Time and Time Again. Robert Silverberg

Ted says. But the autosecretary bleeps again a few moments later. Mr. Friesling, it declares, is calling in reference to Mr. Porter’s credit standing. More baffled than before, Ted orders the call switched over to him. Mr. Friesling appears on the desk screen. He is small-featured and bright-eyed, rather like a chipmunk. “I apologize for troubling you, Mr. Porter,” he begins. “This is strictly a routine credit check, but it’s altogether necessary. As you surely know, your wife has requested rental of our equipment for a fifty-nine-year time jaunt, and inasmuch as the service fee for such a trip exceeds the level at which we extend automatic credit, our policy requires us to ask you if you’ll confirm the payment schedule that she has requested us to—” Ted coughs violently. “Hold on,” he says. “My wife’s going on a time jaunt? What the hell, this is the first time I’ve heard of that!”

      SHE IS SURPRISED BY THE extensiveness of the preparations. No wonder they charge so much. Getting her ready for the jaunt takes hours. They inoculate her to protect her against certain extinct diseases. They provide her with clothing in the style of the mid-twentieth century, ill-fitting and uncomfortable. They give her contemporary currency, but warn her that she would do well not to spend any except in an emergency, since she will be billed for it at its present-day numismatic value, which is high. They make her study a pamphlet describing the customs and historical background of the era and quiz her in detail. She learns that she is not under any circumstances to expose her breasts or genitals in public while she is in 1947. She must not attempt to obtain any mind-stimulating drugs other than alcohol. She should not say anything that might be construed as praise of the Soviet Union or of Marxist philosophy. She must bear in mind that she is entering the past solely as an observer, and should engage in minimal social interaction with the citizens of the era she is visiting. And so forth. At last they decide it’s safe to let her go. “Please come this way, Mrs. Porter,” Friesling says.

      AFTER STARING AT THE TELEPHONE a long while, Martin punches out Alice’s number. Before the second ring he loses his nerve and disconnects. Immediately he calls her again. His heart pounds so furiously that the medic, registering alarm on its delicate sensing apparatus, starts toward him. He waves the robot away and clings to the phone. Two rings. Three. Ah. “Hello?” Alice says. Her voice is warm and rich and feminine. He has his screen switched off. “Hello? Who’s there?” Martin breathes heavily into the mouthpiece. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. “Hello? Hello? Hello? Listen, you pervert, if you phone me once more—” Ah. Ah. Ah. A smile of bliss appears on Martin’s withered features. Alice hangs up. Trembling, Martin sags in his chair. Oh, that was good! He signals fiercely to the medic. “Let’s have the injection now, you metal monster!” He laughs. Dirty old man.

      TED REALIZES THAT IT ISN’T necessary to kill a person’s grandfather in order to get rid of that person. Just interfere with some crucial event in that person’s past, is all. Go back and break up the marriage of Alice’s grandparents, for example. (How? Seduce the grandmother when she’s eighteen? “I’m terribly sorry to inform you that your intended bride is no virgin, and here’s the documentary evidence.” They were very grim about virginity back then, weren’t they?) Nobody would have to die. But Alice wouldn’t ever be born.

      MARTIN STILL CAN’T BELIEVE ANY of this, even after she’s slept with him. It’s some crazy practical joke, most likely. Although he wishes all practical jokes were as sexy as this one. “Are you really from the year 2006?” he asks her. She laughs prettily. “How can I prove it to you?” Then she leaps from the bed. He tracks her with his eyes as she crosses the room, breasts jiggling gaily. What a sweet little body. How thoughtful of my older self to ship her back here to me. If that’s what really happened. She fumbles in her purse and extracts a handful of coins. “Look here,” she says. “Money from the future. Here’s a dime from 1993. And this is a two-dollar piece from 2001. And here’s an old one, a 1979 Kennedy half-dollar.” He studies the unfamiliar coins. They have a greasy look, not silvery at all. Counterfeits? They won’t necessarily be striking coins out of silver forever. And the engraving job is very professional. A two-dollar piece, eh? Well, you never can tell. And this. The half-dollar. A handsome young man in profile. “Kennedy?” he says. “Who’s Kennedy?”

