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

  “The focus on spending money to improve the Earth, before we extend to the cosmos,” Eric replied, “really takes root in the Gore administration, according to our projections. Obama’s not inclined to go against that. And since the Earth has so many problems, the Earth-first approach means we never really get beyond the planet, and space travel becomes a blip of the twentieth century.”

  I considered. “A lot of speculation there.”

  “Yes,” Eric said. “But that’s what all of this is—pro arguments as well as con to your intervention.”

  “The damage of the economic near-depression brought on by Bush is not speculation, it was very real in our time-line and is still causing problems, including shrinking the space program, as you know.”

  “True,” Eric conceded. “Perhaps Gore versus Bush is a draw in terms of our future in space.”

  “Agreed. Any other negatives?” I asked.

  “Well, there is the immorality of nearly killing somebody,” Eric replied.

  “I want to prevent him from participating in the final decision, incapacitate him, not kill him,” I replied.

  “Without your intervention, Rehnquist dies of anaplastic thyroid cancer on 3 September 2005,” Eric said. “He has less than five years of life remaining. It’s an aggressive cancer. Obliging him to be hospitalized and sidelined from his life’s work for even two months at this point is an action that should not be taken lightly.”

  I considered. “Fair enough.”

  Eric nodded. “Let’s turn to the means.”

  I reached into my pocket and extracted a vial. “This will trigger all the symptoms of a stroke, which will continue on and off for about two months, but it won’t be a stroke. There will be no lasting damage.”

  “May I?” Eric reached for the vial. I gave it to him. It was made of plastic as tough as steel, so there was no chance of it breaking. And I had two backup vials in different parts of my clothing, in case Eric wanted to get nasty and lose this one.

  Eric held it up to the light. “Good thing there are no customs inspectors at time-travel portals,” he said and smiled.

  “That’s more or less your job, isn’t it?” I replied.

  “True.”

  “When can I have your decision?” There was not much more for us to talk about.

  “This is a very difficult matter,” Eric replied.

  “I know.”

  “Mixed potential consequences for society, plus it’s always a problem when you diminish anyone’s life.”

  I knew all of this and saw no point in rehashing. Nonetheless—“You want to talk about this more? You need more time to think about it? There are only two days until the Supreme Court’s decision is announced.”

  He shook his head slowly. “You made your points clearly enough. No need for further conversation. I have just one final question for you, and then I’ll give you my decision.”

  I looked at him.

  “Why did you lie to Ian about the purpose of this trip being personal? It was more than the money. I need you to be truthful with me.”

  I saw no advantage in further deception at this point. “I was concerned that he might not have sold me this trip to 2000 Washington if he knew its real purpose.”

  “And yet here we are discussing precisely that purpose of this trip.”

  “Yes.”

  Eric sighed. “That’s the way it is about time travel and truth. No matter how hard you try to disguise or avoid it, when you travel through time the truth sooner or later jumps up through the floor board and bites you.”

  Ian was a businessman; this guy apparently was a philosopher.

  “My answer is yes,” Eric said.

  I exhaled slowly. “I—”

  “No need to be so relieved,” Eric said. “It’s in the itinerary. It says we make every effort to accommodate the time traveler’s goal. And in difficult, close decisions, we side with the time traveler, not with conflicting historical situations or moral principles. It’s part of Ian’s commitment—which also includes delivering the contents of this vial not to the personal relation you lied to Ian about, but to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

  I wondered why Eric didn’t tack on some penalty payment for what must have been the far more difficult task of triggering a faux stroke in the Chief Justice, but I decided not to press my luck with this conversation. For all I knew, Ian would be insisting on an additional hefty payment when I returned his vest. “How are you going to do that? You know someone close to the Chief Justice? A law clerk?” I had researched two excellent possible agents. For all I knew, Eric would be enlisting one or both of them. If not, or if Eric’s special delivery failed to get to Rehnquist for any reason, I still had just enough time to use one of the vials I had in my pockets. But it made sense to let Eric do the heavy lifting. If his plan was to betray me, he could do that even if I walked out of here and told him I could take care of this myself.

  Eric smiled. “You know I can’t reveal those details.”

  I was hoping Eric might have offered a room to me in his brownstone—I would have liked to have kept an eye on him and the proceedings—but no such luck, and it was not in the itinerary. I settled for a room in a comfortable hotel and stayed focused on the television.

  The news came through the next morning. Rehnquist was stricken, not clear as yet if he could continue on Bush v. Gore. I had researched this carefully. The case would be argued before the Court today, December 11, 2000. Had Rehnquist been stricken earlier, he might well have temporarily mustered enough strength to hear and decide this case. Getting the fast-acting pseudo-stroke inducer to him early in the morning was cutting it very close and left little room for error, but there was no other way.

