The Time Travel Megapack: 26 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Stories

by Edward M. Lerner

  “Do you eat here often?” she said.

  Castleman said, “Not very.”

  “I didn’t think so. I come here every day. There are so many regulars, so many transients. As soon as I didn’t recognize you, I knew who you were.”

  “Makes sense,” Castleman said. He looked around the room for a wall clock, wishing that he’d had a watch at resumption time, knowing that he could get one easily enough now but that it would be gone at the end of the hour anyway.

  There was a clock at the back of Hamburger Heaven. It was nearing half past. Castleman wished that the resumptions came further apart, really an hour wasn’t long enough to do much. But then, he thought philosophically, it could be a lot worse. Hung up at a period of five minutes, he’d never get anything done. And if it were really short—say, a second or less—it would be a living hell.

  You could get a fair amount done in an hour. In fact, in some ways, it was an ideal situation to be in. Anything you do, you can mess up, anything, and get another chance in an hour. On the other hand it wasn’t so ideal to do something worthwhile knowing that it would be totally wiped out, but then the positive and negative aspects of reality often balanced that way.

  He looked at the plump woman sitting opposite him at the little wooden table. “Say, my name is Myron Castleman,” Castleman said. “I work for Glamdring and Glamdring up in the Stoebler Building on Forty-ninth.”

  The plump woman looked at him, surprised at the breach of Manhattan anonymity. Then she seemed to decide that he was all right, that she could give him information without his using it in some unspecified way to take advantage of her. “Dolores Park,” she said. “I’m a legal secretary. Sometimes I have lunch with friends, but I came out alone today.”

  A waiter arrived and they ordered. Castleman nodded in self-confirmation when Dolores asked for French fries with her Roquefort-baconburger. He also noted that she wore no ring on her left hand, not that that meant much nowadays.

  “Do you live in the city, ah, Miss Park?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. The flesh on her cheeks and neck, although excessive, was still firm. It did not wobble as she moved. “No, I come in on the Long Island. I live in Roslyn.” She paused as if surveying Castleman closely. “With my mother.”

  Castleman said, “Oh.”

  “And you?” Dolores Park asked.

  “Oh,” Castleman said again, “yes, I live up in the Seventies, East Seventy-third.” He looked at the clock again. This was getting him nowhere, and his stomach was beginning to gnaw at him. It was already twenty minutes to one.

  Dolores Park said, “What do you do for Glamdring and Glamdring, Mr. Castleberg?”

  “Man,” said Myron.

  “Man? I don’t understand.”

  “Castleman. Not Castleberg.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Dolores said. She seemed to wilt.

  “It’s all right,” Myron comforted her. “Don’t think of it, names aren’t important, you’ll forget all about it in a few minutes anyhow.”

  “I’m a personnel manager. In charge of corporate recruiting and career development.”

  “Oh,” said Dolores, “that sounds very exciting.”

  “A daily bacchanal,” Myron said, “look, here comes our food.”

  The waiter dropped Myron’s cheeseburger in the middle of the table, threw Dolores’ lunch at her, and dropped a single check into the jar of piccalilli relish that festered in the middle of the table.

  “Ooh,” squealed Dolores, “that waiter was terrible! I ought to report him to the manager. I’ve never had such rude service in this place.”

  “Never mind,” Myron told her. “Better eat your food quick or it’ll be too late.” He dumped a glob of ketchup onto his cheeseburger and took a large bite of it. He savored the mixture of flavors, the toasted bun, the spicy seasoning, the rare meat and hot, melted cheese. As he chewed he let his eyes rove the room.

  A cake tray on the counter held a delicious-looking devil’s food cake with dazzling white icing and mahogany-brown chocolate shavings scattered across the top. Maybe I should have ordered cake instead, Myron thought. Maybe I’ll have the cake instead of the cheeseburger next time I come in here. Maybe on the next resumption, maybe not, but soon.

  He swallowed his cheeseburger and smiled at Miss Park. She was chomping on a length of raw carrot. “Enjoying your food?” Myron asked.

