Field Trip

In a far-future society where technology has replaced sex and history is carefully regulated, Kial travels back to the twentieth century to study the origins of therapeutic psychology. Invisible to the era’s inhabitants and uncomfortable with its primitive trains, smoking, romance, and looming atomic age, he views the past with a mixture of curiosity and disgust.

His journey takes an unexpected turn when he meets Broyk, another time-traveler whose secret research and unusual abilities make him a dangerous companion. As the two discuss the strict laws governing “Thek-travel”—including the prohibition against carrying knowledge into one’s own past—Kial discovers that Broyk is an outlawed telepath and a biological throwback to an earlier age.

Their uneasy conversation raises intriguing questions about progress, conformity, and whether the supposedly perfected future has sacrificed something essential. Witty, strange, and lightly satirical, this classic science-fiction story follows two visitors who may find the “barbarous” past more compelling than they expected.