Clifford Simak - A Death in the House - And Other Stories

Chances were, we agreed, that stripping it down would involve some danger, perhaps considerable danger. Somewhere within that metal cylinder was a factor no one understood. Checks and balances were built into the machine to control that factor. Unbalance this system and you would be face to face with time, or that factor we called “time”; and no one, absolutely no one, knew what time might be.

“What we’ll need,” said Leonard, “is something that will contain time, that will insulate it.”

“Okay,” I said. “That is exactly it. Something that damps the time factor while we work, so that we aren’t blown back into the Carboniferous or forward to the point where the universe is approaching heat death.”

“I don’t think the time force is that strong,” Old Prather objected.

“Probably not, the way it is now,” said Leonard. “Charley thinks the engine is idling, maybe barely functioning. But if that thing out there is what we think it is, it has to have the requisite power to drive a spaceship over many light-years.”

“The damping factor would have to be something that is immaterial,” I said. “Something that is not a part of the material universe. Anything that has mass would be affected by time. What we need is something upon which time has no effect.”

“Light, maybe,” said Mary. “Lasers.”

Leonard shook his head. “Either time affects light,” he said, “or light has established its own time parameter. It travels only so fast. And while it may not seem so, it is actually material. Light can be bent by a strong magnetic field. What we need is something outside time and independent of it.”

“Well, maybe the mind, then,” said Mary. “Thought. Telepathic thought aimed at the engine, establishing some sort of rapport with it.”

“That fits our specifications,” Old Prather agreed, “but we’re a thousand years too soon. We don’t know what thought is. We don’t know how the mind operates. We have no telepaths.”

“Well,” said Mary, “I did my best. I came up with two bad ideas. How about the rest of you?”

“Witchery,” I said. “Let us go to Africa or the Caribbean and get us a good witch doctor.”

I had meant to be facetious, but it didn’t seem to strike them that way. They sat there looking at me like three solemn owls.

“A resonance of some sort,” said Leonard.

“I know about that,” said Mary, “and it wouldn’t work. You’re talking about a kind of music, and I know music. Time is a part of music. Music is based on time.”

Leonard frowned. “I said it wrong,” he told us, “and without too much thought. What I was thinking about were atoms. Perhaps there is no such thing as time in atomic structure. Some investigators have advanced the theory. If we could line up atoms, get them into some sort of random step—” He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t work. There’s no way in God’s world that it could be done, and even if it could, I guess it wouldn’t work.”

“A strong magnetic field,” said Old Prather. “Wrap the engine in a magnetic field.”

“Fine,” I said. “That might do the trick. The field might bend and contain time. But, aside from the fact that we can’t build such a field…”

“If we could,” said Mary, “we couldn’t work inside the field. What we’re talking about is how to control time so we can investigate the engine.”

“The only thing left is death,” I said. “Death is a timeless thing.”

“Can you tell me what death is?” snapped Leonard.

“No, I can’t,” I said, grinning at him.

“You’re a smart aleck,” he said viciously. “You always were.”

“Now, now,” said Old Prather, completely horrified. “Let us have more wine. There’s still some left in the bottle.”

“We aren’t getting anywhere,” said Mary, “so what difference does it make? Death sounds as good to me as any of the others.”

I bowed to her with mock gravity, and she made a face at me. Old Prather went skipping around the table like a concerned cricket, pouring the wine.

“I hope,” he said, “the boys in the shop can come up with something that will turn the control dial.”

“If they don’t,” said Mary, “we’ll do it by hand. Have you ever thought how the human hand is often more versatile than the finest tool?”

“Trouble is,” said Leonard, “that however ingenious the tool may be, it is going to be awkward. You have to stand so far away, and you’re working at a dirty angle.”

“But we can’t do it by hand,” Old Prather protested. “There is the time effect.”

“On little things,” said Mary. “On books and tennis balls and boots. Never on a living thing. Never on anything with the mass of a human body.”

“I still wouldn’t want to try it,” said Leonard.

We tried it. We had to try it.

The tools the shop dreamed up wouldn’t work, and we simply couldn’t leave the time machine there in the clump of birch. It was still operating. While we watched, a battered wrist watch, a tattered notebook, an old felt hat appeared and disappeared. And momentarily the boat was upon the pond that had never known a boat.

“I spent last night with the mathematics text,” said Leonard, “hoping I might find something that might help us, but I didn’t find a thing. Some new and intriguing concepts, of course, but nothing that could be applied to time.”

“We could construct a good strong fence around it,” said Old Prather, “and leave it there until we know what to do with it.”

“Nonsense,” said Mary. “Why, for heaven’s sake, a fence? All we need to do is step in there—”

“No,” said Leonard. “No, I don’t think we should. We don’t know—”

“We know,” said Mary, “that it can move small objects. Nothing of any mass at all. And all of them are inanimate. Not a single living thing. Not a rabbit, not a squirrel. Not even a mouse.”

“Maybe there aren’t any mice,” said Old Prather.

“Fiddlesticks,” said Mary. “There are always mice.”

“The pagoda,” said Leonard. “Quite some distance from this place and a rather massive structure.”

“But inanimate,” said Mary.

“You mentioned mirages, I believe,” I said to Old Prather. “Buildings and people.”

“Yes,” he said, “but merely shadows. Very shadowy.”

“God. I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe Mary’s right. Maybe it has no real effect on anything that’s living.”

“We’d be gambling, you know,” said Leonard.

“Leonard, that is what is wrong with you,” said Mary. “I’ve been wondering all this time what was wrong with you. And now it seems I know. You never gamble, do you?”

“Never,” said Leonard. “There is no sense in gambling. It’s a sucker’s game.”

“Of course not,” said Mary. “A computer for a brain. A lot of little mathematical equations to spell out life for you. You’re different from the rest of us. I gamble; Charley, here, would gamble—”

“All right,” I said, “cut out the arguing. I’ll do the job. You say fingers are better than tools, so let us find out. All you have to tell me is which way I should turn it.”

Mary grabbed my arm. “No, you don’t,” she said. “I was the one who started this. I’m the one to do it.”

“Why don’t the two of you,” Leonard said in his nasty, twerpy way, “draw straws to determine which one of you it’ll be?”

“Now that is a good idea,” Mary said. “But not the two of us. It’ll be the three of us.”

Old Prather had been doing some twittering around, and now he blurted out, “I think this is the height of foolishness. Drawing straws, indeed! I do not approve of it. I approve it not at all. But if straws are being drawn, there must be four of them.”