The Second Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  The strange visitor seemed to have reached some decision. “It is not for me to decide. Can you come to consult my immediate superiors?”

  To my admitted amazement, the retired sleuth banged the arm of his chair and wavered to his feet. “Immediately, Señor,” he cackled.

  “Now see here,” I protested. “This has gone much too far. I cannot permit my…my charge to be taken out at this hour, after a full week overladen with activity. I say...”

  “Hush up, Doctor,” the old codger muttered, on his way for muffler and coat. “Charge indeed.”

  Weary as I was, I resolved on firmness. “I warn you, I shall no longer put up with all this balderdash. If you insist upon wandering out into the night, at your age, I submit that I have no intention of assisting you. I shall remain right here.”

  He grunted puerile amusement, managed to get into his things without assistance, and turned to our strange visitor. “Let us be on our way, Señor.”

  Admittedly, I stared after them in my amazement for long moments after they were gone. Perhaps it was my own weariness, but I must confess being unable to detect the sound of their passage down the stairs and out the front door. But then, as I have reported, my hearing is not what it once was.

  * * * *

  In the morning he had not returned, nor the next.

  I could not but recall long decades before when he had vanished from my ken for some years. But the difference is manifest. An octogenarian does not roam about the streets of London with no companion other than a driveling madman who prates about being the representative of a galactic council, or whatever he called it.

  Debating whether to call the police, and hesitating in view of my old friend’s reputation—long years ago he was dubbed the immortal detective—there came back to me some of his words that I had not understood at the time. Perhaps there was a slight clue there.

  I went to the encyclopedia and looked up Friar Roger Bacon and the term Elixir Vitae.

  Friar Roger Bacon, 13th Century alchemist and metaphysician. One of the most prominent of those who sought the elixir of life which would grant immortality, and the philosopher’s stone to transmute base metals into gold.

  I grunted and returned the volume to its place. Nothing there but more nonsense of the type they had prattled back and forth to each other two nights earlier.

  But still I refrain from phoning the authorities.

  Back to me, down through the years, come the words I have heard a score of times over. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

  And back to me also continue to come the very last words my friend chortled at me as he left our rooms with the mysterious Señor Mercado-Mendez.

  “Yogurt, heh, heh.”

  UTOPIAN

  AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

  This story was written to order for Harry Harrison, not only one of the top authors in the category currently, but one of the top anthologists, film writers, and on and on. His energy horrifies most of the rest of us. He was commissioned by Doubleday to produce an anthology entitled The Year 2000. And I doubt if I’ve ever had an editor so nit-picking. Undoubtedly, one reason is that I, as usual, chose a socioeconomic background for my yarn, and Harry Harrison is one of the few fellow writers in our field who has a good foundation in political economy. Among other things, he had me cut down the original story by about half. I shall have my revenge. I am taking the original and expanding it into a novel length. I shall dedicate it to my longtime friend (I first met him in Denmark many years ago), Harry Harrison.

  —Mack Reynolds

  * * * *

  When he awakened the second time, there was more food and a larger portion. And after a while they had wheeled him out onto a porch. He recognized the scene. No other houses were in sight, but there was no doubt about it. He was within a mile of Cape Spartel, atop the mountain which rises above Tangier and looks out over Spain and the Atlantic.

  There was precious little else he could identify. The architecture of the house was extreme. The chair in which he sat was wheel-less, but carried him at the gentlest direction of the hand of the one who had called himself Jo Edmonds.

  The three of them—the girl’s name turned out to be Betty Stein—accompanied him to the terrace, treating him as though he was porcelain. Tracy Cogswell was still weak, but alert enough now to be impatient and curious.

  He said, “My elbow. It’s no longer stiff. It’s been stiff since…since 1939.”

  Academician Stein fluttered over him. “Don’t overdo, Tracy Cogswell, don’t overdo.”

  The younger one, Edmonds, grinned and said, “We had your elbow and various other, ah, deficiencies taken care of before we awakened you.”

