Man in His Time: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Brian W. Aldiss
Date: 1984-01-01 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Anthologies
Description: A generous selection spanning more than thirty years of the career of a winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and other awards for science fiction reveals the unbounded scope and fertility of the author's imagination
Publisher: Atheneum

One of the editors of this volume does not know that this story is going into it. There has been collusion in high places. The President of SFWA, Damon Knight, and the other editor have overruled in advance any complaints that Brian W. Aldiss might make. This story was one of three that tied for the Best Short Story award and is, in its own right, a fine piece of fiction. Here is art, in the interweaving of idea and dialog, and here is something vital being said about the human condition. It has earned its place in this book. H.H.

MAN IN HIS TIME

Brian W. Aldiss

His absence Janet Westermark sat watching the three men in the office: the administrator who was about to go out of her life, the behaviourist who was about to come into it, and the husband whose life ran parallel to but insulated from her own. She was not the only one playing a watching game. The behaviourist, whose name was Clement Stackpole, sat hunched in his chair with his ugly strong hands clasped round his knee, thrusting his intelligent and simian face forward, the better to regard his new subject. Jack Westermark. The administrator of the Mental Research Hospital spoke in a lively and engaged way. Typically, it was only Jack Westermark who seemed absent from the scene. Your particular problem, restless His hands upon his lap lay still, but he himself was restless, though the restlessness seemed directed. It was as if he were in another room with other people, Janet thought. She saw that he caught her eye when in fact she was not entirely looking at him, and by the time she returned the glance, he was gone, withdrawn. "Although Mr. Stackpole has not dealt before with your particular problem," the administrator was saying, "he has had plenty of field experience. I know" "I'm sure we won't," Westermark said, folding his hands and nodding his head slightly. Smoothly, the administrator made a pencilled note of the remark, scribbled the precise time beside it, and continued. "I know Mr. Stackpole is too modest to say this, but he is a great man for working in with people" "If you feel it's necessary," Westermark said. "Though I've seen enough of your equipment for a while." The pencil moved, the smooth voice proceeded. "Good. A great man for working in with people, and I'm sure you and Mr. Westermark will soon find you are glad to have him around. Remember, he's there to help both of you." Janet smiled, and said from the island of her chair, trying to smile at him and Stackpole, "I'm sure that everything will work" She was interrupted by her husband, who rose to his feet, letting his hands drop to his sides and saying, turning slightly to address thin air, "Do you mind if I say good-bye to Nurse Simmons?"

Her voice no longer wavered "Everything will be all right, I'm sure," she said hastily. And Stackpole nodded at her, conspiratorially agreeing to see her point of view. "We'll all get on fine, Janet," he said. She was in the swift process of digesting that unexpected use of her Christian name, and the administrator was also giving her the sort of encouraging smile so many people had fed her since Wester- mark was pulled out of the ocean off Casablanca, when her husband, still having his lonely conversation with the air, said, "Of course, I should have remembered." His right hand went half way to his foreheador his heart Janet wonderedand then dropped, as he added, "Perhap she'll come round and see us some time." Now he turned an was smiling faintly at another vacant space with just th faintest nod of his head, as if slightly cajoling. "You'd lik that, wouldn't you, Janet?" She moved her head, instinctively trying to bring her eye into his gaze as she replied vaguely, "Of course, darling." He voice no longer wavered when she addressed his absen attention.

There was sunlight through which they could see each other "There was sunlight in one corner of the room, coming through the windows of a bay angled towards the sun. For a moment she caught, as she rose to her feet, her husband's profile with the sunlight behind it. It was thin and withdrawn. Intelligent: she had always thought him over-burdened with his intelligence, but now there was a lost look there, and she thought of the words of a psychiatrist who had been called in on the case earlier: "You must understand that the waking brain is perpetually lapped by the unconscious."

Lapped by the unconscious Fighting the words away, she said, addressing the smile of the administratorthat smile must have advanced his career so much"You've helped me a lot. I couldn't have got through these months without you. Now we'd better go." She heard herself chopping her words, fearing Westermark would talk across them, as he did: "Thank you for your help. If you find anything . . ." Stackpole walked modestly over to Janet as the administra- tor rose and said. "Well, don't either of you forget us if you're in any kind of trouble." "I'm sure we won't." "And, Jack, we'd like you to come back here to visit us once a month for a personal check-up. Don't want to waste all our expensive equipment, you know, and you are our star er, patient." He smiled rather tightly as he said it, glancing at the paper on his desk to check Westermark's answer. Westermark's back was already turned on him, Westermark was already walking slowly to the door, Westermark had said his good-byes, perched out on the lonely eminence of his existence. Janet looked helplessly, before she could guard against it, at the administrator and Stackpole. She hated it that they were too professional to take note of what seemed her husband's breach of conduct. Stackpole looked kindly in a monkey way and took her arm with one of his thick hands. "Shall we be off then? My car's waiting outside."

