Jan. 23, 2023
Miracle
In this episode, we continue to re-discover sci-fi short stories from the Golden Age of pulp magazines. "Miracle" from October 1948, written by Ray Cummings.
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Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hi friends, and welcome to another episode of Forward Into the Past.
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I'm JC Rede, your host and narrator, and today we're still exploring our sci-fi roots with this story pulled from the pages of Astonishing Stories magazine published in October of 1942, simply entitled Miracle and written by Ray Cummings.
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Pulp Magazines, as has been mentioned many times in this podcast and indeed will be mentioned again and again.
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Truly filled a need in American literature by providing an outlet for up and coming authors that otherwise would never have been considered to be published.
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Names that are very well known today all got their start in the sci-fi pulps like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Azimov, and Ray Bradbury.
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Writers who eventually became editors of their own imprints like Lester Del Rey and Donald Wollheim, and names that you will hopefully become familiar with, thanks to this podcast like Henry Cutner murray Lester and the author who wrote today's story, Ray Cummings.
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Ray Cummings was born in New York City in 1887, and he is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of the science fiction genre.
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And his specialty in that field was, as we will see time travel.
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His first short story, the Girl in the Golden Atom, was written in 1919, first appearing serialized in the Pulp Magazine All Story magazine.
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He is credited with writing this very well known phrase.
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Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
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It is frequently attributed to actual science geniuses like Albert Einstein, but it was actually created by a different type of genius, as you will no doubt see, as we rediscover his time travel, short story called Miracle.
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Miracle by Ray Cummings.
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But how can you possibly know that time traveling has never been done?
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The chemist protested Someone from our future may have gone into the past many times.
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I should think they would've created quite a commotion.
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The lawyer observed.
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Wouldn't we have heard of it from our historical records?
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Oh, of course the chemist was smiling now.
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We probably have history tells of many important occasions on which a vision appeared a miraculous presence such as Joan of Ark, for instance, or the Angel of Mons.
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or the appearance of the sun, God, to the Aztecs.
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I get your point.
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One of the other men interjected.
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You think that there might have been a time traveler who materialized just long enough to take a look.
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And the superstitious natives took him for a God.
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Why not?
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That's probably just what would happen! Young Allen Dane sat in the corner of his grandfather's laboratory listening to the argument of the group of men.
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He was well over six feet in height, A sun bronzed, crisply, blonde young Viking, beside him sat Ruth Vincent, his fiance, a slim girl of 20.
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Alan's heart was pounding.
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Somehow it seemed as though this bantering talk of time, traveling were something momentous to him, something requiring a great and irrevocable decision.
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Then abruptly old Professor Dane held up his hand and quite casually said, what you do not know, gentlemen, is that for half of my life I have been working to discover the secret of time travel.
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His audience was suddenly tense.
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Professor Dane was loved and respected by each of them and his word in his chosen field of physics was final.
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If he said a thing could be done, There was no mistake.
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The chemist broke the silence.
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You've succeeded.
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He asked.
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You've, you've made experiments that show.
00:04:04.243 --> 00:04:05.623
The old man shook his head.
00:04:06.223 --> 00:04:06.734
No.
00:04:06.794 --> 00:04:09.554
No, not yet, but I am close to it.
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I know I am.
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He was staring at some infinitely distant thing beyond the room in which they were sitting, staring as though he were trying to penetrate the grim curtain of the future or the past, almost as though to himself, he went on.
00:04:25.994 --> 00:04:29.533
I've often wondered what made me work on this thing.
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All these years, it's been like an inner urge driving me a, a pre-ordained destiny that is making me accomplish something.
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Metaphysics, the lawyer interrupted.
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Do you believe in predestination?
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Well, I believe there is a plan.
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Professor Dane said simply, but what it is and what my part in it may be, I don't know.
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That's the queer part.
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I know instinctively that I must do something, something connected with traveling through time.
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Some task I must accomplish, but what it is and how I am to do it.
00:05:08.463 --> 00:05:09.644
I don't know.
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Yet.
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I feel that if the moment came, I would know what to do.
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He was gently smiling now at Alan and his fiance, but perhaps I am too old.
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I have thought that this is true.
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He continued.
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So I sent for my grandson, and as you see, he brought his fiance here with him.
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The old professor was staring at the startled Ruth Vincent now.
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And gentleman.
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He added earnestly meeting her has somehow seemed to intensify that feeling.
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There is something that must be accomplished in the past or the future, and it concerns Ruth Vincent.
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Alan's hands were gripping the arms of his chair.
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These things which his grandfather had been feeling, he was feeling them.
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Now, this urge, this apprehension that something was left undone.
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I am going to ask Alan now to carry on for me.
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His grandfather finished abruptly.
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He is young and strong, educated and able.
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I want him to feel the things I've been feeling.
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Oh, I do Allen Exclaimed.
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I'll do what I can grandfather.
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I have to do it even if I didn't want to.
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Don't you see?
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I feel the same urge.
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The gray moving shadows all around.
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Alan Dane were blurred.
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Formless.
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He was seated hunched on what had been the ground.
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It was the ground no longer, but now an undulate gray surface that was underneath him supporting his weight, but imperceptible to his touch.
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He couldn't feel it.
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He couldn't feel anything but the racking strain of his headlong drive through the vast infinities of time.
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He alone of all things in this great gray monochrome of scene seemed substantial.
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Everything else flowed, invisibly away into the emptiness.
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The thin skeleton of the metal headgear clamped on his forehead so that his temples throbbed the wires to his wrists and ankles were luminous, glowing strands.
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The electoral current from the batteries lashed across his back was throbbing and pulsing into every fiber of his tingling body.
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Alan shifted restlessly and glanced at the little time dial on his wrist.
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The needle was creeping slowly back, showing a hurdling progression through time to the past.
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He closed his strained eyes.
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Glad of the relief from the impossible attempt to focus his gaze on the weirdly distorted scene before him.
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Where should he stop and what would he find?
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Alan's imagination went back to the scene when his grandfather had first told others of his fantastic creation that would permit voyaging through the years.
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What had the old man said then?
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Something about a purpose.
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Alan was almost on fire with the consciousness of that set purpose.
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Now, something within him, something that could not be denied, was guiding his hand on the control switch of the time traveler.
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He was voyaging backward into time, so strange a thing, and so simple in fundamental conception.
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He recalled how his grandfather had explained it back in the laboratory.
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Everything had been created at once.
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On the scroll of time, everything is permanent.
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We live our infinitesimal lifetime.
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Progressing forward through ordained, predetermined events.
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All the past and all the future exist, but we can only be aware of that forward moving instant, which we call the present and old professor, Dan's fundamental conception certainly could now be considered finally proven with his grandson actually applying it to really travel through time.
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He had thought that all material things strewn in sequence on the scroll of time were of different physical characteristics, different states of matter, a, a different vibration rate, so that to change the vibratory frequency of any object would be to change its position.
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On the time scroll.
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Alan had started from his grandfather's laboratory near Riverside Drive in Midtown, New York.
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The date had been May of 1942.
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His watch set above the other time recording instrument on his wrist, told him that his start had been made only a scant half hour before by his personal consciousness of time.
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How long ago, how far away that seemed now.
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There had been a reeling of his sense, the soundless clapping of swiftly alternating light and darkness at the shadowy laboratory windows.
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Then as his rate of change accelerated the days and nights merged into this flat dead emptiness of gray.
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Then the house had abruptly dwindled, thinned out, and disappeared from around him.
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He had reached a time era before its construction, still with greater speed.
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The shadowy shifting outlines of the great city were in motion, shrinking into smaller and smaller buildings, narrower, shorter roads, more shadowy open spaces.
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Appeared then were replaced by towering giants of trees.
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1850 he reached and passed.
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Then 1800 and 1750.
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The city had been long gone by then.
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The little village of British New York was a shrunken settlement of a few thousand persons clustered down about the battery four miles from where Alan Dane was.
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He could see that he was poised now on what seemed a little wooded hill sloping down to the broad Hudson River, a few hundred feet away.
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It was a strange transition indeed.
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And yet, to Alan Dane, the strangeness of his own emotions seemed not the least of it.
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Three years of his life had passed since that night when he had promised his grandfather, he would carry on the experiments three years in which he had lost his grandfather, but gained a wife and son, Ruth Vincent had married him and together they had worked on this fragile thing that he bore now on his back.
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Fragile, but more potent in a strange, incredible way than any other device.
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Alone, Alan would've failed.
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Even with Ruth helping him, he could not have hoped to succeed so soon, but his grandfather had left researches only a hair's breath from completion, and the young couple had finished them.
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Even so, the thing had come almost by accident.
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Alan was far from sure that he could, again, compound the strange, unstable mixture of rare chemicals from which his nameless alloys were made.
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Alloys, which formed the plates in the time batteries, but at least he had enough for this one brief trip.
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Alan was curiously sure that this one trip was all he needed to make that after it was done, the curious driving compulsion that had seized him three years before would leave him.
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His task completed.
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Alan glanced again at the time dial.
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The transition was slowing.
