Time Travel Omnibus, page 427
Funny thing! I choked up. I had seen many reproductions, but this was the real thing. The real Declaration of Independence!
I said, “I’ll be damned. You did it.”
“And the hundred thousand?” asked my uncle Otto, getting to the point.
Now was the time to explain. “You see, uncle, at the bottom of the document there are signatures. These are the names of great Americans, fathers of their country, whom we all revere. Anything about them is of interest to all true Americans.”
“All right,” grumbled my uncle Otto, “I will accompany you playing ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ on my flute.”
I laughed quickly to show that I took that remark as a joke. The alternative to a joke would not bear thinking of. Have you ever heard my uncle Otto playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on his flute?
I said, “But one of these signers, from the state of Georgia, died in 1777, the year after he signed the Declaration. He didn’t leave much behind him and so authentic examples of his signature are about the most valuable in the world. His name was Button Gwinnett.”
“And how does this help us cash in?” asked my uncle Otto, his mind still fixed grimly on the eternal verities of the universe.
“Here,” I said, simply, “is an authentic real-life signature of Button Gwinnett, right on the Declaration of Independence.”
My uncle Otto was stunned into absolute silence, and to bring absolute silence out of my uncle Otto, he’s really got to be stunned!
I said, “Now you see him right here on the extreme left of the signature space along with the two other signers for Georgia, Lyman Hall and George Walton. You’ll notice they crowded their names although there’s plenty of room above and below. In fact, the capital G of Gwinnett runs down into practical contact with Hall’s name. So we won’t try to separate them. We’ll get them all. Can you handle that?”
Have you ever seen a happy bloodhound? Well, my uncle Otto managed to look like one.
A spot of brighter light centered about the names of the three Georgian signers.
Uncle Otto said, a little breathlessly, “I have this never tried before.”
“What!” I screamed. Now he told me.
“It would have too much energy required. I did not wish the University to inquire what was in here going on. But don’t worry! My mathematics cannot wrong be.”
I prayed silently that his mathematics not wrong were.
The light grew brighter and there was a humming that filled the laboratory with raucous noise. My uncle Otto turned a knob, then another, then a third.
DO YOU remember the time a few weeks back when all of upper Manhattan and the Bronx were without electricity for twelve hours because of the damndest overload cut-off in the main power-house. I won’t say we did that, because I am in no mood to be sued for damages. But I will say this. The electricity went off when my uncle Otto turned the third knob.
Inside the lab, all the lights went out and I found myself on the floor with a terrific ringing in my ears. My uncle Otto was sprawled across me.
We worked each other to our feet and my uncle Otto found a flashlight.
He howled his anguish. “Fused. Fused. My machine in ruins is. It has to destruction devoted been.”
“But the signatures?” I yelled at him. “Did you get them?”
He stopped in mid-cry. “I haven’t looked.”
He looked, and I closed my eyes. The disappearance of a hundred thousand dollars is not an easy thing to watch.
He cried, “A-ha!” and I opened my eyes quickly. He had a square of parchment in his hand some two inches on a side. It had three signatures on it and the top one was that of Button Gwinnett.
Now, mind you, the signature was absolutely genuine. It was no fake. There wasn’t an atom of fraud about the whole transaction. I want that understood. Lying right there on my uncle Otto’s broad hand was a signature indited with the Georgian hand of Button Gwinnett himself on the authentic parchment of the honest-to-God, real-life Declaration of Independence!
It was forthwith decided that my uncle Otto would travel down to Washington with the parchment scrap. I was unsatisfactory for the purpose. I was a lawyer. I would be expected to know too much. He was merely a scientific genius, and wasn’t expected to know anything. Besides, who could suspect Dr. Otto Schlemmelmayer of anything but the most transparent honesty.
We spent a week arranging our story. I bought a book for the occasion in a second-hand shop—an old history of colonial Georgia. My uncle Otto was to take it with him and claim he had found a document among its leaves; a letter to the Continental Congress in the name of the State of Georgia. He had shrugged his shoulders at it and held it out over a Bunsen flame. Why should a physicist be interested in letters? Then he became aware of the peculiar odor it gave off as it burned and the slowness with which it was consumed. He beat out the flames but saved only the piece with the signatures. He looked at it and the name Button Gwinnett had stirred a slight fiber of memory.
He had the story cold. I burnt the edges of the parchment so that the lowest name, that of George Walton, was slightly singed.
“It will make it more realistic,” I explained. “Of course, a signature, without a letter above it, loses value, but here we have three signatures, all signers.”
My uncle Otto was thoughtful. “And if they compare the signatures with those on the Declaration and notice it is all even microscopically the same. Won’t they fraud suspect?”
“Certainly. But what can they do? The parchment is authentic. The ink is authentic. The signatures are authentic. They’ll have to concede that. No matter how they suspect something queer they can’t prove anything. Can they conceive reaching through time for it? In fact, I hope they do try to make a fuss. The publicity will boost the price.”
The last phrase made my uncle Otto laugh.
