The American Zone (9 page)
I TURNED fifty-seven last May 12—happily, in a culture where years imply experience, not necessarily decrepitude. At my age, I have very few illusions remaining about myself. I’m a short, swarthy, slow-moving, heavyset man, clumsier of wit and tongue and trigger than I’d prefer, who stumbled onto the joys and terrors of absolute liberty rather late in life. I’ve long since made my adjustment to it—or at least I think I have—although I can still be surprised occasionally by things the average Confederate takes for granted. Home heating, water-heating, and electricity, for example, come from a little foot-locker sized box in your basement, and the guy with the coveralls and clipboard who comes to service it twice a year pays you, for the deuterium and tritium he takes away.
I arrived here in LaPorte, in the North American Confederacy, entirely by accident and considerably worse for the wear, because I pushed the wrong button, pulled the wrong lever, or sat on the wrong knob during a brief but endless pistol fight in a physics laboratory at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. I’d been investigating government involvement in the downtown Denver drive-by machine-gunning of a scientist that the government didn’t particularly want investigated. Shortly after landing here, I somehow won the heart of a brilliant and highly respected physician, Clarissa MacDougall Olson-Bear, who also happens to be a beautiful and voluptuous strawberry blond. To be absolutely truthful, I’ve never figured out exactly what Clarissa sees in me, and I’ve always been afraid to ask.
On the other hand, I’ve always known why I love Clarissa. She consistently remains the most interesting person I’ve ever known—the face I’m always surprised and delighted to wake up to—and a study in contrasting stereotypes.
To begin with, she’s gorgeous, five feet six inches tall, maybe 115 or 120 pounds, with a slender waist I can almost get my hands around, and a full complement of all the assets that go with it. If you just think of Mathilda May as she appeared in
Lifeforce
—no drooling, now—with that turned-up nose and those wonderful—er, cheekbones, only a little taller, with shoulderblade-length reddish blond hair and a scattering of freckles, you’ve got the picture. When I first met her she was thirty-three years old, but Confederate medicine keeps her looking an eternal twenty-five.
Lifeforce
—no drooling, now—with that turned-up nose and those wonderful—er, cheekbones, only a little taller, with shoulderblade-length reddish blond hair and a scattering of freckles, you’ve got the picture. When I first met her she was thirty-three years old, but Confederate medicine keeps her looking an eternal twenty-five.
On the other hand, Clarissa owns the equivalent of three or four Ph.D.s in various subjects related to Healing, and is continentally famous in her own profession as an innovative pharmacologist and surgeon. In my world, academic doctors and
practicing physicians are separate populations. Here, those who do are regarded as the only ones fit to write and teach. And they also, miracle of miracles, make housecalls.
practicing physicians are separate populations. Here, those who do are regarded as the only ones fit to write and teach. And they also, miracle of miracles, make housecalls.
At need, Clarissa can be harder-edged and more businesslike than any Las Vegas blackjack dealer, but with me, she’s more tender and sentimental than any female I’ve ever known. I bought her an imported copy of
Dirty Dancing
a few years ago (in some ways she also reminds me of Cynthia Rhodes), and it always makes her cry. She’s dedicated her life to life, to relieving suffering and fighting off death, but every day she carries a lethal hypersonic electric pistol on her person and knows how to use it.
Dirty Dancing
a few years ago (in some ways she also reminds me of Cynthia Rhodes), and it always makes her cry. She’s dedicated her life to life, to relieving suffering and fighting off death, but every day she carries a lethal hypersonic electric pistol on her person and knows how to use it.
It’s an .11 caliber Webley.
Up yours, Alan Alda.
Clarissa—
“Lookie what we found!”