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Now, he had hardly been aware that a moment ago he had decreased the current 16 99, 98, 97.
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The retardation was progressive.
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It was almost as though the apparatus itself were dictating his stopping point, and then the date 1650 flashed into his mind.
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That was when he had to stop.
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It was as though he had always known it.
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Was this a cave here at his back?
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He was aware that he was sitting at its entrance, facing the shadowy declivity and the deep woods, through which he could see the broad gray river.
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An instant later, he shoved the lever to shut off the current.
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The shock of the halt made his senses swoop.
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Then as he studied with the ground solid under him.
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He was aware that it was night.
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The hum of the throbbing electoral current was gone, but there was still a pulsing note in the air.
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The throbbing voice of the deep forest through which the river was shimmering pallid in the moonlight.
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Alan staggered to his feet, stated himself a shaft of moonlight was on him and abruptly in the dimness of the cave, he heard a sound.
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A man's muttered, astonished, exclamation, blended with a startled high gasp of a girl.
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As he turned, he saw them.
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The man was hardly more than a boy.
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20 perhaps.
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And garbed.
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Curiously in gray blouse and brown baggy pantaloons, knitted brown stockings and thick, clumsy shoes.
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The girl was even younger.
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A slim little thing in a quaint, bodiced dress with her braided flaxen hair tumbling forward over her shoulders in Double Strand.
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Terrified.
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Wide-eyed with utter astonishment.
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They mutely gaped at Alan.
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Well, he said it last.
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Do you speak English?
00:14:17.591 --> 00:14:19.811
I'm sorry, I I don't speak Dutch.
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That's your language, isn't it?
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This is Dutch, new Amsterdam.
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He checked himself inside.
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The Dutch boy and girl were gulping, numbly, staring at him.
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they didn't speak English.
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Of course, it would've been too much of a coincidence, but so welcome.
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If they had I'm sorry, Alan went on.
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Not hopefully.
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Look here, I, I don't wanna frighten you.
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I only wanna know.
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He took a step forward.
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For a second the two looked utterly incredulous as though disbelieving the evidence of their eyes, and then they shrank away with terror on their white faces.
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The youth whirled, the girl behind him, confronted Alan.
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What?
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What do you want?
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He faltered.
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It was English, curiously and quaintly intoned.
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Are you real?
00:15:11.616 --> 00:15:12.937
Where do you come from?
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The lad was recovering rapidly.
00:15:15.787 --> 00:15:19.236
You speak English, but not like the traders or my teacher.
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What are you?
00:15:21.491 --> 00:15:22.662
Alan tried to smile.
00:15:22.961 --> 00:15:24.037
I won't hurt you.
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He repeated.
00:15:25.206 --> 00:15:30.037
I'm a friend, a, a visitor from a well, from a far off place.
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It would never do to say that he came from 1942.
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Already, they were staring at him as though he were mad huddled back against the cave of the wall.
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Abruptly behind Alan, there was a whizz, a thud, and the cave was lighted by a flickering yellow glare.
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It made the youth momentarily overlook his astonishment, his terror at Alan, so that he gasped to the girl.
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Oh, Greta a fire arrow.
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They are out there.
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Just as we feared, Alan turned.
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An Indian fire arrow had whizzed into the cave mouth from the forest outside.
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It quivered sticking upright in the guano floor of the cave.
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A little torch of flame with thick resinous smoke surging up from it.
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With a side wise kick, alan's foot knocked it loose and he trampled on it.
00:16:18.746 --> 00:16:22.706
He swung around with a leap so that he was close to his cowering Companions.
00:16:23.287 --> 00:16:24.366
Indians are out there.
00:16:24.427 --> 00:16:25.147
He demanded.
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Is that what you were afraid of before you saw me?
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The girl was coughing with the drifting smoke, already choking her a little in the fetid air of the cave.
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Yes, the lad muttered.
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That's it.
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They saw us in the woods as we came up from the Bowery.
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So we ran in here.
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Another arrow came, flaming.
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It barely missed Alan, struck against the rock wall and fell nearby, still flaming.
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He and the lad rushed at it.
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They stamped it out together.
00:16:54.647 --> 00:16:55.787
You have no guns.
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Alan demanded.
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Guns?
00:16:59.086 --> 00:17:01.067
To shoot with to fight our way out of here.
00:17:01.746 --> 00:17:03.782
Oh, not, not guns on a ship.
00:17:04.051 --> 00:17:05.791
Uh, you mean fouling pieces?
00:17:06.021 --> 00:17:07.741
N n no, we have none.
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Despite his terror at the flaming arrows of the Indians outside of the cave, the frightened Dutch boy was forcing himself to answer Alan's questions.
00:17:15.791 --> 00:17:21.997
But still, both he and the girl were incredulously staring at their miraculously appearing companion.
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Greta was showing me the way up from the town.
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The Dutch boy was murmuring.
00:17:27.096 --> 00:17:28.836
She has a boat at the riverbank.
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Then I was going up with the tide, uh, in the fog last night, an English frigate got past our forts at the bowling green.
00:17:36.666 --> 00:17:39.186
It is up the river now, and Stuyvesant has.
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Under Alan's urging questions, the boy and girl swiftly explained.
00:17:44.017 --> 00:17:49.717
This was a Dutch boy born here in New Amsterdam, but he had lived most of his life in London.
00:17:50.227 --> 00:17:52.686
His name was Peter Van Saant.
00:17:53.467 --> 00:17:54.936
She was Greta Dyckman.
00:17:55.207 --> 00:17:59.106
Her father was one of Governor's Stuyvesant Burgers of the Town Council.
00:17:59.737 --> 00:18:15.217
The English fleet was here off the hook, and yesterday Nichols, Emissary of the Duke of York had come ashore to demand that the Dutch surrender the city, henceforth, according to the demands of the Duke, this would not be new Amsterdam, but New York.
00:18:15.307 --> 00:18:19.297
A British settlement with a destiny of greatness here in the new world.
00:18:19.836 --> 00:18:27.277
As he mutely listened, Alan's mind again swept to his own time world of 1942, this same space.
00:18:28.372 --> 00:18:40.251
And he envisioned the huge city of 1942 when this cave and forested glade were mid Manhattan, where giant buildings towered and the great ramp of the automobile highway bordered the river.
00:18:41.541 --> 00:18:44.301
Another flaming arrow came whizzing into the mouth of the cave.
00:18:44.307 --> 00:18:46.461
Peter rushed for it, stamped it out.
00:18:47.152 --> 00:18:59.221
The woods beyond the cave mouth now were lighted with torch glare and echoing with the war whoops of the natives, emboldened because no fouling pieces of the trapped pale faces were exploding to hurl lead at them.
00:19:00.031 --> 00:19:03.422
Outside the cave arrows were continuously striking.
00:19:03.902 --> 00:19:13.021
The brush was on fire with a red yellow glare that came in here and painted Alan and his two confused, terrified companions with its lurid sheen.
00:19:13.622 --> 00:19:16.041
I've got to get up the river to that frigate.
00:19:16.491 --> 00:19:17.541
The lad was muttering.
00:19:17.961 --> 00:19:24.231
If I got killed here, or even Grether got killed, what matter, but I've got to reach the frigate.
00:19:25.731 --> 00:19:35.481
He was a secret emissary of Stuyvesant, this momentous night sent to the English commander of the frigate sent because he spoke English so well and they would trust him.
00:19:36.701 --> 00:19:39.979
Stuyvesant will yield to the Duke of York in a day or two.
00:19:40.368 --> 00:19:46.759
Peter was swiftly saying, but he is afraid the frigates man will land and attack the city from the north.
00:19:47.298 --> 00:19:52.398
If they do that, stuyvesant's prestige before his own people will make him fight.
00:19:52.999 --> 00:19:57.979
Without it he will try to drive a bargain for his own self-respect and then yield.
00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:03.288
I am to tell the frigates commander that if only he will, but half patience and wait.
00:20:03.749 --> 00:20:05.419
Stuyvesant will surrender.
00:20:05.909 --> 00:20:10.858
Upon that mission tonight, might depend the whole course of history in the new world.
00:20:12.628 --> 00:20:14.068
There's no back way out of here.
00:20:14.199 --> 00:20:15.038
Demanded, Alan?
00:20:15.939 --> 00:20:16.449
No.
00:20:16.749 --> 00:20:18.098
Just this one entrance.
00:20:18.368 --> 00:20:21.459
And if we should try to run out there into the glare.
00:20:21.638 --> 00:20:22.929
We'd get arrows in us.
00:20:23.229 --> 00:20:24.328
Alan finished wryly.
00:20:24.578 --> 00:20:26.229
Those natives are pretty close now.
00:20:26.699 --> 00:20:31.288
The shouts of the natives were audible, where they crouched in the bush just beyond the line of fire.
00:20:31.769 --> 00:20:36.598
They were whooping with anticipatory triumph and showering the cave mouth with their flaming missiles.
00:20:37.128 --> 00:20:40.679
Acrid yellow smoke was welling into the cave in clouds.
00:20:41.229 --> 00:20:46.568
Peter had shoved Greta to the floor where the air so far was a little pure.
