AFTER THE FACT

by Fred Saberhagen

  The surface he was looking at was not like any watch face that he had ever seen before. It was more like a small circular video screen; and even more like a miniature round window into a small three-dimensional world.

  The video turned itself on while he looked at it. In the window there now appeared, in full color and apparent solidity, the face of the man Jerry had known as Pilgrim. The lips of the image were moving, and now—suddenly, when Jerry held the watch at just the right distance—the voice became audible. But image and voice alike were being blocked out at intervals, by bursts of roaring static and white video noise.

  "—paradoxes of time travel," Pilgrim's voice was saying, "caused in large part by"—crash, whirr—

  "may prevent your seeing or hearing this message in its entirety. Therefore I attempt to be creatively redundant. We here at this end, Jerry, can only hope and pray that you will find this message, and that enough of the content is going to come through to enable you to"—whizee—fizzle—zapp!

  Long seconds passed. When the picture came back again, Pilgrim's head was in a different attitude.

  "—and one time only," Pilgrim's voice resumed in mid-sentence. "Then this message will self-destruct. " His swarthy face frowned. "Let me emphasize once more, Jerry, that your only chance of being able to return to your own time, and finding your own history intact when you do so, lies in preventing the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln."

  "What?"

  Pilgrim's image proceeded imperturbably. "Within a few days of your own arrival in the world of eighteen sixty-five, the President is shot to death by—"

  Again there was interruption, audio static accompanied by visual effects that momentarily reduced the picture to unintelligible noise. The effects of video distortion in three dimensions were especially chaotic. After several seconds, the interference was gone as suddenly as it had come.

  "—have until the fourteenth of April, Jeremiah, at Ford's Theater in Washington. Unless—" blast, crackle.

  And, yet again, static had cut off the flow of information. But in another moment Pilgrim was back again, coming through as loud and clear as ever. "—chosen you for this mission because of this almost unique ability which you possess. Without this power to avoid some of the effects of paradox, your mission would be truly hopeless. With it, we can hope that you have at least a fighting chance of success."

  "A fighting chance!" Jerry was raging in a whisper at the image. "Are you crazy? What are you talking about? Are you—?"

  "—you must be at the side of the President, within two meters to have a high probability of success. Within three meters, to have any chance at all. And you must be there in the moment just before the assassin's bullet smashes into Lincoln's brain. Your total window of opportunity will be approximately three seconds long. During that three-second period, just before the bullet strikes, I repeat, you must activate the beacon."

  "Activate the what?" Jerry murmured unconsciously. His own face contorted in a scowl, he was frozen in absolute attention on the message. Pilgrim had indicated—hadn't he?—that it was going to self-destruct.

  Meanwhile Pilgrim's hands had come up into sight on the small screen. The view closed in on them. They were holding a watch that looked very much like the one Jerry was holding, except that the timepiece in the image possessed a real face and hands.

  The closeup held, while Pilgrim's off-screen voice continued: "The hands must first be set, thus, at exactly twelve." His fingers demonstrated, opening the glass face of the watch and moving the hands directly. "Then the stem must be pulled out, to the first stop. This is the first stage of activation, and I repeat it will in effect give you the advantage in speed of movement that you will need."

  "Repeat? You never—"

  "Then, at the precise moment, just as the assassin pulls the trigger of his weapon, pull the stem to the second stop. This will activate the beacon."

  "What beacon?"

  "That's all. Until you need it on the fourteenth, this device will seem to be an ordinary timepiece. Need I emphasize that you must not lose it? You can wind it, by omitting to set the hands at twelve, pulling the stem out and turning it in the normal way."

  Now the image of the watch disappeared from the small screen, which was filled by Pilgrim's face. He said, with emphasis: "Once more: The activation of the beacon must be accomplished only during the proper three-second interval. Pull the stem out to the second stop a second too late, and you will strand yourself permanently in the nineteenth century. Pulling it a second too soon will doubtless have the same effect, with the added drawback of causing irreparable harm to much of what you know as Western Civilization.

