Quest for the Future

  A. E. Van Vogt

  Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

  PROLOGUE

  Time is the great unvariant, but the unvariance is no simple relation. Time is here where you are. It is never the same elsewhere. A starbeam penetrates the atmosphere. It brings a picture from seven hundred thousand years in the past. An electron makes a path of light across a cloud chamber. It brings a picture from fifty, a hundred, or more, years in the future. The stars, the world of the finitely large, are always in the past. The world of the immensely, but still finitely, small is always in the future.

  This is the rigor of the universe. This is the secret of time.

  I

  The hundred delegates to the electronic manufacturers’ convention who had attended the showing were drifting toward the doors. Several wives had been present, and their voices mingled with the deeper tones of the men. The sounds faded swiftly into the distance of the hotel, but Señor del Corteya, looking up suddenly from what he was doing, saw that he was still not alone.

  He continued rewinding the reel, then put it back into its can and began to pack away the projector. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the other with the curious, speculative intentness of the Latin. At last, his job completed, he turned and said, ‘Is it me you wish to speak to, Señor?’

  The big man hesitated, then came forward. He was a tall, chunky, fortyish individual with brown eyes and skimpy hair.

  ‘Odd picture you showed us here tonight.’

  Corteya smiled his personal acceptance of the compliment. ‘You were amused, Señor?’

  Again that hesitation, then, ‘Where did you get it?’

  Corteya shrugged. These direct Americans. Did the man expect him to hand over his trade secrets? He said as much.

  ‘Do you think I am a fool, Señor? Perhaps you are planning to start up in opposition to my business. You have plenty of money, maybe, and I go broke when you undercut my prices.’

  The stranger laughed. But he drew out a card and handed it over. Corteya read:

  WALTER DORMAN

  President

  ELECTRONIC COMPANY OF AMERICA

  Corteya looked at it, then handed it back. He saw that Dorman was staring at him hard. The man said finally, with a tiny note of incredulity in his voice, ‘You still don’t believe I’m not after your hide.’

  Corteya shrugged. ‘What is it you wish to know, Señor?’

  ‘That film?’

  Corteya raised his hands in a gesture of deprecation. ‘A ten-minute novelty.’

  ‘Very smoothly done, if you ask me.’

  ‘All the world, Señor, knows that Hollywood is wonderful.’

  ‘Hollywood never made a picture as good as that.’

  Corteya smiled his if-you-say-so-it-must-be-so smile. Then for the first time he let his mind go back over the picture he had shown. He couldn’t remember it very clearly. It was his custom to watch the audience, not the film. Nevertheless, he recollected that it had been about an automatic electric stove that merely had to be supplied with the appropriate ingredients, and it would mix them and serve up the finished meal piping hot at any desired time. He had shown the same film two weeks earlier at a local dieticians’ meeting, and the audience had laughed heartily at the nonexistent device.

  Corteya said, ‘Señor, I obtain my films from several film libraries. Where they secure them, I do not know. They compete for my business. All I do is look over their catalogs and order films when I need them.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘It is as simple as that.’

  ‘Have you had any other novelties like the one tonight?’

  ‘A few. I cannot remember.’

  ‘Do they all come from the same film library?’

  Dorman’s persistence was beginning to wear. ‘I really cannot remember, Señor. To me it is all ordinary business.’

  ‘Have you any similar films on hand right now?’

  ‘You mean here? No.’

  ‘I mean at your office.’

  Corteya looked unhappy. He was a simple, honest man, who could lie as well as the next, but only if he had started out with a lie, and had to carry on. Having started with the truth, he could not stop.

  ‘At the Aero Club dinner tomorrow,’ he said gloomily, ‘I am showing a film about a trip to one of the planets. The catalog says it is very amusing.’

  Dorman said, ‘I know this is a lot to ask, but will you drive over to your office, and show me that picture now?’

  ‘Señor, my wife, she is waiting for me at home.’

  Dorman said nothing. He took out his wallet and peeled off a twenty-dollar bill. As he expected, the other’s slim hand reached forth delicately, but without diffidence, and accepted the money.

  It took only eight minutes to get to Corteya’s place of business, and a few minutes after that the young man’s projector was set up and purring.

  A seascape broke the shadows of a cloudy but brilliantly bright horizon. The sea was flat, a tideless expanse of water. Suddenly, in those murky depths, there was a stirring. A creature charged into view. It burst the surface and leaped up, twenty, fifty, a hundred feet. Its enormous, bulbous head and vast, yawning mouth seemed almost to touch the camera. And then it began to fall, still struggling, still furiously determined to grasp the prey at which it had leaped.

  It failed. It fell. It hit the water with a splash so gigantic that Dorman was startled. He had been admiring the illusion of stark reality that had been produced with what must be an artificial monster-being mechanically activated in some indoor imitation sea. But those splashes looked real. A moment later, the narrator said:

  ‘That was a Venusian squid. These creatures, which frequent the depths of the warm seas of Venus, come to the surface only after food. Our camera artist acted as bait, and so enticed the squid to attack him. He was not, however, in danger. Electronic devices protected him at all times.’

