Time's Last Gift by Philip José Farmer
And then she dropped bag and snake as Drummond yelled behind her.
She whirled and saw him rigid and pointing at a larger viper poised to strike only a foot away.
‘Stand still!’ she said. ‘And be quiet! I’ll get him!’
She withdrew her pistol slowly from her holster, but Drummond yelled again and jumped away as the upper part of the snake’s body swayed back and forth. The snake flashed forward at the sudden movement, and Rachel shrieked. She thought that the snake had struck Drummond.
Her revolver missed the viper with the first two shots, but the third blew its backbone apart just behind the head.
Drummond remained frozen and gray.
‘Did it bite you?’ she asked. She reached into the bag she wore suspended from her belt. It held anti-venom drugs, but the effect depended on quick injection.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said finally, staring down at his leg. ‘It struck me, but only with the tip of its snout, I think. I was going away from it when it did hit.’
He suddenly sat down and covered his face with his hands. Rachel got down on her knees and rolled up his pants leg. She could find no bite.
‘You’re all right,’ she said.
‘Where exactly am I?’ His eyes looked at her bewildered through his fingers.
She knew then, without being told, what had happened.
‘I remember shooting at you,’ he said. ‘My God, what happened? Where are we?’
By the time they had returned to camp, he knew everything. But it was all hearsay to him. He remembered nothing from the moment he had tried to kill her.
‘And the old snake-pit treatment brought me back,’ he said. ‘In one way I wish it hadn’t. But of course I wouldn’t want to remain a child forever. I wonder why I got stuck at that age? It doesn’t matter, I can find out when I get back to our time. If we ever do…’
He began to weep, saying as he regained control, ‘My God, what have I done? What’s happened to me? To us?’
She did not reply for a while, and then she said, ‘Whatever it is, it’s something that brought out in us what already existed. It didn’t originate anything.’
‘I can’t believe that these psychological changes are brought about just by the shock of time dislocation,’ he said. ‘I wonder if there aren’t some subtle somatic effects caused by time travel. Something that causes an electrochemical imbalance.’
‘That is something that will be determined by the medics when we get back,’ she said. ‘Unless, of course, the trip back restores our balance.’
She started to say something, shut her mouth, then put out her hand to stop him.
‘John is gone,’ she said, ‘and it’s possible he may never return. I can’t help feeling that something bad has happened to him. But if he does return, then what? Are we going to go through the same thing? Do I have to be afraid that you’ll be shooting at us?’
‘I suppose it’s all over between us, no matter what I do from now on,’ he said.
‘Yes, I won’t lie, even if I am afraid of you,’ she said. ‘I’m getting a divorce as soon as we get out of quarantine.’
‘And then you and Gribardsun will be getting married?’
She laughed and said, ‘Oh, yes! Right away! You fool! He doesn’t love me! I asked him, and he said no!’
‘And you two weren’t cheating on me? Or intending to?’
‘This is the twenty-first century!’ she said.
‘No, it isn’t. It’s the hundred and twentieth B.C. You didn’t answer my question.’
‘No, we weren’t cheating on you. You know I wouldn’t deceive you; I’d tell you what I was doing or what I intended to do. And John would never stoop to do anything behind a person’s back. You should know him better than that! Can you actually conceive of him doing anything base or sneaky?’
‘Noble John. Nature’s aristocrat!’
They were silent. He started toward the camp again but stopped after a few steps.
‘I swore I wouldn’t ever say anything about this until we returned. But I feel I must tell you now. Only you will have to promise me you won’t tell Robert or Gribardsun.’
‘How can I do that if it turns out that what you’re going to tell me may hurt John if I keep silent?’
He shrugged and said, ‘Unless you promise not to tell anyone, I won’t tell you.’
Rachel looked steadily at him as if she were trying to tunnel straight into his mind, into the chamber where the secret hid. Then she said, ‘All right. I promise.’
‘You mean it?’
‘Have I ever lied to you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
He licked his lips.
‘Well, here goes. The day before our quarantine, de Longnors called me and asked if he could talk to me in private. You were gone, so I said yes. He was at our apartment in ten minutes, and after making sure the place wasn’t bugged, and with me wondering what was going on, he told me everything he knew - and suspected - about Gribardsun.’
‘Naturally he’d be angry with John.’
‘There was more to it than that. You see, he’d talked with Moishe, not too long before Moishe died. Moishe was already sick by then, and he knew he was going to die. He called in de Longnors, who at that time was to be head of our expedition. He told de Longnors a strange tale, one which de Longnors found difficult to believe. Moishe said that thirty years before, in 2038, when he was still working on his theory of time mechanics, he was approached by Gribardsun. At that time almost no one knew what Moishe was working on and those who did thought he was a crackpot. In fact, Moishe almost lost his position as an instructor in physics at the University of Greater Europe because his superiors thought he was an imbecile or psychotic. Or both.
‘But the pressure from them suddenly and inexplicably eased off. And Moishe was given the go-ahead. Not only that; he was granted leave from his teaching duties and given more computer facilities.
