The Second Time Travel Megapack: 23 Modern and Classic Stories Read online

  At some point in the evening Mrs. Chamberlayne introduced me to Mr. Sax, who had arrived the previous day from London. He was about forty or forty-five years of age, and had a large bald head, strikingly clear blue eyes, and a receding chin. I found him absolutely riveting. His flamboyance, his theatrical gestures, his penetratingly clear voice, all combined to heighten his presence among our otherwise low-key group.

  But he was not very happy, as we were soon to discover. After an hour or so he and the Chamberlaynes and the Dunns went off by themselves into an adjoining room, where they began a muted but very animated argument over something. I tried to overhear, but could not make out the details. Then I heard him exclaim, “I will not agree!” and he rushed out into the main parlor where the rest of us congregated.

  His face had turned beet red, his eyes were wild. As he lurched towards the table with the bottles of spirits, he unintentionally ran headlong into Mr. Mancefield, dashing a glass from his hand.

  “Watch your step, sir,” the latter exclaimed, pushing Sax backwards. He stumbled and fell heavily to the floor, bumping the back of his head. Then he swore an obscene oath, and despite his injury, swiftly came to his feet, brandishing a short knife. He rushed at Mancefield, but the squire pulled a small pistol from under his coat, and let fly. There was a loud bang and a noisome cloud of smoke.

  The ball just grazed Sax’s left side, leaving no more than a minor flesh wound, but continued onward to strike the person standing behind him. Jake was now writhing in agony on the floor, clutching at his midsection.

  “I can’t feel my legs,” he gasped.

  Edmund Chamberlayne pinioned Sax’s arms behind him. I heard him hiss into Sax’s ear the words, “We will deal with you later. For your own sake, get the hell out of this country. Europe or the Americas, I do not care which, but leave us now.”

  “Very well,” the much subdued Sax mumbled. He shook himself free from his friend’s grasp, picked up his cloak, and headed out the door.

  Mancefield had been wounded in the shoulder and arm by Sax’s knife, and was trying to struggle back to his feet. Mrs. Chamberlayne restrained him, murmuring small words of consolation while she tried to stop the bleeding. One of the Austens—Jane, I think—brought her a flask containing an oily swirl of dark liquid, and Mrs. C. forced it down his somewhat unwilling throat. Within moments he began to relax.

  Cecil caught me watching the scenario, and mouthed, “Laudanum.” I nodded, my mouth gaping wide with shock.

  Cassandra Austen was bending over the prone body of my “brother.” She motioned to me and I hurried over.

  “This is life-threatening,” she said. “You must get him back to home immediately, if you wish him to live. Where do you want us to take him?”

  Without thinking, I responded, “The cassoon.” Then I put my hand to my mouth, having suddenly realized what I had just said.

  “This is no time for pretense,” she said, giving me a wry smile. “We know what you are. We know who you are. We have often encountered such visitors to the past.”

  Then she rose, and motioned again with her hand. “Mr. Dunn,” she yelled, “come quickly.”

  “We will take care of Mr. Mancefield,” she said, staring right at me. “He will trouble neither of us again. But you must remove yourselves and your things at once, and return whence you came. And you must not take anything away with you from this house.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Then I went to find Shorter and Long. I ordered them, under the provisions of Article VIII-g, which gave me command of the expedition as the sole surviving primary investigator during a time meltdown situation, to destroy our equipment and records in the Chamberlaynes’ home, and to prepare everything at Green Park for immediate transit uptime.

  When I returned to Lawson, they had put an emergency compress of some kind on poor Jake’s wound, slowing the bleeding to a mere ooze, and had got him to swallow laudanum or some other tranquilizing drug, greatly easing his immediate suffering. They were sliding several sheets under his body as a makeshift sling, preparatory to lifting him onto a door that someone had found.

  Once they had secured him, several of the servants raised the slab of wood and carried it out front. A flatbed wagon pulled up at the same time, and they hoisted his body into the back, gently covering it with a quilt.

  I joined him there with Jane Austen, holding his hand tightly as we started down the road. Even with the drugs in his system, Jake was wide awake, and kept turning his head in all directions, trying to see where he was being taken. I soothed him the best I could. When we reached the caisson, they eased him down the bank and onto the belled bottom of the ruin.

  Jane hugged me and wished me well, and Cassandra and the others shook my hand one by one, and then they departed, all of them. I was left standing there alone in the night, listening to the chirping of the crickets, until the carriages from Green Park started arriving some fifteen minutes later. It took us three hours to complete our emergency evacuation, but Jake survived, and so did the videos, audios, and transcriptions we had made at Green Park.

  Question from Judge Number Six: You state that Austen and her friends seemed to know who you were. How could this be possible?

  Response of Ms. Wardon: I don’t know, sir. All I can tell you is that, to the best of my knowledge, none of us made any gross errors. I’ve noted the several small verbal lapses that may have occurred, but these were very minor, certainly insufficient to have garnered this kind of response. My relationship with Mancefield, while inappropriate, in no way compromised our identity or mission. I was very careful what I said and did, and I’m sure the others were as well.

