boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

190 Anthony Boucher
“So? We have travelers from both directions? Poor devil will never be able to get
back to own time then.” He wondered if this Stapper were corruptible; he could do
with a drink of bond.
“Yes, he bees losed here in this time like others. And he foolishly works with
them to overthrow Stasis.”
“Sad story. But how does it concern me? My papers be in order. Surely you can
see that I be what I claim?”
The Stapper’s eyes fixed him sharply. “You be clever, John Brent. You doubtless
traveled naked and clothed yourself as citizen of now to escape suspicion. That
bees smartest way. How you getted papers I do not know. But communication
with German Slanduch will disprove your story. You be losed, Brent, unless you
be sensible.”
“Sensible? What the hell do you mean by that?”
The Stapper smiled slowly. “Article,” he drawled.
“I be sorry. But that proves nothing. You know how difficult it bees for us Slanduch
to keep our speech entirely regular.”
“I know.” Suddenly a broad grin spread across the Stapper’s face and humanized
it. “I have finded this Farthing speech hellishly difficult myself.”
“You mean you, too, be Slanduch?”
The Stapper shook his head. “I, too, Brent, be traveler.”
Brent was not falling for any such trap. “Ridiculous! How can traveler be Stapper?”
“How can traveler be Slanduch envoy? I, too, traveled naked, and man whose
clothes and identification I stealed beed Stapper. I have finded his identity most
useful.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You be stubborn, Brent. How to prove—” He gestured at his face. “Look at
my skin. In my century facial hair haves disappeared; we have breeded away from
it. Where in this time could you find skin like that?”
“A sport. Freak of chromosomes.”
The black eyes grew even larger and more glowing. “Brent, you must believe me.
This bees no trap for you. I need you. You and I, we can do great things. But how
to convince you—” he snapped his fingers. “I know!” He was still for a moment.
The vast eyes remained opened but somehow veiled, as though secret calculations
were going on behind them. His body shivered. For a moment of strange delusion
Brent thought he could see the chair through the Stapper’s body. Then it was solid
again.
“My name,” said the Stapper, with the patience of a professor addressing a retarded
class, “bees Bokor. I come from tenth century after consummation of terrestrial
unity, which bees, I believe, forty-third reckoning from date of birth of Christian
god. I have traveled, not with machine, but solely by use of Vunmurd formula, and,
therefore, I alone of all travelers stranded here can still move. Hysteresis of Barrier
arrests me, but cannot destroy my formula as it shatters machines.”
“Pretty story.”
“Therefore I alone of travelers can still travel. I can go back by undestroyed
formula and hit Barrier again. If I hit Barrier twice, I exist twice in that one point