Science fiction; Science fiction -- Authorship -- Fiction; Short stories; Time travel -- Fiction
Donovan left him, keeping the secret of his identity. When he returned
to his home he looked in the mirror, and the face of a rose-cheeked
20-year-old youngster stared back at him. Fifty years of happy living
in the 20th century! It would soon be necessary to return to the 25th
century so that Blascomb could reverse the antibiotic catalytic process
that had set him growing younger. It was impossible to stay in his
present youthful state much longer. In a few years he would be a child.
With a sigh he walked to his desk, took out paper and pen, and began to
draw the diagrams for the apparatus which would send him forward into
the 25th century.
For three hours he worked confidently, and then the sweat began to drip
from his forehead and his heart began to pound fearfully. "It is not
possible," he said, uneasily. "It will all come back to me soon. Now
what the devil did Blascomb tell me?"
He had become lazy, and his brain was not used to hard work. He said
this to himself but he could not shake off the sense of fear. He took
a cold shower, rubbing himself briskly, then shot a stimulant into his
blood stream. Preparing the desk once more, he began to work.
The papers gathered, the pencils broke, and the night gradually turned
to morning. The finished sketch of the cycle travellers was basically
correct, but the most important operating mechanism was still missing.
Try as he could, he was unable to bring it up from his memory.
"By the solar system," he swore, "what is the matter with me? I have
forgotten every detail."
He tried to think back. At one time he had known the mechanism
thoroughly. As an engineer he was completely familiar with every single
plate and tube, but now he couldn't remember anything but the general
appearance of the finished machine. Fear spurred his mind as he hunted
for a solution. Something was happening to his mind. He began to think
of his stories. The same thing had happened there. At one time he
remembered every detail of life in the 25th century, and could describe
them easily. Now events were dim and he knew now why his recent stories
were poor. They were not written from actual memory of the future, but
were the ordinary stories one might expect from a 20-year-old boy. The
past was dim and memory faded. Blascomb and Crane, Crane and Blascomb,
which was the C.D. agent, and what was C.D. anyway?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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