The Whenabouts of Burr

by Michael Kurland

  “I guess you’re right,” Ves said, “but we’ll have to send a technical crew out here to examine this thing.” He swung the tile door closed.

  There was a slight shudder, as of a distant earthquake, or a passing subway train.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The corridor was not the same. The corridor had changed. It was an altogether different corridor: longer, for one thing, and wider, with more doors leading off it. In place of the white tile motif, there was red-flocked wall-fabric, and gleaming brass gas fixtures; a high-pile maroon carpet down the center, and a cream-white ceiling.

  “Nate…” Ves said, stopping in the steam room doorway and flinging out his arms to block the door.

  “I see it,” Swift said. “Something did happen.”

  “Don’t go out there,” Ves said. “Let’s go back and push that button again; maybe it will go away.”

  “Can’t,” Swift said. “Remember what you said: the unknown or the President. Besides, how do we know that pushing the button again will take us back—maybe it will just take us further away.”

  “You’re right,” Ves said, releasing his grip on the sides of the door. “I guess I’m getting old and set in my ways. This should be no more frightening than a—an elevator. Just a new way of getting from one place to another. Just like being in an elevator, only the room’s bigger.”

  “Not the room,” Nate said, “just us.”

  “What?”

  “It didn’t move the room, it just moved us. Look around.”

  Ves looked back into the steam room. “You’re right,” he said. “The room is longer, and it has another row of benches. I didn’t notice. But that circle-T is still there. Let’s go find out what’s happening, what that machine is, and where we are.”

  “You think the Constitution is here?”

  “I refuse to speculate,” Ves said. “But we’re sure on the way to finding out what happened to it. And I’ll bet you old Alex is about here somewhere.”

  They went down the newly-decorated corridor, across an elaborate entrance hall filled with couches, stuffed chairs, and massive chandeliers, and out into the street. The street was like a trough lined with tall buildings, running straight off in both directions until it disappeared at the convergence point to the left, and terminated in a park five blocks away on the right. It was pillared with tall telephone poles, and roofed with layers of wire crisscrossing in every direction.

  The many vehicles in the street: cabs, buses, coaches, wagons, and a multitude of others, were mostly horse-drawn; although an occasional monstrous, horse-free contrivance did chug, snort, whistle, thump, clack, or screech by.

  The sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians, who streamed by in both directions, without pausing or keeping to either side. The few rules of passage seemed to be sex-based, as follows:

  Women: maintain speed, keep eyes firmly fixed forward, use umbrellas as prods, do not stop, do not apologize, do not notice.

  Men: tip hat, pass on left, do not stare.

  The standard dress of these busy pedestrians was a sort of music hall Victorian. The men wore suits that buttoned up to the neck, with high starched shirt collars that cut in under the chin, and wide solid-colored cravats. They all wore hats: fedoras, toppers, crushers, planters, derbys, polo caps, miners’ caps, visor caps, yacht caps, hunter caps, Eton caps, Russian admiral caps, and a few variants which have never been properly named.

  The ladies, over their corsets, wore wide-shouldered, puffy-sleeved blouses, toe-length skirts, and pointy, high-heeled shoes. Each lady draped a cloak or cape over her blouse. Each carried an umbrella, as each man carried a cane.

  Swift grabbed Ves by the arm. “Where are we?” he whispered. “Where the hell are we?”

  “When,” Ves corrected. “When.”

  “What?”

  The street darkened, as a large object occluded the sun. Ves looked up and saw the orange rays of the afternoon sun form a corona around a silver, cigar-shaped balloon which was pushing its nose into the latticework of a tall, open, iron tower atop a nearby building. Several men were busy, both on the tower and on the balloon-ship, connecting mooring lines.

  “I take it back,” Ves said. “When isn’t right, either. What’s left?”

  “What is this place?” Swift demanded.

