Читать книгу The Man Who Folded Himself - David Gerrold - Страница 8
ОглавлениеI N THE BOX was a belt. And a manuscript.
I hadn’t seen Uncle Jim in months.
He looked terrible. Shrunken. His skin hung in wrinkled folds, his complexion was gray, and he was thin and stooped. He seemed to have aged ten years. Twenty. The last time I’d seen him, we were almost the same height. Now I realized I was taller.
“Uncle Jim!” I said. “Are you all right?”
He shook off my arm. “I’m fine, Danny. Just a little tired, that’s all.” He came into my apartment. His gait was no longer a stride, now just a shuffle. He lowered himself to the couch with a sigh.
“Can I get you anything?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t have that much time. We have some important business to take care of. How old are you, boy?” He peered at me carefully.
“Huh—? I’m twenty-one. You know that.”
“Ah.” He seemed to find that satisfactory. “Good. I was afraid I was too early, you looked so young—” He stopped himself. “How are you doing in school?”
“Fine.” I said it noncommittally. The university was a bore, but Uncle Jim was paying me to attend. An apartment, a car, and a thousand a week for keeping my nose clean.
“You don’t like it though, do you?”
I said, “No, I don’t.” Why try to tell him I did? He’d know it for the lie it was.
“You want to drop out?”
I shrugged. “I could live without it.”
“Yes, you could,” he agreed. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but stopped himself instead. “I won’t give you the lecture on the value of an education. You’ll find it out for yourself in time. And besides, there are other ways to learn.” He coughed; his whole chest rattled. He was so thin. “Do you know how much you’re worth right now?”
“No. How much?”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully; the wrinkled skin folded and unfolded. “One hundred and forty-three million dollars.”
I whistled. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“It’s been properly handled.”
One hundred and forty-three million dollars—!
“Where is it now?” I asked. Stupid question.
“In stocks, bonds, properties. Things like that.”
“I can’t touch it then, can I?
He looked at me and smiled. “I keep forgetting, Danny, How impatient you were—are.” He corrected himself, then looked across at me; his gaze wavered slightly. “You don’t need it right now, do you?
I thought about it. One hundred and forty-three million dollars. Even if they delivered it in fifties, the apartment wasn’t that big. “No, I guess not.”
“Then we’ll leave it where it is,” he said. “But it’s your money. If you need it, you can have it.”
One hundred and forty-three million dollars. What would I do with it—what couldn’t I do with it? I had known my parents had left me a little money, but—
One hundred and forty-three million—!
I was having trouble swallowing.
“I thought it was in trust until I was twenty-five,” I said.
“No,” he corrected. “It’s for me to administer for you until you’re ready for it. You can have it any time you want.”
“I’m not so sure I want it,” I said slowly. “No—I mean, of course, I want it! It’s just that—” How to explain? I had visions of myself trapped in a big mansion surrounded by butlers and bodyguards whose sole duty was to make sure that I dusted the stacks of bills every morning. One hundred and forty-three million dollars. Even in hundreds, it would fill several closets. “I’m doing okay—” I started to say, then stopped. I didn’t know what to say.
Uncle Jim frowned. “Yes, I keep forgetting. There’s been so much—Danny, I’m going to increase your allowance by an extra thousand dollars a week, but I want you to do something to earn it.”
“Sure,” I said, delighted in spite of myself. This was a sum of money I could understand. “What do I have to do?”
“Keep a diary.”
“A diary?”
“That’s right.”
“You mean write things down in a black book every day? Dear diary, today I kissed a girl, that kind of stuff?”
“Not exactly. I want you to record the things that seem important to you. Type out a few pages every day, that’s all. You can record specific incidents or just make general comments about anything worth recording. All I want is your guarantee that you’ll add something to it every day—or let’s say at least once a week. I know how you get careless sometimes.”
“And you want to read it—?” I started to ask.
“Oh, no, no, no—” he said hastily. “I just want to know that you’re keeping it up. You won’t have to show it to me. Or anyone. It’s your diary. What you do with it or make of it is up to you.”
My mind was already working—an extra thousand dollars a week. “Can I dictate it and have someone type it up for me?”
He shook his head. “It has to be a personal diary, Danny. That’s the whole purpose of it. If it has to pass through someone else’s hands, you might be inhibited. I want you to be honest.” He straightened up where he sat, and for a moment he looked like the Uncle Jim I remembered, tall and strong. “Don’t play any games, Danny. Be truthful in your diary. If you’re not, you’ll only cheat yourself. And put down everything—everything that seems important to you.”
“Everything,” I repeated dumbly.
He nodded. There was a lot of meaning in that word.
“All right,” I said. “But why?”
“‘Why?’” He looked at me. “You’ll find out when you write it.” As usual, he was right.
I’m not fooled. Uncle Jim is trying to teach me something. This isn’t the first time he’s thrown me into the deep end of the pool.
Okay, this is it. At least this is today’s answer:
There’s a point beyond which money is redundant.
