A Century of Progress

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A Century of Progress Page 4

by Fred Saberhagen


  He followed orders in a daze, still too much in shock for examining-room embarrassment. Andy Burns . . .

  The door opened again, without a knock. The white-coated man who entered was in his seventies, if appearance could be relied upon after today, but erect and trim. He wasted no time in introductions or other chitchat, but issued terse instructions and began to administer a physical.

  In addition to making tests, he took some of Norlund’s body measurements, as if he might be fitting him for a suit of clothes. He checked Norlund’s teeth, which were still original issue. Some of the instruments that were used in the exam looked strange and unfamiliar to the patient, but that was nothing out of the ordinary these days. When the examiner had finished, he brusquely told Norlund to get dressed, advised him to get a haircut within the next few days, and departed as uninformatively as he had entered.

  Ginny returned not long after the silent man’s departure, knocking before she entered.

  “How’d I do?” Norlund asked.

  “Fine. You’re in good health.”

  “I thought I was. What was that about a haircut? He told me I ought to get one.”

  “Oh. Well, men’s hairstyles are somewhat different in the Thirties, as I’m sure you’ll remember. Not that yours is very long, but—”

  “Oh.” And somehow the whole prospect suddenly became real.

  Ginny was holding open the door to the hall. “Let’s get moving,” she murmured abstractedly. “We’ve got to speed things up.”

  She led him down again to the garage where the old truck waited. “Let’s see how you start the truck, Alan. Then put it in gear and ease it backward and forward a foot or so. We can’t open the garage doors just now, but don’t worry about the carbon monoxide. We’re well ventilated.”

  “If you say so.” He climbed aboard the truck, while Ginny watched from the center of the floor. “Shouldn’t be much different from driving a modern stickshift,” he told her out the window. “Except here you have a hand choke to fool with too. And a hand brake, I see.”

  But he had no trouble getting things to work. All the machinery seemed to be in excellent condition, and memory came back as if the skills had been used only yesterday. Every now and then Norlund paused for about two seconds, thinking to himself: What in the hell have I got myself into?

  Ginny, watching him handle the truck, seemed reassured. “Good, I think we can assume that the driving per se is not going to present a real problem.” And she looked at her watch.

  “Ginny?” It was the first time he had called her by name.

  “Yes?”

  “How did you manage that? With Andy?”

  “We haven’t time to go into that now. You’ll talk to Andy again before you go. We went and got him, that’s all.”

  “And now there’s no time.”

  Her manner softened briefly. “I realize it may sound crazy. But there are ways in which we can manipulate time, and ways in which we can’t, and right now we’re in something of a bloody hurry. I’ve got to start teaching you how to operate the equipment in the rear of the truck.”

  A door in the inner wall of the garage opened, to admit the septuagenarian medic, still in his white coat. Ginny went to him and they spoke together in low voices. Norlund shut off the truck engine and heard her call him Dr. Harbin. Norlund got out of the truck, not knowing what else he was supposed to be doing.

  The doctor approached. He looked into Norlund’s eyes for a moment, nodded as if satisfied, and said: “I want you to listen to these numbers. They’ll come in three groups. Ready?”

  “Whatever.”

  Harbin then indeed pronounced three groups of numbers, sixteen digits in each group. Norlund to his own amazement found himself effortlessly counting and keeping track. When Norlund had heard all three groups recited, Ginny approached him with a small notebook and pencil in hand. He was expecting to be asked to play the numbers back, but instead she interviewed him on his personal preferences in clothing.

  “You know what I was doing in nineteen forty-three and you don’t know what color shirts I like to wear?”

  “That’s not so crazy, if you think about it.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Just answer, please.” And Ginny wrote down his answers, as if they mattered, and hurried off.

  Harbin confronted him again. “Repeat the second group of numbers for me, please.”

  To Norlund’s considerable surprise, he could still do so, without even hesitating. When he looked for the numbers they were there, sitting in his mind as if projected on a screen.

  “Good. Fine. And now the first group, backwards?”

  Norlund could rattle those off just as readily. Ginny came hustling back from somewhere while he was at it. “He’s ready to learn,” the doctor told her.

