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The Very Slow Time Machine [MultiFormat]
eBook by Ian Watson
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eBook Category: Science Fiction Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: A crystal-shaped capsule mysteriously appears at the National Physical Laboratory, and the jabbering old man trapped inside is obviously insane ... and moving backward through time.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Anticipations,ed. Christopher Priest, 1978
Fictionwise Release Date: February 2001
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [104 KB], eReader (PDB) [39 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [26 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [25 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [45 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [97 KB], hiebook (KML) [84 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [54 KB], iSilo (PDB) [22 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [27 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [41 KB]
Words: 7327
Reading time: 20-29 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 passenger within the Very Slow Time Machine looked as ragged and tattered as a tramp; as crazy, dirty, woe-begone and tangle-haired as any lunatic in an ancient Bedlam cell. He was apparently very old; or at any rate long solitary confinement in that cell made him seem so. He was pallid, crookbacked, skinny and rottentoothed. He raved and mumbled soundlessly at our spotlights. Or maybe he only mouthed his ravings and mumbles, since we could hear nothing whatever through the thick glass. When we obtained the services of a lipreader two days later the mad old man seemed to be mouthing mere garbage, a mishmash of sounds. Or was he? Obviously no one could be expected to lip-read backwards; already, from his actions and gestures, Dr Yang had suggested that the man was timereversed. So we video-taped the passenger's mouthing and played the tapes backwards for our lip-reader. Well, it was still garbage. Backwards, or forwards, the unfortunate passenger had visibly cracked up. Indeed, one proof of his insanity was that he should be trying to talk to us at all at this late stage of his journey rather than communicate by holding up written messages--as he has now begun to do. (But more of these messages later; they only begin--or, from his point of view, cease as he descends further into madness--in the summer of 1989.)
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