This is not something I discovered just this week.
I’ve suspected it for a long time.
A thousand dollars a week “spending money” (—like what else are you going to do with it?—) gives you a lot of freedom to do whatever you want. Within limits, of course—but those limits are wide enough to be not very restricting. Increase them to two thousand dollars a week and you don’t feel them at all. The difference isn’t that much. Not really.
Okay, so I bought some new clothes and compact discs and a couple of other fancy toys I’d had my eye on—but I’d already gotten used to having as much money as I’d needed (or wanted), so having that much more in my pocket didn’t make that much more difference.
I just had to start wearing bigger pockets, that’s all.
Well—
I like to travel too. Usually, about once or twice a month I’d fly up to San Francisco for the weekend, or something like that. Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, Newport, San Diego. Follow the sun, that’s me.
Since Uncle Jim increased my allowance, I’ve been to Acapulco, New York, and the Grand Bahamas. And I’m thinking about Europe. But it’s not all that fun to travel alone—and nobody I know can afford to come along with me.
So I’m staying home almost as much as before.
I could buy things if I wanted—but I’ve never cared much about owning things. They need to be dusted. Besides, I have what I need.
Hell, I have what I want—and that’s a lot more than what I need. I have everything I want now.
Big deal.
I think it’s a bore.
So that’s what Uncle Jim wanted to teach me. Money isn’t everything. In fact, it isn’t anything. It’s just paper and metal that we trade for other things.
I knew that already, but it’s one thing to know it theoretically; it’s another thing to know it from experience.
Okay. So, if money isn’t anything, what is?
I didn’t exactly drop out of the university—I just sort of faded away.
It was a bore.
I found I had less and less to say to my classmates. I call them my classmates because I’m not sure they were ever my friends. We weren’t talking on the same levels.
Typical conversation: “—can I borrow twenty bucks, she is so hot, gotta find a job, everybody hates that instructor, you wanna get high, I couldn’t get my car running, my ten o’clock class is a bitch, you wanna hang, lend me ten willya, what’re you gonna do this weekend—”
They couldn’t sympathize with my problems either. “Problems? With two thousand dollars a week, who’s got problems?”
Me.
I think.
I know something is wrong—I’m not happy. I wish I knew why.
I wish the other shoe would drop. Okay, Uncle Jim. I got it about the money. Where’s the rest of the lesson?
I think I will tell this exactly as it happened and try to do it without crying. If I can.
Uncle Jim is dead.
I got the phone call at eleven this morning. It was one of the lawyers from his company, Biggs or Briggs or something like that. He said, “Daniel Eakins?”
I said, “Yes?”
He said, “This is Jonathan Biggs-or-Briggs-or-something-like-that and I have some bad news for you about your uncle.”
“My—uncle—” I must have wavered. Everything seemed made of ice.
The man was trying to be gentle. And not doing a very good job of it. He said, “He was found this morning by his maid—”
“He’s . . . dead?”
“I’m sorry. Yes.”
Dead? Uncle Jim?
“How—? I mean—”
“He just didn’t wake up. He was a very old man.”
Old?
No. It couldn’t be. I wouldn’t accept it. Uncle Jim was immortal.
“We thought that you, as next of kin, would like to supervise the funeral arrangements—”
Funeral arrangements?
“—on the other hand, we realize your distress at a time like this, so we’ve taken the liberty of—”
Dead? Uncle Jim?
The telephone was still making noises. I hung it up.
The funeral was a horror. Some idiot had decided on an open-casket ceremony, “so the deceased’s family and friends might see him one more time.”
Family and friends. Meaning me. And the lawyers.
No one else.
I was surprised at that. And a little disappointed. I’d thought Uncle Jim was well known and popular. But there was nobody there—apparently I was the only one who cared.
Uncle Jim looked like hell. They had rouged his cheeks in a sickly effort to make him look like he was only asleep. It didn’t work; it didn’t disguise the fact that he was a shriveled and tired old hulk. I must have stared in horror. If he had seemed shrunken the last time I had seen him, today he looked absolutely emaciated. Used up.
No. Uncle Jim wasn’t in that casket. That was just a piece of dead meat. Whatever it was that had made it Uncle Jim, that was gone—this empty old husk was nothing.
I bawled like a baby anyway.
The lawyers drove me home. I was moving like a zombie.
Everything seemed so damnably the same—it had all happened too fast, I hadn’t had time to realize what it might mean, and now here was some dark-suited stranger sitting in my living room and trying to tell me that things were going to be different.
Different—? Without Uncle Jim, how could they be the same?
Biggs-or-Briggs-or-something-like-that shuffled some papers and managed to look both embarrassed and sorrowful.
I said, “I think I have some idea. I spoke with Uncle Jim a few weeks ago.”
“Ah, good,” he said. “Then we can settle this a lot easier.” He hesitated. “Dan—Daniel, your uncle died indigent.” I must have looked puzzled. He added, “That means poor.”
