Dr. Futurity (1960) (16 page)

"My daughter,"
Corith echoed, with a mocking grimace.

"If you go any further down," Parsons said, "You'll be shot through the chest. Killed. Your body will be taken back to your own time, to the Wolf Lodge, and put into cold-pack. For thirty-five years your mother and your wife, and finally your daughter, will try to undo your death; they'll give up eventually and call me in."

Corith said, "I don't have any daughter."

"But you will," he said. "You do now, in fact, but you don't know it. Your wife has conceived."

With no indication that he had heard him, Corith said, "I must go down there and kill that man."

"If you want to kill him," Parsons said, "I'll tell you how you can do it. Not by going down there."

"How?" Corith said.

"In your own time.
Before he solves the problem of time
travel and comes back here
." That was the only way; he had worked it out in his mind, examined the alternatives. "Here, he knows. There, if you go back, he doesn't. He didn't know about you when I was with him; all he had was a series of conjectures to go on. Shrewd guesses. But he was able to put them together; they resumed time-travel experimentation, and finally they were successful." Leaning urgently toward Corith, he went on, "Those weapons that you have won't help you here because--"

He broke off. From the pack strapped to Corith's body something stuck up--something that made cold, bleak fright rise inside him.

"Your costume," he managed to say. "You constructed it yourself. No one else saw it." He reached toward Corith. Toward the pack. From the pack he took--

A handful of arrows. With flint tips. And feathered with familiar colors.

"Fakes," Parsons said. "Which you made as part of your disguise. To come back here."

Corth said, "Look at your arm."

"What?" he said, dazed.

"You're a white man," Corith said. "The dye has rubbed off where you got scratched." Suddenly he seized hold of Parsons' arm and yanked him toward him; he spat on Parsons' arm and rubbed at his flesh. The dye, moistened, rubbed away, leaving a spot of grayish white. Letting go of his arm, he caught hold of the artificial hair braided into Parsons'; in an instant he had torn the artificial hair away. He sat holding it in his hand.

And then, without a word, he sprang at Parsons.

Now I see,
Parsons thought. He tumbled back over the lip of the rock and down the cliff side. Snatching, scrabbling, he managed to catch hold; his body dragged agonizingly against the rock. And then, above him, Corith appeared. The massive body descending.

Parsons rolled away, trying to avoid him.
No,
he thought.
I
don't want to
. The copper-colored hands closed around his throat, and he felt the man's knee dig into him. . . .

Against him, Corith sagged. Blood gushed, staining the ground as it gurgled and became pools. Parsons, with a violent effort, managed to struggle out from beneath the man. He held, now, only one arrow. And he did not have to turn Corith over to see where the other was. As the man had dropped onto him, he had propped the arrow upright and it had gone into his heart.

I killed him, Parsons thought. By accident.

Above, on the edge of the cliff, Jepthe appeared. They'll know, he realized. In a moment. And when they find out--

Pressing against the cliff, he moved away from the dying man, crawling along the rock surface until he could no longer see either the woman or Corith. Then, step by step, he began ascending the cliff.

He reached the top. No one was in sight. They had gone down to Corith, but they would be back up immediately.

His mind empty, he ran from the cliff, toward the grove of trees. Presently, he was out of sight among them. Safe, he thought. No one will know; now they won't know.

The mystery of his death. They will never find out.

I did not intend to, he thought, but that makes no real difference. No wonder Stenog laughed. He knew it was going to be I who killed Corith.

Stopping, he stood deep in frantic thought.

I can go back to Loris and Helmar, he decided. Tell them that I saw only what they saw: Corith on the cliff, going down, and then Corith die. No one else. Nobody came up the cliff from below. The only ones who came down were Jepthe and Nixina. I don't know any more than they do.

And Corith will never tell, because he is dead.

Hiding, he heard voices. He saw Nixina and Jepthe rushing through the trees, searching for their time ship, their faces blank with grief. Going to get the ship, put him into it, take him back and get him into cold-pack.

