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Title: The Beast of Boredom
Author: Richard Rein Smith
Release date: October 12, 2023 [eBook #71857]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1958
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAST OF BOREDOM ***
THE BEAST of BOREDOM
_wasn't a weapon or a bribe, as
he thought. But it was the
most ingenious trap of all time!_
By RICHARD R. SMITH
Illustrated by RICHARD KLUGA
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity April 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The shack at the edge of the dead canal was so carefully camouflaged,
he almost passed by it. Hoping he hadn't been seen, he dropped to his
stomach and crawled through the mud toward the door.
It wasn't a long distance, but inching his way on his elbows and knees,
and with his face close to the evil-smelling mud, it seemed like a
mile. As he crawled, he reflected bitterly that most of mankind's
really great achievements always ended in war. Columbus had crossed
the Atlantic Ocean and it had ended in war with the Indians. Mankind
had invented atomic energy and then used it to kill millions. Their
latest achievement was the marvel of spaceflight and where had that
ended? It had also ended in war....
Personally, he didn't believe they were justified in fighting the
Martians. If they didn't want anyone intruding on their planet, what
right did Earthmen have to force their way? The popular theory that
they could help rebuild the dying Martian civilization didn't seem very
logical when millions had to be killed in the process. And if Martians
were an independent race and wanted to sit around and watch their
civilization crumble, why shouldn't they have that privilege?
When he was within a few yards of the door, he set aside his
philosophical thoughts. Leaping to his feet, he ran into the small
shack and screamed shrilly in the manner designed to momentarily
paralyze an enemy with fear.
He raised the rifle instinctively when something moved in the shadows,
and as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he felt a queasiness in his
stomach. The emaciated alien who cowered in the shadows resembled a
pitiful bundle of rags more than an enemy!
Trembling hands lifted an object and three things happened so rapidly
that they seemed to happen simultaneously: the Martian's bony fingers
moved over the object; a burning sensation ripped through his brain; he
realized it must be a weapon and squeezed the trigger of his rifle.
When the sharp crack stopped echoing in his ears, he examined the still
form and discovered he'd been mistaken. The object wasn't a weapon.
It was a metal globe six inches in diameter and studded with precious
jewels. The Martian had offered it in exchange for his life.
* * * * *
The windows of his apartment on the fourteenth floor were open and
a gentle breeze chilled the sweat on his face as he worked with the
knife. He had previously removed four jewels from the metal globe, but
the large ruby he'd selected this time seemed to be embedded deeper.
The blade slipped and slashed the palm of his left hand. Cursing the
artifact and all Martians in general, he attacked the ruby furiously
and grunted with satisfaction when he dislodged it.
The red jewel rolled across the table and fell to the floor. Picking
it up gingerly as if it were a fragile thing of glass, he held it in
the sunlight and watched the myriad facets sparkle like a one-color
kaleidoscope. It was the largest jewel of all and worth a small
fortune....
A sharp pain in his hand reminded him of his wound and he went to the
bathroom. After carefully washing the cut, he applied iodine and was
trying to find a bandage when....
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor._
Startled, he leaped back and upset the chair. A second before, he'd
been in the bathroom and now he was at the table! Amnesia? He couldn't
remember walking back to the living room and although he thought he'd
put iodine on the cut, there was none on it that he could see.
He went to the bathroom....
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor._
He was sitting before the table again without any memory of having left
the bathroom! It had happened _twice_.
Taking the globe to the window, he examined it carefully and saw that
where the ruby had been lodged, there was now an opening through the
metal. When he held it at a certain angle, he saw a maze of wiring and
tiny mechanisms inside.
He had fought the Martians for two years. He had traveled across their
red deserts, crawled on the muddy bottoms of their gigantic dead
canals, walked through the remains of their ancient cities and heard
legends about the great Martian empire that had slowly crumbled during
the centuries.
He remembered the legends about Martian time machines and he accepted
the fact readily: the object in his hand was a time trap. An ancient,
intricate, scientific booby-trap!
The Martian had known he would die and had deliberately planned his
revenge. Perhaps the machine wasn't strong enough to take anyone far
into the past or future; that would explain why he hadn't used it to
escape. But it was evidently strong enough to be used as a trap, and
perhaps it had even been designed for that purpose centuries ago.
Removing the ruby had triggered it....
Ironic, he reflected, that he'd gone to so much trouble and expense to
smuggle the thing from Mars to Earth. The jewels were worth a fortune
and it had never occurred to him that the metal globe might have some
_function_. Actually, he had smuggled an ingenious death-trap back to
Earth with him.
He shuddered at the thought.
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled across the table and...._
He was once again sitting before the Martian artifact, his eyes
once again focussed on the ruby as it rolled across the table. Like
something in a magician's act, he had disappeared from his position
near the window and reappeared in the chair. As before, the cut on his
hand stung painfully, but this time he ignored it and kept his eyes
focussed on his wrist watch.
