by Anthology
“Miss Weber was recuperating from the fire,” Schmidt said. “She hasn’t been here yet.”
“Oh. Why don’t you come in right now, then? Most of the others are here for a second or third look. You really should have priority.”
“Thank you.”
Adele, Schmidt, and Muth followed the attendant into the makeshift morgue. Adele gasped when they walked in. Each body lay in an open coffin, surrounded by and covered with ice, so that only the face showed. The floor of the warehouse was wet with the runoff from the coffins, and a slight putrid smell permeated the air.
The attendant passed Mr. Muth along to another attendant, and then gave his full attention to Adele. “My name’s Bob, Miss. I’ll take you and your friend down the row.”
“Thank you.”
The three of them walked deliberately past the coffins, and as they did, Adele took a look at the face of each body. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep out the stench, and was grateful when Schmidt gave her a handkerchief to help.
They passed one body, then another and another, until finally they reached the end of the row. Adele took one look at the face, and recognition hit her like a punch in the stomach.
It was her mother.
She turned away, sobbing, and buried her head in Schmidt’s shoulder.
“I take it this is the one,” Bob said.
Schmidt nodded, while Adele continued to cry.
“Could you give us a moment?” Schmidt asked the attendant, who nodded and backed away.
Adele hugged Mr. Schmidt even tighter, and in between her sobs, she said, “You didn’t even try to save her. Why didn’t you save her?”
“That’s not fair, Adele,” Schmidt replied gently. “You know that in the end I tried to save everyone.”
Adele nodded and wiped away at her tears. “I know. I’m sorry. I just—”
“I understand.”
As soon as her tears were spent, she let go of Schmidt and the attendant scurried back. “Miss, would you come with me, please? We need you to fill out the death certificate and body removal permit.”
“I—I—” Adele began. Then she turned to look at Schmidt. “You were right,” she said. “It’s too much.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Schmidt said. “Lead the way.”
They followed the attendant to a nearby room and took care of the mundane business of death.
Adele buried her mother on Black Saturday, June 18, at the Lutheran cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, along with most of the victims whose bodies had been found. She walked through the graveside funeral and burial with an eerie sense of detachment.
Back at her apartment, Adele sat at the dining room table, feeling emotionally drained, while Schmidt fiddled with his futuristic devices. She watched him in silence for a few minutes, and then finally spoke. “So, Mr. Schmidt. Did you get everything you needed?”
Schmidt nodded. “I think I have. I’ve recorded the tragedy through the memory recorders implanted in everyone’s minds, including—”
He cut himself off, and left it for Adele to finish. “Including the minds of those who did not survive.”
“Yes.”
Adele pondered her next question carefully. “Do you have my mother’s memories in there?”
“Um. Yes. Yes, I do.”
She stood up and walked over to him. “Where’s that helmet? I—I want to experience my mother’s last moments.”
“I really don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“But Mr. Schmidt—”
“Adele, these memories are meant to be experienced by people far removed from the original tragedy, people with no personal connection or loss. Are you sure you want to do this?”
She threw up her hands in frustration. “I don’t know what I want! Perhaps I want to erase her memories, so no one ever sees them.” She paused. “But I want to remember her, and I want others to as well.”
He handed over the box. “Adele, I’ve brought up your mother’s file. If you push that button, it will erase her memories.”
Adele took the box and thought long and hard about what she was about to do. “I don’t want anyone to violate her privacy. But I know how important this is to you. I can’t make that choice. I can’t deny her memories to history if you went to such trouble to mine them.” She held the box out to Schmidt. “Do with them as you will.”
Schmidt took the box back, and without hesitation he pushed the button. The box surprised Adele by speaking aloud in a monotone. “Memory file: Mathilde Weber. To erase, push the button again.”
Schmidt pushed the button again. “Memory file: Mathilde Weber. Erased.”
Adele took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
Schmidt nodded. “We didn’t need her recording anyway. Not as long as we have you to remember.”
