"Star, Robert," I said to them both, "I want your promise that you
will not leave this time, until I let you. Now I couldn't punish you if
you broke your promise, because I couldn't follow you. But I want your
promise on your word of honor you won't leave this time."
"We promise." They each held up a hand, as if swearing in court. "No
more leaving this time."
I let the kids go back outside into the yard. Jim and I looked at one
another for a long while, breathing hard enough to have been running.
"I'm sorry," I said at last.
"I know," he answered. "So am I. But I don't blame you. I simply
forgot, for a moment, how much a daughter could mean to a man." He was
silent, and then added, with the humorous quirk back at the corner
of his lips, "I can just see myself reporting this interview to the
museum."
"You don't intend to, do you?" I asked, alarmed.
"And get myself canned or laughed at? I'm not that stupid."
* * * * *
_September 10th_
Am I actually getting it? I had a flash for an instant. I was
concentrating on Caesar's triumphant march into Rome. For the briefest
of instants, _there it was_! I was standing on the roadway, watching.
But, most peculiar, it was still a picture; I was the only thing
moving. And then, just as abruptly, I lost it.
Was it only a hallucination? Something brought about by intense
concentration and wishful thinking?
Now let's see. You visualize a cube. Then you ESP it a half twist and
seal the edges together--No, when it has the half twist there's only
one surface. You seal that surface all around you--
Sometimes I think I have it. Sometimes I despair. If only I were a
Bright instead of a Tween!
* * * * *
_October 23rd_
I don't see how I managed to make so much work of teleporting myself.
It's the simplest thing in the world, no effort at all. Why, a child
could do it! That sounds like a gag, considering that it was two
children who showed me how, but I mean the whole thing is easy enough
for even almost any kid to learn. The problem is understanding the
steps ... no, not understanding, because I can't say I do, but working
out the steps in the process.
There's no danger, either. No wonder it felt like a still picture at
first, for the speeding up is incredible. That bullet I got in the way
of, for instance--I was able to go and meet it and walk along beside it
while it traveled through the air. To the men who were dueling, I must
have been no more than an instantaneous streak of movement.
That's why the youngsters laughed at the suggestion of danger. Even if
they materialized right in the middle of an atomic blast, it is so slow
by comparison that they could TP right out again before they got hurt.
The blast can't travel any faster than the speed of light, you see,
while there is no limit to the speed of thought.
But I still haven't given them permission to teleport themselves out
of this time yet. I want to go over the ages pretty carefully before I
do; I'm not taking any chances, even though I don't see how they could
wind up in any trouble. Still, Robert claimed the Brights went from the
future back into the beginning, which means they could be going through
time and overtake any of the three of us, and one of them might be
hostile--
I feel like a louse, not taking Jim's cameras, specimen boxes and
recorders along. But there's time for that. Plenty of time, once I get
the feel of history without being encumbered by all that stuff to carry.
Speaking of time and history--what a rotten job historians have done!
For instance:
George III of England was neither crazy nor a moron. He wasn't a
particularly nice guy, I'll admit--I don't see how anybody could be
with the amount of flattery I saw--but he was the victim of empire
expansion and the ferment of the Industrial Revolution. So were all the
other European rulers at the time, though. He certainly did better than
Louis of France. At least George kept his job and his head.
On the other hand, John Wilkes Booth was definitely psychotic. He could
have been cured if they'd had our methods of psychotherapy then, and
Lincoln, of course, wouldn't have been assassinated. It was almost a
compulsion to prevent the killing, but I didn't dare.... God knows what
effect it would have had on history. Strange thing, Lincoln looked
less surprised than anybody else when he was shot, sad, yes, and hurt
emotionally at least as much as physically, yet you'd swear he was
expecting it.
Cheops was _plenty_ worried about the number of slaves who died while
the pyramid was being built. They weren't easy to replace. He gave them
four hours off in the hottest part of the day, and I don't think any
slaves in the country were fed or housed better.
I never found any signs of Atlantis or Lemuria, just tales of lands
far off--a few hundred miles was a big distance then, remember--that
had sunk beneath the sea. With the Ancients' exaggerated notion of
geography, a big island was the same as a continent. Some islands did
disappear, naturally, drowning a few thousand villagers and herdsmen.
That must have been the source of the legends.
Columbus was a stubborn cuss. He was thinking of turning back when the
sailors mutinied, which made him obstinate. I still can't see what was
eating Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great--it would have been a big
help to know the languages, because their big campaigns started off
more like vacation or exploration trips. Helen of Troy was attractive
enough, considering, but she was just an excuse to fight.
There were several attempts to federate the Indian tribes before the
white man and the Five Nations, but going after wives and slaves ruined
the movement every time. I think they could have kept America if they
had been united and, it goes without saying, knew the deal they were
going to get. At any rate, they might have traded for weapons and tools
and industrialized the country somewhat in the way the Japanese did.
I admit that's only speculation, but this would certainly have been a
different world if they'd succeeded!
One day I'll put it all in a comprehensive _and corrected_ history of
mankind, _complete with photographs_, and then let the "experts" argue
themselves into nervous breakdowns over it.
I didn't get very far into the future. Nowhere near the Star Men, or,
for that matter, back to the beginning that Robert told us about. It's
a matter of reasoning out the path and I'm not a Bright. I'll take
Robert and Star along as guides, when and if.
What I did see of the future wasn't so good, but it wasn't so bad,
either. The real mess obviously doesn't happen until the Star Men
show up very far ahead in history, if Robert is right, and I think he
is. I can't guess what the trouble will be, but it must be something
ghastly if they won't be able to get out of it even with the enormously
advanced technology they'll have. Or maybe that's the answer. It's
almost true of us now.
* * * * *
_November, Friday 14th_
The Howells have gone for a weekend trip and left Robert in my care.
He's a good kid and no trouble. He and Star have kept their promise,
but they're up to something else. I can sense it and that feeling of
expectant dread is back with me.
They've been secretive of late. I catch them concentrating intensely,
sighing with vexation, and then breaking out into unexplained giggles.
"Remember your promise," I warned Star while Robert was in the room.
"We're not going to break it, Daddy," she answered seriously.