by Anthology
The place was filled with the little men again!
Harry sat on the fender of a convertible and groaned. “Now what have I got myself into?” he asked himself.
He could see that he was at a different place-in-time from the one in which he had met Iridel. There, they had been working to build, working with a precision and nicety that was a pleasure to watch. But here—
The little men were different, in the first place. They were tired-looking, sick, slow.
There were scores of overseers about, and Harry winced with one of the little fellows when one of the men in white lashed out with a long whip. As the Wednesday crews worked, so the Monday gangs slaved. And the work they were doing was different. For here they were breaking down, breaking up, carting away. Before his eyes, Harry saw sections of paving lifted out, pulverized, toted away by the sackload by lines of trudging, browbeaten little men. He saw great beams upended to support the roof, while bricks were pried out of the walls. He heard the gang working on the roof, saw patches of roofing torn away. He saw walls and roof both melt away under that driving, driven onslaught, and before he knew what was happening he was standing alone on a section of the dead white plain he had noticed before on the corner lot.
It was too much for his overburdened mind; he ran out into the night, breaking through lines of laden slaves, through neat and growing piles of rubble, screaming for Iridel. He ran for a long time, and finally dropped down behind a stack of lumber out where the Unitarian church used to be, dropped because he could go no farther. He heard footsteps and tried to make himself smaller. They came on steadily; one of the overseers rounded the corner and stood looking at him. Harry was in deep shadow, but he knew the man in white could see in the dark.
“Come out o’ there,” grated the man. Harry came out.
“You the guy was yellin’ for Iridel?”
Harry nodded.
“What makes you think you’ll find Iridel in Limbo?” sneered his captor. “Who are you, anyway?”
Harry had learned by this time. “I’m an actor,” he said in a small voice. “I got into Wednesday by mistake, and they sent me back here.”
“What for?”
“Huh? Why—I guess it was a mistake, that’s all.”
The man stepped forward and grabbed Harry by the collar. He was about eight times as powerful as a hydraulic jack. “Don’t give me no guff, pal,” said the man. “Nobody gets sent to Limbo by mistake, or if he didn’t do somethin’ up there to make him deserve it. Come clean, now.”
“I didn’t do nothin’,” Harry wailed. “I asked them the way back, and they showed me a door, and I went through it and came here. That’s all I know. Stop it, you’re choking me!”
The man dropped him suddenly. “Listen, babe, you know who I am? Hey?” Harry shook his head. “Oh—you don’t. Well, I’m Gurrah!”
“Yeah?” Harry said, not being able to think of anything else at the moment.
Gurrah puffed out his chest and appeared to be waiting for something more from Harry. When nothing came, he walked up to the mechanic, breathed in his face. “Ain’t scared, huh? Tough guy, huh? Never heard of Gurrah, supervisor of Limbo an’ the roughest, toughest son of the devil from Incidence to Eternity, huh?”
Now Harry was a peaceable man, but if there was anything he hated, it was to have a stranger breathe his bad breath pugnaciously at him. Before he knew it had happened, Gurrah was sprawled eight feet away, and Harry was standing alone rubbing his left knuckles—quite the more surprised of the two.
Gurrah sat up, feeling his face. “Why, you . . . you hit me!” he roared. He got up and came over to Harry. “You hit me!” he said softly, his voice slightly out of focus in amazement. Harry wished he hadn’t—wished he was in bed or in Futura or dead or something. Gurrah reached out with a heavy fist and—patted him on the shoulder.
“Hey,” he said, suddenly friendly, “you’re all right. Heh! Took a poke at me, didn’t you?
Be damned! First time in a month o’ Mondays anyone ever made a pass at me. Last was a feller named Orton. I killed ’im.” Harry paled.
Gurrah leaned back against the lumber pile. “Dam’f I didn’t enjoy that, feller. Yeah.
This is a hell of a job they palmed off on me, but what can you do? Breakin’ down—
breakin’ down. No sooner get through one job, workin’ top speed, drivin’ the boys till they bleed, than they give you the devil for not bein’ halfway through another job.