Adele nodded. “And apparently I have a very strong mind, you said. After all, the disorienter didn’t work on me.”
Schmidt blinked rapidly, then looked away.
“Mr. Schmidt? What is it?”
He looked directly at her. “Adele, I lied to you before about the disorienter. There are no minds strong enough to resist it. It works on everybody.”
“Then why didn’t it work on me?”
“You were right the first time. I couldn’t bring myself to erase your memory of finding Ship Ablaze.”
“Why couldn’t you?”
He hesitated. “I didn’t want you to go on the excursion. I wanted you to survive.”
Adele smiled. “I love you too, Lucas.”
He cleared his throat and rocked slowly back and forth on his feet. “I guess that’s what I meant.”
“I know,” Adele said, and then she frowned. “When do you have to leave?”
“I ought to leave immediately. The longer I stay in 1904, the greater the chance I’ll contaminate the timeline.”
“If we love each other, Lucas, we should stay together.”
He gave her a sad look. “I can’t stay here in the past. I have a job, other missions. Responsibilities.”
“If you can’t stay in the past,” Adele said, “then take me with you to the future.”
Schmidt wiped a tear out of his eye. “I can’t. The consequences could be disastrous.”
“On a universe-destroying scale, or just a personal one?”
“Taking a person out of their proper time—”
“Is it so dangerous to remove me from 1904? From what you’ve said, I had a feeling that—well, let me put it to you this way. According to history—that is, your original history—did I survive?”
He looked away for a moment. “No. You did not.”
She nodded, and looked around the room. “Well, there’s nothing for me here anymore. My community has been ravaged by this conflagration. And, by your own arguments, my continued presence here would change history.”
He shook his head. “Not significantly. You’re but one person who is part of a tragedy that will be forgotten over the next hundred years.”
“But even one person can make a difference. My presence here might alter the future, and you would return to a world where you do not exist.”
“I—that is—” He paused.
“ ‘The consequences could be disastrous,’ “ Adele said, quoting his words back at him.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said, smiling. “It would be safer for me to take you back to the future after all.”
“Thank you.”
“But the future is a strange place, Adele. I’m not sure how well you’ll be able to cope.”
She moved closer and gently brushed his lips with hers. Schmidt’s eyes opened wide, but he did not turn her away.
“If I go to the future,” she asked, “will you be with me?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Always.”
“Then I imagine I shall be able to cope.”
“But what will you do in the future?”
“I thought that would be obvious. You came all the way back to my time to ensur
e that the future remembered the General Slocum. I shall go all the way forward to your time to ensure the same.”
Schmidt took her hand, and the past winked out of existence.
But never out of memory.
TIME AND TIME AGAIN
H. Beam Piper
Blinded by the bomb-flash and numbed by the narcotic injection, he could not estimate the extent of his injuries, but he knew that he was dying. Around him, in the darkness, voices sounded as through a thick wall.
“They mighta left mosta these Joes where they was. Half of them won’t even last till the truck comes.”
“No matter; so long as they’re alive, they must be treated,” another voice, crisp and cultivated, rebuked. “Better start taking names, while we’re waiting.”
“Yes, sir.” Fingers fumbled at his identity badge. “Hartley, Allan; Captain, G5, Chem. Research AN/73/D. Serial, SO-23869403J.”
“Allan Hartley!” The medic officer spoke in shocked surprise. “Why, he’s the man who wrote Children of the Mist, Rose of Death, and Conqueror’s Road!”
He tried to speak, and must have stirred; the corpsman’s voice sharpened.
“Major, I think he’s part conscious. Mebbe I better give him ’nother shot.”
“Yes, yes; by all means, sergeant.”
Something jabbed Allan Hartley in the back of the neck. Soft billows of oblivion closed in upon him, and all that remained to him was a tiny spark of awareness, glowing alone and lost in a great darkness.