“What?” I blurted. “Now, wait a minute—that’s not what he told me—”
“Eh? What did he tell you?”
I thought back. No, the lawyer was right. Uncle Jim hadn’t said a word about his own money. Carefully, I explained, “Uncle Jim said that I had a bit of money . . . and he was supposed to administer it. So naturally, I assumed that he had some of his own—or that he was taking a fee—”
Biggs-or-Briggs shook his head. “Your uncle was taking a fee,” he said, “but it was only a token. You haven’t got that much yourself.”
“How much?” I asked.
“A little less than six thousand.”
“Huh?”
“Actually, it’s about five thousand nine hundred and something. I don’t remember the exact amount.” He shuffled papers in his briefcase.
I stared at him. “What happened to the hundred and forty-three million?”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon—?”
I felt like a fool, but repeated. “A hundred and forty-three million dollars. Uncle Jim said that I had a hundred and forty-three million dollars. What happened to that?”
“A hundred and forty-three mill—” He pushed his glasses back onto his nose. “Uh, Mr. Eakins, you have six thousand dollars. That’s all. I don’t know where you got the idea that you had anything like—”
I explained patiently, “My Uncle Jim sat there, right where you’re sitting now, and told me that I was worth one hundred and forty-three million dollars and that I could have it any time I wanted.” I fixed him with what I hoped was my fiercest look. “Now, where is it?”
It didn’t faze him at all. Instead he put on his I’d-better-humor-him expression. “Now, Daniel—Dan, I think you can understand that when a person gets old, his mind starts to get a little—well, funny. Your Uncle Jim may have told you that you were rich—he may even have believed it himself, but—”
“My Uncle Jim was not senile,” I said. My voice was cold. “He may have been sick, but when I saw him, his mind was as clear as—as mine.”
Biggs-or-Briggs looked like he wanted to reply to that, but didn’t. Probably he was reminding himself that we’d just come from a funeral and I couldn’t be expected to be entirely rational. “Well,” he said. “The fact remains that all you have in the accounts that we’re administering is six thousand dollars. To tell the truth, we were a little concerned with the way you’ve been spending these past few weeks—but your explanation clears that up. There’s been a terrible misunderstanding—”
“Yes, there has. I want to see your books. When my parents died, their money was put in trust for me. It couldn’t all be gone by now.”
“Mr. Eakins—” he said. I could see that he was forcing himself to be gentle. “I don’t know anything about your parents. It was your Uncle Jim who set up your trust fund, twenty-one years ago. He hasn’t added to it since; that hasn’t been necessary. His intention was to provide you with enough money to see you through college.” He cleared his throat apologetically. “We almost made it. If he hadn’t instructed us to increase your allowance two months ago, we probably could have made it stretch—”
I was feeling a little ill. This lawyer was making too much sense. When I thought of the spending I’d been doing—ouch! I didn’t want to think about it.
Of course, I hadn’t spent it all—I hadn’t been trying. I started going over in my mind how much I might have left in cash and in my checking account. Not that much, after all. Maybe a few hundred.
And six thousand left in trust. No hundred and forty-three million—
But Uncle Jim had said—
I stopped and thought about it. If I’d really been worth a hundred and forty-three million dollars, would I have grown up the way I did? Brought up by a trained governess in Uncle Jim’s comfortable—but not very big—San Fernando Valley home, sent to public schools and the State University? Uh-uh. Not likely.
If I’d been worth that big a pile, I’d have been fawned over, drooled over, and protected every day of my life. I would have had nurses and private tutors and valets and chauffeurs. I would have had butlers for my butlers. I would have had my own pony, my own yacht, my own set of full-size trains. I would have had my pick of any college in the country. In the world. I would have been spoiled rotten.
I looked around my nine-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment. There was no evidence here that I was spoiled rotten.
Well . . . not to the tune of a hundred and forty-three million dollars.
You can get spoiled on a thousand a week, but that’s a far cry from butlers for your butlers.
Ouch. And ouch again.
I’d thought I’d never have to worry about money in my life. Now I was wondering if I would make it to the end of the year.
“—of course,” Biggs-or-Briggs was mumbling, “if you still feel you want to check our books, by all means—we don’t want there to be any misunderstandings or hard feelings—”
“Yeah . . . ,” I waved it off. “I’ll call you. There’s no hurry. I believe you, I guess.” Maybe Uncle Jim hadn’t been thinking straight that day. The more I thought about it, the odder his behavior seemed.
Oh, Uncle Jim! How could you have become so addled? A hundred and forty-three million!
I wasn’t sure whom I felt sorriest for, him or me.
The lawyer was still talking. “—Now, of course, you’re not responsible for any of his financial liabilities, and they aren’t that much anyway. The company will probably cover them—”
“Wasn’t there any insurance?” I blurted suddenly.
“Eh? No, I’m sorry. Your uncle didn’t believe in it. We tried to talk to him about it many times, but he never paid any attention.”
I shrugged and let him go on. That was just like my Uncle Jim. Even he believed he was immortal.
