Time Enough for Love (86 page)

“That’s all of my ancestors you are related to. Except one. Our stowaway. Maureen, I’m descended from you and Brian through Woodie.”

She gasped. “Really? Oh, I hope it’s true!”

“True as taxes, beloved. And it may have saved his life. I’ve never been closer to infanticide than I was when we found him in the back seat.”

She giggled. “Darling, I felt the same way. But I won’t let anger show in my voice even if I’m about to switch a child.”

“I hope I didn’t show anger. But I felt it. Beloved, I was so hard I
ached
—until we found Woodrow. Honey love, I was rarin’ to go!”

“And I was just as ready! Oh, Theodore—Lazarus—it’s so
sweet
to be open with you. Uh…yes, you’re
quite
hard now.”

“Easy there!—don’t make me climb the curb. I have been ever since we left the house except when I forced it down. But the one Woodie ruined was bigger and better.”

“Size isn’t important, Theodore-Lazarus; a woman must fit any size. Father told me that long ago and taught me exercises for it—and I never told Brian; I let him think that was simply how I am—and accepted his compliments smugly. I still exercise regularly—because my birth canal has been stretched again and again and again by babies’ skulls and if I didn’t exercise those muscles I would be, in Father’s salty language, ‘loose as a goose.’ And I do so want to stay desirable to Brian as many years as possible.”

“And to the iceman and the milkman and the postman—and the boy who drives the grocery wagon.”

“Tease. I’d like to stay young
there
till I die.”

“You will, you eighteen-year-old prospective grandmother. Let’s get our minds off sex and back to time travel; I’m still looking for a proof. So that you will
know
why I am
certain
that Brian came back okay. But to stop your worry it must be something that happens soon and certainly before Woodie’s birthday.”

“Why Woodrow’s birthday?”

“Didn’t I get that far? This war ends on Woodie’s next birthday, the eleventh of November.” He added, “I’m certain of that, it’s a key date in history. But I’m racking my brain for some event between now and then—as soon as possible, to stop your worries. But—oh, shucks, dear, I made a silly mistake. I meant to arrive after this war is over. But I gave my computer one critical figure wit an error in it—just a little one, but it made me arrive three years too soon. Not her fault; she accepts any data I give her, and she’s as accurate a computer as ever conned a ship. Not a fatal error, either; I’m not lost in time, my ship will pick me up in 1926 exactly ten Earth years after she dropped me. But that’s why I didn’t study the history of the next few months; I expected to skip this war. I’m not studying wars; histories are full of wars. I’m studying how people live.”

“Theodore… I’m confused.”

“I’m sorry, darling. Time travel
is
confusing.”

“You speak of a computer, and I’m not sure what you mean…and you said ‘she’ conns—whatever that means—a ship that will pick you up…in 1926? And I don’t understand
any
of it.”

Lazarus sighed. “That’s why I never intended to tell anyone. But I
had
to tell
you
—so that you could stop worrying. My ship is a spaceship—like Jules Verne, only more so. A starship, I live on a planet a long way off. But it is a timeship, too; she travels in both space and time and it’s too complicated to explain. The computer is the ship’s brain—a machine, a very complex machine. My ship is named ‘Dora’ and the machine, the computer, that conns it—runs it—steers it—is called Dora, too; that’s the name she answers to when I speak to her. She’s a very intelligent machine and can talk. Oh, there is a crew, two of my sisters—so of course they are descended from you, too, and they look like you. A crew is necessary—can’t let a ship go running around by itself—except automatic freighters on precalculated runs—but Dora does the hard work, and Laz and Lor—Lapis Lazuli Long and Lorelei Lee Long—tell Dora what to do and let her do it.” He squeezed Mrs. Smith’s thigh and grinned. “If that air blast had kept your skirts up two seconds longer, I would know more about how closely they resemble you—as they usually run around naked. They look like you in the face. Bodies, too, from that too-short glimpse of your lovely legs. Except that Laz and Lor are freckled all over as solidly as Marie is on her face.”

“I’d be that freckled if I didn’t stay out of the sun. When I was Marie’s age, Father called me ‘Turkey Egg.’ But
all
over? They don’t wear
any
clothes?”

