AMBITION
 
 
 By WILLIAM L. BADE
 
 Illustrated by L. WOROMAY
 
 [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
 
 

 To the men of the future, the scientific goals of today were as incomprehensible as the ancient quest for the Holy Grail!
 
 
 
 There was a thump. Maitland stirred, came half awake, and opened his eyes. The room was dark except where a broad shaft of moonlight from the open window fell on the foot of his bed. Outside, the residential section of the Reservation slept silently under the pale illumination of the full Moon. He guessed sleepily that it was about three o'clock.
 
 What had he heard? He had a definite impression that the sound had come from within the room. It had sounded like someone stumbling into a chair, or—
 
 Something moved in the darkness on the other side of the room. Maitland started to sit up and it was as though a thousand volts had shorted his brain....
 
 This time, he awoke more normally. He opened his eyes, looked through the window at a section of azure sky, listened to the singing of birds somewhere outside. A beautiful day. In the middle of the process of stretching his rested muscles, arms extended back, legs tensed, he froze, looking up—for the first time really seeing the ceiling. He turned his head, then rolled off the bed, wide awake.
  This wasn't his room!
 
 
 The lawn outside wasn't part of the Reservation! Where the labs and the shops should have been, there was deep prairie grass, then a green ocean pushed into waves by the breeze stretching to the horizon. This wasn't the California desert! Down the hill, where the liquid oxygen plant ought to have been, a river wound across the scene, almost hidden beneath its leafy roof of huge ancient trees.
 
 Shock contracted Maitland's diaphragm and spread through his body. His breathing quickened. Now he remembered what had happened during the night, the sound in the darkness, the dimly seen figure, and then—what? Blackout....
 
 Where was he? Who had brought him here? For what purpose?
 
 He thought he knew the answer to the last of those questions. As a member of the original atomic reaction-motor team, he possessed information that other military powers would very much like to obtain. It was absolutely incredible that anyone had managed to abduct him from the heavily guarded confines of the Reservation, yet someone had done it. How?
 
 

 
 He pivoted to inspect the room. Even before his eyes could take in the details, he had the impression that there was something wrong about it. To begin with, the style was unfamiliar. There were no straight lines or sharp corners anywhere. The walls were paneled in featureless blue plastic and the doors were smooth surfaces of metal, half ellipses, without knobs. The flowing lines of the chair and table, built apparently from an aluminum alloy, somehow gave the impression of arrested motion. Even after allowances were made for the outlandish design, something about the room still was not right.
 
 His eyes returned to the doors, and he moved over to study the nearer one. As he had noticed, there was no knob, but at the right of this one, at about waist level, a push-button projected out of the wall. He pressed it; the door slid aside and disappeared. Maitland glanced in at the disclosed bathroom, then went over to look at the other door.
 
 There was no button beside this one, nor any other visible means of causing it to open.
 
 Baffled, he turned again and looked at the large open window—and realized what it was that had made the room seem so queer.
 
 It did not look like a jail cell. There were no bars....
 
 Striding across the room, he lunged forward to peer out and violently banged his forehead. He staggered back, grimacing with pain, then reached forward cautious fingers and discovered a hard sheet of stuff so transparent that he had not even suspected its presence. Not glass! Glass was never this clear or strong. A plastic, no doubt, but one he hadn't heard of. Security sometimes had disadvantages.
 
 He looked out at the peaceful vista of river and prairie. The character of the sunlight seemed to indicate that it was afternoon. He became aware that he was hungry.
 
 Where the devil could this place be? And—muscles tightened about his empty stomach—what was in store for him here?
 
 He stood trembling, acutely conscious that he was afraid and helpless, until a flicker of motion at the bottom of the hill near the river drew his attention. Pressing his nose against the window, he strained his eyes to see what it was.
 
 A man and a woman were coming toward him up the hill. Evidently they had been swimming, for each had a towel; the man's was hung around his neck, and the woman was still drying her bobbed black hair.
 
 Maitland speculated on the possibility that this might be Sweden; he didn't know of any other country where public bathing at this time of year was customary. However, that prairie certainly didn't look Scandinavian....
 
 As they came closer, he saw that both of them had dark uniform suntans and showed striking muscular development, like persons who had trained for years with weights. They vanished below his field of view, presumably into the building.
 
 He sat down on the edge of the cot and glared helplessly at the floor.
 
 

 
 About half an hour later, the door he couldn't open slid aside into the wall. The man Maitland had seen outside, now clad in gray trunks and sandals, stood across the threshold looking in at him. Maitland stood up and stared back, conscious suddenly that in his rumpled pajamas he made an unimpressive figure.
 
 The fellow looked about forty-five. The first details Maitland noticed were the forehead, which was quite broad, and the calm, clear eyes. The dark hair, white at the temples, was combed back, still damp from swimming. Below, there was a wide mouth and a firm, rounded chin.
 
 This man was intelligent, Maitland decided, and extremely sure of himself.
 
 Somehow, the face didn't go with the rest of him. The man had the head of a thinker, the body of a trained athlete—an unusual combination.
 
 Impassively, the man said, "My name is Swarts. You want to know where you are. I am not going to tell you." He had an accent, European, but otherwise unidentifiable. Possibly German. Maitland opened his mouth to protest, but Swarts went on, "However, you're free to do all the guessing you want." Still there was no suggestion of a smile.
 
 "Now, these are the rules. You'll be here for about a week. You'll have three meals a day, served in this room. You will not be allowed to leave it except when accompanied by myself. You will not be harmed in any way, provided you cooperate. And you can forget the silly idea that we want your childish secrets about rocket motors." Maitland's heart jumped. "My reason for bringing you here is altogether different. I want to give you some psychological tests...."
 