‘Moishe said that this took place almost immediately after he had explained to Gribardsun what he was doing. Apparently Gribardsun had a grasp of Moishe’s theory that no one else had at that time. Moishe said it wasn’t because Gribardsun was such a great mathematician. But he seemed to have an almost intuitive comprehension. As if he spoke - or thought - in a language that had the same structure as Moishe’s mathematics. Moishe couldn’t explain what his impressions of Gribardsun were, but he felt a repressed force and something slightly unhuman - not inhuman - in him. As if the man had a somewhat non-Homo sapiens Weltanschauung.
‘Whatever Gribardsun was, he wanted Moishe to go full jets ahead. And Moishe was given everything he asked for. At the time he did not connect the Englishman’s visit with what followed. Gribardsun had not promised anything. But later, Moishe made a few investigations - after he became suspicious, that is; he could not prove it, but he suspected that Gribardsun had somehow pulled strings to get the project going. All of this was thirty years before construction on the vessel had started. Twenty-four years before the final project was approved.’
‘Moishe was always a very busy man. But he got several men interested in Gribardsun, men in the International Criminal Agency who, in the event, took a long time to find out little. But their findings were significant, though improvable. Mostly, they concluded that something was rotten, not in Denmark, but in England and in Time. And in Africa.
‘By using the facilities of the World Reference Bank, they learned that Gribardsun had been interested for a long tune in trying to analyze the structure of Time. Moreover, so had his father. Now, our John Gribardsun was born in Derbyshire in 2020, which makes him fifty years old - fifty-one by now. He looks as if he’s thirty, which is no miracle in this day of rejuvenation drugs. His father, who looked exactly like him, was born in 1980, and disappeared while sailing off the coast of Kenya. Apparently not much was known about his father. Though an English duke, he spent most of his life in East Africa.’
‘His father was born in vague circumstances in W
Rachel said, ‘What about it? What about any of this stuff? What’s the point?’
‘To start with, from John Gribardsun born in 1872, every Duke of Gribardsun spent most of his life in Africa. And though they served their country in war, they took no other part in public life. Moreover, their source of income was very shadowy. They were suspected of having a gold mine somewhere in Central Africa, and the original duke and his descendants had much trouble - if rumors could be believed - with criminals determined to find that mine. And if you think that is a fairy tale, let me tell you that every once in a while an eruption of gold onto the black market could be traced back to Africa. But never directly to the doorstep of the Gribardsuns. Money was abandoned everywhere in the early twenties, if you’ll remember. The economy of abundance was adopted worldwide. And at the same time the British peerage was abolished. So the Gribardsuns lost both title and their secret wealth at the same time. But our John went into the professions. He was a doctor and also an administrator of the World Reference Bank. He had access to the administrative records, and to the men who kept them, both as their doctor and as their supervisor. A strange double career, don’t you think? Especially in these days, when no man has to work if he doesn’t care to. Yet Gribardsun had two professions. And during his long and frequent vacations, he spent much time on the Inner Kenyan Sanctuary and the Ugandan Preserve. It was there he did his work for his MQA thesis on physical anthropology. And it was out of there, if you can believe the findings of the ICA, that some strange tales began coming - all about John Gribardsun: his great strength, his ability to live off the jungle, his singular ability to get along with animals. There were even rumors that he was ageless. The natives of the sanctuary and the preserve spoke of that. They claimed that he was several hundred years old and been given a magic potion when he was very young by a native witch doctor. These stories were discounted, of course. But then ICA came across some disquieting - or maybe just puzzling - things when they were checking out the World Reference Bank. There were indications - but nothing that could be proved - that the records had been tampered with.’
‘What in the world are you driving at?’ Rachel said. But her eyes were wide, her skin pale, and a pulse beat in the hollow of her neck.
‘Well, the ICA men were thorough, and very well trained, but not what you might call imaginative. They put together a picture and then refused to believe it. They did, however, check out the fingerprints, photographs, and biographical data of the John Gribardsun born in 1872 against each of his descendants. They did so, they said, as a matter of routine, but they were looking for something which I don’t think they expressed even to each other.
‘However, his descendants, though they looked much like him, had different fingerprints. And though the original John never had retinal or ear or brainwave prints, his descendants did. And theirs were unique. But then, false records can be made. And the lives of the later Gribardsuns, which should have been much more thoroughly documented and detailed, were almost as shadowy as that of the man born in 1872. The Gribardsuns did not even go to public school; they all had private tutors.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ Rachel said, but she did not look as if she were mocking him.
‘But the thorough investigation into our John turned up nothing that could be used against him. And so the investigation was dropped. But then the first experiments with time travel were made. And that strange block which extended from our time back to around 1870 was discovered. Of all the theories advanced - and there were some wild ones - the wildest was, I believe, the true one. You remember my commenting on it last year when we were talking about the early experiments? Perrault said that perhaps someone who had been born in the late seventies still lived. And the structure of Time was such that no object or person could be sent back to a time when anybody living then was still living in our time. He was scoffed at, of course, because that would mean that somewhere in the world was a man two hundred and some years old.’