00:20:46.959 --> 00:20:51.999
He too was coughing and Alan felt the clutch of the resin smoke in his own throat.
00:20:52.798 --> 00:20:56.249
To stay here another five or 10 minutes would be death.
00:20:56.739 --> 00:21:02.318
If only his time traveling mechanism would take more than one person, but it would not.
00:21:03.038 --> 00:21:04.449
He himself was safe, of course.
00:21:04.949 --> 00:21:11.038
He had taken a step toward the cave mouth and abruptly he recoiled as an arrow whizzed narrowly past his shoulder.
00:21:11.699 --> 00:21:16.528
No, nothing safe about this, and then he knew what he must try to do.
00:21:17.048 --> 00:21:19.028
You two stay here just a few minutes.
00:21:19.179 --> 00:21:20.019
He said swiftly.
00:21:20.469 --> 00:21:21.999
Keep down by the floor, both of you.
00:21:22.449 --> 00:21:24.159
The air's still much better down there.
00:21:24.489 --> 00:21:26.769
I'm going away, but I'll be back.
00:21:27.318 --> 00:21:32.538
He gazed down at them from his stalwart six foot height as they crouched terrified at his feet.
00:21:33.199 --> 00:21:38.749
He was smiling a little as his fingers shoved the lever of the time mechanism on his chest to the first stop.
00:21:39.568 --> 00:21:45.588
He could see the astonished horror and awe on their faces as slowly he faded and vanished before them.
00:21:46.058 --> 00:21:47.618
A little movement forward in time.
00:21:47.828 --> 00:21:49.328
Just about 24 hours.
00:21:49.959 --> 00:21:54.909
The blurred and shadowy cave briefly was filled with daylight and then with the darkness of night again.
00:21:55.778 --> 00:21:57.189
Alan switched off the current.
00:21:57.939 --> 00:22:01.989
Night was here, deep and silent enshrouding the forest.
00:22:02.739 --> 00:22:03.219
No war.
00:22:03.219 --> 00:22:03.669
Whoops.
00:22:03.909 --> 00:22:08.439
No glare of flaming arrows and burning brush that had been last night.
00:22:09.249 --> 00:22:13.388
From the empty cave,alan walked slowly out into the woods.
00:22:14.048 --> 00:22:17.338
A northward vista of the Broad River for a moment was visible.
00:22:18.038 --> 00:22:20.019
A little blob was out there in the river.
00:22:20.469 --> 00:22:38.598
An English frigate awaiting the outcome of the parlay of Nichols, Emissary of the Duke of York with Governor Stuyvesant, Alan selected a flat topped rock, which stood about a hundred feet off to one side of the cave mouth, a rock whose top was some 20 feet above the surrounding rocks and thickets.
00:22:39.259 --> 00:22:40.818
He climbed it and stood on.
00:22:40.818 --> 00:22:41.388
Its summit.
00:22:42.378 --> 00:22:43.848
If only this would work.
00:22:44.659 --> 00:22:49.999
Despite his efforts at calmness, he was shuddering inside, not for his own safety.
00:22:50.808 --> 00:22:54.138
Was it for his wife and their little son out there in 1942?
00:22:55.259 --> 00:23:00.269
an absurd thought, but somehow it was turning him cold with apprehension.
00:23:00.769 --> 00:23:13.058
He set his tiny time dial for the moment of his departure from the smoke-filled cave last night and turned the current on again, 24 hours backward into time, a retrogression of that same swift daylight again.
00:23:13.298 --> 00:23:15.909
Then the previous dawn swiftly fading into night.
00:23:16.239 --> 00:23:22.179
Again, his time movement stopped and the forest sprang into ringing war whoops and crackling.
00:23:22.183 --> 00:23:25.118
Yellow red glare of torch light and burning brush.
00:23:25.929 --> 00:23:28.808
On top of the little Butte, Alan stood poised.
00:23:29.288 --> 00:23:35.565
An amazing figure he came out of nothingness, solidifying before the astounded eyes of the stricken natives.
00:23:36.345 --> 00:23:39.944
The war, whoops, died into a tense, terrified silence.
00:23:40.664 --> 00:23:43.674
To Alan it was a breathless moment of apprehension.
00:23:44.714 --> 00:23:55.065
His fingers went to the time lever alert to shove it if necessary, and then in the wave of silence, which flooded the pallid Forest glade, he flung out his arms.
00:23:55.545 --> 00:24:00.255
Drawn to his full height with arms outstretched as though in benediction.
00:24:00.404 --> 00:24:03.734
He stood gazing down upon the silent natives.
00:24:04.575 --> 00:24:13.244
A pale cathedral shaft of moonlight was filtering through the overhead branches, and it struck upon him, illumined him with its eerie glow.
00:24:14.204 --> 00:24:15.585
The tense moment passed.
00:24:16.154 --> 00:24:23.224
The natives, their war painted bodies glistening in the glare of the burning brush were all silently staring.
00:24:23.755 --> 00:24:25.865
There seemed a hundred or more of them.
00:24:26.375 --> 00:24:47.444
Then one of them with a faint awed cry, flung himself, prostrate with forehead to the ground in terrified homage to this shining God of the rock who had appeared so suddenly.And then they were all prostrate in groveling worship until one of them who might have been their leader abruptly leaped to his feet and dashed away through the thickets.
00:24:48.015 --> 00:24:50.565
The others in another second were up after him.
00:24:51.075 --> 00:24:59.894
It was a frightened scramble, a terrified rush to escape the wrath of this stalwart God who so silently was poised above them in the forest.
00:25:00.575 --> 00:25:07.404
For a moment, the woods resounded with the cries in the tramp of escaping natives distant cries until at last.
00:25:08.174 --> 00:25:09.904
There was only silence.
00:25:11.704 --> 00:25:18.664
Alan leaped from the rock and dashed for the burning brush outside of the cave mouth if only he had calculated his time correctly.
00:25:19.204 --> 00:25:22.474
Then at the cave entrance, Greta and Peter appeared.
00:25:23.404 --> 00:25:30.634
His arm held her as she sagged against him with the yellow red glare painting them and the turgid smoke swirling around them.
00:25:32.134 --> 00:25:34.845
Here I'll carry her, Alan exclaimed.
00:25:35.214 --> 00:25:42.835
He caught the girl up in his arms, a slim, frail little thing, fighting in terror with him for an instant, and then relaxing.
00:25:43.765 --> 00:25:55.255
Peter, staggered after them, as Alan led the way down into the silent forest where the night air was pure and all the fire and smoke were above them with the silent, shimmering river gleaming there ahead.
00:25:56.045 --> 00:25:56.765
You're better now?
00:25:56.884 --> 00:25:57.984
He murmured to the girl.
00:25:59.444 --> 00:25:59.924
Yes.
00:26:00.785 --> 00:26:01.664
Yes I am.
00:26:01.664 --> 00:26:02.144
All right.
00:26:02.595 --> 00:26:05.204
Oh, who, what are you?
00:26:05.944 --> 00:26:06.964
He did not answer.
00:26:08.134 --> 00:26:16.234
Holding her in his arms, suddenly made him think of Ruth out there waiting for him in 1942, and a new apprehension struck at him.
00:26:16.775 --> 00:26:19.684
Would his time current last to get him back home?
00:26:20.464 --> 00:26:26.734
He was not using it now, but still he knew the volatile chemicals in the batteries were subject to evaporation.
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:29.480
He set little Greta on her feet.
00:26:30.470 --> 00:26:31.579
Your boat is near here.
00:26:31.789 --> 00:26:33.519
He demanded Oh yes.
00:26:33.670 --> 00:26:34.690
Right at the bank.
00:26:35.500 --> 00:26:37.450
Well, you find it for Peter.
00:26:37.660 --> 00:26:40.240
Start him up for the frigate, and then you get back home.
00:26:41.009 --> 00:26:41.519
Yes.
00:26:41.849 --> 00:26:42.539
I, I will.
00:26:42.869 --> 00:26:44.970
It is not far To the north stockade.
00:26:45.710 --> 00:26:47.269
They were both staring at him.
00:26:47.269 --> 00:26:49.220
Confused, numbed with awe.
00:26:49.839 --> 00:26:50.170
I.
00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:51.339
We must.
00:26:51.369 --> 00:26:51.940
Thank you.
00:26:52.404 --> 00:26:53.214
Peter Muttered.
00:26:53.305 --> 00:26:55.464
We saw the Indians as they fled.
00:26:56.634 --> 00:26:58.134
Oh, that's all right.
00:26:58.404 --> 00:26:59.125
Glad to do it.
00:26:59.394 --> 00:27:02.095
But I've, well, I've, I've gotta go away.
00:27:02.099 --> 00:27:06.085
Now I've gotta get back to where, where I came from.
00:27:06.634 --> 00:27:08.704
Then Greta took a step toward him.
00:27:09.515 --> 00:27:12.755
Oh, please, who, what are you?
00:27:13.085 --> 00:27:14.825
This thing you have done for us?
