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Title: Star, Bright
Author: Mark Clifton
Release Date: January 15, 2016 [EBook #50935]
Language: English
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Star, Bright
By MARK CLIFTON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction July 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
There is no past or future, the children said;
it all just IS! They had every reason to know!
_Friday--June 11th_
At three years of age, a little girl shouldn't have enough functioning
intelligence to cut out and paste together a Moebius Strip.
Or, if she did it by accident, she surely shouldn't have enough
reasoning ability to pick up one of her crayons and carefully trace the
continuous line to prove it has only one surface.
And if by some strange coincidence she did, and it was still just an
accident, how can I account for this generally active daughter of
mine--and I do mean _active_--sitting for a solid half hour with her
chin cupped in her hand, staring off into space, thinking with such
concentration that it was almost painful to watch?
I was in my reading chair, going over some work. Star was sitting on
the floor, in the circle of my light, with her blunt-nosed scissors and
her scraps of paper.
Her long silence made me glance down at her as she was taping the two
ends of the paper together. At that point I thought it was an accident
that she had given a half twist to the paper strip before joining the
circle. I smiled to myself as she picked it up in her chubby fingers.
"A little child forms the enigma of the ages," I mused.
But instead of throwing the strip aside, or tearing it apart as any
other child would do, she carefully turned it over and around--studying
it from all sides.
Then she picked up one of her crayons and began tracing the line. She
did it as though she were substantiating a conclusion already reached!
It was a bitter confirmation for me. I had been refusing to face it
for a long time, but I could ignore it no longer.
Star was a High I.Q.
For half an hour I watched her while she sat on the floor, one knee
bent under her, her chin in her hand, unmoving. Her eyes were wide with
wonderment, looking into the potentialities of the phenomenon she had
found.
It has been a tough struggle, taking care of her since my wife's death.
Now this added problem. If only she could have been normally dull, like
other children!
* * * * *
I made up my mind while I watched her. If a child is afflicted, then
let's face it, she's afflicted. A parent must teach her to compensate.
At least she could be prepared for the bitterness I'd known. She could
learn early to take it in stride.
I could use the measurements available, get the degree of intelligence,
and in that way grasp the extent of my problem. A twenty point jump
in I.Q. creates an entirely different set of problems. The 140 child
lives in a world nothing at all like that of the 100 child, and a world
which the 120 child can but vaguely sense. The problems which vex and
challenge the 160 pass over the 140 as a bird flies over a field mouse.
I must not make the mistake of posing the problems of one if she is the
other. I must know. In the meantime, I must treat it casually.
"That's called the Moebius Strip, Star," I interrupted her thoughts.
She came out of her reverie with a start. I didn't like the quick way
her eyes sought mine--almost furtively, as though she had been caught
doing something bad.
"Somebody already make it?" she disappointedly asked.
She knew what she had discovered! Something inside me spilled over with
grief, and something else caught at me with dread.
I kept my voice casual. "A man by the name of Moebius. A long time ago.
I'll tell you about him sometime when you're older."
"Now. While I'm little," she commanded with a frown. "And don't tell.
Read me."
What did she mean by that? Oh, she must be simply paraphrasing me at
those times in the past when I've wanted the facts and not garbled
generalizations. It could only be that!
"Okay, young lady." I lifted an eyebrow and glared at her in mock
ferociousness, which usually sent her into gales of laughter. "I'll
slow you down!"
She remained completely sober.
I turned to the subject in a physics book. It's not in simple language,
by any means, and I read it as rapidly as I could speak. My thought
was to make her admit she didn't understand it, so I could translate it
into basic language.
Her reaction?
"You read too slow. Daddy," she complained. She was childishly
irritable about it. "You say a word. Then I think a long time. Then you
say another word."
I knew what she meant. I remember, when I was a child, my thoughts used
to dart in and out among the slowly droning words of any adult. Whole
patterns of universes would appear and disappear in those brief moments.
"So?" I asked.
"So," she mocked me impishly. "You teach me to read. Then I can think
quick as I want."
"Quickly," I corrected in a weak voice. "The word is 'quickly,' an
adverb."
She looked at me impatiently, as if she saw through this allegedly
adult device to show up a younger's ignorance. I felt like the dope!
* * * * *
_September 1st_
A great deal has happened the past few months. I have tried, a number
of times to bring the conversation around to discuss Star's affliction
with her. But she is amazingly adroit at heading me off, as though she
already knows what I am trying to say and isn't concerned. Perhaps, in
spite of her brilliance, she's too young to realize the hostility of
the world toward intelligence.
Some of the visiting neighbors have been amused to see her sit on the
floor with an encyclopedia as big as she is, rapidly turning the pages.
Only Star and I know she is reading the pages as rapidly as she can
turn them. I've brushed away the neighbors' comments with: "She likes
to look at the pictures."
They talk to her in baby talk--and she answers in baby talk! How does
she know enough to do that?
I have spent the months making an exhaustive record of her I.Q.
measurements, aptitude speeds, reaction, tables, all the recommended
paraphernalia for measuring something we know nothing about.
The tables are screwy, or Star is beyond all measurement.