“You’re entitled to his personal effects and—”
“No, I don’t want them.”
“—there is one item he specifically requested you to have.”
“What?”
“It’s a package. Nobody’s to open it but you.”
“Well, where is it?”
“It’s in the trunk of my car. If you’ll just sign this receipt—”
I waited until after what’s-his-name had left. Whatever it was in the box, Uncle Jim had intended it for me alone. I hefted it carefully. Perhaps this was the hundred forty-three million—
I wondered—could you put that much money into a box this small?
Maybe it was in million-dollar bills, one hundred and forty-three of them. (I don’t know—do they even print million-dollar bills?)
No, that couldn’t be. Could you imagine trying to cash one? I shuddered. Uh-uh, Uncle Jim wouldn’t do that to me. . . . Well, let’s see, maybe it was in ten-thousand-dollar bills. (That would be fourteen thousand, three hundred of them.) No, the box was too light—
If it was my fortune, it would have to be in some other form than banknotes. Rare postage stamps? Precious gems? Maybe—but I couldn’t imagine a hundred and forty-three million dollars worth of them, at least not in this box. It was too small.
There was only one way to find out. I ripped away the heavy brown wrapping paper and fumbled off the top.
It was a belt.
A black leather belt. With a stainless-steel plate for a buckle. A belt.
I almost didn’t feel like taking it out of the box. I felt like a kid at Santa Claus’s funeral.
This was Uncle Jim’s legacy?
I took it out. It wasn’t a bad-looking belt—in fact, it was quite handsome. I wondered what I could wear it with—almost anything actually; it was just a simple black belt. It had a peculiar feel to it though; the leather flexed like an eel, as if it were alive and had an electric backbone running through it. The buckle too; it seemed heavier than it looked, and—well, have you ever tried to move the axis of a gyroscope? The torque resists your pressure. The belt buckle felt like that.
I looped it around my waist to see what it would look like. Not bad, but I had belts I liked better. I started to put it back in the box when it popped open in my hand. The buckle did.
I looked at the buckle more closely. What had looked like a single plate of stainless steel was actually two pieces hinged together at the bottom, so that when you were wearing the belt you could open it up and read the display on the inside of the front. It was a luminous panel covered with numbers.
Great. Just what I needed. A digital belt buckle. Clock, calculator, and portable stereo all in one. And wasn’t that just like Uncle Jim. He loved these kinds of toys.
But the only thing that looked like a trademark said TIMEBELT. Everything else was display. Two of the rows of numbers kept flickering, changing to keep track of the tenths of seconds, the seconds, and the minutes. Also indicated were the hours, the day, the month, the year—
Not bad, but I already had a watch, and that was good enough. Besides, this seemed such a silly idea, putting a clock in a belt buckle. You’d feel embarrassed every time you opened it.
Fine. I had the world’s only belt buckle that told the time. I started to close it up again—
Wait a minute—not so fast. There were too many numbers on that dial.
There were four rows of numbers, and a row of lights and some lettering. The whole thing looked like this:
Odd. What were all those numbers for?
The date on the bottom, for instance: March 16, 2005—what was so special about that? What had happened at 5: 30 on March 16?
I frowned. There was something—
I went looking for my calendar. Yes, there it was.
March 16: Uncle Jim coming at 5: 30.
The date on the bottom was the last time I had seen Uncle Jim. March 16. He had knocked on the door at precisely 5: 30.
Uncle Jim was always punctual when he made appointments. On the phone he had said he would be at my place at 5: 30—sure enough, he was. But why, two months later, was that date so important as to still be on his calendar belt? It didn’t make sense.
And there was something else I hadn’t noticed. The other part of the buckle—the side facing the clock—was divided into buttons. There were four rows of them, all square and flush with each other. The top row was cut into two; the second row, six; the third row, three; and the bottom row, six again.
My curiosity was piqued. Now, what were all these for?
I touched one of the top two. The letter B on the lower right side of the panel began to glow. I touched it again and the letter F above it winked on instead. All right—but what did they mean?
I put the belt around my waist and fastened it. Actually, it fastened itself; the back of the clasp leaped against the leather part and held. I mean, held. I tugged at it, but it didn’t slip. Yet I could pop it off as easily as separating two magnets. Quite a gimmick that.
The buckle was still open; I could read the numbers on it easily. Almost automatically my hand moved to the buttons. Yes, that was right—the buttons were a keyboard against my waist, the panel was the readout; the whole thing was a little computer.
But what in hell was I computing?
Idly I touched some of the buttons. The panel blinked. One of the dates changed. I pressed another button and the center row of lights flickered. When I pressed the first button again, a different part of the date changed. I didn’t understand it, and there was nothing in the box except some tissue paper.
Maybe there was something on the belt itself. I took it off.
On the back of the clasp, it said:
TIMEBELT Temporal Transport Device
Temporal Transport Device—? Hah! They had to be kidding. A time machine? In a belt? Ridiculous.
