“What’s that?”
“See if you can get hold of an iron lung built for two.”
As Carl picked up his grandfather’s watch and went out the door, Ackerman waved an affectionate farewell.
“Just for you, old buddy,” he murmured. “But somehow I don’t think it will be necessary.”
1981
DEAL WITH THE D.E.V.I.L.
“Nothing like being up to date, eh, Johann Wolfgang?”
“This time I think I got it,” said Eddie Faust as he took his Talk Back Pocket Calculator, better known as a TB, from his shirt pocket and keyed in a long series of equations.
The little black box buzzed and vibrated like an ancient washing machine on its very last load. Finally it emitted a disconsolate burp and said, “GIGO, Mr. Faust. Garbage in, garbage out. There just isn’t any way under the sun that you can construct a time machine that will take you back so you can kill your father, marry your mother, and sire yourself, thus doubling your present I.Q.”
“Why not?” asked Eddie. “I’m at least twice as smart as my old man. Stands to reason that if I was my father instead of him I’d have inherited twice the brains that I got now. Then instead of being a lousy engineer, I could be a physicist and get grants and Nobel prizes and stuff and just come to work when I feel like it.”
“Because,” the TB said patiently, “if your equations were valid and it were possible to use them to construct a time machine, you’d do it, right?”
“Right.”
“But if you did, and went back and killed your father and married your mother and sired yourself, right now you’d be twice as smart as you actually are. Which you aren’t. Right?”
Eddie scratched his head and thought about that one for a minute. “Could be that I sent a boy to do a man’s work,” he said. “A little old TB like you is okay for Ohm’s Law and square roots and engineer stuff like that, but something heavy like a time machine takes circuits a lot more complicated than anything you’ve got.”
“Bigger isn’t necessarily better,” said the little TB. “You keep forgetting that I have microwave circuits that I can use to hook into the national computer network when I get something I can’t handle by myself. I just tapped into the IRS central memory bank to see if I could find out anything that might help you with your problem, because those people usually know everything about everybody.”
Eddie thought of some of the creative work he’d done on his last year’s income tax—like deducting the TB as a dependent—and squirmed uneasily. “And?” he asked apprehensively.
“And right now I know things about you and your parents that you never dreamed of.”
“Like what?”
“Like, for example, even if you could build a contraption that would take you back to do what you’ve got in mind, it wouldn’t do you any good.”
“Why not?” asked Eddie.
“Because the woman you think is your mother really isn’t,” the TB said smugly, “biologically speaking, that is.”
“Then who is?” asked the engineer. “Was I dumped on her doorstep or something?”
“Nobody. And no. You didn’t have a mother, Mr. Faust. You’re a clone. A single cell was taken from your father and manipulated until it had divided enough times to become a viable embryo. Your father’s wife simply supplied the womb to carry it until term. That’s why you can’t get twice as smart by going back through time and killing your father and marrying your mother and siring yourself.”
“Oh, shit!” said the young engineer.
“Cheer up,” said the little black box. “Even if it had worked out, you’d have had a lousy sex life. According to IRS central records, your host mother was not only sterile, she was also about as frigid as they come.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Anyway,” continued the TB, “all the electronic intelligences I’ve checked with agree that it’s impossible to build a machine that could take you back and forth through time.”
“Then I guess there’s no point in going back to the old drafting board,” said Eddie in a dejected voice.
“Right. Your problem can’t be solved that way. But there is one place I haven’t tried yet. His methods are unorthodox, but he does get results.”
“Who’s that?” asked the young engineer.
“The D.E.V.I.L.”
“The what?”
“The Data Evaluation Vehicle for International Logistics, the new top-secret supercomputer in the basement of the Pentagon, the one that’s got the whole world in his hands.”
“Give him a try,” instructed Eddie. “What have we got to lose?”
A buzzing sound came from the TB, and then another. “I’m hooked in,” it said, “and I’ve explained your problem. D.E.V.I.L. says that the solution is to jump back another generation and kill your grandfather—you have only one, you know—and marry your grandmother. Once you’ve fathered your father, you’ll be the smartest clone that’s walking around on two legs.”
“But you said that time travel was impossible!”
“I did not! I said a time machine was impossible. There’s another way to get the job done. The Pentagon super-brain said he’d be glad to use his special powers to take you back and then bring you forward to the present again—for a price, of course.”
“What’s he asking?” said the young engineer.
“The usual, Mr. Faust. Just the usual,” said the little TB.
Collected Fiction Page 58