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diff --git a/59515-0.txt b/59515-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5693365 --- /dev/null +++ b/59515-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1092 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59515 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + Z + + BY CHARLES L. FONTENAY + + _Time reversal exists at the sub-atomic level + according to Feynman's Theory--and according to + that same theory any entity can exist in three + places at one time.... Does this explain, the + strange co-existence of Summer, Mark and Wyn?_ + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1956. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that + the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +What scientific or supernatural principle is behind the mysterious +appearances recorded some years ago by Mr. Charles Fort, I'm sure I +don't know. It could, of course, be the same as that behind the sudden +appearance of Wyndham Storm in Central Park, but I don't believe I've +heard of a case that exactly paralleled this one. + +I gather from a perusal of Mr. Fort's works that it is not uncommon for +these unheralded visitors to come onstage without the formality of +clothing; but I don't believe it's customary for them to bring their +wives along. + +I got caught in a thunderstorm that night in Central Park--not New +York's Central Park, but Allertown's Central Park, which isn't as big. +Having no raincoat--the skies had appeared clear when I left home for +the movies--I took refuge in the big octagonal bandstand. + +The storm was brief, but spectacular; one of those violent affairs that +often mark the arrival of a cold front to dispel an unusually intense +midsummer heat wave. The rain slashed across the park in wind-whipped +sheets, managing to drench me even in my shelter. Big trees bowed +low and reluctantly hurled away leaves and limbs. Thunder rolled +incessantly and the lightning made an eerie daylight of the blackness. + +Suddenly, there was a terrific clap of thunder and a fiery flash that +blotted out everything around me. Shaken, I picked myself up from the +floor of the bandstand, still not sure I hadn't been struck. Blue smoke +was boiling away from a wrecked tree about thirty feet away, in the +midst of a clump of charred, waving shrubbery. + +And like Venus rising from the foam the naked woman stepped out of the +shrubbery, followed by the naked man. + +My first impulse was to laugh at these two whom the storm had chased +from their hiding place and to be astonished at their brashness in +disrobing completely in the heart of the park. Then it occurred to me +that the lightning must have stripped them. They might be hurt. + +I jumped from the bandstand and walked swiftly over to them. To my +utter amazement, the young woman promptly threw her arms around my neck +and said: + +"Whatever has just happened, Don, I want you to know it's you I love." + +Then she kissed me. + +"What on earth!" I exclaimed, disengaging myself. The man was looking +from one to the other of us, mutely. + +"I'm Summer Storm and this is my husband, Wyn Storm, and we live at 138 +March Street," she said, all in a rush. "Oh, Don, I'm sorry you don't +know us any more, but I should have known from the way Wyn was acting +and everything that's going to happen...." + +"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" I interrupted. "I don't know you. How +did you know my name?" + +She didn't answer, but just stood there, looking at me intently. I +averted my eyes. I was beginning to recover from shock enough to be +embarrassed. + +"How about this?" I asked the man. "Why should I know you, and where do +you come from?" + +"I'm afraid I don't know," he replied, sounding perfectly honest about +it. "I'm afraid I don't remember anything. Do you suppose I have +amnesia?" + +"That's possible," I said. "But your wife seems not to be bothered with +it. All right. Summer Storm and Wyn Storm it is--but the names are too +trite in these circumstances not to be false. Both of you had better +get back in the shrubbery while I get some help." + +I found the policeman on the Main Street beat. As I thought, it was my +old friend, Gus Adams. He accompanied me back to the park, the rain +gleaming on his slicker. + +"They picked a good address to lie about," he said, when I had +explained the situation to him on the way. "The house at 138 March +Street is vacant." + +"They're probably spooners who got caught by that lightning bolt and +are too ashamed to give their right names," I said. "If they had any +clothes, I don't know what happened to them. I didn't see any in those +bushes." + +"What do you figure I ought to do with them, Mr. Gracey?" he asked. + +"They look like decent youngsters," I said. "If it's all right with +you, we'll take them out to my house until they're ready to let me help +them get back where they came from." + +"You're taking a chance," he grunted. But we wrapped the woman in his +slicker and tied my best suit coat around the man's waist. Gus called +the town's only patrol car and had them drive us out to my house. + +I suppose nudists and doctors eventually reach the point where they +look on nakedness as normal. But, to me, my "orphans of the storm" +looked a lot more like human beings when I had them clothed in a couple +of my old sweaters and some slacks. + +They might have been twins. For all I knew, they were, in spite of the +woman's claim that they were man and wife. Their eyes were an identical +sky-blue, their hair an identical pale, wavy gold. Her hair was cut +short, his needed cutting, so they were a good match. I judged their +ages to be about 23, although I've been over-estimating young women's +ages since I passed 30. + +"Now, suppose you tell me where you're from and what this is all +about," I said sternly, when they had finished eating the meal I had +rustled up for them. + +The man spread his hands and, for the first time, he smiled. It was the +smile of an