December 27, 2025 • 25 mins
https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free! "Mind Webs Daily" rekindles the charm of old time radio with a daily infusion of psychological and speculative tales. Each day offers a unique journey into the enigmatic and often eerie realms of the human mind, reminiscent of classic radio storytelling but with a contemporary flair. Perfect for daily listeners who appreciate a blend of nostalgia and modern narrative depth.
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Speaker 1 (00:37):
Mind Way. Welcome to a half hour of mind Wag
short stories from the world of speken to fiction. All
(01:10):
This story comes from the June nineteen sixty one issue
of Galaxy. It's Paul Anderson's My Object All Sublime. We
met in line of business. Michael's firm wanted to start
a subdivision on the far side of Evanston and discovered
that I held title to some of the most promising acreage.
They made me a good offer, but I was stubborn.
(01:32):
They raised it, and I stayed stubborn, and finally the
boss himself looked me up. He wasn't entirely what I'd expected, aggressive,
of course, but in so polite a way that it
didn't defend his manner. So urbane, you rarely noticed his
lack of formal education, which luck he was remedying quite
fast anyhow, via night classes and extension courses as well
as omnivorous reading. We went out for a drink while
(01:54):
we talked the matter over. Led me to a bar
that had little of Chicago about it. Quiet, shabby, not
juke box and television, a bookshelved from several chest sets,
but none of the freaks and phonies who usually infested
such places. Besides ourselves, there were only half a dozen customers,
a professor emeritith type among the books, some people arguing
politics or the degree of factual relevancy, a young man
(02:18):
debating with a bartender whether Bartalk was more original than
Schirnback or vice Wroza Michael's and I found a corner
table and some Danish peer. I explained, I didn't care
about money one way or another, but objected to bulldozing
some rather good looking countryside in order to erect still
another chrome plated slum. Michael stuffed his pipe before answering.
(02:39):
He was a lean, erect man, long chinned and roman nosed,
his hair grizzled, his eyes dark and luminous. Didn't my
representative explain? He said, we aren't planning the role of
identical split level sites. We have six basic designs in mind,
with variations to be located in the pattern. Mike, so
he took a pencil and paper and began to sketch.
(03:02):
As he talked. He made his own case better than
anyone had done for him. Like it or not, he said,
this was the middle twentieth century and mass production was
here to stay. The community need not be less attractive
for being ready made, could in fact gain an artistic unity.
He proceeded to show me how you did impress me
too hard, and conversation wandered, Oh, delightful, spot this? I
(03:27):
told him. How'd you find it? He shrugged. I often
prawl about, especially at night, exploring. Isn't that rather dangerous? No?
Not in comparison, he said, with a touch of grimness.
I gather you weren't born over here. No. No, I
didn't arrive in the United States till nineteen forty six,
(03:48):
and what they called a DP a displaced person. I
became fad Michaels because I got tired of spelling out
today Oshi Mikolowski. Nor did I want any part of
old country sentimentalism. I'm really a zealous assimilationalist. Otherwise, he
seldom talked very much about himself. Later, I got some
(04:08):
details of his early rise in business from admiring and
envious competitors. Some of them didn't yet believe it was
possible to sell a house with a radiant heating for
less than twenty thousand dollars and show a profit. Michaels
had found ways to make it possible. Not bad for
a penniless immigrant. I checked up and found he'd been
admitted on a special visa in consideration of services rendered
(04:31):
the US Army in the last stages of the European War.
Those services had taken nerve as well as quick wittedness. Meanwhile,
our acquaintance developed. I sold him the land he wanted,
but we continued to see each other, sometimes in the tavern,
sometimes at my bachelor apartment, most often in his Lakeshore penthouse.
He had a stunning blond wife and a couple of bright,
(04:52):
well mannered boys. Nonetheless, he was a lonely man, and
I have fulfilled his need for friendship. It was a
year or so after we we first met that he
told me the story. I'd been invited over for Thanksgiving dinner. Afterward,
we sat around and talked and talked and talked. When
we had ranged from the chances of an upset and
(05:14):
the next city election to the chances of other planets
following the same general course of history as our own.
Emily excused herself and went to bed. This was long
past midnight. Michaels and I kept on talking, and I
hadn't seen him so excited before. It was as if
that last subject, where some particular word, had opened the
door for him. Finally he got up. We filled our
(05:34):
whiskey glasses with a motion not altogether steady, and walked
across the living room noiseless, on that deep green carpet
to the picture window. The night was clear and sharp.