  Tracy was about to say, “Where am I?” but he knew where he was. Something strange was going on, but he knew where he was. He was within a few miles of Tangier, and in the strangest house he’d ever seen and certainly the most luxurious. That fact came home to him. He was evidently in the hands of the opposition; only a multimillionaire could have afforded this sort of an establishment, and there were no such in the movement.

  He considered Jo Edmonds’ words and accepted them. But in the acceptance, he realized the implications. He’d had that arm worked on in London by possibly the world’s outstanding practitioner in the field. He’d saved the elbow but let Tracy know it would never be strong again. Now it was strong, for the first time since the debacle on the Ebro.

  By the third day, he was up and around, and beginning to consider his position. He kept his mind from some of the more far out aspects. Such explanations could come later. For now he wanted to evaluate the situation in which he found himself.

  He didn’t seem a prisoner, but that was beside the point. You didn’t have to have steel bars to be completely under duress. The three oddly garbed characters who had him here were seemingly of good will, but Tracy Cogswell was old enough in world political movements to know that the same man who sentenced you to gas chamber or firing squad could be a gentle soul who loved his children and spent his spare time puttering happily in a rock garden.

  He wondered about the possibilities of escape. No, not yet. For one thing, he’d never make it. Still too weak. For another, he had to find out what was happening. Perhaps…just perhaps…there was some explanation which would make sense to the Executive Committee.

  He had made his own way out to the terrace again and had seated himself on a piece of furniture somewhat similar to a lawn chair. That was one of the things that got to him. Even the furniture, in this ultra-automated house, was so far out as to be unbelievable.

  Jo Edmonds drifted easily onto the terrace and raised his eyebrows at Tracy. He was wearing shorts today, shorts and slippers that seemed somehow to cling to the bottom of his feet, although there wasn’t even a strap on top. He was flipping, as though it was a coin, the flat green stone.

  “How do you feel?” he said.

  Cogswell said in irritation, “What the hell’s that?”

  Edmonds said mildly, “This? A piece of jade. Do you enjoy tactile sensation?”

  Cogswell scowled at him.

  Edmonds said, “The Chinese have been familiar with the quality of jadeite for centuries. They’ve developed its appreciation into an advanced art form. I have quite a collection. Make a point of spending at least two hours a day over it. It takes considerable development to obtain the sensual gratification possible by stroking jade.”

  Cogswell said, “You mean to say you’ve got nothing better to do with your time than pet a piece of green stone?”

  Jo Edmonds flushed at the tone. “There are less kindly things to which to devote yourself,” he said.

  Walter Stein emerged from the house and looked worriedly at Tracy. “How are you feeling? Not overdoing, are you?”

  A Paul Lucas type, Tracy decided. Paul Lucas, playing the part of an M.D.

  Tracy said, “Look, I’ve got to the point where if I don’t find out what’s g
oing on, I’ll go batty. I realize that somehow or other, you rescued me from a crazy nightmare I got into. I must have had a complete nervous breakdown.”

  Jo Edmonds chuckled, good-naturedly.

  Cogswell turned on him. “What’s funny?”

  Academician Stein held up a hand. “Jo’s humor is poorly taken. You see, we didn’t rescue you from yourself. It was we who put you into your predicament. Please forgive us.”

  Tracy Cogswell stared at him.

  Stein said, uncomfortably, almost sheepishly, “Do you know where you are, Mr. Cogswell?”

  “Yes. That’s Spain over there.”

  Stein said, “That’s not exactly what I mean. Let’s cut corners, Mr. Cogswell. If we were still using the somewhat inefficient calendar of your period, this would be approximately the year 2000.”

  Strange, Tracy told himself, it doesn’t seem to come as a surprise. I knew it was something like that.

  “Time travel,” he said aloud. It was a field of thought in which he had never wandered but he was dimly aware of the conception; a movie or two, a short story or so, over the years.

