Mind Webs - Running Around Swords Of Ifthan

0:30Mindweb. Welcome to half hour of Mindweb. Short stories from the worlds of speculative fiction. Welcome to Mindweb's. Michael Hansen speaking with two stories for you this half hour. Our program begins with a story from Omega edited by Roger Elwood. This is Running Around by Barry Maltzberg.

1:32I travel back in time 70 years to the bucolic and gentle year of 1903, where I meet my grandfather as a young man and kill him with a 32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. By so doing of course I assume that I have settled with difficulties of the instant situation, but when I returned to myself invented secret time machine, I work in a laboratory in the cellar and refused to patent any of my devices since I believe that modern corporations are irretrieverably corrupt and will steal anything. Then I find my wife in her accustomed position in the living room. Her arm is folded a bit of expression on her face. She says, now we won't have any of that referring to my travels in time with which of course she is familiar. I wouldn't ever misconstruing my johns as adulterous quests or expeditions to the bar, and let's keep her abreast of my findings. She goes on to say there, the same bills to pay, the wild man snuck him down the door, the credit bureaus call three times this afternoon, and I'm tired of lying and this has

2:33got to come to an end, Edgar. You must face your responsibilities. Edgar, my name is Edgar. My wife's name on the other hand is Betty, and in a moment of passion some years ago I dragged myself to my infinite regret from my laboratory to a cordon barrier. We have two children, Richard and Helen, fraternal twins eight years old. This was a dreadful mistake, not the children. I mean, children are inevitable in any marriage. The marriage itself was a dreadful mistake. In vetting the time travel machine had been my hobby, and I should have left it at that, but the flesh is as infinitely destructive as it is cunning. Well, my wife Betty says to me, well what do you intend to do about this now? I say fix it up, return to the machine, which is a delicate cubicle, really man-sized or woman-sized, about five feet six inches in height, three feet all around just suitable for traveling, if I wedge myself within. I turned the dials to 1933, and hastily go back in time.

3:38I fix it up right, I repeat, the bland inner surfaces of the machine. I've tried to furnish it with a somewhat home-like manner, as pictures of my family and two covers rip from old pulp magazines, but it's difficult to dress up any cubicle five feet six inches high and three feet around. I ignore the pictures and instead absorb the sensations of traveling back in time, one year to three seconds, 40 years, 120 seconds, or two minutes, that is the same. So, in time is essentially uneventful. I think of it as being something like making love to my wife Betty, an impenetrable surge of moments during which very little seems to happen until there's an eviction, but I don't wish to be cruel to her. I've got to solve the situation I have. Now what I have had in mind, of course, is to eliminate myself painlessly.

4:39I have a very mundane civil service position, but there's been reordering in the department, and I'm on the verge of losing my probationary status. And there's marital woes, the general depression and fatigue of being a citizen of the 20th century all sort of overwhelmingly. And what I want to do is end it all, end it in a way so final that it will have never happened at all. Having once grandfathers the classic means of doing this, according to the science fiction stories I've read, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Therefore I will have to kill my father instead. Surely if I get rid of the old man from whom I have always had a distant affection, I wish to emphasize that there's nothing personal in this and that parasite or grand parasite gives me no emotional satisfaction whatsoever. If I kill the old man in 1933, four years before he met my mother, but alone married her,

5:42I will cancel out the fact of myself, because say nothing of my wife Betty, and she would have met and married someone else, and my twin daughter and son. And likewise the creditors and the ugly leakage that has begun to appear in the basement as a result of my experiments. The dial comes to rest on 1933 with a click, and history I power down with septic controls and in a somewhat mole-like way emerged from my cubicle, giving the pole magazine covers and portraits of my family and reposers last infection of glance. I met Broadway in 87th Street, 40 years ago, and what appears to be the late afternoon rush hour. Throngs of people passing me busily reading news of the bank closing, marvelous antique buses pouring fumes into the air and passing my nostrils. And no one appears to notice a blanking 32 year old man who is just emerged from a 5-foot 6 inch cubicle, which cubicle instantly dwindles to the size of an apple, and is picked up

6:43by this man to be inserted in his inner jacket pocket. As I recall my father before his marriage, lived with a friend in apartment 3B at 149 West 87th Street, and history I set out in that direction. It's convenient that the machine has dropped me so close to the destination. Calibration for space in what I like to call who pardon my vanity. Edgar's device is still inexact, and I could as well have been at the intersection of Broadway and Wall watching some rich panic on the stock exchange. Time is my specialty, it seems. I'm loose and sloppy on the space issue, but the fact that I've been able to calibrate so exactly gives me a little surge of feeling. Surely this is a good omen and proves that I'm on the right track. Now, all that I will have to do is hope that my father is in, kill him promptly, and let events take their course.

