WINMX Assorted Textfiles/Ebooks.tar/Text - Compilations - The Library - Volume 02 - D to L - 350 fiction ebooks (PDF HTM(L) RTF TXT DOC).zip/Johnson, Annabel And Edgar - The Danger Quotient - uc.txt

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SELECT 8-800X (JOURNALS)
CODE K/C-'KSCl^ZVE
DATE b/11/2127
SUB1ECT TIME REFRACTOR

For the record, I am fully aware that I'm breaking alt rules.
I am out of my department. Nobody has given me per-
mission to use journals, and it's a punishable offense to
bury data in a restricted memory bank. I know.

But I'm already in troubleùth^* is an unauthorized ex-
perimentùand I don't want anyone-reading these notes
until I'm finished, journals is impossible to tap into without
proper authorityùit took me more than an hour to do it
myself. Also it's the logical place for this account, which
actually is more of a persona! confession, the .kind you
don't tell your own computer. Not when it's Pinocchio-

You'd never let on to that supercilious chunk of circuitry
that you're terrified out of your skin. And yet I have to be
honest about my emotions, particularly fear. If my theory
on the danger quotient is correct, a little honest panic may
be crucial to the experiment. To tell the truth, I am the
experiment.

All right, the screen is going critical, flashing IDENTIFI-

CATION, PLEASE! It wants my name. Then copy; AH the
name I've got is K/Cù4(SCI) and so on, see above. I am
one of Eddinger's genetic hybrids, and it tells you some-
thing about him, that he'd tattoo a number like that on an
innocent baby boy.

The machine doesn't believe me- REQUIRE DOCUMEN-
TATION.

There really isn't time for all that, butùquickly then: In
the 130 years since War Three, back in 1996 when these
underground complexes were built, we've been inching
toward extinction. Man was never made to live like an
earthworm sixty feet below the surface. That was strictly a
desperation move, to salvage the remnants of the human
race. Nobody ever suspected we'd be stuck here this long.
The pollution up top was supposed to leach away, which
it didùour N-crews have the technology to neutralize the
last pockets of contamination.

But all those H-bombs that everybody was fobbing around
like snowballs did worse than cause a stink. They shredded
the delicate ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, so now
the world is bathed in lethal ultraviolet rays. Raw sunlight
is a killer, and until someone can devise a way to re-create
our protective umbrella, we're stuck down here with our
dwindling ecosystem.

The only way we've stayed alive this long is through the
ingenuity of genetic engineers like Helmut Eddinger. New
strains of hydroponic fruit, long-grain wheat that heads out
in ten days, cows that produce tripletsùhe's responsible
for all that- Including us, the superkids, concocted in the
test tube from the best available genetic materials to give

us extra brain power. Here in the laboratories of Key/Col-
orado, the world's greatest scientific complex, we're sup-
posed to outsmart doomsday and get our skimpy civilization
back up onto the surface again.

But fiddling cells isn't an exact art. You can string those
high-performance genes until the chromosomes look like
an overloaded charm braceletùthere's no guarantee. I'm
a case in point. I looked all right when I was born, I had
all my hands and feet and I lived, which some didn't. I
made it through a lot of pressurized schooling, mainly be-
cause I've got a photographic memory. But when it comes
to restructuring the ozone layer, I haven't the first glimmer.
I can't even get my mind on it.

The truth is, I have a very distracting problem of my
own. According to the best extrapolations of the most so-
phisticated computer ever built, I am due to die in eight
months and fourteen days, give or take. If Pinocchio says
so, you can believe it. And the history is there. Eddinger's
first wunderkind lived to the age of .twenty-one before he
had a massive stroke. Number Two went geriatric even
faster, kidney failure at nineteen. K/Cù3(SCI), the most
brilliant of the lot, bought it last year at age twenty-four,
heart attack.

t am now eighteen and aging fastùinsomnia, low blood
pressure, iron deficiency due to undernourishment (food
loses me, I have to force every bite). From my last physical
checkup, the best guess is that f will develop pernicious
anemia. Which is why I can't seem to concentrate on ozone.
I know, I'm letting everybody down. Whenever Eddinger
looks at me, it's written all over him: What went wrong

with that one? When he finds out I've spent most of my ò
year building the refractor for my own personal experi-
mentation, he will emit spontaneous laser beams.

But it only makes sense, to try to correct the longevity
problem firstùthis isn't self-indulgence, believe me. There
are other futures at stake, such as a certain shirty little
redhead named 5(SC1), seven years old. The little pest popped
up at my elbow yesterday as I was rechecking those med.
reportsùyou tend to dwell on a thing like that. I guess 1
wasn't thinking when he asked me, "What's ELS mean?"
I told him, "Estimated Life Span."
"And ours stinks, huh?" He gave me that mickey grin,
but his young-old eyes were slightly tarnished. He's already
listening to the rattle of the dice.

So I have to go ahead with the trials. I've got to test my
theory, make or break, and I'm sorry if it ruins Eddinger's
day. But that's why I don't want him reading over my
shoulder. 1 will leave instructions so the code is available
when it's all over. In case I'm not around or something.
Enough documentation?
Flashing: PROCEED.

PRELim, 1

The breakthrough came with the fifth mouse.

I never really expect a test program to work the first time,
and it didn't. Subject went into shock and expired before
I could abort. They don't make mice like they used to. Or
maybe the machine came on too strongùI reduced the
power.                        ^

Even though I built it, the refractor- intimidates me. It
looks ominous, like a man-eating garbage unit with yawn-
ing wingsùtwo huge panels of an alloy developed by
K/Cù3. Electromagnetic impulses flow between them,
picking up speedùthe physics is difficult to explain. Three
must have sprained a synapse to perfect the diode that
activates the thing. Basically the machine operates the way
a prism does when it separates a beam of light into com-
ponent colors. Except this refractor is designed to disas-
semble living matter and bend it into a different time frame,
where it will automatically reassemble. I think.

At least it sent the second mouse somewhere. Looking

slightly dismayed, he dissolved off the spot where I'd placed
him, leaving me with my Jaw unhinged. 1 guess up until
then 1 hadn't really believed it would work. Excitement
broke out all over me like an allergyùnow I just needed
to prove that I could reverse the process. 1 punched the
button and gotùexactly nothing.

Except a tinny sneer from the speaker on the terminal
linking me with Pokey downstairs. "INSUFFICIENT TIME AL-
LOWED TO RESET SEQUENCE." In other words, You re-
versed too fast, stupid. It's part of Pinocchio's built-in
sophistication to criticize, but that high boyish voice mode
drives me up the wall. K/Cù2 was only eleven years old
when he did the lingual programming, so it's like being
lectured by a pipsqueak.

With the third mouse I waited a full minute, then tried
to retrieve. Again, nothing.

"SUGGEST YOU IMMOBILIZE SUBJECT."

"Obviously," I agreed between gritted teeth. Ungrateful
little beast, it had probably wandered off into the twentieth
century and lived happily ever after. The machine is only
effective in an area one meter square, no matter where you
are in time. 1 incarcerated Mouse Four in a lab cage and
sent the whole works through. Still no retrieval.

"FAULTY METHODOLOGY. PROBABILITY THAT ONLY
LIVING MATTER REFRACTS."

Right again, of course. The cage must have destructed
in transit and test subject was off playing cribbage with
Mouse Three. By then I was sweating. I mean. 1 should
have thought of that myself.

But it's hard to concentrate in the lousy atmosphere of
the lead-box. The only part of our complex built above

ground, it's a small, windowless lab constructed of heavy
concrete and shielded entirely with lead, used mostly to
take UV readings. The ventilators never work well, and it's
overcrowded with all my equipment. But it's the only pos-
sible place I could set up, because the refractor doesn't
send you around geographically, not a centimeter up or
down or sideways. If you built it underground, you'd find
yourself reassembled in an early grave.

I mopped my face, got another mouse and tranquilized
it with a crumb of sleepy-cheese. My own invention, if
anybody cares. I hate sticking hypodermic needles into the
tab animals; 1 have a strong sympathy for themùmaybe
because I'm their second cousin once removed. Anyhow
when I sent him off, he was one laid-back rodent. (I think
that's the correct term. I've been boning up on 1981 slang.)

Until recently I never thought much about 1981. It rates
only a few minutes in most history tapes- But when you
get to researching it, you find a number of symptoms that
made it suitable for my experiment. Assassination attempts
on leaders of the day, particularly those in favor of peace
on earth. A tendency toward drugs, alcoholism and crime;

an atmosphere of good, basic violenceùthe old world up
top was pretty primitive.

So it shouldn't have come as a shock when I pushed the
reverse button. Oh, 1 got him backùMouse Fiveùbut just
barely. In those few minutes something with ruthless teeth
or claws or beak had savaged him fatally. When I picked
him up, his small torn body expired in my hand.

Those final tremors touched off a very personal shudder
of my own that had nothing to do with 1981 cats. It was
as if I'd been sent an omen from the pastùto trespass at

my own risk. Subconsciously I must have been building a
head of uneasiness; suddenly fear broke loose like wild
steam inside me. Under the shadow of a whole unknown
world, I seethed with an emotion 1 can identify only as
rampant cowardice.

Forebodings are, of course, lost on Eddinger I roused
to find him poking around the refractor. He stared at my
battered mouse, then fixed me curiously with his pale,
scientist's eyes. "Young man, I want a conference in my
office At once."

It was a half hour before I joined him. I had taken a fast
shower and then a slower one. But already inside the clean
lab coal I was turning humid, and the printout I carried
had started to wilt as I scuffed along to his tab. I could see
him through the piastigtas wall, bent over the microscope,
aquiline, graying, handsome. Intent That's how he must
have looked when he was creating my zygote.

1 used to try to think of him as my father. 1 really wanted
a father. I don't even know the name of the woman who
carried my imptant and actually gave birth to me Of course.
there was a certain "family" feeling between us superkids,
but 1 have no blood ties to anybodyùsomething that has
always rankled, in a way Eddinger can't understand. To
him we are so much high technology, some of it functioning
better than others.

With my heart doing a drumroll (or was it some more
ominous sort of fibrillation, warning of worse to come?) I
went in and sat down trying fervently to look cool.

"Four-spot"ùwithout turning to me yetù"exactly what
is that thing up in the lead-box?"

I cleared my throat; he has that effect on me. "I realizeù

10

1 mean obviously I am assigned to ozone. But I wasn't
getting anywhereùat least I couldn'tù It's very difficult
to plan experiments that won't take longer than eight months
and approximately two weeks."

"Nonsense," he bluffed, swinging around to face me.
"No one can predict your future with that kind of accu-
racy."

"Excuse me, sir, but Pokey can. It was the first thing I
did when I took him over from Three. 1 put in a whole new
med. eval. system. It's been testing for a year, ninety-eight
percent accurate."

He rubbed his eyes. His face is warped by lack of sleep,
so he too knows there isn't much time. "I've been
concentrating on the ELS problem, developing a new
antigeriatrone that looks promising, except for a few un-
acceptable side effects Never mind that. If you haven't
been working on ozone, what is that gadget upstairs? What's
it good for, other than mouse eradication?"

He was going to hate this, so I said. it fast and all in one
breath. "It's a time refractor. The test subject you saw had
just taken a fast turn around 198L"

Eddinger absorbed that, got very angry and spent thirty
seconds putting a cork in it. "All that bustness you fed me
about needing elbow room, working better unsupervisedù
I knew I shouldn't have given in, but I did. And this is how
you repay me? To waste precious months building a toy to
go joynding?"

"Number Three didn't think of it as a toy- She's the one
who developed the technology," I told him. Number Three
had been Eddinger's favorite; if anything could soften him
up, it would be the cassette tape in the pocket of my lab

11

coat. I took it out and laid it on his desk. "Three left a
message in Pinocchio's banks for me to find. She seemed
to think it was top priority."

But Eddinger kept right on fizzing with fine carbonated
rage. "I'll tell you what's top priority: our food supply.
We've got fungus in the hydroponic tomatoes, a twenty-
five percent drop-off in corn production, two strains of
peanuts petering out. Unless we can get up onto the surface
and start growing crops normally again, we are all dead-
But you don't see the urgency of thatù"

I said, "If you'd just listen to the tape . . . Three dis-
covered something that made her put full effort into the
refractor. In fact she was dictating this report when she had
her last heart attack."

Eddinger glared at me silently, but he was too good a
scientist not to be curious. Finally, with a shrug, he slid
the cassette into the slot on his word processor and punched
the playback button. We both winced at the sudden sound
of Three's familiar tonesùshe'd had a deep, distinctive
voice, pitched now with excitement.

"Four-bits!" (An odd nickname she'd given me, some-
thing to do with a coin called a fifty-cent piece in the old
days.) "Four-bits, I'm onto something so fantasticù"There
she gets a hard fit of coughing, and when she comes back
she sounds as if she's struggling to keep calm. "There isn't
time to explain the project I've been working onùit's a
time refractor, full details in Pokey's memory banks. No-
body but you has access, Eddinger wouldn't go for it. 1
wasn't sure myself, but I had this hunch, I believedù Well,
that's beside the point. No, it isn't. I thought if I could go
back for a while to the old days and make comparisons, I

12

could figure out why this underground existence is killing
us. Maybe buy some timeùfor me and you. Everybody.
But I never dreamed anything like this. You can't imagine
what I just discoveredù"

She starts choking again, it's thirty or forty seconds before
she can go on. "I can proveùnot exactly prove, but I'm
sureùit's obvious that youù" Another gasp and then her
voice sounds shaky and distracted. "Incredible. Little brother,
it's up to you . - - such a job . . . you must finish the ma-
chine fuli speed, because you've got to go back! Life of
this complex and everyone in it depends ... de-
pends ..." A hard rasping sound. "It all depends on you.
Go to the archives . . . look up ..." Then a sharp groan.
"Oh damn!" And the tape cuts off.

I've never seen Eddinger slump before. All at once I feit
sorry for him; he must have feelings after all. In that length-
ening silence I wished I could say something brisk and
incredibly brilliant.

Finally I summed up lamely. "I've'been trying to follow
her lead. And I think I've figured out why we all wither on
the vine. It's a matter of hormones, adrenaline. . . ."

Eddinger made a weary gesture- "Don't you think we've
done studies on that? Why do you suppose you ingest
twenty pills every day?"

"Which are not doing the Job, right? My theory is that
our species evolved in a dangerous environment. The body
was meant to function hardùif it doesn't, the vital organs
atrophy. In this secure, controlled world of ours, there's
nothing unexpected, no hazards that require life-or-death
decisions, no risks to send the juices pumping, in the old
days there must have been fierce struggles with the forces

13

of nature. Here, we don't know the meaning of the wordù
there'? no danger quotient in our lives."

Eddinger flipped it around mentally. "Dangerùvio-
lenceùstressùthose can contribute to an early demise,
you know."

"If you were unlucky. But the average life span was up
to seventy-some years, barring accidents. That's the point.
Whatever the secret of longevity, those old-timers had it."

He sat silent, obviously unconvinced. He's pushing forty
himself and he's only had one bypass.

I said, "Obviously the pills work better for some people;

if you want a detailed analysis, it's in Pokey's banks. Certain
temperaments, certain heritages adapt to this regimented
life better than others. And more to the point, there is a
direct ratio between intelligence and early mortalityùthe
higher the I.Q., the sooner physical breakdown is likely to
occur down here in the tunnels. That's why we, your su-
perkids, in this hothouse atmosphere we get like a plant
with too much lop growth and not enough root. Bloom
early and shrivel up. Maybe if I could return in time just
for a tittle while, 1 could activate my natural processes. I
might bring back solutionsùways we could improve our
life-style that would benefit others to come. Fiver, and little
Six down there in preorientation. It's a cinch we can't solve
the ozone problem if our wheels come off."

He shook his head and went on shaking it as he said,
"And where did you plan to go for this miraculous cure?"

"Oddly enough, 1981. Of course after reading all the
stats on that yearùmurder and rape and other acts of may-
hemùI'd be safer in the middle of the Civil War, butù"

14

"ùbut you might have saved Stonewall fackson's life,
Just in time for him to launch a successful attack on Wash-
ington, D.C., resulting in victory for the South. You see,
it simply cannot work," he said. "The minute you'd set
foot in another part of time, the least actùmerely meeting
a person on the streetùcould alter the course of events
which cannot be altered. History isùhistory."

I was hoping he'd say that. "Exactly. And that's what
Three was getting at when she said 'archives.' I sent Pin-
occhio on a search through the past, licenses, court files,
news accounts, every document that was rushed down to
our storage vaults in the last days before the world was
wiped out. And I found what it was that had her all ex-
cited." ( waved my printout at him. "Let me read you an
excerpt from the police records of a certain suburb of Den-
ver, Colorado. This is dated June 20, 1981. On that day
they brought in an amnesia victim:

b-

"Age: Approx. 18 years.
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 165 Ibs.
Hair: Light blond
Eyes: One blue, one green."

I broke off and looked at Eddinger with my mismatched
eyes.

"Complexion: Swarthy or heavily tanned
Identifying marks: Tattoo on right buttock
as follows: K/Cù4(SCI) 6229/E."

15

I let the silence hang there a minute. "Number Three
had already foreseen your argument about history and taken
it a step further. She figured if the machine worked, i would
already oe part of history. And this proves it. Like it or not,
in 1981 in Lakewood, Colorado, I was there."

16

PRELim, E

That night I knew I should be getting in some sack time.
Even my eyebrows were tired. It's handy to be able to read
at 10,000 words per minute and imprint whole pages on
your memory, but it can give you a king-size headache.
(Is that how a stroke feels, in earty stages?)

As I scanned those old newspaper's, my mind began to
short circuit from one question to another. Clothes? Get
some from Antiquities and hope that, being in such close
bodily contact, they will transport. If they don't, how do I
get more in 1981?

MapùI ought to have a city map, some guide to lead
me through those tall damned buildings (all ashes now,
silent under the killer sun). Sunlight! I never have felt it,
my skin won't know how to act. / won't know how to act
around alt those peopleù75,000 at one football match
called a "Bronco game." That's more than the present total
population of earth. As the microfilm began to blur again,

17

another thought caught me a glancing blow: I wonder if I
need bifocals?

That yanked me out of my seat and away from the screen.
Need to talk this over with Pokey. The thing covers thirty-
seven square meters now; each of us K/C kids keeps adding
new systems. I flipped the switch to voice mode and picked
up the mike.

"Call Refractor, Code Four-bits." That had been my big
sister's way of denying access to any and all except me.
"Record conference, Eddinger." I went on to give it ver-
batimùamong other things I have total recall.

The weird little voice chirped back at me, "EDDINGER
CONFERENCE ENTERED."

"Evaluate danger-quotient theory." I just wondered what
he would think of it.

"WA/T'/'Which could mean minutes or hours while he
squared the root of my words.

"Work on it later," I instructed. "Right now I've got
authorization to take the first time jump. Any suggestions?"

A fussy clicking noise: "QUERY: DO YOU INTEND TO
RETURN?"

"Of course."

"QUERY: HOW WILL YOU ACTIVATE REVERSE CYCLE?"

I was ready for that one. Obviously nobody at this end
would know when I was in place to be pulled out of 1981.
"I am going to take a trigger with me and activate it from
the other side."

"UNTESTED."
"I know that."

After a few more clicks: "COMMENT: TRIGGER IS NOT
LIVING MATTER. PROBABILITY IT WILL NOT REFRACT,"

18

"I've thought of that too. It's already implanted under
my skin." Med. Section did it in about ten minutes; the
small chip of circuitry was sewed neatly beneath my lowest
left rib. "Tell me what else could go wrong."

Pokey's microcircuits flicked back and forth fingering his
data banks. He loves to hypothesize. "POLICE RECORD
INDICATES AMNESIA. QUERY: COULD REFRACTION RE-
SULT IN LOSS OF MEMORY?"

"How should I know? But that reminds me . . ." Most
of the files salvaged from that early day were on very old
microfilm, incomplete, sections missing or patched. So the
disposition of my police record had been tost, but one
sentence did come through: Subject may have been the
vH:╗m of a mugging. "Punch through to Linguistics and
call 'mugging.' "

In a minute he rattled it off: "MUGGING, NOUN (SLANG).
A BEATING, USUALLY FOR PURPOSES OF ROBBERY. A BLOW
TO THE HEAD."

Right.

My mouth tasted like old filter screen, and just about as
dry. As I slogged on down to the water station it occurred
to meùthe fountain had always been there a few steps
away whenever 1 needed it. In 1981 I'd have to hunt for a
water source whenever thirsty. They had it piped into their
houses, of course, but if I couldn't get access to this private
supply? And foodùthat had to be purchased with money.
as I had learned from a few old ad sections that had survived
the general destruction. In those days people could buy
exotic stuff like bananas and fish and coffee. But suppose
it took a while to acquire some money? Of course there
was all sorts of vegetation growing wild in those days,

19

possibly you could pick something. I wished the infor-
mation weren't so fragmentary.

As f passed Chem. Lab the guys were still working. I'd
heard they were on double shifts until the tomato fungus
was cured. One of them glanced up at me through the
plastiglas and tipped a salute. I had spent a couple of se-
mesters there when I was eight or nine, before I moved on
to solar physics. \ had a crazy impulse to go in and tell
them good-byùwhich I quickly controlled. They don't like
to be interrupted.

Down in the rec hall a piano was goingùmonths since
I stopped by there. Lately the only time I'd taken off from
the refractor was the morning workout in the gym, and that
was pure sweat and no chitchat. All the Japanese instructor
ever did was bow before we hurled each other around. It
dawned on me there wasn't a person in the complex who
would notice my absence. Except maybe that girl over in
Records. But the fast time we were together, she drove me
out of my skull with her giggling. Anyhow, by now she'd
be asleep.

Two A.M., and I was stretched so wide-awake I was ready
to fracture. I'd reached the central car park at the con-
junction of the main corridors; the pedalcars aren't au-
thorized for frivolous uses, but this was therapy. I helped
myself to one and pointed it down the centercourse, pump-
ing as fast as my feet would work.

It always gets my brain into overdrive. I began to re-
member things I hadn't done yet. Meant to talk again to
the complex in Massachusettsùit's the other big Key com-
plex, all arts and crafts and save-our-culture. They have
their own superkids; I heard that K/Mù2(PHIL) for Philos-

20

ophy was working on a synthesis of ancient survival atti-
tudes before he died. At nineteen.

By then I had the speedometer up to thirty miles an hour.
Nobody else around, Just the whisper of the wheels cutting
a groove down the middle of a lot of silence. On either
side of the concourse, blank walls hid the Agriculture Sec-
tion, miles of hydroponics, colonies of livestock under the
low vault of an artificial sky that went from day glow to
synthetic starlight at the touch of a rheostat. The average
life of a cow is down to six years nowùsomething missing
from their tives too? A good lightning storm, maybe, or that
snow you read about in stories?

The whole idea of weather is something I can't picture.
Or what the world would really look like, covered with
plant life. We have overflight photos showing the cities,
what's left of them, a few twisted girders, patterns that once
were streets. And the mountains, naked. 1 couldn't match
all that to the picture postcards in our files (those last sur-
vivors brought along an odd lot o? mementos of their van-
ished life). Colorado had once been brilliantùgay and
gaudy, gleaming skyscrapers posed self-consciously against
a cerulean sky, and beyond, mountains in zinc white with
foothills where viridian forests flourished. Too vivid to be
realùI couldn't get the feel.

And that was probably why I headed for the Old Place,
the original complex where the remnants of the city's pop-
ulation first went to ground. Off limits now; the earthquake
of 2014 collapsed part of it, but there was no radiation.
And no monitor at this hour to stop me at the pumping
station. I tore past the huge turbines, sucking down a whole
river from up top to generate electricity for our life-support

21

systems, a river that once had a nameùthe South Platte.

The massive humming of the machinery faded behind
me, and then I was in a network of abandoned tunnels.
My headlights skidded past a sign: FALLING ROCKùKEEP
OUT. I slowed just in time; around the next bend the way
was partly blocked with rubble. Turning off the lights, I
took a torch and fanned a wide white beam ahead of me,
strong enough to search out the fleeting ghosts.

They were there somewhere, giving off psychic vibra-
tions. The deserted cubbyholes had been stripped to the
rock walls by the salvagers, nothing left but a few shards
of yellowing Ptexiglasùbut in that warren of caves, people
had once lived and fought a damned fine battle against
becoming extinct, i wished I'd studied up more about those
early days of the complex. Soon I'd be back among the
very men and women who had faced this, living with them.
Only I lacked their seasoning, their toughness, I was like
those cattleùI'd never seen an honest-to-God sky in my
life. Suppose I don't have the muscle for stars?

At the far end of the concourse my spotlight raised a dull
gtint of metalùa huge entrance arch, permanently closed
by two giant stainless steel doors riveted shut. Through this
they had come down into darkness, to seal themselves off
for the last time. High on the wall something had been
whitewashed over, red letters that had leached through,
an arrow pointing toward the doors:

TO CINDERELLA CITY

Some kind of joke? Did the bombs fall in the night,
trashing their civilization at a stroke, leaving their world
no more viable than a pumpkin? I wished I knew more

22

about those last days. All that came through the devastation
were assorted computer tapes, records on microfilm, the
patched remnants of newspapers. Odds and ends of video
cassettes, comedies set to strange, mechanical laughter.
But somehow I had no feeling for the real people of that
long-gone era, the texture or sound of them.

And tomorrow, in the midst of this alien society, I'll have
to try to look at home. To pretend I'm one of them. To
make my own way and keep myself aliveùthe prospect
scares me down to my anklebones. Which should make
me ecstatic.

PRELIMINARY PHASE ENDED
HOLD CODE OPEN

23

01:1

One thing about the old days that I already hatedùtheir
clothing was incredibly ctumsy. I was used to a light lab
coat of paper-fabric; I couldn't see why encase your legs in
those burdensome corduroy trouser things. Put them down
a recycler and they'd dog it like scrap iron. As I strangled
my waist with a leather belt, K/Cù5 was trying to do a
headstand on my sleep-wrecked bed.

"Did you leave me a message in the computer?" he
demanded.

"Certainly not."

"Three left you a message. How can 1 take over your
work if you don't leave me a message?" His voice wailed
like a siren. "/ want a message.'"

"For your information, I will be back." Little brat looked
disappointed. Those fierce btack oriental eyes peer at you
from under alt that Irish red hairùmakes you wonder if
maybe Eddinger's got a sense of humor.

Of course I've got no room to scoffùmy thatch of Danish

24

blond doesn't sync at all with mv coppertone skin, which
I'm told comes from the Shoshoni in my blood. Obviously,
looks are incidental to Eddinger, who only cares about
brain power, and mine was at a low ebb that morning.
Fiver didn't help, firing those endless questions.

"If your name was on a police file, you'll have to go to
Jail," he informed me happily. "How'll you get out, huh?"

I hadn't wanted to think about that. "And where did you
get all these details?" I wondered. "You been fooling around
with Pokey behind my back?"

He flopped over the far side of the bed closer to the
door. "Everybody knows. And I know something else. When
you go to jail, they hit you and put chains on you and lock
you up forever, like the book saidùless Miserableùonly
everybody was more miserable and they all grew long
beards." He vaulted away out of my reach. "You'll look
lousy in a beard."

"People of Indian blood don't grow beards, and you

jfr.

keep your nose out of my computer, smarthead." On my
way out I stopped by Pinocchio to leave additional instruc-
tions. "Nobody, repeat nobody, has access to any phase
of this experiment."

Then I had to get past Eddinger. He was waiting at the
foot of the stairway; for him to forsake his petering peanuts,
something must be on his mind. Maybe to wish me bon
voyage?

"Good luck," he grudged, "and in case you're tempted
not to returnù"

So that was it. I was glad it was out in the open, I'd felt
it coming on. "This is no luxury vacation," I more or less
yelled at him. "It is an experiment with a lot of rough edges.

25

I am going in search of danger, the nature of which I can't
even guess. But I wilt do my best to keep your property
intact. Namely, me. And when 1 have tested the 0/Q the-
ory, I will be back. Soon, I hope." I mean, why hang
around? The world of 1981 was on an irreversible course
to doomsday, and history is history, right on down to those
steel doors. . . .

By the time I topped the last flight of stairs, I was stream-
ing sweat. Slightly dizzy, tooùmy bloodstream was loaded
with Immunal. Back in the 20th century they still had head
colds and flu. I'd also been vaccinated against cancer, VD
and hepatitis, so it was just the shots that were making me
feel like yesterday's vegetable salad. No excuse to call off
the test, and anyhow, I wouldn't give Eddinger the satis-
faction.

The first thing I saw as 1 walked over to the monster was
the mouse corpse. Eddinger had made me so nervous I'd
forgotten to dispose of it. With the carcass gone into the
recycler, I washed my hands and fought down a lot of
feelings that were threatening to come up. Took my po-
sition between the wings of the refractorùno need to hurry.
I'd hate to go forth into the past with my pants in a bind.
f was scrounging them down whenù I guess the automatic
sensor was on and Pokey went ahead and activated, be-
cause my legs began to be threaded with air. My whole
body was buzzing like a live wire, I felt separated, like
sand through a sieve . . . and when it all came together
again I was lying on some raw dirt in an incredibly bright
world I had never seen before.

SunlightùI thought, I'm a dead man' One minute of
that lethal brilliance would finish me, especially since 1

26

was now naked as a stubbed toe. Then 1 recognized a
wonderful smellùwe once produced some synthetically
in the lab: ozone. The rich aroma was all around me, so
dense I could hardly breathe. It made a rushing in my ears,
or maybe that was wind. The whole world was a turmoil
of activity.

