by Jean Rabe
Inside the dim workshop, Bill studied Gutenberg’s clumsy looking printing press, a cumbersome gadget whose design was based on an old wine press. Gutenberg’s workers would line up the small wooden letter blocks in the tracks, use an ink roller, and then crank down the press upon each sheet of paper.
The next page of Gutenberg’s Bible had been set up for the following day’s printing. He took a quick snapshot with his imaging device so that he could reassemble the letters when he was done, though he didn’t understand many of the German words or the too-fancy type style. “Quickly, his fingers rattling the wooden blocks by the glow of his flashlight, he slid all the words off into a tray, and then painstakingly mounted his own letters, his own text.
“Afraid of flying? The high cost of gas got you down? Want to really get away? Step into our perfectly safe time-travel device and find yourself in exotic historical locations. Adventure and mystery guaranteed, danger definitely possible. It’ll be the experience of a lifetime—of anyone’s lifetime.”
The process of setting the letters was tedious, but authenticity was the most important thing. If Mr. Jacobsen advertized that his clients would experience real history, then the brochure had to be the real thing. Fortunately, all of his promotional text fit onto a single page, even with Gutenberg’s large letter blocks.
As payment, in addition to Bill’s standard fee, Timeshares had offered him an excursion to anyplace he chose, any time. He could witness the greatest events in history, meet the most important figures in all of human civilization. Instead, Bill had asked for a week in the most luxurious resort in Cancun on the Caribbean coast. He had his priorities.
When he had the appropriate words in place, he used a stiff ink roller to cover the printing surface with pasty ink. When it was ready, and before he could make a mess of things, he placed a sheet of clean papyrus on the flat block beneath the press and cranked down the letters, pushing hard to make a clear impression. Then he unscrewed the press, raised it up, and peeled off his sheet of papyrus.
The rough surface of the reeds made the impression blurry and weak in certain spots, but the letters were readable. With so few sheets of papyrus, he couldn’t afford to make many mistakes. Not perfect, but authentic. That was what Mr. Jacobsen wanted.
Timeshares clients would coo over the imperfections and would marvel at the difficulties that had been required just to make this flier. However, Bill didn’t think that the clients would be quite so forgiving of imperfections when they encountered glitches on their very expensive time-travel vacations. . . .
He balanced the flashlight where it would better illuminate the work area and put another piece of papyrus under the press, rolled the ink over the printing surface, squeezed down the block letters. He had to get through at least fifty sheets.
That Cancun resort was going to feel wonderful when he was done with this.
Bill finished printing the last sheet an hour before dawn. He didn’t think Mainz had a good coffee shop nearby, so he would have to return to the present for a good strong cup. Now it was time to put everything back in order in Gutenberg’s print shop.
He called up the digitized baseline image he had taken, referring to the biblical words he had disassembled. The verses weren’t familiar to him, especially not in old German. He plucked out the letters he had used for the Timeshares brochure and began to realign the sentences and verses on the page. Bill realized he was short on time, and he moved quickly, several times scrambling letters, which forced him to remove the little blocks and reassemble the words.
Outside the shop, he saw light in the street, a figure moving along. The segmented window glass in Gutenberg’s workplace was rippled and murky, but a man with a lantern was visible out there. A night watchman. He’d probably seen the glow of the flashlight inside the shop.
Bill had left the padlock dangling open on the door, and now the watchman rattled it, and then shouted, apparently calling for help. Bill nearly panicked, but he hurriedly added the last letters to the verses on that page.
The door creaked open, and the watchmen swung his lantern, illuminating the cluttered workshop. “Sorry, I was just leaving,” Bill said, grabbing his stack of papyrus sheets and stuffing them into the leather satchel.
The night watchman yelled something incomprehensible but indisputably German and indisputably furious. Bill shone the flashlight beam in the man’s face, blinding him, and grabbed for his locator device. He punched the panic button.
