Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov (best novels of all time .txt) 📗

remember, Pola? And wisdom teeth. And hair on his face.”

“Yes, yes,” shouted Schwartz defiantly. “And I wish I had a tail I could show you. I’m from the past. I traveled through time. Only I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. Now leave me alone.” He added suddenly, “They will soon be here for us. This wait is just to break us.”

Arvardan said suddenly, “Do you know that? Who told you?”

Schwartz did not answer.

“Was it the Secretary? Stocky man with a pug nose?”

Schwartz had no way of telling the physical appearance of those he Touched only by mind, but—secretary? There had been just a glimpse of a Touch, a powerful one of a man of power, and it seemed he had been a secretary.

“Balkis?” he asked in curiosity.

“What?” said Arvardan, but Shekt interrupted, “That’s the name of the Secretary.”

“Oh—What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything,” said Schwartz. “I know. It’s death for all of us, and there’s no way out.”

Arvardan lowered his voice. “He’s mad, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wonder. . . . His skull sutures, now. They were primitive, very primitive.”

Arvardan was amazed. “You mean—Oh, come, it’s impossible.”

“I’ve always supposed so.” For the moment Shekt’s voice was a feeble imitation of normality, as though the presence of a scientific problem had switched his mind to that detached and objective groove in which personal matters disappeared. “They’ve calculated the energy required to displace matter along the time axis and a value greater than infinity was arrived at, so the project has always been looked upon as impossible. But others have talked of the possibility of ‘time faults,’ analogous to geological faults, you know. Space ships have disappeared, for one thing, almost in full view. There’s the famous case of Hor Devallow in ancient times, who stepped into his house one day and never came out, and wasn’t inside, either. . . . And then there’s the planet, which you’ll find in the Galactography books of the last century, which was visited by three expeditions that brought back full descriptions—and then was never seen again.

“Then there are certain developments in nuclear chemistry that seem to deny the law of conservation of mass-energy. They’ve tried to explain that by postulating the escape of some mass along the time axis. Uranium nuclei, for instance, when mixed with copper and barium in minute but definite proportions, under the influence of light gamma irradiation, set up a resonating system—”

“Father,” said Pola, “don’t! There’s no use—”

But Arvardan’s interruption was peremptory. “Wait, now. Let me think. I’m the one who can settle this. Who better? Let me ask him a few questions. . . . Look, Schwartz.”

Schwartz looked up again.

“Yours was the only world in the Galaxy?”

Schwartz nodded, then said dully, “Yes.”

“But you only thought that. I mean you didn’t have space travel, so you couldn’t check up. There might have been many other inhabited worlds.”

“I have no way of telling that.”

“Yes, of course. A pity. What about atomic power?”

“We had an atomic bomb. Uranium—and plutonium—I guess that’s what made this world radioactive. There must have been another war after all—after I left. . . . Atomic bombs.” Somehow Schwartz was back in Chicago, back in his old world, before the bombs. And he was sorry. Not for himself, but for that beautiful world. . . .

But Arvardan was muttering to himself. Then, “All right. You had a language, of course.”

“Earth? Lots of them.”

“How about you?”

“English—after I was a grown man.”

“Well, say something in it.”

For two months or more Schwartz had said nothing in English. But now, with lovingness, he said slowly, “I want to go home and be with my own people.”

Arvardan spoke to Shekt. “Is that the language he used when he was Synapsified, Shekt?”

“I can’t tell,” said Shekt, in mystification. “Queer sounds then and queer sounds now. How can I relate them?”

“Well, never mind. . . . What’s your word for ‘mother’ in your language, Schwartz?”

Schwartz told him.

“Uh-huh. How about ‘father’ . . . ‘brother’ . . . ‘one’—the numeral, that is . . . ‘two’ . . . ‘three’ . . . ‘house’ . . . ‘man’ . . . ‘wife’ . . .”

This went on and on, and when Arvardan paused for breath his expression was one of awed bewilderment.

“Shekt,” he said, “either this man is genuine or I’m the victim of as wild a nightmare as can be conceived. He’s speaking a language practically equivalent to the inscriptions found in the fifty-thousand-year-old strata on Sirius, Arcturus, Alpha Centauri, and twenty others. He speaks it. The language has only been deciphered in the last generation, and there aren’t a dozen men in the Galaxy besides myself who can understand it.”

“Are you sure of this?”

“Am I sure? Of course I’m sure. I’m an archaeologist. It’s my business to know.”

For an instant Schwartz felt his armor of aloofness cracking. For the first time he felt himself regaining the individuality he had lost. The secret was out; he was a man from the past, and they accepted it. It proved him sane, stilled forever that haunting doubt, and he was grateful. And yet he held aloof.

“I’ve got to have him.” It was Arvardan again, burning in the holy flame of his profession. “Shekt, you have no idea what this means to archaeology. Shekt—it’s a man from the past. Oh, Great Space! . . . Listen, we can make a deal. This is the proof Earth is looking for. They can have him. They can—”

Schwartz interrupted sardonically. “I know what you’re thinking. You think that Earth will prove itself to be the source of civilization through me and that they will be grateful for it. I tell you, no! I’ve thought of it and I would have bartered for my own life. But they won’t believe me—or you.”

“There’s absolute proof.”

“They won’t listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don’t want the truth; they want their traditions.”

“Bel,” said Pola, “I think he’s right.”

Arvardan ground his teeth. “We could try.”

“We would fail,” insisted Schwartz.

“How can you know?”

“I know!” And the words fell with such oracular