Addison Doug closed his eyes and thought, Crayne will ask him if he can be panned up on by the TV cameras holding a balloon and eating cotton candy. I think we’re all going nuts from this, all of us. And then he wondered, How many times have we gone through this idiotic exchange?
I can’t prove it, he thought wearily. But I know it’s true. We’ve sat here, done this minuscule scrabbling, listened to and said all this crap, many times. He shuddered. Each rinky-dink word …
‘What’s the matter?’ Benz said acutely.
The Soviet chrononaut spoke up for the first time. ‘What is the maximum interval of ETA possible to your threeman team? And how large a per cent has been exhausted by now?’
After a pause Crayne said, ‘They briefed us on that before we came in here today. We’ve consumed approximately one half of our maximum total ETA interval.’
‘However,’ General Toad rumbled, ‘we have scheduled the Day of National Mourning to fall within the expected period remaining to them of ETA time. This required us to speed up the autopsy and other forensic findings, but in view of public sentiment, it was felt …’
The autopsy, Addison Doug thought, and again he shuddered; this time he could not keep his thoughts within himself and he said, ‘Why don’t we adjourn this nonsense meeting and drop down to pathology and view a few tissue sections enlarged and in color, and maybe we’ll brainstorm a couple of vital concepts that’ll aid medical science in its quest for explanations? Explanations - that’s what we need. Explanations for problems that don’t exist yet; we can develop the problems later.’ He paused. ‘Who agrees?’
‘I’m not looking at my spleen up there on the screen,’ Benz said. ‘I’ll ride in the parade but I won’t participate in my own autopsy.’
‘You could distribute microscopic purple-stained slices of your own gut to the mourners along the way,’ Crayne said. ‘They could provide each of us with a doggy bag; right, General? We can strew tissue sections like confetti. I still think we should smile.’
‘I have researched all the memoranda about smiling,’ General Toad said, riffling the pages stacked before him, ‘and the consensus at policy is that smiling is not in accord with national sentiment. So that issue must be ruled closed. As far as your participating in the autopsical procedures which are now in progress—’
‘We’re missing out as we sit here,’ Crayne said to Addison Doug. ‘I always miss out.’
Ignoring him, Addison addressed the Soviet chrononaut. ‘Officer N. Gauki,’ he said into his microphone, dangling on his chest, ‘what in your mind is the greatest terror facing a time traveler? That there will be an implosion due to coincidence on reentry, such as has occurred in our launch? Or did other traumatic obsessions bother you and your comrade during your own brief but highly successful time flight?’
N. Gauki, after a pause, answered, ‘R. Plenya and I exchanged views at several informal times. I believe I can speak for us both when I respond to your question by emphasizing our perpetual fear that we had inadvertently entered a closed time loop and would never break out.’
‘You’d repeat it forever?’ Addison Doug asked.
‘Yes, Mr A. Doug,’ the chrononaut said, nodding somberly.
A fear that he had never experienced before overcame Addison Doug. He turned helplessly to Benz and muttered, ‘Shit.’ They gazed at each other.
‘I really don’t believe this is what happened,’ Benz said to him in a low voice, putting his hand on Doug’s shoulder; he gripped hard, the grip of friendship. ‘We just imploded on reentry, that’s all. Take it easy.’
‘Could we adjourn soon?’ Addison Doug said in a hoarse, strangling voice, half rising from his chair. He felt the room and the people in it rushing in at him, suffocating him. Claustrophobia, he realized. Like when I was in grade school, when they flashed a surprise test on our teaching machines, and I saw I couldn’t pass it. ‘Please,’ he said simply, standing. They were all looking at him, with different expressions. The Russian’s face was especially sympathetic, and deeply lined with care. Addison wished - ‘I want to go home,’ he said to them all, and felt stupid.
He was drunk. It was late at night, at a bar on Hollywood Boulevard; fortunately, Merry Lou was with him, and he was having a good time. Everyone was telling him so, anyhow. He clung to Merry Lou and said, ‘The great unity in life, the supreme unity and meaning, is man and woman. Their absolute unity; right?’