archangel. Whatever the failure of his memory, his smile +was that of wisdom and patience. I was to find, not much later, that +the woman's smile was its feminine counterpart. + +"I'm afraid I don't remember anything before standing in the park in +the rain," said the man. + +"What's wrong? What's wrong, Don?" demanded the woman, a note of +hysteria in her voice. "What's happening to us?" + +"It's just that I don't understand this situation at all," I said. "You +say you're husband and wife. Then you won't mind both sleeping here in +the den, and tomorrow we'll see what we can find out." + +In this remarkable fashion began a remarkable fifteen years. + + * * * * * + +Looking back on it, I suppose I loved Summer Storm from the time I saw +her. I've been trying to decide what that makes me. Incestuous? Just +narcissistic? Or, perhaps, Jovian? + +She was alone in the den when I looked in the next morning before +breakfast. Wyn--short for "Wyndham," I learned later--was wandering +around in the back yard, looking lost. + +Summer had a pair of my scissors in her hand, evidently preparing to +trim her hair. Somewhat to my surprise, she looked contrite when she +saw me. + +"I just thought I might look better with short hair," she explained. + +"Good Lord, it's too short now!" I exclaimed. "I like women with long +hair." + +She hesitated, then reached up to begin clipping. Somewhat nettled, I +turned on my heel and walked out. + +That incident is noteworthy for its strange sequel. At breakfast, I was +thunderstruck to observe that Summer Storm's hair was long--at least +shoulder length, for it was done up in a neat bun behind her head. +Where in my house had she found a wig to match her own hair? And how +long must the wig have been originally, for her to have cut from it the +long tresses I found later in the wastebasket? + +After breakfast, I took Wyn with me to check on the house at 138 March +Street. I left Summer at home. Although she claimed to remember things +and Wyn said he couldn't, I could make nothing of her "memories." There +was a strangeness about talking with her, too, something I couldn't +quite put my finger on yet. + +As Gus had said, the house at 138 March Street was vacant. It was for +rent. The owner, old Albert Meecham, lived next door, and I made an +impulsive decision on the spot. + +"Your wife insists you live here, so you two must be connected with +this address in some way," I told Wyn. "I'll rent the place for you +while we're trying to run down some information on your background. If +you decide to stay in Allertown, you can pay me back after you get a +job." + +The only way I knew to probe the origins of Wyn and Summer was through +the customary channels. That afternoon, I went down to the police +station to talk with my friend, Gus, before he started on his beat. + +The Allertown police station is nothing but a room in the ancient city +hall, a block off Main Street, but it does have a separate outside +entrance. Gus was sitting on a bench in the shade by the entrance, +fanning himself with his cap. The perspiration pasted his dark blue +shirt to his well-padded arms and chest. The relief the storm had +brought hadn't lasted long. + +I sat down on the other end of the bench. + +"Gus," I said, "can you fellows help me find out who those people +are we picked up in the park last night? It's funny, but the man has +amnesia, and I think the woman's a little strange in the head." + +Gus looked at me a little reproachfully. He laid the cap down, to pull +his handkerchief from his hip pocket and mop his brow. + +"You mean that story you told me was the truth?" he asked. "I thought +they might be some relatives of yours, that had got into some sort of a +scrape. Both of them look a lot like you." + +"Do they? Well, they're no relatives of mine. I'd like to know just who +they are. Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham Storm, she says." + +"They don't come from Allertown," he said. "I'd know them if they was +from Allertown. But they was raised around in this country somewhere." + +"How do you know that?" + +"There's a way of talking folks have around here. You don't hear it +outside these three or four counties, and you wouldn't notice it if you +wasn't watching for it. Take my word for it, those folks was born and +raised not fifty miles from here." + +"Well, just to be on the safe side, you'd better check to see that +they're not wanted criminals," I said. "Amnesia would make a good dodge +for a criminal." + +"I've already done that," he said quietly. "They're not." + +Wyn and Summer weren't missing persons from anywhere in our section of +the state, either. Gus looked into that angle very thoroughly during +the next few weeks, and reported failure. + +Wyn got a job as clerk at McClellan's Dry Goods Store and, for reasons +he did not confide to me, enrolled in night classes at Slayden College. +He and Summer soon were established in the neighborhood as "that nice +young couple that Don Gracey brought in from somewhere out West." How +the townspeople got started on that Western origin theory, I don't +know; I suppose it's natural for people to tack some sort of an origin +on strangers. + +I confess that their origin soon became a matter of minor importance +to me, although I remained curious about it. I found Wyn extremely +likeable; we became very close friends, although I estimate that I am +ten to fifteen years older than Wyn. And, as I say, I was in love with +Summer, although it was a long time before I admitted that to myself. + +I told myself I felt about Summer as I would my own daughter, if a +bachelor like me could say such a thing; and I felt toward Wyn as +though he were my son. There was a good deal of accuracy to that +description of my feelings, but there was a mystery about Summer that +drew me powerfully. + +I think the unattainable in woman is always irresistible. Summer +had the most peculiar air of unattainability about her I ever have +experienced. It was as though, when I touched her, it was a fleeting +touch; when