It was eleven forty-five eastern standard time.
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled across the table...._
His eyes were no longer focussed on the watch, but he remembered that
the hands had last indicated eleven fifty-five. And now they were back
at _eleven forty-five_. He was trapped in a period of time only ten
minutes long!
He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers and tried to think calmly.
What danger was there in a time trap? He felt no physical pain and so
far the trap had only caused him small inconveniences. Anything he did
during the ten-minute period was magically undone when he was thrown
backward in time. He had put iodine on the cut on his hand and it had
disappeared. He had walked to the window, but at the beginning of the
next cycle, without any conscious sensation, he found himself sitting
in the chair once more. But how could movement through time harm him?
And was he the only one aware of the trap?
He turned the television set on and watched a news announcer during
several following cycles. Before long, he was convinced that he was
the only one who was aware of the repeated time interval. The news
announcer represented everyone in the world, and if he were conscious
of the fact that he'd read the same news more than a dozen times, there
would have been _some_ change in his expression!
He recalled how the Martian had moved his fingers over the globe and
how he'd felt a burning sensation inside his skull. The device had
evidently been adjusted to his neural pattern so that only he was
conscious of the trap. Or else only someone within a certain effective
radius--fifty feet, for instance--was conscious of the repeated time
intervals.
Although he'd always believed the stories about the time machines
and he now had proof of their existence, he still found it difficult
to comprehend their operation. He had heard that such a machine
concentrated on only a few atoms of a radioactive substance. By drawing
energy from the space-time continuum itself, the machine succeeded in
thrusting those atoms backward or forward in time, and since that
affected the entire probability stream, all physical matter was forced
to follow them through the time stream.
He couldn't totally comprehend the concept, but he realized he had
to do _something_ nevertheless, and during following cycles that
totaled hours, he tried to decide on a course of action. He recalled
the Martian legend about how a particularly vicious criminal had been
punished with a similar machine. The unfortunate had been tossed into
a pit filled with lionlike animals and then, by repeating the time
interval, he had been made to suffer the same death a thousand times.
In his own case, he was in no physical danger, but he knew that an
enemy was creeping toward him ... an enemy that could kill him as
surely as any lion ... _boredom_.
If he submitted to boredom and just sat through the endless time
cycles, it would be the same as sitting in a room for weeks, months,
or years. That would be the same as solitary confinement and would
eventually drive him insane.
So, there were two possibilities: he could attempt to wreck the machine
or wait for it to wear itself out and fight boredom while waiting.
It didn't take him long to decide that he should wait for the
machine to run down. If the alien devices really drew energy from the
space-time continuum, it would be dangerous to tamper with one. A
wrong move when fooling with such a tremendous amount of energy might
be disastrous, and perhaps that was exactly what the old Martian had
planned for him to do! On the other hand, it didn't seem possible that
a machine could run _forever_.
There should be plenty of ways to keep himself occupied and his mind
busy while he waited....
He began reading the magazines scattered about the apartment. There was
only time to read a few pages, but he mentally noted the page number
during each cycle and when the succeeding interval began, he opened the
magazine to that exact page and continued....
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled across the table and...._
The preceding cycles seemed like an eternity when he looked back upon
them. He had read every magazine from cover to cover, watched every
television program and listened to every radio program countless times
until he had them memorized word for word. He had worked the crossword
puzzles in the newspaper several times and explored every square inch
of the apartment.
He had no more ideas so he tried to sleep....
* * * * *
He knew it was useless: during each ten-minute interval, he had time
to walk from the chair to the davenport, close his eyes and relax his
body. But then, at the moment when he was about to fall asleep, he
would always find himself in the tediously familiar chair.
He hoped he would grow tired and be able to fall asleep, but finally
realized it was impossible. Since the machine influenced the space-time
continuum and the same ten-minute interval in time was always repeated,
all physical things in space were exactly as they had been at the
beginning of the cycle. His body had been refreshed at the beginning
of the original cycle and it would always be in the same condition. He
would never grow older, he would never become hungry and he would never
become tired _physically_.
* * * * *
Desperate for a way to overcome boredom, he used the bottle of whiskey
in the kitchen. After several attempts, he discovered to his dismay
that there were ways to get violently sick from gulping liquor but no
possible way to get drunk in ten minutes!
He sat through endless cycles staring at the empty air; began to have
wild thoughts and knew he was on the verge of insanity. And if he
were losing the fight with boredom, he might as well try the other
alternative: break the machine and hope it wouldn't blow up in his face.
Taking a long-bladed knife, he attacked the small mechanisms inside the
globe. He probed, twisted and jabbed but they seemed indestructible.
Furious, he held it underwater with the hope that water would
short-circuit "electrical contacts" if there were any.
