Alternate Empires

by Gregory Benford

  “Don’t make a sound,” Placide said as Twiggs struggled to sit up. “I must speak with you. I’ll remove my hand if you promise not to call out for help. That will do you no good, in any event.” Twiggs nodded slowly, his eyes wide.

  Placide took his hand away. Twiggs gasped and tried to speak, but for a moment he could only wheeze. “Who are you?” he asked at last.

  “That’s not important. You must understand that your life is in my hands. Will you answer my questions?”

  Twiggs was no fool. He knew better than to bluster or threaten. He nodded again. Dressed in his bedclothes, he was a wrinkled, feeble figure; but Placide suppressed his pity for the old man. Twiggs was a Southerner by birth and a secessionist by inclination. “You are in command here,” Placide said.

  “Yes,” said the general. “If you think that after breaking into my room, you can get me to arrange for you to escape—”

  Placide raised a hand curtly, cutting him off. “If for some reason you stepped down, who would assume command in your place?” Twiggs’s brow furrowed, but otherwise he showed no outward sign of fear. “I suppose it would be Lieutenant Colonel Lee,” he said.

  “You mean Robert E. Lee?”

  “Of the First Cavalry,” said Twiggs.

  Placide was relieved to hear the answer. Some months before, while Twiggs had been away from San Antonio, he had named Lee acting commander of the Department of Texas. If Twiggs were forced to retire, Lee would take over again until the War Department made its own permanent appointment.

  “Now let me propose a hypothetical situation,” said Placide. “Suppose Texas decides to secede from the Union—”

  “So you’ve burst your way in here and ruined my sleep to argue politics?” Twiggs demanded angrily. “And what have you done to the young man on guard duty?”

  Placide slapped Twiggs hard across the face. “Suppose Texas decides to secede from the Union,” he repeated calmly. “What would your position be?”

  The general raised a trembling hand to his cheek. His expression was furious, and Placide caught the first hint of fear in his eyes. “Texas will secede,” Twiggs said softly. “Any fool can read that. I’ve already written to Washington, but the War Department has so far chosen not to send me any definite instructions.”

  “What will you do when the secessionist rebels demand your surrender?”

  Twiggs’s gaze left Placide’s face and stared blankly toward the far wall. “I will surrender,” he said finally. “I have not the means to carry on a civil war in Texas.”

  A gunshot would have roused the entire garrison. Placide cut the old man’s throat with his knife, then searched the room for items to take back with him to show Fein and the others. Finally, he made his escape back into the silent night of the past. Outside, it was very strange to smell bread baking not far away, as if all was well, as if something impossible had not just happened.

  “There,” he told himself, “you have changed history.” It remained to be seen if he’d changed it for the better.

  When Placide met Fein later that night, he suggested that they not return directly to 1938 and Göttingen. Fein was dubious. “The more time we spend here,” he argued, “the more chance there is that someone will see us. We may cause an alteration in the flow of events. That could be disastrous.”

  Placide swallowed a mouthful of brandy he’d taken from Twiggs’s headquarters building. The liquor had a harsh, sweet taste, but it gave the illusion of warmth. He offered the brandy to his companion. “Yaakov,” he said, shivering in the cold night wind, “it’s already too late.”

  Fein’s brows narrowed. “What are you talking about?” He declined to sample the general’s brandy.

  Placide shrugged. “Just that I’ve already inserted myself into the past. I had a conversation with General Twiggs.”

  “Don’t you know what that means?” cried Fein. He was furious. “We may return to the present and find God only knows what!”

  “I couldn’t help it,” said Placide. “I was discovered. I was arrested and taken to the commanding officer. I had to do some fancy talking or you would never have seen me again.”

  “God help us,” murmured Fein. The two men looked at each other for a moment. There was no sound but the lonely creaking of bare tree limbs, and the rustle of dead leaves blowing along the ground.