 "Are you crazy?" Maitland asked quietly. "Do you realize that at this moment one of the greatest hunts in history must be going on? I'll admit I'm baffled as to where we are and how you got me here—but it seems to me that you could have found someone less conspicuous to give your tests to."
 
 Briefly, then, Swarts did smile. "They won't find you," he said. "Now, come with me."
 
 

 
 After that outlandish cell, Swarts' laboratory looked rather commonplace. There was something like a surgical cot in the center, and a bench along one wall supported several electronics cabinets. A couple of them had cathode ray tube screens, and they all presented a normal complement of meters, pilot lights, and switches. Cables from them ran across the ceiling and came to a focus above the high flat cot in the center of the room.
 
 "Lie down," Swarts said. When Maitland hesitated, Swarts added,
"Understand one thing—the more you cooperate, the easier things will be for you. If necessary, I will use coercion. I can get all my results against your will, if I must. I would prefer not to. Please don't make me."
 
 "What's the idea?" Maitland asked. "What is all this?"
 
 Swarts hesitated, though not, Maitland astonishedly felt, to evade an answer, but to find the proper words. "You can think of it as a lie detector. These instruments will record your reactions to the tests I give you. That is as much as you need to know. Now lie down."
 
 Maitland stood there for a moment, deliberately relaxing his tensed muscles. "Make me."
 
 If Swarts was irritated, he didn't show it. "That was the first test," he said. "Let me put it another way. I would appreciate it a lot if you'd lie down on this cot. I would like to test my apparatus."
 
 Maitland shook his head stubbornly.
 
 "I see," Swarts said. "You want to find out what you're up against."
 
 He moved so fast that Maitland couldn't block the blow. It was to the solar plexus, just hard enough to double him up, fighting for breath. He felt an arm under his back, another behind his knees. Then he was on the cot. When he was able to breathe again, there were straps across his chest, hips, knees, ankles, and arms, and Swarts was tightening a clamp that held his head immovable.
 
 

 
 Presently, a number of tiny electrodes were adhering to his temples and to other portions of his body, and a minute microphone was clinging to the skin over his heart. These devices terminated in cables that hung from the ceiling. A sphygmomanometer sleeve was wrapped tightly around his left upper arm, its rubber tube trailing to a small black box clamped to the frame of the cot. Another cable left the box and joined the others.
 
 So—Maitland thought—Swarts could record changes in his skin potential, heartbeat, and blood pressure: the involuntary responses of the body to stimuli.
 
 The question was, what were the stimuli to be?
 
 "Your name," said Swarts, "is Robert Lee Maitland. You are thirty-four years old. You are an engineer, specialty heat transfer, particularly as applied to rocket motors.... No, Mr. Maitland, I'm not going to question you about your work; just forget about it. Your home town is Madison, Wisconsin...."
 
 "You seem to know everything about me," Maitland said defiantly, looking up into the hanging forest of cabling. "Why this recital?"
 
 "I do not know everything about you—yet. And I'm testing the equipment, calibrating it to your reactions." He went on, "Your favorite recreations are chess and reading what you term science fiction. Maitland, how would you like to go to the Moon ?"
 
 Something eager leaped in Maitland's breast at the abrupt question, and he tried to turn his head. Then he forced himself to relax. "What do you mean?"
 
 Swarts was chuckling. "I really hit a semantic push-button there, didn't I? Maitland, I brought you here because you're a man who wants to go to the Moon. I'm interested in finding out why ."
 
 

 
 In the evening a girl brought Maitland his meal. As the door slid aside, he automatically stood up, and they stared at each other for several seconds.
 
 She had the high cheekbones and almond eyes of an Oriental, skin that glowed like gold in the evening light, yet thick coiled braids of blonde hair that glittered like polished brass. Shorts and a sleeveless blouse of some thick, reddish, metallic-looking fabric clung to her body, and over that she was wearing a light, ankle-length cloak of what seemed to be white wool.
 
 She was looking at him with palpable curiosity and something like expectancy. Maitland sighed and said, "Hello," then glanced down self-consciously at his wrinkled green pajamas.
 
 

 
 She smiled, put the tray of food on the table, and swept out, her cloak billowing behind her. Maitland remained standing, staring at the closed door for a minute after she was gone.
 
 Later, when he had finished the steak and corn on the cob and shredded carrots, and a feeling of warm well-being was diffusing from his stomach to his extremities, he sat down on the bed to watch the sunset and to think.
 
 There were three questions for which he required answers before he could formulate any plan or policy.
 
 Where was he?
 
 Who was Swarts?
 
 What was the purpose of the "tests" he was being given?
 
 It was possible, of course, that this was all an elaborate scheme for getting military secrets, despite Swarts' protestations to the contrary. Maitland frowned. This place certainly didn't have the appearance of a military establishment, and so far there had been nothing to suggest the kind of interrogation to be expected from foreign intelligence officers.
 
 It might be better to tackle the first question first. He looked at the Sun, a red spheroid already half below the horizon, and tried to think of a region that had this kind of terrain. That prairie out there was unique. Almost anywhere in the world, land like that would be cultivated, not allowed to go to grass.
 
 This might be somewhere in Africa....
 
 He shook his head, puzzled. The Sun disappeared and its blood-hued glow began to fade from the sky. Maitland sat there, trying to get hold of the problem from an angle where it wouldn't just slip away. After a while the western sky became a screen of clear luminous blue, a backdrop for a pure white brilliant star. As always at that sight, Maitland felt his worry drain away, leaving an almost mystical sense of peace and an undefinable longing.
 
 Venus, the most beautiful of the planets.
 
 Maitland kept track of them all in their majestic paths through the constellations, but Venus was his favorite. Time and time again he had watched its steady climb higher and higher in the western sky, its transient rule there as evening star, its progression toward the horizon, and loved it equally in its alter ego of morning star. Venus was an old friend. An old friend....
 
