The little man looked pleased. "Very well. In the fourth dimension—which is time—you do the same thing. You look around to see what is visible where you are. My contemporaries can see that freedom is unnecessary, that time travel is practical. Your people have not reached that place in time yet. But yours can see the technical facts about color television. Those facts are not visible yet to anyone here."
"You mean that these inventions—"
"Oh, no, no, no, Mr. Elliott," the little man said indignantly. "Don't call them inventions. There are no inventions. None. There are only truths—scientific principles waiting through eternity for someone to discover them."
"I must be dense, but—"
"Did your Columbus invent America? Did someone invent fire? The possibility of time travel, of color television, of any phase of social progress—these are facts. They stand up in the time dimension like mountains. Waves of humanity meander through the time dimension like caravans of immigrants crossing a continent. The first man in any wave to see the mountain peak claims that he 'invented' it. Soon it is clearly visible to everyone. While the people of my wave know of time travel, there are human caravans, following us many years back in time, just now discovering steam."
"Then the reason your people won't accept my money—"
"Yah." The little lawyer nodded. "Your money is an outgrowth of your history. It bears the name your people gave to the society they built—the United States. This has no meaning to a different wave of humanity, with a different history. These people here have reached this point in time six years behind the humanity you traveled with."
"Can I get back to my own time, my own wave of humanity?"
"Not unless you know how." The lawyer grinned. "To be perfectly frank, Mr. Elliott, there is no hope of your going back. Either work for Bullen or live out your life in a mental institution. No one else will give you work and no one will believe your story."