“Never mind. Now you are here you’d better come indoors,” she told him. “And you can put that handkerchief away in your pocket,” she added.
As he entered I saw him give a quick glance round the room, and nod to himself as if satisfied with the authenticity of its contents. We sat down. Tavia said:
“Just before we go any further, Uncle Donald, I think you ought to know that I am married to Gerald—Mr. Lattery.”
Dr. Gobie peered closely at her.
“Married?” he repeated. “What for?”
“Oh, dear,” said Tavia. She explained patiently: “I am in love with him, and he’s in love with me, so I am his wife. It’s the way things happen here.”
“Tch, tch!” said Dr. Gobie, and shook his head. “Of course I am well aware of your sentimental penchant for the Twentieth Century and its ways, my dear, but surely it wasn’t quite necessary for you to—er—go native?”
“I like it, quite a lot,” Tavia told him.
“Young women will be romantic, I know. But have you thought of the trouble you will be causing Sir Ger—er, Mr. Lattery?”
“But I’m saving him trouble, Uncle Donald. They sniff at you here if you don’t get married, and I didn’t like him being sniffed at.”
“I wasn’t thinking so much of while you’re here, as of after you have left. They have a great many rules about presuming death, and proving desertion, and so on; most dilatory and complex. Meanwhile, he can’t marry anyone else.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t want to marry anyone else, would you darling?” she said to me.
“Certainly not,” I protested.
“You’re quite sure of that, darling?”
“Darling,” I said, taking her hand, “if all the other women in the world—”
After a time Dr. Gobie recalled our attention with an apologetic cough.
“The real purpose of my visit,” he explained, “is to persuade my niece that she must come back, and at once. There is the greatest consternation and alarm throughout the faculty over this affair, and I am being held largely to blame. Our chief anxiety is to get her back before any serious damage is done. Any chronoclasm goes ringing unendingly down the ages—and at any moment a really serious one may come of this escapade. It has put all of us into a highly nervous condition.”
“I’m sorry about that, Uncle Donald—and about your getting the blame. But I am not coming back. I’m very happy here.”
“But the possible chronoclasms, my dear. It keeps me awake at night thinking—”
“Uncle dear, they’d be nothing to the chronoclasms that would happen if I did come back just now. You must see that I simply can’t, and explain it to the others.”
“Can’t—?” he repeated.
“Now, if you look in the books you’ll see that my husband—isn’t that a funny, ugly old-fashioned word? I rather like it, though. It comes from two ancient Icelandic roots—”
“You were speaking about not coming back,” Dr. Gobie reminded her.
“Oh, yes. Well, you’ll see in the books that first he invented submarine radio communication, and then later on he invented curved-beam transmission, which is what he got knighted for.”
“I’m perfectly well aware of that, Tavia. I do not see—“
“But, Uncle Donald, you must. How on earth can he possibly invent those things if I’m not here to show him how to do it? If you take me away now, they’ll just not be invented, and then what will happen?”
Dr. Gobie stared at her steadily for some moments.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I must admit that that point had not occurred to me,” and sank deeply into thought for a while.
“Besides,” Tavia added, “Gerald would hate me to go, wouldn’t you darling?”
“I—” I began, but Dr. Gobie cut me short by standing up.
“Yes,” he said. “I can see there will have to be a postponement for a while. I shall put your point to them, but it will be only for a while.”
On his way to the door he paused.
“Meanwhile, my dear, do be careful. These things are so delicate and complicated. I tremble to think of the complexities you might set up if you—well, say, if you were to do something irresponsible like becoming your own progenetrix.”
“That is one thing I can’t do, Uncle Donald. I’m on the collateral branch.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, that’s a very lucky thing. Then I’ll say au revoir, my dear, and to you, too, Sir—er—Mr. Lattery. I trust that we may meet again—it has had its pleasant side to be here as more than a mere observer for once.”
“Uncle Donald, you’ve said a mouthful there,” Tavia agreed.
He shook his head reprovingly at her.
“I’m afraid you would never have got to the top of the historical tree, my dear. You aren’t thorough enough. That phrase is early Twentieth Century, and, if I may say so, inelegant even then.”
* * * *
The expected shooting incident took place about a week later. Three men, dressed in quite convincing imitation of farmhands, made the approach. Tavia recognized one of them through the glasses. When I appeared, gun in hand, at the door, they tried to make for cover. I peppered one at considerable range, and he ran on, limping.
After that we were left unmolested. A little later we began to get down to the business of underwater radio—surprisingly simple, once the principle had been pointed out—and I filed my applications for patents. With that well in hand, we turned to the curved-beam transmission.
Tavia hurried me along with that. She said:
“You see, I don’t know how long we’ve got, darling. I’ve been trying to remember ever since I got here what the date was on your letter, and I can’t—even though I remember you underlined it. I know there’s a record that your first wife deserted you—’deserted,’ isn’t that a dreadful word to use: as if I would, my sweet—but it doesn’t say when. So I must get you properly briefed on this because there’d be the most frightful chronoclasm if you failed to invent it.”
