couldn't take any chances," apologized the elevatoroperator, "it might really have _been_ an emergency."
It wasn't raining in New York that day, so he was able to get a cabimmediately. He took it to his parking lot and roared off from there. Hesped through the city traffic, incurring the widespread wrath anddisapproval of the police department. A patrol car caught up with him onGrand Central Parkway and forced him off the road. He explained who hewas and that a madman was threatening to kill his wife, no, not _his_wife, the madman's wife, and that he didn't have time to sit here andtalk about it. The police officer told him to follow him, and, sirenblazing, they roared off once again.
It occurred to both of them nearly simultaneously that Victor couldn'tpossibly follow the police officer, it had to be the other way around,and so Victor took the lead, the red siren hanging on behind. But whenVictor left the parkway he saw in his mirror no flashing red light,somewhere he had lost the police. He touched the brake a second, for thefirst time in the past fifteen minutes, then accelerated again andhurried on. He had not the time to wait.
The door to the Fairfield's home was unlocked and he burst in withoutringing. "Mimi," he cried, then, hearing vague noises from the upstairsbedroom, he hurried there.
* * * * *
He didn't find Mimi there. Donald Fairfield was alone in the bedroom,and the bedroom was a mess, and there was a gun in Donald Fairfield'shand.
Victor stopped in the doorway, a gas pain shooting up his side. Hethought at that moment, inanely, he should play more handball.
"Galileo," Donald Fairfield said, "it came to me just a few moments ago.Galileo. It was on the tip of my tongue all the time, I just couldn'tthink of it. What were we saying about him, do you remember? Whatbrought it up?"
Victor braced himself up against the doorway, breathing hard. He staredat the gun in Donald's hand. Donald followed his gaze down his side tothe gun, and seemed surprised when he saw it. "Oh, yes. She's in thebathroom," he said, waving his gun towards the closed door. "She'slocked the door."
Victor belched.
"For God's sake," said Donald. "There's a time and a place foreverything."
Victor crossed to the door. "Mimi," he called. "Mimi, it's me, Victor."
The lock clicked, the door opened, and Mimi walked out and foldedherself into his arms. He held her until she stopped shaking, then untilhe himself stopped shaking and until his breath came more easily. Hekept all the while his back toward Donald and the gun, and his armsfolded around her so that she was safe from him. Then he turned andcalmly as he could, he asked what in the holy hell was going on.
"He wants me to go back with him, right now," Mimi said. She wasshivering in his arms. "I'm not going, I'm not going with him."
"Of course, you're not," Victor said. He turned back to Donald. "What'sthe rush all of a sudden?" he asked. "What's the big emergency?" hesmiled.
"Don't turn on the personality, Dr. Quink," Fairfield said. "It's toocomplicated to explain, but time's run out on us. We've got to gotonight, and I'm taking her with me dead or alive, I don't give a damnwhich way anymore, she's coming with me dead or alive."
Victor let go of Mimi and took a step toward him, but the hand with thegun came up and gun was pointed straight at him, and the voice was flatand tired and desperate, "I can't leave her here, you can see what itwould mean. They're very strict about time traveling, they have to be,and she can't stay here. She hasn't lost her memory, she knows damnedwell where she comes from, and she's going back now, one way or theother. I don't know what'll happen to me when we get back if I kill her,but it's my decision and I can't let her stay behind, no matter what."His voice started to rise and the words began to come faster. He wasworking himself up dangerously near the breaking point.
"If you'll just calm down for a few moments," Victor tried, "I'm sure wecan talk this out sensibly enough."
"It won't work, Dr. Quink, it won't work. You're trying to talk it outlike I'm nuts, you're trying to reassure me, but it won't work becauseyou can't. Because I'm _not_ nuts! I'm telling the truth and she knowsit! Damn you, Mimi, tell him!"
