Alternate Empires

by Gregory Benford

  Halloran nodded wearily. Now that it was all spelled out, there was nothing really to argue about. He raised his glass to drink, and as he did so, he saw that Vusilov’s eyes were watching him and twinkling mischievously. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  The Russian replied softly, in a curious voice, “Well, surely you don’t imagine that all of that just … happened, do you?”

  Halloran’s brow knotted. “You’re not saying it was you who brought it about?” Vusilov was nodding happily, thumping his hand on the arm of his chair again with the effort of containing himself. “But how? I mean, how could you possibly have manipulated U.S. government policy on such a scale? I don’t believe it.”

  Vusilov brushed a tear from his eye with a knuckle. “It was like this. You see, we had been operating with centralized government control of everything under Stalin for decades, and we knew that it didn’t work. It was hopeless. Everything they touched, they screwed up. By the time we got rid of him after the war, we knew we had to change the system. But America was racing so far in front that we would never catch up. What could we do? Our only hope was to try somehow to get America to put its space program under government control and let them wreck it, while we were getting ours together… . And we did!”

  Halloran was looking dumbfounded. “You’re not saying that…”

  “Yes, yes!” Vusilov put a hand to his chest and wheezed helplessly. “We strapped a bundle of obsolete missile-boosters together and threw Sputnik 1 into orbit; and then we scratched the Gagarin flight together on a shoelace and put him up, too… . And hysterical American public opinion and your wonderfully uninformed mass-media did the rest for us … ha-ha-ha! I can hear it now, Kennedy: ‘…this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.’ He fell for it. It was our masterstroke!”

  Halloran sat staring at the Russian, thunderstruck. Vusilov leaned back in his chair, and as if finally unburdened of a secret that had been weighing him down for years, laughed uproariously in an outburst that echoed around the lounge. Halloran had had enough. “Okay, you’ve had your fun,” he conceded bitterly. “Suppose we concentrate on the present, and where we’re going from here.”

  Vusilov raised a hand. “Oh, but that isn’t the end of it. You see, it made for you an even bigger catastrophe on a national scale, precisely because it succeeded so well.”

  Obviously Halloran was going to have to hear the rest. “Go on,” he said resignedly.

  “The U.S. economy could have absorbed the mistake of Apollo and recovered. But you didn’t let it end there. It gave you a whole generation of legislators and lawmakers who saw the success and concluded that if central control by government and massive federal spending could get you to the Moon, then those things could achieve anything. And you went on to apply it beyond our wildest hopes—when Johnson announced the Great Society program and started socializing the USA. You didn’t stop with bankrupting the space industries; you bankrupted the whole country. Apollo was a bigger disaster for America than the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, at least you knew you’d gone wrong, and you learned something. But how can anyone argue with success?

  “And what made it so hilarious for us was that you were doing it while we were busy dismantling the same constructions of meddling bureaucrats and incompetents in our country, because we knew how well they didn’t work. That was our biggest secret—the discovery that made everything else that you see happening today possible. That was the secret that the KGB was there to protect. That was why it was such a big organization.”

  Despite himself, Halloran couldn’t contain his curiosity. “What discovery?” he asked. “What secret are you talking about?”

  “Capitalism! Free enterprise, motivated by individualism. That was why our defense industries and our space activities were so secret. That was how they were organized. If America wanted to waste the efficiency of its private sector on producing pet foods, laundry detergents, and breakfast cereals, while destroying everything that was important by letting government run it, that was fine by us. But we did it the other way around.”

  Halloran was looking nonplussed. “That was the KGB’s primary task?”

  “Yes. And you never came close to finding out.”

  “We assumed it was to protect your military secrets—bombs, missiles, all that kind of thing.”

  “Bombs? We didn’t have very many bombs, if you wish to know the truth.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “We didn’t need them. Washington was devastating your economy more effectively than we could have done with thousands of megatons.”

  Halloran slumped back in his chair and stared at the Russian dazedly. “But why … how come we’ve never even heard a whisper of this?”

  “Who knows why? The leaders we have now are all young. They only know what they see today. Only a few of us old-timers remember. Very likely, most of history was not as we believe.”

  Halloran drew in a long breath and exhaled shakily. “Jesus … I need another drink. How about you? This time it’s scotch, no matter—” At that moment a voice from a loudspeaker concealed overhead interrupted him.

  “Attention, please. An important news item that has just come in over the laser link from Earth. The People’s Republic of China has announced the successful launch of a pulsed-nuclear-propelled space vehicle from lunar orbit, which is now en route for the planet Jupiter. The vessel is believed to be carrying a manned mission, but further details have not been released. A spokesman for the Chinese government gave the news at a press conference held in Beijing this morning. The Chinese premier, Xao-Lin-Huong, applauded the achievement as tangible proof of the inherent superiority of the Marxist political and economic system.

