Iterations

by Robert J. Sawyer

  I hung up the phone. I hated doing it only because I know how much I hate it when that happens to me—how much he must hate it, too.

  I heeded John Paul’s buzz again on Friday. This time, though, I didn’t wait for him to assemble my pile of mail. Instead, I snapped up each envelope as he placed it on the counter. The first three really were for me: a check from one of my publishers, a birthday card from my insurance agent, and my cable-TV bill. But the fourth was bogus: a gray envelope addressed to J. H. Coin, Ph.D. The return address was Royal Ontario Museum Staff Association.

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  The Pontiff was busy dealing out lives into the little mailboxes. “Hmm?”

  “This one isn’t for me.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He reached out to take it. For a moment I thought about keeping it, holding on to that piece of what might have been, but, no, I let him have it.

  He looked at it, then frowned. “You’re J. H. Coin, ain’t you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Then it is for you.” He proffered the envelope, but now that I’d let it go I couldn’t bring myself to take it back.

  “No. I mean, I’m not that J. H. Coin.” The Pope said nothing. He just stood there holding the letter out towards me. I shook my head. “I don’t have a Ph.D.”

  “Take that up with whoever wrote you,” he said. “I worry about apartment numbers and postal codes, not diplomas.”

  “But I don’t want it. It’s not mine. I don’t work at the Museum.”

  John Paul let out a heavy sigh. “Mr. Coin, it’s addressed correctly. It’s got sufficient postage. I have to deliver it to you.”

  “Can’t you send it back?”

  “I’ve been doing you a big favor all this time, calling you down instead of stuffing your things into that little box. Don’t make me sorry that I’ve been nice to you.” He looked me straight in the eye. “Take the letter.”

  “But yesterday you brought me The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. And the day before, the University of Toronto Alumni Magazine. None of those things were meant for me.”

  “Who’s to say what’s meant for any of us, Mr. Coin? All I know is I’ve got to deliver the mail. It’s my job.”

  He went back to his bag. The next thing he pulled out happened to be for me, too. Sort of. Instead of placing it on the counter, he tried to hand it to me directly. It was a letter hand-addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jake Coin.

  I shook my head again, more in wonder than negation this time. “There is no Mrs. Coin.”

  “You have to take it,” he said.

  It was tempting, in a way. But no, she wasn’t my wife. She wasn’t part of my world. I didn’t move.

  He shrugged and put the envelope in the empty cubicle that had my apartment number on it.

  I didn’t want this other Coin’s life forced upon me. “Take that out of there,” I said.

  John Paul continued distributing mail, ignoring me the way he might ignore a stranger who tried to strike up a conversation on the subway. I grabbed his arms and attempted to swing him around. The old guy was a lot stronger than he looked—thanks, I guess, to hauling that great sack of letters around. He pushed me away easily and I fell backward against the vestibule’s inner glass door. For a horrible instant I thought the pane was going to break and come tumbling down on me, but it held solid. The Pontiff had wheeled around and was now aiming a tiny aerosol can of Mace at me.

  “Don’t ever try that again,” he said in his mysterious European voice, not shouting, really, but with a firmness that made the words sound loud.

  “Just tell me what’s going on,” I said. “Please.”

  We held our eye contact for a moment. His expression wasn’t the indignation of a man who has suffered an unprovoked attack. Rather, it was more like the quiet turmoil of a father who’s had to spank his child. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Damn the man’s infinite patience. I was angry and I wanted him to be angry, too. “Look,” I said at last, “you keep bringing me the wrong mail.” I hated the quaver my voice had taken on. “I—I don’t want to have to report you to your supervisor.”

  The threat seemed stupid and my words hung in the air between us. John Paul stared at me, his face waxing reflective. Finally, he laughed and shook his head. He hefted his bag, as if to gauge how much mail he had left to deliver. Then he glanced at his watch. “All right,” he said at last. “After all, I don’t want to get in trouble with the boss.” He laughed again—not hard, really, but there were tears at the corners of his eyes.

  I slowly brought myself to my feet, wiping dirt off the bum of my cutoffs. “Well?”

  “You’re out of place, Mr. Coin,” he said, slowly. “You don’t belong here.”

  That’s the story of my life, I thought. But I said, “What do you mean?”

  “You think you can just up and say you’re going to be a journalist?” He put the can of Mace back in his bag.

  “I didn’t just up and say it. I worked hard to get my degree.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You were supposed to be a”—he paused, then pronounced his next word carefully—“paleontologist.”

  “What do you mean, ‘supposed to be’?”

  “You can’t just do whatever you want in this life. You’ve got to play the hand that’s dealt to you. You think I wanted to be a letter carrier? It’s just the way it worked out for me. You don’t get any choice.” His voice sounded far away and sad. “Still, it ain’t so bad for me. I get to do this extra stuff as a sideline—putting people like you back on the right course.”

  “The right course?” The old guy was insane. I should run, get away, hide.

  “When did you decide to become a journalist instead of a…paleontologist?”

  “I don’t remember for sure,” I said. “Sometime during my last year in high school. I got bored; didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being a student.”

