That magnificent sorrowful girl…
But what about his duty, the labor of faithful employees, to be culminated and completed this afternoon at the desk of Ben Baxter?
He stopped and looked at the bow of a great ship. The Theseus.
He thought of India, its blue skies, brilliant sunshine, wine, relaxation. Those things would never be his. Work, frantic effort, that was the life he had set for himself. Even if it meant losing the most beautiful woman in the world, he would continue to labor under the iron-gray skies of New York.
But why, he asked himself touching the chamois bag in his pocket. He was moderately well off. His business could take care of itself. What was to stop him from boarding that ship, dropping everything, spending a year in the sun?
Excitement stirred in him as he realized that nothing was stopping him. He was his own man, a strong, determined man. If he had the faith and will to succeed in business, he also had the faith and will to leave it, drop everything, and follow his heart.
“To hell with Baxter!” he said to himself. The girl’s safety was more important than anything. He would board that ship, and right now, wire his associates from sea, tell them—
The decision was made. He whirled and marched to the gangplank and resolutely climbed it.
An officer on the deck smiled and said, “Name, sir?”
“Ned Brynne.”
“Brynne, Brynne.” The officer checked his list. “I don’t seem to—Oh, yes, right here. Yes, Mr. Brynne. You’re on A deck, cabin 3. Let me wish you a most pleasant trip.”
“Thank you,” Brynne said, glancing at his watch. It read a quarter to one.
“By the way,” he said to the officer, “what time does the ship sail?”
“At four-thirty sharp, sir.”
“Four-thirty? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure, Mr. Brynne.”
“But I was told you sailed at one o’clock.”
“That was the original time, sir. But sailing time is often advanced a few hours. We’ll easily make it up at sea.”
Four-thirty! Yes, he had enough time! He could go back, see Ben Baxter and still return in time to catch the ship! Both problems were solved!
Murmuring a blessing to a mysterious but benevolent fate, Brynne turned and sprinted down the gangplank. He was fortunate enough to catch a taxi at once.
Ben Baxter was short, solid, bull-chested. He was totally bald and his eyes, behind gold pince-nez, were expressionless. His business suit was severe and affixed to the lapel was the small ruby-and-pearls emblem of the Humble Servitors of Wall Street.
For half an hour, Brynne had talked, mentioned trends, predicted movements. He was perspiring anxiously now, waiting for a word out of Baxter.
“Hmm,” said Ben Baxter.
Brynne waited. His pulse was pounding heavily and his empty stomach was beginning to churn. Half his mind was on the Theseus, sailing soon. He wanted to end this meeting and get aboard.
“The merger terms you request,” said Baxter, “are quite satisfactory.”
“Sir?” breathed Brynne.
“Satisfactory, I said. Haven’t got trouble with your hearing, have you, Brother Brynne?”
“Not for news like that,” said Brynne, grinning.
“Our affiliation,” Baxter said, smiling, “promises a great future for us both. I’m a direct man, Brynne, and I want to tell you this directly: I like the way you’ve handled the surveys and data and I like the way you’ve handled this meeting. Moreover, I like you personally. I am most happy about this and believe our association will prosper.”
“I sincerely believe so, sir.”
They shook hands and both men stood up.
“My lawyers will draw up the papers,” Baxter said, “in accordance with this discussion. You should have them by the end of the week.”
“Excellent.” Brynne hesitated, wondering if he should tell Baxter he was going to India. He decided not to. It would be simple to arrange for receipt of the papers on the Theseus and he could carry out the final details by long-distance telephone. He wouldn’t be gone too long, anyhow—just long enough to see the girl safely home; then he would fly back.
They exchanged a few more pleasantries, shook hands again and Brynne turned to leave.
“That’s a fine-looking prayer stick,” Baxter said.
“Eh? Oh, yes,” said Brynne. “I got it from Sinkiang just this week. They make the finest prayer sticks there, in my unworthy opinion.”
