The Man from Time - Frank Belknap Long

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The man from time by Frank belking up long daring Moonsun,
he was called. It was a proud name, a brave name.
But what good was a name that rang out like
a summons to battle if the man who bore it
could not repeat it aloud without fear. Moonsun had tried
telling himself that a man could conquer fear if he

(00:21):
could but once summon the courage to laugh at all
the sins that ever were, and do as he damned
well pleased. An ancient phrase that damned well it went
clear back to the Elizabethan Age, and Moonsun had tried
picturing himself as an Elizabethan man with a ruffle at
his throat and a rapier in his clasp, brawling lustily

(00:41):
in a tavern. In the Elizabethan Age, men had thrown
caution to the winds and lived with their whole bodies,
not just with their minds alone. Perhaps that was why,
even in the year thirty six eighty nine, defiant names
still cropped up, names like Independence, Forest and Man Live Forever.

(01:02):
It was not easy for a man to live up
to a name like man Live Forever, but Moonsun was
ready to believe that it could be done. There is
something in human nature that made a man abandon caution
and try to live up to the plains made for
him by his parents at birth. It must be bad,
moonsun thought. It must be bad if I can't control

(01:22):
the trembling of my hands, the pounding of the blood
in my temples. I am like a child shut up
alone in the dark, hearing rats scurrying in a closet
thick with cobwebs, and the tapping of a blind man's
cane on a deserted street at midnight, Tap tap, tap,
nearer and nearer through the darkness. How soon would the
rats be swarming out, blood, fanged and holy vicious? How

(01:46):
soon would the cane strike? He looked up quickly, his
eyes searching the shadows. For almost a month now, the
gleaming intricacies of the machine had given him a complete
sense of security. As a scholar traveling in time, he
had been accepted by his fellow travelers as a man
of great courage and firm determination. For twenty seven days,

(02:08):
a smooth surface of shining metal had walled him in,
enabling him to grapple with reality on a completely adult level.
For twenty seven days, he had gone pridefully back through time,
taking creative delight in watching the heritage of the human
race unroll before him like a CinemaScope under glass. Watching

(02:29):
a green land in the dying golden sunlight of an
age lost to human memory could restore a man's strength
of purpose by its serenity alone, And even an age
of war and pestilence could be observed without torment. From
behind the protective shields of the time machine. Danger, accidents,
catastrophe could not touch him personally. To watch death and

(02:52):
destruction as a spectator in a traveling time observatory was
like watching a cobra poised to strike from behind to
pane of crystal bright glass in a zoological garden. You
got a tremendous thrill just thinking about it. How dreadful
the glass should not be there. How lucky I am
to be alive with a thing so deadly and monstrous

(03:14):
within striking distance of me. For twenty seven days now
he had traveled without fear. Sometimes the Time Observatory would
pinpoint an age and hover over it while his companions
took painstaking historical notes. Sometimes it would retrace its course
and circle back a new age would come under scrutiny,

(03:34):
and more notes would be taken. But a horrible thing
had happened to him, had awakened in him a lonely
nightmare of restlessness. Childhood fears he had thought buried forever
had returned to plague him. And he had developed a sudden,
terrible dread of the fogginess outside the moving viewpane, the
way the machine itself wheeled and dipped when an ancient

(03:56):
ruin came sweeping toward him. He had developed a fear
of time. There was no escape from that time fear.
The incident came upon him, he lost all interest in
historical research ten sixty nine, seven thirty two, twenty four
oh seven, nineteen twenty eight. Every date terrified him. The

(04:16):
Black plague in London, the Great Fire, the Spanish Armadin
flames off the coast of oblique little island that would
soon mold, the destiny of half the world. How meaningless
it all seemed in the shadow of his fear. Had
the human race really advanced? So much time had been conquered,
But no man was yet wise enough to heal himself

(04:37):
of a stark, unreasoning fear took possession of his mind
and heart, giving him no peace. Moon sun lowered his
eyes saw that Rutella was watching him in the manner
of a shy woman, not wishing to break in too
abruptly on the thoughts of a stranger. Deep within him,
he knew that he had become a stranger to his
own wife, and the realization sharply increased his torment. He

