The Time Dweller

'Pilot?' said the merchant.

Pepin began to limp slowly down the ramp. He stood aside to let the bulky merchant move up it and duck his head to. enter the airlock. Three others followed him, glancing rather quizzically at the silent Moonite.

A man smaller than Pepin with the narrow face of a reptile, dressed in dull red and black, sidled up clutching a handwritten list. Fascinated, Pepin looked at it, not understanding the words. He would like to have taken off his gauntlets and fingered the parchment, but he would wait for a little.

'Pilot? When do you return?'

Pepin smiled. ' I do not return. I have come to live here.

The man was startled. He took the parchment back and turned his head, did not see what he looked for and gazed up the ramp towards the open airlock.

'Then be welcome,' he said absently, still not looking at Pepin. He excused himself and walked with short, rapid steps back to the warehouse at the side of the plaza.

Pepin waited until the merchant and his friends reappeared.

They looked satisfied and were nodding to one another. The black-bearded merchant bustled down the ramp and slapped Pepin's arm.

'I admit it,' he grinned, 'a very generous cargo. We have the best of this month's bargain I think. Gold and alcohol for our fertilizers. May I begin unloading?'

'As you wish,' Pepin said courteously, wondering at this man who could delight in receiving such useless things in return for valuable fertilizers.

'You are new,' said the merchant, taking Pepin's arm and leading him towards the warehouse where the other man had gone.' What do you think of our city?'

'It is wonderful,' sighed Pepin. ' I admire it. I should like, to live here.'

'Ha! Ha! With all those marvels and comforts in Moon you have. You'd miss them after a while. Pilot. And every year we hear of cities dying, populations shrinking, fewer children than ever being born. No, I envy you Moonites with your safety and stability - you don't have to worry about the future, for you can plan efficiently. But we here can make no plans - we merely hope that things will not alter too much in our own lifetimes.'

'At least you are part of the natural order, sir,' Pepin said hesitantly. ' You might adapt further as the Earth changes.'

The merchant laughed again. ' No - we of Earth will all be dead. We accept this, now. The human race has had a long run. No one would have expected us to last this time, but soon the point will be reached where we can adapt no longer. It is already happening in less fortunate areas. Man is dying out on Earth. Yet while you have your System, that is not possible on Moon.'

'But our System is artificial - your planet is natural,'

They reached the warehouse. Men were already folding back the heavy doors. The casks of fertilizer were stacked in a cool, dark corner of the place. The man with the reptile face glanced at Pepin as he counted the casks.

'There is the matter of the pilot's gift,' said the merchant.

'The traditional gift of gratitude to the man who brings the cargo safely to us. Is there anything we have which you desire?'

Traditionally, the pilot asked for a small token gift of no great value and Pepin knew what was expected of him.

'You mine antiques in Barbart I believe?' he said politely.

'Yes. It provides employment for our criminals. Forty cities have stood where Barbart now stands.'

Pepin smiled with pleasure. Such history! 'I am fond of books,' he said.

'Books?' The merchant frowned.' Why, yes, we have a stack of those somewhere. Have the folk of Moon taken to reading? Ha! ha!'

'You do not read them yourselves?'

'A lost art, Pilot. Those ancient languages are impossible.

We have no scholars in Barbart, save for our elders-and their wisdom comes from here,' he tapped his head,' not from any books. We've little use for the old knowledge-it was a knowledge suitable for a younger Earth.'

Though Pepin understood, he felt a pang of sorrow and disappointment. Intellectually he had known that the folk of Earth would not be like his idealized picture of them, yet emotionally he could not accept this.

'Then I would like some books,' he said.

'As many as your ship has room for when our cargo's loaded!' promised the merchant. 'What language do you read in? I'll let you sort them out for yourself.'

'I read in all the ancient tongues,' said Pepin proudly. His fellows thought his a useless skill and it probably was, but he did not care.

He added: 'And there is no need to load them. I shall not be returning with the ship. That will go back to Moon automatically.'

'You'll not be -? Are you then to be some sort of permanent representative of Moon on Earth?'

'No. I wish to live on Earth as one of her folk.'

The merchant scratched his nose. 'Aha, I see. Aha… '

'Is there reason why I should not be welcome.'

'Oh, no - no -I was merely astonished that you should elect to stay with us. I gather you Moonites regard us as primitives, doomed to die with the planet.' His tone was now mildly resentful. ' Your regulations admitting no one of Earth to Moon have been strict for centuries. No Earth-man has visited Moon, even.

You have your stability to consider, of course. But why should you elect to suffer the discomforts of our wasted planet?'

'You will note,' said Pepin carefully, 'that I am not like other Moonites. I am, I suppose, some sort of romantic throwback-or it may be that my original difference has fostered mental differences, I do not know. However, I alone amongst my race have an admiration for Earth and the folk of Earth.

I have a yearning for the past whereas my people look always to the future-a future which they are pledged to keep stable and as much like the present as possible.'

'I see… ' The merchant folded his arms. ' Well, you are welcome to stay here as a guest-until you wish to return to Moon.'

'I never wish to return.'

'My friend,' the merchant smiled. ' You will wish to return soon enough. Spend a month with us-a year-but I warrant you'll stay no longer.'

He paused before saying: 'You'll find plenty of signs of the past here-for the past is all we have. There is no future for Earth.'

The clock, centrepiece of the Great Regulator, had measured off six weeks before Pepin Hunchback became restless and frustrated by the uncaring ignorance of the Barbartians. The citizens were pleasant enough and treated him well considering their covert antipathy towards the Moonites. But he made no friends and found no sympathizers.

He rejoiced in those books which were not technical manuals or technical fiction. He enjoyed the poetry and the legends and the history books and the adventure stories. But there were fewer than he had expected and did not last him long.

He lived in a room at an Inn. He grew used to the heavy, briny air and the dull colours, he began to enjoy the gloom which shadowed the Earth, for it mirrored something of his own mood. He would go for walks over the hills and watch the heavy brown clouds course towards him from the horizon, smell the sweetish scent of the frond forests, climb the crumbling rocks that stood against the purple sky, worn by the wind and scoured by the salt.

Unlike Moon, this planet still lived, still held surprises in the sudden winds that blew its surface, the odd animals which crawled over it.

Pepin was afraid only of the animals, for these had become truly alien. The principal life-form other than man was the oozer-a giant leech which normally prowled the bleak sea shores but which was being seen increasingly further inland.

If Man's time was ending, then the time of the oozer was beginning. As Man died out, the oozer multiplied. They moved in schools varying from a dozen to a hundred, depending on the species-they grew from two feet to ten feet long. Some were blade, some brown, some yellow-but the most disgusting was the white variety which was also the largest and most ferocious, a great grub of a thing capable of fast speeds, able to outdistance a running man and bring him down. When this happened, the oozer, like its leech ancestor, fed off the blood only and left the body drained and dry.