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diff --git a/29720-8.txt b/29720-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c92fc74 --- /dev/null +++ b/29720-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,739 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hall of Mirrors, by Fredric Brown + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hall of Mirrors + +Author: Fredric Brown + +Illustrator: Vidmer + +Release Date: August 17, 2009 [EBook #29720] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALL OF MIRRORS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +Hall of Mirrors + +By FREDRIC BROWN + + + _It is a tough decision to make--whether to + give up your life so you can live it over again!_ + + +For an instant you think it is temporary blindness, this sudden dark +that comes in the middle of a bright afternoon. + +It _must_ be blindness, you think; could the sun that was tanning you +have gone out instantaneously, leaving you in utter blackness? + +Then the nerves of your body tell you that you are _standing_, whereas +only a second ago you were sitting comfortably, almost reclining, in a +canvas chair. In the patio of a friend's house in Beverly Hills. Talking +to Barbara, your fiancée. Looking at Barbara--Barbara in a swim +suit--her skin golden tan in the brilliant sunshine, beautiful. + +You wore swimming trunks. Now you do not feel them on you; the slight +pressure of the elastic waistband is no longer there against your waist. +You touch your hands to your hips. You are naked. And standing. + +Whatever has happened to you is more than a change to sudden darkness or +to sudden blindness. + +You raise your hands gropingly before you. They touch a plain smooth +surface, a wall. You spread them apart and each hand reaches a corner. +You pivot slowly. A second wall, then a third, then a door. You are in a +closet about four feet square. + +Your hand finds the knob of the door. It turns and you push the door +open. + +There is light now. The door has opened to a lighted room ... a room +that you have never seen before. + + * * * * * + +It is not large, but it is pleasantly furnished--although the furniture +is of a style that is strange to you. Modesty makes you open the door +cautiously the rest of the way. But the room is empty of people. + +You step into the room, turning to look behind you into the closet, +which is now illuminated by light from the room. The closet is and is +not a closet; it is the size and shape of one, but it contains nothing, +not a single hook, no rod for hanging clothes, no shelf. It is an empty, +blank-walled, four-by-four-foot space. + +You close the door to it and stand looking around the room. It is about +twelve by sixteen feet. There is one door, but it is closed. There are +no windows. Five pieces of furniture. Four of them you recognize--more +or less. One looks like a very functional desk. One is obviously a +chair ... a comfortable-looking one. There is a table, although its top +is on several levels instead of only one. Another is a bed, or couch. +Something shimmering is lying across it and you walk over and pick the +shimmering something up and examine it. It is a garment. + +You are naked, so you put it on. Slippers are part way under the bed (or +couch) and you slide your feet into them. They fit, and they feel warm +and comfortable as nothing you have ever worn on your feet has felt. +Like lamb's wool, but softer. + +You are dressed now. You look at the door--the only door of the room +except that of the closet (closet?) from which you entered it. You walk +to the door and before you try the knob, you see the small typewritten +sign pasted just above it that reads: + + This door has a time lock set to open in one hour. For reasons you + will soon understand, it is better that you do not leave this room + before then. There is a letter for you on the desk. Please read it. + +It is not signed. You look at the desk and see that there is an envelope +lying on it. + +You do not yet go to take that envelope from the desk and read the +letter that must be in it. + +Why not? Because you are frightened. + +You see other things about the room. The lighting has no source that you +can discover. It comes from nowhere. It is not indirect lighting; the +ceiling and the walls are not reflecting it at all. + +[Illustration: Illustrated by VIDMER] + +They didn't have lighting like that, back where you came from. What did +you mean by _back where you came from_? + +You close your eyes. You tell yourself: _I am Norman Hastings. I am an +associate professor of mathematics at the University of Southern +California. I am twenty-five years old, and this is the year nineteen +hundred and fifty-four._ + +You open your eyes and look again. + + * * * * * + +They didn't use that style of furniture in Los Angeles--or anywhere else +that you know of--in 1954. That thing over in the corner--you can't even +guess what it is. So