(05:02):
stared down at her head against his knee, at her
beautiful back and sleek, dark hair, violet eyes she had
not black, as they seemed at first glance, but a deep,
lustrous violet. He remembered suddenly that he was still a
young man, with a young man's ardor surging strong in him.
He bent swiftly kissed her lips and eyes. As he

(05:23):
did so, her arms tightened about him, until he found
himself wondering what he could have done to deserve such
a woman. She had never seemed more precious to him,
and for an instant he could feel his fear lessening
a little. But it came back, and it was worse
than before. It was like an old pain returning at
an unexpected moment to chill a man with a sickening

(05:43):
reminder that all joy must end. His decision to act
was made quickly. The first step was the most difficult,
but with a deliberate effort of will, he accomplished it
to his satisfaction. His secret thoughts he buried beneath a
conscious mental preoccupation with the veil and the trivial. It
was important to the success of his plan that his

(06:04):
companions should suspect nothing. The second step was less difficult.
The metal block remained firm, and he succeeded in carrying
on actual preparations for his departure in complete secrecy. The
third step was the final, and it took him from
a large compartment to a small one, from a high
arching surface of metal to the maze of intricate control

(06:26):
mechanisms in a space so narrow that he had to
crouch to work with accuracy, swiftly and competently, His fingers
moved over instruments of science which only a completely sane
man would have known how to manipulate. It was an
acid test of his sanity, and he knew as he
worked that his reasoning faculties at least had suffered no

(06:47):
impairment beneath his hands. The time of Observatory's controls were
solid shafts of metal, But suddenly, as he worked, he
found himself thinking of them as fluid abstractions, each a
milestone and man's long progress from the jungle to the stars,
time and space, mass and velocity. How incredible that he

(07:07):
had taken centuries of patient technological research to master in
a practical way the tremendous implications of Einstein's original postulate
warp space with a rapidly moving object, move away from
the observer with the speed of light, and the whole
of human history assumed the firm contours of a landscape
in space. Space and time merged and became one, and

(07:31):
a man in an intricately equipped time observatory could revisit
the past as easily as he could travel across the
great curve of the universe to the farthest planet of
the farthest star. The controls were suddenly firm in his hands.
He knew precisely what adjustments to make. The iris of
the human eye dilates and contracts with every shift of illumination.

(07:52):
The time observatory had an iris too, That iris could
be opened without endangering his companions in the least if
he took care to widen it just enough to accommodate
only one sturdily built man of medium height. Sweat came
out in great beads on his forehead as he worked.
The light that came through the machine's iris was faint

(08:14):
at first, the barest glimmer of white and deep darkness.
But as he adjusted controls, the light grew brighter and brighter,
beating in upon him, until he was kneeling in a
circle of radiance that dazzled his eyes and set his
heart to pounding. I've lived too long with fear, he thought,
I've lived like a man imprisoned, shut away from the sunlight. Now,

(08:35):
when freedom beckons, I must act quickly, or I shall
be powerless to act at all. He stood erect, took
a slow step forward, his eyes squeezed shut. Another step another,
and suddenly he knew he was at the gateway to
Time's sure knowledge, in actual contact with the past, for
his ears were now assailed by the high confusion of

(08:57):
ancient sounds and voices. He left the time machine in
a flying leap, one arm before his face. He tried
to keep his eyes covered as the ground seemed to
rise to meet him, but he lurched in an agony
of unbalance, and opened his eyes to see the green
surface beneath him flashing like a suddenly uncovered jewel. He
remained on his feet just long enough to see his

(09:19):
time observatory dim and vanish. Then his knees gave way,
and he collapsed with a despairing cry as the fear
enveloped him. There were daisies in the field where he
lay his shoulders and naked chest pressed to the earth.
A gentle wind stirred the grass, and the flute like
warble of a songbird was repeated close to his ear,
over and over with a tireless persistence. Abruptly, he sat

(09:43):
up and stared about him. Running parallel to the field
was a winding country road, and down it came a
yellow and silver vehicle on wheels, its entire upper section
encased in glass, which mirrored the autumnal landscape with a
startling clearness. The vehicle halted directly him, and a man
with ruddy cheeks and snow white hair leaned out to

(10:03):
wave at him. Good morning, mister, The man shouted, can
I give you a lift into town? Moon sun rose unsteadily,
alarm and suspicion in a stair. Very cautiously, he lowered
the mental barrier, and the man's thoughts impinged on his
mind in bewildering confusion. He is not a farmer, that's sure,
must have been swimming in the creek. But those bathing

(10:26):
trunks he's wearing are out of this world. Huh. I
wouldn't have the nerve to prey it around in trunks
like that, even on a public beach. Probably an exhibitionist.
But why should he wear him out here in the woods.
No blondes or redheads knock silly out here. Huh? He
might have the courtesy to answer me, Well, if he
doesn't want to lift into town, that's no concern of mine.