Not saying anything, nodding, thinking, and consulting watches She nodded, not saying anything, thinking only, without the need of the administrator's notes to think it, "Oh yes, this was when he said, 'Do you mind if I say good-bye to Nurse' who's-it?Simpson?" She was learning to follow her hus- band's footprints across the broken path of conversation. He was now out in the corridor, the door swinging to behind him, and to empty air the administrator was saying, "It's her day off today." "You're good on your cues," she said, feeling the hand tighten on her arm. She politely brushed his fingers away, horrid Stackpole, trying to recall what had gone only four minutes before. Jack had said something to her; she couldn't remember, didn't speak, avoided eyes, put out her hand and shook the administrator's firmly. "Thanks," she said. "Au revoir to both of you," he replied firmly, glancing swiftly: watch, notes, her, the door. "Of course," he said. "If we find anything at all. We are very hopeful. . . ." He adjusted his tie, looking at the watch again. "Your husband has gone now, Mrs. Westermark," he said, his manner softening. He walked towards the door with her and added, "You have been wonderfully brave, and I do realisewe all realisethat you will have to go on being wonderful. With time, it should be easier for you; doesn't Shakespeare say in Hamlet that 'Use almost can change the stamp of nature'? May I suggest that you follow Stackpole's and my example and keep a little notebook and a strict check on the time?" They saw her tiny hesitation, stood about her, two men round a personable woman, not entirely innocent of relish. Stackpole cleared his throat, smiled, said, "He can so easily feel cut off you know. It's essential that you of all people answer his questions, or he will feel cut off." Always a pace ahead "The children?" she asked. "Let's see you and Jack well settled in at home again, say for a fortnight or so," the administrator said, "before we think about having the children back to see him." "That way's better for them and Jack and you, Janet," Stackpole said. 'Don't be glib,' she thought; 'consolation I need, God knows, but that's too facile.' She turned her face away, fearing it looked too vulnerable these days. In the corridor, the administrator said, as valediction, "I'm sure Grandma's spoiling them terribly, Mrs. Westermark, but worrying won't mend it, as the old saw says." She smiled at him and walked quickly away, a pace ahead of Stackpole. Westermark sat in the back of the car outside the adminis- trative block. She climbed in beside him. As she did so, he jerked violently back in his seat. "Darling, what is it?" she asked. He said nothing. Stackpole had not emerged from the building, evidently having a last word with the administrator. Janet took the moment to lean over and kiss her husband's cheek, aware as she did so that a phantom wife had already, from his viewpoint, done so. His response was a phantom to her. "The countryside looks green," he said. His eyes were flickering over the grey concrete block opposite. "Yes," she said. Stackpole came bustling down the steps, apologising as he opened the car door, settled in. He let the clutch back too fast and they shot forward. Janet saw then the reason for Wester- mark's jerking backwards a short while before. Now the acceleration caught him again; his body was rolled helplessly back. As they drove along, he set one hand fiercely on the side grip, for his sway was not properly counterbalancing the movement of the car. Once outside the grounds of the institute, they were in the country, still under a mid-August day. His theories Westermark, by concentrating, could bring himself to con- form to some of the laws of the time continuum he had left. When the car he was in climbed up his drive (familiar, yet strange with the rhododendrons unclipped and no signs of children) and stopped by the front door, he sat in his seat for three and a half minutes before venturing to open his door. Then he climbed out and stood on the gravel, frowning down at it. Was it as real as ever, as material? Was there a slight glaze on it?as if something shone through from the interior of the earth, shone through all things? Or was it that there was a screen between him and everything else? It was impor- tant to decide between the two theories, for he had to live under the discipline of one. What he hoped to prove was that the permeation theory was correct; that way he was merely one of the factors comprising the functioning universe, to- gether with the rest of humanity. By the glaze theory, he was isolated not only from the rest of humanity but from the entire cosmos (except Mars?). It was early days yet; he had a deal of thinking to do, and new ideas would undoubtedly emerge after observation and cogitation. Emotion must not decide the issue; he must be detached. Revolutionary theories could well emerge from thissuffering. He could see his wife by him, standing off in case they happened embarrassingly or painfully to collide. He smiled thinly at her through her glaze. He said, "I am, but I'd prefer not to talk." He stepped towards the house, noting the slippery feel of gravel that would not move under his tread until the world caught up. He said, "I've every respect for The Guardian, but I'd prefer not to talk at present." Famous Astronaut Returns Home As the party arrived, a man waited in the porch for them, ambushing Westermark's return home with a deprecatory smile. Hesitant but business-like, he came forward and looked interrogatively at the three people who had emerged from the car. "Excuse me, you are Captain Jack Westermark, aren't you?" He stood aside as Westermark seemed to make straight for him. "I'm the psychology correspondent for The Guardian, if I might intrude for a moment." Westermark's mother had opened the front door and stood there smiling welcome at him, one hand nervously up to her grey hair. Her son walked past her. The newspaper man stared after him. Janet told him apologetically, "You'll have to excuse us. My husband did reply to you, but he's really not prepared to meet people yet." "When did he reply, Mrs. Westermark? Before he heard what I had to say?" "Well, naturally notbut his life stream... . I'm sorry, I can't explain." "He really is living ahead of time, isn't he? Will you spare me a minute to tell me how you feel now the first shock is over?" "You really must excuse me," Janet said, brushing past him. As she followed her husband into the house, she heard Stackpole say, "Actually, I read The Guardian, and perhaps I could help you. The Institute has given me the job of remaining with Captain Westermark. My name's Clement Stackpoleyou may know my book. Persistent Human Rela- tions, Methuen. But you must not say that Westermark is living ahead of time. That's quite incorrect. What you can say is that some of his psychological and physiological processes have somehow been transposed forward" "Ass!" she exclaimed to herself. She had paused by the threshold to catch some of his words. Now she whisked in.

