Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (57 page)

By the time Burns had finished questioning me, I was exhausted and hungry. He ordered a meal sent up, and despite my repugnance for the badly cooked meal in unsanitary glazed pottery, I began eating as soon as it was set before me. To my surprise, the taste sensations were rather pleasant.

"You'd better crawl into the sack as soon as you've finished blotting up calories," Burns advised from the table where he was typing. "You look like a hundred-yard man who's just tried to cop the cross-country crown. Bushed, Pop, bushed. I'll run the copy over to the office when I get it done. I don't need you any more tonight."

"The facts are sufficient and satisfactory?" I yawned.

"Not quite sufficient, but very satisfactory. Enough to give Ferguson a bunch of happy gurgles. I only wish—Oh, well, the date business for example. It would help out a lot."

"Well," I said sleepily, "I can think a bit more about 1993."

"No. We've been through that from every angle. Let it ride. Get yourself some sleep, Pop."

—|—

The newspaper office had changed its population quality when Burns and I walked in. An entire section of the huge floor had been roped off. Signs had been posted at regular intervals reading "FOR SCIENTISTS ONLY." Between them were other signs extending a welcome to "THE VISITOR FROM 2949," announcing that "THE NEW YORK BLARE SALUTES THE FAR FUTURE" and minor obscure comments concerning such things as "HANDS ACROSS THE TIMESTREAM" and "THE PAST, PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE ARE ONE AND INDIVISIBLE WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!"

Various elderly gentlemen milled about in the roped enclosure into which I was half jostled, half guided. What I had come to recognize as flashbulbs were expended blindingly and in quantity by troops of photographers, some of whom lay prone on the floor, while others contorted on chairs, and still others hung suspended from trapeze-like affairs attached to the ceiling.

"It's sizzling and bubbling, Joey boy," Ferguson babbled as he writhed his way up to us and put several sheets of ink-fresh newspaper into the reporter's hands. "Some say he's a nut, uh-huh, and some say he's a resurrection of the prophet Nehemiah; but everybody in town is buying the paper. Two full days before the World Series and we've got a solid newsbeat. The other rags have their tongues hanging out for a look-in—they can kiss my basket. Nice slew of copy, uh-huh, nice angles. I had some trouble finding a couple of archaeologists who'd swear Terton was a member of the guild, but Ferguson never fails—we got our men." Ferguson's left eye momentarily lost its tic and developed a positive oscillation. "Look," he growled hoarsely, as he pushed me into a seat, "don't go prima donna on us now. No fancy stuff, see! Uh-huh. That's right. You just stick to your story for today and tomorrow and you'll get yourself a nice hunk of the publisher's dough. If you're good enough, maybe you can even last through the first two games of the Series. Stick to your story—you came from the future, and that's all you know. Uh-huh, and stay away from facts!"

As he clapped his bands, calling the assembled scientists to attention, Joseph Burns slid into the chair next to mine.

"Sorry about the archaeologist complication, Pop. But remember my copy is edited thoroughly at this end. What you told me just doesn't look good on paper. Martian archaeologist is close enough for the masses. If I were you, I'd stay away from any detailed description of your occupation. It'll density the air no end."

"But Martian archaeologist is wholly inaccurate!"

"Come now, Pop, you seem to forget that your primary objective is to attract attention, enough attention so that you'll be considered a dangerous big-mouth and sent back to your time. Well, glance to your right and occasionally to your left. Lots of attention, no? This is the way to do it: huge heads and lurid lines."

I was still considering my reply when I noticed that Ferguson had finished introducing me to the scientists, most of whom wore thin little curled smiles. "Uh-huh, and here he is! Terton, the man from the impossibly far future. He will speak to you himself, he will answer your questions.
The New York Blare
requests, however, that questions be brief and limited in number; just for the first day, gentlemen. After all, our guest is tired and upset after his long, hazardous journey through time!"

The dignified questions sputtered at me as I rose to my feet. "Exactly what year do you claim as your origin, Mr. Terton? Or is the figure 2949 correct?"

"Quite incorrect," I assured the questioner. "The actual date in terms of a translation from the Octet Calendar which we use—Now, what
was
that rule about translating from the Octet?"

