Time Travel Omnibus, page 568
And yet, Tozzo was still uneasy.
However, the plan had been arranged; now it was time to go. With Gilly, the other member selected, Tozzo entered the time-dredge and seated himself at the controls. The Department of Archaeology had provided a full instruction manual, which lay open before him. As soon as Gilly had locked the hatch, Tozzo took the bull by the horns (a twentieth century expression) and started up the dredge.
Dials registered. They were spinning backward into time, back to 1954 and the San Francisco Pre-Cog Congress.
Beside him, Gilly practiced mid twentieth century phrases from a reference volume. “Diz muz be da blace . . .” Gilly cleared his throat. “Kilroy was here,” he murmured. “Wha’ hoppen? Like man, let’s cut out; this ball’s a drag.” He shook his head. “I can’t grasp the exact sense of these phrases,” he apologized to Tozzo. “Twenty-three skidoo.”
Now a red light glowed; the dredge was about to conclude its journey. A moment later its turbines halted.
They had come to rest on the sidewalk outside the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in downtown San Francisco.
On all sides, people in quaint archaic costumes dragged along on foot. And, Tozzo saw, there were no monorails; all the visible traffic was surface-bound. What a congestion, he thought, as he watched the automobiles and buses moving inch by inch along the packed streets. An official in blue waved traffic ahead as best he could, but the entire enterprise, Tozzo could see, was an abysmal failure.
“Time for phase two,” Gilly said. But he, too, was gaping at the stalled surface vehicles. “Good grief,” he said, “look at the incredibly short skirts of the women; why, the knees are virtually exposed. Why don’t the women die of whisk virus?”
“I don’t know,” Tozzo said, “but I do know we’ve got to get into the Sir Francis Drake Hotel.”
Carefully, they opened the port of the time-dredge and stepped out. And then Tozzo realized something. There had been an error. Already.
The men of this decade were clean-shaven.
“Gilly,” he said rapidly, “we’ve got to shed our beards and mustaches.” In an instant he had pulled Gilly’s off, leaving his bare face exposed. But the wig; that was correct. All the men visible wore head-dress of some type; Tozzo saw few if any bald men. The women, too, had luxurious wigs . . . or were they wigs? Could they perhaps be natural hair?
In any case, both he and Gilly now would pass. Into the Sir Francis Drake, he said to himself, leading Gilly along.
They darted lithely across the sidewalk—it was amazing how slowly the people of this time-period walked—and into the inexpressibly old-fashioned lobby of the hotel. Like a museum, Tozzo thought as he glanced about him. I wish we could linger . . . but they could not.
“How’s our identification?” Gilly said nervously. “Is it passing inspection?” The business with the facehair had upset him.
On each of their lapels they carried the expertly made false identification. It worked. Presently they found themselves ascending by a lift, or rather elevator, to the correct floor.
The elevator let them off in a crowded foyer. Men, all clean-shaven, with wigs or natural hair, stood in small clusters everywhere, laughing and talking. And a number of attractive women, some of them in garments called leotards, which were skin-tight, loitered about smilingly. Even though the styles of the times required their breasts to be covered, they were a sight to see.
Sotto voce, Gilly said, “I am stunned. In this room are some of the—”
“I know,” Tozzo murmured. Their Project could wait, at least a little while. Here was an unbelievably golden opportunity to see these pre-cogs, actually to talk to them and listen to them . . .
Here came a tall, handsome man in a dark suit that sparkled with tiny specks of some unnatural material, some variety of synthetic. The man wore glasses and his hair, everything about him, had a tanned, dark look. The name on his identification . . . Tozzo peered.
The tall, good-looking man was A. E. van Vogt.
“Say,” another individual, perhaps a pre-cog enthusiast, was saying to van Vogt, stopping him. “I read both versions of your World of Null A and I still didn’t quite get that about it being him; you know, at the end. Could you explain that part to me? And also when they started into the tree and then just—” van Vogt halted. A soft smile appeared on his face and he said. “Well, I’ll tell you a secret. I start out with a plot and then the plot sort of folds up. So then I have to have another plot to finish the rest of the story.”