You’d think I’d been in the business long enough to know what it was all about, after more than eight hundred an’ twenty million acts, wouldn’t you? Heh. Try to tell them that. Ship a load of dog houses up to Wednesday, sneakin’ it past backstage nice as you please. They turn right around and call me up. ‘What’s the matter with you, Gurrah?
Them dog houses is no good. We sent you a list o’ worn-out items two acts ago. One o’ the items was dog houses. Snap out of it or we send someone back there who can read an’ put you on a toteline.’ That’s what I get—act in and act out. An’ does it do any good to tell ’em that my aide got the message an’ dropped dead before he got it to me? No.
Uh-uh. If I say anything about that, they tell me to stop workin’ ’em to death. If I do that, they kick because my shipments don’t come in fast enough.”
He paused for breath. Harry had a hunch that if he kept Gurrah in a good mood it might benefit him. He asked, “What’s your job, anyway?”
“Job?” Gurrah howled. “Call this a job? Tearin’ down the sets, shippin’ what’s good to the act after next, junkin’ the rest?” He snorted.
Harry asked, “You mean they use the same props over again?”
“That’s right. They don’t last, though. Six, eight acts, maybe. Then they got to build new ones and weather them and knock ’em around to make ’em look as if they was used.”
There was silence for a time. Gurrah, having got his bitterness off his chest for the first. time in literally ages, was feeling pacified. Harry didn’t know how to feel. He finally broke the ice. “Hey, Gurrah—How’m I goin’ to get back into the play?”
“What’s it to me? How’d you—Oh, that’s right, you walked in from the control room, huh? That it?”
Harry nodded.
“An’ how,” growled Gurrah, “did you get inta the control room?”
“Iridel brought me.”
“Then what?”
“Well, I went to see the producer, and—”
“Th’ producer! Holy—You mean you walked right in and—” Gurrah mopped his brow. “What’d he say?”
“Why—he said he guessed it wasn’t my fault that I woke up in Wednesday. He said to tell Iridel to ship me back.”
“An’ Iridel threw you back to Monday.” And Gurrah threw back his shaggy head and roared.
“What’s funny,” asked Harry, a little peeved.
“Iridel,” said Gurrah. “Do you realize that I’ve been trying for fifty thousand acts or more to get something on that pretty ol’ heel, and he drops you right in my lap. Pal, I can’t thank you enough! He was supposed to send you back into the play, and instead o’ that you wind up in yesterday! Why, I’ll blackmail him till the end of time!” He whirled exultantly, called to a group of bedraggled little men who were staggering under a cornerstone on their way to the junkyard. “Take it easy, boys!” he called. “I got ol’ Iridel by the short hair. No more busted backs! No more snotty messages! Haw haw haw!”
Harry, a little amazed at all this, put in a timid word, “Hey—Gurrah. What about me?”
Gurrah turned. “You? Oh. Tel-e-phone!” At his shout two little workers, a trifle less bedraggled than the rest, trotted up. One hopped up and perched on Gurrah’s right shoulder; the other draped himself over the left, with his head forward. Gurrah grabbed the latter by the neck, brought the man’s head close and shouted into his ear. “Give me Iridel!” There was a moment’s wait, then the little man on his other shoulder spoke in Iridel’s voice, into Gurrah’s ear, “Wel
l?”
“Hiyah, fancy pants!”
“Fancy—I beg your—Who is this?”
“It’s Gurrah, you futuristic parasite. I got a couple things to tell you.”
“Gurrah! How—dare you talk to me like that! I’ll have you—”
“You’ll have me in your job if I tell all I know. You’re a wart on the nose of progress, Iridel.”
“What is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of this is that you had instructions sent to you by the producer an’ you muffed them. Had an actor there, didn’t you? He saw the boss, didn’t he? Told you he was to be sent back, didn’t he? Sent him right over to me instead of to the play, didn’t you? You’re slippin’, Iridel. Gettin’ old. Well, get off the wire. I’m callin’ the boss, right now.”
