Collected Short Fiction, page 384
He held his breath as the one-hundred-twenty-eight-ship rank entered the cul-de-sac. Now for the test. He stared at the mass-detector intently as the two biggest Klodni formations moved toward him. Two hundred fifty ships each, the hammers of the Klodni forces—
Gone.
Gone, all of them. The massdetector was utterly blank. There was not a Klodni ship anywhere within detectable range. Ewing felt limp with relief. He disconnected the transfer mechanism, clamping down knife-switches with frenzied zeal. The gulf was sealed, now. There was no possible way back for the trapped Klodni ships.
He could break radio silence now. He sent a brief, laconic message: “Klodni fleet destroyed. Am returning to home base.”
One man had wiped out an armada. He chuckled in relief of the crushing tension.
He wondered briefly what the puzzled Klodni would think and say and do when they found themselves in the midst of a trackless void, without stars, without planets. No doubt they would proceed on across space in search of some place to land, while their provisions became exhausted, their fuel disappeared, while old age and death claimed them. Eventually even their ships would crumble, and would be gone.
According to the best scientific theory, the stars of the galaxy were between five and six billion years old. The range of the Earther time-projector was nearly infinite.
Ewing had hurled the Klodni fleet nine billion years into the past. He shuddered at the thought, and turned his tiny ship homeward, to Corwin.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RETURN VOYAGE seemed to take days. Ewing lay awake in the protecting cradle, staring through the open vision-plate at the blurred splendor of the heavens as the ship shot through not-space at super-light velocities. At these speeds, the stars appeared as blotchy pastel things; the constellations did not exist.
Curiously, he felt no sense of triumph. He had saved Corwin, true—and in that sense, he had achieved the goal in whose name he had set out on his journey across space to Earth. But he felt as if his work were incomplete.
He thought, not of Corwin now, but of Earth. Two years had gone by on the mother world since his departure; certainly, time enough for the Sirians to make their move.
And Myreck and the others—well, perhaps they had survived, hidden three microseconds out of phase. But more likely they had been caught and put to death, like the potential dangers they were.
Guiltily Ewing told himself, as he lay pinioned in the foam cradle, that there was nothing he could have done. Earth’s doom was fore-ordained, self-inflicted. He had saved his own world; there was no helping Earth.
There was a way, something in his mind said reproachfully. There still is a way.
Leave Corwin. Cross space once again, return to Earth, lead the hapless little Earthers in a struggle for freedom. All they needed was a man with the bold vigor of the outworld colonies. Leadership was what they lacked. They outnumbered the Sirians a thousand to one. In any kind of determined rising, they could win free easily. But they needed a focal point; they needed a leader.
You could be that leader, something within him insisted. Go back to Earth.
Savagely he forced the idea to die. His place was on Corwin, where he was a hero, where his wife and child and home awaited him. Earth had to work out its own pitiful destinies.
He tried to relax. The ship plummeted onward through not-space, toward Corwin.
IT SEEMED that the whole populace turned out to welcome him. He could see them from above, as he maneuvered the ship through the last of its series of inward spirals and let it come gently to rest on the ferroconcrete landing surface of Broughton Spacefield.
He let the decontaminating squad do its work, while he watched the massed crowd assembled beyond the barriers. Finally, when the ship and the area around it were both safely cool, he stepped out.
The roar was deafening.
There were thousands of them there. In the front he saw Laira and Blade, and the Prime Minister, and the Council. University people. Newsmen. People, people, people. Ewing’s first impulse was to shrink back into the lonely comfort of his ship. Instead, he compelled himself to walk forward toward the crowd.
Somehow he reached Laira and got his arms around her. He smiled; she said something, but her voice was crushed by the uproar. He read her lips instead. She was saying, “I was counting the seconds till you got back, darling.”
He kissed her. He hugged Blade to him. He smiled to Davidson and to all of them, and wondered quietly why he had been born with the particular conglomeration of personality traits that had brought him to this destiny, on this world, on this day.
