attempt to ratiocinate. Guilt kept slipping into his reasoning, but he
got some things clear.
Stein, for whatever cause, had clearly believed Bush was following him
rather than the girl, If Stein was about here, it was likely that Lenny
and his buckskin-booted chums would also be around. Their presence might
account for the disappearance of Ann; Lenny could have caught her and be
holding her against her will. No, be your age, she had seen him and run to
him with thankfulness, only too glad to exchange his dirty feet and dim
mind for Bush's pretentious chatter. Well, good riddance to her! Though
by God, that first evening, across the uncrunching phragmoceras shells,
in that little valley, her gesture in raising one crooked leg, the
exquisite planes of her thighs, and their sweet creaming excitement . . .
"Don't get all worked up!" he exclaimed aloud. Another thing was clear.
He did not want anything from anyone here, not from Roger and Ver, not from
Lenny and his tershers, not from Stein. But it was possible that one or more
of them might follow him and beat him up. As for Ann . . . he had no claims
on her. He had done nothing good for her.
Bush looked anxiously about. Even the Dark Woman had left him. It was time
for him to mind home, to face the trouble at the Institute. The Jurassic,
as ever, was a flop, it and its amniote eggs.
He opened his pack and pulled out an ampoule of CSD. His old, ancient,
long-ago present was waiting for him. No reptiles there. Only parents.
Chapter 4
IT TAKES MORE THAN DEATH
Mind-travel was easy in some circumstances, once its principles and
the Wenlock discipline were learned. But to return to the present
was as full of pain and effort as birth. It was a re-birth. Blackness
hemmed one, claustrophobia threatened, the danger of suffocation was
immediate. Bush kicked and struggled and cried with his mind, "There,
that place!" directing himself forward with the peristaltic movements
of some unknown part of his brain.
Light returned to his universe. He sprawled on a yielding couch, and luxury
pervaded his being; he was back. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was back
in the Southall mind-station from which he had come. His neck still hurt,
but he was home.
He lay in a sort of cocoon in a cubicle that would have remained unopened
since he left, one winter's day in 2090. Above his head was the small plant
keeping alive some of his tissue and a quarter-pint of his blood. They were
almost his only possessions in this age, certainty his most vital ones,
for on them, by some awesome osmotic process, he had been able to home
like a homing pigeon. Now their usefulness was over.
Bush sat up, tore away the fine plastic skin that cocooned the bed --
it was reminiscent of a dinosaur rolling out of its damned amniote egg,
wasn't it? -- and surveyed his cubicle. A calendar-clock on the wall
gave him the dry fact of the date: Tuesday, March 31, 2093. He had not
meant to be away so long; there was always a sensation of being robbed
of life when you returned and found how time had been ticking on without
you. For the past was not the real world; it was just a dream, like the
future; it was the present only that was real, the present of passing
time which man had invented, and with which he was stuck.
Climbing out of his pack, Bush stood up and surveyed himself in the mirror.
Amid these sanitary surroundings, he looked scruffy and filthy. He fed
his measurements into the clotheomat and dialed for a one-piece. It was
delivered in thirty seconds flat; a metal drawer containing it sprang
open and caught Bush painfully on the shin. He took the garment out, laid
it on the bed, removed his wrist instruments, picked up a clean towel
from a heated rail, and padded into the shower. As he soused himself in
the warm water -- unimaginable luxury! he thought of Ann and her grubby
flesh, lost somewhere back in a time that was now transmuted into layers
of broken rock, buried
got some things clear.
Stein, for whatever cause, had clearly believed Bush was following him
rather than the girl, If Stein was about here, it was likely that Lenny
and his buckskin-booted chums would also be around. Their presence might
account for the disappearance of Ann; Lenny could have caught her and be
holding her against her will. No, be your age, she had seen him and run to
him with thankfulness, only too glad to exchange his dirty feet and dim
mind for Bush's pretentious chatter. Well, good riddance to her! Though
by God, that first evening, across the uncrunching phragmoceras shells,
in that little valley, her gesture in raising one crooked leg, the
exquisite planes of her thighs, and their sweet creaming excitement . . .
"Don't get all worked up!" he exclaimed aloud. Another thing was clear.
He did not want anything from anyone here, not from Roger and Ver, not from
Lenny and his tershers, not from Stein. But it was possible that one or more
of them might follow him and beat him up. As for Ann . . . he had no claims
on her. He had done nothing good for her.
Bush looked anxiously about. Even the Dark Woman had left him. It was time
for him to mind home, to face the trouble at the Institute. The Jurassic,
as ever, was a flop, it and its amniote eggs.
He opened his pack and pulled out an ampoule of CSD. His old, ancient,
long-ago present was waiting for him. No reptiles there. Only parents.
Chapter 4
IT TAKES MORE THAN DEATH
Mind-travel was easy in some circumstances, once its principles and
the Wenlock discipline were learned. But to return to the present
was as full of pain and effort as birth. It was a re-birth. Blackness
hemmed one, claustrophobia threatened, the danger of suffocation was
immediate. Bush kicked and struggled and cried with his mind, "There,
that place!" directing himself forward with the peristaltic movements
of some unknown part of his brain.
Light returned to his universe. He sprawled on a yielding couch, and luxury
pervaded his being; he was back. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was back
in the Southall mind-station from which he had come. His neck still hurt,
but he was home.
He lay in a sort of cocoon in a cubicle that would have remained unopened
since he left, one winter's day in 2090. Above his head was the small plant
keeping alive some of his tissue and a quarter-pint of his blood. They were
almost his only possessions in this age, certainty his most vital ones,
for on them, by some awesome osmotic process, he had been able to home
like a homing pigeon. Now their usefulness was over.
Bush sat up, tore away the fine plastic skin that cocooned the bed --
it was reminiscent of a dinosaur rolling out of its damned amniote egg,
wasn't it? -- and surveyed his cubicle. A calendar-clock on the wall
gave him the dry fact of the date: Tuesday, March 31, 2093. He had not
meant to be away so long; there was always a sensation of being robbed
of life when you returned and found how time had been ticking on without
you. For the past was not the real world; it was just a dream, like the
future; it was the present only that was real, the present of passing
time which man had invented, and with which he was stuck.
Climbing out of his pack, Bush stood up and surveyed himself in the mirror.
Amid these sanitary surroundings, he looked scruffy and filthy. He fed
his measurements into the clotheomat and dialed for a one-piece. It was
delivered in thirty seconds flat; a metal drawer containing it sprang
open and caught Bush painfully on the shin. He took the garment out, laid
it on the bed, removed his wrist instruments, picked up a clean towel
from a heated rail, and padded into the shower. As he soused himself in
the warm water -- unimaginable luxury! he thought of Ann and her grubby
flesh, lost somewhere back in a time that was now transmuted into layers
of broken rock, buried
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