  Dorman smiled twistedly. First an electric stove that prepared meals, now a trip to Venus. Both slick jobs of photography, and, in this case, it was especially clever to suggest there had been no danger. So many of these travelogs about places that actually existed faked suspense and excitement to the point of nausea. He climbed to his feet, his interest close to the vanishing point. He felt very tolerant of himself. Just for a moment, while watching the stove go through its motions, he had had the wild thought that the picture was an advertising stunt for a competitor. The Venusian film put the whole affair into its proper perspective. He saw that Corteya had stopped the machine. The overhead light clicked on.

  ‘Have you learned what you desire?’

  ‘Practically.’

  The younger man continued to rewind the reel. While he waited, Dorman glanced around the small room. It had a counter at the front. The projector rested on it near the wall. Behind the counter was a single chair and a small set of shelves. That was all the furniture. The whitewashed walls of the office were decorated with still pictures from one-reel and two-reel films. Printed on each of the pictures was a caption giving the subject and the cost of showing. It was obviously a selling business. No one would come into a place like this without having been previously canvassed or told about it in some way.

  ‘What else, Señor?’

  Dorman turned. The film was in its can, the projector in its case. ‘I’d like you to check to see if the two films came from the same film library.’

  ‘They did, Señor.’ Corteya had not moved. He was smiling in his deprecating fashion. ‘I looked in the can,’ he explained, ‘when I came in.’

  Dorman made no move to leave. There was nothing else, really, but he hated to leave unfinished anything he had started. Check on everything, then recheck. That was his method, and he had no intention of changing now. He took out his wallet and removed a ten-dollar bill.

  ‘The catalog of this particular library. I’d like to have a look at it.’

  Corteya accepted the bill and reached under the counter. He came up with several folders. ‘They send one of these to me every month. These are for the last four months.’

  Only the final two contained lists of novelty films. Dorman ran his gaze down the column, the smile on his lips broadening. There were several travelogs: Venus, a journey through a Martian desert, a spaceship voyage to the moon, an aerial trip over mountainous Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, a camera examination of the rings of Saturn, a boat trip down a river of liquid oxygen on Pluto and, finally, the size of the sun as seen from each of its ten planets.

  Dorman swiftly glanced at the remaining score or so films given under the novelty heading. He found the one he wanted instantly. The caption was, ‘Amusing account of an automatic stove that does everything.’ He closed the folder and paused to look at the address: Arlay Film Library, Lamont Boulevard, in the main part of the city.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dorman.

  He went out into the street and climbed into his car. It was becoming cooler, so he turned up the windows and sat for a minute lighting a cigarette. Then he drove unhurriedly back to the convention hotel.

  II

  Ten weeks before, Mr Lester Arlay, of the Arlay Film Library, had read the first complaint with a faint frown creasing his already lined forehead. The letter had been shoved inside the can of film and it began: ‘Dear Mr Arley…’

  Mr Arlay started to scowl right there. He did not approve of his name being misspelled. He read on, grimly:

  Dear Mr Arley:

  The sound film, ‘Food Magic’ which you sent me is entirely different
from what I expected. Neither the audience nor I could make head or tail of it. Certainly it has nothing to do with food. My program for the retailers’ convention here was ruined.

  The letter was signed by one of his best customers; and Mr Arlay, who remembered the two-reeler ‘Food Magic’ perfectly, was dismayed. It was an educational feature turned out by one of the big food distributors. And it was a really dandy job, one of those films which small film libraries could borrow for nothing, and then rent out at a small but profitable rate. It was a film definitely suitable for a grocery retailers’ convention.

  Frowning, Mr Arlay shoved the letter back into the can of film and put the can on the ‘To be Examined’ shelf. He began to examine the other ten cans of film that had been returned that morning. Of the ten, four borrowers complained: ‘This is not the film we asked for.’ ‘I cannot understand you sending a film so different from what we ordered.’ ‘This is visual gibberish.’ ‘Your joke ruined our show.’

  For several moments, Mr Arlay stared palely at the letters, and then, with a sudden burst of activity, took one of the films out of its can. He slid the reel onto a projector, made the necessary adjustments, switched off die light, and stared with blank expectancy at the screen.

  There was a faraway rustle of music. The music drew closer, but the nearer it came the more uncertainty there was in it. Singing violins played a sweet melody, but a harsher theme quickly intruded, a trill of doubt. The doubt grew and grew until finally the happy strains were completely dominated. Darkly, almost discordantly, the music played—and retreated into distance.

  The screen itself came to life. Color flared over it, an intricate weaving movement of color that never quite formed a recognizable pattern. And the rich, vivid colors grew darker and darker until the screen was almost black.

  Out of the darkness walked a young woman. She came from the shadows into the light with a casual grace, an agreeable ease, that marked her immediately as one of those marvelous photogenic types. Mr Arlay had never seen her before, but she quirked her lips into a smile, made a movement with her fingers; and she was a personality.

  The trouble was, she had barely appeared when, abruptly, she vanished in a gyrating puff of dark colors. She came on again, and this time she walked along an intense blue hallway into a living room, where a young man sat reading beside a vast window. Mr Arlay had a flashing glimpse of a city beyond that window; and then the camera angle shifted to the girl.