He was a hero. He had ended a threat that had destroyed six worlds.
Corwin was safe.
He was swept inside, carried off to the World Building, smuggled into Prime Minister Davidson’s private chambers. There, while officers of the peace kept the curiosity-seekers away, Ewing dictated for the airwaves a full account of what he had done, while smiling friends looked on.
There were parades outside. He could hear the noise from where he sat, seventy-one floors above the street level. A world that had lived under sentence of death for six years found itself miraculously reprieved. It was small wonder the emotional top was blowing off.
Sometime toward evening, they let him go home. He had not slept for more than thirty hours.
A cavalcade of official cars convoyed him out of the capital city and toward the suburban area where he lived. They told him a guard would be placed round his house, to assure him continued privacy. He thanked them all, wished them good night, and entered his house. The door shut behind him, shutting out the noise, the celebration, the acclaim. He was just Baird Ewing of Corwin again, in his own home. He felt very tired. He felt hollow within, as if he were not a hero but a villain despite himself. And it showed.
Laira said, “That trip didn’t change you, did it?”
He blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I thought that the cloud of whatever-it-is would lift from you. That you were worried about the invasion and everything. But I guess I was wrong. We’re safe, now—and something’s still eating you.”
He tried to laugh it off. “Laira, you’re just overtired. You’ve been worrying too much yourself. Why don’t you get some sleep?”
She shook her head. “No, Baird. I’m serious. I know you too well; I see something in your eyes. Trouble, of some kind.” She put her hands round his wrists and stared up into his eyes. “Baird, something happened to you on Earth that you haven’t told me about. I’m your wife. I ought to know about it, if there’s anything—”
“There’s nothing! Nothing.” He looked away. “Let’s go to sleep, Laira. I’m exhausted.”
But he lay in bed turning restlessly, and despite his exhaustion sleep did not come.
How can I go back to Earth? he asked himself bitterly. My loyalties lie here. Earth will have to take care of itself—and if it can’t more’s the pity.
It was a hollow rationalization, and he knew it. He lay awake half the night, brooding, twisting, drowning in his own agonized perspiration.
He thought:
Three men died so I could return to Corwin safely. Two of them were deliberate, voluntary suicides. I owe them a debt. I owe Earth a debt, for making possible Corwin’s salvation.
Three men died for me. Do I have any right to be selfish?
Then he thought:
When Laira married me, she thought she was getting Citizen Baird Ewing, period. She wasn’t marrying any heroes, any world-savers. She didn’t ask the Council to pick me for its trip to Earth. But she went through two years of widowhood because they did pick me.
How could I tell her I was leaving, going to Earth for good? Leaving her without a husband, and Blade without a father? It simply isn’t fair to them. I can’t do it.
And then he thought:
There must be a compromise. A way I can serve the memory of the dead Baird Ewings and be fair to my family as well. There has to be some kind of compromise.
There was. The answer came to him shortly before morning, crystal-sharp, bearing with it no doubts, no further anxiety. He saw what his path must be. With the answer came a welling tide of peace, and he drifted into sound sleep, confident he had found the right way at last.
PRIME MINISTER Davidson, on behalf of the grateful people of the world of Corwin, called on him the next morning. Davidson told him he might pick anything, anything at all as his reward.
Ewing chuckled. “I’ve got everything I want already,” he said. “Fame, fortune, family—what else is there in life?”
Shrugging, the rotund little Prime Minister said, “But surely there must be some fitting—”
“There is,” Ewing said. “Suppose—suppose you grant me the freedom of poking around with those notebooks I brought back with me from Earth. All right?”
“Certainly, if that’s what you want. But can that be all that—”
“There’s just one other thing I want. No, two. The first one may be tough. I want to be left alone. I want to get out of the limelight. No medals, no public receptions, no more parades. I did the job the Council sent me to do, and now I want to return to private life.
