Time Travel Omnibus, page 549
His excitement softened. He looked from the window and the night, inward, toward the bedrooms. “And my wife and kids,” he finished, most gently. “No, I wouldn’t go back, no matter what happened.
I took a final breath of my cigar. “You have done rather well.”
Liberated from his gray mood, he grinned at me. “You know, I think you believe that yarn.”
“Oh, I do.” I stubbed out the cigar, rose, and stretched. “The hour is late. We’d better be going.”
He didn’t notice at once. When he did, he came out of his chair like a big cat. “We?”
“Of course.” I drew a nerve gun from my pocket. He stopped in his tracks. “This sort of thing isn’t left to chance. We check up. Come along, now.”
The blood drained from his face. “No.” he mouthed, “no, no, no, you can’t, it isn’t fair, not to Amalie, the children—”
“That,” I told him, “is part of the punishment.”
I left him in Damascus, the year before Tamerlane sacked it.
THE OTHER END OF THE LINE
Walter Tevis
HUNGOVER FROM CHEAP WHISkey, George Bledsoe made a simple error that many people make: he mistakenly dialed his own number on the telephone. He was attempting to call a girl he knew—a homely girl, but one with the virtues of being quick and easy—and, through his customary impatience and general fogginess, let the wrong pattern of digits govern his pudgy index finger: BE-8-5883.
He did not get the busy signal. He should have; but he did not. Instead, the phone began clicking loudly and an operator’s voice announced dimly, as if from a great distance, ‘That’s a ship-to-shore connection, sir.” George Bledsoe, just then realizing that he had, in fact, stupidly dialed his own number, said, “What the hell?” There was a great deal of static and then, quite clearly, a man’s voice said, “All right. Who is it?” George blinked. The voice was loud and arrogant. It sounded somehow familiar, but he could not place it.
But George was not by nature a deferential person. “Who in hell are you, friend?” he said.
The voice paused a moment and then it said, clearly, “This is George Bledsoe.”
“Look, friend,” George Bledsoe said, “You can take that and . . .”
He started to hang up and then stopped. How could . . .?
“That’s right,” the voice said, mockingly, “How could I know?” And then, “You let it sink in a minute, Georgie, and then you get that tablet of paper out of the top dresser drawer and get yourself a pencil out of the box on the refrigerator and you get ready to write some things down. We don’t have all day.”
George was staring at the phone in disbelief. It was his voice, as if on a tape recorder. He blinked, and found himself sweating. But, unused to taking orders, he said, “Why should I?” “Don’t argue, dammit. I’m talking to you from October ninth. I’m sitting in a boat, twenty-eight miles and two months from where you are and I’ve got a pile of newspapers, Georgie, that haven’t even been printed yet, back there in August where you’re talking from. I’m going to make you rich.”
It sounded like a con game. George’s eyes narrowed. “Why should you?”
“Because I’m you, you stupid bastard. Get that paper and start writing. I’m going to give you the names of some racehorses and of three issues of stocks. And a baseball team. You’d better get them right the first time. There won’t be another.”
George was staring around the room dizzily; the hand that held the phone was sticky with sweat. “How can . . .?”
“Dammit, shut up. I don’t know how. It just is.”
He got the notepad, and got them all down. Twenty-six racehorses and three stocks and the ball team that was going to win the World Series. Then the phone clicked and the line went dead. Thoroughly dead; he could not even get the dial tone.
There were three horses on his list for the next day. They were all medium-long shots, and they all won. He had started with fifty dollars; he left the track in a kind of cold, glassy-eyed frenzy, with over seven thousand dollars in cash in his pockets. In his shirt pocket, over his heart, was the sheet of notepaper, his greatest gift in the world—a gift from himself.
