Now Wait for Last Year

  “I’ll request administrative assistance,” the cab said. “From top-level dispatching service at New York. Just a moment.” It was silent for a time. “Miss, there is no top-level dispatching service at New York, or if there is, I can’t raise them.”

  “Is there anything at New York?”

  “Radio stations, lots of them. But no TV transmissions or anything on the FM band or ultra-high frequency; nothing on the band we use. Currently I am picking up a radio station which is broadcasting something entitled ‘Mary Marlin.’ A piano piece by Debussy is being played as theme.”

  She knew her history; after all she was an antique collector and it was her job. “Put it on your audio system so I can hear it,” she instructed.

  A moment later she heard a female voice, detailing a wretched tale of suffering to some other female, a dreary account at best. And yet it filled Kathy with frantic excitement.

  They’re wrong, she thought, her mind working at its peak pitch. This won’t destroy me. They forgot this era is my specialty—I know it as well as the present. There’s nothing threatening or disintegrative about this experience for me; in fact it’s an opportunity.

  “Leave the radio on,” she told the cab. “And just keep flying.” Attentively, she listened to the soap opera as the cab continued on.

  8

  It had—against nature and reason—become daytime. And the autonomic cab knew the impossibility of this; its voice was screechy with pain as it exclaimed to Kathy, “On the highway below, miss! An ancient car that can’t possibly exist!” It sank lower. “See for yourself! Look!”

  Gazing down, Kathy agreed, “Yes. A 1932 Model A Ford. And I agree with you; there haven’t been any Model A Fords for generations.” Rapidly and with precision she reflected, then said, “I want you to land.”

  “Where?” Decidedly, the autonomic cab did not like the idea.

  “That village ahead. Land on a rooftop there.” She felt calm. But in her mind one realization dominated: it was the drug. And only the drug. This would last only so long as the drug operated within her cycle of brain metabolism; JJ-180 had brought her here without warning and JJ-180 would, eventually, return her to her own time—also without warning. “I am going to find a bank,” Kathy said aloud. “And set up a savings account. By doing so—” And then she realized that she possessed no currency of this period; hence there existed no way by which she could transact business. So what could she do? Nothing? Call President Roosevelt and caution him about Pearl Harbor, she decided caustically. Change history. Suggest that years from now they not develop the atom bomb.

  She felt impotent—and yet overwhelmed with her potential power; she experienced both sensations at once, finding the mixture radically unpleasant. Bring some artifact back to the present for Wash-35? Or check on some research quibble, settle some historical dispute? Snare the actual authentic Babe Ruth, bring him back to inhabit our Martian enterprise? It would certainly impart verisimilitude.

  “Virgil Ackerman,” she said slowly, “is alive in this period as a small boy. Does that suggest anything?”

  “No,” the cab said.

  “It gives me enormous power over him.” She opened her purse. “I’ll give him something. The coins I have, bills.” Whisper to him the date the United States enters the war, she thought. He can use that knowledge later on, somehow … he’ll find a way; he’s always been smart, much smarter than I. God, she thought, if only I could put my finger on it! Tell him to invest in what? General Dynamics? Bet on Joe Louis in every fight? Buy real estate in Los Angeles? What do you tell an eight-or nine-year-old boy when you have exact and complete knowledge of the next hundred and twenty years?

  “Miss,” the cab said plaintively, “we’ve been in the air so long that I’m running short of fuel.”

  Chilled, she said, “But you ought to be good for fifteen hours.”

  “I was low.” It admitted this reluctantly. “It’s my fault; I’m sorry. I was on my way to a service station when you contacted me.”

  “You damn fool mechanism,” she said with fury. But that was that; they couldn’t reach Washington, D.C.; they were at least a thousand miles from it. And this period, of course, lacked the high-grade super-refined protonex which the cab required. And then all at once she knew what she had to do. The cab had given her the idea, unintentionally. Protonex was the finest fuel ever developed—and it was derived from sea water. All she had to do was mail a container of protonex to Virgil Ackerman’s father, instruct him to procure an analysis of it and then a patent on it.