My romantic reverie was interrupted, not by Lucy, who’d made that noise, but by another noise, the unmistakable velvety roar of the local equivalent of a helicopter. Picture a set of bedsprings, thirty feet long, twenty feet wide, and six feet thick, stripped of foam and fabric, and chrome-plated. In the middle, like the egg in a toasted “bird’s nest,” place a Volkswagen Beetle-sized cabin with as much clear plastic underfoot as overhead—and enough cold fusion generator to run a hundred cars the size of my Neova.
Make that my
former
Neova. I missed my car already.
former
Neova. I missed my car already.
The thing soon touched down on a dozen or so insectile six-foot legs, just a few yards from Clarissa’s hovervan. The original medical squad, Francis and Snodderly, had been dismissed with many thanks and a reasonable gratuity when Lucy had amiably refused their further services and my personal physician had laid claim to me. Now the swirly bright red lights went out, indicating
that the bedspring part of the flying machine was no longer charged with the several hundred thousand volts that kept it in the air. The underside canopy popped open, Will Sanders climbed down the folding steps, ducked beneath the structure, and emerged into the harsh prairie sunlight.
that the bedspring part of the flying machine was no longer charged with the several hundred thousand volts that kept it in the air. The underside canopy popped open, Will Sanders climbed down the folding steps, ducked beneath the structure, and emerged into the harsh prairie sunlight.
Holding on to her hairdo, Lucy met him halfway. He held his hands out to show her something. That’s when she’d hollered at Clarissa and me. An instant later, I’d sat up and was butt-scooting my way to the end of the gurney, greatly resenting the needle in my arm. Clarissa pursed her lips—not quite making a little growl like Marge Simpson—but she knew me. More important, she knew that I knew her. She was a worse patient than I was, especially when the prospect for some kind of action presented itself. She pulled the tube out and helped me up and out of the van.
Meanwhile, the swirly red warning lights went on again as the much-helmeted and darkly visored pilot of Will’s aerial taxi—giving Lucy an enthusiastic wave and receiving one in return—applied the megavoltage once again to its complicated-looking wireworks. Air molecules, ionized by contact with the upper elements of the machine’s openwork structure, were drawn at an extremely high velocity to the oppositely charged elements below, bumbling along with them a whole lot of nonionized molecules that acted just like the propwash of a helicopter. The machine rose switly on the column of moving air it had created without any pesky moving parts, started moving forward, as well, and was gone.
Meanwhile, Will was proudly dangling a plastic baggie in front of my face.
“Hold it still, goddammit, will you?”
“Sorry, Win.” I bent and squinted, thankful all over again for the corrective therapies that gave me vision that was as good as
it had been in my teenage years, both up close and far away. “It’s money,” I said, and so it was, a silky-looking bill about midway in size between what I used to carry around in the States and the really big money people used in my nineteenth century. It wasn’t just the size that was weird, or the colors—mostly gold and brown—but the engravings:
it had been in my teenage years, both up close and far away. “It’s money,” I said, and so it was, a silky-looking bill about midway in size between what I used to carry around in the States and the really big money people used in my nineteenth century. It wasn’t just the size that was weird, or the colors—mostly gold and brown—but the engravings:
This is to certify that, on deposit in the Petroleum Bank of New Orleans, Federated States of Texas, payable to the bearer of this note upon demand, there is one gallon of AAA grade low-sulphur petroleum.
On the other side, where it says “One Dollar” on the U.S. notes I’m familiar with, it said “One Crockett d’Huile,” instead, and there was a portrait of ol’ Davy himself in the middle, holding on to ol’ Betsy, but looking a whole lot more like ol’ Ross Perot than ol’ Fess Parker. By now Clarissa was behind me, her arms around me, peering over my shoulder.
“Do you think it might have anything to do with the trainwreck?” she asked.
“Do Gypsies wear do-rags?” Will asked picaresquely. “One of my people found it anchored down by a fist-sized rock about where we figure they parked their getaway car.”
“Under a rock?” I shook my head—it was about all I could do. “Then how the hell did you find it?”
