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Authors: Michael Kurland

Tags: #parallel world, #alternate universe, #time travel, #science fiction, #aaron burr

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BOOK: The Whenabouts of Burr
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“The magazine?” Ves asked.

“Back page,” Phipps said.

Ves turned The Intertemporal Collector over. The back page had an ad. Chitterly, Boatswain, Meloris, Pettiglob and Sims offered a whole page of documents and assorted intertemporal goodies for sale to the discerning collector. Like this:

23. Z9S29 Bill of Rights, 9 articles, (omit 7) sp $1,300

24. Z66S11 Capitulation of 1777 St. Fr. gd $2,500

25. Z7S9 Annexation of Mexico—draft of Jefferson's official speech before Congress (r) fr $3,500

“These people have our constitution?” Ves asked.

“One of them does,” Phipps said. “Chitterly, by name. Now this is just a guess, but it's a pretty well-informed guess. Just don't use my name.”

“Why do you think this man Chitterly has my, our, the Constitution?”

Phipps considered. For a moment Ves thought he wasn't going to tell, and so did Phipps. But then he nodded his head, his mind made up. “It's just an opinion, you know. But it makes sense. You see, Chitterly wasn't trying to steal your Constitution—the one with the Hamilton signature. He was trying to conceal the Burr Constitution.”

“I'm afraid I don't follow that,” Ves said.

“Senor Chitterly is what in polite society is referred to as a fence,” Phipps said. “Not only that, but he has been suspected of committing the one unforgivable offense here in Prime: he steals from his friends. It's all right to purloin papers from the lower zones, but to steal here in Prime is a venal sin, sir. And of that is Chitterly suspected. The Burr Constitution is a valued relic that has been in a private collection since it was acquired some thirty years ago. Shortly after it was signed, you see, in its zone.”

“And?”

“And it disappeared. Chitterly was suspected—never mind why—and a group of us went to beard the jackal in his den. The visit was a complete surprise and, by applying certain forms of moral persuasion, we were able to completely search the premises, including certain secure, secret sections. Several constitutions were found, but none had the Burr variation. One of the constitutions there was uncatalogued, and was undoubtedly yours.”

“I think I see,” Ves said.

“There was a tabletop It on his workbench. The old principle of the purloined letter—you're familiar with the purloined letter?—faked us out completely. We use the midget It to fish for valuable documents. It didn't occur to any of us that he might have hidden the Burr Constitution by running it through the It and getting your version in exchange; trading down, so to speak.”

“How can you tell if that's true; if that is what he did?” Ves asked.

“Easily,” Phipps told him. “Just run the Constitution through the It again. Since the Burr variant and yours changed once, they have the highest affinity and would reverse again.”

“So why don't you go back and make the experiment?” Ves asked.

“Can't,” Phipps said. “Caught him unawares the first time. Now he'll have applied to the magistrates for protection against a recurrence of our, eh, invasion. Law lets you get away with anything—almost anything—the first time
.
Now if we'd
caught
him…” Phipps sighed wistfully.

“How do you suggest I go about getting my constitution back?” Ves asked.

“Wait,” Phipps said. “It might be a couple of years, or longer, until the heat dies down. But I'm sure he's got a customer for the Burr variant. He'll hang on to your version until the heat dies down, then he'll make the switch and you'll have yours back again.”

“We can't wait a couple of years,” Ves said. “Suppose I get another midget It and make the transfer with the Burr Constitution?”

“Then you'll get yet a third variant. The tuning is critical, and there's no way to duplicate his exactly, even if he would let us examine it.”

Suitably disheartened, Ves returned to his hotel. Nate was sitting in the lobby waiting for him.

Ves did a double take, then yelled, “Nate!” and hugged his friend.

“Ves!” Nate replied, slapping Ves on the back. “It's good to see you. It's unbelievably good to see you. That's quite an answering service you set up here.”

“When did you get here?” Ves asked. “Where've you been?”

“About half an hour ago,” Nate said. “I've been… it's been… I have some stories to tell you. I have a feeling you'll believe them. You probably have some stories to tell me too.”

“Over lunch, Nate, old friend, over lunch. And a bottle of Chianti. Have they Chianti? They must have! Come into the dining room, come!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Nate leaned back in the most overstuffed chair the
Great Auk and Gremlin
lounge had to offer and sipped at the first coffee he'd had since he left Ves's house, a lifetime before. Pretty decent coffee it was, too. “So now it's our turn to beard the vulture in his den, eh?” he said. “You've done a competent job, Ves. That's the ‘in' phrase among us government service types this year, ‘a competent job'. All understated and everything.”

“Phipps called this Chitterly a jackal, not a vulture,” Ves offered. “And thank you for the praise, but it was pure blind luck.”

“Well, you know what they say about luck,” Nate said, “it comes only to the prepared.”

“Then we'd best prepare,” Ves said, deciding he didn't care what the management thought, and stretching his feet out on the couch. “Because we're going to need a bit of luck. How do we entice this Chitterly to hand the Constitution over to us? What can we offer him?”

“A large sum of money?” Nate suggested. “We can go back for it. The President can get it out of the unallocated fund.”

“I'm given to understand that our money is useful here only in small amounts,” Ves said.

“Hmmm,” Nate said. Suddenly his face brightened. “We could invade!” he said.

“Invade?” Ves asked, alarmed.