We overlooked the city, streaks and webs, and coils of
glittering color ruby, amethyst, emerald, topaz, and the dark sheet
of Lake Michigan. Almost it seemed we could glimpse endless
(05:56):
white planes beyond. But overhead eyed the sky crystal black,
with a great bear stood on his tail, and Orion
went striding along the milky way. I hadn't often seen
so big and frosty of you, And he said, well,
after all, I know what I'm talking about. I stirred
deep in my armchair. Only one shaded lamp lit the room,
(06:19):
so that the star swarms had also been visible to
me when I passed by the window earlier. I gived
a little uh personally, and he glanced back toward me,
his face stiff. What would you say if I answered? Yes?
I sipped my drink. King's Ransom as a noble and
comforting brew, most especially when the earth itself seems to
(06:41):
tone with a deepening shill. I suppose you had your reasons,
and wait to see what they are, he grinned, one sidedly.
Oh well, I I'm from this planet too. Ah, And
yet yet the sky is so wide and strange. And
don't you think the strangeness would affect men? Who? You know?
(07:03):
Who went there wouldn't seep into them, so they carried
it back in their bones, and Earth was never quite
the same afterward. No, go on, you know, I like fantasies.
He stared outward and then back again, and suddenly he
tossed off his drink. The violent gesture was unlike him,
but so had his hesitation been, and he said, in
(07:24):
a harsh tone, Okay, then, okay, I'll tell you a fantasy.
It's a story for winter. It's a cold story that
you are best advised not to take so serious. I
drew in the excellent cigar he'd given me and waited
in the silence he needed. He paced a few times
back and forth before the window, eyes to the floor,
(07:44):
until he filled his glass anew and sat down near me.
He didn't look at me, but a picture on the
wall a somber, unintelligible thing which no one else liked.
He seemed to get strength from it, for he began
talking fast and softly. Once upon a time, a very
very long time in the future, there was a civilization.
(08:05):
I shall not describe it to you, for well it
be impossible. Could you go back to the time of
the Egyptian pyramid buildings and tell them about this city
below us? I don't mean they wouldn't believe you, of
course they wouldn't, but that hardly matters. I mean they
they would not understand. See, nothing you say could make
sense to them, and the way people work, can think
(08:27):
and believe, would be less comprehensible than those lights and
towers and machines. Not so if I spoke to you
of people in the future living among great blinding energies,
and of genetic changelings and imaginary wars and talking stones
and a certain blind hunter, well you might feel anything
(08:47):
at all, but you would not understand. So I ask
you only to imagine how many thousands of times this
planet has circled the sun, and how deeply buried and
forgotten we are, And then also to imagine that this
other civilization thinks in pattern so far that it has
ignored every limitation of logic and natural law to discover
(09:09):
means of traveling and time. So while the ordinary dweller
in that age, I can't exactly call him the citizen,
or anything else for which we have a word, because
it would be too misleading. The average educated dweller knows
in the vague, uninterested way that millennia ago, some semi
savages were the first to split the atom. Only one
(09:31):
or two men have actually been here. Walked among his
studied in Baptists, and returned with a file of information
for the central brain, if I might call it by
such a name. No one else is concerned with us
any more than you are concerned with early Mesopotamian archaeology.
You see. He dropped his gaze to the tumbler in
(09:52):
his hand and held it there as if the whiskey
were a aragular pool. The silence grew. I said, oh,
very well, for the sake of the story, I'll accept
the premise. I imagine time travelers would be unnoticeable. They'd
have their own techniques of disguise and so on, wouldn't
want to change their own past. And he said, oh, oh,
(10:15):
there's no danger that. It's only that they couldn't learn
much if they went around insisting they were from the future.
Just imagine, I chuckled. Michaels gave me a shadowed look.
Apart from the scientific, can you guess what use there
might be for time travel, well trade and objects of
(10:36):
art or or natural resources. I suppose go back to
the dinosaur age and dig up iron before man appeared
to strip the richest minds and he shook his head. Well,
think again. See, they'd only want a limited number of
Minoan statuettes, ming vases, or third world of geminy dwarfs,
chiefly for their museums. If museum isn't too inaccurate a word,
(10:58):
I tell you they are not like us. As for
natural resources, they're beyond the point of needing any they
make their own. He paused, as if before a final plunge.
Then what was this penal colony? The French abandoned Devil's Island? Yeah, yeah,
that was it. Can you imagine a better revenge on
(11:20):
a condemned criminal than to maroon him in the past.
