Conrad Elkins, a scientist from AD 15,000 who hopes to find a solution to the problem of
too many male babies in his time, strikes up a friendship with Hugh in present-day New York
City, eventually inviting Hugh to return with him to a future of infinite leisure where
Venusian slaves with Martian overseers outnumber humans five-to-one.
And do you ever think that present-day New York will some time be as fragmentary and
fabulous as Troy or Zimbabwe? That archaeologists may delve in its ruins, beneath the
sevenfold increment of later cities, and find a few rusting mechanisms of disputed use,
and potteries of doubtful date, and inscriptions which no one can decipher?
DEBUT
“An Adventure in Futurity,” in Wonder Stories,April 1931.
VARIANTS
Debut. “An Adventure in Futurity,” in Wonder Stories,April 1931.
And do you ever think that present-day New York will some time be as fragmentary and
fabulous as Troy or Zimbabwe? That archaeologists may delve in its ruins, beneath the
sevenfold increment of later cities, and find a few rusting mechanisms of disputed use,
and potteries of doubtful date, and inscriptions which no one can decipher?
1 English variant