THE BEAST of BOREDOM

The shack at the edge of the dead canal was so carefully camouflaged, he almost passed by it. Hoping he hadn't been seen, he dropped to his stomach and crawled through the mud toward the door.

It wasn't a long distance, but inching his way on his elbows and knees, and with his face close to the evil-smelling mud, it seemed like a mile. As he crawled, he reflected bitterly that most of mankind's really great achievements always ended in war. Columbus had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and it had ended in war with the Indians. Mankind had invented atomic energy and then used it to kill millions. Their latest achievement was the marvel of spaceflight and where had that ended? It had also ended in war....

Personally, he didn't believe they were justified in fighting the Martians. If they didn't want anyone intruding on their planet, what right did Earthmen have to force their way? The popular theory that they could help rebuild the dying Martian civilization didn't seem very logical when millions had to be killed in the process. And if Martians were an independent race and wanted to sit around and watch their civilization crumble, why shouldn't they have that privilege?

When he was within a few yards of the door, he set aside his philosophical thoughts. Leaping to his feet, he ran into the small shack and screamed shrilly in the manner designed to momentarily paralyze an enemy with fear.

He raised the rifle instinctively when something moved in the shadows, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he felt a queasiness in his stomach. The emaciated alien who cowered in the shadows resembled a pitiful bundle of rags more than an enemy!

Trembling hands lifted an object and three things happened so rapidly that they seemed to happen simultaneously: the Martian's bony fingers moved over the object; a burning sensation ripped through his brain; he realized it must be a weapon and squeezed the trigger of his rifle.

When the sharp crack stopped echoing in his ears, he examined the still form and discovered he'd been mistaken. The object wasn't a weapon. It was a metal globe six inches in diameter and studded with precious jewels. The Martian had offered it in exchange for his life.

The windows of his apartment on the fourteenth floor were open and a gentle breeze chilled the sweat on his face as he worked with the knife. He had previously removed four jewels from the metal globe, but the large ruby he'd selected this time seemed to be embedded deeper.

The blade slipped and slashed the palm of his left hand. Cursing the artifact and all Martians in general, he attacked the ruby furiously and grunted with satisfaction when he dislodged it.

The red jewel rolled across the table and fell to the floor. Picking it up gingerly as if it were a fragile thing of glass, he held it in the sunlight and watched the myriad facets sparkle like a one-color kaleidoscope. It was the largest jewel of all and worth a small fortune....

A sharp pain in his hand reminded him of his wound and he went to the bathroom. After carefully washing the cut, he applied iodine and was trying to find a bandage when....

The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor.

Startled, he leaped back and upset the chair. A second before, he'd been in the bathroom and now he was at the table! Amnesia? He couldn't remember walking back to the living room and although he thought he'd put iodine on the cut, there was none on it that he could see.

He went to the bathroom....

The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor.

He was sitting before the table again without any memory of having left the bathroom! It had happened twice.

Taking the globe to the window, he examined it carefully and saw that where the ruby had been lodged, there was now an opening through the metal. When he held it at a certain angle, he saw a maze of wiring and tiny mechanisms inside.

He had fought the Martians for two years. He had traveled across their red deserts, crawled on the muddy bottoms of their gigantic dead canals, walked through the remains of their ancient cities and heard legends about the great Martian empire that had slowly crumbled during the centuries.

He remembered the legends about Martian time machines and he accepted the fact readily: the object in his hand was a time trap. An ancient, intricate, scientific booby-trap!

The Martian had known he would die and had deliberately planned his revenge. Perhaps the machine wasn't strong enough to take anyone far into the past or future; that would explain why he hadn't used it to escape. But it was evidently strong enough to be used as a trap, and perhaps it had even been designed for that purpose centuries ago. Removing the ruby had triggered it....

Ironic, he reflected, that he'd gone to so much trouble and expense to smuggle the thing from Mars to Earth. The jewels were worth a fortune and it had never occurred to him that the metal globe might have some function. Actually, he had smuggled an ingenious death-trap back to Earth with him.

He shuddered at the thought.

The ruby rolled across the table and....

He was once again sitting before the Martian artifact, his eyes once again focussed on the ruby as it rolled across the table. Like something in a magician's act, he had disappeared from his position near the window and reappeared in the chair. As before, the cut on his hand stung painfully, but this time he ignored it and kept his eyes focussed on his wrist watch.

It was eleven forty-five eastern standard time.

The ruby rolled across the table....

