The Minority Report: 18 Classic Stories

  "It's really very simple," Fermeti explained to Tozzo and Gilly. "A pair of men will go back. They will be provided with forged identification showing them to be part of the nation-wide pre-cog organization... squares of cellophane-enclosed paper which are pinned to the coat lapel. Naturally, they will be wearing twentieth century garments. They will locate Poul Anderson, single him out and draw him off to one side."

  "And tell him what?" Tozzo said skeptically.

  "That they represent an unlicensed amateur pre-cog organization in Battlecreek, Michigan, and that they have constructed an amusing vehicle built to resemble a time-travel dredge of the future. They will ask Mr. Anderson, who was actually quite famous in his time, to pose by their humbug dredge, and then they will ask for a shot of him within. Our research shows that, according to his contemporaries, Anderson was mild and easy-going, and also that at these yearly top-strategy assemblies he often became convivial enough to enter into the mood of optimism generated by his fellow pre-cogs."

  Tozzo said, "You mean he sniffed what they called 'airplane dope'? He was a 'glue-sniffer'?"

  With a faint smile, Fermeti said, "Hardly. That was a mania among adolescents and did not become widespread in fact until a decade later. No, I am speaking about imbibing alcohol."

  "I see," Tozzo said, nodding.

  Fermeti continued, "In the area of difficulties, we must cope with the fact that at this top-secret session, Anderson brought along his wife Karen, dressed as a Maid of Venus in gleaming breast-cups, short skirt and helmet, and that he also brought their new-born daughter Astrid. Anderson himself did not wear any disguise for purposes of concealing his identity. He had no anxieties, being a quite stable person, as were most twentieth century pre-cogs.

  "However, during the discussion periods between formal sessions, the pre-cogs, minus their wives, circulating about, playing poker and arguing, some of them it is said stoning one another--"

  "Stoning?"

  "Or, as it was put, becoming stoned. In any case, they gathered in small groups in the antechambers of the hotel, and it is at such an occasion that we expect to nab him. In the general hubbub his disappearance would not be noted. We would expect to return him to that exact time, or at least no more than a few hours later or earlier... preferably not earlier because two Poul Andersons at the meeting might prove awkward."

  Tozzo, impressed, said, "Sounds foolproof."

  "I'm glad you like it," Fermeti said tartly, "because you will be one of the team sent."

  Pleased, Tozzo said, "Then I had better get started learning the details of life in the mid twentieth century." He picked up another issue of If. This one, May of 1971, had interested him as soon as he had seen it. Of course, this issue would not be known yet to the people of 1954 ... but eventually they would see it. And once having seen it they would never forget it...

  Ray Bradbury's first textbook to be serialized, he realized as he examined the journal. The Fisher of Men, it was called, and in it the great Los Angeles pre-cog had anticipated the ghastly Gutmanist political revolution which was to sweep the inner planets. Bradbury had warned against Gutman, but the warning had gone--of course--unheeded. Now Gutman was dead and the fanatical supporters had dwindled to the status of random terrorists. But had the world listened to Bradbury--

  "Why the frown?" Fermeti asked him. "Don't you want to go?"

  "Yes," Tozzo said thoughtfully. "But it's a terrible responsibility. These are no ordinary men."

  "That is certainly the truth," Fermeti said, nodding.

  III

  Twenty-four hours later, Aaron Tozzo stood surveying himself in his mid twentieth century clothing and wondering if Anderson would be deceived, if he actually could be duped into entering the dredge.

  The costume certainly was perfection itself. Tozzo had even been equipped with the customary waist-length beard and handlebar mustache so popular circa 1950 in the United States. And he wore a wig.

  Wigs, as everyone knew, had at that time swept the United States as the fashion note par excellence; men and women had both worn huge powdered perukes of bright colors, reds and greens and blues and of course dignified grays. It was one of the most amusing occurrences of the twentieth century.

  Tozzo's wig, a bright red, pleased him. Authentic, it had come from the Los Angeles Museum of Cultural History, and the curator had vouched for it being a man's, not a woman's. So the fewest possible chances of detection were being taken. Little risk existed that they would be detected as members of another, future culture entirely.

