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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Meet Me in Tomorrow, by Guy Archette
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Meet Me in Tomorrow
+
+Author: Guy Archette
+
+Release Date: April 10, 2021 [eBook #65053]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
+             Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEET ME IN TOMORROW ***
+
+
+
+
+                          MEET ME IN TOMORROW
+
+                            By GUY ARCHETTE
+
+              Ellen was everything Andy Pearce wanted in
+         a girl. Yet he could never let her know of his love,
+          for she was part of a world he was about to leave!
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
+                             December 1950
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+The gravel road wound its way through quiet country fields cloaked in
+the fresh green of early summer. Andy Pearce watched it with expectant
+eyes and the odd feeling that it was winding up within him like twine,
+making an ever-growing ball of tension.
+
+It wouldn't be long now, he thought. He was excited--and not a little
+afraid.
+
+Abruptly Pearce leaned toward the windshield of the coupe. "That's the
+place, Dave!" He pointed to a wall of trees that had just come into
+view around a curve.
+
+"At last!" Ellen Thorpe sighed, from her seat between the two men. "I
+was beginning to think it would take all day to reach this wonderful
+picnic spot of yours, Andy."
+
+"It better be good," Dave Fuller growled. "After letting myself be
+coaxed into this trip and driving all morning."
+
+"Good?" Pearce was grinning, though his voice held no humor. "Dave,
+I guarantee it's going to be better than anything you can possibly
+imagine."
+
+Ellen frowned at Pearce. "You know, Andy, somehow you scare me."
+
+"It's the beast in him," Fuller put in. "The gals are always fooled by
+Andy's curly hair and soulful eyes, but sooner or later they wake up to
+his true nature."
+
+She wrinkled her nose at him. "I think you're a beast, too. All men are
+beasts. But as for Andy, he takes first prize. He had to go and ruin
+the date I made for him and Susie. It practically broke her heart that
+she wasn't going with us today."
+
+Pearce moved his hands in a helpless gesture. "I'm sorry about Susie,
+but this was one time I didn't want to be fixed up with a date."
+
+"I don't think you ever did," Ellen said bitterly. "I practically had
+to browbeat you into all the dates I made for you."
+
+"Your concern for my ... well, call it social life, is deeply
+appreciated," Pearce returned with mild sarcasm.
+
+"Yours?" she protested. "Andy Pearce, I assure you that arranging your
+dates was nothing more or less than self-defense on my part. I didn't
+want people to get the idea that I was preparing for a life of bigamy
+by always going out with two men."
+
+"I plead self-defense, too." Pearce was sober. "Romantic complications
+are something I wanted to avoid. Anyhow, getting back to this picnic
+today, I wanted it to be strictly a family affair."
+
+Fuller's red head swung around in dismay. "Good grief, Andy, don't tell
+me all your relatives are going to be out here! If that's the reason
+you wanted to visit your boyhood stamping grounds--"
+
+"Relax," Pearce said. "No relatives. I was speaking figuratively. I
+never had enough relatives to mention. An uncle brought me up, and he
+departed this vale of tears a long time ago."
+
+Fuller looked relieved. "Relatives make me nervous."
+
+"Then you'd better stop this rattle-trap of yours." Pearce gestured at
+the trees, now almost abreast of the coupe. "Not that the fact we've
+arrived has anything to do with it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fuller turned the car into a stretch of grass beside the road and
+braked to a stop. "End of the line!" he announced. Then he glanced at
+Pearce in uneasy speculation. "Or is it? I hope it doesn't take a stiff
+hike to get to your boyhood Eden."
+
+"Quit griping," Pearce said. "We're almost there now. And don't forget
+I promised that this is going to be worth your trouble."
+
+"I'll bet!" Fuller muttered. Despite his skeptical tone, his blue eyes
+lingered on Pearce in veiled wonder.
+
+Pearce let himself stiffly out of the car. Ellen followed, glancing
+about her curiously. She was a slim, graceful girl, dark, yet with a
+quality of glowing vividness. Her shining hair had been cut short in
+the current fashion, its boyish effect offset by her large, lustrous
+eyes and full red lips.
+
+She stretched on tiptoe, for a moment standing motionless and
+statuesque. Pearce watched her with a sudden, flashing intensity. Pain
+touched him, and regret.
+
+But it was too late--too late even to think of what might have been....
+
+She turned. "This is a wild, lonely-looking place you've dragged us out
+to, Andy."
+
+He nodded, his gray eyes kindling with memories. "It hasn't changed
+since I was a kid. Except for the road. It's got gravel on it now."
+
+"What, no red carpet?" Fuller asked in mock surprise, as he too emerged
+from the coupe. "A lousy welcome for our boy Andy. No red carpet."
+
+"Cut it out," Ellen admonished. "These aren't the surroundings for low
+comedy. Let's just be simple, sociable folk enjoying a picnic. Bring
+out the eats, and we'll get started."
+
+Looking exaggeratedly chastened, Fuller opened the trunk at the rear of
+the coupe and began handing out objects. There was a basket of food,
+blankets, a record player, and a cardboard carton containing beer
+packed in dry ice. There was also a large suitcase belonging to Pearce.
+
+Fuller hefted this exploratively. "Just a little something for the
+picnic," he said, glancing at Ellen. "That's what Andy told me when he
+put this hunk of luggage in the car. Why, it's as heavy as the national
+debt!"
+
+"Nobody's asking you to carry it," Pearce said mildly.
+
+"No--but I wish I could figure out what you're up to," Fuller returned.
+
+Pearce shook a warning finger, "If wishes were limousines, the accident
+toll among joy-riding beggars would be terrific."
+
+"Very funny." Fuller turned to Ellen again. "Do you think it's decent
+of Andy to worry his friends like this?"
+
+She studied Pearce a moment, her dark eyes solemn. Then she moved her
+slim shoulders in a philosophical shrug. "Since we've come this far, I
+guess we'll just have to put up with it."
+
+"That's the spirit!" Pearce said. "Just put your lives in my hands,
+little ones--and let the insurance premiums fall where they may."
+He bent to pick up the suitcase and the record player, hoping that
+he had moved quickly enough to hide the pain and unhappiness that
+had momentarily showed in his face. The situation was proving more
+difficult than he had thought it would be. He had hoped to make the
+picnic a light-hearted affair, to keep Fuller and Ellen from suspecting
+at the very outset that something unusual was taking place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He strode into the woods. Fuller followed with the blankets and the
+beer carton, and Ellen with the basket of food.
+
+The glade proved easy enough to locate. It was smaller than Pearce
+remembered, but the semi-circle of large stones along one side was
+much the same. The trees that rose all around gave their old effect of
+seclusion, of shutting out the world. Beyond the enclosure they made
+were the shadows cast by inter-laced boughs, and through these came the
+plaintive cries of birds, somehow like the sound of waves on an island
+shore.
+
+Pearce glanced around him slowly, relishing the familiarity of the
+scene, his thoughts leaping a chasm of fifteen years. One memory in
+particular was suddenly very vivid.
+
+"So this is the place, Andy," Ellen said behind him. "Why, it's just
+perfect!" She swung to Fuller. "Don't you think this is worth the
+drive?"
+
+"I refuse to give my opinion until I've had enough beer to put me in
+the proper mood," Fuller growled.
+
+"Start opening it, then," Ellen said. "I'll get the food ready."
+
+They ate seated on the blankets, around the appetizingly laden
+tablecloth Ellen had spread. Pearce was too intense to have much of
+an interest in food, but he managed to consume what normally would
+have been expected of him. He was sharply aware that the minutes
+were running out, that the deadline was now swiftly approaching. The
+knowledge strengthened the undercurrent of dread within him, brought a
+pang of sadness.
+
+But he did not want these last moments with Ellen and Dave to be
+touched with melancholy, nor did he want them to sense his troubled
+emotional state. He helped to keep a casual conversation going, and
+whenever this threatened to lag, he started the record player.
+
+Shadows deepened within the glade as the afternoon wore on. Pearce
+helped Ellen to clean up the picnic remains, then sprawled beside
+Fuller to finish what was left of the beer. From the record player came
+the strains of a symphony. Ellen seated herself nearby, tapping one
+slender foot in time to the music.
+
+Distractedly Pearce thought of the fleeting, precious minutes. He
+glanced at his watch.
+
+Fuller abruptly sat up. "There you go again, Andy!"
+
+"What?" Pearce was startled.
+
+"Looking at that doggoned watch of yours." Fuller's expression was
+accusing. "You aren't fooling anybody, Andy. You're up to some
+thing--and it's about time you explained yourself. This beating around
+the bush is no way to treat your friends. You drag us out here, to
+the place where you grew up. You have a suitcase along that certainly
+doesn't have bricks in it. You drop mysterious hints about something
+special."
+
+Fuller's voice softened, his blue eyes turned anxious. "Just what have
+you got up your sleeve, Andy?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pearce looked away, pain, a sudden tightness in his chest. He said
+slowly, "Well, I'm taking a sort of trip, Dave. I ... I'm afraid I'm
+never going to see you and Ellen again."
