Needle in a Timestack

by Robert Silverberg

  Ted stares in horror at the crumpled body at his feet. His hands still tingle from the impact. The left side of Martin’s head looks as though a pile-driver has crushed it. “Good God in heaven,” Ted says thickly, “what have I done? I came here to protect him and I’ve killed him! I’ve killed my own grandfather!” Alice, wide-eyed, futilely trying to cover her nakedness by folding one arm across her breasts and spreading her other hand over her loins, says, “If he’s dead, why are you still here? Shouldn’t you have disappeared?” Ted shrugs. “Maybe I’m safe as long as I remain here in the past. But the moment I try to go back to 2006, I’ll vanish as though I’ve never been. I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this. What do you think?”

  Alice steps uncertainly from the machine into the Temponautics showroom. There’s Friesling. There are the technicians. Friesling says, smiling, “I hope you had a very enjoyable journey, Mrs.—ah—uh’ He falters. “I’m sorry,” he says, reddening, “but your name seems to have escaped me.” Alice says, “It’s, ah, Alice—uh—do you know, the second name escapes me too?”

  The whole clan has gathered to celebrate Martin’s eighty-third birthday. He cuts the cake, and then one by one they go to him to kiss him. When it’s Alice’s turn, he deftly spins her around so that he screens her from the others and gives her rump a good hearty pinch. “Oh, if I were only fifty years younger!” he sighs.

  It’s a warm springlike day. Everything has been lovely at the office—three new accounts all at once—and the trip home on the freeway was a breeze. Alice is waiting for him, dressed in her finest and most sexy outfit, all ready to go out. It’s a special day. Their eleventh anniversary. How beautiful she looks! He kisses her, she kisses him, he takes the tickets from his pocket with a grand flourish. “Surprise,” he says. “Two weeks in Hawaii, starting next Tuesday! Happy anniversary!” “Oh, Ted!” she cries. “How marvelous! I love you, Ted darling!” He pulls her close to him again. “I love you, Alice dear.”

  (Now+n, Now–n)

  I am a dour and unsmiling sort of man who actually has a lively if dry sense of humor: no one survives decade after decade of professional writing, as I have, without a sense of humor. A lot of the things I find amusing, though, evidently don’t seem funny to other people, as I found out when I compiled an anthology of humorous science fiction and a number of startled reviewers commented on the dark tone of many of the stories.

  So be it. Perhaps what I mistake for humor is actually irony, wit, or some other species of controlled and understated playfulness. I serve notice here that I think “(Now + n, Now – n)” is a comic story. Perhaps its comedy is one of tone rather than of situation; perhaps it’s really no funnier than Macbeth, and my perceptions of what humor is are all cockeyed. At least grant me that it’s a cleverly done time-paradox story, even if you don’t get any laughs out of it. I may not know what funny is, but I defy anyone to tell me that I don’t know my way around the twists and turns of time-travel.

  I wrote this one in June of 1969, but it foreshadows the tone and sardonic approach I would be taking in the many stories I did in 1971, 1972, and 1973. It was written at the request of my old friend Harry Harrison for his anthology Nova, and appeared in the second volume of that series.

  All had been so simple, so elegant, so profitable for ourselves. And then we met the lovely Selene and nearly were undone. She came into our lives during our regular transmission hour on Wednesday, October 7, 1987, between six and seven p.m. Central European Time. The moneymaking hour. I was in satisfactory contact with myself and also with myself. (Now – n) was due on the line first, and then I would hear from (now + n).

  I was primed for some kind of trouble. I knew trouble was coming, because on Monday, while I was receiving messages from the me of Wednesday, there came an inexplicable and unexplained break in communications. As a result I did not get data from (now + n) concerning the prices of the stocks in our carryover portfolio from last week, and I was unable to take action. Two days have passed, and I am the me of Wednesday who failed to send the news to me of Monday, and I have no idea what will happen to interrupt contact. Least of all did I anticipate Selene.