Back in the Timeshares control room, somebody would be watching (unless they were on a cigarette break). From the other end of the cobblestoned street, some of the drunken and surly oafs from the tavern came lurching along to help.
Bill punched the panic button again and again. When the big smelly men crowded the door, pushing their way to Gutenberg’s shop, Bill grabbed his flashlight, his locator, and his leather satchel with the printed brochures. He stepped back, putting the printing press between himself and the angry men.
Then he felt the flashing blue crackle around him, the dizziness and nausea, the taste of vinegar in the back of his throat.
And he found himself surrounded by clean, modern equipment and air that smelled of ozone rather than printing ink and cat piss.
Rolf Jacobsen met him outside of the field area, arms crossed over his chest and a proud look on his face. Once the Timeshares agency began to operate in full swing, Jacobsen planned to be more of a silent partner and not see off all travelers, but Bill knew that Jacobsen had a hunger for attention. Maybe he would come to watch; maybe he wouldn’t.
Bill let out a long sigh of relief and held out his leather satchel. “I have your brochures, Mr. Jacobsen. They turned out rather well.”
Jacobsen opened the satchel and withdrew one of the papyrus sheets, looking down at the printing, smudged one of the letters with his fingers.
“The ink will need to dry for some time, sir. Be careful.”
“We’ll digitize and print the other artwork and photos onto these. Authentic and perfect. Exactly what we want.” The leader of Timeshares gave a sincere smile. “Our project is just beginning, Bill.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jacobsen, but I am glad to be done with this project.”
The head of Timeshares had expected nothing else. “We will be happy to recommend your PR firm to many of our sister companies and investors.”
“Thank you, sir. I can always use the work. For now, I’d like to change out of these—” he frowned down at his heavy, scratchy clothes “—authentic period garments.”
Jacobsen gestured him toward the changing rooms. “Be my guest.”
Bill was glad he wouldn’t have to go back in time again. He had seen enough of history, and that last trip had been a little hair-raising. He’d been so rushed putting the wooden blocks back onto the page of Gutenberg’s Bible. Under such circumstances, perfect accuracy couldn’t be expected.
He went off to the changing area where a locker held his real-world clothes. In his hand he still held five of Gutenberg’s wooden blocks. In his rush to reassemble the page, he hadn’t had time to include the last word on the page, “nicht.” Just a little thing, but he didn’t know which Bible verse he had unintentionally altered.
Somehow, he had left out the word not. “Thou shalt” instead of “Thou shalt not.”
Oh well, he wondered if anyone would notice. That was for history to decide.
Timeless Lisa
Robert E. Vardeman
Robert E. Vardeman has written more than seventy science fiction, fantasy, and mystery novels. His most recent title is a novel in the Star Frontiers trilogy, The Genetic Menace. In addition to Timeshares, Vardeman’s short stories can be found in the recently published Stories from Desert Bob’s Reptile Ranch, which contains two dozen short stories collected from the past thirty years. Branching out into e-books, his work can be found on the iTunes store (at www.zapptek.com/legends) and at Amazon’s Kindle store. He currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his two cats, Isotop
e and X-ray. One out of three of them enjoy the high-tech hobby of geocaching. For more info, check out the author’s Web site at http://www.CenotaphRoad.com.
“You’ll be hit with severe diarrhea, maybe for a week,” the time tech said, never looking up as he made his way down the lengthy checklist scrolling on his handheld computer.
“I know,” Alexander Carrington said, shifting nervously. The stainless steel walls, ceiling, and cold, cold floor caused him to squint as light was reflected in all directions. Electrodes in every corner of the room focused on the spot where he stood. He wished the tech would turn up the temperature, though the freezing temperature might be required for the time transit. He didn’t know, and that bothered him. There was so much he didn’t know and everything looked different this time.
“I’ve taken some A- D.” He glanced at the satchel near his feet and felt sweat beading on his upper lip. He fought the urge to swipe it away, fearing he would draw unwanted attention to himself.
