Time Travelers Never Die

by Jack McDevitt

  It didn’t matter. Nothing could wipe away the goofy grin that afternoon.

  THERE was never any doubt that he’d tell Shel about the concert. Had to. And if Shel decided to confiscate the converter, never let him near it again, so what?

  He pulled up in front of the town house during the late afternoon. Shel appeared at the door before he could ring the bell. “You look good,” he said.

  “I feel good.”

  They went inside and sat down in the den. While Shel got a round of drinks, Dave threw his feet up on a hassock. King of the world.

  Shel took two glasses down out of the cabinet, put ice cubes in them, and turned around. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Did you ever check the range?”

  “Of the converter? Yes.”

  “And?”

  “It’s somewhere around thirty-six thousand years.”

  “That’s a bit more than mine has. Probably depends on the power pack, right?”

  “How do you know, Dave? You haven’t done that, have you? Gone back with the savages?”

  “No. But I’ve gone downstream.”

  “Forward.”

  “Into the future, yes. And I’m happy to report everything turns out okay.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “No ice age. People are still there. I think. Doing okay.”

  “Really?” Shel’s features darkened. “Dave, I wish you’d stop the nonsense. That’s irresponsible.”

  “Who says? What’s the risk at that range?”

  “I don’t know.” Shel bristled. “That’s what makes it dangerous.”

  “Come on, Shel. Make sense.”

  “Okay, then. You gave your word. And you broke it. You promised you wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  Dave couldn’t remember making any such promise, but he let it go.

  When Shel got no response, he went back to mixing the drinks. “So what did you see?”

  Dave described the thick forest at the mountaintop. The lights. And the music.

  “That’s it?”

  “Shel, we’ve survived. Despite all the talk about climate change and runaway technology and loose nukes, we’re still here.”

  “Well, that’s good. You didn’t happen to go over there, did you? To the concert?”

  “No. I thought I’d just sit back and listen.”

  “So all you know is that you heard music.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I just hope it’s us.”

  “I doubt it was Martians.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right, Dave.”

  Damn. The mood had become a bit intense. “I probably better get going.”

  “You didn’t get your drink yet.”

  “Let it go.”

  “Look, Dave, I’m sorry, but—”

  “Let it go, Shel. I understand.” He stood up and unclipped the converter. Set it for the next jump. It would take him back almost three weeks to Saturday, December 15, the evening they’d come back from Selma.

  “Set it for ten o’clock,” said Shel. “In the evening.”

  That was a couple of hours after he’d left for the cabin.

  NOTHING changed in the town-house den except that a magazine appeared on the coffee table, and the television was on in the living room. The big wall clock said 10:00 P.M. precisely.

  Shel was parked in front of the television, but he was asleep. Dave sat down in one of the chairs, watched the show for a minute—it was a sitcom—let his head drift back, and closed his eyes.

  “Dave.” Shel’s voice. “How long have you been here?”

  “Just came in. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Everything healed?”

  “Far as I can tell.”

  “Good. How about something to eat?”

  “I’m not really hungry, Shel. I think I’ll just head home and get some sleep.”

  “Okay. It’s good to have you back.” He got up, went over to the desk, and took out a key. “There’s a rental car waiting in the driveway.”

  It was a black Bangalore. A torpedo. Dave got in and drove to his home on Carmichael Drive. It was good to be back.

  HE knew how the Eagles game had turned out Sunday, so he spent much of the day at the gym and the pool. On Monday, two days after the Selma experience, he was back in class. It was an odd feeling to sit up there on the edge of his desk, as he often did, knowing that at that very moment he was at the cabin waiting for his wounds to heal. His first period was Greek. Twelve kids who claimed to be interested, more or less, in Homer and the classical dramatists. “Aristophanes invented comedy,” he told them. “He was the first guy we know of to go for laughs. And Sophocles”—he took a moment to look out at the sky—“gave us better theater than Shakespeare.”

  They were shocked. No one had ever said anything like that to them before. Shakespeare was, of course, the name before which all heads bowed. But he could see they agreed. Not that Sophocles was so good, probably, but that Shakespeare was overrated.

  Suzy Klein, a wide-eyed African-American, flashed a smile. Knew it all the time. But she asked why he would say that.

  “He has all the power of the Bard,” said Dave. “But it’s concentrated on a smaller stage. Remember Aristotle?”

  “Sure,” said Suzy, while the other kids leaned forward.

  “What did he say about unity?”

  “Ummm.” She looked uncertain.

  A hand went up in back. Roger Gelbart. “What did he say, Roj?”

  “Use the minimum number of characters necessary to carry the action. In Sophocles, the conflict involves, at most, a handful. In a Shakespearean play, you need a scorecard.”

  “What about time?”

  Another hand. “The action should take place over the shortest possible time span. Preferably the length of the play itself.”

  “Good.” He’d begun to think how it would be to go back to classical Athens, circa 420 B.C. And see Antigone performed under the stars.

  He could actually do it. Although it was hard to imagine Shel consenting. Maybe if they were able to locate his father and bring him back, get rid of the urgency, maybe then he could be persuaded.