  “In a response from Moscow amid public outcry and severe criticism from his party’s opposition groups, the new Soviet premier, Mr. Oleg Zhocharin, pledged a reappraisal of the Soviet Union’s own program, and hinted of a return to more orthodox principles. ‘We have allowed ourselves to drift too far, for too long, into a path of indolence and decadence,’ Mr. Zhocharin said. ‘But with strong leadership and sound government, I am confident that by concentrating the resources of our mighty nation on a common, inspiring goal, instead of continuing to allow them to dissipate themselves uselessly in a thousand contradictory directions, the slide can be reversed. To this end, I have decreed that the Soviet Union will, within ten years from today, send men out to the star system of Alpha Centauri and return them safely to Earth.’ Mr. Zhocharin also stated that…”

  Excited murmurs broke out all around the lounge. Halloran looked back at Vusilov and saw that the Russian was sitting ashen-faced, his mouth gaping.

  And then a shadow fell across the table. They looked up to see that the Chinese representative had risen from his chair in the alcove and stopped by their table on his way toward the door. His expression was impenetrable, but as Halloran stared up, he saw that the bright, glittering gray eyes were shining with inner laughter. The Chinese regarded them both for a second or two, his book closed loosely in his hand, and bowed his head politely. “Enjoy your day, gentlemen,” he said.

  And walking without haste in quiet dignity, he left the room.

  EVERYTHING BUT HONOR

  George Alec Effinger

  Dr. Thomas Placide, a black American-born physicist, decided to murder Brigadier General David E. Twiggs, and he realized that it had to be done in December of 1860. He made this decision at the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Jesse Owens had just triumphed over the world’s best runners in the two-hundred-meter dash. The physicist jumped up and cheered for the American victory, while his companion applauded politely. Yaakov Fein was one of the most influential scientists in the German Empire, but he was no chauvinist. After the race, Owens was presented to Prince Friedrich. The papers later reported that the prince had apologized for the absence of the seventy-seven-year-old Kaiser, and Owens had replied, “I’m sure the most po
werful man in the world has more important things to do than watch six young men in their underwear run halfway around a circle.” The quotation may have been the product of some journalist’s imagination, but it became so identified with Jesse Owens that there was no point in arguing about it.

  Whatever the truth of the matter, Placide settled back in his seat and looked at his program, getting himself ready for the next event. “You must be proud of him,” said Fein. “A fellow Negro.”

  “I am proud of him,” Placide said. “A fellow American.”

  “But you are a naturalized German citizen now, Thomas. You should cheer for the German runners.”

  Placide only shrugged.

  Fein went on. “It’s a hopeful sign that a Negro has finally won a place on the American Olympic team.”

  Placide showed some annoyance. “In America, Negroes have equal rights these days.”

  “Separate, but equal,” said Fein.

  The black man turned to him. “They aren’t slaves anymore, if that’s what you’re implying. The German Empire has this fatuous paternal concern for all the downtrodden people in the world. Maybe you haven’t noticed it, but the rest of the world is getting pretty damn tired of your meddling.”

  “We believe in using our influence for everyone’s benefit.”

  That seemed to irritate Placide even more. “Every time some Klan bigot burns a cross in Mississippi, you Germans—”

  Fein smiled. “We Germans, you mean,” he said.

  Placide frowned. “All right, we Germans send over a goddamn ‘peacekeeping force’ for the next nine months.”

  Fein patted the air between them. “Calm down, Thomas,” he said, “you’re being far too sensitive.”

  “Let’s just watch the track and field events, and forget the social criticism.”

  “All right with me,” said Fein. They dropped the subject for the moment, but Placide was sure that it would come up again soon.

  Two years later, in November 1938, Dr. Placide was selected to make the first full-scale operational test of the Cage. He liked to think it was because of his contribution to the project. His journey through time would be through the courtesy of the Placide-Born-Dirac Effect, and neither Max Born nor Paul Dirac expressed any enthusiasm for the chance to act as guinea pig. In Berlin and Göttingen, there was a great deal of argument over just what the Placide-Born-Dirac Effect was, and the more conservative theorists wanted to limit the experiments to making beer steins and rodents disappear, which Placide and Fein had been doing for over a year.

  “My point,” said Placide at a conference of leading physicists in Göttingen, “is that after all this successful study, it’s time for someone to hop in the Cage and find out what’s happening, once and for all.”

  “I think it’s certainly time to take the next step,” said Werner Heisenberg.

  “I agree,” said Erwin Schrödinger.

  Dirac rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Nevertheless,” he said, “it’s much too soon to talk about human subjects.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting we risk a human life on the basis of our ill-fated and unproven theories?” asked Albert Einstein.

  Zach Marquand shrugged. “It would be a chance to clear up all the foggy rhetoric about paradoxes,” he said.

  Edward La Martine just stood to one side, sullenly shaking his head. He obviously thought Placide’s suggestion was unsound, if not altogether insane.

  “We have four in favor of using a human subject in the Cage, and four against,” said Fein. He took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. “I’m the project director, and I suppose it’s my responsibility to settle this matter. God help me if I choose wrong. I say we go ahead and expand the scope of the experiment.”

  Placide looked relieved. “Let me volunteer, then,” he said.

  “Typical American recklessness,” said La Martine in a sour voice.

