Shadows Out of Time

He almost had what would have been an unfortunate accident before he figured out how to untangle himself from the false skins in which humans wrapped themselves. The flush lever told him which device to use to ease himself. The woman had used it, so he did as well.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Yes, he was hideous, too. He would just have to get used to it. This was what he had until such time as the judges decided he’d been punished enough. And if this was what he had, he needed to make the most of it.

Breakfast arrived on two trays while he was tending to things. Cooked ova, strips of grilled smoked meat, shredded and fried tubers, a cup with some strong-smelling hot liquid in it…He glanced at the woman to see how she used the metal implements by the plate, then imitated her. His body let him know the food was good of its kind.

Also on his tray lay the New York Post. The date told him he was here almost a hundred years after Peaslee’s spirit had been taken into the past. And his picture, in garments quite different from those now enveloping him, was on the front page. HOTEL MAGNATE TO OPEN NEW ONE BY ARKHAM RESERVOIR! the headline shouted.

Seeing the name of Arkham, as opposed to hearing it, reminded him the Peaslee creature had taught at a university there. Miskatonic, Pmurt remembered. He wondered if the university was still operating. Humans and their institutions seemed ephemeral to him.

He read further. There might be protesters by the hotel. The reservoir was alleged to be polluted—“accursed” was the odd word one of the protesters used — although the authorities insisted it was safe for drinking and all other purposes.

If the authorities said something was so, so it was bound to be. Thus Pmurt, with his long experience of the Great Race’s civilization, firmly believed. Some of the things he’d heard from human spirits cast back in time made him wonder how true it was for mankind, but he did not wonder long. Authorities were authorities for good reason. So his long experience as a ten-foot rugose cone assured him.

After he and the female finished eating, she said, “We should get dressed. Can’t go in our pajamas, after all.”

“No?” Pmurt said. The woman made a noise that indicated amusement among these creatures. “No,” Pmurt repeated, more firmly this time.

The closet showed him more clothes than he knew what to do with, in the most literal sense of the words. He found an outfit not too different from the one the newspaper showed. That seemed to be public garb. Even after he figured out buttons and zippers, it was none too comfortable. Tying his cravat and shoes were special trials. He had not needed to worry about such things in his proper body.

The woman’s clothes seemed much simpler than his. He wondered why the sexes had such contrasting wrappings. That was a question for another time, though. Someone knocked on the living area’s outer door: plainly a call for attention. Pmurt tried to pull the doorknob before realizing it turned, but no one saw the mistake. He got the door open.

A man in the hallway said, “Sir, the limo is ready to take you and the missus to the airport for the flight to Arkham.”

The Peaslee creature had written of motorized conveyances. This one was quieter, smoother riding, and altogether more luxurious than those writings would have led Pmurt to expect. Humans must have made respectable progress in the mechanical arts across the intervening century.

Air travel, in Peaslee’s time, had barely begun. Now it seemed altogether routine. The flight was nearly as smooth as the ground transport had been. Another quiet, comfortable limo awaited Pmurt and the female in Arkham. It whisked them them to a large, gaudy hotel by the side of a lake — no, as Pmurt recalled from the Post story, it was a reservoir. If he looked to the south, he could see the dam.

Humans paraded near the hotel, chanting and carrying signs. Others, by their uniform clothing likely order-keepers, prevented them from coming too close. A subordinate male whose expression Pmurt instinctively recognized as worried told him, “Sir, you promised you’d meet with their spokesperson.”

“Well, if I promised, I’d better do it,” Pmurt said. “Bring whoever it is to me, why don’t you?”

That spokesperson was a female, older and less attractive than the one that seemed to belong to Pmurt. “I am Louise Pierce, professor of environmental science at Miskatonic University,” she said. “My great-great grandfather, Ammi Pierce, barely survived the alien infestation now buried below the surface of the reservoir here.”

Remembering the Post story again, Pmurt replied, “That’s a bunch of superstitious hooey.” He didn’t know just what hooey meant, but liked the sound of it.