+
+"Andy!" Ellen's voice was a stricken whisper.
+
+"Never see us again...." Fuller muttered blankly.
+
+The symphony came to an end. There was a moment of strained quiet.
+
+"What are you talking about, Andy?" Fuller demanded in hurt
+bewilderment. "Where are you going that you'll never see me and Ellen
+again?"
+
+"It's a long story," Pearce said. He grinned faintly. "I mean that.
+It's a story that begins fifteen years in the past and ends some
+two thousand years in the future."
+
+Fuller and Ellen were rigid, staring. Pearce drained the last of his
+beer and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"In another way," he went on, "the story really begins right where we
+are now. This part of the woods always was a favorite spot of mine.
+I'd sneak off here to read books and magazines that I borrowed from
+a neighbor whose taste in literature was on the blood and thunder
+side--lucky for me. My uncle didn't like to see me reading, thought it
+a waste of time. But it was in the middle of the Depression, and there
+wasn't much else to do. Uncle was an intolerant old bird, a widower,
+and he wasn't happy about getting stuck with me. I didn't like it,
+either, but there didn't seem anything a twelve-year-old kid could do
+about it."
+
+Pearce drew at his cigarette, his gray eyes squinting into distance.
+"Uncle's chicken farm was a lonely place, and in self-defense I guess
+I developed a lot more imagination than most kids my age. Most of the
+time I wasn't on the farm at all--except when Uncle gave me a spanking
+by way of a reminder. I was out on the deserts of Mars, or walking the
+streets of a lost city in Africa, or tracking down an international
+spy ring in London. This day-dreaming, as I can see now, was pretty
+important."
+
+Fuller said impatiently, "But Andy, what on earth does this build-up
+have to do with the trip you're going to make?"
+
+"Keep your shirt on," Pearce said. "You'll see."
+
+He resumed. "What I've outlined was the general situation when I came
+here one summer afternoon, to read a book. About a half-hour later
+something happened that practically made me jump out of my skin. The
+air in the glade seemed suddenly to thicken, and the trees all around
+grew crazily twisted, as though seen through optical glass. I felt
+oddly light, dizzy and sick at the same time. And from somewhere came a
+deep, humming sound--the kind of sound that might have been made by a
+string on a giant harp.
+
+"The next thing I knew there was a sort of machine in the glade that
+seemed to have popped right out of nowhere. It was a metal globe about
+eight feet across, with tapering legs or supports on the bottom to keep
+it upright. There was the outline of a door in the side turned toward
+me.
+
+"I was scared stiff, of course, but I had been reading about this kind
+of thing happening in stories--and as far as I was concerned, there was
+hardly any dividing line between stories and real life. So I stayed
+put. I knew the machine was something special, because I'd never seen
+anything like it outside of the illustrations in the more imaginative
+type of magazines."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pearce drew at his cigarette again. Fuller and Ellen were like store
+window figures, arranged in attitudes of rapt attention.
+
+"After several seconds the door in the side of the machine opened and a
+woman stepped out. I thought she was the most beautiful creature I had
+ever seen, a princess--or an angel. She looked the way ancient Egyptian
+women must have looked. She made me think of a tropical flower, which
+wasn't far from truth, considering that she came from a time when the
+Earth was--or will be--a great deal warmer than it is now. She was
+wearing a sort of thin dress that sparkled as though covered with
+jewels, and over this she held a long cloak. It was summer, but I
+suppose it was a bit too cool for her.
+
+"She smiled at me--and I was glad I had stuck around. She said she
+hoped I hadn't been frightened by the appearance of her machine, and I
+guess I tried to sell her the idea that I strangled lions with my bare
+hands just for exercise. Then she explained that her name was Nela, and
+that she had come from two thousand years in the future especially to
+see me. Her machine, of course, was a time machine."
+
+"Good grief!" Fuller said explosively. "What kind of a gag are you
+trying to put over, Andy?"
+
+"I know just how it all sounds," Pearce returned. "But believe me,
+for one of the few times in my life I'm dead serious. Keep quiet and
+listen. I don't have much time left."
+
+"Go on, Andy," Ellen said. "I'm fascinated."
+
+Pearce took a final puff of his cigarette crushed it out in the grass,
+and continued. "Nela explained how it was possible to travel in time,
+but in the sort of terms a kid would understand. Even what I've figured
+out up to now isn't specific enough to be worth detailing, except
+to say that what we consider space and time are merely illusions
+of sense perception. They are really one stationary system or
+complex--stationary, yet dynamic and changing within itself--and under
+certain conditions one can travel through this system, from future
+to past, or the other way around, like through a museum--the biggest
+museum that can possibly be imagined.
+
+"Nela's machine operated on energy principles that won't be known
+for a great many years yet, and it will be even longer before those
+principles are put into application. She was, in effect, making a
+round-trip from one part of the museum to another--a trip that took
+her across two thousand years of what we call time, or across a couple
+of hundred light years of what we call space. It's one and the same
+thing. Actually, she was following a sort of huge orbit, and was,
+so to speak, stopping off along the route. A trip between one point
+and another can be made only once, because even that one trip brings
+changes which affect the whole system, or complex. One point, it seems,
+is always shifted so that it lies outside of any orbit which can be
+plotted from the other.
+
+"Nela told me about the kind of world she came from, too, and it
+sounded--and still sounds--like a perfect place. There was, so she
+said, practically no government, practically no laws, restrictions, or
+penalties. In two thousand years enough had been learned about the mind
+to make these unnecessary. Men at last were truly equal. There was no
+longer any need to work for a living. Machines of all sorts attended to
+every task and human requirement. Earth was one huge garden--and there
+was plenty of room for everyone. Men had reached the stars and had
+found new homes almost beyond number.
+
+"An ideal picture--but there was a catch to it. The machines on which
+Nela's people depended were breaking down, and it seemed nobody knew
+even how to begin repairing them. The men of her time could take suns
+apart and put them back together again, but the machines baffled them
+in much the same way that our atomic scientists would be baffled
+when it came to repairing a suit of Medieval armor. The answer to
+the problem was to obtain the help of persons who understood the
+construction and operation of the machines at least as well as Medieval
+armorers understood their steel suits. And that answer--in both
+cases--lay back in time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pearce changed position on the blanket under him and glanced at his
+watch. He went on, "Time travel had been accomplished well before
+Nela's period, but the process had proved too involved and tricky for
+serious, large-scale use. The important thing, though, was that a
+number of machines were immediately available for time travel, and Nela
+was one of those chosen to operate them. She was, it seems, a gal of
+parts. In addition to being one of the leaders of a world-wide group
+which had been formed to deal with the machine break-down problem, she
+was also an expert on time travel and an authority on Twentieth Century
+life.
+
+"Actually, you see, Nela's people were undergoing a cultural
+renaissance, a reawakening of interest in every field of knowledge
+and endeavor. For many hundreds of years there had been stagnation.
+The machines had filled every human want, and there had been little
+need for effort of any kind. Also, progress had been discouraged by a
+hidebound government, which had remained in power through its control
+of certain of the more important machines. The government had fallen
+when realization came that it could do nothing to keep the machines in
+repair, but the damage had been done. After centuries of a hands-off
+attitude toward the machines, nobody else knew how to repair them,
+either. Rapid progress was made everywhere except in this one direction.
+
+"Nela and the others decided to travel to different points in time and
+obtain specialists who would each be able to deal with some particular
+repair job on the machines. The machines, of course, were not the
+product of any one time period, but were the cumulative result of the
+knowledge and skills of different periods. I was the specialist with
+whom contact was made at this point in time. It was, I realize now,
+quite a complicated business.
+
+"When a beautiful girl appears in a time machine and tells some young
+man she needs his help, he doesn't just drop whatever he happens to
+be doing and go sailing blithely off into the mysterious future. Not
+in real life. He has to consider his family and friends, the career
+he was working on, all the things familiar and important to him, his
+surroundings, interests and amusements, climate, customs, clothing--all
+the rest. He has to consider that he might not be happy in the
+future, that he might not fit, that he might not even be physically
+comfortable, that the beautiful girl herself might very well turn out
+to be disappointing.
+
+"But if he is a young man of average intelligence, he most likely
+wouldn't even bother to consider these things. He simply would refuse
+to believe the beautiful girl from the future, would be certain it was
+some sort of a hoax. Or he might even be scared stiff by the very idea
+of traveling in time. All of which boils down to the fact that the girl
+from the future would face a mighty tough job getting the right kind of
+young man to help her."
+
+"I get it now," Fuller broke in musingly. "So that's what your suitcase
+is for, Andy." Then his voice sharpened with protest. "But it ... it's
+ridiculous! I just can't believe it's possible."
+
+"The young man of average intelligence speaking," Pearce murmured.
+
+"Yeah?" Fuller swung to Ellen. "What do you think?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She shook her dark head slightly, lower lip caught between her teeth.
+"I'm trying not to think... Go on, Andy--before I start thinking."