One of their old-time aircraft was pushing across that
crystalline sky, leaving a trail of white vapor behind it,
thousands of feet above the clouds. They were moving too,
everything out of control. The trees around meùbig damned
things thirty feet tallùthey didn't just stand there, they
slapped at each other in the breeze. Nearby, a nervous-
neflie stream messed about in its rock collection.

Ducks, tooùthey could use some behavior modification
pills, the way they kept turning upside down in the water.
When I sat up they flew off in all directions, squawking
hysterically. So did a huge bird, leaping into the air from
one of the treetops with a raucous cry. Wings three feet
wideùa hawk, probably, waiting for more mice to be
delivered.

(Did I remember to tell Fiver to feed my mice?) A qualm
of homesickness came over me. After the cool, quiet cor-
ridors, the order and stability and neutral tones, I felt as
vulnerable as a newly hatched larva in an incredibly lush
world. Sappy extravagant greens were everywhere, and
musty yeitows, violent prickly redùI had almost trans-
ported into a mess of thistles.

Getting up, I brushed off my backside, and if the liga-
ments of my knees were a bit twitchy, that's exactly what
I was here for, some old-fashioned fear. The experiment
was running on schedule. All the same, I took extra care

27

to mark the exact point where I would stand to return (the
trigger made a comforting lump under my skin). With a
stick I marked an X in the dirt and piled small stones on
it. Now for two or three landmarks to fix coordinates. I
climbed the embankment and stood stunned.

The textbook statistics on the overpopulation of that era
were suddenly translated into three dimensions. Rank upon
row of houses crowded the valley, rising along the hillsides
in every direction. A vast landscape of rooftops in the midst
of which the little open strip of land along the stream was
a scruffy oasis.

In one direction there was a reedy pondùpace off the
distance to that, and I'd have one side of my triangle. Over
there a group of women watched some toddlers dabbling
in the mud. With a few casual questions I could find out
exactly where the city of Denver was- I'd decided to head
for a spot called Capitol Hill, which my research had es-
tablished to be the most dangerous area in the metropolitan
district.

When I walked free of the trees, I could see in the other
directionùsome sort of raceway, which accounted for the
rushing noise and the strong smell of fumes. Streaming past
were hundreds of old-fashioned gasoline-powered auto-
mobiles. moving at such reckless speed there must be some
emergency afoot. Especially since most of them were head-
ing in one direction, tons of machinery hurtling up a long
hill out of the valley, leaving a brown wash of exhaust
smoke in the air.

And now the women were running too. Before 1 could
reach the pond, they were gone, dragging their kids along.
I reviewed the newspapers stacked in my headùno men-

28

tion of any catastrophe that day. So I had to conclude this
was normal activity in a wild, uncontrolled world.

One hundred seventy-three paces to the pond. And for
another fix I could use the steeple of a nearby church. But
to step off the distance, I'd have to cross that speedway.
As I headed for the teeming concourse, I prepared for my
first brush with danger, getting set to dash between them.
Something hypnotic about those beautiful antiques, some

of them giving off music.

Or screechingùa black-and-white vehicle coming down
the hill from the other direction was topped with a rack of
brilliant lights that blinked rhythmically. 1 recognized it as
a patrol car not unlike the ones on some of the early video
tapes. When two uniformed men got out and headed my
way, ! was sure of itùmy police escort had arrived right
on schedule.

Though how they knew I was hereù?

29

DLE

Something about monitorsùthey all have a certain arro-
gance.

"Okay, buddy, where do you think you're going?"

"Actually I was looking for Capitol Hill," I began, but
sensed this was the wrong tack.

They glanced at each other grimly. "That figures. What's
your nameùlet's see some I.D."

The other snorted. "Where would he put any I.D.?"

"Yeah . . . not the first time either." His partner was
looking me over, almost hostile. "That wall-to-wall tan,
he's a regular nature boy."

"Where do you live, buster?"

I thought I'd better be careful. "Sorry, \ can't remember
a thing, my mind's a blank."

"Oh sure. How did you get here, where's your car?"
Definitely menacing. They obviously wouldn't believe the
truth.

30

1 shook my head. "I really don't know."

"You're lying," one said. "The guy's lying, 1 can always
tell."

His partner glanced toward the roadway, where cars had
slowed down, blurred white faces turning toward us, star-
ing. "We better get him under wraps before the commuters
start piling up." From the way they shoved me into the
backseat of the car and locked the door, I gathered they
were angry about something. As we got under way, one
spoke into a microphone.

"Yeah, we picked up the streaker. Can't find his vehicle,
he claims he doesn't remember how he got here. Call Fort
Logan and see if any of their snowflakes drifted."

It wasn't until we reached the police station that it came
clear, when they brought me some coveralls. Shabby blue
things with "City of Lakewood" printed across the shoul-
ders. "Put 'em on, sport, skin show's over."

So that was it, of course, I'd forgotten the people of 1981
were nervous about nudity. "Listen," i said, "I'm sorry I
lost all my clothes. I really don't know where they got to."

"And you were just going over to ask those nice girts to
knit you some new jockey shorts. "They hustled me inside.
where a man in plain clothes came to stare at me intently.

"Any pain? Headache? Lumps, bruises? Were you
mugged?"

I thought I'd better have a headache.

"He's lying," my arrester said. "He felt fine when we
picked him up. Making cracks about going to Capitol Hi IIù
just another one of them perverts."

"Well, you'll have to put him in the drunk tank. We've

31

got a full houseùbig Friday night on West Colfax."

Cagesù1 have a hard time dealing with them. I don't
even like to walk through the animal lab. It makes me
panicky, as if I'm just a step away from being one of the
specimens: Punch the buttons or no banana. So when the
lock clicked, I had to do a very fast program to dredge up
the bright side of things: my lucky day, this was probably
the one place in a happy-go-crazy society where danger
resides, personified by two hulks in black leather Jackets
with dagger emblems.

One, a redhead; the other, curly black hair all over,
including the backs of his fingers. To be shut in with them
in a "drunk tank" grungy with undercurrents of suspicion
and angerùwhat more coufd an aging boy ask for his
initiation into the real world?

They looked me over, unimpressed, and went back to
hassling the third prisoner, a slack, stubbly man in wrinkled
clothes, who sat hunched on the one bunk in the cell, long
hands dangling between his knees.

"Old buddy," redhead was saying, "you know them
butts ain't good for you. Share the wealth and save your
healthùyou do want to keep your health, don't you?"

Slowly the man on the bunk drew forth a small white
box labeled Marlboro 100's, stuck one between his thin
lips. With a thumbnail he flicked a match, lit up and blew
a stream of smoke. The rest of the packet went into his
pocket again.

The others traded a travesty of smiles. "This sucker really
wants his ticket punched."

I felt a very satisfactory flicker of fear. Slouched against
the far wall, I rehearsed some 1981 jargon: Listen, you

32

hairballs, quit living that dude or I'll spread you like peanut
butter. Somehow 1 couldn't make it ring. And time was
running out. They were inching closerùin a few more
seconds I was going to be eyewitness to a murder.

One of them had an American flag sewn to the seat of
his pantsùit gave me an idea. I began to whistle "The
Star-Spangied Banner" as loudly as I could, ft got their
attentionùapproximately four hundred pounds of tough
turned to surround me.

"Well, what we got here? A musician?"

"Not really," I said. "I just wanted to see if your rump
would salute."

"He's a comedian, too." Blackie took a handful of my
coveralls, embalming me with his breath. "Why don't you
give us your song-and-dance routine?"

No go. It wouldn't even be a fair fight. My adrenal glands
certainly weren't going to get stimulated by this bulky clown

who was making me such a present of his elbow. I took it

^

gently between my fingers and gripped. As his clutch went
dead he stumbled backward, staring at his numb forearm.

"It'll come to in a few minutes," I explained. I mean,
he looked so shocked.

Red was having mixed emotions. He wanted to move
in on me, but his hands weren't in positionùhe wasn't
even thinking about my feet- No point wasting my time
and his. Something in my face must have conveyed the
message. The two of them retreated to a corner to mutter
a conference.

Before they'd scraped together a battle plan, the guard
came to set them free. I was sorry to see them goùthey
had contributed one thing to my education, a wealth of

33

new odors. The pungency of that ceil would quicken the
metabolism of a rusty nail-
After they left, the stench lightened but the vibrations
remained. Over on the bunk the gray-faced man was eying
me. Age, maybe thirty-five; wrinkled clothes which had
once fit; well-groomed hands that were unsteady as he lit
another cigarette.

"All right"ùhis voice ran rough, tike an engine unused
for yearsù"just why did you feef you had to deal yourself
into that game?"

"A good fight is one thing, but I really didn't want to
get hung up here for weeks as a witness to murder."

"Who did you think would be killed?"

"Probably the redhead," I said, "he was on your right."

His eyes narrowed as he stared at me more sharply.

"It was your fingers"ùI made a stiff tripod of my middle
three. "Even through all that blubber, you'd have ruptured
his diaphragm."

He shook his head. "God, if I'm telegraphing my moves,
I'm in worse shape than I thought." He jerked a thumb at
the bunk, sit down. "Where'd you pick up the arts? You're
way too young for 'Nam."

"I don't really know. I've lost my memory."

"What are you in for?"

"Nudity, I think. I woke up on the bank of some creek
with no clothes on. f don't know what happened to them."

"Never been busted before, have you?"

"No. At leastùhow do I know? My mind's a blank."

He made a noise, half amusement. "Either you're a very
lousy liar or you're telling the truth. I couldn't care less.

34

But 1 guess 1 owe you. In a moment of irritation I could
have got myself stuck here for a long jolt. Soùdo you want

out?"

Suddenly I decided, without equivocation or cerebra-
tion, that I did-

35

DL3

"Idea is to cross up the computers," he said, in that rusty
voice. "Pick a name that'll get lost. Something to go with
the blond hairùAnderson. What first name could you an-
swer to?"

"All I've got to go on is this curious tattoo, K/C~-"

"Casey Anderson. California, with that tan. You're eight-
een years old, student at UCLA, what subjectù?"

"Integral calculus? Solar physics?"

"Very funny." He pinched the glowing tip from his cig-
arette and returned the stub in his packet. "These guys
aren't idiots, you know. You're a freshman, going for
Chemical Engineer. Left L.A. three days ago in a 'seventy-
one VW bug, license RPLùsomething, you aren't sure,
you just bought the car from another student named Bill
Klein. Heading for Denver to find a summer job, picked
up a hitchhiker in Salt Lake City. White, male, twenty-five
years old, five feet ten, brown hair, blue eyes. Took turns
driving, this morning you dozed off and something hit you.
Bingo. Car gone, money goneù two hundred in bills, some

36

small change, no credit cards. Tell them all of it right now
while they're too busy to pick at the loose ends."

It seemed an ornate way to solve a simple problem.
"Could they really put me in jail for not remembering?"

"They can send you to the funny farm, which is worse.
You could end up sucking your thumb for two, three years.
But don't let me influence you." He slumped back against
the wall, eyes closed. A curious, ruined faceùlike some
ancient statue of a warrior that's been chipped by time or
angry mobs.

"What's 'Nam?" The question came out before I thought.

His hands twitched slightly.

I got up and went to the front of the cell.

"One thing more'''ùas if he'd come to some decision.
"They may ask who you know in Denver, where you plan
to go. Tell them: Liza Kent, 419 Ariesùshe's in the book.
If they take it a step further and place a call, you get on
the phone. Tell whoever answers that you're a friend of
Howard's and you want to crash for a few days."

"And the police will immediately guess who has been
coaching me."

"Why? My name's Max Hunter." With terrible indiffer-
ence.

All at once I had to get shut of the place. Through the
bars I called, "Guard. Hey! It all just came back to meù
I remember what happened."

The rest went like clockwork. Only one slight snag de-
veloped when they insisted on showing me pictures of
known muggers- But in a few minutes I had identified a
half dozen who might be my assailant. All the police wanted
by then was to get rid of me.

37

"Take him over to that Aries address. If they'll accept
delivery, we're off the hook."

It was an older house, tallùtwo stories and dormers,
stacked with dignity behind a barricade of evergreen trees.
One of the patrolmen walked me up onto the front porch,
where a swing hung on weathered ropes.

Before he could knock, the door cracked an inch, a
fragment of face showed. Eyes light as smoke took in the
police car, the uniforms, dwelled briefly on my coveralls.

"I'm a friend of Howard's," I said. "He told me any
time I got to Denver I should drop by andùshack? I mean,
crash? Up?"

The door shut, the chain rattled and she opened it all
the wayùa skinny, dark-haired girl aged eleven or so, with
a straight, watchful face.

"Thanks," I told the law, "I'll be Kne now. I'll return
these clothes as soon asù"

"You just keep the clothes on buster." He didn't much
like this. "Anybody here with you, little lady?"

"Yeah, only they're all busy," she said. "It's okay. We
were expecting him."

He finally gave me a warning poke of a finger. "Mind
your manners or I'll be back."

As soon as I was inside, she put the door on the chain
again and ran to the window to watch the car pull away.

"Thanks for playing along," I totd her. "1 will now do
a split."

"You talk weird." She looked me up and down. "Who
sent you. Uncle Max? Is he in the slammer again? I was
afraid of that when he didn't come home last night." She

38

headed toward the back of the house.

In the kitchen she poured a cup of hot something and
set it on the table, which was of primitive plastic resembling
wood gram. Sprawling in a chair opposite, she waited for
me to drink. Wonderful black-tasting stuffùcoffee, it had
to be.

"Are you Liza Kent?"

She shook her head, the long dark licks of hair scattering
on her shoulders. "I'm Gil. Liza's my great-grandmotherù
you don't want to meet her. Tell me about Uncle Max."

"We were in the same cell. He helped me talk my way
out, including this reference to someone named Howard."

"That's my father, he's in Europe. And my mother's in
Durango. So there isn't anybody else to spring Uncle Max.
What's his bail this time?"

"They didn't give me much chance to ask questions."

She was up and gone into the next roomùI heard her
making a telephone call. When she came back she threw
herself into the seat angrily. "Five hundred lousy bucks!
They say he put some guy in a sling last night. Which means
I've got to raise fifty in cash for the bail bond. But first
there's you." She was gone again, moving with such ran-
dom speed, it seemed only a few seconds before she came
back with some blue denim pants, a white cotton shirt and
a pair of old cloth shoes.

"I hope the sneakers fit." She tossed them to me- "Well,
you said you wanted to split, and you can't run around in
that jailhouse jumper."

"Maybe 1 should stick here and help you get Max out."

"Got any cash? Then you might as well go onùI'll figure
something." She dragged a chair over to the closet, stood

39

on it to reach a top shelf, a box marked "Bisquick." Fum-
bling inside, she found some floury bills.

"Great. All I need is thirty-seven more." She stood there
above me, a twig of a child in dungarees and a shapeless
T-shirt with the faded words: CRUSH ME, I'M ORANGE.

It was awkward, this feeling I hadùsome stiff-jointed
emotion was trying to unlimber in my upper quadrant. Or
maybe a new plexus was feeding little impulses of concern
out toward the extremities. I'd noticed it first with Max,
but now the twinges were more insistent.

1 tried to ignore it. I am the mission and time is short.
But if we both happen to need operating funds, why should
I turn down a coincidence? "If you'd care to invest that
money," 1 told her, "I can bring you back a hundred or so
in a couple of hours."

"Thirteen bucks won't buy a gun," she informed me
with faint cynicism.

"Can it get me to a place called Centennial Racetrack?"

"Don't tell me, you got a sure thing in the fifth."

"Actually, the sixth." In my research I had taken extra
time over the sports pages; they rose before my mental eye
in all their small print. "I feel incredibly lucky in the sixth.
When it comes on this strong, I can't lose."

"Oh brother." Every corner of her face edged with sus-
picion, she came back to the table, still holding the dusty
bills clenched tightly. As she studied me, the weight sud-
denly shifted. "Your eyes don't match. That's kinky." It
seemed to reassure her. All at once she said, "Okay, I
guess Centennial's not a bad idea. If you don't score I'll
pick pockets."

40

DLL.

It was my first encounter with an untamed child. Ours are
psychologically conditioned from birth to accept the kind
of life we lead. Rebellion is gently but firmly curbed at an
early age. They aren't allowed to dash, much less to dare.

Now, elbow to elbow with Gil, I was in uncharted ter-
ritory without a map. As she sat siient beside me on the
bus, the dark patterns shifted across her face in so many
shades, I couldn't begin to read her. It made me uneasyù
you worry about all those fragile bones, though apparently
she was able to take care of herself. She had steered us
onto this large, smelly conveyance, knew exactly what
coins to drop in the box. She also looked to be making
some rather unchitdish plans, to judge by the tight set of
her mouth.

"Have you ever done this before?" I finally asked.
"Sure. My father goes to the races. He never wins."
"No, 1 mean the other thingùpicking pockets."
"Not so loud." As she glanced over her shoulder, her

41

eyes faltered. "I've thought about itùit can't be all that
hard. Except if I get caught and arrested, Max will really
be in a jam. When he can't get a drink he sees spiders. So
swear if you win you'll get him out."

"We'll win. No need for you to run unnecessary risks."

"Risks"ùshe hiked her shoulders with a kind of resig-
nation. "There aren't a whole lot of safe ways somebody
my age can make money."

"Don't you get an allowance from your parents?"

"Peanuts. My father doesn't hand it around, even if he
is rich. He's in oil"ùher chin jerked upwardù"and it's
not his fault that the Arabs are dirty crooks. Somebody's
got to buy Of/ or this bus wouldn't even run!" She was
including the passengers in her audience. Thank God, about
then we reached the racetrack.

I wondered if I'd ever get used to such a volume of
populationùrivers of automobiles, packs of bus riders. And
in the rickety Colosseum, such an untrammeled mass of
bodies milling around, I was shunted by strange bellies and
busts until I felt like a piece of well-popped corn.

"The windows are over there." Gil was counting off ten
of the bills, dusting each one on her shirt. "The rest I'm
keeping for mad-money. But if you stiff me you'll go to
hell."

"I'll be right back," I promised. Now ail I needed was
a few quick instructions on what an Exacta was and how
to bet it. Surprisingly, everybody was happy to telt me,
while far away bells were ringing wildly and a crowd roared.

The fifth race was over by the lime we got to the stands.
Horses were being led off the track, amazing tail animals

42

with keen faces and delicate feet. I'd seen pictures, of
course, but they didn't capture the quivering nostrils. . . .

Gil nudged me. "So who do we have?"

"Number Five and Number Six in that order."

"You didn't!" Disappointment dropped over her like a
blanket. "How much?"

"Every cent."

"Only a spaghetti-brain would blow our last ten bucks
on the Exacta-" She turned away and began to scan the
crowd. I saw her focus on a huge handbag on the bench
next to a ctutch of women who were deep in argument
over the racing form. In the wide-stretched eyes, a look of
dread, determination. For an instant I could read her like
a printout, I knew exactly when she threw the switch.

As she moved, so did IùLord, she was light. Not more
than sixty, seventy pounds of hinged bone and squirming
muscle, warmth and child smell, slightly sweaty. When I
set her down well past the target, she turned on me in a
fury.

"I knew you were straight-arrow, even if you do have
crazy eyes! Let go my arm!"

"Sorry, but if you get us arrested, who'd collect our
winnings?" I didn't dare take her into the crowd by the rail.
We made our way higher into the stands, her wrist still in
my custody, which made me feel like a certified bully. We
shared a sticky silence until the announcer's voice rang
hollow on the upper air. More bells clanged and the horses
plunged out of their contraption.

I had a momentary qualmùthey seemed headed for a
massive collision as they pounded past, tails snapping,

43

delicate riders pinned to their necks. The air shivered with
pure pandemonium. Gil tore loose and leaped onto a bench
with an ear-wrenching scream.

"Come on, you dumb'stupid-idiot-Five, get in gear!"

Everyone bellowing now, thousands of voices. The ag-
gregate adrenalin in that mob could fuel a Methuselah. It
occurred to me that I ought to try it. I never yelled in my
life, I didn't even know how. I opened my mouth and made
a trickle of noise. "Ya-a-a-a." Unimpressive.

It's difficult to get excited when you know how the race
will come out. Stepping up beside Gil, just to check on its
progress, I was stunned to see Number Five idling along
in last place. He was making a big mistake. I couldn't help
muttering a few nervous instructions. Had to repeat them
louder, to make myself heard. "Hurry up, you imitation of
an unplugged centrifuge!" And when he surged past the
pack around the last turn, his great shoulders driving, clods
of dirt flying, I let out a primal roarùoverhead, the pigeons
staggered.

As if a membrane had torn and freed a few juicesùI
found myself grinning at Gil. I am not given to grinning of
any kind. She was in shock too, staring at me in a complete
reassessment. Together we turned to the electric score-
board where numbers were lighting up. I could see her
struggling with mental arithmeticùour ticket was worth
three thousand nine hundred eighty-five dollars.

When I came back with our winnings she was braced,
apparently ready to have to fight for a share of it. I handed
her a ten-dollar bill.

"Bisquick money." And the rest I divided down the mid-
dle.

44

She took her share without a word, but her eyes came
on as if f'd turned up a pair of Bunsen burners. Then she
was heading for the exit. For a split second I thought of
letting her go, but I knew where she was bound. 1 couldn't
let her negotiate that police station alone.

She was waving down a yeltow car that had let off some
passengers at the gate. Flopping back on the seat, she scowled
at the meter. "This'M cost us an arm and a knee, but the
bus takes so long. And by now Uncle Max will be hurting."

As we settled down I said, "I'm not trying to bug into
something that's not my dig, but what would Max think of
your snitching purses?"

Her lips quirked. "When you lose your memory, do you
forget how to speak English?"

"There are some odd side effects."

She squirmed, the pocket of her dungarees lumpy with
her fist clamped around the wad of bilfs. A faint gleam
shone on her forehead iike a delicate glaze. "When you
get amnesia do you even forget your yvhole family?"

"Well. I doubt if I ever had any. Somehow I don't feel
as if I've ever been tucked in or buttoned up."

Twitching a thin shoulder, she dismissed the idea. "They
don't do that anymore. What I mean is, do you forget what
you're supposed to turn out to be?"

"Are your folks leaning on you to take up some career?"

"They couldn't care less, they're okay. That's not what
I mean." When the meter clicked to $7.00 she winced-

"This ride is on me," I said. "You paid for the bus. And
it's true, I don't exactly recall my ultimate goals in life, but
one thing sure; I am definitely not a straight arrow. If a life
of crime is good, I want to hear more about it."

45

. She hunched her whole scrawny body. "You do what
you have to. If you get in troubleùwell, with me, it runs
in the family."

"You don't mean Max?"

Short negative shake. "He's in the same boat. That's
why he gets tankedùyour genes don't work when you
drown 'em in booze. Which I may do myself. I hate the
taste, but there's worse things."

"Genes?"

"That's the junk in your blood." She jabbed a thumb at
her chest. "It's like a little bitty cassette tape in each cellù
your ancestors recorded on it and they passed it down.
When it finally gets to you, you're stuck with the tune, tike
it or tump it."

"You've done lab work in heredity?"

Gil shook her head. "I got it from Cart Sagan."

"Who?"

"On TV. Didn't you watch Cosmos? He tells about the
DNA and all that. Only it was so weird I asked my girl
friend's father about it. He teaches at D.U.; he told me
how it is with your genes."

"Did he also mention that environment is as important
as heredity? Maybe more so?"

"Not with ancestors like mine. They had environment
too, but they still struck out." The slender ptanes of her
face were taut, the eyes that had been so green just minutes
ago had gone to brittle gray.

I ventured a guess. "These ancestors all died young?"

"Worse than that. My father's not so bad, he's only a
wheeler-dealer. But my grandfather"ùshe swallowed vis-
ibly, then went on in a terrible, matter-of-fact voice. "Gran-
46

dad was a murderer. And my great-grandpa came completely
off the spool; when he was only about forty they had to
put him in the funny farm. That's what 1 mean about genesù
you can't duck 'em. Alt you can do is hurry up and live
twice as quick, because you probably don't have a lot of
time, you know?" Toward the end her voice had dwindled.
I said, "I know." God, how I know.

47

D1,S

The insomnia started getting severe about six months ago.
First few times it happened 1 went into spasms of anxietyù
your body ought to want to sleep. Now I can handle it,
but it doesn't make me jump for joy. According to the med.
evat. analysis, it's one attribute of old age. So you lie there
wondering if your molar is a tittle loose, your tongue doing
tireless detective work. . . .

Forget that. I can use the sack time to reprogram. Den-
ver wasn't turning out as I'd expected. Some of its
hazards were entirely uncatalogued and as strange as the
desperation of eleven-year-olds. Stealthy as a quart of cheap
vodka.

After we left the Lakewood police station, Max's first
stop was a liquor store. Not a word to either of usùhe
was obviously holding his component parts together by an
effort of rigid willpower. When he came out with a bottle,
he took one fast swallow, then led the way along a busy
thoroughfare, finally turning down a back street.

48

1 tagged along. Postponing the minute when I would
have to strike off on my own. I had to admitùnight coming,
headlights rushing, wind on the riseùI was spooked. Which
was exactly the point of all this, and as Max unlocked a
car he'd left parked, I said, "Well, ( guess I'll be splitting

up."

Gil turned on me with an intensity I couldn't explain.
Seizing my sleeve, she talked rapidly to her uncle. "We
can't let Casey go, Max. He's too weird in the head, some-
body will rob him of all his money. . . ."

"He can take care of himself. I've seen him in action."
Max wedged his long legs into the car, which was very
smallùsomething called a Fiat.

Now she was yanking my arm in some code all her own,
while she argued with him. "But he's got no place to stay!
I mean he'd think a massage parlor was a place to get a
massage." She turned to me fiercely. "Where would you
go?"

"I don't know ... I thought I'd haye a look at Capitol
Hill maybe."

"See?" She pounded the hood of the car with a small
clenched fist. "He'll end up in trouble."

"Maybe he's looking for some action." Max was fiddling
with his keys, trying to fit one in the slot beside the steering
wheel, hands vibrating like a filament about to blow.

"Don't be dumb!" she screamed gently. "He needs us.
He's coming home."

\ knew I should resist, but the truth was, I felt tired. It
came over me, / never used to get tired, f could work all
night in the lab, catch an hour's steep and be up again,
ready to roll- Now I was letting Gil pack me into the little

49

vehicle. Somehow she wedged into a crevice beside me,
her small body hot and tense, though the evening was cool.

When we got to the house it was dark except for a light
high in a dormer window on the third floor. After we'd
scavenged some strange scraps of food from the refriger-
ator, Gil herded me downstairs, where Max had his living
quarters in the basement. In the few seconds we were alone
she instructed me in a hushed undertone.

"You stay right here tonight." A look so dark and threat-
ening I was puzzled.

"Why? What's so important?"

"Max is lower than earthworms. If he was down here
by himself, who knows? Once he took some pills. By mis-
take, he saidùhe almost woke up dead." The whisper
broke off as she heard him coming back, trundling a metal
framework that opened into a bed with mattress. "I'll get
sheets." She exited in one of her random rushes.

I had to laugh. "She's faster than a short circuit."

Max was used to it. Heading for his rooms now, a corner
of the basement that was walled off. Something about the
slant Of his shouldersùin three fifths of a minute I wasn't
going to have further words with Max Hunter, possibly
ever.

"t'd like to talk to you about Gil." 1 blurted it out fast.

Then she was clattering down the steps with an armload
of pillows and blankets.

I took them from her. "Don't worry. I know how to make
a bed."

She nodded, visibly placing her entire trust in me. "See
you guys at breakfast."

When she'd left us. Max stood waiting. Under the hard

50

light from the overhead bulb, his face was ragged with
shadows. I was reluctant to lay anything more on him. Also
I hatedùwhat was the piece of vernacularùto fink? But
even Gil might forgive me if I provided Max with a reason
to get up alive tomorrow morning. So, while he roamed
the cavernous edges of the cellar, methodically killing the
vodka, I told him of our excursion to the racetrack.

When I'd finished, with her words in the taxi about the
family heritage, he stood still. His hand clenched around
the bottle as if he'd like to grip it to slivers. Then, very
carefully, he went over to the waste bin and dropped it in.

"I'm only telling you because 1 thought someoneùher
parents maybeùmight want to set her straight."

"Parents," he mused. "The mom is a drug pusherùvery
legal, she plugs pharmaceuticals to doctors. She's her own
best customerùevery good upper deserves its downer. The
dadùmy brotherùis a con man, also quite legitimate. He
wheels and deals for Peters Petroleum, good old PeePee,
Inc. Doesn't hang his hat here very.often. When he can't
stand his corporate image in the mirror, he escapes to a
little pad the company maintains in Paris. So cancel par-
entsùif somebody can't ride a bicycle, you don't expect
'em to joystick an F-l II."

"Then how about you?"

He made a short strangled noise, possibly a laugh. "Can-
cel me too. Pep talks come poorly from aù from me."

"Gil mentioned a great-grandmother?"

"Oh yes, Liza. Founder of the clan. Eighty years old,
almost blind. God knows what makes her cling to life, but
she's got an armlock on it. Great survival instinct. Gil takes
after herùshe's more savvy now than I was at twenty."

51

"She's a scale-model time bomb, and you don't even
know what makes her tick!" Reckless of me, but he kept
edging toward the door.

His eyes were hot and hectic. "Kids like to dramatize.
She's putting on an act for your benefit, pretending to be
street wiseù"

"You weren't there today, two feet from the woman's
purse."

