Рэй Брэдбери: The Fox and the Forest

There were fireworks the very first night, things that you should be afraid of perhaps, for they might remind you of other more horrible things, but these were beautiful, rockets that ascended into the ancient soft air of Mexico and shook the stars apart in blue and white fragments. Everything was good and sweet, the air was that blend of the dead and the living, of the rains and the dusts, of the incense from the church, and the brass smell of the tubas on the bandstand which pulsed out vast rhythms of «La Paloma.» The church doors were thrown wide and it seemed as if a giant yellow constellation had fallen from the October sky and lay breathing fire upon the church walls; a million candles sent their color and fumes about. Newer and better fireworks scurried like tight-rope walking comets across the cool-tiled square, banged against adobe cafe walls, then rushed on hot wires to bash the high church tower, in which boys' naked feet alone could be seen kicking and re-kicking, clanging and tilting and re-tilting the monster bells into monstrous music. A flaming bull blundered about the plaza chasing laughing men and screaming children.

«The year is 1938,» said William Travis, standing by his wife on the edge of the yelling crowd, smiling, «A good year.»

The bull rushed upon them. Ducking, the couple ran, with fire balls pelting them, past the music and riot, the church, the band, under the stars, clutching each other, laughing. The bull passed, carried lightly on the shoulders of a charging Mexican, a framework of bamboo and sulphurous gunpowder.

«I've never enjoyed myself so much in my life.» Susan Travis had stopped for her breath.

«It's amazing,» said William.

«It will go on, won't it?»

«All night.»

«No, I mean our trip.»

He frowned and patted his breast pocket. «I've enough traveler's checks for a lifetime. Enjoy yourself. Forget it. They'll never find us.»

«Never?»

«Never.» Now someone was setting off giant crackers, hurling them from the great bell-tolling tower of the church in a sputter of smoke, while the crowd below fell back under the threat and the crackers exploded in wonderful concussions among their dancing feet and flailing bodies. A wondrous smell of frying tortillas hung all about, and in the cafes men sat at tables looking out, mugs of beer in their brown hands.

The bull was dead. The fire was out of the bamboo tubes and he was expended. The laborer lifted the framework from his shoulders. Little boys clustered to touch the magnificent papier-mache head, the real horns.

«Let's examine the bull,» said William. As they walked past the cafe entrance Susan saw the man looking out at them, a white man in a salt-white suit, with a blue tie and blue shirt, and a thin, sunburned face. His hair was blond and straight and his eyes were blue, and he watched them as they walked.

She would never have noticed him if it had not been for the bottles at his immaculate elbow; a fat bottle of creme de menthe, a clear bottle of vermouth, a flagon of cognac, and seven other bottles of assorted liqueurs, and, at his finger tips, ten small half-filled glasses from which, without taking his eyes off the street, he sipped, occasionally squinting, pressing his thin mouth shut upon the savor. In his free hand a thin Havana cigar smoked, and on a chair stood twenty cartons of Turkish cigarettes, six boxes of cigars, and some packaged colognes.

«Bill―» whispered Susan.

«Take it easy,» he said. «He's nobody.»

«I saw him in the plaza this morning.»

«Don't look back, keep walking. Examine the papier-mache bull here. That's it, ask questions.»

«Do you think he's from the Searchers?»

«They couldn't follow us!»

«They might!»

«What a nice bull,» said William to the man who owned it.

«He couldn't have followed us back through two hundred years, could he?»

«Watch yourself, for God's sake,» said William. She swayed. He crushed her elbow tightly, steering her away.

«Don't faint.» He smiled, to make it look good. «You'll be all right. Let's go right in that cafe, drink in front of him, so if he is what we think he is, he won't suspect.»

«No, I couldn't.»

«We've got to. Come on now. And so I said to David, that's ridiculous!» This last in a loud voice as they went up the cafe steps.

We are here, thought Susan. Who are we? Where are we going? What do we fear? Start at the beginning, she told herself, holding to her sanity, as she felt the adobe floor underfoot.

My name is Ann Kristen; my husband's name is Roger. We were born in the year 2155 A.D. And we lived in a world that was evil. A world that was like a great black ship pulling away from the shore of sanity and civilization, roaring its black horn in the night, taking two billion people with it, whether they wanted to go or not, to death, to fall over the edge of the earth and the sea into radioactive flame and madness.

They walked into the cafe. The man was staring at them.

A phone rang.

The phone startled Susan. She remembered a phone ringing two hundred years in the future, on that blue April morning in 2155, and herself answering it:

«Ann, this is Rene! Have you heard? I mean about Travel in Time, Incorporated? Trips to Rome in 21 B.C., trips to Napoleon's Waterloo-any time, any place!»

«Rene, you're joking.»

«No. Clinton Smith left this morning for Philadelphia in 1776. Travel in Time, Inc., arranges everything. Costs money. But, think-to actually see the burning of Rome, Kubia Khan, Moses and the Red Sea! You've probably got an ad in your tube mail now.»

She had opened the suction mail tube and there was the metal foil advertisement:

ROME AND THE BORGIAS!

THE WRIGHT BROTHERS AT KITTY HAWK!

Travel in Time, Inc., can costume you, put you in a crowd during the assassination of Lincoln or Caesar! We guarantee to teach you any language you need to move freely in any civilization, in any year, without friction. Latin, Greek, ancient American colloquial. Take your vacation in Time as well as Place!

Rene's voice was buzzing on the phone. «Tom and I leave for 1492 tomorrow. They're arranging for Tom to sail with Columbus. Isn't it amazing!»

«Yes,» murmured Ann, stunned. «What does the Government say about this Time Machine company?»

«Oh, the police have an eye on it. Afraid people might evade the draft, run off and hide in the Past. Everyone has to leave a security bond behind, his house and belongings, to guarantee return. After all, the war's on.»

«Yes, the war,» murmured Ann. «The war.»

Standing there, holding the phone, she had thought. Here is the chance my husband and I have talked and prayed over for so many years. We don't like this world of 2155. We want to run away from his work at the bomb factory. I from my position with disease-culture units. Perhaps there is a chance for us to escape, to run for centuries into a wild country of years where they will never find and bring us back to burn our books, censor our thoughts, scald our minds with fear, march us, scream at us with radios….

They were in Mexico in the year 1938. She looked at the stained cafe wall. Good workers for the Future State were allowed vacations into the Past to escape fatigue. And so she and her husband had moved back into 1938, a room in New York City, and enjoyed the theaters and the Statue of Liberty which still stood green in the harbor. And on the third day they had changed their clothes, their names, and had flown off to hide in Mexico!

«It must be him,» whispered Susan, looking at the stranger seated at the table. «Those cigarettes, the cigars, the liquor. They give him away. Remember our first night in the Past?»

A month ago, their first night in New York, before their flight, drinking all the strange drinks, savoring and buying odd foods, perfumes, cigarettes of ten dozen rare brands, for they were rare in the Future where war was everything. So they had made fools of themselves, rushing in and out of stores, salons, tobacconists, going up to their room to get wonderfully ill.