Christopher Grimm - The Science Fiction Archive #3

Gabriel Lockard opened Gabriel Lockard's eyes.

"Well," the Vinzz who stood above him lisped, "how does it feel to be back in your own body again?"

Gabriel got up and stretched. He stretched again, and then an expression of wonderment came over his handsome features. "I feel … exactly the way I felt in … any of the others," he said haltingly. "I'm not comfortable in this one either. It's not right—it doesn't fit. My own body...."

"You've grown out of it," the green one told him, not unkindly. "But you will be able to adjust to it again, if you'll give it a chance...."

"There's that word again." Gabriel winced. "I'm beginning to respond to it the way my … predecessor did. Do we ever really get another chance, I wonder?"

"Take my advice." The Vinzz' face became almost human. "This is costing my people money, but we've made enough out of you and your—shall we say?—friends. It is a shame," it murmured, "to prey upon unsophisticated life-forms, but one must live. However, I'll tell you this: The compulsion will come over you again and again to play the game—your body will torment you unbearably and you will long for relief from it, but you must conquer that desire or, I warn you, you will be lost to yourself forever. It's a pattern that's enormously difficult to break, but it can be broken."

Gabriel smiled down at the little green creature. "Thanks, colleague. I'll remember that advice. And I'll take it."

"The other is still asleep," the Vinzz told him. "This time I thought it best to let you awaken first. Good-by, and … good luck."

"Thanks, fellow-man," Gabriel said. The Vinzz' tendrils quivered.

Helen awaited him in an anteroom, her veil flung back so that he could see her poor, marred face. Anger rose hotly in him, but he pushed it down. Her suffering had not been meaningless and revenge was already consummated.

"Gabriel!" Her voice was taut. "… Jed!"

"Gabriel," he smiled. "The genuine, original Gabriel—accept no substitutes."

"I'm so glad." Her lips formed the words, for she had no voice with which to make them.

"Come." He took her arm and led her out into the quiet street. It was almost daylight and the sky was a clear pearl gray. Again a star detached itself from the translucent disk of the Moon and sped out into the Galaxy.

Soon , he thought, we'll be on a starship like that one, leaving this played-out planet for the new worlds up in the sky.

"You're going to let Gabe—the other Gabriel—go?" she asked.

He bent his head to look at her swollen face. "You're free, Helen; I have my body back; why should we concern ourselves with what happens to him? He can't hurt us any more."

"I suppose you're right," she muttered. "It seems unfair...." She shivered. "Still, you have no idea of the things he did to me—the things he made me do...." She shivered again.

"You're cold. Let's get started."

"But where are we going?" She placed her hand on his arm and looked up at him.

"Back to the hotel to pick up your luggage. And then—I still think Proxima is a good idea, don't you? And then perhaps farther out still. I'm sick of this old world."

"But, Je—Gabriel, you must be mad! The police will be waiting for you at the hotel."

"Of course they'll be waiting, but with a citation, not handcuffs."

She looked at him as if he had gone extradimensional. He laughed. "What your ex-husband didn't know, my dear, was that there was a reward out for Jed Carmody, dead or alive ."

Her face was blank for a moment. "A reward! Oh, G-G-G-Gabriel!" The girl erupted into hysterical laughter.

"Shhh, darling, control yourself." He put his arm around her, protectively, restrainingly. "We'll be conspicuous," for already the Sun's first feeble rays were beginning to wash the ancient tired streets with watery gold. "Think of the reward we're going to get—five thousand credits, just for us!"

She wiped her eyes and pulled down her veil. "Whatever will we do with all that money!"

"I think it would be nice if we turned it over to the hotel," he smiled. "I made rather a shambles of their lobby when, pursuant to my duty as a solar citizen, I exterminated the killer Carmody. Let's give it to them and leave only pleasant memories behind us on our journey to the stars." And he couldn't help wondering whether, if things got really tough, somewhere up in those stars he could find another zarquil game.

Folks who knew Edgar Evans said he was a strange young man. Certainly he was the darling of the old ladies and the despair of the young. The sternest fathers positively beamed when Edgar called for their daughters, but fellows his own age declared in the authoritative tones of youth that Edgar was a square.

Handsome enough he was. The real reason for all the fuss was Edgar's manners. The trouble was that he had them.

For Edgar had been orphaned at four by an Oklahoma tornado and raised by his Hoosier grandmother, a dear old lady whose hand had once been kissed by a passing Barrymore. The result was Edgar's manners. He realized, of course, that one didn't kiss a lady's hand these days, but such was Edgar's gracious way that women always got the impression he was about to.

One parent, in something of a trance after encountering Edgar, summed up the reaction.

"That kid," he told his wife dazedly, "akshully called me 'sir.' Them other punks come aroun' afta Milly, they call me 'Mac.' Too bad that there Edgar was born fifty years too late."

Before very long, Edgar came to the same conclusion.

He knew a good many young men, but none he could call friend. The bop talk which fascinated them seemed to him a repulsive travesty upon English, just as their favorite music sounded like the braying of asses in agony.

Many girls were willing enough when Edgar asked for a first date, but an amazing number of them developed ill health when he suggested a second evening of classical records or good conversation.

The girls themselves could not be blamed if they mistook his courtly approach for a new dreamy line. Alas, the very hearts which fluttered at his old-world chivalry grew icy when no pass was made. A girl wants to know her charms are appreciated.

So Edgar sank more deeply into himself. He recalled his grandmother's stories about life and living back near the end of the century, when folks knew how to be pleasant and kind.

Even at his job—he was a technician in an electronic lab—Edgar couldn't stop longing for that era when existence had been more gentle, simple and leisurely. His social life virtually ceased.

"Man, you ain't livin'," said one of the technicians he worked with. "We're gonna buzz a few dives tonight. Why not drag it along with us?"

Edgar blanched. "Thank you just the same, but I—I have some work to do."

After a while, naturally, they stopped asking.

He continued to dream hopelessly, miserably, but one day he was yanked out of it by—of all people—a military man. The brass were on inspection tour and the lab's Chief Engineer was apologizing for a faulty run of synchros which had occurred some time ago, when the Brigadier snorted.

"What's past is finished. I'm interested in five years from now!"

Edgar found himself staring fixedly at a top secret gadget still in the breadboard stage.

"Great heaven!" he thought. "I have a fixation. This isn't doing me any good."

But what would? Suppose, instead of dreaming, he spent time actually working toward what he wanted most?

Here in the lab, he helped to build amazing machines, things which daily did the impossible. He no longer marveled at what could be done with electronics and, more important, he knew the methods and the details.

That was when Edgar decided to build a time machine.