The feeling, Burke decided, basically was one of frustration--a
moiling, roiling, boiling tension that crept higher and higher as his
own helplessness became the more apparent.
Well, what else could he expect, in a situation sprung from
monomania's loins? From the beginning, everything about this business
had had the spell of madness on it. Success, when the cards were down,
had always been too much to hope for.
Now, thinking of it, Burke could only sigh bleakly and shake his head.
Only that wasn't quite true, either. For his head wouldn't shake, and
his sigh held neither sound nor breath.
How had it all come about, this nightmare? Where had it started, really?
With the Research Professor?
With The Girl?
With The Director?
But no. In his heart Burke knew that none of them held the answer.
Because the beginning lay farther back ... so much, much farther....
... All the way back to the old, dormer-windowed house amid the elms,
and his childhood, and the Bowl of Minos.
The bowl....
He could still remember the first time he saw it, lying in a
litter-heaped trunk up in the attic.
Fascinated, he'd picked it up and run stubby fingers over the stylized
Minoan octopus that stood out in bold relief upon its surface, till it
seemed he could almost feel the twining tentacles' pressure.
It brought a queer sense of excitement to him ... a sort of paradox of
feeling that made him thrill to the bowl's beauty even while he stared
at the creature that served as its decoration with a strange, shuddery
sensation close akin to horror.
Then his mother saw what he was doing, and took the pottery vessel from
him, explaining the while about the footloose, adventuring uncle who'd
brought it here all the way from Crete.
A lump formed in Burke's throat as he recalled her patience ... how
when she'd found him returning again and again to the attic and
the trunk, she'd brought the bowl down and given it a place on the
livingroom table, where he could examine it all at will.
Someone even told him about Minos and Theseus and Pasiphae and Ariadne
and the Minotaur, and all the rest of the legendry that went with
Bronze Age Crete.
Yet the legends were never quite enough. They raised too many
questions; left too much unsaid.
The fragments of fact he picked up proved even less satisfactory.
How had a civilization rich and powerful and advanced as that of the
Minoans ever risen on a sea-isolated island such as Crete?
Where had the Minoans learned their skills, their arts?
Above all, why had their culture vanished? What brought about Great
Knossos' fall?
Questions without answers, all of them. Mysteries like the Cretan's
strange, undeciphered writing, and the final fate of lovely Princess
Ariadne, Minos' daughter, and how Theseus, bare-handed, could have
slain the mighty Minotaur.
It was all enough to drive a seven-eight-nine-ten-year-old boy to
distraction!
Then a careless visitor's elbow knocked the bowl to the floor. It
shattered into shards.
At ten, a boy's too old to cry--before company, at least. So he'd
clenched his fists behind his back, and blinked back the tears, and
held his mouth to a stiff white line till he could be alone, face
pillow-muffled, behind the closed door of his room.
And from that moment he'd known that sometime, somehow, he himself
would find his way to Crete.
School became a place where he greedily snatched up crumbs of mythology
and history between dreary hours spent battling his way through all the
other subjects his teachers demanded that he learn.
High school brought a broader view. He began to see the
interrelatedness of learning. Literature, chemistry, physics,
Latin--of a sudden he found he loved them all.
Yet always, always, there ahead lay Knossos, beckoning.
How old had he been when, avidly, he plowed his way through Sir Arthur
Evans' "Palace of Minos", groping his way by context past all the
unfamiliar words? Thirteen? Fourteen?
By high school commencement time, he no longer cared that his parents
couldn't understand his passion for things Cretan.
College, then. Major in anthropology, minor in classics. Greek now,
as well as Latin. Linguistics, too. Comparative cultures, technical
photography, ethnological methods, archaeological methods, museum
methods. Year after year, course after course.
And always, the same goal. Let others weigh and choose between
Yucatan and Oceania, Murdering Beach and the Valley of the Kings. For
him--ever; always--there was only Minos and Knossos and Bronze Age
Crete.
Dion Burke, B.A., now, Dion Burke, M.A.
* * * * *
Then, the last step; the final goal: the onward, upward march to Doctor
of Philosophy, Ph.D.
Or rather, not quite: not quite Ph.D.
And that was where The Director came in.
Burke cursed the day he'd met him.
A kindly soul, The Director, by his own statement, in spite of his
scowl and beetling brows and jutting, heavy-boned, prognathous jaw. So
fascinated by all things Minoan. So happy such a brilliant student had
selected this most benign of all universities as the one at which to
work for his doctorate.
It was only a step from there to casual acquaintance with The Research
Professor.