Going over to listen, Tozzo felt something magnetic about van Vogt. He was so tall, so spiritual. Yes, Tozzo said to himself; that was the word, a healing spirituality. There was a quality of innate goodness which emanated from him.
All at once van Vogt said, “There goes a man with my pants.” And without a further word to the enthusiast, stalked off and disappeared into the crowd.
Tozzo’s head swam. To actually have seen and heard A. E. van Vogt—
“Look,” Gilly was saying, plucking at his sleeve. “That enormous, genial-looking man seated over there; that’s Howard Browne, who edited the pre-cog journal Amazing at this time-period.”
“I have to catch a plane,” Howard Browne was saying to anyone who would listen to him. He glanced about him in a worried anxiety, despite his almost physical geniality.
“I wonder,” Gilly said, “if Doctor Asimov is here.”
We can ask, Tozzo decided. He made his way over to one of the young women wearing a blonde wig and green leotards. “WHERE IS DOCTOR ASIMOV?” he asked clearly in the argot of the times.
“Who’s to know?” the girl said.
“Is he here, miss?”
“Naw,” the girl said.
Gilly again plucked at Tozzo’s sleeve. “We must find Poul Anderson, remember? Enjoyable as it is to talk to this girl—”
“I’m inquiring about Asimov,” Tozzo said brusquely. After all, Isaac Asimov had been the founder of the entire twenty-first century positronic robot industry. How could he not be here?
A burly outdoorish man strode by them, and Tozzo saw that this was Jack Vance. Vance, he decided, looked more like a big game hunter than anything else . . . we must beware of him, Tozzo decided. If we got into any altercation Vance could take care of us easily.
He noticed now that Gilly was talking to the blonde-wigged girl in the green leotards. “MURRAY LEINSTER?” Gilly was asking. “The man whose paper on parallel time is still at the very forefront of theoretical studies; isn’t he—”
“I dunno,” the girl said, in a bored tone of voice.
A group had gathered about a figure opposite them; the central person whom everybody was listening to was saying, “. . . all right, if like Howard Browne you prefer air travel, fine. But I say it’s risky. I don’t fly. In fact even riding in a car is dangerous. I generally lie down in the back.” The man wore a short-cropped wig and a bow tie; he had a round, pleasant face but his eyes were intense.
It was Ray Bradbury, and Tozzo started toward him at once.
“Stop!” Gilly whispered angrily. “Remember what we came for.”
And, past Bradbury, seated at the bar, Tozzo saw an older, care-weathered man in a brown suit wearing small glasses and sipping a drink. He recognized the man from drawings in early Gernsback publications; it was the fabulously unique pre-cog from the New Mexico region, Jack Williamson.
“I thought Legion of Time was the finest novel-length science-fiction work I ever read,” an individual, evidently another pre-cog enthusiast, was saying to Jack Williamson, and Williamson was nodding in pleasure.
“That was originally going to be a short story,” Williamson said. “But it grew. Yes, I like that one, too.”
Meanwhile Gilly had wandered on, into an adjoining room. He found, at a table, two women and a man in deep conversation. One of the women, dark-haired and handsome, with bare shoulders, was—according to her identification plate—Evelyn Paige. The taller woman he discovered was the renowned Margaret St. Clair, and Gilly at once said:
“Mrs. St. Clair, your article entitled The Scarlet Hexapodin the September 1959 was one of the finest—” And then he broke off.
Because Margaret St. Clair had not written that yet. Knew in fact nothing about it. Flushing with nervousness, Gilly backed away.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Excuse me; I became confused.”
Raising an eyebrow, Margaret St. Clair said, “In the September 1959 issue, you say? What are you, a man from the future?”
“Droll,” Evelyn Paige said, “but let’s continue.” She gave Gilly a hard stare from her black eyes. “Now Bob, as I understand what you’re saying—” She addressed the man opposite her, and Gilly saw now to his delight that the dire-looking cadaverous individual was none other than Robert Bloch.
Gilly said, “Mr. Bloch, your article in Galaxy: Sabbatical, was—”
“You’ve got the wrong person, my friend,” Robert Bloch said. “I never wrote any piece entitled Sabbatical.”
