Time Travelers

by Peter Haining (ed)

  After a week they did have Clurg over for dinner. It started badly. Once more he managed to sit down in empty air and crash to the floor. While they were brushing him off he said fretfully: “I can’t get used to not—” and then said no more.

  He was a picky eater. Betty had done one of her mother’s specialties, veal cutlet with tomato sauce, topped by a poached egg. He ate the egg and sauce, made a clumsy attempt to cut up the meat, and abandoned it. She served a plate of cheese, half a dozen kinds, for dessert, and Clurg tasted them uncertainly, breaking off a crumb from each, while Betty wondered where that constituted good manners.

  His face lit up when he tried a ripe cheddar. He popped the whole wedge into his mouth and said to Betty: “I will have that, please.”

  “Seconds?” asked Walter. “Sure. Don’t bother, Betty. I’ll get it.” He brought back a quarter-pound wedge of the cheddar.

  Walter and Betty watched silently as Clurg calmly ate every crumb of it He sighed. “Very good. Quite like—” The word, Walter and Betty later agreed, was see-mon-joe. They were able to agree quite early in the evening, because Clurg got up after eating the cheese, said warmly, Thank you so much!” and walked out of the house.

  Betty said, “What—on—Earth!”

  Walter said uneasily, “I’m sorry, doll. I didn’t think he’d be quite that peculiar—”

  “—But after all!”

  “—Of course he’s a foreigner. What was that word?”

  He jotted it down.

  While they were doing the dishes Betty said, “I think he was drunk. Falling-down drunk.”

  “No,” Walter said. “It’s exactly the same thing he did in my office. As though he expected a chair to come to him instead of him going to a chair.” He laughed and said uncertainly, “Or maybe he’s royalty. I read once about Queen Victoria never looking around before she sat down, she was so sure there’d be a chair there.”

  “Well, there isn’t any more royalty, not to speak of,” she said angrily, hanging up the dish towel. “What’s on TV tonight?”

  “Uncle Miltie. But… uh… I think I’ll read. Uh… where do you keep those magazines of yours, doll?

  Believe I’ll give them a try.”

  She gave him a look that he wouldn’t meet, and she went to get him some of her magazines. She also got a slim green book which she hadn’t looked at for years. While Walter flipped uneasily through the magazines she studied the book. After about ten minutes she said: “Walter. Seemonjoe. I I think I know what language it is.”

  He was instantly alert. “Yeah? What?”

  “It should be spelled c-i-m-a-n-g-o, with little jiggers over the C and G. It means ‘Universal food’ in Esperanto.”

  “Where’s Esperanto?” he demanded.

  “Esperanto isn’t anywhere. It’s an artificial language. I played around with it a little once. It was supposed to end war and all sorts of things. Some people called it the language of the future.” Her voice was tremulous.

  Walter said, “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

  He saw Clurg go into the neighborhood movie for the matinee. That gave him about three hours.

  Walter hurried to the Curran bungalow, remembered to slow down and tried hard to look casual as he unlocked the door and went in. There wouldn’t be any trouble—he was a good citizen, known and respected—he could let himself into a tenant’s house and wait for him to talk about business if he wanted to.

  He tried not to think of what people would think if he should be caught rifling Clurg’s luggage, as he intended to do. He had brought along an assortment of luggage keys. Surprised by his own ingenuity, he had got them at a locksmith’s by saying his own key was lost and he didn’t want to haul a heavy packed bag downtown.

  But he didn’t need the keys. In the bedroom closet the two suitcases stood, unlocked.

  There was nothing in the first except uniformly new clothes, bought locally at good shops. The second was full of the same. Going through a rather extreme sports jacket, Walter found a wad of paper in the breast pocket. It was a newspaper page. A number had been penciled on a margin; apparently the sheet had been torn out and stuck into the pocket and forgotten. The dateline on the paper was July 18th, 2403.

  Walter had some trouble reading the stories at first, but found it was easy enough if he read them aloud and listened to his voice.