When that didn't work, he beat it with a hammer, kicked it, threw it
about the room and as a last result, dropped it from the window.
It bounced off the sidewalk fourteen floors below and attracted
attention, but a few minutes later he was once more sitting in the
chair and watching the sickeningly familiar ruby as it rolled across
the sickeningly familiar table.
He stared at the telephone. If only it would ring; if only someone
would call him and break the _monotony_! But that was impossible.
At the beginning of each cycle, all physical things and events were
exactly as they had been....
Telephone!
He could use it to break the monotony--he could phone all his friends!
He telephoned all his friends and talked with them for numerous
ten-minute intervals that totaled days. Because they were always
unaware of the previous cycles, his repeated phone calls never annoyed
them. Sometimes he told them about the time trap but it was beyond
their comprehension and they always thought he was drunk, so he learned
not to mention it.
When he tired of talking to his friends, he started at the front of
the telephone directory and began calling every name. He made dates
with girls he'd never seen, memorized marvelous sales talks and sold
non-existent vacuum cleaners and cars. Sometimes he pretended to be
the master of ceremonies on a quiz program and when someone answered
a difficult question, he told them they had just won a dollar. The
various reactions he received were amusing and broke the monotony, but
after a few days, even that became boring.
He tried to leave the hotel's fourteenth floor, but discovered that the
elevator boy was not on the job at that particular time. Although he
ran to the elevator at the beginning of numerous cycles and pushed the
_down_ button, the indicator needle never moved during the ten minutes.
He used the stairs at the end of the corridor with the hope of reaching
another floor and meeting someone. To see someone or speak to someone
in person would have done a lot to break the monotony, but he found
that the thirteenth and fifteenth floors were inaccessible. The doors
that led to them from the stairway wouldn't push in and there was no
hand-grip to pull them outward. Evidently the hotel management used
the method to prevent burglars from having an absurdly easy and unseen
access to the apartments. Anyone could leave a floor and use the stairs
to reach the hotel lobby, but anyone wishing to go from the lobby to
a certain floor or from one floor to another was forced to use the
elevator.
Cursing the bad luck, he sat for hours and wondered what he could
do. He was restricted to succeeding but separate and identical time
intervals, and that was also a physical restriction in effect: ten
minutes wasn't long enough to leave that floor of the hotel.
* * * * *
He now thought of boredom as an ugly monster that lurked everywhere
about him and waited ... waited to seize him with sharp teeth of
inactivity....
Desperate for the sight of another person, he tried to enter the other
apartments. There were five on that floor, but of them, only the one
next to his own seemed to be occupied. When he knocked, there was no
answer, but he pressed an ear against the door and heard the faint
sound of running water. Whoever the occupant was, he or she was taking
a shower and couldn't hear him no matter how hard he knocked.
It irritated him because the apartment was so close. If he could
contact the person somehow, he or she could be reached at the beginning
of each cycle and would be a tangible individual to help him fight
boredom--not a voice on the telephone, an image on the TV screen or a
tiny dot of a person fourteen floors below his window.
By phoning the hotel desk, he learned that a woman named Mary Jeffers
rented apartment 1403, and he found her telephone number in the
directory.
Dialing the number, he was relieved when she answered within a few
minutes. The ringing of the phone was evidently loud enough to
penetrate the noise of the shower while his knocking on the door hadn't
been.
"Mary Jeffers?" he asked.
"Yes?"
"Mary, are you a college graduate?"
"Yes. Who is this? Why do you want to know?"
"This is the police. It's very important. Which college did you attend?"
He knew it was a flimsy trick to get information, but he caught her
off guard and she answered, "The University of Delaware."
He hung up the phone and waited until the next cycle. Dialing the
number again, he said, "Mary? This is Harry Ogden."
Because of the nature of the time trap, she was unaware of the previous
conversation, and her automatic reply to the unfamiliar voice was,
"Ogden? You must have the wrong number. I don't know anyone by that
name."
"Don't you remember? I went to the University of Delaware with you. I
remember you. You have blonde hair and--"
"No. It's brunette."
Hanging up the phone, he waited until the next cycle, dialed the number
again and said, "Mary? This is Harry Ogden."
"Ogden? You must have the wrong number. I don't know anyone by that
name."
"Don't you remember? I went to the University of Delaware with you. I
remember you. You're a brunette about a hundred and thirty pounds and--"
"Well, not quite that much."
By calling dozens of times, he used the system to learn more and more
about Mary Jeffers, until at last he knew enough to convince her within
a few minutes that he was a friend from her college days whom she'd
forgotten.
As he talked with her during various cycles that totaled weeks, he
began to feel as if she _were_ a friend, and the desire to see her in
person increased. The sight of anyone would have done wonders to break
the monotony, and she was the only possibility since all the other
apartments were empty.
