Two in Time

by Wilson Tucker

  There was a stranger at the party, the liaison agent dispatched by the Senate subcommittee. Chaney discovered the man surreptitiously watching him.

  The briefing room offered the familiar tableau.

  Major Moresby was again studying a map of the Chicago area. He used a finger to mark the several major routes and backroads between Joliet and the metropolis; the finger also traced the rail line through the Chicago suburbs to the Loop. Arthur Saltus was studying the photographs he'd brought back from Joliet. He seemed particularly pleased with a print of an attractive girl standing on a windy street corner, half watching the cameraman and half watching for a car or a bus coming along the street behind. The print revealed an expert's hand in composition and cropping, with the girl limned in sunny backlighting.

  Kathryn van Hise said: "Mr. Chaney?"

  He swung around to face her. "Yes, Miss van Hise?"

  "The engineers have given me firm assurance _that_ mistake will not happen again. They have used the time since your return to rebuild the gyroscope. The cause has been traced to a vacuum leakage but that has been repaired. The error is to be regretted, but it will not happen again."

  "But I _like_ getting there first," he protested. "That's the only way I can assert seniority."

  "It will not happen again, sir."

  "Maybe. How do they _know_ it won't?"

  Katrina studied him.

  "The next targets will each be a year apart, sir, to obtain a wider coverage. Would you care to suggest a tentative date?"

  He betrayed surprise. "We may choose?"

  "Within reason, sir. Mr. Seabrooke has invited each of you to suggest an appropriate date. The original plan of the survey must be followed, of course, but he would welcome your ideas. If you would rather not suggest a date, Mr. Seabrooke and the engineers will select one."

  Chaney looked down the table at Major Moresby.

  "WThat did you take?"

  Promptly: "The Fourth of July, 1999."

  "Why that one?"

  "It has significance, after all!"

  "I suppose so." He turned to Saltus. "And you?"

  "My birthday, civilian: November 23rd, 2000. A nice round number, don't you think? I thought so anyway. That will be my fiftieth birthday, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I might take a jug with me. Live it up!"

  Chaney considered the possibilities.

  Saltus broke in. "Now, look here, mister--don't tell Seabrooke you want to visit Jericho on the longest day of summer, ten thousand years ago! _That_ will get you the boot right through the front gate. Play by the rules. How would you like to spend Christmas in 2001? New Year's Eve?"

  "No."

  "Party-pooper. Wet blanket. What do you want?"

  "I really don't care. Anything will do."

  "Pick _something_," Saltus urged.

  "Oh, just say 2000-plus. It doesn't much matter."

  Katrina said anxiously: "Mr. Chaney, is something wrong?"

  "Only that," he said, and indicated the photographs heaped on the table before Arthur Saltus, the new packets of mimeographed papers neatly stacked before each chair. "The future isn't very attractive right now."

  "Do you wish to withdraw?"

  "_No_. I'm not a quitter. When do we go up?"

  "The launch is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. You will depart at one-hour intervals."

  Chaney shuffled the papers on the table. "I suppose these will have to be studied now. We'll have to follow up."

  "Yes, sir. The information you have developed on the trials has now become a part of the survey, and it is desirable that each segment be followed to its conclusion. We wish to know the final solutions, of course, and so you must trace these new developments." She hesitated. "_Your_ role in the survey has been somewhat modified, sir."

  He was instantly wary, suspicious. "In what way?"

  "You will not go into Chicago."

  "Not-- But what the hell _am_ I supposed to do?"

  "You may visit any other city within range of your fifty-hour limit: Elgin, Aurora, Joliet, Bloomington, the city of your choice, but Chicago is now closed to you."

  He stared at the woman, knowing humiliation. "But this is ridiculous! The problem may be cleared away, all but forgotten twenty-two years from now."

  "It will not be forgotten so easily, sir. It _will_ be wise to observe every precaution. Mr. Seabrooke has decided you may not enter Chicago."

  "I'll resign--I'll quit!"

  "Yes, sir, you may do that. The Indic contract will be returned to you."