  “That was a big decision,” he said. “I’d think you’d remember it more clearly.” The Pope smiled. “It was April 22nd, 1973, at 10:27 in the evening. That’s when the universe split. You ripped up your acceptance letter from U of T—”

  “The universe did what?”

  “It split, became two universes. That happens once in a while. See, they used to think that every time somebody made a decision, instead of things going one way or the other, they went both ways. The universe splitting a million times a second, each one going on forever along its separate path.”

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Parallel universes?” I said, the phrase coming to me out of dimly remembered Star Trek reruns. “I guess that’s possible…”

  “It’s hogwash, man. Couldn’t happen that way. Ain’t enough matter to constantly be spinning off new universes at that rate. Any fool can see that. No, most of the times the decisions iron themselves out within a few minutes or days—everything is exactly the same as if the decision had never been taken. The two universes join up, matter is conserved, the structure is sound, and I get to knock off early.”

  Although he sounded cavalier, he didn’t look it. Of course, maybe he was always like this. After all, in the twenty-odd months that I’d known the Pope we’d never exchanged more than a dozen words at a time. “So?” I said at last.

  “So, every now and then there’s a kind of cosmic hiccup. The universes get so out of joint that they just keep moving farther apart. Can’t have that. It weakens the fabric of existence, so they tell me. We’ve got to get things back on course.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You ever hear of Ronald Reagan?”

  “No. Wait—you mean the actor? Guy who did a bunch of pictures with a chimp?”

  “That’s him. There was a hiccup almost forty years ago. He got it into his head to be a politician, don’t you know. I won’t even tell you how high up he made it in the American government—you’d never believe me. It took an army of posties to get the world back on track after that one.”<
br />
  “So you’re saying I’m supposed to be a paleontologist, not a plastics writer.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s just the way it was meant to be, that’s all.”

  My head was spinning. None of this made sense. “But I don’t want to be a paleontologist. I’m happy as a journalist.” That wasn’t really true, and I had a feeling John Paul knew it wasn’t, but he let it pass.

  “I’m sorry,” he said for the second time.

  This was craziness. But he sounded so serious, so much like he really believed it himself, that it made me nervous. “But other people get to choose their lives,” I said at last.

  “No,” he said, looking very old. “No, they don’t. They think they choose them, but they don’t.”

  “So—so I’m supposed to do some great thing as a paleontologist? Something that makes a difference in the scheme of things?” That wouldn’t be so bad, I thought. To make a difference, to count, maybe to be remembered after I’m dead.

  “Perhaps,” said the Pope, but I knew in an instant that he was lying.

  “Well, it’s too late for me to go back to school now, anyway,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “I mean, I’d practically be ready to retire by the time I could get a Ph.D. in paleontology.”

  “You’ve got a Ph.D. Don’t ask me what your thesis was on, though. I can’t pronounce most of the words in its title.”

  “No. I’ve got a Bachelor of Applied Arts from the School of Journalism, Ryerson Polytechnic University.” I hadn’t said that with such pride in years.

  “Yes. That, too.” He glanced at his watch again. “For the time being.”

  I didn’t believe a word of it but I decided to humor the old man. “Well, how’s this change supposed to take place?”

  “The two universes are mingling even now. We’re just suturing up the rift between them. When the posties have everything in place, they’ll automatically rejoin into one universe.”

  “How long until that happens?”

  “Soon. Today, maybe, if I finish my route on time.”

  “And I don’t get a say in any of this?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” He sounded like he really meant it. “None of us gets a say. Now, excuse me, but I really must get on with my work.” And with that, the Bishop of Rome scurried out the glass door.

  Lubomir Dudek, member of the Toronto Local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, came to the last house on his route, a large side-split with a two-car garage. He didn’t want to finish, didn’t want to drop off a copy of the Jesuit journal Compass for a man who was now, because of that fateful day in 1973, one of Toronto’s better-known podiatrists instead of a Father in the Society of Jesus. Lubo envied the foot doctor, just as he envied Jacob Coin, writer-about-to-turn-fossil-hunter. They went on from this point, with new vistas ahead of them. Their alternative lives beat the hell out of his own.

  Lubo had known that the two realities would have to be reconciled. He, too, had made a fateful decision two decades ago, back when he was a press operator in a printing plant, a time when his own hiccups had drowned out those of the universe. He’d been pissed to the gills, celebrating—for the life of him he couldn’t remember what. Wisely, or so it had seemed at the time, he had decided to call a cab instead of driving home from the Jolly Miller. It should have been the right choice, he thought sadly, but we play the hand that we’re dealt.

  For a long time he had wondered why he had been selected to be one of those helping to set things right. He’d tried to convince himself that it was because he was an honest man (which he was), a good man (which was also true), a man with a sense of duty (that, too). He’d waited patiently for his own letter carrier to bring him some exotic mail: a copy of a trade magazine from some new profession, maybe, or a dues notice from some union he didn’t belong to, or even a dividend check from a stock he didn’t own. But nothing of the kind came and finally Lubo was forced to consciously face what he supposed he had really known all along. His one brief moment of free will had let him live when he should not have. In the reunited universe, Jacob Coin would have his thunder lizards, the podiatrist would have his brethren, but Lubo would have only rest.