7:43I go into 149 West 87th Street, unnoticed by Passersby and two policemen who are inspecting the fire hydrant gun mad from the economic disorder of 1933 to Earl Torrance of Rusty Water down the last perlast back to the 87th Street, a 40 years ago. I find my father's name listed in the vestibule, and pushing open the door, building access was easy in these times. The crime waived did not really get bad until after the war. I sprint up the two flights to 3B, knock on the door once, and then unbidden. I find my father much younger than I ever knew him, of course, standing in his undershirt by the window, looking out at the street in the accident of the fire hydrant. He turns toward me, his eyes blanking and full of light, and races a hand in greeting. A merry man, I never knew him this way. He must have been quite a merry man, however, before he met my mother.

8:44Hello, he says. How are you? I don't believe I know you, but that's perfectly all right. Maybe you're the man with assault. You must be referring to some obscure 40-year-old grocery errand, but then again, assault may have a peculiar local significance that escapes me. No, I say in any event. No, I'm not the man with assault. Ah, he says. That's a pity. He turns back toward the window. If they don't seal that hydrant soon, the ark's going to be underwater. Then I won't have to go to work tonight, which come to think of it as all right with me. As I recall, my father was a used car salesman at this period of his life, a versional used car salesman as a matter of fact, according to testimony. But, well, then again, and as Thomas Wolf once said, who can know his father's face. And this is not my concern at the present time. The time to have established a relationship with my father was a long time ago.

9:45Well, at least, not in 1933, eight years before I was born, or properly speaking even in seed form. You're never going to work again, Dad. I say, and reach into my suit pocket, not the pocket with a dwindle time machine, the other pocket, the one with a 32 caliber smith and western. I take out the pistol. I'm going to kill you. That's ridiculous, he says, turning from the window. No one's going to kill me. This is 1933. It's modern times, and people just don't shoot strangers in their own apartments. People don't come off this street and kill strangers for no reason. You're not a stranger, I say. And I feel a little pretty for the old man now, so young and confused in his undershirt. It would have been nice if we had established some kind of relationship, I think. But then again, we were never able to talk to one another, which is one of the reasons why I became neurotic and wound up in a mundane civil service job, peddling around with time travelers, a hobby, instead of making a lot of money for myself.

10:50And this is no time to start. Nevertheless, I say, I'm your son, and I've got to kill you. My son, he says, turning hands on hips. I have no son. Besides, if I did, he'd be a wee infant. Not a big guy like yourself, about 39 years of age, I'd say. I'm not 39. Always, always old man was able to get my coat. I'm 32. And I'm unhappily married and a mundane civil service job with bills over my head, and I've decided to end it all by getting rid of you. It's all your fault. His eyes widen, or perhaps in my excitement, I think, that they're widening when they're merely deepening. You must be crazy, he says. No, I'm not crazy. I come from 40 years from now. I was born four years after you were married to a girl you won't even meet for four years.

11:51And frankly, you were a lousy parent, but I don't even want to get into that area now. All I know is that if I kill you now, you will never meet the girl or get married and have me. And that means I never will have been born to be in this lousy mess. It's not your fault. I love what we got. It's not your fault. I mean, there's nothing personal in this. Even if you had been a good father, I'd still want to kill you. We are never able to have a good relationship. Every time I tried to talk, we got into the silly arguments about my shoes not being shined. Why didn't I make something to myself in school? And I just can't get into all that stuff again. I'm sorry. Concentrating hard. I start to pull the trigger. It's really a very difficult and embarrassing thing. I have just discovered to try to commit parasite. Now grand parasite is easily possible. For one thing, I'd never met my grandfather who was dead years before I was born.

12:51But the father's son relationship is profound with, as they say, many Freudian overtones. Thus, I am still concentrating on the effort of pulling the trigger. And at the same time battling the deep sense of remorse went behind me. There's a bang of the door and two patrolmen. The ones I saw on the street enter the apartment purposefully. Sculpfully, they surround me. Sculpfully, undesarmed. Sculpfully, I'm manacled and placed in their custody. There's not even time to reach for the apple-sized object in my left jacket pocket. Much less to try and explain the situation to anyone. Before I quite know what's happened, I am very much in the hands of the Depression police and being led gently down the stairs. I don't worry about this one. One of the police calls upstairs to my astonished father. Well, he had reports that something like this might be going on in the neighborhood. You know, I have to come down and give testimony later, maybe.

13:52But there's no reason for you to worry about anything like this. From two flights above, my father looks down at me, open moves and with some interest. But there is really very little I could say to him. Now more than ever, we would have difficulty relating. So I allow myself to pass from the building and into the streets where the Depression era police walked me down to the corner toward the precinct. It seems that in these times of Apple selling in bank holidays, New York's finest did not have cars that they're disposed of, although, and again, they may be especially detailed with the trauma. The hydrant, I notice, is no longer gushing. It must all have been a blind to make their presence on the perspective of murder scene natural and acceptable. And I realize then that all along I have been outsmarted and that probably they were waiting for me. You must have had advanced knowledge, I say, being half-lofted in their strong arms, my feet scuttling delicately in the grey with pleasant pavement of old New York.