  She nodded yes.

  “Good,” Myron said. He began to hear the familiar crackling, splitting sound that preceded each resumption. “I’m glad you like it. Dolores, since you’ll get to have it again. Good-by,” he said.

  Dolores looked at him, surprised and puzzled by his remark.

  There was a single, loud sound resembling the sound made by the implosion of air into a shattered vacuum tube or the report of a small-caliber firearm. Castleman experienced a confusing instant during when he was never able to tell whether there was a flash of light or of darkness, a rush of sound or an instant of total silence, a full-capacity loading of all the senses of a total deprivation of sensation.

  Then there was the echo of that single, loud sound. The clock on the Grand Central Tower said 12:01, as it always did at resumption time, and Castleman knew that the dateline on the newspapers being hawked at the corner of Lexington and 46th would be the same as it always would.

  He checked his personal appearance briefly, using a plate-glass window in a House of Cards shop as an impromptu looking-glass; as he expected, it was the same as always. He licked the heel of his left hand to get a little moisture onto the skin, then used it to try and make that stubborn lock of hair lie down.

  The day being as pleasant as it was, he decided that it would be pleasant to spend his hour strolling down to the library and relaxing on the steps in the warm sunshine.

  He walked toward Fifth, planning to stroll down to 42nd Street that way. A little past Madison Avenue he stopped and looked in through the front window of a Hamburger Heaven. Inside, a short line of patrons waited for seating. He could see a familiar figure standing at the end of the line, a woman slightly overdressed and overweight, but still fairly smart looking. Hi there, Dolores, he thought to himself.

  For a moment the notion of entering the restaurant and making conversation with her flitted through his mind, but he rejected it with hardly a moment’s consideration and walked on toward Fifth. As far as Dolores Park was concerned, she’d never laid eyes on him in her life. She would be puzzled at the stranger’s talking to her, calling her by name. It would only spoil her hour, and even though it would be wiped out at the next resumption, Castleman didn’t have the heart to do that to an innocent stranger.

  He reached Fifth Avenue and walked downtown toward the library. He went past the Israel Bank, stopped and examined the window display at Record Hunter, then waited for the lights to change and made his street crossings, to the downtown side of 42nd and then to the west side of Fifth.

  He glanced at the newspapers on sale at the corner. There was the Times with its staid front page, the News with its screaming headline and a photo of a train wreck near New Brunswick, and the first edition of the Post with a blue banner proclaiming another chapter in the inside biography of Yosef Tekoah. The news stories of all three dealt with the prediction of Nathan Rosenbluth that a disfiguration of time would shortly take place, with the entire world snapping backwards for the period of an hour, to resume normal progress as if nothing had ever happened.

  Castleman laughed bitterly at the front pages and their different approaches to the story, then ambled down the broad sidewalk, stopped in front of the giant neo-Grecian library and began to ascend the long flight of steps toward its portico.

  Near the top of the stairs a small group of young people were seated, talking. An intense young man was holding forth, his eyes glaring through tiny, wire-rimmed glasses as he waved his arms with each sentence.

  Castleman stopped a couple of steps below the group and listened.

  “Rosenbluth is
absolutely right,” the young man was saying. “The world has come to a state of affairs where things cannot go on any longer. We have to repair the social order to get things going again, or we’ll soon be stopped at one place; we’ll have to go back. The administration in Washington.…”

  He got no further, cut off by another young man, a round-faced individual sitting patiently with a spiral notepad and pencil in his lap. “You don’t understand, Oswald,” he interrupted the intense man with the beard. “Rosenbluth isn’t talking about the social order at all. He’s a physicist, and he’s talking about purely physical phenomena.”

  “Besides,” put in a slim, short-haired girl with faded jeans and a moderate case of acne, “LIU, I mean, a physicist from LIU. If he was from Columbia or even City College.…”

  “With imperialists forces threatening all people’s progressive movements on every continent,” the first speaker resumed, “how can you waste your energy quarreling about physics? Radical and revolutionary elements in every stratum of society.…”

  The round-faced man said, “If you’ll just stop emoting and listen for a minute, I have the figures right here.” There was a brief silence as he brandished his notebook. Castleman saw that the page was indeed covered with finely penciled mathematical calculations.”