  One said:

  TAIM KOP NABD: PROSKYOOTR ASKS DETH

  Patrolm’n Oskr Garth V thi Taim Polis w’z arest’d toodei at biz horn, 4365 9863th Suit, and bookd at 9768th Prisint onM. tchardg’z *v Polis-Ekspozh’r. Thi aledjd Ekspozh’r okurM hwafle Garth w’z on dooti in thi Twenti-Furst Sentch’ri. It konsist’d “v hiz admish’n too a sit’zen ‘v thi Twenti-Furst Sentch’ri that thi Taim Polis ekzisted and woz op’rated fr”m thi Twenti-Fifth Sentch’ri. Thi Proskypot’rz Ofis sed thi deth pen’lti wil be askt ifl vyoo ‘v thi heinus neitch’r ‘v thi ofens, hwitch thret’nz thi hwol fabrik ‘v Twenti-Fifth-Sentch’ri eksiz-tens.

  There was an advertisement on the other side:

  BOIZ”ND YUNG MEN!

  SERV EUR SENTCH’RI!

  ENLIST IN THI TAIM POLIS RKURV NOW!

  RIMEMB’R—

  V THI AJEZ! ONLY IN THI TAIM POLIS KAN EU PROTEKT EUR SIVILIZASH*N FR’M

  ARFNS! THEIR IZ NO HAIER SERVIS TOO AR KULTCH’R! THEIR IZ NO K’REER SO

  FAS*NATING AZ A K’REER IN THI TAIM POLIS!

  Underneath it another ad asked:

  HWAI BI ASHEEMPD “V EUR TCHAIRZ? GET ROL-

  FASTS! No uth’r tcheir haz thi immidjit respons “v a Rolfast Sit enihweir—eor Rolfast iz theirl

  Eur Rolfast mefl partz ar solid gold to avoid tairsum polishing. Eur Rolfast beirings are thi fain’st six-intch dupliks di’mondz for long wair.

  Walter’s heart pounded. Gold—to avoid tiresome polishing! Six-inch diamonds—for long wear!

  And Clurg must be a time policeman. “Only in the time police can you see the pageant of the ages!”

  What did a time policeman do? He wasn’t quite dear about that But what they didn’t do was let anybody else—anybody earlier— know that the Time Police existed. He, Walter Lachlan of the Twentieth Century, held in the palm of his hand Time Policeman Clurg of the Twenty-Fifth Century—the Twenty-Fifth Century where gold and diamonds were common as steel and glass in this!

  He was there when Clurg came back from the matinee. Mutely, Walter extended the page of newsprint Clurg snatched it incredulously, stared at it and crumpled it in his fist. He collapsed on the floor with a groan.

  “I’m done for!” Walter heard him say.

  “Listen, Clurg,” Walter said. “Nobody ever needs to know about this—nobody.”

  Clurg looked up with sudden hope in his eyes. “You win keep silent?” he asked wildly. “It is my life!”

  “What’s it worth to you?” Walter demanded with brutal directness. “I can use some of those diamonds and some of that gold. Can you get it into this century?”

  “It would be missed. It would be over my mass-balance,” Qurg said. “But I have a Duplix. I can copy diamonds and gold for you; that was how I made my feoff money.”

  He snatched an instrument from his pocket—a fountain pen, Walter thought “It is low in charge. It would Duplix about five kilograms in one operation—”

  “You mean,” Walter demanded, “that if I brought you five kilograms of diamonds and gold you could duplicate it? And the originals wouldn’t be harmed? Let me see that tiling. Can I work it?”

  Clurg passed over the “fountain pen”. Walter saw that within the case was a tangle of wires, tiny tubes, lenses—he passed it back hastily. Clurg said, “That is correct. You could buy or borrow jewelry and I could duplix it Then you could return the originals and retain the copies. You swear by your contemporary God that you would say nothing?”

  Walter was thinking. He could scrape together a good thirty thousand dollars by pledging the house, the business, his own real estate, the bank account
, the life insurance, the securities. Put it all into diamonds, of course and then—doubled! Overnight!

  “I’ll say nothing,” he told Clurg. “If you come through.” He took the sheet from the twenty-fifth-century newspaper from Clurg’s hands and put it securely in his own pocket. “When I get those-diamonds duplicated,” he said, “I’ll burn him and forget the rest. Until then, I want you to stay close to home. I’ll come around in a day or so with the stuff for you to duplicate.”

  Qurg nervously promised.

  The secrecy, of course, didn’t include Betty. He told her when he got home and she let out a yell of delight. She demanded the newspaper, read it avidly, and then demanded to see Clurg.