+
+"Hate to have that happen, if Dave's mental acrobatics are any
+example." Pearce abruptly sobered, glancing at his watch. "Well," he
+resumed, "Nela and the others foresaw the difficulties they would
+encounter in obtaining help, and they figured out what they hoped would
+be a fool-proof method of approach. What happened in my case shows
+what this was. It seems Nela first scouted out a group of specialists
+to find a couple with the right qualifications. The man she wanted had
+to be young and adventurous, without any family or romantic ties. Then
+she narrowed her field still further by tracing her selection back to
+childhood and making direct contact there.
+
+"It was clever--for after all, the child is father to the man. A child
+is credulous and imaginative to an extent a man is not. And a child is
+adventurous, will let his enthusiasms carry him spontaneously where
+a man will hesitate and look for a catch. Most of all a child is
+impressionable and can be imbued with an idea which he will follow like
+a beacon light all his life.
+
+"I was the child Nela finally settled on. The Andy Pearce she had first
+scouted still existed in time, and nothing would change for him. But no
+paradox is involved, for what we call time is an illusion, a subjective
+quality arising from an awareness of objective conditions--and these
+conditions are not quite what we think they are. That first Andy Pearce
+was something like a bubble moving in a glass tube. All Nela did was
+put another bubble in motion. The tube itself was not affected, nor was
+time shifted, bent, nullified, or anything of the sort. Each bubble was
+as real as anything can be said to be real, each existed in its own
+particular space-time, each was completely distinct and independent of
+the other.
+
+"Nela visited me here several times, while she told me all the details
+of her mission. She was also getting acquainted with me and giving
+me time to thoroughly digest the idea of going with her. I agreed to
+go, of course. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do,
+and I didn't change my mind. Once she had satisfied herself on that
+score, she worked out a plan of operations for me to follow until I was
+finally ready to leave. The plan took in schools, subjects, finances,
+and the like. Nela, you see, was making a big improvement on the first
+Andy Pearce.
+
+"I never saw Nela again after those first visits. It was quite
+unnecessary, as I can see now. For she and her people understood the
+mind with an amazing thoroughness, and during her talks she subtly
+injected me with knowledge, emotions and ideals that set me in motion
+toward my goal as effectively and undeviatingly as though I had been
+hypnotized. And I suspect that she set other bubbles in motion as well,
+to guide and assist me and generally keep me moving in one direction."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pearce gestured. "I've kept moving, all right. Fifteen years have
+passed, and I know all I need to know about the particular technical
+subject Nela chose me to handle. I'm ready to leave--and I'm leaving
+very soon. Nela is coming here to pick me up, having meanwhile been
+moving to this point along her orbit to make one last stop-off before
+completing the swing back to her own point in time. There can be no
+return, for once I leave, this point in time can never be reached
+again. But then I've had fifteen years to get used to the idea.
+
+"This picnic today was in the nature of a farewell party. You, Dave
+and Ellen, have been the only friends I've allowed myself--and you've
+both been fine friends. I wanted you both to know exactly where I
+was going instead of doing a mysterious fade-out. I felt I owed you
+that much. I've never told anyone about Nela before--not because the
+information was likely to prove harmful, or anything of the sort, but
+simply because it would have created doubts about my sanity. I know I
+can trust you with it for the same reason."
+
+Pearce spread his hands, grinning crookedly. "Well, I hope that leaves
+me and my suitcase explained to the complete satisfaction of everyone."
+
+Fuller ran his hand through his red hair in agitation and rose to his
+feet. "It's the damnedest story I've ever heard, Andy. I wish I could
+be dead certain it isn't a gag. I can't believe it--or maybe it's just
+that I can't accept the idea of never seeing you again. If this hadn't
+come all of a sudden--" He broke off, gesturing helplessly.
+
+"Picnics," Ellen muttered to no one in particular, "are going to be
+permanently spoiled for me."
+
+"Hell!" Fuller growled. "I need a drink. I guess we all need a drink."
+He reached out as though to detain Pearce. "Andy, I've got a bottle in
+the car. For emergencies, you know--and this certainly is an emergency.
+So stay right here, Andy. Don't go running off into the future until I
+get back. Promise?"
+
+"On my word of honor," Pearce said.
+
+"Don't drop that bottle, Dave," Ellen put in.
+
+With a last anxious glance at Pearce, Fuller turned and hurried away
+through the trees. Pearce was abruptly, sharply aware that he was alone
+with Ellen.
+
+She seemed aware of it also. For a moment her dark eyes met his with a
+kind of pensive directness, then dropped.
+
+There was an uncomfortable silence.
+
+"I'll never be quite the same again after today, Andy," Ellen murmured
+at last.
+
+He stared morosely at his hands. "I'm sorry. I guess I did spring the
+story a bit too suddenly. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything at all,
+done a quiet fade-out."
+
+"I think I'd rather have known what happened to you than otherwise."
+She traced a design on the blanket with one slim finger, then said,
+"Andy, you made a remark in the car--about avoiding what you called
+romantic complications. Were you avoiding them because you were
+eventually going away with this Nela female?"
+
+He nodded. "Something like that."
+
+"Wasn't it because you were in love with her?"
+
+"Why, I ... I don't think so." He was startled. "I guess it's true
+that I had a crush on her as a kid, but I haven't seen her for fifteen
+years. I hardly feel I ever knew her."
+
+"Then even though you're going away with her, there is someone you care
+for?"
+
+He hesitated for an aching instant, finally managed a shrug. "It isn't
+important. Not any more."
+
+"It is--to me. Andy, this is no time for historical novel gallantry
+or radio soap opera self-renunciation. This is the last chance we'll
+ever have to be completely frank with each other." Her dark eyes were
+intent. "Andy, do you love me?"
+
+"I ... well--" He groped in confusion, with the feeling that he had
+suddenly found himself on a tight-rope, hundreds of feet in the air.
+Then he nodded miserably. "Yes."
+
+"Then just why did you take it for granted that I was Dave's girl?"
+Ellen demanded bitterly.
+
+"I thought Dave was the one you were interested in. He was my best
+friend, and I didn't want to--"
+
+"You thought! Didn't it ever occur to you to find out?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He made a helpless gesture. "I wanted to, Ellen--but I don't see what
+good it could have done. I was going away, you know."
+
+"Don't you think I could have changed your mind about that? Don't you
+think I can change your mind--even now?" Abruptly she leaned toward
+him, her small face lighted as though by some fierce inner fire, at
+once pleading and demanding. "Andy--kiss me!"
+
+Despite himself, that fire touched him, kindled to a blaze. His lips
+met hers with a quickening pressure, his hands slipped from her
+shoulders to draw her tightly against him. For long seconds nothing
+else had reality or importance. The glade dissolved around him, and he
+seemed to float in a dark sea that rose and fell with a wild rhythm.
+
+Then awareness of his act exploded in him. He released the girl
+abruptly and drew away.
+
+"It's hopeless, Ellen! I can't back down now."
+
+She shook her dark head in swift protest. "It isn't hopeless, Andy. It
+isn't too late. I just proved that to you."
+
+"But Nela is depending on me. I can't let her down."
+
+"You owe her nothing! She took advantage of you at a time when you
+weren't mature and experienced enough to exercise good judgment. Why
+should you feel obligated to her now?"
+
+"I agreed to go with her. If I let her down, she won't be able to
+obtain a replacement with my particular type of training. She can visit
+this point in time only once."
+
+"That's her problem, Andy. You have your own life to live. Why
+shouldn't you be able to live it as you choose? You don't know just
+what sort of a life the future holds for you--but you do know what
+you'll find here."
+
+He gripped his knees hard, finally shook his head. "This is something
+bigger than we are, Ellen--something more important than your personal
+happiness, or mine. It isn't just that Nela is depending on me. Behind
+her is a whole civilization. It's the greatest responsibility a man can
+be given. If I backed down, I'd never feel right again. I'd always have
+it on my conscience."
+
+She slumped in despair. "Then there's nothing else I can do to change
+your mind?"
+
+"Nothing, Ellen. I'm sorry."
+
+Silence closed down again. A painful, uneasy silence, the silence of
+people between whom an unsurmountable barrier exists.
+
+The silence added fuel to Pearce's inner turmoil. He wished that it had
+been possible to leave without hurting Ellen, even without discovering
+that she returned his own feelings. The knowledge that he would never
+see her again had been difficult enough to face. For in these last
+months the picture of her had come to haunt him--Ellen, with her
+shining dark hair and her slim vital body, at once gaily humorous and
+warmly sympathetic. He knew that he would never forget her, or cease
+thinking of the happiness he might have found with her.
+
+"It might be a good idea to wipe that lipstick off your face, Andy,"
+Ellen murmured at last.
+
+Pearce fumbled for a handkerchief and scrubbed at his mouth. The action
+brought forward something that had been hovering at the back of his
+mind.
+
+"What about Dave?" he asked abruptly. "I hope I haven't spoiled
+anything for him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She shook her head with a grave seriousness. "Dave knows how I feel.
+And it isn't much of a loss where he's concerned, because he's been
+taking a growing interest in Susie. She has a terrific crush on him,
+and that's the reason she wanted to come with us so badly today. But
+you insisted on a three-sided party and as usual left Dave to nursemaid
+me."