  But there was no way she could mail anything, not without money to buy stamps. In her purse she had a small wad of dog-eared postage stamps, but of course all from her own era, from 2055. ——, she said furiously to herself, overwhelmed. Here I have it right before me, the solution as to what I should do—and I can’t do it.

  “How,” she asked the cab, “can I send a letter in this time period with no contemporary stamps? Tell me that.”

  “Send the letter unstamped, with no return address, miss. The post office will deliver it with a postage due stamp attached.”

  “Yes,” she said, “of course.” But she could not get protonex into a first-class envelope; it would have to go parcel post, and in that class, lacking franking power, it would not be delivered. “Listen,” she said. “Do you have any transistors in your circuits?”

  “A few. But transistors became obsolete when—”

  “Give me one. I don’t care what it does to you; yank it out and let me have it, and the smaller it is the better.”

  Presently, from the slot in the back of the seat before her, a transistor rolled; she caught it as it fell.

  “That puts my radio transmitter out of service,” the cab complained. “I’ll have to bill you for it; it’ll be expensive because of—”

  “Shut up,” Kathy said. “And land in that town; get down as soon as you can.” She wrote hurriedly on the tablet of paper: “This is a radio part from the future, Virgil Ackerman. Show it to no one but save it until the early 1940s. Then take it to Westinghouse Corp. or to General Electric or any electronics (radio) firm. It will make you rich. I am Katherine Sweetscent. Remember me for this, later on.”

  The cab landed gingerly on the roof of an office building in the center of the small town. Below on the sidewalk the rustic, archaic-looking passersby gaped.

  “Land on the street,” Kathy reinstructed the cab. “I have to put this in the mail.” She found an envelope in her purse, hurriedly wrote out Virgil’s address in Wash-35, put the transistor and note into the envelope and sealed it. Below them the street with its obsolete old cars rose slowly.

  A moment later she was racing to a mailbox; she deposited the letter and then stood gasping for breath.

  She had done it. Insured Virgil’s economic future and therefore her own. This would make his career and hers forever.

  The hell with you, Eric Sweetscent, she said to herself. I don’t ever have to marry you now; I’ve left you behind.

  And then she realized with dismay, I’ve still got to marry you in order to acquire the name. So that Virgil can identify me, later on in the future, in our own time. What she had done, then, came to exactly nothing.

  Slowly, she returned to the parked cab.

  “Miss,” the cab said, “can you help me find fuel, please?”

  “You won’t find any fuel here,” Kathy said. Its obstinate refusal—or inability—to grasp the situation maddened her. “Unless you can run on sixty octane gasoline, which I very much doubt.”

  A passerby, a middle-aged man wearing a straw hat, frozen in his tracks by the sight of the autonomic cab, called to her, “Hey lady, what’s that, anyhow? A US Marine Corps secret weapon for war games?”

  “Yes,” Kathy answered. “And in addition later on it’ll stop the Nazis.” As she boarded the cab she said to the group of people who had cautiously formed around the cab at a safe distance, “Keep the date December 7,1941, in mind; it’ll be a day to remem
ber.” She closed the cab door. “Let’s go. I could tell those people so much … but it seems hardly worth it. A bunch of Middle Western hicks.” This town, she decided, lay either in Kansas or Missouri, from the looks of it. Frankly, it repelled her.

  The cab dutifully ascended.

  The ’Starmen should see Kansas in 1935, she said to herself. If they did they might not care to take over Terra; it might not seem worth it.

  To the cab she said, “Land in a pasture. We’ll sit it out until we’re back in our own time period.” It probably would not be long now; she had an impression of a devouring in-substantiality here in this era—the reality outside the cab had gained a gaseous quality which she recognized from her previous encounter with the drug.

  “Are you joking?” the cab said. “Is it actually possible that we—”

  “The problem,” she said tartly, “is not in returning to our own time; the problem is finding a way to stay under the drug’s influence until something of worth can be accomplished.” The time was just not long enough.

  “What drug, miss?”

  “None of your goddam business,” Kathy said. “You nosy autonomic nonentity with your big prying circuits all opened up and flapping.” She lit a cigarette and leaned back against the seat, feeling weary. It had been a tough day and she knew, with acuity, that more lay ahead.