  “I don’t think hell talk,” Walter said doubtfully. “But if you really want to…”

  She did, and they walked to the Curran bungalow. Clurg was gone, lock, stock and barrel, leaving not a trace behind. They waited for hours, nervously.

  At last Betty said, “He’s gone back.”

  Walter nodded. “He wouldn’t keep his bargain, but by God I’m going to keep mine. Come along. We’re going to the Enterprise.”

  “Walter,” she said. “You wouldn’t—would you?”

  Ke went alone, after a bitter quarrel.

  At the Enterprise office he was wearily listened to by a reporter, who wearily looked over the twenty-fifth-century newspaper. “I don’t know what you’re peddling, Mr. Lachlan,” he said, “but we like people to buy their ads in the Enterprise. This is a pretty bare-faced publicity grab.”

  “But—” Walter sputtered.

  “Sam, would you please ask Mr. Morris to come up here if he can?” the reporter was saying into the phone. To Walter he explained, “Mr. Morris is our press-room foreman.”

  The foreman was a huge, white-haired old fellow, partly deaf. The reporter showed him the newspaper from the twenty-fifth century and said, “How about this?”

  Mr. Morris looked at it and smelled it and said, showing no interest in the reading matter: “American Type Foundry Futura number nine, discontinued about ten years ago. It’s been hand-set. The ink—hard to say. Expensive stuff, not a news ink. A book ink, a job-printing ink. The paper, now, I know. A nice linen rag that Benziger jobs in Philadelphia.”

  “You see, Mr. Lachlan? It’s a fake.” The reporter shrugged.

  Walter walked slowly from the city room. The press-room foreman knew. It was a fake. And Clurg was a faker. Suddenly Walter’s heels touched the ground after twenty-four hours and stayed there. Good God, the diamonds 1 Clurg was a conman! He would have worked a package switch! He would have had thirty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds for .less than a month’s work!

  He told Betty about it when he got home and she laughed unmercifully. “Time Policeman” was to become a family joke between the Lachlans.

  Harry Twenty-Third Street stood, blinking, in a very peculiar place. Peculiarly, his feet were firmly encased, up to the ankles, in a block of dear plastic.

  There were odd-looking people and a big voice was saying: “May it please the court. The People of the Twenty-Fifth Century versus Harold Parish, alias Harry Twenty-Third Street, alias Clurg, of the Twentieth Century. The charge is impersonating an officer of the Time Police. The Prosecutor’s Office will ask the death penalty in view of the heinous nature of the offense, which threatens the whole fabric—”

  “…ALL YOU ZOMBIES…”

  Robert Heinlein

  2217 Time Zone V (EST) 7 Nov. 1970–NTC–―Pop’s Place

  I was polishing a brandy snifter when the Unmarried Mother came in. I noted the time—10:17 P. M. zone five, or eastern time, November 7th, 1970. Temporal agents always notice time and date; we must.

  The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty–five years old, no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. I didn‘t like his looks—I never had—but he was a lad I was here to recruit, he was my boy. I gave him my best barkeep‘s smile.

  Maybe I‘m too critical. He wasn‘t swish; his nickname came from what he always said when some nosy type asked him his line: “I‘m an unmarried mother.” If he felt less than murderous he would add: “At four cents a word. I write confession stories.”

  If he felt nasty, he would wait for somebody to make something of it. He had a lethal style of infighting, like a female cop—reason I wanted him. Not the only one.

  He had a load on, and his face showed that he despised people more than usual. Silently I poured a double shot of Old Underwear and left the bottle. He drank it, poured another. I wiped the bar top. “How‘s the ‘Unmarried Mother‘ racket?”

  His fingers tightened on the glass and he seemed about to throw it at me; I felt for the sap under the bar. In temporal manipulation you try to figure everything, but there are so many factors that you never take needless risks.

  I saw him relax that tiny amount they teach you to watch for in the Bureau‘s training school. “Sorry,” I said. “Just asking, ‘How‘s business’? Make it, ‘How‘s the weather? ‘”

  He looked sour. “Business is okay. I write ‘em, they print ‘em, I eat.”

  I poured myself one, leaned toward him. “Matter of fact,” I said, “you write a nice stick—I‘ve sampled a few. You have an amazingly sure touch with the woman‘s angle.”

  It was a slip I had to risk; he never admitted what pen–names he used. But he was boiled enough to pick up only the last: “…Woman‘s angle!” he repeated with a snort. “Yeah, I know the woman‘s angle. I should.”

