H. L. Gold (ed), page 79
“How do you feel about being cut off from your own time?” she asked suddenly. “You’re in a pretty tough spot, too.”
Mazurin realized that he hadn’t had time to wonder how he did feel about it. He imagined the technicians back at the Physics Bureau searching through the time-lines, finding him by some improbable chance, and yanking him back. He had a clear vision of the expression on the face of his square-jawed superior when that worthy read his report.
He shuddered.
“What’s the matter?”
“If I got back now,” said Mazurin, “they’d give me one year in the Black House and then turn my totem upside down and demote me to the Cleanliness Inspection Squad.”
“Why? Because your mission wasn’t successful?”
“Well, that isn’t exactly the way my chief would put it. He’d say I was a disgusting ghoul with the moral fiber of a cuckoo, who would pick his teeth with a splinter from his uncle’s coffin.”
“But you did all you could, didn’t you?”
Mazurin conscientiously reviewed his activities of the day before. “I guess I did, but that doesn’t matter. They go by results.”
“H’m,” said Eve. “So does Buck-tooth Blodgett. How did you happen to go to work for the—what is it?”
“Internal Security Commission,” said Mazurin.
“It would be. Fancy name for secret police, isn’t it? Well, how did you happen to join up?”
“Why,” said Mazurin in astonishment, “I was selected. When I was fifteen. Those decisions can’t be left to individuals.”
She stopped and stared at him, wide-eyed. “And you think that’s the best of all possible worlds? Even Blodgett hasn’t pulled anything quite as rank as that yet. But he will, I can see.”
She moved on, and Mazurin followed her, puzzled. “How else would you do it?” he inquired.
“Free choice,” she said curtly. “Government does its best to provide equal opportunities for everybody, and you choose what you want to be.”
“Ah,” said Mazurin shrewdly, having swiftly found the illogicality, “but who would want to go into the ISC?”
“Yes,” she agreed, “who?”
Mazurin mulled that over for a while.
“It wouldn’t work,” he said finally. “You could never get people to agree to it, in my time. It goes directly contrary to the teachings of our ancestors.”
“Exactly,” she said.
Half an hour later, Mazurin was still thinking about the implications of that remark.
They stopped when they got to another small stream that Charlie and Eve seemed to recognize. Charlie washed his face and hands, swore because he had no razor, and looked suspiciously at Mazurin’s pinkly beardless chin.
“Depilatory cream,” Mazurin told him. “Stuns the follicles for a month. Invented about 2050, I think.”
Charlie grunted, but looked half-convinced.
“Let me have those sandals,” he said. He put them on and climbed along to the top of the next ridge. He looked cautiously over, then waved to Eve and disappeared over the top.
“What now?” asked Mazurin.
“We wait here,” said Eve shortly. “There’s a town up ahead where one of our contacts lives. Charlie’s going in to see if it’s safe.”
He was back in half an hour, wearing shoes and carrying Mazurin’s sandals wrapped in a bundle. He looked worried. “There’s hell to pay,” he told Eve, then turned to Mazurin. “I guess you’re on the level, all right. Those cockeyed things of yours—the tweedledums and so forth—have been popping up all over this area for the last twenty-four hours. The Worstas are going crazy. They can’t figure it out, and it scares them. The place is swarming with troops and no-goods.”
“National Guardsmen,” Eve explained to Mazurin, seeing his puzzled look. “N. G.—no good. They’re a bunch of picked stinkers, probably about like your ICS. Anybody ever call your crowd the Icks, by the way?”
Charlie made an impatient gesture, cutting off Mazurin’s reply. “Here’s what we’re up against,” he said. “Bauernfeind got through to H.Q. all right, and they’ll send a ‘copter in time to get us to rendezvous. But the woods are full of patrols—we’re lucky we haven’t been picked up before now. The only place we’ll be safe is in Bauernfeind’s sub-cellar.”
