Conrad's Time Machine

by Leo A. Frankowski

  "We're not exactly transmitting, sir. We have our ways. Any other questions, sir?"

  "Uh, no. Thank you."

  I looked suspiciously at the radio. It had a big, complicated face, but it was only about two inches thick. Not much room for batteries, and the yacht was strictly sail powered. There wasn't even a small auxiliary engine. Checking further, I found no antenna leads and no power wires leading into the thing. It was completely self-contained. I might not know much about boats, but I know quite a bit about communications equipment. I got out my Swiss Army knife and dismantled the "radio."

  The silly thing had no transmitter section at all! Instead, it had a pair of small tape decks! Bloody be damned tape decks! I had been talking to a God damn tape deck! I stared at this for maybe ten minutes before I recognized two simple timers. Daylight slowly dawned in the swamp. If Fitzsimmon had a pair of tape decks on his boat, and he talked to it the same way I did, and then if somebody sent both "transmit" tapes back in time to before we both left port and then switched tapes, so my old "transmit" tape was his new "receive" tape, and vice versa, then we'd both hear what the other had to say, just as if we'd been connected by radio! Damn.

  I put the set back together and called up the gunboat.

  "Fitzsimmon, I've just inspected the 'radio.' Question: What happens if the Hotspur is going to sink?"

  "Well, in my case, sir, I have a set of normal if less secure communications gear as a backup. We mostly use it to talk to foreign ships. In your case, if you have problems of any kind, just have one of your girls press her red button and help will be on the way. Ah, I've just received the most atrocious communication from your lovely majordomo, and I think I would be wise to sign off. Cheerio!"

  Another set of data to muddle out!

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Two New Bodies

  I looked back to check out the competition. Ian had insisted on commanding his own yacht, so he still wasn't out of the harbor. We had to "hove to" for an hour until he caught up. It was noon, so Mary broke out lunch—salami sandwiches and Budweiser beer. Right after that, and completely without encouragement, the girls stripped to the buff to sun themselves. None of them had bathing suit marks on their suntans, so it apparently wasn't entirely for my benefit. I motioned Barb to come with me into the cabin, and I caught a few glances of envy directed at her from the crew.

  After only a day and a half here, I was beginning to take this as part of the ordinary course of events. It's remarkable how adaptable the human organism is.

  But just then, I didn't want her for sex.

  "Okay, Barb. Are you ready to 'fess up?"

  "About what?"

  "For starters, about why I need nine secretaries when you people go zipping to last Thursday as often as an American housewife goes to the grocery store."

  "I am going to gouge Leftenant Fitzsimmon's eyes out."

  "Well, from what I hear, your doctors could put them back."

  "Then I'll take a try at his gonads!"

  "Spilled a few beans, did he? Answer my question."

  "Tom, you must understand that there was a lot of social pressure—from the women, I mean. A lot of them wanted the chance to . . . to meet you. Your culture uses secretaries and servants, doesn't it? It . . . it seemed the natural thing to do."

  "Hah! So you admit that you're from a different culture!"

  "You knew that already."

  "Yes, but I still don't know which one. Spill."

  "I'm not allowed to answer that."

  "Then who is?"

  "I can't answer that either."

  "So, what do I have to do to get the truth out of you? Slap you around?"

  "You can if you want to. No one will stop you, Tom."

  Shit. She called my bluff. I couldn't hit a woman, even if she did deserve it, and Barb hadn't gone nearly that far, yet.

  "Well, okay. Now what's this about your culture not having any children?"

  "We have children. Beautiful children."

  "So where are they?"

  "Tom, you can't expect us to have them here!"

  "Well, what's wrong with here? This is a lovely tropical island, and you people have built a fine little city on it."

  "Because it's dangerous here!"

  With that she ran out of the cabin.

  When I got on deck, Ian's yacht, The Scot's Revenge, was within shouting distance. It sported a remarkable set of dark scrape marks on its white hull. My girls, still nude, were getting our sails back up, and Ian's women, seeing mine, promptly adopted the same uniform. Ian was fully clothed while I was wearing a hat because of the sun, and shorts so I'd have some pockets and something to clip my calculator and 'sword' to.

