Dear Charles Read online

  Ginny wore green, with a necklace of glittering synthetic stones—not valuable, only carbon crystals—about her neck. Her tiny feet—but why should I describe Ginny to you, Charles? You’ve seen her, and you probably have a hard enough time following these ideas without being disconcerted by Ginny. The marvelous thing about Ginny was her superb confidence of knowing exactly how I was going to feel about her (indirectly, in my own clever way, I’m telling her now) plus the satisfaction that I did not know anything about it yet. Because, of course, when all this happens, none of it will have taken place so far as I am concerned—if you grasp my meaning—and I’m going to write this letter afterward, but Ginny is going to read it ahead of time. I tenderly hope this doesn’t make you dizzy, Charles. You will need to be your usual, absent-minded self. A tense pause occurred.

  Back in the physics laboratory Joe returned with the sash cord. There were more cries of merry laughter out on the campus. Flies buzzed on and Norton dreamed of cocktails and sardine canapes. All was peace. The world trundled on, unaware of the unparalleled and never-to-be-duplicated event about to take place.

  It was a tense moment indeed. We prepared for my splendid journey. I cut off a length of sash cord. Then I felt Joe hauling at my belt. He was tying the other end of the sash cord to it. He’d accomplished it when I realized. But I objected. I would trust my pants to a belt, but not my life. I hadn’t lost my nerve, but I wasn’t going to take any unnecessary chances, either. I tied my end of the sash cord around my ankle with a firm, double-knotted diamond hitch.

  Then I said, “Tie the other end to something, Joe.”

  I watched him tie the cord’s end firmly to a steam-radiator.

  I felt prickles down my spine, but I said, “I will not let Norton lead where I dare not follow! Let’er go, Joe!”

  And Joe retreated to the extension-cord switch. He gulped, and looked unhappy, and threw the switch over.

  He and the laboratory, the floor, the ceiling, the steam-radiator and all the world I knew, vanished in a luminous puce-colored mist. I stood still. Nothing happened. There I was. Apparently, that was all there was to it. About me there was merely a brownish-purple nothing-in-particular. There was no sound or movement of any sort. True, I no longer heard the glad cries of the summer-session school-teachers on the campus, but aside from a feeling that I’d crawled into a puce-colored hole and pulled it in after me, there was no sensation at all. I thought to look for the beer-bottle that had vanished permanently. I did not see it. I did not see anything. I might as well be nowhere. I very probably was.

  It did not strike me as high adventure. It did not really strike me as anything at all. I was distinctly disappointed. I began to wish that Joe would haul on the sash cord tied to my ankle and get me out. Of course I could have walked off in the mist to see if it was different anywhere else, but I had an innate conviction that I’d better stay where I was. At that point I was very calm, Charles. Extremely calm. But as minute after minute passed by and absolutely nothing happened, I began to sweat slightly.

  I endured it as long as I could, and then I bent down and picked up the sash cord tied to my leg. I waggled it, as a signal to Joe to pull me out of wherever I was, if anywhere. He did not respond. I pulled on the cord, to stretch it taut so Joe would recognize that it was time for him to do something practical.

  It didn’t get taut. Because here, my dear Charles, I was faced with a small error of judgment on my own part. But it was an error over which I shall rejoice forever. It was an inspired fuzzy-mindedness which brought about the rest. When Joe and I were preparing for me to vanish in a puce-colored mist, Charles, Joe had prepared to fasten the sash cord to my belt. It was not an especially sound idea, but I bless him for it. At the time, though, I’d protested. I’d cut off a length of sash cord to tie to my ankle. To my ankle I tied it. Firmly. This, I considered, was my lifeline. This was the cord I thought I’d seen Joe tie to a steam-radiator. But he’d tied the other cord instead—and somehow I did not notice. It was an error on my part, and a singularly happy one.

  But not at the moment. I hauled on the cord from my ankle instead of the one fastened—I didn’t know how inadequately—to my belt. The rope from my ankle was fastened only there. The other end came unresistingly as I pulled. The cut-off place came into the brownish-purple mist with me. And when I saw it, I knew a moment of such anguish as I would not wish even on you, my erstwhile rival and great-etc. Every hair on my head stood on end and cracked like a whiplash. My eyes bugged out. I was in a place that can only be described as nowhere. I wanted to get out. But I’d pulled into the hole with me what I thought was my only link to a world of schoolteachers, alcoholic cats and—Joe.

  I felt a pure, hysterical aversion to the end of that cord. I hadn’t meant to pull it to where Joe couldn’t yank it back. I had. I had a frenzied impulse to return it to him. So I threw that cord hysterically away from me, into the puce-colored mist.

  And it tickled you on the back of your neck.

  This is the crucial moment, Charles. When you and Laki and Stan and Hari and of course Ginny stand in your cellar rumpus room, everybody will have read this narrative. But you, Charles, will be savagely determined to prove it sheer nonsense. And your friends have often displayed what you consider peculiar ideas of humor. When you have pointed out the conspicuous absence of anybody from an earlier age in the room, and are pointing out triumphantly to them that this story is all eyewash and that your great-great-etc.-grandfather is not going to visit you that morning from fourteen centuries previous. When you have done all that, Charles, the rope will tickle the back of your neck.