Why I should think they'd be above any concept of
revenge or even moved to terrence by horrible examples. Even
in this century. We're aware that that doesn't work, aren't we,
Are you sure? Side by side with the growth of
the day's enlightened chronology, haven't we seen the corresponding growth
(11:42):
of crime itself? You were wondering some time ago, how
I dared walk the night streets alone? Remember, And furthermore,
punishment is a catharis of society as a whole. Up
in the future, they'd tell you that public hangings did
reduce the crime rate, which would otherwise have been still higher.
It's somewhat more important. These spectacles made possibly the eighteenth
century birth of real humanitarianism. He raised their sardonic brow,
(12:08):
or so they claim. In the future, it doesn't matter
whether they're right or merely rationalizing the degraded element in
their own civilization. All you need assume is that they
do send their very worst criminals back into the past. Well,
that's rather rough on the past, isn't it. No, No,
not really, for a number of reasons, including the fact
(12:29):
that everything they caused to happen has already happened. Dam English,
it just isn't built for talking about these paradoxes. And
mainly though, you have to remember that they don't waste
all this effort on ordinary miscriants. And one has to
be a very rare criminal to deserve of exilent time.
And the worst crime in the world depends on the
(12:49):
particular year of the world's history. Murder, brigandage, treason, heresy, narcotics, pedling, slaving, patriotism.
Really the whole catalog, all of rated capital punishment in
some epics, and have all been lightly regarded in others,
and positively commended. And still others think back and see
(13:11):
if I'm not right. I regarded him for a while,
observing how deep the lines were in his face, and
recalling that at his age he shouldn't be so gray.
And I said, well, very well, agreed, But with not
a man from the future possessing all its knowledge. He
set his glass down with audible force. What knowledge? Use
(13:32):
your brains? Imagine yourself left naked and alone in Babylon. Now,
how much Babylonian language or history do you know? Who
is the present king? How much longer will he reign?
Who will succeed him? What are the laws and customs
you must obey? You remember that eventually the Assyrians of
the Persians, or someone will conquer Babylon and they'll be
hell to pay. But when now there is a current war,
(13:56):
a mere borders skirmish, you're an all out struggle. And
if it's the latter, is Babylon going to win? If not,
what peace terms will be imposed? Yeah, there wouldn't be
twenty men today who could answer those questions with not
looking at the answers in the book, and you're not
one of them, nor have you been given a book. Well,
I think I'd head for the nearest temple once I'd
(14:19):
picked up enough the language, and well I'd tell the
priest I could make eh fireworks. He laughed with small merriment.
How you're in Babylon, Remember where do you find sulfur?
Where do you find salt? Peter? If you can get
across to the priest what you want and somehow persuade
(14:39):
him to obtain the stuff for you, how do you
compound a powder that'll, you know, actually go off instead
of just fizzing? For your information, that's quite an art. Hell,
you couldn't even get a berth as a deckhand. You'd
be lucky if you ended up scrubbing floors. In fact,
the slave in the Field's a likelier career, isn't it
the fire sank Low, I conceded, Yeah, alright, I I
(15:03):
guess that's true. They picked the era with special care.
You know. He looked back toward the window scene from
our chairs, reflection on the glass blotted out the stars,
so that we were only aware of the night itself.
When a man is sentenced to banishments, all the experts confer,
pointing out what the periods of their specialties would be
like for this particular individual. You might see how a
(15:26):
squeamish intellectual type dropped into Homeric Greece would find it
a living nightmare, whereas a rowdy type might might get
along pretty well, might even end up a respected warrior.
And if the rowdy was not the blackest of criminals,
they might actually live in near the Hall of Agamemnon.
Condemning him to no more than danger, it's comfort and homesickness.
(15:49):
Oh my god, the the home sickness. So much darkness
rose in him as he spoke, and I sought to
study him with a driver re marks well, he must
immunize the convict of every ancient disease, otherwise this would
be only an elaborate death sentence. Right, his eyes focused
(16:10):
on me again. Yes, and of course the longevity serium
is still active in his veins, that's all. However, he's
dropped in an unfrequented spot. After dark, the machine vanishes,
and he's kind of awful the rest of his life.
All he knows is that they've chosen an irre for him,
with such characteristics that they expect that the punishment will
(16:30):
fit his crime. Still, this fellow once more upon us,
until the clock in the mattle became the loudest thing
in the world, as if all others sound had froze
him to death. Outside I glanced at his dial. The
night was old, soon in the east would be turning pale.
And when I looked back, he was still watching me,
(16:50):
disconcertingly intent. And I asked him, what was your crime?
He didn't seem taken aback. Only he said wearily, MM,
what does it matter? I told you, the crimes of
one age are the heroisms of another. If my attempt
had succeeded, the centuries to come would have adored my name.
