“Heisenberg's still alive,” Simak protested. “With any of the other choices we're just changing the dates on somebody's tombstone. That's a lot different from putting someone in the grave.”
Shaking his head, Teller said, “Given what's at stake here, one life hardly matters.”
“Yes,” Miss Bouvier agreed. “It's a terrible thing to say, but surely we have to focus on the big picture.”
“There's also the fact that Heisenberg was a terrible administrator,” Simak persisted. “During World War II, he ran the German atomic bomb program so badly that the OSS cancelled plans to kill him. Getting rid of him would probably mean Hitler's getting the bomb.”
“Then what about Thomas Edison?” Miss Bouvier asked. “If he hadn't invented all those electrical devices, wouldn't someone else have done so?”
Finishing lighting a cigarette, Campbell took a puff and said, “Yes, and that someone was Nikola Tesla. He was Edison's rival for the title ‘The Wizard of Electricity.’ Tesla made a lot of important inventions, but I don't think we'd like what we'd get if we replaced Edison with him.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Tesla spent a great deal of time trying to develop a death ray projector.” Campbell replied.
“That's right,” Ronald Reagan added. “Back in the ‘30s, I had a bit part in a movie based on Tesla. He was played by Bela Lugosi.”
Miss Bouvier was looking at me, an expression of disappointed hope on her face. While I very much wanted to save Marlowe, it was increasingly apparent that there wasn't any better choice. Without much hope, I asked, “What about this Bartolome de las Casas, bishop of Chiapa? Do any of us even know who he was?”
After lighting a fresh cigarette with the butt of the one he'd just finished, Simak said, “Yes, the bishop is generally regarded as the father of black slavery. It was at his suggestion that the King of Spain allowed Spaniards in the New World to import slaves from Africa.”
“Are you saying that we could pick this man and slavery wouldn't have happened?” Miss Bouvier asked excitedly.
“That would be my guess,” Simak said. “The question is whether or not that would be a good idea. You see, the Bishop meant well, and he may have been right. At the time Africa was having genocidal tribal wars. The Bishop reasoned that people captured in those wars wouldn't be slaughtered if there was a market at which their captors could sell them. We get rid of slavery, and a great many people die in Africa instead of coming to America as slaves.”
“That's a bad trade,” Ronald Reagan declared, “and besides, Sammy Davis Jr. is a friend of mine. I can't let him unhappen.”
For a moment I felt defeated. Perry Mason always got his clients acquitted, but I'd failed to save Christopher Marlowe for Miss Bouvier. Mason would have solved the riddle of the name Atigon couldn't give us because it was vulgar and—
Actually the answer was obvious. Suddenly smiling, I announce, “The name that wasn't on the list, it's Thomas Crapper, the man responsible for the flush toilet! We can keep all Marlowe's great plays. All we have to give up is...”
My voice trailed off as I saw MacArthur shaking his head. “When I first saw the list, I was struck by how short it was,” he said. “Why weren't people like Gutenberg on it? The answer, of course, is that while history is full of people who did important things, in nearly every case, somebody else would have done it if they hadn't.”
He paused to suck on his corncob pipe and continued, “Thomas Crapper didn't invent the flush toilet. Instead he persuaded people to accept it. My experience, when I was on Patton's staff during the occupation of Japan, is that persuading people of things like that can be extremely difficult. Based on that experience and that fact that Crapper's on the list, I don't believe there's anything inevitable about the flush toilet. If we want to keep Marlowe's plays, we have to give it up.”
Unhappily I nodded agreement with MacArthur's analysis, and Miss Bouvier reluctantly agreed. While neither of us liked choosing Marlowe to get the ax, we couldn't claim that any of the other choices were better. The remainder of the hour passed quickly, people talking about a great many inconsequential things. I asked Campbell about the first part of the meeting, which I'd missed. He explained that they'd spent the time explaining the concept of humor to Atigon, who'd proved a remarkably fast learner.