  You will whirl. You will see an unfamiliar type of cordage in mid-air. You will suspect Hari and Stan of a practical joke. Your face will turn purple and you will yank at the rope, while you howl that it is all blank-blank foolishness.

  And at that moment I will fall on your head out of the thin air above you, and wind up sitting on your stomach as you flop on the floor. Nearly the only gratitude I feel toward you, Charles, is for breaking my fall in that way. I might have bumped myself in a six-foot fall for which I was—will be—unprepared. Doubtless this would be an appropriate place to speculate on why, when I pulled a piece of sash cord from the twentieth century and heaved it from me in horror, it should tickle your neck in the thirty-fourth century. But I admit candidly that I haven’t any ideas on the subject. Professor Hadley’s inadvertent time-transporter worked that way. I’m going to let it go at that.

  I sat up and gazed blankly at you. You thought I was a practical joker, hired or persuaded to play a part. You panted at me. And I was a bit embarrassed. You weren’t Joe, whom I’d hoped would pull me out of nowhere. You were a stranger to me then. You were a red-faced, rather foolish-looking stranger, drawing in your breath to swear.

  So I said politely, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”

  To you this was further evidence of a put-up job. You heaved up mightily, gasping. I got off your stomach and tried to help you up with proper courtesy. But you swung wildly, connected, and I went banging into the wall. Then, your great-great-etc.-grandmother tells me indignantly, you grabbed a chair and prepared to commit mayhem on me. Hardly the way to treat a distinguished progenitor, Charles, let me tell you.

  This was the first moment when your great-and-so-on-grandmother felt really certain you were not the gentle soul she had hoped. Moreover, knowing that I was destined to woo and win her, she forestalled any hindrance to her tender dreamings by swinging on you with a hartlegame bat from the rumpus-room equipment nearby. And when you collapsed, she, with the fine competence of which small and beautiful women are capable in emergencies, discovered a piece of sash cord fastened to my belt in the back, untied it, and deftly knotted it to a piece of furniture for later reference.

  Here, perhaps, my letter to you could end. The other events in your rumpus-room, your time, your historical period, followed an absolutely inevitable pattern.

  Laki screamed piercingly. Your father heard, an
d came rushing with a first-aid kit. He arrived to view Ginny—bless her—standing embattled above me with the hartlegame bat in her hand and blood in her eye. You were collapsed on the floor.

  Your father gasped: “Wha—what—”

  And Ginny said in a level and determined tone, “He’s Charles’s fifty-second-great-grandfather, sir, and Charles hit him. It wasn’t respectful—so I clobbered him.”

  The word “clobbered” is not in thirty-fourth century common speech. Ginny had learned it from the reading of this missive to you. She had not known what it meant, but when the emergency arrived she not only knew what to do, but had the word for it. Your great-great-great-etc.-ancestress is a remarkable woman, Charles! She has brains, determination, intuition, clarity of thought, and she is deliciously cuddlesome besides. Even after having been married to her for a considerable time, I like her very, very much!

  “What’s that?” demanded your father dazedly. “Great-great—”

  Hari and Stan tried to explain, together. I opened my eyes and saw Ginny. My last previous view had been of a hamlike fist gaining momentum before my nose. Ginny was a welcome change. I sat up, staring at her. My mouth dropped open.

  I heard myself saying earnestly: “Look, angel! It’s not true there’s no marrying in Heaven, is it? With you around that would be a dirty trick.”

  And Ginny kissed me. It was quite proper. She had read this letter, and she knew that she was going to marry me—knew it in fact the instant she saw me—and even that nearly two years later I would still be bragging about it. In fact, I would be—I am—gloating over it in a quite unseemly manner. So her engagement to you, Charles, was automatically terminated by my arrival. In its place an arrangement of much longer standing matured. And while I do not believe in long engagements as a rule, Ginny’s and mine of some fourteen centuries’ duration has worked out all right.

  You stirred and rose. I was still there. Ginny was very close to me. You howled and leaped toward me again. I got in one gratifying punch on the nose—which does resemble mine, by the way—and then Harl and Stan and your father grabbed you, and Ginny grabbed me. When she touched me, all my belligerent impulses died. I felt infinite love for all the world. I might even have forgiven you, Charles, temporarily, for being my rival as well as my fifty-two-times removed grandson.

  Your father said desperately, “Let me understand this thing!” He pushed you into a chair and looked unhappily at me. My costume was eccentric. Harl and Stan again tried to explain.

  But you, Charles, bellowed, “It’s a lie! It’s a trick! It’s a stupid practical joke! I’ll kill—”

  Laki said shakily, “Suppose we let the police settle it. If he really is who the book says—”

  You bounced up and roared, “I’ll get ’em! You hold that faker here, Father, and I’ll teach these idiots to play jokes.” You rushed out. Your father mopped his face.

  I said mildly to Ginny, still standing close by me, “Where am I, anyhow? Not that it matters.”

