“Why not? There are sure to be adjustments to be made, allowances for erratic chronology caused by phenomena like the pull of comets and so forth. There might even have to be major alterations, though I doubt it. It may be some time before Ace can set me down at the exact year, month, day, hour, and minute agreed upon. But the fact of space-time-energy-matter correspondence can just as well be established this afternoon as next year.”
She was unbelievably at ease for someone whose lifework was about to be weighed. I have shown more nervousness discussing a disputed date with the honorary secretary of a local historical society.
“Sit down,” she invited; “there's nothing to do or see till Ace comes. I've missed you, Hodge.”
I felt this was a dangerous remark and wished I'd stayed far away from the workshop. I hooked my leg over a stool—there were no chairs—and coughed to hide the fact I was afraid to answer, I've missed you, too; and afraid not to.
“Tell me about your own work, Hodge. Catty says you're having difficulties.”
I was faintly annoyed with Catty, but whether for confiding in Barbara at all or specifically for revealing something unheroic I didn't stop to consider. At any rate this annoyance diluted my feeling of disloyalty for conversing with Barbara at all. Or it may be the old, long-established bond—I almost wrote, of sympathy, but it was so much more complex than the word indicates—was reawakened by proximity and put me in the mood to tell my troubles. It is even possible I had the altruistic purpose of fortifying Barbara against inevitable disappointment on a miseryloves-company basis. Be that as it may, I found myself pouring out the whole story.
She jumped up and took my hands in hers. Her eyes were gray and warm. “Hodge! It's wonderful—don't you see?”
“Oh…” I was completely confused. “I… uh…”
“The solution. The answer. The means. Look, now you can go back, back to the past in your own person. You can see everything with your own eyes instead of relying on accounts of what other people said happened.”
“But… but—”
“You can verify every fact, study every move, every actor. You can write history as no one ever did before, for you'll be writing as a witness, yet with the perspective of a different period. You'll be taking the mind of the present, with its judgment and its knowledge of the patterns, back to receive the impressions of the past. It almost seems HX-1 was devised especially for this.”
There was no doubt she believed, that she was really and unselfishly glad her work could aid mine. I was overcome by pity, helpless to soften the disillusionment so soon to come, and filled with an irrational hatred of the thing she had built and which was about to destroy her.
I was saved from having to mask my emotions by the arrival of her father, Ace, and Midbin. Thomas Haggerwells began tensely, “Barbara, Ace tells me you intend to try out this—this machine on yourself. I can't believe you would be so foolhardy.”
Midbin didn't wait for her to reply. I thought with something of a shock, Midbin has gotten old; I never noticed it. “Listen to me. There's no point now in saying part of your mind realizes the impossibility of this demonstration and that it's willing for you to annihilate yourself in the attempt and so escape from conflicts which have no resolution. Although it's something you must be at least partly aware of. But consider objectively the danger involved in meddling with unknown natural laws—”
Ace Dorn, who looked as strained as they in contrast to Barbara's ease, growled, “Let's go.”
She smiled reassuringly at us. “Please, Father, don't worry; there's no danger. And Oliver. .
Her smile was almost mischievous and very unlike the Barbara I had known. “Oliver, HX-1 owes more to you than you will ever know.”
She ducked under the transparent ring and walked to the center of the floor, glancing up at the reflector, moving an inch or two to stand directly beneath it. “The controls are already adjusted to minus fifty-two years and a hundred and fifty-three days,” she informed us conversationally. “Purely arbitrary. One date is as good as another, but January 1, 1900, is an almost automatic choice. I'll be gone sixty seconds. Ready, Ace?”
“Ready.” He had been slowly circling the engines, checking the dials. He took his place before the largest, the monster in the corner, holding a watch in his hand. “Three forty-three and ten,” he announced.
Barbara was consulting her own watch. “Three fortythree and ten,” she confirmed. “Make it at three forty-three and twenty.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
“You might at least try it on an animal first,” burst out Midbin, as Ace twirled the valve under his hand. The transparent ring glowed; the metal reflector threw back a dazzling light. I blinked. When I opened my eyes the light was gone and the center of the workshop was empty.
No one moved. Ace frowned over his watch. I stared at the spot where Barbara had stood. I don't think my mind was working; I had the feeling my lungs and heart certainly were not. I was a true spectator, with all faculties save sight and hearing suspended.
“… on an animal first.” Midbin's voice was querulous.
“Oh, God…” muttered Thomas Haggerwells.
Ace said casually—too casually, “The return is automatic. Set beforehand for the duration. Thirty more seconds.”
Midbin said, “She is… this is…” He sat down on a stool and bent his head almost to his knees.
Mr. Haggerwells groaned. “Ace, Ace—you should have stopped her.”
“Ten seconds,” said Ace firmly.
Still I couldn't think with any clarity. She had stood there; then she was gone. What… ? Midbin was right: we had let her go to destruction. Certainly more than a minute had passed by now.
The ring glowed and the brilliant light was reflected. “It did, oh, it did!” Barbara cried. “It did!”
She stood perfectly still, overwhelmed. Then she came out of the circle and kissed Ace, who patted her gently on the back. I suddenly noticed the pain of holding my breath and released a tremendous sigh. Barbara kissed her father and Midbin—who was still shaking his head—and, after the faintest hesitation, me. Her lips were ice-cold.
The shock of triumph made her voluble. Striding up and down, she spoke with extraordinary rapidity, without pause, almost a little drunkenly. In her excitement her words cluttered her tongue; from time to time she had to go back and repeat a phrase or sentence to make it intelligible.
When the light flashed she, too, involuntarily closed her eyes. She had felt a strange, terrifying weightlessness, an awful disembodiment, for which she had been unprepared. She thought she had not actually been unconscious, even for an instant, though she had an impression of ceasing to exist as a unique collection of memories and of being somehow dissolved. Then she had opened her eyes.
At first she was shocked to find the barn as it had been all her life, abandoned and dusty. Then she realized she had indeed moved through time; the disappearance of the engines and reflector showed she had gone back to the unremodeled workshop.
Now she saw the barn was not quite as she had known it, even in her childhood, for while it was unquestionably abandoned, it had evidently not long been so. The thick dust was not so thick as she remembered, the sagging cobwebs not so dense. Straw was still scattered on the floor; it had not yet been entirely carried away by mice or inquisitive birds. Alongside the door hung bits of harness beyond repair, some broken bridles, and a faded calendar on which the ink of the numerals 1897 was still bright.