+
+Pearce felt a dull amazement. Engrossed with his preparations for
+leaving he had not sensed the emotional undercurrents beneath the
+outwardly placid surface of Dave and Ellen.
+
+Ellen, he thought suddenly. Dave was accounted for--but Ellen? He could
+not voice the question, feeling himself too inextricably bound up in
+it.
+
+There was the sound of footsteps as Fuller returned, brandishing a
+bottle. "Here it is!" he announced. "Get out the glasses, Ellen."
+
+She produced three plastic tumblers from the basket, and Fuller poured
+a generous drink in each. He raised his own tumbler in a solemn gesture.
+
+"Here's to Andy. Bon voyage--and a high old time in the future!"
+
+"Thanks," Pearce said in self-conscious acknowledgement. He swallowed
+the whisky in a gulp, felt its raw warmth spread through him.
+
+Bon voyage, he thought. The voyage part was true enough. But he doubted
+if he would have a high old time. He would always think of Ellen. And
+Dave. And all the other people he had known, who would continue to
+move against the old familiar background of their existence, among all
+the old familiar things, without sudden violent change, or pain, or
+loss. He would think of movies and dances, baseball games and parties.
+And restaurants and nightclubs and small quiet bars. And apple pie
+and coffee, hamburgers and malted milk. And his favorite brand of
+cigarettes, and two pants suits and straw hats in the summer. And beer
+and sport pages and classical records on a drowsy Sunday afternoon. And
+politics and elections and critical internal situations. And crowded
+downtown streets and quiet suburban cottages--all the other things he
+had known and liked, or had taken for granted and had not thought much
+about. He would think of them because they wouldn't exist in the future
+any more, because people would have changed, would have different
+ideals, habits and tastes.
+
+Fuller filled the tumblers again and made an effort at the sort of
+artificially cheerful small talk that precedes the sailing of a troop
+ship.
+
+Pearce, who had surreptitiously been keeping check on his watch,
+finally gestured. "It's almost time for Nela to pick me up--and I'd
+like to be alone when she comes. The situation might be too complicated
+if you and Ellen were present, Dave. I want things to be as easy as
+possible all around."
+
+Fuller looked disappointed. "I was kind of hoping to get a look at this
+gal from the future, Andy. I still don't know whether to believe your
+story or not."
+
+"Give me the benefit of the doubt, anyway, will you?" Pearce pleaded.
+He turned to Ellen. "You'll do this last favor for me?"
+
+She nodded and leaned forward on tiptoe. "Good-bye, Andy--and good
+luck." Her voice was little more than a whisper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He touched her lips with his and for a moment stood looking down at
+her, thinking once more of what might have been. An echo of his own
+thoughts seemed to glisten wetly in her dark eyes. Abruptly she turned
+away.
+
+Pearce gripped Fuller's hand. "So long, Dave."
+
+"Take care of yourself, Andy." Fuller looked painfully reflective, then
+suddenly held out the bottle. "Here, Andy, you take this. You might
+need it."
+
+Pearce watched with a deep inward aching as Fuller and Ellen strode
+from the glade. Reaching the trees, they turned to look back at him.
+They hesitated, waved--were gone.
+
+Pearce felt that the last door to the past had been irrevocably closed.
+
+He looked down at the bottle he was holding and lifted it to his mouth.
+Then he lighted a cigarette, glanced at his watch again, and fell to
+pacing along one edge of the glade. His eyes roved tensely about him,
+expectant and dreading.
+
+Thoughts shifted uneasily in his mind. Would Nela actually appear?
+Fifteen years had passed for him--a matter of a few hours to her.
+But perhaps something had gone wrong. Perhaps she had miscalculated
+somewhere.
+
+And on mental scales he balanced Ellen against the future, wondering if
+his choice had been wise. Could the future possibly hold the happiness
+he might have known with Ellen, in the age familiar to him?
+
+He heard a car motor start up in the distance. The sound rose in
+volume, then began fading. Dave and Ellen were on their way back to
+the city.
+
+He felt suddenly alone--somehow abandoned.
+
+Raising the bottle to his lips again, he resumed his nervous pacing.
+And then he stopped, frozen, aware of a change in his surroundings.
+The air in the glade was thickening queerly, the trees all around were
+growing crazily distorted. And he heard a deep humming sound--the kind
+of sound that might have been made by a string on a giant harp.
+
+Across the glade, appearing as though from nothingness itself,
+an object was taking shape--a metal globe. Bands of distortion
+surrounded it like ripples in water. For an instant the globe seemed
+unsubstantial, illusory--then it was solid, resting quietly on the
+floor of the glade.
+
+[Illustration: Andy stood out in the small clearing, waving a goodbye
+to them, while behind him a strange metallic globe suddenly shimmered
+in the air....]
+
+Pearce watched it, his heart pounding.
+
+"Andy!"
+
+The call hit him like a physical blow. Stunned, he whirled to see Ellen
+hurrying toward him through the trees.
+
+"Andy!" she cried again. "Are you all right?"
+
+"Ellen!" he gasped. "What are you doing here? I thought you left with
+Dave."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She caught breathlessly at his arm, steadying herself. "I made him go
+without me. I ... I couldn't leave you, Andy." Her voice rose. "I'm
+going with you!"
+
+His mind whirled in dismayed confusion. He sent a swift glance at the
+metal globe. Any moment now, the door would open--
+
+"Ellen, you can't go!"
+
+"Why not? I'm willing to take the risk. And I'll be happy, whatever the
+future is like, as long as I'm with you."
+
+He shook his head in despair. "It ... well, I'm afraid it's just
+impossible, that's all. No provision has been made for you. I don't
+know even if there would be room for you. I don't know if Nela can
+allow you in her plans, or--"
+
+He broke off. Glancing at the globe again, he saw that the door was
+opening.
+
+He waited for Nela to appear, wondering what her reaction would be when
+she saw Ellen, wondering how this hopelessly tangled situation could
+possibly be resolved.
+
+The door of the globe stood fully open. Nothing else happened.
+
+Pearce waited a moment longer, puzzled, then slowly looked into the
+globe. Except for two padded seats and a myriad of instruments on the
+curving walls, the interior of the machine was empty.
+
+He turned in bewilderment to Ellen. "Something's wrong! Nela isn't
+inside."
+
+Ellen looked gravely thoughtful. "Andy, I think I know what happened
+to her. She was an authority on Twentieth Century life, you know. She
+no doubt had all sorts of records to help her. She could speak the
+kind of English used here, she understood social customs, the economic
+situation, knew how to dress and act. What she didn't know, she could
+pick up by being careful and observing. In short, she could pass as an
+ordinary Twentieth Century girl, and hardly anyone would guess she was
+different."
+
+Pearce's bewilderment grew. "What are you getting at?"
+
+"Well, Andy, suppose this Nela wanted to make absolutely sure you'd be
+happy in the future, that nothing would interfere with your efficiency
+and general well-being. There was a big job ahead of you, and a lot
+depended on your particular field of knowledge and type of skill. So
+to make absolutely sure of you she stopped off along her route back to
+spend your last several months here with you. It wouldn't be hard for
+a clever girl like her to get acquainted with you and Dave. And you
+hadn't seen her for fifteen years, Andy. You wouldn't recognize her
+easily--especially if she'd had her hair cut short and wore Twentieth
+Century clothes and make-up."
+
+Pearce stared at her a moment longer, then caught at her arms. "Ellen!
+You ... you're Nela!"
+
+She nodded slowly, her smile uncertain and touched with shyness. "I
+hope you aren't disappointed, Andy, or that you hate me for having
+tricked you the way I did."
+
+He laughed, a wild delight surging up in him. "Neither," he said. "And
+I'm going to prove it!"
+
+He proved it to her entire satisfaction. Finally, hand in hand, they
+turned to the doorway of the globe.
+
+"I suppose you brought the machine here by remote control or something
+of the sort," Pearce told Nela.
+
+"Yes. I had a special gadget in my purse. The machine was here all
+along, you see, traveling a few minutes ahead in time."
+
+"And Dave?" he said suddenly. "Did you tell him?"
+
+"I told him I was going with you and hinted the reason why. He'll
+figure it out presently--even if he never completely believes it.
+Little has really changed for Dave. He'll marry Susie and lead a
+perfectly normal life."
+
+Pearce halted Nela as she was about to enter the globe. "There's a
+little custom of this time that I'd like to observe. If you're as
+much of an authority on Twentieth Century life as you claim, you'll
+understand."
+
+He gathered her up in his arms and carried her over the threshold. Her
+smile and then the pressure of her lips indicated that she understood.
+
+The door closed. The trees at the edge of the glade grew crazily
+distorted, shimmering bands enclosed the globe like ripples in water,
+there was a humming sound like a giant harp string--
+
+And then the glade was empty.