00:27:15.384 --> 00:27:16.944
Alan was gently smiling.
00:27:17.484 --> 00:27:18.414
Hard to explain.
00:27:18.775 --> 00:27:20.454
You better just call it a miracle.
00:27:20.605 --> 00:27:23.875
He said his finger pressed the time lever.
00:27:24.234 --> 00:27:31.644
He could see Peter grip the girl as they shrank away with terror staring at him while slowly he faded into nothingness.
00:27:35.303 --> 00:27:51.712
May, 1942 in a dim, quiet room of the New York Historical Society, alan sat pouring over an old Dutch Chronicle of New Amsterdam, and then he found what he was after, an account of Stuyvesant's Surrender to the Duke of York.
00:27:52.432 --> 00:27:57.952
It was a modern English translation of an account by someone who had lived in the little Dutch city.
00:27:59.063 --> 00:28:00.653
Alan read it, awed.
00:28:01.432 --> 00:28:04.403
Here was mentioned of young Peter Van Saant.
00:28:04.803 --> 00:28:20.012
Who had gone up the river to the Queen Catherine, the English Frigate, which had slipped past the forts in the fog that night, and it told of Greta Dyckman, who had shown him the way to where her rowboat was hidden, and then the miracle.
00:28:21.492 --> 00:28:23.663
Greta Dyckman and Peter Van Saant.
00:28:23.833 --> 00:28:27.702
So the Chronicle stated, had been attacked by Indians that night.
00:28:28.303 --> 00:28:36.913
They had taken refuge in a cave where a great shining presence in the guise of a strange man had come and frightened away the Indians.
00:28:37.272 --> 00:28:42.462
He had led Peter and Greta to safety and then had vanished.
00:28:43.123 --> 00:28:46.212
Silently alan left the historical society.
00:28:47.428 --> 00:28:52.167
Why had it seemingly been his destiny to rescue that Dutch boy and girl?
00:28:52.667 --> 00:28:58.907
That strange urge, which both he and his grandfather before him had felt so strongly.
00:28:59.387 --> 00:29:00.407
Why was that?
00:29:02.877 --> 00:29:03.778
Van Saant?
00:29:04.107 --> 00:29:07.817
Why, that suggested the name Vincent.
00:29:08.792 --> 00:29:13.742
The one Dutch and the other, just its English modernized equivalent.
00:29:15.002 --> 00:29:20.403
Alan hurried to the genealogical room at the public library, and there he found it.
00:29:20.942 --> 00:29:26.123
Ruth's family, the Vincent, and before that the Van Saants.
00:29:27.002 --> 00:29:29.643
Then he came to 1656.
00:29:30.032 --> 00:29:34.643
The marriage of Peter Van Sand to Mistress Greta Dykeman.
00:29:35.823 --> 00:29:38.853
Alan sat numbly staring in awe.
00:29:39.962 --> 00:29:42.692
If they had died in that smoke-filled cave.
00:29:42.992 --> 00:29:52.563
This son of theirs recorded here as Hans Vasant born 1657, would never have been born, nor any of his descendants.
00:29:53.192 --> 00:29:53.553
No.
00:29:53.553 --> 00:29:59.553
Ruth Vincent now in 1942 and no little son of hers and Allen.
00:30:01.173 --> 00:30:05.282
Alan was smiling to himself, a whimsical, odd smile.
00:30:06.063 --> 00:30:11.853
He certainly had had no cause to be apprehensive that his mission back into time would fail.
00:30:12.242 --> 00:30:14.553
It was ordained, predestined.
00:30:15.063 --> 00:30:22.232
A million events down from Peter and Greta to Ruth were recorded with his own action fitting into them.
00:30:22.823 --> 00:30:24.603
Nothing else was possible.
00:30:25.643 --> 00:30:32.133
Miracle there is so much that none of us will ever understand.
00:30:34.633 --> 00:30:39.163
Well gang, that concludes another thrilling story from the pages of the past.
00:30:39.613 --> 00:30:40.722
I hope you enjoyed it.
00:30:41.413 --> 00:30:45.163
As always, please consider taking the time to rate and review the show.
00:30:45.613 --> 00:30:49.272
It does wonders to help get this podcast in front of new people.
00:30:49.843 --> 00:30:58.917
And of course, if you like the show, I would really appreciate you becoming a monthly supporter of the show for about the cost of a Starbucks run.
00:30:59.157 --> 00:31:09.178
You can support me in providing stories like this one from fading into obscurity and ensuring that the work of these authors will remain known and celebrated.
00:31:09.657 --> 00:31:13.198
Okay, time to go once again.
00:31:13.198 --> 00:31:13.768
Friends.
00:31:14.218 --> 00:31:15.357
Thank you for listening.
00:31:15.718 --> 00:31:17.367
Keep sharing the stories.
00:31:18.448 --> 00:31:22.218
Be a good human Bye for now.
00:00:00.327 --> 00:00:05.246
Hi friends, and welcome to another episode of Forward Into the Past.
00:00:05.847 --> 00:00:24.597
I'm JC Rede, your host and narrator, and today we're still exploring our sci-fi roots with this story pulled from the pages of Astonishing Stories magazine published in October of 1942, simply entitled Miracle and written by Ray Cummings.
00:00:25.417 --> 00:00:32.186
Pulp Magazines, as has been mentioned many times in this podcast and indeed will be mentioned again and again.
00:00:32.487 --> 00:00:41.246
Truly filled a need in American literature by providing an outlet for up and coming authors that otherwise would never have been considered to be published.
00:00:41.756 --> 00:00:50.426
Names that are very well known today all got their start in the sci-fi pulps like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Azimov, and Ray Bradbury.
00:00:50.996 --> 00:01:08.456
Writers who eventually became editors of their own imprints like Lester Del Rey and Donald Wollheim, and names that you will hopefully become familiar with, thanks to this podcast like Henry Cutner murray Lester and the author who wrote today's story, Ray Cummings.
00:01:09.266 --> 00:01:18.656
Ray Cummings was born in New York City in 1887, and he is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of the science fiction genre.
00:01:18.986 --> 00:01:24.117
And his specialty in that field was, as we will see time travel.
00:01:24.686 --> 00:01:35.816
His first short story, the Girl in the Golden Atom, was written in 1919, first appearing serialized in the Pulp Magazine All Story magazine.
00:01:36.507 --> 00:01:39.807
He is credited with writing this very well known phrase.
00:01:40.076 --> 00:01:44.697
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
00:01:45.566 --> 00:02:01.617
It is frequently attributed to actual science geniuses like Albert Einstein, but it was actually created by a different type of genius, as you will no doubt see, as we rediscover his time travel, short story called Miracle.
00:02:04.224 --> 00:02:06.444
Miracle by Ray Cummings.
00:02:08.693 --> 00:02:12.383
But how can you possibly know that time traveling has never been done?
00:02:12.623 --> 00:02:17.753
The chemist protested Someone from our future may have gone into the past many times.
00:02:17.963 --> 00:02:20.243
I should think they would've created quite a commotion.
00:02:20.334 --> 00:02:21.413
The lawyer observed.
00:02:21.834 --> 00:02:24.383
Wouldn't we have heard of it from our historical records?
00:02:24.903 --> 00:02:27.783
Oh, of course the chemist was smiling now.
00:02:27.933 --> 00:02:39.334
We probably have history tells of many important occasions on which a vision appeared a miraculous presence such as Joan of Ark, for instance, or the Angel of Mons.
00:02:39.774 --> 00:02:42.383
or the appearance of the sun, God, to the Aztecs.
00:02:42.503 --> 00:02:43.614
I get your point.
00:02:43.883 --> 00:02:45.383
One of the other men interjected.
00:02:45.743 --> 00:02:50.873
You think that there might have been a time traveler who materialized just long enough to take a look.
00:02:51.204 --> 00:02:53.574
And the superstitious natives took him for a God.
00:02:54.234 --> 00:02:55.403
Why not?
00:02:55.734 --> 00:03:04.729
That's probably just what would happen! Young Allen Dane sat in the corner of his grandfather's laboratory listening to the argument of the group of men.
00:03:05.329 --> 00:03:16.288
He was well over six feet in height, A sun bronzed, crisply, blonde young Viking, beside him sat Ruth Vincent, his fiance, a slim girl of 20.
00:03:17.098 --> 00:03:18.479
Alan's heart was pounding.
00:03:18.778 --> 00:03:28.028
Somehow it seemed as though this bantering talk of time, traveling were something momentous to him, something requiring a great and irrevocable decision.
00:03:28.699 --> 00:03:42.343
Then abruptly old Professor Dane held up his hand and quite casually said, what you do not know, gentlemen, is that for half of my life I have been working to discover the secret of time travel.
00:03:43.054 --> 00:03:45.123
His audience was suddenly tense.
00:03:45.753 --> 00:03:52.383
Professor Dane was loved and respected by each of them and his word in his chosen field of physics was final.
00:03:52.924 --> 00:03:57.153
If he said a thing could be done, There was no mistake.
00:03:57.593 --> 00:03:59.063
The chemist broke the silence.