All right, Pete Holmes, how are you going to pose those problems and
combat them for her, when you have no conception of what they might
be? But I must have a conception. I've got to be able to comprehend at
least a little of what she may face. I simply couldn't stand by and do
nothing.
Easy, though. Nobody knows better than you the futility of trying to
compete out of your class. How many students, workers and employers
have tried to compete with you? You've watched them and pitied them,
comparing them to a donkey trying to run the Kentucky Derby.
How does it feel to be in the place of the donkey, for a change? You've
always blamed them for not realizing they shouldn't try to compete.
But this is my own daughter! I _must_ understand.
* * * * *
_October 1st_
Star is now four years old, and according to State Law her mind has now
developed enough so that she may attend nursery school. Again I tried
to prepare her for what she might face. She listened through about
two sentences and changed the subject. I can't tell about Star. Does
she already know the answers? Or does she not even realize there is a
problem?
I was in a sweat of worry when I took her to her first day at school
yesterday morning. Last night I was sitting in my chair, reading. After
she had put her dolls away, she went to the bookshelves and brought
down a book of fairy tales.
That is another peculiarity of hers. She has an unmeasurably quick
perception, yet she has all the normal reactions of a little girl. She
likes her dolls, fairy stories, playing grown up. No, she's not a
monster.
She brought the book of fairy tales over to me.
"Daddy, read me a story," she asked quite seriously.
I looked at her in amazement. "Since when? Go read your own story."
She lifted an eyebrow in imitation of my own characteristic gesture.
"Children of my age do not read," she instructed pedantically. "I can't
learn to read until I am in the first grade. It is very hard to do and
I am much too little."
She had found the answer to her affliction--conformity! She had already
learned to conceal her intelligence. So many of us break our hearts
before we learn that.
But you don't have to conceal it from me, Star! Not from me!
Oh, well, I could go along with the gag, if that was what she wanted.
"Did you like nursery school?" I asked the standard question.
"Oh, yes," she exclaimed enthusiastically. "It was fun."
"And what did you learn today, little girl?"
She played it straight back to me. "Not much. I tried to cut out paper
dolls, but the scissors kept slipping." Was there an elfin deviltry
back of her sober expression?
"Now, look," I cautioned, "don't overdo it. That's as bad as being
too quick. The idea is that everybody has to be just about standard
average. That's the only thing we will tolerate. It is expected that a
little girl of four should know how to cut out paper dolls properly."
"Oh?" she questioned, and looked thoughtful. "I guess that's the hard
part, isn't it, Daddy--to know how much you ought to know?"
"Yes, that's the hard part," I agreed fervently.
"But it's all right," she reassured me. "One of the Stupids showed me
how to cut them out, so now that little girl likes me. She just took
charge of me then and told the other kids they should like me, too. So
of course they did because she's leader. I think I did right, after
all."
"Oh, no!" I breathed to myself. She knew how to manipulate other people
already. Then my thought whirled around another concept. It was the
first time she had verbally classified normal people as "Stupids," but
it had slipped out so easily that I knew she'd been thinking to herself
for a long time. Then my whirling thoughts hit a third implication.
"Yes, maybe it was the right thing," I conceded. "Where the little girl
was concerned, that is. But don't forget you were being observed by a
grownup teacher in the room. And she's smarter."
"You mean she's older, Daddy," Star corrected me.
"Smarter, too, maybe. You can't tell."
"I can," she sighed. "She's just older."
I think it was growing fear which made me defensive.
"That's good," I said emphatically. "That's very good. You can learn a
lot from her then. It takes an awful lot of study to learn how to be
stupid."
My own troublesome business life came to mind and I thought to myself,
"I sometimes think I'll never learn it."
I swear I didn't say it aloud. But Star patted me consolingly and
answered as though I'd spoken.
"That's because you're only fairly bright, Daddy. You're a Tween, and
that's harder than being really bright."
"A Tween? What's a Tween?" I was bumbling to hide my confusion.
"That's what I mean, Daddy," she answered in exasperation. "You don't
grasp quickly. An In Between, of course. The other people are Stupids,
I'm a Bright, and you're a Tween. I made those names up when I was
little."
Good God! Besides being unmeasurably bright, she's a telepath!
All right, Pete, there you are. On reasoning processes you might stand
a chance--but not telepathy!
"Star," I said on impulse, "can you read people's minds?"
"Of course, Daddy," she answered, as if I'd asked a foolishly obvious
question.
"Can you teach me?"
She looked at me impishly. "You're already learning it a little. But
you're so slow! You see, you didn't even know you were learning."
Her voice took on a wistful note, a tone of loneliness.
"I wish--" she said, and paused.
"What do you wish?"
"You see what I mean, Daddy? You try, but you're so slow."
All the same, I knew. I knew she was already longing for a companion
whose mind could match her own.
A father is prepared to lose his daughter eventually, Star, but not so
soon.
Not so soon....
* * * * *
_June again_
Some new people have moved in next door. Star says their name is
Howell. Bill and Ruth Howell. They have a son, Robert, who looks maybe
a year older than Star, who will soon be five.
