Robert Heinlein - Assignment in Eternity

"I forgot to mention that I couldn't walk around in this place, for I couldn't seem to touch anything but myself. I sliced right through anything I tried to get a purchase on. Pretty soon I quit trying and relaxed. It was comfortable and I went into a warm happy dope, like a hibernating bear.

"After a long time a long, long time, I went sound asleep and came to in your big easy-chair. That's all."

Helen answered Howard's anxious inquiries by telling him that she had seen nothing of Estelle. "But why don't you calm down and wait? She isn't really overdue."

They were interrupted by the opening of the door from the hallway. A short wiry figure in a hooded brown tunic and tight brown breeches strode into the room.

"Where's Doctor Frost? Oh Doctor, I need helpl"

It was Monroe, but changed almost beyond recognition. He had been short and slender before, but was now barely five feet tall, and stocky, with powerfill shoulder muscles. The brown costume with its peaked hood, or helmet, gave him a strong resemblance to the popular notion of gnome.

Frost hurried to hin. "What is it, Robert? How can I help?"

"This first." Monroe hunched forward for inspection of his left upper arm. The fabric was tattered and charred, exposing an ugly^bum. "He just grazed me, but it had better be fixed. If I am to save the arm."

Frost examined it without touching it. "We must rush you to a hospital."

"No time. I've got to get back. They need me and the help I can bring."

The Doctor shook his head. "You've got to have treatment. Bob. Even if there is strong need for you to go back wherever you have been, you are in a different time track now. Time lost here isn't necessarily lost there."

Monroe cut him short. "I think this world and my world have connected time rates. I must hurry."

Helen Fisher placed herself between them. "Let me see that arm. Bob. Hm pretty nasty, but I think I can fix it. Professor, put a kettle on the fire with about a cup of water in it. As soon as it boils, chuck in a handful of tea leaves."

She rummaged through the kitchen cutlery drawer, found a pair of shears, and did a neat job of cutting away the sleeve and cleaning the burned flesh for dressing. Monroe talked as she worked.

"Howard, I want you to do me a favor. Get a pencil and paper and take down a list. I want a flock of things to take back all of them things that you can pick up at the fraternity house. You'll have to go for me I'd be thrown out with my present appearance What's the matter? Don't you want to?'

Helen hurriedly explained Howard's preoccupation. He listened sympathetically. "Oh! Say, that's tough lines, old man." His brow wrinkled"But look You can't do Estelle any good by waiting here, and I really do need your help for the next half hour. Will you do it?"

Jenkins reluctantly agreed. Monroe continued,

"Fine! I do appreciate it. Co to my room first and gather up my reference books on math also my slide rule. You'll find an India-paper radio manuaf, too. I want that. And I want your twenty-inch log-log duplex slide rule, as well. You can have my Rabelais and the DroU Stories. I want your Marks' Mechanical Engineers Handbook, and any other technical reference books that you have and I haven't. Take anything you like in exchange.

"Then go up to Stinky Beanfield's room, and get his Military Engineers Handbook, his Chemical Warfare, and his texts on ballistics and ordnance. Yes, and Miller's Chemistry of Explosives, if he has one. If not, pick up one from some other of the R.O.T.C. boys; it's important." Helen was deftly applying a poultice to his arm. He winced as the tea leaves, still warm, touched his seared flesh, but went ahead.

"Stinky keeps his service automatic in his upper bureau drawer. Swipe it, or talk him out of it. Bring as much ammunition as you can find I'll write out a bill of sale for my car for you to leave for him. Now get going. I'll tell Doc all about it, and he can tell you later. Here. Take my car." He fumbled at his thigh, then looked annoyed. "Cripes! I don't have my keys."

Helen came to the rescue. "Take mineThe keys are in my bag on the hall table."

Howard got up. "OK, I'll do my damndest. If I get flung in the can, bring me cigarettes." He went out.

Helen put the finishing touches on the bandages. 'There! I think that will do. How does it feel?"

He flexed his arm cautiously. "Okay. It's a neat job. kid. It takes the sting out,"

"I believe it will heal if you keep tannin solution on it. Can you get tea leaves where you are going?"

"Yes, and tannic acid, too. I'll be all right. Now you deserve an explanation. Professor, do you have a cigaret on you? I could use some of that cofiee, too."

"Surely, Robert." Frost hastened to serve him.

Monroe accepted a light and began,

"It's all pretty cock-eyed. When I came out of the sleep, I found myself, dressed as I am now and looking as I now look, marching down a long, deep fosse. I was one of a column of threes in a military detachment. The odd part about it is that I felt perfectly natural. I knew where I was and why I was there and who I was. I don't mean Robert Monroe; my name over there is Igor." Monroe pronounced the gutteral deep in his throat and trilled the "r." "I hadn't forgotten Monroe; it was more as if I had suddenly remembered him. I had one identity and two pasts. It was something like waking up from a clearly remembered dream, only the dream was perfectly real. I knew Monroe was real, just as I knew Igor was real.

"My world is much like earth; a bit smaller, but much the same surface gravity. Men like myself are the dominant race, and we are about as civilized as you folks, but our culture has followed a difficult courseWe live underground about half the time. Our homes are there and a lot of our industry. You see it's warm underground in our world, and not entirely dark. There is a mild radioactivity; it doesn't harm us.

"Nevertheless we are a surface-evolved race, and can't be healthy nor happy if we stay underground all the time. Now there is a war on and we've been driven underground for eight or nine months. The war is going against us. As it stands now, we have lost control of the surface and my race is being reduced to the status of hunted vermin,

"You see, we aren't fighting human beings. I don't know just what it is we are fighting maybe beings from outer space. We don't know. They attacked us several places at once from great flying rings the like of which we had never seen. They burned us down without warning. Many of us escaped underground where they haven't followed us. They don't operate at night either seem to need sunlight to be active. So it's a stalemate or was until they started gassing our tunnels.

"We've never captured one and consequently don't know what makes them tick. We examined a ring that crashed, but didn't leam much. There was nothing inside that even vaguely resembled animal life, nor was there anything to support animal life. I mean there were no food supplies, nor sanitary arrangements. Opinion is divided between the idea that the one we examined was remotely controlled and the idea that the enemy are some sort of non-protoplasmic intelligence, perhaps force patterns, or something equally odd.

"Our principal weapon is a beam which creates a stasis in the ether, and freezes 'em solid. Or rather it should, but it will destroy all life and prevent molar action but the rings are simply put temporarily out of control. Unless we can keep a beam on a ring right to the moment it crashes, it recovers and gets away. Then its pals come and bum out our position.

"We've had better luck with mining their surface camps, and blowing them up at night. We're accomplished sappers, of course. But we need better weapons. That's what I sent Howard after. I've got two ideas. If the enemy are simply some sort of intelligent force patterns, or something like that, radio may be the answer. We might be able to fill up the ether with static and jam them right out of existence. If they are too tough for that, perhaps some good old-fashioned anti-aircraft fire might make them say 'Uncle.' In any case there is a lot of technology here that we don't have, and which may have the answer. I wish I had time to pass on some of our stuff in return for what I'm taking with me."