Corith is dead, but thirty-five years from now he will be brought back to life. I will do it. I will be there, in the Lodge, responsible for his rebirth.

He knew, now, why the second arrow had appeared in Corith's chest. Why he had not remained alive.

The first time, he had killed Corith by accident. But not the second time. That would be on purpose.

I must have come back, he realized, in one of the time ships. That night I revived Corith, while he lay unconscious, recuperating. While I was with Loris, I was also downstairs with him.

But why with an arrow?

He looked down at his hand. He still clutched one arrow. Scrambling up the cliff, he had hung onto it. Why? he asked himself.

Because the arrows saved my life. If I hadn't had them, Corith would have killed me. I was defending myself.

There had been no choice.

And yet, he felt dread, the horror of responsibility. He had been trapped, drawn into it against his will; Corith had leaped on him, and he had done nothing but struggle to protect himself.

What else could I have done?
he asked himself. Surely it isn't my fault. But if not, then whose fault is it?

Who really was responsible for the crime? And it was a crime. Any killing is a crime.
I'm a doctor,
he said to himself.
My job is to save human life. Especially this man's life.

But at the cost of my own? Because, when I revive him at the Lodge, he will point me out. And I will be helpless. Because I will not know; this has not happened for me yet.

FIFTEEN

Standing alone in the woods, Parsons thought,
I am the man
they are searching for. Thirty-five years.

The people at the Lodge would kill him at once, as soon as Corith indicted him. They would show no mercy--and why should they?

Had he, himself?

Perhaps he could break the sequence at some point. Catch myself before I come back here, he thought. Before I kill him the first time.

Above his head, a metallic object moved swiftly, leaving the woods and going to the cliff. The object dropped beyond the edge of the cliff; he heard its jets roaring as it stabilized itself near Corith. The old woman and her daughter had gone to collect the dying man.

In the vicinity, he realized, there were three other time ships; four, if Stenog's was included. This one had already gone into motion, but the others remained. Or did they?

I have to get to one of them, he thought. He began running aimlessly, in panic. But the ships from past time-segments-- he could not approach them without disrupting history. That left only Stenog's ship, and the one that he had arrived here in. Could he go back and face Loris and the others? Knowing that he had killed Corith?

He had to.

Coming out on the cliff, he began running back the way he had originally come. As far as they're concerned, he told himself, this trip has simply been a failure. As before, no one has been able to make out what happened. I've given them no help. My plan was a failure. There is no choice but to give up and return to the future.

While he ran he saw, over the cliff, the tiny figures on the beach below. Stenog's men, at the boat.

The men, with their oars, were tracing huge letters in the sand. Parsons paused. And saw that the letters spelled out his name. Stenog was trying to signal him. With great speed, as if by some prearranged system, the men got their message completed as he stood gazing down.

PARSONS. THEY SAW, KNOW.

Warning him. That this time the trip had not been a total failure. So he could not go back after all.

Turning, he sprinted across the open space, back into the woods. Once they see me, he realized, they'll kill me. Or--his heart sank. They don't even have to do that. All they have to do is go back to the future without me. Leave me here.

But then I can go down to Stenog's ship, he realized.

Go down--and find himself in the hands of the government once more, to be shipped out to the prison colonies. Was that what he wanted? Was that better than remaining here, a castaway? At least he would be free here; he could certainly contact an Indian tribe in the area, survive with them . . . and, later on, when a ship from Europe arrived, he could go back with them. He racked his brains. What was the next contact between this region, Nova Albion, and the Old World? Something like 1595. A captain named Cermeno had wrecked--
would
wreck--his vessel off the entrance to the Estero. That was--sixteen years.

Sixteen years here, living on clams and deer, squatting around a fire, huddled in a tent made of animal hide, scratching at the soil for roots. This was the superlative culture that Corith wanted to preserve, in place of Elizabethan England.

Better, Parsons thought, to turn myself over to Stenog. He started back in the direction of the cliff.

Ahead of him, a figure emerged, stepping into his path. For one terrible instant he thought it was Corith. The powerful shoulders, the grim, rigid features, the sharp, hawklike nose . . .

