Analog Science Fiction and Fact 04/01/11 Read online

  I looked at it again. The relevant line began, ‘Go to the café car, just as in the Tricela—’ I nodded. “When exactly in 2000 do I arrive? Can I specify the arrival date?”

  “You get there on whatever month, day, hour, minute, second you leave in our time. Nothing other than the year changes. Same with the return—you get back here on whatever month, day, et cetera in 2000 you happen to find yourself on the Metroliner heading north, south of Trenton. It’s all in the itin—”

  “Okay. How come the jump to the past takes place between Philadelphia and Wilmington, and the jump back to the present between Philadelphia and Trenton?”

  “Several reasons. The Metroliner has a space-time configuration slightly different from the Tricela—it’s heavier than the Tricela, therefore cuts through space in a slightly different way—even when the two are moving at the exact same speed. And it’s actually helpful that the going and returning happen in different places—too much action in the same place could tear the temporal fabric with who knows what consequences.” Ian shrugged. “That’s what it is. The snap in the space-time continuum is ‘elastic,’ extending from Wilmington to Trenton. You all set?” His tone indicated he was about through with the conversation.

  I tried one more question, anyway. “And you wouldn’t happen to know who built this future underground technology?”

  “I would not,” Ian answered. “I’m just an agent selling tickets on a river boat. I have no idea how the river was created.”

  Many people consider the post office an anachronism. E-mail has been on mobile media for decades, and if you want to mail a package, hey, just fill out a Web form, and someone will be by your side to pick up your parcel in under an hour, in most parts of the country.

  One thing neither the post office or the Web could ever do, though, is mail people. That still required planes and trains. Fortunately, the famous inscription above this post office usually worked as well for trains: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

  Trains had become swift. They usually kept their appointments. I knew it wasn’t always that way. There was a time, right around the turn of the century, when most people thought trains were all but finished. . . .

  I looked up at the inscription one more time for good luck and hurried downstairs to board my Tricela. It was new and gleaming. I found my seat, reserved in the itinerary, and sat down next to a blonde. She was pretty nice too.

  “Going to Washington?” she asked politely.

  I entered my ID into the terminal on my armrest. It beeped confirmation. “Actually, Philadelphia.” I didn’t want her to wonder where I was when we headed south from Philadelphia.

  She smiled. Her eyes were agate gray and sparkled slightly in the soft train light. “Oh, I think you’ll be going down to Washington, eventually.”

  I looked at her. “You’re with Ian.”

  “Don’t worry—I’m included in the package.”

  “But you’re not in the itinerary,” I said.

  “Ian didn’t want you looking for me on the train—didn’t want you to look as if you were looking for someone you couldn’t find. That could attract attention you don’t need. Especially given the significance of your mission.”

  The train sighed and glided imperceptibly into its journey. My head felt as if it was moving a million times faster.

  “So . . . Ian knows I was lying, about my business being personal.”

  “Of course he does. How could he not? He checked the past and the future. It’s his business.”

  She caught my expression. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to stop you, I can assure you. I’m here to help. I’m part of the package,” she repeated.

  “But Ian charged me for the personal trip?” I asked.

  The blonde smiled. “As Ian probably told you, there’s really no such thing as a purely personal trip in time, as far as unforeseen major consequences go. We just keep the ‘personal rate’ as an incentive for our customers. People like a bargain. It’s a lot of money.”

  The train sped under the Hudson. “Philadelphia, twenty minutes,” an announcement advised. “Next stop, Philadelphia. No stops at Newark or Trenton on the Tricela.”

  “Think of me as your guide and your guardian,” the blonde said. “My name’s Ilene. With an ‘I.’”

  “So Ian has no problem with what I really want to do in 2000?” I asked her.

  “He has no problem with your plans for Washington. But people who listen in on Ian’s Ions and Eons might feel differently. That’s another reason he was happy to go along with your ‘personal business’ cover story.”

  I considered.

  “Eavesdropping is unavoidable,” Ilene continued. “It’s cat and mouse, provisions to stop eavesdropping versus eavesdropping, whatever the age.”

  “If I succeed, history could be hashed. Ian’s okay with that?”

  “He’s mapped all of the time-lines,” Ilene replied. “He does well in all of them. . . . ”

  “And me?” It couldn’t hurt to ask.

  Ilene arched an attractive eyebrow. “You know the terms and the rules. Ian makes no guarantees, except to do all in his power to get you to the past and back.” She leaned closer. “And the guiding principle, always, is that once a plan is in motion, there are few certainties, positive or negative. . . .”

  The train slid out of Philadelphia. “Wilmington, next stop,” the announcement said.

  “Better get to the café car,” Ilene advised. “You want to stand in the vestibule adjacent to the car. No problem if one or two other people are around—the time disturbance will blind them for a split second. Then they’ll have tears in their eyes. They’ll think it’s an allergy to the air in the train or whatever. When they wipe their tears away, they’ll just think you moved on—”

  “I know, it’s in the itinerary.”