He stared at Mazurin’s outlandish costume. “You and I probably can get through all right, one at a time,” he said to Eve, “but he’s a problem. I was ready to ditch him if we had to, but Bauernfeind says we’ve got to take him along; the Central Council wants him. We couldn’t figure out any way to take those cuffs off, without bringing a machine shop out here. Best we could think of was this.”
He unfolded his bundle and produced a long-sleeved robe, a pair of scissors, needles and thread. “There are two or three, different sects in the hills around here,” he explained. “This isn’t quite the color any of ‘em wear—Bauernfeind got it from a theatrical costumer’s—but he thinks it will pass. We’ll have to cut it open, so he can get his arms into the sleeves, and then sew him into it.” He picked up the scissors and spread the robe out over his knees.
“No, not that way,” said Eve, and took the scissors from him. “Underneath, where it won’t show.” She rapidly snipped the robe apart, starting in the middle of. the chest, upward to the end of each sleeve.
The result looked like nothing that would ever serve as a garment again, but she slipped it over Mazurin’s head, brought the dangling top part over his shoulders and, working swiftly, sewed it into shape again.
“That’ll hold,” she said, “if you don’t wave your arms around. Remember, you’ve got your hands clasped in meditation, and you keep your eyes down. What about those sandals, Charlie?”
“Half the crackpots in California wear them,” he said. “And that long hair of his looks natural in this getup. Let’s move along.”
Mazurin did as he was told. His head ached miserably, and it seemed to him that his situation was getting worse by the minute. From the time that he had been captured by the Worstas, he’d had no power of decision whatever; and even worse, he still had no idea what he could do if he were free to do it.
Mazurin walked forward mechanically, still only half attentive. Just suppose he were to settle down in this century—providing he could get out of this present mess alive. Suppose he married and had progeny. That would obviously make him an ancestor, from the viewpoint of his own time. Then it would be just as important to save his own neck as anybody else’s! …
Wait a minute, there was something funny about that line of reasoning. Everybody, theoretically, could continue his own line. So when was an ancestor an object of veneration and when was he just a person? It couldn’t be merely a matter of elapsed time, could it? Because elapsed time was subjective, an abstraction, a point of view. From where he was now, the world he came from didn’t even exist; it was just a remote future possibility. But—
It was too much. Mazurin thought he saw the glimmer of a final answer, but he couldn’t pursue it. It made him feel dizzy when he tried.
They clambered cautiously up to the top of the ridge, reconnoitered, and went down the other side to where a dusty road showed through the trees. Directly ahead of them, when they reached the road, were the outskirts of a small, weatherbeaten town. They waited for twenty minutes before a squad of soldiers hanging around in front of a warehouse decided to go elsewhere. Twice they heard distant shots, and once a confused sound of yelling.
Mazurin sighed with relief when they finally reached a fairly well-populated street. Mingling with the crowd, Charlie in front, then Mazurin, and Eve bringing up the rear, they weren’t conspicuous, but as a group they had been decidedly peculiar. And if they looked nervous, he decided, it was in character; so did most of the people he saw around him. Every block or so they passed a patrol of green-uniformed men, hands on the straps of their slung missile weapons, looking alertly to each side as they walked.
The three bunched momentarily as they waited for a traffic light to change, and Charlie murmured, “Two blocks more, then half a block to the right. It’s the place called ‘Hi-Tone Tailors.’ Go straight to the back and down the stairs.”
He stopped talking as a green-uniformed officer paused nearby and glanced at them. The light changed and they started across the street. Mazurin kept his eyes down, as directed, even when a loud whirring noise approached him from behind and hovered over him. Immediately thereafter, something mushy hit him on the head and slithered down his face, blinding him momentarily.
He heard startled cries around him. The next instant, the mushy something had reached his nose and was trying to crawl up it. Strangling, Mazurin unwarily opened his mouth, and the stuff crawled into that, too. He swallowed as much as he could—it was lemon-flavored—and spat the rest.
He looked up just in time to see another glob hurtling toward him. He flung up his hands instinctively, and heard the popping threads as Eve’s hasty stitching gave way.
