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bookcases and offered me a seat. A smile made further creases in his face.
"Let me suggest we relax a bit first and get slightly better acquainted.
If you don't think the hour is too early, would you care for a glass of
wine?"
"Why " I realized that I would. "Yes, thank you." His tall form moved off.
"Uh, can I help?"
"No, no. I like to play host. Take your ease. Smoke if you wish. I'll be right
back."
Not even a maid?
I wondered.
And him a full professor.
For a moment I thought that it fit the pattern. An emeritus should
have the use of more university facilities than just the library, if he
was still doing research. Certainly people throughout academe did who pushed
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ideas more controversial than his sometimes harmful or downright crazy.
Besides being a good teacher, Rennie had done respected studies of brain
electrochemistry. But soon after he commenced on his psychophysics, he moved
that work to his home, where it had continued ever since. I suspected
pressure quietly applied. Not only did most scientists look askance at it, but
a few of his subjects reported findings that didn't sit well with true
believers in several creeds, especially political. And, of course,
any administration would be afraid of legal liability. Thus far the
dangers had been subtle, and nobody who suffered had sued, but you never
knew.
Widower. He's got to have a housekeeper who comes in and maybe cooks most of
his dinners, at least. And he does apparently have friends in town, and sees
the children and grandchildren once in a while. But otherwise a lonely man.
Also in his work. Yes, very much so in his work. Nobody else has ever managed
to replicate his experiments with any consistency, no peer-reviewed
professional journal has accepted any paper of his for decades, and he wants
no part of the crank publications.
He returned carrying a tray with two glasses, set it on a coffee table before
me, and lowered himself into the chair opposite. "Are you Danish, Mr.
Larsen?" he asked.
"My father's parents were," I said, "and I've explained that I've been over
there quite a bit, and hope for
more."
His white head nodded. "A charming country." He lifted his glass. "Let me
therefore propose
'Skdl'
and request that you forgive my pronunciation."
We clinked rims and sipped. It was a good Beaujolais. His manner, though, did
more to loosen the cold little knot of fear in me.
We chatted for maybe ten minutes, then: "Let's be honest," he said. "This is a
gamble on your part, with nothing whatsoever guaranteed. Do you really want to
take it? You have a family."
"Not much of a personal risk, is it?"
"No, no physical hazard, and nobody's suffered a nervous breakdown or anything
like that. However, I
trust it was made quite clear to you that some of my subjects have found the
experience . . . disconcerting.
In a few cases, almost shattering. They've been haunted for weeks
afterward, depression or nightmares or Frankly, I suspect one or two
never entirely got over it. The past is, for the most part, no
more pleasant than our world today, often less. Or emotional involvements I
respect their privacy and haven't tried to probe. But it's not like being a
tourist, you know."
"I do, sir. Generally, your people have come through all right, haven't they?
Shaken up, sure. I expect to be, myself. However, the odds are, it
should be well worth whatever it's likely to cost. My wife and
daughter are prepared for having me broody a week or two."
Rennie chuckled, turned serious again, and said, "And you hope to advance your
career as a promising young archaeologist. You certainly will, if you
come back with priceless clues to what to look for and where.
But I'm staying stubbornly honest, albeit perhaps boring you do understand,
don't you, the odds strike me as being against it? Hasn't Scandinavia been
thoroughly picked over?"
Eagerness stirred in me, the same that had made me apply for this. "You never
know what'll turn up.
Anyhow, way more important than physical objects, some insight into
how people lived, thought, worshipped, everything. We have written
records from southern European and Near Eastern countries, sort of, but
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nothing from the North."
Rennie raised his brows. "I fear your colleagues won't necessarily
take your word for what you witnessed. What proof will you have that it
wasn't a hoax or, at best, a delusion? On the whole, mainstream science finds
what I do no more acceptable than psionics in general."
"I know that, too." I took a full swallow of the wine and leaned forward.
"Sir, I didn't come in blind. I
asked around, got in touch with several of your people, and think you're on
to something. So maybe all I
I
come home with is just an, an experience. Okay. I'll nevertheless
have been there, lived it. I'll have interpretations of the evidence to
offer; and what that might lead to, who can say?"
"Ah, yes. Your application and our interviews, official though they've
been, have certainly roused my interest. The Scandinavian Bronze Age,
centering in what's now Denmark, was rich, extraordinarily creative,
and generally fascinating, wasn't it?"
"It had to be. Copper and tin aren't found there. So they had to trade widely
across the known world, which means awareness of what was happening
elsewhere. An aristocratic society, yes, like every society in its Bronze Age,
but peaceful, to judge by what's been uncovered not like the Stone
Age before or, absolutely, the Iron Age afterward. How'd that come about?"
Rennie frowned slightly. "You do realize you'll have only some hours, while
your body lies unconscious for the same length of time here? Of course, the
one yonder will have his or her own memories of earlier life, and many of
those should come to mind. Please understand, too, that my control over
the point and moment to which you return is quite uncertain. It could be off
by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years. I've only groped my way gradually
to any targeting at all. And, finally, under no circumstances will I ever
send the same person back twice. Given the hazard in each single venture,
ethics forbids."
Impatience almost snapped: "Yes, I've been through this often enough."
He leaned back, lifted his glass, and said ruefully, "And, no [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]