by William Tenn
“But we can’t go back without you, Mr. Winthrop. Remember they said the transfer has to be complete on both sides? One stays behind, all stay. We can’t go back without you.”
Winthrop smiled and stroked the throbbing vein on his neck. “You’re damn tooting you can’t go back without me. And I’m staying. This is one time that old Winthrop calls the tune.”
“Please, Mr. Winthrop, don’t be stubborn. Be nice. Don’t make us force you.”
“You can’t force me,” he told her with a triumphant leer. “I know my rights. According to the law of twenty-fifth century America, no human being can be forced to do anything. Fact. I tooked it up. You try to gang up on me, carry me out of here, all I do is set up a holler that I’m being forced and one! two! three! a flock of government machines show up and turn me loose. That’s the way it works. Put that in your old calabash and smoke it!”
“Listen,” she said, as she turned to leave. “At six o’clock, we’ll all be in the time machine building. Maybe you’ll change your mind, Mr. Winthrop.”
“I won’t,” he shot after her. “That’s one thing you can be sure of—I won’t change my mind.”
So Mrs. Brucks went back to her room and told the others that Winthrop was stubborn as ever.
Oliver T. Mead, vice-president in charge of public relations for Sweetbottom Septic Tanks, Inc., of Gary, Indiana, drummed impatiently on the arm of the red leather easy chair that Mrs. Brucks’ room had created especially for him. “Ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “Ridiculous and absolutely nonsensical. That a derelict, a vagrant, should be able to keep people from going about their business … do you know that there’s going to be a nationwide sales conference of Sweetbottom retail outlets in a few days? I’ve got to be there. I absolutely must return tonight to our time as scheduled, no ifs, no ands, no buts. There’s going to be one unholy mess, I can tell you, if the responsible individuals in this period don’t see to that.”
“I bet there will he,” Mary Ann Carthington said from behind round, respectful and well-mascaraed eyes. “A big firm like that can really give them what for, Mr. Mead.”
Dave Pollock grimaced at her wearily. “A firm five hundred years out of existence? Who’re they going to complain to—the history books?”
As the portly man stiffened and swung around angrily, Mrs. Brucks held up her hands and said, “Don’t get upset, don’t fight. Let’s talk, let’s think it out, only don’t fight. You think it’s the truth we can’t force him to go back?”
Mr. Mead leaned back and stared out of a nonexistent window. “Could be. Then again, it might not. I’m willing to believe anything—anything!—of 2458 A.D. by now, but this smacks of criminal irresponsibility. That they should invite us to visit their time and then not make every possible effort to see that we return safe and sound at the end of two weeks as scheduled—besides, what about their people visiting in our time, the five with whom we transferred? If we’re stuck here, they’ll be stuck in 1958. Forever. Any government worthy of the name owes protection to its citizens traveling abroad. Without it, it’s less than worthless: a tax-grabbing, boondoggling, inept bureaucracy that’s—that’s positively criminal!”
Mary Ann Carthington’s pert little face had been nodding in time to his fist beating on the red leather armchair. “That’s what I say. Only the government seems to be all machines. How can you argue with machines? The only government man we’ve seen since we arrived was that Mr. Storku who welcomed us officially to the United States of America of 2458.
And he didn’t seem very interested in us. At least, he didn’t show any interest.”
“The Chief of Protocol for the State Department, you mean?” Dave Pollock asked. “The one who yawned when you told him how distinguished he looked?”
The girl made a slight, slapping gesture at him, accompanied by a reproachful smile. “Oh, you.”
“Well, then, here’s what we have to do. One,” Mr. Mead rose and proceeded to open the fingers of his right hand one at a time. “We have to go on the basis of the only human being in the government we’ve met personally, this Mr. Storku. Two, we have to select a qualified representative from among us. Three, this qualified representative has to approach Mr. Storku in his official capacity and lay the facts before him. The facts, complete and unequivocal. How his government managed somehow to communicate with our government the fact that time travel was possible, but only if certain physical laws were taken into consideration, most particularly the law of—the law of —What is that law, Pollock?”