  “Look,” said Placide, “why don’t we jump ahead to, say, February, and find out if anything’s different. In case of some kind of disaster, we can always reappear a few minutes before T0 and prevent ourselves from making this trip.”

  “I don’t know,” said the German. “That might leave two of you and two of me in the present.”

  “Let’s worry about that only if we have to. Right now we’ve got to find out if my little interview had any permanent effect.” Fein watched him closely, but said nothing more.

  The two men entered the Cage, and Placide reset the controls to take them forward a few weeks. He knew that on February 16, 1861, Texas state troops would surround the government buildings in San Antonio. Twiggs would give in quickly to demands that he turn over all the arms and equipment to the militia. Of course, Placide had prevented that from happening with his single bold stroke. In effect, he’d put Robert E. Lee in command of the Department of Texas. Lee was a Virginian, but he had publicly stated he would have no part in a revolution against the Union. Placide had acted to change his mind.

  They reappeared in San Antonio on the twentieth of February. Once more, Fein guarded the Cage while Placide went into town. The air was warmer, and smelled of wood smoke. He heard the ragged cries of birds, and once he saw a large black winged shape detach itself from the ground and fly into a cottonwood that was beginning to show new yellow-green leaves. For a while, everything seemed peaceful.

  The town, however, was in a frenzied state of confusion. Bands of armed rebels patrolled the streets. Gunshots frequently split the air. The younger men wore the wide-eyed, fierce looks of inexperienced warriors looking forward to their first battle. The older men and women were grim and worried, obviously in fear that the conflict that had threatened so long in the abstract had come at last.

  Placide stood in a narrow alley between two shops, afraid to push himself into the throngs of shouting people in the street. Finally, as both his curiosity and fear for his own safety increased, he stopped a well-dressed, elderly white man. “Pardon me, sir,” he said, trying to sound calm, “my master has sent me for news.”

  The older man drew himself up, unhappy at being accosted in the street by an unfamiliar slave. “Tell your master that our boys have driven the Federals out,” he said.

  “That news will ease his pain,” said Placide. He was galled to have to pretend to be a slave, but he had no other choice. “And Lee?”

  “The rascal is dead, killed in the fight.” The man was so pleased to be able to report that fact, he actually slapped the black man’s shoulder.

  Placide was stunned by the news; he’d hoped to persuade Lee to become a general for the South. He watched the man turn and go on about his business, and he knew that it was time to go about his own. His plan had not failed; it had but succeeded too well.

  When they returned to T0, Placide and Fein discovered that the present was just as they’d left it, that their excursion in time had not changed the past, but rather created a new alternate reality. Still, some of their colleagues were furious.

  “What the hell were you thinking of?” demanded La Martine. He’d been fascinated by the theoretical aspects of their work, but fearful of practical applications.

  Now Fein was convinced that the Cage was too dangerous to use, at least until the Placide-Born-Dirac Effect was better understood.

  Placide knew that if he hoped to try again in the past, he’d have to win La Martine and Fein over. “Look,” he said, “we’re all curious about what happens when a change is made in the past.”

  “You were tampering!” cried La Martine. “As it turned out, you had no permanent
effect—”

  “So I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

  “—but there was the possibility that you might have changed this world disastrously, for all of us. You had no right to attempt such a thing!”

  “Sending beer steins into the past might have had disastrous results, too, Eduard,” said Heisenberg thoughtfully. “Yet you had no qualms about that.”

  “Making inanimate objects vanish is hardly equal to interviewing historical figures in their bedrooms,” said Paul Dirac indignantly.

  Placide had told the others that he’d merely discussed politics with General Twiggs. It hadn’t seemed profitable at the time to mention that he’d killed the old man. “You know how I feel about the Legislated Equality programs in the United States.”

  Dirac gave him a weary look and nodded.