  "I _won't_ quit!" he said angrily.

  "As you wish."

  Saltus broke in. "Civilian--sit down."

  Chaney was surprised to discover himself standing. He sat down, knowing a mixture of frustration and humbled pride. He knotted his fingers together in his lap and pressed until they hurt.

  After a space he said: "I'm sorry. I apologize."

  "Apology accepted," Saltus agreed easily. "And don't let it trouble you. Seabrooke knows what he's doing--he doesn't want you naked and shivering in some Chicago jail, and he _doesn't_ want some damned fool chasing you with a gun."

  Major Moresby was eyeing him.

  "I don't quite read you, Chaney. You've got more guts than I suspected, or you're a damned fool."

  "When I lose my temper I'm a damned fool. I can't help myself." He felt Katrina watching him and turned back to her. "What am I supposed to do up there?"

  "Mr. Seabrooke wishes you to spend the greater part of your time in a library copying pertinent information. You will be equipped with a camera having a copying lens when you emerge on target; your specific assignment is to photograph those books and periodicals which are germane to the information discovered in Joliet."

  "You want me to follow the plots and the wars and the earthquakes through history. Make a copy of everything--steal a history book if I have to."

  You may purchase one, sir, and copy the pages in the room downstairs."

  "That sounds exciting. A really wild visit to the future. Why not bring back the book with me?"

  She hesitated. "I will have to ask Mr. Seabrooke. It seems reasonable, if you compensate for the weight."

  "Katrina, I want to go outside and see _something_--I don't want to spend the time in a hole."

  She said again: "You may visit any other city within range of your fifty-hour limit, sir. If it is safe."

  Morosely: "I wonder what Bloomington is like."

  "Girls!" Saltus answered. "One sweet liberty port!"

  "Have you been there?"

  "No."

  "Then what are you talking about?"

  "Just trying to cheer you up, civilian. I'm helpful that way." He picked up the photograph of the girl on the Joliet street corner and waggled it between thumb and forefinger. "Go up in the summertime. It's nicer then."

  Chaney looked at him with a particular memory in the front of his mind. Saltus caught it and actually blushed. He dropped the photograph and betrayed his fleeting guilt by sneaking a sidelong glance at Katrina.

  She said: "We hope for a thorough coverage, sir."

  "I wish I had more than fifty hours in a library. A decent research job requires several weeks, even months."

  "It may be possible to return again and again, at proper intervals of course. I will ask Mr. Seabrooke."

  Saltus: "Hey--what about that, Katrina? So what happens _after_ the survey? What do we do next?"

  "I can't give you a meaningful answer, Commander. At this point in the operation nothing beyond the Chicago probe is programmed. Nothing more could be programmed until we knew the outcome of these first two steps. A final answer cannot be made until you return from Chicago."

  "Do you _think_ we'll do something else?"

  "I would imagine that other probes will be prepared when this one is satisfactorily completed and the resultant data analyzed." But then she added a hasty postscript. "That is only my opinion, Commander. Mr.
Seabrooke has said nothing of possible future operations."

  "I like your opinion, Katrina. It's better than a bucket in the South China Sea."

  Chaney asked: "What happened to the alternatives? To Jerusalem, and Dallas?"

  Moresby broke in. "What's this?"

  The young woman explained them to Moresby and Saltus. Chaney realized that only he had been told of both alternate programs, and he wondered now if he had let a cat out of the bag by mentioning them.

  Katrina said: "The alternatives are being held in abeyance; they may never be implemented." She looked at Brian Chaney and paused. "The engineers are studying a new matter related to vehicle operations; there appears to be a question whether the vehicle may operate in reverse prior to the establishment of a power source.

  "Hey--what's _that_ in English?"

  "It means I can't go back to old Jericho," Chaney told him. "No electricity back there. I _think_ she said the TDV needs power all along the line to move anywhere."

  Moresby: "But I understood you to say those test animals had been sent back a year or more?"