might your grandfather, at your age, have looked at +a television set. + +You look down at yourself, at the shimmering garment that you found +waiting for you. With thumb and forefinger you feel its texture. + +It's like nothing you've ever touched before. + +_I am Norman Hastings. This is nineteen hundred and fifty-four._ + +Suddenly you must know, and at once. + +You go to the desk and pick up the envelope that lies upon it. Your name +is typed on the outside: _Norman Hastings_. + +Your hands shake a little as you open it. Do you blame them? + +There are several pages, typewritten. Dear Norman, it starts. You turn +quickly to the end to look for the signature. It is unsigned. + +You turn back and start reading. + +"Do not be afraid. There is nothing to fear, but much to explain. Much +that you must understand before the time lock opens that door. Much that +you must accept and--obey. + +"You have already guessed that you are in the future--in what, to you, +seems to be the future. The clothes and the room must have told you +that. I planned it that way so the shock would not be too sudden, so you +would realize it over the course of several minutes rather than read it +here--and quite probably disbelieve what you read. + +"The 'closet' from which you have just stepped is, as you have by now +realized, a time machine. From it you stepped into the world of 2004. +The date is April 7th, just fifty years from the time you last remember. + +"You cannot return. + +"I did this to you and you may hate me for it; I do not know. That is up +to you to decide, but it does not matter. What does matter, and not to +you alone, is another decision which you must make. I am incapable of +making it. + +"Who is writing this to you? I would rather not tell you just yet. By +the time you have finished reading this, even though it is not signed +(for I knew you would look first for a signature), I will not need to +tell you who I am. You will know. + +"I am seventy-five years of age. I have, in this year 2004, been +studying 'time' for thirty of those years. I have completed the first +time machine ever built--and thus far, its construction, even the fact +that it has been constructed, is my own secret. + +"You have just participated in the first major experiment. It will be +your responsibility to decide whether there shall ever be any more +experiments with it, whether it should be given to the world, or whether +it should be destroyed and never used again." + + * * * * * + +End of the first page. You look up for a moment, hesitating to turn the +next page. Already you suspect what is coming. + +You turn the page. + +"I constructed the first time machine a week ago. My calculations had +told me that it would work, but not how it would work. I had expected it +to send an object back in time--it works backward in time only, not +forward--physically unchanged and intact. + +"My first experiment showed me my error. I placed a cube of metal in the +machine--it was a miniature of the one you just walked out of--and set +the machine to go backward ten years. I flicked the switch and opened +the door, expecting to find the cube vanished. Instead I found it had +crumbled to powder. + +"I put in another cube and sent it two years back. The second cube came +back unchanged, except that it was newer, shinier. + +"That gave me the answer. I had been expecting the cubes to go back in +time, and they had done so, but not in the sense I had expected them to. +Those metal cubes had been fabricated about three years previously. I +had sent the first one back years before it had existed in its +fabricated form. Ten years ago it had been ore. The machine returned it +to that state. + +"Do you see how our previous theories of time travel have been wrong? We +expected to be able to step into a time machine in, say, 2004, set it +for fifty years back, and then step out in the year 1954 ... but it does +not work that way. The machine does not move in time. Only whatever is +within the machine is affected, and then just with relation to itself +and not to the rest of the Universe. + +"I confirmed this with guinea pigs by sending one six weeks old five +weeks back and it came out a baby. + +"I need not outline all my experiments here. You will find a record of +them in the desk and you can study it later. + +"Do you understand now what has happened to you, Norman?" + + * * * * * + +You begin to understand. And you begin to sweat. + +The _I_ who wrote that letter you are now reading is _you_, yourself at +the age of seventy-five, in this year of 2004. You are that +seventy-five-year-old man, with your body returned to what it had been +fifty years ago, with all the memories of fifty years of living wiped +out. + +_You_ invented the time machine. + +And before you used it on yourself, you made these arrangements to help +you orient yourself. You wrote yourself the letter which you are now +reading. + +But if those fifty