by Anthology
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
BUS
William Grewe-Mullins
I ran into myself on the bus today. One minute he wasn’t there, the next he was. He didn’t introduce himself, as I immediately recognized me, and of course he remembered that. I turn out a bit chubbier, and wrinklier with a lot more white hair, but still a lot of red, and still in a ponytail. He had a mechanical hand.
“Still wearing the ponytail.” I said.
“Shut up.” I replied.
This is going to get confusing, so I’m going to refer to old me as he or him, even though it’s actually me.
“We only have about 5 minutes,” old me said, “So let me do most of the talking. I came here because I knew you’d be here, because of the bus schedule. An easy target, as it were. First off,have that lump on your collarbone looked at.”
As soon as I promised him that I would, in the space between seconds, his mechanical hand turned into a regular fleshy hand.
“Wasn’t it cool to have a mechanical hand?” I asked old me.
“Who had a mechanical hand?” he replied.
“Well, if you didn’t come here to fix your hand, what did you come here for?” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came here to tell you that in about twenty-five years, we develop time travel, and that although it is fun and sometimes pretty cool, it’s also pretty much worthless. Before you ask, I could give you the lottery number that I have for next week’s lottery, but by the time I get back to my time, the number I brought you won’t be the number that’s in the historical record, the same one that I copied to give to you. My coming back here has changed everything just a little. Many have tried that, none have succeeded. Perhaps I did come to fix my hand, but now that you will keep me from losing it, I never lost it. That actually makes sense.” he rambled.
“Yes, that actually does make sense.” I replied.
“Shut up.” He said. “Historians are going to waste about five years going back into history, seeing what actually happened at controversial points, but each time they go back to, say, JFK’s assassination, where everybody goes, they don’t see the other travelers there, and every time the scene is a little different. It’s like this, Oswald is the shooter in all the scenarios we’ve explored, but in some, and only in some, there is a second shooter, sometimes a third, and in one, as many as eight, on the overpass, behind the fence on the grassy knoll, whatever, but also, the other shooters never make the shot. Miss every time. Our theory is that there is a very narrow range of possible outcomes, and that history always bends back towards the timeline of the original traveler’s reality. When you go there, carry an umbrella. That’s the rule. You won’t see anybody else with an umbrella, although you will show up on the Zapruder film. Don’t turn to the camera. Just don’t. And by the way, you can’t kill Hitler, because without Hitler, no German scientists developing electronics, without electronics, no time travel. So many have tried and failed that it’s banned, except for documentaries about how it doesn’t work. The one called “Stop Trying To Kill Hitler, It Doesn’t Work” is a good one. And you can’t go back to before Homo sapiens evolved. We still don’t know why, so no dinosaur hunts, although seeing the pyramids brand new is pretty awesome. Any questions?”
“How’s Patty?” I asked.
“She’s fine, surrounded by dogs as usual, more dogs than you can imagine. Seriously. I think that may be actually why I came. Don’t stop playing the lottery, and only when it’s over a hundred million jackpot. Just don’t. You’re going to need a lot of dog food.”
By the time I could say anything else, in the space between seconds, I was gone.”
BUSINESS OF KILLING
Fritz Leiber
The room was small and undistinguished, yet there was the indelible impression that power radiated to and from it, that it was the focal point of vast, far-flung, tension-fraught, and crucial activities. Its general appearance—that of a hastily stripped living room—clashed with the large, efficient, and centrally located desk from which radiated a number of ribbons sheathing conductors and adhering unobtrusively to the floor. A strong possibility: that it was the temporary headquarters of an organization engaged in a critical enterprise.
The man who had said they might call him Whitlow sat in a corner. His face was long, bony, and big-jawed, but the effect was of fanaticism and obstinacy, even sulkiness, rather than strength. He rubbed his hands in a way that was meant to be amiable, very much the master of the situation although it was he who was being interviewed. His gaze wandered inquisitively. He looked, despite his pseudogeniality, as if he could make his expression go all stern in a moment, and he wore high-mindedness like an admiral’s uniform. Yet behind it all lurked a hint of the brat who knows where the candy is hidden and who knows, furthermore, that he is immune from interference.
Saturnly and Neddar sat behind the desk. Or, rather, Saturnly sat behind most of it, while Neddar was tucked in at a corner, his nimble fingers poised above the noiseless keys of a hidden lightwriter, which was at present hooked up with a little panel that stared slantwise at Saturnly from the center of the desk.
Saturnly was obviously all appetite and will power. Heavy-jowled bullethead set on a torso that had expanded with its owner’s enterprises. Eyes in which there was little subtlety but worlds of dogged power. A man who lived to outshout, outpound, outorganize, and outwit. A great driving voraciousness, joyously dedicated to the task of making men and money work.
Yet deep underneath was the suggestion of an iron and admirable integrity; one felt that in a pinch the man would unfailingly stand up for the things he believed in and lived by, whatever the cost and no matter how tawdry they might be.
