Mists of Dawn (11 page)

Mark
did
not
speak.
.
.
.
There
were
no
words.

“Now
then,”
Doctor
Nye
went
on,
“you
understand that
it
is
incorrect
to
refer
to
this
device
as
a
time machine.
It
is
a
space-time
machine.
What
does
that mean?
Well,
simply,
it
means
that
it
moves
through space
as
it
moves
through
time.
This
is
nothing
really new.
You
know,
if
you’ll
stop
and
think
about
it,
that space
and
time
are
hooked
up
together.
They
are
both aspects
of
the
same
thing.
You
cannot
move
through space
without
moving
through
time
as
well—that
is, you
cannot
go
from
New
York
to
Washington
in
no time
at
all.
In
the
same
way,
you
cannot
move
through time
without
moving
through
space
simultaneously. Even
if
you
sit
perfectly
still
in
a
chair
and
watch
fifteen
minutes
tick
off
on
a
clock,
you
have
moved
many, many
miles—for
the
earth
is
moving
through
space
all the
time,
and
our
solar
system
and
our
galaxy
are moving
as
well.”

“I
understand,”
Mark
said.
“That
is
what
makes
it possible
for
us
to
go
into
the
machine
here
in
New Mexico
and
come
out
in
Italy,
isn’t
it?”

“That’s
right,”
Doctor
Nye
agreed.
“I
have
determined
the
exact
relationship
between
space
and
time with
respect
to
this
machine
of
ours,
and
it
will
be
possible
for
us
to
go
from
New
Mexico
to
Rome
in
space while
we
are
going
from
a.d
.
1953
to
46
b.
c
.
in
time. One
day,
it
may
even
be
possible
to
travel
through
interplanetary
space
by
the
same
means.
That
is,
we might
be
able
to
arrange
things
so
that
we
could
go back
millions
of
years
in
time
and
all
the
way
to
Mars in
space—which
might
put
us
on
Mars
at
a
time
when that
planet
held
a
high
civilization.”

Mark
Nye’s
imagination
ran
wild
at
his
uncle’s words.
Mars!

“Of
course,”
said
Doctor
Nye,
“the
way
the
rocket
experiments
are
shaping
up
it
looks
like
we’ll
get
to
Mars easily
enough
without
the
space-time
machine,
but
it’s certainly
something
to
think
about.”
He
drew
on
his pipe
steadily,
turning
the
air
hazy
with
blue
smoke. “Now,”
he
continued,
“what
this
machine
actually
does is
to
utilize
the
tremendous
energies
of
the
atom
to warp
space-time
in
such
a
manner
that
the
machine can
travel
through
them
at
will.
But
there
are
a
few catches
to
all
of
this—a
few
conditions
that
you
must remember.
If
you
understand
these,
there
is
a
great deal
that
would
have
seemed
mysterious
to
you
otherwise
that
will
now
be
perfectly
clear
when
we
start
out.”

“I’m
listening,”
Mark
assured
him.
His
heart
was
still beating
rapidly
with
excitement.
Here
he
was,
sitting in
the
lead
sphere
in
the
basement
of
his
uncle’s
home in
New
Mexico,
in
the
year
1953.
Vast
energies
were sleeping
all
around
him,
and
yet
at
the
touch
of
a hand,
the
flick
of
a
switch,
he
would
go
where
no
man before
him
had
ever
gone—back,
back
past
Columbus on
his
voyage
to
America,
back
past
Marco
Polo,
back to
ancient
Rome
two
years
before
the
death
of
Julius Caesar.
Would
they
see
him
fall?
Or
could
they
perhaps
prevent
his
death—warn
him
in
advance
of
what was
coming?
What
would
happen
then?
What
would the
course
of
history
have
been
if
Julius
Caesar
had lived?