(10:48):
Moonsun stood, watching the vehicle sweep away out of sight.
Obviously he had angered the man by his silence, but
he could answer only by shaking his head. He began
to walk, pausing an instant in the middle of the
bridge to stare down at a stream of water that
rippled in the sunlight over moss covered rocks. Tiny silver

(11:08):
fish darted to and fro beneath the tumbling waterfall, and
he felt calmed and reassured by the sight, shoulders erect.
Now he walked on. It was high noon when he
reached the tavern. He went inside, saw men and women
dancing in a dim light, and there was a huge
rainbow colored musical instrument by the door, which startled him

(11:30):
by its resonance. The music was wild, weird, a little terrifying.
He sat down at a table near the door and
searched the minds of the dancers for a clue to
the meaning of what he saw. The thoughts which came
to him were startlingly, primitive, direct, and sometimes meaningless. To him,
go easy, baby, swing it. Sure, we're in the groove now,

(11:54):
but you never can tell. I'll buy you an orcid, honey,
not your roses, just one orchid, black like your hair.
Ever see a black arcoton. They're rare and they're expensive. Oh, darl, darl,
hold me closer. The music goes round and round. It
will always be like this with this, honey. Don't ever

(12:14):
be a square, That's all I ask. Don't ever be
a square. Cut up to me, let yourself go. When
you're dancing with one girl, you should never look at another.
Don't you know that, Johnny? Sure I know it, doll,
But did I ever claim I wasn't human. Darl doll, doll, baby,

(12:34):
Look all you want to, but if you ever dare,
Moonsun found himself relaxing. A little. Dancing at all ages
was closely allied to love making, but it was pursued
here with a careless rapture, which he found creatively stimulating.
The people came here not only to dance, but to eat,

(12:54):
and the thoughts of the dancers implied that there was
nothing stylized about a tavern. Their ritual was a completely
natural one. In Egyptian bass reliefs, you saw the opposite
in dancing, every movement rigidly prescribed, arms held rigid and
sharply bented, the elbows, slow movements rather than lively ones,

(13:16):
a bowing and a scraping, with bowls of fruit extended
in gift offerings at every turn. There was obviously no
enthroned authority here, no bejeweled king to pacify when emotions
ran wild, but complete freedom to embrace joy with Corybantic Abandon.
A tall man in ill fitting black clothes approached Moonsun's table,

(13:39):
interrupting his reflections with thoughts that seemed designed to disturb
and distract him out of sheer perversity. So even here
there were flies in every ointment, and no dream of
perfection could remain unchallenged. He sat unmoving, absorbing the man's thoughts.
What does he think this is a bath house? Mike says,
it's okada, sir, of them. They come in from the beach,

(14:02):
just as they are, just one quick beer, no more.
This late in the season, you'd think they'd have the
decency to get dressed. The sepulchuerly dressed man gave the
table a brush with the cloth he carried, then thrust
his head forward like an ill tempered scavenger bird. Can't
serve you anything here but beer boss's orders. Okay, Moonsun nodded,

(14:24):
and the man went away. Then he turned on watching
the girl. She was frightened. She sat all alone, plucking
nervously at the red and white checkered tablecloth. She sat
with her back to the light, bunching the cloth up
into little folds, then smoothing it out again. She'd ground
out lipstick, smudged cigarettes until the ashtray was spilling over.

(14:46):
Moonsun began to watch the fear in her mind. Her
fear grew when she thought that Mike wasn't gone for good.
The phone call wouldn't take long, and he'd be coming
back any minute now, And Mike wouldn't be satisfied until
she was broken to little bits. He asked. Mike wanted
to see her on her knees, begging him to kill her.
Kill me. Don't hurt Joe. It wasn't his fault. He's

(15:09):
just a kid. He's not twenty yet, Mike. That would
be a lie. But Mike had no way of knowing
that Joe would be twenty two on his next birthday,
although he looked eighteen at most. There is no pity
in Mike. But would his pride let him hot Rod
an eighteen year old? Mike won't care. Mike won't care.