“The law of the conservation of energy and mass. Matter, or its equivalent in energy, can neither be created nor destroyed. If you want to transfer five people from the cosmos of 2458 A.D. to the cosmos of 1958 A.D., you have to replace them simultaneously in their own time with five people of exactly the same structure and mass from the time they’re going to. Otherwise, you’d have a gap in the mass of one space-time continuum and a corresponding surplus in the other. It’s like a chemical equation—”
“That’s all I wanted to know, Pollock. I’m not a student in one of your classes. You don’t have to impress me, Pollock,” Mr. Mead pointed out.
The thin young man grunted. “Who was trying to impress you?” he demanded belligerently. “What can you do for me —get me a job in your septic tank empire? I just tried to clear up something you seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding. That’s at the bottom of our problem: the law of the conservation of energy and mass. And the way the machine’s been set for all five of us and all five of them, nobody can do anything about transferring back unless all of us and all of them are present at both ends of the connection at the very same moment.”
Mr. Mead nodded slowly and sarcastically. “All right,” he said. “All right! Thank you very much for your lesson, but now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go on, please. Some of us aren’t civil service workers: our time is valuable.”
“Listen to the tycoon, will you?” Dave Pollock suggested with amusement. “His time is valuable. Look, Ollie, my friend, as long as Winthrop goes on being stubborn, we’re all stuck here together. And as long as we’re stuck here, we’re all greenhorns together in 2458 A.D., savages from the savage past. For your information, right now, your time is my time, and vice versa.”
“Sh-h-h!” Mrs. Brucks commanded. “Be nice. Go on talking, Mr. Mead. It’s very interesting. Isn’t it interesting, Miss Carthington?”
The blonde girl nodded. “It sure is. They don’t make people executives for nothing. You put things so—so right, Mr. Mead.”
Oliver T. Mead, somewhat mollified, smiled a slender thanks at her. “Three, then. We lay the facts before this Mr. Storku. We tell him how we came in good faith, after we were selected by a nationwide contest to find the exact opposite numbers of the five people from his time. How we did it partly out of a natural and understandable curiosity to see what the future looks like, and partly out of patriotism. Yes, patriotism! For is not this America of 2458 A.D. our America? Is it not still our native land, however strange and inexplicable the changes in it? As patriots we could follow no other course, as patriots we—”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” the high school teacher exploded. “Oliver T. Mead pledges allegiance to the flag! We know you’d die for your country under a barrage of stock market quotations. You’re no subversive, all right? What’s your idea, what’s your idea?”
There was a long silence in the room while the stout middle-aged man went through a pantomime of fighting for control. The pantomime over, he slapped his hands against the sides of his hand-tailored dark business suit and said: “Pollock, if you don’t want to hear what I have to say, you can always take a breather in the hall. As I was saying, having explained the background facts to Mr. Storku, we come to the present impasse. We come to point four, the fact that Winthrop refuses to return with us. And we demand, do you hear me?—we demand that the American government of this time take the appropriate steps to insure our safe return to our own time even if it invo
lves, well—martial law relative to Winthrop. We put this flatly, definitely, unequivocally to Storku.”
“Is that your idea?” Dave Pollock asked derisively. “What If Storku says no?”
“He can’t say no, if it’s put right. Authority, I think that’s the keynote. It should be put to him with authority. We are citizens—in temporal extension—of America. We demand our rights. On the other hand, if he refuses to recognize our citizenship, we demand to be sent back where we came from. That’s the right of any foreigner in America. He can’t refuse. We explain the risks his government runs: loss of good will, irreparable damage to future contacts between the two times, his government standing convicted of a breach of good faith, that sort of thing. In these things, it’s just a matter of finding the right words and making them good and strong.”
Mrs. Brucks nodded agreement. “I believe. You can do it, Mr. Mead.”