"And you were. Fine. Be my guest. I mean it, stick
around. All this luxury"ùhe swept a handù"is paid for
by pills and petrodollars. Feet free to practice your mis-
sionary zeal. 'Set her straight,' whatever that means. But
ask yourselfùif you do manage to sell her on the good
life, what'H you do for an encore?" This time he walked
on through the door into the darkness of his room. The
lock turned before the light went on.

Which left me to lie there tong hours after, chasing my
motives in circles. I kept remembering a word from my
vocabulary list: "do-gooder." A ctumsy damned solecism
referring to a sort of professional savior. ( was relieved that
the shoe didn't seem to fit.

But if not, what am I doing here? In research you learn
not to kid yourself. When up a blind alley, you turn around
firmly and boot yourself back to the starting line. But this
didn't feel blind. It opened wide ahead onto a vista of
unanswered questions, unprobed possibilities. Maxù
searching that ruined man for clues would be like vivisec-
tion (what (5 'Nam?). This LizaùI've never even heard of
anyone living to eighty years. In the complex, sixty-three
is a record- I should talk to her, 1 should take notes.

And Gilùshe was arousing odd feelings I couldn't yet

52

name. I've been taught to think only of myself, I've never
before wanted to protect someone, tl may not be entirely
beside the point.

So it was logical to "stick around," as Max suggested.
But beyond logic was some sixth senseùit's never failed
me yet, an instinct that advises me when I'm on track. I
felt there was some reason for me to be exactly here, some-
thing to do with Three's prophesy; "The life of this com-
plex . . . depends on you." Buried in this house there was
some key to be discovered- In fact, it would probably find
me.

53

01, B

Appetitesùwe've been taught to plow them under like
weeds. Unproductive, cluttering up the intellectual garden,
too disturbing for our own good. I have seldom, if ever,
been hungry. And yet that next morning I was threaded
through a needle by the aroma of coffeeùdrawn up those
stairs two at a time.

When I got to the kitchen, Gil was setting the table with
an anxious clatter of plates, cups, glasses. "We're out of
eggs. Are tacos okay?" Her quick look really meant /s Max
a// right?

"Anything you're having is fine," and Max is snoring
safely in his sanctum

She eased up a little and got a box from the freezer,
dumping some strange objects onto a tray, which she shoved
into a microwave oven. "We don't have bread for toast
either. My mother was supposed to get home from Durango
yesterday."

"You're not worried?"

54

"Uh-uh. Sometimes she runs over to Aspen for the week-
end to unwind. With a little help from her friends." Which
seemed to have some hidden meaningùshe slanted a look
to see if I got it.

I didn't. "Your father is in Pans, Max said."

"Or Rome, maybe." The oven was making a noise. She
brought the tray over, along with a bottle of red sauce. The
things she slid onto my plate looked like little canvas patch
pockets.

"What did you call this?"

"Don't you even remember tacos?" she marveled. "Put
plenty of glop on them."

Soupy red sauceùmy Lord! Burning atl the way down,
It was lethal, absolutely wonderful. We don't have a !ot of
spices and flavorings in our day. Suddenly I was raven-
ousùshe had to bake another whole batch. I pigged myself
out.

"Sorry to eat al I your groceries," I told her between bites,
"but I'll buy you some more if you'll come along and steer
me toward these things."

"I was going shopping myself this morning." She brushed
it off so carelessly, I gathered it was very important. "We
could take Max's car, even if you did lose your driver's
license, so what?"

"License or not, I wouldn't know how to start an au-
tomobile."

Gil was shocked. "You forgot a thing like that! I mean
(everybody knows how to drive. I know how, if Max would
let me. I could handle a little car. I wouldn't want a lousy
Cadillac, just a TR-7 maybe. I'll get one too." She was
piling our dishes on other dishes already in the sink. Over

55

in the corner a television set murmured softly, a well-groomed
man earnestly telling the camera to put its trust in Jesus
Christ.

"Sunday." It dawned on me. "The stores won't be open,
will they?"

"Maybe not downtown, but I wouldn't go downtown if
they were giving away fur coats." She swiped me table
with a wet towel. "I'll take you to a shopping center, the
biggest one in the worldùyou can buy anything if you're
loaded." She gave me a sudden smile that stretched her
thin face. "That's why they call it Cindereila City."

Even after a lot of mental adjusting, a complete rethink
with plenty of rationalization, I still felt like a prize fool
when I remembered my melodramatic fancies of the other
night. A shopping center, just a glorified market of some
sort.

Actually, when we got there I had to be impressed by
the piles of buildings, acres of cars parked in every direc-
tion. And when the bus stopped under some letters in bold
red script:

TO CINDERELLA CITY

f got a reminiscent tremorùthe chilly drift of still-undug
tunnels. When I had wandered the ruins, I'd been searching
for clues to a lost civilization; it was in fuli flow around
me now, a world of violent abundance. People and music
and, in the huge center hall, a giant indoor fountain that
squandered water thirty feet into the air with glorious prod-
igality. When 1 thought backùor forwardùto the muted

56

corridors of the complex, I felt a flicker of time-stress over-
load.

To cure it. 1 committed myself wholeheartedly to 1981
and found myself drinking from a huge cardboard cup of
sweet orange concoction, slurping my empty calories through
the crushed ice. After the mercilessly nutritional program
I'd had to follow ever since I could first rememberù

"What's funny?" Gil asked.

"Not funny. Fun. It's fike all this is happening to me for
the first time."

"Listen," she said earnestly, "you don't have to con me
anymore. I know you're faking it, ) won't tell anybodyù
honest."

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, you remembered enough to go bet on the right
horses yesterday,and don't tell me it was your lucky day.
There's no such thing as that much luck."

"Of course not. But if I told you the truth you wouldn't

J-.

believe me."

"Try me."

"All right. The fact is, f get visions of future events.
Yesterday a whole page of some newspaper rose in front
of my eyes. I could read the racing results before they
happened."

She threw her empty cup in the trash can. "Okay, who
cares? Nobody ever levels with me."

"Gil"ùwhy should it be important?ù"if 1 predict a
headline in tomorrow's paper/ would you believe me?"

"Word for word?"

"On page three, left-hand column: 'SOCIALISTS WIN

57

A MAfORITY IN FRENCH VOTING.' "

"Yeah?" She thought about it as we wandered the bright
maze of the shopping center. "Maybe when you were hit
on the head, it made your memory work forward instead
of backward. So what'll the judge give Max when his trial
comes up?"

"That I'm afraid I don't know. Maybe it's too far in the
future." Before she could think up another test, I headed
for a store full of men's clothing.

Gil followed, already working on a new program. "I
know what! You'd look great in a pinstripe." She dragged
me over to a rack of strange-looking suits with knife-edge
creases. "That's you."

"It doesn't feel like me." I kept on going clear to the
depths of the store, where we came into a quiet backwater
of identical blue cotton shirts, stacks of rough work pants,
a sort of uniformity I felt comfortable with.

"Those are crummy, you don't want to look like a brick-
layer!" She seized them away.

I seized them back. "Suppose that's what I am? Would
you care?"

"I guess not." She moped off, but when I came out of
the changing room her look brightened again. "You're right,
you do look like you belong. If you put on a fishing hat, I
bet you coutd be somebody's blue-collar father." All the
while herding me toward a jewelry store, where a sign
proclaimed;

EARS PIERCED
FREE WITH ANY $5.00
PAIR OF EARRINGS
(UNDER 16, PARENTAL CONSENT REQUIRED)

58

"When the man comes," she whispered, "talk very cool,
like this"ùtipping her head back, eyes half slittedù" 'My
daughter has some very valuable earrings. It's high time
she got her ears suitably pierced.' Now practice!"

I dug in my heels. "No." You're suppose to say that to
children, it's good for them. Nobody ever mentioned how
hard it is to see massive disappointment descend.

"You're chicken."

"Right. ! can't stand the sight of btood."

"Wellùblood." She shrugged. "You don't have to watch.
Tell him you've got to go lay some bricks. I'll catch up
with you."

"I don't like pain eitherùit bothers me."

"Pain?"

"Unnecessary surgical proceduresùinfection could set
in. I'd hate to see them amputate one of your ears."

Gil frowned uncertainly. "You're trying to gross me out."

I even thought it had worked. Then as she walked on,
one shoulder liftedùI was getting to know that twitch.
"Who cares? There's a woman lives over on Federal, she'll
do my ears. She uses a yucky old needle and purple thread."
She smiled at me sweetly.

59

DL7

Cinderellaùwe studied the old fairy tales, of course. Even
in a science complex, cultural history is a requirement. But
I couldn't, for the life of me, figure what Gil's personal
Cinderella dream might be. As we walked through the
maze of stores, I kept glimpsing strange vistas.

One minute she'd pause before a mannequin in a white
froth of lace, a wedding dress, eyeing it with a look that
was almost incandescent with longing. Then, wrinkling her
nose, she said, "I'm never getting married." And rushed
on.

She never moved at constant speed. We braked to a stop
in front of a store window full of gimmicks, where she was
transfixed by a rack of mock diplomas, embossed with
fancy letteringùmottos like BACHELOR OF BOURBON
and MASTER OF FINE ARMS. Darting inside, she laid out
a dollar and came back with a piece of imitation parchment
that read: ADVANCED DEGREE OF SUSCEPTIBILITY. I
didn't have the nerve to ask if she knew what it meant.

60

The music store drew her in another direction. Wading
among the pianos, she leaned on one with her flat chest
thrust forward, hand on hip. "I'll never be Dolly Parton,"
she mused. "Tammy Wynetteùmaybe."

I thought I'd made contact. For my thesis in Music Ap-
preciation I'd written ten pages of love-struck polemics on
Tammy Wynette. "I like her better than Parton, myself.
'Stand by your man . . .' "

Shrewdly Gil stared at me. "You remember that?"

"Well, musicùit's just thereùin your ears." I coutd
feel my face turning red down to my clavicle.

She noticed, but she let it go. "Of course I'd really rather
do hot licks on the drums." She was tapping the head of
a dazzling snare, her fingers making soft nicks in the quiet.
"But there's no future in that, not for a girl."

"Anything's possible with Women's Liberation. I'll bet
you'll be banging some drums for E.R.A. one of these days."
I was fairly proud of myself for being so contemporary. I

i-

still don't know why she whirled on me with such a black
look.

"If you're for E.R-A. I'll never speak to you again!" She
turned and charged headlong out of the store. I didn't even
try to follow. It wasn't my vocabulary that felt short, more
like a complete disconnection in the whole network of
communications. It was a relief to be alone with the in-
struments.

Flashing brass, the polished red violins and suddenly a
banjo- I remembered how desperately K/M's Music Mu-
seum had tried to locate a banjo. The call had gone out to
every complex in the North American quadrantùWanted:

Ban/o, any condition. Donor's name will be honored at

61

point of display. But in that last mortal rush for the shelters,
nobody had brought one along.

These in the music store were overdec orated, but be-
neath the glitter you could still sense the primitive designù
savage, tong-necked, faced with the taut white bladder of
a sacrificial goat. I twanged a string, which summoned up
a minor goddess who wanted to know had I been helped?
After that I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it is
dangerously easy to spend money.

The truth was, f needed a banjo like an extra bellybutton,
so why did it feet so absolutely great to walk out of that
store with the awkward thing under my arm? It made me
ferociously hungry, again. In the restaurant we completely
filled a booth, me and my purchase.

By then I was beginning to get the CindereNa spirit.
Lovely women wanted to serve me, to bring forth impos-
sible delicacies that have long since vanished off the earthù
shrimp, crab legs, a whole seafood platter. At that point
my mind whiled out, the meal comes back in flashes of
emotion. / wish Ct/ were here - - - savory chunk of lobster
dipped in butter sauce . . . f"s 5he picking pockets? Surely
not with all that money to spend? Finally another seductive
pleasureùI left a five-dollar tip and my waitress came ajar.

I knew 1 was frittering time, self-indulging. And yet you
can't Just walk past an old-time bookstore, stacked high
with the real thing, made of genuine paper as if it would
never go out of style. Thousands of long-lost trees felled to
publish those volumes on jogging and cookery, and an-
other nice woman showing me a large folio on "Birds of

Colorado."

5he seems liberated, Cil, what's wrong with that?

62

Or maybe you can be too liberatedùall these people
hugging their parcels. Ownership was probably addictive,
especially when taken with large stacks of fried shrimp and
onion rings. I should have been on guard, but to hell with
it, / like my banjo! Curious blisters of rebellion were rising
all over my sense of duty, when suddenly I jotted to a haft.

just ahead, a stairway led down out of sight. For a minute
1 got confusedùthey couldn't have started work on the
bomb shelters yet?

Of course not. Below, another whole catacomb of shops
unfoldedùcurios and crafts, free instructions in how-to-
anything, with large photos showing whole families who
smiled as they hooked rugs. Wandering the dim alleys, I
finally reached a door that led out into an underground
parking lot forested with thick pillars. Fifteen years from
now, it would be a perfect staging area.

As the 1990's heated up, our government would walk
a tightropeùbillions of dollars into weaponry, but war
remained unthinkable. Congress would refuse to vote a
dime for shelters. It would take an eccentric tycoon to get
the job done, a multimillionaire, old Midas Forsythe. They
would call the first complex "Forsythe's Folly" and order
him to keep it out of sight. Those Russian spy satellites
could read the fine print on a lawyer's laundry list.

a   Later, of course, everybody would begin to tunnel. In a
panic they would delve under Boston Common; beneath
the heart of Chicago; the New York subway system would
be converted. By then Key/Colorado would be outfitting
swiftly, grimly, beneath the bright facade of this giant shop-
;- ping center. Somewhere within a few feet of me the steps
; would be carved out of mother rock down to the sixty-foot

63




level. Those steel doors would be installed. . . .

I turned and ran, up a long ramp into daylight. Out on
the sidewalk I found myself back in the Sunday-afternoon
crowds. Cars herded along the street, lunging to beat the
stoplights. Most of them were coming from the westùI
was suddenly stunned by the view. My first sight of that
whole panorama of mountains. The picture postcardsù
how wrong could they be!

No matter-of-fact colors; this was a pastel of fragile lav-
enders and greens, laced with sunlight like the scenery of
some fairy-tale neverland. So mysteriously beckoning, 1
wanted to mention it to somebodyùto all these milling
people, I wanted to pluck at their elbows. To make a short
speech about magnificent beauty and careening time and
carelessness. About devastation and that marvelous sun
turned malignant.

I wanted somehow to make the world safe for Gil. Know-
ing that to be impossible, I turned back into the gay whirl
of the magical city, wondering if I'd ever see her again.
And when 1 reached the colossal fountain, she was there.

Watching me from the opposite side of the rotunda. Over
the orange T-shirt was draped a fur coat, white with targe
pink spots, so synthetic it glistened. Her long dark hair
spread out across the shouldersùin historical novels it used
to be called wanton abandon. Her face was fairly wanton,
tooùfalse eyelashes, blue glitter on the lids, lips silvery.
She came around to join me, undulating slightly under the
fur.

"Of course, it's fake." She wouldn't want me to think
she was stupid. "But I personally refuse to wear real live
extinct animals."

64

What I wondered was, did she pay for it?
"Two hundred bucks." Reading my mind.
"And you must have gone to a beauty salon?"
She shook her head. "This is Estee Lauder, the whole
kit." In an awed voice. "I put it on myself. Well, another
girl in the ladies' room helped with the eyelashes. You
really thought it was from a beauty shop?" She sat down
beside the banjo. "When I get to be a singer, I'll probably
accompany myself on the banjo." So I was forgiven my
sins.

It was the wrong time to mention it, but "There's some-
thing red hanging out of your pocket."

"Oh, cripes!" She rammed it deeper and glanced around.
"Nobody's watching. Come on, show me."
"It's very personal." For an instant she held up a handful
of red lace lingerie. Then shoved it back out of sight. "Well,
go on! What are you thinking now?"

"I was thinkingùthat'sùreallyùvery kinky."
She gave me a pure eleven-yea r-oJd grin. "I may decide
to be a sexpotùyou can make a lot of money fast."

"Doggone, I was looking forward to going to Nashville
someday and asking for your autograph."

"It takes years to be a star- I don't really have time."
"Let's seeùyour great-grandmother is approximately
eightyù"

"Forget it. I told you, my great-grandad was clear out
of his tree before he was forty. Or I might go berserk and
kill somebody like Grandpa did. That could happen any
minute." She spoke matter-of-factly, but the eyes that looked
out from under all that fringe were flecked with dread-
"Before that happens ) want to be something, I want to

65

find out about everything. I want to go all the places in the
world, and that takes a lot of money, fast. I want to have
these glamorous jewels and go to gourmey restaurantsù
hey, are you hungry?"

"Starving."

"I know a terrific place." She brought us through some
more halls to an ice-cream parlor, all stripes and straws
and a big gang of kids in one corner zapping each other

with paper noisemakers.

"We're in luck." She slid into a booth. "It's a birthday

party. Everybody sings. You too."

"Sing what?"

"Happy Birthday, of course."

A waitress was bringing in a giant ice-cream concoction
topped with candles. Everybody began to yell. "Hap-py
birth-day to yoo-oo-ooù"

Gil joined in, shouting the words with an abundance of
feeling. But the truth was unavoidableùshe couldn't carry
a tune if it were strapped to her back. When it was over
she glanced across at me and the fur coat heaved slightly.

"Yeah, 1 know. Even if 1 had all the time on earth, I'll
never be Tammy Wynette."

66

D1,B

It was at 2:30 next morningùor thereaboutsùthat Max
decided to kill himself.

I was lying awake in the dark again, trying to sort my
impressions. Ice cream and trap drums and Gil in that coat.

The look on Max's face when we walked in the door, when

i-

he took in the Estee Lauder effect. 7"e ^Ik at the supper
table over frozen dinners as we listened to Gil's newest
plans.

"Why do they say hookers have round heels? Every-
body's got round heels, don't they?" She waved a bare foot
in the air. Max had to vanish quickly down his hole.

Later when 1 moseyed to the basement, the atmosphere
was one that Marlowe would have recognizedù"no light,
but rather darkness visible." It hung strong in the air. 1
wondered then if he was on the verge of something, and
if so, what I should do about it. His door was closed. You
have to respect that. But in the dark hours of early morning
when 1 heard the shower go on in his bathroom, I had a

67

hunch. 1 also doubted whether I had any right to break in
and stop him. Thank God, he saved me the decision.

A minute later he opened it himself and said, "Come in
here, will you?"

In the bright light of the shower stall I blinked at the
blood. Good Lord, a cut artery makes a mess! It was still
pumping, in spite of the pressure he was putting on the
inside of his upper arm. I grabbed the razor blade he'd
used and slashed a strip off the shower curtain, to make
an orange-poppy tourniquet.

"Hold your arm upùthat's right." On a shelf, a stack
of clean bed linenù1 demolished a pillowcase to make a
pad of cloth, pressing it directly on the cut. "Sorry if that
hurts, but it has to be tight."Adhesive tape in the medicine
cabinet. "You'd better come lie down before I release that
tourniquet."

He went along quietly. "You must've had some paramed
training."

1 got him laid out on the bunk. How could I tell him
that where 1 come from, suicide is a way of life, slit wrists
especially popular. We are all prepared for the emergency
situation. "Keep it elevated while 1 make something hot."

Upstairs I fumbled rapidly around the kitchen, hoping
fervently that Gil wouldn't hear me. The big old house
stacked above was quiet, except for a faint strain of Vivaldi
from far overhead. Pound the coffeeùI should have watched
how Gil made it. When 1 took the pot and a couple of cups
back down to the basement, Max was drawing on a Marl-
boro.

"Trying to decide what went wrong." He sounded half
amused. "You figure the damned thing down to little wing-

68

nuts. How to do it and why. And when." He glanced at
me apologetically. "1 knew you wouldn't panic. You'd
clean up the mess and keep Gil away. So that part was
okay. And God knows I'm not afraid, I wished I'd bought
it in 'Nam in some reasonably clean way. So what the hell
happened?" He tried the hot coffee and choked.

"Too strong?"

"The grounds are usually removed."

"Sorry. I never cooked anything before."

He lay back, pulling on the cigarette and searching the
room for clues. It was stark and stripped as a laboratory
where no experiment was ever begun. The only decor was
a giant poster of Luke Skywalker, lighting his star wars.
"Gil gave me that for Christmas a couple of years ago. As
a role mode!, I think." He shook his head. "My God, when
I saw her in that getup . . ."

"You said it yourselfùchildren live in a world of make-
believe. They play games."

"There was a street in Saigon,^ he mused slowly. "Little
dolls with painted faces, some as young as Gil. They
weren't playing games. Not with those pimps standing by,
ready to slit their throats." A shudder took his lanky body
by surprise. "I need a drink."

I reached for the coffeepot.

"It might make good shellac, but it won't ward off my
personal spiders." With his uninjured arm he felt under the
bed and found a bottle. "Red, hair all over 'emùweigh
about thirty pounds apieceùthey crawl around over there
in that corner beyond the chest." He took a hard swallow.
"So you opt out, right? Only damn it, I got thinking of Gil.
I know, ) shucked you offùat first it seemed farfetched,

69

that she should worry about the family fables. I mean we
all know Liza's stories, but it's like some soap opera, you
don't sweat it. Who'd ever dream the kid would take it
seriously? All that stuff about making money. Seeing ev-
erything fast before the genes catch up? Do they teach that
kind of bosh to eleven-year-olds?"

"It isn't bosh, Max. Some insanity can be hereditary; so
can certain tendencies to violence."

"I always rationalized it, myself. Figured maybe my old
man had some good reason for killing that guy. It was all
hushed up very fastùnobody knows the whole story but
Liza."

"He never talked to you about it?"

"He was killed on the Yalu when I was seven years old.
I can hardly remember himùa faceless soldier with a deep
voice and hands that could fix anything. I never knew about
the murder charge until after he was gone. And as for poor
old Grandpa, he's really ancient history. Back in those days
who can tell what might have sent him off his rocker?"

"Wouldn't Liza know? The details, I mean?"

"All too well. She loves to spin those yarnsùtaller and
wider every year." He took another pull on the bottle.

"It Just seems to me that maybe if she could understand
what's happening to Gil, she might shade the truthùeven
invent a few happy endings?"

He shook his head. "I doubt it. She likes her gory history.
Of course, you can try to convince herùshe always was
partial to blonds. Go on up tomorrow and get acquainted.
I'll keep Gil occupied. I have an ideaùsomething that
might make her stop and think before she launches a career
in the fast lane. What's the matter? Problem?"

70

Eighty yearsùhow could ) explain to
territory that was for me? "I'm not sure
aùan elderly lady."

him what unknown
how you approach

. They never get too

poor hearing. And
I't talk down to her.

rattle sometimes."

"Pretend she's twenty and beautiful.
old for that. But speak up, she's got
worse eyesight. One other thingùdon
She's got alt her marbles, even if they

All the same 1 felt as if my antennae were waving help-
lessly in midair as 1 went upstairs through the vacant house
that next morning. Mounting through layers of silence bro-
ken only by the hum of bees out in the flowering olive tree.
I stopped at a window on the landing and listenedùat least
insects could still maintain fluent communication.

I was beginning to think the human denizens of 1981
were on the verge of losing the knack. The strangest aspect
of this random time zoneùwords are too abundant, thin
from overuse. True contact is made through the scam. (Note
to Linguistics, a ruse, as in choose vour own scam.)

"Tell her you're a historian," Max amplified as we ate
breakfast. "Or you're a genealogist, looking for traces of
your long-lost rootsùthat's the in thing now." He'd broken
off as Gil came into the kitchen, radiant in turquoise eyelids
and a new magenta T-shirt with sequins forming the words-
I FOUND IL WHO NEEDS IT?

Max eyed her through a veil of judicious smoke. "You
look gorgeous- All that's missing is a wig."

"A wig?" Buzzers went off, her tachometer began to
race at high speed. "I've been meaning to get one, but
there wasn't time yesterday."

"It has to be exactly right, though. I can't let you hack

71

it aloneùI'll go with you," he said. "I do know something
about wigs."

For a minute she was shocked wordless. "Are you okay?
You look funnyùwhat happened to your arm?"

"Got dizzy last night, fell over and cut it on a broken
bottle. No big deal."

She seized a can of Coca-Cola from the refrigerator and
ripped the top off. "A blond wig! Hurry up and finish your
tacos, Casey."

"Not me. Got to stay home and tune my banjo." Maybe
Liza could help with that tooùshe was obviously into music.
This morning Vivaldi was out. As I went on up the last
flight of stairs, Glen Miller was stringing pearls. Dreamy
nostalgic music for a sweet little old ladyùand then she
opened the door. Wet white hair was pinned in curlicues
all over a pink skull. Around her shoulders a red bath towel,
and below it a flannel nightgown and huge furry slippers,
though it must have been ninety degrees up here under the
roof. Her gray eyes peered at me through the threads of
cataracts.

"Mrs. Kent? I'm a friend of Max's. He said I could come
talk to you about some research I'm doing. But if you're
busy . . ."

She chewed her lips, a soft spot where the mouth had
long since caved in. Waving me forward, she went back
into the bathroom, leaving the tape deck murmuring along
in counterpoint to the bees outside.

These windows too were open to the olive tree; the
yellow scent was enough to stagger you. The room itself
was floribunda with clippings and books, clusters of pic-
tures pinned to the walls. Framed studio portraits, little

72

glossy snapshots of girls in short skirts and upswept curls;

older browning prints of long skirts and shingle bobs. Men
in uniform, men in knickers holding golf clubs. A certificate
from the Red Cross for meritorious service, dated 1944. A
crayon drawing of a red barn with a white silo and black
cows, signed with the printed words: GRACE KENT, 6
YEARS.

"My little girl did thatùGillianùwhen she was only six
years old." She had put on a wraparound dress of bright-
striped material. Her mouth was reshaped now by a set of
strong young white teeth that grinned at me as if she knew
exactly what I was thinking.

"The name signed here is 'Grace,' " I said, Just testing.

"Of course it is! Thought you could catch me, didn't
you? They say 1 can't remember what I had for breakfast,
which may be true, but things that happened years ago are
clear as window glass. Did you come here to ask about
the good old days?" She plunked down on the sofa with a
cracking of kneebones. "Lots of people have asked me that.
I tell 'em, which good old days? The Depression? Or the
wars, all the warsùtake your pick, they all left us with
whiplash, every one of 'em. My ears are still ringing. How
old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"And signed up for the new draft? Oh, it's coming, any
minute now. Those Arabs, scummy with oilùyou'll have
to go kill 'em, like it or not. Which you probably will. Hero
fever gets into young men, never could see why. Anybody
can join the army and get ordered around, ordered to kill.
It's a free license to huntùmost men fall for it. Except last
time, some ran off to Canada, like Howard, poor fool. But

73

the other one went, Max. You said you know Max?"

"Yes, ma'am, he steered me up here. I'm interested in
genealogy."

She nodded. "Bloodlines. They fascinate people. Oh, I
could tell you about blood. . . ." She squinted at me with
her head tilted. "Don't I know you? You remind me of
somebodyùno, I guess that was back in the sixties. Or
earlier, a long time ago when Al was still alive."

"Mr. Kent?"

"Sorry to tell you, we had to put him in the Home."

"That's too bad. How did it happen?"

"Happen? It just was."

"I thought maybe something brought it on. Like the war?"

She nodded, nodded. "1 used to go down to the depot
and hand out doughnutsùto the ones who still had hands.
It amputates a lot of things, war does. Lord-y, some lads
came back whole on the outside, but nobody knew what
pieces were missing. Brought that big old service revolver
home, smacking his hip, had to go and kill that fellowù
they never proved it, though. Ctint was smart."

"I thought we were talking about Al."

"Oh no, Al wouldn't hurt a fiy. He just wanted to play
with his test tubes. Loved alt those colors, bottles all over
the basement, he called it his laboratory. I never let him
use anything but food coloringùperfectly safe, even if he
happened to drink the stuff. But then he'd get out and
wanderùwent over to St. Luke's and 'treated' two or three
patients before they caught him. And me trying to run this
place with paying guestsùthat was in the Depression, you
know. I couldn't watch him every minute. So we had to

74




tuck him away. I hated to do it." A spasm of sorrow deep-
ened all her wrinkles, then was gone.

"But he was sane enough when you were married?" I
couldn't imagine her choosing a man who was obviously
unhinged.

"What would you know about it? That was an age of
innocenceùLord-y, we were naive then. Didn't even know
how babies got concocted, a decent girt didn't. You're
supposed to learn that from your husband- Except there
was no time, all at once, they shipped out so fast in the
last days." A different shadow crossed her blank old eyes,
something half remembered.

"So Mr. Kent was sent overseas?"

"Al? Of course not!"

I got up and roamed the old photos, trying to find a face
that would be Alfred Kent.

"Over by the stove, that's my 1918 corner."

An alcove housed a two-burner grill and a small refrig-
erator, a shelf with a few dishes;-a rack with a red hand
towel. And on the near wall, a handsome boyish face looked
out of a frame. Liza had come to stand by my shoulderù
she put out a buried finger to touch the old portrait.

"That's my Billy."

But what had brought me to a cold-sweat standstill was
the snapshot next to it, a fading brown print of a young
man standing beside a pile of cornstalks in that long-ago
autumn.

"Who's this?" I pointed.

"That's a boy who saved my life." She turned suddenly
suspicious. "You can't have that storyùI'm going to write

75

it up myself and send it to Collier's magazine. You're not
going to pick my brain about that."

"Pleaseùjust tell me, how did he save your life?"

"None of your business."

But it damned well was. Because the face that old box
camera had captured was the same one that looks at me
out of the mirror every morning. From the expression, I
seemed to be saying, Sorry about that.

