Heinlein, Robert A - Time Enough for Love, page 44
*
Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers.
*
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
*
Don’t store garlic near other victuals.
*
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
*
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament—it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can’t avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.
*
Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing’ what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who Wants “just a few minutes of your time, please—this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.)
*
“I came, I saw, she conquered.” (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.)
*
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
*
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
*
Don’t try to have the last word. You might get it.
VARIATIONS ON A THEME
XIII
Boondock
“Ira,” said Lazarus Long, “have you looked at this list?” He was lounging in the office of Colony Leader Ira Weatheral at Boondock, largest (only) settlement on the planet Tertius. With them was Justin Foote 45th, freshly arrived from New Rome, Secundus.
“Lazarus, Arabelle addressed that letter to you. Not to me.”
“That preposterous puff-gut will get me annoyed yet. Her Extreme Ubiquity Madam Chairman Pro Tem Arabelle Foote-Hedrick seems to think she has been crowned Queen of the Howards. I’m tempted to go back and pick up that gavel.”
Lazarus passed the list to Weatheral. “Give it a gander, Ira. Justin, did you have anything to do with this?”
“No, Senior. Arabelle told me to deliver it and instructed me to brief you in ways to insure delivery of Delay Mail from various eras—which does present problems for pre-Diaspora dates. But I don’t consider her ideas practical. If I may say so, I know more Terran history than she does.”
“I’m certain you do. I think she cribbed that list from an encyclopedia. Don’t bother me with her notions. Oh, you can transcribe them and give me the cube, but I shan’t play it. I want your ideas. Justin.”
“Thank you, Ancestor—”
“Call me ‘Lazarus.’”
“‘Lazarus.’ The official reason for my visit is to report to her on this colony—”
“Justin,” Ira put in quickly, “does Arabelle think she has jurisdiction over Tertius?”
“I’m afraid so, Ira.”
Lazarus snorted. “Well, she hasn’t. But she’s so far away it can’t hurt if she wants to call herself ‘Empress of Tertius.’ Our situation is this, Justin. Ira is Colony Leader, we are still shaking down. I’m Mayor—Ira does the work, but I bang the gavel at community meetings—there are always colonists who think that a colony can operate like a big-city planet, so I preside to throw cold water on damfoolishness. When I’m ready to start this time-travel junket, we’ll eliminate the job of Colony Leader and Ira will take over as Mayor.
“But feel free to look over the joint, count noses, examine any records, do as you like. Welcome to Tertius, the biggesi little colony this side of Galactic Center. Make yourself at home, son.”
“Thank you. Lazarus, I would be staying—colonizing—but I want to remain Chief Archivist until I finish editing your memoirs.”
Lazarus said, “Oh, that junk—burn it up! Gather ye rosebuds, man!”
Ira said, “Lazarus, don’t talk that way. I put up with your whims for years to get it on record.”
“Piffle. I paid you back when I grabbed the gavel and kept the Ugly Duchess from banishing you to Felicity. You got what you want—why do you care about my memoirs?”
“I care.”
“Well— Maybe Justin can edit them here. Athene! Pallas Athene, are you there, honey?”
“Listening, Lazarus,” came a sweet soprano voice from a speaker over Ira’s desk.
“Your memories include my memoirs, do they not?”
“Certainly, Lazarus. Every word you’ve spoken since Ira rescued you—”
“Not ‘rescued,’ dear. Kidnapped.”
“Revision. —since Ira kidnapped you from that flophouse, and all your earlier memoirs.”
“Thanks, dear. You see, Justin? If you must do buttonsorting, do it here. Unless you have unfinished business on Secundus? Family, or such?”
“No family. Grown children but no wife. My deputy is doing my job, and I’ve nominated her as my successor— subject to approval by the Trustees. But I find myself startled. Uh—how about my ship?”
“My ship, you mean. I don’t mean my yacht ‘Dora’ but that one-man autopacket you arrived in. The ‘Homing Pigeon.’ Belongs to a corporation owned by another corporation of which I am major stockholder. I’ll accept delivery and that saves Arabelle half the lease time.”
“So? Madam Chairman Pro Tem did not lease that auto-packet, Lazarus; she requisitioned it for public service.”