 Something icy settled on the back of his neck, ran down his spine, and diffused into his body. He stared at the planet unbelievingly, fists clenched, forgetting to breathe.
 
 Last night Venus hadn't been there.
 
 Venus was a morning star just now....
  Just now!
 
 
 He realized the truth in that moment.
 
 

 
 Later, when that jewel of a planet had set and the stars were out, he lay on the bed, still warm with excitement and relief. He didn't have to worry any more about military secrets, or who Swarts was. Those questions were irrelevant now. And now he could accept the psychological tests at their face value; most likely, they were what they purported to be.
 
 Only one question of importance remained:
 
 What year was this?
 
 He grimaced in the darkness, an involuntary muscular expression of jubilation and excitement. The future ! Here was the opportunity for the greatest adventure imaginable to 20th Century man.
 
 Somewhere, out there under the stars, there must be grand glittering cities and busy spaceports, roaring gateways to the planets. Somewhere, out there in the night, there must be men who had walked beside the Martian canals and pierced the shining cloud mantle of Venus—somewhere, perhaps, men who had visited the distant luring stars and returned. Surely, a civilization that had developed time travel could reach the stars!
 
 And he had a chance to become a part of all that! He could spend his life among the planets, a citizen of deep space, a voyager of the challenging spaceways between the solar worlds.
 
 "I'm adaptable," he told himself gleefully. "I can learn fast. There'll be a job for me out there...."
  If—
 
 
 Suddenly sobered, he rolled over and put his feet on the floor, sat in the darkness thinking. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would have to find a way of breaking down Swarts' reticence. He would have to make the man realize that secrecy wasn't necessary in this case. And if Swarts still wouldn't talk, he would have to find a way of forcing the issue. The fellow had said that he didn't need cooperation to get his results, but—
 
 After a while Maitland smiled to himself and went back to bed.
 
 

 
 He woke in the morning with someone gently shaking his shoulder. He rolled over and looked up at the girl who had brought him his meal the evening before. There was a tray on the table and he sniffed the smell of bacon. The girl smiled at him. She was dressed as before, except that she had discarded the white cloak.
 
 As he swung his legs to the floor, she started toward the door, carrying the tray with the dirty dishes from yesterday. He stopped her with the word, "Miss!"
 
 She turned, and he thought there was something eager in her face.
 
 "Miss, do you speak my language?"
 
 "Yes," hesitantly. She lingered too long on the hiss of the last consonant.
 
 "Miss," he asked, watching her face intently, "what year is this?"
 
 Startlingly, she laughed, a mellow peal of mirth that had nothing forced about it. She turned toward the door again and said over her shoulder, "You will have to ask Swarts about that. I cannot tell you."
 
 "Wait! You mean you don't know?"
 
 She shook her head. "I cannot tell you."
 
 "All right; we'll let it go at that."
 
 She grinned at him again as the door slid shut.
 
 

 
 Swarts came half an hour later, and Maitland began his planned offensive.
 
 "What year is this?"
 
 Swarts' steely eyes locked with his. "You know what the date is," he stated.
 
 "No, I don't. Not since yesterday."
 
 "Come on," Swarts said patiently, "let's get going. We have a lot to get through this morning."
 
 "I know this isn't 1950. It's probably not even the 20th Century. Venus was a morning star before you brought me here. Now it's an evening star."
 
 "Never mind that. Come."
 
 Wordlessly, Maitland climbed to his feet, preceded Swarts to the laboratory, lay down and allowed him to fasten the straps and attach the instruments, making no resistance at all. When Swarts started saying a list of words—doubtlessly some sort of semantic reaction test—Maitland began the job of integrating "csc
 3
 x dx" in his head. It was a calculation which required great concentration and frequent tracing back of steps. After several minutes, he noticed that Swarts had stopped calling words. He opened his eyes to find the other man standing over him, looking somewhat exasperated and a little baffled.
 
 "What year is this?" Maitland asked in a conversational tone.
 
 "We'll try another series of tests."
 
 It took Swarts nearly twenty minutes to set up the new apparatus. He lowered a bulky affair with two cylindrical tubes like the twin stacks of a binocular microscope over Maitland's head, so that the lenses at the ends of the tubes were about half an inch from the engineer's eyes. He attached tiny clamps to Maitland's eyelashes.
 
 "These will keep you from holding your eyes shut," he said. "You can blink, but the springs are too strong for you to hold your eyelids down against the tension."
 
 He inserted button earphones into Maitland's ears—
 
 And then the show began.
 
 He was looking at a door in a partly darkened room, and there were footsteps outside, a peremptory knocking. The door flew open, and outlined against the light of the hall, he saw a man with a twelve-gauge shotgun. The man shouted, "Now I've got you, you wife-stealer!" He swung the shotgun around and pulled the trigger. There was a terrible blast of sound and the flash of smokeless powder—then blackness.
 
 With a deliberate effort, Maitland unclenched his fists and tried to slow his breathing. Some kind of emotional reaction test—what was the countermove? He closed his eyes, but shortly the muscles around them declared excruciatingly that they couldn't keep that up.
 
 Now he was looking at a girl. She....
 
 Maitland gritted his teeth and fought to use his brain; then he had it.
 
 He thought of a fat slob of a bully who had beaten him up one day after school. He remembered a talk he had heard by a politician who had all the intelligent social responsibility of a rogue gorilla, but no more. He brooded over the damnable stupidity and short-sightedness of Swarts in standing by his silly rules and not telling him about this new world.
 
 Within a minute, he was in an ungovernable rage. His muscles tightened against the restraining straps. He panted, sweat came out on his forehead, and he began to curse. Swarts! How he hated....
 
 The scene was suddenly a flock of sheep spread over a green hillside. There was blood hammering in Maitland's temples. His face felt hot and swollen and he writhed against the restraint of the straps.
 