  And yet, Tozzo was still uneasy.

  However, the plan had been arranged; now it was time to go. With Gilly, the other member selected, Tozzo entered the time-dredge and seated himself at the controls. The Department of Archaeology had provided a full instruction manual, which lay open before him. As soon as Gilly had locked the hatch, Tozzo took the bull by the horns (a twentieth century expression) and started up the dredge.

  Dials registered. They were spinning backward into time, back to 1954 and the San Francisco Pre-Cog Congress.

  Beside him, Gilly practiced mid twentieth century phrases from a reference volume. "Diz muz be da blace..." Gilly cleared his throat. "Kilroy was here," he murmured. "Wha' hoppen? Like man, let's cut out; this ball's a drag." He shook his head. "I can't grasp the exact sense of these phrases," he apologized to Tozzo. "Twenty-three skidoo."

  Now a red light glowed; the dredge was about to conclude its journey. A moment later its turbines halted.

  They had come to rest on the sidewalk outside the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in downtown San Francisco.

  On all sides, people in quaint archaic costumes dragged along on foot. And, Tozzo saw, there were no monorails; all the visible traffic was surface-bound. What a congestion, he thought, as he watched the automobiles and buses moving inch by inch along the packed streets. An official in blue waved traffic ahead as best he could, but the entire enterprise, Tozzo could see, was an abysmal failure.

  "Time for phase two," Gilly said. But he, too, was gaping at the stalled surface vehicles. "Good grief," he said, "look at the incredibly short skirts of the women; why, the knees are virtually exposed. Why don't the women die of whisk virus?"

  "I don't know," Tozzo said, "but I do know we've got to get into the Sir Francis Drake Hotel."

  Carefully, they opened the port of the time-dredge and stepped out. And then Tozzo realized something. There had been an error. Already.

  The men of this decade were clean-shaven.

  "Gilly," he said rapidly, "we've got to shed our beards and mustaches." In an instant he had pulled Gilly's off, leaving his bare face exposed. But the wig; that was correct. All the men visible wore head-dress of some type; Tozzo saw few if any bald men. The women, too, had luxurious wigs ... or were they wigs? Could they perhaps be natural hair?

  In any case, both he and Gilly now would pass. Into the Sir Francis Drake, he said to himself, leading Gilly along.

  They darted lithely across the sidewalk--it was amazing how slowly the people of this time-period walked--and into the inexpressibly old-fashioned lobby of the hotel. Like a museum, Tozzo thought as he glanced about him. I wish we could linger... but they could not.

  "How's our identification?" Gilly said nervously. "Is it passing inspection?" The business with the facehair had upset him.

  On each of their lapels they carried the expertly made false identification. It worked. Presently they found themselves ascending by a lift, or rather elevator, to the correct floor.

  The elevator let them off in a crowded foyer. Men, all clean-shaven, with wigs or natural hair, stood in small clusters everywhere, laughing and talking. And a number of attractive women, some of them in garments called leotards, which were skin-tight, loitered about smilingly. Even though the styles of the times required their breasts to be covered, they were a sight to see.

  Sotto voce, Gilly said, "I am stunned. In this room are some of the--"

  "I know," Tozzo murmured. Their Project could wai
t, at least a little while. Here was an unbelievably golden opportunity to see these pre-cogs, actually to talk to them and listen to them...

  Here came a tall, handsome man in a dark suit that sparkled with tiny specks of some unnatural material, some variety of synthetic. The man wore glasses and his hair, everything about him, had a tanned, dark look. The name on his identification ... Tozzo peered.

  The tall, good-looking man was A. E. van Vogt.

  "Say," another individual, perhaps a pre-cog enthusiast, was saying to van Vogt, stopping him. "I read both versions of your World of Null A and I still didn't quite get that about it being him; you know, at the end. Could you explain that part to me? And also when they started into the tree and then just--"

  van Vogt halted. A soft smile appeared on his face and he said. "Well, I'll tell you a secret. I start out with a plot and then the plot sort of folds up. So then I have to have another plot to finish the rest of the story."

  Going over to listen, Tozzo felt something magnetic about van Vogt. He was so tall, so spiritual. Yes, Tozzo said to himself; that was the word, a healing spirituality. There was a quality of innate goodness which emanated from him.