  In such dealings as ours no distractions are needed, sexual or otherwise. We must concentrate wholly. At any time there is steady low-level contact among ourselves; we feel one another’s reassuring presence. But transmission of data from self to self requires close attention.

  I tell you my method. Then maybe you understand my trouble.

  My business is investments. I do all my work at this same hour. At this hour it is midday in New York; the Big Board is still open. I can put through quick calls to my brokers when my time comes to buy or sell.

  My office at the moment is the cocktail lounge known as the Celestial Room in the Henry VIII Hotel, south of the Thames. My office may be anywhere. All I need is a telephone. The Celestial Room is aptly named. The room orbits endlessly on a silent oiled track. Twittering sculptures in the so-called galactic mode drift through the air, scattering cascades of polychromed light upon those who sip drinks. Beyond the great picture windows of this supreme room lies the foggy darkness of the London evening, which I ignore. It is all the same to me, wherever I am: London, Nairobi, Karachi, Istanbul, Pittsburgh. I look only for an adequately comfortable environment, air that is safe to admit to one’s lungs, service in the style I demand, and a telephone line. The individual characteristics of an individual place do not move me. I am like the ten planets of our solar family: a perpetual traveler, but not a sightseer.

  Myself who is (now – n) is ready to receive transmission from myself who is (now). “Go ahead, (now + n).” he tells me. ((To him I am (now + n). To myself I am (now). Everything is relative; n is exactly forty-eight hours these days.))

  “Here we go, (now – n).” I say to him.

  I summon my strength by sipping at my drink. Chateau d’Yquem ’79 in a sleek Czech goblet. Sickly sweet stuff; the waiter was aghast when I ordered it before dinner. Horreurs! Quel aperitif! But the wine makes transmission easier. It greases the conduit, somehow. I am ready.

  My table is a single elegant block of glittering irradiated crystal, iridescent, cunningly emitting shifting moire patterns. On the table, unfolded, lies today’s European edition of the Herald Tribune. I lean forward. I take from my breast pocket a sheet of paper, the printout listing the securities I bought on Monday afternoon. Now I allow my eyes to roam the close-packed type of the market quotations in my newspaper. I linger for a long moment on the heading, so there will be no mistake: Closing New York Prices, Tuesday, October 6. To me they are yesterday’s prices. To (now – n) they are tomorrow’s prices. (Now – n) acknowledges that he is receiving a sharp image.

  I am about to transmit these prices to the me of Monday. You follow the machination, now?

  I scan and I select.

  I search only for the stocks that move five percent or more in a single day. Whether they move up or move down is immaterial; motion is the only criterion, and we go short or long as the case demands. We need fast action because our maximum survey span is only ninety-six hours at present, counting the relay from (now + n) back to (now – n) by way of (now). We cannot afford to wait for leisurely capital gains to mature; we must cut our risks by going for the quick, violent swings, seizing our profits as they emerge. The swings have to be violent. Otherwise brokerage costs will eat up our gross.

  I have no difficulty choosing the stocks whose prices I will transmit to Monday’s me. They are the stocks on the broker’s printout, the ones we have already bought; obviously (now – n) would not have bought them unless Wednesday’s me had told him about them, and now that I am Wednesday’s me, I must follow through. So I send:

  Arizona Agrochemical, 79?, + 6?

  Canadian Transmutation, 116, + 4?

  Commonwealth Dispersals, 12, – 1?

  Eastern Electric Energy, 41, + 2

  Great Lakes Bionic
s, 66, + 3 ?

  And so on through Western Offshore Corp., 99, – 8. Now I have transmitted to (now – n) a list of Tuesday’s top twenty high-percentage swingers. From his vantage-point in Monday, (now – n) will begin to place orders, taking positions in all twenty stocks on Monday afternoon. I know that he has been successful, because the printout from my broker gives confirmations of all twenty purchases at what now are highly favorable prices.

