asimov, isaac - the message

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  • 8/9/2019 Asimov, Isaac - The Message

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    The Message

    Copyright (c) 1955 by Fantasy House, Inc.

    They drank beer and reminisced as men will who have met after longseparation. They called to mind the days under fire. They rememberedsergeants and girls, both with exaggeration. Deadly things becamehumorous in retrospect, and trifles disregarded for ten years werehauled out for airing.Including, of course, the perennial mystery."How do you account for it?" asked the first. "Who started it?"The second shrugged. "No one started it. Everyone was doing it, like adisease. You, too, I suppose."The first chuckled.The third one said softly, "I never saw the fun in it. Maybe because Icame across it first when I was under fire for the first time. NorthAfrica.""Really?" said the second."The first night on the beaches of Oran. I was getting under cover,making for some native shack and I saw it in the light of a flare-"

    George was deliriously happy. Two years of red tape and now he wasfinally back in the past. Now he could complete his paper on the sociallife of the foot soldier of World War II with some authentic details.Out of the warless, insipid society of the thirtieth century, he foundhimself for one glorious moment in the tense, superlative drama of thewarlike twentieth.North Africa! Site of the first great sea-borne invasion of the war!How the temporal physicists had scanned the area for the perfect spotand moment. This shadow of an empty wooden building was it. No humanwould approach for a known number of minutes. No blast would seriouslyaffect it in that time. By being there, George would not affecthistory. He would be that ideal of the temporal physicist, the "pureobserver."It was even more terrific than he had imagined. There was the perpetualroar of artillery, the unseen tearing of planes overhead. There werethe periodic lines of tracer bullets splitting the sky and theoccasional ghastly glow of a flare twisting downward.And he was here! He, George, was part of the war, part of an intensekind of life forever gone from the world of the thirtieth century,grown tame and gentle.He imagined he could see the shadows of an advancing column ofsoldiers, hear the low cautious monosyllables slip from one to another.How he longed to be one of them in truth, not merely a momentaryintruder, a "pure observer."He stopped his note taking and stared at his stylus, its micro-lighthypnotizing him for a moment. A sudden idea had overwhelmed him and helooked at the wood against which his shoulder pressed. This moment must

    not pass unforgotten into history. Surely doing this would affectnothing. He would use the older English dialect and there would be nosuspicion.He did it quickly and then spied a soldier running desperately towardthe structure, dodging a burst of bullets. George knew his time was up,and, even as he knew it, found himself back in the thirtieth century.It didn't matter. For those few minutes he had been part of World WarII. A small part, but part. And others would know it. They might notknow they knew it, but someone perhaps would repeat the message tohimself.

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    Someone, perhaps that man running for shelter, would read it and knowthat along with all the heroes of the twentieth century was the "pureobserver," the man from the thirtieth century, George Kilroy. He wasthere!