One Hundred. Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov
23. Betelgeuse. Staying at the Excelsior. Everybody speaks English, so very convenient. Can’t understand talk about poverty and shortages here. Not true. Food marvelous. Plenty cream, butter, eggs, etc., here in hotel. Not true about unhappiness. All waiters, maids, etc. in hotel cheerful and smiling. And Mudinna certainly has made the planes run on time.
Went to that marvelous beautician Linda told me about. Took all my courage in both hands and cut my hair. Tres chic but was afraid to show Tom. When he finally saw, furious! ! ! Said made me look like a d—ed foreigner. He’ll get used to it.
Ran into the Trumbulls and Rogers. We all went to a marvelous bistro where Clyde Pippin is playing. Love that man! After two months travel finally became cosmopolitan enough to introduce myself to him. Something would never have dared before. Now, was tremendously poised. Said: “Mr. Pippin, admired you for twenty years. Ever since was child.” He: “Thanks honey.” Self: “Always adored the way you sang Tree Top.” He: “No, that’s Charley Hoyt’s number. I never sing it, honey.” Self: “Well I never asked Charley Hoyt for his autograph, but I’m asking you.” I was too sophisticated.
Leave for Andromeda tomorrow. Very excited. Will be high spot of entire trip.
*
Perhaps the most amazing incident in the course of the exploration of space was the discovery that time-travel had already been developed in Andromeda. Permission for limited use by scientists, historians and students was granted in 2754.
The Exploration of Time
Stark Robinson
*
August 1. Andromeda. Staying at the Excelsior. Everybody speaks English divinely. Tom and self to authorities armed with letters from Chamber of Commerce, N.A.M., Senator Wilkins, and Joe Cates whose nephew practically runs the State Dept. We wanted time-trip. They said no, not for tourists. Too expensive, only for study. Tom finally laid down the law, told a few lies and made a few threats. They said yes. You have to be firm with these eggheads.
Tom picked Sept. 5, 1665 in London. Self: “Why?” Tom: “Because is date of Great Fire that destroyed London. Always dreamed about. Always wanted to see.: Self: “Don’t be childish. A fire’s a fire. Want to see Marie Antionette’s clothes.” Tom: “No. I swung it. So we see what I want.” Selfish! Had to exchange money for Seventeenth century money. Had to wear old Seventeenth century clothes. Not properly cleaned, I tho’t. Almost didn’t go.
Was right. Fire is just a fire. But bought some heavenly silver and china and ten place-settings of divine flatware. Also tea set. Tom couldn’t complain for once. He bought six swords and a helmet for the rumpus room decorations. Funniest thing about the trip is fact that we could hardly understand the people there. In 1665 they couldn’t speak their own English.
Next week, home!
*
Faster-than-light speed while travelling through the universe produces a physical paradox. Although the traveler is conscious of the passage of time within the space ship (Subjective Time), actually he is being transported so rapidly that the trip seems to have taken no time at all to the rest of the world. (Objective Time). In other words, a space ship leaves Andromeda on August 1, bound for earth. It is August 1 when the ship arrives. No time has elapsed in the universe. But on board the ship, travelling at faster-than-light speed, seven days have elapsed.
Paradoxes of Space Travel
Oliver Nielson
*
August 20. Home. Although is August 20 in this diary, is actually only June 14 here on earth. Can not get used to Subj. and Obj. time. Have been gone three months by our counting, but only 14 days by earth’s counting. Hate this. Makes me feel as if I’d never left home.
Distributed all gifts we brought back. Linda was imposs. Insists she told me get her a Shocking Pink peignoir on Callisto. Not Powder Blue. That’s a D—ed lie and she knows it. She can’t wear Shocking with her hair. Tom furious. Forgot to take lens cap off new camera when photographing Great Fire. All pictures blank. Now nobody believes he was important enough to wangle time-trip.
The Trumbulls and the Rogers called. Want us to get together and have reunion. Suggested the new Kolony Klub. Clyde Pippin there with his marvelous act. Dying to go, but had to refuse. Too exhausted. The universe is a great place to visit, but I’d sure hate to live there.
Pythias
by Frederik Pohl
Sure, Larry Connaught saved my life—but it was how he did it that forced me to murder him!
I am sitting on the edge of what passes for a bed. It is made of loosely woven strips of steel, and there is no mattress, only an extra blanket of thin olive-drab. It isn’t comfortable; but of course they expect to make me still more uncomfortable.
They expect to take me out of this precinct jail to the District prison and eventually to the death house.
Sure, there will be a trial first, but that is only a formality. Not only did they catch me with the smoking gun in my hand and Connaught bubbling to death through the hole in his throat, but I admitted it.
I—knowing what I was doing, with, as they say, malice aforethought —deliberately shot to death Laurence Connaught.
They execute murderers. So they mean to execute me.
Especially because Laurence Connaught had saved my life.
Well, there are extenuating circumstances. I do not think they would convince a jury.
Connaught and I were close friends for years. We lost touch during the war. We met again in Washington, a few years after the war was over. We had, to some extent, grown apart; he had become a man with a mission. He was working very hard on something and he did not choose to discuss his work and there was nothing else in his life on which to form a basis for communication. And—well, I had my own life, too. It wasn’t scientific research in my case—I flunked out of med school, while he went on. I’m not ashamed of it; it is nothing to be ashamed of. I simply was not able to cope with the messy business of carving corpses. I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to do it, and when I was forced to do it, I did it badly. So—I left.
Thus I have no string of degrees, but you don’t need them in order to be a Senate guard.
*
Does that sound like a terribly impressive career to you? Of course not; but I liked it. The Senators are relaxed and friendly when the guards are around, and you learn wonderful things about what goes on behind the scenes of government. And a Senate guard is in a position to do favors—for newspapermen, who find a lead to a story useful; for government officials, who sometimes base a whole campaign on one careless, repeated remark; and for just about anyone who would like to be in the visitors’ gallery during a hot debate.
Larry Connaught, for instance. I ran into him on the street one day, and we chatted for a moment, and he asked if it was possible to get him in to see the upcoming foreign relations debate. It was; I called him the next day and told him I had arranged for a pass. And he was there, watching eagerly with his moist little eyes, when the Secretary got up to speak and there was that sudden unexpected yell, and the handful of Central American fanatics dragged out their weapons and began trying to change American policy with gunpowder.
You remember the story, I suppose. There were only three of them, two with guns, one with a hand grenade. The pistol men managed to wound two Senators and a guard. I was right there, talking to Connaught. I spotted the little fellow with the hand grenade and tackled him. I knocked him down, but the grenade went flying, pin pulled, seconds ticking away. I lunged for it. Larry Connaught was ahead of me.
The newspaper stories made heroes out of both of us. They said it was miraculous that Larry, who had fallen right on top of the grenade, had managed to get it away from himself and so placed that when it exploded no one was hurt.