  He came to the end of the driveway and lifted the lid of the foot doctor’s mailbox, its black metal painfully hot in the summer sun. Slowly, sadly, he dropped in the sale flyers, bills, and letters. He hesitated for a moment before depositing the copy of Compass, then, with a concern not usually lavished on the mails, he gingerly inserted the slim magazine, taking care not to dog-ear its glossy white pages.

  Just Like Old Times

  Winner of the Aurora Award

  for Best Short Story of the Year

  Winner of the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award

  for Best Short Story of the Year

  Finalist for Japan’s Seiun Award

  for Best Foreign Short Story of the Year

  Author’s Introduction

  In 1987, I gave up writing short fiction: the pay rates were a tiny fraction of what I was getting for nonfiction, response times from SF magazines were ridiculously long, and I was mightily discouraged by having been unable to sell “Lost in the Mail.” Five years went by during which the only fiction I wrote was novel-length.

  And then came Mike Resnick.

  In July 1992, Mike asked me if I’d agree to write a story for the anthology Dinosaur Fantastic he and Martin H. Greenberg were putting together.

  Note what Mike was doing: he was commissioning a story. My work wouldn’t have to languish for the better part of a year in a magazine’s slush pile.

  This was a very appealing notion. Throughout the 1980s, I had made my living as a freelance nonfiction writer, specializing in high technology and personal finance. I’d done over 200 articles for Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, almost all of which were commissioned in advance of my writing them…and I liked it that way.

  I accepted Mike’s offer, but with trepidation. I hadn’t written a short story for half a decade now. What if I’d forgotten how? Or, even worse, what if, as the apparent failure of “Lost in the Mail” had demonstrated, I never really knew how in the first place?

  “Just Like Old Times” turned out to be quite a success: Mike and Marty used it as the lead story in Dinosaur Fantastic, and I also sold it to On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of Speculative Writing. The On Spec people reprinted it in their “best-of” anthology, On Spec: The First Five Years.; Marty Greenberg scooped it up for his unrelated hardcover anthology Dinosaurs; Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois reprinted it in their Dinosaurs II; and David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant bought it for their anthology Northern Stars.

  After that, there was no turning back: I knew writing short fiction would always be a part of my life. Still, since that day in 1992, I haven’t written any short fiction without a specific commission; I just don’t seem to find the time for short work otherwise.

  Just Like Old Times

  The transference went smoothly, like a scalpel slicing into skin.

  Cohen was simultaneously excited and disappointed. He was thrilled to be here—perhaps the judge was right, perhaps this was indeed where he really belonged. But the gleaming edge was taken off that thrill because it wasn’t accompanied by the usual physiological signs of excitement: no sweaty palms, no racing heart, no rapid breathing. Oh, there was a heartbeat, to be sure, thundering in the background, but it wasn’t Cohen’s.

  It was the dinosaur’s.

  Everything was the dinosaur’s: Cohen saw the world now through tyrannosaur eyes.

  The colors seemed all wrong. Surely plant leaves must be the same chlorophyll green here in the Mesozoic, but the dinosaur saw them as navy blue. The sky was lavender; the dirt underfoot ash gray.

  Old bones had different cones, thought Cohen. Well, he could get used to it. After all, he had no choice. He would finish his life as an observer inside this tyrannosaur’s mind. He’d see what the beast saw, hear what
it heard, feel what it felt. He wouldn’t be able to control its movements, they had said, but he would be able to experience every sensation.

  The rex was marching forward.

  Cohen hoped blood would still look red.

  It wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t red.

  “And what, Ms. Cohen, did your husband say before he left your house on the night in question?”

  “He said he was going out to hunt humans. But I thought he was making a joke.”

  “No interpretations, please, Ms. Cohen. Just repeat for the court as precisely as you remember it, exactly what your husband said.”

  “He said, ‘I’m going out to hunt humans.’”

  “Thank you, Ms. Cohen. That concludes the Crown’s case, my lady.”

  The needlepoint on the wall of the Honorable Madam Justice Amanda Hoskins’s chambers had been made for her by her husband. It was one of her favorite verses from The Mikado, and as she was preparing sentencing she would often look up and reread the words:

  My object all sublime

  I shall achieve in time—

  To let the punishment fit the crime—

  The punishment fit the crime.

  This was a difficult case, a horrible case. Judge Hoskins continued to think.

  It wasn’t just colors that were wrong. The view from inside the tyrannosaur’s skull was different in other ways, too.

  The tyrannosaur had only partial stereoscopic vision. There was an area in the center of Cohen’s field of view that showed true depth perception. But because the beast was somewhat wall-eyed, it had a much wider panorama than normal for a human, a kind of saurian Cinemascope covering 270 degrees.

  The wide-angle view panned back and forth as the tyrannosaur scanned along the horizon.

  Scanning for prey.

  Scanning for something to kill.