“Well, well!” Lazarus grinned. “Maybe I’ll sue her. Justin, there is nothing in the Articles of Contract under which Secundus was colonized that permits requisition of private property by the state. Correct, Ira?”
“Technically correct, Lazarus. Although there is long precedent for eminent domain in land.”
“Ira, I’d argue even that. But have you ever heard of it being applied to spaceships?”
“Never. Unless you count the ‘New Frontiers.’”
“Ouch! Ira, I didn’t requisition the ‘New Frontiers’; I stole it to save our skins.”
“I was thinking of Slayton Ford’s part in it, not yours. Constructive requisitioning, perhaps?”
“Mmm— It’s pretty small of you to bring it up a couple of thousand years after his death. Furthermore, had Slayton not, done what he did, I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be here. Nor any of us. Damn you, Ira.”
“Get your feathers down, Grandfather. I was just pointing out that a head of state sometimes has to do things he would never do as a private individual. But if Arabelle can requisition the ‘Homing Pigeon’ when it sits on Secundus, then you can do the same on Tertius. You are each head of state of an autonomous planet. Teach her a lesson.”
“Uh...Ira, don’t tempt me. It happened to me once. If it got to be a habit, it would put a stop to interstellar travel. I won’t touch that bucket under any such flimsy legality. But I do own it, indirectly, and if Justin wants to stay, he can turn it over to me, and I’ll return it to Transport Enterprises. Let’s get back to that list. See what the old bat wants? The times and places she wants me to report on?”
“Looks like an interesting itinerary.”
“It does, eh? Then you do it. ‘Battle of Hastings—First, Third, and Fourth Crusades—Battle of Orleans—Fall of Constantinople—French Revolution—Battle of Waterloo.’ Thermopylae and nineteen other encounters between rough strangers. I’m surprised she didn’t ask me to referee the bout between David and Goliath. I’m chicken, Ira. I fight when I can’t run—how does she think I managed to live so long? Bloodshed is not a spectator sport. If history says that a battle took place at a given location on a particular day, then I’ll be somewhere—or somewhen—far away, sitting in a tavern, drinking beer and pinching the barmaids. Not dodging mortar fire to feed Arabelle’s ghoulish curiosity.”
“I tried to suggest that,” said Justin. “But she said that this was an official Families’ project.”
“The hell it is. I told her about it simply to be sure of the Delay Mail setup. I’m a coward by trade…and not working for her. I’ll go where and when I please, see what I want to— and try not to antagonize local yokels. Especially those fighting each other; it makes ‘em trigger-happy.”
“Lazarus,” said Ira Weatheral, “you never have said what you do plan to see.”
“Well— No battles. Battles are well enough reported for my taste. But there are lots of interesting things in Terran history—peaceful things not well reported because they were peaceful. I want to see the Parthenon at the peak of its glory. Cruise down the Mississippi with Sam Clemens as pilot. Go to Palestine in the first three decades of the Christian Era and try to locate a certain carpenter turned rabbi—settle whether there ever was such a man.”
Justin Foote looked surprised. “You mean the Christian Messiah? Admittedly many stories about him are myths, but—”
“How do you know they are myths? But that he ever lived is the point that has never been established. Take Socrates, four centuries earlier—his historicity is as firmly established as that of Napoleon. Not so with the Carpenter of Nazareth. Despite the care with which the Romans kept records and the equal care with which the Jews kept theirs, none of the events that should be on record can be found in contemporary records.
“But if I devoted thirty years to it, I could find out. I know Latin and Greek of that time and I’m almost as conversant with classic Hebrew; all I would have to add is Aramaic. If I found him, I could follow him around. Take down his words with a microrecorder, see if they match what he is alleged to have said.
“But I won’t take any bets. The historicity of Jesus is the slipperiest question in all history because for centuries the question couldn’t be raised. They would hang you for asking—or burn you at the stake.”
“I’m amazed,” said Ira. “My knowledge of Earth’s history isn’t as thorough as I thought it was. However, I concentrated on the period from Ira Howard’s death to the founding of New Rome.”
“Son, you didn’t even sample it. But aside from this one weird story—’weird’ because most major religious leaders are heavily documented whereas this one remains as elusive as the King Arthur legends—I’m not going after great events. I’d rather meet Galileo, get a look at Michelangelo at work, attend a first performance of one of old Bill’s plays at the Globe Theater, things like that. I’d particularly like to go back to my own childhood, see if things look as I recall them.”
