Clifford Simak - I Am Crying All Inside - And Other Stories

“You wouldn’t have anyhow,” said Mackenzie. “They wouldn’t go.”

“But you made the deal! They were anxious to go—”

“That,” Mackenzie told him, “was before they found out we used plants for food—and other things.”

“But … but—”

“To them,” said Mackenzie, “we’re just a gang of ogres. Something they’ll scare the little plants with. Tell them if they don’t be quiet the humans will get ’em.”

Nellie came around the corner of the tractor, still hauling the Encyclopedia by his topknot.

“Hey,” yelled Harper, “what goes on here?”

“We’ll have to build a concentration camp,” said Mackenzie. “Big high fence.” He motioned with his thumb toward the Encyclopedia.

Harper stared. “But he hasn’t done anything!”

“Nothing but try to take over the human race,” Mackenzie said.

Harper sighed. “That makes two fences we got to build. That rifle tree back at the post is shooting up the place.”

Mackenzie grinned. “Maybe the one fence will do for the both of them.”

Sent to Horace Gold in 1959 and purchased in less than a week, this story, which was first published in the March 1960 issue of If , features two prominent themes from Clifford Simak’s fiction: time travel and religion. I was not old enough to have seen the magazine when it came out, and I missed the story for years thereafter—but when I finally discovered it, I found myself utterly charmed by its portrayal of a dignified man being targeted by a cross-time conspiracy

He went sneaking past the door.

The lettering on the door said: Executive Vice President, Projects.

And down in the lower left corner, Hallock Spencer , in very modest type.

That was him. He was Hallock Spencer.

But he wasn’t going in that door. He had trouble enough already without going in. There’d be people waiting there for him. No one in particular—but people. And each of them with problems.

He ducked around the corner and went a step or two down the corridor until he came to another door that said Private on it.

It was unlocked. He went in.

A dowdy scarecrow in a faded, dusty toga sat tipped back in a chair, with his sandaled feet resting on Hallock Spencer’s desk top. He wore a mouse-gray woolen cap upon his hairless skull and his ears stuck out like wings. A short sword, hanging from the belt that snugged in the toga, stood canted with its point resting on the carpet. There was dirt beneath his rather longish toenails and he hadn’t shaved for days. He was a total slob.

“Hello, E.J.,” said Spencer.

The man in the toga didn’t take his feet off the desk. He didn’t move at all. He just sat there.

“Sneaking in again,” he said.

Spencer put down his briefcase and hung up his hat.

“The reception room’s a trap,” he said.

He sat down in the chair behind the desk and picked up the project schedule and had a look at it.

“What’s the trouble, E.J.?” he asked. “You back already?”

“Haven’t started yet. Not for another couple hours.”

“It says here,” said Spencer, flicking the schedule with a finger, “that you’re a Roman trader.”

“That’s what I am,” said E.J. “At least, Costumes says so. I hope to God they’re right.”

“But the sword—”

“Pardner,” said E.J., “back in Roman Britain, out on a Roman road, with a pack train loaded down with goods, a man has got to carry steel.”

He reached down and hoisted the sword into his lap. He regarded it with disfavor. “But I don’t mind telling you it’s no great shakes of a weapon.”

“I suppose you’d feel safer with a tommy gun.”

E.J. nodded glumly. “Yes, I would.”

“Lacking that,” said Spencer, “we do the best we can. You’ll pack the finest steel in the second century. If that is any comfort.”

E.J. just sat there with the sword across his lap. He was making up his mind to say something—it was written on his face. He was a silly-looking soul, with all those wiry whiskers and his ears way out to either side of him and the long black hairs that grew out of the lobes.

“Hal,” said E.J., finally making up his mind, “I want out of this.”

Spencer stiffened in his chair. “You can’t do that!” he yelled. “Time is your very life. You’ve been in it for a lot of years!”

“I don’t mean out of Time. I mean out of Family Tree. I am sick of it.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Spencer protested. “Family Tree’s not tough. You’ve been on a lot of worse ones. Family Tree’s a snap. All you have to do is go back and talk to people or maybe check some records. You don’t have to snitch a thing.”

“It’s not the work,” said E.J. “Sure, the work is easy. I don’t mind the work. It’s after I get back.”

“You mean the Wrightson-Graves.”

“That is what I mean. After every trip, she has me up to that fancy place of hers and I have to tell her all about her venerable ancestors …”

Spencer said, “It’s a valuable account. We have to service it.”

“I can’t stand much more of it,” E.J. insisted, stubbornly.

Spencer nodded. He knew just what E.J. meant. He felt much the same.

Alma Wrightson-Graves was a formidable old dowager with a pouter-pigeon build and the erroneous conviction that she still retained much of her girlish charm. She was loaded down with cash, and also with jewels that were too costly and gaudy to be good taste. For years she’d shrieked down and bought off everyone around her until she firmly believed there was nothing in the world she couldn’t have—if she was willing to pay enough for it.

And she was paying plenty for this family tree of hers. Spencer had often asked himself just why she wanted it. Back to the Conquest, sure—that made at least some sense. But not back to the caves. Not that Past, Inc., couldn’t trace it that far for her if her cash continued to hold out. He thought, with a perverted satisfaction, that she couldn’t have been happy with the last report or two, for the family had sunk back to abject peasantry.

He said as much to E.J. “What does she want?” he asked. “What does she expect?”

“I have a hunch,” E.J. told him, “that she has some hopes we’ll find a connection back to Rome. God help us if we do. Then it could go on forever.”

Spencer grunted.

“Don’t be too sure,” warned E.J. “Roman officers being what they were I wouldn’t bet against it.”

“If that should happen,” Spencer told him. “I’ll take you off the project. Assign someone else to carry out the Roman research. I’ll tell the Wrightson-Graves you’re not so hot on Rome—have a mental block or a psychic allergy or something that rejects indoctrination.”

“Thanks a lot,” said E.J., without much enthusiasm.

One by one, he took his dirty feet off the shiny desk and rose out of the chair.

“E.J.?”

“Yes, Hal.”

“Just wondering. Have you ever hit a place where you felt that you should stay? Have you ever wondered if maybe you should stay?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Once or twice, perhaps. But I never did. You’re thinking about Garson.”

“Garson for one. And all the others.”

“Maybe something happened to him. You get into tight spots. It’s a simple matter to make a big mistake. Or the operator might have missed.”

“Our operators never miss,” snapped Spencer.

“Garson was a good man,” said E.J., a little sadly.

“Garson! It’s not only Garson. It’s all the …” Spencer stopped abruptly, for he’d run into it again. After all these years, he still kept running into it. No matter how he tried, it was something to which he could not reconcile himself—the disparity in time.