And that's where the first phase of the experiment standsù
unfinished- Liza closed up like a shutter valve under pres-
sure. She wouldn't even tell me how we met or where. In
a daze 1 wandered off and called a cab, without saying
good-by to anyone. When the police had hustled me off
I'd lost all sense of distance, but my exit point had to be
a few miles west of Onderella City. The taxi driver found
itùhe let me out beside my stream, known localty as Bear
Creek.

The stones were still in place. I hid my clothes under
the thisties, where I can retrieve them if I go back. When
I go back. There's got to be some hidden pattern in this
giant human logarithm that's vectoring me around.

No trouble with the return trip. It took a couple of tries
to get the exact right position. The first time I punched the
trigger all I got was a buzz in my left elbow. Corrected
thirty centimeters to the east and woke up on the floor of
the lead-box. Only one small problemùI must query Pokey.
Could repeated use of the refractor result in nerve damage?
For thirty seconds I couldn't move, )ust lay there while a
couple of UV technicians came over to stare down at my
recumbent body.

76

"I'll be damned," one remarked. "That contraption really
works."

Hail the conquering hero.

They tossed me a lab coat and I made it to the decon-
tamination chamber under my own steam. Med. Section
was fascinated by my 1981 microorganisms; they held a
little seminar over me.

Eddinger was less thrilled, especially when he learned
I had to do another jump. He didn't even want to hear
about itùmade me feel like a procrastinator, idler, burden
and general write-off. But he can't argue with that snapshot;

I have the authorization to go rummage around 1914.

This time it will be more difficult. We don't know the
exact coordinates, and they have to be accurate to the
nearest hour. You cannot go whereùor whenùyou don't
belong. 1 found that out early on, when I tried to go back
to 1492 )ust for the hell of it. The machine refused. That's
why I'm not worried that someone else (name of Fiver) will
do some unauthorized jumping. The machine simply doesn't
send you where you are not already a matter of record-

1 have Pokey working now to figure where I'm supposed
to cut the old girl's trail. The season was fall, n.b. corn-
stalks; the snapshot was in the "1918 corner"ùfollow the
clues. Actually, 1918 should be everything I'm looking for.
A dandy year for danger. Not )ust the big war; the whole
atmosphere of the American west was one of contention
in those days. Gun duels were fought in the streets. Men
were forming unions to combat their employers in bloody
confrontationsùseveral of these had occurred in the raw
new state of Colorado, including one called The Ludlow
Massacre.

77

Also the chances for my own personal test program seem
to be improving The last thing Liza said before she clammed
up was, "That boy saved my life, but I'm afraid it may have
cost him his own "

Great Looking forward to it

END TEST 1
HOLD CODE OPEN

78

DE=1

One minute     two minutes     Time flies when you're
petrified I should have taken the paralysis more seriously
When you can't move a finger, the seconds stretch like
banjo strings, tighter, higher, giving off faint harmonics of
sheer panic

I could seeùstraight up, gray sky

I could feelùbare shoulders getting cold, feet unusually
warm

A deep silence fell away for miles on all sides I won-
dered how long before some fur trapper passed by and
found my ravaged skeleton

Then from out of sight beyond the top of my headù 'He
wasn't there when I put the potatoes on "

"Maybe he escaped from Canon City and ditched his
stripes and that's why he's nekkid "

"Only why didn't we see him coming^'

"Because he was crawling along in the creek to fool the
bloodhoundsùboy, are you dumb "

79

"If he's escaping, why didn't he go on? Why's he just
lying there?"

"Listen, you'd be wore out too, if you crawled all the
way from Canon City."

Young voices, small grubby hands helping me sit up,
and suddenly my component parts were in working order
again. Thank the Lord, nobody was going to make a big
thing out of my bare backsideùat least not these twelve-
year-old fur trappers.

Which I immediately revised to doughboys. They wore
a scrabble of army castoffs, flapping puttees, threadbare
olive-drab pants, steel helmets angled low over freckled
noses or bending widespread ears. Nearby, a large sloppy
tent undulated in the afternoon wind. In front of it, a camp-
fire flickered; another burned a few inches from my point
of entry, where a thirty-gallon drum had been turned on
its side and half buried in the embankment to form an oven.
It was full of hot coals and black, smoldering lumps.

The little creek seemed stealthier in these days, winding
between tall stands of dry grass. And the brown hills were
shadowyùnot a house in sight, no rush of traffic. Just that
immense quiet, ruffled only by the whispering of my res-
cuers.

"Shush up! You don't ask them questions, they don't
like it."

"Anyhow, he wouldn't know Butch Cassidy. Butch Cas-
sidy was never at Canon City."

"My father knew Cole Younger."

"My father knew lesse )ames."

Before I could garner a reputation I'd have to live up to,
I decided to go into my act. Getting to my feet, I rubbed

80

my head and groaned. "I think I've been mugged."

They looked baffled.

"I'm aùvictim of foul play." I wandered over toward
the tent. Cautiously they followed, nine of them, scrawny,
wiry kids with vivid eyes. I was obviously the best thing
that had happened on these maneuvers.

"Was it a gang of hooligans?"

"How many?"

"Were you carrying a payroll?"

I shook my head. "1 was on my way to see the Kents.
You know the Kents?" That drew a complete blank. "Any-
how this hitchhiker stopped meù"

The word produced a visible tremor. "What's that?"

"That's a road agent!" One punched the other. "Boy,
are you dumb!"

"A man who asked for a rideù"

"On your horse?"

"In my car."

"You've got an automobile?" They .stared glory all over
me.

"My uncle's got a Marmon."

"Our next-door neighbor had a Packard, but he sold it."

Beginning to get the hang of it, I said, "This was a Fierce-
Arrow convertible with wire-spoke wheels. I was only car-
rying a couple of hundred bucks, butù"

"Two hundred dollars'."

"ùI did have a fairly nice gold pocket watch. Anyhow
he hit me over the head, took my clothes, the car, every-
thing. I began to crawl. I must have crawled quite a
ways- ..."

They had turned and begun to seize each other, grabbing

81

throats, beating imaginary clubs over heads, tearing invis-
ible watches from pockets, slinging each other to the ground.
I located a tin cup and poured myself some brew from the
large scorched pot boiling away on the fire. I expected
inkù1 got terrific coffee. When the heat reached my belly,
I shuddered with reaction.

"Are you cold, sir?" One of them suddenly realized.
"See if my shoes fit."

Not a chance, there wasn't a foot in the crowd that could
come within inches of mine. "What I'd really like is some

pants."

"We could make some out of a blanket."

"Wait, I got it!" One of them plunged into the tent and
came back with a long garment like a lab coat. "My ma
always makes me bring this darn duster in case it rains."
Cloth heavy enough to sail a sloop around Cape Horn, it
had been treated with something like glue. Stiff and scratchy,
but it came down to my shins and began to capture my
waning body heat.

"Potatoes are done," another was yelling. "Get the fish."

They seized sticks and dug into the fire to uncover a-
frying pan, its lid dripping hot coals. The fish inside were
tangled in bacon, perfectly done. The blackened nodules
from the oven turned out to be shells of charred grass, full
of magnificent potatoes, f went into my gourmet catatonia.

When I came to, I was asking them about jobs. "Any-
body around here taking on help?" At least until I could
do a survey of alt local Kents.

"Only farms, and they don't hire rich people."

"\ am ex-rich. Which farms?"

82

They looked at each other, some unspoken thought that
produced misgivings.

"Not the dirty-germans."

"Well, they pay okayùa dollar a week, 1 heard."

"And their hired man joined the army, off to Fort Riley."

"MacDonaldùhe wouldn't have worked for 'em, but
he was sweet on one of their girts."

"All they've got is girls. Girls can't shovel manure."

"Yeah"ùthey turned to me in a bodyù"you'd have to
shovel manure."

I said, "I'm not proud. Just tell me where to find them."

"You'd work for Huns?"

"Huns will carve the guts right out of a little baby."

"Huns'lt hang you up on bobwire and let the flies crawl
all over while you die." Horrible faces, gagging sounds,
they threw themselves across invisible wires and writhed
in agony. They seized each other's bellies and extracted
unimaginable contents.

"I'll keep my guard up. But 1 do need a job," I insisted.

"Well then, they got a dairy farm up on Morrison Road.
Hesslers, their name is. But watch out.'"

An early twilight was setting in. My bare feet hated to
leave the warmth of the fire. "Thanks for the meal and the
, coat. Where can I send it back?"

"Don't!" the donor pleaded. "\ hate it. I'll tell my mother
it got lost."

Another leaped up- "I know! We'll tell her a hikehitcher
stole it."

"I got a better idea! We'll tell her there was this terrible
accidentùtwo Fierce-Arrows had a head-on smash, and

83

people were bleeding everywhere. So they used the coat
to make a stretcher." They went into action, driving wildly
at each other in legendary cars, colliding, careening, crum-
pling. I left them in piles all over the ground.

As I walked up the htll in the twilight, tenuous spirals
of laughter rose behind me. It brought a curious twingeù
I don't think I ever was that young in my life.

84

DE:S

The emptiness of those wooded hills, the lonely dirt road
barely visible in the shadows of oncoming night, the huge
hush on all sides sifted lightly with windùa great, feckless
sense of freedom came over me. In that pristine evening
strewn with genuine five-carat stars, i was led softly by a
temptation Just to go on walking into the innocence of this
other world forever.

And then the dream was ripped to shreds by the drum
of hoofbeats, horses on the gallopùfour or five riders com-
ing toward me. I stepped off the track as they plunged past,
trailing smells of sweat and whiskey and another odorù
hostility? Fear? Running from some scene, ahead, that glowed
a deadly red.

I trekked on down the road faster, battering my numb
toes against pebbles, suddenly feeling the cold. Some-
how 1 wasn't surprised when I topped a rise and saw a
barn on fire. Naturally. Liza Kent would be in that barn,
I would carry her to safety, hero style, and gel the D/Q

85

experiment over with. Hang around long enough for a
look at Alfredùfor Gil's sake, just in case. Get my pic-
ture taken with some cornstalks and home by tomorrow
night.

Hobbling across a rocky yard, 1 was remembering a small
fire we had once in the lab. It was no kin to this licking,
seething, greedy thing that sucked the oid boards of the
barn while shadowy figures ran with buckets. Milk paits
lay around in a scatterùI grabbed a couple and rushed
them to the pump, where a girl in a long dress was furiously
working the handle. When I flung down my pails to be
filled, she turned a shadowy face.

"Who are you? Get off our property! We don't need any
outsiders, we can fight our own fires!" In the flickering
tight, her cheeks gleamed with tears.

"Dome!" A sturdy older woman had come with empty
pails. "Don't be rude, girl. Ve could use all the help ve
get."

And anyhow I had my own business at that barn. As t
slung water at the flames, the heat thrust back at me tike
a fist. When I turned, another girl came hurrying from the
pump, struggling with a tall milk can full of water. Long
shining braids the color of cornsilk swinging forward as
she sloshed my pails full. Fierce, firelit eyes. "Where did
you come from?"

I kept pitching water. "Somebody said you needed a
hired hand."

"Well, we don't. We don't need anybody!"

"Lieber Cott!" A barrel of a man with a stubby gray
beard came flailing at the burning boards with a wet blan-


86

ket. "Maggie, hush yourself up. Young man, you vant a
job, you got it."

"Is there anybody inside the barn?"

"Betsy's getting the cows out from."

And having a hard timeùshe was struggling with a pan-
icky beast. You have to know where to grab a cow (Ag.
101ùtwo semesters). You grip the long hairy ear with one
hand and with the other pinch a nostril. I yanked, she
hauled, and we sent the animal lolloping out into the dark.

Through smoke smudges, she eyed me with dignity.
"Thank you." And ran back into the barn, which was be-
ginning to pour smoke at all seams. One last gulp of air
and I plunged after her. Not that any Betsies were on my
list of labors, but I'm a fool for a strong chin.

Off in the smoke she was calling. "Hugo? Hugo!"

Then everything happened at once. With a giant crack,
the rooftree gave way, the loft tilted., spilling loose hay all
over me. As I fought free, I was showered with fiery shin-
glesùsomething bashed me down onto hands and knees.
In the dense smoke I forgot where the barn door was ... got
mixed up, needed to breathe and couldn't. . . and all the
while something kept nudging me.

I was bumped, prodded, finally butted forth into the
world of the quick, to lie gagging on fresh air while some-
body washed my face with a warm brush, as enthusiasti-
cally as an archeoiogist cleaning a valuable antiquity. When
I could get my raw eyes open, I saw I'd been rescued by
a large tail-wagging mutt. He was as proud as if he'd in-
vented me.

"Good dog, Hugo!" It was Betsy and/or Maggieùa whole

87

bevy of braided ladies revofved slowly before my blurred
vision.

"Ach, the boy! Look at the bump on his head." The
bearded father face joined the kaleidoscope. "For why vas
he in the barn?"

"I went in to look for Hugo, and i guess he followed
me. I went on out the other sideùI didn't know he was in
there."

"Himmel! No shoes has he on." A sudden warmth of
arms and hands, a softness enfolding me like bread doughù
the mother-lady had taken me right into her fap. Sitting
there on the wet mud, she bundled my head against her
cushiony person. "Poor brave boy, goot boy."

In all my training, nowhere did they prepare me for the
effect of a warm, maternal breast. Strange currents flowed
through me like a transfusion of contentmentùsome after-
math of the danger syndrome?

Whatever it was, it could lead to addiction. Nobody
before had ever mentioned that I was a "goot boy." Or
tucked blankets around me, or washed my feet. ("You
mustn't be bending over, it hurts the poor head.") They
gave me a pair of carpet slippers and poured me full of hot
chocolate topped with thick cream.

Atl this, of course, in the heart of the houseùHesslers'
kitchen. Something stabilizing about a heavy oaken table.
Kerosene lamps glossed over the benevolent black iron
range. Not that anything could warm away the memory of
what had happened, but we calmed down around the
chocolate pot. A strange feefing, to be part of a "we."

"Thank Gott nobody vas too bad hurt." Mama, putting

88

a sticking plaster on my lump. Plain hands, gold ring. "Ve
got to think, vat to do now."

"We should mount a guard. I'll take first watch!" Mag-
gieùher eyes were stil! red.

"They von't be back." Papa, wearily. "They made their
point."

"What point?" I had to askùI kept hearing the echo of
those wild hooves, scattering anger.

"Because we're Germans, of course." Oorrie, the
youngestùwhat, fifteen?

"Because the price of milk just went up again," Betsy
said, her deep-set eyes so blue you could have picked
them.

"But that's not our fault, that's war!"

"Ach.' ft they could see my feed bills." The papa shook
his head. "But then, maybe I should've took a littte loss."
One smile, slightly bent.

Mama filled his cup. "No use to 'if and 'maybe.' Now,
ahead is how ve got to think." '"

"We'll build the barn again." Maggie marched over with
ham sandwiches.

"I say we move away from this hateful valley forever!"
Dome.

"The land isn't rotten, it's the people," Betsy told her.
lord, what delicate little ears, half hidden by those flaxen
braids.

Papa's square chest heaved. "No, ve don't run. Ve left
the old country because of hate. Seem like so far to go,
and this vas goot young land, everybody let live each other.
Now der verdammte Kaiser spread his hate over the vorld,

89

can't blame people, see a son come back shell-shocked.
Maybe not coming home at all. Makes anybody mad, makes
me mad, too."

"But it's so far away!" Maggie slammed soft Usts on the
table. "I mean, why blame us?"

"Nothing's far away anymore. A man can be here
one day, and in two weeks over at the front." Betsy was
taking angry bites "We have to deal with it, that's ail.
We've got to make everybody realize that burning our
barn was foolish. Then they'll stop pestering. Papa"ù
she cocked her head, that little chin killed meù"the
cows are getting ofd, you said so yourself. If we self
them off, all but a couple, we could build a lean-to onto
the henhouse, big enough to shelter them this winter.
We'd save the heavy feed bills. We can get by on egg
money. And people along this valley will have to go
clear to Morrison through the snowdnfts for their milk.
By spring they'll come begging to help us build a new
barn."

Maggie caught the idea. "No more getting up at four in
the morning!"

"Makes sense. No frozen dung to chip from out the
stalls." Papa waved his mug of cocoa. "Hesslers justwent
out of the dairy business." But there were tears in his eyes.

Of course it meant they wouldn't need a hired hand after
all, which was probably a good thing. Tomorrow I could
go hunting Liza Kent. No point in lingering here where the
danger quotient was smoldering out, behind the house,
and I hadn't even been decently terrified. The only thing
that had sent a tidal surge along my tired bloodstream was
the smudge of ash on Betsy Hessler's nose.

90

DE,3

In our complex sex is taken for granted, much like a mid-
night snack. With everybody on contraceptives except spe-
cially vetted couples, there are no inhibitions. So I'd never
given it much thought. It took 1918, with buttons and bows,
to flip my switches-

1 mean, Betsyùstanding over at the big black-iron stove
with her back to me. First you'd untie the apron ribbon.
Then starting at the soft nape you'd undo the little pearl
buttons one at a time. An inward vision of white shoulder
blades revealed gave me a sharp tremor. There'd be an
undergarment, something with laces. Then stockingsùmy
imagination stuttered. Finally you'd be down to a loose
shift, maybe with hand embroidery. And thenùyour basic
woman, my God!

I was starting to sweat; maybe it was the warmth of the
kitchen with its ripe-peach ambianceùthe whole farm was
fecund. And momentarily all mine.

"Look after the place vhile I'm the cows to Morrison

91

taking." Papa had clapped me on the shoulder. Riding off
on a steamy old horse, followed by a dutiful string of black-
and-white bossies who rolled their eyes at Hugo as he
prodded and punched them into line.

"That's a very conscientious dog," I told Betsy. "I've
never been rescued before. How do I thank him?"

"No need. He thought you were a sheep." She glanced
at my mop of light hair and her nose crinkled with humor.
"He's always wanted a sheep of his own."

We were alone. Mama and Maggie had gone into town
to the depot, where the Salvation Army was ministering to
the trainloads of wounded doughboys who came through
every day. Dorrie had gone trotting off on her little mare
to a Red Cross meeting in a nearby church to sew pneu-
monia jackets, whatever they might be.

"For all those people back east who are getting the in-
fluenza," she'd explained. "When it turns to pneumonia,
all you can do is keep the patient warm." Her child's eyes
filled with tears. "They're having an awful timeùit's a
regular epidemic around Boston."

And London and France and Kansas City, Missouri. What
about Denver? I rolled some headlinesù'SPANISH FLU
FAILS TO REACH DENVER' (September 29) and 'INFLU-
ENZA CHECKED IN CITY' (October 6). So they'd even had
a touch of it hereùthe world was getting smaller, as Betsy
had noticed.

I kept getting distracted by pink elbows. Nothing disrupts
concentration like a beautiful woman sorting eggs. They
were on the puny side; I kept thinking how easily I could
change that. A few chemicals mixed into the chicken feed,
a simple but unusual combinationùone of Eddinger's

92

favorite discoveriesùand the hens are converted to X=
Lg AA. How I'd like to see her face when those big ones
start turning upù

I had to kick myself. This is not what you are here for!
Or as Gil would say, get your act together. And I was trying
(o when Betsy turned to me, suddenly troubled.

"Last year Hugo found himself a real sheepùa big woolly
white oneùhe brought it home. Papa spent a week riding
'.around to farms, until he located the owner."

"I know. Strays can be a nuisance." And my eyes don't
match and my story about being robbed does not glow
with the strong steady light of truth. "So since you don't
:,^need a handyman anymoreù"

-t- "Well, not for the whole winter. But I was wondering
Jft you'd do us a favor and stay a little longer? Papa cares
,so much about the animalsùthat's what I meant. I'm afraid
the'll kill himself, rushing to get that lean-to buitt, and no-
;'body to help with the heavyùnot since Billy left."

''" My ears stood on end. "Who?"

w

'i "Billy MacDonald, our hired hand."
,* "Yes. Right. Sorry I didn't.get to meet him. In fact some-

-Ibody told me"ùmy voice was so dry it crackedù"that he

Sight know some people I'm looking for. Named Kent.
^.iaybeyouù?"

^ She shook her head. "Not around here, no one by that

^
tname.

H "Did he, by any chance, have a young lady friend?"
H Her face drained out to pure white as if somebody had
Hust broken several of her bones. Frowning hard, she said,
^"1 don't know a thing about Billy's private life."

Which, of course, wasn't true. Betsy knew exactly who

93

he was seeing and she hated it. It dawned on me she had
been slightly taken by him herself. The spurt of acid in my
soul must be what they call Jealousy.

"Will he be coming home on leave?"

"I doubt itùhe seems to like it over there in Kansas."
Curt, very curt for Betsy. Then her face softened to sorrow.
"Anyhow, they're sending the boys overseas faster than
ever these days."

To fling themselves across the splintered remnants of the
Argonne Forest. I'd done some speed reading on "The
Great War" that was now grinding to an end along the
Somme. I knew about the awful mud of Passchendaele,
composed of sewage, scrap metal and human shards; the
wasteland around Verdun, strewn with a whole generation
of Frenchmen. Thank God it would be over in a monthù
I wished I could tell her that.

"If he hasn't gone yet," I said, "he'll probably be safe."

She swung around on me sharply. "He doesn't want to
be safeùhe wants to fight. He's ready to take the battle
line, to stop this wretched war. They're going to end all
wars forever. Just thinkùwe're going to give peace to the
world, the whole world! Ifsùit's so beautifulù" She broke
off, flushing with embarrassment. "You'll understand
someday. You're too young, right now, but in years to come
you'll know what a brave thing those men are doing today."

Too youngùI've never had time for adolescence, so it
came as a complete shock to realize she thought of me as
a mere kid. It damn near tore my toenails off. Briefly I
hoped I'd be around long enough to meet Billy-boy and
fling him lightly to the ground a few times, just to dem-
onstrate who was a man, here.

94

Or, lacking him, the guy in the wagon would do. All
beard and belly, in sweaty coverallsùthere was something
about the way he looked at the charred timbers of the barn
as he drove across the farmyard.

Betsy was watching him too. "That's probably one of
them. He accused me last week of picking his pocket when
the price of butter went up a penny." She dried her hands
on her apron and stepped onto the back porch. "Mr. Dill,
if you came for milk you're out of luck."

"See y'all had a fire." He shifted some great lump from
one cheek to the other. "Put the cows off their feed, eh?"

"The cows," she said, "are gone. You can tell your
friends we won't be selling dairy products anymore. And
we won't be needing that silage."

His heavy brows grouped in a frown. "Your pa ordered
it, he's got it." Taking a board off the rear of the wagon,
he began to shove cornstalks out onto the bare ground in
a heap.

A good place to log a little D/Q experimentationù1 was
itching for him. But Betsy laid a hand on my arm. Her face
alight as if the flames still blazed, she took a dollar bill
from her apron, walked across to him holding it delicately
between two fingers. When he reached for it, she let it
flutter onto a pile of cow plop. "If you ever come through
that gate again, Mr. Dill, I will set the dog on you."

His face turned a dull oxidated red, but by then I was
stationed off her starboard sleeve holding a pitchfork. As
we watched him drive away mumbling, my mind divided
into pie-shaped pieces. A dwindling wedge for him, a larger
slice of Betsy smelling like fresh bread, and 67% of me
transfixed by the cornstalks. I knew that pile.

95

She gave me a small wry smile. "Actually we need it
for the stock we still have. Maybe we can toss it in the sito
before Papa gets back." Then, teasing a little, "You took
absolutely invincible with that pitchfork. I've got to have
a picture. Hold on while 1 get Mama's Brownie." She trot-
ted across the farmyard in a flutter of skirts while I stood
inevitably by the heap of silage, thinking of 1981, future
spasms of dismay, dislocations, reorientations.

At least I'd found my pickup point. Now all I had to do
was follow the course of the snapshot. Maybe Betsy would
send it along with some others when she wrote BiltyùI
had a hunch she would write to him before he shipped out
forever. By then he'd be with Liza and so would I, some-
how. I woufd rescue her from the caved-in mine shaft, she
would ask for the photo as a keepsakeùit seemed com-
plicated.

Betsy was back now, peering into the small black boxù
a serious business, steadying the thing. Finally, under her
finger the shutter snapped. Destiny fulfilled. Click.

96

DE,L,

I am the missionùI should have that engraved on the end
of my nose so I can't forget it.

There I was, feeling good. I'd been swinging a hammer
all week, driving nails into wood, shoving that handsawù
skills never known in the complex, where every unit is
extruded polyform. They should at least try it in the therapy
ward; a board nailed down is a spirit perked up. So I was
doing fine.

And then some complete stranger busts my bubble. A
mild guy in horn-rim glasses and sandy hair saying, "Young
man, pardon me for mentioning this, but you are becoming
anemic."

Of course he was only an apothecary, according to the
sign on the shopùa small shanty cluttered with bottles,
jugs, vats, bins and boxes. Dr. McLaughlin's magic beltù
the foundation of all manly strength. Pe-ru-na cures ca-
tarrh. Pink Pills for Pale People . . .

97

"just tell me what I owe you," I snapped. At least I'd
got the ingredients I wanted.

"Three dollars ought to cover it, though what on earth
you'll do with this odd-lot of chemicalsù"

"Mix them into the chicken feed to get bigger eggs."
Bragging a little, I explained the formula.

His pale eyes showed a swift glint of interest. "That's
very intriguing, the alchemy involved. But to return to your
problems, sirù"

") haven't got any, and you're no doctor." I know I
sounded surly, because he shoved his glasses up his nose
and stood on his dignity.

"I am not without some medical training- I can assure
you, the membranes of your eyes are quite impoverished."

"Oh that. Slight case of too much smokeùI fought a
fire last week."

"Your fingernails are ridging, they're a poor color."
"So I hit my thumb a few times with a hammer."
"I would also guess that you have been very tired lately.
Somewhat confused, indecisive." He had me there, and
he knew it. "Fortunately we've caught it in time. Full vitality
can be restoredùall you need is some Nuxated Iron." A
bottle of which he just happened to have.

I left the shop, muttering to myself. Confused ? Why shou Id
I be confused when, on the upper winds, I could hear the
remote overtones of heavy automotive traffic whining in
the future? And beyond that, the awful crackle of air ex-
ploding followed by the sick silence of atomic radiation.
Indecisive? I am completely detoured. What else would
you call it when f concern myself with 1918 chickenfeed?

98

As I climbed back into the wagon and picked up the
lines, the old all-purpose horse moved off, hauling me
: faithfully back down Morrison Road. Totally oriented. When
I'd wondered if I might need directions, Papa had assured
me not to worry. "He knows his chob." Way ahead of me
in the philosophy of duty. 1 took a gulp of Nuxated Iron
. right out of the bottle.

So it was time to write a new program. The lean-to was
nearly finished, only needing the drums of tar that jostled
, in the back of the wagon. Tomorrow we'd put the roof on,
and then no more dilly-dally. I had three dollars coming,
I had picked up my clueùnext stop. Billy MacDonald.
. Who would be found snuggling Liza Kent over in the vi-
;.;' cinity of Fort Riley, Kansas.

Don't think about the wrench of taking leave of Betsy.
Or that I won't even be here a couple of weeks from now
to see her face when the eggs double in size. No more
putting my big feet next to her little neat ones by the stove
on a chilly fall evening. Chomping stivers of raw apple and
^ hand-me-the-popcorn-please, buttery fingers, while tamp-
^ light flickered over Mama playing the otd upright piano,
}: singing. . . .

1    I've a tender recollection

^.

i- .   /'// carry all through life.

^.       And time but makes it dearer, day by day.

^   The memory of a mother

J^   Whose smiling days are gone,

Who drove all my troubled childish fears away.

My own personal earliest recollection was of Eddinger
99

bending over my playpen, saying "Shape up. Four-spot!
The square root of forty-nine is seven."

In the evening Just at twilight,
When the fire was burning low,

She'd take me in her arms and say to me,
"Be brave, my boy, and truthful,
And never be ashamed

Of the lessons that you learned at mother's knee."

The Nuxated Iron was down by a third before the old
plug turned in at the farmyard. Something was amiss. Hugo
stood on the back porch peering in through the screen door.
He looked at me over his shoulder, wagged unhappily and
gave a short yelpùhe damn near spelled it out.

In the complex we've got dogs, of course, for guard
purposes mostlyùvariations on a Doberman pinscher theme.
The only emotion they project is total intimidation. They'd
never condescend to telegraph urgent messages with anx-
ious brown eyes. As I came over to the porch. Hugo stared
me into hurrying.

In the kitchen I found the family grouped around the
table, where Papa was bending over a huge book, pointing
his own path through the words with a stubby finger while

Mama monitored and Betsy translated certain phrases into
German.

"Vat means 'catarrh'?" he was asking her.
"Congestion of the breathing, I think."
"Maybe that's it, then. fust a little catarrh, eh?"
"It's the influenza, that's what it is!" Dorrie turned to
me wailing. "Maggie's got the influenza, I know it!"

100

^ "Hush up!" Mamaùthe only time I ever heard her speak

^sharply. "Papers say ve don't got the flu in Denver."
"Book says paint the throat mit iodine." Papa stood up.

;"Vedo."

In a group we climbed the narrow stairway to the second
floor, where small bedrooms crouched under the steep
slope of the roof. Deep dormer windows seemed to guard

^against the onslaught of brilliant October-afternoon sun-
light.

" From the depths of a pile of comforters, Maggie smiled

'feverishly. "I'm really fineùjust feel a little dizzy. It'll go

-away by tomorrow."

.; Mama had brought a small brown bottle and a water-

$i

^Color brush.