Before I could comment, things changed. Once again we were sitting in a row facing a vast metallic face. In a voice like distant thunder, our host said, “You will give me your recommendations. If all of you are in agreement, the recommendation will be accepted.”
He/it began calling the roll, and all the others voted to give up Marlowe. I was last, and when my turn came, I said, “If you don't mind, I'd like to ask some questions first. How will mankind be paying a price in pain, if Marlow dies young? If he never writes any plays, how will we know we've lost anything?”
“A valid question,” Atigon said. “I will arrange matters so that Christopher Marlowe writes a few plays and is then killed in a knife fight.”
“Next question,” I said. “Am I correct in suspecting that your programming requires you to answer all valid questions?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose the sequence of events is that Marlowe was only wounded in the knife fight. He was then generally believed to have died, but actually recovered, lived quietly, wrote all of his great works but put them in a trunk where they remain unknown to this day. Would doing all that be within the limits of your powers? Would being without Marlowe's greatest works for some three hundred sixty years be a sufficient price in pain? Could you discreetly deliver the trunk containing Marlowe's works to us? Would you do that?”
“Yes, yes, yes, and no.”
Trying not to smile in premature triumph, I asked “Why not?”
“It would be inconvenient to do all that.”
“Does not the Law of the Galaxy also apply to you?” I asked. “You received from mankind one of our most valuable gifts, a sense of humor. If no good thing is completely free, are you not obligated to pay this debt by suffering a little inconvenience?”
Atigon did a slight double-take. For the briefest moment his face looked like that of an adult who's been outsmarted by a child. After that moment, his smile was slightly rueful and just a little unpleasant. “I understand human customs for discreet delivery and shall use them to provide you with the trunk containing all of Christopher Marlow's lost works.”
“Then, on those terms I also vote to give up Marlowe,” I said, as everything got fuzzy.
* * * *
6
When I woke up, Heinlein and Campbell were still in my living room, but everyone else was gone. Had my actions altered history so that they never came here?
Never existed?
Guessing my fears, Heinlein smiled and said, “MacArthur's asleep in your guest room. Teller and Reagan are in your office reading. Mrs. Kennedy got angry with all of us and left in her limo. I don't think we'll be invited to the White House for dinner any time soon.”
“Why?” I asked. “Did you right-wingers start teasing her?”
“I wouldn't describe what we did that way,” Campbell said with a slightly guilty smile. “We helped her see things in a more appropriate light. She thought that you and the rest of us had saved the world from disaster, but without any proof we couldn't get the credit we deserved.”
“But that's the truth!” I protested.
“Earl,” Heinlein chided me, “we had a meeting with someone most religious people would regard as a demon. In this meeting we seriously considered murdering a Nobel-prize-winning scientist and a bishop of the Catholic Church, but decided instead to off a great writer because he was gay.”
“That's not a fair description of what happened!” I objected.
“Political reporting is never fair,” Campbell cheerfully pointed out. “Besides which, think how much trouble an accurate report of the meeting would make. We turned down a seemingly real opportunity to prevent World War II, the Ho
locaust, and African slavery. Just because our reasons were good doesn't mean a lot of people wouldn't be mad at us.”
Nodding, I said, “And you guys had some fun at her expense pointing out all this.”
“Yes,” Campbell admitted, “but we couldn't help it. She was already mad at us for conning everybody into coming here for a useless briefing, and she kept going on about what a disaster the meeting was, how we blew a chance to prevent the Holocaust and unhappen slavery just to save a trunk full of manuscripts no one will ever be willing to read.”
“Wait a minute!” I protested. “What do you mean, useless briefing? I know I wasn't a save-the-world hero, but I think, thanks to your briefing, I did some good.”
“Oh, you did well, but the briefing we gave you didn't have anything to do with that,” Heinlein said. “It couldn't. Atigon pulled all us out of one time line and put us back in another. That way the version of you that went to the meeting wasn't the version that got briefed.”