  “Great,” she rejoiced quietly. Efficient as usual, she already had the truck door open, gesturing Norlund in. “Step into the back of the vehicle, please, Alan, and sit in the seat there. You’ve got to learn that equipment.”

  He went in. The high body of the old vehicle gave Ginny room to stand behind his swivel seat, lean over his shoulder and point things out. The proximity of her young body was pleasant, yet somehow not distracting.

  The first thing that became obvious to Norlund about the equipment was that the ancient wires and tubes, even though the filaments were glowing, were no more than window-dressing; modern gear must somehow lie concealed beneath. The modern gear was evidently complex, but he learned how to operate it very quickly—too quickly.

  Feeling actually frightened, he interrupted the lesson once. “What’ve you done to my brain? I can’t forget anything if I try.”

  “Then don’t try. It’s nothing harmful, Alan, when it’s used sparingly. We’ve just given you something to speed up the learning process temporarily, make it more efficient. Now, these dials here have a code setting, like a safe. They must be set properly for any of the other gears to work.”

  As soon as the dials were at their proper settings, what had looked like a primitive oscilloscope built into the console in front of Norlund cleared its round gray screen and showed him a color-graphics display as sophisticated as anything he’d seen on equipment of the Eighties.

  Ginny started to explain to him how he was going to use it. After she’d made the scope turn gray again, displaying one primitive green-line trace like an ancient A-scan radar, Norlund interrupted the lesson to point at it. “They had scopes like this in nineteen thirty-three?”

  “I see you weren’t doing advanced electronic research in that year. Yes, they did. Would you believe they had something almost like it in eighteen ninety-seven?”

  Ginny went on showing him what he was expected to do with the equipment; the way she talked about it, it didn’t sound particularly hard. And maybe he didn’t yet believe wholeheartedly in the reality of all that she was telling him, but he remembered everything she said. He also lost track of how much time was passing. When he began to get overpoweringly sleepy, she calmly sent him back to his room to rest.

  Lying on his bed, he tried to think. But too much had happened to him today; he couldn’t think straight about any part of it . . .

  He awoke with the feeling that he might have slept for half an hour. The phone at bedside was chiming musically. When Norlund answered, Ginny’s voice invited him to come downstairs for dinner.

  It was still daylight outside, and Norlund’s wrist-watch indicated seven o’clock. He washed up and put on a clean shirt, choosing one of several that he now found hanging in the room’s closet. He didn’t think they had been there when he came upstairs, but he had been so sleepy he hadn’t even noticed what time it was. Ginny had said that everything was going to be provided for him, and he decided to take her at her word.

  Had he been dreaming Andy Burns?

  It was just a few minutes after seven when he located some stairs and went down them. They brought him to the ground floor in sight of a rather ordinary dining room, with a table
big enough for eight or ten. Only three places were set, and two of those were occupied by Ginny and Dr. Harbin.

  They both looked up as Norlund approached. Ginny asked: “How’re you feeling, Alan?”

  “Pretty good, after that siesta. I don’t know what happened. I don’t usually . . .”

  “Common reaction,” said Harbin, clearing his throat as if it were rusty with disuse, “after a learning session like the one you had. Sit down.”

  Norlund sat. A casually dressed young man Norlund hadn’t seen before appeared in the capacity of waiter, outlined some limited choices in the way of food, and went casually away.

  Norlund looked at the doctor. “Are you the one who’s treating Sandy?”

  The man’s expression did not change, nor did he answer, but went on chewing methodically. Ginny said quickly: “That’s not an answerable question right now. Do you want to call the hospital, Alan? You may, of course.”

  “And then call again in the morning?”

  “Yes, certainly. Use the phone in the next room there. Or the one in your room, if you prefer.” As Norlund started to rise, her eyes held his. “Alan? Don’t give any hints. About this. It’s getting more important hour by hour. It could wreck everything right now.”

  “I won’t.”