Ira blinked. “Run a chance of running into yourself?”
“Why not?”
“Well…there are paradoxes, are there not?’
“How? If I’m going to, then I did. That old cliché about shooting your grandfather before he sires your father, then going fuft! like a soap bubble—and all descendants, too, meaning both of you among others—is nonsense. The fact that I’m here and you’re here means that I didn’t do it—or won’t do it; the tenses of grammar aren’t built for time travel—but it does not mean that I never went back and poked around. I haven’t any yen to look at myself when I was a snot-nose; it’s the era that interests me. If I ran across myself as a young kid, he—I—wouldn’t recognize me; I would be a stranger to that brat. He wouldn’t give me a passing glance; I know, I was he.”
“Lazarus,” put in Justin Foote, “if you intend to visit that era, I’d like to invite your attention to one thing Madam Chairman Pro Tem is interested in—because I am interested. A recording of exactly what was said and done at the Families’ Meeting in 2012 A.D.”
“Impossible.”
“Just a moment, Justin,” Ira put in. “Lazarus, you have refused to talk about that meeting on the grounds that the others who were there can’t dispute your version. But a recording would be fair to everyone.”
“Ira, I didn’t say that I would not; I said it was impossible.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I can’t make a recording of that meeting because I was not there.”
“You lost me again. All the records—and your own statements—show that you were there.”
“Again we don’t have language adequate for time travel. Surely, I was there as Woodrow Wilson Smith. I was there and made a hairy nuisance of myself and offended a lot of people. But I did not have a recorder on me. Let’s say that Dora and the twins drop me back there—me, Lazarus Long, not that younger fellow—and that Ishtar has equipped me with a recorder implanted behind my right kidney, with its minimike surfacing inside my right ear. Okay, let’s assume that with such equipment I won’t be noticed making a record.
“But, Ira, what you don’t understand, despite having chaired many Families’ Meetings, is that I would not get inside the hall. In those days an executive meeting of the Families was harder to get into than an esbat of witches. The guards were armed and eager; it was a rough period. What identity could I use? Not Woodrow Wilson Smith; he was there. Lazarus Long? There was no ‘Lazarus Long’ on the Families’ rolls. Try to fake it as someone eligible but not able to attend? Impossible. There were only a few thousand of us then, and every member was known to a large percentage of the rest; a man who couldn’t be vouched for ran a nasty chance of being buried in the basement. No unidentified person ever did get in; we had too much at stake. Hi, Minerva! Come in, honey.”
“Hi, Lazarus. Ira, am I intruding?”
“Not at all, dear.”
“Thank you. Hello, Athene.”
“Hello, my sister.”
Minerva waited to be introduced. Ira said, “Minerva, you remember Justin Foote, Chief Archivist.”
“Certainly, I’ve worked with him many times. Welcome to Tertius, Mr. Foote.”
“Thank you, Miss Minerva.” Justin Foote liked what he saw—a tall, slender young woman with an erect carriage, a small, firm bust, long chestnut hair worn in a part and brushed straight down, a sober, intelligent face, handsome rather than pretty, but which blossomed into beauty each time she gave one of her quick smiles. “But, Ira, I must hurry back to Secundus and apply for rejuvenation. This young lady has worked with me ‘many times’—yet I’ve grown so senile I can’t place the occasions. Forgive me, dear lady.”
Minerva flashed him another of her smiles, then instantly. was sober. “My fault, sir; I should have explained at once. When I worked with you, I was a computer. Executive computer of Secundus, serving Mr. Weatheral, then Chairman Pro Tem. But now I’m a flesh-and-blood, and have been for the past three years.”
Justin Foote blinked. “I see. I hope I do.”
“I am a proscribed construct, sir, not born of woman. A composite clone of twenty-three donor-parents, forced to maturity in vitro. But the ‘I’ that is me, my ego, was the computer who used to work with you when the Archives computers needed assistance from the executive computer. Have I made it clear?”
“Uh…all I can say, Miss Minerva, is that I am delighted to meet you in the flesh. Your servant, Miss.”