Talk hanging in the air among the long watches of supper Supper that evening had its discomforts, although Janet Westermark and her mother-in-law achieved an air of melan- choly gaiety by bringing two Scandinavian candelabra, relics of a Copenhagen holiday, onto the table and surprising the two men with a gay-looking hors d'oeuvre. But the conversa- tion was mainly like the hors d'oeuvre, Janet thought: little tempting isolated bits of talk, not nourishing. Mrs. Westermark senior had not yet got the hang of talking to her son, and confined her remarks to Janet, though she looked towards Jack often enough. "How are the children?" he asked her. Flustered by the knowledge that he was waiting a long while for her answer, she replied rather incoherently and dropped her knife. To relieve the tension, Janet was cooking up a remark on the character of the administrator at the Mental Research Hospital, when Westermark said, "Then he is at once thought- ful and literate. Commendable and rare in men of his type. I got the impression, as you evidently did, that he was as interested in his job as in advancement. J suppose one might say one even liked him. But you know him better, Stackpole; what do you think of him?" Crumbling bread to cover his ignorance of whom they were supposed to be conversing, Stackpole said, "Oh, I don't know; it's hard to say really," spinning out time, pretending not to squint at his watch. "The administrator was quite a charmer, didn't you think, Jack?" Janet remarkedperhaps helping Stackpole as much as Jack. "He looks as if he might make a slow bowler," Westermark said, with an intonation that suggested he was agreeing with something as yet unsaid. "Oh, him"' Stackpole said. "Yes, he seems a satisfactory sort of chap on the whole." "He quoted Shakespeare to me and thoughtfully told me where the quotation came from," Janet said. "No thank you, Mother," Westermark said. "I don't have much to do with him," Stackpole continued. "Though I have played cricket with him a time or two. He makes quite a good slow bowler." "Are you really?" Westermark exclaimed. That stopped them. Jack's mother looked helplessly about, caught her son's glazed eye, said, covering up, "Do have some more sauce, Jack, dear," recalled she had already had her answer, almost let her knife slide again, gave up trying to eat. "I'm a batsman, myself," Stackpole said, as if bringing an old pneumatic drill to the new silence. When no answer came, he doggedly went on, expounding on the game, the pleasure of it. Janet sat and watched, a shade perplexed that she was admiring Stackpole's performance and wondering at her slight perplexity; then she decided that she had made up her mind to dislike Stackpole, and immediately dissolved the resolution. Was he not on their side? And even the strong hairy hands became a little more acceptable when you thought of them gripping the rubber of a bat handle; and the broad shoulders swinging.... She closed her eyes momentarily, and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

A batsman himself Later, she met Stackpole on the upper landing. He had a small cigar in his mouth, she had two pillows in her arms. He stood in her way. "Can I help at all, Janet?" "I'm only making up a bed, Mr. Stackpole." "Are you not sleeping in with your husband?" "He would like to be on his own for a night or two, Mr. Stackpole. I shall sleep in the children's room for the time being." "Then please permit me to carry the pillows for you. And do please call me Clem. All my friends do." Trying to be pleasanter, to unfreeze, to recall that Jack was not moving her out of the bedroom permanently, she said, "I'm sorry. It's just that we once had a terrier called Clem." But it did not sound as she had wished it to do. He put the pillows on Peter's blue bed, switched on the bedside lamp, and sat on the edge of the bed, clutching his cigar and puffing at it. "This may be a bit embarrassing, but there's something I feel I should say to you, Janet." He did not look at her. She brought him an ashtray and stood by him. "We feel your husband's mental health may be endangered, although I hasten to assure you that he shows no signs of losing his mental equilibrium beyond what we may call an inordinate absorption in phemomenaand even there, we cannot say, of course we can't, that his absorption is any greater than one might expect. Except in the totally unprece- dented circumstances, I mean. We must talk about this in the next few days." She waited for him to go on, not unamused by the play with the cigar. Then he looked straight up at her and said, "Frankly, Mrs. Westermark, we think it would help your husband if you could have sexual relations with him." A little taken aback, she said, "Can you imagine" Cor- recting herself, she said, "That is for my husband to say. I am not unapproachable." She saw he had caught her slip. Playing a very straight bat, he said,"l'm sure you're not, Mrs. Westermark." With the light out, living, she lay in Peter's bed She lay in Peter's bed with the light out. Certainly she wanted him: pretty badly, now she allowed herself to dwell on it. During the long months of the Mars expedition, while she had stayed at home and he had got farther from home, while he actually had existence on that other planet, she had been chaste. She had looked after the children and driven round the countryside and enjoyed writing those articles for wom- en's magazines and being interviewed on TV when the ship was reported to have left Mars on its homeward journey. She had been, in part, dormant. "Then came the news, kept from her at first, that there was confusion in communicating with the returning ship. A sensa- tional tabloid broke the secrecy by declaring that the nine- man crew had all gone mad. And the ship had overshot its landing area, crashing into the Atlantic. Her first reaction had been a purely selfish oneno, not selfish, but from the self: He'll never lie with me again. And infinite love and sorrow. At his rescue, the only survivor, miraculously unmaimed, her hope had revived. Since then, it had remained embalmed, as he was embalmed in time. She tried to visualise love as it would be now, with everything happening first to him, before she had begun toWith his movement of pleasure even before sheNo, it wasn't possible! But of course it was, if they worked it out first intellectually; then if she just lay flat.... But what she was trying to visualise, all she could visualise, was not love-making, merely a formal prostration to the exigencies of glands and time flow. She sat up in bed, longing for movement, freedom. She jumped out and opened the lower window; there was still a tang of cigar smoke in the dark room. // they worked it out intellectually Within a couple of days, they had fallen into routine. It was as if the calm weather, perpetuating mildness, aided them. They had to be careful to move slowly through doors, keeping to the left, so as not to bump into each othera tray of drinks was dropped before they agreed on that. They devised simple knocking systems before using the bathroom. They conversed in bulletins that did not ask questions unless questions were necessary. They walked slightly apart. In short, they made detours round each other's lives. "It's really quite easy as long as one is careful," Mrs. Westermark senior said to Janet. "And dear Jack is so patient!" "I even get the feeling he likes the situation." "Oh, my dear, how could he like such an unfortunate predicament?" "Mother, you realise how we all exist together, don't you? No, it sounds too terrible1 daren't say it." "Now don't you start getting silly ideas. You've been very brave, and this is not the time for us to be getting upset, just as things are going well. If you have any worries, you must tell Clem. That's what he's here for." "I know." "Well then." She saw Jack walk in the garden. As she looked, he glanced up, smiled, said something to himself, stretched out a hand, withdrew it, and went, still smiling, to sit on one end of the seat on the lawn. Touched, Janet hurried over to the french windows, to go and join him. She paused. Already, she saw ahead, saw her sequence of actions, for Jack had already sketched them into the future. She would go onto the lawn, call his name, smile, and walk over to him when he smiled back. Then they would stroll together to the seat and sit down, one at each end. The knowledge drained all spontaneity from her. She might have been working a treadmill, for what she was about to do had already been done as far as Jack was concerned, yddi his head start in time. Then if she did not go, if she mutinied, turned back to the discussion of the day's chores with her mother-in-law. . . That left Jack mouthing like a fool on the lawn, indulging in a fantasy there was no penetrating. Let him do that, let Stackpole see; then they could drop this theory about Jack's being ahead of time and would have to treat him for a more normal sort of hallucinatory insanity. He would be safe in Clem's hands. But Jack's actions proved that she would go out there. It was insane for her not to go out there. Insane? To disobey a law of the universe was impossible, not insane. Jack was not disobeyinghe had simply tumbled over a law that nobody knew was there before the first expedition to Mars; certainly they had discovered something more momentous than anyone had expected, and more unforeseen. And she had lostNo, she hadn't lost yet! She ran out onto the lawn, calling to him, letting the action quell the confusion in her mind. And in the repeated event there was concealed a little freshness, for she remembered how his smile, glimpsed through the window, had held a special warmth, as if he sought to reassure her. What had he said? That was lost. She walked over to the seat and sat beside him. He had been saving a remark for the statutory and unvary- ing time lapse. "Don't worry, Janet," he said. "It could be worse." "How?" she asked, but he was already answering: "We could be a day apart. 3.3077 minutes at least allows us a measure of communication." "It's wonderful how philosophical you are about it," she said. She was alarmed at the sarcasm in her tone. "Shall we have a talk together now?" "Jack, I've been wanting to have a private talk with you for some time."

