The Cave of Time Read online

Say “Who are you?”

  You make friendly gestures. The man holding the vine steps back and smiles. The people talk to you in a friendly fashion, but you cannot understand what they are saying, nor can they understand you. You feel awkward, but happy to be safe and warm for the moment.

  Several people have gone back to working on their paintings. You decide to try communicating through drawing. You begin to draw a picture of yourself eating. The cave people laugh, but one of them brings you a slice of half - cooked meat. It doesn’t taste very good, but you are so hungry you don’t mind.

  Gradually you make friends and learn a few words. Some of the people go hunting and come back with game. Others make clothing from animal skins. You help with cleaning and cooking and each day paint a picture on the walls. The others are fascinated by your drawings of airplanes, ships, and cars—things they see only as abstract designs, for they have no way of knowing what function they could serve.

  One day a group of other people visit. You have never seen them before, but your friends welcome them warmly, holding a great feast in their honor. After everyone is through eating, the conversation intensifies. You can tell that the cave people are talking about a serious problem. Then, one by one, they drift off to sleep. You walk outside to see if you can learn anything. The ground is covered with deep snow. A bitter cold wind blows the snow in whirling clouds.

  Next morning, the people pack up their belongings and they urge you to do so also. Some migration is obviously intended—no doubt to a warmer climate. You feel you should go with the cave people, but you have a great longing to return to your own home, and your only hope of doing so is to find your way back to the Cave of Time.

  Go with the cave people

  Try to find your way back to the Cave of Time

  You can see no future for yourself with these primitive people, so you run back toward the Cave of Time. Fortunately, they do not follow you, and you are able to find your way.

  By the time you re-enter the cave, you are hungry and exhausted. The light is dimmer than before and you grope your way along, looking for a passageway. You stumble and fall headfirst down an embankment, bumping your head disagreeably. You look up and see daylight ahead. A minute later, you walk out of the cave into warm, moist air near a forest of leafy trees. A bird flies by. You don’t know when it is, but it looks pleasant enough.

  Suddenly you hear voices shouting. You hide in a thicket. An animal crashes through the brush. In a moment some men rush by in pursuit, carrying spears and slings. You imagine that you must be in an era long before the advent of civilization. You follow an animal trail; it soon leads to a clearing, and you lie down in the grass to rest. Looking up in the sky, you see a long, thin, white streak. You rub your eyes and look again. It seems to be a vapor trail from a jet plane! You may be living in the present time after all.

  After several days of wandering through the jungle, you reach a settlement on the banks of a large river. There is an airfield nearby, and within a few weeks you are able to obtain a ride back to civilization and return to your family—just a month after you first entered the Cave of Time. You are happy to be back home, but shocked at how much older everyone looks. And they express the greatest surprise that after eleven years you haven’t changed a bit!

  The End

  As you land, the mammoth shudders like a horse shaking off flies. It begins lumbering along up the valley, apparently unaware you are still clinging to its wooly back, keeping warm and enjoying the ride.

  The mammoth reaches high ground, nibbles at some bark, and then walks on. Perhaps it will carry you near some cave men who will give you food and shelter.

  Suddenly the mammoth stops and turns its head—listening for something. You look up and see human figures approaching from two sides. They are carrying spears and clubs. The mammoth begins to run. You hold on tight. The hunters follow—screaming and yelling. You can’t see where the mammoth is heading, but you’re afraid the hunters may drive it off a cliff. Yet, if you jump off while it’s running, you could be badly hurt.

  Jump to the ground

  Hang on

  Riding on a mammoth might be fun if you were not cold and hungry and lost, but where would it take you? You continue walking, your spirits sinking. Just as you feel ready to sit down and cry, you see an opening in the ground. You crawl in on your hands and knees. It might provide some warmth, and it might lead to the Cave of Time.

  You find yourself in a tunnel. There are other tunnels branching off. You feel sure now you are in the Cave of Time. You are eager to take the next tunnel to the surface, but you want to travel a long way forward in time. Maybe you should take a tunnel further on.

  Take the first tunnel that you can

  Take a tunnel further on

  You take the first tunnel and follow it on and on until you begin to wonder whether you are going around in circles. What can this mean? Perhaps time itself is slowing. You are nearing the point of exhaustion, and begin to feel very cold. You see an opening up ahead and stars shining. You step outside on barren ground. It is bitter cold. Even though there is no wind, you know you will freeze if you stay more than a few minutes—maybe not that long, for the air seems very thin, as if you were on top of a very high mountain. You find yourself gasping for breath. You look up at the clear, cold night sky studded with thousands of stars. Among the stars, you notice a disk the size of the sun that gives off a dim red light like a dying ember.

