Time Travelers Never Die

by Jack McDevitt

  HE wasn’t going to find a credible woman wandering the streets, so he pulled over to the curb beside an all-night restaurant to think about it. He was in a run-down area lined with crumbling warehouses. A police cruiser slowed and eased in behind him. The cop got out, and David lowered the window. “Anything wrong, Officer?” he asked. The cop was small, black, well pressed.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing, sir. This is not a safe area.”

  “I was just trying to decide whether I wanted a hamburger.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. Dave could hear the murmur of the police radio. “Listen, I’d make up my mind, one way or the other. I wouldn’t hang around out here if I were you.”

  Dave smiled, and gave him a thumbs-up. “Thanks,” he said.

  The policeman got back into his cruiser and pulled out. David watched his lights turn left at the next intersection. And he knew what he was going to do.

  HE crossed over into New Jersey and drove south on Route 130 for about a half hour. Then he turned east on a two-lane. Somewhere around two thirty, he entered a small town and decided it was just what he was looking for. Its police station occupied a drab two-story building beside the post office. The Red Lantern Bar was located about two blocks away, on the other side of the street.

  He parked in a lighted spot close to the police station, walked to the bar, and went inside. It was smoky and subdued, reeking with dead cigarettes and stale beer. Most of the action was near the dartboard.

  He settled in at the bar and commenced drinking scotch. He stayed with it until the bartender suggested he’d had enough, which usually wouldn’t have taken long. But that night his mind stayed clear. Not his motor coordination, though. He paid up, eased off the stool, and negotiated his way back onto the street.

  He turned right and walked methodically toward the police station, putting one foot in front of the other. When he got close, he added a little panache to his stagger, tried a couple of practice giggles, and lurched in through the front door.

  A man with corporal’s stripes came out of a back room.

  “Good evening, Officer,” he said, with exaggerated formality and the widest grin he could manage, which was then pretty wide. “Can you give me directions to Atlantic City?”

  The corporal shook his head. “Do you have some identification, sir?” “Yes, I do,” Dave said. “But I don’t see why my name is any business of yours. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Where are you from?” His eyes narrowed.

  “Two weeks from Sunday.” David looked at his watch. “I’m a time traveler.”

  LIEUTENANT Lake was surprised and, Dave thought, disappointed to learn that he had been in jail on the night of the fire. She said that she understood why he’d been reluctant to explain, but admonished him on the virtues of being honest with law-enforcement personnel.

  When she’d left, he called Helen. “Let’s go rescue your boyfriend.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang—

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, SONNET 73

  “THE question you are really asking, Simmias, is whether death annihilates the soul.” Socrates looked from one to another of his friends.

  Simmias was young and clear-eyed, like most of the others, but subdued in the shadow of the prison house. “It is an important matter,” he said. “There is none of more importance. But we were reluctant—” He hesitated, his voice caught, and he could go no further.

  “I understand,” said Socrates. “You fear this is an indelicate moment to raise such an issue. But if you would discuss it with me, we cannot very well postpone it, can we?”

  “No, Socrates,” said a thin young man with red hair. “Unfortunately, we cannot.” This, Dave suspected, was Crito.

  Despite Plato’s account, the final conversation between Socrates and his disciples did not take place in his cell. It might well have begun there, but they were in a wide, utilitarian meeting room when Helen and Dave arrived. Several women were present. Socrates, then seventy years old, sat at ease on a wooden chair, while the others gathered around him in a half circle.

  “I don’t see him,” Helen said, seconds after they’d entered.

  Neither did Dave. That was a surprise. Shel had indicated several times that he wanted to participate in the final Socratic discussion.

  Socrates was, at first glance, a man of mundane appearance. He was of average height, for the time, and clean-shaven. He wore a dull red robe, and, considering the circumstances, he maintained a remarkable equanimity. And his eyes were extraordinary, conveying the impression that they were lit from within. When they fell on Dave, as they did from time to time, he imagined that Socrates knew where he’d come from and why he was there.

  Beside him, Helen writhed under the impact of conflicting emotions. She had been ecstatic at the chance to see Shel again. When he did not arrive, she looked at Dave as if to say that she had told him so and settled back to watch history unfold.

  She was, Dave thought, initially disappointed in that the event seemed nothing more than a few people sitting around talking in an uncomfortable room in a prison. And speaking Greek, at that. It was as if the scene should somehow be scored and choreographed and played to muffled drums. She had read Plato’s account before they left. Dave tried to translate for her, but they eventually gave it up. She explained that she could get most of the meaning from her prior knowledge and the nonverbals. “When?” she whispered, after they’d been there almost an hour. “When does it happen?”

  “Sunset, I think.”

  She made a noise deep in her throat.

  “Why do men fear death?” Socrates asked.

  “Because,” said Crito, “they believe it is the end of existence.”

  There were almost twenty people present. Most were young, but there was a sprinkling of middle-aged and elderly persons. One wore a hood. His beard was streaked with gray, and he had intense dark eyes. He gazed sympathetically at Socrates throughout, and periodically nodded when the philosopher hammered home a particularly salient point. There was something in his manner that suggested a young Moses.