  I leaned over the side and read the name on my own boat. Written upside down, so I could read it easily looking down from the top, it said The Polish Prince.

  Getting on this particular yacht had been simply the natural thing to do. All three were identical, and I just stepped aboard the middle one without noticing any names. They had me again, and somehow I just couldn't get into relaxing while being raped.

  The race wasn't much of a contest. We did two laps before Ian completed one.

  I'd read about the twelve-hour days, no matter what the season, and the rapid sunsets that the tropics boast of, but this was the first time I'd been outside at the right time to see one. It was dusk when we got the boats tied up next to the third yacht, The Teutonic Humorist.

  "Hey, some names, huh? I mean, the Scots never got their revenge, Poland doesn't have a prince and Germans aren't very funny!"

  "Screw it! Tom, just where in the hell did you learn to sail a boat?"

  "Well, no place. I never did. I just had the girls sail it."

  "But what about our bet?"

  "So what about it? I won."

  "The hell you did! Your girls won!"

  "So? It was me and my crew against you and yours. If you don't have brains enough to delegate a task to the people most competent to do it, well, it's not my problem."

  "You cheated!"

  "Hey! I did not! And I'll thank you for an IOU on your Harley."

  "Damn it. Okay, Tom. You'll find a Duo-glide in your goddamn bedroom."

  "Look, not A Duo-glide. Your Duo-glide. Bets have to be meaningful, remember?"

  "Yeah, okay. But let's make it an IOU, then, like you suggested. I wouldn't want her left here when we leave."

  "Well, you mean if we leave. Calling the Coast Guard is out. You didn't see that gunboat. Maybe the U.S. Navy could make it through, but there'd be a bigger butcher's bill than I'd want to be responsible for."

  "I saw lots of gunboats today, Tom, along with jet fighters and helicopters. But should we talk about such things, in front of . . . you know?"

  "Hell, does it matter? They've got us monitored twelve ways from Friday, anyway."

  "Like you said, it's a very nice prison. Let's go check out that subway system."

  "Fine. But we've got those doctors' appointments first."

  "Oh, yeah, Tom. That."

  * * *

  The doctor was a nervous, skinny fellow who looked like he'd rather be chain smoking. He fluttered around, asked twenty minutes worth of questions, and was rude about it. Finally had me strip naked and stand in front of this machine.

  "Disgusting," he said from behind a control console. "The things you've done to your liver with your debauched drinking are absolutely disgusting! If you really must drink yourself into a stupor four times a day, you really should have had the brains to take vitamin supplements, B and C especially. And your lungs! Good God the ugly things those cigars have done to your lungs! And the radiation damage! . . . Well, that's at least a decent challenge and not a matter of patching up the holes you've shot in your own feet.

  "So what else do you want? Your hair back, I suppose. And something done about your blotchy complexion. And that flab! You are carrying ninety pounds of surplus fat. Do you want to get rid of it?"

  "Huh? Well, sure, I suppo
se so, but every time I go on a diet I feel sort of weak."

  "Ok. We'll beef up your musculature. Anything else? Any chance you'd want to be the size of a normal human being? And that ugly face—you want to join the human race?"

  "Look. You leave my face alone, except I want my hair back and the scars gone. As to my height, well, why the hell should I want to be a skinny little runt like you?"

  "Glad to see we're understanding one another, but I'm not a shrink. Now lie down on that bench over there."

  I did so and he started closing this lid over me.

  "Hey! You mean you're going to start right now?"

  "Yeah. And you'll be out of here in five minutes. Now shaddup!"

  The lid came down and I went to sleep. Then it went up and I awoke.

  "Well, get out of there! You ought to know that what was no time at all for you was four months hard work for me! It would have been a damn sight easier to go back and fuck your mother and start again from scratch. Probably a good deal more ethical, too. Well, get up, asshole! Look at yourself in the mirror!"