 The scene disappeared, the lenses of the projector retreated from his eyes and Swarts was standing over him, white-lipped. Maitland swore at him for a few seconds, then relaxed and smiled weakly. His head was starting to ache from the effort of blinking.
 
 "What year is this?" he asked.
 
 "All right," Swarts said. "A.D. 2634."
 
 Maitland's smile became a grin.
 
 

 
 "I really haven't the time to waste talking irrelevancies," Swarts said a while later. "Honestly. Maitland, I'm working against a time limit. If you'll cooperate, I'll tell Ching to answer your questions."'
 
 "Ching?"
 
 "Ingrid Ching is the girl who has been bringing you your meals."
 
 Maitland considered a moment, then nodded. Swarts lowered the projector to his eyes again, and this time the engineer did not resist.
 
 That evening, he could hardly wait for her to come. Too excited to sit and watch the sunset, he paced interminably about the room, sometimes whistling nervously, snapping his fingers, sitting down and jittering one leg. After a while he noticed that he was whistling the same theme over and over: a minute's thought identified it as that exuberant mounting phrase which recurs in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
 
 He forgot about it and went on whistling. He was picturing himself aboard a ship dropping in toward Mars, making planetfall at Syrtis Major; he was seeing visions of Venus and the awesome beauty of Saturn. In his mind, he circled the Moon, and viewed the Earth as a huge bright globe against the constellations....
 
 Finally the door slid aside and she appeared, carrying the usual tray of food. She smiled at him, making dimples in her golden skin and revealing a perfect set of teeth, and put the tray on the table.
 
 "I think you are wonderful," she laughed. "You get everything you want, even from Swarts, and I have not been able to get even a little of what I want from him. I want to travel in time, go back to your 20th Century. And I wanted to talk with you, and he would not let me." She laughed again, hands on her rounded hips. "I have never seen him so irritated as he was this noon."
 
 Maitland urged her into the chair and sat down on the edge of the bed. Eagerly he asked, "Why the devil do you want to go to the 20th Century? Believe me, I've been there, and what I've seen of this world looks a lot better."
 
 She shrugged. "Swarts says that I want to go back to the Dark Age of Technology because I have not adapted well to modern culture. Myself, I think I have just a romantic nature. Far times and places look more exciting...."
 
 "How do you mean—" Maitland wrinkled his brow—"adapt to modern culture? Don't tell me you're from another time!"
 
 "Oh, no! But my home is Aresund, a little fishing village at the head of a fiord in what you would call Norway. So far north, we are much behind the times. We live in the old way, from the sea, speak the old tongue."
 
 

 
 He looked at her golden features, such a felicitous blend of Oriental and European characteristics, and hesitantly asked, "Maybe I shouldn't.... This is a little personal, but ... you don't look altogether like the Norwegians of my time."
 
 His fear that she would be offended proved to be completely unjustified. She merely laughed and said, "There has been much history since 1950. Five hundred years ago, Europe was overrun by Pan-Orientals. Today you could not find anywhere a 'pure' European or Asiatic." She giggled. "Swarts' ancestors from your time must be cursing in their graves. His family is Afrikander all the way back, but one of his great-grandfathers was pure-blooded Bantu. His full name is Lassisi Swarts."
 
 Maitland wrinkled his brow. "Afrikander?"
 
 "The South Africans." Something strange came into her eyes. It might have been awe, or even hatred; he could not tell. "The Pan-Orientals eventually conquered all the world, except for North America—the last remnant of the American World Empire—and southern Africa. The Afrikanders had been partly isolated for several centuries then, and they had developed technology while the rest of the world lost it. They had a tradition of white supremacy, and in addition they were terrified of being encircled." She sighed. "They ruled the next world empire and it was founded on the slaughter of one and a half billion human beings. That went into the history books as the War of Annihilation."
 
 "So many? How?"
 
 "They were clever with machines, the Afrikanders. They made armies of them. Armies of invincible killing-machines, produced in robot factories from robot-mined ores.... Very clever." She gave a little shudder.
 
 "And yet they founded modern civilization," she added. "The grandsons of the technicians who built the Machine Army set up our robot production system, and today no human being has to dirty his hands raising food or manufacturing things. It could never have been done, either, before the population was—reduced to three hundred million."
 
 "Then the Afrikanders are still on top? Still the masters?"
 
 

 
 She shook her head. "There are no more Afrikanders."
 
 "Rebellion?"
 
 "No. Intermarriage. Racial blending. There was a psychology of guilt behind it. So huge a crime eventually required a proportionate expiation. Afrikaans is still the world language, but there is only one race now. No more masters or slaves."
 
 They were both silent for a moment, and then she sighed. "Let us not talk about them any more."
 
 "Robot factories and farms," Maitland mused. "What else? What means of transportation? Do you have interstellar flight yet?"
 
 "Inter-what?"
 
 "Have men visited the stars?"
 
 She shook her head, bewildered.
 
 "I always thought that would be a tough problem to crack," he agreed.
"But tell me about what men are doing in the Solar System. How is life on Mars and Venus, and how long does it take to get to those places?"
 
 He waited, expectantly silent, but she only looked puzzled. "I don't understand. Mars? What are Mars?"
 
 After several seconds, Maitland swallowed. Something seemed to be the matter with his throat, making it difficult for him to speak. "Surely you have space travel?"
 
 She frowned and shook her head. "What does that mean—space travel?"
 
 He was gripping the edge of the bed now, glaring at her. "A civilization that could discover time travel and build robot factories wouldn't find it hard to send a ship to Mars!"
 
 "A ship ? Oh, you mean something like a vliegvlotter . Why, no, I don't suppose it would be hard. But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?"
 