"I?" The tall beeches that sheltered the garden on the north side were so still that she thought, "They will look exactly the same for him as for me." He delivered a bulletin, looking at his watch. His wrists were thin. He appeared frailer than he had done when they left hospital. "I am aware, my darling, how painful this mus< be for you. We are both isolated from the other by this amazing shift of temporal function, but at least I have the consolation of experiencing the new phenomenon, whereas you" "I?"

Talking of interstellar distances "I was going to say that you are stuck with the same old world all of mankind has always known, but I suppose you don't see it that way." Evidently a remark of hers had caught up with him, for he added inconsequentially, "I've wanted a private talk with you." Janet bit off something she was going to say, for he raised a finger irritably and said, "Please time your statements, so that we do not talk at cross purposes. Confine what you have to say to essentials. Really, darling. I'm surprised you don't do as Clem suggests, and make notes of what is said at what time." "That1 just wantedwe can't act as if we were a board meeting. I want to know your feelings, how you are thinking, so that I can help you, so that eventually you will be able to live a normal life again." He was timing it so that he answered almost at once, "I am not suffering from any mental illness, and I have completely recovered my physical health after the crash. There is no reason to foresee that my perceptions will ever lapse back into phase with yours. They have remained an unfluctuating 3.3077 minutes ahead of terrestrial time ever since our ship left the surface of Mars " He paused. She thought. It is now about 11.03 by my watch, and there is so much I long to say. But it's 11.06 and a bit by his time, and he already knows I can't say anything. It's such an effort of endurance, talking across this three and a bit minutes; we might just as well be talking across an interstellar distance.' Evidently he too had lost the thread of the exercise, for he smiled and stretched out a hand, holding it in the air. Janet looked round. Clem Stackpole was coming out towards them with a tray full of drinks. He set it carefully down on the lawn, and picked up a martini, the stem of which he slipped between Jack's fingers. "Cheers!" he said, smiling, and, "Here's your tipple," giving Janet her gin and tonic. He had brought himself a bottle of pale ale. "Can you make my position clearer to Janet, Clem? She does not seem to understand it yet." Angrily, she turned to the behaviourist. "This was meant to be a private talk, Mr. Stackpole, between my husband and myself." "Sorry you're not getting on too well, then. Perhaps I can help sort you out a bit. It is difficult, I know." 3.3077 Powerfully, he wrenched the top off the beer bottle and poured the liquid into the glass. Sipping, he said, "We have always been used to the idea that everything moves forward in time at the same rate. We speak of the course of time, presuming it only has one rate of flow. We've assumed, too, that anything living on another planet in any other part of our universe might have the same rate of flow. In other words, although we've long been accustomed to some oddities of time, thanks to relativity theories, we have accustomed our- selves, perhaps, to certain errors of thinking. Now we're going to have to think differently. You follow me." "Perfectly." "The universe is by no means the simple box our predeces- sors' imagined. It may be that each planet is encased in its own time field, just as it is in its own gravitational field. From the evidence, it seems that Mars's time field is 3.3077 minutes ahead of ours on Earth. We deduce this from the fact that your husband and the eight other men with him on Mars experienced no sensation of temporal difference among them- selves, and were unaware that anything was untoward until they were away from Mars and attempted to get into com- munication again with Earth, when the temporal discrepancy at once showed up. Your husband is still living in Mars time. Unfortunately, the other members of the crew did not survive the crash; but we can be sure that if they did, they too would suffer from the same effect. That's clear, isn't it?" "Entirely. But I still cannot see why this effect, if it is as you say'" "It's not what / say, Janet, but the conclusion arrived at by much cleverer men than 1." He smiled as he-said that, adding parenthetically, "Not that we don't develop and even alter our conclusions every day." "Then why was a similar effect not noticed when the Russians and Americans returned from the moon?" "We don't know. There's so much we don't know. We surmise that because the moon is a satellite of Earth's, and thus within its gravitational field, there is no temporal discrep- ancy. But until we have more data, until we can explore further, we know so little, and can only speculate so much. It's like trying to estimate the runs of an entire innings when only one over has been bowled. After the expedition gets back from Venus, we shall be in a much better position to start theorising." "What expedition to Venus?" she asked, shocked. "It may not leave for a year yet, but they're speeding up the programme. That will bring us really invaluable data." Future time with its uses and abuses She started to say, "But after this surely they won't be fool enough" Then she stopped. She knew they would be fool enough. She thought of Peter saying, "I'm going to be a spaceman too. I want to be the first man on Saturn!" The men were looking at their watches. Westermark trans- ferred his gaze to the gravel to say, "This figure of 3.3077 is surely not a universal constant. It may vary1 think it will varyfrom planetary body to planetary body. My private opinion is that it is bound to be connected with solar activity in some way. If that is so, then we may find that the men returning from Venus will be perceiving on a continuum slightly in arrears of Earth time." He stood up suddenly, looking dismayed, the absorption gone from his face. "That's a point that hadn't occurred to me," Stackpole said, making a note. "If the expedition to Venus is primed with these points beforehand, we should have no trouble about organising their return. Ultimately, this confusion will be sorted out, and I've no doubt that it will eventually vastly enrich the culture of mankind. The possibilities are of such enormity that . . ." "It's awful! You're all crazy!" Janet exclaimed. She jumped up and hurried off towards the house.