‘I know,’ Merry Lou said. ‘We studied that in class.’ Tonight, at his request, Merry Lou was a small blonde girl, wearing purple bellbottoms and high heels and an open midriff blouse. Earlier she had had a lapis lazuli in her navel, but during dinner at Ting Ho’s it had popped out and been lost. The owner of the restaurant had promised to keep on searching for it, but Merry Lou had been gloomy ever since. It was, she said, symbolic. But of what she did not say. Or anyhow he could not remember; maybe that was it. She had told him what it meant, and he had forgotten.
An elegant young black at a nearby table, with an Afro and striped vest and overstuffed red tie, had been staring at Addison for some time. He obviously wanted to come over to their table but was afraid to; meanwhile, he kept on staring.
‘Did you ever get the sensation,’ Addison said to Merry Lou, ‘that you knew exactly what was about to happen? What someone was going to say? Word for word? Down to the slightest detail. As if you had already lived through it once before?’
‘Everybody gets into that space,’ Merry Lou said. She sipped a Bloody Mary.
The black rose and walked toward them. He stood by Addison. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, sir.’
Addison said to Merry Lou, ‘He’s going to say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere? Didn’t I see you on TV?” ‘
‘That was precisely what I intended to say,’ the black said.
Addison said, ‘You undoubtedly saw my picture on page forty-six of the current issue of Time, the section on new medical discoveries. I’m the GP from a small town in Iowa catapulted to fame by my invention of a widespread, easily available cure for eternal life. Several of the big pharmaceutical houses are already bidding on my vaccine.’
‘That might have been where I saw your picture,’ the black said, but he did not appear convinced. Nor did he appear drunk; he eyed Addison Doug intensely. ‘May I seat myself with you and the lady?’
‘Sure,’ Addison Doug said. He now saw, in the man’s hand, the ID of the US security agency that had ridden herd on the project from the start.
‘Mr Doug,’ the security agent said as he seated himself beside Addison, ‘you really shouldn’t be here shooting off your mouth like this. If I recognized you some other dude might and break out. It’s all classified until the Day of Mourning. Technically, you’re in violation of a Federal Statute by being here; did you realize that? I should haul you in. But this is a difficult situation; we don’t want to do something uncool and make a scene. Where are your two colleagues?’
‘At my place,’ Merry Lou said. She had obviously not seen the ID. ‘Listen,’ she said sharply to the agent, ‘why don’t you get lost? My husband here has been through a grueling ordeal, and this is his only chance to unwind.’
Addison looked at the man. ‘I knew what you were going to say before you came over here.’ Word for word, he thought. I am right, and Benz is wrong and this will keep happening, this replay.
‘Maybe,’ the security agent said, ‘I can induce you to go back to Miss Hawkins’ place voluntarily. Some info arrived’ - he tapped the tiny earphone in his right ear - ‘just a few minutes ago, to all of us, to deliver to you, marked urgent, if we located you. At the launch site ruins … they’ve been combing through the rubble, you know?’
‘I know,’ Addison said.
‘They think they have their first clue. Something was brought back by one of you. From ETA, over and above what you took, in violation of all your prelaunch training.’
‘Let me ask you this,’ Addison Doug said. ‘Suppose somebody does see me? Suppose some
body does recognize me? So what?’
‘The public believes that even though reentry failed, the flight into time, the first American time-travel launch, was successful. Three US tempunauts were thrust a hundred years into the future - roughly twice as far as the Soviet launch of last year. That you only went a week will be less of a shock if it’s believed that you three chose deliberately to remanifest at this continuum because you wished to attend, in fact felt compelled to attend—’
‘We wanted to be in the parade,’ Addison interrupted. ‘Twice.’
‘You were drawn to the dramatic and somber spectacle of your own funeral procession, and will be glimpsed there by the alert camera crews of all major networks. Mr Doug, really, an awful lot of high-level planning and expense have gone into this to help correct a dreadful situation; trust us, believe me. It’ll be easier on the public, and that’s vital, if there’s ever to be another US time shot. And that is, after all, what we all want.’