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Meet Me in Tomorrow, by Guy Archette</div>
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+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Meet Me in Tomorrow</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Guy Archette</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 10, 2021 [eBook #65053]</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+
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+
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEET ME IN TOMORROW ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop">
+  <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>MEET ME IN TOMORROW</h1>
+
+<h2>By GUY ARCHETTE</h2>
+
+<p>Ellen was everything Andy Pearce wanted in<br />
+a girl. Yet he could never let her know of his love,<br />
+for she was part of a world he was about to leave!</p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br />
+Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy<br />
+December 1950<br />
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br />
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>The gravel road wound its way through quiet country fields cloaked in
+the fresh green of early summer. Andy Pearce watched it with expectant
+eyes and the odd feeling that it was winding up within him like twine,
+making an ever-growing ball of tension.</p>
+
+<p>It wouldn't be long now, he thought. He was excited&mdash;and not a little
+afraid.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly Pearce leaned toward the windshield of the coupe. "That's the
+place, Dave!" He pointed to a wall of trees that had just come into
+view around a curve.</p>
+
+<p>"At last!" Ellen Thorpe sighed, from her seat between the two men. "I
+was beginning to think it would take all day to reach this wonderful
+picnic spot of yours, Andy."</p>
+
+<p>"It better be good," Dave Fuller growled. "After letting myself be
+coaxed into this trip and driving all morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Good?" Pearce was grinning, though his voice held no humor. "Dave,
+I guarantee it's going to be better than anything you can possibly
+imagine."</p>
+
+<p>Ellen frowned at Pearce. "You know, Andy, somehow you scare me."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the beast in him," Fuller put in. "The gals are always fooled by
+Andy's curly hair and soulful eyes, but sooner or later they wake up to
+his true nature."</p>
+
+<p>She wrinkled her nose at him. "I think you're a beast, too. All men are
+beasts. But as for Andy, he takes first prize. He had to go and ruin
+the date I made for him and Susie. It practically broke her heart that
+she wasn't going with us today."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce moved his hands in a helpless gesture. "I'm sorry about Susie,
+but this was one time I didn't want to be fixed up with a date."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you ever did," Ellen said bitterly. "I practically had
+to browbeat you into all the dates I made for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Your concern for my ... well, call it social life, is deeply
+appreciated," Pearce returned with mild sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Yours?" she protested. "Andy Pearce, I assure you that arranging your
+dates was nothing more or less than self-defense on my part. I didn't
+want people to get the idea that I was preparing for a life of bigamy
+by always going out with two men."</p>
+
+<p>"I plead self-defense, too." Pearce was sober. "Romantic complications
+are something I wanted to avoid. Anyhow, getting back to this picnic
+today, I wanted it to be strictly a family affair."</p>
+
+<p>Fuller's red head swung around in dismay. "Good grief, Andy, don't tell
+me all your relatives are going to be out here! If that's the reason
+you wanted to visit your boyhood stamping grounds&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Relax," Pearce said. "No relatives. I was speaking figuratively. I
+never had enough relatives to mention. An uncle brought me up, and he
+departed this vale of tears a long time ago."</p>
+
+<p>Fuller looked relieved. "Relatives make me nervous."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'd better stop this rattle-trap of yours." Pearce gestured at
+the trees, now almost abreast of the coupe. "Not that the fact we've
+arrived has anything to do with it."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Fuller turned the car into a stretch of grass beside the road and
+braked to a stop. "End of the line!" he announced. Then he glanced at
+Pearce in uneasy speculation. "Or is it? I hope it doesn't take a stiff
+hike to get to your boyhood Eden."</p>
+
+<p>"Quit griping," Pearce said. "We're almost there now. And don't forget
+I promised that this is going to be worth your trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet!" Fuller muttered. Despite his skeptical tone, his blue eyes
+lingered on Pearce in veiled wonder.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce let himself stiffly out of the car. Ellen followed, glancing
+about her curiously. She was a slim, graceful girl, dark, yet with a
+quality of glowing vividness. Her shining hair had been cut short in
+the current fashion, its boyish effect offset by her large, lustrous
+eyes and full red lips.</p>
+
+<p>She stretched on tiptoe, for a moment standing motionless and
+statuesque. Pearce watched her with a sudden, flashing intensity. Pain
+touched him, and regret.</p>
+
+<p>But it was too late&mdash;too late even to think of what might have been....</p>
+
+<p>She turned. "This is a wild, lonely-looking place you've dragged us out
+to, Andy."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, his gray eyes kindling with memories. "It hasn't changed
+since I was a kid. Except for the road. It's got gravel on it now."</p>
+
+<p>"What, no red carpet?" Fuller asked in mock surprise, as he too emerged
+from the coupe. "A lousy welcome for our boy Andy. No red carpet."</p>
+
+<p>"Cut it out," Ellen admonished. "These aren't the surroundings for low
+comedy. Let's just be simple, sociable folk enjoying a picnic. Bring
+out the eats, and we'll get started."</p>
+
+<p>Looking exaggeratedly chastened, Fuller opened the trunk at the rear of
+the coupe and began handing out objects. There was a basket of food,
+blankets, a record player, and a cardboard carton containing beer
+packed in dry ice. There was also a large suitcase belonging to Pearce.</p>
+
+<p>Fuller hefted this exploratively. "Just a little something for the
+picnic," he said, glancing at Ellen. "That's what Andy told me when he
+put this hunk of luggage in the car. Why, it's as heavy as the national
+debt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody's asking you to carry it," Pearce said mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;but I wish I could figure out what you're up to," Fuller returned.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce shook a warning finger, "If wishes were limousines, the accident
+toll among joy-riding beggars would be terrific."</p>
+
+<p>"Very funny." Fuller turned to Ellen again. "Do you think it's decent
+of Andy to worry his friends like this?"</p>
+
+<p>She studied Pearce a moment, her dark eyes solemn. Then she moved her
+slim shoulders in a philosophical shrug. "Since we've come this far, I
+guess we'll just have to put up with it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the spirit!" Pearce said. "Just put your lives in my hands,
+little ones&mdash;and let the insurance premiums fall where they may."
+He bent to pick up the suitcase and the record player, hoping that
+he had moved quickly enough to hide the pain and unhappiness that
+had momentarily showed in his face. The situation was proving more
+difficult than he had thought it would be. He had hoped to make the
+picnic a light-hearted affair, to keep Fuller and Ellen from suspecting
+at the very outset that something unusual was taking place.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>He strode into the woods. Fuller followed with the blankets and the
+beer carton, and Ellen with the basket of food.</p>
+
+<p>The glade proved easy enough to locate. It was smaller than Pearce
+remembered, but the semi-circle of large stones along one side was
+much the same. The trees that rose all around gave their old effect of
+seclusion, of shutting out the world. Beyond the enclosure they made
+were the shadows cast by inter-laced boughs, and through these came the
+plaintive cries of birds, somehow like the sound of waves on an island
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce glanced around him slowly, relishing the familiarity of the
+scene, his thoughts leaping a chasm of fifteen years. One memory in
+particular was suddenly very vivid.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is the place, Andy," Ellen said behind him. "Why, it's just
+perfect!" She swung to Fuller. "Don't you think this is worth the
+drive?"</p>
+
+<p>"I refuse to give my opinion until I've had enough beer to put me in
+the proper mood," Fuller growled.</p>
+
+<p>"Start opening it, then," Ellen said. "I'll get the food ready."</p>
+
+<p>They ate seated on the blankets, around the appetizingly laden
+tablecloth Ellen had spread. Pearce was too intense to have much of
+an interest in food, but he managed to consume what normally would
+have been expected of him. He was sharply aware that the minutes
+were running out, that the deadline was now swiftly approaching. The
+knowledge strengthened the undercurrent of dread within him, brought a
+pang of sadness.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not want these last moments with Ellen and Dave to be
+touched with melancholy, nor did he want them to sense his troubled
+emotional state. He helped to keep a casual conversation going, and
+whenever this threatened to lag, he started the record player.</p>
+
+<p>Shadows deepened within the glade as the afternoon wore on. Pearce
+helped Ellen to clean up the picnic remains, then sprawled beside
+Fuller to finish what was left of the beer. From the record player came
+the strains of a symphony. Ellen seated herself nearby, tapping one
+slender foot in time to the music.</p>
+
+<p>Distractedly Pearce thought of the fleeting, precious minutes. He
+glanced at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>Fuller abruptly sat up. "There you go again, Andy!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" Pearce was startled.</p>
+
+<p>"Looking at that doggoned watch of yours." Fuller's expression was
+accusing. "You aren't fooling anybody, Andy. You're up to some
+thing&mdash;and it's about time you explained yourself. This beating around
+the bush is no way to treat your friends. You drag us out here, to
+the place where you grew up. You have a suitcase along that certainly
+doesn't have bricks in it. You drop mysterious hints about something
+special."</p>
+
+<p>Fuller's voice softened, his blue eyes turned anxious. "Just what have
+you got up your sleeve, Andy?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Pearce looked away, pain, a sudden tightness in his chest. He said
+slowly, "Well, I'm taking a sort of trip, Dave. I ... I'm afraid I'm
+never going to see you and Ellen again."</p>
+
+<p>"Andy!" Ellen's voice was a stricken whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Never see us again...." Fuller muttered blankly.</p>
+
+<p>The symphony came to an end. There was a moment of strained quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about, Andy?" Fuller demanded in hurt
+bewilderment. "Where are you going that you'll never see me and Ellen
+again?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long story," Pearce said. He grinned faintly. "I mean that.
