«Yes. The Seaton generator throws an almost cubical field about the subject. You’ve seen pictures or movies of it—a totally reflecting region, six or seven feet on a side. This field is, as I said, inherently self-maintaining. I heard Seaton himself lecture once, and he said something like the field requiring finite time in which to break down—only there is no time in it. Anyway, we find it most convenient to store those, uh, blocks of frozen time in the vaults you see.»
Hart licked his lips again. He had always had a touch of necrophobia, and his hands were damp and cold now. To be frozen in time like a fish in a chunk of ice; and stowed away in a steel box for no one knew how long… He had a morbid desire to see his own coffin, but did not indulge it. That would not have fitted the picture he had of himself, which was somewhere between Epicure and Stoic.
They came into a smaller room at the end of the Crypt. It was crowded with apparatus which was meaningless to Hart. A couple of technicians stood by, smoking and talking and most infernally casual about it all.
«Well,» said the doctor, a little awkwardly, «I guess this is it. Are you sure you don’t want to leave any farewell messages or—?»
«No,» said Hart. «I hate good-byes. I’ve said mine, and don’t want that railway-platform waiting at the end. Let’s get it over with.»
«Okay. Mount that plate over there, please, between those four big coils. And—good luck.» The doctor extended his hand and Hart shook it, thinking to himself that it was a wholly unnecessary gesture. Maybe they’d have better taste in the future.
He climbed up onto the silvery disk and stood looking out between coils that were taller than he was. His knees were a little weak—almost, he was tempted to shout to call a halt—but that would be silly, of course.
The technicians busied themselves about the generator with that casual competence he had always found irritating in their breed. He heard the list of instrument readings called out, someone else said, «Check,» and he thought briefly and wildly, Maybe it’s also mate. A switch slammed down and a blue glow hovered over the coils. He heard a low, rising hum.
It faded. «Alri, no,» said the doctor. «Du can downstep no.»
Hart had a moment where his mind wobbled, where he thought wildly that it hadn’t worked after all. Great Heaven he was still in the world, still at home—
What had happened to the doctor? Where were the technicians? These weren’t the same men they had been an instant ago!
An instant—no, an age. There was no time flow in the stasis field—he was in the future.
He had thought himself mentally prepared. But it was too sudden. The shock was too blurringly great—shattering, devastating shock of suddenly alien men, alien speech, alien world. He staggered a little, and the doctor stepped up on the platform to support him.
Hart leaned on the man’s arm—a big, solid fellow, which was somehow reassuring—and let the soft, lilting words slide over the surface of his mind. Almost, they were familiar. For a moment he couldn’t follow the speech at all, then he caught words and recognized the changes in accent. Except for the foreign terms and the slang, he could follow the language. Certainly he could get the drift of it.
Only—how long would it take to modify the tongue so much?
He almost croaked the question. The doctor said slowly, «Dis are yaar 2837, du would say. But bay chronomizing nos, are yaar 2841.»
«What on earth—?» The sheer incongruity of it jerked Hart from his daze. He might have accepted a wholly different chronology, but—four years’ difference! «How the hell did that ever happen?»
«Hell?» For a moment, the doctor was puzzled, then his face cleared. «Oh, yes, medyaeval belief.» He smiled. «Skood du raaly ask huw de Heaven. See du, in su-named Second Dark Ages Americas waar under rule of de Kyirk of de Second Coming. Dey waar religio-fanatics whuw held dat chronomizing skood be set up four yaars since dey claimed Christ waar rally borned in 4 B.C. bay uwld chronomizing. Bay time yoke of de Kyirk waar overthruwn, everybody waar used to new style.»
Hart nodded, a little overwhelmed. «I… see…»
It didn’t matter, though. It didn’t matter. The… the Church of the Second Coming was in the past now, the dusty buried past which had still been in the future—ten minutes ago!
Almost nine hundred years. Nine hundred years!
«Here.» The doctor gave him a little flask. «Drink du dis.»
He gulped the liquid. It was tasteless, but it seemed to lay a great calm hand on him; his mind steadied and the trembling went out of his knees. He looked around him.
The chamber was different. The Crypt was not nearly so full, and it bore signs of extensive repair work. Many must have been released, many… But lymphatic cancer was really a tough disease, it would have taken time to work out the cure and if ages of barbarism had intervened—
His eyes swung to the men. There were, as before, two technicians and a doctor. (And the three men of his time were dust these many centuries.) They were large, well-shaped fellows, with dark hair and skin, eyes with a hint of obliquity, high cheekbones—but, clearly, the Caucasoid strain still predominated, however great an admixture there had been. They looked curiously alike, as if they were brothers, and were dressed almost identically—sandals, kilt, and tunic of some faintly iridescent material, with a curious involved pattern reminiscent of Scottish tartans on the left breast. There must have been immense folk wanderings during the dark ages, thought Hart vaguely, fantastic interbreeding and a rise of composite types of man.
He said aloud, slowly, «You have a cure for my case?»
«Of cuwrse, Tov Hart. De uwld records did not survive, but de Crypt and traditions abuwt it did. Su alsuw did de case histories engraved on de metal. We are ready for du no. De meditechnics have bee-an perfected uwnly in de last fifty yaars, and of cuwrse we wanted to be shoor we waar right before waking any of de ‘sleepers.’»
«I seem to be one of the last.»
«Indeed, Tov Hart, du are. Case duurs proved more difficult dan had bee-an antsipated. But we have a quick and aisy treating no.»
«Well…» It might only have been the stimulant, or maybe the words, but Hart felt immensely braced. He was going to live! And in a superscientific world of friendly people, he should be able to make his way. His money would hardly have survived all the changes of history, but—well, there must be some provision made for the «sleepers.»
The world wasn’t such a bad place. Even in the far future, it wasn’t bad.
«I’m afraid you have the better of me,» he said to the doctor. At his puzzled look, he added: «With regard to names, I mean.»
«Oh. Pardon, Tov. We are all Rostoms here. I are Waldor Rostom Chang, here are Hallan Rostom Duwgal and Olwar Rostom Serwitch.»
The three men bowed formally. Hart tried to return the gesture, but couldn’t quite imitate the slight knee bend and the position of hands and head. «Philip Bronson Hart,» he said. «But the middle name isn’t the family name, the last is.»
«As wit us,» said the doctor, Waldor Chang. «Family name nos come last, group name in middle, gived name in front. But dey had not de groupings in time duurs, did dey?» He smiled. «Come du no, towarish, above ground. De clinic are quite nea-ar, and we will suwn have du well.»
The landscape hadn’t changed much, there were still the same hills and trees, the far shining thread of a river, and the wind cool and fresh on their faces. White clouds walked overhead through a sky of sunny blue, and a thrush was singing in a little thicket.
But there were few signs of man. The little village which had once been visible down beside the river had long since moldered into the earth, and the buildings of the Crypt center were gone, replaced with a single-roomed frame hut over the vault itself. Above the trees Hart could see a structure of stone and sun-flashing glass which must be the clinic, but otherwise there was no trace of civilization.