  More good news on the television: Rehnquist would not be hearing the Bush v. Gore arguments today and would not be participating in the decision. The court reporter on CNN explained that, in view of the importance of the case, the Court would have wanted to wait until Rehnquist was better and could sit with them for the decision. But given the urgency of rendering a decision in time for the electoral college meeting on December 18—the “safe harbor” for determining the electors having already been set as December 12—the Court had no choice but to go ahead with the proceedings without Rehnquist. I of course had no definite knowledge of how any of this would play out in the Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, only hopes and expectations. The good result wasn’t part of history I knew, the history I wanted to change. It was happening for the first time, due to my intervention, or, more precisely, Eric’s getting the contents of the vial into Rehnquist. I watched with intense attention. I ate, drank, paced as I watched this primitive television. I kept half an eye on it as I went to the bathroom. The light from the two-dimensional screen hurt my eyes. But what I was seeing on the screen made me increasingly happy.

  I slept fitfully with the television on. I showered and put on fresh clothes the next morning. After what seemed an eternity, but was only a matter of hours, the announcement was made: the Court had split 4-4 on the decision. Exactly the same as with the original 5-4 decision in favor of Bush, stopping the Florida recount, but with Rehnquist out if it. The split decision meant the Florida high court decision requiring the recount would be left standing. The recount would resume.

  I ordered a celebratory meal from room service. The steak wasn’t as good as in my time, too many antibiotics or whatever in this beef, but I enjoyed every bite of it anyway. Everything was falling into place. Bill Clinton addressed the nation in the evening. He thanked the Court for its wise decision and wished the Chief Justice a speedy recovery. The Florida recount was complete and certified the next morning: Gore won the state by 1,731 votes. I wanted to go out onto the streets of Washington and tell the world what I had done. I wanted to be hoisted on the shoulders of a grateful populace and cheered for my daring, trumpets blaring. But I knew better. Staying in the hotel room, interacting with as few people as possible, was part of the neces
sary regimen, written in big letters all over the itinerary.

  Bush conceded the next morning—December 14, 2000, a day after Gore had conceded in my history, because Bush had to wait for the recount. Gore made a gracious, conciliatory speech in the afternoon. I called Eric to thank him but received no answer. I left no message.

  I still had some money left. I ordered another good dinner, the best bottle of wine on the menu, and went to bed early. I had a train to catch, back to New York and my time, a better time than it had been, tomorrow morning.

  I don’t know what I had expected to see at Union Station the next morning, but it was great. Gore’s victory headlined on every newspaper, broadcast on every radio, telling me this was real, real, real! I savored my eggs over easy and looked at the passersby. Truthfully, they seemed no happier than when I had arrived a few days earlier, when the results of the election were still in doubt. Maybe that was because half the country was Republican. I didn’t really care. I had no idea whether these people would have seemed happier or sadder had the outcome gone the other way, with Bush the winner, before I had stepped in and made the change. All I knew is that I was happier, because I knew what would have been. For that matter, if I understood how time travel worked, the only people who would know that there had once been a reality in which George W. Bush had been made the winner by the Supreme Court in 2000 would be me, Ian, and the people in Ian’s organization. As a part of the reality that had changed this reality, we and we alone would retain knowledge of the original Bush-wins world, as I did right now.

  I finished my eggs and coffee—a little too acidic for my future tastes—and proceeded to the boarding gate. I patted my vest for what must have been the twentieth time, to make sure it was on. I would soon be back in New York. I knew there could be no guarantees about the consequences of changing the past, but—

  “You seem very happy today, sir,” the wom-an collecting the tickets at the gate said to me.

  I broadened my smile. “Thank you. I am.”

  I walked to my train. Interestingly, the Acela—direct precursor, two models removed, from the Tricela in my time—had commenced regular service on this line just a few days ago. It would have been fun to ride it, but the itinerary called for the older Metroliner, which would continue in service until 2006.

  I sat in my reserved seat by the window, with an empty seat next to me in the aisle. I assumed Irene would soon be joining me, but recalled from the trip down that I wasn’t supposed to look for any of the escorts Ian had provided for me. I half closed my eyes, put my head back, and saw a purple sweater and a smile. “Irene,” I said and smiled back up at her.

  She took the seat. “So it went well,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “I bet you can’t wait to see how your world’s changed in the future,” she said.

  “That, and a decent cup of coffee,” I replied.

  “People who don’t know any better think everything tasted better in the past,” Irene said. “Not true. Depends on the time. The year 2000 is still a while before complete genetic engineering kicked in and the age of artificial ingredients washed out.”

  “Yeah.” I’d been thinking of getting a cup of Amtrak coffee. Maybe not. But I was tired. I’d gotten at best one night’s sleep in the past few days, on the night before I’d boarded the Tricela in New York City.

  “We’ve got about two hours until your departure at Trenton,” Irene said. “I won’t take it personally if you take a nap.”

  I hesitated. “I don’t know if I like the idea of falling sound asleep on a public train, in a time not my own. I don’t know if that makes any sense—”

  “It makes perfect sense,” Irene said. “You’re wise to be cautious. That’s part of my job. To make sure no harm comes to you.”

  “And I do no harm to others.”