  He used the phone near the dining room, punching out the never-to-be-forgotten hospital number. There was more than one way to learn something indelibly. Sandy’s oncologist was naturally not at the hospital at this time of the evening, nor was Marge on hand. But the nurse on the floor—one who, after the long struggle, Norlund thought of as something of a friend—reported that the patient was better today, eating well and resting comfortably.

  Norlund announced this when he got back to the dinner table. Ginny and the doctor smiled to show that they were pleased; neither was in the least surprised.

  The food, brought by the casual waiter, was okay: roast beef, mashed potatoes. Plain home-cookin’, folks. Norlund, retreating into his thoughts, tested himself silently, determining that everything Ginny had taught him before he slept was still clear in his mind, as available as if he were reading it from a printed page. There wasn’t much talk at table, and none of it about anything more consequential than the weather. Norlund had coffee again, and enjoyed it, though he was reasonably sure that they had drugged his coffee earlier. If they wanted to drug him again they’d find a way, as long as he stayed here. And he was not about to jump up and run out. Not as long as they kept their word on Sandy . . .

  That was true, but it was also rationalizing. Actually, and it surprised him to realize it, on some deep level he was starting to thoroughly enjoy all this.

  But he was also tired, in spite of his nap. He turned to Ginny. “Have we got anything else planned for tonight?”

  “Not at all. Wait a minute and I’ll walk you upstairs. I want to get something in my room.”

  When the two of them reached Norlund’s room, Ginny said, “I think all your new clothes have probably arrived by now,” and walked in with him. She looked at the garments hanging in the closet, and checked the dresser drawers, which Norlund now saw were stocked with clothing too.

  He took down the coat of the gray suit now hanging in the closet and tried it on. The mirror mounted on the bathroom door showed him it was a good fit. Though the suit was clean it didn’t look new; it looked used as well as old-fashioned, a little baggy at the elbows. Of course men’s suits didn’t age much in terms of style. On a hunch Norlund reached for the hanging gray trousers and examined the fly. Sure enough, buttons and not a zipper.

  Ginny was at the door. “I’ll let you get settled in.”

  “Okay. See you in the morning.”

  He was sleepy again; it had been a day not easily matched in any lifetime. No need to hypothesize more drugs to explain his tiredness, he thought.

  His room had a small television and a radio, but he didn’t feel a need for noise. He was down to his underwear, looking out into the night from a darkened room and not seeing much, just about ready to turn down the bed and retire, when a light tapping sounded at his door.

  There sprang to mind the image of Ginny coming back, wearing something filmy . . . It had been a day of miracles; why not? “Just a minute,” he called quietly, and pulled on his pants again. Then he switched on a light and opened the door.

  Nineteen-year-old Andy Burns was standing there, dressed as he had been when Norlund saw him in the afternoon, with the sling still supporting his altered right arm.

  Andy said: “Al? It is you, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah,” said Norlund, letting out a sigh. He had the feeling that he was dreaming, though he knew that he was wide awake. He stood back from the door. “Come in,” he told the kid waiting outside.

  Young Andy Burns entered, looking ill-at-ease. He peered around as if he expected to find someone else. “Ah wanted t’talk t’you,” he said. “Ah’m still tryin’ to get it straight in m’mind. They’ve told me what happened and all, how they caught me right outta the air, and Ah gotta believe ‘em . . . You mind if Ah smoke? Ah mean, here, maybe you want one?”

  “No.” Norlund had quit decades ago, and declined the offered pack. “But you go ahead. Here, sit down.”

  “Thanks.” Andy dug out matches and lit up, the flame making his face look, to Norlund, quite incredibly young. Then he located an ashtray, and threw himself into the one padded chair.

  Norlund sat down on the edge of the bed.

  Andy gave him a look in which nervousness, fear, and recognition were all mixed. “You’re really . . .” He didn’t know quite how to say it.

  Norlund nodded. “Alan Norlund. Yes. Not the same one you remember, not by forty years. But it’s me.”

  Andy nodded, obviously relieved to have his reaction understood, his doubts accepted.

  “Andy, tell me. For you, how long has it been since we—were in that plane together?”