  I did so, and the guy looking back at me was a Greek statue in living color. I flexed my muscles and they rippled. I had this massive, wedge-shaped body with narrow hips and a flat stomach, without an ounce of fat. My hair was blond and shoulder length and I had a luxurious blond beard, and eyebrows and eyelashes!

  "You need a haircut, but keep the beard. It covers some of your face."

  When I finally recovered speech, I said, "Uh, thank you, Doctor. It's . . . wonderful. You . . . mentioned something about vitamins?"

  "Yeah, but I knew you wouldn't have brains enough to take them so I built in a vitamin generator while I was at it. Consider it another ductless gland. That body will stay like it is. But if you keep on smoking, you'll be back here in ten years, and next time I won't be so polite. Now get out of here and send in that gimpy runt of a friend of yours."

  "Look, Doc. I owe you a lot. But I've got to say that you're the most disagreeable person I've ever met."

  "True. But I'm also the most competent person you've ever met, so I can get away with it. Now get out and send in the runt."

  There was no point in trying on my old clothes, so I just walked out into the anteroom naked. Nobody around there seemed to care much about clothes, anyway.

  Ian looked at me and said, "Jeesch! They can do things like that?"

  "Some body, huh?"

  "Yeah, but nothing like what they're going to do for me!"

  Two minutes later, Ian came out on two good feet. That, and he was about six foot twelve and maybe four inches wider than me at the shoulders.

  "Well. You went in to get one foot and you came out with three."

  "What, Tom? Oh. I get it. One foot at the end of my leg and two feet in height. If you're counting that sort of thing, you'd better make it four, noting the improvement in my privy member."

  "Good God, you're right! Shit! You could kill somebody with that thing!"

  "I did always want to be a lady killer, but not in quite that way, of course. I suppose I'll have to learn caution."

  "Hey, with both heads! You proceeded foolishly and without the sound advice of your experienced, learned, and wise best friend. They built this world with the little creatures in mind, rather than us people of proper size. Doorways and such are all made to deadly heights! I resolutely urge you to wear a crash helmet until further notice."

  "I'll learn to duck."

  "Well, they say pain is the best teacher."

  Our old clothes were completely useless, so we were still naked when we joined the girls in the waiting room, looking like a pair of bit players in an Italian gladiator movie. Their reactions ran the full gamut, from Tammy's ear-to-ear grin through Barb's pleased smile through Kathy's blank-faced shock to tiny Ming Po's unconcealed open-mouthed apprehension. Naturally, they had clothes for us that fit perfectly.

  Ian bashed his head fully six times getting to the subway. He had never laughed at me for doing that, so I worked hard so as not to snigger.

  There wasn't much to see in the subway system, just a large room in the basement with two kinds of elevator doors in it. The ones in the middle had two buttons, and were used for going up and down.

  Along the outer walls, there were three push buttons next to each of what looked like more elevator doors. You requested either a four, eight or sixteen passenger car.

  The door opened immediately, and inside there was a map in front of the first seat with all the possible destinations on it—about four hundred of them. You pressed where you wanted to go and it took you anywhere on the island nonstop in under five minutes.

  The private car that had been waiting for us when we first got to San Sebastian had not been a special privilege. Everybody used them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Another Race and a Party

  Getting into the car, Ian bumped his head four more times that I noticed and doubtless more besides that I didn't. He hit his head again as we left the car under my place.

  "Hey, maybe if you bash your head enough times, all the lumps will grow together into sort of an organic crash helmet, and . . ."

  "Laugh all you want," he said. "It's a magnificent body!" He put his hands under the butts of two of his girls—Merry and Jodi—and lifted them at arm's length up to shoulder level. "Look at this, will you?"

  "Hell, I can top that!" I duplicated his feat with Barb and Mary, then crouched down on my haunches and went into a high kicking Cossack dance—with suitable verbal accompaniment—that I had learned when I was sixteen and on a diet.

  Ian tried it and dropped himself and friends backwards on the thickly padded carpet.

  I roared out with laughter.

  "Damn you, Tom, I never said I was a dancer, but I can outrun you anytime!"

