“We may as well trot our horses for a while.”
And as the animals moved more swiftly, Harrison said:
“I poked my pistol at that character until it almost touched him. I wanted to be sure he wasn’t killed. He might be somebody’s great-great-grandfather.”
Then he was suddenly sick. A man of modern times is not accustomed to death and destruction on a small scale. He thinks with composure of atomic war, and he is not disturbed by the statistic of so many tens of thousands of persons killed each year by automobiles. But it is unnerving to think of having used a pistol on a brigand to keep from being murdered by him. That is not part of the pattern of existence in the latter part of the twentieth century.
They rode on, and on. Presently they let their horses drop back to a steady, purposeful walk. Harrison said painfully:
“We’d better reload our pistols.”
He managed his own, clumsily, more by theory than any actual knowledge of the art. From somewhere in the depths of his mind he recalled that the charge for a muzzle-loader was enough powder to cover the ball held ready in the palm of one’s hand. They had powder and ball and coarse paper patches, carried as part of the authentic costume of the time. They reloaded as they rode. They overtook an ox-car heading as they were headed.
“How far to Paris?” asked Harrison when it had been left behind.
“Dubois makes it in a day and a night,” said Carroll.
Harrison went on gloomily. What savor of adventure this journey might have possessed was gone now. Men had matter-of-factly intended to kill him for what possessions he carried with him. It was not a glamorous affair. From now on, Harrison would regard this enterprise as something to be accomplished for the benefit of two people who would presently be Mr. and Mrs. Harrison. It was no longer splendid and romantic. It was something that had to be done. Grimly.
It was very late when Paris appeared before them. Its buildings made a jagged edge to the horizon on ahead. Harrison said:
“I’ve thought of a possible way to find de Bassompierre.”
Carroll turned his head. Harrison explained. M. Dubois might have thought of it, if he’d needed to discover somebody from the world of Madame Carroll who’d been translated back to the time of the Empress Josephine. It was quite commonplace.
“Try it, by all means,” said Carroll. “I’ve got another approach. You try your way and I’ll try mine.”
Albert, riding subduedly in the rear, said:
“Pardon, messieurs. If I am informed of the purpose of your journey, it might be well… Perhaps I can find information which will serve you.”
Carroll said:
“We want to find a man called de Bassompierre. We want to talk to him. If you should hear of such a person, it will be well worth your while.”
“We will see, m’sieur,” said Albert. “Have you a choice of an inn in the city yonder, and do you know where it is to be found?”
Carroll named the inn used by Dubois on his journeys to this extraordinary metropolis which gradually spread out to either side as they approached it.
Albert settled back in his saddle. Again Harrison wondered how Albert accounted to himself for the totally unimaginable world the time-tunnel had opened to him. But again he dismissed the question. The three horsemen rode forward into the Paris of 1804. Night fell before they quite reached it and they rode into a blackness more dense and more abysmal than anywhere outside the city. There was smoke, to dim the stars. There were tall buildings, to channel movement within narrow, malodorous, winding canyons. Only occasionally did a candle burn in a lantern—more often glazed with horn than with glass—and there were only rare and widely separated moving lights carried by lackeys or burning faintly in lurching coaches to break the look of gloom and desolation.
It was coincidence, of course, but in a peculiarly simultaneous fashion, at just that moment in the latter part of the twentieth century, a supersonic passenger plane crossing the Arctic had its radio equipment go dead. Therefore it did not give the usual continuous advance notice of its identity, course, and speed. This would have caused no more than a precautionary alert, but—this was where the danger lay—a second plane’s radio went out at the same instant. Radar immediately reported the suspicious fact of two supersonic objects without identification moving across the North Pole. The immediate consequence was a yellow alert. Then there came a third unfortunate report, of a possible contact with a surfacing submarine off the Atlantic coast of the United States.