I looked at her, I was constantly beset by the feeling that +she would, the next instant, shimmer into insubstantiality. + +Talking with her heightened this illusion, rather than lessening it. A +conversation with Summer was a unique experience. It was a little like +two people trying to talk at once, each talking, then each hesitating +to let the other have his say. Our words crossed each other, like +scissor blades that do not quite meet. She might answer a question +before it was asked, or take the conversation off on tangent after +tangent. Disconnected, discontinuous--those adjectives describe our +conversations. + +Except for his amnesia, dating back to the night in the park, Wyn +was perfectly normal. After some time, he confided that he, too, +was concerned about Summer's strangeness. I got the impression from +him--though he did not go into great detail--that it extended beyond +her conversation, to her actions. + +"It seems to me that I ought to know what's wrong with Summer," he told +me, very puzzled about it. "I mean, it seems I ought to remember. But I +don't. I've gone so far as to talk it over with her." + +"What did she say?" I asked. + +"She said she wasn't going to tell me now. She said she'd tell me one +of these days, but that when she did, I'd leave her. She smiled all the +time she was saying it, in the strangest way." + +Well, we had Summer examined. Old Doctor Lodge is no psychiatrist, +but a man isn't a general practitioner for as long as he's been at it +without learning something about the way a person's mind ticks. He said +there was nothing wrong with Summer, mentally. + +"She acts like she's still suffering a little from some sort of shock," +he said. "If she was right next to a lightning bolt when it struck, I'm +not surprised. It's lasting a little longer than such things usually +do, but it'll clear up." + +It didn't clear up, but Wyn and I got used to it. + +Amateurs, they say, shouldn't fool around with hypnosis, and I suppose +there's a sound reason behind that admonition. But I'm a little better +than the average amateur hypnotist. I've not only done a good deal +of it at club benefits and what not, but I've read pretty heavily in +psychology. I decided to see if hypnotizing Wyn would give me any clue +to his past and Summer's. + +Summer sat beside me that night at their home, as I went through the +familiar motions and Wyn sank into hypnotic trance. + +Under hypnosis, Wyn recalled easily everything that had happened since +that night in the park. But attempts to regress him past that night +brought only a death-like silence, in which he sat pale and immobile. +I tried several times, and at last succeeded in getting him in an +extremely deep hypnotic state. + +Suddenly, Summer interrupted with an exclamation. + +"That's me!" she exclaimed. "That's what I told him four years ago!" + +"Quiet, Summer," I commanded, looking at her curiously. "I think I may +be able to get something out of Wyn now." + +Despite total lack of response when regressed to ages 22 and 20, I +regressed him to age 18. He stirred and murmured. His eyelids fluttered. + +"What do you see?" I asked eagerly. "What are you doing?" + +"Wyn?" he exclaimed. His voice was clear and treble, the voice of a +woman, as he called his own name. He clenched his fists, and moved his +head from side to side. "Wyn, I'm going to have a baby!" + +"What!" I exploded, amazed. "Wyn, what do you see?" + +He opened his eyes. + +"Why, I see you, Don," he said in his normal hearty voice. "What else +should I see?" + +With a suddenness I never have seen before or since, he had come out +of the hypnotic state. I was afraid to delve any deeper. I didn't try +hypnosis again. + + * * * * * + +During these first few years, Wyn and Summer gradually lost that +identity of appearance which had made them look so much like twins the +night I found them in the park. Wyn aged, not excessively but as any +adult man would age in a few years. Summer, on the other hand, seemed +to have found the secret of eternal youth. She grew ever more delicate +and beautiful, and her fair skin seemed to take on a translucent glow. + +I was a close friend of the couple, and I found that I was alone with +Summer a good deal. Summer had shown an interest in schooling, too. +She started in college with Wyn, then dropped back to high school, +and finally fell back on studying at home. It wasn't that she wasn't +bright. She seemed to recognize the facts she was studying almost at +once, but tests and examinations were her downfall. She never could +remember enough of the things she had studied to make a passing grade. + +So I went to the house at 138 March Street often in the early evenings, +to help Summer in her studies. + +Their son was born about six years after they came to Allertown. It was +a peculiar thing. There was no noticeable sign of pregnancy. Summer was +sure she was pregnant, but Doctor Lodge scoffed at her, right up to the +time of the birth. + +"Sure, she has milk," he told Wyn and me, tugging at his white mustache +and giving us a wise smile. "It's not unusual. She isn't carrying a +child, though. It's a false pregnancy." + +But the child was born. Then Doctor Lodge reversed himself and insisted +she was carrying an unborn twin. Again he was wrong. Summer gradually +but steadily recovered from the effects of the birth and regained her +slender figure. + +I still do not attempt to excuse Wyn for leaving his wife and newborn +son. He was overwrought, it's true, but he should have taken them with +him. + +Instead, he came to me, his suitcase packed, when the child was about a +month old. His face showed his agitation. + +"Don, I'm leaving Summer," he said abruptly. + +"Wyn! Why? What's happened?" + +"I found out yesterday why she acts and talks so strangely. She +told me. I couldn't sleep last night, and I've decided I must leave +Allertown. Somewhere there may be people who can help me, but I can't +find the help I need here." + +"Was it so terrible?" I asked, trying to calm him. "What did she tell +you, Wyn?" + +He leaned forward intensely, pointing a finger at me, and opened his +mouth to speak. Then he shut it and sat back. He shook his head. + +"No," he said. "Maybe it wouldn't affect you as it has me, but you +couldn't feel comfortable about it. All I want from you, Don, is the +promise that you'll take care of Summer and little Mark for me until I +come back." + +"You know I'll do that. They can move in here right away. But I think +you're making a mistake, running away from whatever it is." + +"I'm not running away," he replied. "I told you, I've got to have help." + +That's all he would say. He left on the mid-afternoon train for Mayer +City, and I went around to 138 March Street to help move his wife and +child into my own home. + +I didn't recall until three days later that Summer had predicted--or so +Wyn had said--that when she told him why she acted as she did, he would +leave her. + + * * * * * + +If I can't excuse Wyn for leaving his wife and child, I have even less +excuse for becoming his wife's lover. The fact that the interlude +may have been necessary to his very existence--and hers--is no +justification, for I did not know that then. Nor do I know it certainly +now. + +But picture the plight of a man who has in his home a young and +beautiful woman, the realization growing on him, day by day, that he +has loved her for six years. And it was Summer's fault, as much as my +own. Perhaps more. Despite Wyn's words, I could not be sure that he +would return to her, and certainly she must have known that he would. +Despite this, she did more than merely encourage me. + +I have wondered often about the philosophical implications of this +fact. If Summer had not encouraged me, I wouldn't have been bold enough +to make any advances on my own account ... and where would that have +left Summer? + +On the other hand, it was the most natural thing in the world that +Summer should encourage me. She knew. + +Wyn had been away only about two months when Summer, rousing herself +from a deeply pensive mood one night, sat down by my side on the sofa +and snuggled up close to me. I couldn't bring myself to pull away from +her, but I exclaimed: + +"Summer, this isn't right. What about Wyn?" + +"I don't understand this coolness toward me, Don," she said, laying +her head on my shoulder. "People who love each other shouldn't act so +aloof." + +I was thunderstruck at this admission. But I couldn't help saying what +I said then. + +"I do love you, Summer," I confessed, almost choking. + +At once she arose and left me. I thought I had offended her, and I was +almost relieved that I had. It was best that she should be discouraged +about any ideas she might have about me. + +But thirty minutes later she gave me a smile that made me not so sure +she was offended. And the incident seemed to increase, rather than +dampen, the warmth of her attitude toward me. + +It was unpardonable, with Wyn gone so short a time, but I had no +strength to resist the inexorable attentions of a woman I loved. When +she came to me in negligee late one night a week later, I became +Summer's lover. + +I have said it was partly Summer's fault, and the sequence of events +would make it appear almost entirely her fault. This is not true; and I +found out several years later why it is not true. + +My inexcusable affair with Summer lasted for about a year, before the +conversation occurred which caused me to terminate it abruptly. I +had just entered the parlor, where Summer was curled in a big chair, +reading. + +"I don't see any reason for our not loving each other, if we really do, +Don," she said petulantly. "Wyn says he's my husband, but I don't feel +that he is. Why should I be tied by a marriage ceremony I don't know +anything about yet?" + +I could not answer, for I was looking at her through new eyes. Her tone +of voice had been so like that of an indignant child that it awakened +me to something I should have seen before. + +How like an adolescent girl she was, really! The pale gold hair framed +a young face. Despite the rondures of her figure, there was a looseness +about the way her legs were attached to her pelvis, giving her frame +that impression of hollowness that is frequent among slender young +virgins. + +In the seven years I had known her, how could I ever have built up in +my mind the picture of her as a mature woman? + +When I thought about that sudden protestation of hers, made after we +had lived as man and wife for a year, it seemed to me that it could +only have arisen from remorse at such a situation. But it was neither +this nor the fact that I was wronging her and Wyn that caused me to +resolve then and there that never again would I so much as kiss her. It +was that she was too young! + +I did not waver in that resolve, from that time on. + +But I thought a great deal about this matter: I had known Summer for +seven years and she had been a woman when I first saw her. Yet her +youthful appearance now made it impossible that she should have been +adult then. Surely my memory did not play me wrong in picturing the +Summer Storm I had seen that night in the park; indeed, the picture of +her was burned indelibly on my mind. She must have, in the interim, +become slighter, even smaller. + +Oddly, this slenderizing process, once I noticed it, seemed reluctant +to stop. The bathroom scales proved that she was losing weight slowly, +but in her appearance the decline progressed much more rapidly. +She began to get leggy and angular and she completely lost the +once-voluptuous contours of her body, despite all the milk and starchy +foods I could feed her. Nor was it that she lost appetite. She ate +voraciously. + +At the same time, I became convinced she was losing her memory. Chance +remarks dropped at odd times indicated that her recollection of Wyn, of +the events before Mark's birth, of all her past life in Allertown, was +extremely faulty; she never had shown signs of remembering any events +before she came to Allertown. + +As a matter of fact, it became increasingly