  “Oh. T’me it was only three weeks ago. Three weeks today. Ginny Butler and them caught me outta the air, Ah dunno exactly how. Ah don’t remember that. I do remember bein’ in the Fort, and knowin’ that Ah was hit, real bad. They say you put me out the waist.”

  Norlund spoke slowly and softly. “I was afraid that if I waited any longer I couldn’t get you and myself out, both. I thought any minute we’d blow up or go into a spin. I figured the krauts took care of wounded prisoners, Americans and limeys anyway, so . . . As it turned out, we made it home. I had a shell fragment in my leg, too. Yeah, I put your hand on the D-ring and put you out.”

  Andy nodded solemnly. “And then,” he said, exhaling smoke, “Ah woke up in a kind of hospital these people got. It ain’t here, in Eighty-four. Ah think it’s somewhere in the future but they won’t say where. You been there?”

  “No.”

  “It’s quite a place. All these hah walls like a prison but . . . Anyway they been breakin’ it all to me gradually these three weeks. About time travel and how Ah’m never gonna be able to go home and all. They fuckin’ tell me that Ah . . . ‘scuse me . . .” Suddenly Andy looked flustered, almost as if he were home on leave and had forgotten and used foul language in his mother’s hearing.

  Norlund told him: “You can swear if you want. We both of us used to swear a lot.” My God, he thought to himself, did I look as young then, in Forty-three, as this kid does? Of course I did, I must have. “I guess I kind of got out of the habit,” he concluded, “when I was raising a kid myself.”

  “Ginny an’ them have kinda started hinting that Ah oughta get outta the habit too. That, and smokin’ butts.” Andy looked at his cigarette, then back at Norlund. Still marveling, he shook his head and blurted: “You sure do sound like him.” Confusion. “Ah mean . . .”

  “I am him,” said Norlund. “As far as I know,” he added in deference to the lately re-demonstrated insanity of the world. “What’re they going to do with you now? They say you can’t go home?”

  “Too many problems, with timelines and all, if they tried to send
me. They tell me Ah’ll have me a choice of jobs, once Ah get through orientation. Ah’m in a different kinda fix from you, see. You’ll work a little while and then go home, that’s how they’ve told me it is. Ah dunno what kinda job Ah’ll have, but it’s better’n bein’ dead. Tell me, did Graham ever get outta the tail?”

  “Ah.” It had been years, or maybe decades, since Norlund had thought about Graham. “Yeah, that was after you got hit. He did come forward from the tail, I remember, because both his guns back there were out. We were all shot to hell. Damned old Forts. They sure could take it.”

  The years were blowing away like clouds; for a moment everything was clear. “Graham came forward and took your gun. Another FW made a pass at us . . . they had everything up after us that day, one-oh-nines, one-nineties, everything. I was hit in the leg myself.” The immediacy of it all faded. “They sent me home, and I became a gunnery instructor.”

  “What about Graham?”

  “Oh yeah. I think he flew two more missions after that, and his tour was up. Never got a scratch, as far as I know. I lost track of him a long time ago.”

  Andy was once more looking at Norlund oddly—or perhaps he had never stopped looking at him that way. “For me all that was just three weeks ago.”

  Norlund couldn’t seem to find a good answer to that. Andy ground out his butt in the ashtray and lit another. Norlund felt no desire at all to smoke again. Finally he asked: “How’s the arm?”

  Andy brought it slowly out of the sling, moving it mostly under its own power. Norlund could see that the fingers moved a little. “It’s okay. It’s pretty good, they say it’ll be real good soon. That’s another thing—if Ah did go home, Ah couldn’t keep it.” Now Andy rotated the forearm gingerly and made the gloved fingers clench, a slow but natural movement. “Actually it’s pretty keen,” he said without too much conviction. “Ah cain’t feel nothin’ in it yet but Ah kin do things. Later it might even be better’n mah own arm. Later they can fix th’ skin so’s it looks more real.”

  “That’s good. That’s great.”

  Andy was looking at Norlund intently. As if repeating a lesson learned, Andy said: “Arm’s good and Ah’m glad t’ be alive. Ah just ain’t never gonna see any of mah family again, that’s all.”

 

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