He danced a rhythmic circle around me, staring in what was evidently
adoration, and kept murmuring, "Reach that deep man! Ted Langer--the
father of time travel! O-man-o! Deep! Real deep!"
"Now see here," I finally broke in. "Don't they talk English where you
come from? And just how do you come to be here anyway? I built a time
machine to travel into the future, and instead I get you telling me how
deep I am. Are you here or am I there?"
"You are here, o-daddy-boy, and I also am here. But, to explain this,
I may have to use some angle talk, which is what you mean by English.
We read your books--which are collectors' items, by the way--and we
decided you were way under the zero mark, especially when we saw that
the angleheads wouldn't touch any of your ideas. So we got together
and made our time machine. But I am sad to report, doctor-o, that your
theory was a bit less than two-hundred-per-cent correct. There were a
few errors, which we found."
It was something of a shock to hear this future rock-and-roller tell
me there were mistakes in my work, and I started to argue with him
about it. But his attention wasn't on the conversation. He was sniffing
thoughtfully, the thing he'd called sense of wonder shining in his
eyes. He was looking at the steaks Marilyn had set on the table.
"Reach that!" he said, awed. "Gen-you-wine solid flesh! Man-o! I
haven't seen a steak like that in all my off-beat life!"
So naturally we invited him to sit down at the table and he didn't have
to be asked more than once. It seemed that food was pretty expensive in
1991, which is the year he came from, and what there was of it mostly
came from factories where they shoveled soy beans and yeast into a
machine and it came out meat at the other end, if you didn't make too
much fuss about what you called meat. But with so much of the good farm
land ruined by atomic dust, and so much more turned into building lots
on account of the growing population, it was the best they could do.
* * * * *
When we heard this, we pushed the second steak in front of him and he
showed he was a growing boy by finishing every scrap, along with a
double order of French frieds and half a dozen ears of corn on the cob.
But he had to give up after two pieces of pie.
He sat back in the chair, patted his stomach and looked as if he had
just won the Irish sweepstakes. He looked at the big refrigerator. When
Marilyn opened it to put things away, his eyes almost popped out at the
sight of the meat stored there.
"Man-o!" he said. "You must be rich!"
Marilyn laughed. "No, not rich--far from it. We operate a restaurant
and that's our stock you see."
"Oh, doll-o! I should not have eaten so much. What do you charge for a
meal like that?"
"We would get three and a half for each order," I said, diplomatically
not mentioning all his side orders, "although we don't get much
carriage trade here. But don't let it worry you. Nothing's too good for
a guest from the future."
"Three and a half?" He looked amazed. "Why, such a feed would bring
twenty-five or thirty where I come from--if you could find it! Let me
pay, o-daddy-friend, at least your price."
And he pulled out some bills. I started to push them back, for of
course I wasn't going to spoil this great moment in my life by asking a
traveler from the future to pay for a meal.
But then I saw what he was trying to give me.
I picked up the bills and stared. Marilyn's head was over my shoulder
and she was staring just as hard. She took one out of my hand.
"It's not real," she said. "There's not that much money in the world."
She had the five. I had the ones. The five-thousand and the
one-thousand-dollar bills, that is. I looked up at Solid Chuck Richards.
"When you said that meal would cost twenty-five or thirty, did you mean
twenty-five or thirty _thousand_?"
"You reach me, man. Inflation, you know. It's terrible. I remember when
a gee would keep the beat rocking in a juke palace for an hour. Now you
pay half a gee a number. It's terrible."
* * * * *
After we explained to him that the inflation was even worse than that,
he decided it was something more than terrible. It seems he hadn't paid
much attention to money in his younger days, though he did recall now
that when he was very small he'd been able to get a good nickel candy
bar for twenty dollars, but he hadn't seen anything smaller than a
hundred in some time now.
"There should be a law against this sort of thing," he said
indignantly. "It's enough to turn a man into an anglehead, the way they
keep pushing up the price of fumes. And what they charge for Bulgy
Sanders records--"
He picked up the bills and looked at them.
"But I think maybe we can find a way to profit on this, daddy-boy! I
have a deep thought--we members of the Friday Night Bull Session and
Experimentation Society will come to your restaurant and pay you five
gees for a steak dinner, which is a fine price for you but very little
for us. In that way, we will eat good food and you will gather a good
bundle of the stuff of life."
There was a thudding noise at the window. I looked over quick. Somebody
was hanging on outside, off balance, as if he had been standing on a
ladder outside and had fallen against the window.
I ran for the door, forgetting it was a switch. But Solid Chuck
Richards realized it. He dived back into his chair and called, "Reach
you later, o-daddy!" He disappeared as I pulled the door open.
The sudden flash as the time machine stopped operating reminded me
about those switches on the door, but it was too late now. I ran out
and around the side just in time to see a figure disappearing up the
alley. Sure enough, there was a ladder against the window.
