Ingeniero
Ray Bradbury
The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding war m water. Eckels felt his eyelids
blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:
TIME SAFARI, INC.
SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.
YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.
WE TAKE YOU THERE.
YOU SHOOT IT.
Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels' throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around
his mouth for med a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand wa ved a
check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk.
"Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?"
"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 wher e to shoot. If he says no shooting, no
shooting. If you disobey instructions, there's a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus
possible gover nment action, on your return."
Eckels gla nced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wir es and
steel boxes, at an aurora that flicker ed now orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound like a giga ntic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours
piled high and set aflame.
A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself. Eckels
remember ed the wording in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust
and coals, like golden sala manders, the old years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the
air, white hair turn Irishblack, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush
down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat
themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes,
rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fr esh death, the seed death, the gr een death, to
the time before the beginning. A touch of a hand might do it, the mer est touch of a hand.
"Unbelievable." Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face. "A real Time
Machine." He shook his head. "Makes you think, If the election ha d gone badly yesterda y, I
might be her e now running away 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 gotten in, we'd ha ve the
worst kind of dictatorship. Ther e's an anti everything man for you, a militarist, antiChrist, anti
huma n, antiintellectual. People called us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if Deutscher
beca me President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it's not our business to conduct
Escapes, but to for m Safaris. Anywa y, Keith's President now. All you got to worry about is"
"Shooting my dinosaur," Eckels finished it for him.
"A Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in histor y. Sign this
release. Anything happens to you, we're not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry."
Eckels flushed angrily. "Trying to scare me!"
"Frankly, yes. We don't want anyone going who'll panic at the first shot. Six Safari leaders wer e
killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We're her e to give you the sever est thrill a real hunter ever
asked for. Traveling you back sixty million years to bag the biggest ga me in all of Time. Your
personal check's still there. Tear it up."Mr. Eckels looked at the check. His fingers twitched.
"Good luck," said the ma n behind the desk. "Mr. Travis, he's all yours."
They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward
the silver metal and the roaring light.
First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was daynightda...
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