Damon Knight - Beyond the Barrier

Naismith.”

Its resemblance to the machine Wells had used was obvious at a glance. Naismith pushed his stool back. “No,” he said.

Churan paused, disconcerted. “But I haven’t even told you about it yet.”

“It doesn’t matter—I’ve tried one. Once was enough.”

“You tried one?” Lall repeated, with a disbelieving smile.

“Where was this?”

“At Wells’ office. I blanked out, evidently— But you know all about that—that’s why the police were after me, back there at the campus.”

Both aliens looked alarmed. Lall turned and shot a question at Churan—rapid guttural syllables, in which Naismith caught the name “Wells.” Churan answered explosively, then both turned and stared at Naismith.

“This may be tremendously important, Mr. Naismith. Please describe the machine he used, and the effect it had on you.”

Naismith did so, as best he could. As he spoke, both aliens visibly relaxed; after a few moments, Lall raised her hand to stop him. “That’s enough, Mr. Naismith. It’s apparent that this was not exactly the same kind of machine.”

“I never said it was. But nobody is going to monkey with my mind again, with any kind of machine.”

“What are you afraid of, Mr. Naismith?” Churan asked softly.

Naismith said nothing for a moment. Then: “You’re the one who ought to be afraid. I killed Wells while that machine was operating.”

“Evidently because there is something in your past that you subconsciously did not wish to remember. That is not hard to understand. Let me put it this way, Mr. Naismith. This machine will not bring back any of your own memories. Instead, it will add certain memories which you never had before.”

“It’s put of the question,” Naismith said flatly. “Teach me the ordinary way, if it’s so damned important. Start with the language. Give me books, records, whatever there is. I happen to be quick at languages. Even if I weren’t, you’ve got plenty of time.”

Churan shook his head. “Books and records could be falsi-fied, Mr. Naismith.”

“So could that thing.”

“No, it could not,” Churan said hoarsely, blinking with anger. “When you experience it, you will know. That is why no other method will serve. It’s not just a question of time, Mr. Naismith. You must be convinced, beyond any possible doubt, that what we are going to tell you is true.”

They looked at each other in silence for a moment.

“Why?” Naismith asked bluntly.

The two aliens glanced at each other with resigned expressions. Churan sat down, holding the helmet and the control unit on his lap.

“Mr. Naismith,” Lall said after a pause, “what if you knew that the ruling class of your own people had deliberately thrown you back in time, to the year 1980, believing you would be killed?”

“Why should they do that?”

Her fingers stretched into claws, then relaxed. “Because they are selfish and cowardly. After they had made up their minds to create the Barrier, they felt the Shefthi would be more a danger than a—”

“Wait,” said Naismith with an impatient gesture. “The Barrier… tell me about that.”

“In our own time, the ruling caste found a way to make a Time Barrier that would pass only the Lenlu Din into the future. It would be tuned to their mind patterns, you see; in that way, on the far side there would be no more Zugs, and also no more Lenlu Om. Just Lenlu Din, all by themselves, safe and contented. You understand? But it is not going to work. We know, because they are sending back messages through the Barrier. There is one Zug up there, still alive. And they are very frightened.” He grinned unpleasantly.

“If none of this has happened yet, what makes you so sure it’s going to happen?”

The woman sighed. “These are only ways of speaking. Surely you understand that by now, Mr. Naismith. From your point of view in 1980, all this ‘has not happened yet.’ But here we are.

As for the Barrier, we know it exists in the future. We know it is going to work, except that one Zug will be left alive. As Gunda has just told you, we know all this because we have received messages from beyond the Barrier.”

Naismith sat back. “The future can communicate with the past?” he asked disbelievingly.

“Haven’t you seen that it can? Didn’t we go back to the twentieth century, and scoop you up like a fish in a net?” Lall’s amber eyes were brilliant, her fingers tense.

“Then why don’t they simply tell their earlier selves to do things differently, and eliminate the trouble?”

“They can’t find the trouble,” said Lall, her eyes shining. “It is impossible for a Zug to pass through the Barrier alive. But their detectors show that there is one, and that’s why they are so frantic. When we learned that, we saw our opportunity.”

She leaned forward, intent, lips moist. “We searched the main stem as far back as the twentieth century. Every anomaly above a certain value had to be investigated. It took years, subjective time. It was only the most incredible luck that we found you at all. Then we had to prepare this place; then go back to 1980

and learn the language, customs, everything, from the beginning. And now it all comes together. Because you see they are desperate. If you return, with some story of having built your own time generator, they will believe you—they have to, you are the last Shefth, and they need you.” Both aliens were breathing heavily, staring at Naismith across the low table.

“Then a Shefth can go through the Barrier?” asked Naismith.

“The Shefthi are Lenlu Din,” Churan answered. “If they had let well enough alone, all the Shefthi would be on the other side of the Barrier, and there would be no problem with the Zug. But they didn’t want any warriors in their safe future, without Zugs, without Lenlu Om. They would have killed you, but they were afraid. So they invented a story about an expedi-tion to kill Zugs in the past, and threw you all back. At random, without destination. Without protection. The shock of landing was to kill you all. Even if it did not, without equipment, you could never get back to bother them. That was their plan.”

“I see,” said Naismith.

“What is your reaction to this, Mr. Naismith?” Churan’s voice was strained.

“If it’s true, I’m… very interested,” said Naismith. “Now one more point. What’s this about the Lenlu Om? You said the Barrier was to keep them out too. Who are they, or what are they?”

“We are Lenlu Om,” said Churan quietly. “The name means

‘the Ugly People.’ We are their servants. They brought us from another place, centuries ago. We are not considered to be human.”

Naismith glanced up: the faces of all three aliens had turned hard and expressionless. He put the cylinder down carefully and stood up slowly, feeling their eyes on him. “And all this,”

he said, “in more detail, you would have taught me with that thing.” He nodded toward the device in Churan’s lap.

“As well as many other things. The language. We can teach you to speak it perfectly in less than two hours. And you must speak it perfectly. Then the City itself—the castes—forms of courtesy—a thousand and one things you must know, Mr.

Naismith. You can learn it all by primitive methods, of course, but believe me, it is not worth the effort.”

“But you used so-called primitive methods to learn English.”

Churan hesitated. “Yes and no. We employed the educator

—we recorded disks from the thoughts of natives whom we captured and drugged. But that is not the same as having an edited subject disk all prepared. It was tedious, it took time.

Then we also had to spend time establishing identities for ourselves. We took, I don’t know, perhaps six months, subjective time. Without the educator, it would have taken years.”