  “So?” I said doubtfully. “Sisters?”

  “No. You wouldn‘t believe me if I told you.”

  “Now, now,” I answered mildly, “bartenders and psychiatrists learn that nothing is stranger than truth. Why, son, if you heard the stories I do—well, you‘d make yourself rich. Incredible.”

  “You don‘t know what incredible means!”

  “So? Nothing astonishes me. I‘ve always heard worse.” He snorted again. “Want to bet the rest of the bottle?”

  “I‘ll bet a full bottle. I placed one on the bar.”

  “Well…” I signaled my other bartender to handle the trade. We were at the far end, a single–stool space that I kept private by loading the bar top by it with jars of pickled eggs and other clutter. A few were at the other end watching the fights and somebody was playing the juke box—private as a bed where we were.

  “Okay,” he began, “to start with, I‘m a bastard.”

  “No distinction around here,” I said.

  “I mean it,” he snapped. “My parents weren‘t married.”

  “Still no distinction,” I insisted. “Neither were mine.”

  “When…” He stopped, gave me the first warm look I ever saw on him. “You mean that?”

  “I do. A one–hundred–percent bastard. In fact,” I added, “no one in my family ever marries. All bastards.”

  “Oh, that.” I showed it to him. “It just looks like a wedding ring; I wear it to keep women off. It is an antique I bought in 1985 from a fellow operative. He had fetched it from pre–Christian Crete. The Worm Ouroboros…the World Snake that eats its own tail, forever without end. A symbol of the Great Paradox.”

  He barely glanced at it. “If you‘re really a bastard, you know how it feels. When I was a little girl.”

  “Wups!” I said. “Did I hear you correctly?”

  “Who‘s telling this story? When I was a little girl…look, ever hear of Christine Jorgenson? Or Roberta Cowell?”

  “Uh, sex–change cases? You‘re trying to tell me…”

  “Don‘t interrupt or sweat me, I won‘t talk. I was a foundling, left at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945 when I was a month old. When I was a little girl, I envied kids with parents. Then, when I learned about sex…and, believe me, Pop, you learn fast in an orphanage.”

  “I know.”

  “I made a solemn vow that any kid of mine would have both a pop and a mom. It kept me pure, quite a feat in that vicinity. I had to learn to fight to manage it. Then I got ol
der and realized I stood darn little chance of getting married; for the same reason I hadn‘t been adopted.” He scowled. “I was horse–faced and buck–toothed, flat–chested and straight–haired.”

  “You don‘t look any worse than I do.”

  “Who cares how a barkeep looks? Or a writer? But people wanting to adopt pick little blue–eyed golden–haired morons. Later on, the boys want bulging breasts, a cute face, and an ‘Oh–you–wonderful–male’ manner.” He shrugged. “I couldn‘t compete. So I decided to join the W.E.N.C.H.E.S.”

  “Eh?”

  “Women‘s Emergency National Corps, Hospitality & Entertainment Section, what they now call Space Angels—Auxiliary Nursing Group, Extraterrestrial Legions.”

  I knew both terms, once I had them chronized. We use still a third name, it‘s that elite military service corps: Women‘s Hospitality Order Refortifying & Encouraging Spacemen. Vocabulary shift is the worst hurdle in time–jumps. Did you know that a service station once served oil fractions? Once on an assignment in the Churchill Era, a woman said to me, “Meet me at the service station next door”; which is not what it sounds; a service station (then) wouldn‘t have a bed in it.

  He went on: “It was when they first admitted you can‘t send men into space for months and years and not relieve the tension. You remember how the wowsers screamed? That improved my chance, since volunteers were scarce. A gal had to be respectable, preferably virgin (they liked to train them from scratch), above average mentally, and stable emotionally. But most volunteers were old hookers, or neurotics who would crack up ten days off Earth. So I didn‘t need looks; if they accepted me, they would fix my buck teeth, put a wave in my hair, teach me to walk and dance and how to listen to a man pleasingly, and everything else. Plus training for the prime duties. They would even use plastic surgery if it would help—nothing too good for our Boys. Best yet, they made sure you didn‘t get pregnant during your enlistment—and you were almost certain to marry at the end of your hitch. Same way today, A.N.G.E.L.S. marry spacers—they talk the language.’