“I know,” I said tiredly. “For all I know, Ian could have hacked into every computer in New York City.” The truth was that I didn’t know what to think.
“He didn’t,” Ilene said. “Of that, I’m pretty sure. But that’s why I think your only recourse is to talk directly to Ian—he said he’ll be waiting for us.”
The MetroNorth spur left us about a block and a half from Ian’s. We walked quickly to the glowing neon sign on the second story above the dry cleaner’s on Johnson Avenue. Ian opened the door and invited us in.
“I don’t usually do business so early,” he said without much of a smile. It was 2:20 in the afternoon.
I glared at him. “You—”
“You’d like me to explain what happened, I know,” Ian said. “I can tell you that Eric did exactly as instructed. The pseudo-stroke inducer was administered. The Chief Justice was stricken and the Court decided the case without him, and the recount in Florida continued, making Gore the winner.”
“I know that—” I said.
“He knows that—” Ilene said at the same time.
“You got exactly what was promised in the itinerary,” Ian interrupted us both. “No less, no more.”
“That’s no answer,” I said. I pounded my fist on the counter. I spoke quietly but was even more furious than I was on the train. “I want to know how it came to be that Bush became President, even though, as you say, Gore was the winner.”
Ian regarded me.
“I want to know, in other words, how it is that even though I got exactly what was promised in the itinerary, the state of reality now is precisely the opposite of what I was promised, as if what I was promised never came to be.”
I could feel Ilene looking at me. I was 100 percent sure that if I made any kind of hostile move toward Ian, she’d be on me with who knows what kind of weapon. My fist on the counter had put her on the verge. This was no doubt also the reason that she had accompanied me here.
“You’re not our only customer,” Ian said.
“What?”
“You’re not the only person who wants to travel to the past to right some wrong, real or imagined. You’ve got historical sympathies for the Democrats? There are just as many who feel the same way about the Republicans. Maybe more, since the Republicans are no longer around.”
“And—”
“You’re a smart guy. Figure it out. We’re a business. Equal opportunity for our customers.”
I thought for a moment and realized just what he was saying. “You’re telling me—”
“That’s right,” Ian said. “I booked a trip for someone to go back and undo what you did.”
I had all I could do not to wring Ian’s throat. Not to smash whatever weapon Ilene produced, smash it right out of her hand, and pummel Ian—but I controlled myself. “I swear to God I’m going to take you to court and sue you for every dollar you’ve got. You gave me a contract, the itinerary. You can’t just—”
Now Ian smiled slightly. “First of all, be my guest. Take me to any court you like. No one will believe you. Even if they did, you’ll find none has jurisdiction. Second, I didn’t violate your itinerary in the slightest. You’ve read it. It has no non-compete clause.”
“So,” I was practically sputtering, “you sell trips to the past to people who want to change the past, and then turn around and sell trips to people who want to undo the changes? That’s how you conduct this business?”
“Not all of this business, no,” Ian replied.
“I’m not getting you,” I said.
“Clause 37,” Ilene spoke. “This is the first time I’ve seen it invoked like this.”
“There is no 37,” I said. I knew my damned itinerary by heart. It had only thirty-six clauses.
“Not in your itinerary, no,” Ian said.
“There are other packages?”
“Yes, more expensive,” Ian replied.
I was beginning to understand. “The societal itinerary?”
“That’s right,” Ian said. “Our societal packages come with a Clause 37, which commits us to not selling a trip to any individual intent on undoing the societal change intended in the original itinerary.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
“You lied to me. I asked you the purpose of your trip. You flat-out lied to me and said it was personal, not societal. So I gave you the personal contract.”
“You punished me for lying?”
“That’s not the way we see it,” Ian said. “You got personal enjoyment out of your trip—you had the time of your life back there, just thinking that you had changed history, didn’t you? That’s what you paid for, and that’s exactly what you received. No more, no less.”