00:03:59.693 --> 00:04:00.683
You've succeeded.
00:04:00.864 --> 00:04:01.524
He asked.
00:04:01.704 --> 00:04:04.014
You've, you've made experiments that show.
00:04:04.243 --> 00:04:05.623
The old man shook his head.
00:04:06.223 --> 00:04:06.734
No.
00:04:06.794 --> 00:04:09.554
No, not yet, but I am close to it.
00:04:09.674 --> 00:04:10.633
I know I am.
00:04:11.264 --> 00:04:25.033
He was staring at some infinitely distant thing beyond the room in which they were sitting, staring as though he were trying to penetrate the grim curtain of the future or the past, almost as though to himself, he went on.
00:04:25.994 --> 00:04:29.533
I've often wondered what made me work on this thing.
00:04:29.593 --> 00:04:38.233
All these years, it's been like an inner urge driving me a, a pre-ordained destiny that is making me accomplish something.
00:04:38.233 --> 00:04:40.603
Metaphysics, the lawyer interrupted.
00:04:40.863 --> 00:04:42.694
Do you believe in predestination?
00:04:43.624 --> 00:04:46.014
Well, I believe there is a plan.
00:04:46.624 --> 00:04:54.454
Professor Dane said simply, but what it is and what my part in it may be, I don't know.
00:04:54.634 --> 00:04:55.983
That's the queer part.
00:04:56.223 --> 00:05:02.074
I know instinctively that I must do something, something connected with traveling through time.
00:05:02.223 --> 00:05:07.303
Some task I must accomplish, but what it is and how I am to do it.
00:05:08.463 --> 00:05:09.644
I don't know.
00:05:10.348 --> 00:05:10.649
Yet.
00:05:10.649 --> 00:05:15.119
I feel that if the moment came, I would know what to do.
00:05:15.588 --> 00:05:22.788
He was gently smiling now at Alan and his fiance, but perhaps I am too old.
00:05:23.269 --> 00:05:25.548
I have thought that this is true.
00:05:25.848 --> 00:05:26.629
He continued.
00:05:26.869 --> 00:05:33.959
So I sent for my grandson, and as you see, he brought his fiance here with him.
00:05:34.449 --> 00:05:38.168
The old professor was staring at the startled Ruth Vincent now.
00:05:38.829 --> 00:05:39.968
And gentleman.
00:05:40.449 --> 00:05:46.418
He added earnestly meeting her has somehow seemed to intensify that feeling.
00:05:46.689 --> 00:05:54.189
There is something that must be accomplished in the past or the future, and it concerns Ruth Vincent.
00:05:55.139 --> 00:05:57.658
Alan's hands were gripping the arms of his chair.
00:05:57.988 --> 00:06:01.978
These things which his grandfather had been feeling, he was feeling them.
00:06:01.983 --> 00:06:06.869
Now, this urge, this apprehension that something was left undone.
00:06:07.509 --> 00:06:10.358
I am going to ask Alan now to carry on for me.
00:06:10.869 --> 00:06:12.519
His grandfather finished abruptly.
00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:15.759
He is young and strong, educated and able.
00:06:16.119 --> 00:06:19.389
I want him to feel the things I've been feeling.
00:06:19.769 --> 00:06:21.959
Oh, I do Allen Exclaimed.
00:06:22.619 --> 00:06:24.088
I'll do what I can grandfather.
00:06:24.238 --> 00:06:27.178
I have to do it even if I didn't want to.
00:06:27.358 --> 00:06:28.108
Don't you see?
00:06:28.259 --> 00:06:29.848
I feel the same urge.
00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:32.978
The gray moving shadows all around.
00:06:33.009 --> 00:06:34.389
Alan Dane were blurred.
00:06:34.389 --> 00:06:35.348
Formless.
00:06:35.588 --> 00:06:38.738
He was seated hunched on what had been the ground.
00:06:39.189 --> 00:06:47.678
It was the ground no longer, but now an undulate gray surface that was underneath him supporting his weight, but imperceptible to his touch.
00:06:48.158 --> 00:06:49.178
He couldn't feel it.
00:06:49.238 --> 00:06:55.478
He couldn't feel anything but the racking strain of his headlong drive through the vast infinities of time.
00:06:56.108 --> 00:07:02.149
He alone of all things in this great gray monochrome of scene seemed substantial.
00:07:02.778 --> 00:07:06.288
Everything else flowed, invisibly away into the emptiness.
00:07:06.389 --> 00:07:15.569
The thin skeleton of the metal headgear clamped on his forehead so that his temples throbbed the wires to his wrists and ankles were luminous, glowing strands.
00:07:15.838 --> 00:07:23.369
The electoral current from the batteries lashed across his back was throbbing and pulsing into every fiber of his tingling body.
00:07:24.209 --> 00:07:28.199
Alan shifted restlessly and glanced at the little time dial on his wrist.
00:07:28.649 --> 00:07:34.019
The needle was creeping slowly back, showing a hurdling progression through time to the past.
00:07:34.619 --> 00:07:36.809
He closed his strained eyes.
00:07:36.809 --> 00:07:42.988
Glad of the relief from the impossible attempt to focus his gaze on the weirdly distorted scene before him.
00:07:43.949 --> 00:07:46.978
Where should he stop and what would he find?
00:07:48.178 --> 00:07:57.329
Alan's imagination went back to the scene when his grandfather had first told others of his fantastic creation that would permit voyaging through the years.
00:07:58.228 --> 00:07:59.879
What had the old man said then?
00:08:00.358 --> 00:08:02.129
Something about a purpose.
00:08:03.358 --> 00:08:06.899
Alan was almost on fire with the consciousness of that set purpose.
00:08:06.899 --> 00:08:14.608
Now, something within him, something that could not be denied, was guiding his hand on the control switch of the time traveler.
00:08:15.449 --> 00:08:21.509
He was voyaging backward into time, so strange a thing, and so simple in fundamental conception.
00:08:22.259 --> 00:08:25.499
He recalled how his grandfather had explained it back in the laboratory.
00:08:25.978 --> 00:08:28.079
Everything had been created at once.
00:08:28.709 --> 00:08:31.079
On the scroll of time, everything is permanent.
00:08:32.188 --> 00:08:34.769
We live our infinitesimal lifetime.
00:08:35.418 --> 00:08:38.399
Progressing forward through ordained, predetermined events.
00:08:38.969 --> 00:08:57.298
All the past and all the future exist, but we can only be aware of that forward moving instant, which we call the present and old professor, Dan's fundamental conception certainly could now be considered finally proven with his grandson actually applying it to really travel through time.
00:08:58.048 --> 00:09:13.649
He had thought that all material things strewn in sequence on the scroll of time were of different physical characteristics, different states of matter, a, a different vibration rate, so that to change the vibratory frequency of any object would be to change its position.
00:09:13.653 --> 00:09:14.609
On the time scroll.
00:09:15.188 --> 00:09:19.958
Alan had started from his grandfather's laboratory near Riverside Drive in Midtown, New York.
00:09:20.528 --> 00:09:23.708
The date had been May of 1942.
00:09:24.489 --> 00:09:35.469
His watch set above the other time recording instrument on his wrist, told him that his start had been made only a scant half hour before by his personal consciousness of time.
00:09:36.234 --> 00:09:39.323
How long ago, how far away that seemed now.
00:09:39.764 --> 00:09:47.291
There had been a reeling of his sense, the soundless clapping of swiftly alternating light and darkness at the shadowy laboratory windows.
00:09:47.890 --> 00:09:55.721
Then as his rate of change accelerated the days and nights merged into this flat dead emptiness of gray.
00:09:56.461 --> 00:10:01.171
Then the house had abruptly dwindled, thinned out, and disappeared from around him.
00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:06.360
He had reached a time era before its construction, still with greater speed.
00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:15.900
The shadowy shifting outlines of the great city were in motion, shrinking into smaller and smaller buildings, narrower, shorter roads, more shadowy open spaces.
00:10:15.905 --> 00:10:19.500
Appeared then were replaced by towering giants of trees.
00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:22.530
1850 he reached and passed.
00:10:22.801 --> 00:10:25.250
Then 1800 and 1750.
00:10:25.980 --> 00:10:28.471
The city had been long gone by then.
00:10:28.890 --> 00:10:38.821
The little village of British New York was a shrunken settlement of a few thousand persons clustered down about the battery four miles from where Alan Dane was.
00:10:39.331 --> 00:10:48.000
He could see that he was poised now on what seemed a little wooded hill sloping down to the broad Hudson River, a few hundred feet away.
00:10:48.870 --> 00:10:50.910
It was a strange transition indeed.
00:10:51.331 --> 00:10:56.701
And yet, to Alan Dane, the strangeness of his own emotions seemed not the least of it.
00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:16.000
Three years of his life had passed since that night when he had promised his grandfather, he would carry on the experiments three years in which he had lost his grandfather, but gained a wife and son, Ruth Vincent had married him and together they had worked on this fragile thing that he bore now on his back.
00:11:16.301 --> 00:11:21.610
Fragile, but more potent in a strange, incredible way than any other device.