  “You mean,” said Placide, “that you’ll be happy if I’m the one in the Cage. Not as a reward for my work, of course, but because if anybody’s alternate history is going to be screwed up, better it be America’s than Germany’s.”

  La Martine just spread his hands and said nothing.

  “Then I volunteer to go along,” said Fein. “As copilot.”

  “There’s nothing for a copilot to do,” said Placide. Even then, it may have been that Fein didn’t have complete faith in Placide’s motives.

  Placide had his own agenda, after all, but he kept it secret from the others.

  “Why don’t you travel back a week or so,” suggested Born. “Then you can take a photograph or find some other proof to validate the experiment, and return immediately to Göttingen and time T0.”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” said Placide. “I’d like to choose my own destination, and possibly solve a little historical problem while I have the chance.” The Cage would never have existed without him, and so it didn’t take him long to persuade the others. Placide and Fein worked with Marquand and his team for nine more weeks learning to calibrate the Cage. In the meantime, Placide studied everything he could find about General Twiggs, and he carefully hid his true plan from the Europeans.

  Placide should have known that his first attempt would not go smoothly, but as far as he could see, his plan was foolproof. His reasoning was simple: His primary goal—greater even than testing the operation of the Cage—was to relieve the barbaric conditions forced on American blacks following the Confederate Insurrection of 1861–1862.

  Although he’d quit the land of his birth, he still felt an unbreakable bond between himself and others of his race, who could never escape the oppression as he had. A white friend of his father had enabled Placide to attend Yale University, where he’d studied math and physics. During the middle 1930s, after he joined the great community of experimental scientists working in the German Empire, he began to see how he might accomplish something far more important than adding a new quibble to the study of particle physics.

  The Cage—his Cage, as he sometimes thought of it—gave him the opportunity to make a vital contribution. His unhappy experiences as a child and a young man in the United States supplied him with sufficient motive. All he lacked was the means, and this he found through historical research as painstaking as his scientific work with Dirac and Born.

  To Placide, Brigadier General David Emanuel Twiggs seemed to be one of those anonymous yet crucial players in the long game of history. In 1860 he was the military commander of the Department of Texas. Although few students of the Confederate Insurrection would even recognize his name, Twiggs nevertheless had a moment, the briefest moment, when he determined the course of future events. Placide had come to realize that Twiggs was his target. Twiggs could be used to liberate American blacks from all the racist hardships and injustices of the twentieth century.

  Leaving T0, the Cage brought Placide and Yaakov Fein to San Antonio on December 24, 1860. Fein agreed to guard the Cage, which had come to rest in a wintry field about three miles from Twiggs’s headquarters. Fein, of course, had no idea that Placide had anything in mind other than a quick scouting trip into this city of the past.

  Placide began walking. From nearby he could hear the lowing of cattle, gathered now in shadowed groups beneath the arching limbs of live oaks. He climbed down a hill into a shallow valley of moonlit junipers and red cedar. The air smelled clean and sharp, although this Christmas Eve in Texas was not as cold as the February he’d left behind in Germany. Frosty grass crunched underfoot; as he passed through the weeds, their rough seeds clung to his trouser legs.

  His exhilaration at his safe arrival in another time was tempered almost immediately by anxiety over the danger he was in. If anyone stopped and questioned him, he would have an impossible time explaining himself. At best, he would be taken for a freed slave, and as such he could expect little if any help from the local citizens. Worse was the fact that he had no proper identification and no money, and thus he would certainly appear to be a runaway.

/>   Placide had put himself in a grave and desperate situation. If he failed and was captured, his only hope would be Fein, but Fein was a German with little knowledge of this period in American history. Placide did not have much faith in the other man’s ability to rescue him, if it came to that. It might happen that no one would ever learn of Placide’s sacrifice. He was thinking of the black generations yet unborn, and not his colleagues in Göttingen. He was in a unique position to do something remarkable for his oppressed people.

  As it happened, Placide was not detained or captured. He made his way through the barren, cold night to the general’s quarters. Twiggs was already in bed, and there was a young soldier standing sentry duty outside the door. Placide shook his head ruefully. Here was the first serious hitch in his plans. He was going to have to do something about that guard.

  It wasn’t so difficult to gain entry. Placide needed only to nod at the young man, grab him, and drive a knife into his chest. The soldier made a soft, gurgling cry and slumped heavily in Placide’s grasp. Placide let the body fall silently to the floor. He paused a moment, listening for any sign of alarm, but all was still. Oddly, he felt no sense of guilt for what he’d done. In a way, the world of 1860 didn’t seem truly real to him. It was as if the man he’d killed had never really existed, although the corporal’s dark blood had stained Placide’s trousers convincingly.

  Placide went quietly through the door and stood over General Twiggs’s bed, looking down at him. He was old, seventy or so, with long white hair and a dense white beard. He looked like a Biblical patriarch, sleeping peacefully. Placide was surprised to discover that it was not in him simply to kill the old man in his sleep. Placide wasn’t sure if he was too cruel or too weak for that. He woke Twiggs, pressing one hand over the general’s mouth to keep him silent.