Time Travel Omnibus, page 442
At first glance, the research had seemed to consist of nothing but paper work, the feeding and milking of the giant computers in the room. But Jim Dutton had allowed himself more than a “night-cap,” while discussing the habits of Tempestuous Tessie with his old classmate, and had canvassed the subject in such detail that Peter had no trouble in locating the door concealed in the air-conditioning unit, and entering the softly lighted tunnel which led to an underground room not far from the third Pyramid.
Tempestuous Tessie was located in the ruins of a mastaba, the tomb of one Lord Harakhte, a long forgotten noble, and its stone walls still bore traces of color where paintings had been. Just below the ceiling, at ground level, two modern windows had been installed, about six inches square, not likely to be noticed even if some tourist should wander so far from the conventional tour of the antiquities. One rock wall was covered with a slab of transparent neo-lucite, studded with numerous dials and rheostats, and the main buss bars were connected to power cables as thick as a man’s arm. The opposite wall was overlaid with a complex of circuit diagrams, in engineer’s shorthand.
In the center of the room stood Tempestuous Tessie, a plastic chair standing in a cube made of the intricate intermeshing of steel and aluminum ribbons.
By his sixth night of work, Peter felt himself ready for his little jump into the middle of next month. He had made his plans with his customary care, and nothing at all, he was certain, could go wrong. It would be as simple as ordering a drink at a bar, and getting it.
The schedule of the Tycho called for her to blast off at dawn, on Saturday, February 10. She would land on the moon some seven hours later, her crew of four would spend several days in observation, exploring the surface and recording data, and the rocket would return to its base the following Friday morning, February 16. This first trip was just a trial run, a pilot journey for future research.
After much careful, calculation, Peter decided to set the machine to project him to that important Friday at around eleven o’clock in the morning. He would then take a desert taxi to the Moonport, and if he were lucky he might see with his own eyes the landing of the ship. If the Tycho arrived before he did, he had only to ask some passer-by the details of the landing, or to read about them in the daily paper.
The power supply of the machine would limit his stay in the future to four hours, and if at the end of that time, by three in the afternoon, the ship had not returned, he would know that some terrible accident had occurred, and that in all probability the ship and its crew would never again reach Earth.
It was all very simple, he thought. Just an hour’s glimpse of the future, and he would be able to order his entire life as a sensible man likes to do.
He glanced at his wrist watch. A few minutes before eleven. He checked the settings on the dials. All correct.
He settled back into the chair, closed his eyes, and closed the switch.
HE felt slightly dizzy when he opened his eyes, but as he stepped from the cage a current of cold air from the surface helped to revive him. His watch read just eleven. Quickly he climbed up the narrow ramp, the once secret entrance left centuries ago by the mastaba’s builders, and emerged into the desert daylight. Walking quickly down the slope toward the Pyramids, he pushed through the stream of tourists until he reached the crowd of dragomans, waiting near the entrance of the Great Pyramid.
A white-bearded patriarch with cane in hand and ingratiating smile on his face approached him.
“Want a nice camel ride, mister?”
“No, no,” said Peter, glancing impatiently at the sky. “Can you tell me if the ship has come back from the moon, yet?”
“Very nice camel, mister. His name is George Washington. He rides easy.”
Peter shook off the restraining hand. “No, I want a desert taxi to take me over to the Moonport. I want to see the ship when it comes in.”
“Too late, mister,” said the dragoman. “Ship came in yesterday. You better stop worrying about the moon, and take nice camel ride instead.”
“What!” shouted Peter. “Are you sure it came in yesterday?”
“I’m sure, okay. Yesterday no business here. No tourists. Nobody wanted camel rides, everybody watching the ship come back from the moon. Business is very bad, mister. I have many children; and they don’t have enough to eat. Give me ten piasters for my family.”
“Blast your family,” said Peter. “I want to know about the ship. Why did she come back yesterday?”