And then I found the instructions.
The instructions were on the back of the clasp—when I touched it lightly, the words TIMEBELT, TEMPORAL TRANSPORT DEVICE winked out and the first “page” of directions appeared in their place. Every time I tapped it after that, a new page appeared. They were written in a kind of linguistic shorthand, but they were complete. The table of contents ran on for several pages itself:
OPERATION OF THE TIMEBELT
Understanding
Theory and Relations
Time Tracking
The Paradox Paradox
Alternity
Discoursing
Protections
Corrections
Tangling and Excising
Excising with Records
Reluctances
Avoidances and Responsibilities
FUNCTIONS
Layout and Controls
Settings
Compound Settings
High-Order Programming
Safety Features
USAGES
Forward in Time—
By a Specific Amount To a Particular Moment Cautions
Backward in Time—
By a Specific Amount To a Particular Moment Additional Cautions
Fail-Safe Functions
Compound Jumps—
Advanced High-Order Compound Cautions
Distance Jumps—
Medium Range Long Range Ultra-Long Range
Special Cautions
Infinity Dangers Entropy Awareness
Timeskimming—
Short Range Long Range Ultra-Long Range
Timestop—
Uses of the Timestop Stopping the Present Stopping the Past Stopping the Future Special Cautions on the Use of the Timestop
Multiple Jumps—
Programming Usage Cautions and Protections on Multiple Jumps
Emergency Jumps—
Returns Timestops Timeskims
Height and Motion Compensations (moving vehicles and temporary heights)
Other Compensations (ordinary and specific use)
General Cautions
Summary
ACCLIMATIZATIONS
Cultures
Determinations
Languages
Clothing
Shelter
Currency
Living Patterns and Customs
Religions and Taboos
Health
Protocols
Timestop Determinations
Additional Acclimatizations
Cautions
ARTIFACTING
Transporting
Special Cases
Cautions
I was beginning to feel a little dazed—of course this couldn’t be for real. It couldn’t be....
I sat down on the couch and began reading the directions in detail. They were easy to understand. There was a great deal about the principles of operation and the variety of uses, but I just skimmed that.
The readout panel was easy enough to understand. The top row of numbers was the time now; the second row was the distance you wished to travel away from it, either forward or back; and the third row was the moment to which you were traveling, your target. The fourth row was the moment of your last jump—that is, when the belt had last come from. (Later I found that it could also be the date of the next jump if you had preprogrammed for it. Or it could be a date held in storage—one that you could keep permanently set up and jump to at a moment’s decision.)
The letters F and B on the right side, of course, stood for Forward and Back. The letters J and T on the left side stood for Jump and Target. The lights in the center of the panel had several functions; mostly they indicated the belt’s programming.
In each corner of the readout was a lettered square. These were references to four buttons on the face of the buckle itself. (I closed the buckle and looked—there weren’t any obvious buttons, but in each corner was an area that seemed to depress with a slight click.) CLR stood for Clear, HOL meant Hold, RET was Return, and ACT was Activate. Each button had to be pressed twice in rapid succession to function; that way you wouldn’t accidentally change any of your settings or send yourself off on an unintended jaunt.
CLR was meant to clear the belt of all previous instructions and settings. HOL would hold any date in storage indefinitely, or call it out again. RET would send you back to the moment of your last jump, or to any date locked in by HOL. ACT would do just that—act. Whatever instructions had been programmed into the belt, nothing would happen until ACT was pressed. Twice.
There were more instructions. There was something called Timestop and something else called Timeskim. According to the instructions, each was an interrupted time jump resulting in a controlled out-of-phase relationship with the real-time universe. Because the rate of phase congruency could be controlled, so could the perceived rate of the timestream.
What that meant was that I could view events like a motion picture film. I could speed it up and see things happening at an ultra-fast rate via the Timeskim, or I could slow them down—I could even freeze them altogether with the Timestop.
The Timeskim was necessary to allow you to maintain your bearings over a long-range jump; you could skim through time instead of jumping directly. The movement of people and animals would be a blur, but you would be able to avoid materializing inside of a building that hadn’t been there before. The Timestop was intended to help you get your bearings after you arrived, but before you reinserted yourself into the timestream, especially if you were looking for a particular moment. With everything seemingly frozen solid, you could find an unobserved place to appear, or you could remain an unseen observer of the Timestopped still life. Or you could Timeskim at the real-time rate without being a part of real-world events, again an unseen observer. I guessed that the Timestop and Timeskim were necessary for traveling to unfamiliar eras—especially dangerous ones.
There were other functions too, complex things that I didn’t understand yet. I decided to leave them alone for a while. For instance, Entropy Awareness left me a bit leery. I concentrated on the keyboard instead. If I was going to use this thing, I’d better know how to program it.
The top two buttons controlled Jump and Target, Forward and Back. The second row of six controlled any six digits of the date; the third row of three was for programming—they determined the settings of the second and fourth rows. The fourth row had six buttons; used in combination with the third row, they determined ways of using the belt. Maybe more. Each of the buttons on the keyboard was multi-functional. What it controlled, and how, was determined by which other buttons it was used in combination with.
