Downtiming the Night Side

by Jack L. Chalker

  As the day wore on, the sky darkened and a light rain began. He had never felt so miserable or so bored out of his mind. Every time a cab had clattered past, he’d gotten his hopes up, but it was well after the city clocks chimed four that one of them came up the street and stopped in front of the gray frame house.

  The driver, a fat, jolly-looking man, jumped down with surprising agility and opened the door on the curb side, away from the watcher’s view, first helping someone out of the cab and then unloading the luggage. Moosic decided on a more open approach and actually crossed the street and walked right by, seeing the cabbie and Helene Demuth struggling with a large trunk while another figure was already on the porch, affectionately greeting his wife and youngest daughter.

  It didn’t pay to stop and stare, but Moosic’s impression was of a surprisingly slender man of medium height who gave the impression of youth and great strength, despite a flowing white beard and shoulder-length white hair; he was dressed in a dark brown suit. Although appearing quite wrinkled, he was highly emotional and his joy at being home and with his loved ones was obviously genuine. It was a touching, very human scene glimpsed in passing, one that caused Moosic some unease, and he was surprised by that.

  Somehow, Karl Marx had never been a real person, a real human being. He’d always been a face on the Kremlin wall during parades, a posed statue in the history books. Up until now, Alfie’s London had been a real place, but in an exotic sort of way, like visiting some remote island country in the Pacific or an ancient village in the heart of Europe. Now, suddenly, this was Karl Marx—the real one—looking and acting very human and very ordinary and yet unexpectedly warm, no longer a symbol or a stiff historical photograph, but real. The discomfort seemed irrational, but somehow very human in and of itself. We do not expect our myths and our symbols to be ordinary people.

  He crossed the street and went around the block, coming back to his inconspicuous stakeout spot diagonally across the street. He was aware that he’d taken a chance now, since anyone else watching the house might well recognize that the same boy had just gone to some lengths to wind up in the same spot as he’d started, but he was only mildly concerned. The quarries had no reason to believe that they were being stalked. As far as they knew, their confederates had destroyed the other suits, even if later taken.

  The luggage was inside now, the cabbie paid, and the hansom cab, pulled by a gray sorrel, went on down the street and back into the mainstream of London traffic. It grew dark as he continued his watch, but still no one had passed who seemed inordinately interested in the house or its occupants. Still, he was certain they would come tonight—at least one of them, anyway. Their time was quickly running out, and having been dealt the unexpected ten-day delay, they could not afford to miss him by chancing a meeting the next day. The twenty-first was a Tuesday, and certainly Marx, who’d been out of the country for a couple of months, would have many errands and catch-ups to do, perhaps a multitude of visitors and appointments. If Marx was indeed their quarry, and they still had their wits and will about them, they had barely thirty-six hours to do whatever they had gone to all this trouble to do.

  He was getting tired, though, and getting resigned to the idea that he would have to get some sleep if he were to resume the stakeout the next day, when a horse and wagon came up the street. The gas lamps were far apart in the block, but as the wagon passed by, he stared at the driver, a rumpled-looking man of middle-age dressed in well-worn and baggy gray coat and trousers. He appeared to be some kind of street peddler, although what, if anything, the wagon contained was not clear, and he was certainly nondescript, although a bit out of place in this neighborhood at this time of night. Still, he would have rated only a passing glance, except for the fact that he had come by twenty minutes or so earlier from the same direction.

  The man in the wagon had circled the block.

  The first time through, Moosic hadn’t paid him any more attention than any of the others, although Maitland was short and off the main track and hadn’t had a huge amount of traffic, but he still remembered him.

  Beyond a few local residents, a strolling bobby, and the lamplighter, there hadn’t been much foot traffic, either, but just as the man with the wagon reached the end and turned right out of sight, another figure came from that direction and began walking up the street.