The Professor was the first universally-acknowledged-as-authentic
genius Burke had even known. Even the man's colleagues on the staff
of the university's Science Institute agreed that he knew more about
certain aspects of electronics than anyone alive.
The Professor, it developed, wanted Burke's collaboration on a
project--a device he termed a "computational translator" which he felt
might solve the riddle of the mysterious Minoan language, if only its
hieroglyphics could somehow be reduced to sound.
That was when Burke brought out his own idea, his madman's dream for
the ultimate archaeological tool.
An inverter, he called it; a time inverter, designed to carry
researchers back bodily into the past.
The Professor scoffed openly when Burke first told him about it.
The second time, he frowned and tugged at his pointed chin.
The third found him already at work.
The computational translator, and the time inverter. Two lunatic
concepts, born of monomania and genius.
Two concepts that, it appeared increasingly, just might work.
Time out for Korea ... Chinese communists in quilted coats ... blood
and iron and freezing death.
Well, at least it would pay for the rest of the doctorate, under the GI
Bill.
If he lived through it.
The notice of the car crash reached him at Heartbreak Ridge.
No mother now, no father. Just an inheritance.
More courses, more digging, more Professor's letters, pulsing
excitement and jubilation for all their veiled language.
Home again. Back to the university. The shock of seeing at first
hand just how far The Professor had gone; how short a distance there
remained to go.
And then, at last, The Girl, and the old line about passes and glasses
turning out not always to be true after all.
More courses, more digging, more months slipping by. The discussions,
increasingly acerbic, as it developed that The Director was a
stiff-necked, belligerent bigot who classed Sir Arthur Evans and God in
that order when it came to authority on matters Minoan.
The Girl, encouraging, all intellect and well-bred adoration. The
Professor, designing a new-type radiation detector to help search out
the truth about Knossos' fall, just in case they never did get the time
inverter to work properly.
The Director, adamant.
The inverter, failing again and and again.
The faint, nagging disappointment of discovering that The Girl could
discuss the courtship customs of Papua and Parthia and Patagonia in
detail, yet still hold a man at arm's length here on the campus.
But still, there was his dissertation to sustain him, his long-planned
trip to Crete to cling to. Even if it took every penny of his
inheritance, even if The Girl wouldn't marry him and go along because
he still lacked his degree, the journey couldn't help but prove
worthwhile.
By air, to London. Then to Athens and the British School, to complete
contacts.
Finally, down across the Aegean to Crete itself.
He had to shove his hands deep into his pockets to hide their trembling
when first he stepped from the car at Knossos. Even seeing the
reconstructed palace with his own eyes shook him that much.
The British, polite and helpful as they tried to hide their amusement
at the use of the detector. The Cretan workmen, exchanging glances that
said openly that he was surely mad.
And then, the needle, going crazy--trying to bounce clear off the dial.
The headphones, buzzing till his ears hurt.
Endless hours of aching to talk to someone, yet not daring. Long days
when the right words for the dissertation just wouldn't come.
And the words had to be right, exactly. He couldn't content himself
with anything less. The whole dissertation--every page, every sentence,
must be logic-grounded, solidly-documented, overwhelming evidence to
prove his hypothesized explanation of the fall of Knossos.
He finished it, finally ... came home again ... turned in the first
draft....
Then came that day in The Director's office. That ugly day, the last
Burke was to spend in his own time and place.
The argument; the tempers, rising.
The Director--face flushed, jaw outthrust: "You young whelp, how dare
you contradict Sir Arthur Evans? Would you set yourself up on a level
with Hogarth? Pendlebury? Wace?" And then, the final knife-thrust:
"Very well; have it your way. But so far as I'm concerned, I'll not
accept this dissertation, now or ever. And so long as I'm here, you'll
receive no doctorate, let alone a recommendation of any sort!"
Exit The Director. Forever.
Then, The Girl: "But Dion! Why did you have to be so stubborn? You
could at least have kept your opinions to yourself till later.
Now--well, how much of a field is there for an archaeologist with only
an M. A. degree? You might as well forget Crete right now. And for my
part, I must admit the idea of being the wife of an instructor in some
second-rate college, at four thousand a year hardly appeals to me."
Exit The Girl. Forever.
The Research Professor, finally: "Damn it, Burke, I just don't dare to
back you on it! Old Ape-Jaw's got the president's ear. If I even let it
be known I designed that detector, I'll be operating this laboratory on
a negative budget next biennium."
Exit The Professor. Forever.
In spirit, at least.
In body, though, he still might have his uses.