Automatically, the situation developed in gravity. Strategic air-force planes, aloft with the weapons they were meant to carry, swerved from their rendezvous patterns and moved toward their assigned positions of maximum availability for counter-bombardment. If the unidentified objects over the Pole and the possible rocket-firing submarine were not completely explained within five minutes, there would be a condition red alert over all the Western Hemisphere. Counter-measures would begin. Warning was already transmitted to Europe. All the world was ready for that Armageddon which all the world wearily expected almost any day.
But in the inn in Paris, Harrison followed a candle-bearing inn servant to the rooms assigned to him and to Carroll. Albert followed with the saddlebags. It was Albert who suspiciously examined the beds. It was he who pointed out by the feeble candle-light that the beds were already inhabited. The candle-bearer was astonished that anybody would expect the beds of an inn to be free of insects.
Wearily, Harrison prepared to go to sleep on the floor.
The tense situation in the latter half of the twentieth century could provide, of course, conclusive evidence about whether the universe made sense or not. Obviously, if the cosmos was designed for human beings to live in, it would have built-in safeguards so that human beings could continue to live in it. They would not be destroyed by an atomic war set off by accident—not if the universe was designed with meaning.
But on the other hand, if it didn’t make sense; if all was chance and random happen-chance—
7
Next morning Harrison waked and breakfasted—badly, because there was no coffee—and presently set out upon a business errand. Paris of 1804 was a city of half a million people. It had no railroads. It had no police in any modern sense of the word. Save for certain particular avenues, its streets were unpaved. It had no street-lights; not electric, not gas, not oil, not even publicly provided candles. It was supplied with food by creaking, oilless farm-wagons, except for such foodstuff as came down the Seine by barge and was distributed in unbelievably clumsy carts. It had no potable water-supply. There were wells and cisterns and buckets, to be sure, but nobody who could help it ever drank water. The reason was that there was then no known objection to the use of wells for drowning puppies and the like, and most well-water was unwholesome in the extreme.
There were not even horse-drawn omnibusses in Paris. The city had no sewers. Its streets had no street-signs, because only a small part of the population could read or write, and signs would have been useless. In all its sprawling noisomeness there was not one water-tap, nor any way more convenient than flint and steel to make a fire. There was not one postage-stamp in all of France, and cotton cloth was practically unknown. All fabric was linen or wool or, rarely, silk. In all the world nobody had conceived of power which was not water-power or animal-power, save in Holland where some folk got motion from the winds by wind mills. In all of France, though, every horse power of usable energy save water mills was provided by a horse, and only three people then alive had ever conceived of a steamship, and all of them were across the ocean in America.
It did not seem that such a city could exist in a cosmos in which human beings were intended to survive. Humans had invented cities, apparently, with something of the invincible wrong-headedness that in Harrison’s own era had made them construct atomic bombs. It appeared that through-out all the ages mankind had tried zestfully to arrange for its own extinction. It was difficult to think of Paris as anything but a vast device for
the development and propagation of diseases. The death-rate was unbelievable. Ignorance of sanitation was unimaginable. And in a city whose most aristocratic quarters swarmed with flies, the idea of filth-borne disease did not exist and the washing of one’s face and body was done for cosmetic reasons only. Nobody—not even surgeons—dreamed of washing for any abstruse idea of cleanliness. The slums were like the dens of beasts, and their inhabitants took on much of the quality of their environment.
But even so, matters were better than in older times. There had been a time when it was said that Paris could be smelled down-wind for thirty leagues. Now it could hardly be detected for more than fifteen. But to Harrison the improvement was not noticeable.
He left the inn with Albert in his wake, carrying Dubois’ saddlebags over his shoulder. Harrison saw the citizens of Paris going about their business. Some were sturdy and well-fed and complacent. Some looked hawklike and tense, which was a reasonable response to the state of things at that time. There were beggars. There were children performing the office of scavengers. Judging by their starveling look, it was not profitable occupation.