“Oh, yeah, right,” the tech said, still not looking up. “This is your second trip back. Must be nice. For what Timeshares pays me, I can’t afford a cup of fancy designer coffee, much less a month in 1519.”
“I’m a Renaissance scholar,” Alex said defensively. He fought the urge to clamp his eyes closed to prevent staring at his satchel. He could be thrown in jail for a long time if the tech found what was concealed in the false bottom. He would get an even longer sentence if he was caught on the way back with the real contraband.
“Yeah, see that. How come an Italian scholar is going to France?”
Crunch time. Alex had to sound convincing and unassuming. He had to lie through his teeth, yet it wasn’t a real lie.
“Leonardo da Vinci moved to France before his death. I need to document his last days and maybe even hear his last words. For posterity.”
“Yeah, for posterity.” The tech heaved a sigh and finally said, looking up, “You know the drill, but I have to go through it all. Or you can just sign here. Says you know about time disjunctions, the need for inertial masses to balance back and forth—doesn’t matter what, just that they do—and how you shouldn’t screw with major events.”
“What about minor ones?”
The tech shrugged. “Mr. Jacobsen is working that over with a team of physicists. Real top level stuff, but right now we haven’t noticed any time waves coming up against our secure little future shore. That’s the way one of them put it. I think it’s bullshit—excuse my French—because any change in the past would be incorporated into what we think is history. How’d we ever know?”
“Yes, how would we?”
“What’d you do?”
“What?” Alex glanced guiltily at his satchel with the exquisitely contrived copy of the Mona Lisa in it. Other than age, there was no way to tell the difference with a single glance—or even with a detailed analysis. If he had figured out the temporal loop properly, substituting his copy for the original would mean the one currently hanging in the Musée du Louvre was this copy—his copy. He blinked as he realized he should have marked the copy in some way to identify it. If he was successful, the mark would have shown up when he studied the Louvre painting, and nobody would have been the wiser. His copy would be the one the world thought was original. But he hadn’t and now it was too late. The last time he had studied the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, he had seen no special distinguishing mark such as he would have put on, so he didn’t dare put one on now. Or when he reached 1519.
“Before? What did you do on your first excursion? I don’t get a chance to talk to returnees. I only see that you’re off safely.”
“Yes, a woman . . .” Alex fought to keep from blurting out his plan to switch the paintings. Would this dolt even care?
“That must have been Jenna. She handles the scholarly types when you guys return. Billy Ray and Jacob get the rest and hear the hot stories. Lucky stiffs.”
“I thought you meant . . .” Alex wiped away the sweat, not caring if the time tech noticed his growing apprehension.
“Oh, so you scored back in time. Lemme see. Florence. A hot one? You found a hot Italian babe?”
Alex could only nod. His throat felt as if iron fingers were clamped around it and he couldn’t swallow. He looked again at his satchel. It hadn’t moved.
“You gotta tell me. Do they, you know, shave?”
“What?” Alex had not expected that question.
“Women shave their armpits and down there now, you know. Of course you do. I mean, back then? Did they?”
“Eyebrows,” Alex said, stunned he was answering. “They shaved the eyebrows. She was an elegant, charming noble lady.”
“Eyebrows? Go figure,” the time tech said, shaking his head. “What was her name?”
Alex Carrington felt as if he had been transported back in time again to see the wife of the silk and cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo. She had been married to a pig who had no concept of how to treat a woman of her intelligence and grace.
“Lisa,” he said before he realized the name had slipped from his lips again. “She was one of Leonardo’s models.”
“So you boffed her, huh? You didn’t knock her up or anything, did you?”
“No, of course not,” Alex said too hastily. “What a thing to accuse me of.” He tried to keep the fright from his words by covering them with mock outrage. If his calculations were accurate, Lisa’s fourth child was his. Francesco had been on a business trip to Genoa, leaving her alone in their veritable palace with no one to speak to, other than servants and Leonardo when he came to paint her. It had been easy accompanying the great artist and even easier striking up a friendship with a lonely, lovely woman.