  “And do all men fear death?” asked the philosopher.

  “Most assuredly, Socrates,” said a boy, who could have been no more than eighteen.

  Socrates addressed the boy. “Do even the brave fear death, Cebes?”

  Cebes thought it over. “I have to think so, Socrates.”

  “Why, then,” asked Socrates, “do the valiant dare death? Is it perhaps because they fear something else even more?”

  “The loss of their honor,” said Crito.

  “Thus we are faced with the paradox that even the brave are driven by fear. Can we find no one who can face death with equanimity who is not driven by fear?”

  Moses stared at Helen. Dave moved protectively closer to her.

  “Of all men,” said Crito, “only you seem to show no concern at its approach.”

  Socrates smiled. “Of all men,” he said, “only a philosopher can truly face down death. Because he knows quite certainly that the soul will proceed to a better existence. Provided he has maintained a lifelong pursuit of knowledge and virtue, and has not allowed his soul, which is his divine essence, to become entangled in concerns of the body. For when this happens, the soul takes on corporeal characteristics. And when death comes, it cannot escape. This is why cemeteries are restless at night.”

  “How can we be sure,” asked a man in a blue toga, “that the soul, even if it succeeds in surviving the trauma of death, is not blown away by the first strong wind?”

  It was not intended as a serious question, but Socrates saw that it affected the others. So he answered lightly, observing that it would be prudent to die on a calm day, then undertook a serious response. He asked questions which elicited admissions that the soul was not physical and therefore could not be a composite object. “I think we need not fear that it will come apart,” he said, with a touch of amusement.

  One
of the jailers lingered in the doorway throughout the long discussion. He seemed worried, and at one point cautioned Socrates against speaking too much, or getting excited. “If you get the heat up,” he said, “the poison will not work well.”

  “We would not wish that,” said Socrates. But he saw the pained expression on the jailer’s face, and David thought he immediately regretted the remark.

  Women arrived with dinner, and several stayed, so that the room became more crowded. In fact, no doors were locked, and no guards, other than the reluctant jailer, were in evidence. Phaedo, who is the narrator of Plato’s account, was beside Dave. He whispered that the authorities hoped profoundly that Socrates would run off. “Davidius,” he added, “they did everything they could to avoid this. There is even a rumor that last night they offered him money and transportation.”

  Socrates saw them conversing, and he said, “Is there something in my reasoning that disturbs you?”

  Dave had momentarily lost the train of the discussion, but Phaedo said, “Yes, Socrates. However, I am reluctant to put my objection to you.”

  Socrates turned a skeptical gaze on him. “Truth is what it is. Tell me what disturbs you, Phaedo.”

  He hesitated, and Dave realized he was making sure of his voice. “Then let me ask,” he said in a carefully neutral tone, “whether you are being truly objective on this matter? The sun is not far from the horizon and, although it grieves me to say it, were I in your position, I also would argue in favor of immortality.”

  “Were you in his position,” said Crito, with a smile, “you would have taken the first ship to Syracuse.” The company laughed together, Socrates and Phaedo as heartily as any, and the strain seemed broken for the moment.

  Socrates waited for the room to quiet. “You are of course correct in asking, Phaedo. Am I seeking truth? Or trying to convince myself? I can only respond that, if my arguments are valid, then that is good. If they are false, and death does indeed mean annihilation, they nevertheless arm me to withstand its approach. And that, too, is good.” He looked utterly composed. “If I’m wrong, it’s an error that won’t survive the sunset.”

  Simmias was seated immediately to the right of Moses. “I for one am convinced,” he said. “Your arguments do not admit of refutation. And it is a comfort to me to believe that we have it in our power to draw this company together again in some place of God’s choosing.”

  “Yes,” said Crito. “I agree. And, Socrates, we are fortunate to have you here to explain it to us.”

  “Anyone who has thought about these issues,” said Socrates, “should be able to reach, if not truth, at least a high degree of probability. And I would add, whatever validity may attach to our speculations, that the critical lesson to be taken away from this hour is that the lives we know are not forever. Live well. Enjoy what time is given you. It is a magnificent gift.”

  Moses seemed weighed down with the distress of the present calamity. Still, he continued to glance periodically at Helen. Now, for the first time, he spoke: “I very much fear, Socrates, that within a few hours there will be no one left anywhere in Hellas, or anywhere else, for that matter, who will be able to make these matters plain.”

  “That’s Shel’s voice,” Helen gasped, straining forward to see better. The light was not good, and he was facing away from Helen and David, his features hidden in the folds of his hood. Then he turned and looked openly at Helen, and smiled sadly. His lips formed the English words Hello, Helen.

  She was getting to her feet.

  At that moment, the jailer appeared with the poisoned cup, and the sight of him, and the silver vessel, froze everyone in the chamber. “I hope you understand, Socrates,” he said, “this is not my doing.”

  “I know that, Thereus,” said Socrates. “I am not angry with you.”