  The sallow-faced young man, who oddly enough already possessed a conspicuous paunch, as if physically yielding to the more lush pleasures at this, the planet’s financial and political capital, shook Eric Sweetscent’s hand damply and said, “I’m Don Festenburg, doctor. It’s good to hear you’re joining us. How about an old-fashioned?”

  “No thanks,” Eric said. There was something about Festenburg which he did not care for but he could not put his finger on it. Despite his obesity and bad complexion Festenburg seemed friendly enough, and certainly he was competent; the latter alone counted, after all. But—Eric pondered as he watched Festenburg mix himself his drink. Perhaps it’s because I don’t think anyone should speak for the Secretary, he decided. I’d resent anyone who holds the job Festenburg does.

  “Since we’re alone,” Festenburg said, glancing around the room, “I’d like to suggest something that may make me more palatable to you.” He grinned knowingly. “I can tell what your feelings are; I’m sensitive, doctor, even if I’m the pyknic body-type. Suppose I suggested that an elaborate ruse has been carried off successfully, convincing even you. The flabby, aging, utterly discouraged and hypochondriacal Gino Molinari whom you’ve met and accepted as the authentic UN Secretary—” Festenburg lazily stirred his drink, eyeing Eric. “That’s the robant simulacrum. And the robust, energetic figure you witnessed on video tape a short while ago is the living man. And this ruse must necessarily be maintained, of course, to sidetrack no one else but our beloved ally, the ’Starmen.”

  “What?” Startled, he gaped. “Why would—”

  “The ’Starmen consider us harmless, unworthy of their military attention, only so long as our leader is palpably feeble. Quite visibly unable to discharge his responsibilities—in other words, in no sense a rival to them, a threat.”

  After a pause Eric said, “I don’t believe this.”

  “Well,” Festenburg said, shrugging, “it’s an interesting idea from the ivory tower, intellectual standpoint. Don’t you agree?” He walked toward Eric, swirling the contents of his glass. Standing very close to him, Festenburg breathed his noxious breath into Eric’s face and said, “It could be. And until you actually subject Gino to an intensive physical examination you won’t know, because everything in that file you read—it could all be faked. Designed to validate a gross, well-worked-out swindle.” His eyes twinkled with merciless amusement. “You think I’m out of my mind? I’m just playing, like a schizoid, with ideas for the fun of it, without regard to their actual consequences? Maybe so. But you can’t prove what I just now told you is untrue, and as long as this remains the case—” He took a massive swallow of his drink, then made a face. “Don’t deplore what you saw on that Ampex video tape. Okay?”

  “But as you say,” Eric said, “I’ll know as soon as I have a chance to examine him.” And, he thought, that will come soon. “So if you’ll excuse me I’d like to end this conversation. I haven’t yet had time to set up my conapt here satisfactorily.”

  “Your wife—what’s her name? Kathy?—isn’t coming, is she?” Don Festenburg winked. “You can enjoy yourself. I’m in a position to give you a hand. That’s my department, the land of the illicit, the feral, and the—let’s just call it the peculiar. Instead of the unnatural. But you come from Tijuana; I probably can’t teach you a thing.”

  Eric said, “You can teach me to deplore not only what I saw on the video tape but—” He broke off. Festenburg’s personal life was, after all, his own business.

  “But its creator as well,” Festenburg finished for him. “Doctor, did you know that in the Middle Ages the ruling courts had people who lived in bottles, spent their entire lives … all shrunken, of course, put in while babies, allowed to grow—to some extent, anyhow—within the bottle. We don’t have that now. However—Cheyenne is the contemporary ranking seat of kings; there are a few sights that could be shown you, if you’re interested. Perhaps from the purely medical standpoint—a sort of professional, disinterested—”

  “I think whatever it is you want to show me would only make me less pleased with my decision to come to Cheyenne,” Eric said. “So frankly I don’t see what profit it would serve.”

  “Wait,” Festenburg said, holding up his hand. “One item. Just this particular exhibit, all properly sealed hermetically, bathed in a solution that maintains the thing ad infinitum, or, as you probably will prefer, ad nauseam. May I take you there? It’s in what we at the White House call room 3-C.” Festenburg walked to the door, held it open for Eric.