 He was on his feet towering over her, fists clenched. She raised her arms as if to shield her face if he should hit her. "Let's get this perfectly clear," he said, more harshly than he realized. "So far as you know, no one has ever visited the planets, and no one wants to. Is that right?"
 
 She nodded apprehensively. "I have never heard of it being done."
 
 He sank down on the bed and put his face in his hands. After a while he looked up and said bitterly, "You're looking at a man who would give his life to get to Mars. I thought I would in my time. I was positive I would when I knew I was in your time. And now I know I never will."
 
 

 
 The cot creaked beside him and he felt a soft arm about his shoulders and fingers delicately stroking his brow. Presently he opened his eyes and looked at her. "I just don't understand," he said. "It seemed obvious to me that whenever men were able to reach the planets, they'd do it."
 
 Her pitying eyes were on his face. He hitched himself around so that he was facing her. "I've got to understand. I've got to know why . What happened? Why don't men want the planets any more?"
 
 "Honestly," she said, "I did not know they ever had." She hesitated.
"Maybe you are asking the wrong question."
 
 He furrowed his brow, bewildered now by her.
 
 "I mean," she explained, "maybe you should ask why people in the 20th Century did want to go to worlds men are not suited to inhabit."
 
 Maitland felt his face become hot. "Men can go anywhere, if they want to bad enough."
 
 "But why ?"
 
 Despite his sudden irrational anger toward her, Maitland tried to stick to logic. "Living space, for one thing. The only permanent solution to the population problem...."
 
 "We have no population problem. A hundred years ago, we realized that the key to social stability is a limited population. Our economic system was built to take care of three hundred million people, and we have held the number at that."
 
 "Birth control," Maitland scoffed. "How do you make it work—secret police?"
 
 "No. Education. Each of us has the right to two children, and we cherish that right so much that we make every effort to see that those two are the best children we could possibly produce...."
 
 She broke off, looking a little self-conscious. "You understand, what I have been saying applies to most of the world. In some places like Aresund, things are different. Backward. I still do not feel that I belong here, although the people of the town have accepted me as one of them."
 
 "Even," he said, "granting that you have solved the population problem, there's still the adventure of the thing. Surely, somewhere, there must be men who still feel that.... Ingrid, doesn't it fire something in your blood, the idea of going to Mars—just to go there and see what's there and walk under a new sky and a smaller Sun? Aren't you interested in finding out what the canals are? Or what's under the clouds of Venus? Wouldn't you like to see the rings of Saturn from, a distance of only two hundred thousand miles?" His hands were trembling as he stopped.
 
 She shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Go into the past—yes! But go out there? I still cannot see why."
 
 "Has the spirit of adventure evaporated from the human race, or what ?"
 
 She smiled. "In a room downstairs there is the head of a lion. Swarts killed the beast when he was a young man. He used a spear. And time traveling is the greatest adventure there is. At least, that is the way I feel. Listen, Bob." She laid a hand on his arm. "You grew up in the Age of Technology. Everybody was terribly excited about what could be done with machines—machines to blow up a city all at once, or fly around the world, or take a man to Mars. We have had our fill of—what is the word?—gadgets. Our machines serve us, and so long as they function right, we are satisfied to forget about them.
 
 "Because this is the Age of Man . We are terribly interested in what can be done with people. Our scientists, like Swarts, are studying human rather than nuclear reactions. We are much more fascinated by the life and death of cultures than by the expansion or contraction of the Universe. With us, it is the people that are important, not gadgets."
 
 Maitland stared at her, his face blank. His mind had just manufactured a discouraging analogy. His present position was like that of an earnest 12th Century crusader, deposited by some freak of nature into the year 1950, trying to find a way of reanimating the anti-Mohammedan movement. What chance would he have? The unfortunate knight would argue in vain that the atomic bomb offered a means of finally destroying the infidel....
 
 Maitland looked up at the girl, who was regarding him silently with troubled eyes. "I think I'd like to be alone for a while," he said.
What is the plot of the story?
101
3de4f98837da44d9a396d453516b49af
Maitland, a militant engineer specialized in atomic rocket motors, awakes one night to a strange sound in his room. He blacks out and awakes again, this time in a room that isn't his. He takes in his surroundings and notices a prairie and a river outside his window, and within his room a door to exit which he cannot open. As Maitland wonders helplessly, a man by the name of Swarts enters his room. Swarts tells Maitland that he is here to participate in a series of psychological tests, assuring him that he is not interested in any secret intelligence related to his career. Swarts leads Maitland to his laboratory, where a cot stands in the center of the room under a ceiling of electric cables. Maitland resists initially, wary of the extent Swarts would go to in order for him to comply; however, Swarts manages to get Maitland onto the cot by force. He then reveals his main objective, which is figuring out why Maitland has a passion and longing to go to the Moon. Later that evening, Maitland meets a girl, later referred to as Ingrid Ching, who silently brings him a meal. He stares outside his window, trying to piece together where he could be, when he notices the presence of Venus in the sky as an evening star and comes to the realization that he has traveled to the future. Bewildered, Maitland is eager to learn more about the advancements of society, namely the status of man's trip to space. He asks Ching, who refuses to answer, and is then brought back to Swarts' lab. Maitland, determined to have his questions answered, rebels against Swarts' following tests through mental resistance. Becoming frustrated, Swarts tells Maitland that they are in the year A.D 2634, and that Ching would answer remaining questions if he complied with the tests. Agreeing, Ching visits Maitland that evening, and indulges him in the history of the human race up to this point, including stories of the Afrikanders, who dominated technological advancements and ruled the global empire, and how the world eventually transformed into one race. Maitland asks Ching whether humans have been able to go to space yet, and she is perplexed. She tells him that though she doesn't think it would be impossible, it has not been done, and she wonders why such a thing would be desired. Ching explains that the world is no longer in an age of technology, but an age of understanding humans and cultures within their world. Maitland is defeated; he cannot comprehend how there is no interest in traveling to space, realizing that his lifelong goal has become unattainable. 
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The story starts with Maitland waking up from a loud thump but quickly goes back to sleep. Later he realizes that he is not in his room. This is not the Reservation. Then he remembers that something has happened during the night. He believes that whoever captures him must want information about the rocket motor. He gets up to inspect the room but only find a door leading to the bathroom. The other door cannot be opened and the view from the window is unfamiliar. About half an hour later, the other door opens and a man named Swarts explains that he will perform some psychological tests on Maitland for about a week and does not want any information regarding the rocket motor. Even though Swarts made it clear that he can obtain the results he want with or without Maitland’s cooperation, Maitland still protests. He puts up a fight but ends up on the cot that will record his body changes. Swarts notes that the question regarding traveling to the moon seems to have created involuntary responses, and he wants to know why. 

