Conrad's Time Machine

by Leo A. Frankowski

  Jennifer got a similar "Second Place" prize, a two-quart solid silver cup. Ian got a tiny, chrome-plated plastic thing that read "Last Place—Male Division."

  "I'll get you, Red Baron!", he shouted, because whereas our cups were filled with champagne, his held cold Lipton tea.

  After taking a long pull, I passed the cup to Barb. It went from her to Tammy and then into the crowd. Three dozen dozen champagne bottles were popped besides, and musical instruments were starting to appear.

  "Inadequate!" Ian shouted above the crowd. "I may be a loser, but I'm a rotten loser! Let's break up the party!"

  The girls all booed.

  "So we can have a bigger one!" he shouted.

  They all cheered.

  "You're all going to have to get dressed!"

  "Boo!"

  "In grass skirts and flowers!"

  "HURRAH!"

  "Me and Tom can't handle all of you!"

  "BOO!"

  "So you'll have to invite in the guys!"

  "HURRAH!"

  "Hey, they can only invite three hundred!" I shouted.

  "BOO!"

  "Well, we gotta have enough left for ourselves!"

  "HURRAH!"

  "McAndrews from the docks has to be here!" Ian yelled.

  "HURRAH!"

  "Yeah, and Fitzsimmon of the Navy!"

  "HURRAH!"

  It was like party time back in college, with one big exception. Ian was getting involved and taking the lead like he never had before. I was starting to get pretty worried about it. Had they worked over his head as much as they had enlarged his body? But I had had the same treatment, and I wasn't acting any different, except for maybe being more physical, and that could be explained by the way it felt so good to move this new body. Then again, would I know it if I was thinking differently? I'd have to get Ian alone and talk to him about it, next time I got a chance.

  Which wasn't now.

  Grass skirts and flowered leis were being passed out. Bonfires and torches were already being lit down on the beach where we'd raced not ten minutes before. On a raised area, a platform with seats was set up for the island's "royalty," namely us.

  Female royalty seemed to consist of only those girls we'd actually laid—four of mine plus Ming Po on Ian's side.

  A tourist-style luau was in full swing by the time we got there. Booze was flowing free, served in coconut shells, hollowed out pineapples and, in a few cases, the entire rinds of watermelons.

  A fair sized "native" band was going and a few dozen girls were doing a hula.

  The hula was followed by some sort of all male Polynesian dance which featured a wide range of grunts and a lot of body slapping—almost drumming. It was the first time I'd taken much notice of the men on the island, female distractions being what they were. The men were the same racial mix as the women. More than half of them were blond, with a sprinkling of everything else from bushman to Eskimo. They averaged around six feet tall. They were well muscled, well coordinated and quick to laugh—usually a sign of intelligence. Yet somehow there was something lacking in them. Character?—No, not quite. I had the feeling that these men were all decent and just.

  Over-polished? Perhaps the word I was looking for was over-civilized. . . .

  The male dancers were followed by even more violent drumming and twelve ladies came into the open area before us doing what Barb said was a Tahitian dance, which involved unbelievably fast hip motions.

  On the other side of the platform, Ian was drinking from a small watermelon. This was another new thing for him. I'd never seen him drinking before beyond a single glass of wine with dinner. He was pointing at the women dancing.

  "Tom, I'll have that one, and that one, and . . ."

  I hoped that whatever he was drinking wasn't too alcoholic. Stamina and perseverance in drinking requires diligence and long training, benefits that Ian was perforce bereft of. Still, there was only one way of obtaining such graces. One learns by doing. It was good to see the boy loosening up, if only it was really the old Ian doing the loosening.

  As the "Tahitians" left, huge leaves from some kind of tropical tree were laid out at the periphery of the cleared area, and dinner was served.

  Seven whole roast pigs—each slung on a pole between two men—were carried out over the leaves. With a single jerk of the pole, all of the steaming hot flesh fell to the leaves, leaving the skeleton still hanging from the pole. The trick worked all seven times, and the cooks got more applause than the dancers.