  (Now – n) then signs off for a while and (now + n) comes on. He is transmitting from Friday, October 9. He gives me Thursday’s closing prices on the same twenty stocks, from Arizona Agrochemical to Western Offshore. He already knows which of the twenty I will have chosen to sell today, but he pays me the compliment of not telling me; he merely gives me the prices. He signs off, and, in my role as (now), I make my decisions. I sell Canadian Transmutation, Great Lakes Bionics, and five others; I cover our short sale on Commonwealth Dispersals. The rest of the positions I leave undisturbed for the time being, since they will sell at better prices tomorrow, according to the word from (now + n). I can handle those when I am Friday’s me.

  Today’s sequence is over.

  In any given sequence—and we have been running about three a week—we commit no more than five or six million dollars. We wish to stay inconspicuous. Our pre-tax profit runs at about nine percent a week. Despite our network of tax havens in Ghana, Fiji, Grand Cayman, Liechtenstein, and Bolivia, through which our profits are funneled, we can bring down to net only about five percent a week on our entire capital. This keeps all three of us in a decent style and compounds prettily. Starting with $5,000 six years ago at the age of twenty-five, I have become one of the world’s wealthiest men, with no other advantages than intelligence, persistence, and extrasensory access to tomorrow’s stock prices.

  It is time to deal with the next sequence. I must transmit to (now – n) the Tuesday prices of the stocks in the portfolio carried over from last week, so that he can make his decisions on what to sell. I know what he has sold, but it would spoil his sport to tip my hand. We treat ourselves fairly. After I have finished sending (now – n) those prices, (now + n) will come online again and will transmit to me an entirely new list of stocks in which I must take positions before Thursday morning’s New York opening. He will be able to realize profits in those on Friday. Thus we go from day to day, playing our shifting roles.

  But this was the day on which Selene intersected our lives.

  I had emptied my glass. I looked up to signal the waiter, and at that moment a slender, dark-haired girl, alone, entered the Celestial Room. She was tall, graceful, glorious. She was expensively clad in a clinging monomolecular wrap that shuttled through a complex program of wavelength shifts, including a microsecond sweep of total transparency that dazzled the eye while still maintaining a degree of modesty. Her features were a match for her garment: wide-set glossy eyes, delicate nose, firm lips lightly outlined in green. Her skin was extraordinarily pale. I could see no jewelry on her (why gild refined gold, why paint the lily?) but on her lovely left cheekbone I observed a small decorative band of ultraviolet paint, obviously chosen for visibility in the high-spectrum lighting of this unique room.

  She conquered me. There was a mingling of traits in her that I found instantly irresistible: she seemed both shy and steel-strong, passionate and vulnerable, confident and ill at ease. She scanned the room, evidently looking for someone, not finding him. Her eyes met mine and lingered.

  Somewhere in my cerebrum (now – n) said shrilly, as I had said on Monday, “I don’t read you, (now + n). I don’t read you!”

  I paid no heed. I rose. I smiled to the girl, and beckoned her toward the empty chair at my table. I swept my Herald Tribune to the floor. At certain times there are more important things than compounding one’s capital at five percent per week. She glowed gratefully at me, nodding, accepting my invitation.

  When she was about twenty feet from me, I lost all contact with (now – n) and (now + n).

  I don’t mean simply that there was an interruption in the transmission of words and data among us. I mean that I lost all sense of the presence of my earlier and later selves. That warm, wordless companionship, that ourselvesness, that harmony that I had known constantly since we had established our linkage five years ago, vanished as if switched off. On Monday, when contact with (now + n) broke, I still had had (now – n). Now I had no one.

  I was terrifyingly alone, even as ordinary men are alone, but more alone than that, for I had known a fellowship beyond the reach of other mortals. The shock of separation was intense.

  Then Selene was sitting beside me, and the nearness of her made me forget my new solitude entirely.

  She said, “I don’t know where he is and I don’t care. He’s been late once too often. Finito for him. Hello, you. I’m Selene Hughes.”

