Clifford D. Simak

Sharp put up his hands and held his head between them. Then he took them away and said: “Now, let’s go at this slowly. One thing at a time. First one step and then another, till we get to the bottom of it.”

“I explained to you,” said Lambert, “that there’s just one thing that I want. It’s very simple really, all I want is to get home again.”

“Where is your time machine?” asked Sharp. “Where did you leave it. We can have a look at it.”

“I didn’t leave it anywhere. There’s no place I could leave it. It goes everywhere with me. It’s inside my head.”

“In your head!” yelled Sharp. “A time unit in your head. But that’s impossible.”

Maxwell grinned at Sharp. “When we were talking this afternoon,” he said, “you told me that Simonson revealed very little about his time machine. Now it appears-”

“I did tell you that,” Sharp agreed, “but who in their right mind would suspect that a time unit could be installed in a subject’s brain. It must a new principle. Something that we missed entirely.” He said to Lambert, “Do you have any idea how it works.”

“Not the slightest,” Lambert said. “The only thing I know is that when it was put into my head-a rather major surgical operation, I can assure you-I gained the ability to travel in time. I simply have to think of where I want to go, using certain rather simple coordinates, and I am there. But something has gone wrong. No matter what I think, I go banging back and forth, like a yo-yo, from one time to yet another, none of which are the times I want to be.”

“It would have advantages,” said Sharp, speaking musingly and more to himself than to the rest of them. “It would admit of independent action and it would be small, much smaller than the mechanism that we have to use. It would have to be to go inside the brain and… I don’t suppose, Lambert, that you know too much about it?”

“I told you,” Lambert said. “Not a thing. I wasn’t really interested in how it worked. Simonson happens to be a friend of mine…”

“But why here? Why did you come here? To this particular place and time?”

“An accident, that’s all. And once I arrived it looked a lot more civilized than a lot of places I had been and I started inquiring around to orient myself. Apparently I had never been so far into the future before, for one of the first things I learned was that you did have time travel and that there was a Time College. Then I heard that Miss Clayton had a painting of mine, and thinking that if she had a painting I had done she might be disposed favorably toward me, I sought her out. In hope, you see, of finding out how to contact the people who might be able to use their good offices to send me home again. And it was while I was there that Inspector Drayton arrived.”

“Now, Mr. Lambert,” Nancy said, “before you go any further, there is something that I want to ask you. Why didn’t you, when you were back in the Jurassic or wherever it was that Harlow said you were, and you painted this picture-”

“You forget,” Lambert told her. “I haven’t painted it yet. I have some sketches and someday I expect-”

“Well, then, when you get around to painting that picture, why don’t you put in dinosaurs. There aren’t any dinosaurs in it and you just said you knew you were a long way in the past because there were dinosaurs.”

“I put no dinosaurs in the painting,” said Lambert, “for a very simple reason. There were no dinosaurs.”

“But you said…”

“You must realize,” Lambert explained patiently, “that I paint only what I see. I never subtract anything. I never add anything. And there were no dinosaurs because the creatures in the painting had chased them all away. So I put in no dinosaurs, nor any of the others.”

“Any of the others?” asked Maxwell. “What are you talking about now? What were these others?”

“Why,” said Lambert, “the ones with wheels.”

He stopped and looked around him at their stricken faces.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, not at all,” Carol said sweetly. “Go right ahead, Mr. Lambert, and tell us all about the ones with wheels.”

“You probably won’t believe me,” Lambert said, “and I can’t tell you what they were. The slaves, perhaps. The work horses. The bearers of the burdens. The serfs. They were life forms, apparently-they were alive, but they went on wheels instead of feet and they were not one thing alone. Each one of them was a hive of insects, like bees or ants. Social insects, apparently. You understand, I don’t expect that you’ll believe a word I say, but I swear…”

From somewhere far away came a rumble, the low, thudding rumble of rapidly advancing wheels. And as they stood, transfixed and listening, they knew that the wheels were coming down the corridor. Nearer came the rumble, growing louder as it advanced. Suddenly it was just outside the door and slowing down to turn and all at once a Wheeler stood inside the door.

“That’s one of them!” screamed Lambert. “What is it doing here?”

“Mr. Marmaduke,” said Maxwell, “it is good to see you once again.”