apparent that she no +longer accepted Mark as her son. The boy was growing out of babyhood +with that speed which is so remarkable in children. She cared for him +solicitously, but seemed to look on him as her little brother. + +Of course, I took her to Doctor Lodge. He, in turn, went with us to +consult doctors at Mayer City. He could find nothing wrong with Summer +physically, nor could they. + +They seemed to think we were faking. They heard my assurances, and +those of Doctor Lodge, that Summer must be approaching the age of +thirty, with obvious skepticism. + +"There is nothing wrong with this girl except an unfortunate emotional +aberration," one doctor told me flatly. "Physiologically she is a girl +of about fourteen, and it is difficult for me to believe that her +chronological age is any higher." + +"As I told you before, she has a son nearly four years old," I said. + +"I don't say that's impossible at her age, for it isn't," he retorted. +"But this girl has never been a mother. She's a virgin." + +I should have realized what all this meant. I believe there have been +such cases in medical history before. But I suppose I was too close to +it. I didn't understand, even when Summer reposed childish confidence +in me. + +"I know what's going to happen, you know, because it's already happened +to me," she said. She was a skinny girl now, with enormous blue eyes. +"You know what's happened, because it's already happened to you. Isn't +it funny?" + +Fortunately, Wyn returned not long after that. Wyn had the answer to +the questions that had been puzzling me. + + * * * * * + +Wyn gave no warning of his return. He just walked into the house one +afternoon, carrying a suitcase and smoking a pipe. + +When I found Wyn and Summer in the park, they had appeared to be twins. +During Wyn's absence his hair had begun to gray--prematurely, I'm +sure--and now he looked like Summer's father. The change in her must +have been even more noticeable to him than it was to me, because he had +been separated from her during its most remarkable development. But he +showed no surprise at it. + +"I knew what the trouble was before I left," he said soberly. "You see, +as Summer's husband I was much closer to her than you could be, even +since she and the boy have been living with you." + +I could feel my ears turning red. I asked hurriedly: + +"What is wrong with Summer, Wyn?" + +"She lives backwards," he said. "Time is reversed for her. It isn't +only a physiological reversal. Everything goes backwards in time for +her. The future is the past to Summer, and the past is the unknown +future. She remembers the future, Don--she remembers it, because she +has seen it happen." + +"That's impossible!" I exclaimed. "How can she? It hasn't happened yet!" + +"To her it has," he replied. "It may upset your conception of the +future as a fluid thing of limitless possibilities, but Summer's +experience is pretty good evidence that it is as frozen and stable as +the past. As the Orientals say, what is to be will be." + +I thought about that, and I thought I detected a flaw. + +"Oh, no!" I said. "Wait a minute here, Wyn. If she can't remember +the past even a minute ahead, you couldn't even talk with her. She'd +remember what you were going to say, instead of what you had said. Not +only that, she'd talk backward! You'd never be able to understand her." + +"People are adaptable," he replied. "She evidently learned to talk +backward--to her; correctly, to us. People learn to talk so others can +understand them. And as for conversation, do you remember Summer ever +answering a question directly?" + +I started to say I did, for it seemed that I did. But a moment's +reflection changed my mind. Not a direct question; and her +participation in a conversation always had been a jumpy and disturbing +thing. + +"But we can talk with Summer," I protested. "For years we've been able +to understand each other." + +"Like writing letters that cross in the mails," he said. "And I think +people do have some knowledge of the immediate future, even you and I. +Summer would develop that faculty more than the average person." + +Certainly. No wonder she had been so affectionate to me that it had +been impossible for me to resist her. To her, at that time, we had +already been lovers. By the same token, my own knowledge when the +affair was concluded that we had been lovers must have created in me an +attitude that was a strong incentive for her to yield to me at the end +of our relationship--the beginning, to her. + +What a way to live! Always trying to guess, from the conversation of +those around her, what (to her) was going to happen, so she could react +intelligently. + +"But," I protested, still unwilling to accept it, "if the past is the +future to her, her actions could affect the past." + +"Exactly," he said. "I told you, this means you have to accept the +principle that the past is just as mallable as the future, and the +future is no more mallable than the past." + +Wyn had known all this before he left. He had gone, not just to avoid +seeing his wife revert to childhood before his eyes, but to delve into +studies on the nature of time itself. Where he had been, how he had +supported himself I didn't know. I still don't know. + +Summer, her age now about thirteen, was old enough to understand that +she was Wyn's wife, but he did not resume his position as husband to +her. Instead, he acted toward her and Mark both as a father. Me? I +suppose I was something in the nature of a benevolent uncle now. + +As a matter of fact, Wyn plunged so deeply into work that the task +devolved upon me to be both father and mother to Summer and her child. +Mark, developing apace into a vigorous young specimen, looked like both +his parents--since their features were so much alike, he could not be +said to resemble one more than the other. + +Wyn did not return with his family to the house at 138 March Street. It +had long been occupied by someone else. He moved in with us and, with +my tacit consent, made my home both his