I also understood something else. “And you had no big problem with my lying, with my getting the contract without the clause; didn’t even charge me for the extra work Eric did with my target being a public figure like Rehnquist, because you knew you’d be able to sell a second trip to someone who wanted to undo what I did.”
“I’m a businessman,” Ian said.
“But I still care about the history . . . okay, exactly what would it cost me to go back a second time and undo what was undone . . . or . . . but I guess the Clause 37 in the contract that succeeded mine wouldn’t allow that.”
“That’s right,” Ian said. “It’s in effect a clause that makes a trip to change something of societal importance in the past a one-time-only event, or a part of history that we allow to be changed only once. It’s the only way we can maintain some modicum of sanity in these circumstances. Otherwise, we’d be losing our minds with history changing back and forth, back and forth, ad infinitum. As you know, we here at Ian’s maintain memories of all the histories—”
“I know.” My mind was speeding through possibilities. “But maybe I could still purchase another trip, one which would have nothing directly to do with the 2000 election. But one which would still have the same ultimate effect. Like if I did something to make George Bush the father lose the 1988 election for President, or—”
“But I couldn’t sell you a trip like that, if you told me that was its ultimate purpose.” And now Ian was smiling, almost fully, for the first time.
“I understand,” I said.
“And a trip like that would be very expensive,” Ian said. “Societal, and earlier than the twenty-first century. Could you afford it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I know one way of reducing the cost,” Ilene said, looking tentatively at Ian.
Ian nodded slightly. “Your middle name is Isidor, is it not?” he asked me.
“Yes, but I never use it.”
“Think about using it,” Ian said. “We give a 50 percent discount to employees.”
Copyright © 2011 Paul Levinson
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NOVELETTES
Balm of Hurt Minds
Thomas R. Dulski
“For some must watch, while some must sleep So runs the world away.”
Shakespeare
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii
Reflecting Pool News Service:
The recent recall of the sleep-aid Somnomol has raised a number of questions in regard to both drug regulation and international patent law. Eighteen months ago Somnomol was introduced with much fanfare and a multi-billion-dollar advertising campaign by Compcare Pharmaceuticals, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Fidelis Group of holding companies. Somnomol was sold as an over-the-counter sleeping pill purported to be uniquely free of the dangers of both over-dosage and drug dependency. Moreover, Somnomol was the first sleep-aid product to offer precisely timed periods of sleep, based on a one-pill or two-pill dosage instruction. Government testing programs conducted over a three-year period prior to the drug’s release supported the company’s claims, and recently contacted officials affirmed that no new negative findings have been uncovered. Company administrators have asserted that the recall of Somnomol
was strictly a corporate economic decision. However, several consumer advocacy groups in this country and abroad have recently raised issues concerning the drug’s safety. Dr. Adrian B. Evans of the New York-based UNERCO Institute, which initially tested Somnomol, was subpoenaed to testify before a closed-door session of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. However, no further action by the U.S. Congress is anticipated.
I
It was a one-note, resonant cry—loud, but not shrill, echoing, somehow searching and unfinished—quite unlike any other birdcall. Tomma Lee Evans studied the holo-image as it glided across her theater table, flapping its wings just once to soar over a city nightscape. As the dark shape passed each glowing window, the lights winked out. It was spreading a blanket of sleep over the high-rise complexes. The music swelled softly as the word “Somnomol” materialized over the darkening metropolis. Once more the cry of the now distant bird was heard and then the muted, confident male baritone: “Sleep without worry or dependence. Comforting, restful sleep.”
