Read The Fury Out of Time for Free Online Page B

.that means you are holding back—”
    “One butterfly,” Karvel said. He raised a hand tiredly as Haskins started to speak. “No amplification, and no more questions. Please.”
    Haskins obediently moved toward the door. “Thank you, Major. I’ll be seeing you.”

Chapter 3
    Professor Kent Alexander arrived shortly after two, and was detained in the lobby until Haskins reached the hospital. Colonel Vukin introduced them, and Alexander gave Haskins a cigar, told him it was a boy, seven pounds four ounces, and asked what had happened to Karvel.
    “He was in an accident,” Haskins said.
    “He sounded incoherent on the telephone. Or maybe it was a bad connection. I thought he said he’d found—”
    “Let’s see it before we talk about it,” Haskins said. “I’ll take him up, Colonel. Thank you.”
    He hurried the professor away before Vukin could object.
    “Are you interested in butterflies?” Alexander asked.
    “Only in this one,” Haskins said.
    The professor was something of a disappointment to him. Gangly, youthful-looking, shy, he had the appearance of a flustered undergraduate—or, Haskins reminded himself, of a new father. He decided to postpone judgment.
    The professor bounded into Karvel’s room ahead of him and burst into laughter. “Aren’t you getting a little old for this sort of thing? What does the other guy look like? Here—have a cigar.”
    “I didn’t touch him,” Karvel said. “And no, thanks. It may be weeks before I can inhale properly. What took you so long?”
    Haskins closed the door, and unobtrusively took possession of a chair in the corner.
    “I was driving carefully,” Alexander said. “I want my son to be at least a day old before he’s an orphan. And man, am I tired. Didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. Hospital waiting room. Gruesome experience. It’s enough to give one a wholesome respect for nature. Who’d want to go through that more than once a year?”
    “Your wife probably agrees with you,” Karvel said.
    “At least she had an anesthetic. Where is it, man? If you’ve made me drive a hundred miles just to investigate one of your hallucinations, I’ll choke you.”
    Karvel opened the nightstand drawer, took out a small cardboard box, and opened it. The professor stared, whipped out a pocket lens, and stared again. His breath hissed audibly. “Bowden,” he whispered. “I’ll name the boy Bowden, though Doris swears he’ll go through life answering to his middle name if I do.”
    “What do you think of it?” Karvel asked.
    “I don’t know what I think. I can’t think. The thing is absolutely impossible. It’s a monster. Where’d you get it?”
    “I was sitting on a fallen tree, and it circled me a couple of times and lit right beside me.”
    “You’re sure you saw it fly?”
    “Positive. What I’d like to know is whether such a drastic mutation can occur at one crack, or whether it would require gradual evolutionary changes over a large number of generations.”
    “You’ve got me. I’m no geneticist.”
    “What’s your answer as a lepidopterologist?”
    “Yes to both questions. Because the changes are so drastic, it’s hard to believe that they all occurred in a single mutation. On the other hand, if a long series of evolutionary changes had taken place, some of the intermediate stages should have come to light. A lot of people collect butterflies, and someone, somewhere, would have found a monarch with a thorax like this one, or eyes—did you notice the eyes?—or wings, or. . .” He paused. “I’m not sure even now that you’re not pulling my leg. It’s hard to believe this even when I’m looking at it. My God—a bialate, bipedal butterfly!”
    “It’s real. I told you—it flew around me a couple of times and landed right beside me, which was a colossal piece of luck. If I’d had to take even one step to catch it, it would have gotten away.”
    “Why?”
    “I couldn’t walk.”
    “You lack the true scientific