home and the headquarters for +his work. + +His work actually was double. He got a good job, this time as engineer +at the Allertown Mill Industries. During all his spare time, he worked +at converting my precious den and my basement into something completely +beyond my understanding. + +There are some people who accept misfortune and live with it--or die +with it. Others battle it angrily to the bitter end, even when there +is no evidence that anyone ever conquered their particular misfortune +before. Admittedly, there was little precedent for Summer's case; +and this made the prognosis even less optimistic. Still, Wyn was +constitutionally the latter type of person. + +"I don't know how much longer she lived in the past before you found +us," he told me. "Nothing I could do has helped my amnesia for that +period. She may have lived to a ripe old age, for all I know. + +"But we know that she has only a few years to live, the way she is +now--perhaps twelve or thirteen. That's her physical age, and she is +living backwards toward babyhood." + +"What will she do?" I asked curiously. "Just fade away?" + +"She has to be born," he answered solemnly. "My guess is that, a few +years in the future, there will occur the most unique birth ever known +to man--a birth in reverse. Some couple, somewhere--perhaps someone +we know here in Allertown--will live through the experience of the +daughter they never knew reentering the mother's womb and retracing her +steps through the embryo stage to the moment of conception." + +"Fantastic!" I exclaimed. + +"It must be true;" he insisted. "It has to be true, unless she +reversed ... will reverse ... her direction in time after birth. In +that case, perhaps some baby girl here even now is Summer, living +coexistently with her reversed self." + +"If you're going to reverse her direction in time again and make her +live normally," I said, for he already had told me this was his aim, "I +don't see how you can prevent a paradox. She has already lived in the +past as an adult woman. If you reverse her existence at this stage, +then she can't be born, because she'd be living from her present age +on, both forward and backward in time." + +He shook his head. + +"I don't know," he said. "Perhaps it can't be done. Perhaps it would +involve a parallel time stream, if there is such a thing. All I know is +that I must try. If I can, she might still consent to be my wife later, +if the difference in our ages isn't too great. That would be up to her." + +"I don't see how you even know where to start on such a project," I +confessed. + +"The chances are slim," he admitted, "but I have some hope. The only +actual time reversal we know, scientifically, is at the sub-atomic +level. The theory was advanced by Feynman that annihilation of an +electron-positron pair upon contact might be, not actual annihilation, +but a 'time reversal' of the electron. The emission of a photon of +energy, in such cases, is powerful enough to cause a recoil in time, +and the positron is merely the electron traveling backward through time +after the energy explosion." + +I looked extremely blank. + +"Look," said Wyn, taking up a pencil. He drew a big "Z" on a piece of +scrap paper, labelling the two arms "E" and the connecting line "P". +The angles he marked "A" and "B:" + + * * * * * + +"The flow of Time is from left to right," he explained. "At left is the +past, at right the future. This electron, E, is moving normally along +at the top of the diagram when it runs into an energy explosion at A. +It reverses itself, going back through time as the positron, P, until +it hits another energy explosion at B. Then it is reversed again into +the right time direction, continuing as the electron E, at the bottom. +You follow the line, as the pencil point does in making the Z, and it's +a single body." + + E + --------- + /A + / + / + /P + / + / + / E + B --------- + +"But," and he drew a vertical line through the Z, "we move always +forward in time. To us, the energy explosion at B happens before the +one at A. Suddenly at B, a positron and an electron are created out +of nothing. The electron at the top apparently has nothing to do with +either of them. But the positron moves along and collides with it at A, +leaving nothing there again--except, once more, an apparently unrelated +electron, the one at the bottom of the diagram." + +"But you're saying the same thing can exist in three places at once," I +objected. + +"Exactly, but in one of those places, it's traveling backward in time. +So, if Summer's time reversal occurred or will occur after birth, she +may be existing somewhere else, as a younger girl, right now; besides +being here in the house with us." + +"Your example is, as you say, at the atomic level," I said. "How can +you transfer that into terms of human beings?" + +"The only thing I know to do," he said, "is to create an energy +explosion which I know won't hurt Summer physically, but may reverse +her back to a normal direction. It would be like the energy explosion +that meets the positron at B and forces it to continue existence as an +electron." + +"It appears to me," I said slowly, trying to grasp the concept, "that +your explosion at B would have to have happened already if it were +going to happen at all." + +The amazing thing about it is that Wyn, the man who had studied all +this thoroughly, apparently didn't understand what I meant. It just +goes to show that he must have been right, when he said the future is +as fixed as the past. + + * * * * * + +It took Wyn four years to get his equipment ready for a test. He +explained to me what it was supposed to do, but I never did get more +than a general idea of the principle involved. The heart of the thing +was a heavily wired chamber in the basement. + +"The human body can take a lot of electricity, if it's administered in +the right way," he said. "If it's administered in the wrong way, you've +electrocuted somebody. + +"I still don't know whether I've probed the secrets of the space-time +fabric deeply