+It's a story that begins fifteen years in the past and ends some
+two thousand years in the future."</p>
+
+<p>Fuller and Ellen were rigid, staring. Pearce drained the last of his
+beer and lighted a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"In another way," he went on, "the story really begins right where we
+are now. This part of the woods always was a favorite spot of mine.
+I'd sneak off here to read books and magazines that I borrowed from
+a neighbor whose taste in literature was on the blood and thunder
+side&mdash;lucky for me. My uncle didn't like to see me reading, thought it
+a waste of time. But it was in the middle of the Depression, and there
+wasn't much else to do. Uncle was an intolerant old bird, a widower,
+and he wasn't happy about getting stuck with me. I didn't like it,
+either, but there didn't seem anything a twelve-year-old kid could do
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce drew at his cigarette, his gray eyes squinting into distance.
+"Uncle's chicken farm was a lonely place, and in self-defense I guess
+I developed a lot more imagination than most kids my age. Most of the
+time I wasn't on the farm at all&mdash;except when Uncle gave me a spanking
+by way of a reminder. I was out on the deserts of Mars, or walking the
+streets of a lost city in Africa, or tracking down an international
+spy ring in London. This day-dreaming, as I can see now, was pretty
+important."</p>
+
+<p>Fuller said impatiently, "But Andy, what on earth does this build-up
+have to do with the trip you're going to make?"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your shirt on," Pearce said. "You'll see."</p>
+
+<p>He resumed. "What I've outlined was the general situation when I came
+here one summer afternoon, to read a book. About a half-hour later
+something happened that practically made me jump out of my skin. The
+air in the glade seemed suddenly to thicken, and the trees all around
+grew crazily twisted, as though seen through optical glass. I felt
+oddly light, dizzy and sick at the same time. And from somewhere came a
+deep, humming sound&mdash;the kind of sound that might have been made by a
+string on a giant harp.</p>
+
+<p>"The next thing I knew there was a sort of machine in the glade that
+seemed to have popped right out of nowhere. It was a metal globe about
+eight feet across, with tapering legs or supports on the bottom to keep
+it upright. There was the outline of a door in the side turned toward
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"I was scared stiff, of course, but I had been reading about this kind
+of thing happening in stories&mdash;and as far as I was concerned, there was
+hardly any dividing line between stories and real life. So I stayed
+put. I knew the machine was something special, because I'd never seen
+anything like it outside of the illustrations in the more imaginative
+type of magazines."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Pearce drew at his cigarette again. Fuller and Ellen were like store
+window figures, arranged in attitudes of rapt attention.</p>
+
+<p>"After several seconds the door in the side of the machine opened and a
+woman stepped out. I thought she was the most beautiful creature I had
+ever seen, a princess&mdash;or an angel. She looked the way ancient Egyptian
+women must have looked. She made me think of a tropical flower, which
+wasn't far from truth, considering that she came from a time when the
+Earth was&mdash;or will be&mdash;a great deal warmer than it is now. She was
+wearing a sort of thin dress that sparkled as though covered with
+jewels, and over this she held a long cloak. It was summer, but I
+suppose it was a bit too cool for her.</p>
+
+<p>"She smiled at me&mdash;and I was glad I had stuck around. She said she
+hoped I hadn't been frightened by the appearance of her machine, and I
+guess I tried to sell her the idea that I strangled lions with my bare
+hands just for exercise. Then she explained that her name was Nela, and
+that she had come from two thousand years in the future especially to
+see me. Her machine, of course, was a time machine."</p>
+
+<p>"Good grief!" Fuller said explosively. "What kind of a gag are you
+trying to put over, Andy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know just how it all sounds," Pearce returned. "But believe me,
+for one of the few times in my life I'm dead serious. Keep quiet and
+listen. I don't have much time left."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Andy," Ellen said. "I'm fascinated."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce took a final puff of his cigarette crushed it out in the grass,
+and continued. "Nela explained how it was possible to travel in time,
+but in the sort of terms a kid would understand. Even what I've figured
+out up to now isn't specific enough to be worth detailing, except
+to say that what we consider space and time are merely illusions
+of sense perception. They are really one stationary system or
+complex&mdash;stationary, yet dynamic and changing within itself&mdash;and under
+certain conditions one can travel through this system, from future
+to past, or the other way around, like through a museum&mdash;the biggest
+museum that can possibly be imagined.</p>
+
+<p>"Nela's machine operated on energy principles that won't be known
+for a great many years yet, and it will be even longer before those
+principles are put into application. She was, in effect, making a
+round-trip from one part of the museum to another&mdash;a trip that took
+her across two thousand years of what we call time, or across a couple
+of hundred light years of what we call space. It's one and the same
+thing. Actually, she was following a sort of huge orbit, and was,
+so to speak, stopping off along the route. A trip between one point
+and another can be made only once, because even that one trip brings
+changes which affect the whole system, or complex. One point, it seems,
+is always shifted so that it lies outside of any orbit which can be
+plotted from the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Nela told me about the kind of world she came from, too, and it
+sounded&mdash;and still sounds&mdash;like a perfect place. There was, so she
+said, practically no government, practically no laws, restrictions, or
+penalties. In two thousand years enough had been learned about the mind
+to make these unnecessary. Men at last were truly equal. There was no
+longer any need to work for a living. Machines of all sorts attended to
+every task and human requirement. Earth was one huge garden&mdash;and there
+was plenty of room for everyone. Men had reached the stars and had
+found new homes almost beyond number.</p>
+
+<p>"An ideal picture&mdash;but there was a catch to it. The machines on which
+Nela's people depended were breaking down, and it seemed nobody knew
+even how to begin repairing them. The men of her time could take suns
+apart and put them back together again, but the machines baffled them
+in much the same way that our atomic scientists would be baffled
+when it came to repairing a suit of Medieval armor. The answer to
+the problem was to obtain the help of persons who understood the
+construction and operation of the machines at least as well as Medieval
+armorers understood their steel suits. And that answer&mdash;in both
+cases&mdash;lay back in time."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Pearce changed position on the blanket under him and glanced at his
+watch. He went on, "Time travel had been accomplished well before
+Nela's period, but the process had proved too involved and tricky for
+serious, large-scale use. The important thing, though, was that a
+number of machines were immediately available for time travel, and Nela
+was one of those chosen to operate them. She was, it seems, a gal of
+parts. In addition to being one of the leaders of a world-wide group
+which had been formed to deal with the machine break-down problem, she
+was also an expert on time travel and an authority on Twentieth Century
+life.</p>
+
+<p>"Actually, you see, Nela's people were undergoing a cultural
+renaissance, a reawakening of interest in every field of knowledge
+and endeavor. For many hundreds of years there had been stagnation.
+The machines had filled every human want, and there had been little
+need for effort of any kind. Also, progress had been discouraged by a
+hidebound government, which had remained in power through its control
+of certain of the more important machines. The government had fallen
+when realization came that it could do nothing to keep the machines in
+repair, but the damage had been done. After centuries of a hands-off
+attitude toward the machines, nobody else knew how to repair them,
+either. Rapid progress was made everywhere except in this one direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Nela and the others decided to travel to different points in time and
+obtain specialists who would each be able to deal with some particular
+repair job on the machines. The machines, of course, were not the
+product of any one time period, but were the cumulative result of the
+knowledge and skills of different periods. I was the specialist with
+whom contact was made at this point in time. It was, I realize now,
+quite a complicated business.</p>
+
+<p>"When a beautiful girl appears in a time machine and tells some young
+man she needs his help, he doesn't just drop whatever he happens to
+be doing and go sailing blithely off into the mysterious future. Not
+in real life. He has to consider his family and friends, the career
+he was working on, all the things familiar and important to him, his
+surroundings, interests and amusements, climate, customs, clothing&mdash;all
+the rest. He has to consider that he might not be happy in the
+future, that he might not fit, that he might not even be physically
+comfortable, that the beautiful girl herself might very well turn out
+to be disappointing.</p>
+
+<p>"But if he is a young man of average intelligence, he most likely
+wouldn't even bother to consider these things. He simply would refuse
+to believe the beautiful girl from the future, would be certain it was
+some sort of a hoax. Or he might even be scared stiff by the very idea
+of traveling in time. All of which boils down to the fact that the girl
+from the future would face a mighty tough job getting the right kind of
+young man to help her."</p>
+
+<p>"I get it now," Fuller broke in musingly. "So that's what your suitcase
+is for, Andy." Then his voice sharpened with protest. "But it ... it's
+ridiculous! I just can't believe it's possible."</p>
+
+<p>"The young man of average intelligence speaking," Pearce murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah?" Fuller swung to Ellen. "What do you think?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>She shook her dark head slightly, lower lip caught between her teeth.
