Time Travel Omnibus, page 742
He caught a few words:
“Fantastic composition” . . . “amazing things with black and white” . . . “almost looks real” . . . “turns my stomach” . . . “can’t imagine working with such primitive equipment” . . .
Someone touched his shoulder. Brady turned. A woman smiled at him. She wore a long purple gown and her brown hair was wrapped around the top of her head. It took a moment for him to recognize his benefactress.
“Welcome to the exhibit, Mathew. People are enjoying your work.”
She smiled at him and moved on. And then it hit him. He finally had an exhibit. He finally had people staring at his work, and seeing what had really happened in all those places during all that time. She had shown him this gallery all his life, whirled him here when he thought he was asleep. This was his destiny, just as dying impoverished in his own world was his destiny.
“You’re the artist?” A slim man in a dark suit stood beside Brady.
“This is my work,” Brady said.
A few people crowded around. The scent of soap and perfume nearly overwhelmed him.
“I think you’re an absolutely amazing talent,” the man said. His voice was thin, with an accent that seemed British but wasn’t. “I can’t believe the kind of work you put into this to create such stark beauty. And with such bulky equipment.”
“Beauty?” Brady could barely let the word out of his throat. He gazed around the room, saw the flowered woman, the row of corpses on the Gettysburg Battlefield.
“Eerie,” a woman said. “Rather like late Goya, don’t you think, Lavinia?”
Another woman nodded. “Stunning, the way you captured the exact right light, the exact moment to illuminate the concept.”
“Concept?” Brady felt his hands shake. “You’re looking at war here. People died in these portraits. This is history, not art.”
“I think you’re underestimating your work,” the man said. “It is truly art, and you are a great, great artist. Only an artist would see how to use black and white to such a devastating effect—”
“I wasn’t creating art,” Brady said. “My assistants and I, we were shot at. I nearly died the day the soldiers burned that church. This isn’t beauty. This is war. It’s truth. I wanted you to see how ugly war really is.”
“And you did it so well,” the man said. “I truly admire your technique.” And then he walked out of the room. Brady watched him go. The women smiled, shook his hand, told him that it was a pleasure to meet him. He wandered around the room, heard the same types of conversation, and stopped when he saw his benefactress.
“They don’t understand,” he said. “They think this was done for them, for their appreciation. They’re calling this art.”
“It is art, Mathew,” she said softly. She glanced around the room, as if she wanted to be elsewhere.
“No, he said. “It actually happened.”
“A long time ago.” She patted his hand. “The message about war and destruction will go home in their subconscious. They will remember this.” And then she turned her back on him and pushed her way through the crowd. Brady tried to follow her, but only made it as far as his wagon. He sat on its edge and buried his face in his hands.
He sat there for a long time, letting the conversation hum around him, wondering at his own folly. And then he heard his name called in a voice that made his heart rise.
“Mr. Brady?”
He looked up and saw Julia. Not the Julia who had grown pale and thin in their small apartment, but the Julia he had met so many years ago. She was slender and young, her face glowing with health. No gray marked her ringlets, and her hoops were wide with a fashion decades old. He reached out his hands. “Julia.”
She took his hands and sat beside him on the wagon, her young-girl face turned in a smile. “They think you’re wonderful, Mr. Brady.”
“They don’t understand what I’ve done. They think it’s art—” he stopped himself. This wasn’t his Julia. This was the young girl, the one who had danced with him, who had told him about her dream. She had come from a different place and a different time, the only time she had seen the effects of his work.
He looked at her then, really looked at her, saw the shine in her blue eyes, the blush to her cheeks. She was watching the people look at his portraits, soaking in the discussion. Her gloved hand clutched his, and he could feel her wonderment and joy.
“I would be so proud if this were my doing. Mr. Brady. Imagine a room like this filled with your vision, your work.”
He didn’t look at the room. He looked at her. This moment, this was what kept her going all those years. The memory of what she thought was a dream, of what she hoped would become real. And it was real, but not in any way she understood. Perhaps, then, he didn’t understand it either.
She turned to him, smiled into his face. “I would so like to be a part of this,” she said. She thought it was a dream; otherwise she would have never spoken so boldly. No, wait. She had been bold when she was young.
“You will be,” Brady said. And until that moment, he never realized how much a part of it she had been, always standing beside him, always believing in him even when he no longer believed in himself. She had made the greater sacrifice—her entire life for his dream, his vision, his work.
“Julia,” he said, thankful for this last chance to touch her, this last chance to hold her. “I could not do this without you. You made it all possible.”
She leaned against him and laughed, a fluted sound he hadn’t heard in decades. “But it’s your work that they admire, Mr. Brady. Your work.”
“They call me an artist.”
“That’s right.” Her words were crisp, sure. “An artist’s work lives beyond him. This isn’t our world, Mr. Brady. In the other rooms, the pictures move.”
The pictures move. He had been given a gift, to see his own future. To know that the losses he suffered, the reversals he and Julia had lived through weren’t all for nothing. How many people got even that?