“Something wrong. Where were you yesterday, not to hear? People all talked about it.”
“Never mind where I was yesterday. What went wrong?”
“How should I know? I’m only a poor old man with many hungry children.”
“Did everybody get back safe?”
“God, he knows,” said the old man, “but people say that two of the men, Americans, like you, were carried out of the ship on stretchers. And they say that the American government will send the bodies back to America. But only God knows.”
Peter was stunned. His heart beat furiously, and he could scarcely form words with his trembling lips.
“Which ones were they?” he gasped. “Who were the men?”
The Arab shrugged his shoulders. “God, he knows,” he said. “Why didn’t you read about it in the newspapers, or hear it over the radio? I know only that my family went hungry last night.”
Digging into his pocket, Peter pulled out a ten-piaster piece and Hung it at the outstretched hand. “Here’s for your family. Now let me go.”
He ran past the row of kneeling camels and paused at the door of a taxi which was just taking in a group of travelling Britons.
“Driver!” he said. “Where’s the nearest place to buy a paper?”
The driver scratched his head. “Don’t you have a radio? Not many papers, any more. Have to go to Groppi’s or Shepheard’s, maybe.”
“We’re in a hurry, driver,” said the tourist, with a curt stare at Peter.
Turning his back, Peter ran down the steep road that curved to Mena House, dashed through the garden, disturbing a flock of hungry sparrows, and into the lobby where he was met by a brightly dressed doorman. “Where’s your phone? Quickly!” He gave the number of Carl Johansson’s house in Maadi, and waited tensely, listening to the repeated ringing. All I have to do, he thought, is just to ask Carl which ones got back safely.
Then he banged home the receiver as though it had become a hissing snake, and sweat broke out on his forehead, as the doorman watched him curiously.
I can’t do that, thought Peter. Good heavens, I can’t do that! Maybe Carl was one of those killed. And what would his wife think of me, asking an insane, heartless question like that?
Tossing a coin to the doorman, he walked slowly out into the brilliant sunshine. In front of the hotel stood several taxis, and like a man in a dream Peter opened the door of one, crawled in, and settled down on the dilapidated springs of the back seat. No, telephoning Carl’s house was too risky. The best thing to do, he decided, would be to go over to Jim Dutton’s—the Institute would surely be closed today, out of respect for the victims—and find out why the ship had returned a day early, and which two of the crew had been killed.
“Take me to Maadi.”
With a clash of gears, the old-fashioned taxi-cab, vintage 1970, zoomed down the Pyramids road, snaking in and out of the traffic, blowing its horn constantly as it dodged camels and grazed the skirts of yelling little boys. They had gone only a few blocks when Peter jerked forward and shouted at the driver.
“Stop! Stop right here!”
Brakes screeched, and the car lurched to a stop, nearly knocking over a cart loaded with sugar cane, turned around.
“What’s the matter, sir? This is not Maadi.”
“I know it, I know it,” said Peter. “Just keep quiet and let me think a minute.”
The blue-beaded bangle, a charm against the Evil Eye, vibrated against the rear-vision mirror, swinging rhythmically in the light breeze.
The regular motion half hypnotized Peter as he watched it, and tried to arrange his thoughts.
I can’t possibly go to Jim Dutton’s house, he thought. I am an utter fool. What if I was one of the men killed? And if I roll up at his front door he’ll think I’m a ghost. Or, if I wasn’t killed, I might be anywhere at this moment, maybe even sitting in his living room! It would be terrible if there were two of me seen wandering around Cairo.
Or was it possible, his dazed mind wondered, to have two of him going about at the same time? He wished now that he had not skipped that course in the philosophy of time travel, in his senior year. He wished he knew the official verdict on the paradoxes involved. It would make his mind a lot easier now—or would it? He was overwhelmed with a sudden conviction that it was impossible for any one man to be in two places at the same time. Doesn’t the fact that I am here and alive, now, he wondered, prove that I was one of those killed on the trip to the moon?