“I know. May I look at it?”
“Of course. Please be careful, though. It opens rather fast.”
Baxter took the intricately carved prayer stick and pressed the handle. A blade shot out of the other end, narrowly grazing his leg.
“It is fast,” Baxter said. “Fastest I’ve seen.”
“Did you cut yourself?”
“A mere scratch. Beautiful damascene work on that blade.”
They talked for a few minutes about the threefold significance of the knife blade in Western Buddhism and of recent developments in the Western Buddhist spiritual center in Sinkiang. Then Baxter carefully closed the prayer stick and returned it to Brynne.
“A truly beautiful thing. Good day again, Dear Brother Brynne, and—”
Baxter halted in mid-sentence. His mouth was open and he seemed to be staring at a point just in back of Brynne’s head.
Brynne turned, but nothing was there except the wall. When he turned back, Baxter’s features were congested and a light froth had gathered at the corners of his mouth.
“Sir!” cried Brynne.
Baxter tried to speak, but couldn’t. He took two tottering steps forward and collapsed to the floor.
Brynne rushed to the receptionist’s office. “Call a doctor! Quick! Quick!” he shouted to the frightened girl. Then he rushed back to Baxter.
He was looking at the first American case of the mutated disease that was to be called the Sinkiang Plague. Transmitted on a hundred contaminated prayer sticks, it would go through New York like a flash fire, leaving a million dead in its wake. Within the week the symptoms of Sinkiang Plague would be better known than those of measles.
But Brynne was looking at the first casualty.
With horror, he stared at the hard, brilliant apple-green shine of Baxter’s hands and face.
III
On the morning of April 12, 1959, Ned Brynne awakened and washed and dressed. At 1:30 that afternoon, he had an appointment with Ben Baxter, the president of Baxter Industries. Brynne’s entire future hinged upon the outcome of that meeting. If he could get the backing of the gigantic Baxter Enterprises and do so on favorable terms…
Brynne was a tall, darkly handsome man of thirty-six. There was a hint of thoughtfulness in his carefully bland eyes, a look of reason and willingness to compromise in his relaxed mouth. His movements had the careless surety of a man who knows his place in the world.
He was almost ready to leave. He tucked an umbrella under his arm and slipped a paperbound copy of Murder on the Metro into his pocket. He was never without a good mystery of some sort.
Finally he fixed to his lapel the small onyx pin of a Commodore of the Ocean Cruising Club. Some people thought him too young for such an honor. But they had to agree that Brynne carried the prerogatives and requirements of his office with a dignity quite beyond his years.
He locked his apartment and walked to the elevator. There was a small crowd waiting, mostly shopkeepers, but two businessmen as well.
“Pleasant day, Mr. Brynne,” the operator said as the car started down.
“Hope so,” Brynne said, deep in thought about Ben Baxter. At the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the occupants of the car, a great blond Viking of a man, talking to a tiny, half-bald fellow. Brynne wondered what they were doing in his apartment building. He knew most of the tenants by sight, though he hadn’t lived in the building long enough to get acquainted with them.
The elevator reached the lobby and Brynne forgot about the Viking.
He had a lot on his mind today. There were some problems connected with Ben Baxter, problems he hoped to resolve before the meeting. He stepped outside, into a dismal gray April morning, and decided to go to Childs’ for breakfast.
It was 10:25 am.
“What do you think?” asked Dr. Sveg.
“He looks ordinary enough,” said Edwin James. “He even looks reasonable. We’ll find out.”
They were following half a block behind Brynne. There was no losing Brynne’s tall, erect figure, even in New York’s morning rush.
“I am certainly not one to advocate violence,” said Dr. Sveg. “But this time—why don’t we knock him over the head and be done with it?”
“That method was selected by Aaui and Beatty. Miss Chandragore and Lan II decided to try bribery. We are committed to a course of reason.”
“But suppose he can’t be reasoned with, what then?”
James shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t like it,” Dr. Sveg said.