His eyes were no longer focussed on the watch, but he remembered that the hands had last indicated eleven fifty-five. And now they were back at eleven forty-five. He was trapped in a period of time only ten minutes long!

He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers and tried to think calmly. What danger was there in a time trap? He felt no physical pain and so far the trap had only caused him small inconveniences. Anything he did during the ten-minute period was magically undone when he was thrown backward in time. He had put iodine on the cut on his hand and it had disappeared. He had walked to the window, but at the beginning of the next cycle, without any conscious sensation, he found himself sitting in the chair once more. But how could movement through time harm him?

And was he the only one aware of the trap?

He turned the television set on and watched a news announcer during several following cycles. Before long, he was convinced that he was the only one who was aware of the repeated time interval. The news announcer represented everyone in the world, and if he were conscious of the fact that he'd read the same news more than a dozen times, there would have been some change in his expression!

He recalled how the Martian had moved his fingers over the globe and how he'd felt a burning sensation inside his skull. The device had evidently been adjusted to his neural pattern so that only he was conscious of the trap. Or else only someone within a certain effective radius—fifty feet, for instance—was conscious of the repeated time intervals.

Although he'd always believed the stories about the time machines and he now had proof of their existence, he still found it difficult to comprehend their operation. He had heard that such a machine concentrated on only a few atoms of a radioactive substance. By drawing energy from the space-time continuum itself, the machine succeeded in thrusting those atoms backward or forward in time, and since that affected the entire probability stream, all physical matter was forced to follow them through the time stream.

He couldn't totally comprehend the concept, but he realized he had to do something nevertheless, and during following cycles that totaled hours, he tried to decide on a course of action. He recalled the Martian legend about how a particularly vicious criminal had been punished with a similar machine. The unfortunate had been tossed into a pit filled with lionlike animals and then, by repeating the time interval, he had been made to suffer the same death a thousand times. In his own case, he was in no physical danger, but he knew that an enemy was creeping toward him ... an enemy that could kill him as surely as any lion ... boredom.

If he submitted to boredom and just sat through the endless time cycles, it would be the same as sitting in a room for weeks, months, or years. That would be the same as solitary confinement and would eventually drive him insane.

So, there were two possibilities: he could attempt to wreck the machine or wait for it to wear itself out and fight boredom while waiting.

It didn't take him long to decide that he should wait for the machine to run down. If the alien devices really drew energy from the space-time continuum, it would be dangerous to tamper with one. A wrong move when fooling with such a tremendous amount of energy might be disastrous, and perhaps that was exactly what the old Martian had planned for him to do! On the other hand, it didn't seem possible that a machine could run forever.

There should be plenty of ways to keep himself occupied and his mind busy while he waited....

He began reading the magazines scattered about the apartment. There was only time to read a few pages, but he mentally noted the page number during each cycle and when the succeeding interval began, he opened the magazine to that exact page and continued....

The ruby rolled across the table and....

The preceding cycles seemed like an eternity when he looked back upon them. He had read every magazine from cover to cover, watched every television program and listened to every radio program countless times until he had them memorized word for word. He had worked the crossword puzzles in the newspaper several times and explored every square inch of the apartment.

He had no more ideas so he tried to sleep....

He knew it was useless: during each ten-minute interval, he had time to walk from the chair to the davenport, close his eyes and relax his body. But then, at the moment when he was about to fall asleep, he would always find himself in the tediously familiar chair.

He hoped he would grow tired and be able to fall asleep, but finally realized it was impossible. Since the machine influenced the space-time continuum and the same ten-minute interval in time was always repeated, all physical things in space were exactly as they had been at the beginning of the cycle. His body had been refreshed at the beginning of the original cycle and it would always be in the same condition. He would never grow older, he would never become hungry and he would never become tired physically.

Desperate for a way to overcome boredom, he used the bottle of whiskey in the kitchen. After several attempts, he discovered to his dismay that there were ways to get violently sick from gulping liquor but no possible way to get drunk in ten minutes!

He sat through endless cycles staring at the empty air; began to have wild thoughts and knew he was on the verge of insanity. And if he were losing the fight with boredom, he might as well try the other alternative: break the machine and hope it wouldn't blow up in his face.

Taking a long-bladed knife, he attacked the small mechanisms inside the globe. He probed, twisted and jabbed but they seemed indestructible.

Furious, he held it underwater with the hope that water would short-circuit "electrical contacts" if there were any.

When that didn't work, he beat it with a hammer, kicked it, threw it about the room and as a last result, dropped it from the window.