“As for the second thing—well, I won’t mention it yet. Let’s just put it this way: when the time comes, I’m going to want a favor from the Government. It’ll be an expensive favor, but not terribly so. I’ll let you know what it is I want, when and if I want it.”
Slowly the notoriety ebbed away, and he returned to private life as he had wished. His life would never be the same again, but there was no help for that.
A month passed. The tenseness seemed to have left him. He discovered that his son was turning into a miniature replica of his father—tall, taciturn, with the same inner traits of courage, dependability, conscience. It was a startling thing to watch the boy unfold as if leaving the chrysalis of childhood, becoming a personality.
It was too bad, Ewing thought, as he wrestled with his son or touched his wife’s arm, that he would have to be leaving them soon. He would regret parting with them. But at least they would be spared any grief.
A second month passed. The apparatus he was building in his basement, in the sacrosanct den that neither Blade nor Laira ever dared to enter, was nearing completion. The time was drawing near.
He ran the final tests on a warm midsummer day. The machine responded perfectly. The time had come.
He called upstairs via the intercom housephone. Laira was reading in the study; Blade was watching the video. “Blade? Laira?”
“We’re here, Baird. What do you want?” Laira asked.
Ewing said, “I’ll be running some very delicate experiments during the next twenty minutes or so. Any shift in the room balance might foul things up. Would you both be kind enough to stay put, in whatever room you’re in now, until I give the signal from downstairs?”
“Of course, darling.”
Ewing smiled and hung up. Quite carefully he took a massive crowbar from his tool-chest and propped it up at the side of the wall, near the outer door of the den. He glanced at his watch. The time was 1403:30.
He recrossed the room and made some final adjustments on the apparatus. He stared at his watch, letting the minutes go by. Six, seven, eight . . .
Ac 1411:30 he reached up and snapped a switch. The machinery hummed briefly and threw him back ten minutes in time.
CHAPTER XIX
HE WAS HOVERING inches in the air above his own front lawn. He dropped, landing gently, and looked at his watch. The dial said 1401:30.
At this very moment, he knew, his earlier self was on the housephone, calling upstairs to Laira. Ewing moistened his lips. This would take careful coordination.
On tiptoe he ran round the house, entering at the side door that led to his basement workshop. He moved stealthily down the inner corridor until he was only a few feet from the workshop door.
There was an intercom outlet mounted in the hall. Gently he lifted the receiver from the hook and put it to his ear.
He heard himself say, “Any shift in the room balance might foul things up. Would you both be kind enough to stay put, in whatever room you’re in now, until I give the signal from downstairs?”
“Of course, darling,” Laira’s voice responded.
Outside, in the hall, Ewing looked at his watch. It read 1403:10. He waited a moment. At 1403:30 he heard the faint clink as the crowbar was propped up against the wall near the door.
So far, everything was right on schedule.
He edged forward and peered through the partly open door into the workshop. A familiar-looking figure sat with his back to the door, hunched over the time-projector on the table, making fine adjustments preparatory to jumping back in time ten minutes.
His watch said 1405:15.
He stepped quickly into the room and snatched up the crowbar he had so carefully provided for himself. He crossed the room in four quick bounds; his double, absorbed in his work, did not notice until Ewing put his hand on the shoulder of the other and lifted him away from the workbench. In the same motion he swung the crowbar; it smashed into the main section of the time-projector, sending it tumbling to the floor in a tingling crash of breaking tubes and crumbling circuits.
“I hated to do that,” he remarked casually. “It represented a lot of work. But you know why I did it.”
“Y-yes,” the other said uncertainly. The two men faced each other over the wreckage of the projector, Baird Ewing facing Baird Ewing, the only difference between them being that one held a crowbar ready for further use. Ewing prayed Laira had not heard the crash. Everything would be ruined if she chose this moment to violate the sanctity of his workroom.