Or then again Jack began to move after her towards the house. By his watch, which showed Earth time, it was 11.18 and twelve seconds; he thought, not the first time, that he would invest in another watch, which would be strapped to his right wrist and show Martian time. No, the one on his left wrist should show Martian time, for that was the wrist he principally consulted and the time by which he lived, even when going through the business of communicating with the earth-bound human race. He realised he was now moving ahead of Janet, by her reckoning. It would be interesting to have someone ahead of him in perception; then he would wish to converse, would want to go to the labour of it. Although it would rob him of the sensation that he was perpetually first in the universe, first everywhere, with everything dewy in that strange light Marslight! He'd call it that, till he had it classified, the romantic vision preceding the scientific, with a touch of the grand permissible before the steadying discipline closed in. Or then again, suppose they were wrong in their theories, and the perceptual effect was some freak of the long space journey itself; supposing time were quantal.... Supposing all time were quantal. After all, ageing was a matter of steps, not a smooth progress, for much of the inorganic world as for the organic. Now he was standing quite still on the lawn. The glaze was coming through the grass, making it look brittle, almost tingeing each blade with a tiny spectrum of light. If his perceptual time were further ahead than it was now, would the Marslight be stronger, the Earth more translucent? How beautiful it would look! After a longer star journey one would return to a cobweb of a world, centuries behind one in perceptual time, a mere embodiment of light, a prism. Hun- grily, he visualised it. But they needed more knowledge. Suddenly he thought, If I could get on the Venus expedi- tioni If the Institute's right, I'd be perhaps six, say five and a halfno, one can't saybut I'd be ahead of Venerean time. I must go. I'd be valuable to them. I only have to volunteer, surely.' He did not notice Stackpole touch his arm in cordial fashion and go past him into the house. He stood looking at the ground and through it, to the stoney vales of Mars and the unguessable landscapes of Venus. The figures move Janet had consented to ride into town with Stackpole. He was collecting his cricket shoes, which had been restudded; she thought she might buy a roll of film for her camera. The children would like photos of her and Daddy together. Stand- ing together. As the car ran beside trees, their shadows flickered red and green before her vision. Stackpole held the wheel very capa- bly, whistling under his breath. Strangely, she did not resent a habit she would normally have found irksome, taking it as a sign that he was not entirely at his ease. "I have an awful feeling you now understand my husband better than I do," she said. He did not deny it. "Why do you feel that?" "I believe he does not mind the terrible isolation he must be experiencing." "He's a brave man." Westermark had been home a week now. Janet saw that each day they were more removed from each other, as he spoke less and stood frequently as still as a statue, gazing at the ground raptly. She thought of something she had once been afraid to utter aloud to her mother-in-law; but with Clem Stackpole she was safer. "You know why we manage to exist in comparative har- mony," she said. He was slowing the car, half-looking at her. "We only manage to exist by banishing all events from our lives, all children, all seasons. Otherwise we'd be faced at every moment with the knowledge of how much at odds we really are." Catching the note in her voice, Stackpole said soothingly, "You are every bit as brave as he is, Janet." "Damn being brave. What I can't bear isnothing!" . Seeing the sign by the side of the road, Stackpole glanced into his driving mirror and changed gear. The road was deserted in front as well as behind. He whistled through his teeth again, and Janet felt compelled to go on talking. "We've already interfered with time too muchall of us, I mean. Time is a European invention. Goodness knows how mixed up in it we are going to get ifwell, if this goes on." She was irritated by the lack of her usual coherence. As Stackpole spoke next, he was pulling the car into a lay-by, stopping it by overhanging bushes. He turned to her smiling tolerantly. "Time was God's invention, if you believe in God, as I prefer to do. We observe it, tame it, exploit it where possible." "Exploit it!" "You mustn't think of the future as if we were all wading knee deep in treacle or something." He laughed briefly, resting his hands on the steering wheel. "What lovely weather it is! I was wonderingon Sunday I'm playing cricket over in the village. Would you like to come and watch the match? And perhaps we could have tea somewhere afterwards." All events, all children, all seasons She had a letter next morning from Jane, her five-year-old daughter, and it made her think. All the letter said was: "Dear Mummy, Thank you for the dollies. With love from Jane," but Janet knew the labour that had gone into the inch-high letters. How long could she bear to leave the children away from their home and her care? As soon as the thought emerged, she recalled that during the previous evening she had told herself nebulously that if there was going to be 'anything' with Stackpole, it was as well the children would be out of the waypurely, she now realised, for her convenience and for Stackpole's. She had not thought then about the children; she had thought about Stackpole who, despite the unexpected delicacy he had shown, was not a man she cared for. 