It bounced off the sidewalk fourteen floors below and attracted attention, but a few minutes later he was once more sitting in the chair and watching the sickeningly familiar ruby as it rolled across the sickeningly familiar table.

He stared at the telephone. If only it would ring; if only someone would call him and break the monotony! But that was impossible. At the beginning of each cycle, all physical things and events were exactly as they had been....

Telephone!

He could use it to break the monotony—he could phone all his friends!

He telephoned all his friends and talked with them for numerous ten-minute intervals that totaled days. Because they were always unaware of the previous cycles, his repeated phone calls never annoyed them. Sometimes he told them about the time trap but it was beyond their comprehension and they always thought he was drunk, so he learned not to mention it.

When he tired of talking to his friends, he started at the front of the telephone directory and began calling every name. He made dates with girls he'd never seen, memorized marvelous sales talks and sold non-existent vacuum cleaners and cars. Sometimes he pretended to be the master of ceremonies on a quiz program and when someone answered a difficult question, he told them they had just won a dollar. The various reactions he received were amusing and broke the monotony, but after a few days, even that became boring.

He tried to leave the hotel's fourteenth floor, but discovered that the elevator boy was not on the job at that particular time. Although he ran to the elevator at the beginning of numerous cycles and pushed the down button, the indicator needle never moved during the ten minutes.

He used the stairs at the end of the corridor with the hope of reaching another floor and meeting someone. To see someone or speak to someone in person would have done a lot to break the monotony, but he found that the thirteenth and fifteenth floors were inaccessible. The doors that led to them from the stairway wouldn't push in and there was no hand-grip to pull them outward. Evidently the hotel management used the method to prevent burglars from having an absurdly easy and unseen access to the apartments. Anyone could leave a floor and use the stairs to reach the hotel lobby, but anyone wishing to go from the lobby to a certain floor or from one floor to another was forced to use the elevator.

Cursing the bad luck, he sat for hours and wondered what he could do. He was restricted to succeeding but separate and identical time intervals, and that was also a physical restriction in effect: ten minutes wasn't long enough to leave that floor of the hotel.

He now thought of boredom as an ugly monster that lurked everywhere about him and waited ... waited to seize him with sharp teeth of inactivity....

Desperate for the sight of another person, he tried to enter the other apartments. There were five on that floor, but of them, only the one next to his own seemed to be occupied. When he knocked, there was no answer, but he pressed an ear against the door and heard the faint sound of running water. Whoever the occupant was, he or she was taking a shower and couldn't hear him no matter how hard he knocked.

It irritated him because the apartment was so close. If he could contact the person somehow, he or she could be reached at the beginning of each cycle and would be a tangible individual to help him fight boredom—not a voice on the telephone, an image on the TV screen or a tiny dot of a person fourteen floors below his window.

By phoning the hotel desk, he learned that a woman named Mary Jeffers rented apartment 1403, and he found her telephone number in the directory.

Dialing the number, he was relieved when she answered within a few minutes. The ringing of the phone was evidently loud enough to penetrate the noise of the shower while his knocking on the door hadn't been.

"Mary Jeffers?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"Mary, are you a college graduate?"

"Yes. Who is this? Why do you want to know?"

"This is the police. It's very important. Which college did you attend?"

He knew it was a flimsy trick to get information, but he caught her off guard and she answered, "The University of Delaware."

He hung up the phone and waited until the next cycle. Dialing the number again, he said, "Mary? This is Harry Ogden."

Because of the nature of the time trap, she was unaware of the previous conversation, and her automatic reply to the unfamiliar voice was, "Ogden? You must have the wrong number. I don't know anyone by that name."

"Don't you remember? I went to the University of Delaware with you. I remember you. You have blonde hair and—"

"No. It's brunette."

Hanging up the phone, he waited until the next cycle, dialed the number again and said, "Mary? This is Harry Ogden."

"Ogden? You must have the wrong number. I don't know anyone by that name."

"Don't you remember? I went to the University of Delaware with you. I remember you. You're a brunette about a hundred and thirty pounds and—"

"Well, not quite that much."

By calling dozens of times, he used the system to learn more and more about Mary Jeffers, until at last he knew enough to convince her within a few minutes that he was a friend from her college days whom she'd forgotten.

As he talked with her during various cycles that totaled weeks, he began to feel as if she were a friend, and the desire to see her in person increased. The sight of anyone would have done wonders to break the monotony, and she was the only possibility since all the other apartments were empty.