  "Ah hah! Do I hear another wager in the offing?" I was still holding the girls out in the air.

  "You're damn straight! Once around all three of the palaces and each of us carrying two women."

  "Two women? I presume they don't have to be held at arm's length."

  I let my two ladies slide to the floor.

  "At a dead run, it'd be a bit much, not to say dangerous." Ian remembered my supposed "cheating" at the boat race and lapsed into a "legalistic" tone of voice. "We shall each carry two ladies in any manner whatsoever, except that should any part of their bodies touch the ground, the defaulter shall forfeit the wager. The course shall be outlined by floodlights that someone shall set up around the aforesaid three palaces, and said course shall be free from any dangerous obstacles. The ladies in question shall be chosen among our own here present. . . . Oh. And we each shall move on foot entirely under our own power and without any external assistance. I think that defines it."

  "Sure. What about the bet?"

  "I want my Harley back."

  "Okay. What are you putting up against it?"

  "My Corvette."

  "Hey, that's not your Corvette, that's group property."

  "Then my share of the Corvette and my entire library back in Michigan."

  "Done!" And we shook on it. I started stripping down to nothing. The soles of the feet on my new body were heavily calloused and all else was useless encumbrance.

  "Okau. The lightest two of you girls front and center. Go to the bathroom and then strip."

  "Tom! What are you doing?"

  "Well, the bet is that I have to carry two girls over a maybe two-mile course. Nothing says that I have to carry clothes or urine." Naturally, I had a secret scheme for victory.

  Ian told his ladies to follow suit, and we went outside to find a starting line set up. Word had apparently gotten around, because the entire population of all three palaces—sans Hasenpfeffer—was waiting for us, cheering. We had apparently made nudity the uniform of the day, because they were all as naked as we were. When a full-sized, ornate and highly polished brass cannon signaled the start, every one of them joined in the race. I set off with Barb over my right shoulder and Tammy o
ver my left. As I ran, we tried other positions.

  It was an absurd, hilarious, and riotous affair! We were all laughing hysterically and running as fast as our legs could push us. A few score of the girls quickly took the lead, the bulk of them paced Ian and me with our double loads, and eventually, an increasing number of them fell behind.

  It was wonderfully glorious, fantastically exhilarating! It was a magnificent joy, pushing a perfect body to its absolute limits! For the first time in my life, I was an athlete! Ian was stronger than I was and his legs were fully six inches longer than mine, but I was better coordinated—he hadn't learned how to use his oversized body yet. We raced evenly over the soft beach sand until we rounded the Taj Mahal. Then he started to pull ahead. I was a hundred yards behind when we rounded Hasenpfeffer's glass and concrete thing and got onto the better footing of a well-tended lawn.

  Only a half dozen girls were in the lead now, and I saw my grand strategy starting to work. Ian's huge wong, slapping back and forth between his legs, began to tell on him, doubtless assisted by the lovely naked ladies running and bouncing around him and clinging to his neck. I caught up with him halfway back to Camelot. His erection was huge, and must have consumed a pint of blood that could have been used in oxygenating his muscles. Also, I don't think that his mind was entirely on running a race.

  When I passed Ian, there was only one woman ahead of him—one of Hasenpfeffer's—and she never dropped out. I passed her a hundred yards from the finish line.

  Throughout the race, I'd been shifting Barb and Tammy around, trying to find a comfortable position. There wasn't one. As we approached the finish line, Barb was on my back, with her arms around my neck and her legs wrapped tightly around my waist, and Tammy was on her back, with her legs under my armpits, her feet in my hands. I was bent over nearly horizontal, and pumping my legs like the devil himself was after me with two pitchforks, and we won!

  We crossed the finish line to four hundred cheers and a second booming of the brass cannon. I promptly stumbled and spilled Barb and Tammy sweating on the sand.

  We were up in time to cheer Jennifer into second place and Ian into third. They had a six-quart solid gold loving cup, already engraved with my name that said "First Place" and "San Sebastian National Invitational Mini-Marathon."