  She smiled again.

  I looked at her lilac sweater. It was a thin weave, a snug fit. I doubted there was a vest or any other clothing underneath.

  “Right,” she said. “You’ll be going alone. I’ll be here for you on the Tricela back to New York.”

  “Looking forward to that.”

  I made my way to the designated vestibule. It was filled with passengers, overflowing from the line in the café car.

  I tried to look as inconspicuous as possible.

  To no avail.

  “The guy behind the counter in there looks like he has arthritis,” the man in front of me said. “The line hasn’t moved in five minutes.” He looked at me for confirmation.

  I nodded.

  The train lurched. Was this the launch of my jump through time? Seemed a minute or two earlier than the timetable. . . . I looked at my watch. It was exactly forty-two seconds too soon. And I was still in the same Tricela vestibule. It was just a lurch.

  But it made the man even angrier. “Why can’t they give smoother rides?” He clutched his stomach. “Maybe we’re lucky we haven’t eaten yet!”

  I touched my own midsection in solidarity.

  The man was not consoled. “I’m going back to my seat.”

  “Yeah.” Actually, this could be a good tack—let him think I went back to my seat, when the tears cleared from his eyes. I stroked my vest.

  But he was staring intently at me, a fellow traveler in suffering. No way he would not wonder what had happened to me . . . when I disappeared just a second or two from now.

  Ilene came through the door. She had on a nice short skirt too. She slipped and fell all over the man—

  And I was off. Nothing lurched. It felt more like the cosmos had kissed me.

  . . . after drinking some stinking beer. The place reeked of some kind of brew. I saw suds on the floor. The door opened. A woman with dark hair entered and delicately side-stepped the wet part of the floor—then swerved past me, as the train took another sharp turn. She steadied herself against the side of the vestibule.

 
It was definitely not the same compartment I had just been in. This one was bigger, warmer . . . and stank of beer.

  “Traveling to Washington?” she inquired sweetly.

  “And you would be?”

  “Irene,” she replied and smiled.

  “Everyone in Ian’s organization has a name that begins with ‘I’?”

  “I know an Eileen whose name begins with an ‘E,’” Irene replied. “And we have an Ellen.”

  “Of course.” Irene was dressed more casually than Ilene, in jeans and a plum-colored sweater. I didn’t bother to ask her if some shade of purple was required for Ian’s employees.

  She gestured to the door. “I have a seat for you.”

  We left the vestibule and entered the adjacent car. The seats were plush blue.

  “Don’t let those cushions fool you,” Irene advised. “This is definitely less comfortable than where you’ve just been. The past usually is.”

  I sat in a seat by the window, and she by my side. It was raining outside. Big beads of water pelted the pane, slightly stained with some kind of white. It had been crystal clear where I had just been—the result of a sunny day and a new kind of genetically engineered glass. I hadn’t realized it had been so clear, then, until now. Funny how you don’t appreciate some things until you encounter their opposite.

  Irene was right about the comfort. My back and legs were accustomed to better things. “So, anything special I should know about this time?” I asked. I realized I had not yet confirmed just when this was.

  “The Supreme Court will announce its decision the day after tomorrow. Gore’s people want the recount to proceed in Florida, Bush’s do not. Everyone expects the decision to be very close. But you know that.”

  I nodded. Good. “Will you be . . . helping me in Washington?”

  “No,” Irene answered. “I’m strictly for the trains.”

  We parted company in Union Station. “Remember, a thousand bucks is the limit,” she said and walked away. She had given me a bank card for expenses. “Comes with the package.”

  I spotted an antique ATM and took out some cash. I broke a $10 bill for singles and change. I looked for a public phone. Good they still had them back here—mobile phones left trails.

  The first five phones I encountered were broken, broken, in use, broken, in use. I got lucky with the sixth. I put in a quarter, waited for the tone, and carefully dialed the number I had stored on a piece of paper without a name in my pocket. I didn’t want to fumble with the itinerary in public in the past. A man’s voice answered.

  I told him the reason for my call. It was dangerous, of course, but anything I did back here was dangerous, and I could use his help and had no choice but to contact this guy. It was in bold letters on the itinerary.

  There was a long silence. “Okay,” he finally said and gave me his address. Confirmation of what I already knew, but that was important.

  I stepped outside into the rain and summoned a cab.

  We sped through the slick wet streets of Georgetown and pulled up to a brownstone on Wisconsin. The gray rain had given way to early evening.

  I walked up the stairs. At closer view, the pits and scrapes were visible. The building had seen better days.

  He was waiting for me inside the front door. He looked like his picture—wire-rimmed glasses, straight brown hair combed back, button-down pin-striped shirt, and an argyle sweater. Anonymous to this time and world, well known to me, even though I knew him only from his image. He looked to be about twenty-five, but I had a feeling he was older. He looked me over and nodded. I guess I looked enough like my picture.