She nodded and said, ‘I know. But with the drugs and techniques we now have, some day people will live as long as that - longer - and yet be young.’
‘Yes, but they didn’t have those drugs in the nineteenth or twentieth century.’
‘Somebody might have. Some backwoods witch doctor perhaps. You can’t say it’s beyond the bounds of possibility.’
He shook his head and hit his temple with the butt of his palm.
‘When Moishe heard this theory of Perrault’s, he was the only scientist who didn’t pooh-pooh it. At least, he made no statement whatever on it. But that 1872 date rang the gong, you might say. He began thinking about Gribardsun. Yet he didn’t want to do anything to antagonize the man. Gribardsun, he was sure, was responsible for time travel. He didn’t originate the theory or work out the physical techniques, of course. But if it hadn’t been for him, Moishe could never have gotten any place. He was certain of that - though, again, he couldn’t prove it.
‘But what was Gribardsun’s motive? If Gribardsun did have the elixir a hundred years or so before anybody eke, why was he so interested in time travel, why had he worked so hard to bring it about? Especially when it looked as if he wasn’t going to enjoy its benefits. He was only sixth in priority, and he had only gotten that high in some unaccountable manner.
‘And then, suddenly, he was second. One thing after another had happened to those in line ahead of him. Sickness, a sudden loss of interest or of courage. One man resigned without giving any reasons and took off for Tahiti. Very mysterious.
‘Moishe was very sick by this time then. He…’
‘Are you suggesting that Gribardsun poisoned him, too?’ Rachel said.
‘No. Moishe was never intended to go on the expedition. He was too old and besides, he didn’t have the qualifications. No, he got one of the rare incurable cancers - as you know - and he was dying. He hoped he’d live long enough to see the expedition off. It was his greatest wish, and he never got it. Moses before the Promised Land, he used to say, when he felt well enough to joke. Which wasn’t often. But Gribardsun worried him. He couldn’t see what sinister motive the man had, if his motive was sinister. Then de Longnors disappeared, and Moishe was certain that Gribardsun was responsible. But Moishe didn’t have long to live, and he did owe Gribardsun a great debt, and he did not want to make accusations which would result in the expedition being held up. A few days’delay would mean he’d die before the launching. As it turned out, he did die before the launching. Anyway, he told me the story. And he asked me not to tell anybody. But I was to keep an eye on Gribardsun, and, after I returned, if I felt it was justified, I was to reveal the whole story. Of course I promised, but I felt like a fool. The whole thing was so fantastic. Or so I thought then. Now I don’t think so at all. And when I get back…’
‘You still have nothing to tell,’ she said. ‘Moreover, you have been mentally sick, and your story would be hushed up to protect you more than John.’
‘Do you mean that you think it’s all nonsense?’
‘No, I don’t. I think that what you and Moishe suspected is true. But what can any of us do about it? Besides, I can’t believe that John would do anything dishonest or in any way evil.’
‘That’s because you’re still in love with him!’
‘Probably.’
Drummond clamped his teeth tightly and balled his hands.
Strange sounds came from beneath his teeth.
Rachel said, ‘Drummond! Don’t! I can’t help it! Please don’t get sick again! You have to face reality!’
He opened his fists and released the tension on his jaws and breathed out heavily. He said, ‘Al
‘There’s Robert!’ she said. ‘He looks worried. I wonder if anything’s happened to John!’
She ran toward him. Von Billmann said, ‘Laminak’s very sick. I need your help.’
The girl was lying on furs on the floor of the tent, the walls of which had been rolled up so that the cooling wind could pass over her. Amaga, her mother, and Abinal, her brother, squatted near her. Glamug was not present with his medicine paint, his spirit-scaring mask, his rattles and bull roarer and his baton de commandement. He was out hunting and, since game was scarce near the camp, was probably miles away.
Laminak’s skin was flushed but dry, and her fever was 101-6°F. She looked dully at the three as they bent over her, and then she mumbled, ‘Koorik?’
‘He’s not here, but I’m sure he soon will be,’ Rachel said.
She patted the girl’s hand, and then lifted her head to give her a drink from her canteen.
With Rachel’s help, von Billmann took saliva, skin, and blood samples into the little medical analyzer, together with their observations on her fever and other physical symptoms. The analyzer was able to detect every virus and bacterium and germ known to the twenty-first century, to define any type of cancer, and to interpret symptoms.
It took fifteen minutes to run through the samples from Laminak, and the coded result on the tape was: DISEASE UNKNOWN. POSSIBLE PSYCHOSOMATIC ORIGIN. Laminak’s fever rose to 102-1°F. and stayed there until late that night. She would drink water but had no desire to eat. She became delirious that evening, and she mumbled and groaned much.
Of the few words they could determine, Koorik was the most frequent.
‘She’s been pining away ever since Koorik left,’ Amaga said. ‘Then she brightened up when the time came for him to return. But as the days passed and he did not come, she became sick. Last night, she started to burn, and she will not stop now until she is dead, unless Koorik comes back. And there is not much time for that.’
‘I can’t believe that she could get so sick just grieving for John,’ Rachel said.