He grinned. “I thought you’d ask that. It was easy—we caught a bright flash of metal from the air. This was sitting on top of the rock, like a beacon.” He held up another plastic baggie. Will and I had introduced a lot of revolutionary concepts to peacekeeping in the Confederacy, among them the idea that no two sets of fingerprints are alike, and that evidence of that nature should be preserved. This baggie contained a big gold coin. It
was very slightly larger in diameter than a silver dollar, but a trifle thinner. On one side was a picture of a guy with the name “Houston” underneath, and on the other side, it proclaimed itself to be “One Gold Samoleon.”
was very slightly larger in diameter than a silver dollar, but a trifle thinner. On one side was a picture of a guy with the name “Houston” underneath, and on the other side, it proclaimed itself to be “One Gold Samoleon.”
Money with a sense of humor.
On an unembossed flat space right beside the portrait (I assumed) of Sam Houston, someone had left—apparently on purpose—a big fat, perfect thumbprint.
Choose your enemies carefully: you’ll probably be known much better and far longer for who they were, than for anything else you ever managed to accomplish.
—Memoirs of Lucille G. Kropotkin
The flat, hot yellow countryside blurred past at more than three hundred miles per hour. Overhead, one of the mile-long dirigibles we’d talked about with Olongo was making the same speed on its way south to Mexico City.
“The Federated States of Texas,” Lucy mused, examining the two evidence baggies for maybe the fortieth time. “A universe where New Orleans is a part of the Lone Star Republic an’ the banks issue gold coins an’ oil-based paper currency. Shucks, it sounds almost as good as the Confederacy!”
“With engraved portraits of good ol’ Sam Houston and Davy Crockett themselves on the money, to boot,” I added. “Anybody ever hear of anyplace like that?”
Nobody said anything. Then, just to be different, everybody said nothing. We all knew about lots of different alternate continua that had been stumbled across in this latterday Age of Discovery. It was
the
favorite subject of the Confederate media. And to be objective, these were entire universes being discovered, complete with billions of galaxies, trillions of star systems, quadrillions of planets, and zillions of people. The whole deal was a lot more important than anything Christopher Columbus or Neil Armstrong had done. They’d only found a couple of continents by accident, respectively, and set foot on a big, cold, useless ball of rock. But the number of new universes seemed to be rising every day, and nobody could know about all of them. Nevertheless, I thought that this might possibly be something new. Like
almost everybody, I’d heard of various independent Texases being discovered here and there—in fact they seemed to be a little more common than Texases annexed by the United States or Mexico—but I’d never heard of a Texas that included the crescent city or issued oil certificates.
the
favorite subject of the Confederate media. And to be objective, these were entire universes being discovered, complete with billions of galaxies, trillions of star systems, quadrillions of planets, and zillions of people. The whole deal was a lot more important than anything Christopher Columbus or Neil Armstrong had done. They’d only found a couple of continents by accident, respectively, and set foot on a big, cold, useless ball of rock. But the number of new universes seemed to be rising every day, and nobody could know about all of them. Nevertheless, I thought that this might possibly be something new. Like
almost everybody, I’d heard of various independent Texases being discovered here and there—in fact they seemed to be a little more common than Texases annexed by the United States or Mexico—but I’d never heard of a Texas that included the crescent city or issued oil certificates.
“I hope the cooking is still good there,” I muttered absently. On one of our many second honeymoons, Clarissa and I had eaten red snapper, and flounder stuffed with some kind of crab and shrimp herb thing in Galveston. The memory still made my mouth water.
And at the same time, Will said, “You know, that’s not a bad idea, is it?”
“The cooking in Texas?” Lucy asked. “I guarantee you won’t find any better in the solar system!”
“No, Lucy,” Will told her, “an oil-based currency. Hell, they sometimes call it ‘black gold,’ don’t they?”
“That they do, Willy,” Lucy replied. “An’ you can purchase oil certificates, or wheat certificates or tuna certificates, or any other kinda certificates y’want, right here—in LaPorte, that is—at any bank, if y’know what to ask for.”