  He invited me into his ground floor apartment. It smelled faintly of butterscotch, not unpleasant.

  We exchanged the usual introductions.

  “What do I call you?” he asked me.

  “Tom, though it’s not my name.”

  He nodded. “Eric, which actually is my name,” he said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Good to meet you,” he said, and we shook hands.

  Then we talked.

  “It’s wrong,” he said.

  “The decision or—”

  “Both,” he said.

  “Sometimes two wrongs can make a right.”

  He shook his head dubiously.

  “He’ll be out of commission for only two months,” I continued. “And if that cowboy gets into office—”

  “I know the future as well as you,” he said.

  I nodded but continued anyway, “We’ll see the damaging effects far into the future.”

  “I know,” he repeated, far less amicably, and he hadn’t been too amicable the first time.

  “So—”

  “Their decision was wrong, outrageous,” he said. “A coup-d’état by the Court. It was wrong. They had no right to override the state on this. It went against their own principles. Most future historians agree. But removing the Chief Justice from the decision, making him unable to sit in this case—”

  “His health is deteriorating anyway,” I said. “This might well have happened even without my intervention.”

  “But it didn’t.” Eric looked at me. “So you’re a subscriber to the principle that it’s okay to make changes that accentuate or further what may already be happening on its own.”

  “That’s about right, yes,” I responded.

  “And what if I’m in favor of not making any changes at all?”

  “I’d wonder if what you are doing here is providing a fair consideration of what I propose to do, or if your mind is already made up on this,” I replied. Eric came with the itinerary provided by Ian. He was supposed to be one last check and balance, one last hurdle I had to overcome, in order to proceed. He was supposed to help with the logistics if my plan received his final approval. Except I had lied to Ian and told him my mission was personal, and Ian had known that. I hadn’t known that Ian had known that, so now I was here being grilled by Eric about my plan to incapacitate a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I guess that’s what I got for lying.

  “I can provide means to accomplish your mission, if I agree that it makes sense, and isn’t too dangerous to the future,” Eric said.

  “Understood,” I said. I knew I’d be entitled to a 50 percent refund if Eric said no, but that’s not what I wanted. I also knew Ian’s rationale for keeping his 50 percent if the mission was not approved—“it’s payment for the thrill of time travel, even if you’re not given the final go-ahead,” the itinerary explained, and I couldn’t completely disagree. “So what do I do to convince you?”

  Eric gestured to a chair. “Sit down and talk a little more about it. What are you drinking?”

  I sipped a ginger ale. I envisioned my future, hypothetical biography, which of course would never be written, because time travelers inevitably had to be anonymous: “He was no fun when time-traveling. Having a clear head trumped everything.”

  Eric apparently had no such mandates. He was on his second glass of dark red wine. He rested it on the maple coffee table and turned to the paperwork he had prepared and I had just gone through. I couldn’t really begrudge Ian his 50 percent if my mission was not approved, if only because of this paperwork. It represented a huge amount of preparation and research, almost as much as I had done, and I had been working on this for years.

  “So I think we can go quickly through the obvious basics,” Eric said. “Obama will still be elected in 2008, even with Gore in the White House for the eight years before.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Lieberman won’t get the nomination in 2008—he’s way too centrist for the Democratic voters.”

  “A Republican in Democratic clothing, as his bio says,” Eric said and nodded.

  “And the immediate downsides of Gore as President?” I asked, though I knew it was really only one.

  “His work on the greenhouse effect and his Nobel prize is postponed,” Eric replied. “No big deal—the danger wasn’t as imminent as they made it out to be back then, any
way.”

  I nodded. “And you might count as a downside that Gore in office won’t stop September 11—but that’s not really a downside to Gore, since it is highly unlikely that any President or administration could have stopped that.”

  “Agreed. Bush didn’t. And Clinton was really no better at containing Bin Laden than was Bush. Hastings in the 2030s was not much better with Bin Laden’s successor, and she had all kinds of early warnings going for her. They never see it until it’s too late.”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, let’s look at the short-range positives of Gore as President,” Eric said.

  “No war in Iraq, no economic collapse worse than anything since the 1930s Great Depression,” I said.

  Eric agreed. “Those are impressive benefits, I’ll grant you.”

  “And the economic is especially significant,” I continued. “Without Bush mangling the economy, the U.S. continues as a superpower until well into the twenty-first century. Obama’s able to build on the Gore prosperity, just as Gore built on Clinton. China grows but doesn’t dominate the world.”

  Eric agreed again.

  “So where’s the long-range downside?” I asked.

  Eric took a long sip of wine before answering. “The space program could be damaged.”

  “The space program?” I asked. “Obama succeeding Bush made a big show of turning space exploration over to private enterprise, going to Mars, not the Moon. Never really took off. And the space program continued to slide. Obama had no real choice, given the economic mess that Bush left him. Whatever money Obama had at his disposal was spent here on Earth. How could Obama succeeding Gore be any worse for space?”