The next day he took the train to Washington with visions of flutes in his head. Long flutes, short flutes, bass flutes, flute tremolos, massive flutes, micro flutes, flutes for the individual and flutes for the orchestra. A world of flutes for mind-drawn music.
“Remember,” his last words were, “the machine I have no money to rebuild. This must work.”
And I said, “Uncle Otto, it can’t miss.”
Ha!
HE WAS back in a week. I had made long-distance calls each day and each day he told me they were investigating.
Investigating.
Well, wouldn’t you investigate? But what good would it do them?
I was at the station waiting for him. He was expressionless. I didn’t dare ask anything in public. I wanted to say, “Well, yes or no?” but I thought, let him speak.
I took him to my office. I offered him a cigar and a drink. I hid my hands under the desk but that only made the desk shake too, so I put them in my pocket and shook all over.
He said, “They investigated.”
“Sure! I told you they would. Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha?”
My uncle Otto took a slow drag at the cigar. He said, “The man at the Bureau of Documents came to me and said, ‘Professor Schlemmelmayer,’ he said, ‘you are the victim of a clever fraud.’ I said, ‘So? And how can it a fraud be? The signature a forgery is?’ So he answered, ‘It certainly doesn’t look like a forgery, but it must be!’ ‘And why must it be?’ I asked.”
My uncle Otto put down his cigar, put down his drink and leaned across the desk toward me. He had me so in suspense, I leaned forward toward him, so in a way I deserved everything I got.
“Exactly,” I babbled, “why must it be? They can’t prove a thing wrong with it, because it’s genuine. Why must it be a fraud, eh? Why?”
My uncle Otto’s voice was terrifyingly saccharine. He said, “We got the parchment from the past?”
“Yes. Yes. You know we did.”
“Well in the past.”
“Over a hundred fifty years in the past. You said—”
“And a hundred fifty years ago the parchment on which the Declaration of Independence was written pretty new was. No?”
I was beginning to get it, but not fast enough.
My uncle Otto’s voice switched gears and became a dull, throbbing roar, “And if Button Gwinnett in 1777 died, you Godforsaken, dunderlump, how can an authentic signature of his on a new piece of parchment be found?”
After that it was just a case of the whole world rushing backward and forward about me.
I expect to be on my feet soon. I still ache, but the doctors tell me no bones were broken.
Still, my uncle Otto didn’t have to make me swallow the damned parchment.
WHO’S CRIBBING?
Jack Lewis
April 2, 1952
Mr. Jack Lewis
90-26 219 St.
Queens Village 28, NY
Dear Mr. Lewis:
We are returning your manuscript, THE NINTH DIMENSION. At first glance, I had figured it a story well worthy of publication. Why wouldn’t I? So did the editors of Cosmic Tale back in 1934 when the story was first published.
As you no doubt know, it was the great Todd Thromberry who wrote the story you tried to pass off on us as an original.
Let me give you a word of caution concerning the penalties resulting from plagiarism:
It’s not worth it. Believe me.
Sincerely,
Doyle P. Gates Science Fiction Editor
Deep Space Magazine
April 5, 1952
Mr. Doyle P. Gates,
Editor Deep Space Magazine
New York 3, NY
Dear Mr. Gates:
I do not know, nor am I aware of the existence of any Todd Thromberry. The story you rejected was submitted in good faith, and I resent the inference that I plagiarized it.
“The Ninth Dimension” was written by me not more than a month ago, and if there is any similarity between it and the story written by this Thromberry person, it is purely coincidental.
However, it has set me thinking. Some time ago, I submitted another story to Stardust Scientificion and received a penciled notation on the rejection slip stating that the story was, “too Thromberrish.”
Who the hell is Todd Thromberry? I don’t remember reading anything written by him in the ten years I’ve been interested in science fiction.
Sincerely,
Jack Lewis
April 11, 1952
Mr. Jack Lewis
90-26 219 St.
Queens Village 28, NY
Dear Mr. Lewis:
Re: Your letter of April 5.
While the editors of this magazine are not in the habit of making open accusations and are well aware of the fact in the writing business there will always be some overlapping of plot ideas, it is very hard for us to believe that you are not familiar with the works of Todd Thromberry.
While Mr. Thromberry is no longer among us, his works, like so many other writers’, only became widely recognized after his death in 1941. Perhaps it was his work in the field of electronics that supplied him with the bottomless pit of new ideas so apparent in all his works. Nevertheless, even at this stage of science fiction’s development it is apparent that he had a style that many of our so-called contemporary writers might do well to copy. By “copy,” I do not mean rewrite word for word one or more of his works, as you have done. For while you state this has been accidental, surely you must realize that the chance of this phenomenon actually occurring is about a million times as great as the occurrence of four royal flushes in one deal.
Sorry, but we’re not that naive.
Sincerely yours,
Doyle P. Gates
Science Fiction Editor
Deep Space Magazine
April 13, 1952
Mr. Doyle P. Gates,
Editor Deep Space Magazine
New York 3, NY
Sir:
Your accusations are typical of the rag you publish.
Please cancel my subscription immediately.
