The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man from Time, by Frank Belknap Long

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Title: The Man from Time

Author: Frank Belknap Long

Release Date: July 15, 2009 [EBook #29418]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_The method by which one man might be pinpointed in the vastness of
all Eternity was the problem tackled by the versatile Frank Belknap
Long in this story. And as all minds of great perceptiveness know,
it would be a simple, human quality he'd find most effective even in
solving Time-Space._

the
man
from
time

_by ... Frank Belknap Long_

Deep in the Future he found the
answer to Man's age-old problem.

Daring Moonson, he was called. It was a proud name, a brave name. But
what good was a name that rang out like a summons to battle if the man
who bore it could not repeat it aloud without fear?

Moonson had tried telling himself that a man could conquer fear if he
could but once summon the courage to laugh at all the sins that ever
were, and do as he damned well pleased. An ancient phrase that--damned
well. It went clear back to the Elizabethan Age, and Moonson had tried
picturing himself as an Elizabethan man with a ruffle at his throat and
a rapier in his clasp, brawling lustily in a tavern.

In the Elizabethan Age men had thrown caution to the winds and lived
with their whole bodies, not just with their minds alone. Perhaps that
was why, even in the year 3689, defiant names still cropped up. Names
like Independence Forest and Man, Live Forever!

It was not easy for a man to live up to a name like Man, Live Forever!
But Moonson was ready to believe that it could be done. There was
something in human nature which made a man abandon caution and try to
live up to the claims made for him by his parents at birth.

It must be bad, Moonson thought. It must be bad if I can't control the
trembling of my hands, the pounding of the blood at my temples. I am
like a child shut up alone in the dark, hearing rats scurr