  She was a plain-looking and weary woman with short-cropped hair and a long, light blue dress that had obviously been patched almost to death—obviously a woman of the lower class. A factory seamstress, or perhaps a hired cleaning woman for one of the houses—that would be about the highest she could have been. Her age was indeterminate, anywhere from eighteen to the mid-thirties. It was that kind of face and walk.

  Concealed in the shadows and by the bushes of Number 38 Maitland, he remained unseen to her, but his eyes followed her intently. As she walked past Number 41, she paused for a moment and looked at the house, then around the street. His heart quickened, and, almost without thinking, he guided his hand to the revolver in his bag.

  After a moment, she continued to walk up the street to the other end, young eyes with far too much knowledge in them tracing her way. He knew what he expected next, and waited for it.

  It took the man with the cart only ten minutes to turn back in and start up the street, but as he passed the first gas lamp, it was clear that he and the woman had been satisfied. She now rode next to him on the seat, looking warily around. Either they were taking few chances or, even after all this time in assimilation, old habits were hard to break.

  They seemed confident at last, though, and the man reined in his horse in front of Marx’s house, got down, then helped the woman down, although she clearly didn’t need such help. They looked more like father and daughter than anything else, and might well have been, Moosic realized. Still, he was pretty sure that they were also, originally, something quite different.

  He resisted the urge to confront them immediately. There was no way to tell if either or both were armed, but they were both bigger than he. Short of shooting them down cold, on Marx’s front lawn, there was no way to do it safely here.

  Abruptly he realized that shooting them cold was exactly what the admiral and the others who’d sent him here expected him to do. Worse, they were right—here, on this deserted and dark street, well-placed shots would do the deed and allow him a good opportunity for a getaway. There was no knowledge of fingerprints in 1875 that would stand up in court, so he could just shoot, drop the revolver, and make his getaway. Find the time suit, and off he would go to his own time.

  They were on the porch now, ready to knock. He made his way across the street on silent feet, crept around the rear of their wagon, and, using the shadows, approached very close to the house. The man gripped the woman’s hand in a rather familiar gesture, but they hadn’t yet knocked. He stepped out, still unseen, grasping the pistol with both hands…

  The man turned the bell on the front door. In a few moments the door opened, and Helene Demuth was there, framed by the interior light.

  “Ja? Vat is it dat you vant?”

  “Horace Whiting’s the name, mum, and this is me daughter Maggie. We’d like a word or two with Dr. Marx, if it be all right with him.”

  “It is not all right at all!” Demuth huffed. “He’s been home only a few hours and is very tired. Any business you haff vith him can vait until the morrow.” She said this in a tone that indicated there was no business she could conceive of that Marx might have with such as these.

  “Will you just do the courtesy of givin’ this note to ’m, if you please, mum. Then, if he won’t see us, we’ll go away and wait until tomorrow.”

  She looked at them hesitantly, and with disdain, but she took the note. “Very vell. You vill vait here!” And then she closed the door firmly in their faces.

  There’s still time, Moosic told himself, but he couldn’t make his finger close on the trigger. He knew who they were, and what they were, but he could not bring himself to sho
ot them down coldly in the back. He slipped back into the shadows.

  “D’ya think he’ll take the bait, luv?” the man asked worriedly.

  “We cum this far, ’e’s got to,” she replied. “We’re so far gone now we either git in ta see ’im or we ’av t’ risk another jomp. Another day ’ere and I won’t remember ’ow.”

  The man scratched his head. “I ain’t so sure I want ta. I’m in trouble now jes’ rememberin’ that other one. I kind of loike who I be.”

  With a shock, Moosic realized that time had played a cruel joke on the couple. Not only had it made the lovers father and daughter, it was Austin-Venneman who was the father and Sandoval the daughter!

  He only hoped that Marx would refuse to see them. If so, then he could confront them. Then—when there was no chance of hitting anyone else.

  The door opened, and Demuth was back. She still regarded the pair as she would a month-old dead fish. “He’ll see you,” she told them with her tone making no bones about how she regarded the decision. “Come into the living room. He vill be down in a minute.”