During the next two months the horses all won at their different tracks and the stocks all split, shot up, declared unexpected dividends. By nosing out the wealthiest bookies at home, in Miami, and in four other cities, and by careful spreading of his bets, George was able to make himself a millionaire after the first five weeks. He won a quarter million on the World Series alone. It was on this last that a bookie who, hadn’t hedged his bets adequately against George’s hundred thousand dollar lay-out was forced to offer him his own luxury fishing boat, anchored off Key West, as part payment. George, seeing the handwriting on the wall plainly enough, accepted with what was for him considerable graciousness. That is, he merely called the bookie a chiseling bastard, trimmed five thousand off the boat’s evaluation, and took it.
He knew that it was somehow in the nature of things that he must be aboard a boat with a telephone on October ninth. He would be getting a phone call.
The ordaining of it all took no effort on his part. He was called a week later by the telephone company, who wished to know if he planned to continue the ship-to-shore service on the boat. He told them yes, and then, as if were an afterthought, mentioned that he would like his old Miami number transferred to the boat—important friends would be calling. The number? BE-8-5883. Then, when he had bet the final horse on his list, betting the track odds down to the point of diminishing returns, phoning and nagging the nine remaining New York and Chicago bookies who would still take his bets, he hired a chauffeured limousine to take him to Key West. He did not go alone; with him were two attractive young ladies, a gambling friend, a large box of frozen prime steaks, and two cases of twelve-dollar-a-bottle whiskey. And a pile of newspapers.
It was during the ebullient stage of his drunkenness on this automobile ride, after he had tired of needling his friends, that a striking thought occurred to him: what if he decided not to go to the boat at all? His mind fogged at the thought. But how could he not be on that boat October ninth? He had, in a sense, already been there. That part of his future was a part of his past, and you couldn’t change the past. But you could change the future, couldn’t you? He could not understand it. He drank more whiskey and tried to forget about it; it wasn’t important anyway. What was important was his four-hundred dollar platinum wristwatch, his sixty-dollar shoes, his cashmere jacket, his bank accounts. He had come a long way in those two months. One of the girls, whose name was supposed to be Lili, snuggled up to him. He began playing with her and tried to forget about time paradoxes.
The boat looked to George like something out of a Man of Distinction ad; it was big, sleek, polished, and beautifully equipped. His heart swelled with something resembling pride when he surveyed its lines, standing drunkenly on the dock, with a disheveled Lili hanging on his arm. They went aboard, and Lili giggled, and whistled at the mahogany bar, the innerspring mattresses, the hi-fi, the impeccable little stainless steel galley. George, suddenly pensive, left Lili fixing drinks at the bar for the party and went into the boat’s little air-conditioned cabin, to look around.
Somehow the sight of it shook him: sitting on a small table, next to a tan leather armchair, was a bright, glossy, red telephone. He walked over to it slowly , and read the number on the dial. The man from the company had been there, for it read MIAMI: BE-8-5883. Outside on the deck the girls were laughing now, and there was the sound of ice clinking in glasses. Someone called out drunkenly, “Come on out Georgie and have a bon voyage” but he didn’t answer, still looking at the phone.
A pilot had been hired and he took them out that afternoon. They fished in a desultory way, too drunk and noisy to care. George drank continuously, bullied everyone loudly, made no attempt to fish. A restlessness, an impatience, was eating at him; in his mind telephones were ringing faintly all day. By sundown of the first day they were spent with liquor, sex, sunshine and quarrelling. George passed out across the deck, near the one fish that Lili had, miraculously, caught: a small, wide-eyed Bonito with a white flabby belly. The last fleeting thought to enter his mind before he fell into smirking unconsciousness was: Why can’t that lousy son of a bitch call me early? Why should I wait?
The ninth of October was overcast—cold and muggy—as was George’s disposition. No one was any longer interested in fishing. The gambler slept; the girls kept to themselves on deck; and George shut himself up in the cabin, waiting for the phone to ring. He swore under his breath occasionally, but otherwise passed the morning in silence. He contemplated the luxury of his silk dressing gown, the brass and mahogany furnishings around him, the good, solid teakwood deck beneath his feet; and the thought of the virtually penniless and belligerent drunkard who was about to call him from a crumby little beach house at Miami. At his feet sat the pile of newspapers, opened to the sporting pages. He looked down at them now and swore. He was beginning to sweat.
