Damon Knight

“ I was just telling Vernon, before we saw you down here, that I wished I could go into the jungle without the scooter, to see all the wild animals and things. Will you take me in for a little walk, Dai? Vernon can mind the scooters—you wouldn't mind, would you, Vernie?"
Maxwell started to reply, but the Beachcomber forestalled him. "I assure you, Miss Zwerling," he said slowly, "that it would be a waste of your time and mine."
Alice blushed again, this time not so prettily. "Just what do you mean?" she demanded.
Dai looked at her gravely. "I'm not quite such a wild man as I seem," he said. ”

“ Her expression, Maxwell thought, said that there were better uses to which he could put himself.
Maxwell snorted. "Did you ever read—" He corrected himself; Alice obviously never read. "Did you ever see one of the old films about the South Seas? Ever hear of civilized men 'going native' or becoming beachcombers?"
Alice said, "Yes," a trifle uncertainly.
"All right, imagine a man stranded in a universe full of savages—pleasant harmless savages, maybe, but people who are three million years away from his culture. What's he going to do?" ”

“ Maxwell wondered. Morals of one society didn't apply to another, he knew. Still—was it possible that the Beachcomber's people, Maxwell's own descendants, still had a taint of the old Adam? And was it accident that they were the only dominant life-form in the entire universe, or had they eliminated all other contenders? ”

“ He noticed Maxwell's wry smile. "Not like the planet-busters; there is a defense against those, you just haven't found it yet. But there actually was no defense whatever against their weapon. They were going to destroy our universe, down to the last quantum—wipe it right out of the series, make a blank where it had been."
"And—?" said Maxwell. He was beginning to understand why the Beachcomber had never told this story to anyone else; why the public at large must never know it. There was a feeling of doom in it that would color everything men did. ”

“ Yet Maxwell knew that there were flesh-eaters in the jungle that would gobble a man outside the force-field of his scooter in about half a second. Knowing the Beachcomber, none of this surprised him. Whether it occurred to Alice to be surprised at any of it, he couldn't tell. She was eating the Beachcomber with her eyes as he walked toward them.
Maxwell, swearing silently to himself, turned off his scooter's field and stepped down. Alice did the same. I only hope she can keep from trying to flirt with him, Maxwell thought. Aloud, he said, "How's it, Dai?" ”

“ Maxwell said mildly. "Stick around."
She stood up. "Are you coming?"
"Nope," said Maxwell.
Without another word she turned, walked stiffly to her scooter, got in and soared away. They watched the tiny shining speck dwindle and disappear over the horizon.
Maxwell grinned and looked at the Beachcomber. "She had that coming," he said. "Not that she's out anything—she's got her return ticket." He put a hand behind him to hoist himself to his feet. "I'll be going now, Dai. Nice to have—"
"No, stay a while, Vern," said the giant. "I don't often see people." He looked moodily off across the water. ”

“ Who is he, dear?"
"The Beachcomber. The Man From the Future. Haven't you seen a newscast for the last five years?"
"I only tune in for the sports and fashions," Alice said abstractedly. Then her mouth formed an O. "My goodness! Is he the one who—"
"The same," said Maxwell. "The one who gave us the inertialess drive, the anti-friction field, the math to solve the three-body problem, and about a thousand other things. The guy from three million years in the future. And the loneliest man in all creation, probably. This is the planet he showed up on, five years ago, now that I come to think of it. ”

“ Then, if it worked, we'd be able to return, but on a different time-line—because, obviously, on our own line nothing like this doubling-back had already happened. Changing the past changes the future; you know the theory. ”