(15:30):
Mike will kill him anyway. Joe couldn't help falling in
love with me, but Mike won't care what Joe could help.
Mike was never young himself, never a sweet kid like Joe.
Mike killed a man when he was fourteen years old.
He spent seven years in a reformatory, and the kids
there were never young. Joe will be just one of
those kids. To Mike, her fear kept growing. You couldn't

(15:54):
fight men like Mike. Mike was strong in too many
different ways. When you ran a tavern with an up
stairs room for special customers, you had to be tough. Strong.
You sat in an office and when people came to
you begging for favors, you just laughed. Ten grand isn't hey, buddy,
My wheels aren't rigged. If you think they are, get out.

(16:15):
It's your funeral. It's your funeral, Mike would say, laughing
until tears came into his eyes. You couldn't fight that
kind of strength. Mike could push his knuckles hard into
the faces of people who owed him money. It had
never even be arrested. Mike could take money Crispan knew
out of his wallet, spread it out like a fan, said,

(16:36):
any girl crazy enough to give him a second glance,
I'm interested in you, honey, get rid of him and
come over to my table. He could say worse things
to girls too decent and self respecting to look at
him at all. You could be so cold and hard
nothing could ever hurt you. You could be Mike gallant.
How could she have ever loved such a man? And

(16:58):
dragged Joe into it? Good kid who had made only
one really bad mistake in his life, the mistake of
asking her to marry him. She shivered with a chill
of his self loathing and turned her eyes hesitantly toward
the man in bathing trunks who sat alone by the door.
For a moment, she met the big man's eyes, and
her fears seemed to fade away. She stared at him, sunburned,

(17:22):
almost black muscles, like a lifeguard, all alone and not
on the make. When he returned her stare, his eyes
sparkled with friendly interest, but no suggestive flirtatious intent. He
was too rugged to be really handsome, she thought, But
he wouldn't have to start digging in his wallet to
get a girl to change tables either. Guiltily, she remembered Joe.

(17:45):
Now it could only be Joe. Then she saw Joe
enter the room. He was deathly pale, and he was
coming straight toward her between the tables, without pausing to
weigh his chances of staying a live He passed a
man and woman who relished Mike's company enough to make
them eager to act ugly for a daily handout. They
would not look up at Joe as he passed, but

(18:07):
the man's lips curled in a sneer, and the woman
whispered something that appeared to fan the flames of her
companion's malice. Mike had friends, friends who would never rat
on him, while their police records remained in Mike's safe
and they could count on him for protection. She started
to rise, to go to Joe and warn him that
Mike would be coming back, but despair flooded her, and

(18:30):
the impulse died. The way Joe felt about her was
a thing too big to stop. Joe saw her slim
against the light, and his thoughts were like the sea surge, wild, unruly.
Maybe Mike will get me. Maybe I'll be dead by
this time tomorrow. Maybe I'm crazy to lover the way
I do her hair against the light, a tumbled mass

(18:52):
of spun gold. Always a woman bothering me for as
long as I can remember, Molly and Janice. Some were
good for me and some were bad. You see a
woman on the street walking ahead of you, hips swaying,
and you think, I don't even know her name, but
I'd like to crush her in my arms. I guess

(19:12):
every guy feels like that about every pretty woman he sees,
even about some that aren't so pretty. But then you
get to know and like a woman, and you don't
feel that way so much, you respect her and you
don't let yourself feel that way. Then something happens. You
love her so much as like the first time again,
but the whole lot added. You love her so much
you'd die to make her happy. Joe was shaking when

(19:35):
he slipped into the chair left vacant by Mike and
reached out for both her hands. I'm taking you away tonight,
he said, you're coming with me. Joe was scared, she knew,
but he didn't want her to know. His hands were
like ice, and his fear blended with her own fear
as their hands met. He'll kill you, Joe, You've got
to forget me, she sobbed. I'm not afraid of him.