Star seems to have taken up with Robert right away. He is a
well-mannered boy and good company for Star.
I'm worried, though. Star had something to do with their moving in next
door. I'm convinced of that. I'm also convinced, even from the little
I've seen of him, that Robert is a Bright and a telepath.
Could it be that, failing to find quick accord with my mind, Star has
reached out and out until she made contact with a telepath companion?
No, that's too fantastic. Even if it were so, how could she shape
circumstances so she could bring Robert to live next door to her? The
Howells came from another city. It just happened that the people who
lived next door moved out and the house was put up for sale.
Just happened? How frequently do we find such abnormal Brights? What
are the chances of one _just happening_ to move in next door to another?
I know he is a telepath because, as I write this, I sense him reading
it.
I even catch his thought: "Oh, pardon me, Mr. Holmes. I didn't intend
to peek. Really I didn't."
Did I imagine that? Or is Star building a skill in my mind?
"It isn't nice to look into another person's mind unless you're asked,
Robert," I thought back, rather severely. It was purely an experiment.
"I know it, Mr. Holmes. I apologize." He is in his bed in his house,
across the driveway.
"No, Daddy, he really didn't mean to." And Star is in her bed in this
house.
It is impossible to write how I feel. There comes a time when words are
empty husks. But mixed with my expectant dread is a thread of gratitude
for having been taught to be even stumblingly telepathic.
* * * * *
_Saturday--August 11th_
I've thought of a gag. I haven't seen Jim Pietre in a month of Sundays,
not since he was awarded that research fellowship with the museum. It
will be good to pull him out of his hole, and this little piece of
advertising junk Star dropped should be just the thing.
Strange about the gadget. The Awful Secret Talisman of the Mystic
Junior G-Men, no doubt. Still, it doesn't have anything about crackles
and pops printed on it. Merely an odd-looking coin, not even true
round, bronze by the look of it. Crude. They must stamp them out by the
million without ever changing a die.
But it is just the thing to send to Jim to get a rise out of him. He
could always appreciate a good practical joke. Wonder how he'd feel to
know he was only a Tween.
* * * * *
_Monday--August 13th_
Sitting here at my study desk, I've been staring into space for an
hour. I don't know what to think.
It was about noon today when Jim Pietre called the office on the phone.
"Now, look, Pete," he started out. "What kind of gag are you pulling?"
I chortled to myself and pulled the dead pan on him.
"What do you mean, boy?" I asked back into the phone. "Gag? What kind
of gag? What are you talking about?"
"A coin. A coin." He was impatient. "You remember you sent me a coin in
the mail?"
"Oh, yeah, that," I pretended to remember. "Look, you're an important
research analyst on metals--too damned important to keep in touch
with your old friends--so I thought I'd make a bid for your attention
thataway."
"All right, give," he said in a low voice. "Where did you get it?" He
was serious.
"Come off it, Jim. Are you practicing to be a stuffed shirt? I admit
it's a rib. Something Star dropped the other day. A manufacturer's idea
of kid advertising, no doubt."
"I'm in dead earnest, Peter," he answered. "It's no advertising gadget."
"It means something?"
In college, Jim could take a practical joke and make six out of it.
"I don't know what it means. Where did Star get it?" He was being
pretty crisp about it.
"Oh, I don't know," I said. I was getting a little fed up; the joke
wasn't going according to plan. "Never asked her. You know how kids
clutter up the place with their things. No father even tries to keep
track of all the junk that can be bought with three box tops and a
dime."
"This was not bought with three box tops and a dime," he spaced his
words evenly. "This was not bought anywhere, for any price. In fact, if
you want to be logical about it, this coin doesn't exist at all."
I laughed out loud. This was more like the old Jim.
"Okay, so you've turned the gag back on me. Let's call it quits. How
about coming over to supper some night soon?"
"I'm coming over, my friend." He remained grim as he said it. "And
I'm coming over tonight. As soon as you will be home. It's no gag I'm
pulling. Can you get that through your stubborn head? You say you got
it from Star, and of course I believe you. But it's no toy. It's the
real thing." Then, as if in profound puzzlement, "Only it isn't."
A feeling of dread was settling upon me. Once you cried "Uncle" to
Jim, he always let up.
"Suppose you tell me what you mean," I answered soberly.
"That's more like it, Pete. Here's what we know about the coin so far.
It is apparently pre-Egyptian. It's hand-cast. It's made out of one of
the lost bronzes. We fix it at around four thousand years old."
"That ought to be easy to solve," I argued. "Probably some coin
collector is screaming all over the place for it. No doubt lost it and
Star found it. Must be lots of old coins like that in museums and in
private collections."
I was rationalizing more for my own benefit than for Jim. He would
know all those things without my mentioning them. He waited until I had
finished.
"Step two," he went on. "We've got one of the top coin men in the world
here at the museum. As soon as I saw what the metal was, I took it to
him. Now hold onto your chair, Pete. He says there is no coin like it
in the world, either museum or private collection."
"You museum boys get beside yourselves at times. Come down to Earth.