Outside the cabin window the sky was dead white, hanging thickly over the cold green Atlantic horizon. They were ninety miles out from shore, the pilot had said. George continued drinking, angry now at himself—the other himself—for not having bothered to mention the time of day his call had been received. He had dialed the number at about two in the afternoon; but of course that didn’t mean that two o’clock was the time it was received, two months later. He continued looking at his watch and at the telephone and at his watch again, drinking. Occasionally he would look out the window at the serenely violent ocean, ice green beneath the fishbelly sky, and curse.
And then, just before two o’clock, an idea struck him, a very simple idea: Why should he wait? He would make the call himself. He had never, in the two months since it had happened, tried dialing his own number again—why had he never thought of it? Why should he wait for that poor slob of a hung-over George Bledsoe to call him—him with his private fishing boat and his twelve dollar whiskey?
He picked up the phone angrily, with thick fingers, and began dialing: BE-8-5883. He was breathing heavily. After the last digit the phone began to buzz, ringing. He smiled sweatily and leaned back in his chair. Then there was a click and a voice answered. “Hello?”
He sat bolt upright in his chair. It was a woman’s voice.
He hesitated and then said, “Hello.” Gould he have dialed the wrong number? “What number is this?”
The voice was that of an old woman, quavery but matter-of-fact. “This is BE-8-5883. Mrs. Arthur Cavanaugh talking.”
“Oh.” He took a quick sip from his drink. “Is . . . is George Bledsoe there?”
“No. No he isn’t.” There seemed to be some hesitation in her voice. “Mr. Bledsoe hasn’t lived in this house for some time.”
Abruptly he felt relieved—he had probably only moved to a bigger home. About time, anyway. But why had he been frightened of this old bat on the phone?
The woman was saying querously, “Are you a friend . . . of Mr. Bledsoes?”
He laughed suddenly, coarsely, “That’s right, lady. I’m a friend of Mr. Bledsoe’s.”
“Well I don’t know just how to tell you this,” the woman said, “But a person would have thought you’d read about it in the papers. It was in all the papers. They found Mr. Bledsoe’s body, stark naked, a hundred miles out in the Gulf. It was about two months ago they found him, and the thing is there’s nobody yet knows how he got out there.”
He sat silent for what seemed a very long time. There seemed to be a faint clicking in the phone, but he ignored this. The woman must be mistaken. An old fool. A bitch. Although the cabin was tightly closed, he felt the distinct sensation of a cold wind blowing on the back of his neck. Shaking himself, he gathered his voice together. The woman was a lying bitch. “How George Bledsoe got out there, lady, was in his private boat,” he said, more to himself than to her, “The same way he’s gonna get back to shore. In his private boat.”
The wind on the back of his neck was stronger now, and he was shivering. The wind seemed to be penetrating his clothes, even, blowing through his dressing gown, through the tailored silk shirt beneath it. Dimly, as if from a great and dreadful distance, he heard the old woman’s voice saying, “Why Mr. Bledsoe never had a boat, Lord forbid. Mr. Bledsoe was a poor man . . .”
Abruptly he leaned forward, shouting, “No. No, you rotten bitch!” and he slammed the phone back in its cradle. It was cold in the room. He was shivering. There was a bright, grayish light in the cabin, getting brighter. He grabbed the phone again, shaking, and dialed O, for the operator. The dial felt soft to his finger, squashy.
The operator’s voice came, faint, “Ship-to-shore service.”
His voice was hoarse, strange in his ears. “This is Bledsoe. BE-8-5883. Is there a call for me?”
“No sir. Or, yes, there was a call.”