  All at once van Vogt said, "There goes a man with my pants." And without a further word to the enthusiast, stalked off and disappeared into the crowd.

  Tozzo's head swam. To actually have seen and heard A. E. van Vogt--

  "Look," Gilly was saying, plucking at his sleeve. "That enormous, genial-looking man seated over there; that's Howard Browne, who edited the pre-cog journal Amazing at this time-period."

  "I have to catch a plane," Howard Browne was saying to anyone who would listen to him. He glanced about him in a worried anxiety, despite his almost physical geniality.

  "I wonder," Gilly said, "if Doctor Asimov is here."

  We can ask, Tozzo decided. He made his way over to one of the young women wearing a blonde wig and green leotards. "WHERE IS DOCTOR ASIMOV?" he asked clearly in the argot of the times.

  "Who's to know?" the girl said.

  "Is he here, miss?"

  "Naw," the girl said.

  Gilly again plucked at Tozzo's sleeve. "We must find Poul Anderson, remember? Enjoyable as it is to talk to this girl--"

  "I'm inquiring about Asimov," Tozzo said brusquely. After all, Isaac Asimov had been the founder of the entire twenty-first century positronic robot industry. How could he not be here?

  A burly outdoorish man strode by them, and Tozzo saw that this was Jack Vance. Vance, he decided, looked more like a big game hunter than anything else ... we must beware of him, Tozzo decided. If we got into any altercation Vance could take care of us easily.

  He noticed now that Gilly was talking to the blonde-wigged girl in the green leotards. "MURRAY LEINSTER?" Gilly was asking. "The man whose paper on parallel time is still at the very forefront of theoretical studies; isn't he--"

  "I dunno," the girl said, in a bored tone of voice.

  A group had gathered about a figure opposite them; the central person whom everybody was listening to was saying, "...all right, if like Howard Browne you prefer air travel, fine. But I say it's risky. I don't fly. In fact even riding in a car is dangerous. I generally lie down in the back." The man wore a short-cropped wig and a bow tie; he had a round, pleasant face but his eyes were intense.

  It was Ray Bradbury, and Tozzo started toward him at once.

  "Stop!" Gilly whispered angrily. "Remember what we came for."

  And, past Bradbury, seated at the bar, Tozzo saw an older, care-weathered man in a brown suit wearing small glasses and sipping a drink. He recognized the man from drawings in early Gernsback publications; it was the fabulously unique pre-cog from the New Mexico region, Jack Williamson.

  "I thought Legion of Time was the finest novel-length science-fiction work I ever read," an individual, evidently another pre-cog enthusiast, was saying to Jack Williamson, and Williamson was nodding in pleasure.

  "That was originally going to be a short story," Williamson said. "But it grew. Yes, I like that one, too."

  Meanwhile Gilly had wandered on, into an adjoining room. He found, at a table, two women and a man in deep conversation. One of the women, dark-haired and handsome, with bare shoulders, was--according to her identification plate--Evelyn Paige. The taller woman he discovered was the renowned Margaret St. Clair, and Gilly at once said:

  "Mrs. St. Clair, your article entitled The Scarlet Hexapodin the September 1959 was one of the finest--" And then he broke off.

  Because Margaret St. Clair had not written that yet. Knew in fact nothing about it. Flushing with nervousness, Gilly backed away.

  "Sorry," he murmured. "Excuse me; I became confused."

  Raising an eyebrow, Margaret St. Clair said, "In the September 1959 issue, you say? What are you, a man from the future?"

  "Droll," Evelyn Paige said, "but let's continue." She gave Gilly a hard stare from her black eyes. "Now Bob, as I understand what you're saying--" She addressed the man opposite her, and Gilly saw now to his delight that the dire-looking cadaverous individual was none other than Robert Bloch.

  Gilly said, "Mr. Bloch, your article in Galaxy: Sabbatical, was--"

  "You've got the wrong person, my friend," Robert Bloch said. "I never wrote any piece entitled Sabbatical."

  Good Lord, Gilly realized. I did it again; Sabbatical is another work which has not been written yet. I had better get away from here. He moved back toward Tozzo... and found him standing rigidly.