Above him the flangs were raining down. The whirring noise, he found, proceeded from the blades of a helicopter that was hovering over the intersection. Two green-uniformed men in its cab were leaning out to peer in amazement and horror at the four loudspeaker horns fixed to its underside. From these, in an apparently endless flow, issued the flangs. They were piling up underfoot now, climbing up people’s trouser legs, squirming in a custardy wave toward the comparative darkness of doorways.
Desperately, Mazurin warded off another yellow blob, leaped the writhing form of a fat citizen who had flangs in his pants, and then lost his own footing, skidding half the width of the street and fetching up against a green-uniformed soldier. He saw the soldier’s eyes widen as he caught sight of the wristcuffs. Then there was a shout and a whirl of motion, and something hard struck him solidly on the back of the head.
Light brought him to: blinding, hot yellow light that shone through his closed lids and made his eyes water fiercely. He tried instinctively to turn his head aside, and found he couldn’t. For a moment he couldn’t orient himself; he was being put to the question, that was obvious, but what for? He hadn’t done anything—or had he ? How had he made out on that time mission ? He had a dim recollection of something unpleasant…
The rest of the memories came back then, and Mazurin groaned. He was in the hands of the Worstas again, those peculiarly unpleasant ancestors who were incredibly the founders of his own state; and some of the police methods in this century were crude, he remembered.
They’d got the other two, undoubtedly. They’d all been close together when the flangs started falling, and the soldiers would have rounded up everybody in sight after they caught him. Now it was going to be bad. Now it was going to be very bad.
He heard a sudden “Ouch!” and then a stifled shriek. A moment later he understood the reason; something needle-sharp was jabbed an inch into his left buttock. He added his outcry to the others, whereupon a voice said, “They’re ready, Mr. President.”
“Proceed,” said a slightly lisping voice. “Begin with the girl.”
“Your name is Gertrude Meyer?” said the other.
Mazurin heard the girl gasp. She said, “Yes.”
“You are a member of the underground society of wreckers and assassins known as the Freedom Party, and you are known to your co-conspirators as Eve?”
Again the gasp, and again, “Yes.”
“You are aware of a plot to assassinate the President?” The gasp, a pause, then another gasp. “Yes!” “What is the nature of this plot?” This time Eve sobbed. “Oh, don’t do that—oh!” “What is the nature of this plot?”
“Oh! I don’t know—” She shrieked and then Mazurin heard her weeping. “I’ll never tell you—oh!—anything. Oh!”
Mazurin found himself struggling like a wild man against his shackles. He had an idea he knew what they were doing to Eve; it was a traditional method of interrogating females, so they’d probably had it even this early. It was very nearly infallible, and very unpleasant to think about.
Eve’s cries grew louder and more frequent. Finally she screamed and there was silence for a while. Then the interrogation began again. After twenty minutes, Eve began telling all she knew.
It was a primitive plot, and it seemed to Mazurin that it could have had only a slender chance of success even in so barbaric an era as this one. In his own time, nothing whatever would be gained by assassinating the Chief Executive; the next eligible member of the Executive Families would simply take over. What you had to watch out for was thought subversion and heresy.
Here, apparently, the critical area was at the top. Blodgett was so obsessed by the idea that someone in his hierarchy might kick him out, as he’d done to Carres, that he’d made sure that the whole structure would collapse without him.
The Freedom Party knew this, or guessed it, according to Eve. They didn’t know exactly what would happen if they killed Blodgett, but they were pretty sure it would be fatal to the present dictatorial group. In any case, they’d be rid of Blodgett and would, at worst, take their chances on his successor being less brutal.
The time they’d picked was an annual celebration at which Blodgett traditionally showed himself. It was always held in a big outdoor arena, and there would be thousands of spectators. Blodgett would be well guarded, of course, but they couldn’t possibly screen everybody who got into the arena. All the revolutionists needed was an inconspicuous weapon, and it seemed that the underground’s scientists had perfected one about eight months ago and had been turning them out in quantity in a hidden factory. Eve didn’t know where the factory was. She and Charlie were the liaison agents, who were to pick up the completed weapons from other agents and take them to distribution points.
