99 Classic Science-Fiction Short Stories. Айзек Азимов

suggestive of great strength. His frame was thin to emaciation.

      "Good Heavens!" I gasped. "What has happened?"

      "It is an extreme case of mental influence upon matter," answered Mortimer, bending over the hypnotized man. "You remember how young Bennet's features took on the characteristics of a Hun? A similar thing, but in a much intenser degree, has happened to Williams. He has become a man of the future physically as well as mentally."

      "Good Lord!" I cried. "Waken him at once! This is horrible."

      "To be frank with you," said Mortimer gravely, "I am afraid to. He has been in this state much longer than I realized. To waken him too suddenly would be dangerous. It might even prove fatal."

      For a moment he seemed lost in thought. Then he removed the ear phones from Williams' head, and addressed him. "Sleep," he commanded. "Sleep soundly and naturally. When you have rested sufficiently, you will awaken and be your normal self."

      Shortly after this, I left Mortimer, and, although it was my day off duty, went to my hospital. How good my commonplace tonsil cases seemed after the unholy things I had just experienced! I surprised the resident physician almost into a state of coma by putting in the remainder of the day in the hardest work possible in the free clinic; and finally went home, tired in mind and body.

      I turned in early for what I deemed a well-earned rest, and fell asleep instantly. The next thing of which I was conscious was the insistent ringing of the telephone bell beside my bed.

      "Hello," I cried sleepily, taking down the receiver. "Dr. Claybridge speaking."

      "Claybridge, this is Mortimer," came the almost hysterical response. "For God's sake, come over to the laboratory at once!"

      "What has happened?" I demanded, instantly wide awake. It would take something unusual to wring such excitement from the unemotional Mortimer.

      "It's Williams," he answered. "I can't bring him back. He got awake about an hour ago, and still believes that he is living in the future. Physically, he is the same as he was when last you saw him this afternoon."

      "I'll be over at once," I fairly shouted, and slammed the receiver down upon its hook. As I scrambled into my clothes, I glanced at the clock. Two fifteen. In half an hour I could reach the laboratory. What would I find waiting for me?

      Mortimer was in the lead room with Williams when I arrived.

      "Claybridge," he said, "l need someone else's opinion in this case. Look at him, and tell me what you think."

      Williams still occupied the chair in the middle of the room. His eyes were wide open, but it was plain that he saw neither Mortimer nor me. Even when I bent over him and touched him, he gave no sign of being conscious of my presence.

      "He looks as if he were suffering from some sort of catalepsy," I said, "yet his temperature and pulse are almost normal. I should say at he is still partially in a state of hypnosis."

      "Then it is self-hypnosis," said Mortimer, "for I have entirely withdrawn my influence."

      "Perhaps," I suggested lightly, "you have transported him irretrievably into the future."

      "That," Mortimer replied, "is precisely what I fear has happened."

      I stared a him dumbly.

      "The only way out," he went on, "is to rehypnotize him, and finish the experiment. At its conclusion, he may return to his natural state."

      I could not help thinking that there were certain things which it was forbidden man to know; and that Mortimer, having wantonly blundered into them, was now being made to pay the penalty. I watched him as he worked over poor Williams, straining all his energies to induce a state of hypnotic sleep. At last the glassy eyes before him closed, and his subject slept. With hands that trembled visibly, he adjusted the earphones, and we went back to the laboratory.

      "Williams," Mortimer called into his transmitter, "do you hear me?"

      "I hear you," replied the odiously familiar voice.

      "You are now living in the fourth day. What do you see?"

      "I see reptiles; great lizards that walk upon their hind legs, and birds with tiny heads and bats' wings, that build nests in the ruins of the deserted cities.

      "Dinosaurs and pterodactyls!" I gasped involuntarily. "A second age of reptiles!"

      "The Polar caps have retreated until there is but a small area of ice about each of the poles," continued the voice. "There are no longer any seasons; only a continuous reign of heat. The torrid zone has become uninhabitable even by the reptiles. The sea there boils. Great monsters writhe in their death agonies upon its surface. Even the northern waters are becoming heated.

      "All the land is covered with rank vegetation upon which the reptiles feed. The air is fetid with it."

      Mortimer interrupted: "Describe the fifth day."

      After the customary interval, the voice replied. There was a sticky quality about it that reminded me of the sucking of mud at some object struggling in it.

      "The reptiles are gone," it said. "I alone live upon this expiring world. Even the plant life has turned yellow and withered. The volcanoes are in terrific action. The mountains are becoming level, and soon all will be one vast plain. A thick, green slime is gathering upon the face of the water; so that it is difficult to tell where the land with its rotting vegetation ends and the sea begins. The sky is saffron in color, like a plate of hot brass. At night a blood red moon swims drunkenly in a black sky.

      "Something is happening to gravitation. For a long time I had suspected it. Today I tested it by throwing a stone into the air. I was carried several feet above the ground by the force of my action. It took the stone nearly twenty minutes to return to earth. It fell slowly, and at an angle!"

      "An angle!" cried Mortimer.

      "Yes. It was barely perceptible, but it was there. The earth's movement is slowing: Days and nights have more than doubled in length."

      "What is the condition of the atmosphere?"

      "A trifle rarefied, but not sufficiently so to make breathing difficult. This seems strange to me."

      "That," said Mortimer to me, "is because his body is here in the twentieth century, where there is plenty of air. The air at the stage of the earth's career where his mind is would be too rare to support organic life. Even now the mental influence is so strong that he believes the density of the atmosphere to be decreasing."

      "Recently," Williams' voice went on, "the star Vega has taken Polaris' place as centre of the universe. Many of the old stars have disappeared, while new ones have taken their places. I have a suspicion that our solar system is either falling or traveling in a new direction through space."

      "Listen to me, Williams." Mortimer's voice sounded dry and cracked, and his forehead was besprinkled with great gouts of sweat. "It is the sixth, the last day. What do you see?"

      "I see a barren plain of grey rock. The world is in perpetual twilight because the mists that rise from the sea obscure the sun. Heaps of brown bones dot the plain near the mounds that once were cities. The dykes around Manhattan long ago crumbled away; but there is no longer any need for them even were men here, for the sea is rapidly drying up. The atmosphere is becoming exceedingly rarefied. I can hardly breathe. . . .

      "Gravitation is giving out more rapidly. When I stand erect I sway as though drunk. Last night the curtains of mist parted for a time, and I saw the moon fly off into space.

      "Great lightnings play about the earth, but there is no thunder. The silence all around is plummetless. I keep speaking aloud and striking one object against another to relieve the strain on my eardrums. . . .

      "Great cracks are beginning to appear in the ground, from which smoke and molten lava issue. I have fled to Manhattan in order that the skeletons of the tall buildings may hide them from my sight.

      "Small objects have begun to move of their own volition. I am afraid to walk, as each step hurls me off my balance. The heat is awful. I cannot breathe."

      "There was a short interval, that came