“Oh, don’t call me ‘Miss,’ call me ‘Minerva.’ I shouldn’t be called ‘Miss’ anyhow; isn’t that honorific reserved for virgins among flesh-and-bloods? Ishtar—one of my mothers and my chief designer—deflowered me surgically before she woke me.”
“And that ain’t all!” came the voice from the ceiling.
“Athene,” Minerva said reprovingly. “Sister, you’re embarrassing our guest.”
“I’m not, but maybe you are, sister mine.”
“Am I, Mr. Foote? I hope not. But I’m still learning to be a human being. Will you kiss me? I’d like to kiss you; we’ve known each other almost a century and I’ve always liked you. Will you?”
“Now who’s embarrassing him, sister?’
“Minerva,” said Ira.
She suddenly sobered. “I shouldn’t have said that?”
Lazarus cut in. “Pay no attention to Ira, Justin; he’s an old stick-in-the-mud. Minerva is a ‘kissin cousin’ to most of the colony; she’s making up for lost time. Furthermore, she is some sort of cousin to practically all of us through her twenty-three parents. And she’s learned how—kissing her is a treat. Athene, let your sis be while she adds on another kissing cousin.”
“Yes, Lazarus. Ol’ Buddy Boy!”
“Teena, if I could reach through that string of wires, I’d spank you.” Lazarus added, “Go ahead, Justin.”
“Uh…Minerva, I haven’t kissed a girl in many years. Out of practice.”
“Mr. Foote, I do not mean to embarrass you. I am simply delighted to see you again. You need not kiss me. Or if you are willing to kiss me in private, you are most welcome.”
“Don’t risk it, Justin,” advised the computer. “I’m your friend.”
“Athene!”
“I was about to add,” said the Chief Archivist, “that I probably need practice in ‘learning to be a human being’ more than you do. If you’ll put up with my rustiness, Cousin, I accept your sweet offer. Brace yourself.”
Minerva smiled quickly, went into his arms, flowed up against him like a cat, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth. Ira studied a paper on his desk. Lazarus did not even pretend not to watch. He noted that Justin Foote put his heart into the matter—the old buzzard might be out of practice, but he hadn’t forgotten the basics.
When they broke, the computer gave a respectful whistle. “Wheeee…ooooo! Justin, welcome to the Club.”
Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers.
*
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
*
Don’t store garlic near other victuals.
*
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
*
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament—it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can’t avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.
*
Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing’ what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who Wants “just a few minutes of your time, please—this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.)
*
“I came, I saw, she conquered.” (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.)
*
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
*
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
*
Don’t try to have the last word. You might get it.
VARIATIONS ON A THEME
XIII
Boondock
“Ira,” said Lazarus Long, “have you looked at this list?” He was lounging in the office of Colony Leader Ira Weatheral at Boondock, largest (only) settlement on the planet Tertius. With them was Justin Foote 45th, freshly arrived from New Rome, Secundus.
“Lazarus, Arabelle addressed that letter to you. Not to me.”
“That preposterous puff-gut will get me annoyed yet. Her Extreme Ubiquity Madam Chairman Pro Tem Arabelle Foote-Hedrick seems to think she has been crowned Queen of the Howards. I’m tempted to go back and pick up that gavel.”
Lazarus passed the list to Weatheral. “Give it a gander, Ira. Justin, did you have anything to do with this?”
“No, Senior. Arabelle told me to deliver it and instructed me to brief you in ways to insure delivery of Delay Mail from various eras—which does present problems for pre-Diaspora dates. But I don’t consider her ideas practical. If I may say so, I know more Terran history than she does.”
“I’m certain you do. I think she cribbed that list from an encyclopedia. Don’t bother me with her notions. Oh, you can transcribe them and give me the cube, but I shan’t play it. I want your ideas. Justin.”
“Thank you, Ancestor—”
“Call me ‘Lazarus.’”
“‘Lazarus.’ The official reason for my visit is to report to her on this colony—”
“Justin,” Ira put in quickly, “does Arabelle think she has jurisdiction over Tertius?”
“I’m afraid so, Ira.”
Lazarus snorted. “Well, she hasn’t. But she’s so far away it can’t hurt if she wants to call herself ‘Empress of Tertius.’ Our situation is this, Justin. Ira is Colony Leader, we are still shaking down. I’m Mayor—Ira does the work, but I bang the gavel at community meetings—there are always colonists who think that a colony can operate like a big-city planet, so I preside to throw cold water on damfoolishness. When I’m ready to start this time-travel junket, we’ll eliminate the job of Colony Leader and Ira will take over as Mayor.