(17:12):
But I failed. A lot of people must have got hurt.
The whole world must have hated you. Well, Yes, m
this is a fantasy I'm telling you, of course, you know,
to pass the time. I smiled and said, and I'm
(17:32):
playing along with you. His tension eased to trifle. He
leaned back, his legs stretched across that glorious carpet. So,
given as much of the fantasies I've related, how did
you deduce the extent of my uh alleged guilt? Well,
it was your your past life. When and where were
(17:55):
you left? He said, in this bleak voice as I've
ever heard near Warsaw in August nineteen thirty nine. I
don't imagine you care to talk about the war riors. No, no,
I don't. However, he went on, when enough de finds
(18:15):
had accumulated, my enemies blundered. The confusion following the German
attack gave me a chance to escape from police custody
before I could be stuck in a concentration camp, and
gradually I learned what the situation was. Of course, I
couldn't predict anything. I still can't. Only specialists know or
care what happened in the twentieth century. But by the
(18:39):
time I had become a Polish conscript in the German forces,
I realized this was the losing side. So I slipped
across to the Americans and told them what I had observed.
Became a scout for them. Risky, but if I had
stopped a bullet, what the hell I didn't? And I
ended up with plenty of sponsors to get me over here.
And the rest of my story is conventional. My cigar
(19:02):
had gone out, and I related four cigars that Michael's
head were not to be taken casually. He had them
especially flown from Amsterdam. And I said, the alien corn
what m you know? Ruth and Ruth and exile. She
wasn't badly treated, but she stood weeping for her homeland. No,
(19:22):
I I don't know that story. It's in the Bible. Uh, yes,
I I really must read the Bible. Sometime. His mood
was changing by the moment toward the assurance I had
first encountered. He swallowed his whiskey with a gesture almost
devon air. His expression was alert and confident, and he said, yes,
(19:44):
that that aspect was pretty bad. Nah, not so much
the physical conditions of life. You doubtless gone camping and
noticed how soon you stop missing hot running water, electric
lights and all the gadgets at the manufacturers assurances our
absolute necessities. I'd be glad enough of the gravity reducer
a cell stimulator if I had one, but I get
along fine without him. The homesickness, though, that's what really
(20:06):
eats the little things. You never noticed, some particular food,
the way people walk, the game's played, the small talk topics,
even the constellations. They're different in the future. The Sun
has traveled that far in its s galactic orbit, but
voluntary or force, people have always been immigrating. We're all
(20:27):
descended from those who could stand the shock. I adapted,
but I wouldn't go back now, even if I were
given a free pardon, m not the way those traders
are running things. I finished my own drink, tasting it
with my whole tongue and pallid for it was a
marvelous whiskey, and I listened to him with only half
(20:51):
an ear hmm, you like it here? Yeah? Yeah, by
now I do. I'm I'm over the emotional hump, being
so busy the first few years just staying alive, and
then so busy establishing myself after I came to this country.
That helped. I never had much time for self pity.
Now my business interests me more and more. It's a
(21:13):
fascinating game, pleasantly free of extreme penalties for wrong moves.
I've discovered qualities here that the future is lost. I
bet you have no idea how exotic this city is.
I think at this moment, within five miles of this
there's a soldier on guard at an atomic laboratory. There's
a bomb freezing in the doorway, an orgy and a
(21:36):
millionaire's apartment, a priest making ready for sunrise rights, a
merchant from Arabi, a spy from Muscovy, a ship from
the Indies. It's excitement softened. He looked from the window
and the night inward, towards the bedrooms, and and my
wife and kids. No, no, I wouldn't go back, no
(21:58):
matter what happened. I took a final breath to my cigar.
You have done rather well. Liberated from his gray mood,
he grinned at me. You know, you know, I think
you believe that, yarn I told you. I stubbed out
the cigar, froze and stretched, oh, oh, I do I
(22:24):
do believe you. Michael's the hour is late. We better
be going. He didn't notice it once. When he did,
he came out of his chair like a big cat.
We of course, I drew a nerve gun from my pocket.
(22:45):
He stopped in his tracks. This sort of thing isn't
left to chance. We check up. Come along now. The
blood drained from his face. No no, no, no, no,
you can't. It isn't fair, not to Emily the children.
(23:08):
And I told him that is part of the punishment.