enough to make this work, but I think it will reverse +the charge of every atomic particle in the body of whatever is in that +cubicle. I'm going to put a cat in it, as our first time-traveler. + +"We may turn up with a cat and an anti-cat, the latter traveling +backward in time. We may end with no cat at all. If so, maybe we've +created an anti-cat in the past or maybe we've just electrocuted a cat." + +"I don't see how you expect to interpret your results," I commented +drily. + +"If there's no cat, I won't risk it," he answered. "If we double our +cats, I think we're on the way to something that may help Summer." + +We picked our way through the mess of wiring and went upstairs. He had +torn my bookcases out of one wall of the den and installed a control +board with a television screen where the fireplace had been. + +"The experiment will be controlled from here," he said. "The energies +that are going to run around all over the basement would make it +pretty dangerous for anyone down there. I'm sorry you can't watch, but +somebody's got to keep the children away from here." + +When he said "children," he meant Summer and Mark. Summer now looked as +much a twin to her nine-year-old son as she had looked to her husband +when I first saw them. At the last two Christmases, we had bought toys +for both of them, and she played happily with Mark. She called Wyn +"daddy" and me "Uncle Don," just as Mark did. + +Making them look even more like twins as we entered the living room on +the day of Wyn's experiment was the fact that they were dressed alike. +She wore a pair of Mark's overalls, and both had on T-shirts. + +At the moment, the two were trying to put doll clothes on Thomas, the +stray yellow cat Wyn had picked up for his experiment. We had had +Thomas about six months now. Wyn and I had dubbed the animal "Tom," +unaware of its sex--it had borne kittens during its stay with us--but +the children thought the cat too dignified for the nickname. It was, +except when they were trying out their various original ideas on it. + +"Thomas is our first heroine--or martyr," said Wyn, and swept the cat +up from the floor. Over the protests of the children, he stripped off +the doll clothing. "You youngsters go out on the side lawn and play. +Uncle Don will take care of you for a while." + +Caring for the children had been my chore for so long I was accustomed +to the peculiarities involved. Mark was as much a problem as any +normal, active boy--no more. But Summer's reverse living, her reverse +memory, made her even more difficult to deal with as she reverted to +childish habits and attitudes. + +For some weeks now, she had indulged in the fantasy that she was Mark +and Mark was she, a game Mark rebelled at strenuously. At the same +time, her manner of speaking had become so confused and tangled that +it was often incoherent. If Wyn failed in his experiment, the next nine +years threatened to be trying indeed. + +The children left the house with me docilely enough, but as soon as we +reached the lawn Mark burst into tears. + +"What's the matter with you, young fellow?" I asked in surprise. + +"What's Daddy going to do to Thomas?" he demanded. "Daddy's going to +hurt Thomas!" + +"Don't worry, Thomas isn't going to be hurt," I reassured him, aware +that I might not be telling the truth. + +The boy looked at me straight. + +"I know what a martyr is," he said indignantly, his sobs subsiding. "I +studied Joan of Arc in school." + +"Daddy ... Thomas in big furnace put," Summer informed us in her +labored fashion. "Thomas all burnt up was going to. Him ... but I him +saved. Saved him, Summer and I." + +"Neither one of you is going to do anything about Thomas right now," +I said brusquely, recognizing Summer's use of the past tense as an +expression of intention. "When Daddy's through with Thomas, you may +play with him again." + +Mark subsided, but he retained on his face a rebellious expression +which had by now become familiar to me. Summer, although she said +nothing for a few moments, became more excited. She alternately flushed +and paled, breathing hard, until I began to fear she was ill. + +Now a deep, powerful hum arose from the house. Wyn had switched on the +power and was ready for his experiment. + +It was a tremendous volume of sound, a physical thing that throbbed +through the ground under our feet and caused the leaves of the trees to +tremble as in a breeze. An electric tension filled the air and seemed +to intensify Summer's agitation. Her eyes dilated in fright and her +teeth began to chatter. + +"Away got I but!" she cried suddenly in a shrill voice. "Up blew it +before away ran he and Thomas saved I! Me with up blew it and fire of +full furnace big a was it! Furnace a in Thomas had they!" + +"Here, child!" I shouted above the increasing roar of the generators. +"You're hysterical. Nothing's going to happen to Thomas." + +She quieted abruptly, glaring at Mark in affright. He stared back, +equally alarmed. + +"He isn't, Summer he's?" she asked me plaintively. "Boy a be Summer +could how? Mark I'm know I." + +I didn't understand this at all, especially when Summer began feeling +her arms and legs and inspecting herself all over, carefully. + +The sound of the machinery in the basement reached a shrieking +crescendo that must have put the teeth of everyone in the neighborhood +on edge. Mark came to life. His eyes shining fiercely, he grasped +Summer by the arm. + +"Are they going to hurt Thomas?" he demanded intently. "Are they, +Summer?" + +She looked at me, not the boy, and suddenly she was calm as though in +the grip of profound shock. I could hardly hear her quiet, childish +voice through the noise from the basement. + +"Where ... know ... don't," she began haltingly. "Gone ... Summer's +but. Furnace the in him had they. Thomas saved I." + +Her voice trailed to a gurgle and then she began to chant, "Burn Thomas +burn Thomas burn Thomas...." + +The boy suddenly broke from her and began to run for the house. + +And, BACKWARD, she ran after him. + +Caught by