      SO THIS IS IT AT last. Two technicians in gray smocks watch her, sober-faced, as she clambers into the machine. It’s very much like a coffin, just as she imagined it would be. She can’t sit down in it; it’s too narrow. Gives her the creeps, shut up in here. Of course, they’ve told her the trip won’t take any apparent subjective time, only a couple of seconds. Woosh! And she’ll be there. All right. They close the door. She hears the lock clicking shut. Mr. Friesling’s voice comes to her over a loud speaker. “We wish you a happy voyage, Mrs. Porter. Keep calm and you won’t get into any difficulties.” Suddenly the red light over the door is glowing. That means the jaunt has begun: she’s traveling backward in time. No sense of acceleration, no sense of motion. One, two, three. The light goes off. That’s it. I’m in 1947, she tells herself. Before she opens the door, she closes her eyes and runs through her history lessons. World War II has just ended. Europe is in ruins. There are forty-eight states. Nobody has been to the moon yet or even thinks much about going there. Harry Truman is President. Stalin runs Russia, and Churchill—is Churchill still Prime Minister of England? She isn’t sure. Well, no matter. I didn’t come here to talk about prime ministers. She touches the latch and the door of the time machine swings outward.

      HE STEPS FROM THE MACHINE into the year 2006. Nothing has changed in the showroom. Friesling, the two poker-faced technicians, the sleek desks, the thick carpeting, all the same as before. He moves bouncily. His mind is still back there with Alice’s grandmother. The taste of her lips, the soft urgent cries of her fulfillment. Who ever said all women were frigid in the old days? They ought to go back and find out. Friesling smiles at him. “I hope you had a very enjoyable journey, Mr.—ah—” Ted nods. “Enjoyable and useful,” he says. He goes out. Never to see Alice again—how beautiful! The car isn’t where he remembers leaving it in the parking area. You have to expect certain small peripheral changes, I guess. He hails a cab, gives the driver his address. His key does not fit the front door. Troubled, he thumbs the annunciator. A woman’s voice, not Alice’s, asks him what he wants. “Is this the Ted Porter residence?” he asks. “No, it isn’t,” the woman says, suspicious and irritated. The name on the doorplate, he notices now, is McKenzie. So the changes are not all so small. Where do I go now? If I don’t live here, then where? “Wait!” he yells to the taxi, just pulling away. It takes him to a downtown cafe, where he phones Ellie. Her face, peering out of the tiny screen, wears an odd frowning expression. “Listen, something very strange has happened,” he begins, “and I need to see you as soon as—” “I don’t think I know you,” she says. “I’m Ted,” he tells her. “Ted who?” she asks.

      HOW PECULIAR THIS IS, ALICE thinks. Like walking into a museum diorama and having it come to life. The noisy little automobiles. The ugly clothing. The squat, dilapidated twentieth-century buildings. The chaos. The oily, smoky smell of the polluted air. Wisps of dirty snow in the streets. Cans of garbage just sitting around as if nobody’s ever heard of the plague. Well, I won’t stay here long. In her purse she carries her kitchen carver, a tiny nickel-jacketed laser-powered implement. Steel pipes are all right for dream fantasies, but this is the real thing, and she wants the killing to be quick and efficient. Criss, cross, with the laser beam, and Martin goes. At the street corner she pauses to check the address. There’s no central info number to ring for all sorts of useful data, not in these primitive times; she must use a printed telephone directory, a thick tattered book with small smeary type. Here he is: Martin Jamieson, 504 West Forty-fifth. That’s not far. In ten minutes she’s there. A dark brick structure, five or six stories high, with spidery metal fire escapes running down its face. Even for its day it appears unusually run-down. She goes inside. A list of tenants is posted just within the front door. Jamieson, 3-A. There’s no elevator and of course no lift shaft. Up the stairs. A musty hallway lit by a single dim incandescent bulb. This is Apartment 3-A. Jamieson. She rings the bell.

      TEN MINUTES LATER FRIESLING CALLS back, sounding abashed and looking dismayed: “I’m sorry to have to tell you that there’s been some sort of error, Mr. Porter. The technicians were apparently unaware that a credit check was in process, and they sent Mrs. Porter off on her trip while we were