His accent had intrigued her, and he had immediately accepted her offer to improve his Italian. She had been so skilled in so many things that it was a shame her husband ignored her so, probably for a mistress half the woman Lisa was.
“Well, since you’re going back to 1519 and France instead of Italy in 1503, you know about the potential for temporal divarication.” The tech saw him floundering and added, “We don’t want to deal with having two of you present at the same instant. That’s something else the physics types are working on.”
“What’d happen if I met myself?”
“It’s complicated. You build up a huge temporal energy charge returning in time. It’s not real energy, not like from a battery, but that’s the easiest way to think about it if you don’t have a dozen PhDs in math and stuff. Mostly, Mr. J doesn’t think there’s a problem, but we need to experiment some before letting customers try it.”
Bleakness gripped Alex. He wouldn’t see his beloved La Gioconda again, nor was he likely to see their child, Camilla. Alex put his hands to his temples as a headache began raging.
“You all right? We can postpone the transit.”
“I’m just excited,” Alex lied. “There’s too much to think about. All that temporal theory.”
“Don’t let it get you down. I don’t. Just enjoy your excursion. You have the remote?” The time tech nodded when Alex fumbled it out from under his period blouse. His hands shook. “Same as before. You have exactly one month and you’ll be automatically returned to this very spot. If you don’t press the blue button once a day, you’ll be returned. There’s a countdown timer on the screen now—that’s different from your first trip.”
“And the red panic button returns me right away,” Alex said.
“You trying to take my job?” The time tech grinned broadly. “Don’t catch some STD that antibiotics won’t cure and have fun.”
Alex would have protested such a comment if he hadn’t been worried about his real intentions. Don’t draw attention to yourself, he told himself over and over.
“Pick up your bag and clutch it to your chest,” the tech said, stepping back. “The temporal field takes about thirty seconds to build, and then you’ll be in France for thirty days unless you want to come back sooner.”
Alex nodded.
“
Your only worry will be about how to pay for the excursion. On the behalf of Timeshares, enjoy yourself!”
Alex’s knees buckled. Tiny electric tingles built up on the tip of his nose, his fingers, every spot of his body with pronounced curvatures. He tried to cry out as his innards twisted around and then he clamped his hand over his mouth. He was no longer in the stainless steel room with its faint antiseptic smell. Earthy odors assaulted him as the ground turned to mud. He stumbled forward, barely catching himself in time to prevent being entirely submerged in a large puddle.
He looked around, searching for anyone who might have witnessed his strange eruption into 1519 and declare him a witch. Cows lowed in a nearby field and two men argued some distance away. He cocked his head to one side, and then smiled. They spoke French. He didn’t understand French very well but could get by with his Italian—the Italian Lisa had coached him in so lovingly.
He burst out laughing. He’d have to be careful trying to use all the phrases she had taught him, as much by demonstration as lecture.
It took only minutes for him to realize Timeshares had dropped him some distance from his intended destination. It took him six days to walk to Clos Lucé, which was neighbor to the palace of King Françoise in Amboise. The gentry proved amenable to a solitary traveler asking directions in broken French. When he eventually found a man hurrying along dressed in Neapolitan style, muttering to himself in Italian, Alex knew he would finally complete his mission.
“Pardon, good sir!” he called in Italian. The man stared blankly at him. “I am looking for Master Leonardo.”
“Leonardo? What’s your business with him?”
He bit his lower lip. The man had answered in a vernacular, indicating he was of lower class than suggested by his clothing.
“I’d like to see him,” Alex said. “I have come a long way and . . . and I hear he is in poor health.”
“You might say that. He’s dead.”
Timeshares had missed the exact moment. Alex had wanted to see Leonardo on his deathbed and record his words, but the primary reason for his second trip back was still possible.