00:11:22.541 --> 00:11:24.341
Alone, Alan would've failed.
00:11:24.880 --> 00:11:36.821
Even with Ruth helping him, he could not have hoped to succeed so soon, but his grandfather had left researches only a hair's breath from completion, and the young couple had finished them.
00:11:37.870 --> 00:11:41.380
Even so, the thing had come almost by accident.
00:11:42.191 --> 00:11:50.201
Alan was far from sure that he could, again, compound the strange, unstable mixture of rare chemicals from which his nameless alloys were made.
00:11:50.410 --> 00:11:57.370
Alloys, which formed the plates in the time batteries, but at least he had enough for this one brief trip.
00:11:58.660 --> 00:12:09.600
Alan was curiously sure that this one trip was all he needed to make that after it was done, the curious driving compulsion that had seized him three years before would leave him.
00:12:09.990 --> 00:12:11.551
His task completed.
00:12:12.451 --> 00:12:14.280
Alan glanced again at the time dial.
00:12:14.836 --> 00:12:16.096
The transition was slowing.
00:12:16.096 --> 00:12:25.605
Now, he had hardly been aware that a moment ago he had decreased the current 16 99, 98, 97.
00:12:26.625 --> 00:12:28.216
The retardation was progressive.
00:12:28.426 --> 00:12:37.635
It was almost as though the apparatus itself were dictating his stopping point, and then the date 1650 flashed into his mind.
00:12:38.056 --> 00:12:40.125
That was when he had to stop.
00:12:40.936 --> 00:12:43.206
It was as though he had always known it.
00:12:45.716 --> 00:12:47.941
Was this a cave here at his back?
00:12:48.541 --> 00:12:56.370
He was aware that he was sitting at its entrance, facing the shadowy declivity and the deep woods, through which he could see the broad gray river.
00:12:57.520 --> 00:13:00.630
An instant later, he shoved the lever to shut off the current.
00:13:01.410 --> 00:13:03.691
The shock of the halt made his senses swoop.
00:13:04.211 --> 00:13:07.270
Then as he studied with the ground solid under him.
00:13:07.900 --> 00:13:09.941
He was aware that it was night.
00:13:10.990 --> 00:13:17.081
The hum of the throbbing electoral current was gone, but there was still a pulsing note in the air.
00:13:17.471 --> 00:13:23.500
The throbbing voice of the deep forest through which the river was shimmering pallid in the moonlight.
00:13:24.400 --> 00:13:32.770
Alan staggered to his feet, stated himself a shaft of moonlight was on him and abruptly in the dimness of the cave, he heard a sound.
00:13:33.760 --> 00:13:38.620
A man's muttered, astonished, exclamation, blended with a startled high gasp of a girl.
00:13:39.640 --> 00:13:41.130
As he turned, he saw them.
00:13:42.475 --> 00:13:45.176
The man was hardly more than a boy.
00:13:45.596 --> 00:13:46.556
20 perhaps.
00:13:46.586 --> 00:13:47.306
And garbed.
00:13:47.426 --> 00:13:54.836
Curiously in gray blouse and brown baggy pantaloons, knitted brown stockings and thick, clumsy shoes.
00:13:55.525 --> 00:13:57.086
The girl was even younger.
00:13:57.235 --> 00:14:05.395
A slim little thing in a quaint, bodiced dress with her braided flaxen hair tumbling forward over her shoulders in Double Strand.
00:14:06.191 --> 00:14:06.941
Terrified.
00:14:07.091 --> 00:14:09.240
Wide-eyed with utter astonishment.
00:14:09.341 --> 00:14:11.051
They mutely gaped at Alan.
00:14:12.910 --> 00:14:14.591
Well, he said it last.
00:14:15.490 --> 00:14:16.630
Do you speak English?
00:14:17.591 --> 00:14:19.811
I'm sorry, I I don't speak Dutch.
00:14:20.171 --> 00:14:21.671
That's your language, isn't it?
00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:24.041
This is Dutch, new Amsterdam.
00:14:25.150 --> 00:14:26.561
He checked himself inside.
00:14:27.160 --> 00:14:30.431
The Dutch boy and girl were gulping, numbly, staring at him.
00:14:31.495 --> 00:14:32.860
they didn't speak English.
00:14:32.860 --> 00:14:37.150
Of course, it would've been too much of a coincidence, but so welcome.
00:14:37.150 --> 00:14:41.591
If they had I'm sorry, Alan went on.
00:14:41.890 --> 00:14:42.581
Not hopefully.
00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:45.760
Look here, I, I don't wanna frighten you.
00:14:45.880 --> 00:14:46.691
I only wanna know.
00:14:47.230 --> 00:14:48.431
He took a step forward.
00:14:48.850 --> 00:14:57.610
For a second the two looked utterly incredulous as though disbelieving the evidence of their eyes, and then they shrank away with terror on their white faces.
00:14:58.030 --> 00:15:00.850
The youth whirled, the girl behind him, confronted Alan.
00:15:01.956 --> 00:15:02.376
What?
00:15:03.366 --> 00:15:04.657
What do you want?
00:15:05.226 --> 00:15:05.947
He faltered.
00:15:06.697 --> 00:15:09.576
It was English, curiously and quaintly intoned.
00:15:10.506 --> 00:15:11.317
Are you real?
00:15:11.616 --> 00:15:12.937
Where do you come from?
00:15:13.746 --> 00:15:15.336
The lad was recovering rapidly.
00:15:15.787 --> 00:15:19.236
You speak English, but not like the traders or my teacher.
00:15:19.506 --> 00:15:20.706
What are you?
00:15:21.491 --> 00:15:22.662
Alan tried to smile.
00:15:22.961 --> 00:15:24.037
I won't hurt you.
00:15:24.187 --> 00:15:24.817
He repeated.
00:15:25.206 --> 00:15:30.037
I'm a friend, a, a visitor from a well, from a far off place.
00:15:30.427 --> 00:15:32.826
It would never do to say that he came from 1942.
00:15:33.576 --> 00:15:38.647
Already, they were staring at him as though he were mad huddled back against the cave of the wall.
00:15:39.876 --> 00:15:46.537
Abruptly behind Alan, there was a whizz, a thud, and the cave was lighted by a flickering yellow glare.
00:15:47.167 --> 00:15:52.986
It made the youth momentarily overlook his astonishment, his terror at Alan, so that he gasped to the girl.
00:15:53.856 --> 00:15:55.687
Oh, Greta a fire arrow.
00:15:56.106 --> 00:15:56.767
They are out there.
00:15:56.767 --> 00:16:00.246
Just as we feared, Alan turned.
00:16:00.716 --> 00:16:05.307
An Indian fire arrow had whizzed into the cave mouth from the forest outside.
00:16:05.756 --> 00:16:08.697
It quivered sticking upright in the guano floor of the cave.
00:16:09.057 --> 00:16:13.167
A little torch of flame with thick resinous smoke surging up from it.
00:16:13.856 --> 00:16:18.326
With a side wise kick, alan's foot knocked it loose and he trampled on it.
00:16:18.746 --> 00:16:22.706
He swung around with a leap so that he was close to his cowering Companions.
00:16:23.287 --> 00:16:24.366
Indians are out there.
00:16:24.427 --> 00:16:25.147
He demanded.
00:16:25.746 --> 00:16:27.937
Is that what you were afraid of before you saw me?
00:16:28.986 --> 00:16:33.876
The girl was coughing with the drifting smoke, already choking her a little in the fetid air of the cave.
00:16:35.976 --> 00:16:38.376
Yes, the lad muttered.
00:16:38.496 --> 00:16:39.277
That's it.
00:16:39.667 --> 00:16:42.726
They saw us in the woods as we came up from the Bowery.
00:16:42.996 --> 00:16:44.167
So we ran in here.
00:16:44.667 --> 00:16:46.076
Another arrow came, flaming.
00:16:46.317 --> 00:16:50.876
It barely missed Alan, struck against the rock wall and fell nearby, still flaming.
00:16:51.297 --> 00:16:52.706
He and the lad rushed at it.
00:16:52.826 --> 00:16:54.147
They stamped it out together.
00:16:54.647 --> 00:16:55.787
You have no guns.
00:16:55.996 --> 00:16:56.807
Alan demanded.
00:16:57.856 --> 00:16:58.547
Guns?
00:16:59.086 --> 00:17:01.067
To shoot with to fight our way out of here.
00:17:01.746 --> 00:17:03.782
Oh, not, not guns on a ship.
00:17:04.051 --> 00:17:05.791
Uh, you mean fouling pieces?
00:17:06.021 --> 00:17:07.741
N n no, we have none.
00:17:08.231 --> 00:17:15.551
Despite his terror at the flaming arrows of the Indians outside of the cave, the frightened Dutch boy was forcing himself to answer Alan's questions.
00:17:15.791 --> 00:17:21.997
But still, both he and the girl were incredulously staring at their miraculously appearing companion.
00:17:22.507 --> 00:17:25.176
Greta was showing me the way up from the town.
