Borrowed Time (5 page)

I just grinned, letting the old taunting form of my name glide off my back. "Some people prefer quality to quantity, Harry."

Harry's grip on the big steak knife in his hand shifted, momentarily canting the point my way. "Look, Mikey, you already lost."

"Really? When did this happen?"

That smirk I remembered all too well lit his face again. "Several months from now. Hang around a while and keep reading the papers. You'll see it."

"I'm looking forward to it. Do you have any more wisdom to pass on?"

"Yes." Harry’s smirk shifted into a snarl. "Get out of the here-and-now. You're playing out of your league."

I laughed, loudly enough to draw some disapproving stares from the Southern aristocrats in the vicinity. "I thought you said you already won, Harry. So why are you trying to threaten me?”

“Just trying to protect an old friend. You’d take my advice if you were smart.”

“Thanks. Why is this so important, Harry? What’s your client’s stake in a victory by the Southern Confederacy?”

“You think I’m unprofessional enough to tell you that?”

I shrugged as if the point were a small one. “Harry, I already know what your client wants, a victory by the South. I’m just curious why.”

“What’s it matter to you?”

“I’m an historian, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Harry grinned nastily, as if recalling school days. “The client’s a funny old guy, Mikey. He’s also dying, but he figures that’s because he’s got defective genes.”

“That’s nuts. Everybody dies.”

“Yeah, but rich people figure they ought to be exempt. This guy thinks if his blood was pure he’d live longer than a couple of centuries.”

“Pure blood?” I had to dredge up memories of some antiquated prejudices before the connection made sense. “He thinks if his ancestry had been pure, what did they call it, Aryan or something, he’d be healthier?”

Harry grinned wider, enjoying the chance to mock his client. “He thinks he’d be a superman. So, if we make sure these Southerners win, that’s a step on the way to keeping racial separation a reality for a while.”

“Did you tell your client that during slavery there was more racial mingling than afterwards for a long time?”

“The client is always right, Mikey, especially when they’re rich.” Harry leaned back, using the knife to clean his fingernails. “So,” he wondered in a too-casual voice, “what’s your client’s beef with my client?”

“My client hates slavery, Harry. It’s a moral thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Harry lost his smile, sitting up straight and canting the knife back toward me. “Too bad, because slavery’s gonna be around a while longer, like it or not. Get out of the here-and-now.”

“And if I don’t?”

"There's a war going on, Mikey. People can get hurt.”

“I’ll remember that. I’ll also make sure my Personal Assistant forwards that threat back Uptime so that if anything happens to me the authorities will know who to question about it. Have a nice day, Citizen.” I walked out, leaving the still-annoyed aristocrats to focus on a visibly uncomfortable Harry. For an allegedly experienced T.I., he'd pulled a real amateur trick, boasting of a win. Granted, that win made things harder for me. Undoing something that's already happened is a lot harder than doing something new. If I was another amateur, I'd focus my effort on trying to stop Harry's outfit from getting their win instead of looking at the long game. Fortunately for my client, I wasn't an amateur.

"Jeannie, I need an inventor."

American? Operating during this down-time segment?

"Yes. No. I don't care what nationality, as long as he or she lives in the current United States."

Jeannie hummed softly while she thought, then offered her results.
There are several possibilities. All are male, which is characteristic of this period.

"Any of them specialize in maritime engineering?"

Yes. One. Name John Ericsson. Scientist and engineer. Produced a mix of minor inventions. Remembered primarily for first successful design of a screw propeller.

"I see. What exactly is a screw propeller?"

A relatively efficient means of propelling a waterborne craft via rotary motion.

"He sounds like our man. Do you have his current address?”

Jeannie thought about that.
Yes, Michael.

“How about maritime engineering information? Things invented and built within the next half-century of here-and-now?”

Yes, Michael. You brought the necessary data modules.

"Good. Now, where's this Ericsson live?"

New York City.