He tucked her arm in his. He had to be out of this room, out of this exhibit he didn’t really understand. They stood together, her hoop clearing a path for them in the crowd. He stopped and surveyed the four walls—filled with his portraits, portraits of places most of these people had never seen—his memories that they shared and made their own.
Then he stepped out of the exhibit into a future in which he would never take part, perhaps to gain a perspective he had never had before.
And all the while, Julia remained beside him.
BAD TIMING
Molly Brown
“Time travel is an inexact science. And its study is fraught with paradoxes.” Samuel Colson, b. 2301 d. 2197.
Alan rushed through the archway without even glancing at the inscription across the top. It was Monday morning and he was late again. He often thought about the idea that time was a point in space, and he didn’t like it. That meant that at this particular point in space it was always Monday morning and he was always late for a job he hated. And it always had been. And it always would be. Unless somebody tampered with it, which was strictly forbidden.
“Oh my Holy Matrix,” Joe Twofingers exclaimed as Alan raced past him to register his palmprint before losing an extra thirty minutes pay. “You wouldn’t believe what I found in the fiction section!”
Alan slapped down his hand. The recorder’s metallic voice responded with, “Employee number 057, Archives Department, Alan Strong. Thirty minutes and seven point two seconds late. One hour’s credit deducted.”
Alan shrugged and turned back towards Joe. “Since I’m not getting paid, I guess I’ll put my feet up and have a cup of liquid caffeine. So tell me what you found.”
“Well, I was tidying up the files—fiction section is a mess as you know—and I came across this magazine. And I thought, ‘what’s this doing here?’ It’s something from the twentieth century called Woman’s Secrets, and it’s all knitting patterns, recipes, and gooey little romance stories: ‘He grabbed her roughly, bruising her soft pale skin, and pulled her to his rock hard chest’ and so on. I figured it was in there by mistake and nearly threw it out. But then I saw this story called ‘The Love That Conquered Time’ and I realized that must be what they’re keeping it for. So I had a look at it, and it was . . .” He made a face and stuck a finger down his throat. “But I really think you ought to read it.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re in it.”
“You’re a funny guy, Joe. You almost had me going for a minute.”
“I’m serious! Have a look at the drebbing thing. It’s by some woman called Cecily Walker, it’s in that funny old vernacular they used to use, and it’s positively dire. But the guy in the story is definitely you.”
Alan didn’t believe him for a minute. Joe was a joker, and always had been. Alan would never forget the time Joe laced his drink with a combination aphrodisiac-hallucinogen at a party and he’d made a total fool of himself with the section leader’s overcoat. He closed his eyes and shuddered as Joe handed him the magazine.
Like all the early relics made of paper, the magazine had been dipped in preservative and the individual pages coated with a clear protective covering which gave them a horrible chemical smell and a tendency to stick together. After a little difficulty, Alan found the page he wanted. He rolled his eyes at the painted illustration of a couple locked in a passionate but chaste embrace, and dutifully began to read.
It was all about a beautiful but lonely and unfulfilled woman who still lives in the house where she was born. One day there is a knock at the door, and she opens it to a mysterious stranger: tall, handsome, and extremely charismatic.
Alan chuckled to himself.
A few paragraphs later, over a candlelit dinner, the man tells the woman that he comes from the future, where time travel has become a reality, and he works at the Colson Time Studies Institute in the Department of Archives.
Alan stopped laughing.
The man tells her that only certain people are allowed to time travel, and they are not allowed to interfere in any way, only observe. He confesses that he is not a qualified traveler—he broke into the lab one night and stole a machine. The woman asks him why and he tells her, “You’re the only reason, Claudia. I did it for you. I read a story that you wrote and I knew it was about me and that it was about you. I searched in the Archives and I found your picture and then I knew that I loved you and that I had always loved you and that I always would.”
“But I never wrote a story, Alan.”
“You will, Claudia. You will.”
The Alan in the story goes on to describe the Project, and the Archives, in detail. The woman asks him how people live in the twenty-fourth century, and he tells her about the gadgets in his apartment.
The hairs at the back of Alan’s neck rose at the mention of his Neuro-Pleasatron. He’d never told anybody that he’d bought one, not even Joe.
After that, there’s a lot of grabbing and pulling to his rock hard chest, melting sighs and kisses, and finally a wedding and a “happily ever after” existing at one point in space where it always has and always will.
Alan turned the magazine over and looked at the date on the cover. March 14, 1973.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead and shook himself. He looked up and saw that Joe was standing over him.
“You wouldn’t really do that, would you,” Joe said. “Because you know I’d have to stop you.”
Cecily Walker stood in front of her bedroom mirror and turned from right to left. She rolled the waistband over one more time, making sure both sides were even. Great; the skirt looked like a real mini. Now all she had to do was get out of the house without her mother seeing her.
She was in the record shop wondering if she really should spend her whole allowance on the new Monkees album, but she really liked Peter Tork, he was so cute, when Tommy Johnson walked in with Roger Hanley. “Hey, Cess-pit! Whaddya do, lose the bottom half of your dress?”
