Citizen in Spase. Stories / Гражданин в Космосе. Рассказы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

He looked. Under its gaudy decoration, the altar was a Time Traveler – the same Traveler, past a doubt, that Eldridge I had brought here and left for him. When Eldridge I vanished, they must have venerated it as a sacred object.

And it did have magical qualities.

The fire was singeing his feet when he adjusted the regulator. With his finger against the button, he hesitated.

What would the future hold for him? All he had in the way of equipment was a sack of carrot seeds, potatoes, the symphonic runs, the microfilm volumes of world literature and small mirrors.

But he had come this far. He would see the end.

He pressed the button.

Opening his eyes, Eldridge found that he was standing on a beach. Water was lapping at his toes and he could hear the boom of breakers.

The beach was long and narrow and dazzlingly white. In front of him, a blue ocean stretched to infinity. Behind him, at the edge of the beach, was a row of palms. Growing among them was the brilliant vegetation of a tropical island.

He heard a shout.

Eldridge looked around for something to defend himself with. He had nothing, nothing at all. He was defenseless.

Men came running from the jungle toward him. They were shouting something strange. He listened carefully.

“Welcome! Welcome back!” they called out.

A gigantic brown man enclosed him in a bearlike hug. “You have returned!” he exclaimed.

“Why – yes,” Eldridge said.

More people were running down to the beach. They were a comely race. The men were tall and tanned, and the women, for the most part, were slim and pretty. They looked like the sort of people one would like to have for neighbors.

“Did you bring them?” a thin old man asked, panting from his run to the beach.

“Bring what?”

“The carrot seeds. You promised to bring them. And the potatoes.”

Eldridge dug them out of his pockets. “Here they are,” he said.

“Thank you. Do you really think they’ll grow in this climate? I suppose we could construct a —”

“Later, later,” the big man interrupted. “You must be tired.”

Eldridge thought back to what had happened since he had last awakened, back in 1954. Subjectively, it was only a day or so, but it had covered thousands of years back and forth and was crammed with arrests, escapes, dangers and bewildering puzzles.

“Tired,” he said. “Very.”

“Perhaps you’d like to return to your own home?”

“My own?”

“Certainly. The house you built facing the lagoon. Don’t you remember?”

Eldridge smiled feebly and shook his head.

“He doesn’t remember!” the man cried.

“You don’t remember our chess games?” another man asked.

“And the fishing parties?” a boy put in.

“Or the picnics and celebrations?”

“The dances?”

“And the sailing?”

Eldridge shook his head at each eager, worried question.

“All this was before you went back to your own time,” the big man told him.

“Went back?” asked Eldridge. Here was everything he had always wanted. Peace, contentment, warm climate, good neighbors. He felt inside the sack and his shirt. And books and music, he mentally added to the list. Good Lord, no one in his right mind would leave a place like this! And that brought up an important question. “Why did I leave here?”

“Surely you remember that!” the big man said.

“I’m afraid not.”

A slim, light-haired girl stepped forward. “You really don’t remember coming back for me?”

Eldridge stared at her. “You must be Becker’s daughter. The girl who was engaged to Morgel.

The one I kidnapped.”

“Morgel only thought he was engaged to me,” she said. “And you didn’t kidnap me. I came of my own free will.”

“Oh, I see,” Eldridge answered, feeling like an idiot. “I mean I think I see. That is – pleased to meet you,” he finished inanely.

“You needn’t be so formal,” she said. “After all, we are married. And you did bring me a mirror, didn’t you?”

It was complete now. Eldridge grinned, took out a mirror, gave it to her, and handed the sack to the big man. Delighted, she did the things with her eyebrows and hair that women always do whenever they see their reflections.

“Let’s go home, dear,” she said.

He didn’t know her name, but he liked her looks. He liked her very much. But that was only natural.

“I’m afraid I can’t right now,” he replied, looking at his watch. The half hour was almost up. “I have something to do first. But I should be back in a very little while.”

She smiled sunnily. “I won’t worry. You said you would return and you did. And you brought back the mirrors and seed and potatoes that you told us you’d bring.”

She kissed him. He shook hands all around. In a way, that symbolized the full cycle Alfredex had used to demolish the foolish concept of temporal paradoxes.

The familiar darkness swallowed Eldridge as he pushed the button on the Traveler.

He had ceased being Eldridge II.