Procurando uma história curta da era da celulose
"Assim frustramos Carlos Magno" , um conto de R. A. Lafferty , publicado pela primeira vez em Galaxy Magazine , fevereiro 1967 , disponível no Internet Archive . Também foi a resposta para a pergunta Breve história sobre a intromissão de viajantes no tempo e foi minha resposta (não aceita) à pergunta Título e autor da curta história do SF sobre uma máquina de 'melhoria' aparentemente quebrada . Existem muitas resenhas sobre a história na web, como esta a> por Paul Kincaid .
que terminou com "esse caminho está no skunk stew"
"But we don't want it the way it was before!" Valery howled. "That's the way it is now, rump of skunk to eat, and me with nothing to wear but my ape cape. We want it better. We want deer skins and antelope skins."
[. . . .]
"Push the button, Epikt!" Diogenes barked. "I think I missed part of it. Let's try again."
"Oh, no, no!" Valery forbade. "Not again. That way is rump of skunk and madness."
Acredito que eram cientistas em um laboratório que desenvolvem dispositivos de viagem no tempo.
"We have perfect test conditions," the machine Epikt said as though calling them to order. "We set out basic texts, and we take careful note of the world as it is. If the world changes, then the texts should change here before our eyes. For our test pilot, we have taken that portion of our own middle-sized city that can be viewed from this fine vantage point. If the world in its past-present continuity is changed by our meddling, then the face of our city will also change instantly as we watch it.
"We have assembled here the finest minds and judgments in the world: eight humans and one Ktistec machine, myself. Remember that there are nine of us. It might be important."
The nine finest minds were: Epiktistes, the transcendent machine who put the "K" in Ktistec; Gregory Smirnov, the large-souled director of the Institute; Valery Mok, an incandescent lady scientist; her over-shadowed and over-intelligent husband Charles Cogsworth; the humorless and inerrant Glasser; Aloysius Shiplap, the seminal genius; Willy McGilly, a man of unusual parts (the seeing third finger on his left hand he had picked up on one of the planets of Kapteyn's Star) and no false modesty; Audifax O'Hanlon and Diogenes Pontifex. The latter two men were not members of the Institute (on account of the Minimal Decency Rule), but when the finest minds in the world are assembled, these two cannot very well be left out.
"We are going to tamper with one small detail in past history and note its effect," Gregory said.
Eles testam e são alquimistas trabalhando em pedra de filósofos.
Existem muitas mudanças, mas nenhuma menção à alquimia ou à pedra filosofal.
"Did it work, Epikt? Is it done?" Louis Lobachevski demanded. "I can't see a change in anything."
"The Avatar is back and reports his mission accomplished," Epikt stated. "I can't see any change in anything either."
"Let's look at the evidence," Gregory said.
The thirteen of them, the ten humans and the Ktistec, Chresmoeidic and Proaisthematic machines, turned to the evidence and with mounting disappointment.
[. . . .]
"What are you fellows babbling about?" Audifax asked without really wanting to know. "The art of painting is still almost incandescent in its bloom. The schools are like clustered galaxies, and half the people are doing some of this work for pleasure. Scandinavian and Maori sculpture are hard put to maintain their dominance in the field where almost everything is extraordinary. The impassioned-comic has released music from most of its bonds. Since speculative mathematics and psychology have joined the popular performing arts, there is considerably more fun in life.
"There's a piece here on Pete Teilhard putting him into context as a talented science-fiction writer with a talent for outre burlesque. The Brainworld Motif was overworked when he tackled it, but what a shaggy comic extravaganza he did make of it! And there's Muldoom, Zielinski, Popper, Gander, Aichinger, Whitecrow, Hornwhanger—we owe so much to the juice of the cultists! In the main line there are whole congeries and continents of great novels and novelists.
"An ever popular art, graffiti on mingitorio walls, maintains its excellence. Travel Unlimited offers a ninety-nine day art tour of the world keyed to the viewing of the exquisite and hilarious miniatures on the walls of its own rest rooms. Ah, what a copious world we live in!"
"It's more grass than we can graze," said Willy McGilly. "The very bulk of achievement is stupefying. Ah, I wonder if there is subtle revenge in my choice of words. The experiment, of course, was a failure, and I'm glad. I like a full world."
"We will not call the experiment a failure since we have covered only a third of it," said Gregory. "Tomorrow we will make our second attempt on the past. And, if there is a present left to us after that, we will make a third attempt the following day."
Eles testam e estão em uma caverna fazendo mágica
The four of them, the three humans and the ghost Epikt, who was a kachenko mask with a speaking tube, turned to the evidence with mounting disappointment.
"There is still the stick and the five notches in it," said Gregory. "It was our test stick. Nothing in the world is changed."
"The arts remain as they were," said Aloysius. "Our picture here on the stone on which we have worked for so many seasons is the same as it was. We have painted the bears black, the buffalos red and the people blue. When we find a way to make another color, we can represent birds also. I had hoped that our experiment might give us that other color. I had even dreamed that birds might appear in the picture on the rock before our very eyes."
"There's still rump of skunk to eat and nothing else," said Valery. "I had hoped that our experiment would have changed it to a haunch of deer."
"All is not lost," said Aloysius. "We still have the hickory nuts. That was my last prayer before we began our experiment. 'Don't let them take the hickory nuts away,' I prayed."
They sat around the conference table that was a large flat natural rock, and cracked hickory nuts with stone fist-hammers. They were nude in the crude, and the world was as it had always been. They had hoped by magic to change it.