Sometime, somewhere, some collector picked it up in some exotic place
and kept it quiet. I don't have to tell you how some collectors
are--sitting in a dark room, gloating over some worthless bauble, not
telling a soul about it--"
"All right, wise guy," he interrupted. "Step three. That coin is at
least four thousand years old _and it's also brand-new_! Let's hear you
explain that away."
"New?" I asked weakly. "I don't get it."
"Old coins show wear. The edges get rounded with handling. The surface
oxidizes. The molecular structure changes, crystalizes. This coin shows
no wear, no oxidation, no molecular change. This coin might have been
struck yesterday. _Where did Star get it?_"
"Hold it a minute," I pleaded.
* * * * *
I began to think back. Saturday morning. Star and Robert had been
playing a game. Come to think of it, that was a peculiar game. Mighty
peculiar.
Star would run into the house and stand in front of the encyclopedia
shelf. I could hear Robert counting loudly at the base tree outside in
the back yard. She would stare at the encyclopedia for a moment.
Once I heard her mumble: "That's a good place."
Or maybe she merely thought it and I caught the thought. I'm doing that
quite a bit of late.
Then she would run outside again. A moment later, Robert would run in
and stand in front of the same shelf. Then he also would run outside
again. There would be silence for several minutes. The silence would
rupture with a burst of laughing and shouting. Soon, Star would come in
again.
"How does he find me?" I heard her think once. "I can't reason it, and
I can't ESP it out of him."
It was during one of their silences when Ruth called over to me.
"Hey, Pete! Do you know where the kids are? Time for their milk and
cookies."
The Howells are awfully good to Star, bless 'em. I got up and went over
to the window.
"I don't know, Ruth," I called back. "They were in and out only a few
minutes ago."
"Well, I'm not worried," she said. She came through the kitchen door
and stood on the back steps. "They know better than to cross the street
by themselves. They're too little for that. So I guess they're over at
Marily's. When they come back, tell 'em to come and get it."
"Okay, Ruth," I answered.
She opened the screen door again and went back into her kitchen. I left
the window and returned to my work.
A little later, both the kids came running into the house. I managed to
capture them long enough to tell them about the cookies and milk.
"Beat you there!" Robert shouted to Star.
There was a scuffle and they ran out the front door. I noticed then
that Star had dropped the coin and I picked it up and sent it to Jim
Pietre.
* * * * *
"Hello, Jim," I said into the phone. "Are you still there?"
"Yep, still waiting for an answer," he said.
"Jim, I think you'd better come over to the house right away. I'll
leave my office now and meet you there. Can you get away?"
"Can I get away?" he exclaimed. "Boss says to trace this coin down and
do nothing else. See you in fifteen minutes."
He hung up. Thoughtfully, I replaced the receiver and went out to my
car. I was pulling into my block from one arterial when I saw Jim's car
pulling in from a block away. I stopped at the curb and waited for him.
I didn't see the kids anywhere out front.
Jim climbed out of his car, and I never saw such an eager look of
anticipation on a man's face before. I didn't realize I was showing my
dread, but when he saw my face, he became serious.
"What is it, Pete? What on Earth is it?" he almost whispered.
"I don't know. At least I'm not sure. Come on inside the house."
We let ourselves in the front, and I took Jim into the study. It has a
large window opening on the back garden, and the scene was very clear.
At first it was an innocent scene--so innocent and peaceful. Just three
little children in the back yard playing hide and seek. Marily, a
neighbor's child, was stepping up to the base tree.
"Now look, you kids," she was saying. "You hide where I can find you or
I won't play."
"But where can we go, Marily?" Robert was arguing loudly. Like all
little boys, he seems to carry on his conversations at the top of his
lungs. "There's the garage, and there's those trees and bushes. You
have to look everywhere, Marily."
"And there's going to be other buildings and trees and bushes there
afterward," Star called out with glee. "You gotta look behind them,
too."
"Yeah!" Robert took up the teasing refrain. "And there's been lots and
lots of buildings and trees there before--especially trees. You gotta
look behind them, too."
Marily tossed her head petulantly. "I don't know what you're talking
about, and I don't care. Just hide where I can find you, that's all."
She hid her face at the tree and started counting. If I had been alone,
I would have been sure my eyesight had failed me, or that I was the
victim of hallucinations. But Jim was standing there and saw it, too.
Marily started counting, yet the other two didn't run away. Star
reached out and took Robert's hand and they merely stood there. For an
instant, they seemed to shimmer and--_they disappeared without moving a
step!_
Marily finished her counting and ran around to the few possible hiding
places in the yard. When she couldn't find them, she started to blubber
and pushed through the hedge to Ruth's back door.
"They runned away from me again," she whined through the screen at Ruth.
Jim and I stood staring out the window. I glanced at him. His face was
set and pale, but probably no worse than my own.
We saw the instant shimmer again. Star, and then immediately Robert,
materialized from the air and ran up to the tree, shouting, "Safe!
Safe!"
Marily let out a bawl and ran home to her mother.
* * * * *
I called Star and Robert into the house. They came, still holding
hands, a little shamefaced, a little defiant.
How to begin? What in hell could I say?