And then, instead of buckling down to it as her words suggested, she became pensive.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I think there’s going to be a pretty bad chronoclasm anyway. You see, I’m going to have a baby.”
“No!” I exclaimed delightedly.
“What do you mean, ‘no’? I am. And I’m worried. I don’t think it has ever happened to a traveling historian before. Uncle Donald would be terribly annoyed if he knew.”
“To hell with Uncle Donald,” I said. “And to hell with chronoclasms. We’re going to celebrate, darling.”
The weeks slid quickly by. My patents were granted provisionally. I got a good grip on the theory of curved-beam transmission. Everything was going nicely. We discussed the future: whether he was to be called Donald, or whether she was going to be called Alexandra. How soon the royalties would begin to come in so that we could make an offer for Bagford House. How funny it would feel at first to be addressed as Lady Lattery, and other allied themes ...
And then came that December afternoon when I got back from discussing a modification with a manufacturer in London and found that she wasn’t there any more ...
Not a note, not a last word. Just the open front door, and a chair overturned in the sitting room ...
Oh, Tavia, my dear...
* * * *
I began to write this down because I still have an uneasy feeling about the ethics of not being the inventor of my inventions, and that there should be a straightening out. Now that I have reached the end, I perceive that “straightening out” is scarcely an appropriate description of it. In fact, I can foresee so much trouble attached to putting this forward as a conscientious reason for refusing a knighthood, that I think I shall say nothing, and just accept the knighthood when it comes. After all, when I consider a number of “inspired” inventions that I can call to mind, I begin to wonder whether certain others have not done that before me.
I have never pretended to understand
the finer points of action and interaction comprehended in this matter, but I have a pressing sense that one action now on my part is basically necessary: not just to avoid dropping an almighty chronoclasm myself, but for fear that if I neglect it I may find that the whole thing never happened. So I must write a letter.
First, the envelope:
To my great, great grandniece,
Miss Octavia Lattery.
(To be opened by her on her 21st birthday. 6th June 2136.)
Then the letter. Date it. Underline the date.
My sweet, far-off, lovely Tavia,
Oh, my darling ...
<
* * * *
WILLIAM TENN
If you have readChild’s Play, Betelgeuse Bridge, Brooklyn Project or Errand Boy, you know who William Tenn is; if you haven’t, it is plain that you’ve missed most of the science-fiction anthologies published in the past few years. Tenn’s first science-fiction story was written between watches as a Merchant Marine radio operator just after the war; his second was written within a matter of hours after recovering from the shock of getting an immediate check for the first. That was Child’s Play—anthologied, to date, no fewer than six times, with more coming up. It was a brilliant beginning for a career. To prove that the career has brilliantly continued, we need only offer for evidence . . .
The Deserter
November 10, 2039—
Terran Supreme Command communiqué No. 18,673 for the twenty-four hours ending 0900 Monday, Terran capital time:
. . . whereupon sector HQ on Fortress Satellite Five ordered a strategic withdrawal of all interceptor units. The withdrawal was accomplished without difficulty and with minimal loss.
The only other incident of interest in this period was the surrender of an enemy soldier of undetermined rank, the first of these creatures from Jupiter to be taken alive by our forces. The capture was made in the course of defending Cochabamba, Bolivia, from an enemy commando raid. Four Jovians were killed in this unsuccessful assault upon a vital tin-supplying area after which the fifth laid down his arms and begged that his life be spared. Upon capture by our forces, the Jovian claimed to be a deserter and requested a safe-conduct to . . .
* * * *
Mardin had been briefed on what to expect by the MP officer who’d escorted him into the cave. Inevitably, though, his first view of the tank in which the alien floated brought out a long, whimpering grunt of disbelief and remembered fear. It was at least sixty feet long by forty wide, and it reared off the rocky floor to twice the height of a man. Whatever incredible material its sides had been composed of had hours ago been covered by thick white layers of ice.
Cold air currents bouncing the foul, damp smell of methane back from the tank tweaked his nose and pricked at his ears. Well, after all, Mardin thought, those things have a body temperature somewhere in the neighborhood of minus 200° Fahrenheit!
And he had felt this cold once before ...
He shivered violently in response to the memory and zipped shut the fur-lined coveralls he’d been issued at the entrance. “Must have been quite a job getting that thing in here.” The casualness of his voice surprised him and made him feel better.
“Oh, a special engineer task force did it in—let me see, now—” The MP lieutenant, a Chinese girl in her late teens, pursed soft, coral lips at his graying hair. “Less than five hours, figuring from the moment they arrived. The biggest problem was finding a cell in the neighborhood that was big enough to hold the prisoner. This cave was perfect.”
Mardin looked up at the ledge above their heads. Every ten feet, a squad of three men, highly-polished weapons ready for instant action. Atomic cannon squads alternating with men bent down under the weight of dem-dem grenades. Grim-faced young subalterns, very conscious of the bigness of the brass that occupied the platform at the far end of the cave, stamped back and forth along the ledge from squad to squad, deadly little Royster pistolettos tinkling and naked in their sweating hands. Those kids, he thought angrily, so well adjusted to it all!
