Part 18 (1/2)
”TEN MINUTES!” shouted a man with a megaphone. ”Take your places, friends and strangers.”
The Repentance people were filing in at one side, intoning an ancient incantation, ”Mi-seri-cordia, Ora pro n.o.bis!”
The atmosphere suddenly became tense. It was now very close and hot in the big tent. A boy from the mayor's office wiggled through the crowd, beckoning Laban's party to come and sit in the guest chairs on the second level on the ”face” side. In front of them at the rail one of the Repentance ministers was arguing with an Albertan official over his right to occupy the s.p.a.ce taken by a recorder, it being his special duty to look into the Man John's eyes.
”Can he really see us?” Mira asked her uncle.
”Blink your eyes,” Laban told her. ”A new scene every blink, that's what he sees. Phantasmagoria.
Blink-blink-blink-for G.o.d knows how long.”
”Mi-sere-re, pec-cavi,” chanted the penitentials. A soprano neighed. ”May the red of sin pa-aa-a.s.s from us!”
”They believe his oxygen tab went red because of the state of their souls,” Laban chuckled. ”Their souls are going to have to stay d.a.m.ned awhile; John Delgano has been on oxygen reserve for five centuries-or rather, he will be low for five centuries more. At a half-second per year his time, that's fifteen minutes. We know from the audio trace he's still breathing more or less normally and the reserve was good for twenty minutes. So they should have their salvation about the year seven hundred, if they last that long.”
”FIVE MINUTES! Take your seats, folks. Please sit down so everyone can see. Sit down, folks.”
”It says well hear his voice through his suit speaker,” Serli whispered. ”Do you know what he's saying?”
”You get mostly a twenty-cycle howl,” Laban whispered back. ”The recorders have spliced up something like ”ayt”, part of an old word. Take centuries to get enough to translate.”
”Is it a message?”
”Who knows? Could be his word for 'date' or 'hate'. 'Too late', maybe. Anything.”
The tent was quieting. A fat child by the railing started to cry and was pulled back onto a lap. There was a subdued mumble of praying. The Holy Joy faction on the far side rustled their flowers.
”Why don't we set our clocks by him?”
”It's changing. He's on sidereal time.”
”ONE MINUTE.”.
In the hush the praying voices rose slightly. From outside a chicken cackled. The bare center s.p.a.ce looked absolutely ordinary. Over it the recorder's silvery filaments eddied gently in the breath from a hundred lungs. Another recorder could be heard ticking faintly.For long seconds nothing happened.
The air developed a tiny hum. At the same moment Mira caught a movement at the railing on her left.
The hum developed a beat and vanished into a peculiar silence and suddenly everything happened at once.
Sound burst on them, raced shockingly up the audible scale. The air cracked as something rolled and tumbled in the s.p.a.ce. There was a grinding, wailing roar and- He was there.
Solid, huge-a huge man in a monster suit, his head was a dull bronze transparent globe, holding a human face, a dark smear of open mouth. His position was impossible, legs strained forward thrusting himself back, his arms frozen in a whirlwind swing. Although he seemed to be in frantic forward motion nothing moved, only one of his legs buckled or sagged slightly- -And then he was gone, utterly and completely gone in a thunderclap, leaving only the incredible after-image in a hundred pairs of staring eyes. Air boomed, shuddering; dust roiled out mixed with smoke.
”Oh! Oh my G.o.d,” grasped Mira, unheard, clinging to Serli. Voices were crying out, choking. ”He saw me, he saw me!” a woman shrieked. A few people dazedly threw their confetti into the empty dust-cloud, most had failed to throw at all. Children began to howl. ”He saw me!” the woman screamed hysterically. ”Red, oh Lord have mercy!” a deep male voice intoned.
Mira heard Laban swearing furiously and looked again into the s.p.a.ce. As the dust settled she could see that the recorder's tripod had tipped over into the center. There was a dusty mound lying against it-flowers. Most of the end of the stand seemed to have disappeared or been melted. Of the filaments nothing could be seen.
”Some d.a.m.n fool pitched flowers into it. Come on, let's get out.”
”Was it under, did it trip him?” asked Mira, squeezed in the crowd.
”It was still red, his oxygen thing,” Serli said over her head. ”No mercy this trip, eh, Laban?”
”Shs.h.!.+” Mira caught the Repentance pastor's dark glance. They jostled through the enclosure gate and were out in the sunlit park, voices exclaiming, chattering loudly in excitement and relief.
”It was terrible,” Mira cried softly. ”Oh, I never thought it was a real live man. There he is, he's there. Why can't we help him? Did we trip him?”
”I don't know, I don't think so,” her uncle grunted. They sat down near the new monument, fanning themselves. The curtain was still in place.
”Did we change the past?” Serli laughed, looked lovingly at his little wife. For a moment he wondered why she was wearing such odd earrings; then he remembered he had given them to her at that Indian pueblo they'd pa.s.sed.
”But it wasn't just those Alberta people,” said Mira. She seemed obsessed with the idea. ”It was the flowers really.” She wiped at her forehead.
”Mechanics or superst.i.tion,” chuckled Serli. ”Which is the culprit, love or science?”
”Shsh.” Mira looked about nervously. ”The flowers were love, I guess... I feel so strange. It's hot.
Oh, thank you.” Uncle Laban had succeeded in attracting the attention of the iced-drink vendor.
People were chatting normally now and the choir struck into a cheerful song. At one side of the park a line of people were waiting to sign their names in the visitors' book. The mayor appeared at the park gate, leading a party up the bougainvillea alley for the unveiling of the monument.
”What did it say on that stone by his foot?” Mira asked. Serli showed her the guidebook picture of Carl's rock with the inscription translated below: WELCOME HOME JOHN.
”I wonder if he can see it.”The mayor was about to begin his speech.
Much later when the crowd had gone away the monument stood alone in the dark, displaying to the moon the inscription in the language of that time and place: ON THIS SPOT THERE APPEARS ANNUALLY THE FORM OF MAJOR JOHN.
DELGANO, THE FIRST AND ONLY MAN TO TRAVEL IN TIME.
MAJOR DELGANO WAS SENT INTO THE FUTURE SOME HOURS BEFORE THE.
HOLOCAUST OF DAY ZERO. ALL KNOWLEDGE OF THE MEANS BY WHICH HE WAS.
SENT IS LOST, PERHAPS FOREVER. IT IS BELIEVED THAT AN ACCIDENT OCCURRED.
WHICH SENT HIM MUCH FARTHER THAN WAS INTENDED. SOME a.n.a.lYSTS.
SPECULATE THAT HE MAY HAVE GONE AS FAR AS FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS AHEAD.
HAVING REACHED THIS UNKNOWN POINT MAJOR DELGANO APPARENTLY WAS.
RECALLED, OR ATTEMPTED TO RETURN, ALONG THE COURSE IN s.p.a.cE AND TIME.
THROUGH WHICH HE WAS SENT. HlS TRAJECTORY IS THOUGHT TO START AT THE POINT WHICH OUR SOLAR SYSTEM WILL OCCUPY AT A FUTURE TIME AND IS.
TANGENT TO THE COMPLEX HELIX WHICH OUR EARTH DESCRIBES AROUND THE.
SUN.
HE APPEARS ON THIS SPOT IN THE ANNUAL INSTANTS IN WHICH HIS COURSE.