I saw Will file away the mental note he’d made about that, and made a small bet with myself that one of his wives handled the family accounts. Most likely Mary-Beth. I’d learned about oil certificates my very first week in the Confederacy.
We were barrelling—no oil-based pun intended—up Greenway 200 again, this time in Clarissa’s medical hovervan, toward LaPorte. I’d been allowed by my physician to sit upright beside her, feeling both ridiculous and helpless with my recast arm. From time to time she patted my knee reassuringly. In the back, along for the ride, were our friends Lucy and Will. He was officially in charge, but I decided where we were headed, simply by blurting it out.
“Why not give Deejay a jingle?” I asked my lovely bride. “Tell her we’ll be seeing her in a few minutes and that we’ll want to talk to her partner Ooloorie, as well. They’ve done a lot of poking around with that invention of theirs. Maybe they know about this Federated States of Texas.”
I LOOKED AROUND. Somehow, the place felt like home. This was the very room, after all—this very paratronics laboratory—from which first contact with my homeworld had been made, in 1986. It was also the laboratory in which, only two years later, my first private professional case in the Confederacy had resolved itself, and the murderer of Seaton Mott had met his unspeakable fate. There should have been a bronze plaque hanging somewhere.
“The Federated States of Texas,” Deejay Thorens mused. She peered intently at the plastic baggie she held before her highly decorative face. This was her lab, situated in a sunny, landscaped corner of the main campus of LaPorte University, Ltd., located just across good old Confederation Boulevard from the very first bit of LaPorte I’d ever seen, however blurrily, a mile-long private park I’m not even sure has a name. Deejay had gotten up from her regulation swivel chair when we’d come in, and politely offered it to Lucy who’d shaken her head, trying not to bridle at what she privately considered an insult. So we were all standing around or leaning against various pieces of scientific furniture, me remembering with a little trepidation that that was how I’d ended up in the Confederacy. “Crockett d’Huiles and gold Samoleons—quick, somebody call Roger Rabbit!” She handed both baggies back to Will. “It all sounds very interesting, Win, very intriguing, but I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of the place.”
How could anybody make a simple, declarative sentence like that so damned sexy? You could practically feel the breeze from
her eyelashes. Will and I had decided on the way up here to keep the evidence that had been left for his people out on the prairie a secret—as much as possible, anyway, given the nature of the investigation—and Deejay had agreed. He said, “Know anybody who’s likely to know?”
her eyelashes. Will and I had decided on the way up here to keep the evidence that had been left for his people out on the prairie a secret—as much as possible, anyway, given the nature of the investigation—and Deejay had agreed. He said, “Know anybody who’s likely to know?”
She shrugged. As with everything else Deejay did, it was a pretty shrug. I glanced at Clarissa. It’s a good thing my wife isn’t the jealous type. The fact is, if she noticed that I wasn’t admiring a glorious creature like Deejay, she’d feel for my pulse. “While you folks were getting here, I C-mailed LIT and I’m afraid they’ve never heard of this particular time/space/probability continuum, either. The Federated States of Texas. They have no record whatever of anyone entering the Confederacy from it.”
She was referring to the recently constructed LaPorte InterWorld Terminal, a miles-long underground establishment where thousands upon thousands of immigrants were pouring through every day from worlds of alternity that offered them less personal and economic freedom—and maybe shorter, nastier lives—than this one did. “On the other hand …”
I always find it difficult describing Deejay to anyone who hasn’t seen her. I just don’t have the vocabulary for it. Hell, she’d make a professional lexicographer drop his jaw, drool on his Florsheims, and mumble “Wannawannawanna.” Anyway, you wouldn’t believe your own eyes, even if you saw her. She’s always reminded me of Loni Anderson in a white labcoat, but others have mentioned Daryl Hannah, Kim Basinger (if you can imagine either of them with any brains), or Natasha Henstridge, in
Species.