:? "Goot! Now open the collar, Gretel." Carefully, Papa
^dipped into the iodine, and when Maggie had exposed her
^slender neck, he slowly painted two dark circles on the
I white skin, one on either side. "Look right, Mama?"
j "Fine. Book says it makes goot." She patted Maggie's
(flushed cheek. "Better get some sleep, Liebchen."
?, I was somewhat bemused by the whole performance. I
^even found the big book of do-it-yourself medicine slightly
'^òhumorous, f think I reflected on how primitive the health

òj?i.

arrangements were in those days. It wasn't until sometime
i^n the unstept hours of early morning, lying in the new

òE,

lean-to on fresh straw with the sweet smell of cows nearby,
^lhat a hard rock of fact shattered my dreamy shell.
! From some history tape, a paragraph of cold print:

In the fall of 1918, twenty-one million people across
the world died of Spanish influenza, five hundred

101

thousand in the United States alone. No epidemic in
history ever killed so many so quickly.

Frantically I spun my spools of mental microfilm, scanning
later headlines. And found what I should have known but,
full of Immunal myself, never considered important.

In a few days Denver would close its doors to all in-
coming travelers. All meeting places would shut down,
every aging doctor importuned out of retirement, to try to
cope with the swift tide of disease that was flooding across
country, east to west.

Scrambling up, I stood in the opening where tomorrow
we were going to hang a door. A disordered sky, the soft
sound of Hugo whiningùI tried not to have premonitions
as I looked at the house, where every room fluttered with
pale-yellow lamplight.

102

DE,S

So I know what it means, to feel like a damned fool, and
it hurt more than I'd ever dreamed. Never before did I ask
my mind to jump, only to have it turn to stone on me.

A doctorùthat was all I could think of. Papa set off
looking for one at first light that next morning. Mama was
grimly busy with poultices. For a fever that high, she should
be trying ice packsùI thought. But I could be wrong. 1
went through the thick volume of home remedies as fast
as I could turn pages. Betsy, watching, got sore at me.

"What good do you think that does, to flip through like
that?"

"Please. I'm reading."

She grumped, but she brought me a cup of coffee. "I
wish Dorrie would get back with that atomizer."

She had gone clattering off on her mare toward Morrison,
bound for the apothecary's shop. I hoped he wouldn't un-
load any Nuxated Iron on herùmy own gut was churning.

103

"Oh stop it!" Betsy yelled as I leafed over the last pages.
"You're wasting time."

I shoved the book at her. "Correct. There's nothing in
here that will cure influenza. On page eighty-one you'll
find a suggestion to pack the abdomen in towels soaked
in hot vinegar. On page one sixty-four cut up onions and
mix with rye flour into a paste to be applied to the chest.
On two forty-one they prescribe Epsom salts and on three
ninety-six they make the only really good suggestionù
citric acid. Do you have any oranges?"
Wide-eyed, she stared at me. "A few lemons."
"I think cold packs on the throat would help, but I'm
not sure." Kicking the icebox didn't make it come clearer.
For generations we have all lived free of respiratory ail-
ments, since the development of Immunal in 2016.1 couldn't
even remember what the old remedies were. On those
video tapes I'd run doing 1981 research, the so-called com-
mercials had plugged a thing called aspirin. "Do you have
any aspirin?" She'd never heard of it.

Almost noon when Dorrie came galloping back. All at-
omizers were sold out, but she'd brought a newspaper.
They'd finally given up their pretensesùin the last day 219
cases of flu had been reported in the city, and how many
more, like Maggie, that the authorities didn't know about?

Even the army now admits a weekly death rate of thou-
sands.

At one in the afternoon Papa came home. "No doctors.
At the hospital they got too much to handle already. Can't
send anyone vay out here for one case. Maybe ve hitch
up and take her in?"

104

Mama shook her head. "Too sick. She can't breathe so
goot."

I visualized lungs, trying to take in the dry mountain air.
"Steam?"

"A steam pot!" Mama ran out to the woodpile, the stove
was stoked, a pan of hot water and vinegar brought to a
boil. When she went upstairs, the others trailed after her.

I sat down on the back porch with Hugo. We looked at
each other. At two-forty-five Maggie died.

I needed Pokey. I needed to punch a button: ANALYSIS.
SUGGESTIONS. TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE. I

wanted words that could explain how a person could be
so alive yesterday, thenùdead.

While my mind went in circles that wouldn't quit, the
rest of me daubed tar on the roof of the lean-to. Up in that
silent kitchen where they sat stunned, there was no place
for a handyman who wasn't handy, not even with his gilt-
edged guaranteed superbrain. I slapped tar all over Eddin-
ger for flubbing my chromosomes.

"Won't you please stop that?" It was Betsy, head and
shoulders and wispy braids. She had climbed the ladder
carrying a big glass of waferùhow she ever managed that
with a long skirt? "Casey, come inside. You're one of us."

I crawled over to her. "Thank you, but I realtyùreally
need to do something."

"I know." Her eyes were red, there was an awful bright-
ness to them, as if she'd looked too long at a fierce light.
"I wish I could go over and shoot the Kaiser." In a strange
high voice, starting, stopping. "This crazy warùruins ev-

105

erything- That's where the flu got startedùevil, rotten killerù
I wish I could blow it up with a bomb." She shook her
head, blinking, and clung hard to the ladder.

I gripped her shoulder and felt the heat radiating from
her like a combustion engine- "Betsy!"

"Nothing . . . just a little dizzy . . ."

I seized and drew her straight up into my arms. I still
don't know how I got us down that ladder, all I remember
was running across the farmyard, holding her close, while
down in my chest somebody kept whimpering, no, no, no.

Who'd have dreamedùwild thoughts galloped across
my inner landscapeùwho'd have dreamed I'd ever ride a
horse through October without a saddle? Papa had put the
bridle on him, but no, I said, no time for saddles. I thought
all you had to do was sit there. Bucephalus never wore a
saddle. But I was no AlexanderùI beat the poor old nag
with the seat of my pants as we blundered along through
late-afternoon shadows until finally my muscles cramped
and I lay clinging to his back like wet wash. Which is
obviously the way it's done-

1 only hoped the rest of my command went better. Keep
her warm, give her a glass of lemon-water every fifteen
minutes. Cold packs on the throat. I'd ordered people around
as if I knew what I was doing. And all I had was a narrow
plan that might or might not work.

The apothecary was puttering around, getting ready to
lockup. "Oh, hello." Friendly glasses, sandy smile. "Don't

tell meùI bet the tonic gave you diarrhea. I've got just the
thing."

No time. "You said you'd had medical training?"
106

"Yes. I'd be a doctor now if I hadn't told them. About
my reincarnationùin my other life 1 was Ramses the Sec-
ond, you know."

"Congratulations. But do you have any transfusion
equipment?"

"Of course. Actually I had hoped to be able to help
people in emergenciesù"

"This is an emergency."

"ùbut you have to know blood types."

"I'm type 0-positive, a universal donor. And I'm im-
mune to the flu. So I want to transfuse somebody with my
blood."

"Immune? How do you know?"

"I just know."

His face grew mystical. "When 1 try to explain it, nobody
believes meùabout the little voice in your brain that tells
you certain things. It told me last April that the war would
be over this year."

"November eleventh at eleven o'clock in the morning,"
t screamed slightly. "Can you do a transfusion?"

"November eleventhùgood." He went over to the cal-
endar and made a notation, while somewhere in France
men blew each other to bits, and back at the farm Betsy
was dying. "Oh yes, I can do a transfusion."

"A double one? 1 want to give herùthis personùall the
blood I've got, so I'll need some back."

"But then you'd have the flu."

"I don't think so, but it doesn't matter."

"And she'd be anemic."

"She can take my Nuxated Iron."

"I see your point," he agreed. "Oh yes, I can do that.

107

Put the 'Closed' sign in the window. I'll go get my buggy.
What did you say your name was . . . ?"

"Casey."

He stuck out a hand. "I'm A! Kent."

So my overheated cortex was already feeding me the
raw components of truth even before we got back to the
farm and found Papa sitting under a lantern on the porch.
Chiseling on a board doggedly, intent on the exact slant
of his tool. Under the blade the word was taking shape:

GRETEL.

"Gretel?" I was rememberingùhe'd called her thatù

Dome sat nearby clutching Hugo. "That's Maggie. Her
real name was Margreta, and we always called her Gretel
until the war. But then Mama thought maybe we wouldn't
get sneered at so much if we took American names. Only
I don't care, I'm Dorothea!" She meant now and forever.

And Betsyùwas Lisabeth. Of course.

When Mama, A) Kent and I went up to her room, she
was still hanging tough. Frightened, but there was still plenty
of fight in her. As I totd her what we intended to do, she
roused up onto her elbows. Her face was afire with some-
thing more than a high fever.

"No! You can't!"

"Betsy, trust me. It'll work." By then I was sure.

"You don't understand." She was looking beyond me
at her mother. "I mean it might hurtùit might be wrong
foraùan unborn child. "And she coufd still cock that chin.

Mama let out a long sigh. ! was speechlessù"Billy
MacDonald" was stuck in my throat. It was Al Kent who

108

.; rose to the occasion. He stopped setting up his equipment
- and went to take her hand.

"No, my dear, it won't hurt a normal baby. And I'm
sure yours is."
;   "How can you tell?"

A {ittle man in his head advises him. "Believe it," I said,
' "he's had medical training." Your little girl will be okay,
, Liza. Dear Betsy-Liza-love . . .

So much for that. I'm not even clear on how 1 got back
to my own century. It must have been the following night,
after we were sure Betsy was going to make it. f think it
was snowingùsome sort of white particulate. Didn't want
to take one of Papa's coats, just lose it, so t dressed again
iJ In the heavy dusterùI remember that much. Actually I was
too dizzy with fever to care, I barely made it to the jump
point.

Stuck the duster and my boots in the oil drumùlet the
. crazy kids make up a new melodTama when they discov-
^ ered them. Staggering around in the dark, 1 must have
^ finally found the spot. I know I kept punching the trigger
, until everything lapsed and I woke up in our infirmary with

the doctors enthusiastically pumping junk into me.
<   They said it was a close call. My body had no natural
; immunity, and it had only been a couple of weeks since
'". the shots. Besides which, Betsy's blood was so lethal they
^ had to do a complete detox program twice to remove all
w the infectionùleft me weak as an eroded terminal. My

r.                                                                                                        '

| bacteria are in the Med. Museum. My body's been in ther-
apy-

109

This morning was the first time I felt up to visiting Pokey.
I set him to analyzing the trip, to see what point there was
to it, whether it had any bearing at all on Three's predic-
tionùthat somehow my time travel would help save our
community. So far he hasn't a glimmer. But I picked up a
few clues of my ownù5(SCI) has been playing with my
programs. He tried to cover his tracks, but I can tell.

I informed Pokey, "No more hanky-panky. Anyway,
you're supposed to be evaluating my D/Q theory in your
spare time. Any thoughts yet?"

"WAIT." He clicked around for a few minutes.
"Never mind, just keep at it." Because now 1 had a final
jump to make. Back to Gil, obviouslyùshe's got to know
about Billy MacDonald. And I still have this instinct that
tells me whatever Three was onto, I'll discover it in 1981.
At least I played heavily on that when I told Eddinger.

He's too much of a scientist to abort an experiment
halfway through, so he has authorized the continuance.
Grudgingly. He's obviously beginning to suffer from acute
shortage of patience.

I prescribed Nuxated Iron.

END TEST 2
HOLD CODE OPEN

110

D3,l

Now a different problem is developingùa sort of person-
ality dyslexia, like trying to read one's life from right to left.
Standing before the familiar steps of 419 Aries, surrounded
again by 1981, I was spinning. Six of my own personal
weeks had passed since I walked out that door this morning.
It had taken me a month to recover from the flu, but I
wasn't sure Liza's hair would be dry yet.

When I set the coordinates for my return, I had aimed
for afternoon on the same day 1 left. For one thing, I hoped
the clothes would still be there under the thistles, which
they were. To save a lot of explanations, I hoped Gil and
Max hadn't come back yetùthey hadn't. His Fiat was still
gone from the driveway. Instead, a huge green sedan squat-
ted there.

As I considered it, a woman fully packed in a yellow
pants suit came out of the house and down the stairs past
me, to go open the trunk of the car- Over her shoulder she
said, "I'll bet you're the banjo."

1H

"And you must be Gil's mother."

"Oh yes, I'm mama bear." Her short two-toned faugh
had nothing to do with humor, a sort of verbal punctuation.
"Which makes you Goldilocks, very appropriate. Here"ù
she handed me a carton of brochures about some new
acne treatment. As she led the way inside, carrying a clip-
board and a box of file cards, she was asking, "How did
you manage to latch onto Max? He's usually very good at
evading entanglements."

"We did each other a couple of favors." Involving a
slight matter of life and death. I followed her into the room
off the kitchen, where we stacked things on a desk.

When she turned I saw two little me's mirrored in her
sunglasses. If this had been a sci-fi movie I'd have thought
she was a clever ciborg. Hair, an impossible red. Skin,
high-grade potyvinyl (facia! tics manufactured to specs: one
frown, size B). "Do you have a name?"

"Probably. I don't know, I've lost my memory. Max
suggested 'Casey' temporarily."

"Well, you never know what motivates poor Max. Where
is he? I expected to find him sleeping it off as usual." (One
small sigh, type P for pity.)

"He and Gil went shopping, I think. And I've been on
a research trip for Mrs. Kent, to clear up a genealogical
matter."

"You are Santa's little helper, aren't you? Well, don't
believe the old girl's tales about her younger days. I've
watched them get taller by the decade. Haha." She ex-
pected me to join her laugh track.

When I can't see the eyes, I get intimidated. "Haha."
"If she's waiting, don't let me keep you. I've got to go

112

get some groceries, but don't expect anything fancy. When
I'm on a diet, everybody starves. Haha."

"Haha." I practically ran up the stairs.

At the upper landing 1 stopped to collect my composure
and squeeze it back into its box. The music was Dixiefand
this afternoonùBeiderbecke doing "Thou Swell" with low,
affectionate ruffles and flourishes.

The door was open. Liza stood at the window, combing
a frizz of white ringlets. Looking smaller and warped by
all those decades, but the line of the jaw was still thereù
my heart swerved violently. Sixty years too late. All f could
do was abide with her a little and look out at the olive tree.

"I knew you'd be back." She-told-me-so. "You want
some more stories."

"I came to thank you. I've got the one I wantedùyou
gave me the clue to puzzle it out." I had rehearsed this,
word for word- "That snapshot over in the corner, the boy
by the cornstalksùhe was my great-grandfather."

Puzzled, she peered up at me in the bright afternoon
light, straining to see past the cataracts. "Yes . . . ? Yes!"
Her old fingers clutched my wrist. "You do resemble himù
a little. Then he did live, after all. We never knewùhe
just disappeared."

"He had to leave. Believe me, he didn't want to. He
tetis about the whole experience in his journal. I've just
been re-reading it down at the historical societyùhe gave
them his papers a long time ago. But what fooled me was,
he called you 'Betsy.' "

She didn't question my flimsy fiction. "That was during
the warùa stupid, desperate, absurd business, war is."
Puttering in her refrigerator. "You try to be patriotic, you

113

want to be part of your country. And we were youngù
all the young lives spent, all our innocence . . ." She
cracked loose a splintering of ice cubes. As she spooned
instant tea into the glasses, some scattered on the counter-
top. "Such illusionsùwe thought we were saving the
world."

I went over for a new look at Billy MacDonald, trying
to see him as Gil would soon. A naive face, fult of those
illusions, but the eyes were steady and manlyùa very sane
face.

"What did happen to him?" The last unanswered ques-
tion.

"Influenza. He got it before f did. off there in Fort Riley.
Of course I didn't know that until later. I even got hurt
because he hadn't written, poor boy, when all along he
was in his grave. Well, I was too weak to mourn much, I
just let Al take over. The kindest man in the world, even
if he was daffy. Of course some of his 'visions' came true.
He predicted the end of the war right down to the exact
hourùhad it marked on his calendar. We were married
two weeks after the Armistice. Papa never could figure out
my 'whirlwind courtship,' but Mama knew, of course. They
went back to Germany in 'twenty-five, you know, took
Dorothea with them."

"And Grace grew up thinking Al Kent was her father."

"Well, he was!" She stared fiercely at my whereabouts.
"He was a good provider, too. Made a bundle off his Egg
Enhancerùenough to buy this house."

"Wait a minute. Eggù?"

"Actually I guess it enhanced the hensùsome concoc-
tion he mixed into their feed, they'd turn out these huge

114

eggs. He never would tell how he did it. Oh, he could
have been rich if he hadn't fooled around with the stock
market. His little voice told him to invest in itùsuch trust
he put in that little voice! When he got wiped out. it sent
poor Al completely around the bend. But he was still a
good, sweet man. So nice with Graceùhe'd let her make
'magic potions' with his test tubes."

A gentle guy with a busted brain. Of course she'd never
disown him then. "But now, Liza, now there's Gil. She
needs to learn the truth." Or Lord knows how f actually
said itùabout genes, blood, fear of the dangling nut-
cracker. "She's a great little girl, Liza. Give her Billy
MacDonald."

"I don't know," she wavered. "To drag up something
that happened so long ago? You want to forget the bad
thingsùwell, not bad really. It was fust a moment of weak-
ness. And Billy wasùwe both were very unaware. I'm not
ashamed of it. And yet it might get back to Grace, I wouldn't
want that."

How could I remind her that Grace had been dead ten
years now? A car accident, Max had told me.

"She's always thought she was legitimate. And that hus-
band of hersùa stickler of the worst kind. They can be
very righteous, these military people. I've always been a
little afraid of Clint. You don't know him, he can be moody."

He's gone, Liza, killed in Korea-

"War makes it so easy to be violent. I mean. Just to go
out and shoot somebody the way he didù"

"But you said he wasn't convicted. Maybe he wasn't
guilty." At least that's the line I was going to try to sell Gil.

"Oh, he did itùthere were plenty of witnesses. But Clint

115

was an officer, a hero, had his D.S.C. and purple heart.
The war was just over in Europe. Clint was one of the first
to go into Berlinùhe was on Ike's staff, you know, and
Ike was a god. He'd |ust come home from all that, so Chnt
had the tide of the times with him. I guess the jury couldn't
see much difference between him kill ing Germans overseas
and kilting a spy at home. And he made it sound very
sinister, that business about the tattoo. So they let him off "

I got a sudden swift case of hot-and-cold-running nerves.
But a lot of people have tattoos? I must have said it aloud,
because she was nodding.

"Don't I know. Every poor soul who came out of those
concentration camps had a number. But usually on the
armù1 saw plenty of those. I spent the whole war in Wash-
ington, D.C., with the Red Cross. They needed transla-
tors."

"To go back to this tattoo"ùGod! I hated to askù"the
one Clint found sinister?"

"Well, that's what Grace wrote me. Of course she never
saw the thingùin a spot like that, she wouldn't. But Clint
said it was a long complicated number like a code. He
swore the man was a Nazi infiltrator. Or maybe it was
Russian? He didn't think much of them, even if they were
our allies."

The I.D. mark on my gluteus maximus had begun to itch
like an old wound warning of bad weather over the hori-
zon. "Exactly where was this tattoo?"

"You wouldn't believe it." Her lips twitched. "Grace
said it was on his boom-boom."

116

D3,E

Hot, the whole afternoon was a sweatbox. Off to the west
terrible clouds loomed upward with a silent, slow seething.
It had to be what the dictionaries calt a "storm." As I
watched the phenomenon out the kitchen window, my
belly rumbled.

Hungry, that's all. The medics had told me to eat early
and oftenùbland diet, plenty of protein. From the freezer
I chose a huge flat wheel of pastry called a Pepperoni Pizza.
Conceivably there was some food value lurking in its com-
plexities, and the directions were simple. Get oven to 500
degrees, stick pizza in, then narrowly avoid having a heat
stroke until a bell rings and it comes forth bubbling its
cheese. I added taco sauce and some glop from a bottle
labeled A-1ùnot bad. I ate all of it.

No hurry. I wasn't going back to Eddinger, I wasn't going
anywhere. I had begun to be fond of 1981; its pace and
texture and color, all of its complexity. To tel! the truth,

117

even its wonderful trivialities were something of a relief. I
turned on the TV set and found Love in the Afternoon. But
the impassioned dialogue of the soap opera was tittie pea-
nuts, compared to that last scene I had with Liza. Me plead-
ing; her resisting. Talk about stubbornùshe wouldn't tell
me any more about Clint or Grace. She wouldn't promise
to help Git. When I persisted, she led me off into a long
excursion back to the twenties and bathtub gin. Maybe she
was rightùleave 1945 alone. It could all be just a coin-
cidence.

History is full of coincidences. Bach and Handel, living
their remarkable simultaneous lives; Isaac Newton, born
at the same moment in time when Galileo died. So if some
other poor devil back in 1945 got caught with his long
numbers showing, it was obviously pure happenstance.

ft it had anything to do with me Pokey would have
unearthed it in our initial search of the archives. A dead
body with my name on itùnewspapers or court files, the
trial must have been on record. Unless, of course, those
were some of the papers destroyed in War Three . . .

Crashing down, thunder avalanched across the city. As
if on cue, the back door was yanked open and Gil invaded
the kitchen, her eyes blazing black. Kicked the trash bas-
ketùit careened across the room spewing pizza wrappers
and sauce bottles. She was carrying the fur coat at half-
mast, trailing on the floor. In the other hand a blond wigù
her own hair was wrapped wetly about her head, her thin
face streaming sweat or rain or tears.

"/ hate him'" She hooked a foot around the leg of a
chair and launched it at me. "You, too! Cooking up plots

118

behind my backùmen are the pfts.'" The wig flewùI fielded
it, a beautiful job of long golden nylon.

Following her, Max hesitated in the doorway, an unlit
cigarette dangling. His sports shirt was heavily patched
with perspiration, the bandage on his wrist a dirty gray.
Seizing my plate, Gil slung it at himùhe sidestepped so
fast, so carelessly, I wondered what his reflexes had been
when he was in shape. The plate was excellent plastic, it
bouncedùnot even a satisfactory shattering. Gil quivered
with rage.

"Go ahead. Laugh!" She snatched up the knife I'd used
and whipped it. Again, he moved and the blade shuddered
in the door frame. But it was Gil who was punctured, the
rage bleeding fast, leaving grief. "I thought you were my
friend. I was your friend."

Never taking his eyes off her. Max felt for the knife, freed
it and walked over to hand it to her.

"You'll go to hell forever." She choked on a huge sob
and ranùheavy steps pounding me stairs. A door banged.
The house was quiet except for the rain bursting in a fine
spray through the screen.

"I'm a long way ahead of you, love." Max was already
gravitating toward the basement.

I followed him down. It was strangely like home, my
cot. The banjo across my knees was very stabilizing. "I
take it your plan hit a snag?"

He tilted the bottle fast and shivered. Finally taking up
patrol on the dim edges of the cellar, he filled me in. "At
first she matched me, move for move. Very happy when I
took her into a B-bar. I'd put the fix on the bartender and

119

a couple of girls) know. They made street life sound pretty
hairy, but Gil's a tough little egg. She Just asked them if
they had to pay income tax on their earnings. Phase two,
we dropped in on a local massage parlor, the madam's a
friend of mine. Seedy customers staring, Gif's getting tired
now, fur coat beginning to molt a little, makeup running.
Hot work, wandering those downtown streets in a ton of
clothes and a wig. She's having some second thoughts. I
was ready to quit while I was ahead. But as we got to the
car we ran into a greasy type who wanted to play for keeps.
He took me for her pimpùmade me an offer and I pitched
him across the parking lot. Blew the entire scheme. She
realized the whole day had been set up, thought I was
laughing at her, figured I had conned her. I had to sling
her bodily into the car. She struggled until I told her I'd
slug her if she tried to jump out. Which makes me the
compleat uncle. My track record of failures stands unblem-
ished. I'm also all out of ideas."

I knew the feeling. "Could f have some of that?"

Absently Max found a glass and sloshed a few ounces
into it. ft I hadn't seen him drinking from the same bottle
I'd have sworn the stuff was a cure for athlete's foot. But
by the time I'd downed the whole amount, I could feel my
cells becoming pleasantly untidy. I held out my glass for
more.

Max checked in mid pour. "Why do I get the feeling
this is the first whiskey you've ever had?"

"Because it is. My initiation into the entire science of
intoxication."

"God! I think I just added to my list of sins." He frowned
at the bottle. "Listen, all this provides is a local anesthetic."

120

"Exactly. Thank you. Tell me about Women's Libùwhy
does it make Gil go up in smoke?"

He shook his head. "News to me."

"Could it have anything to do with her mother?"

"I doubt it. lane's not one to take up causes."

"I thought maybe there might be resentment over the
absences, long weekends spent elsewhere with certain
'friends.' "

He seemed puzzled, "jane's okay. Good gal, brass trim
but a heart of gold. Stands on her own two feet, does her
own thing. She and Gil get alongùI'd say she's a pretty
fair mother."

Of course he'd never known Mama Hessler. I signaled
for some more whiskey.

Max tossed the empty bottle in the trash bin. "No chance
to stop at a liquor store on the way homeùI was afraid
Gil would Jump ship. But there's a bar over on Federal,
we can wa!k to it."

Late afternoon. The dark little'saloon was full of men
just off the job, and the heavy male guff of voices rose
around us. The bartender polished glasses while, on a TV
screen overhead, a man talked earnestly, unheard. The
commercial featured a dog in a party hatùI laughed like
an idiot. Wondered whether I was drunk. Probably not, I
could still feel rational if I tried.

"Something Liza said got me curious about your father."
And I need all the help I can get, sorry. Max. "What do
you remember about him?"

He squinted at the rack of potato chips. "Not much.
Strong, tough, very gentle."

"That doesn't sound like the picture she gave."

121

"You mean that murder business i was too young to
know what was going on But I can tell you this- The more
decent you are, the more likely to get a Itttie battle rattle,
after a spell in the hot zone He was in communications,
signal corps, always up front That's how he finally bought
it up along the Yalu When 1 finally understood he was not
coming home, I was too old to cry, too young for West
Point "

"Did you go there later^"

"Never had the pull or the smarts to get in So when
Vietnam came along, I slipped through the back door,
wearing a green beret " He spoke with the carelessness
that covers a certain pride And a whole paragraph of his-
tory jolted into place

'Nam, short for a war everybody tried to forget The war
with no parades, no patriotic songs The televised war,
where the folks back home could see the mud and the
blood, and finally sickened and called it off, leaving be-
wildered heroes to come home to empty streets

1 looked at my glassùthe bartender read my mind

When we had fresh drinks Max lifted his at me "Pop
the smoke "

"fn the warù" I didn't know how to ask

"You come out knowing you're a man But that's about
all you could say for it Used to be a noble sort of gameù
my father believed he was saving the world from Com-
munism just as well he cashed in his chips while he still
had illusions "

Sometime later I think I asked something about meeting
danger, conquering fearù

122

He shook his head "You just do what you have to do "
The room was slowly rotating past me like a giant car-
ousel Gratefully 1 relinquished the last fragments of so-
briety One thing I do rememberùat some point I know 1
said, "Nothing can make me go back to 1945 "
And Max agreed

123

03,3

Hypothesis. (Shades of Pokey.) No, this would be beneath
himùjust a small private supposition. Given, that this was
the fast day of your life. what would you choose to do with
it?

Cautiously my brain began to energize I had already
made my apologies for wrecking its chemistry last night.
It hadn't forgiven me, but as long as 1 tay flat on my back
very quietly, sentence was suspended. A long time ago I
wrote a three-hundred-word essay on "the hangover" for
a class in Societal Mores (20th Century), because there is
no liquor in the complex and the whole idea intrigued me.
Now I realized I was like a blind man describing an ele-
phant. Come to think of it, I'd never seen one of them
either. It got me up onto my elbows.

From somewhere above came a muffled slam, a muted
crash. I found I could sit on the edge of the cot without
too many complications. A few minutes later I was mount-

124

ing the stairs, wondering whether I could personally duck
a knife this morning.

Gil was at the stove; never have eggs been scrambled
more sternly. With quiet respect i refrained from inter-
rupting and went to forage in the freezerùno tacos. And
no sauce, I'd finished that yesterday. I settled for frozen
fish sticks; they minded their own business in the micro-
wave oven while Gil's sausage splattered savagely and toast
leaped in the toaster. I chose a bottle labeled Worcester-
shire Sauce and took it to the table.

"Vinegar," she muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"Vinegar. You put vinegar on fish sticks!"

Meekly I went and found some.

"Or catsup," she added. "If you like catsup."

"No. Not me. Vinegar's fine. It's great, in fact, I'm very
fond ofù"

"Oh, stop it."

"If you'd tell me why you're sore at me, I could at least
apologize."

"Nobody asked you to."

"My mistake," t said. "I guess i've been assuming we
were still co-conspirators, which is the only reason I am
here. If that's canceled, I will leave."

She aimed a very suspicious look at me. "Like what do
you mean 'conspirators'?"

"Likeùyou and I schemed to keep Max from doing
himself bodily harm, right? Incidentally, ! don't think he'd
appreciate our meddling, but sometimes you feel you have
to. For old friends' sake."

125

She thought about it through three sausages and a
jelly doughnut. "Is that why you and Max got so buddy,
all of a sudden? I saw you go sneaking off together last
night. To a bar, I'll bet. Were you trying to save his life
then?"

"No, Max was looking after me. I had to get drunk."

"Why?"

My fish sticks were trying to make a hasty exit from my
stomach against my express wishes. "It was something 1
needed to try. Once. You have to know what a thing is
like, you need to live a little before you die. For instance,
tday I am going to the zoo. Would you care to come
along?"