“Oh, they enjoy fancy dress for parties. Or the weather might be cold—but it rarely is; we live in a climate like southern Italy. They don’t wear anything very often.” Lazarus smiled and caressed her thigh. “They don’t need to leave their bloomers home to be ready for lovemaking; they don’t own any bloomers. They aren’t a bit shy. They would be delighted to trip your father; they like older men—they’re much younger than I am.”

“Lazarus…how old
are
you?”

Lazarus hesitated. “Maureen, I don’t want to answer that. I’m older than I look; Ira Howard’s experiment was successful. Instead let me tell you about my family.
Your
family, too; we all are descended from you by one line or another. Two of my wives and one of my co-husbands are descended both from Nancy and from Woodie.”

“‘Wives? Co-husband?’”

“Sweetheart, marriage takes many forms. Where I live you don’t need a divorce or a death to gather in someone you love. I have four wives and three co-husbands—and my sisters, Laz and Lor…and they may marry out of the family or they may stay—and don’t look startled; you said you didn’t fret when you thought I was your half brother—and don’t worry about harm to babies; they know far more about such things at that when-&-where than they do in the here-&-now. We
don’t
risk harm to babies.

“Of which we have plenty. And cats and dogs and anything a child can pet and take care of. It’s a real family in a house to fit a big family.

“I can’t tell you about each one; we’ve got to get our stowaway home. But I want to tell you about one—because you’ve been insisting that you don’t look eighteen—merely because you’ve been using your breasts to feed babies. Tamara. Descended from you through Nancy and her Jonathan—Want to hear about Nancy’s umpty-ump granddaughter? Tamara is about two hundred and fifty years old, I think—”

“Two hundred and fifty!”

“Yes. One of my co-husbands, Ira Weatheral, also from Nancy and Jonathan but from Woodie, too—and named for your father, not for Ira Howard—is over four hundred years old. Maureen, Ira Howard’s experiment
worked
; we have longer life-spans—inherited from you and all our Howard ancestors—but also in that when-&-where they know how to rejuvenate a person. Tamara has had two rejuvenations—one recently and looks as young as you do. Real rejuvenation—Tamara was pregnant when I left.

“But how she looks is not important; Tamara is a healer—and I suspect she gets it from
you
.”

“Theodore—Lazarus—again I don’t understand. A healer? Like a faith healer?”

“No. If Tamara has a religious faith, she has never mentioned it. Tamara is calm and happy and serene, and anyone around her feels it so strongly—just as with
you
, darling!—that he or she is happy, too. If people are ill, they get well faster if Tamara touches them, or talks to them, or sleeps with them.

“But Tamara was
not
young when I met her. She was quite old and thinking about letting it go at that, dying of old age. But I was ill, very ill, sick in my soul—and Ishtar, later my wife and the topnotch rejuvenator in all the Milky Way, went out and fetched Tamara. Tamara. Little round potbelly, breasts that were
really
baggy, sags under her eyes, and her chin, all the old-age things.

“Tamara healed the sickness in my soul, just by being with me…and somehow this renewed her own interest in life, and she took another rejuvenation and is young again and has already added another baby to the Maureen-Nancy line and is pregnant still again. You and Tamara are so
much
alike, Maureen; she’s just love with some skin around it—and so are
you
. But—” Lazarus paused and frowned.

“Maureen,
I
don’t know how to convince you that I’m telling the truth. You’ll
know
it when Woodie’s sixth birthday comes around and they blow every whistle and ring every bell and the newsboys shout:
‘Extra! Extra!
Germany surrenders!’ But that’ll be too late to help you. I want to stop your worries
now!
”

“I’ve stopped worrying, dear one. It sounds wonderful…and impossible…and I believe you.”

“Do you? I’ve offered no proof; I’ve told you a tale impossible on the face of it.”

“Nevertheless, I believe it. When Woodrow is six on the seventh of November—”

“No, the
eleventh!
”

“Yes, Lazarus. But how did
you
know that his birthday is the eleventh?”

“Why, you told me yourself.”

“Dear, I said he was born in November; I did
not
say what day. Then I deliberately misstated it—and you corrected me at once.”

“Well, maybe Ira told me. Or one of the children. Most likely Woodie himself.”

“Woodrow does not know the date of his birthday. Wake him and ask him.”

