bright colors, but so were his hand and arm! He looked down. So were his legs and feet! He must be vaporized. He quickly felt his body. It seemed no different; it was just that it was difficult to see. The principle of time dilatation at work, he assumed.
He waved his arm in front of his eyes and saw what looked like a dancing swarm of fireflies. He giggled. True, he had obviously disintegrated, yet he felt fine. He was at one with the universe!
But where was he and what time was it? Or was it any time? He strained to read the watch. First he saw a faint black outline around his hand and arm. Then he brought the watch closer to his eyes and stared at it for a long time. The colors jumped around like indiscriminate licks of flame, but eventually he made out the faint outlines of the clock hands and numbers.
He had been traveling for twenty-three minutes. If his calculations were correct, he would be arriving in 1979 at 7:57 A.M. So he hadnât died along the fourth dimension. He had merely been sleeping while his body metamorphosed into a vaporized state.
He laughed. He was going to succeed! He bounced up and down in the chair. Exhilaration and euphoria came over him, and with a religious fervor he shouted out that he, H. G. Wells, had done it. He had conquered the mysteries of the fourth dimension, and if he could do it, so could others. There was nothing left beyond the grasp of mankind. Human intelligence was infinite! Man could progress to eternity! Man was king!
âDo you hear that, God?â he exclaimed triumphantly, then
immediately felt foolish. If he were in fact vaporized, nothing at all could hear him.
At 7:54 the swirl of colors began to fade into gray, and H.G. knew that the machine was preparing to drop into 1979. He got dizzy, sick and disoriented again, but it was not as bad as the first time. And when the panic started to come on, he controlled his mind by concentrating on possible problems that he could do nothing about, like a malfunction in the IVR. Or what if he had a chemical reaction to 1979 and exploded? Or imploded?
At 7:56 sharp there was a report like a loud clap of thunder. Everything went black. Wells slumped in the chair, unconscious.
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The sound of distant voices and echoing feet woke him. His initial thought was that he had been in a comatose state for an eternity and was now confined in a futuristic hospital where advanced human beings were testing his nineteenth-century mind and body. A quick glance around the inside of the time machine told him that this was not so. He then critically inspected his immediate surroundings and was surprised. The control panel was cracked and faded, the once-shiny ivory switches now a dirty brown. The glass over the dials was intact, but so discolored with age that the numbers and digits were almost impossible to read. The Rotator Control was rusted and stuck in its eastward position. He would have to fix it if he ever hoped to get back home.
He turned in his chair, unlocked and opened the cargo hatch. The water had evaporated, the food was a pile of aging dust and the clothes disintegrated when touched. Something had gone wrong. He turned further and noticed that the chair swiveled with ease. The flight harness that held him in the chair was as good as new, and the Accelerator Helm Lever still glistened with the light coat of oil he had applied the day before he left.
He frowned and cursed himself. He had made an almost fatal mistake in design. He should have mounted the entire cabin gyroscopically in order to keep everything inside free from the devastating effects of high-energy rotation. Had he gone much farther into the future, the controls themselves might have disintegrated.
A sudden thought struck him. Why hadnât the machine appeared aged after it had delivered Stephenson into 1979?
He didnât quite understand, but he speculated that there must have been some matter-rejuvenation principle at work when moving back
He waved his arm in front of his eyes and saw what looked like a dancing swarm of fireflies. He giggled. True, he had obviously disintegrated, yet he felt fine. He was at one with the universe!
But where was he and what time was it? Or was it any time? He strained to read the watch. First he saw a faint black outline around his hand and arm. Then he brought the watch closer to his eyes and stared at it for a long time. The colors jumped around like indiscriminate licks of flame, but eventually he made out the faint outlines of the clock hands and numbers.
He had been traveling for twenty-three minutes. If his calculations were correct, he would be arriving in 1979 at 7:57 A.M. So he hadnât died along the fourth dimension. He had merely been sleeping while his body metamorphosed into a vaporized state.
He laughed. He was going to succeed! He bounced up and down in the chair. Exhilaration and euphoria came over him, and with a religious fervor he shouted out that he, H. G. Wells, had done it. He had conquered the mysteries of the fourth dimension, and if he could do it, so could others. There was nothing left beyond the grasp of mankind. Human intelligence was infinite! Man could progress to eternity! Man was king!
âDo you hear that, God?â he exclaimed triumphantly, then
immediately felt foolish. If he were in fact vaporized, nothing at all could hear him.
At 7:54 the swirl of colors began to fade into gray, and H.G. knew that the machine was preparing to drop into 1979. He got dizzy, sick and disoriented again, but it was not as bad as the first time. And when the panic started to come on, he controlled his mind by concentrating on possible problems that he could do nothing about, like a malfunction in the IVR. Or what if he had a chemical reaction to 1979 and exploded? Or imploded?
At 7:56 sharp there was a report like a loud clap of thunder. Everything went black. Wells slumped in the chair, unconscious.
Â
Â
The sound of distant voices and echoing feet woke him. His initial thought was that he had been in a comatose state for an eternity and was now confined in a futuristic hospital where advanced human beings were testing his nineteenth-century mind and body. A quick glance around the inside of the time machine told him that this was not so. He then critically inspected his immediate surroundings and was surprised. The control panel was cracked and faded, the once-shiny ivory switches now a dirty brown. The glass over the dials was intact, but so discolored with age that the numbers and digits were almost impossible to read. The Rotator Control was rusted and stuck in its eastward position. He would have to fix it if he ever hoped to get back home.
He turned in his chair, unlocked and opened the cargo hatch. The water had evaporated, the food was a pile of aging dust and the clothes disintegrated when touched. Something had gone wrong. He turned further and noticed that the chair swiveled with ease. The flight harness that held him in the chair was as good as new, and the Accelerator Helm Lever still glistened with the light coat of oil he had applied the day before he left.
He frowned and cursed himself. He had made an almost fatal mistake in design. He should have mounted the entire cabin gyroscopically in order to keep everything inside free from the devastating effects of high-energy rotation. Had he gone much farther into the future, the controls themselves might have disintegrated.
A sudden thought struck him. Why hadnât the machine appeared aged after it had delivered Stephenson into 1979?
He didnât quite understand, but he speculated that there must have been some matter-rejuvenation principle at work when moving back
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