"It's not exactly fair," I told them. "Marily can't follow you there."
I was shooting in the dark, but I had at least a glimmering to go by.
Star turned pale enough for the freckles on her little nose to stand
out under her tan. Robert blushed and turned to her fiercely.
"I told you so, Star. I _told_ you so! I said it wasn't sporting," he
accused. He turned to me. "Marily can't play good hide-and-seek anyway.
She's only a Stupid."
"Let's forget that for a minute, Robert." I turned to her. "Star, just
where do you go?"
"Oh, it's nothing, Daddy." She spoke defensively, belittling the whole
thing. "We just go a little ways when we play with her. She ought to be
able to find us a little ways."
"That's evading the issue. _Where_ do you go--and _how_ do you go?"
Jim stepped forward and showed her the bronze coin I'd sent him.
"You see, Star," he said quietly. "We've found this."
"I shouldn't have to tell you my game." She was almost in tears.
"You're both just Tweens. You couldn't understand." Then, struck with
contrition, she turned to me. "Daddy, I've tried and tried to ESP you.
Truly I did. But you don't ESP worth anything." She slipped her hand
through Robert's arm. "Robert does it very nicely," she said primly, as
though she were complimenting him on using his fork the right way. "He
must be better than I am, because I don't know how he finds me."
"I'll tell you how I do it, Star," Robert exclaimed eagerly. It was
as if he were trying to make amends now that grownups had caught on.
"You don't use any imagination. I never saw anybody with so little
imagination!"
"I do, too, have imagination," she countered loudly. "I thought up the
game, didn't I? I told you how to do it, didn't I?"
"Yeah, yeah!" he shouted back. "But you always have to look at a book
to ESP what's in it, so you leave an ESP smudge. I just go to the
encyclopedia and ESP where you did--and I go to that place--and there
you are. It's simple."
Star's mouth dropped open in consternation.
"I never thought of that," she said.
Jim and I stood there, letting the meaning of what they were saying
penetrate slowly into our incredulous minds.
"Anyway," Robert was saying, "you haven't any imagination." He sank
down cross-legged on the floor. "You can't teleport yourself to any
place that's never been."
She went over to squat down beside him. "I can, too! What about the
Moon People? They haven't been yet."
He looked at her with childish disgust.
"Oh, Star, they have so been. You know that." He spread his hands out
as though he were a baseball referee. "That time hasn't been yet for
your daddy here, for instance, but it's already been for somebody
like--well, say, like those things from Arcturus."
"Well, neither have you teleported yourself to some place that never
was," Star was arguing back. "So there."
* * * * *
Waving Jim to one chair, I sank down shakily into another. At least the
arms of the chair felt solid beneath my hands.
"Now, look, kids," I interrupted their evasive tactics. "Let's start at
the beginning. I gather you've figured a way to travel to places in the
past or future."
"Well, of course. Daddy." Star shrugged the statement aside
nonchalantly. "We just TP ourselves by ESP anywhere we want to go. It
doesn't do any harm."
And these were the children who were too little to cross the street!
I have been through times of shock before. This was the same--somehow,
the mind becomes too stunned to react beyond a point. One simply plows
through the rest, the best he can, almost normally.
"Okay, okay," I said, and was surprised to hear the same tone I would
have used over an argument about the biggest piece of cake. "I don't
know whether it's harmful or not. I'll have to think it over. Right
now, just tell me how you do it."
"It would be so much easier if I could ESP it to you," Star said
doubtfully.
"Well, pretend I'm a Stupid and tell me in words."
"You remember the Moebius Strip?" she asked very slowly and carefully,
starting with the first and most basic point in almost the way one
explains to an ordinary child.
Yes, I remembered it. And I remembered how long ago it was that she
had discovered it. Over a year, and her busy, brilliant mind had been
exploring its possibilities ever since. And I thought she had forgotten
it!
"That's where you join the ends of a strip of paper together with a
half twist to make one surface," she went on, as though jogging my
undependable, slow memory.
"Yes," I answered. "We all know the Moebius Strip."
Jim looked startled. I had never told him about the incident.
"Next you take a sheet and you give it a half twist and join the edge
to itself all over to make a funny kind of holder."
"Klein's Bottle," Jim supplied.
She looked at him in relief.
"Oh, you know about that," she said. "That makes it easier. Well, then,
the next step. You take a cube"--Her face clouded with doubt again, and
she explained, "You can't do this with your hands. You've gotta ESP it
done, because it's an imaginary cube anyway."
She looked at us questioningly. I nodded for her to continue.
"And you ESP the twisted cube all together the same way you did Klein's
Bottle. Now if you do that big enough, all around you, so you're sort
of half twisted in the middle, then you can TP yourself anywhere you
want to go. And that's all there is to it," she finished hurriedly.
"Where have you gone?" I asked her quietly.
The technique of doing it would take some thinking. I knew enough
physics to know that was the way the dimensions were built up. The
line, the plane, the cube--Euclidian physics. The Moebius Strip, the
Klein Bottle, the unnamed twisted cube--Einsteinian physics. Yes, it
was possible.