“But feel free to look over the joint, count noses, examine any records, do as you like. Welcome to Tertius, the biggesi little colony this side of Galactic Center. Make yourself at home, son.”
“Thank you. Lazarus, I would be staying—colonizing—but I want to remain Chief Archivist until I finish editing your memoirs.”
Lazarus said, “Oh, that junk—burn it up! Gather ye rosebuds, man!”
Ira said, “Lazarus, don’t talk that way. I put up with your whims for years to get it on record.”
“Piffle. I paid you back when I grabbed the gavel and kept the Ugly Duchess from banishing you to Felicity. You got what you want—why do you care about my memoirs?”
“I care.”
“Well— Maybe Justin can edit them here. Athene! Pallas Athene, are you there, honey?”
“Listening, Lazarus,” came a sweet soprano voice from a speaker over Ira’s desk.
“Your memories include my memoirs, do they not?”
“Certainly, Lazarus. Every word you’ve spoken since Ira rescued you—”
“Not ‘rescued,’ dear. Kidnapped.”
“Revision. —since Ira kidnapped you from that flophouse, and all your earlier memoirs.”
“Thanks, dear. You see, Justin? If you must do buttonsorting, do it here. Unless you have unfinished business on Secundus? Family, or such?”
“No family. Grown children but no wife. My deputy is doing my job, and I’ve nominated her as my successor— subject to approval by the Trustees. But I find myself startled. Uh—how about my ship?”
“My ship, you mean. I don’t mean my yacht ‘Dora’ but that one-man autopacket you arrived in. The ‘Homing Pigeon.’ Belongs to a corporation owned by another corporation of which I am major stockholder. I’ll accept delivery and that saves Arabelle half the lease time.”
“So? Madam Chairman Pro Tem did not lease that auto-packet, Lazarus; she requisitioned it for public service.”
“Well, well!” Lazarus grinned. “Maybe I’ll sue her. Justin, there is nothing in the Articles of Contract under which Secundus was colonized that permits requisition of private property by the state. Correct, Ira?”
“Technically correct, Lazarus. Although there is long precedent for eminent domain in land.”
“Ira, I’d argue even that. But have you ever heard of it being applied to spaceships?”
“Never. Unless you count the ‘New Frontiers.’”
“Ouch! Ira, I didn’t requisition the ‘New Frontiers’; I stole it to save our skins.”
“I was thinking of Slayton Ford’s part in it, not yours. Constructive requisitioning, perhaps?”
“Mmm— It’s pretty small of you to bring it up a couple of thousand years after his death. Furthermore, had Slayton not, done what he did, I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be here. Nor any of us. Damn you, Ira.”
“Get your feathers down, Grandfather. I was just pointing out that a head of state sometimes has to do things he would never do as a private individual. But if Arabelle can requisition the ‘Homing Pigeon’ when it sits on Secundus, then you can do the same on Tertius. You are each head of state of an autonomous planet. Teach her a lesson.”
“Uh...Ira, don’t tempt me. It happened to me once. If it got to be a habit, it would put a stop to interstellar travel. I won’t touch that bucket under any such flimsy legality. But I do own it, indirectly, and if Justin wants to stay, he can turn it over to me, and I’ll return it to Transport Enterprises. Let’s get back to that list. See what the old bat wants? The times and places she wants me to report on?”
“Looks like an interesting itinerary.”
“It does, eh? Then you do it. ‘Battle of Hastings—First, Third, and Fourth Crusades—Battle of Orleans—Fall of Constantinople—French Revolution—Battle of Waterloo.’ Thermopylae and nineteen other encounters between rough strangers. I’m surprised she didn’t ask me to referee the bout between David and Goliath. I’m chicken, Ira. I fight when I can’t run—how does she think I managed to live so long? Bloodshed is not a spectator sport. If history says that a battle took place at a given location on a particular day, then I’ll be somewhere—or somewhen—far away, sitting in a tavern, drinking beer and pinching the barmaids. Not dodging mortar fire to feed Arabelle’s ghoulish curiosity.”
