Time Travel Omnibus, page 406
“Very well, what have you got?”
“What d’ya mean, what’ve I got?”
The other sighed. “Don’t you think you should attempt to acquire some evidence that you have been in the future? I can warn you now, the paradoxes involved in time travel prevent you from taking back any knowledge which might alter the past. On your return, your mind will be blank in regard to what happened here.” The time traveler blinked. “Oh?”
“Definitely. However, I shall be glad to make a trade with you.”
“Listen, I get the feeling I came into this conversation half a dozen sentences too late. What d’ya mean, a trade?”
“I am willing to barter something of your century for something of mine, although, frankly, there is little in your period that is of other than historical interest to us.” The pedestrian’s eyes held a gleam now. He cleared his throat. “However, I have here an atomic pocket knife. I hesitate to even tell you of the advantages it has over the knives of your period.”
“Okay. I got only ten minutes left, but I can see you’re right. I’ve got to get something to prove that I was here.”
“My knife would do it,” the pedestrian nodded.
“Yeah, yeah. Listen, I’m a little confused, like. They picked me for this job last minute—didn’t want to risk any of the professor guys, see? That’s the screwiest knife I ever saw, let me have it for my evidence.”
“Just a moment, friend. Why should I give you my knife? What can you offer in exchange?”
“But I’m from the Twentieth Century.”
“Ummm. And I’m from the Thirtieth.”
The time traveler looked at him for a long moment. Finally, “Listen, pal, I don’t have a lot of time. Now, for instance, my watch—”
“Ummm. And what else?”
“Well, my money, here.”
“Of interest only to a numismatist.”
“Listen, I gotta have some evidence I been in the Thirtieth Century!”
“Of course. But business is business as the proverb goes.”
“I wish the hell I had a gun.”
“I have no use for a gun in this age,” the other said primly. “No, but I have,” the time traveler muttered. “Look, fella, my time is running out by the second. What d’ya want? You see what I got, clothes, my wallet, a little money, a key ring, a pair of shoes.”
“I’m willing to trade, but your possessions are of small value. Now some art object—an original Al Capp or something.”
The time traveler was plaintive. “Do I look like I’d be carrying around art objects? Listen, I’ll give you everything I got but my pants for that screwy knife.”
“Oh, you want to keep your pants, eh? What’re you trying to do, Anglo me down?—or does your period antedate the term?”
“Anglo . . . what? I don’t get it.”
“Well, I’m quite an etymologist—”
“That’s too bad, but—”
“Not at all, a fascinating hobby,” the pedestrian said. “Now as to the phrase, ‘Anglo me down,’ the term ‘Anglo’ first came into popular use during the 1850-1950 period. It designated persons from the eastern United States, English descent principally, who came into New Mexico and Arizona shortly after the area was liberated—I believe that was the term used at the time—from Mexico. The Spanish and the Indians came to know the Easterners as Anglos.”
The time traveler said desperately, “Listen, pal, we get further and further from—”
“Tracing back the derivation of the phrase takes us along two more side trails. It goes back to the fact that these Anglos became the wealthiest businessmen of the Twentieth Century—so much so that they soon dominated the world with their dollars.”
“Okay, okay. I know all about that. Personally I never had enough dollars to dominate anybody, but—”
“Very well, the point is that the Anglos became the financial wizards of the world, the most clever dealers, the sharpest bargainers, the most competent businessmen.”
The time traveler shot a quick despairing look at his watch. “Only three—”
“The third factor is one taken from still further in the past. At one time there was a racial minority, which many of the Anglos held in disregard, called the Joos. For many years the term had been used, to Joo you down—meaning to make the price lower. As the Anglos assumed their monetary dominance, the term evolved from Joo you down to Anglo you down; and this it has come down to our own day, although neither Anglo nor Joo still exists as a separate people.”
The time traveler stared at him. “And I won’t be able to take the memory of this story back with me, eh? And me a guy named Levy.” He darted another look at his watch and groaned. “Quick!” he said, “Let’s make this trade; everything I got for that atomic knife!”
The deal was consummated. The citizen of the Thirtieth Century stood back, his loot in his arms, and watched as the citizen of the Twentieth, nude but with the knife grasped tightly and happily in hand, faded slowly from view.
The knife poised momentarily in empty air, then dropped to the ground as the time traveler completely disappeared.
The other stooped, retrieved it, and stuck it back in his pocket. “Even more naive than usual,” he muttered. “Must have been one of the very first. I suppose they’ll never reconcile themselves to paradoxes. Obviously, you can carry things forward in time, since that’s the natural flow of the dimension; but you just can’t carry anything, not even memory, backward against the current.” He resumed his journey homeward.
Marget, hands on hips, met him at the door. “Where in Kert have you been?” she snapped.
“You mustn’t swear, darling,” he said. “I met another time traveler on the way home.”
“You didn’t—”
“Certainly, why not? If I didn’t somebody else would.”
“But you’ve already got the closet overflowing with—”
“Now Marget, don’t look at it that way. One of these days some museum or collector—”
She grunted skeptically and turned back into the house.