  She was standing behind the man, hesitant. As she stood, the human details of her flesh merged into the dark thematic colors; and it was these colors in human form that moved forward and very obviously kissed the young man on the lips. It was a long kiss, and at the end of it the young man, too, was a color pattern.

  The mingled colors began to twist and spin. The screen was a chromatic splendor of gyrating light. It was just beginning to stir with returning music as Mr Arlay emerged from his puzzlement and held the letter he had received about this particular film in the blazing beam of the projector.

  He read: ‘This is visual gibberish!’

  So that was the one! He laid the letter down and held up the can cover with the title on it: ‘How to operate a Chicken Farm.’

  On the screen, the young woman was walking uncertainly along a street, looking back at the man who was coming along slightly behind her. Mr Arlay clicked it off, rewound the reels, then took another film out of its can. It was the one about which the complainant had said: ‘Your joked ruined our show.’

  He threaded the reel into place, and presently a picture of a machine came on to the screen. It was a very bright, clear picture, without any nonsense about it, but the machine was not one that Mr Lester Arlay could remember having seen before. This fact did not disturb him immediately. The world was full of machines that he had never seen and, what was more, never wanted to see. He waited, and a quiet baritone said: ‘No spaceman should have any difficulty repairing this new space drive.’

  Mr Arlay sighed, and lifted the can cover to the light. The title on it was: ‘How to Operate the American Cogshill Diesel Engine.’

  What had happened was clear enough, it seemed to Mr Arlay. Somebody had returned a whole series of wrong films to him, and he had sent them out in their original cans. The fantastic bad-luck angle of the affair was that no less than five wrong films had gone out all at once.

  On the screen, the baritone voice was saying, ‘Now, raise the drive case itself. Since the standard weight of the case is eight tons, care must be taken when near a planetary body to balance the antigravity needles at a similitude of ninety-nine gravitons. Unwringing them becomes a matter of one good shove -’

  Mr Arlay shut the film off, and he was packing it into a can when the thought came: What did he say? What did he say?

  He stood owlishly blinking his realisation that something was very wrong.

  There was an interruption. The outer door opened, and a young woman came in. She wore a mink coat, and heavily jeweled rings flashed on her fingers.’ ‘Lo, honey,’ she said in a husky voice.

  Mr Arlay, all extraneous thoughts flying from his mind, came around the counter. His wife skillfully evaded the kiss he attempted to plant on her lips.

  ‘Have you any money?’ she asked. ‘I’m going shopping.’

  Mr Arlay said, ‘Careful, Tania. We’re almost at rock bottom.’

  He said it affectionately. He tried to kiss her again, and this time managed to brush her cheek. His words made her shake her slim body impatiently.

  ‘That’s all I ever hear from you,’ she said darkly. ‘Why don’t you make money like some of the people in this town?’

  Mr Arlay almost pointed out that he did. He refrained. He had no illusions about his hold on this young woman. His business netted him between three and five hundred dollars a week. It was not a terrific amount of money, but it rivaled the salaries of many featured movie players. They might make a little more per week, but few of them made it fifty-two weeks a year. It was that income which had enabled him, on one of his visits to Hollywood three years before, to marry a small-part player who was a far more attractive person physically than he could have hoped to marry without money. Mentally - that was another matter. She was a survival type in a sense that would have startled Darwin. Regardless of the variation in his income, she managed to spend it all, month in, month out. Her adaptability sometimes amazed even that defeatist, Mr Arlay.

  He did not realise, however, the profound influence she had had on him. All the imaginative qualities that had built his business had been replaced by a complete dependence on experience. He regarded himself as a practical man, and he had no inkling that his habit of thinking of himself as ‘Mr’ was but one compensation for the psychic disaster he had suffered when she entered his life.

  Not that he would necessarily have suspected that he had come into possession of films that had been made a hundred or more years in the future.

  Now that she had come into the office, he strove to keep her there. ‘Got something here that might interest you,’ he said eagerly. ‘Somebody sent me a film of some other library by mistake, and it’s quite an odd affair, a sort of visual freak.’

  ‘Now, darling, I’m in a hurry, and -’

  Her narrowed eyes saw that this was no moment to refuse him. He needed an occasional crumb, and he was so completely unsuspicious. After all, she’d be a nut to let this soft touch walk out on her.

  ‘All right, honey,’ she crooned. ‘If you want me to.’

  He showed her the film with the man and the girl and the swirling colors - and realised the moment the girl appeared on the screen that he had made a mistake. His wife stiffened as that superb actress came into view.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said bitingly. ‘What kind of ham are you serving up now?’

  Mr Arlay let the film run its course without another word. He had momentarily forgotten that his wife did not admire other actresses, particularly stars. Watching the film, he absently noticed that the reason for the dark tones of music and color seemed to be that the girl was unhappily married, and the twisting colors were designed to show her changing emotions, the doubts that came, and the thoughts that welled up in her mind.

  Interesting, he thought. I wonder who made it.

  As the reel ended, Tania jumped to her feet. ‘Well, got to be running. I’ll cash a check for five hundred dollars. Okay?’