  “Yes, that’s one way of phrasing it,” Ves agreed. “Now, how do we find out? I think, for one thing, we shouldn’t remain as conspicuously dressed as we are. When we blend in better, we can go around asking discreet questions. That is, if the local populace speaks English. Or Italian—I think I can still get along in Italian.”

  Swift took a deep breath. “I can settle that,” he said. He stepped into the stream of traffic and intercepted a man. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, walking alongside his target, “could you please tell me what time it is?”

  The man stared at him as if he were newly escaped from the place to which they send you when you start giggling a lot and carrying an axe in to dinner.

  “Italiano?” Swift demanded desperately. “La France? Sprechen Zie Deutsche? Panyamayish po-Russkie?” The man shuddered slightly and continued on, ignoring Swift completely.

  “Excuse me, sir…” Swift tried another gentleman.

  “…the time?” and another.

  “Bitte, Meinherr…”

  “…a-t-il?”

  A woman sniffed and clutched her umbrella even more firmly. “The idea!” she was heard to mutter as she passed by.

  “English,” Ves said.

  “I was beginning to wonder,” Swift said, retreating to the safety of the doorway.

  “You know I’m not a negative person,” Ves said, speaking slowly and distinctly, “but I wonder if it might not be wise to return to the steam room and see whether that button would return us to our own time—place—ah, home. We could come back better prepared for this investigation.”

  “I think we should continue,” Swift said. “The longer we wait, the colder grows Alex’s trail. And consider the President. A man who is not firm of mind and resolute of purpose to the point of insanity does not get to be President of the United States.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Ves admitted. “As one gets older, one grows less fond of sudden, severe, disorienting shocks. But we live in an age when the unusual has become commonplace, and the unique has become expected. But I never expected anything like this. Oh well, I suppose the steam room can always be retreated to at need. Note the location firmly in your head, Nate. We’ll use this as our rendezvous in case we get separated.”

  “What about our little radios?” Swift wondered. He touched the button on his lapel and recited: “One—two—three—do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, I hear you,” Ves said. “But remember, the range of these things isn’t that great. However, they may prove useful. Now first things first: costumes. We must acquire adequate dress if we are to remain here.”

  “How do you suggest we do that?” Swift asked.

  ‘‘Purchase,” Ves said. “If there are any clothing stores that are still open. Incidentally, did you notice that we seem to have dropped about five hours? I think it was around noon when I met you at the VENUS-APOLLO.”

  Swift looked at his watch. “Two fifteen,” he said. “And it’s definitely late afternoon here. Ves, what the hell has happened to us?”

  “Ours is not to reason why,” Ves said. “Remember, somewhere at the other end of that gadget in the steam room is the President of the United States. And he is not pleased.”

  Swift nodded. “Let us go then, you and I,” he said, and the two of them headed down the street.

  The clothing store they found a block and a half away had ready-made everything, although the concept of size seemed to be a bit rudimentary. However, the salesman was a tailor, quite ready and willing to do any alterations necessary on his patented sewing co
ntraption in the back room. Ves picked out a deep red suit, with an attractive waistcoat (not a vest, the tailor assured him, although people would use the word) with gold buttons. Swift found a green suit with lapels wide enough to cut a second jacket.

  “Visitors from some foreign country, are you?” the tailor asked.

  “Quite right,” Ves admitted.

  “And where would that be?” the tailor asked.

  “Hard to say,” Swift said.

  “What’s that?” the tailor asked, suspiciously.

  “Difficult to pronounce,” Swift amended. “Kwarshimibundi, we call it. Means ‘Great Friendly Land By Waterfall with Many Snakes.’ Of course, we all speak English now.”

  “Umph,” the tailor said, chalking white lines all over the back of Ves’s jacket. “Been in New York long?”

  “New York?” Swift asked, unable to keep the surprise from showing in his voice.

  “That’s what we call it,” the tailor said. “It means high taxes, high rents, a lot of damn micks and other foreigners—present company excepted, of course—moving in and taking the bread out of honest men’s faces. Tammany at the back of it, without a doubt.” He took a vicious swipe across the seat of Swift’s trousers with the chalk. “Now, if you gentlemen will get out of those garments, I’ll have the alterations done in half an hour.” He went off to his sewing machine, a giant, clanking brute, that took up one whole corner of the back room.