  “From LIU,” the girl in jeans said.

  “Look,” the round-faced man said, “Rosenbluth claims that the total energy content of the universe we live in is mirrored by a counteruniverse made of antimatter, coexisting with our universe in terms of three-dimensional space but separated from us by a fourth dimension or vibrational plane.”

  “Betrayal of laboring masses by yellow-dog sellout trade union bosses,” put in the intense man.

  “Yes, Oswald,” the round-faced man continued. “Rosenbluth claims that by random but not acausal processes the two universes, moving in opposite temporal directions, attempt to emerge from their states and merge. If this should come about, they would cancel each other because of their opposite energy polarities, but the phenomenon of opposing time-vectors prevents this, and they will instead rebound from each other, each universe snapping backwards into its own past—that is, the other universe’s future—and.…”

  “How far?”

  “Hah?”

  The girl in jeans said, “How far will it bounce?”

  “Oh,” said the round-faced man, “Rosenbluth claims an hour.”

  “Just like daylight-savings,” said the girl. “We bounce back an hour then. Or do we go forward an hour?”

  “Spring ahead in spring, fall back in fall,” Castleman put in, inserting himself into the conversation.

  “Yeah, thanks, mister,” the girl said.

  Castleman hunkered down on the step between the girl and the intense man with the beard, facing round-face. “You don’t think Rosenbluth is right?” Castleman asked the mathematician.

  “No, I don’t. If Rosenbluth were right, what would happen after the bounce. We’d resume normal temporal processes and so with the counteruniverse. But since our bounce into our own past would put us in their future and their bounce would put them in our future, what would happen next?”

  “What do you think?” Castleman asked.

  The round-faced man studied the math on his lined papers before replying. Castleman used the time to lean over toward the girl with acne and examine the old watch pinned like a brooch to her blouse. It was very nearly one o’clock.

  “Better think fast,” Castleman told the round-faced man. He was already hearing the familiar crackling sound. It was hard to tell just what the sound reminded him of—a hard-boiled egg being peeled? Chinese sizzling-rice soup?

  The round-faced man said, “If that happened, why, after the hour was up again the two universes.…”

  There was a single, loud sound resembling that made by the implosion of air into a shattered vacuum tube or the report of a small-caliber firearm.

  Castleman looked up at the clock on the Grand Central Tower. It was 12:01.

  Castleman sighed once, took a deep breath and started to walk briskly toward the West Side. Just before crossing Vanderbilt Avenue he stepped down from the curb, dodged a yellow taxi halfway across the street, and passed between two Cadillac limousines waiting at the curb.

  He headed up Madison Avenue to 49th Street and entered the Stoebler Building, took the elevator up to Glamdring and Glamdring and pushed open the heavy glass doors that marked the entrance to the company’s headquarter’s suite.

  “Back so soon, Mr. Castleman?” asked the receptionist as he strode past her desk.

  “Decided to skip lunch today,” Castleman told her.

  “But it’s so lovely out today, hardly any smog, and it’s warm for early spring. I think I’d just take a walk even if I didn’t have an appetite.”

  “Another time,” Castleman said.

  He walked down the corridor to his own department, went into his private office and sat down behind his desk. He looked at the digital clock beside his note box. It was 12:09 PM.

  He picked up the telephone, punched local and got his own secretary on the line. “Stephanie,” Castleman said, “do me a favor. Would you get information, find out the number of Long Island University, and call a Professor Nathan Rosenbluth. I’m not sure what department he’s in, probably physics or math.”

  Stephanie’s voice came back briefly.

  “Yes,” Castleman said, sighing, “Rosenbluth the time-bounce man. Oh, he was on TV this morning? Fine. Yes, see if you can reach him. Yes, ring me back.”