+"I'm trying not to think... Go on, Andy&mdash;before I start thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"Hate to have that happen, if Dave's mental acrobatics are any
+example." Pearce abruptly sobered, glancing at his watch. "Well," he
+resumed, "Nela and the others foresaw the difficulties they would
+encounter in obtaining help, and they figured out what they hoped would
+be a fool-proof method of approach. What happened in my case shows
+what this was. It seems Nela first scouted out a group of specialists
+to find a couple with the right qualifications. The man she wanted had
+to be young and adventurous, without any family or romantic ties. Then
+she narrowed her field still further by tracing her selection back to
+childhood and making direct contact there.</p>
+
+<p>"It was clever&mdash;for after all, the child is father to the man. A child
+is credulous and imaginative to an extent a man is not. And a child is
+adventurous, will let his enthusiasms carry him spontaneously where
+a man will hesitate and look for a catch. Most of all a child is
+impressionable and can be imbued with an idea which he will follow like
+a beacon light all his life.</p>
+
+<p>"I was the child Nela finally settled on. The Andy Pearce she had first
+scouted still existed in time, and nothing would change for him. But no
+paradox is involved, for what we call time is an illusion, a subjective
+quality arising from an awareness of objective conditions&mdash;and these
+conditions are not quite what we think they are. That first Andy Pearce
+was something like a bubble moving in a glass tube. All Nela did was
+put another bubble in motion. The tube itself was not affected, nor was
+time shifted, bent, nullified, or anything of the sort. Each bubble was
+as real as anything can be said to be real, each existed in its own
+particular space-time, each was completely distinct and independent of
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Nela visited me here several times, while she told me all the details
+of her mission. She was also getting acquainted with me and giving
+me time to thoroughly digest the idea of going with her. I agreed to
+go, of course. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do,
+and I didn't change my mind. Once she had satisfied herself on that
+score, she worked out a plan of operations for me to follow until I was
+finally ready to leave. The plan took in schools, subjects, finances,
+and the like. Nela, you see, was making a big improvement on the first
+Andy Pearce.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw Nela again after those first visits. It was quite
+unnecessary, as I can see now. For she and her people understood the
+mind with an amazing thoroughness, and during her talks she subtly
+injected me with knowledge, emotions and ideals that set me in motion
+toward my goal as effectively and undeviatingly as though I had been
+hypnotized. And I suspect that she set other bubbles in motion as well,
+to guide and assist me and generally keep me moving in one direction."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Pearce gestured. "I've kept moving, all right. Fifteen years have
+passed, and I know all I need to know about the particular technical
+subject Nela chose me to handle. I'm ready to leave&mdash;and I'm leaving
+very soon. Nela is coming here to pick me up, having meanwhile been
+moving to this point along her orbit to make one last stop-off before
+completing the swing back to her own point in time. There can be no
+return, for once I leave, this point in time can never be reached
+again. But then I've had fifteen years to get used to the idea.</p>
+
+<p>"This picnic today was in the nature of a farewell party. You, Dave
+and Ellen, have been the only friends I've allowed myself&mdash;and you've
+both been fine friends. I wanted you both to know exactly where I
+was going instead of doing a mysterious fade-out. I felt I owed you
+that much. I've never told anyone about Nela before&mdash;not because the
+information was likely to prove harmful, or anything of the sort, but
+simply because it would have created doubts about my sanity. I know I
+can trust you with it for the same reason."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce spread his hands, grinning crookedly. "Well, I hope that leaves
+me and my suitcase explained to the complete satisfaction of everyone."</p>
+
+<p>Fuller ran his hand through his red hair in agitation and rose to his
+feet. "It's the damnedest story I've ever heard, Andy. I wish I could
+be dead certain it isn't a gag. I can't believe it&mdash;or maybe it's just
+that I can't accept the idea of never seeing you again. If this hadn't
+come all of a sudden&mdash;" He broke off, gesturing helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Picnics," Ellen muttered to no one in particular, "are going to be
+permanently spoiled for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Hell!" Fuller growled. "I need a drink. I guess we all need a drink."
+He reached out as though to detain Pearce. "Andy, I've got a bottle in
+the car. For emergencies, you know&mdash;and this certainly is an emergency.
+So stay right here, Andy. Don't go running off into the future until I
+get back. Promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my word of honor," Pearce said.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't drop that bottle, Dave," Ellen put in.</p>
+
+<p>With a last anxious glance at Pearce, Fuller turned and hurried away
+through the trees. Pearce was abruptly, sharply aware that he was alone
+with Ellen.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed aware of it also. For a moment her dark eyes met his with a
+kind of pensive directness, then dropped.</p>
+
+<p>There was an uncomfortable silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never be quite the same again after today, Andy," Ellen murmured
+at last.</p>
+
+<p>He stared morosely at his hands. "I'm sorry. I guess I did spring the
+story a bit too suddenly. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything at all,
+done a quiet fade-out."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd rather have known what happened to you than otherwise."
+She traced a design on the blanket with one slim finger, then said,
+"Andy, you made a remark in the car&mdash;about avoiding what you called
+romantic complications. Were you avoiding them because you were
+eventually going away with this Nela female?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. "Something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't it because you were in love with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I ... I don't think so." He was startled. "I guess it's true
+that I had a crush on her as a kid, but I haven't seen her for fifteen
+years. I hardly feel I ever knew her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then even though you're going away with her, there is someone you care
+for?"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated for an aching instant, finally managed a shrug. "It isn't
+important. Not any more."</p>
+
+<p>"It is&mdash;to me. Andy, this is no time for historical novel gallantry
+or radio soap opera self-renunciation. This is the last chance we'll
+ever have to be completely frank with each other." Her dark eyes were
+intent. "Andy, do you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ... well&mdash;" He groped in confusion, with the feeling that he had
+suddenly found himself on a tight-rope, hundreds of feet in the air.
+Then he nodded miserably. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then just why did you take it for granted that I was Dave's girl?"
+Ellen demanded bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Dave was the one you were interested in. He was my best
+friend, and I didn't want to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought! Didn't it ever occur to you to find out?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>He made a helpless gesture. "I wanted to, Ellen&mdash;but I don't see what
+good it could have done. I was going away, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think I could have changed your mind about that? Don't you
+think I can change your mind&mdash;even now?" Abruptly she leaned toward
+him, her small face lighted as though by some fierce inner fire, at
+once pleading and demanding. "Andy&mdash;kiss me!"</p>
+
+<p>Despite himself, that fire touched him, kindled to a blaze. His lips
+met hers with a quickening pressure, his hands slipped from her
+shoulders to draw her tightly against him. For long seconds nothing
+else had reality or importance. The glade dissolved around him, and he
+seemed to float in a dark sea that rose and fell with a wild rhythm.</p>
+
+<p>Then awareness of his act exploded in him. He released the girl
+abruptly and drew away.</p>
+
+<p>"It's hopeless, Ellen! I can't back down now."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her dark head in swift protest. "It isn't hopeless, Andy. It
+isn't too late. I just proved that to you."</p>
+
+<p>"But Nela is depending on me. I can't let her down."</p>
+
+<p>"You owe her nothing! She took advantage of you at a time when you
+weren't mature and experienced enough to exercise good judgment. Why
+should you feel obligated to her now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I agreed to go with her. If I let her down, she won't be able to
+obtain a replacement with my particular type of training. She can visit
+this point in time only once."</p>
+
+<p>"That's her problem, Andy. You have your own life to live. Why
+shouldn't you be able to live it as you choose? You don't know just
+what sort of a life the future holds for you&mdash;but you do know what
+you'll find here."</p>
+
+<p>He gripped his knees hard, finally shook his head. "This is something
+bigger than we are, Ellen&mdash;something more important than your personal
+happiness, or mine. It isn't just that Nela is depending on me. Behind
+her is a whole civilization. It's the greatest responsibility a man can
+be given. If I backed down, I'd never feel right again. I'd always have
+it on my conscience."</p>
+
+<p>She slumped in despair. "Then there's nothing else I can do to change
+your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, Ellen. I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>Silence closed down again. A painful, uneasy silence, the silence of
+people between whom an unsurmountable barrier exists.</p>
+
+<p>The silence added fuel to Pearce's inner turmoil. He wished that it had
+been possible to leave without hurting Ellen, even without discovering
+that she returned his own feelings. The knowledge that he would never
+see her again had been difficult enough to face. For in these last
+months the picture of her had come to haunt him&mdash;Ellen, with her
+shining dark hair and her slim vital body, at once gaily humorous and
+warmly sympathetic. He knew that he would never forget her, or cease
+thinking of the happiness he might have found with her.</p>
+
+<p>"It might be a good idea to wipe that lipstick off your face, Andy,"
+Ellen murmured at last.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce fumbled for a handkerchief and scrubbed at his mouth. The action
+brought forward something that had been hovering at the back of his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"What about Dave?" he asked abruptly. "I hope I haven't spoiled
+anything for him."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>She shook her head with a grave seriousness. "Dave knows how I feel.