“I tried to suggest that,” said Justin. “But she said that this was an official Families’ project.”
“The hell it is. I told her about it simply to be sure of the Delay Mail setup. I’m a coward by trade…and not working for her. I’ll go where and when I please, see what I want to— and try not to antagonize local yokels. Especially those fighting each other; it makes ‘em trigger-happy.”
“Lazarus,” said Ira Weatheral, “you never have said what you do plan to see.”
“Well— No battles. Battles are well enough reported for my taste. But there are lots of interesting things in Terran history—peaceful things not well reported because they were peaceful. I want to see the Parthenon at the peak of its glory. Cruise down the Mississippi with Sam Clemens as pilot. Go to Palestine in the first three decades of the Christian Era and try to locate a certain carpenter turned rabbi—settle whether there ever was such a man.”
Justin Foote looked surprised. “You mean the Christian Messiah? Admittedly many stories about him are myths, but—”
“How do you know they are myths? But that he ever lived is the point that has never been established. Take Socrates, four centuries earlier—his historicity is as firmly established as that of Napoleon. Not so with the Carpenter of Nazareth. Despite the care with which the Romans kept records and the equal care with which the Jews kept theirs, none of the events that should be on record can be found in contemporary records.
“But if I devoted thirty years to it, I could find out. I know Latin and Greek of that time and I’m almost as conversant with classic Hebrew; all I would have to add is Aramaic. If I found him, I could follow him around. Take down his words with a microrecorder, see if they match what he is alleged to have said.
“But I won’t take any bets. The historicity of Jesus is the slipperiest question in all history because for centuries the question couldn’t be raised. They would hang you for asking—or burn you at the stake.”
“I’m amazed,” said Ira. “My knowledge of Earth’s history isn’t as thorough as I thought it was. However, I concentrated on the period from Ira Howard’s death to the founding of New Rome.”
“Son, you didn’t even sample it. But aside from this one weird story—’weird’ because most major religious leaders are heavily documented whereas this one remains as elusive as the King Arthur legends—I’m not going after great events. I’d rather meet Galileo, get a look at Michelangelo at work, attend a first performance of one of old Bill’s plays at the Globe Theater, things like that. I’d particularly like to go back to my own childhood, see if things look as I recall them.”
Ira blinked. “Run a chance of running into yourself?”
“Why not?”
“Well…there are paradoxes, are there not?’
“How? If I’m going to, then I did. That old cliché about shooting your grandfather before he sires your father, then going fuft! like a soap bubble—and all descendants, too, meaning both of you among others—is nonsense. The fact that I’m here and you’re here means that I didn’t do it—or won’t do it; the tenses of grammar aren’t built for time travel—but it does not mean that I never went back and poked around. I haven’t any yen to look at myself when I was a snot-nose; it’s the era that interests me. If I ran across myself as a young kid, he—I—wouldn’t recognize me; I would be a stranger to that brat. He wouldn’t give me a passing glance; I know, I was he.”
“Lazarus,” put in Justin Foote, “if you intend to visit that era, I’d like to invite your attention to one thing Madam Chairman Pro Tem is interested in—because I am interested. A recording of exactly what was said and done at the Families’ Meeting in 2012 A.D.”
“Impossible.”
“Just a moment, Justin,” Ira put in. “Lazarus, you have refused to talk about that meeting on the grounds that the others who were there can’t dispute your version. But a recording would be fair to everyone.”
“Ira, I didn’t say that I would not; I said it was impossible.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I can’t make a recording of that meeting because I was not there.”
“You lost me again. All the records—and your own statements—show that you were there.”
“Again we don’t have language adequate for time travel. Surely, I was there as Woodrow Wilson Smith. I was there and made a hairy nuisance of myself and offended a lot of people. But I did not have a recorder on me. Let’s say that Dora and the twins drop me back there—me, Lazarus Long, not that younger fellow—and that Ishtar has equipped me with a recorder implanted behind my right kidney, with its minimike surfacing inside my right ear. Okay, let’s assume that with such equipment I won’t be noticed making a record.