years are--to you--gone, what of all your friends, +those you loved? What of your parents? What of the girl you are +going--were going--to marry? + +You read on: + +"Yes, you will want to know what has happened. Mom died in 1963, Dad in +1968. You married Barbara in 1956. I am sorry to tell you that she died +only three years later, in a plane crash. You have one son. He is still +living; his name is Walter; he is now forty-six years old and is an +accountant in Kansas City." + +Tears come into your eyes and for a moment you can no longer read. +Barbara dead--dead for forty-five years. And only minutes ago, in +subjective time, you were sitting next to her, sitting in the bright sun +in a Beverly Hills patio ... + +You force yourself to read again. + +"But back to the discovery. You begin to see some of its implications. +You will need time to think to see all of them. + +"It does not permit time travel as we have thought of time travel, but +it gives us immortality of a sort. Immortality of the kind I have +temporarily given us. + +"_Is it good?_ Is it worth while to lose the memory of fifty years of +one's life in order to return one's body to relative youth? The only way +I can find out is to try, as soon as I have finished writing this and +made my other preparations. + +"You will know the answer. + +"But before you decide, remember that there is another problem, more +important than the psychological one. I mean overpopulation. + +"If our discovery is given to the world, if all who are old or dying +can make themselves young again, the population will almost double every +generation. Nor would the world--not even our own relatively enlightened +country--be willing to accept compulsory birth control as a solution. + +"Give this to the world, as the world is today in 2004, and within a +generation there will be famine, suffering, war. Perhaps a complete +collapse of civilization. + +"Yes, we have reached other planets, but they are not suitable for +colonizing. The stars may be our answer, but we are a long way from +reaching them. When we do, someday, the billions of habitable planets +that must be out there will be our answer ... our living room. But until +then, what is the answer? + +"Destroy the machine? But think of the countless lives it can save, the +suffering it can prevent. Think of what it would mean to a man dying of +cancer. Think ..." + + * * * * * + +Think. You finish the letter and put it down. + +You think of Barbara dead for forty-five years. And of the fact that you +were married to her for three years and that those years are lost to +you. + +Fifty years lost. You damn the old man of seventy-five whom you became +and who has done this to you ... who has given you this decision to +make. + +Bitterly, you know what the decision must be. You think that _he_ knew, +too, and realize that he could safely leave it in your hands. Damn him, +he _should_ have known. + +Too valuable to destroy, too dangerous to give. + +The other answer is painfully obvious. + +You must be custodian of this discovery and keep it secret until it is +safe to give, until mankind has expanded to the stars and has new worlds +to populate, or until, even without that, he has reached a state of +civilization where he can avoid overpopulation by rationing births to +the number of accidental--or voluntary--deaths. + +If neither of those things has happened in another fifty years (and are +they likely so soon?), then you, at seventy-five, will be writing +another letter like this one. You will be undergoing another experience +similar to the one you're going through now. And making the same +decision, of course. + +Why not? You'll be the same person again. + +Time and again, to preserve this secret until Man is ready for it. + +How often will you again sit at a desk like this one, thinking the +thoughts you are thinking now, feeling the grief you now feel? + +There is a click at the door and you know that the time lock has opened, +that you are now free to leave this room, free to start a new life for +yourself in place of the one you have already lived and lost. + +But you are in no hurry now to walk directly through that door. + +You sit there, staring straight ahead of you blindly, seeing in your +mind's eye the vista of a set of facing mirrors, like those in an +old-fashioned barber shop, reflecting the same thing over and over +again, diminishing into far distance. + + --FREDRIC BROWN + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ December 1953. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and + typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hall of Mirrors, by Fredric Brown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALL OF MIRRORS *** + +***** This file should be named 29720-8.txt or 29720-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/7/2/29720/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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