"The zoo is for children." She stacked her cup, saucer
and plate, bang, bang, bang.

"You mean they won't let adults in?"

"Very funny."

"Is it funny to want to see a live elephant once in your
life?" I was beginning to get mad, and my head throbbed
an urgent no. "Never mind. If I don't come back, you can
have my banjo," and I walked out.

A few more taxis and I'd have to go to the races again.
There was an admission fee too, not that I minded that. In
fact I liked the idea mat I was subsidizing an elephant. So
I think I was in fairly good shape as I went through the
turnstile. Contented people wandered around, wearing
cameras slung from their necks.

I strolled across to the first open pit, full of zebrasù
gaudy and surly. Somebody had fiddled around and jazzed
up a horse for laughs. They knew and they hated it. Of

126

course I had seen pictures, but it was differentùto be stared
- at by a live and angry animal, as if it recognized a fellow
freak. All at once I sensed that coming here was a mistake.

But you hate to admit you're wrong. I veered off, over
to another open-air den where a giant tiger paced. I tried
to appreciate those magnificent musctes flowing backward
from the mighty shoulderùand then he stopped dead in
his tracks, studying me with cool scorn. And why not? Every
stripe on his face was symmetrical, his eyes matched per-
fectly.

Blundering away, I came bolt-up against a towering of
giraffes. The geometric patches of camouflage, the ugly
long utilitarian necksùEddinger couldn't have designed
them better himself. They peered down their long soft noses
at me in a kind of sympathy that was harder to take than
contempt. Surrounded by this huge laboratory of genetic
specialization, I got a terrifying glimpse of what I really

amùI felt the bars on my cageù

t-

"Casey, what's (he matter? What is it?" she kept yelling,
she was perched beside me on a bench. How I got there
or where I was, exactly, I didn't know. I was afraid to open
my eyes, I might see an understanding giraffe.

"Are you sick? You look terrible." She was trying to pry
my hands away from my face. "Casey! Why are you crying?"

"I'm not. I've never cried in my life."

"Did you get lost? That's why I followed you, I thought
you might get lost."

"I got lost."

"Well, it's all right now, I'm here." Her arms around

127

me were like delicate calipers, gauging the dimensions of
my infirmity. "Do you want me to show you where the
elephants are?"

"1 wish"ù1 risked a quick look, we were in a strange
place of trees and rocks and some safe antelopesù"is there
a way to get out of here without seeing any more animals?"

Gil gave me that swift, transforming smile. "I knew you
wouldn't like the stupid zoo. t hate it! All the poor wild
beasts, they can't do anything but stand around and wait
and wait." She took my hand. "Come on, I know where
the back exit is." A good strong grip. She led us out into
a park with a pond and some reassuring geese. We found
another bench.

"Would they arrest me if 1 took my shirt off?" ( could
see a boy in the distance across the lawns, lying in the sun
stripped to the waist.

"Of course not. It's pants they worry about."

Maybe the last time 1 would feet that wonderful warmth
that everybody kept taking for granted. It began to drive
off the deep inner chill. "Aren't you going to?"

"Girls can't." She looked amused.

"Sometimes it must be inconvenient, womanhood." I
tried to edge up on the subject, but t really needed to know-
"Don't you ever wish you'd been born a boy?"

"Never ever," she said firmly. "That's why I can't stand
libbers. They all wish they were men, they say it's stupid
to be sexy and have children, they want you to get an
abortion and kill them. They say you're nothing but a rotten
little housewife if you happen to want to get married, and
if you don't just drool over some stinking career you're a
wimp, and it's none of their business if I want to fall in

128

love and nurse my little babies and cook meat loaf. / hap-
pen to like meat loaf! What are you grinning about?"

"I always grin when I agree with somebody a hundred
percent. Max and Iùwe thought you were very career
minded, that's what worried us."

"Well, I'm not going to have any babies and worry they'll
grow up to be murderers." She hitched her narrow shoul-
ders. "Did you see what I did last night? t threw a knife.
At Max. That would have been murder one."

"Temper is something you can control, it fust takes prac-
tice. Like mental arithmetic or memorizing Shakespeare,
you build up the muscle to handle it."

"Not if you're already born to be a homicidal maniac."

I wanted to yell Nonsense! But who am I, to knock
somebody's secret fears? "From what Liza told me, your
grandfather had reasons for killing this man. Maniacs don't
need reasons."

"You mean all that dumb stuff about a tattoo? Max says
he probably had a smart lawyer who made that up."

"And there was a war on. People get up very tight in a
war."

She scuffed her sneakers back and forth in a restless
spillage of energy. "I almost wish we'd have a war, then
I could be something, I could save people Itke on M*A*S*H
and if a bomb drops on me, so what? I am not ever going
to be like my dad."

"Your father was in 'Nam too?"

"No, he wasn't. He went to Canada. That's where I was
born, i don't want to talk about it. Anyhow I am never
going to get married, so I've got to be something. I can't,
like those tigers, just wait forever."

129

Neither could 1, God knows. If goblins lurk in the shad-
ows you don't close your eyesùyou tackle them severely
about the knees. I knew exactly, inevitably, what I had to
do.

Picking up my shirt, I said, "Let's go home."

130

D3,L.

Dinner that night should be on the record for somebody
(not me) to analyze.

We ate in the dining roomùtablecloth, glass tumblers,
real china. A big pot of beef stew, home-made, nutritious,
totally without flavor. Mrs. Hunter probably did it on pur-
pose so she wouldn't eat too much. Glaring at her plateful,
she said, "That is three hundred damned calories right
there, without any bread."

Not that you'd really want to eat the breadùit had a
strange texture, like foam rubber. But then I wasn't too
hungry. Gil and I had come home the long way around.
There were comforting strata of McOonald's hamburgers,
some fish and chips and a terrific thing called lasagna in
my digestive bank. 1 could afford to nibble, while mentally
tape-recording the curious sound track, which I may as
well set down verbatim, starting anywhere.

Mrs. Hunter: ". . . And that idiot in Durango made a

131

pass at mel As if I'd fool around with a kid right out of
med. school all for the cause of the new cortisone cream."

Liza (looking like a little old scrub lady in a housedress,
oh damn ft, Betsy, what happened to you?): "Nobody took
my list to the store today. I'm completely out of butter
upstairs. And I need some writing paper. I'm going to put
my memories down for Casey. He's very interested in our
family history." She gave my general vicinity a conspira-
torial smile, with those young teeth.

Max: "What'd you atl do today? I woke up and every-
body was gone." (Gaunt, tired, hasn't shaved. He can't
stand the stew either.)

Gil: "We went to the zoo. You wouldn't like it."

Liza: "Lord-y, I still remember the first time I took Grace
to the zoo. Wasn't much in those days except a few mon-
keys, but sheù"

Mrs. Hunter: "The trouble with young people today,
they think they invented sex and ought to get paid royal-
ties."

Max: "Saw a wild ttger once. Came right out of the
Jungle and looked at us, then walked off into the shadow."
To bring up something that personalùhe's apologizing to
Gil, for everything.

Gil: "We ended up at the airport. We watched some
planes take off. You'd have liked that." She's forgiven him.

Mrs. H.: "I Just told that young pup, 'I happen to be
married to the handsomest man in the world.' "

Liza: "Oh yes, Clint was a good-looking boy."

Mrs. H.: "Grandma, we're talking about Howie."

Me (to Liza): "Teli me about Ciint."

Gil: "When's Dad coming home?"

132

Liza: "Oh, the army never lets you know in advance
when you'll get leave, especially not with the war on."

Max: "The wars are all over, Grandma."

Me: "Don't bet on it."

Mrs. H.: "Well, it isn't easy on Howard, I mean running
back and forth to Europe can give you a colossal case of
Jet lag. I told him, 'Howie, you stay over there and eat a
pile of pasta and get some rest. I'll keep things going here,
I always do.' Haha."

Gil: "Is he in Rome?"

Liza: "Oh no, Clint was with Eisenhower all the way to
Berlin. He knows the General personally, you know."

Mrs. H.: "Anyhow I'm offto Canon City tomorrow. I'll
bring back some cherry cider. I've left plenty of food in
the fridge."

Me (to Liza): "Could I come up and look at your clip-
pings after dinner?"

Max: "You are a glutton for punishment, old buddy."

He didn't know the half of it.

A smart retort from an early-American humorist kept
snickering up on me. "Reports of my death have been
greatly exaggerated." At least I hadn't run across me in the
pages of Liza's scrapbook, which I was flipping as fast as
I could. She had been active in the W.C.T.U. in the twen-
ties. Some clippings about the crash in '29- Odds and ends
of long ago, little historical footnotes to a busy life. In 1939
Grace had married Lt. Clint Hunter of Elmira, New York.
A baby announcement dated January 6, 1942 introduced
a six-pound-seven-ounce boy named Alfred Maxwell Hunter.
"A Joy to his delighted parents and all the world."

133

Crouched in the hot little back attic of the old house, I
was suddenly aware of silence in the next room. I waited
for Gil to say somethingùshe was supposed to be keeping
Liza distracted so I could go through the scrapbooks fast
and uninterrupted. Meanwhile, to Liza, I'd said, "This is
your chance to tell her about Billy MacDonald." More plots
and stratagems and scamsùthey weren't working, of course.

Distantly 1 had heard the old voice rambling along about
wars. "Such a foolish business . . ."

No, ma'am, there is nothing foolish about such a per-
sistent manifestation of evolution. What was it we'd had
to memorize, in order to pass Applied Philosophy 301 ?
"War, and particularly its aftermath, is nature's impassive
way of testing our viability, to see whether we can evolve
into a species that can dominate its ancient killer instinct.
If we emerge strong and self-controlled, we may be fit to
survive." A quote from a speech, circa 1996, by the man
who built the Colorado complex, old Midas Forsythe, dar-
ing peopleùthe few who were leftùto go on living after
the atomic wipe-out. And they did.

I looked up to find Liza standing in the doorway, frown-
ing a little.

"Childrenùthey're so sudden. One minute I was talk-
ing, and suddenly she's gone."

"Gil left?"

"They have no feeling for history, these young people
today. As I told her, if you don't pay attention to the past,
you are doomed to repeat it."

Yea, verily, but oh Betsy, that wasn't the right text for
tonight's revelations,                                          i ^

"That's a picture of me in my Red Cross uniform." She      't-


134

was looking over my shoulder, tilting her head to squint
with fading eyes. "When I got my citationùit was nice of
them, but I didn't deserve it really. I only took the Job in
hopes I might happen onto news of Dorothea."

"Your family was still in Germany!"

"The old folks were gone, but Dorrie stayed on. Her last
letter to me was in 1939, never heard another word. But
I kept hoping for a bit of luck. Strange things do happen.
Like you, turning up here after all these years. What are
you looking for, dear, maybe 1 could help?"

"The clippings about Glint's trialù1 don't find them."

Her face went blank and very old. "I didn't keep those.
Who wants to remember that?" She went back to her room,
leaving me alone in that sweltering attic.

I wanted to follow her, forget all this. But I had a per-
sistent feeling that my next clue was there somewhere: Go
directly to 1945 and get murdered.

Beyond the window the night was strident with clicking
and ticking and buzzingùI nevter knew bugs were so emo-
tional. The only live insects I'd ever seen were bees, and
they were too involved in pollinating the hydroponics to
sing wild night songs. Over on the window screen a large
mom plastered itself to stare longingly at the naked bulb
over my head. I knew how it feltùan absolute fever to get
the thing over with.

Maybe, I thought, the answer lurked in some of the junk
that cluttered the room. A dress form, a doll's baby carriage
with a wheel missing, a stack of old booksùthe Oz stories,
original edition. What K/MùLibraries wouldn't give for
those. A small trunk full of doll clothes, style 1920's. Some-
body's stamp collection; a chess set missing the white rook.

135

A guitar with flayed strings and a name tag: Property of
Howard Hunter.

In one corner 1 found a big cardboard boxùon the lid
was scrawled Lincoln Logs, which turned out to be round
lengths of wood with notched ends that fit together at right
angles, so you could build walls, blockhouses, frontier
outposts. Tin cavalrymen were strewn around the bottom
of the box in Custer-like confusion. A blue pennant had
once flown the ramparts of FORT MAXIE. Something oddly
familiar about that printingùit was square and narrow,
very precise.

There had been an Indian encampment too. I found
some squashed tepees made of heavy construction paper
in fading colors. The biggest one bore its own legend in
that same black print, the only handwriting I have ever
known, computerese: CHIEF CASEY. The color was greenù
for "go."

So 1 am a coward. I know. Bolting off into the early-
morning mists, no good-bys againùI should have waited
to make sure Liza set Gil straight on Billy MacDonald. Or
done it myself:

"Gil, I've got great news! Your grandmother was a
bastard."

"How do you know that?"

"My great-grandfather wrote the whole thing down
in his memoirs."

"Okay, where can I read it for myself?"

No answer.

136

Or maybe:

"Gil, guess what! Your real great-grandfather was
a nice guy named Billy MacDonald."

"How do you know that?"

"Liza told me."

"I don't believe it. She never mentioned it to anyone
else."

No answer.

Or worse yet;

"Gil, your great-grandma never even met Al Kent
until after your grandmother was conceived."
"HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THAT?"
"Because I was there, 1 introduced them. I am a
time jumper and I can prove it." At that point I hit the
trigger and dissolve. The last thing I see in her eyes is
shock, the shudder of alienation. "Poor giraffe."

That mental image is too painful to contemplate, so I
won't. I've got enough on my plate with the next phase of
the experiment. This may prove to be what I've been lead-
ing up to all along.

I briefed Pokey on the details. "The danger quotient is
very high now. Project results." I was hoping for some
optimism.

But after some gloomy flickering all he said was "CUR-
RENT TEST SHOULD PROVIDE SIGNIFICANT CONCLU-
SIONS."

I was suddenly aware of Fiver hopping around my left

137

elbowùhe must have been lurking nearby. Now he let out
a whinny of excitement.

"If you're going to be concluded, can I have Pokey?"

Little monkey has grown by inchesùI think his hair is
redder too. The idea of him tinkering with my computer
made my neck hairs stiffen, but I don't really have a mo-
nopoly on the equipment. I picked up the mike and put it
to Pokey.

"While I'm gone, do you want this nuisance called 5(SCI)
(earning his ABC's on you?"

To my complete surprise, he came back at once. "SAT-      'v
ISFACTORY."

So I suppose they are a couple of steps ahead of me,
getting along like thieves. For the next ten minutes I in-
structed Fiver in exactly what he could and could not do,
and keep his tiny hands off the refractor program. Then I
spent two more hours setting up additional safeguards so       v
nobody could meddle with the cycling sequence. I may
want to exit 1945 in a blazing hurry.                         4,

The target has to be '45, according to Liza's remarks       1
about Clint coming home after the war in Europe was over        1,
He couldn't have made it much before May 1ùanother
long stint of cycling forward until we stumble onto the       f
coordinates.                                                ^

Of course my latest travel plans have thrown Eddmger
into a towering snit. I've never seen him lose his temper
beforeùit's awesome. He crumpled the authorization form

c^_

in his bare hands, he almost threw it. I had to type up       .,.

another one.                                                .},
^
It would have been easier )ust to slip away without his       ^

okay, but I can't do that. In a certain sense, I am his prop-       ^

138

erty. I know that. The time will come when he'll put his
foot down, and the experiment will end

But not yetùhe can't argue with my newest set of clues.
I almost wish he could.

END TEST 3
HOLD CODE OPEN

139

DL.,1

) was being speckled to death by warm wet fingertips,
tapping impatiently the length and breadth of my helpless
body. Rain is new enough to me that I didn't recognize it
at once. When 1 did, I still couldn't move. Then a gust of
wind shook a whole cascade of blobby water off the trees
down into my face and I came to life.

In spite of the shot of neural stimulant, I was in slow
motion. I sat there in the downpour, absorbing the new
time zone, watching the fierceness of the little stream. Bear
Creek, which had never amounted to much on my other
arrivals, crashed and bounded off its banks in full Hood,
only inches from my feet.

Under tumbled gray skies the valley seemed deserted.
Standing drenched and naked and alone, I missed 1918.
The drum-oven would have been about there . . . and still
was. Only a rim showed; some other flood had almost
covered it with sand. On an off chance, \ clawed a hole
down to the opening and reached inside. That damned

140

dusterùLord knows what weatherproof"! ng could stand the
test of twenty-five yearsùno rodent had laid a tooth on it.
Papa Hessler's boots had been well oiled; they were only
a little stiff in the }omts. Who wasn't?

As I walked up into the big field where the tent had
stood, I thought of the kids. Evidently they had never come
back again. That day had been the end of something. But
the new era was yet unborn. Over where a four-lane high-
way would someday run full, there was a country road
with no traffic at all. Only a large billboard; IS THIS TRIP
NECESSARY?

I waded through the wet grass, heading for the big hill.
Federal Street would be a few miles off to the east, and
somewhere beyond it, Aries. I pulled my ancient duster
tight against the rain and put one foot in front of the other.
At the top of the hill where Morrison Road Joined in, a
truck came bucking and slithering through the muddy ruts.
As if he'd expected me, the driver braked and shoved the
door open. "Some day to lose a tire, eh?"

"Lost more than that," I said. "The whole worksùmy
money, my clothes, myù"

"Ration books." He nodded fatalistically. A tubby man
in a business suit, he drove with pure virtuosity considering
that the windshield wiper worked only on impulse. "Out
of state?"

"I hitchhiked from California."

"Then they knew you had to be carrying your coupons.
Never tell 'em you're from farther than a few miles away.
Took your clothes, too? Lucky they left you the bootsù
them shoe stamps are the toughest to come by." He swerved

141

around a small chasm full of muddy water. "So, you need
a job and I need a driver. Got a 4-F card?"

"I haven't anything. My walletù"

"We can get you one. You ever driven a truck?"

"I don't know how to drive."

"Oh hel!!" He smacked the wheel. "I've got a ware-
house full of sugar down in Lajunta, alf of it unofficial,
y'know? That's what I'm hauling back there." He jerked
his chin aft. "So my driver gets himself picked up for draft
dodgingùthat's plain stupid."

"Right. Stupid."

"I mean, you'd think with the war being over in Europe,
they'd go a little easy on the Selective Service garbage. But
I guess they need all the bodies they can get, to toss at the
Japs. We're not gonna win that one in a hurry."

"No?"

"Uh-uh. This Truman, he's a peanut. Can't see him
wrapping the thing up. Now Roosevelt was smart. I tell
you, I about had a heart attack when I heard he was dead.
I am thirty-two years old and f can't remember when Roo-
sevelt wasn't running things. As it is now, the war'll keep
goingùwho knows how long? Listen, I could teach you to
drive, nothing to it- And I could use your muscle for the
unloading. Hard to find a young guy these days. If you're
worried about getting caught, don't. All you got to do is
keep to the back roads, like this one."

"Thanks, but I'm only passing through."

"I know, you figure there's no future in it, but let me
tell youùthese women are sugar-starved. You remember
when they cut back on stamps last winter? Well, I sold my

142

whole load for a buck a pound, right off the tailgateùthey
cleaned me out in twenty minutes. You could make four,
five thousand dollars in the next six months."

"The war will be over in August." I spoke before I thought.

But he didn't take me seriously anyhow. "Not a chance.
Listen, my brother-in-law fought in the Marianas. He says
you got to go in and clean out those caves one at a time
with flamethrowers, take a year, two years. Hundreds of
thousands of menùyou don't want to be bomb bait. And
to stay clear of it, you'll need cash. . . ."

Through the thrashing rain I glimpsed a sign. "This is
where I get off. Thanks for the ride."

Ariesùthe tall house looked fairly new. gleaming with
rain. The fir trees were barely chin-high to the porch roof
and the swing was fresh-cut lumber, idling on its stiff white
ropes. Sitting in itùa boy, about three years old, dark and
tousled and alert. He watched me come up the steps with
mounting excitement, bulging with some question that fi-
naHy broke loose.

"Are you my daddy?"

143

DL,,E

In the complex, tears are forbidden after the second year
of childhood. So I wasn't sure how to cope with wailing
disappointment. What do you say?

"Sorry, fella, I wish 1 was your father, but I'm not. "Then,
"Hey, he's much better-looking than me." Then, "Come
on now, you don't want to cry. Your dad doesn't cry."
Then, "My name's Casey, whafs yours?" And finally, when
nothing else worked, "I know a secret."

He lapsed into snuffles, the chin still wobbling as he
swung heavily back and forth. "What?"

"Your daddy will be home pretty soon now. Maybe even
tomorrow."

He considered me doubtfully. "Can you climb trees?"

I looked at the spindly young olive in the side yard. "I
can, but I'm not supposed to."

"Me neither. And I can't go to school."

"You're too young?"

He shook his head.

144

"Too old?"

He gave me a slow tearful grin. "Yes."

"Maxie! Did I hear you crying?" The woman who had
come to the door was wearing a flowered wraparound and
an air of suspicion. "Can I do something for you?" she said
in my direction as she gathered Max inside.

"I came to see Liza Kent." 1 had worked out a cover
story that I hoped would serve temporarily. "You must be
her daughter. Grace. I feel I kind of know youùmy father
was a friend of your mother's when she was young. His
name is Caseyùshe might have mentioned him? Back in
the days of War One."

Skeptical chinùGrace had a lot of Betsy in her, except
for the dark Billy MacDonald hair, which she wore in an
upsweep. As she tried to place me, I sent fervent telepathic
signals: The picture. Me, by the cornstalks.

"Wait a minuteùthe boy who helped them when the
barn was on fire? That's one of Mom's favorite stories. Of
course, that's why you look familiar. She's got a snapshot
of your fatherùthere's quite a resemblance."

"So I've been told."

"She'll be sorry she missed you. She's in Washington,
D.C., working as a translator for the Red Cross."

"Oh. Then I guess you haven't seen my dad." I tried to
look crestfallen, it wasn't hard. "For months he's been
missing, and I thought he might have come here. You see,
he was once in love with your mother."

Her face softened at the thought.

"So I was hoping he might have come to see her and
I'd get a lead on him. Then last night I got robbed of all
my clothesùthat's why I'm in this crazy get-up. They took

145

everything, my wallet, I.D., my ration booksù"

"Oh no! How awful!" Warm embers of Mama Hessler,
or maybe flickers of Gil-to-come. She was opening the
screen door-

Maxie was doing his three-year-old act all around us,
clamping onto my arm- "Casey! Casey!" He wrestled my
elbow. "Casey says my daddy's coming home tomorrow."
Dandy little tyke, how could he know he had Just ham-
mered the first nail in my upcoming coffin? Actually, I had
been guessing. But when I found myself sloshing around
in mid-May, ( figured Clint couldn't be far behind. Surely
my karma didn't require a long servitude as a baby-sitter?

In fact I'm not certain how 1 got into that. Grace was
foreman of her assembly line at Gates Rubber, something
to do with the war effortùexactly what, she wouldn't tell
me if I tore out her fingernails, but without it the entire Pacific
front would collapse. And her nursery school had suddenly
ceased to existùthe woman had to head for the west coast,
where a wounded son lay ;n extremis at a Naval hospital. So
she'd been trying to locate a sitter, but nobody had enough
gas to drive over and it was going to be midnight before
she got home- Also she had noticed my mismatched eyesù
a vital statistic of my legendary father. Deciding that I was
truly me and therefore trustworthy, she suddenly presented
me with Max, crayons and coloring book.

"For supper there are some leftovers in the icebox," she
said. "Or you could open a can of Spamùjust fry it like
it was real food." She gave me a dry grin. "I'm saving my
red points for when Clint comes home."

"Tomorrow!" Maxie crowed.

"You really shouldn't get his hopes up." She frowned,

146

smoothing and straightening her slacks, which didn't need
it. Lit a cigarette with a touch of defiance, holding it be-
tween thumb and forefinger. "I'll call you about five to
make sure everything's okey-dokey. Be a good boy, Maxie."

And she was gone, leaving me to cope with a whole
new personality crisis. Clothed in some old slacks and a
paternal wool shirt, doing intimate chores ("Casey, 1 got
to go potty"), 1 felt as if I'd skidded into fatherhood by
mistake. When Max shoved a big multicolored celluloid
top into my handsù"Make it go, Casey!"ùI wondered if
the Big Program under which I was commuting across the
decades had played me a huge joke.

As the top spun, so did Maxùsilly with giggles. I tried
to see some vestige of the man to be, but there wasn't a
shadow of cynicism, not a glint of latent violence, not a
cool inch of skin on him. This was one hot kid. "Do /(
again!"

"Don't you have to take a nap or something?"

"No!" he shouted, and came staggering under a load of
building blocks. "Make a big loomus," he told me.

"What's a loomus?"

Smiling dreamily. Max began to pile the blocks, beau-
tiful squared pieces of white wood. Higher and higher,
with the rain stashing at the windows and the living room
a gray neverland, I found myself down on the floor with
him. Together we erected the greatest loomus that ever
stood glorious and lopsided and tall. Very tall.

Maxie was prancing around it, singing something
that sounded like "Marzee dotes and dozee dotes and
little lamzee divey . . ." when I heard a short blip on
the doorbell. An old man stood on the porch, gray

147

uniform and sagging mailbag; he was holding a yellow
envelope.

"Heard the little feller singing, figured somebody's home.
Not her, though? She'd be at work. I reckon. Just as well,      'ºò
I hate giving 'em one of these, though there's no stars on      H
this, maybe it'5 okay. Told me her bubble's over in the      |
ETO. All the bad news from there ought to be finished, but      <òò
it's not. I just had to give one to a lady on Duke Street,      ^
four black stars, means a funeral and a flag. Son, I tell you
I've had this postal route seventeen years, but I'm starting
to hate it. Used to be, Western Union had boys of their
own to deliver telegrams. Course that's a thing of the past,
everything's changed. . . ." He slapped water off his cap
and put it on again before he went down the steps, back
out into the rain. Leaving me with the message.

"Open it!" Maxie commanded. "That's from my daddy."

I didn't really want to. But a half hour later Grace called;

when I told her about it the phone in my hand seemed to
suck air for a minute. Then she said, "Please, read it to
me."

I tore the sheet getting it out. "Good news," I said fast.
"Glint's on his way home, arriving tomorrow."

"Oh. Thank you." But she was realty addressing some-
body higher in rank than me.

So we put catsup all over our Spam that night, Maxie
and I. And if I didn't eat much, 1 don't think he noticed.

"1 get one game before bed," he announced, havingjust
invented the idea.

"You are pulling a scam," I told him.

"What's 'scam'?"

"It's a trick. A big loomus of a trick."

"Yes!" He grappled me about the knees and struggled
me down onto the floor. "You stay there." His feet sounded
like a whole troupe going upstairsùI knew he would be
bringing a box of imitation togs. I felt sure that over among
the coloring books would be some inevitable green craft
paper, suitable for teepees. And a black crayon. I felt totally
trapped.

Damn it, suppose I refuse? / will not be the fnc/i'an One/.
More to the point, I could walk right out that door. Because
a homicidal maniac is dropping in on us tomorrow, and I
am his quarry and I am scared rigid.

But then, distantly, I could hear Pokey clicking his teeth.
"SIGNIFICANT CONCLUSIONS." Of course. 1 am the mis-
sion. And all this is already a matter of history. Like the
vestal virgin, I am not going anywhere.

148                                                 149

DL,=3

My first encounter with a gun disturbed me even more than
I'd expected, lust a small utensil of law and order and
victoryùwhy did it seem so incredibly sinister? Skulking
and shining in Glint's holster, it drew my eyes like a magnet.
Maxie, tooùhe kept picking at the flap until his father
swung him up in a fond armlock. They ogled each other
in mutual fascination while Grace looked on, a huge smile
stretching her face into a new shape that seemed to fit.

I receded to a far corner; 1 should have gone away com-
pletely, but I needed to study my killer. A lanky, gritty man,
handsome in a cleft-chin way. Muscular and tough, when
he grinned at Maxie he was exercising muscles he hadn't
used in a long time.

The whole family group looked awkward, like old clothes
taken out of storage and put on again, but a little weight
had been lost, the styles had changed subtly. When we sat
down to dinner, everybody kept being intensely polite.
Grace wouldn't have smoked a cigarette for one million

150

dollars, and Clint pretended the beef roast was terrific.
Actually it was gray and stringy. Maxie picked up his piece
in his fingers and dived under the table.

"1 have to feed my lion,"he announced from somewhere
below, and they laughed, which encouraged him to crawl
around and untie our shoelaces.

When it was over and Grace made some remark about
we'll be having leftovers for a week, Clint lapsed into his
real look, the kind that comes from poring over battle maps.

"Little bad news, bunny," he told her- "I've only got a

three-day pass."

"Oh no! Oh, that's not fair!" She was suddenly herself

again too, all war wife.

"I've got new orders for the Pacific," he said quickly,
"I asked for them. We have some business to finish there."

And now Grace was sprung wide open. In her eyes were
images of beachheads strewn with bodies, tattered flags on
broken staffs. "Haven't you done your share?"

"Nobody has, not until it's over. Not until we get things
under control. From here on in it's up to us. Britain is almost
demolished. France has been gutted. Alt of Europeùthe
peopleùthe people of Europeù" He laid down his fork.
"You don't know yet what war really is."

"Well, maybe we haven't had any bombs drop on us,
but it hasn't exactly been easy street." In Grace's voice
there was a touch of anger. "Sitting and waiting for V-mail,
wondering where you are. Of course, I'm proud of you,

butùbutù"

"But you wish it was over. So do I. That's why 1 have

to stick with it, I have the front-line experience they need-
I've been seconded to the tenth army andù Hey, now,

151

don't start crying, bunny! I'll be on another general's staff.
Remember, they never laid a finger on Ike. I'll be okay."

