Alternities

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “I’ll try,” he said. I want to, anyway—

  “Then apology accepted,” she said. “Is that chocolate warmed up yet?”

  He brought her the package and sat on the floor at her feet, watching her face expectantly as she dissected it. He was not disappointed. As the wrappings fell away, her expression moved from anticipation to surprise to open-eyed wonder. She turned it over in her hands twice before looking down at him for explanation.

  “Something wrong?”

  “This is a Judy Collins album.”

  He nodded. “You don’t have it, I hope.”

  The ten-inch-square cover bore a photograph of an antique scale against a white background and the title Not Legal For Trade.

  “I’ve never even heard of it,” she said wonderingly. “I don’t know a single one of these songs.”

  “They’re good songs. Play it.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I know everything she’s ever recorded. She has been my favorite for ten years.”

  “Then I surprised you. Good. That’s what I wanted.”

  “But I’ve never seen a record like this. It’s not an LP, it’s not a single. It’s in between.”

  Wallace had been prepared for the question. “It’s a private release. A proof-of-concept pressing. They were going to test-market them and changed their mind.”

  “How did you get it?”

  Images of the truth flashed through his mind. Smuggling it into the Tower under his coat. Taping it to his abdomen to get it past the gatekeeper. His heart racing and his palms sweating every second every step. Jumping at voices. “I asked around. I have a lot of friends.”

  She hugged it to her chest possessively. “I guess that means you were thinking of me.”

  “Every day.”

  “I want to play it.”

  “I want you to.”

  She climbed out of the chair, chasing Pharaoh for a second time. Halfway to the stereo, she turned and looked back at him. “If I let you stay, does that mean I won’t hear from you for another two weeks?”

  “You’ll hear from me. Promise.”

  “Then get your wet coat off my bed and onto a peg, all right? And maybe stack up the pillows so we have somewhere to sit together.” She took a half-step farther, then added, “I need to go downstairs and make sure the shop is locked up properly.”

  She was gone several minutes, but he thought nothing of it until the morning, until the three men approached him as he stood by the Magic fumbling for his key. One flashed a badge and said “Rayne Wallace?”

  “Yes—”

  “I’m John Krill of the NIA. Would you come with us, please?”

  Too surprised to resist. Wallace allowed them to lead him to a waiting van. But when he looked back at the shop and saw Shan watching from an upstairs window, he found no surprise on her face—only a touch of shame in the moment before she turned away.

  “THE NETTLE ON THE ROSE”

  Music and lyrics by

  KATHLEEN RICHARDS

  I heard you calling

  From the darkness ’cross the way

  Dying in the endless empty days

  I had no answer

  To the question never named

  Listening for the song that never came

  In isolation

  Wrapped in darkness in my room

  Crying in a secret silent tomb

  If I could reach you

  Hear the music in your heart

  Could I understand your gentle art?

  The price of fear is loneliness

  The secret no one knows

  The price of life is dying

  The demon in the garden, the nettle on the rose

  In desperation

  I reach outward for rebirth

  Measuring in courage my own worth

  And still you’re calling

  I might answer you today

  And share your quiet prison if I may

  © 1975 by Hearth Music

  Recorded by Judy Collins

  Decca EP-351 Not Legal for Trade

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  A Practical Palace

  Boston, The Home Alternity

  The day was dawning gray and gloomy by the time Albert Tackett slewed the big Pontiac up the slushy ramp of the Tower garage. But neither the weather nor being awakened at five could dampen his spirits. Overnight, a cracker team had made a breakthrough into a new alternity, now designated Orange. Important as that event was, it was even more important that Alternity Orange had a domestic gate—a Catholic seminary near metropolitan Detroit.

  Tackett waved off the surprised ramp attendant and steered for his reserved space adjacent to the executive entrance. Before the engine had stopped dieseling, a coatless Bret Monaghan was standing beside the car.

  “Morning, Albert,” the deputy director said as Tackett opened the door to climb out. “That was good time.”

  “I broke several speed limits, including one shaving,” Tackett said, fingering the fresh scab on his jaw. “Are things rolling?”

  They started toward the doors, walking briskly. “Finally,” Monaghan said. “Been a while since we’ve had to do this. I’d almost forgotten the drill.”

  “I guess that’s why we write things down.”

  A pair of elevators were just inside the entrance, and the two men halted there. “I guess. I’ve got eight of the best DA’s sequestered in the committee room with the doc kit. Good materials, textbook snatch—newspaper, news magazine, almanac, money sample. They should have a first cut profile ready within an hour—”

  “Can you tell me anything yet?”

  “Not much. I’ve had my hands full running around drafting bodies and getting them on-task, and haven’t had a chance to look in. I do know Orange’s on the same time track as us, just like the others. Harper—Will Harper, that’s the cracker that made the return run—said it looks a lot like Blue. The President’s a Georgian named Carter. The Yankees beat the Dodgers in the Series. That’s all you hear at this point. Trivia.”

  Tackett nodded as they boarded the elevator. “Go on. You were saying—”

  “Malcolm is assembling a skeleton staff for Section Orange, and the other Section supervisors should get their transfer lists by the end of the day. Documentation of the route is finished, and Harper is doing a tutor run right now with a training specialist.”