Neddar just as obviously had no appetite at all except for his own peculiar whims, and subtlety fairly danced a jig in his liquid brown eyes. Yet he was Saturnly’s equal in energy and tireless competence, but based on intellectual rather than emotional drives. A small, lithe man, very quick in all ways, young, but with a full black beard. Lips brimming with humor and mockery, though now carefully composed. A human catalyst, a court jester turned private secretary, a superassistant.
Their relationship was that of crocodile and crocodile bird, or—more accurately—shark and pilot fish.
The most arresting difference between them and the Whitlow person related to clothing. Although superficially similar, there was the suggestion of different epochs of fashion—or of some even wider gulf.
They watched him as a fat torn and a brainy kitten watch a mouse just out of reach.
Whitlow said, “I repeat, the means whereby I came here are immaterial to our discussion. Suffice it to say that alternate time streams exist, resulting from time bifurcations i
n the not-too-distant past, and that I possess the means of traveling between them.”
Saturnly extended his great paws soothingly. He said, “Now, now, Mr. Whitlow, don’t excite yourself—”
He choked off. Neddar’s fingers flickered, although no other part of his anatomy moved, and there glowed up at Saturnly the following warning: “WATCH YOUR STEP! It’s probably true. Remember, he turned up where he couldn’t have.”
Neddar said, “Mr. Saturnly is concerned that you don’t overtax yourself after your strenuous ordeal.”
Mollified, Whitlow continued in his unpleasantly high-pitched and mincing voice, “I am, among other things, a pacifist. I am visiting the alternate worlds in search of one that has learned how to do away with the horrid scourge of war, in order to bring back the precious knowledge to my erring co-timers. I see in yours no uniforms, no headlines detailing carnage, no posters blaring propaganda, nor any of the subtler indications that war is just over or will soon break out. I assume, therefore, that you have been able to eliminate this dreadful business of killing—”
During this speech a stifled inward churning had been apparent in Saturnly. Now he exploded, “Just who do you think you are, anyway? Coming here and insulting me—John Saturnly—this way! Why, you dirty Red—”
He chewed air furiously. A new message glowed on the panel: “You big ape! This guy’s got something. If we offend him, we may not get it.”
To Whitlow, Neddar said, “Mr. Saturnly misunderstood you. He is a businessman and has a very keen sense of the dignity and worth of his work. He thought you were referring specifically to business, whereas, of course, you were only using the words in a figurative sense.”
At the same time he made furtive motions indicating that Saturnly, though well intentioned, was rather slow of understanding.
Whitlow inquired, “Just what is the nature of Mr. Saturnly’s business?”
A grumble of explosions shook the night.
“Blasting operations,” said Neddar. “I don’t mean his business—that comprises a variety of enterprises and has many ramifications. It happens, moreover, to be very closely concerned with that matter on which you are desirous of obtaining information.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Whitlow. “I appreciate the attention you’ve shown in bringing me here. But I could just as well follow my usual procedure of drifting around and taking things in gradually.”
“A needless waste of your time, which I am sure must be valuable. In Mr. Saturnly you have found the fountainhead. It is his enterprises that have eliminated from this world the terrible and chaotic socio-political upheavals of war.”
The explosions continued. There came the vindictive drone of high-speed aircraft. Eagerness and doubt fought in Whitlow’s face.
“The night freight,” said Neddar. “We are a very industrious people—very businesslike in all matters. And that leads me to another consideration. Mr. Saturnly and I are in a position to provide you with information which you greatly desire. You, on the other hand, possess a very fascinating power—that of passing between time streams.”
“Follow my lead,” glowed on the panel, but it was unnecessary. Saturnly understood things like this without thinking.
He said, “Yes, how about a little deal, Mr. Whitlow? We tell you how to prevent . . . uh . . . war. You tell us how to cross time.”
Whitlow rolled the idea on his tongue, as if it were a new but not necessarily unpleasant kind of cough syrup. “An interesting proposal. I could, of course, ultimately obtain the same information independently—”
“But not so adequately,” said Neddar quickly, his eyes flashing. “And not soon enough. I take it that there is some particular war which you desire to stop or prevent.” A tiny green light began to blink on Saturnly’s desk. Neddar thumbed a square marked “No.” It continued to blink. He thumbed the square once more, then resumed. “So speed must be your paramount consideration, Mr. Whitlow.”
“Yes . . . ah . . . perhaps. And if I decide to impart my power to you, I would require assurances that it be used only for the most high-minded purposes.”
“Absolutely,” said Saturnly, bringing down his palm as if it were a seal and his desk the document.
A door flicked open and a blonde young lady catapulted in. She squealed, “I know you’re in conference, J.S., but this is a crisis!”
Saturnly made frantic gestures of warning. Neddar, after one appraising glance, wasted no time in such maneuvers.