"Oh, we've gone all over," Star answered vaguely. "The Romans and the
Egyptians--places like that."
"You picked up a coin in one of those places?" Jim asked.
He was doing a good job of keeping his voice casual. I knew the
excitement he must be feeling, the vision of the wealth of knowledge
which must be opening before his eyes.
"I found it, Daddy," Star answered Jim's question. She was about to
cry. "I found it in the dirt, and Robert was about to catch me. I
forgot I had it when I went away from there so fast." She looked at me
pleadingly. "I didn't mean to steal it, Daddy. I never stole anything,
anywhere. And I was going to take it back and put it right where I
found it. Truly I was. But I dropped it again, and then I ESP'd that
you had it. I guess I was awful naughty."
I brushed my hand across my forehead.
"Let's skip the question of good and bad for a minute," I said, my head
throbbing. "What about this business of going into the future?"
* * * * *
Robert spoke up, his eyes shining. "There isn't any future, Mr. Holmes.
That's what I keep telling Star, but she can't reason--she's just a
girl. It'll all pass. Everything is always past."
Jim stared at him, as though thunderstruck, and opened his mouth in
protest. I shook my head warningly.
"Suppose you tell me about that, Robert," I said.
"Well," he began on a rising note, frowning, "it's kinda hard to
explain at that. Star's a Bright and even she doesn't understand it
exactly. But, you see, I'm older." He looked at her with superiority.
Then, with a change of mood, he defended her. "But when she gets as old
as I am, she'll understand it okay."
He patted her shoulder consolingly. He was all of six years old.
"You go back into the past. Back past Egypt and Atlantis. That's
recent," he said with scorn. "And on back, and on back, and all of a
sudden it's future."
"That isn't the way _I_ did it." Star tossed her head contrarily. "I
_reasoned_ the future. I reasoned what would come next, and I went
there, and then I reasoned again. And on and on. I can, too, reason."
"It's the same future," Robert told us dogmatically. "It has to be,
because that's all that ever happened." He turned to Star. "The reason
you never could find any Garden of Eden is because there wasn't any
Adam and Eve." Then to me, "And man didn't come from the apes, either.
Man started himself."
Jim almost strangled as he leaned forward, his face red and his eyes
bulging.
"How?" he choked out.
Robert sent his gaze into the far distance.
"Well," he said, "a long time from now--you know what I mean, as a
Stupid would think of Time-From-Now--men got into a mess. Quite a mess--
"There were some people in that time who figured out the same kind of
traveling Star and I do. So when the world was about to blow up and
form a new star, a lot of them teleported themselves back to when the
Earth was young, and they started over again."
Jim just stared at Robert, unable to speak.
"I don't get it," I said.
"Not everybody could do it," Robert explained patiently. "Just a
few Brights. But they enclosed a lot of other people and took them
along." He became a little vague at this point. "I guess later on the
Brights lost interest in the Stupids or something. Anyway, the Stupids
sank down lower and lower and became like animals." He held his nose
briefly. "They smelled worse. They worshiped the Brights as gods."
Robert looked at me and shrugged.
"I don't know all that happened. I've only been there a few times.
It's not very interesting. Anyway," he finished, "the Brights finally
disappeared."
"I'd sure like to know where they went," Star sighed. It was a lonely
sigh. I helplessly took her hand and gave my attention back to Robert.
"I still don't quite understand," I said.
He grabbed up some scissors, a piece of cellophane tape, a sheet of
paper. Quickly he cut a strip, gave it a half twist, and taped it
together. Then rapidly, on the Moebius Strip, he wrote: "Cave men. This
men, That men, Mu Men, Atlantis Men, Egyptians, History Men, Us Now
Men, Atom Men, Moon Men, Planet Men, Star Men--"
"There," he said. "That's all the room there is on the strip. I've
written clear around it. Right after Star Men comes Cave Men. It's all
one thing, joined together. It isn't future, and it isn't past, either.
It just plain _is_. Don't you see?"
"I'd sure like to know how the Brights got off the strip," Star said
wistfully.
* * * * *
I had all I could take.
"Look, kids," I pleaded. "I don't know whether this game's dangerous or
not. Maybe you'll wind up in a lion's mouth, or something."
"Oh, no, Daddy!" Star shrilled in glee. "We'd just TP ourselves right
out of there."
"But fast," Robert chortled in agreement.
"Anyway, I've got to think it over," I said stubbornly. "I'm only a
Tween, but, Star, I'm your daddy and you're just a little girl, so you
have to mind me."
"I always mind you," she said virtuously.
"You do, eh?" I asked. "What about going off the block? Visiting the
Greeks and Star Men isn't my idea of staying on the block."
"But you didn't say that, Daddy. You said not to cross the street. And
I never did cross the street. Did we, Robert? Did we?"
"We didn't cross a single street, Mr. Holmes," he insisted.
"My God!" said Jim, and he went on trying to light a cigarette.
"All right, all _right_! No more leaving this time, then," I warned.
"Wait!" It was a cry of anguish from Jim. He broke the cigarette in
sudden frustration and threw it in an ashtray. "The museum, Pete,"
he pleaded. "Think what it would mean. Pictures, specimens, voice
recordings. And not only from historical places, but Star men, Pete.