  No, I truly believe that the Austens, the Chamberlaynes, the Dunns, and possibly others, knew precisely who and what we were from the very beginning of our investigation, and played some elaborate sort of game with us, something which they found quite amusing, perhaps even entertaining. I had the sense that they regarded us much in the same way as you might view the inhabitants of a third world country, as backward primitives who understood nothing of modern society.

  I’ve thought about this a great deal, but I have no better sense today of who they were and what they were about than I did then.

  Response from Judge Number One: Are there any other questions for the defendant? Hearing none, I declare these proceedings adjourned for the day. This court will begin its deliberations on a final judgment at ten a.m. tomorrow morning.

  * * * *

  Log Entry (Personal): Patricia Wardon

  So it’s over, all but the shouting. I’ll certainly be dismissed from the service. As for the rest, well, “kumquat may,” as they say, I’ll survive. Maybe I’ll luck out, and just get a slap on the wrist. It’s been known to happen.

  I did some searching last week in the old Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage. Sir Jowell Mancefield, Bart., inherited his uncle’s title and manor house three years after our visit, married Lady Bénine and had eleven children by her, and lived to a ripe old age. Although such emoluments were abolished years ago, the title yet survives, at least in theory, unto the present day.

  Jane Austen, of course, died in 1817, and her sister Cassandra in 1845; neither one ever married. Cassandra was Jane’s sole heir, and she sifted through the family papers before she passed on, burning any letters that she thought revealed too much of a personal nature, and cutting passages out of the others that do survive.

  They’re all long dead now, or so we’re led to believe.

  There’s just one little problem, something which I haven’t mentioned (and never will) to those distinguished gentlemen who currently sit as judge and jury on my case, or even to my former employers. Just a single sheet of paper, bearing the letterhead of the Beverly Hilliard Hotel, personally signed, sealed, and delivered by one Jack (or John) Donne (for that’s who I think it was). On
it was penned a message in an archaic hand, a style and form that I immediately recognized. It went something this:

  Letter #11: Jane Austen to Patricia Wardon

  Beverly Hills, California

  Tuesday 1 June 2032

  My dear Patsy,

  My Sister & I are sorry indeed that you should have been subjected to so much travail on our behalf. Please believe me when I tell you that such was never our intent, that we would never have willingly harm’d you in any fashion whatsoever.

  You will be pleas’d, I am sure, to learn that your erstwhile Beau fully recover’d from his injuries, & that, while he did pine somewhat overmuch during the months succeeding your sudden disappearance from our community, eventually came to realize that this outcome too was perhaps for the best.

  Mr S. was properly chastis’d by our most urgent counsel, & went on to a much better & possibly more satisfying career as a writer of scandalous commentary in those fleeting publications issued by Fleet Street.

  Mrs C. my dearest freind has, I am very sorry to say, now pass’d on to a better world than ours, but I know how much she enjoy’d your company, & do now wish to express it. & Mr & Mrs D. are together again after some several difficulties, which have been related by Mr R. in another account.

  As for myself & my loving Sister, we will never forget those bright shining days of a carefree summer when we shar’d your company & that of Mr Lawson in a small town in Somerset. Live your life to the fullest, my Dearest, for none of us may know the years we are given or the circumstances thereof, until they have pass’d us by. & When you feel the darkness creeping into your bed upon a night, during these long days of trial & travail, come then to remember us kindly, as we ever do you, and be cheered, if you will, by the sincerest love and affection bestowed upon you by

  Yr Elder sister & always yr freind,

  Jane

  IN THE CARDS, by Alan Cogan

  The first thing I did when I bought my Grundy Projector was take a trip to about two years ahead and see what was going to happen to me. Everyone was doing it around that time; students were taking short trips into the future to learn whether or not they would pass their exams, married couples were looking ahead to see how many kids they were going to have, businessmen were going into the future to size up their prospects.

  I took the trip because I was getting married and I couldn’t resist the temptation of finding out how things would work out with my fiancee Marge and myself. Not that I had any doubts about Marge, but the Grundy Projectors were guaranteed harmless and there’s no point in taking chances with a serious step like marriage.

  Everybody was looking ahead then. Within a week after the Grundy Projectors were introduced, you could walk past homes every evening and see people with those shimmering bird-cages around them. Their bodies were there, but heaven knows when their minds were—months and often even years ahead of time.

  I knew exactly when to go on my first time trip. I even knew where: I’d already put a down payment on a home in the new dome housing area where Marge and I would be living after the wedding. Knowing where to go on a time trip is important. On this one, for instance, I hadn’t been assigned an address yet and there were all sorts of changes in the place—buildings and streets where there had only been empty lots and sections marked off by string—and I just had to hunt until I came to our home.

