The Complete Stories (Page 13)

Potterley said, "Build a larger machine, a stronger one. Improve your circuits."

"You can’t lick the Uncertainty Principle, man, any more than you can live on the sun. There are physical limits to what can be done."

"You’re lying. I won’t believe you. I-"

A new voice sounded, raised shrilly to make itself heard.

"Arnold! Dr. Foster!"

The young physicist turned at once. Dr. Potterley froze for a long moment, then said, without turning, "What is it, Caroline? Leave us."

"No!" Mrs. Potterley descended the stairs. "I heard. I couldn’t help hearing. Do you have a time viewer here, Dr. Foster? Here in the basement?"

"Yes, I do, Mrs. Potterley. A kind of time viewer. Not a good one. I can’t get sound yet and the picture is darned blurry, but it works."

Mrs. Potterley clasped her hands and held them tightly against her breast. "How wonderful. How wonderful."

"It’s not at all wonderful," snapped Potterley. "The young fool can’t reach further back than-"

"Now, look," began Foster in exasperation. . . .

"Please!" cried Mrs. Potterley. "Listen to me. Arnold, don’t you see that as long as we can use it for twenty years back, we can see Laurel once again? What do we care about Carthage and ancient times? It’s Laurel we can see.

She’ll be alive for us again. Leave the machine here, Dr. Foster. Show us how to work it."

Foster stared at her then at her husband. Dr. Potterley’s face had gone white. Though his voice stayed low and even, its calmness was somehow gone. He said, "You’re a fool!"

Caroline said weakly, "Arnold!"

"You’re a fool, I say. What will you see? The past. The dead past. Will Laurel do one thing she did not do? Will you see one thing you haven’t seen? Will you live three years over and over again, watching a baby who’ll never grow up no matter how you watch?"

His voice came near to cracking, but held. He stopped closer to her, seized her shoulder and shook her roughly. "Do you know what will happen to you if you do that? They’ll come to take you away because you’ll go mad. Yes, mad. Do you want mental treatment? Do you want to be shut up, to undergo the psychic probe?"

Mrs. Potterley tore away. There was no trace of softness or vagueness about her. She had twisted into a virago. "I want to see my child, Arnold. She’s in that machine and I want her."

"She’s not in the machine. An image is. Can’t you understand? An image! Something that’s not real!"

"1 want my child. Do you hear me?" She flew at him, screaming, fists beating. "/ want my child."

The historian retreated at the fury of the assault, crying out. Foster moved to step between, when Mrs. Potterley dropped, sobbing wildly, to the floor.

Potterley turned, eyes desperately seeking. With a sudden heave, he snatched at a Lando-rod, tearing it from its support, and whirling away before Foster, numbed by all that was taking place, could move to stop him.

"Stand back!" gasped Potterley, "or I’ll kill you. I swear it."

He swung with force, and Foster jumped back.

Potterley turned with fury on every part of the structure in the cellar, and Foster, after the first crash of glass, watched dazedly.

Potterley spent his rage and then he was standing quietly amid shards and splinters, with a broken Lando-rod in his hand. He said to Foster in a whisper, "Now get out of here! Never come back! If any of this cost you anything, send me a bill and I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay double."

Foster shrugged, picked up his shirt and moved up the basement stairs. He could hear Mrs. Potterley sobbing loudly, and, as he turned at the head of the stairs for a last look, he saw Dr. Potterley bending over her, his face convulsed with sorrow.

Two days later, with the school day drawing to a close, and Foster looking wearily about to see if there were any data on his newly approved projects that he wished to take home, Dr. Potterley appeared once more. He was standing at the open door of Foster’s office.

The historian was neatly dressed as ever. He lifted his hand in a gesture that was too vague to be a greeting, too abortive to be a plea. Foster stared stonily.

Potterley said, "I waited till five, till you were . . . May I come in?"

Foster nodded.

Potterley said, "I suppose I ought to apologize for my behavior. I was dreadfully disappointed; not quite master of myself. Still, it was inexcusable."

"I accept your apology," said Foster. "Is that all?" £: "My wife called you, I think." .,,  "Yes, she has."

"She has been quite hysterical. She told me she had but I couldn’t be quite sure-"

"Could you tell me-would you be so kind as to tell me what she wanted?"

"She wanted a chronoscope. She said she had some money of her own. She was willing to pay." …  "Did you-make any commitments?"

"I said I wasn’t in the manufacturing business."

"Good," breathed Potterley, his chest expanding with a sigh of relief. ”Please don’t take any calls from her. She’s not-quite-"

"Look, Dr. Potterfey," said Foster, "I’m not getting into any domestic quarrels, but you’d better be prepared for something. Chronoscopes can be built by anybody Given a few simple parts that can be bought through some etherics sales center, it can be built in the home workshop. The video part, anyway." !   "But no one else will think of it beside you, will they? No one has."

"I don’t intend to keep it secret."

"But you can’t publish. It’s illegal research."

"That doesn’t matter any more, Dr. Potterley. If I lose my grants, I lose them. If the university is displeased, I’ll resign. It just doesn’t matter." ;   "But you can’t do that!"