"Could you explain the construction of a rocket motor of your period?" someone asked as I was deep in the complicated and unfamiliar methodology of calendar mathematics. "You speak of interplanetary flight."

"And interstellar flight," I added. "And
interstellar
flight. Except that rockets are not used. A complicated propulsion method called the space pressure spread is employed."

"And what exactly is a space pressure spread?"

I coughed embarrassedly. "Something which, I am afraid, I had never the slightest interest in investigating. I understand it is based on Kuchholtz's Theory of the Missing Vector."

"And what—"

"Kuchholtz's Theory of the Missing Vector," I told them with a good deal of firmness, "has been the one thing that attracted my mind even less than the operation of a space pressure spread."

—|—

So it went. From triviality to triviality. These primitive though well-meaning savants, living as they did at the very dawn of specialization, could not even faintly appreciate how cursory my education had been in everything but my chosen field. In their period of microscopic knowledge and rudimentary operational devices it was already difficult for one man to absorb even a generalization of total learning. How much more so in my time, I tried to tell them, with separate biologies and sociologies for each planet—to mention but one example. And then, it had been so many years since I had touched upon the elementary sciences! I had forgotten so much!

Government (as they called it) was almost impossible to illustrate. How can you demonstrate to twentieth-century savages the nine levels of social responsibility with which every child has thoroughly experimented before reaching adolescence? How can you make clear the "legal" status of such a basic device as the judicialarion? Possibly someone from my time deeply versed in this period's tribal lore and superstitions might, with the aid of rough parallels, give them a glimmering of such things as communal individuality or mating by neurone-pattern—but not I. I? Good cause had I to berate Banderling as the chuckles rippled higher.

"I am a specialist," I cried at them. "I need another specialist like myself to understand me."

"You need a specialist all right," a brown-clothed, middle-aged man said as he rose in the back row. "But not like you. Like me. A psychiatrist."

There was a roar of agreeing laughter. Ferguson rose nervously and Joseph Burns came quickly to my side.

"This the man?" the psychiatrist inquired of a blue-clad figure who had just entered the office. I recognized my chief pursuer of the day before. He nodded.

"Him, all right. Runnin' around nood. Should be ashamed. Or committed. I dunno which, honestly I don't."

"Just a moment," one of the scientists called out as Ferguson cleared his throat. "We've spent this much time; the least we can do is find out what he claims as his specialty. Some form of archaeology—Martian archaeology, no less."

At last. I drew a deep breath. "Not Martian archaeology," I began. "Not
archaeology
." That had been Banderling's misconception! Behind me, Burns groaned and slumped back into his chair.

"I am a flirgleflip. A flirgleflip is one who flips flirgs with a flirgleflip." There was a loud intake of breath.

I discussed my profession at great length. How the first dolik and spindfar discovered in the sands of Mars had been considered nothing more than geological anachronisms, how the first punforg had been used as a paperweight. Then Cordes and that almost divine accident which enabled him to stumble upon the principle of the flirgleflip; then Gurkheyser who perfected it and may rightly be considered the father of the profession. The vistas that opened as the flirg-patterns were identified and systematized. The immense beauty, created by a race that even living Martians have no conception of, which became part of man's cultural heritage.

I told of the commonly accepted theory as to the nature of the flirglers: that they were an energy form which at one time attained intelligence on the red planet and left behind them only the flirg-patterns which were vaguely equivalent to our music or non-objectivist art; that being energy forms they left permanent energy records of all kinds in their only material artifacts—dolik, spindfar, and punforg. I told proudly of my decision at an early age to dedicate myself to flirg-patterns: how I was responsible for the system of using present-day Martian placenames to identify the sites on which the artifacts were found in their loosely scattered fashion. Then, modestly, I mentioned my discovery of an actual contrapuntal flirg-pattern in some dolik—which had resulted in a full Investigatorship at the Institute. I referred to my forthcoming paper on
Gllian Origins of Late Pegis Flirg-Patterns
and became so involved in a description of all the facets of the Thumtse Dilemna, that it seemed to me I was back at the Institute giving a lecture—instead of fighting for my very identity.