Tomma Lee paused the commercial and sipped at a now-cold espresso, relishing the bitter flood on her tongue. McDermott had quit unexpectedly, and Cliff had saddled her with the extra job of writing the “Doc Challenger” consumer advocate column. It was a popular feature, but Tomma Lee had no affection for McDermott’s folksy style—and now she would have to mimic it. With a few clicks she superimposed Rod McDermott’s unfinished copy on the frozen cityscape:
Doc’s Corner:
Over the years, we’ve had the rooster, the teddy bear, and the Luna moth as Big Pharma’s symbols for new sleeping pills. Now it looks like some ad agency has doctored-up what we used to call a nighthawk as the emblem for a product called “Somnomol.” They’re not hawks, and they don’t just fly at night, but some Madison Avenue types must have figured folks might associate that loud “peent!” with bedtime. I know I did as a kid when we’d sit on the back porch on summer nights listening to those little birds calling as they feasted on mosquitoes and other nocturnal bugs. At any rate, it’s just possible this new logo might be standing for something really new. This pill company makes some pretty startling claims. Now, personally, I’ve found that an honest day of hard work was all I ever needed to get my forty winks . . .
Tomma Lee wrinkled her nose. It was a throw-away piece with no particular research behind it. Somnomol was forecast to be a big money-maker even before they launched their media blitz. McDermitt hadn’t intended to rock that boat beyond his usual harangue about artificially created medical needs. She drained the demitasse and set it down with a clatter on the table edge, just below the luminous text. The current time glowed next to the saucer edge. It was well past midnight. Tomma Lee rubbed her eyes and yawned. The late afternoon launch of lunar dome components from the Vostochny Cosmodrome was scheduled in another hour and she wanted to capture some video for a story she’d written on the newest class of Russian Angara heavy- lift rockets. She got up from the sofa and fixed herself another double espresso, peering out at the twinkling Seattle skyline between parted drapes as the steam hissed from the machine.
She realized that being a staff writer for a feature web journal had its advantages once she had learned to keep crazy hours and sleep in daylight. Ninety-percent of her research, interviews, and writing could be done in her apartment, but tomorrow Cliff had called a meeting and the text had been explicit: “Not a Teleconference! BE THERE!” Tomma Lee stirred a packet of sweetener and a curl of lemon zest into the steaming foam and carried the tiny cup and saucer back to the couch. She frowned again at the folksy wisdom of “Doc Challenger,” then on an impulse reduced the text and cycled back to the start of the commercial.
The table filled with a darkened bedroom. A young couple in bed; the man sleeping peacefully, the woman wide wake, staring into space as a clock ticked loudly. Low register strings—cellos and bass viols—as the baritone narration begins: “Afraid to take a sleep-aid, afraid you’ll oversleep, feel groggy all day?” The window is throwing a rectangle of light across the foot of the bed. A moving shadow—a bird in flight—moves across the blanket, accompanied by its reverberating one-note cry. Then again the male voice: “Somnomol now brings you dependable, precisely timed, refreshing sleep with no next-day effects.” The woman’s eyelids flutter and close. A smile forms on her lips. “Somnomol is the first sleep-aid that is dosage calibrated. Each pill brings you four hours of precisely timed, rest-giving sleep. Somnomol is not habit-forming—use it as often or as little as you like. There is no danger of overdosage since the body does not respond to more than two pills consumed in any twenty-four-hour period.” The scene now backs away from the sleeping couple. There is a rapid fade to the cityscape. The bird is swooping down lighted canyons of high-rise buildings as a swath of darkness follows it.
Tomma Lee listened for its final echoing cry, then dialed up a bleak plain in southeastern Russia—the new launch complex, designed to replace Baikonur. She tucked her legs under her and sipped espresso, watching boil-off vapors from an eight-inch rocket drift toward the table edge.
* * *
II
Tomma Lee bicycled to work after noting a forecast for another day free of rain. She had tossed and turned for an hour after making it to bed at 4 A.M., then had been startled awake by the 7:30 chime she had set. A cool breeze was now dispelling the mental cobwebs as she glided past streams of Seattle’s health-conscious joggers. The Murdock-Gates Building was a few blocks away from the venerable Space Needle. She passed under the aging monorail and pedaled up a curved ramp to an already crowded bike rack. She hopped off with a sprightliness she didn’t feel and walked the bicycle to a short line, filling the remaining spaces. She waved back absently at a coworker just entering at the main entrance glass doors. It had been Avery, the new trainee in photography, who was young, horny, and a little too friendly. Inside at the elevators she was glad to see that he hadn’t waited for her. But at the sixteenth floor, as she stepped out, she noted with a grimace that he was waiting for her in the reception area under the bas relief plaque depicting a nude Narcissus contemplating his image in a still pond. Avery grinned boyishly beneath the publication’s logo. “Going to morning exercises, Tomma Lee?” he asked.
