The Seeds of Time (3 page)

‘Now, before you are allowed to use the history-machine you have to have special courses, tests, permits, and give solemn undertakings, and then do several years on probation before you get your licence to practise. Only then are you allowed to visit and observe on your own. And that is all you may do, observe. The rule is very, very strict.'

I thought that over. ‘If it isn't an unkind question – aren't you breaking rather a lot of these rules every minute?' I suggested.

‘Of course I am. That's why they came after me,' she said.

‘You'd have had your licence revoked, or something, if they'd caught you?'

‘Good gracious. I could never qualify for a licence. I've just sneaked my trips when the lab has been empty sometimes. It being Uncle Donald's lab made things easier because unless I was actually caught at the machine I could always pretend I was doing something special for him.

‘I had to have the right clothes to come in, but I dared not go to the historians' regular costume-makers, so I sketched some things in a museum and got them copied – they're all right, aren't they?'

‘Very successful, and becoming, too,' I assured her. ‘– Though there is a little something about the shoes.'

She
looked down at her feet. ‘I was afraid so. I couldn't find any of quite the right date,' she admitted. ‘Well, then,' she went on, ‘I was able to make a few short trial trips. They had to be short because duration is constant – that is, an hour here is the same as an hour there – and I couldn't get the machine to myself for long at a time. But yesterday a man came into the lab just as I was getting back. When he saw these clothes he knew at once what I was doing, so the only thing I could do was to jump straight back into the machine – I'd never have had another chance. And they came after me without even bothering to change.'

‘Do you think they'll come again?' I asked her.

‘I expect so. But they'll be wearing proper clothes for the period next time.'

‘Are they likely to be desperate? I mean would they shoot, or anything like that?'

She shook her head. ‘Oh, no. That'd be a pretty bad chronoclasm – particularly if they happened to kill somebody.'

‘But you being here must be setting up a series of pretty resounding chronoclasms. Which would be worse?'

‘Oh, mine are all accounted for. I looked it up,' she assured me, obscurely. ‘They'll be less worried about me when they've thought of looking it up, too.'

She paused briefly. Then, with an air of turning to a more interesting subject, she went on:

‘When people in your time get married they have to dress up in a special way for it, don't they?'

The topic seemed to have a fascination for her.

‘M'm,' mumbled Tavia. ‘I think I rather like Twentieth-Century marriage.'

‘It has risen higher in my own estimation, darling,' I admitted. And inded, I was quite surprised to find how much higher it had risen in the course of the last month or so.

‘Do Twentieth-Century marrieds always have one big bed, darling?' she inquired.

‘Invariably,
darling,' I assured her.

‘Funny,' she said. ‘Not very hygienic, of course, but quite nice all the same.'

We reflected on that.

‘Darling, have you noticed she doesn't sniff at me any more?' she remarked.

‘We always cease to sniff on production of a certificate, darling,' I explained.

Conversation pursued its desultory way on topics of personal, but limited, interest for a while. Eventually it reached a point where I was saying:

‘It begins to look as if we don't need to worry any more about those men who were chasing you, darling. They'd have been back long before now if they had been as worried as you thought.'

She shook her head.

‘We'll have to go on being careful, but it is queer. Something to do with Uncle Donald, I expect. He's not really mechanically minded, poor dear. Well, you can tell that by the way he set the machine two years wrong when he came to see you. But there's nothing we can do except wait, and be careful.'

I went on reflecting. Presently:

‘I shall have to get a job soon. That may make it difficult to keep a watch for them,' I told her.

‘Job?' she said.

‘In spite of what they say, two can't live as cheap as one. And wives hanker after certain standards, and ought to have them – within reason, of course. The little money I have won't run to them.'

‘You don't need to worry about that, darling,' Tavia assured me. ‘You can just invent something.'

‘Me? Invent?' I exclaimed.

‘Yes. You're already fairly well up on radio, aren't you?'

‘They put me on a few radar courses when I was in the R.A.F.'