_Star men!_ Wouldn't it be all right for them to go places they know
are safe? I wouldn't ask them to take risks, but--"
"No, Jim," I said regretfully. "It's your museum, but this is my
daughter."
"Sure," he breathed. "I guess I'd feel the same way."
I turned back to the youngsters.
"Star, Robert," I said to them both, "I want your promise that you
will not leave this time, until I let you. Now I couldn't punish you if
you broke your promise, because I couldn't follow you. But I want your
promise on your word of honor you won't leave this time."
"We promise." They each held up a hand, as if swearing in court. "No
more leaving this time."
I let the kids go back outside into the yard. Jim and I looked at one
another for a long while, breathing hard enough to have been running.
"I'm sorry," I said at last.
"I know," he answered. "So am I. But I don't blame you. I simply
forgot, for a moment, how much a daughter could mean to a man." He was
silent, and then added, with the humorous quirk back at the corner
of his lips, "I can just see myself reporting this interview to the
museum."
"You don't intend to, do you?" I asked, alarmed.
"And get myself canned or laughed at? I'm not that stupid."
* * * * *
_September 10th_
Am I actually getting it? I had a flash for an instant. I was
concentrating on Caesar's triumphant march into Rome. For the briefest
of instants, _there it was_! I was standing on the roadway, watching.
But, most peculiar, it was still a picture; I was the only thing
moving. And then, just as abruptly, I lost it.
Was it only a hallucination? Something brought about by intense
concentration and wishful thinking?
Now let's see. You visualize a cube. Then you ESP it a half twist and
seal the edges together--No, when it has the half twist there's only
one surface. You seal that surface all around you--
Sometimes I think I have it. Sometimes I despair. If only I were a
Bright instead of a Tween!
* * * * *
_October 23rd_
I don't see how I managed to make so much work of teleporting myself.
It's the simplest thing in the world, no effort at all. Why, a child
could do it! That sounds like a gag, considering that it was two
children who showed me how, but I mean the whole thing is easy enough
for even almost any kid to learn. The problem is understanding the
steps ... no, not understanding, because I can't say I do, but working
out the steps in the process.
There's no danger, either. No wonder it felt like a still picture at
first, for the speeding up is incredible. That bullet I got in the way
of, for instance--I was able to go and meet it and walk along beside it
while it traveled through the air. To the men who were dueling, I must
have been no more than an instantaneous streak of movement.
That's why the youngsters laughed at the suggestion of danger. Even if
they materialized right in the middle of an atomic blast, it is so slow
by comparison that they could TP right out again before they got hurt.
The blast can't travel any faster than the speed of light, you see,
while there is no limit to the speed of thought.
But I still haven't given them permission to teleport themselves out
of this time yet. I want to go over the ages pretty carefully before I
do; I'm not taking any chances, even though I don't see how they could
wind up in any trouble. Still, Robert claimed the Brights went from the
future back into the beginning, which means they could be going through
time and overtake any of the three of us, and one of them might be
hostile--
I feel like a louse, not taking Jim's cameras, specimen boxes and
recorders along. But there's time for that. Plenty of time, once I get
the feel of history without being encumbered by all that stuff to carry.
Speaking of time and history--what a rotten job historians have done!
For instance:
George III of England was neither crazy nor a moron. He wasn't a
particularly nice guy, I'll admit--I don't see how anybody could be
with the amount of flattery I saw--but he was the victim of empire
expansion and the ferment of the Industrial Revolution. So were all the
other European rulers at the time, though. He certainly did better than
Louis of France. At least George kept his job and his head.
On the other hand, John Wilkes Booth was definitely psychotic. He could
have been cured if they'd had our methods of psychotherapy then, and
Lincoln, of course, wouldn't have been assassinated. It was almost a
compulsion to prevent the killing, but I didn't dare.... God knows what
effect it would have had on history. Strange thing, Lincoln looked
less surprised than anybody else when he was shot, sad, yes, and hurt
emotionally at least as much as physically, yet you'd swear he was
expecting it.
Cheops was _plenty_ worried about the number of slaves who died while
the pyramid was being built. They weren't easy to replace. He gave them
four hours off in the hottest part of the day, and I don't think any
slaves in the country were fed or housed better.
I never found any signs of Atlantis or Lemuria, just tales of lands
far off--a few hundred miles was a big distance then, remember--that
had sunk beneath the sea. With the Ancients' exaggerated notion of
geography, a big island was the same as a continent. Some islands did
disappear, naturally, drowning a few thousand villagers and herdsmen.
That must have been the source of the legends.
Columbus was a stubborn cuss. He was thinking of turning back when the
sailors mutinied, which made him obstinate. I still can't see what was
eating Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great--it would have been a big
help to know the languages, because their big campaigns started off
more like vacation or exploration trips. Helen of Troy was attractive
enough, considering, but she was just an excuse to fight.