00:17:25.537 --> 00:17:26.767
The Dutch boy was murmuring.
00:17:27.096 --> 00:17:28.836
She has a boat at the riverbank.
00:17:29.106 --> 00:17:36.277
Then I was going up with the tide, uh, in the fog last night, an English frigate got past our forts at the bowling green.
00:17:36.666 --> 00:17:39.186
It is up the river now, and Stuyvesant has.
00:17:39.666 --> 00:17:43.507
Under Alan's urging questions, the boy and girl swiftly explained.
00:17:44.017 --> 00:17:49.717
This was a Dutch boy born here in New Amsterdam, but he had lived most of his life in London.
00:17:50.227 --> 00:17:52.686
His name was Peter Van Saant.
00:17:53.467 --> 00:17:54.936
She was Greta Dyckman.
00:17:55.207 --> 00:17:59.106
Her father was one of Governor's Stuyvesant Burgers of the Town Council.
00:17:59.737 --> 00:18:15.217
The English fleet was here off the hook, and yesterday Nichols, Emissary of the Duke of York had come ashore to demand that the Dutch surrender the city, henceforth, according to the demands of the Duke, this would not be new Amsterdam, but New York.
00:18:15.307 --> 00:18:19.297
A British settlement with a destiny of greatness here in the new world.
00:18:19.836 --> 00:18:27.277
As he mutely listened, Alan's mind again swept to his own time world of 1942, this same space.
00:18:28.372 --> 00:18:40.251
And he envisioned the huge city of 1942 when this cave and forested glade were mid Manhattan, where giant buildings towered and the great ramp of the automobile highway bordered the river.
00:18:41.541 --> 00:18:44.301
Another flaming arrow came whizzing into the mouth of the cave.
00:18:44.307 --> 00:18:46.461
Peter rushed for it, stamped it out.
00:18:47.152 --> 00:18:59.221
The woods beyond the cave mouth now were lighted with torch glare and echoing with the war whoops of the natives, emboldened because no fouling pieces of the trapped pale faces were exploding to hurl lead at them.
00:19:00.031 --> 00:19:03.422
Outside the cave arrows were continuously striking.
00:19:03.902 --> 00:19:13.021
The brush was on fire with a red yellow glare that came in here and painted Alan and his two confused, terrified companions with its lurid sheen.
00:19:13.622 --> 00:19:16.041
I've got to get up the river to that frigate.
00:19:16.491 --> 00:19:17.541
The lad was muttering.
00:19:17.961 --> 00:19:24.231
If I got killed here, or even Grether got killed, what matter, but I've got to reach the frigate.
00:19:25.731 --> 00:19:35.481
He was a secret emissary of Stuyvesant, this momentous night sent to the English commander of the frigate sent because he spoke English so well and they would trust him.
00:19:36.701 --> 00:19:39.979
Stuyvesant will yield to the Duke of York in a day or two.
00:19:40.368 --> 00:19:46.759
Peter was swiftly saying, but he is afraid the frigates man will land and attack the city from the north.
00:19:47.298 --> 00:19:52.398
If they do that, stuyvesant's prestige before his own people will make him fight.
00:19:52.999 --> 00:19:57.979
Without it he will try to drive a bargain for his own self-respect and then yield.
00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:03.288
I am to tell the frigates commander that if only he will, but half patience and wait.
00:20:03.749 --> 00:20:05.419
Stuyvesant will surrender.
00:20:05.909 --> 00:20:10.858
Upon that mission tonight, might depend the whole course of history in the new world.
00:20:12.628 --> 00:20:14.068
There's no back way out of here.
00:20:14.199 --> 00:20:15.038
Demanded, Alan?
00:20:15.939 --> 00:20:16.449
No.
00:20:16.749 --> 00:20:18.098
Just this one entrance.
00:20:18.368 --> 00:20:21.459
And if we should try to run out there into the glare.
00:20:21.638 --> 00:20:22.929
We'd get arrows in us.
00:20:23.229 --> 00:20:24.328
Alan finished wryly.
00:20:24.578 --> 00:20:26.229
Those natives are pretty close now.
00:20:26.699 --> 00:20:31.288
The shouts of the natives were audible, where they crouched in the bush just beyond the line of fire.
00:20:31.769 --> 00:20:36.598
They were whooping with anticipatory triumph and showering the cave mouth with their flaming missiles.
00:20:37.128 --> 00:20:40.679
Acrid yellow smoke was welling into the cave in clouds.
00:20:41.229 --> 00:20:46.568
Peter had shoved Greta to the floor where the air so far was a little pure.
00:20:46.959 --> 00:20:51.999
He too was coughing and Alan felt the clutch of the resin smoke in his own throat.
00:20:52.798 --> 00:20:56.249
To stay here another five or 10 minutes would be death.
00:20:56.739 --> 00:21:02.318
If only his time traveling mechanism would take more than one person, but it would not.
00:21:03.038 --> 00:21:04.449
He himself was safe, of course.
00:21:04.949 --> 00:21:11.038
He had taken a step toward the cave mouth and abruptly he recoiled as an arrow whizzed narrowly past his shoulder.
00:21:11.699 --> 00:21:16.528
No, nothing safe about this, and then he knew what he must try to do.
00:21:17.048 --> 00:21:19.028
You two stay here just a few minutes.
00:21:19.179 --> 00:21:20.019
He said swiftly.
00:21:20.469 --> 00:21:21.999
Keep down by the floor, both of you.
00:21:22.449 --> 00:21:24.159
The air's still much better down there.
00:21:24.489 --> 00:21:26.769
I'm going away, but I'll be back.
00:21:27.318 --> 00:21:32.538
He gazed down at them from his stalwart six foot height as they crouched terrified at his feet.
00:21:33.199 --> 00:21:38.749
He was smiling a little as his fingers shoved the lever of the time mechanism on his chest to the first stop.
00:21:39.568 --> 00:21:45.588
He could see the astonished horror and awe on their faces as slowly he faded and vanished before them.
00:21:46.058 --> 00:21:47.618
A little movement forward in time.
00:21:47.828 --> 00:21:49.328
Just about 24 hours.
00:21:49.959 --> 00:21:54.909
The blurred and shadowy cave briefly was filled with daylight and then with the darkness of night again.
00:21:55.778 --> 00:21:57.189
Alan switched off the current.
00:21:57.939 --> 00:22:01.989
Night was here, deep and silent enshrouding the forest.
00:22:02.739 --> 00:22:03.219
No war.
00:22:03.219 --> 00:22:03.669
Whoops.
00:22:03.909 --> 00:22:08.439
No glare of flaming arrows and burning brush that had been last night.
00:22:09.249 --> 00:22:13.388
From the empty cave,alan walked slowly out into the woods.
00:22:14.048 --> 00:22:17.338
A northward vista of the Broad River for a moment was visible.
00:22:18.038 --> 00:22:20.019
A little blob was out there in the river.
00:22:20.469 --> 00:22:38.598
An English frigate awaiting the outcome of the parlay of Nichols, Emissary of the Duke of York with Governor Stuyvesant, Alan selected a flat topped rock, which stood about a hundred feet off to one side of the cave mouth, a rock whose top was some 20 feet above the surrounding rocks and thickets.
00:22:39.259 --> 00:22:40.818
He climbed it and stood on.
00:22:40.818 --> 00:22:41.388
Its summit.
00:22:42.378 --> 00:22:43.848
If only this would work.
00:22:44.659 --> 00:22:49.999
Despite his efforts at calmness, he was shuddering inside, not for his own safety.
00:22:50.808 --> 00:22:54.138
Was it for his wife and their little son out there in 1942?
00:22:55.259 --> 00:23:00.269
an absurd thought, but somehow it was turning him cold with apprehension.
00:23:00.769 --> 00:23:13.058
He set his tiny time dial for the moment of his departure from the smoke-filled cave last night and turned the current on again, 24 hours backward into time, a retrogression of that same swift daylight again.
00:23:13.298 --> 00:23:15.909
Then the previous dawn swiftly fading into night.
00:23:16.239 --> 00:23:22.179
Again, his time movement stopped and the forest sprang into ringing war whoops and crackling.
00:23:22.183 --> 00:23:25.118
Yellow red glare of torch light and burning brush.
00:23:25.929 --> 00:23:28.808
On top of the little Butte, Alan stood poised.
00:23:29.288 --> 00:23:35.565
An amazing figure he came out of nothingness, solidifying before the astounded eyes of the stricken natives.
00:23:36.345 --> 00:23:39.944
The war, whoops, died into a tense, terrified silence.
00:23:40.664 --> 00:23:43.674
To Alan it was a breathless moment of apprehension.
00:23:44.714 --> 00:23:55.065
His fingers went to the time lever alert to shove it if necessary, and then in the wave of silence, which flooded the pallid Forest glade, he flung out his arms.
00:23:55.545 --> 00:24:00.255
Drawn to his full height with arms outstretched as though in benediction.
00:24:00.404 --> 00:24:03.734
He stood gazing down upon the silent natives.
00:24:04.575 --> 00:24:13.244
A pale cathedral shaft of moonlight was filtering through the overhead branches, and it struck upon him, illumined him with its eerie glow.
