Stephen Marlowe

“ Eddie began to sing a popular song. Popular? It had been popular—when? This all was very confusing.
"Edam Hurst, you have positively the worst singing voice I've ever heard."
He smiled and told her to be quiet, kissing her to put more force behind the command. Then, hand in hand, Edam and Eeb walked through their glen.
The names of those congenital skeptics who insist that time-travel is impossible, even in theory, are Legion. Nor is their stand difficult to comprehend. They say that no man or woman has yet traveled backward to meet a younger him or herself face to face. ”

“ George shook his head. "The bridge was not out. I went back and looked for myself later. You went the long way for nothing because the bridge is standing as it always stood. Did you hear anything over the radio about the bridge being out?"
"No-o-o...."
"There wasn't even any rain. Eddie-boy, you're just nervous. You're imagining things. Judy will have a nervous wreck on her hands if you keep this up. Look—you just sit here and wait for me while I run downtown and get you another pair of black socks." ”

“ Eeb explained, "The trend has been away from differentiation since the sex-identification patterns were decreased. But I'm fed up with it. They all look the same, like that. You know something, Eddie? I like you better."
Rajuz tuned in another of the loudspeakers on his desk, and Eeb explained that it was necessary because the psi-quotient varied in everyone.
"Eeb Lym, Edam Hurst, you have committed a misdemeanor."
"Not him," Eeb said. "It was all my fault."
"Motivation is above suspicion here, you know that. It is the law—if someone does something it is because he wants to. ”

“ Elementary stuff, Eddie. Just as they learned teleportation through space ten thousand years ago, so they learned you can do the same thing through time. Mental effort, applied properly, can move physical objects. It was always latent in human beings through some unknown ancestor—they just had to learn how to control the power. ”

“ I'm only the best man and I'll wear navy blue and no one will know the difference." George sat on the edge of the bed next to Eddie and took off his shoes and socks. He gave the socks—just a half-size too big—to Eddie, then padded across the room to the chest of drawers to find a pair of navy socks for himself.
The scissors got up off the dresser again while George's back was turned and Eddie wanted to yell, only no sound came out. He just sat there watching while the scissors cut this new pair of black socks neatly in half. ”

“ Such return, they claim, would immediately cause a forking of the Earthways, leaving our version of the world untrodden by time-traveling feet. As to the clincher, they counter-question with a How do we know we haven't had such visitors? Time-travel, when it comes, will come in a far-distant future. At such a distance the mere six thousand years of recorded human history is a mere fly-speck on the annals of Earth. ”