* * * * *
Burke held his voice carefully level. "In other words, then, you won't
even let me use your name as supporting authority for my statement
that the ruins at Knossos still show radiation traces?"
The Professor: "I'm sorry, Dion."
"But the time inverter--"
"Are you completely insane, boy? I built that thing with university
funds. If anyone should find out about it, and that I didn't have
proper authorization for it--well, all I've got to say is that I'm
going to junk it first thing in the morning, before The Director has a
chance to snoop around."
What happens to a man when he plunges into that deep a pit? How many
blows can he take before he cracks?
Burke didn't even recognize that it was raining when he stepped out
into the street.
Dully, he tramped through the gathering dusk. Block after block, mile
after mile, hardly aware that his clothes clung to his body, soaked, or
that water sloshed in and out of his shoes with every step.
Slowly, then, his thoughts began to sort themselves into some sort of
order. A little at a time, conclusions took form and gave strength.
When it came right down to it, he didn't give a hang whether he ever
achieved a Ph. D. degree or not.
So to hell with The Director!
As for security, a job, he'd lived through Heartbreak Ridge; and after
that, any more economic peril came out as strictly anticlimax.
Losing The Girl--well, he had no choice but to admit it bruised his
ego. Yet, on the other hand, it relieved him of all the gnawing inner
doubts, the secret hesitations at her coolness.
The Professor? Another disappointment. But the mere fact that an idol's
feet turned out to be of clay hardly rated as a unique discovery.
At any rate, he'd survive it.
So, what did that leave of his losses?
He cringed.
That was the way with dreams. They were so hard to give up.
And he'd worked towards this one for so long.
Now, there was nothing left to do but face the facts: he'd never have a
chance at Crete; never really know for sure why Knossos fell.
Unless--
Burke stopped short.
What had The Professor said? That he'd destroy the time inverter first
thing tomorrow morning?
Which still left tonight, didn't it?
It was a thought to appall any man in his right mind. For while The
Professor admitted to small progress with the machine, he also said
frankly that he was completely stymied in the most vital area: while
he had succeeded in transporting objects from present to past on an
experimental basis, he couldn't move them even an instant into the
future.
Carrying this a step further, anything sent into the past stayed there.
It couldn't be returned to the present.
And that meant that if anyone named Dion Burke should prove so mad as
to send himself back to Bronze Age Crete, there he'd stay, with no
chance ever of return to Twentieth Century United States.
It was a thought to numb a man.
Yet, was it really so insane?
After all, what was more important to him than that he learn the truth
about the fall of ancient Knossos? What else could satisfy him, after
all these years?
Even if he died, it wouldn't matter too much. His parents were already
gone, his friends mostly on the casual side.
For the first time, now, it dawned on Burke that rain was splattering
in his face. It felt good. His clothes and shoes--he didn't even care
that they were ruined.
Pivoting, he started the long tramp back to his apartment.
There, for comfort, he took a hot shower; then put on a clean, dry
outfit.
It seemed like a good idea, also, to check his watch, fill his
cigarette lighter, and stow the old five-shot Smith & Wesson
thirty-eight he'd inherited from his father in the waistband of his
trousers.
By the time he'd completed all such arrangements, the rain had stopped.
Here and there, stars shone amid the thin clouds overhead.
* * * * *
Head up, shoulders back, Burke strolled along the wet, glistening walk
towards the campus. He felt somehow detached, apart from the world
about him, and it was a good feeling, even though he also enjoyed the
smell of the rain-soaked earth, and the way leaves had piled up in
little dams along the gutter, and the hissing, whispering sound of
tires on wet pavement every time a car went by. Once he even caught
himself smiling a little, a small, quiet, secret smile, over the way
The Director and The Girl and The Professor each in turn had looked as
they took their stands and walked out of his life.
The main door of the Science Institute was still unlocked, so Burke
went on in, pausing only to nod pleasantly to a campus policeman who
happened to pass by at the moment.
The laboratory had a glass-paned door. Without hesitation, Burke rapped
a hole in it with the butt of his revolver, reached in long enough
to turn back the bolt, then stepped inside and locked the door again
behind him.
Now he turned to the inner room where The Professor dealt with his most
private matters.
The first thing he noted upon entering was a cluttered desk, on one
corner of which lay a flat box perhaps five by eight by two inches in
size.
That pleased him, for by its grilled front he recognized the thing as
the incredible, transistor-packed device The Professor described as a
"computational translator." Experiments with assorted foreign students
and American Indians of various tribes indicated that it would enable a
man to conduct a successful two-way conversation in any language.
Strapping the box in place flat against his belly, Burke moved on past
the desk.
