"Good luck."
They shook hands and Tedor retraced his steps through the pavilion. He
was already thinking in terms of the preparations for departure his
trip would necessitate, but he couldn't get his mind off Fornswitthe's
murder. Somewhere, some_when_, an unseen puppeteer held all the
strings, playing them craftily but keeping the curtain of his little
stage tightly closed. Little stage? Tedor shrugged, remembering Domique
Hadrien's wild contention. Perhaps all of time waited beyond its dark
footlights.
* * * * *
Fat Dorlup the solidio writer drank in local color like a starving cat
laps up milk.
The time was 1954, the date Easter Sunday, the place, Fifth Avenue in
New York, largest city in one of the two most powerful national states
of the day.
Crowds jostled Dorlup. No one seemed to have anyplace to go, Dorlup
least of all. The twentieth century suit he wore was tight and
ill-fitting; he was almost afraid a too-sudden move might burst his
posterior from its tight confines. That's what you get for rushing,
Dorlup thought irritably. But the Century Agent had frightened him.
Damn those Agents with their high-handed ways. Dorlup was used to
dealing with people, not martinets. He had extended the hand of
friendship, even of financial gain, to Barwan, but it had been rejected
coldly, unequivocally.
The Twentieth Century Corporation was another possibility, although
Barwan would certainly offer a solidio audience more glamour. Well,
when the city returned to normal tomorrow, Dorlup would offer the
Corporation his proposition, though he realized sadly they would never
be satisfied with the five thousand century notes he had offered the
Agent.
"Hey, Dorlup! Oh you, Dorlup!"
The fat solidio writer whirled at the sound of the woman's voice, then
groaned. Beti Sparr, a starlet who had been featured tragically (not
in the story but in the gross profit which was nil, Dorlup thought
bitterly) pushed her way through the crowd toward him. Beti wore a
costume of the day and wore it well. She had blond hair and looks and a
figure. If only she could act, thought Dorlup.
"Whatever are you doing here, Dorlup? My but you look silly in that
suit." Beti entwined her arm in his.
"I'm doing research for a new solidio."
"Oh, but that's wonderful. I'm on vacation, you know, but I could learn
the part while I'm here and--"
"My dear," said Dorlup icily, "I haven't considered casting yet. The
solidio is just an idea in my head, and it will be a long time before
I--"
"I can wait. Did you notice how positively garish the costumes are, how
completely absorbed in their own importance the people seem?"
Beti had spoken in perfect hypnosleep-induced English, and Dorlup said:
"Quiet! Do you want them to hear you?"
"Oh, but they won't under_stand_. They won't understand anything.
So--so archaic. I'm hungry, Dorlup."
"I'm not." He tried to move away, but the crowd pressed in all around
them and Beti still had her arm entwined in his.
"I've always wanted to try one of those automatic cafeterias. Shall we?"
Dorlup wanted passionately to say no, but Beti was already steering him
toward the facade of one of the buildings.
"Sparr is rather remarkable," someone in the crowd said to someone
else. "Whatever Dorlup is up to, she'll find out. But whoever would
have suspected Dorlup is connected with the Century Agents, eh?"
"You can say that again. Leave it to Sparr, though."
Beti Sparr steered Dorlup into the automatic cafeteria, chattering and
whispering in his ear.
Elsewhere in the state of New York, one of the forty-eight United
States in the year 1954, a policeman on motorcycle chased a motorist,
flagged him down and gave him a summons although in truth he had
not violated the speed limit. This was his third such summons in a
period of eighteen months, and under state law his driver's license
would be revoked. He complained long and loud but to no avail.
Actually, his life had been saved, for three months hence he was to
be involved in a fatal automobile accident. The summons which revoked
his license also revoked the need for his obituary. He never knew
this, but the policeman did. The policeman--not a policeman at all
in the accepted twentieth century meaning of the word--was guilty of
an act of time-tinkering. The man was an artist, though, a promising
sculptor, and would in the next few years--if he lived--make a valuable
contribution to twentieth century culture.
Thousands of miles away in a many-centuries-old tumble of gaunt, grim
buildings called the Kremlin in a city named Moscow, capitol of Russia,
the other great power in the twentieth century, a massive man with
sallow, pallid face and a ponderous gait paced back and forth waiting
for the state scientists to summon him. This was the half-Tartar,
Georgi Malenkov, crushed by the weight of empire on his incapable
shoulders. And when the scientists called, Malenkov plodded fearfully
into a huge, windowless room where great, unfamiliar machinery
throbbed strangely. What he encountered there was also a case of
time-tinkering--but of an entirely different nature.
Malenkov stared in frightened fascination at the contents of a bell-jar
suspended from the ceiling and bathed in white, vaguely violet
radiation.