  The End

  After following the passageway for a considerable distance, you enter a very large tunnel that seems as likely as any to lead you back to your own time. You continue along and soon notice that the floor of the tunnel is becoming sandier. Perhaps you are coming to a beach. Then the sand gives way under your feet; you slide through sand and rising dust. You cannot stop yourself—it is too steep; then there is nothing under your feet, and a moment later you land in deep water. You swim to the surface and catch your breath. You are in an underwater grotto, which seems completely sealed off except for a portion of its roof that is open to the blue sky. You swim to a large, smooth rock sloping into the water.

  The sand is white, and the water transparent. The rocks are made of crystalline material of the most delicate shades of blue. For a moment you are overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene before you, but you soon begin to wonder whether you can escape from it. There is no way of climbing out through the opening in the roof.

  You dive down in hopes of finding an underwater passageway that might lead to freedom, and you find one! But could you swim through it before running out of air?

  Try to swim through the underwater tunnel

  Wait

  You make your way along in the dim light. Ahead of you is a ladder. You take hold of it and begin to climb. Suddenly you hear a terrible grinding, crunching noise. The ladder shudders. You hold on tight for a few minutes after the noise subsides. Then you continue up the ladder and a moment later pull yourself out into the crisp, cold night air. Lights are glowing all around you. In front of you is a large slab of ice. You feel a strange motion as if the ground is moving. When you touch the ground with your hand, you feel wood. Not far from you is a railing. Beyond it—the sea! Above you are stars more numerous and brilliant than you have seen before. You realize you are on the deck of a very large ship.

  Not far from you, hanging on a hook, is an enormous l
ife preserver. Stenciled on it in black letters is the word TITANIC. You know there was only one ship that ever bore that name, that it made only one voyage, that it struck a huge iceberg, and that three hours later it was resting on the bottom of the Atlantic.

  As you walk along the deck of the Titanic, you realize that below the water line thousands of gallons of water per minute are pouring into the forward compartments. The people don’t seem to realize what’s happening. The sea is as calm as glass. The band on the deck below you is playing a waltz. Several men in long black coats and women in fur jackets are walking close by.

  “Goodness,” one woman says, “I can’t understand why the captain has stopped the ship. If we are late docking in New York, I’m going to lodge a complaint with the owners.”

  Try to find the captain and warn him that the ship will sink

  Go back down the ladder and try to return to the cave

  You walk along the left-hand passageway, passing tunnels from time to time, none of which looks like a particularly appealing route. You decide to see if you can reach the end of the passageway.

  You walk on and on, hour after hour. Then, in the distance, you see a figure approaching—a girl wearing blue jeans and a red sweater and carrying a backpack. She tells you that her name is Louisa and that she was exploring a cave and got lost. She does not know she is in the Cave of Time.

  Try to help Louisa find the way back to where she entered the cave

  Suggest she try one of the tunnels with you as a way out

  “I know it sounds strange, Your Majesty,” you say, “but I have no reason to incur your wrath by making up a false story.”

  The King looks around at his courtiers. They all have grave expressions on their faces, as if you have committed some unpardonable sin.

  Continue

  “I’m sorry to have intruded upon your royal domain, Your Majesty.” you say humbly, trying to think up a good story as fast as you can. “It is true, sire, I have been badly mistreated by my wicked stepfather, with whom I live, and I place myself under your wise and just protection.”

  “Who is this wicked stepfather and where does he live?” the King asks. “If he is wicked enough, we may want him to be one of our knights,” he adds, laughing, as do all the courtiers.

  “He lives beyond that hill,” you say, pointing toward a high wooded ridge, “and his name is Smith.”

  The King laughs once again. “Then your stepfather must be a fish,” he says, “for beyond yonder hill is Loch Ness.

  Continue

  You feel you must be far in the future. Are you really looking at an alien spaceship? If so, you would rather watch from a safe distance. You climb rapidly up the hill—wondering how you got to this strange time.

  Ahead of you is a niche in the rocks. You step inside. You realize you are in the bottom of the crevasse you fell into from the Ice Age. Even if you wanted to get back to that time, there is no way you could do so. You keep walking. Eventually your approach open ground on the opposite side of the hill.

  Now you can see a vast stretch of open country—hilly, rocky, and mostly barren. Yet thousands of people are constructing a huge wall! All over the landscape you see oxen pulling carts filled with rocks. The wall is at least twenty feet high and extends as far as the eye can see.

  Ladders are strung up against the wall, and on every rung a man or woman is stationed. They hand rocks up one to another to the top of the wall.

  You find this sight hardly less amazing than the sight of the alien spaceship, for it appears that you are witnessing the building of the Great Wall of China.