My darling Clarissa once admitted to me—sheepishly—that Deejay is the only female who ever made her feel the least bit tempted to give the girl-on-girl thing a whirl. Fortunate for me, they’re both flaming heterosexuals.
Species.
My darling Clarissa once admitted to me—sheepishly—that Deejay is the only female who ever made her feel the least bit tempted to give the girl-on-girl thing a whirl. Fortunate for me, they’re both flaming heterosexuals.
But Deejay was going on, moving those full, ripe, luscious lips and giving us flashes of her perfect white teeth. “We’re not really explorers, here, you understand.”
“Whattya mean, honey?” Lucy wanted to know. She liked Deejay, too, and they’d been friends for a long time. Intellectually, at least, I’m pretty sure that Deejay reminded Lucy of herself—about a century and a quarter ago.
“This is a physics lab, Lucy, a paratronics lab, to be specific. Our discovery of the broach was accidental—we were looking for a star drive, which we still don’t have.”
“An’ more’s the pity,” Lucy observed.
Deejay agreed with a nod. “But, after all,” she said, “we were the first to poke our noses into other worlds of probability, and we are making an attempt to keep an orderly record of the more than eleven thousand alternative realities that have been discovered here and by other investigators so far.”
“Eleven thousand?” I mused, hardly able to believe it, although I’d heard the claim before. It shouldn’t have surprised me. The logic of the alternate probability says the potential number is … well, numberless.
“And change,” she told me.
“And … ?” Will, fundamentally a man of action—he thought he was both Starsky
and
Hutch—was starting to get impatient. I knew the signs well.
and
Hutch—was starting to get impatient. I knew the signs well.
She shrugged again; I tried not to sigh. “And sometimes what we discover out there surprises us. There seem to be interesting patterns or … I don’t know, certain rhythms among the infinite worlds of probability.”
Lucy raised her eyebrows and asked, “Patterns such as?”
“Such as …” She laughed, suddenly. “Well, just in the continua most of us would recognize historically, you know about the worlds where, say, Jeffrey Hunter performed in seventy-nine
Star Trek
episodes as Captain Christopher Pike? Or where Rory Calhoun got the lead in The
Wild, Wild West?
”
Star Trek
episodes as Captain Christopher Pike? Or where Rory Calhoun got the lead in The
Wild, Wild West?
”
I knew the programs, all right, from the 1960s, but with different actors. But I nodded along with the others to keep from looking any stupider than I felt.
“Well recently,” she went on, “we noticed that in those worlds where Robert Conrad played James T. Kirk instead of William Shatner, William Jefferson Blythe Clinton never rose any higher than the attorney-general of Arkansas. And where the circle was complete, where Shatner played James West instead of Conrad, Clinton died in prison, or of AIDS, or both.”
My wife asked, “And this means something?” I’m pretty sure her question was sincere. There isn’t a molecule of sarcasm in the girl. She has a powerful mind and it wants to know things.
Deejay blinked. “I don’t know, Clarissa, I don’t know. It hurts my head sometimes. I suppose that it may not mean anything at all—like the coincidence in some worlds between the stock market and women’s hemlines. I do know that we’ve never found a world in which those Puerto Ricans succeeded in assassinating Harry Truman.” Everybody laughed. She pointed to a rotund little redheaded guy I hadn’t noticed before. (It certainly isn’t Deejay’s fault that she tends to monopolize everybody’s retinas.) He was wearing a frayed white labcoat and sitting on a metal stool in the corner of the room, reading the “Classics Illustrated” edition of
Story of O.
“That’s my assistant, Fred May, over there,” she explained.
Story of O.
“That’s my assistant, Fred May, over there,” she explained.
The guy looked up at the mention of his name. He sported a reddish mustache and Victorian sidewhiskers of a similar color. On his head was an odd hat, something like a beret, hunter green, but with a big fluffy black pom-pom on the top.
