A Century of Progress

by Fred Saberhagen

  Shortly after that, Andy broke off the conversation fairly abruptly and took his leave. It was not as if he were upset or even tired; more as if his mind was suddenly busy elsewhere.

  Norlund could sympathize. But he himself was yawning. Something was running through his mind about Scrooge, confronted by the ghost of Christmas past. Trying to really think about anything had become hopeless . . .

  In the morning, his first impression was that of having been awakened by some kind of alarm. But whatever it was must have ceased its signal in the second before he became fully conscious of it.

  Now the room was quiet, and looked quite ordinary. Norlund lay still for a while, trying to fit the strange experiences of yesterday into some kind of pattern of reality that could be trusted. During the night there had been strange dreams, but he could no longer remember them.

  Andy Burns. That had been no dream. And Ginny had said that he, Alan Norlund, was the main reason they had gone back forty years and somehow plucked Andy to safety out of the aerial inferno over Regensburg. It had cost them to do that, she said, and Norlund could well believe it had. So it would seem that he, Alan Norlund, truly was important.

  But Ginny hadn’t said why.

  Norlund got up and went to the bathroom. He remembered Ginny telling him how he should dress today, and he followed her instructions. He picked out clothing they had issued him, letting his own garments hang in the closet against his return. Sort of like leaving the barracks to fly a mission, he thought. Though in this case the special clothing was not high-altitude stuff. Here instead he got cotton drawers, and a white cotton undershirt with thin straps across the shoulders. The business shirt was white, wrinkly cotton also, lightly starched in collar and cuffs—he’d forgotten how the starch felt when you wore it. The pants of the gray suit with the used look were, as he’d expected, just a trifle baggy in the knees. There was a matching vest, and a red tie.

  Beside his own reading glasses on the dresser had appeared a different pair, in an old clamshell case, and he put them on and slipped the case into his pocket. The glasses worked beautifully. Also on the dresser was a small tray that he was sure hadn’t been there last night. The tray held the potential contents of his Thirties pockets and a wristwatch, leather-strapped and ticking. Norlund gave the winding stem of the watch a few turns and put it on, leaving his own quartz model in its place.

  Then there was a leather billfold, slightly worn. It was packed with what certainly looked like real US money, circa nineteen-thirty. Norlund counted two hundred and twenty dollars in assorted bills, some crisp and new-looking, some old and worn. None of them were dated after nineteen-thirty two. Thoughtfully Norlund rubbed the money in his fingers before he replaced it in the billfold. The money bothered him—whether because it might be counterfeit or because it might not be, he wasn’t sure.

  The billfold also held some business cards, with Norlund’s own name on them—someone must have been sure of his recruitment. The cards gave a Wheaton address for the Radio Survey Corporation; he wasn’t sure whether it was the address of the building he was standing in. No zip code, of course, but the cards did bear a phone number—he’d have to ask what that connected to. There was a New York driver’s license, looking new but old-fashioned, also made out to Norlund and dated nineteen thirty-three. He wondered why there was no Social Security card, and then he recalled that in the year he was supposedly visiting, no one in the world had yet seen one of those.

  Something made of cloth was folded up on the dresser beside the tray. It was an old-style money belt, the kind that you wrapped around your body under your clothes. Snapping open the belt’s pockets, Norlund discovered two thousand dollars more. God, if the unimaginable really happened, and he found himself living in the depths of the Depression, he’d be able to buy himself a house and a small farm and settle down . . .

  When he’d gotten the belt on, and his clothing readjusted, he inspected the modest handful of coins that the tray held. Holding up a quarter dollar, he saw that the coin was of real silver, its milled edges of the same brightness as the faces. The quarter was dated nineteen thirty-two, and it was hardly worn at all. Also mostly unworn were the Liberty-head silver dimes, the buffalo nickels, the bright copper wheat-wreathed pennies. There were no Indian cents in the assortment; to the best of Norlund’s recollection the early Thirties would be a little late for them to appear in common circulation.

