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May Be Some Time [MultiFormat]
eBook by Brenda Clough
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eBook Category: Science Fiction AnLab Award Nominee, Locus Poll Award Nominee, Nebula Award(R) Nominee, Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description:  Titus Oates, a member of Robert Falcon Scott's doomed South Polar expedition, wandered out into the snow, knowing that he was near death and had become a drag on the other members of the expedition, saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time" ... his body was never recovered. In this continuation of the fate of Titus Oates, he does not come to rest beneath the snows of the Antarctic, but is rescued by time travelers from the mid-21st Century. He is revived and cured, and introduced slowly to the confusing features of this time, and eventually to the real purpose of his rescue, and the real goals of the institute that rescued him.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: July 2002
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [205 KB], eReader (PDB) [75 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [66 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [58 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [97 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [132 KB], hiebook (KML) [162 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [84 KB], iSilo (PDB) [54 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [68 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [95 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [90 KB]
Words: 18880
Reading time: 53-75 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
"The bulk of the story concerns Oates' reactions to life in the 21st Century ... and his wonder at the new technology, at the place of women in society and other social changes, and so on. Ultimately, this novella's resolution depends on Titus Oates finding a place for himself in this strange time. Clough's depiction is entertaining and believable, and Oates is a likeable character..."--Rich Horton, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)
"...seldom have I read such a convincing and consistent evocation of a man out of time. The backstory's fun too--Oates was rescued as a proof-of-concept from a successful SETI decryption of plans from the alien 'Forties', who may have given humans an FTL star drive--which of course can also be used as a time-machine. This is an exceptionally successful story on all levels. And funny too. Don't miss it, and look for it on the award ballots next year. Bravo!"--Infinity Plus
From Scott's Last Expedition by Robert Falcon Scott:
Friday, March 16, or Saturday, 17 [1912]. Lost track of dates, but think the last correct. Tragedy all down the line. At lunch, the day before yesterday, poor Titus Oates said he couldn't go on; he proposed we should leave him in his sleeping bag. That we could not do, and we induced him to come on, on the afternoon march. In spite of its awful nature for him he struggled on and we made a few miles. At night he was worse and we knew the end had come.
Should this be found I want these facts recorded ... We can testify to his bravery. He has borne intense suffering for weeks without complaint, and to the very last was able and willing to discuss outside subjects. He did not--would not--give up hope till the very end ... He slept through the night before last, hoping not to wake; but he woke in the morning--yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, "I am just going outside and may be some time." He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since ... We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit, and assuredly the end is not far.
* * * *
It's said that death from exposure is like slipping into warm sleep. Briefly, Titus Oates wondered what totty-headed pillock had first told that whisker. He no longer remembered what warmth was. He had endured too many futile hopes and broken dreams to look for an easy end now. Every step was like treading on razors, calling for a grim effort of will. Nevertheless without hesitating he hobbled on into the teeth of the storm. He did not look back. He knew the Polar Expedition's tent was already invisible behind him.
Finer than sand, the wind-driven snow scoured over his clenched eyelids, clogging nose and mouth. The cold drove ferocious spikes deep into his temples, and gnawed at the raw frostbite wounds on brow and nose and lip. Surely it was folly to continue to huddle into his threadbare windproof. What if he flung all resistance aside, and surrendered himself to the wailing Antarctic blizzard? Suddenly he yearned to dance, free of the weighty mitts and clothing. To embrace death and waltz away!
He had left his finnesko behind. Gangrene had swollen his frozen feet to the size of melons, the ominous black streaks stealing up past the ankles nearly to the knee. Yesterday it had taken hours to coax the fur boots on. Today he had not bothered. Now his woolen sock caught on something. Excruciating pain jolted his frozen foot, suppurating from the stinking black wounds where the toes used to be. Too weak to help himself, he stumbled forward. His crippled hands, bundled in the dogskin mitts, groped to break his fall. They touched nothing. He seemed to fall and fall, a slow endless drop into blank whiteness.
And it was true! A delicious warmth lapped him round like a blanket. Tears of relief and joy crept down his starveling cheeks and burnt in the frost fissures. He was being carried, warm and safe. Rock of Ages, cleft for me!
For a very long time he lay resting, not moving a muscle. Stillness is the very stuff of Heaven, when a man has marched nearly two thousand miles, hauling a half-tonne load miles a day for months, across the Barrier ice, up the Beardmore Glacier, to the South Pole and back. He slept, and when he wasn't actually asleep he was inert.
But after some unknowable time Titus slowly came to awareness again. He felt obscurely indignant, cheated of a just due. Wasn't Heaven supposed to be a place of eternal rest? He'd write a letter to the Times about it...
"Maybe just a touch more?" one of the celestial host suggested, in distinctly American accents. Silly on the face of it, his unanalyzed assumption that all the denizens of Heaven were British...
"No, let's see how he does on four cc. How's the urine output?"
Shocked, Titus opened his eyes and looked down at himself. He was lying down, clothed in a pure white robe, all correct and as advertised. But were those a pair of angels lifting the hem? He used the drill-sergeant rasp he had picked up in the Army. "What the hell are you at!"
Both angels startled horribly. Something metallic slipped from a heavenly hand and landed with a clatter on the shiny-clean floor. A beautiful angel with long black hair stared down at him, sea-blue eyes wide as saucers. "Oh my God. Oh my God, Shell! Look at this--he's conscious! Piotr will be like a dog with two tails!"
"Damn it, now the meter's gone."
As the other angel stooped nearer to pick up her tool Titus stared at her face. It was tanned but flushed with irritation. The nose had freckles. She wore huge coppery hoop earrings, and her short curly hair was dull blonde, almost mousy. "You," Titus stated with conviction, "are not an angel."
The happy angel--no, blister it, a woman!--exclaimed, "An angel, Shell, did you hear that? He called you an angel."
"He did not! Don't you ever listen, Sabrina? He just said I was not an angel."
"This isn't the afterlife," Titus pursued doggedly. "Am I even dead?"
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