  A few hundred other dishes were brought out—there was no apparent distinction made between servers and guests. Everyone except the "royalty" seemed to have a well-choreographed part to play. Or maybe it was that these people were just naturally God-awful cooperative.

  Whatever the cause, seven hundred people were served in ten minutes flat.

  Ian and I didn't get a wicker platter like everyone else. Anytime we opened our mouths, some attractive lady wearing flowers, a grass skirt, and a smile rammed food down our throats. A strange custom, I came close to biting off more than one dainty finger by mistake.

  As the meal progressed, another group of male dancers entered the arena. I recognized Leftenant Fitzsimmon among them, wearing a flowery cloth around his hips and a lei around his neck, but still wearing his bashed-up skipper's hat. He had two dozen men with him. I guessed them to be his crew from the Hotspur, which ship, with them aboard, was presently still circling the island. They did a sort of juggling dance, throwing around four dozen razor sharp machetes in a manner that looked likely to kill somebody, but didn't.

  Seeing that crew together and largely undressed, it was obvious that they were of a different breed of cat than the other men on the island. They were more varied in size and build, often wiry rather than beefy. They had a much wider range of facial features, and a few of them were down-right ugly. More than a few were shifty-eyed, and nothing about them was polished or over-civilized.

  Survivors, that's what they were, and my kind of people.

  When the dance finished with not a drop of blood spilled, I started breathing again.

  "Hey!" I shouted, then gagged and spit out the peeled grape that Tammy had stuffed into my mouth.

  "Hey!" I tried again. "Leftenant Fitzsimmon! Come on up and join the royalty!"

  "Right, sir!" He waved goodbye to his men, jumped up to the stage and sat down on a chair that someone had placed next to me.

  "Quite a show, Leftenant. But I couldn't help noticing that your men are a bit different from the rest of the people on this island."

  "I suppose the people hereabouts have their limitations, sir, but they certainly know how to throw a party!"

  He gestured towards some grass-skirted ladies who must have been selected because of their overly large breasts. Their dance might have been authentic somewhere, but for me it seemed mostly involved a lot of jumping and stomping, the sole purpose of which was to get those huge breasts bouncing. It looked painful.

  "Yeah, but why are you different? Where are you from?"

  "Oh, elsewhere, sir. I say, look at that one on the end giving me the eye! That likely means that I'll be well entertained tonight!"

  "Huh. I take it you're a bachelor."

  "Oh, no sir. I'm married. Several times, in fact."

  "I see. The traditional seaman's girl in every port?"

  "Hardly that, sir. I'm really quite the family man. Four wives and thirteen children to date. If I had my pants and wallet, I'd show you their photos."

  "Well, I'd like to meet them during my stay here."

  "Oh, they're not here, sir. Wouldn't work, don't you know. For one thing, these local people are monogamous. No, I have found it wise to restrict my home life to my vacations."

  "Say, that must be rough on your family."

  "Most of the time, they don't realize I've been gone, sir. Children need a continuous male adult around if they're going to grow up properly, so I always arrange my departures and arrivals to happen on the same day." />
  "Huh. How often do you get a vacation?"

  "Why, whenever I feel like it, sir. Whenever I get bored with work, I go home or elsewhere until I get bored with that. After all, as long as the Hotspur makes her two patrols a day, my contract's satisfied. What I do with the rest of my life is my own business. The same, of course, applies to my family." He flirted again with the dancer.

  "Well then, you seem to have a perfect life, with fringe benefits." I gestured to his dancer.

  "These aren't bad, sir. I've jolly well had worse. But really, they're a bit butch and thin flanked for my taste. Back home the girls are sexy!"

  Since I couldn't imagine any possibility of any women from any place or any time being better looking than the ones around us, I let the matter drop.

  "Uh, yeah. Where did you say your home was?"