(19:59):
I'm stronger than you think. He won't dare come at
me with a gun, not here before all these people.
If he comes at me with his fists, I'll hook
a solid left to his jaw that will stretch him
out cold. She knew he wasn't deceiving himself. Joe didn't
want to die any more than she did. The man
from time had an impulse to get up walk over

(20:21):
to the two frightened children and comfort them with a
reassuring smile. He sat watching, feeling their fear beating in
tumultuous waves into his brain, fear in the minds of
a boy and girl because they desperately wanted one another.
He looked steadily at them, and his eyes spoke to them.
Life is greater than you know. If you could travel

(20:42):
in time and see how great is man's courage, if
you could see all of his triumphs over despair and
grief and pain, you would know that there is nothing
to fear, nothing at all. Joe rose from the table suddenly, calm, quiet,
Come on, he said quietly. We're getting out of here
right now. My car's outside, and if Mike tries to

(21:02):
stop us, I'll fix him. The boy and the girl
walked toward the door together, a young and extremely pretty
girl and a boy suddenly groaned to the full stature
of a man. Rather regretfully. Moonsun watched them go. As
they reached the door, the girl turned and smiled, and
the boy paused too, and they both smiled. Suddenly the

(21:23):
man in the bathing trunks. Then they were gone. Moon
Sun got up as they disappeared left the tavern. It
was dark when he reached the cabin. He was dog tired,
and when he saw the seated man through the lighted windows,
a great longing for companionship came upon him. He forgot
that he couldn't talk to the man, forgot the language

(21:45):
difficulty completely. But before this insurmountable element occurred to him,
he was inside the cabin. Once there, he saw the
problem solved itself. The man was a writer, and he
had been drinking steadily for hours. So the man and
did all the talking, not wanting or waiting for an answer.
A youngish, handsome man, he was with gray temples and

(22:07):
keenly observant eyes. The instant he saw Moonsun, he started
to talk. Welcome stranger, he said, been taking a dip
in the ocean. Eh can't say I'd enjoy it. This
late in the season. Moonsun was afraid at first that
his silence might discourage the writer, but he didn't know writers.
It's good to have someone to talk to. The writer

(22:27):
went on, I've been sitting here all day trying to write.
I'll tell you something you may not know. You can
go to the finest hotels and you can open case
after case of the finest wine, and he still can't
get started. Sometimes, the writer's face seemed suddenly to age.
Fear came into his eyes, and he raised the bottle
to his lips, faced away from his guest as he drank,

(22:49):
as if ashamed of what he must do to escape despair.
Every time he faced his fear, he was trying to
write himself back into fame. His greatest moment had come
years before, when his golden pen had glorified a generation
of madcaps for one deathless moment. His genius had carried
him to the heights, and in a white blaze of publicity,

(23:10):
had given him a halo of glory. Later had come
lean and bitter years, until finally his reputation dwindled like
a gutted candle in a wintry room. At midnight. He
could still write, but now fear and remorse walked with
him and would give him no peace. He was cruelly afraid.
Most of the time. Moon Sun listened to the writer's

(23:31):
thoughts in heart stricken silence, thoughts so tragic they seemed
out of keeping with the natural and beautiful rhythms of
his speech. He had never imagined that a sensitive and
imaginative man, an artist, could be so completely abandoned by
the society his genius had helped to enrich. Back and forth,
the writer paced, bearing his innermost thoughts. His wife was

(23:55):
desperately ill, and the future looked completely black. How could
he summon the strength of will to go on, let
alone to write? He said, fiercely, It's all right for
you to talk. He stopped, seeming to realize for the
first time that the big man, sitting in an easy
chair by the window, had made no attempt to speak.
It seemed incredible that the big man had listened in

(24:16):
complete silence, and with such quiet assurance, that a silence
had taken on an eloquence that inspired absolute trust. He
had always known there were a few people like that
in the world, people whose sympathy and understanding you could
take for granted. There was a fearlessness in such people
which made them stand out from the crowd. Stone markers
in a desert waste to lend assurance to a tired

(24:39):
wayfarer by its sturdy permanence, its sun mirroring strength. There
were a few people like that in the world, But
you sometimes went a lifetime without meeting one. The big
Man sat there, smiling at him, calmly, exuding the serenity
of one who had seen life from its tangled, inaccessible
roots outward and testifies from experience that the entire growth