“From who?” It took an effort to keep from shouting—or screaming.
“Just a moment.” And then, “That’s odd sir; it must be an error. I have the number calling listed as BE-8-5883. And that’s your number, sir.”
“My God, I know. Put the call through.”
Her voice was fainter, fading away from him. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait until the party calls again. When he called, a few moments ago, the line was busy . . .” The last words were so faint that he could hardly hear them. He was screaming when she finished, “Put the call through, God damn it, put the call through.”
From the receiver her voice was the minute thread of a whisper, but he heard it plainly, “I’m sorry sir, the line was busy.”
And then the phone went altogether dead.
Then, after sitting for a moment with his eyes shut against the impossible white daylight in the closed cabin, his body huddled against the cold wind that was blowing through the bulkheads of the rich man’s boat that he could not possibly have been in, blowing coldly against his body through the rich man’s clothes that he, George Bledsoe, could not possibly have afforded, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes, looking down.
Below him, through the fading, now translucent teakwood deck, he could see the flat, ice-green water of the Atlantic Ocean, ninety miles from shore.
RAINBIRD
R.A. Lafferty
Meet Higgston Rainbird, who invented steamboating and the nuclear pile—remember?
WERE scientific firsts truly tabulated the name of the Yankee inventor, Higgston Rainbird, would surely be without peer. Yet today he is known (and only to a few specialists, at that) for an improved blacksmith’s bellows in the year 1785, for a certain modification (not fundamental) in the moldboard plow about 1805, for a better (but not good) method of reefing the lateen sail, for a chestnut roaster, for the Devil’s Claw Wedge for splitting logs, and for a nutmeg grater embodying a new safety feature; this last was either in the year 1816 or 1817. He is known for such, and for no more.
Were this all that he achieved his name would still be secure. And it is secure, in a limited way, to those who hobby in technological history.
But the glory of which history has cheated him, or of which he cheated himself, is otherwise. In a different sense it is without parallel, absolutely unique.
For he pioneered the dynamo, the steam automobile, the steel industry, ferro-concrete construction, the internal combustion engine, electric illumination and power, the wireless, the televox, the petroleum and petro-chemical industries, monorail transportation, air travel, worldwide monitoring, fissionable power, space travel, group telepathy, political and economic balance; he built a retrogressor; and he made great advances towards corporal immortality and the apotheosis of mankind. It would seem unfair that all this is unknown of him.
Even the once solid facts—that he wired Philadelphia for light and power in 1799, Boston the following year, and New York two years later—are no longer solid. In a sense they are no longer facts.
For all this there must be an explanation; and, if not that, then an account at least; and if not that, well—something anyhow.
WIGGSTON RAINBIRD made a certain decision on a June afternoon in 1779 when he was quite a young man, and by this decision he confirmed his inventive bent.
He was hawking from the top of Devil’s Head Mountain. He flew his falcon (actually a tercel hawk) down through the white clouds, and to him it was the highest sport in the world. The bird came back, climbing the blue air, and brought a passenger pigeon from below the clouds. And Higgston was almost perfectly happy as he hooded the hawk.
He could stay there all day and hawk from above the clouds. Or he could go down the mountain and work on his sparker in his shed. He sighed as he made the decision, for no man can have everything. There was a fascination about hawking. But there was also a fascination about the copper-strip sparker. And he went down the mountain to work on it.
Thereafter he hawked less. After several years he was forced to give it up altogether.
He had chosen his life, the dedicated career of an inventor, and he stayed with it for sixty-five years.
His sparker was not a success. It would be expensive, its spark was uncertain and it had almost no advantage over flint. People could always start a fire. If not, they could borrow a brand from a neighbor. There was no market for the sparker. But it was a nice machine, hammered copper strips wrapped around iron teased with lodestone, and the thing turned with a hand crank. He never gave it up entirely. He based other things upon it; and the retrogressor of his last years could not have been built without it.