“The boss? Oh—don’t do that, old man. Look, let’s talk this thing over. Ah—about that shipment of three-legged dogs I was wanting you to round up for me; I guess I can do without them. Any little favor I can do for you—”
“—you’ll damn well do, after this. You better, Goldilocks.” Gurrah knocked the two small heads together, breaking the connection and probably the heads, and turned grinning to Harry. “You see,” he explained, “that Iridel feller is a damn good supervisor, but he’s a stickler for detail. He sends people to Limbo for the silliest little mistakes. He never forgives anyone and he never forgets a slip. He’s the cause of half the misery back here, with his hurry-up orders. Now things are gonna be different. The boss has wanted to give Iridel a dose of his own medicine for a long time now, but Irrie never gave him a chance.”
Harry said patiently, “About me getting back now—”
“My fran’ !” Gurrah bellowed. He delved into a pocket and pulled out a watch like Iridel’s. “It’s eleven forty on Tuesday,” he said. “We’ll shoot you back there now.
You’ll have to dope out your own reasons for disappearing. Don’t spill too much, or a lot of people will suffer for it—you the most. Ready?”
Harry nodded; Gurrah swept out a hand and opened the curtain to nothingness.
“You’ll find yourself quite a ways from where you started,” he said, “because you did a little moving around here. Go ahead.”
“Thanks,” said Harry.
Gurrah laughed. “Don’t thank me, chum. You rate all the thanks! Hey—if, after you kick off, you don’t make out so good up there, let them toss you over to me. You’ll be treated good; you’ve my word on it. Beat it; luck!”
Holding his breath, Harry Wright stepped through the doorway.
He had to walk thirty blocks to the garage, and when he got there the boss was waiting for him.
“Where you been, Wright?”
“I—lost my way.”
“Don’t get wise. What do you think this is—vacation time? Get going on the spring job. Damn it, it won’t be finished now till tomorra.”
Harry looked him straight in the eye and said, “Listen. It’ll be finished tonight. I happen to know.” And, still grinning, he went back into the garage and took out his tools.
YOU SEE, BUT YOU DO NOT OBSERVE
Robert J. Sawyer
I had been pulled into the future first, ahead of y companion. There was no sensation associated with the chronotrans-ference, except for a popping of my ears which I was later told had to do with a change in air pressure. Once in the 21st century, my brain was scanned in order to produce from my memories a perfect reconstruction of our rooms at 221-B Baker Street. Details that I could not consciously remember or articulate were nonetheless reproduced exactly: the flock-papered walls, the bearskin hearthrug, the basket chair and the armchair, the coal-scuttle, even the view through the window—all were correct to the smallest detail.
I was met in the future by a man who called himself Mycroft Holmes. He claimed, however, to be no relation to my companion, and protested that his name was mere coincidence, although he allowed that the fact of it was likely what had made a study of my partner’s methods his chief avocation. I asked him if he had a brother called Sherlock, but his reply made little sense to me: “My parents weren’t that cruel.”
In any event, this Mycroft Holmes—who was a small man with reddish hair, quite unlike the stout and dark ale of a fellow with the same name I had known two hundred years before—wanted all details to be correct before he whisked Holmes here from the past. Genius, he said, was but a step from madness, and although I had taken to the future well, my companion might be quite rocked by the experience.
When Mycroft did bring Holmes forth, he did so with great stealth, transferring him precisely as he stepped through the front exterior door of the real 221-B Baker Street and into the simulation that had been created here. I heard my good friend’s voice down the stairs, giving his usual glad tidings to a simulation of Mrs. Hudson. His long legs, as they always did, brought him up to our humble quarters at a rapid pace.
I had expected a hearty greeting, consisting perhaps of an ebullient cry of “My Dear Watson,” and possibly even a firm clasping of hands or some other display of bonhomie. But there was none of that, of course. This was not like the time Holmes had returned after an absence of three years during which I had believed him to be dead. No, my companion, whose exploits it has been my honor to chronicle over the years, was unaware of just how long we had been separated, and so my reward for my vigil was nothing more than a distracted nodding of his drawn-out face. He took a seat and settled in with the evening paper, but after a few moments, he slapped the newsprint sheets down. “Confound it, Watson! I have already read this edition. Have we not today’s paper?” And, at that turn, there was nothing for it but for me to adopt the unfamiliar role that queer fate had dictated I must now take: our traditional positions were now reversed, and I would have to explain the truth to Holmes.