  “Well, not exactly,” Stein said, scowling. “Well, but yes, in a way.”

  Jo Edmonds laughed softly. “You’re not very definite, Walter.”

  The other man had taken a seat on the low stone parapet that surrounded the terrace. Now he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and clasped his hands together. “Time travel isn’t possible, so far as we know.”

  “But you just said—”

  “Actually, you’ve been in a state of suspended animation, I suppose you could call it.”

  Things were fitting into place quickly. There were a lot of loose ends, but the tangle was coming out. Tracy said, “But you had to travel back to my day to…to do whatever it was you did to me. To take over my actions.”

  Stein said seriously, “Not our physical selves, Mr. Cogswell. It is impossible to send matter through time. Except forward, of course, at the usual pace. However, the mind can and does travel in time. Memory is nothing more than that. In dream, the mind even sometimes travels ahead, although in such haphazard manner that it is all but impossible to measure, to gather usable data.”

  Jo Edmonds said, “In your case, it was a matter of going back into the past, seizing control of your mind and body and forcing you to perform yourself the steps that would lead to your, ah, suspended animation, as the academician puts it.”

  For some reason, the younger man’s tone irritated Cogswell. “What’s an academician?” he said.

  Edmonds raised his eyebrows. “Oh, that’s right. The degree evolved after your period. It was found that even the Ph.D. had become somewhat commonplace, so the higher one was created.”

  Tracy Cogswell’s irritation was growing. The two of them, no matter how well-intentioned, had a lot to answer for. Besides that, they were so comfortably clean, so obviously well fed, so unworried and adjusted. They had it made. It probably took a dozen servants to keep up this house, to wait hand and foot on these two so that they could look so comfortably sleek. And how many people did it take slaving away somewhere in industry or office, to provide the funds necessary to maintain this fabulous establishment?

  Parasites!

  Tracy said flatly, “So you figured out a way of sending back through time. Of providing my hypnotized body with information that allowed it to put itself into suspended animation. To accomplish this, you had me abscond with some twenty thousand dollars. Perhaps not a great deal in your eyes, but it was composed of thousands upon thousands of tiny donations—donations to a cause. An attempt to make the world a better place in which to live.”

  Stein was frowning worriedly and clucking under his breath, but Jo Edmonds had an amused expression on his face.

  Cogswell snapped, “When I’ve got some of my strength back, I’d like to take a crack at wiping some of the vacant-minded amusement off your pretty face, Edmonds. But for now I’d like to know this: WHY?”

  The girl, Betty, came out then and looked from one of them to the other. She said impatiently, “Good heavens, look at the state Mr. Cogswell is in. I thought you weren’t going to discuss this project until he was suitably recovered.”

  Cogswell glared at her. “I want to know what the big idea is! I’ve been kidnapped. On top of that, in spite of the fact that seemingly I did it, actually you people are guilty of stealing twenty thousand dollars.” He could feel the flush mounting his face.

  “See?” she said indignantly to Stein and Edmonds.

  The two looked embarrassedly at Tracy. “Sorry. You’re right,” Edmonds said to her. He turned on his heel and left.

  Stein began bustling and clucking again, attempting to take Tracy’s pulse. Tracy jerked his arm away.

  “Damn it,” he said. “Tell me what it’s all about.”

  “Later, later,” Stein soothed.

  It was the girl who said, “See here…Tracy. You’re among friends. Let us do it our way. Answers will come soon enough.” She added, like a nurse to a child. “Tomorrow, perhaps. I’ll take you for a pleasant ride over Gibraltar and up the Costa del Sol.”

  In the morning, for the first time, Tracy Cogswell ate with the rest of them in a small breakfast room, he supposed you’d call it. The more he saw of the house, the more he was impressed by its efficient ultra-luxury. Impressed wasn’t quite the word. Cogswell’s background hadn’t admitted of this sort of life, even had he desired it, and actually he hadn’t. The movement had been his life. Food, clothing, and shelter were secondary things, necessary only to keep him going. The luxuries? He’d seen little of them, and cared less.

