Bewildering Stories



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Future Flutter

John Thiel

It was a genuine time machine, designed by Bonomo Labs. The "flutter" had numerous spinning and revolving parts going at dissimilar speeds so fast that the cab and its occupants were agitated out of the normal physical realm and had to come back into something, due to natural abhorrence of a vacuum, and so would emerge from non-space & time into the future. WHEN had not been at first manipulable, but "cogit jumps" were evolved which would determine the distance in time. Getting back? A matter of "time retrograde."

The first serious social observers attempted a time jump ten years after feasability was announced. They were, in fact, successful at travelling ten thousand years into the future, but were so confused by the way the world had changed that their success at the tripwas otherwise questionable. Still, they noted with relief, the sun had remained in its familiar relationship with Earth.

When they managed to communicate with the people of the future, which took them two years of regular time, they learned that due to universal expansion the Solar System had moved into another star-range relationship, but this had not affected the relationship of bodies within the Solar System, save that the orbits of all planets had widened somewhat.

They were able to make the following observations about this future time:

*All races had blended into a single race resembling the mulatto, but with a sort of mottled non-color effect added to the famed golden-brown sometimes found in the mulatto of their times. There was also a mass-man physical appearance---a standard height and weight, breast and genital size, and a great exactitude about facial characteristics.

*The languages in use were Esperanto and Interlingua, which had formed into a single universal language in which joyous paeans were sung to Universality, the new religion.

*Having sex regularly was mandatory past the age of fifteen; however, all problems with it had been overcome and the experience was a regular and accepted part of life, occurring at a minimum of five times a week. The population was regulated by sure genetically-developed instincts regarding the sexual function.

*Computers no longer existed, their function having been introspected and instilled into every human consciousness. Those people could compute themselves up some good times.

*Other planets were not as yet colonized! The ten thousand years' time since the Space Age had been used developing scientific methods of making them inhabitable. However, the first stage of colonization was,as the travellers arrived, just about to commence. In numerous space gateways, the colonists were preparing to march onto the new worlds that awaited them. It was part of the consciousness and spirit of this new age.

There were surely many more facts to be learned there, but these travellers had all they could do to glean only just the above.

As they prepared to return to their own time, a cyber Asimov approached, explaining that he had been so necessary to future science that they had had to create him and, in a sense, resurrect his scientific outlook. This cyber understood their time better than any other man there, and he told them, "Be sure to send your results to BEWILDERING STORIES."

As you can see, they have found a method of smuggling their findings into the recommended magazine.

Copyright © 2002 by John Thiel.