“Holmes, my good fellow, I am afraid they do not publish newspapers anymore.”
He pinched his long face into a scowl, and his clear, gray eyes glimmered. “I would have thought that any man who had spent as much time in Afghanistan as you had, Watson, would be immune to the ravages of the sun. I grant that today was unbearably hot, but surely your brain should not have addled so easily.”
“Not a bit of it, Holmes, I assure you,” said I. “What I say is true, although I confess my reaction was the same as yours when I was first told. There have not been any newspapers for seventy-five years now.”
“Seventy-five years? Watson, this copy of The Times is dated August the fourteenth, 1899—yesterday.”
“I am afraid that is not true, Holmes. Today is June the fifth, anno Domini two thousand and ninety-six.”
“Two thou—”
“It sounds preposterous, I know—”
“It is preposterous, Watson. I call you ‘old man’ now and again out of affection, but you are in fact nowhere near two hundred and fifty years of age.”
“Perhaps I am not the best man to explain all this,” I said. “No,” said a voice from the doorway. “Allow me.”
Holmes surged to his feet. “And who are you?”
“My name is Mycroft Holmes.”
“Impostor!” declared my companion.
“I assure you that that is not the case,” said Mycroft. “I grant I’m not your brother, nor a habitué of the Diogenes Club, but I do share his name. I am a scientist—and I have used certain scientific principles to pluck you from your past and bring you into my present.”
For the first time in all the years I had known him, I saw befuddlement on my companion’s face. “It is quite true,” I said to him.
“But why?” said Holmes, spreading his long arms. “Assuming this mad fantasy is true—and I do not grant for an instant that it is—why would you thus kidnap myself and my good friend, Dr. Watson?”
“Because, Holmes, the game, as you used to be so fond of saying, is afoot.”
“Murder, is it?” asked I, grateful at last to get to the reason for which we had been brought forward.
“More than simple murd
er,” said Mycroft. “Much more. Indeed, the biggest puzzle to have ever faced the human race. Not just one body is missing. Trillions are. Trillions.”
“Watson,” said Holmes, “surely you recognize the signs of madness in the man? Have you nothing in your bag that can help him? The whole population of the Earth is less than two thousand millions.”
“In your time, yes,” said Mycroft. “Today, it’s about eight thousand million. But I say again, there are trillions more who are missing.”
“Ah, I perceive at last,” said Holmes, a twinkle in his eye as he came to believe that reason was once again holding sway. “I have read in The Illustrated London News of these dinosauria, as Professor Owen called them—great creatures from the past, all now deceased. It is their demise you wish me to unravel.”
Mycroft shook his head. “You should have read Professor Moriarty’s monograph called The Dynamics of an Asteroid,” he said.
“I keep my mind clear of useless knowledge,” replied Holmes curtly.
Mycroft shrugged. “Well, in that paper Moriarty quite cleverly guessed the cause of the demise of the dinosaurs: an asteroid crashing into earth kicked up enough dust to block the sun for months on end. Close to a century after he had reasoned out this hypothesis, solid evidence for its truth was found in a layer of clay. No, that mystery is long since solved. This one is much greater.”
“And what, pray, is it?” said Holmes, irritation in his voice. Mycroft motioned for Holmes to have a seat, and, after a moment’s defiance, my friend did just that. “It is called the Fermi paradox,” said Mycroft, “after Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist who lived in the twentieth century. You see, we know now that this universe of ours should have given rise to countless planets, and that many of those planets should have produced intelligent civilizations. We can demonstrate the likelihood of this mathematically, using something called the Drake equation. For a century and a half now, we have been using radio—wireless, that is—to look for signs of these other intelligences. And we have found nothing—nothing! Hence the paradox Fermi posed: if the universe is supposed to be full of life, then where are the aliens?”