  Go up to the wall builders

  Return to the crevasse

  You cautiously approach the spaceship and, to your amazement, see that it is resting a foot or so above the ground, without any visible mechanism keeping it aloft. There are no engines, rocket exhausts, port holes, landing gear, antennae, or any equipment you might imagine a spaceship would need. You realize it must be the product of a supremely advanced civilization.

  Trusting that such people have learned to be loving toward others, you approach the ship. A portal slides open, but all you can see within is shimmering blue light. A large cube is thrust out through the portal and lowered to the ground by mechanical arms. The top of the cube is withdrawn, leaving a pallet on which lie the sleeping forms of three men and three women, dressed in shrouds of animal skin. Their bodies and features remind you of pictures you have seen depicting the earliest men on earth. You have an impulse to jump aboard the spaceship before the portal closes.

  Do it

  Don’t do it

  “I can understand,” the old man replies, “why you don’t want to take a chance with another time, for other times are perilous and filled with evil people and evil deeds.

  “You are wise to avoid them, and I will gladly direct you back to your own time, which, you should know, is no better and no worse.”

  The End

  “And why do you want to be back with your family and friends?” the old man asks.

  “Because I will miss them and could hardly bear not to see them again. And my family and friends would be sad not to see me.”

  “You think of others, and you think of yourself too,” he replies. “That is a good reason to be in your own time. Take the next tunnel to your right, and you will find your way there. You have chosen to have only one time, have you not?”

  “That is true,” you reply.

  “Then make the most of it,” he says, with one hand outstretched to wish you well.

  The End

  “Ah, you are a shrewd one,” the old man says. “You’ll try to get two loaves of bread, rather than settle for one. Well, I’ll show you one other time, and, if you don’t like it, just say so, and I’ll return you to your own time, if there is time to do so. Take the tunnel to your left.”

  You follow his direction, walk through the tunnel, and come out onto a city street. Instantly you realize there is a war going on. Bombs and rockets are exploding all around you. You cry out to the old man, asking to be returned to the Cave of Time, but there is no time left.

  The End

  “I am a philosopher,” the old man says, “who, when asked to choose a time, instead chose timelessness, so that, although nothing would ever happen in my life, I would have all the time in the world to think about it.”

  “Are you happy with your decision?”

  “No, because philosophy is nothing outside of time. Take the tunnel to your right. Return to your own time, and let your life be your philosophy.”

  The End

  Dressed as warmly as possible in your crude boots and coat of animal skins, you leave shortly after sunup with the others, a ragged band of thirty men, women, and children. Luckily there are no babies; they could never survive the migration. The sun shows briefly through the clouds, the wind abates, and you make good progress on your southward journey.

  After only a few days of travel, everyone is nearing exhaustion. The hunters have not been able to find enough game. There is no way to light a fire at night and the only way to keep from freezing is to sleep huddled together.

  After a week though, you notice the sun shines more warmly at midday and the snow is not quite so deep. It begins to look as though you will surviv
e, though you must give up hope of ever returning to your own time.

  The End

  You pack up your few belongings. The one you prize most is a knife carved from the tusk of a wooly mammoth. You wave goodbye to your friends and trudge through the snow, trying to retrace your steps back to the Cave of Time. Though the wind is colder than ever, the bright sun stirs your hopes.

  You have become much more rugged from living with the cave people, and your crude animal-skin clothes keep you surprisingly warm. You find your way down into the canyon and in a few hours reach the entrance to the cave, now almost covered with blowing snow.

  You are exhausted from the long trek, and your eyes are watering from the cold wind. You hardly notice the large, gray shape only a few yards from the entrance to the cave until you hear the deep, guttural growl of a wolf. Now you stare directly into its cold, cruel eyes. You feel that at your slightest movement it will spring at you. You must think what to do before you move. You probably could outrun the wolf to the cave. It might hesitate before following you—and give you enough time to escape—or you could try to knife the wolf in the throat as it leaps at you.

  Run for the cave

  Prepare to fight

  Slowly you unsheath your knife and then run for the entrance. The wolf is after you like a shot. It leaps and tears your bearskin coat. While the wolf is regaining its balance, you run into the cave and toward the left tunnel. The wolf runs after you. You look over your shoulder and lose your footing. Instead of falling on the ground, you feel yourself sliding down a long, steep chute. Far above, the wolf howls with frustration. You land in a heap at the bottom of a pit—shaken but unharmed. There is a dark passageway to the left. You toss in a stone and, after what seems like a long time, you hear a splash far below. Fortunately, there is another passageway to the right, which is dimly lit by phosphorescent light.