And I left him in Damascus the year before Tamberlaine
sacked it. That story was my object, all sublime. Written
(24:47):
by Paul Anderson. It appeared in the June nineteen sixty
one issue of Galaxy. This is Michael Hanson speaking engineering
for mindwebs by Steve Gordon. Mind Webbs is put list
at WA Radio in Madison, the service of the University
of Wisconsin Extension
Mind Way. Welcome to a half hour of mind Wag
short stories from the world of speken to fiction. All
(01:10):
This story comes from the June nineteen sixty one issue
of Galaxy. It's Paul Anderson's My Object All Sublime. We
met in line of business. Michael's firm wanted to start
a subdivision on the far side of Evanston and discovered
that I held title to some of the most promising acreage.
They made me a good offer, but I was stubborn.
(01:32):
They raised it, and I stayed stubborn, and finally the
boss himself looked me up. He wasn't entirely what I'd expected, aggressive,
of course, but in so polite a way that it
didn't defend his manner. So urbane, you rarely noticed his
lack of formal education, which luck he was remedying quite
fast anyhow, via night classes and extension courses as well
as omnivorous reading. We went out for a drink while
(01:54):
we talked the matter over. Led me to a bar
that had little of Chicago about it. Quiet, shabby, not
juke box and television, a bookshelved from several chest sets,
but none of the freaks and phonies who usually infested
such places. Besides ourselves, there were only half a dozen customers,
a professor emeritith type among the books, some people arguing
politics or the degree of factual relevancy, a young man
(02:18):
debating with a bartender whether Bartalk was more original than
Schirnback or vice Wroza Michael's and I found a corner
table and some Danish peer. I explained, I didn't care
about money one way or another, but objected to bulldozing
some rather good looking countryside in order to erect still
another chrome plated slum. Michael stuffed his pipe before answering.
(02:39):
He was a lean, erect man, long chinned and roman nosed,
his hair grizzled, his eyes dark and luminous. Didn't my
representative explain? He said, we aren't planning the role of
identical split level sites. We have six basic designs in mind,
with variations to be located in the pattern. Mike, so
he took a pencil and paper and began to sketch.
(03:02):
As he talked. He made his own case better than
anyone had done for him. Like it or not, he said,
this was the middle twentieth century and mass production was
here to stay. The community need not be less attractive
for being ready made, could in fact gain an artistic unity.
He proceeded to show me how you did impress me
too hard, and conversation wandered, Oh, delightful, spot this? I
(03:27):
told him. How'd you find it? He shrugged. I often
prawl about, especially at night, exploring. Isn't that rather dangerous? No?
Not in comparison, he said, with a touch of grimness.
I gather you weren't born over here. No. No, I
didn't arrive in the United States till nineteen forty six,
(03:48):
and what they called a DP a displaced person. I
became fad Michaels because I got tired of spelling out
today Oshi Mikolowski. Nor did I want any part of
old country sentimentalism. I'm really a zealous assimilationalist. Otherwise, he
seldom talked very much about himself. Later, I got some
(04:08):
details of his early rise in business from admiring and
envious competitors. Some of them didn't yet believe it was
possible to sell a house with a radiant heating for
less than twenty thousand dollars and show a profit. Michaels
had found ways to make it possible. Not bad for
a penniless immigrant. I checked up and found he'd been
admitted on a special visa in consideration of services rendered
(04:31):
the US Army in the last stages of the European War.
Those services had taken nerve as well as quick wittedness. Meanwhile,
our acquaintance developed. I sold him the land he wanted,
but we continued to see each other, sometimes in the tavern,
sometimes at my bachelor apartment, most often in his Lakeshore penthouse.
He had a stunning blond wife and a couple of bright,
(04:52):
well mannered boys. Nonetheless, he was a lonely man, and
I have fulfilled his need for friendship. It was a
year or so after we we first met that he
told me the story. I'd been invited over for Thanksgiving dinner. Afterward,
we sat around and talked and talked and talked. When
we had ranged from the chances of an upset and
(05:14):
the next city election to the chances of other planets
following the same general course of history as our own.
Emily excused herself and went to bed. This was long
past midnight. Michaels and I kept on talking, and I
hadn't seen him so excited before. It was as if
that last subject, where some particular word, had opened the
door for him. Finally he got up. We filled our
(05:34):
whiskey glasses with a motion not altogether steady, and walked
across the living room noiseless, on that deep green carpet
to the picture window. The night was clear and sharp.