“That's probably why Atigon took us to the meeting on sequential nights,” Campbell explained. “First he told us that it was impossible to cause a causality reversal, a time-travel paradox, then he arranged matters so that it looked as if we had an opportunity to do just that. That way, if we didn't take him at his word, we'd wind up running a fool's errand.”
“According to MacArthur, that's a good way to break in your staff,” Heinlein added.
While all this didn't make much sense to me, I didn't want to continue arguing about time travel. Instead I asked, “John, what was that you said about a trunk full of manuscripts no one would be willing to read?”
“Think back,” Campbell said. “Do you remember that during the meeting, Miss Bouvier said that without Marlowe's great works, children would grow up unable to read anything of any great complexity?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“Turns out it was true,” Campbell explained. “People on that other timeline must have been much more literate than we are. I'm pretty sure I can get you a publisher, but the whole trunk won't give you anything like the sales you'd get from another Perry Mason novel.”
“It'd be a little different if we could prove Marlowe wrote the stuff,” Heinlein added, “but all we have is a bunch of manuscripts that will carbon-date to his time, but there no documents, nothing to explain how it got from England to—”
“Wait a minute!” I said, “You guys don't actually have the trunk, do you?”
“Sure, that's what Reagan and Teller are in your office reading,” Heinlein said. “We were all there for a while, digging through this huge truck back full of manuscripts, trying to find something halfway readable.”
“That was really what got Mrs. Kennedy mad,” Campbell added. “We were all thinking that we'd saved all this great literature, and, in a way, we had, but we lost the world that had the literacy to appreciate it.”
“Wait!” I protested. “How did you get this trunk? Where was it?”
Campbell and Heinlein were looking like small boys caught doing something they shouldn't. After an awkward silence, Heinlein said, “How we got it was an unpleasant story, especially for the Secret Service. As for where, well, you and your wife were both asleep and all of us got to talking. We knew that Atigon had promised to deliver the trunk following the human custom for ‘discreet delivery.’ MacArthur said that had to mean Atigon would send it in a plain brown wrapper, but then we saw that you had an extremely old outhouse on your property. We remember the alien's fondness for puns, and the outhouse is plain and brown, and Mrs. Kennedy swore it was our duty to humanity to recover the trunk as quickly as possible, so...”
“Was your wife very fond of that outhouse?” Campbell asked. “I'm sure we can arrange to get it rebuilt if—”
“No, she wanted the thing torn down,” I said.
“Good. Then the only question is: what was your wife's maiden name? Was she Agnes Bethell?”
“Yes,” I said. “She was the woman none of you could identify. She looked much older in the dream so I'm not surprised you didn't recognize her.”
“That's water over the dam,” Campbell replied. “Right now the important thing, Earl, is that she sat on your left. That could mean she was the first to go into the dream or that she's going to be the last.”
Nodding agreement, Heinlein asked, “Did she mention having a strange dream eight nights ago?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Then she'll be in the dream tonight,” Campbell exclaimed. “Nothing is settled! The world is still in danger, and there's nothing we can do! Briefing her would be useless because the her that goes to the meeting won't be the her we brief!”
“Relax, guys,” I told them. “Agnes has been my secretary for decades. She always puts the finishing touches on my work. We're safe as houses.”
Copyright (c) 2008 Richard K. Lyon
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Novelette: THE LATE SAM BOONE
by Bud Sparhawk
* * * *
Illustration by John Allemand
* * * *
Appearances can be deceiving....
* * * *
“Is shuman pazzshing the name Zhambonne,” Flenser, the Sith, hissed at the tiny human. “Iz your obligate to find and bring.”
Roxanne Boldres tried to puzzle her way through the Sith's sibilant, heavily accented Glax. “Shambone?” she queried, wondering if she had gotten the name wrong.
The Sith drew back. “You have atrozzshiouzz accent to your zzshpeech. Is Zhambonne, as I zzshpoke.”
“Hammond?” she interrupted, struggling to extract the proper name from the alien's sibilant mangling. “Or did you say ‘Ham bone?'” That would have been an even weirder appellation but then, she was dealing with aliens so some weirdness could be expected. She hoped that her confusion would make the Sith give up and go away. She had no desire to play a role in that race's endless dominance games.