I didn't bother chasing the man very far, because, after a fast look at
him, I had a pretty good idea who it was. I'd speak to him later.
* * * * *
Marilyn and I sat around looking at the big bills. They were the size
of present-day currency, and were beautifully made, and would have
passed easily except for a few things. Such as that "Series 1988"
inscribed alongside the signature of Irving P. Walcourt, Secretary of
the Treasury. And the Treasurer of the United States in 1988 would be
Kuru Hamonoto. From the State of Hawaii, I wondered, or--?
"They're no use to us at all," said Marilyn. "Unless we hold them until
1988. I was talking about security for our old age. Do you suppose--?"
"You forget," I said, "that steak will run you twenty-five or thirty
thousand in 1988. This is going to be a great disappointment to the
members of the Friday Night Bull Session and Experimentation Society,
but I fear we must explain to Solid Chuck Richards that we just cannot
afford to do much business of this type."
I pushed aside the money and began thinking about some of the things
the youth from 1991 had told me. There were holes in my theories--a
lot of holes. True, I had succeeded in building a time machine, but I
could never go anyplace in it. Because time travel was possible only
by traveling from one time machine to another. The amateurs of 1991,
knowing from my books (I must remember to write them) that I had built
a time machine in 1959, were able to make contact. Solid Chuck Richards
was selected by lot from several volunteers to try the machine. I met
the other members of the Society later and learned that and a number of
other things from them.
The reason Solid Chuck came back instead of my going forward made solid
sense. I could see it now. My time machine had never existed in 1991.
His had existed in 1959, or at least its parts had. I could overcome
that problem--if I had the full power of the Sun for several minutes to
work with, and a way to handle it. Then I could change things so that
my time machine would have existed in the future....
Even the verb tenses were going wrong on me.
These amateur experimenters, it seemed, were considered a bit on the
crackpot side, taking such pseudo-science as mine seriously. Not
knowing enough science to realize that the ideas I wrote about were
impossible, as any professional scientist would have, they followed
them through. They tried to get in touch with me in their time, but I
wasn't available, which saved me another paradox. Suppose I had joined
the Society and come back as a volunteer?
But it was encouraging to know the reason I was going to be
unavailable in 1991. Marilyn and I had gone on a second honeymoon--on
the first commercial passenger liner to Mars.
"And so," I told her, "you don't have to worry about security in your
old age. Tickets to Mars must cost a few trillion dollars. We won't be
poor."
Marilyn was still looking at the currency of the future.
"We will be," she said, "if we keep selling steak for the price of
soy-bean hamburger. By the way, Ted, I wonder who that was at the
window?"
The answer came to me then. I put the bills into my pocket and kissed
her.
"We will not have to eat soy-bean hamburger, o-doll. And I will take
you to Mars for your second honeymoon--as soon as they start passenger
service. I am going out to make a down payment on the tickets right
now."
* * * * *
Uncle Johnson took the glass from his eye. He looked very tense, like a
fisherman with a prize catch on a very thin line.
"It's good," he said, and his voice trembled a little. "I--suppose your
time machine worked?"
"Surprised, are you, Uncle?"
"Yes, yes. But I see your situation, Ted. You, of course, can't afford
to hold these for thirty years. Now--ah--I can. And I'll be glad to
help you out by taking them off your hands. Naturally I have to hold
them a long time, so--let's say twenty dollars a thousand?"
"Let's not say that." I took the bill from his hand. "I figure fifty
is a fair price. There'll be lots more, Uncle. And, as you say, I am
always broke and cannot afford to put them away for my old age. But
running the time machine is expensive and I can't afford to take less
than fifty."
He looked as if he were going to snatch the bill right out of my hand,
he was so eager.
"All right, Ted, I realize there are expenses. Thirty-five."
We compromised on forty.
"But I want a promise," he said emphatically. "I'm to be the only one
you sell these bills to!"
"You reach me, o-uncle." I handed him the bills. "You're deep, man.
Real deep!"
Real deep in the hole, that is--he mortgaged his house and his regular
inventory to buy up all the money I began taking in. Once we redeemed
the wedding ring and all the other articles, I got to feeling mellow
and even a bit grateful. He'd started me in business, so to speak. I
couldn't stick him with all those millions that would just about buy
him a helicab ride to the poorhouse in 1988.
So when Marilyn and I got just as deep in the black, because the
Society members gave us some books on stock-market statistics, I
started giving Uncle tips every now and then. Not free, of course--I
asked for half and we settled on seventy-thirty. With that plus the
ones I bought, both for now and the long pull, I guess we're the only
people living today who can be sure of having a second honeymoon
on Mars, although Solid Chuck Richards tells me he hears Mars is
overrated, there not being a juke on the whole planet, and even if
there were you couldn't jump to any decent kind of beat in that low
gravity.
I wouldn't say so to Solid Chuck Richards, but that sounds like
absolute zero to me.