  “What’s the gate status?”

  “We’re holding everything across the board until we have at least three T-runs in, just to be safe. All the stationmasters have been notified.”

  “Sounds like you’ve spent your time well.”

  “Everybody’s pulling,” Monaghan said. “This has put a little crackle back in the air around here.”

  The elevator opened, and they turned down the hall toward the committee room. “I’m going to want to sit in awhile and get a look at the doc kit myself,” Tackett said. “Can you keep the wheels turning by yourself for a little longer?”

  Monaghan nodded affirmatively. “Sure. The next thing up is to put together another scratch analysis team to work the materials Harper brings back from the T-run. I can do the call-ins.”

  They had reached the closed door. “I’m going to want to see Malcolm and the sec supers before they start putting meat on that skeleton,” Tackett said.

  “I’ll schedule it. Probably about eleven, if that’s enough time.”

  “I just want to get my hands a little dirty.”

  “You’ll be hip deep in ten minutes and you know it,” Monaghan said. “But before you do, something came in late last night from Blue that needs your attention.”

  Tackett released the doorknob. “Which is?”

  “Matt Kelly in Blue is reporting one of the new moles as a possible over-the-hill.” He reached inside his coat and pulled out a sheet of paper folded once lengthwise.

  “Son of a bitch,” Tackett said taking the report. “Wallace. One of the new kids. You screened those, did
n’t you?”

  “Yeah. I missed this one, Al. I’m sorry.”

  Shaking his head, Tackett handed the paper back. “I hate it when one of our people goes bad. Not your fault. Bret. This is what I was trying to warn the President about. When you make the schedule God, standards slip—they have to. I expected something like this. To be honest. I’m surprised it took this long.”

  “Wallace’s roommate says he’s gotten himself mixed up with a local.”

  “What else?” Tackett said disgustedly. “There’s no dumber animal on earth than a man with a hard-on.”

  “How do you want to deal with this?”

  “I don’t.””

  “Do you want him brought back?”

  “What for? The Guard’s got no use for a turncoat.”

  “Matt’s been screaming about discipline. Maybe Wallace could make a useful object lesson.”

  Tackett’s mouth puckered as though he had just bitten into a lemon. “Administrative reviews, Guard court, investigations—just what we need right now.” he said. “We’ve got our hands full and so do they. Let’s keep it simple. Tell him we want the kid found, but we don’t want him back. His people will get the message.”

  Fairfax, Virginia, Alternity Blue

  Looking like the keep of a neo-modern concrete castle, the headquarters building of the National Information Agency rose from the center of a sixty—acre park and forest campus. The tall, narrow windows were tucked into sheltering embrasures, and there was no ground-level entrance—the snaking two-lane main drive dove underground as it approached the east face of the eight-story structure. Antennae of assorted shapes and sizes decorated both the roof and the ridgeline of the grassy hill to the south.

  Inside, Director Richard Bayshore oversaw a kingdom whose knights bore titles such as General Analyst, Sociometric Division and Report Correlator, Volunteer Watch. The weapons in his armory were the sociograph and the flagged rumor, the telephone and the computer. Four subterranean chambers held racks of cartridge files representing nearly forty million people, information captured through a fifteen-year campaign.

  And now, for the first time in Bayshore’s memory, the castle also held a flesh-and-blood prisoner.

  The man who claimed to be Ray Wallach had arrived that morning in the custody of two Region 3 warders. The vol who had reported him had arrived just minutes ago, in the company of Region 3 coordinator Willa Stanton. Bayshore joined up with Stanton in the anteroom to the evidence lab.

  “Willa,” he said, offering his hand to the round-faced woman. “Sounds like you’ve come up with a real head-scratcher.”

  “Better you should go bald than me,” she said, patting her thinning silver hair.

  “I get paid for it,” he agreed. “Where’s the vol?”

  “Shan’s downstairs. Your personnel director is arranging local housing for her.”

  “And the record?”

  Stanton inclined her head toward the closed door to the lab. “Inside.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  The record and its jacket were lying side by side on a lint-free pad under a stereoscopic camera. The technician who had been preparing them stepped back to allow Bayshore near.

  “We dubbed a cartridge of the music and photographed the cover when we had it in Chicago,” Stanton volunteered, “just in case something happened on the way here.”

  “Looks like it stayed in the dryer too long,” Bayshore said. “Ten-inch disc?”

  “Yep.”

  “What have you found out?”

  “It’s still a cipher, just as Shan said it was. It doesn’t exist.”

  “Don’t tell me that. The damn thing is here.”

  “What would you call it? The label doesn’t exist. The format doesn’t exist anymore, not even as a novelty. RCA was the last one pressing this size, and they gave it up twenty years ago. And none of the songs has been copyrighted or listed with the performance payments registry.”

  Bayshore frowned and picked up the album to look at the back. “I’d say it doesn’t exist, I guess. What about some of these names? You’ve got musicians, songwriters—”

  Stanton nodded. “Our office didn’t have the time or resources to run them all down. We did some quick checks. The American Federation of Musicians came up with one match, on the bass player—Leitch. But they have him registered as a keyboardist, and there’s no studio work on his gig sheet.”