  "I didn't. Really, sir, you must understand that I have certain contractual obligations, and that that majorDomo of yours, well, she might be all sweetness and joy to you, but she is also a hellion who is dquite capable of making my life difficult."

  The boob-bouncing dancers finished their set and were replaced by another male group. One of the large-breasted women came up, sat by Leftenant Fitzsimmon's feet, and laid her head on his knee. When he stroked her cheek, she smiled. There was no question but that the good leftenant would indeed be well taken care of.

  Five others arranged themselves around Ian, crowding in among seven "Tahitians" and a half dozen "hula" girls. Ian had finished his first watermelon filled with some sort of punch, and was calling for another.

  Poor kid. He was about to learn the hard way that strong drink increases the desire while it lessens the ability. Still, education is a wondrous thing, even if it is occasionally painful.

  "Oh, sir, since I was a guest of honor so to speak, I took the liberty of inviting a friend, Captain Stepanski. He heads up the fighter wing on base. That's him below with his pilots."

  There were sixteen short men of the "Survivor" type doing something that involved throwing lighted torches at each other, catching them and throwing them back.

  "Well, more guys from your home town, I see. How many of your sort are here? . . . Come on, I can find out the hard way if I have to."

  "Very well, sir. There are just under a hundred fifty in the Navy, about three hundred in the ground forces and perhaps thirty-five in the Air Force."

  "Hey, that's a pretty tiny air force."

  "Not really, sir. They're all pilots and gunners. The Smoothies handle all the maintenance and so on."

  "The "smoothies." What do they call you?"

  "They call us the "killers.' "

  The air force was the last formal act of the evening, and after they quenched their torches, the party slowly broke up into about forty smaller parties up and down the beach. The "royal" party took a walking tour among them, with Ian and me hugging all of the girls and shaking hands with all the men. Our ladies, of course, had opposite tastes.

  About halfway through, Ian discarded another empty watermelon rind and led his collected girls—there must have been forty of them—back to the Taj Mahal.

  It was after midnight when I finally got home. Barb said that she'd join me later, so I went to my bedroom alone. Michelle and Carolyn were there, just as they had been when I'd arrived, two days before.

  Only this time I didn't disappoint them. Actually, I darned near wore them out. They soon got to calling in reinforcements, and I found myself at the center of a one-man orgy.

  This new body of mine had just amazing stamina, and before I called it quits and Barb came back, shooing the others out, I figured that I must have done proper justice to eighteen of them, and some of them several times.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Third Wager

  I woke up at dawn feeling just great. Maybe it was my new automatic vitamin generator, but if so, they must have given Ian one, too, since I found him in my breakfast room when I got there.

  "Good morning, Tom. You slept well?"

  "Well, they laid me soundly down. Yourself?"

  "Remarkably so."

  The breakfast waitress, who had not been with me last night, had taken to wearing nothing but high heeled shoes and a small apron. I never did meet a man who could get a woman to wear what he wanted, so I didn't mention it to her. Anyway, there was a part of me that liked it.

  She asked me what I wanted.

  I said, "Surprise me," and sat back, wondering what she'd do.

  What she did was bring me a spinach and cheese omelet with some kind of white sauce. It wasn't bad.

  When I complimented the food, and the waitress on her choice, she told me that all of the vegetables consumed in the palaces were grown in the gardens surrounding them, and were picked within minutes of being set on the table. Hereabouts, they took the idea of freshness about as far as it could go.

  Ian was working on his usual stack of pancakes. That at least hadn't changed. I was trying to figure out how to broach the subject of how his mind might have been fiddled with, but he sort of signaled that he didn't want to talk, so I let it be.

  After breakfast, he suggested that we take a swim, just the two of us, so we headed for the beach in front of my place.

  "What would you say to another wager?" he asked.

  "You are a glutton for punishment, my young friend. In Sunday School, didn't they teach you about the virtues of moderation?"