‘Ah! The R.A.F.!' she said, ecstatically. ‘To think that you actually
fought in the Second Great War! Did you know Monty and Ike and all those wonderful people?'

‘Not personally. Different arm of the Services,' I said.

‘What a pity, everyone liked Ike. But about the other thing. All you have to do is to get some advanced radio and electronics books, and I'll show you what to invent.'

‘You'll – ? Oh, I see. But do you think that would be quite ethical?' I asked, doubtfully.

‘I don't see why not. After all the things have got to be invented by somebody, or I couldn't have learnt about them at school, could I?'

‘I – er, I think I'll have to think a bit about that,' I told her.

It was, I suppose, coincidence that I should have mentioned the lack of interruption that particular morning – at least, it may have been: I have become increasingly suspicious of coincidences since I first saw Tavia. At any rate, in the middle of that same morning Tavia, looking out of the window, said:

‘Darling, there's somebody waving from the trees over there.'

I went over to have a look, and sure enough I had a view of a stick with a white handkerchief tied to it, swinging slowly from side to side. Through field-glasses I was able to distinguish the operator, an elderly man almost hidden in the bushes. I handed the glasses to Tavia.

‘Oh, dear! Uncle Donald,' she exclaimed. ‘I suppose we had better see him. He seems to be alone.'

I went outside, down to the end of my path, and waved him forward. Presently he emerged, carrying the stick and handkerchief bannerwise. His voice reached me faintly: ‘Don't shoot!'

I spread my hand wide to show that I was unarmed. Tavia came down the path and stood beside me. As he drew close, he transferred the stick to his left hand, lifted his hat with the other, and inclined his head politely.

‘Ah, Sir Gerald! A pleasure to meet you again,' he said.

‘He isn't Sir Gerald, Uncle. He's Mr Lattery,' said Tavia.

‘Dear
me. Stupid of me. Mr Lattery,' he went on, ‘I am sure you'll be glad to hear that the wound was more uncomfortable than serious. Just a matter of the poor fellow having to lie on his front for a while.'

‘Poor fellow – ?' I repeated, blankly.

‘The one you shot yesterday.'

‘I
shot
?'

‘Probably tomorrow or the next day,' Tavia said, briskly. ‘Uncle, you really are dreadful with those settings, you know.'

‘I understand the principles well enough, my dear. It's just the operation that I sometimes find a little confusing.'

‘Never mind. Now you are here you'd better come indoors,' she told him. ‘And you can put that handkerchief away in your pocket,' she added.

As he entered I saw him give a quick glance round the room, and nod to himself as if satisfied with the authenticity of its contents. We sat down. Tavia said:

‘Just before we go any further, Uncle Donald, I think you ought to know that I am married to Gerald – Mr Lattery.'

Dr Gobie peered closely at her.

‘Married?' he repeated. ‘What for?'

‘Oh, dear,' said Tavia. She explained patiently: ‘I am in love with him, and he's in love with me, so I am his wife. It's the way things happen here.'

‘Tch, tch!' said Dr Gobie, and shook his head. ‘Of course I am well aware of your sentimental penchant for the Twentieth Century and its ways, my dear, but surely it wasn't quite necessary for you to – er – go native?'

‘I like it, quite a lot,' Tavia told him.

‘Young women will be romantic, I know. But have you thought of the trouble you will be causing Sir Ger – er, Mr Lattery?'

‘But I'm
saving
him trouble, Uncle Donald. They
sniff
at you here if you don't get married, and I didn't like him being sniffed at.'

‘I wasn't thinking so much of while you're here, as of after you have left. They have a great many rules about presuming death,
and proving desertion, and so on; most dilatory and complex. Meanwhile, he can't marry anyone else.'

‘I'm sure he wouldn't
want
to marry anyone else, would you, darling?' she said to me.

‘Certainly not,' I protested.

‘You're quite sure of that, darling?'

‘Darling,' I said, taking her hand, ‘if all the other women in the world …'

After a time Dr Gobie recalled our attention with an apologetic cough.