Back at the cell, dinner is brought by an Oriental looking girl. Maitland watches the sunset and suddenly realizes that Venus was a morning star, but now he sees it after sunset. He becomes excited after learning that he has time travelled and is determined to ask Swarts which year he is in. He assumes that there are spaceports in the space to reach the starts. The next day Maitland asks the girl what year they’re in, but she refuses to tell him. Swarts also refuses to tell him anything, thus he does not cooperate in the labs. Finally, Swarts yields and tells him that they are in A.D. 2634. He assures Maitland that the girl, Ingrid Ching, will answer his questions. Then Maitland cooperates. Later Maitland learns about the ‘history’ that has happened since his time. And he learns that they have no interest in going to outer space. Instead of the age of technology, they are in the age of man.   
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Maitland wakes up in his room in the residential section of the Reservation. He thinks he sees a man in the corner of his room, and just then, he is knocked unconscious. He awakens again the next morning, soon realising that he is not in his room anymore, and he is not in the Reservation either. He must have been abducted in the night and taken to this strange place that is steeped in beautiful nature. Through the window of his room he sees a man and a woman coming up a hill towards the building he is in. Half an hour later, the man he had seen earlier arrives in his room. He tells Maitland his name is Swarts. He isn't going to tell him where he is, and that even though Maitland works in the engineering of rocket motors, he has no interest in extracting secrets from his job. He will be performing a series of tests on Maitland. He takes him to his lab, where Maitland refuses to participate in Swarts' test, so Swarts beats him up and pins him down. He asks Maitland if he wants to go to the moon, then telling him that he wants to understand why. In the evening, a girl enters Maitland's room, bringing him dinner. He notices how beautiful she is. He wonders what this is all about. He watches the sun set, and the stars come out. He notices Venus in the sky, his favourite planet. He then realises that Venus was just a morning star, and it is now an evening star. He must've traveled into the future. Maitland is determined to get the truth about what year it is from Swarts. After great resistance to the tests that Swarts puts him through the next day, the man finally gives into Maitlands question, telling him it is the year 2634. He tells him that the girl who had brought him food, named Ingrid Ching, would answer any questions he might have. Maitland is overcome with excitement at the idea that he might find a place in this society, and be able to use their technology to travel in space. He is quickly brought down though when Ching tells him that there is no such thing as space travel, as the population of Earth, which is now only 300 million, have no interest in such a thing. She tells him a bit about the history of Earth since the 20th century and Maitland is devastated to learn that he will never realise his dream of traveling to space. 
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Maitland wakes up in a strange room in an unexpected location. He thinks to himself where he might be and starts to feel scared and helpless because he is unsure. Suddenly, a man, Swarts, appears at the now opened entrance to his room. Swarts tells Maitland that he will be there for a week and be fed 3 meals a day. Swarts continues to say that he will not tell Maitland where he is and that the purpose of his stay is to undergo psychological tests. 

Swarts leads Maitland into the laboratory room tells Maitland to lie down on the surgical cot at the center of the room. The first test will be similar to a lie detector test. He warns Maitland that he should cooperate, but Maitland becomes purposefully defiant. Swarts then forces Maitland onto the cot and straps him into it. Maitland begins to think about what the tests might be as Swarts sets up the different instruments. Swarts then begins the experiment and asks Maitland to explain why he wants to go to the moon. Maitland is intrigued by the question as it was unexpected.

After returning to his cell and eating the meal that Ching brought him, Maitland begins to think about the situation. After making some observations about the sky, Maitland realizes where he is. He notices that Venus is suddenly an evening star. He becomes full of excitement and thinks about all the possible implications. Energized by his new knowledge, he thinks of a plan to get Swarts to be more open with him and then goes to sleep. After conversing with Ching during his breakfast, Maitland waits in his room until Swarts walks in and then promptly asks Swarts the year. Swarts avoid answering the question and takes Maitland to the laboratory for more testing. 

Maitland tries to fight against the new machine hoping Swarts will answer his question and his efforts are successful. Swarts tells him that it is the year 2634, and Maitland responds with a grin. He agrees to cooperate with Swarts as long as Ching answers his questions after the experiments. Back in his cell, Ching tells Maitland a quick history of the world of the last 500 years. She explains the deadly war that occurred and the response to it. Maitland then excitedly asks about space innovation but Ching seems confused by the question. Ching asks Maitland why he or anyone else during his time wants to travel in space. Maitland finds it incredulous that with all of the technology at hand people have not traveled to space. Ching explains that her time is the Age of Man and as long as machines work, humans don’t want to think about them, while Maitland’s time is the Age of Technology. Maitland is very discouraged upon learning that in the present time there is not a familiar interest in space travel and asks to be alone in his room in reaction to the upsetting news. 