He became conscious of a headache, an intense, throbbing, persistent ache, from nape of neck to forehead, which made clear thinking impossible, and the very effort to think was torture.
“Where to, sir?” said the driver.
With a supreme effort Peter disciplined his thoughts. I’ve got to keep out of sight, he reflected. Luckily, I don’t know so very many people in Cairo, as yet, but I mustn’t let myself run into anybody who knows me.
He glanced at his watch. It was nearly noon, now, and it was not likely that anybody would be in town at this hour, when the sun was at its hottest. The best thing to do was to buy a newspaper.
“Where to, sir?” asked the driver again.
“Take me into town. Isn’t there a newsstand right across the street from Shepheard’s? Take me there. I want to buy a paper.”
“Okay,” said the driver, as he started the car rolling. “What’s the matter with your radio?”
“Haven’t got one.”
The driver made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Too bad. Papers aren’t so easy to get, these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s this modern world, with the U.N. settling this research thing here, and all. Nowadays everybody has a radiophone and television, and with news service automatically piped in to every house, there’s only a few, what they call conservatives, that like to read the morning paper at breakfast time. When I was a kid, I remember I used to run errands for the bawab, the doorman, at one of the big apartment houses, and I remember I used to lug in at least a dozen different newspapers every morning. You had your pick of maybe three in Arabic, one in Italian, a couple in French, and an English paper, and so on. You could buy one either morning or evening. The way things are now, people don’t need them, and there’s only two that still come out, one in Arabic and one in English.”
Peter tensed. “Morning or evening?”
“Both morning.”
Peter sighed, and relaxed. As they paused for a few minutes to let a flock of fat-tailed sheep cross the street, he had a sudden idea.
“Maybe you can tell me what I want to know, driver. I understand the ship got back from the moon, yesterday.”
“That’s what they say.”
“And I heard two of the men were dead when the ship arrived. Is that right?”
“That’s what they say.”
“What were their names, can you tell me?”
The driver hunched his shoulders. “American names. I never can remember American names, mister, that’s why I call everybody ‘sir’ even my old customers. All those names sound alike to me.”
Peter gave up, and sat back until the taxi pulled up across the street from Shepheard’s. He paid off the driver and walked over to the news kiosk.
“Egyptian Gazette,” he said.
“Last one we got.”
MOVING to one side, he hastily searched the columns of the paper. There were only four pages, and it was not until he reached the inner columns of the third page that he came on any reference to the rocket ship. There he found the small heading, YESTERDAY’S TRAGEDY.
“The sad journey of the Tycho, detailed in yesterday’s paper,” he read, “has grieved the entire community. The King and his Ministers have sent their official condolences to the American Government, and to the U.N. Hyperphysics Institute. Private memorial services for the two unfortunate victims will be held at the America Embassy this morning at eleven.”
That was all.
Why had the crew had the diabolical idea of returning a day ahead of schedule, he wondered savagely? The shift in timing had demolished all his careful preparation, and made it impossible for him to find out what he had hoped to find. Yesterday’s news was dead. The tempo of modern living had come to mean that an event that happened yesterday’ was almost as remote from public interest as an event of a hundred years ago.
He crumpled the paper and threw it into the street, then turned back to the newsstand.
“I’d like to buy a copy of yesterday’s paper.”
The boy in charge looked bewildered. “Yesterday, all gone. Today, there,” and he pointed to the crumpled paper lying on the pavement.
“Yes, yes, I know, but I’m through with today, and it just happens that I want to see a copy of yesterday’s paper. Haven’t you got one, tucked under the counter there?” The boy shook his head, but a calculating look had come into his sharp black eyes.
“You want yesterday’s paper?”
“That’s right.”
“You pay?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, I go get you a copy.”
“Where can you get it?”
The boy pointed, vaguely. “Over at the office, where they publish it. Over in Kasr el Nil. Be back in five minutes.”