  Dropping the coins into his left-hand pocket, Norlund absently ran a finger up his fly, checking that all the buttons were fastened. Old habits returned quickly. Now, fully dressed except for the hat that still waited on the dresser, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. The old clothes made him look older in some way . . . not like his father, no, he’d never looked much like him. But in another odd way he felt that he was younger, returning to the days of youth. Buddies again with Andy Burns . . . no, never again really that. Suddenly he wondered what Ginny Butler really thought of him, of old man Norlund.

  He tried on the fedora, which fit perfectly, and now the image in the mirror reminded him somewhat of his own grandfather. And reminded him also of how as a kid he’d always looked forward to being able to wear a grown-up hat.

  A leather traveling-bag was in the closet. Norlund put it on the bed and packed it with clothes from the closet and drawers—shirts, underwear, socks, a sweater, a couple of pairs of pants. He found and packed a new old-fashioned shaving kit and toothbrush. He reminded himself to get a haircut soon after arrival . . . God, but he was taking this thing seriously! He really thought that he was going to—

  Struck by a sudden idea, he got out his newly acquired driver’s license and looked at it again. The date of his birth was given as eighteen seventy-three, and, yes, there was a place where he was supposed to sign. Getting out the fountain pen that had been provided on the tray, he took care of that detail.

  He was all ready now, as far as he could tell. He stood for a moment looking at the modern bedside phone, then picked it up and punched out the number of the hospital. It was Sunday morning; he just might catch one of the first-team doctors making rounds.

  This time he got through directly to Sandy’s room, and it was Marge who answered. “Our girl is looking pretty fine this morning, Dad. Maybe that little setback is all in the past.” And Marge’s tone was even happier than her words.

  “Can I talk to her?” And he did. Sandy sounded chipper, very good indeed. Then he had Marge back on. “She sounds like she’s getting well,” said Norlund to his daughter. “Jeez, I hope so. Hey, I love you guys.”

  “Well then. Dad, I think you ought to hurry back to us. Where are you now? You didn’t really say.”

  Norlund cleared his throat. “I hope I’ll see you soon. Tomorrow I’ll be back in Chicago, I think. Maybe the day after that.”

  When he arrived downstairs in search of some breakfast he found the dining room deserted. Finding his way into the kitchen, he discovered a pot of coffee on the stove, but no other signs of activity. He poked around in cabinets, getting out a few utensils and some instant oatmeal, and made himself a bowl of it. If they wanted him they could find him, and he was a touch hungry; breakfast was usually his favorite meal. He made two pieces of toast and then discovered he could eat only one. Again he thought vaguely that today was like the morning of a combat mission. Fear was present, but something else too, something to be savored. And where was Andy Burns this morning? Already out on the ramp and loading ammo?

  He finished eating and cleaned up after himself a little, as much as he felt like cleaning up. Then he picked up the traveling bag that he’d carried downstairs, and headed in the direction of the garage housing the old truck. He’d thought he’d heard a voice or two from that direction while he was in the kitchen.

  The first thing he noticed on entering the garage was that the Dodge truck had somehow been turned, so now it faced the overhead doors. It was still the only vehicle in sight. A hunched, white-coated form that looked like that of Dr. Harbin was do
ing something inside the cab while Ginny, in worker’s coveralls this morning, stood outside talking to him.

  She saw Norlund as soon as he entered, and came over to him. Her manner as she looked him over was all business. “You look okay,” she decided.

  Norlund asked, “What’s been decided about my partner? Who do I get?”

  “You’ll hire someone there. Follow the rules we gave you yesterday in choosing someone. None of our people here can be spared—Andy with his artificial arm is certainly not a candidate. Now let’s run through some of the procedures on the machinery again.”

  Norlund still hadn’t forgotten anything from yesterday’s lessons; he had no trouble in playing back to Ginny his operating knowledge of the gear in the back of the truck. As for the ultimate purpose of it all, he hadn’t been taught anything and he didn’t ask now.