The two of them—Harrison and Albert—went almost wordlessly from the middle-middle-class quarter in which the inn operated, to an upper-middle-class section where no inns were to be seen. Here the people were better dressed. There were fewer beggars. Begging is not a paying proposition where people are well-to-do. There were stepping-stones at some of the comers. Presently they came to a wider street than usual. It had a cobblestone surface, which was remarkable.
“This,” said Harrison over his shoulder—Albert followed respectfully behind him, as a servant should—“this is probably the street we are looking for.”
“But yes, m’sieur,” said Albert cheerfully. “Paris has changed much since I saw it last week, but I think this is the Boulevard des Italiens. The perfumer you look for should have his shop in that direction.”
He waved his hand. Harrison accepted the direction. He turned, Albert following as before. A vast and stately coach, drawn by four horses, rolled and lumbered down the street. It was accompanied by outriders, servants in livery prepared to defend it against brigands in the rude environment outside the metropolis, or to force aside any traffic that got in the coach’s way. There were other horsemen on the street. Hoofs clattered on the cobblestones. There was a sedan chair, occupied by a bearded man with lace at his collar. There was Harrison said suddenly:
“Albert, you just said that Paris has changed.”
“Yes, m’sieur, it is very different indeed.”
Harrison said with a sort of grim curiosity:
“How do you account for it? St. Jean-sur-Seine, on this side of M. Carroll’s tunnel, is very different too. You must have some explanation for yourself!”
Albert was behind him, but somehow he knew that Albert shrugged.
“M’sieur, you know that I was a burglar by profession. I did not say that I had retired, save for strictly amateur moments. But I am professionally retired, m’sieur, and since I do not need to struggle for a competence any longer, I have adopted a hobby. The strangeness you speak of fits in admirably with it. If you think of explaining matters to me, I beg you not to do so.”
Harrison blinked. He went on. Albert followed. A knot of perhaps a dozen cavalrymen came down the street, their horses’ hoofs clattering loudly. The uniforms of the cavalrymen were ornate, but untidy and soiled. Evidently elaborate equipment was worn as service dress.
“When I retired, m’sieur,” said Albert comfortably, “I resolved that I would change all I did not like about my life as a burglar. For success, you will comprehend, I had constantly to plan, to anticipate, to foresee. Nothing is more fatal to a burglar than to be surprised! One must anticipate everything!”
“I can see that,” said Harrison. A bugle blew somewhere. No one paid any attention.
“So for my hobby in retirement,” said Albert, “instead of avoiding surprises, I sought them! I became an amateur—a connoisseur of surprises! I began to live a life of adventure, such as the demands of my profession had forbidden. Each morning I would say to myself, ‘Albert, at any instant absolutely anything is more than likely to happen!’ And the thought was pleasing, but it was unfortunately not quite true. It is terribly difficult to arrange surprises for oneself! But when M. Carroll had once taken me through his tunnel—ah, I was terrified! But I forced myself to go through again. Whatever happened was bound to be a surprise! And so it was! I was surprised at the strange St. Jean-sur-Seine that I encountered. I was surprised at the costumes, at the inhabitants, when I could not return, when you called to me, when M. Carroll bought the gold-pieces I had acquired! Everything was astonishing! So long as I have no explanation for this milieu, m’sieur, I shall find surprises. I may say that it was surprising to find what is practically paradise for a competent burglar! I revel in all this, M’sieur Harrison! I would regret infinitely if I became able to anticipate events here, as one cannot help doing in St. Jean-sur-Seine the other side of M. Carroll’s tunnel!”
Fifty yards ahead, a footman in livery held the heads of two horses. The livery was distinctive. Harrison had noted other uniformed servants, but all were distinctively French. This was different. Harrison was somehow reminded of the paintings of Goya. He guessed at a Spanish origin for the costume of this lackey.
“M’sieur,” said Albert behind him, “there is the perfumer’s.”