  “They always want to blame me,” Thereus said.

  No one spoke.

  He set the cup on the table. “It is time,” he said.

  The rest of the company, reluctantly, one by one, following Helen’s example, got to their feet.

  Socrates gave a coin to the jailer, squeezed his hand, thanked him, and turned to look at his friends. “The world is very bright,” he said. “But much of it is illusion. If we stare at it too long, in the way we look at the sun during an eclipse, it blinds us. Look at it only with the mind.” He picked up the cup. Several in the assemblage started forward, but were restrained by their companions. Someone in back sobbed.

  “Stay,” a woman’s voice said sternly. “You have respected him all your life. Do so now.”

  He lifted the cup to his lips, and his hand trembled. It was the only time the mask slipped. Then he drank it down and set the cup back on the table. “l am sure Simmias is right,” he said. “We shall gather again one day, as old friends should, in a far different chamber.”

  SHEL swallowed Helen with his eyes. “I did not expect to see you again,” he said.

  She shivered. Peered intently at him. “Shel.”

  A smile flickered across his lips. “It’s good to see you, Helen.” He stood silhouetted against the moon and the harbor. Behind them, the waterfront buildings of the Piraeus were illuminated by occasional oil lamps.

  “Where have you been?”

  “To more places than you might easily imagine. But if you’re asking where I live, I’m in Center City, Philadelphia.”

  “Why didn’t you contact us?” demanded Dave.

  “Not your Philadelphia. A more distant one.” He still looked like a man in pain. “Dave, you seem to have become my dark angel.”

  Dave stared back at him. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  A gull wheeled overhead. “Socrates dies for a philosophical nicety,” said Shel. “And Shelborne continues to run from his assigned fate. Right?”

  Helen was trembling. “I’d do the same thing,” she said.

  “As would we all. Isn’t that right, Dave?”

  “Shel.” They shook hands. Embraced. While Helen kept her distance. “I suspect we would. But you don’t have to run any longer.”

  Shel managed a smile. If only it were so.

  “It’s true,” said Helen.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The grave has been filled, Shel. It wasn’t you.”

  CHAPTER 44

  A friend is a second self.

  —CICERO

  DAVE’S first act, when he got back, was to return the converter Helen had used to the sock drawer.

  He came back without her. Shel invited her to go home with him. He didn’t say where home was. But she’d gone. He had a new, improved model of the converter, and it had carried them both off. A few days later, Dave heard that Helen had canceled her membership in the Devil’s Disciples. That same afternoon, word came that she’d closed her medical practice.

  When he tried to call her, a recorded voice informed him that the number was no longer in service. She’d moved out of her condo, which had gone up for sale. There was no forwarding address.

  Then one afternoon in November he came home to find a greeting card on his dining-room table. The card showed a pterodactyl in full flight, with the inscription MISS YOU. He opened it:

  Dear Dave,

  Shel and I are having a wonderful time. We have a penthouse on the Parkway near the end of the 21st century. He’s talking about going on a grand tour. Maybe we will live near the Parthenon for a while, or possibly Paris during the 1920s. I have never been so happy. And I wanted to thank you for making it possible.

  I will never forget you, Dave.

  Love, Helen

  P.S. We left something for you. In the wardrobe.

  They’d left the Hermes. They had positioned it carefully under the light, to achieve maximum effect. It looked good.

  He stood a long time admiring the piece. But it wasn’t Helen. The house filled with echoes and the sound of the wind. He hadn’t realized how much he’d miss her.

  DAVE suspected that his friendship with Shel largely grew out of
the fact they’d been opposites in so many ways. Where Shel was cautious, Dave could be reckless. Dave was not the guy, he’d once said, who would keep his mouth shut while Hitler was speaking. The difference in their sizes was striking. When they traveled together, Helen had once commented, they looked like a comedy team. While Dave got emotionally connected with every woman in his life, Shel was an all-or-nothing guy. The woman on his arm was either simply someone to keep him company or the love of his life.

  Dave fell in love with everybody.

  Another area in which they differed: Shel was perfectly content using the converter and traveling alone across the centuries. Dave had been along because of his language skills, and because a second person served as a safety factor. Shel had never said that, of course, but there was certainly some truth to it. Dave, on the other hand, could have been talking with Marcus Aurelius, but he wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much had Shel, or someone, not been there to share the experience. Consequently, with Shel and Helen both gone, he decided his time-traveling days were over.

  He hadn’t been satisfied simply carrying a conversation with Hem ingway. He’d wanted to ride in the ambulance with him, to go chasing German submarines with him at the outbreak of World War II. But he didn’t want it badly enough to actually do it. At heart, Dave was shy. He would never have gone to say hello to Tom Paine and Ben Franklin and Molly Pitcher and the rest of those people.

  He got bored with his career as an art dealer and started looking for a new line of work. The State Department was interested in employing him as a translator, and the CIA contacted him about coming on board. They wouldn’t tell him what they wanted him to do, other than that they would put his language skills to good use. He never found out how they knew he was available.