There were several attempts to federate the Indian tribes before the
white man and the Five Nations, but going after wives and slaves ruined
the movement every time. I think they could have kept America if they
had been united and, it goes without saying, knew the deal they were
going to get. At any rate, they might have traded for weapons and tools
and industrialized the country somewhat in the way the Japanese did.
I admit that's only speculation, but this would certainly have been a
different world if they'd succeeded!
One day I'll put it all in a comprehensive _and corrected_ history of
mankind, _complete with photographs_, and then let the "experts" argue
themselves into nervous breakdowns over it.
I didn't get very far into the future. Nowhere near the Star Men, or,
for that matter, back to the beginning that Robert told us about. It's
a matter of reasoning out the path and I'm not a Bright. I'll take
Robert and Star along as guides, when and if.
What I did see of the future wasn't so good, but it wasn't so bad,
either. The real mess obviously doesn't happen until the Star Men
show up very far ahead in history, if Robert is right, and I think he
is. I can't guess what the trouble will be, but it must be something
ghastly if they won't be able to get out of it even with the enormously
advanced technology they'll have. Or maybe that's the answer. It's
almost true of us now.
* * * * *
_November, Friday 14th_
The Howells have gone for a weekend trip and left Robert in my care.
He's a good kid and no trouble. He and Star have kept their promise,
but they're up to something else. I can sense it and that feeling of
expectant dread is back with me.
They've been secretive of late. I catch them concentrating intensely,
sighing with vexation, and then breaking out into unexplained giggles.
"Remember your promise," I warned Star while Robert was in the room.
"We're not going to break it, Daddy," she answered seriously.
They both chorused, "No more leaving this time."
But they both broke into giggles!
I'll have to watch them. What good it would do, I don't know. They're
up to something, yet how can I stop them? Shut them in their rooms? Tan
their hides?
I wonder what someone else would recommend.
* * * * *
_Sunday night_
The kids are gone!
I've been waiting an hour for them. I know they wouldn't stay away so
long if they could get back. There must be something they've run into.
Bright as they are, they're still only children.
I have some clues. They promised me they wouldn't go out of this
present time. With all her mischievousness, Star has never broken a
promise to me--as her typically feminine mind interprets it, that is.
So I know they are in our own time.
On several occasions Star has brought it up, wondering where the Old
Ones, the Bright Ones, have gone--how they got off the Moebius Strip.
That's the clue. How can I get off the Moebius Strip and remain in the
present?
A cube won't do it. There we have a mere journey along the single
surface. We have a line, we have a plane, we have a cube. And then
we have a supercube--a tesseract. That is the logical progression of
mathematics. The Bright Ones must have pursued that line of reasoning.
Now I've got to do the same, but without the advantage of being a
Bright. Still, it's not the same as expecting a normally intelligent
person to produce a work of genius. (Genius by our standards, of
course, which I suppose Robert and Star would classify as Tween.)
Anyone with a pretty fair I.Q. and proper education and training can
follow a genius's logic, provided the steps are there and especially
if it has a practical application. What he can't do is initiate and
complete that structure of logic. I don't have to, either--that was
done for me by a pair of Brights and I "simply" have to apply their
findings.
Now let's see if I can.
By reducing the present-past-future of man to a Moebius Strip, we have
sheared away a dimension. It is a two-dimensional strip, because it has
no depth. (Naturally, it would be impossible for a Moebius Strip to
have depth; it has only one surface.)
Reducing it to two dimensions makes it possible to travel anywhere
you want to go on it via the third dimension. And you're in the third
dimension when you enfold yourself in the twisted cube.
Let's go a step higher, into one more dimension. In short, the
tesseract. To get the equivalent of a Moebius Strip with depth,
you have to go into the fourth dimension, which, it seems to me,
is the only way the Bright Ones could get off this closed cycle of
past-present-future-past. They must have reasoned that one more notch
up the dimensions was all they needed. It is equally obvious that Star
and Robert have followed the same line of reasoning; they wouldn't
break their promise not to leave the present--and getting off the
Moebius Strip into _another_ present would, in a sort of devious way,
be keeping that promise.
I'm putting all this speculation down for you, Jim Pietre, knowing
first that you're a Tween like myself, and second that you're sure to
have been doing a lot of thinking about what happened after I sent you
the coin Star dropped. I'm hoping you can explain all this to Bill and
Ruth Howell--or enough, in any case, to let them understand the truth
about their son Robert and my daughter Star, and where the children may
have gone.
I'm leaving these notes where you will find them, when you and Bill and
Ruth search the house and grounds for us. If you read this, it will be
because I have failed in my search for the youngsters. There is also
the possibility that I'll find them and that we won't be able to get
back onto this Moebius Strip. Perhaps time has a different value there,
or doesn't exist at all. What it's like off the Strip is anybody's
guess.
Bill and Ruth: I wish I might give you hope that I will bring Robert
back to you. But all I can do is wish. It may be no more than wishing
upon a star--my Star.
I'm trying now to take six cubes and fold them in on one another so
that every angle is a right angle.
It's not easy, but I can do it, using every bit of concentration I've
learned from the kids. All right, I have the six cubes and I have every
angle a right angle.
Now if, in the folding, I ESP the tesseract a half twist around myself
and--
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