We overlooked the city, streaks and webs, and coils of
glittering color ruby, amethyst, emerald, topaz, and the dark sheet
of Lake Michigan. Almost it seemed we could glimpse endless
(05:56):
white planes beyond. But overhead eyed the sky crystal black,
with a great bear stood on his tail, and Orion
went striding along the milky way. I hadn't often seen
so big and frosty of you, And he said, well,
after all, I know what I'm talking about. I stirred
deep in my armchair. Only one shaded lamp lit the room,
(06:19):
so that the star swarms had also been visible to
me when I passed by the window earlier. I gived
a little uh personally, and he glanced back toward me,
his face stiff. What would you say if I answered? Yes?
I sipped my drink. King's Ransom as a noble and
comforting brew, most especially when the earth itself seems to
(06:41):
tone with a deepening shill. I suppose you had your reasons,
and wait to see what they are, he grinned, one sidedly.
Oh well, I I'm from this planet too. Ah, And
yet yet the sky is so wide and strange. And
don't you think the strangeness would affect men? Who? You know?
(07:03):
Who went there wouldn't seep into them, so they carried
it back in their bones, and Earth was never quite
the same afterward. No, go on, you know, I like fantasies.
He stared outward and then back again, and suddenly he
tossed off his drink. The violent gesture was unlike him,
but so had his hesitation been, and he said, in
(07:24):
a harsh tone, Okay, then, okay, I'll tell you a fantasy.
It's a story for winter. It's a cold story that
you are best advised not to take so serious. I
drew in the excellent cigar he'd given me and waited
in the silence he needed. He paced a few times
back and forth before the window, eyes to the floor,
(07:44):
until he filled his glass anew and sat down near me.
He didn't look at me, but a picture on the
wall a somber, unintelligible thing which no one else liked.
He seemed to get strength from it, for he began
talking fast and softly. Once upon a time, a very
very long time in the future, there was a civilization.
(08:05):
I shall not describe it to you, for well it
be impossible. Could you go back to the time of
the Egyptian pyramid buildings and tell them about this city
below us? I don't mean they wouldn't believe you, of
course they wouldn't, but that hardly matters. I mean they
they would not understand. See, nothing you say could make
sense to them, and the way people work, can think
(08:27):
and believe, would be less comprehensible than those lights and
towers and machines. Not so if I spoke to you
of people in the future living among great blinding energies,
and of genetic changelings and imaginary wars and talking stones
and a certain blind hunter, well you might feel anything
(08:47):
at all, but you would not understand. So I ask
you only to imagine how many thousands of times this
planet has circled the sun, and how deeply buried and
forgotten we are, And then also to imagine that this
other civilization thinks in pattern so far that it has
ignored every limitation of logic and natural law to discover
(09:09):
means of traveling and time. So while the ordinary dweller
in that age, I can't exactly call him the citizen,
or anything else for which we have a word, because
it would be too misleading. The average educated dweller knows
in the vague, uninterested way that millennia ago, some semi
savages were the first to split the atom. Only one
(09:31):
or two men have actually been here. Walked among his
studied in Baptists, and returned with a file of information
for the central brain, if I might call it by
such a name. No one else is concerned with us
any more than you are concerned with early Mesopotamian archaeology.
You see. He dropped his gaze to the tumbler in
(09:52):
his hand and held it there as if the whiskey
were a aragular pool. The silence grew. I said, oh,
very well, for the sake of the story, I'll accept
the premise. I imagine time travelers would be unnoticeable. They'd
have their own techniques of disguise and so on, wouldn't
want to change their own past. And he said, oh, oh,
(10:15):
there's no danger that. It's only that they couldn't learn
much if they went around insisting they were from the future.
Just imagine, I chuckled. Michaels gave me a shadowed look.
Apart from the scientific, can you guess what use there
might be for time travel, well trade and objects of
(10:36):
art or or natural resources. I suppose go back to
the dinosaur age and dig up iron before man appeared
to strip the richest minds and he shook his head. Well,
think again. See, they'd only want a limited number of
Minoan statuettes, ming vases, or third world of geminy dwarfs,
chiefly for their museums. If museum isn't too inaccurate a word,
(10:58):
I tell you they are not like us. As for
natural resources, they're beyond the point of needing any they
make their own. He paused, as if before a final plunge.
Then what was this penal colony? The French abandoned Devil's Island? Yeah, yeah,
that was it. Can you imagine a better revenge on
(11:20):
a condemned criminal than to maroon him in the past.
Why I should think they'd be above any concept of
revenge or even moved to terrence by horrible examples. Even
in this century. We're aware that that doesn't work, aren't we,
Are you sure? Side by side with the growth of
the day's enlightened chronology, haven't we seen the corresponding growth
(11:42):
of crime itself? You were wondering some time ago, how
I dared walk the night streets alone? Remember, And furthermore,
punishment is a catharis of society as a whole. Up
in the future, they'd tell you that public hangings did
reduce the crime rate, which would otherwise have been still higher.