  “Before returning here to T0, Yaakov and I jumped from 1861 to 1895, where we bought a history of that new timeline.” Placide held up the book. “Here are the effects of our visit. I thought by going back before the Confederate Insurrection and starting things off on a different course, I could keep the Equality programs and the Liberty Boroughs and all the other abuses from ever happening. I persuaded Twiggs to retire, because I knew Robert E. Lee wouldn’t surrender the garrison at San Antonio. His sense of duty and honor wouldn’t allow it. He’d resist, and there would be a violent confrontation. The war would begin there in Texas, rather than two months later at Fort Sumter.”

  “So?” asked Heisenberg.

  “So Lee would learn firsthand that the war could not be avoided, and that the needs of the Confederacy were immediate and desperate. I was certain that history would unfold differently from there on. I wanted Lee to turn down Lincoln’s invitation to command the Union Army. In our world, his military brilliance brought the rebellion under control in little more than eighteen months. Now, though, we’d created a new timeline, one in which Lee would not be the Great Traitor, but rather the great genius of the Southern cause.”

  “But you were wrong, Thomas,” said Fein. “Without Lee to lead it, the Union still defeated the Confederacy. All you succeeded in doing was extending the bloody conflict another year while the North searched for able military leadership.”

  Placide shrugged. “A minor miscalculation,” he said.

  “You’re personally responsible for the death of Robert E. Lee, man!” said La Martine.

  Placide was startled. “What do you mean? Robert E. Lee’s been dead for almost seventy years. He died peacefully in the White House, not yet halfway through his term as president.”

  “Yes,” said Marquand, “in our timeline that’s what happened. But you went into another universe and interfered. Lee’s blood is on your hands.”

  Placide suddenly saw the absurd point Marquand was trying to make. “Zach,” he said, “we went into a world that doesn’t exist. It was a fantasy world. That Robert E. Lee didn’t really live, and he didn’t really die. He was no more than a possibility, a quantum quirk.”

  “We’re talking about people, Thomas,” said Schrödinger, “not particles.”

  “Particles come into and go out of existence all the time,” Placide protested. “Just the same way, the people and events in that timeline were only local expressions of the wave function. You’re letting emotion twist your thinking.”

  Fein frowned at him. “Thomas, I want you to prepare a report as quickly as you can. We’re all going to have to think very hard about this. You’ve shown us that there are moral questions involved with this project that none of us foresaw.”

  “Yaakov, I wish you’d—”

  “And I’m not going to permit anyone to use the Cage again until we establish some philosophical ground rules.” Fein gave Placide a long, appraising look, then turned and left the room. Placide glanced at the book they’d brought back, the history of America in the timeline they now called Universe2. He was very eager to get back to his quarters and read of the elaborate and unpredictable results of what he’d done.

  Placide made another trip into the past, this one unauthorized and in secret. He didn’t know what Fein would do if he found out that Placide had ignored his prohibition, but to be truthful, Placide didn’t care. He had more important matters to worry about. It was his belief—and both Schrödinger and Marquand agreed with him—that a second experiment would take him to an 1861 untouched by his previous meddling. If their many-worlds hypothesis had any validity, it was statistically unlikely that Placide would find himself back in Universe2. He could make a clean start in Universe3, profiting from his regrettable mistakes.

  His destination this second time was the District of Columbia, on the morning of April 18, 1861. He was dressed in clothes that would attract little attention in the past, and he took with him a small sum of U.S. money in gold and silver that he’d purchased through numismatic shops in Berlin. Upon his arrival, Placide left the Cage outside of town, as he’d done in Texas. He walked some distance in the chilly air of early spring. He intended to find a hotel where he might hire a carriage, but this was more difficult than he’d imagined. He was, after all, a black man and a stranger, on some inscrutable errand of his own. Whenever he approached an innkeeper or carriage driver with his gold coins, he was told either that none of the vehicles were in proper repair, or that they had all been reserved to other parties. He understood their meaning well enough.