‘The real purpose of my visit,' he explained, ‘is to persuade my niece that she must come back, and at once. There is the greatest consternation and alarm throughout the faculty over this affair, and I am being held largely to blame. Our chief anxiety is to get her back before any serious damage is done. Any chronoclasm goes ringing unendingly down the ages – and at any moment a really serious one may come of this escapade. It has put all of us into a highly nervous condition.'

‘I'm sorry about that, Uncle Donald – and about your getting the blame. But I am
not
coming back. I'm very happy here.'

‘But the possible chronoclasms, my dear. It keeps me awake at night thinking –'

‘Uncle dear, they'd be nothing to the chronoclasms that would happen if I did come back just now. You must see that I simply
can't
, and explain it to the others.'

‘
Can't –?
' he repeated.

‘Now, if you look in the books you'll see that my husband – isn't that a funny, ugly, old-fashioned word? I rather like it, though. It comes from two ancient Icelandic roots –'

‘You were speaking about not coming back,' Dr Gobie reminded her.

‘Oh, yes. Well, you'll see in the books that first he invented submarine radio communication, and then later on he invented curved-beam transmission, which is what he got knighted for.'

‘I'm
perfectly well aware of that, Tavia. I do not see –'

‘But, Uncle Donald, you must. How on earth can he possibly invent those things if I'm not here to show him how to do it? If you take me away now, they'll just not be invented, and then what will happen?'

Dr Gobie stared at her steadily for some moments.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes, I must admit that that point had not occurred to me,' and sank deeply into thought for a while.

‘Besides,' Tavia added, ‘Gerald would hate me to go, wouldn't you, darling?'

‘I –' I began, but Dr Gobie cut me short by standing up.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I can see there will have to be a postponement for a while. I shall put your point to them, but it will be only for a while.'

On his way to the door he paused.

‘Meanwhile, my dear, do be careful. These things are so delicate and complicated. I tremble to think of the complexities you might set up if you – well, say, if you were to do something irresponsible like becoming your own progenetrix.'

‘That is one thing I can't do, Uncle Donald. I'm on the collateral branch.'

‘Oh, yes. Yes, that's a very lucky thing. Then I'll say
au revoir
, my dear, and to you, too, Sir – er – Mr Lattery. I trust that we may meet again – it has had its pleasant side to be here as more than a mere observer for once.'

‘Uncle Donald, you've said a mouthful there,' Tavia agreed.

He shook his head reprovingly at her.

‘I'm afraid you would never have got to the top of the historical tree, my dear. You aren't thorough enough. That phrase is
early
Twentieth Century, and, if I may say so, inelegant even then.'

The expected shooting incident took place about a week later. Three men, dressed in quite convincing imitation of farmhands, made the approach. Tavia recognized one of them through the
glasses. When I appeared, gun in hand, at the door they tried to make for cover. I peppered one at considerable range, and he ran on, limping.

After that we were left unmolested. A little later we began to get down to the business of underwater radio – surprisingly simple, once the principle had been pointed out – and I filed my applications for patents. With that well in hand, we turned to the curved-beam transmission.

Tavia hurried me along with that. She said:

‘You see, I don't know how long we've got, darling. I've been trying to remember ever since I got here what the date was on your letter, and I can't – even though I remember you underlined it. I know there's a record that your first wife deserted you – “deserted”, isn't that a dreadful word to use: as if I would, my sweet – but it doesn't say when. So I must get you properly briefed on this because there'd be the most frightful chronoclasm if you failed to invent it.'

And then, instead of buckling down to it as her words suggested, she became pensive.

‘As a matter of fact,' she said, ‘I think there's going to be a pretty bad chronoclasm anyway. You see, I'm going to have a baby.'

‘No!' I exclaimed delightedly.

‘What do you mean, “no”? I
am
. And I'm worried. I don't think it has ever happened to a travelling historian before. Uncle Donald would be terribly annoyed if he knew.'