The Spark grew brighter. He was more than a something that merely knew that it existed. He was a man, and he had a name, and a military rank, and memories. Memories of the searing blue-green flash, and of what he had been doing outside the shelter the moment before, and memories of the month-long siege, and of the retreat from the north, and memories of the days before the War, back to the time when he had been little Allan Hartley, a schoolboy, the son of a successful lawyer, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
His mother he could not remember; there was only a vague impression of the house full of people who had tried to comfort him for something he could not understand. But he remembered the old German woman who had kept house for his father, afterward, and he remembered his bedroom, with its chintz-covered chairs, and the warm-colored patch quilt on the old cherry bed, and the tan curtains at the windows, edged with dusky red, and the morning sun shining through them. He could almost see them, now.
He blinked. He could see them!
For a long time, he lay staring at them unbelievingly, and then he deliberately closed his eyes and counted ten seconds, and as he counted, terror gripped him. He was afraid to open them again, lest he find himself blind, or gazing at the filth and wreckage of a blasted city, but when he reached ten, he forced himself to look, and gave a sigh of relief. The sunlit curtains and the sun-gilded mist outside were still there.
He reached out to check one sense against another, feeling the rough monk’s cloth and the edging of maroon silk thread. They were tangible as well as visible. Then he saw that the back of his hand was unscarred. There should have been a scar, souvenir of a rough-and-tumble brawl of his cub reporter days. He examined both hands closely. An instant later, he had sat up in bed and thrown off the covers, partially removing his pajamas and inspecting as much of his body as was visible.
It was the smooth body of a little boy.
That was ridiculous. He was a man of forty-three; an army officer, a chemist, once a best-selling novelist. He had been married, and divorced ten years ago. He looked again at his body. It was only twelve years old. Fourteen, at the very oldest. His eyes swept the room, wide with wonder. Every detail was familiar: the flower-splashed chair covers; the table that served as desk and catch-all for his possessions; the dresser, with its mirror stuck full of pictures of aircraft. It was the bedroom of his childhood home. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. They were six inches too short to reach the floor.
For an instant, the room spun dizzily; and he was in the grip of utter panic, all confidence in the evidence of his senses lost. Was he insane? Or delirious? Or had the bomb really killed him; was this what death was like? What was that thing, about “ye become as little children”? He started to laugh, and his juvenile larynx made giggling sounds. They seemed funny, too, and aggravated his mirth. For a little while, he was on the edge of hysteria and then, when he managed to control his laughter, he felt calmer. If he were dead, then he must be a discarnate entity, and would be able to penetrate matter. To his relief, he was unable to push his hand through the bed. So he was alive; he was also fully awake, and, he hoped, rational. He rose to his feet and prowled about the room, taking stock of its contents.
There was no calendar in sight, and he could find no newspapers or dated periodicals, but he knew that it was prior to July 18, 1946. On that day, his fourteenth birthday, his father had given him a light .22 rifle, and it had been hung on a pair of rustic forks on the wall. It was not there now, nor ever had been. On the table, he saw a boys’ book of military aircraft, with a clean, new dustjacket; the flyleaf was inscribed: To Allan Hartley, from his father, on his thirteenth birthday, 7/18 ’45. Glancing out the window at the foliage on the trees, he estimated the date at late July or early August, 1945; that would make him just thirteen.
His clothes were draped on a chair beside the bed. Stripping off his pajamas, he donned shorts, then sat down and picked up a pair of lemon-colored socks, which he regarded with disfavor. As he pulled one on, a church bell began to clang. St. Boniface, up on the hill, ringing for early Mass; so this was Sunday. He paused, the second sock in his hand.
There was no question that his present environment was actual. Yet, on the other hand, he possessed a set of memories completely at variance with it. Now, suppose, since his environment were not an illusion, everything else were? Suppose all these troublesome memories were no more than a dream? Why, he was just little Allan Hartley, safe in his room on a Sunday morning, badly scared by a nightmare! Too much science fiction, Allan; too many comic books!