  “Aram Kevorkian. What do you drink?”

  “Chartreuse on the rocks. Green. I knew you were Armenian from halfway across the room.”

  I am Bulgarian, thirteen generations. It suits me to wear an Armenian name. I did not correct her. The waiter hurried over; I ordered chartreuse for her, a sake martini for self. I trembled like an adolescent. Her beauty was disturbing, overwhelming, astonishing. As we raised glasses I reached out experimentally for (now – n) or (now + n). Silence. Silence. But there was Selene.

  I said, “You’re not from London.”

  “I travel a lot. I stay here a while, there a while. Originally Dallas. You must be able to hear the Texas in my voice. Most recent port of call, Lima. For the July skiing. Now London.”

  “And the next stop?”

  “Who knows? What do you do, Aram?”

  “I invest.”

  “For a living?”

  “So to speak. I struggle along. Free for dinner?”

  “Of course. Shall we eat in the hotel?”

  “There’s the beastly fog outside,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  Simpatico. Perfectly. I guessed her for twenty-four, twenty-five at most. Perhaps a brief marriage three or four years in the past. A private income, not colossal but nice. An experienced woman of the world, and yet also somehow still retaining a core of innocence, a magical softness of the soul. I loved her instantly. She did not care for a second cocktail. “I’ll make dinner reservations,” I said, as she went off to the powder room. I watched her walk away. A supple walk, flawless posture, supreme shoulderblades. When she was about twenty feet from me I felt my other selves suddenly return. “What’s happening?” (now – n) demanded furiously. “Where did you go? Why aren’t you sending?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Where the hell are the Tuesday prices on last week’s carryover stocks?”

  “Later,” I told him.

  “Now. Before you blank out again.”

  “The prices can wait,” I said, and shut him off. To (now + n) I said, “All right. What do you know that I ought to know?”

  Myself of forty-eight hours hence said, “We have fallen in love.”

  “I’m aware of that. But what blanked us out?”

  “She’s psi-suppressant. She absorbs all the transmission energy we put out.”

  “Impossible! I’ve never heard of any such thing.”

  “No?” said (now + n). “Brother, this past hour has been the first chance I’ve had to get through to you since Wednesday, when we got into this mess. It’s no coincidence that I’ve been with her just about one hundred percent of the time since Wednesday evening, except for a few two-minute breaks, and then I couldn’t reach you because you must have been with her in your time sequence. And so—”

  “How can this be?” I cried. “What’ll happen to us if? No. No, you bastard, you’re rolling me over. I don’t believe you. There’s no way that she could be causing it.”

  “I think I know how she does it,” said (now + n). “There’s a—”


  At that moment Selene returned, looking even more radiantly beautiful, and silence descended once more.

  We dined well. Chilled Mombasa oysters, salade niçoise, filet of Kobe beef rare, washed down by Richebourg ‘77. Occasionally I tried to reach myselves. Nothing. I worried a little about how I was going to get the Tuesday prices to (now – n) on the carryover stuff, and decided to forget about it. Obviously I hadn’t managed to get them to him, since I hadn’t received any printout on sales out of that portfolio this evening, and if I hadn’t reached him, there was no sense in fretting about reaching him. The wonderful thing about this telepathy across time is the sense of stability it gives you: whatever has been, must be, and so forth.

  After dinner we went down one level to the casino for our brandies and a bit of gamblerage. “Two thousand pounds’ worth,” I said to the robot cashier, and put my thumb to his charge plate, and the chips came skittering out of the slot in his chest. I gave half the stake to Selene. She played high-grav-low-grav, and I played roulette; we shifted from one table to the other according to whim and the run of our luck. In two hours she tripled her stake and I lost all of mine. I never was good at games of chance. I even used to get hurt in the market before the market ceased being a game of chance for me. Naturally, I let her thumb her winnings into her own account, and when she offered to return the original stake I just laughed.