A história é "Para Sempre e a Terra" por Ray Bradbury , publicado pela primeira vez em Planet Stories , Primavera de 1950 , disponível em Internet Arquivar . No entanto, não se trata de "pessoas criativas [plural] trazidas para o futuro". É sobre o escritor Thomas Wolfe , a primeira pessoa já tirada do leito de morte no passado, sem indicação na história de que o experimento deve ser repetido. A premissa é descrita nesta passagem perto do começo da história:
"Here you see a book," he said at last, holding it out, "written by a giant, a man born in Asheville, North Carolina, in the year 1900. Long gone to dust, he published four huge novels. He was a whirlwind. He lifted up mountains and collected winds. He left a trunk of pencilled manuscripts behind when he lay in bed at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in the year 1938, on September 15th, and died of pneumonia, an ancient and awful disease."
They looked at the book.
Look Homeward, Angel.
He drew forth three more. Of Time and the River. The Web and the Rock. You Can't Go Home Again.
"By Thomas Wolfe," said the old man. "Three centuries cold in the North Carolina earth."
"You mean you've called us simply to see four books by a dead man?" his friends protested.
"More than that! I've called you because I feel Tom Wolfe's the man, the necessary man, to write of space, of time, huge things like nebulae and galactic war, meteors and planets, all the dark things he loved and put on paper were like this. He was born out of his time. He needed really big things to play with and never found them on Earth. He should have been born this afternoon instead of one hundred thousand mornings ago."
"I'm afraid you're a bit late," said Professor Bolton.
"I don't intend to be late!" snapped the old man. "I will not be frustrated by reality. You, professor, have experimented with time-travel. I expect you to finish your time machine this month. Here's a check, a blank check, fill it in. If you need more money, ask for it. You've done some traveling already, haven't you?"
"A few years, yes, but nothing like centuries—
"We'll make it centuries! You others—" he swept them with a fierce and shining glance "—will work with Bolton. I must have Thomas Wolfe."
No final, Wolfe é enviado de volta para morrer:
The door opened. Bolton let himself in and stood behind Tom Wolfe's chair, a small phial in his hand.
"What's that?" asked the old man.
"An extinct virus. Pneumonia. Very ancient and very evil," said Bolton. "When Mr. Wolfe came through, I had to cure him of his illness, of course, which was immensely easy with the techniques we have today, in order to put him in working condition for his job, Mr. Field. I kept this pneumonia culture. Now that he's going back, he'll have to be inoculated with the disease."