  Ginny was unfolding a paper. “Here’s a map of the approximate route that you should drive once you get there. I think you might be able to finish the job in one day. Here are shown the approximate locations where the recording devices must go. Of course, you have to use the equipment to decide on the exact best positioning.”

  Presently Harbin came to take a turn at catechizing Norlund. From time to time Harbin or Ginny would drop other tasks and go over to the wall at the far side of the garage, where there was a phone. Whatever they learned in their brief phone conversations didn’t do their morale any good, for Norlund could see strain growing progressively in their faces.

  Then Harbin, returning from one of these conversations, had suddenly acquired a gunbelt strapped round his waist, over his long white lab coat. The doctor silently handed a similar belt to Ginny, who accepted it without comment and calmly put it on. Norlund thought that the weapons in the holsters looked something like Israeli machine pistols that he’d seen on television or somewhere; not that he was an expert on any kind of modern firearms.

  He waited for a moment, but when it was clear that they weren’t going to volunteer any explanation of the weapons, he commented: “Doesn’t look good, hey?”

  Ginny looked up from a checklist that she was going over. “Doesn’t feel too good, either, Alan. But you know I never promised you that this job was going to be perfectly safe.”

  “I never really suspected that it would be all that safe. And I know exactly what you promised me and what you didn’t.”

  She was about to answer, but Harbin—on the phone again—was gesturing violently, calling her into conference.

  In a few moments she was back. In a voice more tightly controlled than ever she ordered: “Here, Alan, take these pills.” Her smallish hand held out two yellow capsules in front of him, and then produced from somewhere a styrofoam cup of water. “For launching we want you at peak alertness.”

  “Instead of at peak learning ability.”

  “What was that?”

  “I said”—he swallowed pills and water—”I have to be not quite so impressionable now. Or when I get there. Someone might tell me to do the wrong thing. Not so damn suggestible.”

  And Ginny surprised him by being briefly delighted, as if she were rooting for him personally. “You’re right. Oh, beautiful, Alan, you’re with us, I know it for sure now. This is going to work.”

  And Norlund, even knowing that he judged from an abyss of ignorance, felt pleased that he thought so too.

  He was up in the driver’s seat of the big old Dodge, fumbling briefly for a seatbelt that of course did not exist, when some kind of almost silent hell began to break loose just outside the doors of the farthest bay of the garage. And all at once those doors were rolling up by themselves, moving to the accompaniment of slow warbling sound effects. The light that came in from outside was not a normal light; it was mottled, and though at moments it might have been acceptable as normal, it changed swiftly. It did not look like ordinary daylight, or moonlight, or even any kind of artificial lighting that Norlund had ever seen before.

  The doors were not yet fully open when the odd sounds stopped, and to Norlund’s astonishment a large old-fashioned black sedan, a car that Cagney or George Raft might have driven through a gangster movie, came rolling in under them. Ginny and Dr. Harbin, looking as much surprised as Norlund felt, jumped back out of the car’s way.

  The old-fashioned sedan entered the garage bouncing on stiff springs, as if it had had to negotiate some kind of large hump just outside the doors. From where Norlund was sitting in the Dodge it was impossible to see outside through those doors, but now the entering light was going mad, putting on a syncopated disco show. And the instant that the sedan was fully inside, the doors came rolling down, this time with the slamming speed of a guillotine.

  Men were already piling out of the black sedan. Not Raft or Cagney, but these characters’ clothes would have fitted them: all three of them were wearing dark topcoats, along with other winter garments, and two of them were carrying the third. On second glance Norlund was sure that he saw snow melting on the black car’s roof, while mist formed on its windows as they warmed.

  The first man out of the car was a beefy character about thirty years old. Before he was completely out he was shouting excitedly at Ginny and Harbin: “When do we transship? He’s got two creases on ‘im!”

  Harbin raised an authoritative voice “We’re in the middle of a launching here—”

  The two new arrivals who could stand stood holding their helpless comrade who might have been dead for all that Norlund could tell. They responded to Harbin in what quickly became a shouting match.

