Can the past affect the future? What if
you remembered to the dawn of time when you
hated man and decided to destroy him—today!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
September 1952
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was like a cave, a great vaulted cave which echoed back my firsthesitant movements on the slab and tossed them from wall to wall untilthe darkness about me was all one vast rustling. I felt my skin prickleinto gooseflesh. In that moment of waking I was oddly frightened. I hadno memory of location. I might have been in a subterranean grotto, withenormous stalagmites of supergrotesque shape rising all about me inthe thick gloom.
I sat up. The slab was cold beneath me. Directly in front of it towereda thing like a nightmare skeleton of stone.
It was just that: the fossil of a duckbilled dinosaur. I had gone tosleep on a marble bench in the palaeontology room of the museum.
I laughed. The panic that had touched me was gone, and I felt ashamedof myself. Not for falling asleep, because I had been very tired; butashamed of the fear.
Lord knew how long I had slept. It was black night without and within,and no sound save that of my own movements came to me. The museum musthave been closed for hours. The guards had missed me on my bench behindthe dinosaur. I stood and shook myself and smoothed the rumpled suit,and began to grope my way between exhibits toward the entrance hall. Ileft the reptilian skeletons behind—not without a certain relief, forthey were awesome sleepers to pass among—and was striding down a dimpathway between glass cases when I heard the footsteps.
A watchman was coming toward me. I could see the reflection of hisflashlight. I halted indecisively, growled at myself, and went on. Ihad a perfectly valid excuse for being there. They could hardly doanything to me.
The guard was big, about my size, and his flash jumped in his hand whenhe saw me. Then he hurried forward. I grinned into the glare.
"Sorry to scare you—"
"What the hell you doing here, bud?"
I did not like him in the least. "I fell asleep in the bone room. Justwoke up."
"That's what they say, bud, that's what they say." He was breathing inmy face. I do not care for secondhand hamburg with onions. "Who areyou?"
"Bill Cuff, I write for the adventure mags, maybe you've seen my yarns."
"No, I ain't. How come you fell asleep, bud?"
"Cuff," I said, "Bill Cuff. I was knocked out. I mean I was tired. Beenworking nights on a piece that doesn't want to jell."
"That's what they say, bud." I was getting good and sick of that line.Three times was more than enough. He didn't think so. "That's what theysay. Fell asleep, huh? In a room full o' jewelry that'd bring a niceprice even if you melted it down. Relics. We got a brooch over therethat Napoleon gave to Catherine of Aragon. Make a nice haul by itself."
"I dare say, especially as she died some centuries before he was born.A unique bit of trinketry indeed." I disliked this guard more witheach word. "You knucklehead," I said, "I told you I fell asleep. I waslooking for a watchman just now."
"That's what they say. You come on with me. We got to see a cop, bud."
"For the love of—I can identify myself. Here's my driver's license."
"Stole, probably. We've had sneak-thieves in here before. You come onwith me, bud."
I counted ten. "Cuff, Bill Cuff." His stupidity, his dark stolid bulkbehind the persistent flashlight were angering me. "All right, lets seea cop."