"You know," I heard a voice say wonderingly near me, "it almost sounds logical. Like one of those double-talk hits or the first verse of Jabberwocky, it almost sounds as if it exists."

"Wait!" I said suddenly. "The sensation of flirg-pattern is impossible to describe in words. You must feel it for yourself." I tore open the rough cloth of my upper garment and pulled the necklace out. "Here, examine for yourselves the so-called dolik of the Thumtse Dilemna with my flirgleflip. Observe—"

I stopped. I was not wearing the flirgleflip! I'd forgotten.

Joseph Burns leaped up. "Mr. Terton's flirgleflip was exchanged for the suit of clothes he is now wearing. I'll volunteer to go out and buy it back."

My gratitude went with him as he picked his way through the amused scientists.

"Listen, guy," Ferguson told me wetly. "You'd better do something fast. Burns isn't a genius: he may not be able to work up a good out. There's an alienist here—uh-huh, I said an alienist—and they'll shove you behind soft walls if you don't come up with something new. You're looking so bad, all our men are sitting on their tongues. They're afraid for their reps."

One of the younger scientists asked for the necklace. I handed it to him, the dolik still attached. He scrutinized both objects, then scratched them with his fingernail. He returned them to me.

"That necklace—ah—was what you claimed could send you or teleport you anywhere on Earth, I believe?"

"Through a benscope," I pointed out. "You need benscope receivers and transmitters."

"Quite. And the small thing is what you call a—hum—a dolik. Thumbnail's Dilemna, or some such. Gentlemen, I am an industrial chemist, as you know. That necklace, I am convinced—and chemical analysis would merely confirm my visual impressions—is nothing more than a very fine spun glass. Nothing more."

"It's been renucleied for use with a benscope, you fool! What difference does the nature of the material make, when it's been renucleied?"

"Whereas the dolik," the young man went on equably, "the Martian dolik is really a treasure. Something quite unique. Oh, yes. Old red sandstone such as the average geologist can find almost anywhere on Earth in fifteen minutes. Old red sandstone!"

—|—

It was a while before I could make myself heard again. Unfortunately, I lost my temper. The idea of anyone referring to the Thumtse Dilemna as old red sandstone almost made me insane. I shouted at them for their bigotry, their narrowness, their lack of knowledge. Ferguson stopped me. "You'll get yourself put away for sure," he whispered. "You're almost frothing. Uh-huh, and don't think it'll do the sheet a bit of good for you to be dragged out of here in a straitjacket." I took a deep breath.

"Gentlemen," I suggested. "If any of you were suddenly to find yourselves in an earlier century, you would have great difficulty in using your specialized knowledge with the primitive equipment you would then find available. How much more must I—"

"You have a point there," a man with a stout face admitted. "But there is one thing, one means of identification always open to a traveler from the future."

"What's that?" Several academic necks were craned at him.

"Dates. Historical events. Things of this month or this year. The significant occurrences. You claim to regard this period as your past. Tell us of it. What will happen?"

"Unfortunately—" I made an unhappy gesture and the laughter sped forth anew, "my Terran history is very fragmentary. One brief course in childhood. I was brought up on Mars, and even Martian history is rather vague to me. Historical dates I never could assimilate. As I told Joseph Burns last night, I remember only three around this general period."

"Yes?" Their interest was substantial now.

"First, 1993."

"What happens in 1993?"

"I don't know, I regret to say. But it seems to have some great significance. Possibly a plague, an invention, the date of a masterpiece. Or possibly a date which was mentioned to me casually and which I've retained. Not very useful, in any case. Then August, 1945. The atom bomb. Mr. Burns says this isn't particularly useful either since it is already several years in your past. Please remember, that I have great difficulty with your calendar."

"What's the third date?" a voice called.

"1588," I told him hopelessly. "The Spanish Armada."

Chairs scraped. The scientists rose and prepared to leave. "Hold 'em," Ferguson shrilled at me. "Say something, do something." I shrugged.

"One moment." It was the young industrial chemist. "I think we can settle the hash of this hoax most definitely. I noticed in Mr. Burns's lurid little article that you said you had played on the Martian sands as a child. What were you wearing at the time?"