“Oh, not a major invasion,” Nate said. “Not like D-day, or anything. Just a minor commando raid. A couple of dozen troops…”

“I'm sure the President wouldn't approve,” Ves said. “Remember what happened over El Salvador. And we couldn't keep a thing like that from Congress.”

“Even to retrieve the Constitution of the United States?” Nate asked. “No, I guess you're right. Besides, President Gosport isn't willing to admit that the thing's missing in the first place, so he'd never authorize anything like that. But then what?”

“What we need…” Ves suddenly got a funny look on his face and stared off into space.

“Ves! Ves! What's the matter? The lobster dinner? I told you…”

“Nate!”

“What?”

“We
do
have something he wants!”

“What?”

“Come along,” Ves said, sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. “We're going to get our Constitution back. Our very own!”

The Chitterly mansion was huge, spacious, and well guarded. They had to pass through three checkpoints before getting to the main house. “Tell Mr. Chitterly we have something he wants” proved to be the magic words that carried them through. They had to submit to a weapons frisk at the second checkpoint, but since neither of them was heeled, it didn't matter.

“Well?” Chitterly said when they finally got through to him. “Well? My secretary says you won't speak to anyone else. I warn you, you'd best not be wasting my time. Best not.” He was a tall, thin, angular man with glittering, bird-like eyes and a small mouth. What there was of his hair was shock-white and stood out from his head like a horseshoe-shaped halo.

“We had to see you, Mr. Chitterly, on a matter of some importance to both of us,” Ves said. “You will find it interesting.”

“You have something to sell?” Chitterly asked, his eyes darting from one to the other. “I might be interested if you have something to sell. I can't afford much for my little hobby, but if it's in my price range…”

“The Burr variation,” Ves said. “Heard of it?”

“What's that? What's that?” Chitterly looked annoyed. “Did Thomerson, Phipps or one of that crowd put you up to this? I don't have the damned thing, and if I did, I certainly wouldn't admit it to the likes of you.”

“You misunderstand, Mr. Chitterly,” Nate said softly. “
We
have it.”

“It sort of fell into our laps, you might say,” Ves said. “There we were with this simple, ordinary version of the Constitution—you know, the one Alexander Hamilton signed—when all of a sudden we noticed that he didn't.”

“Hamilton, that is,” Ves offered. “
Burr
did.”

“Imagine our surprise,” Nate said.

Chitterly thought this over for a minute. “You boys want me to buy this Burr document from you,” he said. “But that would be receiving stolen property. I couldn't do that.”

“Not when it's stolen on this sector, anyway,” Ves said.

“You're thinking,” Nate said, “that all you have to do is stick that common old Hamilton document back in your little machine and
blip
, you'll have the Burr back, aren't you?”

“But it's not so,” Ves said.

“We've altered it, you see,” Nate said.

For the first time Chitterly looked startled.

“Wax,” Ves told him. “In the pores and everything. We picked wax because it can be removed. But until it is, the Constitution weighs about three times what it should.”

“Never transfer,” Nate said. “Not a chance.”

“I don't believe you,” Chitterly said.

“Try it,” Ves said, waving an airy hand at the tabletop It in the corner. “There are no witnesses. You can deny anything we say. Who'd believe us?”

“Who indeed?” Chitterly said. “
I
certainly don't.”

“We just thought you'd be interested,” Ves said, shrugging.

“There are others who would,” Nate said. “Sorry to have bothered you. We won't be back.”

“Wait!” Chitterly said. “Wait a second. As you say, there's no harm in testing your story.” He hurried into another room and presently they heard sounds that might have been a vault door, or possibly a refrigerator opening and closing. Then he emerged with a rolled-up document “If it is as you say,” Chitterly said, “this won't work. Then we can negotiate.” He put the document in the basket of the It, set a dial, and flipped a switch.

The rolled-up document turned into a flat document. “Ha!” Chitterly said.

“Ho!” Nate said. “Is that the Burr Constitution?”

“Indeed, gentlemen,” Chitterly said, peering at it. He looked up to see Nate and Ves advancing toward him.

“So that's it,” he cried, backing up rapidly. “Simple robbery! Well, you'll never get out of here alive.”

“You misunderstand,” Ves said. “We wish nothing from you.”

“You have already given us what we came for,” Nate told him.

“What? What's that?”

“The Constitution you just switched to get back the Burr Variant,” Ves said. “It's ours. We wanted it back.”

“Now we have it back,” Nate said. “And we intend to keep it. He pushed the It off the table. It fell to the floor and shattered into fifty pieces.

Ves stomped on the pieces, feeling them turn to powder satisfyingly under his foot. “We're done here now,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Chitterly. We must be off.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mrs. Montefugoni sniffed. “Wipe your feet, you come in here,” she said.

“Is that the first thing you say to me. I've been gone for almost two weeks,” Ves demanded, “wipe your feet?”

“You'd better do what she says,” Nate said, following Ves into the room. “You're home now.”

Mrs. Montefugoni brightened. “Good a see you, Commissioner,” she said. “I go make coffee.”

“Make enough for three,” Ves said. “And some of your tarts, if available. We have a distinguished guest.” Smiling politically, the President of the United States came forward and extended his hand. “Mrs. Montefugoni,” he said. “I've heard so much about you. Your two friends are heroes, do you know that? Heroes. Secret heroes, as it happens, but nonetheless heroes.”

Mrs. Montefugoni sniffed. “Wipe your feet,” she told the President.

BOOK: The Whenabouts of Burr
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