WHAT IF . . .
Isaac Asimov
They were sitting on the train when Lvvy asked . . . what if . . .and the little man who sat across from them . . showed them what if they had never met . . .
NORMAN and Livvy were late, naturally, since catching a train is always a matter of last-minute delays, so they had to take the only available seat in the coach. It was the one toward the front, the one with nothing before it but the seat that faced the wrong way, with its back hard against the front partition. While Norman heaved the suitcase onto the rack, Livvy found herself chafing a little.
If a couple took the wrong-way seat before them, they would be staring self-consciously into each other’s faces all the hours it would take to reach New York; or else, which was scarcely better, they would have to erect synthetic barriers of newspaper. Still, there was no use in taking a chance on there being another unoccupied double seat elsewhere in the train.
Norman didn’t seem to mind, and that was a little disappointing to Livvy. Usually they held their moods in common. That, Norman claimed, was why he remained sure that he had married the right girl.
He would say, “We fit each other, Livvy, and that’s the key fact.
When you’re doing a jigsaw puzzle and one piece fits another, that’s it. There are no other possibilities, and of course there are no other girls.”
And she would laugh and say, “If you hadn’t been on the streetcar that day, you would probably never have met me. What would you have done then?”
“Stayed a bachelor. Naturally. Besides, I would have met you through Georgette another day.”
“It wouldn’t have been the same.”
“Sure it would.”
“No, it wouldn’t. Besides, Georgette would never have introduced me. She was interested in you herself, and she’s the type who knows better than to create a possible rival.”
“What nonsense.”
Livvy asked her favorite question: “Norman, what if you had been one minute later at the streetcar corner and had taken the next car? What do you suppose would have happened?”
“And what if fish had wings and all of them flew to the top of the mountains? What would we have to eat on Fridays then?”
But we had caught the streetcar, and fish didn’t have wings, so that now they had been married for five years and ate fish on Fridays. And because they had been married five years, they were going to celebrate by spending a week in New York.
Then she remembered the present problem. “I wish we could have found some other seat.”
Norman said, “Sure. So do I. But no one has taken it yet, so we’ll have relative privacy as far as Providence, anyway.”
Livvy was unconsoled, and felt herself justified when a plump little man walked down the central aisle of the coach. Now, where had he come from? The train was halfway between Boston and Providence, and if he had had a seat, why hadn’t he kept it? She took out her vanity and considered her reflection. She had a theory that if she ignored the little man, he would pass by. So she concentrated on her light-brown hair which, in the rush of catching the train, had become disarranged just a little; at her blue eyes, and at her little mouth with the plump lips which Norman said looked like a permanent kiss.
Not bad, she thought.
Then she looked up, and the little man was in the seat opposite. He caught her eye and frowned widely. A series of lines curled about the edges of his smile. He lifted his hat hastily and put it down beside him on top of the little black box he had been carrying. A circle of white hair instantly sprang up stiffly about the large bald spot that made the center of his skull a desert.
She could not help smiling back a little, but then she caught sight of the black box again and the smile faded. She yanked at Norman’s elbow.
Norman looked up from his newspaper. He had startlingly dark eyebrows that almost met above the bridge of his nose, giving him a formidable first appearance. But they and the dark eyes beneath bent upon her now with only the usual look of pleased and somewhat amused affection.
He said, “What’s up?” He did not look at the plump little man opposite.
Livvy did her best to indicate what she saw by a little unobtrusive gesture of her hand and head. But the little man was watching and she felt a fool, since Norman simply stared at her blankly.
Finally she pulled him closer and whispered, “Don’t you see what’s printed on his box?”
She looked again as she said it, and there was no mistake. It was not very prominent, but the light caught it slantingly and it was a slightly more glistening area on a black background. In flowing script it said, “What If.”
The little man was smiling again. He nodded his head rapidly and pointed to the words and then to himself several times over.
Norman put his paper aside. “I’ll show you.” He leaned over and said, “Mr. If?”
The little man looked at him eagerly.
“Do you have the time, Mr. If?”
The little man took out a large watch from his vest pocket and displayed the dial.
“Thank you, Mr. If,” said Norman. And again in a whisper, “See, Livvy.”
He would have returned to his paper, but the little man was opening his box and raising a finger periodically as he did so, to enforce their attention. It was just a slab of frosted glass that he removed—about six by nine inches in length and width and perhaps an inch thick. It had beveled edges, rounded corners, and was completely featureless. Then he took out a little wire stand on which the glass slab fitted comfortably. He rested the combination on his knees and looked proudly at them.
Livvy said, with sudden excitement, “Heavens, Norman, it’s a picture of some sort.”
Norman bent close. Then he looked at the little man. “What’s this? A new kind of television?”
The little man shook his head, and Livvy said, “No, Norman, it’s us.”
“What?”
“Don’t you see? That’s the streetcar we met on. There you are in the back seat wearing that old fedora I threw away three years ago. And that’s Georgette and myself getting on. The fat lady’s in the way. Now! Can’t you see us?”
