Fenton Morbes – a hopeless task? Or to escape into the bright future, and there seek his fortune?

In a moment he had made his decision. He would go into tomorrow! He would see 1937 A.D., that promised land – the very system of numbering our years promised it! He would drink in its wonders: flying machines, the bridge across the English Channel, immortality through mesmerism, electric cannon, a world at peace, where the sun never set on the flag of the United States of Columbia!

‘Are you gonna stand gawking at that pitcher or are you gonna wash my wheel?’ demanded Morbes.

‘Neither. You may take yourself off my property at once,’ replied Emil. Raising his clenched fists, he added, ‘Go to Maud Peed. And tell her – tell her –’

His hands dropped to his sides, and as his head bowed, the unruly lock of hair fell over his eyes. He looked not unlike the young Abner Lincoln, thought Morbes idly.

‘– tell her,’ Emil said quietly, ‘that the best man has won. I wish you both a – haha – a happy future!’ With a strangled sob he turned away.

Morbes was so startled by this outburst that he was unable to summon a bluster to his lips. He turned and walked out.

Emil knew he had done the right thing. Without another regret, he filled his pockets with his Mom’s home-baked cookies, took a last sip of lemonade, and began to pedal the great generator that powered his engine. He had mounted a special clock face on the handlebars before him, and when its hands reached 1937, he depressed the telegraph key. ‘Now it is

1937 A.D.!’ he exclaimed, and looked about him.

The room had not changed considerably, though it seemed to have become some sort of museum. Emil found himself surrounded by velvet ropes.

‘Here, get of there!’ said a man in uniform. He seized Emil’s arm and dragged him away from the time engine. ‘You’re not to touch the exhibits, understand?’

Before the bewildered inventor could explain, he found himself outside the shop, looking up at a brass plaque which read, ‘The Emil Hart
Historical Museum’. He was historical!

Pausing only a moment to marvel at his fame, Emil strode toward the main street of town, eager to see the changes time had wrought. The streets, he noticed, had a new hard surface, and there was not a trace of manure upon it!

Then he saw them, lined up at the sidewalk. Great trackless locomotives, just as he had imagined them. As he watched, two men emerged from a store and entered one of them. Through its window he could see one man shovelling coal into the boiler while the other turned valves. In a moment, the great, chuffing engine moved off down the street.

His momentary elation dissipated at once, when Emil turned to look at the shops. There was not a single new building on Main Street, and though many had installed large plate glass windows, the facades above them were faded, dirty and abused. Delmonico’s Dining Room had become the Eateria, but Carlson’s Peafowl Feed Store had not even changed its sign. Emil examined the contents of a clothing store window, his gorge rising at their dull familiarity. Why weren’t people attired in seminude costumes of gold, with scarlet capes? The mannikins showed only women in the same silly hats and long gowns, men in dark, dull suits. Worse, the one or two pedestrians he glimpsed wore overalls of the same cut and hue as his own.

He was thoroughly depressed by the time he reached the end of the town’s single street and the Public Library. Despairing of seeing any more wonderful inventions like the trackless locomotive, Emil made his way into the familiar building to the tiny room marked ‘Science and Technology’. Here at last he might find respite from the past. Here he might find the future that seemed to have overlooked his town.

He opened a volume marked ‘Inventions’. Yes, here they were: Thomas Elva Addison, the electric light; Burgess Venn, the flying machine; Gordon Q. Mott, the televidium – what in the world was that?

He looked it up in the back of the book, and learned that it was a visual counterpart to the radium. The latter sent verbal messages over long distances by means of electrical ‘waves’ in the aether, while the former did the same for visual messages. He thrilled to the idea of electrical waves moving about everywhere, in this room, passing right through his body. It was only because of the intensity of Emil’s meditation that he failed to notice the figure at his elbow.

‘Hullo, Emil.’ It was Morbes.

‘You used my machine?’

‘Yep. I came back to get my bicycle clips and I seen you was gone. Well, I got to thinking – a feller could make himself a pile of money outa knowing what happens in the future. So here I am. Where do they keep the old newspapers?’

‘What are you going to do?’ Emil leapt to his feet, knocking over a chair. Another reader cleared his throat.

‘Read about a few horse races – and some stock market stuff. I’m rich
now, Emil Hart, but I’m gonna be richer.’ Morbes’s grin displayed a row of uneven, stained teeth.

‘You can’t! It’s dishonest! Think of all the little stockholders who might be ruined by your speculations!’ cried Emil. He followed the bully into the Historical & Periodical room, and seized his arm. Morbes shook his hand away.

‘Leave me alone!’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll do as I see fit!’

‘Yes, do leave him alone!’ commanded a childish voice. ‘I’m trying to read here, and you’re creating a disturbance.’ Emil looked around to confront a boy of about ten, whose forehead was creased with annoyance beneath the line of his yellow bangs.

Grinning, Morbes said, ‘Lad, where’s the newspapers? You know, the W
AAL
S
TREET
J
OURNAL?
’

‘I don’t know. All they have in here is this.’ The boy indicated the volume open before him, in which he had been scribbling with a pen. Emil noticed it was one of a large matched set that seemed to occupy all the shelves of the room. There were thousands of volumes.