Flenser raised a tiny fore limb to expose the sharp claw at its elbow, a claw that could eviscerate her with a single downward slash. “Enough! I have no time for your word gamezz. Find this shuman Zhambonne and bring it to juzzhtice.” The downward snap of the Sith's claw was so fast that, had Roxanne blinked, she would have missed it. Three of the buttons on her blouse popped free, severed of their threads by the razor edge of the claw's tip.
Roxanne gulped. “I appreciate the way you punctuate your sentences,” she muttered, trying to keep her voice from fluttering like her open blouse, not that her exposed breasts mattered a whit to the three-meter-tall, vaguely saurian Sith. “So I guess I'm elected to find this Hammond/Hambone/Whatever-The-Hell-You-Said-It-Was person.”
“Izz good. May you gorge on the warm entrailzz of your enemiezz,” Flenser replied as it withdrew. Roxanne was somewhat surprised at this parting remark, which was, in the culture of the Sith, warmly courteous—respectful, even. She listened as the sound of its clicking claws on the cold metal deck of the station diminished. Only when the sound faded entirely did she allow herself to relax. She did not like the Sith.
* * * *
She'd arrived at this out-of-the-way station only a week earlier after being—owing to the Perigorian freighter crew's confusion about the rules of poker, the laws of probability, and an unwarranted suspicion of her consistent winning streaks—unceremoniously dumped. Since then she had been trying to raise enough to pay her passage off this frigid backwater station and onto a ship bound for warmer and more hospitable environs. The Sith's vendetta with this hambone character would seriously delay that effort.
There weren't many alien races on the station, which was an indication of how far this station was off the main track of interstellar commerce. Too prominent among the many races, she thought, were the Sith; tall creatures with tiny heads, thighs as big as barrels, and very, very sharp claws. That they chose to paint those claws in rainbow hues, with a bias toward fuchsia, did not diminish the effectiveness with which they used them to settle their end
less disputes or, she thought as she gathered the edges of her blouse together, to make a sharp point.
Just the other day she had seen a pair of Sith settling some obscure religious matters ex cathedra. Both disputants had landed some effective blows that had thrown large chunks of green-gray flesh onto the deck. At the final settlement the only difference between winner and loser was that one had lost its head. She wished a few lawyers she'd known would open a practice here.
An assortment of other races managed the station's day-to-day activities. The Arasoes were vaguely humanoid, but only half as large as an adult human, with fuzzy bluish fur and bulging stomachs. Back on Earth they would have seemed cute, but totally alien. After having dealt with various aliens in the dozen systems she had visited since smuggling herself onto a galactic tourist ship, anything with the requisite number of arms and legs that had an erect posture qualified as humanoid. Even the Sith sort of qualified, in a squeamish way.
The station's technical workings were maintained by Rix, a race of exceeding busy, tiny, insectile engineers. She ran across them everywhere she went, burdened with their ever-present tool belts, fiddling with the station's thousands of mechanisms while chattering cheerfully away in rapid-fire, acronymic dialogue. Conversations with the Rix, as with most engineers she had known on Earth, were enormously boring, that is, when they weren't totally incomprehensible.
For the sake of variety there were a smattering of resident shopkeepers, traders, huffle operators (whatever they were), and a precious few passengers en route to more exotic locations. One of the residents, Seeker, was her landlord—or so she had interpreted its role. It had allowed her the use of a tiny cubicle next to the station's frigid outer wall in return for lessons on the fundamentals of poker and how to bluff when the probability gods weren't especially helpful. Since they'd met he'd become an occasional advisor and a hell of a poker partner.
Seeker sighed when the sound of the Sith's claws could no longer be heard. “At least he offered to pay expenses so we'll be able to travel, you bet,” he said in melodious trade Glax. It was a courtesy for him to speak Glax since she couldn't for the life of her understand his normal speech.
Analog SFF, June 2008 Page 19