I should have retired and filed my nails or something,
but I couldn't. The picture was just coming clearùreels of
microfilm revolving across my inner vision. I'd committed
most of it, not knowing what would come in handy. With-
out actually thinking, I said, "Tenth armyùyou'll be with
General Buckner."

"My orders are a military secret."Ciint eyed me sharply.

"Buckner is in charge of the tenth, which means you'll
be going to Okinawa." I was working it out to myself
mostly.

"Okinawa?" Grace quavered.

"just an island," I told her. Good Lord! The hand-to-
hand fighting, the kamikaze attacks on the beachheads.
Lambent tropical nights when the enemy crawled into the
camps like shadows and slit the throat of anyone stupid
enough to try to sleep.

"Another island?" She was trying not to scream. "They
keep throwing the boys at these islands, I don't see why!"

"They need it for a forward air base," I explained, still
busy with my own strategy, which was coming clearer.

"Excuse me." Clint put down his fork. "Exactly how do
you happen to know that?"

I put on a little act, finishing my champagneùthe wel-
come-home drink that was turning into good-by. Grinning
at them in imitation-tipsy ( said, "I'm programmed to know
things." I could see that roused a queasy little tinkte in
Glint's instinct.

"Casey knows secrets!" Maxie peered up from under
the tablecloth. "Casey knew my daddy was coming home."

152

"That's right." Grace laughed a little weirdly. "He must
be a good guesserùhe said you'd be here today."

Glint's doubts up-shifted visibly. "I'm more interested in
how he learned where the tenth army is right now."

"No big deal." Recklessly I scattered a little 1981 Jive.
"It will be in the papers tomorrow, including all about
General Buckner."

Clint was folding his napkin as if his orders were hidden
inside it, so I had guessed right.

In fact, that was precisely why I was fumbling around
in May of 1945. Because on June 18th, General Simon
Buckner would be killed by enemy artillery while manning
a forward observation postùthere were no safe billets in
the Pacific islands. And who would most likely be beside
him when the bomb fell, if not his communications officer?

Therefore, what blond-headed, mismatched joker would
now go into his Boy Scout routine, also known as saving
posterity for Gil? And I only had two days to do it.

Nothing comes easy. Unfortunately Clint was inclined
to like me. "Any friend of Liza's . . ." he'd said, as if he
was slightly in love with her himself. Even the momentary
suspicion at the dinner table blew over as he talked along
freely that evening across the lumpy body of Maxie asleep
in his lap.

Telling us about Germanyùhe'd been among the first
to see Belsen. He kept trying not to frame the whole horror
into words, glancing at Grace, who wasn't really listening
anyhow. She was turned inward, looking down a stretch
of more months, even years of waiting for a telegram with
black stars on it. After a while she took Maxie up to bed.

153

When we were alone, Clint stopped trying to be breezy.
He was too heavily coated with the invisible soot of those
memories. "You can't believe that human beings could
commit such indecencies to their own kind. The smell of
genocide, clinging to the walls of that vile camp. The mass
graves, bulldozers full of bodies. And all of that going on
while England ptayed war games in Greece. France, of
course, just folded its tents. No, from here on in, America
can't rely on anyone else to fight the battle for decency.
We are going to have to keep closer watch over the world,
we're going to have to lead. I used to think maybe we
should keep our noses out of Europe, but after Betsenù
my God' We can't ever again let things get out of control
like that."

And this was the tired, decent, anguished man 1 had to
make hate me enough to kilt me? I was putting some more
spin on my reluctant brain cells when he suddenly provided
the opening I needed.

"Do you know, they carried on unspeakable biological
experiments with living men and women, as if they were
laboratory animals?"

"Yes, happens I do know," I invented rapidly. "My father
lived in Germany in the thirtiesùhe went there looking for
the Hesslers. Even back then. Hitler and his scientists were
fascinated by heredity. Geneticsù"

"The master race." Clint shuddered. Then eyed me cu-
riously. "You seem to know a lot about it for someone so
young."

"I should," I said, slurring my words, trying to remember
how to act drunk. "Did you ever hear of cloning? You

154

know, take a cell from a blond, blue-eyed type and repro-
duce a perfect facsimile?"

Slowly Clint said, "I've heard of it. I never understood
it."

"Well, theoretically it's possible to turn out replicas of
people. Carefully selected and trainedùlike living ma-
chines, they can be adapted to specific purposes." I didn't
have to fake a note of bitterness. "Innocent experimental
specimens with no names, just a number tattooed on the
rump. Cut to pattern to serve some master. ..."

"Where did you learn all this?" Quietly, now, he was
tracking me.

"Oh well, not supposed to talk about that." I held a
finger to my lips. "But Just between you and me, it wasn't
my father's fault, he was a victim too. At least he got away
from themùjust disappearedùI wish I knew how. That's
why I'd like to find him, I thought maybe he'd be here.
And it was on my way, when I left Los Alamos, so !ù"

"Wherer                 ' .

"look, forget 1 mentioned that, huh? I could get in trou-
ble." I smiled at him vaguely. "I guess I had too much of
that champagne, I better get to bed."

But I had found out what I needed. Not many people
on earth then knew what was going on in the hills of New
Mexico. But Ike probably did. And so did Clint.

155

DL.:L,

Sundaysùeven in the complexùare the punctuation marks
that give our lives some bearable rhythm. Back home, we're
off dutyùyou can attend one of the religious services or
just relax and take stock. That particular one, I was drifting
when, in the quiet house, I heard a distant whisper that
brought me wide-awake.

Untangling myself from the sheets, I found the sun driv-
ing in at the window and a delicate tracery of voices coming
from the ventilator in the floorùsome sort of primitive
heating system, it worked like a sounding board. From
downstairs the words sifted upward with elaborate clarity.

Clint: "But didn't you ask him for identification?"

Grace: "He'd just been robbed. He didn't even have
any proper clothes, )ust a funny old duster down to his
knees. And it was rainingù"

"And he told a good story."

"Clint! I'm not stupid! 1 mean, look at the picture, the

156

likeness to his father. And remember how Liza always made
a point, that the boy's eyes didn't match?"

"Bunny, that's Just it. Nobody resembles someone else
that much. You look at the pictureùhe could be an exact
replica. And how about all these things he knows ahead
of time, such as when I was due home? And these head-
lines, exactly as he predicted."

I reread the black tetters from my inner tapes:

MARINES BEAT OFF SAVAGE JAPANESE
COUNTERATTACK IN OKINAWA HILLS

Below, the text would mention that the tenth army troops,
under Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner, )r., had main-
tained firm pressure all along the southern Okinawa front.

Grace was saying, "To tell the truth, I don't read the
papers a whole lot. The news makes me sick. I used to try,
I know we're saving the world and all that. But after four
years . . ."

There was a silence. I hoped he was holding her in his
arms. She must be skin starved, after these endless months.

In a while he said, "Tell you what, let's forget the whole
works. Let's have a picnic today."

Then Grace, sounding a little muffled: "We could go
out to the farm. I haven't been there in a long time, I didn't
have the gas. But the place ought to be opened up and
aired, now that the weather's warm. I could make sand-
wiches. . . ."

The farm. A very thin wire of an idea lay there waiting
for me to connect it. When ! did, it gave off enough impulse
to roust me out of bed.

157

Everything seemed terribly complicated, getting ready
for that little outing. Oleomargarine had to be kneadedù
I volunteered. A pellet of orange dye was added to a plastic
bag full of lardy white stuff; it had to be worked in vigor-
ously, and even then the yellow effect was splotchy and
uninviting.

When Clint mentioned getting some ice cream, Grace
looked at him bewildered, and Maxie said, "What's ice-
scream, daddy?"

Then the Lincoln-Zephyr had to be started against its
will. The aging glamor girl had gone to seed, wearing her
monstrous A-sticker on her noble windshield with wounded
dignity.

"We'll have to get gas." Grace studied the book of cou-
pons. "I've only got three stamps to last until )une twenty-
first, and I always save one back in case there might be an
emergency. Maxie could get sick or ..."

"Two will do fine, that'll give us eight gallons." Clint
took her hand, looking troubled. Beginning to understand,
maybe even wish he hadn't made that gallant decision to
go charging off into the sunset? Too late now, only a miracle
could keep him here. Coming up, one miracle.

As we drove along Maxie was too fascinated by the
scenery to wriggle. We were in the back seat togetherù
he felt he could see out better if he sat on my lap. I wished
he wouldn't. I couldn't do anything with my arms except
drape them around him. Warm little bodyùit reminded
me of a long-ago lesson from some psychology text. I loathed
psychology and tried not to recall much of it, but that one
stuck, because I didn't know how to relate to it. "Experts

158

say it is perfectly normal for a child to want a teddy-bear.
It may comfort him when he starts to feel afraid of the
dark."

Maxie was looking up at me curiouslyùI hadn't meant
to hold him that tight.

"Well," I inquired, "haven't you ever wanted to be a
teddy bear?"

For one split instant 1 saw a glint of wry amusement, just
a flash of future-Max, before he said, "No."

The farm looked smaller than on the day I rode away
flapping and banging down the road to Morrison. Then it
had seemed like a tower. Now, just a tired old house in
need of paint. The trees that had flanked it on the south
were goneù) could see the pasture below, with the stream
walloping through. Bear Creek was still running high and
muddyùmy wiry thread of hope began to incandesce.
Surety it wouldn't do the experiment much good if I let
myself be killed. . . .

"Who are they?" Clint was puzzled by the stooping,
crouching figures who dotted the lower end of the field.

"Well, it only seemed right," Grace said. "Since we
weren't using the land, I told them they could turn it into
Victory Gardens. They're from Englewood, they all live in
apartments. They're really very good about itùlast year
they cleared Grandpa's old irrigation ditch. They work like
fiends."

She was heading for the house, Maxie racing ahead of
her to the old rubber-tire swing that hung from the cotton-
wood by the kitchen door. That kitchen door where I'd
carried Betsyù

"Young fellow, you and I had better have a word alone."

159

Cfint's official tone; he'd worn his uniform and, of course,
the gun. Grace had protested that a little, but Clint had
strapped it on with some vague excuse about not going
"civvy" until the world was at peace. But he had other
reasons and we both knew it.

I wished I could build up some hostility toward him, but
f couldn't. He looked so troubled as we walked down into
the field. Actually I chose the way, toward the riverù
position and timing were going to be important.

"I'm glad you gave me this chance." I said, in a hurry
to head him off. "There's something I've been wanting to
tell you. It's top secret, but damn it, you ought to know
about it before you go over to Okinawa and get killed, i
mean it seems a shame to leave Grace a widow, and Max-
ie's going to need a little brother one of these days. Not
only that, but peace is going to be tougher than you'd ever
believe."

"Now wait fust a minute," he broke in. "Are you trying
to telt me my duty?"

"Only a few factsùnamely, that the war will be over
in a matter of weeks. Don't tell me you were on Ike's staff
and never heard whispers about the Manhattan project?"

He jolted to a stop, but I kept going, waving to a couple
of gardeners. I was only fifty feet from the creek when his
hand on my arm brought me firmly to a halt.

"Maybe you'd better explain it to me."

I tried to look reluctant. "Okay, but don't mention it
around. Right now, down there in New Mexico, the world's
greatest physicists are working night and day getting ready
to test the first atomic bomb at a place called Alamagordo.

160

And if you think it won't work, you underestimate Robert
Oppenheimerù"

"Qu/et.'" His fingers clamped on my wrist.

"After which, the next stop will be japan. We will take
out a couple of their citiesùthey wilt get the message."

"How could you know?" He was strangling on the words.

"As I said, it's my Job. I've been programmedùtrained
to gather information. Never mind why, I'm not supposed
to talk about it. But Grace is a wonderful woman and my
father loved Liza extremely. Anyhow, it will do the country
more good if you stay home instead of jiggering around
the Pacific being brave when it's no longer necessaryù
Ouch!" I jerked loose from him. "Got a bee up my pants!"
Swiftly I dropped the slacks to half-mast and swatted an
imaginary insect. When I got myself buttoned again, Clint
stood blinking at the spot where he'd glimpsed my (.0.
number.

"Whatùareùyou?" He stared at me in a sort of horror.

I began to walk away from him toward the stream, tum-
bling and roughùI wished I knew how to swim, but it
couldn't be all that hard. Animals do it.

"Where do you think you're going?" He was coming
after me now.

"When I leave here? I'll have to report backùwhere 1
came from," I told him evasively. "I wish I didn't have to,
but I've got no choice. They have me under some kind of
control I don't entirely understand."

"Who has you under control?"

"I'm not supposed to talk about that, either. Hell, Clint"ù
I was talking over my shoulderù"it's not my fault. You

161

guys let the Russians go into Berlin first. Why do you think
they pushed so hard? They scooped up a lot of first-rate
scientists, to say nothing of their laboratory specimensù"

"The Reds? You're going to report all this about the bomb
to them?" Then he was yelling, "Come back here. Don't
make me shootù"

I was running down the bank of the creek with the water
bashing along beside me. If I could coordinate my dive
with his bulletù But then I must have stubbed my toe. 1
went flipping heels over ears into the water, and for a few
minutes it was bounce-off-rocks time. Gagging and blinded
by the bottom of a lot of waves, I finally got my head right
side up and blinked at a swiftly revolving landscape. The
farm was a white dot, going away fastùturn around, dummy!
The next wild riffle whirled me facing downstream, and
ahead there were some familiar trees and the big billboard:

IS THIS TRIP NECESSARY?

All I had to do was steer over to the bank, but when I
tried, nothing happened. As if my gears were disconnected,
I couldn't move. Hurtling down onto my target point I
struggled desperately, finally got one foot to work. It struck
out convulsivelyùnot your nicely timed kick, but it launched
me into the shallows. I squirmed out to lie in the mud,
dripping and numb. And red. Shirt front turning red. Red
is coming out of that little hole.

Oh.

That was my last conscious thought. But when Eddinger
builds 'em he doesn't neglect the old subconscious. Or
whatever it was that made me crawl up the bank and hit
the trigger, and Med. Section says they are eternally grate-

162

ful, they have never seen an honest-to-God gunshot wound
before. I am making history, again.

The bullet missed my heart by only seven mm., so I must
have left enough blood scattered around 1945 to assure
Ciint a safe and happy murder trial that kept him home
unti! well after Hiroshima.

I kept thinking about thatùit's got all my preconceived
ideas in a complete bind. Because back there in the middle
of 1945, talking to Ciint, I'd been glad he didn't have to
go and get himself decimated. I'd actually been happy
about the stinking Bomb, in the name of a hundred thou-
sand G.l.'s and a gutty lady named Grace.

Then I swing over to thoughts of Gilùwhat her future
holds because of what happened on that day in August,
the first fissioning cell of the fatal disease that would one
day wreck the world. And I hate the scientists with a passion
that makes my wound ache. Nothing is black or white or
easy.

I'm even beginning to doubt my D/Q premise. When I
asked the doctors for an ELS program to see whether my
longevity has increased, they all had a hearty laugh. In a
few weeks, they say, when I'm recovered.

But I have a hunch I'd better not wait for that. Last night
Fiver turned up by my bedside, hopping about, practicing
karate chops at the IV apparatusùI've got a sneaking hunch
he's flushing his behavior-modification pills down the re-
cycler. He was visibly trying to get the nerve to tell me
something.

"Listen, I guess you ought to know: Eddinger is going
to dismantle your refractor."

"Dismantleù?"

163

"Take out that diode-thing, you know?"

"How did you find out about the diode?" How did Ed-
dinger, for that matter? It was supposed to be my secret,
the one irreplaceable element of the machine that Three
had passed along. To me, personally. Even if I could make
another one, I'd never get the release of those restricted
materials. Eddinger would see to that!

"Well, if you're going to get sore, I wish I didn't bother
to tell you." Marching off in a huffùit's all an act. The kid
is drooling to get nd of me permanently. He knew I would
craw! rapidly out of my sheets and go time-hopping again.

I've helped myself to the spray gun and added several
layers of liquid bandage to the dressing on my bullet hole.
I hope it will transport. Because I'm not going to quit now.
Three would hate thatùshe had to be onto something, and
it's back there in 1981.

Besides, I need to see Gil. One more time.

END TEST 4
HOLD CODE OPEN

164

DS,1

Remind me never again to Jump for one P.M. on a day in
)une. Or maybe I still had some fever. 1 lay there helpless,
sauteed in my own sweat, for a good ten minutes. No
neural stimulant this time. No way to get a shot without
having a showdown with a doctor, which would have led
to Eddinger. At that point he could have stopped me with
one finger.

An elegant silvery spider was spinning down stowly out
of a cottonwood tree, straight for my face. It seemed like
a good moment to break free of my paralysis and sit up.
One coat of the transparent bandage still clung to my skinù
beneath it, the wound looked okay. My 1981 clothes were
still in the poly bag under the thistles. Those sneakers al-
ways had been too small, 1 jammed my feet into them.
Reorientation was harder to put on.

It seemed like long years since the day Gil and I had
fled the zoo, explored an airport, eaten our way down East

165

Colfax, ending up in Liza's attic discovering treasure-hunt
clues. Centuries ago. Yesterday.

The hill out of the valley seemed to have grown in height
and length. Limping along the shoulder of the highway
with traffic flicking my left elbow, I was beginning to strug-
gle for breath when a wild piece of snorting, two-wheeled,
chrome-studded machinery fishtailed to a stop a few yards
ahead. A weird figure in a red sweat band, heavy sunshades
and flapping shorts seemed to be waiting for me.

"Well, get aboard, man. You're never gonna make it on
shanks."

The words were strange, but the music was good. I man-
aged to squirm onto the long saddle-shaped seat behind
him, clutching his thick leather belt as the machine leaped
off at full speed, took the hill at a gulp, threading in and
out of traffic with inches to spare, and finally veered off
onto a cross street. The sunshades swung around at me.

"Where you headed, man?"

"Aries- It's over beyond Federalù"

"Cool." And a few minutes later he deposited me at the
front walk.

"Thanks," I said. "You don't knowù"

"Yeah, I do. I been there." And he was gone, leaving
me to totter up the driveway at reduced speed. The house
was as I'd first seen it, aging gently. I sat down on the porch
steps to regroup.

GilùI knew what 1 had to do.

Max was more complicated. How do you make some-
body want to fly a flag over his own fort again?

And what exactly did Three have in mind? I could
summon up the memory of her, green eyes shining

166

like emeralds out of the polished ebony faceùa very
cool lady. She wouldn't get all that excited over a .false
alarm.

My brain was still fuzzy with antibiotics. When a taxi
pulled up at the curb and let out a man carrying a briefcase
under one arm and a long leather garmen bag over his
shoulder, it took me a good ten seconds to figure out who
he was a travesty of- The long facial planes were alt rounded
off to the nearest double zero. even his hair looked well
fed. And the cleft in the chin was only a crease between
two plump rounds, like a little, smooth tush.

He didn't like me either- "All right, buster, go nod off
on somebody else's porch."

A very strange sensation began to wrinkle my gut. "I am
glad to meet you too, Howie."

He considered that, while butterflies danced over the
nasturtiums. "Let me guessùyou've been sharing gutters
with my brother, the war hero."

"If you call the basement of your home a gutter." )
nodded. I was actually thinking about something else: how
easy it would be to break his kneecap. I wouldn't even
have to get up off my step-

"Well, I've got news for you, pal, I'm not running a
flophouse for potheads."

"Don't get your nice armpits all sweaty," 1 told him.
and this time I looked at him squarely, half blue, half green.
"I will be moving on tomorrow. Until then, 1 am a guest
of Liza'sùshe and I go back a long way. And neither of
us scares worth a damn."

A lot of chips shifted very fast, and I caught a glimmer
of alarm before he got realigned. "Well, hell, why didn't

167

you say so, son?" The oil-executive smile. "Let's start over.
I'm Howardùyou know that. And you'reù?"

"Casey."

His hand was soft and a little damp, but muscular. "Trou-
ble is"ùsmiling, smilingù"things tend to get loose around
the edges when I'm gone too long. t travel a lot on busi-
ness." He had to go around me to get up the stairs. "Where
is everybody?" He was getting out his keys when the chain
rattled and Gil opened up. She stared at him. then at me,
wide-eyed.

"Well, there's my baby girl." Howie's voice raised to a
semibellow.

They surrounded each other awkwardly, as if they hadn't
really practiced. "Brought you a present, doll-face." He
pulled a box out of his pocket. "From Paris. They don't go
for Mickey Mouse over there, it's rabbits. See, his ears tell
the time. Put it on."

Gil draped the watch on her narrow wrist; it looked tike
ten pounds of scrapùgold scrap. "Thank you," she said.
"it's nice."

"Where's Mama?"

"Gone to Canon City."

"That's my little woman, increasing the G.N.P. with
every excess gallon of gas, God love her!" He moved off
into the house. "I suppose that means we go out for supper.
I hoped I wouldn't see the inside of a restaurant for a
while."

"There's leftover stew." But Gil didn't follow him, she
slipped over to sink down beside me on the steps. "Where
were you? This morning we woke up and you were gone!

168

1 was afraid you'd got lost again. What happened? You
look horrible!" All in one breath.

Very carefully I said, "I think ... I will go down and
rest awhile."

"There's clothes hung all over the basement, Mother did
the washing before she left, only the dryer's busted. Any-
how my room's better, my bed is great." She seized me in
that wiry clasp, steering me inside, talking me upstairs as
if! might fold. "Are you hungry? Not stewùthere's a whole
new box of tacos and I got a big bottle of hot sauce."

As 1 eased down onto the pink bedspread, I was vaguely
aware that she had left in one of those headlong rushes. I
wasn't actually functioning. Angry is not a big enough word,
I was seething with fury. It had never happened before,
and it wiped me out. I lay there remotely marveling. What
an awesome, unreasonable thing it wasùrage. t could
stand the man when he was just being snotty, but when
he smiled, when he bestowed his fatty-acid benevolence
on Gilùmy ears were thunderous with Shoshoni war drums.

Distantly it occurred to me that this visceral magma was
more potent than anything I had run into in my search for
the danger quotient. Anguished, terrified, shot atùnone
of all that compared to the chemistry of these last few
minutes.

Little by little my elements eased from red-hot to a dull
glow. Candy-striped wallpaper helped. Over the bed was
a large Maxfield Parrish print, all ecstatic blues and yellow
sunlight that reminded me of something. The bed itself
seemed familiar, the dark carved headboardùof course,
I'd seen it before. I fought off the trauma of that memory,

169

but when I glanced around the room, my look snagged on
a wetl-remembered dressing table, the same one where Al
Kent had taid out his instruments that night of the trans-
fusionù

The mirror was new, though, and on it were taped pho-
tographs signed Burt Reynolds and John Travolta. Whoever
they were, their self-confident masculinity helped take the
Howie taste out of my mouth. 1 was even able to wonder
why 1 had got that sore. Something to do with Ctintù1
think he would have hated Howie.

1 wondered how Gil could stand him. And, in fact, when
she arrived with the tacos her mouth had gone very thin,
her eyes darkened to pure obsidian. Almost like the other
day, when she came home with Max. But this time no chair
kicking. She set the tray next to me on the bed and poured
the sauce carefully. Taking the chunk of gold off her wrist,
she dropped it on the nightstand, then tucked her feet up
to sit on the foot of the bed. Picking up one of the tacos
between her very ladylike fingers, she took a small bite.

"Do you care a lot about food?" she inquired.

"Never thought so until 1 met these." That sauce was a
glorious bee sting. "Why?"

"Oh, ! just wondered if you'd rather dine at the Brown
Palace?"

"What's a brown palace?"

"just a big snitzy hotel, it's nothing, I've been there."
She crunched again, she could hardly get it down. "The
food there is excellent. Food is very important to my father."

"Well, this is more my speed," I mumbled, "but you
go ahead. Don't worry about me. In a while I'll go on down
to the basement, maybe Max will show upù"

\70

"He's down there in his room right now," she said. "I
told my father. I told him we alt didn't much like the stew.
But he saidùhe said he wouldn't take Max along. Theù
the waiters at the Brown Palace would think he'd been
slumming."

Suddenly I could hardly swallow the strange tasteless
stuff in my mouth.

After a while she said, "Do you tike Max?"

"This may sound funny, but he's the best friend I've got,
except you."

And slowly her eyes lightened. "I was awful to him the
other day, but he didn't mean any harm. He was trying to
prove something. Buying me that dumb wigùI know I'll
never be sexy."

"That's not what he was trying to prove."

"It cost a lot of money, too, and he doesn't have much."

"It's a beautiful wig."

"You want to see me in it?" -

"I was just going to ask. Only easy on the Estee Lauder.
you don't need it."

She flashed an abrupt smile and went off into the bath-
room.

All I can say is, my cerebral cortex must have taken a
beating from the old influenza, the more recent coma, the
junk they had to pump into me. I mean, usually I can keep
a grip on reality; even skidding around from one time zone
to another I never really got off balance. Until Gil came
back.

She wore an old-fashioned quilted bathrobe with ruffles
up to her chin, and above it, the fall of blond hairùjust
enough makeup to give her face a womanly incandes-

171

cence. Eyes coot, challenging, teasing a bit ...

Then she broke out of her pose and rushed to my side.
"What's the matter! Is it the hot sauce? Waitù" Off in a
swirl of long skirts and back with a glass of water, just as
she'd held it out once before, a long time ago, standing
on that ladder.

Not fair! Not again! Getting knocked over by a bullet
was nothing compared to this. All I could think was, no-
body ought to have to fall in love with the same girl twice.

172

DS=E

In a spasm of self-indulgence 1 opened some unsuspected
cubbyhole, where ! discovered a whole treasury of deceit.
It concentrated on one theme: Don'1 go back.

Why bother? As a brain buster I am a disaster. All those
weeks in bed I had tried to think about the ozone problem;

it was like staring down an empty test tube. I had stripped
my superbrain down and reassembled it, trying to make it
draw conclusions from atl this time travelùsomething to
justify the experiment. Some echo of Three's words, "The
life of this complex and everyone in it depends on you."
Like my bultet wound, they ached. I couldn't just cover
them with plastic bandages.

But where had I missed the ball? I had followed my clues
dutifully, trotting all over the century, caught the flu, the
bullet, and still come up empty. To go back now (I told
myself) would only underscore my failures.

Eddinger had obviously written me off. He was ready to

173

scrub my whole theory, cut his losses and in six months
when I drop dead he will recycle my components with
regrets and a touch of embarrassment. Do / rea/// owe him
that much?

Temptation swelled inside me like yeast. I got indig-
nantùI have earned the right to live my own life for a short
while. It isn't as if I were running off to a great new future.
This whole world of Gil's is only temporary. But maybe I
could make these few years a little easier for her if 1 stick
around? And if there's some pattern in all that f've done,
careening across the decades, something half glimpsed out
of the corner of an eyeùvast and arcane and inevitableù
don't look at it! Tonight, by God, Max was tuning my
banjo.

"Been a long time since 1 did this, and then it was a
guitar." He sat on a tall stool; Gil was beside me on the
cot. "Never was a great picker like my brother. . . ." But
he must have known the words to a thousand songs.

In a husky baritone he sang to us of lonely roads and
sounds of silence and being stuck in old Lodi. Not great,
musicallyùhe would hit the strings and go forth with the
lyrics until he happened on the right spot for his other
chord. But somehow he took it to the limit one more time
and then some. He was homeward bound and going down
the river, and don't think twiceùit's alt right.

Music I had never heard, lost forever in the ashes. I lay
back in the shadows with Gil curled under one arm, and
high above us the bulb downlighting Max's rough hair and
sensitive hands, and the banjo. We were isolated in space
together, the three of us.

Once in a while Gil would Join in, her tuneless coun-

174

terpoint weaving silver threads through Max's golden needles.
There finally came a time when I even found myself singing
with them, a curious loose-jointed refrain:

"Sometimes, / think it's a shame
When I get feetin' better when I'm
feeling no pain."

"And Gordon Lightfoot may never forgive you for man-
gling his music like that." Howie had come down the stairs
behind us. "Good God, stand down and let the old pro
show you how it's done."

He had changed into stacks, with a crease that could
have sliced mushrooms. A knit shirt, and above the heart
a smalt embroidered animal like the target for a fencing
thrust. I am fairly good at fencing.

But Max just handed over the banjo. "You used to give
it a rideùlet's see if you've lost your touch."

"Not in this lifetime." He adjusted the tuning expertly.

Soù1 tried to tell myself, the man wasn't really fat, there
must be some fiber under the flab. Lord knows he could
play, raking off brilliant streams of notes, cascades of bright
sound that tumbled intricately through one key into an-
other. Gil had come uncurled, sitting up straight and taut
with excitement.

Then littte by little he slowed the pace until he was
fingering a delicate background pattern. Looking around
at us, he leered and sang:

"One dark, stormy night, she came creepin', came
craw/in', 'Lay over.'

175

One dark, stormy night, she came creepin', came

crawl in',
She sighed and she said, 'Come to me, my darlin',

lay over.' "

In the shadows now. Max twitched. "Howard, that one's
not exactly for mixed company."
The reedy tones overrode him.

'Your drawers are too tight, I cannot get through 'em,

lay over.

Your drawers are too tight,
She sighed and she said,

I cannot get through 'em,
'Then take your knife to

'em, YAAA-HOO!' "

Gil sank back, staring at the furnace as if she were trying
to redesign it, while Howie blustered on, bawling out the
words louder and louder, verse after bawdy verse until he
jammed a final chord in place, tossed the banjo aside and
said, "That, ladies and gents, is how it is done."