Peter hesitated. Should he go himself, he wondered? He glanced at his watch. Twelve-thirty. Only two hours and a half left to him. He was tired, and hungry, and particularly he was thirsty, from wandering about under the baking noon-day sun.
Across the street the shadowed entrance to Shepheard’s interior loomed enticingly. Inside, he knew, was the cool quietness of the bar.
“All right,” he said, handing over a ten piaster coin. “Go get me a copy of yesterday’s paper, and if I’m not here when you get back, wait for me. How long did you say it would take you?”
“Maybe five minutes, mister,” said the boy, with a happy grin. Deftly he lowered the protecting metal shield over his meager supply of papers, locked it with a padlock, and ran down the street.
Progress at last! thought Peter, as he dodged across the street, his ears battered by the bedlam of the honking cars, yelling pedestrians, and vociferous camels. He climbed the few steps to the stone veranda of the hotel, and walked toward the shaded arch of the door. Then he stopped, and turned his back.
Standing in the doorway, a saddened look on his face, stood Jim Dutton, talking with a U.N official. Peter side-stepped to shelter himself behind a potted palm, and cautiously peered through the leaves. Were they going or coming? Jim had been to the memorial services at the Embassy, he supposed, and had come here for a bracer before going home. The question was, was he leaving now, or was he just on his way to the bar? Standing in the doorway there, talking, he was as effective a barrier as a whole regiment of soldiers.
As the time dragged on, Peter glanced for the hundredth time at his watch. No minutes had ever seemed so long to him. If Jim didn’t leave soon, the prospect of a drink would vanish.
Another few minutes of talk, and Jim Dutton and the U.N. official turned, and entered the hotel. They had been arriving, not leaving.
With a sigh of resignation, Peter turned and walked down the steps, and crossed to the newsstand.
No boy. The traffic clattered by. A ragged urchin tugged at his sleeve.
“Buy a chance on the sweepstakes, mister?”
“I never take chances,” Peter snapped.
An old man shuffled up, looked around furtively, and offered from the shadow of his flowing sleeve some “very special” postcards. Peter shook his head.
A dragoman in pale green silk offered to guide him to the Bazaars, and Peter turned his back. But all three remained, trying to persuade him to change his mind, until he snarled at them with a vicious “Imshi!” and they scattered.
He had waited nearly half an hour and was glaring at his watch when the dragoman sauntered by again, a smirk on his cynical face.
“Are you waiting for somebody, sir?”
“Yes. I’m waiting for the boy that runs this newsstand. I sent him to buy me a copy of yesterday’s paper.”
“You gave him money?”
“Certainly.”
The dragoman pursed his lips. “No need to wait, sir. That boy won’t come back today.” And he strolled on, twirling his bamboo cane.
He was right. The boy didn’t come back.
At a quarter past one, Peter hailed a passing taxi.
“Sharia Kasr el Nil,” he said. “Egyptian Gazette
Five minutes later he was clattering up the wooden stairs of an old building, and on the second floor he faced a door labeled Egyptian Gazette. The door was closed.
He knocked, but nothing happened. He rattled the door knob, but the door was firmly locked. No sound came from inside.
He shouted. “Hello! Anybody here?”
Presently a bent old man hobbled down the hall, peering at him with half blind eyes.
“Nobody home,” he said.
“But I want to get into this office, to see the editor.”
“Nobody home.”
“Where are they?”
The old man broke into a flood of Arabic which left Peter’s head swimming. He cut in to the meaningless volubility.
“Don’t you speak English?”
“La! Nobody home.”
“And I thought everybody in Cairo could speak English! Where’s the editor? Where’s the printers? Where is everybody?”
The door of the adjoining office opened and an amiable, swarthy face peered out “I’m Italian myself, old boy, but I can speak English. Editor’s gone to Alex for the week-end. The help are all at church.”