The ledge ran along three sides of the cave; on the fourth, the low entrance from which Mardin had just come, he had seen five steel Caesars implanted, long, pointed snouts throbbingly eager to throw tremendous gusts of stellar energy into the Jovian’s rear. And amid the immense rock folds of the roof, a labyrinth of slender, pencil-like bombs had been laid, held in place by clamps that would all open simultaneously the moment a certain colonel’s finger pressed a certain green button .. .
“If our friend in the tank makes one wrong move,” Mardin muttered, “half of South America goes down the drain.”
The girl started to chuckle, then changed her mind and frowned. “I’m sorry, Major Mardin, but I don’t like that. I don’t like hearing them referred to as ‘friends.’ Even in a joke. Over a million and a half people—three hundred thousand of them Chinese—have been wiped out by those— those ammoniated flatworms!”
“And the first fifty of which,” he reminded her irritably, “were my relatives and neighbors. If you’re old enough to remember Mars and the Three Watertanks massacre, young lady.”
She swallowed and looked stricken. An apology seemed to be in the process of composition, but Mardin moved past her in a long, disgusted stride and headed rapidly for the distant platform. He had a fierce dislike, he had discovered long ago, for people who were unable to hate wholesomely and intelligently, who had to jog their animus with special symbols and idiotic negations. Americans, during the War of 1914-18, changing sauerkraut into liberty cabbage; mobs of Turks, in the Gibraltar Flare-up of 1985, lynching anyone in Ankara caught eating oranges. How many times had he seen aged men in the uniform of the oldsters’ service, the Infirm Civilian Corps, make the socially accepted gesture of grinding out a worm with their heels whenever they referred to the enemy from Jupiter!
He grimaced at the enormous expanse of ice-covered tank in which a blanket of living matter large enough to cover a city block pursued its alien processes. “Let me see you lift your foot and step on that!” he told the astonished girl behind him. Damn all simplicity-hounds, anyway, he thought. A week on the receiving end of a Jovian question-machine is exactly what they need. Make them nice and thoughtful and give them some inkling of how crazily complex this universe can be!
That reminded him of his purpose in this place. He became thoughtful himself and—while the circular scar on his forehead wrinkled—very gravely reminiscent of how crazily complex the universe actually was ...
So thoughtful, in fact, that he had to take a long, relaxing breath and wipe his hands on his coveralls before climbing the stairs that led up to the hastily constructed platform.
Colonel Liu, Mardin’s immediate superior, broke away from the knot of men at the other end and came up to him with arms spread wide. “Good to see you, Mardin,” he said rapidly. “Now listen to me. Old Rockethead himself is here—you know how he is. So put a little snap into your salute and sort of pull back on those shoulders when you’re talking to him. Know what I mean? Try to show him that when it comes to military bearing, we in Intelligence don’t take a—Mardin, are you listening to me? This is very important.”
With difficulty, Mardin took his eyes away from the transparent un-iced top of the tank. “Sorry, sir,” he mumbled. “I’ll—I’ll try to remember.”
“This the interpreter, Colonel Liu? Major Mardin, eh?” the very tall, stiffly erect man in the jeweled uniform of a Marshal of Space yelled from the railing. “Bring him over. On the double, sir!”
Colonel Liu grabbed Mardin’s left arm and pulled him rapidly across the platform. Rockethead Billingsley cut the colonel’s breathless introduction short. “Major Igor Mardin, is it? Sounds Russian. You wouldn’t be Russian now, would you? I hate Russians.”
Mardin noticed a broad-shouldered vice-marshal standing in Billingsley’s rear stiffen angrily. “No, sir,” he replied. “Mardin is a Croat name. My family is French and Yugoslav with possibly a bit of Arab.”
The M
arshal of Space inclined his fur-covered head. “Good! Couldn’t stand you if you were Russian. Hate Russians, hate Chinese, hate Portuguese. Though the Chinese are worst of all, I’d say. Ready to start working on this devil from Jupiter? Come over here, then. And move, man, move!” As he swung round, the dozen or so sapphire-studded Royster pistolettos that swung picturesquely from his shoulder straps clinked and clanked madly, making him seem like a gigantic cat that the mice had belled again and again.
Hurrying after him, Mardin noticed with amusement that the stiff, angry backs were everywhere now. Colonel Liu’s mouth was screwed up into a dark pucker in his face; at the far end of the platform, the young lieutenant who’d escorted him from the jet base was punching a tiny fist into an open palm. Marshal of Space Rudolfo Billingsley enjoyed a rank high enough to make tact a function of the moment’s whim—and it was obvious that he rarely indulged such moments. “Head thick as a rocket wall and a mouth as filthy as a burned-out exhaust, but he can figure out, down to the smallest wound on the greenest corporal, exactly how much blood any attack is going to cost.” That was what the line officers said of him.
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