know that!"
Michaelson nodded and went on, "When I was a kid she was so good, so stupidly good and generous, that I wanted to do something for her—we all did. But her problem was not susceptible to solution by ten-year-old boys. Now . . . well, I want you to inconvenience yourself just a little by going in to see her. If you don't," he added quietly, "I'll break every bone in your body."
"You don't understand," said the suspect dully, but he began moving toward the bedroom door.
"Maybe I do," said Michaelson. "You have two very nice businesses going—buying stamps at face value there and selling them here at a profit of several thousand per cent. You even speculated in a few rare items, which became even rarer and more valuable. The music business in the other direction—no wonder so many of today's songs sound as if they'd been plagiarized-—did not pay so well and you decided to stay where the money was...."
The nurse opened the bedroom door, motioned them inside and then moved into the lounge.
"You know," said the suspect, looking more relieved than frightened. "But I didn't desert her. There was an accident and I couldn't get back."
"Tell me about it," said Michaelson.
The suspect had been working at nights in the university, augmenting his wages as a shop assistant by sweeping and tidying the labs—he had been saving hard to get married. Professor Morrison, one of the most important people at the university, had offered him a lot of money to take part in an experiment which he had said was perfectly safe but which must be kept secret. Professor Morrison had not explained what he was doing in detail, saying that it was too complicated, but from overheard conversations between the professor and his assistants and from his own recent reading, fictional as well as technical, he had a vague idea of how if not why the system worked.
The field of stress which he had entered could be considered as a standing wave in time with an amplitude of exactly sixty-three years and that material objects currently in existence could go forward into the future and come back again to the present, but an object that existed in the future could not be brought back. Once the field had been set up it would remain in existence forever, he had heard the professor say, unless some outside agency or carelessness—such as materializing people or lab animals in a non-empty space—caused it to break down.
Professor Morrison had intended to publish his results but he had first to develop a shorter-range field—as things were he could not prove that his subject had traveled forward in time if he could not bring something back from the future. He had to send someone forward who would materialize in the professor's own lifetime, and Morrison was pushing eighty. As well, his reputation was such that he could not risk being accused of scientific trickery.
The professor's budget did not allow him to go on paying his guinea-pig, so he had devised the idea of memorizing songs of the future and selling them in the past. Memories, after all, were non-material....
"... I thought of the stamp idea myself," the suspect continued. "I was married by then and my wife knew what I was doing. We thought eventually of coming to the future here, where I was making much more money, and I would commute to the past for stamps or anything else I needed. It was like going to work in the morning on a train, except that I commuted through time.
"I had told her not to worry if I didn't come home for a few evenings—if I wasn't home for tea then I had sprained my ankle or something and would be along the next evening, or the next. The time I spent in the future exactly equaled the time I was absent from the past, you see, and I didn't want her to be waiting up for me and worrying.
"I should have realized that the overgrown hollow I always arrived in was an old crater," he concluded, "but it was so
Michaelson nodded and went on, "When I was a kid she was so good, so stupidly good and generous, that I wanted to do something for her—we all did. But her problem was not susceptible to solution by ten-year-old boys. Now . . . well, I want you to inconvenience yourself just a little by going in to see her. If you don't," he added quietly, "I'll break every bone in your body."
"You don't understand," said the suspect dully, but he began moving toward the bedroom door.
"Maybe I do," said Michaelson. "You have two very nice businesses going—buying stamps at face value there and selling them here at a profit of several thousand per cent. You even speculated in a few rare items, which became even rarer and more valuable. The music business in the other direction—no wonder so many of today's songs sound as if they'd been plagiarized-—did not pay so well and you decided to stay where the money was...."
The nurse opened the bedroom door, motioned them inside and then moved into the lounge.
"You know," said the suspect, looking more relieved than frightened. "But I didn't desert her. There was an accident and I couldn't get back."
"Tell me about it," said Michaelson.
The suspect had been working at nights in the university, augmenting his wages as a shop assistant by sweeping and tidying the labs—he had been saving hard to get married. Professor Morrison, one of the most important people at the university, had offered him a lot of money to take part in an experiment which he had said was perfectly safe but which must be kept secret. Professor Morrison had not explained what he was doing in detail, saying that it was too complicated, but from overheard conversations between the professor and his assistants and from his own recent reading, fictional as well as technical, he had a vague idea of how if not why the system worked.
The field of stress which he had entered could be considered as a standing wave in time with an amplitude of exactly sixty-three years and that material objects currently in existence could go forward into the future and come back again to the present, but an object that existed in the future could not be brought back. Once the field had been set up it would remain in existence forever, he had heard the professor say, unless some outside agency or carelessness—such as materializing people or lab animals in a non-empty space—caused it to break down.
Professor Morrison had intended to publish his results but he had first to develop a shorter-range field—as things were he could not prove that his subject had traveled forward in time if he could not bring something back from the future. He had to send someone forward who would materialize in the professor's own lifetime, and Morrison was pushing eighty. As well, his reputation was such that he could not risk being accused of scientific trickery.
The professor's budget did not allow him to go on paying his guinea-pig, so he had devised the idea of memorizing songs of the future and selling them in the past. Memories, after all, were non-material....
"... I thought of the stamp idea myself," the suspect continued. "I was married by then and my wife knew what I was doing. We thought eventually of coming to the future here, where I was making much more money, and I would commute to the past for stamps or anything else I needed. It was like going to work in the morning on a train, except that I commuted through time.
"I had told her not to worry if I didn't come home for a few evenings—if I wasn't home for tea then I had sprained my ankle or something and would be along the next evening, or the next. The time I spent in the future exactly equaled the time I was absent from the past, you see, and I didn't want her to be waiting up for me and worrying.
"I should have realized that the overgrown hollow I always arrived in was an old crater," he concluded, "but it was so
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