  You can imagine how much more difficult finding my future self would be if I hadn’t known the exact location. That’s about the only major drawback to making time trips and I don’t see how it can be overcome. Directories would be one answer, but how would you go about putting them together if your crews can’t ask questions or touch filing cards or even open future visiphone books?

  * * * *

  Eventually, after setting the dial around the two-year mark, which is about the maximum limit on most models, I found myself in my future home in the dome housing area. I was watching myself as I would be and Marge as she would be. Only I didn’t like what I saw.

  We were fighting and screaming at each other. You could tell at a glance that we hated each other. And after only two years!

  I was completely stunned as I watched that scene. Future Marge looked furious; she had the kind of look I never even suspected she could get on her face. But I think I was more enraged at my future self than at her. At the time, I was seriously in love with Marge—although it seemed evident it wasn’t going to last—and I loathed myself for acting that way toward her. And after all those rash promises I had been making, too!

  I was really a tangled mess of emotions as I watched our future selves battling it out.

  I became conscious of not being alone as I watched. It didn’t take long to discover that it was Marge who had come to join me. I should have expected her—she must have been just as curious about her marriage as I was and, like myself, would naturally take her Projector to the two-year limit. Of course we couldn’t hold hands the way we would have if our bodies had been there, but then we probably wouldn’t have held them long. We were both pretty embarrassed by what we saw.

  The cause of the fight was very obscure, and though we saw and heard everything perfectly, we still didn’t really understand. However, the emotions expressed were plain enough.

  “You aren’t going to die, Marge,” my future self was yelling at her. “Try and get that through your damned thick stupid skull!”

  “I am! I am!” she was screaming back at me. “You know I’m going to die. You want to get rid of me. Our marriage has been one long fight from the start.”

  “Don’t talk such damned rot,” my future self hollered back at her. “There’s probably a perfectly good explanation for it all and you’re too ignorant to see it!”

  “The only explanation is that I’m going to die,” future Marge insisted. She broke down, sobbing into an already saturated handkerchief.

  My future self stamped around the room, cursing and furiously kicking the furniture. “Why don’t you find out for sure? Why don’t you go in closer and find out the real reason?”

  She sobbed even louder. “I daren’t! You do it for me. Go find out for yourself and then tell me.”

  That seemed to make my future self even madder. “You know I wouldn’t touch one of those things even to save my life. I mean it, too! Besides, if you do die, it’ll be your own fault. You’ll have believed yourself to death! You think you’re going to die and now you won’t be happy until you are dead.”

  Future Marge began to sob hysterically and my Marge, who had been right beside me, suddenly seemed to grow a little more remote.

  Then a strange thing happened. My future self stopped pacing up and down the room and turned to look straight at me with the queerest expression on his face. That was enough for me. I got out of there fast and flipped back to the peace and security of 2017.

  * * * *

  I climbed out of my Grundy Projector, glad to be back in the relative calm of my body, although it still took me a long time to get settled down. I felt like smashing the Projector there and then, and I guess I should have done it.

  The problem that had me all tied in knots was whether or not I should go ahead and marry Marge after what I had seen. I know it looked as though I was going to marry her anyway, but in my innocence I figured I could beat that.

  I soon realized I was going to get nowhere sitting all by myself in my room, so I went over to Marge’s place. She was waiting for me, swinging quietly to and fro on the hammock on the dark patio. Normally I would have sat right down beside her, but this time I just stood back sheepishly and waited.

  Neither of us said anything for a while and I just watched as the hammock floated in the faint bluish light from some nearby lamps. Marge seemed to shine almost angelically as the glow caught her dark eyes and her softly tanned arms and legs.

  * * * *

 
; I could have whipped myself for treating her the way I had seen myself treating her in the future. It must have been a mistake. There had to be a mistake somewhere. I couldn’t have made myself do anything to hurt her.

  Her voice was husky and scared when she spoke. “Do you think it’ll happen the way we saw it, Gerry?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They say that whatever you see always turns out to be the thing that happens.”

  “Do you think we’ll fight like that when—if we’re married?”

  It was on the end of my tongue to talk common sense and logic to her, but then I realized that neither of us wanted to hear anything like that. We were in love and we didn’t want to hear anything that conflicted with our emotions.

  Marge sat up in the hammock and made room for me to sit down beside her.

  “I just don’t see how it could happen to us,” I said. “I don’t see how we could fight like that. There must have been some mistake. Maybe we looked in on the wrong people.”

  Neither of us added anything to that. We both knew we weren’t going to change so much that we couldn’t recognize ourselves two years later.

  “Maybe it was some sort of alternative world we saw,” I suggested, eagerly clutching at any straw, “showing us what could happen if we didn’t work hard at our marriage. It could have been a sort of warning of what could happen to some people. But not us, of course!”

  Marge’s lonely little hand crept into mine for comfort and I began to warm up to the subject.

  “Don’t you worry about it,” I assured her. “What would we ever find to quarrel about?”

  The idea seemed so preposterous, we both began to laugh.