"Captain Marks is waiting for you," he said and jerked his head toward
a door to the rear.
Captain Marks had his office in a cubbyhole off the main room. It was
quite a comedown from the quarters he'd occupied upstairs as captain of
detectives. He'd held onto that job past his retirement age and, when
they were about to throw him out on his ear, D. F. C. came along and
he jumped at it. The Captain was not the retiring type.
His door was open, and he waved me in. "Sit down, Forsdon," he said.
"Welcome to the Department of Future Crime."
I sat down, and he looked me over. A lean, hard face, closely cropped
white hair, and steely grey eyes that looked through a man, rather
than at him. Small--five feet seven, a hundred and forty pounds. You
looked at him and wondered how he'd ever gotten on the force in the
first place, until you saw his eyes. I'd never felt comfortable in his
presence.
"Do you know what we have here, Forsdon?" he said.
"Not exactly."
"I don't either--exactly. The brass upstairs thinks it's an expensive
toy. It is. But they've given us a trial budget to see if it works, and
now it's up to us."
I nodded, and waited for him to go on. He packed his pipe, lit it, and
then leaned back and let the smoke go out.
"We have an invention," he said, "which I don't pretend to understand.
You saw the thing?"
"Yes," I said. It wasn't easy to overlook.
"Walker calls it Cronus--for the Greek God of Time. It gives us random
glances around the city on what looks like a large TV screen--random
glances into the _future_!" He paused for dramatic effect, and I
probably disappointed him. I already knew that much. "The picture is
hazy," he went on, "and sometimes we have a hell of a time figuring out
the location of whatever it is we're looking at. We also have trouble
pinpointing the time of an event. But we can't deny the potential.
We've been in operation for three weeks, and already we've seen half a
dozen holdups days before they happened."
"At least it's an ideal we've always worked for," I offered. "I mean,
to prevent crime, rather than just catch the criminal."
"Oh!" he said, and went to work on his pipe again. "Maybe I didn't
make myself clear. We saw the holdups on that screen, but we couldn't
_prevent_ a single one. All we managed to do was catch the criminal
a few minutes after he had committed the crime. So it raises an
interesting question: Is it possible to change the future?"
"Why not?" I said.
Captain Marks thought a moment. "It isn't too critical, where the
holdups are concerned. The criminal is caught immediately, the loot is
recovered, and the victim goes his way thinking kind thoughts about
the efficiency of the police force. But what about assault, or rape,
or murder? Apprehending the criminal ten minutes later won't be much
comfort to the victim. But now that you're here to follow up the leads
given us by Cronus--well, we'll see what we can do. Come on. I want you
to meet Walker. And Cronus!"
Walker--Dr. Howard F. Walker--was huddled over his creation. There was
no doubt about it being his baby, as you could see from the way his
hands caressed the dials. He was a gangling-looking man, six feet one,
maybe 170 pounds, fifty-odd years old. He had a long neck, an overly
pronounced Adam's apple, and thinning hair. He wore thick glasses,
his face was gentle and dignified, and he looked like a very tired
university professor.
He didn't hear us come up, and the Old Man waited quietly until he
noticed us.
"Walker," the Old Man said, "this is Forsdon, our new detective."
He nodded at me. "Cronus has something," he said. "If I can find it
again...."
He turned to his dials.
"That's one of our problems," Captain Marks said. "Once we focus on
a crime, it's sometimes hard to locate it again. The time interval
between the present and the time the crime is committed keeps getting
less. It takes a different adjustment each time...."
His voice trailed away, and I looked from Walker to the six-foot-square
screen above his head. Shadows flitted about on the screen. A female
shadow walking along the street holding a child shadow by the hand.
Shadow aircars moving along jerkily. A row of male shadows grotesquely
posed along a bar, their glasses making bright blotches in the picture.
A room, and a female shadow moving around a table. The future revealed
by Cronus was a shadow world and the only way you could tell male from
female was by their dress.
The scene kept shifting. A park, with trees, and lounging adults, and
running children. A room with people seated around a table, a reading
room, perhaps at the public library. A large living room, with an
old-fashioned fireplace, and a bright blotch that was the fire. Another
smaller room, a female shadow....
"That's it!" Walker said suddenly. He moved a motion picture camera
into position, and pressed a button. It whirred softly as we watched.
A nondescript living room. A female shadow. She threw up her hands and
stood transfixed for a horrible moment or two. A male shadow bounded
into the picture--a giant male shadow. She turned to run, and he caught
her from behind. His hand moved upward. Something glittered in it, and
he brought it down. He struck twice, and the female crumpled to the
floor. He whirled, ran toward us, and disappeared. The camera ground
on, recording the image of that shapeless shadow on the floor.
Abruptly the scene changed. A restaurant, with crowded tables and
jerkily moving robot-servers. Walker swore softly and turned off the
camera.
"That's all I got before," he said. "If I could come on it from a
different angle, maybe we could locate the place."
"When?" the Captain asked.
"Seven to twelve days."
It hit me, then, like a solid wallop on the jaw. I'd been looking into
the future.
* * * * *
"Plenty of time," the Captain said. "But not much to go on." He looked
at me. "What do you think?"
"Might be able to identify the man," I said. "He'll be well over six
feet--wouldn't surprise me if he were six-eight or nine. He'll have the
build of a male gorilla. And he limps slightly with his right foot."
"Not bad. Anything else?"
"It's an apartment or a hotel room," I said. "I'd guess an apartment.
The scanner screen by the door means it's either relatively new, or
it's been remodeled. The living room has a corner location, with
windows on two sides. It's hard to say for certain, but I believe
there's an old-fashioned sofa--one of those with a back on it--along
the far wall."
Walker slumped into a chair. "You make me feel better," he said. "I
thought there was next to nothing to go on."