Clearly this timebelt was not a simple device. There was a lot to learn.
I felt like a kid with a ten-dollar bill in a candy store—no, like an adolescent with a credit card in a brothel.
I was ready—but what should I do first?
Possibilities cascaded across my mind like a stack of unopened presents. I was both eager and scared. My hand was nervous as I fumbled open the buckle.
I eyed the readout plate warily. All the numbers had been cleared and were at zero; they gazed right back at me.
Well, let’s try something simple first. I touched the third button in the third row, setting the second row of controls for minutes, seconds, and tenths of seconds. I tapped the first button in the second row twice: twenty minutes. I set the top right-hand button for Forward, the top left-hand button for Jump.
I double-checked the numbers on the panel and closed the belt.
Now. All I had to do was tap the upper right-hand corner of the buckle twice.
The future waited.
I swallowed once and tapped.
—POP!—
I staggered and straightened. I had forgotten about that. The instructions had warned there would be a slight shock every time I jumped. It had something to do with forcing the air out of the space you were materializing in. It wasn’t bad though—I just hadn’t been expecting it. It was like scuffing your shoes on a rug and then touching metal, that kind of shock, but all over your whole body at once.
Aside from that, I had no way of proving I was in the future.
Oh, wait. Yes, I did. I was still wearing my wristwatch. It said 1: 43. I strode into the kitchen and looked at the kitchen clock.
It said 2:03.
If the kitchen clock were to be believed, then the belt was real, and I had just traveled through time. Twenty minutes forward. Assuming the kitchen clock hadn’t suddenly—
No! This had to be real. It was real. I had actually done it!
I’d been sort of treating the whole thing as a game; not even the jump-shock had convinced me. That could have been faked by a battery in the belt. But this—!
I knew my watch and I knew that kitchen clock; they couldn’t have been faked.
I actually had a time machine. A real-live, honest-to-God working time machine.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to be calm. I tried to force myself to be calm.
I had a time machine. A real time machine. I had jumped twenty minutes forward. The room looked just the same, not even the quality of the afternoon sunlight had changed, but I knew I had jumped forward in time. The big question was what was I going to do next?
I had to think about this—no problem, I had all the time in the world. I giggled when I realized that.
Hmm. I knew. Suddenly I realized what I could do.
I opened the belt and reset the control for twenty-four hours. Forward. I would pick up a copy of tomorrow’s paper, then bounce back and go to the race track today. I would make a fortune. I would—
MY GOD! Why hadn’t I realized this—?
I could be as rich as I wanted to be.
Rich—? The word lost all meaning when I realized what I could do. Not just the race track—Las Vegas! The stock market! Anything! There were boxing matches to bet on and companies to invest in, new products from the future and rare objects from the past—my head swam with the possibilities.
I wanted to laugh. And I’d been worried about a mere hundred and forty-three million dollars!
Uncle Jim had been right after all! I was rich! I wanted to shout! I felt like dancing! The room twirled with wealth and I spun with it—until I tripped over a chair.
Still gasping and giggling, I sat up. It was too much—too much!
Before—before I had proven that the belt really worked—all those possibilities had been merely fantasies: fun things to think about, but not taken seriously. Now, however, they were more than possibilities. They were probabilities. I would do them all. All of them! Because I had all the time in the world! I was hysterical with delight. Giddy with enthusiasm—
I forced myself to stop.
Be serious now, I told myself. Let’s approach this properly. Let’s think these things out; take them one at a time—
Tomorrow. I grinned and touched the button.
—Pop!—
This time the shock wasn’t so bad, I—
—There was somebody in the room.
Then he turned to face me.
For a moment it was like staring into a sudden mirror—
“Hi,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
It was me.
I must have been staring, because he said, “Relax, Dan—” and I jumped again.
The sound of his voice—it was my voice as I’ve heard it on tape. The look in his eyes—I’ve seen those eyes in the mirror. His face—it was my face—the features, everything: the nose, short and straight; the hair, dark brown with a hint of red and with the wave that I can’t comb out; the mouth, wide and smiling; the cheekbones, high and pronounced.
“You’re me—” It must have sounded inane.
He was a little flustered too. He held out something he had been holding, a newspaper. “Here,” he said. “I believe we were going to the races.”
“We?”
“Well, it’s no fun going alone, is it?”
“Uh—” My head was still spinning.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m you—I’m your future self. Tomorrow you’ll be me. That is, we’re the same person. We’ve just doubled back our timeline.”
“Oh,” I said, blinking.
He grinned with the knowledge of a joke that I hadn’t gotten yet. “Okay, let’s do it this way. I’m your twin brother.”
