Time Travel Omnibus, page 1042
Eddie glanced up and down the shore. The waves had grown enormous and broke in two long lines before crashing onto the beach; he could hear the sound of them up and down the shore. The children ran, squealing, in and out amongst them.
“We always got big breakers after a tanker passed,” Charlie said.
Eddie took several steps back as the tail-end of the waves scudded farther up the strand.
“That’s what they want to market,” said Charlie, “a perpetual life machine. Much better than a perpetual flame, don’t you think? People near death will pay anything for it, and their families will continue paying to keep it running.”
“It does sound kinda appealing.”
“Et felicitas perpetua.”
“I give up.”
“It’s from the Latin Mass. Et lux perpetua. It means ‘and light everlasting’ except Celestial Games plugs ‘happiness’ in for ‘light.’ ”
“And Happiness Everlasting!” Eddie pronounced.
“At first, it was just an idea I toyed with secretly, but then I realized the company was spying on me, and I made a kind of game of it, hiding from them. Keeping the key was just my final ‘up yours’ to Adolphus and his cronies.”
“So, if you don’t give up the key, nobody gets back, and they can’t market the thing?”
“Something like that.”
“What about you? What happens when they unplug the computer?”
“My existence terminates.” And with that he thrust his stick deep into the sand and left it there, poking up in front of him.
“Don’t you want to go on?”
The boy turned his head to the side and looked darkly down the beach. “This didn’t work out like I thought it would.” He crossed his arms in the gesture of an old man.
“Whadaya you mean?”
“I thought I’d come back and go through this loop a couple of thousand times, maybe more, and I’d get so bored that when the company got pissed off enough to pull the plug I wouldn’t care.”
“Aren’t you getting bored?”
“Actually, I’m enjoying myself,” he said grimly. “I think it must be a defect in the program.”
“What a shame,” Eddie laughed. “But then, maybe that changes things a little.”
“Maybe it does. You know, I didn’t really have a plan. I just thought I’d live my happiest day over and over for a while and then check out. But, now I find I really do care.” He lifted his arms, palms up. “I’d like it to go on.”
“Why can’t it?”
“I didn’t think they would figure out the genetic key, but they did. And by sending you in they’ve forced my hand. They know I won’t leave you stranded in here.” His voice took on a tone of resignation. “And once they get the key there will be no incentive to keep the program running.”
“I’ll make them! I’ll make it a condition of giving them the key.”
Charlie smiled. “Thanks, Eddie, but you’re no match for those guys.”
“I’ll buy the computer. I’ll keep it running myself.”
Charlie lifted his eyebrows. “That might work, for a while at least.”
“It’ll work for a long time. I promise.”
“Move it to another location. Hire another company to monitor it.”
“You know, Charlie, suddenly, I’m feeling very assertive.”
Charlie beamed, and then they looked at one another for a long while.
“You click your heels three times.”
“No!” grinned Eddie.
“It was my favorite book,” Charlie said with a little wave of his hand. “And then you say the name of my dog.”
“Shep?”
“I loved him,” Charlie said, softly.
“And that’s the key?”
The boy grimaced. “That’s all there is.”
They said nothing for a moment.
Suddenly, Charlie pulled the stick out of the sand and offered it to Eddie. “Why don’t you come and spear some jellyfish with us?”
Eddie took the stick, the grin still on his face. But then, “Naw, I’ve got other things on my mind. I’ve gotta twist some corporate arm.” He handed the stick back. “But one more thing: you know, that bit about love?”
“Don’t start that again. There’s no point.”
“It’s important, Charlie. We both had trouble with it, and we should have talked. In the long run we had one another all along. We could have worked it out.”
“Could we?”
“You know, I’m sorry we can’t get in this thing and just do it all over again. We could be best friends.”
Charlie laughed. “The ultimate virtual reality.”
“But even if we can’t, the rest is going to be different, now.”
Charlie nodded. “You still have some time left.”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too, in my own little paradise.”
“I wish you could come back with me.”
“Don’t,” cried Charlie. “Don’t make me sorry.”
“No, no. I don’t mean to.”
The boy bit his lip. “But you could come and see me.”
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
“And don’t forget that someday later, maybe much later, when you’re about to—you know—you could come back and stay.”
Eddie was quiet. “I’ll have to think about that.”
“Yeah, it takes some getting used to, and maybe your paradise would be different from this.”
Eddie’s throat was dry, and his nose started running. “Goodbye, Charlie. I’m really glad I got to see you again,” he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “And I’ll come back and spear some jellyfish, I promise.” And then, he knelt in the sand and opened his arms. “Can we . . .”
The boy looked at him, a flicker of fear on his face, but then he rushed forward and threw himself into his brother’s arms.
To Eddie, the little body felt so small, so thin and frail. Eddie cried. The boy squirmed, and Eddie released him. Then he stood up and watched as Charlie turned and ran with his stick toward the ocean, the sand flying from his little feet, his hair blowing in the salt breeze.