Describe the setting of the story.
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The majority of the story takes place in the cell that Maitland is kept in by Swarts. The room is unconventional, according to Maitland, with no sharp edges, lines, or corners. Instead, the room is rounded, mostly made of smooth metal and plastic. There is no knob or latch on his door, and his window is made of a plastic so transparent it looks invisible. Because Maitland cannot leave his room, his observation of the outside is limited to what is through his window; the land outside is lush, with a rich prairie, an ocean, and a river. He has a view of the vast sky, and at night is able to see the stars. The other location that Maitland experiences in the story is Swarts' lab, which looks similar to an ordinary lab, with familiar electronics and machinery. 
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The story first takes place in Maitland’s room which has an open window at the side of his bed. Later when Maitland wakes up, he is not in his room anymore. This room is no straight lines or sharp corners; there are blue and featureless walls made from plastic, smooth doors made from metals, chair and table from aluminum alloy. Interestingly, the doors does not have any knob, but there is a button on the wall that controls one of the two doors. The door opens to the bathroom. The other one cannot be controlled from the inside. The window is made of strong transparent plastics. Outside the window, there are deep prairie grass and the ocean stretches to the horizon. Instead of the oxygen plant in the California desert, there is a river down the hill covered by huge ancient trees. Outside the other door is a laboratory which has a surgical cot and a bench at the side of the room. It supports a few electronics cabinets. There are cables from the ceiling, going to a focus above the cot. 
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The story takes place in two time periods. The first setting of the story is in Maitland's room in the residential section of the reservation in 1950. He is then taken to the year 2634. In the room that he wakes up in, there is a palpable sense of uneasiness. There are no straight lines anywhere, and every surface is smooth. There are two doors in the room, one of which has a button beside it, when pressed leading to a bathroom. The other door has no way to open it from the inside. In Swarts' lab in the same building is a surgical cot, a bench, some screens, cables, pilot lights and switches. The outside of the building presents a beautiful, open landscape. There is a lawn directly outside the building which leads to a green ocean. Down a hill is a benign river, underneath a patch of huge trees. 
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The story begins with Maitland waking up believing that he’s in the residential section of the Reservation and then realizing that he’s not. Where he is, he’s not sure but he can see dark green pastoral grass and ocean stretching to the horizon. The room that he is in appears strange to him. He notes that it gives him access to a bathroom but not the ability to leave the room of his own volition. 

When a man enters Maitland’s room, the man leads Maitland from his strange cell into a laboratory. The laboratory has a surgical cot at the center of the room with a bench on the wall that holds different electronics. Maitland is put on the cot and the experiment begins. 

Once the experiment, is over, Maitland returns to his cell where he is given food and falls asleep for the night. 

According to Maitland he is from the 20th century but believes that he was brought into the future. His hypothesis is based upon that Venus is now an evening star when it was a morning star before he was brought to the facility. After asking Swarts to confirm his theory and being ignored, Maitland is brought back to the laboratory for more testing. After another finished day of testing, Maitland is brought to his cell where he talks with Ching and asks her questions about the current period of time. 

What is the significance of space in the story?
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Throughout the story, Maitland shows his passion and knowledge for space; it defines him as a character and helps him in figuring out certain aspects of his situation. Maitland's passion for space is first introduced when Swarts asks him about going to the Moon. Maitland is taken aback by this question, and Swarts knows that the idea is extremely important to him; in fact, Maitland's dream of going to the Moon is the whole reason why he is experiencing these tests. Later on, space is significant in helping Maitland come to a realization. As he stares out the window trying to gauge where in the world he is located, he notices that Venus, his favorite planet, is in the sky during the evening, when back at the Reservation, it was a morning star. Maitland's knowledge of constellations and planets leads him to realize that he must have traveled into the future. Once Maitland realizes this, his main question is about space travel, and whether humans have achieved it. Once he learns that it has not been attempted or achieved, Maitland's motivation is lost; space was the driving force in his life and career, and space travel not being possible left him hopeless.
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Firstly, Swarts asks Maitland a question regarding Moon and he wants to know why Maitland wants to travel to the Moon. Moreover, space and the stars in space helped Maitland realize that they are not in his time anymore. The morning star Venus has become an evening star. Understanding that the people in the future are capable of time travel, Maitland was sure that they are also space travelling. However, when he asks Ching about their interstellar flights, she gets confused. Apparently, there has not been any desire to go to other planets. Even when they have the technology, there is no interest in exploring the space. But they do like to go to the past, they consider this an adventure while space travel is not. 
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Space is very significant in the story. Maitland is a man who wishes to one day travel to mars. Swarts asks him if he wants to go to the moon. The reasoning behind Swarts testing Maitland is in an effort to discover why someone from the 20th century would want to go to the moon at all. In the year 2634, they have no interest or need for space travel. Ching doesn't even know what Mars is. They have the capability to travel to space, but don't care to. Their population is only 300 million, meaning that they're not going to run out of resources or space on Earth. They also see no need to travel to space in the name of adventure, as they have time travel, which according to Ching, is the greatest adventure of all. Maitland is devastated to discover that he will not travel to space. He wants to see the sun as a smaller star on mars, he wants to walk on Venus, he wants to see the rings of Saturn from only 200,000 miles away.
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Maitland works in the speciality of heat transfer in relation to its application to rocket motors. He has a great and undeniable interest in space. He is able to discern his real location in time using his knowledge of space and the solar system to understand that he is not in the same time as he was before being at the facility. 

Space seems to be of relevance to Swarts and his psychological tests as during the first experiment Swarts tells Maitland that he was brought because of his interest in the moon. One of the first questions Swarts asks Maitland is for his reasoning of why he wants to go to the moon. So, it is clear that Swarts is interested in studying Maitland’s passion and desire for space travel.