‘But this will have whatever you’re looking for,’ said the boy. ‘It has a synopsis of everything.’

The set of books was entitled
The Universal Synopsis
.

‘Say!’ exclaimed Morbes, illuminated by an uncharacteristic flash of intuition. ‘If I get rich like I ought to, there should be something about me in that book.’

He searched a moment, then came to the table with volume M
ORAY
-M
ORBID
and seated himself opposite the boy.

‘Here it is! Morbes, Fenton Jr,’ he read at the top of his lungs.

‘Don’t read on!’ said Emil. ‘We’re not meant to know our own futures.’

‘Stuff! Who’s to stop me?’

‘I am!’ Emil shouted, and snatching up the boy’s pen, dipped it and lined out the passage Morbes was about to read.

‘Say, why’d you do that? I –’

With an audible click, Fenton Morbes vanished.

‘How interesting!’said the boy. ‘I was right, then. This is the only extant copy.’

‘What?’ Emil stood frozen, gaping at the space his rival had vacated so abruptly.

‘You don’t know what happened? That was the “Doppler Effect”, named for myself, Julius Doppler. Sit down, won’t you, and I’ll explain it to you.’

Emil eased himself into a chair and with effort directed his gaze toward the serious, freckled face.

‘You see, I’ve developed a theory that the future influences the past. I was fortunate in finding
The Universal Synopsis
on which to test it. If this were, as I believed it to be, the only copy of the only book in which many items appeared, why then it follows that I can change the past by merely rewriting it.’

‘But how can you change history?’ asked Emil, mystified.

‘It’s simple semantics: The word
is
the thing – at least after the thing ceases to be. Alter a word in the future and you alter the thing it once stood for. Let me show you.’

The boy opened his volume to a page and pointed. ‘Now here, I altered the name “Sam Franklin” to “John Franklin”, for example. But if in the future, someone came along and changed it to – say – “Ben”, why he’d
be
Ben, don’t you see?’

‘No.’

‘All right, look here, then.’ Julius turned to a map of the United States. There was the familiar pink lozenge that was Kiowa, and just above it, the green hourglass of Minnehaha – but the names were wrong! ‘Kiowa’ missed its ‘K’, and ‘Minnehaha’ read ‘Minnesota’! And the name at the bottom of the page, following ‘The United States of’ was not ‘Columbia’ but some unpronounceable Latin name! The map was wrong, it had been printed wrong!

‘Last week,’ said the boy, ‘I made these changes in ink Now this week they are part of the original book.’

‘But how can that be?’

Julius frowned. ‘I think the past must influence the future, too,’ he said. ‘But the influence is slower. My theory is really quite a simple one, but I couldn’t possibly explain it to you, not all of it. Why, you don’t even understand
e
= mc
³
, for Pete’s sake.’

‘I understand one thing,’ said Emil, leaping up. ‘I know that I
killed
poor Morbes! I am a murderer!’

‘Don’t take it so hard,’ said the boy. ‘You wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for me. In fact, the only reason you’re a time-traveller is because I wrote the whole thing in the margin near your name.’

‘My name?’ Emil was electrified at this reminder of his fame. ‘My name … Won’t you have a cookie?’

‘Thanks.’ The two of them munched Widow Hart’s cookies and discussed the theory once more, until Emil was sure he understood. He was not so sure he liked being at the mercy of the future, but when one considered it, it was no worse than being at the mercy of the past. One survived.

When the last cookie was gone, Emil rose and took his leave. He strolled back to the museum and paid his admission. After a few moments, he was able to seize an opportunity when the guard was not looking and leap upon his time engine. He pedalled furiously backward to 1878, and what a glorious feeling mounted in his breast as he gazed once more on the homely feature of John Franklin.

‘I
am
healthy, wealthy and wise – or shall be shortly,’ Emil told himself. ‘My rival is gone – I don’t even remember his name – and I am to be famous!’

After changing to his Sunday clothes, he picked a nosegay of his Mom’s flowers and set off toward the Peed house.

Mr Peed was seated in the porch swing, industriously polishing his pipe against his nose.

‘Halo, young Hart,’ he called out. ‘What brings you out this evening, all dressed up like that?’

‘I –’ Emil began, then realized he did not know the answer. Why
had
he come to see Mr and Mrs Peed?

‘Flowers for your wife,’ he decided aloud. ‘From Mom’s garden.’

‘Whose wife?’ asked Peed, leaning forward to accept the nosegay. ‘I ain’t married, son. I –’

Peed’s outstretched hand grew transparent. Then Peed, porch and house vanished with a click.

It was a nightmare! Emil hurried home to check on his Mom. There was no telling who might click out of existence next!

He was reassured by the sight of her frail old figure tottering into his shop with a tray.

‘Here, let me take that,’ he said, and accepted the tray from her careworn hands.

‘Lemonade and cookies – for me? Gee, you’re good, Mom!’ He bent and kissed her white hair. With a beatific smile, the old lady tottered back to her kitchen, whence came the smell of fresh baking. Fearfully, Emil watched until she was out of sight.

He cornered Julius in the library and demanded an explanation.

‘Of what?’ asked the youngster. ‘An explanation of what?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think the Peeds had a daughter, and I think I was in love with her. Now she’s gone, and they’re gone – have you been eating again?’