'And another intolerably immoral thought,' she muttered unhappily to the empty room, 'what alternative have I to Stackpole?' She knew Westermark was in his study. It was a cold day, too cold and damp for him to make his daily parade round the garden. She knew he was sinking deeper into isolation, she longed to help, she feared to sacrifice herself to that isolation, longed to stay outside it, in life. Dropping the letter, she held her head in her hands, closing her eyes as in the curved bone of her skull she heard all her possible courses of action jar together, future lifelines that annihilated each other. As Janet stood transfixed, Westermark's mother came into the room. "I was looking for you," she said. "You're so unhappy, my dear, aren't you?" "Mother, people always try and hide from others how they suffer. Does everyone do it?" "You don't have to hide it from mechiefly, I suppose, because you can't." "But I don't know how much you suffer, and it ought to work both ways. Why do we do this awful covering up? What- are we afraid ofpity or derision?" "Help, perhaps." "Help! Perhaps you're right.... That's a disconcerting thought." They stood there staring at each other, until the older woman said, awkwardly, "We don't often talk like this, Janet." "No." She wanted to say more. To a stranger in a train, perhaps she would have done; here, she could not deliver. Seeing nothing more was to be said on that subject, Mrs. Westermark said, "I was going to tell you, Janet, that I thought perhaps it would be better if the children didn't come back here while things are as they are. If you want to go and see them and stay with them at your parents' house, I can look after Jack and Mr. Stackpole for a week. I don't think Jack wants to see them." "That's very kind, Mother. I'll see. I promised Clemwell, I told Mr. Stackpole that perhaps I'd go and watch him play cricket tomorrow afternoon. It's not important, of course, but I did sayanyhow, I might drive over and see the children on Monday, if you could hold the fort." "You've still plenty of time if you feel like going today. I'm sure Mr. Stackpole will understand your maternal feelings." "I'd prefer to leave it till Monday," Janet saida little distantly, for she suspected now the motive behind, her mother-in-law's suggestion.

Where the Scientific American did not reach Jack Westermark put down the Scientific American and stared at the table top. With his right hand, he felt the beat of his heart. In the magazine was an article about him, illus- trated with photographs of him taken at the Research Hospi- tal. This thoughtful article was far removed from the sensa- tional pieces that had appeared elsewhere, the shallow things that referred to him as The Man That Has Done More Than Einstein To Wreck Our Cosmic Picture; and for that very reason it was the more startling, and presented some aspects of the matter that Westermark himself had not considered. As he thought over its conclusions, he rested from the effort of reading terrestrial books, and Stackpole sat by the fire, smoking a cigar and waiting to take Westermark's dicta- tion. Even reading a magazine represented a feat in space- time, a collaboration, a conspiracy. Stackpole turned the pages at timed intervals, Westermark read when they lay flat. He was unable to turn them when, in their own narrow continuum, they were not being turned; to his fingers, they lay under the jelly-like glaze, that visual hallucination that repre- sented an unconquerable cosmic inertia. The inertia gave a special shine to the surface of the table as he stared into it and probed into his own mind to determine the truths of the Scientific American article. The writer of the article began by considering the facts and observing that they tended to point towards the existence of local times' throughout the universe; and that if this were so, a new explanation might be forthcoming for the recession of the galaxies and different estimates arrived at for the age of the universe (and of course for its complexity). He then proceeded to deal with the problem that vexed other writers on the subject; namely, why, if Westermark lost Earth time on Mars, he had not reciprocally lost Mars time back on Earth. This, more than anything, pointed to the fact that local times' were not purely mechanistic but to some extent at least a psycho-biological function. In the table top, Westermark saw himself being asked to travel again to Mars, to take part in a second expedition to those continents of russet sand where the fabric of space-time was in some mysterious and insuperable fashion 3.3077 min- utes ahead of Earth norm. Would his interior clock leap forward again? What then of the sheen on things earthly? And what would be the effect of gradually drawing away from the iron laws under which, since its scampering pleisto- cene infancy, humankind had lived? Impatiently he thrust his mind forward to imagine the day when Earth harboured many local times, gleaned from voyages across the vacancies of space; those vacancies lay across time, too, and that little-understood concept (McTag- gart had denied its external reality, hadn't he?) would come to lie within the grasp of man's understanding. Wasn't that the ultimate secret, to be able to understand the flux in which existence is staged, as a dream is staged in the primitive reaches of the mind? And But Would not that day bring the annihilation of Earth's local time? That was what he had started. It could only mean that local time' was not a product of planetary elements; there the writer of the Scientific American article had not dared to go far enough; local time was entirely a product of the psyche. That dark innermost thing that could keep accurate time even while a man lay unconscious was a mere provincial; but it could be educated to be a citizen of the universe. He saw that he was the first of a new race, unimaginable in the wildest mind a few months previously. He was independent of the enemy that, more than Death, menaced contemporary man: Time. Locked within him was an entirety new potential. Superman had arrived. Painfully, Superman stirred in his seat. He sat so wrapt for so long that his limbs grew stiff and dead without his noticing it.