Technology let me jump thousands of years in the wink of an eye, but once in a here-and-now I was limited to their forms of transport, which in this particular here-and-now tended to be both slow and uncomfortable. The fact that armies were arrayed for battle between me and my objective didn’t simplify things any. Fortunately, the old United States was so big and so sparsely settled that slipping through the battle lines turned out to be a piece of cake. It still took time, though, and based on what I'd learned in Richmond and Portsmouth I realized there wasn’t any too much time left to make sure Harry's win next year didn't last.

People who don’t work as Temporal Interventionists have a real hard time grasping the process, or maybe only people who can think in the right way become T.I.’s. I recalled the baffled look on my current client’s face as I’d tried to explain things. “But if we change the past, won’t that change the present?”

“The present has already been changed,” I explained patiently. “Before time travel became practical, people worried that it violated causality, because they thought causality had to be linear through time. That’s not necessarily the case, of course. That’s why even in pre-time travel eras the physics equations indicated time travel was possible.”

“Because causality is circular through time, right?” the client recalled.

“Exactly. It’s a loop. We do something Uptime which causes something to happen Downtime which creates the conditions for us to do the something Uptime.”

“Then you already know how you’ll achieve what I want. It’s in the history files.”

“No, I don’t, and no, it isn’t.” This was where clients’ eyes always glazed over. “I haven’t done it, yet.”

“But if you’re starting the process now . . . ”

“The process doesn’t start anywhere. It’s a loop, Citizen. Where does a circle begin? Yes, it’s already happened, but it hasn’t happened, yet. Sort of like Schrodinger’s Cat on a really big scale. We live in a world that’s the end result of countless Interventions, but we aren’t aware of the Interventions until they’ve closed their loops. That’s how time works.”

“I don’t understand,” the client noted helplessly.

“I know. That’s why you’re hiring me.”

Cities never changed in some respects. They were always crowded. In Downtime, they also always stank. Nonetheless, Ericsson had an open window. One of the advantages of Downtime is that break-in's are a lot easier before air conditioning becomes common. I used an aerosol to painlessly inject my sleeping subject with a carefully configured cocktail of designer drugs, waited until they’d had time to take effect, then hauled him into a nearby chair and sat opposite. Ericsson stared back, drugged into a half-hallucinatory state of receptiveness which would pass easily as an inspired dream come the morning. The technique worked for ‘inspiring’ lots of things, even poetry, in unsuspecting Downtimers.

“Hi. I’m your subconscious.” I hauled out some drawings I’d been working on during the trip with Jeannie guiding my hand, displaying various inventions appropriate to current technology, explaining how they worked, and implanting a sense of urgency as I did so. Ericsson soaked it all up, mustering a few smiles with the goofy delight an engineer gets when he sees a really neat machine. “You’ve got to put a lot of this together to build a new kind of ship,” I finished up. “You’ll be famous. You’ll do a great service for your adopted country.” He nodded back, the gesture sort of wobbly from the drugs, then subsided back into receptiveness. I took him back to bed, settled him in, then injected a second dose to counteract the first set of drugs so Ericsson wouldn’t accept any unwanted inspirations from background noise or events before morning, then left as dawn was graying the sky.

I really wanted to get on to the next stage of my Intervention, but had to wait to ensure Ericsson hadn’t reacted to my dream-sequence by trying to start a new religion or something. The process isn’t foolproof, but then nothing is. After staying in the city for several days and almost getting used to the smell, I made another midnight visit to Ericsson’s place, this time just sedating him so I could search his house at leisure. Sure enough, the diagrams scattered around revealed he’d taken on board everything I’d shown him. I stared at the result, skeptical despite myself. “Will this thing float?”

Jeannie ran a quick analysis.
Yes, Michael
.

“Will it work? I didn’t expect Ericsson to toss everything I showed him into one plan.”

It appears workable given the current state of technology
.

“Okay. Let’s go make sure it gets built.”