  "Yes, sir, that is correct, but the nuclear reactor has been operating for more than two years. The previous lower limit of the TDV was December 30, 1941, but now that may have to be drastically revised. If it is found that the vehicle may not operate prior to the establishment of its power source, the lower limit will be brought forward to an arbitrary date of two years ago. We do not wish to lose the vehicle."

  Chaney said: "One of those bright engineers should sit down to his homework--lay out a paradox graph, or map, or whatever. Katrina, if you keep this thing going, you're going to find yourself up against a wall sooner or later."

  She colored and betrayed a minute hesitation before answering him. "The Indiana Corporation has been approached on the matter, sir. Mr. Seabrooke has proposed that all our data be turned over to them for a crash study. The engineers are becoming aware of the problems."

  Saltus looked around at Chaney and said: "Sheeg!"

  Chaney grinned and thought to offer an apology to Moresby and the woman. "That's an old Aramaic word. But it expresses my feelings quite adequately." He considered the matter. "I can't decide what I would rather do: stay here and make paradoxes, or go back there and solve them."

  Saltus said: "Tough luck, civilian. I was almost ready to volunteer. _Almost_, I said. I _think_ I'd like to stand on the city wall at Larsa with you and watch the Euphrates flood; I _think_ I'd like-- What?"

  "The city wall at Ur, not Larsa."

  "Well, wherever it was. A flood, anyway, and you said it got into the Bible. You have a smooth line, you _could_ persuade me to go along." An empty gesture. "But I guess that's all washed out now--you'll never go back."

  "I don't believe the White House would authorize a probe back that far," Chaney answered. "They would see no political advantage to it, no profit to themselves."

  Major Moresby said sharply: "Chaney, you. sound like a fool!"

  "Perhaps. But if we _could_ probe backward I'd be willing to lay you money on certain political targets, but nothing at all on others. What would the map of Europe be like if Attila had been strangled in his crib?"

  "Chaney, after all!"

  He persisted. "What would the map of Europe be like if Lenin had been executed for the anti-Czarist plot, instead of his older brother? What would the map of the United States be like if George the Third had been cured of his dementia? If Robert E. Lee had died in infancy?"

  "Civilian, they sure as hell won't let you go back _anywhere_ with notions like that."

  Dryly: "I wouldn't expect a bonus for them."

  "Well, I guess not!"

  Kathryn van Hise stepped into the breach.

  "Please, gentlemen. Appointments have been made for your final physical examinations. I will call the doctor and inform him you are coming now.

  Chaney grinned and snapped his fingers. "_Now_."

  She turned. "Mr. Chaney, if you will stay behind for a moment I would like more information on your field data."

  Saltus was quickly curious. "Hey--what's this?" She paged through the pile of mimeographed papers until she found the transcript of Chaney's tape recording. "Some parts of this report need further evaluation. If you care to dictate, Mr. Chaney, I will take it in shorthand."

  He said: "Anything you need."

  "Thank you." A half turn to the others at the table. "The doctor will be waiting, gentlemen."

  Moresby and Saltus pushed back their chairs. Saltus shot Chaney a warning glance, reminding him of a promise. The reminder was answered with a confirming nod.

  The men left the briefing room.

  Brian Chaney looked across the table at Katrina in the silence they left behind. She waited quietly, her fingers laced together on the table top.

  He remembered her bare feet in the sand, the snug delta pants, the see-through blquse, the book she carried in her hand and the disapproving expression she wore on her face. He remembered the startlingly brief swim suit worn in the pool, and the way Arthur Saltus had monopolized her.

  "That was rather transparent, Katrina."

  She studied him longer, not yet ready to speak. He waited for her to offer the next word, holding in his mind the image of that first glimpse of her on the beach.

  At length: "What happened up there, Brian?"

  He blinked at the use of his given name. It was the first time she had used it.

  "Many, many things--I think we covered it all in our reports."

  Again: "What happened up there, Brian?"

  He shook his head. "Seabrooke will have to be satisfied with the reports."

  "This is not Mr. Seabrooke's matter."

  Warily: "I don't know what else I can tell you."