  Tozzo said, "I've found Anderson."

  At once, Gilly turned, also rigid.

  Both of them had carefully studied the pictures provide by the Library of Congress. There stood the famous pre-cog, tall and slender and straight, even a trifle thin, with curly hair--or wig--and glasses, a warm glint of friendliness in his eyes. He held a whiskey glass in one hand, and he was discoursing with several other pre-cogs. Obviously he was enjoying himself.

  "Urn, uh, let's see," Anderson was saying, as Tozzo and Gilly came quietly up to join the group. "Pardon?" Anderson cupped his ear to catch what one of the other pre-cogs was saying. "Oh, uh, yup, that's right." Anderson nodded. "Yup, Tony, uh, I agree with you one hundred per cent."

  The other pre-cog, Tozzo realized, was the superb Tony Boucher, whose pre-cognition of the religious revival of the next century had been almost supernatural. The word-by-word description of the Miracle in the Cave involving the robot... Tozzo gazed at Boucher with awe, and then he turned back to Anderson.

  "Poul," another pre-cog said. "I'll tell you how the Italians intended to get the British to leave if they did invade in 1943. The British would stay at hotels, the best, naturally. The Italians would overcharge them."

  "Oh, yes, yes," Anderson said, nodding and smiling, his eyes twinkling. "And then the British, being gentlemen, would say nothing--"

  "But they'd leave the next day," the other pre-cog finished, and all in the group laughed, except for Gilly and Tozzo.

  "Mr. Anderson," Tozzo said tensely, "we're from an amateur pre-cog organization at Battlecreek, Michigan and we would like to photograph you beside our model of a time-dredge."

  "Pardon?" Anderson said, cupping his ear.

  Tozzo repeated what he had said, trying to be audible above the background racket. At last Anderson seemed to understand.

  "Oh, um, well, where is it?" Anderson asked obligingly.

  "Downstairs on the sidewalk," Gilly said. "It was too heavy to bring up."

  "Well, uh, if it won't take too awfully long," Anderson said, "which I doubt it will." He excused himself from the group and followed after them as they started toward the elevator.

  "It's steam-engine building time," a heavy-set man called to them as they passed. "Time to build steam engines, Poul."

  "We're going downstairs," Tozzo said nervously.

  "Walk downstairs on your heads," the pre-cog said. He waved goodbye goodnaturedly, as the elevator came and the three of them entered it.

  "Kris is jolly today," Anderson
said.

  "And how," Gilly said, using one of his phrases.

  "Is Bob Heinlein here?" Anderson asked Tozzo as they descended. "I understand he and Mildred Clingerman went off somewhere to talk about cats and nobody has seen them come back."

  "That's the way the ball bounces," Gilly said, trying out another twentieth century phrase.

  Anderson cupped his ear, smiled hesitantly, but said nothing.

  At last, they emerged on the sidewalk. At the sight of their time-dredge, Anderson blinked in astonishment.

  "I'll be gosh darned," he said, approaching it. "That's certainly imposing. Sure, I'd, uh, be happy to pose beside it." He drew his lean, angular body erect, smiling that warm, almost tender smile that Tozzo had noticed before. "Uh, how's this?" Anderson inquired, a little timidly.

  With an authentic twentieth century camera taken from the Smithsonian, Gilly snapped a picture. "Now inside," he requested, and glanced at Tozzo.

  "Why, uh, certainly," Poul Anderson said, and stepped up the stairs and into the dredge. "Gosh, Karen would, uh, like this," he said as he disappeared inside. "I wish to heck she'd come along."

  Tozzo followed swiftly. Gilly slammed the hatch shut, and, at the control board, Tozzo, with the instruction manual in hand, punched buttons.

  The turbines hummed, but Anderson did not seem to hear them; he was engrossed in staring at the controls, his eyes wide.

  "Gosh," he said.

  The time-dredge passed back to the present, with Anderson still lost in his scrutiny of the controls.

  IV

  Fermeti met them. "Mr. Anderson," he said, "this is an incredible honor." He held out his hand, but now Anderson was peering through the open hatch past him, at the city beyond; he did not notice the offered hand.