THE AUTHENTIC TOUCH
Kevin J. Anderson
Mainz, Germany, 1452
All these dirty, crowded medieval towns looked the same to him. He double-checked the small glowing screen on his locator/communicator/emergency signal. Yes, Mainz, Germany. 1452. Right on target.
He was no historian and had no aspirations to become one. To him, historical settings were to be studied on an entertainment screen or read in a novel, not to be experienced firsthand. But a job was a job . . . and the job had taken him here.
His name was Bill—“Bill the PR Man.” Not a very memorable name, but his parents had given him little to work with. Bill Smith, not even a middle name. When he’d started his career, talking himself up to various corporations and showing off his skills, Bill had considered changing his name. Maybe something that would leave a more distinctive and powerful impression—“Brom Zanderley”—or stuffy and imposing—“P. Jason Higgenbotham”—but he was Bill, and he felt like Bill, and so he turned the disadvantage into a focus, making the very simplicity his calling card. Bill, the PR Man.
Honesty, veracity, authenticity. “I want your clientele to remember you, not me,” he told his customers. The name and that attitude had served him very well.
And now it had taken him across the centuries just to do a simple brochure. But it was perhaps the most important contract job in his career.
In Mainz, he drew a deep breath, driving back the dizziness and the slight nausea that always resulted from traveling through time. For some reason, though no other travelers had mentioned it, Bill always tasted vinegar in the back of his throat during a transport. Other people experienced severe waves of diarrhea for the first hour; given the alternative, he preferred the vinegar taste.
The night was dim, and fog seeped along the streets, but the swirling mists did little to lessen the stench. Once a person traveled back more than a few decades, Bill had found that all historical places carried a definite and oppressive odor. Not surprising, considering the lack of hygiene, the garbage and sewage, even dead bodies lying around. He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to vacation under conditions like this. But he certainly wouldn’t call attention to the unpleasantness in the promotional literature. Rose-colored glasses, soft focus, a bit of license with descriptive language . . . while still keeping that authentic touch.
From a tavern at the other end of the alley he could hear loud Germanic voices singing and arguing. High overhead, a thick-armed woman opened the shutters of a window and poured the contents of a chamber pot down into the street, missing Bill by only a few yards. He hurried away, shouting up at the impolite person, “Watch what you’re doing!” But of course she did not understand modern English, and he received a volley of curses right back.
Bill moved out of the alley toward a wider street, getting his bearings. He wore period costume—scratchy fabric, rough and uncomfortable seams. Surreptitiously, he glanced down at the screen of his locator again. The techs had missed the target by two blocks. Not bad, considering the centuries crossed but they would have to fine-tune their skills before large waves of customers signed up for the Timeshares service. It would really ruin a vacation if a customer materialized through time on the wrong side of a cliff . . . or in the middle of a crowded square in colonial New England where people might be inclined to point and cry out, “A witch! A witch!”
Scouts had gone ahead to chart all the locations, as they would for any approved vacation. Bill consulted the photos and saw what he was looking for—a nondescript print shop, although it wasn’t exactly called a “print shop” yet. Nobody in 1452 Mainz was going to run down to the corner to make quick copies.
All the cramped businesses on the street were closed up and shuttered for the night. Timeshares headquarters had chosen the late hour intentionally, but night watchmen prowled up and down the streets carrying lanterns, and Bill did not want to bump into the medieval equivalent of a street gang.
Walking along, studying the buildings in the dim light, he compared the doors of the shops to the photo taken by the scouts. It was a very distinctive place. He found the correct door. He paused, looking up at the half-timbered structure, the window box cluttered with dead flowers, water stains and moss on the plaster. Not much to look at. Sooner or later, there would probably be a placard hanging outside, but so far no one knew what Johannes Gutenberg was doing in there and printing that enormous Bible, at forty-two lines per page, was going to take him a while.
The thick iron padlock hanging from the door latch was the height of medieval security, but with a screwdriver, a lock pick, and a little trial and error, Bill easily removed it and slipped inside a darkened workshop that smelled of ink, wood shavings, and cat urine. Now there was one detail the history books hadn’t included.
He clicked on his bright and totally anachronistic flashlight so he could look around, then opened his leather satchel to remove the stack of tan, rough-surfaced sheets of papyrus. They were still moist and still smelled a little rotten from the manufacturing process; they had been made only two days ago, back at the Nile Delta in the first century A.D.
Bill had traveled back to ancient Egypt to obtain the actual papyrus—again, for the authentic touch. He had, however, underestimated how difficult it was just to pick up some paper. Since papyrus was a common substance in Egypt at the time, he thought he could just go down to a marketplace and pick up a ream.
Though Bill did not speak the difficult language, the ancient Egyptians along the Nile were accustomed to strange merchants coming from far-off lands. Near the open-air, reed-roofed shop, workers harvested the tall green sedge from the swamp, peeling the stalks to take out the pith, laying down strips, crisscrossing them, pounding them, pressing and drying the sheets, then scraping them smooth with a well-worn seashell.
Bill had paid the papyrus maker well and had received fifty rough-cut sheets, enough for the first printing of the Timeshares brochure. Since the Timeshares Travel Agency advertized authenticity above all things, they couldn’t do any less with their promotional materials. He had already told Rolf Jacobsen, the mysterious and wealthy head of the agency, that these brochures must be used for only the most elite potential clients. He didn’t intend to go through all this hassle for a second printing.