The stout man seemed to deflate. “I?”
“Of course,” Mary Ann Carthington said enthusiastically. “You’re the only one who can do it, Mr. Mead. You’re the only one who can put things so—so right. Just like you said, it has to be said good and strong. That’s the way you can say it.”
“I’d, well—I’d rather not. I don’t think I’m the best one for the job. Mr. Storku and I don’t get along too well. Somebody else, I think, one of you, would be—”
Dave Pollock laughed. “Now, don’t be modest, Ollie. You’ get along with Storku as well as any of us. You’re elected. Besides, isn’t this public relations work? You’re a big man in public relations.”
Mr. Mead tried to pour all the hatred in the universe at him in one long look. Then he shot his cuffs and straightened his shoulders. “Very well. If none of you feel up to the job, I’ll take it on myself. Be back soon.”
“Jumper, Ollie?” Pollock asked as he was leaving the room. “Why not take the jumper? It’s faster.”
“No, thank you,” Mr. Mead said curtly. “I’ll walk. I need the exercise.”
He hurried through the corridor and toward the staircase. Though he went down them at a springy, executive trot, the stairs seemed to feel he wasn’t going fast enough. An escalator motion began, growing more and more rapid, until he stumbled and almost fell.
“Stop, dammit!” he yelled. “I can do this myself!”
The stairs stopped flowing downward immediately. He wiped his face with a large white handkerchief and started down again. After a few moments, the stairs turned into an escalator once more.
Again and again, he had to order them to stop; again and again, they obeyed him, and then sneakily tried to help him along. He was reminded of a large, affectionate St. Bernard he had once had who persisted on bringing dead sparrows and field mice into the house as gifts from an over-flowing heart. When the grisly objects were thrown out, the dog would brine them back in five minutes and lay them on the rug with a gesture that said: “No, I really want you to have it. Don’t worry about the expense and hard work involved. Look on it as a slight expression of my esteem and gratitude. Take it, go on take it and be happy.”
He gave up forbidding the stairs to move finally, and when he reached ground level, he was moving so fast that he shot out of the empty lobby of the building and onto the sidewalk at a tremendous speed. He might have broken a leg or dislocated his back.
Fortunately, the sidewalk began moving under him. As he tottered from right to left, the sidewalk did so too, gently but expertly keeping him balanced. He finally got his footing and took a couple of deep breaths.
Under him, the sidewalk trembled slightly, waiting for him to choose a direction so that it could help.
Mr. Mead looked around desperately. There was no one in sight along the broad avenue in either direction.
“What a world!” he moaned. “What a loony-bin of a world! You’d think there’d be a cop—somebody!”
Suddenly there was somebody. There was the pop-pop of a jumper mechanism in operation slightly overhead and a man appeared some twelve feet in the air. Behind him, there was an orange hedge-like affair, covered with eyes.
A portion of the sidewalk shot up into a mound right under the two creatures. It lowered them gently to surface level.
“Listen!” Mr. Mead yelled. “Am I glad I ran into you! I’m trying to get to the State Department and I’m having trouble. I’d appreciate a little help.”
“Sorry,” the other man said. “Klap-Lillth and I will have to be back on Ganymede in a half-hour. We’re late for an appointment as is. Why don’t you call a government machine?”
“Who is he?” the orange hedge inquired as they began to move swiftly to the entrance of a building, the sidewalk under them flowing like a happy river. “He doesn’t narga to me like one of you.”
“Time traveler,” his companion explained. “From the past. one of the exchange tourists who came in two weeks ago.”
“Aha!” said the hedge. “From the past. No wonder I couldn’t narga him. It’s just as well. You know, on Ganymede we don’t believe in time travel. It’s against our religion.”
The Earthman chuckled and dug the hedge in the twigs. Volt and your religion! You’re as much an atheist as I am, Kalp-Lillth. When was the last time you attended a shkootseem ceremony?”