  "But, do it at the right moment, and you will save the life of President Lincoln. You will also be restored to your own world, under conditions which ought to earn your country's eternal gratitude."

  There was a sudden sharp whiff of a strange, acidic odor in Jerry's nostrils. There was, briefly, a shimmering in the air immediately surrounding the watch. Jerry almost dropped it, although his hands holding the instrument could feel no heat. In a few seconds the shimmering was over and the smell had dissipated. Jerry was left holding a device that looked exactly like the one Pilgrim had held during the demonstration. The face was solidly visible, and the hands agreed at least approximately with those of the sober clock on the wall of the bank lobby, which he was able to see over the partition of the booth. And the instrument he held was ticking.

  Stunned, Jerry mechanically tucked the watch into the watchpocket of his vest, and after a couple of tries managed to get the chain attached to a buttonhole in what he considered had to be the proper way.

  Still somewhat dazed, he closed up the safe-deposit box, now empty but for the cotton batting, and carried it out of the little partitioned booth, to hand it back to the incurious clerk.

  You must be there in the moment just before the assassin's bullet smashes into Lincoln's brain. Your window of opportunity will be approximately three seconds long…

  Oh, must I? You son of a bitch, Pilgrim. I'd like to see to it that something smashes into your brain. I didn't ask you to dump me into this drugged dream, this, this—

  The fate of Western Civilization? More immediately graspable: his chance to get home. Pilgrim had said that it would be his only chance. Maybe that wasn't necessarily so, but the bastard could probably arrange matters that way if he wanted to.

  And it would happen in Washington, on April fourteenth. He recalled the date on the newspaper he was again carrying under his arm. This was April sixth. He had eight days.

  He was just outside the bank, on the wooden sidewalk, with no idea of which direction he ought to go next, when a gentle hand in a soft gray glove placed itself on his arm, making him start violently. The young woman who had come up to him had chestnut hair, and calm brown eyes under her flower-trimmed hat. The face on the locket? No, he thought, not at all.

  "Don't be startled, Jim," she said in a low, husky voice. She was smiling at him pleasantly. "Someone might be watching us. You don't know me but I'm your friend. Because I'm in the same boat you are. I used to work for Lafe, but I've given it up too."

  Jerry opened his mouth to say something, and closed it again.

  "Walk with me. Smile." Her hand on his arm turned him gently on the busy sidewalk, and they walked together, at a moderate pace. He noticed vaguely that they were moving in the direction of the railroad section. "I'm Colleen Monahan. I'm working directly for Stanton now. It's all right. He sent me to see to it that you get back to Washington alive."

  SEVEN

  After hurrying Jerry down a side street near the railroad station, Colleen Monahan brought him up some wooden steps to the front door of a cheap-looking rooming house only a few blocks away. In the dim hallway inside the door the smell of stale cabbage overlay a substratum of even less appetizing odors. Next she led him up a dark, uncarpeted stair; there were four short flights, with a right-angled turn after each one. From somewhere nearby came the vo
ices of a man and woman quarreling.

  The upper hallway where they left the stairs smelled no better than the lower one. In another moment Jerry's guide was unlocking the door to a small and shabby room.

  "Our train leaves shortly after dark," she announced, locking the door after Jerry as soon as he had followed her into the room. "If you want to change clothes before we start, there's a few things in the wardrobe there that might fit you." The more he heard of Colleen Monahan's speech, the more easily Jerry could detect a trace of some accent in her voice; perhaps it was a genuine Irish brogue. And probably it would be more than a trace when she spoke with feeling.

  "The train to Washington?" he asked.

  "Of course. What did you think? I said I'd get you there alive."

  It was said in a matter-of-fact way that made the implied danger all the more convincing. "I bet," Jerry said carefully, "that lots of people arrive there alive every day."

  Standing in front of a small wall mirror, Colleen had unpinned and taken off her hat. Now she turned to face him. "Not with Lafe Baker trying to stop them, they don't," she said. The short reply had the sound of practical advice, delivered calmly. Now, as Jerry approached the room's single window, intending to look out, she added: "Better be careful. And hand me over that safe-deposit key while I think of it. You won't need it any longer."