  He had expected to be waited upon by Moorish servants, or possibly even French or Spanish ones. However, evidently he was being kept under wraps. Betty served them, bringing in dishes and platters from the kitchen.

  The food, admittedly, was out of this world. He wondered, momentarily, whether or not she had cooked it herself. No, of course not. Betty Stein was much too decorative to have any useful qualities.

  The conversation was desultory, obviously deliberately so. However, there was still amusement behind Jo Edmonds’ eyes.

  Toward the end of the meal, Stein said, “How do you feel, Mr. Cogswell? Up to the little jaunt Betty suggested?”

  “I don’t see why not.” The more information he gathered about his surroundings, the better prepared he’d be when and if he went on the run.

  He was able to walk by himself to the garage, although Stein bumbled worriedly alongside all the way.

  Cogswell was settled into the front seat of a vehicle that didn’t look so greatly different from a sedan of his own period, except for the lack of wheels, and Betty took her place behind the controls.

  The difference came, Cogswell found, when they emerged from the garage, proceeded a few feet and then took to the air, without wings, rotors, propellers, jets, or any other noticeable method of support or propulsion.

  She could see he was taken aback. “What’s the matter?”

  Cogswell said, “I hadn’t expected this much progress in this much time. You needed wings in my day.”

  She was obviously a skilled driver—or rather pilot.

  “I sometimes get my dates mixed up,” Betty said, “but I thought you were beginning to get air-cushion cars, hovercraft, that sort of thing in your time.”

  Cogswell was looking down at the countryside beneath them. Tangier had changed considerably. It had obviously become an ultra-wealthy resort area. Gone was the Casbah, with its Moorish slums going back a thousand years and more. Gone was the medina, with its teeming thousands of poverty-stricken Arabs and Riffs.

  Tracy Cogswell grunted to himself. He supposed that as Europe’s and America’s wealthy had discovered the climatic and scenic advantages of northern Morocco, they had zeroed in. They must have displaced the multitude of natives who had formerly made uncomfortable, by their obvious need, those few of the well-to-do who had lived here before. The rich hate to see the poor; it makes them
uncomfortable.

  There were quite a few of the flying cars such as he and Betty were in. That was one thing. With flight at various levels, it relieved the congestion. However, there were probably other traffic problems that had evolved.

  Betty put on speed and in a matter of five or ten minutes, they were circling Gibraltar, perhaps the world’s most spectacular landfall. Here, too, the signs of the military of his own period had given way to villas and luxury apartment houses.

  Cogswell said, “Where are all the stores, garages, and other business establishments?”

  Betty said, “Underground.”

  “Where you can’t see them and be bothered by their unattractiveness, eh?”

  “That’s right,” she said, evidently missing his sarcasm. They flew north along the coast, passing Estepona, Marbella, and Fuengirola. Cogswell was impressed. Even in his own time, the area had been booming, but he had never expected to see anything like this.

  “Too crowded,” Betty commented. “I’m amazed that so many people gravitate to the warm climates.”

  Tracy said impatiently, “Everyone would, wouldn’t they, given the wherewithal?”

  “But why? Why not stay in areas where you have seasonal changes? For that matter, why not spend some seasons in the far north, and enjoy the extremes of snow and cold weather? Comfortable houses can be built in any climate.”

  Cogswell grunted. “You sound like that queen, what was her name? The one who said, ‘Let them eat cake.’ ” Betty frowned, not getting it. “Marie Antoinette? How do you mean?”

  Tracy Cogswell said impatiently, “Look. You people with lots of dough don’t realize what it can mean for somebody without it to spend some time in the sun. And —if possible, and it usually isn’t—to finally retire in a desirable climate in old age. It’s something a lot of poor working stiffs dream of—but you wouldn’t know about that.”