Addison Doug stared at him. ‘We want what?’
Uneasily, the security agent said, ‘To take further trips into time. As you have done. Unfortunately, you yourself cannot ever do so again, because of the tragic implosion and death of the three of you. But other tempunauts—’
‘We want what? Is that what we want?’ Addison’s voice rose; people at nearby tables were watching now. Nervously.
‘Certainly,’ the agent said. ‘And keep your voice down.’
‘I don’t want that,’ Addison said. ‘I want to stop. To stop forever. To just lie in the ground, in the dust, with everyone else. To see no more summers - the same summer.’
‘Seen one, you’ve seen them all,’ Merry Lou said hysterically. ‘I think he’s right, Addi; we should get out of here. You’ve had too many drinks, and it’s late, and this news about the—’
Addison broke in, ‘What was brought back? How much extra mass?’
The security agent said, ‘Preliminary analysis shows that machinery weighing about one hundred pounds was lugged back into the time-field of the module and picked up along with you. This much mass—’ The agent gestured. ‘That blew up the pad right on the spot. It couldn’t begin to compensate for that much more than had occupied its open area at launch time.’
‘Wow!’ Merry Lou said, eyes wide. ‘Maybe somebody sold one of you a quadraphonic phono for a dollar ninetyeight including fifteen-inch air-suspension speakers and a lifetime supply ofNeilDiamond records.’ She tried to laugh, but failed; her eyes dimmed over. ‘Addi,’ she whispered, ‘I’m sorry. But it’s sort of - weird. I mean, it’s absurd; you all were briefed, weren’t you, about your return weight? You weren’t even to add so much as a piece of paper to what you took. I even saw Dr Fein demonstrating the reasons on TV. And one of you hoisted a hundred pounds of machinery into that field? You must have been trying to self-destruct, to do that!’ Tears slid from her eyes; one tear rolled out onto her nose and hung there. He reached reflexively to wipe it away, as if helping a little girl rather than a grown one.
‘I’ll fly you to the analysis site,’ the security agent said, standing up. He and Addison helped Merry Lou to her feet; she trembled as she stood a moment, finishing her Bloody Mary. Addison felt acute sorrow for her, but then, almost at once, it passed. He wondered why. One can weary even of that, he conjectured. Of caring for someone. If it goes on too long - on and on. Forever. And, at last, even after that, into something no one before, not God Himself, maybe, had ever had to suffer and in the end, for all His great heart, succumb to.
As they walked through the crowded bar toward the street, Addison Doug said to the security agent, ‘Which one of us—’
‘They know which one,’ the agent said as he held the door to the street open for Merry Lou. The agent stood, now, behind Addison, signaling for a gray Federal car to land at the red parking area. Two other security agents, in uniform, hurried toward them.
‘Was it me?’ Addison Doug asked.
‘You better believe it,’ the security agent said.
The funeral procession moved with aching solemnity down Pennsylvania Avenue, three flag-draped caskets and dozens of black limousines passing between rows of heavily coated, shivering mourners. A low haze hung over the day, gray outlines of buildings faded into the rain-drenched murk of the Washington March day.
Scrutinizing the lead Cadillac through prismatic binoculars, TV’s top news and public-events commentator, Henry Cassidy, droned on at his vast unseen audience, ‘… sad recollections of that earlier train among the wheatfields carrying the coffin of Abraham Lincoln back to burial and the nation’s capital. And what a sad day this is, and what appropriate weather, with its dour overcast and sprinkles!’ In his monitor he saw the zoomar lens pan up on the fourth Cadillac, as it followed those with the caskets of the dead tempunauts.
His engineer tapped him on the arm.
‘We appear to be focusing on three unfamiliar figures so far not identified, riding together,’ Henry Cassidy said into his neck mike, nodding agreement. ‘So far I’m unable to quite make them out. Are your location and vision any better from where you’re placed, Everett?’ he inquired of his colleague and pressed the button that notified Everett Branton to replace him on the air.