  “This is not what I want to hear,” Bayshore said gruffly, replacing the album.

  “You haven’t heard the best one. We flew a cartridge out to Denver to play for Collins, the putative performer. This is a quote—‘It sounds a lot like me. If I had a sister, that might be her. But it isn’t me, and there isn’t a song she does I’d want in my repertoire.’ ”

  With a sigh and a disgusted shake of the head, Bayshore turned from the camera table and walked out of the lab. “What the hell is going on here, Willa?” he fumed in the anteroom. “That thing is like—like a perfect counterfeit nine-dollar bill. It’s absolutely perfect, and absolutely wrong.”

  “I don’t have any answers, Rich. If I did I’d have slept better last night.”

  Bayshore folded his arms across his chest. “Do you know what else?” he asked, shaking a finger in the air. “That damned thing doesn’t look like it was put together on a kitchen table. When I look at it I see fifty of ’em stacked up in a box. Do you know what I mean? I’d like to get someone who knows something about record manufacturing in to look at it.”

  “Some of us were wondering about some sort of knock-off coming in from overseas. A lot of consumer products get counterfeited by the sweatshops in Sao Paulo and Shanghai.”

  “No,” he said grumpily, shaking his head. “I wish I could believe that, but no. They wouldn’t pick Judy Collins, for one thing. They’d be knocking off Tin Whistle or Voyage or someone like that. Besides, this isn’t a counterfeit. It’s more like—a dummy. Like a movie prop.”

  “Maybe it is one.”

  The director’s face brightened fractionally.

  “Or maybe it’s a joke.”

  Bayshore grunted. “Maybe. I think I’ll go see if Mr. Wallach will explain the punch line.”

  “It’d be the first helpful thing he’s said since we picked him up,” Stanton said.

  “So I hear,” he said, sighing. “This is queer as hell, Willa. But it shouldn’t worry me. I can’t see the threat.”

  “But it does worry you.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “It does.”

  Eyes closed and holding his head in his hands, Rayne Wallace sat swiveling slowly from side to side in the big chair. He had done it their way this time. Charlie Adams’ way. Next time, stay put and let us handle the problem. Except before they could find him, almost before he could be missed, he had been whisked away to this place.

  The plane ride. He still felt weak, and remembering why made it worse. The thundering take-off had been overwhelming—the roaring engines behind them, the thumping of the tires on the pavement beneath them, the airport flashing by on either side. He endured it by going rigid, steel fingers gouging the armrests.

  Then came the big banking turn as the jet climbed away from the airport. He looked out. More properly, looked down. Saw with sudden clarity that the plane was an eggshell hanging in midair from a fragile string. A string he could neither see nor trust. Seconds later he threw up on the window.

  Twice more his control was to fail him, the first in turbulence over Ohio, the second during the landing approach, dry aching heaves that took the place of tears. The smell was still in his nostrils, though they had allowed him a shower and provided new clothes after landing.

  Stay put. He had no choice now. He had to hope that the Section could trail him. That they would even make the effort. They would have missed me just a couple hours after I was snatched, when I missed the procedures seminar on Monday morning. But they were too slow. No—I made it too hard.

  He wished he had told Fowler more. Ho
w would they even know where to start? His travel logs were full of lies. It was beyond hoping that these NIA types would have left the Magic parked across from the shop to be found. Had he told Fowler that Shan was Common World? Maybe that would be enough. Enough to send them out to question Ruthann about my old flames. Almost better to leave me here than to rescue me to face that.

  Thinking of Ruthann made him feel lost. Thinking of Shan set his empty stomach churning. Her betrayal, so coldly calculated. Stay the night, darling—so they’ll know where to find you in the morning. Like a fucking whore. Like a total stranger.

  The sounds of someone entering the room brought Wallace’s head up and eyes open. The newcomer was a short, wide-shouldered man with shiny black hair and a measuring gaze.

  “My name is Bayshore, Richard Bayshore,” he said, advancing to the opposite edge of the table. “Would you rather I called you Ray, or Rayne? It doesn’t matter to me, since I know neither one is your real name.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me, either,” Wallace said. His paper-thin cover was in shreds, and he had long ago wearied of defending it. You can only fool a fool, and his captors were dangerously smart. He was entangled with the Blue intelligence community like Br’er Rabbit with the Tar Baby, and there was nothing he could do to get himself free. “I’ve been called both.”

  “So I hear,” Bayshore said, pulling a chair back and sitting down. “Ray, I’m hoping that you’ll give me a boost on a couple of little puzzles that are bothering me—”

  “I don’t do crosswords.”

  “I need to know who you are, and what you’re doing here.”

  “You brought me here. If my being here bothers you, you can always send me back.”

  Bayshore showed a hint of a tolerant smile. “That might actually be in the picture, Ray, if you’d be more helpful. When you lie to us, or just turn to stone, it’s hard not to think that you’re hiding something we really ought to know.”

  There was no point in embracing the hope of freedom; he could never tell them enough to satisfy them. “I can’t help what you think.”