  Ginny reached out her hand to Stan. As if somnambulistically, he handed her a book. It was an ancient, crumbling, tattered volume of fiction. Ginny opened it with fingers that trembled only a very little. I read:

  To: Charles Fabius Granver

  Sector 233, Zone 3, Home 1254, Radii.

  The Thirty-Fourth Century, a.d.

  My dear great-great-great-etc.-grandson

  Charles:

  Ginny said softly in my ear, “Read it! Fast!”

  I read.

  I heard your father saying harassedly, “His face does look familiar…”

  I handed him the book and bowed benignly. I said, “Sir, I am very happy to have met you. It is a rare privilege.”

  And so it was. And will be. One does not meet even a fifty-one-times-removed grandson every day.

  There was a scraping sound. Hari turned pale. Stan jumped. Somehow, I think that up to this moment they had not quite fully believed. But that scraping sound… Ginny had competently untied a piece of sash cord from my belt in the back and fastened it to a chair. It had reached up to the ceiling. Having admitted my failure to notice that Joe—back in the laboratory—had tied a cord to my belt with a very clumsy granny-knot, I don’t feel I have to justify my not connecting the facts of time-travel with that piece of rope. Not up to this moment. But Ginny had realized from the beginning. She’d been previously informed. I’m informing her now. She’d tied the cord to a chair, and some fourteen centuries away my colleague Joe was dragging on the cord. He’d taken his time about it!

  Ginny said shakily, “I—guess we’d better hurry…”

  She was a little bit scared. To tell the truth, so was I. I said somehow hoarsely, “I’ll stay here if you’d rather—”

  But I’d read this letter. And I felt—well, Charles, perhaps you can never understand how magnificent I felt when Ginny smiled at me and put her hand in mine and said to Laki, “You might try to explain to Uncle Seri for me.”

  The chair tied to the sash cord stirred again. I lifted Ginny to a table and climbed up beside her. Harl—again somnambulistically—handed me a chair. I twisted the sash cord about myself very carefully. I made a good strong knot—much better than Ginny had untied—and Ginny, trembling, let me pick her up in my arms. I stood on the chair on the table and jerked at the sash cord.

  Your father, Harl, Stan, Laki—she seemed a very nice girl—the rumpus-room, the dynamic mural and the hartlegame bat—all vanished in a luminous puce-colored mist. I still felt a tugging at my waist. But for a moment Ginny and I were private in the brownish-purple mist that is characteristic of—hmmm—let us say “nowhere.” And in that moment I kissed Ginny and she kissed me back.

  Then I walked out into the laboratory with Ginny in my arms and said thoughtfully to Joe—whose jaw dropped down to here—“Joe, this hurts me more than it does you.”

  And then I smashed Professor Hadley’s time-transporter. I stamped on it, while Joe gazed stupidly at Ginny. I had reason to smash the device. Naturally! If anybody else traveled in time, they might not be as smart as I am, or their descendants might not be as dumb as you, Charles. Something might get messed up. Somebody might marry the wrong person somewhere in the next fourteen centuries, and Ginny might not get born. I wouldn’t risk that!

  So, Charles, I am happy to report that everything ended nicely, or will end nicely. For everybody but you, and I must apologize for that. But surely you can understand that it is all for the best, can’t you, Charles? It would have been interesting to have gone beyond your rumpus-room in the thirty-fourth century, and see what a city of your time was like, and I’d like to see the spaceships and the ground-cars and the little personal fliers Ginny has been telling me about. But it doesn’t matter.

  You look at them, Charles. I’ll look at Ginny.

  You needn’t worry about her, though. That gal has brains! She only halfway believed this story until I fell on your head. But because she halfway believed, the morning she comes to your house with Harl and Stan and Laki, she’ll have made some tentative precautions. She brought along a whole bag full of crystallized carbon—all the costume jewelry around the house with carbon crystals in it. Merely trinkets, of course. You can buy them by the pound. Pretty beads. But back in the twentieth century they’re called diamonds and we don’t know how to make them yet. She even picked up a paperbacked book on electronics for beginners, aimed at ten-year-old kids. Some of it is over my head so far, but it’s pretty useful. With diamonds to start on and super-duper electronic principles to go on with, Ginny and I are in no danger of starving, even in these primitive times.

  We’ve got a primitive house with old-style hot-and-cold water and a quaint old electric furnace, and we listen to our antique radio and watch primeval television, and we drive a car that burns that quaint old stuff called gasoline in its cylinders! But we manage. We don’t mind hardships. We have each other.

  I was just finishing this letter, Charles, when Ginny came in. Somehow I find it very satisfactory t
o be married to Ginny. Lately it’s gotten even better. And she came in with something to show me that enables me to finish this note with an item of news that is highly important to all the family.

  Ginny, beaming, took my finger and made me feel. And it’s so! We have a son, Charles. He looks like me, but Ginny seems pleased. And the thing I felt—Charles, just as I finished this letter, Ginny showed me that your great-great-great-grandfather fifty-one times removed, at the age of seven months and one week, has just cut his first tooth!

  I’m sure you will be pleased!

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