It's somewhat more important. These spectacles made possibly the eighteenth
century birth of real humanitarianism. He raised their sardonic brow,
(12:08):
or so they claim. In the future, it doesn't matter
whether they're right or merely rationalizing the degraded element in
their own civilization. All you need assume is that they
do send their very worst criminals back into the past. Well,
that's rather rough on the past, isn't it. No, No,
not really, for a number of reasons, including the fact
(12:29):
that everything they caused to happen has already happened. Dam English,
it just isn't built for talking about these paradoxes. And
mainly though, you have to remember that they don't waste
all this effort on ordinary miscriants. And one has to
be a very rare criminal to deserve of exilent time.
And the worst crime in the world depends on the
(12:49):
particular year of the world's history. Murder, brigandage, treason, heresy, narcotics, pedling, slaving, patriotism.
Really the whole catalog, all of rated capital punishment in
some epics, and have all been lightly regarded in others,
and positively commended. And still others think back and see
(13:11):
if I'm not right. I regarded him for a while,
observing how deep the lines were in his face, and
recalling that at his age he shouldn't be so gray.
And I said, well, very well, agreed, But with not
a man from the future possessing all its knowledge. He
set his glass down with audible force. What knowledge? Use
(13:32):
your brains? Imagine yourself left naked and alone in Babylon. Now,
how much Babylonian language or history do you know? Who
is the present king? How much longer will he reign?
Who will succeed him? What are the laws and customs
you must obey? You remember that eventually the Assyrians of
the Persians, or someone will conquer Babylon and they'll be
hell to pay. But when now there is a current war,
(13:56):
a mere borders skirmish, you're an all out struggle. And
if it's the latter, is Babylon going to win? If not,
what peace terms will be imposed? Yeah, there wouldn't be
twenty men today who could answer those questions with not
looking at the answers in the book, and you're not
one of them, nor have you been given a book. Well,
I think I'd head for the nearest temple once I'd
(14:19):
picked up enough the language, and well I'd tell the
priest I could make eh fireworks. He laughed with small merriment.
How you're in Babylon, Remember where do you find sulfur?
Where do you find salt? Peter? If you can get
across to the priest what you want and somehow persuade
(14:39):
him to obtain the stuff for you, how do you
compound a powder that'll, you know, actually go off instead
of just fizzing? For your information, that's quite an art. Hell,
you couldn't even get a berth as a deckhand. You'd
be lucky if you ended up scrubbing floors. In fact,
the slave in the Field's a likelier career, isn't it
the fire sank Low, I conceded, Yeah, alright, I I
(15:03):
guess that's true. They picked the era with special care.
You know. He looked back toward the window scene from
our chairs, reflection on the glass blotted out the stars,
so that we were only aware of the night itself.
When a man is sentenced to banishments, all the experts confer,
pointing out what the periods of their specialties would be
like for this particular individual. You might see how a
(15:26):
squeamish intellectual type dropped into Homeric Greece would find it
a living nightmare, whereas a rowdy type might might get
along pretty well, might even end up a respected warrior.
And if the rowdy was not the blackest of criminals,
they might actually live in near the Hall of Agamemnon.
Condemning him to no more than danger, it's comfort and homesickness.
(15:49):
Oh my god, the the home sickness. So much darkness
rose in him as he spoke, and I sought to
study him with a driver re marks well, he must
immunize the convict of every ancient disease, otherwise this would
be only an elaborate death sentence. Right, his eyes focused
(16:10):
on me again. Yes, and of course the longevity serium
is still active in his veins, that's all. However, he's
dropped in an unfrequented spot. After dark, the machine vanishes,
and he's kind of awful the rest of his life.
All he knows is that they've chosen an irre for him,
with such characteristics that they expect that the punishment will
(16:30):
fit his crime. Still, this fellow once more upon us,
until the clock in the mattle became the loudest thing
in the world, as if all others sound had froze
him to death. Outside I glanced at his dial. The
night was old, soon in the east would be turning pale.
And when I looked back, he was still watching me,
(16:50):
disconcertingly intent. And I asked him, what was your crime?
He didn't seem taken aback. Only he said wearily, MM,
what does it matter? I told you, the crimes of
one age are the heroisms of another. If my attempt
had succeeded, the centuries to come would have adored my name.
(17:12):
But I failed. A lot of people must have got hurt.