(25:00):
with his sound. The writer stopped pacing suddenly and drew
himself erect. As he stared into the big Man's eyes,
his fears seemed to fade away. Confidence returned to him
like the surge of the sea, in great, shining waves
of creativeness. He knew suddenly that he could lose himself
in his work again, could tap the bright, resonant bell

(25:20):
of his genius until its golden voice rang out through eternity.
He had another great book in him, and it would
get written now, it would get written. You've helped me,
he almost shouted. You've helped me more than you know.
I can't tell you how grateful I am to you.
You don't know what it means to be so paralyzed
with fright that he can't write at all. The Man

(25:42):
from Time was silent, but his eyes shone curiously. The
writer turned to a bookcase and removed a volume in
a faded cover that had once been bright with rainbow colors.
He sat down and wrote an inscription in the fly leaf.
Then he rose and handed the book to his visitor
with a slight ah. He was smiling. Now this was

(26:02):
my first born, he said. The man from time looked
to the title first, This Side of Paradise. Then he
opened the book and read what the author had written
on the flyleaf, with warm gratefulness for a courage which
brought back the sun. F Scott Fitzgerald moonsun bowed his thanks,
turned and left the cabin. Morning found him walking across

(26:26):
fresh meadows with a duw glistening on his bare head
and broad, straight shoulders. That never find him, he told
himself hopelessly. They never find him because time was too
vast to pinpoint one man. In such a vast waste
of years, the towering crests of each age might be visible,
but there could be no returning to one tiny, insignificant

(26:47):
spot in the mighty ocean of time. As he walked,
his eyes searched for the field, and the winding road
had followed into town only yesterday. This road seemed to beckon,
and he had followed, eager to explore an age so
primitive that mental communication from mind to mind had not
yet replaced human speech. Now he knew that the speech faculty,

(27:09):
which man had long outgrown, would never cease to act
as a barrier between him and the man and women
of this era of the past. Without it, he could
not hope to find complete understanding and sympathy. Here. He
was still alone, and soon winter would come and the
sky grow cold and empty. The time machine materialized so
suddenly before him that for an instant his mind refused

(27:31):
to accept it as more than a torturing illusion, conjured
by the turbulence of his thoughts. All at once, it
towered in his path, bright and shining, and he moved
forward over the dew drenched grass, until he was brought
up short by a joy so overwhelming that it seemed
to him that his heart must burst. Crutella emerged from
the machine with a gay little laugh, as if his

(27:53):
stunned expression was the most amusing in the world. Hold still,
let me kiss you, darling, her mind said. Is she
stood in the dew bright grass on tiptoe, her sleek,
dark hair falling to her shoulders. An extraordinarily pretty girl
to be the wife of a man so tormented you
found me his thoughts exalted, you came back alone and

(28:15):
searched until you found me. She nodded, her eyes shining.
So time wasn't too vast to pinpoint, after all, not
when two people were so securely wetted in mind and
heart that their thoughts could build a bridge across time.
The Bureau of Emotional Adjustment analyzed everything. I told them.
Your psychograph ran to fifty seven pages, But it was

(28:37):
your desperate loneliness that guided me to you. She raised
his hand to her lips and kissed it. You see, Darling,
a compulsive fear isn't easy to conquer. No man or
woman can conquer it alone. Historians tell us, when the
first passenger rocket started from Mars, space, fear took men
by surprise in the same way your fear gripped you.

(28:58):
The loneliness the utter desolation of space was too much
for a human mind to endure. She smiled her love.
We're going back. We'll face it together, and we'll conquer
it together. You won't be alone now, Thorland. Don't you
see It's because you aren't a cloud, because you're sensitive
and imaginative, that you experience fear. It's not anything to

(29:19):
be ashamed of you were simply the first man on
earth to develop a new and completely different kind of fear.
Time fear moonsun put out his hand and gently touched
his wife's hair. Ascending into the Time observatory, a thought
came unbidden to his mind. Others he saved himself, he
could not save. But that wasn't true at all. Now

(29:42):
he could help himself. Now he would never be alone again.
When guided by the sure hand of love and complete trust,
self knowledge could be a shining weapon. The trip back
might be difficult, but holding tight to his wife's hand,
he felt no misgivings, no fear. End of the man
from Time by Frank Belknap Long