After he'd gone upstairs the basement still echoed. I
wondered if it would go on jangling forever. Max had
disappeared into his room with the door closed. Gil gave
me a swift sidelong glanceùI was lying flat on the cot with
my knees up, so my feet wouldn't come too near the dead
banjo.

Slowly she stood and went over to Max's door, tapping
lightly. After a long minule he opened, a crack.

"Listen," she said softly, "you can't hit the bottle tonight.
Casey's really sickùyou've got to take care of him. Okay?"

And Max said, "Okay."

176

I couldn't say a damn thing because my throat had turned
to wood.

After Git had left, noiseless on her sneakers, in a while
Max wandered out to hitch a hip onto the stool. He'd gotten
some kind of act together, but he didn't know the lines too
weil.

At last he said, "You're too young to know what war is
like."

If I laughed, my throat would self-destruct into tooth-
picks.

"Of course," he went on, "I got involved in it at an
early age, you could say I grew up in the necessary state
of mind. My father, whatever they said about the murder,
my father wasùto meùa decent, caring kind of man."

He was, he was.

"I wanted to be just like him. How could I know about
the world changing? Patriotismùmy God, it's hard to imag-
ine now, but it was once a very respected word. Simple:

There were bad guys and good guys, we were the good
guys. Always. So you knew who you were, and why you
were fighting."

To save the world, that's alt. Ask Billy MacDonald.

"Then 'Nam came along and nothing was ever the same
again."

The way it always was and will beùBetsy, standing on
that ladder, knew it. Full of fear and anger and Spanish flu,
she knew the world had suddenly shrunk a couple of sizes.
And Grace, putting on slacks and going to work on an
assembly line, she knew. Ctint saw Belsen.

"I was old enough to place myself." Max was inventing

177

the right language as he went along. ") wasùoriented. The
ones who weren't became casualties. Howard's a disabled
veteran."

No, no, you said he went to Canada.

Max picked up on my thought and nodded. "He skipped
the war, but he tostùsomething. Ego? The part of you that
knows who you are? He grew up in a time when schools
glorified the individual, but forgot to teach the skills it takes
to be one. He always followed along in a crowdùstudent
activist, protester, blowin' in the wind. Then he was a draft
card burner, some of them went to jail. He went to Canada.
For the first time the crowd thinned out. He didn't know
whether he was a Symbol of Peace or just your plain ev-
eryday coward. One thing he couldn't shakeùhe was
American. He was homesick. And it was obvious it wouldn't
be an easy return trip. So he got his degree in Toronto,
landed with Peters Petroleum and they engineered him
back into American citizenship. He was in the biggest busi-
ness of ali, it should have made him feel proud. But when
the oil embargo came along, he was a toss-up again. A
Man of Great Responsibilities or a wheeler-dealer in an
international scam."

1 found I could swallow, just a small sip of whiskey to
warm away the cold.

"So he's still a man without an image. He sees himself
as Lord of the Manorùuntil he remembers that it really
belongs to Liza, and he's deathly afraid she'll leave every-
thing to me. She and 1 always used to get along when we
lived here together, before Howard brought his family home.
Which was okay, I didn't mind that they took over. but

178

somehow Howard never mows any grass. Most of the time
he's a World Traveler. Briefly he'll be the Authoritarian
Father. Tonightùwho knows? Maybe the Talented Un-
dergrad, showing off for the horny frat brothers. Actually,
he's faceless, poor devil."

I scooched up until I was sitting propped against the
wall. "I'm sorry, but I can only commiserate with war
trauma if it has involved an element of sacrifice."

Max cocked his head. "You're referring to me? I came
through the fighting in great shape. If there were atrocities,
1 didn't commit them. I did my job, I survived. At the end
i didn't know why i was fighting, so ! didn't re-up, but I
came out clean. No junk, no heavy booze in those days.
It was the peace I couldn't handle. I guess I could have
gone to some college, but I didn't know what I wanted to
study. There was nothing on earth f realty wanted to do.
Business is so big, work so small. Pleasures so damned
trivial. People so ... damned. This is Howard's world,
and I don't belong in it. Even for Gil's sakeùespecially for
Gil's sakeùI ought to bug out. I will only louse her up
further by word and deed. With my own loose ends flap-
ping, how can I help her get a grip on the future?"

But I could.

Tell her the truth she needs, even somehow prepare her
a little for days yet to come. She'd be hard to convince,
but I've got the clincherùmy famous and fantastic one-
and-only disappearing act. I guess 1 had always known it
would come to that. Through all my muddy illusions, I'd
known there would be some very good reason why I must
go back where I belong.

179

ns:a

That next morning was fraught. I read the word somewhere,
it never meant much before. But the silence in the house
had fraught edges.

When I went into the kitchen Gil was stirring soundless
pancakes. The T-shirt said: GOLDEN RULEùTHOSE WITH
THE GOLD MAKE THE RULES. She shot me a glance so
old with concern, my heart broke. (I read that somewhere
tooùit doesn't actually break, it just feels that way.) I put
some toast in. When il popped we jumped a foot.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

Having looked at myself in the mirror, I sidestepped that
one. "I feel like taking a day off. Just you and me. Could
we have a picnic somewhere?" The last one I was on didn't
quite finish me.

In a flurry of peanut butter and salami we got organized,
pickled and cookied and don't-forget-the-salt. All with hardly
a word between us until we had tiptoed our way out of
the house like escapees.

180

My destination mystified Gil, but she let me lead on
from one bus to another. I knew the general direction, and
soon we were batting southward along Wadsworth, my
favorite stream of traffic. As we passed Morrison Road she
said, "Grandma used to own a farm over that way. It's
gone now, they tore it down and put up a lot of little
houses."

"I know."Then (wondered. "Were you ever out there?"

"Oh sure, when 1 was little."

"Was there still a big tire on a rope hung from the cot-
tonwood tree by the back door?"

She was puzzled. "Liza must have showed you pic-
tures."

"This is our stop." We got off at the bottom of the hill.
"Right over yonder is where I got busted by the fuzzes."

Her mouth curved tolerantly. "You don't have to play
that game anymore. You never lost your memory."

"No." I remember more thingsJhan you'd believe. Ex-
cept I've got to make you believe.

She was leading the way across the meadow toward
the stream, leaping the tall grass in angular blue-jean pat-
terns of legs and sneakers, arms stretched wide, dark hair
flipping and shining in the sun. With all my memory grids
running full power, I tried to imprint that picture on my
brain.

"Hey, this is neat. Ducks." She rushed down the bank,
which sent the ducks squawking skyward. "Look, some-
body piled some stones." She hunkered down and skipped
one of my pebbles across the water.

"I know. I did it, to mark the point at which I first entered
1981."

181

She humored me.

I sat down and took my shoes offùI had never waded
in a stream. Or maybe I wanted to take away the feel of
that bruising plunge down the floodwaters. Or else 1 )ust
needed to soak up all the feelings of that day like a sponge.
Gil Joined me, pants rolled to her knees. She had lovely
small feet, f could have eaten her feet. Hand in hand we
wobbled around on the rocky bottom, splashing a lot of
water, until the current began to tug at my conscience.

"Time to talk." I led her up onto the bank. "Time, by
the way, is a very misunderstood commodity. Everybody
talks about time passing, but it doesn't, you know. It stands
still, like a roadùwe're the ones who move along it. Faster
or slower or maybe racing at high speed."

"1 know where you're coming from." She nodded. "I'm
hungry too, and it's only ten-twenty." It was an old Timex
on her narrow wrist, not the new golden gadget. She handed
out sandwiches and opened the thermos of coffee.

The salami was terribly distracting. Hunger was some-
thing else I was going to miss. I had to rally mysetf all over
again. "Our position in time is always relative."

She said, "You mean like that poem:

"There was a young woman named Nast
Whose future was all in the past.

She went out one day

In a relative way,
And came back the night before last."

I said, "You've . . . got the idea. To take it a step further,
would you believe that people can sometimes go forward

182

or backward along the road into a different century?"

"Like Dr. Who."

"Who?"

"On the TV. He goes atl over the universe, he fights
these gooey monsters."

"No, that would be translocation. There's no basis in
physics for that. But to travel across time with the help of
a refractor is possible."

"Alley Oop."

"And abracadabra."

"He's got dinosaurs."

"Who?"

"No, not Dr. Who. Alley Oop in the comics. He's got
a time machine."

As simple as that. "Then can you believe that I have one
myself? I built it."

She drank her coffee expectantly.

ft wasn't my most coherent piece of exposition. To sum-
marize, to skip some of the hard parts, time sequences^
getting mixed, verbiage a little wildù1 remember stray
phrases. "You'd hate Eddinger, he's got everything under
control. Except me." Quit bragging. "So after that day at
the races, I kept thinking there was some reason I came
here, which I found out when I talked to Liza." And then,
"This dog butted me right out of the barn." Somehow, "I
was up on the roof, painting tar all over the thingù" How
can you really describe Spanish influenza? "Billy Mac-
Donald died of it. Your reai great-grandfather- Liza was
very much in love with himù" Finally, "There I was in
the rain and this little boy on the swing says 'Are you my
daddy?' and it was MaxieùI mean Max."

183

Git was listening, the way you listen to Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony.

"The main thing to remember is that I had to pretend I
was going to give the secret of the atom bomb to the Rus-
sians before your grandfather would lift a hand against me.
The last words I heard him say were'Don't make me shoot!'
A good, responsible, sane kind of guyùno maniac. 1 think
he only meant to wing me. I floated downstream and climbed
out right over there. Went home for repairsùit took a few
weeks. But I could still return here on the day I left." At
that point I got mixed up myself trying to explain coordi-
nates.

Gil was helpful. "Oh I know about coordinatesùon5(ar
Trek, they're where you're trying to get to."

"Right."

She gave me a brilliant smile. "Except your story is better
than Star Trek. i mean, really terrific. How did you make
all that up? For me? So I wouldn't feel bad anymore?"

"Okay. I didn't expect you to believe me. I will now
prove the whole thing is true. I will stand on that spot where
the rocks are and I will disappear and then you'll know.
Here, you'll need this." I handed her a wad of my leftover
cash. "And there's no use ruining good clothes." I yanked
off my shirt and was starting on the pants when two small
hands seized my left elbow. A twinge from my bullet wound
brought me up short. Gil was staring at it.

"The other day after we left the zoo and you took
off your shirt"ùshe touched the transparent film of
liquid bandageù"you didn't have any holes." Misty
gray eyes widened. "And when you bought those pants at
Cinderella City they were tight. You grew a size thinner

184

since then. )ust since Sunday!" She said, "You better sit
down."

The truth was my knees were suddenly buckling under
me. And of course there really was no big hurryùshe might
even have a few questions now. "Want to see the famous
tattoo? It's in a kind of embarrassing location."

"Sure," she said soothingly.

In preparation, I had snitched some jockey shorts off the
clothesline in the basement. I'd hate to offend her 1981
modesty. When 1 got zipped up again she seemed to be
keeping an open mind.

"What does it mean?"

"It's a laboratory number. As 1 told you, I'm a scientific
experiment. A man called Eddinger concocted me in a test
tube for a specific purpose."

"To make a time machine."

"No, he hates that. It wasn't part of his program for me
to go galloping around the centuries."

"But you wanted to."

"I had to."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure." No point mentioning my dwindling life
spanùif there's anything I didn't want from her, it was
pity. "There were just clues that said I must come here.
And then more clues that sent me back to 1918 and 1945.
Except I don't know exactly why. I almost caught a glimpse
of it here and there, but I can't come to grips."

"Maybe you did it just for me." She was holding my
fingers tight in hot, moist hands. "So I'd know who I ready
am. Is it true about BillyùBillyù?"

"MacDonald." I nodded. "Ask Liza, ask her about the

185

picture in her alcove of the boy in uniform. Make her tell
you."

She studied the wound in my shoulderùit was throbbing
now. I hated to take it through the refraction again, in fact
! was very tired. But there was one thing still unfinished.

"The point is," I said, "your future is up to you, not
some kinky genes. You canùno, you absolutely must learn
to survive. You've got to convince Max, too. So you can
save yourselves from something that's comingùa catastro-
pheù" Dear God, I couldn't tetl her that war would wipe
the face off the earth. It might send her into a whole new
round of hopelessness. But she had to know some of it.
"The only safe place to go will be underground for a while.
Tell Maxùsomehow you've got to make him believe afl
this too. Tel! him about me, tell him he's going to be needed
desperately in the next few years. He should study con-
struction workùtunnels, underground life-support sys-
tems, sanitation and recycling. There's so much to doù
tell him he must offer that know-how to a man named
Midas Forsythe. You, tooùlatch onto Forsythe and stick
close- By then you'll understand why. 1 can't explain it all,
you have to take my word for it."

She was absorbing everything, her gray eyes as full of
currents as the stream water. "Sure, I believe you, but it's
going to be hard to sell Max. i mean, it's so weird!"

"Somehow you've got to. Listen, there's a picture of me
up on the wall of Liza's room, next to Billy MacDonald.
It's not some long-ago relative, it's me. And in the attic
you'll find a box of Lincoln logs. There's an Indian tepee
with my name on it, in my handwriting. Maybe he'll re-

186

member the day we played sold iers-and-Indians. Tell himù
tell him pretty soon he's going to have to build a ioomus."

"A what?"

"Loomus. The most important Ioomus ever attemptedù
a huge underground Ioomus, get that word right." I hauled
myself up. "Better get going."

She scrambled after me- "Why? Why do you have to
leave?"

I thoughtùof Eddinger, of Fiver and Three. "I owe a lot
of people, back there where 1 come from. I've got to go
back and help themùif 1 can. There must be some reason
I've survived all this. even if I haven't got a handle on it
yet."

"You mean it's your duty?" Her face got fierce and fiery.
"Forget it. Look at Maxùhe was a soldier all those years,
he fought that lousy war, and now look at him."

"And your father didn't. Look at him."

Her chin crumpled, for the (irst time those gray eyes
filled with tears as she plastered herself against me, skinny
arms tight as hot wire. "Wherever you're going, take me
with you."

"I can't." How she would hate that sterile place.

"If you leave me here, I'll pick a thousand people's
pockets, I'll be a streetwalker, t swear I will."

A terrible twinge seized me, nothing to do with bullet
wounds. "Suppose I might come back. Suppose i promise
to try?" I hated to lie, but if it would put her on hold until
she's grown, it would be worth it. "When's your seven-
teenth birthday?"

"August twentieth, nineteenùeighty-six."

187

"Will you hold off that long? In case I can make it?"

"But then you'd be"ùfingers counted on my bare shoul-
derù"you'd be otdl"

"No, I'll sttll be eighteen. If I come. If I don't, it will be
because (couldn'tùnot that I didn't want to." I was making
a mental template of the exact shape of that angular, hot,
breathing young body in my arms. Lord, I hated to let go!

"Okay, I'll be here. "She swiped a fmger across her nose.
"Right here. From ten o'clock on. So you better not be
kidding or you'll go to hell." She even mustered a smile.

"Bring some clothes. All that will come through the
refraction is me." I was edging over to the stones as I talked.
"Some bigger shoes, too. And a salami sandwich." I touched
the trigger, braced to see the took of horror come over her,
the distaste, the pity.

But as I faded, her eyes lit with awe. And excitement,
as full belief came crashing in- "Casey! Wait!" she screamed.
"What size shoes?"

So the experiment is over.

END TESTING
CLOSE CODE

188

SELECT MASTER COMPUTER
CROSS-REF 8-800X OOURNAL5)
CODE K/C-^KSCI^ZVE
DATE 1/21/2127
SUBJECT TIME REFRACTOR

The above cross-reference will lead to an illegal entry in
journals, an account of my experiment in search of the
danger quotient. For personal reasons I have kept it secret;

now I am making the entire report available to any who
may be interested, though the-program proved inconclu-
sive.

I felt there had to be some purpose behind the experi-
ment, some plan more cosmic than my personal longevity
or the rescue of a small girl. At first I expected it to produce
a masterstroke of inspiration, infusing me with brilliant so-
lutions to the ozone problem. Or at least some gimmick
to lengthen our ELS. It did neither.

As for my theory regarding the danger quotient, the latest
med. eval. shows my life span lengthened by four months
and three weeksùabout the length of time of the experi-
ment itself. Maybe if the test had been allowed to run,
something further would have been proved, but Eddinger
put a stop to that possibility.

191

The first day after I came back, he called me into his
office. "You look like something that formed on a dish of
agar," he informed me kindly. "You obviously ought to be
in bed, but since, in your wisdom, you discharged yourself
from Med. Section, who am I to question it?"

I let him rave.

"In case your foot is still itching," he went on, "forget
it. I went up at two A.M. and removed the diode from your
plaything. I have destroyed it. Maybe you fee! I had no
right to take such a stepù"

"Of course you do."

That stopped him, but only for a second. "Each time
you left, you borrowed a valuable piece of my property. 1
was never sure you'd return it."

"I didn't want to, but 1 did."

He shoved the rimless glasses two mm. higher on his
classic nose. "I take it then you recognize your obligations
here."

"Recognizing them and fulfilling them are two differently
colored horses." I could almost see Gil smiling somewhere.
Did you forget how to spesk English?

Eddinger just slanted a sneer. "If your brain is as cluttered
with trivia as your speech is infected with strange vulgar-
isms, you won't be of much use to us."

"Probably not. Come on. Chief, you lost faith in me a
long time ago. Win some, lose some."

"Now stop that." He indulged himself in a burst of
nervous irritation, getting up, pacing the room once and
sitting down again. "It's possible that your experiences
in the primitive world may have matured you. You seem
older in some ways. So I will give you one more chance.

192

But unless you can formulate some interesting theories
in the next few weeks, I will have to turn your lab facil-
ities over to someone else and reassign youùto systems
analysis."

That, of course, was a severe threat.

So for days I have tried to be thunderstruck with new
creativity. It never works. 1 threw impossible ideas at Pokey,
who discarded them with a touch of sarcasm.

Finally I asked for it point-blank. "Evaluate my scientific
potential."

It took exactly four minutes and twenty-two seconds; the
shrill childish voice had overtones of contempt:

"SCIENTIFIC ORIENTATION BELOW MEDIAN LEVEL
METHODOLOGY INCONSISTENT
CONCENTRATION FACTOR POOR
INITIATION UNEVEN
ESTIMATE OF PROBABLE..."

1 switched off.

Obviously the bucket of bolts had been corrupted by a
certain redheaded brat. I hadn't seen much of Fiverùhe
was like a rapid ghostùI knew he was around somewhere,
but when I'd turn my head, gone.

Maybe he was a little afraid of me. I did snarl a lot, I
admit, but then I wasn't sleeping much. No appetiteùI
really missed being hungry; But the insomnia was the worst.
After a couple of hours of twisting and lashing I'd get up,
take a pedalcar and sneak off to a guilty tryst with the old
complex. It was the nearest I could come to touching 1981
again. To stand in those silent, ruined tunnels, trying to
revive faint echoes from aboveùof traffic and salesladies

193

and happy-birthday-to-you. Looking at the giant stee! doors,
closed forever . . .

When I'd rouse out of it, my hands would be clenched
so tight they ached clear up to the elbow. And the same
question would rack me up againùwhy? Why had I been
sent back there? Not just to add a few footnotes to Archives.
Fate wouldn't have kicked me all over the 20th century as
a matter of idle curiosity. I can't believe in some whimsical
deityùthe Destiny I have always subscribed to is a sci-
entific almightmess that doesn't kid around. There had to
be reasons.

If I can't figure them out, I thought, it's because my mind
is still staggering with time lag and homesickness. But I
couldn't seem to find a cure. And what difference? In four
months or so it would be academic- I just hoped Fiver
would do better. Which got me to thinkingùyou don't
want to depart this life leaving people with bad memories.
Time to make peace.

I found him with Pokey, playing chess. He gave me a
panicky glance, yelled "Queen to king four, mate!" and
leaped for the door. I grabbed his nearest component and
hauled him back. He'd grown since the last time I lookedù
his body had skinnied out into a lot of legs and feet.

"Why aren't you in bed?"

"I'm an insomniac too." His oriental eyes gleamed with
pride. "Anyhow, Thomas Edison only slept four hours a
night."

"He was never seven years old."

"Eight, I had a birthday."Then, very offhand and casual,
he went on, "So anyhow, you got the old ozone thing all
locked up?"

194

"Not a clue. Don't look so superior, budùnot until
you've tried to figure it yourself. Ozone is a tough nut to
crack."

"I have tried. I mean, I know what I'm going to try. My
test patterns are superior. Pokey says so." He tossed the
mop of red hair and waited for me to laugh.

1 didn't. In all honesty 1 said, "t hope to God you make
it."

When he recovered from shock he said, "Only I need
my own computer. ..."

"And you'd like to use mine." Suddenly I didn't even
care about that. "Be my guest."

But Five shook his head. "I want to control the input
and programming and everything. I was going to ask you
before, only I thought you should have your shot."

"Ask me what?"

"If you'd like to trade."

"Trade Pokey?"

He nodded with gruesome enthusiasm.

"For what-on-earth?"

"I'll show you." He slipped out of the room like a stiver
of ice in a glass of water. When he came back, he kept
clear of my reachùI guess my hands did twitch. He had
something that looked a lot like my diode.

"I knew Eddinger was going to deactivate your machine,
so I asked Pokey how it could be done and he told me.
Your safety system's fairly easy to crack," he mentioned
coolly. "Anyhow, that first night after you came back from
your last trip, I went up and took this out and put in an
old spare part, a condenser from an audio-modifier that
looked sort of alike. At least it fooled Eddinger."

195

"Are you sure?" I wished he'd let me examine it at least.
I was getting all steamy in the creases. "He said he was
up there at two A.M. that morning."

"I went at one-thirty." Fiver grinned like a fiend. "I
thought maybe you'd need it. We got a deal?"

"Deal!" When I took the unit in my hands I had to hold
tight to keep from fumbling it. "Only I'll need to use Pokey
a few days longer."

"Be my guest." He walked off like a little prince.

It took ten minutes to fix the machine. Set coordinates
at 8/20/1986, ten A.M., happy birthday, girl! I didn't even
stop to think about right or wrong or why or duty, just hit
the trigger. A few seconds of a buzzing sensation which
died away to nothing.

I spindled down onto the floor of the lead-boxùI know,
I said I never cried in my life. but there's a first time. I
couldn'tùabsolutely could notùaccept that it was over,
after all. For a few minutes f had been seized by that sense
of inevitability that had carried through all the tests, as if
my life was in the grip of fate. How could i have felt so
right and been that wrong? In my gut 1 knew I had flubbed
some massive deduction, maybe the whole point of my
life. To paraphrase Pokey, my instinct stinks.

Limping back downstairs, I went in to Check my figures
againùno errors. Nothing nice and simple like a couple
of numbers transposed. Slumping at the console, 1 picked
up the mikeùI couldn't just let it all go. If I wasn't meant
to be there, at least I needed to know Gil was okay.
"Search records for Gitlian Hunter."
"STATE NAME OF GALLANT HUNTER." Pokey's voice

196

mode set my teeth on edge, so I switched to printouts. But
there was no record of a Gillian Hunter.

On the off chance \ said, "Try Casey Anderson." Noth-
ing. "Call Max Hunter." Nothing, damn it. Finally getting
desperate, groping in the darkù"How about 'loomus'?"

And all at once the plastipaper came rattling out;

LOOMUS CONSTRUCTION CO INC
A DEL CORP WITH HO DENVER CO
FIRST STOCK ISSUE 1991
PRES A M HUNTER

Liza's scrapbook streamed across my mental screen like a
banner: "Alfred Maxwell Hunter, a Joy to his delighted
parents and all the world." Good old Max, he'd managed
to lick the spiders! Gil had made him believeù But then
she should have been somewhere just over his shoulder.
1 said, "Call list of corporate officers." And found her:

BOARD CHAIRMAN GILUAN. FORSYTHE

At which point my heart quietly folded up like an old love
tetter.

I should have been glad, of courseùI was the one who
told her about Midas Forsythe. And he must have seen to
it that she was safe when the bombs fell, I should be de-
lirious with gratitude. But all f could think was The o/d son
or a g/itch slo/e my gf'r/.' Some griefs are beyond tears.

Pokey was still flickering sullenly; he hated to be called
on to do my personal snooping. But I needed to hear it all.
Like picking at a deep splinter, I needed to know my rival.
Up to now he'd just been a name from the history tapes.

197

In a very shaky voice f said, "Call Forsythe."
Pokey thought it was a stupid request, I could tell by the

way he putteredùfinally punched out a single petulant

sentence.

UNCLEAR YOU ARE 4(SCI)

like the one twist of string that unravels a whole ball
into your lapùit was so obvious, as I raced through the
files. Midas Forsythe, a man without a past, a mystery figure
who came from nowhere complete with plans, money and
the dedication to show a desperate populace how to face
devastation and live through it.

This was what Three had discoveredùI found her tracks
all over the place, once I knew where to look. She had
searched out everything there was to know on Kevin Charles
Forsythe. Still couldn't prove it, but she believed her theory
enough to launch a last exhaustive sprint to finish the time
machine.

All those field trips across the home fronts of ancient
warsùthat was my workshop. To learn the strengths of the
defiant people who are left to pick up the pieces after the
generals have popped their smoke. To recognize the qual-
ities we would need to build our sanctuary and staff our
systems in those last frantic days of exodus. The job ahead
of me towered like one of those distant thunderheads, in-
credibly huge, deadly dark at the core, but edged in sun-
lightùI'd have Gil beside me.

Mrs. KevinùCharlesùForsythe with an "e." I could
picture Gil concocting those names for our marriage li-
cense. And all at once I let out a whoopùmy racetrack

198

yell echoed wildly down those hushed corridors, clear to
Cinderella City.

Since thenùwork. I have never in my life busted my
brain cells so hard, learning, cramming. You don't earn a
name like "Midas" by sitting on your tattoo. I've memo-
rized every page of the stock-market news for a ten-year
period. I will top a hundred million by 1990. The races,
of course, just a few selected ones. And then there's the
fantastic bet I'm going to win on Super Bowl XXVùthe
point spread turned out to be a complete shocker.

Now I'm nearly ready to go find my girl. I figured out
why the birthday coordinates didn't work the first time. For
one thing, I hadn't put the whole picture together. And for
another, I hadn't finished updating this fileùthe least 1 can
do for Eddinger.

Finally, if I'd just stopped to thinkùgood Lord! She will
be seventeen, beautiful, sensitive, a whole new relation-
ship about to begin. I'd hate to start it sprawled at her feet
with my anatomy all over the place. Even in 1986 that
would seem fairly gross (a word that hung on past its time).
Far better to slip in at daybreak and scout the neighborhood
for some clothes, if only a felicitous fig leaf.

I'll set the cycle for one A.M. of that day and work forward
until I find my slot- Be there early, get organized, and when
Gil comesù When she comesù

lust thinking about it I get incoherent.

The one thing I regret is that my theory about the danger
quotient drew a blank. I wish, for the sake of the brat. . .

199

At that point my dictation was interrupted.

"Don't worry about it." Fiver was swinging from the
doorframe. Fell off and flung his scrawny body into a chair.
"It's okay. I've been monitoring your reports in fournals.
Don't get sore! I had a slake in it too." He swiveled like a
maniac. "! put Pokey on it, doing depth analysisùso far
we found seventeen longevity factors, enough to keep me
breathing until I get all ancient and wrinkly." He made a
horrible face, sagging and gagging. "I don't know if 1 want
to get that old."

"What factors?"

"Well, you know, all the stuff that makes you sweat and
stinkù1 didn't take a bath for a week, I guess you noticed,
huh?"

I was speechless. I never even thought about depth
analysis.

"And 1 cornered a soft-type lady down in the nurseryù
was she surprised when I hugged her! Food, though, I don't
know what's hot sauce. A couple of guys in Chem. Lab
are trying to simulate it, but they won't give me any until
they find an antidote."

"You don't need it, you'd eat raw foam rubber." Little
monster, always hungry. This is the crowning jewel of Ed-
dinger's career?

"Anyhow, those are only secondary factors," he in-
formed me loftily. "I like the primary ones. Like hate! And
rage.' I can practice them on my psychologist, sometimes
I could kill her! Next time she tells me to 'calm down' i'm
going to set fire to her officeù Okay! I'm only kidding.
Besides, 1 got other ideas how to liven this place up." He

200

kept prancing around the room, knocking things crooked
while plots and plans crackled.

I hated to have to ask, butùI swallowed my pride like
lumpy oatmeal. "What did the analysis indicate about the
danger quotient?"

"Not much." Then he lurched away from my out-
clutched hands. "All right! I'll tell you!" And a huge grin
split his face in two. "Pokey didn't want to talk about it.
Whenever 1 asked him, he'd say 'WAIT' until I was ready
to bust his chips. I mean thai was the one thing I wanted
to know. 'What's danger, real horrible danger, like when
you might get killed?' I asked him, 'What's brave? How do
you learn it?' and I kept shouting at him and his circuits
began to stutter, and zap! He blew a connection and they're
still fixing it." Gleefully he pounded the wall with a dirty
fist. "You and your theory, you stumped Pokey!"

Which 1 doubted, but for some reason I was grinning
too. "Don't worry, you'll find out first-hand about danger
when Eddinger learns you swiped that diode for me."

"Yeah. Only he'll forget that when I teli him how I'm
going to live to be sixty-nine years old and fix the ozone
and save everybody's life." Banging his bony chest, "Ha!
I'm going to be a hero!" In a rush he was through the door
and gone.

From far down the hall he let out a last, earth-shattering
yell: ")UST LIKE YOUV

201