She struck the pose of one announcing catastrophe. “There’s been a strike of front-line operatives!” she managed to wail—then Neddar was rushing her out. The slamming door punctuated her woeful: “And just when you’d come down to supervise the big push, J.S.!”
“A lovely girl, Mr. Whitlow, but hysterical,” said Saturnly. “She talks . . . what’s that word?.. figuratively.”
His blandness was lost on Whitlow. “Just what is the nature of your business, Mr. Saturnly?” The voice had acquired an inquisitorial edge.
Saturnly groped for a reply, looking around for Neddar as a dripping man looks for a towel.
“Of course,” Whitlow continued, a puzzled note creeping in, “I assumed that there was no war here, because of the absence of war atmosphere, to which I am very sensitive. But—”
“You took the words out of my mouth,” said Saturnly, clutching at the straw. “No war atmosphere—no war. You proved it yourself.”
But another door flicked open, and it is doubtful if even Neddar could have stemmed the agitated tide of the small crowd that poured through it.
Of individuals of major importance—the rest wore badges—there seemed to be three. The first was tall and had been, at some prior date, dapper and competent.
He said, “I’m through, J.S. I can’t do anything with them. They’ve gotten beyond reason.” He threw himself down in a chair.
The second was short and bristling. He said, “Just let me turn the artillery on them, J.S., and I’ll blast them out of their sit-down!”
“You and who else?” inquired the third, who was of medium height, lumpy, and wearing a dirty raincoat. “Just try that, and you’ll see the biggest sympathetic walkout you ever tried to toss tear gas at.”
They disregarded Saturnly’s herculean efforts to shush them as completely as they did the presence of Whitlow.
“J.S., their demands are impossible!” the second man barked over the babbling.
The third man planted himself in front of Saturnly’s desk. He stated, “Twenty cents more an hour and time-and-a-half in the mud, with pay retroactive to day before yesterday’s rainstorm.”
“It isn’t mud!” the second man rebutted fiercely. “It isn’t sufficiently gelatinous. I’ve had it analyzed.”
Two studious-looking men in the background bobbed their heads in affirmation.
The third man dug his hand in his raincoat pocket, stepped forward, and slapped down a black, gooey handful in the middle of Saturnly’s desk.
“No mud, eh?” he said, watching it ooze. “What do you say, Saturnly?”
The first man shuddered and cringed in his chair.
With a sweep of his bearlike arm, Saturnly sent the mud splattering off his desk as he came around it.
“You dirty gutter stooge!” he roared. “So two dollars an hour isn’t good enough for your good-for-nothing front-liners?” He waved his muddied fist.
The third man stood his ground. He said, “And there are complaints about the absence of adequate safety engineering.”
“Safety engineering!” Saturnly blew up. “Why, when I was a front-line operative—and I knew the business, I can tell you, because I worked up to it from a low-down factory job—we kicked out any safety engineers that had the nerve to come sniffing around our trenches!”
“Care to join the union at this late date?” asked the third man imperturbably.
Neddar’s return coincided with the outburst of fresh pandemonium. He gave one apprehensive look. Three skipping strides
carried him to Whitlow and put his bearded mouth two inches from the pacifist’s ear.
“We did deceive you,” he said rapidly, “but it was only to avoid giving you an even more false impression. Let me clear out this rabble. Don’t come to a decision until we’ve talked to you.”
Without waiting for a reply, he darted to Saturnly and drew him toward the door, pulling the rest of the crowd after him like planets after a sun.
Fifteen minutes later Neddar was still trying to pry Saturnly away. The second and third man had departed with their satellites, but Saturnly was hanging onto the first man and giving him certain instructions that caused him to lose his defeated look and finally hurry off excitedly.
Neddar redoubled his tugging. Saturnly did not at once yield to it. He turned his head. His broad face wore a beamy, glazed smile. “Wait a minute, Neddy,” he said. “I see it all now. Of course, when you first brought the guy in and tipped me off about time streams, I got the idea they were something we should go for. But you know how it is with me—I can only think when there’s no opportunity to. It was only when those boobs came in and started to yammer at me that I really began to see the possibilities.”
“Yes, yes,” said Neddar. “And while you gloat, he slips through our fingers. Come on.”
But in his exultation Saturnly was imperturbable. “Just think, Neddy, worlds like ours—maybe dozens of them—and we got a monopoly on the trade. A real open-door policy—nobody but us can open it. We got a surplus—we know where to unload it. There’s a scarcity—we know where we can get some. We got critical materials by the tail. We set up secret branch offices—Oh, Neddy!”
Only then did he allow himself to be led off.
They passed through three rooms. All had the stripped look of Saturnly’s office, yet there was still not enough space for the new installations and occupants. A battery of nimble-fingered girls tended transmitters of some sort. Others typed and lightwrote. Wall maps glowed vital information. Table maps had chess played on them by delicate logistic machines. Rakish young men in windbreakers lounged against the walls. Occasionally one of them would snatch up a packet and dart out into the night.