“Not since the last syzygy of Jupiter and the Sun,” the hedge admitted. “But that’s not the point. I’m still in good standing. What all you humans fail to understand about the Ganymedan religion … ”
His voice trailed off as they disappeared inside the building. Mead almost spat after them. Then he recollected himself. They didn’t have much time to fool around—and, besides, he was in a strange world with customs insanely different from his own. Who knew what the penalties were for spitting?
“Government machine,” he said resignedly to the empty air. “I want a government machine.”
He felt a little foolish, but that was what they had been told to do in any emergency. And, sure enough, a gleaming affair of wires and coils and multicolored plates appeared from nothingness beside him.
“Yes?” a toneless voice inquired. “Service needed?”
“I’m on my way to see Mr. Storku at your Department of State,” Mr. Mead explained, staring suspiciously at the largest coil nearest him. “And I’m having trouble walking on the sidewalk. I’m liable to fall and kill myself if it doesn’t stop moving under me.”
“Sorry, sir, but no one has fallen on a sidewalk for at least two hundred years, and that was a highly neurotic side-walk whose difficulties had unfortunately escaped our attention in the weekly psychological checkup. May I suggest you take a jumper? I’ll call one for you.”
“I don’t want to take a jumper. I want to walk. All you have to do is tell this damn sidewalk to relax and be quiet.”
“Sorry, sir,” the machine replied, “but the sidewalk has its job to do. Besides, Mr. Storku is not at his office. He is taking some spiritual exercise at either Shriek Field or Panic Stadium.”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Mead moaned. His worst fears had been realized. He didn’t want to go to those places again.
“Sorry, sir, but he is. Just a moment, while I check.” There were bright blue flashes amongst the coils. “Mr. Storku is doing a shriek today. He feels he has been over-aggressive recently. He invites you to join him.”
Mr. Mead considered. He was not the slightest bit interested in going to one of those places where sane people became madmen for a couple of hours; on the other hand, time was short, Winthrop was still stubborn.
“All right,” he said unhappily. “I’ll join him.”
“Shall I call a jumper, sir?”
The portly man stepped back. “No! I’ll I’ll walk.”
“Sorry, sir, but you would never get there before the shriek has begun.”
Sweetbottom’s vice-president in charge of public relations put the moist palms of his hands against his face and gently massged it, to calm himself. He must remember that this was no bellhop you could complain to the management about, no stu
pid policeman you could write to the newspapers about, no bungling secretary you could fire or nervous wife you could tell off—this was just a machine into whose circuits a given set of vocal reactions had been built. If he had art apoplectic fit in front of it, it would not be the slightest tat concerned: it would merely summon another machine, a medical one. All you could do was give it information or receive information from it.
“I don’t-like-jumpers,” he said between his teeth.
“Sorry, sir, but you expressed a desire to see Mr. Storku. If you are willing to wait until the shriek is over, there is no problem, except that you would be well advised to start for the Odor Festival on Venus where he is going next. If you wish to see him immediately, however, you must take a jumper. There are no other possibilities, sir, unless you feel that my memory circuits are inadequate or you’d like to add a new factor to the discussion.”
I’d like to add a— Oh, I give up.” Mr. Mead sagged where he stood. “Call a jumper, call a jumper.”
“Yes, sir. Here you are, sir.” The empty cylinder that suddenly materialized immediately over Mr. Mead’s head caused him to start, but while he was opening his mouth to say, “Hey! I changed—” it slid down over him.
There was darkness. He felt as if his stomach were being gently but insistently pulled out through his mouth. His liver, spleen and lungs seemed to follow suit. Then the bones of his body all fell inward to the center of his now-empty abdomen and dwindled in size until they disappeared. He collapsed upon himself.
Suddenly he was whole and solid again, and standing in a large; green meadow, with dozens of people around him. His stomach returned to its proper place and squirmed back into position. “—anged my mind. I’ll walk after all,” he said, and threw up.