  SHEL laughed when he mentioned it indirectly, talking about how much fun it would be to take his students on a field trip to Athens in the fifth century B.C., to watch a performance, say, of Medea.

  “Your students understand Greek?” Shel asked.

  “More or less.”

  “Do they?”

  “Not very well, actually.”

  “That’s what I figured.” He grinned. “A trip like that, though, would seriously shake up the academic community.”

  “And, I suspect, a few parents.”

  “Dave,” Shel said, “I found something that might help us find my father.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I did a search of his computer. He’s like you, always had a taste for the classical age. When we used to travel in Greece and Syria, I don’t remember how many times he’d show me a site where there was nothing but rubble and explain how it had been a temple to Juno or somebody. It upset him that the Christians, when they took over the empire, destroyed so much of its architecture. And its literature.”

  “So where are you going with this?”

  “He’d been collecting notes for a long time on Aristarchus.”

  “Who is . . . ?”

  “He was the head librarian at Alexandria in its heyday.”

  “Your father was—is—a physicist.”

  “My dad is a Renaissance guy.”

  “Okay. That’s interesting. Aristarchus was at one time the keeper of the world’s knowledge. So, what—”

  “There’s a better than fair chance that when my father found himself with a time-travel capability, Aristarchus is the guy he’d have gone to have lunch with. Even more than Galileo.”

  “How long was he there? At the L
ibrary?”

  “About six years. From 153 B.C. to about 147. Anyhow, I’m going to go back and ask. I’m going to try to learn a little Greek. So it’ll be a while.” He hesitated. “Will you come?”

  “Sure, I wouldn’t miss it. But I have a condition.”

  “Okay.”

  “Most of the work by the Greek playwrights has been lost. Do you know, for example, how many of Sophocles’ plays survived?”

  Shel had no idea.

  “Seven.”

  “That doesn’t sound bad.”

  “Out of more than a hundred.”

  “Oh.” Shel sat back. “Well, why don’t we plan on spending an afternoon at the Library and take some pictures?”

  “It would be criminal not to.”

  “Okay. Then it’s settled.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “Let’s give it a couple of weeks. I need time for my crash course.”

  “We might have a problem, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t want to tell anybody about the converters.”

  “Yeah. I’ve thought about that. If we can recover some of this stuff, how do we explain where we got it?”

  “Bingo.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, Dave. Look, we can send whatever we get anonymously to, I don’t know, Penn. Or LaSalle. Or maybe Temple. Maybe spread it around. Give everybody some of it. It’ll drive them crazy trying to figure out where they’re coming from.”

  “They’ll think they’re forgeries.”

  “Sure they will. But I bet my foot that when the experts have a chance to look, they’ll figure out they’re legitimate.” He poured another round of drinks. “What do you think?”

  “I say we try it. And I know exactly the person we should send the stuff to.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Her name’s Aspasia. I knew her in graduate school.”

  “A Greek?”

  “Seems right to me.”

  THEY met for dinner the following evening. Helen accompanied Shel. Dave took Madeleine Carascu, a member of the Penn English Department. Like Dave, she had red hair and green eyes. She was also armed with a dazzling smile, a quick wit, and a ton of energy. The kind of woman who has so much going for her that she scares most men off. But she didn’t scare Dave, who spent most of the evening hoping that Helen would get jealous.

  They went to the Chart House on Delaware Avenue, a place with its own interior waterfall, and got a table overlooking the river. And the women didn’t need long to figure out that he and Dave were celebrating something. “What’s going on?” asked Helen.

  “Breakthrough in transdimensional warp theory,” Shel said.

  “What’s that?”

  Madeleine looked at Dave. “Are you following this?”

  “He talks like that a lot.”

  Helen plunged straight ahead. “Why are we so happy?”

  Shel grinned. “Dave and I are having dinner with the two most beautiful women in Center City, and you wonder why we’re enjoying ourselves?”

  Her steady gaze shifted to Dave. “What can I tell you?” he said. “When the guy’s right, he’s right.”

  Shel turned the conversation in a new direction. They talked about Morgan, that season’s hot new antiterrorist TV drama. And wondered whether the new Josh Baxter film, Nightlight, could really be as good as the critics were claiming. Madeleine asked Shel whether he thought the effort to establish solar collectors in orbit and beam the power down to groundside stations would ever get off the ground. “Pardon the pun.”

  “Eventually,” he said. “The problem is funding. There’s no money for the research.” They finished and went over to Larry’s for a nightcap. Then they were breaking up and going home. Madeleine lived in an apartment at 22nd and Spruce.

  She was quiet on the way, and Dave knew she wasn’t satisfied with the evening. She hadn’t said anything, but there was a coolness in her manner that was hard to miss. It had been their first date, and he knew there would not be a second. He suspected she’d picked up his interest in Helen. Or maybe she saw him as a poor second to Shel. So he took her to her door, said good night when she opened up, and kissed her lightly.

