perhaps he had been dreaming.
But Viglin was still there, dismayingly substantial.
The two policemen produced a pair of handcuffs and walked forward.
“Wait!” Eldridge shouted, leaning against his desk for support. “What’s this all about?”
“If you insist on formal charges,” Viglin said, “you shall have them.” He cleared his throat. “Thomas Eldridge, in March, 1962, you invented the Eldridge Traveler. Then —”
“Hold on!” Eldridge protested. “It isn’t 1962 yet, in case you didn’t know.”
Viglin looked annoyed. “Don’t quibble. You will invent the Traveler in 1962, if you prefer that phrasing. It’s all a matter of temporal viewpoint.”
It took Eldridge a moment to digest this.
“Do you mean – you are from the future?” he blurted.
One of the policemen nudged the other. “What an act!” he said admiringly.
“Better than a groogly show,” the other agreed, clicking his handcuffs.
“Of course we’re from the future,” Viglin said. “Where else would we be from? In 1962, you did – or will – invent the Eldridge Time Traveler, thus making time travel possible. With it, you journeyed into the first sector of the future, where you were received with highest honors. Then you traveled through the three sectors of Civilized Time, lecturing. You were a hero, Eldridge, an ideal. Little children wanted to grow up to be like you.”
With a husky voice, Viglin continued. “We were deceived. Suddenly and deliberately, you stole a quantity of valuable goods. It was shocking! We had never suspected you of criminal tendencies. When we tried to arrest you, you vanished.”
Viglin paused and rubbed his forehead wearily. “I was your friend, Tom, the first person you met in Sector One. We drank many a bowl of flox together. I arranged your lecture tour. And you robbed me.”
His face hardened. “Take him, officers.”
As the policemen moved forward, Eldridge had a good look at the black machine they shared. Like Viglin’s, it had several dials and a row of push buttons. Stamped in white across the top were the words: Eldridge Time Traveler – property of THE EASKILL POLICE DEPT.
The policeman stopped and turned to Viglin. “You got the extradition papers?”
Viglin searched his pockets. “Don’t seem to have them on me. But you know he’s a thief!”
“Everybody knows that,” the policeman said. “But we got no jurisdiction in a pre-contact sector without extradition papers.”
“Wait here,” Viglin said. “I’ll get them.” He examined his wristwatch carefully, muttered something about a half-hour gap, and pressed a button on the Traveler. Immediately, he was gone.
The two policemen sat down on Eldridge’s couch and proceeded to ogle the Gauguins.
Eldridge tried to think, to plan, to anticipate. Impossible. He could not believe it. He refused to believe it. No one could make him believe —
“Imagine a famous guy like this being a crook,” one of the policemen said.
“All geniuses are crazy,” the other philosophized. “Remember the stuggie dancer who killed the girl? He was a genius, the readies said.”
“Yeah.” The first policeman lighted a cigar and tossed the burned match on Eldridge’s shaggy little red rug.
All right, Eldridge decided, it was true. Under the circumstances, he had to believe. Nor was it so absurd. He had always suspected that he might be a genius.
But what had happened?
In 1962, he would invent a time machine.
Logical enough, since he was a genius.
And he would travel through the three sectors of Civilized Time.
Well, certainly, assuming he had a time machine. If there were three sectors, he would explore them.
He might even explore the uncivilized sectors.
And then, without warning, he became a thief.
No! He could accept everything else, but that was completely out of character. Eldridge was an intensely honest young man, quite above even petty dishonesties. As a student, he had never cheated at exams. As a man, he always paid his true and proper income tax, down to the last penny.
And it went deeper than that. Eldridge had no power drive, no urge for possessions. His desire had always been to settle in some warm, drowsy country, content with his books and music, sunshine, congenial neighbors, the love of a good woman.
So he was accused of theft. Even if he were guilty, what conceivable motive could have prompted the action?
What had happened to him in the future?
“You going to the scrug rally?” one of the cops asked the other.
“Why not? It comes on Malm Sunday, doesn’t it?” They didn’t pare. When Viglin returned, they would handcuff him and drag him to Sector One of the future. He would be sentenced and thrown into a cell.
All for a crime he was going to commit.
He made a swift decision and acted on it quickly.
“I feel faint,” he said, and began to topple out of his chair.
“Look out – he may have a gun!” one of the policemen yelped.
They rushed over to him, leaving their time machine on the couch.
Eldridge scuttled around the other side of the desk and pounced on the machine. Even in his haste, he realized that Sector One would be an unhealthy place for him. So, as the policemen sprinted across the room, he pushed the button marked Sector Two.
Instantly, he was plunged into darkness.
When he opened his eyes, Eldridge found that he was standing ankle-deep in a pool of dirty water. He was in a field, twenty feet from a road. The air was warm and moist. The Time Traveler was clasped tightly under his arm.
He was in Sector Two of the future and it didn’t thrill him a bit.
He walked to the road. On either side of it were terraced fields, filled with the green stalks of rice plants.
Rice? In New York State? Eldridge remembered that in his own time sector, a climatic shift had been detected. It was predicted that someday the temperate zones would be hot, perhaps tropical. This future seemed to prove the theory. He was perspiring already. The ground was damp, as though from a recent rain, and the sky was an intense, unclouded blue. But where were the farmers? Squinting at the sun directly overhead, he had the answer. At siesta, of course.
Looking down the road, he could see buildings half a mile away. He scraped mud from his shoes and started walking. But what would he do when he reached the buildings? How could he discover what had happened to him in Sector One? He couldn’t walk up to someone and say, “Excuse me, sir. I’m from 1954, a year you may have