  "Yes, Tom, and long ago I vowed to strive towards those virtues as the noblest of ideals. Yet perforce, I must do my striving in extreme moderation, in order to keep the whole business within the logical bounds of internal consistency. Thus, alas, one moderate deed per week is the best I dare attain. Mainly, at the present, I want my Harley, my Corvette, and my books back." We reached the beach and started stripping down. Ian seemed to be wearing an extra doodad around his neck along with his usual religious medal, but I didn't say anything about it.

  "Well, certes I would agree with your wager in principle, but do you own anything to put up against your previous foolish losses?" I said as we waded naked into the warm salt water.

  "In truth, Tom, not much, but I am minded to bet it all on one figurative toss of the dice."

  "A noble action, my young friend, though again a silly one. Yet faced with such knightly panache, how could I say thee nay?" We were both stroking out into deep water. "Did you have any particular method in mind with which to attain your final impoverishment?"

  "I do. I propose that whichever one of us sexually penetrated and ejaculated into the largest number of attractive young ladies last night shall be the owner of all my previous property."

  "Done, my sad young friend, and our present salty wetness is most appropriate, as the ocean waves shall disguise your own salt tears, for you loose. In the early hours before I slept, I may have set a world record with over eighteen of our loveliest maidens being fully pleasured, and that is not counting the two eager bath girls I enjoyed this very morning. I wouldn't feel too badly about it, though. I mean, sew a black patch on the back of each of your hands if you really must, but I wouldn't even consider suicide."

  "Only eighteen? Did you know that there was an Ancient Roman general who forcibly took twenty-five virgin captives on the eve of battle, just to get his fighting spirits up for the coming conflict?"

  "Did he win the battle?"

  "He would have, except that he fell asleep during a counterattack."

  "I feel my leg being pulled," I said.

  "It's probably just a shark. This isn't a protected beach. Anyway, we are probably far enough out. One of the things that I have observed about the technology of our hosts..."

  "And hostesses."

  "Well, as the lawyers say, the male embraces the female. But as I was saying before your despicably rude interruption, their technology is exactly the same as ours, except for time travel and its various offshoots. No microphone in the modern world could possibly pick up our voices out here, what with the distance and the background noise,
so I think it's safe to talk."

  "It's as safe as anywhere imaginable, but I wouldn't call it one hundred percent secure. Their medical technology is way ahead of anything we've got, and these new bodies of ours could very well be bugged."

  "It's not their medical technology. That doctor wasn't one of the Smoothies. He was one of the Killers, like the military types around here. The Killers aren't running the show. They are strictly hirelings, mercenaries, if you will."

  "Makes sense, except that if they're hiring medical and military help, why not espionage agents as well?"

  "Okay, you're right, Tom, but I still think it's still our best shot."

  "Agreed. I gather that you want to compare notes." I said as we swam slowly farther out to sea.

  "True. Tell me what you've learned."

  "First let me tell you what I'm worried about. It's you. Ever since you got the Zongor-the-Hunk body, you have been acting very strangely. No way would the old Ian have taken the lead at a party, for example."

  "That's because the old Ian was too afraid of getting accidentally stepped on. You can't imagine how intimidating it is to be half the size of the rest of the world. I tell you that it is very difficult to assert your individuality when you only come up to other people's armpits. You spend all of your time worrying about getting a stray elbow in your eye."

  "You were about as tall as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte and Genghis Khan. They all made out okay."

  "Maybe so. But can you call any one of those guys socially adjusted?"

  "Point taken. However, there was also the fact that all of a sudden, you were drinking. Totally out of character. I figure they messed with your brain."

  "Not to the extent that I've noticed anything. But about the drinking, that was their doing. I've never objected to drinking, you know. In fact, I like the taste of many drinks. What I objected to was getting drunk. I don't want chemicals in control of my mind or body, and I especially don't want to look like you do when you've drunk yourself into a stupor and lie snoring in the corner of the kitchen. Anyway, I asked the doctor if he could do something to my metabolism so that I wouldn't be affected by the stuff and he said it was no sweat. I was just testing a new ability last night, that's all."