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A madman! Madame fingered the secateurs deep in her pocket. “The time-gate,” she said carefully, “opens in but a single direction. There is no return. And we have no detailed knowledge of what lies on the other side in the Pliocene land. It was never possible to circumtranslate Tri-D cameras or other types of recording equipment.”
“The fauna of the epoch is well known, Madame, as is the climate. A prudent person need have nothing to fear. And you, gnadige Frau, must suffer no qualms of conscience in permitting me to use the portal. I am self-sufficient and well able to look after myself in a wilderness. I have selected my equipment with care, and for companionship there is my faithful Schatzi. Don’t hesitate, I beg of you! Let me pass through tonight. Now!”
A madman indeed, but perhaps one that Providence had sent!
She remonstrated with him for some time while the sky darkened to indigo and the nightingales began to sing. Richter parried all of her objections. He had no family to miss him. He had told no one of his intentions, so there would be no inquiries made of her. No one had observed him walking on the lonely road from the village. She would be rendering him a blessing, fulfilling for him what had once been an impossible dream of Arcady. He was not committing suicide, he was merely entering a new, more tranquil life. But if she refused him, his Seelenqual would leave him only the grimmest alternative. And there was the money…
“C’est entendu,” Madame said at last “Please accompany me.”
She led him down into the cellar and threw on the lights. There stood the gazebo with its cables, just as poor Theo had left it. The poet gave a joyous cry and rushed to the apparatus, tears ru
“At last!”
The dachshund trotted sedately after her master. Madame picked up the parcel of books and placed it inside the lattice.
“Quickly, Madame! Quickly!” Richter clasped his hands in a paroxysm of exaltation.
“Listen to me,” she said sharply. “When you have been translated, you must immediately remove yourself from the point of your arrival. Walk three or four meters away and take the dog with you. Is this clear? Otherwise you will be snatched back into the present day as a dead man and crumble to dust.”
“I understand! Vite, Madame, vite! Quickly!”
Trembling, she moved to the simple control panel and activated the time-portal. The mirrored force fields sprang up, and the poet’s voice was silenced as if by a broken teleview co
The mirrors vanished. The gazebo was empty.
Madame Guderian let a great sigh escape her lips. Then she thriftily turned out the cellar lights and mounted the stairs, fingering the small slip of blue plass tucked securely in her pocket.
After Karl Josef Richter, there were others.
The very first gratuity allowed Madame to pay the inheritance tax and discharge all of her other debts. Some months later, after her mind had been fully opened to the time-gate’s profit making potential by the coming of other visitors, she let it be known that she was establishing a quiet auberge for walking tourists. She purchased land adjoining her cottage and had a handsome guesthouse built. The rose gardens were expanded and several of her relatives drafted to assist with domestic duties. To the astonishment of skeptical neighbors, the i
Not all of the guests who entered chez Guderian were seen to leave. But the point was moot, since Madame invariably required payment in advance.
Some years passed. Madame underwent rejuvenation and displayed an austere chic in her second lifetime. In the valley below the i
Other types of seekers also came to Lyon. These found their way to the i
In those early years, when she still regarded the time-portal as a business venture, Madame set up simple criteria for her clientele. Would-be timefarers had to spend at least two days with her at the auberge while she and her computer checked civil status and psychosocial profile. She would send no one through the gate who was a fugitive from justice, who was seriously deranged, or who had not attained twenty-eight years of age (for the great step demanded full maturity). She would permit no one to carry modern weaponry or coercive devices back to the Pliocene. Only the simplest solar-powered or sealed-pack machines might be taken. Persons obviously unprepared for survival in a primeval wilderness were dismissed and told to return upon acquiring suitable skills.
After thinking deeply on the matter, Madame made a further condition for women candidates. They must renounce their fertility.
“Attendez!” she would snap at the stu
There was also the matter of paradox.
The notion that time-travelers might disrupt the present world by meddling with the past had seriously troubled Madame Guderian for many weeks after the departure of Karl Josef Richter. She had concluded at last that such paradox must be impossible, since the past is already manifest in the present, with the continuum sustained in the loving hands of le bon Dieu.
On the other hand, one ought not to take chances.
Human beings, even the rejuvenated and highly educated people of the Coadunate Galactic Age, could have little impact on the Pliocene or any subsequent time period if they were restrained from reproducing. Given the social advantage to female travelers, the decision to demand the renouncing of motherhood as a condition of transport was confirmed in Madame’s mind.
She would say to the protesters: “One realizes that it is unfair, that it sacrifices a portion of your feminine nature. Do I not understand?. I, whose two dear children died before reaching adulthood? But you must accept that this world you seek to enter is not one of life. It is a refuge of misfits, a death surrogate, a rejection of normal human destiny. Ainsi, if you pass into this Exile, the consequences must rest upon you alone. If life’s force is still urgent within you, then you should remain here. Only those who are bereaved of all joy in this present world may take refuge in the shadows of the past.”