A SOUND OF THUNDER

The sign on the wall read:

TIME SAFARI.

SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.

YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.

WE TAKE YOU THERE.

YOU SHOOT IT.

Eckels put his hand into his pocket and slowly took out a check for ten thousand dollars.

"Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?" he asked the man behind the desk.

"We guarantee nothing," said the official, "except the dinosaurs." He turned.

"This is Mr Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past.

He'll tell you what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting, no shooting."

"Hell and damn," Eckels said, looking at the flickering Time Machine.

"A real Time Machine! If the election had gone badly yesterday, I might be here now running from the results. Thank God, Keith won. He'll make a fine President of the United States."

"Yes," said the man behind the desk. "We're lucky. If Deutscher had won, we'd have the worst dictatorship. People came to us, you know, joking but not joking.

Said if Deutscher became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course, our business is to organize Safaris, not Escapes. Anyway, Keith's President now.

All you've got to worry about is — "

"Shooting my dinosaur," Eckels finished it for him.

"A Tyrannosaurus rex. The Thunder Lizard, the most terrible monster in history.

Sign this paper. Anything happens to you, we're not responsible.

Those dinosaurs are hungry".

Eckels flushed angrily.

"You're trying to scare me! "

"Frankly, yes. We don't want anyone here who'll panic at the first shot. Six Safari Guides were killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We're here to give you the biggest thrill a real hunter ever had. Travelling you back sixty million years!"

First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was day-night-day-night-day.

A week, a month, a year, a decade! AD 2055. AD 2019. 1999. 1957. Gone!

The machine roared.

They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms.

The Machine slowed, then stopped.

They were in an old time, a very old time indeed, three hunters and two Safari Guides with their blue metal guns across their knees.

"Christ isn't born yet," said Travis.

"Moses has not gone to the mountain to talk with God. The Pyramids are still in the earth. Remember that, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler — none of them exists."

The men nodded.

"That" — Mr Travis pointed — "is the jungle of sixty million two thousand and fifty-five years before President Keith."

He indicated a metal path running across the steaming swamp, among giant ferns and palms.

"And that," he said, "is the Path laid by Time Safari for your use. It is six inches above the earth. It's made of an anti-gravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching" this world of the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don't go off it. I repeat. Don't go off. For any reason! And don't shoot any animal we don't okay."

"Why?" asked Eckels.

"We don't want to change the Future.

We don't belong here in the Past."

"That's not clear," said Eckels.

"All right," Travis continued, "say you step on a mouse here and kill it. That means all the future families of this one mouse are destroyed, right?"

"Right."

"And all the families of the families of that one mouse! You destroy one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice!"

"So they're dead," said Eckels. "So what?"

"So what? Well, what about the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want often mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes, a lion starves. For want of a lion, thousands of insects and billions of other life forms are thrown into destruction".

Fifty-nine million years later, a cave man, one of a dozen in the entire world, goes hunting saber-tooth tigers for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the cave man starves. And the cave man is an entire future nation. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a nation, an entire history of life. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest. Perhaps there'll never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!"

(After R. Bradbury)

1 Hell and damn [daem] разг. Черт возьми

2 Deutscher f'doitja] нем. немец ("говорящая" фамилия кандидата является намеком на Гитлера и немецкий фашизм)

3 Tyrannosaurus rex [tiraena,so:ras 'reks] тираннозавр

4 Thunder Lizard ['0лпс1э lizad] Громогласный Ящер

5 Travelling you back sixty million years! Отправляя вас в путешествие на шестьдесят миллионов лет назад!

6 AD [.ei'di:] сокр. от лат. Anno Domini ['aenau 'dominai] нашей эры

7 intercom [Intakom] переговорное устройство

8 Moses ['mauziz] Моисей

9 Alexander [,aelig'za:nda] Александр Македонский

10 Caesar ['si:za] Цезарь

11 to keep you from touching чтобы вы не коснулись (прошлого)

12 For any reason! Ни при каких обстоятельствах!

13 are thrown into destruction обречены на гибель

14 saber-tooth f'seibatu:©] tiger саблезубый тигр