"I have the apartment next to yours," he said during one time cycle. "Can I come over?"

"I'm not dressed," she replied. "I was taking a shower. Give me time to get dressed."

He glanced at his watch and saw that only four minutes remained in that cycle. He realized despairingly that there wasn't time for her to get dressed. All his efforts had been in vain: ten minutes wasn't long enough to phone her, go through the carefully memorized routine convincing her he was an old friend, wait for her to dress and open the door of her apartment.

It couldn't be done in ten minutes!

Boredom was like a hungry beast that breathed in his ears with a roar of silence while he sat through several succeeding cycles.

Silence. It seemed to echo in his ears as he looked about the apartment. It seemed to whisper that he was losing the duel. The Martian's trap was working: he would sit and wait, and think, and think endlessly until they were wild thoughts and he was insane. And then, the Martian would have his revenge, for insanity was a form of walking death....

He made a decision. He had fought boredom legally and exhausted every method he could think of. If there were no more legal ways, then he would fight boredom illegally. The police couldn't reach him in ten minutes no matter what he did.

Dialing Mary Jeffers' phone number at the beginning of the next cycle, he laid the receiver on the desk, ran across the room and climbed through the window.

The stone ledge just beneath his window wasn't very wide, but by inching his way along it, he reached the open window of apartment 1403.

Climbing through the window, he saw that Mary Jeffers had picked up the telephone receiver with one hand and was trying to dry herself with a towel in the other.

"Hello," she said.

Her back was to him, but he noticed that she wasn't very efficient with the towel. Water dripped from her body and collected in a small pool around her feet.

He grinned and said, "Hello."

She whirled to face him and dropped the telephone receiver, her dark brown eyes widening.

"Harry Ogden," he said. "Remember?"

As soon as he asked the question, he knew it was a foolish one. The time trap was his trap alone and only he was conscious of all the repeated cycles. She was unaware of all their previous conversations and he was now a stranger to her.

She backed away and let out a scream.

It didn't bother him. It was music to his ears—a sound that broke the silence of his peculiar world—a weapon to combat boredom with, and he reflected that he would make many trips to apartment 1403....

The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor.

He smiled as he picked the ruby up from the floor. He estimated that he'd lived more than twenty years in ten-minute intervals, and therefore the trap was not a death-trap. He'd discovered countless ways of fighting boredom and knew he would never succumb to it and resultant insanity. He had entered the other apartments by using the stone ledge and breaking through the windows. In them he had found a total of hundreds of books ... a pair of binoculars that he used to study a multitude of new things from his window ... a typewriter that he used to write books although there was never a completed manuscript ... a chess set ... decks of cards ... hobbies....

There were many more possibilities that he hadn't explored yet and he realized that the Martian had given him a valuable gift: extra years of life.

It seemed incredible that a machine could operate continuously for twenty years, but the ancient Martians had been expert in constructing devices without moving parts. He knew little science, but he could vaguely imagine a sort of "gateway" to the space-time continuum that the removal of the ruby had opened. Perhaps during a ten-minute period a predetermined amount of energy passed through the "gateway" and flowed against a radioactive substance in a way and with a force that thrust a few atoms backward in time to the point when the energy didn't exist and that established the cycle.

With moving parts, the machine wouldn't have run continuously for twenty years. Something would have broken down. Even without moving parts, the machine wouldn't run forever; the materials themselves would deteriorate sooner or later, or the energy passing through them from the space-time continuum would gradually disintegrate them no matter how strong they were. But for as long as the device operated, he would live without growing old. If it ran a hundred years, he would live a hundred years....

The ruby rolled across the table and fell to the floor.

He rubbed his aching head. He had lived approximately thirty years at ten-minute intervals, but the headache had started and grown in intensity during the last year and it was difficult to recall and appreciate all the things he had done.

The ruby rolled....

How many years had he lived? Fifty? A hundred? He was unable to calculate it any more, and it was even difficult to think about much simpler things. His mind was filled with memories ... millions ... billions ... trillions of endless, countless memories without any sleep to relax his mind ... with no rest at all....

The ruby....

He no longer moved about the apartment, but sat in the chair during every cycle and watched the ruby as it rolled endlessly. Memories were like a crushing, paralyzing weight in his mind ... a weight that grew and grew and....

The old Martian he had killed would have his revenge. He realized the ingenious machine was much more than a gift or a death-trap. It was a torture machine. A torture machine that would operate for centuries; a machine that would gradually crush his mind and kill him with the sheer weight of memories....

He screamed.