That was a wonderfully comforting thought, and he hugged it to him contentedly. It lasted all the while he was buttoning up his shirt and pulling on his pants, but when he reached for his shoes, it evaporated. Ever since he had wakened, he realized, he had been occupied with thoughts utterly incomprehensible to any thirteen-year-old; even thinking in words that would have been so much Sanscrit to himself at thirteen. He shook his head regretfully. The just-a-dream hypothesis went by the deep six.
He picked up the second shoe and glared at it as though it were responsible for his predicament. He was going to have to be careful. An unexpected display of adult characteristics might give rise to some questions he would find hard to answer credibly. Fortunately, he was an only child; there would be no brothers or sisters to trip him up. Old Mrs. Stauber, the housekeeper, wouldn’t be much of a problem; even in his normal childhood, he had bulked like an intellectual giant in comparison to her. But his father—
Now, there the going would be tough. He knew that shrewd attorney’s mind, whetted keen on a generation of lying and reluctant witnesses. Sooner or later, he would forget for an instant and betray himself. Then he smiled, remembering the books he had discovered, in his late ’teens, on his father’s shelves and recalling the character of the openminded agnostic lawyer. If he could only avoid the inevitable unmasking until he had a plausible explanatory theory.
Blake Hartley was leaving the bathroom as Allan Hartley opened his door and stepped into the hall. The lawyer was bare-armed and in slippers; at forty-eight, there was only a faint powdering of gray in his dark hair, and not a gray thread in his clipped mustache. The old Merry Widower, himself, Allan thought, grinning as he remembered the white-haired but still vigorous man from whom he’d parted at the outbreak of the War.
“ ’Morning, Dad,” he greeted.
“ ’Morning, son. You’re up early. Going to Sunday school?”
Now there was the advantage of a father who’d cut his
first intellectual tooth on Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll; attendance at divine services was on a strictly voluntary basis.
“Why, I don’t think so; I want to do some reading, this morning.”
“That’s always a good thing to do,” Blake Hartley approved. “After breakfast, suppose you take a walk down to the station and get me a Times.” He dug in his trouser pocket and came out with a half dollar. “Get anything you want for yourself, while you’re at it.”
Allan thanked his father and pocketed the coin.
“Mrs. Stauber’ll still be at Mass,” he suggested. “Say I get the paper now; breakfast won’t be ready till she gets here.”
“Good idea.” Blake Hartley nodded, pleased. “You’ll have three-quarters of an hour, at least.”
So far, he congratulated himself, everything had gone smoothly. Finishing his toilet, he went downstairs and onto the street, turning left at Brandon to Campbell, and left again in the direction of the station. Before he reached the underpass, a dozen half-forgotten memories had revived. Here was a house that would, in a few years, be gutted by fire. Here were four dwellings standing where he had last seen a five-story apartment building. A gasoline station and a weed-grown lot would shortly be replaced by a supermarket. The environs of the station itself were a complete puzzle to him, until he oriented himself.
He bought a New York Times, glancing first of all at the date line. Sunday, August 5, 1945; he’d estimated pretty closely. The battle of Okinawa had been won. The Potsdam Conference had just ended. There were still pictures of the B-25 crash against the Empire State Building, a week ago Saturday. And Japan was still being pounded by bombs from the air and shells from off-shore naval guns. Why, tomorrow, Hiroshima was due for the Big Job! It amused him to reflect that he was probably the only person in Williamsport who knew that.
On the way home, a boy, sitting on the top step of a front porch, hailed him. Allan replied cordially, trying to remember who it was. Of course; Larry Morton! He and Allan had been buddies. They probably had been swimming, or playing Commandos and Germans, the afternoon before. Larry had gone to Cornell the same year that Allan had gone to Penn State; they had both graduated in 1954. Larry had gotten into some Government bureau, and then he had married a Pittsburgh girl, and had become twelfth vice-president of her father’s firm. He had been killed, in 1968, in a plane crash.