+And it isn't much of a loss where he's concerned, because he's been
+taking a growing interest in Susie. She has a terrific crush on him,
+and that's the reason she wanted to come with us so badly today. But
+you insisted on a three-sided party and as usual left Dave to nursemaid
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce felt a dull amazement. Engrossed with his preparations for
+leaving he had not sensed the emotional undercurrents beneath the
+outwardly placid surface of Dave and Ellen.</p>
+
+<p>Ellen, he thought suddenly. Dave was accounted for&mdash;but Ellen? He could
+not voice the question, feeling himself too inextricably bound up in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>There was the sound of footsteps as Fuller returned, brandishing a
+bottle. "Here it is!" he announced. "Get out the glasses, Ellen."</p>
+
+<p>She produced three plastic tumblers from the basket, and Fuller poured
+a generous drink in each. He raised his own tumbler in a solemn gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's to Andy. Bon voyage&mdash;and a high old time in the future!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," Pearce said in self-conscious acknowledgement. He swallowed
+the whisky in a gulp, felt its raw warmth spread through him.</p>
+
+<p>Bon voyage, he thought. The voyage part was true enough. But he doubted
+if he would have a high old time. He would always think of Ellen. And
+Dave. And all the other people he had known, who would continue to
+move against the old familiar background of their existence, among all
+the old familiar things, without sudden violent change, or pain, or
+loss. He would think of movies and dances, baseball games and parties.
+And restaurants and nightclubs and small quiet bars. And apple pie
+and coffee, hamburgers and malted milk. And his favorite brand of
+cigarettes, and two pants suits and straw hats in the summer. And beer
+and sport pages and classical records on a drowsy Sunday afternoon. And
+politics and elections and critical internal situations. And crowded
+downtown streets and quiet suburban cottages&mdash;all the other things he
+had known and liked, or had taken for granted and had not thought much
+about. He would think of them because they wouldn't exist in the future
+any more, because people would have changed, would have different
+ideals, habits and tastes.</p>
+
+<p>Fuller filled the tumblers again and made an effort at the sort of
+artificially cheerful small talk that precedes the sailing of a troop
+ship.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce, who had surreptitiously been keeping check on his watch,
+finally gestured. "It's almost time for Nela to pick me up&mdash;and I'd
+like to be alone when she comes. The situation might be too complicated
+if you and Ellen were present, Dave. I want things to be as easy as
+possible all around."</p>
+
+<p>Fuller looked disappointed. "I was kind of hoping to get a look at this
+gal from the future, Andy. I still don't know whether to believe your
+story or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the benefit of the doubt, anyway, will you?" Pearce pleaded.
+He turned to Ellen. "You'll do this last favor for me?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded and leaned forward on tiptoe. "Good-bye, Andy&mdash;and good
+luck." Her voice was little more than a whisper.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>He touched her lips with his and for a moment stood looking down at
+her, thinking once more of what might have been. An echo of his own
+thoughts seemed to glisten wetly in her dark eyes. Abruptly she turned
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce gripped Fuller's hand. "So long, Dave."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of yourself, Andy." Fuller looked painfully reflective, then
+suddenly held out the bottle. "Here, Andy, you take this. You might
+need it."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce watched with a deep inward aching as Fuller and Ellen strode
+from the glade. Reaching the trees, they turned to look back at him.
+They hesitated, waved&mdash;were gone.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce felt that the last door to the past had been irrevocably closed.</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at the bottle he was holding and lifted it to his mouth.
+Then he lighted a cigarette, glanced at his watch again, and fell to
+pacing along one edge of the glade. His eyes roved tensely about him,
+expectant and dreading.</p>
+
+<p>Thoughts shifted uneasily in his mind. Would Nela actually appear?
+Fifteen years had passed for him&mdash;a matter of a few hours to her.
+But perhaps something had gone wrong. Perhaps she had miscalculated
+somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>And on mental scales he balanced Ellen against the future, wondering if
+his choice had been wise. Could the future possibly hold the happiness
+he might have known with Ellen, in the age familiar to him?</p>
+
+<p>He heard a car motor start up in the distance. The sound rose in
+volume, then began fading. Dave and Ellen were on their way back to
+the city.</p>
+
+<p>He felt suddenly alone&mdash;somehow abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>Raising the bottle to his lips again, he resumed his nervous pacing.
+And then he stopped, frozen, aware of a change in his surroundings.
+The air in the glade was thickening queerly, the trees all around were
+growing crazily distorted. And he heard a deep humming sound&mdash;the kind
+of sound that might have been made by a string on a giant harp.</p>
+
+<p>Across the glade, appearing as though from nothingness itself,
+an object was taking shape&mdash;a metal globe. Bands of distortion
+surrounded it like ripples in water. For an instant the globe seemed
+unsubstantial, illusory&mdash;then it was solid, resting quietly on the
+floor of the glade.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/>
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p>Andy stood out in the small clearing, waving a goodbye to them, while behind him a strange metallic globe suddenly shimmered in the air....</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>Pearce watched it, his heart pounding.</p>
+
+<p>"Andy!"</p>
+
+<p>The call hit him like a physical blow. Stunned, he whirled to see Ellen
+hurrying toward him through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Andy!" she cried again. "Are you all right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ellen!" he gasped. "What are you doing here? I thought you left with
+Dave."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>She caught breathlessly at his arm, steadying herself. "I made him go
+without me. I ... I couldn't leave you, Andy." Her voice rose. "I'm
+going with you!"</p>
+
+<p>His mind whirled in dismayed confusion. He sent a swift glance at the
+metal globe. Any moment now, the door would open&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ellen, you can't go!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? I'm willing to take the risk. And I'll be happy, whatever the
+future is like, as long as I'm with you."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head in despair. "It ... well, I'm afraid it's just
+impossible, that's all. No provision has been made for you. I don't
+know even if there would be room for you. I don't know if Nela can
+allow you in her plans, or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off. Glancing at the globe again, he saw that the door was
+opening.</p>
+
+<p>He waited for Nela to appear, wondering what her reaction would be when
+she saw Ellen, wondering how this hopelessly tangled situation could
+possibly be resolved.</p>
+
+<p>The door of the globe stood fully open. Nothing else happened.</p>
+
+<p>Pearce waited a moment longer, puzzled, then slowly looked into the
+globe. Except for two padded seats and a myriad of instruments on the
+curving walls, the interior of the machine was empty.</p>
+
+<p>He turned in bewilderment to Ellen. "Something's wrong! Nela isn't
+inside."</p>
+
+<p>Ellen looked gravely thoughtful. "Andy, I think I know what happened
+to her. She was an authority on Twentieth Century life, you know. She
+no doubt had all sorts of records to help her. She could speak the
+kind of English used here, she understood social customs, the economic
+situation, knew how to dress and act. What she didn't know, she could
+pick up by being careful and observing. In short, she could pass as an
+ordinary Twentieth Century girl, and hardly anyone would guess she was
+different."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce's bewilderment grew. "What are you getting at?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Andy, suppose this Nela wanted to make absolutely sure you'd be
+happy in the future, that nothing would interfere with your efficiency
+and general well-being. There was a big job ahead of you, and a lot
+depended on your particular field of knowledge and type of skill. So
+to make absolutely sure of you she stopped off along her route back to
+spend your last several months here with you. It wouldn't be hard for
+a clever girl like her to get acquainted with you and Dave. And you
+hadn't seen her for fifteen years, Andy. You wouldn't recognize her
+easily&mdash;especially if she'd had her hair cut short and wore Twentieth
+Century clothes and make-up."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce stared at her a moment longer, then caught at her arms. "Ellen!
+You ... you're Nela!"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded slowly, her smile uncertain and touched with shyness. "I
+hope you aren't disappointed, Andy, or that you hate me for having
+tricked you the way I did."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, a wild delight surging up in him. "Neither," he said. "And
+I'm going to prove it!"</p>
+
+<p>He proved it to her entire satisfaction. Finally, hand in hand, they
+turned to the doorway of the globe.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you brought the machine here by remote control or something
+of the sort," Pearce told Nela.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I had a special gadget in my purse. The machine was here all
+along, you see, traveling a few minutes ahead in time."</p>
+
+<p>"And Dave?" he said suddenly. "Did you tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told him I was going with you and hinted the reason why. He'll
+figure it out presently&mdash;even if he never completely believes it.
+Little has really changed for Dave. He'll marry Susie and lead a
+perfectly normal life."</p>
+
+<p>Pearce halted Nela as she was about to enter the globe. "There's a
+little custom of this time that I'd like to observe. If you're as
+much of an authority on Twentieth Century life as you claim, you'll
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>He gathered her up in his arms and carried her over the threshold. Her
+smile and then the pressure of her lips indicated that she understood.</p>
+
+<p>The door closed. The trees at the edge of the glade grew crazily
+distorted, shimmering bands enclosed the globe like ripples in water,
+there was a humming sound like a giant harp string&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And then the glade was empty.</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEET ME IN TOMORROW ***</div>
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-23 03:45:10 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-23 03:45:10 -0800
commit	8eccead947aadbc1c52cc1b7fe12f3d23f957fa9 (patch)
tree	9f8998690c4bcf6e23bd4dac74049ef68c324c57