14:56Someone must have told you that I was coming. Cunningly I try to reach an arm inside my jacket to get the time machine, but there far more cunning than I, and the hand is slapped away, and another hand inserts itself and deathly removes the machine. The patrolman to my right looks at it with a delighted expression. And as the evidence, he says, we got him called. He'll pay every bill you'll, buddy. The other policeman advises, you'll work hard, you'll meet your debts and be responsible to your family. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's seen a man trying to avoid his responsibilities. How did you know? I asked pointlessly as we whisk toward a stoplight. Who told you? We got a tip. I know you got a tip, but around here, who would know? Who could possibly know? Never mind. The policeman hooking the little machine says.

15:58We have our methods and we have our sources of information, Bob. Anyway, I think that you'd know this informant very well. She certainly knows you, friend, and she mad. She? Yeah. Your name's Betty. If I were you, which fortunately I'm not, I'd never want to go home again, which unfortunately you will have to because we have too many mobs already to feed in 1933. And whatever you think, it's better up the line. Betty, I say. Betty. A conniving rotten woman. And in a certain sense of absurdity overcomes me, or maybe it's a flash of the divine and I'd look beyond the flat high buildings of old New York to this guy, the depression looming over us and I laugh. That was Barry Maltzberg story running around.

17:03Comes from a collection edited by Roger Helwood titled Omega.

19:42The program concludes with another story from Omega edited by Roger Helwood. This one is titled Swords of If Than, and it's written by James Sutherland. For Alvin Mothat, the quintessence of life as it should be was contained within the role of leather-bound volumes in the library's rare book room. Alvin worked one floor below at the reference desk, but passed a spare moments upstairs savoring Lamorte Arthur, perhaps, or Orlando Fiorioso. When an influx of students kept him at the desk during final examination weeks usually, he made do with a cheap addition of the once-in-future king and his own glowing dreams. And although he admired the former's vision, in his heart, Alvin felt the latter remain truest to the spirit of the old classics.

20:42One noon time he came upon a make-waste sphere, floating alongside the song of Roland. Alvin Mothat? The sphere inquired Bristol. Alvin Bergen Mothat? Distracted. Alvin nodded vaguely. Excellent. I have journeyed far to meet with you. At this point, Alvin fully perceived he was being addressed by an altogether strange entity. He flinched and cried in confusion. What? Where? Unfortunately, the sphere seemed to understand and replied that it was no less than the guardian of Continua, coming to seek Alvin's assistance in a matter of desperate urgency. Whatever can I do? Ade the fair world of this then which presently lies in much danger. Alvin had never heard of this then, so the guardian added in herring tones.

21:44I will construct a visual simulacrum of this then, adjusted to your senses. Observe then and quick. Around Alvin the somehow familiar landscape of this then took form. Here were green glades and forests. There were softly rolling meadows and beyond a gleaming castle. A lone knight ventured from the raised portcolus and wearily rode toward a monstrous dragon-like creature that was laying the countryside to waste and ruin. From a high revetment a raven-haired woman of surpassing beauty called passionate encouragement to her hero as he spurred his mount near the dragon. A sword flashed under the golden sun and the scene fladed mistily. As your eyes be held if then is besieged by those loathsome invaders, our champions are powerless to resist the ever-advancing tide.

22:48Only a valiant outsider can be an equal to the unnatural foe. You want me? Asheredly. Fair not, the earthly physique that you deem inadequate will be suitably rectified if you choose to accompany me. Now will you accept this awesome challenge? It's everything I've ever read about, dreamed about, hoped for. Thought Alvin, scarcely daring to breathe, me decided. Where do I sign? Your word is proof enough of intent, Alvin Moffit. Abruptly the continuum slew wildly, when Alvin found himself standing in the self-same meadow beside the castle he had glimpsed. The air was wonderfully fresh and hearty. Alvin let out a happy yell that quite suddenly ended. As he noticed, he had just exhaled orange flames. Looking down and modding horror he discovered that his skin had turned a scaly magenta.

23:51His fingers had dwindled to jagged claws and his legs were grotesque stumps. Now this isn't what I'd expected. Said Alvin angrily, lashing his heavy spike tail about like a bowwhip. Careful with that thing, wait for the signal. A crowd was beginning to gather along the revetment screening at Alvin and making gestures. When a plume night of heroic proportions thundered out the castle gateway they shouted in ecstasy. The night pointed his lancet Alvin and the crowd whooped with delirious anticipation. Made wretched by the turn of events, Alvin wanted to weep, but reptiles have no tear ducts. All he could choke out was a reproachful. I… I… don't know what to think of this or of you. I think of me as your manager. Now listen good kid. The sphere told him in a horse and sweaty sounding voice.

24:51Now in that gong sound I want you to really get in there and fight. That story is titled the Swords of Hithan by James Suthant appeared in Roger Lwood's Omega. And that's mind webs for this time. Michael Hansen speaking technical production by Steve Gordon and Leslie Hosanov. Mind webs comes to you from WHA Radio and Madison, a service of University of Wisconsin Extension.