  She nodded.

  I patted my vest and closed my eyes but didn’t sleep. I daydreamed instead, about taking off that purple sweater, which was brushing softly against my arm. I switched from Irene to Ilene, from plum to lilac, and then to what I thought each looked like with nothing on at all. I led them to the bed in my hotel room. I thought I liked Ilene a little better. No, I liked them both. I was still in a celebratory mood.

  I took my leave of Irene a little south of Trenton and walked to the Metroliner’s café car. Irene had gone over the drill with me one more time. It was the same as on the trip down. I stepped into the vestibule at the back of the car, in the appointed place. This time the café was empty. The train clanked against the tracks, keeping pace with my pulse, and—

  I got kissed again by the cosmos, a kiss far sweeter than even the ones in my daydreams. I opened my eyes, which had shut momentarily, involuntarily, and saw a leaner train. The ride was smoother, the contours around me more cleanly defined.

  I looked down the corridor. A lilac sweater and sparkling eyes approached me. But I could see something more than sparkle in those eyes as Ilene got closer, and she was not smiling. For the first time in this trip I felt sick.

  “How could that happen?” I had asked her this five times already.

  “Please, don’t shout,” Ilene said, looking around the train car. “Attracting attention won’t help any of us.”

  I shook my head. I had done all I could do not to scream even louder. Fortunately, there were few people in this car, and most seemed asleep or entwined in their gossamer headphones. I didn’t really care—

  “Here, sit with me, let’s talk,” Ilene said soothingly, and gestured to a seat by the window.

  “You still haven’t given me an answer,” I said. I took the seat.

  She sat down next to me. “That’s because I really don’t know. Please believe me.”

  There was a downy soft screen in front of each of us. I punched up Wikipedia on mine and went to “George Walker Bush . . . served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. . . . ” I clenched my fist and managed to punch just the cushion above the screen.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you about that,” Ilene said. “I don’t blame you for being furious.”

  “The recount had gone to Gore before I left,” I said. “How did this happen?”

  Ilene shook her head.

  “How long have you known about it?”

  “All of my life,” she said. “The itinerary explains how that works. For me, George W. Bush was always President back then. Our history texts explain all about the recount, and how the Supreme Court stopped that—”

  “And I stopped that Supreme Court!”

  “I know,” Ilene said. “I know. A part of me, a small part of me, remembers that you had indeed changed that. But—”

  I looked at her. Her lilac sweater and agate-gray eyes were no longer so appealing. I started to stand. “Would you mind getting out of my way? You’re no help to me here.”

  Ilene stood but didn’t move. “There’s nothing you can do down in Wilmington. Trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you,” I said with controlled raw anger. “But maybe I trust this process, a little. I know the weave in the vest was programmed to work only on the specified date. But maybe—”

  “It won’t work now,” Ilene said.

  Her deadpan tone was convincing. I didn’t care.

  “And if you leave now, I’ll have to call the authorities. And if I don’t put a call in to Ian soon, he’ll call the authorities.”

  “A fine operation you run here,” I said. “You take my money and . . . at very least, Ian owes me a complete refund and a big explanation.”

  “That’s your only real option,” Ilene said.

  “Taking it up with Ian?”

  She nodded.

  “How do I know he’ll even be there, in the Bronx?”

  “I can call him right now,” Ilene said. “And I can come with you to see him. Right after we get off of this train. I won’t leave your sight.”

  That was as much to keep an eye on me as my keeping an eye on her, I knew.

 
“You can take this up with Ian,” Ilene said again. “He’ll know things about this that I do not.”

  It occurred to me, after I’d sat in edgy silence next to Ilene for at least fifteen minutes, that maybe the screen in front of me had been programmed by her or Ian to give me the George Walker Bush bad news, which wasn’t in fact the truth, for whatever twisted reasons Ian may have had.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I said and rose. “Is that all right with you?”

  “I’ll have to accompany you, at least to the door,” Ilene said.

  “Next stop, Newark,” the train’s voice announced.

  We walked to the bathroom at the front of the car. “Okay, I was lying,” I told Ilene. “I want to see what Wikipedia says on another screen.”

  “No problem,” Ilene said. She pointed to an empty seat and the computer screen in front of it.

  “Let’s walk forward a few cars,” I said. “That okay with you?”

  She nodded.

  I picked an empty seat, suddenly, in the middle of the next car and punched up Wikipedia on the screen. I got the same infuriating words about George W. Bush.

  Ilene looked at me. “There would be nothing in it for Ian or me to lie to you about this.”

  “I still haven’t gotten over wondering what was in it for you and Ian to lie to me about this whole expensive trip in the first place,” I said.

  “I didn’t lie to you,” Ilene said.

  I thought I saw, maybe, a tear in her eye.

  “You want to check another screen?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “If you saw the same on every screen, that still would not be absolute proof that George W. Bush was President and what you did was reversed,” Ilene said quietly. “For all you know, Ian could have gotten to every outlet on this train.”