The boys at her school were just so creepy. She left the shop and turned down the main road, heading toward her friend Candy’s house. She never noticed the tall blond man that stood across the street, or heard him call her name.
When Joe went on his lunch break, Alan turned to the wall above his desk and said, “File required: Authors, fiction, twentieth century, initial ‘W’.”
“Checking,” the wall said. “File located.”
“Biography required: Walker, Cecily.”
“Checking. Biography located. Display? Yes or no.”
“Yes.”
A section of wall the size of a small television screen lit up at eye-level, directly in front of Alan. He leaned forward and read: Walker, Cecily, b. Danville, Illinois, U.S.A. 1948 d. 2037. Published works: “The Love That Conquered Time,” March, 1973. Accuracy rating: fair.
“Any other published works?”
“Checking. None found.”
Alan looked down at the magazine in his lap.
“I don’t understand,” Claudia said, looking pleadingly into his deep blue eyes. Eyes the color of the sea on a cloudless morning, and eyes that contained an ocean’s depth of feeling for her, and her alone. “How is it possible to travel through time?”
“I’ll try to make this simple,” he told her, pulling her close. She took a deep breath, inhaling his manly aroma, and rested her head on his shoulder with a sigh. “Imagine that the universe is like a string. And every point on that string is a moment in space and time. But instead of stretching out in a straight line, it’s all coiled and tangled and it overlaps in layers. Then all you have to do is move from point to point.”
Alan wrinkled his forehead in consternation. “File?”
“Yes. Waiting.”
“Information required: further data on Walker, Cecily. Education, family background.”
“Checking. Found. Display? Yes or . . .”
“Yes!”
Walker, Cecily. Education: Graduate Lincoln High, Danville, 1967. Family background: Father Walker, Matthew. Mechanic, automobile. d. 1969. Mother no data.
Alan shook his head. Minimal education, no scientific background. How could she know so much? “Information required: photographic likeness of subject. If available, display.”
He blinked and there she was, smiling at him across his desk. She was oddly dressed, in a multi-colored tee-shirt that ended above her waist and dark blue trousers that were cut so low they exposed her navel and seemed to balloon out below her knees into giant flaps of loose-hanging material. But she had long dark hair that fell across her shoulders and down to her waist, crimson lips and the most incredible eyes he had ever seen—huge and green. She was beautiful. He looked at the caption: Walker, Cecily. Author: Fiction related to time travel theory. Photographic likeness circa 1970.
“File,” he said, “Further data required: personal details, i.e. marriage. Display.”
Walker, Cecily M. Strong, Alan.
“Date?”
No data.
“Biographical details of husband, Strong, Alan?”
None found.
“Redisplay photographic likeness. Enlarge.” He stared at the wall for several minutes. “Print,” he said.
Only half a block to go, the woman thought, struggling with two bags of groceries. The sun was high in the sky and the smell of Mrs. Henderson’s roses, three doors down, filled the air with a lovely perfume. But she wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. All the sun made her feel was hot, and all the smell of flowers made her feel was ill. It had been a difficult pregnancy, but thank goodness it was nearly over now.
She wondered who the man was, standing on her front porch. He might be the new mechanic at her husband’s garage, judging by his orange cover-alls. Nice-looking, she thought, wishing that she didn’t look like there was a bowling ball underneath her dress.
“Excuse me,” the man said, reaching out to help her with her bags. “I’m looking for Cecily Walker.”
“My name’s Walker,” the woman told him. “But I don’t know any Cecily.”
“Cecily,” she repeated when the man had gone. What a pretty name.
Alan decided to work late that night. Joe left at the usual time and told him he’d see him tomorrow.
“Yeah, tomorrow,” Alan said.
He waited until Joe was gone, and then he took the printed photo of Cecily Walker out of his desk drawer and sat for a long time, staring at it. What did he know about this woman? Only that she’d written one published story, badly, and that she was the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen. Of course, what he was feeling was ridiculous. She’d been dead more than three hundred years.
But there were ways of getting around that.
Alan couldn’t believe what he was actually considering. It was lunacy. He’d be caught, and he’d lose his job. But then he realized that he could never have read about it if he hadn’t already done it and got away with it. He decided to have another look at the story.
It wasn’t there. Under Fiction: Paper Relics: 20th Century, subsection Magazines, American, there was shelf after shelf full of Amazing Stories, Astounding, Analog; Weird Tales and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, but not one single copy of Woman’s Secrets.
Well, he thought, if the magazine isn’t there, I guess I never made it after all. Maybe it’s better that way. Then he thought, but if I never made it, how can I be looking for the story? I shouldn’t even know about it. And then he had another thought.
“File,” he said. “Information required: magazines on loan.”
“Display?”
“No, just tell me.”
“Woman’s Secrets, date 1973. Astounding, date . . .”
“Skip the rest. Who’s got Woman’s Secrets?”