  They entered, and the door shut, leaving Ron Moosic outside and his quarry inside with the man who was the object of it all. He cursed to himself that he’d let the golden opportunity slip away, that he’d given them license to do damage, by his own failure to be as coldblooded as they.

  “But it wouldn’t be sportin’,” his Alfie part seemed to say. “If we did it that way, we’d be just like them, wouldn’t we?’’

  To beat them, you often had to be like them, he reflected sourly. But he wasn’t like them, and never had been. Not yet.

  The living room was on the first floor in front of the house, and the curtains were only partly drawn. Stealthily he crept up onto the porch and made his way to below one of the windows. Both were raised an inch or so to allow some air to circulate, and he could hear, and occasionally risk seeing, what was going on. That is, if the beat cop didn’t come around and catch him first.

  Karl Marx was a striking figure in person. Although thin, he had an athlete’s build and broad shoulders that gave the impression of great mass and strength. His carriage was strong and upright, the body of a much younger man than his fifty-seven years. It was clear that his trip had done him much good; he looked excellent for any age.

  He had a large brow framed by curly, white locks that reached to his powerful shoulders, a snow-white beard that flowed deep down, and brown eyes that sparkled with warmth and intelligence from underneath black, bushy eyebrows. The eyes, in fact, were a giveaway that did not generally reveal itself in photographs. They were warm, human, emotional eyes, highly expressive and penetrating at one and the same time. He was full of what the Greek called charisma—both visitors involuntarily stood up and waited in awed silence when he entered the room, not just from politeness but from the strength and magnetic power he radiated without doing or saying a thing.

  He had changed into informal black pants, a white shirt, and had obviously thrown on an old smoking jacket for the visitors.

  If Marx more than lived up to what the visitors expected to see, they certainly lived up to Helene Demuth’s description in his own mind. In his hand he held the envelope they had handed to the housekeeper, its top now torn open. “So,” he said in an orator’s baritone that more than fit his striking appearance, “vat in hell is the meaning of this?” He held up the envelope and shook it for emphasis.

  His speech was heavily accented, and somewhat hesitant. Although he spoke, read, and wrote a half-dozen languages with ease, it was clear that he was not blessed with the translator’s talent of thinking in the tongue he was using. Everything, although extremely quickly, was translated into German in his mind and then back again when he spoke.

  “If y’ please, sir,” said the woman, “that is, as y’ must know, the title and first few pages of yer rev’lut’nary book in the French and Russian tongues, along with some words from a letter y’ haven’t yet mailed to yer Russian friend.”

  “I am veil avare of the content, young lady,” Marx responded coldly. “I vish to know how it is possible for you to know a letter I am writing still, and vhy somevun vould to the trouble go of printing up pages of books not yet published. Und Russian, yet! Vhen it is possible to Russian publish, they vill still be too stupid to read it!”

  “They’re for real, sir,” she assured him, somewhat shocked by his rather anti-Russian scorn. “It was the only way to show you we ain’t what we seem, sir.”

  The massive brows came down. They were all still standing. “Und, just vat ’ain’t’ you, then?” he responded scornfully.

  She blushed, feeling ashamed of her dialect. In point of fact, it was taking an extreme amount of will to take the lead in this conversation at all. Her upbringing and background was as deferential and passive as Sandoval’s had been commanding and assertive. Clearly, whatever laws of time there were had moved hardest on Roberto Sandoval, to quench his fanatical personality and impulsive amorality. Time had contrived to make it difficult for someone to make tiny ripples even if they desired to make great waves. There was clearly a war of wills going on between what time had imposed and the strong-willed fanatic who’d stop at nothing—and, to Moosic’s surprise and grudging respect, Roberto Sandoval was winning. Clearly, whoever had planned this had chosen well indeed—but, then, why the empty-headed accomplice?