  “—attack’s going to diffuse this far—”

  “—pack-year has precessed out of range—” At least that was one set of words that Norlund’s ears seemed to be recording.

  “—transshipment clockwise is not an option—”

  Abruptly Harbin turned back to Norlund. Leaning in through the truck’s open window, the white-coated man spoke with superbly controlled haste. “We’re going to have to launch you immediately. Roll up your window till you get clear of the garage. When you drive out, you’ll be in nineteen thirty-three. We’re all depending on you to complete this mission properly; if we should lose this—”

  A klaxon interrupted, deafeningly loud. It had to be some kind of alarm. The doctor backed away from the truck, motioning for Norlund to raise his window and get moving. Norlund, cranking up the glass with his left hand, noted that the window on the other side of the cab was closed already, and reached with his right for the gearshift. The shooting had started. Well, he’d never believed that this goddamned survey they were sending him on was as simple as it sounded. This was war. Well, he’d survived war before . . .

  The doctor was still yelling final words toward him, but the words were lost and Harbin’s tense figure obscured behind a red translucent wall that was condensing like moisture out of the air in the garage. The red wall was hot; Norlund could feel its radiance on the left side of his face before he got his window up, the heat coming and going in waves like the light that had come from beyond the doors. Now Norlund had closed his window and a lid of the same translucent red had clamped down across the truck’s flat windshield. That, as Norlund remembered perfectly from yesterday’s briefing, was the signal for him to start his engine. The four-cylinder plant under the hood turned over, coughed once, and settled into a vibrant purr that had the feel of dependable power.

  Now, put it in gear. Now, foot ready on the clutch . . .

  The red lid on the windshield was darkening toward purple, growing more opaque. Through it Norlund saw that the garage doors directly ahead of him were starting to open. They rose revealing brilliance. Norlund eased in the clutch and drove slowly forward. Then for a moment he was almost blinded, as they had warned him he might be, by the shifting light of a rainbow that surrounded his vehicle, making it impossible for him to see anything else. The world was silent but for the sound of the truck’s engine.

  Then he was driving into bright but perfectly natural summer sunshine. Exterior sound came back. He co
uld hear the crunch of his tires on a cinder drive, and the lazy drone of a cicada in one of the tall trees nearby.

  Increased warmth engulfed the truck, the sun shining down on it from high in a clear sky. The truck was rolling slowly along a cinder drive, which just a few yards ahead entered a country road, hardly more than a single lane of hard-packed clay and gravel.

  Norlund glanced behind him. He had just driven out of a garage attached to an isolated farmhouse. It was a narrow garage, big enough for only one car, and its single set of doors were already closed.

  He looked to right, to left, and forward. In every direction weedy meadows and shabby cornfields stretched into the distance.

  1933

  Norlund fought back his first impulse, born of shock, to slam on the brakes. True to his brief training he kept on driving, and turned left out of the driveway. At thirty miles an hour he followed the otherwise deserted narrow country road, in what was supposed to be an easterly direction. Glancing back once again, wildly, he saw the old farmhouse receding behind him, looking abandoned, altered, shrunken.

  Now oncoming traffic appeared on the narrow road, in the form of an old Ford, and Norlund automatically steered past it. When the dust raised by the Ford had settled, the road ahead was empty again. Norlund drove through a deserted crossroads that displayed road signs of forgotten types. A little farther on, another intersection was also empty of buildings, but marked the beginning of paved streets. Now there were narrow, weed-rimmed sidewalks bordering empty fields—doubtless some housing development had been started here during the prosperous Twenties and abandoned when things fell apart. Another quarter of a mile and Norlund drove past a filling station with antique pumps, advertising twelve-cent gas.

  It was about at that point that the shock of it all overtook him. It hit him so hard that he gave up and pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. He just sat there. His hands were shaking, and he put his head down on them as they gripped the steering wheel.