Following half a block behind, they saw Brynne collide with a portly, florid-faced businessman.
“Sorry,” said Brynne.
“Sorry,” said the portly businessman.
They exchanged perfunctory nods and went on.
Brynne went into Childs’ and sat down at an empty table in the rear. Now was the time to think of Ben Baxter and of what the best approach would be—
“Your order, sir?” a waiter asked him.
“Scrambled eggs, toast, coffee,” Brynne said.
“French fries?”
“No, thanks.”
The waiter hurried off. Brynne concentrated on Ben Baxter. With Baxter’s financial and political backing of the forest deal, there was no telling—
“Excuse me, sir,” a voice said. “May we talk to you?”
Brynne looked up and saw the blond man and his small friend whom he had seen in the elevator.
“What about?”
“A matter of the utmost urgency, sir,” said the small man.
Brynne glanced at his watch. It was almost 11:00. He had two and a half hours before his meeting with Baxter.
“Sure, sit down,” he invited. “What’s on your mind?”
The men looked at each other and exchanged embarrassed smiles. Finally the small man cleared his throat.
“Mr. Brynne,” he said, “I am Edwin James. This is my associate, Dr. Sveg. We have a preposterous-sounding story to tell, which I hope you will hear to the end without interruptions. After that, we have certain proofs that may or may not convince you of the story’s authenticity.”
Brynne frowned, wondering what kind of crackpots he had met. But both men were well dressed, quietly spoken.
“Sure, go ahead,” Brynne said.
An hour and twenty minutes later, Brynne was saying, “Wow! That’s quite a little yarn!”
“I know,” Dr. Sveg said apologetically. “Our proofs—”
“—are impressive. Let me see that first gadget again.”
Sveg handed it to him. Brynne stared reverently at the small, shining object.
“Boys, if a thing that size can really turn out heat or cold in those quantities—the electrical corporations would give a couple of billion to get it!”
“It is a product of our technology,” said Chief Programmer James, “as are the other gadgets. With the exception of the motrifier, they are all straight-line developments, refinements of present trends.”
“And that thallasator. Nice, simple, inexpensive way of extracting fresh water from salt.” He looked at the two men. “It is possible, of course, that these items are a hoax.”
Dr. Sveg raised both eyebrows.
“But I’m not exactly untrained in science. Even if they’re a hoax, they’d have to be every bit as advanced as the real thing. I guess you’ve sold me. Men from the future! Well, well!”
“Then you accept what we say about you?” James asked. “And about Ben Baxter and the time-line selection?”
“Well…” Brynne thought hard. “Tentatively.”
“Will you cancel your appointment with Baxter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sir?”
“I said I don’t know. You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Brynne said angrily. “I’ve worked like a galley slave, driving toward this goal. This meeting is the biggest chance I’ve ever had or ever will have. And you ask me to give up all that because of some nebulous prediction—”
“The prediction isn’t nebulous,” James said. “It is very explicit and most precise.”
“Look, there’s more involved than just me. I have a business, employees, associates, stockholders. I have to keep this meeting for their sake, too.”
“Mr. Brynne,” said Sveg, “consider the larger issues at stake!”
“Yeah, sure,” Brynne said sourly. “How about those other teams you talked about? Maybe I’ve been stopped in some other probability world.”
“You haven’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I couldn’t say so to the teams,” Chief Programmer James said, “but the probability of their success was vanishingly small—just as the probability of my success with you is small, statistically.”
“Hell,” said Brynne, “you guys come dropping out of the future and casually ask a man to change his entire life. You haven’t got the right!”
“If you could postpone the appointment for a single day,” Dr. Sveg suggested, “that might—”
“You don’t postpone appointments with Ben Baxter. Either you keep the one he’s given you or you wait—maybe forever—until he gives you another.” Brynne stood up. “Look, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve heard you, I more or less believe you, but I just don’t know. I’ll have to make up my own mind.”