Sincerely,
Jack Lewis
April 14, 1952
Science Fiction Society
114 S. Front Ave
Chicago 28, IL
Gentlemen:
I am interested in reading some of the works of the late Todd Thromberry.
I would like to get some of the publications that feature his stories.
Respectfully,
Jack Lewis
April 22, 1952
Mr. Jack Lewis
90-26 219 St.
Queens Village 28, NY
Dear Mr. Lewis:
So would we. All I can suggest is that you contact the publishers if any are still in business, or haunt your second-hand bookstores.
If you succeed in getting any of these magazines, please let us know. We’ll pay you a handsome premium on them.
Yours,
Ray Albert President
Science Fiction Society
April 24, 1952
Mr. Sampson J. Gross,
Editor Strange Worlds Magazine
St. Louis 66, MO
Dear Mr. Gross:
I am enclosing the manuscript of a story I have just completed. As you see on the title page, I call it WRECKERS OF THE TEN MILLION GALAXIES. Because of the great amount of research that went into it, I must set the minimum price on this one at not less than two cents a word.
Hoping you will see fit to use it for publication in your magazine, I remain,
Respectfully,
Jack Lewis
May 19, 1952
Mr. Jack Lewis
90-26 219 St.
Queens Village 28, NY
Dear Mr. Lewis:
I’m sorry, but at the present time we won’t be able to use WRECKERS OF THE TEN MILLION GALAXIES. It’s a great yarn though, and if at some future date we decide to use it we will make out the reprint check directly to the estate of Todd Thromberry.
That boy sure could write.
Cordially,
Sampson J. Gross Editor
Strange Worlds Magazine
May 23, 1952
Mr. Doyle P. Gates,
Editor Deep Space Magazine
New York 3, NY
Dear Mr. Gates:
While I said that I would never have any dealings with you or your magazine again, a situation has arisen which is most puzzling.
It seems that all my stories are being returned to me by reason of the fact that except for the byline, they are exact duplicates of the works of this Todd Thromberry person.
In your last letter you aptly described the odds of one accidental occurrence of this phenomenon in the case of one story. What would you consider the approximate odds on no less than half a dozen of my writings?
I agree with you—astronomical!
Yet in the interest of all mankind, how can I get the idea across to you that every word I have submitted was actually written by me! I have never copied any material from Todd Thromberry, nor have I ever seen any of his writings. In fact, as I told you in one of my letters, up until a short while ago I was totally unaware of his very existence.
An idea has occurred to me however. It’s a truly weird theory, and one that I probably wouldn’t even suggest to anyone but a science fiction editor. But suppose—just suppose—that this Thromberry person, what with his experiments in electronics and everything, had in some way managed to crack through this time-space barrier mentioned so often in your magazine. And suppose—egotistical as it sounds—he had singled out my work as being the type of material he had always wanted to write.
Do you begin to follow me? Or is the idea of a person from a different time cycle looking over my shoulder while I write too fantastic to accept?
Please write and tell me what you think of my theory?
Respectfully,
Jack Lewis
May 25, 1952
Mr. Jack Lewis
90-26 219 St.
Queens Village 28, NY
Dear Mr. Lewis:
We think you should consult a psychiatrist.
Sincerely,
Doyle P. Gates
Science Fiction Editor
Deep Space Magazine
June 3, 1952
Mr. Sam Mines
Science Fiction Editor Standard Magazines Inc.
New York 12, NY
Dear Mr. Mines:
While the enclosed is not really a manuscript at all, I am submitting this series of letters, carbon copies, and correspondence, in the hope that you might give some credulity to this seemingly unbelievable happening.
The enclosed letters are all in proper order and should be self-explanatory. Perhaps if you publish them, some of your readers might have some idea how this phenomena could be explained.
I call the entire piece, WHO’S CRIBBING.
Respectfully,
Jack Lewis
June 10, 1952
Mr. Jack Lewis
90-26 219 St.
Queens Village 28, NY
Dear Mr. Lewis:
Your idea of a series of letters to put across a science-fiction idea is an intriguing one, but I’m afraid it doesn’t quite come off.
It was in the August 1940 issue of MACABRE ADVENTURES that Mr. Thromberry first used this very idea. Ironically enough, the story title also was, WHO’S CRIBBING?
Feel free to contact us again when you have something more original.
Yours,
Samual Mines
Science Fiction Editor Standard Magazines Inc.
TIME BUM
C.M. Kornbluth
Here is a story that would have delighted Damon Runyon. Even Harry the Horse, that Broadway immortal, would be forced to doff his hat to Harry Twenty-Third Street, the snappy dresser who came up with a completely new con game. For once this story gets around the local hangouts, the wise boys are going to drop their money machines and gold-mine stocks and start buying up lists of subscribers to science-fiction magazines. Yes sir, here’s one racket that is sure-fire—provided you’re willing to take the chance that the ending to Time Bum is pure fiction.
But God help you if you’re wrong!
HARRY Twenty-Third street suddenly burst into laughter. His friend and sometimes roper Farmer Brown looked inquisitive.
