The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century (62 page)

I spoke of it at last to Isidri, from whom I have only ever kept one secret.

“No,” she said, after thinking a long time, “I don’t think that can be. There was a reason, wasn’t there, that you came back—here.”

“You,” I said.

She smiled wonderfully. “Yes,” she said. She added after a while, “And Sota, and Koneko, and the farmhold... But there’d be no reason for you to go back there, would there?”

She was holding our sleeping baby as she spoke; she laid her cheek against the small silky head.

“Except maybe your work there,” she said. She looked at me with a little yearning in her eyes. Her honesty required equal honesty of me.

“I miss it sometimes,” I said. “I know that. I didn’t know that I was missing you. But I was dying of it. I would have died and never known why, Isidri. And anyhow, it was all wrong—my work was wrong.”

“How could it have been wrong, if it brought you back?” she said, and to that I had no answer at all.

When information on churten theory began to be published I subscribed to whatever the Center Library of O received, particularly the work done at the Ekumenical Schools and on Ve. The general progress of research was just as I remembered, racing along for three years, then hitting the hard places. But there was no reference to a Tiokunan’n Hideo doing research in the field. Nobody worked on a theory of a stabilized double field. No churten field research station was set up at Ran’n.

At last it was the winter of my visit home, and then the very day; and I will admit that, all reason to the contrary, it was a bad day. I felt waves of guilt, of nausea. I grew very shaky, thinking of the Udan of that visit, when Isidri had been married to Hedran, and I a mere visitor.

Hedran, a respected traveling scholar of the Discussions, had in fact come to teach several times in the village. Isidri had suggested inviting him to stay at Udan. I had vetoed the suggestion, saying that though he was a brilliant teacher there was something I disliked about him. I got a sidelong flash from Sidi’s clear dark eyes:
Is he jealous?

She suppressed a smile. When I told her and my mother about my “other life,” the one thing I had left out, the one secret I kept, was my visit to Udan. I did not want to tell my mother that in that “other life” she had been very ill. I did not want to tell Isidri that in that “other life” Hedran had been her Evening husband and she had had no children of her body. Perhaps I was wrong, but it seemed to me that I had no right to tell these things, that they were not mine to tell.

So Isidri could not know that what I felt was less jealousy than guilt. I had kept knowledge from her. And I had deprived Hedran of a life with Isidri, the dear joy, the center, the life of my own life.

Or had I shared it with him? I didn’t know. I don’t know.

That day passed like any other, except that one of Suudi’s children broke her elbow falling out of a tree. “At least we know she won’t drown,” said Tubdu, wheezing.

Next came the date of the night in my rooms in the New Quadrangle, when I had wept and not known why I wept. And a while after that, the day of my return, transilient, to Ve, carrying a bottle of Isidri’s wine for Gvonesh. And finally, yesterday, I entered the churten field on Ve, and left it eighteen years ago on O. I spent the night, as I sometimes do, in the shrine. The hours went by quietly; I wrote, gave worship, meditated, and slept.

And I woke beside the pool of silent water.

So, now: I hope the Stabiles will accept this report from a farmer they never heard of, and that the engineers of transilience may see it as at least a footnote to their experiments. Certainly it is difficult to verify, the only evidence for it being my word, and my otherwise almost inexplicable knowledge of churten theory. To Gvonesh, who does not know me, I send my respect, my gratitude, and my hope that she will honor my intent.

HARRY TURTLEDOVE
was born in Los Angeles in 1949. After flunking out of CalTech, he earned a Ph.D. in Byzantine history from UCLA. He has taught ancient and medieval history at UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, and Cal State L.A., and he has published a translation of a ninth-century Byzantine chronicle, as well as several scholarly articles.

His alternate history works have included many short stories, the Civil War Classic
The
Guns of the South,
the epic World War I series The Great War, and the Worldwar tetralogy that began with
Worldwar: In the Balance.
He is a winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History for his novels
How Few Remain
and
Ruled Britannia,
and of the Hugo for his novella “Down in the Bottomlands.”

MARTIN H. GREENBERG
is a veteran anthologist and book packager with over 1,500 books to his credit. He lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with his wife, daughter, and four cats.

“Yesterday Was Monday” by Theodore Sturgeon. Copyright © 1941 by Street and Smith Publications. First published in
Astounding Science Fiction,
June 1941. Reprinted by permission of the agent for the Theodore Sturgeon Estate, Ralph M. Vicinanza, Ltd.

“Time Locker” by Henry Kuttner. Copyright © 1943 by Street and Smith Publications, copyright renewed 1970 by C. L. Moore. First published in
Astounding Science Fiction,
January 1943. Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

“Time’s Arrow” by Arthur C. Clarke. Copyright © 1950 by Hillman Periodicals. First published in
Science-Fantasy,
#1. Reprinted by permission of Scovil-Chichak-Galen Literary Agency, Inc.

“Death Ship” by Richard Matheson. Copyright © 1953 by Best Books, Inc., copyright renewed 1981 by Richard Matheson. First published in
Fantastic Story Magazine,
March 1953. Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

“A Gun for Dinosaur” by L. Sprague de Camp. Copyright © 1956 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation, copyright renewed 1984 by L. Sprague de Camp. First published in
Galaxy
Science Fiction,
March 1956. Reprinted by permission of Spectrum Literary Agency.

“The Man Who Came Early” by Poul Anderson. Copyright © 1956 by Mercury Press, Inc., copyright renewed © 1984 by Poul Anderson. First published in
The Magazine of
Fantasy and Science Fiction,
June 1956. Reprinted by permission of the agent for the author’s estate, Ralph M. Vicinanza, Ltd.

“Rainbird” by R. A. Lafferty. Copyright © 1961 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation, copyright renewed 1989 by R. A. Lafferty. First published in
Galaxy,
December 1961.

Reprinted by permission of the R. A. Lafferty Estate and the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency, Inc.

“Leviathan!” by Larry Niven. Copyright © 1970 by Larry Niven. First published in
Playboy,
August 1970. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Spectrum Literary Agency.

“Anniversary Project” by Joe Haldeman. Copyright © 1975 by Joe Haldeman. First published in
Analog,
October 1975. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Timetipping” by Jack Dann from
Epoch,
edited by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood (Berkeley Books). Copyright © 1975 by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood.

Copyright reassigned to the author. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Fire Watch” by Connie Willis. Copyright © 1982 by Connie Willis. First published in
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
, February 15, 1985. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Sailing to Byzantium” by Robert Silverberg. Copyright © 1985 by Agberg, Ltd. First published in
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine,
February 1985. Reprinted by permission of the author and Agberg, Ltd.

“The Pure Product” by John Kessel. Copyright © 1986 by Davis Publications, Inc. First published in
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine,
March 1986. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Trapalanda” by Charles Sheffield. Copyright © 1987, 1995 by Charles Sheffield. First published in
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine,
June 1987. Reprinted by permission of Spectrum Literary Agency.

“The Price of Oranges” by Nancy Kress. Copyright © 1989 by Nancy Kress. First published in
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine,
April 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Another Story or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea” by Ursula K. Le Guin. Copyright ©

1994 by Ursula K. Le Guin. First published in
Tomorrow,
August 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author and the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency, Inc.