‘Why, Henry,’ Branton said in a voice of growing excitement, ‘I believe we’re actually eyewitness to the three American tempunauts as they remanifest themselves on their historic journey into the future!’
‘Does this signify,’ Cassidy said, ‘that somehow they have managed to solve and overcome the—’
‘Afraid not, Henry,’ Branton said in his slow, regretful voice. ‘What we’re eyewitnessing to our complete surprise consists of the Western world’s first verified glimpse of what the technical people refer to as Emergence Time Activity.’
‘Ah, yes, ETA,’ Cassidy said brightly, reading it off the official script the Federal authorities had handed to him before air time.
‘Right, Henry. Contrary to what might seem to be the case at first sight, these are not - repeat not - our three brave tempunauts as such, as we would ordinarily experience them—’
‘I grasp it now, Everett,’ Cassidy broke in excitedly, since his authorized script read CASS BREAKS IN EXCITEDLY. ‘Our three tempunauts have momentarily suspended in their historic voyage to the future, which we believe will span across a time-continuum roughly a century from now … It would seem that the overwhelming grief and drama of this unanticipated day of mourning has caused them to—’
‘Sorry to interrupt, Henry,’ Everett Branton said, ‘but I think, since the procession has momentarily halted on its slow march forward, that we might be able to—’
‘No!’ Cassidy said, as a note was handed him in a swift scribble, reading: Do not interview nauts. Urgent. Dis. previous inst. ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to …’ he continued, ‘… to speak briefly with tempunauts Benz, Crayne, and Doug, as you had hoped, Everett. As we had all briefly hoped to.’ He wildly waved the boom-mike back; it had already begun to swing out expectantly toward the stopped Cadillac. Cassidy shook his head violently at the mike technician and his engineer.
Perceiving the boom-mike swinging at them Addison Doug stood up in the back of the open Cadillac. Cassidy groaned. He wants to speak, he realized. Didn’t they reinstruct him? Why am I the only one they get across to? Other boom-mikes representing other networks plus radio station interviewers on foot now were rushing out to thrust up their microphones into the faces of the three tempunauts, especially Addison Doug’s. Doug was already beginning to speak, in response to a question shouted up to him by a reporter. With his boom-mike off, Cassidy couldn’t hear the question, nor Doug’s answer. With reluctance, he signaled for his own boom-mike to trigger on.
‘… before,’ Doug was saying loudly.
‘In what manner, “All this has happened before”?’ the radio reporter, standing close to the car, was saying.
‘I mean,’ US tempunaut Addison Doug declared, his face red and strained, ‘that I have stoo
d here in this spot and said again and again, and all of you have viewed this parade and our deaths at reentry endless times, a closed cycle of trapped time which must be broken.’
‘Are you seeking,’ another reporter jabbered up at Addison Doug, ‘for a solution to the reentry implosion disaster which can be applied in retrospect so that when you do return to the past you will be able to correct the malfunction and avoid the tragedy which cost - or for you three, will cost - your lives?’
Tempunaut Benz said, ‘We are doing that, yes.’
‘Trying to ascertain the cause of the violent implosion and eliminate the cause before we return,’ tempunaut Crayne added, nodding. ‘We have learned already that, for reasons unknown, a mass of nearly one hundred pounds of miscellaneous Volkswagen motor parts, including cylinders, the head …’
This is awful, Cassidy thought. ‘This is amazing!’ he said aloud, into his neck mike. ‘The already tragically deceased US tempunauts, with a determination that could emerge only from the rigorous training and discipline to which they were subjected - and we wondered why at the time but can clearly see why now - have already analyzed the mechanical slip-up responsible, evidently, for their own deaths, and have begun the laborious process of shifting through and eliminating causes of that slip-up so that they can return to their original launch site and reenter without mishap.’
‘One wonders,’ Branton mumbled onto the air and into his feedback earphone, ‘what the consequences of this alteration of the near past will be. If in reentry they do not implode and are not killed, then they will not - well, it’s too complex for me, Henry, these time paradoxes that Dr Fein at the Time Extrusion Labs in Pasadena has so frequently and eloquently brought to our attention.’