00:24:14.204 --> 00:24:15.585
The tense moment passed.
00:24:16.154 --> 00:24:23.224
The natives, their war painted bodies glistening in the glare of the burning brush were all silently staring.
00:24:23.755 --> 00:24:25.865
There seemed a hundred or more of them.
00:24:26.375 --> 00:24:47.444
Then one of them with a faint awed cry, flung himself, prostrate with forehead to the ground in terrified homage to this shining God of the rock who had appeared so suddenly.And then they were all prostrate in groveling worship until one of them who might have been their leader abruptly leaped to his feet and dashed away through the thickets.
00:24:48.015 --> 00:24:50.565
The others in another second were up after him.
00:24:51.075 --> 00:24:59.894
It was a frightened scramble, a terrified rush to escape the wrath of this stalwart God who so silently was poised above them in the forest.
00:25:00.575 --> 00:25:07.404
For a moment, the woods resounded with the cries in the tramp of escaping natives distant cries until at last.
00:25:08.174 --> 00:25:09.904
There was only silence.
00:25:11.704 --> 00:25:18.664
Alan leaped from the rock and dashed for the burning brush outside of the cave mouth if only he had calculated his time correctly.
00:25:19.204 --> 00:25:22.474
Then at the cave entrance, Greta and Peter appeared.
00:25:23.404 --> 00:25:30.634
His arm held her as she sagged against him with the yellow red glare painting them and the turgid smoke swirling around them.
00:25:32.134 --> 00:25:34.845
Here I'll carry her, Alan exclaimed.
00:25:35.214 --> 00:25:42.835
He caught the girl up in his arms, a slim, frail little thing, fighting in terror with him for an instant, and then relaxing.
00:25:43.765 --> 00:25:55.255
Peter, staggered after them, as Alan led the way down into the silent forest where the night air was pure and all the fire and smoke were above them with the silent, shimmering river gleaming there ahead.
00:25:56.045 --> 00:25:56.765
You're better now?
00:25:56.884 --> 00:25:57.984
He murmured to the girl.
00:25:59.444 --> 00:25:59.924
Yes.
00:26:00.785 --> 00:26:01.664
Yes I am.
00:26:01.664 --> 00:26:02.144
All right.
00:26:02.595 --> 00:26:05.204
Oh, who, what are you?
00:26:05.944 --> 00:26:06.964
He did not answer.
00:26:08.134 --> 00:26:16.234
Holding her in his arms, suddenly made him think of Ruth out there waiting for him in 1942, and a new apprehension struck at him.
00:26:16.775 --> 00:26:19.684
Would his time current last to get him back home?
00:26:20.464 --> 00:26:26.734
He was not using it now, but still he knew the volatile chemicals in the batteries were subject to evaporation.
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:29.480
He set little Greta on her feet.
00:26:30.470 --> 00:26:31.579
Your boat is near here.
00:26:31.789 --> 00:26:33.519
He demanded Oh yes.
00:26:33.670 --> 00:26:34.690
Right at the bank.
00:26:35.500 --> 00:26:37.450
Well, you find it for Peter.
00:26:37.660 --> 00:26:40.240
Start him up for the frigate, and then you get back home.
00:26:41.009 --> 00:26:41.519
Yes.
00:26:41.849 --> 00:26:42.539
I, I will.
00:26:42.869 --> 00:26:44.970
It is not far To the north stockade.
00:26:45.710 --> 00:26:47.269
They were both staring at him.
00:26:47.269 --> 00:26:49.220
Confused, numbed with awe.
00:26:49.839 --> 00:26:50.170
I.
00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:51.339
We must.
00:26:51.369 --> 00:26:51.940
Thank you.
00:26:52.404 --> 00:26:53.214
Peter Muttered.
00:26:53.305 --> 00:26:55.464
We saw the Indians as they fled.
00:26:56.634 --> 00:26:58.134
Oh, that's all right.
00:26:58.404 --> 00:26:59.125
Glad to do it.
00:26:59.394 --> 00:27:02.095
But I've, well, I've, I've gotta go away.
00:27:02.099 --> 00:27:06.085
Now I've gotta get back to where, where I came from.
00:27:06.634 --> 00:27:08.704
Then Greta took a step toward him.
00:27:09.515 --> 00:27:12.755
Oh, please, who, what are you?
00:27:13.085 --> 00:27:14.825
This thing you have done for us?
00:27:15.384 --> 00:27:16.944
Alan was gently smiling.
00:27:17.484 --> 00:27:18.414
Hard to explain.
00:27:18.775 --> 00:27:20.454
You better just call it a miracle.
00:27:20.605 --> 00:27:23.875
He said his finger pressed the time lever.
00:27:24.234 --> 00:27:31.644
He could see Peter grip the girl as they shrank away with terror staring at him while slowly he faded into nothingness.
00:27:35.303 --> 00:27:51.712
May, 1942 in a dim, quiet room of the New York Historical Society, alan sat pouring over an old Dutch Chronicle of New Amsterdam, and then he found what he was after, an account of Stuyvesant's Surrender to the Duke of York.
00:27:52.432 --> 00:27:57.952
It was a modern English translation of an account by someone who had lived in the little Dutch city.
00:27:59.063 --> 00:28:00.653
Alan read it, awed.
00:28:01.432 --> 00:28:04.403
Here was mentioned of young Peter Van Saant.
00:28:04.803 --> 00:28:20.012
Who had gone up the river to the Queen Catherine, the English Frigate, which had slipped past the forts in the fog that night, and it told of Greta Dyckman, who had shown him the way to where her rowboat was hidden, and then the miracle.
00:28:21.492 --> 00:28:23.663
Greta Dyckman and Peter Van Saant.
00:28:23.833 --> 00:28:27.702
So the Chronicle stated, had been attacked by Indians that night.
00:28:28.303 --> 00:28:36.913
They had taken refuge in a cave where a great shining presence in the guise of a strange man had come and frightened away the Indians.
00:28:37.272 --> 00:28:42.462
He had led Peter and Greta to safety and then had vanished.
00:28:43.123 --> 00:28:46.212
Silently alan left the historical society.
00:28:47.428 --> 00:28:52.167
Why had it seemingly been his destiny to rescue that Dutch boy and girl?
00:28:52.667 --> 00:28:58.907
That strange urge, which both he and his grandfather before him had felt so strongly.
00:28:59.387 --> 00:29:00.407
Why was that?
00:29:02.877 --> 00:29:03.778
Van Saant?
00:29:04.107 --> 00:29:07.817
Why, that suggested the name Vincent.
00:29:08.792 --> 00:29:13.742
The one Dutch and the other, just its English modernized equivalent.
00:29:15.002 --> 00:29:20.403
Alan hurried to the genealogical room at the public library, and there he found it.
00:29:20.942 --> 00:29:26.123
Ruth's family, the Vincent, and before that the Van Saants.
00:29:27.002 --> 00:29:29.643
Then he came to 1656.
00:29:30.032 --> 00:29:34.643
The marriage of Peter Van Sand to Mistress Greta Dykeman.
00:29:35.823 --> 00:29:38.853
Alan sat numbly staring in awe.
00:29:39.962 --> 00:29:42.692
If they had died in that smoke-filled cave.
00:29:42.992 --> 00:29:52.563
This son of theirs recorded here as Hans Vasant born 1657, would never have been born, nor any of his descendants.
00:29:53.192 --> 00:29:53.553
No.
00:29:53.553 --> 00:29:59.553
Ruth Vincent now in 1942 and no little son of hers and Allen.
00:30:01.173 --> 00:30:05.282
Alan was smiling to himself, a whimsical, odd smile.
00:30:06.063 --> 00:30:11.853
He certainly had had no cause to be apprehensive that his mission back into time would fail.
00:30:12.242 --> 00:30:14.553
It was ordained, predestined.
00:30:15.063 --> 00:30:22.232
A million events down from Peter and Greta to Ruth were recorded with his own action fitting into them.
00:30:22.823 --> 00:30:24.603
Nothing else was possible.
00:30:25.643 --> 00:30:32.133
Miracle there is so much that none of us will ever understand.
00:30:34.633 --> 00:30:39.163
Well gang, that concludes another thrilling story from the pages of the past.
00:30:39.613 --> 00:30:40.722
I hope you enjoyed it.
00:30:41.413 --> 00:30:45.163
As always, please consider taking the time to rate and review the show.
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It does wonders to help get this podcast in front of new people.
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And of course, if you like the show, I would really appreciate you becoming a monthly supporter of the show for about the cost of a Starbucks run.
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You can support me in providing stories like this one from fading into obscurity and ensuring that the work of these authors will remain known and celebrated.
00:31:09.657 --> 00:31:13.198
Okay, time to go once again.
00:31:13.198 --> 00:31:13.768
Friends.
00:31:14.218 --> 00:31:15.357
Thank you for listening.
00:31:15.718 --> 00:31:17.367
Keep sharing the stories.
00:31:18.448 --> 00:31:22.218
Be a good human Bye for now.
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