* * * * *
"All right! All right, I'll tell him," she cried. "And I'll tell you,too. And I'm not going back with you, you'll see. Because I planned thisfrom the start. My God, what a day," she sighed, and sat down on thebed. "Now listen, both of you, you, too, Donald, because you don't knowit all either."
"He's not crazy, Victor, we do come from the future. I was reading aboutall the Nobel prize winners, darling, and of course, I came across you,and right from the beginning you fascinated me. Do you know you were thefirst psychiatrist ever to win the award, and then you won it twice?Oh, I can tell you, I was terribly impressed! And when I saw yourpicture, you know the one, the portrait by Videl in the Museum ofAncient--oh, but of course, it hasn't been done yet. You have graysideburns then, and there's not a touch of gray in your hair now.Anyway, you look absolutely distinguished with gray, it's certainly yourcolor. And I thought you were just the handsomest Nobel winner I hadever seen, and darling, you are, not the slightest doubt about it. Don'tyou think so, Donald?"
"He's charming," Donald replied. "Just terribly, terribly charming.Would you mind getting on with it?"
"Please," Victor started to interrupt.
"Don't be modest, darling," Mimi went on. "So then I read a biography,and then another, and soon I was doing nothing but studying you. I fellin love with you, dear, I fell in love with you a thousand years afteryou were dead. You never married, you know, and you needed me, and Iguess that helped, but at any rate I fell, and I fell all the way.
"We're not married, Donald and I. There's no sex then, so there's noneed for marriage. Right, Donald? Right. But he was coming here onvacation and he was nice enough to take me along, and we had to fit in,so we came as husband and wife. Just a matter of convenience, really.But then we were here for all those months, and I didn't get to meetyou, and something about this age just got into my bones, I loved it so,people really _live_ now, not like back home. And I nearly forgot aboutyou, Victor dear, although I can't understand that now, and all I wantedwas to live here like a normal person, a normal wife. But _he_ couldn'tunderstand that. At any rate, I went native, I went whole hog native.
"And then it was time to go home. But I wasn't going. So I made up thisstory about forgetting everything and I pretended I thought he was nutsor something and he went and got you and suddenly there you were in myliving room and it all came back, darling, it came back so fast andstrong I thought I'd die on the spot. And I love you now, darling, Ilove you now and forever, and I won't go back alive, I swear that."
* * * * *
"Mimi," Donald begged, "think of the future. If you don't go back it'llbe all upset. We can't have people just popping up in the past from thefuture, there has to be discipline. It's one thing to come here quietlyfor a few months of harmless vacation, and then just as quietly todisappear. But to settle down brazenly in another time, to ... toimmigrate, as it were, well, it just can't be done. There's noprecedent, just none at all. _No_body would think of doing such a thing.Why, who knows what would happen if you stayed here? It could upset thewhole pattern of the future!"
"The future will just have to take care of itself," Mimi answered. "Ilove him, and you can't argue with that. There's nothing you can saythat can argue with that. I don't care poof for the future."
* * * * *
Victor sat down quietly on the edge of the bed, he felt a bit weakaround the general vicinity of the knees. Mimi stood up and strode overto the window, her back to the conversation. "Mimi," Donald pleaded,"just think of what you're doing. You'll lose your immortality, for onething. You know, it's not something you're just _born_ with, it's theresult of careful medical science. Why, almost _any_thing could happento you here. They have all _sorts_ of ugly diseases. And if you shouldlast just a few years longer, just maybe fifty or sixty more years, you
rheart will almost certainly pop off. They don't have any sort ofarterial rejuvenation now, nothing at all. You're trading immortalityfor a mere _moment_."
"I don't give a damn or a wild pig's snort," she replied.
"Don't be vulgar," Donald said. "Let's keep this on a civilized plane."
"That's not vulgarity," she answered. "It's poetry. 'I don't give a damnor a wild pig's snort, but you cut just one strand and the fashions bedamned, I swear that I'll boil three in lime!'"
"Lime?" Victor asked rather weakly.