Universal thoughts may occur if one times carefully enough one's circumbendibus about a given table "Dictation," he said, and waited impatiently until the com- mand had penetrated backwards to the limbo by the fire where Stackpole sat. What he had to say was so terribly importantyet it had to wait on these people. . . . As was his custom, he rose and began to walk round the table, speaking in phrases quickly delivered. This was to be the testament to the new way of life. . . . "Consciousness is not expendable but concurrent. ... There may have been many time nodes at the beginning of the human race.... The mentally deranged often revert to different time rates. For some, a day seems to stretch on for ever.... We know by experience that for children time is seen in the convex mirror of consciousness, enlarged and distorted beyond its focal point...." He was momentarily irritated by the scared face of his wife appearing outside the study window, but he brushed it away and continued. ". . . its focal point. . . . Yet man in his ignorance has persisted in pretending time was some sort of uni-directional flow, and homogenous at that . . . despite the evidence to the contrary. . . . Our conception of ourselvesno, this erroneous conception has become a basic life assumption. . . ." Daughters of daughters Westermark's mother was not given to metaphysical specu- lation, but as she was leaving the room, she turned and said to her daughter-in-law, "You know what I sometimes think? Jack is so strange, I wonder at nights if men and women aren't getting more and more apart in thought and in their ways with every generationyou know, almost like separate species. My generation made a great attempt to bring the two sexes together in equality and all the rest, but it seems to have come to nothing." "Jack will get better." Janet could hear the lack of confidence in her own voice. "I thought the same thingabout men and women getting wider apart I meanwhen my husband was killed." Suddenly ail Janet's sympathy was gone. She had recog- nised a familiar topic drifting onto the scene, knew well the careful tone that ironed away all self-pity as her mother-in- law said, "Bob was dedicated to speed, you know. That was what killed him really, not the fool backing into the road in front of him." "No blame was attached to your husband," Janet said. "You should try not to let it worry you still." "You see the connection though.... This progress thing. Bob so crazy to get round the next bend first, and now Jack. . . . Oh well, there's nothing a woman can do." She closed the door behind her. Absently, Janet picked up the message from the next generation of women: "Thank you for the dollies."

The resolves and the sudden risks involved He was their father. Perhaps Jane and Peter should come back, despite the risks involved. Anxiously, Janet stood there, moving herself with a sudden resolve to tackle Jack straight away. He was so irritable, so unapproachable, but at least she could observe how busy he was before interrupting him. As she slipped into the side hall and made for the back door, she heard her mother-in-law call her. "Just a minute!" she answered. The sun had broken through, sucking moisture from the damp garden. It was now unmistakably autumn. She rounded the corner of the house, stepped round the rose bed, and looked into her husband's study. Shaken, she saw he leaned half over the table. His hands were over his face, blood ran between his fingers and dripped onto an open magazine on the table top. She was aware of Stackpole sitting indifferently beside the electric fire. She gave a small cry and ran round the house again, to be met at the back door by Mrs. Westermark. "Oh, I was justJanet, what is it?" "Jack, Mother! He's had a stroke or something terrible!" "But how do you know?" "Quick, we must phone the hospital1 must go to him." Mrs. Westermark took Janet's arm. "Perhaps we'd better leave it to Mr. Stackpole, hadn't we. I'm afraid" "Mother, we must do what we can. I know we're amateurs. Please let me go." "No. Janet, we'reit's their world I'm frightened. They'll come if they want us." She was gripping Janet in her fright. Their wild eyes stared momentarily at each other as if seeing something else, and then Janet snatched herself away. "I must go to him," she said. She hurried down the hall and pushed open the study door. Her husband stood now at the far end of the room by the window, while blood streamed from his nose. "Jack!" she exclaimed. As she ran towards him, .a blow from the empty air struck her on the forehead, so that she staggered aside, falling against a bookcase. A shower of smaller volumes from the upper shelf fell on her and round her. Exclaiming, Stackpole dropped his notebook and ran round the table to her. Even as he went to her aid, he noted the time from his watch: 10.24.