  “I enjoyed the evening, Dave,” she said. “Thank you.” Lights went on. She smiled at him and slipped inside. And he thought that this was an evening he would one day come to regret.

  DAVE celebrated Christmas with his family in Scranton, much better than the Christmas he’d spent alone in the cabin a couple of weeks ago, subjective time. A week later he took Katie to a New Year’s Eve party, where she asked how the hunt for Helen was progressing.

  “I think she’s in love with Shel,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How’s it going with Harry?” Harry Begley was her current target.

  “I’ve written him off,” she said.

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “You must have noticed it’s New Year’s Eve. And I’m not out with him.”

  “Yeah. I noticed.” They were in each other’s arms, and Dave must have been staring at her.

  “Something wrong?” she said.

  “You’re gorgeous.”

  FINALLY, there was the January 3 call from Shel. “You just left the cabin,” he said. “You—the other you—should be here late this afternoon. I’ll call you when it’s okay to come pick up the car.”

  “Thanks, Shel.” The world was going back to normal. Being in two places at one time was unsettling.

  CHAPTER 17

  Time is but the stream I go a-fi shing in.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN

  SHEL had stayed away from the future. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was that, unlike the historical past, it was unknown territory. And he didn’t want to find out what lay ahead. Much of the pleasure that comes from being alive is day-to-day discovery. Will SETI succeed during my lifetime? Have we got it right about multiple universes? What will the next ten years of my life look like? Will it include Helen? Kids? Does anything positive come out of the converters?

  If he went thirty or forty years downstream, he’d be even more tempted to stray from the general to the specific, to find out what his life had been like, and he wouldn’t want to discover that he’d ended up bored, that his career had gone nowhere (which was precisely what he suspected would happen), possibly even that he would come down with Boltmeyer’s Disease and at some future date spend most of his time mumbling at a TV, or whatever would pass for a TV in another few decades. The bottom line: He didn’t want to see a summary of his life. And in general did not want to see the future.

  Still, knowing which way the markets might trend would be helpful. And whether hydrogen vehicles would finally come on line to replace electric and gas-powered cars. And where real-estate prices were going. He could even set up shop as a prognosticator. And, after he’d proven deadly accurate a few times, people would start to pay attention. He could provide warnings weeks ahead about an oncoming hurricane. Or where an earthquake would strike. Don’t get on that plane, lady; it’s going down.

  It was an interesting possibility. He could eventually become a major ecumenical figure. Maybe even found a religion. But, to get serious for a moment, would he be violating any of the temporal conditions if he warned someone, for example, that a nutcase with a gun was planning to attack a mall? Was the future as fixed as the past seemed to be?

  He had no idea. Thinking about it made his head hurt. When Dave had told him about traveling thousands of years downstream, he’d been alarmed. But maybe as long as they kept it long-range, there was no risk. The reality, though, was that he didn’t care that much about the next millennium. He was interested in next week. In whether he had a future with Helen. In the next political campaign. In the religious crazies who thought it was okay to lob bombs at infidels.

  Both converters were now safely locked in his desk. He’d been uncomfortable asking Dave to return his. He hadn’t told him in s
o many words that he didn’t trust him. But the implication had been clear enough.

  HE was never sure what actually prompted him to do it. It may have been curiosity; it may have been simply that he was tired of trying to learn Greek. In any case, on Saturday, January 19, he came home from eating lunch at Spanky’s, picked up one of the converters, and drove into Center City. He parked the car in a one-hour zone, put the converter in his pocket, and walked over to Rittenhouse Square, where he picked an empty bench and sat down. He waited until no one seemed to be looking his way and pulled out the converter.

  Why not?

  He set it to keep him in his present geographical location, roughly two months later, in mid-March. Then, when no one seemed to be watching, he stood and pushed the button. The park came and went, and the bench on which he’d been sitting was covered with snow.

  He pushed his hands into his pockets and tried to stay warm. The park was empty save for a few people hurrying through. He walked quickly, shivering, crossed Walnut Street, and turned east.

  Center City didn’t look any different. He stopped in front of a variety shop and peered through the plate-glass window at a stack of Inquirers. Should he buy one? The headline said something about Saudi Arabia.

  But it was dangerous. Best let it go. He moved on. Decided he should get serious. Visit the future, or don’t. What would Philadelphia look like in sixty years? A few minutes later, he decided what the hell, walked into a clothing store, found a place in back where he couldn’t be seen, set the converter for spring, 2079, and pressed the button again.

  HE arrived inside a hotel lobby. Several people were staring at him. He tried to smile back. Do this all the time. A tall, awkward-looking guy shook his head at a woman. “You’re crazy, Laura,” he said.

  Shel hurried out through an automatic door. Walnut Street was gone, replaced by moving walkways and broad lawns. Rittenhouse Square was still there, now somehow the center of a lush garden. Birds sang, and the central fountain in the park still worked, sending a bright cascade into the air. Kids fed the squirrels, and pigeons perched atop a sculpture of arms, legs, eyes, and flashes of light, a work right out of Dalí.