Even more difficult than obtaining genuine papyrus had been securing the original artwork. It had sounded like a good idea. He’d gone to prehistoric France to track down a Neanderthal tribe, and he had commissioned original drawings from one of the cave painters. Attempting to art-direct a Neanderthal had been a challenge unlike anything else in his career, but Bill had gotten his sketches, daubed and chalked onto flat pieces of slate, which he’d then taken back to the present and the headquarters of Timeshares, where the art could be scanned and incorporated into the brochure layout.
The final materials would also include photos of the time-travel facility, its high-tech interior with spindle-shaped apparatus topped by silvery spheres haloed by crackling static electricity. Rolf Jacobsen wanted it to look sleek, futuristic, high-tech, but in a “Jules Verne” sense rather than a “neon, hard-edged, Hong Kong” sense. So far the interior of Timeshares had undergone numerous face-lifts and retoolings. Bill had no idea what the final interior was going to look like; it might even change weekly. In his opinion, the time-travel device looked more like something out of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab than a comforting and safe gadget, but he didn’t say anything. His only priority was the sales brochure.
Bill had already written the text: “We’re not just a travel agency—we’re a time travel agency. We offer excursions into the past and future. Take a vacation wherever and whenever you like.”
Inside the dim workshop, Bill studied Gutenberg’s clumsy looking printing press, a cumbersome gadget whose design was based on an old wine press. Gutenberg’s workers would line up the small wooden letter blocks in the tracks, use an ink roller, and then crank down the press upon each sheet of paper.
The next page of Gutenberg’s Bible had been set up for the following day’s printing. He took a quick snapshot with his imaging device so that he could reassemble the letters when he was done, though he didn’t understand many of the German words or the too-fancy type style. “Quickly, his fingers rattling the wooden blocks by the glow of his flashlight, he slid all the words off into a tray, and then painstakingly mounted his own letters, his own text.
“Afraid of flying? The high cost of gas got you down? Want to really get away? Step into our perfectly safe time-travel device and find yourself in exotic historical locations. Adventure and mystery guaranteed, danger definitely possible. It’ll be the experience of a lifetime—of anyone’s lifetime.”
The process of setting the letters was tedious, but authenticity was the most important thing. If Mr. Jacobsen advertized that his clients would experience real history, then the brochure had to be the real thing. Fortunately, all of his promotional text fit onto a single page, even with Gutenberg’s large letter blocks.
As payment, in addition to Bill’s standard fee, Timeshares had offered him an excursion to anyplace he chose, any time. He could witness the greatest events in history, meet the most important figures in all of human civilization. Instead, Bill had asked for a week in the most luxurious resort in Cancun on the Caribbean coast. He had his priorities.
When he had the appropriate words in place, he used a stiff ink roller to cover the printing surface with pasty ink. When it was ready, and before he could make a mess of things, he placed a sheet of clean papyrus on the flat block beneath the press and cranked down the letters, pushing hard to make a clear impression. Then he unscrewed the press, raised it up, and peeled off his sheet of papyrus.
The rough surface of the reeds made the impression blurry and weak in certain spots, but the letters were readable. With so few sheets of papyrus, he couldn’t afford to make many mistakes. Not perfect, but authentic. That was what Mr. Jacobsen wanted.
Timeshares clients would coo over the imperfections and would marvel at the difficulties that had been required just to make this flier. However, Bill didn’t think that the clients would be quite so forgiving of imperfections when they encountered glitches on their very expensive time-travel vacations . . .
He balanced the flashlight where it would better illuminate the work area and put another piece of papyrus under the press, rolled the ink over the printing surface, squeezed down the block letters. He had to get through at least fifty sheets.
That Cancun resort was going to feel wonderful when he was done with this.
Bill finished printing the last sheet an hour before dawn. He didn’t think Mainz had a good coffee shop nearby, so he would have to return to the present for a good strong cup. Now it was time to put everything back in order in Gutenberg’s print shop.
He called up the digitized baseline image he had taken, referring to the biblical words he had disassembled. The verses weren’t familiar to him, especially not in old German. He plucked out the letters he had used for the Timeshares brochure and began to realign the sentences and verses on the page. Bill realized he was short on time, and he moved quickly, several times scrambling letters, which forced him to remove the little blocks and reassemble the words.
Outside the shop, he saw light in the street, a figure moving along. The segmented window glass in Gutenberg’s workplace was rippled and murky, but a man with a lantern was visible out there. A night watchman. He’d probably seen the glow of the flashlight inside the shop.
Bill had left the padlock dangling open on the door, and now the watchman rattled it, and then shouted, apparently calling for help. Bill nearly panicked, but he hurriedly added the last letters to the verses on that page.
The door creaked open, and the watchmen swung his lantern, illuminating the cluttered workshop. “Sorry, I was just leaving,” Bill said, grabbing his stack of papyrus sheets and stuffing them into the leather satchel.
