The Time Traveler's Almanac

Ross stood looking at Mason with jaded eyes. He bit his lips, feeling nervous with the unknown crowding him in, holding off the comfort of solid, rational thinking. He pushed, he shoved it away. He persevered.

“Listen,” he said, “we’re agreed that those bodies aren’t ours.”

No answer.

“Use your heads!” Ross commanded. “Feel yourself!”

Mason ran numbed fingers over his jumper, his helmet, the pen in his pocket. He clasped solid hands of flesh and bone. He looked at the veins in his arms. He pressed an anxious finger to his pulse. It’s true, he thought. And the thought drove lines of strength back into him. Despite all, despite Ross’s desperate advocacy, he was alive. Flesh and blood were his evidence.

His mind swung open then. His brow furrowed in thought as he lightened up. He saw a look almost of relief on the face of a weakening Ross.

“All right then,” he said, “we’re in the future.”

Mickey stood tensely by the port. “Where does that leave us?” he asked.

The words threw Mason back. It was true, where did it leave them?

“How do we know how distant a future?” he said, adding weight to the depression of Mickey’s words. “How do we know it isn’t in the next twenty minutes?”

Ross tightened. He punched his palm with a resounding smack.

“How do we know?” he said strongly. “We don’t go up, we can’t crash. That’s how we know.”

Mason looked at him.

“Maybe if we went up,” he said, “we might bypass our death altogether and leave it in this space-time system. We could get back to the space-time system of our own galaxy and…”

His words trailed off. His brain became absorbed with twisting thought.

Ross frowned. He stirred restlessly, licked his lips. What had been simple was now something else again. He resented the uninvited intrusion of complexity.

“We’re alive now,” he said, getting it set in his mind, consolidating assurance with reasonable words, “and there’s only one way we can stay alive.”

He looked at them, decision reached. “We have to stay here,” he said.

They just looked at him. He wished that one of them, at least, would agree with him, show some sign of definition in their minds.

“But … what about our orders?” Mason said vaguely.

“Our orders don’t tell us to kill ourselves!” Ross said. “No, it’s the only answer. If we never go up again, we never crash. We … we avoid it, we prevent it!”

His head jarred once in a curt nod. To Ross, the thing was settled.

Mason shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t…”

“I do,” Ross stated. “Now let’s get out of here. This ship is getting on our nerves.”

Mason stood up as the captain gestured toward the door. Mickey started to move, then hesitated. He looked down at the bodies.

“Shouldn’t we…?” he started to inquire.

“What, what?” Ross asked, impatient to leave.

Mickey stared at the bodies. He felt caught up in a great, bewildering insanity.

“Shouldn’t we … bury ourselves?” he said.

Ross swallowed. He would hear no more. He herded them out of the cabin. Then, as they started down through the wreckage, he looked in at the door. He looked at the tarpaulin with the jumbled mound of bodies beneath it. He pressed his lips together until they were white.

“I’m alive,” he muttered angrily.

Then he turned out the cabin light with tight, vengeful fingers and left.

*   *   *

They all sat in the cabin of their own ship. Ross had ordered food brought out from the lockers, but he was the only one eating. He ate with a belligerent rotation of his jaw as though he would grind away all mystery with his teeth.

Mickey stared at the food.

“How long do we have to stay?” he asked, as if he didn’t clearly realize that they were to remain permanently.

Mason took it up. He leaned forward in his seat and looked at Ross.

“How long will our food last?” he said.

“There’s edible food outside, I’ve no doubt,’ Ross said, chewing.

“How will we know which is edible and which is poisonous?”

“We’ll watch the animals,” Ross persisted.

“They’re a different type of life,” Mason said. “What they can eat might be poisonous to us. Besides, we don’t even know if there are any animals here.”

The words made his lips raise in a brief, bitter smile. And he’d actually been hoping to contact another people. It was practically humorous.

Ross bristled. “We’ll … cross each river as we come to it,” he blurted out as if he hoped to smother all complaint with this ancient homily.

Mason shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

Ross stood up.

“Listen,” he said. “It’s easy to ask questions. We’ve all made a decision to stay here. Now let’s do some concrete thinking about it. Don’t tell me what we can’t do. I know that as well as you. Tell me what we can do.”

Then he turned on his heel and stalked over to the control board. He stood there glaring at blank-faced gauges and dials. He sat down and began scribbling rapidly in his log as if something of great note had just occurred to him. Later Mason looked at what Ross had written and saw that it was a long paragraph which explained in faulty but unyielding logic why they were all alive.