Beyond it, around a corner, loomed the time inverter.
It was a cumbersome-looking thing, a cramped platform suspended amid
grids of wire. Each grid, in turn, fitted within a larger framework
appropriately equipped with calibrated spindles, so that the grids'
relative position to each other and to the inner platform could be
adjusted at will.
To one side, a neat control-board occupied a wall-space. A larger area
was given over to a screen somewhat like that of a television set.
Warily, Burke picked his way over to the screen. Now that he was here,
his stomach showed a strong tendency to quiver. Despite all the long
nights he'd spent in this room with The Professor, he found himself
doubting his own ability to operate the inverter. As for the theory of
the thing, that was completely beyond him.
But it was no time for doubt. Switching on the power, Burke carefully
set about adjusting the control dials.
Latitude and longitude came first, down to minutes and then seconds.
A moment's tuning, and Crete and then the Great Palace of Knossos lay
before him on the scanner screen.
Falling back a step, Burke rubbed the nape of his neck where it ached
from strain.
Time adjustment, now. A new set of dials.
The screen changed before his eyes. The work of excavation and
reconstruction vanished. Off to one side, olive groves appeared. Then a
building with unmistakably Byzantine architecture flashed on.
Again Burke twisted the dial. Again.
Now whole towns came and went. One moment, the screen showed neat huts
and cultivated fields; the next, ruins or no buildings at all.
But never a trace of people. People moved too quickly for even the
finest settings of the time-spindles to show them.
Farther back ... farther ... farther....
And now there was only a great, dark ring on the hillside to mark the
palace. Wall-blocks and pillars lay strewn like scorched blocks in all
directions. It was as if lightning had blasted the very earth. The few
huts to be seen stood far off, as if the site of Knossos were a place
accursed, to be avoided under pain of death.
A chill touched Burke; and though he'd seen this sight a dozen times
before, his fingers trembled.
Back farther ... farther....
As swiftly as it had darkened, the screen came bright. The palace rose
again, white gypsum walls and columns aglisten in the sunlight.
Skillfully, Burke adjusted the detail dial, working forward again to
the moment when the palace had crumbled.
* * * * *
The disaster came at night; that was plain to see. And so fast that the
screen could not record the instant when it happened. One second, the
buildings were there, solid as only rock could make them.
The next, there were only dark, blighted ruins.
Of course, the destruction could conceivably have taken hours, yet
still show as instantaneous on the scanner.
But if a man were to go back to a time, say, twelve hours before the
cataclysm....
He'd need to choose the right place, too ... somewhere out of the line
of palace traffic--that apartment off the Queen's Megaron, for instance.
Not too steadily, Burke set the dials; then straightened.
The realization of his own folly flooded through him in the same
instant.
How could anyone be so mad as to sacrifice his life on the altar of
sheer intellectual curiosity? What did it matter if he never knew why
Knossos fell? To go through with this because he'd been intrigued by an
octopus-decorated Minoan bowl as a child of seven--it was absurd. His
place was here--in his own time, his own land. To think otherwise could
only be evidence of gross imbalance.
He started to reach for the main switch; to turn off the inverter.
Simultaneously, a hand rattled the knob of the laboratory's outer door.
Burke froze.
Now a key clicked in the lock. A voice--the voice of the campus
policeman--called, "All right, you! Come on out! We know you're there!"
And then, not quite so plainly, the voice of The Professor: "Be
careful, officer. He's been acting queerly--thinks I've some kind of
strange machine in there. What he needs is a psychiatrist. But till we
can get him to one, he may be dangerous."
The Professor, coppering his bets ... taking no chances on trouble over
having misused university funds to finance a private project.
Not even if it involved proclaiming a friend insane.
The final straw, piled on the camel's back.
And only one way out.
Savagely, Burke whipped the Smith & Wesson from his belt; then,
tight-lipped, flicked a quick glance along the dials.
The inverter was as ready as it ever would be.
Breathing hard, Burke slid between the wire grids; stepped up onto the
cramped central platform.
From the outer room: "Come out, now, Burke! You'll have a chance to
prove you're sane--just a few tests, a month or two of observation--"
Burke gripped the activating switch, the lever that would throw full
power into the grids.
Again, then, he hesitated.
The campus policeman's head appeared around the corner, peering. To
one side, The Professor cried out. "The inverter--! Stop him!"
It was like a wire snapping in Burke's brain. He fired a single shot,
high, and simultaneously threw the activating switch in one swift,
coordinated flow of motion.
The grid-wires glowed. A tingle of energy pulsed through Burke's body.
The laboratory disappeared....