And But Would not that day bring the annihilation of Earth’s local time? That was what he had started. It could only mean that local time’ was not a product of planetary elements; there the writer of the Scientific American article had not dared to go far enough; local time was entirely a product of the psyche. That dark innermost thing that could keep accurate time even while a man lay unconscious was a mere provincial; but it could be educated to be a citizen of the universe. He saw that he was the first of a new race, unimaginable in the wildest mind a few months previously.
He was independent of the enemy that, more than Death, menaced contemporary man: Time. Locked within him was an entirety new potential. Superman had arrived.
Painfully, Superman stirred in his seat. He sat so wrapt for so long that his limbs grew stiff and dead without his noticing it.
Universal thoughts may occur if one times carefully enough one’s circumbendibus about a given table “Dictation,” he said, and waited impatiently until the com-mand had penetrated backwards to the limbo by the fire where Stackpole sat. What he had to say was so terribly importantyet it had to wait on these people… .
As was his custom, he rose and began to walk round the table, speaking in phrases quickly delivered. This was to be the testament to the new way of life… .
“Consciousness is not expendable but concurrent. … There may have been many time nodes at the beginning of the human race…. The mentally deranged often revert to different time rates. For some, a day seems to stretch on for ever…. We know by experience that for children time is seen in the convex mirror of consciousness, enlarged and distorted beyond its focal point….” He was momentarily irritated by the scared face of his wife appearing outside the study window, but he brushed it away and continued.
“… its focal point… . Yet man in his ignorance has persisted in pretending time was some sort of uni-directional flow, and homogenous at that … despite the evidence to the contrary… . Our conception of ourselvesno, this erroneous conception has become a basic life assumption… .”
Daughters of daughters
Westermark’s mother was not given to metaphysical speculation, but as she was leaving the room, she turned and said to her daughter-in-law, “You know what I sometimes think?
Jack is so strange, I wonder at nights if men and women aren’t getting more and more apart in thought and in their ways with every generationyou know, almost like separate species. My generation made a great attempt to bring the two sexes together in equality and all the rest, but it seems to have come to nothing.”
“Jack will get better.” Janet could hear the lack of confidence in her own voice.
“I thought the same thingabout men and women getting wider apart I meanwhen my husband was killed.”
Suddenly ail Janet’s sympathy was gone. She had recog-nised a familiar topic drifting onto the scene, knew well the careful tone that ironed away all self-pity as her mother-in-law said, “Bob was dedicated to speed, you know. That was what killed him really, not the fool backing into the road in front of him.”
“No blame was attached to your husband,” Janet said.
“You should try not to let it worry you still.”
“You see the connection though…. This progress thing.
Bob so crazy to get round the next bend first, and now Jack… . Oh well, there’s nothing a woman can do.”
She closed the door behind her. Absently, Janet picked up the message from the next generation of women: “Thank you for the dollies.”
The resolves and the sudden risks involved He was their father. Perhaps Jane and Peter should come back, despite the risks involved. Anxiously, Janet stood there, moving herself with a sudden resolve to tackle Jack straight away. He was so irritable, so unapproachable, but at least she could observe how busy he was before interrupting him.
As she slipped into the side hall and made for the back door, she heard her mother-in-law call her. “Just a minute!”
she answered.