  It occurred to Swift somewhen during the purchasing and fitting of the suits, that whatever this place was, it was unlikely that the money he had in his pocket would be regarded as legal tender. He pondered this for some time, then pulled Ves aside. “Money,” he whispered.

  “Don’t worry,” Ves said. “I’ve got plenty.”

  “No,” Swift said. “Don’t you see? Our money no good here. Must get local money. How?”

  “Why does everybody whisper in Pidgin?” Ves asked. “Why, for example, do you? Don’t worry, I have some gold; that’s money anywhere.”

  “What gold?”

  “The coins from Brown, Lupoff & Gilden. I have the case in my pocket. Was going to return it to them this afternoon. We’ll find some way to repay Mr. Gilden; right now, our need is greater than his.”

  Swift felt a twinge of custodial passion; a government agent does not lightly give up a valuable trust. Governments and banks are much alike in this regard. But Ves was right.

  The tailor took his feet off the treadle, and the massive flywheel gradually slowed, the belts driving the gears lost their blur and slowed so their individual rubber teeth could be seen, and the ponderous, cranky sewing machine ground to a halt. “There’s got to be some better way of doing this,” the tailor said, glaring at his quarter-ton of gears, belts, flywheels, pulleys, cranks, eccentrics, and reciprocals that pushed the needle through the fabric and caught up the thread. “His Majesty’s Government has spent how many millions on the dirigible? How many? ‘First in lighter-than-air.’ Transportation for the rich, that’s what it is. That’s what His Majesty’s Government spends my tax money on. What about a little investment in perfecting the sewing machine? Have you ever been on a dirigible?”

  “No,” Ves admitted.

  “Bah!” the tailor said, taking up his needle and starting the handwork. Then his eyes suddenly showed fright and he added, “Not that I’m complaining… No, not a word of complaint.” He pointed to a small, rectangular sign on the wall, bordered in black. It said: AMERICANS WORK —THEY DON’T COMPLAIN. Ves and Swift looked at the sign, then at each other.

  “Say,” Ves said, casually fingering a bolt of red and green tweed, “what’s the date?”

  “The, ah, seventh, I think,” the tailor said.

  “Oh,” Ves said.

  “There’s a Times-Gazette on the shelf under the counter,” the tailor said. “May be the eighth.”

  “Ah!” Ves said. He went over to pick up the paper. It was indeed the eighth: the eighth of September, 1897. Wednesday. The Times-Gazette said so on the right side of the masthead. On the left side it said: A fair press bodes no good man ill.

  Ves opened the paper and examined the front page. The headline on the lead story, in a conservative pseudo-gothic 72-point type, announced:

  GOLD DISCOVERED IN RUSSIAN AMERICA.

  Novye Alexanderobad 4 September, from our correspondent. RUMORS have reached the capital within the past few days of the discovery of a major source of gold-bearing ore along the Yukon River in the Klondike district of Russian America. The size of the strike is not clear yet, but it is believed to be of equal importance to the famous 1824 strike in Upper California.

  What the reaction to the news of Tsar Nicholas will be is not yet known. Whether he will allow North Americans to exploit the gold fields, or whether he will close off the territory and bring in miners from Russian Asia is the question of the day.

  The expatriate American colony here is concerned that a hardening of the Imperial policy toward casual immigration might adversely affect the present American residents, many of whom are in self-imposed political exile. Not a few of them are taking advantage of the difficulty of extradition proceedings between Imperial Russia and the United States.

  Any major influx of Americans to the border at this time would present a particular problem to the two governments. Some method of reassurance would have to be arrived at to prevent a recurrence of the unfortunate “false war” of two years ago, which was so unnecessarily destructive of lives and property.