  He hung up the telephone and reached for a copy of this morning’s Times lying on a low table hear the couch in his office. He reread the small story near the bottom of the front page, about the professor—ah, it was physics—who had predicted the odd time-bounce phenomenon. As far as Castleman could figure out—but his telephone rang.

  “I have Professor Rosenbluth’s secretary,” Stephanie said. “But she claims he’s swamped with calls and not taking any.”

  “Ahah,” said Castleman, glancing at the digital clock on his desk. It was 12:17. “Look, Stephanie, I can understand how the guy feels but this is really urgent. Pull rank—tell his secretary that it’s a big shot in Glamdring and Glamdring, pull out the stops. Yes, the works. Thanks.” He hung up.

  He threw down the Times and picked up the Wall Street Journal. There was a one-paragraph summary of the Rosenbluth story in the Journal’s world news roundup column. It gave the same information that all the other versions gave. Castleman dropped the Journal in his wastebasket and looked at the clock again. It was 12:27. In thirty-three minutes he knew that he’d be outside near the Grand Central Tower again and that the Journal would be back on the coffee table along with the Times in his office. He pushed his chair back from the heavy desk provided by Glamdring and Glamdring, pushed himself out of his seat and strode around his office impatiently, glancing out the window toward the East River and the factory smokestacks of Long Island City beyond.

  His phone rang and Stephanie’s voice said, “Professor Rosenbluth on the line, Mrs. Castleman.”

  Castleman gripped the receiver tightly to his ear, looked at the digital clock again—it was 12:31—and heard his own voice say quiveringly, “Professor?” Listen Professor Rosenbluth, about your theory of time snapping backwards.…”

  “Yes, yes,” the voice came back from the receiver, “I know about that, it is my theory, everyone knows that, you do not have to tell me about it. What does Glamdring and Glamdring want of me? I am available on a consulting basis. They can hire me day by day. My rates are very reasonable.”

  “Professor, listen please. I happen to know that your theory is absolutely correct, but the bounce has already taken place.”

  “Nonsense, nonsense. Are you a mathematician? Are you a scientist? How can you claim to understand my theory? Have you ready my papers? What is your name, young man?”

  Castleman swallowed.

  “Hah?” asked Professor Rosenbluth.

&n
bsp; “My name is Myron Castleman.”

  “Of Glamdring and Glamdring? Yes? Yes? That’s a very good firm. I am not prepared to resign my professorship as yet, but I am available on a consulting basis. What precisely do you require, Mr. Castleberry?”

  “Professor, what I want to know is, once the bounce happens, when we get back up to the moment we, ah, bounced from, what happens then? Won’t we just bounce again” Won’t we get stuck at one point and just keep repeating that hour?”

  “No no no, Castleberry. No, no. The energy of the temporal redisplacement will be dissipated, and we will pass through the point of intersection with the counteruniverse and no one will ever even notice it. That is the beauty of my theory. That is its greatness, its elegance. Do you understand scientific elegance? Economy of detail? Parsimony? How can you comprehend me?”

  Castleman looked at his clock. It said 12:51. “Professor,” he said desperately, “once the bounce takes place, everything is restored to its previous condition. The world is set back exactly where it was. Only nobody notices because their minds are set back too. Don’t you see?”

  “What are you trying to do, Castleberry, horn in on my theory? I don’t think I can talk to you any more. You are trying to steal ideas. If you want my services, you have to hire me. I cannot afford to give away my thoughts. How can I support myself? How can I support my family, Castleberry?”

  “Everybody bounces back and forgets everything that happened during the bounce, but I don’t. I don’t! Do you understand me, professor? The whole world is stuck here, recycling this single hour!”

  He looked at his clock. 12:52.

  “Professor Rosenbluth,” he said. “in precisely eight minutes the world is going to flash one hour into the past. From one o’clock it’s goig to go back to one minute after noon. Everything will be restored to its condition at 12:01. You’ll be back doing what you were doing. I’ll be back outside my office, standing near Grand Central.