Free Time After Time by Karl Alexander Page A

a foothold in a society advanced enough to produce giant airships. Maybe it didn’t. He looked at the bright decorations again. They weren’t religious in nature. Perhaps all they did was announce that the season for gifts and good fellowship was at hand. But Christmas was seven weeks away, he thought. Then he smiled and approved. If the holiday atmosphere had been extended from twelve days to seven weeks, that was good. People would be more courteous than usual.

    He turned and ran into a cluster of shoppers, knocking brightly wrapped packages out of a lady’s arms.
    â€œOh, I’m dreadfully sorry!” He moved to assist the startled lady, but she shrank away from him. Puzzled, he stepped back, then bent to retrieve her packages.
    â€œGet away from those!” She pushed him away, scooped up her packages and hurried off.
    H.G. stared after her. He didn’t understand why the lady had been so irate. Especially since she obviously had just purchased an armload of gifts. He recalled that buying presents for others always made him feel joyful—like when he’d given Mrs. Nelson a mother-of-pearl set of combs on her birthday and she had rushed upstairs so he wouldn’t see her crying with happiness. Perhaps this lady had felt compelled to make her purchases. If so, she would naturally feel resentful. That would explain her outburst.
    He managed to walk the rest of the way to the heart of the city without incident, although he found his breathing more labored than usual and gradually developed a splitting headache. He attributed both ailments to a lack of food and his consumptive history. He was only puzzled by the hazy, yellow-brown color of the sky.
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    A half block east of Union Square, H.G. saw a sign advertising a jewelry store on the mezzanine floor of a ten-story building.
    He pushed through the glass doors of the building and observed people going up what appeared to be a modern-day flight of stairs. Only these people weren’t using their arms or legs! While they remained stationary, the stairs moved.
    He studied the device and nodded. Obviously the moving stairs existed to augment lifts, and if machines could move people upward, why should men waste their own energy doing it? Once
again H.G. approved, then felt sad that he hadn’t been born into the late twentieth century and its marvelous potpourri of electronic wizardry. He remembered that he had been so thrilled when the lighting man who installed the incandescents in his laboratory had explained the rudiments of filaments, circuitry and basic electricity even though he had already discovered most of those theories for himself while designing the time machine.
    He moved to the base of the escalator and paused. He worried about getting caught in the moving stairs, then shook off the feeling as a mere Victorian apprehension. He stepped on board and smiled. He was free to move. He raised his foot, took a tentative step and bounced upward. With three more quick steps, he felt that for an instant he’d left gravity behind, then stumbled onto the mezzanine. That was the reason for the device. A man could go up and down twice as fast as normal!
    He found the jewelry store, entered and politely asked a salesman if he might discuss a matter of extreme importance with the proprietor. Eventually, a tiny man with white hair and ornate, miniature hands approached Wells and introduced himself as Max Ince, the manager. H.G. announced the nature of his business and was led to a counter at the back of the store. Ince took the Wellsian heirlooms and began examining them under his jeweler’s light.
    H.G. watched Ince for a while, then saw a display featuring timepieces. The tag on one read “Digital Watch.” He began playing with the buttons and became totally absorbed. Occasionally, he chuckled with enjoyment.
    Finally, Ince sighed and looked up over the top of his glasses. “Absolutely gorgeous, young man. I