The weapon was a miniature bazooka. Only two inches long, it could be concealed so well that only the most rigorous search would find it, and its range was more than adequate for the job they wanted to do. Accuracy would have been too much to ask for, but they had intended to concentrate the fire of several hundred weapons on the rostrum, and hope that Blodgett would be killed.
The questioners took Eve through the whole story again, then started on Charlie. He held out for a few minutes, but he talked. He knew no more than Eve.
Then it was Mazurin’s turn.
The first question was: “What is your name?” and it was followed instantly by the touch of warm metal on the back of his hand.
Only a reminder, Mazurin guessed. They thought he was valuable and wanted to be very careful not to injure him seriously; but if he didn’t answer satisfactorily, the iron would get hotter. And many things, Mazurin knew, could be done with iron not hot enough to burn.
He answered the question with his full name. The next was, “Where do you come from?” He told the truth, not expecting to be believed, but unable to think of any lie that would be more credible.
There was a muttered consultation, then, “Do you maintain that you can tell us about events which are to us in the future, because your knowledge of what is to you history?”
Mazurin said, “Yes, only—”
Blodgett’s lisping voice interrupted him. “That’s enough. General, this information is restricted. Take him into my private office. I will continue the interrogation personally.”
The light clicked off, and Mazurin felt the shackles being loosened.
“Prisoner, have you given any of this information to these other two?”
Mazurin hesitated, trying to figure out which was the dangerous answer, yes or no. The President’s voice said, “Never mind, General. I will assume that he has. Bring all three of them into my private office. Here, give me those manacle keys.”
Someone hauled Mazurin off the table on which he had been lying and locked his wrists together. He was able to open his smarting eyes after a moment, but he could see nothing except the after-image of the brilliant interrogation light. Hands turned him, pushed him, caught him when he staggered and kept him moving. He heard the shuffle of other feet. Eve was crying quietly.
A door was opened ahead of them. Mazurin was led forward a few steps and then shoved into a deep cushioned chair. Footsteps receded and the door shut again. Deep silence fell instantly, punctuated by their breathing and the President’s soft footsteps, then the slight creak of a swivel chair.
“Now,” said Blodgett’s voice, apparently from some little distance. “We are entirely private here; this room is soundproof and spyproof. Tell me all about the future of my regime, Mr. Mazurin—and, I warn you, tell me the truth.”
Mazurin’s vision was clearing rapidly. Directly ahead of him, twenty feet away across a deep carpet and a huge polished desk, sat Blodgett. He didn’t look anything like the pictures in the histories. He was short and plump, and he looked crafty and nervous and worried. Mazurin glanced to his right. There was a row of chairs like his own, and in two of them, manacled like himself, were Eve and Charlie. Eve was bent over with her head in her hands; Charlie was rigid and stony-faced.
Perhaps the history books had idealized Blodgett’s appearance. It didn’t matter. Mazurin was in the Presence and he was awed.
“In case any of you are thinking of attempting violence against me,” remarked Blodgett, “don’t.” He showed them a heavy little machine-gun, mounted on a wheeled frame, that stood on his desk. “You are too far away, and those extremely comfortable chairs are ingenuously hard to get out of. Also, this room contains a minor arsenal. I could fight off a regiment here, if I had to. Now, Mr. Mazurin, talk. You needn’t be afraid of telling the truth, whether you think I’ll like it or not. You’re a mine of information, and I expect to be able to use you for a long time to come. So tell me the unvarnished truth.” Mazurin told him.
Blodgett smiled at the end of it. “One thing more, Mr. Mazurin. At what age will I die?”
“I don’t remember exactly, Your Honor. About eighty, as I recall.”
“Good, good,” said Blodgett. “Surprisingly good.” He took a seedless grape from the bowl in front of him and popped it into his mouth. “You are sure, Mr. Mazurin, that you have not colored this tale to please my fancy? No, I can see that you are sincere; you have no reason to lie.”