Good Lord, Gilly realized. I did it again; Sabbatical is another work which has not been written yet. I had better get away from here. He moved back toward Tozzo . . . and found him standing rigidly.
Tozzo said, “I’ve found Anderson.”
At once, Gilly turned, also rigid.
Both of them had carefully studied the pictures provide by the Library of Congress. There stood the famous pre-cog, tall and slender and straight, even a trifle thin, with curly hair—or wig—and glasses, a warm glint of friendliness in his eyes. He held a whiskey glass in one hand, and he was discoursing with several other pre-cogs. Obviously he was enjoying himself.
“Urn, uh, let’s see,” Anderson was saying, as Tozzo and Gilly came quietly up to join the group. “Pardon?” Anderson cupped his ear to catch what one of the other pre-cogs was saying. “Oh, uh, yup, that’s right.” Anderson nodded. “Yup, Tony, uh, I agree with you one hundred per cent.”
The other pre-cog, Tozzo realized, was the superb Tony Boucher, whose pre-cognition of the religious revival of the next century had been almost supernatural. The word-by-word description of the Miracle in the Cave involving the robot . . . Tozzo gazed at Boucher with awe, and then he turned back to Anderson.
“Poul,” another pre-cog said. “I’ll tell you how the Italians intended to get the British to leave if they did invade in 1943. The British would stay at hotels, the best, naturally. The Italians would overcharge them.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” Anderson said, nodding and smiling, his eyes twinkling. “And then the British, being gentlemen, would say nothing—”
“But they’d leave the next day,” the other pre-cog finished, and all in the group laughed, except for Gilly and Tozzo.
“Mr. Anderson,” Tozzo said tensely, “we’re from an amateur pre-cog organization at Battlecreek, Michigan and we would like to photograph you beside our model of a time-dredge.”
“Pardon?” Anderson said, cupping his ear.
Tozzo repeated what he had said, trying to be audible above the background racket. At last Anderson seemed to understand.
“Oh, um, well, where is it?” Anderson asked obligingly.
“Downstairs on the sidewalk,” Gilly said. “It was too heavy to bring up.”
“Well, uh, if it won’t take too awfully long,” Anderson said, “which I doubt it will.” He excused himself from the group and followed after them as they started toward the elevator.
“It’s steam-engine building time,” a heavy-set man called to them as they passed. “Time to build steam engines, Poul.”
“We’re going downstairs,” Tozzo said nervously.
“Walk downstairs on your heads,” the pre-cog said. He waved goodbye goodnaturedly, as the elevator came and the three of them entered it.
“Kris is jolly today,” Anderson said.
“And how,” Gilly said, using one of his phrases.
“Is Bob Heinlein here?” Anderson asked Tozzo as they descended. “I understand he and Mildred Clingerman went off somewhere to talk about cats and nobody has seen them come back.”
“That’s the way the ball bounces,” Gilly said, trying out another twentieth century phrase.
Anderson cupped his ear, smiled hesitantly, but said nothing.
At last, they emerged on the sidewalk. At the sight of their time-dredge, Anderson blinked in astonishment.
“I’ll be gosh darned,” he said, approaching it. “That’s certainly imposing. Sure, I’d, uh, be happy to pose beside it.” He drew his lean, angular body erect, smiling that warm, almost tender smile that Tozzo had noticed before. “Uh, how’s this?” Anderson inquired, a little timidly.
With an authentic twentieth century camera taken from the Smithsonian, Gilly snapped a picture. “Now inside,” he requested, and glanced at Tozzo.
“Why, uh, certainly,” Poul Anderson said, and stepped up the stairs and into the dredge. “Gosh, Karen would, uh, like this,” he said as he disappeared inside. “I wish to heck she’d come along.”
Tozzo followed swiftly. Gilly slammed the hatch shut, and, at the control board, Tozzo, with the instruction manual in hand, punched buttons.
The turbines hummed, but Anderson did not seem to hear them; he was engrossed in staring at the controls, his eyes wide.
“Gosh,” he said.
The time-dredge passed back to the present, with Anderson still lost in his scrutiny of the controls.