  After a pause Eric followed.

  Hands in the pockets of his rumpled, unpressed trousers, Festenburg led the way down one corridor after another until at last they stood on a subsurface level, facing two high-ranking Secret Service men stationed at a metal reinforced door marked TOP SECRET. NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL PERMITTED.

  “I’m authorized,” Festenburg said genially. “Gino’s given me the run of the warren; he has great trust in me, and because of this you’re going to see a state secret which you normally would never in a thousand years be allowed to view.” As he passed by the uniformed Secret Service men and pushed open the door he added, “However, there will be one disappointing aspect of this; I’m going to show it to you but not explain it. I’d like to explain it but—very simply I can’t.”

  In the center of the murky, cold room Eric saw a casket. As Festenburg had said, it was hermetically sealed; a pump throbbed dully, at its task of maintaining at extreme low temperatures whatever lay within the casket.

  “Look at it,” Festenburg said sharply.

  Deliberately pausing, Eric lit a cigarette, then walked over.

  In the casket, supine, lay Gino Molinari, his face locked in agony. He was dead. Blood could be seen, dried drops on his neck. His uniform was torn, stained with mud. Both hands were lifted, the fingers writhing, as if trying even now to fight back at whatever—whoever—it was that had murdered him. Yes, Eric thought. I’m seeing the results of an assassination; this is the leader’s corpse, flailed with bullets emanating from a weapon with notably high muzzle velocity; the man’s body had been twisted, almost torn apart. It had been a savage assault. And—successful.

  “Well,” Festenburg said, after a time, taking in a deep rush of breath, “there are several ways this item—which I like to think of as Exhibit One of the Cheyenne Freak Show—can be explained. Let’s assume it’s a robant. Waiting here in the wings for the moment that Gino needs it. Built by GRS Enterprises, the inventive Dawson Cutter, whom you must meet someday.”

  “Why would Molinari need this?”

  Festenburg, scratching his nose, said, “Several reasons. In case of an
attempted assassination—one which failed—this could be exhibited, taking the heat off Gino while he hid out. Or—it could be for the benefit of our sanguine ally; Gino may have it in the back of his mind that some incredibly complex, baroque plan will be necessary, something involving his retirement from office under the pressure they’re exerting on him.”

  “You’re sure this is a robant?” To Eric the thing in the casket looked real.

  “I don’t even think it is, let alone know.” Festenburg jerked his head and Eric saw that the two Secret Service men had entered the room; obviously it would not be possible to inspect the corpse.

  “How long has it been here?”

  “Only Gino knows and he won’t say; he just smiles slyly. ‘You wait, Don,’ he says in his secretive fashion. ‘I got a big use for it.’ ”

  “And if it’s not a robant—”

  “Then it’s Gino Molinari lying there ripped apart by machine-gun slugs. A primitive, outmoded weapon but it certainly can kill its victim beyond the possibility of even org-trans repair; you can see that the brain case has been punctured—the brain is destroyed. If it is Gino, then where’s it from? The future? There is a theory, having to do with your firm, TF&D. A subsidiary has developed a drug which permits its user to move freely in time. You know about that?” He studied Eric intently.

  “No,” Eric admitted. The rumor was more or less new to him.

  “Anyhow, here’s this corpse,” Festenburg said. “Lying here day after day, driving me nuts. Perhaps it’s from an alternate present in which Gino has been assassinated, driven out of office the hard way by a splinter political group of Terrans backed by Lilistar. But there’s a further ramification of this theory, one which really haunts me.” Festenburg’s tone now was somber; he was no longer in a joking mood. “That would imply something about the virile, strutting Gino Molinari who made that video tape; that’s not a robant either and GRS Enterprises did not manufacture it because it too is an authentic Gino Molinari from an alternate present. One in which war didn’t come about, one perhaps in which Terra didn’t even get mixed up with Lilistar. Gino Molinari has gone into a more reassuring world and plucked his healthy counterpart over here to assist him. What do you think, doctor? Could that be it?”