Aid after 10.24 and the tidiness of bed Westermark's mother appeared in the doorway. "Stay where you are," Stackpole shouted, "or there will be more trouble! Janet, you see what you've done. Get out of here, will you? Jack, I'm right with youGod knows what you've felt, isolated without aid for three and a third min- utes!" Angrily, he went across and stood within arm's length of his patient. He threw his handkerchief down onto the table. "Mr. Stackpole" Westermark's mother said tentatively from the door, an arm round Janet's waist. He looked back over his shoulder only long enough to say, "Get towels! Phone the Research Hospital for an ambulance and tell them to be here right away." By midday, Westermark was tidily in bed upstairs and the ambulance staff, who had treated him for what after all was only nosebleed, had left. Stackpole, as he turned from closing the front door, eyed the two women. "I feel it is my duty to warn you," he said heavily, "that another incident such as this might well prove fatal. This time we escaped very lightly. If anything else of this sort happens, I shall feel obliged to recommend to the board that Mr. Westermark is moved back to the hospital." . Current way to define accidents "He wouldn't want to go," Janet said. "Besides, you are being absurd; it was entirely an accident. Now I wish to go upstairs and see how he is." "Just before you go, may I point out that what happened was not an accidentor not as we generally define accidents, since you saw the results of your interference through the study window before you entered. Where you were to blame" "But that's absurd" both women began at once. Janet went on to say, "I never would have rushed into the room as I did had. I not seen through the window that he was in trouble." "What you saw was the result on your husband of your later interference." In something like a wail, Westermark's mother said, "I don't understand any of this. What did Janet bump into when she ran in?" "She ran, Mrs. Westermark, into the spot where her hus- band had been standing 3.3077 minutes earlier. Surely by now you have grasped this elementary business of time inertia?" ' When they both started speaking at once, he stared at them until they stopped and looked at him. Then he said, "We had better go into the living room. Speaking for myself, I would like a drink." He helped himself, and not until his hand was round a glass of whisky did he say, "Now, without wishing to lecture to you ladies, J think it is high time you both realised that you are not living in the old safe world of classical mechanics ruled over by a god invented by eighteenth-century enlightenment. All that has happened here is perfectly rational, but if you are going to pretend it is beyond your female under- standings" "Mr. Stackpole," Janet said sharply. "Can you please keep to the point without being insulting? Will you tell me why what happened was not an accident? I understand now that when I looked through the study window I saw my husband suffering from a collision that to him had happened three and something minutes before and to me would not happen for another three and something minutes, but at that moment I was so startled that I forgot" "No, no, your figures are wrong. The total time lapse is only 3.3077 minutes. When you saw your husband, he had been hit half that time1.65385 minutesago, and there was another 1.65385 minutes to go before you completed the. action by bursting into the room and striking him." "But she didn't strike him!" the older woman cried. Firmly, Stackpole diverted his attention long enough to reply. "She struck him at 10.24 Earthtime, which equals 10.20 plus about 36 seconds Mars or his time, which equals 9.59 or whatever Neptune time, which equals 156 and. a half Sinus time. It's a big universe, Mrs. Westermark! You will remain confused as long as you continue to confuse event with time. May I suggest you sit down and have a drink?" "Leaving aside the figures," Janet said, returning to the attackloathsome opportunist the man was"how can you say that what happened was no accident? You are not claiming I injured my husband deliberately, I hope? What you say suggests that I was powerless from the moment I saw him through the window." " 'Leaving aside the figures . . .' " he quoted. "That's where your responsibility lies. What you saw through the window was the result of your act; it was by then inevitable that you should complete it, for it had already been completed."

Through the window, draughts of time blow "I can't understand!" she clutched her forehead, gratefully accepting a cigarette from her mother-in-law, while shrugging off her consolatory 'Don't try to understand, dear!' "Suppos- ing when I had seen Jack's nose bleeding, I had looked at my watch and thought. It's 10.20 or whenever it was, and he may be suffering from my interference, so I'd better not go in,' and I hadn't gone in? Would his nose then miraculously have healed?" "Of course not. You take such a mechanistic view of the universe. Cultivate a mental approach, try and live in your own century! You could not think what you suggest because that is not in your nature: just as it is not in your nature to consult your watch intelligently, just as you always leave aside the figures,' as you say. No, I'm not being personal; it's all very feminine and appealing in a way. What I'm saying is that if before you looked into the window you had been a person to think, 'However I see my husband now, I must recall he has the additional experience of the next 3.3077 minutes,' then you could have looked in and seen him unharmed, and you would not have come bursting in as you did." She drew on her cigarette, baffled and hurt. "You're saying I'm a danger to my own husband." "You're saying that." "God, howl hate men!" she exclaimed. "You're so bloody logical, so bloody smug!" He finished his whisky and set the glass down on a table beside her so that he leant close. "You're upset just now," he said. "Of course I'm upset! What do you think?" She fought a desire to cry or slap his face. She turned to Jack's mother, who gently took her wrist. "Why don't you go off straight away and stay with the children for the weekend, darling? Come back when you feel like it. Jack will be all right and I can look after himas much as he wants looking after." She glanced about the room. "I will. I'll pack right away. They'll be glad to see me." As she passed Stackpole on the way out, she said bitterly, "At least they won't be worrying about the local time on Sirius!" "They may," said Stackpole, imperturbably from the mid- dle of the room, "have to one day." All events, all children, all seasons