  The beat cop came down the street at this moment, causing the listener to have to move away and crouch flat in the darkness to avoid being seen. The cop stopped by the wagon and inspected it warily, then looked right at the Marx household. For a few precious minutes Moosic dared not move, fearful that the cop would come up to the house to see just who would be visiting in that kind of vehicle at this time of the evening. Indeed, the cop seemed to be mulling over whether or not to do just that. Moosic prayed that he would not, for there was no clear exit off the porch without coming into full view of the cop, and he was certain to be spotted now—him with a revolver in his pocket!

  The bobby finally decided on a middle approach, walking on down the street but walking with frequent glances back at the cart and horse. Clearly, he was not going to go far until he saw the owners.

  The cop finally was far enough down to allow him to cautiously return to his listening post. He had no idea what had gone on in the few minutes he’d missed, but clearly Sandoval had been convincing.

  “…You must understand,” Marx was saying, “that vat you say is true is the one total und horrible negation of my laws. If a device truly exists that can make changes in history, und such a device vould be qvite naturally in the hands of the capitalists, then the revolutionary process may be postponed indefinitely, even cancelled out after the fact! This is horrible, horrible! It is the same as if you came to a professor of physics und let go of an apple und it floats up to the ceiling!”

  “It is exactly the point,” the woman responded, still in that lower class accent but with the grammar now seeming to smooth out. “The weapons of our toime can kill all livin’ things on Earth. The capitalists, then, must fall from within. But this—this is eternal slavery or the end of ’umanity!”

  So that was it. More than enough to convince the committed, although it still didn’t explain Karen Cline.

  “Ja, ja. Or ve haff a time var, vith history obeying vatever laws one side makes up that the other cannot see.”

  “We can destroy the place, kill the scientists, but it’ll do no good,” Sandoval told him. “They know ’ow. They’ll just build another bigger and better. So we busted in and brung the suits t’you.”

  Moosic felt a shock run through him, and he almost cursed aloud. The two time suits were in the wagon! All he had to do was steal them or get at them long enough to destroy them and this would all be over! He looked back out at the street—and saw that damned copper standing over near where he’d hid out all day. “Alfie” calculated the odds, and decided there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting to that wagon and getting away with it unless he killed the
copper. Just after that, all hell would break loose anyway.

  So easy—it could have been so easy. If he’d shot the pair, that would have been the end of it, and only the guilty would have suffered. If he’d known, or guessed, that the suits were in the cart, he could have easily made off with it between the time they entered the house and the time the beat cop showed up, with nobody dead. Now, there was an innocent life at stake—and he couldn’t take that kind of chance. It was a long shot, sure, but killing the cop might change things worse than letting this run its course.

  No chance to do it easy now. He waited for the cop to saunter on down the block once more, and then, when the coast seemed clear, he stood up and drew the revolver. He was standing just outside the living room window, which was chest-high at its base and had no screen this time of year. He peered in, saw the two radicals seated on a couch against the wall to his right, while Marx sat in an overstuffed armchair facing them. Steeling himself, he measured his moves and then counted down in his mind.

  Suddenly he pushed up on the window and stuck the revolver inside. “All roite!” he commanded in Alfie’s less than elegant voice. “Everybody just stay still! This gun’s loaded and I know ’ow to use it!”

  The three in the room froze, and it was Marx who dared the first move. “Now vat is dis?” he roared. “Who vould stick a gun in my parlor?’’ He was clearly more angry than scared.

  Being as careful as possible, he got a leg over the sill and slipped into the room. “You moite call me the toime coppers, Doctor Marx. Just stand easy—I got no business with you, only wit’ them what’re tryin’ to choinge what is.”

  The woman whose form hid Roberto Sandoval looked crushed. “So they didn’t hold on even for a day.”

  “No,” he told them. “You killed a lot of people, but we killed ’em all that you left. Don’cha remember me, ducky? Moo-sic?”