Dr. Sveg and James also stood up.
“That is your privilege,” said Chief Programmer James. “Goodbye. I hope you make the right decision, Mr. Brynne.”
They shook hands. Brynne hurried out.
Dr. Sveg and James watched him go. Sveg said, “What do you think? It looks favorable, doesn’t it? Don’t you think so?”
“I can’t guess,” James said. “The possibility of altering events within a time-line is never favorable. I honestly have no idea what he’s going to do.”
Dr. Sveg shook his head, then sniffed. “Some air, eh?”
“Quite,” said Chief Programmer James.
Brynne decided to take a stroll along the waterfront to quiet his nerves. The sight of the great ships lying calm and steadfast in their berths never failed to soothe him. He walked steadily along, trying to reason out what had happened to him.
That ridiculous story…
In which he believed.
But what about his duty, the years spent working his way up to optioning that huge forest tract, its tremendous possibilities to be culminated and completed this afternoon at the desk of Ben Baxter?
He stopped and looked at the bow of a great ship. The Theseus…
He thought of the Caribbean, its blue skies, brilliant sunshine, wine, relaxation. Those things would never be his. Work, frantic effort, that was the life he had set for himself. No matter what the loss, he would continue to work under the iron-gray skies of New York.
But why, he asked himself. He was moderately well off. His business could take care of itself. What was to stop him from boarding that ship, dropping everything, spending a year in the sun?
Excitement stirred in him as he realized that nothing was stopping him. He was his own man, a strong, determined man. If he had the guts to succeed in business, he also had the guts to leave it, drop everything, and follow his heart.
And in that way, the ridiculous damned future would be safe.
“To hell with Ben Baxter!” he said to himself.
But he didn’t mean it.
The future was just too uncertain, too far away. This whole thing might well be an elaborate hoax, arranged by a business competitor.
Let the future take care
of itself!
Ned Brynne turned abruptly away from the Theseus. He had to hurry to make his appointment with Baxter on time.
In Baxter’s building, riding up in the elevator, Brynne tried not to think. It was enough simply to act. He got off at the 16th floor and walked up to the receptionist.
“My name is Brynne. I have an appointment with Mr. Baxter.”
“Yes, Mr. Brynne. Mr. Baxter is expecting you. You can go right in.”
Brynne didn’t move. A wave of doubt flooded his mind and he thought of the future generations, whose chances he was damaging by his act. He thought of Dr. Sveg and Chief Programmer Edwin James, earnest, well-meaning men. They wouldn’t ask him to make such a sacrifice unless it was absolutely essential.
And he considered one thing more—
Among those future generations would be descendants of his own.
“You may go in, sir,” the girl said.
Abruptly, something snapped in Brynne’s mind.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, in a voice he hardly recognized. “I’m canceling the appointment. Tell Baxter I’m sorry—about everything.”
He turned, before he could change his mind, and ran down sixteen flights of stairs.
In the meeting room of the World Planning Council, the five representatives of the Federated Districts of Earth were seated around a long table, waiting for Edwin James. He entered, a small man, impressively ugly.
“Reports,” he said.
Aaui, looking somewhat the worse for wear, told about their attempt at violence and its result. “Perhaps,” he concluded, “if we had been conditioned to use more violence—faster—we could have stopped him.”
“And perhaps not,” said Beatty, who looked considerably worse than Aaui.
Lan II reported the partial success and total failure of his mission with Miss Chandragore. Brynne had agreed to accompany them to India, even if it meant giving up the meeting with Baxter. Unfortunately, Brynne had found himself able to do both things.
Lan II ended with several philosophical comments about the shockingly flexible schedules of steamship companies.
Chief Programmer James stood up. “The future we were selecting for was one in whose past Ben Baxter lived to complete his work of buying forests. That, unfortunately, is not to be. Our best line, under the circumstances, is the Main Historic Line, in which Dr. Sveg and I bent our efforts.”
Store of Infinity Page 17