The held horses were in front of the perfumer’s shop. Harrison nodded and walked ahead. He turned into the shop.
It was not an ordinary place of business. It looked like a drawing-room for the reception of persons of rank. There were carpets. There were paintings. There was statuary and there were silken hangings. But it was a shop, because a man in the costume of a well-to-do bourgeois listened patiently while a dark-haired man in riding clothes rated him icily for having failed to fill some order. The dark-haired man haughtily refrained from anger, but in Spanish-accented French he gave the perfumer the devil.
“But, M’sieur Ybarra,” said the perfumer politely, “Madame the Empress herself sent a lady-in-waiting to secure all of that special perfume that I possessed! She wishes to have it exclusively for herself! I could not refuse to obey her command! But when more arrives—”
“It is not often,” said the dark man coldly, “that I dispute with a merchant. But this I say, the Señora Ybarra ordered you to furnish her this special perfume! And you will do it or my lackeys will make you regret your failure!”
Harrison had started slightly at the name Ybarra when the perfumer spoke it. Its second use made him stare. But there was a certain family resemblance between this man and Pepe.
“Pardon,” he said politely, “but perhaps my errand will solve the difficulty.”
The dark man stared haughtily at him. Harrison told himself that this arrogant young man was Pope’s great-great-grandfather-to-be. It was an odd sensation. He said pleasantly:
“I travel in France for pleasure—” It was not true, but he could hardly tell his real purpose—“and some few days back I stopped at an inn…”
He told the story he’d made ready before. He said that he’d found a poor devil of a merchant in the inn, sneezing his head off and in sad estate after an encounter with brigands. He’d had to hide in a stream from them, and he’d gotten back to the inn with his precious stock-in-trade, but he was still fearful that the robbers would come to the inn itself to plunder him. So he had begged Harrison, as a gentleman whom brigands might hesitate to rob, to carry his treasure to Paris where it would be safe.
“His treasure, he said,” added Harrison amiably, “was perfume. It may be—”
The perfumer stared at the saddlebags. Albert handed them over and stood respectfully against the wall.
“M’sieur, was the merchant’s name Dubois?”
“Probably,” said Harrison. “I think so. He was short and plump and miserable.”
“Ah, M’sieur Ybarra!” said the perfumer, “This
is providential! Let me make sure.” He opened the saddlebags and sniffed rapidly at one bottle after another. “But yes! The perfume that Madame the Empress has chosen to have exclusively for herself! M’sieur,”—this to Harrison—“my obligation to you has no limit! Now I can serve M’sieur Ybarra to the limit of his desires! I beg you to name any way in which I can discharge my gratitude for your condescension to this Dubois!”
Harrison said mildly:
“I will be happy if you supply M. Ybarra with whatever be wishes. But, to be truthful, I am most anxious to make the acquaintance of a M. de Bassompierre. If among your patrons—”
The dark-haired man—Pepe’s great-great-grandfather—said with dignity:
“I have his acquaintance. He has been in Paris. He is not here now. I expect to see him within a week.”
Harrison’s pulse had leaped at the beginning of the statement. Then he was bitterly disappointed. The perfumer regarded him shrewdly before he tactfully offered Ybarra whatever he chose of the saddlebags’ contents. It occurred to Harrison, despite his disappointment, that his willingness to sell the Empress’ special perfume to someone else came from the fact that Josephine would buy anything from anybody, but paying for it was another matter.
Ybarra, with vast dignity, ordered the entire shipment of the Empress’ perfume delivered to his wife. Madame—Señora—Ybarra would be pleased. He added negligently that his major-domo would have orders to pay the price in gold on its delivery. Which was grandeur. Gold was at a premium in Paris because of the English war.
Before he left, he assured Harrison profoundly that he would inform M. de Bassompierre that M. Harrison of les Êtats-Unis wished urgently to speak to him.
He left, but before Harrison could leave the perfumer made a gesture asking him to stay.
Time Tunnel Page 10