Short Fiction Fritz Leiber (free e books to read .txt) 📖

“I bet it’ll be a bum time view anyway,” the Butcher said, not giving up, but not trying again. “And I still don’t think the usher can tell how old you are. I bet there’s an overage teacher spying on you through a hole, and if he doesn’t like your looks, he switches on the usher.”

But the others had disappeared in the blackness. The Butcher waited and then sat down beside the uninjes. Brute laid his head on his knee and growled faintly down the corridor.

“Take it easy, Brute,” the Butcher consoled him. “I don’t think Tamerlane was really a Scand of the Navies anyhow.”

Two chattering girls hardly bigger than himself stepped through the usher as if it weren’t there.

The Butcher grimly slipped out the metal tube and put it to his lips. There were two closely spaced faint plops and a large green stain appeared on the bare back of one girl, while purple fluid dripped from the close-cropped hair of the other.

They glared at him and one of them said: “A cub!” But he had his arms folded and wasn’t looking at them.

Meanwhile, subordinate ushers had guided Hal and Joggy away from the main entrance to the Time Theater. A sphincter dilated and they found themselves in a small transparent cubicle from which they could watch the show without disturbing the adult audience. They unstrapped their levitators, laid them on the floor and sat down.

The darkened auditorium was circular. Rising from a low central platform was a huge bubble of light, its lower surface somewhat flattened. The audience was seated in concentric rows around the bubble, their keen and compassionate faces dimly revealed by the pale central glow.

But it was the scene within the bubble that riveted the attention of the boys.

Great brooding trees, the trunks of the nearer ones sliced by the bubble’s surface, formed the background. Through the dark, wet foliage appeared glimpses of a murky sky, while from the ceiling of the bubble, a ceaseless rain dripped mournfully. A hooded figure crouched beside a little fire partly shielded by a gnarled trunk. Squatting round about were wiry, blue-eyed men with shoulder-length blond hair and full blond beards. They were clothed in furs and metal-studded leather.

Here and there were scattered weapons and armor⁠—long swords glistening with oil to guard them from rust, crudely painted circular shields, and helmets from which curved the horns of beasts. Back and forth, lean, wolflike dogs paced with restless monotony.

Sometimes the men seemed to speak together, or one would rise to peer down the misty forest vistas, but mostly they were motionless. Only the hooded figure, which they seemed to regard with a mingled wonder and fear, swayed incessantly to the rhythm of some unheard chant.

“The Time Bubble has been brought to rest in one of the barbaric cultures of the Dawn Era,” a soft voice explained, so casually that Joggy looked around for the speaker, until Hal nudged him sharply, whispering with barely perceptible embarrassment: “Don’t do that, Joggy. It’s just the electronic interpreter. It senses our development and hears our questions and then it automats background and answers. But it’s no more alive than an adolescer or a kinderobot. Got a billion microtapes, though.”

The interpreter continued: “The skin-clad men we are viewing in Time in the Round seem to be a group of warriors of the sort who lived by pillage and rapine. The hooded figure is a most unusual find. We believe it to be that of a sorcerer who pretended to control the forces of nature and see into the future.”

Joggy whispered: “How is it that we can’t see the audience through the other side of the bubble? We can see through this side, all right.”

“The bubble only shines light out,” Hal told him hurriedly, to show he knew some things as well as the interpreter. “Nothing, not even light, can get into the bubble from outside. The audience on the other side of the bubble sees into it just as we do, only they’re seeing the other way⁠—for instance, they can’t see the fire because the tree is in the way. And instead of seeing us beyond, they see more trees and sky.”

Joggy nodded. “You mean that whatever way you look at the bubble, it’s a kind of hole through time?”

“That’s right.” Hal cleared his throat and recited: “The bubble is the locus of an infinite number of one-way holes, all centering around two points in space-time, one now and one then. The bubble looks completely open, but if you tried to step inside, you’d be stopped⁠—and so would an atom beam. It takes more energy than an atom beam just to maintain the bubble, let alone maneuver it.”

“I see, I guess,” Joggy whispered. “But if the hole works for light, why can’t the people inside the bubble step out of it into our world?”

“Why⁠—er⁠—you see, Joggy⁠—”

The interpreter took over. “The holes are one-way for light, but no-way for matter. If one of the individuals inside the bubble walked toward you, he would cross-section and disappear. But to the audience on the opposite side of the bubble, it would be obvious that he had walked away along the vista down which they are peering.”

As if to provide an example, a figure suddenly materialized on their side of the bubble. The wolflike dogs bared their fangs. For an instant, there was only an eerie, distorted, rapidly growing silhouette, changing from blood-red to black as the boundary of the bubble cross-sectioned the intruding figure. Then they recognized the back of another long-haired warrior and realized that the audience on the other side of the bubble had probably seen him approaching for some time.

He bowed to the hooded figure and handed him a small bag.

“More atavistic cubs, big and little! Hold still, Cynthia,” a new voice cut in.

Hal turned and saw that two cold-eyed girls had been ushered into the cubicle. One was wiping her close-cropped hair with one hand