I looked at him again; he stared unabashedly back. He was almost delighting in my confusion, and he had hit on one of my most secret fantasies—of course. He couldn’t help but know, he was me. When I had been younger, my greatest desire had been the impossible wish for an identical twin—a second me, someone who understood me, who I could talk to and share secrets with. Someone who would always be there, so I would never be alone. Someone who—
I gaped helplessly. It was all happening too fast.
He reached out and took my hand, shook it warmly. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Don. I’m your brother.” At first I just let him shake my hand, but after a second of his silly grinning at me, I returned his grip. (Interesting. Some people shake my hand and their grip is too hard. Others have a grip that’s too weak. Don’s grip was just right—but why shouldn’t it be? He’s me. I have to keep reminding myself of that; it’s almost too easy to think of him as Don.) The touch of his hand was strange. Is that what I feel like?
We went to the races.
Oh, first we bounced back twenty-eight hours; both of us. He flashed back first, then I followed. We both reappeared at the same instant because our target settings were identical. (He was wearing a timebelt too—well, of course; if I could be duplicated, so could the belt.) I couldn’t shake the feeling that this fellow from the future was invading my home—even though it was meaningless—but he seemed so sure of himself that I had to follow in his wake.
When I glanced at the kitchen clock, I got another start. It was just a little past ten—why, I was still at Uncle Jim’s funeral! I’d be coming home in an hour with the lawyer. Maybe it was a good thing that Don had taken the lead; there was still too much I didn’t know.
As we walked out to the car, Mrs. Peterson, the old lady in the front apartment, was just coming out of her door. “Hello, Danny—” she started, then she stopped. She looked from one to the other of us confusedly.
“This is my brother,” said Don quickly. “Don,” he said to me, a gentle pressure on my arm, “this is Mrs. Peterson.” To her: “Don will be staying with me for a while, so if you think you’re seeing double, don’t be surprised.”
She smiled at me. I nodded, feeling like a fool. I knew Mrs. Peterson—but Don’s grip on my arm reminded me that she didn’t know. She looked back and forth, blinking. “I didn’t know you were twins—”
“We’ve been—living separately,” said Don quickly, “so we could each have a chance to be our own person. Don’s been up in San Francisco for the past two years.”
“Oh,” she said. She turned on her smile again and beamed politely at me. “Well, I hope you’ll like it in Los Angeles, Don. There’s so much to do.”
“Uh—yes,” I said. “It’s very—exciting.”
We made our goodbyes and went on to the car.
Abruptly, Don started giggling. “I wish you could have seen your face,” he said. “Well, you will—tomorrow.” Still laughing, he repeated my last words, “Uh—yes. It’s very—exciting. You looked as if you’d swallowed a frog.”
I stopped in the act of unlocking the passenger-side door. (It seemed natural for him to take the driver’s side; besides, I was unsure of the way to the track.) “Why didn’t you let me explain?” I asked. “She’s my neighbor.”
“She’s my neighbor too,” he replied, giggling again. “Besides, what would you have said? At least I’ve been through this once before.” He opened his door and dropped into the driver’s seat.
I got in slowly and looked at him. He was unlatching the convertible top. He didn’t notice my gaze. I realized that I was feeling resentful of him—he was so damned sure of himself, even to the way he was making himself at home in my car. Was that the way I was? I found myself studying his mannerisms.
Suddenly he turned to me. “Relax,” he said. He turned to look me straight in the eye. “I know what you’re going through. I went through it too. The way to do this is—at least, I think so—is the first time you go through something, just watch. The second time, you know what’s going to happen; that’s where the arrogance comes from. Only it isn’t arrogance. It’s confidence.”
“I guess this is happening a little too fast for me.”
“Me too,” he said. “I know this is a weird thing to say, but I missed you. Or maybe I missed me. Anyway, it’ll work better this way. You’ll see.” He pushed the button on the dashboard and the convertible top lifted off and began folding back. “Put on a tape,” he said, indicating the box of cassettes on the floor. He started to name one, then stopped himself. “Want me to tell you which one you’re going to choose?”
“Uh—no, thanks.” I studied the different titles with such an intensity I couldn’t see any of them. It would be impossible for me to surprise him—no matter what tape I chose, no matter what I did, he would already know, he would have done it himself.
Of course, he had been through all this before. He had every reason to be sure of himself. When I became him, I’d probably be cocky too. Perhaps a little giddy—you couldn’t help but feel powerful if you knew everything that was going to happen before it happened.
Of course he should be the one to do the talking.
Later I’d get my turn; but right now I was feeling a little unsure, both of myself and of the situation. I could learn by following his lead. I put on a tape of Petrouchka and concentrated on the road.
I’d never been to the race track before. It was bigger than I’d expected. Don steered his way into the parking lot with surprising familiarity and arrowed immediately toward a space that shouldn’t have been there, but was.
Instead of seats in the bleachers, as I expected, he bought a private box. Grinning at me, he explained, “Why not? We deserve the best.”
I wanted to point out that it wasn’t necessary; besides, it cost too much. Then I realized he was right; the money made no difference at all. We were going to make a lot more than we spent, so why not enjoy? I shut up and let myself be awed by the great expanses of green lawn. Under the bright sun, the wide sweeping track seemed poised in midair, a curve of stark and simple elegance. The stands loomed high above us and I was properly impressed.