"I have the apartment next to yours," he said during one time cycle.
"Can I come over?"
"I'm not dressed," she replied. "I was taking a shower. Give me time to
get dressed."
He glanced at his watch and saw that only four minutes remained in
that cycle. He realized despairingly that there wasn't time for her
to get dressed. All his efforts had been in vain: ten minutes wasn't
long enough to phone her, go through the carefully memorized routine
convincing her he was an old friend, wait for her to dress and open the
door of her apartment.
_It couldn't be done in ten minutes!_
* * * * *
Boredom was like a hungry beast that breathed in his ears with a roar
of silence while he sat through several succeeding cycles.
_Silence._ It seemed to echo in his ears as he looked about the
apartment. It seemed to whisper that he was losing the duel. The
Martian's trap was working: he would sit and wait, and think, and
think endlessly until they were wild thoughts and he was insane. And
then, the Martian would have his revenge, for insanity was a form of
walking death....
He made a decision. He had fought boredom legally and exhausted every
method he could think of. If there were no more legal ways, then he
would fight boredom _illegally_. The police couldn't reach him in ten
minutes no matter what he did.
Dialing Mary Jeffers' phone number at the beginning of the next cycle,
he laid the receiver on the desk, ran across the room and climbed
through the window.
The stone ledge just beneath his window wasn't very wide, but by
inching his way along it, he reached the open window of apartment 1403.
Climbing through the window, he saw that Mary Jeffers had picked up the
telephone receiver with one hand and was trying to dry herself with a
towel in the other.
"Hello," she said.
Her back was to him, but he noticed that she wasn't very efficient with
the towel. Water dripped from her body and collected in a small pool
around her feet.
He grinned and said, "Hello."
She whirled to face him and dropped the telephone receiver, her dark
brown eyes widening.
"Harry Ogden," he said. "Remember?"
As soon as he asked the question, he knew it was a foolish one. The
time trap was his trap alone and only he was conscious of all the
repeated cycles. She was unaware of all their previous conversations
and he was now a stranger to her.
She backed away and let out a scream.
It didn't bother him. It was music to his ears--a sound that broke the
silence of his peculiar world--a weapon to combat boredom with, and he
reflected that he would make many trips to apartment 1403....
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor._
He smiled as he picked the ruby up from the floor. He estimated
that he'd lived more than twenty years in ten-minute intervals, and
therefore the trap was not a death-trap. He'd discovered countless ways
of fighting boredom and knew he would never succumb to it and resultant
insanity. He had entered the other apartments by using the stone ledge
and breaking through the windows. In them he had found a total of
hundreds of books ... a pair of binoculars that he used to study a
multitude of new things from his window ... a typewriter that he used
to write books although there was never a completed manuscript ... a
chess set ... decks of cards ... hobbies....
There were many more possibilities that he hadn't explored yet and he
realized that the Martian had given him a valuable gift: extra years of
life.
It seemed incredible that a machine could operate continuously for
twenty years, but the ancient Martians had been expert in constructing
devices without moving parts. He knew little science, but he could
vaguely imagine a sort of "gateway" to the space-time continuum that
the removal of the ruby had opened. Perhaps during a ten-minute period
a predetermined amount of energy passed through the "gateway" and
flowed against a radioactive substance in a way and with a force that
thrust a few atoms backward in time to the point when the energy didn't
exist and that established the cycle.
With moving parts, the machine wouldn't have run continuously for
twenty years. _Something_ would have broken down. Even without moving
parts, the machine wouldn't run forever; the materials themselves would
deteriorate sooner or later, or the energy passing through them from
the space-time continuum would gradually disintegrate them no matter
how strong they were. But for as long as the device operated, he would
live without growing old. If it ran a hundred years, he would live _a
hundred years_....
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor._
He rubbed his aching head. He had lived approximately thirty years
at ten-minute intervals, but the headache had started and grown in
intensity during the last year and it was difficult to recall and
appreciate all the things he had done.
* * * * *
_The ruby rolled...._
How many years had he lived? Fifty? A hundred? He was unable to
calculate it any more, and it was even difficult to think about much
simpler things. His mind was filled with memories ... millions ...
billions ... trillions of endless, countless memories without any
sleep to relax his mind ... with no rest at all....
* * * * *
_The ruby...._
He no longer moved about the apartment, but sat in the chair during
every cycle and watched the ruby as it rolled endlessly. Memories were
like a crushing, paralyzing weight in his mind ... a weight that grew
and grew and....
The old Martian he had killed would have his revenge. He realized the
ingenious machine was much more than a gift or a death-trap. It was a
torture machine. A torture machine that would operate for centuries; a
machine that would gradually crush his mind and kill him with the sheer
weight of _memories_....
He screamed.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAST OF BOREDOM ***
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