IV
Fermeti met them. “Mr. Anderson,” he said, “this is an incredible honor.” He held out his hand, but now Anderson was peering through the open hatch past him, at the city beyond; he did not notice the offered hand.
“Say,” Anderson said, his face twitching. “Um, what’s, uh, this?”
He was staring at the monorail system primarily, Tozzo decided. And this was odd, because at least in Seattle there had been monorails back in Anderson’s time . . . or had there been? Had that come later? In any case, Anderson now wore a massively perplexed expression.
“Individual cars,” Tozzo said, standing close beside him. “Your monorails had only group cars. Later on, after your time, it was made possible for each citizen’s house to have a monorail outlet; the individual brought his car out of its garage and onto the rail-terminal, from which point he joined the collective structure. Do you see?”
But Anderson remained perplexed; his expression in fact had deepened.
“Um,” he said, “what do you mean ‘my time’ ? Am I dead?” He looked morose now. “I thought it would be more along the lines of Valhalla, with Vikings and such. Not futuristic.”
“You’re not dead, Mr. Anderson,” Fermeti said. “What you’re facing is the culture-syndrome of the mid twenty-first century. I must tell you, sir, that you’ve been napped. But you will be returned; I give you both my personal and official word.”
Andersen’s jaw dropped, but he said nothing; he continued to stare.
Donald Nils, notorious murderer, sat at the single table in the reference room of the Emigration Bureau’s interstellar speed-of-light ship and computed that he was, in Earth figures, an inch high. Bitterly, he cursed. “It’s cruel and unusual punishment,” he grated aloud. “It’s against the Constitution.” And then he remembered that he had volunteered, in order to get out of Nachbaren Slager. That goddam hole, he said to himself. Anyhow, I’m out of there.
And, he said to himself, even if I’m only an inch high I’ve still made myself captain of this lousy ship, and if it ever gets to Proxima I’ll be captain of the entire lousy Proxima System. I didn’t study with Gutman himself for nothing. And if that don’t beat Nachbaren Slager, I don’t know what does . . .
His second-in-command, Pete Bailly, stuck his head into the reference room. “Hey, Nils, I have been looking over the micro-repro of this particular old pre-cog journal Astounding like you told me, this Venus Equilateral article about matter transmission, and I mean even though I was the top vid repairman in New York City that don’t mean I can build one of these things.” He glared at Nils. “That’s asking a lot.”
Nils said tightly, “We’ve got to get back to Earth.”
“You’re out of luck,” Bailly told him. “Better settle for Prox.”
Furiously, Nils swept the micro-reproductions from the table, onto the floor of the ship. “That damn Bureau of Emigration! They tricked us!”
Bailly shrugged. “Anyhow we got plenty to eat and a good reference library and 3-D movies every night.”
“By the time we get to Prox,” Nils snarled, “we’ll have seen every movie—” He calculated. “Two thousand times.”
“Well, then don’t watch. Or we can run them backwards. How’s your research coming?”
“I got going the micro of an article in Space Science Fiction” Nils said thoughtfully, “called The Variable Man. It tells about faster-than-light transmission. You disappear and then reappear. Sonic guy named Cole is going to perfect it, according to the old-time pre-cog who wrote it.” He brooded about that. “If we could build a faster-than-light ship we could return to Earth. We could take over.”
“That’s crazy talk,” Bailly said.
Nils regarded him. “I’m in command.”
“Then,” Bailly said, “we got a nut in command. There’s no returning to Terra; we better build our lives on Proxima’s planets and forget forever about our home. Thank God we got women aboard. My God, even if we did get back . . . what could one-inch high people accomplish? We’d be jeered at.”
“Nobody jeers at me,” Nils said quietly.
But he knew Bailly was right. They’d be lucky if they could research the micros of the old pre-cog journals in the ship’s reference room and develop for themselves a way of landing safely on Proxima’s planets . . . even that was asking a lot.
We’ll succeed, Nils said to himself. As long as everyone obeys me, does exactly as I tell them, with no dumb questions.
Bending, he activated the spool of the December 1962 If. There was an article in it that particularly interested him . . . and he had four years ahead of him in which to read, understand, and finally apply it.