He said, slowly, to his double: “You know who I am and why I’m here, don’t you? And where I came from?”
The other ruefully stared down at the wreckage. “I guess so. You got there ahead of me, didn’t you? You’re one notch up on me in the absolute time-track.”
Ewing nodded. “Exactly. And keep your voice down. I don’t want any trouble from you.”
“You’re determined to do it?”
Ewing nodded again. “Listen to me very carefully, now. I’m going to take my—our—car and drive into Broughton. I’m going to make a call to Prime Minister Davidson. Then I’m going to drive out to the spaceport, get into a ship, and leave. That’s the last you’ll ever hear from me.
“In the meantime—you’re to stay down here until at least 1420 or so. Then call upstairs to Laira and tell her you’ve finished the experiment. Sweep up the wreckage, and if you’re a wise man you won’t build any more of these gadgets in the future. From now on, no extra Baird Ewings. You’ll be the only one. And take good care of Laira and Blade. I love them too.”
“Wait a minute,” the other Ewing said. “You’re not being fair.”
“To whom?”
“To yourself. Look, I’m as much Baird Ewing as you are. And it’s as much my responsibility to—to leave Corwin as it is yours. You don’t have any right to take it upon yourself to give up everything you love. Let’s flip a coin to see who goes, at least.”
Ewing shook his head. In a quiet, flat voice he said, “No. I go. I’ve watched too many alter egos of mine sacrifice themselves to keep me safe and sound.”
“So have I, remember?”
Ewing shrugged. “That’s tough for you, then. But this is my ride through the timetrack, and I’m going. You stay here and nurse your guilty conscience, if you like. But you shouldn’t moan too much. You’ll have Laira and Blade. And Baird Ewing will be doing what he ought to be doing, as well.”
“But—”
Ewing lifted the crowbar menacingly. “I don’t want to skull you, brother. Accept defeat gracefully.”
He looked at his watch. It was 1410. He walked to the door and said, “The car will be parked at the spaceport. You figure out some explanation for how it got there.”
He turned and walked out.
The car was waiting in its garage; he touched his finger to the burglar-proof identiplate that controlled the garage door, and the car came out. He got in, switched on the directional guide, and left via the back route, so no one in the house could see him.
As soon as he was comfortably distant from the house, he snapped on the phone circuit and gave the operator Prime Minister Davidson’s number, in the World Building.
After a short pause, Davidson acknowledged.
“Hello, Baird. What’s on your mind?”
“A favor. You owe me one, remember? I asked for carte-blanche the day after the Klodni thing.”
Davidson chuckled. “I haven’t forgotten about it, Baird. Well?”
“I want to borrow a spaceship,” Ewing said quietly. “A one-man ship. The same sort of ship I used to get to Earth in, a couple of years ago.”
“A spaceship?” The Prime Minister sounded incredulous. “What would you be wanting a spaceship for?”
“That doesn’t matter. An experiment of mine, let’s say. I asked for a favor, and you said you’d grant it. Are you backing down, now?”
“No, no, of course not. But—”
“Yes. I want a spaceship. I’m on my way to Broughton Spacefield now. Will you phone ahead of me and tell them to release a military-owned one-man job for me, or won’t you?”
IT WAS nearly 1500 when he reached the spacefield. He left his car in the special parking lot and made it on foot across to the trim little building used by the military wing of Corwin’s government.
He asked for and was taken to the commanding officer on duty. The officer turned out to be a wry-faced colonel who looked up questioningly as Ewing entered his office.
“You’re Ewing, of course.”
“That’s right. Did Prime Minister Davidson phone?”
The colonel nodded. “He authorized me to give you one of our one-man ships. I guess I don’t have to ask if you can operate it, do I?”
Ewing grinned and said, “I guess not.”
“The ship’s on Field B right now, being serviced for you. It’ll be fully fueled, of course. How long are you planning to stay aloft?”