It was Helmar. Corith's son.

Halting, Parsons faced him. Now Loris and Jepthe appeared.

By the expression on their faces, he saw that Stenog had not lied to him.

"He was on his way down to them," Helmar said to Loris.

Loris, her face stark, said, "You betrayed us."

"No," Parsons said. But he knew that it was pointless to try to talk to them.

"When did the idea come to you?" Loris said. "Back at the Lodge? Did you get us to bring you here so you could do it? Or did the idea come to you when you saw him?"

Parsons said, "The idea never came to me."

"You intercepted him," Loris said. "You went down and talked to Drake--you conferred with him. We saw you. And then you came up the cliff and stopped Corith and murdered him. And then you were going back down to Drake, to go back with him. He warned you that we saw; he had his men write in the sand. So you knew you couldn't go back to us."

To that, Parsons said nothing. He faced them silently.

Pointing his weapon at Parsons, Helmar said, "We're going back to the time ship."

"Why?" Parsons said. Why not kill me here? he wondered.

"Nixina has made the decision," Loris said.

"What decision?"

Loris, in a choked, constricted voice, said, "She thinks you didn't mean to do it. She says--" She broke off. "If you had meant to do it, you would have brought some kind of weapon with you. She thinks you stopped Corith to argue with him, and that he wouldn't listen to you. And you fought each other, and in the fight Corith was stabbed."

Parsons said, "I warned him not to go down." They were listening, at least for a moment. "I told him," he said, "that it's not Drake down there. It's Stenog, waiting for him."

After a pause, Loris said, "And of course my father had never heard of Stenog. He didn't know what you meant." Bitterly, her lips twisting, she said, "And he saw the white showing on your arm. He knew you were a white man, and he didn't trust you; he wouldn't listen to you, and it cost him his life."

"Yes," Parsons said.

All of them were silent now.

"He was too suspicious," Loris said at last. "Unwilling to trust anyone. Nixina was right. You didn't mean to. It wasn't your fault. Any more than it was his." She raised her dark, grief-stricken eyes. "It
was
his fault in a sense. For being the way he was."

"There's no use thinking about that now," Jepthe said curtly.

"No," Loris agreed. "Well, there's nothing to do but go back. We failed."

Helmar said, "At least we know how it happened." He eyed Parsons with scorn and loathing.

"We'll abide by Nixina's decision," Jepthe said to him in a sharp, commanding voice.

"Yes," Helmar said, still staring fixedly at Parsons.

"What is her decision?" Parsons demanded.

Loris said, "We'll--" She hesitated. "Even if it was an accident," she said woodenly, "we feel that you should make some sort of atonement for it. We're going to leave you here. But not at this point in time." Her voice grew fainter. "A little further along."

With comprehension, Parsons said, "You mean after Drake's ship has left."

Helmar said, "You can spend your time trying to find that out." With his weapon, he indicated that he wanted Parsons to come toward them.

Together, they walked back along the cliff, to the time ship. Sitting in front of the ship, in her special chair, Nixina waited for them unseeingly. Several of the Wolf Tribe stood around her.

When they reached her, Parsons stopped. "I'm sorry," he said.

The old woman's head moved slightly, but she said nothing.

"Your son wouldn't listen to me," Parsons said.

After a time, Nixina said, "You shouldn't have stopped him. You weren't worthy to stop him."

Parsons thought,
The blame has to be on me. For them to
admit that Corith was responsible, through his fanaticism and
paranoia--that would be too much for them. Psychologically,
they could not stand it. So,
he thought,
I'm the scapegoat. I
must be punished, as proof of my guilt.

Wordlessly, he entered the ship.

Trees.

He stood looking around him, trying to catch some indication of change. Blue sky, the distant boom of the surf . . .

All the same. Except--

As fast as possible, he made his way to the cliff. Below, the beach. Sand, seaweed, the Pacific. Nothing else.

The careenage had ended. The
Golden Hind
had gone.