Title: Time for survival
Author: Smith, George O. (George Oliver)
Language: English
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                           TIME FOR SURVIVAL

                          By GEORGE O. SMITH

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                    Fantastic Universe March 1960.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The storm ruined my plan.

Not by seasickness. I'd come prepared for the worst, knowing how rough
it could get on a sailing ship of the Nineteenth Century. I outrode the
storm easily, stowed away in the hold. Not even the breakage of some of
the 1700 barrels of alcohol carried as a cargo bothered me although the
stench was terrific.

But on the morning of 25 November 1872, the first mate, Albert
Richardson sent the second mate, Andrew Gilling below with two of the
German seamen to assay the storm damage. They found me and I was hauled
aloft before Captain Briggs as a stowaway.

Captain Briggs of the _Mary Celeste_ eyed my strange clothing with
deep curiosity, but his interest was obviously more concerned with my
unauthorized presence. He said sternly, "When did you get aboard?"

I realized that I had to impress him. I smiled. "You delayed your
sailing from the Fifth November to the Sixth so that you and Mrs.
Briggs could have dinner aboard _Die Gratia_ with Captain
Morehouse," I said.

"How can you know so much?" he exclaimed. "How can you live as a
stowaway for almost twenty days?"

I held up my chronithon contactor, knowing that now I could impress him
indeed. "Captain Briggs," I said, "I am a time-travelling historian
from the Twenty-Second Century." I pointed to the big red button on the
top. "Until I depress this button and return to my own day and age,
every morning I receive my daily ration of food and water. It's about--"

I'd timed it close. I was interrupted by the click of the chronithon as
it time-transferred my daily ration. I opened the cabinet and offered a
bite of twenty-second century breakfast to the captain.

He said, "This is a sailor's tall tale, I think. You claim that you're
a time-travelling historian? Then tell me, why are you here on _Mary
Celeste_?"

"Captain Briggs," I said, "the Time Machine was invented in Nineteen
Eighty-Seven. Within twenty years every historical event had been
painstakingly researched and authentically written--re-written--by
time-travelling historians who viewed the event as partaking
eye-witnesses. By my time, fame and fortune awaits any man who has
the luck and dogged determination to scour historic time to locate
some event that has not been recounted faithfully to the last niggling
little detail. Why, Captain Briggs, in Jim Bishop's famous 'The Day
Columbus Landed' they record the name of the man who owned the hen that
laid the egg that Columbus stood on end to impress Isabella with his
ability. And so, Captain Briggs, I stowed away because I--"

A woman's voice interrupted me, I turned to look at the captain's wife
who, of course, was the only woman aboard _Mary Celeste_. She was
carrying little Sophia Matilda in her arms. She said, "Edward, what
unearthly manner of ship is that?"

The steward, Edward Head replied, "I don't rightly know, ma-am."

I turned to look. No more than fifty feet from the starboard rail was
a vast barge. Upon the barge were serried rows of seats that stretched
upwards and backwards for hundreds of feet. The seats were filling
rapidly; ushers were escorting the spectators efficiently, vendors
were selling refreshments and programs. A thrumming sound came from
overhead and I looked up to watch the materialization of jetcopters and
personnel carriers and even a poised spacecraft hanging in a dome above
our heads.

Over the lee rail came a crew of technicians carrying the heavy
Ward-Workman tridi recorders of the twenty-seventh century, and their
director pulled a script from his pocket and said:

"Joe, you and Pete dislocate the binnacle and break the compass. Al,
open the fore hatch and lazarette. Tony, that spring-wound chronometer
is a pre-atomic clock and worth a fortune to the National Museum,
put it among my personal loot, along with the sextant. You can keep
the ship's register, but give the navigation books to George with my
compliments. Let's see, um. Sails, jib and fore-topmast. Now toss
the yawl overboard; get it out of the way. It's missing." One of his
men came up and said something to him that I could not hear. "No,"
he replied, "It would not be more dramatic to dummy-up a half-eaten
breakfast and a pan of milk warming on the stove for the baby. Too
many writers tried to make it that way in the beginning. I know what's
authentic."

Then he paused as the Ward-Workman cameramen panned around _Mary
Celeste_ making close-up and approach shots. One by one they
finished their work and reported to him.

"Fine," he said, looking at his strapwatch. "Now let's back off for
some long shots. And remember, we don't know what kind of a catastrophe
this is going to be, so keep those tridi recorders running constantly
until I tell you to stop!"

Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs of _Mary Celeste_ put an arm
around his wife. To me he said, "I don't completely understand, but I
do get enough to realize that we're the subject of something evil."

"Yes," I replied, "you--"

"We're not waiting here to let it happen to us!" he snapped.

"But you can't change history!" I objected.

"Watch," he said roughly. And then with a stentorian voice, Captain
Briggs roared: "_Abandon ship!_"

The captain and his wife, still carrying their daughter Sophia Matilda,
mingled with the photorecording crew. The two mates, the steward,
and the four German seamen went over the side and swam swiftly for
the barges. There were flurries of activity when they went aboard
the barges, but then the activity stilled and I was alone on _Mary
Celeste_.

I looked around me and realized that Captain Briggs hadn't changed
history. He'd made it!

Slowly the barges emptied, the spectators returned to their own time
and place among the Centuries. Sorrowfully I pressed my button and went
home. My fame would never be, my fortune would never start. My book
would remain unwritten, for I knew full well that potential customer
for this historic event had been here as an eye-witness. After seeing
it, who'd bother to buy my book?

       *       *       *       *       *

On 4 December, 1872, Captain Morehouse of _Die Gratia_ sighted
_Mary Celeste_ yawing in a mild sea with jib and fore-topmast
sails set, no one at the helm and no one aboard. The binnacle was
knocked out of place, the compass was broken. The sextant, the
chronometer, ship's register and navigation books were missing. The
ship's yawl, lashed to the main hatch was missing. The fore hatch
and lazarette were open and about a dozen of the ship's cargo of 1701
barrels of alcohol were broken or leaking badly.

The last notation in the ship's deck log had been made early in the
morning of 25 November 1872, and the account of the previous hours
indicated that _Mary Celeste_ had come through a severe storm on
the previous day and most of the night.

Accounts that include half-eaten plates of food, half-packed bags and
other evidences of an abrupt interruption and panicky flight for safety
are false.

No survivors have ever turned up, no explanation can be given.
Researchers in the "Mystery of _Mary Celeste_" suggest that the
storm, the leaking alcohol, combined to frighten Captain Briggs with a
threat of fire or explosion and that they all took off in the ship's
yawl, which floundered.

We will not know the truth until someone invents the Time Machine.



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