“R. Frederick May,” she pronounced, “you know Lucy Kropotkin, of course. These are my old friends detective Win Bear,
and Clarissa Olson-Bear. And this is Captain Will Sanders of the Greater LaPorte Militia.” She turned back to me again. “Fred here has just discovered a whole sheaf of worlds where, after losing the Battle of Tours in the eighth century, the forces of Islam hung a left, crossed the English Channel, and conquered the British Isles, producing a very strange history full of Celtic Moslems. In most of those worlds, they even beat the Norman invasion back in the eleventh century.”
and Clarissa Olson-Bear. And this is Captain Will Sanders of the Greater LaPorte Militia.” She turned back to me again. “Fred here has just discovered a whole sheaf of worlds where, after losing the Battle of Tours in the eighth century, the forces of Islam hung a left, crossed the English Channel, and conquered the British Isles, producing a very strange history full of Celtic Moslems. In most of those worlds, they even beat the Norman invasion back in the eleventh century.”
“Erin go bragh, inshallah!
” I offered, but there weren’t any takers.
” I offered, but there weren’t any takers.
“Hello, Lucy, how nice to see you again!” Fred put his comic book down—I made a mental note to borrow it from him when he was through with it—doffed his peculiar hat, and opened his mouth to say more, but he was interrupted.
“My old friends, as well,
” insisted an extremely familiar voice as a wall-sized’Com screen lit up at the other side of the room. We were suddenly being given a full-length, life-size view of a porpoise—
Tursiops truncatus,
the famous “bottlenose dolphin”—who, with a little help from friends with fingers, like Deejay, had invented the probability broach. Ooloorie Eckickeck P’wheet was calling from her own laboratory at the Emperor Joshua Norton University in San Francisco. It was like a scene straight out of
Johnny Mnemonic,
only her water was a lot cleaner than Jones’s.
” insisted an extremely familiar voice as a wall-sized’Com screen lit up at the other side of the room. We were suddenly being given a full-length, life-size view of a porpoise—
Tursiops truncatus,
the famous “bottlenose dolphin”—who, with a little help from friends with fingers, like Deejay, had invented the probability broach. Ooloorie Eckickeck P’wheet was calling from her own laboratory at the Emperor Joshua Norton University in San Francisco. It was like a scene straight out of
Johnny Mnemonic,
only her water was a lot cleaner than Jones’s.
When I first met Ooloorie, she was an obnoxious snob, supercilious (if you can say that about somebody who doesn’t have any eyebrows), and a bit of a racist—or would it be “speciesist”? She was only grudgingly willing to make exceptions—clearly her partner Deejay was one of them—to a general view that primates are inferior organisms whose ridiculous claim to sapience she only acknowledged because she needed the use of their hands.
Somewhere during the past eight or nine years, Deejay or Lucy
or somebody else had somehow begun to straighten her out—I can’t imagine how they’d accomplished it—because she was much easier to get along with these days.
or somebody else had somehow begun to straighten her out—I can’t imagine how they’d accomplished it—because she was much easier to get along with these days.
“Greetings, landlings! I presume to interfere in the sanctity of your private deliberations,
” she continued, thrashing around in what must have felt to her like a confined space—sort of a fishy phone booth—“
only to remind my associate of the recent isotopic studies we discussed last week.”
” she continued, thrashing around in what must have felt to her like a confined space—sort of a fishy phone booth—“
only to remind my associate of the recent isotopic studies we discussed last week.”
“Highly speculative,” her associate replied cautiously, sounding a bit like the porpoise herself, “and so far entirely uncorroborated.” They would have made a swell vaudeville team—Marlin and Lewis … or Halibut and Costello.
“That is true, as far as it goes,” Ooloorie acknowleged. “However, we are not attempting to prove anything scientifically here, Deejay, merely to establish a direction in which our friends might pursue their investigation.”
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