He muttered, “It’s some sort of illusion.”
“But you see it too, don’t you? That’s why he calls this, ‘What If.’ It will show us what if. What if the streetcar hadn’t swerved . . .” She was sure of it. She was very excited and very sure of it. As she looked at the picture in the glass slab, the late afternoon sunshine grew dimmer and the inchoate chatter of the passengers around and behind them began fading.
How she remembered that day. Norman knew Georgette and had been so embarrassed that he was forced into gallantry and then into conversation. An introduction from Georgette was not even necessary. By the time they got off the streetcar, he knew where she worked.
She could still remember Georgette glowering at her, sulkily forcing a smile when they themselves separated. Georgette said, “Norman seems to like you.”
Livvy replied, “Oh, don’t be silly! He was just being polite. But he is nice-looking isn’t he?”
It was only six months after that that they married.
And now here was that same streetcar again, with Norman and herself and Georgette. As she thought that, the smooth train noises, the rapid clack-clack of wheels, vanished completely. Instead, she was in the swaying confines of the streetcar. She had just boarded it with Georgette at the previous stop.
Livvy shifted weight with the swaying of the streetcar, as did forty others, sitting and standing, all to the same monotonous and rather ridiculous rhythm. She said, “Somebody’s motioning at you, Georgette. Do you know him?”
“At me?” Georgette directed a deliberately casual glance over her shoulder. Her artificially long eyelashes flickered. She said, “I know him a little. What do you suppose he wants?”
“Let’s find out,” said Livvy. She felt pleased and a little wicked. Georgette had a well-known habit of hoarding her male acquaintances, and it was rather fun to annoy her this way. And besides, this one seemed quite . . . interesting.
She snaked past the lines of standees, and Georgette followed without enthusiasm. It was just as Livvy arrived opposite the young man’s seat that the streetcar lurched heavily as it rounded a curve. Livvy snatched desperately in the direction of the straps. Her fingertips caught and she held on. It was a long moment before she could breathe. For some reason, it had seemed that there were no straps close to be reached. Somehow, she felt that by all the laws of nature she should have fallen.
The young man did not look at her. He was smiling at Georgette and rising from his seat. He had astonishing eyebrows that gave him a rather competent and self-confident appearance. Livvy decided that she definitely liked him. Georgette was saying, “Oh no, don’t bother. We’re getting off in about two stops.”
They did. Livvy said, “I thought we were going to Sachs.”
“We are. There’s just something I remember having to attend to here. It won’t take but a minute.”
“Next stop, Providence!” the loud-speakers were blaring. The train was slowing and the world of the past had shrunk itself into the glass slab once more. The little man was still smiling at them.
Livvy turned to Norman. She felt a little frightened. “Were you through all that, too?”
He said, “What happened to the time? We can’t be reaching Providence yet?” He looked at his watch. “I guess we are.” Then, to Livvy, “You didn’t fall that time.”
“Then you did see it?” She frowned. “Now, that’s like Georgette. I’m sure there was no reason to get off the streetcar except to prevent my meeting you. How long had you known Georgette then, Norman?”
“Not very long. Just enough to be able to recognize her at sight and to feel that I ought to offer her my seat.”
Livvy curled her lip.
Norman grinned, “You can’t be jealous of a might-have-been, kid. Besides, what difference would it have made? I’d have been sufficiently interested in you to work out a way of meeting you.”
“You didn’t even look at me.”
“I hardly had the chance.”
“Then how would you have met me?”
“Some way. I don’t know how. But you’ll admit this is a rather foolish argument we’re having.”
They were leaving Providence. Livvy felt a trouble in her mind. The little man had been following their whispered conversation, with only the loss of his smile to show that he understood. She said to him, “Can you show us more?”
Norman interrupted, “Wait now, Livvy. What are you to try to do?”
She said, “I want to see our wedding day. What it would have been if I hadn’t caught the strap.”
Norman was visibly annoyed. “Now, that’s not fair. We might not have been married on the same day, you know.”
But she said, “Can you show it to me, Mr. If?” and the little man nodded.
The slab of glass was coming alive again, glowing a little. Then the light collected and condensed into figures. A tiny sound of organ music was in Livvy’s ears without there actually being sound.
Norman said with relief, “Well, there I am. That’s our wedding. Are you satisfied?”
The train sounds were disappearing again, and the last thing Livvy heard was her own voice saying, “Yes, there you are. But where am I?”
Livvy was well back in the pews. For a while she had not expected to attend at all. In the past months she had drifted further and further away from Georgette, without quite knowing why. She had heard of her engagement only through a mutual friend, and, of course, it was to Norman. She remembered very clearly that day, six months before, when she had first seen him on the streetcar. It was the time Georgette had so quickly snatched her out of sight. She had met him since on several occasions, but each time Georgette was with him, standing between.
Well, she had no cause for resentment; the man was certainly none of hers. Georgette, she thought, looked more beautiful than she really was. And he was very handsome indeed.