Temporal Interventionists specifically and historians in general know there are basically two obstacles to any technological innovation. The first is whether or not they’re feasible given the current state-of-the-art. The second is getting establishments wedded to older technologies to accept the new concepts. I knew Ericsson’s design would pass muster on the first count, but for the second I was going up against the institutional inertia of one of the most conservative mind-sets in human experience, that of Naval Officers. Not that I entirely blamed them for that conservatism. If some land invention doesn’t work, you just walk away. If a ship design is bad, you get to practice inhaling water.

While waiting to check on Ericsson I’d pondered the problem, finally concluding no here-and-now Admiral busy fighting a war would ever voluntarily agree to build a new kind of ship, and even if I convinced one by induced-dreaming the rest of the establishment would negate his efforts. That meant I had to convince someone who couldn’t be overruled.

Washington, D.C. had the same wartime look Richmond had, only more so since the North was bigger and richer. More generals, more kids in uniform, more money. Abraham Lincoln wasn't hard to spot, being both taller and homelier than most of his fellow Downtimers. The hard part turned out to be getting close enough to him to pass a message. I'd figured security for a public figure would be pretty minimal in this period, but I hadn't taken into account the war and the fears for his safety it would generate. Nor could I fault that attitude with Harry and his friends lurking about.

I hung around the President for several long frustrating days and nights without any chances developing to get his ear in a waking or dreaming state. From what I'd seen of the here-and-now White House, I could cool my heels for months waiting for an actual appointment, and I couldn't afford to waste that much time. Lincoln had to hear from me before he heard Ericsson's proposal.

While strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue past all the brick and wood-frame buildings, dodging pedestrians, carriages and piles of horse manure as I tried to come up with another angle, I noticed I was being followed. The two individuals trailing me weren't very good, which told me they were locals and not some of Harry's co-workers. That kind of tradecraft has come a long way in the intervening centuries. It seemed like a good idea to find out what they wanted, despite the physical risk. "Jeannie, I need an alley with a way out the back."

The maps from this period aren't very reliable, Michael. Too much temporary construction
.

I took a moment to wish I’d been able to reload my finger stun charge. "That's okay. Do your best."

Two more blocks, hang a right, half a block down
.

"Thanks." I followed Jeannie's directions, and found myself fronting a pile of garbage blocking a narrow lane. In a pinch, I could climb over it as long as I didn’t think about what was under me. Turning, I saw my two friends standing at the entrance to the alley. One was big and wide, like a gorilla. He looked powerful but slow, so he'd be easy to outrun. The other reminded me of a ferret on two legs, thin, quick and dangerous. They came halfway down the alley and stopped, facing me with bland expressions. "May I help you gentlemen?"

"Maybe," the ferret drawled. "You seem pretty interested in President Lincoln."

"He's the President."

"That's right," the ferret agreed, "and we want him to stay that way." A slim hand dipped into one pocket and surfaced with a shiny metal badge. "Pinkerton Protective Services."

"I see."
During the American Civil War
, Jeannie informed me,
Pinkerton acted as both the forerunner of the Secret Service and as Military Intelligence.
Here I'd been busting my gut to get the President's ear, and a direct line to him had just walked into my lap.

The gorilla leaned toward me, rubbing one fist into the other palm. "Just answer our questions. No funny stuff."

"Why are you in town?” the ferret pressed. “Why are you following the President?"

I licked my lips, trying to project nervous sincerity. "The truth is, there's something I wanted to tell the President. Something very important."

The gorilla snorted in derision while the ferret looked skeptical. "Lots of people think they got important stuff to tell Mister Lincoln. You tell us, and we'll decide."

"Okay. But this really is important. I got a friend down in Virginia, you see..." So I spilled my guts about the scheme Harry's group had cooked up, leaving out the Temporal Intervention parts, of course.

As I talked, the gorilla furrowed his brow while he tried to think, but the ferret whipped out a notebook and writing implement and started making manual notes like mad. When I finished, he fixed me with a searching stare. "This on the level?"