"I think so, dear," Mimi said. "Would you care for a martini?"
"How about the toilet!" Donald suddenly thundered. "How about _that_,hey?"
"I beg your pardon," Mimi replied.
"The toilets, the toilets," he repeated impatiently. "Do you want tospend the rest of your short life with this old-fashioned plumbing?" Hewaved wildly toward the tile bathroom. "It's all right roughing it for afew months like we did, but can you honestly imagine spending the restof your _life_ under such vile conditions? Ha, you didn't think of that,did you?" he continued when he saw the sudden stricken expression on herface. "You don't like the idea, do you?"
Mimi clenched her fists at her side and stamped her little foot. "Idon't _care_," she spit out, "I absolutely do not care! I will stay withhim, I will, I will, I _will_." She turned and looked at the bathroomthat opened off the bedroom, and blanched for one moment, then she shuther eyes, gave another kick, and insisted. "I will, I will, I will!"
* * * * *
Donald sighed and slapped his hands at his side. He turned around,hesitated for a few seconds, then said to the wall, "I've tried. I'vetried everything I could think of." He turned again and faced them, andhe raised his gun. "You're coming, Mimi. One way or another, you'recoming."
So quietly he hardly realized what he was doing, but thankful that thegas pain had vanished, Victor stepped between the gun and the girl."You'll have to kill me, Donald," he said. "You won't take her out ofhere without killing me, I promise you that, and what will that do toyour future? A man from the future killing somebody here? Oh, no,that'll upset everything. And before I've become famous? Your wholehistory will be changed. You'd better think twice, Donald."
The gun wavered, and lowered.
"Would you care for a martini, Donald, dear?" Mimi asked.
Donald turned and ran from the room. They heard his feet slipping downthe stairs, they heard the front door slam behind him.
Victor started after him, but Mimi held him back. "What are you going todo," she cried, "chase after him? What will you do when you catch him?You're needed more here. After all," she continued, "think what I justwent through? I'm a nervous wreck, almost getting carted off to Godknows where like that. I need the care of a competent physician."
He turned back to her in a daze, she clucked and patted his cheek, andpushed him down onto the bed. She pulled out his handkerchief and moppedhis face. "Aren't you proud of me?" she said. "Wasn't that fastthinking? How did you like that little story I told? It really threwhim, didn't it? He didn't know _what_ to think."
"You mean," Victor stammered, "you mean you didn't mean it, you justmade it up? Just like that?"
"Darling," she began to giggle, "you didn't bel_ieve_ that wild story?About the future? Oh, _darling_, you couldn't possibly believe it."
"Of course not," he said. "Of course not. Quick thinking, Mimi, yes,very quick thinking. It _was_ a convincing story, you know. Very good.But, my God! I've got to catch him."
"Don't be silly," she said, pushing him down. "You'll never find him,you'll never see him again. He'll be lost in the crowd. One morescrewball in New York, they'll never notice him. He'll fit right in. Hemay even become President some day, or at least Dean of Students at somesmall New England College. You just take my word for it, darling, andrelax a moment. I'll rush downstairs and bring you up a martini. Wedeserve one. He'll be all right now. As long as he's made up his mindthat he can leave me here, he'll trot off somewhere and dig up anotherneurosis, or psychosis, or whatever. He's not dangerous anymore. And youheard him say we were never married, and we have no marriagecertificate, so I guess we're not. Can't we just forget about him, justas if he never existed? Maybe he never _did_ exist. Maybe he was just afigment of our imagination. Maybe he was just an instrument of kismet tobring us together. Maybe he was just a wandering minstrel, or a memorylooking for a chance to be real?"
"Maybe you'd better not talk so much, but just bring up the martini.Better bring a pitcher. Green ones."
And so she did. Their first honeymoon they spent in Bermuda; they tooktheir second on a trip to Sweden ten years later, when Victor went toaccept his first Nobel prize.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ April 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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