  Jerry pulled out the key, tossed it in the air and caught it. "How'd you recognize me?" he asked softly. "Lots of men go in and out of that bank."

  "I paid the safe-deposit clerk to pass me a signal. What did you think?"

  After giving her the key he edged up to one side of the window and moved the curtain gently. The window gave an elevated view of backyards, woodpiles, and privies, the scene decorated by a few lines of laundry. If someone somewhere out there was watching the room, Jerry couldn't see them. He let the dirty curtain fall back.

  Turning to the tall wooden wardrobe, he took a look inside; only a few clothes were hanging there, but about half of them seemed to be male attire, somewhat shabbier than Jim Lockwood's. "You mentioned changing clothes. Do you think I ought to?"

  "You ought to know better than I," she answered shortly. "Maybe the men chasing you don't know what you're wearing now; maybe they haven't been after you every inch of the way here from Missouri. I can tell you it's damned likely they will be after you from now on. And I've promised the old man in Washington to bring you there alive."

  He closed the wardrobe doors again. Pilgrim had arranged for him to be guided to this woman, obviously, but he had never said anything to Jerry about her. Beyond what she was telling him herself, Jerry had no idea of who she really was and how much she might know.

  Cautiously he asked: "What's going on in Washington?"

  "Sit down and rest yourself. Don't be waitin' for a special invitation." Colleen herself was already occupying the only chair, so Jerry sat down on the bed—the mattress was a grade quieter than cornhusks if not really any softer. His hostess continued: "What's goin' on? Stanton and Watson, Lord bless 'em, are finally ready to clean house. Old Lafe is goin' to be on his way out—provided we can get you there alive to testify. Mr. Stanton won't act until he can hear the facts from you personally."

  Stanton. Oh yes. Jerry could definitely remember Jan Chen, somewhere across the vast gulf of time, telling him that was the name of Lincoln's Secretary of War. The name of Watson, on the other hand, meant nothing to Jerry, unless it was going to turn out that Sherlock Holmes was alive after all. Nor could he recall ever hearing of someone known as Old Lafe.

  Unable to stand the uncertainty any longer, Jerry asked: "What do you hear from Pilgrim?"

  "Who?" She had heard him perfectly, but the name obviously meant nothing to her—or else she was a suberb actress.

  Jerry sighed. "Never mind. So, Old Lafe is going out."

  "He won't be got rid of lightly," his informant went on, shaking her head grimly. "He is efficient, when he wants to be, as we all know. But now the stories about his corruption are mounting and mounting, and the war is winding down. He can be dispensed with now. But Lafe Baker won't disappear without a fight, as we both know. And how are things out in Missouri?" She flounced her body in the chair, adjusting the long skirt. She was better dressed, Jerry realized, than anyone would expect an occupant of this boarding house to be.

  He only shrugged in answer to her question.

  "I trust you got the goods on him." There was hopeful hatred in the question.

  Jerry looked her in the eye, trying to appear impenetrable rather than ignorant. "I want to get to Washington," was all that he could find to say, at last. "Alive." The problem of someone there knowing Jim Lockwood, and wanting him to give testimony about something, would have to wait.

  "Right, don't tell me, I don't want to know."

  Colleen had gone behind a professional mask. "Wouldn't do any good. Even if you told me, I wouldn't be able to testify first-hand. I forgot to ask you if you'd had anything to eat."

  "I've eaten well. You? And how about the train tickets? I've got money."

  Colleen smiled. "That was to be my next question." She pulled an apple out from somewhere and began to munch on it. "Won't be needing any tickets between here and Detroit. We're going that far on a private car. I'm Sarah James and you're John James. We're married, of course. I don't think Lafe's people are going to be looking for a married couple. That's why Stanton sent a woman as your escort." Then she straightened herself firmly in the chair, as if to discourage any idea of intimacy the mention of marriage might have suggested.

  "A private car." That was impressive, thought Jerry. If it was true. "How'd you manage that?'