  A few of the other items on the front page were equally out of place in New York, in the 1897 Ves had been taught about. He pointed them out to Swift silently.

  H D M RETURNS TO CAPITOL

  HIS Democratic Majesty, Jacob Schuyler, by the Grace of God 11th President of the United States, brought his court back to Philadelphia yesterday. His Majesty will preside over the Joint Houses of Congress during the official opening ceremony on Monday the 13th. This will be the first time the Congress has sat since the ending of the famous Long Senate two years ago.

  Article on Long Senate on page 8.

  PRINCE MARTIN SIGHTED OVER SPHINX

  THE U.S.S. Prince Martin, the largest lighter-than-air craft currently in operation in the World, has been reported passing over the Sphinx, a famous statue on the outskirts of the city of Cairo in Egypt.

  The Prince Martin, commissioned two years ago July and named, with his Democratic Majesty’s permission, after his eldest son, Martin, Prince of Texas, is now attempting to break the world’s record for cruising non-stop around the World.

  This epic flight was begun 27 days ago at Washington Naval Base in Virginia. The current World Record of 107 days was set in April-August, 1896 by the dirigible Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin, under the able command of its builder Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, and staffed by men and officers of the Balloon Command of the Prussian Army.

  Continued on page 12

  “We’re somewhere else!” Swift said fervidly, dropping into one of the wooden chairs scattered around the shop.

  “Tempora mutantur,” Ves said softly.

  “I mean, actually,” Swift said. “It’s like—it—it defies simile. I mean, entirely somewhere else. But we must have a common past somehow.”

  Ves nodded. “Post Revolutionary, I assume. We must tread carefully in this strange water. We are unfamiliar with the mores, morals, religion, and politics of this place; let us be careful not to get stung. They seem more, ah, rigid here.” He pointed to the cartoon on the editorial page of the Times-Gazette. It showed a large, heavily muscled man swinging a pick in the general direction of a railroad spike. The drawing was in a curious blocky, square style, and the caption read: “No time for play, AMERICA IS BEING BUILT BY THE SWEAT OF MY BROW.”

  “Your apparel, gentlemen,” the tailor announced, coming out of his back room cubbyhole. “Is it the seventh?”

 
“No,” Ves told him. “The eighth.”

  “Ah well,” the tailor said, brandishing the two suits before him like shields. “One so loses track of time in the press of events.” He seemed quite recovered from his attack of vexation over the monster sewing machine. ‘Try these on. I’ll warrant they’ll fit like new skin.”

  Ves and Swift put on their new suits, with the tailor hovering about them, fussing and fitting. When the three of them were satisfied with the garments’ appearance, Ves took the flat coin case from the pocket of his old jacket. “How much do we owe you?” he asked.

  “The suits with alterations are seven-fifty apiece,” the tailor said. “I can allow you fifty cents apiece for the material from your old garments. That would make it fourteen dollars.”

  “You accept gold?”

  The tailor stared at him. “You mean dust? Haven’t seen any since I left Upper California ten years ago.”

  “Coins,” Ves said. “Eagles d’or.”

  “Gold eagles? Gladly. Don’t see many of them these days, either.”

  Ves produced the coins and handed the tailor two. The tailor stared at them, then looked suspiciously at Swift, then Ves. “Joke?” he said. “It’s not funny, you know. I’m as loyal as the next man.”

  “Something wrong?” Ves asked.

  “You sure you’re foreigners?”

  “Word of honor, we’ve never been here before in our lives.”

  “Where’d you get the coins?”

  “They were given to us in a transaction.”

  “You know about Aaron Burr?”

  “Who?” Ves asked.

  “The gentleman whose picture’s on the face of these coins. Aaron Burr.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s a traitor. Was, I should say. President Hamilton had him tried for treason about eighty years ago, and he fled to Mexico. Hamilton sent the army in to hunt him down. That’s how we ended up being at war with Spain and France, and an ally of Great Britain, so soon after fighting the Revolution. The War of 1814, we call it. Burr disappeared into Mexico.”