  Placide made his way along Pennsylvania Avenue to Blair House, almost directly across the street from the Executive Mansion. He gave a little involuntary shiver when he realized that inside the White House, at that moment, Abraham Lincoln was hearing firsthand reports of the events at Fort Sumter, and preparing his order to blockade the Confederate ports. Placide was tempted to abandon his subtle plan and instead seek an interview with the president himself. What advice and warnings he could give Lincoln, if he would only listen…

  That was the problem, of course: Getting these strong-willed men to pay attention. Placide knew that he could help them save thousands of lives, and at the same time build a future free of the oppression their shortsightedness would lead to. His influence, of course, would be greater if he were white, but there was no point in making idle wishes. He would do the best he could.

  A carriage pulled up in front of Blair House just as he arrived. He knew the man who stepped down from it must be Robert E. Lee, although he didn’t look much like the photographs Placide was familiar with. Lee was wearing the blue uniform of the U.S. Army, and he carried the wide-brimmed hat of a cavalry officer in one hand. He had yet to grow his famous gray beard. He was taller, too, with broad shoulders and a strict posture and military bearing that gave him an imposing appearance. His manner was calm and poised, although he was on his way to a momentous meeting.

  Lee paused a moment, perhaps collecting himself, before turning toward the entrance of the grand house. Placide hurried up to him. “General Lee,” he said.

  Lee smiled. “You flatter me,” he said. “I presently hold the rank of colonel.” He waited patiently, apparently thinking that Placide was bringing him a message of some kind.

  Placide was struck by Lee’s gentle manner. There was intelligence in his eyes, but not the haggard, haunted look that would come later. In the few years remaining to him after the Insurrection, Lee always carried with him the painful knowledge that he had been, after all, the fatal betrayer of his homeland. “I have some important information for you, sir,” Placide said. Now that he was before the man, the physicist was unsure how to proceed. After all, Lee wasn’t The Great Traitor yet, not in this timeline. Placide had prevented him from becoming the savior of the Union in Universe2, but he’d learned only that Lee dead was no better than Lee as Yankee. “May I have a moment of your time?”

  Lee pursed his lips. “I have an appointment at this address, sir, and I am obliged by both courtesy and duty to respect it.”

  “I know,” said Placide, “and I won’t keep you long. When you go inside, Francis Preston Blair is going to offer you co
mmand of the Union Army, on behalf of President Lincoln. I know that you intend to accept; but if you do, sir, you will be damning future generations of American Negroes to lives of degradation and suffering. They will harbor a rage that will grow until our nation is torn by violence more terrible than this quarrel over secession. I beg you to reconsider.”

  Lee did not reply at once. He studied Placide’s face for a long moment. “May I inquire, sir,” he said quietly, “how you come to be in possession of this information?”

  Placide took out his wallet and removed a fifty-dollar bill—currency from the United States of his world, of his time. He handed it to Lee. The cavalry officer examined it in silence, first the back, with the picture of the Capitol Building, then the front, with his own portrait. “Sir, what is this?” he asked.

  “Paper money,” said Placide.

  Lee turned the bill over and over in his hands. “Is it a bank note?”

  “Legal tender printed by the federal government, and backed by government gold reserves.”

  “I’ve never seen a note like it before,” said Lee dubiously.

  Placide showed him the small legend beside Lee’s picture. “It was issued in 1932,” he said.

  Lee took a deep breath and let it out. Then he gave the money back to Placide. “Mr. Blair is an elderly man, and I do him no honor by my tardiness. I beg you to excuse me.”

  “General Lee,” Placide pleaded, “if you accept Lincoln’s offer, you must lead an invading army onto the soil of Virginia, your home. How can you raise your sword against your own family and friends? You must allow me to explain. I showed you the bill because you’d think me a madman unless I presented some evidence.”

  “Evidence only of the skill of your engraver,” said Lee. “I did not find the portrait flattering, and I did not find the item in question amusing.”

  As earnestly as he could, Placide explained to him that he’d come through time to let Lee know of the terrible consequences of his decision to defend the Union. “I can tell you that with you in command, the Army of the Potomac will withstand the first thrusts of the Confederate forces.”