  "The men who own the railroad are only too glad to be able to do a favor for Mr. Stanton." She stated that as if it should be an obvious fact, and Jerry did not press for any elaboration.

  His companion, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of apple, studied him and then remarked: "You don't look all that much like the picture I'd formed of you from Mr. Stanton's description, though there's no doubt it fits. Strange how you can get a picture of someone in your mind and then it's wrong. By the way, did you bring the note?"

  Jerry dug from his pocket the note he'd taken from the safe deposit box, and passed it over. Colleen looked at it and was satisfied. "Reckon you're all right," she said.

  Silence stretched out for a few moments, threatened to become uncomfortable. Jerry asked: "Have you been in this line of work a long time—Colleen? Mind if I call you that?" And he was thinking how different she was from Jan Chen, presumably in some sense her colleague. He wondered if they knew or had ever heard of each other.

  "I've been at it long enough to know my way around. And for now you'd better start to call me Sarah." It was something of a reproach.

  "Of course."

  The two of them sat talking in Colleen's room until it began to grow dark, when she suddenly asked him: "Have you the time?"

  He dug out Pilgrim's watch and flipped open the metal faceplate. "A little after six."

  "Then we must go." From under her bed Colleen pulled out a small bag, evidently already packed. Jerry, carrying his own heavier carpetbag, followed her out the door. There was no light in the room to be extinguished.

  This time Colleen Monahan led him on a circuitous route through the evening streets. Here and there lamps glowed in the windows of houses, and a man was carrying a short ladder from one gas streetlight after another, patiently climbing again and again to light them one by one.

  Colleen looked over her shoulder frequently; Jerry, imitating her, could see no evidence that anyone was following them.

  Pausing beside a high board fence, Colleen took one final look around, then dodged suddenly through a hole in the fence where several boards were missing. Jerry, staying on her heels, found that they were now in a railroad yard, a couple of blocks from the lighted station. The ground underfoot here was a maze of track. Kerosene lamps behind colored glass made what he supposed were effective signals. In the middle dist
ance a couple of trains, lighted by lanterns and showering sparks, were moving sluggishly. Switch engines grumbled and snorted in near-total darkness, dragging the cars industriously.

  Their baggage bumping against their legs, Jerry and his guide picked their way across one siding after another, moving in the general direction of the station. Chicago was evidently already well on it's way to becoming a great railroad center.

  "What are we looking for?" Jerry whispered when Colleen paused at last, obviously uncertain of exactly which way to proceed.

  "We're looking for the man we're going to meet," she whispered back.

  "Who's that?"

  "A friend. I'll know him when I see him."

  She moved on, with Jerry continuing to follow her as silently as possible.

  Ahead of them an uncoupled passenger car waited on yet another siding. A dim figure emerged from behind it, looking in their direction. Colleen waved, and the man ahead returned her gesture, his arm almost invisible in the gathering gloom.

  As they approached, the man waiting in the shadows tipped his cap in a remarkably humble gesture. Jerry could see now that he was black, wearing what Jerry took to be a kind of railroad uniform.

  "Mistah and Missus James? I'm Sam." The speaker touched his cap again, this time in a kind of half-military salute. "We expectin' you heah. Lemme take you bags."

  "Never mind that, we'll manage," said Colleen. Despite the interference of her long skirts, she was already halfway up the steep steps leading into the car. "Let's get moving."

  "Yas'm. We'll be moving any minute."

  Someone would have to locate and attach an engine first, thought Jerry. But he kept quiet. In a matter of moments they were all three inside the car, where he received his next surprise. He wasn't sure what kind of an interior he had been expecting, but these quarters were furnished better than Lincoln's Springfield home, and Lincoln had not been a poor man when he lived there. Kerosene lamps with ornate shades were hidden behind shaded windows that let out practically no light. Thick carpets covered the floor, except for a layer of steel plates in the near vicinity of the woodburning stove. The heating stove, secured by steel tie-rods to the floor of the coach, was standing cold and empty in the mild spring night.