When discussing with Ching the history and advances that the human race has made since his generation, he excitedly asks about what other planets have been visited and other general information on space travel. His question confuses Ching because she does not understand why he is interested in traveling to space. Maitland finds it incredulously that they have so much technology but have not traveled to space. It shows the dichotomy of their viewpoints because Maitland sees space travel as a solution to population control and as an interesting prospect because space invites and feeds an adventurous spirit. On the other hand, Ching and the rest of the world have no desire for space innovation or travel because it is unnecessary to further interaction with technology. 

What is the relationship between Maitland and Ching throughout the story?
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Maitland and Ching hold no significant reservations about each other upon meeting; they had no more interaction than Ching bringing him meals and leaving. As the story progresses, and Ching is able to answer Maitland's questions about the world they are in, she shares a bit about herself. Trust is built between the two as Ching shares her knowledge of global history, and Maitland learns that like his passion for space travel, Ching has a passion for time travel, specifically back to the 20th century, where Maitland is from. Though Ching has to break the news to Maitland that space travel has not been done, she attempts to comfort him through explanations and consolation. While by the end of the story, Ching and Maitland are not exactly friends, they have both confided in each other and have learned a lot about the other.
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Ching is the girl who was ordered to bring Maitland his meals every day. Once he realizes that he is in the ‘future’ he asks her what year they are in. But Ching says she cannot tell him. Only until Swarts gives her the order to answer Maitland’s questions, did she start answering him. Swarts waits excitedly for her to come. When she gets to the room, she smiled at Maitland and comments that he is wonderful. She admires him for being able to get what he wants from Swarts. Ching tells Maitland about the ‘history’ that has happened since the time that Maitland is from, the 20th century. Later Maitland acknowledges that the people in this era do not desire space travel. He is sad, but Ching soothes him. As they argue about the reasons for space travel, Maitland becomes confused, which turns into anger. Not capable of processing everything that he has just learned, Maitland tells Ching that he would like to be alone for a while. 
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Maitland is obviously very attracted to Ching throughout the story. When Ching first arrives in his room, he notices how beautiful she is. He gets embarrassed when the gorgeous woman, who is so well dressed, sees him in his crumpled up pyjamas. She brings him his food, but when Swarts tells Maitland the truth about what year it is, he is able to ask Ching questions about their time period. Ching tells him how special she thinks he is, smiling at him. She tells him how she wishes to travel back to the 20th century, because she is a romantic. Ching explains to Maitland the history of Earth since the 20th century, and how most of the population were wiped out, and the rise and fall of empires with robot armies. She tells him that people now have no interest in space travel, to which Maitland becomes visibly enraged, scaring her into thinking he might strike her. She tries to comfort him after a while. 
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Ching brings Maitland his food for his meal times throughout the day. The first time they meet, she shows curiosity towards him and appears to be friendly. Ching has a caretaker role for Maitland as she brings him his food and wakes him up in the morning. On their second meeting, Ching laughs when Maitland asks her what year it is and explains that she cannot tell them. It shows that they are interacting in a friendly manner and it is not a hostile or tense situation even though Maitland is being held at the facility without his permission. Ching admires Maitland because is successful in persuading Swarts into telling him the information he wants to know. Ching becomes concerned with Maitland after he is incredulous that the current generation of humans has no desire for space travel and exploration. 
What kinds of gadgets and machinery are used by Swarts in the story?
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Swarts uses different technology for his various tests. In the first, he uses electrodes and cables placed in various spots on Maitland's body, meant to record how Maitland responds and reacts to various stimuli. These include heart monitors, blood pressure recorders, and measurements of brain activity. Swarts uses similar technology in the next test to record Maitland's reactions, with a few additions. Firstly, he introduces gadgets attached to Maitland's eyelashes that keep him from closing his eyes. He also attaches lenses and a projector to Maitland's eyes to display different scenes to him.
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Firstly, Swarts or his men probably used some kinds of gadgets and brought Maitland from the heavily guarded Reservation. At the lab, Swarts tells Maitland to lay on the surgical cot, where cables run from the ceiling to the focus above the cot in the center of the room. When Maitland refuses to corporate, Swarts uses his fist to hit Maitland’s solar plexus and put him onto the cot, where he is forced to remain still. The tiny electrodes are placed at his temples and other parts of his body, minute microphone placed on the skin over his heart, and a sphygmomanometer on his arm. Those gadgets are used to record his involuntary responses. When Maitland realizes that he is in the future, he refuses to corporate. Then, Swarts places two cylindrical tubes over Maitland’s head, there are lenses at the end of the tubes. The tiny clamps on Maitland’s eyelashes prevent his eyelids from closing for a long time. Earphones are placed in his ears. A video is played through the lenses. 
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Swarts uses many different gadgets throughout the story. Along the wall of Swarts' laboratory are several electronic cabinets holding cathode ray tube screens. He uses a lie detector on Maitland made up of a multitude of tiny electrodes and a sphygmomanometer sleeve. He then uses an apparatus which he lowers over Maitland's head, with two cylindrical tubes with lenses at the end, and clamps to keep his eyelids open. It has a screen inside that projects videos. 
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The first machine used by Swarts on Maitland when conducting the psychological tests is similar to a lie detector. The machine is meant to record Maitland’s reactions to the different tests that he is given. It operates by attaching electrodes to Maitland’s temples and other parts of his body and then putting a tiny microphone on his skin near his heart. In addition, a sphygmomanometer sleeve is wrapped around one of his arms. The different instruments on this machine are used to record the changes in Maitland’s skin potential, blood pressure, and heartbeat. Thus, it measures his natural reaction to the stimuli he will be exposed to during the tests. 

The next time he is tested, it is a new machine that has two cylindrical tubes similar to a binocular microscope that is placed over his head. Tiny clamps are attached to his eyelashes to keep his eyes from shutting. Earphones are also used to further the immersive experience of the new test. The new machine shows Maitland different clips, some disturbing, to gauge his various reactions. 