It had been “Miss Evans” only a few days ago—a formality she much preferred from him.
“No, the coffee urn.”
“Let me buy you one,” he said, beaming.
The morning wire services were full of Silly Season stuff. Tomma Lee rapidly scanned the stories from one of the pop-up terminals as a few other early-arriving staffers dribbled into the meeting room. Some stringer in New England was peddling ghost stories—people hearing voices—but it was a little too soon for Halloween features. Twins had been born at the lunar north polar base. There was some video of an Angora kitten in free fall. Tomma Lee tapped her teeth with a stylus. Cliff would want something substantial from her for next week’s Our Times column. She dialed for another service and found more of the same fluff: A California man wants to marry his dog; the U.S. President to present the National Healthy Weight Loss Award. . . . Here was something: Holy Alliance issues a webcast denouncing the Neighbors as the UN’s satanic partner.
Tomma Lee frowned at the screen image. The Neighbors were not photogenic, but they made good copy. Cliff was already scrawling something about the Neighbors on the cleverboard at the front of the room, and so it wasn’t rocket science that this could tie in nicely. She saved the story to her ID.
Cliff Barnes was totally occupied with a list of names and assignments, pausing for a moment with the light pen at his hip, then scribbling rapidly. It was the work schedule for a special issue. Tomma Lee noted that her name had not been added yet.
Two sports writers sat down, laughing about something from last night’s Ironman semi-finals. The entertainment editor was typing and sipping a canned cola. The room was filling now. A bunch of people were absorbed in phone conversations and the noise level was rising rapidly. The new political editor, Alex Fi
ncke, was the last in. He was young but razor sharp, Tomma Lee had discovered. An interesting guy with just enough intelligent wit and sarcasm to maybe someday get himself in trouble with Cliff and the powers above him.
Cliff pulled the door closed with a significant click, and the murmur of voices dimmed and ceased. The entertainment editor folded his screen. Cliff had his usual disheveled look as he turned to them—shirt opened at the collar, loosened tie, sleeves rolled, and a salt-and-pepper mustache that could use a trim.
“Morning, people,” he said. “Before we get into the grind I want to thank you all for the work you did on the Street Drugs feature in the March 2 issue. Rumors are strong that we’re up for a Pulitzer on that. If we get it, I’m dedicating it to all of you.”
Tomma Lee remembered the piece she’d done on the new hallucinogen “Chinese Superman” and the political connections she’d uncovered between three far eastern countries and certain members of the U.S. Congress. Barnes had been scared shitless and almost suppressed it.
Cliff started pacing in front of the still incomplete outline. “Hard news is slow this week, so we’re going to use the lull for a big special issue spread on the Neighbors.” Muffled groans came from several people. “I know, I know, it’s all been done before by us and a dozen other journals, but we’re approaching a twenty-year anniversary with those guys. Everybody’s going to be doing a feature on it, but we’ll be the first. We want to cover the history—from the first radio telemetry that SETI picked up in the ’20s when the Hive entered the Oort Cloud. Jason, I’m counting on you to give us a nice opening spread with audio and visuals from the archives. Ken and Tammy, you’re covering the science stuff,” Cliff said, pointing to his scrawl on the board. “Remember to keep it down to ninth-grade level. We got e-mails on that topology piece you guys did last month. Alex, you’re covering political history—the UN Exo-Relations Committee, UNERCO’s internal squabbles, the bidding war for Neighborly gifts.
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