  "Something happened up there. I am aware of a departure from the norm that prevailed before the trials, and I think you are too. Something has created a disparity, a subtle disharmony which is rather difficult to define."

  "The Chicago wall, I suppose. And the JCS revolt."

  "They were shocks to us all, but what else?"

  Chaney gestured, searching for an escape route. "I found the barracks closed, locked. I think the Major and myself have left the station."

  "But not Commander Saltusr

  "He may be gone--I don't know."

  "You don't seem very sure of that."

  "I'm not sure of anything. We were forbidden to open doors, look at people, ask questions. I didn't open doors. I know only that our barracks have been closed-- and I don't think Seabrooke let us move in with him."

  "What would you have done if it was permissible to open doors?"

  Chaney grinned. "I'd go looking for you."

  "You believe I was on the station?"

  "Certainly! You wrote notes to each of us--you left final instructions for us in the room downstairs. I knew your handwriting."

  Hesitation. "Did you find similar evidence of anyone else being on station?"

  Carefully: "No. Your note was the only scrap."

  "Why has the Commander's attitude changed?"

  Chaney stared at her, almost trapped. "Has it?"

  "I think you are aware of the difference."

  "Maybe. Everybody looks at me in a new light. I'm feeling paranoiac these days."

  "Why has your attitude changed?"

  "Oh? Mine too?"

  "You are fencing with me, Brian."

  "I've told you everything I _can_ tell you, Katrina."

  Her laced fingers moved restlessly on the tabletop. "I sense certain mental reservations."

  "Sharp girl."

  "Was there some--some personal tragedy up there? Involving any one of you?"

  Promptly: "No." He smiled at the woman across the table to rob his next words of any sting. "And, Katrina-- if you are wise, if you are very wise, you won't ask any more questions. I hold certain mental reservations; I _will_ evade certain questions. Why not stop now?"

  She looked at him, frustrated and baffled.

  He
said: "When this survey is completed I want to leave. I'll do whatever is necessary to complete the work when we return from the probe, but then I'm finished. I'd like to go back to Indic, if that's possible; I'd like to work on the new paradox study, if that's permissible, but I don't want to stay here. I'm finished here, Katrina."

  Quickly: "Is it because of something you found up there? Has something turned you away, Brian?"

  "Ah-- No more questions."

  "But you leave me so unsatisfied!"

  Chaney stood up and fitted the empty chair to the table. "Every thing comes to every man, if he but has the years. That sounds like Talleyrand, but I'm not sure. You have the years, Katrina. Live through just two more of them and you'll know the answers to all your questions. I wish you luck, and I'll think of you often in the tank--if they'll let me back in."

  A moment of silence, and then: "Please don't forget your doctor's appointment, Mr. Chaney."

  "I'm on my way."

  "Ask the others to be here at ten o'clock in the morning for a final briefing. We must evaluate these reports. The probe is scheduled for the day after tomorrow."

  "Are you coming downstairs to see us off?"

  "No, sir. I will wait for you here."

  Major William Theodore Moresby

  4 July 1999

  Dumah, beware!

  Someone is crying out to me from Seir,

  Watchman, how much of the night is gone?

  Watchman, how much of the night is gone?

  The watchman said:

  Morning comes, and night again too.

  If you would know more

  Come back, come back, and ask anew.

  -- The First Book of Isaiah

  TWELVE

  Moresby was methodical.

  The red light blinked out. He reached up to unlock the hatch and throw it open. The green light went dark. Moresby grasped the two handrails and pulled himself to a sitting position, with his head and shoulders protruding through the hatchway. He was alone in the lighted room, as he expected to be. The air was cool and smelled of ozone. Moresby struggled out of the hatch and climbed over the side; the step stool was missing as he slid down the hull to the floor. He reached up to slam shut the hatch, then quickly turned to the locker for his clothing. Two other suits belonging to Saltus and Chaney also hung there in paper sheaths waiting to be claimed. He noted the locker had collected a fine coat of dust. When he was fully dressed, he smoothed out the imaginary wrinkles in the Air Force dress uniform he had elected to wear.