He said, ‘I intend my discovery to be so dramatized, to break on mankind with so thunderous a clap, that there will be no room for anyone else to be mentioned in the same breath with me, ever.’
He was going too far, and I was afraid of the effect of another disappointment on him. Might it not drive him mad? I said, ‘But Lancelot, why need we bother? Why don’t we leave all this? Why not take a long vacation? You have worked hard enough and long enough, Lancelot. Perhaps we can take a trip to Europe. I’ve always wanted to—’
He stamped his foot. ‘Will you stop your foolish meowing? Saturday, you will come into my laboratory with me.’
I slept poorly for the next three nights. He had never been quite like this before, I thought, never quite as bad. Might he not be mad already, perhaps?
It could be madness now, I thought, a madness born of disappointment no longer endurable, and sparked by the obituary. He had sent away his assistants and now he wanted me in the laboratory. He had never allowed me there before. Surely he meant to do something to me, to make me the subject of some insane experiment, or to kill me outright.
During the miserable, frightened nights I would plan to call the police, to run away, to – to do anything.
But then morning would come and I would think surely he wasn’t mad, surely he wouldn’t offer me violence. Even the spitting incident was not truly violent and he had never actually tried to hurt me physically.
So in the end I waited and on Saturday I walked to what might be my death as meekly as a chicken. Together, silently, we walked down the path that led from our dwelling to the laboratory.
The laboratory was frightening just in itself, and I stepped about gingerly, but Lancelot only said, ‘Oh, stop staring about you as though something were going to hurt you. You just do as I say and look where I tell you.’
‘Yes, Lancelot.’ He had led me into a small room, the door of which had been padlocked. It was almost choked with objects of very strange appearance and with a great deal of wiring.
Lancelot said, ‘To begin with, do you see this iron crucible?’
‘Yes, Lancelot.’ It was a small but deep container made out of thick metal and rusted in spots on the outside. It was covered by a coarse wire netting.
He urged me toward it and I saw that inside it was a white mouse with its front paws up on the inner side of t4e crucible and its small snout at the wire netting in quivering curiosity, or perhaps in anxiety. I am afraid I jumped, for to see a mouse without expecting to is startling, at least to me.
Lancelot growled, ‘It won’t hurt you. Now just back against the wall and watch me.’
My fears returned most forcefully. I grew horribly certain that from somewhere a lightning bolt would shoot out and incinerate me, or some monstrous thing of metal might emerge and crush me, or – or –
I closed my eyes.
But nothing happened; to mr, at least. I heard only a phfft as though a small firecracker had misfired, and Lancelot said to me, ‘Well?’
I opened my eyes. He was looking at me, fairly shining with pride. I stared blankly.
He said, ‘Here, don’t you see it, you idiot? Right here.’
A foot to one side of the crucible’was a second one. I hadn’t seen him put it there.
‘Do you mean this second crucible?’ I asked.
‘It isn’t quite a second crucible, but a duplicate of the first one. For all ordinary purposes, they are the same crucible, atom for atom. Compare them. You’ll find the rust marks identical.’
‘You made the second one out of the first?’
‘Yes, but in a special way. To create matter would require a prohibitive amount of energy ordinarily. It would take the complete fission of a hundred grams of uranium to create one gram of duplicate matter, even granting perfect efficiency. The great secret I have stumbled on is that the duplication of an object at a point in future time requires very little energy if that energy is applied correctly. The essence of the feat, mymy dear, in my creating such a duplicate and bringing it back is that I have accomplished the equivalent of time travel.’
It was the measure of his triumph and happiness that he actually used an affectionate term in speaking to me.
‘Isn’t that remarkable?’ I said, for to tell the truth, I was impressed. ‘Did the mouse come too?’
I looked inside the second crucible as I asked that and got another nasty shock. It contained a white mouse-a dead white mouse.
Lancelot turned faintly pink. ‘That is a shortcoming. I can bring back living matter, but not as living matter. It comes back dead.’
‘Oh, what a shame. Why?’
‘I don’t know yet. I imagine the duplications are completely perfect on the atomic scale. Certainly there is no visible damage. Dissections show that.’
‘You might ask—’ I stopped myself quickly as he glanced at me. I decided I had better not suggest a collaboration of any sort, for I knew from experience that in that case the collaborator would invariably get all the credit for the discovery.
Lancelot said with sour amusement, ‘I have asked. A trained biologist has performed autopsies on some of my animals and found nothing. Of course, they didn’t know where the animal came from and I took care to take it back before anything would happen to give it away. Lord, even my assistants don’t know what I’ve been doing.’
‘But why must you keep it so secret?’
‘Just because I can’t bring objects back alive. Some subtle molecular derangement. If I published my results, someone else might learn the method of preventing such derangement, add his slight improvement to my basic discovery, and achieve a greater fame, because he would bring back a living man who might give information about the future.’
I saw that quite well. Nor need he say it ‘might’ be done. It would be done. Inevitably. In fact, no matter what he did, he would lose the credit. I was sure of it.
‘However,’ he went on, more to himself than to me, ‘I can wait no longer. I must announce this, but in such a way that it will be indelibly and permanently associated with me. There must be a drama about it so effective that thereafter therewill be no way of mentioning time travel without mentioning me no matter what other men may do in the future. I am going to prepare that drama and you will play a part in it.’
‘But what do you want me to do, Lancelot?’
‘You’ll be my widow.’
I clutched at his arm. ‘Lancelot, do you mean—’ I cannot quite analyze the conflicting feelings that upset me at that moment.
He disengaged himself roughly. ‘Only temporarily. I am not committing suicide. I am simply going to bring myself back from three days in the future.’