The whole world must have hated you. Well, Yes, m
this is a fantasy I'm telling you, of course, you know,
to pass the time. I smiled and said, and I'm
(17:32):
playing along with you. His tension eased to trifle. He
leaned back, his legs stretched across that glorious carpet. So,
given as much of the fantasies I've related, how did
you deduce the extent of my uh alleged guilt? Well,
it was your your past life. When and where were
(17:55):
you left? He said, in this bleak voice as I've
ever heard near Warsaw in August nineteen thirty nine. I
don't imagine you care to talk about the war riors. No, no,
I don't. However, he went on, when enough de finds
(18:15):
had accumulated, my enemies blundered. The confusion following the German
attack gave me a chance to escape from police custody
before I could be stuck in a concentration camp, and
gradually I learned what the situation was. Of course, I
couldn't predict anything. I still can't. Only specialists know or
care what happened in the twentieth century. But by the
(18:39):
time I had become a Polish conscript in the German forces,
I realized this was the losing side. So I slipped
across to the Americans and told them what I had observed.
Became a scout for them. Risky, but if I had
stopped a bullet, what the hell I didn't? And I
ended up with plenty of sponsors to get me over here.
And the rest of my story is conventional. My cigar
(19:02):
had gone out, and I related four cigars that Michael's
head were not to be taken casually. He had them
especially flown from Amsterdam. And I said, the alien corn
what m you know? Ruth and Ruth and exile. She
wasn't badly treated, but she stood weeping for her homeland. No,
(19:22):
I I don't know that story. It's in the Bible. Uh, yes,
I I really must read the Bible. Sometime. His mood
was changing by the moment toward the assurance I had
first encountered. He swallowed his whiskey with a gesture almost
devon air. His expression was alert and confident, and he said, yes,
(19:44):
that that aspect was pretty bad. Nah, not so much
the physical conditions of life. You doubtless gone camping and
noticed how soon you stop missing hot running water, electric
lights and all the gadgets at the manufacturers assurances our
absolute necessities. I'd be glad enough of the gravity reducer
a cell stimulator if I had one, but I get
along fine without him. The homesickness, though, that's what really
(20:06):
eats the little things. You never noticed, some particular food,
the way people walk, the game's played, the small talk topics,
even the constellations. They're different in the future. The Sun
has traveled that far in its s galactic orbit, but
voluntary or force, people have always been immigrating. We're all
(20:27):
descended from those who could stand the shock. I adapted,
but I wouldn't go back now, even if I were
given a free pardon, m not the way those traders
are running things. I finished my own drink, tasting it
with my whole tongue and pallid for it was a
marvelous whiskey, and I listened to him with only half
(20:51):
an ear hmm, you like it here? Yeah? Yeah, by
now I do. I'm I'm over the emotional hump, being
so busy the first few years just staying alive, and
then so busy establishing myself after I came to this country.
That helped. I never had much time for self pity.
Now my business interests me more and more. It's a
(21:13):
fascinating game, pleasantly free of extreme penalties for wrong moves.
I've discovered qualities here that the future is lost. I
bet you have no idea how exotic this city is.
I think at this moment, within five miles of this
there's a soldier on guard at an atomic laboratory. There's
a bomb freezing in the doorway, an orgy and a
(21:36):
millionaire's apartment, a priest making ready for sunrise rights, a
merchant from Arabi, a spy from Muscovy, a ship from
the Indies. It's excitement softened. He looked from the window
and the night inward, towards the bedrooms, and and my
wife and kids. No, no, I wouldn't go back, no
(21:58):
matter what happened. I took a final breath to my cigar.
You have done rather well. Liberated from his gray mood,
he grinned at me. You know, you know, I think
you believe that, yarn I told you. I stubbed out
the cigar, froze and stretched, oh, oh, I do I
(22:24):
do believe you. Michael's the hour is late. We better
be going. He didn't notice it once. When he did,
he came out of his chair like a big cat.
We of course, I drew a nerve gun from my pocket.
(22:45):
He stopped in his tracks. This sort of thing isn't
left to chance. We check up. Come along now. The
blood drained from his face. No no, no, no, no,
you can't. It isn't fair, not to Emily the children.
(23:08):
And I told him that is part of the punishment.
And I left him in Damascus the year before Tamberlaine
sacked it. That story was my object, all sublime. Written
(24:47):
by Paul Anderson. It appeared in the June nineteen sixty
one issue of Galaxy. This is Michael Hanson speaking engineering
for mindwebs by Steve Gordon. Mind Webbs is put list
at WA Radio in Madison, the service of the University
of Wisconsin Extension
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