surprise, it was a moment before I could gather my wits and +follow, shouting at them. They had disappeared around the corner of +the house, and I rounded it in time to see them tug open the outside +basement door and vanish inside. An eerie blue light flickered from the +open door. + +Trying to run too fast, I tripped over the garden hose and fell. I got +to my feet, momentarily dazed. + +The explosion knocked me flat on my back, blinded by the flash that +burst from the basement windows and through the cracking walls. + +The blast tilted the den up from the bottom. Its metal and concrete +floor, reinforced for the experiment, buckled but remained unbroken, +like a giant slide. Down that slide, through the smashed walls, Wyn +catapulted, to fall unhurt into the grass. + +But the rest of the house crumpled in on the basement and caught fire. +Under the blazing piles of ruins, I could only surmise, were trapped +the children, both mother and son. + + * * * * * + +I wept frantically. At my age, I must have been a pitiful spectacle. +Neighbors put their arms around my shoulders, tried to comfort me. + +In contrast, Wyn was remarkably calm as he reported to Gus Adams. + +"Every precaution was taken, Mr. Adams," he said, staring morosely into +the smoking embers of the house. "Both of them ran into the basement +just before the explosion. There was nothing anyone could do after +that." + +"Too bad, Mr. Storm, to lose your wife and son all at once," said Gus +sympathetically, writing in his report book. We had kept Summer pretty +well concealed behind the high board fence in recent years, so few +people were aware of her retrogression. "If there's anything I can do +to help, let me know." + +I upbraided Wyn for his apparent callousness when we got to a room at +the City Hotel. + +"You may be right," he said. "But, first, I want to know something." + +He had me relate to him everything that had transpired with the +children after we left the house. He made me repeat several points and +questioned me closely. He was interested particularly in what Summer +had said, how she had said it and how she had acted. The whole thing +was so clearly impressed on my mind, as it is today, that I'm sure I +made few errors. + +"Well," he said, when I had finished, "we'll never see either of them +again, but I think I can say definitely they weren't killed in that +explosion." + +"I don't see how you can say that!" I exclaimed. + +"You remember what I told you--that if Summer's existence had been +reversed in time after she was born, she was existing somewhere else at +the same time? Living normally as a younger child in one place, and as +we knew her in reverse?" + +I did remember it. + +"Well, she was. But we thought she'd be a girl in both instances. When +her time direction was reversed, so was her sex. _Mark and Summer were +the same person!_" + +I gasped. Wyn took a piece of hotel stationery from the rickety desk +and scratched a zigzag on it with his pen. It was a figure like the one +he had drawn in the library of our home, except that the top arm of +this Z was very short. + +He labelled the top arm of the Z "Mark," and the diagonal "Summer." + +"My mistake was that I thought my energy explosion would be at B, +throwing Summer back into a normal time direction. Instead, it was at +A, reversing the time direction of Mark's existence: and the reversed +Mark was Summer." + +"But Mark was Summer's son." I exclaimed. + +"Curious, isn't it?" he agreed, smiling strangely. "She gave birth to +herself, like the phoenix. Nor is that all. She conceived herself!" + +With a firm hand, he wrote "Wyn" above the bottom arm of the Z! + +The diagram looked like this: + + MARK + -------- + /EXPLOSION + / + / + /SUMMER + / + / + / WYN + STORM ------------ + +"The re-reversal!" His blue eyes were a little self conscious as they +looked at me now. "Don, I was born Mark Storm. This explosion today +reversed my time direction and I became Summer Storm, to give birth +to myself nine years ago. And in a terrific burst of natural energy +that you yourself saw, a crucible so fiery that it could wrench the +very inner fabric and physical form of the body, the time flow for me +was twisted back to its proper direction that night in the park and I +became myself--to father myself six years later! + +"I was my mother. I am my own father and my own son!" + + * * * * * + +There it is. Wyn believes he sprang from nothingness, from himself. +Amid the wreckage of the laws of cause and effect that this whole thing +involves, it's possible, I suppose. But a couple of details still +bother me, details I haven't mentioned to Wyn. + +Oh, it isn't the coincidences. If the future is fixed as is the past, +they wouldn't necessarily be coincidences: things like Summer--in the +reversed time in which she lived--stripping off her clothes, donning +Gus Adams' raincoat over her nakedness and going with us out to the +park, to that rendezvous with the lightning and Wyn. + +One of the details I can't take is that it's hard to believe that, +even in such strange twistings and turnings of time, any creature +can initiate itself and, in effect, spring from nothing--though Wyn +says it's done at the sub-atomic level in simple terms of conversion +of energy to matter. But how about the fact that such a complicated +creature as man is built by the action of the genes and chromosomes? + +The other is that year that I was Summer's lover. If she was living +backward biologically, wouldn't that apply, too, to the growth of an +unborn child while it was still part of her. And Wyn left Allertown +right after Mark's birth. + +I've heard of virgin mothers. I'd rather believe in a "virgin father" +than human creation from nothingness. + +I once had hair, and it was blond. My eyes are blue. I look in the +mirror, and then I look at Wyn lounging at ease behind his newspaper. + +My son? My motherless son? + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Z, by Charles L. Fontenay + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59515 *** |