“I’d rather not wake him until we get home.”

“What is my birthday, dear one?”

“The Fourth of July, 1882.”

“What is Marie’s birthday?”

“I think she is nine. I don’t know the date.”

“The other children?”

“I’m not sure.”

“My father’s birthday?”

“Maureen, is there some point to this? August second, 1852.”

“Beloved Lazarus who calls himself ‘Theodore,’ I have a firm rule with my children. I keep each one from knowing the date of his birth as long as possible so that he won’t advertise it and thereby blackmail people for presents. When one is old enough for school and needs to know the date, he is old enough to be told why, and I make it bluntly plain that if he drops hints ahead of time—no birthday cake, no birthday party. I haven’t had to use that penalty; they are all intelligent.

“Last year Woodrow was too young for it to be a problem; his birthday came as a surprise to him. He still does not know the exact date—so I strongly believe. Lazarus, you know the birthdays of your direct ancestors…because you looked them up in the Foundation records. Since you can’t tell me the birthdays of my other children, I assume that I’ve found that proof.”

“You know I have had access to the records. I could have looked up any birthday last year.”

“Pooh. Why did you bother with the birth date of one child and skip the other seven? How would you know my father’s birthday if he had not been of special interest to you? It won’t wash, Beloved. You intended to seek out your ancestors, and you came prepared for it. I no longer think that you showed up at our church by accident; you went there to find
me—
and I’m flattered. You probably did the same with Father—at his pool-hall ‘chess club.’ How did you do it? Private detectives? I doubt that our church or that pool hall can be looked up in the Foundation records.”

“Something like that. Yes, gentle ancestress, I looked for an acceptable way to meet you. I would have spent years on it had it been necessary…because I couldn’t twist your doorbell and say, ‘Hi there! I’m descended from you. May I come in?’ You would have called the police.”

“I hope I would not have, darling—but thank you for finding a gentler way. Oh, Lazarus, I love you so!—and believe every word and I’m no longer worried about Brian; I
know
he’ll come back to me! Uh… I’m feeling very brazen again and more passionate than ever and I want to know something. About your family.”

“I’m delighted to talk about them. I love them.”

“I was most flattered to be compared with your wife Tamara. Darling, you don’t have to tell me this: Does it ever happen that two husbands sleep with one wife?”

“Oh, certainly. But it’s more likely to be one husband—Galahad—another of your descendants, Grandmother—Galahad and two of our wives; Galahad is the original tireless tomcat.”

“That sounds like fun, but it’s the other combination that intrigued me. Beloved, my idea of heaven would be to take
both
you and Brian to bed at once—and do my best to make you
both
happy. Not that I ever can. But I can dream about it…and
will
.”

“Why not out in the woods and strip down for both of us, just to your ‘French postcard’ costume? As long as you’re dreaming.”

“
Ooooh!
Yes, I’ll put that into my dream—and now I’m about to go off like a firecracker!”

“I’d better take you home.”

“I think you had better. I’m terribly happy and quite unworried—and will stay so—and
very
passionate. For you. For Brian. For being a French postcard in the woods. In
daylight
.”

“Maureen, if you can sell the idea to Brian…well, I’ll be around until the second of August, 1926.”

“Well…we’ll see. I
want
to!” She added, “Am I permitted to tell him? Who you are and where you’re from—the future—and your prediction that he won’t be hurt?”

“Maureen, tell anyone you wish. But you won’t be believed.”

She sighed. “I suppose so. Besides, if Brian
did
believe it and thereby believed that he had a charmed life—it might make him careless. I’m proud that he is going to fight for us…but I
don’t
want him to take unnecessary risks.”

“I think you’re right, Maureen.”

“Theodore…my mind has been so busy with all these strange things that I missed something. Now that I know who you are—This isn’t your country, and it’s not your war—so why
did
you volunteer?”

Lazarus hesitated, then told the truth:

“I wanted you to be proud of me.”

“
Oh!
”

“No, I don’t belong here and it’s not my war. But it’s
your
war, Maureen. Others are fighting for other reasons—I’ll be fighting for Maureen. Not ‘to make the world safe for democracy’—this war won’t accomplish that, even though the Allies are going to win. For Maureen.”