“But, Ira, what you don’t understand, despite having chaired many Families’ Meetings, is that I would not get inside the hall. In those days an executive meeting of the Families was harder to get into than an esbat of witches. The guards were armed and eager; it was a rough period. What identity could I use? Not Woodrow Wilson Smith; he was there. Lazarus Long? There was no ‘Lazarus Long’ on the Families’ rolls. Try to fake it as someone eligible but not able to attend? Impossible. There were only a few thousand of us then, and every member was known to a large percentage of the rest; a man who couldn’t be vouched for ran a nasty chance of being buried in the basement. No unidentified person ever did get in; we had too much at stake. Hi, Minerva! Come in, honey.”
“Hi, Lazarus. Ira, am I intruding?”
“Not at all, dear.”
“Thank you. Hello, Athene.”
“Hello, my sister.”
Minerva waited to be introduced. Ira said, “Minerva, you remember Justin Foote, Chief Archivist.”
“Certainly, I’ve worked with him many times. Welcome to Tertius, Mr. Foote.”
“Thank you, Miss Minerva.” Justin Foote liked what he saw—a tall, slender young woman with an erect carriage, a small, firm bust, long chestnut hair worn in a part and brushed straight down, a sober, intelligent face, handsome rather than pretty, but which blossomed into beauty each time she gave one of her quick smiles. “But, Ira, I must hurry back to Secundus and apply for rejuvenation. This young lady has worked with me ‘many times’—yet I’ve grown so senile I can’t place the occasions. Forgive me, dear lady.”
Minerva flashed him another of her smiles, then instantly. was sober. “My fault, sir; I should have explained at once. When I worked with you, I was a computer. Executive computer of Secundus, serving Mr. Weatheral, then Chairman Pro Tem. But now I’m a flesh-and-blood, and have been for the past three years.”
Justin Foote blinked. “I see. I hope I do.”
“I am a proscribed construct, sir, not born of woman. A composite clone of twenty-three donor-parents, forced to maturity in vitro. But the ‘I’ that is me, my ego, was the computer who used to work with you when the Archives computers needed assistance from the executive computer. Have I made it clear?”
“Uh…all I can say, Miss Minerva, is that I am delighted to meet you in the flesh. Your servant, Miss.”
“Oh, don’t call me ‘Miss,’ call me ‘Minerva.’ I shouldn’t be called ‘Miss’ anyhow; isn’t that honorific reserved for virgins among flesh-and-bloods? Ishtar—one of my mothers and my chief designer—deflowered me surgically before she woke me.”
“And that ain’t all!” came the voice from the ceiling.
“Athene,” Minerva said reprovingly. “Sister, you’re embarrassing our guest.”
“I’m not, but maybe you are, sister mine.”
“Am I, Mr. Foote? I hope not. But I’m still learning to be a human being. Will you kiss me? I’d like to kiss you; we’ve known each other almost a century and I’ve always liked you. Will you?”
“Now who’s embarrassing him, sister?’
“Minerva,” said Ira.
She suddenly sobered. “I shouldn’t have said that?”
Lazarus cut in. “Pay no attention to Ira, Justin; he’s an old stick-in-the-mud. Minerva is a ‘kissin cousin’ to most of the colony; she’s making up for lost time. Furthermore, she is some sort of cousin to practically all of us through her twenty-three parents. And she’s learned how—kissing her is a treat. Athene, let your sis be while she adds on another kissing cousin.”
“Yes, Lazarus. Ol’ Buddy Boy!”
“Teena, if I could reach through that string of wires, I’d spank you.” Lazarus added, “Go ahead, Justin.”
“Uh…Minerva, I haven’t kissed a girl in many years. Out of practice.”
“Mr. Foote, I do not mean to embarrass you. I am simply delighted to see you again. You need not kiss me. Or if you are willing to kiss me in private, you are most welcome.”
“Don’t risk it, Justin,” advised the computer. “I’m your friend.”
“Athene!”
“I was about to add,” said the Chief Archivist, “that I probably need practice in ‘learning to be a human being’ more than you do. If you’ll put up with my rustiness, Cousin, I accept your sweet offer. Brace yourself.”
Minerva smiled quickly, went into his arms, flowed up against him like a cat, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth. Ira studied a paper on his desk. Lazarus did not even pretend not to watch. He noted that Justin Foote put his heart into the matter—the old buzzard might be out of practice, but he hadn’t forgotten the basics.
When they broke, the computer gave a respectful whistle. “Wheeee…ooooo! Justin, welcome to the Club.”