We ordered mint juleps from the bar—nouveau riche I thought, but didn’t protest—and made our way to our seats. Don made a great show of studying the paper, which I thought was funny—it was today’s race results he was poring over. He muttered over the names in feigned thoughtfulness, “Yes . . . I think Absolam’s Ass looks good in the first.” He looked up. “Danny, go put a hundred dollars on Absolam’s Ass. To win.”
“Uh—” I started fumbling in my pockets. “I only have sixty—” And then I broke off and looked at him. “A hundred dollars—?” On a horse? A hundred dollars?
He was eying me with cool amusement. There was a crisp new bill in his hand. “You want to get rich?” he asked. “You have to spend money to make money.”
I blinked and took the bill. Somehow I found my way to the betting windows and traded the money for ten bright printed tickets. The clerk didn’t even glance up.
Absolam’s Ass paid off at three to one. We now had three hundred dollars. Don ordered two more mint juleps while I went to collect our winnings and put them on Fig Leaf. This time the clerk hesitated, repeated the bet aloud, then punched the buttons on his machine.
Fig Leaf paid off at two to one. We now had six hundred dollars. And another mint julep.
Calamity Jane also paid off at two to one. We were up twelve hundred dollars, and the clerk at the window was beginning to recognize me.
Finders Keepers came in second, and I looked at Don in consternation. He merely grinned and said, “Wait—” I waited and Harass was disqualified for bumping Tumbleweed. Finders Keepers paid eight to one. Ninety-six hundred dollars. The betting official went a little goggle-eyed when I tried to put it all on Big John. He had to call over a manager to okay it.
Big John came in at three to one. Twenty-eight thousand, eight hundred dollars. I was getting a little goggle-eyed myself. The track manager personally took my next bet; with that much money at stake, I couldn’t blame him. I made a little show of hesitating thoughtfully as if I couldn’t make up my mind, partly to keep him from getting curious about my “system” and partly because I was getting nervous about all the people who were watching me to see which way I would bet. Apparently they were betting the same way. Word of my “luck” seemed to have spread. (I didn’t like that—I’d heard somewhere that too much money on one horse could change the odds. Well, no matter. As long as I still won. . . .)
As I climbed back to our seats, I thought I saw Don leaving, but I must have been mistaken because he was still sitting there in our box. When he saw me, he folded the newspaper he’d been looking at and shoved it under his seat. I started to ask him about the odds, but he said, “Don’t worry about it. We’re leaving right after this race. We’re through for the day.”
“Huh—? Why?”
He waited until the horses broke from the gate; the crowd roared around us. “Because in a few minutes we’re going to be worth fifty-seven thousand, six hundred dollars. Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“But if we keep going,” I protested, “we can win almost a million dollars on an eight-horse parlay.”
He flinched at that. “There are better ways to make a million dollars,” he said. “Quieter ways. More discreet.”
I didn’t answer. Evidently he knew something I didn’t. I watched as Michelangelo crossed the finish line and paid off at two to one. Don scooped up his two newspapers and stood. “Come on,” he said. “You go get the money. I’ll wait for you at the car.
I was a little disappointed that he didn’t want to come with me to collect our winnings; after all, they were as much his as they were mine. (I’m getting my tenses confused—they were all mine, but it seemed like ours.) Didn’t he care about the money?
No matter. I found my way down to the windows to turn my tickets in—that is, I tried to turn my tickets in. There were some forms to be filled out first, and a notification for the Bureau of Internal Revenue. And I had to show my driver’s license for identification and my credit cards too. The track manager was beaming at me and kept shaking my hand and wanting to know if I would please wait for the photographers and reporters.
At first I was pleased with the idea, but something inside me went twang—just a warning sensation, that’s all, but it was enough. “I don’t want any publicity,” I said; now I knew why Don had beaten such a hasty retreat.
I shook off the track manager and collected my check for $57,600 as quickly as possible. It felt like a mighty powerful piece of paper; I was almost afraid to put it in my pocket. I must have walked out to the parking lot like my pants were on fire. I was that nervous and excited.
Don was sitting on the passenger side, looking thoughtful. I was too giddy to notice. “You want to see the check?” I asked, waving it at him.
He shook his head. “I’ve already seen it.” Then he pulled it out of his pocket to show me—his check for $57,600. He’d had it with him all the time!
I blinked from one to the other. They were identical, even down to the last curlicue on the signature.
“Hey!” I said. “Two checks!” Why don’t we cash them both?”
Don looked at me. “We can’t. Think about it. If you cash yours, how do I get it back so I can cash it?”
He was right, of course. I wanted to hit myself for being so stupid. It was the same check. He—I—we just hadn’t cashed it yet. He slipped it back into his pocket; I did the same with mine. Well, at least it was nice to know I wasn’t going to lose it.
