Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:
Poul Anderson, "The Little Monster" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984).
The title of this story is ironic. A time traveling Boy Scout thinks of Pithecanthropus
as "'...those little monsters...'" (p. 161) and they think of him as
"...little monster..." (p. 152). And both opinions have to be
reconsidered.
The previous post introduced the twelve
year old (American) Jerry Parker and the (Spanish) physicist and
engineer, Antonio Viana. Now it can be revealed that Jerry is Antonio's
nephew, visiting his uncle's time projection lab while on holiday. But
how is Jerry accidentally projected into the Pliocene Period, about one
and a half million years ago?
The technicians working
on the projector had closed the main circuits but disconnected the
fail-safe devices and had not told Antonio this. Meanwhile, Antonio let
Jerry enter the projector and Jerry, neglecting to ask permission before
touching anything, closed the door...
Jerry must
endure thirty hours in the Pliocene. However, although "...horrified..."
(p. 146) to see the door close, Antonio and the technicians are not
obliged to wait thirty hours for Jerry's return because every return is
to almost the moment of departure. Looking in through the window of the
cylindrical steel projector, immediately after the door has closed, they
might have seen a dead body or even bare bones but they in fact see
Jerry still alive. Meanwhile, we have read about his thirty hours.
He is in "...1,500,000 B.C., give or take enough millennia that there was no possibility of sending him help." (p. 149)
Uncle
Antonio had explained that arrival dates are so uncertain that "'...no
two expeditions have landed even within thousands of years of each
other.'" (p. 145)
So Jerry is right to think that no
help can be sent but seems to forget that there would in any case be no
time even to think of sending help. His body, alive or dead, will return
immediately after its departure.
That figure of
thousands of years between arrivals in the past is an estimate. The
expeditions take astronomical instruments but the night sky changes
considerably over time. The hero of Anderson's time travel novel, There Will Be Time,
carries a small but elaborate instrument that scans star positions,
even through an overcast, then tells him his exact date and time of
arrival, thus sparing him wasted life-span casting about for his
intended destination. But Jack Havig has complete freedom of movement in
time, unlike Antonio's anthropologists.
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