Mack Reynolds

“ Simon seemed incapable of carrying the ball this morning, so Betty said, "But ... Mr. Oyster, if the future has developed time travel why don't we ever meet such travelers?"
Simon put in a word. "The usual explanation, Betty, is that they can't afford to allow the space-time continuum track to be altered. If, say, a time traveler returned to a period of twenty-five years ago and shot Hitler, then all subsequent history would be changed. In that case, the time traveler himself might never be born. They have to tread mighty carefully." ”

“ For one thing, a time traveler wouldn't be conspicuous. At a festival like this somebody with a strange accent, or who didn't know exactly how to wear his clothes correctly, or was off the ordinary in any of a dozen other ways, wouldn't be noticed. You could be a four-armed space traveler from Mars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuous at the Oktoberfest. People would figure they had D.T.'s."
"But why would a time traveler want to go to a—" Betty began.
"Why not! What better opportunity to study a people than when they are in their cups? ”

“ If something comes up that looks like it might result in the track being changed, they set you right back at the beginning and let things start—for you—all over again. They just can't allow anything to come back from the future and change the past."
"You mean," Betty was suddenly furious at him, "you've given up! Why this is the biggest thing— Why the fifty thousand dollars is nothing. The future! Just think!"
Simon said wearily, "There's just one thing you can bring back with you from the future, a hangover compounded of a gallon or so of Marzenbräu. ”

“ Time travel yet! What a laugh!
Between Shannon and Munich a faint suspicion began to simmer in my mind. These statistics I read on the Oktoberfest in the Munich tourist pamphlets. Five million people attended annually.
Where did five million people come from to attend an overgrown festival in comparatively remote Southern Germany? The tourist season is over before September 21st, first day of the gigantic beer bust. Nor could the Germans account for any such number. Munich itself has a population of less than a million, counting children. ”

“ If you could go back a few thousand years, the things you would wish to see would be a Roman Triumph, perhaps the Rites of Dionysus, or one of Alexander's orgies. You wouldn't want to wander up and down the streets of, say, Athens while nothing was going on, particularly when you might be revealed as a suspicious character not being able to speak the language, not knowing how to wear the clothes and not familiar with the city's layout. ”

“ Arth was sitting on the edge of the bed holding his bald head in his hands. "I remember now," he sorrowed. "You didn't have a hotel. What a stupidity. I'll be phased. Phased all the way down."
"You haven't got a handful of aspirin, have you?" I asked him.
"Just a minute," Arth said, staggering erect and heading for what undoubtedly was a bathroom. "Stay where you are. Don't move. Don't touch anything."
"All right," I told him plaintively. "I'm clean. I won't mess up the place. All I've got is a hangover, not lice."
Arth was gone. ”

“ Arth closed his eyes in pain. "Vegetarian," he said. "Couldn't possibly eat meat. Barbarous. Ugh."
"Well, we need some nourishment," I said.
"There's supposed to be considerable nourishment in beer."
That made sense. I yelled, "Fräulein! Zwei neu bier!"
Somewhere along in here the fog rolled in. When it rolled out again, I found myself closing one eye the better to read the lettering on my earthenware mug. It read Augustinerbräu. Somehow we'd evidently navigated from one tent to another.
Arth was saying, "Where's your hotel?" ”